Once again I must thank my patient beta readers, Aearwen and Ruger and all of the wonder writers on the Garden of Ithilien. Any remaining mistakes are my responsibility.

Haleth jabbed her needle into a piece of leather, stretched and rubbed the small of her back. Sitting cross-legged and hunched for several hours had left her stiff, even though she had leaned against the wall.

She surveyed her handiwork. The sail was slowly taking on shape with three panels completed and joined together. In spite of her initial doubts about her needle working abilities, the seams were straight.

There was much more work to be done but she lacked Inglor’s endurance. Not only were her back and fingers stiff, her stomach was reminding her it was well past noon.

She swung down the ladder into the main workshop area, leaving the stack of canvas and the wide window of the sail-making loft behind her. The workshop was relatively dim. Inglor, who was examining the ship with a look of concentration men reserve for their lover, shone softly in the darkness.

Haleth glared at the half assembled craft. There had been several occasions when she had considered setting the entire thing on fire but common sense, combined with the fear of Inglor’s puzzled, disappointed reaction, kept her from carrying the idea through.

She forced herself to look at the craft with the objective eyes of a shipbuilder. At least half of the strakes had been placed. Beams attached to the floor supported the structure so that Inglor could straighten the strakes before clinkering them together.

‘We should be able to start the frame tomorrow,’ she said.

‘I was planning on beginning the frame this afternoon,’ said Inglor, who was now examining the joints between the strakes.

Haleth winced. Her throat tightened and her eyes burned. It was bad enough that he was leaving her. Did he have to be in such a rush? ‘I’m going to see about lunch,’ she said, leaving before he could acknowledge her announcement.

The cool, overcast weather suited her dark mood. A stiff breeze blew out of the west, so the air outside the shelter of the workshop was considerably cooler. Haleth marched to the waterside to watch the river flow past and remind herself to show restraint. It was one of the most difficult things she had ever done; the attitude of resigned nobility was completely against the grain of her personality. She doubted she would remain unsarcastic for much longer.

Except at the rate Inglor was building the ship, it would soon cease to be a problem.

A lump welled in her throat at the thought of wandering Middle-earth alone. She was perfectly capable as she had done it for years before Inglor’s unexpected arrival. For all that he could infuriate her and all of the frustration he caused, the prospect of life without him was very bleak.

The wind grew stronger and Haleth was tempted to go back into the workshop to retrieve her cloak for she had been feeling the elements more lately. But if she went back inside, not only would she be admitting her frailty, she would have to face Inglor and the ship.

Her stomach growled as stood, frowning at the door of the workshop, shifting her weight from foot to foot. In the end the cold won and she decided to get the cloak.

She entered the workshop to find Inglor proofing one of the final strakes. He did not so much as spare her a glance as she shook the wood shavings out of her cloak and draped it over her shoulders. The lack of attention made it much easier to ignore him.

Back in the light of day, Haleth tried to decide what to gather. It was too cold to sit at the end of the dock and fish. She should check the snares she had laid out the day before. On the way she could scrounge through the old gardens and see what she could find.

The empty streets of Mithlond were more familiar but not any more welcoming. It began to rain before she had checked half the snares; a light, drizzle that was heavy enough to be annoying while not hard enough to justify seeking shelter. She pulled her hood over her head and soldiered on.

The first snares were empty; her depredations were already taking a toll on the local rabbit population. The fifth yielded a plump, young rabbit which lifted Haleth's sodden spirits. She quickly cleaned it. Once she had returned to the workshop she would skin it and cure the pelt. As she was feeling the cold, she intended to fashion a fur cloak for the winter. Admittedly she would resemble nothing so much as a Wildman from Dunland, but the birds and wild animals never seemed to mind the manner in which she was dressed.

She paused to gather some sage and parsley that were growing wild in one of the old gardens. The next snare was also empty, but there the garden in which it was set yielded lettuce and a few wild onions. Satisfied this would be enough for a stew, she began to make her way back to the workshop.

With the rabbit slung over her shoulder, a fist full of lettuce and her pockets crammed with herbs, she threaded her way through the wet streets, whistling loudly as she went.

It began to rain harder. Cursing under her breath, she lowered her head and ran. She rounded a corner and halted so quickly her boots skidded on the wet cobbles.

A dwarf stood before her. Chain glittered beneath his dark green cloak and hood. His beard was so thick that it nearly obscured his entire face. Only the area around the eyes and the end of his large nose were free of hair. Haleth barely noticed any of this. Most of her attention was occupied by the battle-axe blade that was inches away from her face.

They regarded each other in mutual surprise. The dwarf, his deep-set eyes glittering beneath his helmet, hefted his battle-axe and studied her in a penetrating way as though he was a tree and he was trying to decide the best way to chop her down.

Haleth's first reaction was to reach for her knives, but the dwarf was too close. She would be dead before the blades reached her hand.

She tried to remember dwarvish manners. It was exceedingly difficult to concentrate with imminent death glaring up at her.

'Good day to you,' she said.

The dwarf frowned. Haleth winced when she realized she had spoken Sindarin instead of Common.

'I mean, hello,' she stammered, switching to the Common Tongue. 'Haleth at your service.' She bowed low to the ground. The rabbit slipped off her shoulder and landed in a puddle with a wet splat.

'Froi! Where are you?'

A second dwarf rounded the corner. He saw Haleth, bent in two, the rabbit lying in the puddle and laughed harshly.

'What have we here, a Raider?'

'I'm not so sure,' said Froi.

'It's human. It's certainly dressed badly enough to be a Raider,' said the second dwarf who eyed her up and down suspiciously.

Haleth slowly straightened up. The newcomer wore a deep red hood. His beard was not as thick as Froi's. It was braided in and stuck through his belt. Like Froi, he carried a wickedly sharp battleaxe.

'But this one is female and very poorly armed,' said Froi. 'None of the Raiders have been women.'

'Pardon me, gentledwarves but what is a Raider?' Haleth asked.

The dwarves studied her and hefted their battleaxes thoughtfully.

'I think you should come with us,' Froi finally said.

Haleth had little choice in the matter.

They crossed the bridge. The wind had picked up and threatened to push Haleth off the span. The dwarves had taken the rabbit from her. She was somewhat grateful for this as it left both hands to hold her hood over her head and to keep her cloak closed.

The dwarves spoke to each other in their strange, guttural language. Haleth had never been able to pick up more than a smattering of it. As the words she knew were mostly curses, it was impossible to follow their conversation.

The dwarves led her the way that she had originally entered the city. They had set up camp in an abandoned, two-story house near the eastern gate. She was rather surprised to discover how many of them were there. She counted at least four in the yard and six more within the house. Assuming there were others searching the city, there could be at least twenty of them. It seemed a very large number of folk to be visiting a city where there was no one to visit.

Why they were here?

They led her to a room on the second floor and shut the door behind her. She checked the latch and discovered it was unlocked. Before opening the door she dropped to her knees and carefully peered at the shadows in the hallway. It was immediately evident they had posted a guard. There would be no escape that way.

Climbing to her feet, she quickly took in her surroundings. The room was dimly lit, the only light filtered through a pair of closed shutters. The only stick of furniture was an old bedstead that had been shoved against one wall. The mattress was gone, presumably taken by the dwarves to be used elsewhere, leaving only the ropes that had supported the mattress and the frame.

Ignoring the bed, Haleth crossed the room and examined the window. It should be a relatively simple thing to crawl out the window and make her way back to the workshop. On the off chance that the dwarves might find her trail and follow her, she would enlist Inglor’s aid. Inglor seemed to have a special understanding of dwarves and dwarven etiquette. He would be able to explain the situation to them. Haleth had long accepted the fact that while people were not inclined to believe her, even when she spoke an obvious truth, they invariably wanted to believe Inglor.

The shutters were firmly closed and bolted. She tried the bolt and discovered it was stuck. Closer examination showed it had rusted in place. This surprised her to no end. The elves had only left Mithlond five years previously. Most devices of elvish design would last far longer without rusting. She briefly wondered if this particular house had been empty for more than five years. As she would never know, she quickly dismissed the thought and returned to matters at hand.

Reaching in one of her many hidden pockets, she produced a small bottle of oil and carefully applied it to the offending piece of metal. She tried the bolt again. It was still frozen solid, so she applied more force until it screeched in protest. Leaping away from the window, she waited for the door to open and the guard to demand what she had been doing.

Either the guard was deaf or the sound had not been as loud as she thought for no one entered the room.

When her heartbeat returned to normal she went back to the window and resumed her task. It took quite some time, but she was eventually able to wiggle the bolt open without making enough sound to be noticed.

Smiling with grim satisfaction, she next turned her attention to the hinges.

As she worked, the rain began to taper off and the wind died down. Faint noises from the main floor drifted up to her. Deep voices rumbled beneath the floor boards, accompanied by the thump of many boots on the hard, wooden floor. Haleth briefly wondered what the former owner of the house would think of a group of dwarves marauding about the premises in their hard-soled boots. It was amusing to imagine an irrate elf woman shooing the lot of them out the door with her broom.

Once the hinges had been attended to, Haleth gently pushed on a shutter so that it opened by the slightest crack. She peered through the tiny opening and discovered that ivy had grown over the window. So long as she could still open the shutters enough to crawl out, it would not be a barrier. The plant could help her reach the ground if the branches were strong enough.

She peered out through a small hole in the greenery. The window faced west. The sky was clearing in that direction and the sun shone beneath a wrack of storm clouds.

As she watched, two more dwarves came up the garden pathway and entered the house.

Haleth slowly closed the shutters. She would have to wait until darkness fell before she made good her escape.

In the meanwhile, there was nothing to do but sit and wait and listen to her stomach grumble.

With her other tasks complete, her quickly became aware of her hunger. She silently cursed the dwarves for stealing her rabbit, even if she did not have any way to cook it.

She still had the lettuce and onions she had gathered, so she ate an unsatisfying lunch of vegetables. 'I imagine they have bread,’ she thought sourly. ‘They could at least have at least given me some.’

As if on cue the door abruptly swung open. A dwarf entered carrying a large bowl of stew and, wonder of wonders, a slab of bread.

Haleth’s mouth immediately began to water.

She attempted to read the dwarf’s facial expression, but between the dim light and the fact that most of his features were obscured by beard, this proved impossible.

He placed the food on the floor and, without saying a word, left the room.

'Thank-you,' Haleth said to the closed door.

She picked up the bread and sniffed it, anticipating the fresh, wonderful smell.

To her disappointment, it smelled of the bottom of someone's pack.

She tapped it lightly on the side of the bowl. It clunked like something very, very solid.

She raised it to eye level and examined it critically. There were none of the light, delicate holes proper bread should have. On a hunch, she tapped it on the floor. The sound echoed as though she had dropped a rock.

She took an experimental nibble from one corner. As she had expected, it had the consistency of tough plaster.

'Waybread,' she thought miserably. 'I should have known.'

Placing the bread on the floor, she turned her attention to the stew. It, at least, proved to be delicious, even though she suspected the meat was from the rabbit she had snared.

She finished the stew and secreted the bread in one of her pockets. If necessary, she could always use it as a weapon. Dwarves had hard heads, but she doubted even they could withstand a direct blow from a piece of dwarvish waybread.

She placed the empty bowl beside the door and, arranging her cloak as a cushion, sat in a corner to wait for nightfall.

The dwarves had thought she was a Raider. This was a worrying development. Who where these Raiders, where did they come from and what were they about? The dwarves had been ready for battle, which was alarming.

These Raiders could not possibly be hobbits. There had been trouble with bandits near Bree the previous year. She wondered if the remaining ne'r do wells had moved west since the Dúnedain had captured so many of them. Those individuals had been desperately poor. It seemed unlikely that they would worry the dwarves.

She was still pondering this when there was a commotion on the stairs. Haleth leapt to her feet as the door burst open.