"Let gran Fahd be. Something happens to her, somebody'd remember I was on her boat. Somebody might pay attention to things she said."
"That was real sloppy, that"
"Best of bad choices. I told you, didn't I?"
"Jones, if you hadn't I'd have been real upset."
"I knew that too."
Moghi nodded slowly, chins doubling. "Like I said, a down payment. You go enjoy that room."
"In private."
Moghi grinned, a showing of teeth. "Private. Seeing it's you."
It was up the stairs again, tired, Lord, and with a limp in her step and an ache in her ribs and her shoulders and her arm and between her eyes.
Fool. Damnfool.
What else could I do? Moghi'd kill him.
Don't want him anymore. But Moghi'd kill him. One damn more enemy he doesn't need.
Boregy being hit—somebody knew. And Moghi—he always knows more than he says, maybe he already knew I picked up somebody out there t'other night, he's already been asking round, knows about strangers after him, O Lord and my ancestors, what am I going to do?
Where's my boat? Dammit, where's my boat? Nobody's seen Del, nobody seen him or my boat—
The door to the Room opened as she came up into the hall. Mondragon stood at the top of the steps, all worried-looking.
Just stood there in his bathrobe, not saying a word.
Knows better, he does.
Her heart hurt. She avoided his eyes as she topped the steps and walked past him into the door he held open, went and sat down at the table where the cold breakfast waited.
He closed the door and pulled it till the latch clicked. She ate cold toast and never looked up as he walked over and sat down on the side of the bed, arms on knees.
Damn, it's friends of his got arrested and killed. I got to tell him about the Gallandrys and Boregy and all. Me. I made another damn mess down there and how do I tell somebody that kind of news, and him mad at me?
The toast made a cold lump in her throat- She washed it down with lukewarm tea. "I heard," she said, and looked his way, "the law took a bunch of people at Gallandry. Somebody else broke into Boregy and killed some people. Malvino too. Heard it from Moghi."
The muscles knotted up in his jaw. He breathed a little faster. That was all. "Moghi owns this place."
"Moghi owns this place." She took another sip of cold tea and slopped it; her hands shook. "I hunted that whole damn canalside trying to find my boat. Moghi's people are going to look. He knows about the barge. About us and Gallandry. About folk throwing you off the bridge. Knows you're uptowner and somebody with money wants you bad. Says there's been questions asked about a blond man. Strangers asking. I got Moghi to say he'd let us have this room; Moghi's—got Jots of people. Lot of others are afraid of him."
"Trust him?"
"We got no choice." Her voice was all hoarse. She took up the toast again and dropped it in listless disgust. "I got you here. Dammit, I knew it was going crazy last night, knew I had to get to somewhere, damn lucky it wasn't Boregy."
He stood up, leaned next her ear. "Who's listening?" he asked, faintest of whispers against her hair. "Nobody. Moghi said. "That's truth." He straightened and leaned his hands on the table. Worried. Lord, not a shout, not a word of blame. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, then walked a few steps off, stood with his back to her and his arms folded.
She ate at the cold toast, bite after bite. Finally he came back and sat down on the side of the bed, one knee tucked up into his arms.
"I wanted you out of this," he said, all quiet. "Jones, you were right, all the way."
She swallowed hard and a bite forced its way down past a knot in her throat. Her eyes stung. She drank the tea, then got up and went and opened the cabinet where the brandy was, and the glasses. She unstopped the decanter and poured a bit.
She stood there with her back to him to drink a sip. That took the knot out.
Damn him. Damn it all.
Manners, Jones. Man's trying.
She poured the other glass and walked back and gave it to him. He took it and she never looked him quite in the eyes. She just walked away with a pain in her chest that hurt like a knife.
Memory of a pale body hurtling through the dark.
Through the sun into the harbor water, splash scattering like glass beads in the light.
Him standing there all elegant in Gallandry lamplight, russet velvet and lace, sword at his side.
She turned around finally when she heard the bedsprings give. He had put the glass down on the table. Had gotten up to turn down his side of the bed.
He slipped the robe off and got in and drew the covers up over his shoulder and his head, leaving her the light.
She took a mouthful of brandy and swallowed it down till her eyes stung. Not a stir out of him, not a word.
She drank another half glass, then stripped off her sweater and took the remaining sol and put it in her shoe, there by the bed. She unbuttoned the trousers and kicked them elsewhere.
She lit the nightwick at the side of the lamp, then blew out the top light and got into bed on her side.
She edged over after a moment. Edged over again until she came up against him. His muscles stayed tense when she put an arm over him.
She let go a sigh and lay there and hurt, inside and out, till sleep came closer, till maybe at the edge of his own sleep he turned over and put an arm about her. Better, better. She gave a great sigh and shifted. There was a moment of moving about and fitting limbs and limbs and wincing, her with sore arms and him with a sore back, until finally she found herself comfortable and her skull throbbing away in a dull dark daze that went down and down toward nothing at all.
"You went to sleep on me," he said into her ear when she came to, and she mumbled and shifted sore muscles and almost went to sleep again until his hands got her attention.
"Damn," she said, remembering she was not speaking to him. And then remembering she was, confused in the middle of the night. Moghi's. A gold piece in the toe of her shoe and her boat missing and herself with a lover hi the second shore-bound unmoving room in a day. "Damn."
"What's wrong?"
"Wrong?" She thought about it and laughed. The laugh got crazier, at an indelicate time. "What's wrong?" She gasped after breath. Laughed again till it hurt and she ran out of breath with the tears dampening her eyes. "Damn, they're going to kill us."
"Jones?"
"Wrong," was all she could manage, with another hysterical wheeze. Till he got her stopped, and she lay with her ribs and her gut hurting. "Oh, Lord, Lord."
They held onto each other. Like two drowners headed for the bottom. Down into the dark, dark nowhere. "Jones," he murmured. "Jones, are you all right?"
"Don't—don't make me laugh again."
"I'm not. I'm not." His hands traveled over her, absent-like.
Her own moved. A while. She ran out of momentum, and lay still against his arm. "Jones," he said, waking her up. "You awake?"
"Uuuhhn," she said. And thought back to the harbor. To waking on the deck. The room seemed to move a moment. To the lamplit room, the brass tub. Mondragon with the glass in his hand. Wine red as blood. Mondragon with his face in lampshadow, drinking and brooding, full of thoughts. Older. Deeper and darker. Old as sins and lies. She felt a fall at the edge of sleep and blinked into a stranger's face, at Mondragon with the nightlamp turning his hair to lamp-fire. For a moment her heart sped, a rush of panic and waking.
Damn, who is he? What is he? What'm I doing in bed with him?
What do I know about him?
"What are you looking at?" he asked.