Jimmy gave it a swipe with the oiled cloth and held it up to glint in the torchlight. ‘I’m going to keep it,’ he said positively.
She looked at him speculatively, then glanced around the large hall. ‘There was quite a fight out there tonight,’ she said. ‘Word’s already spread the Princess and some other nobles escaped to the west.’ She made a face and then added, ‘Radburn and his bastards will be fit to be tied if that’s the truth of it. When the Duke gets back . . .’ She left the thought unfinished, but her expression showed a gleeful anticipation of what the Duke might do to the head of his secret police. ‘The market’ll be a quiet place with so many Mockers laying up licking their wounds.’ Flora gave him a wicked look. ‘Got any wounds you want licked, lovey?’
He laughed and gave her a friendly nudge. Inside he felt the slight tickle of excitement a rising flirtation often gave him, and flirtations with Flora often ended in bed. Flora hadn’t been Jimmy’s first, but not long after. He’d been around whores his entire life—his mother had been one—but Flora came from a better class than most; her father had been a baker before he died, so she had been raised a proper girl until she was ten. She could talk like a lady when she needed, which sometimes got her a better class of client. And she was prettier than most, with large expressive blue eyes and her light brown hair tending to curl around her face. She had a delicate chin and a nose that was ‘just so’. She also had a lovely smile. It was a shame she had no skill with her fingers, thought Jimmy, more than once; she’s just not suited to earn her living on the street.
Flora had said that she felt safe with him, and he assumed, without the slightest resentment, that it was because she was a foot taller than he was. As for himself, well, he liked Flora and he greatly enjoyed their private times together. He smiled at her blatant invitation and moved a bit closer. But then she gasped and her hand flew to her lips. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I forgot, I, um, have to meet someone in an hour.’ She snuggled against him. ‘But I can be all yours until then.’
Jimmy thought it over; first they’d have to find somewhere private, which given the lack of time they had meant somewhere uncomfortable and smelly, and Flora would have to leave early to keep her appointment . . . so that was far less than an hour, perhaps only a few minutes. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time he and one of the girls had ripped off a quick bump in a dark corner while the others slept nearby. He’d been raised in a place where couples grabbed pleasure when and where they could all his life—but while Flora was one of his favourites, he didn’t feel the usual hot rush, just a little tingle.
He was really tired. Besides, the Princess was travelling further and further away with every moment, and his heart sank. Suddenly a few minutes in Flora’s arms was the last thing he wanted. He didn’t like feeling this sadness . . .
Not that I’m certain just how I do feel. But it wouldn’t be fair to inflict this strange mood on his friend.
‘Sad to say I can’t spare the time now, more’s the pity,’ he said with a grin as he put the pieces of the scabbard back together. ‘Never thought I’d live to say that.’ But now that he had said it he felt downright noble.
Flora giggled. ‘Not to worry,’ she whispered, ‘there’ll be other occasions.’
He gave her a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek. ‘Oh, Flora, my flower, you are too good to me. Besides, I would probably disappoint you. All I have strength for is to look for a place to sleep tonight. I feel like I’ve been up and about since the day I was born.’
‘You may have been about, but I haven’t seen you,’ Flora grumbled. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘I was thinking the same thing about you,’ Jimmy lied easily. ‘I thought you’d been hired into someone’s pleasure house.’ If he wasn’t going to take advantage of Flora’s invitation he wouldn’t suffer if she went off in a huff.
‘No,’ she said, looking away haughtily. ‘I’m doing very well on my own.’
He looked at her; the new dress was pretty, but of cheap cloth, coarsely woven and coloured with dyes that would run and turn muddy soon: nobody had wasted good alum on fixing them. She wore a pair of dainty slippers on her feet, and a spangled scarf decorated her brown hair, more new things than she’d ever owned in her life. But she looked tired and not too clean.
The shine would be off her in six months, he knew, and in a year she’d look thirty. Life in the pleasure houses of the city was no holiday, but it was worlds better than the street. At least the girls had some hope of a future.