Chapter three
Thisi the Fair borrows my Savanti swordMany visions passed before my inward eye as I lay stricken by the hallucination-fever of the sickness. I saw the smoke and heard the monstrous concussions of the broadsides as I sailed so slowly down on the Franco-Spanish line off Cape Trafalgar; I saw the swirling charge of the cavalry as we held the ridge of Mont Saint Jean; I fought with my clansmen, and swaggered as a bravo-fighter in Zenicce; I battled swifters of Magdag, and swordships with Viridia the Render laughing; I saw many things and I felt many things.
Through it all I, Dray Prescot, Pur Dray, Krozair of Zy, the Lord of Strombor, sunk so low and helpless, did not for one moment imagine that these old folk had poisoned me. In a way that only hindsight can justify I knew I
