Angel with The Sword

Chapter 10

THE trip belowdecks was dizzy nightmare, a confusion of steps and a passage forward, to a dark cubby of a compartment that smelled of the huge coils of rope that half filled it, all neat, all big-ship orderly. There were electrics up and down the corridor and a man turned on electrics inside the rope-storage, throwing it all into light.

Altair went in first, Mondragon second, and the door slammed. And locked, leaving them the light as footsteps went away. Electrics. In a boat-belly. White-face and his jewels and his glitter above the rail, arm stabbing down at them with the order that swept them up.

That big iron-shod bow grinding a boat to splinters. Without much noticing, same as it might have ground them under, except white-face wanted Mondragon; and took up the rest of them as something extra.

She sank down on the nearest coil of rope, legs going out from under her, and dropped her head down between her knees so it would quit spinning. Her arms went all but limp. The hand hurt with a dull throb. The feet—they stung, that was all. Her gut hurt. She heard chain rattle and crash and lifted her head, saw Mondragon had sunk down in like attitude on another such coil, and the trailing collar-chain had hit the planking. He looked up at her.

She sneezed, a violent, helpless explosion. "Damn," she said in a squeak of a voice, "you and water. Did it again, didn't you?"

He just looked at her.

"Who are they?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"Sword?"

"I don't know." His voice sank to a hoarse whisper. He tapped his ear, made a thumb-move at the walls, the ceiling.

Listening?

Someone listening?

Then a slow thunder began in the boat, different than what muttered on the horizon. The deck steadied from its heaving.

"Going to find out," she said, thinking of the little skips out there in the New Harbor, the skips and the neighbors that would have helped them if they could have gotten that far, if a shot had not hit that fuel-tank.

Skips this monster could ride under with no trouble at all.

Take them out to sea.

Upriver.

Maybe it wants my boat so's they can search it. Maybe it just wants to sink it.

Could've done it, easier'n spitting. It's something else. It's searching it wants. Lord, what're they doing with Rahman? And Tommy and Ali? Questioning them, and Rahman already half-dead?

Poor Mary. I'm sorry, Mary Gentry, ain't nothing I ever done but harm with you.

She looked bleakly at Mondragon. He stared bleakly back.

"Jones," he said in a creaky voice. "Why couldn't you let me alone?"

"I dunno." She gave a shrug and her throat hurt. "Stupid, I guess."

His face made a hurt kind of grimace. "Dammit," he said, and put his head down against his hands and slid his hands behind his neck. He rested that way, and she stared at him the while the boat thundered away in that peculiar boil of a big engine backing.

They began to move against that, then, and Mondragon lifted his face as if he could see where they were going. She had a good map of it in her head. They were coming round the end of the Dead Wharf, headed for Rimmon Bridge, which was how this monster had gotten into the harbor anyhow. The center of it was about high enough to let a boat this big pass beneath, storm-tide and all.

"You all right?" she asked finally.

He blinked and shifted his eyes to her. "Sure," he said. He picked the chain up and hung it over his shoulder, half this side and half the other so the weight got off the collar. He fingered the gall-mark on his neck.

"It's bleeding," she said.

"Figured." He looked at his ringers, wiped them on his knee. His eyes looked bruised. His mouth was swollen on one side where they had hit nun. His hair was drying with blood in it. "How the hell did you get there?"

She shrugged. "Up a shed."

"Up a shed."

"Outside." She made a gesture, vaguely up. "I tracked you all over the damn town."

"How'd you find me?"

"Man talked."

He blinked, looking lost.

"It was supposed to work better," she said.

"Hell, we nearly made it."

"Even with the tank gone." For a moment she felt better. Then she became aware of the engine-sound, thumping away with never a falter.

Not stopping for Rimmon, are we?

She got up, wobbled in the doing and saw him tense up and his hands move as if he would catch her. She came and sat down by him, leaned on him for a pillow, and he put an arm around her middle, bowed his head down next to hers. Chain clanked. The metal on his wrist shone in the light where it rested across her stomach, and blurred along with the rest of the glare.

She snuffled, wiped her nose. Leaned where it was warm and he wrapped his other arm around her.

Right under Rimmon bridges. She heard the engine-sound, heard the distant thunder, heard the backpitched sound off the bridges.

Then the engines slowed, and her own heart beat faster, faster.

'Turning to sea." Mondragon said eventually, when the motion made itself felt.

But the engines went slower, slower still, and the boat rolled to the wind. "Rimmon," she breathed, looked up at nothing but beams and rope and a glaring light and twisted over then to glance in panic at Mondragon. "Ain't going to sea, ain't towing no skip with a storm coming. There's Rimmon-slips. That's where this boat come from. This is a Rimmon-yacht."

"Belongs to some family."

"Belongs to white-face and whoever. You got any friends on Rimmon Isle?"

"No," he said.

Which said it plain enough.

The whole boat was busy with shouts and coming and going for a long while after the engines eased her into some Rimmon Isle mooring. Thunder muttered above. The boat made that quiet motion of a vessel at dock, and it was a while after that til steps came and went in the below-decks.

"Those Rimmon Isle bridges," Mondragon asked. "Guarded?"

"Doubt it." she caught a spark of interest. Her pulse picked up. "We be real nice. Maybe they'll get careless."

"Break if we can," Mondragon said. "You know this place?"

"Better'n you."

He looked her straight in the eyes. Someone came down the steps into the corridor. More than one heavy-booted someone. "All right. You cue it."

She felt the aches, felt every bruise and knock. She stood up on legs that ached. Knees wobbled painfully.

You can't run, Jones.

You can't run no more.

"I ain't the one that broke out of no governor's prison," she hissed. "You pick it."

"Who said?" He got to his feet and laid his hands on her arms. "Who told you that?"

"Up in Nev Hettek. Wasn't it?"

"Who've you been talking to?"

The steps came up to the door.

"Boregy-—Vega Boregy," she hissed. "He threw me out when I went there."

"O God."

The lock rattled. Her heart sank at that look of his, like a last hope gone down to bottom. "I done wrong, huh?"

Desperately. Searching his eyes for any hope at all.

He just stared as if she had shot him in the heart.

The door opened. She looked that way, hoping for fewer guns than she saw there.

Four of 'em. Lord, they'd blow us to tatters.

"Word is," one said, a man in dark sweater and rain-spattered leather coat, identical with all the rest, "you've got all kinds of tricks, Hettekker. Sword of God, aren't you?"

"You've got the guns," Mondragon said, and lifted an empty hand.

"Word is," the man said, "you might just run and hope we'd shoot you. So we just blow her legs off. Minute you look like you're making a move. You're valuable. She isn't. So you go over against that wall and spread out."

"I hear you." Mondragon gave her a light touch on the arm, went over against the side and took the attitude they wanted. A man got in her way with a gun aimed at her gut.

Do something? Give 'im a chance? Oh, hell.

She gauged the gun and threw her shoulder into it.

A blow exploded against her skull. She was sprawled backward on the deck with a gunbarrel in her face, and a man was dragging Mondragon back to the wall without a fight. He stood with his head leaned against the wood and let them chain his hands behind him.

Damn.

Staring up at the gun and the man.

They're going to kill me anyhow. I ain't nothing to them. Ain't worth a copper, o Mondragon, they got you, now they're going to make a hole here where my head is.

"Up," the man with the gun said. Her legs and her arms moved, automatic to the chance. She was halfway up when the man grabbed her sweater at the shoulder and flung her at the door.

Another grabbed her arm and jerked her through it.

Down the corridor with its electrics. Up the stairs and out into gray dawn and wind and the spit of rain.

She looked back, blinking at a haze in her vision, flinching from the sting of hair in her eyes. They had Mondragon between two men. His white face and pale hair glowed unnaturally white in the storm-light, and it was a stranger's face, it was that face she had seen in Gallandry's downstairs hall, all dead grim in the lamplight.

It was the Angel's face from the bridge, it was Retribution come to life, all pale and terrible.

No. He ain't. Angel he ain't. Sword of God. He don't have no special karma, no more'n me. He's thinking on Retribution, on staying alive, he ain't about quit and they know it, they're scared o' him even yet.

The man jerked at her elbow. She blinked in the mist and went where they made her go, toward the side of the ship, the gangway and the ramp down to the wharf.

She walked it, the grip on her arm numbing. Looked up as buildings and locations made sense; Takazawa was in front of them, mostly wood, towers rising crazily. But the man turned her, faced her to the building to the south, grim brown stone, barred windows, a sprawl of wings and terraces and buttresses added here and there as earthquake cracked the walls.

Nikolaev. Richest on Rimmon Isle. That was what white-face came from. One of them. With fingers in the College and the Signeury both.

She cast a look back at Mondragon, lost sight of him at once as the man jerked her forward and kept her going.

Down the pier, with Mondragon and his guards behind. Up ranks and ranks of cracked stone steps laid in the rare bedrock of Merovingen. Up at last to a door nothing but earthquake could ever shake from its pins, solid wood, bound with iron and fitted with brass.

It opened for them—someone had seen them coming. It gaped and swallowed them out of rain-spit and wind and chill, into a place as echoing and polished as Boregy. There were more guards, directions. Her, the orders said, take her to the east room.

"I ain't going!" she yelled, and: going-going-going the vault gave back in crazed repetition. She looked wildly back at Mondragon, who made a move with his eyes that just meant go on. Thunder cracked and rolled above the hall. Rain sheeted down outside and whipped in to spatter the polished floor and men heaved the door shut. The one holding her arm jerked her away.

"Damn you—" she yelled.

"Damn you," the hall gave back. The sound racketed like judgment as the man pulled her along down a side hall.

He going to get familiar? I'll kill him. I'll kill him dead before they kill me.

Up stairs, down another hallway to a room where other men caught up from the side. They opened a door and the man holding her arm spun her into it so that she staggered in the middle of fancy carpet, in the face of polished furniture and a solitary window with the rain sheeting down past diamond-panes.

And iron bars.

The door slammed at her back and a lock clicked.

She paced, paced because she was too tired and she hurt too much to fall down.

Kill 'em, she thought. If I ever get out o' here I'll come back some night and gut 'em. I'll burn this fancy place and take Rimmon with it.

They got to know that too. So I ain't getting out of here, am I?

Oh, mama, your daughter got herself down a way with no exit. I'm sorry about that.

But it was something, wasn't it, how we done that damn slaver and the whole Sword of God?

Retribution Jones turned up crosslegged on the bed. Shoved her cap back on dark hair and looked left and right.

Well, she's some place, Altair, ain't it?

Dammit, mama, what do I do?

She stopped in her pacing. The wraith went away from her mind's eye and left not even a wrinkle on the bed.

Altair dusted her good hand on her leg. The leg stung, and she saw the rip in her pants.

It was a nail.

Then it started hurting. Hurt in the way everything else did, dull and distant ache. She paced again, walked to the window and back. Nothing but gray sea out there and cloud and spats of rain against the glass. To the bath and back. A marble tub and a brass commode. Fancier still than Gallandry's. There were bottles on the marble rim. Perfume-stuff. That put her in mind of drawers and maybe somebody forgetting something useful in this polished prison. She tried them all, tried the clothes-press.

Nothing but towels, sheets, and a rack full of men's clothes. Silk stuff. Wool. A couple of sweaters.

She tottered back to the bed and hung onto the poster staring at that embroidered coverlet, those fine soft pillows. Her arm hooked round the poster as she swayed on her feet.

Damn, no. I'm dirty.

With a swipe of her sleeve across a running nose, the sleeve tasted of salt and harbor water.

He wouldn't, damned if I will.

Damn hightown prigs.

She staggered into the bath, set all the bottles on the wide rim of the marble tub and got into it dry. Turned the taps on full, plugged the drain, and ducked her head under the cold water, discovering the cold water going warm. Muscles braced for cold relaxed, went sick and shivery. She hung there a moment just getting warm, and ran hands through her hair. Winced, when her fingers found the lump on the side of her skull. Then she felt around the back of her head where the old one was fading, and remembering how she had gotten it, she gulped air and gulped it again and ducked her head under the water to wash the salt out of her eyes and the sting out of her throat.

Bottles. Damn. Glass.

She scrambled out of the tub with water still running, poured perfume from a sizable bottle down the drain and wrapped the empty in a fat towel.

Brought it down on the tub rim.

It took two bottles to get a good one, one long sliver of stout glass. She folded the rest in the towel and pulled the drawer in the clothes-press and dropped the little bundle down behind the drawer.

Then she dressed, in her own salt-ridden trousers and a man's blue sweater. And she carefully tucked that sizable sliver of glass into her waistband, part above like a handle, the rest aslant in the front hollow of her hip. She adjusted the sweater down over it and sat down carefully on the bed. It moved, but with her body, easy and safe. She let out a sigh and lay back clothes and all and shut her eyes, tumbling back into dark. —ain't going to have 'em breaking in here, by the Ancestors, hauling me off nowhere stark naked—

—ain't going to give 'em any ideas they ain't got. They want me, that's fine, I go along with 'em, I let 'em do what they want till I got a chance—

Where they got him? They treating him same as me? Lord, I hope, I hope—

Rich man's jail, that's what this is. Rich man gets on the outs with the Signeury, they send 'im to some family to keep.

And they take 'im by that long black boat into the Justiciary, and he don't ever see the light again.

No hanging on the bridge for a rich man. They got different ways. They don't want folks like me to see no rich man swing up on the gallows—

They cut their heads off, don't they?

After they got what they want.

A lock rattled. She came out of it in a panic realization that a man had walked in. She lifted her head, forgot about the glass till she felt the top slide on the skin above her waist and straighten again as she got up. Rain was washing at the window. Thunder muttered away. The man stood there. There were others behind him outside.

"Bring her," that one said.

Two men came in to do that. She held up her hands. "Hey, I'm coming, I'm coming."

Get me where there's doors. Find out where he is— Man, don't you lay hand to me!

"Wald. Let her."

The man nearest gave her room. She sidled past, walked out into the hall. "Where—?" she started to ask. But the man in charge just motioned down the hall and started walking. She fell in behind, barefoot amid their booted footfalls and thinking about that unprotected back in front of her.

And thinking about the three armed men behind her.

Another group was coming their way from up ahead, the other side of a big descending stairway. She saw the Nikolaev men, saw the blond head tall and conspicuous among them—closer and closer. His hands were free. They had got the chain off his neck. He had a white shirt on. He saw her. She just kept walking, meek and quiet, to that stairs where the two groups met; and fell in with him on that wide marble stair.

He looked her way once. That was all.

He don't want me talking. I won't. I won't say a thing.

She caught his eyes a second time, halfway down, made a slight tightening of her lids, a gesture with the eyes.

I ain't helpless, Mondragon.

His own eyes flickered. Maybe he picked it up. He looked away from her, looked where they were going, into an echoing stone hall lit from a skylight above. Rain spattered down on it like thunder, louder when they had gotten clear of the overhang. And faded away as their guides led them farther, steps echoing back as they passed by a side hall, hard-heeled steps loud and echoing in this huge place.

Cold sounds. Hard sounds. Water and stone.

I got me a knife, Mondragon. I dunno if we can get out, but if they put us in that black boat it's over the side and swim far as we can.

City's got as many holes as bridges. I know 'em all.

I'm scared, dammit. I don't like these polite folk. Them and their ways of waving this way and waving that and poisoning the drink they hand you.

A corridor left the big hall near the front; they turned that way, and a man ahead knocked at a door, cracked it and then opened it wide for them to go through.

It was a middle-sized room by rich-folk standards, all finished in wood and lit with electrics that glowed warm-gold as fire. Altair stopped cold at Mondragon's side, seeing white-face there before a true fireplace, him in his black shirt and glitter of rubies about the high collar, sitting sideways in a chair and with one booted leg slung over the arm. He had a paper in his hand, cream and crisp and new. He laid that on the little table by him where a brandy glass sat.

Then he bothered to notice them.

"Ser Mondragon," he said then, leaned back without ever taking his leg from the chair arm, lacing his hands across his belly. "I'm glad to see you looking more fit."

Mondragon said not a thing.

"Sit down, ser." A wave of his hand. "Bring a chair for the young woman." He gathered up the brandy glass and offered it toward them with a lift of the brows while a man was moving a chair over. "Have some? No? I don't doubt m'sera has some acquaintance with brandy. In its traffic."

She stared at the man. Smuggling, he meant.

Lord, they need a charge against me?

"I hired her," Mondragon said. "She was just transport."

"A skip, ser, runs freight. What were you running?" He lifted the glass of amber liquid. "Brandy-barrels from Tidewater? I think that's m'sera's specialty. Are you sure you won't have a glass?"

Mondragon shrugged. White-face snapped his fingers, and glasses happened, a clink or two from a table at the side of the room and a man arrived with a tray and a pair of brandy glasses. Mondragon took his. Altair lifted hers off the lace doily and looked up into the serving-man's expressionless face—Lord, what is he, some kind of wind-up?

And she looked back to white-face, to that quiet, quiet voice that was all Merovingen and all uptown. Not even Rimmon Isle. Uptown as uptown got, and Revenantist beyond a doubt, in this house.

"I have to congratulate you," white-face said. "In one night you've quite well set the slavers and the Sword of God in total disarray. The entire militia has hardly effected that much in a year. What project do you propose for the weekend?"

Mondragon lifted his glass, gestured aside with it to Altair. "Let her go. You want to ask me questions. She doesn't need to be privy to anything I know."

"Ah. You propose to answer, then."

"I'll tell you anything you want. Just give her her boat back and let her out of here."

White-face pursed bearded lips. "Now how far would you expect to get, m'sera?"

"I dunno. I'm willing to try."

"Try what? Another assault with firebombs, this time on my hosts of Nikolaev?"

That landed on the mark. She sat still and tried to keep her face quite dead. She set the glass down on the table between her and Mondragon. No sip of that brandy, don't need no alcohol, with my wits already mush. Damn you, white-face.

I got a glass knife in my pocket, white-face. Before they could stop me, he and I'd at least send you to your next life.

Maybe get out of here. Get to Rimmon alleyways. Bridges.

Past that damn great door out there. And half a hundred bullyboys. Sure.

"Canaler," white-face said, "where did you get involved in this?"

"She picked me up on the Grand," Mondragon said. "A fare. Just a fare."

"Is that so, m'sera?"

"He wouldn't lie."

White-face's lips curved in a sardonic smile. He lifted his glass again, drank, and the smile was no better. "You have a career in government, m'sera. What do you know about this man?"

"Just what he said."

A dead, long silence.

"I said I'd answer your questions," Mondragon said.

"You will. Yes." Another sip of brandy. White-face set the glass down and shifted round in his chair to set both feet on the floor. "Do you know who you're dealing with, Mondragon?"

"It doesn't matter. I know what you aren't."

"Eeling your way from point to point. You have no loyalties. A clever man without the least compunction in shifting sides as the wind shifts. Hourly. You're the kind of man everyone should be afraid of—with your abilities."

"I've told you I'll tell you all you want. Do you want me into the bargain? I'll agree. I've told you my price."

White-face set his elbows on the chair arms and touched his fingertips together. "The m'sera."

Thunder rumbled outside. Altair flinched, clenched her hands on the chair arm. "You want me quiet, you let him go."

"Shut up, Jones."

"No, no." White-face lifted an elegant hand, elbow on the chair arm. "M'sera Jones has an excellent grasp of the problem. She doesn't think she'll live to get to that boat-—"

True, white-face. True.

"—and she wants you to know it. A small hand, but she plays it with devastating force. And takes the game from me and you. You were buying time in the hope I'd not shed too much information on m'sera. Your hand is altogether weakest. You have the ace but you have altogether too many liabilities."

Mondragon made a helpless move of his hand on the chair arm. "You have me in a bad position. I don't doubt you can apply persuasion now. But that doesn't guarantee you the truth-—does it?"

"Ah, well, well-played. Do I threaten m'sera now?" His eyes shifted to Altair. "But he would lie in half he told me. Wouldn't he?"

"He ain't no fool."

"I tell you, m'sera, you do have a talent for the councilhall. Indeed, he's still turning this way and that. But the turns are narrower and narrower, aren't they? Your behavior would be relatively simple to guarantee—all I have to do is keep him in good health. Maybe let you visit him now and again."

O God, it's prison again, it's prison for him same as the other—

She cast a look Mondragon's way, caught one from him, caught that expression in the eye—fear, quiet, profound fear.

"Acceptable" Mondragon said, glancing back at white-face.

"But then—you'd dole out the things I want to know. To preserve both your lives. And the m'sera remains—an explosion on a slow fuse. Other factions would find her— very quickly. Uncomfortable and dangerous for you, m'sera."

"I stay with him." She looked at Mondragon and saw something come apart, some crack of something vital.

"He'll kill us both," Mondragon said plainly. "When he's done."

"He won't, you and I'll hire out to him. I'll bet these fancy bullylads ain't all that good. You want somebody knows the canalside, you want somebody knows ever' hole and nook on the Isles? I do. Ain't no damn cult going to get hands on him and me, ain't no way! I'll gut 'em!"

White-face regarded her with a lively flicker of the eyes. Then those eyes hooded in amusement. "Now there, there, Mondragon, beats the true dark heart of Merovingen, this sharp-eyed m'sera who doubtless provided us this fine brandy. You don't trifle with the under-city. It has a limited patience and it demonstrated that last night. I'm sure there are inquiries on her behalf right now. An honest woman. She would bargain. But how do I hold you, ser?"

Mondragon said nothing.

"So. You see, m'sera. He knows that I know his character. That he will never resist persuasion unless he cares to. If he swore and meant it today, tomorrow's circumstances would have him swear to my enemies with quite as complete a passion. Which is to say, none at all. I think he must once have been a great idealist. And out of those ashes, of course, a total amoralist. Nev Hettek put him behind bars—and see how that succeeded. He might be hired—mightn't you, Mondragon?"

Mondragon shrugged. "For sufficient."

"He'll deal with you," Altair said. Her heart beat away, harder and harder and her hands sweated. "Mondragon, f' God's sake—"

"Let's talk about coin," white-face said. "Let's talk about my resources. You say you don't know me. Do you, m'sera? No? Well, I should be offended. But then I doubt you'd know my father's face either."

Father. Uptown. Altair blinked and shook her bead desperately. Boregy? Is this another Boregy?

In a Revenantist house?

"Kalugin," white-face said. "Pavel Anastasi Kalugin."

My God. The governor's son. The governor. The Signeury. "Mondragon, he's—"

"Kalugin," Mondragon said in a faint, far voice. "Then this is official."

"Hardly." Kalugin crossed one leg over the other, set his hand on that booted ankle, "Tell him, m'sera."

"He—" Lord, what do I say and not say? "He's number three son. Lives up on the Rock, His brother and his sister live in the Signeury."

"You're too diplomatic, m'sera. What m'sera means to say is that my father and I don't get on well. Very old story, isn't it? Brother Mikhail is so amenable to papa's directions, brother Mikhail doesn't have a single interest except his clocks and his little inventions, couldn't find the lavatory if he didn't have a directive from papa and a councillor to guide him. Poor Mikhail won't last the week when he succeeds, and of course Council will vote him in. Tatiana's the next choice, Sister's so good with papa, so practical. Just like her mother, papa says. She certainly is. Tatiana knows where every body in the Signeury is buried and brother Mikhail will be one of them in very short order." Kalugin reached beside him, took the brandy and took a sip. "Not that I'm bereft of partisans. It's stale mate, you see. I see a certain danger in Nev Hettek. I favor the militia. That advice is not popular. And here are you. Do you see?"

Altair looked from one to the other—Kalugin smiled. Mondragon's face was quiet and cold as the Angel's.

"I begin to."

Altair gnawed at her lip. Tasted blood. "What's he want? Mondragon? Mondragon, it ain't good, is it?"

Mondragon set his brandy glass aside on the table at his elbow. "He's talking about a public confession, a trial. Public vindication for him. He gets a cause, he gets public opinion slanted his way, he gets power for the militia and his own partisans. I get the ax, I suppose, is that what they do here? But that puts us right where we were before. You can't leave Jones alive to contradict you. I know that. We all know it. Now, I don't know how long I can hold out if you apply persuasion—but then, you don't know that either. You won't be able to trust a thing I tell you."

Kalugin's eyes flickered. His mouth pursed in amusement, stretched into a lazy smile. "The last card down, is it?"

"You don't really know how many I have."

The smile grew colder.

O Lord, he's going to start on me, he is. What do I do? Killing him'd kill Mondragon sure.

But quicker.

"No," Kalugin said. "In fact I don't. But you betray something very interesting. It took m'sera to find it, didn't she, found a little undefended spot and there you are, a splendid amoralist all in ruins. You are capable of loyalty. Profound loyalty. All I have to do is keep her alive. All you have to believe is that I'll do it as long as I have the power to do it."

"Your word?" Mondragon asked, all soft and all false.

Lord, Mondragon, you know and I know that's a snowball in hell, ain't it?

Kalugin pursed his lips. "You doubt it, do you?"

"Of course not."

"Of course not. But I wouldn't impose that far on your credulity."

"You have a proposal?"

"God, you have no nerves."

"Not when I don't believe you, m'ser."

Kalugin lifted a hand, waved at the men about. "M'sera will need clothes. Something—for house. M'ser is in some better case, but hardly." He waved the hand a second time, lowered it to rest across his middle. "There, you see. Guests. An instant transformation. Easy as that."

What's he up to, Mondragon?

He's got tricks, I know he's got tricks, all over the city they tell stories on this Anastasi Kalugin.

"I got friends here," Altair said. "They alive? You going to let them go? Man's got a family. Got a wife and a kid—" Shut up, Jones, fool, this is the devil himself you're dealing with.

"The best of care," Kalugin said. "My own doctor travels with me. The one man was a bit chancy for a while this morning, wasn't he, Iosef? But he's doing quite nicely? Yes. You see? Nothing but the best. I daresay the boy can go as soon as the rain stops. The other two as soon as they're willing and able. No thanks, m'sera?"

"Thanks."

Kalugin laughed without a sound. His hand idly rotated the brandy glass by its stem as it sat on the table, A man came and filled it from the decanter by him, and Kalugin never looked to see. "M'sera came to Boregy last night. She made an appeal for your rescue. To Vega Boregy, of all people. His cousin lately murdered, his aging uncle in and out of coma—doubtless they haven't told the old man about poor Espoir. And Vega returns from his exile in Raj wade, quietly gathers the household into his hands in a matter of hours. Vega is my partisan, m'sera. A fact he's not at all made public, but one that has estranged him from his uncle. And your news so impressed him he sent straight to me here at Nikolaev. In the meantime the harbor was uncommonly busy with canalers—always a bad sign. I dispatched a message to the Signeury, of course: it never hurts to observe the forms, I hardly dreamed m'sera would succeed. But that slaver-craft comes and goes—pardon, did come and go with some regularity. The Signeury knows. It's just never been worth the bother."

Go to hell, Kalugin.

"So you were waiting in the harbor," Mondragon said.

"I was waiting. You see that not much passes by me."

"You make the point successfully."

"I'm glad. I plan to survive both my sibs. I want you to appreciate that fact. The terms, Mondragon. I'm going to turn you loose. Both of you. There's your skip, m'sera, tied to the Nikolaev yacht, in full view of God and everyone. I'm a guest of the Nikolaevs, no secret. There will be the gossip of your three companions. And should imagination utterly fail this town, my agents will loose certain vague rumors concerning your attachment to me and the fate of opposition who might think to lay hands on you. Do you see? If you serve my interests you'll find my arm is very long to protect you. Betray those interests in any particular or give me one false piece of information in our interviews and you'll discover the same. Does that satisfy you, m'sera? Will you not firebomb Kalugin?"

She shivered. Clenched her hands and drew a deep breath. O God. Alive. Out of this place alive. Mondragon, what's truth? What's a lie, from the devil?

"I don't need to wait till the rain stops, m'ser."

"What, not stay and enjoy Mondragon's I'm sure very entertaining company for the while?"

"You said you were letting him go!"

"Oh, but after he's told me all I want to hear. After he's sat with me and gone over my maps and helped me make my lists, m'sera."

"We're back to the beginning," Mondragon said. "You letting her go. Me here—not knowing what your word is worth."

"Oh, but she could stay. And you'd still wonder whether you'd leave alive. You have to trust me. In that little thing."

Mondragon reached for the brandy and drank it down to nothing. Set the empty glass down. "Compromise. She'll leave a message daily. At Moghi's, on Ventani. Your agents will deliver one from me."

"Elaborate. Wasteful."

"It gets her out of here."

"It gives her a chance to go to hiding if you slip her a suspicion of bad faith. Of course it does. I don't doubt you'll think of other little nuisances. Like telling her everything."

"I'm glad it was you who said that. I don't want you to think I have."

Kalugin sat expressionless a moment, then once and sharply an eyebrow twitched. "Very reckless, Mondragon."

"I'm quite serious."

"I'm sure you are. I also doubt you could have told her everything. I'm sure m'sera's expertise in statecraft has its limits; and her ability with maps probably greater limits. No, m'sera. Is your boat in running order?"

"Tank's holed; got a hole in her bottom, too. It's how you damn well caught us."

"Jones."

"I believe m'sera. A hole in the tank and a hole in the bottom. I don't think that should present much of a problem. Some of my staff will go down with you. I'm sure Rimmon is adequate to a repair of that size. You did say you had no need to wait on the weather."

"I changed my mind. I c'n wait. I c'n wait here a whole week. Two weeks."

"You'd not want to complicate matters. No, m'sera. I'm very anxious to have our friend's undivided attention. Your engine running. Supplies as you need them. Money if you require it. You are in my employ."

The hell I am. The hell I am if you lay a hand to him. I'll have your guts on a hook, Kalugin.

"M'sera, do you understand the arrangement? Each morning without fail, you'll leave a note with the Ventani tavern. Each morning a man will take that away. You do write, m'sera?"

"I write. I ain't got nothing to write on."

"Supplies. It's very simple. All that sort of thing is very simple. My staff takes care of details. All you have to do is ask. But you have to go now, m'sera, I very much regret, without any private word between you. This man would do something devious, I'm well sure, and I don't want you to bear that burden. Just say a public goodbye and go gather your belongings."

She looked at Mondragon. He nodded, with a private motion of the eyes. Truth, then. Go. Get out. Her eyes suddenly stung and threatened to spill over. She shoved herself to her feet.

Can't damn well walk. I can't walk, my legs'll go.

Mondragon reached his hand out. Took hers and squeezed it. She found life for her fingers and squeezed back till he let go. Fingers trailed apart.

She walked a few steps, looked back at Mondragon's back and Kalugin's white face above that ruby collar and black shirt—set her left hand on her hip, brushing her sweater aside, and cast what she pulled up.

The glass blade hit the carpet well to the side of Kalugin's chair and broke in half as guns came out of holsters all around the edge of the room. Mondragon started from his chair, stopped motionless as everyone else.

"That," she said, with heat all over where the cold had been, "that was in case."

She turned and walked out. "Sit down," she heard Kalugin say behind her. She heard guns go back into holsters and several men walk after her.

Can't hurt me. Yet. They got to have them letters, don't they?"

Moghi had a down look this morning, Moghi behind the bar himself this breakfast-time, his sullen jowls all set in a tuck of his chin as he polished away at glasses. Ali stopped his sweeping—Ali with the last traces of his black eye; and started it up again when Altair looked his way.

She went up to the bar with tomorrow's letter, all done up with yarn-tie, and there seemed an uncommon quiet about the tavern's morning patrons too, poleboatmen and Ventani regulars, mostly, having their breakfasts. They knew her. Everyone in Merovingen-below knew Altair Jones and knew mysterious letters passed between her and an uptowner-man who came to Moghi's every morning.

"It ain't here," Moghi said, and polished away at a glass too scratched to be helped, "Ain't come yet."

"What time is it?"

"Dunno, 'bout time."

She stood there a moment. Put the letter on the counter. Her hand shook when she did it. "Well, put that with my other. Man can take 'em both. Just late, that's all."

"Right," Moghi said. "Have an egg. On the house."

Generosity. From Moghi. Moghi thought it was bad.

"Thanks. Thanks." She walked back through the rear door to the kitchen, "Tea and egg," she said, and Jep gave her a look. "No," she said, "it ain't come."

"Unh." Jep got a gray-speckled egg from the tray, looked it over and got a second one. Broke them both onto the grill and added a slice of bread.

She slouched over and got the plate when the food came off. Took that and a cup of tea back to the main room and sat down to eat it.

Late. That's all it is, just late, they got some kind of tangle-up, some damned hire-on taking his damn time.

Eat your breakfast, Jones, damnfool, it don't cost you nothing.

She pushed the egg around on the plate, ate it in too-large bites and got the bread and tea down.

She waited. The boy came and tilled up her tea again and she drank that.

Damnfools, staring at me.

She shoved the chair back finally, a scrape on the wooden floor. Walked over by the bar and had Moghi's attention before she got there. "Going for a walk," she said. "I'll be back in a while."

"Huh," Moghi said, and went on arranging his glasses.

She walked out the door into the full daylight, pulled her cap tightly down and stared out over the morning-gray waters of the Grand, between Fishmarket's towering span and the plainer gray wood of Hanging Bridge. Skips were gathered there, gathered at Fishmarket's far side; a couple of poleboatmen came out of Moghi's at her back and headed down the ladder to the boats moored at Moghi's porch, a gathering like so many black fish with her own bigger boat moored beyond.

"Hey," she yelled from the porch, "you back out all right, you want me back my skip?"

"Ney, we got room."

It was tight. The poleboats began to move out, one and the other. More boatmen came out from Moghi's, talking the day's business.

Damn. Never figured to be tied up that long.

"I move 'er," she muttered, and climbed down the ladder, walked across half a dozen tightly-packed poleboats and the length of one, stepped into her own bow and slipped the jury-tie. Boats backed, taking their own time about it. She kept the skip still with the pole, worked into a developing gap at the porch edge and racked the pole, moved fast to grab the bow-rope and tied on in the last ebb of poleboatmen outward bound and the retreating clogs-onboard thunder of shoresiders on their way to their shops.

She retreated to the stern and sat down on the halfdeck-rim, got the bluestone out of its storage by her foot, took out her thin-bladed knife and set to sharpening it since yesterday's use on a bit of line.

Damn hightowner sense of time.

I give 'im another hour.

Then I got to think of something. I got to get to Rimmon, that's what I got to do.

No. I find where Kalugin is. He's slippery. Could be in Nikolaev. Could be back to Kalugin. I don't do nothing stupid, just real slow and calm.

I give 'em a little present like I give that slaver-boat, they got to come running out. And me and this is waiting.

The blade blurred.

I give 'im an hour, then I got to go somewhere they don't find me so easy.

Water fell onto the steel. She wiped her eyes with the back of the knife-hand and kept to polishing.

Leather-shod steps came up onto the porch, reached porch-edge and stopped. She looked up at a blurred outline of a man in uptorn clothes standing there above. Blinked and saw the daylight catch the hair and hover there.

M'God.

M'God. She sheathed the knife, dropped the stone and got to her feet in the well, staring up at the elegant man on the porch, the man who took the ladder-rail and came down it to step off onto the slats of her well.

He looked all right. He stood there as if he no longer knew his balance on a skip. Pretty sword at his side. Nice clothes.

You get along with Kalugin all right, then, Mondragon?

"Jones—"

All pretty again. You got an eel's turns, sure enough. Woman breaks her heart over you and you come back smelling like an uptowner, and no mark on you.

"Got room for a passenger?"

"Hey, I ain't loaded. You going somewhere's in particular, dressed like that?"

"Jones, dammit."

She pushed her cap back and resettled it, wiped her fingers on her sweater. "You're looking all right."

"I'm all right."

"You leaving town?"

"No, I—" He gestured vaguely toward uptown, motion of a lace-cuffed hand. "I'm staying in Boregy. Till I can find somewhere else. Moved late last night. Boregy's boat delivered me down at the corner—" His voice trailed off. "I'm late, aren't I?"

"Hell, not much." Her eyelashes prickled with damp when she blinked. Damnfool man. Can he tell I was crying? Did he see me? "You look real nice."

"You too." He came close to her, all perfume-smelling, all clean and fancy lace-front and wool coat, and she backed and held her knife-blacked hands out of the way as her leg hit the half-deck. "Jones, let's go somewhere."

She stared at him. "You in hire to Kalugin, are you?"

A little tautness came to his mouth. "I have a patron. That's the way a foreigner lives in this town."

"Damn, you trust that—"

"He's very likely to be governor someday. I know his kind. They often win."

"Yey. They do."

"I haven't got a choice, Jones."

She drew several quick, short breaths. "Huh." She wiped her hands again. "Well, that's another thing, ain't it?"

"You want me to untie?"

She blinked, flung up a bewildered gesture. "Hell, uptowner don't do the work." She edged past him, went her barefoot way forward and jerked the tie. Looked up at Ali standing there on the porch rim. At Jep behind him. "Dammit, ye looking for gossip?" She waved a go-away at them. "Tell Moghi I got 'im!"

"Where you going, Jones?" Moghi's voice bellowed out.

"I dunno. Ware, aft!" She unracked the pole and pushed off. "We'll know it when we get there." Pole down. The bow came about into Fishmarket shadow, for up-Grand.

"And don't you dare open them letters, Moghi! I know how I tied them knots!"