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room by tossing out of the way cargo waiting to be loaded on merchant ships and pushing down sheds.
    That was inconvenient for the folks who lived in Mona, but travelling around with Garric had taught Cashel that it always was inconvenient to have an army come calling. It was just one of those things, like winter storms or your sheep getting scrapie. He figured the locals understood that, or anyway they knew better than to make too big a fuss about it.
    Four wooden wharfs reached out a little way into the harbor. They were big enough for small merchant ships, tubs with one mast and a crew of half a dozen, but they were no good for warships that had to be brought up out of the water every night. Otherwise their thin hulls'd get waterlogged and rot before you knew it.
    Mona didn't seem to be a very busy place; that fit in with Sharina saying that First Atara pretty much kept to itself. The goods Cashel saw were mostly salt fish in barrels and barley packed in burlap sacks instead of big terra cotta jars like grain came into Valles down canals from northern Ornifal.
    The pottery packed in wicker baskets had likely been landed from other islands but not moved out of the way before the fleet arrived. The owners were probably moaning about it now, but they'd soon learn that Prince Garric paid for the damages he knew there'd be just as sure as the sun rose.
    "Oh....," said Protas, looking about the harbor, his eyes wide. "Oh.... I don't think I've ever seen so many people. At one time."
    Cashel grinned, following the line of the boy's eyes. Soldiers swarmed over the foreshore and more were packed aboard ships waiting to unload.
    "I never saw a place with more houses together than you could count on your fingers and toes till I went the first time to Carcosa," he said. "That was like seeing the sea, only all the little wave-tops were people. I didn't know there could be that many people."
    The ships that had landed first were starting to slide back into the water, making room for new arrivals. Protas frowned and said, "What's happening, Cashel? Why did these warships come in if they're just going to leave again?"
    "Well, they're not warships exactly," Cashel said. "They're triremes, all right, but they're only rowed from one set of benches. The other two have soldiers on them-or they carry cargo, of course, but all of these have soldiers. They're putting them ashore to, well, in case there's something that'd be dangerous to G-, to Prince Garric. The rowers will haul them out again a little ways off so there's room for others to unload."
    Two years ago Cashel hadn't seen a trireme or heard the word, but here he was talking about them like he was a sailor himself. Well, he wasn't; but he'd learned enough by being around Garric to answer the boy's question. He wasn't a weaver either, but Ilna's brother knew something about cloth.
    "What danger could there be in Mona?" Protas said in puzzlement.
    "Well, not from you folks," Cashel said. "But things do happen, that's so. It isn't that Garric worries; but you know, the people around him have their own ways of doing things and he's too polite to make a big fuss about it."
    Lord Martous had gotten to the top of the ladder, helped by two of the servants who'd climbed up ahead of him. Protas glanced at the fellow and said, "Yes, I see that." He cleared his throat and added, "Well, come along, Cashel, and I'll show you the inside."
    Protas set off for the nearest portico. Cashel paused just long enough to wave his left hand toward Sharina and his other friends on The Shepherd of the Isles, easing toward a wharf with a lot of angry shouting from the sailing master. Two sailors in the ship's bow held a long board covered with red cloth.
    The aides and stewards with Garric didn't think it was right that the prince should climb over the side and splash to shore in the shallows. They'd made a gangplank, probably a hatch cover that they'd nailed a cloak onto or something of the sort. Like Cashel'd