A few voices murmured here and there, but mostly the Mockers stared, expecting more, and with their silence demanding it.
‘Well aren’t you a fine bunch?’ Laughing Jack sneered. ‘No faith, at all?’ he shouted. ‘Where would most of you be without the Upright Man? Huh? I’ll tell you, most of you would have been dead by now. It’s easy to be loyal during the good times. Easy to follow the rules and do what’s expected when everything’s running right. But when times are hard, that’s when you especially got to follow orders. Loyalty will carry us all through the hard times.’ He swept them all with a hard look. ‘So what’s it going to be? Follow orders, or get tossed out in the streets so the guards’ll find you?’
Confused silence greeted this question. There was a roar of affirmation waiting to happen but the Mockers looked at one another uneasily, wondering how to avoid sounding as if being kicked into the streets was what they wanted.
‘Well, when you put it like that,’ Jimmy muttered. ‘Upright Man!’ he shouted, punching his fist in the air.
The crowd went wild and took up the cry, bellowing until mortar began to rain from the ceiling and Laughing Jack held up his hands for silence.
‘Get to your roosts and your flops,’ he commanded. ‘Keep your heads low and wait for orders. One thing I can promise is that we won’t take this lying down, but nobody does nothing until you hear otherwise.’
There was another burst of applause at that which quickly died when Laughing Jack stepped off his makeshift stage. Jimmy looked up at Larry and jerked his head toward the door then moved off, knowing the younger boy would follow as he could.
Jimmy led the way out of the sewers and through a maze of back alleys, most sodden, some clean, until he came to a fence of cedar posts set in stone. He climbed it and stepped briefly onto a window ledge, then grasped a hole left by a crumbling brick and hoisted himself up to where he could step onto the window’s ledge. Balancing, he reached up to grasp the eaves. He chinned himself up, his toes rinding the space in the brickwork that allowed him to push himself upward until he could wriggle onto the tiled roof.
Then he silently moved over so that Larry could climb up beside him; neither of them was breathing hard, since the sky-routes were as familiar to them as a staircase to the attic would be to a householder.
They were on the roof of a noisy dockside tavern—the tiles beneath them fairly vibrated, as sailors the worse for wine made an attempt at song — but they still made as little noise as possible, moving into the dark shadow of a dormer window. Jimmy risked a quick glance in the window and found the room unoccupied. He lay down on his back looking up at the stars and listening for any sounds of pursuit. Larry sat quietly beside him, apparently doing the same.
‘I think,’ Larry whispered at last, sounding very unhappy, ‘that the Upright Man will call del Garza’s bluff.’
Jimmy nodded, then realizing it was too dark to be seen grunted in agreement.
‘The only trouble is,’ the younger boy continued fiercely, ‘he isn’t bluffing. Why should he? Nobody’s going to complain if he hangs a dozen Mockers. A hundred even!’
Jimmy shushed him, for he’d nearly shouted that last. Larry muttered an apology and Jimmy gave the boy’s arm a brief, sympathetic punch. But he agreed with Larry’s sentiments. The acting governor would put the Upright Man in the worst position possible before he consented to negotiate, if he ever did.
In the history of the Thieves’ Guild, the Mockers and Grown had never sat down across a table, but over the decades since the Guild had been founded, the Mockers had reached accommodations with the Prince of Krondor on several occasions. A word dropped by a merchant with connections in court, a trader having business on both sides of the law carrying a message, and from time to time a difficult situation might be avoided. The Mockers gave up their own when caught dead to rights; that was understood by every thief, basher and beggar. But occasionally an overzealous constable had the wrong lad scheduled for the gallows, or a harmless working girl or beggar arrested for a more serious crime, and from time to time trades were arranged. More than one Mocker was tossed out of gaol suddenly after the Sheriff of Krondor got clear proof of innocence—usually the location of the true malefactor, sometimes in hiding, at other times dead. On other occasions a gang without the Upright Man’s sanction was turned over to the Sheriff’s men, saving them the trouble of arresting them.