Merovingen - Fever Season Part 23

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232.

C.I Ckerryh Jones looked around at the line, that stretched clear off the porch. "I got to go through this d.a.m.n line again?"

The blackleg set her card aside on the table. "Sorry. I need the number. Next."

"Ye d.a.m.n-"

The blackleg looked up. Not without a certain anxiety. But Del Suleiman had her by the arm, and patted her shoulder. "Ye go. 1 save yer place. Mira, ye go get our license."

"No holding places," the blackleg said.

There was a mutter up front, all around. "Line ain't moving, then," yelled Libby Singh, and the mutter got uglier. "We can jest stand."

"Blacklegs ain't getting no ride in this town." .- "Get the d.a.m.n papers!" the blackleg yelled; his face reddening. "Every ca.n.a.ler in this d.a.m.n line better have the d.a.m.n papers when they get here!"

"Atterlad," Hen Fregit said, and waved a hand. "Ain't n'body movin' in this line till we all got back. Hear it?"

There was a shifting among the ca.n.a.lsiders, a little muttering, but partners and kids and family folded their arms and stood, still as monuments, exactly in place, and no lander moved up in line to fill the vacant spots, as ca.n.a.lers went to the skips and poleboats tied up along the porch and under Fishmarket Bridge, and all along the bank.

No one had moved when they got back either. And Ahair Jones unfolded the waterstained paper that was her shipping license, and held it up in front of the officer's eyes. "That's the number on the paper. Ain't the number on my skip. My skip ain't got a number."

"It does now," the officer muttered, "That's the number. This is your number. What's your mail pickup?"

There was an ominous muttering in the line.

"We ain't got no numbers," Singh yelled.

"Throw 'at there b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the ca.n.a.l!" someone else yelled.

The officer looked up, clench-jawed and worried. "Look, I ain't got no more choice than you! This is the governor's law!"

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"Then d.a.m.n the governor!" Libby Singh yelled. "You write on there that that's a license number, ain't no numbers on the boats!" "I can't do that!"

"You c'n write 'er right there," Jones said helpfully, pointing to the place on the card, and turned her head so she could see rightwise up as she indicated the blank. "See, ye just cross that there boat out and write in license." "I've got a thousand of these d.a.m.n cards to do!" "Ye ain't going to get done any this way." The officer glowered. "I'll remember you." "Yey. An' ca.n.a.lers remember faces real good too, m'ser blackleg."

"Right," a dozen voices said, at her back.

"So ye write license. Ain't no boat got a number."

She came early to Mondragon's that night-Denny let her in, Denny still vastly satisfied with himself these days. The boys were back at work at Gallandry despite their two-week-long absence (ser Gallandry owed Mondragon in some way powerful enough that he would have hired old Min herself if Mondragon asked it) but Mondragon still worried enough about the pair that he insisted they stay another week or so-ever since Raj had gone missing one evening and had had them d.a.m.ned near dragging the cadaJs for him. Un-Raj-like, he had not told Denny where he had been, he had not been straight with Mondragon, or with her- In fact it was, she reckoned, one of the prime reasons Mondragon had laid down the law with the boys: You show up'here by dark, he had said, seizing Raj by both arms and glaring at him in a way that had Raj frozen stiff. You and Denny both, you go to Gallandry in the morning, you check in at Moghi's on your way home, and if it so happens I'm not here, you go straight back to Moghi's and you sit there, you hear me, till I come or Jones or Del or somebody you know d.a.m.n well for sure Jones or I sent, and if you've got any doubts, you have one of Moghi's men go with you and them and put it on my bill. Do you understand me?

3MCJ. Chenyh Whereafter Raj had nodded emphatically that he did, indeed, understand. Denny had sulked. Raj had hit him, and, Jones reckoned. Raj had enough to occupy him just making sure Denny stayed in sight.

But Mondragon was taking no chances with another of the Boregys' windows. And more worrisome, something that had occurred to Jones and something she was certain was in Mondragon's mind, it was clear that something had scared Raj and upset him badly.

" 'Lo." she said, meeting Mondragon in the hall that led back to the kitchen. She gave him a hug. "I got Min down there watching." Meaning the boat. It was safe enough, she reckoned. Min was content to tie up early and earn a copper, these chilly nights, and all Min had to do was bang on a pot with a spoon and raise h.e.l.l, defense enough against the usual kind of pilferage, if somebody bothered her skip.

"Good," Mondragon said. "I'm doing soup."

It smelled like it. It smelled good. Mondragon's cooking had d.a.m.n well improved in his staying in the apartment so much. "Going to wash," she said, and headed back around the stairs and up again to drop her little bag of personal stuff (like the gun and the ammunition, which she did not leave on the skip, along with clean clothes for the morning) up in Mondragon's bedroom upstairs.

Raj was not what she expected to find up there, Raj sitting there in the chair with the lamp lit and a book he snapped shut right fast and stuck into his pants as he scrambled up and tried to leave.

But she was standing in the door and she did not oblige him by moving.

He just stood there with a very un-Raj-like sullenness and finally got the presence of mind to step aside and wave her in.

"Thanks," she said dryly, and went to set her things by the bed.

Except she thought then about the gun, and the ammunition, and the money in that kit, and turned around and looked FEVER SEASON (FINAL REPRISE).

235.

at Raj, who was ^standing there looking at her as if he had fishbones in his throat.

d.a.m.n, she had trusted the kid. Until he had gone secretive and peculiar.

"Close the door," she said, suddenly figuring that something had to get worked out. And Raj went from looking like he was going to say something to looking like he was going to run. "Shut it!"

Raj shut it, pressed it closed at his back and stood there with a cornered look. "What in h.e.l.l're ye doing here?" she asked then. "Raj, you answer me. You answer me real plain. Ye got some trouble ye ain't told Mondragon?"

There was absolute h.e.l.l in the boy's eyes. Panic. "I haven't done anything. I wish he'd just quit worrying about me."

"Something t' do with that brother of yours?"

"No."

"You sure? You real sure? I tell you, if you don't sit on that kid hard, there'll be something you can't pull him out of. Mondragon took the blame with Boregy, you know that. You know why. You know d.a.m.n well why. Penny's enough to try the Angel Hisself. And here you stay out all d.a.m.n night, you take to skulking round and sulking when ye're spoke to- I'm telling you, Mondragon's got enough on his mind! He don't need this! Now ye tell me, ye tell me what ye're into."

"It wasn't all d.a.m.n night! I was fine! I don't need somebody hovering over me all the time!"

"Oh, sure, sure, ye don't. You got a hand all cut up, you got Denny to watch, you got some bullylads who seen your face right well-"

"They saw yours. And his. Same as mine."

"Well, I got a boat, don't I? I'm on the water, I'm in the Trade, and there ain't jio way they cross the Trade in this town, friend. And if you ain't noticed, Mondragon's in by dark and watching his back all the time till this blows over. What in h.e.l.l's the matter with you? What're you doing up here anyway?"

"Maybe 1 want a little time to myself."

236.

C.J. Ckerryh "Ain't no law. Go on. Git! Ain't nothing t' me ye're an ingrate."

He turned then, jaw set, and opened the door.

"But I'd've thought," she said before it was halfway, "you owed Mondragon better."

Raj froze. Just stopped, with his hand on the doork.n.o.b, his head down.

"Ye want to say?" she asked. "You think we're stupid? Think we couldn't help you?"

"It's nothing to do with anything."

"Sure."

He walked out, and went on downstairs.

"Dinner," Denny said, putting his head into the sitting room where Raj had withdrawn to the farthest comer and tucked up in a chair, not interested in being bothered. Something in him p.r.i.c.ked up an interest at food; his stomach said no and rolled over in queasy protest.

Denny had given him the news, Denny dived back into the hall and headed for the company of Mondragon and Jones in the kitchen.

Raj opened his book, on the folded note that he knew by heart. That said, in Marina's fine, beautiful handwriting: My dear Angel: I send this by your messenger-wishing I could see you face to face. . . .

I am so touched by the poems from your hand. I would not try to equal them. . . .

He hurt all over again. He traced the letters her pen had made, and knew that he was a fool. Knew that he had made a mess of things.

Even halfway through the letter, the first time he had read it, he had been blind to the cues. Then they had added up. Mondragon. Mondragon.

Everything had gotten twisted up. He had traced and retraced every mistaken move, everything he had said and Marina Kamat had said to him that he had taken and confused and believed in.

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She had taken the poems for Mondragon's. She had taken him for an errand-boy. Boy- Just that. It was Mondragon, it had to be, Mondragon who looked like the Angel Himself, like Retribution who stood on Hanging Bridge. And he was a fool.

Oh, G.o.d, he was a fool, who had to tell the truth-to Marina, to Mondragon, all the way around. It was so d.a.m.ned hard. It hurt so much.

He loved her, dammit. For a little while he had believed she loved him.

And the man he owed everything to-he loved Mondragon, in a confused tangle of debt and need; and he had been so proud of what he had done, so overwhelmed by his failure to get the papers through, but proud all the same that he had worked everything out-and Mondragon had treated him like a grown man. Now Mondragon was mad at him, Jones was mad at him, Denny was too young to understand him and no little mad at him too. And Marina- Marina was going to be more than mad at him. Marina was going to be his enemy, forever. And he still loved her.

House Kamat would despise him. Marina's brother might come looking for him-or for Mondragon. Who was a duelist, who would have to defend himself-'

No. Mondragon was too smart. Mondragon would only break Marina's heart and apologize and maybe be polite to her, because Mondragon always knew how to smooth over a situation.

Then Mondragon would come home and grab hold of him and kill him. He had seen that look on Mondragon's face, that made him remember what Mondragon really was; and Mondragon was involved in things in hightown, a whole tangled mess on which everyone's life depended-dangerous, dangerous things, which meant Marina Kamat would be involved with him, and that mess, and he was- Jones came padding in, barefoot and quiet, just the creak of the board floor to give her away. Raj shut the book with a 238.

C.I Cherryh lurch of his heart and hoped his face was not as pale as he thought it was.

Jones came over and leaned an arm on his chair. "Raj. What in h.e.l.l's the matter?"

"It's a girl," he said. Choked out.

"Oh, Lord and my Ancestors!" Jones jerked back and stood up and set her hands on hips. "Is that it?"

In that way of someone Older and beyond understanding the knife twisting in his heart.

"Come on," she said, and took him by the arm and dragged him up. "That ain't a cause to miss a good supper." And when she had gotten him to the kitchen. "He says it's a girl," she said to Mondragon, with Denny right there to hear.

"Hoooo," Denny said.

Mondragon just gave him a bewildered look, a totally astonished look, that was far and away the most unguarded expression he had gotten out of Mondragon in a week.

"Who?" Mondragon asked.

"Oh," Raj said, thinking wildly, realizing he would be a fool to claim someone who was anyone, and unprepared to deal with the truth, "I saw her on this boat."

"Whose?" Jones asked, sitting down at table.

"I dunno." Raj found himself a way to go, a little lie that would give him time, and room to think, a little breath in a situation that had gotten narrower and narrower. "I didn't see them real clear."

Jones snorted. Mondragon laughed softly. Denny gave him a look that looked halfway mad and halfway betrayed, as if he saw something ahead that he did not want to happen.

The knot came back to his stomach. He sat down with the book in his lap, and ate the stew, spinning out the details they asked.

Lies, every one.

And that night in bed, in Mondragon's downstairs, while Mondragon and Jones were in bed upstairs, doing things that Raj imagined with all too much tormenting detail, Denny said; FEVER SEASON (FINAL REPRISE)33*

"You going to go all stupid on me?"

"Happens," Raj said, staring at the ceiling. Thinking now he had to find new places to hide the letter, because now they might suspect about the book. Nothing seemed safe.

There was just a little more time, that was all.

INSTANT KARMA.

Janet Morris

Magruder wasn't quite sure when the idea had come to him. Maybe as early as last week, when he'd said to a distraught Sword named Chamoun, "We're here to win the hearts and minds of these Merovingians, and we're going to do it if we have to put the fear of sharrh in heaven into 'em." Or maybe later that evening, when Tatiana was so obviously hiding something worrisome during dinner-and after.

But Magruder never let a good plan go unimplemented, so here he was, knocking on the slavers' door with Megary Cut behind him, and a killer named al-Banna guarding his back and the launch they'd brought.

Chance Magruder was in disguise, his face hooded, his Sword credentials hung at his waist-armed to the teeth, like you ought to be when you walked into a den of lions.

"Whaddayawant?" came a voice through a rusty grate once the peep was open.