The Shadow King

Hirut endures a lecture from her enslaver, Aster, who accuses Hirut of stealing her wedding necklace. As Aster ransacks the room Hirut shares with the cooks, she uncovers the Wujigra rifle that belonged to Hirut’s father. Kidane appears and, at Aster’s encouragement, takes the gun in preparation for war.

Hirut looks for her rifle under the pretense of cleaning. While cleaning forbidden surfaces in Kidane’s office, she finds Aster’s lost necklace and takes it. She buries it, and many other things, in a hole beneath the woodpile, believing she has righted an imbalance.

In a flashback, Hirut recalls the day her father taught her to shoot the Wujigra. He forces her to practice aiming, shooting, and loading without ammo until she can perform the motions flawlessly. He tells her never to pull the trigger unless she is prepared to become something she is not.

While Aster is inconsolable and confined to bed, Kidane prepares for war. When Kidane catches Hirut stealing looks at his maps, he invites her close. He explains that she will help the war effort. She asks for the rifle back, but he leans close and kisses her without consent just as the cook enters.

Emperor Haile Selassie watches old news reels with his translator on the night of September 2, 1935. Outnumbered, with limited technology, and lacking real protection through the League of Nations, he fails to see how he will win the war.

Hirut watches as Berhe and Kidane converse near her secret spot. She waits for her things to be discovered, and when they are not, she relaxes, but Aster has been watching. Hirut claims she has been looking for the Wujigra, but Aster drags her to the woodpile and compels her to dig up her confession. When she finds her missing necklace among the treasures, Aster beats Hirut with a whip.

The Chorus describes Aster’s wedding night. Her mother forces her to marry Kidane, but the cook takes her to the bedroom with care. She leaves Aster in the dark, and her mother locks the door. Kidane waits, and when Aster will not consent, he sexually assaults her.

Aster leaves Hirut locked in the stable. The cook fetches her to serve Kidane’s elite guard. Hirut works through the pain from her whipping. Each man will recruit soldiers for a light, maneuverable army. As they plan war on the birthday of Aster and Kidane’s lost child, Aster is transfixed by a newspaper article and picture of Maria Uva shouting a declaration of war to the soldiers aboard the Cleopatra. Aster imagines a role for herself in the war.

In 1974, Hirut gazes at a yellowed photograph of Maria Uva singing the chorus of “Giovinezza,” not shouting, for the soldiers. Ettore will tell her that far over the decks of the ship, he heard her beautiful voice singing.

After Kidane leaves to rally an army, the cook, Hirut, and Berhe watch Aster saddle her horse and leave. Rumors soon reach the compound that Aster is riding the villages and calling the women to war.

As the Empress Menen addresses the women of the world from the radio and advises all to shun the coming war, Aster dresses in Kidane’s father’s uniform and salutes.

Ettore rides the Cleopatra. He documents history with his camera, remembering his father Leo’s instructions to find and capture what cannot be spoken in the interplay between light and dark. They will become a Fascist weapon and an homage to lives lost.

Aster and Kidane argue about her right to commandeer his father’s uniform. He reminds her that she will serve by making bullets, moving supplies, and easing the stresses of the male soldiers. Kidane leaves Aster to ready the supply chain.

After Kidane leaves, Hirut intercepts a scout bringing news that the Italian advance has crossed the border. Aster considers riding to tell Kidane but realizes the band of women will fall victim if they remain. Aster mobilizes the compound for flight.

At five o’clock in the morning on October 3, 1935, Haile Selassie hears that Emilio De Bono has crossed the Gash river, which his father designated the border after defeating the Italians in 1896. Italian planes drop leaflets accusing him of being an imposter and encouraging the people to revolt.

Behind Ettore stretches a column of young and eager soldiers. Hirut compares her memory of invasion against the newspapers’ accounts. Instead of three unwavering columns that entered and inspired easy surrenders in Axum and Adua, Hirut remembers how Ethiopians cut the columns and fought hard for freedom.

Kidane struggles with orders to let the armies advance. Haile Selassie hopes the world will see the Italians as unlawful aggressors if they strike first. Kidane worries about the ascari (Eritrean) mercenaries who aid the Italians. Though a messenger arrives claiming orders from the spy, Ferres, Kidane follows the Emperor’s command to hold. His troops will not poison the wells of Gedebge on the messenger’s request.

In the present, Hirut examines a picture of the cook that Ettore has labeled “Abyssinian slave.” Her hair is short, indicating the early days of the war, and beside her are Kidane’s commanders, looking unworn by war.

Aster and her group hurry to meet Kidane in the mountain camps. They walk by night and hide in caves to evade Italian planes. Hirut serves as Aster’s forward scout. They find Kidane’s camp, and Hirut settles the women.

The Chorus recounts the cook’s fate on the night she and Aster run away. Aster’s father beats the cook, and the cook endures. Instead of shielding her, Aster looks to the cook for inspiration.

Hirut serves refreshments to the French weapons dealer Jacques Corat who shows signs of addiction to khat—a plant, cultivated in Eastern Ethiopia, which acts as a stimulant when chewed. Jacques refuses money or trinkets and asks for Hirut instead. Kidane is outraged at the price but tries to negotiate for Hirut’s return after a week. The cook cuts in, promising to go with the man and get him herbs stronger than khat in exchange for the guns.

Known as Le Ferenj, Jacques Corat roams Ethiopia as an arms dealer and smuggler styled after his idol, the French poet Arthur Rimbaud. He is 39. When he leaves with the cook, gunshots echo in the canyon. They do not know that nearby, Carlo Fucelli has violated international law by ordering to his ascari captain, Ibrahim, to shoot the children of the Ethiopians suspected of poisoning the wells. They do not know that Ibrahim has advised his men not to shoot, to let the Italians act. Ettore follows orders to document the massacre.

Aster gathers the women to make gunpowder and bullets with scavenged shells. One woman challenges Aster’s right to lead while the peasants do all the work. The woman tells the crowd they should let the Italians come and overthrow Aster and other members of the Ethiopian ruling class. Sunlight hits Aster as she responds. She insists that she and the others are more than the labels that define their place in Ethiopia’s strict social hierarchy. Despite their disparate social status, she appeals to the women’s sense of solidarity as Ethiopians and as women. In the light, she becomes a figure of female resistance in Ethiopia.

When Kidane restricts soldiers to three bullets each, Aklilu protests. Kidane promises Hirut’s Wujigra to the best shooter. Hailu suggests his younger brother, Dawit. When Aster arrives in his father’s clothing, Kidane grows angry. Though she leads the women well, he resents her orders discouraging cohabitation with the men and her avoidance of their own marital bed. When she offers her women to serve as reinforcements on the mission, he relegates her to support.

The Chorus describes the plumes of darkness released from the planes over the women who wait to supply the men’s ambush and carry the dead. Over the roar of battle, they murmur Aster’s cry that they are more than this.