Margo sobbed once and crawled to him, trying to stanch the bleeding with her hands. Malcolm lunged the final yard to the gate. "Go!" He shoved her bodily through. She sprawled into Phil Jones' shop with a hoarse yell. Malcolm scooped up the injured Welshman in a fireman's carry. Kynan groaned and fainted. Malcolm lunged through, tripping over Margo and dropping Kynan to the concrete floor. Margo howled in pain and crawled out from under him. Malcolm came to his feet and whirled. "Kit!"

He was running for the gate.

The time scout gasped with effort and dove forward. He crashed into Malcolm just as the gate shrank with a roar like a freight train. Malcolm landed on hard concrete. Kit swore hideously and cradled one arm. A crackle of fire and thick, acrid smoke roared into Malcolm's awareness. One of the totem poles in Phil Jones' store room had caught fire from Kit's thrown torch. A crossbow bolt, covered with blood and bits of Kynan's flesh, stuck obscenely out of another.

Above them, the gate vanished as though it had never been.

CHAPTER TWENTY

An instant later, the fire-control system cut in, spraying clouds of halon into the room.

"Out!" Kit cried.

Malcolm helped carry Kynan into Phil Jones' office. Margo ran for the phone to call in a medical emergency, then ran interference, as well, driving Phil Jones bodily out of their way when he started shouting that they'd ruined his inventory, his business, and his life. When he didn't shut up, she tossed him through the doorway into his showroom. The last glimpse Malcolm had of her, she was standing on him.

Kit stripped off Kynan's shirt and stanched bleeding as best he could with direct pressure. Malcolm stripped off his woolen cassock and cut thick compresses. "Here..."

They applied the compresses and more pressure. Kynan moaned. His eyelids fluttered, then he sought Kit's gaze. His eyes were glazed.

"My lord ... I'm ... dying.. ." He groped weakly for Kit's arm.

"No," Kit said roughly, "you won't die, Kynan Rhys Gower. I won't allow it."

"Aye," Kynan breathed, allowing his eyes to close again. "My life is ... yours... ."

Kit had said just the right thing. Maybe-just maybe the man's superstitious faith that his liege lord could work magic would keep him alive. Long enough for station medical to arrive, anyway... The Meet of the medi-van's siren was the most welcome sound Malcolm had heard since the buzz of the gate in the African twilight. Rachel Eisenstein and another duty doctor raced into the office.

"Cross-bow bolt," Kit said tersely.

Rachel took over, rigging pressure bandages, stabilizing Kynan's vitals with IVs, treating for shock. "Prepare for thoracic surgery" Rachel said into her radio link with the station's hospital. -Stat! We're bringing in a bad one."

"Roger."

They lifted Kynan carefully onto a gurney and ran for the medi-van. Silence, sudden and brutal, descended on the smoky office. Kit scrubbed his brow with the heel of a bloody hand. Malcolm leaned against Phil's desk and rubbed aching ribs where Kit's lunge for safety had caught him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Kit glanced his way. Malcolm ..."

He looked up. A rarely seen look which everyone dreaded having pointed at them was levelled straight at him. Malcolm winced. Well, you've been waiting for this.

"All right," Kit said quietly. "Let's hear it."

"What do you want me to say, Kit? I'm sorrier than you'll ever know. Breaking a friend's trust ... Well, I am British. For whatever that's worth. I've no excuses, Kit. So I won't even try to make any. But lame as it sounds, I thought she'd just turned nineteen, Kit, not seventeen, and ... and dammit, that headstrong little idiot does something to me ... ."

Kit snorted.

Malcolm adjusted himself against the hard desk, wincing slightly. "She's been hurt, Kit. Desperately. If I ever find out who did it, I think I might actually kill him. There's something fine inside her fighting to get out. I see glimpses of it all the time. First in London, again in Brighton. Then in Rome ..." He swore softly. "We were both a little drunk. Hilaria was in full swing. She was doing so well and I was so proud of her and the next thing I knew..."

"Stop." Kit held up one hand. "Please."

Malcolm halted. Then, very quietly, "It isn't much, but I never meant any of this. I'm bloody sorry, Kit. I won't say I'd undo the way I feel about her, but I'm bloody damned sorry for how I've handled this, the mess I've caused. If it's any consolation, I went through nine days of absolute hell, thinking I'd killed her." He groped for something else to say and ended lamely with the only thing he could say. "I'm sorry, Kit."

"So am I," his one-time friend sighed.

"I'll ... I'll go to another station, I guess, get out of your way...

"Malcolm."

He shut up, ready to take whatever bitter anger his friend vented.

"I ought to break your neck, you know. I'm tempted to saddle you with the Neo Edo. The punishment ought to fit the crime, after all. You deserve that paperwork and the government auditors and the inspections and..."

Malcolm winced.

"But..." Kit's faint smile shocked him. "At least she had enough sense to pick someone like you."

Malcolm didn't know what to say.

"It might have been Skeeter Jackson, after all."

Malcolm found his voice after all, surprising both of them. Kit just stared. "Where do you pick up language like that?"

Malcolm managed a wan smile. "Believe it or not, I overheard that one from a Praetorian guardsman the day Caligula was murdered."

"Really? Some day you must tell me the whole story about that day."

Malcolm let his gaze focus on something far beyond Phil Jones' sordid little office. "Maybe. I'm not sure I'll ever tell anyone the whole story."

Kit cleared his throat. "Know the feeling he muttered He scrubbed bloody hands on his ruined jesuit cassock, then cleared his throat again and held out one hand "I don't have enough friends to lose one. Not even for something like this."

Malcolm paused only a moment, then shook it. "I'll make it up, Kit."

The lean time scout grinned. "You sure as hell will. And if she's pregnant..." He let the threat dangle.

Malcolm just groaned

The office door opened. Kit and Malcolm looked up to find Margo staring down at them. Clad in a ragged Portuguese shirt, face and hands smeared with soot and blood, eyes hardened by what she'd been through, Malcolm hardly recognized her.

"No broken bones, I see," she said quietly. "Good. Because Rome was my fault, too. In fact, Rome was mostly my fault." Malcolm didn't know what to say. Clearly, Kit didn't either. "I would just like to say for the record that I don't deserve either one of you. But I think I've learned my lesson-oh, hell, I've learned more lessons in the past seven weeks than I have in the last seventeen years. I screwed up everything. Everyone was right and I was wrong and I'm so damned sorry I nearly got us all killed, I ... I could almost go back to Minnesota and hide ... ."

Her voice cracked.

Oh-oh. Better try and lighten the mood a bit...

"You know," Malcolm said off-handedly, "there's something you really ought to know before your next scouting trip."

She blinked tears, sounding absolutely miserable. "what?"

"Mmm ..." He glanced at Kit and winked. "There's rather a large difference between Old Nick and Saint Nick."

She stared at him, so nonplussed she forgot to keep crying. "Old Nick? Saint Nick? What are you talking about?"

Malcolm glanced at Kit. The scout's lips quirked. Then his eyes crinkled and he couldn't contain it any longer. He started to laugh. Malcolm grinned. Margo, clad in nothing but an Irish alley-cat glare and a too-loose sixteenth-century shirt, glared from one to the other as though they'd misplaced their collective wits.