The three emissaries met in front of Chang’s command tent well after the sun had risen, mounted and ready.
Penrys smoothed the fabric of her new breeches along her thighs and concentrated on holding her horse still. She wondered if she might meet the horse’s former owner in the enemy camp, if they got that far. She hoped not—too many people had died, too much damage.
While she’d been gone in Neshilik, Hing Ganau had had her original clothes duplicated from the rags that remained after the device with the mirror exploded, but in finer materials. With her cleaned and polished boots, she supposed she represented the Ellech portion of this embassy, however unofficially.
Her saddle had been fitted with a saber mount, and the hilt of the sword was tied to the scabbard with very visible red ribbons that rustled whenever the breeze picked up, an ear-twitching distraction for her horse. Hing had explained to her that the weapons demonstrated they came as free emissaries, not captives, and the ribbons showed their intentions were peaceful.
Fine as a symbol. But I’ve never even held a saber—would have been nice to give it a swing before tying it down.
Zandaril appeared in his formal Zannib robes, of course. But Tun Jeju, the third ambassador, was a surprise. He wore a dark blue overrobe, in brocaded silk, with flared trousers that hearkened back to Kigali’s more remote past. The ceremonial black and red hat with the stiffened wings that was tied under his chin transformed his face from urbane to exotic. Penrys had seen illustrations that looked just like this, back in the Collegium, complete with the weapon hilts and their streaming ribbons.
Their herald trotted up, neatly uniformed, his long staff sporting the leipum, the traditional leafy branch indicating a parley. When Penrys looked closely, she saw the branch was artificial.
Sensible. Can’t find a leafy branch in winter when you want one.
Chang passed two scrolls to one of his men who put them in the dispatch pouch attached to Tun’s saddle, and then the Commander walked up to Tun and handed him a third scroll directly.
Tun tucked it into his robe, then tipped his head to Chang and abruptly turned his horse, joining the herald to walk side-by-side down the avenue of the camp. Penrys and Zandaril made a second pair behind them.
The mood of the camp was different from their entry, just a day ago—more settled, less apprehensive. The focus was more on Kigali pride, in the person of Tun Jeju, than on the two foreign wizards.
At the edge of the camp, they were joined by their escort, half a dozen horsemen in clean uniforms on well-brushed mounts that smelled faintly of saddle soap. The guard took position several paces to their rear, and Tun led them all off in a slow trot, west, toward the Gates of Seguchi.
Penrys scanned their surroundings every few minutes. Their horses stood in a group on the open ground plainly visible from the fortifications at the top of Koryan, on the right—the herald first, the three emissaries with Tun Jeju in the lead, and then the escort. The rest of the grassland around them was deserted, but she sensed dozens of people out of sight within the Gates and up on Koryan, as she’d reported to Tun when they arrived an hour ago. Behind the nearest people, she could feel the bulk of the Rasesni encampment on the floodplain of Harlin, well back from the Gates, but only a couple of miles distant.
The sound of rushing water from the gorge on their left carried clearly through the still air, and Penrys admired the apparently sheer walls that rose above it in the distance. The moisture in the air raised by the turbulence made itself felt whenever the unsettled breeze swung in their direction.
“Tak Tuzap crossed that rock face,” she said to Zandaril. “At night. I wouldn’t like to try it.”
“Nor I,” he replied.
Tun Jeju turned his head to the left to see what they were talking about, then resumed his relaxed posture. “It shouldn’t take them this long to make up their minds. We’ll give them another half hour or so, then we’ll dismount to relieve the horses.”
Almost as he spoke, Penrys felt a change in their observers. A group was beginning to move forward from within the sheltered Gates. “They’re coming,” she said. “Ten of them.”
“Good,” Tun said. “Matching our numbers.”
He turned to look at the wizards. “Follow my lead, and don’t lose your dignity, whatever the provocation.”
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea to let them see my chain,” Penrys said. “That’s a mark of their feared enemy.”
“And won’t that puzzle them,” Zandaril said, with a grin. “Make them wonder if we’ve got some secret weapon they could use.”
“But we don’t,” she said.
“Quiet.” Tun was monitoring the approach of the others, who came most of the way at a slow canter, then fell to a walk to cover the final fifty yards or so.
Penrys glanced at their herald, who carried a matching staff with a leafy branch. This one was real, she saw, the autumn-colored leaves barely clinging. She disregarded their escort, six riders similar to their own who hung back in a group.
The three emissaries were interesting. All three were native Rasesni speakers—they looked to her like Kigaliwen with broader faces and shaggier, unbraided hair. One was dressed in uniform, nothing as showy as Tun’s diplomatic display, and the second was clothed as a warrior, leather-clad and well-armed, but not in uniform. The third was in civilian tunic and breeches and carried no visible weapons. The weapons of those who carried them were tied down with a motley collection of cords of various kinds.
They don’t have truce-ribbons ready to hand. Saw ours. Had to improvise.
When she let her mind-scan sink a little deeper for the civilian, she caught his attention. A wizard. She felt the change in his emotions the moment he noticed the chain around her neck—surprise and fear and loathing, followed by speculation.
She withdrew, and nodded her head to him, then made sure her mind-shield was tucked firmly around Zandaril and herself.
After the initial introductions had been made, in Kigali-yat, Tun Jeju and Tlobsung pulled their horses aside from the others for a few minutes of private conversation. Penrys waited awkwardly with Zandaril, while their counterparts stared at them.
Tun turned his horse back to them. “They’re prepared to talk. There will be a delay while they prepare the formal meeting.”
Tlobsung had one of his escort wave a signal flag to the gates, and in a few minutes they were joined by four servants and two carts that carried small tables and camp chairs, along with refreshment for the party.
Everyone dismounted while the meeting place was assembled on the grass. The escorts took charge of the horses on both sides, and Penrys stood out of the way with Zandaril while they waited.
“I was surprised by Tun Jeju’s attire,” Penrys said. “Shouldn’t he be in military dress clothing?”
“He’s the Emperor’s representative, and that takes precedence over any military rank, even Intelligence Master. It doesn’t look quite proper without the braid, though.”
“The braid?”
Zandaril glanced at her. “I suppose you haven’t seen that many civilians yet. Didn’t you notice the herdsmen and the teamsters, with their long braids? And the people you met in Lupmikya? Tak Tuzap, too?”
Penrys lifted a shoulder. “I just thought the troopers had short hair to accommodate their helmets.”
“Well, yes, but it’s more than that. Everyone wears the braid, everyone except the military. It marks them, in gatherings. They stand out, and it bonds them together, against the ‘long braids,’ as they call them. Makes it harder for them to masquerade as something else, too.”
Penrys fingered her shoulder length hair and then glanced at Zandaril’s turban. “We don’t fit in either way, do we?”
“In Kigali, in the cities, we would never meet someone like Chang, much less Tun Jeju. Wizards not important enough. We’re like camp doctors—little rank, no standing. Worse, Kigali has little use for foreigners. We don’t even merit Kigali names, and that’s pretty low.”
Penrys blinked at that.
“I’ve met people like Sau Tsuo before. Zannib confuse Kigaliwen. His gods don’t know what to do with me. We have no temples, but we have people in the Ghuzl mar-Tawirqaj at Ussha the way they have priests. So what are they?”
He chuckled. “Chang has a problem. The tribal assembly knows I am here, that they sent for someone, and Kigali may need its allies. And now he thinks he may need foreign wizards, too, if he believes what we reported.”
He looked down at Penrys. “It is awkward for him. He doesn’t know how to treat us, as you saw. And I am warrior, and trader, not just wizard. And you are mystery. What will he do if there is trouble?”
Shaking his head, he said, “I would not expect him to work all that hard to get us out, if something happens.”
He stared at her directly. “It’s not too late to turn back.”
Penrys frowned. “Tun Jeju is different. I think he values us higher.”
“Doesn’t mean we’re any safer with him in charge. You know what they say about him—he lives with his wife’s family.” He grinned.
Penrys lifted an eyebrow in puzzlement, and he explained. “In Kigali, the wife does not go to the husband’s family, like the Zannib. They live with the more powerful family, whichever it is. Imagine people even sneakier than Tun!”
As if by cue, Tun chose that moment to beckon them over to join him. He seemed especially pleased with the hastily erected canopy, a simple piece of fluttering cloth over ten raised staffs that provided a nominal shelter for their talks. “Means they’re serious,” he said. “Part of their traditions.”
The camp chairs were arranged on the grass three on a side, with the little tables separating them. Once they sat down, they completed the formal introductions, with Kigali-yat as their common language. Tlobsung, the man they had heard of from Tak Tuzap, was in charge of their military, and Pyalshrog was some sort of leader of the hill-tribes. Penrys wasn’t clear on his exact role.
The wizard, Zongchas, studied his two counterparts, and questioned them. Penrys had been expecting this moment since they’d met.
“It was a surprise to us to see a Kigalino envoy with two foreign wizards,” he said, politely, in excellent if accented Kigali-yat. “Have you been with them long?”
“I joined them to find out what had happened here,” Zandaril said. “Sarq-Zannib has an interest in whatever happens to our good allies, the Kigaliwen.”
“I see,” Zongchas said, and turned to Penrys, his eyes flicking to the chain and reluctant to look away. “And you?”
Here it comes. “I was visiting from Ellech, from the Collegium…” She saw the narrowing of his eyes as he made note of the name. “When I heard the news myself.”
There. Let him make what he wants of that.
“And your role with this military expedition?”
“Advisors,” Zandaril said. “We help them with matters that are… beyond their military experience.”
“And what sort of matters would those be?”
Penrys paused a moment and looked at him. “We met the Voice, up on the Horn. He grabbed us but we got away.”
Into the dead silence, she added, “Those sort of matters.”
