Angel with The Sword

Chapter 2

SHE waked again in that close, unfamiliar warmth— chagrined: she had not meant to sleep so long or so soundly. But her passenger was still warm without feeling fever-warm; healthily sweating, in fact, with the closeness, as the first stir of activity came in the dark outside the hidey, and some coaster out in the harbor churned up a wake with its engine as it beat along toward the shallow channel to the sea. Getting an early start on the world.

The sweaty warmth against her stirred, burrowed closer and snuggled down with a sigh as if a woman's arms were part of his ordinary sleep. Or he was awake and damn well knew where his hands and his face were. She wriggled aside and out of the shelter, searching up her clothes as she went; and sat outside with the fresh wind chilling her skin and the gentle rocking of the boat all part of a strange, still-black morning, there beneath the wharves.

She ran a hand through her hair, found it itchy and none so nice. Her clothes were not as bad: she had washed them three days gone; but she was sweated and hated to get into them. She never minded a few days unbathed: weather sometimes set in with a chill that discouraged bathing, and she was alone on her boat; in fact she cultivated a certain griminess—too clean and a woman looked like she was looking, which invited all sorts of trouble. She made a spitting sound in self-disgust, not at the dirt, but at the silliness that made her care for a day; for once—well, not to be thought dirty. He was not; he was clean-shaven, without even a stubble, she recalled, until this morning when she had felt his chin against her shoulder—

(So he went fresh-shaven to his murder—A woman? Had he been meeting with some lover? But those black-hooded skulkers had had no look of someone's outraged kinfolk.)

—a fastidious man, at least. If there had been dirt on him the canal had left only its own fishy stink, which passed for clean in Merovingen-below. So could she be— fastidious when she wanted to be.

She had soap. She found the little cake of lye and lard and slipped over the side of the boat in the safe halflight before dawn, bobbed up again treading water in the gentle slap and toss of the chop. No danger of drift. She scrubbed her hair not once but twice and three times, and scrubbed herself with the white froth floating away on the waters beneath the pilings, while the sun came up enough to give a little rust color to the peeling paint of the boat-side.

And just as she surfaced from her final ducking she found herself staring up at a pale, very live face peering over the rim of the boat.

So there she was, with a naked man on her boat above her and herself at decided disadvantage down in the cold water. "Get back," she said, sharp and hostile. "Back." Thinking if he should turn surly there were still ways, and the knife and the hook for him, and the bones at the bottom of the bay. She glared up at him and bobbed there. Flung a splash of water up at him. "Back."

That seemed to wake his wits. He moved backward in some haste and retreated up a few feet toward the bow as she glared at him, elbows on the rim. He did not look threatening, rather dazed as a man might be who came back from the dead stark naked on a crisp morning.

She pitched the soap into its bucket and gave him a hard, misgiving look just to be sure he stayed put. He had settled as modestly as he could, knee tucked up and sideways. So she glared again, gave one great duck and heave and came up over the edge, slithered aboard in a wash of water and sat down and snatched after her clothes, dropped them all into her lap fast, and struggled into her sweater without a pause to dry her hair or to towel off. Pants next, quickly. She got up and hauled, not fool enough to turn her back in modesty. She just fixed him with her eye and glared to show she was in no way embarrassed and that he had only tentative welcome on her boat.

He stared. Not like the dirty boys that spied on the barges from the bridges; and hooted and called down insults, imagining they saw more than they did. He stared as if a naked woman was a holy and unexpected wonder to him, while the boat swayed in the chop a passing coaster kicked up; he sat leaning on his hands and swaying too, with the boat-motion.

He was so damn nice-looking. Her heart did a curious little quickening and she felt—warm. And oddly safe and unembarrassed and expansively content with what she had done. Reckless. Ancestors, she was not wont to be so soft-headed. But maybe it was natural that people took chances when they were in love. Like shooting the Det Bore when it came, though it tipped boats and took the unskilled; it was that kind of feeling, heart thumping, everything aslide and uncertain and by-the-Ancestors alive.

"My name's Jones," she said. "Altair Jones. This is my boat.*' And when he did not respond to that: "I've decided," she said, "you can be my lover."

He blinked and got a wary look, slid a bit back till his back hit the wood of the far side. In one heartbeat she was dismayed; in the next felt the fool; and in the third she knew for certain that she was. A man had a right to say no. She never heard of one who was inclined to, unless— Maybe he liked men, that was all. Which was a waste. But he was very pretty. Maybe too much so. She gazed at him with regret.

"Well, you don't have to," she said sullenly. She pulled out her other breeches from the side of the hidey, the over-size ones; and pulled out a sweater (she had three, all twice the size she needed); and flung them both at him. "Try those."

He blinked and let them lie there on the slats.

"You want 'em in the bilge, dammit?"

He gathered them up hi one reach and never made another move. His face showed all white in the tentative dawn, his fair hair dried and curling. Another ship thumped to life, a fishing boat sending out a wake as it passed; and the water lapped and splashed against the pilings.

"You mute?"

He moved his head. No.

She squatted and rummaged the other little packet she had there by the hidey, unstopped a jug and took a bit of bread and cheese out of their wrapper. Offered it toward him. He shook his head.

Fool. Rushing at him like that. Man's been hit over the head, swallowed all that water. Offer him to be his lover, and him with a cracked skull. Damn silly, Jones. Try to use the brain you got. Probably thinks you're crazy. "You sick at your stomach, huh?"

A nod.

"Head hurt?"

A nod.

"You got a voice?"

"What am I doing here?"

Not what'm'i'doin'ere. Clear and pure as a voice could speak it, a quiet, immaculate voice that brought her and her outheld hand to a frozen stop.

She heard that kind of accent at distance, at the distance of lordly voices drifting from the heights of bridges and the insides of buildings and the other side of grilled doorways.

"I fished you out of the canal, that's what. You got a lump on your skull and you got that water in you. It'll rot your gut out." She came closer and squatted down again and offered the bottle at arm's-length, bare toes tensing on the slats against the heave of the boat. "Drink. Whiskey's best cure I know. Take it."

He took it and downed a sip with a grimace. He drank carefully. Grimaced and swallowed, once, twice, and handed it back, wiping tears from his eyes. He began to shiver then, as she stopped the bottle. "Get some clothes on," she said. "Want people to stare? I got a reputation to think of."

Another blink. Maybe, she thought, the blow to the head had addled his wits. She waved a hand at him, move, move, and in a rush of remorse for the mistakes she had made: "Hey, I'll boil you up some tea. Sugar'n all. Go get warm."

Sugar cost dear. She could have bit her tongue for that impulse she threw atop it all. A lover was one thing; sugar cost money. Sugar, she had a tiny lump of and had hoarded it for some special need, months and months. But he was it, she decided, he was that special need, plain and simple, and maybe it would be what he needed, ease his poor stomach and put a little life in him.

So she got out a match and the oil stove, an old metal oil can, with the bottom of an old lamp; set it up on the slats of the well and carefully boiled up water in one of two metal bowls she had. She dusted tea into it; then (with a wince) the precious sugar. Took a sip herself out of self-indulgence, then edged over to her passenger. "Here. Don't you spill it."

He had worked the loose breeches on, with a perilous wobble when he essayed a rise to his knees; and lastly the baggy blue sweater—his wide shoulders and long arms were almost too much for it. He sat down again of a sudden on the bare slats of the well and for a moment swayed to the motion of the boat. But he took the bowl and drank in gingerly sips, there in the full dawn. All pale and scratched up and with a morning stubble on his beautiful face, and a swollen cut on his lip where they must have hit him. He drank; and she sat there on her haunches with her hands tucked up against her warm skin under her own sweater and thought and thought.

He was a rich man's son.

And there were those who wanted him dead, who might not take kindly to her interference. They might be bullyboys and no great trouble; a chance meeting and a mugging and a quick toss of a body into the canals. That was no great novelty hereabouts, and bully boys of their ilk were secure in their very numbers and facelessness—until they crossed a canaler.

On the other hand—there were other possibilities to consider. Like him having personal enemies. Like uptown trouble. Like trouble that could wash down on Altair Jones and her little boat like the Det in flood, and her bones would settle down amongst the collection at the bottom of the bay. Rich man's trouble.

Lover, indeed. That was why he was repulsed by her. He was too high for her, that was all. Probably he had never thought of sharing a canalrat's bed. Might get bugs. She scowled over that thought and reckoned she need not be personally offended at the turn-down. So she was seventeen and he was the first man she ever asked. So she started a shade high, that was all. Woman could always try. And he was merchandise. This was money she was looking at, by the Ancestors, she had in her hands the most valuable bit of flotsam she had ever gathered out of the Det. And perhaps—she looked curiously at that fine, lost figure that sipped its tea and looked so out of place against the bare old boards of her boat—perhaps he would just as soon see her sunk to the depths the minute he was safe with his own kind. Handsome did not mean fair-minded. Or generous. That pretty face and that worried look of his might mask a thorough-going villain.

Damn. He probably never even knew what that sugar was worth, probably had it every day, heaped and piled on his food.

There had to be a way to figure out what he was worth and where. He was wobbly, but not weak enough to handle carelessly. He showed signs of increasing steadiness, in fact, which made her think of her knife and hook under the rag-pile, and the boathook and the pole, which she could wield a lot more deftly than a landsman would think. And there was a paper of blueangel, which was for the fever; but the whole paper in a man's tea and he would be in no shape to protest being rolled overboard and in even less shape to swim.

Not that she wanted to do these things. If he was worth something, that might well mean collecting from his enemies, and Lord, she did not want to do that.

Not that, and not any deal with the damn Megarys either, who dealt in disappear-able live bodies and sold them to outbound ships and upriver slavers. The trade went on. The law knew. Every canaler knew. But not a sick cat would she trade to the Megarys.

Not to say he might not be a scoundrel after all and deserving of all he got.

Lord, he was so pretty. He was so damn pretty. He looked up from his tea-sipping while she was looking at him and thinking that, so she was caught with her guard down.

"You got a name?" she asked, sitting on the edge of the halfdeck and finger-combing her damp hair.

"Tom," he said.

It was certainly more than Tom. It was Tom-something. Something-Thomas-something, him being a high towner; so he was not willing to hand out his whole name to her. He was not all trusting, then. Not by a far ways.

"Tom. That all of it?" She reached for the empty tea-bowl. "You got a home?"

He did not answer that either. Not right away. "No."

"Live with the fishes, do you? Just follow the tides and dine on minnows and seaweed. Well, I don't doubt you'll be falling back in, then, having drunk up my tea and all."

She had not meant it for a threat. But he had a wary look when she said back in, and she saw he took it that way.

"Look, six bullylads threw you into the canal last night and I fished you out, having no better sense. Now if you've got any particular place you'd like to go, I c'n maybe get you there."

"I—" Long silence then. He sat and stared and a passing boat rocked the skip against the pilings.

"Who's after you?"

A blink. No more. Then: "My name's Mondragon. Thomas Mondragon.''

She ran that through her memory. There was no Mondragon she knew of. That meant a lie or that meant up-river, Soghon. Remote, hostile Nev Hettek, even, Farmer he certainly was not. She felt cold despite the sweater and the thick trousers. Money seemed a little farther away than it had been; and not just to Nev Hettek and back. She put her hands on her knees and drew a deep breath.

"You got a place to go?"

Silence.

"Well, I'll tell you this, Mondragon. Whatever your name is. You better wrap up real good. You better get yourself back in that hidey and stay low, because it's getting light and I don't want folk seeing you; and you better think real hard what I'm going to do with you, because you got one day, and if you ain't got it by morning I'm going to come back up here to the harbor and let you off and you can just find your own way uptown."

"Where are we going?"

"Well. Someone's awake. You got a place in mind? You got a place up there on the Rock? Rimmon Isle?" Rimmon was a haven for foreigners among the rich. "Got friends?"

Blink. A long moment he sat there, passed a hand over the back of his head. Stared at her.

"Well?"

Wits addled for sure, she reckoned. He looked dazed. Lost. It was too good to be an act.

"Crack on the head'll do that for you," she muttered, "Damn. Damn mess. Look, Tom-whoever. Get yourself down under that hidey there and tuck yourself up and sleep it off, huh?" She got up on the deck, tugged on the mooring rope and slipped it, then walked back aft to throw up the engine cover. She gave it a crank. Gave it another while they drifted free beneath the pier.

"Where are we going?"

"No matter to you. Lord! don't you fall in—"

He was on his feet and the boat bumped a piling. He went down on one knee, caught himself and sat down hard on his backside.

"Brain's kind of shook," she said, and adjusted the choke. She gave the engine yet another crank. It gave a hollow cough. A fourth try and holding the choke against the suction did it. The engine tanked away, churning up a white surge on the dark water. She loosed the hook on the long tiller and put the holding pin in to get it in action before they hit another piling. Dropped the rudder and set its pin. "Go on, get under cover. If we meet anybody, hear, if you hear me talk, whatever, you don't put that blond head of yours out of that hidey."

The boat tunked along, moving slowly in the chop beneath the deserted piers. Not wasting fuel. She put the tiller farther over and kept her course under the pilings, which was the quietest way to move. Mondragon got down on his knees and slid backward into the hidey under her feet, disappearing from her vantage.

"Thanks is fine," she said above the engine-noise, as the boat labored its way along under the pilings, eating up fuel that cost nearly as dear as the sugar. "I'm glad you're so grateful. That's real nice."

After a moment a hand caught hold of the deck-edge; an arm followed, and he put his head up. "Thanks," he said.

"Doing what I say is best," It was her mother's line. She delivered it sternly and with all the righteousness her mother had ever used. "What if them bullyboys get sight of you, huh, and come after me? Maybe you don't remember. Maybe you need time to get your brain unscrambled, huh? All right. I'll hide you out that long. You eat my food. You sleep in the hidey. You damn well do what I say. Hear? Now get back in there."

He let go all at once and vanished.

She held onto the tiller and drew a great amazed breath.

So. She said and this rich man, this handsome uptowner, ducked and did as he was told. She drew yet another breath, with the timbers passing in insane perspective toward dawnlit brown water. She was in control of things on this her deck, this morning. She swung the tiller as the boat passed from under the New Wharves and headed under the Rimmon Isle bridges, a dark, dark passage toward the dawn-lit water of the Old Harbor.

It was open running after that—shallow water in places, so a body could go aground and maybe hurt a boat doing it, if a body did not look sharp and know the currents that swept the Dead Harbor, at least in principle, Knowing them thoroughly was a matter of sailing the harbor every day; which some did—the harbor-dwellers were out here, looking like tiny floating islands on their rag-canopied rafts. Some were pathetic, a lot old, riverfolk just gone beyond their prime and down on their luck, surviving till the end. Some were not old; some were downright dangerous. A lot of crazy had come down from the Ancestors, curse them; and the really lunatic haunted the marshes and ventured out on the Rim in numbers. Of those, the pathetic ones died and the dangerous ones flourished, having no more scruples than a razorfin and about as much hesitation when it came to prey. It was evolution at work. The canny crazy ones survived best, and occasionally the Governor declared a cleanup, and the law and the sporting uptowners came down and scoured the Rim until they had routed out the current crop.

Naturally the canny-crazies took to rafts and most got away, and laid low for a few days, to return again.

So it was wise to go wary crossing the water out here, steer well clear of others, and when it came to a harborage on the Rim in this season, a body just coasted along looking for an unoccupied niche, something with good visibility and a bit of beach.

Mondragon put his head out again, up over the edge of the hidey.

"You can come out," Altair said over the low mutter of the engine and the slap of the water. "Just as well someone does see you out here." He looked doubtfully leftward, where the bleak rocky shore of the Rim showed nothing but shallow anchorages and floating garbage that even the fish disdained. "Rough place," she said. "Just as soon have folks see I got a man with me. Understand?"

He gripped the edge of the halfdeck and slid out, kneeling there after with his arms on the deck surface. He still looked a little dazed.

"Look lively. I bring her in and you get up for'ard and step off with that bow rope and just give her a pull. You strong enough to do that?"

"Where are we?"

"You ain't local for sure."

No answer.

"This is the Rim. Old seawall, most natural, some the Ancestors built. Back there—" She waved an arm off toward the open water. "That dark spot in the water is the Ghost Fleet. And further back, on that shore, that's the Dead Wharf; and over from it's the marsh; and that great hazy flat out there's the old port."

He twisted about to see, then got to his knees and got up, wobbling this way and that.

He sat down, thump! on the slats, with a wild wave of his arms and a quick catch of one hand against the deck.

"Damn, you're a lot of help."

He twisted round with a scowl—not her gentle bewildered fool; it was for a moment a hard-planed face that looked at her, looking somehow older and more dangerous. Then the planes relaxed. The fool was back.

"Dizzy?" she asked. She preferred to talk to the fool. What she had seen in his face the moment before was not something to rouse. What she had seen flicker there told her she was a fool herself not to swing that tiller about and head back for the canals where there were witnesses and a way to get this fellow taken up by the law, if nothing else.

He nodded, looking drowned and dazed and compliant.

So he didn't want to run ashore with that rope and maybe be stranded if she took it in her head to do it. Standoff. Neither did she. She had a spot in view, let the boat chug up as close as put them in shore-shallows and killed the engine. She let down the tiller and dropped the stern-anchor, then skipped blithely off the halfdeck and down the well to pick up the bow anchor and heave that overboard.

Off-shore tieup. So they floated. That idea had its merits, considering the area.

She turned and looked at him where he sat on the deck, his feet in the well, on the slats. "Been managing this boat a long time with no help to hand," she said cheerfully.

"Safer to tie up here anyway. Crazies run the shore. With you all dizzy like that, I'd worry. Hate to think of you wobbling around like that if we had to put out real fast with shore under our bottom."

"Crazies."

She waved a hand off toward the rocks, the long ridge of the west Rim. "Rim there connects right onto the marsh. All sorts of crazies can walk here as well as float. Some won't hurt you. A lot will. You just sit there. I'll just set up work here, do a little fishing. If I sing out Pull the anchor, you get up to the bow and haul up on this rope here—" She put her bare foot on it. "That easy enough for you? I'll be aft hauling up the other, and there'll be some real good reason for it. Not likely to happen. But just so's we don't cross paths on the deck. Knock each other in the wash, we would. Rules of the deck; poleman has right of way. I move with that pole and you're in my way, you just fall down and be walked on. You foul me, we could hole this boat or I could hit you in the head and you don't need another lump, do you? Second rule: you don't touch my gear. It's right where I need it. I got two calls I use: I yell Deck, hey! you just fall flat, like with the pole: this here's a small boat, and it's real easy to get your skull cracked. If I yell Scup! that means something's loose and you grab it. Got no time on a boat to explain things." She drew breath. It hardly mattered. Getting rid of him was the idea. Not attracting undue attention with him was the principal problem. "Got to do something about that head of yours. Never saw hair that blond. Anybody looking for you, you shine like a beacon." She walked on up to the halfdeck and rummaged in the first drop-bin along the side. There was a scrap of a black shibba shawl she used for a towel. It was clean. Mostly. She sniffed it and threw it at him. "Wrap that round your head. Look like a proper rafter, you will."

He looked nonplussed. "Damn. Dumb." She came and snatched it out of his hands and wrapped it for him, turbanlike, herself up close against him.

She had not thought about it when she started; she did before she was done, and she backed off when she had given the cloth its final tuck, with the same embarrassed unease she had had in the night—that he was not a boy, not just anyone, and the only company in her whole life had been female. He was just—different. Touching him felt different; and it reminded her that when she had offered him what she thought was the most profoundly generous thing she had ever offered, he had flinched. Nothing so calculated as a No. Just a gut reaction from a dazed man, honest as it came. She had herself up in his face and he just sat there. Never did what a man ought to do, just tried not to notice.

I never thought I was pretty. I never thought I was that bad. She touched her nose where she and the pole had met, hard, when she was a girl struggling to learn the boat. When she was slow getting to safe mooring in a storm, and old Det got his knock in, back when she was first alone and not so strong as she was now: first time she had ever poled alone in bad storm, and got her nose broken. She had gotten to mooring choking on blood and half-blind with pain; but got to mooring. The nose was always a little flat, a little broad. Maybe it was that. It was sure the pole hadn't helped.

"Why are you helping me?"

She looked back. Hunted a quick answer and discovered it made no sense. "Huh. I dunno."

He thought a moment. He had that look, that there was thinking going on. "How did I get aboard?"

"I pulled you."

"Yourself?"

"Who else?" she asked. "You tried to climb aboard. I grabbed you and I pulled."

He shook his head. "I don't remember. That's gone, I remember the water. I remember a bridge."

"Half a dozen friendly fellows threw you off, nakeder 'n a newborn. Don't remember, huh?"

He said nothing. That saying nothing was a lie. She saw it in the little flicker of his eyes. He looked around. "What are we waiting for?"

"You got a place to go?"

He looked at her.

"You can rest," she said. "Sun's coming up warm, you just lie there and bake those scratches till you feel better. No hurry." She walked over to starboard and got the lines and poles from their ties, skipped up onto the halfdeck and drew the stern anchor tighter. She heard him move and looked around to find him clambering up onto the halfdeck, swaying perilously rimward. He staggered again. "Deck!" she yelled, gut instinct; and he wobbled there widelegged till she grabbed him. "Sit down! Damn, you near went in!"

He caught at her arm and sat down on the halfdeck, all wobbles. She squatted on secure bare feet and the facts slowly dawned on her. She became aware of the little scrunches her toes made, the constant shift of her leg muscles. She reached and shoved at his knees. "Hey, you keep your feet down in the well, huh? Don't you stand up on the halfdeck, and you be damn careful standing up in the well. You got landlegs, not to mention a cracked skull, which don't help. Little boat does pitch a bit. You'll get used to it. You're wearing all the dry clothes I got."

He swung his feet down onto the slats. Looked back at her. "What are the sanitary arrangements?"

"Sanitary?"

"Toilet." And when she blinked in dull amazement: "Piss!' he shouted at her.

"There's that pot there for'ard and there's over the side, you takes your pick. Either you got to do." An image occurred to her. "Piss over the side; you got to do something else, you use that bucket; I can do't; you'll fall in sure if you try the other."

He looked at her and looked forward and aft and back again as if he hoped for something else. And sat where he was.

She felt genuinely sorry for him; and irritated. And personally insulted. Like the flinching-away from her. It was one and the same. She reached out and patted his hand much the same as she had touched the ingrate cat—quickly and carefully. "Hey, I'll be fishing off the stem, all right?

I won't look."

He stared at her as if he thought there was surely some better answer.

"You some kind of religious?" she asked, as the thought leaped into her head. Some Revenantists were extreme in their modesty.

"No," he said.

"You like men?"

"No." More emphatic than the last. He looked desperate.

"Just not me, huh? Fine. I won't jump you. You don't have to look so worried." She patted his hand again and got up and went over and squatted down on the half-deck at the drop-bin where the rest of the tackle was stowed, meticulously untied it and tied lines and uncapped the bait-jar, wrinkling up her nose at the stench. She wadded a bit of it on one hook and cast.

She sat down then crosslegged on the stern by the engine housing and watched the float and the water and the dancing sunlight, same as a thousand days and a thousand more. Until finally she felt the little difference in the boat his moving about made; felt it in the way the balance and character of the boat went right up her spine and into every nerve. She let him be. Eventually he came back toward the halfdeck; and got up on it. She turned around, but he was being careful, walking bent over with his hand ready to the deck.

He wanted the company, she guessed as he settled near her. It was all right. It was pleasant. "You ever fish?" she asked. It was not a hightowner kind of business, but it was a thing she liked to do when business was slow. Best thing in the world, to watch the water dance and hope for a bobble in the float; it was all hope. At any moment luck could turn. A fisher had to be an optimist. A pessimist could never stand it.

"I—" He edged closer and started to sit down and drop his feet off the side.

"Hey, you'll scare the fish. Keep your shadow off the water, huh?"

"I'm sorry." He got back and tucked his feet up in his long arms. She turned and gave him a look to say it was not unfriendliness. "I—" He tried again. "I'm really grateful," he said. "For everything."

She shrugged, suddenly dragged back to business and feeling a little chill in the world. Bridges at midnight and black-cloaked no-goods. She looked at him.

"It's not that I don't—like you," he said. "I just— don't know what's going on."

"You mean you don't know who threw you in."

That wasn't what he didn't know. She read the eyes, the quick unfocusing and dart elsewhere and back.

"How did you happen to be there?"

"I was making a pickup at the tavern. You went in right near my boat. You come up looking for anything to grab. I was it. Lucky, I s'pose."

He digested that for a moment. The eyes flickered. They were green like the sea. No, murkier. Like the sea on a bad day. Then the cloud in them went away and he reached toward her face. She flinched in startlement.

He drew back quickly and looked uncomfortable.

"Hey," she said. It scared her. Her heart was pounding. Ancestors knew, he could be crazy as half the rafters out here. She took up on the pole. "I think I got a bite." It was a lie. It got her out of an uncomfortable situation. She wound the line in and examined the dangling float and hook. The bait was gone. "Damn sneak." She got up and went after more bait.

She cast again and fished standing up until he stretched out on the warm halfdeck boards and just went to sleep. Then she sat down, and fished, and reminded herself all she had to do was give him one good shove: that landsman wobble of his was no pretense, whatever the rest of it was.

He lay there, sprawled like an innocent in the sun, and she caught a little fish. She chopped it up for bait and fished the morning away with the heavy tackle.

He waked when she brought the first good one in. He scrambled in a hurry when it landed on the half-deck flapping and flopping and spattered water all over him.

"Lively," she snapped at him, because he was within reach of it. He grabbed and got finned and grabbed it again. "Line!" she said, and he grabbed that and got it under control.

She got the hook out and put the fish on the stringer and dropped it over the side. "How's the hand?"

He showed a wound he had been sucking on, a good few punctures.

"You really are a son of the Ancestors, ain't you? That'll be sore."

He looked at her in offense and never said a word.

"I know," she said, "they don't teach you about fish uptown, you just eat 'em, My fault. Never thought you'd grab it on the back. Behind the fin and by the line. Least it didn't have teeth. Redfin, now, I wouldn't have had you grab that. Bad fins and they got teeth besides. You use a glove with that, that's all. Same with yellowbellies. Take a nice nip out of you. And deathangels, they're just what they say, they got poison'll kill you dead quicker'n you can turn around. Nice eating, but one of them spines can kill you three days after that fish was supper."

"I know that," he said somberly; and she remembered about assassins and deathangels; and the high bridges; and got another chill in the daylight. She rebaited her hook and turned and cast again. A flight of seabirds landed out by the Ghost Fleet, and raft-dwellers began a slow, drifting stalk. She watched them till the flock took flight.

By noon it was fish cooking on her little stove; and full stomachs and a nap afterward, herself on one side of the halfdeck, himself sleeping sitting up, where he had fallen asleep after lunch, down in the well. On a good slug of Hafiz's cheap whiskey and a bellyful of Dead Harbor fish.

She woke from time to time, looked over her pillowing arm to have a look at the shore, which was bare brown rock and yellow shingle; and at the passenger, whose only move had been to lie down on his side on the slats with his head on his arm. There he stayed, tucked up like a baby, one bare foot engagingly lucked behind the other knee.

The sun was warm, the night had been hard, and she blinked out and let her head down to her arm again, too sleepy to do otherwise.

By late afternoon she fried some pan-bread to have with cold fish; and Mondragon-whatever came up and looked at the proceedings. "Have you got a razor?" he asked.

"Got a good knife," she said, thinking about it. "She's razor-sharp." She had the boathook in reach, and it was an honest question: he had a good stubble by now. She ducked aside and handed him up her ribbon-thin sheath knife, not the one she beheaded fish with. He looked doubtful till he tried his thumb on the edge and then he looked respectful of it.

"What do you use, whetstone?"

"Bluestone and you be damn careful." She drew the stone from her left pocket and handed it up.

"Soap."

"'S in the can. There first as you go in the hidey. Little black can. You wait. We got supper coming."

"I reckoned to be clean for dinner."

"Lord, you got a bath last night."

He looked at her with such dumbfounded offense that she shut her mouth outright while he bent down and got the soap out of the can. A bath. After near drowning. With soap.

He went off to the rail and pulled off his sweater.

"I bet you hope I got clean clothes, too!" she yelled in derision.

He turned around. "I wish you had," he said fervently. And turned again and stripped off the too-large breeches, gathered up the knife and soap-cake in one hand, and launched himself in a shallow dive off the side.

"Damn!" It was not particularly deep at that side of the boat. She sprang up and ran to see if he had broken his neck, but there he was, swimming quite nicely. "You ever look where you are?"

"I'm all right."

"Damn, you lose my knife I'll make you find it before you get aboard."

He stood up, water at mid-chest, and held it up. Along with the soap. He wrinkled his nose. "Is something burning?"

"Damn!" she yelled, and ran back.

It was burned. She turned out the black-bottomed bread onto the cold fish, put out the fire and sat there staring at the mess.

Then she pulled her sweater off, unfastened her breeches and went off the other side of the boat.

Second bath in a day. If he could be clean, she could be cleaner. She came up and kept the boat between them.

"You all right?" he asked from his side.

"I'm fine. Dinner's already burned. Might as well be cold too." She ducked again. The bottom was silty sand and felt awful. She tucked her feet up, swam a few strokes out and flipped and started to swim back.

He came round the edge of the boat, "You want the soap?"

She trod water, not standing up; and swam to his outstretched hand and got it. He went back around to his side. She scrubbed and spat and swore, and when she had scrubbed enough for ten women she laid the soap up on the half-deck and swam round to the side, came up over the rim on her belly and slid over into the well.

Back in possession of the boat. He had a good view out where he was. She refused to notice that or to look his way. She walked up on the halfdeck and put her breeches and her sweater on, stowed the soap, and sat there and ate her dinner with her hair dripping onto her shoulders.

So he had to come back aboard. She stared mercilessly, while he turned his back to dress and pretended quite as well that she was not there. He had come back with the knife. She saw that. And when he came her way with it she had the barrelhook down by her foot just in case. She looked up as he sat down with the bluestone from his pocket and caught a little grease up from the skillet; he proceeded to care for the blade (she had to admit) right properly.

"You can eat," she said.

"I'm taking care of your property."

"I can do it fine. Eat."

He kept working at it. A long while. She finished and went to the side and swept the bones of her portion off; wiped the plate off to stow it.

Then he ate his own and took the skillet to the side. Dunked it.

"Damn, what are you doing?"

He looked back at her. "Washing. Does wash ever—?" He cut that off before it went too far, but she caught it well enough.

"You don't wash an iron skillet, Mondragon. You wipe it. Just gets better. And you go washing your plates in the harbor, you get sick. You go wash too damn much you get sick. I don't like being dirty. But there ain't no damn place to wash, Mondragon, till it rains, and then it's too damn cold!"

She screamed it at him. Realized she was screaming, and shut it down with an exasperated heave of breath.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Hey, you do all right for a landsman. You didn't even lose the soap."

"What do I do with the skillet?"

"Here." She took it and wiped it with a rag and stowed it. "First heat-up'll kill the germs. Skillet's the safest thing you could dunk."

"Bread wasn't bad."

"Thanks." She put the number two droplid down on the dishes and sat down on the halfdeck rim, bent down and got the whiskey bottle. She wanted a drink. Lord and Ancestors, he made a body want a drink.

She held it out to him then, figuring she might make him want one too. "Trade you for my knife."

He passed it and the bluestone, and took the whiskey and drank.

The bottle went back and forth several times; and she sighed then and looked at the bottle. An inch of amber fluid remained. "Oh, hell," she said, and passed it to him. He drank. She finished it.

Then she went back and fished some more, finding tranquility in the business. Across the water lights showed from Merovingen, a scatter of gold above the darkening waters. The water lapped and slapped and glittered, broken reflection of the fading sky. The float bobbed away, untroubled.

He moved up beside her on the deck, sat crosslegged. Silent. Water-watching. Thinking mist-thoughts, maybe, how old Det had tried for him and lost.

"You're real lucky," she said finally, out of her own. "Drink that old canal water, you get fever. You must've drunk a liter of it. Kept waiting all night for you to fever up. Maybe the whiskey killed the germs."

"Pills," he said. "I took a lot of pills against the water."

She turned her head. Pills. "You mean you knew somebody was going to throw you in?"

"No. The water all over Merovingen. Bad pipes. They say you have to be born here to drink it."

"You weren't."

"No."

"Where from?"

Silence.

She shrugged. A lot of river-rats and canalers had the same habit. Keeping to their own business. She got a nibble and missed the set when she jerked it. "Damn." She reeled the line in peered at the hook in the gathering night and had to take it in her hand to discover the hook had been cleaned. "Fish was supposed to be our breakfast. Didn't go to give him his."

"You live alone?"

That question made her nervous. "Sometimes. Got a lot of friends." She looked at the onsetting dark and sighed. "Well, no luck." She secured the tackle and put it away, lashed it neatly to the side near the rim-rail of the halfdeck.

And turned where she sat and looked at him where he sat, none so far on the narrow deck, in the last visible light. Her heart was beating hard again, for no sensible reason. Is that reasonable? What'm I scared of?

Oh, nothing. Six black skulkers who murder people and a man sitting in my boat in the dark, that's nothing.

They're probably looking all over for him. What if they found us?

He knows who they were.

She slid off the halfdeck and stood up in the well. He slid to the edge and set his feet over, got them out of the way as she bent and pulled a blanket from the hidey. "I'll sleep on the deck," she said, and did not add: you'd fall off. But she thought it. She stepped up on the deck and felt his hand on her ankle, not holding, just—there, and on her calf when she did stop.

"I don't want to put you out of your bed."

"That's fine. You want it, I won't roll over the side." She shook free and sat down, flinging the blanket around her. "I'll be just fine."

He reached out and put his hand on her knee this time. "Jones. Listen—I never meant to put you off. I just—hell, I'm shaken up, Jones, I don't know what I said. I think I insulted you. Come on. Come on inside."

"Cleaner up here." Of a sudden it was going the way she wanted last night; but it was not last night, she was not half that crazy, and she was scared.

"Come on," he said, rocked at her knee. "Come on, Jones."

Coward, she told herself. She sat there a good long while, and he sat still, showing no sign of going away.

"All right," she said, and edged toward the rim of the deck. He reached out a hand and steadied her—as if he could keep his feet. She got down on her knees and dragged the blanket into the hidey, and he came in after. Then came a great muddle of blanket-arranging, so that she banged her head in her nervousness. "Damn." Nothing went quite right. She lay down and he just lay there. "You going to do anything?" she asked finally.

"You want me to?"

"Damn! You son of the Ancestors, you—" She flung herself up on her elbows and began wriggling out as if the boat were afire.

He grabbed at her and she elbowed him hard enough to get a sound out of him. He grabbed her hard then and got a knee over her midriff, holding onto her hands. "Jones. Jones—" And then he worked that far down the hidey too, and it was clear he had made up his mind.

In a little while she made up hers at least for the time being; clothes got shoved to this side and that and the blankets got tangled; she hit her head again in the throes of what he was doing and nearly knocked herself dim-witted. She fell right back down on him and lay there swearing while he gently probed the egg on the back of her skull. "Oh, damn, Jones, I'm sorry."

4'Got a matching set," she said. He had a good one on his. She knew. She lay there warm and comfortable on a breathing human body, with someone's arms around her for the first time in years. And it was somewhere far and above the way she expected. He was clean and tried not to hurt her: ("Damn, girl, this your first?"—"Shut up! Don't you call me girl!" He shut up. And was worried about her, and when it got beyond hurting he made her forget it hurt.) He told her things and taught her things in his polite way, so she didn't say them hers: somehow it belonged with fine words, what he did; and what she expected belonged with hers.

Somehow it fit that she banged her head twice on her own overhead. She felt awkward; and kept quiet the way she took two baths in one day, not to have him look down on her. But karma took a hand and she made a fool of herself twice in the same night. And landed dazed on his chest and had his fine hands to take the hurt away.

She was in love. For at least the night.

You got no sense, Jones. You're a real daughter of the Ancestors. You know this Mondragon? You got any idea why six people want to throw him in the Grand? Maybe they had reason.

He couldn't be on the wrong side of it. If he was a murderer or a thief or a crazy I'd know it by now.

He's got to go back where he belongs. I got to get him there. He don't belong in a place like this.

Her heart hurt. It knotted up and hurt as if her whole self was trying to shrink up in that small space. His fingers worked at her shoulders.

"Jones, something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Her shoulders were tight. She realized he was working at over-tense muscles and tried to relax.

"You sorry?"

"No. No." She sucked in her breath. Spilling tomorrow on today, her mother called it. Damn nonsense. Today was fine. Tomorrow—well, tomorrow could maybe be two days away. Then it was time to use her wits and get him back where he belonged. She drew a breath and let it go. And snuggled up against his shoulder and tried to shut her eyes.

She opened them again at once. Sometimes she heard things at the edge of sleep, time doing tricks, things that might or might not be there.

But the waves had a rhythm. It was always there. The boat had a way of moving. The world rocked and moved forever in certain ways and with certain sounds; and right now, for no reason she had heard clearly, a cold bit of fear gathered in her gut. She tensed and started to get up; his hand pressed against her back. She put a quick hand over his mouth. "I think I heard something. I'm going to back out real easy. Stay put."

She eased back and felt him start to follow. She pushed him back. "No. Stay out of it." She had a vision of him stumbling about in the dark. "I got ways." She went on sliding, the wind cold on bare skin; came out into the starlight on her belly and came up on her hands ever so carefully to peer over the deck-rim.

A raft was out there, dark, amorphous island in the starlit water. She got the knife at the hidey entrance and slithered on her elbows down the well, cut the anchor rope with one quick slice, backed up and around and he was out in the starlight, keeping low as she was. She slithered back in a hurry. "Keep your head down," she whis pered under the water-noise. "We got a raft out there. Thing can't move for spit, but they're crazies for sure." They were in the deepest part of the well; she grabbed a towel off the slats, rolled to get it on and knotted it around her waist while he grabbed his pants. Then she rose up and put her hand on the deckrim; he grabbed her arm.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to start the engine. You want to crawl back there with me and cut that anchor rope?"

"Does that thing always start?"

"Fifty-fifty," she said. She did not like to think about that. She slapped the knife into his hand. "Get that rope cut. I know my engine."

She eeled up over the deck, slithered across quick as she could and got up on her knees behind the engine housing to lift the wooden cover, while Mondragon was at the rope.

Careful now, step by step and precise with the start-up. The old engine was fussy; it preferred the warm sun to damp nights.

The crazies saw her. There was an outright splash from the polers on the raft. A rising mutter of whispers in the dark: that became voices—

Pump some fuel up, set the switch, wish to God she'd cleaned the contact and checked the gap today—Ancestors, save a fool! Her eyes picked up another bobbing darkness, second raft beyond the first, and real terror went through her. Mondragon was on his knees beside her, the boat was slewing free and the traitor backsurge was carrying them toward the rafts—She heaved the crank round once, twice, steadied the choke against its tendency to suck in too far, heard howls break out across the water and heaved on the crank again, O God, not a sound from the engine. Adjust the throttle again; crank. A little hiccup. Back the choke out, just on the worn spot in the shaft; crank. Hiccup-hiccup.

"Jones-"

"Get the damn boathook! In the rack! Move!" Open the stop, drain the line down, she'll flood otherwise; the smell of fuel hit the air, and Mondragon was scrambling after the pole-rack, on his feet, the boat pitching as it slewed and bobbed to wave action and the rafts—God, God, three of them, one on the other angle, moving in with howls and hoots and splashes of water—Steady that choke, remember the throttle, back her down, crank again—hiccup. Damn it, engine! Crank. The nearer raft bristled with boathooks, a spiny thing like a sea-star, all of them waving and the night filled with howls and hoots. Men leaped into the water and splashed toward them.

Crank, hiccup, cough. She let go the choke, feathered the throttle and lost it. The rafts were a wall of spines. Mondragon had the boathook in his hands. Reset the throttle. Back the choke. Crank. Double-cough. The engine started, solid. Feather the throttle back; engage the screw— Tiller bar up, fool! Rudder's still down. She snatched the bar up and set the pin, and scanned the shoreside water ahead, frantically searching the dark for rocks and sand as the boat gained a little way. No room, no damn room but a thread of water along the shore where rock or sand might set them aground and helpless.

She slowed the bow around, heading that way. Water splashed. Mondragon swung at something in the water— Don't hook 'em!" she yelled, "hit 'em! You can lose the pole—Yi" A swimmer was coming right up over the side. "Ware port, ware port, God, ware port!"

He finally saw it and swung the pole into the boarder's skull just as the man hit their deck. Altair swung the tiller over and gritted her teeth as the surge and the boat's own sluggish way took them closer to the rafts than she wanted; or the rafts were closer to shore, poling more effectively in the shallows, and God knew where the bottom was under them right now—"Ware, ware, Mondragon look out!''

He was going to lose it, they were going to snag his hook and jerk him off, or get a hook into him—

"They'll try to snag the side! Mondragon, switch ends, switch ends, don't let 'em hook ye! Ware afore—"

Because they were going to skim close to the third raft, too close. She caught the dropbox handle at her foot with her toe and flipped it open, held the tiller with one hand and dived down and grabbed the pistol out— aimed it dead into the living wall that loomed up at an angle and squeezed the trigger the recoil jolted her arm, the report jolted her ears, and the crazies screeched in one great shriek as something hit the water and one voice screamed above the rest. Pole cracked against pole: she looked left where Mondragon was in the finish of a swing, and aimed past him at the waving arms and hooks. A howl and a shriek; and she kept the tiller under her arm and put her third shot into the raft coming up closer, with similar result. Her right arm ached; she had the tiller under the left one and leaned on it, trying to keep the boat as far from the raft as she could, trying to judge it tight between the reach of those poles and the hazard of that near beach.

A hand came up over their rim, the boat felt it— "Mondragon! Boarder!"

He saw it, handled the boathook with a right smart reverse and the boarder went back where he came from; but they were too near, they were coming far too close, men were pouring off the second raft to come at them through the shallows—She fired; and the surge of bodies went every which way. Screams.

An arm and a head came up over the deckrim near her. "Aft, Mondragon! Ware aft!" She saved her bullet for the raft they were passing. Let it off to save them from the hooks. The man was climbing up the portside by her, one fast surge and he was rising—"Mondragon!"

The pole appeared out of nowhere and the man went under. The screw hit something: she felt the slight resistance; but the boat tunked on, the third raft beside them now, hooks reaching, bodies pouring off the raft. She fired. Mondragon yelled and poles cracked together.

A hook snagged the wood. "Ware hook!" she screamed, slewed the tiller; and the boat kept moving; the whack-whack-whack of poles was sharp and keen over the scream ing and the engine noise. She saw open water, drove for it, as her own position came too near the hooks. She could see feral men, their spiky hair, their eyes agleam and their mouths howling in the starlight, the whole mass moving and reaching like some bad dream. One shot left. One shot. She clung to the tiller and kept judging that distance.

The bottom scraped sand on starboard. Her heart jumped. The scrape stopped; the boat went on, scraped again, silent in the deafening yells to port side, the reach of hooks Mondragon fended as he could. Blood ran on him. He staggered to a crack against the pole, caught his balance and swung a hard, sweeping blow that took a crazy off. More blows came back; and then they were passing the corner, he was in the clear, and the hooks reached for her, men jumped after the boat; but they were late. The boat chugged on, the water between them widened, and Altair heaved the tiller over to take them out into the harbor.

God, they could have had bows. One of them could have had a gun. She was shaking.

I killed five people. Maybe a dozen. Her whole arm ached. She remembered the man the screw had chopped and tried not to remember. Mondragon was looking at her, sitting on the deckrim, agleam with sweat in the starlight. The boathook lay aslant over side and deckrim, under his hand.

Altair set the tiller and squatted down and opened the ammunition box. She broke the old gun, rammed five new cartridges in and clicked the cylinder into place again. Her mother always told her not to fire the last round—"You never empty your gun, hear, you reload on five; you finish a fight, you damn well better have one bullet left." Why was not a question you asked Retribution Jones. You just said Yes, mama, and you did it. And she had. Her hands shook when she put the gun away, but Retribution's slim tanned fingers had handled that old gun like it was a metal part of them. Her whole body shook. She felt her mother crack her one for that, could feel the sting on her ear; and she sucked a breath and sobered up and remembered she was sitting half naked on her deck and the engine was running, drinking up precious fuel.

Damn. Damn. It was no time to cruise the harbor; if they spent fuel, they spent it getting across the harbor, which spent it the way she had planned. She had no money to buy more. She had about enough for Moghi's barrels without taking a loan. And she had two bottles of whiskey and a handful of flour and a paper of tea and two mouths to feed. Damn, damn, damn. She throttled back to a fuel-saving speed; they were crossing on the backflow of the tide and they would feel it about the time they crossed the Rimwash current: it would eat fuel like a drunk takes whiskey. They would make it on what was in the tank. And then she would be about flat.

She looked at Mondragon, who looked at her. Not awkward. No. She remembered him in motion, not well-skilled with that pole, but he took to it fast, he found his balance, he hadn't gotten snagged or let them get past his guard.

"Didn't know you had a gun," he said finally. His breath still came hard.

"Don't like to use it." As if she did it now and again. Better he believe that, and not get ideas. She stood up with a hand on the tiller for balance. The wind was cold on her sweat. She gave her head a shake and drew the wind into her nostrils as she scanned the water ahead. City lights were mostly out now, only a couple of sparks snowing; and the way was clean—give or take the passage under the pillars of the Rimmon Isle bridges. That could be a sticky spot at night.

She thought about it more and shut the engine down all the way.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Dunno." And then because she wanted to appear to have the answers: "Had enough trouble tonight. I'm too tired to pole her through the bridges and I sure as hell don't want to tie up there; we had enough crazies tonight."

"Is that what they were?"

"Crazies or rafters, small difference with some." She drew in another large breath, blotted the killing from her mind and drank in a certain pride. Her boat. Her say, how it ran. She knew what she was doing and he knew she knew. She saw her mother, saw Retribution Jones handling that tiller in her earliest memories, sunlight on her face and those fine hands of hers so sure of what they did, the way she walked in those bright years, like the world had better move out of her way.

She hitched up her slipping towel and hopped off her halfdeck into the well, turned to Mondragon where he sat on the deck rim. "They got you a couple of times."

"Broke the skin." He stood up and caught her arms. "Damn, girl—"

She shook his hands off right quick. "Jones. Call me Jones."

"Jones." He stood there in the starlight and found nothing else to say.

Neither did she. The boat had lost most of its way, drifting with the chop.

"I got some salve," she said. And because she wanted to be clean again, sweat-slick and feeling the touch of the crazies still lingering: "I'm going to take a bath."

He said nothing. She dropped the towel, turned and stepped off the side, a straight drop.

Water shocked beside her, a gentle drift of bubbles against her skin as another body arrived. He found her, wrapped his arms around her. Damn fool, she thought, and in a moment of panic—Is he trying to drown me, a murderer after all, he wants the boat—?

Evidently not. She surfaced with him, rolled over in a sidestroke and felt him swimming at her back, stroke for stroke. She blinked back to sanity then, broke stroke and trod water. "Damn, we trying to lose the boat?" She saw it farther away and launched out for it with strong driving strokes.

He reached it first, none so far—held to the side and waited for her.

They almost lost it again when she caught up.

"Jones," he said in a way no one had ever said that word before. "Oh, Jones." And then they had to catch the boat a second time.