They went back very much the way they had come, and long before they came close to the alley behind the Unicorn, Cappen had a sure idea that such was their destination.

6

The pair of them went well enough where Hanse had figured they would go, in the alley behind the Unicorn. He held back as he had been doing and kept them in sight... wished anew that he had had the chance during the day to creep up to Ischade's lodgings and have a closer look, but she had been there most of the day, and daylight and the fact that it was the second storey gave him no easy options. When she had left, towards evening, he had been obliged to follow, having no real idea other motives and habitual movements ... and well that he had followed, since this evening had turned out as it had.

But there was still, as there had been, a presence on his trail -and that was Cappen. Hanse knew that much, had caught sight of the minstrel out of his own territory and seen him more than once on streets where Cappen had no business being.

And who had hired Cappen?

It was not Cappen's custom to take employment; he diced and he sang songs; but never this kind of work. He was not suited for ft. Enas Yorl could have hired better. Far better.

But this Ischade -

Hanse refused the idea. And yet constantly nagging at him in that small nook of his mind where he tucked coincidences, was Cappen's presence that morning. But Cappen had been in the game too, like Mradhon Vis and Sjekso; and Cappen had get off with some profit, as Cappen usually did.

Cappen bought him a drink; and that was uncommon, that Cappen had that much to spare. But it was in Cappen's nature to play the lord and throw about what he had.

Cappen had ducked out of the Unicorn a scant moment before the blind man came, having assured Hanse's presence there with that drink... but that then circled the matter back to Yorl, where it made least sense.

Hanse forbore another glance over his shoulder, reckoning that even Cappen's unskilled stalking might pick that up. He kept his attention towards the pair in front of him, kept moving where necessary - watched them reach the steps and both of them start up the stairs towards the lady's lodgings, without any exchanged movement which might mean the passing of the loot.

Now ... now while the noise of the creaking stairs gave him sound to rely on in tracking them - he had his chance, and took it, a path he had marked out that afternoon. He carefully set his hands on a barrel, levered himself up into a tuck and sought the next level of debris, noiselessly, one after the other, holding his breath as one foothold rocked and the next proved stable.

He made the roof as the pair made the door and opened it; he edged along it with the greatest care - a wooden roof at least, and not the tiles some fancied uptown. Even now he would have preferred to be rid of the boots and to go barefoot, as he had worked in the days before prosperity, but he figured there was no time for such. He edged his way around the ell of the roof on wet shingles and out on to that section over the room itself.

There was noise inside, a sharp, animal sound which lifted his nape hairs and made him less certain he wanted near this place at all. He edged closer to the very edge of the eaves, put his head over, viewing upside down where only parchment covered the window and formed a scant barrier to sounds and voices from inside. He heard footsteps clearly, heard a napping sound... and suddenly a jolt and crack as an aged shingle snapped in two under his hand on the edge. It flung him overbalance, but he caught himself on his belly, spread-eagled on the roof. 'Hssst!' he heard from inside, and he swore silently by appropriate gods and began to work his way hastily back from the vulnerable edge.

His hands, his legs went numb; his breath grew short and the talisman at his throat became a lump of ice and fire. Magic, he thought, some warding spell flung his way ... he dealt with wizards; and it was a trap. He strove to make his limbs do what they well knew how to do: carefully he put a knee on a wet and worn row of shingles on the slant.

One broke; he slipped, a rattling loud career down the layered face of the shingles, his feet swinging into empty air, his wild final thought that if he fought the fall now he might go head downwards or on to his back. He let go, slid, expecting a dizzying long drop -the barrels, maybe, the debris of the alley might break his fall and save his back and legs -

He hit the edge of the porch unprepared, a shock that sent him tumbling a further few feet down the stairs backwards - a ridiculous lot of noise, his battered mind was thinking through the pain, an embarrassing lot of noise...

And then the door was open above him, and he was lying sprawled on his back head downwards on the narrow steps, looking up through his feet at Mradhon Vis, who came with the metal flash of a dagger in his fist.

Hanse went for the belt knife, curled up and threw it with all he had: Mradhon Vis staggered back with an oath, spun half about by the cast as Hanse twisted to get up, his feet higher than his head with a railing on his left and a wall on his right, which hindered more than helped. He got as far as his knee when the bravo's foot caught him under the jaw and hurled him back into the wall; and a knife followed - further humiliation - up against his throat while Mradhon Vis grabbed his hair and twisted. Hanse fought to get loose; he thought that he struggled, but the messages were slow getting to his limbs, and the burning of the amulet at his throat distracted him with the feeling that he was choking or was it the knife?

'Bring him up,' a female voice said from the light of the doorway; and Hanse looked blurrily up into it, while a hand twisted into his hair jerked him up and the dagger shifted a keen point to his back under the ribs. He went up the stairs, and followed the blackrobed figure which retreated inside. There seemed little else at the moment that he could do, that he wanted to do, bruised as he was and with his wits leaden weighted. He blinked in the interior light, stared dully at the russet silks, at the clutter of objects separately beautiful, but which lay disarrayed - like bones in a nest, he thought distantly, thinking of something predatory; and he jerked at the sudden racket and nutter of wings, a fluttering of the lamplight in the commotion of a great black bird which sat on its perch over against the wall.

'You can go,' the woman said, and Hanse's heart lifted for the instant. 'You've been paid. Come back tomorrow.' And then he knew she spoke to Mradhon Vis.

'Tomorrow.'

'Then.'

'Is that all there is? And leave this here?' A jab at Hanse's back. 'I took a knife, woman; I've got a hole in my arm and you keep this and turn me out in the wet, do you?'

'Out,' she said, in a lower tone.

And to Hanse's bewilderment the knife retreated. Hanse moved then, turned in the instant, thinking of a quick stab from behind, his own hand to his wrist sheath ... and he had the blade out, facing Mradhon Vis - but somehow the rest of the move failed him, and he watched dully as Mradhon Vis turned away and sulked his way to the open door.

'Close it behind you,' the woman said, and Mradhon Vis did so, not slamming it. Hanse blinked, and the amulet at his neck hurt more than any bruise he had taken. It burned, and he had no sense left to get rid of it.

Ischade smiled abstractedly at her guest, left him so a moment, having greater business at hand. 'Peruz,' she said softly, shook back her hood, and taking from her robes the necklace, she drew near the huge raptor ... or the guise it wore. With the greatest of care she slipped the necklace into a small case which hung from the side of the stand and fastened the case in its turn to the scaly leg of the bird. Peruz stood still too, uncommonly so, his great wings folded. A last time she teased the breast feathers, the softness about the neck - she had grown fond of the creature in recent weeks, as anything that shared her life. She smiled at the regard of a cold topaz eye.