most that came into his hands on the finer things, a cloak -oh gods! that cloak!
– Cappen’s aristocratic soul shuddered. But of the unassuming ruffians in the
lot, of what quality there was to be had in the Maze, in Hanse there existed at
least the hankering after something else.
The business had marked Hanse down – and now stopped and stared at himself. It
was always safer, he reckoned, to walk at a thing than to have it walking up at
his back – later and unforeseen. Cappen opened the door carefully, went out into
the backways, his hand on his rapier hilt, recalling that Sjekso had used the
same door last night. But there was only the dark outside, amid the litter of
old barrels and used bottles. The woman in black had vanished, and Vis with her,
vanished, and in what direction Cappen was in no wise certain.
Patience was rewarded. Vis, by the gods, and this Ischade … in company; and
Hanse crouched lower in the shadows of the alley, a chill up his back, his
fingers rubbing at the well-polished hilt of his left boot knife. That promised
a revenge within his own grasp: so Yorl wanted the woman, and if Yorl settled
with her, then Vis went in the same bargain. Hanse evened his breathing, calmed
himself with wild hopes, first of getting out of this Yorl business and then of
having Yorl to settle Vis – the means by which the street might be safe again
for Hanse Shadowspawn. Report, Yorl had said, and by the gods, he was anxious to
have it done, if only they went to earth for the night…
They turned, not the way he had anticipated, towards the lodgings he had been