Jimmy the Hand (12 page)

‘Now, you
must go. The guard will rouse or another will come soon, and you must
not be here. Return the wineskin and cloak as you found them. The
guard must think he fell asleep. No matter what else, no one must
know you saw me. If word reached the city I was near death, foolishly
loyal men might seek to free me. Bloodshed on behalf of one already
near death is pointless. Promise you’ll not mention this visit
to anyone?’

They both said
they would keep silent.

With surprising
strength, Prince Erland demanded, ‘Not even to one another,
lest someone overhear. Your oath!’

Jimmy blinked in
surprise, but said, ‘By Ruthia and Banath, my oath, highness.’

Flora repeated
the same oath and the Prince relaxed somewhat. ‘Good. Now go.’

Jimmy quickly
returned the cloak and wineskin to the guard, taking a moment to pour
a bit on the man’s face and down his tunic so that his sergeant
would be less inclined to believe any stories about unexplainable
slumbers, and turned to look back before he closed the cell door. He
saw the Prince seem to shrink, becoming even smaller as he lay back
and closed his eyes, and something in his heart twinged.

The two Mockers
moved swiftly back to the large cell, not meeting anyone on the way.
Inside they found the floor covered with sand.

‘Where did
this come from?’ Flora wondered. ‘I swear it wasn’t
here before.’

Jimmy looked up
at the ceiling nervously, but it seemed solid. Then he looked over at
the hole in the centre of the cell and saw a flood of sand pouring
down through it.
Oh,
he thought and his heart sank. Asher had
kept mumbling about ‘Something . . .’ Apparently the
‘something’ he’d forgotten was how much of the
potion to use. Maybe only a part of a drop, while Jimmy had dumped
the entire contents! It looked as if the potion was far more powerful
than Jimmy had anticipated.

Which might just
mean that the ceiling would be coming down imminently.

‘Let’s
go!’ Jimmy said, giving Flora a shove.

She turned and
gave him one back.

‘Now,
Flora! Before this whole place comes down on us!’

The girl stared
at him, her eyes wide. ‘Magic!’ she said. ‘You used
magic!’

‘What
else?’ he asked and thrust the rope into her hands. ‘Now
go!’

By the time she
turned to him, she was up to her waist in falling sand. ‘Don’t
tell me you went to Alban Asher.’

‘At this
point I’ll say anything you want, Flora!’ He waved her
down. ‘Go! So that I can go. Please!’

The last thing
she said before she disappeared into the hole was, ‘For the
love of Banath, Jimmy, he’s a drunk!’

‘As if I
didn’t know it,’ Jimmy muttered, taking hold of the rope.

This would be
one of those times when the magician’s spell didn’t work
as expected. Not exactly the way he’d planned for his name to
pass into legend. But since, for the most part, this exploit had been
a success Jimmy supposed he could accept this one little mishap. He
pulled the cloth over his face, closed his eyes and went down the
rancid shaft for the last time.

Laughing Jack
smacked Jimmy hard enough to knock him down, then yanked him back up
by his collar and shook him, hard.

‘Enough,’
the Nightmaster said.

Jack snapped a
look at him, showing his teeth.

‘I said,
enough,’ the Nightmaster repeated, quietly, but with an edge in
his voice.

Laughing Jack
let Jimmy go so suddenly the boy staggered.

‘You can
go.’

Jack nodded, his
expression showing his disagreement. Then he glared at Jimmy and
turned and left, closing the door behind him.

They were in the
upper room of a supposedly abandoned house in the Poor Quarter, and
they could hear the floor creaking with every step the Nightwarden
took as he walked away.

The Nightmaster
shook his head and tsked. ‘You are too bold, Jimmy the Hand. Do
you know that almost half a tower came down today? Straight down it
fell, right into the west half of the dungeon. It’s a miracle
that no one was killed.’

The
Nightmaster’s face was bland, but Jimmy could hear a smile in
his voice. It was all he could do not to smile in return.

‘Word is
you were at the bottom of this mess,’ the Nightmaster went on.
‘And the Upright Man is most upset that you have, once again,
disobeyed direct orders. Do you know what those orders were?’

Jimmy thought it
best to deny that he did, so he shook his head.

‘Keep out
of sight and do nothing. You don’t remember hearing that? How
odd, when I have witnesses that you were present at the time those
orders were issued.’ The Nightmaster sat forward and folded his
hands before him on the desk.

‘You’ve
put the Upright Man in a difficult position, Jimmy the Hand. You’ve
deliberately disobeyed orders, yet you’ve also rescued over
thirty Mockers from certain death.’ One corner of his mouth
quirked upward. ‘Not to mention that you’ve managed to
hide their escape. It will be months, if ever, before del Garza
discovers there are no bodies under all that stone. With those
terrible rats down there gnawing on the corpses and the main sewers
flooding with the spring rain, why even the bones will be washed out
to sea before the workers get down there.’ The Nightmaster
fought to keep a smile from spreading too broadly as he added,
‘Without his even knowing it, you’ve made our enemy look
very foolish.’

The Nightmaster
spread his hands. ‘Yet, what can we do? The Upright Man’s
thankful you’ve saved thirty of your brethren, but he’s
still got to cut your throat and throw you in the bay. If such a
breach of orders goes unpunished then others will believe that they,
too, can do whatever the bloody hell they wish. Others far less
clever, or lucky, than yourself. That way lies chaos and Old Night.’
He rubbed his upper lip and stared at Jimmy. ‘Of course, if you
can’t be found to be punished, then perhaps it will all blow
over and nothing will need to be done at all. After all, every once
in a while the Upright Man offers a general amnesty.’ He leaned
back, not taking his eyes from the boy.

Jimmy nodded.
The amnesty was offered to all who came forward and confessed their
transgressions. It usually required that any loot not shared out as
it should be had to be offered along with the promise not to do it
again. Jimmy thought it a good idea, as it made for a little extra
something in the share out after the Upright Man and his crew took
their cut, and it made it easier for the Daymaster and Nightmaster to
know who to watch for double-dealing. It also kept the Upright Man
from having to kill off all the members, as sooner or later every
Mocker ended up breaking one rule or another. But, it would also
apply to someone who disobeyed orders!

Jimmy said,
‘Can’t be found? As in can’t be found, or can’t
be found because he was dropped into the harbour with heavy weights?’

‘The
first. If you were to leave Krondor, and travel around a bit . . .
Travelling is said to be very educational, and in this case it would
be very good for your health.’

Jimmy felt his
gullet tighten and a heavy weight settle under his breastbone. He
stammered: ‘B-but I’ve never, n-never been out of Krondor
before in my life!’

The Nightmaster
leaned forward again. ‘Let me put it to you this way—either
take yourself off, or take what’s coming to you. Am I clear?’

‘Absolutely.’
Jimmy forced calm on himself. How bad could it be? Other people
managed to live beyond Krondor. There was a whole world out there to
explore!

He was homesick
already.

‘Then you
may go.’ The Nightmaster looked at Jimmy from under his
eyebrows. ‘And when I say
go
I mean far away. Just in
case you didn’t understand the first time I said it.’

‘Yes,
sir.’

Jimmy darted out
of the Nightwarden’s room, past a snarling Laughing Jack, and
headed quickly out of Mocker’s Rest. He had to go fetch his
gold before nightfall, then find a way safely to the caravanserai
outside the eastern gate. He would somehow get past the guards—he
had no doubt of his ability to do that—then either beg or buy
his way onto the first caravan heading east or north. He might be
told to go far, but he would stay in the Kingdom and not risk heading
down into the deserts and Great Kesh beyond.

Feeling nervous
and excited in equal measures, he hurried into the sewers one more
time.

Jimmy raised his
hand.

He held up two
fingers, and the innkeeper filled two tarred leather mugs from the
barrels that rested on trestles along one wall.

He was
middle-aged and bald and fat; the barmaid was probably his wife, and
looked the same, except for having hair. She waited expectantly until
Jimmy fished in his pouch and brought out the coppers. The tavern
wasn’t much: a rush-strewn floor, brick walls with patches of
what had once been plaster, and rough wooden tables and plank benches
and stools. The smell wasn’t too bad, though; mostly spilled
beer, which was inevitable.

The place did
have the advantage of not being a known Mocker hangout: most of the
other customers right now were dockwallopers and labourers, nursing a
mug of beer to make it last, with maybe bread and cheese and pickles
on the side.

Not much of
an advertisement for honest toil,
Jimmy thought morosely, taking
a mouthful and wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
But
then I was never tempted.

The Sail and
Anchor was as typical a sailors’ dive as you could find in the
dockside quarter of Krondor. Jimmy had scouted the caravanserai and
had judged it unlikely he could slip out within a day or so, given
the close scrutiny everyone was being subjected to as they tried to
leave the city. The pulling down of the tower above the cells had
saved over thirty Mockers, but it had driven del Garza into a frenzy
of reprisals. A few Mockers too stupid to keep out of sight were
already down in the Market Square Gaol—the Sheriff’s
Constables ran that lock-up—but they stood a fair chance of
avoiding the gallows, for none had been collared for a hanging
offence, unless del Garza changed the laws again. However, a few
common workers and a couple of merchants’ wives and daughters
had also been rounded up, so now del Garza had the guilds and
citizens in an uproar.

From what Jimmy
could see in the falling darkness the previous evening, del Garza
already had every engineer and mason in the Kingdom crawling over
that tower—it looked as if he meant to have it back in place
before Duke Guy returned from the Keshian border. Jimmy smiled. Toss
in a magician or two and he might just pull that off.

‘Thanks,’
Flora said and took a sip, watching Jimmy over the rim of her mug.
‘You’re thinking. What about?’

He hunched over
his own ale, blowing at the thin layer of froth and wondering if he
looked as depressed as he felt. ‘Just having to leave the city.
And having to sneak aboard a ship. I don’t care much for
ships.’

‘Have you
ever been on one?’ she asked, a little excitedly.

‘No, but I
know enough to know once you’re on one, there’s few
places where you can bolt, unless you can swim like a fish. I’m
good enough at hiding, but hiding out on a ship . . . they call it
being a stowaway.’

‘Well,
don’t. Go as a passenger.’

Jimmy sighed.
‘Del Garza’s checking passengers as close here as he is
at the city gates.’

‘Cheer up,
Jimmy! It’s not the end of the world,’ she said softly,
and grew thoughtful.

‘No, the
Upright Man just wants me to go to the end of the world,’ he
said. ‘And drop off the edge for a while. Maybe he’d
really like it if I managed to get kidnapped to Great Kesh, or that
world the invaders come from.’ Jimmy glanced up at her from
under his brows; he wasn’t even sure she was paying attention.
If I’m going to grumble and moan and pity myself, at least
she could listen to the specifics,
he thought.

This was not the
way he’d expected things to be tonight. Someone, many someones,
should be buying him an ale and dinner besides, and singing his
praises, and thumping his back until it hurt. Instead he couldn’t
go near Mocker’s Rest or even the sewers: he had to be out of
town, and soon. Even lingering this long was a bit of a risk.

Instead of being
a hero, he was all alone in this working man’s tavern, facing
exile.

Well, all
right, I’m not alone, but for all the attention Flora’s
paying me I might as well be. I’m a hero, gods take it. Girls,
plural, should be all over me.

Now she was
giving him a considering look. He knew that look. It was the look a
woman gives you when she’s going to ask for something. Jimmy
raised a single brow, waiting for the shoe to drop.

Suddenly she
gave him a brilliant smile. ‘I know where we can go,’ she
said.

‘We?’
That was unexpected. ‘What do you mean, we?’

‘My mother
told me that I have a grandfather and an aunt in Land’s End.
She said my grandfather didn’t approve of my father.’
Flora’s eyes took on the far-away look of someone remembering.
‘Not that my parents ever said so, but they’d look at one
another and they’d have these odd smiles . . . sad like . . .
Anyway,’ she continued, ‘we could go to Land’s End
and see if I still have family there. It would be like a quest! What
d’ye think?’

Jimmy blinked.
It was an idea, he supposed. Or a direction at least.

‘Where is
Land’s End?’ he asked. He’d heard of it, of course,
but that didn’t mean he knew where it was or anything else
about it.

‘I dunno.
I never went there. But we can find out. What d’ye say? Shall
we?’

He widened his
eyes and tipped his head, shrugging. ‘Why not? I’ve got
to go somewhere, but . . . would we be welcome, just dropping in with
no warning? I mean, if your grandfather didn’t approve of your
father . . .’ He trailed off awkwardly.