The Enchanted Castle (Shioni of Sheba Book 1) (10 page)

“T
rumpet fanfare please!” Princess
Annakiya shoved open a large iron-banded door and ushered Shioni within. She winced as Annakiya unwittingly patted her sore shoulder.

The room was not large, but it was crammed to the ceiling
with rack upon rack of scrolls. More piles of scrolls had been tossed haphazardly between the racks. Everything was covered in centuries of dust.

Shioni imagined the room must have been abandoned in a hurry.
There was a scholar’s writing desk in one corner with several quills standing ready in a metal pot on its corner, and a scroll half-unfurled across its surface, as if the scribe had been interrupted in the middle of his work.

“
Heaven in a room for you, right?”

The Princess clapped her hands
. “Just look at all these records! Father was
so
excited to receive the plans for the castle! He’s found two armouries already, and a treasure room.”

“You found the plans?
And my–”

“Nothing about your secret passage
under the baobab! But, who knows what we might find in here? Some of the scrolls are even written on papyrus rather than parchment, they’re that old! And they’re all in such good condition–no rats, no insects, no mould…”

“You are excited, aren’t you?” Shioni smiled at her friend.

“Then you’ll help me sort through this mess?”

Shioni glanced
toward the doorway. “I’m not supposed to be able to read, remember?”

“Dratted laws,” said Annakiya
, scowling. Then she smiled sweetly. “Very well, I have just the idea. You do the sweeping, dusting and tidying, and I’ll do the reading.”

“Not fair!”

As they dug through the piles of scrolls that morning they discovered most were unbearably dull: inventories of supplies, records of patrol movements, visits of nobles and important people, and the names and deeds of the warriors of the castle. But in several places Annakiya found references to gold and silver mines which had been worked by the builders of the castle, and in another record, a reference to the ‘great treasuries’ of the King of Axum. This was new information–while she knew of many legends, she told Shioni, to find them confirmed in writing was excellent news. The King would be pleased.

“My guess is that this castle was built by the Nubians,”
she added, with rising excitement, “or even by the Egyptians, who built the great pyramids after all. It may be five hundred years old! I wonder how the Axumites captured it?”

“This one is interesting,” said Shioni
. “It says the original name of the castle was ‘Hiwot’–which sounds a lot like the old word for ‘life’, doesn’t it?”

Annakiya snatched the scroll from
her. “Don’t let them catch you reading!”

“Just dusting it off,” she said innocently, puffing a cloud of
musty-smelling dust at her friend.

“
Yuck! Stop that!” She sneezed three times, each time more violent than the last. “Mama Nomuula’s right about you, you’re just a troublemaker.”

“Did you know she’s a ferengi too?”

The Princess made a silly face. “Shioni, whose thoughts are circling with the eagles now? Don’t tell me you never noticed! She’s so fat she can’t even ride a horse! How many Sheban women do you know who are built like her?”

“Well, I noticed… sort of
. It’s hardly the most important thing about her, is it?”

“Thinking with our stomach again, are we?”

“Anni, you take that back! I do
not
think with my stomach! Yes, I love Mama’s cooking, but–”

“Isoke is always telling me to take smaller portions.”
Annakiya imitated her tutor, “’It’s not ladylike. No Princess stuffs their mouth like that, Annakiya!’ Manners, ha. Always manners. As if she or Father think of anything but who I am to marry one day.”

Shioni suddenly felt sorry for her friend
. Imagine being expected to do nothing but marry who your father told you to? In some ways, she had more freedom as a slave! Freedom to talk to lions, she thought, flexing her tender shoulder, and freedom to be stuck down wells by cruel warriors. All those times she had been jealous of Annakiya played in a shameful procession through her mind. Princesses had their problems too; just different ones.

S
uddenly, SHIONI became aware
that Mama Nomuula had swept into the room, carrying a tray of delicious-looking goodies. “Girl,” she said, “don’t get your face stuck like that!”

“Like what?”

“Like you sat on a wasp.”

Annakiya giggled
. “Mmm, what smells so good, Mama?”

“None for you,” said Mama Nomuula. “It’s not ladylike to drool over your food. Now, girls, you’s been stuck–don’t groan, Annakiya, what if Isoke heard you? You’s been a-hunting in this dusty store too long without my good food in your stomachs.
Heavens, it’s nearly dinner time and what you been thinking?”

“Ooh, many things, Mama.”

“Annakiya, you’s asking to be put over my knee–Princess or no Princess, it’s no matter to me. You too, Shioni. You can’t eat scrolls!”

Between bites, the girls told Mama Nomuula what they had discovered.

“I’s been thinking all day in my hot kitchen,” said Mama, wiping some imaginary sweat off her neck. At the same time, she lifted Shioni’s sleeve to check her wounded arm. “The villagers said nothing about no mountain witch, but they sure twitched like naughty boys caught stealing when I was talking to them.”

“Father cares nothing for witchcraft,” said Annakiya.

“Exactly.” Mama beckoned them closer and lowered her voice. “Matter of fact, when he was leaving for Takazze, I heard him speaking to the warriors. He don’t believe in no witches, nor magic, nor dragons and such… and said he won’t have ‘that women’s chatter and foolishness in his castle’, or suchlike. I’s best be watching my tongue then, hadn’t I? That’s what I thought. You too, both of you. The King said he’d punish any such gossip good and proper.”

“But Mama
–”

“No
crazy elephants or magic talking lions from you, Shioni.” Mama made the sign of a cross with her fingers, just as the priests did it. “Though God save us, I never seen such cuts as yours heal so fast. And no impossible red-eyed pythons neither.”

Shioni plonked
down the scroll she was holding. “Mama! I’m telling the truth, you’ve got to believe me! And even if you don’t, how many snakes are there crawling around this castle? It’s not natural! And the hyenas–”

“Girl, you’s steaming more than one of my pots!”

“–they’re saying that when the witch comes, they’ll eat our bones!”

Mama Nomuula drew Shioni into her arms
. “Honey, shh. Don’t you be wound up so tight! And don’t you be wriggling out of my arms neither. You need love–all creatures do.”

“
Humph! There are enough bone-crushing hyenas around this castle without you crushing me with your hugs, Mama!”

But she really didn’t mind, e
ven when her friends were fuming at her, as she deserved. A cold shiver tickled her spine. After all, it could have gone much, much worse with Anbessa…

She kissed Mama Nomuula on her cheek
. “That’s for making you cry earlier.”

“Honey, that water’s far down the river already,” said Mama
, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. “Now, as I was saying: I’s been a-chewing all day, so much I feels like a cow chewing her cud. It’s a mighty strange story. But this old nose smells something more–I mean, you don’t just meet this Lord of the Lions without there being some reason. He didn’t stop to pass the time of day. He gave you a name. A
name
, like some huge pair of shoes you got to grow into!”

Shioni’s eyebrows crawled upwards
. What an idea! What a picture! But Mama was rushing on like a storm blowing across the plains.

“
That wise-woman of Ginab’s a queer one. Just wait until I nabs her! She might as well just push that young man off the path into a bush, for all she said. I’s thinking the rest is just wise woman mumbo-jumbo. We knows you’s a troublemaker. Why dress it up?”

After taking in their
sober nods, Mama continued, “Now this Kalcha witch we don’t know. The warriors haven’t found her. But if this Anbessa says there’s a witch, then I thinks she’s as real as them scars on your arm, Shioni. And she don’t mean us no good. In my country I’s heard of such wickedness, Shioni, of witches controlling people and animals… it makes me shudder and a-shiver all over just to think of all that evil there in the mountains, and all around us.”

Shioni and Annakiya exchanged glances of dismay
. Mama Nomuula was scared! The room seemed to grow darker, and Shioni found herself checking the corners and under the table to see that nothing was hiding there, waiting to pounce.

“But how can we warn the King?”
asked Annakiya, who had turned pale. “I can only imagine how mad Father would be… his face goes so purple when he’s angry.”

“We can’t,” said Mama
. “No, he’s gone back to Takazze, and that brute Dabir’s in charge.”

“But we have to do something!”

Mama Nomuula nodded solemnly. “Yes, Shioni, for the sake of everyone here in the castle, we must. Sheba is in our hands.”

“Well, I can do my best to find something in all these records,” Annakiya said stoutly
. “I already found two armouries, didn’t I? And heaps of treasure!”

Shioni
grinned at her friend. Trust Annakiya to look for answers in a fusty old scroll! But there could be months of work in this room alone, and Kalcha was already plotting their ruin. No, there must be something more they could do…

“You did, honey,” said Mama
. “But I’s bothered. One thing you told us, Shioni, just don’t add up.”

“Nothing adds up, Mama!
I can hear animals!”

Mama waved her hands as though that
issue were a piece of meat attracting flies. “Don’t you get distracted, girl. You keeps that talking animals business hid under your headscarf, you hear me? Here’s the thing: why, by all that’s sacred, would this Kalcha set a magical python–and it must be magic, with them eyes–in a secret chamber to guard a
bottle?
”

“Yes!”
cried Annakiya, leaping to her feet. In her excitement, she scattered scrolls left and right. “What’s in the bottle? It must be something important, right? I mean, you wouldn’t leave some strange bottle down there in the first place, would you? Maybe the baobab has ancient magic! Maybe the castle is cursed! Maybe… what do you think, Shioni?”

But Shioni had leaped to a different conclusion
. “No, Mama,” she whispered, feeling quite sick at the thought. “Don’t make me!”

“I knows you
r heart, honey,” said Mama Nomuula. “I wouldn’t make you do nothing bad.”

“What
–oh!” said Annakiya. “You want her to go get that bottle, don’t you?” She looked from Mama’s grimly-pursed lips to Shioni’s ashen colour. “Well, I’ve a thing or two to say to you, my friend!”

“What’s that?”

The Princess lifted her chin and scowled fiercely. “You’re not–absolutely
not–
doing anything on your own this time, is that clear?”

“Phew,” said Mama
. “A royal command!”

Shioni
had to laugh. “Yes, your Highness!”

T
he chief elephant examined
Shioni from his great height and heaved exactly the kind of sigh Mama Nomuula reserved for the hijinks of errant children.

“Less haste and more understanding would improve your manners,” he said, finally, in a deep and very ponderous voice. Exactly the kind of voice Shioni would have imagined an elephant should have.
“Fancy running up here like you’ve a swarm of bees buzzing around your head, and blurting out your questions without a word of greeting! Rude–”

“Chief, you promised.”
The oldest of the females–Dusky–laid a motherly trunk on Shioni’s shoulder. “She is young, and the young are full of hasty airs and hastier words.”

Shioni resisted an urge to rub her eyes or exclaim in disbelief. She could understand elephant speech!
She was standing in the sunshine in the middle of the elephant pen actually
talking
to the five elephants. Shioni looked about her quickly, but none of the handlers were paying her any attention–they were much more interested in catching a late afternoon snooze in the cheerful sunshine. Hiding her fingers beneath her crossed arms, she surreptitiously pinched the skin of her left side. Ouch! Definitely awake. As loony as a howling, moon-mad red wolf. As the elephants argued back and forth, she muttered, ‘I must act normal’. Several times.

And what exactly was normal? Especially when she was practically bursting with the need to try to steal that bottle from the python’s lair, and the Princess had decided instead to take several more days to investigate the scroll store. At least that would allow her shoulder time to heal.

“Calling my work ‘doing something’ is an insult to the considerable forethought and craft I invested in–”

“How you grumble!”
Dusky and the Chief sounded exactly like a quarrelling old couple, Shioni thought, with their gentle, loving bickering back and forth. She added, “We had discussed the girl’s emoting like a volcano, spouting ash and pumice to the four winds, yes. But you snatched the opportunity in less time than it takes to sneeze. I didn’t know you still had it in you.”

“Ha!
Ha!” The gusts of air from his trunk blew Shioni’s hair all over her face. “And who pulls the greatest loads amongst the great pachyderms, might I ask?”

“And his son will be bigger and stronger than him,” Beauty whispered in Shioni’s ear.

“And my son will be bigger and stronger than I!”

Shioni was giggling when she felt something
pluck her tunic. She turned to Beauty and slapped her trunk, which had adeptly picked her pocket of a lump of rock salt. “Can’t you tell me what he did? Please? Anyone?”

“Salt!” cried Beauty, with a naughty chuckle.

The other elephants all crowded around. “Hand it over, girl!” “Have you been hiding salt?” “Yum, what a treat!” “Oldest first! I tell you, these youngsters learn their manners from monkeys!”

Shioni shoved her hands into her tunic pockets to keep the thieving trunks out
. One trunk was trying to tickle her right armpit, another was tugging at her shoulder. “Not until you tell me what I want to know! Hey! Stop that!”

The Chief Elephant had snared her waist and whippe
d her up into the air, upside-down. He shook her about, making lumps of salt fly everywhere.

“Shioni!”

“Mama needs me. Put me down!”

“Put me down, please,” the Chief Elephant corrected her
with a severe shake of his trunk. “Pleases and thank you’s are the very heart of good manners.”

“So is not intruding in peoples’ private thoughts!”

Dusky shoved the Chief Elephant with her shoulder–a shove which would have sent Shioni flying, but did not move him an inch. “The girl has a point.”

“Hmm.” The Chief Elephant drew Shioni closer to his eye, looking at her as though he could see right into her thoughts and feelings. Then he suddenly
flipped her over again and set her on her feet with deft care. “Indeed she does. We must remember to thank you for having the handler treat Beauty’s foot. Now, a full explanation would be needlessly complicated…”

Beauty’s trunk tickled Shioni’s ear
. “And very, very long-winded.”

“Shioni, you were
shouting
when you last visited us. Thoughts, words, feelings, all jumbled up and erupting out of you like a volcano. I merely unlocked what was already inside of you. The key in itself is nothing. An artifice, if you like.”

“What’s an artifice?”

“Shioni! Where is that dratted girl?”

“Don’t they teach these humans the rudiments of language?”

“An artifice is a trick,” said Beauty. “And you talk just fine. Thank you for informing our handler of my pregnancy. We already enjoy better feed as a result. Now, do run along before you get into trouble.”

Scrambling over the fence of the elephant enclosure,
Shioni dashed around to the main entrance of the keep, which was not far. Mama Nomuula was waiting for her, hands on hips. “Where you been hiding, girl?”

“Sorry Mama, I was held up
–by an elephant.”