The man grinned mirthlessly, held out his arm. He and his companion were dressed in dark colors, but in the lamplight, the saffron College sash around the man's upper arm shone all too clear.
Exeter's men. There was no way out of this but a fight. Justice realized that now and, knowing who these two men worked for, he knew why the walkways were deserted.
"Sonja," he whispered, trying his best to look terrified—no chore, that. "Get out of here. Run."
"Come, m'sera ... be cooperative," the man said, gesturing toward the stairs. "Just a short talk. Then you'll be free to go."
Sonja said, "We'll talk here, or not at all."
"M'sera—I'm through asking. You either come peaceably, or I'll drag you." He came closer—Justice threw Sonja behind with his left arm and faced the man with his knife glittering in the lamplight.
"Oh ho!" The man stepped back. "The young tom's got teeth!"
A sword whipped out from beneath the cloak, cloak wrapped around the other arm, fast and smooth. Justice's heart sank. Sword against knife: he and his opponent were of a height, equal reach—bad disadvantage. Keeping his eyes locked with the other man's, he pulled his second knife from his boot top.
"I was right," the man commented over his shoulder to his companion still waiting in the stairway. "Canal scum. Fah! No . . . get Keisel. This one's easy."
He and the man began to circle each other on the walkway. The man stabbed out with his sword, a careless gesture and one Justice blocked easily—blocked the other man's advance on Sonja from the bridge too, and hoped Sonja kept behind him. He's toying with me . . . trying to see just how good I am. Damn! Of all the nights to leave my sword at home! "Sonja? Get out of here. Go!"
Another stab, another angle. Justice kept his breathing easy, measured the man's reach, water close on one side, blank wooden wall on the right, the whole floating walkway heaving underfoot and slick from the passage of some boat. Steel rasped against steel as he countered a downward slash with crossed knives, tried to twist the sword out of the man's hands, but the sword flexed free—snapped helplessly aside and Justice lunged through the guard, but the man jumped back and clear.
"Hand it to you, kid . . . you're not bad. Maybe next life you'll come back as a duelist!" A talker. Justice had seen the type before. Talking to shatter an enemy's concentration. Ruin his timing.
Another attack. Low and high. He blocked both, heard a yelp from behind him and realized Sonja hadn't run. "Sonja—get helpl"
Point, edge ... the blows came quicker now. Pushed him hard. Parry to the weak part of the blade. Slide in. Never far enough fast enough. If only he had his sword. The man brought his sword around in a slash at his head. Justice ducked and parried, but the limber blade swept under and Justice jumped back, a little ground lost. "Sonja, get out of here, dammit, you're in my way!"
He had to win, had to kill this man . . . him and his companion. They knew his face now. They'd go back for reinforcements. His gut quivered ... he didn't want to kill anyone. But he had to. For Sonja's sake. For his and Aunt Stella's now—
Kill a swordsman with a knife—
Another succession of attacks. Justice refused to back up, kept parrying, carrying himself low as he could, maximum trouble to a tall man, called upon all his training, the hours he'd practiced, the time he'd spent with Raj trying to pick up what Raj had learned with his hightown fencing master—
Breath came short. Sweat poured into his eyes; he shook it away with a sharp jerk of his head, blocked another slashing blow, and jabbed for the man's groin—forced him into an awkward parry and a jump back.
Keep your thoughts centered. Strike the balance within yourself. Let your enemy defeat himself. Stay in the fight. Be the last to quit.
Words from Raj's weapons instructor. Words a fighter—a truly talented fighter—lived by.
Or died believing.
Sonja huddled against the wall of some shop, her arms around the book-bag, saw Justus again and again turn away the sword of the man who had attacked him. Exeter's men—gods, Bolado daren't help—the blacklegs wouldn't intervene. . . .
Or were they Exeter's?
Might they be mere bridgeway ruffians, thieves who wore the cardinal's badge to disguise themselves and to ward off intervention?
Whoever they were, thieves or slinks, if they discovered the book she carried, both she and Justus would be dead. One way, or the other.
"Sonja!" Justus' voice pleaded with her.
He couldn't run. He couldn't hold them forever.
The second man kept trying to get at her and Justus kept maneuvering the fight to prevent it.
She gasped as Justus went to his knee. In a backward cut too quick to see, the swordsman opened a long gash across Justus' arm. She yelled something, not quite sure what, saw Justus slip and catch himself on his hand—the swordsman stabbing out—
Justus' knife came up. The stab into the swordsman's brain was either a move of exquisite placement or sheer desperation. The effort that tumbled that man back and put Justus on his feet was raw strength—
But it was the last. Justus staggered, waiting for the swordsman's companion to rush him. Rama help him . . . wounded, winded—as the second man drew a sword. She flipped back the cover to her book-bag, frantically rummaged the bottom; her fingers touched the cool metal of what she carried at her mother's insistence—
Nothing to arming it: pull back the spring, aim, and hope—the gun held only one dart. And if she should miss—or hit Justus. . . .
The two men danced with death on the walkway, Justus refusing retreat, then pushed back, bumped her. The other man lunged.
She fired as steel rang on steel—and steel stung past her arm.
Gods . . . weigh my karma against the deed!
The sword whipped back, aside, spun into the canal. The man was clawing at the dart in his chest, screaming ... a high, inhuman wail that ended in a choked cry and tortured gasping. It seemed to take an eternity for the poison to do its work, for the man to go to his knees at their feet. Violent spasms shook him... he fell forward, twitched uncontrollably, and then lay still.
Hands trembling so she could barely put the dart gun back in her bag, Sonja felt her knees threatening to fold, but she locked them and found a handhold on the rope support of the walkway, staring wide-eyed at the motionless body of the second man to die on the walkway this night. There was silence, silence so profound all she could hear was the lap of the water at Bolado.
"Lord!" Justus panted. "What did you do to him?"
Sonja swallowed heavily. "Deathangel."
Justus sheathed one of his knives. "Sonja . . ."
She closed her eyes as he took her in his arms, and buried her head in the small of his shoulder. I've killed a man. I've taken a life. Gods, O gods, the karma . . .
Her deed was far darker than Justus': he had killed in self-defense; she had chosen to kill when she herself could have run.
And a wicked man's karma was all hers.
Rhajmurti stood rooted to the middle tier walkway, unable to move, unable to call out. Oddly detached, he watched as if it were some morality pageant to educate the innocent; and while everyone else had vacated the walkway, turning a blind eye to what happened, he had stayed, frozen in time, forced by some power, or lack of it, to watch.
The cardinal's men. If he had intervened—Stella would have had no help, no warning—if he had intervened—
The karmic consequences of those two separate actions were enormous. Justice and Sonja had bound themselves to each other and to those men. For all lives to come.
So his Revenantist beliefs told him.
They told him he should have stayed on that walkway. They told him he should walk away now—pretend he'd seen nothing, not go down those steps.
He walked them—caught Justice's wary, on-guard stance; and Sonja's white face. Now that the fight was over, shock surely set in. Or his presence added it.
"Justice. Sonja."
Justice still held his knife, ha
d a protective arm in front of Sonja. Perhaps they only saw the priestly robes in the shadow. Or trusted no one now. He came off the stairs.
"Father Rhajmurti!" Justice lowered his knife. "Thank the gods."
"Yes . . . thank the gods it's me." He reached for Justice's bloody sleeve. "You'd better let me look at that."
Justice held out his arm, grimaced, and nodded. "I don't think it's deep . . . not bleeding much."
"Huhn." Rhajmurti gently parted the split cloth of Justice's shirt. The wound was indeed shallow, and the blood had already started coagulating. "You're lucky, you know that . . . damned lucky."
"How much did you see?"
"All of it."
Sonja's glance screamed silent accusation.
"I... I could have helped, but—" Karma seemed a weak excuse. Stella was the worst one.
"They're wearing the cardinals' colors," Justice said, shoving the closest body with his foot.
Rhajmurti said: "We've got to get out of here. Now."
"Get rid of the bodies first," Sonja said. "No evidence."
Spoken like a true scion of a House. Justice kicked one man's body off into the canal. Rhajmurti nerved himself and shoved at the second corpse, rolled it over the edge into inky water and wiped his hands.
"Move," he ordered, then. "Over to French and then to Borg."
He hastened them toward Bent-French Bridge, glancing over his shoulder and above. No one had braved the walkways yet. Fights used to draw crowds in the Merovingen of old; he thought back on one notable altercation between Justice and Krishna Malenkov in front of Hilda's when people had gathered and actually placed bets.
Not any more. Muggings, murders and other crimes drew only silence now—especially when people saw priestly colors. But sooner or later someone would venture forth on the walkway to see what had happened.
Exeter was growing bold to accost a member of one of the Houses in Merovingen on an open walkway. Rhajmurti prayed as he hurried along behind Justice and Sonja ... prayed there had been no witnesses. If anyone had seen, he prayed they had not seen the attackers as more than overly bold bridge thugs. And that, if Exeter herself was waiting for them—Exeter might go on waiting, thinking Sonja just a bit harder than expected to lay hands on.
Justice and Sonja hugged the shadows of Bent-French Bridge on the way across. A few people lingered in the gathering twilight, going about their business in total ignorance of the death that had stalked canalside. Rhajmurti prayed as he walked, prayed to every god, saint, and power he believed in that nothing would come of tonight's calamity.
At last, the relative safety of Borg. Sonja stopped, leaned up against the railing, and set her book-bag at her feet. Strands of her dark hair lay plastered to her forehead; her face was pale in the lamplight; her dark eyes were pools of shadow. Justice felt at his wounded arm, lifted his fingertips, and smiled slightly that they came away clean.
"All right," Rhajmurti said. "I want some answers."
Justice looked up. "To what?"
"Why were you attacked?"
"Gods only know," Justice said. "They came out of the dark at the stairway. I've never seen them before, and I'm sure Sonja hasn't either."
"Were they Exeter's?"
"You saw the armbands," Justice said. "They weren't hesitant to show them."
"That tells me everything and nothing."
"Lord and Ancestors, Father!" Justice exploded. "D'you think we were responsible?"
Rhajmurti lifted his hands. "Settle down, lad. Settle down. And if you're going to curse, please use Reve-nantist deities—I need to know these things. If those men were Exeter's, I need to know everything I can about what happened. If I have to lie, I'll want to have my story straight. And if they call you in, Sonja,—go. Peaceably. Lie to them. You don't know a thing. You got no message. You never saw these men."
Justice and Sonja exchanged a glance.
"My mother was called in," Sonja said quietly.
"I know."
Sonja said: "I—k-killed someone." "Your karma—"
"Karma be damned!" Justice growled. "I won't go down without a fight, and you should know that by now."
"And I won't see my friend murdered before my eyes and not do anything," Sonja said. "If I've heaped karma on my soul for what I did, then so be it."
Rhajmurti shook his head. "Go home," he said. "Now. Separately. And Justice . . . make sure you clean that wound. Do you have anything to put on it?"
"You forget who my roommate is," Justice said. "Raj will have three or four things to put on it, believe me. Sonja—"
"I'll walk her home," Rhajmurti said. "Myself."
Justice hesitated on one foot, opened his mouth to object. And shut up.
"Sonja," Rhajmurti said, holding out his hand. He thought: I nearly lost my son. Tomorrow! Tomorrow I'll tell him . . . this time, no excuses!
Maybe Sonja was still shaken. She swung her book-bag to the other hand. And lost it. It splashed into the canal.
Rhajmurti looked after it in dismay. Justice had stopped and turned.
Sonja said, "It's nothing. Nothing worth going after."
So he walked her home.
ENDGAME (REPRISED)
by C. J. Cherryh
"Karl's got all the documents," Mondragon said. The voice was going. Chance's interest might, soon—the two of them, alone, into the small hours, dawn, by now, maybe. Two days Chance Magruder had chased the trails of question and question, picking over the bones of old quarrels, old murders, old business of all kinds that Chance heard for himself, and took occasional notes. He'd had sleep yesterday afternoon. The sessions were on Chance's schedule, since Chance didn't trust his own staff to hear what he was saying— and Chance told him nothing, not where Jones was, not whether she was in their hands, not what the situation was. Chance just asked his questions, one after the other, and Mondragon answered without argument, elaborated when asked—no coercion. He'd no reason to suffer, no reason to court discomfort that might fog his wits and make logic difficult: he thought Chance might at some point apply force, precisely to do that, just as a matter of curiosity. He hoped not. He hoped that, as Chance no more than hinted, he was buying Jones' freedom and her life.
He said, finally because he'd reasoned his way to that point, "Do you mind telling me where things stand—with our two principals? What's Anastasi up to?" "Why?"
"Curiosity. He should have gotten me out of here." Chance's mouth quirked at the corner. "You never believed that."
"I believe he would if he could—for his own sake." "You want to talk about Anastasi?" "Where's Jones?"
He hadn't asked that till now. He hadn't wanted to make it a direct issue, for Jones' sake. He watched every reaction Chance showed now—little as Chance let the mask of no-reaction slip—and there was a little calculation, a little interest, maybe Chance wondering whether he was cracking or if he'd been leading him down some course all along. From Anastasi to "Where's Jones?" in one leap, and Chance had to sum that up for a beat or two and figure how to navigate that unmapped connection.
"We don't have her," Chance said with a shrug, and watched him.
He said, "Do you know where she is?"
"What's Anastasi Kalugin have to do with it?"
Mondragon shrugged. Said, "How do you feel about Anastasi?"
Shrug from the other side: "He's a problem."
"Karl's problem, someday. On the other hand, if he and Tatiana put their support together in council—"
"They still don't outvote the governor's."
"You're sure of that."
"We know who's bought. And with what. Like what hold Anastasi's got on you. You're worried he's got her."
Chance knew, then, what he'd thought Chance might know. Or guess. Chance said, "What if I told you we're reasonably sure he's got her?"
"I'd say he should've found a way to tell me. Or he can't. In which case it was a waste of effort."
"Maybe he thinks he's told you."
He hadn't expected that
. He hoped he kept it off his face. Chance said,
"The guy he thinks did—is ours."
It sounded plausible. Worrisomely plausible. He made up his mind he didn't believe it. And shrugged. "So you want me to keep his secrets to myself? Is that why you're telling me?"
"You asked."
Chance had a quirky sense of humor. Hard to tell when he was enjoying himself. Unwise if he was enjoying himself—instead of keeping strictly to the useful. Or the session had gotten to the point he really wasn't valuable to Chance any longer—because Chance knew enough now: and Chance had never batted an eye—which meant it was no news and he was in with Karl to the hilt; or Chance had added it up fast and knew he'd better hear what Karl would believe he had.
He was a fool to keep you alive, Chance had said last night. Which might have been an indication of Chance's own thoughts at that point—or now. Which, till Chance had played this little maneuver, had been a risk he'd decided to run—scare Chance into an alliance or make it clear Chance didn't need Jones to get the truth out of him. And Chance came up with this tossed grenade.
Damn him, he was lying. Anastasi didn't have Jones. But Jones hadn't come back. He'd stood by the window as long as he had the strength, as long as he dared keep awake—and there hadn't been any sign of her. Too smart to come back, he kept telling himself. Or there were obvious guards outside the narrow slit of water he could see.
But Jones could've run for help. Could've gone to Anastasi, never mind he'd told her never, ever do that-Chance just sat and sipped his tea. Excused himself for a moment then, and left him to sit and to think, and to think—he couldn't help it, and that was a bad sign—that if he went to the window it might just be the right moment and he might catch sight of her.
He was cracking. He couldn't do that. He had to shrug it off. Had to make Chance believe he couldn't get any action that way. But Chance had seen the reaction. Chance had left him to think about it, and jerked the timing and the choices and the questions all out of his control—
A bullet was better. Chance didn't need to go to this trouble, except to win a point. Or to win him. And if he could sell his much-trafficked soul one more time if Chance was buying, yes, he'd do it, he'd do it and mean it, at least as long as it got him one try at shaking Jones til her teeth rattled.