Those eyes had something in them that made her shiver and remember what Jimmy had said about the risks of freelancing.
The sergeant slapped his gloved hands together; the metal rings on their backs clinked dully. ‘So says the acting governor. We can do anything we want to trash like you, and serves you right. Now shut up and settle down like a good, sensible girl or I’ll knock your teeth out.’
Flora sucked her wounded knuckles and did as she was told. The pain was distant, less real than the way her heart pounded with fear, and her throat tried to squeeze itself shut beneath a mouth gone parchment-dry.
By the time they arrived at the keep, the cage was full to bursting and Flora was pressed tightly against the bars—which was still better than being in the middle, since at least there was open air on one side. The wagon was filled with whores and beggars and a very few of the younger pickpockets who had been doing absolutely nothing illegal when they were taken. The soldiers had even rounded up a few people who were simply poor, or who’d happened to be standing next to the wrong whore. But she’d noticed that most of those in the cage with her were Mockers. And that frightened her. Clearly Jocko Radburn was not taking the Mockers’ adventure with the Princess Anita lightly.
The gates clashed shut behind them. More Bas-Tyra guardsmen hauled them out of the wagons to join a growing file of prisoners being herded to stairways that led downward. Boots and fists and the steel-shod butts of halberds and pikes thudded on flesh; almost all the cursing came from the guards, though.
Their prisoners were mostly silent, except for the occasional cry of pain.
Jimmy had slept for a whole day and night, waking at mid-morning on the second day after the Sea Swift’s departure. 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.