Zofia rises to close the double doors of the parlertorium, pulling the key up from underneath her tunic to lock us all in. My stomach turns alongside the tumblers. Once she takes her seat beside me again, she touches my hand, and just in case I wasn’t panicked enough, her eyes shift from mine to the statue of the unknown saint, to the escape route.
You’re imagining things, I tell myself. It’s going to be all right.
The Archbishop of Rosvania rises, the blue silk and gold embroidery of his formal vestments reflecting the flames of the chandelier above so that he seems to shine with the Father’s light. He rings a small bell to call the summit to order. The room falls silent, and he leads the men in a prayer from The Song of the First Kings, the story of how the Father planted his seed in eight chosen Vessels, who gave birth to the eight saint-kings of the Ovinist Church.
“The sacrament of the Grand Summit has begun,” he declares. “I call on Tovnia to speak his concern.”
The Tovnian ambassador, a petit man in his thirties, draped in rich robes of Tovnia’s orange-and-red standard, rises from his seat between his two comrades.
“That’s Tovnia’s crown prince, Horaccio,” Zofia whispers to me.
A prince. My throat tightens, making it hard to swallow.
“On the fourth day of the month of Saint Ferda,” begins the prince, “my father, King Horac, dispatched a unit of five hundred men to the Tovnian border when Ukrenti scouts sent word that Kantari troops had been spotted crossing the Koz foothills. The king’s assumption was that the Kantari planned to make a move against the Monastery of Saint Ovin in a new attempt to open the Vault of Mount Djall.”
“This is known,” Wesmar’s ambassador interjects with impatience. “We understand that Tovnia was caught off guard when their unit found themselves face-to-face with the entire Kantari army, which did not approach Mount Djall but crossed into Tovnia instead. I move to hear Tovnia’s request. Let’s get on with it.”
“I second,” calls the ambassador of Ostmar, equally disdainful.
I know that many view the Tovnian royal family with a suspicious eye since they adhere to a form of Ovinism that venerates female saints almost as much as Saint Ovin himself. The Holy See ignores the custom since Tovnia provides important trade routes between north and south, but hard-line Ovinists find the practice heretical. Even so, I didn’t expect to see such petty politics here, despite Zofia’s warning, and I already feel out of my depth.
“Tovnia will state his case,” the archbishop directs.
Prince Horaccio clears his throat. “Tovnia requests the immediate military intervention of the Order of Saint Ovin as well as a coordinated military strike with the eight kingdoms of the Ovinist faith to repel this threat to the innocents within our borders.”
I do my best to follow the rapid-fire debate that follows. Most of it is carried out in Rosvanian, but Zofia steps in from time to time to translate for the Ukrenti and Degmari ambassadors. My eyes keep darting to the alcove where the Kantari prisoner waits, tucked behind the Tovnian captain and Brother Miklos, but try as I may to catch a glimpse of him, I see only his shadow beyond the guards.
The Rosvanian ambassador, sallow in a velvet jacket of our standard’s bright green, cuts through the bickering with a bombastic voice. “Why are we discussing military cooperation across borders? The Kantari pose no threat to Rosvania. This is Tovnia’s problem, not ours.”
“They’ve crossed the Koz Mountains for the first time in centuries,” says the Aurian ambassador. “They’re clearly heading north. Auria is deeply concerned. Why isn’t Rosvania?”
“Who’s to say their complaint isn’t with the Tovnians alone? Rosvania has nothing to gain from committing troops.”
“That’s easy for the Rosvanians to say, safe as Daughters in a convent, sitting on the best land of the continent,” the Wesmari ambassador cuts in. “You haven’t had to deal with the Kantari threat the way your southern brothers have. We’ve fought those heathen monsters off our trade routes for decades, and it gets worse every year as the Kantari drought spreads. Now the devils are at your doorstep, and Wesmar would like to know what you plan to do about it.”
“Enough. We’re not even an hour into these proceedings, far too early to dissolve into a schoolyard tussle,” calls the Yilish ambassador with his musical accent. Yil is an empire unto itself, a land of many faiths. So while there’s a tentative truce between Yil and the countries of the Ovinist Church, most of the ambassadors regard him with cool disdain, and the Rosvanian ambassador doesn’t even try to mask his loathing. “We don’t know why the Kantari are attacking Tovnia or why they moved north of the Koz. The answers to those questions should be illuminating to any further discussion. The Tovnians have brought a captured Kantari soldier for questioning. Well and good. Let him be questioned.”
This must be news to Wesmar, because the ambassador and his two assistants whip their heads around, searching the room. “You’ve brought a Kantari soldier? Here?”
“He’s not a Two-Swords, is he?” the Sudmari asks warily. It never occurred to me that the Tovnians might have brought a Two-Swords with them, and the possibility frays my already ragged nerves. The Two-Swords are the most elite fighters on earth, chosen by the seedpods of Elath’s Tree in Kantar.
Rosvania rolls his eyes. “For the love of the Father, calm yourselves. There are hardly any Two-Swords left, and this one is only a boy.”
“They don’t make boys in Kantar,” the Wesmari spits. “They make demons.”
The archbishop beckons to the guards anyway. “Bring the prisoner forward.”
Oh no, I think as Zofia touches my arm. I’m so nervous my ears start ringing, but I rise from my seat and take my place at the top of the U with my knees wobbling beneath me. The Tovnian captain and Brother Miklos pull a man out of the alcove and escort him forward.
Toward me.
Six
The Kantari is gagged, and his wrists are tied together in front of him. A length of rope pins his upper arms to his torso. His ankles are bound with just enough slack between his feet to allow mincing steps, but he only makes it a few paces before tripping.
“Can we at least untie his ankles?” the Rosvanian ambassador drawls.
“With all due respect, sir,” says the Tovnian prince with no hint of respect in his tone, “this ‘boy’ killed twelve men in one skirmish before we captured him.”
The Rosvanian smirks. “The boy is bound from the waist up, and we are guarded by the Knights of the Order. I’m hardly worried.”
“Fool,” the Wesmari mutters.
“Remove the ankle ties,” the archbishop directs the Tovnian captain. The man’s jaw clenches in objection, but he unties the rope, coils it, and slings it over his shoulder before he and Brother Miklos march the Kantari to the opposite end of the U. I take a breath to steady myself, but it does little to ease my nervousness.
The captive’s stench radiates from him like heat from an oven, a pungent combination of armpit musk, sweat, dirt, and another aroma I can’t identify that is both horrible and familiar.
“Dear heavenly Father, Prince Horaccio, could you not have rinsed him off first?” jokes the Rosvanian ambassador. The archbishop eyes him with irritation but instructs the guard to remove the gag.