“And she’ll tell us to ask you, I bet,” Seregil chuckled. “Whatever the case, well done.”

“Will you eat now, my lords?”

“As soon as we wash up.”

“Very good, my lord. Oh, and the package you’ve been expecting arrived in your absence, Lord Seregil.”

Seregil grinned at Alec. “Come upstairs, talí.”

Alec returned the grin, murmuring “I always like hearing that.”

But Seregil led him into the library rather than the bedroom. A long, thin bundle several feet long lay across the desk at the far side of the room, wrapped in oilcloth and string and wax seals.

“What’s this?” Alec asked as Seregil placed it in his hands.

“Your birthday gift, of course.” He looked remarkably pleased with himself.

“The party isn’t until tomorrow.”

“I wanted to be the first. Go on. Open it!”

Intrigued, Alec sat down in an armchair, pulled the strings loose, and unrolled the bundle, feeling something curved and familiar underneath. When the last of the wrapping fell away, he let out a gasp. “A Black Radly! But—how?”

Seregil was positively beaming now. “I sent for one as soon as we got back this spring. I had no idea if it would make it all the way from Wolde, but as you see, it did.”

The wayfarer bow, made in two halves, lay in the wrappings in pieces, a braided linen bow string curled around them. Alec fitted the steel-clad post of one limb into the ferrule hidden in the grip in the other and twisted it to lock the two together. In one piece, it was only a few hand spans shorter than a long bow. Made of black yew, which grew only around Blackwater Lake in the north, the oil-rubbed limbs shone like dark horn. Master Radly was the finest bowyer Alec had ever found, and he’d mourned the loss of the first Radly that Seregil had given him, which was probably in the hands of a slave ship captain now.

Alec inspected the maker’s mark engraved on the ivory disk set into the back of the handgrip. Radly’s yew-tree mark stood out, and there was a tiny R in the crown of branches, proof that this was the product of the master’s own hands, rather than one of his workmen. Such bows were costly, but more than worth the price: strong, sturdy, and true.

Still gripping it in one hand, he jumped up and grabbed Seregil in an enthusiastic hug. “Thank you, talí. I just … I don’t know what to say, except thank you!” Holding the bottom end of the bow against his foot, he bent it to set the bowstring in its notches, then eyed down the length of it. “It’s perfect.”