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long in salt air.
    The barge was pulling up to where a ladder with broad wooden rungs was set into the wall. The big way had swept off the bunting and almost swamped the boat.
    Cashel grinned, thinking about Martous huffing and puffing up the ladder to reach dry land. It wasn't a bad climb, not as much as a man's height, but chances were it wasn't a kind of exercise the courtier got very often.
    The palace itself was a series of long buildings with colonnades facing the sea across a strip of lawn. Behind the ones on the seafront were other buildings with two or three stories; all the roofs were red tile. The lawn must've taken a lot of work to keep so smooth.
    In the cities Cashel'd visited before, swatches of green were planted with flowers and fruit trees. Back in the borough, of course, anything that wasn't fenced off for a kitchen garden had been pecked and trampled to bare clay. It was all a matter of taste, Cashel knew, but so far as his taste went grass ought to be in a meadow with sheep grazing.
    Lord Martous yipped little orders to the barge crew, which they seemed to be ignoring. Two of them tossed lines ashore to servants who snubbed them on bollards, then leaned into the ropes. That took the shock of stopping the barge in a few hand's breadths and sucked it against the seawall.
    Cashel'd known what was coming. He spread his feet, butted his staff down on the deck, and put his free hand on Protas' shoulder. The boy swayed. Martous yelped as he fell forward and had to grab the ladder; the servant stumbling into his back didn't help his temper any either.
    Protas turned and looked up at Cashel with wide eyes. "Could you lift me up to the ground, Cashel?" he said.
    Cashel chuckled. He turned his staff crossways and said, "Sit on it, then, between my hands. No, face away from me."
    "What are you doing?" said Lord Martous. "Oh my goodness, you mustn't-"
    Lifting wouldn't have been enough unless the prince crawled onto the stonework. Instead Cashel launched him, lobbed him like a bale being offloaded. The boy cried in delight, but when he landed he overbalanced and went down on all fours. There was no harm done, though. Protas hopped to his feet again and turned, dusting his palms and grinning wider than he had since Cashel met him.
    "Oh, Cashel!" he cried. "I wish I could be as strong as you!"
    "You don't have your growth yet, Protas," Cashel said. "Anyhow, it was no great thing."
    Nor was it; the boy was small for his age. Half the men in Barca's Hamlet could've done what Cashel just had, if not quite so easily.
    He had to admit the praise from a nobleman pleased him, though. Granted, a young nobleman; but one born to the rank, not like he'd have been if he let people call him 'Lord Cashel'. It was funny that something he didn't want for himself looked like a big thing in another fellow.
    "Let me show you around the palace, Cashel!" Protas said cheerfully. In a colder tone he added, "Lord Martous, kindly take yourself out of Cashel's way so he can join me."
    Martous, still holding onto the ladder with a dumbfounded expression, opened his eyes wide in dismay and irritation. "I-" he said. "I don't-"
    A servant touched him on the arm and eased him back from the ladder. Martous didn't fight the contact, but he didn't seem to know what was going on. This'd been a hard afternoon for the poor fellow.
    Cashel climbed carefully, placing his feet near the ladder's uprights. Salt and sunlight ate the strength out of wood, and if he bounced his weight down in the middle of the rungs chances were he'd break them to kindling.
    He could've set his staff on top of the seawall to wait for him, but instead he held it between his right thumb and little finger and used the other three to climb with. Nothing was likely to happen that he'd need the staff for; it was just a habit. Besides, 'not likely to happen' wasn't the same as 'couldn't happen.'
    A dozen royal vessels were already hauled up on shore within the harbor. The crews had made