Jimmy the Hand (46 page)

Run!
she
told herself: the children were already ducking back into the wall,
and the mercenaries heaving themselves up. She did; careered off a
wall, and then down a shorter corridor and down a flight of stairs.

‘This
way!’ Jarvis Coe cried, charging up a curling stairway.

‘Right
behind you,’ Jimmy panted. Running through a lord’s house
at night wasn’t anything particularly new to him, but the
feeling of tension behind his eyes was getting worse. ‘You can
deal with this magician, I hope?’

‘I have
bindings,’ Coe replied. ‘Leave him to me.’

‘Oh, no
argument.’

‘I can
feel what he’s doing. By the Goddess! There isn’t much
time.’

They ran down a
long corridor and whisperings seemed to follow them. Now Jimmy could
hear a voice rising, muffled as if by a door, but harsh and
commanding, the words dropping like syllables of burning ash.

Oh, I really
don’t want to meet this man,
Jimmy thought, and kept
running. Except for Alban Asher, every encounter with a magician
recounted by members of the Mockers had ended badly—if anyone
distrusted and feared magicians more than thieves, Jimmy couldn’t
imagine who they might be.

They turned
right. A door stood a dozen feet in from the turning, and two men
stood before it, swords drawn: a big dark man and a slight skinny
one; they both moved forward a little.

Jarvis Coe
didn’t waste any time; he went straight at them in a lunge,
point extended. The big dark man beat the sword aside, then tried to
kick Coe in the knee as the blades locked. Coe let the kick glance
off the side of his leg, and rammed the big man in the pit of his
stomach with his shoulder, throwing him back against the door and
stumbling into the room beyond.

‘Hurry
up!’ a young man shouted from the room. ‘For the love of
the gods, hurry up!’

Jimmy didn’t
bother to watch any more than that: the thin mercenary was coming at
him, sword in his right hand, a long knife in the other, knife-hand
advanced over the same foot. The young thief frantically tried to
remember everything Prince Arutha had told him, all at once and
without using words.

‘Skinny’s
gonna carve you up proper, me good son,’ the scrawny mercenary
said. ‘Come to poppa, yer little bastard, an’ get a
spankin’!’

‘Help!’
the young man’s voice in the room beyond shouted. Steel clashed
in the room. ‘Get me out of this!’

Skinny made a
walking thrust—stepping forward and lunging at the same time
which gave him tremendous reach. Jimmy didn’t try to back up:
instead, he used his shorter stature to lift the other man’s
sword-thrust and went in under it, trying to run him through the
throat. That didn’t work: the rapier went up over the
mercenary’s shoulder, and the hilts locked. Jimmy twisted
desperately as the dagger in the soldier’s other hand stabbed,
and then they were chest-to-chest, with the knife-arm trapped against
Jimmy’s side by his own.

Not good,
Jimmy thought, as he tried to knee the older man in the groin, and
hit his thigh instead.
He’s a lot stronger than I am.

They circled for
an instant, with breath nearly as bad as Foul ol’ Ron’s
issuing from the mercenary, and then Jimmy managed to stamp downward
and land his heel on the other man’s instep. Skinny howled and
pushed. Jimmy bounded backward – and found himself inside the
room beyond the door; they’d got turned completely around
without his noticing.

The room was
brighter than the corridor outside. Jimmy took the situation in with
a single flashing glance even as he gave more ground and then lunged
with a stop-thrust that nearly spitted the eager Skinny. He backed
off in turn and they circled, Skinny on the outside, Jimmy turning on
his back leg, left hand on hip, point presented from a turned wrist
as the Prince had taught him.

There was a man
in a rich coat and breeches standing with a curved knife above a
naked young man—who must be Bram. Bram had a red line painted
down his centre, shouted too. ‘Five thousand gold crowns if you
can keep them off!’ the man screamed. ‘Five thousand—a
free pardon, and five thousand!’

Even then, Jimmy
felt his eyes grow wider.
I could buy this manor house with five
thousand.

Skinny thought
the same. He bounced forward again, grinning even wider, and a
trickle of saliva ran down from one corner of his mouth.

Through it all,
the chanting ran like millstones grinding at the foundations of the
world.

Flora turned a
corner, and shrieked. Lorrie was at the other end of it, limping
toward her—and the guard she’d stabbed in the leg was
limping after Lorrie!

What to do,
what to do?
Flora thought. Then she shouted, ‘Lorrie! Turn
right at the door in the middle of the corridor!’

They sped toward
each other, and the cries of the pursuers rose to a baying eagerness.
The two girls almost collided; then they threw their shoulders
against the door together, swung through, slammed it closed again.

The room was a
sleeping chamber, with four double bunk beds, empty except for a clay
lamp burning on a table and a single wooden chair. Flora’s eyes
searched frantically. ‘Get me that chair! We can prop it
against the door!’

Lorrie tried to
dash for it, nearly fell as her leg buckled, grabbed the chair and
came back dragging it. Flora was reaching for the chair as the door
slammed open and together she and Lorrie tried to hold it closed, but
the weight of the guardsmen threw them back with brutal force.

The door swung
open, and two men crowded each other as they tried to push through at
the same time. Flora staggered back until the table struck her
buttocks. She threw her hands back on either side to keep from
falling and splinters bit painfully at her palms. The men were
raving: mouths spewing hate and frustration, their beards glistening
with the flaxseed oil from the jars the children had thrown . . .

Flora’s
mind moved quickly, but everything else seemed very slow. She
half-turned and picked up the clay lamp, careful not to douse the
wick by grabbing it too hard. Then she took two steps forward and
threw it, watching as it turned to spray the spirits of wine from its
reservoir into the men’s faces.

The oil caught
at once: not a flare of flame like pine resin, but quick enough, the
flames yellow and thick in their hair and beards. Both men seemed to
dance in place, screaming as they beat at their own faces and the
fire spread to the oil-soaked cloth and leather on their bodies.
Flora stood stock-still, watching with wide eyes.

Lorrie took a
step past her, stooped to lift one of the swords the men had dropped,
grabbed it in a clumsy two-handed grip and swung it over and over
again. Her aim was sure, though.

I suppose
she’s helped butcher a lot of pigs,
Flora thought.

The men went
down, twitching and moaning. Lorrie stood panting, the bloody sword
in her hand.

The last
mercenary stood watching his friends burn, and the sword dropped from
his hand. His mouth worked as he backed away from the two women; then
he turned to run.

His shins hit
Kay’s back at precisely the right height, and he catapulted
forward and struck the flagstones with his face. From behind Kay,
Mandy stepped forward, a poker in her hand; behind her Neesa came
with a candlestick, and Rip with another, heavier one.

I’m
getting tired of this,
Jimmy thought.

The twin points
glittered as they moved. Skinny had a slight bleeding cut over one
knee, but it just seemed to make him madder. ‘My gold,’
he wheezed, as he came forward again.

‘I’ll
handle him,’ Jarvis Coe said, stepping in beside him.

Skinny and Jimmy
both glanced aside. Rox lay slumped against the wall, legs straight
out in front of him, looking down as he clutched at his belly with
both hands. Blood flowed out between his fingers.

‘You get
the sacrifice free!’ Coe barked. ‘Goddess, this is like
trying to block four holes with one plug!’

Skinny screamed
something and attacked; Jimmy skipped aside willingly.

It was a big
room, and the one beyond it was even bigger. Jimmy needed six paces
to reach the magician who stood at the foot of the table, hands
raised. There was a crawling nimbus about him, more like darkness in
a man’s shape than anything else. He leapt forward in an
immaculate long-lunge.

Can’t
chant with two feet of steel through his lungs,
he reasoned.

One of the
upraised hands moved. Light exploded behind Jimmy’s eyes, and
he screamed in anguish.

‘No!’
Bram howled, as the lad with the rapier staggered backward. ‘No,
no, no!’

The old man
raised his curved knife, and the magician chanted.

Bram could feel
a wind blowing—a wind of rage, and suddenly of air as well.
There was a rushing, a woman’s scream that came from everywhere
and nowhere.

‘Now!’
the magician thundered. ‘Now! Strike!’

And the silk
flew from Bram’s face. He looked up into the wrinkled face of
the man who would kill him, and snarled defiance.

The knife
dropped, despite the magician’s howls. ‘Zakry?’ he
whispered.

Who?
Bram
wondered, suddenly shocked out of his fear and anger. He’d
never seen such pain as that on the age-scored face above him: the
man’s features writhed, and tears trickled down the cheeks.

‘Zakry!
Zakry’s son. It was true! Elaine, you whore! You bitch!’

‘She’s
dead,’ another voice sighed. ‘Oh, damnation. You waited
too long.’

I am dead!

That rang
through Bram’s head like the tocsin of a great bronze bell.
There was a figure standing before the lord now. He could hear its
voice, not so loud, but echoing as if it made his bones vibrate in
sympathy.

Seventeen
years dying! Seventeen years, dying every minute. You killed me! You
killed my Zakry, my darling, the father of my son! You tried to kill
my child, too, but I stopped you, you monster!

‘Whore,’
the old man wheezed. ‘Seventeen years I lived for nothing save
to bring you back, and now I see Zakry told me the truth. You were
his lover and this was his child! How I hate you!’ He raised
the dagger and struck at the insubstantial figure before him.

Its mouth gaped,
emitting an endless dolorous wail that made Bram want to smash his
own head against the stone table beneath him, if only that would stop
it. The knife flashed again, and again.

Jimmy the Hand
wheezed with a pain so great that he couldn’t even scream.
There was a scream going on, and it blew through him like a wind,
like the agony of death stretched out to years. His vision had
cleared a little, though, and he knew that he’d feel no more
pain—or anything else, ever again—if he didn’t move
in the next moment.

There.
The glitter of steel. He turned and lunged.

The effort hurt,
but it cleared his head. He saw Baron Bernarr dodge, leaping backward
to avoid the point of the rapier. That took him nearly to the window.

The window had
been made as an archer’s position: the man-width slit at the
outer edge of the wall had sloping sides on all edges of the inner,
so that the bowman could shoot to either side. The sill caught at his
heels and he toppled backward, the knife glittering as he dropped it
so that it landed point-down in the floorboards. But that allowed him
to grip the smooth slanted stone and hold himself there with the
friction of his palms. Then he struggled to get a leg behind himself
and push his body upright.

Something came
between the Baron and Jimmy. Jimmy thought it was a woman, but his
head was still hurting too much to be sure; and he also thought he
could see the Baron through it.

It screamed, and
Jimmy dropped his sword to clutch at his head. He saw the older man’s
hands fly up likewise, and the O of his mouth as he fell backward and
out of the window with a long scream, smashing through the fragile,
costly glass and tumbling away into the lightning-shot night.

‘Fifty
feet down, onto stone,’ Jimmy wheezed, bending and scrambling
for the hilt of his rapier.

A huge weight
seemed to have been lifted from his shoulders—or from the
inside of his head. The night blew in through the shattered glass,
and the black candles flickered out. Ten feet away Skinny goggled at
him, and then slipped backward. Blood spurted as he pulled his throat
off the point of Jarvis Coe’s sword.

A sigh cut
through the silence.

The magician at
Bram’s feet shook his head, and tucked his hands into the
sleeves of his robe. ‘It seems I must seek another patron for
my . . . art,’ he said, his voice whimsical and light. He
raised his hand and suddenly he was gone.

Coe looked at
the space the magician had occupied a moment before and swore. Jimmy
didn’t recognize the language, but the tone was unmistakable.

Behind him,
Flora came into the room, supporting Lorrie; but the farmer’s
daughter shook herself free and hobbled toward Bram with her brother
dancing behind her.

Bram raised his
head and looked at all of them. ‘Will someone please cut me
loose?’ he asked plaintively. ‘And get me some breeches!’

Jimmy the Hand
reined in and looked back down the road. There were enough people
around the doors of the manor for the buzz of their voices to be
audible even half a mile away. He shook his head ruefully and patted
the hilt of the rapier slung at his saddlebow. ‘So much for
minstrels,’ he said, taking a deep breath of the cool spring
air.

Gulls flew
through the air above, reminding him of home with an ache whose pain
surprised him.

He and Coe rode,
while Flora drove the dog-cart. Lorrie had elected to stay with Bram
and the children, who were going to travel to Land’s End in an
old wagon from the Baron’s stable. They had taken enough time
for Jimmy to explain to Flora who Coe really was, while hiding the
truth from the others. Jimmy felt Flora needed to know the whole
truth, but decided against mentioning Coe’s real identity to
Bram, Lorrie and the others. He didn’t know why, except it
seemed the Mocker’s way to keep things from outsiders.