attack. Like Chaney, he had escaped unharmed.
'My apologies for disturbing your practice, Master Malveen,' offered Tal.
Radu inclined his chin.
'Perhaps I can make amends for chasing off your opponent. Shall we practice tomorrow?'
'No,' said Radu.
'Perhaps another time…'
'No.'
'Why not?' asked Chaney, cocking his head as if detecting a sound he didn't like. 'You came here with that fool Alale.'
'It's all right, Chaney,' said Tal. 'Let's see who's at the Green Gauntlet.'
'No, it isn't all right,' insisted Chaney. 'What's wrong with Tal, Malveen? He's twice as good as Alale, and you were going to face him. Weren't you?'
'Chaney!' protested Tal.
Instead of flattening Chaney, as was the usual custom among their peers, Radu merely nodded again, as if acknowledging Chaney's point. 'That is true. Master Uskevren is mechanically proficient with the sword.'
Chaney's head bobbed as if he'd just scored a touch, ignoring the caveat of 'mechanically.'
'So what's the problem?'
Tal wished Chaney would shut up.
'I will face you in the circle,' said Radu, turning his unreflecting eyes on Tal, 'once you begin treating it with respect.'
Chaney opened his mouth to retort, but Tal shushed him with a raised hand.
'This is not theater rehearsal,' said Radu. Few of Tal's peers thought much of the theater, but Radu sounded particularly scornful.
'I was just having fun with Alale,' said Tal. 'I intended no disrespect.'
'You don't understand,' said Radu coolly. 'You should never have permitted Soargyl to touch you. Your antics are an offense to the circle, to your sword, and to yourself.' With that, Radu Malveen made the most perfunctory of bows and turned away.
Chaney gave a little snort, but Tal noticed he didn't cast a snide remark after Radu.
'He doesn't know what he's talking about,' said Chaney. 'You're one of the best swordsmen in Selgaunt.'
'No,' said Tal slowly, 'I'm not.' Radu's words had disturbed him more than he thought possible. 'But maybe I ought to be.'
That evening, Tal returned alone to his tallhouse. The sun had just set, and his shadow stretched across the cobblestones in the deceptively warm-looking glow of the street lamps.
He'd had more than a few flagons of ale throughout the afternoon, but he was sharp enough to keep his eyes on the shadows. The figure trailing him for the past few streets was probably one his father's men. At least he made an effort to stay out of sight.
Throughout the day, Tal and Chaney had traded gossip and sung songs with longshoremen and market girls at the Green Gauntlet. When the wealthier patrons began arriving, they moved along to the less savory Black Stag, where they shared rude jokes and flirted with the tough women of that den of smugglers.
Chaney slipped out with a fetching young servant of the Hulorn's palace. Like Tal, he preferred common women to merchant nobility. Chaney considered them exciting and dangerous, the more disreputable the better. Unlike his friend, Tal simply found such women more approachable, free of the inevitable pretensions of the rich.
Unfortunately, even common women who learned Tal's heritage often became more ambitious than interesting. At the first sign of an ulterior motive, Tal's interest evaporated. Thus his experiences were considerably less epic than Chaney's.
The idea made him angry at no one in particular. He hated thinking his most valuable attribute was the accident of his birth.
These sour thoughts distracted him so much that he walked completely past his tallhouse. Turning back, he glimpsed a hooded figure gazing at him from the corner of his house. A woman's face framed in auburn hair, bright eyes-maybe blue or green-that was all he saw before she slipped into the dark alley.
She'd been watching for him. He was sure of it.
Tal ran to where she'd been. In the dark alley, only the glittering rails of shallow balconies and stairwells shone in the streetlight. Tal wished the moon had risen to shine straight down into the darkness. The woman could be hiding almost anywhere in that gloom.
Opening his eyes wide against the darkness, Tal stepped carefully forward. He debated whether to call out to the woman. But what would he say?
Before he found any trace of his mystery woman, a light appeared from the tallhouse beside his. A big-bellied woman stood on the second-floor balcony holding a lamp. She wore a gaudy, embroidered robe over her nightgown.
'Precious?' she called. 'Is that you?'
'It's me, Mistress Dunnett,' said Tal. He stepped out of the shadows and into the dim circle of her lamplight.
'Oh,' she said, disappointed. 'It's good to see you've come back home, Master Talbot. Have you seen my precious Pumpkin?'
'I'm afraid not.' Briefly, Tal wondered whether his mystery woman had done away with the cat, but he couldn't think of a reason why she would. After the scratch the little bastard had given him yesterday, Tal found himself unmoved by the thought of Pumpkin's untimely demise.
Tal said goodnight to Mistress Dunnett and went inside to bed.
In his dreams, Tal relived the terror of the Arch Wood, only this time the beast had him cornered. It harried him time after time, tormenting him yet withholding the killing stroke.
Gray light filtered through the draperies of Tal's bedroom window, but it was the noise that had awakened him from the vexing nightmares. This time, Tal awoke clearheaded enough to realize that someone was banging on the door to his bedroom. In fact, someone else was banging on his closet door-from the inside.
'Master Talbot!' called Eckart from the hallway.
'Help me!' cried an unfamiliar voice from the closet. 'They're still out there!'
Tal began to rise but paused, sensing something strange about the room. The curtains flapped at the open window, raising goose bumps on his naked flesh. That was odd, for he wasn't one to sleep in the nude.
Tal threw his feet over the side of the bed. Standing, he slid in some nasty slickness on the floor, crashing down beside it.
His head hit the floor beside the torn and bloody face of Alale Soargyl. Tal had slipped in the man's scattered guts.
Tal screamed, the voice from the closet screamed, and Eckart screamed from the hallway. Tal was the first to stop, scrambling through the horrid mess toward the hallway door. He found the portal blocked by a heavy chest pulled from the foot of Tal's bed. Crammed into the corner behind it was another dead body, or most of one, its remaining features unrecognizable.
Tal screamed again. So did the man in the closet. Eckart had never stopped.
Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, Tal shoved the chest away from the door to let Eckart in. His manservant took one look at Tal and began to scream again, but Tal quickly clamped a big hand over his mouth. His arms were bathed in blood, and he felt the stickiness all over his naked body. It was on his legs, his chest, his arms, even his face.
'Let me think,' said Tal, but a horrible realization had already taken shape in his mind. At last he knew the nature of his mysterious attacker back in the Arch wood. He understood now why he had been followed to the city.
'Fetch Chaney,' said Tal, taking his hand from Eckart's mouth. 'No one else, and I mean it. You don't want to be the one to describe this to my father, do you?'
