"Indevan-Dal Algara-Vayir," he corrected automatically, in the accent of a Marlovan aristocrat. "Of Choraed Elgaer." Her derision in saying the name he had not used, or even heard, for four long years made him flush with painful prickly heat all over.
The other two gaped at him.
----
Kodl turned to Inda in amazement. "You're the son of a lord? No,' he corrected, calling up with little he knew of Iasca Leror's government. Choraed Elgaer. "A prince."
Inda looked back with that blank face they'd all known since he was a rat. They stared at his bruised jaw, red knuckles, the filthy tangle of yellow-streaked hair escaping from his braid, and his old, weatherworn shirt and deck trousers, thinking: prince? Aren't they supposed to be different?
He's different when he fights, Kodl thought.
Inda, reading accusation in those stares of bemusement, said, "I did not betray Dogpiss Noth." His gaze slipped past them, straight into the past, old pain renewed. "It was a plot, and I still don't know why, but the king's own Shield Arm was part of it."
Kodl whistled softly. He could well believe that. Marlovans were notoriously bloody-handed, so why wouldn't they plot against each other as well as their neighbours? He stared at Inda, reflecting on years of travel, round the world twice, and how you thought you knew people, then surprise.
----
Now it made sense, the boy who could fight two-handed against grown men. They boy who would forget and use proper Sartoran verbs in Dock Talk, even though he'd never actually been to Sartor. That all added up to a prince's education. A cowardly, treacherous prince?
No. Kodl was sure of that much. Inda Elgar might be a prince, and might have left scandal behind him, but he was no coward. Nor was he treacherous, or he would have been leading that mutiny on the Pim trader, and further, he would have succeeded. He was a natural commander - who didn't want to take command.
from Inda by Sherwood Smith
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