"What it takes," Seregil said, reaching into his belt pouch, "is the proper investors. Would this get you started?"

Opening his hand, Seregil showed them an emerald the size of a walnut glowing in the hollow of his palm.

It was one of many such stones Seregil kept handy as a conveniently portable form of wealth.

"By the Sailor, Captain, did you ever see the like of that!" Nettles gasped.

Rhal glanced down at the stone, then back at Seregil. "Why?"

Seregil placed the stone in the center of the table. "Perhaps I appreciate a man with a sense of humor."

"Skywake, Nettles, wait outside," Rhal said quietly. As they left, Rhal made a questioning gesture in Alec's direction.

Seregil shook his head. "He stays. So, what do you think of my offer. It won't be repeated once we leave this room."

"Tell me why," Rhal repeated, picking up the gem. "You've heard my story and told me nothing, yet you offer me this. What's it really paying for?"

Seregil chuckled softly. "You're a clever man, away from the ladies. Let's understand one another. I've got secrets I prefer to keep, but there are surer ways than this to protect them, if you take my meaning. What I'm offering you, all I'm offering you, is a mutually beneficial business proposition. You find a ship, see to the crew, the provisioning, everything. I provide capital, in return for which I receive twenty percent of the take and passage wherever I say, whenever I require it, which will most likely be never. The rest of the profits are yours to be divided in whatever fashion you see fit."

"And?" Still skeptical, Rhal put the stone back on the table.

"Information. Any document confiscated, any rumors from prisoners, any encounter that seems out of the ordinary—it all comes to me directly and not a word to anyone else."

Rhal nodded, satisfied. "So you're nosers, after all. Who for?"

"Let's just say we consider Skalan interests to be our own."

"I don't suppose you have any proof of that?"

"None whatsoever."

Rhal drummed his fingers lightly on the tabletop for a minute, calculating. "Ship's papers in my name alone, and I run my vessel as I see fit?"

"All right."

Rhal tapped the emerald. "This is a good start, but it won't pay for a ship, nor get one built before midsummer."

"As it happens, I know of a vessel being refitted at a boatyard in Macar. The principal backer's been having second thoughts." Seregil produced a stone identical to the first. "These should be ample evidence of good faith. I'll make arrangements to have all further funds paid out to you in gold."

"And what if I just slip the cable tonight with these?"

Seregil shrugged. "Then you'll be a relatively wealthy man. Are we to say done to it or not?"

Rhal shook his head, looking less than satisfied. "You're an odd one, and no mistake. I've one last condition of my own, or it's no deal."

"And that is?"

"If I'm to keep faith with you, then I want your names, your true names."

"If you've tracked me to Wheel Street, then you've already heard it; Seregil i Korit Solun Meringil Bokthersa."

"That's a mouthful by half. And you, boy. You got a fancy long hook, too?"

Alec hesitated, and felt Seregil's foot nudge his own beneath the table. "You'll have heard mine, too. Alec, Alec of Ivywell."

"All right, then, I'm satisfied." Pocketing the gems, Rhal spit in his palm and extended his hand to Seregil. "I say done to it, Seregil whoever-you-are."

Seregil clasped hands. "Done it is, Captain."

Alec was very silent as they rode back to Wheel Street. Passing through the glow of a lone street lantern, Seregil saw that he was looking thoroughly miserable.

"It's not as bad as all that," he assured him.

"Anyone looking for Lord Seregil knows where to find him."

"Sure, but what if it hadn't been Wheel Street he followed us to?" Alec shot back bitterly.

"We're much more careful about that. No one's ever tracked me there."

"Probably because you were never stupid enough to give them the damn directions!"

"Still, considering the circumstances—me too sick to think straight, you not knowing the country—I don't know what else you could have done, except maybe have waited until we were off the ship to ask the way. You didn't know any better then. You do now."

"A fat lot of comfort that'll be when some other old mistake of mine catches up with us," Alec persisted, looking only slightly less miserable.

"What if the next one who shows up is Mardus?"

"Even if those were his men that boarded Rhal's ship—and I admit, it sure sounded like them—he didn't tell them anything."

"Then you think we're safe?"

Seregil grinned darkly. "We're never safe. But I do think if Mardus had tracked us down, we'd have heard from him by now. I mean, he'd have to be insane to hang about in Rhiminee for any length of time the way things are now."

10

Sarisin wore into Dostin, tightening winter's embrace on the city. Snow gusted down out of the mountains, only to be followed by icy rain off the sea that reduced it all to thick, dirty slush and churned ice, treacherous underfoot. Smoke from thousands of chimneys mingled with the fog and hung in a grey haze over the rooftops for days at a stretch.

Preparations for war continued amid a constant stream of rumor and minor alarms. Skalan merchants were harassed in Mycenian towns, warehouses were rifled or burned. Plenimaran press gangs were reported on the prowl in ports as far west as Isil. Word circulated that more than a hundred keels had been laid down in Plenimaran shipyards.

No major host could be raised before spring, but the forces already billeted in Rhiminee were more visible than usual as they worked on the city's defenses and drilled outside the walls. Seregil and Alec often rode over to view the Queen's Horse at their maneuvers, but their friends there seldom had time for more than a brief hello.

At Macar, Rhal's ship was progressing rapidly under the captain's sharp eye. As Seregil had anticipated, once assured of the good faith between them, Rhal looked out for his silent backer's interests as if they were his own.

It would be another two months before the vessel could be launched, but he already had Skywake and Nettles combing seaports up and down the coast for sailors.

The one subject he kept silent on was the vessel's name. When Alec asked, Rhal only winked, telling him it was bad luck to say before she was launched.

Though by no means oblivious to the import of the events unfolding around him, Alec moved through the grey midwinter days in a state of increasing contentment. He'd gradually settled into the role of Sir Alec and had lost most of his awkwardness around the nobles. He was happiest, though, honing his more illicit skills as he worked side by side with Seregil as the Rhiminee Cat or on Watcher business for Nysander.

He also came to appreciate the amenities of life at Wheel Street. In his former life, wandering the northlands with his father, winter had always meant hardship—slogging up and down trap lines, sheltering in brushwood huts, and the snowy solitude of the forest.

Here, fires burned at all hours against the ever-present damp and cold. Thick carpets covered the floors, food and wine were there for the asking, and warm baths—for which he had finally acquired a taste—could be had at any hour in a special room just down the hall. Some of his fondest memories of those days would be sitting by a snug fire on a stormy day, enjoying the sound of the rain lashing against the shutters.

As always, life with Seregil had a charmed quality; his enthusiasm and irreverent good humor buoyed Alec along as a seemingly endless progression of lessons were placed before him. The more Alec learned, the more he found he felt like a man who'd thirsted for years unknowing, only discovering his need when it finally began to be slaked. In return, Alec tried to teach Seregil archery and, despite all evidence to the contrary, stubbornly refused to give him up as a hopeless cause.