Torghan set the bowl of warm milk, freshly drawn and mercifully unfermented, back onto the fur rug. He took his time, wiping the white mustache from his upper lip with the back of his hand, acutely aware of the suffocating weight of the stares directed at him.
He was after all the only translator fluent enough in the room
None of the Valakii dared to rush him. To them, he was a ghost of a traitor's line; to the Yarzat, he was the loyal fist of the Crown.
"We have squandered enough of the morning on silence," Torghan announced, his voice carrying the resonant authority of a judge. "Let the accounting begin."
He turned to the Yarzat party. Serafim, the Envoy whose dignity had been so roughly handled, offered a curt, professional nod.
