Jimmy the Hand (45 page)

He smiled and
dropped a long silk scarf over Bram’s features.

‘Wouldn’t
want to leave you out of the festivities, boy,’ he murmured as
he went about his work.

The silk would
hide him from anyone looking, but Bram could see through the gauzy
cloth himself—dimly.

During the brief
moment his eyes were clear, he’d also seen the inscribed
figures drawn around the stone-topped table to which he was bound,
and the black candles that guttered at the points; a rug rolled back
against one wall showed that they were usually covered. Bram had his
letters. He didn’t know what those writhing glyphs were, and
had no wish to know. Looking at them made his eyes hurt, and he
wrenched his gaze away. At the edges of his consciousness, something
giggled and tittered.

‘Let me
loose, you bastard!’ Bram yelled.

‘Silence,’
the man said again; and the pain returned, shooting spikes into his
gut and groin and joints.

Silence it
is,
Bram thought, testing the bindings. Strong leather, from the
feel of them, far stronger than needed for children, and he couldn’t
even rock the stone table; it would take six strong men to lift, or
two with a dolly.

Bad,
he
thought.
Very bad. Help!

Astonishingly,
something touched his face for an instant—something like a
woman’s hand, warm and tender.

Off in the
distance something fell with a crash and a clatter. He could hear a
distant voice howl in pain, and then: ‘It’s the little
bastards again! Get sand, get water, put out the god-damned fire!’

The unimpressive
man with the terrible eyes shrugged.

‘Time to
commence, my lord,’ he said. ‘It’s only an hour
and—’ he looked at a sand-timer, ‘—perhaps
five minutes to the time.’

‘Elaine,’
the older man said.

It was more of a
croon; there was a longing in the word that made the young man take
notice despite the hammering of blood in his temples and the dryness
of his mouth.

Bram could see
the one with the evil eyes, the magician as Bram now thought of him,
pick up a small tool and a pot and he steeled himself for more pain,
but there was only a brief wet coolness, touching him just up from
where his pubic hair began. The magician was chanting under his
breath, in a quick-rising, slow-falling tongue Bram didn’t
recognize.

Another touch,
just a little higher than the first. Bram craned his head up until
his neck creaked, trying to glimpse over the muscled arch of his
chest and see what the man was doing. It took a moment to realize
what was happening; then he began to tug at the restraints again.

A neat line of
red dashes was being painted up the centre of his body, heading for
the breastbone.

‘Why isn’t
there anyone here?’ Flora said, looking around the entrance
hall of the manor.

The great
building should have had someone on duty at the front door, even
though it was just before midnight. Instead there was only the clear
blue flame of an expensive lamp filled with imported scented oil.

‘Just be
glad there isn’t,’ Lorrie said.

They both shed
their wet cloaks—the greasy wool didn’t smell any better
for being soaked through and it just made them chillier now that they
were out of the rain—letting them drop to the floor.

Then: ‘Rip
is here. He’s close—he’s thinking about me!’

‘Where do
we—’ Flora began.

Then she jumped
and squeaked. Beside the great fireplace a section of wood panelling
was swinging outward on smooth, noiseless hinges.

Lorrie’s
hand went to her knife. Then she caught her breath and collapsed onto
one knee despite the twinge in her leg, holding out her arms.

‘Lorrie!’
Rip squealed.

He ran to her so
fast he skidded and didn’t quite bowl her over. Three other
children followed him out. Lorrie gasped.

‘Oh, I’m
sorry,’ Rip said, drawing back. ‘I forgot. Bram told me
you hurt your leg.’

‘Bram!’
Lorrie said. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s
up there.’ That came from a blonde girl about Lorrie’s
age, in a dust-stained frock. She pointed to one corner of the room,
where a stone staircase curled upwards. ‘They took him away,’
she said and her great blue eyes looked haunted. ‘People don’t
come back, when they take them away.’

The other two
children nodded. These two were younger—a boy with a defiant
yet frightened look about him, and a girl who desperately clutched a
doll.

‘We
watched but we couldn’t do anything,’ the little girl
said, taking her thumb out of her mouth. ‘They’re big.’

‘They’ve
got swords!’ the boy said, trying to sound brave, yet revealing
how frightened he truly was.

The younger girl
pointed at Lorrie. ‘She’s got a sword.’ The chubby
finger shifted to Flora. ‘She’s got a sword too.’

‘But
they’re just girls,’ the boy answered, refusing to be
reassured.

‘You shut
up, Kay!’ said the older girl.

Lorrie forced
herself back erect. ‘We do have swords,’ she said,
patting the unused weapon at her side.
Even if neither of us can
use them much. But I’m a dab hand with an axe-handle!

Flora spoke,
leaning down a little. ‘We have something better than swords,’
she said, patting her pocket. ‘Magic!’

The children’s
eyes grew round. ‘There’s magic here,’ Rip said.
‘Bad magic.’

‘Take us
to Bram, then,’ Flora said decisively.

Lorrie went
along; after a moment Flora gave her a shoulder, to help her hop up
the stairs without putting too much strain on the wounded limb. It
seemed to go on forever; she’d never been in a building this
large, or imagined one until she saw Land’s End. That was
intimidating enough, but there was something else that made her teeth
want to chatter, and it wasn’t the lingering chill of her damp
borrowed clothing. Things kept moving out of the corners of her eyes,
things that she couldn’t see but that seemed to be made out of
black wire, things that tittered and gibed and made little lunges
toward her.

And there was a
tension in the air, like before a storm—yet the very walls of
the castle shook to the violence outside, so it couldn’t be
that. Her head felt tight, as if something were stretching it from
the inside, and it would be a relief if it exploded.

‘There,’
Rip whispered at last. ‘I . . . I can tell it’s down
there.’

He pointed down
a long corridor. It was dark with a stone floor, heavy carved wooden
tables along the walls and tapestries that fluttered slightly in the
draught. At the end was a corner, and from beyond that a faint glow
of lamplight.

‘You go,’
Rip said — his head was turned to one side, as if he was
listening to someone. ‘We’ll get ready. They’re
going to hurt Bram really soon now.’

Lorrie nodded, a
little puzzled but trying to focus on the task ahead.

They walked down
the corridor, their boots making thumping sounds on the carpeted
floor. The light grew stronger as they neared the corner; closer, and
she could see it was T-shaped, and she was walking down the long bar.
Light to their right, darkness to their left.

‘That you,
Forten, Sonnart?’ a voice called. ‘You lazy swine, it’s
nearly midnight! You knew you should have been back an hour ago!’

Flora made some
muffled sound, trying to make her voice hoarse, and Lorrie did
likewise. From the sound of the voices, it wasn’t much more
than six feet or so from the corner to where the speaker stood.

Thinking
inarticulate prayers to half a dozen deities, Lorrie dropped back
slightly and ducked her head, taking a deep breath and working her
fingers.

Bram. Think
of Bram.

They turned the
corner; lamps were burning in metal brackets on either side. Four men
lounged in front of a tall closed door of polished wood. Two sat on
benches; the other two stood together, leaning on halberds.

Jarvis Coe
gasped as he drew rein before the wrought iron gate. It was open, but
only a sliver; they had to slow almost to a halt from their pounding
gallop to get through it.

Particularly
since it’s as dark as a yard up a sewer rats’ nest,
Jimmy thought. The saddle had pounded his hams back into pain, and
the rapier had caught him under the ribs with a couple of good whacks
as well; he hadn’t wanted it out of reach if he had to dismount
in a hurry. ‘Something wrong?’ he asked the older man,
peering through the gate at the manor; distance and rain hid
everything but a wavering light from a high window.

‘Very,’
Coe said tightly. ‘We’re late. We’re very late.
Things have already begun.’

They threaded
their way through the entrance and booted the tired horses into an
unwilling canter. They pulled up at the entrance to the manor, next
to a dog cart with a horse patiently enduring the rain. ‘That’s
Flora’s aunt’s horse!’ said Jimmy. ‘I’ve
seen him in the little shed behind the house. Flora and Lorrie must
have come here looking for us!’

‘Or
looking for the young man you encountered,’ said Coe.

The main doors
of the manor were slightly ajar, and Jimmy felt an unwilling grin
curve his lips—Flora hadn’t wasted time, or forgotten all
she’d picked up as a thief before she went into the mattress
trade. They swung down from their saddles, looping the reins over
rings in the low wall that flanked the bridge across the moat.

Might have to
get away in a hurry, he thought.

‘I’ll
go first,’ Coe said, alighting and drawing his blade.

‘You go
first,’ Jimmy agreed, doing likewise.

A muffled shout
came through the outer door of the sacrificial chamber. Bram heard a
man shout in alarm, and the clash of steel on steel, and a high
shriek that could have come only from a woman’s throat, and
then a cry of pain that could have been made by anyone.

The man in the
velvet jacket spoke a sharp command. Skinny and Rox were standing by
the door; one opened an eyehole cover set into it and peered out
cautiously—not wanting to be stabbed through it, probably.

‘Probably
the little rats again, my lord,’ Rox said. ‘Otto’s
down—not bleeding, that I can see. Looks like the others have
taken off after them.’

‘Get out
there, but stay close to the door,’ Baron Bernarr said. ‘Let
no one by, on your life.’ He turned back towards the magician..

‘Timing is
very crucial now, my lord,’ the man with empty eyes said. ‘We
must strike at precisely the right moment; and we will have only a
few seconds while your lady lies between life and death. If you would
take your position?’

Baron Bernarr
came closer; the magician offered him a long curved knife, and he
took it with a disturbing familiarity. The blade was also inscribed
with symbols and, like the ones on the floor the young man could no
longer see, they were somehow obscurely repulsive and unnerving.

‘Be
careful,’ the magician said. ‘The best symbolic
representation of a sharp knife is a sharp knife.’

The other man
chuckled a little, in a perfunctory manner. The way a man laughed at
a joke he’d heard often before.

The room was
cold, but Bram could smell his own sweat, and feel the prickling itch
of it as drops ran gelid down his face and flanks. He’d always
thought himself a brave man—he’d faced dangers before,
fire, flood, a few fights working for caravan-masters—but right
now he suspected he’d be begging and pleading if it wasn’t
so obviously useless.

Lorrie saw the
guard’s eyes go wide as they turned the corner.

‘Hey, you
aren’t Forten and Sonnart,’ the man with the polearm
said. He had a bandage on one hand, from what was probably a burn.

‘Damn me!’
the other halberdier said. ‘It’s a girl!’

Flora blew
across her palm.

The halberdier
collapsed with a limp finality. The two men on the bench sprang up
with yells of alarm, reaching for their swords. Lorrie already had
hers out, both her small hands clenched on the long leather-wrapped
hilt. She managed to get it around in time to hit the head of the
polearm as it stabbed at Flora. Steel clanged on steel, a harsh
unmusical shriek; then her sword slid down the spike on top of the
halberd until it caught in the notch between that and the axe. The
man grinned and twisted his weapon with all the strength of his heavy
arms and shoulders and the sword flew out of Lorrie’s hands and
over his head; his comrades danced aside to let it clatter against
the door behind them.

Then the man
yelled and leapt: Flora had stabbed him in the thigh with her
belt-knife.

‘Run!’
she shouted.

Lorrie did,
half-noticing that Flora had taken the other arm of the T, and that
the two swordsmen were after her—and not catching up, from
their swearing. She ran as fast as she could, gasping every time her
left foot hit the ground. The mercenary behind her was calling out a
mixture of threats and obscenity. A brief glimpse behind showed he
was limping nearly as badly as her.

Race of the
cripples,
she thought, almost grinning.

This is like
being Hotfingers Flora again,
she thought as she ran down the
corridor, glancing from side to side for places to hide.
But I
can’t keep this up.
Booted feet pounded behind her.
They
know the building; I don’t. They’ll trap me.
Breath
was harsh in her throat, and she could feel the acid taste of fear.
I
could be back in Land’s End, eating blueberry tarts and cream
with Aunt Cleora!

Then the booted
feet stopped and she turned to see her pursuers go hurtling
face-forward on the floor. One gashed his left arm on his own sword
as he fell, and howled as they floundered on the carpet. Behind them
a dark cord lay across the corridor. One end was tied to the leg of a
heavy oak sideboard. A panel popped out of the wall, and four small
figures emerged, throwing things—Flora caught the flash of a
silver candlestick. Then pottery crashed, and she could smell the
cooking oil in the jars.