Other than girls, I had few companions, and no individual to trust.

Erran’s gold and silver men gazed askance at the cuckoo in their nest. One second they would mean to treat me as an inferior, a slave like the Dark People, to be despised, that they might kick end to end of the palace and not be called to account for. Next moment they would recollect I had Erran’s protection, his special favor. I was in his store cupboard for future need, and therefore I must not be hurt.

Despite this stamp of immunity, I had myself tutored in Eshkorian swordplay, and found the lessons useful, since once in a while a gang of soldiers would seek me out for discord. There were always bronzes, my supposed class equals, who resented the promotion to their midst of a bastard tribesman—none I think believed I was Uastis’ progeny, though many agreed I might have begun in the loins of Vazkor. There would be caterwaulings, spittings, and presently a merry dance, during which they would learn that, whatever else they do mistakenly, the tribes breed men hard. At length, all of us bloody, and I alone upright, a scatter of silver captains, having observed the fray, would clap me on the back and boot their officers in the breeches, and I should be thankful for the poison-taster at dinner that evening. I managed, after the first, to derive entertainment from these scenes and from the silvers’ condescension. You are the man’s dog, thought I, so be his dog. Bark, snarl, and bite, then wag your tail when the lords pat you. The bones are juicy, are they not? And inside your doggy hide you are still a man, and the son of a greater man than all this pack of curs together.

Erran set a guard around me, day and night. Not only the four bronzes who rode with me about the city or the cloth-masks who tested my liquor and meat—none of whom died; their presence was enough to deter the bane—but in addition certain others, infrequently seen yet ever-present, that I had guessed to be Erran’s spies.

One day, when I was riding to the horse-park with my four guards and some fifteen others, down a narrow street generally acknowledged Erran’s territory, an arrow with a silver flight shot from the sky. I had not fought krarl wars without some sagacity coming of it; I was from my horse as soon as my ears picked up the whine of the shaft. As well. The thing parted my hair; another second and it would have combed my brains.

Two heartbeats later a swarm of men dashed over the walls.

There is no nicer place for an ambush than a ruined snowy street.

I had been permitted a sword, of Erran’s bounty, and cut around with it to reasonable effect. Then I saw our trouble. The attackers were mostly silver men, and although plainly an enemy, there was a stigma to the bronzes involved in mowing down a superior class. Generally, only captain fought captain, mere soldier fought mere soldier. Although Erran must have tried to hammer the dogma out of them, yet he still expected bronze to kowtow to silver and to gold in his own palace, and so undermined the teaching at its source. True, they rallied, and true their swords slit up the guts of many a silver-mask, yet their hearts were not in it, and I could foresee a black future as the ambushers were easily twice our number.