‘Hey!’ Neville called, clearly irritated. ‘Where ya goin’?’
‘To talk to someone who isn’t crazy,’ Jimmy threw over his shoulder.
‘C’m back here,’ the beggar demanded. ‘Don-cha know how to bargain? What’ll ya give me? I’m crazy, not stupid.’
Jimmy held up the coin and Neville started rocking and grumbling inaudibly.
‘Gimme three,’ he demanded.
‘I’ve already spent two coppers on your ale,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’m not throwing good money after bad. You give me something for that and if I think it’s worth more, I’ll pay more.’
‘S’fair,’ Neville said reluctantly. ‘Whatcha want to know?’
Jimmy sat before him, breathing through his mouth to avoid the old man’s prodigious stench, and asked him questions about the dungeons. How deep were they, how to get in, how many cells, how many guards, how often were the guards changed, how often were the prisoners fed, how often were the slops taken out, if they were? Noxious Neville answered every question with his eyes fixed keenly on the young thief’s face and with every answer Jimmy’s heart fell further.
‘Is there any way to get out without the guards knowing it?’ he asked finally.
Noxious Neville barked a laugh. ‘By the goddess of luck, who hates me, how should I know that?’ he demanded. ‘I never tried to get out. More trouble’n it’s worth. Four days’s the longest I’s ever there.’
Leaning closer, Jimmy asked, ‘Did you ever hear of anyone escaping?’
The old beggar began to giggle and wag a filthy finger at him. ‘Whatsa matta? Jocko steal yer sweetie?’
Jimmy made his eyes hard. ‘You’ve only got three teeth left, Neville,’ he pointed out. ‘Do you want me to break ’em for you?’
Fast as a striking snake the old man’s hand grabbed Jimmy’s arm with shocking strength.
‘Like to see you try it, I would,’ he snarled. ‘Little brat.’ He flung the young thief’s arm away from him. ‘Think I stayed alive this long by accident? Maybe Lims-Kragma, the great goddess of death, forgot about me? That what ya think? Hah! Stupid brat.’ He spat to the side.
Jimmy assumed from that that the old man was still willing to earn his silver. If he’d finished talking Neville probably would have spat on him. And then I’d have had to kill the old bastard. Or himself. The idea of being spat on by Noxious Neville was that revolting.
‘Did you,’ Jimmy repeated evenly, ‘ever hear of anyone escaping?’
The old man looked aside, shaking his head and waving the question away.
‘Is there any way in or out that the guards don’t watch?’ Jimmy asked desperately.
‘Only thing I know about is the drain in the floor of the big cell.’ He chuckled, giving Jimmy an evil look. ‘But you wouldn’t like that, it’s the hole we pissed in.’
Jimmy just stared at him, thinking hard. No, he didn’t like it, but it might have possibilities.
‘This drain, it leads directly to the sewers?’ he asked. ‘Or does the keep have a separate outfall to the harbour?’
Neville laughed again and Jimmy reflected that the old coot was getting a lot more pleasure out of this conversation than he should be.
‘How should I know?’ Neville demanded. ‘Ye think I follow me piss to see where it goes? The hole’s only this big!’ He held his hands up to indicate a circle the size of a dinner plate and Jimmy’s heart sank again.
‘Hey!’ Neville said and gave the boy a poke. ‘Maybe the Upright Man knows a way out of the prison. Why don’t ye ask him?’ And he laughed wildly.
The young thief rose and started to walk away.
‘Hey!’ the beggar screeched. ‘Where’s my money?’ He held out a skinny hand.
Jimmy flipped him the single silver he’d first offered.
‘Hey!’ Noxious Neville cried. ‘Yer s’posed to gi’ me more! That was the bargain.’
‘The bargain,’ Jimmy said coldly, ‘was that if I thought your information was worth more, I’d give you more. Give me something I can use.’
The old man made grumbling noises and glared at him, but something made Jimmy wait. ‘Leads to the sewers,’ Neville finally conceded. ‘But the tunnel’s half caved in, ain’t safe.’
‘And the drain?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Can someone get down there?’
Neville turned his head this way and that, as though protesting the continued questioning, then he nodded. ‘Drain used to be bigger,’ he admitted. ‘Filled it in a bit wi’ bits of stone and mortar they did. Shaft’s big enough for someone skinny. Give it a coupla good kicks and the drain’ll fall open, big enough for someone to crawl down if’n he don’t have too much girth.’
Light broke in Jimmy’s mind and he stared at the old beggar. ‘You’ve used it!’ he accused. ‘You used that shaft to escape!’
Neville broke out in a flurry of crazed motions meant to indicate go away and leave me alone or there’ll be trouble – a move he’d perfected over a long career of dealing with the public.
Jimmy stabbed a finger at him, unimpressed. ‘Stop it!’ He glared until the old man settled down and glared back at him. ‘Now,’ he said evenly, ‘tell me what I want to know and if it turns out to be the truth, I’ll give you this.’ He flashed a gold coin for a fraction of a second. ‘If it turns out you’re lying, you get nothing.’
A gold coin was a fortune to a man like Neville; it would get him fifty flagons of ale – a hundred if he stuck to the really vile stuff sold in the Poor Quarter. He sat sucking his gums and thinking it over.
‘Why not?’ he said at last. ‘Not like’s a secret worth keeping. I’s a thief once, ’n young. They caught me, wasn’t easy.’
Noxious Neville’s face took on a slackly reminiscent grin and just when Jimmy thought he’d have to shake him to bring him back to the here and now he began speaking again.
‘I was gonna hang.’ Neville spat again. ‘But I knew if I had time and patience I’d get out. There’s a grille,’ he said, pointing down with one dirty finger.
Jimmy glanced down automatically then grimaced and looked back at the old man.
‘Not too big, mind, but me, I could.’ Neville wriggled where he sat, arms working above his head as though squeezing through a tight space. ‘M’shoulders come apart,’ he said and gave a wheezing laugh at the young thief’s look of doubt.
Not that Jimmy hadn’t heard of such before, but it was hard to believe the human wreck before him would have such a useful attribute.
Neville slapped his knee, laughing and after a moment he went on. ‘Those days the grille wasn’t even mortared, they di’nt think anybody could get down that shaft.’ He shook his head, grinning. ‘Wished I coulda seen their faces wh’n they come fer me.’ He chuckled.
Jimmy nodded. ‘So where is it?’ he asked.
Neville stared into space, one finger tracing the air as he tried to remember the route. ‘Take the fourth shaft at Five Points,’ he said uncertainly. ‘No, no, take the second –’ He went silent, gazing. Suddenly he was more animated. ‘Go toward dockside, always go for the lower way … no, no, that leads to the fullers. Don’t want to go there.’ He huffed impatiently. ‘I know how te get there,’ he said impatiently, ‘I jes’ never had to tell anybody how to get there.’
Jimmy stood. ‘Show me then. It’ll be easier.’
The old beggar looked at him as though Jimmy had suggested he strip to his loin-cloth and dance on a table.
‘Not fer me!’ Neville said. He waved his flagon. ‘I’ve got all my comforts here.’ He looked around and waved a hand as though to indicate the cosiest surroundings in the city.
Leaning close enough to singe his nose hairs Jimmy said, ‘Four silver above the gold if you show me.’
