"Here," a man said, one of the three who had brought here downstairs. Coins shone in his outstretched hand, a scatter of silver and bronze in the lamplight. She stared down at it and up at him.
"That ain't no help," she said, not even bitter. A choking lump rose in her throat. "Damn, that ain't no help at all."
She stepped across to the deck, jerked the tie loose. " You mind if I start the motor in here?"
"The family would appreciate it if you'd—"
"Sure, sure." Tears dried and strength roared through her veins like a blast of heat. " 'Predate yourself to hell." She ran out the pole, with the water widening between herself and the Boregys. "Ye damn cowards!"
It was work turning the skip. Part of it was in the dark, when the men went back in and shut the door. Then wheels squealed, chain rattled, and the big Watergate began to admit the ghostly starlight-on-water of the canal outside. The breeze came back, skirled free into Boregy Cut, raced out again.
She drove with the pole, sent the skip scudding out the narrow opening, and made the turn that took it on in the dark, with the Signeury walls high and blank and grim, and Golden Bridge hung across the Grand like a dark webby strand across the Signeury's face.
She pushed it as far as the first bridge-pilings of the Golden, till her gut hurt and her sore feet burned on the deck. Then she lifted one hand in a rude gesture up at Boregy Isle and shipped the pole, went back to start the engine.
One try at the crank. Second, She fussed with the choke and her hands shook. A third jerk at the crank. Cough. A fourth. Cough and start. The breeze skipped and skirled round the corner of Boregy. She jammed her cap down, set the tiller and sat down to steer, the tiller tucked under her arm. The strength had gone, leaving cold behind, leaving shivers that drew her legs up and made her teeth chatter,
Prison, Him in prison,
A worse image occurred. She shut her eyes and opened them wide, trying to banish it, picture of a dark place and lamplight, like Bogar's basement, but no friends in sight, none, no hope and no help and no fair-minded council in judgment, only enemies.
O God. Tidewater. Tidewater and sea-gates. It's got to be. I come up the Snake onto the Grand just after that bell was ringing and they was there when that bell rung—they got Wesh for it—I wasn't that far behind, I almost saw 'em, I was that close, and I never saw any boat going down-Grand. Just that boat away on Margrave—on Margrave going west—Damn, I didsee 'em, they was going away, they had him in that boat, and me not knowing—
Of Tidewater gates there's Pogy and there's Wharf, and there's Marsh, over by Hafiz's. If it was flood they could go by the Port Gap, but they can't do that, they got to use the Gates, that prig Boregy's right in that. And tide don't crest till the top of the sixth. They got to—
She blinked, jerked her head up with the point of the Signeury wall coming up at her, veered wildly and veered again for the center of the channel as she headed for the massive pilings of Signeury Cross. She kept going into bridge-shadow, a place so dark there was no hint of obstacles and a body had to run it blind. The breeze gusted in sudden violence, turned colder. The motor echoed, a lonely throb that carried into her sore hand and aching elbow through the tiller, and she had not even the enthusiasm left to shift the bone off contact with the wood. Hurts, something distant told her. And: Good, her conscious mind answered back, because it kept her mind focused.
Damn stupid fool, where you going?
Mama, you got an answer for this one?
Hell, you got yourself a good one this time. Crazies. You ain't thinking, Altair. You checked that gun? You sure it's still there?
She reached in panic and opened the dropbox nearest the engine compartment. Her fingers found rags, burrowed to touch the smooth metal of the gun. Shells were there too, In their small box. She tested the weight. Intact. The blood sought its former course and her heart settled down to its exhausted throb, thumping along with the motor sound. She blinked, focused again. The headache was fiercest at the back and behind the eyes.
Damn smoke. Had that headache since the smoke. That pathat-stuff. All them that breathed it must be worse.
He's got to be sicker'n hell.
Mondragon—I'm trying. What'm I going to do, you knowing more'n I do—Sword of God and all, and what'm I? All them fellows and Moghi couldn't stop 'em, and they got canaler help, had to have been them on that canal, folk'd see 'em if they went to carrying a body very far over the bridges—
—Canalers. Canalers who'd do anything.
That's a longish list. That's the whole damn Tidewater and all the vermin in it.
Borg Isle passed, and Bucher.
Could turn off toward Malvino. Could go to them, maybe they got more guts than Boregy.
No. Uptowners. I was lucky once. I got out of there. I got all I can get. Next 'un might just cut my throat.
Where do I go? Which way? Cut off down by the Splice and go down West? Damn, where isever'body?
Under bridge shadow and on toward Porphyrio. Oldmarket Bridge was next. The tie-rings and the pilings had no boats, nothing, not even the shabby-canopied skip mat ought to be there. The engine throbbed on, drinking up the fuel.
I c'n turn off by Wex Bend—no. That damn bridge might be blocking it. Go off by Portmouth, pick up me Sanchez Branch and go by the West—
There wasa boat, a dark lump making rapid headway up the Grand from under Miller's Bridge, dead-center of the channel and spreading a starlit wake in a great V to either side.
Damn, it's under power, what is it, whois it up there?
The beat of that engine came off the walls, in and out of phase with hers. It was a skip. That could mean anybody. And the canal was deserted. That meant trouble.
They looking for me? Lord.
She strained her eyes, arm clenched on the tiller, ready to swim about and try for the Splice, her other hand on the throttle, ready to throw it open wide and go roaring past the boat that kept the center-channel, between the two groups of pilings.
But someone was standing in that skip, an upright sil houette in the bow, a double glimmering of white in the starlight, one moving frantically. That was a flag-down. Someone waving.
Making a target of hisself, whoever.
That wake faltered, the engine cut back. She cut back her own, gathered her aching self up on her feet and strained her eyes into the dark as the gap narrowed. One skip was like most skips in the dark, in the bridge-shadow.
But that figure in the bow was gran Mintaka, one bit of white was her hair and the other a white rag that fluttered in her waving hand.
She waved back, tentatively. Her heart pounded against her ribs. What is this? What news?
They found 'im? Somebody found 'im? Is he alive?
"Jones," Mintaka's cracked voice hailed her.
She stopped the propeller, swung the bow to lose way, slewed till she had come to a crazed drift, and slowed the engine down to a low pop and thump. The other skip slowed and someone had a boathook out.
She got her own from the rack, leaving the steering to the other skip, let them meet her, them with several aboard. And it was not for the skip she had that hook.
"Jones," Mintaka said across the narrowing gap, her high voice cracking. "Jones—that young man—that young man o' yours—Moghi send word—"
She used the hook to grapple with after all, got to the side and hooked on as the hook took fromthe other side. It was Del wielding that hook, Del's skip; and the other with a hook was Mira. Beyond them was a stick-limbed shadow that came up to the side, and that was Tommy, Tommy from Moghi's.