There was a momentary silence, and then a lot of clapping and yelling and cries of “More! More!” They, however, knew the traditions, and coins started being showered from the crowd all around her. Irving, with long street experience in his still short years, wasted no time in gathering them up so expertly they seemed almost to be vacuumed from the ground.
They weren’t quite that fired up yet; they wanted more and they’d paid for more. At this point, Joe was less worried than he was amazed, as always, that with all that leaping and whirling and twisting, Tiana wasn’t even breathing hard and had barely raised a sweat.
The second set was no mere repeat of the first, but a whole different routine, far more elaborate, erotic, and somewhat inflammatory. If she really was in control of herself when doing this, she could manage it better; but once she got started, all bets were off, and it had been some time since she’d danced for an appreciative crowd. The Rules didn’t just make you a dancer; you had to do it, all out, to the best of your ability, and hers was pretty damned good. The longer she went between shows, the more it built up inside her, like a tightly coiled spring, and when it was let out it was intense after this kind of layoff.
Hell, Joe didn’t think it was a big deal to turn on a bunch of drunken male river rats, but at this stage she could turn on almost anybody, and even the women with some of the men were showing real signs of bodily desire. He shifted his sword to the ready and moved into a better position.
Irv knew the dangers, and kept the second set short. This time the coins came faster and more furiously; this time they were demanding she go on and on. Between dances now, he could see Tiana’s face begin to pale as she sized up the crowd, many of whom were beginning to press closer to her, and she was already encircled. They had rehearsed a maneuver for this kind of situation, since it proved not that uncommon; a particular cue, a particular signal that Irv would make with the drums that would command this sort of finish. It depended, though, on her having the strength of will to break through that emotional trancelike dance state, to make the old Tiana control the new.
The one time they had tried it before, she’d managed it, but that spring inside her wasn’t totally uncoiled as yet, and it was no sure thing in this bigger crowd and rougher environment, either. He gave the signal to Irving, hoping the boy would catch it or have the sense of the crowd to do it anyway.
Irv did, but this third set was a humdinger; the crowd was joining in to the same rhythms, which were, after all, more street Philadelphia than Husaquahrian to begin with and thus had an extra impact, and Tiana was outdoing herself and leading them on. The situation was rife with the potential for, at best, a mass open-air orgy or, far worse, a violent and dangerous frenzy. Joe pulled his sword out of its sheath and held it so that the flat could be used, almost clublike. Tiana had already missed a couple of exit opportunities, and he feared the worst.
However, just when he thought he’d have to wade in and get her out, she did a tremendous series of twists and leaps and then, with the crowd giving almost awestruck room, she dashed for the crowd, then gave a mighty broad jump and actually cleared the heads of the nearest spectators, landing with a three-roll up to the edge of the buildings, then quickly running into the nearest doorway and out of sight of the crowd, which, momentarily stunned, now galvanized as a mob and stormed after her.
Joe stepped back, sheathed his sword, and let them charge the open doorway to the small bar into which she’d run, and, when the last were inside or milling just outside, made his way to Irv, who was already packed and ready.
“Pretty good haul,” the boy remarked. “Man! If I only had a guitar, maybe a sax, I could lay down a great rap and they’d never come down!”
“Come on,” Joe snapped. “We better make sure she made it out the back way. It sounds real mean in there right now.”
“Don’t it always?”
They made their way to the back of the buildings, which were virtually on the river itself, and Joe tried to get his eyes accustomed to the sudden darkness. “Watch your step,” he warned the boy. “This wood’s old and rotten here; one false step and you go right into the river.”
A dark shape moved from beneath the stairs in front of them. “It’s about time,” Tiana said nervously.
“We’re here as fast as we can move,” Joe responded. “Why? Trouble?”
“A couple of filthy types in that bar made grabs for me,” she told them. “I had to kick one of ’em in the balls and the other one in the face.”
“You’re learning fast,” the big man said approvingly. She might not manage a sword, but legs powerful enough to make the kind of leap she’d made, combined with her timing, were lethal weapons in and of themselves. “You delayed a long time, though. I was afraid you weren’t going to make your break.”
“Too many people. Too many tall people. I had to wait until there was a thin spot with shorter men. Even then I kind of back-kicked one as I went. I’m still not used to looking up at most men. Still, I have to admit I haven’t had this much fun in my life.”
She wasn’t being sarcastic with that last remark and he knew it. She was quickly developing a taste for living on the edge, for taking last-second chances and, he knew, she relished the power and attention and near mystical effect her dancing and athletic skills could have on people.
“Yeah, well, one of these days there’s gonna be too many tall guys to jump over and too many for me to fend oif, too,” he warned her. “If you survive that, it’ll take most of the fun out of it.”
She came up to him, put her arms around him, and kissed him. “God! I’m really turned on!” she whispered. She always was after one of these things.
At that moment a door crashed open, flooding the back area with light, and a big, bearded man shouted, “There she is!”
“Scatter!” Joe shouted. “The usual places!” He held out his hand. It was time to call upon the great magical sword named after his son. “Irving, to me!”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Not you,” he growled, as the men streamed out with blood in their eyes. “I said for you to scatter! The sword, damn it!”
“Oh!”
Frustrated, he drew his great sword just barely in time as the first of the men came at him. Using mostly the flat, he banged heads and sent men sprawling. Some fell back and there was the crack of rotting wood and then yells and splashes.
A knife whizzed past his ear and he decided it was time to beat a retreat himself. He waited until they surged forward, then quickly backed up, causing the mob almost to Ml over each other. Satisfied, he turned, there was a cracking sound, and in a few more seconds he felt himself fall into the river.
It wasn’t terribly deep right in there, and he hit the mud bottom and kicked off, encumbered by his necessary grip on his sword. The river water here was static, due to the piers and construction, and smelled like raw sewage, which was what got dumped into it by the town anyway. Struggling, he made his way in under one of the piers to where his head and shoulders were above water when he stood and managed to sheath the sword.
As much as he wanted out of that river at that point, he’ decided to stay in and try and make his way down, away from the port itself, cloaked by darkness and by the natural unwillingness of anybody up there voluntarily to jump in this fetid mess. He didn’t like it, either, but anything he was going to catch from it he most certainly already had.
Like almost all river ports, the town was situated at a bend where the river slowed and deposited its silt, creating a flat, swampy land mass that none the less allowed for the docking of boats and the laying of foundations on pilings in the muck. At the far end the harbor stopped, as the water was far too shallow to be useful, leaving a good quarter of a mile of broad mud flats. Here, untouched by man’s attempt to control the land, was a slippery quagmire that, nonetheless, he could manage, although the scabbard of his sword dragged in it and occasionally made him lose his balance. By the time he reached firmer land, he was totally covered in sticky brown mud. He hauled himself up and sat in the harder mud near shore and coughed a bit. After a few minutes, he heard someone else, a woman, coughing as well.