Swords and Etiquette

Seregil stored away the mystery of the Oracle's words and launched back into Rhíminee life..

News that the Rhíminee Cat had reappeared spread quickly, and intrigue jobs for various nobles-together with inquiries on Nysander's behalf were plentiful enough to keep him out most nights.

Alec clearly resented being left behind, but Seregil was not ready to expose the boy to the dangers of the city just yet. Instead, he did his best to make it up to him during the day, showing him wonders and drilling him endlessly in the myriad skills necessary for survival in their precarious profession.

Swordplay was paramount, and they spent most mornings practicing in the upstairs sitting room, bare feet scuffing softly over the rush matting as they circled slowly, moving through the basic blocks and parries with wooden practice battens.

Unfortunately, these proved to be the most grueling lessons. Alec was old to be just starting and, hard as the boy worked, progress was discouragingly slow.

The only other subjects Seregil pursued on any regular basis were reading and lock work.

Otherwise, he tended to proceed in whatever direction caught his fancy at the moment. One day they might spend several hours poring over scrolls of royal lineage or sifting through the gems in the chest from the mantelpiece, Alec wide-eyed as Seregil extolled their properties and how to value them. Another day they might traipse off in disguise to practice with a band of market acrobats who knew Seregil as Wandering Kail. Dressed in gaudy tatters and besmudged with dirt, Alec watched gleefully as Seregil juggled, walked ropes, and mugged for the crowd.

Alec's own clumsy first efforts were greeted as inspired clowning.

Often they simply walked the labyrinthine streets of the city, exploring its various wards and markets. Seregil had small bundles of necessities stashed in disused attics and sheds all over Rhíminee, kept against the event that he should have to go to ground quickly.

Gradually, Seregil introduced Alec to more clandestine procedures—a little innocent housebreaking, or making a game of evading the notice of the Harbor Watch in the rough byways of the Lower City.

 

As the weeks passed, Alec realized that aside from certain rapidly diminishing ethical qualms, he had never been happier. The dark days in Mycena were quickly fading to uncomfortable memories and Seregil, healthy and back in his favorite setting, was once again the wry, dashing figure who'd first captured his imagination.

In spite of the odd hours they kept, Alec found it difficult not to break the habit of rising with the sun. Seregil was seldom awake that early, so he'd slip quietly downstairs to break his fast with the innkeeper's family.

The kitchen was an agreeable place at that hour.

Whatever misgivings Thryis might have had about him that first night, she had soon taken to Alec and made him welcome in the group that gathered around the scrubbed oak table each morning.

Savoring the fragile peace that lingered before the onset of each day's work, Diomis, Cilia, and Thryis planned the day's meals while Cilia suckled her baby. The sight of her round, bared breast made Alec blush at first, but he soon came to regard it as one of the simple pleasures of the day.

As far as Seregil's "lessons" went, there seemed to be an inexhaustible variety of unrelated matters to master. Reading, lock work, and so forth all made sense, but his insistence on Alec's mastery of such things as etiquette was something of a surprise.

One night, after the shutters were up and the day servants dismissed, Seregil dressed them both in voluminous formal robes and took him down to the kitchen for supper.

"There's more to disguise than changing your clothing,"

Seregil lectured as they sat down. "You must know the manners proper to any situation, or all the decking out in the world won't carry off your ruse. Tonight we dine among the nobles at a fine villa on Silvermoon Street, attended by servants."

Cilia and Thryis bowed gravely to them from the hearth. Bluff, bearded Diomis grinned as he dandled his grandson on his knee. "Old mother here was head cook to some of the finest houses in Rhíminee before Lord Seregil stole her away. You won't find better fare at a prince's table. Mind you show appreciation though, young sir, or she's like to crack you on the pate with a ladle. It's a risky thing, I always say, eating in sight of the cook."

"Consider yourself duly warned." Seregil drew Alec's attention to the dishes. "We'll begin with the table service."

The green-glazed plates and bowls seemed thin as eggshell to Alec. Each one was lightly etched with an intricate circular design at the center.

Small cups of similar design stood to the right of each plate.

"This is Ylani porcelain. Very delicate, very costly, and made only in a small town in the northern foothills near Ceshlan. Notice how translucent it is, held to the light; the green tint is in the overglaze. The simple design at the center of each piece is the traditional stylized marigold, always considered tasteful and correct. However, it also shows that your host did not spend the extra time and money to have a set made in his personal design. This could indicate several things.

"He is, perhaps, not as wealthy as he wishes to appear. On the other hand, he might simply be conservative or uninspired in such matters. Or it could be that he's entertaining you on his second-best service, which is another thing altogether. You'd have to investigate further to sort out which.

"The use of this porcelain does portend the sort of dinner you will have, however. Only fish is served on it, never meat. Please note that a table knife is provided in addition to a spoon; never eat with your own dagger. The wine is Mycenian, a very fine variety called Golden Smoke. This betokens shellfish of some sort, for nothing else would be served with such a wine. Send in the first course, my good woman!"

Doing her best to look grave, Cilia set a broad, shallow dish before them. In it half a dozen spherical things roughly the size of a fist sat in a few inches of water. They were a dark greenish-black and bristled with nasty spines that waved slowly about.

"This is a shell fish?" Alec asked, poking dubiously at the closest one.

"There are many types," Seregil replied. "These are urchins. Children pick the smaller varieties from the tide pools along the shore and sell them by the basketful in the markets. These larger ones are brought in by fishermen who lower traps for crabs and lobsters. Just about everyone in Rhíminee eats them; the trick is to do it the right way according to your surroundings. First, let's see how you'd do it."

Alec looked at him in disbelief. "As they are? Seregil, those things are still moving!"

Thryis snorted derisively from the hearth, but Seregil motioned her to silence. "Cooking spoils both the flavor and the texture. Go on! I wouldn't give it to you if it wasn't edible."

Still doubtful, Alec pulled the smallest urchin gingerly from the bowl by one of its spines. Halfway to his plate the spine pulled loose and he ended up juggling the prickly horror the rest of the way with both hands. Once he had the thing where he wanted it, he rolled it this way and that with his spoon, wondering how to proceed. Discovering an opening of sorts on the underside, he tried prying at it with the tip of his knife. The shell immediately crushed into fragments under the blade. Water, broken spines, and bits of soft grey and yellow matter splattered up the front of his robe.

"Excellent!" Seregil laughed, tossing him a napkin. "Whenever you present yourself as an inland noble on his first visit to the coast, do it just that way. I've never yet seen anyone get through their first urchin without smashing it to bits. Now, if you were in some local tavern, posing as a workman or farmer in for market day, you'd do it like this."

Picking an urchin out of the dish with a light, sure touch, Seregil cracked it against the edge of the table and pulled back the fragments of shell to expose the contents.

"These grey bits here are the body. You don't eat that," he explained, scraping them out with a finger. With them came a conical ring of white fragments that looked like tiny carved birds. "And those are the teeth. It's the yellow parts you're after, the roe."

Plucking out several slender, gelatinous lobes, Seregil ate them with apparent relish.

"I got them at the docks early this morning," Cilia told him. "I made the fisherman give me a bucket of seawater and kept them down the well all day."

"Lovely flavor!" Seregil tossed the emptied shell into the fire behind him. Wiping his hands and lips with a napkin, he said, "Those are tavern manners and they'll serve well anywhere outside the Noble Quarter, provided you want to be taken for a common sort. However, we are dining in Silvermoon Street, as you recall, and here they will not do at all. Observe.

"First, the hanging sleeves of a formal robe are pushed—never rolled—halfway back to the elbow, no farther. You may place your left elbow on the table, never the right, although it's generally acceptable to rest your wrist on the edge. Food is handled with the thumb and first two fingers of each hand; fold the others under, like so. Good. Now pick up the urchin with your left hand, handling it lightly, and hold it so you can see the mouth. Now, crack the shell with a single sharp stroke of your knife. Once it's open, clean out the waste with the tip of your knife, then use your spoon to scoop out the roe. The empty shell goes on your plate. Never speak with a full mouth. If anyone addresses you, simply curve a finger in front of your lips and finish what's in your mouth before answering."

Alec managed to puncture himself badly on the spines before he mastered the art of handling the things, and his fingers kept cramping from being held back so unnaturally. The roe, when he finally managed to extract a few intact lobes, had an unpleasantly viscous texture in his mouth and it's salty sweet flavor was revolting. Relying heavily on the pale, oak-flavored wine, he managed to get two down before his stomach rebelled.

Grimacing, he pushed his plate away.

"These are awful! I've found better eating under rotten logs."

"You don't care for them?" Seregil deftly split his fourth urchin. "We'll have to cultivate your tastes, I'm afraid. In Rhíminee, just about anything that comes out of the sea is considered a delicacy. Perhaps you'll find this next course more to your liking." He motioned to Cilia. "Have you ever tried octopus?"

 

As the weeks passed, Seregil remained frustrated by Alec's poor progress at swordplay. The situation finally came to a head during one of their morning sessions a month or so after their arrival.

"Keep your left side back backslash was he chided for the fifth time in half an hour, giving the offending shoulder a sharp poke with his wooden blade.

"Stepping forward like that after you block gives your opponent twice the target. Your enemy has only to do this—"
Seregil slapped Alec's blade smartly aside and feigned a cut across the boy's belly. "And there you are, holding your guts in your hands!"

Alec silently positioned himself again, but Seregil could see the tension in his stance. The boy turned his next feint clumsily, then brought his shoulder around again as he tried a counterattack.

Before he could stop himself, Seregil parried and gave him a sharp tap across the neck. "You're dead again."

"Sorry," Alec mumbled, wiping the sweat out of his eyes.

Seregil cursed himself silently. In all the time he'd known him, this was the first time he'd seen the boy look defeated. Fighting down his own impatience, he tried again. "It's not natural to you yet, that's all. Try imagining how you'd hold yourself pulling a bow."

"You hold the bow with your left hand and draw with your right," Alec corrected. "That puts your right shoulder back."

"Oh, yes. Well, let's hope that you end up better at swordplay than I ever did at archery. Now, once again."

Alec managed to parry an overhead swing but followed it with another unsuccessful counter.

Seregil's wooden blade caught him hard at the base of the throat and drew a few drops of blood.

"By the—Oh, damn!" Breaking his batten in two over his knee, Seregil tossed the pieces aside and inspected the jagged scratch on the boy's neck.

"Sorry," Alec repeated, staring over Seregil's shoulder, toned again."

"I'm not angry with you. As for that—"
He motioned toward the fragments of the batten. "That's just to break the bad luck. Cursed be the weapon that tastes the blood of a friend. Let's have a look at the rest of the damage."

Alec tugged the sweat-soaked jerkin off over his head and Seregil inspected the bruises scattered darkly over his chest, arms, and ribs.

"That's what I thought. Illior's Fingers, we're doing something wrong! You've caught on to everything else so quickly."

"I don't know," Alec sighed, dropping into a chair. "I guess I'm hopeless as a swordsman."

"Don't say that," Seregil chided. "Clean yourself up while I fetch lunch. I've an idea or two how we can help you."

 

Seregil returned from the kitchen with a steaming platter of tiny roasted birds stuffed with cheese and currants and some darkly mottled mushrooms that looked vile and smelled delicious.

"Clear a spot, will you?" he puffed, resting the heavy tray on the corner of the dining table.

"Thank the Maker, something that lived on dry land," Alec exclaimed hungrily, pushing books and rolls of parchment aside; Thryis had served another variety of raw shellfish the night before and he'd gone to bed hungry.

He had thrown on a clean shirt while Seregil was gone, neglecting in his haste to tuck it in or do up the lacings. The linen swirled loosely around his lean hips as he hurried to fetch cups from a shelf. His fair hair, properly trimmed at last, shone when he passed through a patch of sunlight.

Seregil caught himself staring and hastily turned his attention to the food.

"This isn't going to be another lesson in manners, is it?" Alec asked, eyeing the array of eating utensils suspiciously as he reached for one of the tiny birds.

Seregil rapped him smartly over the knuckles with a spoon. "Yes it is. Now watch."

"Why is all the food in Skala so hard to eat?"

Alec groaned as Seregil demonstrated the tricky business of eating the tiny auroles without lifting them from the plate or disturbing the bones.

"I admit I've had Thryis make us some of the more difficult dishes, but if you master those, the rest will be simple," Seregil assured him with a grin. "You mustn't underestimate the importance of such customs. Say you've managed to gain admittance to some lord's house by posing as the son of an old comrade he knew in the wars. You've studied the battles, you know the names of all the pertinent generals, your accent is correct, and you're dressed perfectly. The minute you reach out of turn into the common platter, or spear a fried eel with your knife, you're under suspicion. Or imagine you're trying to pass yourself off as a sailor down in the Lower City. If you mistakenly call for a wine that would cost a month's wages, or eat your joint with fingers folded daintily back, it's highly likely you'll next be seen floating face down in the harbor."

Chastened, Alec took up his spoon again and began picking at the bird before him. "But what about my sword training?"

"Ah, yes. Well, I suspect the problem may be more me than you."

Alec eyed him skeptically. "Micum said you're one of the best swordsmen he's ever known!"

"That's the problem. With me, it's all here." Seregil tapped a finger over his heart.

"Swordplay comes as naturally to me as breathing; it always did. It's all aggression and skill and intuition. So every time you drop your guard or turn your shoulder forward, I lunge in and exploit the mistake. All I've managed to do so far is make you doubt yourself. No, this is the one thing I can't teach you. That's why I've decided to send you out to Watermead."

Alec looked up sharply. "But we've hardly—"

"I know, I know!" Seregil interrupted, hoping to forestall another argument over Alec being left out of his work. "It's only for a week, and the rest of it can wait that long. I have to deliver Beka's commissioning papers anyway, so we'll ride out today."

Just then a brisk rap sounded at the door, startling Alec.

"Don't worry," said Seregil. "Anyone who can still knock after climbing my stairs is a friend. That you, Nysander?"

"Good day to you both." The scent of magic clung around the wizard as he strode in, though he was dressed in the same ordinary clothing he'd worn the day Alec had first seen him on the docks. "Ah, I see I am in time for one of Thryis' excellent meals!"

Seregil raised a questioning eyebrow. "I thought we were to meet tonight?"

"In truth, I have rather missed seeing Alec. You have been keeping him very busy. Unfortunately, that is not my only reason for coming. I should like your opinion on this."

Drawing a small scroll tube from his pocket, he handed it to Seregil. A wax seal still dangled from one of the ribbons tied around it.

"It's one of mine," Seregil remarked in surprise, examining the seal. His look of puzzlement deepened as he extracted a sheet of creamy vellum from the tube and glanced over it. "This is a note I wrote to Baron Lycenias last spring, thanking him for a week's hunting at his estate. You sent me there yourself, remember? That business about Lady Northil."

"I suggest you read it over carefully."

"Let's see; the crest is in order, and it's dated the third day of Lithion. That should be right.

"My Dear Lycenias i Marron, allow me to again proffer my heartfelt thanks for a most enjoyable-" Yes, yes, the usual rubbish; fine hunting, laudable companionship, what a—"
He broke off with an incredulous laugh.

"Bilairy's Balls, Nysander! It appears I'm thanking him for several nights of carnal pleasure, as well. As if I'd take on that reeking tub of guts!"

"Keep reading; it gets worse."

Seregil read on, eyes flashing indignantly, but an instant later he went pale. Carrying the letter to the window, he inspected it closely, then reread it.

"What's wrong?" Alec demanded.

"This isn't good." Seregil tugged at a stray strand of hair as he studied the note. "For all intents and purposes, this is my handwriting, right down to the great flourish connecting the final word of the letter to my signature-which I always do to prevent exactly what has somehow happened here."

"Someone's changed what it says?"

"They certainly have. "Regarding Tarin Dhial, you may rest assured of my complete support." No, this isn't good at all!"

"I don't understand. What's wrong?" Alec said, turning to Nysander.

"Tarin Dhial is an encrypted form of the name of a Plenimaran spy caught buying information from several Skalan nobles," Nysander explained. "They were all executed as traitors two months ago."

"Argragil and Mortain," said Seregil, nodding thoughtfully.

"Both guests of Lycenias that same week I was there. I had no idea what they were up to at the time! I suppose you've checked this for magic?"

"Not a trace. Unless you can prove forgery, this could be most damaging."

"But how did you come into possession of it?"

"It was sent anonymously to Lord Barien this morning."

"The Vicegerent?"

"Oh, yes. Fortunately I have several Watchers among his staff. One of them recognized your seal and waylaid the document before it was seen. There may be other copies, however. I shudder to contemplate the colossal scandal that could arise should one of these fall into the wrong hands. Such embarrassment for the Queen is unthinkable, a perfect coup for the Lerans!"

Unnoticed by the others, Alec looked up sharply at this last comment, then stole a quick glance at Seregil's face. Certain suspicions he'd been nursing for some time were beginning to take clearer shape.

"There are only three forgers capable of this quality," Seregil mused.

"Fortunately, two of them are right here in the city.

It shouldn't take long to find out if they're involved. I've already tried to tie them into the Vardarus business with no success. Still, for something as large as this, I can't imagine the Lerans going too far afield. They're better organized than usual but probably still fiercely insular. That's always been their undoing in the past."

"I shall leave it to you for the time being," said Nysander, standing to go. "Keep me closely informed and if things should turn ugly, depend on me to remove you from harm's way. Farewell, Alec."

"If things turn ugly for me, then you'll have problems of your own!" Seregil warned, accompanying him to the door.

"Seregil? Is all this because you're Aurënfaie?" Alec blurted out suddenly.

Thunderstruck, Seregil turned to stare at him. "Where did you near that?"

"You mean after all this time you still had not told him?" exclaimed Nysander, equally shocked.

"Then it's true?" Alec was grinning now.

"Actually, I was waiting for him to figure it out for himself," Seregil countered, shifting uncomfortably under Nysander's displeased gaze. "Well done, Alec. I'm just surprised it took you so long."

"Indeed?" Nysander said, giving him a last dark look. "Then the two of you have much to discuss. I shall leave you to it. Farewell!"

Returning to the table, Seregil sank his head in his hands. "Really, Alec. Of all the moments to choose!"

"I'm sorry," Alec said, coloring hotly. "It just came out."

"Who told you? Thryis? Cilia? Someone at the Orëska?"

"I figured it out myself, just now," Alec admitted. "It's the only explanation that makes sense. The way your friends speak of you, all the stories—after a while I began to wonder how someone so young could have done so much. I mean, looking at you I'd say you were no more than twenty-five, but Micum's older than that and he spoke once of meeting you when he was a young man, so you must be a lot older than you look. Once I figured that out, then things you'd told me or refused to tell me came back and I started wondering even more. Like why half the books here are written in Aurënfaie—"

"How in the world did you know that?"

"Nysander showed me some Aurënfaie writing while we were staying at the Orëska House. I can't read it, but I recognize the characters. I've had plenty of time to poke around, you know, all these nights you've been gone."

"Very enterprising of you," said Seregil, wincing a bit as the barb struck home. "But why didn't you ask earlier?"

"I still wasn't sure until Nysander said it would be a terrible scandal if the Lerans could make you out to be a traitor. Micum and Nysander both said you're related to the Queen. The best thing for the Lerans would be if a relative of the Queen who is also a friend to her daughter, former apprentice to her favorite wizard, and an Aurënfaie was caught selling information to the Plenimarans."

Alec hesitated. "You're not angry, are you? I'm sorry I just blurted it out like that in front of Nysander but suddenly it was all—"

"Angry?" Seregil laughed, raising his head at last. "Alec, you constantly exceed my highest expectations!"

"Except at swordplay."

"But we've settled that. Go on now. Pack whatever you think you'll want." Jumping up, Seregil headed for his room. "I've got an extra saddle somewhere. And be sure to take your bow. Beka's quite an archer herself."

"You're not still sending me away?" exclaimed Alec, crestfallen.

"And why wouldn't I?"

"With everything Nysander just told you? How can we just ride off like that with you in trouble?"

"I can be back in town by tomorrow evening."

"So you're getting me out of the way!"

Going to Alec, Seregil clasped him gently by the back of the neck and looked earnestly into his eyes. "This is dangerous work. How can I concentrate on the task at hand if I'm constantly worrying about losing you down some dark alley during a chase? I won't feel right taking you along until I think you have some way of protecting yourself. That's why it's so important for you to learn to use your sword. Go to Micum; learn from him. He can teach you more in a week than I could in half a year, I promise."

"You never thought I was so helpless before we got to Rhíminee," Alec grumbled, trying to pull away.

Seregil tightened his grip slightly, holding him in place. "Oh, you're anything but helpless, my friend. We both know that." Releasing him, he added, "But trust me when I tell you that you haven't yet seen the Rhíminee I know."

"But what about the Lerans? Can you leave with all that going on?"

"That letter was delivered this morning, so it will be at least a day or two before they begin to guess that it's missing. Even then, I doubt they'll act right away."

"Why not? If they have another copy they could just deliver it to someone else."

"They won't do anything until they learn what happened to the first copy, and that's not going to happen until I'm ready to let them," Seregil assured him with caret a grim smile. "Now go get packed. The day's half over already and we still have to buy you a horse!"

22

One Horse,Two Swans,

and Three Daughters

The livestock marketplace lay just outside the city walls by the Harvest Market gate. Mounted on a borrowed horse, Alec looked around eagerly as they rode among the horse traders' enclosures there.

"That's who we want," Seregil said, pointing out a woman in a dusty riding kirtle and boots. At the moment she was engaged in a heated discussion with several of her fellows beside one of the corrals.

Dismounting, Seregil led Scrub over and joined the circle of conversation. The trader nodded to him and hooked a thumb at a large wooden building a few hundred yards away.

"Damn fool thing to do," she grumbled. "Look at my poor beauties, what it does to them!"

"The new Butcher's Hall, you mean?" asked Seregil, wrinkling his nose. A faint breeze carried the sickly sweet smell of the place and the cries of ravens and gulls fighting over the piles of discarded entrails in the pits beyond the slaughterhouse.

Leaning on the upper rail of the corral, the horse trader watched her horses stamping nervously as they scented the wind. "We've petitioned before to have a market of our own, farther away from the damned butchers, but the Council can't be bothered with us, it seems! Cows, pigs, sheep; they're too dim to mind the smell of blood if they was swimming in it. But my poor beauties there—look at 'em! How am I supposed to show you a steady beast when they've all got that stench up their noses?"

"Petition the Queen's Court directly," Seregil advised. "Idrilain understands horses a good deal better than the fat merchants on the Council of Streets and Markets."

One of the other traders nodded. "Aye, that's not a bad idea."

"You and I, Mistress Byrn, we've done enough business for me to trust the quality of your beasts."

Seregil pointed to Alec, who was already scrutinizing the herd. "I think my friend here favors them, too. Let's have a closer look."

With a pleased nod, the trader tucked the hem of her woolen skirt up into her belt and climbed over the rail.

Seregil waded into the herd beside her, rubbing necks and rumps and crooning softly to them. Following in his wake, Alec marveled at how the animals seemed to calm under his hand. Other horses crowded up to their mistress.

"They're just a pack of great colts, as you see," she said, grinning at Alec over their backs.

"Northern stock mostly, with a few drops of faie mixed in here and there. They're strong and they're smart. I doubt you'd find better between here and Cirna."

Alec wandered among the shifting herd, trying to sort out those that showed the best natures and conformations from those he only liked the looks of. He was just reaching out to stroke a pale sorrel filly when a shove from behind nearly knocked him off his feet. A dark nose pushed under his arm and he found a brown mare nipping at his belt pouch.

"You, Patch!" the horse dealer shouted. "Get out of that, you hussy!"

The mare, a plain-looking beast, looked longingly back at Alec as she sidled away.

Despite her unremarkable appearance, he was taken with the disdainful set of her ears. He put a hand put to her and she butted him under the arm again, nuzzling at his belt.

"It's the leather she's after," the dealer confessed.

"Crazy for it as others are for apples. She's a losel with the tack, I'll warn you."

"All the same, she's not half bad," Seregil remarked, coming over to see.

Running a critical eye over joints and hocks, Alec noticed an irregular spot of white hair the size of a child's hand just behind her right flank.

"How did she come by this scar?" he asked.

The woman smoothed a hand fondly over the mark.

"Wolves got into my enclosure last winter. Killed three foals before we got out with the torches. One tore at her here, as you see, before she brained it with a kick. She's a feisty one, my Patch, and stubborn, but she has a smooth, strong gait and she'll go all day for you. Saddle her, young sir, and see what you think."

A gallop across the open ground around the marketplace was enough to win Alec over. The mare showed no skittishness, and took the reins well.

"That's settled, then," Seregil said approvingly as he paid out the money.

Moving his saddle and pack onto Patch, Alec slung his bow over one shoulder and followed Seregil onto the Cirna highroad.

Several miles out from the city they turned onto a road leading up into the hills. Seregil seemed to be in no particular hurry and they rode easily, giving the horses their head and enjoying the crisp, clear afternoon.

Winter was beginning to take hold in Skala now, though the breeze still carried the stinging scent of smokehouse meats, yellowed hay, and the last sour tang of the cider presses from the farmsteads they passed along the way.

They'd ridden for some time in comfortable silence when Seregil turned to Alec and asked, "I suppose you're wondering why I didn't tell you sooner?"

"You never say much about yourself," Alec replied with a touch of reproach. "I've gotten used to not asking."

"Delicate manners will get you nowhere with me," Seregil advised, nonplused. "Go on, ask away."

"All right. Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Well, at first it was because you had so many misconceptions about the faie," replied Seregil. "You seemed to think we were all great mages or nectar-sipping fairy folk."

Alec's cheek went hot as he recalled the childish fancies he'd shared with Seregil in their first days.

Seregil shot him a sidelong grin. "Oh, you northern barbarians do have some strange notions. Anyway, I decided I'd better let you get used to me first. Then I got sick."

He paused, looking a little sheepish himself. "I've been meaning to tell you since we got to the city, really, but—I don't know. The right moment just didn't seem to come. What I said to Nysander is sort of true; I am proud of you for figuring it out on your own. What else would you like to know?"

What wouldn't I like to know! thought Alec, wondering how long this strange humor of Seregil's would last. "How old are you?"

"Fifty-eight, come Lenthin month. In the reckoning of my race, that doesn't make me all that much older than you, though I've certainly had more experience. It's difficult to draw comparisons between Aurënfaie and human ages; we mature differently. Under Aurënfaie law, I'm not old enough yet to marry or hold land." He chuckled softly. "For the most part, I've done very well for myself in Skala."

"Because you're related to the Queen?"

"To some degree, though it's a very distant and threadbare tie. Just enough to have gotten me an introduction and a place as a high-class servant.

Lord Corruth, consort to Idrilain the First, was a cousin of my grandmother's mother. My claim to Skalan nobility is a tenuous one at best."

Alec'd had hints enough from both Micum and Nysander to know better than to ask Seregil why he'd left Aurënen in the first place. "What's it like there, in Aurënen?"

Seregil rode on in silence for a moment, his face half turned away. Alec feared he'd taken a misstep after all and was about to take back the question when Seregil began to sing.

The language was unfamiliar, yet so liquid, so graceful in the ear that it seemed Alec could almost grasp it—and that if he did it would reveal a depth of meaning his own language could never achieve. The melody, simple yet haunting and full of longing, brought tears to his eyes as he listened.

Seregil sang it a second time, translating so that Alec could understand.
 

"My love is wrapped in a cloak of flowing green

and wears the moon for a crown.

And all around has chains of flowing silver.

Her mirrors reflect the sky.

O, to roam your flowing cloak of green

under the light of the ever-crowning moon.

Will I ever drink of your chains of flowing silver

and drift once more across your mirrors of the sky?

 

Looking out across the empty winter fields, Seregil said in a husky whisper, "That's what Aurënen is like."

"I'm sorry." Alec shook his head sadly. "It must be painful, thinking about your own country when you're so far away,"

Seregil shrugged slightly. "Yri nala molkrat vy pri nala estin."

"Aurënfaie?"

"An old proverb. 'Even sour wine is better than no wine at all.'"

 

Afternoon shadows were creeping down the hills as Seregil turned from the highroad and led the way onto a stone bridge over a large stream. A flock of swans grazing in the bordering field took flight at their approach, rising into the air with a great beating of wings.

Unslinging his bow with surprising speed, Alec brought down two of the great birds and nudged Patch into a canter to retrieve them.

"Well shot!" Seregil called after him, turning his horse loose to drink. "Just yesterday I was wondering if you were out of practice."

Alec rode back with the birds slung from his saddlebow. "Me, too," he said, dismounting to let Patch drink. "At least I won't come in empty-handed. Are we almost there?"

Seregil pointed up the valley. "That's Watermead. We'll have missed supper but I'm sure Kari won't send us to bed hungry."

A few miles above them they could see open meadows and a cluster of buildings nestled against the edge of the mountain forest. Below the main house flocks of sheep wandered like clouds across the face of the hills.

Darker herds moved across some of the other meadows.

Alec squinted at the distant house, wondering what his reception would be.

"Don't worry. You'll be part of the family in no time." Seregil reassured him.

"How many of them are there again?"

"Three girls. Beka's the oldest. She'll be eighteen in Lithion, I think. You'll spend a good deal of time this week looking down her sword. Elsbet's fourteen and has the makings of a scholar. I expect she'll be entering the school at the Illior Temple soon. The youngest girl is Illia, just six years old and already the mistress of the whole estate."

"I hope Micum's wife doesn't mind having me underfoot," Alec said, still feeling shy.

"Kari?" Seregil laughed. "By now Micum's told her all about the poor orphan boy I've dragged south. I'll be lucky to get you back! As for being underfoot, I doubt there'll be much time for that."

Seregil whistled and Scrub splashed up from the stream. Patch, however, had waded out into the middle and seemed content to remain there despite any urging from Alec. Whistle and call as he might, the mare staunchly ignored him. Giving up at last, he stood scowling on the bank.

"Dark looks won't do it," Seregil chuckled.

"I think you're going to have to get your feet wet."

"I'll wet more than that," Alec grumbled, looking at the brownish slime that coated the rocks of the streambed. Suddenly, however he broke into a grin.

Taking an archer's tab from his purse, he held the bit of leather out and called, "Hey you, Patch!"

The mare's head came up at once, ears forward.

Snuffling loudly, she came close enough to nip at it and Alec snagged her by the head stall.

"You'll spoil that beast," Seregil cautioned, splitting an apple for his own horse. "Teach her to come at your whistle, or you'll have to buy a tannery to keep her."

When they reached the summit of the hill they found the gate of the wooden palisade that surrounded the main house open to them. A pack of enormous hounds bounded out of the shadows as they entered the walled yard, growling suspiciously until they caught Seregil's familiar scent. He dismounted and one of them, a grey-muzzled old male, rose on his hind legs and rested his paws on his shoulders, looking him in the eye. Others milled happily around Alec, slapping him with their plumed tails and sniffing hopefully at the swans hanging at his saddlebow.

"Hello, Dash!" Seregil rubbed the hound's head affectionately before pushing him off. Wading through the pack, he led the way to the door.
 

* * *
 

Kari was the first to see them as they entered the main hall. The tables had been pushed back against the walls for the night, and she and her women sat spinning around the central fire. Meeting her eyes across the room, Seregil caught a fleeting glimpse of the old apprehension: No, it's too soon, we've only just gotten him back.

That look had given him a degree of satisfaction in the early days, before the rivalry between them had mellowed into friendship. Now it saddened him a little that his sudden appearance still evoked the same flash of resentful alarm.

Before he could reassure her, however, a bundle of dark braids and flying skirts streaked from the direction of the kitchen. Dropping his saddlebags, he scooped Illia up and received a resounding kiss on the cheek.

"Uncle! Look, Mother, Uncle has come after all!" she cried, kissing him again. "But you can't take Father away with you, you know. He's promised to take me riding tomorrow."

Seregil looked down the length of his nose at her. "Now, that's a fine welcome."

"Illia, where are your manners?" Kari laid her distaff aside. She was dark like her daughter, with a gentle oval face that belied her brisk manner.

"Seregil hasn't ridden all this way just to have you hang on him like a burr."

Undeterred, Illia peered over Seregil's shoulder at Alec. "Is this the brave boy who saved Father from the bandits?"

"It is indeed," Seregil answered, pulling Alec forward with his free hand. "Alec's the best archer in the whole entire world, and he shot two enormous swans on the way here especially for your mother. They're outside on his saddle if your dogs haven't eaten them already. He's come to learn sword fighting from your father and Beka, but I'm certain he'll be a fine playfellow for you, in between lessons. You may have him for a week if you promise not to maul him to death. What do you say to that?"

Looking over at Kari, Seregil answered her look of relief with a wink.

"Oh, he's handsome!" Illia exclaimed, climbing down to take Alec's hand. "You're almost as handsome as Uncle Seregil. Can you sing and play the harp like he does?"

"Well, I can sing," Alec admitted as the little girl hauled him toward the hearth.

"Let the poor boy catch his breath before you take at him," her mother chided. "Run out to the stable and fetch your father and sisters. Scat!"

With a last beaming smile for Alec, Illia dashed off.

 

 

"Come and sit down by the fire, both of you," Kari said, motioning for her women to make room. "Arna, find some dinner for our friends, and see that a fire's laid in the guest chamber."

The eldest serving woman nodded and disappeared out a side door; the other women retired to a smaller fire at the back of the hall. Turning to Alec, Kari took his hands in hers.

"You're welcome in our home, Alec of Kerry," she said warmly. "Micum told us about the ambush in Folcwine Wood. I owe you a great deal."

"He's done as much for me," Alec replied, feeling awkward. Just then, however, Micum burst in with Illia on one shoulder and an older girl in tow. In his woolen breeches and leather vest he looked every inch the country squire.

"Well, this is a happy surprise!" he cried. "The little jackdaw here says Alec's looking for a real swordsman."

Swinging Illia down, he clasped hands with the two of them. "Beka will be in as soon as she cleans up. One of her mares had a bad foaling this afternoon."

Drawing the older girl to his side, he said, "And this quiet one here is Elsbet, the family beauty."

Elsbet touched Alec's hand in a quick greeting.

Dark hair framed a face very like her mother's, soft and gentle.

"Welcome to Watermead," she murmured, her hand trembling against his for an instant. Blushing to match Alec, she hastily sat down by her mother.

"You must be thirsty after your ride," Kari said, giving Seregil a mischievous look. "If I know you, you talked the whole way. Would you dare sample this season's beer? For once I think it's almost fit to drink."

Micum nudged Alec playfully as she went out.

"This is the first season since we came south that I've seen her satisfied with her beer. Mind you, she's the finest brewer in the valley, but she's never left off saying that northern hops give a finer taste."

"I think I've heard her mention it a few times," Seregil concurred wryly. "Illia, do you think you could fetch my saddlebags there by the door?"

The little girl's eyes went round. "Presents?"

"Who knows?" he teased. "But here's Beka at last."

A tall girl in a stained tunic and breeches burst in, her face lit by an expectant smile.

"Any news, Seregil?" she cried, stooping to hug him.

"Patience, Beka. At least say hello to Alec first."

Of all the girls, Beka alone had taken after her father. Freckles peppered her fair skin, and an unkempt mare's tail of coppery red hair tumbled over her shoulder as she leaned forward to clasp hands with Alec. She had rather too much of her father's features to be beautiful, but her sharp blue eyes and ready smile would never let her be called homely either.

"Father says you're quite an archer," she said, looking him over in friendly appraisal. "I hope you brought that bow of yours. I've never seen a Black Radly."

"It's there by the door," Alec replied, suddenly more at ease than he'd been since their arrival.

"Here they are!" Illia puffed, dragging the saddlebags over to Seregil. "Did you remember what I asked you for?"

"Illia, you beggar!" her mother scolded, returning with a pitcher and mugs.

"Why don't you reach in and see what's there while I try your mother's excellent beer?" Seregil suggested, taking a long sip. "Sheer delight, Kari. Better than that served at the royal table of Mycena."

Alec sampled his own and didn't doubt Seregil's sincerity, though Kari obviously did.

"Well, it's better than last year's," she allowed.

Illia, meanwhile, had worried open the first bag.

"These must be for Beka," she said, pulling out a pair of glossy cavalry boots. "She's going to be a horse guard."

"A rider in the Queen's Horse Guard," Beka corrected, looking hopefully at Seregil.

Micum shook his head in mock despair. "We haven't had a moment's peace since she heard you were back."

Seregil drew a scroll case from his coat and presented it to her. Prying off the seal, she shook out the papers inside and scanned quickly down through them, her grin broadening by the second.

"I knew you could do it!" she cried, giving Seregil another exuberant hug. "Look, Mother, I'm to report in a week's time!"

"There's not a finer regiment," Kari said, slipping an arm about Beka's shoulders. "And think how much quieter it will be without you crashing in and out!"

As Beka sat down to try on the new boots, Micum reached to take his wife's hand; her smile did not match the sudden misting of her eyes.

"She's your daughter, right enough," Kari sighed, clasping his hand tightly.

Illia burrowed deeper, finding a tobacco pouch for Micum and a larger bag for her mother.

"Oh, Seregil, you needn't have—"
Kari began, then broke off as she pulled out a handful of papery hop cones and a knot of wizened roots.

"Cavish hops!" she cried, holding the cones to her nose. "This brings my father's hop yard back to me as if I were standing in it! All the cuttings I brought with me here died out years ago. Oh, Seregil, how good of you to think of it. Someday perhaps I'll be able to brew a proper beer again."

Seregil saluted her with his cup. "I want to be the first to broach a keg of the batch that pleases you."

Rescuing a finely bound book from Illia's impatient pillaging, he handed it to Elsbet.

"The dialogs of Tassis!" the girl breathed, examining the cover. Any trace of shyness fled as she opened the volume and ran a finger down the first page. "And in Aurënfaie! Where did you ever find it?"

"I'd rather not say. But if you look toward the middle, I think you'll find something else of interest."

Elsbet's eyes widened as she drew out a small square of parchment and read Nysander's invitation to visit at her earliest convenience.

"Someone must have mentioned your interest in the Orëska library to him," Seregil said, affecting innocence.

Torn between terror and delight, Elsbet stammered, "I wouldn't know what to say to him."

"He's pretty easy to talk to," Alec told her. "After a few minutes you feel as if you've known him all your life."

Elsbet returned to her book, blushing more hotly than ever.

"Uncle!" Illia rocked back on her heels with an indignant look. "There's nothing else in here!"

"And my lady supposes herself forgotten! Give me your kerchief and climb up in Alec's lap.

Don't be shy—he has lovely young ladies sitting on his lap all the time. You're quite used to it, aren't you, Alec?"

Alec gave Seregil a dark look over the top of Illia's head, not appreciating the gibe.

"Now," said Seregil, pinching the corners of the kerchief together and holding it up, "what was it you asked for last time I was here?"

"Something magic," Illia whispered, dark eyes fastened on the kerchief.

Making a great show of incantations and gestures, Seregil handed it back to her. She unfolded it to find a small ivory carving on a chain.

"What does it do?" she asked, hanging it about her neck at once. Before Seregil could reply, however, a swallow fluttered in through the smoke hole and lit on Illia's knee. Blinking in the firelight, the little bird began to preen.

"It's a drysian charm," Seregil told her as she reached out to stroke its shiny blue wing. "You must be very gentle with the birds it brings to you and never use it for hunting. Study them as much as you like, but put the charm away when you're finished so that they can fly away."

"I promise," Illia said solemnly. "Thank you, Uncle."

"And now it's time for your swallow to fly off in search of its supper," said her mother fondly, "and for you, my little bird, to fly off to your bed."

With a final kiss for Seregil, Illia went out with her mother. Elsbet retired to a quieter corner with the new book.

"Alec, I bet Beka would like a look at that black bow of yours, before it gets too dark,"

Micum suggested. "Get her to show you her horses in return."

"I've got some beauties," Beka said proudly as he fetched his bow and quiver. "Pure Aurënfaie blood, and some mixed. You'll have to try them out while you're here."

 

Micum turned to Seregil and raised an eyebrow when they'd gone. "He's just the thing to occupy her while she waits to report. But what am I supposed to teach him that you couldn't yourself?"

Seregil shrugged. "You know me. I have no patience with beginners. Can he ride in with you and Beka at the end of the week?"

"Of course," Micum said, sensing something in the wind. "Something going on back in Rhíminee?"

Seregil pulled out the damning letter Nysander had intercepted. "Seems Lord Seregil has run afoul of the Lerans at last. I've got a forger to track down."

Micum quickly scanned the letter. "Does Alec know?"

"Yes, and he's none too happy about being put out of the way. Keep him occupied and make a swordsman of him for me. It's the only thing holding him back. By the Light, Micum, you've never seen such a sponge for learning. It's all I can do to keep ahead of him!"

"He puts me a great deal in mind of you at that age."

"I could do worse, then. Now, assuming this week goes well, I'd like to arrange a little something special for him when he gets back."

"Smooth his feathers, eh?" Micum asked with a knowing look. "What did you have in mind?"

"I think you'll settle in quite well here," Seregil said with a yawn as he and Alec settled down for the night in the broad guest chamber bed.

Alec watched the play of the firelight across the whitewashed walls of the little room, arms crossed beneath his head. "Do you think Micum will really have better luck teaching me?"

"Would I have brought you all the way out here if I didn't?"

"And what if you're wrong?"

"I'm not."

Alec fell quiet, but Seregil sensed something was still worrying him.

"Go on, speak out."

Alec sighed. "I still feel like you're getting me out of your way."

"I am. But only for the week, just as I told you."

Rising on one elbow, he looked down at Alec.

"Listen to me now. I may make my living lying and tricking, but I'm always honest with friends. There'll be times I choose not to tell you something, but I won't lie to you. That's a promise and there's my hand on it."

Alec clasped it sheepishly, then settled back against the bolsters. "What are you going to do when you get back?"

"I'll check with Nysander first, see if his sources have found anything else. Then there's Ghemella, a gem cutter in Dog Street, who's known to do a tidy little side business in forged seals."

"How will you get her to talk?"

"Oh, I'll manage something."
 

23

A Little Night Work

 

Seregil woke well before dawn the next morning.

Alec had gravitated to the far edge in the night, and lay now curled in his usual tight ball, one arm sticking stiffly over the side, fingers half curled. Resisting a wayward impulse to touch the tousled mass of yellow hair scattered over the pillow, Seregil dressed in the hall and set off for the city at a gallop.

He reached Nysander's tower rooms before noon and found the wizard at work with Thero over a scroll.

"Any new developments?" asked Seregil. "Not as yet," replied Nysander. "As we expected, they were wise enough not to send more than one of the forgeries at a time. I think we may still have a bit of leeway before their next attempt."

"Then this is all I have to work with." Seregil pulled the forged parchment from his coat again and fingered the wax seals on the ribbons. "These have to be Ghemella's work. I don't know anyone else capable of this quality. Look at this."

Taking his own seal stamp from a pouch, he held it next to the wax imprints; they were indistinguishable.

He'd designed the original himself: a griffin seated in profile, wings extended, one forepaw upraised to support a crescent. The forger had caught every nuance of the design, as well as several tiny imperfections Seregil had specified in the original to make such a forgery easier to catch.

"She knew very well whose seal it is, too," he added wryly. "Lord Seregil has had a number of over-the-counter dealings with her."

"There's no chance these were somehow struck with the original?" asked Thero, examining the seal. "I seem to recall you breaking into noble houses to steal impressions."

"Which is why I make a point of not letting my own seal out of my possession," Seregil replied curtly, tucking it away.

"You will look into this yourself, I trust?" said Nysander.

"Oh, yes indeed."

"Very well. In the meantime, I must ask you to leave the letter with me."

Surprised, Seregil met the old wizard's level gaze for a moment, then handed the document over without comment.

 

Ghemella's first thought was to ignore the hesitant rapping at the door. The gold had just reached the proper color for pouring, and if she left off now she'd have to start all over again. The shop door was shut and the shutters put up; any fool could see she'd closed for the night.

Reaching into the forge with her long tongs, she gently lifted the crucible from its ring over the coals. The troublesome knock came again just as she bent to pour it into the mold. It disrupted her concentration, and a few precious droplets spilled uselessly onto the sand packing the wax form. She set the crucible back on its iron stand with a hiss of exasperation.

"I've closed!" she called, but the rapping only intensified. Heaving her great bulk up from the stool, the jeweler lumbered to the small window and cautiously cracked a shutter. "Who is it?"

"It's Dakus, mistress."

A hunched old man shuffled into the slice of light from the window, leaning heavily on a stout stick. His crippled back kept him from raising his face to the light, but Ghemella recognized the gnarled hand clamped over the head of the stick. Like most craftsmen, she always noticed hands. A wave of revulsion rippled over, her slack flesh as she unbarred the door and stepped back to admit the dry little grasshopper of a man.

Against the rich backdrop of the shop he was more hideous than she recalled. Pointed spurs of bone sprouted from his knuckles, wrists, and the prominent bones of his ravaged face, looking as if they would burst through the taut yellow skin at a touch.

Hobbling toward the warmth of the forge, he settled himself on the stool and turned his one good eye to her. It had always offended her sensibilities, the way that bright, clear eye glittered in such a face, like a precious Borian sapphire glittering up from a clod of dung.

"So many pretty things!" the old relic wheezed, fingering a half-finished statuette on the workbench.

"You're looking prosperous as ever, dearie mine."

Ghemella kept her distance. "What are you selling tonight, old man?"

"What would I have to sell to such a rich woman?" replied Dakus, giving her the ruins of a leer.

"What except the occasional bit of information that these old ears glean as I beg at the back doors and waste heaps of the more fortunate? Are you still in the market for secrets, Ghemella? Fresh, shiny secrets? I've offered them to no one else as yet."

Slapping a few sesters down on the bench in front of him, she stepped back and folded her arms across her broad leather apron.

The old man pulled a copper vial from his pouch.

"Baron Dynaril has murdered his lover with poison bought from Black Rogus. His manservant made the purchase at the Two Stallions a week ago."

Ghemella produced a gold coin for this and Dakus placed the vial on the workbench.

"Lady Sinril is with child by her groom."

The jeweler snorted and shook her head.

Nodding agreeably, Dakus reached into his tattered tunic and produced a sheaf of documents.

"And then there's these gleanings of a poor beggar's wanderings. More to your taste, I think."

"Ah, Dakus!" the jeweler purred, taking the sheets eagerly and sorting through them. The pages differed in size and quality and several were wrinkled or stained. "Lord Bytrin, yes, and Lady Korin. No, this is worthless, worthless, perhaps this-and this!"

Choosing out seven documents, she set them apart.

"I'll give five gold sestets for these."

"Done, and the blessings of the Four be showered on you for your generosity!" cackled the beggar. Sweeping up the small pile of coins and rejected papers, he shuffled out into the night without a backward glance.

Ghemella barred the door after him and allowed herself a sly smile. Nudging aside the stool Dakus had sullied with his deformed backside, she drew up another and settled down to peruse the stolen papers more closely.

 

Meanwhile, the crippled beggar hobbled down Dog Street and into the deeper shadow of a deserted alleyway. When he'd made certain that no one else lurked there, he pulled a flat clay amulet from around his neck and knocked it against the wall until it shattered. A wrenching spasm gripped the frail old body for an instant as the magic drained away, leaving Seregil young and whole again.

Retching dryly, he rested his hands on his knees and waited for the accompanying wave of nausea to pass.

A number of major magicks had this residual effect to one degree or another, just one more delightful side effect of his baffling magical dysfunction.

Straightening at last, he felt for the reassuring smoothness of his face and limbs, then took out a shielded lightstone and shuffled through the papers Ghemella had rejected.

He'd provided a tempting selection: documents, personal correspondence, declarations of illicit love, all from various influential persons. Most were old, things he'd picked up on various nocturnal excursions. Salted through these, however, were three half-finished letters from the pen of Lord Seregil. Knowing the method of his would-be detractors, he'd taken care to make them suitably ambiguous. Ghemella had taken all three.

Smiling darkly, Seregil headed back to the jeweler's shop to begin his patient vigil.
 

24

Watermead

Alec slid his blade away from Beka's and jumped back, leaving her off balance. For the first time in half an hour, he managed to get past her defense and score a touch.

"That's right! Hold her, hold her!" Micum cried. "Now pull back the way I showed you. Just right. Again now!"

It had been snowing heavily since early morning, so they'd cleared the hall for a practice area. Alec had made good progress over the last three days and neither he nor Micum wanted to chance losing ground.

Kari had been patient about it all, merely insisting that the tables be moved to protect the tapestries. She and Elsbet had then retired to the kitchen for the morning, but Illia remained perched beside her father, cheering gleefully every time Alec bested her sister. It hadn't happened often so far.

Beka rubbed her side with a rueful grin. "You're improving, all right. I think Seregil will be pleased."

Her face was flushed under its freckles and her eyes sparkled with the same gleam Alec had seen in Micum's and Seregil's during mock battles.

She looked older with her hair braided back, and the close-fitting jerkin showed the gentle swell of her breasts more than the shapeless tunics she usually wore.

As she raised her sword again, he found himself so distracted by the deadly grace with which she moved that her sudden overhand swing took him completely off guard and cost him a new bruise on his shoulder.

"Damn, I did it again!" Grimacing, he assumed a more wary stance.

"Concentration," Micum advised. "Watch your opponent, look wide, see everything. A flick of the eye, a change in balance, the way she holds her mouth, anything that can tell you what she's thinking of doing next. And don't tense up; it makes you slow."

Trying to keep all this in mind, Alec worked backward, drawing Beka, making her follow him.

The bound wire grip of the hilt felt warm and familiar against his palm as he executed a respectable attack of his own. Catching her blade in the curve of one quillon, he twisted hard and almost succeeded in disarming her.

"Hooray for Alec!" Illia crowed, clapping her hands in delight as her champion pressed his advantage.

Beka knew that trick, however, and quickly taught him one of her own. Hooking his ankle with her foot, she pulled one leg out from under him. Alec fell heavily backward as his sword spun away across the flagstones.

Beka pinned him none too gently with a foot on his chest and rested the tip of her blade lightly against his throat. "Cry mercy!"

"Mercy!" Alec dropped his hands in submission.

When she released him, however, he grasped her other ankle and brought her tumbling down beside him. Leaping astride her, he pulled the black dagger from his boot and rested the flat of it against her throat.

"Cry mercy yourself," he gloated.

"You cheated!" sputtered Beka.

"So did you."

"Seregil will be pleased!" Micum groaned, shaking his head.

"It sounds like someone's slinging anvils around out here!"

Kari laughed, striding in with an armload of trenchers. "The pack of you go find somewhere else to make your racket. I've got a meal to get on."

 

Servant and laborers quickly filled the hall for the midday meal. Stamping snow from their feet, they pulled out the tables and soon everyone was seated over a hot meal.

Micum spent most of the meal planning a new saw pit with the reeve. It did not escape his notice, however, that Alec and Beka had their heads together in some discussion of their own. Judging by the evident disinterest of Elsbet, who sat on Alec's other side, the subject probably revolved around swordplay or archer's tack.

Kari leaned close, following her husband's eye. "You don't suppose she's falling in love, do you?" she whispered.

"With a commission to the Queen's Horse in her pocket?" Micum chuckled. "Our Beka's too hardheaded for that."

"Still—he's a good lad."

"Don't give up hope," Micum teased.

"He's too wild for Elsbet's taste, but Illia would have him in a minute. She says so at least twice a day."

Kari gave her husband a good-natured nudge in the ribs. "Get on with you! The last thing I need in this family is another man with wandering feet. And if Seregil's taken this boy up, you can bet your head he's got them."

Micum hugged her close. "You'd be the best judge of that, my patient love."

At the meal's end, Micum pushed back from the table. "I should be getting over to Lord Quineas' soon. I promised him a game of nine stones the other day. You'll come with me, won't you, Kari? You haven't seen Lady Madrina in weeks."

"Me, too! Me, too!" Illia shouted, jumping into her father's arms. "I want to show Naria the charm Uncle Seregil brought."

"Well, let's just take the whole bunch of you, then," Micum cried, swinging the little girl into the air.

Beka exchanged a glance with Alec. "We were going to hunt along the river trail."

"She doesn't want to see Ranik," Illia taunted.

"Let him fawn over Elsbet for a change," Beka shot back. "She's the one who thinks he's such a fine gentleman."

"And he is," Elsbet retorted primly.

"He's a scholar, and a poet as well. Just because he isn't always out shooting at things we way you are—"

"That's a lucky thing for the neighborhood,"

Beka scoffed, that donkey-handed looby couldn't shoot a bull in the arse if it was standing on his foot. Come on, Alec. You can ride Windrunner again."

 

* * *

Horses nickered expectantly as Alec and Beka entered the stable. Going to Windrunner, he heaved the blanket and saddle over the chestnut stallion's glossy back. He felt a bit guilty when Patch craned her neck over the stall at him; still, the chance at an Aurënfaie mount was something he wasn't about to turn down.

"There's something special I want to show you," Beka said, giving him a mysterious look as she buckled her horse's saddle girth.

Setting out across country, they gave their mounts free rein. Plumes of new snow trailed after them as they galloped and wheeled over the bare fields. Alec tried to explain the maneuvers he'd seen Captain Myrhini's riders perform and they dashed back and forth, yelling and tilting their bows for lances.

"I can hardly believe it!" Beka cried, reining in beside him. "In a few days I'll be with them."

"Won't you miss your family?" ventured Alec.

His short stay at Watermead had shown him a life he'd never known. It was a noisy, bustling household with servants, dogs, and Illia underfoot much of the day but, like the Cockerel, there was an air of warmth and security about it that he liked.

Beka looked away over the hills, watching the last of the ragged clouds scudding across the sky.

"Of course," she said, heading her mare toward the river. "But I can't stay here forever, can I? I'm not cut out to be like Mother, raising a family and waiting around for a man who goes off for months at a time. I want to be the one who's gone. I should think you'd understand that."

Alec smiled. "I was just thinking how nice your life must have been, being in one place all the time. Still, I know what you mean. My father and I wandered around in the same forests my whole life. Then along comes Seregil with his tales of far-off places, wonders I could hardly imagine—I guess I didn't take much convincing."

"You're lucky, being with him the way you are," Beka said with a trace of envy. "He and Father—all they've done together? Someday I want to ride with them, but first I need to make my own way. That's why I wanted so badly to join the Queen's Horse."

They rode for a moment in silence, then Beka asked, "What is it like, anyway, being with him?"

"You'd like it. It's never the same from one day to the next. I don't think there's anything he doesn't know at least something about. And then there's Nysander. I've tried telling Elsbet about him, but it's hard to explain how someone can be so powerful and so ordinary at the same time."

"I've met him. Do you know it was he who first suggested I join the Guards? Then he laughed and made me promise never to tell Mother he said so. Isn't that odd?"

Alec thought he could see what the old wizard had been up to; Beka would make a fine Watcher.

The swans had abandoned the frozen stream. Turning upstream, they rode a mile or more without seeing any sign of game. Giving up the hunt, they challenged each other at clout and wand shooting. Beka's grey-and-white fletched shafts seldom came closer to the mark than his red ones.

"Come on," she said at last, noticing how low the sun had fallen, "we'd better gather our arrows. I want to show you my surprise."

Following the stream again, they reached the wooded hills and rode into the trees. At a bend they dismounted and Beka led the way to a broad, half-frozen pool. Signing for Alec to keep quiet, she settled behind a fallen tree and pointed across to the other side.

Two otters were playing in the open water. Paddling to shore, they humped up the snowy slope and launched themselves back down again, sliding merrily on their smooth bellies into the water. Clucking and grunting all the while, they repeated the performance over and over while Alec and Beka watched in silent delight.

"They remind me of Seregil," Alec whispered, propping an elbow on the tree trunk. "Nysander turned him into an otter once when we were at the Orëska House. There's this special spell—I can't remember what he called it—but Nysander says the kind of animal you turn into has something to do with what kind of person you are."

"An otter, eh?" said Beka, considering the matter. "I would've taken him more for a lynx or a panther. Did he do it to you, too?"

"I turned into a stag."

"I guess I can see that. What do you suppose I'd be?"

Alec considered the matter. "A hawk, I bet, or maybe a wolf. A hunter, anyway."

"Hawk or wolf, eh? I'd like that," she murmured.

They watched the otters in silence, each one savoring the sense of companionship that had grown up so easily between them.

"Well, come on, we'd better get back," Beka whispered at last. As they headed back to the horses, she turned to him and asked, "You're fond of him, aren't you?"

"Who? Seregil?"

"Of course."

"He's been a good friend?"' he replied, puzzled by the question. "Why wouldn't I be fond of him?"

"Oh." Beka nodded as if she'd expected a different answer, then, "I thought maybe you were lovers."

"What? his Alec stopped dead, staring at her. "What put that in your head?"

"I don't know," Beka bristled. "Sakor's Flames, Alec, why not? He was in love with Father once, you know."

"With Micum?" Alec leaned against a slender alder. The tree swayed under his weight, sifting snow over the two of them. It dusted Beka's hair with a veil of sparkling crystals and filtered down the neck of Alec's tunic to melt into points of coldness against his skin.

"How do you know that?" he demanded, flabbergasted.

"Mother told me ages ago. I'd heard things growing up and finally I asked. It was pretty one-sided, according to her. Father was already in love with her when he and Seregil met, but Seregil didn't give up for a while. He and Mother didn't care much for one another in those days because of it, but they're friends now. She won out, and he had to accept it. Still, I remember once when I was very young, hearing Mother and Father arguing. Father said something like, "Don't make me choose, I can't do it!" Mother told me that it was Seregil he was talking about. So I guess he loves Seregil, too, in his own way, but they were never lovers."

Alec chewed over this unexpected revelation; the more he learned of southern ways, the more incomprehensible they seemed.
 

* * *

 

Watching the girls trying to teach Alec a country dance in the hall one snowy afternoon toward the end of the week, Micum realized he was going to miss the boy when he was gone.

Just as Seregil had predicted, Alec had settled in well with his family and already seemed a part of it. Kari's heart had gone out to him at once, and the girls treated him like a brother. He'd picked up swordplay damn fast, too, without Seregil's impatient jousting to contend with.

Kari stole up behind Micum and clasped her arms around his waist as she watched the progress of the dance lesson. The steps were complex and there was a lot of good-humored chaffing as Alec jostled to and fro between Beka and Elsbet.

"I wish I'd given you such a son," she whispered.

"Don't let Beka hear you say that!" Micum chuckled.

 

Kari was doing her end-of-the-week mending by the kitchen window when Alec wandered in with his bow.

"Do you have any beeswax?" he asked.

"It's there on that shelf by the herbs," she said, pointing with her needle. "There are some clean rags over there if you need them. Why don't you put the water on to heat and sit with me awhile. You go home tomorrow and I haven't had you to myself all week."

Alec swung the kettle hook into the fireplace and sat down on a stool beside her, bow across his knees.

"It's good having you here," she said, her needle flashing in the sunlight as she stitched up a tear in one of Illia's kirtles. "I hope you'll come back to us often. Seregil doesn't come out as much as we'd like. Perhaps you can influence him for me."

"I don't think anyone influences him very much," Alec said dubiously, then added, "You've known him a long time, haven't you?"

"More than twenty years," Kari replied. "He's part of the family."

Alec rubbed wax into his bowstring and smoothed it over with his fingers. "Has he changed much since you first met him? Being Aurënfaie and all, I mean."

Kari smiled, thinking back. "It was before we'd married that I first met Seregil. Micum came and went as he pleased, just like now, but always alone. Then one fine spring morning he showed up at my father's door with Seregil in tow. I remember seeing him that first time, standing there in the kitchen door, and thinking to myself, "That's one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen, and he doesn't like the looks of me one bit!" his Kari took up a new piece of mending. "We got off to a rather rough start, Seregil and I."

"Beka told me."

"I thought she might have. How mature he seemed to me then. I was only fifteen. And now look at me." She smoothed a hand over her hair, where scattered strands of silver were mingled with the dark. "A matron and mother of three girls, and Beka older than I was then. Now he looks so young to me, still the handsome boy. In the reckoning of his own people he is young and will be long after I've been tilled into these fields."

She looked pensively down at the vest on her lap. "I think it troubles him, to see Micum getting older, knowing sooner or later he must lose him. Lose us all, I suppose, except perhaps Nysander."

"I never thought of that.

"Oh, yes. He's lost friends already that way. But you asked me how he's changed. He has, but more in his manner than in his looks. There was a bitterness in him back then that I seldom see anymore, though he's still a bit wild. He's been a good friend to us, though, and brought Micum safely back to me more times than I can say."

She left unsaid the fact that more often than not it was Seregil who had led her husband into danger in the first place. This boy was cut from the same cloth as they, and Beka, too, to her mother's sorrow. What could you do but love them and hope for the best?

25

Return to Rhíminee

Alec rose before dawn his last morning at Watermead, but found that Beka was up before him. Dressed for riding, she sat mending a broken catch pin on her bow case in the hall. Beside her lay a few small packs containing all she would take with her to the Guard barracks.

"You look ready to go," he said, setting his pack down next to hers.

"I hope so." She worked an awl through a stubborn piece of leather. "I hardly slept last night, I was so excited!"

"I wonder if we'll see much of each other in the city. Where we live isn't too far from the palace grounds."

"I hope so," replied Beka, inspecting the new catch. "I've only been in Rhíminee a few times. I'll bet you could show me all kinds of secret places."

"I guess I could," Alec said with a grin, realizing how much of the city had become familiar to him since his arrival.

The rest of the family soon appeared and they settled down to their last breakfast around the fire.

"Can't Alec stay a little longer?" begged Illia, hugging him tightly. "Beka still beats him a lot. Tell Uncle Seregil he needs more lessons!"

"If he can beat your sister just some of the time, then he's a pretty fair swordsman," said Micum. "You remember what your Uncle Seregil said, little bird. He needs Alec back."

"I'll come back soon," Alec promised, tweaking one of her dark braids. "You and Elsbet haven't finished teaching me to dance yet."

Illia cuddled closer, giggling. "You are still awfully clumsy."

"Guess I'll go check on the horses," Beka said, setting her breakfast aside half eaten.

"Don't dawdle, Alec. I want to get on the road."

"You've got the whole day ahead of you. Let him eat," chided her mother.

Beka's restlessness was infectious, however, and Alec hurried through his porridge. Shouldering his pack and bow, he carried them out into the courtyard only to find that Beka had put his saddle on Windrunner. Patch shifted resentfully behind the Aurënfaie horse, tethered on a lead rein.

"What's this?" he asked. Turning, he saw the others beaming at him.

Kari stepped up and kissed him soundly. "Our gift to you, Alec. Come back to us whenever you can, and keep an eye on this girl of mine in the city!"

"You'll see me at the Sakor Festival,"

Beka said gruffly, embracing her. "That's just over a month away."

Kari pressed a handful of Beka's wild, coppery hair to her cheek. "As long as you remember whose daughter you are, I know you'll be fine."

"I can't wait to join you there," exclaimed Elsbet. "Write as soon as you can!"

"I doubt barracks life will be much like what you'll get at the temple school," Beka said with a laugh. Swinging up into the saddle, she gave a final wave and followed Alec and her father out through the palisade gate.

 

They reached the city just after midday. It was Poulterer's Day in the outer market, and every sort of fowl-from auroles to peacocks, quail to geese, live or plucked were on display. Each poultry dealer had a bright pole standard mounted over his wares and these, together with the usual strolling vendors of sweetmeats and trifles, gave the market a festive look despite the lowering sky overhead. Drifts of multicolored feathers blew in the breeze as the three travelers rode through the honking, cackling, twittering din.

Alec smiled quietly to himself, recalling his fears the first time he'd entered Rhíminee. This was his home now; he'd learned some of its secrets already and would soon know more. Gazing about, he suddenly caught sight of a familiar face in the market crowd.

Same protuberant teeth, sly grin, and moldy finery. It was Tym, the young thief who'd cut his purse at the Sea Market. Taking advantage of the slowed traffic by the Harvest Gate, he'd latched on to a well-dressed young man, evidently cozening him with the same tricks he'd used on Alec. A girl in a tattered pink gown clung to the mark's other arm, aiding in the distraction.

I still owe him a bit of trouble, thought Alec. Dismounting, he tossed his reins to Beka.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Just saw an old friend," he replied with a dark grin. "I'll be right back."

He'd already learned enough from Seregil to approach the thieves unnoticed. Biding his time, he waited until they'd lifted the unwitting victim's purse, then came up behind them and grasped Tym's arm. His triumph was short-lived, however, and it was Micum's recent training that saved him.

Newly honed instincts read the thief's sudden movement just in time. Alec caught at his wrist, halting the point of Tym's dagger scant inches from his own belly.

Tym's eyes narrowed dangerously as he tried to jerk free; easy enough to read the message there. The girl stepped in to screen her compatriot's knife hand and Alec prayed that she wasn't ready with a blade of her own. In the press of the crowd, she could easily stab him and disappear before anyone was the wiser. She made no attack, but Alec felt Tym tensing.

"We have a mutual friend, you and I," Alec said quietly. "He wouldn't be very pleased if you killed me."

"Who's that?" Tym spat back, still pulling against Alec's grasp.

"It's a trick, love," the girl cautioned. She was scarcely older than Elsbet. "Do him and move on."

"Shut up, you!" Tym growled, still glaring at Alec. "I asked you a question. Who's this friend of ours?"

"A comely, openhanded fellow from over the sea," Alec replied. "Handy with a sword in the shadows."

Tym glared an instant longer, then grudgingly relaxed his stance. Alec released his wrist.

"He should've told you never to grab a brother from behind like that unless you mean to deal with him!" Tym hissed, yanking the girl to his side. "If you'd done that in a back alley, I'd have you lying dead right now."

Sparing Alec a final scornful look, he and the girl disappeared into the crowd.

"Did you catch your friend?" Beka inquired when Alec reappeared.

"Just for a moment." Alec mounted and wrapped the reins around his hand. It was still trembling a little.

From the market they turned south to the barracks gate of the Queen's Park, where Beka showed her commissioning papers to the guards. Giving her father and Alec a final farewell embrace, she rode in without a backward glance.

Micum watched through the gateway until she was out of sight, then heaved a deep sigh as he turned his horse back toward the Harvest Market. "Well, there she goes at last."

"Are you worried about her?" asked Alec.

"I wouldn't have been, a year ago when there wasn't a war brewing for spring. Now I don't see any way around it, and you can bet the Queen's Horse will be some of the first into the fray. That doesn't leave her much time to get used to things. No more than five or six months, maybe less."

"Look how far I've come with Seregil in a few months," Alec pointed out hopefully as they headed for the Cockerel. "And he had to start from practically nothing with me. Beka's already as good with a bow and sword as anyone I've seen, and she rides like she was born on horseback."

"That's true enough," Micum admitted. "Sakor favors the bold."

In Blue Fish Street, they slipped in through the Cockerel's back gate and went through the lading-room door and up the stairs with hoods well drawn up. Micum took the lead on the hidden stairs, speaking the keying words for the glyphs with the same absent ease as Seregil.

Following him in the darkness, it occurred to Alec that Micum, too, had come and gone here freely over the years, always certain of welcome. Everything Alec had learned of the friendship between these two seemed to come together and spin itself into a long history in which he had only the most fleeting foothold.

Reaching the final door, they stepped into the cluttered brightness of the sitting room. A crackling fire cast a mellow glow over the chamber. The place seemed more disordered than usual, if that was possible.

Clothing of all sorts hung over chairs and lay piled in corners; plates, papers, and scraps of wizened fruit rind cluttered every available surface. Alec spotted a mug he'd left on the dining table a week ago still standing undisturbed, as if to anchor his right of presence until his return. A fresh litter of metal fragments, wood chips, and scattered tools ringed the forge on the workbench beneath the window.

The only clear spot left in the room was the corner containing Alec's bed. A suit of fine clothes had been neatly laid out there, and against the pillow was propped a large placard with the words Welcome Home, Sir Alec! written on it in flowing purple letters.

"Looks like he's been busy!" Micum remarked, eyeing the mess. "Seregil, are you in?"

"Hello?" A sleepy voice came from somewhere beyond the couch.

Stepping around, Alec and Micum found him sprawled in a nest of cushions, books, and scrolls with the cat on his chest.

Seregil stretched lazily. "I see you left each other in one piece. How did it go?"

Grinning broadly, Micum settled on the couch.

"Just fine, once I managed to undo all your wrongheaded teaching. You may get a few surprises next time you cross blades."

"Well done, Alec!" Pushing the cat aside, Seregil stood up and stretched again. "I knew you'd get the hang of things. And not a moment too soon, either. I may have a job for you tonight."

"A Rhíminee Cat job?" Alec ventured hopefully.

"Of course. What do you think, Micum? It's just an over-the sill and out-again sort of thing in Wheel Street."

"I don't see why not. He's not ready to storm the Palace yet, "He should be able to look out for himself on something like that if he doesn't attract too much attention." Seregil ruffled Alec's hair playfully. "Then it's settled. The job's yours. I guess you'd better have this."

With a dramatic wave of his hand, Seregil produced a small, silk-wrapped parcel and presented it to Alec.

It was heavy. Unwrapping it, Alec found a tool roll identical to the one Seregil always carried.

Opening it, he ran his fingers over the ornately carved handles: picks, wires, hooks, a tiny lightwand. On the inner flap of the roll a small crescent of Illior was stamped in dull silver.

"I thought it was about time you had one of your own," said Seregil, clearly pleased with Alec's speechless delight.

Alec glanced back at the forge. "You made these yourself?"

"Well, it's not the sort of thing you see in the market. You'll be needing a new history, too. I've been giving it some thought."

Micum nodded toward the placard. "Sir Alec?"

"Of Ivywell, no less." Seregil dropped Alec a slight bow before collapsing into the couch opposite Micum. "He's Mycenian."

Alec went to the bed and looked more closely at the clothing.

"So Lord Seregil will be returning to the city in time to prepare for the Festival of Sakor, as usual?"observed Micum. "And not alone this time?"

Seregil nodded. "I bring young Sir Alec, only child and last surviving heir of Sir Gareth of Ivywell, a genteel but impoverished Mycenian baron. In hopes of giving his scion a chance in life, Sir Gareth has left his son ward to an old and trusted friend Lord Seregil of Rhíminee."

"No wonder he died poor," Micum threw in wryly. "Sir Gareth seems to have been a man of questionable judgment."

Ignoring this, Seregil confined his attention to Alec.

"By situating the now defunct and completely fictitious estate of Ivywell in the most remote region of Mycena, we kill several birds at a shot. Any unusual mannerisms you might display will be put down to your provincial upbringing. There's also less chance that anyone will expect to know a common acquaintance. Thus Sir Alec's background is at once suitably genteel and safely obscure."

"The fact that he's neither Skalan nor Aurënfaie would make him a tempting target for any Leran hoping to get at Lord Seregil," added Micum.

"A jilt!" said Alec.

"A what?" laughed Seregil.

"A jilt, the bait," he explained. "If you want to trap something big, like a bear or mountain cat, you stake out a kid and wait for your beast to show up."

"All right, then. You'd be our jilt. If any bears do show up, just be your sweet, innocent self, feed them everything we want them to know, and report everything they say back to me."

"But how would they get to me?" asked Alec.

"That won't be difficult. Lord Seregil's a social sort. His house in the Noble Quarter has already been opened and word's getting around. I'm sure the news will reach the right ears sooner or later. In a few days we'll throw a big party to introduce you to society."

Micum favored his friend with an affectionate grin.

"You scheming bastard! So what else did you get up to while we were gone?"

"Well, it's taken until today, but I think I've found our forger. You recall Master Alben?"

"That blackmailing apothecary you burgled a few years back during that business for Lady Mina?"

"That's the one. He's moved his shop to Hind Street since then."

"How'd you find him?"

"I was pretty certain Ghemella was our seal forger. Since she also buys stolen papers, I planted some of mine with her and last night she led me straight to him. It's only a matter now of finding his cache to see if there's anything useful to be had. If he is the one who forged the letter from me, then my guess is he's probably made a copy or two for himself just to hedge his bets. And if we can get our hands on those we can squeeze him for names."

"Is that the job tonight?" asked Alec, an eager gleam in his eye. "The sooner we clear your name, the better."

Seregil smiled. "Your concern for my tattered honor is deeply appreciated, Sir Alec, but we'll need another day or so to prepare for that one. Don't fret, now. Everything's under control.In the meantime, however, I think you'll find tonight's little exercise worthy of your new skills."

 

Wheel Street, a quiet, respectable boulevard of modest back garden villas, lay on the fringe of the Noble Quarter. Well dressed so as to attract no attention, Alec strolled along beside Seregil and Micum just after dark-three gentlemen out enjoying the night air.

The narrow houses were decorated Skalan style with mosaics and carvings. The ground level of some had been converted into shops; in the dimness Alec made out the signs of a tailor, a hat maker, and a gem dealer. The street ended in a small circular court in front of a public stable.

Riders and carriages bustled in all directions; the sounds of entertainment could be heard here and there as they walked past.

"That's ours, the one with the grapevine pattern over the door," whispered Seregil, indicating a brightly lit house across the way. "Belongs to a minor lord with some connection to shipping. No family, three servants: the old manservant, a cook, and the maid."

Several horses were tethered in front and they could hear the noise of pipes and fiddles being tuned.

"Sounds like he's having a party," whispered Micum. "Suppose he's engaged extra servants for the evening?"

"Those can be the worst sort, forever bumbling into places the regular staff can be counted on not to go," Seregil warned Alec. "And guests, too! Keep your ears open and remember, all we're after is a correspondence case. In and out, nothing fancy. According to my information, he keeps the case in a desk in his study, that room there at the left corner of the second floor, overlooking the street."

More carriages rumbled by, destined for houses up and down the cobbled street. "It's too busy out here," said Alec. "Is there a back way in?"

Seregil nodded. "The house backs onto a walled garden, and a common beyond. This way."

Crossing the street a few houses down, they went through a narrow alley into the little common. Such areas had been left open throughout the city to assure pasturage in time of siege. At the moment it was occupied by a flock of sleeping geese and a few pigs.

Creeping softly along, they counted gates until they found the one leading into the back garden of the house in question. The wall was high, the gate stoutly barred from within.

"Looks like you'll have to climb," Seregil whispered, squinting up. "Be careful going over; most of these places have the walls topped with spikes or sharp flints."

"Hold on!" Alec tried to make out Seregil's expression through the darkness. "Aren't you two coming with me?"

"It's a one-man job; the fewer the better,"

Seregil assured him. "I thought this is what you wanted, a first trial on your own?"

"Well, I—"

"Would I send you in alone if I didn't think you could handle it?" Seregil scoffed. "Of course not! Best leave me your sword, though."

"What?" Alec hissed. "I thought I had to be armed so I could do jobs!"

"Generally speaking, yes. But not this time."

"What if someone sees me?"

"Honestly, Alec! You can't just go hacking your way out of every difficult situation that arises. It's uncivilized," Seregil replied sternly. "This is a gentleman's house; you're dressed as a gentleman. If anyone catches you, just act chagrined and drunk, then claim to have stumbled into the wrong house."

Feeling a good deal less confident all of a sudden, Alec unbuckled his sword and started up the garden wall. He was halfway to the top when Micum called softly, "We'll meet you back here when you've finished. Oh, and look out for the dogs."

"Dogs?" Alec dropped down again. "What dogs? You didn't say anything about dogs!"

Seregil tapped himself sharply between the eyes. "Illior's Fingers, what am I thinking of tonight? There's a pair of Zengati hounds, snow-white and big as bears."

"That's a fine detail to forget," growled Micum.

"Here, let me show you what to do." Taking Alec's left hand, Seregil folded down all the fingers except the index and fourth, then turned the palm downward.

"There. All you have to do is look the dog in the eye, make we sign by snapping the little finger down-like this-and say Peace, friend hound' as you do it."

"I've seen you do that trick. That's not what you said," Alec remarked, repeating the hand sign.

"Soora thasdli, you mean? Well, you can say it in Aurënfaie you like. I just thought it might be easier for you to remember in your own language."

"Peace, friend hound," Alec repeated, performing the hand sign. "Anything else I should know?"

"Let's see, the spikes, the dogs, the servants—No, I think we covered it that time. Luck in the shadows, Alec."

"And to you," Alec muttered, starting up the wall again.

The top of the wall was indeed set with spikes and thick shards of broken crockery. Clinging to the edge of the wall, he pulled his cloak up from behind and wadded it up on top of the sharp points in front of him.

Hooking an elbow over the thick material, he tugged the cloak strings loose from his neck.

The garden below appeared to be empty, though muffled sounds of the familiar kitchen variety issued from a half-open door at the back of the house. Hitching himself swiftly over the top of the wall, Alec lowered himself by his fingertips and dropped down the other side.

The garden centered on an oval pool. Graveled walkways showed pale in the darkness between planting beds and leafless trees. An especially large tree growing close to the carved balcony running the length of the second story looked to provide the easiest way in.

The shadows closed in around Alec as he stole toward the tree. He moved silently, careful to avoid the gravel paths. He was in reach of the trunk when something large stirred just beside him.

Hot, wet jaws closed firmly on his right arm, just above the elbow.

The white hound might not have been quite as large as a bear, but Alec was not about to argue the point. The beast did not growl or tear at him, but held him fast, regarding him with eyes that shone yellow in the dimness.

Fighting down the impulse to struggle or cry out, Alec quickly made the left-handed sign and croaked,

"Soora, friend hound."

Not seeming to mind the mixed translation, the dog obliged immediately, padding off into the darkness without a backward glance. Alec was up the tree and reaching for the marble balustrade almost before he realized he was moving again.

Dry leaves had collected in little piles on the balcony. Stepping over these, he inspected the two windows that flanked an ornate door leading into the house; the door was locked, the darkened windows covered with heavy shutters.

With a silent nod to Illior, he set to work on the door. Sliding a wire along the edge, he found three separate locks. Moving on to the larger window, he found two equally stubborn mechanism there. The third window, scarcely large enough to admit a child, was secured with a single shutter.

During a lesson on housebreaking, Seregil had once remarked that the way least likely was often least barred. Alec pulled a thin strip of limewood from the roll and worked it around the edges of the shutter. In less than a minute he found the two hooks securing it. These yielded readily and the shutter swung back to expose a small panel of leaded glass. The room beyond was quite dark.

Praying that any occupant would have set up an alarm by now, he went to work with the wire again and threw the single hasp lock with no difficulty at all. The pane swung in on silence. Slipping the tools back into his coat, Alec pulled himself up by the window frame and wriggled in feet first. Lowering himself into the room, his foot struck something that overturned with a clatter.

He dropped in with his back to the wall and listened for an outcry; none came. Groping in the darkness, he pulled out the lightstone.

An overturned washstand lay on the floor beside him.

Thank the gods for carpets! he thought wryly, righting it and replacing the basin and pitcher.

The spacious bedchamber was plainly furnished by Rhíminee standards. A broad bed with hangings of translucent silk took up much of one end of the room. A dressing gown draped carelessly across the foot and a thick book propped open against the bolsters, together with the remains of a fire on the marble hearth, all warned of recent occupation.

There were several tall wardrobes and chests against the other walls. A gaming table stood next to the single deep armchair drawn up before the fireplace.

Thick, patterned carpet gave underfoot as Alec moved across to an interior door. Finding it unlocked, he pocketed the light and took a cautious peek through.

A corridor ran the length of this level, with several other doors on each side. Halfway down the right-hand wall was a staircase leading down.

Light came up from below, and with it music and the sounds of lively conversation.

Alec stepped out into the corridor and closed the door of the bedroom behind him. Picturing the location of the study, he moved quickly down the corridor to a pair of doors at the far end. The one in question was secured with a complicated lock.

Feeling nervous and exposed, Alec tried one pick and then another. Twirling a third in, he closed his eyes and explored the wards by feel.

The master of the house evidently set great value on privacy; like those on the windows, this was no common device. The endless lessons at Seregil's workbench paid off, however. The lock gave and he was in.

A writing desk and chair stood between two tall windows overlooking the street. A glance outside found the avenue busier than ever. Pulling the drapes shut, Alec took out the lightstone and sat down to begin his search.

A few items lay arranged in orderly fashion on the polished desktop: ink wells, a bundle of uncut quills, and a sand shaker stood ready on a silver tray beside a tidy stack of parchments.

Next to these was an empty dispatch box. Finding nothing of note, he moved on to the drawers.

The wide central drawer was flanked by two narrow ones. The central one was locked but yielded readily. Inside were packets of correspondence tied up with silk cord, a stick of sealing wax, a sand brush, and a penknife.

The left drawer was lined with silk and contained four locks of hair. Each had been carefully tied up with ribbon and one, a thick curl of raven black, was adorned with a jeweled pin. Reaching over these tokens, Alec found a velvet pouch containing a thick golden ring and a small ivory carving of a nude man.

The third drawer held a more mundane collection-used blotting paper, wax tablets, styluses, a tangled skein of twine, a litter of gaming stones-but nothing resembling a correspondence case. Going to the door, Alec checked the corridor again and then continued with his task.

Pulling out all three drawers, he lined them up and discovered the narrow ones to be a full hand's-breadth shorter than the central.

The desk was a casework piece, enclosed on the bottom as well as the sides. Peering in, he saw that the cavity for the central drawer ran to the back of the desk, separated from the side drawers by thin wooden dividers on either side. These also ran the depth of the desk. Small leather-faced blocks were fixed to the bottom of the cavity to keep the drawer flush with the front skirt when closed.

Similar stop blocks were in the side drawer tracks. but there was a difference. Just behind these, the cavities ended in wooden panels that sealed off whatever space lay beyond. Inexperienced he might be, but the whole costly, overly complicated structure of the piece seemed to promise at least one secret compartment.

Sliding his arm into each of the three spaces, Alec pressed and tapped with no success. As he sat back in exasperation, wondering what Seregil would do, his gaze wandered to the dispatch box. A memory leapt to mind; Seregil toying with a similar box during their burglary in Wolde, finding a secret mechanism.

Running his hands slowly over every surface of the desk, he finally located a tiny lever concealed next to the right front leg. When he shifted it, however, nothing seemed to happen, not even a telltale click. Perspiration beaded his upper lip as he knelt and inspected the interior of the desk again.

This time he noticed something he'd missed before. The unfinished wood on the bottom of the central drawer track showed the parallel wear marks that one might expect to find; these he'd seen.

But halfway in, toward the center of the panel, a faint, curving scuff could just be made out, arcing from a point midway between the two more pronounced marks and terminating abruptly at the right-hand divider.

Looking closer, he realized that there was also the tiniest hairline gap between the lower edge of the partition and the bottom of the desk. If not for that arcing scratch, he might have passed it off as nothing more than the result of the wood shrinking in the dry winter air, causing a joint to pull apart.

He pressed the hidden lever again, at the same time pushing firmly against the edge of the partition closest to him. Pivoting on unseen pins, the partition swung into the central opening and out over Alec's lap, revealing a small triangular compartment attached to the far end. Grinning in silent triumph, Alec lifted out a leather folder and heard the muffled crackle of parchment. Cramming it into the front of his coat, he quickly put everything else back the way he'd found it.

Back in the corridor, he locked the study door again for thoroughness" sake. No sooner had the last ward fallen into place, however, when he heard footsteps on the staircase behind him. There was no time to unlock the door or retreat to the bedchamber at the far end of the hall; the light of a candle was brightening rapidly toward the head of the stairs.

In desperation, Alec tried the door of the room next to the study; the handle turned smoothly under his hand.

Ducking inside, he put his eye to the crack of the door.

Two women had just reached the top of the stairs. One carried a candelabra and by its light he could see that both were expensively dressed and quite beautiful.

"He said to look on the second shelf to the right of the door, a thick folio bound in green and gold," the younger one said, peering around the hallway.

"This is a lucky night indeed, Ysmay," remarked her companion. "One so seldom has a chance to visit his library. But which room is it? It's been so long since I was last up here."

Jewels winked in the dark coils of the young woman's hair as she turned Alec's way. More jewels sparkled in the intricate necklace that covered her chest. In fact, Alec saw, the necklace was very nearly the only thing covering her breasts. The bosom of the dress was cut so low the top of one nipple peeped out from the fretwork of gems and gold.

"I must thank you again, dear aunt, for bringing me tonight!" the girl exclaimed. "I nearly swooned when you presented me to him. I can still feel his lips on my hand."

"A fact I pray your esteemed father never learns," her aunt replied with a low, musical laugh. "I felt just the same the first time I met him. He's one of the most charming men in Rhíminee, and so handsome! But take care, my dear. No woman has ever held his fancy for long, or man either. But now for that excellent manuscript. Which room is it?"

"This one, I think," replied the girl, making straight for the room where Alec was hiding. He pressed back against the wall behind the door, hoping for the best.

"La, this isn't it," the aunt exclaimed as the candles illuminated a bedchamber similar to the one at the back of the house.

"Is it his room?" breathed Ysmay, stepping toward the bed.

"I shouldn't think so. See that painted chest there? Mycenian work. Not his sort of thing at all. Come, my dear, I think I have my bearings now."

As soon as the women had disappeared into a room down the corridor, Alec bolted silently for the first bedchamber. Not daring to chance the lightstone again, he found the dim outline of the little window and made for it.

He hadn't gone three paces when a large, callused hand clamped over his mouth. Another seized his right arm, pinning it behind his back as he twisted and struggled.

"Hold him!" a voice hissed from somewhere across the room.

"Got him!" a deep voice rasped next to Alec's ear. The hand across his mouth clamped tighter. "Not a sound, you. And quit yer wigglin'!"

A lightstone appeared and his captor swung him roughly about to face it. Alec gave another convulsive twist, then froze with a strangled grunt of astonishment.

Standing there, one arm propped on the corner of the mantel, was Seregil. At his waved command, the man holding Alec released him and he spun to find himself facing Micum Cavish.

"By the Flame, boy, you're worse than an eel to hang on to!" Micum exclaimed softly.

"Did you get the case?" asked Seregil.

"Yes, I got it," Alec whispered, casting a nervous glance in the direction of the door. "But what are you doing in here?"

Seregil shrugged. "And why shouldn't I be in my own bedroom?"

"Your own-Yours?" sputtered Alec. "I went through all that to burgle your house?"

"Not so loud! Don't you see? We wanted to make sure you had a proper challenge."

Alec glared at the two of them, cheeks aflame, all his careful work reduced to a ridiculous charade. "By breaking into your own house? What kind of a challenge is that?"

"Don't take on so," Seregil said in honest consternation. "You just got into one of the most difficult houses in the city! I admit, I removed a few of the more deadly wards, but do you think just any common tickler could have gotten past those locks you found?"

"This is the last place we'd send you into if we didn't think you were ready," added Micum.

Alec chewed this over angrily for a long moment, arms locked across his chest. "Well, it was pretty hard. The study door was nearly the end of me."

"You see!" Seregil cried, throwing an arm around Alec's shoulders and giving the boy a rough hug.

"For plain housebreaking I'd say you acquitted yourself boldly. In fact, you surprised us both by weaseling in through that little window. Remind me to see to that tomorrow, will you? And that was a quick bit of thinking when the ladies wandered through."

Alec pulled back, eyes narrowing suspiciously again. "You sent them!"

"Actually, that was my idea," said Micum. "You were having such an easy time of it. Admit it now, it will make a better story later on with that."

"So what now?" asked Alec, still wary. "Tonight, I mean."

"Tonight?" Seregil's grin went crooked. "Why, tonight we have guests to attend to."

"The party? This party? Now? You said before you were doing that in a couple of days!"

"Did I? Well, it's a-lucky thing we're already dressed for the occasion. By the way, how did you like your new room?"

Alec grinned sheepishly, recalling the woman's remark about the painted Mycenian chest in the room where he'd hidden. "From what little I saw of it, it seems very useful."

Reluctantly following Micum and Seregil downstairs, he found himself faced with a room full of elegant strangers.

Dozens of thick candles lit the room, their honeyed scent like the distillation of long-dead summers. Their radiance was given back everywhere in the flash of jewels and the sheen of silks and polished leather.

The salon itself was no less elegant than those who occupied it. The high walls of the room had been painted to look like a forest glade, the tops of life-size oaks extending up across the vaulted ceiling overhead. Garlands of brightly flowering vines adorned the trees, and between their trunks distant mountains and ocean vistas were visible.

Musicians played on a carved balcony overhead.

Seregil paused halfway down the great staircase and laid a hand on Alec's arm.

"Most honored guests!" he called, assuming the formal manner he'd used while playing Lady Gwethelyn aboard the Darter.

"Allow me to present my ward and companion, Sir Alec of Ivywell, lately of Mycena. Make yourselves known to him, I pray you, for he is new to our great city and has made few acquaintances."

Alec's mouth went dry as dozens of expectant faces turned to him.

"Steady now," whispered Micum. "Just remember who you're supposed to be." Slipping the boy a covert luck sign, he moved off into the crowd.

At the bottom of the stairs, a servant stepped forward with a tray of iced wine. Alec took a cup and drained it in a hasty gulp.

"Go easy with that," Seregil murmured, propelling him gently forward. Playing the gracious host, he made a circuit of the room, moving smoothly from one knot of conversation to another.

The guests seemed to be mostly minor nobles and wealthy merchants associated with "Lord Seregil's" business interests. There was much talk of caravans and shipping, but the most popular topic was clearly the possibility of war in the spring.

"I hardly think there can be any question," sniffed a young nobleman introduced to Alec as Lord Melwhit.

"Preparations have been going on since summer."

"Indeed," a portly lord grumbled over his wine cup. "You can hardly come by a decent stick of lumber these last few months with the requisitioners snapping up everything in sight. I doubt I shall be able to complete my solarium before spring!"

"Wolde cloth?" a woman exclaimed nearby.

"Don't speak to me of Wolde cloth! With all the new tariffs, I can scarcely afford a new riding mantle. And gold? Mark my words, Lord Decius, before this is over we shall all be reduced to wearing beads and feathers."

"And what a delightful fashion that would prove," exclaimed her companion.

Trailing along with Seregil, Alec suddenly found himself face-to-face with the two women he'd seen upstairs.

"Allow me to introduce a very dear friend of mine," said Seregil with a hint of his wicked smile.

"Lady Kylith, may I present Sir Alec of Ivywell. Sir Alec, Lady Kylith of Rhíminee, and her niece, Lady Ysmay of Orutan."

Executing his best courtly bow, Alec felt his cheeks go warm. Lady Kylith's velvet gown draped a form still slender and elegant; like those worn by most other women of fashion present, it left her bosom nearly bare beneath a tissue of thinnest silk and a heavily jeweled necklace.

"What a fortunate young man you are!" purred Kylith, enveloping the boy in a languorous dark-eyed gaze that sent his heart locking again. "Our friend Lord Seregil is one of the most cultured gentlemen in the city, well versed in all the pleasures Rhíminee has to offer. I am certain you will find your time with him most enjoyable and instructive."

"You flatter me, dear lady," murmured Seregil. "But perhaps I might presume on our friendship? Would you partner Sir Alec in the first waltz? I believe the musicians have just struck up one of your favorites."

"A pleasure," replied Kylith with a curtsey.

"And perhaps you would return the boon by partnering my niece. I did, after all, promise her an evening of wicked pleasures, and I cannot think of a greater one than to dance with you."

Blushing prettily, Ysmay accepted Seregil's arm. At this signal, the other guests formed couples and assembled for the dance.

Kylith extended her hand to Alec with a dazzling smile. "Will you do me the honor, sir?"

"The honor is mine, I assure you," Alec replied. The words sounded wooden and foolish to his ears but he pressed on as best he could. "I must warn you, though, I've never been called a graceful dancer."

Taking her place in front of him, she gave him another melting look. "Think nothing of it, my dear. The instruction of inexperienced young men is one of life's unrivaled pleasures."

 

Seregil set about a playful flirtation with Ysmay while keeping one eye on Alec. As expected, Kylith put the boy at ease in no time. Another dance or two under her influence, and Alec would feel like he'd moved in such society his whole life. She'd had that same affect on Seregil years before.

Beginning as a courtesan in the Street of Lights, Kylith had risen to nobility when a headstrong young lord had brooked the strenuous opposition of family and class to marry her. Over the years her beauty, discretion, and lancing wit had earned her a degree of acceptance and drawn in the best of Rhíminee society to her famous gatherings. The finest artists and musicians of the day were to be found in her house, mingling with adventurers, wizards, and ministers of the highest offices. Few outside of the Queen's Park knew more than she of what went on in the council chambers and bedrooms of Rhíminee.

It had been for just such a reason that Nysander had introduced Seregil to her after the end of his ill-fated apprenticeship.

Charmed by his mysterious past and questionable reputation, Kylith had drawn him into her bright circle and, for a brief time after the death of her husband, into her bed.

He'd never been certain if she'd guessed him to be the faceless, unpredictable "Cat" of Rhíminee fame rather than a mere intermediary, but she often relayed requests for services to him, knowing that results were generally swift.

Whatever the case, she was one of the few nobles in whose discretion he had any faith. If Alec should falter in his role tonight, she would not broadcast the fact. And Alec did appear to be enjoying her company.

Keeping up his side of the agreement, he turned his full attention on Ysmay and flirted outrageously with her until she quivered in his arms.

 

Alec was midway through his second dance with Kylith when Micum laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Forgive me, lady, I must borrow your partner for a moment," he said, bowing to Kylith. "Alec, a word?"

Trouble?

Alec signed as Micum walked him toward the front entrance of the hall. The big man's grim sidelong glance was answer enough.

In the small entrance chamber at the front of the house they found Seregil boxed in by four bluecoats. Another was binding his hands in front of him. Seregil's old manservant, Runcer, stood wringing his hands and weeping nearby.

An officer wearing the chain of a Queen's Bailiff rolled up a black-ribboned scroll as Micum and Alec approached. Seregil's stony expression revealed nothing.

"What's going on here?" Micum demanded.

"And who might you be, sir?" replied the bailiff.

"Sir Micum Cavish of Watermead, friend of Lord Seregil. This boy is his ward, Sir Alec of Ivywell. Why are you arresting this man?"

The bailiff consulted another scroll and took a second look at the two of them. "Lord Seregil of Rhíminee stands accused of treason. I am also charged to instruct Sir Alec not to attempt to leave the city."

Eyeing the man with chilly dignity, Micum asked quietly, "Am I to understand he is under suspicion as well?"

"Not at present, Sir Micum. But those are my instructions."

"Seregil, what's happening?" asked Alec, finding his voice at last.

Seregil gave a grim shrug. "Some sort of misunderstanding, apparently. Make my apologies to the guests, would you?"

Alec nodded numbly. Glancing down at Seregil's bound hands, he saw him give the sign of Nysander's name, one long forefinger curled tightly over his thumb.

"Come along, my lord," said the bailiff, grasping Seregil's elbow.

"Where are you taking him?" Alec demanded, following as the guards led Seregil out to an enclosed black cart.

"That's not for me to say sir. Good evening."

Climbing in behind Seregil, the bailiff motioned to the driver and the cart rumbled off down the cobbled street.

"Seregil said to go to Nysander," Alec whispered, feeling Micum beside him.

"I saw. We'd better go."

"But what about the guests?"

"I'll have a quick word with Kylith. She'll manage things."

Alec watched miserably as the cart disappeared into the night. "Where do you think they're taking him?"

"It's a Queen's Warrant arrest, so it'll be Red Tower Prison," Micum said, looking bleak. "And that's one place not even Seregil can get out of on his own."
 

26

Plans at the Cockerel

Alec and Micum were halfway to the Orëska House when a tiny message sphere winked into being in front of them.

"Alec, Micum, come to the Cockerel at once!"

Alec blinked in surprise. "That was Thero."

"Bilairy's Balls!" muttered Micum, changing direction.

At the Cockerel they found Thero waiting for them, but not his master.

"Where's Nysander?" Alec asked, somewhat taken aback that Thero also knew how to enter Seregil's closely warded rooms.

"With the Queen," the young wizard replied, looking stiffly out of place in the midst of SeregiFs mess. "He sent me to meet you. He'll join us here as soon as he's able."

"I take it he was as surprised by the arrest as we were?" asked Micum, tossing Seregil's sword belt onto the table.

"Events have moved more rapidly than any of us anticipated. Nysander is quite worried over the fact that Idrilain did not consult with him before ordering the arrest."

"But what happened?" fretted Alec, pacing in frustration. "Nysander stopped the letter! Seregil said they'd never dare to send another without knowing what happened to the first."

"I have no idea. The Queen sent word that he'd been taken to the Red Tower, nothing more. Was the arrest carried out discreetly?"

"If it hadn't been for Runcer, we might have missed it altogether," glowered Micum.

Thero rubbed his chin pensively. "That's a hopeful sign, anyway."

For the first time in their brief acquaintance, it occurred to Alec that Thero must be a Watcher, too. With this revelation came the certainty that it was this fact, rather than any personal feelings for Seregil, which engaged his interest now.

"Do you think they'll—"
Memories tightened coldly in Alec's chest. "Do you think they'd torture him?"

Thero arched an eyebrow, considering. "That would depend on the severity of the charge, I suppose."

"The bailiff said treason."

"Ah. Yes, I'd say it was quite likely."

"Damn it, Thero, show some sense!"

Micum growled, catching at Alec's arm as the boy went pale. "Steady now, there's no use thinking like that. Nysander would never allow it."

"I doubt Nysander could interfere," Thero countered, oblivious to Alec's distress. "The Red Tower is protected by magic as well as bars; Nysander and I did some work in there ourselves. Not only that, but given Nysander's close association with Seregil, he can't afford any suggestion of interference with the law."

"What are we going to do?" asked Alec.

"We're going to sit here and wait for Nysander, as ordered," Micum said calmly. Giving Thero a dark look, he added, "Meanwhile, there's no use wasting time in idle speculation."

Nysander felt a certain relief when the royal messenger led him to the Queen's private audience chamber rather than the Great Hall. There had always been little need for ceremony between them; he had known Idrilain since infancy, and though he had always afforded her the respect due her station, their ties of mutual affection generally allowed them to drop formality in private. Something in her cool greeting, however, conveyed a warning.

Even in her evening robe, greying hair free over her shoulders, Idrilain looked like the warrior she was.

Joining her at the small wine table, Nysander did his best to mask his rising uneasiness. Neither spoke until they had saluted each other with their wine cups and taken the ritual sip, signifying their pledge to speak honestly.

"You have arrested Seregil," Nysander said, getting directly to the point. "On what charge?"

"Treason."

The wizard's heart sank; somehow, their enemies had outflanked them. He must proceed with caution and respect. "Upon what evidence is he being charged?"

"Lord Barien received this earlier today." Idrilain pushed a rolled document across to him.

He recognized the opening lines; it was based on one of the half-finished letters Seregil had sold to Ghemella. Like the last, it had every mark of being authentic except its contents. Handwriting, signature, ink-all were consistent.

"It appears genuine, I admit," Nysander said at last. "And yet I do not believe that it was composed by Seregil. May I inquire as to your opinion?"

"My opinion is irrelevant. It's my duty to deal in facts," she replied. "So far no evidence of tampering, magical or otherwise, has been discovered on that parchment."

"And yet you must have doubts or I would not be sitting here with you now," Nysander suggested gently.

The regal mask slipped just a bit at that. "I don't know Seregil well, Nysander, but I know you. I know that you've been worthy of my trust, and that of the three queens before me. It's difficult for me to believe that anyone you hold in such esteem could be a traitor. If you know anything about this, you'd better tell me now."

Nysander drew the forged letter he'd intercepted from his coat and handed it to her. "I came into possession of this a week ago. Believe me when I tell you that I would have spoken to you at once if I had the slightest doubt as to Seregil's innocence. The initial content is based on a letter Seregil did in fact write, but the damning lines were added by the forger. I have spoken with Seregil about it and have every reason to believe that he speaks the truth."

Idrilain's face darkened again as she compared the two letters. "I don't understand. If these are false, then they're masterpieces of forgery. Who would go to such lengths to discredit a person of such small importance? Forgive the bluntness of an old soldier, Nysander, but aside from his friendship with you and my children, what is Seregil but an exiled wastrel noble with a bit of trader's sense? He has no power at my court, no influence."

"True. Which leaves nothing of significance except his rather tenuous connection to you, or perhaps even to me. And who but the Lerans would find this of value?"

"The Lerans?" Idrilain said derisively. "A bunch of narrow-minded malcontents mouthing the empty threats even their great- grandparents didn't believe! By the Four, Nysander, the Lerans have been nothing more than a political bugbear since the time of Elani the Fair."

"So it is generally believed, my lady. Yet you must remember that I was a boy at the wedding of your ancestor and namesake, Idrilain the First, when she took the Aurënfaie, Corruth, as her consort.

"Seven generations later, who but a handful of old wizards recall the shouts of anger outside the temple during the ceremony? Yet I tell you, my Queen, that at this moment I hear them as clearly as I did then. "A Skalan lord for the Skalan people!" they screamed as the Queen's Horse rode out with swords and clubs. And it was not only the rabble who protested, but nobles, as well, who felt their honor usurped by foreign blood. I saw these same nobles stand by Queen Lera through her oppressive reign. I watched the public protests when her half sister Corrathesthera took the throne after Lera's death."

"And yet my ancestor Corruthesthera reigned unchallenged by any revolution, and her descendants after her."

"And two of those queens died under questionable circumstances."

"Rumors! Elani died in the Great Plague, and Klia was poisoned by Plenimaran assassins."

"So history has decided, my Queen. Yet there was talk to the contrary at the time."

"Nothing was proven in either case. And without proof to the contrary, you're left standing on smoke," Idrilain asserted stubbornly. "Which brings us back to Seregil. Perhaps it would be to the Lerans' advantage to embarrass me through him. Sakor knows, I can't afford division among my own people with the threat of war hanging over us. Still, you realize that by giving me this second letter, you have doubly damned him unless you can produce proof that they're not genuine?"

"I do," replied Nysander. "And I give it to you as a pledge of my good faith, knowing I must prove him innocent or watch a man I love as my own son executed in the most horrible fashion. You have him in custody. Word will spread, just as the Lerans intend. All I ask of you is time to produce proof of his innocence."

Pressing her palms together, Idrilain rested her forehead against her fingertips. "I can afford no show of leniency. Barien is planning to pursue the matter personally."

"And his loyalty to you is unclouded by any regard for Seregil?"

"Precisely."

Nysander hesitated an instant, then reached across the table and clasped her hands in his. "Grant me two days, Idrilain, I beseech you. Tell Barien whatever you wish, but give me time to save a man more loyal and valuable than you know."

Astonishment dawned on Idrilain's face as the implication struck home. "Seregil, a Watcher? Sakor's Flame, can I be that blind?"

"He is a master of his craft, my dear,"

Nysander said rather sadly. "Regardless of what I would have wished for him, Illior has set him a path all his own. With your permission, I would prefer to say no more, except that I gladly stake my own honor on his loyalty to Skala and to you."

Idrilain shook her head doubtfully. "I hope you never have cause to regret those words, my friend. He was a traitor once; we both know that. What you've just told me-that could be a double-edged thing."

"I stand by him, nonetheless."

"Very well, then. Two days. But I can't give you any longer, and your evidence must be irrefutable! I don't suppose I need to warn you that any interference in the due process of the law would be most unwise?"

Nysander rose and bowed deeply. "I understand perfectly, my lady."

 

Riding at once to the Cockerel, Nysander made no effort to hide his concern from the others waiting there.

"It is as we feared," he told them.

"A second forged letter has been delivered to the Vicegerent, this one dated the sixth of Erasin. Ironically, the original was one that Seregil handed over to Ghemella as part of his scheme to entrap the forger."

"The sixth of Erasin?" Alec counted back.

"That's just after we met. We were still out on the Downs then."

"Bloody hell!" growled Micum. "Either the bastards know about Seregil's work or they struck lucky in the dark. Either way, they've fixed it so he either has to rig up some lie or reveal himself. And that could prove a death sentence in itself."

"I could say he was at Ivywell," Alec offered. "We've already set up the story that he brought me down from there. He was telling everyone at the party about it."

"I fear not," said Nysander. "That tale serves well enough in some circles, but would not bear up under the scrutiny of the Queen's inquisitors. At the very least, witnesses would be sent for from Mycena. When none appeared, you would find yourself as deeply implicated as Seregil. Besides, there is no time.

Idrilain has given us just two days' grace. I fear our best recourse is to pursue Seregil's original plan regarding Hind Street."

"I've been thinking about that," mused Micum. "It took Seregil a week to find Alben, and he's not even certain he's the right one. Assuming that we do find a cache-that there is one- what if he's not our man after all? It could take us weeks to run down information that Seregil could come up with in a few days' time."

Nysander spread his hands resignedly. "True. Yet at the moment I can think of no other option."

"If only he'd had another day," Alec exclaimed bitterly. "He was all smiles about it tonight, as if he had all the time in the world."

"It occurs to me," said There, who'd been quiet for some time, "that Alec's absence at Wheel Street this evening will surely have been remarked upon. Perhaps an appearance at the prison would not be out of place-expressions of outrage, bewilderment, and the like? While it would not be politic for Nysander to be seen there, who would question Lord Seregil's young ward bringing his protector a few necessities for the night? A blanket, perhaps, and some clean linen—"

"A lock pick!"

Thero spared Alec a withering glance. "Only if you want to guarantee your place on the gibbet beside him. My thought was that if they allowed you to see him, he might be able to pass along some helpful information. If not, what have we lost?"

"You've a bit of the spy in you after all," said Micum.

Thero looked slightly offended. "It's simple logic. My thinking is unclouded by emotion in this matter."

"Nonetheless, it is a fine idea," said Nysander, giving the young wizard an approving look. "Well done, Thero."

Alec rose and reached for his cloak. "I'll go right now! Are you coming, Micum?"

Nysander raised a warning hand. "A moment first, both of you. It is imperative that you recognize the magnitude of our actions. Should anything go awry, we will have forfeited any credibility we have left with the Queen. We could all find ourselves in the Red Tower, or worse."

Having said what was necessary, he was proud to see no signs of wavering in the others. "Very good. I must add that any misstep will reflect most disastrously on the Queen; that must be the final consideration in any decision. If this does stem back to the Lerans, any cock-up on our part would play right into their hands. Nothing would please them more, I am certain, than the appearance of a widespread conspiracy that includes myself. With that in mind, I pray for Illior's favor to grant us all luck in the shadows."

"I'll second that," said Micum. "Come on, Sir Alec. We've got work to do."

 

A dank wind whipped up from the harbor as Alec and Micum rode up to the prison near the southern wall of the city. The main tower was a squat, ugly structure ringed by a bailey wall. Dismounting in the outer yard, Alec wrinkled his nose at the dismal stench of urine and burning tallow that hung over the place.

"It's hard to believe I woke up at Watermead this morning," he whispered, clutching the little bundle he'd thrown together.

"More like yesterday morning now," sighed Micum.

"What if they don't let us in?"

"Just be as persuasive as possible and have some gold ready, throw back your cloak so they can see you're a gentleman."

Following Micum's advice, Alec pounded at the gate.

A bearded face appeared at the door grille.

"What's your business at this hour?"

"A man was brought in tonight," said Alec. "His name is Lord Seregil. He's my protector and I've brought some clothing and blankets for him. May I see him, please, just for a moment?"

"That dark-haired blade?"

"Yes, that's him."

"It's damned late, you know."

"Inconvenience has its price." Alec held up a gold half sester. "We'd be very grateful."

Micum stepped closer behind him. "They haven't given an order against visitors, have they?"

The guard eyed Alec's coin, then turned to confer with someone else. The gate soon swung open.

"I suppose there's no harm in the lad going up," the guard said, taking the coin and leading them into the warder's room. "But just him and only for a minute. You can wait here by the fire if you like, sir, while he goes. And I'll have a look through that bundle first."

Satisfied with the contents of the parcel and a second coin, the chief warder turned Alec over to another guard, who led him into the depths of the chilly edifice.

The walls seemed to press in around Alec as he followed the warder up flight after drafty flight of stone stairs. His time in Asengai's dungeon had left him with an indelible hatred of such places.

Stopping at one of the low cell doors, the guard peered through the tiny grille. "Visitor, your lordship!"

A muffled reply came from within.

"You'll have to speak to him through here," the warder told Alec. "Don't pass nothing through, not even your hand. I'll see to it that he gets this package."

Taking Alec's bundle, he moved off far enough to give them a modicum of privacy.

The grille was set deep in the thick wooden door. Light from the nearest lantern in the corridor slanted through the bars, illuminating a crescent of profile and one glittering eye.

"Are you all right?" Alec whispered anxiously.

"So far," Seregil replied. "It's damn cold, though."

"I brought a blanket, and some fresh clothes."

"Thanks. Any news?"

Leaning as close as he dared, Alec quickly told him the details of their conference at the Cockerel.

"Nysander thinks finding evidence against your forger may be our only chance. Micum and I'll have to do it, I guess, but we're not certain how. God, I wish all this hadn't happened!"

"I know how you feel. Is the guard still well away?"

"Yes."

"Then pay attention." Seregil cautiously reached the fingers of one hand through the bars, signing something about Micum.

It was too quick. Alec shook his head. "I can hardly hear you. What did you say?"

"I said it's a dead end. Nothing to be gained,"

Seregil said, raising his voice for the guard's benefit as he signed again, more slowly this time.

His fingers were somewhat hampered by the bars, but Alec got Tell Micum silver fish.

"I don't understand!" Alec whispered, convinced he must have gotten the nonsensical message wrong.

"I won't leave you here to rot!"

"Don't fret," Seregil replied, locking eyes with him. "There's a lucky moon tomorrow night. Fortify yourself with prayers to the Lightbearer and all will be well. In the meantime, I entrust you to the care of Micum Cavish. Heed his wisdom; he's a man of many parts."

"Sorry, young sir, that's all the time I can give you," the guard called.

"Damn!" muttered Alec, still convinced he'd misinterpreted a crucial message. Pretending to brush back a stray strand of hair, he signed Silver fish?

To his surprise, Seregil nodded emphatically.

"Come along, sir!"

Alec held Seregil's gaze a moment longer, heart pounding painfully in his chest. What he could see of Seregil's mouth tilted up suddenly in the old reassuring grin.

"Why the long face?" Seregil whispered. "You're not alone in this, you know. Everything's going to be fine!"

But Alec felt anything but fine as he followed the guard back down the stairs. Much as he wanted to believe Seregil's brave assurances, he thought he'd heard a hollow note in his friend's voice.

They were in a bad spot, and a good deal of it was up to him to solve. The consequences of failure were too awful to bear thinking about.

His face must have given something of this away, for the guard said kindly, "There now, sir, perhaps it'll all come right in the end. He seems a good enough fellow."

Sensing a potential ally, Alec managed to work up a few tears by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs. In fact, they came with surprising ease.

 

As soon as they were out of sight of the prison Alec passed on Seregil's strange message. For a moment Micum looked disconcertingly blank.

"Silver fish?" Stroking the corners of his mustache, he shook his head. Then suddenly he broke into a broad grin. "By the Flame, he must have meant silverfish, like the insect!"

"That means something to you?" Alec asked, still doubtful.

"Oh, yes! In fact, our sneaky friend has given us our whole plan of attack. I'll explain when we get home-home being Wheel Street tonight."

 

Runcer met them at the door. "The guests have departed, Sir Alec, and I have laid a fire in your chamber. Will you be requiring anything else tonight?"

"No, thank you," Alec replied, feeling a bit confused. The elderly servant's manner conveyed the impression that he had served Alec all his life.

He was hovering in a manner that suggested he expected further orders. "Well, I think I can manage. You should go to bed, ah—"

"Runcer," Micum whispered behind him.

"Runcer, yes. Go to bed. It's late. Thank you."

Runcer's wrinkled face betrayed nothing but respectful attention as he bowed good night.

Retreating hastily upstairs, Alec found his new bedchamber brightly illuminated.

"He's refurbished it," Micum remarked dryly, looking the place over. "It's very-Mycenian."

"Is that what you'd call it?"

The cabinets, chests, chairs, and tall, carved bedstead were all brightly painted with garish fruit and game motifs. The bed hangings, though faded, were richly embroidered with a pattern of pomegranates and wheat. The overall effect was rather overwhelming, even to Alec's untutored eye. The only familiar oh jects in the room were his sword and bow, which lay across the bed.

"I supposed I'll get used to it," he sighed, drawing a chair up to the fire. "Now tell me about the silverfish."

"Old Silverfish was a name we gave to a slippery customer Nysander had us track down a few years back," explained Micum. "He was another blackmailer and, like his namesake, he had a talent for disappearing into the woodwork. Seregil had a hell of a time finding his cache. He finally did, though, and I never saw a prettier bit of coggery."

"How did he do it?"

"We'll get to that. What else did he tell you?"

"To depend on you, and that there'd be a lucky moon tomorrow night when I should pray to Illior. I think he means we do the burglary then."

"Right. We'll pay a daylight visit to Master Alben's shop, look the place over, then do the real work after dark."

"And if he's right? The bailiff who arrested Seregil had my name, too. If I show up with evidence they'll never believe us!"

"Probably not. Which means we have to make certain it gets to the Queen some other way. The City Watch, for instance. I daresay they'd welcome the opportunity to arrest a traitor."

"Sure, but why would the Watch believe us any more than the Queen's Bailiff?"

"They wouldn't," Micum said with a sly smile. "But Myrhini will."

"Who?" Alec was too tired to place the name immediately.

"Princess Klia's friend. She's a captain of the Horse Guard."

Alec, rubbed his eyelids with the heels of his palms. "Oh, yes, the one who took me to the barracks for a pass that day Seregil had me robbed."

"The day he what?"

"Never mind. You think Myrhini will help us?"

"For Klia's sake, if not for Seregil's. I'll send a message, but I don't expect we'll see her before dawn. You try out this new bed of yours in the meantime. I have an idea tomorrow will be another long day."

Alec gave a humorless laugh. "I don't think I've seen a short one since I met Seregil!"

 

 

27

Hind Street

 

Opening his eyes the next morning, Alec was startled to find Runcer bending over him. "Forgive me for the intrusion, Sir Alec, but Sir Micum sent me to wake you." Moving with fossilized dignity, the old man set a steaming pitcher on the washstand.

The promise of a watery grey dawn filtered in at the window. He couldn't have been asleep more than a few hours. Sitting up, Alec watched the old servant moving about the room at what were apparently his morning duties. After laying out the bath items, he fetched clean linen and a fresh shirt from a clothes chest and laid them out on the foot of the bed.

Unaccustomed to such ministrations, Alec watched with growing unease. His experiences at the Orëska baths had left him wary of servants.

What if the man wanted to help him dress? It was unnatural, having another person doing things for him as if he were a child or an invalid. The man's respectful silence only made matters worse.

"You manage the household, don't you?" Alec asked as Runcer proceeded to brush his cloak. How much, he wondered, did this wrinkled old man know of his real background-or Seregil's, for that matter?

"Of course, sir," Runcer replied with no discernible change of expression. "Lord Seregil has left instructions that you be made comfortable. Breakfast has been laid in the dining room and Captain Myrhini is expected shortly. Shall I lay out your clothes, sir?"

"I suppose so."

Runcer went to another chest for breeches, then creaked to a halt at the wardrobe. "And which coat would you prefer today, sir?"

Having absolutely no clue as to the contents of the wardrobe, Alec hazarded a guess. "The blue, please."

"The blue, sir." The old servant took out an outrageously ornate coat stitched with gold beading.

"Well, maybe not the blue," Alec countered hastily. "I'll decide later."

"Very good, sir."

To Alec's dismay, Runcer did not leave but instead gave him another of those expectant looks. After a long, chagrined moment Alec realized he was waiting to be dismissed.

"Thank you, Runcer, I don't need you."

"Very good, sir." The old man bowed and left the room.

"Bilairy's Balls!" Jumping out of bed, Alec stalked to the wardrobe and inspected the surcoats hanging there. The blue was by far the gaudiest. Pawing through the others, he found a plain russet and hurried into his clothes. Not surprisingly, they all fit as if he'd been measured for them, even down to the boots.

Seregil did this while I was in Watermead, Alec thought with a pang. And none of it will be worth a damn if we don't get him out of the Tower.

He headed downstairs and followed the smell of sausage to a pleasant room overlooking the garden.

Micum was seated already, with Seregil's two Zengati hounds lying to either side of his chair. Apparently they held no grudge over his recent burglary. At his approach they merely raised their gleaming white heads, heavy tails brushing the floor in welcome.

Micum pushed a plate of sausage his way.

"You'd better eat something. Myrhini will be here any minute."

They'd barely finished their hasty meal when Runcer ushered in the tall captain.

"This had better be fast. I've got inspection in an hour," she warned, mud-spattered cloak billowing about her legs as she joined them at the table.

"How's Klia taking the news of the arrest?" asked Micum.

"Oh, she's livid, but worried, too. Queen's Kin or no, Vicegerent Barien's out for blood, and pissed as hell that Idrilain granted a grace period before the questioning starts."

"Nysander expected that," said Alec. "Does Barien have a grudge against Seregil?"

Myrhini held up her hands. "Who knows? According to Klia, he thinks Seregil's a bad influence and has never liked his being friends with her and the twins."

Elesthera and Tymore, thought Alec. Seregil had drilled him mercilessly on the royal family. The twins were Klia's older brother and sister, Idrilain's other children by her second consort.

"Did you tell Klia you were meeting us?" asked Micum.

"No and she'll ream me for it when she finds out. But I agree with you that it's best not to involve her until we know which way die wind's going to blow. So, how can I help?"

Micum poured more tea and settled back in his chair. "There's a man in Hind Street, a forger, who probably fabricated the false documents that put Seregil in the Tower. Seregil had planned to go after him himself tonight; he wants us to go ahead without him."

"But the evidence can't come from us," added Alec.

"Barien could say we made it up just to clear Seregil's name."

Myrhini looked out at the grey sky brightening above the muddy garden. "What you need is someone to tip off the bluecoats. Someone who won't ask too many questions."

"That's about the size of it," said Micum. "Of course, there's a certain amount of risk involved. I'd understand if you wanted no part of it."

Myrhini waved the warning aside with a disgusted look.

"As it happens, there is a certain captain of the Watch who'd be happy enough to do me a favor. And Hind Street just happens to be in his ward-to catch a forger squeezing nobles would be a proper feather in his cap."

Micum grinned knowingly. "Enough said. We'll send word as soon as we're certain of our man. When we do, you speak to your bluecoat captain. Alec and I will play the flushing hounds and he can have the kill.

We'll need you there, though. Your captain can't see us or know we're involved."

"I'll be there." Myrhini rose to go. "Having one of the Queen's daughters as best friend and commander does have its occasional advantages, you know."

 

Alec made his way through a cold winter drizzle to Hind Street an hour later. It was a neighborhood of plain, respectable tenements: five-story wood and stone buildings constructed around small interior courtyards.

Dressed as a country lad of good family, he made a show of great agitation as he asked directions along the street. He was directed to a whitewashed building in the third block. Hurrying into the courtyard, he spotted a brass mortar hung over a door on the ground level. The shutters were open. With a silent prayer to Illior of the Thieves, he lifted the latch and burst into the little shop.

The low room reeked of herbs and oils. A young boy stood heating something over a lamp at a table near the back of the shop.

"Is this the apothecary's?" Alec asked breathlessly.

"Aye, but Master Alben's still at his breakfast," the boy replied without looking up from his work.

"Call him, please!" cried Alec. "I've been sent for medicine. My poor mother's had an issue of blood since last night, and nothing seems to stop it!"

This galvanized the apprentice. Setting his pan aside, he disappeared through a curtain at the back of the room, returning a moment later with a balding man with a long grey beard.

"Master Alben?" asked Alec.

"That's me," the man answered brusquely, brushing crumbs from the front of his robe. "What's all this fuss about, first thing in the day?"

"It's my mother, sir. She's bleeding terribly!"

"Durnik told me that much, boy. We've no time to waste on hysterics," snapped Alben. "Does the blood come from her mouth, nose, ears, or womb?"

"From the womb. We're in from the country and didn't know where to find a midwife. They said at the inn that you might have herbs—"

"Yes, yes, Durnik, you know which jars."

The apprentice fetched three jars from one of the crowded shelves and the apothecary set to work measuring the herbs and powders into a mortar. Alec wandered to the window, wringing his hands with simulated impatience.

In the courtyard outside he saw other tenants of the place setting out for their day's business. Micum was just across the way, strolling around the court as if looking for a particular address. Seeing Alec at the window, he sauntered over in the direction of a refuse pile in a corner of the yard.

Alec paced back to the worktable. "Can't you hurry?" he implored.

"A moment!" snapped Alben, still grinding. "It's of no use at all if it isn't correctly mixed—By the Four! Is that smoke?"

At that moment a cry of "Fire!." went up in the courtyard, followed by a scream and the sound of running feet. Dropping his pestle, the apothecary rushed to the door. The rubbish heap was in flames.

"Fire! Arson!" he shrieked, going white.

"Durnik, fetch water at once! Fire, fire in the courtyard!"

By now the shout had been taken up through the building and doors flew open as people hurried out to douse the blaze.

Young Durnik ran for the well, but his master disappeared back through the curtain. Following him, Alec discovered a comfortable sitting room behind the shop. Alben was hovering at the hearth, gripping one of the carved pillars supporting the mantel with one hand, and pulling nervously at his beard with the other.

Seeing Alec in the doorway, he snarled, "What are you doing in here? Get out!"

"The medicine, sir," Alec ventured meekly. "For my mother?"

"What? Oh, the medicine! Take it, take it!"

"But the price?"

"Bugger the price, you idiot! Can't you see there's a fire?" Alben gasped furiously, making no move to abandon the hearth. "Get out, damn you!"

Backing out through the curtain, Alec dumped the contents of the mortar into a parchment cone and hurried out past the crowd that had gathered in the street. A few blocks from the tenement Micum stepped from an alley to meet him.

"Well?"

"I think it worked," Alec told him. "As soon as it started he went right to the room behind the shop and wouldn't be moved from the hearth."

"We've got him, then! It's just as Seregil said the first time we pulled that trick on Old Silverfish: "Shout "Fire" and a mother will race to save her child, a craftsman for his tools, a courtesan for her jewel box, and a blackmailer for his hoard of papers."

"So now we tell Myrhini?"

"Yes, and pray to Illior this is the right forger!"

That night, Seregil found himself with nothing to do but worry. The cell's tiny slit of a window was too high to look out of; he gauged the passage of time by listening to the prison go quiet around him. Hunched miserably on the hard stone sleeping shelf with his blankets pulled tight around his shoulders, he worried.

Have they gone out yet?

In truth, he had no way of knowing if Alec and Micum had understood the import of his message.

Surely Micum would have found some way to get word in to you if he hadn't?

Unless the Lerans found some way to gather Alec and Micum up in their web, too.

The two of them were certainly tempting targets: both foreign born, both known friends of an accused traitor. Even Nysander could be implicated on the basis of their long relationship. Seregil's imagination, not always a kind companion at such times, was soon busy painting alarming scenes of forged letters, sudden arrests, and worse.

Throwing aside the blankets, he stretched his stiff muscles and paced the now familiar confines of the cell-three strides and turn, three strides and turn again. It was doubtful that word would come before dawn even if things went as planned.

He paused at the door, rising on his toes to peer out the grille. Was it midnight yet? An hour before? Two hours past? The dank, silent corridor told him nothing.

Damnation! he raged silently, resuming his restless vigil. By now I'd have done the job and be back home in front of the fire!

Unless, of course, he'd been wrong about the apothecary's involvement in the first place.

 

* * *

 

Alec and Micum met Myrhini in a darkened square near Hind Street. She'd wisely put aside her uniform in favor of a plain tunic and breeches under a dark cloak, though she'd kept her sword. Unrolling an awkward bundle, she handed them two pot-brimmed helmets like those worn by the City Watch.

"Where did you come by these?" asked Micum, trying his on.

"Don't ask. If things do go wrong, you can pass for some of Tyrin's men in the dark."

"This Tyrin of yours, he's up to this?"

Myrhini nodded. "He has ten men in an alley across from your man's tenement and two lookouts in the courtyard. They've been told to move at the first sign of disturbance inside. I just hope Alec can manage it without getting caught."

"If I can get in, then I can get out again,"

Alec said quietly, tucking his helmet under his arm.

Leaving their horses tethered in the square, the three set off together for Hind Street. Slipping into a narrow alley beside Alben's building, they took stock of the situation.

The lower floor showed no light between the shutters, nor was any apparent on the upper level, where Alben's chamber would be. A small window overlooking the alley appeared to be the best point of entry.

Pulling off his boots, Alec climbed onto Micum's shoulders and peered through a crack in the shutters. The room beyond was quite dark and no telltale sounds of breathing or snoring warned of anyone within.

Jiggering the latch inside as quietly as he could, Alec opened the shutter and climbed through.

He smelled candle smoke in the darkness, felt bare floor beneath his feet. Faint candlelight showed at the top of a stairway across the room. As his eyes adjusted, Alec realized with relief that he was in the very room he'd come to burgle. But someone, presumably Alben, was still awake upstairs after all. A creak of floorboards came from overhead, followed by a muffled cough. The sitting room fire had been banked, however, meaning the master of the house was not coming down again before morning- Alec took a lightstone on a handle from his tool roll and shielded it with one hand as he crept to the door leading to the shop. It had been closed and bolted for the night.

Alec fumbled a leather cone out of his pouch and fitted it over the stone to shield the light.

It didn't take long to find what he was looking for. Running his fingers over the carved moldings that framed the fireplace, he soon struck a loose edge on the thick square base of one of the decorative posts. Working the tip of his dagger under it, he uncovered a deep, narrow cavity in the stonework of the fireplace. Inside lay a long iron box secured with a heavy lock. Hunkering down, he picked the lock and opened the box. Inside were several bundles of documents. His skill at reading was by no means great but he knew Seregil's large, flowing script and signature well enough to recognize them among the others. One entire packet was made up of letters in Seregil's hand, some complete, some half finished. There were eleven in all, and several were clearly duplicates of others.

Got you, by the Maker!

Replacing the documents, he returned the casket to its hiding place, carefully leaving the concealing bit of stonework slightly askew.

This accomplished, he picked up a small footstool and went back to the window. With one leg hooked over the sill, he tossed the stool into the center of the room with a loud thump and dropped down into the alley. Poised for flight, he and the others listened for an outcry to be raised.

Nothing happened.

"How could they not have heard that? I heard it!" whispered Myrhini.

Micum shrugged. "You'd better give it another try."

With another boost from Micum, Alec peeked over the sill. The faint glow of candlelight still showed in the stairwell but there was no sign of life.

Climbing in, he briefly considered setting another fire but dismissed the thought; at this time of night the whole place might go up before enough water carriers could be roused. Casting around, he spotted a glazed jar on the mantelpiece. That would do nicely. He smashed it against the fire irons.

This produced an admirable crash and drew startled shouts from upstairs and down. Satisfied, he lunged for the window, caught his foot on the overturned footstool, and went sprawling.

"Is that you, Master Alben?" a quavering voice called from beyond the shop door.

"Damn and blast you, Durnik!" an outraged voice screeched somewhere above. "What in the name of Bilairy's Bitch are you d doing down there?"

Scrambling to his feet, Alec glimpsed a pair of bony ankles at the head of the stairs. He threw himself out the window and tumbled into Micum's waiting arms.

"That did the trick!" Micum chuckled, clapping the helmet on Alec's head as the boy hastily pulled on his boots. Together, they hustled off down the alley, while Myrhini disappeared in the opposite direction to make sure of Tyrin's support.

Stopping at the far end of the alley, Micum and Alec heard Alben cursing his befuddled servant.

The shuttered window banged open, then slammed shut again. A moment later they could hear soldiers hammering at the front door of the shop.

The alley window opened again and this time an ungainly figure in a long nightshirt clambered out.

"Bloody hell!" Micum exclaimed in disgust.

"Don't tell me every damn bluecoat is going in the front door?"

The street running behind the building did appear to be unguarded.

"Quick, draw your sword!" Alec whispered, doing the same. His left hand found the lightstone he'd jammed in his pouch and he held it over their heads, hoping the helmet brims would shade their faces.

"You there, stop where you are!" he shouted in the deepest voice he could muster.

Alben clutched the damning strongbox to his chest as he blinked wildly at the sudden light. Panicked by the sight of swords and helmets, he turned tail, rushing down the alley and into the arms of several of Captain Tyrin's more enterprising men.

Alec quickly covered his light again as Micum called out. "We caught him shinnying out the back window!"

In the ensuing confusion, they slipped away with no trouble at all.

28

The Midnight Inquisition

Thero answered the summoner's knock just before midnight. Accepting the rolled message, he carried it downstairs to Nysander, who was dozing in the sitting room armchair.

Thero shook his master gently by the shoulder. "The Queen's sent for you."

Nysander's eyes blinked open, instantly alert.

"Was there a message?"

Thero handed him the little scroll.

Nysander read through it quickly, then rose and brushed the wrinkles from his blue robe. "Nothing of use here, only that I should come at once. Well then, we must simply hope for the best."

"Shall I come with you?"

"Thank you, dear boy, but I think it best for you to remain here for the moment. If something has gone awry, I shall need you available to Micum and Alec."

 

At the Palace Nysander made his way alone through the familiar corridors. Despite its rich tapestries and murals, the place had none of the Orëska's spacious ambience. Part royal residence, part fortress, the walls were thick, the corridors labyrinthine, the doors heavily strapped with ornate metalwork.

The judgment chamber was more forbidding still, and intentionally so. The long room was empty of furnishings except for a black and silver throne on a raised platform at the far end. To approach it, one crossed a chill expanse of polished black floor under the marble gaze of the royal effigies lining the walls.

Iron cressets cast a grim, shifting light over the small group already gathered around the throne.

Idrilain acknowledged Nysander's bow tersely.

She wore the crown and breastplate of office tonight, and her great sword lay unsheathed across her knees.

The Vicegerent and General Phoria stood on either side of her, looking equally dour.

"We have come into possession of certain documents which may clear Lord Seregil's name," Idrilain informed Nysander, laying her hand on a long iron box that lay open on a small table at her elbow.

"I thought you should be present at the proceedings."

"Many thanks, my lady," Nysander replied, taking his place at the foot of the dais.

Looking up at her eldest daughter, Idrilain motioned for her to proceed.

"Bring the first prisoner!"

At Phoria's shout, a side door swung open and two guards dragged in a querulous old man in a stained nightshirt. Nysander allowed himself a brief brush across the surface of the accused man's mind and read a panicked craftiness, a fury to survive.

They were followed by three others: an officer of the Watch. a woman in the robes of the Queen's High Bailiff, and a young wizard of the Second Degree named Imaneus. Nysander knew this last one well, a talented mind adept frequently called in as verifier at such trials.

The Vicegerent stepped forward and turned a bleak eye on the prisoner.

"Alben, apothecary of Hind Street, you stand accused of forgery and possession of personal papers belonging to a member of the Royal Kin. How plead you?"

Cowering on his knees, Alben mumbled a whining plea.

"Repeat yourself," the bailiff ordered, leaning closer to listen "My Lord Barien, the accused maintains that there has been some mistake."

"A mistake," Barien repeated tonelessly.

"Alben the Apothecary, were you not apprehended by Captain Tyrin of the City Watch while fleeing through a back window in the dead of night with this box in your arms? A box found to contain letters, documents, and missives penned by members of the nobility."

"A mistake," Alben whispered again, trembling.

Lifting a sheaf of papers from the box, Barien continued, "Among the documents in this box found upon your person at the time of your arrest are letters and copies of letters. In short, forgeries. Specific charges against you are as follows: first, that you were instrumental in the slander and wrongful condemnation of an innocent and loyal servant of Her Majesty, Queen Idrilain the Second." Barien paused to select two letters. "Found in your possession is the duplicate of a letter purportedly written by Lord Vardarus i Boruntas Lud Mirin of Rhíminee, the very letter which sent Lord Vardarus to the block. With it, secured with a wax seal identified as your own, was found another, nearly identical letter entirely lacking in the details which damned him."

Barien lifted another bundle of papers from the box. "Secondly, you are charged with collusion to perpetrate the same heinous crime against Lord Seregil i Korit Solun Meringil Bokthersa. I myself received a letter identical to the one which I hold here, a letter bearing Lord Seregil's signature and sealed with Lord Seregil's mark. In this letter are statements which suggest he was plotting sedition and treason against Skala. Yet here, in addition to the duplicate, I find another letter bearing the identical salutation, signature, and seals, which is in every way innocent in content."

Honed by years of practice, the Vicegerent's voice echoed around the cold chamber. "I caution you to speak the truth, Alben the Apothecary. How plead you in the face of this evidence?"

"I-I heard a noise. Last night I heard a noise!" stammered the wretched man. "I went down and found that box. Someone must have thrown it in my window! When I heard the soldiers I panicked, great lord, most honored Queen!"

Standing behind the accused man, Imaneus shook his head.

Impassive as the marble statues of her ancestors, Idrilain signaled to the bailiff, who strode to a side door and knocked. Two warders escorted in an immensely fat woman in a garish brocade robe.

"Ghemella, gem cutter of Dog Street," announced the bailiff.

Catching sight of Alben, Ghemella screeched out, "You tell 'em, Alben, you tell how I only did the seal work! You miserable bastard, you tell 'em I didn't know no more of it than that!"

The accused man buried his face in his hands with a loud moan.

"Bailiff, speak the sentence for forging the documents or seals of a noble," the Queen ordered, looking sternly at the miserable pair trembling before her.

"The sentence is death by torture," announced the woman.

Alben groaned again, rocking miserably on his knees.

"My Queen, I am here at your own summons. Might I speak?" asked Nysander.

"I always value your council, Nysander i Azusthra."

"My Queen, I suggest that it is unlikely that these two acted on their own, but at the behest of another," said Nysander, choosing his words carefully.

"It is certain that Lord Seregil was not approached for the purpose of blackmail, nor was there any such evidence in the case of the late Lord Vardarus. Had these two been acting on their own, surely that would have been their motive."

Phoria bristled visibly. "Surely you're not suggesting that it would in any way mitigate the severity of their offense?"

"Certainly not, Your Highness," Nysander replied gravely. "I only wish to point out that the person who would orchestrate such a deception represents a far greater threat. Should it be determined, as I suspect it will, that the same person is behind the slandering of both Lord Vardarus and Lord Seregil, then we must learn what motivated them to so desperate a course of action."

"We shall have that information out of these two soon enough!"

Barien said, glowering.

"With all respect, my Lord Vicegerent, information gained under torture is not always reliable, even with a wizard in attendance. Pain and fear cloud the mind, making it difficult to read with any certainty."

"I am quite aware of your theories regarding torture," Barien returned stiffly. "What is your point?"

"My point, Lord Barien, is that this whole matter is far too grave to trust to such methods. Reprehensible as I find the actions of these creatures, they are inconsequential pawns in a greater game. It is their master whom we must run to ground at all costs."

As he'd expected, Barien and Phoria still looked dubious but Idrilain nodded approvingly.

"And what is your alternative?" she asked.

"Your Majesty, I humbly suggest that should you, in your great mercy, commute the sentence of the condemned to banishment in exchange for a full and free confession, then we may be a good deal better off in the end. Imaneus can validate whatever information they give."

Idrilain looked to the younger wizard.

"I have always concurred with Nysander's opinions regarding confession under torture, my Queen," said Imaneus.

With a humorless smile, Idrilain turned back to the accused, speaking directly to them for the first time.

"What will it be, you two? Full confession for the loss of your right hand and exile-or a red-hot pike up your miserable backsides?"

"Confession, great Queen, confession!" croaked Alben. "I don't know the man's name and I never asked. He had the look of a noble but I'd never seen him before and he hadn't a Rhíminee accent. But it was the same one both times, for the letters-forgeries, that is-against Vardarus and Lord Seregil."

"The truth so far, my Queen," announced Imaneus.

"What other forgeries did you execute for this man?" demanded the Queen.

"Shipping manifests, mostly," quavered Alben, staring miserably at the floor. "And—"
He faltered to a halt, trembling more violently than ever.

"Out with it, man. What else?" barked Barien.

"Two-two Queen's Warrants," whispered Alben, naming the document that allowed the bearer access anywhere in the land, including the Palace itself.

"You admit to forging the signature of the Queen herself!" Phoria burst out furiously. "When was this?"

Alben quailed miserably. "Three years ago, it must be now. They weren't any good, though, when I delivered them."

"Why not?" Barien's voice betrayed nothing, but Nysander was surprised to note that the Vicegerent had gone quite pale. Phoria also seemed shaken.

"They hadn't any seals yet," whined the wretched man. "I don't know where he meant to get them. I never kept any copies of the warrants, Your Highness, I swear! Let this wizard be my witness, I knew better than to mess with those!"

"And they never got no Queen's Seal from me, I swear by the Four!" Ghemella chimed in. Again, Imaneus indicated that the truth had been spoken.

"When did this occur?" Barien asked again.

"Three years ago last Rhythin, my lord."

"Are you certain? Surely you've done hundreds of forgeries. How is it that you recall this particular one so clearly?"

"It's partly the warrants, my lord. It's not every day you get a chance at something like that," Alben quavered.

"But there was the manifest business, too. One of them was for a ship called the White Hart, registered out of Cirna. I recall it because I did a favor for my neighbor, putting his lad's name on the crew list. Only, you see, the ship went down with all hands in the first of the autumn storms less than a month later. The boy was lost."

"You're certain of the name? The White Hart" asked Phoria.

"Yes, Highness. I don't recall the other vessels, but I know that one. I watched the port lists for months, hoping she'd turn up and the boy with her. My neighbor's never spoken to me since over it. Anyway, this man who came to me? He wanted a few other things over the years, manifests mostly, until last spring. Late one night in Nythin he came saying he had a letter he wanted altered and could I do it? The very letter you have there, Majesty, belonging to Lord Vardarus. For one hundred gold sesters I made him two copies with the changes. Ghemella did the seals, like always."

"And you made copies for yourself," interjected Nysander. "In case you might use them yourself for future gain?"

Alben nodded silent admission.

"And did this man provide you with the letters of Lord Seregil?"

Alben hesitated. "Only the first one my lord. The rest came to me from Ghemella just recently and I sold them to that same man."

"I bought them off chars," the gem cutter put in hastily.

"What's she saying?" asked Phoria.

"'Char" is the street parlance for a dealer in stolen papers," explained Nysander.

"That's so, your lordship," Ghemella said, determined not to leave out any detail. "I got them from an old cripple named Dakus."

Ah, Seregil, you outfoxed yourself that time! Nysander thought resignedly, knowing well enough who this "Dakus" was and where the second damning letter had originated.

"This fellow doing all the buying, he was pleased with the work I did," Alben continued. "He said he'd pay well for any letters from nobles whose lineage went outside Skala."

"Lord Vardarus' great-grandfather was a Plenimaran baron." Idrilain frowned, tapping the hilt of her sword. "And Seregil- well, that was certainly no secret!"

"And so you made the forgeries for him and once again kept copies for yourself," Barien said. "What was his purpose in securing these documents?"

"He never said, my lord, and I never asked," Alben replied with a hint of skewed dignity. "You'll pardon me for putting it so, but a forger doesn't last long without discretion."

"That is all you can tell us, then?" Barien looked to the wizard still standing over the accused pair.

"It's as much as I know of the matter, my lord," Alben assured him.

Imaneus nodded again but Nysander forestalled him.

"A few salient points remain to be established, the first being when the latest forgery was to be delivered and to whom. The second is whether or not the prisoners know of any Leran connection with this whole affair."

"Lerans!" Barien grasped angrily at his heavy chain of office. "What have the Lerans to do with this?"

"I don't know anything about Lerans," Alben cried out, looking imploringly up at Idrilain. "I'm loyal to the throne no matter what your blood is, great lady! I wouldn't have anything to do with that sort of thing."

"Nor I, your ladyship, nor I!" Ghemella sobbed.

"They speak the truth," said Imaneus.

"Their loyalty is so noted," Idrilain observed sarcastically. "But what of Nysander's first question? When are these new forgeries to be delivered, and to whom?"

"Tomorrow night, my Queen," said Alben. "There were three this time, those you have there done up in the yellow ribbon. There's a letter of Lord Seregil's, one from a Lady Bisma, and another from Lord Derian."

"All with foreign connections," noted Phoria.

"I wouldn't know about that," Alben maintained. "The gentleman only said I was to give them to no one but himself, just as before. He always comes alone at night. That's the end of it, my Queen, and by the Hand of Dalna, I can't think of a thing I've left out now!"

Idrilain turned her icy gaze on the jeweler.

"Have you anything to add?"

"I bought the papers and made the seals," Ghemella whined, tears dripping down over her quivering jowls. "I swear by the Four, my Queen, I knew nothing more than that of the whole business!"

When the prisoners and officials had been dismissed, Barien rounded on Nysander.

"What's all this about Lerans?" he demanded. "If you have any evidence of such activity in the city you must share it with me at once!"

"I should certainly have done so," Nysander replied.

"At this point it is simply a theory which makes a great deal of sense."

"Poor old Vardarus," Idrilain said sadly, pulling a letter from the box. "If only he'd spoken up—"

"You had no choice, given the evidence," Phoria insisted staunchly. "It all seemed irrefutable. At least Lord Seregil's come to no harm."

"Ah yes, Seregil. And what of him, Nysander? By rights I can't hold him. Yet if I release him the traitorous bastards who've concocted all this will surely bolt."

"That is certain," the wizard agreed. "He must remain where he is for now and we must hasten to allay suspicion at the apothecary's house. The neighbors will be gossiping of the night's events, and word travels all too quickly to evil ears. Our only hope lies in tracking this buyer of forged papers when he comes for the next packet. Alben could be put back in place—with all suitable restraints, of course—for the time it takes to apprehend our man."

"It must be done quietly," cautioned Barien.

"If word of this business should get out to the people, especially about Vardarus, I shudder to think of the reaction."

Idrilain waved a hand impatiently. "It's the tracking I'm concerned with. There's no room for failure. Barien, Phoria, leave us."

Accustomed to such peremptory dismissals, the Princess Royal and Vicegerent withdrew at once. Nysander watched them go, troubled by something in Barien's manner.

"He's been terribly upset by this whole business," said Idrilain. "I wish you'd mentioned your concerns about the Lerans to him before. He's always found the whole idea so upsetting."

"My apologies," Nysander replied. "It was simply a stab in the dark."

"But a good one, the more evidence I see. Damn it, Nysander, if those traitors have grown strong enough for something like this, then I want them destroyed! This delivery has to be handled perfectly, and anyone who can get their hands on a Queen's Warrant may well know the faces of my spies. Your people are another matter; even I don't know who most of them are."

Nysander bowed deeply, relieved that she'd reached the desired conclusion on her own. "The Watchers are at your command, as always. Have I your permission to pursue the matter in my own fashion?"

Idrilain clenched a fist around the hilt of her sword. "Use whatever means you see fit. Whoever this traitor is, I want his head on a pike by week's end!"

"As do I, my Queen," replied Nysander, "though I will be surprised if there is only one."

29

An Abrupt Change of Scenery

Caught in midpace, Seregil ran headlong into something in the darkness. Backing up hastily, he could just make out two tall forms that had somehow materialized in the cell. For a chilling instant, his mind skipped back to the lonely Mycenian inn and the dark presence he'd grappled with there; then he caught the familiar smell of parchment and candle smoke.

"Nysander?"

"Yes, dear boy, and Thero." Drawing Seregil to the back of the cell, he spoke close to his ear.

"Thero has come to take your place."

"How?"

"No time for explanations. Join hands with him."

Biting back a flood of questions, Seregil did as Nysander asked. There's hands were cold but steady in his as Nysander took them firmly by the shoulders and began a silent incantation.

The transformation happened with dizzying swiftness. For an instant the shadows of the cell seemed to brighten, swirl, engulf them all-and when Seregil's vision cleared, he found himself on the wrong side of the room facing a slim, all-too-familiar figure.

Raising a hand to his face, he felt a coarse mat of beard covering a gaunt cheek.

"Bilairy's Balls and Kidneys—"

"Quiet!" hissed Nysander.

"Take care with my body," Thero warned, touching his own new face.

"I'm more anxious to trade back than you, believe me!" Seregil shuddered, swaying a little in his new, taller frame. He could guess what was next and dreaded it.

Nysander slipped a firm hand beneath his arm and led him to the back wall of the cell. Reluctantly, Seregil took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped forward into the aperture that yawned, blacker than darkness and staggered out again, blinking and gagging, into the sudden brightness of Nysander's casting room.

"Steady now, I've got you," Micum said, catching him as his knees gave way. "Alec, the brandy. And the basin, too, by the looks of him,"

Seregil crouched over the brass basin for a moment, fighting down the intense nausea brought on by the spell; translocation spells had by far the worst aftereffect. Settling back on his heels, he gratefully accepted a cup of brandy.

Alec stared at him, goggle-eyed. "Seregil, is that really you in there?"

Seregil examined the pale, bony fingers wrapped around the cup, then knocked back the fiery liquor in a single gulp. "Gruesome, isn't it?"

"Thero was no more pleased than you by the prospect," sighed Nysander. "He was, however, a good deal more gracious."

"Forgive me," Seregil retorted. "I'm just not myself tonight."

Alec was still staring. "You've got Thero's voice, but somehow—I don't know, it still sounds more like you. Is it different than when you changed into an otter?"

"Decidedly." Seregil looked down at his new body warily. "It's like wearing an ill-fitting suit of clothes you can't take off. He wears his linen rather tight, too. I didn't know you could do this, Nysander!"

"It is not a practice of which the Orëska particularly approves," replied the wizard with a meaningful wink. "As it was successful, however, I should like to undertake a brief experiment. Do you recall the spell for lighting a candle?"

"You want me to try it while I'm in this body?"

"If you would."

Nysander placed a candlestick on the casting table.

Getting to his feet, Seregil held his hand over the candle.

Micum gave Alec's sleeve a surreptitious tug, whispering, "You might want to stand back a bit, just in case."

"I heard that," Seregil muttered. Centering his concentration on the blackened wick, he spoke the command word.

The results were instantaneous. With a rending groan, the polished table split down the middle and fell apart in two neat halves. The candle, still unlit, clattered to the floor.

They all regarded the wreckage in silence for a moment, then Nysander bent to finger the splintered wood.

Seregil sighed. "Well, I hope that answered your question."

"It has answered several, the most significant being that the transformation of magical power was complete.

Thero should be fairly safe, providing we proceed with all possible haste. There is a great deal to discuss before Alec returns to Wheel Street."

"I have to go back tonight?" Alec asked, clearly crestfallen at the prospect. "But Seregil only just got—"
Seregil gave him a playful cuff.

"Appearances, Alec, appearances! You're the master of the house in my absence, as well as a possible suspect by the sound of things. We can't have you dropping out of sight with no explanation."

"Quite right," Nysander agreed. "But we shall lay our plans before you go. Come down to the sitting room, all of you. I expect Seregil would like a decent supper. Thero ate almost nothing tonight."

"I can feel that!" Seregil patted his lean belly wryly. Following the others downstairs, he touched his face again. An unruly hair on his upper lip tickled a nostril and he smoothed it impatiently.

"Amazing," he muttered. "I've never cared much for all this hair you people have sprouting out of your faces anyway, but now that I've got it myself-it's absolutely revolting!"

Micum proudly stroked his heavy red mustache. "For your information, we consider it a sign of virility."

"Oh?" Seregil snorted. "And how many times have I sat waiting in the middle of nowhere while you scraped away at your chin with a knife and cold water?"

"It's my fashion," Micum said, giving Alec a wink. "Kari likes it this way—smooth cheeks with a bit of tickle thrown in."

"It itches," Seregil complained, scratching under his nose again. "Teach me to shave, will you?"

"You most certainly will not!" Nysander said sternly.

During supper the others outlined their recent activities for Seregil. He chuckled appreciatively over their adventures in Hind Street but grew serious at Nysander's report.

"Forging a Queen's Warrant? No wonder Barien was upset. Except for the Queen and Phoria, he's the only person with access to the necessary seals."

"Rightful access," Micum amended. "What do you suppose this ship, the White Hart, ended up with in her hold?"

Seregil looked to Nysander. "I could probably find out. Three years is a long time, but records would be kept in the shipping master's offices at her port of call. It won't show us her real cargo, I'm certain, but it would be a start."

"It will probably prove unrelated to the business at hand, yet I should prefer to leave no avenue untried," mused Nysander. "And now let us lay our plans for tomorrow."

 

Dawn was only a few hours away when they'd finished, and Alec suddenly gave in to a cavernous yawn.

"Sorry," he said, yawning again.

Seregil grinned. "No wonder you're tired. You've been busy!"

Thero would be a lot better-looking if he'd smile more, Alec thought, surprised at the difference it made.

What must Seregil's face look like now, with Thero's mind behind it?

"I'm done in myself," Micum said. "If we're all in agreement on tomorrow's work, Alec and I had better go find our beds before the sun comes up."

"You're getting old," Seregil scoffed, following them upstairs. "Used to be we'd be up for two or three days before you'd begin to flag."

"By the Flame, you've got that right! Another few years and I'll be happy to spend my days in a sunny corner of Kari's garden spinning lies for the servants" children."

At the workroom door, Alec turned for a last look at Seregil in Thero's body. He couldn't imagine a more unlikely combination. Shaking his head, he said, "It's good to have you back—sort of."

"Sort of good or sort of back?" Seregil countered, managing a semblance of his familiar lopsided grin in spite of the beard.

"Sort of both," said Alec.

"And I sort of thank you, all of you, for your good work tonight on my behalf," Seregil said, clasping hands with them. "Things were beginning to look a bit grim in that cell. Between the four of us, we should be able to sort things out soon enough."

 

A crushing weariness settled over Seregil as he went back downstairs. Collapsing gratefully on There's clean, narrow bed, he hadn't the strength left to pull off his shoes.

It's the magic, he thought, drifting off to sleep. Damn stuff always wears me out.

Exhausted as he was, the night was not a peaceful one. Tossing restlessly, he fought his way through a parade of uneasy dreams. At first they were only fragmented glimpses of the past few days-a distorted event, repetitious snippets of conversation, faces of no consequence looming again and again. Gradually, however, the images began to coalesce.

He was still in Thero's body, riding on horseback through the city. It was dark and he was lost. The street markers were gone, the lamps unlit on their hooks. Frustrated and a little frightened, he pushed on at a gallop.

His horse had no head; the reins passed over a smooth, glossy hump and disappeared somewhere underneath the animal's chest.

I can't stop it anyway, he thought. Letting go of the reins, he clung to the saddlebow.

Flecked with sweat, the strange creature thundered for hours, carrying him down one unfamiliar street after another until an owl flew up beneath its feet. Startled, the horse reared and threw him, then disappeared into the surrounding darkness.

Looking up, he found himself at the gate of Red Tower Prison.

Enough! I'm getting my own body back right now! he thought angrily, floating up from the ground and soaring to the roof of the prison.

It felt wonderful to fly, and he circled the Tower a few times, savoring it. The ships in the harbor were all on fire, however, and this disturbed him greatly. Diving like a swallow, he darted in through a hole in the prison roof.

It was dark here, too. Stumbling through the blackness, he spied a glimmer of light ahead. It came through the grille of a cell door. The door was locked but the wood turned to red butterflies at his touch. Passing through their gentle resistance, he stepped into a fiery brightness and threw his arm up to shield his eyes.

His true body stood in the center of the room, naked except for the crawling mass of tiny, spider-shaped flames that encased it from the neck down.

They should be gone! he thought, repulsed by the sight.

His body raised a hand to its chest, saying with Thero's voice, "They're coming from here."

"I'll stop them."

Approaching cautiously, Seregil brushed at the flame creatures on the chest. They fell away at his touch, revealing a bright blue eye glaring hatefully from a bloody hole in the chest just over the breastbone. Recoiling, Seregil watched in mounting horror as the skin around the eye began to twitch and stretch. The flame creatures crumpled and fell away and he could see the writhing motions beneath the skin of his body's chest and belly, as if something hideous was clawing its way out from inside.

Tears of blood streamed down from the unnatural eye but his face—Thero's now—smiled calmly. Still smiling, Thero leapt at him, arms outstretched as if to embrace him. With a strangled cry, Seregil fell backward through the red butterflies—

He sat up with a gasp. Pulling free of the tangled sheets, he went to the hearth and poked up a fire bright enough to light the room. His clothes were soaked through with cold, sour sweat. Stripping them off, he looked down at the pale, angular body he inhabited. Little wonder he was dreaming of his own!

The details of the nightmare were already skittering away, but he recalled the image of the eye with a shudder.

Tossing a few more logs on the fire, he climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up to his nose.

As he drifted back to sleep it occurred to him that this was the first time in weeks that he'd dreamed at all.
 

* * *
 

Late-morning light was streaming in at the open window when he opened his eyes again. Lying quietly for a moment, he discovered that he'd forgotten most of the nightmare. His second sleep had been filled with dreams of a lascivious nature quite unlike his usual fare and he'd awakened to find Thero's body in an uncomfortable state of arousal. Cold water soon put a stop to that. He pulled on a clean robe and went up the tower stairs two at a time.

"Good morning!" Nysander smiled at him over a cup of morning tea, a familiar, reassuring sight. "Are you feeling more at—dear me, you appear to have slept badly."

"I did," Seregil admitted. "I had some nightmare about going after my body. It had that eye in the chest, where the scar is. It was all sort of familiar, in a way, like I'd dreamed it before."

"How unpleasant. Do you recall any more of it than that?"

"Not really. Something about flying, I think, and fire— I don't know. Later on there were other, different images. Is it possible for me to have Thero's dreams?"

"A mental link through his body? I should not think so. Why?"

Seregil rubbed his eyelids and yawned. "Oh, nothing. First night in a new body and all that. Just between you and me, though, a few days in the Street of Lights wouldn't do Thero any harm."

"He seems to be celibate by nature."

Seregil chuckled cryptically. "By practice, perhaps, but not by nature!"

They kept to Nysander's tower all day, avoiding anyone perceptive enough to detect a change in "Thero"—not an easy task in a house full of wizards.

Wethis appeared to notice nothing amiss, and Seregil noted with amusement the guarded dislike that lurked behind the young servant's deferential mask as he went about his daily duties in Thero's room.

At midday Nysander went out to attend to some business elsewhere in the House. Seregil was poking restlessly around the workroom when a sharp rap sounded at the tower door. It was House etiquette to open the door to all callers, so Seregil had no choice but to answer. Peering out, he found Ylinestra waiting impatiently in the corridor.

Her green silk gown was gathered tightly beneath the breasts, setting off her ravishing loveliness in a fashion that Seregil could not help but note.

He did not know her well, and her behavior toward him had always been civil to the point of coolness. It was quickly apparent now, however, that this reserve did not extend to Nysander's assistant.

"Ah, Thero! Is Nysander in?" She flashed a radiant, violet- eyed smile.

"Not just now, my lady," Seregil replied, wondering how Thero comported himself around such beautiful women. He soon had an inkling.

"So formal today!" Ylinestra chided playfully, sweeping past him. The crowded confines of the entrance might have explained the generous brush of silk-clad breast and thigh against his side; something in the lilt of her voice warned otherwise. Following her back to the workroom, Seregil felt a pleasant tug of anticipation. Both of them, he suspected, were about to put on excellent performances.

"Out chasing around on behalf of his pretty Aurënfaie friend, is he?" she sighed, turning back to him with a conspiratorial pout.

"Not at the moment." Seregil gave a credible rendering of There's customary disdain at any mention of himself. "He's gone to see Mosrin i Argavan. Something about the library."

"And left you here to solitary toil, eh? How lonely for you. And me, as it turns out." Ylinestra drifted closer, and Seregil was suddenly aware of the light, spicy scent she wore. With it came a sudden mental image of the perfume rising invisibly from the warm cleft between her breasts. That put him on his guard. It wasn't his usual sort of thought at all, and smacked of magical machination.

"I hardly see Nysander anymore," she sulked, just inches away now. "You tell him for me that if he doesn't mend his ways, I'll look elsewhere for inspiration. I daresay he neglects you as well when that Seregil fellow is around. It makes one wonder—"
Arching a perfect eyebrow, she let the thought hang unfinished between them, then surprised him with a brisk, almost maternal pat on the arm. "If you find yourself at loose ends, my offer still stands."

"Offer?"

"Oh, shame on you!" she twinkled, coy again. "Those Ylani levitation chants I promised you? You still haven't come to learn them and you seemed so eager when we spoke last. I've a few other bits of magic that I think you'll enjoy, too, things Nysander can't teach you. I'd show you one now, only I need my own things. You must come to my rooms. You wouldn't want me to lose patience with you, would you?"

"No, not at all," Seregil assured her. "I'll come as soon as I can. I promise."

"There's a good boy." Brushing his cheek chastely with her own, she swept out leaving a light drift of scent in her wake.

Illior's Fingers! Seregil thought, impressed. What she hoped to gain by seducing Thero was beyond comprehension, but the sooner Nysander knew what was going on, the better.

 

To his disappointment, Nysander was more amused than outraged.

"What are you so upset about?" he asked. "Only this morning you were advocating just such a course of action yourself."

"Well, yes, but not with his master's lover!" sputtered Seregil.

"It is not like you to be such a prig," countered Nysander. "I appreciate your concern, but it is quite unwarranted. The lovely Ylinestra and I claim no more hold on one another than we do on the wind.

"Though I flatter myself that she does take some genuine pleasure in my company, it is my magic that interests her most. She has shown me a few interesting aspects of her own art, too, but it must be apparent to you of all people where my real interest in her lies."

"A good lay?"

"Beyond description, dear boy! And as neither she nor I have asked more than the other is prepared to give, we are quite satisfied with the arrangement. At heart, Ylinestra is a vain creature whose sexual tastes run more commonly to the conquest of virginal young men."

"She's a man-eater, all right. She's always very cool with me though."

Nysander let out a dry chuckle "I would hardly describe you as virginal. I suspect she also prefers her lovers to be more singular in their tastes than your reputation suggests. It is Alec I would keep an eye on, if I were you. She would have him—what is that colorful phrase of Micum's."

"On a platter with boiled leeks"?" Seregil snorted. "Thanks for the warning."

30

Down to Business At Last

By nightfall, suitable explanations regarding the previous night's disturbances had been carefully spread among Alben's Hind Street neighbors.

The forger, chastened and anxious to be of service, was temporarily reinstalled in his shop under strict but indiscernible supervision.

An icy drizzle misted down, making for a clammy vigil. Seregil stationed Micum on watch in the alley beneath Alben's window, while Alec monitored the street fronting the building.

Seregil took up his own position in the shadows of the courtyard.

As the hours dragged by, he noted grudgingly that he seemed to mind the cold less in Thero's body.

The man's night vision was rather poor, however, and his sense of taste was hopeless. Overall, Seregil reflected, the habitation of another person's body was nothing to be taken lightly. In fact, there was something rather obscene about it; he couldn't scratch without feeling like he was taking liberties, and trips to the privy were decidedly disquieting. It was, he concluded, rather like being forced into bed with a lover you didn't fancy. And it was certainly closer contact with Thero than he ever hoped to experience again. What Thero might be experiencing in his body he didn't care to speculate.

He was just wondering if he dared risk a stretch when he caught the sound of rapid footsteps from the street. Striding into the courtyard, a cloaked figure rapped softly at Alben's door. The apothecary answered at once, lighting the visitor into the darkened shop with a candle. In the instant both men were framed in the doorway, Seregil got a clear look at the newcomer-a well- dressed man of middle years. In spite of his clothing, however, the unconscious bob of the head he gave Alben in greeting betrayed him; this was a servant out of livery for the purpose of the evening's assignment.

Alben hung back for an instant, giving the candle a slight sideways jerk before he closed the door.

This was the signal. Creeping silently to the courtyard gate, Seregil passed it on to Alec.

He was about to resume his hidden position when he heard the rattle of Alben's latch. Caught in the open, Seregil made a show of heading up one of the tenement stairways. The emissary seemed unconcerned at being observed, even nodding to him as they passed in the yard.

Seregil waited a slow count of five after the man left the courtyard, then slipped out to see which way he'd gone. Alec motioned to the left. Micum had already been signaled, and together the three set off in pursuit.

Their man sauntered along at his ease for a few streets, then went into a tavern.

"You'd better go in. He's already had a glimpse of me," Seregil whispered to Micum. Nodding, Micum sized the place up, then sauntered in.

 

Micum Cavish had a particular aptitude for blending into tavern crowds. Settling near the door, he ordered a pint and kept a surreptitious eye on their quarry.

The fellow sat alone near the hearth, slowly nursing a mug of ale as if waiting for someone.

Presently a young servant woman joined him.

Sitting down with her back to Micum, she greeted her companion with a heartfelt kiss. Though Micum saw nothing amiss, it was certainly the perfect opportunity for a parcel of some sort to change hands. A moment later the pair left together.

Strolling out behind them, Micum loitered a moment under a street lantern and made a show of adjusting his cloak as he noted the direction the couple took. Alec and Seregil ghosted off in silent pursuit, and he followed.

The couple walked along arm in arm, heads together, to a small fountain circle where they suddenly disappeared down a dark side way.

Hurrying to catch up, Micum nearly fell over his friends crouched at the mouth of an alley. From beyond came the muffled but unmistakable sounds of a hasty coupling in progress.

Leaving Alec on guard, Seregil and Micum went back to the fountain for a whispered conference.

"What do you think? Did he pass anything to her?" asked Seregil.

"He could have, but I didn't see it happen." Micum jerked a thumb in the direction of the alley.

"Given this business, we can't be sure the girl's in on anything, or if they're just lovers."

"Damn! We'd better watch both of them.

They're certain to part ways sooner or later."

"You take her," said Micum. "Alec and I will stay on him. I'll meet you back at Nysander's."

 

A few moments later the sighing lovers reappeared and continued on in the direction of the Noble Quarter.

There were more lanterns as they went on, and a good deal more traffic; Seregil and the others spread out so as to be less conspicuous.

They nearly came to grief at the Astellus Circle. The Street of Lights was alive with activity, and the Circle was crowded with patrons coming and going from the various establishments.

Slipping through the crowd, Seregil suddenly lost sight of the lovers. A few yards away, he saw Alec casting around in alarm. A sharp whistle brought them both around. Standing on steps of the colonnade, Micum gestured in two directions at once.

Seregil caught a quick glimpse of the girl heading off down Eagle Street by herself. Trusting the man to Alec and Micum, Seregil hurried after her.

He had no problem keeping her in sight. There was enough activity in the street to cover his pursuit and she seemed to have no qualms about her own safety as she strode past the walled gardens of the villas.

Eagle Street ended in Silvermoon and she turned left toward the Palace. As he reached the Queen's Park, Seregil began formulating a plan for following her onto the grounds. Instead, however, she ducked down a side lane to the servants entrance of a grand house across the broad avenue from the Park.

Seregil waited until he was certain she wasn't coming out again, then returned to the street. With a growing sense of foreboding, he scowled up at the gilded bulls rearing protectively over the gates of the eminent and all-too-familiar residence.

 

Alec and Micum dogged their man through a succession of fashionable avenues to a house in the Street of Three Fountains, which was not far from Wheel Street.

Unlocking a side gate, he disappeared into a fashionable villa.

"One of us should go in," Alec whispered. "The other can stand watch in case anything goes wrong."

"I guess we both know who's better at that sort of thing. Go on."

Scaling the wall, Alec dropped down into the garden. The layout of the place was similar to Seregil's house, but on a larger scale. The garden surrounded the house on three sides, and there were an encouraging number of windows overlooking it.

Keeping an eye out for dogs and watchmen, he crept forward.

Starting at the right side of the building, he worked his way from window to window, pulling himself up by the sills to peek in. Most of the rooms were dark or unoccupied, except for a salon toward the front where two pretty young women sat before a blazing hearth. One was working at an embroidery frame while her companion plucked listlessly at a lyre.

Leaving off, he gave the kitchen door a wide berth and set to work on the left side of the house, though with no more success than before. He was about to give up when he noticed a faint glow of light from a balcony just overhead. The ornate stonework surrounding a first-floor window afforded ample fingerholds. Climbing up, he eased himself over the balustrade. There was a small table on the balcony. Two wine cups stood there, and a warm pipe.

The balcony door had been left ajar; peering in, Alec discovered an elegantly appointed bedchamber lit by a single lamp. Another door stood open across the room, and through it came the sounds of a heated argument. There were two male voices involved, one strident with anger, the other shrill in its protestations of innocence.

"How can you accuse me of such a thing?" the higher voice demanded.

"How can you look me in the face and deny it?" boomed the other. "You greedy, bungling idiot. You've destroyed me! You have destroyed this family!"

"Uncle, please."

"Never let me hear that word in your throat again, you viper!" shouted the other. "From this day forth you are no kin of mine."

A door slammed forcibly, and Alec shrank back as a young man entered the bedchamber and collapsed into a chair. His elaborate surcoat showed him to be the master of the house. He was fair-skinned, with a small blond chin tuft that he fingered nervously as he sat. A nagging tingle of recognition stirred in the back of Alec's mind as he studied the haggard profile. He couldn't immediately place the man, but he felt certain he'd seen him before.

The man was clearly agitated. Gnawing at a thumbnail, he lurched to his feet again, then beat a fist against one thigh as he paced up and down the room.

The significance of the balcony table occurred to Alec almost too late. The man swerved suddenly, heading out to settle his nerves with wine and tobacco. Clambering back over the railing, Alec caught hold of two carved balusters and hung by his fingers. The evening drizzle had thickened to sleet and the polished marble felt slick as lard in his hands as he clung doggedly on, feet dangling twenty feet above the ground. Glancing sideways, he saw that he could probably reach the cornice of the downstairs window with his left foot but he didn't dare chance the noise. To make matters worse, his side of the balcony overlooked the street; it would be the most natural thing in the world for the man to lean on the railing just there, glance down.

Looking up, Alec could see the side of the man's silken slipper less than a foot from his rapidly whitening knuckles. Cold fire ached down through his wrists and arms, weakening his grip, numbing his fingers.

Melting sleet trickled down over his face and ran down his sleeves into his armpits. Biting his lip, he gripped the posts harder, scarcely daring to breathe.

Just when it seemed he'd have to chance dropping and running, a knock came at the chamber door.

Tappng his pipe out on the railing above Alec, the man disappeared back into the room.

Alec shook the hot ashes from his hair and found a foothold on the window cornice. Bracing his shoulder in the angle of the balcony, he flexed his stiffened fingers. The balcony door had been left open again and he could hear the conversation inside quite clearly.

"Any difficulty with Alben?" This was the nobleman, calmer now and speaking with authority.

"Not exactly, my lord," replied the newcomer.

"Though he didn't seem quite himself, somehow. But I did get the documents and these, as well, while I was out."

"Well done, Marsin, well done!"

Alec heard the metallic clink of coins changing hands.

"Thank you, sir. Shall I deliver it now?"

"No, I'll go. My horse is already saddled. See to it that the house is locked up for the night and inform Lady Althia that I'll be returning tomorrow."

"I will, sir, and a good evening to you."

Alec heard the servant leave, and a moment later the light was extinguished. Climbing down, he hurried back to the street in time to see a man galloping out the front gate on a white horse.

"We're losing him!" he exclaimed as Micum appeared out of the shadows beside him. "I think he's off to deliver the forged letters!"

"Deliver them where?" Micum asked, scanning the neighborhood for quickly obtainable horses. There were none.

"I don't know," Alec replied in an agony of impatience. The rider had already disappeared around a corner and the sound of hooves was fading rapidly.

"Damn it, now we've lost him!"

"Can't be helped. At least we've got a connection to work with and that's a start. And you'll never guess who else came riding out of that gate a short while ago."

"Who?"

"Only the Lord Vicegerent himself. You should have seen him! I didn't know the old fellow could ride like that."

"Barien?" Alec's eyes widened as a memory snapped into place. "Maker's Mercy, that's it! This is Lord Teukros' house. The Vicegerent's nephewl I knew I'd seen him before, that day I rode around the Ring."

"The nephew, eh? By the Flame, that looks bad-though I can't imagine Barien mixed up in anything disloyal to the Queen!"

"He was cursing Teukros when I first got there," Alec told him. "He called him a viper and disowned him."

"Well, that's a strike in the old man's favor. Come on, we'd better go let the others know."

 

Still smarting over the loss of Teukros, Alec was in a dour mood by the time he and Micum reached Nysander's door.

"Good hunting?" the wizard inquired, letting them into the workroom.

"In a manner of speaking," Micum replied.

"Is Seregil back?"

"No, he was up to something in the vicinity of the Palace when I last checked. Come downstairs. nd warm yourselves. You both look quite damp."

Standing before the sitting room fire, Alec carefully recounted their evening's work. Nysander made no effort to hide his dismay over what they'd learned and sat silently for some moments after he'd finished.

"What do you think?" Alec ventured. "Could Barien be mixed up in something like this?"

"It is difficult to imagine. Young Teukros is another matter, however. In spite of his obvious wealth, Teukros i Kallas is not known for his perspicacity. Whatever his involvement in this, I would wager that he is acting at the direction of another."

"We'd have found out if we could have followed him tonight," grumbled Alec.

"Patience, dear boy. It should not be difficult to obtain that information. You said Lord Teukros' pretty wife is at home tonight?"

"Yes, but we can't just knock on the door and ask her."

"Of course we can! What do you say, Micum?

An urgent message carried by a servant of the Orëska House, one which must be delivered into Lord Teukros' hands at all costs this very night?"

Micum grinned wolfishly. "That should do the trick."

Going to his desk, Nysander quickly penned a cordial dinner invitation for the following evening.

"What happens when he shows up for dinner?" asked Alec, peering over the wizard's shoulder.

Nysander chuckled darkly. "Assuming that he does, I shall be afforded an opportunity to give closer attention to this enterprising young spy." Sealing the missive with an impressive array of ribbons and wax seals, Nysander sent Wethis off to deliver it.

Seregil arrived soon after. He was smeared with mud, and sported torn breeches and a ragged scrape across the back of one hand.

"Illior's Eyes, Seregil, what have you been doing with poor Thero's body?" asked Nysander, handing him a clean robe.

"You'd think he could at least climb a garden wall!" Seregil said in disgust, shucking the filthy breeches off to show them an angry bruise on one of Thero's pale, hairy knees. "Never mind that, though. Micum, Alec, you'll never guess where our little serving maid led me! Straight to the house of the Vicegerent."

He paused. "What? What is it? Neither of you look very surprised."

"That's because our man led us to Teukros' villa,"

Micum informed him. "Alec overheard him and his uncle having quite an argument."

"The man we followed tonight was Teukros' servant, by the name of Marsin. He brought the forged documents to Teukros," said Alec. "Then Teukros took off on horseback to deliver them, but we don't know where. Nysander's sent Wethis off to find out."

"I hope he does," said Seregil. "That brat Teukros certainly can't be at the bottom of anything like this! Incidentally, Barien came home after you saw him. I hung around to make certain the girl wasn't coming out again and saw him arrive. Anyway, a few minutes later a messenger goes across to the Queen's Park gate and tells the guards there he has a message for the Princess Royal. This same messenger is out again a few minutes later with someone wrapped up in a dark cloak and hood. I couldn't see her face, but it was Phoria; I know that stiff-legged stride of hers. I went over the wall to see what was up-that's when I fell-but I couldn't get a look at them."

He was interrupted by Wethis, who'd returned from his errand.

"Lord Teukros wasn't home to receive the message," the young servant reported. "Lady Althia says he's gone out to Lady Kassarie's estate and isn't expected home until tomorrow afternoon. Shall I ride out?"

"That is not necessary, Wethis, thank you. I shall not be needing you again tonight."

Micum raised a skeptical eyebrow as Wethis went out. "Kassarie? What would she want with a strutting cowbird like Teukros?"

"They have some common shipping interests, I believe," said Nysander.

"How interesting if Kassarie was mixed up in all this," Seregil speculated, looking pensive. "She's rich, powerful, and fairly influential among the more conservative nobles. To my knowledge she's not part of the Queen's inner circle, but—"

"Who's Kassarie?" asked Alec.

Seregil steepled his fingers before him in a manner that generally presaged one of his encyclopedic recitations. "Lady Kassarie a Moirian is the head of another of Skala's oldest families. Like Barien, she can trace her lineage back to the Hierophantic migration. And, I should add, without a drop of foreign blood sullying her august veins. Her ancestors made their fortunes in stonework at Ero, and prospered again providing Queen Tamir with stone and masons to build her new capital. Her estate lies up in the mountains about ten miles or so southeast of the city."

Nysander rose to pace the small room. "Be that as it may, I find it inconceivable that Barien should be involved with such a plan. Illior's Eyes, I have known that man for fifty years! And Phoria? That makes no sense whatsoever."

"I can't imagine what she and the Lerans would have to gain from each other," Micum concurred. "In their eyes, her blood is as tainted as her mother's."

"She wouldn't be the first noble to be duped into a betrayal of some sort without realizing it," warned Seregil. "And if her dear close friend Lord Barien was in with the Lerans, he'd be just the man to do it."

"But why would he betray her?" snorted Nysander.

"Who knows? Alec and I could probably slip in and—"

"Absolutely not!" Nysander paused, rubbing his eyes. "I agree, dear boy, that we must examine this matter closely, but you must leave Barien and the Princess Royal to me. For the time being, you three are to confine your investigation to Teukros and Kassarie. It is not yet midnight; could you begin tonight?"

"Oh, I suppose we could drag ourselves out again, if we have to," Seregil drawled, exchanging a wink with the others.

"Excellent. I shall arrange a pass and see that your horses are saddled. Take whatever else you need from here. You must excuse me now, for I have work of my own to begin. Illior's Luck to you all!"

Alec let out a sigh of relief. "At least I don't have to go back to Wheel Street tonight. Runcer treats me like the master of the house, and I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do."

"I know how you feel," said Seregil, stretching restlessly. "I'll go mad myself if I have to be cooped up in here much longer."

Watching his friend scratch irritably at Thero's bearded cheek, Alec wasn't certain if "in here" meant Nysander's tower or the assistant wizard's body.

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