Jimmy the Hand (13 page)

Flora’s
lips thinned. ‘Well, the way my Pa turned out after my mother
died I could hardly blame him for that, now could I?’

Jimmy
sidestepped the issue of how her father had become a brawling drunk
by asking, ‘Is that why you didn’t go to Land’s End
after he died?’

With a grimace
Flora shook her head. ‘I was only nine years old, Jimmy. I had
no money and no idea how to get there.’ She shrugged, giving
him a wry smile. ‘And the only people I ever knew were here.’

‘So you
know how I feel,’ he said.

Flora smiled at
him. ‘I know.’ Then she put her hand over his and
squeezed it. ‘Maybe after supper I can make you feel better.’

Smiling wryly he
raised his brows and sighed. At least someone was getting a free
supper tonight.

Well, I do
feel better,
he thought, a few hours later, stretching and
smiling smugly as his eyes opened again; the candle was guttering
near its finish, casting patterns of shadow on the ceiling.
A lot
better.

He’d
brought her to his best place; a half-ruined house with one very good
room that he’d done up. Jimmy opened his eyes all the way,
stretched again, yawned, and turned—only to find her gone. His
sense of well-being undiminished, he crossed his arms beneath his
head and remembered.

Just before they
went to sleep she had thanked him.

He grinned.
I’m
a hero and no mistake, by the gods,
he thought.

Suddenly the
door opened and he jumped up, clutching the sheets.

‘Good
morning!’ Flora sang.

‘I thought
you’d gone,’ Jimmy said, one hand over his galloping
heart and the other slipping a dagger back under the pillow.

‘You’re
not going to get rid of me that easily,’ she said, laughing.

She pulled off
her shawl. Hidden within its folds was a loaf of raisin-studded
bread. Saliva rushed into his mouth at the smell of it, sweet and
yeasty at the same time. She extracted a pot of honey out of one
pocket and a slab of butter, wrapped in a handkerchief, from the
other.

‘Where did
you buy that?’ Jimmy asked; there wasn’t a market near
this place, or a bakery.

‘Buy?’
she asked in astonishment. ‘I’m not as good as you are,
Jimmy the Hand, but I made my name stealing baked goods, I’ll
remind you!’

True,
he
thought.

Jimmy rose from
the bed, wrapping a sheet around himself, smiling when Flora laughed
at his sudden modesty. She sliced the bread while he poured out the
rest of the wine they’d brought home the night before and they
sat down to the important business of filling their stomachs.

After they’d
eaten breakfast, things began to happen with the honey and the butter
and they soon ended up in bed again.

As they lay
quietly in one another’s arms Flora said, ‘I found out
where Land’s End is.’

Her words cut
through him like a knot of buzzing insects briefly invading his
middle. He suddenly knew this wasn’t going to turn out well.

‘It’s
south,’ she went on when he said nothing. ‘Near the Vale
of Dreams.’

Thank you,
he thought a little sourly.
Here I’d just managed to
pleasantly forget I’m leaving Krondor an exile, and you went
and reminded me.

When Flora spoke
her voice held a little irritation; Jimmy felt a brief stab of guilt.
She’s only trying to help, after all,
he thought.

‘It takes
five days to sail there,’ she said, looking across at him. When
he didn’t answer and wouldn’t meet her eyes she went on,
‘The fare is four silvers, apiece, to go by ship if we sleep in
the hold. They got cabins, but they’re all full of people
sailing past Land’s End, on to Great Kesh.’

After a
prolonged silence, during which he could feel her eyes giving him
sunburn, Jimmy looked at her sidelong. ‘How much by coach?’
he mumbled grudgingly.

‘There’s
a ship that sails today at high tide.’

‘Four
silvers is pretty steep,’ he snarled. ‘Didn’t it
occur to you to bargain?’

Flora turned a
scalding glare on him. ‘Yes, Jimmy, it did occur to me. That’s
why it’s not six. All right?’

The way she was
looking at him, it had better be all right. He changed the subject.

‘When’s
high tide?’ he asked. He should know: he’d lived in a
seaport town all his life, but had only the vaguest notion, since the
knowledge was of no great use to a thief who didn’t work the
docks.

Flora stretched
luxuriously before answering — the sight of which improved his
mood somewhat. ‘In about three or four hours, I’d say,’
she answered.

‘Well if
we’re supposed to be on this ship we’d better get
ourselves organized,’ Jimmy said.

‘I know
you don’t want to go,’ Flora said suddenly, her eyes
sympathetic.

He smiled at
her, appreciating her understanding, and leaned over to give her a
kiss. ‘But I have to,’ he said. ‘Thank you for
doing what I probably wouldn’t have got around to until
tomorrow.’ He considered her. ‘We should probably get you
some new clothes, don’t you think?’

She frowned.
‘Why? Most of my things are spanking new.’

‘Ah,
true,’ he said, somewhat taken aback.

It hadn’t
occurred to him that Flora would want to keep her new dresses. They
were cheap and flashy and left the observer in no doubt at all as to
what she did for a living. Yet, here she was talking about finding
her lost family while wearing them. How should he phrase this?

‘But,
they, um, they’re a bit, ah, fancy for a little place like
Land’s End. Don’t you think? What’s fashionable
here in Krondor might be too daring for your grandfather. Especially
if he’s the disapproving type.’

Flora stared at
him with her mouth open, then burst into delighted laughter, kicking
her slim legs in the air, while he watched her in puzzled surprise.
Every time she looked at his confused expression she went off again
and it was a while before she stopped gasping and could say, ‘Oh,
Jimmy, you’re such a dear!’ She gave him a fierce kiss.
‘There you are twisting yourself into knots to keep from
saying, “But, Flora, you dress like a whore!” I can’t
remember when someone last took my feelings into consideration like
that. You’re a true friend.’

Greatly
relieved, he smiled. ‘I’m glad you approve.’

‘I do,’
she said, getting up. ‘I hadn’t even thought of it. But
now I do think of it you’re absolutely right. Only, what am I
going to tell him about how I’ve been making my living the last
few years?’

‘Does he
know your father is dead?’ Jimmy asked.

‘Well he
certainly didn’t hear it from me,’ she said. ‘But I
can’t take the chance that he doesn’t know. That kind of
news has a way of travelling.’

‘Let’s
see . . .’ He thought a moment. ‘How about this? You
lived with a neighbour family for a few years after your Pa died,
working at chores for your keep. Then a kind old lady with a little
gold took you in and you’ve been her companion the last few
years—you still know how to talk like a swell, so if you don’t
fall into street cant, they’ll never know it’s a story.

‘Anyway,
now the old lady’s died and her relatives wouldn’t make a
place for you. But they did pay your fare to Land’s End so that
you could find your mother’s family. What about your father?
Did he have family there?’

Flora shook her
head as she did up her laces. ‘If he did he never spoke of
them. Come to think of it, he never spoke much at all, even when Ma
was alive.’

Jimmy took a
handful of silver and gave it to her. ‘Go disguise yourself as
a companion to a nice old lady,’ he said. ‘What ship is
it that we’ll be taking?’

‘
Krondor’s
Lady,’
Flora said, counting with expert speed. ‘Jimmy,
I can’t take all this!’

‘Well, you
don’t have to spend it all. Don’t worry about it. After
all, I need you for my disguise, namely the younger brother of a nice
girl who was companion to an old lady. I’ve got to get some
newer clothing, and then I’ll meet you on the docks,’ he
said and gave her a quick kiss. ‘See you at high tide.’

She fled through
the door, eager to be shopping, leaving Jimmy to finish dressing
alone. As he pulled on his trousers, he thought he might find a
tailor who could quickly provide him with a reputable-looking coat to
wear over his second-newest shirt—the one he had purchased
while he and Larry had bathed had to be burned after the second crawl
through the sewer drain below the cell. He should also wear boots and
a hat, he thought.

Yes, a young
couple . . . no, he still looked too young. Flora was a few years
older, so a grieving girl and her younger brother, yes, that would be
it. On their way to Land’s End because of a family loss.

Suddenly he was
a great deal more sanguine about bringing Flora along than he had
been a few minutes earlier. Silver was precious, but not as dear as
his neck—which del Garza would happily stretch—or his
head—which the Upright Man’s bashers would happily
club—so it wasn’t a bad deal. Yes, brother and sister on
their way to visit Grandpa. Besides, she filled his bed better than
any girl he knew, and he thought that might be a welcome relief
during exile. He was almost whistling when he left the flop. Then he
stopped himself.
When did ‘I’ become ‘we’?
he thought to himself.
I’m the one the Upright Man is
running out of the city; Flora’s free to stay here.
As he
headed down the stairs he considered that he had never invited her to
come with him and she had never asked his permission. It was just,
somehow, done. Shaking his head in wonder, he realized he was now
beginning to understand what some of the older men in the Mockers
meant when they said they could bloody well do anything they pleased,
so long as it was what their wives wanted them to do.

He turned his
mind away from irritation and back to the soft feel of Flora’s
skin and her round rump and suddenly it didn’t seem too big a
price to pay, letting her have her way. He was back to almost
whistling when he reached the street.

Krondor’s
Lady was old and small and tubby; about a hundred feet long and
thirty wide amidships. The smell filtering up from the bilges made
her more than a little homelike, to one who’d spent a lot of
time in the sewers.

It had proven
surprisingly easy to get aboard. While most of the guards on the
docks were Bas-Tyra men,
Krondor’s Lady
was under the
watch of some of the Sheriff’s Crushers, as the constables were
known. A quick story about visiting grandpa, with Flora looking
genuinely distressed—not entirely an act after her stint in the
gaol—and they were allowed aboard. Jimmy was thankful for the
change of clothing both had elected earlier that day. One glance at
the sword at his hip and the constable had judged him a young man
from a family of means.

Flora had gone
below to see where they were being permitted to sleep, while Jimmy
remained on deck to watch the departure.

‘You make
this run often?’ Jimmy asked a sailor, dodging a group of
others who went running by with a roll of canvas, obviously ready to
kick the annoying deck passenger out of the way.

‘Two,
three times a year,’ the sailor said, doing something nautical
involving two pieces of rope and a knife, his fingers running on with
an automatic nimbleness. ‘Usually not so early. Storms,
y’know.’

‘Oh,’
Jimmy said hollowly.

A last net of
cargo—bales, boxes and sacks—swung off from the dock and
down into the hold. Sailors hammered home the wedges that held a
grating over the hatchway and did various mysterious things with the
ropes and sails, mostly involving hauling or running up the ratlines
while other sailors screamed at them. The captain was a short
grizzled wiry man, with a gold hoop in his left ear and a missing
little finger on his right hand.

‘Loose
sail!’ he shouted from the rear of the ship. Canvas thundered
down and bellied out into brown patched curves. ‘Cast away
fore, cast away aft, loose all, fend off! Fend off, don’t
tickle the dock, you bitches’ brood!’

Sailors loosed
ropes and pushed at the dock with long two-man oars. Jimmy swallowed
and watched as the roofs of Krondor began to slip away, and the deck
took on a slight rocking motion under his feet. A cold clammy feeling
settled in his stomach.

Up on the
sterncastle the harbour pilot directed the helmsman, while the
captain kept shouting orders to his crew.

I’m
leaving Krondor,
he thought. It didn’t seem quite real; it
was as if he’d just said to himself
I’m going to the
moon.
‘Leaving Krondor’ was always something other
people did.

Like the
Prince and the Princess,
he thought then, which cheered him a
little.
Getting onto a bigger stage, that’s what I’m
doing!

The pilot had
the ship moving gracefully through other ships at anchor or coming in
to the docks. They dodged freighters and long, sleek warships and
fishing-boats and wherries and barges. At some point that was not
significant to Jimmy, the pilot hurried down to the main deck, and
with agility surprising in a man of middle years he swung a leg over
the side and scampered down to a waiting rowboat.

The ship moved
surprisingly slowly as it edged out of the harbour. Jimmy glanced
back to the sterncastle and saw the captain keeping his own hand on
the tiller as he barked orders.

‘Ah,
comin’ on a bit fresher,’ the sailor said.

The sky was
growing clouds, cold and grey-looking. The water turned from blue to
green-grey too, and began to crumple itself up into tall hills that
moved toward him, topped with white foam. The ship’s blunt bow
rose to meet it, dug in and rose again with white foam coming across
the forward railings and swirling ankle-deep across the deck. In what
seemed to Jimmy to be unreasonable haste, the land fell off to
nothing but a dark line to their left, and the rocking-horse motion
of the ship acquired other twists, a curling roll, left forward to
right back.