The Quest

Purcell stopped the Jeep a respectable distance from the tent with the imperial flag. They all climbed out, waved friendly greetings, and smiled. Some of the soldiers smiled back. A few, however, looked gruff and mean, Purcell noticed, like infantry soldiers all over the world fresh out of battle. They didn’t like relatively clean and crisp-looking outsiders walking around. Especially if the army had been beaten. A beaten army was a dangerous thing, Purcell understood, much more dangerous than a victorious one. Morale is bad, respect for superiors is bad, and tempers are rotten. Purcell had seen this with the South Vietnamese Army as the war was being lost. Mercado had seen it all over the world. The embarrassment of defeat. It leads to rape, pillage, and random murder. It’s a sort of catharsis for the soldiers who can’t beat the other soldiers.

They walked quickly toward the prince’s tent, as though they were late for a meeting. Purcell worried about the equipment, but any attempt to carry it with them or to make prohibitory gestures toward the Jeep would have invited trouble. The best thing was to walk away from your expensive possessions as though you expected that they would all be there when you returned. Vivian, however, took one of her cameras.

The prince came toward them. There was no mistaking him. He was young, about forty, and very tall. He wore a European-style crown of gold and precious stones, but he was clad in a lionskin shamma with a cummerbund of leopard. He also carried a spear. His aides, who walked behind him, were dressed in modern battle fatigues, but wore lions’ manes around their necks. They had obviously put on all the trappings for the Europeans. Mercado knew this was a good sign.

The prince and his entourage stopped. The beaten-down track through the high grass was lined with curious soldiers.

Mercado stepped up his pace and walked directly to the prince and bowed. “Ras Joshua.” He spoke in halting Amharic. “Forgive us not announcing our coming. We have traveled a long distance to be with your army-”

“I speak English,” the prince responded in a British accent.

“Good. My name is Henry Mercado. This is Frank Purcell, an American journalist. And our photographer, Vivian Smith.” He bent at the waist again as he took a step to the side.

Vivian came up beside Mercado, who whispered, “Curtsy.” She curtsied and said, “I am pleased to meet you.” Purcell nodded his head in greeting and said, “Thank you for receiving us.”

“Come,” said Prince Joshua.

They followed him to his tent and entered. The red-and-white-striped pavilion was sweltering and the air smelled sour. The prince motioned them to sit on cushions around a low wood-inlaid table that looked like a European antique with the legs cut down. This, thought Purcell, was as incongruous as everything else in the country.

Ethiopia, he had discovered, was a blend of dignity, pageantry, and absurdity. The antique table with the shortened legs said it all. The battle fatigues with lions’ manes maybe said it better. The country was not a mixture of Stone Age, Bronze Age, and modern, like most of Africa below the Sahara; it was an ancient, isolated civilization that had reached towering heights on its own, long before the Italians arrived. But now, as Purcell could see, the unique flavor of the old civilization was dying along with the old emperor.

Mercado asked, “Would you like to see our press credentials?”

“For what purpose?”

“To establish-”

“Who else could you be?”

Mercado nodded.

Prince Joshua inquired, “How did you get here?”

Purcell answered, “By Jeep, from Addis Ababa.”

“Yes? I’m surprised you got this far.”

“So are we,” admitted Purcell.

The prince’s servants brought bronze goblets to the table and poured from a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Mercado and Purcell pretended not to be surprised by the good choice of refreshment, but Vivian made a thing of it, as though she had expected fermented sheep dip. “Well, what have we here?” She leaned across the table and raised her camera, saying to the prince, “Do you mind?” and shot a picture of the bottle with Prince Joshua in the background. “Great shot.”

Mercado was mortified. Bad manners were one thing he could not accept from the very young. It was cute in New York and London, but it was dangerous in countries like this. The prince seemed a charming enough fellow, but you never knew what would set these people off. He smiled at Prince Joshua and said, “Wattatacc,” the Amharic word for “youth.”

The prince smiled in return and nodded. “No soda, I’m afraid. And no ice for the American.” He smiled at Purcell. But Mercado knew it was a strain to be polite when a three-thousand-year-old dynasty was coming to an ignominious end, your emperor was under arrest, and about a hundred members of the royal family had already been executed.

Prince Joshua looked at his guests and asked, “So, you have come into the lions’ den? Why?”