Queen at Last

At first light, Admiral Bitias ordered the ships into as much of a circle as the bobbing sea would allow. The passengers gathered on the decks, eager to see which of Elishat’s supporters had fled the city. A man on the Phoenix shouted across the water to someone he recognized on the Nebula.

“Is my cousin on your ship?”

“Yes! Is my nephew on yours?”

 Someone from the Sage shouted, “He’s over here!”

“I have a blanket for him!”

“Pass it around to us!”

“Did Abirami escape the city?”

“No, he couldn’t leave his sick mother.”

And so on. At what seemed like a safe distance from Tyre, passengers openly cursed Pumayyaton, recalling his most heinous crimes and remembering those who had lost their lives to his unjust punishments. One man spat and declared he would never utter his name again. Several agreed and took the oath with him. Other passengers muttered prayers for the safety of the families they had left behind under the curse of the tyrant king.

Amid all the shouting, Amaal scanned the decks, hoping to spot Hannu, but she didn’t see his among the many faces. Her heart sank at the thought of making the voyage without him. Admiral Bitias quieted everyone with a wave of his hand and came right to the point.

“We are not yet beyond the reach of Pumayyaton. We must continue, but, as you can see, we have only a few sailors on each ship. Therefore, all passengers are hereby called to duty at the discretion of your captains. Make yourselves useful. Who knows, you might enjoy it.”

The passengers listened with only half an ear. They were distracted by two sailors extending a makeshift bridge from the deck of the Arbiter to the deck of the Phoenix. The plank reached the smaller ship at an alarming slope, and the movement of the vessels caused it to shift unpredictably despite the men holding it at either end. Bitias stopped speaking to watch the Lieutenant step up and race from the Phoenix across the plank and onto the deck of the Arbiter. There were sighs of relief and light applause among the passengers. The sailors scoffed at the drama; they did it all the time.

It took a while for the people gathered on the decks to recognize the woman standing next to Bitias. She wore a plain linen gown cinched at the waist with a blue sash. A modest gemstone diadem held back her thick, dark hair. Gone were the robes edged in violet blue and gold. Gone were the white makeup and kohl eye liner. For the first time since childhood, the young woman revealed her natural features: the sadness in her stunning green eyes, the softness in her lips and cheeks, and the start of a thin line of worry on her forehead.

Someone shouted, “Behold, Princess Elishat!”

Another voice corrected him, “Behold, Queen Elishat!”

First five, then twenty, then a hundred voices called across the water.

“Hail the Queen!”

“Give us the Queen!”

Bitias raised his hand and called out, “I give you the daughter of King Mattan, our Queen, Elishat!”

It was a moment that the passengers and crew would remember for years to come. Legend has it that the gulls fell silent and the water went as smooth as glass so that the sea could carry Elishat’s voice to her people. She stepped forward, and when the cheering stopped, she spoke, her voice clear and strong.

“How does one become queen? By birth, certainly. By conquest, sometimes. By cunning…when required.”

The passengers chuckled at the queen’s dry humor. Her cunning was apparent. She had ditched her dastardly brother and absconded with four of his ships.

“But the gods have bestowed upon me a special honor. I am queen not only by birth but also by your trust, for you have put yourselves in great danger to join me.”

The people on the decks moved a bit closer to one another.

“I won’t pour honey over our bitter departure. We have left much behind: our families, the comforts of home, the rhythm of our daily work. But we carry the customs and traditions deeply rooted within us. When there are disagreements, as there surely will be, remember who we are, where we came from, and our shared quest for a better life.

“For now, the Great Sea is our home and our way forward. My advisors will guide us. Admiral Bitias commands the fleet as long as we are under sail. When we have landed in our new home, General Barca will be at my right hand. I promise, I will make them earn their salt!”

The people laughed at the humor and ease with which Elishat expressed her newfound authority.

            “In a few hours, we will land in Kition on Cyprus.”

The crowd murmured their approval.

“We will take on food and fresh water and the supplies we need to continue our voyage. I will have more to say when we arrive there. Melqart bless us!”

            “Melqart bless us!” came the reply.

            Elishat stepped back and Bitias held up his hand.

“The Lieutenant reports that a ship has been following us since we left Tyre. They may continue to tag along out of sight or they may sail off in another direction entirely. Until they make themselves known, we do not know who is on board. I bring this information to you directly—better to furl the sail before the storm—but hear me well, there will be no speculation among you about who may or may not be on that ship.”

The order for no speculation resulted in an immediate swirl of conjecture: a war ship; a ghost ship; a Greek ship. Surely not Pumayyaton, someone whispered. He’d have sent a whole armada to haul their little fleet back to Tyre. Well, someone urged, they could be pirates. A nearby sailor told them to follow the Admiral’s orders. Besides, he said, no ship would dare go up against four-to-one odds.

Bitias raised his hand and said there was another important matter to be settled before the fleet could continue to Kition. A passenger on the Arbiter had been caught with a sacred object: a bronze mask, stolen from the Temple of Melqart in Tyre. When it was discovered, the thief confessed to the crime. The sentence for thievery from a temple, Bitias reminded everyone, was punishment by death. Let this be a lesson, he said, that our laws travel with us, and criminal acts will be punished. The thief was brought forward, his head hung low, his face hidden behind a mop of dark hair. Amaal stood on tip-toe to see what a real criminal looked like. He wasn’t the brute she’d expected. This guy was as skinny as an alley cat. One of the sailors grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head up for all to see. The crowd gasped and called out, “No! No!” Someone screamed and began to cry. Amaal could not believe her eyes. It couldn’t be. There must have been some mistake. The thief standing on the deck of the Arbiter was none other than Hannu.

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