We’d been expecting that, of course, and no one commented as they piled their swords, Alvantes, Estrada and Mounteban going first and then their followers in a long line afterwards — no one, that was, until it came to the turn of Kalyxis and her bodyguards. The beauty of the short, curved scabbard at her hip, all set with ebony and polished bone, did nothing to make me think that the blade within wasn’t sharp as any razor. Her men’s weapons were plainer and larger, altogether less subtle instruments; but not one of them made any move to discard their armaments with the others.
“I trust you’ll be disarming also?” Kalyxis asked the sentry who’d give the order.
Though he scowled at her convincingly, I could tell he was thrown by the question. “We are protecting his highness King Panchessa.”
“I am a queen of Shoan,” Kalyxis replied, “and these men are my protectors.”
“I have my orders,” the sentry told her. He clearly didn’t like the way she was looking at him, for his eyes kept trying to dart from under her gaze. “No one goes before his highness armed.”
“My men have their orders also. It’s their duty to keep me safe.”
The sentry’s calm was rapidly disintegrating; I didn’t like to think what might have happened if Alvantes hadn’t stepped between them. “Kalyxis, give up your weapon now or my men will escort you back to the city,” he said roughly. “This meeting is for the sake of Altapasaeda and you’re here on my sufferance.”
Kalyxis gave Alvantes a smile that would have frozen fire. “Your sufferance?” she asked.
But Alvantes wasn’t as easily cowed as the sentry. “Precisely,” he said. “So choose quickly.”
The smile twisted a fraction. “Of course,” Kalyxis said. “I was merely seeking clarification.”
She drew her short scimitar, held it long enough that its wicked edge caught the morning light, and then dropped it upon the pile. Her men unstrapped both scabbards and swords, as everyone else had done, and added them to the summit of the heap.
By then the sentry had recovered his composure. He pulled on a silken cord hanging near to his hand, and via some hidden mechanism the nearer flap of the entrance furled up. Stepping in first he said, “This way,” as if this really was a palace and without his guidance we might have blundered off in the wrong direction.
Though no one seemed to have noticed I had it, I dropped my knife belt onto the weapons pile anyway, before slipping into line. The party that followed the sentry was significantly smaller than the one that had just traversed the Pasaedan camp, for Alvantes and Mounteban had both signalled their escorts to wait outside as instructed; it surprised me not at all that only Kalyxis had chosen to keep her personal guard with her. For my part, I stayed close to Malekrin; he might be the notorious Bastard Prince, son of Moaradrid and grandson of the formidable woman pacing before us, but I couldn’t help feeling that he was almost as out of place there as I was.
We passed through two rooms: first the entrance, decorated with shields and armour mounted upon frames, and then a sort of conference hall, with long tables and shelves lined with neatly piled scrolls. It took an effort of concentration to remember that I was still inside a tent, and that tent lay within what had been the Altapasaedan suburbs less than a week ago. The third room dwarfed the first two — but it wasn’t that that made me stare. Rather, it was the shock of familiarity. For the space we’d arrived in was clearly modelled on the audience chamber from the palace in Pasaeda, where I’d first encountered Panchessa. It was hexagonal, with curtained apertures in every wall, and though the central plinth from its sister-room in the Ans Pasaedan capital was missing, there was a throne — perhaps even the same throne, and my mind boggled at the thought of how it might have been dragged all the way here.
On the throne sat King Panchessa. If I’d been hoping he’d look pleased to see us, I was disappointed.
Everyone around me was falling to their knees, so I followed suit. Expecting a hard earth floor, I was startled when my forehead met a giving surface. With my view reduced to ground level, I saw that every speck of dirt had been hidden beneath luxuriant rugs, each as lovely as any I’d seen. You could say what you liked about Panchessa, but the man knew how to travel in style.
Then Panchessa said, in a voice both deeper and harsher than I remembered, “Rise all, and face your king.”
Grateful to stop staring at the mazy design of red and gold beneath my nose, I stumbled to my feet. Malekrin and I were over on the right side of the gathering, and Panchessa was facing ahead, to where Alvantes, Estrada, Mounteban and Kalyxis stood close together. While his attention was elsewhere, I studied the King’s face for signs of the sickness Gailus had spoken of. Might it be that traits I’d taken for evidence of bad character the first time I’d encountered Panchessa were in fact the symptoms of a more transient corruption? Could it be that the reason his deep-set eyes glittered so unnervingly, that his thick lips were set so grimly above his bloated chin, was that he wrestled with torments his position forced him always to hide?
Or perhaps both were true. Perhaps the King was a cruel, selfish man whose flaws were aggravated now by distemper eating at him from the inside. That was what my instinct told me, that and to not trust Panchessa — for I was certain beyond doubt that whatever he’d said, whatever agreement had been made, we were in dreadful danger. A man like him might have good intentions one moment, might even intend peace, but he could be relied on for exactly as long as it took some stab of pain or whim of vindictiveness to change his mind.
While I’d studied him, Panchessa’s own gaze had been roving over the assembly beside me. Abruptly, as if we’d arrived in the middle of a conversation, he said, “Some of you I know,” (and I couldn’t but notice how his eyes snared on Kalyxis,) “and some of you are unfamiliar to me. But all of you are my citizens, under my law. Thus it follows that by raising your hands against me, all of you are traitors. The city of Altapasaeda is mine and you have barred its doors to me.”
Only then did I wonder if our delegation had decided in advance just who would do the talking — for it occurred to me, far too late, that the wrong choice of speaker would doom us all. I was relieved when it was Estrada who stepped forward and not Alvantes or Mounteban. “Your highness,” she said, “there’s been a terrible misunderstanding here.”
“A king does not misunderstand,” said Panchessa. Now that I knew he was Moaradrid’s father, the similarities between them were unmistakeable; and it was hard to say whether Panchessa’s aloof indifference was less daunting than his son’s barely checked madness had been.
Before Estrada could reply, to my horror, Mounteban had pushed forward. “What the lady Estrada means to say is that the only traitor here is me. I was the one who dared to think that Altapasaeda could stand alone. It was Mayor Estrada and Captain Alvantes who stood against me, and in your name rather than their own. They have shown me how wrong I was, so if my death is the price of peace, I willingly accept it. I brought this crisis on Altapasaeda. Let me be the one to end it.”
“No!” Estrada clutched Mounteban’s arm, hard enough to turn him towards her. “Absolutely not, Castilio. Your highness, Castilio Mounteban has no right to speak for our party, or to make offers without consulting us.”
My attention had been so taken up with Panchessa that I’d hardly noticed there were other figures standing in the shadows behind him. I’d taken them for guards, and it was only when a familiar voice burst from the gloom that I realised how mistaken I’d been. “Rights? Offers? Is this how you dare speak to your king?”