"Whose?" Black Cal managed to say.
"A little old blind lady what only uses 'er in the daytime. Now keep down."
"Where're we going?"
"North Flat, up the Greve Fork."
He couldn't find any comeback to that, nothing that wouldn't sound sarcastic. He couldn't think of the words that would turn the conversation the way he wanted it to go. It had been so long since he'd had to deal with such things, he was badly out of practice. He kept quiet all the way to the tip of The Rock.
North of The Rock, the wind off the clean water and farmland hit him like reproach. It was always a pain and vague sorrow to remember how much his city stank. In more ways than one. Black Cal brooded on the passing dark landscape as Rif poled her way up the deepening Greve Fork; North Flat to the right, combed with neat rows of planted fields, Greve Shore to the left, a bit wilder with its tree-thick windbreaks and orchards, a few small piers poking shyly into the water, almost invisible in the dark.
And there, far off to the left and ahead, the twinkle of a single lamp's light.
Rif grunted recognition, racked the pole and pulled out the oars. "Ye'll have ter help me with this," she said.
Black Cal duly took the other oar, and they pulled their way upstream and left, out into the deep channel and across it, side by side, saying nothing.
The light grew, revealing the edge of a tiny pier and a low-set small ship tied to it. Black Cal noted that the ship was like nothing he'd ever seen in Merovingen. Three narrow dark-painted hulls, set parallel with the central one leading, connected with an arrowhead-shaped main deck. A slender mast rose from each hull, booms shrouded with furled dark sails. There were small engines and rudders at each stern; she could fly under power or run silent in the wind. The thing couldn't have drawn more than a couple of handspan's depth, even fully loaded. She was clearly the fastest thing on any water, and not really designed for much cargo at all. A smuggler's dream.
At the moment, her crew of three—all dressed in dark nondescript sailor's shirts and pants—were busily unloading some oilcloth-sealed crates onto the pier, where a man in city clothing examined them for spillage and checked each one against a list in his hand. The man looked up as Rif pulled around the corner of the pier, drew close and began tying up. "Hoi, Rif," he called softly, drawing the attention of the sailors. "Ye're early . . . And who is that?"
"Follow my lead," Rif whispered to Black Cal, then called back: "He's the one I told ye 'bout, going ter get ye the permit. He wants t' talk ter ye. C'mon over." She scrambled up the short ladder onto the low pier, Black Cal stepping cautiously after her, and padded toward the man with the list. The sailors, trying very hard to look nonchalant, eased off the ship and climbed onto the pier behind the stacked cartons.
The man with the list stopped short, holding up the shuttered lamp as he saw who was coming. "B'Jane, Rif," he gawked, "That's a blackleg!"
The sailors tensed, ready to jump in any direction if they could only be sure which way was the right one.
"Sure is," Rif smiled wide and reassuring. "Master Milton, this is Black Cal."
"B-B—" The man almost dropped his list, fumbled after it, came up gaping like a fish. "You didn't say it was him!" he squeaked.
Black Cal sighed, and took a measuring glance at the sailors. They were looking at one another as if signaling, and one of them was easing around the crates to the left, sliding out of the lamplight's range. How predictible. Black Cal slowed his steps, kept a few paces behind Rif.
"I said he was bone-honest, and worked fer the city," Rif glowered. "Who 'n hell did ye think that meant?"
"But ... I didn't think . . ." Master Milton floundered. He was a slender little man, built for skilled trade more than combat, and he clearly didn't want to get within Black Cal's legendary reach. "Lord and Lady, Rif, why a blackleg?"
"Who better, ter get inside the Signeury?" Rif snapped, hands resting on the hilts of her visible daggers. "He can be trusted, he's got connections, and he wants ter help."
"Why in hell did you have to bring him here? Tonight?" A sweep of Master Milton's hand took in the cargo, the glum sailors and the obvious smuggler-ship.
"Because he needs ter know who he's trusting, that's why!" Rif snarled. "Ye fool, do ye think this is no risk fer him?"
Black Cal heard the soft running footsteps, just where he'd expected them. He dropped low, swung to the left and came up fast with a roundhouse backhand slam. It connected with a solid thump, a whoosh of fast-emptied lungs, a skidding slide, then nothing but empty wind. An instant later the sailor hit the water. The splash was loud and sloppy. Everybody else stopped to look—except Rif and Black Cal, who glanced at each other and shrugged. The sailor in the water surfaced, spat, coughed, swore, coughed again, and started paddling doggedly for the ladder. Black Cal turned his attention back to the shocked Master Milton and the dismayed sailors.
"Is that the best you can do?" he asked through his best sneer. "Am I wasting my time with amateurs— or can you really take the Sword out of Merovingen?"
There was dead silence for several seconds, broken only by the slurging noise of the dunked sailor pulling himself back up onto the pier. Black Cal favored him with a measuring look. The sailor ducked away.
Master Milton recovered first. "All right, one thing we can agree on; we all hate Sword of God. Right?"
There was a quick chorus of affirmative growls, and another quick grin from Rif.
"Let's talk tactics," said Black Cal, padding toward Master Milton, who had the sense—and nerve—not to flinch away. "Exactly what's going to be in this fireworks show? How much room will you need? What kind of weather conditions? Where'll you seat the crowd?"
Master Milton actually smiled, pleased to hear some knowledgeable shoptalk. "We'll need a good hundred meters for safety," he began, patting the nearest of the crates. "That's why we wanted East Dike; put everybody on the street and the stairs, me at. the foot of the pier, and the fireworks rack 'way out at the end, over the water. You want the charges, firing angles and ranges on all these?"
"Damn right," said Black Cal, taking out the permit-form and a note-pad. "Also timing, area, everything."
"All right." Master Milton sat down on a crate and began scribbling on the back of his list. Black Cal sat down beside him, glancing from paper to paper. The sailors looked at each other, wondering what to do next.
"Ye might finished unloading," Rif suggested.
The sailors shrugged, and did.
An hour later the skip was loaded to the gunwales, and Master Milton himself was poling it down toward the mouth of the Grand Canal. If he found the work tiring, he didn't complain. If Black Cal wanted to sit and talk quietly in the bow with Rif, that was none of his concern. He found Black Cal unsettling. By all means, let Rif deal with him.
"It's basically the Harbormaster's problem," Black Cal was saying. "I'll take it to his office once I've . . . dealt with the interference. That'll take maybe a day or two. Can you get me a connection to Old Iosef by then?"
"If you can do 'er, I can," said Rif. "Where'll I meet ye?"
"Same place as tonight." Black Cal looked away over the water, tapping his fingers on the gunwale. "Where're you heading now?"
"Back to Fife; put the . . . equipment in Old Man Fife's storeroom, take the skip back to Min's tie-up. Why?"
"Can Master Milton do it by himself?" "Yey, I guess. Why?"
Black Cal didn't answer at once, seemed to be wrestling with himself. Rif decided that she was finished trying to second-guess him.
"Why?" she repeated. "There something else ye want?"
"Yes." He turned to give her a long look. "You."
". . . Can't believe I'm doing this," Rif muttered as she padded silently across the lightless bridge. "Goffin Isle?"
Black Cal gave her a worried glance. "You know this place?"
"Just ter speak of. There's nothing here but an undertaker's." Rif shivered. Who knew what kinks lurked in a mind like his? "Why here?"
"Home," he said. "I live upstairs."
"Mother of mercy." Rif shivered again. What kind of nerves did it take to live over an undertaker's shop? She hoped the place wouldn't smell too bad. She profoundly hoped Black Cal wasn't into necrophilia. She pulled her cloak tight around her, surreptitiously checking her knives, as Black Cal unlocked an unsuspected lower door.
Inside lay a dark stairway, and at the top another door. Rif checked for escape-routes while Black Cal worked the locks—two of them, she noted. The door opened on more blackness. He led the way inside and closed the thick door behind them. Both locks clicked again, and a chain rattled as well. No quick exit there.
Surprisingly, the place didn't smell bad at all. No formaldehyde, anyway; nothing seeping up ominously through the floor. The canals smelled better here than back home at Fife. Not bad, so far.
A match spurted, followed by the flaring of an oil-lamp. In the sudden soft light, Black Cal's face looked thoughtful, distant, and almost sad. Rif glanced around the apartment, strangely not surprised to see that it was meticulously clean and almost ascetically bare. There was one rug of unexpectedly good quality, one clothes-chest, one closet, one table and two chairs, nothing on the walls, plain curtains over the windows. Two doorways led off to a tiny kitchen and a not-much-bigger bathroom. The bed was a wide nest of thick quilts and oversized pillows, the only comfortable-looking spot in the main room. Rif wondered who had shared it last.
Black Cal took off his coat and hung it on a hook behind the door. Then he took off his gunbelt and hung it on the nearest bedpost. He sat down on the bed to tug at his boots, and Rif took the opportunity to pace briefly around the main room, raking in details.
Something winked in the lamplight on top of the clothes-chest, and Rif looked closer there. On top of the chest stood a mirror in a polished brass frame. Before it lay a clean white cloth, with a carved candlestick placed neatly in the center and a thick gold candle in it. Arranged around that, just where the candlelight would show them to best effect, twinkled two opal collar-studs, a strikingly beautiful rainbow-shell, and an ornamental dagger with an ornately sculpted handle and sheath. The blade, she noted, was made up of many layers of hammered steel with their edges stained flat black; it looked like shining, finegrained white wood. The objects, she saw, were carefully posed on the cloth: a balanced composition. Rif stared at the arrangement for long moments, sure that this was a vital clue to the enigma that was Black Cal. She could solve the whole mystery if she could only ask the right question. Rif could think of only one.
"Why isn't your badge here?"
Black Cal shrugged one shoulder and looked away. "Doesn't belong there," was all he said. He tugged off his shirt and stretched it on the back of the nearer chair.
And you the only honest blackleg in Merovingen! Rif stared at him, understanding opening like a flower. She had the truth now, and it was simply unbelievable. "You . . . you always wanted to be an artist!" she breathed.
Black Cal dropped his hands to his lap and bowed his head. "No good at it," he said, so quietly that she could barely hear him. "Could see it, but couldn't do it. Only admire."
"Sweet Jane's mercy," Rif whispered, dropping her gaze to her fingers. Think of all the music in those hands, so easily done, as natural as breathing. Imagine those fingers gone. Imagine your voice gone. Imagine all that music inside you, and no way to let it out. Imagine having the soul of an artist—and no art. "Oh, Lord and Lady! Nothing ye could do? Nothing at all?"
"Only one thing." Black Cal pointed to the long, holstered revolver on the bedpost. "Only that."
Rif tottered to the bed, momentarily clumsy, and sat down beside him. She could understand now how Black Cal could shoot so fast, at easily fifty meters' distance, in deep-night dark—and still take down a Sword agent with every shot. As much time as she spent every day with her gitar, so much must he have done—year in and year out—with that long-barreled gun.
"Ye must be the best shot on the planet," she guessed. Another insight jumped. "Is . . . that why ye became a blackleg?"
He shrugged again. "What else could I do? Turn crook myself? I couldn't put up with all the intrigue. Hunt pelts in the north? I'd be alone all year, and . . . I do need . . . human company."
Rif heaved a long sigh and leaned her head on his shoulder. "Poor Cal. What did ye do ter get born inter a mess like this?"
"I don't know," he half smiled, "But it must have been something really spectacular."
Rif chuckled, and unfastened the clasp of her cloak. "No half measures fer you, eh?"
"No half measures."
Late-morning sun flecked the water as Ariadne Delaney, winter-cloaked and hooded to almost incognito, slipped into Klickett's shop. A glance showed no one else present but Klickett herself, needles working steadily as ever. Ariadne coughed politely for attention, something she rarely felt obliged to do. "Ah, Klickett, are my sweaters ready yet?"
The shopkeeper set down her needles with a genuine smile. "That they be, m'sera. Right under the counter here." She reached down, fumbled a moment, then came up with a paper-wrapped bundle. "Ye sure of the size, and all?" She unfolded the paper, revealing fine-knit sweaters in several sizes and colors.
"Beautiful," Ariadne murmured, cautiously stroking the fabric. It was feather-soft, liberally patterned, the colors glowing like jewels even in the dim shop-front light. "I've brought full payment, of course."
For an instant their eyes met, catching each other in faint but knowing grins. Klickett laughed first. "Ah, m'sera, it's a fine customer y'are. I'd not trade ye fer a dozen, not from The Rock itself."
"I'm relieved to hear it." Ariadne smiled wider, then caught herself. Downright shocking, this pleasure she took in the feel of intrigue. Dark knowledge of dark deeds—really! How adolescent. Still, this was so . . . so real, so different from the endless round of meticulous socializing, the dull business of injecting just the right flatteries into wary ears before making the smooth suggestions about Farren's honesty, capability, hard work and fitness for better tasks. That was so tedious, and so rarely rewarding. This was . . . well, real.
"Do ye care fer riddles, m'sera?" Klickett asked, re wrapping the bundle. "Hmm? Oh, sometimes. What sort of riddles?" "Political ones."
"Oho! Er, why, yes." Damn, there was a jolt of that really scandalous enjoyment again. But what harm could it do?
"Well now, suppose ye was a really-truly honest blackleg, but yer officers was all corrupt. That'd be hell, now, wouldn't it?" Klickett busied herself with tying up the package in string, not looking up.
"Oh, Lord, yes!" Ariadne was forcibly reminded of Farren, wearing his life and hope away at unrewarded work. Yes, he knew that particular form of hell. She often watched him suffer it.
"Well, suppose ye learned of a really dangerous piece o' corruption goin' on, very high-up in the gover'ment, rankin' second only ter Old Iosef himself."
"That far?" Ariadne felt her pulse quickening.
"Now remember, ye can't send word through yer superiors, 'cause it'd never get where it should go." Klickett finished tying, leaned on the counter and looked up, smiling ever so faintly. "How would a poor honest blackleg get personally ter Old Iosef, ter give'm the information?"
Ariadne held her breath. This is it! she thought, jubilant and appalled. This was her chance to get involved in something truly dangerous, fateful, important. And real. Think! Oh, think! "Why ... I'd manage to get to some . . . social gathering where I knew he'd be. Then I'd arrange to be alone with him for a moment, and tell him there." No risk so far; everyone with political experience knew that this was the way accurate information was put, quickly, in the proper ears.
"Ah, but how would a lowly canal-side blackie get himself invited ter a hightown social?" Klickett's look was wry, ironic, knowing.
Ah, here it was: chance and choice. Ariadne paused for a heartbeat to reconsider—then dived for it. "Well, I suppose you'd need a reliable friend in the hightown who could . . . make certain you were i
nvited."
"Aye, and that's a hard part in itself," said Klickett, smiling wearily into Ariadne's eyes.
"I'm sure some honest person would be willing to help," Ariadne smiled back. "It would require some . . . delicacy, of course."
"Hmm, so it would." Klickett fiddled with the last bow-tie on the package. "By the by, m'sera, I know of a fine musician would be just right fer entertainin' at a small party—a luncheon, say—nothin' formal or large. Quite good fer 'intimate gatherings' though, if ye're interested."
"Ah, really?" Ariadne smiled prettily, calculations rattling furiously in her head. "How convenient! I was just thinking of a small luncheon party I must arrange soon. A discreet entertainer would be perfect. Could I get in touch with your friend, say, tomorrow?"
"Surely, m'sera," Klickett beamed. "Just come by to my shop and leave word, say when and where, no trouble at all."
"I'd like to meet your friend first," Ariadne insisted. Time to take the lead in this discussion, lest anyone consider her weak-willed. "After all, one can't plan a proper gathering without knowing, ah, all the details."
"As ye like," Klickett agreed. "I'm sure my friend could come by tomorrow aft'noon."
"Shall we say, just after lunch?"
"Deal," said Klickett, handing over the package, beaming from ear to ear.
"Deal," Ariadne echoed, proffering the coins. They amounted to the full price for the sweaters, with a generous tip. She almost added more, out of gratitude for the opportunity offered, then decided in favor of caution. Yes, she must be very cautious now. But damn, she hadn't felt so . . . well, alive since her wedding.
Black Cal spent the early morning strolling through the Harbormaster's offices, casually inquiring who had charge of paperwork for temporary private use of harbor facilities. The search eventually led to the Public Affairs office, headed by an overclerk named Yelno. Black Cal observed the man from a distance, then quietly went off to the Bursar's office and looked up Yelno's home address. He spent the rest of the morning padding around the upper bridges that gave a clear view onto the Yelno family apartments. He watched until he spotted the elder Yelno son heading off on some errand that required fashionable dress. Black Cal followed him for most of the afternoon, observing from a distance.