The golden Angel stood on his bridge and his firelit hair turned to gold wire, to sunlight, to Mondragon's pale blond. The hand that gripped the hilt was alive, was Mondragon's hand, down to the fine bones and the way the veins stood out, despite that it was gold. It clenched and the sword moved outward by fractions.
Sword of God.
She could not see the face. If she had seen the face it would have blasted her sense.
Don't do it yet, she asked the Angel; and fought back against the dream. She set Mondragon there beside her on that bridge so that she could know that face was not his face. She made it night again, and the river quiet. The Angel stood there shining and not-shining, because no one else in the city could have seen him that way: he was always alive, only he lived slower, and it was taking him all of a human lifetime to take a single breath. Only his thoughts ran quick, quick as lightning strokes; and if they saw the sword move the city would have lived a hundred years around them.
Don't do it yet. It was a wicked thought for an Adven tist. It was her business to wish the Retribution closer: Sword of God wanted it with fanatic zeal—but ordinary, common little Adventists hoped for it someday, secretly wanted it in someone else's lifetime, close, maybe, because the world was not that good; but not too close, because she had plans, and if Merovingen changed, where would she be and where would she go and what would become of her?
I thought so too, her mother said, sitting on the bridge, there in the dark—cap atilt, arms clasped about her knees. And with a look at Mondragon: Who's he? He's right pretty. I like the look of him. But you got to know, Altair, he don't belong.
The bridge-rail was empty then. Just the river and the dark. The dark grew worse, and things moved in it.
Something was hammering.
"Jones," it said.
"Jones."
The world shifted. She felt cold air, flailed with her hand and caught herself on a sore shoulder. Someone was knocking at the door, a gentle tapping, and Mondragon was getting out of bed.
She followed—winced as her feet hit the floor, waved a cautioning hand at Mondragon as he grabbed his robe off the floor with one hand and came up with the rapier in the other. "Minute," she said aloud. She grabbed her sweater off the floor and pulled that on, located her pants, a puddle of shadow over by the cabinet, and pulled those on, grabbed the boathook out of her belt where it lay on the floor. Mondragon had gotten the robe on by the time she padded over to the door. "Who is it?"
"Ali. They found your boat. They got it down to the tie-up near the Stair."
Her heart did a turnover and a restart. "Thank God." She shot the bolt back and cracked the door open, took it wider when she saw it was Ali alone, Ali with a bundle in his hands. "What time it it?"
"'Bout mid of the first." Ali shoved the bundle into her hands, hook and all. "His clothes. All cleaned. Moghi wants you should move that boat. Boy's watching it. He ain't much."
"Lord, where'd you find it? How'd you get it here?"
"Del Suleiman brought 'er, found 'im off by the Sanke, he's wanting you should ferry him back. Moghi wants that boat moved—"
"I'm going, I'm going." She rubbed her eyes with her free hand and shouldered the door shut, headed over for the bed to toss the clothes. Mondragon arrived and disengaged them from her arm and from the hook. She caught up her belt, put the hook where it belonged, rubbed her eyes into focus again and saw Mondragon busy buttoning his pants as she buckled her knife belt on.
"You c'n go back," she said, "get some sleep. I don't know what time it is, but I got Del to get back." Her wits woke up. "Give me some change. Couple pennies. I got to pay Del."
"I'm going with you."
"I told you. You keep that blond head of yours in this room. I paid damn well enough for it." She discovered her cap on the iron bedpost and slapped it on her head. "Don't you budge from here. I got to explain you to Del? You want gossip all over?"
"We've got it." His face flushed ruddy in the light. "What can he say that that Mintaka woman won't, tell me that?"
"You stay put! I don't need more trouble than I got! Stay put! Hear?"
"Dammit, Jones—"
"Just give me the money."
He went and got his boot by the bedside, came up with pennies. Gave her four. And scowled when he handed them over.
"Thanks."
"Jones. Be careful."
"Hey, I been running these canals all my life, I got friends out there and Del's one of 'em. You keep inside. Keep that door locked!"
She escaped out it, closed it tight.
"Bolt it," she yelled back through the door.
The bolt shot.
Damn. A man that listens.
She turned to All and the lantern, in time to follow him down the stairs, quick on bare feet in the wildly swinging light—no shoes and no socks for canal work, by the Ancestors. Her own boards under her feet again, silky-smooth and all her own, better than town floors, than Moghi's carpet. She went after AH at speed, caught him up at the bottom.
Moghi himself was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, lanternlight gleaming on his stout face and perspiring head; Moghi with his sleeves rolled up and the sounds of customers coming from the front room, noisy talk, the string-sounds of a gitar half-drowned, all filtered through a closed door.
"Your friend ain't going."
From Moghi it was query, meaning You planning to stay around; and Where's the fee?
"He ain't going," she said. "You keep an eye to him."
"Cost you," Moghi said.
Her stomach tightened. So. Rich an hour or two and poor again. "Hey, it ain't like he's all that much trouble. I paid you—"
"Got your boat back, didn't you? Got it delivered right here. Service comes expensive. You plan to have that fellow stay on another day—"
"Till I get back for him. I'll get him out of here."
Moghi's fat-rimmed eyes looked somewhat pained. "You got a destination in mind."
"That's his business, he'd skin me."
"I was offering, Jones."
"I'll think on it."
"We got some charges still."
"We'll talk about it when I get back." Lord, he might give Mondragon trouble, hunting money. "You let him be, Moghi! You let my partner be! We'll talk, all right?"
Moghi waved a hand. "Get, get, that damn boat's sitting out there, I got customers."
She went out the back way into the storeroom, and headed for the shed.
Chapter 7
THE boat was there, out to the front of the second-hand store, beyond Fishmarket Stair—sleepy-looking scene, boat on black water, boatman drowsing on the halfdeck, nearest of four boats night-tied at that corner. But that one boatman was watching: he lifted his head as Altair padded barefoot down the stone bank. Ali was back there— watching. Tommy the potboy was installed somewhere, probably high up on the bridge, sitting there with feet adangle and young eyes alert. She resisted the impulse to look and see: Tommy was Moghi's; and if Ali said he was there, he was there or Moghi would kill him.
Tommy was there the same way that Del Suleiman would haul himself out of a sound sleep and pole a boat across town just because Moghi's men suggested it. Not unpaid, of course. Moghi paid. She had paid Moghi. Value for value.
She came up to the edge and the halfdeck, her own precious deck, her little bit of planking and everything she owned in the world. "Hey," she said by way of greeting, set her cap firm against the light breeze—a little wind kicking up, clean air, a clean night: she landed on her own deck and a wealth of things were better.