understand.”
Musoke’s lips thinned and he gripped the head of his cane. “I’ve found an alternate source of funds—the money set aside to be used for your marriage ceremony should you choose to remarry that woman. The independence parade is being held the same weekend, and it’s not like you’ll be keeping her after her displays of disobedience, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Sanyu stared at the man, weighing whether to admit that he’d given thought to making the marriage official and asking Shanti to become his True Queen—he didn’t know why, but the image of his childhood blanket ripped to shreds suddenly popped into his mind.
“Will that be a problem?” Musoke pressed.
“Yes, it will,” Sanyu said. He heard an actual gasp from one of the advisors. “Any decision to reallocate funds needs to go through formal channels. Who approved this change?”
“The department under the finance minister,” Musoke answered. His face was carefully calm, free of even derision, and Sanyu knew he’d just invited as much trouble as if he’d admitted he’d accidentally grown attached to his wife. “Isn’t that correct?”
He looked toward the finance minister, who nodded meekly—in the same way Sanyu usually caved to Musoke’s demands.
Sanyu decided not to push it—the not-fear wasn’t gone, and he could feel it begin to take hold in the muscles of his neck and the spot between his shoulder blades.
“Very well,” he said. “We can go over this at the council meeting next week. I also have a few previous decisions that I’d like to bring up for review and possible reversal. If there’s nothing else, I have other business to attend to.”
“Nothing at all, Your Highness,” Musoke said. “Your presence isn’t needed.”
Sanyu would have usually looked away from the man then, but he held Musoke’s gaze. “No, it isn’t, because everyone in this chamber is in service to me, and I can trust that they’ll make decisions in accordance with my wishes.”
Musoke chuckled. “Correct, Your Highness. I am the one who taught your father that power play.”
Sanyu stalked away from the meeting room with the sensation of asps nipping at his heels. He trusted Musoke, didn’t he? His father had trusted him—he had been the man’s best friend, the other side of his coin, the Amageez to his Omakuumi. For gods’ sake, despite the distance between them, Musoke had raised Sanyu as much as Sanyu I had. He wasn’t the warmest person, and he wasn’t nice, but he wouldn’t undermine his own ward, would he?
It was only when he reached the entrance to the long corridor that led to the queen’s wing that he realized where his feet had automatically carried him.
Sanyu stopped in his tracks, memories long forgotten or suppressed flickering at the edges of his thoughts. There’d been a point in his life, when he was very young, that walking to the queen’s wing had been second nature to him. The images passed in montage, vague blurry outlines of the women who had been queens—who had been nice to him when he snuck to play with them and had treated him with a kindness that Musoke would have punished him for. He only had vague memories of what those kindnesses were, but the pain he’d felt at each new departure, the wariness with which he’d approached each new queen—those were feelings he’d never forgotten. Loss, again and again, was what happened when you grew too attached to the occupant of the queen’s wing.
He couldn’t get attached to Shanti, he reminded himself, no matter how well things went or the fact that he couldn’t imagine being married to anyone but her. Even if he renewed the trial so that she stayed longer, Musoke had already declared that she wasn’t a True Queen. Some things could be changed, but not the foundational traditions of the kingdom. He was starting to care for her, but that was even more reason to ensure that she left.
Njaza wasn’t kind to its queens, and he was now the spirit of Njaza.
He used the formidable will that he’d borrowed from his father and squashed the buzzing, happy sensation that had filled him at the thought of his wife like an insect beneath the heel of his sandal, and then he turned and headed back to his office.
LATER THAT EVENING, as he approached Shanti’s room with a picnic basket on his arm, Sanyu randomly thought of the unfortunately named Njazan Cockchafer—it was an annoyingly loud insect that erratically dive-bombed you without warning and was almost impossible to kill.