Jimmy the Hand. Raymond E. Feist

He stretched luxuriously, rose and put on clean clothes – or rather, the well-aired rags he’d left in this room the last time he’d slept here – and descended the stairs. Instinct made him walk close to the wall, where the boards were less likely to creak. On the whole he liked growing up, but there was no denying it made you heavier, and he was conscientious about learning to make skill compensate for the additional poundage.

      ‘If ye’re lookin’ for breakfast ye can look elsewhere,’ said his landlady. She was a toothless beldame who glared at him with rheumy eyes. ‘Ye know I’ve nothing for ye at this hour.’

      ‘I wouldn’t think of asking you to trouble yourself,’ Jimmy said gallantly. He smiled. ‘I needed the sleep more than the breakfast anyway.’

      ‘At your age?’ the old woman sneered.

      ‘It was a long trip this time,’ Jimmy said.

      And indeed it was, into a whole other world in its way. But now it was time to get back to business. First he would stop at Mocker’s Rest and see what was happening. Then he could start the planning stages of something bigger than picking pockets.

      He’d been apprenticed to Long Charlie for the last few months, though that apprenticeship had been suspended the night Jimmy had caught sight of Prince Arutha attempting to flee Jocko Radburn himself.

      The Prince, his Huntmaster – Martin Longbow – and Amos Trask – the legendary Trenchard the Pirate – had come secretly into the city a few days earlier before Jimmy’s encounter with the Prince. They had tried to hide their presence but from Jimmy’s point of view they stood out like red bulls in a sheep fold. By the time Jimmy had chanced across Radburn pursuing Arutha, the Upright Man had put the word out to pick up these three newcomers.

      Jimmy had known something was up between the smugglers and Mockers, something beyond their usual uneasy truce, for Trevor Hull’s men had come and gone in areas of the sewer that were clearly Mockers’ territory, but as he was only a boy, albeit a very talented one, he was not privy to the secret of the Princess’s escape from the keep.

      Finding Arutha had changed that, and had plunged Jimmy into the heart of a conspiracy that had ended the night before with Anita, Arutha, and his companions successfully making their escape. He had not only become a conspirator but had become a companion to both Prince Arutha and Princess Anita while they awaited their opportunity for escape. He had played his part, earned royal thanks, and found within himself a sense of something larger than himself for the first time in his young life.

      Such triumphs left Jimmy in no mood to return to apprenticeship, opening practice-locks while Long Charlie looked over his shoulder. Besides, he’d long since caught the knack of lock-picking and the samples he’d seen didn’t look as if they’d offer any challenge. Frankly, the training he was getting was boring and Jimmy knew in his heart that he was meant for more exciting things. Sometimes it seemed that Charlie was just giving him tedious work to keep Jimmy out of his hair. Even before the adventure with Arutha and Anita, Jimmy had made up his mind to request a new mentor. Life is too short to wait for what I’m entitled to, he thought.

      One thing he should do today was steal some more respectable-looking clothes. The ones he was wearing smelled bad, even to himself.

      Or I could buy some, just for a change, he thought. But first, a money-changer.

      The changer worked out of a narrow shop in an alley, denoted by a pair of scales on a sign above the door; the paint was so faded that only a hint of gold peeped through the grime. Jimmy hopped over the trickle of filth down the centre of the alley, nodded to the basher who stood just outside, polishing the brickwork with his shoulder, and pushed through the door. The basher would find a reason to delay any citizen from entering the shop whenever a Mocker was inside.

      Ference, the money-changer, looked up and said, ‘Ah, Jimmy! What can I do for you?’

      Jimmy reached inside his tunic and pulled out his coin pouch, and with a quick flip of his wrist, rolled half a dozen coins on the counter. The others were safely hidden on top of a ceiling beam in his room.

      ‘Gold?’ Ference said, looking at the thumbnail-sized coins Jimmy shoved across the smooth wood of the table.

      The money-changer was a middle-aged man with a thin, lined face and the sort of squint you got from fretting about your strongbox when you should be sleeping. He dressed with the sort of sombre respectability a prosperous storekeeper might affect.

      ‘Getting ambitious, are you, Jimmy lad?’

       ‘Honestly earned,’ Jimmy said, ‘for a change.’ And it was even true, for once.

      He kept a close eye on the scales as Prince Arutha’s coins turned into a jingling heap of worn and much less conspicuous silver and copper. The Upright Man’s regulations kept men like Ference moderately honest – broken arms were the usual first-time penalty for changers or fences shorting Mockers, and then it got really nasty – but it never hurt to be self-reliant.

      ‘There,’ the changer said at last. ‘That’ll attract a lot less attention.’

      ‘Just what I thought,’ Jimmy said, smiling a little to himself.

      He bought a money-belt to hold it – too big a jingling purse was conspicuous too – and wandered out into the street.

      ‘Pork pies! Pork pies!’ he heard, and the words brought a flood of saliva into his mouth; he had missed breakfast. ‘Two of your best, Mistress Pease,’ he said grandly.

      The pie-seller put down the handles of her pushcart and brought out two; they were still warm, and the smell made his nose twitch. What was more, Mistress Pease’s pork pies were actually made from pork, not of rabbit, cat, or the even less savoury concoctions you got from some vendors. He bit into one.

      ‘Feeling prosperous, I see,’ she said, as he handed over four coppers.

      ‘Hard work and clean living, Mistress,’ he replied; she shook all over as she laughed.

      Well, a thin cook wouldn’t be much of an advertisement, would she? he thought.

      He washed the pies down with a flagon of cider bought from a nearby vendor, and sat in the sun belching contentedly, his back against the stone-coping of a well.

      He was just licking his fingers when a pebble hit the top of his head.

      Ouch, he thought, and looked up.

       Long Charlie’s cadaverous face peered around a gable. His hands moved: Report to Mocker’s Rest, he said in the signing can’t. Right now. No delay, no excuses.

      Jimmy swigged back the rest of the cider and hastily returned his flagon to the vendor with polite thanks. Then he headed for the nearest alley.

      Once in the sewers he moved at a confident jog – even through the pitch-black places, of which there were many – and passed the guards the Mockers had stationed at various locations, who seemed unusually alert today. Not that they were ever less than wide-awake; sleeping or getting drunk on guard duty could get you badly hurt or seriously dead.

      The smell was homelike, though ripe; Jimmy flicked his toe aside and sent a rat more belligerent than most flying through the air. Its squeal ended with a sodden thud – you had to be careful about the ones that didn’t run away, chances were they were sick with something. Jimmy had seen a man foaming at the mouth from a rat bite and it wasn’t a sight he would quickly forget.

      The Rest was like a kicked anthill, all swarming movement – although ants didn’t produce that sort of din, or wave their arms so that you nearly got clouted in the face walking through. Agitated people moved quickly from group to group; everyone seemed to be talking at once. He spied a boy he knew standing apart and went over to him. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

      The boy, dubbed Larry the Ear because his were enormous, stood tense as a bowstring watching the frantic activity. He spoke to Jimmy without taking his eyes from the scene before them. ‘Bas-Tyra’s men are arresting the girls