Angel with the Sword, page 11
part #1 of Merovingen Series
"Hush." He touched her face, laid a finger on her lips. Tipped her chin up and followed it with a kiss, the night all giddy with the thumping of the engine, this crazy business of hiding in a barge's gut. She caught her breath.
"Jones," he said. "You'll do all right. I have confidence in you."
"I ain't going."
"You're going," he said softly.
"Maybe I'll just find the law, maybe I'll tell the blacklegs just what—"
He stopped her mouth with a hard grip. "You could die. You could die, Jones. You hear me?"
She bobbed her head. He took his hand away. It had bruised her jaw.
"So you get off this barge," he said. "You take what I gave you, go take care of yourself. I haven't got time to."
"Where was my time? Where was my 'haven't got time to' when I fished you out of the harbor, where was me shivering my teeth loose keeping you warm all night and maybe losing the only damn customers I got while I'm keeping you away from them damn killers, huh?"
The engine chugged on. Water whispered under the hull.
"I can't ever pay you," he said. "That's all. I can't ever pay you. Do what I told you."
"In a—"
Water showered and thundered down into the well, over the deck, pouring down from above; Lord, no, not water: there were fumes. "Damn!" Altair cried, wiping her eyes from the splash and scrambling to her haunches. And: "Ware, hey!" from a bargeman above. Fire meteored down into the well, a lantern that shattered, glared, and licked out fire, fire running in instant tongues, serpents of fire flaring up in the bilge, through the wooden slats toward them. "My God, my God," Altair cried, and shoved at Mondragon in panic fear: out, out of this hole!
He was dragging at her in the same moment, and the fire leaping up in their faces, running under the slats that floored the hidey the same as the well. It was inferno, instant and complete: searing heat and glare in their faces, men screaming and herself with a fistful of Mondragon's sweater as she scrambled for the stairs, him grabbing at hers, and it was both of them on the stairs at once, trying to climb to the deck with a sheet of flame at left and hellish glare off brick and doorways at right.
She grabbed her cap and dived, still with a fistful of sweater; and he came with her all in one wild wobble for balance, all legs and change of center. She fell sideways, water solid as a floor when she hit, and the breath near left her. She kicked, clothing weighted with water, hunting the surface with Mondragon's sweater still in one fist. She felt him kick and let him go as of a sudden something huge and rough brushed her shoulder—God, the barge, the propeller—O God—She heard the thumping getting nearer and kicked in cold panic, ran into Mondragon or someone and broke the surface with the glare of fire everywhere, with fire running and burning on the water, and the giant black shape of the barge a moving wall as it slewed about and ground against a brick wall. She saw other splashes of hell-lit water, other dark heads bobbing, fighting for their lives. Doors opened. Alarm bells pealed and boomed.
Fire! Fire on the canal!
She trod water and cast about wildly, saw Mondragon's pale face close at hand. He shouted something against the roar of the fire, waved toward the bank, and waved again.
She discovered herself clutching the damned cap, thought of letting go and then in profoundest bewilderment simply slapped it on her head, water and all, and struck out swimming. Clothing dragged at her, had her breathing in great gasps, scissor kicking and dogpaddling and any other stroke that gave her room to breathe. It was Mars over there. It was Mars' narrow rim, and crowds appeared suddenly everywhere, black figures pouring out onto bridges, onto walkways, desperate cries and shrieks drowning in the roar of the fire.
The bank loomed up, closer and closer, a blank wall there, where Mars had sunk: window-arches and former doors were bricked, the old ground-floor filled, the merest rim of the old walk left as a tilted slab a boat had to remember the breadth of when it skirted that isle. Mondragon pulled ahead of her with hard strokes, hit that sloping shelf and floundered ashore with a firelit splash of water as he staggered to his feet, turned and caught his balance. He had lost the black scarf: his pale hair was plastered down around his face. Somehow he had kept the rapier; it swung at his side, its guard winking as he got down on one knee on the submerged and tilted edge and leaned out with his hand outheld to her.
She mustered a last few hard kicks, calm and sane, and reached up to his grasp, reached up a second hand when he grabbed after it, and he rose up and backstepped, pulled her out with her scrambling after footing and near taking them both in before he caught his balance and held on to her—"God," she said, and choked and just leaned on him breathing and with her clothes weighing half as much as herself.
"Come on." He faced her about, got her into motion, his hand on her elbow. She went, splashing along with him, trying to flail her arms for balance, but his grip tightened about her left arm and he pulled her faster, she gasped and spat water that ran down from her hair and her cap, and nigh tore her knees keeping her balance on the outside of the ledge where his hold put her. Her feet went: the ledge just quit; and she went hi up to her waist before he hauled her up again and she scrabbled to solid stone, gasping and feeling a stitch in a rib.
Then they reached clear ground, staggered round the corner and full into a crowd of locals trying to get a floating-boom across the side canal, to stop the fire that might come drifting that way on the water. The crowd yelled, vague angry shouts, curses at two wet fugitives who might have some responsibility in the calamity—"That your boat?" one yelled, dropping his part of the makeshift boom to grab at Mondragon. "That your boat out there?"
"No!" Mondragon yelled back, his voice deep and furious. "We were on a poleboat, the damned barge nearly killed us!"
It was quick, it was credible, Mondragon's hightown accent, the outraged uptown passenger who would have nothing conceivable to do with a barge—it confused the man, who let Mondragon tear past, dragging her with him; and now Altair tried to run in earnest, past other arriving crowds. Two wet people now were far enough away from the immediate calamity they might be soaked firefighters, and they had the advantage of moving fast, before questions could get organized. Altair gasped for air and squished along in Sodden, weak-kneed jolts.
A vaster pealing added itself to the night - the great bell of the Signeury ringing in alarm: Help, fire, catastrophe, turn out, turn out!
Mondragon reached Mars' north stair at the landing, laid his hand to the rail and headed up, hauling her along. She gasped like a fish and stumbled on the steps, caught herself with her left hand as Mondragon hauled on her sore right arm.
Then it was a gentle jog, thumping across the boards of Mars' north bridge over to Wex, and onto that balcony, on which a scattered few shopkeepers ran toward the fire with hand-pumps and fending-poles. On the higher bridges crowds gathered, peering out toward the site of the fire which glowed like an unnatural sun in the city. The great Signeury bell tolled its alarm. People passed them on the balcony, distraught: "What is it?" one cried, catching at Altair's arm.
"Barge," she gasped over her shoulder, and Mondragon pulled her on and on, around the corner of Wex to the Splice, where a bridge led over to Porfirio.
Sedate walk then. Two drenched fugitives walking, one holding the other, down the boards, ignoring stares. Mondragon turned off at Porfirio Stair, where it led down to the landing; and it was down and down the steps till they were on canalside again, black water lapping at the stone walk. It was a quiet place, a warehouse on this side of Porfirio, its iron gates shut. Mondragon stopped and let her go and leaned against the corner of the door-inset, and she leaned her back against the iron door itself and held her aching side and just breathed for a moment. Mondragon's face shone pale in the starlight, fair hair starting to dry and curl.
"Where we going?" Altair asked.
"I don't know," he said.
"Don't know!" She yanked her sodden cap off and slapped it against her leg. "Damn, then why you been pulling me?"
He looked all blank for a moment, even offended, then gestured wildly at the bridges above them. "What do you want?" he asked, voice cracking. "Stand gawking in the crowd, dripping wet? Go back to Gallandry? They'll have ambush laid at every bridge."
"Then ask someone who knows the town, dammit! Come on."
He stood fast. "Where do you have in mind?"
She jerked her head in general toward her own territory, toward the Grand. The heavy bell of the Signeury dinned calamity into the night and jarred along her nerves. She sorted and discarded a dozen possible refugees in an eyeblink. "We got to walk there. Damn, we go up to a boat wet as we are, we got questions, and questions we don't need. Got to be somewheres we can walk. Moghi's. Moghi or Liberty'd do 'er for—Lord!" She plunged her hand into her right pocket. Against all expectation her fingers met two metal rounds she had not remembered putting there. Instinct had done it, unthought. Her knees went to water. She took her hand out carefully without bringing the coins to light. "I got 'em, I got 'em, oh, Lord, I got 'em." she began to shake all over. "Come on." She grabbed at his arm. "Come on, dammit! We waiting on your friends?"
He brushed off her hand and took her by both arms. "Jones—"
"Listen, you going to be a damnfool? Damnfools go cheap in this town. Ain't just your friends in the hoods can cut your throat. You go walking along canalside at night looking like you got two coppers, they'll find you when you float. You hear me?"
His fingers relaxed. He was listening.
"I know this place," she said on her next breath. "You going to trust me? We been going the wrong damn direction. Now come on, before sun comes up on us and you and me are too public."
"Jones, they'll kill you."
"I kind of figured that." Damn, folk pouring tanks of fuel off bridges onto barges, folk setting fires on the canals. The heavy bell of the Signeury still tolled, dinning calamity into the air. The noise rattled her brains, the enormity of it sank into her bones like the enormity off what she had in her pocket. She locked her arm into
Mondragon's and faced about; and when she turned the sky was orange above the dark, jagged hulk of Wex and Mars. "Lord! Look at that! If that fire gets beyond those booms, it could take the whole damn city—"
"Where are we going? Back there?" His voice said no. She shook at him, pointed off southwest.
"Gallandry's that way, and not far. So they got it watched. We're on the Grand, almost, we go up a level, we got Oldmarket Bridge, and we go over east and we go down canalside."
He hesitated. Took her arms then. "Jones. Jones, Boregy. That's where I'm going."
"The Ten." Old money. Next the Signeury. She stood still. Smoke wafted on the wind and the windward side of her wet body began to chill. "Friends of yours, huh?"
"You think if we got to your boat you could get me that far?"
"To do what?"
"I'm asking about the boat. Can you do it?"
"To do what, dammit?"
No answer. None but that stare of his. Her teeth started chattering; she hugged her arms about herself.
"Jones, it's all right."
"Damned if it is." She clenched her teeth and hugged herself with one arm and hooked a gesture off eastward. "We got to go across the Grand no matter what. I'm freezing. Come on."
He came, gave her his arm and pulled her close, so at least it was warmer on that side as they walked along the side of Porfirio, along the Splice.
Damn, tell me to go find my boat, will you? That's what you're about—Go off and find your boat, Jones, go get your throat cut, never mind the questions, Jones, never mind who it is that don't mind a bit pouring oil into Port Canal and trying to burn the city down—no, no, you don't need to know that, do you? Damn him.
She sneezed. "Damn."
"I'm sorry."
"You got an attraction to water, you know that?" Her feet hurt when she walked, heavy wet socks, new shoes that pinched, and all waterlogged. It was all one with the rest of the misery, wind chilled her right side; and numbness promised relief soon for her feet. The air stank of burning, even here, and the bell went on and on.
Around the north of Porfirio, over to sight of Oldmarket Bridge. He slowed to a stop here, against the brick wall of Porfirio. The Grand spread itself wide and dark under the pilings of the bridge. Boats ought to ride here at mooring, five or six at least huddled together out of the current— they had night-nghts there; she knew their names, knew who belonged and who did not. There was only one boat tied there at present, a ramshackle little skip tucked up under the shadow of the Oldmarket Stair.
"Stay put." Altair went out around the broad shelf of the landing, peered down the dark length of the canal, toward Midtown Bridge, and the outflow of Port Canal. No light of fire. That was good news. It had not escaped Port. Yet. She glanced back, to be sure Mondragon stayed put.
She caught his worried look. She signaled quiet and walked quietly along the landing, quietly as she could in this eerie desertion. There were only a few boats in sight even farther down the Grand's dark waters, and those were steadily retreating. Canalers had moved when that alarm bell rang, any fool would. They had headed fast as they could either down the Grand to help stem the fire, or they outright ran in panic, having visions of the whole of wooden Merovingen going up like so much tinder—ran down the canal or up toward the Rock and the sullen flow of the Greve, where they might be out of danger if the whole town caught fire.
Only this one has stayed. And Lord and the Ancestors only knew where Del Suleiman might have taken her boat. He would have taken it. Powered up and towed it behind if he got worried enough to want speed.
She walked carefully round the stairs. She saw the ragged tarp shielding part of the well of the skip that sheltered there at tie. Its sides were weathered, silvery-wooden in the starlight in what patches showed in the shadow. Old boat; boat going the way of its owner, one of the sort that huddled along in traffic with other boats, trying not to leave safe company. "Hey," she said, to let the occupant know she was no land-dweller. "Hey the boat."
The shadowy tarp curtain drew back on an edge. An eye looked out, a wisp of white hair in the starlight and deep shadow.
"Jones," Altair identified herself. She hooked a thumb toward the canal. "They got a barge afire down there. Got cut off from my boat, I did. Trying to find where old Del Suleiman took 'er."
"He ain't been here." The old voice was a little stronger. "Retribution? Is it Retribution?"
Altair came a little closer. "Mintaka?"
The curtain widened. All of a frizzy white head came out. "What's going on down there? What be it?"
"They got a fire, that's what. A bad 'un." Altair sank down on her heels, winced at sore feet and caught her balance on her hand. "Left you here, huh?"
"Them damn fools. I ain't going off down there." The voice quavered. It was not age, not petulance. It was outright terror. "Retribution's dead."
"My mama. She died five years ago. You want me to move your boat for you?"
Coward, Jones. Callous.
But, damn, she's in worse danger here. Damn them all that left her. What's the Grand coming to? Where's Muggin tonight? Where's all the old 'uns?
"You do that?"
"My boat's somewheres that way." She pointed off toward the south, toward trouble. Mintaka never looked. "I tell you what, you give me a ride and I pole your boat for you, huh? Get you back where there's people."
Mintaka's chin wobbled. "It's my arthritis. Sometimes I can push 'er, sometimes I can't. I think I'd rather die than push 'er down there. What could I do? Push and shove with all them boats? Get caught in the fire, that's what."
"Well, I'll get you through. You wait a minute. I got a man here—uptowner; he got soaked down there, you won't mind if I bring him along."
"I dunno, I didn't say no other—"
Afraid. It was a habit with the old loners. "Hey."
Altair said, "he's a nice 'un." She looked over her shoulder where Mondragon waited in Porfirio's shadow. "Ser. You want to come over here, let Gran have a look at you, tell her you ain't any trouble?"
Mondragon came, not cheerfully. He came close and sank down on his heels beside her and the little skip. "M'sera," he said gravely.
Mintaka gave a strange little laugh. It was the m'sera, for sure. Then she went wary and sober again. "My boat ain't no poleboat."
"M'sera, she's a very welcome boat, and I'd be glad to pay you."
Mintaka's eyes went round. It was the pay that did that. "He all right, huh?"
"He's fine, gran Mintaka." Altair stood up and untied the single mooring rope with a jerk of a slipknot. Held the skip hard against the landing. "You want to step aboard, set, sort of duck down under that tarp—He got soaked, like I said, gran. Hair's all wet—you got a scarf? Got something to keep him warm? I'll buy 'er off you next week."
"Oh, I got 'er," Mintaka said, "I do got her."
Mondragon stepped to the rim and dropped down into the well; the skip rocked, rocked again as Altair snubbed the rope about the post and offered the end to Mintaka. "Hey, you want to hold that snub, gran?"
Mintaka got herself up, limped her bent way forward and took the rope, while Altair ran alongside and made a jump for the halfdeck before it swayed out too far. Her feet shot pain to her nerves. She winced and recovered herself and took the pole from the rack.
"Let 'er free, gran."
The old canalrat pulled the snub and Altair put the pole in and shoved off, letting the skip take the gentle current to get the bow clear—hard to manage a skip when there was no option to run forward, the tarp-shelter being in the way: it was necessarily slower. But the skip was the lightest she had ever handled, no motor behind, not much freeboard either, just a light shell that rode the water like a poleboat, with a commendable trim. "Hey, she's good," Altair sang out, to please the old woman, "handles real sweet, she does."
