As Vallus had said, the alleyway soon joined a narrow road, much less traveled than the major thoroughfare. The few people that passed were all intent on their own business and didn't even spare him a glance. That was good. Even better, this road, too, led downhill. He turned right, as instructed.
This route was much less direct than the main road through the marketplace. It wound back and forth and intersected other roads, but the continuous throbbing pain in Teldin's knee told him it was always heading downhill. His level of paranoia was still high, and he kept a sharp lookout for anything that might be the elf s ambush, but he saw nothing to cause him any alarm. After a dozen minutes, he reached the harbor area.
He stopped in the mouth of a narrow street, staying as much in the shadows as possible while still keeping a reasonable field of view. He was looking out at what Aelfred had facetiously called the "Widow's Walk." This was the wide seawall that ran around the harbor, traditionally the place where sailors' wives-"sea widows," as Aelfred called them-watched for their husbands' return. By day, it was a hive of activity: longshoremen loading and unloading cargo, hawkers selling their wares from barrows, ships' crews seeking taverns or other diversions, and those whose livelihood came from offering those diversions. At night the traffic thinned out somewhat, though the wandering sailors and the women who beckoned to them never seemed to leave. From his position of shelter, Teldin tried to get his bearings.
It took a few moments, then the landmarks that he saw matched his mental map of the area. He was on the western arc of the harbor. A couple hundred yards to his left he could see one of the breakwaters that sheltered the anchorage. That meant the harbormaster's building was to his right, as was the dock where people boarded the tender to take them out to their ships.
That also meant that Barrab and his bravos were somewhere to his right, waiting for him to try to reach that tender. How was he going to get past them?
Or did he have to get past them at all? He'd been thinking exclusively in terms of the tender-naturally, since that was the way he'd always traveled back and forth to the hammer-ship, but this was a working harbor. There were small boats everywhere, weaving through the larger ships that swung at anchor. Most seemed to be ships' boats, ferrying cargo and crew to and from major vessels, but there were also small skiffs that looked like fishing boats. Wouldn't a port city such as Rauthaven have an active fishing fleet? Most would probably be outside the breakwater, returning before nightfall and readying for departure the next day at dawn. Surely there would be some that weren't at sea, however-in for repair, or to give their crews a day of rest. There would be no way that Barrab's watchers could guard the entire length of the Widow's Walk.
His first instinct had been to turn to the right, to head toward the tender dock. Now he looked to the left. Luck was with him. The docks a score or two of yards to his left seemed to be those devoted to fishing craft. The people who congregated there were hard-bitten types, many of them older and showing the leathery, weather-beaten faces that he associated with fishermen. A few yards farther on were a handful of younger men who were mending a large net. That looked promising. If the net was being repaired, wouldn't that mean the boat wasn't at sea? Teldin quickly checked his belt pouch. He had perhaps a dozen gold coins that Rianna had jokingly given him as an "allowance" that night at the tavern. Maybe he could hire one of the fishermen to take him out to the Probe.
He'd been standing in the mouth of the narrow street for too long; his indecision was too evident. On a nearby bench. an ancient scrimshander with a wooden leg had looked up from the piece of ivory he was working, and was watching Teldin with suspicion. He had to move.
He stepped out into the traffic along the Widow's Walk.
His nerves felt like taut wires. If his foes could detect the cloak's magic, if discovery was going to come, now was the time. He'd hear the shouts, the grasp of a strong hand, or maybe the bite of Spak's dagger. He struggled to keep his step steady and his expression free of the fear that threatened to dominate him.
He was concentrating so hard on spotting foes that it took him a few moments to realize that he could see a friend. Up ahead, in the mouth of an alley, was an unmistakable figure. Rianna's hair shone like spun gold in the sunlight. Her face was pale and drawn with pain, but her gaze was steady as she scanned the crowds. Flanking her were two large, brutal-looking men, cut from the same cloth as Barrab's sellswords.
His heart leaped, and it was all he could do not to break into a run. Forcing himself to keep to the same slow stride, he made his way through the passers-by toward her. With every step, he thanked whatever gods there happened to be that she'd survived.
He was no more than ten paces from her when her gaze passed over him and continued on. A moment later, he saw her eyes flick back to him and focus on the hilt of the sword at his hip-the sword she'd given him. He saw relief in her green eyes, but she had the self-control to keep her expression indifferent. As if bored with her vigil, she turned and walked deeper into the alley. Her bodyguards flanked her.
When he saw no one watching, he followed into the mouth of the alley. He glanced one last time over his shoulder, and his heart almost stopped. There were two more bravos behind him. They were twenty or thirty feet away, partially screened by other pedestrians on the Widow's Walk, but there was no way he could fail to recognize them. Compared to the people around them, they stood out like night wolves among a pack of lap dogs. They carried no visible weapons, but judging by their size, they'd rarely need any. Fear tightened in his throat.
The two bravos stopped right in the mouth of the alley, engaged in apparently casual conversation, blocking the narrow entrance almost as effectively as a portcullis would have. With a wash of relief, Teldin realized they, too, were on Rianna's payroll.
He turned. Rianna stood a dozen paces deeper in the alley. He rushed to her, heedless now of caution. He made to throw his arms around her, to hug her to him in a grip he never wanted to break, but stopped himself at the last minute, mindful of her injury. Instead he gently grasped her shoulders and just stared into her beautiful face, trying to pour out through his eyes the emotions he could never put into words. She smiled at him, a tired, sweet smile, and he felt that his heart would melt. At this distance, her pain and exhaustion were even more apparent. He could see there was a rudimentary dressing-originally white, but now stained dark-on her shoulder.
"Are you all right?" he asked at last. "How is your shoulder?"
"Messy," she admitted, "and painful, but not dangerous." She grasped his wrists. "And you, how did you fare? Oh, gods, Teldin-" there was a catch in her voice "-I hated to run like that, but I guessed that those wolves would sooner pursue the dog that had bitten them than pay attention to you. I see it worked."
"It worked," Teldin agreed, "but you're hurt for it."
She shrugged that off. "I'll heal." Her smile faded. "You're in deep trouble," she told him quietly. "I'm not sure you know how deep. Now, I don't know all the details about this cloak of yours-" she raised a hand to cut off his incipient comment "-and I don't want to know all the details, but I've figured some of it out. There are various groups involved, and they're all after the cloak. Isn't that right?"
Teldin nodded reluctantly. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you everything earlier."
"You told me what it made sense to tell me at the time," she said. "If I were in your place, I wouldn't have told so much." A brief smile lit up her face. "But I thank you for your trust. In any case," she went on, serious again, "one of the groups is a contingent from Falx. Do you know what that means?"