[b]Addis Ababa[/b]

Her head was clouded by wine by the time they reached the highest floor. [i]What the hell am I doing? He doesn't want to talk business. He wants something else.[/i] Ita Thabiti had been Taytu's right hand since the days of the Katanga rebellion. At that he was unparalleled. He could follow up on her meetings, entertain foreign advisers, and dictate her wishes to subordinates in a way that was rare in an assistant. [i]He thinks like me. He knows me. And...[/i]

She had considered him. He was an adult - not like Yaqob's marriage to his childhood crush, or Sahle's pursuit of whichever girl was the most inappropriate to chase in that moment. Ita Thabiti was old than her by ten years, and more experienced than she was. He had been in the background of Ethiopian foreign relations when she was a teenage girl flirtatiously skiing after boys in the Austrian Alps. He had lost his hair, keeping only a ring of black fuzz around his temples and a close-cropped beard to draw attention from the shining brown skin at the top of his head. His eyes had began to weaken, and he oftentimes wore thick frame glasses to read. 

[i]He's solid. The type of man I should consider for marriage.[/i] Sahle had left no known children, and Yaqob had only one. Her adopted son - the maimed little boy from the Congo - was not considered a legitimate heir to the line of Solomon. He did not have their blood. Their family needed more issue if it was going to continue past the turbulence that seemed inevitable. [i]But he's not... he's not who I would want.[/i] The thought shamed her. She was her brother's sister, no matter how much she fought it. Their father had left only children to rule his dream of a unified Africa. 

Wordlessly, Thabiti fumbled with the keys and pushed the door to his penthouse open. He stumbled in. Taytu minded her feet as she crossed the threshold. It would not be seemly to look drunk in front of her assistant. [i]It was only two glasses.[/i]

They turned the corner and her eyes drifted up from her feet. She paused, her head buzzing as she let out a slight gasp. [i]It's beautiful. He did not tell me that.[/i]

He had, of course. The week after he had bought this place, he had bragged about the view any chance he got. It was on the top of one of the taller towers in the capital, and the farthest wall in the main room was nothing but a long window bubbling out past the ceiling. Night had fell on Addis Ababa, leaving the city awash in scattered twinkling lights that blended with the stars beyond. In the north, in the far right of the scene beyond the window, the mountains of the Ethiopian highlands stood silent and dark - a cloud of black-purple rolling from the north. 

[i]To the north is Egypt. Past those mountains...[/i]

"It's lovely." she slurred. [i]Only two glasses.[/i] She found a set in front of a round ironwood table with vines carved along its rim. Thabiti fumbled in the open kitchen, and she immediately recognized the sound of clanking glass. [i]Only two...[/i]

She looked around. It was not the laconic space she had expected. Potted plants hung from the ceiling, some flowering now that it was spring. A set of chairs dominated a far corner of the room. They were backless, made up of what looked like thick sagging pillows propped up by crossed darkwood legs. The cloth was intricately patterned with earthen colors zig-zagging into geometric patterns that reminded her of a tribal blanket. A frightening long mask with a grainy wooden face bent in an expression of evil rage dominated one wall, while a circular canvas painting of a baboon sitting erect against a few stones and blades of grass centered the other. The room smelled of flowers and cologne and something else...

[i]Cannabis? That is a surprise.[/i] She hadn't partaken since she left Europe. The thought of Ita laying back and smoking a green cigarette... 

[i]Maybe he is fun...[/i]

Her thoughts returned to a cabin in the mountains near Innsbruck. The earthy smell of the weed filled the room and they spent the night listening to some old French "Youth Music". She could remember the eldest boy, the one who owned the cabin... Gustav, his name had been. When he told them they called this type of Cannabis "Jamaican Lettuce", she had giggled at the thought of some poor island family eating it for supper.

 Thabiti came to the table with freshly poured glassed of wine, and she remembered Egypt. She took the glass and held it to her lip. [i]Just two...[/i]

She took a sip.

"We should try again tomorrow." she said, sniffing. 

"Try what, Princess?" Ita questioned. The flashing lights from a passing ambulance danced across his baldness. 

"Egypt." she said, taking another sip. 

Thabiti's shoulders sunk. [i]That's not what he hoped to talk about.[/i]

"We've tried the Beylerbey, and we've tried Aswan. Neither seem to want to think about it." He said. 

The Beylerbey in Cairo was the closest the nation had to an official government. His office was the last remnants of Ottoman power in Egypt, but their only true army was the police. Everything else was ruled by militias. Turks and their supporters fought against those who wished to drive out all Turkish influence. Some wished to find their old Sultan and restore him, while at least three others claimed to be the Sultan themselves. There was no organization there. No real government. 

Aswan was the next best thing. A small army of Bedouin rebels had taken control of much of the south, gaining support from the numerous Arabs in the south. They had declared themselves the "Sheikdom of the Nile." Whether or not that government would even last a week was yet to be determined. 

[i]Both have called us enemies in the recent past. The Turks just lost a war against us, and the Bedouins will remember how we helped those same Turks conquer and divide their homeland.[/i] Taytu had hoped that they would see the newest threat as a reason to unify and align themselves with their African neighbor, but it hadn't worked out that way.

"Is there any other factions we might ask?" Taytu asked desperately. [i]I know this answer.[/i] Any others at all?

"Thousands." Thabiti said coldly, gently rocking his glass back and forth before he took a sip. "None that mean anything though. You're asking them to help us against a world power."

"Help themselves." Taytu corrected. "If the Walinzi aren't mistaken and there is a Spanish invasion imminent, North Africa is threatened as a whole." It made the most sense. The Empire that Ethiopia commanded was immense, dominated by poorly roaded jungles and swamps, deserts and mountains, long rivers ruled by tribes who had learned to hate whites at the cost of their hands, and diseases that would make a man from the glass apartments of Madrid shit himself until he died. To approach from the west would mean the Congo, and the Spanish already had bad memories about the first venture into the heart of darkness. The east was another problem. The east was deserts and mountains. The east had broken the Turks, and it had broken the Germans, and a century before that it had broken Italy. If the Spanish were to succeed in taming Africa where the Germans had failed, they would have to keep their approaches open, and neither Libya nor Egypt had the ability to withstand them on their own.

"We have no evidence, no real evidence, that Spain means to invade." Thabiti said. He tried to sound comforting, but Taytu could hear his intentions in his voice. "We have allies in China, and in the middle east. We are in the best position we could wish to be. Sotelo would be a fool to try us."

The Middle East... what was that? Armenia and Palestine barely had enough men to successfully pop a zit. They had proved themselves capable when fighting on their own turf against an enemy with one foot in the grave, but Spain was something else. Spain was all that Europe had ever been and more. 

And China... perhaps if they tried, China could fight Spain, but China was a lone wolf in a pit of lions. Spain and their allies could control every border around the Communist superpower before the Chinese understood the value of allies. Her father had considered the Chinese alliance his crowning achievement, but when the Germans feigned to make Africa theirs, China had stared from across the sea. Sahle had offended them to be sure... but Taytu felt certain that they wouldn't have came regardless.

"Maybe." Taytu took a sip. "But if they do come... We don't know what they have."

Thabiti put his hand on hers. [i]Too familar...[/i]

"We don't have to worry. You should worry."

"It is my job to worry, Ita." she said, withdrawing her hand. "The last war nearly killed your Emperor. My brother. I don't think his mind could handle a second. He has a gentle heart, but somebody shot at that heart and now it's surrounded by scar tissue. This entire country is balanced like a see-saw. We try to guide it one way and it slides to the other. If we add an invasion to the pot... i'm not sure what would happen."

She stood up, but the wine made her head flutter. She looked at her glass and noticed that it was nearly empty. [i]Just three.[/i] She pressed her hand against the table to steady herself.

"Sotelo couldn't lead the Spanish into such a destructive war... the people would undo him." Thabiti argued. He looked at her nervously. [i]He wants me to sit back down. He is afraid I will leave before...[/i]

"Spain is full of..." she lost her train of thought. When she thought of Spain, she thought of a cold European city full of glass and concrete. Her head swam as she went to form a sentence. "Concrete... built of..." [i]Dammit, how did I get this drunk?[/i] She remembered again. [i]Hate.[/i] "Spain is built with hate and... concrete."

"You need to sit down and stop worrying." Thabiti said. He reached out for her arm, but she pulled away.

[i]How can I not worry? War means killing and I don't want to lose anybody else.[/i]

She plucked her glass from the table and stared into the clear purple remnants of the liquid. 

"If Sotelo causes a war, the Spaniards will rip him a new asshole. It will happen.

Taytu drank the last sip and raised her glass with a nervous smile. "Rest in Peace Sotelo's ass." she said drunkenly. [i]I need to go home...[/i]