--------------------------------- [b][u]May 26th: Addis Ababa[/u][/b] --------------------------------- [i]Abun[/i] Onesiphorus was an old man, and the patriarch of the whole Ethiopian church. He wore the black robes of his station, a mitre, and two loose gold chains around his neck, one bearing an Ethiopian cross, the other a pendant with the image of a saint. The [i]Abun's[/i] beard was long and bushy, hiding most of the chain. Sahle waited impatiently as the [i]Abun[/i] and his mob of priests blessed the airplane, then turned to say some words to Akale Tebebe, the new ambassador to China, and his companion, [i]Leul[/i] Yaqob. Desta Getachew stood at Sahle's right, and a fidgeting Rudolph von Lettow-Vorbeck stood at his left. The wind roared on the tarmac, whipping the priests robes and the [i]Abun's[/i] beard, and making it hard to hear anything that was being said. Sahle was happy he'd decided to wear a Safari suit like the westerners standing behind him. Yaqob's eyes caught Sahle's attention. The younger brother was staring at the priest with that wide eyed, overly serious look that annoyed Sahle. Yaqob had a way of looking like a foreign explorer examining a strange new land and its alien customs no matter what he was doing. The [i]Abun[/i] walked slowly toward the Emperor. "Your majesty, the prince will go with God at his back." "Very good." Sahle replied. He didn't like religious ceremony, and felt uncertain of what to do or say in front of the old saint. "I'm not sure blessings will help the prince where his is going." Rudolph quipped, "The Chinese aren't fond of blessings. Or princes either." "Christ will follow him into the lions den." the Abun said. He sounded like a kindly old teacher telling a story to children. "I do not fear for the Prince. I fear for the Communists who doubt our unified God." Rudolph shut up. Desta spoke next. "Do you know of the republicans in the Semien region, your holiness? They are claiming the sanction of God. If God is on the side of our Emperor and his family, then perhaps these heretics need to be excommunicated." "I agree with you, [i]Bitwoded[/i] Desta." the Abun's friendly expression became grave. "I will need details on their sins. If they are preaching republicanism, I will do as you say. There are no men who believe in both God and democracy. Does God let man vote on the eternal laws of the universe? If there is a King in heaven, then the Kingly model is the closest the children of Adam can be to heavenly perfection. I've always said that the Americans and the French that call themselves Christians are really the worst kind of atheist; the lying kind. Yes. I will excommunicate any priest fanning the flames of republican violence against our heavenly ordained Emperor." "I think the very same, your holiness." Desta smiled. "Your majesty, go with God." the [i]Abun[/i] said. The priestly party departed. Sahle watched as his brother and the ambassador boarded their plane. It took them into the sky, to the east, and out of his way for the present moment. "Heavens" Sahle was ambushed by Bradford Carnahan, who got uncomfortably close until he was pushed away by one of the Imperial guard, "How did you get such a clean shave out her in the sticks? I was going to recommend Pennington and Pippin razors because you seem like a man who appreciates a good trim. An old school chum manages Pennington and Pippin, and he's a man you can trust with those sort of matters." "I'll ask my pages when I get home." He looked past Bradford and saw his sister wearing a sunflower yellow dress, knee length, and the sight of her brightened his day. "Hello Miss Carnahan. Have you enjoyed your time in my country." "Yes. It's great." she said, smiling politely. "We'll have to talk later on when we have some time." Yaqob said, "I want to know more about America, and I think you would be the best teacher." He parted from her, smiling ear to ear, and the climbed into their caravan of four wheel drive bush rovers. "We're going down the War Road." Desta told the Emperor's driver. The man nodded. Desta went to his own vehicle, leaving Sahle alone with Rudolph and a single guard. After running into the Carnahan girl and sending his little brother to China, his day seemed bright, and the sky was bluer for it. Rudolph pulled a blunt from the pocket of his khaki shirt. "You owe me." "Light it up." Sahle said, "We have a long ride ahead." ([url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7dTBoW5H9k]Optional musical number)[/url] The War Road was one of the first highways constructed in Ethiopia with automobiles in mind. It was a wide dirt road that went from Addis Ababa down south to the border of Kenya, its name coming from its original construction during the Great War in order to speed transportation to the front. Iyasu V ordered it maintained in the post-war years, creating the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works for exactly that task, seeing it as a way to connect the rich southern provinces with the Addis Ababa and Djibouti railroad. The weed kicked in as they went down into the Awash valley. Ethiopia is a mountainous country being torn apart from the Danakil downward, and the Awash was part of the crack that continued into Kenya. Wild camels fed on the scrub brush that fought to grow in that rocky soil. Sahle and Rudolph laughed at their humps. Neither said a thing. They stopped from time to time because Miyagi Yakuga, the Japanese manager of Negus Coffee, brought a camera with him and insisted on filling it. They stopped to see camels, to see farmers, to see rocks. From Sahle's truck, he'd see the long safari van carrying the Negus Coffee party stop along the side of the road and Miyagi jump out and start snapping photos. Sahle and Rudolph pointed out things Miyagi should get a photo of. They saw a wild ass taking a shit, and both of them said it at the same time. That made them laugh for thirty minutes. In the village of Mojo, the local priests came out to bless the cars. A young beardless priest was last in the procession of holy men who blessed the Emperor's. In response, Sahle blessed the young priest. He didn't know how to react. They went on. Before Adama, Miyagi went out to take a photo of a troop of Baboons. The Baboons were only twenty feet or so in front of him. "Steal it." Rudolph said, speaking to the monkeys far ahead of them. Sahle giggled. "Steal it." they both said. Any time one of the animals started in Miyagi's direction, Sahle felt a kind of joy that would be indescribable to the sober. Adama sat at the bottom of the Awash valley, a town growing in the crack of the Great Rift, like people from the Ethiopian and Harar highlands had rolled down from the west and east respectively and settled where they stopped. Villagers lined up. Sahle allowed people carrying food to come through, and the gifts of fruit and bread helped the two men feed their starving stomachs. Here priests stopped to bless the cars again, but Sahle was too busy with a piece of injera to mess with them. They passed a crew sent to work on the road. Governors still had the tools of feudal coercion available, and peasants could be required to work on the road as a form of rent. These men were performing simple maintenance before the start of the monsoon season. Seeing a caravan waving Imperial banners, they made way like a crowd of supplicants and bowed with shovels in hand. Sahle stood up, poked his head through a sun roof, and smiled like the child who just got away with stealing sweets from the market. They climbed upward into the eastern highlands, and the lands once ruled by Somali Muslims until the crusades of Menelik II. The caravan scattered a heard of zebras. Far away, the Bale mountains were visible like ghosts behind the clouds. "This is a good day." Sahle said, thoroughly pleased with himself, "Nothing can go wrong. We have women, we have drugs to tickle our souls, what can happen?" "Women? Mrs Heap isn't with us." Rudolph said. "We have Livy Carnahan." "She is pretty. But she's an American girl. American girls lift up their skirts for anybody who asks." "I hope so." Sahle replied. They arrived in Awassa at dusk, the sun set streaking across the glittering lake. Shepherds watched from the hills and waved at them. Sahle waved back. The town greeted them in ceremonial fineness. The priests came out, as did the city elders, and a number of barefoot teenage girls chosen to award the new arrivals with food and flowers. They were ushered thus from their vehicles to the waiting elders. "Your Imperial Majesty." the leading elder bowed, "I am Kentiba Lamrot. What is our is yours." Sahle smiled politely, but said nothing. They'd smoked more than just the one blunt earlier in the day, and he was still feeling the effects. The people who met them were members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. They were a minority in this land. In a strange quirk of history, it was Evangelical Protestantism that dominated the south center of Ethiopia, particularly the insular Mennonite church, brought over by missionaries one hundred years earlier who radiated out from Sudan like the rays of a heretical sun. The Ethiopian Orthodoxy was the official church of the land, and though the reign of Iyasu had bitterly enforced religious freedom on the theocratic spirit of the country, the Orthodoxy did what it could to hold supremacy wherever it could. They were brought to a beach on the edge of the lake where food was being prepared. Men lit bonfires like they would on [i]Meskel[/i], proclaiming the Imperial visit a festival. Honey wine flowed with the dinner. The Munchies set Sahle and Rudolph to eating, and eating a lot, while others mingled and danced to a traditional string and drum band. Miyagi Yakuga took his camera to the beach and tried to take photographs of hippos despite the coming darkness. Bradford Carnahan got buzzed and tried to teach one of the flower girls how to dance the Charleston. When Sahle felt sated, he remembered Livy, and went to find her. She was near the lake at the edge of the celebration, holding her arms to her chest as if she were cold, between the sound of music on one side and the chatter of roosting water birds on the other. "You want to dance?" Sahle asked her, his voice soft. She looked at him surprised, but followed his lead back to the glow of the fires. She danced properly, he moved like he was having fun. "Do you dance like this in America?" he asked. "No." she said, "I like new things though." "So do I. It would be fun to travel the world, like you. If I were not Emperor I would go with you and we could see the world together." "Do you say that to all the girls?" she said, blushing. "It would not make sense to say that to girls who are not traveling the world, and most of the girls I meet are not traveling the world." She laughed, breaking the tension that had been building in her face. "You are an amusing man." "So is that a yes?" "A yes to what?" "Do you want to get to know me more? Nobody will miss us if we go back to my room." "Oh." she became tense again. "I don't know you that well yet." Sahle wasn't sure how to respond. It had been a long time since he was rejected like that. "Oh. That is too bad." he said. They danced awkwardly for a few minutes until Miyagi Yakuga approached them. He bowed stiffly to the Emperor, and then to Livy. "It would honor me if the lady would enjoy a dance." She looked at Sahle. Sahle nodded. They went away and Sahle spent the rest of the night dancing with one of the flower girls. Somebody had allowed her honey wine, and she was drunk for the first time in her life, dancing foolishly with her Emperor, a man she'd been taught to respect as second only to Christ himself. Sahle felt hollow, having failed with Livy. Not defeated, no, not that. He'd try again. But his confidence wavered. That was something he wasn't used to. And though he went to his quarters with the young teenager and ended her virginity in the velour sheets of the nicest bed she'd ever seen in her life, he went to sleep still feeling that hollowness.