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Imagine calling Flash Tlennen.”
    “His mother must.” Cherry-Stripe whacked Cama. “Quiet. Inda, Flash is now Laef of Olara, his father being Jarl. Brother died leading an attack against the damned red sails on the Idayagan coast—”
    “—and Noddy married a year back, because his cousin never did get an heir, and Noddy’s dad being Randael before he died at—”
    “—ho, Evred told us we all needed to marry early. On account of the war—”
    Inda’s head jerked back and forth as he tried to keep up his end of the question-answer cross-shoot. “—and took his raffee, then we netted us a couple of trysails—”
    “What’s a raffee?”
    “—and Noddy’s wife had a baby over winter. Did you know he named him after you?”
    “Barend Montrei-Vayir stopped here before he went north, and he said you were goin’ after the Venn up on the north coast—”
    “What’s a raffee?”
    The voices got louder and louder until Buck smacked his hand flat on the table. “Quiet! All of you!”
    The guests fell silent. Cherry-Stripe made a rude noise.
    “I can’t hear, and worse, no one can hear me.” Buck scowled down the table.
    Cama was laughing silently; Cherry-Stripe flipped up the back of his hand at his brother, at which Buck’s wife Fnor made a scandalized hiss, tipping her head meaningfully toward the guests. Mran quietly made certain everyone got some hot cider to drink.
    Buck hooked his thumbs toward his chest. “First me, since I’m the Jarl here.” And over his brother’s even louder rude noise, “What is a raffee?”
    “It’s a capital ship, named after its foresail, which—”
    Buck smacked his palm on the table again. “What’s a foresail?”
    “On the foremast you have—”
    “What’s a foremast?”
    Cama was laughing so hard his face was crimson, which made Buck and his wife begin to laugh. Even Mran chuckled, a sound not unlike boiling water.
    Cherry-Stripe now smacked the table, making the dishes clatter. “That’s enough with the boats. Nobody wants to hear about boats. Not until we see one, which we never will. Inda. Your turn to ask a question.”
    Inda said, “How did Sponge come to be king?”

Chapter Five
    THE humor vanished as quick as the sun that morning, as all three of Inda’s old academy mates reacted typically: Buck busied himself with unnecessary gestures to the servants now bringing in the meal, and waited for his brother to speak, Cherry-Stripe having been Inda’s scrub mate. Cherry-Stripe grimaced at Cama, waiting for the others to broach the subject, knowing it was craven, but sometimes he just had to rabbit out of a nasty duty. He wasn’t any good with words anyway, he told himself.
    Cama, who was on the wrong side to see Cherry-Stripe’s not-so-subtle glances and surreptitious jabs of the chin in Inda’s direction, glowered down at the table through his one good eye while the food was served, thinking about how to word the bleak story.
    A servant offered Inda the rice-and-cabbage balls that were so familiar from his childhood. That sight, and the long-missed aromas of the food and the fresh-baked rye biscuits made his eyes sting. He had to get used to that, how joy and pain together would fountain up inside him until it splashed out in tears. He dashed his sleeve impatiently across his eyes.
    Cherry-Stripe gawked at the tear-stains gleaming on Inda’s scarred cheek. “Something amiss with the spoon?” he asked in a tentative voice.
    “It’s good to eat with a spoon again.” Inda held up the plain, carved-wood implement with its wide, shallow bowl. “A Marlovan spoon. No more forks.”
    Buck and Cherry-Stripe turned to the other for clues, just to find mirrored perplexity.
    Cama said, “Forks are useless. You have to stab things. Imagine stabbing rice. Especially with one eye. I remember that from when I was a boy, and got taken to the healer down south. They eat Sartoran-style there. I thought I’d starve!”
    Fnor had also noticed the spring of