COUNCILS
When the door to the council chambers opened, Tau heard a man’s voice, cave-deep, arguing the end of some unheard point, but the voice faltered when the queen walked in. Tau and Nyah were next through the door, and the rest of their group came behind them.
The room was circular, enclosed, brightly lit, but smoky from the burning torches, and its floor was painted black. Holding court in its center, wearing the uniform of an Ingonyama, was a boulder of a man. His freshly shaven head gleamed and he had thick eyebrows that sat on a forehead large enough to keep rainfall from ever wetting his nose.
Tau guessed he was the owner of the deep voice, but it was just a guess. There were eleven other Indlovu in the chamber sitting on rising rows of concentric benches, and as the queen’s group entered, they’d all stood to salute her. The queen ignored the military men, so Tau did the same, letting his eyes flit about to take in the rest of the space.
At first glance, the circular room gave the impression of no beginning or end, a room without hierarchy. It was a nice idea, but not an Omehian one, and across the room in front of Tau, instead of another row of benches, there was a line of tall-backed chairs on which six Greater Noblewomen sat. Queen Tsiora focused on them.
“My queen,” said the heavy-browed Ingonyama, saluting hard enough to crack his skull were it not slate thick.
She inclined her head but didn’t look at him. Instead, she spoke to one of the two women seated closest to the center among the six in the chairs. “What do you do here in the dark, Mirembe?”
“My queen,” Mirembe said, rising to bow along with the other Noblewomen, “your presence is an honor.”
“Is it?”
Head low, eyes up, Mirembe smiled as if the queen had made a joke. The Greater Noblewoman, with hair the color of Ihashe grays, had walked her path for many cycles and was still handsome. Her skin, the color of fresh coal, was unlined, her eyes were bright, barely a crinkling at their edges, and when she smiled, her teeth were cloud white. “It’s an honor, my queen, as always, to be near you.”
“If the honor is so great, why not ask us to attend this . . . gathering?”
Mirembe took her seat, her lush dress billowing like a wave when she did. “We gather solely to explore the paths that lie before us. We gather to collect our thoughts so that, once they are collected, they can be presented to you, my queen.”
Nyah took a step forward, drawing even with Tsiora. “By what right?” she asked.
Mirembe looked like she hadn’t understood the question. “Vizier?”
“You heard me.”
Mirembe flashed that cloud-white smile, and in Tau’s mind it stretched wide enough to touch her ears. “Vizier Nyah, I did hear you but don’t understand your concern. We’re simply fulfilling our duty as the peninsula’s one true ruling council.”
Nyah waved a dismissive hand in Mirembe’s direction. “You meet in the middle of the night with the queen’s generals, vote yourselves to power, and have the audacity to—”
“Have a care, Vizier,” Mirembe said. “You have a voice in council decisions, but that tradition is not enough for me to allow you to undermine us.” She shifted in her chair, leaning forward. “We were unanimous without you, but if you’d like to vote against this council’s formation, you can do so now, though it’ll change nothing, given our majority.”
The air was thick with tension. Tau could feel it like it was crawling over him.
“Majority? Who do you six represent but yourselves?” asked Nyah.
Mirembe’s smile slipped. “We are the Ruling Council. We represent the Omehi.”
“The unabridged title is ‘the Queen’s Ruling Council,’ ” Tsiora said, “and perhaps it’s time your queen had her say.”
Mirembe’s smile came back, and when she spoke, Tau saw that her teeth had grown and curved like fangs. “Your Majesty, if it was my decision to make, your say would be all that counted.”
Tau squeezed his eyes shut, doing his best to reject the hallucinations as the chairwoman continued to talk.
“It pains me to even mention it,” Mirembe said, “but as we all know and accept, Omehi law dictates that the queen’s will be balanced with the will of the Guardian and Ruling Councils.”
Tau opened his eyes. The chairwoman looked normal again. He’d shaken the vision loose, but Nyah had noticed his behavior and was looking at him from the corner of her eye.
“Our war with the Xiddeen nears its climax at a time when our queendom has been sundered,” Mirembe said. “Our existence depends on the choices we make these next few days.”
The general nodded.
“Your Majesty,” Mirembe said, “we’re at war and war should not be the business of queens or ruling councils. We have our people to consider, which is why general Ade Otobong has been asked to lead our new Guardian Council and your military.”
“So, you’ve selected and seek to raise to power the man who will act as the third balancing force in our queendom?” Tsiora asked in a way that reminded Tau of how he might stab at an opponent.
“We have and he will,” Mirembe said, voice trembling as she swept her arm out in Otobong’s direction. She sounded earnest to the point of being fearful, but her eyes told a different story. They were bright, sharp, and bold as bronze. “My queen, to end this civil strife, regain Palm City and the faith of all our Noble people, we need to be strong enough to show Odili that the cost of war is too great to bear. We need to present Abasi Odili with an opponent he has no choice but to respect, and this council, servants to you, one and all, have that person in General Otobong.”
“In just one rainy night, you’ve decided all that?” the queen asked.
She was too far away to do so, but Mirembe reached out as if she would hold Tsiora, if only she could. “We have, my queen. My dear, we have. Tell her, General.”
“The council has voted to give me authority over all the Ihagu, Ihashe, and Indlovu who remain loyal to Your Majesty,” General Otobong said. “The path ahead will not be an easy one, but with the Goddess’s blessing, I believe we can reunite our people and retain hold of the peninsula when the Xiddeen attack.”
“With the Goddess’s blessing . . .” Tsiora seemed to be speaking to herself.
Oblivious to her tone, Otobong charged ahead. “We believe Odili has the equivalent of one and a half dragons of fighting men with him in Palm City. He has five scales of Indlovu and thirtysomething Lesser scales that are pretty evenly split between Ihashe and Ihagu. In this city, we have one military dragon made up of a scale and a third of Indlovu and twenty-eight scales of Lessers.
“The numbers make it clear that we can’t take the capital before the Xiddeen return, so our first step will be to open talks with Palm City. I’m confident this will go well because Odili knows me. He knows my record and that I’m good to my word.” Otobong clapped a fist to his chest three times. “He knows he’s better off avoiding the fight I’d give him, and once he’s offered a full pardon, we’ll be able to negotiate reasonable terms with him and Queen Esi.”
At the word “pardon,” Tau’s lips curled back over his teeth and his hands dropped to the hilts of his swords. The movement wasn’t subtle, and the general’s heavy brows pulled together as his eyes dipped to Tau’s sheathed weapons. He was about to say something when the queen spoke.