Jimmy the Hand (28 page)

After what
seemed like a very long time—and one or two small, smothered
sounds of pain, somehow more disturbing than the many he’d
heard before—Flora said, ‘You can turn around now.’

‘Look,’
he said, noting how pale both girls were, ‘I’m not trying
to be mean-spirited. It’s just that . . .’

‘That
you’d rather not get involved any further,’ Flora
finished for him.

He raised a
protesting finger. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You don’t
have to,’ she said scornfully. ‘I know you, Jimmy. But .
. .’

Flora stopped
and sighed, letting her shoulders droop. ‘Helping Lorrie’s
not something you would have done in Krondor. I can’t help but
be disappointed; I thought you’d changed.’

Jimmy raised one
eyebrow and tightened a corner of his mouth. He most certainly would
have helped Lorrie, even in Krondor. But that wasn’t something
that Flora would know; she’d never met the Princess and knew
nothing about his feelings for her. And maybe it wasn’t
something he wanted her to know. He glanced at Lorrie, who really did
look very much like the Princess Anita, even to the haunted look the
Princess had worn when thinking about her imprisoned father.

Lorrie’s
eyes shifted and met his. As he watched one crystal tear rolled
silently down her cheek. Jimmy heaved a sigh. He was undone: there
was no way he could walk away from those eyes and not feel less of a
man.

‘All
right, I’ll try,’ he said. He rose, every move speaking
his reluctance. ‘I’m not making any promises, and I don’t
know when I’ll be back.’ To Flora he said, ‘You’ll
have to come up with a story to tell your aunt about why I’m
gone.’

‘I’ll
tell her you’re travelling for a bit . . .’

‘Tell her
it’s an employment opportunity. Apprentice to a trader or
something. Be vague; I didn’t tell you details—I’ll
have a completely cooked-up story when I get back.’

Flora nodded. ‘I
think they’re moving northeast along the coast road,’
Lorrie said. ‘Try going that way first. And be careful. Those
two killed my mother and father and Emmet handily enough and none of
them were soft or weak. You watch yourself.’

‘Thanks,’
he said, ‘I will.’ He looked at Flora who was rolling up
a bandage looking proud enough to pop. ‘Give my regards to your
aunt, in case this takes a while.’

She was up and
giving him a fierce hug before he could say anything else. Then she
released him and gave him a little push.

‘Go on
then, and be careful.’ She crossed her arms beneath her
breasts, looking grave. ‘You know where to find me.’

Jimmy smiled at
her and shook his head. She was changing so fast he hardly knew her.
Then he turned away and climbed out of the window. First thing he
should do, probably, would be to get a horse.

‘No,’
the innkeeper said indifferently. ‘Left just after dawn, they
did. Same as always.’

Jarvis Coe
dropped a couple of coins on the bar.
Surprising,
he thought.
From the way they were talking yesterday, I’d be expecting
them to drink a long breakfast.
Low-priced thugs rarely had much
discipline or sense of purpose. If they did, they’d be in
another line of work . . . or charging higher prices, at least.

The innkeeper
ignored the copper, polishing around it. His eyebrow twitched when
silver rang beside the duller metal.

‘Which
road did they take?’

The coins
vanished into the innkeeper’s big hand. ‘North on the
coast road, same as always.’

You couldn’t
rent a horse at a stable, but you could buy one with the
understanding that eventually the stable-owner would buy it back. Coe
walked briskly through the North Gate, cursing the delay; it was a
mildly warm late-season day, perfect for travelling—for his
quarry, too, worse luck. Even then his trained eye caught details—the
casual way the guards leaned on their spears and halberds, offset by
the relaxed alertness of their captain’s eyes; and the state of
their gear, which was worn but serviceable. From everything he heard,
the lord of Land’s End had taken an unusual position on the
care of his barony’s main town; he had garrisoned the bulk of
his army—some two hundred men-at-arms—in the old
fortification on the edge of the city, and had kept only a small
honour-guard in his household estates many miles away. But he had no
heir, so perhaps he felt the safety of the citizens outweighed his
own.

Administration
seemed to be left to the one royal magistrate in the district, the
leaders of the town’s guilds and the harbourmaster. It was
probably a fair enough system as long as war didn’t break out,
or the Duke call up a levy. But the local garrison had come to
neglect the countryside: there was not even so much as a regular
patrol between the old castle and the Baron’s country estates
up the coast.

That had left
the countryside in disarray. It didn’t take much by way of
neglect for bandits to move in. Or for a dozen local bullies to
decide they’d rather rape women and steal sheep than work. And
the local constable had neither the time nor resources to really
enforce the law, short of a baronial order or a writ from the
magistrate.

Coe reflected on
this odd state of affairs as he walked through the gate. Land’s
End was still more of a large town than a small city, comprised of
the usual gaggle of trades and workshops impractical or illegal
inside a walled city, so no true foulbourg had been allowed to spring
up outside the walls, but a thriving open market had been established
beyond the clearing under the wall. He headed for the unmistakable
smell of a dealer in horses, and slowed as he drew near.

‘Master
Jimmy!’ he said. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. How’s
your young foster-sister?’

If Jimmy was
equally surprised he made a masterful job of hiding it. In fact, his
dark eyes were level, coolly considering, beyond his years, even if
he had grown up rough and quickly, which Coe would wager he had.

Looking him up
and down, Coe revisited a judgment he had formed aboard ship about
Jimmy:
barely a boy, well short of fifteen summers. But a very
unusual and gifted boy. Inside that egg of boyhood is a man tapping
at the shell, and a dangerous one, too, from all appearances
.
Curly brown hair—badly cut, likely with a knife—contrasted
with carefully respectable but not showy tunic and trousers; Coe
suspected that the boots hadn’t acquired their wear on Jimmy’s
feet.

But here was the
thing, Coe thought,
he carries himself without a trace of
adolescent awkwardness. He moves like an acrobat, as fluid as a cat
sensing everything around him; he has the trick of avoiding people
without needing to watch for them, deftly slipping through crowds
without jostling them.
Coe smiled. Perhaps that wasn’t
entirely true, but should Jimmy bump into someone on the street, Coe
suspected it would be intentional.

The sword at his
side was enough to catch the interest: it was a tall man’s
blade, far too richly hilted for the part the boy was playing, of
someone on the ragged edge of gentility. But Coe suspected that the
blade was of equal quality to the guard and scabbard, which would
make it worth the rent of a dozen farms. And more to the point of how
it had come into his hands, the boy could use it with enough skill to
make challenging him a very hazardous choice.
Even now, a wise man
will be careful This one is quick as a ferret, I’ll wager, and
would give as little warning when he went for the throat.

‘Flora?
She’s making Aunt Cleora very happy,’ Jimmy said. ‘Nice
to see you again, sir.’

‘And you,
my lad. Are you looking for work as a stablehand?’

‘Gods no,
sir!’ Jimmy grinned. ‘I know nothing of horses. But I’ve
got to take the coast road a way and I guess I’ll need one.’

‘In which
direction?’ Coe asked.

Jimmy gave him a
suspicious look. ‘Uh, north, east.’ He shrugged.

‘The very
way that I’m going,’ Jarvis said cheerfully. ‘Why
don’t we ride together?’

Without waiting
for an answer, he called to the stable-master to saddle another mount
and before Jimmy could object, tossed a gold coin to the man, saying,
‘We’ll wish to sell them back when we return.’

Catching the
coin, the stable-master said, ‘If you bring them back sound,
I’ll buy them.’

Turning to look
at Jimmy, Coe smiled and said, ‘There. It’s done.’

If the boy
resented such highhandedness, he hid it well. All he said was: ‘I’m
not experienced.’

‘Make it a
gentle one,’ Coe called to the stable-master.

‘I don’t
want to hold you up, sir,’ Jimmy said.

‘I’m
sure you won’t, Jimmy. I’m not planning to gallop—like
a man, a horse can walk further than it can run. Do you have any
supplies?’
Or anything more than the clothes on your back,
that absurdly grand blade, and a suspiciously large amount of hard
cash?

‘Uh, no. I
thought I’d arrange a horse, then buy what I need in the
market,’ Jimmy said. ‘As I said, sir, I don’t want
to delay you.’

‘Not at
all, not at all,’ Jarvis said, giving the lad a hearty slap on
the back. ‘And as I said, I’m in no mad rush. Where are
you bound?’

There was
something about the boy that didn’t ring true. He couldn’t
put his finger on it. But he and his so-called foster-sister, young
as they were, struck him as rather more experienced and less benign
than they were trying to seem. He was intrigued and wanted to know
more.
I always do. It’s one thing that makes me good at my
job,
he thought with flat realism. And it was something of a
bonus that he could indulge his curiosity without going out of his
way. This time. On other occasions, that curiosity had led him into
situations in which someone ended up dead.

Still smarting
from that hearty slap, Jimmy grinned falsely. He would probably be
wise to get away from this fellow. Generally he didn’t trust
back-slappers, thinking them bullies who didn’t quite dare to
show it. But bullies took things from you and yet Coe was falling
over himself in his eagerness to be helpful. It was disconcerting.

‘I’m
just catching up with some friends,’ he said. ‘They left
at dawn.’

‘Ah,’
said Coe, his interest visibly sharpening. ‘I wonder if I know
them. I, too, am late in following a pair of fellows I must speak
with. We’ll share my supplies, my young friend.’ The
stableman brought the two horses over, saddled and ready. ‘Mount
up.’

I’m in
his debt now,
Jimmy thought.
And look to be more so. I hate
debts, but it’s stupid to turn down help when you need it. What
do I know of chasing men through field and wood?
Alleys and
sewers and even Radburn’s dungeons he could manage. In the
countryside he’d be as lost as . . . well, as Lorrie had been
here in town, where even a complete stranger like Jimmy could land on
his feet.

Jimmy considered
the situation.
I could simply run away, but that would attract
attention. Besides, you’re never out of options until you’re
dead,
he thought. He could take the chance of travelling with Coe
and see what happened. If things looked dicey he could stop somewhere
with people in sight and say they were his friends. Or, if worst came
to worst, he could make for the woods and hide. He was good at hiding
and climbing.

How much harder
could it be to hide in a thicket of trees than in an alley?

He was
suspicious of the man, but then again, suspicion was his response to
every new face. Coe had helped him, with the wristband that had
stopped Jimmy’s seasickness, and had given them good advice on
where to stay in Land’s End. One of the things he’d
learned in last night’s ramble was that The Cockerel was indeed
as bad a place as any in Krondor. He and Flora hadn’t needed
the warning, but Jarvis Coe wouldn’t know that. In fact, the
man had nothing to gain from either act, because he had no reason to
expect to ever see Jimmy again.

And I’m
curious about him. Curiosity is one of the very things that makes me
a good thief and, damnit, it’ll make this chase after Lorrie’s
little brother less boring.
After all, he’d been wondering
what he would do if he did catch up with the kidnappers.

Well
he’d
told himself,
I’m a thief. I’ll steal the boy back.

But that was
bravado and he knew it. One of the things Jimmy was learning of late
was that he really couldn’t do everything he imagined, just
most of it. Facing one hardened man with sword in hand was worrisome.
Facing two, well, that was just plain stupid. If he could enlist Coe
then maybe he might actually stand a chance of saving Rip.

There was
something about the man that didn’t quite ring true, but
Jimmy’s instincts told him that Coe was all right. Secretive,
perhaps, even hiding his true reasons as much as Jimmy was, but not
bad. Living as he had in Krondor, bad was something the young thief
could sense without thinking and nine times out of ten, he’d be
right. His bump of trouble just didn’t react to Coe.

What really
worried him was who Jarvis Coe was trying to catch up with. For a
brief instant Jimmy considered that he might be a colleague of the
two who had kidnapped Rip. Then he shoved the thought aside: had that
been the case, Jimmy’s bump of trouble would be positively
throbbing.

The stableman
cleared his throat; Coe was looking at him with a cocked eyebrow.

‘Sorry,’
he said. ‘Thinking.’

One of the
stable’s lackeys linked his hands. Jimmy looked at them, then
at the tall horse, and put his foot into them. Not that he needed a
step up, but he’d observed that ordinary folk got a little
disturbed when you exhibited excessive agility.

The stablehand
was thick-armed. He also surprised Jimmy by the strength he employed
giving him a leg up, almost tossing him right over the horse. Had the
thief been less agile that’s exactly what would have happened.
He glared at the man, who shrugged and grinned, almost looking
disappointed.