Jimmy turned around and went back to the fire. This was more like it.
‘Used to be if a tenant had a complaint he could go up t’ the house when the lord was there and get the thing straightened out. Even cottars like us! Not no more ye can’t.’
‘The Baron sent all the servants and guards away after his lady’s death,’ his wife said. ‘The very day after she died.’
‘And hired those, those …’
‘Mercenaries,’ his wife said firmly, giving her husband a stiff-lipped warning glare.
‘Mercenaries,’ the old man said, pulling his lips away from the word as though it was filthy. ‘Neighbour went up t’ see the lord one time he was there and those …’ he gave his wife a look, ‘fellows near beat the poor man t’ death. I ask you, is that any way for a lord t’ behave?’
From what Jimmy had seen and heard in his life that was the way a lot of lords behaved. Wisely, he didn’t say so.
‘There’s a strange feeling about the place,’ Coe observed.
Husband and wife glanced at one another.
‘Aye,’ the old man agreed. ‘Year by year it’s got worse. Nobody goes there now ’cept those bully-boys he hires now and again, and they don’t stay long if they can help it.’
Coe raised his brows and said, ‘Mmph.’ He puffed his pipe for a contemplative moment or two. ‘Must have been a grand funeral,’ he said.
Once again the old couple exchanged glances.
‘I believe she was buried in Land’s End,’ the old woman said.
‘Mebbe even got shipped back to the court she came from,’ her husband suggested.
‘What about the baby?’ Jimmy asked. ‘What ever happened to it?’
The old couple looked at him in surprise as though they’d forgotten his presence. Jarvis looked enquiringly at them.
‘Well,’ the old woman spluttered, ‘we’ve, uh, we’ve never seen him.’
‘Did the child survive?’ Coe asked quietly.
‘We never heard that he didn’t,’ the old man snarled, his eyes flickering to his wife.
‘He’d be about eighteen now,’ his wife said dreamily.
‘I ask because no one in Land’s End ever mentioned him,’ Jarvis said. ‘So I’m surprised to hear the Baron had a child.’
‘He must have been sent away to be fostered,’ the elderly midwife suggested. ‘The nobility do that you know.’ She gave an authoritative nod.
Coe said, ‘Mmph,’ again. Then, ‘The house looked to be in reasonable repair,’ he commented. ‘Though I was still on the road when I saw it.’
The old man grunted. ‘The lord must be having those bast –’ he glanced at his wife, ‘– mercenaries look after the place. Not one of us has been near there for near eighteen years. And I’ll tell ye true,’ the old man stood and knocked his pipe out on the fireplace, ‘ye couldn’t bribe me t’ go there now.’
Me neither, Jimmy thought. But you could threaten to cry and wheedle and appeal to my better nature. He wondered bitterly if he would always be so susceptible to the blandishments of women. Or was it that he enjoyed making the occasional grand gesture? I just hate it when said grand gesture turns out to be bloody inconvenient and more like suicide than heroism.
Rescuing the Prince and his lady would have been a wonderful grand gesture, and a bonus besides since his real purpose had been to rescue his friends. But rescuing some sprat he’d never met because Flora expected him to felt like being put upon and he didn’t like it a bit.
And yet, as soon as he was certain his hosts and Coe were asleep he was going out to that house of horrors to see if he could find the boy and get him out. After all, if a load of lowlife bashers could stand to be in that place then so could he, by Ruthia.
Then the rain started in earnest, and Jimmy muttered, ‘Maybe I’ll go out tomorrow night.’
The Baron tossed in his bed, clutching the soaking sheets as he did no less than one night in three. The dreams were always the same, the hunt, the cliff, the laughing face of the youth. The storm, the dark man arriving, all came and went, in different order each time. Sometimes it was a fleeting glimpse, sometimes he watched himself as if standing a short distance away, while at other times he relived the past. Sometimes he knew he was dreaming, while at other times it was as if he were young, and trying to grapple again with the love and hate which gripped his soul.
For days Bernarr had sought an opportunity to deal with the young man privately. The laughing jackanapes had preoccupied a disproportionate amount of Elaine’s time. She seemed willing to suffer the fool’s attentions, but not only was she shirking her responsibility to her other guests, she had virtually ignored Bernarr since Zakry’s arrival.
The opportunity had finally presented itself in an unexpected fashion. He had organized a hunt to entertain his guests, and all but Elaine joined in with pleasure. She was once again ill. This time he sent the chirurgeon to her with stern instructions to examine her and not take ‘no’ for an answer.
The rest of them were quickly swept up in the excitement of the chase, the cool crisp air of autumn, the raucous note of the horn. Beaters and hounds flushed a magnificent buck and they tore through the woods with a will. The hounds baying, the beaters sounding their ram’s-horn instruments, the stylish riders dressed in every colour and flashing with gold and jewels even brighter than the leaf-cloak of vineyard and tree. It was a magnificent sight.
As they rode Bernarr’s quick eye caught sight of a thrashing in a thicket.
Boar! he thought, catching a glimpse of the low-slung body, the massive bristly shoulders and long curved tusks. And wily, too, to be heading away at right-angles rather than attracting the attention of the hounds by running.
The pack hadn’t scented it; the wind was blowing in his direction. Bernarr knew the forest pig’s ill-temper required little to turn it aggressive, and only the presence of so many hounds and riders was causing it to flee.
And I feel like boar-meat tonight. It would be a prideful moment, the head borne in on a platter, the tusks gilded, and Elaine glowing with delight at her husband’s deed.
Bernarr slung the bow over his back and yanked his broad-bladed boar-spear from its socket, plunging past trees and leaping his horse over rocks, never letting his prey from his sight. By its size and the sharp, unblunted outline of its tusks the creature was young, in its full strength but still reckless, giving the Baron reason to think this would be an easy kill. An older, more aggressive male would have turned to fight already.
Suddenly the boar faced a thicket too dense to crash through. It turned first left, then spun right, then came to bay, facing Bernarr in a flurry of dead leaves, its little hind legs stamping as it set itself to charge, to rip at the horse’s belly or the rider’s legs.
The Baron slowed only a little, to adjust the aim of his spear for the over-arm thrust that would split the beast’s heart or spine from above. He would give the inexperienced boar no time to charge and endanger the horse.
Before he could make the thrust an arrow came from behind and to his right. The thick bone and gristle of the boar’s shoulders would have stopped it, but the shaft struck right behind the shoulder, the broad-bladed hunting head slicing like knives through the beast’s heart and lungs.
It collapsed, spewed blood, kicked, voided itself and died.
Bernarr pulled his horse up hard, causing it to rear and almost fall back on its haunches. He turned to find that Zakry had followed him; the younger man was just lowering his horn-backed hunting bow.
Zakry, his mocking grin in place, spoke, but the words seemed indistinct to Bernarr, and then the youthful rider was gone.
Bernarr was now riding with his wife’s other friends from Rillanon, a stag carried proudly behind him by bearers. Then the images faded.
Well, it’s not all that different from being a sneak-thief in Krondor, Jimmy the Hand thought. Just be sensible and don’t try to walk too quickly.
It had been a day and a night since they’d bedded down in
the cottage; the old couple didn’t seem to find it odd that they chose to stay and spend their days mooching about the woods.
Or perhaps friend Jarvis’s silver contains their curiosity, Jimmy thought, stifling a sneeze. He was watching the manor from behind a sheltering belt of bushes, and something in the bushes made his nose and eyes itch. Plus the musty green freshness of it all was disconcerting; Krondor smelled bad, right enough and often enough. But the stink was what he was used to, not this meadow-sweet greenness. At least spring had decided to be spring, with blue sky and warmth and some fleecy-white clouds above, instead of cold rain.
Their curiosity but not mine! his thoughts went on. Something very nasty is going on at old Baron Bernarr’s house, and unless my bump of trouble has lost its cunning, Mr Coe is looking into it – looking into it for someone.
‘Find anything?’ Jimmy asked casually, conscious of Coe coming up behind him. I may not be able to identify every rustle and squeak in the woods, but I know a man’s footsteps well enough, he thought with some satisfaction. It was just a matter of filtering out what didn’t matter, same as in town.
‘There’s an odd absence of bigger game towards the house,’ Coe said. ‘Plenty of insects, plenty of lizards and birds and even squirrels, but anything near a man’s size evidently feels a man’s unease about the place. You keep watch on the gate; I’m going to circle around the other side.’
‘Yessir, right, sir,’ Jimmy muttered under his breath as the older man ghosted across the road and into the brush on the other side. ‘Why don’t we just get in there?’ Coe’s caution was beginning to make him itch, almost as much as these damned bushes. Jimmy wanted something to happen.
Something did. A pair of figures came around the central block of the fortified manor house; he knew the stables and sheds were there, so as not to spoil the view from the road, he supposed. They were leading horses; soon enough they mounted, and began to canter towards the outer wall and the gate.
Ah-ha! Jimmy thought, as they came closer.
In their twenties, but looking older; one slight and wiry, the other like something a smith had pounded out of an ingot. A weasel and a mean pit-fighting dog, Jimmy thought, as he got a good look at them. In Krondor he’d have picked them for Bashers – or Sheriff’s Crushers. They wore rough leather and wadmal, travelling clothes, and buff-leather jerkins; but their swords were good, if plain, and they had a noteworthy array of fighting knives in belts and tucked into boot-tops. One of them also had a short horn-bow in a case by his right knee.
Let’s follow them, he thought. But carefully.
As they passed through the wrought-iron gate the thicker-built one reined in.
‘Come on, Skinny,’ the bigger one called. ‘You heard the man – he may be sixty leagues away.’
‘The more reason not to get lost in the first league, Rox,’ the weasel-faced man replied, looking down at something in one hamlike fist. ‘Ah, straight south.’
‘Why don’t you set up for a prophet, then?’ Rox gibed. His friend rumbled something that sounded like obscene instructions, and they both laughed.
Jimmy waited until they were half out of sight along the road southward before he brought his horse out and mounted it. Jarvis Coe made a big point about how he could track horses and tell them apart, he thought. He can track mine if he wonders where I am.
After two days, most of the aches of his first ride had simmered down to occasional shooting pains: he was young and supple and strong. Coe still made an occasional mocking comment about his form; especially his flapping arms, but he could usually keep the mild-mannered old horse going in the direction he wanted, even if it seemed determined to amble; the two bashers’ mounts weren’t exactly fiery, snorting steeds either.
This section of road didn’t have much traffic, but it did have enough that one horseman wasn’t conspicuous; Jimmy kept the two he was following at the limit of vision for most of two hours, before they halted at a stream to water their mounts. He ducked aside from the road in a dip that hid him from them and vice versa, found a convenient tree to tether his mount – you had to do that at head-level, he’d learned, or they could step over the reins and do dreadful things – and slipped forward on foot for the next hundred yards. If he could get within earshot without their noticing, he might pick up something interesting about their employer and goings-on in the household of the Baron.
A murmur of voices came from the road ahead. Skinny and Rox were there, standing on the stepping-stones of the ford while their horses stood fetlock-deep in the water, muzzles down and slurping. Jimmy eeled along the ground behind a fallen hemlock that was sprouting a fair assortment of bushes from its rotting trunk and listened.
‘S’odd,’ the bigger man, Rox, said. ‘Look how the needle points straight no matter how you turn it.’
It was evidently something Skinny held in his hand; he extended it towards Rox, and the thick pug-faced man shied back as if being offered a scorpion. ‘It’s magic!’ he said, his voice going shrill. ‘Of course it’s odd. It’s bloody cursed!’ A pause. ‘That house is cursed, too. And that magician – that demon’s lover the Baron keeps around – he fair drips with curses.’
‘This is cursed, that is cursed, you’re not happy unless you’ve a good curse going,’ Skinny jeered. ‘It’s six hundred gold if we bring him in, you fool. With that much, we can retire – buy that bawdy-house you’re always talking about.’
Well, there’s an ambition, Jimmy thought. Six hundred gold. That’s serious money, even for a baron with a town and a farm income. You could buy a modest whorehouse with that, and stock it too – if the girls weren’t too pretty. Who’s this ‘he’ they’re talking about? And a magician? Friend Jarvis will be very interested.
The two hired swords led their horses out of the water and prepared to mount; Skinny stopped them with a soft oath as Rox put his foot into the stirrup.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘The needle quivered, like. See, it moves if I put it left or right, always towards right ahead of us! And I hear sumthin’.’
Jimmy did too, over the purling rush of the stream against its own bed and the flat rocks set in the ford. The familiar hollow clop-clop-clop of a horse ridden at a fast walk.
He looked up, squinting between ferns sprouting from the dead tree-trunk that sheltered him. The ground beneath him was damp; he was down nearly to the river-level, and it took him a minute to make out the rider coming down the low slope toward the water. The horse was nondescript and the tack cheap; the man on it …
Well, the lad on it, Jimmy thought. He didn’t think the rider was much more than two or three years older than himself. Rough-cut golden hair, face saved from prettiness by a strong jaw and straight nose, frank blue eyes, an outdoorsman’s tan. His clothes were rough and serviceable, a farmer or hunter’s, perhaps; he had a long yew bow slung over his back, along with a quiver of arrows, and a long knife at his belt as well as the usual shorter all-purpose tool.
‘Greetings, friend!’ Skinny called.
He looked over his shoulder at his friend. Skinny still had the whatever-it-was in his hand; he moved it from left to right at full extension, then nodded with a pleased smile.
‘He’s the one,’ he said. ‘And right into our arms, too! Easy money!’
Skinny sauntered up the rutted roadway toward the newcomer. ‘Good place to water your horse,’ he said, in a voice dripping with a bad imitation of goodwill.
Evidently the handsome stranger thought so too; Jimmy could see him frown, and touch his bow. Evidently he wasn’t used to being on horseback – the longbow was a footman’s weapon – and a bit uncertain with it.
A better rider than I am, but not by much, Jimmy thought.
‘I’ll pass by, friend, if it’s all the same to you,’ the young man said. He had a rustic accent a lot like Lorrie’s.
Am I always to be rescuing farmers’ children? Jimmy thought with irritation along with a healthy hint of fear.
Taking on two grown men, and experi
enced killers if he’d ever seen any, was no joke – no alley scuffle, either. He couldn’t count on being better at running and hiding in the woods than either of the mercenaries.
What to do, what to do?
Skinny didn’t appear to have any doubts. He waited by the side of the road until the traveller was by him, then darted in with a yell and grabbed for the young man’s ankle, plainly intending to heave him out of the saddle, leaving him stunned and helpless on the ground.
The young man kicked instead, and Skinny staggered back with another yell, clutching at his face. The traveller clapped his heels to his horse and went through the water at a plunging gallop.
‘No, you fool!’ Rox yelled, as Skinny pulled the short thick bow from its case on his saddle and drew a shaft to the ear.
The big man’s shout went to wordless rage as Skinny loosed, nocked another shaft, drew and loosed again. The first arrow passed so close to the blond rider that Jimmy thought it had struck him. Then he was close by, and Jimmy could see that it had – just along the lobe of one ear, the razor edge of the head slicing it open into the sort of wound that bled freely but didn’t slow you. The second went into the cantle of the saddle with a thunk!
‘You kill six hundred gold and I’ll kill you!’ Rox bellowed.
He pulled something of his own from his saddlebow, then began whirling it around his head; Jimmy had just enough time to recognize three smooth pear-shaped iron weights connected by strong cords before it turned into a blur over the big man’s head. He cast it when the young rider was twenty yards away and moving fast; cast it at the horse, not the horseman.
It moved fast too, whirling through the air like a horizontal disk. The young man’s horse gave a terrified shrieking whinny and crashed kicking to the ground; where it lay writhing and struggling with the weight wound around its hind legs at the hock. The golden-haired bowman lay immobile for a moment, then began to stir. Rox and Skinny bellowed triumph, drawing their swords and dashing through the ford towards the fallen horse and youth.
I could just steal their horses, Jimmy thought. No, let’s get close and see what we can do.