Here, knot work had been carved into the entire surface of both trees, and the rest overlaid with some clear glaze so the designs stood out in black on bone-white wood. Clearly the designs were set alight for special occasions. Kip was somewhat sad that his arrival didn’t rate.

A dozen guards stood at the gate, but they said nothing. A single rider on a white charger in ceremonial white-and-gold armor and carrying the white-and-green triangular flag of the city nodded to them from his wolf helm and rode before them, leading them to the Palace of the Divines.

Here the buildings were older and grander by far. Living wood made the frames of these buildings, with a few supporting enormous stained glass windows between their branches, mostly hidden now by fresh green leaves, but no doubt glorious in autumn and winter.

“How the hell did they do that?” Ben-hadad said. “Do they will-cast the trees? How do you will-cast a tree? They don’t grow fast enough. How do the windows not shatter when the branches grow year by year? How do they keep the trees alive? It’s not possible.”

“It’s a great disgrace for any family to let their heartwood die,” Tisis said. “That said, perhaps we should focus on more immediate matters.”

“Such as?” Kip asked. He stopped. “Oh.”

A gallows had come into view. Ten ragged corpses bedecked with rags and carrion birds (rioters, no doubt) were hanged beside a familiar man whose trousers alone would have fed those rioters for a month.

“They hanged Conn Hill?” Cruxer asked. “But why?”

“Because he offended Kip,” Tisis said, shocked. “They’re that desperate.”

Kip felt a sudden wave of guilt, as when he’d not hidden the money well enough and his mother had found it and gone on another binge. After she sobered, she’d berate him for failing her.

Conn Hill had been an asshole. Kip had wanted the man out of his sight. He’d guessed the Council of Divines would strip him of his position as conn. But this?

What had Kip done?

They entered a glorious plaza nearly the size of a hippodrome. It was paved with flawless white granite cobbles, and stately buildings in green and marble embraced by living wood rose on each side of the square. The grandest was the Palace of the Divines, which lay at the top of thirty wine-red marble steps like a pale bloated dictator in his palanquin.

The Divines, septuagenarians all, stood at the top of the steps in a semicircle.

Kip was clearly expected to dismount and climb the steps.

He rode up the steps.

Don’t fall off the damn horse. Don’t fall off the damn horse.

The horse was sure-footed, though, and it deposited Kip at the top of the stairs in the midst of seven scandalized old men and their retinues. The Mighty had dismounted, and flowed up the steps like a black tide.

Having made a small point about how he might not do what they expected, Kip undercut it by striking a demure attitude.

“Greetings, my lords,” he said with only a tiny smile.

“Greetings, Lord Guile, Savior of Dúnbheo, Defender of Blood Forest, and loyal son of the Seven Satrapies,” an officious, nasally man at one end said. Kip thought it was Lord Aodán Appleton from Tisis’s briefings. He decided he didn’t like the little stuffed turd.

The others echoed him. Several looked openly hostile. Good, those he could trust. They also stood together, like amateurs, like cattle herding close to ward off harm. A faction, then.

After dealings at the Chromeria, it was actually refreshing to see one’s friends and enemies do something so kind as to line up so you could tell who was who.

Time to stir the pot.

There were thousands of people gathered in the square, watching, though of course they wouldn’t hear anything that Kip said to the assembled lords. Then again, Kip supposed that after weeks and months under siege, pretty much anything would seem fascinating. Perhaps he couldn’t fault them for looking even to him for entertainment.

Might as well start out by putting them off balance.

“Good, good,” Kip said. “I’m so glad to find you so amenable.”

“My lord Guile,” Lord Aodán Appleton said. “We would like to present you—”

“I don’t really enjoy ceremony,” Kip said, “so let’s skip all that. I see you’ve hanged that asshole, um, what’s his… Hill. Conn Hill, wasn’t he? Was that for me?”

They looked at each other, and some of the gazes were hateful. The hateful three of the wimpy herd were Lord Ghiolla Dhé Rathcore (nephew of Orea Pullawr), Lord Breck White Oak (third cousin of Karris White Oak), and Lord Cúan Spreading Oak (grandson of Prism Gracchos Spreading Oak and a kitchen maid). Kip guessed that they’d been allies of Conn Hill. With him dead, their majority on the Council had dissolved.

“We simply respect you so much that we wished to make your time here before you take your army to Green Haven as easy as possible, my lord,” Lord Culin Willow Bough said. He did an unconvincing job of looking mournful at the demise of his rival.

Orholam’s beard, I really am in a backwater. This is what passes for the nobility here?

“I appreciate that,” Kip said. “He was a bastard. I don’t know if I could have worked with him. I’d like to reward whoever’s idea it was. I imagine Conn Hill had some lands and titles one might redistribute to the worthy?”

“We don’t often punish a whole family for one man’s miscalc—” Lord Cúan Spreading Oak said.

“You don’t often do a lot of things. I think good work should be rewarded fairly. Don’t you agree?” Kip asked.

“We… we all agreed it should be done,” Cu Comán said, speaking for the first time. He was white haired and pale as the dead, a look accentuated by a figure as lean as a rapier.

“Well, I’m not going to split up lands that have a history and a people. Satrap Willow Bough will already be irritated with me for this redistribution without his consent. He and I have bigger things to discuss, but I needn’t rub it in his face. I know it wasn’t any of them,” Kip said, pointing to the huddled three. “They look angry and scared, friends of his, no doubt.”

“Not friends, per se,” Lord Breck said. The others glared at him.

“It was my idea,” Lord Cu Comán said.

“He’s not jumping on the credit where he oughtn’t, is he?” Kip asked Lord Willow Bough and Aodán, as if it were funny.