Jimmy the Hand (42 page)

‘Hard by
Relling,’ Lorrie agreed. ‘We’re his kin, and we’ve
a message he’ll want to hear, family matters. He would have
passed through day before yesterday, riding—on a good grey
gelding. A young man, just seventeen, but man-tall and
strongly-built, hair the shade of ripe barley and blue eyes, and a
yew bow over his shoulder.’

‘Ah!’
the woodcutter said, rubbing his back again and stretching with both
hands pressed to it. ‘Yes, I do recall; not seeing him myself,
you understand, but Bessa—Bessa at the Holly Bush, just up the
high road and off on Willow Creek Lane—mentioned him. No
mistaking, from your telling of his looks. Fair mooning over him, she
was!’

‘That’s
my Bram!’ Lorrie said.

‘Ah, kin
of yours, this Bram, lass?’ the woodcutter teased. ‘Lucky
man, to have such sisters!’

‘Kin by
marriage soon, like enough,’ she said. ‘We’ll ask
at the inn, then.’

The man frowned.
‘Well, I’d not do you an ill turn, so be careful,’
he said. ‘There are some rough sorts stop there.’

‘Drovers?
Badgers?’ she said. Those who took stock on the road for sale
did have a bad reputation—a man didn’t feel as restrained
outside his own neighbourhood, in a place where he wouldn’t be
back. Drovers and guards often caused more trouble than the money
they brought justified.

‘Soldiers,
down from the manor,’ the woodcutter said, and spat. ‘I’ll
not say anything ill of the lord baron, you understand—’

Not wanting a
whipping or the stocks or your ears cropped,
Lorrie thought,
nodding.

‘—but
some of the guardsmen he’s hired these last years, they’re
right cut-throat, skirt-lifting bastards, and times they’ve
lifted skirts will-she, nil-she.’ He winked and put his finger
alongside his nose, as if making a locally recognized gesture.
‘Outsiders. Foreigners. No offence,’ he went on.

‘None
taken,’ Lorrie said mildly—everyone back home thought of
anyone from more than a day’s walk as foreign and somewhat
suspicious, too.

‘Maybe
your kinsman was thinking of taking service with the Baron?’
the woodcutter said. ‘Manor’s only a brace of miles
further on. It would do the neighbourhood good to have some
better-mannered boys wearing the Baron’s livery.’

Lorrie shook her
head. ‘Bram’s a farmer’s son, and badgers for
caravan-masters now and then,’ she said. ‘Thanks for your
time and help, gaffer.’

‘No
trouble, talking to a pretty girl on a fine spring day. Summat to
talk about, this next season!’

Lorrie nodded
thanks and they drove on, after she made sure of the directions
twice; she knew how hard it could be to give good ones, when you knew
your district like your own house and couldn’t imagine someone
who didn’t.

‘We’re
close,’ she said to Flora. ‘I can . . . feel Rip.’
She frowned; the sense wasn’t really very directional. ‘Back
in Land’s End, I could say “northward, and a bit east”
but here all I can say is “close”.’

‘And where
Rip is, Bram will be, and Jimmy,’ Flora said. ‘And I know
where we’ll be, if we want to find out anything.’

Lorrie looked at
her, and Flora gave a wry smile, seeming older than her age; she
often did, to Lorrie’s way of thinking, like a woman grown.
‘Where?’

‘At the
tavern. Where men drink, they talk.’ With a flick of her
wrists, Flora moved the gelding to a slightly faster pace, anxious to
get to the tavern.

Jimmy fidgeted.

‘Why
aren’t we in there?’ Jimmy asked.

Looking at Baron
Bernarr’s mansion was boring; profoundly, deeply boring even to
someone as patient and used to waiting as a thief. The big square
building just sat there, amid its frowzy neglected gardens, silent
save for an occasional voice or rider coming down the lane from the
main road, and the eternal beat of the surf on the cliffs half a mile
away. Even the vines growing up the grey granite sides seemed to have
died of tedium; for they were brown and sere even though spring was
well along.

An occasional
glitter of steel showed at the big iron-strapped doors, as a sentry
paced. That was it. Jarvis Coe shrugged. ‘Three reasons,’
he said, holding up a hand and bending down fingers. ‘First,
what’s loose in there makes anyone reluctant to go in; so we’ve
been finding reasons not to.’

He looked
serious; Jimmy glanced over from behind the tree that sheltered him
and stared at Coe in open-mouthed astonishment. ‘You mean we’re
delaying and making excuses and you know it?’ he burst out.

‘Yes.’
Jarvis held up a hand. ‘It’s not procrastination. It’s
magic. Sometimes you can’t tell the difference.’

‘Oh.’
Jimmy had no idea what ‘procrastination’ meant, but he
wasn’t about to let on; besides, he thought he understood the
gist of what Jarvis was saying. Jimmy shivered a little at the idea
of things affecting his mind and emotions without his knowing. ‘What
are the other reasons?’

‘Second,
it’s difficult to get in—it’s a fortress, even if
it isn’t a very strong one, and it is garrisoned, even if the
troops aren’t very numerous or very good. There are only two of
us.’

‘Why can’t
you get . . . oh.’

‘Yes.
Right now, Bas-Tyra has other things on his mind. By the time an
official complaint went through, all the evidence would be safely
buried.’

‘Oh.’
As I thought, the sea hides a lot of sins.
‘What’s
number three?’

‘It isn’t
quite time yet. We’ll have to strike when they’re
distracted—and that means waiting almost until the time for
their sacrifice.’

‘But—’

‘Yes. That
means risking them going through with it before I can get inside to
stop it.’ Jarvis took out a stick of jerky and began chewing
it. ‘That would be very bad. And the magic—the
side-effects of that necromancer’s magic—is affecting our
judgment.’

I want to go
home to Krondor,
Jimmy thought. The wrath of the Upright Man and
the menace of the secret police was looking more attractive all the
time.

‘At least
Flora and Lorrie are safe,’ he said.

The Holly Bush
wasn’t much of an inn, Flora decided as she jumped down from
the dog-cart in the dying hours of the day. In fact, it was more of a
farmhouse, judging by the odours of hay, turned earth, manure and
mud. It had two storeys, to be sure, and was sheathed with plank
which had weathered silvery-grey from many seasons without paint, but
it was a thatched farmhouse just the same, with a barn and sheds
behind, a field of young wheat beyond that, and an orchard still
bearing drifts of blossom. The only signs of its trade were the
branch of holly pegged over the lintel, the benches set outside on
either side of the door, and the width of the beaten muddy path that
led up from the ruts of the road and a larger-than-usual paddock for
stock in which travellers’ beasts might be accommodated.

No, I take it
back, Flora thought.
They’ve put half a dozen flagstones
around the door, and there’s a wood scraper. Civilization!

One of the
worksheds was a smithy, not a fully equipped one, but a little
farrier’s set-up with a small charcoal-fired hearth, a bellows
and a single anvil: just right for shoeing horses, or doing minor
repairs. A man was at work there, tapping a shoe-blank into shape
with the ring of iron on iron; a youth worked the leather bellows.
She waved, and he dipped the blank into a tub of water and set it
aside. Then he came striding through the barnyard, the wooden pattens
on his shoes keeping the valuable leather out of the mud. He went to
take hold of their horse’s bridle, looking at it with respect.

‘Will you
be staying, then, missies?’ he asked, in a burr much like the
woodcutter’s.

‘If you’ve
room,’ Flora said, and saw him perk his ears up at her Krondor
speech.

‘Room and
to spare,’ the innkeeper-cum-farmer said. ‘No merchants
or travellers by right now.’

He was a man of
medium height and build, already getting summer’s tan, and
knotty with the muscle of hard work. The only thing unusual about him
was the tint of red in his hair, and the freckles that stood out on
his face.

‘I’m
Tael, and I keep this inn and farm. Bessa!’ he went on, turning
his head to shout. ‘Bessa! Come on, take the ladies’
trap. Davy, get out here!’

Flora moved to
help Lorrie down from the dog-cart, as Tael clucked at the sight of
the stick she used to spare her leg. ‘Here, lean on me, miss,’
he said. ‘Bit mucky here, with the rain.’

‘Thank.you,’
Lorrie said shyly. ‘My name’s Lorrie.’

A brow raised at
the accent, so similar to the local’s, and quite different from
Flora’s. He glanced back and forth between them; they didn’t
look like kin either, though he had probably assumed they were.

‘We’re
looking for Lorrie’s friend Bram,’ Flora said, and Tael’s
face changed briefly, for an instant.

‘Later,’
he said crisply. ‘Come inside. Room’s three a night, and
that includes the evening meal.’

Two youngsters
came bustling up; a boy like the man with fifteen years cropped off
and an amazing scatter of pimples with purple rims, and a buxom young
girl with freckles of her own, who took the wicker box that held
their luggage.

The innkeeper
led them respectfully to a table in the main taproom, and Flora
realized that she was enjoying herself. It was nice to be treated
with respect—not chased out, or shaken down for a share of her
earnings or personal favours on the side.

With sunset
coming on, the interior of the inn was dim and a middle-aged woman
made her way around it and lit bundles of oil-soaked rag in clay
dishes. These added a smoky tang of linseed oil to the cooking smells
in the room; the floor had good fresh rushes on it, though, and the
hearth was cheery.

‘Bean soup
with ham,’ the woman said, calling from where she ladled two
bowls full from a big iron pot hanging over the coals. ‘There’s
sweet cider, hard cider, ale and small beer. Cider mulled, if you
want it. You’ll be hungry, travelling far. From Land’s
End?’ She set the crockery bowls down before them, and rounds
of bread, butter, cheese and onions with them, and a wooden dish of
sea-salt.

‘Yes,’
Flora said. ‘I . . . live with my Aunt Cleora, in Land’s
End. Mulled cider for me.’

Tael came back
in, stepping out of his pattens, his feet crunching on the cut
river-reeds that covered the floor which gave a pleasant green scent,
for they’d been mixed with pungent herbs and flowers that gave
off a scent of dried memory, like hay.

‘Cleora
Winsley, that would be,’ he said, catching what she said. ‘Karl
Winsley’s wife, and Yardley Heywood’s daughter?’

‘Yes,’
Flora said, a little surprised.
It’s nice to have a family
people know, too,
she thought.

‘I’ve
done business with Karl Winsley,’ Tael said. ‘Buying
hops.’ He looked at Lorrie. ‘And Bram is your friend?’

‘We’re
neighbours,’ Lorrie said. ‘His . . . his horse came back
to Land’s End, saddle empty and an arrow in it. I’m
staying with Mistress Winsley. We came to see if he’s all
right.’

‘I can’t
tell you,’ Tael said.

His wife
returned with mugs made of turned maple, and an iron rod with a
wooden handle; the tip of the metal glowed white-red.

‘Thanks,
pet,’ Tael said.

He took the
mulling iron from her and plunged it into Flora’s cider. The
drink bubbled and seethed, hissing as the metal quenched; the iron
had gone dark when he removed it a moment later, but it was still hot
enough to make him cautious as he returned it to the hearth. A
pleasant smell of apples and spices rose; Flora sipped cautiously.

Tael took a long
drink of his beer as he came back, and wiped the back of his hand
across his mouth, taking the last of the foam from his moustache,
thinking hard. Flora spooned up some of her soup—she was
hungry, and it smelled good—and ripped apart one of the small
loaves for dunking. It was hot enough to steam slightly, and good
wheat bread, nearly white.

‘Well, as
to young Bram, he stopped here for food about noon couple o’
days ago,’ Tael said abruptly, like a man who’d been
ordering his thoughts. ‘Nice lad, polite, for all he’s
from Relling way. Sorry.’

‘No
offence,’ Lorrie said; a small smile quirked at the corner of
her mouth.

‘And he
came looking for a young lad named Rip, who he thought would have
been in the company of two men, and maybe not happy about it.’

Flora and Lorrie
nodded. The innkeeper hesitated and drank again, then nodded as if to
himself after some internal dialogue.

‘Well, I’d
seen no such boy,’ he said. ‘But I had seen two men who
might have been the ones he were looking for, you see.’ Another
hesitation, then: ‘Men-at-arms from the manor; men of the
Baron’s. Skinny and Rox, they’re called; gallows-bait. I
soldiered a bit myself when I was younger, and I met enough like
them; ready-for-aughts, if aught were somethin’ that meant
money for no work, but not the sorts a good captain would have in his
troop, or ones that a wise comrade would trust with his purse or
back, if you takes me meaning?’ They nodded. ‘I told your
Bram that much, for he seemed a good enough sort, and they’re
no friends of mine, for all they spend their pay here. Then he
thanked me, polite-like, and rode up north toward the lord’s
hall. The next we see is his horse running south; we tried to catch
it and couldn’t. Didn’t think to lure it with grain until
it was half-way down the road to Land’s End. Glad it got back
to you; I’d have sent word had I caught the beast.’

Lorrie had no
doubt he meant that, but she knew country ways and ‘sending
word’ would be to mention to a passing wagon driver heading
towards the city that he’d found a horse, just in case someone
came looking.