The boy did the lord’s bidding, for he had no choice, being a child, and the son of the tavern keeper, and of no account. The lord was already drunk, but he swallowed most of the wine in a few gulps. He set the flagon down unsteadily and it tottered and fell. “Wretch!” he cried at Teldaru, who was still standing there by the table. “You’ve brought me a faulty cup. And now look—such a mess—only a seer could make sense of it. . . .” The man narrowed his eyes at the dark spatter upon the wood, then shifted them back to the boy. “Make right your clumsiness,” he slurred. “Entertain me. Read my future in this pattern and I will withhold the order to have you flogged.” Teldaru stood up on his tiptoes and peered across the tabletop. He frowned. “I see a breaking wave,” he declared in his high, clear voice as the others around the table and in the room fell silent, “with you standing beneath it. Your face is still and purple.” It is said that the midday sun, which had been spilling into the tavern, dimmed, and an owl hooted, as if it believed night had fallen.
