Fox found the four of them crowded around Yuze's desk. He hadn't meant to interrupt, but he'd been making his way through the secret passageway, seen them through one of the spy holes, and it had been impossible to resist. He hadn't seen all four of them together in one place before, aside from the dinner Yuze had told him about.
He'd even knocked, and the relief Yuze had shown when he saw Fox on the other side of the door was flattering.
"Thank the gods." Yuze grabbed him by the arm and dragged him inside.
Fox, who wasn't as opposed to the other ways that could go as he should have been, grinned. Even though Yuze couldn't see it.
"What's going on?" He let Yuze pull him over to the table and took a moment to note the closeness of the other three.
For all that Yuze said, Chenzhou and Mingzhe were arguing over Chenzhou's approach to leadership; there wasn't enough space between the two of them and Eirian for a mouse to squeak through.
Chenzhou, at least, was smart enough to look wary at Fox's presence. "Yuze?"
"Fox is one of the most experienced agents when it comes to the Bandri. He might know something." Yuze explained.
Fox stayed a step back as Chenzhou debated, but eventually Lord Ye nodded, and Fox joined them around the desk.
Yuze showed him a coded message in handwriting he recognized as Rat's. Another agent who spent most of his time among the tribes and rarely returned to the Camelia. He was supposed to be up north with the Bandri, and as he read the message, he understood why Yuze and the Lords were up in arms.
The Bandri wanted a meeting?
The Bandri had never wanted a meeting. Fox had never even heard them consider it.
Nor had they ever responded in anyway other than extremely unfavorably on the rare occasions whichever Lord Ye was in power decided to try for peace.
Why did they want a meeting now?
Fox frowned as he studied the message. It was Rat's handwriting, and it was in the code that Yuze had come up with for him last year.
One of Yuze's smartest decisions as First Eye was to have different codes for each agent, known only to the two of them. It had taken Fox years of spying to learn them, as Yuze played things so close to the vest his secrets were harder to get into than a rich man's gold.
The chance that this message was a forgery was minuscule.
And Rat was north with the Bandri.
But why did the Bandri want a meeting?
"They're in the middle of the conclave," Fox murmured.
Yuze and the others nodded.
"The message doesn't say anything about that." Eirian pointed out.
The new Lady Ye was a smart woman.
Dangerously so.
"It's taking place south of their normal territory. Rat may not have been able to join them without raising suspicion." Yuze pointed out.
Eirian chewed on her lip. "Why is reporting the message more important than the conclave?"
"And how does he know about the message if he's not at the conclave?" Chenzhou added.
Mingzhe shook his head. "It's understandable that he'd have some knowledge of what was being discussed from those left behind. Has the actual message arrived?"
Yuze shook his head. "I told Captain Li to warn his men to expect it."
"If it's real." Fox offered quietly.
Yuze turned to him. "You don't think so?"
"I think…" Fox chose his words carefully. "They've never reached out before. Ever, that I am aware of."
"He's not wrong," Chenzhou murmured in agreement.
"The Bandri are famous for their unwillingness to negotiate. Even with the other tribes of the borderlands. When they go to war, everything burns. If they weren't so large and so experienced in battle, it's likely the other tribes would have joined together to destroy them by now." Fox explained.
The other four shared a concerned look.
"So what's changed?" Eirian asked. "Was the last war that devastating?"
Chenzhou shook his head. "It was significant, but there have been worse. And the Bandri don't keep written records, so it's unlikely they were tracking and comparing their losses and suddenly decided this was the time to reach out."
"The current leadership is young and new," Mingzhe added. "They only came to power at the end of the war. It's unlikely they're going to just surrender without leading their own attempt to destroy the Crimson Army."
"Perhaps they learned from their predecessor's mistake?" Eirian suggested, though even she didn't look completely convinced as she said it.
***
The message itself arrived later that afternoon, just as the worst of the day's heat was beginning to subside.
A trader from one of the village's in the prairie land brought it on behalf of the tribe and delivered it straight to Chenzhou. Unfortuantely, he didn't know anything about the contents and nor who specifically it came from.
It had been given to one of his sons outside the village walls and had almost been thrown away before the trader recognized the carved piece of bone accompanying it. It was the Bandri's version of a royal seal and was meant to pass back and forth with the letters until the communication was complete.
The current leader had carved it into the shape of a bear and an arrow, and Eirian admired the skill of the carving, so much detail in a piece of bone no bigger than her thumb, as Yuze read the official message.
"It's addressed to the Lord of the Flower." He read, confused.
"They don't have camelia flowers," Fox explained. "They use the word flower to refer to every plant that doesn't have a name in their language."
Yuze committed that fact to memory before continuing. "Traveler's Hill. Thirty-ninth day of the Lion."
Mingzhe frowned. "That's three days from now."
"It's signed Beng Shai of the Bandri." Yuze turned the letter over in his hands, looking for any hidden message or mark, but found nothing.
"They really want to meet." Chenzhou sounded dazed. "We've never seen one another anywhere but a battlefield."
~ tbc