Qhora tried not to grin. The old woman reminded her of her own grandmother, an irascible old lady with dim eyes and shaking hands and an iron opinion about everything under the sun. “Well, I’m sure if you present your grievances to Her Highness, she will listen to you. You are, after all, her most respectable subjects. Or is it citizens, now? I’m sure the queen doesn’t want her streets full of beggars and thieves any more than you do.”
“Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t,” Lady Sade said. “And yet, here we are.”
“Here we are,” the thin man echoed. “Hiding in our houses behind our gates and our guards to keep the bloodthirsty rabble at bay. And where is Her Royal Highness? In a palace on a mountain, selling our secrets to the southern kings.”
“Oh, whine, whine, whine!” a young woman exclaimed. “All you do is whine!”
“Well, what else can I do?” he demanded. “I’ve written letters, I’ve met with her in person, I’ve applied for a seat in parliament. It all goes nowhere.” He picked apart a bit of bread on the edge of his plate. “Why? What have you done?”
The young woman’s face softened. “I tried to organize a work gang. My man went about, gathering up the layabouts near my house, intending to direct them to help with the repairs on the Heru Bridge.”
“And?”
“And the police stopped my man and sent the workers back to laying about in the street begging for…for whatever it is they beg for.” The woman blushed.
Qhora stared. “The police stopped you from putting those men to work? Why?”
“The queen’s law. No one can be pressed into labor, and apparently my man was pressing them too hard,” the woman said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s all nonsense.”
“You’re such children.” The stern-faced gentleman on Qhora’s left sighed through his beard. “Beggars? Thieves? That’s all you ever talk about. Insects! The Songhai lords will give you something to complain about when their airships swarm over the Atlas Mountains next summer. They’ll come by the hundreds, by the thousands. They’ll rain Hellan fire on us from a mile overhead. This city will be nothing but ash by the end of the first day. The streets will run with blood, Imajeren and Ikelan alike.”
“Oh, no, they won’t,” the thin man said with a roll of his eyes.
“Yes, they will. I had supper with the Lord General himself last week. I’ve never seen the man so gray, so wasted with worry. Her Royal Highness has already sold blueprints, materials, and the services of no less than six airship engineers each to Gao and Timbuktu to strengthen her so-called treaties and trade agreements.”
A tense quiet filled the room.
“Then we can all be grateful that Emperor Askia is nothing like his predecessor,” Lady Sade said softly. “Askia is a man of peace and commerce, and religion. He is a builder and a priest, not a warrior. If Askia builds a fleet of Songhai airships, they will carry his people on pilgrimages to the holy cities of Eran. They will not carry soldiers here. God willing.”
Qhora studied the faces around her and saw the proud eyes and sneering faces had all gone pale and wan, throats swallowing and hands groping for wine glasses. “The Songhai must be formidable neighbors,” she said.
The gentleman on her left said, “My dear, under the previous emperor Sonni Ali, the ancient kings of the south were put to the sword and the torch. The Mali. The Mossi. The Dogon. The Ashanti. The Yoruba. He destroyed cities that he didn’t even bother to conquer. Destroyed them just to take their cattle and shut down the old trading posts, to destroy bridges, salt fields, and fill in wells. Sonni Ali made his cities the wealthiest in West Ifrica by driving all commerce across his borders. He drove men as men drive cattle. With whips and hate. History no doubt will remember his genius on the battlefield and his great works in Timbuktu. But I will remember the highways paved in bones.”
“Surely, Her Highness wouldn’t sell your machines to this new emperor if she believed he would use them to invade her own country?” Qhora looked to her hostess. “Would she?”
Lady Sade sighed and offered a meek shrug of her slender shoulders. “I would hope not, but I don’t know. Rome and Carthage are warring over the islands of the Middle Sea using our steamships. Darius is moving his troops across Eran with our locomotives. I just don’t know.”
Qhora played with her tiny fork, the smallest of three on the side of her plate. A grim pall had fallen over the table. Only the clicking of silverware and moist eating noises rustled through the silence like frightened rabbits in the brush. She saw gold rings shake on unsteady hands and painted lips pressed thin, women folding and refolding the napkins in their laps, and men staring vacantly into their empty wine glasses. She cleared her throat and said, “What if you spoke to the Songhai emperor yourselves? Or his lords? What if you approached them with your own treaties? Secured alliances between their cities and yours?”
“What?” The gentleman turned to her, but his frown vanished a moment later. “Ah, I see what you mean. No, unfortunately, any rights we once had to represent our cities independently were lost when the old queen abolished the aristocracy, almost a century ago.” He nodded to himself. “To ally Arafez with Timbuktu would be treason against the crown. Her Royal Highness might not be ready for war with the south, but she would certainly march her soldiers into her own cities.”
Qhora stared at him. “She’s done this before?”
“Last year, the governor of Acra began talks with the Silver Prince over, oh, what was it? Fishing rights around the Canaari Islands, I think. Her Highness sent two legions to quietly remove the duly elected governor and ensure that her citizen-subjects did not object to the sudden change in government. It was a summer storm, just a few days’ disruption and only a handful of shots fired, but Her Highness’s message came through quite clearly.” The gentleman plucked at the frail white hairs on his knuckles and his whole body seemed to diminish down into his chair as he exhaled. “We’re prisoners in our own country.”
“It’s unconscionable!” Qhora slammed down her fork. “It’s unthinkable! This queen is no queen, she’s an incompetent tyrant! So terrified of her own governors that she sends soldiers against her own people? So terrified of invasion that she sells your weapons to your most dangerous enemies? I’m sorry, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, but the time has long since passed when you should have taken action.”
“Action? What sort of action?” Lady Sade looked up from her glass and gestured to the young man who had spoken a few moments earlier. “My friend has just told you what happens when we try to take action. Our messages are ignored, our proposals rejected, our attempts to join her inner councils rebuffed. We can’t even put the homeless to work in our own city. What can we possibly do?”
“When the Espani first came to my country, they were led by four brothers, the Pizzaros. Our emperor, my cousin Manco Inca, was a young man, a naive boy, and he was quite impressed by them. He gave them seats of honor, hung on their every word, drooled over their armor and guns, and buried them in gold. Within half a year, the Pizzaros had become the lords of Cusco, beating our lords and taking their ladies, and Manco all the while pleading and begging for their approval.” Qhora squeezed the fork tighter. “Finally, we could stand it no longer, we could wait no longer. My father and his fellow generals gathered their armies and declared war on the Pizzaros. Manco, of course, remained in his delusion until the last moment, though finally he relented. The war raged for most of a year as we ferreted out every last Espani outpost. Fortunately, the Golden Death had already weakened their ranks and the only real resistance came from the men still arriving on our shores. But we reclaimed our freedoms and our security. And now you need to do the same before a Songhai army streams over your borders, before your families and children are put to the sword.”
“Revolution?” The young man who Lady Sade had pointed out ran his fingers lightly back and forth around the edge of his gold-painted plate. His voice was faint and uncertain, but after he cleared his throat he said, a bit more loudly, “You believe we should publicly oppose the queen? Even to the point of violence?”