Chapter 155 - The Shape of Treason
The royal court of Buganda was quieter now.
Not because peace had returned, but because too many had died to fill the room with their usual pomp and thunder.
Gone were the grand drums, the women in flowing barkcloth, and the warriors who once lined the great hall with spears raised in salute. What remained were ministers in layered robes, stiff with tension, and a king whose silence was more dangerous than his rage.
Kabaka Nakibinge, draped in deep red and crowned in gold, sat on his elevated stool beneath the royal leopard-skin canopy. His face was calm—too calm—but the veins in his hands bulged slightly as they gripped the carved armrests.
Before him, his chiefs and advisors knelt in respectful distance. But respect was not what brought them here. This was a test.
And the traitors knew it.
Muwanga, sleek as an otter and always with a mocking gleam in his eye, was the first to rise and speak.
"Your Majesty," he said, bowing low, "we remain ever loyal. But I must ask—how long will Buganda follow the whims of foreign nations?"
Nakibinge said nothing.
Muwanga took it as license to continue. "We have bent our necks enough, I think. Nuri sends a prince, not a king, to treat with us. They send supplies, yes—but always with their own men attached, with rules and watchers. Are we children, that we must be guided at every turn?"
There was a murmur. Kaboggoza nodded gravely beside him. He had not spoken much since the plague, his voice hoarser now, his weight thinner. But he still knew how to strike at the bones of fear.