Stalking Darkness

steps of a country dance Beka and Elsbet had taught him.
    “Wrong!” Grinning wickedly, Seregil yanked him into a formal pavan. “Sir Alec is stiff-necked Dalnan
gentry
. Besides, he should be picking up a few of Lord Seregil’s airs along the way.”
    Alec leaned back in mock horror. “Maker’s Mercy, anything but that!” Still gripping Seregil’s gloved hand, his thumb found a ridge beneath the thin leather. Frowning, he felt at it. “What’s this? A bandage?”
    “It’s nothing, just a few scrapes.” Seregil stripped off the gloves and showed him thin strips of linen across each palm. “And what about you?” He turned Alec’s left palm up and examined the scab there.
    “I cut myself going over a wall the other night,” Alec told him, letting Seregil’s obvious evasion go without argument, knowing it would be futile to press him. “I got chased on the way home afterward, too, but I got away all right.”
    “Any idea who it was?”
    “Footpads, probably. I didn’t get much of a look at them.”
    “How many ‘thems’ were there?”
    “Three, I think. I was too busy rabbiting to take count.”
    “Let’s hear it.”
    Dropping into a chair by the fire, Alec launched into a well-rehearsed and somewhat embellished account of his escape down Silvermoon Street.
    “That was quick thinking, using the palace guard for protection,” said Seregil when he’d finished. “And speaking of the Palace, I’ve got something for you—a little thank you from the Queen and Klia, I think.”
    He took a small pouch from his coat and tossed it to Alec. Opening it, the boy found a heavy silver cloak brooch fashioned to look like a wreath of leafy branches surrounding a deep blue stone.
    “Silver leaves.” Alec smiled slightly as he admired it. “The first time I met Klia up in Cirna I was calling myself Aren Silverleaf.”
    “That’s a good stone,” Seregil remarked, looking at it over his shoulder. “You could get a fine horse for that, if you ever need to.Just be sure not to let on where it came from, or why. We’ve got reputations to hide.”
    Illia Cavish burst into the hall like a small, happy hurricane just after midday. “Uncle Seregil! Alec! We’re here!”
    From the musicians’ gallery, Seregil watched as she tackled Alec, who’d just come out of the dining room.
    “1 can stay up for the party this year because I’m six now,” she announced, hugging Alec excitedly. “And I got new shoes and a real gown with a long skirt and two petticoats and—Where’s Uncle Seregil?”
    “I’m on my way,” Seregil called. Going down the steep narrow stairs from the gallery, he strode across the hall and claimed a hug of his own. “Did you ride in from Watermead all by yourself, madame?”
    Illia pulled a long face. “Mother’s still being sick from the baby, so she had to ride in a cart with Arna and Eulis. Father and Elsbet and me all had to ride slow. But he let me come ahead when we got to your street. I’m the van soldier!”
    “I think you mean vanguard,” Alec corrected with a smile.
    “That’s what I said, silly. Do Elsbet and I get to sleep in the room next to yours, Uncle? The one with the dragon-shaped bed and the ladies painted on the walls?”
    “Of course you do, so long as
you
don’t pop out at the guests once you’ve been put to bed the way you did last year.”
    “Oh, I’m much too old for that now,” she assured him, taking him and Alec by the hand and drawing them toward the door. “Come on, now. Father and Mother must be here by now.”
    Wheel Street was thick with traffic, but Seregil quickly spotted Micum’s coppery head bobbing toward him through the press, followed by his second daughter and a covered cart driven by a pair of servant women. Old Arna spied him and waved.
    “I see Illia found you,” Micum said with a grin as they dismounted in front of the house.
    Seregil embraced his old friend, and then Elsbet, dark and shy in her blue riding gown. “You’re just in time. Alec’s done all the work.”
    “We’d have been here sooner if I could have ridden,” Kari complained, struggling from a nest of cushions and robes in the cart. Weeks of morning sickness had thinned her face, but thejourney had put the challenging glint back in her dark eyes. Micum helped her down and she embraced Alec and Seregil happily.
    Seregil eyed her rounding belly. “Breeding agrees with you, as usual.”
    “Don’t tell her that before breakfast just yet,” Micum