"C. J. Cherryh - Fever SeasonUC - Compilation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cherryh C J)

Anastasi never asked. He assumed. Mondragon sank into the nearest chair and studied the far wall, the floor, answering Anastasi's questions. He took the brandy when it arrived, felt the ache of last night's fall in his back and his neck and wished to hell he was home in his own bed.
Which he would gel to only when Anastasi was satisfied. // Anastasi was satisfied. He mumbled answers and thought of Jones and the weather out there, that was the main thing gnawing at him. It was a damned small boat. The engine had always been chancy. He drank and he felt the brandy sting his throat like fire. "Yes, ser," he said to one question. "No, ser," to another.
When he was away from Anastasi he had his doubts whether this man would survive. The odds were high against him. When he was in the same room with him he had no doubt that Anastasi would survive. Anastasi's stare and his questions were alike, razor-edged, quick, his presence full of a force more than ordinary. Anastasi affected him in a way that he had at first not understood, until he realized it was an old feeling Anastasi roused in him, the same projection of assurance and cold sane efficiency that Karl Fon had projected. The same game. The same promises.
Mondragon's skin crawled.
The wind came down across Rimmon Isle and the bay was white-capped, the skip pitching like a living thing as Jones came up on the dark bulk of the Falkenaer ship. No standing up on deck in this blow: she used the engine and managed the tiller sitting down, the tiller bar tucked under her arm, the other hand gripping the deck-rim, while the rain soaked her to the skin and she wished she did have socks on.
Filthy weather. But it was dead sure there were no blacklegs out here tonight on patrol. Good as fog for her business.
The Falkenaer ship loomed up like a wooden wallЧa ship of sail, like all its kind, lean and sleek and full of foreign
FEVER SEASON (REPRISED) 63
mysteries, come in from the high seas and ail around the Chattalen.
But it was a bolt of Merovingian lace and two bolts of Kamat's best in the oilskin packet in the bow, a few kegs of Hafiz' whiskey, and a sizable keg of salted fishЧLord knew what kind and Jones asked no questions, if the painted lords of the Chattalen or wherever else wanted to sample a dangerous delicacy like deathangel and risk the hereafter: rich folk took damn strange chances for their amusement, and she took hers for credit with MoghiЧmonetary and otherwise. It was brandy and Chattalen silk supposed to come back again, duty free. And everybody was happy. Even the lords of the Chattalen, who would pay plenty for a taste of Merovingian fish and a moment of life-risking bliss.
She let go the deck-rim and pulled a whistle up to her mouth, blew once loud and shrill, reckoning on the wind to carry it to the ship and no one out here to hear it except those that should.
And sure enough a light showed on the Faikenaer's deck, toward the stem, where they were tied up at the deepwater wharf. Thank the Lord and the Ancestors, no crossed signals, no need to do more than snug in among the pilings and wait for the Falkenaer to send a few men down to the dockside: 6asier for them to do than for her to try to steady the skip enough to offload and take on cargo from a sling.
She eased the skip around the stem, close, but not too close, and gave it all the room it needed as she came around toward the pilings in the dark, where the big ship heaved and groaned at its moorings.
Then it was fast workЧcut the engine, scramble down into the well while the boat pitched in the chop, run out the boathook and snag herself a hold on the rope-buffered pilings. Damn! Bang into a piling hard enough to rattle her teeth, and a wave over the side that sloshed about under the deck-slats.
She got the hold all the same, wrenched the heavy boat closer and closer and snagged the buffer-ropes with the barrel-hook in her left hand until she could lay down the pole with
64
CJ. Otenyk
the right and get a special line snubbed about the barrel-hook handle. Damn sloppy tie-up, but it was hard enough to get anything close to the waterside steps with the surge coming in like that and carrying her head up dangerously close to the underside of the dock.
She heard a whistle sound faintly. She answered it, and in a little while heard a still fainter hail from the direction of the stairs that gave the deep-sea sailors access to Merovingen's water-transport. Or the use of their own dinghy on Merovingen's waterways, if they had a mind to.
Now came the serious dealing. She took a good bight about the piling with a main-tie, then stood up and kept track of the up and down pitch with a hand on one of the support beams overhead, seeing men on the stairs, faintest shadows in the deeper shadow of the big ship's hull.
This was the dangerous part. There was always the chance of someone trying to take advantage and claim the goods defective or outright steal them. Or her. There were slaVers, mostly rivermen, never Falkenaers. Moghi generally made the deals himself, and he had this time.
"You Moghi's?" the query reached her across the water.
"That 1 am," she answered back.
It was a damned long fussy business, them getting their goods overside, down the stairs, her working in close: the waves and the water depth made the pole useless and it was a matter of hooking along the overhead without cracking one's skull or cracking the skip's seams on the pilings. She was warm enough when she finished, sweating and drawing the dank air in huge gasps.
"Ye're alane on that 'ere boat?" a sailor hailed her.
"Hey, she's just a little run. You want I help ye with them barrels?" Bravado. She ached right down to her gut; but she made fast in good order. "I got ever'thing in the list, got 'er writ fair."
"Cold night," a sailor said. "F' a gel alane."
"Shut up," said another, female. "He an't been th' same sin' we et th' wooly." General laughter. "Ye offload, we onlade. Yey?"
FEVER SEASON (REPRISED) 65
"Fair deal."
"Ne, ne," a young man said, and skipped aboard, landing on the bow and making the skip rock and Jones reach for the barrel-hook at her belt. But he kept his distance, held up a harfd. "Shulz's me name. 'At's Finn, wi' th1 mouth. She ain't bad. But the wooly wa' better." He picked up a barrel and passed it off the bow. More general laughter.
"She don' talk much," someone said. "Hey, canaler, ye got a tongue?"
"Hell, no, I'm just letting this man unload my boat while I catch my breath."
"Got a bottle for a cozy."
"No, thanks. I'm sure ye're right fine, but I ain't buying t'night. I got a long way back and Moghi don't hold with it. Sorry."
"Hell, Finny-gel, we're stuck wi' ye." More laughter. And, thank the Lord and the Ancestors, they started loading on their own barrels. Jones drew a quieter breath.
"Aft, aft, some of that, ye deepwater sailors, leave me a walk: I got to push this skip in the canals, and I got to have free walk for'ard."
"Gotta be Finn's own sister," one complained. "Bitch, bitch, bitch."
Damn, it was a heavy load. She felt the skip riding lower than before, fussed with the trim, ordered a shift in the barrels. And the Falken sailors shifted them.
"1 don' like how she's riding either," one said. "Hell, gel, gi' up a few barrel."
"Damn Moghi can't count," she muttered. But there was that big boat up there, that big fine ship that could glide like a seabird in the wind, and she felt a twinge of envy. It was no small amount of pride that made her say: "Hell, I'll make 'er, no worry."
"That's all I know," Mondragon said, "all Vega knows. Chamoun announced it tonight. It wasn't a situation where we could ask questionsЧhis wife was there. And Rita Nikolaev. I'd suggest you ask Ito Boregy what went on. I'd suggest a
6* C.I ttenylf
real caution with Chamoun. And Vega should keep a nightwatch on him . . . before he wakes up with his throat cut some night. / think Magruder is trying to lever Vega away from you. He's putting pressure on me."
"What sort?" Anastasi asked.
"Threats. Not half as attractive as what you pay me. Like protection. He can't outbid you. I think you should know that."
Anastasi smiled. "You want me to know that."
"I'm quite faithful."
"What about Chamoun? You said you'd bought him."
Mondragon glanced down, thinking that there was coin to use, that in Vega's eyes Cassie was expendable. He thought of Jones. And did not want to make any suggestion involving Cassie. There was very little edge left to this Sword. Very little nowadays. And he reminded himself that he could lose everything by caring for anything. But the edge was gone; that was all. He did not know where or when. "1 don't know. I don't like what's going on. I'm going to talk to Vega. If all else fails I'm going to talk to Chamoun. Maybe one of the cardinal's sessions. Who knows?"