"Gawd, that was heavenly.
Marcus wiped his mouth and nodded. "Much better than wheat gruel." He paused, then added awkwardly, "If-if you will take that tunic off, Skeeter, I will wash and bandage your injuries."
Skeeter didn't argue. His wounds stung and burned every time he moved in his stolen garments of wool. Marcus tore up some of the bedding and laved the long slice with clean water, then wound strips of cotton around Skeeter's torso. "There. That should keep the blood from seeping out and giving you away." He cautiously dabbed at the stains on the side of the tunic, which the long toga had hidden. Most of them came out with the application of cold water. Marcus finished that chore and hung up the tunic to dry, then cleared his throat. "If you will give me the sword, I will stand guard. You are exhausted, Skeeter. Sleep. Anyone looking for you will have to kill me."
Skeeter held his gaze for a moment and realized Marcus meant it. He didn't know what to say. Maybe ... just maybe ... all those prayers he'd uttered back at the start of the fighting had given him back not only his life, but a chance at winning back the friendship he'd so thoughtlessly shattered?
Because he couldn't have spoken to save his half-wild soul, Skeeter sank back on the denuded mattress without a single word and was asleep before Marcus had finished setting aside the dishes from their meal. His final thought was, if I do have a second chance, don't let me screw it up. Please.
Then all was silence and peaceful sleep while Marcus stood guard over him, placing his life between Skeeter and the door.
Goldie Morran spent an unhappy two weeks, waiting with the rest of TT-86 for word of Skeeter Jackson. As she'd discovered already, she didn't want Skeeter dead. Kicked off the station had seemed like a grand idea, but now ... all she could do was wonder what he was up to downtime. Rescuing Marcus? She snorted. Goldie really couldn't credit that, Dr. Mundy and vidcam evidence notwithstanding. A person could always interpret a bit of evidence ten different ways from Sunday. Besides, Skeeter was too much like Goldie to spend his time rescuing a worthless slave when he could be scamming so much gold downtime, she'd never catch up. Of course, Brian might disallow it, on the grounds that the wager was on hold. Or, she shuddered delicately behind her cold, glass-top counters-that dratted librarian might just decide that since Skeeter would have had no way of knowing the wager was on hold, his earnings would count.
Curse the boy!
She was theoretically ahead, with more than half the bet's term left to run. If Skeeter returned.
What if Skeeter never returned? Some people thought Goldie was a heartless sociopath. She wasn't although she put out considerable effort to seem that way. So if Skeeter Jackson, never mind that nice kid who tended bar at the Down Time never came back, she'd have their fates on her conscience.
And backstabbing cheat that she knew herself to be, that was something she knew she couldn't live with. Please, she whispered silently, bring them back. l miss that obnoxious little bastard. She was discovering she actually missed watching that boy con tourists out of cash, cameras, wristwatches, wallets, and anything else he could lift to turn a buck. She even missed the arguments over whiskey and beer at the Down Time while tourists who wandered in watched, goggle eyed .... I miss them. Bring them back, please. Whatever I felt before, l never meant for this to happen.
Goldie didn't realize she was crying until the tears dripped with a soft splash onto her glass counter. When she sniffed and looked around to find a handkerchief, she found a young Asian woman she'd never laid eyes on standing in front of her counter. The girl offered a clean, beautifully embroidered handkerchief.
"Here, Miss Mon-an, you are hurting. You have much to be sorry for, but we understand."
Without another word, she slipped out of Goldie's shop, moving with the unobtrusive grace of a girl trained in one of the finest geisha houses in Japan. Goldie stared at the embroidered handkerchief, stared at the doorway, then very slowly dried her face and blew her nose. It wasn't easy, facing the fact that if those two boys didn't return, it would be largely her fault.
"All I ask," Goldie muttered, blowing her nose miserably again, "is a chance to tell that miserable, thieving, no-good cheat that I'm sorry-to his face."
A tiny whisper at the back of her mind warned her to be wary of what one asked the gods for, lest they grant it.
Just where was Skeeter Jackson? And what the living hell was he doing down there in ancient Rome? Playing hero? Or playing the cad? She hoped she'd have the chance to find out which.
Goldie sniffed one last time and wadded up the exquisite handkerchief until her hand hurt.
"Come back, damn you!"
Only the chill of her glass cases, filled with cold, rare coins, cool, smooth miniature sculptures in precious stones, and the frozen glitter of a few scattered jewels on shivering velvet heard.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
For the remainder of their stay in Denver, the man calling himself Chuck Farley spent his time visiting one cathouse after another. Margo wrinkled her nose as they watched quietly in the darkness while he entered yet another establishment of ill repute.
"I hope he catches something really nasty!"
"He might, at that," Malcolm muttered. "He's doubtless been inoculated, because smallpox is still rampant in these parts, but he might catch a social disease and be put into quarantine. Dr. Eisenstein could either heal it or recommend permanent quarantine. Uptime, too; Rachel Eisenstein takes her job very seriously, she does. She wants to ensure diseases like that don't get passed on to anyone in the real world." A bitter chuckle issued near her ear. "He would certainly deserve it. But it's more likely he's gathering additional inventory.
"To make up for the pieces that didn't come through the gate with him?"
"Exactly."
Margo flounced as only Margo could do while standing perfectly still. Her dress rustled like wind through aspens at her movement. "He's disgusting," she muttered under her breath. "And he doesn't look or act rich enough to keep those for himself. Wonder who his uptime buyer is?"
Malcolm stared at her with considerable surprise. He hadn't expected her to pick up on that part of it so fast. But there were uptime billionaires who paid agents to loot the past for their collections. A tiny number of the agents moving downtime then uptime again had been caught, their stolen antiquities confiscated and turned over to IFARTS for evaluation and return downtime. Disgusting was far too mild a word for the kind of man who'd pay others to take the risks, do the legwork-the dirty, often lethal work. The payoff from the actual client would, of course, be only a fraction of what the antiquities were worth, but enough to keep them busily moving back and forth time and again, to steal even more artwork.
Malcolm realized from Margo's look, she'd like to do murder when Farley exited the house. And with the gun concealed in her fur muff, she probably could have drilled him through whichever eye she chose. As though following his thoughts, she glared at the cathouse Farley had entered. He half expected a Margo-style explosion or an outright attack murderous with pent-up emotion, but all she said was, "Creeps."
The deep silence of the late Denver night was shattered abruptly by the rumbling, squeaking, and groaning Conestoga wagons-along line of them, which began forming up nose-to-tail on a long, dirt road that led southeastward out of town. "Malcolm," she whispered, "is that what I think it is? A real, honest-to-goodness wagon train?"