Stalking Darkness

immediately recognized the two men with him as the helmsman and first mate from the ill-fated
Darter
. They recognized him as well, and returned his greeting with guarded nods, weapons close at hand.
    Rhal pushed a wine jug over to them as he and Seregil joined him at the table.
    Seregil poured himself a cup, then said without preamble, “Tell me more about Gresher’s Ferry.”
    Rhal eyed him knowingly. “As I said, a pack of armed men was laying for us there.”
    “A rough-lookin’ crew,” the helmsman, Skywake, added darkly. “They didn’t have no uniforms, but they sat their horses like soldiers.”
    Alec’s heart sank still lower, though Seregil’s face remained a carefully neutral mask.
    “They came asking after two men and a boy, said they’d stolen the mayor’s gold up in Wolde,” Rhal continued. “When I told ’em I hadn’t carried any three such as they described, they pulled swords and swarmed all over my vessel, bold as you please. Then their leader—a big, black-bearded son of a whore with an accent thick as lentil porridge—he laid into me, calling me a liar and worse in front of my own crew. The more he went on, the less I liked it. By the time he stopped for breath, I’d sooner been drowned than give him satisfaction. So I kept mum and finally they rode off.
    “We went on downriver and I thought that was the end of it, but that same night a fire started in the hold and burned so fierce we couldn’t even get down to douse it. Everyone got off, but my ship lies burnt and broken against the mud bank below Hullout Bend. That’s just a bit too much of a coincidence for my taste, especially since we were carrying silver and bales of vellum that voyage.”
    “Not the most flammable of cargoes.” Seregil regarded Rhal impassively over the rim of his cup. “And so you came looking for us.”
    “You’re not going to tell me you were traveling in disguise just to make a fool of me?” Rhal snorted.
    “No.”
    Nettles slammed his fist down on the table. “Then it was you they was looking for!”
    “I don’t know anything about that,” Seregil maintained. “What I’m interested in is how you found me.”
    “Not much trick to that,” Skywake told him, jerking a thumb at Alec. “This boy of yours asked around amongst the crew how to get to Rhíminee just before you got off.”
    Idiot!
Alec silently berated himself, his worst fears confirmed.
    “Who did he talk to?” asked Seregil, not looking at him.
    “There were a bunch of us on deck that day, as I recall,” Nettles replied. “Skywake, you was there, and the cook’s boy.”
    “That’s right. And Applescaith. He was the one wanted him to go overland the whole way, remember?”
    “Aye. Him, too. And Bosfast.”
    Alec sat staring down at his wine cup, mouth set in a grim line. How could he have been so green? He might just as well have drawn their pursuers a map.
    Seregil took another sip of wine, considering all this. “And so, with nothing more than a few tenuous suspicions, you chuck everything and head off for Skala to stick a knife in me?” He shook his head in evident bemusement. “Rhíminee’s a big place. How in the world did you expect to find us?”
    Rhal scrubbed a hand over his thinning hair and gave a short chuckle. “If you aren’t the damnedest creature for brass. All right then, I’ll tell you straight. You’re looking at a ruined man. All I came away with was my instruments and this.”
    Rhal held up his left hand, displaying a large garnet ring on his little finger. Alec recognized it as the one Seregil had worn while playing Lady Gwethelyn, but what was Rhal doing with it? Looking at Seregil for a reaction, he saw the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his friend’s mouth.
    “With the
Darter
beyond fixing and winter coming on, I didn’t see too many prospects for me in the north,” Rhal went on. “I was a deepwater sailor in my youth. I took up the Folcwine passage when my uncle willed me his ship and the chance to be my own master. Now with the war brewing up for spring, I figured I maybe could sign on with the navy.
    “To tell you the honest truth, I didn’t really expect to find you. Then I caught sight of your boy back around the time you had all that trouble with the law. Since then, we’ve kept watch on that fancy house of yours, hoping to have a quiet chat, as it were. You’re a hard pair to track down, though.”
    “It was you that chased me that night,” said