Jimmy the Hand Read Online Free PDF

waited
outside. ‘Usually their next remark is something on the order
of: Stop! Gods, please stop!’
    ‘I admit
that my ship floated off-station,’ Leighton blustered. ‘Such
things happen occasionally, there’s nothing deliberate in it.
An anchor bolt rusted through and the tide caught our bow. It was
merely misfortune that it happened at that particular moment. When I
heard the commotion I rose from my bed, came topside and corrected
the situation at once. At the very worst it was dereliction of duty,
though even that would be coming it a bit high under the
circumstances.’
    Del Garza raised
his brows and leant back in the commander’s chair with his
hands clasped over his lean stomach. ‘Indeed?’ he said.
    ‘Of
course,’ Leighton said, allowing a touch of his former
haughtiness to creep into his tone. ‘I tell you these things
happen, ‘tis no one’s fault, my good man. No one could
have predicted that a ship would choose that particular moment to . .
.’
    ‘We know
the Upright Man bribed you.’ The acting governor waited for the
explosion, but none came; the Captain merely stared at him, his mouth
opening and closing like a gaffed fish. Not only guilty then, but the
man had no spine. ‘What was it, the gold? Or some misplaced
sense of loyalty to Prince Erland’s family?’
    ‘We have
known them a long time . . .’ Leighton began.
    Del Garza cut
him off. ‘You may as well admit it, you know. We have proof.’
    The Captain
shook his head silently.
    ‘Oh, but
we do,’ del Garza insisted. ‘We have our own sources
inside the Mockers, you know.’
    They didn’t,
of course, have either—proof, or sources. But it was obvious to
the secret policeman that the Mockers had an interest in freeing the
Princess Anita. It was certainly Mockers he and his men had been
fighting this morning. Besides, every instinct he had told him that
it was beyond unlikely that a ship would just ‘happen’ to
drift off-station at precisely the wrong moment.
    The lie came
easily though, because if del Garza was going to have to answer for
Anita’s escape—and he was—then others would answer
first and far more painfully.
    Leighton licked
his lips. ‘You could hardly call it treason,’ he said.
    Del Garza leaned
forward blinking rapidly, his brows raised incredulously. ‘Oh,
yes,’ he said. ‘Taking a bribe deliberately to disobey
orders during wartime could never be anything else.’
    ‘We are
hardly at war with the Mockers,’ the Captain argued.
    ‘We are
always at war with the Mockers,’ del Garza corrected, his voice
flat. ‘That it has never been formally declared makes it no
less a war. For if we were not at war with them, I assure you these
thieves and murderers-for-hire are and have always been at war with
the decent citizens of Krondor.’
    ‘They are
hardly worthy . . .’ Leighton began.
    ‘Opponents?’
Del Garza sneered. ‘If their money is good enough for you then
why shouldn’t they be considered . . . worthy?’
    The Captain
pressed his lips together and took a deep breath, then he
straightened. ‘I should like to see this “proof”
you claim to have.’
    Del Garza
chuckled, an impulse he couldn’t control. ‘Are you now
going to claim innocence, after all but admitting your guilt?’
    ‘I have
not admitted any guilt,’ the Captain said. ‘Come, come,
you shall have to produce the proof at my trial.’
    With a sad shake
of his head the Baron asked: ‘Would you really put your family
through the shame of a trial when the conclusion is inevitable? Must
we prove to them and all the world your villainy?’
    The colour
drained from Leighton’s face. ‘What are you suggesting?’
he demanded, clearly shaken.
    ‘You need
do nothing radical,’ del Garza said, suddenly all generosity.
‘Naturally you cannot keep your commission.’ He drew a
document from a small pile and pushed it toward the captain along
with a quill pen already resting in an ink stand. ‘Herein you
resign your