[b]Dar es Salaam, The Confederation of Tanganyika and Mozambique[/b]

The Tanganyikan authorities locked Taytu in the royal suite of an old colonial hotel, and they left her there for eight days. She did not know what to think.

There had been no signs of a Spanish presence between the airport and her plush prison, though the shooting of the Walinzi agent had left her dazed for most of the ride. As far as she could tell, they were trying their best to treat her like a guest now. Her room was large, with a view over the city facing toward the sea. There was a kitchen stocked with food, a radio, and a silk canopy bed with a leopard skin draped across the sheets. The bed faced a mural depicting a black Adam and Eve in a thick African jungle, and false vines decorated the other walls. Every day they sent her a messenger with a newspaper, an apology for the delay, and assurances she would be properly briefed on developments shortly enough.

So she waited. For the first few days, she listened to the radio and read the newspaper, hungry for any news of the war. It was slow, only mentions of the Brazilian and American comments on the invasion, and updates on the Battle of the Mandeb. After that, she lingered in the bath for an hour. When she climbed out, she did her hair into tight rows, exploding into a bush of unchecked frizz in the back. For the remainder of the day she had nothing to do but eat, listen to the radio, and stare out the plate-glass window at the city below.

Dar es Salaam was the image of a typical African colonial city. Neat European streets crisscrossed the center of town, where buildings with a mixture of Arab and stylized African architecture decayed in the Swahili heat. Many of them had been white once, but age and grime turned them the color of stained teeth. Beyond the city center lay a mish-mash of colonial buildings, traditional mud huts, and new shacks built from scrap. Coconut palms and leafy savannah trees bloomed green along freshly paved avenues, leading to the dirt road sprawl where most people lived.

Tanganyika and Mozambique had both been made independent during Yaqob's visit to Europe at the beginning of his reign. In truth, they had been German colonies in name only by the time Yaqob got involved. Mozambique was taken by Germany from Portugal as spoils after the Great War, but the official language of that country still remained Portuguese. From the end of the War until Yaqob's deal, they had both been backwater posts for unpopular German officials to languish with minimal government funding and poor support. In Tanganyika, the colonial government had come to rely on the Swahili people of the coast, and they used the the Maasai and Sukuma tribes of the north to keep the southern Matumbi, Hehe, and Ngoni at bay. When the Germans left the country to Yaqob's advisors, it was a Sukuma government that was put in charge despite attempts to bring the southerners into the fold. There was bad blood between north and south now, and Taytu wondered what part it might be playing in the confusion she had unwittingly became involved in.

But Tanganyika and Mozambique were not one country. Rather, they were a loose confederation of two separate nations, meaning Mozambique had its own government. Left mostly alone by the Germans, violence had been less frequent there, as the Portuguese and mestizo populations allowed for a transition that was fluid and balanced. It was the poorest state in Yaqob's small African alliance, however, and its influence was small. The Ethiopians had made considerable effort to bring more native Africans into its government. That had only caused some of the ruling Portuguese to leave the country for their ancestral homeland, though the Spanish shadow over Portugal sent many of them packing for Brazil instead. Poverty was the defining problem in Mozambique, and the government was desperate to keep the peace between the remaining intelligentsia in Maputo and the hungry villages of the rural countryside.

For several days she had considered these facts, obsessing over them as she watched the days turn to nights over the sleeping Tanganyikan capital. Instability must be the key. Even now, both states were too young to stand on their own. Could they withstand a war? 

Her political musing ended abruptly on the third day. That is when the news reached her that the royal plane had been shot down over the Indian Ocean. No survivors had been found. Alone, with no control over her own future, she discovered that her mother was dead. Her sister the Queen was dead, as was her nephew. And her own adopted son, he was dead too. She had broke down that day and cried herself to sleep before she could take a bath. When she woke up, it was night.

She was supposed to be on that plane. She might have been on that plane, and she might have died as well. She should have been there with her son, or maybe he should have been with her here. She had saved him from Hassan so he could drown? How was that fair? How was it fair that her mother had died like that, without the Queenly dignity she deserved? And Yaqob.

Oh Yaqob. How much would he have to endure in his lifetime? How had he sinned that he should suffer like this?

Where she had been confused before, grief and fear made her feel trapped like an animal. She saw the faces of her dead family in her mind's eye, and she could do nothing but grieve. What else was there for her to do? It was a small comfort that her captors began to give her wine with her newspaper now, and she drank a bottle every night so she could sleep.

When she sobered in the morning, her thoughts returned to what she had lost. It was her and Yaqob now, the sole survivors of Iyasu's dynasty. Her grandfather had broken the Solomonic nobility of Ethiopia before she was born. If her and Yaqob died, would there be anybody to replace them, or would the house of Solomon go extinct? Modernity trudged ahead like an elephant in musth. It smashed and rampaged, destroying everything around until only it remained. She had always considered herself a liberal like her father, but it felt unnatural trying to hold that opinion when the rest of the world saw you and everybody you loved as relics of a bygone age. 

The newspapers reported that it had been a modern weapon, a fearsome fighter plane with a new style of engine that outpaced everything the Ethiopians had to offer. She recognized that it must be the same sort of plane the Chinese were experimenting with on Pemba. She had never seen them, but Walinzi reports had told of their existence, and hinted at the possibility that Spain might be fielding the same sort of craft. The murder of her family proved it. They had been killed by something their government could not protect them against, and that made Taytu even more doubtful.

Her doubt grew every day, and the walls seemed to close in nearer and nearer. There was no news after that, nothing that she could do anything with. Spain had suffered heavy casualties after their initial landing in Djibouti, and they were pinned in the city. The newspaper reported that a Spanish naval bombardment had started a fire that blazed out of control and burned down most of Djibouti, killing thousands of civilians in their homes. Every story about the war made her sick, but she had to read them. They were one of the only things that kept her mind occupied and allowed her to gather her thoughts. She cried more now, unable to cope with the loss of her mother or her failure to care for Olivier.

But on the eighth day, the messenger came with another set of guards and surprised her.

"The Confederate Council will see you now." he told her cheerfully. "Do you want to prepare yourself?" She said yes, and she went back to do her hair and clean her face. When she was ready, they left.

-- 

She was taken to the State House in a nondescript beige sedan with tinted windows. The city passed by her like a blur, open-space markets and plaster walls reminding her of Addis Ababa. Once, when the foot traffic forced them to stop, she saw a graffiti caricature of a white man in a suit on the wall near where some men were grilling fish. He had demonic features, and he held a rifle with a plain yellow flag on it. She realized he was supposed to be a Spaniard of some sort, and it gave her hope to see that the caricature was splattered with rotten food and other filth that had been thrown at it like a dart-board. It made her feel hopeful.

They arrived at the Statehouse late in the morning. It was a plain looking building with lazy arched columns and a flower garden dominating the yard in front. They came to a stop where guards waited for her. They were dressed in antiquated Askari garb; Khaki clothes, wide-brimmed hats, and short spears held at the bottom and left to rest against their shoulders as if they were rifles. They escorted her at a brisk pace, like a prisoner being led to trial. Her hope began to fade again. She was surprised that she was not nervous. Death had been a possibility for eight days, but instead of fear she felt resigned curiosity.

They went inside through the front door, and she was taken aback by the elephant in the room. There was, quite literally, an elephant in the room. It was stuffed and placed on a pedestal in the center of the rounded two-story entryway. In front of it was a glass case with a tattered British flag inside, but she did not have the opportunity to read what it said. A relic from the Great War, she had no doubt. 

She was lead through bare white halls until they came to a place with more guards. It was a courtroom, she realized. Was she being tried for something. A guard opened the door and she was motioned to go inside.

At the back of the room was a panel of five men. Two of them she knew. In the center was Adolf Mwashinga, an elderly dark-skinned man with a thin ring of white hair circling his bald scalp. He was the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Tanzania, and she had worked with him before. To his left was Joao Salomao, the overweight native-born Minister of Foreign Affairs for Mozambique. The other three men she did not know.

It was a courtroom otherwise, but all the seats were empty. It was just Taytu, the five men, and the guards. On the back wall hung two flags. In the center was the flag of Tanganyika; a horizontal black stripe with yellow borders against a green field. To its right was the flag of Mozambique; a horizontal tricolor of green, black, and yellow. To the left of the Tanganyikan flag was a square of wall that was lighter than the rest. She knew that the empty space had once held the Ethiopian flag. They had taken it down, she knew, and that made her mad.

"I demand to know why you killed one of my Walinzi in cold blood." she heard herself say. 

"I apologize for the incident, Le'elt Taytu." Mwashinga replied. The shiny top of his bald head was dotted with sweat, and he wiped it down with a handkerchief so often that it looked as if he was the one on trial.

"And may I say, Le'elt Taytu." the unknown man on the far right said softly. "That we are extremely sorry for your loss. I was aggrieved to hear that such indecency can be done during a war in the civilized age."

"I do not know you, sir." Taytu replied wearily. "May I have your name?"

"Mukwava Kidude. I am in the senate."

"Mr. Kidude is on the Committee for Tribal Affairs." Mwashinga interjected. 

"Tribal Affairs?" Taytu asked.

Mukwava Kidude smiled politely. "We require that one of our committee members be allowed to sit in on most things, to make sure the rural people are included in decision making."

"Then I thank you for your words, Senator Kidude. But my question has not been answered. Why was one of my men murdered in cold blood, and why I am under arrest by an allied nation?"

"We are holding you for suspicion of inciting our population to war." Adolf Mwashinga said, patting his head with his kerchief. "Your man pulled his weapon during the arrest, and our men had the right to protect themselves. We are deeply sorry for his death."

"You are deeply sorry for a great many things." Taytu barked. "And being sorry is the only thing that Tanganyika has done right since I landed here. Inciting war? We're allies! I came here to talk to your government about the conflict that you are required by treaty to support us in."

"We will get to that. It has been our intention to bring you up to date as soon as possible, but things are complicated now." Mwashinga said. He looked to his colleagues. "You have met Senator Kidude and Minister Salomao. This man to my right is Dr. Rudolf Sumari, he is the Director of the Tanganyikan Walinzi. And to the left end of the table is Teodato Zucula. He is the Minister of Justice in Mozambique."

She nodded. "Good. Now will you explain your betrayal?"

"Our governments have determined that our inclusion in the the African Continental Entente agreement is illegitimate, as it was decided upon by foreign powers rather than our own people." Zuculu said. He spoke with a pronounced Portuguese accent, which seemed out of place for a native African. "Since the ACE agreement was ratified before either of our nation's constitutions were complete, and because signing it was a prerequisite for our independence, we see it as having been done in bad faith. Therefore it is illegitimate."

"You never complained before." Taytu argued. "When my government reached out to help fund yours, and to build a military to defend yourself, I never saw you act to reject it."

"A military, yes." Sumari stated. "But for use by whom? Has the Ethiopian Empire not been preparing for a war against the Europeans since nineteen seventy? Now that we have our independence, we have no reason to go to war with Spain or any other European power."

"You have your independence because of my brother, and he only asked your support. You owe him!"

"We are not subjects of Emperor Yaqob, Le'elt." Senator Kidude spoke. "We do not owe him things. This debate is strictly about legality."

"If we are talking law then." She said. "Why am I being held a prisoner?"

"We are holding you for suspicion of inciting our population to war." Mwashinga repeated. 

"And what does that mean? I hope you know that I did not come to preach in the streets." 

There was a nervous pause among the committee. "We are aware, but the situation is delicate." Mwashinga began.

"We do not know why you have come, if we are to be honest about it." Senator Kidude interjected. "If you believed we would honor our treaties before you arrived, than why are you here? Surely you don't think we need Imperial oversight. We only got word of your arrival three hours before you landed. What are we to think of that?"

"I apologize for the sudden nature of this visit." Taytu said wearily. She hadn't considered this angle. Had her visit scared them? "I was originally supposed to be on the plane that went down over the sea. I only came here after a last minute discussion with my brother."

"A discussion." Sumari spoke up. "What were the details of this discussion, if I may ask?"

"It was a private discussion." Taytu insisted. "Between siblings. It is inappropriate for you to ask."

"Well then, there we have it." Mwashinga said. "Secrets. How do you expect us to trust you or your government? The people of Tanzania cannot go to war for no reason. Not with Spain. If the Spanish navy decided to occupy this port, what do you think would happen to its people."

"They would suffer." Taytu admitted. "As they will when it inevitably happens. Do not think that my government started this war, Minister Mwashinga. You are not dumb men, you can see what is happening to this continent. The British are reasserting themselves in South Africa, and Spain has been gobbling up territories on our continent since the French first sold them their colonies in West Africa. This isn't just a war, this is colonization, and your nations stand in the way of European domination. Gentlemen, the Europeans think of the past half-century as a brief pause in their Imperium. We have all tried to build a free Africa here, now we have to fight for it. One people, one continent..."

"One Empire." Senator Kidude interrupted. "Is that the way of it? You said you were not here to preach."

"I said I was not here to preach in the people in the streets, but I am here to talk to their government. Though, I am beginning to wonder, what do the people think about their government's decision in this case?"

There was a telling pause, and brief moment where Mwashinga looked at Dr. Sumari. And then she understood.

"Does my government know that I being held captive." Taytu asked pointedly. 

"No." Mwashinga muttered. "Not yet. We do not see you as under arrest."

"You do not see, you do not see, you do not see." she muttered to herself. "You should tell my government the truth, even if you do not know the truth yourself."

"And what is the truth, Le'elt Taytu?" Senator Kidude asked politely.

"That you have abducted the Minister of the Ethiopian government on false pretenses, a Minister who is the sister and only surviving heir of that government's Monarch, and that you have chosen to flout a treaty between our nations that has benefited for four years."

"Only surviving heir?" Kidude replied. "You have not had the latest news then. A Chinese search party found your Queen and the two children alive on the island of Socotra. I believe one of the children is yours?"

"What?" she was confused at first. Her heart began to flutter, and she tried to see a way his claim might be a political falsehood, but she could not think of any reason for him to lie about this. "But you said..."

"I am still sorry for the loss of your mother, Le'elt Taytu. But the rest of your kin has been found. I assumed you had been informed."

"Alive?" she had grieved for five days, but they were alive. "I did not think... but in the middle of the ocean?"

"Socotra is in the middle of the ocean too." Kidude said.

"I think we should adjourn for the present moment to let Le'elt Taytu process this news." Mwashinga ordered. "We will meet with you again soon enough. Until then, you will be returned to your suites."

Taytu had did not have a reply. Her mind was somewhere else now, with a child who was on his way to China.