Hannibal's Elephant Girl Chapter 4

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Hannibal’s Elephant Girl


by

Ariion Kathleen Brindley



Chapter Four

All I found was a large muddy wine spot on the trail. I fell to my knees and thrust my fingers into the purple and brown mud, not wanting to believe what my eyes told me. But it was true: Yzebel’s precious raisin wine was gone. I had failed.

Yzebel had trusted me to take the wine to the baker in exchange for bread, but I didn’t even make it halfway. The sight of Obolus alive had completely muddled my sense of responsibility. My own feelings overshadowed my desire to do something good for Yzebel. To make it all worse, the jug had vanished. Someone took it and left only a sandaled footprint in the mud. How could I ever replace it? My heart sank and I began to cry. Yzebel would never trust me again.

“You lose something?” a familiar voice said from behind me.

I turned on my knees and looked up into the soft brown eyes of the young man from the river. The one whose cape I wore—Tendao.

“Yzebel’s wine.” I wiped my muddy fingers across my cheek. “It’s gone.”

He held his hand out to help me up and seemed not to mind the mud. “Were you supposed to take the wine to Bostar for loaves of bread?”

I nodded.

“Do you know why Yzebel wanted the bread?” he asked. The two of us walked up Elephant Row toward the fork in the trail.

“For the soldiers when they come to her tables tonight.”

“Yes, she likes to have bread for them at supper time.”

“I failed her, Tendao. And now I must go tell her what a terrible thing I’ve done.”

“Yes, you must tell her,” Tendao said. “But before you do that, let’s stop by the tent of Lotaz.”

I hadn’t heard of this Lotaz, but I was in no hurry to return empty-handed to Yzebel and admit my failure.

I tried to escape the image of Yzebel’s stern face by thinking of other things. The dirt of Elephant Row felt soft and warm beneath my bare feet. I thought of the hundreds of elephants and humans tramping over many seasons, working the dirt into a fine powder. Oak and pine trees lined the trail, providing shade for the animals. Long shadows now covered much of the wide path.

At the top of the hill we turned right, the way I should have gone earlier. After a while I saw up ahead of us, a tent made of a fine, thin material. The red, yellow and blue colors of the striped fabric glowed in the twilight. Shadows flickered from a lamp burning inside. A fringed awning stood before it, supported by two metal spears driven into the earth. A black man sat cross-legged beneath the awning.

“Go to that slave,” Tendao said when he stopped me some distance away. And then he told me what to say to the man. I repeated the instructions back to him, making sure I understood.

“But he looks so mean, Tendao. Will you go with me?”

“No. You must do this by yourself.”

The slave watched me intently when I trudged toward him, my feet dragging in the dirt, reluctant to take me where I didn’t want to go. Ten paces away I stopped and said, “Lotaz.”

He did not respond, but only stared at me until I lowered my eyes to the ground.

Finally he spoke. “This is the tent of Lotaz. What business do you have here?”

“I’m about Tendao’s business.”

The slave jumped to his feet and hurried inside. A moment later a slim woman came out. She was illuminated from both sides by a pair of oil lamps swinging from the spear-supports.

Lotaz was beautiful in a silk robe of pale blue and a pair of matching slippers. A wide scarlet belt of woven cords cinched her narrow waist. A fine gold chain dangled from the buckle and swung across her thighs when she moved. Her lips were painted red and her cheeks colored rosebud pink, making a soft contrast with her creamy complexion. A jeweled silver necklace ran snugly across her throat.

The slave came out to stand behind her with his arms folded across his bare chest. He loomed like a huge, dark shadow, contrasting sharply with the woman’s white skin.

“What do you know of Tendao?” she asked me.

“I’m to tell you that he will do as you requested.”

The woman glanced beyond me, scanning the dark trail in both directions. I turned to follow the woman’s eyes, but Tendao was not in sight.

“Why did he send you?”

I turned back and shook my head, not knowing how to respond.

“When will the task be completed?” Lotaz’ voice sounded sharp and demanding.

“Tomorrow, before sundown,” I answered with the words Tendao had told me to say.

The woman seemed reluctant to deal with me in this transaction. Nor did I understand why I had come to Lotaz on Tendao’s behalf.

After a moment the woman said, “Very well. Wait here.”

Lotaz went inside and soon returned. In one hand she carried a jug of wine almost identical to the one I had lost. Her other hand remained closed, the fingers clenched tight. Many gold and silver bracelets jingled down her wrist when she made a motion to hand over the jug of wine. But then she stopped. “Why do you come to me in such a dirty condition?”

I glanced at my outstretched hands—they were caked with dried mud. When I tried to wipe them off, the slave disappeared behind the tent and came back with a clay basin of water. He placed it at my feet. I knelt to wash, my face burning with humiliation. I washed quickly, stood up and wiped my hands on my cape. The slave gave me a quick smile and winked when he stepped between me and the woman. He picked up the basin and moved back to his place. I didn’t know if he felt sorry for me or only tried to be friendly to a fellow slave. Lotaz certainly made me feel like a slave.

Lotaz handed me the jug and I took it in my arms—I would not drop this one.

“This wine is payment for the work Tendao will do for me,” Lotaz said. “I will pay him no more than that.” She held out her other hand and slowly uncurled her fingers.

Two perfectly matched pearls, large and very beautiful, rested in the woman’s palm. All I could do was stare at the lustrous sheen of the precious gems glowing in the yellow light of the lamps.

“Take them,” Lotaz commanded. “And make certain the pearls go to Tendao immediately. They will be used to do the work. Do you understand me?”

I nodded, shifting the wine to free my right hand so I could snatch the pearls from Lotaz. I stood, staring up at the woman, not knowing what to do next.

“Go on!” Lotaz said with a wave of her hand, shooing me away like a bothersome gnat.

I hurried along the dark trail in the direction Tendao had told me to go. Just before I turned the corner, I glanced back to see Lotaz and the slave watching me. I felt great relief when I passed behind a stake fence where Tendao waited.

“I see you have the raisin wine.”

“Yes.” I held out my other hand with the two pearls. He took them and I placed both my hands under the jug.

He inspected the pearls and then dropped them into a leather purse tied to his belt. “Now,” he said, pulling the drawstrings tight, “let’s go find Bostar the baker and trade that wine for some bread.”

This was a surprise. The wine was a payment to Tendao for some service he had to perform for Lotaz, but he seemed willing to let me use it in place of the flagon I had lost. Why would he do that? And what duty did he have to perform for Lotaz? I decided to ask him to explain, but he spoke before I had a chance to form my words into a proper question.

“Your earnest manner reminds me of someone.”

“Who?”

“Have you heard of Liada, the spirit from the rock of Byrsa?”

“No, I only know of Princess Elissa.”

“Well, this story has much to do with Princess Elissa, too. Moloch, god of the underworld, entombed Liada within the rock of Byrsa.”

“Why?”

“That was her punishment for befriending a little ox calf the priests had selected for sacrifice to Moloch.”

“Oh, no. Why would they sacrifice a little one?”

“A young life is more precious than an old one. The slave girl Liada didn’t like the idea either. During the darkest part of the night, preceeding the day of the ceremony, she slipped down to the ox’s pen, removed his shackles and led him, along with his mother, far away to set them free.

“When Moloch learned of this treacherous act, he ordered the priests to chain the girl to the rock of Byrsa, where he forced her spirit into the stone and entombed it there. He then made the priests sacrifice Liada’s spiritless body, along with nine other children, upon his altar. This brutal offering proclaimed his warning to anyone who would meddle in the affairs of his priests.

“When our Elissa learned of Liada’s terrible ordeal she went to the rock of Byrsa and heard the spirit of the rock crying out for help. While listening to the story of Liada’s eternal punishment, Princess Elissa placed her hands upon the rock. Then, using nothing more than a prayer to the mother goddess Tanit and the power of her own strong will, she split the stone in two and set the spirit of Liada free.”

Tendao remained silent for a while and I thought he had lost his place in the story.

“What became of the girl’s spirit then,” I asked, “after Princess Elissa set her free?”

Tendao glanced down at me and then returned his gaze to the dark trail ahead. “For all these many ages since Liada’s freedom, her spirit has wandered all the world searching for a girl child to take her in.”

I looked up at Tendao, thinking he made up this story only for my benefit.

He gave me a smile. “It’s one of the many legends of our Princess Elissa and I’m quite certain it’s true.”

“But how will Liada find someone to take her in?”

“She has been waiting for a girl who will befriend a poor beast, enslaved like herself.”

I walked along for a while, watching the ground, thinking about Liada and being enslaved. “You mean like Obolus?”

“What’s that you say, child?” came a booming voice from the path ahead of me.

I glanced up to find myself walking toward a very large man. He wore a long apron and his smiling face was powdered with wheat flour. By the man’s appearance and the wonderful smell of fresh bread, I knew he must be the baker. Three oil lamps hanging above his work tables broke the darkness of early evening.

My journey to Bostar’s tent had taken much longer than the flight of an arrow, but finally, thanks to Tendao, I arrived with a jug of wine to trade for Yzebel’s bread.

“We come from your good friend Yzebel,” I said. “She wishes us to trade this jug of raisin wine for six loaves of your freshest bread.”

“We?” Bostar said and placed his fists on his hips, trying very hard to make his jolly face take on a stern expression. “Do you carry a frog in the folds of your cape or are there invisible helpers tagging along at your heels?”

I turned, but found Tendao had slipped away from me once again. “He just told me—” I began, but stopped. I realized my friend Tendao must be a very shy man who had great difficulty dealing with people. For some reason this made me happy, because it seemed he wanted me to speak for him when he couldn’t do so himself.

I turned back to the baker and saw he could not maintain his serious expression for long. His skin was the color of sand under water and his dark eyes shone with suppressed good nature. I liked him already. “How did you know of my froggy friend that travels with me and is so shy that he will only peek out with one eye to see what I’m up to?”

The man burst into laughter and slapped me on the shoulder so hard that I almost dropped my precious jug.

“If you don’t take this from me,” I said, holding the wine out to him, “I will surely die from trying to protect it.”

He chuckled and took the jug. “I see you are learning at a very early age, the keen responsibility of caring for another person’s valuables.”

“Oh, yes. I’m learning.”

Bostar took the wine inside his tent. When he returned, his arms were loaded with several round, flat loaves of bread.

“These are the last of today’s work. I finished baking them just before sundown and held them back, knowing your Yzebel would need them tonight for her tables.” He placed the large loaves on a rough cloth laid out on his workbench. “There are six loaves here, plus one extra.” He picked up the corners of the cloth and tied them on top. “You may tell her the extra one is yours for giving me a fine laugh at the end of a long day. And be sure to return my cloth tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Bostar.” I took the heavy bundle to swing it over my shoulder. “Would you like me to bring you a froggy from the river when I come back tomorrow? You can carry him in your apron and never be lonely.”

After a moment, the huge man smiled, showing white, even teeth beneath his neatly trimmed mustache. “No, my child. I’m thankful to the gods you’ve replaced that sour-faced Jabnet. You and Froggy come to my tent every day and I shall never be sorry for the fools I must suffer.”

It would be so easy to stay a while and talk more with the baker because I found comfort in his presence.

“That’s better,” Bostar said. “I knew you could smile.”

Yes, I did feel much better, but I still had to face Yzebel and explain what happened to the first jug of wine. “I have to go tell Yzebel something. Good-bye, Bostar.” I heard him say good-night from behind me when I hurried away with the bundle of bread.




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