Tantras enters and stands with his hands clasped behind his back. 

"I'm very sorry about this. I - realize this is going to be a disrespectful way to treat peaceful envoys, and we don't really think you were involved. But we have to check."

He takes a deep breath. There's no non-awkward way to say this and it's terrifying. "The Heralds' policy for investigations is to cast our Truth Spell to verify honesty while we ask questions. If you're willing to be fully cooperative, we can use the version that - only confirms honestly, and doesn't have any, er, coercive effects." 

He waits, hoping that he's not visibly sweating. 

"I'm sorry," the envoy says. "What, exactly, are you investigating?"

None of the Heralds have been able to come to a consensus on how likely they think it is that the envoys sent by Cheliax were aware, or had guessed, that their missing prisoner and the wizard left guarding her were, not just in Valdemar's hands at all, but less than half a mile away. 

"Savil was more heavily involved in planning the - relevant operation," he says. "She can explain the, er, background." 

Savil could kick him for that. She doesn't. It would look very unprofessional in front of the foreign diplomats. 

"Er, right. So - I'm not sure if your leadership briefed you, before sending you over here, on the - especially important Velgarth prisoner who was captured in a skirmish on the Valdemaran side of the barrier, north of here?" Though not actually within Valdemar, per se. 

"We are aware of no incidents of Chelish soldiers entering Valdemaran territory, and any such instance would be of grave concern to us. When was this?"

"It would have been - three days ago? A small group was in pursuit of fleeing Ifteli soldiers, who planned to cross the barrier and seek refuge in Valdemar. The Chelish pursuers figured out how to use wizard spells - the teleporting one, we believe - and cross the barrier. ...They were, in fact, crossing about twenty miles north of our official border Guard-post, but it was near enough that our mages remarked on it and it alarmed us greatly, and also I do not believe that the Chelish party was sufficiently aware of the geography to know. We know that they encountered - another force - and assumed it was a Valdemaran one, at which point one of them used an illusion to impersonate an Ifteli soldier." 

Savil is watching them closely and relaying directly to Kellan, sharing her eyes with him. Her Companion is vastly better at reading faces, and might actually have some chance of catching how much of this is new to the envoys. 

It doesn't seem new to them. 

"Ah. We were aware that there were a few occasions on which Chelish troops engaged in the northern territories that are, as we understand it, claimed by noone. If our presence there causes Valdemar alarm, we would be open to negotiating an agreement under which we give your borders some buffer -- though twenty miles, I must say, is a buffer substantial enough to be a major hindrance, especially since the border is, as you say, unmarked."

"That would certainly reassure us. The territories are currently claimed by no one, but the locals do come to Valdemar for aid, and we consider it our duty to provide it." 

Sigh.

"- Anyway. I will try to summarize this briefly - and I very much hope you were briefed on it because it seems unfair for you to be sent here without the context. The man taken prisoner was not in fact Valdemaran. He is -" and now she has to spend two seconds frantically ransacking her memory for what Leareth believed Carissa's direct superior knew when he actually left to make his report, "- the leader of a very large mercenary organization based north of the mountains - incidentally he had planned to invade and conquer Valdemar, and is apparently on extremely bad terms with literally all of our gods here." 

They spent five minutes earlier with the Senior Circle - all the Mindspeakers, anyway - having an enormous shouting-over-each-other-in-Mindspeech fight while everyone was frantically running around. Telling the envoys now is obviously going to cause an explosion. Randi argued, hard, that having it come out later wouldn't be better. 

- and then Randi thought of a spin on it that might be slightly less explosive, and somewhat to Savil's surprise, Starwind didn't seem to have any problem with it at all. 

"Starwind?" she prompts. 

Starwind is impassive. "Knowing little of your country at this point, our Goddess was - deeply alarmed about this. Leareth is a very, very dangerous man. Our people planned an extraction for him and carried it out." 

"- I see. Do you know what happened to the Chelish soldiers holding him prisoner, in the course of, ah, your operation?"

"We think that two were captured by Leareth's mercenary organization, which immediately mounted a rescue attempt. ...A third was with Leareth, and keeping him under a...geas? I think that is what your magic calls it." 

....Goddamnit, no, he apparently isn't going to say it. 

"I believe the Star-Eyed Goddess may have wanted to negotiate with Asmodeus directly on returning her. However. There's...a problem." 

"At this point, we highly doubt you were in any way involved in, er, the problem. But we don't know who was, or how, so - it seemed best if we were upfront about sharing everything we do know. I think it's in both of our countries' interests to figure it out." 

Starwind just looks irritable about this. 

"Sorry, I don't know that I'm quite following. The third Chelish soldier was taken prisoner, by you, in the course of this operation? This happened in Iftel? Is she accused of a crime?  On what grounds did you arrest her?"

Savil....is just going to let Starwind handle this one. 

"Our Goddess wanted Leareth held securely under Her remit. Thanks to the geas, we could not do that without the aid of the wizard who had been holding Leareth previously. There was also an agreement made between Her and Vkandis, that anyone we brought back across the Ifteli barrier would then be under Her responsibility and belong to Her. She would take that to have covered both of them." 

"Valdemar owes the Star-Eyed Goddess some - very large favours, due to, er, interventions that helped in our recent war. Valdemar wasn't involved in the actual operation - we didn't have passage granted by Vkandis - but the, er, prisoners were temporarily in Valdemaran territory." 

"You....don't have a way to hold Leareth safely without the cooperation of this Chelish soldier? You should have contacted us, we have many methods for securing prisoners that are safer and more flexible than a geas, if harder to cast in the field - how do you handle mages accused of crimes under normal circumstances - "Her responsibility and belong to Her?" What does that mean? Is that an agreement about - jurisdiction? About enslaving people? About capturing their immortal souls?"

Starwind shrugs, still very nonchalant. "Mages? We - hit them over the head, usually. Or just do not take prisoners. ...If you wish to know the exact details of what She agreed to, Asmodeus ought ask Her, it is not my business." 

Staaaaaaaaaaarwind. All right, there might have been...some downsides...to letting him do a lot of the talking here. Also they should plausibly have grabbed someone with any diplomatic training - well, Tran does technically have some training, he's just also - not in great shape - 

"I assume that Valdemar, being a country that respects the rule of Law and the inherent value of human beings, permits neither slavery nor the sale and transfer of innocent souls against the objections of their owners," the diplomat says, "and you are learning only now that the Tayledras abused your trust and your offer of passage through your lands in order to make you complicit in such an atrocity?"

Starwind starts to open his mouth. 

:Starwind do NOT: 

"Moondance had told me that the wizard was actively asking about joining the Tayledras people in their work. My impression wasn't exactly that the Tayledras planned to enslave her against her will."