At Count Mataro’s lavish state banquet in Borosevo, Hadrian sits as the count’s nominal ward among merchants, soldiers, scholiasts, nobles, and Chantry figures. Valka sits nearby with Sir Elomas Redgrave, while Gilliam Vas and Grand Prior Ligeia Vas are close enough to remain a threat. Hadrian is placed beside Lieutenant Bassander Lin, whom the older narrator identifies as a future friend, enemy, hero, and traitor, though at this moment Bassander is only a formal, tired dinner guest.

Bassander begins polite conversation with Hadrian and explains that he has served eighteen years of active ship time but almost two centuries when cryogenic fugue is counted. Valka reacts with disgust at Imperial military practice, and a guild factionarius comments on soldiering as men’s work, prompting Bassander to answer that soldiering is soldiers’ work. When Bassander recognizes Valka as Tavrosi, the conversation shifts briefly to Tavrosi history and then, through Sir Elomas, to Valka’s work with the Umandh coloni.

After the Umandh discussion fades, Bassander asks about Hadrian’s role, and Sir Elomas reveals that Hadrian speaks the Cielcin language. Hadrian carefully lowers his voice because of the Chantry nearby and explains through his false Hadrian Gibson history that a scholiast tutor discovered his gift for languages. When asked why anyone would learn the language of the Cielcin, Hadrian says it is an investment in the future because someone will eventually need to speak to them, if only to secure their surrender.

Grand Prior Ligeia Vas interrupts, declaring that the Imperium does not want Cielcin surrender but their extermination. She quotes religious authority to call for purging demons, and Hadrian counters by noting that one of her quotations comes from an older cult text. When Ligeia recognizes him as the Colosso fighter Gilliam warned her about and calls him the demon-tongued boy, Hadrian answers in Classical English, impressing Lord Mataro. Dorian defends Hadrian as a myrmidon rather than a slave, but Ligeia presses the accusation by asking whether a man who speaks the language of demons is a witch.

Hadrian survives the dangerous moment by turning the accusation into a joke, saying he prefers the term magus, while Sir Elomas’s laughter helps the table accept the deflection. Valka then rescues Hadrian by asking him to continue the story he had started before the interruption. Hadrian tells a pointed tale about a boyhood animal fight between a snake and a mongoose, revealing that the mongoose won because its trainer had altered it to resist venom. He turns the tale into a warning that one cannot know which people are snakes and which are mongeese until someone bites or is bitten. The room falls silent, Valka smiles in approval, Count Mataro applauds, and Ligeia ends by telling Hadrian that he would make a good priest.