No Feast Without a Trap, No Meeting Without an Agenda

Suleiman swept his hand through the air.

The fervent religious atmosphere seemed to vanish with that single gesture.

Theodore Wells led the Sons of the Warrior and the monks out of the great tent.

The tent flap fell, shutting out the sunlight and that suffocating sense of holiness.

The relaxed mood disappeared, replaced once more by the chill from before.

Arwood Halton sat in his chair.

He looked around.

The lords who had just watched Suleiman's outrageous act in bewilderment now wore strange expressions.

Yet not one of them had spoken up.

The Riverlands knights behind them stood at attention, hands at their sides.

It was as though the discussion about tens of thousands of prisoners and five hundred thousand Gold Dragons had nothing to do with them.

Arwood Halton remembered the mocking looks those lords had given him when they argued over who would claim the prisoners.

He sighed inwardly.

These fools.

He recalled something Suleiman had once said about old Hean.

"A monkey in clothes."

At the time, Arwood Halton had thought it viciously harsh. Now it seemed painfully accurate.

These people really were monkeys in clothes.

Arwood Halton looked toward the young man on the raised platform.

Suleiman leaned back in his chair, his chin propped on one hand. His gaze was deep, revealing neither pleasure nor anger.

What was he doing?

Arwood kept turning over the question of what Suleiman wanted.

The young man was clearly testing them, but why?

Victory in this war had already cemented his position.

The lords of the Riverlands had admitted defeat and yielded.

At least in the generation Suleiman ruled, no one would look down on him for his bloodline again.

No one would dare step out of line.

So why do this?

This behavior...

Arwood Halton's pupils contracted sharply.