At the mention of Andru's name, even Hill, who had been lounging in his chair, poured himself a glass of wine and settled into a more comfortable position, delighted.
What earth-shattering thing had this Amnian prince done now? He had shattered Hill's idea of just how low a normal human's intelligence could sink. At the sound of his name, even the spies sent by the great noble houses of the Border Kingdoms, where infighting was fierce, fell silent in frustration. Their nobles' petty struggles for power were everyday fare in Toril. Next to Andru, they were nothing.
The king of Amn... no, by the terms of the country known as the Land of Merchants, he was Mesako Slantschianter, the highest-ranking member of the Council of Five. But its rules had been inherited from the old Calishan Emirate. It was still a monarchy, just under another name.
Hill always called him a king. He simply could not get used to a council chairmanship passed down through generations—by primogeniture, no less.
As head of the family, the king of Amn had reluctantly paid a fortune to ransom his foolish brother. Then, in a fury, he confiscated all of Andru's property in the country to compensate the mercenaries who had died because of his stupidity.
With his personal guards wiped out—and any survivors unwilling to return, preferring jobs as caravan guards in small Amnian cities—the foolish brother who had lost his entire fortune was deposited in a small manor on the outskirts of the capital. The king kept him there on plain food and little else.
However angry he was, he could not let a prince who had just been ransomed die so soon.
Mesako Slantschianter, who had held power in Amn for many years, did not think Andru could do anything else.