universe.
“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Because the council hasn’t addressed outdated trade agreements, Shanti thought bitterly as the sweet juice filled her mouth.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