Angel with The Sword

Chapter 5

IT was down the stairs once, and through to the plain room with the map—a group of shadows waited there in the starlight from the tall windows, and Altair hung back against Mondragon's grip on her arm. But he was going forward among them, and she went, his hand on her left arm, her other clenched tight on her bundle of clothes. Her heart beat hard against her ribs and her new shoes hurt her feet.

It was Hale and some of the others. She was not glad of the company. The great tall windows gave her the shivers; she imagined faces peering in the starlit glass (but no one could climb those walls on Port Canal; the balcony on this side of Gallandry was a level below) and she imagined black figures flowing along the bridges, along the balconies, down by the water where they had to go next—

Are you thinking of that Mondragon? These ain't good men, these Gallandrys. Can you trust them? Do you know how they are, do you know they got to push and push and beat a body down if she talks back, do you know they're cowards and maybe none too honest, 'cause thief goes with coward like salt with fish, mama said. Coward's only another word for cheat, take the easiest way, most comfortable way. Mama said.

(Retribution Jones with the pistol in her fine brown hands, oiling it down. And young Altair sitting there with the shivers in the sunlight, because her mother was talking quietly about a landsman who reneged on a deal. They found that man floating in the Snake come Monday, and her mother pursed her lips and said: "Well," when Muggin told the news, a cleaner Muggin in those days. But her mother never said more than that.)

Altair caught her breath and kept the new shoes quiet as she could as Mondragon pulled her along in the wake of the Gallandrys. Through a dark door—

"Mind your step," Hale said; and Mondragon held her arm tightly as she groped for the banister of a stairs.

Down and down, in total dark. She freed her arm, shifted her clothes bundle and clung carefully to the bannister as she went down the steps on new slick soles, blind in the dark with a cluster of Gallandry men about her and them all smelling of foreign stuff and waterfront and something her nose could not identify past the soft familiar canal-smell of the old clothes in her arm and the bath-smells on her skin. There was too much rush. They jostled her. Mondragon crowded her behind, down and down until they picked up a little light two levels down. A nightlight was in its niche; it flared and leapt and set their shadows to jumping in huge perspective on the walls and on the stairs as they came around this last turn. Her knees shook: a half dozen grown men slinking about like this and all of them clinking and rattling with swords and knives—What are you doing here? she heard her mother ask in her mind. She saw Retribution shake her dark head and look at her with stem disapproval. Altair, what in this sorry world are you doing?

I wish I knew, mama.

Forgive me, Angel.

It's this man—

She came down off the last step with her knees like to collapse to shivers under her and her feet all but numb in the pinch of the shoes and the socks—Damn, if I've got to skip fast I can't do 'er. She flexed her toes with a resolute effort, and watched solemnly as the men around her while Hale unbolted another door: the gold light flared in the draft as it opened and cast sinister lights on somber faces. Mondragon in his black scarf and his dark clothes was all hollow-cheeked and hawk-nosed and grim as any hangman. He turned that face her way as the men started through the dark beyond; he caught her arm and pulled her along with him—

—He don't trust 'em. Stay with me, he's saying. Lord, I hope that's what he's saying.

She drew a long breath as she went into the black closeness of a tunnel that smelled of old brick and damp and mold. Someone closed the door at their backs and it was utterly black then.

"Not far." someone said. Mondragon's hand squeezed her arm.

Lord, they could murder us both, they could take us here, this is Gallandry territory, they know this dark, we've come down near the water and it's an easy thing to dump us in and no one the wiser.

Someone up ahead opened a door before any of them could have gotten to it. It just opened, with less dark there than elsewhere, a trick of the eyes and the lap of water louder than the noise they made walking. It was the kind of sound water would make under a building vault, an echoey noise. Gallandry Main Cut, that was where they had come out: she had poled past it all her life.

They came out into that dark watery vault, that got only the ghostly starlight bounced from outside and not much of that. A black huge shape loomed up in front of them in the Cut, an impression of something blacker than the rest of the place and moving to the waves, and this was the barge. Black human figures moved along the narrow stone dock, silhouetted against starlight-on-water outside, going about their business of tending this monster in a deathly hush.

There was movement at their side; a scuff of a leather sole. Mondragon tugged at her arm and she went where he led. Someone led him, someone else crouched down waiting for them at dock-edge where a shadow-plank went up to that barge—no, two someones, one on a side, who knelt there and reached out to keep them steady as Mondragon headed up that plank—Damn. Unexpected cross-boards and the shoes made her feet slip with their unaccustomed heels: she felt Mondragon falter and recover on the tilted, moving surface; felt a hand reach up the inside of her knee and close hard, nothing familiar, a man trying to keep her upright. A second shove steadied her on the other side, and she caught her balance, clutched her bundle and made a quicker, steadier step as the plank rose and fell with the surge, sure of the cross-board interval now. Two more Gallandrys waited at the deckside end of the plank to steady them as they came off it; and as they hit the narrow wooden sideboard that ran around the huge cargo well. She knew these craft. She walked that narrow rim carefully, shook her arm to free it of Mondragon's assisting hand as she walked after the shadow-figure to the deck-edge and the ladder. The guide waited there, stopped her and gripped her sore arm. "Step," the man whispered, and gave her unwanted help, hauling her along down the short railless ladder to the well. Then he pushed her head and shoulders down and shoved her onto her knees toward the barge's version of a hidey, which was a cavern compared to a skip's.

She went in pushing her bundle of spare clothes in front of her on the slats, and crouched there facing the dark inside with the panic fear someone in that black hole might be waiting to grab her and do God knew what, and her not knowing whether to defend herself or not. Her teeth started to chatter and she clenched them. She heard faint footsteps thump overhead and on the boards outside and turned around as someone else came in after her.

A hand groped out, brushing her leg. "That you?" she whispered, hoping it was Mondragon, stifling a reaction if it was not.

"It's me," the whisper came back; and it had better be. The owner of it crouched down and felt his way up her leg and put his arm around her, hugging her close against him. She had not been shivering since upstairs. She began to men, and tried to stop. It was the hour, it was being roused out of bed and bundled out without breakfast, a body always shivered when she was waked prematurely and had to work in chill. His arm tightened as if he thought it was terror, damn him. He trusted this lot of pirates and knew where he was going on their barge.

"Yo," someone called out, meaning they were starting to make natural noise now, just a barge going out of Gallandry the way big barges had to, by night. A lantern flared, bright after ail that dark: the deep empty well of the barge showed bare slats and a clutter of folded tarps and coils of rope. Shadows moved crazily across the narrow view of vaulted ceiling and disappeared into the dark of the canal. Steps thumped on the deck overhead, bargemen cursed and made ordinary conversation.

"They'll know," she objected to Mondragon.

"They'll know, I don't doubt. But they'd have to do something about it."

The engine coughed and coughed under its crank. Caught and tunked away till the helm engaged the screw and the resistance brought the engine down to a steady low thump and echo in the confined Cut. Water surged and washed aft. "Ware cable," someone yelled, which meant they were casting off. Altair felt the motion and put her arm about Mondragon's waist, her head against his shoulder. Cold. Lord, this place was cold. The engine beat and beat its power into her bones.

Big barge could ride a small boat under. Engine noise lumping through the night was no strange thing: biggest barges always moved by night, avoiding traffic. Their lonely sounds haunted the dark—rare, thank the Ancestors; from time to time a bell tolled on darkest nights: Ware, ye little folk, give way, give way, the giant'll roll ye down, grind ye to splinters, send your bones to old Det. Moor a skip too wide beneath the bridges when such as this wanted through and it was ruin; she had seen the like once. Man, woman, and a boy ridden down one rainy night that canalers tied up too numerous beneath the Midtown Bridge; voices screaming, canalers trying in chorus to make themselves heard—Fools, her mother had said after, couldn't have stopped that barge nohow, they knew it. But a body yells anyhow. Makes the gut feel better. —A horrid scrape of wood on iron. Splintering sounds. Cries of rage; and that great black shadow chugging on through the rain, wreckage bobbing near Midtown pilings.

That great black shadow held them in its gut now, and eased out of its berth in the bowels of Gallandry, engine disengaged for the moment as they slewed round up Port Canal.

The engine took hold again, lump, lump, lump. She shivered again. Mondragon's arm tightened around her.

"Where's this thing going?" she asked.

"Right now, to the Grand. It slows and you step off—??

"The hell I will."

"—at the turn. It'll bring up a few seconds on the far bank. You can do it. I know you can."

"You with me?"

"I've got other business. I told you. You go back to your boat."

"The hell I can. You trying to kill me?"

"You go somewhere and lie low then. The noise won't last. I swear to you. Look." Mondragon shifted and fished after something about his middle, took her hand and put two round, flat metal objects into it. "That's gold, Jones. That's two sols, it's the best I can do: hide yourself and hide that boat awhile—buy some supplies and go anchor out in the bay. Buy yourself an anchor while you're at it. They can't come at you out there: this is city trouble."

She thought she had run out of shivers finally. One sharp tremor ran through her. The gold pieces lay in her hand, huge and heavy and unfamiliar. She had never so much as touched a gold piece like that. Not one. It was a fortune in her palm. "I can't use these damn things, I show these round, they'll call the law on me, I can't walk in a place they'll change these pieces. Dammit, Mondragon, you got no sense! Hide me, hide my boat—man gives me what I can't use and gives me advice how to keep away from trouble—how good's your advice, from a man who'd dump my best and only skillet in harbor water?"

"Hush." He touched her face, laid a finger on her lips. Tipped her chin up and followed it with a kiss, the night all giddy with the thumping of the engine, this crazy business of hiding in a barge's gut. She caught her breath.

"Jones," he said. "You'll do all right. I have confidence in you."

"I ain't going."

"You're going," he said softly.

"Maybe I'll just find the law, maybe I'll tell the blacklegs just what—"

He stopped her mouth with a hard grip. "You could die. You could die, Jones. You hear me?"

She bobbed her head. He took his hand away. It had bruised her jaw.

"So you get off this barge," he said. "You take what I gave you, go take care of yourself. I haven't got time to."

"Where was my time? Where was my 'haven't got time to' when I fished you out of the harbor, where was me shivering my teeth loose keeping you warm all night and maybe losing the only damn customers I got while I'm keeping you away from them damn killers, huh?"

The engine chugged on. Water whispered under the hull.

"I can't ever pay you," he said. "That's all. I can't ever pay you. Do what I told you."

"In a—"

Water showered and thundered down into the well, over the deck, pouring down from above; Lord, no, not water: there were fumes. "Damn!" Altair cried, wiping her eyes from the splash and scrambling to her haunches. And: "Ware, hey!" from a bargeman above. Fire meteored down into the well, a lantern that shattered, glared, and licked out fire, fire running in instant tongues, serpents of fire flaring up in the bilge, through the wooden slats toward them. "My God, my God," Altair cried, and shoved at Mondragon in panic fear: out, out of this hole!

He was dragging at her in the same moment, and the fire leaping up in their faces, running under the slats that floored the hidey the same as the well. It was inferno, instant and complete: searing heat and glare in their faces, men screaming and herself with a fistful of Mondragon's sweater as she scrambled for the stairs, him grabbing at hers, and it was both of them on the stairs at once, trying to climb to the deck with a sheet of flame at left and hellish glare off brick and doorways at right.

She grabbed her cap and dived, still with a fistful of sweater; and he came with her all in one wild wobble for balance, all legs and change of center. She fell sideways, water solid as a floor when she hit, and the breath near left her. She kicked, clothing weighted with water, hunting the surface with Mondragon's sweater still in one fist. She felt him kick and let him go as of a sudden something huge and rough brushed her shoulder—God, the barge, the propeller—O God—She heard the thumping getting nearer and kicked in cold panic, ran into Mondragon or someone and broke the surface with the glare of fire everywhere, with fire running and burning on the water, and the giant black shape of the barge a moving wall as it slewed about and ground against a brick wall. She saw other splashes of hell-lit water, other dark heads bobbing, fighting for their lives. Doors opened. Alarm bells pealed and boomed.

Fire! Fire on the canal!

She trod water and cast about wildly, saw Mondragon's pale face close at hand. He shouted something against the roar of the fire, waved toward the bank, and waved again.

She discovered herself clutching the damned cap, thought of letting go and then in profoundest bewilderment simply slapped it on her head, water and all, and struck out swimming. Clothing dragged at her, had her breathing in great gasps, scissor kicking and dogpaddling and any other stroke that gave her room to breathe. It was Mars over there. It was Mars' narrow rim, and crowds appeared suddenly everywhere, black figures pouring out onto bridges, onto walkways, desperate cries and shrieks drowning in the roar of the fire.

The bank loomed up, closer and closer, a blank wall there, where Mars had sunk: window-arches and former doors were bricked, the old ground-floor filled, the merest rim of the old walk left as a tilted slab a boat had to remember the breadth of when it skirted that isle. Mondragon pulled ahead of her with hard strokes, hit that sloping shelf and floundered ashore with a firelit splash of water as he staggered to his feet, turned and caught his balance. He had lost the black scarf: his pale hair was plastered down around his face. Somehow he had kept the rapier; it swung at his side, its guard winking as he got down on one knee on the submerged and tilted edge and leaned out with his hand outheld to her.

She mustered a last few hard kicks, calm and sane, and reached up to his grasp, reached up a second hand when he grabbed after it, and he rose up and backstepped, pulled her out with her scrambling after footing and near taking them both in before he caught his balance and held on to her—"God," she said, and choked and just leaned on him breathing and with her clothes weighing half as much as herself.

"Come on." He faced her about, got her into motion, his hand on her elbow. She went, splashing along with him, trying to flail her arms for balance, but his grip tightened about her left arm and he pulled her faster, she gasped and spat water that ran down from her hair and her cap, and nigh tore her knees keeping her balance on the outside of the ledge where his hold put her. Her feet went: the ledge just quit; and she went hi up to her waist before he hauled her up again and she scrabbled to solid stone, gasping and feeling a stitch in a rib.

Then they reached clear ground, staggered round the corner and full into a crowd of locals trying to get a floating-boom across the side canal, to stop the fire that might come drifting that way on the water. The crowd yelled, vague angry shouts, curses at two wet fugitives who might have some responsibility in the calamity—"That your boat?" one yelled, dropping his part of the makeshift boom to grab at Mondragon. "That your boat out there?"

"No!" Mondragon yelled back, his voice deep and furious. "We were on a poleboat, the damned barge nearly killed us!"

It was quick, it was credible, Mondragon's hightown accent, the outraged uptown passenger who would have nothing conceivable to do with a barge—it confused the man, who let Mondragon tear past, dragging her with him; and now Altair tried to run in earnest, past other arriving crowds. Two wet people now were far enough away from the immediate calamity they might be soaked firefighters, and they had the advantage of moving fast, before questions could get organized. Altair gasped for air and squished along in Sodden, weak-kneed jolts.

A vaster pealing added itself to the night - the great bell of the Signeury ringing in alarm: Help, fire, catastrophe, turn out, turn out!

Mondragon reached Mars' north stair at the landing, laid his hand to the rail and headed up, hauling her along. She gasped like a fish and stumbled on the steps, caught herself with her left hand as Mondragon hauled on her sore right arm.

Then it was a gentle jog, thumping across the boards of Mars' north bridge over to Wex, and onto that balcony, on which a scattered few shopkeepers ran toward the fire with hand-pumps and fending-poles. On the higher bridges crowds gathered, peering out toward the site of the fire which glowed like an unnatural sun in the city. The great Signeury bell tolled its alarm. People passed them on the balcony, distraught: "What is it?" one cried, catching at Altair's arm.

"Barge," she gasped over her shoulder, and Mondragon pulled her on and on, around the corner of Wex to the Splice, where a bridge led over to Porfirio.

Sedate walk then. Two drenched fugitives walking, one holding the other, down the boards, ignoring stares. Mondragon turned off at Porfirio Stair, where it led down to the landing; and it was down and down the steps till they were on canalside again, black water lapping at the stone walk. It was a quiet place, a warehouse on this side of Porfirio, its iron gates shut. Mondragon stopped and let her go and leaned against the corner of the door-inset, and she leaned her back against the iron door itself and held her aching side and just breathed for a moment. Mondragon's face shone pale in the starlight, fair hair starting to dry and curl.

"Where we going?" Altair asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"Don't know!" She yanked her sodden cap off and slapped it against her leg. "Damn, then why you been pulling me?"

He looked all blank for a moment, even offended, then gestured wildly at the bridges above them. "What do you want?" he asked, voice cracking. "Stand gawking in the crowd, dripping wet? Go back to Gallandry? They'll have ambush laid at every bridge."

"Then ask someone who knows the town, dammit! Come on."

He stood fast. "Where do you have in mind?"

She jerked her head in general toward her own territory, toward the Grand. The heavy bell of the Signeury dinned calamity into the night and jarred along her nerves. She sorted and discarded a dozen possible refugees in an eyeblink. "We got to walk there. Damn, we go up to a boat wet as we are, we got questions, and questions we don't need. Got to be somewheres we can walk. Moghi's. Moghi or Liberty'd do 'er for—Lord!" She plunged her hand into her right pocket. Against all expectation her fingers met two metal rounds she had not remembered putting there. Instinct had done it, unthought. Her knees went to water. She took her hand out carefully without bringing the coins to light. "I got 'em, I got 'em, oh, Lord, I got 'em." she began to shake all over. "Come on." She grabbed at his arm. "Come on, dammit! We waiting on your friends?"

He brushed off her hand and took her by both arms. "Jones—"

"Listen, you going to be a damnfool? Damnfools go cheap in this town. Ain't just your friends in the hoods can cut your throat. You go walking along canalside at night looking like you got two coppers, they'll find you when you float. You hear me?"

His fingers relaxed. He was listening.

"I know this place," she said on her next breath. "You going to trust me? We been going the wrong damn direction. Now come on, before sun comes up on us and you and me are too public."

"Jones, they'll kill you."

"I kind of figured that." Damn, folk pouring tanks of fuel off bridges onto barges, folk setting fires on the canals. The heavy bell of the Signeury still tolled, dinning calamity into the air. The noise rattled her brains, the enormity of it sank into her bones like the enormity off what she had in her pocket. She locked her arm into Mondragon's and faced about; and when she turned the sky was orange above the dark, jagged hulk of Wex and Mars. "Lord! Look at that! If that fire gets beyond those booms, it could take the whole damn city—"

"Where are we going? Back there?" His voice said no. She shook at him, pointed off southwest.

"Gallandry's that way, and not far. So they got it watched. We're on the Grand, almost, we go up a level, we got Oldmarket Bridge, and we go over east and we go down canalside."

He hesitated. Took her arms then. "Jones. Jones, Boregy. That's where I'm going."

"The Ten." Old money. Next the Signeury. She stood still. Smoke wafted on the wind and the windward side of her wet body began to chill. "Friends of yours, huh?"

"You think if we got to your boat you could get me that far?"

"To do what?"

"I'm asking about the boat. Can you do it?"

"To do what, dammit?"

No answer. None but that stare of his. Her teeth started chattering; she hugged her arms about herself.

"Jones, it's all right."

"Damned if it is." She clenched her teeth and hugged herself with one arm and hooked a gesture off eastward. "We got to go across the Grand no matter what. I'm freezing. Come on."

He came, gave her his arm and pulled her close, so at least it was warmer on that side as they walked along the side of Porfirio, along the Splice.

Damn, tell me to go find my boat, will you? That's what you're about—Go off and find your boat, Jones, go get your throat cut, never mind the questions, Jones, never mind who it is that don't mind a bit pouring oil into Port Canal and trying to burn the city down—no, no, you don't need to know that, do you? Damn him.

She sneezed. "Damn."

"I'm sorry."

"You got an attraction to water, you know that?" Her feet hurt when she walked, heavy wet socks, new shoes that pinched, and all waterlogged. It was all one with the rest of the misery, wind chilled her right side; and numbness promised relief soon for her feet. The air stank of burning, even here, and the bell went on and on.

Around the north of Porfirio, over to sight of Oldmarket Bridge. He slowed to a stop here, against the brick wall of Porfirio. The Grand spread itself wide and dark under the pilings of the bridge. Boats ought to ride here at mooring, five or six at least huddled together out of the current— they had night-nghts there; she knew their names, knew who belonged and who did not. There was only one boat tied there at present, a ramshackle little skip tucked up under the shadow of the Oldmarket Stair.

"Stay put." Altair went out around the broad shelf of the landing, peered down the dark length of the canal, toward Midtown Bridge, and the outflow of Port Canal. No light of fire. That was good news. It had not escaped Port. Yet. She glanced back, to be sure Mondragon stayed put.

She caught his worried look. She signaled quiet and walked quietly along the landing, quietly as she could in this eerie desertion. There were only a few boats in sight even farther down the Grand's dark waters, and those were steadily retreating. Canalers had moved when that alarm bell rang, any fool would. They had headed fast as they could either down the Grand to help stem the fire, or they outright ran in panic, having visions of the whole of wooden Merovingen going up like so much tinder—ran down the canal or up toward the Rock and the sullen flow of the Greve, where they might be out of danger if the whole town caught fire.

Only this one has stayed. And Lord and the Ancestors only knew where Del Suleiman might have taken her boat. He would have taken it. Powered up and towed it behind if he got worried enough to want speed.

She walked carefully round the stairs. She saw the ragged tarp shielding part of the well of the skip that sheltered there at tie. Its sides were weathered, silvery-wooden in the starlight in what patches showed in the shadow. Old boat; boat going the way of its owner, one of the sort that huddled along in traffic with other boats, trying not to leave safe company. "Hey," she said, to let the occupant know she was no land-dweller. "Hey the boat."

The shadowy tarp curtain drew back on an edge. An eye looked out, a wisp of white hair in the starlight and deep shadow.

"Jones," Altair identified herself. She hooked a thumb toward the canal. "They got a barge afire down there. Got cut off from my boat, I did. Trying to find where old Del Suleiman took 'er."

"He ain't been here." The old voice was a little stronger. "Retribution? Is it Retribution?"

Altair came a little closer. "Mintaka?"

The curtain widened. All of a frizzy white head came out. "What's going on down there? What be it?"

"They got a fire, that's what. A bad 'un." Altair sank down on her heels, winced at sore feet and caught her balance on her hand. "Left you here, huh?"

"Them damn fools. I ain't going off down there." The voice quavered. It was not age, not petulance. It was outright terror. "Retribution's dead."

"My mama. She died five years ago. You want me to move your boat for you?"

Coward, Jones. Callous.

But, damn, she's in worse danger here. Damn them all that left her. What's the Grand coming to? Where's Muggin tonight? Where's all the old 'uns?

"You do that?"

"My boat's somewheres that way." She pointed off toward the south, toward trouble. Mintaka never looked. "I tell you what, you give me a ride and I pole your boat for you, huh? Get you back where there's people."

Mintaka's chin wobbled. "It's my arthritis. Sometimes I can push 'er, sometimes I can't. I think I'd rather die than push 'er down there. What could I do? Push and shove with all them boats? Get caught in the fire, that's what."

"Well, I'll get you through. You wait a minute. I got a man here—uptowner; he got soaked down there, you won't mind if I bring him along."

"I dunno, I didn't say no other—"

Afraid. It was a habit with the old loners. "Hey."

Altair said, "he's a nice 'un." She looked over her shoulder where Mondragon waited in Porfirio's shadow. "Ser. You want to come over here, let Gran have a look at you, tell her you ain't any trouble?"

Mondragon came, not cheerfully. He came close and sank down on his heels beside her and the little skip. "M'sera," he said gravely.

Mintaka gave a strange little laugh. It was the m'sera, for sure. Then she went wary and sober again. "My boat ain't no poleboat."

"M'sera, she's a very welcome boat, and I'd be glad to pay you."

Mintaka's eyes went round. It was the pay that did that. "He all right, huh?"

"He's fine, gran Mintaka." Altair stood up and untied the single mooring rope with a jerk of a slipknot. Held the skip hard against the landing. "You want to step aboard, set, sort of duck down under that tarp—He got soaked, like I said, gran. Hair's all wet—you got a scarf? Got something to keep him warm? I'll buy 'er off you next week."

"Oh, I got 'er," Mintaka said, "I do got her."

Mondragon stepped to the rim and dropped down into the well; the skip rocked, rocked again as Altair snubbed the rope about the post and offered the end to Mintaka. "Hey, you want to hold that snub, gran?"

Mintaka got herself up, limped her bent way forward and took the rope, while Altair ran alongside and made a jump for the halfdeck before it swayed out too far. Her feet shot pain to her nerves. She winced and recovered herself and took the pole from the rack.

"Let 'er free, gran."

The old canalrat pulled the snub and Altair put the pole in and shoved off, letting the skip take the gentle current to get the bow clear—hard to manage a skip when there was no option to run forward, the tarp-shelter being in the way: it was necessarily slower. But the skip was the lightest she had ever handled, no motor behind, not much freeboard either, just a light shell that rode the water like a poleboat, with a commendable trim. "Hey, she's good," Altair sang out, to please the old woman, "handles real sweet, she does."

"She does, she does," Mintaka said, and came along the slats with a canaler's rolling gait, hunched as she was. Mondragon crouched down and headed under the tarp, and Mintaka lifted the tarp edge and peered under. "Ser, you make yourself liberal there, don't mind my mess."

"You go on in with him, gran," Altair said. "He won't mind."

"I got a cap for 'im," Mintaka said, and bent down. "Son, c'n you feel about a bit and find a sack, she'll be right over to the starb'd—"

There was a bit of to-do. There were several sacks. Altair poled them out into starlight and sent the little skip scudding along at a fair rate; and Mintaka kept on at her chatter, hunting the proper sack.

"Gran," Mondragon said from inside, "come on in, I truly wish you would."

"Well," Mintaka said, and finally dithered her way inside. A nervous chuckle then, over the gentle whisper of the water. "Been a long time since I had a handsome fellow to myself in the hidey, you're such a nice boy. You got a wife?"

"No," Mondragon said in a small, definite voice. Altair gave the boat a cheerful shove.

That for you, Mondragon. Serves you right, got yourself cornered, have you? Old woman's not so old as that, is she, Mondragon?

"Here she be," came the old voice, "here she be—got all my yarns. Ogh, you do be wet, don't you? Here, here, here we be. Folk give me yarn scrap, sometime give me yarn to do up for 'em—I knit real fancy, me hands being stiff all the same—here, here, I wish I had a light, can't afford a light, 'cept my little cookstove. I do up sweaters, real fine sweaters, ain't no man wearing one of my sweaters going to catch sick, I make the stitches fine, I tell you, you ever want a good sweater, you give me the yarn, I do you a sweater better'n you get in hightown. Do you a scarf, do you nice warm socks…"

The skip glided under the starlight and Altair watched the canalside at every weaving step, this side and that. Barred windows and iron shutters showed on canal level; old brick and old board and old stone, and here and there one of Merovingen's feral cats, stopping to stare with fixed curiosity at the unusual sight of a solitary skip on a wide black canal.

Must be a good one, cat, that set-to down there. You can still see the glow. Lord, I bet a bridge caught. Probably cut 'er down quick, Lord, salvage to be had, even to the charcoal. If it don't spread.

"… I had me twenty, thirty lovers," Mintaka was saying to her prisoner. "Oh, I moved light in them days, I used ter wear a feather in me cap an' I used to work that skip with me ma and me pa—Min, pa used ter say—"

Altair looked back. It was black, empty water, dancing to city lights; a web of bridges above. Eerie solitude all about. Ahead, Midtown Bridge spanned the Grand, pilings abundant at either end and clear water to the middle where barge traffic came, a sheen of deep water there.

And beyond, down by Port outlet, a scattering of boats like shadows, reflecting nothing, on water-shine that reflected fire.

Lord. Is it on the Grand now? Those'll be boats after the city penny, them as got strong backs, keeping those fire-booms where they belong.

She kept up the pace, long since warmed, the feet long since numb.

Better to go barefoot, got no time to tend to it, don't hurt much now, anyhow.

She spared a hand to lift her cap and rake her hair with her fingers, settled it again. Took a sharp look to starboard where a small huddle of boats remained.

Old folk. Same as gran Mintaka. Same as Muggin.

The bow came into the open again, and Altair kept a steady pace, her hands swearing on the pole now as Port Canal outflow and the boats and the fire glare came closer and closer.

Questions, dammit, we don't need.

"… you buy that sweater uptown?" Mintaka was saying inside the tarp-shelter, with doubtless professional interest. "Lord, now they done used too big a needle, stuff stretches, them stitches got too much give. Now I could make ye one—"

Altair scanned the floating gathering ahead for the easiest course through, and suddenly thought wistful thoughts of taking the long way round, up the Foundry canal and up and around. It was a chancy backwater, old warehouses, an area where old Det was winning and buildings would have to be filled and torn down and built again. It had not happened yet.

Evade the questions, that was all. And oh, Lord, now there was Mintaka to reckon with.

Closer and closer, watching that fire-sheen and the drift of boats. She managed a steady pace, sweating now despite the chill of her clothing, breathing in great raw gasps.

It's all right, you're just Altair Jones, coming back with old gran Mintaka, doing a kindly act, just mind your own business—

She glided in amongst the first boats that anchored there, anchored, no less, right in the Grand channel. Families huddled on skip half decks, all wrapped in blankets, watching the commotion like it was holiday or a hanging. Intent on the fire and not on her, thank the Ancestors. Intent on the commotion of distant shouting round the bend where Port met Grand, where fire still showed, but dimmer now. Boats clustered there too, black and busy against the glare.

Mind your business, Jones, knock into someone and you'll have more than one question to answer, that you will.

There was a great deal of commotion now, noise from other boats as she worked and glided her way through. And the tarp stirred. "Lord, look at this," Mintaka's high voice said, and Altair cringed and kept poling.

"Ain't nothing, gran," she said. "You found that cap for him yet?"

"Oh, that I do." Mintaka hauled herself up and staggered perilously in the well, hunched, irregular silhouette against the fire-reflections and the passing shadows of boats. "Look at this, look at this—I tell you I ain't seen such a to-do since them two barges jammed up in the Grand. I tell you, they ought ter have a law, governor ought to do something, them damn bargefolk got no respect for nothing."

"They don't," Altair agreed.

Damn, the lonely old soul was a tale-teller. Chatter your brains away.

And come dawn gran Mintaka would have a good one, how Jones and a fair-haired uptowner showed up all wet and draggled and poled her back to safety. O Lord, Jones, now what do you do?

Scatter stories wide, that's all.

"I heard this barge run down a poleboater," she said. "There she was all blazing fire and come grinding up the bank there by Mars Bridge; and this poler, he jumped and his passenger did; and here was this uptown man swimming down the Port—did you know who that was, ser?"

"No," Mondragon said from beneath the tarp. "Myself —I had to jump when I ran afoul of a crew bringing a boom up. I hardly knew what hit me."

"I saw him go," Altair said cheerfully. "Right off the Mars walk, he went, damn fools rushing off to get to the fire. I got down and gave him a hand and this damn fool trod on me, never a care in the wide world. Stepped right on me leg. I tell you I'd like to've got up right men and settled with him, but it was bad enough this m'ser got shoved in, I couldn't leave off pulling him out. I asked him did he swallow any of that water, he said no. I just get my boat off old Del Suleiman and get to moving—"

The sight off the starboard distracted her: a welter of boats; watchers clustered there: and beyond that, fire-glare, a huge black hulk run up against a wall, something else ablaze in the river. One of the bridges was missing, that was what was burning in the river, and that black, dead hulk listing down onto the bottom—that was the barge they had been in.

A cold feeling hit her, belated shock. She glided a moment, recovered her wits and moved quickly to turn the bow from a potential scrape along another boat's anchor cable. She rocked them. Heads turned her way, silhouettes. The light was at their backs and on her.

"Oh, she were close,*' Mintaka said.

"Sorry, gran." She sweated and made a close turn amid the still boats and anchor-ropes.

We were on that black thing. We were under that deck. Lord, if we'd been a second slower to get out of that hidey we'd have been trapped in there, that fuel running back in the slats under us—cinders and bits of bone. They never would've told us from the rest of the charcoal. Did everybody get off that thing?

What kind of folk'd do a thing like that?

"Ain't no place t' anchor," Mintaka said. And shouted at the next boat: "Ain't no place t' anchor, hear?"

"Shut it down!" a voice yelled back, and voices yelled other things. "Who's that?"

"I'm Mintaka Fahd," the old woman yelled back, "and this here's Retribution working my boat, no thanks to you that left me!"

"She's crazy," someone else sang out. "Who is that?"

Altair gave a shove on the pole. ' 'It's Altair Jones,'' she yelled to the night at large, "taking this boat to dock, no thanks to them that ran off and left her! Who's seen Del Suleiman?"

A moment of relative silence and no answer. "You tell 'em," Mintaka said, and waddled forward. "You hear?"

"I think they did," Altair muttered. "Gran, your arthritis is going to do you bad, you better sit."

"I'm doing fine," Mintaka said, standing wide-legged in the bow. Probably she was not doing fine. Too cussed to agree.

And Del had not answered the hail.

The crowd of boats went right under Foundry Bridge, in the center as well as on the sides by the pilings. Altair went gingerly, fearing collision in that dark place; while Mintaka waddled back closer to the tarp.

"Almost there, gran," Altair said. "You want to sit a while?"

"Hey," Mintaka said; and Altair heard the silence too.

The great bell had stopped, proclaiming the emergency done.

"They got 'er," Altair said. Of course they had. Merovingen could not burn, her people were too canny and moved too quick, whatever the hood-wearing crazies did. Whatever she had gotten herself involved in.

She gave a shrug to rid herself of the chill it gave her, and shoved the boat on, past other moored boats, these with sense to clear the channel, boats tied up thick as birds at roost. Safer territory. The skip moved faster now, easy in the water on the outflow. Southtown Bridge loomed up, and the tall triple span of Fishmarket Bridge was the imagination of a shadow behind that.

"Oh," Mintaka said, standing by the tarp, "she do move, she do move. I used ter push her like this."

"She's a good boat," Altair said.

Mintaka said nothing then. Folded her arms up till she made a roundish lump in the dark.

Southtown bridge shadow went over them, narrowest span in the city. A body listened sharp for a barge bell here at night or early morning and got over right smartly if one sounded.

"Where you got in mind?" Mintaka asked. "Love, I ain't got no strength to fight Snake current."

"Well, I wouldn't leave you at the Southtown narrows, gran. I tell you, how's Ventani corner do you?"

"Oh, Ventani's fine, love. I tell you I don't know what I'd of done."

"Good thing I come along, that's what." Altair put her over to the side, where dozens of boats were moored, some few to each other thinning down as they came down to shallows where Ventani's rock stood firm, one of four upthrusts of stone in all of sinking Merovingen. "Hey," she said, spotting a vacancy. "There's one. Uptown canalers probably scared of the bottom, you got no problem light as she rides. Tide's already run." She gasped after breath, walking the skip in. "You want to tie her in, gran?"

They slid in next a number of skips—"How's she doing down there?" one man asked as they tied in, "They got that out?"

"They got 'er out," Mintaka said, walking to the side. And started filling in the details.

Lord. At it already.

Altair ran in the pole and got down on her knees on the halfdeck. Likely Mintaka collapsed and raised the tarp to get about, what times she moved at all. But there was no tie to the halfdeck and Altair slid down into the shelter, got head and shoulders under, into that closeness. It stank of old blankets and wet wool and mildew. "You awake?" she asked Mondragon.

"I assure you," he said in a voice all frosty cold. "Now where?"

"Forward." She found him in the dark and gave him a push, reaching then to keep her cap on as she crawled out the curtain after him into the dark.

"—Jones here got me in," Mintaka was saying to the folk next over, and: "Lord, here's the nice uptown lad, ain't he fine? And Jones here pulled him from the water—I got to tell ye that—"

"Gran," Altair said, and took her by one thick sweatered arm and drew her across the well to the other side. "Gran, I got to go, I got to get my boat and take this nice m'ser uptown. And I'll pay you next week."

"You sure you want to go? You want to take me around while you find Suleiman—why, I'd even ride along when you go take the m'ser home."

"Gran, she's right across the way, right over Fishmarket, not a bit of trouble, and I don't want that arthritis to bother you."

"Gran Mintaka," Mondragon said, and fished in his pocket and came up with coin two of which were silver-pale among the copper-dark. "I want you to have this. For the loan of your boat."

Mintaka's face was a cipher in the shadow.

"Will you take it?"

She cupped her hands beneath his, and took the coins. "That be fine," she said, and there was a quaver in her voice."That be right fine."

"I'd like to come back and get that sweater sometime."

"Oh, I be by Miller's Bridge a lot." It was reverence in her voice. It was adoration.

Damn you, Mondragon, you got no heart, lead an old woman on like that. She believes you, you know it?

"Come on," Altair said.

"M'sera," he said to Mintaka, "but say I was small and dark, because if my father knew I was down on Port he'd take his stick to me. There's this girl down there, and our families—It's trouble for her too, do you see?"

4'Oh," said Mintaka, "oh, I do."

"Come on, ser," Altair said, and swept off her cap and beckoned sternly shoreward.