lot. Not an ounce of sea-knowledge on the lot, but we musta made a good argument. Truth be told, I don’t remember it much. So the next morning found us on ship, bound for Saratov, heads near bursting hung over, too proud to admit we’d made stupid plans while too drunk to even remember ’em that good. It’s a short trip to Saratov, especially on The Sea-Serpent, but by the end of it we were already mates, and glad we’d done the fool thing on top of it. It would be a waste of a couple of their days, sure, and a couple of months if they stuck to the contract, but now the revolution’d always have help on The Sea-Serpent if it needed it, that was clear. Hand me a sip of that water, would you, maidie? My throat’s killing me. Thanks. Where was I, again?”
“A bunch of fools were heading to bother an old man, I believe.”
“That’s right—although if you ever told my gramps I said it, he’d argue for days he wasn’t old and never had been. Still thinks he’s in his prime, crazy old fool. He is getting old now, though, and I reckon Mam don’t let him near the drink much these days, for it sure didn’t take much whiskey to get him smashed.”
“You mean to tell me that you actually got an old man drunk?!”
“You make it sound like we forced it on him, Tay. C’mon—you know my gramps. He woulda had the whole bottle if we’d let him! Which we didn’t, being respectable and honest men.”
“You drank the rest of it yourself, didn’t you?”
“Are you gonna let me finish, or no?”
“I have a sinking feeling that I know the end, but yes. I’ll be quiet.”
“Thank you. Now, as I was sayin’. He got a bit tipsy, and so we brought up this matter of the king’s steward. And I gotta say, I haven’t never seen a man get so sober so fast, nor so raging mad.”
“Serves you right.”
“Tay.”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, he demands to know what we’re all about, and Jer comes right out and tells him everything that’s up. Figures it’s the best way, I guess, and knows the old man is trustworthy. Good thing he did it, too, ’cause Gramps up and tells Jer that if he wants a steward, he’s got one. Lookin’ right at him. Poor Jer…practically goes on one knee to the guy, all preachy and such, telling him all about how the peasants are suffering, how the rebels are fightin’ so hard but they can’t rally the people behind them, ’cause then there’d just be a fight for the throne since nobody can claim it and all. How if the king is still alive, his people need him now more’n they ever have. He sure knows what he’s talkin’ about—he’s got a way ’a speaking that just makes you want to listen some more, y’know? Made me want to up and join the army, and me not thinking I’m even from Sephria. And apparently, he moved my gramps too, ’cause Gramps nods his head and says sure, the time had come, and if Jeremy wants a king to bow to he better get bowing now, ’cause I was it.
“Like I said, if I hadn’t been standing I woulda fallen right off my chair, and Jeremy near had a heart attack. Once the screaming and hysterics were over from all the three of us—mostly me and Gramps, I gotta say, ’cause Jer is always so damn together—we sort out that the story about the steward running off with the little prince were true. That’s what Gramps had done, though I guess he isn’t really my gramps at all, just a guy who liked my dad…goddess, does it make my head hurt to think about it. And my mam, Tay! She isn’t, never has been. She took care ’a me all these years, never asked a thing in return, never even knew for sure who I was! Gramps just tells her, he does, that I need some lookin’ after, and since she’s a widow and so young, and she’s always wanted a little ’un…Not even my real mam, Tay.”
“She loves you. That’s what matters, Dare. She may as well be.”
“Yeah…still…y’know, maybe if I hadn’t heard Jeremy’s speech I woulda up and walked right out of there—who wants to think he’s a king, gonna have to fight for everything, just to live, even! Thing is, though, I did hear ’im, and it made