Angel with the Sword, page 7
part #1 of Merovingen Series
"I'm not."
She grinned wide. "Hightowner." Gasp. "Be you?"
"What would you have done out there—last night—when the crazies came at you?"
Damn, here he goes. Damn fool question. His damn fault, too, "Hey, man, I wouldn't have been sleeping deaf and blind in the hidey, then, would I? You can bless your
Ancestors I got good ears, that's the truth. Never came so close. I tie up to the Rim, I sleep on the deck, I sleep like a cat, and they don't get up on me like that."
"What if that engine had failed?"
The thought chilled her. She weighed things like that before she did them; she was not prone to mull them over after. "Well, it didn't."
"It might someday."
"Look, usually I go to the Rim in bad seasons; then (here's more canalers and fewer crazies. If my engine goes down I get a tow and it costs me a hell of a lot—did it once." That was a lie. It was what she had done for another canaler, her fuel and theirs together in her struggling engine, and she had taken pay in bits and pieces for a month. "Any more of my business you want to know?"
He kept his mouth shut.
"Takes a damn fool man," she said, "to throw me off my regular ways. Take 'im out where his enemies can't get at him, risk my damn neck, I mean, you want a fool—that's a fool. How'd I know you wasn't a murderer? How'd I know but what that wasn't some uptown woman's kinfolk throwing you in because you up and jumped her, huh? That's a fool, being out there alone with you in my boat."
"Why did you do it?"
"Damnfool, that's why. Need a better reason?"
He was quiet a moment. Then: "Jones, what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Jones, slow down."
Current hit the bow. She gasped for breath and shifted hard, staggered a bit and lost her balance in the shift of current. Tired. Her sides ached. Her arms were leaden. Sweat ran in her eyes.
"Jones, dammit. Are you trying to kill yourself? We're not in a race."
She ignored him for another barge, maneuvered across the influx from the Snake's harborside loop across the Grand, and avoided the slew the current wanted to give her. It was no place to stop, folk would swear her deaf if she parked at the Jut and had herself in the traffic. Some barge would crack into her and just deserts for a fool. If she was alone she would pull off to the Snake's nearest tie-up and rest. She had shown him a fancy bit of moving; now the damn landsman had that worry-look on his face and that damn insistence in his voice—Fool woman. Quit. Pull off. Let me, lei me, let me—pushing right in to have the boat, his way, tell her what to do, when to breathe and when to spit, and then walk out again with things a damn mess, because he had more important things in life than a damn woman. Walking through the damn world messing folk up and so damn smug-sure it was help. Man with that tone didn't deserve to be listened to. Her mother never would. Spit in their eye, she would. Man catcalled from other barges—Hey, sweet, that boat's too big for you! And worse things. Hey, you want some help? Followed by just what help the bastard thought she needed.
Stay out of my business, she wanted to say. But it was not the kind of parting she wanted; Mondragon wasn't to blame for the world. He just did what others did. Slept with a woman and thought he could get his hands into her life and fix it all before he went back to his hightown ways. Never even thought he'd just seen the fanciest bit of boatmanship he was like to see on the canals. A skip-freighter never got to show off to passengers like the flashy poleboaters; she had just showed him a dozen tricks of the sort canalers showed when they wanted to impress each other, the kind that made a difference in the trade, how a boat could move and handle the tight places. She showed a landsman that kind of thing. And he just saw a woman sweat and got all bothered.
Dammit.
Damned if she'd rest. Take him to the damn bridge and dump him in, she would. Put him back where she found him. Ask for the domes back. That'd fix him good.
She sucked a quieter breath, easier now the strokes were fewer, up past the Jog, under Parley Bridge, and her breath rasped in her throat. She was resting. That was a canaler trick too, getting wind back while she worked. But he was blind to it, same as what it took to shoot the piers and all their currents.
"Jones—" he insisted, looking up at her from the well.
She managed a grin. "You got a problem?"
He evidently thought better of it. She grinned wider. And took it slower still, breathing easier. *'I tell you, man, there's places you don't stop. Park at the Jog back there, some barge'll run right over you. Current takes 'em real close to that wall and they don't see you. Don't care either. Bargemen got no regard for a boat."
That seemed to put some respect into him. He kept his mouth shut, maybe having realized he knew less than he thought.
Fine for you, Mondragon. Got a brain even if they did rattle it. I wouldn't do so good in your hightown. Be a real embarrassment, I would. Leave my boat to me, all right, Mondragon? You don't own everything.
I'll have me a dozen lovers.
Take precautions too, I will.
O God, if he's got me pregnant.
I'd work this boat same's mama did, that's what I'd do; have my kid; wouldn't be alone then. Have a daughter with hair like that—
Lord, I'd have to fight off the bridge-boys with the boathook; have to teach her to use a knife same as mama did me…
Give her to her damn father, that's what. I'd march right up to hightown wherever he's got to and hand him the brat and wish him luck.
Take precautions next time. Going to cost you a week's work, old Mag's drugshop's supposed to be good. Should of had the stuff aboard before now.
Have to walk in that shop in front of God and everybody and ask for that stuff, old Mag'll grin; she'll tell that sister of hers, Lord, it'll be all up and down the river by sunset and I'll be fending off boarders.
Hey the icewoman's done thawed!
Hey, Jones-pretty. You wanta see what I got?
Damn, nothing's simple.
The bridge-shadows came over them, the air went cold with that deep dankness of Merovingen's depths. The shadows went darker still, a moment of blindness that swept past to daylight. There was a copper taste in her mouth, the loom of a black boat passing beside her—she fended and evaded it, and evaded the gray rough-hewn stone of Mantovan's Jut on starboard. Another skip was ahead, dead-stopped at a mooring ring. "Damnfool." She maneuvered around it, slow drives of aching muscles. 4'Park in the Grand in daylight—" She reached out and rammed the pole end against the boat. "Damnfool, you!"
"Damn bitch!"
"Old man Muggin." She sucked wind as they passed. Looked at Mondragon standing just off the deckrim, gazing back at the boat and its ragged occupant. "Old man thinks he owns the water. He don't handle that boat so good nowadays, long stretches get him, and he won't stay off the Grand." She recovered her breath and poled along with steady strokes again. "You got rules here. You obey 'em, you get along."
"You want to rest, Jones?"
"Hey, I got no need. She's light today. You want to see work, push her when her well's full of cargo, then's work." She coughed from the bottom of her lungs, missed a stroke. "Just a little—" A second cough seized her, payment for the long push. "Damn." She coughed again, swallowed and got the spasm under control. "Cold. Change always does that to me. Going from sunlight in under the bridges." They passed a poleboat, out fareless. Hunting. It was true, they were well under Merovingen's bridges now, and the water was dark and the walls on either side un-tended and cheerless, their windows and doors barred with iron. No canal-level entry here, except to the lowest sorts of places, that served canalmen. The big isles took their canalside deliveries down guarded bays, within iron gates that guaranteed they got only what they ordered. "What's at Hanging Bridge?"
There was no answer. But it stopped the questions. She worked quietly, wiped the sweat. So much for clean clothes. Hardly dry yet and the sweat soaked them.
"You looking for Them?" she asked him,
He turned and looked at her. The easy manner was gone, the humor fled. Yes. He was looking for them. For something. Plain as an answer.
"Yeah," she said. He said nothing. "Who were they?" she asked.
"I'll take care of it."
"Real fine. Maybe they'll be looking for me, you ever think of that?" She drew a breath, two. It was the Hanging Bridge ahead, and the current of the Snake's other exit. She fought it the moment it took.
"I thought of it."
"That's real nice."
"It wouldn't do you any good, Jones. It might do worse. Just stay clear of it. Far clear."
The sun was on them now, one of the only places on the Grand that had a view; which was what made the Hanging Bridge. It hove up, conspicuous with its fretworks and its angel and its ominous wooden arches.
"That's there's the Angel, shining there," Altair said, between pushes. "Revenantists say Merovingen'll stand long as the Angel stands on the bridge. Janes say he draws that sword a bit more every time the earth shakes. Adven-tists say he'll stand till Retribution."
"I've heard of him," Mondragon said. He turned his face to her again, looked ahead as they came closer to the bridge, looked back again.
She looked too, scanning the traffic. Her back prickled with the feeling she got skimming through some backwater. Running near crazies and rafters. Back to the starting-point. Fishmarket Bridge loomed beyond. There was Moghi's, dim and distant under Fishmarket shadow, Moghi's porch beyond Ventani Pier. There were skips and poleboats and the usual huddle of barges, the vegetable-sellers and the fish-sellers and the fish-freighters tied up to rings there by Fishmarket and spilling all the way along the edge. The wooden towers of Merovingen-above shone silver-gray in the sun above the dark, above the web of bridges beyond. And the Hanging Bridge Angel presided over it all, sword half-drawn. World half-ended.
Putting it away or taking it out again since the Great Quake?
Halfway between dooms.
She spied a place on the east bank and eased the bow over that way, there amongst the fish-sellers. Mondragon sat on the deck-edge, turned again to look up at her as they glided in.
Wondering what she wanted, maybe. Wondering how to make parting fast and clean. She was too busy; shipped the pole and took up the boathook. "Hey, Del," she hailed the old man of the neighboring skip, and snagged the ring, hauling mem close. She bent and took up the mooring rope one-handed, ran in through the ring and made them fast. Hopped down and walked up forward where her bow touched the other skip. "Hey, Del, you want to give me a bow tie-up there?"
"What you selling?"
"Not a thing. Not trading. Just a little stop."
No competition. Del Suleiman's old mouth snaggled into a grin. "I take 'er. Tie on."
"Well, you got to lend me the rope, I lost my anchor stem and bow."
White brows went up and lowered again. A scraggle-bearded chin worked. A gap-toothed woman sat aft on the half-deck, female mountain behind the baskets of eels. "How'd ye lose 'er?"
"Hey, got a lander." She reset her cap and in the move brushed knuckle to right eyebrow: got business going with this landsman; settle ours later. The old man grinned and the woman grinned and the old man got his boathook to do the tie-up.
She walked back to Mondragon, who stood in the well within a stride of the stone walk. Waiting on her.
He stood there a moment longer, looking into her eyes. And for a moment she remembered the sun on him in the morning.
Then he turned and skipped up onto the landing, barefoot as a canaler, in her misfit breeches, a blue sweater out at the elbows and a black turban that did nothing to hide that white, sun-burned skin of his. He looked back from that vantage. Once.
She stood with her hands in her waistband and her bare feet solid on her deck. "Luck," she said. "Mind your back next time."
It got a flicker from him, as if that had shot true. "Luck," he said, and turned and headed for the stairs.
Not another look back. Not one.
Not an offer to bring the clothes back. Too rich to think it was all she had but what she was wearing.
Or just not going to promise what he couldn't do.
She turned and walked down to the bow where old Del was tying up. She squatted down there. "Del, what I got to give you so's you watch my boat?"
The old man's wits were sharp. His face never looked it. He chewed the cud he had, spat a little green juice overside between her bow and his side. "Hey, watcher into, Jones? You clean?"
"Swear." She lifted a solemn hand. "What I got to give you?"
"I think on 'er."
"Well, think, ye damn sherk!" Altair sprang up in despair. Old Del knew how to wring advantage out of a bargain, and retreating quarry was a mighty lever. "I'll pay you, I'll pay you, my heart's blood I'll pay you; and heaven help you if I got a scratch on my boat!" She pelted up the slats, grabbed up the knife and the barrelhook and hit the stones running. Hooo—oo! The appreciation of other canalers followed that bit of theater. Hooo—Run for 'er, Jones! Hooo—Del!
Damn. He could get away, go either direction. She thumped up the age-smooth wood of the Hanging Stair, up and up the four turns to the wide bridge and its gallows-arches.
There, blue sweater and black turban heading over the bridge to Ventani.
Headed right for the neighborhood that dumped him into old man Det's jaws in the first place.
Man with his mind set on trouble, that was what. Crazy man. Crazy as the rafters.
She headed after him, bare feet soft-silent on the boards, belting on her knife and hanging the barrelhook from that belt too.
Chapter 4
NOW it was a real fool went racing across that bridge. And one following after him, barefoot on the sun-warmed planks, a canaler among the hightowners—the folk in plain chambrys and leather, the tradesfolk and the hightown shopfolk; and Signeury guards and sober Collegians and the highest of the hightowners, uptown folk all decked in lace and fine fabrics and dainty heeled shoes that rat-tat-tatted on the boards like a holiday drummer. A sweet-seller bawled her wares at bridgehead, beneath the ominous, thoughtful face of the Angel, whose gilt hand was on his sword. Altair strode past and imagined the sword regretfully shoved an immeasurable fraction back into its sheath: a fool's act put off the Retribution. Daughter, the Angel would say, his grave beautiful face very like Mondragon's, just why are you doing this?
And she would stand and stammer and say: Retribution (the Angel had her mother's name), I dunno, but excuse me now (hasty mental curtsy), there's the other fool and he's off down the walk, I daren't run—Let me keep up with him, Angel, I'll mind my business tomorrow, I will—
She pattered off the bridge and along the side of Ventani Isle, on its balconies, with its higher-level bridges in still more layers above, that shadowed Margrave Canal and Coffin Bridge and sent a few bright stripes on sunlight right down onto the walk. A merchant had set a potted plant in one broad stripe, possessor of a bit of sun, precious commodity on this level. An old man dozed in another patch of light.
Ahead in the crowd, Mondragon walked more slowly now; so she did, keeping that black scarf and blue sweater in sight. A canaler moved quite freely on this level, nothing at all remarkable. Someone on an errand. Someone taking an order. Moghi's Tavern was on the waterfront down below, at the Ventani's opposite comer, that which supported Fishmarket Bridge; but Mondragon, if he was going to Fishmarket, was certainly taking a roundabout route.
No. He took the short span over to Princeton, where it was much harder to track him without being seen. She reached Princeton Bridge and lounged there against the post for a moment until she saw her quarry take out to the right, down Princeton Walk.
She hurried then, walked along with a canaler's habitually rolling gait.
See the fool up there. Dressed like a canalrat, he is, and walks like a landsman for all to see. Landsman might not notice. But a canaler would notice something wrong, and look twice at him, and that twice might be trouble for him, might for sure—
Right across to Calliste Isle. Headed uptown. She strolled along with ease, took her time and faded back against the shopfronts and the posts among the passers-by when he would stop and take a look around him.
—So he's worried. He thinks about who might see him. He's trying to act natural and he daren't take to the high bridges, no, got to keep to the low, got to creep about down here with us canalers and the rats, he does.
Thank ye, Angel. He's being real easy. And if he goes back for Fishmarket round the Calliste I'll know he's a proper fool.
No, It was on north again, over the bridge to Van Isle and never a hint of stopping. A canaler passed him and stopped against Van Bridge rail and stared at his back; it was halfblind Ness. And Ness was still doing that when Altair walked past trying her best to look nonchalant.
"Hey," Ness said. " 'lo."
"Hey," Altair said, not to make a scene; and Mondragon was plainly in sight and had to be as long as he was on that bridge. A man hailed you politely, you hailed back. "I got a 'pointment, Ness. How you doing?"
"Oh, fair. Hey, you do be in some hurry—"
Altair simply left him, for Mondragon took an unexpected turn south. She hurried across the bridge, and took out on the same tack.
Round the band of Yan then, round and on round, and onto the short bridge and across to Williams and the Salazar, which fronted on Port Canal.
I could have ferried him here easy as not. Not that much further. What's he into? Why's he afraid of me letting him out at Port? Afraid of who could see him? Not wanting me to see?
Why?
Her heart thumped. Mondragon had slipped aside into a galleria that pierced Salazar's second level. She headed after him at greater speed, closing the gap in this darker place, this wooden cavern teeming with marketers and crowded with leather goods and shoemakers. Merchants bawled after shoppers. Merchants shouted at leather-dealers. The whole place smelled of leathers and oils above the prevalent canal-smell. And sunlight pierced it all by portsoleils and at the end, throwing figures into silhouette where the galleria turned out onto Port Canal, making everyone alike and without detail. She kept going, having lost her quarry for a moment, blinked when she came out into the sunlight and then caught sight of him on the bridge that led over north, to Mars.
