"...I understand the impulse but that was not part of what I bargained for."

"What did you bargain for? Macalaurë said he told you he'd give everything back if you'd mediate the transfer so it didn't worsen tensions."

"I wasn't doing my paper-conserving notetaking then, so I don't remember the exact words, but my understanding was that I was more or less buying the things off you on their behalf, with healing for your father. The fact that tensions complicate the matter of delivery was left to be figured out later. The orcs are what we figured out, and they are still available. I'm not saying you have to send everything right now before I go tell them off about scouts with either no sense of direction or no sense of having a nonthreatening posture. I'm pointing out that if you don't send the things with the orcs - who are going to leave soon - then you have to think of another way to do it. It's not trivial, unless you just all move east and don't bring anything of theirs and let them have your camp; which is itself not trivial but I suppose simplifies the delivery part considerably."

"You were planning to let Father die? Yeah, I can imagine why Macalaurë didn't tell us that."

"Well, I wouldn't have been pleased about it but I'm trying to juggle a lot of different people's goodwill here. He didn't seem to be dying quickly enough that I had to decide before getting a second opinion, and if I remember right it was Macalaurë's idea to return your cousins' belongings if I'd do it; 'planning' is an unflattering exaggeration."

"I thought you knew. I think the conversation happened aloud. I still don't have a good model of when I should assume I'm audible, apparently."

"When Father was dying we weren't exactly paying attention to everything. If you've never been through anything like that, it's hell."

"When my father was dying I had less than a minute to decide whether to ruin my life or let his end, so I suppose it's not directly comparable."

"Do you remember much of the background noise? Imagine that minute, but for a year, and with thousands of other people relying on you."

"I remember a lot about the background noise, actually. But I wouldn't have been able to pick out any of the voices even if I'd been attending to that and only that. We're getting sidetracked," she said, shaking her head. "Your cousins weren't thrilled about the idea of your father's survival. I valued it for its own sake but couldn't discount their prophecies of outcomes I disvalued for their own sake. The balance was tipped by keeping his oath in force and being able to soothe them with the return of their belongings, plus my general bias towards healing and the very real possibility that this war has to be won with innovation and not with going up and hitting a Vala with swords in sufficient legions of individual warriors."

"Understood," he says. "Now my cousins' desire for the return of their belongings will have to be tempered by their understanding that we want a promise of no more assassination attempts, or else them to be far away from us, before we give them horses and the means to build a better method of achieving our deaths."

"Do you have a way to get them the horses without the orcs or anybody thinking somebody's there to start an argument - or a battle? I suppose you could just catch more orcs but Vár's a limited resource, correct me if she's found a protégé."

"We can hand them off to Irissë and a couple people she chooses, somewhere neutral."

"And if they complain that Irissë and a couple people aren't a sufficient force to look after that many horses? I recall this complaint coming up on your end. Are you going to make a dozen trips?"

"Sure, why not? Look, the likeliest explanation of the past few days is that they tried to murder my father. If that doesn't even minorly inconvenience them, why the Void won't they do it again? Irissë can make a dozen trips, it won't kill her."

"I'm undecided on whether it was a murder attempt but it sure seems they did something stupid; I'm not sure that Irissë did something stupid but there are probably no options that don't involve collective punishment of some kind. All right. Fallback plan if they don't have a very impressive explanation ready in time for the orcs is Irissë picking up horses a few at a time with a couple people, inconvenient but effective."

"The reason I picked her is that she definitely didn't, if she'd approved this plan she'd have done it herself, she's a better shot. And what on earth is the explanation that isn't attempted murder?"

"Lost scout with a lousy selection of weapons; or, that individual attempted murder on her own recognizance."

"Ask her to swear to it, then. We did. She refused."

"I really don't like using those... things... as a blunt instrument, but it's a possibility if the situation can't be resolved without."

"Oh, it wouldn't be reasonable to insist. It is reasonable to present it as one way of clearing up a confusion."

"If you think she'll take the suggestion better from me I can go mention it but I'd rather speak to her host first and see if they have any input in the matter."

They look at each other and shrug. "Again," Tyelcormo says, "diplomats are out of the house. Though luckily so are the engineers, sometimes they're worse than nothing at this kind of thing."

"All right. I'll go talk to the orcs about their impending move and then you'll show me where you found her?"