“Wonderful. Now he can bite us all,” the Wesmari ambassador grumbles.
The Tovnian captain struggles with the gag’s knot, which ratchets up my nerves with each passing second. When the cloth falls away, the Kantari lifts his head and stretches his jaw. He looks as terrible as he smells. A strand of dark, greasy hair has come loose from its binding and falls across his dirt-streaked face. His nose is large and has clearly been broken at some point in time. Even though he’s young, a scraggly beard stubbles his upper lip and jaw. Two thick eyebrows hang heavily over his unsettling eyes, which are a mossy green. What remains of his black clothes leaves little to the imagination, clinging indecently to every line and curve of his long, lean body. He might as well be standing before me naked. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, he is every bit the dangerous Kantari heathen I always imagined.
“Ask him why his people have crossed the mountains,” the archbishop commands me.
I nod, focusing on the language, on the words, on my purpose. I clear my throat and translate the question into Kantari. “Why have the Kantari crossed the Koz Mountains?”
The gag has left an angry red stripe on either side of the boy’s mouth, which remains silent. I wish he would direct that intense green gaze somewhere else, but he doesn’t. When it becomes clear that he has no intention of answering the first question, Prince Horaccio says, “Ask him why they’re attacking Tovnia.”
“Why are the Kantari attacking Tovnia?” I’m feeling steadier now, more capable, and I refuse to let a brute rattle me, even though, once again, he refuses to answer.
“The Kantari have focused their attacks on the Monastery of Mount Djall and the Vault for centuries,” the archbishop presses. “Why this change in tactics? Why now?”
I translate, already certain that I’ll be met with the same reticence . . . which is why I’m startled when the Kantari speaks at last. To me.
“Holy Mother, you’re tall.”
“What did he say?” asks the Rosvanian ambassador, but before I have a chance to translate, the boy speaks again.
“Do you shave only your head?” His tone isn’t malicious, but the clear connotation is that he wants to know if I shave the rest of my body as well. A mixture of humiliation and anger makes my entire body blush.
“Translation,” the archbishop prompts.
I glare at the Kantari as I translate. “He says that I am tall. He asks me why my head is shaved.”
“Was that an accurate translation, Daughter?” the boy asks with a mocking grin.
The captain jostles him and barks, “Shut it. You’ll speak when you’re spoken to.”
The Kantari looks to me. “Aren’t you going to translate that?”
“What did he say?” the Rosvanian ambassador snaps.
My head is spinning with all these demands. I’m only one girl. “He asks if I’m going to translate the words of the Tovnian captain,” I answer the Rosvanian.
The Wesmari ambassador snorts. “Go ahead.”
But I don’t. I’m too busy reassessing the boy. He would only have noticed my omission if he spoke Rosvanian. He inclines his head as I study him, and I get the feeling that he’s reassessing me, too.
“Now that his tongue is loosened,” says the Yilish ambassador, “ask him again why the Kantari are attacking Tovnia. What is their purpose?”
I hesitate for the span of one breath, studying the boy’s face to see if he’ll betray another sign of understanding Rosvanian. His face goes cool, impassive. I translate the question. This time, when the boy doesn’t answer, the archbishop gives a curt nod to the Tovnian captain, who punches the boy in the lower back. An alarmed “Oh!” escapes my lips as he cries out in pain.
The Kantari sneers at me. “Do you pity me? Look at you, tall as a man and ugly as a buzzard. Can’t you see what these monsters have done to you? Don’t pity me. Pity yourself.”
Each word sinks in like the teeth of a feral dog. I bite back my own infuriated response. Anger is an emotion no decent Daughter should indulge, but Holy Father, it’s hard to contain.
“Daughter?” the archbishop prompts.
“He says he is not to be pitied. He says I am tall as a man and ugly as a vulture.”
“Buzzard,” the boy corrects me, whispering in Kantari.
“I knew it! You speak Rosvanian,” I accuse him in Kantari.
“What’s this?” the Rosvanian ambassador bellows.
I tear my eyes from the boy to find that every man in the room is staring at me, some shocked by my impropriety, others blazing with outrage. I bow my head in shame.
“We will not tolerate a female, who is made in the image of Elath, speaking out of turn at these proceedings, Sacrist,” the archbishop seethes at Zofia, his hawkish nose red with outrage. “Make it clear to her that a woman’s voice is only to be heard in translation.”
“You are not to speak of your own free will, Daughter,” Zofia says softly.
“Yes, Sacrist,” I answer, praying that I won’t start crying or do anything else that will ruin me in the eyes of men.
“See? Monsters,” the boy whispers to me. When I glance up, I expect the return of that mocking grin, but his lips are unsmiling. When he speaks again, his voice is so loud it bounces off the arched ceiling. “I also have questions. Why don’t you ask this Knight of the Order to my left what happened when a small band of Elathians breached the walls of the Monastery of Saint Ovin twelve years ago and opened the Vault of Mount Djall?”
The question is so shocking it borders on incomprehensible. The Kantari have been attacking the monastery for hundreds of years to try to set the Great Demon free, but they have never breached the walls, not once. When I translate, my voice sounds mechanical, distancing itself from this madness. “He says I should ask Brother Miklos what happened when a group breached the walls of the Monastery of Saint Ovin twelve years ago and opened the Vault containing Elath the Great Demon.”
Behind me, I hear Zofia’s intake of breath before she translates for the Ukrenti and Degmari ambassadors.
“Elath the Mother,” the boy corrects me, but I know perfectly well what evil is contained in that vault. Every devout Ovinist knows.
The Aurian ambassador breaks the stunned silence that follows. “Nothing has happened to the Vault of Mount Djall. Has it?”
“It’s a ploy,” says the Rosvanian, waving his hand dismissively. “He’s trying to distract us. This prisoner is worthless, Tovnia.”
The boy speaks again, his alarming eyes boring into mine. “Ask this knight what Goodson Anskar and the Order of Saint Ovin did when they discovered, just as the Elathians did, that the Vault was empty.”
“Translation,” the archbishop demands.
I shake my head, incredulous, even as I say the words. “He says I should ask Brother Miklos what the Goodson and the Order of Saint Ovin did when . . . when they discovered that the Vault was empty.”
The table bursts into sound. The Wesmari ambassador yells in alarm, while the Rosvanian ambassador continues to dismiss the Kantari’s claims. The archbishop rings the bell again, thundering, “Enough!”
The Kantari shouts over all of them. “Ask him what happened to the city of Grama! Ask him what the Order did there—to women, children, the old, the sick! Ask him what the Order took from us so they could hunt down the Mother!”