"Thank you! So what's confidential," she asks the prince, "that seems straightforward enough."
"When word of him gets out we expect it to touch off a god-war."
The priestess winces. "With who? Abundance doesn't seem controversial - I suppose the dragons would want him...?"
"The Piper. It's a very long story."
"I thought you were friendly with the Piper," she directs at Raafi, dubiously.
"I'm friendly with the Lady, too, and I know who I'd rather see take a city. I don't expect it to come here, in any case."
"That's fair. So we don't want the scions to know, the catfolk would get it out of them sooner rather than later - do you have a cover story?"
"Just that one of our trade attempts worked out. I think we can get away with letting everyone think it must have come in by a different route than the ones they're watching at least for a little while."
"With Raafi here that should work. For the scions, at least, you'll have to ask Fahami if you want advice on rumors."
"Speculation isn't dangerous. Or shouldn't be."
"I'll trust you to know what you're talking about," she says, as much to the prince as to Raafi. "So what's the plan?"
"I'm thinking we'll fill the east end warehouse with food, and you can call everyone in to distribute it."
"Simple enough," she nods. "If we have messengers, anyway."
"I have most of a wand of Sending."
"Or that, all right. Prioritization?"
"You'd know better than I would where it's needed."
There's a few more quibbles to work out - are they giving food to their crucian and quese'en neighbors who've been gathering on Kaprelan land for river access (yes), are they going to try to send anything to the catfolk (not without a much better cover story and even then it's probably not worth the risk), what about various diplomatic issues between the noble houses (resulting in a brief and mostly incomprehensible exchange with the upshot that there will be only a little bit of favoritism on that basis) - and then they can go to the warehouse in question while Reedbearer Amaani starts calling scions in.
"I assume the merfolk all migrated?" Raafi asks on the way. "Should we do anything about that?"
"We haven't been worrying about it; there's not much we can do from here. If you want to check on them I'd certainly appreciate it."
"I can," he nods.