Stalking Darkness

15

"Where are we going?" Alec asked as Seregil headed west through the dark streets.

The quickest way to the lower city was down the Harbor Way.

"I need a very special horse for this one," Seregil explained. "There's an ostler over by the Harvest Gate who's likely to have what I want, and still be hiring out at this hour."

Pausing, he opened the wineskin and took a sip, then sprinkled a more liberal libation down the front of his surcoat. Evidently satisfied with the effect, he passed it to Alec.

Grinning, he did the same. "Drunk, are we?"

"Oh, yes, and I'll be worse off than you. You'll be playing the sensible friend."

"Don't I always?" Alec took another fortifying sip and capped the skin.

A lantern was still burning in front of the ostler's stable. Seregil fell into a loose, unsteady walk as they stepped into the circle of light.

"Ostler!" he called, striking an arrogant pose, fists on his hips. "Two gentlemen need mounts. Show yourself, man."

"Here, sirs," a man replied, opening a side door a crack for a wary look at the late customers.

Seregil shook his purse at him. The ring of coins had the desired effect; the ostler swung the stable doors wide and held the lantern while they inspected the half-dozen horses inside.

Alec quickly found a decent mare and the man saddled her for him.

Seregil was longer at it. After much pacing and muttering, he finally settled on a rawboned grey.

"I'm not one to tell a lord his business, but he's made a poor choice with that one," the worried ostler whispered to Alec. "Old Cloudy there has been off his feed for days and Jias a cough. If you'd speak to your friend for me, I'll see to it he has the best of my stable."

Alec gave him a reassuring wink and counted out a generous stack of silver. "Don't concern yourself. We're going to play a joke on a friend and your grey is just what we need. We'll take good care of him, and have them both back before dawn."

They set off at a trot, but before they'd gone a quarter of a mile Seregil's cob stumbled to a halt, nearly throwing him over its head. Jerking its head down, it let out a hollow, braying cough.

"Poor old fellow." Seregil patted the animal's neck. "You're better than I could have hoped for. We'll have to send a drysian to look at him."

"What do you think this spy of yours is up to?"

Alec asked as they continued at a walk.

Seregil shrugged. "Hard to say yet. Eirual thinks this fellow Rythel has some documents that he shouldn't. I want to see if she's right."

"Do you think he's a Plenimaran?"

"Too soon to say. At times like this it's best to keep an open mind until you have hard facts. Otherwise, you just run around trying to prove your own theory and overlooking important details that may turn up in the process. It could be there's nothing to it at all, but it's more interesting than anything else we've seen in the last few weeks."

Well-dressed, slightly intoxicated lords heading down to the lower city for a roister were of little concern to the guards at the Sea Gate. The sergeant-at-arms waved them through with a bored look and returned to the watch fire.

At the bottom of the Harbor Way they rode east along the waterfront past the custom houses and quays into a moderately respectable street lined with tenements.

A few lights showed behind shuttered windows, but most of the neighborhood was asleep. A dog howled mournfully somewhere nearby, the sound carrying eerily through the streets. Seregil's horse twitched its ears nervously, then let out another rattling cough in a jingle of harness.

"Here's Sailmaker Street," said Seregil, reining in at the mouth of an unmarked lane.

Unclasping his mantle, he threw it to Alec and shook out the mantle he'd brought from Eirual's.

It belonged to a captain of the White Hawk Infantry and bore a large, distinctive device.

"Who'd you steal that from?" Alec asked, watching him put it on.

"Borrowed, dear boy, borrowed," Seregil corrected primly.

Alec peered up and down the poorly lit street.

"That must be the house there," he said, pointing to one at the end of the lane. "It's the only one with a striped lintel."

"Yes. You hang back and be ready for trouble. If it comes to any sort of a chase, I'd better ride with you. I don't think poor old Cloudy has much run left in him."

Seregil emptied the last of the wine over his mount's withers, bunched the mantle awkwardly over one shoulder, and pulled one foot loose from the stirrup. Settling into a loose, drunken slouch, he nudged the horse into a walk. Riding up to the door, he kicked loudly at it.

"You! In the house!" he bawled, swaying precariously in the saddle. "I want the leech, damn him. By Sakor, send out the bastard son of a pig!"

A shutter slammed back just above his head and an old woman popped her head out, glaring down indignantly.

"Leave off with that or I'll have the Watch down on you," she screeched, swinging a stick at his head. "This is an honest house."

"I'll leave off when I've got his throat in my hand," Seregil yelled, kicking the door again.

"You're drunk. I can smell you from here!" the old woman said scornfully. "Who is it you're after?"

Just then, the grey jerked its head down in another racking cough.

"There, you hear that?" Seregil roared. "How in the name of Bilairy am I supposed to explain this to my commander, eh? Your leech has ruined the beast. Gave him a dose of salts and half killed him. I'll run my sword up his arse, that pus-faced clod of shit! You send out the leech Rythel or I'll come in after him."

"You whoreson drunken mullet!" The old woman took another swing at him with her cudgel. "It's Rythel the smith that rooms here, not Rythel the leech."

"Smith?" Seregil goggled up at her. "What in the name of Sakor's Fire is he doing dosing my horse if he's a smith?"

Lurking in the shadows at the mouth of the street, Alec shook with silent laughter. It was as good a performance as any he'd seen at the theater.

"Half the men on the coast are called Rythel, you fool. You've got the wrong man," the old landlady sputtered. "Smith Rythel is an honest man, which is more than can be said for you, I'm sure."

"Honest man, my ass!"

"He is. He works for Master Quarin in the upper city."

She disappeared and Seregil, no doubt with knowledge born of long experience, reined his horse out of the way just as she emptied a chamber pot over the sill at him.

Seregil made her an ungainly bow from the saddle. "My humblest apologies for disturbing your rest, old mother."

"You'd best sleep on your belly tonight," the old woman cackled after him as he rode unsteadily away.

"That wasn't exactly subtle," Alec observed, still laughing as they headed back to the Harbor Way.

"A drunken soldier making a ruckus at the wrong house in the middle of the night on Sailmaker Street?" Seregil asked, looking pleased with himself. "What could be subtler than that? And successful, too. Now we know that this Rythel is a journeyman smith of some sort. Which leaves us still asking what he's doing with gold enough for the Street of Lights and a lord's papers in his pocket."

"And why he had that much gold on him with the papers still in his pocket."

"Exactly. And what does that suggest?"

"That he's been up to whatever he's doing for a while already," replied Alec, looking back toward the waterfront. "We'll have to get into his rooms, and we'd better find out who Master Quarin is."

"We'll start tomorrow. Hold up a minute."

Seregil's grey was wheezing dejectedly now.

Reining in by a lantern at the foot of the Harbor Way, he dismounted and took the animal's head between his hands. "I'd better ride double with you, Alec. This poor old fellow's at the end of his strength. I'd better change cloaks, too."

Alec kicked a foot out of the stirrup and held his hand down. Grasping it, Seregil climbed up behind him and wrapped an arm around his waist.

Alec felt another unexpected twinge of sensuality at his touch, faint as a bat's whisper, but unmistakable. There was certainly nothing seductive in the way Seregil gripped a handful of his tunic to keep his balance, yet suddenly he had an image of that same hand stroking the head of the young man at Azarin's brothel, and later embracing dark-eyed Eirual.

Seregil had touched him before, but never with anything more than brotherly affection. Alec had seen tonight what sort of companions his friend chose-Wythrin and Eirual, both of them exotic, beautiful, and undoubtedly skilled beyond anything Alec could conceive of.

What's happening to me? he wondered dejectedly. Maker's Mercy, he could still smell Myrhichia's lush scent rising from his skin. From some neglected corner of his heart, a small voice seemed to answer silently, You're waking up at last.

"Anything wrong?" asked Seregil.

"Thought I heard something." Alec nudged the horse into a walk.

Seregil bunched the stolen cloak out of sight beneath his own. "I suppose we really should return this. I don't want any of Eirual's women getting into trouble on my account. I don't suppose you'd mind going back there twice in one night?"

Alec couldn't see his friend's face, but he could tell by his voice that he was grinning.

"Me? Where will you be?" asked Alec.

"Oh, not too far away."

Alec shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. "You're going back to Azarin's."

He heard a throaty chuckle behind him. "Fowl never tastes as savory when you're hungry for venison."

At least you know what you want, Alec thought grudgingly.