The sun was barely a pale coin on the horizon when Onyango swung into the palace courtyard. He did not linger. Barely time for a bow, a handful of breath, and he mounted his horse — a lean, steady bay that had carried many messages through rough country. The saddle creaked like an urgent clock.
"Tell them at once," Khisa had said, voice flat with the gravity of what would come. "Timing is the only thing that keeps the plan from unravelling."
Onyango's face held no drama — only the look of a man who had slept poorly and ridden too far. He clicked the horse forward and vanished down the road toward the Kongo-Buganda border, the dust of Mengo rising behind him like smoke from the evening pyres. The message had to travel; the pieces had to move. The net had been cast. Now it needed seams to be tight, knots to hold.
