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should ride on the first spring reaving! When will you count me man enough? I was called Haldane Left-Behind today. Men begin to laugh at me, and yet I can outdo Hemming Paleface. Why should he go and not me? I begin to envy men their scars. When the carls return I look to see their fresh-won honors.”
    And then Morca began to speak in a tone new to Haldane and Haldane could only stare up at him in wonder. Morca was a man who could no more easily call Haldane “Son” than Haldane could call him “Father.” He was as bluff and rough in private as he was in public. This was the boy’s secret and he told no one. He would pretend otherwise. Even in that moment when Morca had first called Haldane his lieutenant, he had been rough and bluff.
    But now he said in a softer voice than Haldane had ever heard, “I know. I know. You shall have scars enough before I am done making you. But you must have patience. You are man enough to be left in charge. You are my reserve, as Garmund was Garulf’s reserve at Stone Heath, and Garmund became king. Would you have me waste you lightly, boy?”
    He clapped Haldane on the shoulder. “You are my strength. Without you, all my plans come to nothing. I need you. I would not use you too soon and lose you.”
    “But I am strong now,” said Haldane. “Use me.” But his heart was trembling on the edge of the jump to jubilation.
    Morca said, “I do owe you a reaving. And you shall have it. It is time for you to prove yourself.” He put his hand almost tenderly on Haldane’s biceps and tested the muscle. “My son. Be all that I need you to be.” His voice was intense.
    Haldane could only look at him, Morca, the distant, dominating sun he followed, who ordered and denied, and numbly say, “I will.” He was too filled to say more. His head was spinning. Morca was admitting of a need for him.
    Then abruptly, as though the intimacy were too much for him, Morca rose and turned to the table, where stood his pitcher and jack. He did not break away completely, but he poured and finished his second tankard and then stood about patting himself on the stomach until he delivered a satisfactory belch, and only then did he speak again and it was in his customary hearty voice or something like it.
    “It was a beautiful raid,” he said. “Oh, it was fine. If Richard of Palsance were as simple as Lothor of Chastain, the West would lie open to any man’s hand. There would be no need to draw the barons together behind me as one. Anyone could rape the West.”
    “And you would raise the barons? All the barons as in the old days?”
    Haldane might well ask. Since the Gets had recoiled into Nestor to rule there after Stone Heath, the barons had been united in nothing. They had been arrogant, grasping, quarrelsome, careless of law, unmindful of clan, jealous of privilege, and unruled.
    “What do you think a King of the Gets should be?” Morca asked.
    “Leader of the Gets in war.”
    That was the simple, well-known answer. Svein’s answer. Morca said as much. “These are new and modern times. We are no longer in Shagetai. What was does not rule what might be. I will rule the barons in peace as in war. I shall lead those that can be led. I shall inspire those who would be inspired. I shall beat those who must be beaten. And when I am ready, I mean to take the West. All the West, from South Cape to the Hook, Chastain and Palsance and Vilicea. From Orkay to Grelland. From Lake Lamorne to the sea.”
    If Haldane was one of those who must be inspired, truly this was inspiring talk. It filled him with visions of Morca leading a great army into the West with Haldane at his right hand. He watched Morca in awe as he spelled out his full flashing vision.
    “King of the Gets?” asked Morca. “Why not King of the Get Empire, master of greater territory than the Empire of Nestria ever knew? Why not all the world if a man can seize it?”
    The Morca that Haldane knew did not like questions he could not answer.