‘Make it a gentle one,’ Coe called to the stable-master.
‘I don’t want to hold you up, sir,’ Jimmy said.
‘I’m sure you won’t, Jimmy. I’m not planning to gallop—like a man, a horse can walk further than it can run. Do you have any supplies?’ Or anything more than the clothes on your back, that absurdly grand blade, and a suspiciously large amount of hard cash?
‘Uh, no. I thought I’d arrange a horse, then buy what I need in the market,’ Jimmy said. ‘As I said, sir, I don’t want to delay you.’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ Jarvis said, giving the lad a hearty slap on the back. ‘And as I said, I’m in no mad rush. Where are you bound?’
There was something about the boy that didn’t ring true. He couldn’t put his finger on it. But he and his so-called foster-sister, young as they were, struck him as rather more experienced and less benign than they were trying to seem. He was intrigued and wanted to know more. I always do. It’s one thing that makes me good at my job, he thought with flat realism. And it was something of a bonus that he could indulge his curiosity without going out of his way. This time. On other occasions, that curiosity had led him into situations in which someone ended up dead.
Still smarting from that hearty slap, Jimmy grinned falsely. He would probably be wise to get away from this fellow. Generally he didn’t trust back-slappers, thinking them bullies who didn’t quite dare to show it. But bullies took things from you and yet Coe was falling over himself in his eagerness to be helpful. It was disconcerting.
‘I’m just catching up with some friends,’ he said. ‘They left at dawn.’
‘Ah,’ said Coe, his interest visibly sharpening. ‘I wonder if I know them. I, too, am late in following a pair of fellows I must speak with. We’ll share my supplies, my young friend.’ The stableman brought the two horses over, saddled and ready. ‘Mount up.’
I’m in his debt now, Jimmy thought. And look to be more so. I hate debts, but it’s stupid to turn down help when you need it. What do I know of chasing men through field and wood? Alleys and sewers and even Radburn’s dungeons he could manage. In the countryside he’d be as lost as . . . well, as Lorrie had been here in town, where even a complete stranger like Jimmy could land on his feet.
Jimmy considered the situation. I could simply run away, but that would attract attention. Besides, you’re never out of options until you’re dead, he thought. He could take the chance of travelling with Coe and see what happened. If things looked dicey he could stop somewhere with people in sight and say they were his friends. Or, if worst came to worst, he could make for the woods and hide. He was good at hiding and climbing.
How much harder could it be to hide in a thicket of trees than in an alley?
He was suspicious of the man, but then again, suspicion was his response to every new face. Coe had helped him, with the wristband that had stopped Jimmy’s seasickness, and had given them good advice on where to stay in Land’s End. One of the things he’d learned in last night’s ramble was that The Cockerel was indeed as bad a place as any in Krondor. He and Flora hadn’t needed the warning, but Jarvis Coe wouldn’t know that. In fact, the man had nothing to gain from either act, because he had no reason to expect to ever see Jimmy again.
And I’m curious about him. Curiosity is one of the very things that makes me a good thief and, damnit, it’ll make this chase after Lorrie’s little brother less boring. After all, he’d been wondering what he would do if he did catch up with the kidnappers.
Well he’d told himself, I’m a thief. I’ll steal the boy back.
But that was bravado and he knew it. One of the things Jimmy was learning of late was that he really couldn’t do everything he imagined, just most of it. Facing one hardened man with sword in hand was worrisome. Facing two, well, that was just plain stupid. If he could enlist Coe then maybe he might actually stand a chance of saving Rip.
There was something about the man that didn’t quite ring true, but Jimmy’s instincts told him that Coe was all right. Secretive, perhaps, even hiding his true reasons as much as Jimmy was, but not bad. Living as he had in Krondor, bad was something the young thief could sense without thinking and nine times out of ten, he’d be right. His bump of trouble just didn’t react to Coe.
What really worried him was who Jarvis Coe was trying to catch up with. For a brief instant Jimmy considered that he might be a colleague of the two who had kidnapped Rip. Then he shoved the thought aside: had that been the case, Jimmy’s bump of trouble would be positively throbbing.
The stableman cleared his throat; Coe was looking at him with a cocked eyebrow.