The interior of the great tent, where the fate of the Yarzat–Oizen borderlands would be debated, was exactly as Alpheo had pictured it.
Round wooden benches had been arranged in a sweeping half-circle, rising in modest tiers to grant each envoy a view of the center. Opposite one another, on two distinct sides of the space, stood two chairs deliberately placed at the mouth of the entrance and before the exit. It required no great mind to discern which prince was meant to claim which seat.
As Alpheo entered with his aides in tow, the first thing to greet him was not the herald's cry or the flutter of banners, but the faces. But of the weary faces of the envoys sent by neighboring princes who could not resist inserting themselves into this quarrel.
He had already met most of them in Shaza's keep in the days prior, plying them with courtesy, veiled words, and careful smiles, each attempt to sound out their intentions. That had been an exercise in disappointment.
