The worst of it had occurred before she ever picked up an instrument in Cassie's bedroom. That had been the necessity of tranquilizing poor little Hope and toting her over by boat to Boregy House in the middle of a closed trunk. Dani had been terrified that Hope would suffocate.
Only Michael knew that Hope was in there. They couldn't even trust the assistant. They'd sent him out for more boiling water and clean towels as soon as the trunk was brought up. Then Michael and she had gotten out Hope and hidden her in the couple's big ar-moire.
Hope had been sleeping peacefully, yet Dani had been dizzied with relief when she saw that nothing was wrong.
When Dani put the anaesthetic over Cassie Boregy's half-conscious face, she'd taken a cruel and horrid satisfaction in the process. Maybe the bitch would die under the anaesthetic. If not, she was so stoned she'd never know what hit her. Poor little Hope hadn't known why Mommy was putting that cloth over her nose. . . .
The operation made such a mess that there was no question of anyone discovering the dead fetus. Dani had hardly been able to look at it herself. She'd been wracked by a horrid fear that the thing might be alive, weak but alive.
If it had been, it wasn't alive for long. They'd wrapped it in the middle of the bloody sheets and put the sheets in the bottom of a refuse barrel they'd brought up for the purpose.
Then there was more mess, and the cleaning out of Cassie's womb, and that made more bloody sheets to pile on top.
Dani performed like an automaton through the worst of it. In retrospect, as she sat now in the hallway, it seemed to her that someone else had used the forceps, that someone else had clamped the tongs around the fetus' head, that someone else had sent the assistant from the room at exactly the moment that the head was becoming visible.
"Quick, Michael," she remembered saying. "Now."
Michael Chamoun had been the one to smear Hope with birthing fluids and awaken her with ice cold water.
Then Hope wouldn't scream. He'd slapped her three times before she did.
Dani remembered that Cassie still wasn't awake then, as they put the live baby in the mother's arms, where Hope snuggled, pink and angry looking with traces of artfully smeared blood still all over her face, and mucus in her hair.
Lord, this isn't going to work. She doesn't look like a newborn. She doesn't.
But the baby was so overdue, and the family so relieved when they were let inside, and the room such a mess, that nobody noticed.
Or if they did, nobody said anything. Hope's bellybutton was gong to be a telltale, so Dani had put a stitch in it, praying that she could say it was Nev Hettek procedure, if anybody asked. There were stitches enough in Cassie Boregy . . .
It was done then, but for rousing Cassie, and they'd had a rough time doing that. Michael, and cold water when all else failed, finally succeeded.
Dani had wandered into the hall, where she sat on a little velvet chair as the family clustered around Cassie Boregy and her baby, and watched her hands shake. She kept trying to tell herself that it wasn't a bad sign that her memory of what had just happened was a jumble of bits and pieces, incidents out of sequence.
She was frightened, and for good reason. And she was heartsick at what she'd done. And she wanted to go cry on Chance's shoulder, which was absolutely absurd, under the circumstances.
The circumstances: The evidence of the swap was out of the way. If she could just not say the wrong thing, the gambit would succeed.
She was about to endure celebratory parents and myriad congratulations she didn't want.
Dani got up suddenly, went to the doorway, and called to Michael, "Could you show me my room? I'm feeling a little tired. I've had a long trip and a long night."
Everyone made sympathetic noises, and Michael Chamoun was at her side in a heartbeat, wanting to know if she was all right.
She told him she wasn't, when they were out of earshot. She told him she hated what she and he had done. She was nearly out of control, but if she'd been totally out of control she'd have told him she wanted her baby back.
Chamoun looked at her, his tired face full of unspeakable misery and inestimable relief, and said, "I'll never know how to thank you for this. Whatever you need, whenever—just ... I'm no Magruder, but whatever I can do to help, as long as I live, you've got."
She wished she could have been gracious. She wasn't. She looked at her feet and the figured carpet under it, and the pattern swam before her eyes. At the door to her room in Boregy House, she grasped the doorjamb for support and said to Mike Chamoun. "Her name's Hope, you know."
Chamoun looked away. "Sorry. It's whatever they decide," Cassie Boregy's husband told her as he turned and walked away, down the stairs to his wife and his daughter.
Dani set on the feather bed and then lay out flat without even bothering to take off her boots or her blood-smeared smock.
No sooner had she closed her eyes than a knock came, tentative, then stronger, on the door she'd shut.
She opened it and a stranger was standing there. He was dressed in fancy Merovingian clothes and his eyes were very bright in a thin, pale face.
"I'm Mikhail Kalugin," he said, sticking out his hand awkwardly for her to take.
She did. "You've got the wrong room, m'ser Kalugin." The Kalugins were the real power here, she dimly remembered. Mikhail wasn't the one you heard about . . .
"I've got the right room. I just felt I must thank you for saving our dear prophetess. You don't know how much Cassiopeia Boregy means to all of Merovingen. I'm going to speak to my father about seeing that you receive a special honor, a medal for valorous service to the State, and we'll throw a great gala to present you to all of Merovingen."
"Terrific," she said tiredly. "Ambassador Magruder will love that. You go work it out with him, m'ser Kalugin. I've got to get some sleep."
The weird Kalugin fellow still had hold of her hand. She tugged at it and he pulled back, raising it to his lips and kissing its back.
Then he apologized for disturbing her and wandered off down the hall.
Well, Chance would love it. And it beat having opened the door to a squad of blacklegs ready to haul her off to the local prison, or seeing Michael standing there telling him that Cassie had gone into convulsions.
There was a possibility of that, of course. One could always hope.
The prophetess of Merovingen was already someone that Dani Lambert didn't like very well. As a matter of fact, she didn't like anything about Merovingen very well.
The least Chance could have done was stop by to see how things had gone. Then she realized that she was disappointed that it hadn't been him at the door. Then she decided she was going to write Karl Fon a long letter about Tatiana Kalugin and Chance Magruder, as soon as she knew what the hell she wanted to say.
Then she locked her door and took a little envelope out of her pocket. She swallowed three of the tablets inside and lay back.
If Cassie hemorrhaged during the night, they were going to have a hard time waking her personal physician, but this way she wouldn't dream.
Danielle Lambert didn't want to dream: not of Magruder, not of Karl Fon, not of home, so far away, and especially not of little Hope, who was now heir to one of Merovingen's greatest houses.
It beat being a Lambert, she told herself.
She just couldn't make herself believe it.
SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION (REPRISED)
C.J. Cherryh
God! was what Mondragon had said when Altair 'fessed up to him—not an easy thing to do. Ye don't be mad, she had said, and got him out on the Water, on her skip, which she just reckoned was how she wanted to tell him, not that Mondragon would really hit her, that was what made him scary sometimes— he'd blow up like anybody when he was upset, but when you really, truly made him mad, he just got quiet—and she didn't want anywhere for him to go off to without talking to her and she didn't want him in his fancy apartment to hear it, she wanted him on the boat where he could just look around him and remember what poor
was.
She'd been scared when she'd done it. He'd said— What? She'd said, Just listen to me, dammit, I'm tellin' ye. And he'd shut up.
He'd shut up so long she'd been really scared he wasn't going to forgive her.
Then he'd just dropped his head onto his hand and - sat there like he just couldn't handle that, —like he'd already bashed Raj up against a wall about the black-leg mess, and the only thing that kept Raj from flinging hisself off Rimmon Bridge once and all with a rock in his arms was how Mondragon had been real nice about it— Not entirely your fault, Mondragon had allowed, with his hand around Raj's throat, and bashing him again, Raj gone all pale. —But you wake up, boy, you live in dangerous times, and if some fool girl thinks she can take on the blacklegs, it's her problem, boy, —(bash!)—hear me?
Yessir, Raj had said, trying to pry Mondragon's hand loose so he could breathe.
You owe me, Mondragon had said. You owe me being smart, boy!
Yessir, Raj had whispered, because he was running out of air.
She couldn't but think of that while Mondragon was sitting there like it was just one thing more than he could cope with.
Like he'd trusted her, he'd really trusted her to use her head, and now she'd just messed things up he was just—
—just going to break down and cry, was what it looked like. And that was like a knife in her gut.
So she'd sat there, he'd sat there, a long, long time, and a couple of times he'd shook his head, not looking up.
"I'm a fool," she'd said. "I knowed it, Mondragon, I tried to fix it, but that damn Rif—"
He was going to kill Rif, that had been her sudden, awful thought; he was just going to cut her throat and she was going to turn up floating, no explanations, and maybe that was what she ought to have done, maybe she was a spineless fool not to have—and he'd have to, if it hadn't all gone too far for anything to help. . . .
But he'd looked up finally, staring off across the Grand, calm as if he hadn't a thought in his head.
And she'd been too scared to say a word, and he'd gotten up, finally, and stretched an arch in his back, and looked up the Grand where the bridges cut off the view, but the Signeury was up that way. So was the Justiciary.
"I'll work the boat today," he said, as if there was nothing wrong; but he hadn't done that in weeks, and she'd thought maybe she'd messed things up so bad he knew he was going to die, and he just wanted to be out on the Water a while, just not thinking about it.
She was scared sick, was what she was, she had supper with him on the skip and he ate just fine, but she choked hers down like it was poison; and he made love to her that night up in his apartment, and she was so cold she shivered.
"What's the matter?" he asked, holding her tight. "Jones?"
"I'm sorry about what I done." With her teeth chattering. "I'm sorry."
He just made love to her. Eventually she stopped shaking. He told her he was thinking about it, and he hadn't known about the seeds, but he'd known what Rif was, and he was, frankly, he said, relieved she understood things, was real happy with her figuring it all out, how the Sword and the Janes both were working, making what he called haves and have-nots, making poor folk know they were poor, making them hurt real bad-Like she'd been so damn slow, and he'd never expected she'd figure things out, but he knew, because he'd been Sword of God himself, and that was how they worked and that was how the Janes worked— because they were so far opposite to each other they met on the backside of the circle; and used the same tricks and sometimes dealt with the same people. . . .
"What're ye going t' do then?" she asked, finally, with him on top of her.
"Just thinking," he said, and kissed her like he hadn't a thought to his name. Happy, for the Lord's sake...
So when, a couple of days later, he came walking down the front of Ventani and said he had something to show her, she scrambled right up and untied and expected they were going to go do something dangerous, so her gut was in a knot, but she was ready for whatever it was.
She expected he was going to say to take him uptown.
But he wanted to go to the harbor.
"Quiet-like?" she asked, meaning engine or not, and he shrugged and said it didn't matter.
So she flung up the cover, put down the tiller, cranked up her balky old engine—she had it running the best it ever had, for pride, for one thing; and the last couple of days because she was sure she was going to need it—and they motored on down to the harbor, down through that black maze of pilings to the area of the Customs House, where he worked for Kamat.
"Got a surprise," he said, and didn't tell her what it was, just said come on.
So, totally puzzled and no little worried, she tied up to a ring and followed him off the skip and down the wooden dock where mostly lighters and canalers tied up.
A few berths down he stopped and waved his hand out to the water, said, "There she is," and she looked out to the harbor, expecting some ship was coming in that meant something hopeful to their problems.
But if there was anything out there she couldn't see
it.
"Where?" she asked.
"Right in front of you," he said.
There wasn't anything in front of her but an old canaler-boat, that hadn't moved in two years.
"What?" she asked, looking for canvas on it, something newer than the little heap of canvas that was rotting away on it undisturbed, on gray-brown slats all eaten up with worms. Whatever it was, was well-hidden.
"The boat. It's mine. Just got the motor license."
Her mouth was open. She looked around at him, thinking, Lord, he's joking or he's cracked. But he looked just plain pleased with himself.
"Mondragon," she said, "—this boat ain't goin' anywhere. I know this boat, Mondragon, ever'body knows this boat: she's th' old Manning river-runner, Manning's dead an' th' creditors got th' boat, but they ain't been able to sell 'er—she's got dry rot, Mondragon, ain't no fixin' 'er."
"Few new boards—one of those new engines—"
"There ain't no sound wall to fix it to! She ain't wood, she's punk, f th' Lord's sake! You mount an engine on that stern, she'll pull her bolts right through the wood if ye ain't fell right through the deck first time ye step on it! Who'd ye deal with? Mantovans?"
"I can just put a little bracing on the stern wall—"
"Lord an' my Ancestors!" He had cracked. Everything he'd done for days was like he was sleepwalking. She sorted wildly through recent memory, trying to see if this made sense, or if she should maybe get him back home, get him to bed, get him to rest a few days. She wanted to cry, she outright felt tears coming, and she raked her cap off and twisted it in her hands, because she wanted to strangle the crooks that he was dealing with, and all the folk of the Trade that were going to laugh themselves sore when the word got out her man had bought the Manning boat.
"It'll take some fixing," Mondragon said, "but it'll be good—working with my hands a while, get some exercise—"
"Oh, shee-it!" she cried, and just sat down with her head in her hands.
She didn't even care people were going to laugh at her; it was his life she was worried about, how he was ever going to take care of himself. She just felt sick.
"Jones," he said.
He sounded sane. He sounded real sane, all of a sudden, and she looked up at him standing there like an Angel himself, with the sun behind his hair.
Like God was on his side.
FARREN'S FOLLY: MEETING OF MINDS (REPRISED)
Roberta Rogow
The evening bells signaled the end of the working day. Farren led Mikhail down the stairs to where the official skip rode in its own docking space. "Can I drop you anywhere?" Farren asked.
Mikhail stared at the little boat. "You pole yourself?''
"Good exercise," Farren said cheerfully, slipping out of his shoes and moving into position. "Could do with a bit. Hop in, and I'll row you over to the bridge."
Mikhail eased himself gingerly into the boat, while
Farren rolled up his sleeves, took up the pole, and slid the boat into the going-home traffic without as much as a splash.
A pretty girl waved from the lowest tier; Farren grinned up at her and waved back.
"I love this place," he said, half to himself and half to Mikhail. "There's nowhere else like it."
Mikhail had never been this close to the actual canals or the canalers. He usually traveled in a much larger barge, where he was safely isolated from the riffraff of the canalside. Cassie Boregy warned against these people. They were not to be trusted, she said . . . yet, here in the sunlight, with the waves lapping against the boat, they didn't seem so fierce or so sinister. The stout woman who shouted a greeting to Farren . . . hard to think of her as The Enemy. Nor the gap-toothed boy who smiled from another boat, nor the man who offered a fishcake from off his tray "for luck."
Mikhail stepped back onto dry land as Farren pulled up to Archangel Walk. "I've been thinking," he said diffidently from the shore. "That pump. How are you going to pay. . . ?"
"Don't worry, my friend, I have an idea about that. Do you like music?"
"Music?" Mikhail echoed, bewildered at this sudden turn of the conversation.
"My wife's having one of her Musical Evenings tonight," Farren explained. "And your father asked me to see you met some people. No better place to meet people than one of Addie's Musical affairs."
Mikhail thought that over. "Am I invited?"
"Just come. Tell old Seymor at the door you're mine."
"But ..." Mikhail stammered, as Farren swung his boat around and headed across the canal, cutting sharply in front of a parked barge bearing the flag of the Kamats.
Richard Kamat was checking over the last load of raw wool when the skip pulled up to his dock. He frowned at the boatman, then realized that the bare-armed canaler at the pole was actually his neighbor, Farren Delaney.
"Way-hen!" Farren called.
"Good evening," Richard replied curtly. God. Neighbor visits. From eccentric Delaney. He was hungry and dinner was waiting.