Jimmy the Hand (8 page)

He slipped
between bodies and found that no one had any news except that of the
announcement. No one knew what the Upright Man intended to do about
it, nor had anyone seen the Daymaster for hours, and it was two hours
yet before the Nightmaster was due. Meanwhile, no one dared go out,
especially not the women and the beggars.

Jimmy spied
Larry the Ear clinging to the V of one of the ceiling braces,
crouched like a gargoyle, and made his way toward him. When he
finally stood below Larry’s perch and their eyes met it was
like the shaking of hands, sharing the same thought without speaking.
The younger boy’s jaw set hard and he swallowed nervously, then
he looked up and saw something that caused him to stiffen.

‘What is
it?’ Jimmy asked.

‘Laughing
Jack,’ Larry called down.

Others heard and
turned to where the boy was staring, silence spreading like ripples
through the shadows as word spread of the Nightmaster’s
lieutenant’s approach. By the time the Nightwarden took a
stance upon a table, the big room was silent except for the
occasional cough and the sound of dripping water. Laughing Jack
turned in a circle looking at all of them, his expression even more
grim than usual.

‘You’ve
all got word,’ he bellowed. ‘So I won’t repeat the
edict. Orders are to do nothing. Leave the matter to the Upright Man
and lay low as much as possible. Understood?’

For a long
moment the crowd was silent, resentment building like a wave.

‘Well?’
Jack demanded, glaring.

A few voices
murmured here and there, but mostly the Mockers stared, expecting
more, and with their silence demanding it.

‘Well
aren’t you a fine bunch?’ Laughing Jack sneered. ‘No
faith, at all?’ he shouted. ‘Where would most of you be
without the Upright Man? Huh? I’ll tell you, most of you would
have been dead by now. It’s easy to be loyal during the good
times. Easy to follow the rules and do what’s expected when
everything’s running right. But when times are hard, that’s
when you especially got to follow orders. Loyalty will carry us all
through the hard times.’ He swept them all with a hard look.
‘So what’s it going to be? Follow orders, or get tossed
out in the streets so the guards’ll find you?’

Confused silence
greeted this question. There was a roar of affirmation waiting to
happen but the Mockers looked at one another uneasily, wondering how
to avoid sounding as if being kicked into the streets was what they
wanted.

‘Well,
when you put it like that,’ Jimmy muttered. ‘Upright
Man!’ he shouted, punching his fist in the air.

The crowd went
wild and took up the cry, bellowing until mortar began to rain from
the ceiling and Laughing Jack held up his hands for silence.

‘Get to
your roosts and your flops,’ he commanded. ‘Keep your
heads low and wait for orders. One thing I can promise is that we
won’t take this lying down, but nobody does nothing until you
hear otherwise.’

There was
another burst of applause at that which quickly died when Laughing
Jack stepped off his makeshift stage. Jimmy looked up at Larry and
jerked his head toward the door then moved off, knowing the younger
boy would follow as he could.

Jimmy led the
way out of the sewers and through a maze of back alleys, most sodden,
some clean, until he came to a fence of cedar posts set in stone. He
climbed it and stepped briefly onto a window ledge, then grasped a
hole left by a crumbling brick and hoisted himself up to where he
could step onto the window’s ledge. Balancing, he reached up to
grasp the eaves. He chinned himself up, his toes rinding the space in
the brickwork that allowed him to push himself upward until he could
wriggle onto the tiled roof.

Then he silently
moved over so that Larry could climb up beside him; neither of them
was breathing hard, since the sky-routes were as familiar to them as
a staircase to the attic would be to a householder.

They were on the
roof of a noisy dockside tavern—the tiles beneath them fairly
vibrated, as sailors the worse for wine made an attempt at song —
but they still made as little noise as possible, moving into the dark
shadow of a dormer window. Jimmy risked a quick glance in the window
and found the room unoccupied. He lay down on his back looking up at
the stars and listening for any sounds of pursuit. Larry sat quietly
beside him, apparently doing the same.

‘I think,’
Larry whispered at last, sounding very unhappy, ‘that the
Upright Man will call del Garza’s bluff.’

Jimmy nodded,
then realizing it was too dark to be seen grunted in agreement.

‘The only
trouble is,’ the younger boy continued fiercely, ‘he
isn’t bluffing. Why should he? Nobody’s going to complain
if he hangs a dozen Mockers. A hundred even!’

Jimmy shushed
him, for he’d nearly shouted that last. Larry muttered an
apology and Jimmy gave the boy’s arm a brief, sympathetic
punch. But he agreed with Larry’s sentiments. The acting
governor would put the Upright Man in the worst position possible
before he consented to negotiate, if he ever did.

In the history
of the Thieves’ Guild, the Mockers and Grown had never sat down
across a table, but over the decades since the Guild had been
founded, the Mockers had reached accommodations with the Prince of
Krondor on several occasions. A word dropped by a merchant with
connections in court, a trader having business on both sides of the
law carrying a message, and from time to time a difficult situation
might be avoided. The Mockers gave up their own when caught dead to
rights; that was understood by every thief, basher and beggar. But
occasionally an overzealous constable had the wrong lad scheduled for
the gallows, or a harmless working girl or beggar arrested for a more
serious crime, and from time to time trades were arranged. More than
one Mocker was tossed out of gaol suddenly after the Sheriff of
Krondor got clear proof of innocence—usually the location of
the true malefactor, sometimes in hiding, at other times dead. On
other occasions a gang without the Upright Man’s sanction was
turned over to the Sheriff’s men, saving them the trouble of
arresting them.

Larry said, ‘The
Upright Man’s not going to do anything, is he?’

‘Being in
the position he was in, I don’t think he can risk aggravating
the situation further. I think we’ve got nothing to offer del
Garza,’ said Jimmy. ‘As I see it, the only thing that
could make him happy would be to see Radburn return with the Princess
in tow. And as she’s halfway to Crydee with Prince Arutha by
now, I don’t imagine that’s going to happen. So, if he
hangs a lot of us, at least he can say he tried to do something when
Black Guy comes back. And if Radburn gets himself killed along the
way, then del Garza can put all the blame on him and make himself
look like he was trying. Our lads and lasses are in a bad position,
no doubt.’

Jimmy fell
silent for a moment: he knew it wasn’t just a bad position, but
a fatal one. Finally, he said, ‘It’s up to us.’

He heard a
stifled sob and saw the glitter of Larry’s eyes as the boy
turned toward him. ‘They might kill us,’ he warned.

Jimmy chuckled.
‘Del Garza’s men will definitely kill us if we don’t
do something. As for the Upright Man . . .’ He paused to watch
a star shoot across the sky and to consider what the Upright Man
might do. ‘We won’t be rewarded, that’s certain,
we’ll probably have to take a beating for disobeying orders.
But if we succeed in getting everybody out . . .’

‘Everybody!’
Larry’s voice squeaked.

‘Well,
yeah. Why not?’

‘I just
want to get my brother out.’

‘No,
that’s not enough!’ Jimmy said, sitting up. ‘You
want to get your brother out; I understand that, but if we can get
the others out safely, too, that would be great. Wouldn’t it?’

There was
silence for a moment, then, ‘Yeah?’

‘And it
would make us heroes to everyone in the Guild. We’d be too
popular to have our throats cut.’

‘Well, I
guess.’

Not the rousing
confirmation Jimmy had been hoping for, but it would do. He stood up.

‘First,
let’s go and look over that place Noxious Neville showed us.
Once we know what we’re dealing with we can make plans. Then
we’ll see.’ He started off, followed by a reluctant Larry
the Ear.

‘See
what?’ the boy asked.

‘See
whether the Upright Man will kill us or not,’ Jimmy said
cheerfully.

Jimmy wore a
vinegar-soaked rag tied over his nose and mouth and was still
fighting the urge to gag from the stench. They’d removed a lot
of the rubble from the blockage, but not all of it; the people they
were to rescue were mostly small and certainly thinner than when
they’d been arrested. The two boys laboured quietly and
quickly, and then it was time for one of them to climb up the
vertical shaft that Neville had told them about. Jimmy glanced at
Larry, who was nervous, green, and on the verge of being sick, and
didn’t even think of suggesting the younger boy go. Jimmy took
a deep breath through his mouth, as if he was about to plunge under
water, and stuck his head into the opening. Then he pulled himself
up.

It wasn’t
quite as tight as he’d expected from the old man’s
description, but then maybe the old beggar had worn some meat on his
bones when he was young. And the walls were an easy climb, seeming to
be a natural cleft in the rock below the keep, with plenty of nooks
and crannies for fingers and toes. Even the girls would be able to
manage it.

So far the only
problem was that it was very slimy with things best not thought about
and stank enough to shrivel the hairs in his nostrils, even through
the sharp vinegar smell. He kept promising an offering to the Goddess
Ruthia, Mistress of Luck, if she would let him get through this
without anyone pissing on him. The higher he climbed the more
extravagant the offerings became.

He heard a voice
above his head and froze, but whoever it was passed by. He thanked
the Lady of Luck and glanced up. He wouldn’t have been able to
go any further anyway. Just above him they had mortared small stones
to the side of the shaft for a depth of about four feet from the top,
narrowing it to just the size of his head.

Jimmy climbed
down rapidly, his heart sinking. He’d imagined chipping away
the extra stones around the grate, and had worried about how they’d
cover the sound. He’d never imagined them continuing for four
feet! Maybe ol’ Neville hadn’t known about it, maybe he
didn’t think it mattered, but it was certainly a big
complication.

Jimmy imagined
the wrath visited upon the gaoler when the escape of a prisoner—maybe
it was Noxious Neville back-in-the-day—had been discovered. So
either the heavily chastened gaoler or his newly-appointed successor
had seen fit to ensure it didn’t happen again. For a giddy
moment he wondered how the current gaoler was going to tell del Garza
and the Sheriff that dozens of Mockers had fled in one night. Then he
put aside the amusing fantasy and returned to the problem at hand:
how to get rid of a lot of brick and mortar in a hurry.

Larry was
waiting down below the partially-collapsed tunnel.

‘Well?’
he asked in a whisper.

‘I need a
bath,’ Jimmy said. It wasn’t something he said very often
and he’d never said it so sincerely.

‘Me, too,’
Larry agreed. Then asked, ‘So?’

‘There’s
a problem,’ Jimmy said. ‘A collar of stonework that
narrows the opening so you couldn’t pass a cat through it. It’s
pretty deep, too. Let me think about it.’

‘We can’t
go in here!’ Larry the Ear hissed in Jimmy’s ear. ‘This
place is too respectable!’

It was; a
two-storey building with more chimneys than a house, the sort of
place where people respectable enough to want to wash regularly came,
but who were not well-to-do enough to afford the equipment. It had a
doorwarden; a thick-set man with a grey beard and a knotted club of
vinestock beside it, who looked like a retired trooper.

Jimmy grabbed
Larry and pulled him close so he couldn’t be overheard. ‘We
need to get clean. Del Garza’s men are out looking for sewer
rats. Right now, we not only look like them, but we smell like them.
We have to get clean, and it would help if we didn’t look like
Mockers for a little while. That’s why we’re here,
instead of trying to get clean using someone’s rain barrel or
washing off in the Old Square Fountain.’ He turned to look at
the doorwarden. ‘Just pretend you’re someone and keep
quiet.’

Jimmy walked up
to the man. The doorwarden’s nose wrinkled—
Well, I
can’t blame him,
thought Jimmy—and his eyes narrowed;
a thick-knuckled hand went to the vinewood club.

Wordlessly,
Jimmy held up a silver coin the size of his thumbnail.
I’ve
known this sort of thing to work,
he thought, schooling his face
to look embarrassed and supercilious at the same time.
I’ve
just never been able to afford bathing in a proper bathhouse, before.

He’d never
been much of one for bathing in general, either; but associating with
lords and princesses, even for a short while, tended to alter your
standards. He discovered that enduring a bucket of cold water and
some soap every day or two earned him approval from the Princess
Anita, and that had been worth it. He had also discovered he itched a
lot less and felt better afterwards.

‘My good
man, we need to bathe,’ he said, shaping the tones of an
upper-class accent. ‘And to buy fresh clothing.’

‘Ye
certainly need the bath,’ the man grumbled. ‘Lousy too,
no doubt.’

‘Not in
the least. We’ve been out on a . . .’ Jimmy let his
expression grow sheepish. ‘Well, we’d rather our parents
didn’t find out, and . . .’ He finished in a rush: ‘You
can have this yourself?’

Suspicion gave
way to contempt as Jimmy handed over the coin; which was fine with
him.