Mosca nodded. The Marlebournes had emerged from the eastern gate with the general exodus, Beamabeth veiled in a vain attempt to avoid the new scorn with which she was widely regarded.
‘I still feel . . . Mosca narrowed her eyes. ‘I feel like she got away with it.’
‘Would you have her birched in the public square? Baited by dogs perhaps? Madam, we have destroyed her good name, and she will find the world a much colder and darker place as a result. Even now her father is probably changing her name to Buzzletrice.
‘And you may comfort yourself with the thought that you have been the caltrop under her satin shoe every step of the way. You misdirected the Romantic Facilitator she had hired, you turned up in her own house and reported her plans to her father and when she was on the brink of snatching the ransom you careered in from stage left dressed as a pantomime horse and threw everything into disorder. And then, just when she was probably working her way towards claiming a second ransom, you rescued her.’
This did indeed make Mosca feel a good deal better. After all, she reflected, I got an idea what happened to that radish of hers.
‘I wonder what did happen to the first ransom?’ Clent reflected wistfully. Evidently his own thoughts had strayed in a similar direction.
‘No idea, Mr Clent,’ Mosca declared, her eyes two spoonfuls of black innocence.
‘Alack. Well, child, at least I have good news. I chanced upon a member of the Guild of Stationers, and after only a little scuffing of the truth made it plain to him that we had nobly and ingeniously prevented a town falling into the hands of the Locksmiths, for the sake of the Stationers. Once again, madam, our star seems to be in the ascendant, our colours climbing the pole. In short, it seems I shall have buyers for my poems . . . and we might not need to live on rocks and grass this winter.’
He glanced across at Saracen, who was happily tugging at the grass with his beak, his neck a muscular loop, the grass giving with a deep, meaty ripping sound.
‘Though one of our number seems to favour that diet. I can understand the grass . . . but why does that perilous creature of yours eat pebbles?’
‘Cos he’s only got teeth for biting, not chewing,’ answered Mosca, not quite meeting Clent’s eye. ‘He swallows little rocks and they sit in his crop and roll around each other, grindin’ his food up like little grindstones.’ She gave Clent a brief needle-sharp glance, but his interest seemed to be idle. She decided to change the subject completely.
‘Mr Clent? I . . . I just had a word with Mr Goshawk.’
Clent looked up sharply. ‘Well, you appear to be still breathing, though your countenance is not reassuring. What did Mr Goshawk have to say?’
‘He . . . He didn’t quite offer me a job, and I didn’t quite say no.’
‘I see. Well, I suppose there is only so long one can make a hobby of deciding the fates of cities before it attracts attention. Did he quite manage to say whether the morn will find our battered bodies in the river’s embrace?’
‘I told him you still had a lot to teach me, an’ he said he’d send somebody to ask me again on my next nameday.’ Mosca gave a grimace. ‘Borrowed time, that’s all.’
‘I generally find,’ Clent murmured after a pause, ‘that it is best to treat borrowed time the same way as borrowed money. Spend it with panache, and try to be somewhere else when it runs out.’
‘And when we get found, Mr Clent, when the creditors and bailiffs come after us and it’s payment time . . .’
‘. . . then we borrow more, madam, at higher interest. We embark on a wilder gamble, make a bigger promise, tell a braver story, devise a more intricate lie, sell the hides of imaginary dragons to desperate men, climb to ever higher and more precarious ground . . . and later, of course, our fall and catastrophe will be all the worse, but that later is our watchword, Mosca. We have nothing else – but we can at least make later later.’
Saracen showed no distress at being scooped up with every sign of haste. His world was one of disaster and near-disaster, and he was used to sudden exits, often accompanied by screams, pursuit and the smell of smoke. Another day, another exodus. He met the future with tiny, black and fearless eyes, his bully brow full of goosely daring and a crown jewel of the realm in his crop.
I would like to thank Martin for accompanying me on impulsive expeditions to Ludlow and the other walled towns and castles that inspired Toll; Ruth Alltimes and Nancy Miles for unending patience and positivity; Rhiannon, Ralph and Deirdre for an invaluable stream of feedback; Felix for providing a much-needed extra perspective; ‘A history of the auction by Brian Learmount; Mike Parker for expert advice on musical history and high-speed harp management; Muncaster Castle and other stately homes for legends of the ‘Luck’; Rachel for a vet’s perspective on the workings of a goose’s crop; and Tracy for telling me of Tongs who used Chinese carnival dragons to collect protection money hidden in cabbages, thus giving me the idea of the Clatterhorse.
Praise for Fly By Night:
‘I wish I’d written it, but even better, I know I couldn’t have’ Meg Rosoff
‘Hardinge is a hugely talented writer of tireless invention and vivid prose’ Guardian
‘Frances Hardinge’s phenomenally inventive Fly By Night is remarkable and captivating, masterfully written and . . . Full of marvels’ Sunday Times
‘Mosca is, rather like Philip Pullman’s Lyra, a fierce black-eyed street survivor . . . Fly By Night is like delving into a box of sweets with a huge array of flavours’ TES
‘Fly By Night is a wonderful and wondrous novel . . . Frances Hardinge has joined the company of writers whose books I will always seek out and read’ Garth Nix
Also by Frances Hardinge
Verdigris Deep
Gullstruck Island
Another Mosca Mye madcap adventure . . .
Fly By Night
First published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-0-230-75919-0 PDF
ISBN 978-0-230-75913-8 EPUB
Text copyright © Frances Hardinge 2011
Illustrations copyright © Tomislav Tomic 2011
The right of Frances Hardinge and Tomislav Tomic to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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