"Does La Sable actually expect us to swallow this garbage?" Queen Xiulan said. While she remained composed, the fan in her hand was closed and being gripped like a sword she intended to stab into someone.

She was not the only one who was taking issue. Prince Cezar was holding the original copy of the message from the senate of La Sable, re-reading it in angry disbelief. Those emotions seemed to be the common reactions to the message. Only King Miquella appeared amused at the audacity of what it proclaimed.

"We are still trying to ascertain how true the purported facts contained in the message are," King Artorias said. Next to him, Maria maintained a vigilant watch, despite—and actually because of—the far greater number of people in the room for this meeting. Each of the rulers and representatives had more than merely their bodyguards with them in this meeting, bringing trusted retainers, advisors, clerks, and whoever else they believed where needed to advise them. At the King's side were all four of his sons, the queen, the prime minister, General Solcrista, and the Dukes and Duchesses of Sorcier, as well as their retainers, advisors, and clerks. Besides Duke Claes and Duke Adeth, the only one Maria recognized was Duchess Arika Silverberg, and only by description. It was for all intents and purposes a council of war. "Initial reports agree that the senate of La Sable did in fact convene during the period of the International Assembly, but there is some uncertainty if it was before or after the cowardly attack."

"Does it matter?" Queen Siegmidala said. "Even if their Senate did in fact choose to impeach Horntuba in his absence, It was still an attack by La Sable led and planned by their Lord Presider at the time. Do they really think that this bureaucratic sophistry changes anything?"

Maria did her best to keep her eyes averted from her squire, who was sitting with her brother behind Duke and Duchess Claes. Her squire was actually comporting herself properly, sitting in a way that one might mistake for being poised and regal… if one didn't know her. If one did, they'd know from the way Katarina's mouth was moving that she as eating something, no doubt a sweet from Lord Keith.

She didn't know what the notebook on her squire's lap was about, however. She'd thought it was some kind of novel that her squire was reading, except she would occasionally stop and write on it, and she knew squire would NEVER do such a thing to her novels. Nonetheless, taken altogether it made her seem like a serious, composed, no-nonsense young lady… which was an utter lie, because Katarina was composed of at least nine-tenths nonsense. Despite all the training, Maria couldn't convince herself the ratio was any lesser.

"It's not even a well thought-out bit of sophistry," Queen Mylene said. "So what if they had deposed Horntuba in absentia? He had still been acting as their official representative to the Assembly at the time due to the fact the decision hadn't been communicated…"

La Sable's message had declared that in the Lord Presider's absence, his political opponents in the senate had convened and voted to impeach him from his position. As a result, Donnar Horntuba was supposedly no longer the Lord Presider of La Sable, and as such his actions was no longer representative of the nation, with the implication that as a result no acts of war by La Sable, as Horntuba had been acting on solely on his own…

Everyone agreed that this was all utter swamp, one whose toxicity and giant crabs were not improved by the ambiguity of whether this impeachment had occurred before the attack on the Assembly—which was what the messenger was implying, saying that he had been long-delayed travelling from the La Sable's capital to Morfae Londo due to road conditions, ogres, and large green things with teeth—or afterwards, meaning it was being used as a final ploy to try and avert the wrath of the assembled nations from falling on La Sable.

Despite this, the message was still rousing debate among the assembled nations, mostly due to how best to respond to it. Xiarmah wanted them to respond with Horntuba's head in a box followed closely by an army, burning down all of La Sable's lands in fire and impaling all of its people on pikes to die slowly, something that many in Sorcier—including Duchess Silverberg, Duke Adeth and Duchess Claes—were in favor of. Etran on the other hand wanted to accept the excuse, but to use it as a pretext to demand reparations in the form of Horntuba's lands and wealth, which were both considerable even for La Sable and would ensure the payment would be prompt since La Sable's nobles would be more enthusiastic to have someone else's coffers be plundered rather than their own. Tasmeria, for its part, was reluctant to commit because any mobilization of their forces would rouse an immediate response from their ancient enemy Towair, which was also allied with La Sable, as they didn't want to have to fight a two-front war…

The question was the scale of the war that would be waged. Even in the truly unlikely possibility that La Sable would be willing to pay reparations for their Lord Presiders actions—unlikely, given they had removed him from his position and his political enemies now held sway, never mind that their nobles were notorious fractious—it would cause such discontent in La Sable's nobility and knights for the Senate to admit defeat without even a battle that war would erupt simply so they could prove they would have won such a confrontation and the reparations were unnecessary… never the fact they would be backstabbing each other the whole way.

The fact of the matter was that while defeating La Sable would simplicity itself given they would essentially be ganked, none wanted La Sable to be so utterly destroyed that they would never recover, not even Xiarmah, and none wanted to conquer it save Etran—and even then only reluctantly, as a means of paying the costs of the war. To conquer La Sable would be require that the conqueror either integrate its nobility and people into the conqueror's own—and therefore willing ingest the very corruption and fractiousness that La Sable was known for—or exterminate all the people in the conquered lands utterly, which invited the birth of twisted abyssal abominations born of hatred and resentment atop the inevitable prolonged bloodshed and exorbitant costs of such a campaign.

In the end, Maria had very little to say. She was simply a body guard after all, and as a mere knight her rank was far too low to have any say in matters. Still, she couldn't help wishing that this wouldn't result in a full-scale war. While she would do her duty if it came to that, the levies of soldiers that she would be required to raise as a knight would have a deleterious effect on her lands. Still, if it was what was needed of her…

…

She opted not to think about it and simply keep her eyes open for assassins.

During the discussions, however, the question of what was to be done about the surviving members of the La Sable delegation to the International Assembly arose.

"To the best that I can determine, with the assistance of Lady Claes," the Third Prince reported as everyone's gaze turned towards Katarina, who was still frowning down at her notebook, "the remaining survivors of the delegation were genuinely ignorant as to the Lord Presider's intentions, and had simply been following orders they had been given to bring along the members of mercenary company that the Lord Presider had hired. My interviews with the few survivors of the mercenaries themselves—" everyone glanced at Katarina against at this, "—has also led me to believe that the Lord Presider influenced them beforehand to increase their fanaticism towards him. All the mercenaries I interviewed report that the Lord Presider clasped hands with all who infiltrated the gala and spoke briefly about how 'killing all non-La Sablicans' was more important than the money they would be paid. I suspect some sort of drug to increase suggestibility was involved and am having all of the La Sablican's effects searched for the substance." A lie, of course, intended to shroud the knowledge of Dark Magic, but the Third Prince delivered it so smoothly and sincerely.

Maria reflected that it probably wasn't a good idea to so blatantly reveal to your fellow nations just how good a liar you were, especially when you were still the one considered most likely to succeed his Majesty as king.

Over the past few days, while the La Sable delegation had been placed under house arrest within their rooms—and mostly owing to the fact just keeping them there was more convenient that rooting them out and dragging them down to the cells in the dungeons of the castle—most of the castle had essentially left them to their own devices… with one exception. Katarina had made irregular visits to their rooms, and had been allowed entry because… well, no explicit order had been given barring anyone from visiting the La Sablicans. They had simply been avoided as a matter of course by everyone else, to occupied with everything going on to spare time for anyone besides interrogators to pay them a visit.

Interrogators… and Katarina.

While the guards assigned to keep the La Sablicans in their quarters were naturally inclined to turn away visitors in the reasonable worry that any visitors might be collaborators who might assist the La Sablicans with escape or further attacks, they had apparently allowed Katarina entry because she knew them, none of them believed she would be any sort of collaborator, and they had not actually been given explicit orders that visitors were not, in fact, allowed.

Katarina had been left unsupervised among the La Sablicans for two days before someone had finally thought to report the matter to a superior who hadn't just shrugged and thought "ah, it's just Katarina, what's the harm?". By the time the Third Prince had been able to find time to personally interview the La Sablicans so he could use his genius to analyze what they had told the initial interrogators for holes, Katarina had already been among them for too long. Most of the La Sablicans had been more than willing to relate everything that had gone on among their delegation, especially the Lord Presider's behavior when outside of public view, and had even led to three of the La Sablicans confessing they had known about the plans in advance and trying to protect the rest of the delegation from retribution by testifying that they had indeed been ignorant, as well as identifying all the others who had also known.

Because it had happened among the La Sablicans, few in the castle knew the truth as to what had happened. Maria herself didn't know, not really, and only extensive experience with her squire allowed her to deduce the events involved once she heard of the circumstances. To those who were not familiar with her personally, it had been another surprising accomplishment by the one many knights and nobles had now dubbed Katarina the Kind—also known as Kindly Katarina, Katarina of the Merciful Sword, and The Smiling Lady—with her incomparable subtlety and shrewd, cunning mind as she somehow flawless wove through whatever deceits and arguments the La Sablicans had no down raised to obscure their true intentions.

It had been a minor source of merriment in these increasingly dark days, as war the notion of war slowly draped across the lands like a veil. There were none who thought it could lead to anything else.

In her heart, Maria Campbell prepared for war. It would certainly be a novel experience for her. She had never been to war before.

It was unlikely to be pleasant.

A Katarina Interlude

Katarina sucked the candy in her mouth, almost biting down to crack it before she stopped herself. No, no chewing on the candy, that was bad for her teeth, and anyway it didn't really improve the flavor…

She just managed not to tap her pen as she stared down at her open notebook, looking down at her list of possible fiancées for Keith as she tried once more to narrow down the list… ah, but they were such nice girls! And a surprising number of them were pretty open to the idea of being with other women! They hadn't admitted to it when she had first met them, but over the past week they seemed to have slowly come around to the idea, one by one privately confessing to Katarina that they had began entertaining and even fantasizing about being with other women…

Katarina had promised to keep their confession secret, of course, but she was sure they would be in for a peasant surprise when they learned that all the other fiancée candidates also felt the same way, so their wouldn't be any awkwardness!

Well, that was all well and good that the girls were compatible with each other, but the important thing was for them to be compatible with Keith! She went over the list again, reviewing each of the girls' charm points and personalities, her pen ready to cross out anyone who might be unable to get on well with her beloved little brother…

She wondered if this meeting thing would be over in time for lunch. Katarina was already starting to feel hungry.

In her mouth, the candy crunched between her teeth.

Darn it!