‘At the river, while we do our laundry.’

  ‘And what do they say?’

  ‘That he is hostage to his sons.’

  Paul was astonished.

  ‘Why do they say that?’ he whispered.

  ‘The sons want to kill him.’

  ‘Goshu is loyal. It is Yostos who conspires against his father.’

  ‘That is not what the servants believe,’ said Sana darkly. She thought for a moment, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. ‘If I was the king, I would not let anyone tell me what to do. Not even my own children.’

  ‘How would you do that?’

  She fixed him with a child’s gaze, full of serious intent.

  ‘I would order you to kill them both.’

  *

  One day, the king went hunting with Yostos. This was unusual. If he rode out from the palace, it was with both sons, or with neither. While he kept them together, they acted as natural checks on each other.

  But this time, Goshu had been sent north to put down a rebellion in the province of Tigré. The hunting party assembled in the palace courtyard. Paul rode near the front with the captain of the guards.

  Yostos was displeased to see him.

  ‘Why has he come?’ he asked in a surly voice.

  ‘The Kitzera always accompanies the king,’ came the bland response.

  They rode east into the mountains, climbing a succession of ever-higher valleys. The land grew greener as they went up. The ubiquitous thorn bushes gave way to wizened juniper trees, wild yellow roses and blood-red thistles.

  Paul had hunted before. His father had taken him to the forests around their château when he was eight years old. He still remembered the rush of excitement, the baying of the hounds and the thrill of the big horse under him. They had brought the stag to bay, and Paul had shot it. He still remembered the expression on his father’s face: the only time he had ever seen his father look proud of him. Then Paul saw the blood leaking out of the deer and burst into tears. His father had ridden off in disgust. His mother had refused to serve the venison at her table, and given the carcass to the gamekeepers instead.

  How did that squeamish boy become an executioner? he wondered, as he rode.

  It was not that he was immune to his victims’ suffering. The twist of the noose, the crack of the windpipe – these were things that still had the capacity to fill him with horror. But horror would not keep him alive. He felt his soul had been divided, like an old house cut up into tenements. Any feelings of remorse or anguish he had, he kept them locked deep out of sight.

  Endure anything, say anything, become anything.

  Was this what she had meant?

  *

  Paul did not have high hopes for the sport that day. He rode through the grass, paying more attention to the scenery than to the game. His presence was ceremonial. Normally he would have kept close to the king, but Yostos’s glowering figure made it clear he was not wanted there. He drifted away, keeping the royal standard in sight through the trees but otherwise left on his own.

  It was a hot afternoon. He dismounted and tethered his horse so he could walk in the shade under the atwat trees that lined the river gorge. It was the first time he had left the palace in weeks, away from its stifled world of plots and terror. The sense of freedom disoriented him.

  Down in the gorge, an ibis flew low over the river. Paul saw its silhouette against the sparkling water, its feet tucked back and the long, curving bill. A tremor went through him. Was it an omen from the god? What did it signify?

  Then he saw the blood.

  It was a drop at first, smeared on a leaf. Then he saw another, and another – dark streaks on the earth. He followed the trail, noting the bent grass and broken sticks where something heavy had been dragged along the ground. The trail ended after about twenty paces in a patch of long grass amid a thicket of trees.

  The king was not the only hunter in the valley that day. Someone – or something – had killed a young nyala. It must have been surprised when it went to the river to drink, then been brought to the clearing.

  Flies swarmed around it, darting between the vultures who were feeding greedily. The nyala could not have been dead long, but already there were white bones showing through the gore and torn flesh.

  One of the vultures saw Paul’s shadow and lifted its head. Its face was smeared with blood, and a string of sinew hung from its beak. Its beady eyes watched him jealously, one scavenger regarding another.

  Paul was about to leave when something made him hesitate. A sensation he knew well: the feeling of danger. Living in the palace, a whim away from death at any moment, had made him acutely sensitive to it. Slowly, he turned his head in a wide arc.

  Adrenaline heightened his senses. His eyes caught every leaf and blade of grass around him. Even then, he almost missed the predator. It lay stretched out on the branch of a juniper tree, its mottled coat almost impossible to tell apart from the dappled shadow of the leaves.

  It was a leopard. Paul had never seen one in the wild, but the king had their skins all over his palace. It was a noble animal. Stretched out on its branch, it looked to be more than six feet long. It must be strong to have dragged the nyala from the river gorge. Now it was asleep, sated from its meal.

  Paul was only a few dozen yards away. He had his gun: he could easily have shot it that moment, claimed a noble animal. But that would have been his death warrant. Only the king could hunt this majestic game.

  If Paul brought the king to it, he might be rewarded. But he was now a long distance from the main hunting party. Sound echoed off the cliffs that hemmed them in, and made it hard to tell where they were. Most likely, they had ridden further up the valley, on the far side of the river gorge.

  The ravine was steep and treacherous. It would take Paul the best part of an hour to reach its head. If he managed to cross it, he might be in time to find the king before the leopard woke.

  A warm breeze rustled the grass. Dry branches chattered; the sheregrig birds screeched their crow-like cries. And in the woods beyond the clearing, something chimed like a bell.

  It would have been so easy to ignore it. A stone falling, an unknown bird call; maybe something he’d imagined. But again, Paul’s instincts were alerted. He dropped low in the grass and crawled behind a bush. He lifted his head and peered through the foliage.

  For a few moments, nothing happened. Then the leaves rippled, and a large beast pushed through the long grass. Not the leopard, nor a lion nor an elephant – it was a jet-black horse, shod and bridled, with a rider in the saddle. He was followed by another, then a large column of men.

  They were soldiers, but not any of the king’s men that Paul had ever seen. Each man carried a long, leaf-headed spear and a square oxhide shield. They wore hats made of grey colobus monkey skins, with the tails hanging down their backs. Their horses’ hooves had cloths tied around them, and they rode with rope bridles that would not jingle.

  They had not seen Paul. If they had, he would surely be dead already. But they were heading for the bush where he was hiding. If he broke cover, they would see him at once. If he stayed where he was, they would ride right past him.

  Paul had seconds to decide. There was only one explanation for why the men were here: they had come to kill the king. They would probably succeed. The king had twenty men with him; Paul counted at least a hundred soldiers approaching him. They handled their weapons with the easy confidence of practised killers.

  Paul was not loyal to the king. He would happily have abandoned the monarch, if it saved his own life. But what if the king survived the ambush? Or if he did not, and the soldiers captured Paul – he was the king’s own executioner. He knew what they would do to him.

  A shout sounded from the head of the column. They must have seen him. Hiding was futile now. If Paul showed himself, perhaps he could at least hope for a quick death.

  But as he rose, he realised none of the soldiers were looking his way. He had forgotten the leopard. The smell of the horses had woken the big cat. It leaped down from the branch where it had been sleeping and confronted the column, legs splayed, hackles back. It growled.

  The sound terrified the horses. One reared up, nearly throwing its rider. Another shied away and knocked into its neighbour. Down the line, men fought to control their mounts. Some horses veered into thorn trees, foaming with pain as the long spikes drew blood.

  The leopard bolted and vanished into the grass. Paul did the same. Keeping as low as he could, he scuttled across the open ground and into the trees at the edge of the ravine. No one saw him. As soon as the trees screened him, he picked himself up and ran.

  He edged around a bend in the gully, where a rock outcrop hid him, and paused for breath. The trees muffled the sound of the horses, but he could hear the riders wrestling them under control. Soon they would be moving again.

  The ravine was too steep for horses to manage. To reach the king, they would have to ride around the end of it.

  Again, Paul felt the weight of his own life hanging on his decision. If the king died, no one would look for Paul. He could slip away, forgotten. He knew from the merchants who visited court that there was an ocean somewhere to the east. If he could find it, he might yet return to civilisation.

  But Paul had already lived through one revolution. He knew what happened when you killed a king. It would unleash a terrible slaughter, a reign of terror, and the palace would be its epicentre. Sana would be trapped in a bloodbath.

  Paul would not leave Sana to die like his mother, like Abasi. To save her, he would have to save the king.

  He plunged down the steep bank, slipping on the dry earth and tearing his clothes on thorns. In this season, the river was only a trickle. He stepped across and started to climb the far bank. This was steeper. He had to scrabble at tree roots and vines to haul himself up.

  He found the king and Yostos in a clearing half a mile further up the valley. The king had brought down a kudu and was examining the carcass with delight. The chief huntsman had cut out the beast’s heart for the king to eat, which had left a bloody ring smeared around his lips. It reminded Paul of the vultures he had seen.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Paul gasped. His clothes were torn, his face streaked with earth. ‘There are soldiers coming this way. I have seen them.’

  He had spoken in Arabic. But before his words had been translated for the king, Yostos reacted.

  ‘You lie,’ he snarled. ‘No one knows the king was coming to this place.’ He turned to his father. ‘The Kitzera is trying to provoke you into a trap.’

  ‘If I lie, let the vultures devour my entrails,’ said Paul, using the traditional formula.

  ‘If you lie, I will cut out your guts and feed them to the vultures while you watch,’ said Yostos.

  He turned to his father and spoke urgently in Amharic.

  The king remained so calm, Paul wondered if his warning had been translated correctly. But then: ‘How many of these soldiers are there?’

  ‘A hundred.’

  As Paul described them, the suspicion on Yostos’s face turned more serious.

  ‘They are men of Tigré. My brother Goshu was supposed to have crushed them in battle.’

  ‘Some must have got past him.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Yostos’s voice was brittle. ‘The question is, what do we do?’

  ‘Maybe Goshu will rescue us,’ said Paul. ‘If he has pursued them, he could fall upon their rear.’

  ‘Goshu is certainly many miles away.’ Yostos gave him an indecipherable look. ‘We must look to the king’s safety at once.’

  Paul examined the terrain. On both sides of the valley, steep-sided cliffs rose high and sheer.

  ‘Is there a pass at the head of the valley we can leave by?’

  ‘There is no way out. The end of the valley closes like a sack.’

  Suddenly it dawned on Paul that this was the perfect place for an ambush. Rather than saving himself by warning the king, he had walked deeper into the trap.

  ‘How far away are they?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘I am surprised they are not here already.’

  Yostos barked commands. The king’s guard mounted up and began to form a line.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Paul.

  ‘Preparing for battle.’

  ‘They will massacre you.’

  They were on flat, open ground with nowhere to hide. The Tigréan cavalry could surround them and butcher them from every angle.

  ‘Then we shall die a glorious death,’ said Yostos.

  Paul looked the prince in the eye. ‘Is that what you want? A glorious death?’

  ‘Do you have an alternative?’

  Paul’s mind was racing. The flat terrain brought back memories: outnumbered infantrymen facing a horde of superbly trained cavalry. He had seen this battle fought before, and by the greatest military genius of the age.

  ‘Have your men dismount. Send the horses away.’

  He hadn’t expected the reaction he received. With a blur of motion, Yostos had a sword at his throat.

  ‘Speak one more word of this treachery, and I will ensure you are the first to die. Is that why the Tigréans sent you ahead?’

  ‘No!’

  How to make him understand?

  ‘Listen to me, if you want to live the next hour.’ Paul spoke quickly. ‘The Tigréans have horses, but they do not have guns. You do. I have seen the finest cavalry in the world charge an infantry square. It was like throwing grass in a fire.’

  The soldiers had gathered around with their weapons levelled at Paul. Behind them, the king sat on his horse, immovable as stone. In the distance, Paul could see a plume of dust rising up on the edge of the forest. The ground started to tremble underfoot.

  ‘They are coming. Do we fight among ourselves – or against them?’

  Yostos stared at him. His pride ached to take military advice from this insolent, foreign, white-skinned slave.

  But the younger sons of kings do not grow to adulthood without a will to survive. And though he had never left Gondar, he had an interest in the affairs of the world. He had heard stories from Arab traders of the white men, of their mighty ships and enormous armies that no man could withstand.

  ‘If you are lying. If you fail—’

  Paul laughed.

  ‘You think because I am a slave, I do not value my life?’

  The ground shook harder. The vibrations ran up his legs and into his body. Through the scrub, he could see the tips of spears shining bright in the sun.

  Urgently, Paul gave his orders. When Yostos repeated them to the men, he thought they might mutiny. What he was suggesting was heresy to the proud warriors.

  But they were disciplined men who had learned to obey their prince. They dismounted and sent their horses away. On Paul’s orders, they formed a tight square two ranks deep, the front rank kneeling and the rear standing. The king stood in their midst with the royal standard. Compared with the squares Paul had seen at the Battle of the Pyramids, each a battalion strong, it was a feeble formation. It would have to be enough.

  The first Tigréan riders burst out of the trees, the tails of their monkey-skin hats flying out behind them. Their captain was an enormous man, wrapped in a black ape skin so large it completely covered him. The animal’s head was pulled over his helmet, with two giant canine teeth protruding down his face so that his head looked like a huge gaping jaw.

  The captain paused when he saw the band of the king’s men, knotted together on the open ground. Why had they dismounted? Surely it was a trap? Then his keen eyes picked out the king in the middle of the square. He opened his mouth, and let out a booming roar that echoed off the valley walls. His men dropped their reins, beat their spears against their shields, and shouted taunts and battle cries. This would be an easy victory.

  The captain kicked his horse and charged forward. His men followed. The hard-baked earth shook like silk in a breeze under their hooves. Paul felt his teeth rattle inside his head. He scanned the sky for an ibis – any bird, some sign that the bird-headed god was watching him. But the sky was empty.

  The riders swept towards them.

  ‘Wait until they are in range,’ Paul warned.

  Yostos repeated the order.

  The Tigréan cavalry lowered their spears. They were so close, Paul could see each face individually, fringed with monkey fur. Their line bunched together as they veered towards the narrow target.

  ‘Fire.’

  The front rank fired their muskets. At that range, even the Gondarians’ antique weapons could not miss. Five horses collapsed in a spray of earth, causing chaos in the tight-packed line. Other horses were tripped or knocked down. Some screamed with the agony of snapped bones; others tried to get back up, and collided with the horses coming in behind.

  They could afford the losses. The remaining riders knew the musketeers would not be able to reload in time. They kicked their horses harder and leaned forward, closing the gaps in the line.

  It made an easier target for the second rank of musketeers. They fired on Paul’s command, punching another hole in the cavalry line. The same bloody pantomime of tumbling men and horses played out a second time.

  Now was the moment of reckoning. In Bonaparte’s army, there would have been a third rank of men to sustain the barrage of fire, while those in the front rank reloaded. If the cavalry pushed home now, the king’s men would be pulped under their hooves and spears.

  The cavalry baulked. Paul’s men were a far cry from the well-drilled machine of Bonaparte’s army, but the Tigréan warriors had never faced such disciplined fire. The second volley had cut the heart out of their line. The survivors had a split second to decide which way to go. Instinct took over. They veered away from the infantry square, dividing around it like a river round a rock.

  It seemed the safer option, a chance to regroup and come at the infantry from behind. They had never fought an enemy who formed up facing both ways before. As soon as they were past the square, they came into the line of fire of the men formed up to the rear. Two volleys crashed out, and another half a dozen riders went down before they saw who had shot them. The men panicked, galloping away until they were beyond the reach of the Gondarian bullets. By then the king’s men had reloaded.