David Drake: Fortune's stroke

Axum will also provide the fleet necessary to Her thoughts broke off. She and Eon were almost out of the ruins. As they picked their way around yet another half-crumbled structure, she caught sight of the figure lounging against one of the tombs at the very edge of the field of monuments.

Ousanas, for once, was not grinning. Indeed, he looked positively disgruntled.

Antonina made no attempt to fight down her smile, now. "What's the matter, Ousanas?" she called out. "Has your philosophical composure abandoned you, for the moment? Shame, shame! What would the Stoics say?"

Ousanas shook his head. "The Stoics advocated serenity in the face of life's tragedies and great misfortunes." Scowling: "They didnot intend their precious teachings to be wasted on petty annoyances. Such as having to waste half a day while a fool boy prince shows a frivolous woman with too much time on her hands the inevitable results of self-aggrandizement, a lesson which"-deep scowl-"any child learns the first time they sass their elders."

Antonina and Eon reached the edge of the field. Ousanas thrust himself erect from his semi-reclined posture. There was nothing of a lurch in that movement, as there would have been for most men. On one of his powerful forearms, Ousanas bore the scar left by a panther he had slain years earlier. The tall African had triumphed in that encounter, as he had in so many others, because he shared the sinuous grace and power of the great feline hunters of the continent. For all that Ousanas derided royalty-which, as Prince Eon's dawazz, was his duty and obligation-the man was a majestic figure in his own right.

Antonina's grin was still on her face. She pointed over her shoulder with a thumb to the great field of monuments behind her.

"I would have thought you'd approve of this display," she said. " An aid to your task, showing the results of excessive royal selfesteem."

Ousanas cast a sour look at the stone ruins in question. " Nonsense," he replied forcefully. "Maintaining this grotesque and useless field is itself a testament to royal idiocy. Who but cretin kings would need to waste so much good land for such a trivial purpose? A child requires no more than the memory of his last set of bruises."

He began stalking off, headed toward the Ta'akha Maryam. "We'd do better just to haul the negusa nagast out of his palace, once or twice a year, and thrash him soundly." He repeated Antonina's gesture, pointing with his thumb at the ruins over his shoulder. "Then we could turn this into good farmland. Raise crops for needy children. Feed poor dawazz, weak from his endless labor like Sisyphus."

Antonina glanced at Eon, walking alongside her. She was expecting to see the prince's face twisted into a scowl, hearing Ousanas' outrageous proposals. But, to her surprise, Eon's expression was one of sly amusement.

The dawazz, it seemed, had done his work well.

"And just who would do all that work, Ousanas?" asked the prince. "Hauling great stones, thousands of them, out of that field. Backbreaking work, day after day after day. Take years, probably.You? "

Ousanas' snort was answer enough.

"Thought not," mused Eon. "No sane man would. Nofree man, that is. So we'd have to reinstitute mass slavery. Give the King of Kings a whole army of slaves-again-just like in the old days."

Eon's grin did not quite match those which his dawazz usually employed, but it came close.

"So," he concluded cheerfully, "in order to accomplish your goal of abasing royalty, we'd have to elevate royalty to its grandiose status of old. Good thinking, Ousanas!" The prince shook his head in a gesture of exaggerated chagrin. "I'm ashamed of myself! All these years, I thought your obsession with philosophy was a waste of time. But now, I see-"

Ousanas interrupted: "Enough!" He stopped abruptly, and stared at the distant mountains which surrounded the Hatsebo plain. His expression, from a scowl of irritation, faded into one of thoughtfulness.

"You see those mountains?" he asked softly. "Impossible to reach, the greatest of them. Just so do men stare at justice and righteousness. An unattainable goal, but one which we must always keep in our sight. Or we will drown in the madness of the pit."

He puffed his cheeks, and then blew out the breath slowly. "It's a pity, all things considered, that democracy doesn't work," he mused. " But the Greeks proved that, along with so much else. Smartest people in the world, Greeks. Who else would be deluded enough to try running a country with no king?"

He shook his head sadly. "All they ever did was fight and bicker and squabble. Endless wars between petty states-never could run more than a city, at best!-and all for nothing. Ruin and destruction-just read Thucydides." Another shake of his head. "Finally, of course, sensible people like the great Philip of Macedon put an end to the silly business."

Still staring at the mountains, Ousanas sighed heavily. "Got to have kings, and emperors, and the whole lot of puffed-up pigeons. No way around it. Somebody's got to give the orders."

He turned to face the young prince who had been placed in his charge so many years before. Now, he smiled. A rare expression that was, for the dawazz. A beaming grin was often found on his face. But Antonina, watching, could not remember ever having seen such a simple, gentle smile on the face of the man named Ousanas.

"You are a good boy, Eon," said the hunter. "Tomorrow you will be proclaimed a man, and I will no longer be your dawazz. So I will say this now, and only this once."

Ousanas bowed his head, just slightly. "It has been a privilege to be your dawazz, and a pleasure. And I do not really think, when all is said and done, that my labor has been that of Sisyphus."

Eon stared up at the tall figure of the man who had guided him, and taught him, and-most of all-chastened and chastised him for all those years. There was a hint of moisture in his eyes.

"And I could not have found," he replied, "not anywhere in the world, a better man to be my dawazz."

Tentatively, almost timidly, Eon reached out his hand and placed it on Ousanas' arm. "You have nothing to fear tomorrow," he said softly.

The normal and proper relation between dawazz and prince returned. Ousanas immediately slapped Eon on his head. Very hard.

"Fool boy!" he cried. "Of course I have something to fear! Entire Dakuen sarwe-half of it, anyway, and that's more than enough to do for my poor bones!-will be standing in judgement. Ofme, not you!"

He turned to Antonina, his face twisting into a grimace. His eyes were almost bulging. "Axumite sarwen most pitiless creatures in universe! Soldiers-cruel and brutal! And this-this-" He pointed an accusing finger at Eon. "Thisidiot prince says I have nothing to fear!"

He threw up his hands. "I am lost!" he cried. "Years of work-for nothing. Boy still as mindless as ever!" Again, he began stalking off. Over his shoulder: "Royalty stupid by nature, as I've always said. The Dakuen sarwe will do what it wills, cretin-maybe-someday-king! Pay no attention toyou. "

Antonina and Eon began following him. Faintly, they could hear Ousanas' grumbling.

"Idiot Ethiopians and their imbecile customs. Had any sense, they' d beat the prince instead of the poor dawazz." A low, heartfelt moan. "Why did I ever do this? Could have stayed in central Africa. Doing simple safe work. Hunting lions and elephants, and other sane endeavors."

Antonina leaned over and whispered: "Is he really worried, Eon? About the judgement, tomorrow?"

Eon smiled. "I do not think so, not really. But you know Ousanas. All that philosophy makes him gloomy." His expression changed, a bit. "And he is right about the one thing. Only the Dakuen sarwe's opinion will matter, come tomorrow morning. It is not a public ceremony. No one else will be there-not even the king himself. Only the soldiers of my regiment."