Troubled Waters

  So he skipped to it.

  Without a word.

  "Ye're safe," Min blubbered. " 'E was worrit, gel. Real worrit."

  "Yey, Min," Jones said, and patted the old woman's arms. "Do me favor, Min, ye spread it 'round, gimme ternight wi'm' man, ne?"

  Min grinned her gap-toothed grin and bobbed her gray head. "Hoooh, yey!" Min said. And grabbed up her pole to get moving.

  Mondragon waited on waterside, and walked up with her, up the stairs to the apartment—with his key, inside.

  The boys were there, Denny quiet, Raj— Raj damned quiet, damned worried. Embarrassed-like, and sober.

  She put that together and her face went hot. Like they figured what would have happened to her, like they imagined what would have happened to her, in some cell somewhere, before Mondragon bought her out. And she stared back with her jaw set and said:

  "Clear out. I'm all right. Clear out!"

  "Jones." Mondragon rested his hand on her shoulder, pressed hard. "Boys. Get to bed, Now."

  "Yesser," Raj said, a breath; and grabbed his brother and went, down the hall, fast.

  "They ain't touched me," Jones said, rounding on Mondragon.

  "Jones," Mondragon said.

  "They ain't!"

  "It's not important—" he said. And she hit him in the face, a roundhouse blow he did not even try to stop. He only recoiled, and wiped his mouth, and said: "I meant—if they had—it wouldn't be your fault. I wouldn't care, you understand me? I wouldn't think the less of you!"

  "What'd you pay f me?"

  "Jones—"

  He reached for her arms. She hit his hands away and backed up, sick at her stomach.

  He just stood there. Just stood.

  "Jones," he said. He was hurting. She knew that. So was she.

  "They didn't touch me."

  "You want to hit me again? I don't care, Jones. I don't damn well care!"

  "I stink. I want a bath. I want that smell off me." She shoved past him and got as far as the hall. And knew she was wrong, knew there was pain behind her. She stopped there with her hand on the banister, said, without looking at him: "Megarys. I was at Megary's. You been, once. They ain't never touched me."

  "I can't say the same," came from behind her. She didn't understand that. She turned and looked at him, hardly able to get a breath, confused.

  "Jones. What happens to you doesn't matter. What you do matters. Hear me?"

  She listened to that, several times through. And felt like she was going to give away at the knees, the knees gone to water and trying to shake under her.

  "I'll take my bath," she said, and turned and walked away, down the hall, where, she thought, it was a cold bath, next the kitchen, the washroom.

  But there was water heated. The boys must have seen to it. The boys must have known—where she was. The damn boys must have made up their own minds what had happened, how she was, everything— hours ago.

  She saw Moghi in the doorway, the people behind him. Half damn Merovingen had to know. Like Min. Del. Mira. Everybody making up their own minds.

  She poured hot water into the tub. She peeled out of her filthy clothes and got in and ducked her head between her legs, scrubbing and scrubbing, and trying not to remember the cell, while her eyes were shut, underwater. "Jones ..."

  She yelped as she brought her head up. She covered herself like a damn fool and sat there staring at Mondragon standing in the open doorway, her heart pounding, herself so weak she could slip down and drown.

  He came in, he pulled the wooden chair over, he soaped up a washcloth and did her hair and her back, and she shut her eyes and let him, leaning with her chest on her knees, with Mondragon dipping up warm water to wash her hair clean, with Mondragon's hands gentle on her back.

  "How much'd you pay?" she asked. Because it bothered her.

  "Nothing," he said. And after a moment, after the cold that left: "It was Sword, Jones. It was Sword worked the deal. That's what I paid."

  She twisted around, looked up at him, his face pale and serious in the lamplight. Her heart was thudding in her chest.

  "What'd you do? What'd you agree to?"

  "Anything. Everything. I lied. But that's the price, Jones. They knew I'd lie. They know I will. They know—there's only one way to hold me to it. That's you."

  The whole world swung round and stopped on that point, that one, clear as day point. Who. And why. And threat all around them.

  "What about Anastasi?"

  Mondragon shrugged and began to wash her back again.

  "What about Anastasi?"

  "Anastasi failed me. Anastasi swore he'd protect you. He swore his reach was long enough. It isn't. It damn well isn't. Jones, for the next few weeks—I'm asking you—" " '—stay off the water.' Dammit, Mondragon—" "Dammit all you like." He wrung out the cloth, and worked over her shoulders gently, gently. "Jones. It's not all the trouble I'm in. There's Kamat. I'm being blackmailed. There's Boregy. You know where I got the two hundred gold? Boregy money. I stole it."

  She started to shiver, her teeth to chatter. "Ye're a damn fool, Mondragon! What've ye done? What've ye done?''

  "Shush." He put his hands on her shoulders. "Shush, Jones. Don't shout. It's not something I want to tell the boys. You, I can depend on."

  "Me?" She twisted around again, and climbed up on her knees. Damn him, she thought. Damn him—

  "Come on," he said, and pulled her up and helped her out; and wrapped her in a towel. "Upstairs."

  "I can't," she said. Her teeth were still chattering. "I can't. I can't."

  But he got her there. He got her into bed and got in with her and held onto her until the shivers got smaller and she worked herself up against him, arms clenched around him. Her hair sopped the pillow. He held onto her and finally he said:

  "Jones?"

  She knew what he was asking. She pulled him over and he made love to her, carefully, except she was the one who started the roughness, and he did, then, because nothing else was real. Nothing seemed real, not this place, not him, not the room, except when pain got through the memories.

  "I know," he said. "Dammit, I know, Jones. It's all right."

  She woke up when Mondragon stirred from bed. "You're all right," he said hugging her against him, kissing her on the brow. "You're in my bedroom. Upstairs. Petrescu. Sleep in. I'm going to fix breakfast."

  She looked at him, a hazy impression as her eyes drifted shut again, opened and swept desperately around him, to be sure. But it was his bedroom. It was Mondragon. She tried to go back to sleep.

  But trying, she remembered the other place. Remembered Megarys, and the cell, and tired as she was, sleep got away from her, leaving her afraid to shut her eyes again.

  So she rolled out of bed and hunted her clothes until she remembered she had gotten here in a towel. So she got into the wardrobe and found some of Mondragon's—a sweater, easy. Pants were harder come by, but she found one of his second-hand, canalsider sort that would fit, barely, and stumbled downstairs into the hall to the kitchen, looking for morning tea and the toast that wafted its scent clear upstairs.

  The boys were there, with Mondragon. "Out," he said to them; "Yesser," they said, and grabbed up their toast and gulped their tea and went.

  "Sit," Mondragon said then, pointing at the vacant chair by the cupboard, and she sat down in the warmth of the kitchen and took the cup of tea he put into her hands, trying not to slop it after he had given it to her. "How are you doing?"

  ."Not bad," she said, and let go the cup with one hand to scratch behind her ear. "Damn bugs."

  He made a sympathetic face. "I know." He put a plate of toast on the shelf of the cabinet beside her, went back and brought a cup of tea for himself, back to the other chair by the cupboard. "My old friend Karl Fon—got me out of prison now and again. Used to bring me to the government house—feed me breakfast. Tell me he was sorry." He gave a grimace that turned into a visible shiver, and a one-sided smile. "It was always good for a bath and breakfast. Ten ti
mes as bad going back." I don't want to hear this. Don't. Mondragon— But he was silent a while. "I don't want you to go out for a while," he said. "Not—forever. Just till I know it's safe again. Just till some of the worst of it's over."

  Panic coiled around her, loss of the open air; loss of safety, one thing and the other. "I was drunk," she said. "They never could have caught me—"

  "Please. Please, Jones."

  "I never give 'em anythingr

  "I know. You'd try not to."

  "I didn't!"

  "I believe you. But if they put the pressure on, you would; I would; I have, Jones, at least—at least to save my life. Because nothing else made sense at the time. Eat. Drink your tea. I want you to go back to bed and stay there today. Everything's all right. Your skip's safe. I'll bribe Min. It's not your worry, what happens. I'll solve it—"

  She remembered about the money, then. Boregy. Kamat. "Damn that Raj!"

  "It's beyond his fault. Don't lay this on him. It's my problem."

  "What ye goin't' do, Mondragon?" Her voice came out a thin croak, close to tears. "What in hell ye goin' t' do with this mess?"

  "Jones." Mondragon reached out and caught her wrist hard, "Jones, listen to me. I slept with Marina Kamat to get the rent—to keep Boregy from knowing I couldn't pay it—which would have meant Boregy knowing everything."

  "I'll gut 'er!"

  "No. It's money, Jones, it's fast money, it's not blood money ... I'd have done it for a good meal, if I was hungry, Jones, that's the way I am. I didn't have to kill anybody for it. That's cheap, Jones, you don't know how cheap that is in my trade. No blood on it. You know what I'm telling you?"

  She was shaking all over. Tea went all over her knee, the one hand out of control, and she set the cup down with a rattle. "What ye done f me, Mondragon? What d' they want ye t' do?"

  "Double on Anastasi. Ultimately."

  "Lord . . ."

  He got up, he pulled her to her feet and hugged her to him till her bones might crack. Her teeth chattered, she was shaking so. Her knees would hardly hold up.

  "Mondragon, they're goin't' kill ye. Ye got to lie low. We c'n go out t' th' Rim, just pack up here—it's winter anyhow. We give out ye been sick—"

  "Jones, Jones, you think a man who looks like me can disappear in a town?" He ruffled her hair, held her close, rocked her back and forth. "I'll be all right. Listen to me. It's you they can get at. You're all I care about. Be smart for me. It's not going to be forever. I can get this worked out. I've slipped out of tight places before this, but you've got to be smart, you can't take chances, you can't put yourself where they can get at you."

  Prison. Prison cleaner than the Megarys. Prison with him with the keys, and that not so terrible, but prison all the same. Locked up behind doors, under a roof, off the water—

  "How ye goin' to pay f this place?"

  "Same way I have. Whatever I have to do. I have to think, Jones, I couldn't think until you were out of there, I couldn't do anything ..."

  "Ye take me with you. I ain't waitin' here. I ain't waitin' in any damn shut-in place. I c'n ferry you here an' there. I can't stand roofs, Mondragon!"

  "I'll set you up with Moghi—you hang around there, damn him, he owes me that much. I don't want you alone anywhere. I'll set the boys up to room at Gallandrys."

  "How ye goin' to come by all this money, f Lord's sake?"

  "Same way I got the rent. For the rest—" His hand strayed over her hair again. "I sell Kamat to whoever wants to buy information; I see the Sword to Anastasi; I set up with Anastasi to sell certain information to the Sword. Anastasi's a lot of things, but he's not stupid. He won't take it amiss I'm being leaned on. I'll score him good for letting them snatch you—he's not supposed to let that happen. He failed me; I slipped on him. But I can come back with him. I can make money off this mess, Jones, I can stay alive in this mess, it's just going to move quick and delicate for a while, and I can't have you and the boys rattling around in the middle where someone can lay hands on you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I didn't want to involve you in this business. God knows I never wanted to tell you. But I won't let you walk into it blind. No more. I won't tell you what I'm doing. Maybe I just lied to you. You don't know. You'll never know. —Except I won't lie to you about being in danger, I won't lie to you about what I care about, I won't lie to you about taking care of you. Everything's for that. Everything's for that, Jones. That's not a lie."

  She leaned there against him a long time, feeling the strength all drained out of her, and the sense, and everything. She hardly had the strength left to hold her arms around him, to hold herself on her feet. Her throat was sore and her knees were watery as her gut, and tears leaked from the shut eyes and made her nose stuffy. Nothing like m'sera silk an' fancy Kamat, no. Her nose's stuffed up. She sniffed. And sneezed so hard she shook him.

  "Damn," she muttered against his chest. " 'M sorry, 'm sorry ... I walked into 'er, Mondragon, I know't. Ain't goin' to be stupid again."

  Megarys is going to die, she thought. I got to go on the water again, got to go back in view of the Trade and all, I got to face people and they got to know what happened—

  I'm Trade, dammit, and Megarys is going to die for this.

  "Jones." Mondragon rubbed the back of her neck. "You want me to put you to bed? Come on. Let me get you upstairs. I'll bring your toast. Bring you breakfast in bed. All right?"

  "I'm all right." She found the strength to push away, and find her chair and sit down. Her feet were cold. She curled them against each other, picked up the tea-mug and slopped it, her hands were shaking so. "I think I'm comin' down with the Crud, my throat's sore."

  "Oh, God. . . ."

  "Ain't nothin'. I'm Merovingian. I grew up on Det-water. Crud ain't nothin' but a nuisance. A little blueangel. If I was on my skip, I'd—" Her hands took to shaking, not from the fever. From everything. She slopped tea left and right. "Damn, Mondragon!"

  He got the cup away from her. "You're going upstairs," he said, and hauled her up and got his arm around her and helped her, out and down the hall, up the stairs—he had tried carrying her once in his life, but she was a canal-rat, all bone and muscle, and she had tensed up and made him fall with her. So he didn't embarrass her, trying to do that—

  —until they got inside his bedroom. Then he picked her up so fast she grabbed him in shock, scared he was going to fall. But he dumped her neatly into bed, and started unfastening her breeches. She hardly cared. "Leave th' sweater," she said, when he started with that. She groped after the covers. " 'M cold, Mondragon."

  He covered her to the chin, arranged her hair with his fingers.

  "You want t' light th' lamp f me, Mondragon?"

  Because rooms bothered her. And dark rooms were worse, but damned if she would plead that with him. She nerved herself to get up and do it after he left, if he said no. But he did it for her, and adjusted the wick, and stood looking down at her with his face so still and worried.

  Like I was one damn mess too much for him.

  "I ain't goin' t' get the Fever. I'm fine. I got th' sniffles. Go on." But the thought of him leaving, going out on the walkways, with all his enemies—made her gut ache. "Ye tend your business. I'll warm up a bit an' get my own tea."

  "Denny's on the roof."

  "Huh?" she blinked, tried to focus on whether she had missed a minute or two.

  "Denny's on the roof. Keeping lookout. That's his job for the next little bit. He'd got a friend going to see Raj over to work, and Raj isn't going to breathe without my say-so and without knowing his escort's there. Denny's got himself a coal-pot and a blanket, and he or one of his friends is going to sit up there and keep watch on everything that comes and goes. But I'm not going anywhere for a few hours. People I deal with don't get up with the sun."

  A few hours. That was better. Denny on the roof was comforting. She lay there with the covers up to her chin and clean pillows under her head and blinked at him. Damn, he was so pretty. Do anything for her.
Had. Damn Marina Kamat. I'll gut her. I will.

  "You be all right till I bring the tea?"

  "Fine," she said, calm, collected. Warm now. The sweater and two quilts and the room being warmer with the cooking downstairs all helped, except her feet were still like ice—but a canaler's feet were always cold, except when she was working. "I'm all right. Git."

  He got. She lay still, comfortable, loved, full of resolve about how she was going to do, how she was going to do everything he said for a while, because he was smart, he understood how to navigate with Boregys, it wasn't so terrible, it was just business he did all the time, nervous-making as it was. The best thing she could do was keep herself exactly where he said and keep herself from being a target and never, never do anything to upset him: he needed to think, and if he was sleeping with Marina Kamat, that was all right, because that was money and he was a man and there wasn't any way he could get a baby and louse up his life like mama had done getting her—

  —'cept mama had shot that man that did that to her.

  —'cept he could get a baby, with Marina damn her guts Kamat, and it would be his and hers, and she would want to kill that woman then, because if Marina Kamat got a baby from him, then there was no being shut of her, ever, because say what he liked, it would be his. A kid was a kid, and if it was Mondragon's and he laid eyes on it, he wouldn't ever forget it.

  Damn her!

  And she was stuck in his bed and her boat down there with Lord knew who watching it. Lord, if it was Min and he bribed her with whiskey, they could steal Min's boat from under her and Min wouldn't notice. He's got to have more sense than that. You give her yarn, Mondragon, never whiskey when you want her to do somethin' except sleep. Whiskey's for after.

  I got to go on the water again. I got to, and ever'body lookin' at me last night, all starin', wonderin' what happened and where I come from—

  I could say I was mad and hid out. . .

  No. That'd make people mad, people don't like to feel like fools.

  I got to say. I got to say about the Megarys. Megarys can't lay hands on one of the Trade and get away with it, that ain't right, no way!