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

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fEVER
MEROVINGEN

Cur re tit Directu>n Ч BRIDGES
DIKES
O SOLID GROUND O ISLES AND BUILDINGS
FEVER SEASON
CJ. Cherryk
It was fall in Merovingen, nasty fall, when old Det approached his winter ebb: snows fell to the far north, up far above Nev Hettek, and the river that reached Detmouth, at Merovingen, was a sullen,1 quiet river. The bog up on the Greve widened, the water lay in stinking pools up there and on the north side of the lagoon, where river-weed rotted and small fish that had thrived there in the early stages dried out and fattened the bugs and the vermin. Merovingen of the Thousand Bridges, poised on its pilings and shored up precariously above the waters, smelled it when the breeze came off the mudflats, a stink predictable and faithful as sunrise. The skips and poleboats moored a little lower, that was all, at pilings that showed water-stain a handspan up, and had a little, less current to fight in the winding Gut, and up on Archangel.
Then Merovingen began to think toward winter, from the uppermost levels of the wooden city, where the hightown wealthy lived in splendor, to the middle tiers where merchants began to haul winter goods out of warehouses, to the lowest levels where the canalsiders and the skip-freighters and the bargemen began to think in much more basic termsЧ like bartering for socks and sweaters, or a paper of blueangel,
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to fight the fever and ease winter aches in the cold nights ahead.
Fall, when the days varied between balmy warmth and treacherous chill, and fog wrapped the town about at night, hazing the lights that shone, making the lightless world of the canals beneath the bridges dark indeed.
That was the rhythm of things. It always had been. And Altair Jones, sixteen and on her own since she had been barely able to handle the skip pole on her own, found herself strangely out of step. She smelled the change in the air, and blood and bone, she felt the sense of take-hold and take-cover in her gut: time to store and hoard and time to think what little of all she owned in the world she could possibly tradeЧ time to work hard and save the tiniest coppers, and think protective.
But for the first time in her life she was comfortable, for the first time in her life she had not one extra sweater, but three, had shoes, and two changes of socks, had a full tank of fuel, the skip's ancient motor in prime condition, the hull painted, had a couple bottles of good whiskey in the number one drop bin, and full store of food, besides a candle and cookstove and all. For the first time in her life she had everything she could think of to have. And the feeling bothered her, a kind of karmic something-wrong that would not let her alone even in broad daylight and got worse by dark.
She brooded on itЧbrooded on it increasingly as the nights grew colder and the putting-away started . . . canaling was her life, dammit, even after she had pulled one Thomas Mondragon out of a canal and got herself tangled in hightowner affairs. Out of which she stayed as much as possible.
Except she tied up at Petrescu most every night now, left her skip to the watching of old Mintaka and Del Suleiman and Mira and Tommy, who had tie-up rights there nowadays ... all friends, all folk she would trust with her life (and had) so that she knew that there was nothing going to go missing off her boat, and nobody going to mess with it or come up Tom Mondragon's stairs past that hour that honest canalers took to their hideys and slept.
FEVER SEASON 15
She climbed up the stairs to the second level and Mondragon's door, gave the knock and waited for him.
The lamp was lit in the front room. Which was his way of saying it was all right, he had no visitors, he was waiting for her.
She heard him inside, heard his whispered: "Jones?"
"Yey,"
She would not answer that if she had trouble with her. He took a quick peek by the tiny garde-porte and then opened up the door, let her in; and she stepped quickly into the light and the warmth, pulled off her battered river-runner's cap while he was locking the front door again.
A handsome man, pretty as the Angel Himself, as Retribution, who guarded the town from His post on Hanging Bridge. Mondragon never let on to folk where he was really from: Falkenaer was his ordinary story, a Falkenaer offspring of the Boregys . . . and maybe that was true, somewhere back of it all, there being nowhere else on Merovingen that hair came that blond, or skin that fairЧJones' own short, straight hair was black as was the rule in Merovin, her skin dusky, her eyes dark as canalwater. But Mondragon's real home was Nev Hettek, up river, where Adventists were the rule and Revenantists were the exception. His real connections were less with the Boregys he pretended to be related to than with Anastasi Kalugin the governor's son. His skills as a spy were another thing he did not let on about, and he was always nervous about opening doors.
Why he kept opening his to her she wondered about every time she saw him like this, handsome and gold as the Angel Himself, and fine, fine in all his manners. She would have understood if he had sort of drifted away and come less and less to the lowtown; she would have understood if he had found some hightown woman to take up withЧshe would have wanted to gut that woman, but she would have understood it was natural: Lord, he was what he was, and she had herself all braced for it, justЧsomedayЧhe was going to find somebody else.
But he more than took up with her on his get-abouts on the
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canals, where he needed someone with brains, someone who could watch his back, someone who would keep her mouth shut: he said it was safer she should come sleep at his place and tie up down belowЧhe would let her know if things got unsafe, as they well could. But meanwhile there was a soft bed to be had and breakfast in the mornings: his hours were like hers, late.
The bed in question had him in it. And there was no other woman: Jones had kept an eye on that the way she kept an eye on his place and his whereaboutsЧfor his safety's sake. Not that she would have stopped it. But she would have been madder than hell.
He tipped her chin up and kissed her, gave her a hug before he went and blew out the light in the sitting-room. "Good day?"
"Fair," she said. Which was what she generally said.
She shared a bedtime snack with him in the little brick kitchen, backstairs, while water heated, and she had her bath (Lord and the Ancestors, she was getting so she smelted the canal-stink she had never smelled before, and she took her clothes to laundry right along with Mondragon's, every Satterday). She wrapped up like him in a robe he lent her before they headed up the front-hall stairs to his upstairs bedroom and the brass bed with the fine smooth sheets.
Then he made love to her the way he had from the first, fine and gentle, and worked the aches out of her bones and the canal cold out of her gut before he fell to sleep the way he usually did, on his face, one leg tangled with hers and one hand on her shoulder, which she liked, except sometimes he got heavy and sometimes he had bad dreams arid scared hell out of herЧ
Karl! he had yelled once in her ear. And rolled over and fought to get clear of the bedclothes while she scrambled to get clear of him.
Another time he had yelled No! and shoved her right out of bed, thump! Which had waked him up. Jones, he had said then, Jonesl And put his head over the side of the bed, asking anxiously whether she was all right.
FEVER SEASON 1?
Sure, she had said, from flat on her back, why noft
He never told her what he dreamed about, but she had developed a certain consequent wariness when he took to mumbling in his sleep.
As he did this night, waking her from a sound sleep. "Stop it," he murmured into her ear, and: "No. O God, no moreЧ"
She tried just to unwind her leg, but he jerked away, he rolled aside, and went, thump! over the side.
"Mondragon," she exclaimed. "Mondragon!" But she was not going to put her head over the edge of the bed looking for him. She got up on her knees to look, in the light of the always-burning night-lamp. "Ye all right?"
"God," she heard, softly uttered. And saw him lift his head. He levered himself up on the mattress rim and hung there on his arms with a terrible bemazement in his eyes.
"I didn't push ye," she said, afraid he would think that way.
"God." He lowered his head against the mattress and crossed his arms over his neck; but then he got up and helped her straighten the covers and got back into bed.