How to Catch a Queen

by Alyssa Cole

  “Out,” she said tersely, unable to look at him.

  “Do you need me to roll your suitcase for you, Madame Your Highness?”

  “No thank you.” She held her chin high and looked straight ahead, but she felt it when he moved to stand beside her.

  “I will walk with you to the gate,” he said quietly. Shanti wondered how many times the older man had done this—escorted a humiliated queen from the palace.

  No one else asked her any questions because he walked by her side, and when they reached the gate, Rafiq tapped his spear three times before bowing.

  Shanti left without saying goodbye because her throat had closed up; a moment after she passed through the guardhouse, she was out on the streets of the capital.

  She kept her gaze trained across the busy street, over the tops of cars and heads of people on motorbikes; she’d never see the palace again.

  She wouldn’t be the True Queen, but she was still a queen for a few days more and there was still work to be done. Shanti didn’t let a little thing like failure get in the way of finishing a job. She would go to the Royal Unity Weekend and give her talk on the Njaza no one knew. Her presentation had to be amazing enough to make up for having gotten herself into this mess—enough to make up for having failed her friends at Njaza Rise Up.

  She would have to find out about this Okwagalena that even Sanyu seemed not to know about.

  New objective acquired, she headed for Liberation Books, toward the people who weren’t queens and had never wanted to be, but worked to save their kingdom just the same. They might never know who she truly was, but they were always happy to help lift her up, and Marie knew more than anyone she’d met in the kingdom.

  “Make opportunity your prey, and may the goddess rain blessings on your pursuit of it.”

  Chapter 20

  Sanyu hadn’t been surprised when Lumu entered the office somberly and told him that the queen had gone. He’d read the letter she’d written, forcing himself not to feel anything as he did, and then tucked it into the drawer of his father’s desk and closed it firmly.

  He hadn’t inquired as to her whereabouts or tried to find her. He’d exercised for hours, showered, and then eaten as little as necessary to keep from feeling weak in body as well as in mind. He’d tried to forget. It was what he always did when a queen left—except this time he didn’t think he’d be able to.

  He was in his office staring at the wall the next day when Lumu walked in without knocking. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Has Minister Masane brought the proposal?”

  Lumu came around the giant desk and leaned against the edge of it, looking down at Sanyu.

  “Your Highness, you don’t have any more questions about the fact that your wife is gone?”

  Sanyu’s chest felt tight and there was a pain there that wasn’t the not-fear—it wasn’t an anxiety attack. He closed his eyes, briefly, and savored it like the tea Shanti would give him when he visited her bedroom. Shame. Regret. Anger. Confusion. Loneliness. Those were the notes of this brew of heartache.

  When he opened his eyes, he glared at Lumu and lifted one shoulder.

  “This is Njaza. Queens don’t stay, you know that,” he said. “My own mother didn’t stay. Why should I expect my wife to?”

  Lumu’s firm hand clapped down onto Sanyu’s shoulder, startling him. He was used to only being touched in sparring practice, or by his dresser, or most recently by his wife—no, that wasn’t true. Lumu had always given him that anchoring touch. That reminder of friendship and support.

  “Sanyu, man. Come on.” Lumu squeezed gently. “Things don’t have to be that way, and you know it because you’ve already started to make changes. You can expect people to treat you well. You can expect people to stay. I’ve never gone anywhere, have I?”

  Sanyu was horrified to feel his eyes warm with tears. He blinked them back, and shook his head gruffly. “Don’t be foolish. I already have so much to do and trying to change everything at once will just lead to messing everything up. I’ll be fine. Kings of Njaza—”

  “—are human. You are human. Just because you are king doesn’t mean you don’t get love and support.”

  Sanyu cringed, trying not to let the bitterness drain from his heart’s brew. He didn’t want to deal with what would be left behind. That one thing he’d thought couldn’t flourish within the palace walls.

  Hope.

  “I don’t need those things. It is not the way of our king.”

  “Says who?” Lumu pressed. “I know you’ve been told tradition this and tradition that, but you are truly not touched by Amageez because you never questioned who started these traditions and why. Sometimes when you pull up a hardy bush, you find it’s held in the earth by the thinnest of roots.”

  Sanyu glanced at Lumu, and raised his brows. “Enough of that. Who do I contact in Thesolo to arrange for a visit?”

  “She hasn’t left the country yet,” Lumu said, pushing off of the desk. “I don’t know where she is though. Njaza isn’t the most accommodating terrain for a scavenger hunt, but I think this prize is worth it to you.”

  “How can I ask her to come back to the palace after what I did?” Sanyu asked on a heavy sigh. “I threw her hard work under the bus because I was afraid. I didn’t credit her out of fear the ideas would be rejected. I didn’t want to disappoint Musoke so I disappointed her instead.”

  “You’ve already figured out what you did wrong—some people never get that far.” Lumu laughed gently; lovingly. “Marriage isn’t happily-ever-after—you’re right about that. There will be disagreements and hurt feelings and misunderstandings, though not always linked to the well-being of an entire kingdom.” He threw up his hands. “There’s no magic to making it work, and no prayers to the gods that provide a shortcut to happiness. Communicate. Apologize. Show her you love her. Try to make her happy. That’s all you can do.”

  “That sounds harder than being king, and I’ve been shit at that,” Sanyu said with a defeated laugh.

  “Good thing you don’t have to do either of those things alone,” Lumu said.

  Sanyu inhaled deeply, feeling his back press into the chair that was too small for him. He thought of the deep brown of Shanti’s eyes, and her sharp tongue, and the strength that she couldn’t hide even when she tried. He thought of the goodness of his wife, and how it had been squandered. And then, as he’d done on all those late nights they’d planned for the kingdom’s future, he began to plan for his and his wife’s. Sanyu knew now that all he needed was an objective he cared about in order to cut out all the thoughts that might overwhelm him. Now he had one.

  “Can you take care of things here leading up to the parade, O wise Advisor?” he asked, standing up. “My wife is very intelligent, I don’t think finding her will be a couple of hours’ work.”

  “It’s under control, and I’ll call you if I need anything,” Lumu said.

  Sanyu left when perhaps he should have stayed, but this time the urge pushing him out of his office door wasn’t to run away from Njaza and never look back; it was to find his wife, and if she’d have him, to keep her.

  AFTER A SEARCH of her quarters turned up only the odd scent of vinegar, and a teary Kenyatta could think of no possibilities apart from Thesolo, Sanyu found himself at the library, where he spoke to Josiane.

  “So she left you, they say? Another queen gone and forgotten, huh?” She dusted her hands together and then clapped, the sound startling in the quiet of the library.

  “Actually, I came to see if she stopped by before she left. I know you two didn’t really get along, but if she passed through here to pick up her belongings, maybe you noticed something or overheard her say where she was going?”

  “You’re looking for her?” She squinted up at him, her dark gaze sharp as thorns. Something about her made him feel like a boy again. “Why? To punish her for leaving before you could send her away yourself?”

  “No. Because I want her to come back. I want her to stay.
” Sanyu didn’t even feel ashamed to say it. How could he be ashamed of the truth? “I’m going to try a bookshop she frequented next, but thought I’d ask here first.”

  “Well. Humph.” She crossed her arms over her chest then called out over her shoulder. “Gertinj! Did you drive the minivan to work today?”

  Another older librarian peeped out. “Ouay. Why?”

  “We have to drive the prince somewhere,” she said.

  “The king!” Gertinj reminded her.

  “Oh, you know what I meant. Let’s go.” Josiane started walking off at a much faster pace than Sanyu expected, and all he could do was trot after her. He’d planned to have the royal chauffeur take him, but the old librarian’s determined stride wasn’t to be argued with.

  Fifteen minutes later, after refereeing a shouting match over a parking spot between Gertinj and a taxi driver, Sanyu found himself in front of a trendy-looking café with the name Liberation Books burnt into a reclaimed wood panel. He was flanked on either side by Gertinj and Josiane. It was still early, and the shop hadn’t opened yet, but they walked in confidently and he followed.

  “Marie?” Josiane called out, and after the sounds of paper rustling in the back, a woman with a familiar face stepped out. He had to squint at her to be sure but—yes. She was his heckler.

  She smiled at him.

  “Your Highness,” she said with a regal curtsy. “Your wife isn’t here.”

  “Do you know where she is?” he asked.

  “If you, her husband, have no idea at all, then you have no right to sniff after her and bother her,” Marie said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Your Highness.”

  “Oh, come on, you’re a smart boy. Think!” Josiane lightly slapped his arm, then gave the same spot an apologetic rub.

  Sanyu took a deep breath and began to sift through his thoughts, pushing aside the rising panic that he’d truly never see her again. Shanti might have left for the conference in Thesolo—except Lumu had said she was still in the country. She’d wanted to tour the country, but also had lit up when he’d mentioned the temple of Amageez, and had spoken privately with one of the acolytes there about something or somewhere called Okwagalena.

  “Maybe she’d visit the temple of Amageez again,” he said. “She was very interested in some things there.”

  “I’ll bring the car around!” Gertinj called out excitedly.

  Half an hour later, after dealing with Josiane shouting at the morning traffic and Gertinj and Marie peppering him with questions, they arrived at the temple he and Shanti had visited together.

  Three of the older attendants were waiting in front of the temple, happily chatting in their simple brown frocks. When he opened the door to get out, he was pushed back in, the minivan filling with the scent of the herbs they burned to honor Amageez.

  “She’s already left, Your Highness,” one of the women said as she clambered in. “You know where, right?”

  “Do I?” he asked, his frustration making him snappy. Maybe she’d gone to the terraced farmland? No, she had no reason to visit there. Perhaps the proposed sites of the Rail Pan Afrique stations—no, no, she had no need to go there either.

  Josiane sucked her teeth. “You were always so indecisive. I told you to think before, but now I’m telling you not to overthink. Where should we go, boy?”

  After they visited the temple, Shanti had asked him about . . .

  “Njinisbade,” he said, gathering his robe closer to himself as two acolytes settled in beside him.

  Several whoops filled the minivan.

  “Let’s go,” Gertinj said, pulling away. “Yes! I always knew he was a smart boy.”

  He should have been uncomfortable and anxious, but as the women chattered around him, he found himself slipping into a kind of peaceful trance despite the fact that Gertinj had the pedal to the metal on the craterous route to Njinisbade. The women laughed and reminisced, pointing out landmarks from their childhood, towns that had disappeared, places where land mines might still lurk.

  They passed around snacks pulled from purses.

  They argued.

  They sang.

  There was something joyful and comforting about the flow of conversation around him. Something that had been missing at the palace for most of his childhood, except for those times when there was a queen present who would be kind to him before leaving as they always did . . .

  One of the women beside him began to sing as he drowsed, her voice soft and sweet. “Sanyu II, even fiercer than his father! Our prince, one day our mighty king.”

  Sanyu jolted upright as a memory struck him. The radio version of the song had been stuck in his head for years, but it wasn’t the only version. This was the voice of the acapella version of the song that sometimes looped in his head; a voice that hadn’t changed much in almost twenty-five years.

  One of the queens had first sang the song to him, when he was upset after being chastised by Musoke. It had been a lullaby, not a dance tune, not a theme song—he’d always assumed that his mind had created the soothing version, but no. This was the voice from his alternate earworm. And this was the woman who had comforted him with it before the song somehow made its way to the radio stations.

  How had he forgotten?

  He knew how, actually—each time a queen left, he tried to forget all of the good times he’d had with her. He’d willed the memories away, forcing himself to be strong and hard like Musoke demanded. It had been the only way not to hurt too much when they were gone.

  He looked down at the woman, shame filling him—he couldn’t even remember her name. It’d been so long ago and he’d worked so hard to forget.

  “You were . . . married to my father?” he asked the woman who’d just serenaded him again all these long years after she’d left the palace.

  She grinned. “Yes.”

  “Yes,” the two attendants on his other side said in unison.

  “Ouay,” said Marie.

  “How?” Sanyu choked the word out, looking between the women.

  “Okay, maybe he isn’t so smart,” Gertinj said as she briefly caught his eye in the rearview mirror. “All of us were married to your father.”

  “Don’t forget time passes more quickly for us old folks,” Josiane said from the passenger seat. “Yesterday for us was decades for him. Of course, the boy wouldn’t remember you.”

  She looked back over her shoulder and smiled warmly at him and, yes, he remembered that smile on a face that had not yet been lined with age.

  “I thought you all left,” he said, voice hoarse for some reason. “The queens always leave.”

  “Sometimes they come back,” Marie said with a wink.

  “Why?” Sanyu’s voice shook as the car juddered along a winding rock-strewn excuse for a road. At least he hoped that was the reason.

  “To assassinate the new king and form a matriarchy,” Gertinj said menacingly, and all of the women cackled, the sound filling the car.

  “No. To destroy the monarchy in all its forms,” Marie said.

  The woman next to Sanyu patted his arm. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure you’re spared from the guillotine.”

  He glanced down at her. “What?”

  “We’re joking,” another of the acolytes said.

  The car made a hairpin turn in the road just then and pulled up in front of a beautiful house of wood and stone and iron, a merging of ancient Njazan with the modern. The sun was setting behind it, bathing it in a fiery orange glow.

  “We’re here,” Marie shouted out of the window. The queens piled out of the car, and Sanyu followed, still too dumbstruck to fully comprehend what was going on.

  There was a ramp leading into the house, and above the doorway a phrase was carved:

  Temple of Okwagalena of the Peace

  The wooden double doors at the entryway opened and Shanti walked out, clad in jeans and boots and a light sweater but looking as beautiful and regal as when she sported her gowns.

  The robe-clad
woman who shuffled out beside her was shrunken with age, her hair a cap of soft gray curls, but her eyes were bright and assessing.

  Around him, the former queens dropped into whatever level of curtsy they could safely perform. Sanyu didn’t know what was going on, but he dropped to one knee before the woman, keeping his head raised.

  “You kneel before me, Sanyu II, King of Njaza?” The woman’s voice seemed too big for her small frame, and was carried on a frequency that made the hairs on his arms rise.

  “Yes,” he said, studying her.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “I do,” he said, because in that moment he understood. “You are the first queen of Njaza.”

  The prototype.

  Sanyu realized that he was looking at the reason no other queen had ever measured up in his father and Musoke’s eyes, the reason why so many women had been brought in for show and then tossed aside. And his own wife, his Shanti, stood side by side with her, as her equal. She was familiar to him somehow, though he was certain she’d never been at the palace when he was a boy like the other queens.

  “I am Anise, attendant of Okwagalena. I am the one who left,” she said. “And you? You are the one who will restore balance to our kingdom.”

  “Didn’t expect this when you came sniffing after your wife, did you?” Josiane asked with a laugh as she straightened slowly with assistance from Gertinj.

  A cell phone timer went off and Anise pulled a sleek new model from a fold in her robe and tapped to stop it, then broke her serious expression with a smile.

  “Come. It’s time for dinner. Shanti has cooked for us and we have much to discuss.”

  Sanyu held his wife’s gaze. There was still anger and betrayal in her eyes, but he felt that she was glad he’d come to find her. The women around him had stopped holding their curtsies but he remained on one knee.

  “Shanti,” he said. “Wife. What I did was wrong. I knew it was wrong when I did it, and I put my own desire to be praised and keep the peace before your happiness and the well-being of the kingdom. I am sorry.”

  “He certainly didn’t inherit that from his father,” Anise said, glancing between the two of them. “That man wouldn’t apologize if he had a knife to his throat, Okwagalena soothe his spirit.”