empty window. Jim stepped inside and fell to his knees, scooping sand up and throwing it to the side. It took ten minutes of digging but at the end he had a mound of sand in one corner of the shack and a trap door revealed in the other.
He opened it and dropped in. Feeling around in the darkness he found a small table upon which was placed a torch dipped in dried resin and a flint-and-steel igniter. He tripped the igniter and soon the torch illuminated the room.
All was as he had left it and he placed the torch in a iron holder on the wall, went to a rack of clothing and began picking out what he needed.
An hour later a scruffy-looking sailor with a large duffle-bag emerged from the shack and hurried towards the old wharf, knowing that he would get through it only minutes before the tide filled it. He didn’t mind swimming through the channel surge, but did not wish to explain how he was drenched when he reached his next meeting place.
He got back into the city proper with only soaking trousers below the calf and they would quickly dry out as he walked. He resisted the urge to scratch at the false beard he now sported and the theatre paint that had been applied to his face to make him look swarthier than usual. The accent he adopted was that of a Kingdom sailor from Pointer’s Head, most of whom had ancient Keshian ancestry and thus a tendency to be darker than most in the Kingdom. Unless Sir William’s agents could anticipate his disguise, they would still be searching for a man younger, fairer of skin, and without facial hair.
Jim entered a dock side tavern and glanced around the room. In the corner sat a young man, waiting patently. Jim sat and if the young man was surprised at his appearance, he masked it well.
‘Karrick,’ said Jim.
The young man nodded and didn’t use his name. ‘Quite the … look you have there.’
‘I’m outbound on a ship in an hour.’
‘I won’t ask where.’
‘Good,’ said Jim. They both knew that Karrick couldn’t be forced to reveal what he didn’t know.
Karrick was young, no more than twenty-one years of age, but he was perhaps Jim’s most trusted agent in Rillanon. He was also the man Jim had got closest to Bill the Butcher. The organization of the thieves in Rillanon was different to that in Krondor, but there was still a need for communication between Bill’s Council and various gang leaders throughout the island.
Karrick had been working for Bill since he was a boy of ten. But he had been working for Jim since he was a boy of nine.
He looked enough like Jim to have been his son, and to be honest Jim had a little trouble remembering exactly where he had been nine months before Karrick’s birth, yet he doubted it. As Jim Dasher he had bedded his share of whores in Krondor, but James Jamison rarely frequented the ale-houses and brothels in Rillanon. Still rarely was not never and there was a resemblance. Karrick wore his hair down to his shoulders, but he was clean shaven, and had blue eyes rather than Jim’s brown. Yet there was a smile and tilt of head that looked very familiar, so occasionally Jim wondered.
Most of those in the thieves’ trade had little memory of their childhood. Either they had been orphans or they chose not to remember fathers who beat them, mothers who were drinking or taking drugs to endure being touched by loathsome men. Urchin gangs roamed the streets here as they did in every other big city, for despite being the Jewelled City of the Kingdom, at heart it was grimy, dark, and dangerous, including all the unpleasant realities of a city: sewers, slaughterhouses, rendering shacks, fish wharfs, and as assorted a collection of seedy taverns and filthy brothels as you’d find north of Kesh. So despite the magnificent splendour of the palace and every other building on the hills being faced with brilliant stonework, it was still just a city. And whatever Karrick remembered from his childhood he never shared with JIm.
All Jim knew is that while Karrick had lived his entire life within sight of those magnificent edifices atop the hill, he barely noticed them. He was too concerned with staying alive. He said, ‘It’s been, what? Five years?’
‘Six.’
‘I was surprised when Anne from the palace contacted me and told me to be here.’ Karrick leaned back, one well-muscled arm draped over the back of his chair. A serving man came over and took an order for two jacks of ale.
When he was gone, Jim said, ‘I have always tried to give you what I could, to supplement what you’ve had to learn on your own, but contact between us was never a good idea.’
‘It was a good year,’ said Karrick, and Jim knew exactly what he was talking about. In their first year together, Karrick had been a promising nine-year-old with a toughness, resiliency, and deep rooted sense of survival far beyond his years. He had been running a gang near the docks, and boys four, five, even six years older than him had taken his orders.
Unbeknownst to the boy, two men had taken notice of the enterprising boy: Jim Dasher of Krondor and Bill Cutter of Rillanon. Jim had got to him first.
For that first year, Jim had spent time with Karrick ensuring that he was better trained in hand-to-hand fighting than the other boys, teaching him the sword, when no other lad had that skill. Locks, how to set up a lookout, a thousand subtle but critical knacks that set apart a thief like Jim or his great-grandfather Jimmy the Hand from any common street thug.
From Jim’s point of view, Karrick was as close to Jimmy the Hand as any man living. He was faster than Jim was, even if only by a little. He was better at climbing the walls and roofs of the city, though Jim reserved the thought that had he been Karrick’s age, he would have kept pace with him. He knew everything Jim could teach him about locks and traps, and to pick one and avoid the other. And also he had taught him to read and write, skills sorely lacking in the other urchins of Rillanon.
In the end, that year had cemented a bond that Jim had continued even after Bill the Butcher took Karrick in. Jim never came to Rillanon without spending time with him, and always ensured Karrick had gold beyond what he could steal for himself, and the means to hide from Bill and flee the island safely should the need arise.
Then, six years before, Karrick had been promoted to a position with the Council itself. Their last meeting had been the night Karrick told Jim of that elevation. Jim had said, with some true sadness, that there could be no further contact between them unless the situation was dire. As Bill’s chosen agent, Karrick would be under close scrutiny and it was too risky for them to remain in touch. So, a code word and a venue was selected for any future meeting, and each went their separate way.
Karrick said, ‘So, I imagine this means that grave crisis you always spoke about has arrived?’
Jim smiled. ‘You mean beyond the war with Kesh and the attempt to incapacitate the Duke of Rillanon, and Sir William Alcorn’s apparent attempt to seize control of the Kingdom?’
Karrick smiled, and again to Jim it was like looking in a mirror. ‘Well, there is that.’
Jim nodded. ‘It’s time for you to take over the Council.’
Karrick said nothing for a while. Then he said, ‘That will be difficult.’
‘If it was easy, I wouldn’t need you.’
Karrick’s eyebrow lifted slightly, and he smiled again. ‘Need me?’ He leaned forward, ‘All these years … since we met, I’ve wondered at what point you would finally decide that I was ready to serve.’
‘You’ve been ready to serve for at least six years, Karrick.’ Jim fell silent as the ale appeared and the server walked away. ‘I just didn’t need your particular gifts until now. More to the point, the Kingdom didn’t need them.’
Karrick nodded, and there was a strange hint of sadness in his expression. ‘Have you ever lived a lie so long that it became true?’
Jim looked around the room, not liking where this conversation might lead. Seeing no one but the barman and one other customer, a elderly drunk, he felt his anxiety lessen.
Karrick chuckled. ‘No, Jim, I’m not betraying you to Bill.’ He looked at the disguised noble. ‘You’re the closest thing to a father I ever had, even though I barely saw you for more than a week for the first five years after we met. As I said, that first year, that was a good year.’
Jim said nothing.
Karrick said, ‘Have you ever wondered …’
Jim knew exactly what was being asked. ‘Yes, I have. Now, speaking of sons, I’ve arranged for Bill to think his boy James is taking over the Mockers in exchange for helping me with a few things during the war.’
