that one last word to her.
The young thief turned and ran down the alley, as light on his feet as a cat and almost as keenly aware of his surroundings. He might not be a great swordsman – yet – but fleeing through the darkened alleys of Krondor was a skill he’d mastered thoroughly long before he reached the ripe old age of thirteen.
As he dodged through the byways of the city, his thoughts turned to the time he had spent with the Princess and Prince during the last few weeks. The Princess Anita was what girls were supposed to be and in his experience never were. For a boy raised in the company of whores, barmaids and pickpockets, she was … something rare, something fine, a minstrel’s tale come to breathing life. When he was near her he wanted to be better than he was.
It’s well she’s gone, then, he thought. A lad in his position couldn’t afford such noble notions.
Besides, he thought with a wry grin, she would one day marry Prince Arutha – even though he didn’t know it yet – so Jimmy had no business having such feelings for her. Not that having no business doing things had ever stopped him.
I suppose if she has to marry, and princesses do, he’s the one I’d want her to.
Jimmy liked Arutha, but it was more than that. He respected him and … yes, trusted him. The Prince made him see why men would follow a leader, follow him to war on his bare word, something he’d never thought to understand. Jimmy’s experience had been solely with men who commanded through fear or because they could deliver an advantage to those who followed. And Jimmy served at the pleasure of the Upright Man, who did both those things.
Jimmy ran his hand along the scabbard of Arutha’s rapier, his now, and smiled. Then he grew suddenly solemn. Being with them had brought something special into his life, and now it was over. But then, how many people in the Kingdom got this close to princes and princesses? And of those, how many were thieves?
Jimmy grinned. He’d done better than well in his acquaintance with royalty: two hundred in gold, a fine sword, including lessons on how to use it, and a girl to dream about. And if he missed the Princess Anita, well, at least he’d got to know her.
He headed for Mother’s with a jaunty step, ready for a light meal and a long sleep.
Best to sleep until Radburn cools off, he thought. Though that might mean he’d have to sleep until he was an old man.
Jimmy neared the large hall called Mother’s, or Mocker’s Rest, carved out among the tunnels of the sewers. To a citizen of the upper city it would have looked gloomy enough: the drip of water and the glisten of nitre on ancient stone. But it would have been little more than another junction of tunnels in the city’s sewer system, a bit larger than usual, but nothing remarkable. To the average citizen of the upper city, the eyes watching Jimmy approach the entrance to Mother’s would have gone unseen, and the daggers clutched in ready hands would have been undetected, unless at the last, fatal instant, they were driven home to protect the secret of Mocker’s Rest.
To Jimmy it was home and safety and a chance to rest. He pushed on a stone, and a loud click preceded the appearance of a small opening, as a door fashioned of canvas and wood, cleverly painted to look like rock, swung wide. He was short enough that he could walk hunched over while a taller man would have to crawl, and he quickly traversed the short passage to enter the hidden basement. A Basher stood watch and as Jimmy appeared, nodded. Jimmy was thus spared a lethal welcome. Any unknown head coming through that passage had roughly a second to intone the password, ‘There’s a party tonight at Mother’s’ before finding his brains splattered all over the stone floor.
The room was huge, carved out of three basements, all with stairs leading up to three buildings owned by the Upright Man. A whorehouse, an inn and a merchant of cheap trade-goods provided a variety of escape routes, and Jimmy could find all of them blindfolded, as could every other Mocker. The light was kept dim at all hours of the day or night, so that a quick exit into the sewers wouldn’t leave a Mocker without sight.
Jimmy nodded greetings to a few of the beggars and urchins who were awake; most slept soundly, for there were still many hours until dawn. They would all be in the market minutes after sunrise on a normal day. But today would be anything but normal. With the Prince and Princess safely away, reprisals would be the first order of business. The City Constables and the Royal Household Guard had been easy enough to cope with over the years, but this secret police installed by Guy du Bas-Tyra since he took the office of Viceroy was another story. More than one Mocker had been turned snitch to them and the mood of the room reflected it. While there was a quiet sense of triumph at having aided Princess Anita’s escape, the benefit was long-term; the Upright Man thought about things that way, Jimmy understood. Some day Princess Anita would return to Krondor – or at least Jimmy hoped so – and those who supported her and her father, Prince Erland, now had a debt to the Upright Man that he would contrive to collect in the most beneficial fashion.
But that was all for the future, for the Upright Man; for the common thief, pickpocket, or whore, there was no benefit this day. Instead, the city above would be crawling with angry spies and informants, looking to identify those who had embarrassed Jocko Radburn, head of the secret police. And he was not a man to embarrass without repercussions, Jimmy understood.
The escape of the Princess had been a secret undertaking, with only a few in the Mockers and among Trevor Hull’s smugglers knowing who was being spirited out of the city. But once the fight erupted, more than one Mocker saw the Princess’s face and her hallmark red hair and by sunrise the rumours of her escape would be making the rounds of the markets, inns and shops.
Most would feign ignorance of the deed, but everyone would know the reason for the sudden crackdown by Bas-Tyra’s soldiers and secret police.
Jimmy moved to the far wall and picked up some rags, a whetstone and a small vial of oil from the storage box near the weapons lockers. Such thoughts made his head swim. He was a boy of unknown age – perhaps fourteen, perhaps sixteen, no one knew – and such considerations were intriguing to him, yet he knew he didn’t fully understand all of it. Politics and intrigue were attractive, but in an alien way.
He made his way to a secluded corner to clean his rapier. His rapier, and a gift at that! There had been few of those in his life, making the fine weapon all the more precious. It would take the finest craftsman half a year to fashion such a thing of deadly beauty; it was as different from the crude, heavy weapons of ordinary soldiers as a war-horse was from a mule.
He pulled the blade from the scabbard again and realized to his dismay that he’d put it away bloody. He quirked his mouth wryly. Well, he’d never had such a thing before: he couldn’t be expected to remember every detail of its care immediately. On closer inspection he realized that the scabbard was held together with ivory and brass pins, and could be taken apart for cleaning and oiling.
His pleasure in his gift went up a notch, if that was possible. This was a prize!
‘Loot like that’s to be turned in for sale, so’s we can make proper shares,’ Laughing Jack said. He reached for the sword and Jimmy slid it and himself away from Jack’s hand with an eellike motion.
‘It’s not loot,’ he said. ‘It’s a gift. From Prince Arutha himself.’
‘Oooh, you’re getting gifts from princes these days are ye?’ Jack had never actually been known to smile; his nickname had been bestowed on him by Jimmy as a joke.
But he sneers better than anyone else I’ve ever met, Jimmy thought.
The Nightwarden reached for the blade
