"Damned fool!" he snarled, and beat the blade down. "Damned fool, who was in line? Who was in line?"
The boy gasped for breath and shook his head, sweat flying from his hair as Mondragon hit him again, the guard of his blade against the boy's shoulder, not hard: but it staggered him. The boy's face was white, his eyes staring in panic.
Mondragon stopped himself, then, turned his back on a boy with practice-weapons in hand, felt that hazard in his gut and didn't walk away, just stood there. Come on, boy, do it, try it—
With a lump in his throat, too many dark memories tumbling one past the other.
For God's sake, do it....
But the weapon-points were wrapped, the boy was bewildered as much as hurt, the boy loved him, dammit, too damned many people loved him, no matter that he killed them. It was a punishment from God that people went on loving him, it was the hell he lived in; it was part of that hell that sometimes he thought he could turn it all around and be content in it.
"Tom?" the boy asked, a faint, shaky voice. "Tom, I'm sorry—"
Not a blow in the back. One in the gut.
"Tom?"
He couldn't talk. He couldn't move for a moment. But the boy was in pain, and of course the boy thought the wrong was on his own side, of course Raj would, it was only Jones who ever accused Mondragon of his sins, sometimes yelled at him and sometimes, deservedly, hit out at him and called him a fool.
It was Jones who had kept him sane; and it was thinking about Jones that made him crazy now, because she had taken on his enemies, mistaking them for hers, that they had touched her and threatened her and that he had no way to stop her and no way to protect her—
It was Jones who understood where he got the rent money, in bed with Marina Kamat; it was Jones who was out there on the canals—running what she called the dark ways—running God knew what cargo, to get the gold she had brought him—two coins on the kitchen table this morning, just left there—when only Jones could have done it.
A year's living for a canal-rat. A year's living, in the terms she knew....
Because for Jones' sake, for this damned boy she had dragged in out of the canals, —he had spent everything he had, and he had gone much further than that—he had spent money he did not have, had spent the gold Vega Boregy had given him, gold that ultimately had come from Anastasi Kalugin himself—
—because he had not been able to fail the only truly deep, outrageous favor Jones had ever really asked of him.
—because he was a damned fool who couldn't tell her no, even for her own good, because Jones' damnable sense of honor wouldn't let her stop looking for a young fool, and she would never understand a man who had no sense of honor left at all—
—because he had discovered then that he had one thing left to lose: he had her; and having her know him the way he was, and walk away from him in disgust, was more than he could bear. Jones only knew how to win, only understood Today, and Now; and in Jones' thinking, Tomorrow got along as best it could. She could snag him into thinking that way too, for a day or two, while the fever was on her, and while things were desperate-But the bills came due. Finally the bills came due. "M'ser Tom?" the boy asked, closer to his back. But the boy went away then, slow footsteps that paused and paused again; and finally ended up at the side of the room where they had left their coats and their other gear. He heard the boy gathering up his belongings. He felt the pain in the air. There was no need for it. There was no justice in it. "I'm trying to save your life," he said without looking to see how Raj took it. "Dammit, you think it's smart to redouble an attack without a parry, smart damn rule-breaking duelist kind of trick! You don't give a damn about timing because you're too damn smart, aren't you?" "No, m'ser...."
"There's always somebody faster. There's always somebody with a move you haven't seen. You take care of your opponent's blade first, boy, you don't ignore it, you don't ignore anything that's not dealt with, not his blade, not his knee, not the chance that he could have a gun in his pocket or a partner coming up on your back, you hear me, boy?"
"Yes, m'ser."
"Think about that."
A long silence. A meek: "Yes, m'ser."
Eventually he heard the door open and close. He worried about the boy. They got night-rent of the salle, Raj's arrangement, Raj's money—another Kamat largesse, that only wanted a soul. . .
Raj had to go out on the canals. Raj had to walk out of here alone, when there were people enough who had reason to know Raj was his, when there were far too many people who would find Raj Takahashi a much easier target.
He had to stop it, that was what it came down to. He had to stop it happening—to the boy—and to Jones.
Touchy going now—here near Hafiz's place, which was too close to damn-'em Megarys... a body had to let be on one Obligation for a while and take care of another, and it was damn bad business that one Obligation put her so close to the other—Hafiz's brewery lying as it did uncomfortably inside hostile territory.
So Altair Jones poled her skip with an eye to the bridges and the overhangs and kept herself to the shadows where she could. She never ran a tight schedule on her special pick-ups—"I ain't no poleboatman," had been her word to The Hafiz, long since, "an' I ain't makin' any damn schedule. You want your special barrels to get where they're goin' and I want me to get where I'm goin' an' neither one's goin't' do that if you got any damn notion of gettin' 'round what I'm telling ye, hirin' some other skip, either."
All of which old Hafiz had seen the sense in—Hafiz's businessman instincts being one thing and his under-the-counter business giving him better sense than to do what she warned him against—sending his goods out on any regular basis, with her or any combination of hire-ons.
So she made her runs in some trust of the old bastard—even when she had dropped the word on him lately that she was running more than the usual trade that passed between himself and Moghi.
And some of the things old Hafiz was into were things Moghi had too much sense to touch; and some of the things old Hafiz ran in his uptown barrels were things she suspected she didn't want to know about.
Damn fool, was what her Mama told her, in Mama's way—Mama having been dead a number of years now, and her knowing Mama a lot better than she had ever done when she had been alive. Retribution Jones had known a lot about the dark ways of Merovingen, Retribution had done a lot of things she had advised her daughter against doing—
Retribution Jones had had plenty to do just to keep an unplanned-for kid alive; and people in the Trade had criticized her when she had made her runs with that kid tucked into the ship's little hidey, gone places where shots flew and the blacklegs were hot after her, them and certain rivals in the Trade....
But Retribution had never been one to shirk a responsibility either, and no matter to Mama that little Altair was a rapist's kid; that man had turned up floating one morning soon after, sure enough, that had been Obligation Number One, and Retribution never let that kind of debt go unpaid; but Altair had been Obligation Number Two, of a different kind, and Retribution, who had had ways to rid herself of her second problem, that had surely made itself known in a few-odd weeks... had undoubtedly sat on this same skip's deck and counted her coins and thought about the midwives and the drug-shops that could take care of that Number Two Obligation, cheap and fast.
Dunno why you didn't, Altair thought to her Mama sometimes, when things got bad, or when she got thoughtful. What'd you owe me?
And all her Mama's ghost would say (settling in her favorite position at the skip's bow, the same battered cap on her head, and shining-like, sometimes, like the Angel Himself) was: I dunno either, t' tell the truth.
So They could say what They liked about things Mama had done, taking a kid the dark ways, hiding a kid under the half-deck while she risked both their necks, but that was the second best thing Mama had ever done for her besides let her be born, —that Mama had known what it took to run alone, and Mama had taught her—taught her when she didn't even know she was teaching her, t
aught her in the way the skip moved and the water rocked her, taught her when the moment was to hide and when to run, and taught her, while she hid below, how you talked to old Hafiz and how you handled trouble when you got in narrow waters .
So here you are, Mama said to her, from the bow— Mama sat where nobody could, just showing off, because Mama didn't weigh anything and Mama wouldn't make the bow drop. Didn't I tell you? Got yourself a man, and here you are, right in it, ain't you? Wasn't content with just some damn canaler thafd go short a few pennies, ney, ney, ye got yourself a hightowner, didn't ye?
Shut up, Mama.
Mmmn, now ye get touchy.
I ain't.
Where's his help with the Megarys? Huh?
Jones took in her breath, shoved hard with the pole, knew with a little cold chill at her gut that she had missed a beat or two, watching around her—and she damn near scraped a piling, sorting herself out, missing the push of the current, she was so rattled. Mama had stopped being friendly. It wasn't Mama anymore, it was Retribution, it was Retribution the way she had never known her, so she was halfway afraid when Mama settled in and started talking to her—
Kill 'em, Mama said.
And she didn't want to see her Mama's face right then, didn't want to look where she was going, because Mama was so much like her that old canalers sometimes forgot which was which, Mama's pose there at the bow was so much like her it was like looking at a reflection, except when her Mama talked like that she could never see the face, just the hat and the hair: the rest was shadow, no matter where shadow really ought to be, and she was afraid to be in the dark with her, and afraid to go under the bridge-shadow with her sitting there—
Like Mama could trade places with her and take her over and be her from then on, Mama could get the Megarys that way, Mama could lie there in Mondragon's bed and look out of her at him and put her. arms around him and Mondragon wouldn't know what was wrong—
(But he would know something was. Nobody could come up on him unawares—)
(Except he wouldn't know what to do then. He liked her too much. He did too much for her. He wasn't like the men her Mama had warned her about, her Mama had never met anybody like Tom Mondragon, that was why she kept having this feeling her Mama wanted to be her—her Mama wanted the life she had given her—wanted it back, wanted to run things, because her daughter wasn't smart enough—)
—But it's my life, Mama! It ain't yours, get off my skip!
Just as she went under Hafiz Bridge, and the dark was all around her, and her Mama's hands touched her, cold as Det-water, and her Mama said:
Ye're a damn ingrate, Altair.... See if I help ye after this. See if I help ye....
She came out of shadow. Her Mama wasn't there anymore, just the water with the sheen of Hafiz Brewery's light on it, and the damned weed that piled up like scum on the canals in the still spots of the Tidewater canals, water that broke out in rings that laced and spread, fish feeding there.
Life. And deathangels.
She had helped those seeds. Purify the canals, Rif had sworn to her, word of honor. From a Jane. Make the water clean.
Stop the fevers, the kind that had killed Mama. That was how the Janes had bought her help.
Do-goods are trouble, Mama used to say. They're the worst trouble. Revenantists got that one right. Maybe there ain't no karma, but there's sure as hell consequences.
So there were hers—the lantern-light shining on the weed, and on the steps that led up out of the water, at Hafiz's half-drowned door.
She pulled up there and found the ring that held the rope under the water, she tugged it free, and tied it to her skip's stern-ties. Then she rang the bell at the garde-porte, waited there, with the skip's sides all fouled in weed and the small, soft pop of fish feeding around her—till steps inside and a little rattle of the garde-porte meant she was seen.
Hafiz opened up then, chain running back, the Watergate swinging back to let a skip into the low, black arch where a body had to duck fast and shove hard.
Not the regular door, but the Old Gate, that only opened to certain boats, at certain times. On old man Hafiz's very special business.
There were boats to have hired—but anyone on the water might have carried word to Jones. Tonight Mondragon had no wish to have Jones know where he was going. There were the upper-level bridges where a m'ser of the class that belonged there might walk unremarked—except at this hour, night-guards were at their posts and gates along the balconies were shut and guarded, the occupants of the top-tier residencies, particularly in the midtown, defending peace and quiet by night.
So Mondragon took the low tiers, the canalside, as far as Fishmarket, where honest canalers at night-tie clustered along the banks, then climbed the dark and sinister web of steps to the middle tier, where a handful of walkers eyed one another with suspicion or predatory estimation. It was the hour for thieves and assignations, for banditry and burglary, and, on the water, for the honest night-traffic of huge barges and canaler-craft which could not pass in day-traffic those and smaller boats like Jones' skip, running night deliveries—
So she told him, —night deliveries. Deliveries for more than Moghi's Tavern, that was certain.
On trade that could win a canal-rat pay in gold, when copper was the coin of trade on the water, and Jones had, when he had met her, owned no more than her skip-freighter and one change of secondhand clothes.
Damn her.
He walked quickly along the boards, off Fishmarket's second tier and onto the walkways, wrapped in the cloak that spring chill still made ordinary enough on a rain-threatening night, with his ears and eyes alert not only for attack but for followers—
And that way led across the bridge from Ventani to Calliste and up to Golden Bridge by Archangel, where the Grand, if he had gone that way, followed its serpentine course up among the great Houses, past the front of Boregy.
But he had no need to go there, where gate-guards might have known him—and where Boregy would be only too glad to see him. There was a seagoing ship moored in Archangel, as it was from time to time, and from time to time docked down at Rimmon Isle—a black, tall-sided yacht which came and went where its owner chose, sometimes even to sea (but no one knew where its owner went at such times, or whether he ever truly absented himself from Merovingen.)
There was always a watch at night, on that yacht's deck, and beside her moorings on the wide Archangel walkway, a blackleg watch—the owner being, among other things, the advocate militiar, and this particular blackleg being no part of the civil department.
This particular blackleg knew him; and piped a signal to the deck. A head appeared over the rim, shadow against a cloud-shadowed sky, and the blackleg said to his partner: "Mondragon."
By the back ways of the Old Grand, which had been the Grand's course through the city before the Great Quake—but which now was a shallow, sluggish channel along dilapidated fronts of fading isles—and finally back to the open waters of the modern Grand, which led down to the present Harbor—or up again, past Hanging Bridge and past huge, three-tiered Fishmarket—
Nothing unusual for Altair Jones, except not turning cross-channel at Fishmarket, and not tying up at Moghi's, whose light at this hour was only a single watch-lantern, whose windows were shuttered and whose door was shut—in those few hours when, inside, Moghi's boys would be sweeping and scouring and getting ready for the breakfast trade.
Moghi would skin her, sure, that was what Jones was thinking: she passed that point with a little flinch, the same as if Moghi could dream she was going past, far across the width of the Grand—not that Moghi had ever outright said no independent cargo-carrying for Hafiz; not that Moghi had any right to say a thing like that except he paid her—but Moghi had a Policy about problems, and Moghi's problems went slip! splash! into HarbOrbottom, and Moghi paid her damned well (but not well enough for the kind of trouble Mondragon got himself into) and expected loyalty.
So she skinned past as fast as her pole could carry her, ski
rting the sterns of boats at night-tie, slipping along under bridge-shadow and cursing when the low whump-whump of a barge-engine announced the passage of a barge near as wide as the channel and as high as Fishmarket's bottom-tier. She eyed it coming, a shadow in shadow, under the flickering skies, a kind of on-coming wall that could ride a skip down and grind it to splinters.
She hove over against the side then, racked the pole and grabbed the boat-hook, hauling herself in by the pilings, holding there with the friction of bare feet on board while the wash from the monster made the skip buck and pitch.
There was the engine to use, the damn plants had brought that much to Merovingen, you could still the stuff to alcohol if you had room for the rig in your hidey or on your deck if you were a fool, which she didn't, and wasn't, and everybody was nervous about it anyway, not knowing how the priests were going to come down on the question whether it was Tech or not to let plants rot, and whether you could get hauled in for it and hung (the real question being, a practical Adventist knew, whether the importers of boat-fuel were influential enough, and that was Eber, and damned sure they had pull with the College)—
But fuel was cheaper and there was nothingxtoo unusual about a skip using its engine nowadays, at least on the Grand where there was always chop and where the bottom was tricky; and especially at night, where a body could be more anonymous and no priest and no blackleg could say, Who's that? Got to have a source, don't she?
She was real tempted, standing there alternately fending off and holding to the bank against the heave of the water, she was real tempted to cut loose and run under the engines tonight, because it was also hell and away faster, and she had a terrible nervous feeling tonight—maybe it was just skinning past Moghi's, maybe it was the rain that was going to cut loose and make a nasty night, maybe it was thinking about Mondragon, and thinking about him waiting for her, and waiting and brooding, as he tended to do too much of lately.
Damn, he was going to be mad about that coin, she knew he was; and she hadn't wanted to be there today, and she was scared to be there tonight, but she was scared not to be, too—one image hanging in her mind, him sitting on the edge of the bed and saying once, arms on knees and head hanging, "Jones, I'm tired, I'm just damn tired—"