The one who had spoken against him was young, soft-cheeked, untested in war or labor or anything in life where his father's name was not a ready-made shield. He wore silk as it were a god-made armor and thought it served him just as well.
He did not think that for long.
The very moment Jarza moved to be exact.
One moment he sat still as a carved idol; the next his foot was on the table, wood groaning beneath his weight. More than a hundred kilograms of muscle and scar loomed over the trembling lord,shoulders like hewn oak, arms thick as siege-timbers, hands large and ready as an eagle's talon reaching for a rabbit foolish enough to stray from its burrow.
The young noble squealed, there was no kinder nor nobler word to describe that sound.
A high, sharp sound like a field mouse caught between cat and wall. For a moment it seemed Jarza would make paste of him, staining the table with lillies of red.
