The healer asked, "What's happening with him?"
"He sleeps and he drinks water. I think he's getting better."
"He drinks water."
"He wakes up, makes a little croak that means he's thirsty. I use the pipe. He sucks it down; then he goes back to sleep." For the lady in the hallway, I added, "Miss Tea claimed he made a pass this morning. She was just trying to get my goat."
"It will be a long time before this fellow sins again." He examined Morley's wounds while he talked. "He is the luckiest knife victim I've ever seen. Some of these wounds are six inches deep, yet not one cut an artery or hit a vital organ. There is no infection, either. Don't press him with questions. He won't be able to answer for a while. Ah! Here he is now."
Morley's eyes opened. He cataloged the crowd, made his "Water," sound.
The healer produced a black glass bottle the size of my thumb. It had a clear glass stopper. "Three drops into each pitcher of water. Keep his water separate. This is for pain. There is a good deal of pain still, isn't there?" he asked Morley.
Dotes grunted, closed his eyes.
The healer spoke to the doorway. "I've done what I can. He'll recover. How well depends upon how firmly he clings to my instructions. No straying from the diet. All the water he wants. The drops are not addictive. They will cause considerable drowsiness. Keep him clean. Turn him once in a while. Time is what he requires. There was a timetable in the instructions I gave you, madam. Enforce it to the letter."
Wow! I'd never heard anybody give Belinda Contague orders. This nut was doing it. And she was nodding! She understood the instructions, too. Morley was sure to try going before he was ready.
Furious Tide of Light said nothing. After the early glances she ignored Morley. She was fascinated by something in the street. "Your rat associate is quite clever."
The fit was tight but I managed to join her. Singe was down below, talking to several senior red tops and a brace of wide loads from middle management in Belinda's enterprise. I was pleased to see my little girl getting the respect she was due as the finest tracker in the city.
"How so?" I asked.
"She means to backtrack instead of trail forward."
Backtrack goats? Easier than following some human who killed three people while making a getaway. Safer, too. And more useful. Both incursions had come from the same direction and had gone on toward the Hill. "The girl is scary smart. What are you doing here?"
"Personal appeal from Prince Rupert."
Ah. A family friend, I recalled. "And how is your dad and your daughter Kevans?"
"We're not getting along at the moment. Let's concentrate on the task at hand. I'm not the woman you remember." She turned her cool, emerald eyes my way. I was afraid I was going to drown there.
"I'm sorry. I'm probably not the man you think you remember, either." I watched some of John Stretch's ratman associates emerge from shadows as Singe moved out with a train of thugs behind. Those hailed from several sides of the law. They stayed back so as not to distract her.
I asked, "You know why this mess is causing so much excitement?"
The Windwalker met my gaze. Her eyes were a striking blue. The shy girl I remembered emerged. "I can comment only from a position of vast ignorance. Prince Rupert is concerned about a possible Hill connection."
I met the Crown Prince once. He'd asked me to be his personal agent. He was as determined as Deal Relway to afflict TunFaire with great gobs of law and order. Someone who failed to acknowledge that rules existed would be a definite black beast to him.
"What I wanted to know was, what are you doing here in this room, with us?"
"I had a notion that, with the healer's assistance, I might learn something useful. I was wrong. Then I was so startled by seeing you. . I should get back to work. I need to be with those people out there."
Tight as it was, she got past me and Belinda without getting intimate. She left me totally rattled. Those eyes. . I had forgotten those eyes.
22
Belinda gave the Windwalker a short lead. "There something between you two? I thought I knew all the bimbos that came after me."
"Only in her head. Maybe. She took a weak run at me once upon a time. It didn't go anywhere. Though. . She's a multiple personality type."
"She'd have to be to come down off the Hill to chase you."
Belinda was kidding but was so tired and worried she made it sound serious.
I kept my mouth shut. Belinda wasn't really interested. She held Morley's hand and asked, "Where the hell were you for those ten days?"
I got confused. "Ten days? There some things you haven't shared with me? The backstory changes as we move along?"
"What are you yammering about?"
So I thought back. And decided I was a dumbass. All she had said was that he had been laid up here three days before she brought me in. "I don't know. I'm having trouble getting my mind into fighting trim. You did wait three days before you came to me?"
"I was rattled. You, of all people, understand that we do stupid things when we aren't thinking straight."
"He could have died."
"But he didn't. And I did get around to you and the Children of the Light."
"Sorry for barking."
"I had it coming." Belinda looked at Morley with the same cow eyes I have seen on a thousand other women. I took a short ramble through the realm of intuition.
"Belinda?"
"Uhm?"
"Were there any weird events around here before I showed up?"
Sometimes Miss Contague is a mind reader. "You suggesting that they suspected he was still alive but didn't know where to look? So they watched you. They raided your place to get you moving. . No. That doesn't hang together."
"They watched you till you contacted me. Then they watched me. That's how I would've done it. How come they're so desperate? Where did it happen? What did the people who found him say?"
"I don't know where, yet. I'm supposed to go look at a place. They found him dying. That's about it. It was obvious he wouldn't need his stuff anymore so they started turning out his pockets."
"And found something to connect him to you. So they did the right thing."
"They did what they thought might put money in their pockets."
"Did they bet wrong?"
"No. That's just good public relations. You feed the beast sometimes."
"Did you get his stuff back?"
"I did. I thought he might have been hit because of something he was carrying. He had nothing on him. But he might have been cleaned out where he was attacked."
"How about dead attackers? Nobody could do this much damage without Morley doing some damage back."
"The place I'm going to check, there was some blood and others signs of a big fight. But no bodies. My people found two wooden buttons, a scrap of gray wool cloth, and a broken wooden mask with cast glass eyehole covers. Weird, huh? I hoped Pular Singe could do something with them. She said it's too late. That trail is long gone."
"He was missing for ten days?"
"Yes. Again."
"He really never told Sarge or Puddle or any of his mugs anything?"
"No. I went there even before he turned up full of holes. We talked about this already."
"I have to ask over and over. You had a witness."
"One who can't be found by anyone anymore."
"Put away for safekeeping." In the river, with big rocks for shoes.
"I'm thinking ringer. Not based on any evidence, just intuition."
"No marvelous body in tight black leather?"
"Not him. We'll find him eventually."
We would, of course. "I can't see Morley wandering off for that long. For one night, maybe. But he's a hands-on guy with his business."
"You're not producing original thought."
"I'm not trying. I'm musing out loud. But here's a question of personal interest. How close are you working with the Director?"