Luck in the Shadows n-1 Read online

  Somewhat shorter than the regular longbow, these were fashioned from the Lake Wood's black yew, a difficult wood to work. Less experienced bowyers were likely to ruin half a dozen staves for every bow they came out with, but Radly and his apprentices had the knack. Rubbed with oil and beeswax, the black bows gleamed like polished horn.

  Seven of these lay on a long table in the center of the shop and Alec inspected each one, checking the straightness of the tapered limbs, the smoothness of the nocks and the ivory maker's plate set flush into the back of the grip. Then, choosing one, he grasped it on either side of the grip and twisted sharply; the lower limb of the bow came free in his hand.

  "What are you doing?" Seregil hissed in alarm.

  "It's a wayfarer's bow." Alec showed Seregil the steel ferrule on the end of the limb, with its tiny pin that locked in place inside the sheath of the hand grip. "They're easier to carry in rough country, or riding."

  "Easier to conceal, too," Seregil noted, fitting the sections back together. "Is it as powerful as a longbow?"

  "They can have better than eighty pounds pull, depending on the length."

  "And what, pray tell, does that mean?"

  Alec picked up another bow and held it out in front of him as if to draw. "It means that if you could get two men to stand one in front of the other, you could shoot a broadhead arrow through the both of them.

  They'll take down most anything from a hare to a stag. I've heard they can even shoot through chainmail."

  "They'll draw heart's blood from a brass weathercock!" said Radly, joining them at last. "Sounds like you know something of archery, young sir. What do you think of 'em?"

  "I like these." Alec indicated the two he'd laid aside. "But I'm not certain on the length."

  "We'd best check your draw," Radly said.

  Alec held out the bow and drew an invisible string back to his ear while the bowyer stretched a measuring line between the back of his left forefinger and the angle of his jaw below his right eye.

  "Either of these would do for you," Radly concluded, "or that there." He pointed to one on the table that Alec had passed over.

  "I'll go with these two," Alec said, sticking by his first choice.

  Radly held the bows up side by side. "Have a look at the plates."

  The shop mark, a black yew scrimshawed into the ivory, seemed almost identical until he pointed out a tiny R visible in the crown of the tree on both of Alec's choices, indicating that they were the work of the master bowyer and not one of his assistants.

  "You've a good eye for a youngster," said the bowyer. "Come and try them."

  Radly strung the bows, then led the way out through the workshop and into the alley beyond.

  At the far end, several targets had been set up.

  The first was a simple bull's-eye painted on a cross section of a large log. The second was another bull, but to reach the center of it the arrow had to pass straight through three iron rings hung from wickets between the target and the archer. The last was simply eight long willow wands stuck upright in the ground.

  "What's all this?" Seregil whispered as the bowyer went to adjust the wands.

  "I've heard it said that he won't sell a Black to anyone who can't hit all three targets," Alec whispered back, strapping a leather guard to his left forearm.

  Returning, Radly handed him a quiver of arrows.

  "Now then, let's see you shoot."

  Selecting his first shaft with care, Alec sent it straight into the center of the first bull. Using the second bow, he repeated the feat easily, shaving some of the fletching off the first shaft.

  At the next target, his first arrow glanced off a ring and fell short. Looking up at the clear blue sky, he drew in a deep breath, letting the necessary calm flow through him. On the second try he shot true, then repeated the shot just to be sure.

  Switching to the other bow, he made three clean shots in quick succession.

  It was a good day for shooting, he decided, relaxing into the almost supernatural sense of calm and well-being that came over him at such times. Moving to face the last target, he let fly four arrows in quick succession, hitting every other wand and nipping each off at nearly the same height.

  Behind him, Seregil let out a low whistle of appreciation, but Alec kept his eye on the targets.

  Changing bows, he quickly hit the remaining wands, shearing them off at a different height. As he lowered the bow, applause erupted behind him and he turned to find Seregil, Radly, and several apprentices grinning approval.

  Blushing, he muttered, "I guess I'll take this one."

  Seregil's afternoon foray was a success; he returned with the news that they were to entertain at the mayor's banquet that evening. As soon as he'd made apologies to the innkeeper, he dragged Alec off to a nearby bathhouse, then back to their room to put the final touches on his grooming.

  "You look better in this than I do," Seregil remarked as he adjusted Alec's sash.

  Alec wore "Aren's" second-best garments: a long tunic of fine blue wool edged with embroidered bands

  along the hem and sleeves. One of the scullery girls had been paid to burnish his boots to a respectable shine.

  Seregil himself was magnificent in a crimson tunic bordered with an intricate black and white pattern at neck, sleeves, and hem. His dark hair was bound back with a thin band of scarlet and black silk twisted into an elaborate knot at the back. Draping a new cloak of rich midnight blue gracefully over one shoulder, he pinned it in place with a heavy silver brooch.

  "While I was striking the bargain for our wages with the mayor's bailiff I was able to quiz him on the guests," Seregil told him. "Lord Boraneus, ostensibly a trade envoy, is the head of the Plenimaran expedition. There's another noble, a Lord Trygonis, who also seems to have some pull, though he doesn't say much. With a little sweet talk to one of the house maids I also found out that Boraneus and Trygonis are housed in the best front rooms on the second floor. Besides the usual honor guard at the banquet, I imagine there'll be plenty of soldiers scattered around outside. Now, are you absolutely certain you understand what we have to do tonight?"

  Alec was trying with little success to arrange the folds of his cloak in imitation of Seregil's. "We sing until everyone is well into the wine. You'll pause to tune the harp and break a string. Then I'm sent home for a new one and you step out for some air. There's a small servants' stairway at the back of the house that takes us up to the second floor. I meet you there and we go up together."

  "And you have the extra string with you?"

  "In my tunic."

  "Good." Seregil reached into the pack lying on the bed and pulled out something wrapped in a bit of sacking.

  Unrolling it, he showed Alec a handsome dagger. The handle was fashioned from black horn inlaid with silver. The slender blade was deadly sharp.

  "This is for you," said Seregil, balancing the dagger across his palm for a moment. "It caught my eye while Maklin was fussing over you. It's longer than your other one and better balanced. A little fancy for a bard's apprentice, perhaps, but nobody's going to see it in your boot. If we do our job right tonight, you shouldn't need it anyway."

  "Seregil, I can't—" the boy stammered, overcome. "I can never repay you as it is and—"

  "Repay me for what?" Seregil asked in surprise.

  "For this, for all of this!" Alec exclaimed, sweeping a hand around the room. "The clothes, the sword, the bow—I haven't ever made enough in my life to repay all this. Maker's Mercy, I haven't known you a week yet and—"

  "Don't be silly. These are the tools of the trade. You'd be useless to me without them. Don't give it another thought or insult me with talk of repayment. I can't think of anything that means less to me than money; it's too easy to come by."

  Shaking his head, Alec slid the dagger into the pocket of his boot and grinned. "It fits."

  "Well, let's get to work, then. And may Illior watch over us tonight."

  The stars were out by the time they set of
f for the mayor's hall. A cold wind cut in off the lake and they pulled their cloaks around them against the cold. As promised, Seregil had found Alec a pair of gloves, and he suspected the boy was grateful now for their warmth.

  Not for the first time that day Seregil asked himself what he was doing dragging a green boy he'd known for less than a week's time off on a burglary job. Or what Alec was doing going along with him, for that matter. Shrewd as he was in some matters, the boy seemed to place an alarming amount of trust in him.

  Never having been responsible for anyone but himself, Seregil wasn't quite certain what to make of it, except that taking Alec on as a partner of sorts out on the Downs had seemed like a good idea at the time. However much logic might dictate otherwise, looking at Alec striding along beside him, Seregil's intuition told him he'd somehow stumbled into a fortuitous decision.

  At the mayor's house they were taken to the kitchen for the customary meal. The tapestry over the door had been pulled back and they could see the guests in the hall being entertained by a juggler. When the last of the platters had come back to the kitchen and the wine and fruit had been passed, Aren Windover was announced.

  The great hall was ablaze with firelight and wax tapers. The trestles had been set up in a U facing the hearth and the company, made up mostly of rich merchants, guild masters, and craftsmen of Wolde, clapped approvingly as Seregil and Alec took their places on a small platform set up there. Alec handed Seregil the harp with a flourish he'd learned less than an hour before, then stepped back deferentially.

  In Aren Windover's most flowery manner, Seregil introduced himself and made a brief speech of gratitude to the mayor and his lady. His words were well received and he struck up the first song amid a flutter of applause. He captured his audience at once with a rousing hunting lay, then moved on to a succession of love songs and ballads, throwing in a raucous ditty here and there once he saw that the ladies approved. Alec took frequent turns at the harmonies and fetched ale for his master as the occasion demanded.

  The one calling himself Boraneus sat in the place of honor to the right of the fat mayor and Seregil studied him surreptitiously as he played. Boraneus was tall, with the high coloring and thick, blue-black hair of a true Plenimaran.

  He was younger than Seregil had expected, no more than forty, and extremely handsome despite the thin scar that ran from the inner corner of his left eye to the cheekbone. His black eyes sparkled rakishly as he shared some joke with the mayor's wife, but when the smile faded his face had a veiled, unreadable quality.

  By the Light, that's Duke Mardus—whatever he calls himself here, Seregil thought as he played. Though he'd never seen Mardus before, he knew him both by description and reputation. The most highly placed officer of the Plenimaran intelligence system, he was also known to be a sadistically ruthless inquisitor. Seregil felt an involuntary chill as Mardus' impassive gaze rested briefly on him. To have such a person study your face was the worst sort of luck.

  The other envoy didn't look like he amounted to much.

  A narrow, whey-faced fellow with lank dark hair, Trygonis was apparently doing his dour best to avoid

  being drawn into conversation with the garrulous matrons seated on either side of him.

  Splendidly dressed as he was in the regalia of a Plenimaran diplomat, to Seregil's practiced eye his pale skin and silent, peering manner told a different tale. He had more the look of one who spent his life huddled over books in rooms where sunlight never penetrated.

  Seregil played on for nearly an hour before he judged the time to be right. Pausing to tune the harp, he snapped the string and, after a tense, whispered exchange with Alec, rose and bowed to the mayor.

  "My most gracious host," he said, affecting an air of barely concealed irritation while Alec did his best to appear shamefaced. "It seems my apprentice has neglected to bring extra strings for my instrument. With your kind permission, I will send the boy back to my lodgings for replacements."

  Comfortably into his cups, the mayor waved agreeably and Alec hurried out.

  Seregil bowed again. "If I may ask your further indulgence, I will take this opportunity to freshen my throat with the cool night air."

  "By all means, Master Windover. I think it may be some time before we let you go. Your fine singing goes well with the wine."

  Once outside, Seregil made a show of clearing his lungs and admiring the stars. Spotting a Plenimaran guard posted near the front of the building, he asked after the privy and was directed to the yard in back of the house. As soon as he was safely around the corner, he pressed into the shadows and checked again; no guards back here. Alec was waiting for him beneath the servants' stairs.

  "Did anyone see you?" Seregil whispered.

  Alec shook his head. "I went across the square, then doubled back to the other side of the house."

  "Good. Now stay close and pay attention. If anything goes wrong, you're on your own, understand? If it comes to that, I'll do my best to come back for you, but your best guarantee is to not get into trouble in the first place. All right?"

  Looking rather less than reassured by this advice, Alec nodded gamely and followed him up the stairs to the second level of the house.

  The door was locked, but Seregil produced a long pick. Beyond they found a dimly lit service passage. Seregil signed Quickly and moved to a door at the far end. Beyond it, they could hear sounds of the revelry below. Opening it the merest crack, Seregil found that they were near the upper landing of the great staircase.

  Just as they were about to make a dash for the guest rooms, a black-clad marine came upstairs from the hall and disappeared into one of the rooms overlooking the street. Emerging a moment later with a small chest, he went back downstairs. Seregil counted slowly to ten, then drew Alec behind him into the hall. Moving quickly to the room the soldier had entered, they found the door unlocked.

  "This is Trygonis' room," whispered Seregil. "Keep watch, and if you touch something, anything, be sure to leave it exactly as you found it."

  Against the right wall stood a carved bedstead with a clothes chest at the foot. A tall wardrobe and a

  writing table stood by the window.

  "This first, I think," Seregil murmured, kneeling in front of the chest. After a moment's examination he drew a small leather roll from his tunic and spread it out in a workmanlike fashion on the floor beside him; it contained an impressive collection of various lock picks and other implements, each in a narrow pocket of the roll. The chest's heavy padlock came open on the first attempt.

  Except for a brass map tube, the chest contained little more than the usual mundane articles of clothing and equipment, all seeming to confirm that the man was a diplomat rather than a soldier. Quickly shaking out the rolled parchment from the tube, Seregil moved to the thin sliver of light at the door and unrolled it to find a map of the northlands. Alec peered over his shoulder for a moment, then went back to his watch-keeping while Seregil studied it more closely, committing the details to memory.

  Small red points had been inked in next to the Gold Road towns of Wolde, Kerry, and Sark. Several other points marked remote freeholdings along the Ironheart foothills, Asengai's among them.

  Nothing so surprising there. Seregil rolled up the map and replaced the contents of the chest as he'd found them. The desk yielded nothing of value, but in the wardrobe he found a small silk pouch containing a golden disk hung on a golden chain.

  One side of the pendant was smooth; on the other a peculiar, abstract device of intricate lines and swirls stood out in raised relief.

  Try as he might, Seregil couldn't make sense enough of it to reproduce it later. Mildly annoyed, he replaced it and joined Alec at the door. No more than five minutes had elapsed.

  The next room was very much like the first, except for a dispatch box sitting on the table. It was banded with nailed strips of brass and secured with an internal lock rather than a hasp. Moving to the light again, he examined the lock plate, noting tiny imperfections in the
metal around the keyhole. A less experienced thief might have dismissed them as pits in the metal; Seregil recognized the needle holes lightly plugged with wax and brass dust. Anyone attempting to force the lock while the device was engaged would end up with at least one tiny but no doubt heavily poisoned needle embedded in his hand.

  Running sensitive fingertips over the brass nail heads, he found one on the back left corner that depressed with a barely audible click.

  Double-checking to be sure he hadn't missed any others, he picked the lock and raised the lid.

  On top was a sheaf of documents written in cipher. Setting these aside, he found a map much like the larger one, but with only two red points marked on it: one deep in the heart of the Blackwater Fens at the southern end of the lake, the other apparently somewhere in the Far Forest. The point in the Fens was circled.

  Beneath the map was a leather pouch containing another of the golden pendants.

  What in the name of Bilairy are these? he wondered, frustrated again at not being able to make sense of the design.

  At the clothes chest he felt carefully down through the layers of tunics and robes until his fingers encountered studded wood near the bottom. Lifting the clothing out, he found a rectangular casket a foot long and perhaps half that deep, its lid secured only by a hook. His mouth twisted into a humorless smile

  as he cautiously opened it; inside lay a collection of small but effective torture instruments and several earthenware vials.

  More certain than ever that his man really was Mardus, Seregil took extra care to replace the box as he'd found it. As he was replacing the clothing, however, another leather pouch dropped from the folds of a robe. Probing inside, he found a few Plenimaran coins, two rings, a case knife, and some small wooden disks.

  There were eight in all, fashioned from some dark wood and pierced through the center with a square hole. They had a slightly oily feel, and each was carved on one side with the same frustrating design he'd seen on the gold pendants.

  Now here's a piece of luck at last, he thought. These crude things didn't look like something anyone would miss in a hurry. He pocketed one for later study.