Coralyn took a seat at Aren’s right and immediately struck up a conversation, their voices low enough that he couldn’t hear from this end of the table.
More men filtered in, taking their assigned seats. Next to Valcotta sat the ambassador from Harendell, who was blond, with an enormous nose. Across from her sat a red-haired man with freckles who looked Amaridian. A supposition that was supported by the glowers the two men gave each other. Amarid and Harendell were not on good terms, though they tended more to embargoes and assassinations than all-out war.
“General Anaphora,” the Harendellian said. “It was with regret that we heard of your capture in Nerastis, but I’m pleased to see that Silas is keeping you in a manner befitting your name and station. One can never tell with the Maridrinians. Violent bastards, to a man, though I suppose you know that well.”
Keris gave a soft snort of annoyance. “I am sitting right here, you know.”
The man squinted at Keris, clearly poor of eyesight. “Forgive me, which one are you again? Silas has so many sons, I find myself struggling to keep track.”
“He’s Crown Prince Keris, you idiot,” the Amaridian said from across the table. “Heir to the throne and the one negotiating with the Valcottans.”
“Oh, of course. Forgive me, Your Highness. No disrespect intended. Last I heard, Prince Rask was heir.”
“He’s dead.” Keris pointedly moved his attention back to his book, staring blindly at the pages.
“Perhaps you might fill my ears with news of my homeland,” Valcotta said to the Harendellian. “How fares my aunt, the Empress?”
“My countrymen have not yet returned with word of her response to the Maridrinians, if that is your inquiry. But rumors are that she closed herself in her room and wept for a day and a night when she heard you were taken.”
A rumor quite at odds with what Yrina had told him. Was the Harendellian lying to appease Valcotta, or had the Empress created the rumors herself to keep her reputation intact? Once, Keris would have thought the former, but now he suspected it was the latter.
He heard a soft chime, and Keris closed his book and rose, watching as his father entered the room. As always, he was flanked by bodyguards and his current favorite wives, including Lestara. She went to a seat at the far end of the table, her eyes meeting Keris’s briefly.
The harem was ready.
“Do we need to find you a lighter set of chains, Aren?” his father said, and Keris looked to the far end of the table to see that the Ithicanian king remained sitting. “Perhaps we could have one of the jewelers fashion you something less burdensome?”
The heavy links joining Aren’s manacles clunked and rattled ominously against the wood of the table as he reached for his tiny tin cup of wine and drained it. Then he shrugged. “A lighter chain would make a fine garrote, but there is something more… satisfying about choking a man to death. I’d ask you if you agreed, Silas, but everyone here knows you prefer to stab men in the back.”
Keris silently cursed. If Aren got himself killed after all the work Keris had done to get him here, he was going to piss on the idiot’s grave.
Silas frowned. “You see, kind sirs? All the Ithicanians know is insults and violence. How much better now that we no longer have to deal with their ilk when conducting trade through the bridge.”
The Amaridian ambassador thumped his hand against the table in agreement, but the ambassador from Harendell only frowned and rubbed at the grey stubble on his chin. And next to him, Valcotta squared her shoulders, the silk of her dress whispering from the movement. “I’m afraid Valcotta does not concur with your sentiment, Your Grace. And until Maridrina withdraws from Ithicana and you release its king, Valcottan merchants will continue to bypass the bridge in favor of shipping routes.”
This was what he’d been afraid of. Valcotta knew nothing of Keris’s plans for tonight. Had no idea that gaining an alliance with the Ithicanian king might see her freed. And she was angry. He could feel the hate simmering off her, despite her mild expression. Fresh grief from Yrina’s death meant her heart was making her decisions, not her head.
His father gave her a withering glare. “Then your aunt best get used to losing ships to the Tempest Seas. And you would do well to remember your place and curb your tongue, girl. Your presence is only a courtesy. You should be thanking me for sparing your life, not testing my patience with your prattle. Your head would look rather nice spiked on Vencia’s gates.”
Keris’s hand tightened reflexively on the stem of his wineglass as Valcotta shifted next to him. Was she trying to pick a fight with his father? Was she trying to gain herself a chance to get close to him? For a fighter like Valcotta, everything was a weapon. A fork. A shard of broken plate. The snapped-off stem of a wineglass. And this was the first time she’d been in his father’s presence without chains binding her wrists. Keris tensed, readying himself to intervene if she tried to make a move, because it could not be her who killed his father.
From his end of the table, Aren said, “As one intimately acquainted with this issue, Silas, allow me to let you in on a little secret: An empty bridge earns no gold.”
The Amaridian ambassador cast a sideways glance at Silas. Judging from the way his father’s jaw flexed, he hadn’t missed the look. Keris’s skin crawled as he felt his father’s anger rising. Silas hated not being in control of a situation, but what he hated most of all was mockery. It would be well within his character to lash out with violence if for no reason other than to remind everyone whom they needed to fear. And Valcotta was the person he was most likely to strike.
Unless Keris drew his attention elsewhere.
He opened his mouth, readying a quip that would bring his father’s wrath down on him instead, but before he could say anything, music began to play, emanating softly from where the musician was seated behind the curtains. Keris hadn’t even been aware the individual was there.
Lestara rose to her feet and began to dance, a slow and seductive set of movements. Every male gaze in the room went to her except his father’s, who was assuring the rather distracted Amaridian that he should not believe rumors, for the bridge was indeed turning a profit. The music volume increased, and his father scowled, forced to repeat his words as the Amaridian stared at him in confusion, conversation drowned out.
Exactly as the harem had planned it to. Out of the corner of his eye, Keris watched Coralyn converse with Aren, doing a far better job at making whatever they were discussing seem like idle dinner chatter.
“Has Amarid’s partnership with Maridrina been a profitable one?” Valcotta asked the ambassador. “I can’t help but think the losses you must be taking in ships and crew far outweigh what profit you’ve gained via preferential treatment on the bridge.”