Though even as she does, she outlines notes, and checks the fates of the two young women who, after Killmonger’s defeat, had chosen to be the first Jabari to join the Dora Milje. Her eyes are dry, though her heart is still quieting screaming, when the knock on the door comes.
“Queen Ramonda.” M’Baku’s face is calm, his tone respectful. “Allow me say I am very sorry for your son. I would not have believed it once, and there was much I never agreed with him on, but he was a good King.”
“And I am sorry, too,” replied she. “I assume you have heard of the death of Akanni. She was a strong warrior, and we were all happy to have had her in the Dora Milje.”
“So Okoye has already said to me,” he replied, stepping inside and closing the door. “When she also told me the coronation will take place tomorrow afternoon. I think you know why that is.”
No games, then, just plain truth. She’s glad for it. “You know her well enough, now, to know it’s as much for the country’s sake as for Shuri’s. The men who would emerge to challenge her in times like these, more of them if we waited longer, would not be good for Wakanda on the throne. You must realize that.”
“I do know the one from the Mining Tribe who’s certain to challenge probably wouldn’t be,” M’Baku concedes. Ramonda knows whom he’s talking about; word’s traveled around about him. “But you don’t have to worry about him ever being King. Even if his tribe doesn’t manage to stop him, he can’t defeat me in combat. In fact, I think your daughter might just best him herself. But…” He’s looking at her way too carefully. “If his ravings are any indication, she won’t get him to yield. I saw her fight two years ago, of course. But do you think she will be able to kill her opponent the way she would have to then, without both the heat of battle and the distance of a gun to make it easy?”
“I don’t know,” she replies. This is the situation she’s feared. She’s not even as worried about Shuri dying tomorrow; she believes she’ll yield if she has to, and she’s gotten the strong impression no one particularly wants her dead. “Will you sit down?”
M’Baku does, on one of the pair of chairs by her window; she gratefully takes the other one. They can see the streets from here. They don’t look any less crowded than they did back when the chaos that erupted on them first alerted Ramonda that something was wrong, even before she heard the first screams within the Citadel. They often aren’t this time of night anyway.
“I know why you asked me to come here, of course,” he says. “I admit, I am considering not challenging Shuri tomorrow, if nobody else defeats her. Anyone who does, I will challenge; as you said, they wouldn’t be a good person to have as King. And if I am King, I will leave her where she is. She is not the child she once was, and I know we need her there.”
That’s a very great thing for him to say, and his voice emphasizes that, demanding her gratitude. Ramonda wouldn’t mind giving it, especially when it’s taken a great weight off her mind. But not yet, not when the negotiation has just begun. So instead she says, “Have you thought about how the other tribes will react to a Jabari King? Not everyone in Wakanda would welcomed the chief of the tribe who turned away from the rest of us with open arms. I suppose you might have thought about it two years ago, considered how you would deal with their hostility. But now, when many in their grief would turn their anger against whoever is in charge, even if they weren’t when their loved ones died…”
She thinks he might be fighting a slight urge to smile. “And what you would be able to do, my Queen, for me there?”
“There are ways to get things done without sitting on the throne,” she says, then sees the scowl coming, and adds, “And no, I am not talking about underhanded matters. We know what you want for Wakanda, and at least one of those things is now inevitable-the country will have to close itself off again, no matter who takes the throne, because too many will want that. Much of the rest we can give you openly, especially after you led us all in battle today. There is now no one, in fact, who can protect Wakanda as well as you can, and everyone on the Council knows that.”
“So did you ask me here tonight to be the next Black Panther, without being the King?” He clearly doesn’t find that appealing.
“Your title isn’t important there,” she says, because that’s a concession she’s willing to make. “You will not have to change your ways at all to be the main protector of Wakanda. I think Shuri will want to be the Black Panther herself, but even as that, even as Queen, she would follow you in a fight. This is a time when no one will mind having two protectors. Tell me what you want. Is it to be the King? Or to protect Wakanda, and make things right in it?”
Now M’Baku is smiling, a bit ruefully, and Ramonda is confident she can win this. “If I tell you exactly what I want,” he says, “you must tell be truthfully whether you would really give it, or even if you can.”
“Of course.” She expected as much. “First of all?”