‘Which—’ Pilos began and then stopped. He looked to Enet, who was wearing an expression of almost constipated innocence. My fighting pit, of course, when all that were scheduled were death-fights. That is why I was invited here tonight rather than earlier, and she will not have told them who owns the pit in hopes of making us all angry and embarrassed.

‘Peace, Betsu,’ Tayan said, and though the words were gentle, there was tension in the shaman’s hands and jaw.

‘I will not peace,’ the woman snapped. ‘We came to negotiate, with a very limited timescale imposed by the Great Octave; instead we are insulted and subjected to barbarism and make no progress.’

‘Barbarism?’ Enet said quietly. ‘And here was me thinking you looked quite lovely in that shawl.’ She gestured gracefully to the garment draped over the Yaloh shoulders and the woman flushed a dark red. Pilos wasn’t sure what was going on, but the peace-weaver’s fury was clear to them all.

Betsu tossed back the honeypot and slammed down the cup. ‘Now you are here, High Feather, we can finally make progress, warrior to warrior, as it should be. What will it take?’

Pilos sipped his drink, just enough for its warmth to spread though his chest and throat. The others might not understand why someone so short-tempered had been sent to make peace, but Pilos appreciated the warrior’s directness. It was refreshing to speak with someone who wanted progress. Who understood the passage of time was not a slow-moving river but a storm, moving in stutters and leaps across a landscape, hurrying and then dawdling and impossible to predict, with the will of the gods and the might of the Singer the lightning and thunder and lashing rain.

‘What will what take?’ he asked.

‘For the last fifty years, you have expanded in every direction, with our lands in the north the last to remain free. You and your song spread like maize-blight. In three generations, you have taken nearly all of Ixachipan. And as soon as you have dominion over a land, you steal its people and give it to strangers to farm. You upset the balance, not only with your expansion but with your very methods. The earth will not stand your depredations forever – the theft of tree-cover that protects the soil when the rains come, that gives homes to animals and medicine to people. When the land fails, what will you do then? When your numbers are so great that even the richness of the soil cannot sustain them, how will you proceed?’

Pilos cocked his head. ‘You wish to discuss our farming methods?’ he asked and sipped again. ‘My concern is defence of the Empire and its expansion in accordance with our Singer’s will, not crops and fallow fields and’ – he waved his free hand – ‘the spreading of shit.’