David Drake: The Fortress of Glass

"There's many that'll drown despite us, too," Chalcus said in a voice pitched for the pair of them. "We're one small ship and there's a dozen foundered or I miss my bet. But we'll do what we can."

"Chalcus?" said Merota. "That was a meteor, a really big one. Can we go see where it landed?"

"Where it landed, child…," Chalcus said, looking toward the pillar of steam now piercing the roiling overcast. "Is a trench deeper than any man's plumbed. There'd be nothing to see, whether it's your scholar's meteor or the Shepherd's sling stone as simple folk like me were raised to think."

"You don't believe in the Shepherdor the Lady, Chalcus," Merota said sternly.

"Aye, there you have me, dear one," said the sailor, but the banter was only in his tone and not his eyes. "Nor perhaps in the Sister who rules the Underworld. But if there was a Sister and a Hell for her to rule, I think we might find them in a place that looks much-"

Chalcus nodded toward the column of steam, still rising and now seeming to sparkle at the core.

"-as that one does."

"Yes," said Ilna, her eyes on the horizon. "And I've never found such a lack of trouble in this world that I needed to borrow it from the heavens."

"This is the palace," Protas said, standing in the stern of the barge that was carrying Cashel with the delegation returning to Mona, the island's capital. He cleared his throat. "I suppose you've seen much better ones, though? Haven't you, Cashel?"

Mona had a good harbor unless the wind came from the southwest, but it wasn't big enough by half to hold the battered royal fleet. That wasn't a surprise: Cashel didn't guess there was a handful of places in all the kingdom that could. There'd be ships dragged up on every bit of bare shore for miles around the city tonight, trying to make good damage from the meteor.

At least the beaches of First Atara seemed to be sand, not the fist-sized basalt shingle that lay beyond the ancient seawall of Barca's Hamlet. That was hard on keels, and for all their size warships were built lighter than the fishing dories that were the only ships Cashel'd known while he was growing up.

"I've seen bigger places, palaces and temples and even the main market-building in Valles," he said. "I don't know I've ever seen a nicer one. Still, I'm not one to talk. I spend most of my time outdoors when people let me."

Cashel had thought about the question instead of just saying something. Sheep were better than people about waiting for you to think before you said something; people were likely to push you to answerright now. Cashel's mind didn't work that way, that quick, unless there was danger. Besides, it seemed to him that the folks who were quickest with words were likely to be the last folks you wanted beside you when danger came at you-out of the woods, up from the sea or maybe roaring down through the heavens like just now.

Lord Martous stood nearby. The barge wasn't so big that you could be on it and not be close to everybody else who was, but he was kind of pretending that he wasn't anywhere in shouting distance of Cashel and the prince. Martous hadn't been best pleased when Protas asked Cashel to come ashore with him, but whatever he'd started to say dried up when Protas gave him a look.

Chances were Martous had done pretty much as he pleased in the past, with Cervoran was off in his own world of studies and Protas a boy whose father didn't pay him a lot of attention. Things were different now, and Martous was smart enough to see that. Maybe Cashel standing behind the prince like a solid wall had helped the fellow understand.

Cashel didn't like bullies. Cashel particularly didn't like folks bullying children, even if they weren't being especially mean about it.

Sharina had said for Cashel to go along with Protas on the barge. He guessed it had something to do with the politics she and Garric and the others had been talking about to Martous, but Cashel couldn't be sure. She might've just been being nice to the boy.

Sharinawas a really nice person-and smart too, smarter than a lot of people thought so pretty a woman could be. He'd seen it happen with fellows, treating Sharina like she didn't have anything behind her blue eyes except fluff and then bam! learning she'd been two steps ahead of them the whole way.

The palace sat on a platform built up from the edge of the harbor. Most of the frontage was a limestone seawall with statues-Cashel counted them out on his fingers: six statues-set up along it. The bronze was old enough to be green, but that didn't take 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 ashis 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.