Текст книги "Angel with the Sword"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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He walked out behind Hale and three of the others. Closed the door. Altair stood there with two half-glasses of whiskey in her hands and a slow fit of rage heating up her face. Three of the man had stayed. One propped himself, arms folded, by the door. Two stood grim as death and the governor's tax.

She slowly poured one glass into the other, held the result up to the light of the tall window, and walked over to the nearest chair with a sidetable. She sat down, curling her bare toes under, and set the empty glass on the frail little table; leaned back and pushed her cap back to a precarious tilt and sipped at the whiskey in full sight of the Gallandrys, keeping diem under a heavy-lidded scrutiny.

Owe her money. Damn your black heart, Mondragon.

She smiled at the guards. Her right arm had fingermarks, she knew that it did; it ached up and down.

Rip your guts out, Gallandry. I'll remember your face. You'll never see mine, some dark night.

Mama said.

I killed a dozen people, mama. Even if they were crazies. Did it right, I did, one bullet left.

What'd you do now—besides not be here?

The doorlatch moved. Mondragon came back in, with Hale and the others.

"Jones. Where's that boat of yours?"

She held the whiskey glass and regarded him with a suspicious eye. "Real nice of you to use my name."

"Jones, it's all right." He walked closer, him in his fine clothes. "Who was watching the bridges? Anyone you know?"

She shook her head. "No. I just saw 'em. They saw me hanging about. Right then I had it figured it wasn't going to be real smart to walk past 'em So I walked up and knocked."

"Where did you leave the boat?"

"That's my business, ain't it?"

"Jones." He beckoned with a finger. Get up. Come on. She sat there and stared at him. "Come on, Jones." This time it was the outheld hand.

She tossed off the whiskey, got up and coldly put the glass in his hand.

His face was as cold. Then slowly his mouth curved into a smile. He took the glass aside with a flourish of a lace-cuffed wrist and set it down. "This way, Jones—" With a gesture toward the far end of the room, and another door.

She was out of choices. She walked where he told her to walk, and only Hale went with them. Hale opened the door onto a place with windows like the other room, but with real furniture: overstuffed chairs; wall-hangings, carpets, papers. There was a stair there, wood polished as sin with red carpet going up it. Mondragon put his hand on the newel and motioned her up those steps.

So. She was taking orders for the moment. She climbed the stairs and Mondragon went closely behind her.

At the top, beyond the first landing, was a second flight of steps, and an open door beside. She hesitated. Mondragon's hand caught her elbow and propelled her through the door into an oiled-wood splendor of stuffed flowered chairs, a flounced poster-bed, and fancy carpet.

She turned about when he let her go. He shut the door and set his back against it, just the two of them.

"Dammit, Jones. What are you up to?" " Upto? Lord, I thought a poor fool was going to get hisself thrown into the canal again. I walked along behind, nice-like, just in case, see—and those skulkers out there—" She waved a hand at the windows and the rooftops and towers of Arden beyond. "They cut me off."

He leaned there against the door, and there was still the flush of sunburn on his face. Or of anger. "You didn't need to get involved in this."

That was heartening. It was a better tone than she had heard out of him since setting eyes on him in Gallandry. Relief turned her joints shivery. "So what do you want? I got my boat. I know the canals. I spotted them out there—" She jerked a thumb toward the windows. "—when you let 'em get at your back."

"Not saying what else you did, hanging around outside and attracting attention."

"Well, you weren't doing a real fine job of watching yourself! Else how'd Itrack you, huh?"

He said nothing to that.

"They—ain't yours, are they?"

"No." He drew a great breath and walked over to a nearby chair. He unbuckled his sword and hung it over the chair finial, reached up and unbuttoned his lace-front collar. "They're not. I think I know whose they are. But now a quiet pact's been broken. Maybe to the better." He turned and looked at her again. "Jones. Jones. You didn't need this kind of trouble."

"Well, I got 'er, don't I?" She walked over and flung herself down in one of the spindly chairs, caught the cap before it fell off her head backward, and reset it. "Damn fool near broke my arm. Try to help a man. Try to see he gets through the town all right—"

"—try to see where he's going."

"Well, how'm I to see he gets there if I don't see where he's going?"

"Are you being a fool, Jones?" with that soft gentle voice. "Jones, you area fool."

"Lot of trouble, huh?"

He walked away to the window and stared out toward the canal.

"They out there again?"

"I think they'll be quieter about it."

"Who were they?"

He turned back again. "Jones." In a sad tone. "There's no going anywhere till dark. You want something to eat?"

"I'm not starving."

"Call it favor for favor. I owe you a meal or so. I ordered something, it ought to be here soon." He gestured to a side door. "There's a bath in there, the water's not cold yet, you didn't give it time. Take the aches out."

Heat leaped to her face. She sat there very still, then got up and took off her cap and dusted it across her leg. "Sure. Fine. Take the aches out." She walked across the room and flung her cap into a chair. Unfastened her trousers. "Mondragon, you're going to wash yourself away to nothing. No wonder you're so damn white."

She walked onto white tiles and stood in front of a great brass tub—Brass! Lord and my Ancestors. The whole damn tub. Shining brass.

Smells like a drugshop.

She pulled the sweater off, dropped the pants and stuck a hand into the water. Warm as sunshine. She suddenly remembered the view Mondragon probably had and looked back to kick the door shut.

That for his intentions.

Damn well know what he's up to.

She climbed gingerly over the rim, let herself down into warm water, up to the chin in the perfumed bath.

She had dreamed of things like this, without knowing what to dream of. She had caught the smell of perfume from uptowners and wondered what it was made them smell so clean underneath it.

It was bathing four or five times a day, that was what; it was brass tubs and perfume and soap and water full of oil.

She turned up her right foot and took a brush that floated in the tub and scrubbed the black off the sole, did the same for the other. She took the soap from the tray at the foot and scrubbed her hair and ducked and came up again with perfume in her nose and eyes and sweet-bitter oil in her mouth,

O Lord and Ancestors, the stuff tasted like it smelled.

The light was an oil-light, all gold, with a brass plate to reflect it. There was a water closet across the room and it of brass, with all the accoutrements she had seen in a shop window in hightown.

What's that? she had asked her mother. And Retribution Jones had explained how rich people were. How she had learned this, she did not say. But it was true, and there it was, with its outlet right down to the canals, where it gave old Det what everyone did, rich and poor alike.

She tried the taps on the tub. They were like the public water taps from the fill-up tanks, that cost you a penny a can, only this was private, people ownedthese tanks. She sat a heartbeat or two watching it run, then turned it off and got out of the tub to go inspect the watercloset, this supreme elegance. There was paper, perfumedpaper, to use and throw away, by the Ancestors; rich people wasted everything. She used the thing and it worked. She pulled the chain a second time in pure fascination to see the water go down and the bowl fill.

Lord and my Ancestors. And this not even hightown.

She went back to her bath and sank down again over her head and came up for the sheer pleasure of it. Soaped and ducked again, and lay there a lazy while with her chin underwater.

The door opened. Mondragon came in coatless, and had a wineglass in his lace-cuffed hand. "Dinner's come," he said, and handed it to her as she slid up as far as her armpits.

"Man, you're trying to get me drunk."

"Of course I am." He settled on the curved rim of the brass tub heedless of water on his fine trousers. "I hope you'll oblige. We've got the whole evening."

She sipped the wine. It was not at all sour like Moghi's. It found whole new flavors after a mouthful went down. She took a second sip and looked up at him. "You figure it's easier to drop me in the canal if I'm drunk."

"Jones." He managed to sound offended.

And a bit of panic took her.

Whole evening—till what?

Del Suleiman was out there with her boat tied up to his; and adding up what she owed by the hour. That rate would go up considerably when he wanted to move on and had a boat in tow. Old Mira could pole her boat on her own behind Del, puffing and swearing all the way: they would move right on up to Hightown Bridge where they always tied up. And begin thinking thoughts like—

–like Jones might not come back. Like something could happen to Jones and they would be rich. Honest as they were, it was a thing to think of.

She drank another sip of the wine. "You going to drop me in the canal or hire me?"

"Here's a robe." He held up the glittery garment. "Want me to help you into it?"

"You're real clever, ain't you?"

He stood up and held it up for her. She stood up and climbed out and slipped one arm through, traded hands on the wineglass and stuck the other through. He wrapped it about her from behind, his touch light and at no time anywhere but her waist. She looked down, outright stared in shock at the shining stuff, all black and gold on her body and dragging about her feet, and her brown hand holding it, callused from the pole and the ropes and barrels. It was crazy. Crazy as all the rest of it. She clutched it up in a careful left fist and followed him out the door, trying not to trip and spill the wine on it. Her hair dripped, soaking her shoulders.

Lord, ain't rich folk careful o' nothing? Don't he care?

There was a heaping tray of food on the little table by the door—Lord, there was fruitand there was upriver cheese and there was bread and two pitchers of wine, red and white, and things she could not even identify, like Nev Hettek sausages, only fancy, with dark and light checks and stripes; there was red meat, by the Ancestors, red meat the like of which canalers saw in shop windows uptown and she had never had a taste of in her life.

"Sit down," Mondragon said.

She gathered the silky-stiff fabric around her and settled reverently into one of the fragile-looking chairs in front of this monument. He motioned at her and she let go the robe and snagged a thin slice of meat. It was peppery on the outside and strange on the inside and made as many flavors as the wine she washed it down with.

She tried the sausages each, and the cheeses, and had a real bit of fruit that squished in her mouth with impossible green-stuff flavors—Mondragon composed himself a sandwich, seated opposite, and took his time about it; but she settled on the red meat and the fruit and used her fingers, one slice and a berry, one thin slice and a berry, because other things were rare, but nothing so rare as that.

She hiccupped. And blinked in mortification.

"Have another glass," Mondragon said with calculation.

She took it gravely and stopped the hiccups. There was at the far side of the room that broad real bed, all draped in lacy frills, which was another thing she had never known in her whole life. She drank the wine and looked at that and smelled perfume everywhere. A sudden warm and panicked feeling ran from her head to her toes and down again.

She held the stem of the wineglass in her fingers and looked Mondragon right in the eyes. "I got a boat to get to," she said. "Am I going to get back to it?"

He reached for the wineglass and took it out of her hand, held on to the hand as he set it aside. He looked very close into her eyes. "Jones. They know your face. They know you're with me. I don't know what to do with you, but I'm trying to keep you out of the canal, you understand me? I don't want you hurt. Tonight there's a barge going out of here. You and I are going to be on it. A Gallandry barge, the same as barges come and go all the time—"

"To get past them?"

"If we're lucky."

"Lucky? I got my boat, I got to get back, they'll be watching every boat and barge comes in and out of Gallandry, won't they? Mondragon, that's the damn dumbest thing you could do– call the law in, f'Lord's sake—"

"I don't want to do that."

She looked at him. Maybe she was too many drinks along. She found herself staring.

Other side of the law, huh? Gallandrys too?

"Where's this barge going?"

"Out to the Grand. Let you off at your boat." He lifted her hand and held it. "Anywhere you like."

"Tell you what, you come with me, I'll make a proper canaler out of you."

He said nothing to that. Only thoughts went on behind his eyes, in that pretty face. "Jones. How drunk do I have to get you?"

"To do what? That bed? Or get in that damn barge with you?"

He took up the glass and put it back in her hand. "Finish that."

She gulped the remaining third down in two swallows. Set the glass down. "I finished."

"Dammit, Jones." He stood up and took her face be tween his hands, tilted it painfully up and looked at her so closely her eyes wanted to cross. "How old are you?"

She flinched back and failed to escape. "What difference does that make?"

"A lot." His hands held hard. "A damnable lot of difference. Jones, Jones, I know—I know. I come into your life, first man ever. I shouldn't have done it, I knew you'd set more on it than I would—than I can, Jones, you're not young but once; and here you toss all that good sense of yours away and go following after me for no good reason, no good reason at all. You don't even know what you want, except you aren't ready to turn loose of that first time and be like the rest of the world. If you want me to make love to you, I will. Or you can sleep it off in that bed over there. In either case I'm going to get you back where you belong."

She listened; and her face went unbearably hot and then cold. Her eyes were going to water right there in front of him, and then she shoved the pain away and laid down the lid on it and sat on it the way she had learned to do. Snuffling don't win a thing, Jones. Real world don't givea thing; who said it did? He's being nice, damn him anyhow.

She reached up and laid her hands on his arms ever so tenderly and soberly. "Mondragon, you sure got an opinion of yourself, don't you?"

He backed up a bit. He dropped his hands. Maybe there was a bit of flush in hisface.

"Now," she said, seizing on that little shred of power, "what you got, Mondragon, is me in a terrible mess, with those skulkers out there knowing my face and all. And you having handed my name out so nice to the Gallandrys. Thanks a lot."

"They won't hurt you."

"If you think thatyou're younger'n I am."

"They're not interested in you."

"Well, they are now. I embarrassed Jenny-boy and Hale real bad."

"Then why did you walk into it, dammit?"

"I told you. No, you could've introduced me nice. Could've said, hey, this is Jones, she's a good'un, you want a job done, call Jones. You wouldn't do that. Now I got trouble with them."

"Well, youbought it. I told you stay out of my business."

"Well, what would you do? Let a fellow walk off with his head all cracked and him in a strange town and his belly full of my breakfast, I might add!"

He took her by both arms and pulled her right off her chair, right up to her feet and shook her.

"Jones, this isn't a game."

"I been trying to tell you that."

"Jones, for God's sake."

She was shivering. She did not know why but a tremor got started in her muscles. Maybe it was his hand hurting the bruise on her arm which went all the way to the bone.

"What am I going to do with you?"

"I dunno. You could start by not breaking my arm."

He let go and pushed up her sleeve and looked at it. The bruise showed already, distinct fingermarks. "Lord. I'm sorry."

"Hey, that's fine." She reached up and patted his face. "That's fine." The wine and the double whiskey hit all at once, a slight fuzziness about everything. She wobbled and blinked at him. Her eyes might be crossing for sure this time. "I don't mind."

He gathered her up and picked her up. She let out a yell, not convinced anyone could pick her up without dropping her, and grabbed his neck so that he did go off his balance: it was a panic passage across the floor until she did fall; and landed on the bed; and he came down with his hands on either side of her.

"Dammit, Jones!"

She lay there with the alcohol spinning round and round and blinked at him. He recovered himself and pulled the robe off her and threw the covers back. "Under."

She got under. He threw the covers over her and walked off.

"Where you going?" She was honestly confused.

"I'm going," he said, "to get similarly drunk."

"Oh," she said. Oh. While it was sinking in. Then it lay at her gut and hurt so that she turned over on her side and hugged the overstuffed pillow. She watched him forlornly, while he poured himself another glass of wine, took the bottle with him, and sat down in the overstuffed chair. When the one glass was gone he poured another.

His face had no more sunny lightness. With the fancy clothes, with this place, it had gone all somber, full of thoughts. He was not the man she had known out there, the man who laughed and whose eyes danced. He was someone the Gallandrys were afraid of, that was what. He was someone a lot of people might be afraid of. He had that way about him.

He came to bed finally. She felt the mattress give and woke up, for one dizzy moment trying to remember where she was and why she was lying on something soft and steady with dim daylight coming through tall windows. Then her mind caught up and she looked over at Mondragon; but he lay there on his back with his eyes shut and she sensed he wanted to be let alone.

She lay there with hers open for a while, and looked back across the room where a pitcher of wine stood all but empty on the table.

He trusts the Gallandrys, she thought, adding it up: parts of her mind went on even when it was hazed. He's trying to rest. Maybe he hurts. He's talking about a barge and tonight and he's trying to rest up while he can.

Make love. He ain't any kid. He's got his mind full of something, that's what, he'd do that to keep me quiet, but he don't want to, he don't want me, he don't need any kid tagging after him, don't need anybody crazy to come in and do God knows what at the wrong time—You got him shouting, Jones; this ain't a man who yells, and here he is drinking hisself numb and blind.

You got him worried, Jones.

What've you got, huh? Man scared of the law. Man with nasty friends and nastier enemies.

She shut her eyes and drifted again in a vague, heart-aching nowhere.

Woke in the dark in a tangle of his limbs and hers, with someone banging at the door. "I hear you, I hear you," Mondragon bellowed back coming up on his arms and leaning over her. "Give me time, dammit!" And put a hand in the middle of her by accident. He felt his way to her face and patted it. "Sony. Sorry."

She groped dazedly at his arm. "'S all right. I'm all right."

His hand wandered to her shoulder, than patted her cheek again. Like love. Distractedly. "Damn. Got to get up. Get moving. Come on."

He got out of bed, leaving a draft. It was hard to move. Every muscle she had protested, not major aches, but little ones; and her back and her bruised arm felt afire. She put her feet out and walked a few paces, feeling her way past unfamiliar furniture. There was a dim wick burning in the bath, there was starlight from the tall windows, and Mondragon cracked the hall door open, sending another dim light into the room as he snagged something off the floor outside. He closed it and came to her where she clung dazedly to the back of an armchair. "We've got to dress in the dark," he said, "we don't want to show any more lights in the house than normal. Here. Sweater and pants. Ought to fit. I'm not sure about the shoes. They guessed."

Shoes. Lord! Socks. And clothes clean as never-worn. She held them to her nose and smelled them, and it was new-smell. She had never had new. She smelled the leather-smell of the shoes that was heady as a cobbler's shop. The whole business set her heart to pounding and sent prickles up her back: new clothes, the dark, the stealth that was no game at all; no. She imagined blackrobed skulkers down on the bridges, lurking down by the barge-dock of Gallandry—we're after getting killed and he's worried about new clothes, him and his baths and baths and baths, probably thinks I smell bad as old Muggin. Her mouth tasted awful. She saw him head for the bath, a shadow against the nightlight, and went over to the table to wash her mouth out with the wine while he took care of business there. Water rushed and gurgled. She pulled on the pants and they fit; pulled on her sweater and the socks, and shoved her feet into the shoes. They were snug and they pinched, but they did all right. She stood up and stamped one foot and the other, then went after Mondragon, to that glimmer of light that came out the bathroom door: her shoes showed, when she looked down, shiny-new with a fancy buckle on each, and fine black socks under blue cord knee-britches. Lord, fine as a kept poleboatman's, the whole outfit was.

"Uhhn." Mondragon splashed water, got his eyes clear and offered her his toothbrush.

Toothbrushes, shoes with buckles, and them trying to kill us! It all took on a dreamlike unreality, her face lamplit in the hanging mirror as Mondragon made room for her. She dipped a toothbrush in soda, scrubbed and spat—''Water drinkable?" she asked prudently, same as one had to know which public tap was which. "Safe," he said; and she turned the tap and washed out her mouth. Mondragon lent her his towel and went off and out the door.

Am I clean? Did I do everything he'd do? Does he think I'm dirty?

She scrubbed a second time with soap, and started to dose herself with a perfumy lotion she found in the bottle on the lavatory, but a prudent thought came to her: Damn, those bullyboys'll get wind of us that way sure.

She scrubbed her hand off, shivering suddenly as if it had become deep winter. Her teeth wanted to chatter. She used the watercloset and hurried out again, fearful of being left. Mondragon had put on a dark shirt: his face stood out pale in the starlight, disappeared and reappeared as he pulled a sweater on. The light winked coldly off the hilt of the rapier as he picked it up and belted it on. The trousers were dark as the rest.

"If you want not to be seen," she said through chatter* ing teeth, "get something over that head of yours."

"I've got it." A shadow fluttered across his hands, became a scarf; he tied it at his nape and it was only his face that stood out. "Your knife and your hook are on that table with your belt."

She gathered her knife-belt up and buckled it on. Looked back and saw him like a stranger in the starlight.

"Lord, you're grim as death." And then wished she hadn't said that. She tugged her sweater down in back and snatched a lump of cheese off last night's plate as Mondragon headed for the door.

Leaving this place. This luxury. This safe haven. This last place she might ever see him if things went wrong down there on that loading dock. The dim light of the hall shafted through the opened door. "Come on," Mondragon said. She came, hurrying, and pocketed the cheese.

And made one dive back in the dark, to the chair where she had thrown her cap and the bathroom floor where she had left her old clothes. She wound them into a bundle under her arm, pulled her cap on and set it firm even while she rushed for the door; and out then into the light with Mondragon beside her. He caught her arm and headed down the steps.