Shai unites the exiles to defend Navon

Shai’s effort to unite the exiles in defense of Navon challenges the kingdom’s assumption that its safety can be secured only through alliances with other rulers. He brings Mabel Peloponnese to a gathering in the forest, hoping that her ties to Navon and the exiles’ willingness to resist Tzara can help create a coalition. The attempt begins amid distrust and disagreement, but later becomes part of a concrete defense effort: Shai’s men help move villagers to the castle before battle.

Causes and Political Stakes

Navon faces an unprecedented threat from Tzara, which intends to exploit the kingdom’s gold and land. Its vulnerability has been sharpened by the history of its alliances: Navon previously fought battles on behalf of other kingdoms, and men who refused to serve in conflicts that were not their own became deserters. Now the kingdom has too few soldiers, while an ally is too afraid of Tzara to stand with it. The crisis exposes the cost of a political order that has sent Navon’s people to defend other lands without ensuring that Navon itself would be protected in return.

The kingdom’s negotiations with neighboring powers offer no easy answer. Navi Spyridaki considers exchanging Navon’s best products for alliances, while his counselors resist terms that would impose unfair obligations in the long run. Special privileges in return for protection also seem unjust to him, but the kingdom has little leverage. Shai’s proposal addresses a different weakness: rather than relying only on powerful kingdoms, Navon might cooperate with people already prepared to fight Tzara. The exiles are not nobles or an established royal force, but their participation could add another group to the defense.

Shai’s Proposal and the Journey

Shai first hoped to speak with the prince, but, unable to do so, he develops another route to an alliance. He tells Mabel Peloponnese that exiles will meet to set aside their disagreements and protect Navon. Some men in Tenerife have considered fighting Tzara on their own, he explains, but a single force would not be enough. Bringing the groups together would show both sides that cooperation is possible. The meeting is not simply a request for a few fighters: it is an attempt to connect an existing resistance to the defense Navi is seeking.

Mabel questions why Shai is telling her and taking her there. He points out that she can return to what she regards as the worst job of her life or go with him, and names the destination: a mountainous region north of Tenerife, where the meeting is to take place at dusk. He assumes she has already chosen to help Navon, though she objects to his presumption that he need not ask whether she is available. She nevertheless goes with him. She has not been sent by the prince, and Shai’s plan depends on her personal connection to Navon rather than on any official commission.

The route and setting place the meeting outside the kingdom’s ordinary authority. The party stops at a tavern in the forest, then rides up a hill through a narrow canyon to the place where the outlaws are hiding. The elevated refuge is concealed from the king’s eyes. Shai promises Mabel that she will not be harmed, but he has not told the assembled men that she is coming; when they arrive, the leader, Alastair, immediately asks what a girl is doing there. The unexpected arrival makes the limits of Shai’s plan visible: he wants Mabel to help bridge the groups, yet has brought her into a wary gathering without first winning its consent.

Resistance, Distrust, and Mabel’s Appeal

Shai presents Mabel as someone from Navon who may be able to intercede with the king. The exiles do not respond as if returning to the kingdom were an obvious reward. Alastair answers sarcastically that they have no wish to run back to the man who exiled them; they will defend their land, while Navon can defend its own. His position distinguishes attachment to a homeland from trust in its government. The exiles may be willing to resist Tzara, but that does not mean they have forgiven the authority that cast them out.

Alastair turns the argument toward Shai’s family, asking whether his relatives ever visited or helped him after his exile. Shai gives no answer, and his eyes show how deeply the question wounds him. Mabel notices him stiffen and steps in front of him, trying to shield him from the taunt. This moment gives their proposed coalition a personal cost: Shai is trying to bring exiles together for a common defense while standing among people whose shared banishment has not erased private pain or estrangement.

Mabel then speaks from what she has seen in Navon. She recounts women being dragged from their homes by their hair and elderly people being thrown down and kicked. She also recalls that, before her father died, he spoke terribly of Balthasar. Her appeal is not an abstract claim that Navon deserves help; it describes the violence she says awaits the kingdom and warns that its people may be slaughtered or enslaved. One exile dismisses the danger as none of their problem. Mabel challenges him directly, asking what kind of criminal would refuse to care. The gathering therefore does not become unanimous simply because she has spoken: her testimony confronts the exiles with a moral choice, but the resistance in the room remains part of the scene.

From Proposal to Defense

The coalition’s terms become clearer when Navi later asks Shai what the exiles want in return. Shai says they want nothing and are not acting for money. That answer distinguishes their intended participation from a paid arrangement and gives practical force to the earlier claim that they will defend their land. It also makes the offer different from Navon’s negotiations with neighboring kingdoms, where protection is bound up with exchanges and potentially burdensome conditions.

When danger demands action, Navi decides that the whole village must be brought to the castle before the army is called together. Shai is present as Navi works through the plan, and then asks where he can find Mabel Peloponnese. That concern accompanies, rather than replaces, the immediate need to organize the defense. During the night, Shai’s men enter the village and help its people leave their homes for shelter at the castle. Villagers initially fear another attack by Tzara, but the commotion is instead an evacuation carried out in advance, with women and children directed inside the castle walls and men expected to stand and fight.

The gathering in the forest thus marks the beginning of a political and practical shift: the exiles are no longer only people Navon has expelled, but a group whose resources and choices matter to the kingdom’s survival. The evidence does not make every exile’s distrust disappear or turn the meeting into an uncomplicated reconciliation. Its significance lies in the possibility Shai advances and in the later work his men undertake. Faced with a threat the kingdom cannot meet alone, defense starts to depend on cooperation across the boundary Navon itself created.