Chapter eleven
How the Great Lie spread“What’s stopping me from going and fighting Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia?” I said. “Why, Tom, I told you. I’d get seasick.”
He looked over the rim of his stein at me, quite clearly nonplussed.
“You were down in Hamal—”
“Certainly. Never again.”
The large hall in this wing of the grandiose building given over as a tavern for the military resounded with the clink of bottles, the surf-foaming-roar of voices, the occasional quick snap of argument. Most of the men were recruiters, conscious of their dignity; the arguments did not degenerate into fights. They’d come later, out at the taverns, when the competition grew fiercer.
I leaned closer.
“Did you see this Emperor of Vallia at the Incendiary Vosks?”
“No. He kept out of it. That’s his style.”
