She moved closer, and he noticed that she limped on her right leg. His eye was caught by Krysty, who was looking at Captain Quadde with an expression of almost religious horror. Her lips were moving, and Ryan guessed she was whispering an invocation to Gaia, the Earth Mother. Her long crimson hair, sentient to the moods of its mistress, was coiled tightly and protectively about her skull.
"Didst thou not like the way Jonas spoke and looked?" the woman said musingly. "For that he was slain. Lies here leaking out his red, red roses."
Ryan allowed his right hand to drop to the butt of his blaster. "Don't come any closer," he warned her.
Pyra Quadde halted, a scant six feet from him. Veryslowly she lifted the cane in her hand, until, as cold as death, the ferrule touched Ryan's throat. He made no move to stop it, knowing that she couldn't manage enough leverage from where she stood to harm him.
"Thou dost threaten me, outlander?" she growled. "Thou hast no love for living. Knowest thou not that no man in Claggartville would dare to life a hand 'gainst me?"
"Then Claggartville doesn't contain many men, does it?"
The walking cane was lowered slowly, until it tapped on the boards. The woman moved back a step, seeing that the spreading pool of blood from Clegg's corpse was oozing stickily closer to the toes of her boots.
"I'd give a ram keg filled with jack to have thee 'board the Salvationwhen we sail the day after the morrow. To go hunt the great whales across the gray ocean."
Her eyes roamed around the silent tavern as she spoke, and Ryan felt a faint prickling of something that was almost fear between the blades of his shoulders. The way this stocky woman seemed to hold the entire ville in thrall was frightening. He'd seen enough barons running frontier pest-villes who had less presence than Captain Pyra Quadde.
"What dost thou want done with?.." the landlord stammered, pointing at the corpse and not knowing quite what to call it.
"Garbage! Heave it off the dock and let the eels take it."
"Aye, Captain."
The woman fixed Ryan again with her stare. "Thou hast had a day, outlander. Times pass. List, and thou canst hear it sliding by. Three days without work and thou must leave or work'll be found. Think on that, Ryan Cawdor."
"Get out into the fog and blackness where you belong, or stay and get yourself chilled like that piece of dead meat there."
"Big words, outlander." She spun around and stepped to the door, the stick tapping smartly. She paused for a moment, hand on the latch, and Ryan half drew the pistol, expecting her to turn holding a hideaway blaster.
But she opened the heavy door, her dark shape silhouetted a moment against the white fog beyond. Then she was gone, with only the rapping of her stick fading away down the alley.
"Up to the room," Ryan ordered, collecting the others with his eye. It wasn't the time to linger in the cramped bar, among so many threatening strangers.
Donfil was last into their room, shutting the door gently and leaning his shoulder against it. "Lot of sour badness in that woman," he said.
Krysty nodded. "Right. I could hardly breathe with her in the same room, Ryan. Why did you have to push the fight with?.."
"Because I had to. I did it, he's chilled and we move on."
"If I may venture a small suggestion," Doc said. "I think we would do well to consider the possibility of moving on from... from... from whatever this dreary place is called. Ah, Claggartville. It came back to me."
"I hate this place!" Lori said vehemently. "It's fulled of badness. We shall... should get out and back to the gateway and go someplace else. "
Ryan looked at Jak and J.B., the only two in the group who hadn't spoken. "How about it?"
"Don't see any point staying," Jak mumbled, head down. "No work. No jack. I say go."
The Armorer still stayed silent. He walked across to the low window and peered out, wiping at the condensation with his sleeve.
"J.B.?"
"Trader used to say something about the man who doesn't get into a firefight but runs away, lives to run away on another day."
Ryan had heard it before, but the old joke still amused him. "Sure, but what do we do? I agree with Jak, in a way. Can't see much to keep us in this ville. Woman like that Pyra Quadde looks like she could pull a lot of strings in Claggartville. If someone mebbe plans to coldcock me, I'd rather not stick around for them."
"So we go?" Krysty said, the relief heavy in her voice.
"When should we plan our departure?" Doc asked, sitting on one of the beds, cracking the knuckles of his right hand with a sound like distant musket fire.
"Tonight?" Donfil suggested, also sitting down to avoid being stooped almost double under the low ceiling.
"Old bitch watch for us," Jak said, joining the Armorer at the window, looking across the fog-shrouded roofs toward the masts of the ships. Now that they knew the layout of the quay, it was possible to work out which was the Salvation. Farthest to the right, as they saw it.
"Mebbe," Ryan agreed.
"Lot of sec patrols on the roads. Might have to blast our way out."
J.B. was right. From what they'd seen of the ville, it was tightly run. The seven companions would have the firepower and could certainly get clear of the outskirts of the place. But that didn't guarantee that they could get back to the beach where they'd left their raft and make it across the treacherous waters of the sound. The ville was full of ships of all sizes. The sec men might simply shadow them from the sea and then pick them off like ants in a sugar bowl.
"First light? No. Dark's better." Ryan scratched the side of his nose with his index finger. "Can't wait until the three days are up. Too much pressure on us. Too many eyes. Too many mouths flapping about us. Best if we sit out the day tomorrow. Let them think we're ready to take anything on the third day. Early meal at evening."
The Apache smiled. "Truly but the Anglos are the masters of cunning and deceit that our fathers warned us against."
Krysty grinned. "Up here and out the window. Over the flat roof into the alley. Up through the fog, if it rises every night. We can circle around and the patrols won't be alerted like tonight."
"That's the plan. Anyone got anything to say? Things we should do? Mebbe things we shouldn't do? Anything?"
J.B. coughed. "Only usual things. Dark clothes and greased weapons. Lori to cover her hair and muffle the bells on her spurs. Doc to grease his knees to stop them creaking."
Everyone laughed. A joke from the Armorer was more rare than a necktie on a chicken.
"That's it, then." Ryan looked at his friends again. "Around this time tomorrow night. We go. Tomorrow we keep moving and stick together and try to keep a low profile. Let's not attract too much attention to ourselves."
Everyone agreed.
"Again, outlander! Again, again!"
It seemed as if every inhabitant of Claggartville was gathered around Ryan and the others on the side of the main dock, close by a weathered clipper ship with a falcon for a figurehead.
"Smite the mark with the iron again, outlander! Thou hast nine scores from nine casts. Not a harpooneer in all New England could do better."
Donfil smiled courteously at the skinny old man who was handing him the long harpoon. "I'll try it for you."
"Not toomuch attention, Man Whose Eyes See More," Ryan whispered.
"Relax, One Eye Chills. The more they like me, the less they'll worry about us running from them." He turned away from Ryan to look among the open expanse of spray-slick cobbles, between the rows of eager faces, all of them looking at the heavy oak door that stood propped up against a pile of empty oil barrels. The white-bearded elder had paced it out, counting aloud, so that everyone there could ooh and aah.