I took myself off up the ladder and onto the poop.
Right aft where the taffrail had been extended out with platforms into two wings, one over each quarter, were sited the varters. A little forward of them and on the centerline, well abaft the mizzen, stood the aft catapult.
The men clustered around the machines stiffened when I appeared. Well, Zair knew, I was used to that. Wherever I went, it seemed I found myself either at the bottom of the stack — slave, prisoner, condemned — or at the top — Lord of Strombor, Strom of Valka, King of Djanduin, Prince Majister of Vallia, Zorcander of my clansmen of the Great Plains. During that recent period of my espionage in Hamal I had been a nonentity, someone more in the middle of society, as Hamun ham Farthytu, Amak of Paline Valley. But to these
