Angel with the Sword

"You're real lucky," she said finally, out of her own. "Drink that old canal water, you get fever. You must've drunk a liter of it. Kept waiting all night for you to fever up. Maybe the whiskey killed the germs."

"Pills," he said. "I took a lot of pills against the water."

She turned her head. Pills. "You mean you knew somebody was going to throw you in?"

"No. The water all over Merovingen. Bad pipes. They say you have to be born here to drink it."

"You weren't."

"No."

"Where from?"

Silence.

She shrugged. A lot of river-rats and canalers had the same habit. Keeping to their own business. She got a nibble and missed the set when she jerked it. "Damn." She reeled the line in peered at the hook in the gathering night and had to take it in her hand to discover the hook had been cleaned. "Fish was supposed to be our breakfast. Didn't go to give him his."

"You live alone?"

That question made her nervous. "Sometimes. Got a lot of friends." She looked at the onsetting dark and sighed. "Well, no luck." She secured the tackle and put it away, lashed it neatly to the side near the rim-rail of the halfdeck.

And turned where she sat and looked at him where he sat, none so far on the narrow deck, in the last visible light. Her heart was beating hard again, for no sensible reason. Is that reasonable? What'm I scared of?

Oh, nothing. Six black skulkers who murder people and a man sitting in my boat in the dark, that's nothing.

They're probably looking all over for him. What if they found us?

He knows who they were.

She slid off the halfdeck and stood up in the well. He slid to the edge and set his feet over, got them out of the way as she bent and pulled a blanket from the hidey. "I'll sleep on the deck," she said, and did not add: you'd fall off. But she thought it. She stepped up on the deck and felt his hand on her ankle, not holding, just—there, and on her calf when she did stop.

"I don't want to put you out of your bed."

"That's fine. You want it, Iwon't roll over the side." She shook free and sat down, flinging the blanket around her. "I'll be just fine."

He reached out and put his hand on her knee this time. "Jones. Listen—I never meant to put you off. I just—hell, I'm shaken up, Jones, I don't know what I said. I think I insulted you. Come on. Come on inside."

"Cleaner up here." Of a sudden it was going the way she wanted lastnight; but it was not last night, she was not half that crazy, and she was scared.

"Come on," he said, rocked at her knee. "Come on, Jones."

Coward, she told herself. She sat there a good long while, and he sat still, showing no sign of going away.

"All right," she said, and edged toward the rim of the deck. He reached out a hand and steadied her—as if hecould keep his feet. She got down on her knees and dragged the blanket into the hidey, and he came in after. Then came a great muddle of blanket-arranging, so that she banged her head in her nervousness. "Damn." Nothing went quite right. She lay down and he just lay there. "You going to do anything?" she asked finally.

"You want me to?"

"Damn! You son of the Ancestors, you—" She flung herself up on her elbows and began wriggling out as if the boat were afire.

He grabbed at her and she elbowed him hard enough to get a sound out of him. He grabbed her hard then and got a knee over her midriff, holding onto her hands. "Jones. Jones—" And then he worked that far down the hidey too, and it was clear he had made up his mind.

In a little while she made up hers at least for the time being; clothes got shoved to this side and that and the blankets got tangled; she hit her head again in the throes of what he was doing and nearly knocked herself dim-witted. She fell right back down on him and lay there swearing while he gently probed the egg on the back of her skull. "Oh, damn, Jones, I'm sorry."

4'Got a matching set," she said. He had a good one on his. She knew. She lay there warm and comfortable on a breathing human body, with someone's arms around her for the first time in years. And it was somewhere far and above the way she expected. He was clean and tried not to hurt her: ("Damn, girl, this your first?"—"Shut up! Don't you call me girl!" He shut up. And was worried about her, and when it got beyond hurting he made her forget it hurt.) He told her things and taught her things in his polite way, so she didn't say them hers: somehow it belonged with fine words, what he did; and what she expected belonged with hers.

Somehow it fit that she banged her head twice on her own overhead. She felt awkward; and kept quiet the way she took two baths in one day, not to have him look down on her. But karma took a hand and she made a fool of herself twice in the same night. And landed dazed on his chest and had his fine hands to take the hurt away.

She was in love. For at least the night.

You got no sense, Jones. You're a real daughter of the Ancestors. You know this Mondragon? You got any idea why six people want to throw him in the Grand? Maybe they had reason.

He couldn'tbe on the wrong side of it. If he was a murderer or a thief or a crazy I'd know it by now.

He's got to go back where he belongs. I got to get him there. He don't belong in a place like this.

Her heart hurt. It knotted up and hurt as if her whole self was trying to shrink up in that small space. His fingers worked at her shoulders.

"Jones, something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Her shoulders were tight. She realized he was working at over-tense muscles and tried to relax.

"You sorry?"

"No. No." She sucked in her breath. Spilling tomorrow on today, her mother called it. Damn nonsense. Today was fine. Tomorrow—well, tomorrow could maybe be twodays away. Then it was time to use her wits and get him back where he belonged. She drew a breath and let it go. And snuggled up against his shoulder and tried to shut her eyes.

She opened them again at once. Sometimes she heard things at the edge of sleep, time doing tricks, things that might or might not be there.

But the waves had a rhythm. It was always there. The boat had a way of moving. The world rocked and moved forever in certain ways and with certain sounds; and right now, for no reason she had heard clearly, a cold bit of fear gathered in her gut. She tensed and started to get up; his hand pressed against her back. She put a quick hand over his mouth. "I think I heard something. I'm going to back out real easy. Stay put."

She eased back and felt him start to follow. She pushed him back. "No. Stay out of it." She had a vision of him stumbling about in the dark. "I got ways." She went on sliding, the wind cold on bare skin; came out into the starlight on her belly and came up on her hands ever so carefully to peer over the deck-rim.

A raft was out there, dark, amorphous island in the starlit water. She got the knife at the hidey entrance and slithered on her elbows down the well, cut the anchor rope with one quick slice, backed up and around and hewas out in the starlight, keeping low as she was. She slithered back in a hurry. "Keep your head down," she whis pered under the water-noise. "We got a raft out there. Thing can't move for spit, but they're crazies for sure." They were in the deepest part of the well; she grabbed a towel off the slats, rolled to get it on and knotted it around her waist while he grabbed his pants. Then she rose up and put her hand on the deckrim; he grabbed her arm.