CHAPTER 155: 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.

"They say Nuri means well," Kaboggoza added. "But what do we know of them? They rise quickly—too quickly. What kind of power does not grow that fast without secret fire behind it?"

Then came Kasajja, older than the others, once a respected voice in the council. His betrayal ran deepest. His words, however, came wrapped in silk.

"Your Majesty, with the greatest respect... we ask only for caution. Already you’ve allowed youths from our noble clans to be sent across the border to learn from Nuri. What if they are not taught loyalty to Buganda, but to Khisa? What if they come back strangers to their king?"

Nakibinge finally raised his hand. Silence fell like a guillotine.

His eyes swept the room slowly, touching each man.

"Three thousand dead," he said quietly.

The words hung.

"Three thousand graves dug. Brothers. Daughters. Farmers. Warriors. Gone."

No one dared respond.

"You speak of caution," the Kabaka went on, "but where was your caution when plague came in the night? When it spread like fire from the very trade routes you championed? When mothers buried infants in wet earth, and no clan sent help?"

The air thickened. Only the rustle of cloth and the distant call of birds from the palace gardens broke the stillness.

Muwanga lowered his gaze, but the defiance in his stance remained.

"We mourn with you, Kabaka," he said carefully. "But mourning should not blind us to cunning. Nuri is young. Powerful, yes. But still foreign. They may speak friendship while drawing maps of conquest behind our backs."

A few other chiefs nodded—ones who’d always been wary of foreign alliances.

Nakibinge’s jaw flexed.

He leaned forward just slightly.

"I met Khisa," he said. "He did not bow to me like a servant. Nor did he puff his chest like a king. He came with humility—and vision. He offered medicine when we had none. He sent builders when our hands were too few to bury our dead."

His voice dropped into something cold.

"You insult a prince who rode into a dying land to offer help, not flags. You insult my judgment for allowing it."

There was a beat of silence.

Then Nakibinge smiled—but it was a predator’s smile.

"Speak plainly, all of you. Do you believe I have been deceived? That the Kabaka of Buganda can be led like cattle by a boy with dreams and bricks?"

The room froze. Even Kasajja shifted uncomfortably.

"No, Kabaka," he said finally. "Of course not."

Nakibinge stood now, towering over them.

"I know who betrayed this kingdom. I know who opened the gates to death. I know who profits when Buganda stumbles. But wisdom is not in striking first—it is in waiting for the enemy to show all his teeth."

He descended from the royal stool and stepped slowly toward the traitors.

"You want to warn me of Nuri? I thank you. But Nuri is not the threat hiding in this room."

His eyes pierced through Muwanga.

"Not yet."

As he turned to leave, Nakibinge’s gaze lingered on the great drum of his forefathers—silent now, wrapped in ceremonial cloth, untouched since the first funeral pyres.

His jaw clenched. "We buried too much to allow treachery to live."

Then he turned, walking toward the exit, guards falling in step behind him. As he passed through the curtain, his final words drifted like smoke.

"Let those who trade in secrets enjoy their coin while it lasts. I do not forget. And I do not forgive lightly."

Night fell over Buganda like a blanket of ash—heavy, silent, suffocating.

A hush had settled across the capital ever since the Kabaka’s words earlier that day. He had not named names, but his meaning had been unmistakable. The Kabaka knew.

And now, in the depths of the abandoned granary at the edge of the royal city, three men gathered in hushed panic.

Muwanga paced back and forth like a trapped animal, hands clenched, sweat dampening the hem of his collar.

"He knows. He looked straight at me," Muwanga hissed. "I could feel it. He knows, and he’s waiting. Like a snake, coiled under leaves."

Kaboggoza sat in a corner, eyes darting, one knee bouncing uncontrollably.

"Then we must leave," he whispered. "Disappear before he binds our hands and feeds us to his dogs. The Shadow Guard may already be here—watching us."

"He will not move yet," said Kasajja, surprisingly calm. "Not until he has all the pieces. That buys us time. Not much, but time."

"Time to do what?" Muwanga spat. "He has the court behind him. Even those who doubted him are silent now. No one dares challenge him after the plague."

They all turned as a door creaked open—but no wind stirred the air.

From the shadows stepped a figure, tall and wrapped in a cloak darker than the night outside. His face was obscured beneath a low hood, his voice silk over steel.

"Then you must give them reason to doubt again."

The three men stilled.

Kasajja stood quickly, offering a shallow bow.

"My lord—"

The figure held up a hand. "Names are dangerous. Even among allies."

He stepped into the room, but stayed in the shadows, never allowing the light from the single oil lamp to catch his face.

"You have sown well," the man said. "But the harvest is slow. You expected the plague to break him. It didn’t. You expected the people to turn on him. They didn’t. And now you panic."

Muwanga gritted his teeth. "You didn’t see him today. He’s toying with us. He plans to bleed us out in court, one rumor at a time. We are exposed."

"No," the man said quietly. "You are close."

Kaboggoza stared at the shadow. "Close to what? Our execution?"

"To finishing what we began," the man replied. "Nakibinge’s strength lies in perception. As long as he appears in control, he is. But all kings rule on borrowed loyalty. Shake that image—fracture it—and everything he stands on begins to crack."

Muwanga crossed his arms. "You want us to move faster. How?"

The man stepped closer but never revealed his face.

"Use what you have left. Whispers. Councils. Push harder. Suggest that the plague was a punishment for abandoning the old gods in favor of foreign ways. Accuse Nuri of exploiting us, of weakening Buganda’s youth by draining our talent. Turn the people inward. Distract the king with unrest."

Kasajja frowned. "And the Kabaka?"

The man’s voice was like a cold wind.

"Let me deal with him."

For the first time, the three men looked unsure—nervous even. But none dared argue.

The man continued, his voice lowering.

"Tonight, send word to your contacts in the outer provinces. Pay the priests, the shrine keepers. Spread doubt in the villages. Say that the Kabaka no longer protects the ancestral ways. That he bows to a kingdom of foreigners who build roads but erase spirits."

"Incite rebellion?" Kaboggoza asked, surprised.

"No," the figure replied smoothly. "Incite confusion. Confusion breaks faster than steel."

Muwanga nodded slowly, as if calming himself with purpose.

"The priest in Mityana already grumbles about the foreign schools and Nuri’s ’new gods.’ I’ll speak to him first. He listens... when coin speaks louder than truth."

The figure didn’t respond. But the silence seemed like approval.

Then he turned, slipping back into the shadows like smoke.

At the door, he paused.

"Do not fail again. This time, the king will not wait."

And with that, he vanished into the night, leaving only the flickering lamp and the stink of fear behind him.