“Well, who wants this war with Sask?” one of them demanded. “That is, besides this outlander who has grown so great in so short a time among us, this Lord Kalvan.”
He leaned right a little to look. Yes, Sthentros. He was some kind of an in-law of Ptosphes…had a barony over about where Boalsburg ought to be. He’d made trouble when the fireseed mills were being started—refused to let his peasants be put to work collecting saltpeter. Kalvan had threatened to have his head off, and Sthentros had run spluttering to Ptosphes. The interview had been private, nobody knew exactly what Ptosphes had told him, but he had emerged from it visibly shaken. The peasants had gone to work collecting saltpeter.
“Just who is this Kalvan?” Sthentros persisted. “Why, until five moons ago, nobody in Hostigos ha
