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.
‘I’ll not put those wipe-rags near honest folk’s clothing,’ she said.
‘Take them away and burn them,’ Jimmy instructed, as he and Larry stripped. That was in character; even rags were worth something, and the woman would undoubtedly get a few coppers for them. She nodded and smiled, and Jimmy knew that later that night she would be boiling them clean and selling them to a rag peddler by this time tomorrow.
‘You, boy,’ Jimmy said, beginning to enjoy himself. One of the attendants put down his broom and came over.
‘My brother and I will require new garments,’ Jimmy said loftily. He looked at the boy before him and estimated that he was just between his and Larry’s size. ‘I need you to buy us some new things. Trousers, shirts and linen,’ he instructed. ‘Something just too large to fit you for me, and something just too small to fit you for my brother. We’ll have to do without shoes and stockings, I suppose.’ He glanced at Larry who nodded, a supercilious expression on his face. ‘The colours should be muted,’ he went on, sighing at the confused expression on the boy’s face. ‘Nothing red or orange or patterned,’ he explained.
He counted out five small silvers, more than enough for the items. ‘You may keep the change,’ Jimmy said, ensuring that it would be. ‘And if you hurry back, you shall have this.’ He held up two more silver coins.
‘Thank you, sir,’ the boy said, tugging his forelock, and rushed off.
‘Shall we enjoy the steam room while we wait?’
Larry sniffed his arm and made a face. ‘Yes!’ he said fervently.
Clean and dressed, the two of them headed for the Poor Quarter. They looked respectable enough, like apprentices, perhaps, except for their lack of shoes, so it was reasonable to think themselves fairly safe in the respectable parts of town. But under the circumstances they couldn’t make themselves feel safe, a fact never far from their minds.
In the Poor Quarter their new clothes might raise a passing eyebrow, but it would be obvious from their attitude that they belonged and that the first glance wouldn’t be followed by a second.
Ordinarily, that is. But then, under ordinary circumstances there would be street children and beggars everywhere, and not a few whores plying their trade. Now, as the two boys walked along they found the streets nearly deserted. The few people walking about were mostly grown men, their eyes constantly moving, and from them Jimmy and Larry received a great deal of attention. It felt as if they were surrounded by the secret police.
‘I can’t take this,’ Larry said. ‘I keep expectin’ someone to grab my neck. I’m goin’ to the Rest.’
Jimmy shook his head. ‘Not me. I’ve had enough of sewers for one day. I’m for a drink.’
The younger boy shook his head. ‘Not tonight.’ He looked at Jimmy for a moment. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, and it was almost a question.
Jimmy nodded. ‘Tomorrow.’ He made it sound like a promise.
They separated then, without so much as a backward glance; Larry disappearing into the gloom of an alleyway, Jimmy walking along the street.
As he walked, Jimmy thought.
The mortared collar needs to go, and we’ve got to do it some way that won’t draw the guards. That was easier said than done. Drugs? he wondered. It would have to be something potent, to make them oblivious to the noise of stonework.
But there was no way to get to the guards without going to gaol, wherein getting at the guards was problematic at best.
Deep down an idea stirred. Too formless yet to grasp, Jimmy let it go and simply followed his feet, trying not to think at all. He’d found that sometimes ideas were like that, they’d flee if you pursued them, but they just might come to you if you just left them be.
He walked along, hands in his pockets, eyes on his bare toes, listening to the sounds around him for quite a while, and quite a way. Finally he stopped and looked up to find himself before a tavern. There wasn’t a sign, unless you counted the anatomically-based scratchings on the once-plastered wall, but there was a withered bunch of branches pinned above the door. That let out the noise of voices, the smell of rushes not changed in a long time, and much spilled beer.
Ah, yes, he grinned, and went in. Where else? My feet are smarter than my head tonight; they’ve led me straight to the place I want. It wasn’t until this moment that Jimmy realized that what he really needed was magic. How else were they going to do it? And where else in Krondor would he find a magician willing to help him? Nowhere else.
And there was only one magician within a week’s travel who wouldn’t ask too many questions first, or tell someone else: Asher.
The few magicians in the principality with enough power or wealth to avoid being hunted down by locals for perceived curses–dead calves, curdled milk, crops to fail–all tended to keep to themselves. There was a three-storey stone house with a courtyard, near the southeastern gate to the city, that was reputed to be the occasional home of a powerful mage, but each time Jimmy had passed it, he could detect no signs of life. From time to time word would spread through the city that a travelling magician was stopping at this or that inn, and whether they were willing to trade services or magical goods for gold, but that was a rare event.
No, Asher was unique: a magician and a drunk. And from what was rumoured, one who also liked to gamble and enjoy the company of women less than half his age. So he kept permanent residence in the part of the city where no one had calves to stillbirth, milk to curdle, or crops to fail. With so few prosperous undertakings in the Poor Quarter, there was scarcely any reason to seek someone else to blame for failure. Failure was a daily fact of life here.
The tavern had seen better days; the booth-like ‘snugs’ tucked into the corner were too fancy for its present clientele, most of whom sat on their knife scabbards as they threw dice, to keep themselves conscious of where the hilts were.
Jimmy looked into the farthest corner in the place and his grin grew wider. But then finding Alban Asher in this tavern was as reliable as finding bad ale in a dirty mug. Jimmy had never seen him anywhere but in his cobwebbed corner. For all the young thief knew he’d grown roots there. But then, Asher didn’t need to go anywhere. The world came to him. Despite being an old sot, compulsive gambler and womanizer, if he was sober enough, the spells he sold worked very well indeed. Jimmy had heard of a few failures, but they were more a disappointment than a disaster. Certainly not enough to put off any potential business. Besides, where else would one go in the principality to find a magician willing to sell magic for enough gold to get drunk on, sit down at a card game, or convince a young girl to bed someone her grandfather’s age?
Jimmy got himself a mug of ale and acquired a cup of the tavern’s best wine. Which smelled raw enough to strip tar, and though he wasn’t the most fastidious fellow in the city, he had no intention of actually drinking t
he ale he’d bought. Going over to the magician’s table Jimmy placed the wine before him and sat in the other seat, watching the formless heap of black robes across from him.
It took a moment for the man to come to life, but the scent of the wine eventually evoked a response. A clawlike hand reached out of a sleeve and lifted the cup; the magician took a sip and made a guttural, approving sound. Jimmy’s throat closed when he thought of what the man must usually imbibe. The magician hiccupped and then gave a powerful belch, chuckling evilly at Jimmy’s expression when the vapours hit him.
Jimmy sat, waiting.
It was impossible to guess Asher’s age. For one thing, the tavern was dark, and this corner of it darker still; for another, the magician’s head was surrounded by a bush of sandy hair. His beard, moustache, eyebrows and head-hair were all as thick and impenetrable as a bramble bush. As for his face, all that could be seen were a bulbous nose almost the same shade as the wine and the gleam of his eyes beneath his shaggy brows. It was suspected he might be as young as sixty summers, but then again, some suggested he was ninety and being kept alive by dark spells. All Jimmy knew from rumours was that the magician existed in a state of seeming indifference to the world around him unless he was drinking, gambling or whoring. And by all reports when the drinking wasn’t excessive, he was fairly successful with the gambling and whoring.
‘Ye want somethin’,’ Alban Asher the magician said in a matter-of-fact tone. His voice was deep and raspy. Even sitting down he was weaving, indicating that he was already well into the bottle.
‘Yessir,’ Jimmy confirmed cheerfully. ‘I’ll pay extra for secrecy.’
After a moment Asher chuckled in a way that spoke of pure greed. With a gesture he encouraged Jimmy to continue.
‘I need one or two spells that I can carry away with me and set off where and when I want,’ the young thief said.
‘Love spells,’ Asher said, nodding sagely. ‘Boys yer age’re all after love spells.’ He chuckled salaciously and touched one grubby finger to his nose.
Jimmy supposed that he winked, but couldn’t tell. ‘No,’ he said quickly, ‘not a love spell.’
‘Boys yer age…’ the magician began, sounding annoyed.
‘Definitely not a love spell,’ Jimmy repeated.
I prefer my girls to have a choice in the matter, he thought. It’s a matter of pride. Not that there was any point in trying to explain that to someone oblivious to the concept.
‘I’ve got a mortared wall I need to take down but I don’t want to break my back. Have you got anything for that?’
Asher stabbed a finger at him. ‘Yer a thief!’ he snarled in a rather loud whisper.
Jimmy rolled his eyes. ‘Thieves don’t knock down walls,’ he pointed out.
The mass of hair bunched around the magician’s nose in what Jimmy assumed was a frown. ‘Mmm, true,’ Asher agreed, blinking like an owl suddenly confronting a lantern light. ‘Got somethin’ might work.’ He rubbed his chin ruminatively. ‘Somethin’ about it though…’
‘I’ll take it,’ Jimmy said quickly, sure now that the magician was drunk. ‘I also need something to knock people out.’
‘Ah!’ Asher said and chuckled. ‘Girls! I knew it!’ Then he chuckled some more.
Jimmy had noticed that Asher had the most nuanced chuckle he’d ever heard. In this case it indicated that the magician’s relations with women when he hadn’t enough gold for whores wouldn’t bear close scrutiny.
‘No, no girls,’ Jimmy said. ‘Men, big, heavy men, so if size is an issue you should plan for that.’
‘Men?’ the magician said as though he’d never heard of them before. After a moment he shrugged. ‘Ah, well, takes all kinds. I’ve got somethin’–I c’n make it stronger. It’s that wall spell…’
His voice faded off and he looked over Jimmy’s head so steadily the boy thief turned around to look. There was no one there but the tavern keeper, dozing behind the bar, and a man weeping into his beer. That would normally have attracted derisive attention had anyone else been present, except that the man looked to weigh about half what a heavy cavalryman’s horse did, and had a scar like a young gully from the point of his jaw up over one empty eye-socket, not to mention layers of slick tissue half an inch thick over the knuckles of both hands.
Jimmy looked at the magician out of the corner of his eye, then back at the bar. If Asher wanted more wine he’d have to wait until they’d finished their negotiations and the goods had changed hands.
‘What’s wrong with the wall spell?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Doesn’t it work?’
‘Oh, aye, it works,’ Asher said slowly. He shook his head as though that might dislodge something in his mind. ‘There’s jist, somethin’…’ He reached out with thumb and forefinger, as if to grasp something.
‘Is it dangerous?’ Jimmy asked, his voice sounding as though he could be.
The magician blew out his cheeks. ‘Only if ye’re not supposed to use it!’ he said. ‘It works! It works very well, I tell ye.’
‘What about the knock-out spell?’ Jimmy asked.
With a dismissive wave of his hand Asher plopped a small bag onto the table. ‘Hardly magic at all,’ he said. ‘But you want it for big strapping fellows, instead of skinny little girls…’ He paused, looked at Jimmy for a moment as if trying to understand something totally alien to his imagination, then said, ‘Never mind. Give me a moment.’ He closed his eyes, waved his hand over the bag and muttered for a few minutes.
The hair on the back of Jimmy’s neck rose. What he called his ‘bump of trouble’ let him know that Asher was indeed using magic. Since he could remember, Jimmy possessed a near supernatural ability to sense approaching danger or the presence of magic being used.
Asher finished, and said, ‘Now it’s stronger.’ He pushed the pouch toward Jimmy. ‘Take a pinch and blow it into the face o’ the one ye’re tryin’ to knock down and down he’ll go!’
‘And the wall?’
The magician grunted. Turning, he grabbed a sack behind his chair and hoisted it onto the filthy table. He opened it and began to rummage around inside, digging deeper and deeper until he was halfway into the bag. Things rattled and clinked as Asher sorted through them, occasionally chuckling, as though being reminded of some nasty trick he intended to play as soon as he got the time. ‘Ah!’ he said at last and withdrew his head; he slung the sack back behind his chair and put a tiny bottle sealed with lead on the table between them. ‘There ye are,’ he said proudly.
Jimmy peered at it. It was only as big as the first joint of his little finger and as far as he could tell in the dim light it was completely empty. He reached out to take a closer look at it but the magician’s hand came down over it before he could touch the bottle.
‘Ah!’ Asher said in warning. ‘We an’t discussed price yet.’
‘There’s nothing in that bottle,’ Jimmy pointed out.
‘Ah, but there is,’ the magician whispered. ‘One tiny drop.’ Tis all ye need to start the mortar turnin’ to sand. Don’t get it on yersel’ whatever ye do,’ he warned. ‘Put it on yer wall and the job is done! Doesn’t matter where–top, bottom, middle–because as long as stone and mortar are connected, it’ll do the job.’ He sat back. Judging from the position of his whiskers, he was smiling.
‘How much?’ Jimmy wasn’t absolutely certain about any of this, but it was still the best idea he’d had.
Really the only idea beside a hammer and chisel and a lot of prayers to Ruthia that the guards go deaf. Still, he wasn’t about to take the magician’s first price.
‘What’s it worth to ye?’ Asher demanded.
With a cheerful smile Jimmy suggested, ‘Let’s have another drop to ease our bargaining. Innkeeper!’ he shouted, waking the man. ‘Two more of the same!’
It was closing in on dawn when Jimmy left the tavern with his prizes. He held the bottle up and squinted at it against the light of a flickering lantern; the air was chilly and damp, and smelled the way it usually did
in the blighted gap between night and morning, as discouraged as the young thief felt.
Still looks like nothing. But, the old man doesn’t have that sort of reputation. Asher was a lot of things, but in the years he had been plying his trade in Krondor, no one had accused him of cheating on a deal, which in the Poor Quarter was the next best thing to a Royal Death Warrant.
He hadn’t got a bargain by any means. Though even making painful inroads into Prince Arutha’s gold, he would never have been able to afford this much magic if the man hadn’t been a complete sot. Not my problem, not my fault. But the price was fair, so he shouldn’t have to worry about waking up covered in boils anytime soon. At least, the price was fair if there was actually something inside the bottle.
Something I mustn’t get on myself, he thought. A worrying idea if you thought it through. How did you pour out something that didn’t appear to exist? Very carefully, he supposed.
Think positively, he told himself. I’ve got the means to save Larry’s brother and Flora and the rest of them. Probably. Which means we’re all better off than we were before.
Now all they had to do was do it.
FIVE
Rescue
Larry’s eyes grew wide.
‘Alban Asher is a drunk!’ His small face showed more panic than disapproval and his tone was more surprised than angry.
Just think how you’d react if Larry had come to you with this stuff, Jimmy reminded himself. He’s not trying to hit you, and not even walking away.
‘You can’t be serious!’ the younger boy went on.
‘We’re desperate,’ Jimmy pointed out, making a shushing gesture; the Rest wasn’t as crowded as it had been after the new laws were announced, but it was still busier than usual: a lot of people, normally on the streets, were sleeping. ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures,’ he went on. Jimmy had heard that saying somewhere and liked the sound of it: he usually did, when something made for a good excuse.
Jimmy the Hand: Legends of the Riftwar, Book 3 Page 7