My right hand was caught beneath me and my left was still tangled in my cloak. His left was free, though, and high. He clawed at my face with it, and I bit his hand but couldn’t hold it. In the meantime, I finally managed to drag my own left hand free and I thrust it into his face. He turned his head away, tried to knee me and hit my hip, then thrust stiff fingers toward my eyes. I caught his wrist and held it. Both of our right hands were still pinned and our weights seemed about equal. So all that I had to do was squeeze.
The bones of his wrist crunched within my grip, and for the first time he cried out. Then I simply pushed him away, rolled into a kneeling position and started to rise, dragging him up along with me. End of the game. I had won.
He slumped suddenly against me. For a moment, I thought it a final trick, and then I saw the blade protruding from his back, the hand of the grim-faced man who had put it there already tightening to pull it out again.
“You son of a bitch!” I cried in English — though I’m sure the meaning came through — and I dropped my burden and drove my fist into the stranger’s face, knocking him over backward, his blade remaining in place. “I needed him!”
I caught hold of my former adversary and raised him into the most comfortable position I could manage.
“Who sent you?” I asked him. “How did you find me?”
He grinned weakly and dribbled blood. “No freebies here,” he said. “Ask somebody else,” and he slumped forward and got blood on my shirtfront.
I drew the ring from his finger and added it to my collection of goddamned blue stones. Then I rose and glared at the man who had stabbed him. Two other figures were helping him to his feet.
“Just what the hell did you do that for?” I asked, advancing upon them.
“I saved your damn life,” the man growled.
“The hell you did! You might have just cost me it! I needed that man alive!”
Then the figure to his left spoke, and I recognized the voice. She placed her hand lightly upon the arm I did not even realize I had raised to strike the man again.
“He did it on my orders,” she said. “I feared for your life, and I did not understand that you wanted him prisoner.”
I stared at her pale proud features within the dark cloak’s raised cowl. It was Vinta Bayle, Caine’s lady, whom I had last seen at the funeral. She was also the third daughter of the Baron Bayle, to whom Amber owed many a bibulous night.
I realized that I was shaking slightly. I drew a deep breath and caught control of myself.
“I see,” I said at last. “Thank you.”
“I am sorry,” she told me.
I shook my head. “You didn’t know. What’s done is done. I’m grateful to anybody who tries to help me.”
“I can still help you,” she said. “I might have misread this one, but I believe you may still be in danger. Let’s get away from here.”
I nodded. “A moment, please.”
I went and retrieved Frakir from about the neck of the other dead man. She disappeared quickly into my left sleeve. The blade I had been using fit my scabbard after a fashion, so I pushed it home and adjusted the belt, which had pulled around toward the rear.
“Let’s go,” I said to her.
The four of us strode back toward Harbor Street. Interested bystanders got out of our way quickly. Someone was probably already robbing the dead behind us. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. But what the hell, it’s home.
Chapter 5
Walking, with the Lady Vinta and two serving men of the House of Bayle, my side still hurting from its encounter with a sword hilt, beneath a moonbright, starbright sky, through a sea mist, away from Death Alley. Lucky, actually, that a bump on the side was all I acquired in my engagement with those who would do me harm. How they had located me so quickly upon my return, I could not say. But it seemed as if Vinta might have some idea about this, and I was inclined to trust her, both because I knew her somewhat and because she had lost her man, my Uncle Caine, to my former friend Luke, from whose party anything involving a blue stone seemed to have its origin.
When we turned onto a seaward side way off Harbor Street, I asked her what she had in mind.
“I thought we were heading for Vine,” I said.
“You know you are in danger,” she stated.
“I guess that’s sort of obvious.”
“I could take you to my father’s place up in town,” she said, “or we could escort you back to the palace, but someone knows you are here and it didn’t take long to reach you.”
“True.”
“We have a boat moored down this way. We can sail along the coast and reach my father’s country place by morning. You will have disappeared. Anyone seeking you in Amber will be foiled.”
“You don’t think I’d be safe back in the palace?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But your whereabouts may be known locally. Come with me and this won’t be the case.”
“I’ll be gone and Random will learn from one of the guards that I was heading for Death Alley. This will cause considerable consternation and a huge brouhaha.”
“You can reach him by Trump tomorrow and tell him that you’re in the country — if you have your cards with you.”
“True. How did you know where to find me this evening? You can’t persuade me that we met by coincidence.”
“No, we followed you. We were in the place across the way from Bill’s.”
“You anticipated tonight’s happenings?”
“I saw the possibility. If I’d known everything, of course I’d have prevented it.”
“What’s going on? What do you know about all of this, and what’s your part in it?”
She laughed, and I realized it was the first time I had ever heard her do it. It was not the cold, mocking thing I would have guessed at from Caine’s lady.
“I want to sail while the tide is high,” she said, “and you want a story that will take all night. Which will it be, Merlin? Security or satisfaction?”
“I’d like both, but I’ll take them in order.”
“Okay,” she said, then turned to the smaller of the two men, the one I had hit. “Jarl, go home. In the morning, tell my father that I decided to go back to Arbor House. Tell him it was a nice night and I wanted to sail, so I took the boat. Don’t mention Merlin.”
The man touched his cap to her. “Very good, m’lady.” He turned and headed back along the way we had come.
“Come on,” she said to me then, and she and the big fellow — whose name I later learned was Drew led me down among the piers to where a long sleek sailboat was tied up. “Do much sailing?” she asked me.
“Used to,” I said.
“Good enough. You can give us a hand.”
Which I did. We didn’t talk much except for business while we were getting unbuttoned and rigged and casting off. Drew steered and we worked the sails. Later, we were able to take turns for long spells. The wind wasn’t tricky. In fact, it was just about perfect. We slid away, rounded the breakwater and made it out without any problems. Having stowed our cloaks, I saw that she wore dark trousers and a heavy shirt. Very practical, as if she’d planned for something like this ahead of time. The belt she stowed bore a real, full-length blade, not some jeweled dagger. And just from watching the way she moved, I’d a feeling she might be able to use the thing pretty well. Also, she reminded me of someone I couldn’t quite place. It was more a matter of mannerisms of gesture and voice than it was of appearance. Not that it mattered. I had more important things to think about as soon as we settled into routine and I had a few moments to stare across the dark waters and do some quick reviewing.