"I'm Cashel," he said, letting the smile fade so Protas wouldn't mistake it as mocking his trouble with his voice. "Not 'lord' though. And I've met bigger folk than me; though not a lot of them, I'll grant."

Protas nodded solemnly. He looked away from Cashel, facing in the general direction of First Atara. "My father King Cervoran died just yesterday," he said. "Lord Martous tells me that I'm going to be king now in his place, or whatever Prince Garric lets me be called."

"I'm sorry about your father, Protas," Cashel said, meaning it. Kenset, his father and Ilna's, had gone away from Barca's Hamlet and come back with the two children a year later. Kenset had never said where he'd been or who the twins' mother was. He hadn't said much of anything by all accounts, and he hadn't worked at anything except drinking himself to death. He'd managed that one frosty night a few years later.

The children's grandmother had raised Cashel and Ilna while she lived. After she died, leaving a pair of nine-year-olds, they'd raised themselves. Ilna always had a mind for things, and Cashel as a boy had a man's strength. When he got his growth, well, his strength grew too. They'd made out with Ilna's weaving and Cashel doing whatever needed muscle and care. Mostly he'd tended sheep.

"I didn't know my father very well," Protas said, continuing to look out to sea. Cashel guessed the boy really didn't want to meet Cashel's eyes, which meant either he was embarrassed or he figured Cashel'd be embarrassed by what he had to say. "He was very busy with his studies. He was a great scholar, you know."

"That's a fine thing to be," Cashel said. He meant it, but mostly he spoke to help the boy get to whatever it was that hereally wanted to say.

Cashel'd learned to spell his name out or even write it if somebody gave him time and didn't complain that the letters looked shaky. He was proud of knowing Garric and Sharina because they read and wrote as well as anybody even though they'd come from Barca's Hamlet instead of a big city. Those weren't skills Cashel felt the lack of himself, though.