Legends of the Riftwar (77 page)

‘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 finding 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 Crown 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.

‘We were attacked by street boys,' Jimmy chattered on–over-explaining made guilt look more plausible. ‘They stole our clothes and pushed us in a sty. The maid at home gave us some coins to get cleaned up. Please, sir, my mother is very strict and she'll be very, very angry if we go home in this condition.' Jimmy had always been good at mimicry, and the time spent with Prince Arutha and Princess Anita had given him a wealth of new ways to speak when he needed. He sounded plausible in the role of the son of a minor noble or rich merchant. As long as Larry remembered to keep his mouth shut.

He and Larry had more than enough scrapes and bruises to make their story seem authentic. Knocking about in dark sewers and climbing walls and houses had added a good share of cuts as well.

‘Go on through,' the doorwarden said. ‘You can use the baths, but rinse off good first. You'll have to find your own clothes–this isn't a tailor's shop, lads.'

They went through; the doorwarden spoke a few words in the ear of the woman who sat by bathers' clothes so they wouldn't be lifted, and her scowl cleared a bit.