Dan of Rabbit Hill’s lips shaped a word. He didn’t speak it out loud, but Thraxton, among his other arcane skills, had learned to read lips. He knew what that silent word was. Dan might as well have shouted it. Braggart.

King Avram’s men called him Thraxton the Braggart. He’d sworn a great oath to beat them at Pottstown Pier, back when the war was young. He’d sworn it… and events-bad luck, really; nothing more-had left him forsworn. He’d chased Guildenstern back into the Province of Cloviston, chased him almost to the Highlow River, and sworn an even greater oath to drive him out of Geoffrey’s realm altogether. He’d sworn that second oath… but the hard battles of Reppyton and Reillyburgh, somehow, had gone no better for his cause and Geoffrey’s despite the savage sorceries he’d loosed.

Braggart? He shook his head. He didn’t see himself so. If anything, he felt put upon, put upon by fate and by the blundering idiots it was his misfortune to have to endure as subordinates. If only I led men worthy of me, he thought. Then everyone would know me for the hero I know I am.

Meanwhile… Meanwhile, Ned of the Forest stared steadily back across the table at him. “All right, your Grace,” the backwoods ruffian said. “Remember you said that. I aim to hold you to it.”

Arrogant dog, Thraxton thought. He muttered to himself. Not all sorcery was showy. Not all of it required elaborate preparation, either. He waited for Ned to leap up and run for the commode. The spell he’d just cast would have kept a normal man trotting for a couple of days.

But Ned of the Forest only sat where he was. For all the effect the magic had on him, he might have been carved from stone. Thraxton ran over the spell in his mind. He’d cast it correctly. He was sure of that. He’s been drinking water all his life, he remembered. His bowels might as well be made of cast bronze.