Jimmy the Hand (27 page)

‘At least
not while you’re here,’ she said, her eyes pleading. ‘If
you do something wrong it will reflect on me and on them, and the
disgrace would be dreadful.’

‘By
“anything wrong” I suspect you mean more than simply,
“don’t steal”,’ he said. ‘I bet you
mean don’t go to taverns, or get drunk, or get into brawls, or
gamble . . .’ She shook her head, her eyes wide.

‘Or . . .’
He stroked a finger gently down her cheek.

Flora reared
back as if she’d never taunted a sailor in her life.
‘Especially not that!’ she said.

Jimmy stared at
her.
It wasn’t that long ago
we
were doing that. Now
look at her!
It hadn’t taken any time at all for Flora to
become officiously respectable. He put his hands on his hips and
laughed at her.

She shushed him,
glancing at the closed door of his room.

‘Flora,’
he said, shaking his head, ‘I can’t imagine how you’re
going to survive this degree of self-restraint.’ Though of
course ample meals, comfort, and no worries about the future would
help mightily. ‘But if it’s what you want, then that’s
what you should have; I was worried about you when all this started,
you’ll remember.’

She still looked
anxious, so he took pity on her. Placing a hand on his heart he said:
‘I have no intention of disgracing you, or your relatives.’

With quiet
determination she asked, ‘Then, please, tell me what you did
last night.’

Jimmy gave a
deep sigh and hung his head. ‘All right. If you must know I
saved a girl.’

Flora made a
strangled sound and when he looked at her saw an almost comical
expression of surprise on her face. ‘Who? And from what?’

‘Really!’
he said. ‘She was a country girl disguised as a boy and she’d
fallen in with some very corrupt thief-takers. Y’remember Gerem
Benton?’

She nodded.
‘Gerem the Snake? Confidence grifter used to work the dodge on
farmers looking to get rich quick with the Pigeon Drop and the Fake
Diamond cons? Yeah, what about him? He’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘He’s
alive and running a gang of thief-takers here. Looks like he’s
set himself up with the local constables; at least that’s what
it looks to me. He almost had this girl but I got her away. He didn’t
know she was a girl, else he might have tried harder to hang on to
her.’ Jimmy shook his head. ‘Y’know, this town
would be a lot better off if they had an Upright Man of their own,’
he added wisely.

‘A country
girl disguised as a boy?’ Flora said, wrinkling her nose
dubiously. ‘Why was she in disguise?’

Jimmy thought
about it. ‘She didn’t say. But she definitely was honest;
she didn’t want to use some old cloth for a blanket in case she
damaged it.’

Flora nodded,
apparently seeing the truth in that observation. ‘So where is
she now?’

‘I found
her a place to sleep in an abandoned room in a warehouse,’ he
said. ‘If she keeps her wits about her she should be fine.’

‘Take me
to her,’ Flora said suddenly.

‘What?
Why?’

‘Maybe I
can help her,’ she said.

‘Well,
aren’t you Lady Bountiful? Don’t you believe me?’
Hurt, he let a little of his resentment show in the tone.

‘Maybe if
someone had offered to help me when I was first orphaned,’
Flora said with some heat, ‘I wouldn’t have had to become
a whore!’

‘Oh,’
Jimmy said.
Ouch.
‘All right. But she might not still be
there,’ he warned.

‘Well, at
least we’ll have tried.’ Flora gave him a hard look.
‘I’ll go and get my shawl and tell Aunt Cleora we’re
off shopping, so remind me to buy something on the way back.’
As she moved through the door, she added, ‘We should pitch in
with chores when we get back, like respectable youngsters. I want to
make a good impression before Aunt Cleora takes me to meet
Grandfather.’

Jimmy looked at
the closed door.
Chores,
he thought.
Wonderful.

Exile was
looking worse all the time.

Flora pulled the
back of her skirt up through her legs and tucked it into her
waistband, forming a baggy equivalent of trousers which would allow
her to climb.

Looks like
nothing is going to discourage her,
Jimmy thought, casually
glancing to either side. There were people down at the end of the
alley who could see them if they looked . . . but they probably
wouldn’t. And even if they did, they probably wouldn’t
care. The men—the ones loading crates of pottery on a
mule-drawn wagon—were busy, and Jimmy’s experience with
teamsters was that they didn’t go looking for trouble, unless
it was after work and they’d been drinking.

Jimmy turned his
attention to the climb. At least the bright light of morning showed
the handholds well and they started to climb the low building beneath
the window of the abandoned room in a workmanlike fashion. Flora had
insisted on bringing along a bag of food she tied up in her skirt,
and a small wineskin which Jimmy had tied to his belt.
If anyone
stops us I guess I could say we’re here to wash the windows,
Jimmy thought as Flora moved up.

Then Flora said,
in a hoarse whisper, ‘Jimmy! There’s blood!’

Flora looked
down and showed Jimmy her hand, the palm of which was now smeared
with a sticky brownish stain; the blood was nearly dried, so it had
been there for a while. Jimmy took out his belt-knife and transferred
it to his teeth; there were a few situations in which that was
useful, and hostile entry into a room was one. He motioned for Flora
to move to the side so he could pass.

Maintaining
careful track of his tongue—he kept his knife sharp—he
crouched below the window, then threw himself in with a roll,
dropping the blade and catching the hilt as eyes and knife-point
probed all around.

‘Shit,’
he said calmly, sheathing the knife, turning and extending a hand.
‘She’s hurt. Come on.’

Flora pulled
herself up to the window and gasped at the sight of the blood on the
floor—she knew almost as well as he did what constituted a
serious wound—and when she saw Lorrie’s pale form lying
amid the bloodstained cloth she put her hand over her mouth and
plastered herself against the wall.

‘Banath
protect us,’ she whispered. ‘She’s been murdered!’

Jimmy went to
one knee beside Lorrie’s pallet.

‘No, she’s
breathing,’ he said in relief. But there was still a lot of
blood around. ‘Lorrie,’ he called quietly. He touched her
shoulder. ‘Lorrie,’ he whispered.

The girl woke
with a start and gasped as though drawing breath to scream. Jimmy
hastily put his hand over her mouth. ‘It’s Jimmy,’
he said. ‘It’s all right. I’ve brought some food.’

‘
We’ve
brought you some food,’ Flora said, elbowing him aside. From
her tone she had no intention of forgetting how much he’d
protested when she’d asked him to buy the bread, cheese and
wine they’d brought.

‘What
happened?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Who did this?’

Astonishingly,
she smiled: ‘Me,’ she said. Even then, the resemblance to
the Princess gave him a jolt. ‘I was climbing out of the window
and somebody yelled.’ She pulled herself up on her elbows and
looked at him groggily. ‘I was surprised and I slipped. My leg
got caught on something.’ She lay back down again. ‘I put
a bandage on it, but it hurts.’

I’ll
bet it does,
he thought, looking at the tight sodden bandages.
Gods but she’s clumsy!
That brought a stab of guilt:
Well, she’s not a Mocker. Just a farm-girl.

‘There’s
a lot of blood,’ Flora said. ‘You’d better let me
take a look.’

Lorrie blinked
at her, then turned to Jimmy.

‘This is
my friend Flora,’ he said. ‘She’s all right.’

Lorrie nodded
and struggled to sit upright, untying the string at her waist, then
looked at Jimmy. ‘It’s on my leg,’ she said.

Jimmy nodded.
‘Do you need help?’

The girl stared
at him, dumbfounded.

‘Jimmy,’
Flora said between her teeth, ‘turn around.’

‘Oh!’
he said and did so.
As if I care,
he thought. He heard Flora
suck in her breath. ‘What?’

‘It’s
bad,’ she said. ‘A really deep, nasty cut. I need you to
go and get some things.’

‘Now wait
a minute,’ he said, starting to turn around. The two girls
immediately made such a fuss he stopped and kept his back to them.
‘What do you need?’ he asked, his tone surly.

‘Some
powdered woundwort, some powdered yarrow and yarrow leaf tea,
tincture of lady’s mantle, some willow bark tea, and—’
he could tell she hesitated, ‘—some poppy juice. And a
fine needle and thread. Catgut, if you can get it. Waxed linen, if
you can’t.’

‘What,’
he said after a moment, ‘nothing else? No dancing girls, no
elephants, no . . .’

‘No poppy
juice,’ Lorrie murmured. ‘I have to find my brother.’

‘You’re
not going anywhere with that wound on your leg,’ Flora said.
‘Not today. Go!’ she snapped at Jimmy.

He went,
considerably annoyed. He’d already bought this Lorrie wine and
bread, now he had to buy out an apothecary for her? What else was he
going to be expected to do? Poppy juice! Did Flora know what poppy
juice cost? Although Lorrie had said she didn’t want any. He
thought about that as he walked along. No, better get it. With all
that blood she must be hurting badly. Jimmy sighed. Why did good
deeds always turn out to be so expensive?

When he returned
Lorrie was asleep again and Flora was looking thoughtful; she glanced
up as Jimmy swung easily through the window.

‘Thank
you,’ she said, taking the medicines. Then after a pause:
‘Thank you a lot, Jimmy. Nobody’s ever been as kind to
me.’

‘Nothing,’
he said gruffly, shrugging.

Princess
Anita, what have you done to me?
he asked himself, feeling that
it was only half a joke.
I was never one to stint help to a
friend, but this is ridiculous! Flora doesn’t need help, she’s
landed in the honey pot, and I barely know this bumpkin! Even if she
does look like you—like you would if you’d been born a
bumpkin, that is.

He noticed that
Flora had made an effort to mop up the blood: there was a pile of
soaked cloth in one corner, and the bandages on Lorrie’s leg
were fresh. The smell was still there, faint against the musty mildew
and dust of the warehouse, but at least now they didn’t have to
worry about someone noticing it dripping through the floorboards.
She’d also gone for water, which was essential to someone who’d
lost a lot of blood.

Flora laid out
the medicines and the needle and thread. Lorrie woke, though she
seemed muddle-headed; Flora had probably given her the whole bottle
of wine for the pain.

‘Help me
turn her over,’ she said.

He did, wincing
as she uncovered the wound and went to work; he supposed modesty was
less important when all that was bared was a section of thigh that
looked as if it were on the way to a butcher’s shop. But he
looked aside anyway.

In a way it was
less grit-your-teeth to have a wound of your own sewn up than to
watch it done to someone else, unless you could just think of them as
meat.

Lorrie bore it
well, not having to be held, just shivering and panting, and his
initial good opinion of the girl went up several notches. Besides, he
reflected, it would go on hurting her a lot longer than it would him.

Flora’s
doing a good job of work there, too,
he thought: she wasn’t
quite digit-agile enough to make a pickpocket, but she had neat hands
for needle and thread.

‘We have
something we have to ask you, Jimmy,’ Flora said, not looking
up, as she tied off the last running stitch and cut the catgut with a
small sharp knife.

‘No,’
he said to the wall. ‘I was thinking on my way back that you’d
ask me for something else and the answer is no.’

Lorrie opened
her eyes and looked at him.

‘No!’
he said, looking away. Lorrie’s sad eyes were far too much like
the Princess’s for comfort. It was hard to believe that he
might be susceptible to a girl’s eyes, but he was very much
afraid that he was.

‘My
brother has been kidnapped,’ Lorrie said, her voice husky.
‘He’s only six years old.’ She took a deep breath,
obviously trying to stop herself from crying. ‘They killed my
parents and burned down our house and barn. There isn’t much
left, but the land has value, and there’s still some stock and
a wagon. I’ll give it all to you if you’ll help him.’

‘Do I look
like the Constable to you?’ Jimmy asked. ‘And isn’t
this something the constable should be doing?’ He gave Flora a
look that said,
Yes, this is something the Constable should do and
you know it.

‘No one
would believe me,’ Lorrie wailed. Flora shushed her. ‘I’m
sorry,’ she whispered. ‘All our neighbours thought my
parents were killed by wild dogs or something and that my baby
brother was dragged off by them. But he wasn’t. There were two
men. One big, the other skinny. They rode off on horseback and came
here. Now they’ve moved on, going inland, and they’ve
taken Rip with them. I can feel them getting further and further
away.’ She broke down, weeping as though her heart would break.
‘Please find him. Please.’

Jimmy looked at
the two young women with astonishment. ‘How can I do that?’
he asked.
Even if I wanted to, which I dont.
‘I don’t
know what these men look like, or where they’ve gone, I don’t
know your brother, I don’t have a horse, and even if I did, I
can’t ride. You’re asking the impossible!’

‘Be
quiet!’ Flora hissed. ‘Go and think about it while I
clean Lorrie up.’

Thus dismissed,
Jimmy sat looking out of the window.
Why am I suddenly a villain?
he thought, reminding himself not to pout.
I already rescued her!
Twice!