It would have been easy, Jimmy thought. Hells and demons, I would have thanked him for it!
And yet, having finally introduced himself, the mysterious stranger had disappeared. Was Coe just a concerned soul who’d been watching to make sure the young thief didn’t fall overboard? Now that he’d given Jimmy the cure for his sea-sickness perhaps the man had decided to retire to the relative comfort of his cabin. Was that suspicious? Jimmy frowned. Actually, he did find generosity from strangers suspicious. Useful on occasion, he allowed. Especially if the giver was naïve and easy to manipulate. But Coe didn’t seem the type one could use. In fact he seemed the type to ream you proper if you tried: Jimmy could smell that on a man. The young thief exhaled with a snort of frustration.
Focus, concentrate, he commanded himself.
If one of Radburn’s spies had seen him and knew him for a Mocker, known what he’d done, which was unlikely – make that impossible – then without question he would have been arrested immediately. There was no reason for one of Radburn’s boys to go following him to Land’s End.
But what if one of Radburn’s spies was going to Land’s End anyway? Land’s End was an outpost, near the Keshian border. More accurately, it was the domain of the Lord of the Southern Marches, Duke Sutherland, but that office had been vacant for years, due to some politics Jimmy didn’t understand or care to understand. Yes, maybe that’s it, he thought. Maybe it’s just Guy du Bas-Tyra trying to extend his reach. Who knew how far the Duke wanted to extend his power? Jimmy watched the hills of water rise and fall, actually enjoying the clever motion of the ship as it followed their motion.
As far as he can, of course!
He wrestled with some more notions of what the Duke might be plotting, but grew bored with it. It was surprising enough as it was that he was interested in that question at all. Until meeting Prince Arutha he had no concept of what ruling must be like, but he had spent a fair number of evenings listening to Arutha, Martin Longbow and Amos Trask talking about affairs of state. He found it fascinating, and from time to time wondered if he could make the sorts of judgments they were forced to consider, decisions that would change the future of nations.
No, he reconsidered, he wasn’t bored with the question; he was frustrated that he had no information upon which to base a reasonable guess as to what was happening. And that surprised him, as well. Grinning at a silly notion, he thought: maybe some day I’ll get to meet Prince Arutha again. That would be interesting. He’d know what Duke Guy was up to and Jimmy could ask him questions about such things. But until that time, it was no business of Jimmy’s what the Duke was plotting.
Meddling in the affairs of the mighty had only brought trouble on him and his kind. True, he was pleased to think of the Princess Anita as free and safe, but the cost to the Mockers had been high, perhaps too high. And while he was sorry for Prince Erland and his wife, saving them was well-nigh impossible, and even had that not been the case, to do so would very likely only have made things worse. For which the Upright Man would not have thanked him.
No, it was time to get back to looking after Jimmy the Hand, which was something he did very well. Let them plot and scheme among themselves; it had nothing to do with him.
Jimmy stopped to look around, as he and Flora stood on the dockside at Land’s End, their scant baggage at their feet. The first street facing the harbour was broad and cobbled, but the cobbles were worn nearly flat by hooves and iron-rimmed wheels and sledges; the bowsprits of a row of ships ran over it, above the heads of stevedores, sailors and passengers. Teamsters moved wagons close to receive offloaded cargo and quickly transport it to shops or warehouses nearby, and the usual assortment of riff-raff lingered at the fringes. Jimmy instantly spotted two lads who were probably pickpockets and one who was the most obvious lookout Jimmy had ever seen – maybe looking to see if someone special came off the ship, or if a particular cargo was unloaded, ready to signal someone probably lingering half a block up the street or watching from an adjacent window. Jimmy kept his smile to himself; if this was the best Land’s End had to offer, he might not return to Krondor, but rather stick around and take over.
Gulls made a storm overhead – always a sign of a thriving port, with plenty of offal. Green-blue water lapped at the sides of ships, at the black weed-and-barnacle-covered timbers and pilings of dock and seawall, a chuckling undertone to the clamour of voices and feet and iron on stone.
‘Not nearly as big as Krondor,’ Jimmy said stoutly. I’m from the big city, he thought. This is the sticks. ‘Or as well-sheltered a harbour.’
The largest ships here weren’t as big as those you saw in Krondor’s harbour, either – the tubby Krondor’s Lady was about as large as they came; more of them were Keshian, too. The dockside street was hedged on its landward side by warehouses, two or three storeys high, with A-frame timbers jutting out from their gables to help hoist freight. Some came down via block and tackle as he watched, a load of pungent raw hides. Streams of dockwallopers were trotting up and down gangplanks, with sacks and bales and boxes bending them double; cloth, thread, bundled raw flax, dried fruit, cheeses, blacksmith’s iron, copper pots … Heavier cargo swung up on nets slung from the end of the yards that usually bore sails.
Beyond the warehouses, buildings rose up steep streets on the hills surrounding the harbour; they could get a few glimpses of the city walls, gates, and the pasture and forest beyond. Jimmy stared for a moment, realizing he could see farms up on the highest hillsides, tiny thatched houses with meadows and fields around them. He had never seen a farm before.
‘It’s bigger than I’d thought it would be,’ Flora said, her voice sounding small.
Jimmy was glad she’d said it because it was exactly what he’d been thinking. He snorted. ‘It’s not a patch on Krondor,’ he said. He straightened and threw back his shoulders. ‘And we did just fine there.’
Flora touched his arm with a grateful smile. Then she looked out at the town, uncertain once more. She sighed. ‘I have no idea where to begin.’
‘Well, you know his name and what he does, or,’ he shrugged, ‘did for a living, right?’ He’d intended to talk with her about this on board, but he’d been too sick most of the way and too hungry for the rest of it.
‘Yes,’ Flora said. ‘He was a solicitor and his name was Yardley Heywood.’
Oh, that’s not good, Jimmy thought. If her grandfather was a court solicitor he had represented his fair share of criminals. Which meant he was all too likely to guess what his long-lost granddaughter had been doing to survive these last few years, no matter what she said. Worse, he’d be able to guess what Jimmy did.
‘Yardley Heywood,’ he said aloud. ‘That sounds like a rich man’s name.’
Flora laughed. ‘It does, doesn’t it?’
Picking up his bag decisively, and one of hers to maintain the illusion of his being well brought up, Jimmy gestured toward the town. ‘First thing we should do is head for solid ground. I can feel this dock moving up and down and it’s making me nervous.’
‘It’s not the dock, lad,’ Jarvis Coe said with a smile.
Jimmy blinked in surprise. Twice: because he couldn’t imagine how the man had managed to get that close without him noticing; and because of a subtle change. Coe’s clothes were just a bit more prosperous than they’d seemed aboard ship, perhaps because he’d added a horseman’s high boots and a long dark cloak with a hood, plus a flat cloth cap that sported a peacock feather. More probably because he wore the sword that Jimmy had suspected would be his to wear: a plain, narrow blade with a curled guard in a workmanlike leather sheath, matched with a dagger on the other side – a fighting dirk nine inches long, not the ordinary belt-knife people carried for everyday tasks like cutting bread or getting a stone out of a horse’s shoe.
Coe still didn’t look rich, or conspicuous; but he did look like a gentleman of sorts. He pulled off the cap and bowed slightly to Flora, who bobbed him a curtsey in reflex.
‘It’s the way
everyone feels coming off a ship. In a day or so you’ll get your land-legs back, as the sailors say. Where are you headed?’
Both the young Mockers frowned at him. I don’t like this, Jimmy thought. This man alters his appearance too easily, just by donning a new cloak and by changing the way he holds his head.
Coe chuckled: ‘I suppose it’s none of my business,’ he said. ‘But if you’re looking for a clean, cheap place to stay I can recommend a few.’
Jimmy and Flora looked at one another. Generosity from strangers, especially this close to Great Kesh and its slavers, was somewhat suspicious.
Coe looked at them and nodded thoughtfully. ‘All right, then. I can see you’ll be all right on your own. Just, if I may,’ he nodded at a dockside inn, ‘avoid The Cockerel.’ He put a finger beside his nose and winked. ‘Just a word to the wise.’ Then he was gone with a swirl of his dark cape.
‘Who’s he?’ Flora whispered. ‘I never talked to him on board.’
‘His name’s Jarvis Coe,’ Jimmy said. ‘But who he is I don’t know.’
He pulled at the bracelet on his wrist until the leather strap came undone. Then he studied it carefully. The slight pressure he’d felt against his wrist had been provided by a small pebble glued to the leather. The pebble looked ordinary enough, still … He tossed it into the water. Who could tell what might or might not be magic, or what that magic might do?
‘What was that?’ Flora asked.
‘Something he gave me for the seasickness. It worked. It might be magic.’
‘Well that was nice,’ she said dubiously.
Jimmy glanced at her. Flora was looking into the water and frowning, then she stared down the dock. Following her example, Jimmy saw that Coe had vanished; not hurrying, just walking away and blending in like a wisp of mist. Something a Mocker knew the way of.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘let’s find a place to stay and stow our gear. Then we can start looking for your family.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder with a grin. ‘But what do we do about The Cockerel? It might turn out to be the safest place in town.’
Flora picked up her bag and started walking. ‘That’d be a first for a dockside tavern,’ she said.
Jimmy nodded, then stopped. ‘Wait!’ he said.
Flora looked at him enquiringly; he said nothing as he squatted beside their baggage, untying the cloth wrapped around a long narrow bundle.
The rapier came free, and Jimmy unwrapped the belt from the sheath and swung it around his hips. The tassets that the scabbard went through – a slanted row of loops on a triangular patch of leather sewn to the belt – kept the chafe – the metal reinforcement at the bottom of the scabbard – from tapping on the ground, if he walked with his left hand on the hilt. He wouldn’t have to worry about that in a few years when he reached his adult growth, but right now he was a bit shorter than most swordsmen.
‘Is that wise?’ Flora said.
‘It’s a mark of respectability,’ Jimmy said. ‘Or at least that you’re nobody to be trifled with!’
And there’s no Upright Man in Land’s End, the young thief thought. Demons and gods, but I’m sick of being pushed around!
They set out, walking slightly uphill along what Jimmy suspected would turn out to be the town’s main thoroughfare to the docks. He assumed there would be a large town square somewhere up ahead, and near there a reputable inn. His eyes wandered and again he studied the distant farms and wondered what it must be like up there. From what townsfolk said about farmers, their lives were pretty boring.
• Chapter Seven •
Tragedy
THE GIRL LOOKED UP AS HER MOTHER SPOKE.
‘When you’ve finished with that,’ Melda Merford said to her daughter Lorrie, ‘I want you to get the flax out of the pond.’
‘Mother, please!’ Lorrie protested.
She turned from where she’d been sweeping out the farmstead’s kitchen-hearth, wiping at her eye where a drop of sweat stung. She used the back of her wrist because her hands were black, but still she got a smudge on her cheek. The fine flying ash drifted up her nose, smelling dusty, like old wood smoke, and she sneezed: cleaning the hearth wasn’t a heavy chore, but it was disagreeable.
‘I was going to hunt today.’
She certainly hadn’t planned on pulling slimy bundles of flax out of the stagnant pond where it lay retting. Never a pleasant job, it would be more irksome still when her mind was fixed on a pleasant jaunt in the cool of the forest.
‘No,’ Melda said, not looking at her. She measured coarse flour out of a box into a wooden mixing bowl. ‘I don’t want you traipsing around those woods by yourself any more.’
Lorrie sat on her heels in astonishment. ‘Why not?’
‘You’re getting too old to be running around like a hoyden,’ her mother said calmly. ‘Besides, we need to get that flax ready. If we can make enough linen and thread to take to the market fair we’ll be able to pay our taxes.’ She looked at Lorrie with a frown. ‘We don’t want to lose the farm like the Morrisons did.’
Lorrie looked away, her frown matching her mother’s. The Morrisons losing their farm because they couldn’t pay the taxes had sent a shock through the whole community. There had been a lot of people losing their farms lately, but none here until the Morrisons. Everyone had assumed it was because of all the sons going to the war, or perhaps those farmers were lazy, but you couldn’t say that of the Morrisons; why, even the baby had chores. Taxes had gone up and up over the last few years, even before the war, and the smaller one’s farm was the harder it had become to pay them. Now even a medium-sized holding like their own had to struggle to pay the debt.
Still, it wasn’t exactly an emergency.
‘But we have hardly any fresh meat in the larder,’ Lorrie objected.
That wasn’t an emergency either – they weren’t nobles, or rich merchants, to eat fresh meat every day – but game helped stretch what they got out of the fields. The more they could sell rather than eat themselves, the better off they would be. The extra few coppers from grain sold rather than turned to bread could mean the difference between paying taxes and starving through the winter, or paying taxes and having enough put by to pay for fish from the town, and cheese from the dairy farmers.
Her mother bit her lip and raised her eyes to heaven. ‘It’s dangerous for a girl your age to go running around alone in the woods. Who knows who you might meet there with no one to help you.’
‘So when Bram comes back from Land’s End I can go with him?’
‘No! Absolutely not!’ Melda said firmly. ‘If anything, that would be worse.’
Lorrie stood to confront her mother, hands on her hips. ‘So I can’t go alone because it’s dangerous and I can’t go with a friend I’ve known my whole life because that would be worse than dangerous?’ she said, her voice ripe with sarcasm. ‘This makes no sense at all, Mother.’
‘Lorrie,’ her mother said wearily, ‘you’re growing up. And there are certain things, unfortunately, a girl can do that a woman can’t. One of which is keeping up with the boys she grew up with. You can do that as a child. But when you get older, sometimes … those same boys, when they get older –’ Melda sighed and looked her daughter in the eye, ‘– want things.’
Lorrie rolled her eyes. She was a farm girl and had seen animals mating since she could crawl. ‘Mother, I know about those … things.’
‘That’s why it’s dangerous! You think you know about the ways of men and women, but you don’t, and it’s not about watching a bull and cow or a cock and hen. It’s about going all crazy inside when a lad smiles at you and forgetting what you think you know. You’re a good girl from a good home, and some day when the right lad asks for your hand, you’ll be glad for this. I’m your mother, and it’s my duty and your father’s duty to tell you what’s right and what isn’t. And until you’re married and moved out, we’ll keep that duty.’ She took a deep breath, anticipating an explosion.
But Lorrie was icy in her response.
‘So what you’re saying is that from now on I can’t go hunting, which I’m very good at and which I love, and which I’ve been doing since I was younger than Rip; but I can stay at home and do all the messy, smelly, dreary chores you can think of just because I’m a woman? Is that right?’
‘You’ll do the chores I tell you to do because you’re my daughter and that’s your place in this house. Your hands are needed here today and I don’t want to hear another word about it. So finish that up and get going down to the pond.’ Melda glared at Lorrie with her arms folded across her ample chest and hoped that she wouldn’t hear any more argument. She probably should have dealt with this before; but Lorrie loved the woods so. As she had herself when she was a girl. Melda had never forgotten what a wrench it was to give that up. All that freedom, she thought wistfully. With an effort she suppressed a sigh. Well, she was dealing with it now.
With a long last glare and a pout Lorrie knelt down and went back to work, but with her stiff back, brusque movements and unnecessary clatter she let her mother know exactly how she felt. At last, with a last clunk of the wooden shovel, she stood up and silently bore the ash bucket from the kitchen.
No more hunting, hmm? she fumed to herself. We’ll see about that.
The flax would be safe in the pond until tomorrow. Her mother would be angry with her she knew; very, very angry. But fresh meat, especially if she brought home some pheasant, would go a long way toward soothing her.
The Complete Legends of the Riftwar Trilogy Page 78