The epic stood up and recited all the great names of the captains, the Segu navigators Kolosan ayaSegu and Eyotana Six-Souls, Cho-oh Long Oar and the Man with the Rudder Thumb, and Lonjaro’s champions too, the sons and daughters of house Mbunu who had sailed so far north they could breathe smoke, Nyoba Dbellu who had salt crystals in her earlobes. Thrill at the names, O listeners, thrill at these thinkers of sharp thoughts!

Next was the gossip griot, who wandered from family to family whispering about the dalliances of both the champions and the enemy. He had a warm old smile, big as the calendar on the first day of the new year, and after he talked about Cho-oh Short Cock and who exactly might be breathing smoke into who, he reminded them all that they had nothing to fear from war. A war could be fought between champions on the clean sea. Neither the Mbo nor Falcrest need suffer.

Kindalana stood behind her father with her arms across the shoulders of two of her clerk friends and grinned in delight. Tau-indi felt a spiteful need to make her sad, to beg her pity.

Instead they sidled up to the Farrier man, who was stroking his beard and listening intently. “Your Excellence Farrier,” they murmured, with an overt politeness, “does it trouble you to hear our griots discussing your defeat?”

Farrier knelt with them. He had a charmingly self-satisfied face, like a clever raccoon. “No,” he said, “it doesn’t bother me, or, rather, it fascinates me to see the war from your perspective. Do I kiss you on the cheek? Is that the right thing?”

“If you like!” Tau said, pleasantly surprised. The Falcresti had both been very standoffish. “Or kiss the air beside the cheek, like this—”

Farrier tried this, and accidentally made a childish poot with his lips. Tau laughed. Farrier wiggled his eyebrows and sat back, beaming at the firelit gathering. “I’m so happy to be here,” he said.

“Why are you happy?” Tau couldn’t imagine being so far from home and family.

“Because,” Farrier said, “Oriati Mbo has stood for a thousand years, and no matter what my people say, I think we have things to learn from you.”

Tau-indi felt a sudden warmth toward him. “I’m sure the converse is true, as well! What do you think you might learn?”

Farrier’s eyes sat deep in their sockets, as thoughtful as they were guarded. But they seemed to open and allow Tau inside. “Young lama,” he said, “I want to know how to make a civilization last a thousand years. And since you do not have eugenics, I know the answer cannot lie there—”

They were interrupted by the satirist, who reeled out into the center of the circle on unsteady toppling stilts. They shaded their eyes, a young laman with white ash around their mouth, and looked around.