He was older, no doubt well into his 30's given his etched face but without a single hair on his face. He was a eunuch, clipped before puberty.
My men spotted him at in Rhapta, speaking a most unusual language to both small and tall men farmers and pastoralists... With shouts we called him in Sabean for no doubt he was one of them, his skin the color of copal and hair more waved than curled.
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"What is your reason for being here?"
"I have been here more than I have not" his accent is thick and slurred
"But what brought you here to this place"
Why would he attempt to conceal his reasons? Its clear he is no native.
"The land that provides the goods so wanted by those further north come from a great island. Not as some have said from the Mountain of the Moon. My father, merchant with poor fortune and his men were attempting to gain direct access to this rumored land of silks, ambergris and spices. However a storm occurred before we could touch on land. In the chaos and shipwreck I and the survivors laid on flotsam. Some days later we were picked up on canoes and taken ashore, feed and nursed only to be bonded and forced to march"
"Marched where? Who is your father?"
"Yada Qurra al-Harrani of Saba he did not survive; I was but a boy then but I remember the day we crossed through the Vurekekokona(1) and marched southwards some days journey. We were made to eat clay and herbs to stave off malaria. Dense Forest, secondary Forest and Shrub and Grassland always with people along the roadside looking from their fields of Duyu(2), Huiduyu(3), Take(4), so varied their faces at the beginning; mixed with the shipwrecks and settlers who thought the land was easy to conquer before being made captives. . . air punctuated with the sounds of hooting Vondrahoho(5)you find here, ("we brought them since we favor their flesh"). . .These landscape mosaics would come in patterns of the most curious forms extensive or small made with fire or through the placement of ponds that collapse the land below."
"What do you mean? Are you saying they cause the land to collapse around the hills?"
"Precisely"
" dense towns staggeringly populated, formed in gullies surrounded by neither bush nor tree, only Duyu that fruit orange and red but only rarely in a landscape otherwise shaded the lushest green...we were inspected in each town.. some among us were bought. . ."
"The city of Valimbihuihui(6) is centered within a great terraced canyon in the shape of a horse's hoof but it spills down a rolling productive mountain basin of stilted home complexes and standing towns above flooded fields leading to a lake of immensity. A fortress surrounding the entrance is built of stones of marvelous size, and there be no mortar joining them.... This edifice is surrounded at the canyon's spine with watchtowers made from wood connected by rings of trenches and palisades upon which are others resembling it in the fashioning of stone and the absence of mortar.. . .It is divided into many magnificent palaces, markets, guilds and apartments of the traders, priests, courtiers, weavers and jewelers throughout the island. This city is the main place of learning and one learns their symbols."
"These people write?"
"Quite. Symbols represent single words, phrases or ideas. Here"
I could not believe my eyes, but he grabbed a piece of silk and with inked brush in hand began to write on it! How much does silk abound on this island to be wasted in this way. But the more I waited, the more I was intrigued.
"There are 8 symbols, the symbols position to others informs there meaning."
Peering down I see silk is much rougher than I would first believe, the symbols with which the Sabean wrote thin and in single stroke.
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"This is a record of a judgement. (a) The court was held within courtyard of the inner palace (b) the parties in the case, (c) the Elders who judged it, (d)Their Attendants who are tasked to recollect all known cases to inform the decision of elders (e)the dependents of the parties involved who seek to influence elders by means of prestige or numbers(f) denotes all the members of the party who won the case. (g) Two of them as they are given their payment crying, (h) is a woman and her party who burn silk ribbon as a sign of displeasure and injustice"
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"Its cumbersome but the elders and priests latch on to these symbols, long ago it is said the common people rose up against those that used these symbols to gain power. They won and now they add these symbols to everything they own, sometimes just one symbol, sometimes all of them in no particular order. Every person, even a slave is encouraged to atleast know one symbol and its meaning."
"By way of long roads or canals containing they paddle their rafts, are carried on litters or ride upon their gigikazani(7)"
" . . There are, in all districts within the inner realm of this great city, sacred groves with massive trees wrapped with fine silks of intense gold, canopies covered in the spiderwebs the same spiders that spin this golden silk. These surrounding pools where their royalty and holy of those that align with Valimbihuihui are submerged upon death. . . Every town has a sacred grove, some prefer to be buried in their previous customs in trees, caves to be dried out or fed but the prestige is to be interred in these pools of water.
They are a very many beautiful buildings of queer forms and shapes. . . elevated on leveled stone terraces and made from stones, bamboos, reeds and wood several levels high . . . . Stelae covered in gold leaf with images of war, symbols inlaid with very thin ivory praising their victory...
. . . My party was all sold by the time I arrived to a courtyard filled with other boys, mukara(8) some of whom had bandages and fiherenakipapa(9). I learned my role well, was favored and eventually given freedom once I aged to Sapoanakatsiendr's great displeasure."
"This story if true is astounding"
"It is true and I am telling you this because I want you to take me back to Saba. That is an Island of immense wealth and resources, Saba should bring the Islands ruler to her knees. Take me to Saba and I will make you wealthier than you could ever imagine."
Minelik Kea(10) former Court slave and first courtesan of the Sapoanakatsiendr Mietsyrozo(11)recounting his story to merchant trader of Gadarat in Rhapta 240 a.d.
notes:
(1) "Trap Precipice"
(2) "Ensete" Ensete Qamariensis
(3) "Marsh Ensete" Typhonodorum Esculenta
(4) "Cut (small) Tuber" Plectranthus Edulis
(5) Lemur
(6) Literally "Mountain Slope Marsh" but more accurately "Great Marsh of the Mountain's Slope"
(7) "Shy Boar" domesticated Hippopatamus Scrofa Domesticus
(8) "To look for" the term for castrated people, bandages noting a fresh surgery
(9) "Turning Path" the term for those who's breast were successfully ironed and made muscular
(10) "Nothing" the surname of all slaves in the kingdom
(11) "Most Venerated Mother" in this case a term denoting their role rather than their gender identity