Like everyone else in Gromheort, Ealstan fancied himself a connoisseur of rumors. This one sounded highly probable. "King Mezentio will claim Bari," he said grimly.

"If he does, we'll fight him." Sidroc sounded grim, too, grim and excited at the same time. "He can't fight Forthweg and VaIrmiera and Jelgava all at once. Not even an Algarvian would be crazy enough to try that. "

"Nobody knows what an Algarvian is crazy enough to try," Ealstan said with conviction. "He may have more enemies than that, too - Sibiu doesn't like Algarve, either, and the islanders are supposed to be tough. Come on - let's hurry home. Maybe we can be first with the news."

They both began to run.

As they ran, Sidroc said, "I bet your brother will be glad to get the chance to slaughter some stinking Algarvians."

"Not my fault Leofsig was born first," Ealstan panted. "If I were nineteen, I'd have gone into the King's levy, too." He pretended to spray fire around, so recklessly that, had it been real, he would have burned down half of Gromheort. He dashed into his own house shouting that Duke Alardo was dead."

"What?" His sister Conberge, who was a year older than he, came in from the courtyard, where she'd been trying to keep the flower garden flourishing despite Forthweg's savage summer heat. "What win Mezentio do now?" ,"He will seize the Duchy." That wasn't Ealstan; it was his mother, Elfryth: She'd hurried out of the kitchen, and was wiping her hands on a linen towel. "He will seize it, and we will go to war." She did not sound excited, but about to burst into tears. After a moment, she gathered her self and went on, "I was about your age, Conberge, when the Six Years' War ended. I remember the uncles and cousins you never got to know because they didn't come home from the war." Her voice broke. She did begin to cry.