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her chin at Tifari Amu. “So I was their captive. They traded me to a merchant in Meroë, and there he sold me to a caravan-master, to cook and clean for him.” She smiled bitterly. “It is why I know so much about camels, little one. And he, he took me to Iskandria. That is where an Âka-Magus found me, and how I came to Drujan.”
    “Do you fear the welcome you will receive?” I asked her.
    “No,” she said shortly, clasping the pendant about her neck, where it nestled against the leather bag that held her amber dice. She looked at me. “Yes. As we draw nigh, I fear.”
    “Don’t.” I placed a hand on her arm. “Fedabin, in Daršanga you told us the stories of our fates, and you told them true. Without your courage to follow, the zenana would have faltered. You have lived such a story as your brother can only dream on his darkest nights, and emerged alive to tell it. You will be welcome. I am sure of it.”
    Kaneka looked at me a long time without speaking, then shook her head. “Would that I could tell your story, little one, but it is writ in no tongue I understand. The gods themselves must throw up their hands in dismay.”
    “Ah, well.” I stood and stretched, watching the purple twilight fall across the plains. Our bearers had a fire blazing, and the spoils of last night’s hunt cooking in a stew. Tifari Amu and his comrade Bizan lounged before their tent, whetting their spearheads and conversing. Joscelin and Imriel were returning empty-handed from the river, Joscelin winding the cord of his fishing-line and explaining the finer points of the piscatory arts to Imri. “It is not over yet, I hope,” I said, noting absently how the dying sunlight pinned a crown of flame on Joscelin’s fair hair.
    “No.” Kaneka smiled. “Not yet, I think.”
    In the morning, we rode to Debeho.
    By unspoken accord, we rode in procession. Tifari Amu and Bizan took the lead, wearing embroidered capes over snow-white chammas and breeches, their horses prancing as if at parade. Kaneka, clad in her Akkadian robes with a dagger at her waist and her war-axe slung across her saddle, paced behind them, and Joscelin and Imriel and I followed. Behind us came the good-natured bearers and the donkey-train, laden with the Lugal’s gifts.
    Debeho was a collection of thatched mud huts along the river. But to Kaneka it was home, and home is a powerful thing. We were spotted long before we arrived, and I saw the dark forms of children jumping and pointing, shrill cries of excitement carried on the breeze. The village turned out to meet us, for good or for ill, weapons and scythes clasped in weathered hands. At Tifari’s command, we raised our arms in salute, baring the passage-tokens of ivory and gold cord bound at our wrists. And they rejoiced.
    We were spectators here, all of us but Kaneka, and we hung back accordingly as she greeted her people, majestic as a queen, tears running in rivulets down her stern, dark face as she ordered the treasure-chests thrown open and her goods dispersed. There-that tall man with greying hair and shoulders like an ox; he must be her father. And the young one, who wept and kissed her hand-her brother, I thought. No mother, I noted-but there, a bent figure leaning on two gnarled sticks, her face wise and creased; surely, it was her grandmother.
    It must have been, for proud Kaneka knelt. And the woman, the ancient woman, laid her knotted hand upon that bowed head, trembling, tears in her dark eyes.
    Kaneka was home.
    The celebration lasted for days, and I must own, they were the happiest I had known in longer than I can count. Debeho was a simple village, but I learned great fondness for it. The mud huts I had eyed dismissively were well-kept and clean, pleasantly suited to the hot clime of the plains. The villagers grew cotton and millet and a hardy strain of melon, and kept cattle as well. Wild bees produced honey, which Jebeans ferment into a heady drink. Spices were prized; some gathered from the fertile mountainous regions, where a particular strain of tiny, hot pepper thrived; others garnered in trade, for Debeho was not so isolated that it never saw traders. There were weavers in the village, and tanners and ivory-workers, for the plains afforded good hunting.
    And there was Shoanete, Kaneka’s grandmother, the storyteller. If I had to name her equal, it would be Thelesis de Mornay, who was the Queen’s Poet and my friend beside. She had been in seclusion these last few years, her