How to Catch a Queen

by Alyssa Cole

  “Thanks,” Jendy said. “I watched that documentary you suggested about protest movements in the sixties. I like the songwriting, and everyone singing together. I think that will be effective in Njaza.”

  A splinter of self-doubt pricked Shanti’s conscience. Was she wrong to be here, organizing with these people? She was angry at how the kingdom was being run and she had no power at the palace, but her goal was to change it from the top down, not start a rebellion from below. Maybe she really was a disruptive outside force, like Musoke had said.

  No. It will be fine. Every good government needed critique and it’s not as if she was guiding the thoughts of the group. They’d been organizing long before she arrived, and she learned from them as they did from her. She simply used her years of study to give them options in how to best make their voices heard.

  “Ah, is our friend here?” a voice said from behind her, and when she turned she saw an older woman with short gray hair shuffle in through the door carrying a tray stacked with cups and a variety of beverages. She was wearing one of the T-shirts Shanti had bought in bulk for the group, which read NJAZA RISE UP! across the front.

  “Hi, Marie,” Shanti said to the woman who had accepted her without question, even though she was a secretive outsider. “Do you need help with that?”

  “Don’t get up,” Marie said with a shake of her head. “Have some of this passion fruit juice I made. The farmers are trying new crops and the market is flooded with them.”

  Because the council hasn’t addressed outdated trade agreements, Shanti thought bitterly as the sweet juice filled her mouth. She didn’t say that, though—she couldn’t without raising suspicion. A foreigner helping an activist group was one thing, but one with detailed knowledge of the country’s agricultural sector was another.

  “I heard they wish to have a military parade for the fiftieth anniversary of independence,” Jendy said. “Can you imagine? Spending all that money on a parade while telling us that we have to do without to support the kingdom? The nerve!”

  Salli looked around as if to check for someone listening in on them. “I worry that our new king is asleep at the cart reins. Have you seen him at the weekly addresses? He’s like a wind-up doll. Even he doesn’t believe the nonsense he tells us.”

  “He’s lucky he’s a handsome man, so people haven’t abandoned him completely yet,” Marie said with a chuckle. “He was an awkward child, but he grew into that big head of his. For now, the people think, ‘doesn’t he have a fine, strong neck’ instead of dreaming of that neck in a guillotine. For now.”

  Shanti froze. “Guillotine? People want to . . .”

  Salli laughed this time. “No, no one wants to harm our king. But he is the first new king in fifty years! People who had grown complacent suddenly felt hope that things could change, but months have passed and he is turning out to be more of the same.”

  “Perhaps he just needs a push,” Jendy said, and she and Marie shared a meaningful look before she added, “Into a guillotine?”

  Everyone laughed, except for Shanti.

  “Unfortunately for him, he won’t be given a long grace period to win hearts and minds, and he never will without drastic change. I am choosing to have faith in our prince—our king. In the meantime, we’ll keep doing the work,” Marie said, then winked at Shanti. “With gratefulness to all who help us.”

  WHEN SHANTI CRAWLED into her bed a few hours later, she was so wired that she couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept going back to what her friends at the meeting had said about Sanyu—it seemed that just as she had reached her limit with how things worked in this kingdom, so had its citizens, who’d dealt with it for much longer than three months and didn’t have the benefit of late-night chats with their king to endear him to them.

  Now that she was getting to know Sanyu, her initial judgment was only growing stronger. He was a good man, who didn’t know how to share that goodness. He was a strong man, who didn’t know where to direct his strength.

  She could show him how to do those things. Wasn’t that what partners were for?

  But what will he do for you? Slip his big hand over your—

  Shanti sighed. Those kinds of fantasies weren’t helpful when his citizens were starting to make guillotine jokes—New Njaza had been built on the fault lines of civil war, and people first joked about things that they feared.

  His citizens needed to have faith in him, and he didn’t yet have faith in himself.

  Three weeks, she thought, then leaned up, punched the pillow a few times, and forced herself into sleep.

  Chapter 6

  Sanyu knocked on Shanti’s door a bit earlier than usual the evening of the sixth meeting, the finance minister’s folder tucked beneath his arm. Lumu had offered to go over the paperwork with him, which was his job as advisor, but Sanyu had sent him a digital copy and told him they could look it over in the morning. Lumu had been more than happy to return home to his spouses, and Sanyu had sent a message to Musoke that he’d be working through dinner.

  Then he’d carried the folder to Shanti’s chambers, where she’d spent dinnertime since the goat stew incident, and knocked on the door. He wondered if she was eating enough. She seemed too practical not to, but maybe he would order something from the palace kitchen—

  Why isn’t she answering?

  He knocked again. And again. She usually came to the door immediately, and the odd sensation-that-wasn’t-allowed-to-be-fear churned in his stomach. He could easily kick the door in—well, not easily, but more easily than a person with average human-sized legs. Sanyu had trained like the weight of his kingdom was on his shoulders, biceps, thighs, and calves since he was very young, but breaking down the door would make him look like the caricatures of Njazans that had proliferated in international newspapers after independence.

  “Do you need something, Your Highness?” The nosy guardswoman had returned.

  “My wife,” he said. “Did you see her leave?”

  Kenyatta’s eyes darted back and forth. “No. She might be taking a nap. Or in the bath. She sometimes puts on music and soaks in this nice floral-scented bath oil.”

  Sanyu glared down at the guard. “And you know this because?”

  Kenyatta blinked a few times. “She gave me some to take home, Your Highness. It smells very good.”

  Sanyu continued to glare at her, and knocked again.

  Kenyatta grimaced and then leaned closer to Sanyu. “If she is . . . indisposed, your knocking will embarrass her. Perhaps you should give her a few moments?”

  “Oh. Right.” He pulled his hand away from the door.

  His phone vibrated then, and when he glared at the lock screen there was a notification from his text app:

  You have been added to the group: Relaxing LoFi Royal Beats

  He tapped on the notification in annoyance and saw a message from von Braustein.

  Johan : Oh scheisse. Sorry, Sanyu. I accidentally added you to this very cool group of people who incidentally are all royals. I was trying to share the coronation remix of “Sanyu II Is Our Future” and must have pulled up your @ by accident. You might as well stay, right?

  Prince Thabiso: Hello, Sanyu. It’s been ages! The remix of your song slaps, as the children say.

  Panic welled in Sanyu’s chest and he began tapping the screen, searching for an escape from the group.

  Prince Anzam K: Sanyu! Hello, brother!

  Sanyu paused. Anzam was in the group, and he’d been meaning to contact him. That meant it probably couldn’t be too bad—while Anzam was very into his role as the Sun Prince, he didn’t willingly spend time with bad people. He was kind, and his friendship had been a sign that maybe Sanyu was worth something other than being his father’s son.

  Still, Anzam or no, this was like the electronic version of having the spotlight turned on him. What should he say? What was the proper response to their welcome? If he said the wrong thing he’d look like a fool in front of these men, his political contemporaries. In front of Th
abiso, the suave perfect prince everyone compared him to.

  Sweat beaded at his hairline. He tapped at the keypad on the screen and hit Send before he changed his mind.

  Sanyu:

  Sanyu: No

  Sanyu: Wait

  Sanyu: My fingers are large and I hit the wrong emoji

  Sanyu:

  Johan :

  Prince Thabiso: Best chat entrance ever!

  Prince Anzam K: We won’t judge you here. We’re all friends.

  Tav Mac: I feel your pain, mate. Johan also “accidentally” added me to the group and I would’ve used a middle finger emoji except I don’t know where to find them on this hingmie.

  Sanyu watched the conversation continue without him. Tav Mac, who he assumed was the Duke of Edinburgh, Tavish McKenzie, was being shown how to use emojis by his girlfriend and began spamming the group with sword emojis. Anzam added a peach emoji to his display name and then asked Johan what it symbolized. Johan gave a brief emoji anatomy lesson. Anzam left the emoji.

  Sanyu smiled. His friend had always been a free spirit, and the tenets of Druk encouraged the pursuit of all pleasure, including the pleasures of the peach emoji.

  The door to Shanti’s room opened and he glanced away from the chaos on his phone screen to find her staring at him in surprise.

  “Sanyu?”

  Oh right, he’d come here to see his wife. Who was now standing before him in tiny red shorts and a matching loose crop top that clung to the curves of her breasts and exposed a sliver of her stomach.

  “Hello,” he said hoarsely. “You have quite the pajama collection.”

  “You’re here early this evening.” Her eyes were wide and her face looked a bit different. He squinted at her, trying to figure out what had changed.

  “You’re not wearing makeup?”

  “I am. It’s just a more subdued look,” she said. “And that doesn’t explain why you’re lurking outside my door.”

  “I was added to a group chat,” he explained, gesturing to his phone.

  She tilted her head and squinted at him. “A group chat?”

  She seemed slightly agitated when she was usually unruffled, and that triggered a realization—she hadn’t just emerged from a relaxing soak or a brief nap.

  She was hiding something from him.

  “I told you that when we meet is at my discretion, so whenever I arrive is the right time.” He frowned. “I knocked several times and you didn’t answer.”

  And now she was acting strange, while wearing a sexy pajama set. An alien sensation squelched into being in his chest and then slithered through his body.

  Jealousy.

  What had she been doing in this wing all by herself for three months? Had she found someone else to entertain her during the months when he’d ignored her? Kenyatta the guard seemed to know about her bathing habits. Or maybe she’d been covering for her because there was someone else in there.

  “Are you alone?” he asked as he marched into the entryway and closed the door behind him. His muscles felt tense as boulders as he scanned the room.

  Instead of cowering, she dropped a long-fingered hand to her hip and raised her brows. “Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”

  “I asked are you alone. It’s a yes or no question,” he growled. “If the answer was yes, you would have said so, so I’ll assume it’s no.”

  He took another step forward and she placed her hand out, so that when he took another her palm pressed lightly into his chest. The heat of it seared through the light material of his royal robe, and her fingertips pressed into the bare skin of his pectoral.

  “No,” she said firmly.

  “No, you’re not alone? Who—”

  “No, you don’t get to do this.” He could feel her hand trembling against his chest—not from fear, but from anger. “You don’t get to ignore me, lock me in a tower, use me as your advisor without acknowledgment, and then imply I’m having an affair the first time I’m not at your beck and call. Absolutely not.”

  Her voice was cool, but her eyes blazed with that defiance that ignited something in him—the same defiance that’d shown when she’d challenged Musoke in front of the council for the better of the kingdom and when she’d challenged Sanyu by pouring his tea and demanding he be a better king to his people. And now here he was, accusing her of betrayal—though he wasn’t sure it could even be called that since he hadn’t put enough work into their marriage for there to be anything to betray.

  As if sensing his thoughts, she moved to pull her hand away but he brought his larger one over it, holding it in place lightly.

  “I . . . apologize. What I asked was disrespectful and uncalled for. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

  There. The apology of a Njazan king was almost as rare as a Liechtienbourger keeping his word. She should be appeased.

  She wasn’t.

  Her fingers drew together, gathering fabric and surely ruining the pleat of his robe. He found that he liked the tug of her fingers and the press of her knuckles, and the way she stood her ground when most people would be cowering.

  “No, you shouldn’t have.” She stepped closer. His jealousy had faded quickly, a flash of irrational emotion, but her anger was still going strong. “What if someone was here? Would you even care, apart from me somehow having disrespected the great and mighty king?”

  “You don’t want me to answer that,” he said. He didn’t want to answer, was more accurate. Because what he would have done was what he was already doing—realizing how foolish he’d been to ignore her for so long and regretting that he’d started to pay attention too late.

  “I do,” she pressed. “I think I deserve that at least. You barely acknowledged my presence until a week ago. I’ve spent months alone here, pretending everything was all right while wishing I would open this door and you’d be on the other side. But when it happens in real life, you’re here to use me or accuse me. Of course. Every fantasy I’ve ever had becomes a monkey paw wish in this kingdom.”

  They were standing very close together and neither backed off. He looked down at her, his gaze taking in all the smooth skin exposed by the pajamas he’d focused on before. The flex of her biceps and calves. The arches of her feet—she stood on the balls of them, as if not willing to give him more height over her than was absolutely necessary.

  And in her anger, she’d admitted something.

  “Have you—do you . . . You wished I would come to your door? Before now?” he asked, instead of answering her question.

  “I wished you’d do more than come to my door.” She admitted this with barely concealed anger, and by Omakuumi and Amageez both, her frustration was as sexy as it was unexpected. “You’re my husband. And for some reason, despite everything that’s happened so far, I still want you to act like it.”

  The intensity in her gaze was something he felt on his skin—in his bones. Her anger was still there, but it had been joined by desire, like two edges of a ceremonial spearhead poised to pierce him through. He wanted to be pierced, to feel after months in his lonely shroud of grief and years building iron walls around any expectation of connection.

  It’s only been a week, he thought, but that wasn’t true. This pull between them had been there from the moment he’d seen her, and it grew in him now as he looked down into her face.

  “Wife,” he said. “I don’t know how to act like it. I don’t know what a husband is supposed to do but ignore you. You might have noticed this.”

  There. That was an answer, of sorts. It was something that he should have been ashamed to admit but he was so tired of pretending, even in the queen’s wing where no one would report back on his weakness.

  She raised her brows and studied him like he was one of her spreadsheets. “Is this some kind of joke? How do you not . . . know?”

  Sanyu glowered at her—she hadn’t accepted his apology and now spoke to him like he was a fool.

  “Is it common knowledge?” he retorted. “I’m sure
you have the numbers on average divorce rates of various nations in that brain of yours, so you know that it’s not.”

  She nodded. “Okay, true, but your father had many wives, didn’t he? Having wives was his thing. Surely somewhere along the way you observed—”

  “My father is my role model in many ways, but not in how to treat a wife,” he countered darkly. “I’ve already lowered myself by admitting a lack of knowledge. You say you don’t want love, and don’t need affection, but yet you want something. Explain to me what husbandly behavior you had in mind when you imagined me coming to your door. Now.”

  She smiled, a gentle curve of her lips that was somehow both welcome and warning at once. “There’s nothing low about asking for help. I like explaining things to you. You might have noticed this.”

  Sanyu’s heart was beating quickly, but not with the sickening feeling that usually came with his not-fear. In fact, not-fear was the last thing on his mind—his head was only filled with the desire he’d tried to ignore since he first laid eyes on this woman, that he fought every time he saw her, that he’d punished her for by ignoring her instead of giving in to what he’d been taught was weakness.

  “And to explain succinctly, I was horny,” she said. “When I imagined you showing up at my door, you helped me deal with said horniness. It’s the husbandly thing to do.”

  Sanyu swore he could feel the warmth radiating from her. Was she blushing, even as she looked him boldly in the eye and spoke to him like this? He hadn’t even imagined horny was a word in her vocabulary but he was very glad it was.

  Shanti shook her head and pulled back a bit. “Wait. That’s not true. It’s the husbandly thing to do if you’re the kind of husband who wants to be a horniness helper. If you’re not, that’s fine! We all have different needs and desires, and marriage doesn’t change that. I won’t judge you for that, it’s just something we’d discuss.”

  “By the two gods,” he muttered as she continued to talk, because the way she’d pulled back to consider his discomfort instead of pushing him to do what a husband should do was just as arousing as her sexy talk. “Shanti?”