Luck in the Shadows

dark."
    Alec looked the palisade over. "The walls are higher, too."
    "State your names and business, if you please," a disinterested voice called from overhead.
    "Aren Windover, a bard," Seregil announced, dropping into Aren's slightly pompous manner. "I am accompanied by my apprentice."
    "Windover, is it?" The sentry leaned over the parapet for a better look at the newcomers.
    "Why, I remember you! You played at the summer fair and was the best of all the bards that come. Pass through, sir, and your boy."
    A horse postern swung inward. Alec and Seregil ducked their heads and rode inside. The sentry, a youngish man in a leather jerkin, extended a long-handled toll basket down to them.
    "That's one copper a horse and a silver half penny for each rider, sir. We've not seen a proper bard or skald since you was here last, you know. Where will you be staying this time through?"
    "I mean to start at the Fishes, but hope for better before I leave," replied Seregil, motioning Alec to pay the toll. "By my recollection, it's early in the day for the gates to be locked. Aren't there more guards than usual?"
    "That there is, sir," the man replied, shaking his head. "There's been three raids on the caravans within the last couple of months, two of 'em within ten miles of the town. The caravaneers are mad as scalded cats over it, claiming the town's supposed to guard the road. But the mayor, he's more worried about Wolde itself being attacked. We've been building up the palisade and standing extra watches ever since. It all seems to have calmed down, though, since them southerners showed up."
    "Southerners?" Seregil's feigned surprise was not lost on Alec.
    "Oh, aye. Plenimarans, of all people! An envoy called Lord Boraneus come to set up trade, as I hear it."
    Boraneus?
    Alec stole a glance at Seregil; this was one of the names he'd picked up eavesdropping at the blind man's cottage— that and another, something starting with M.
    "Brought a mess of soldiers with him, too," the gatekeeper went on. "Must be two score or more. We didn't know what to make of it when word first come that they was on the way, but it turned out to be a good thing. They made short work of them bandits, I can tell you! The taverners claim they're a rough lot, but they pay well, and in silver. I warrant you'll pick up a good piece of trade with 'em yourself."
    "I have the greatest hopes." Throwing back his cloak, Seregil produced a silver coin from his own purse and flipped it to the man. "Thank you for your most helpful information. I hope you'll drink my health at the Three Fishes."
    Pocketing the coin happily, the sentry waved them through.
    Within the palisade the road wound through the center of the town toward a market square that spanned
    both sides of the bridge.
    The streets here were stained with the colorful, foul-smelling runoff of dyers shops. In the more prosperous lanes, raised wooden walkways had been built to prevent patrons from staining their garments with the mud. Gatherers' carts trundled from shop to shop all day, loaded with shipments of pigment-bearing plants and minerals. The poorest of children had bright rags on their backs; even the pigs and dogs that wandered the neighborhood displayed a startling diversity of color. The clack and thump of the weavers' looms filled the air and lengths of freshly dyed cloth, hung to dry on racks strung between buildings and over the streets, gave the area a perpetually festive appearance This was familiar territory to Alec, and he felt a twinge of sadness as he looked around. The last time he'd been here his father had been alive.
    "That's the mayor's hall there, where that Boraneus fellow is staying," he said as they entered the open square at the center of the town. Too late he recalled that his knowledge of Boraneus whereabouts had also been gleaned while eavesdropping.
    Seregil looked over at him, an unreadable expression on his face, and Alec added quickly, "Important visitors always lodge with the mayor. It's the custom here."
    "I'm lucky to have so well versed a guide," Seregil replied with quiet amusement.
    The large, elaborately decorated hall stood beside the Daman temple. Guildhalls and craftsmen's shops lined the sides of the square on this side of the bridge. The Temple of Astellus commanded the other side of the river, and with it the fishermen s guild, a tavern, more shops, and several inns.
    Seregil took the lead here, riding across the bridge into the Lake Quarter. As they