Angel with The Sword

Chapter 6

THE shore was a brick rim that held the tie-rings and made a walk all uneven and shadowy around Ventani's great bulk and the towering triple structure of Fishmarket Bridge. Altair walked along rapidly, dodged her way along the storefront on the corner and headed for the bridgehead and a gleam of light from Moghi's. Till Mondragon caught her by the arm. "That's Fishmarket," he hissed. "That she is."

"Dammit!" It was a whisper, but his voice cracked doing it. "I told you uptown!"

"You want to get there alive?" she hissed back. "We've come in a circle! We're back behind where we started, dammitall! You think it's some damn joke?"

"Shut it down, you want gran to hear? Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to get you under cover whiles I get my boat. You got any more coin?"

"Some." It was a reasonable voice. Scantly. "For what?"

"How much?"

"I don't damn well know. Maybe a dem in change. I gave you—"

"I just wanted to know." She hooked his arm and slid her fingers down to his hand. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"Round here." One of Merovingen-below's rare walkways opened behind the stonework that supported the stair timbers, a dark cut between two buildings that became one building up above. "Leads over to Moghi's. Back way.

You know this place. You ought to. This is where they dumped you off the bridge. Now we can go in here or we can go over the bridge; or we can sort of slip round the Ventani on the other side and I can find you a hole that ain't occupied while I go hunt my boat. But Moghi's is dry and I can deal with him. Which d'you want?"

He had stopped. He had her hand or she had his and he was gentle about it, but she remembered that strength of his.

Lord, Mondragon, you got a twisty mind and I wish I knew which way it was turning.

"Sun's coming up," she said, " 'bout now. See that sky over there? That ain't fire. Now we can just walk after my boat together if you want. But I got the feeling you'd like to stay out of sight. And you ain't particularly scared of this place, for all it done to you—not when you told me to tie up over there at Hanging Bridge, you didn't."

"I didn't tell you to tie up there. Let me off, I said."

"Well, it's lucky for you I followed you, ain't it?"

He jerked his hand loose and motioned her ahead.

"'S truth," she said; and walked on into the alley. She slipped her hook loose and carried it, the wood crosspiece firm in her fist. In case. She heard Mondragon's steps behind her, grit on stone in this maze that crooked round to Moghi's backside.

The door to the shed there was always unlocked. And strangely nothing got stolen, not so much as a stray bit of wood when the rains washed the boards loose. She pulled the rickety door open and walked in, heard Mondragon still behind her. "Close that."

"It's dark enough as it is."

"You show a light here Moghi'll slit our throats. Close the damn door."

It closed. She found a rope along the wall and pulled it, so that elsewhere in Moghi's rambling little den a bell rang.

"Is this it?"

"Will be. I just rang. They'll come. Don't get so nervous."

"Dammit, I don't take to being kidnapped from one end of town to the other."

"Just go coasting up to Boregy, huh?"

"That's what I thought you'd do, I kept thinking you had some back way in mind; the old woman's boat was the best thing we could have used—no one would look twice at it. Jones is smart, I told myself, I go along with it. Then, no, we weren't going uptown; but you were going to find that boat of yours and we'd get uptown on our own. Dammit, you didn't have to get into that jam-up on the canal if it was going to take all night. Now we've got an old woman telling the tale up and down the city, we've got one more of your damn ideas here, and no boat; and if you think you're playing some damn petty childish trick to hang yourself round my neck, you're playing a damn dangerous game."

There was a hook in her hand. She held that hand still; and drew in a breath and another one and a third before she had her throat under control. "I'd damn well hit you," she said. "I wish I could. Sure, I did it to get back at you. I been doing the work, ye damned lay around, I been waked out of sleep and scorched and flung in the canal and run half dead, and I poled you up and down this damned city till my gut hurts—" Her throat closed up. She tried for air and shoved hard with the heel of her hand when he tried to lay hands on her. "I'll find my boat, dammit, I'll take you to hell, but don't you go telling me how to do it!"

"Jones—"

"You keep your damn hands off me!"

She hit his arm. Hard. The door rattled and opened, and lantern-light glared into their faces. She turned and held up a hand to shade her eyes. "It's Jones," she said.

"Who you got? Who you got?"

"Name's Carlesson."

"Falkenaer?"

"Not him. Hey, I know him, Jep. You c'n let us in. I need that upstairs room. Private stuff."

There was silence. Then a chuckle. "Well. The ice done thawed."

"Shut it down, Jep, and let me talk to Moghi."

"You come right on in." The lantern shifted, held higher. "Ser, you come along and don't mistake us, we're a quiet house."

"They'll kill you," Altair translated. There were men outside by now, blocking the alley; the door beyond Jep was locked. If it had been trouble, the trouble would have gone into a little boat and out to harbor, slip-splash. End of it. But there was no rough talk in Moghi's house. Moghi insisted. And Moghi never tried to take a weapon away from anyone: another rule. Man wants ter carry an arsenal, Moghi would say, that's his business; we don't never argue with a customer.

Slip-splash.

She stepped up to the sill and passed Jep, walked through the cluttered storeroom to the inside door and waited for Jep and Mondragon. Jep bolted up. And the watcher through the peephole inside (Altair always suspected) came and unlocked the inside door.

"'Morning, Ali."

"Morning." Curly-headed Ali blinked in the lanternlight and looked to be in pain, his broad brown face all screwed up. "House just going to sleep with all this ruckus. You got no decency?"

"I want the quiet room, Ali."

"You got the cash?"

"I got it. Now you tell Moghi when he wakes up I'm going to be in and out the front way. And I want my friend here left alone. I'll talk to Moghi about it."

Ali's dark eyes shifted and shifted again in the lantern-light. "Room, huh? Come on. We got one."

Slip-splash. Moghi had another saying about debts.

Or business associates who caused trouble.

The Room Upstairs (there might in fact, Altair thought, be more than one Room) was a tidy place with a lamp— Jep lit it with a certain elegant flair of wrist, from a match in his callused fingers. And a wide bed and a hard chair and a table with a little vase of Chattalen jade flowers (the vase was cheap). No window. One wall was brick, the other three were lathing and plaster.

"Bath's across the hall," Ali said. "Heater's got fuel, water's fine for washing, come from a tank atop: boy empties it, and the can. Drinking water in the jug there. You're paying for a first class room here, we don't stint on nothing." Ali walked over to a tall cabinet. "We got bathrobes, got towels, got genuine brandy here, clean glasses, extra blankets. Boy'll set a breakfast by the door in about an hour. We don't disturb our clients. They don't got to leave the room if they don't want to."

"That's real fine," Altair said.

"You got a little scorch on your face, Jones."

She almost reached; stopped herself. "Sunburn. Been out fishing."

"You want them clothes cleaned up?"

"He will. I got to go out again."

"You can wait," Mondragon said. "Get some food in you."

She did not look at him. "I tell you what," she said to Ali, "you tell Moghi when he wakes up I want to talk to him."

"You going to be having breakfast?"

"I'll have breakfast. I'll be back."

"Jones," Mondragon said.

She left by the open door and never looked back at him.

Down the double turn of stairs, quickly through another door and through a curtain and into Moghi's front room, where the tables were all vacant and the chairs stacked on them for sweeping. A night-lamp burned, and the front door was shut.

She opened that door carefully, and went out into the gray hint of morning, onto Moghi's canalside porch and off those boards again, down the gravelly canalside and up again onto the bricked-up rim. Fishmarket Stair loomed up, triple-tiered; she scanned the shadowy boats tied up beyond the Stair, by Lewyt's second-hand store. Their owners slept mostly down in the hideys, a couple on their halfdeck. There was no sign of Del Suleiman and her boat; and she felt the whole weight of Fishmarket Stair over her head, with constantly the feeling someone might be watching her.

A pale body hurtling off over the rail into the dark. Splash into dark water.

Why no clothes? Why not be sure of him? They damn near burned the town down—what's a knifing more or less?

She walked along—(walk, Jones, don't run, don't draw attention, stroll casual-like, canaler on a shore-jaunt)—the other way, up over Moghi's porch again and along the canalside toward Hanging Bridge.

The usual clutter of canalside homeless huddled asleep against the Ventani's brick wall, where the law would take a stick to them if the law happened by, along the bridge sides. But the law was too few and folk got hit and did it again, till the law got to a bad mood and took them on a boatride to Dead Harbor, to live with the crazies and the rafters. There had never seemed anything threatening about this pathetic sort, until now, until that she walked, helpless and afoot. Now and again a raggedy shape stirred and a pair of eyes fixed on someone who had more than they did.

Boats were tied up along the way. More sleepers, late stirring in this morning after calamity. She came to Hanging Stair and climbed up and up, padded past the Angel with his sword—'Morning, Angel, seen my boat? I know. I'm real sorry. I'm sorry I near burned the city down.

Perhaps the hand clenched tighter on the sword; in this light the Angel's face was grim and remote.

Sleepers lay here too—each one to a nook. She walked along hating the sound of her shod footsteps. She stopped finally in a sleeper-free spot and looked over the rail, scanning the east bank and the boats moored there.

Del was not where he had tied up yesterday. She pushed away from the rail and kept walking.

"Hey." She knocked at the door, stood back so that Mondragon could see her through the peephole. The bolt rattled back. The door opened wide. She limped in without a look at him holding the door.

"Find it?"

4'No." Breakfast was on the table, two of the house's big breakfasts, and her stomach turned over in nauseated exhaustion. Mondragon shut the door and shot the bolt. Mondragon had had his bath. Of course he had had his bath, he stood there in a nice borrowed robe and with the lamplight shining on curling pale hair and the ruddiness of burn about his face. She plumped down on the bed and contemplated her feet. Tears were in her eyes, not pain yet, just the suspicion that behind the numbness there was going to be a great deal of pain. Her feet had dried a bit. Now the right one went squish again, and she suspected why.

"Where would it be?" Mondragon asked.

"Well, if I knew that I'd go there, wouldn't I?"

"I don't know that. You want some breakfast?"

"No." She crossed an ankle over her knee and pulled off the shoe. She peeled down the black sock next, bit by careful bit.

"O Lord, Jones."

She looked curiously at the red stain between her toes and over most of her sole and heel. At missing skin and skin in bloody blistered strips. She changed feet and pulled off the left shoe and sock. It was only rubbed raw. She dropped the shoe and sock and sat there working her toes.

"I heated water for you," Mondragon said. "You want me to help you over there?"

"I just come back from across the bridge, I can walk." She got up and winced her way across the floor to the door, her right foot all sticky on the carpet. She shoved the doorlatch down and hobbled out.

Put her head back in. "You don't come in there," she said.

And slammed the door.

She glumly dressed again in the bathroom, having further business to take care of—new clothes and they looked like old, dusty and stained and the sweater still damp. So was her cap. She carried it in her hand when she went out of the warm little room and limped and winced down the stairs to the tavern-proper.

The help had been putting the chairs to rights when she came in; unshuttered windows and the open front door let sunlight in. Ali was behind the bar, serving a straggle of blear-eyed customers; Ali hooked a thumb toward Moghi's office.

So Ali had indicated when she came back to the front door that Moghi was stirring about. So now Moghi was up to talking. In the office.

She went to that door beside the bar. She had ventured only rarely into that cubbyhole full of papers and bits of this and that, once when she had started work, once when Moghi had told a gangling kid she had a couple of special barrels to handle, because someone who worked for him had taken sick. Fatally. Case of greed. Moghi towered in her memory of that night, bulked larger than reality. And she never could get rid of that shivery feeling when she stood at Moghi's door.

She knocked. "Moghi. It's Jones."

A grunt came back. "Yeah," that was. She shoved the latch down and walked into the cluttered office.

Dusty light streamed through two unshuttered windows— inside shutters folded back against the shelves inside; and those could be drop-barred top and bottom, backup to the iron gratings outside the dirty glass. Papers and crates were everywhere, a tide that rose around the littered surface of Moghi's desk. Moghi sat amid it all, a balding, jowled man with massive arms that said even that vast gut was not all fat.

"How you doin', Jones?"

"Good and bad."

He motioned to the well-worn chair by his desk-side. She dragged it over where she could look at him, and sat. Not a sound from Moghi. Her heart was beating hard of a sudden. —Lord, I got to be careful. I got to be real careful.

"Need your help," she said. "I got a boat missing."

"Where'd you leave it?"

"Del Suleiman, by Hanging Bridge."

"That all you need?"

"Quiet. Lot of quiet. It'd be real nice if that boat just showed up to the porch tonight."

Moghi's seam of a mouth went straight; his jaw clamped and calculation went on in his murky eyes. "Well, now, you come up in life, Jones, up there in the Room. Real pretty fellow, so I hear. And you a canaler. Now I know somehow you c'n afford all this. I got standing orders, anybody asks for that room, they gets it. And we don't talk about money. You get fancy stuff. You want a bottle of something special, you just tell the boys; you want a little favor, you just tell me. If there's expenses above and beyond I add 'em to the tab. You know me. I never ask into private business. It's character I ask about. You I got no doubts of. But what's this pretty boy you took up with?"

"He's real quiet."

"Now that's nice to hear. But you know there's lots of trouble in town. Lots. And here comes Jones with money—I know you got money, Jones, you wouldn't run a tab you couldn't pay—and you got this pretty feller and you mislaid your boat. Now, I don't ask into your business. But look at things from my side. Would you want to take in a fellow you don't know right about now? I don't like noise. I sure don't want the blacklegs chasing nobody in here."

"Moghi." She lifted her right hand. "I swear. No blacklegs."

"What's his trouble?"

"Six guys trying to kill him."

"Ali says he talks real nice."

"He's no canaler."

"Now, Jones, you know there's a lot of difference there. Man has a set-to with the gangs, that's a little problem. Gang goes after an uptowner—big money's hired 'em. You c'n figure that all by yourself. You want to tell me, Jones; this nice-talking feller done talked nice to you? Maybe got you twisted all round? Maybe got hisself where nobody ever got with you, huh?"

Her face burned. "I ain't stupid, Moghi."

"Now you and me ain't talked since you was a kid.

Lord, first time I saw you, you went round in them baggy pants with that cap down round your ears—your ma lately dead; and I set you up with old Hafiz, didn't I? He didn't want to deal with no kid, had this feller all set up to do that job—some fellow going to do things a bit on old Hafiz' side, huh? And I told you then—what'd I tell you, Jones?"

"Said if I wasn't smarter that man'd send me to the bottom."

Moghi chuckled, a heave of massive shoulders. "I tell you, Jones, long as I had you or your ma running my barrels, ain't never worried 'bout the count on 'em. You got good sense. You still got it?"

"I hope I do."

"Pays your debts?"

"You know I do."

"Anything comes under this roof is business, Jones. I got a rule. You know what I say about my men and manners under this roof? If Ali out there ever laid a hand to you I'd kill him. Flat. I'd kill him. He knows that. Now I got to tell you: if you laid one to him, I'd kill you. You know why? 'Cause you work for me. You ain't on salary, but it's all the same. I don't want no team-ups with my employees unless they come to me and ask proper. Mad lovers get spiteful. And a man hi my business don't need nobody spiteful going talking outside. You understand me? I ain't talking to no kid anymore."

"I understand you."

"When I want a woman, I go over to eastside. I never bring no woman here. I never make no move at a woman who works for me. So I'm talking to you like you was my daughter. I tell you if you been stupid and brought somebody here because he's got you thinking all skewed, what you got to do is tell me, and I forget anything you owe me, so don't think about the money. You just let me have him. You got to think, Jones, you got to go on living here, and by living I mean if we get trouble I'll find you."

Her hands wanted to tremble. She shoved her right into her pocket and came up with one of the gold sols. Laid it on the desk in front of him.

Moghi picked it up, rubbed it in his fingers. Looked at her with no expression at all.

"He's business," Altair said. "Man upstairs is business."

"What kind of business?*'

"Not the kind you're thinking, dammit, Moghi! You know me." She tossed off a gesture toward his hands and the sol. "You tell me what the rate is, eastside. You hand out that kind of money for a night?"

Moghi's heavy brows lifted. "For what, then?"

"Gratitude. Keeping the gangs off him. Getting him here alive. This is money, Moghi. This is more damn money than I ever saw, and maybe connections."

"Maybe a throat cut." Moghi hammered the coin edge into the desktop. "You think on that, girl?"

"Jones. Jones, Moghi; and I'm damn tired of scraping by. You think I'd risk my boat for some man wanted to pay me for a night? Damn, I'd gut him. I got this to spend. I got better prospects 'n I ever had. So I come to a man I trust like kin, a man who might as well have good of this money I got to spend—"

"—and uptown trouble."

"Uptown trouble and uptown friends, Moghi, one goes with the other."

Moghi's eyes half-lidded in their fleshy pits. "You think you're up to that?"

"First time you saw me, you give me two silvers and told me you were betting I'd get back alive with those barrels off Hafiz' dock. That's a sol come out of my pocket to yours this morning. You tell me, Moghi."

Moghi sat and turned that big gold coin round and round and round against the desktop; and Altair's heart thumped away with every turn and every blink of his dark eyes.

"I tell you," said Moghi finally, "that two silvers I lent? I was betting another way. I was getting that man Hafiz hired'd kill you; and I was going to put the word out he'd robbed a courier of mine and he'd turn up dead. Be rid of old Hafiz' hire-on, I would, I was surprised as hell when you turned up with them barrels at the porch."

She grinned Moghi's grin back at him. Never you back up with that bastard, her mother used to say about Moghi. And added: Never you cross 'im either.

"Now, Moghi, you bet on sure things, don't you? One way he'd kill me; or I'd kill him or I'd dodge him and you'd put old Hafiz one down. One or the other. Now you got that sol there says here's an old employee come into money, and if the thing goes right there's all kinds of money to be had; and if it goes wrong, there ain't any stink on you or this place."

"Sure I don't smell smoke?"

Her heart near stopped. Lie to Moghi? Same as drinking Det water. She was quiet a long moment and then leaned forward, arms folded on his desk edge.

"They got the smoke-stink," she said. "Him and me—we didn't come anywhere near there."

"Word's out someone's asking after a blond man."

"Who?"

"Dunno. They got money. They ain't the regular gangs. Strangers. I might find out. Who saw you here?"

"Nobody saw us go to your door."

"How'd he get to the Ventani?"

"Mintaka Fahd. In the hidey."

Moghi's brows went up. Dangerously.

"Wasn't what I'd like either," Altair said. "But who'd get a straight story out of her? I told her a dozen. Told her we was going eastside."

"If there's rumors," Moghi said.

"Moghi, I got to tell you something. You know what they did, those enemies of his, they flung him right off Fishmarket Stair, slunk right along the Grand and up that stair and off they flung him, right by your porch out there. Now you didn't do that. I knew that right off. You'd have 'im to the harbor… if you was ever to do such a thing. So here's somebody who don't know you so well, to be flinging bodies off the Ventani, right under your windows, I'd think you'd take real bad to that kind of thing."

"My porch."

"I was right out there-" She pointed canalward. "Missed that barrel pickup. Well, that was the night. You c'n ask your potboy. Tommy never opened that door. And I haul this poor wet soul out of the river. Mind, I don't bring him here, no. Not then. I'd save a drowning man and set him on the bank. But I wouldn't bring just anybody in here. Wouldn't have 'im to that room. He's got friends."

"Like who?"

"Gallandrys."

Another lifting of the eyebrows and a settling of the face. "Gallandrys've been arrested."

Her stomach wrenched over.

"Little matter of a fire," Moghi said. "Little matter of a barge done took out Mars Bridge and sunk in the Port, that's all. Was you there?"

"You know we were. I want my boat, Moghi. I want everything you know might be stirring uptown."

"Dammit, they arrested the Gallandrys and somebody broke into Boregy and Malvino while the fire was going on. Killed three people in Boregy and one in Malvino. My porch. My porch. Now this can get expensive, Jones."

"Took me a while to think what to do. Man can take care of himself, Moghi, man ain't no fool. Neither am I."

"Going to be expensive."

"I figured."

"You got a down-payment here." The sol made another turn in his thick fingers. "And, Jones, I'm a sentimental man. I'd really hate for you to make a mistake."

"Hey, if I'm wrong you tell me and we'll talk about it."

"If you're wrong," Moghi said, "just one way you'll find it out. You ain't running brandy barrels now, Jones. You ain't my employee anymore, you're talking a whole different kind of business. You're talking big fees. Gang business. You're in it, now, Jones, Me, I just sell beer and rent rooms. People make me trouble they don't come back here." He leaned back and slipped the coin into his pocket. "I hear a lot of things. I might find that boat of yours."

"Let gran Fahd be. Something happens to her, somebody'd remember I was on her boat. Somebody might pay attention to things she said."

"That was real sloppy, that"

"Best of bad choices. I told you, didn't I?"

"Jones, if you hadn't I'd have been real upset."

"I knew that too."

Moghi nodded slowly, chins doubling. "Like I said, a down payment. You go enjoy that room."

"In private."

Moghi grinned, a showing of teeth. "Private. Seeing it's you."

It was up the stairs again, tired, Lord, and with a limp in her step and an ache in her ribs and her shoulders and her arm and between her eyes.

Fool. Damnfool.

What else could I do? Moghi'd kill him.

Don't want him anymore. But Moghi'd kill him. One damn more enemy he doesn't need.

Boregy being hit—somebody knew. And Moghi—he always knows more than he says, maybe he already knew I picked up somebody out there t'other night, he's already been asking round, knows about strangers after him, O Lord and my ancestors, what am I going to do?

Where's my boat? Dammit, where's my boat? Nobody's seen Del, nobody seen him or my boat—

The door to the Room opened as she came up into the hall. Mondragon stood at the top of the steps, all worried-looking.

Just stood there in his bathrobe, not saying a word.

Knows better, he does.

Her heart hurt. She avoided his eyes as she topped the steps and walked past him into the door he held open, went and sat down at the table where the cold breakfast waited.

He closed the door and pulled it till the latch clicked. She ate cold toast and never looked up as he walked over and sat down on the side of the bed, arms on knees.

Damn, it's friends of his got arrested and killed. I got to tell him about the Gallandrys and Boregy and all. Me. I made another damn mess down there and how do I tell somebody that kind of news, and him mad at me?

The toast made a cold lump in her throat- She washed it down with lukewarm tea. "I heard," she said, and looked his way, "the law took a bunch of people at Gallandry. Somebody else broke into Boregy and killed some people. Malvino too. Heard it from Moghi."

The muscles knotted up in his jaw. He breathed a little faster. That was all. "Moghi owns this place."

"Moghi owns this place." She took another sip of cold tea and slopped it; her hands shook. "I hunted that whole damn canalside trying to find my boat. Moghi's people are going to look. He knows about the barge. About us and Gallandry. About folk throwing you off the bridge. Knows you're uptowner and somebody with money wants you bad. Says there's been questions asked about a blond man. Strangers asking. I got Moghi to say he'd let us have this room; Moghi's—got Jots of people. Lot of others are afraid of him."

"Trust him?"

"We got no choice." Her voice was all hoarse. She took up the toast again and dropped it in listless disgust. "I got you here. Dammit, I knew it was going crazy last night, knew I had to get to somewhere, damn lucky it wasn't Boregy."

He stood up, leaned next her ear. "Who's listening?" he asked, faintest of whispers against her hair. "Nobody. Moghi said. "That's truth." He straightened and leaned his hands on the table. Worried. Lord, not a shout, not a word of blame. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, then walked a few steps off, stood with his back to her and his arms folded.

She ate at the cold toast, bite after bite. Finally he came back and sat down on the side of the bed, one knee tucked up into his arms.

"I wanted you out of this," he said, all quiet. "Jones, you were right, all the way."

She swallowed hard and a bite forced its way down past a knot in her throat. Her eyes stung. She drank the tea, then got up and went and opened the cabinet where the brandy was, and the glasses. She unstopped the decanter and poured a bit.

She stood there with her back to him to drink a sip. That took the knot out.

Damn him. Damn it all.

Manners, Jones. Man's trying.

She poured the other glass and walked back and gave it to him. He took it and she never looked him quite in the eyes. She just walked away with a pain in her chest that hurt like a knife.

Memory of a pale body hurtling through the dark.

Through the sun into the harbor water, splash scattering like glass beads in the light.

Him standing there all elegant in Gallandry lamplight, russet velvet and lace, sword at his side.

She turned around finally when she heard the bedsprings give. He had put the glass down on the table. Had gotten up to turn down his side of the bed.

He slipped the robe off and got in and drew the covers up over his shoulder and his head, leaving her the light.

She took a mouthful of brandy and swallowed it down till her eyes stung. Not a stir out of him, not a word.

She drank another half glass, then stripped off her sweater and took the remaining sol and put it in her shoe, there by the bed. She unbuttoned the trousers and kicked them elsewhere.

She lit the nightwick at the side of the lamp, then blew out the top light and got into bed on her side.

She edged over after a moment. Edged over again until she came up against him. His muscles stayed tense when she put an arm over him.

She let go a sigh and lay there and hurt, inside and out, till sleep came closer, till maybe at the edge of his own sleep he turned over and put an arm about her. Better, better. She gave a great sigh and shifted. There was a moment of moving about and fitting limbs and limbs and wincing, her with sore arms and him with a sore back, until finally she found herself comfortable and her skull throbbing away in a dull dark daze that went down and down toward nothing at all.

"You went to sleep on me," he said into her ear when she came to, and she mumbled and shifted sore muscles and almost went to sleep again until his hands got her attention.

"Damn," she said, remembering she was not speaking to him. And then remembering she was, confused in the middle of the night. Moghi's. A gold piece in the toe of her shoe and her boat missing and herself with a lover hi the second shore-bound unmoving room in a day. "Damn."

"What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" She thought about it and laughed. The laugh got crazier, at an indelicate time. "What's wrong?" She gasped after breath. Laughed again till it hurt and she ran out of breath with the tears dampening her eyes. "Damn, they're going to kill us."

"Jones?"

"Wrong," was all she could manage, with another hysterical wheeze. Till he got her stopped, and she lay with her ribs and her gut hurting. "Oh, Lord, Lord."

They held onto each other. Like two drowners headed for the bottom. Down into the dark, dark nowhere. "Jones," he murmured. "Jones, are you all right?"

"Don't—don't make me laugh again."

"I'm not. I'm not." His hands traveled over her, absent-like.

Her own moved. A while. She ran out of momentum, and lay still against his arm. "Jones," he said, waking her up. "You awake?"

"Uuuhhn," she said. And thought back to the harbor. To waking on the deck. The room seemed to move a moment. To the lamplit room, the brass tub. Mondragon with the glass in his hand. Wine red as blood. Mondragon with his face in lampshadow, drinking and brooding, full of thoughts. Older. Deeper and darker. Old as sins and lies. She felt a fall at the edge of sleep and blinked into a stranger's face, at Mondragon with the nightlamp turning his hair to lamp-fire. For a moment her heart sped, a rush of panic and waking.

Damn, who is he? What is he? What'm I doing in bed with him?

What do I know about him?

"What are you looking at?" he asked.

"Dunno." Her heart still beat, nightmare panic. What're you looking at?"

He brushed the hair back from her ear. Did it twice and it fell back. He gave her no answer. The silence pounded in her chest, painful as grief and fear.

"You're shivering. Jones, are you all right?"

"I'm all right."

He pulled her close, burrowed his head next her ear.

She shivered the worse.

Damn. I never get him and me in the same mood at once.

Image of Mondragon edging across the deck in the morning light. Backward.

He just wants me to get him to his friends. Thinks he has to make love to me. Thinks that's what it costs.

Man with the cat for sale. Come be nice, I give 'er to ye.

What's a man pay for his life?

"You don't have to."

"What?"

"Be nice to me. You don't have to do it if you don't want."

Things stopped in full career. "Did I ever say I didn't?"

"I dunno. Sometimes I think not."

"Jones,—I—"

"On the boat. In the harbor. You backed across the deck like I was poison."

"I didn't."

"You damn well did!" She jerked her head back and stared at him near cross-eyed at close range. "You trying to get me to do things, trying to get me to take you here and there, you don't have to do that."

"Lord, Jones, I tried to get rid of you! What more can I do?" The words fell out and died. He lay there with a kind of confused, distressed look. "I didn't mean that."

A warm feeling spread through her. The knots unknotted in a kind of benign satisfaction.

Got 'im muddled, I do. Lord, he's nicer'n any man I ever knew. Lots nicer'n those foul-mouthed bridge-boys.

Fight for this 'un, I would.

She smiled, lazy-like. Took a curl of his hair and wound it round her finger. Shifted closer and closer again where she could whisper her lowest. "Damn right you tried to shake me. Ain't no good. 'Bout time you started listening, ain't it? Lost my boat for your sake. Soon's I get it back we got some thinking to do."

"I've tried to think." His voice sank down to the faintest whisper. "Jones, I've got to get to uptown. I've got contacts there. Don't ask me what or why."

"I'm asking. You want me to find a way up there I got to know the choices. What are you into? Who are those crazies?"

Silence for a long while.

"Sword of God."

She heard that and her heart thumped once and lurched into a heavier beat. She rolled onto her elbow and leaned over his ear where she could talk in absolute quiet. "Damn, what are you?"

"Let it be."

"Let it be?"

He stared up at her, a long thinking look. He blinked once, twice. "You have an Adventist name. Altair."

"So'd my mother, it never meant we was Sword of God. Dammit, there ain't no such thing in Merovingen."

"There is now."

"You're crazy!"

"It's the truth."

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, at the nightlamp casting shadow-play off the timbers and the dust.

Sword of God. Militant crazies bent on exterminating impurities, bent on exterminating the sharrh themselves if they could get their hands on any. They helped the Retribution along with assassination, Lord knew what else.

Angel out on the bridge, you standing there so long, you got nothing to do with those lunatics. Your sword ain't that sword.

"I told you," Mondragon whispered into her ear, "you didn't want to know."

She turned her head, stared at him at closest range in the lamplight. "Where'd you get messed up with them,?"

He gave no answer.

"Well, they ain't so much," she said then, to get the chill out of her throat, "they ain't so much. If I was going to murder someone I'd be sure of 'im before I threw 'im off any bridge."

"If they were Sword." He moved his hand distractingly onto her stomach. "Say I walked down the wrong alley."

"Well, why—why for Lord's sake did they take your clothes?"

"Because if I lived it'd teach me a lesson, and if I didn't I couldn't be traced. Except by those that would know."

"Why?"

There was long silence. "Say I ignored a warning."

"They weren't Sword of God, then what were they?"

"The warning came behind a mask. Say the Sword's not the only trouble in town."

"Who?"

"I've said enough."

"You haven't. You haven't started. What've you got to do with them, that they want you that bad?"

He traced the side of her face with the back of his finger. "Don't ask any more, Jones."

She froze, outright froze.

"No." He gripped her shoulder hard. "No, Jones. Don't look at me like that."

"What are you, f' God's sake? A Jane? Sharrist?"

He was quiet a moment. His fingers relaxed belatedly, tightened again, not as hard. "I was Sword. Once." His mouth made a hard line and his eyes glittered, darted. "I quit."

"Are you from Nev Hettek?"

"Do I talk like it?"

"I dunno. I never knew a Nev Hettekker. But you ain't no Falkenaer and you ain't Chat and you ain't Merovingian."

"You don't need to know. You understand why i don't want you around me. The Sword just might take you up, take you to some quiet nook—you understand me? They don't like publicity. Not even in the north. They are here, there's money behind them. The law knows it."

4'And don't stop 'em?"

"They won't stop them. I ignored a warning. I stayed. That was a friendly group that threw me off that bridge."

"Friendly."

"Not like it was murder. Just a second warning. Because I'm here. Now Gallandry's been arrested. Do you follow me?"

"No." She shook her head desperately. "You mean— the law? The law's—"

44—got pressure on it. The Signeury's trying to put a fear into Gallandry. The Sword hit Boregy; Malvino. They weren't sure I was on that barge. They were hunting. Now people are dead. Jones, it was the police that threw me off that bridge."

"Lord."

"The governor doesn't want any noise. Doesn't want me here, in Merovingen. The governor's afraid of the Sword; afraid of the College; afraid of his own police and who's been bought, and he's afraid of the money that can hire assassins. Most of all he's afraid of what Nev Hettek might do and he's afraid of riots. A sick man with heirs at each other's throats—He can't afford to have foreign trouble."

She drew a great breath and lay there staring at the ceiling, at the shadows the lamp made. The Sword of God: Adventist crazies. Militants. Assassins.

Mondragon wielding the boathook with skill that became greater and greater—

Mondragon with the rapier at his side, there on Gallandry's stairs—

He settled slowly beside her, wound his fingers into her fingers. Lay there quiet too.

Fool, she heard her mother saying, Dammit, now, Al-tair, this is too far. Sword of God. Murders. So a lot of muck floats down old Det. Never surprised at anything that turns up in this town. But you don't need to go poking your hand into it, do you?"

She turned and put her lips against Mondragon's ear.

"Mondragon. What are you doing here? What are you after?"

Silence for a long time. He shifted up then and put his arm on the other side of her so that he cut off the light. His breath stirred her hair. "Don't use mat name. I never should have told you. I was crazy out there."

"I was too." She turned her head and mouth brushed mouth, sleepily, far from the kind of craziness that had been out there. Old warmth. Sun on skin, on water. He let his head down on her shoulder, his hand straying down her side.

"Too damn tired, Jones, too damn tired."

"What'll I do?" she murmured. Her own mind fuzzed round the edges, half-gone. "What'll I do?" It was part nightmare, part dream. A sheet of fire washed across her mind, the canalsides and the blank faces of buildings jolted and moved, firelit and casting back orange from old brick and dusty windows; Merovingen-above towered overhead, bridge-webbed, wooden and vulnerable.

The golden Angel stood on his bridge and his firelit hair turned to gold wire, to sunlight, to Mondragon's pale blond. The hand that gripped the hilt was alive, was Mondragon's hand, down to the fine bones and the way the veins stood out, despite that it was gold. It clenched and the sword moved outward by fractions.

Sword of God.

She could not see the face. If she had seen the face it would have blasted her sense.

Don't do it yet, she asked the Angel; and fought back against the dream. She set Mondragon there beside her on that bridge so that she could know that face was not his face. She made it night again, and the river quiet. The Angel stood there shining and not-shining, because no one else in the city could have seen him that way: he was always alive, only he lived slower, and it was taking him all of a human lifetime to take a single breath. Only his thoughts ran quick, quick as lightning strokes; and if they saw the sword move the city would have lived a hundred years around them.

Don't do it yet. It was a wicked thought for an Adven tist. It was her business to wish the Retribution closer: Sword of God wanted it with fanatic zeal—but ordinary, common little Adventists hoped for it someday, secretly wanted it in someone else's lifetime, close, maybe, because the world was not that good; but not too close, because she had plans, and if Merovingen changed, where would she be and where would she go and what would become of her?

I thought so too, her mother said, sitting on the bridge, there in the dark—cap atilt, arms clasped about her knees. And with a look at Mondragon: Who's he? He's right pretty. I like the look of him. But you got to know, Altair, he don't belong.

The bridge-rail was empty then. Just the river and the dark. The dark grew worse, and things moved in it.

Something was hammering.

"Jones," it said.

"Jones."

The world shifted. She felt cold air, flailed with her hand and caught herself on a sore shoulder. Someone was knocking at the door, a gentle tapping, and Mondragon was getting out of bed.

She followed—winced as her feet hit the floor, waved a cautioning hand at Mondragon as he grabbed his robe off the floor with one hand and came up with the rapier in the other. "Minute," she said aloud. She grabbed her sweater off the floor and pulled that on, located her pants, a puddle of shadow over by the cabinet, and pulled those on, grabbed the boathook out of her belt where it lay on the floor. Mondragon had gotten the robe on by the time she padded over to the door. "Who is it?"

"Ali. They found your boat. They got it down to the tie-up near the Stair."

Her heart did a turnover and a restart. "Thank God." She shot the bolt back and cracked the door open, took it wider when she saw it was Ali alone, Ali with a bundle in his hands. "What time it it?"

"'Bout mid of the first." Ali shoved the bundle into her hands, hook and all. "His clothes. All cleaned. Moghi wants you should move that boat. Boy's watching it. He ain't much."

"Lord, where'd you find it? How'd you get it here?"

"Del Suleiman brought 'er, found 'im off by the Sanke, he's wanting you should ferry him back. Moghi wants that boat moved—"

"I'm going, I'm going." She rubbed her eyes with her free hand and shouldered the door shut, headed over for the bed to toss the clothes. Mondragon arrived and disengaged them from her arm and from the hook. She caught up her belt, put the hook where it belonged, rubbed her eyes into focus again and saw Mondragon busy buttoning his pants as she buckled her knife belt on.

"You c'n go back," she said, "get some sleep. I don't know what time it is, but I got Del to get back." Her wits woke up. "Give me some change. Couple pennies. I got to pay Del."

"I'm going with you."

"I told you. You keep that blond head of yours in this room. I paid damn well enough for it." She discovered her cap on the iron bedpost and slapped it on her head. "Don't you budge from here. I got to explain you to Del? You want gossip all over?"

"We've got it." His face flushed ruddy in the light. "What can he say that that Mintaka woman won't, tell me that?"

"You stay put! I don't need more trouble than I got! Stay put! Hear?"

"Dammit, Jones—"

"Just give me the money."

He went and got his boot by the bedside, came up with pennies. Gave her four. And scowled when he handed them over.

"Thanks."

"Jones. Be careful."

"Hey, I been running these canals all my life, I got friends out there and Del's one of 'em. You keep inside. Keep that door locked!"

She escaped out it, closed it tight.

"Bolt it," she yelled back through the door.

The bolt shot.

Damn. A man that listens.

She turned to All and the lantern, in time to follow him down the stairs, quick on bare feet in the wildly swinging light—no shoes and no socks for canal work, by the Ancestors. Her own boards under her feet again, silky-smooth and all her own, better than town floors, than Moghi's carpet. She went after AH at speed, caught him up at the bottom.

Moghi himself was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, lanternlight gleaming on his stout face and perspiring head; Moghi with his sleeves rolled up and the sounds of customers coming from the front room, noisy talk, the string-sounds of a gitar half-drowned, all filtered through a closed door.

"Your friend ain't going."

From Moghi it was query, meaning You planning to stay around; and Where's the fee?

"He ain't going," she said. "You keep an eye to him."

"Cost you," Moghi said.

Her stomach tightened. So. Rich an hour or two and poor again. "Hey, it ain't like he's all that much trouble. I paid you—"

"Got your boat back, didn't you? Got it delivered right here. Service comes expensive. You plan to have that fellow stay on another day—"

"Till I get back for him. I'll get him out of here."

Moghi's fat-rimmed eyes looked somewhat pained. "You got a destination in mind."

"That's his business, he'd skin me."

"I was offering, Jones."

"I'll think on it."

"We got some charges still."

"We'll talk about it when I get back." Lord, he might give Mondragon trouble, hunting money. "You let him be, Moghi! You let my partner be! We'll talk, all right?"

Moghi waved a hand. "Get, get, that damn boat's sitting out there, I got customers."

She went out the back way into the storeroom, and headed for the shed.