Jimmy the Hand by Raymond E. Feist, S. M. Stirling Page B

of
deeds performed was vague.
    They turned,
watching as Neville conducted a conversation with someone who wasn’t
there. Jimmy interrupted the conversation and lured Neville out of
the Rest by pouring out a stream of raw red wine that Neville
hastened to catch in his mouth. When they were outside Jimmy
stoppered the skin.
    ‘Lead us,’
he said.
    The old beggar
smacked his lips, then rubbed his hands over his face and neck and
licked up the drops of wine he collected from his fingers.
    Jimmy
ostentatiously swung the skin over his shoulder.
    ‘Whenever
you’re ready,’ he said.
    ‘That’s
it,’ Neville said.
    The three
Mockers crouched, straddling the stream of foulness that ran down the
centre of the sewer. Ahead, an oval opening in a wall poured its own
tributary into the fetid stream; broad streaks of glistening nitre
down the brick showed that the trickle had been larger once.
    ‘Took long
enough,’ Larry said sourly.
    Jimmy shrugged.
Not all of Neville’s madness was an act; they’d
backtracked more times than Jimmy cared to remember with the old man
whining about how thirsty he was. But the young thief had been
adamant; no wine until they found the place.
    If he’s
like this half sober, we’d never see daylight again if I’d
let him get drunk.
    ‘Are you
sure this is it?’ Jimmy asked dubiously.
    As he’d
said, the tunnel was partially collapsed. Rubble splayed out in an
incline into the main sewer, giving them easy access, but the air
that blew towards them from above was more foul than the beggar
himself. Larry said, ‘Something’s died up there!’
    Neville ignored
the comment to answer Jimmy’s question. ‘Yes I’m
sure,’ he snapped; his lips worked angrily and one discoloured
snag of a tooth showed. ‘You’d been payin’
attention you’d know it!’
    The old
coot’s right, Jimmy acknowledged unhappily. They’d
passed signs that warned they were approaching the underpinnings of
the keep.
    ‘Phew!’
Larry said and choked as he stuck head and shoulders into the gap.
‘You can’t mean it! We can’t go in there! A snake
couldn’t get in there!’
    Jimmy was
definitely in sympathy with Larry. He tossed the wineskin to the
beggar who hurried off without demanding the rest of his pay. He
grimaced as he watched Noxious Neville scurry into the darkness, then
climbed the rubble and thrust the torch through a gap.
    ‘Look, it
gets broader past here,’ he said. ‘And this rubble’s
easy enough to move.’ He levered a handful aside, then wiped
his hand on his breeches. Good thing I was going to buy new ones
anyway.
    ‘We could
clear enough to get through in less than an hour, even if we take
care not to make any noise. After that it’s easy enough, for
folk our size. We’re not looking to ride a horse through, after
all.’
    The torch
flickered and dimmed in a slightly stronger gust of air and Jimmy
pushed himself back and staggered, retching, away from the pile of
rock and earth.
    He shook his
head, his eyes streaming. ‘You’re right, only sheer
desperation would get me in there. And even then . . .’

    Three extremely
wealthy merchants sat across the desk from the acting governor of the
city. The men were members of the powerful Merchants’ Guild—a
body that included the most wealthy men in the city, along with
representatives of the other important guilds: tanners, smiths,
shipwrights, carters and others. After the authority of the Prince’s
Court and the temples, the Merchants’ Guild was the most
influential faction in the principality. Too many nobles in the
Kingdom owed debts to or did business with the more powerful members
of the Guild. Crops didn’t come to market from outlying estate
farms if the teamsters didn’t drive wagons. Dock warehouses
filled up with goods that were headed nowhere if the dockworkers
refused to load them on the ships. Originally begun as a body to
adjudicate disagreements between the different guilds and independent
merchants, they had