Oh, no. They were singing “The Song of Logan Lop-Ears and His Faithful Calsany.” This, in its enumeration of the terrible problems poor Logan Lop-Ears faced taking his father’s calsany to market to sell the poor beast, adumbrates stanza by stanza the vicissitudes of folk’s lives and mishaps. It provokes, needless to say, considerable mirth.
And the Vallians roared out with gusto, particularly those stanzas that often have their words subtly altered to fit circumstances.
Dayra glanced back at me. Her color was up and her eyes were bright. I nodded. For that moment, I, too, could not speak.
The slave flunkey could. He said: “There will be guards with swords, masters. They will kill you, and me too. Let me go, I beg you—”
“We will not harm you, dom,” I said truthfully. “Just bide quietly
