Luck in the Shadows

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 the 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 Aurлnfaie 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 Orлska 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 Aurлnfaie 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?