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long will that take?"
        "We'll be using both the engines and sails. If the winds hold, we might reach the harbor by midnight."
    Kharl filled both goblets, then lifted one. "To you, for all of this ..."
        Hagen flushed as he lifted his goblet. "To you, ser Kharl... for saving Austra."
    "And to friendship ..."
    Hagen nodded, then took a sip of the wine. "It's a good solid wine."
        "I like it. Glyan says that the Rhynn is better, but to me, they're both good." Kharl broke off a chunk of the dark bread and passed the basket to the other. "Do you know how Tarkyn, Furwyl, and Rhylla are doing?"
        "The Seastag is on its way to Land's End on Reduce. Only want to port there in spring and summer. I heard that there was some black wool to be had there. Doesn't come on the market often. A good weaver can make cloth for a lord from it."
        At the reference to weavers, Kharl couldn't help thinking about Jeka, wondering how she was doing with Gharan-hoping that she had been able to stay with his former neighbor. He just wished he'd been able to do more for Jeka. She'd certainly saved his life and befriended him at a time when no one else would lift a hand. Beneath the hard surface ...
    "Kharl?"
     
        "I'm sorry. I was . .. thinking. Was everyone all right when they cast off from Valmurl?"
        "Furwyl left a report for me, and everything was fine. He did say that he needed to look for another carpenter. Tarkyn was complaining that there was too much work for any one carpenter." Hagen shook his head. "No one will ever be as good a ship's carpenter as you were, not for Tarkyn."
        "Nothing is ever as good as it was," Kharl said dryly. "Even when it wasn't that good."
        "You are almost as cynical as I am, ser mage." Hagen took another sip of wine. "That's saying a great deal."
    Kharl feared he would need that cynicism when he reached Valmurl.
    II
    I hrapl
    "Ser Kharl? Ser Kharl?"
    Kharl struggled out of sleep. Where was he? How early was it?
    "Ser Kharl?" The feminine voice was unfamiliar.
        He squinted in the light pouring into the unfamiliar bedchamber, before everything came back. He was in the north wing of Lord Ghrant's Great House. For just himself, he had not only a large bedchamber, but a sitting room with a desk, as well as a lavishly equipped bath chamber.
    "Ser?"
         "Coming..." Kharl pulled himself out of the triple-width bed and yanked on his traveling trousers, shambling through the sitting room to the door, aware of the old but thick carpet beneath his bare feet.
    "Your breakfast, sir."
        Kharl concentrated, hard as it was, with his order-senses, but so far as he could tell, the young woman stood alone outside his door. He eased the lock plate back. A dark-haired young woman, barely out of girlhood, stood there holding an enormous tray.
    "If you'd let me bring it in, ser. If you would, ser."
     
        Kharl watched as she eased through the doorway and set the tray on the table desk. "Thank you."
    "My pleasure, ser." The girl bowed and slipped away.
        After locking the door again, Kharl crossed the sitting room. He looked at the tray, taking in the slices of ham, the egg toast, fillets of some sort of fish, a basket of black bread, a pot of jam, and the twin pitchers, one of pale ale, and the other of cider, with an empty beaker. He hadn't expected a breakfast to be delivered, but he couldn't say he was displeased, not as late as he had arrived in Valmurl the night before.
       The winds had not been as favorable as Hagen had hoped, and the Seafox had not reached Valmurl until a good two glasses past midnight, even pushing the engines. A coach had been waiting, though, to take them to the Great House. For all that, or because of it, he had not slept that well, fretting as he had about the upcoming audience. Then, just when he had drifted off, or so it had seemed, the young woman had knocked on his door, carrying a tray with his breakfast.
        A faint