She looked back, blinking at a haze in her vision, flinching from the sting of hair in her eyes. They had Mondragon between two men. His white face and pale hair glowed unnaturally white in the storm-light, and it was a stranger's face, it was that face she had seen in Gallandry's downstairs hall, all dead grim in the lamplight.

It was the Angel's face from the bridge, it was Retribution come to life, all pale and terrible.

No. He ain't. Angel he ain't. Sword of God. He don't haveno special karma, no more'n me. He's thinking on Retribution, on staying alive, he ain't about quit and they know it, they're scaredo' him even yet.

The man jerked at her elbow. She blinked in the mist and went where they made her go, toward the side of the ship, the gangway and the ramp down to the wharf.

She walked it, the grip on her arm numbing. Looked up as buildings and locations made sense; Takazawa was in front of them, mostly wood, towers rising crazily. But the man turned her, faced her to the building to the south, grim brown stone, barred windows, a sprawl of wings and terraces and buttresses added here and there as earthquake cracked the walls.

Nikolaev. Richest on Rimmon Isle. Thatwas what white-face came from. One of them. With fingers in the College and the Signeury both.

She cast a look back at Mondragon, lost sight of him at once as the man jerked her forward and kept her going.

Down the pier, with Mondragon and his guards behind. Up ranks and ranks of cracked stone steps laid in the rare bedrock of Merovingen. Up at last to a door nothing but earthquake could ever shake from its pins, solid wood, bound with iron and fitted with brass.

It opened for them—someone had seen them coming. It gaped and swallowed them out of rain-spit and wind and chill, into a place as echoing and polished as Boregy. There were more guards, directions. Her, the orders said, take her to the east room.

"I ain't going!" she yelled, and: going-going-goingthe vault gave back in crazed repetition. She looked wildly back at Mondragon, who made a move with his eyes that just meant go on. Thunder cracked and rolled above the hall. Rain sheeted down outside and whipped in to spatter the polished floor and men heaved the door shut. The one holding her arm jerked her away.

"Damn you—" she yelled.

"Damn you," the hall gave back. The sound racketed like judgment as the man pulled her along down a side hall.

He going to get familiar? I'll kill him. I'll kill him dead before they kill me.

Up stairs, down another hallway to a room where other men caught up from the side. They opened a door and the man holding her arm spun her into it so that she staggered in the middle of fancy carpet, in the face of polished furniture and a solitary window with the rain sheeting down past diamond-panes.

And iron bars.

The door slammed at her back and a lock clicked.

She paced, paced because she was too tired and she hurt too much to fall down.

Kill 'em, she thought. If I ever get out o' here I'll come back some night and gut 'em. I'll burn this fancy place and take Rimmon with it.

They got to know that too. So I ain't getting out of here, am I?

Oh, mama, your daughter got herself down a way with no exit. I'm sorry about that.

But it was something, wasn't it, how we done that damn slaver and the whole Sword of God?

Retribution Jones turned up crosslegged on the bed. Shoved her cap back on dark hair and looked left and right.

Well, she's some place, Altair, ain't it?

Dammit, mama, what do I do?

She stopped in her pacing. The wraith went away from her mind's eye and left not even a wrinkle on the bed.

Altair dusted her good hand on her leg. The leg stung, and she saw the rip in her pants.

It wasa nail.

Then it started hurting. Hurt in the way everything else did, dull and distant ache. She paced again, walked to the window and back. Nothing but gray sea out there and cloud and spats of rain against the glass. To the bath and back. A marble tub and a brass commode. Fancier still than Gallandry's. There were bottles on the marble rim. Perfume-stuff. That put her in mind of drawers and maybe somebody forgetting something useful in this polished prison. She tried them all, tried the clothes-press.

Nothing but towels, sheets, and a rack full of men's clothes. Silk stuff. Wool. A couple of sweaters.

She tottered back to the bed and hung onto the poster staring at that embroidered coverlet, those fine soft pillows. Her arm hooked round the poster as she swayed on her feet.

Damn, no. I'm dirty.

With a swipe of her sleeve across a running nose, the sleeve tasted of salt and harbor water.

Hewouldn't, damned if I will.

Damn hightown prigs.

She staggered into the bath, set all the bottles on the wide rim of the marble tub and got into it dry. Turned the taps on full, plugged the drain, and ducked her head under the cold water, discovering the cold water going warm. Muscles braced for cold relaxed, went sick and shivery. She hung there a moment just getting warm, and ran hands through her hair. Winced, when her fingers found the lump on the side of her skull. Then she felt around the back of her head where the old one was fading, and remembering how she had gotten it, she gulped air and gulped it again and ducked her head under the water to wash the salt out of her eyes and the sting out of her throat.

Bottles. Damn. Glass.

She scrambled out of the tub with water still running, poured perfume from a sizable bottle down the drain and wrapped the empty in a fat towel.

Brought it down on the tub rim.

It took two bottles to get a good one, one long sliver of stout glass. She folded the rest in the towel and pulled the drawer in the clothes-press and dropped the little bundle down behind the drawer.

Then she dressed, in her own salt-ridden trousers and a man's blue sweater. And she carefully tucked that sizable sliver of glass into her waistband, part above like a handle, the rest aslant in the front hollow of her hip. She adjusted the sweater down over it and sat down carefully on the bed. It moved, but with her body, easy and safe. She let out a sigh and lay back clothes and all and shut her eyes, tumbling back into dark.

—ain't going to have 'em breaking in here, by the Ancestors, hauling me off nowhere stark naked—

—ain't going to give 'em any ideas they ain't got. They want me, that's fine, I go along with 'em, I let 'em do what they want till I got a chance—

Where they got him? They treating him same as me? Lord, I hope, I hope—

Rich man's jail, that's what this is. Rich man gets on the outs with the Signeury, they send 'im to some family to keep.

And they take 'im by that long black boat into the Justiciary, and he don't ever see the light again.

No hanging on the bridge for a rich man. They got different ways. They don't want folks like me to see no rich man swing up on the gallows—

They cut their heads off, don't they?

After they got what they want.

A lock rattled. She came out of it in a panic realization that a man had walked in. She lifted her head, forgot about the glass till she felt the top slide on the skin above her waist and straighten again as she got up. Rain was washing at the window. Thunder muttered away. The man stood there. There were others behind him outside.

"Bring her," that one said.

Two men came in to do that. She held up her hands. "Hey, I'm coming, I'm coming."

Get me where there's doors. Find out where he is— Man, don't you lay hand to me!

"Wald. Let her."

The man nearest gave her room. She sidled past, walked out into the hall. "Where—?" she started to ask. But the man in charge just motioned down the hall and started walking. She fell in behind, barefoot amid their booted footfalls and thinking about that unprotected back in front of her.