Chapter fifteenDespite everything else my first and overriding thought when we signaled the fleet was to ask information of my friends in Shankjid.
The flags fluttered to yards slung out from the fighting tops. The yeoman wrote on his slate and the young cadet brought the slate to Sternum.
He c****d a bushy eyebrow at me.
“No news, majister.”
I kept my face stony.
“Thank you, Sternum. And you can knock off the majister bit. Just use jis. Like we do in Vallia.”
“Quidang, jis!”
Written perfectly plainly on that hairy red visage and in his words and bearing was the message that he bore no animosity in my thus flaunting Vallia before him. Rather, he felt elation and pride that he was permitted to call an emperor jis. I didn’t sigh. But I admit I felt a cheap kind of cheat. Then I chucke
