"I was heading for the market, but I got lost."

"Just go back up the street, turn left and keep straight 'til you get there." Favoring Alec with a knowing wink, he said, "I think you'll find Aren at the second tailor's to the right of the corner."

"Thanks again," Alec called after him as Micum strode away. The tall man raised his hand in a brief salute and disappeared around the corner.

Alec found Seregil busy haggling over the price of some tunics. Taking in Alec's disheveled appearance, he broke off quickly and stepped away from the booth.

"What have you been up to?"

Alec's tale was quickly told. Seregil raised an eyebrow at the mention of Micum's intervention but made no further comment.

"There's a good deal of activity in the square today," he told Alec.

"Seems we got here just in time. The Plenimarans are leaving tomorrow and the mayor is holding a banquet tonight in their honor, quite a grand affair. He is, however, somewhat at a loss for entertainment. I've just been working out a way to make myself conspicuous."

"What are you going to do, sing on the steps of his house?"

"Nothing so obvious. There's a very pleasant fountain right across the street from it. I think that's close enough, don't you?"

He concluded his business with the tailor and they set off across the bridge to Armorers Street.

The clamor of hammer on metal there was almost more than Alec could stand, but as they came abreast of a bowyer's shop, he paused, face brightening noticeably.

"I don't know much about that sort of thing, but I've heard Corda's the best," Seregil remarked.

Alec shrugged, not taking his eyes from the display of bows. "Corda's are fancy enough, but they don't have the range of Radly's. Either way, though, they're beyond my means. I'd like to stop in at Tallman's, if you don't mind. I don't feel comfortable traveling without a bow."

"Certainly, but first I want to see Maklin about a sword."

Somewhere behind the front room of the swordsmith's shop, hammers rang down on steel and Alec had to resist the impulse to put his fingers in his ears.

Seregil, however, poked happily through the gleaming collection of swords and knives that covered the walls. Most of these weapons were the swordsmith's own work, but one section was given over to an assortment of older weapons traded in for new.

Seregil paused to look these over, pointing out those of antique or foreign design, as well as certain clever modifications. Alec could scarcely hear him.

Mercifully, the din lessened suddenly as a portly man in a stained leather apron stepped in through a doorway at the back of the shop, shouting a greeting to Seregil.

"Well met, Master Windover! What can I do for you today?"

"Well met, Master Maklin," Seregil shouted back. "I need a blade for my young friend here."

"For me?" Alec asked in surprise. "But I told you—" The swordsmith turned an appraising eye on Alec. "Ever held a sword before, lad?"

"No."

Pulling out a set of calipers, the smith set about measuring Alec's various dimensions. Kneading his arm muscles with a serious expression, Maklin bellowed, "I've just the thing for him!" and disappeared into the workshop again. He returned with a sheathed long sword cradled in the crook of one arm. Presenting the hilt to Alec, he motioned for him to draw it.

"He has the height and span to wield it,"

Maklin remarked to Seregil. "It's a good blade, well balanced and easy to cast about with. I made it special for a caravaneer, but the bugger never called back for it. Not overly fancy, but it's a lovely bit of steel. I slaked it in bull's blood during the forging, and you know there's nothing finer than that short of magicking."

Even Alec could see that the swordsmith was being modest. The gleaming blade felt like a natural extension of his arm. It wasn't light, but he felt a certain natural flow to the movements as Maklin had him hold his arm this way and that. The hilt was wire-bound, with a round, burnished pommel.

The bronze quillons arched gently away from the hilt, terminating in small flattened knobs carved to look like the tightly curled head of an unopened fern. The blade was unadorned but mirrored the light with a faintly bluish sheen.

"A pleasing design," Seregil remarked, taking the sword in his hands and fingering the quillons. "Not fancy, as you said, but not cheap-plain, either. See how the quillons curve away from the grip, Alec? Just the thing to snap your enemy's sword out of his hand or break his blade, if you know what you're doing."

Drawing his own sword, he held the two up together to show Alec the similarity between them. For the first time Alec noted that the quillons of Seregil's weapon, which ended in worn dragon's heads, were notched and scarred with use.

"It's a fine blade, Maklin. How much?" asked Seregil.

"Fifty marks with the sheath," the smith replied.

Seregil paid his price without quibbling and Maklin threw in a sword belt, showing Alec how to wrap it twice around his waist and fix the lacings so that the blade hung at the proper angle against his left hip.

Back in the street again, Alec tried to thank Seregil.

"One way or another, you'll repay me,"

Seregil said, brushing the matter aside. "For now, just promise me that you won't draw it in public until you've learned how to use it. You hold it just well enough for someone to give you a fight."

As they passed the bowyer shops again, Seregil paused in front of Radly's.

"There's no point going in there," Alec told him.

"A good Radly bow costs as much as this sword."

"Are they worth it?"

"Well, yes."

"Then come on. If it comes down to you protecting our lives with it, I for one don't want you using some three-penny stick."

Alec's heart beat a bit faster as they entered the shop. His father, a competent bowyer himself, had often pointed the place out with uncommon reverence. Master Radly, he'd told his son, had gifts beyond the natural for bow making. Alec had never imagined that he'd enter the place as a customer.

The master bowyer, a stern, grizzled man, was instructing an apprentice in the finer points of fletching as they came in. Inviting them to look about for a moment, he continued on with his instruction.

Alec was in his element here, inspecting the array of bows with the same relish that Seregil had obviously felt at the swordsmith's.

Great longbows, six feet tall unstrung, hung on cords from the ceiling. Crossbows of various types were

displayed on wide shelves, along with lady's hunters, composite horse bows-nearly every type common in the north. But Alec's eye settled on those known simply as the Black Radly.

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."