‘I am carrying an object of personal value with which I do not intend to part.’ Her face was now so close to the curtain that the lace left a fretwork of shadow across her cheeks. ‘Do you know who I am?’
Clent gave a nod. Mosca saw that he was looking at a signet ring on the lady’s hand, and she was astonished to hear his next words, low and hurried.
‘My lady . . . if I can persuade the man not to have you searched, will you be willing to find employment for myself and my . . .’ he glanced at Mosca and visibly relented – ‘my secretary? We are poets and wordsmiths of no mean standing.’
‘Very well.’ The porcelain face receded from the window. ‘Let us see how you work your will with words.’
‘Pass me your purse, then, my lady.’ A pouch of purple silk slid through the window into Clent’s waiting hand.
‘Can you do it?’ hissed Mosca under her breath.
‘No.’ Clent took a shaky breath. ‘I need a moment to think.’ He pouted skywards for an instant, smoothing rain up his forehead and into his hair. After a few moments he gave Mosca a smile of slightly haggard hilarity. ‘Yes. Now I believe I can do it.’
Blythe had been supervising the searching of the footmen, but now he gave Clent an ugly look of impatience.
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘There is no one within but a solitary lady – an invalid. She is taken with a fever, and is hurrying home to prevent it becoming dangerous. She has begged that you spare her the cruel humours of the evening air, and allow her to stay out of the rain. This is her purse –’ Clent raised the pouch above his head and advanced carefully – ‘and she says you are welcome to it, if you allow her the blessing of her health.’
‘The sooner she steps out and takes her place with the rest,’ Blythe muttered through chattering teeth, ‘the sooner she can be on her way.’
Mosca advanced by Clent’s side, and was paid no more attention than if she had been a hedge sparrow.
‘I think you speak not as you mean. I have heard many stories of Captain Blythe, but nothing that would lead me to believe that he would let a defenceless flower of a girl suffer a lingering death amid agues and delirium. Those words were spoken by the bitter rain, by the holes in your boots, and by the bigger hole inside your belly – not by Captain Blythe. The man before me is too tall for such words.’
Looking into Blythe’s face, Mosca suspected that he had never heard himself called a ‘captain’ before. She thought this might be because Clent had conferred the title himself.
‘May I speak quite freely?’
‘If you can speak both freely and briefly,’ was the highwayman’s curt response.
‘I thank you.’ Clent advanced closer. ‘I could not trust myself to hold my tongue while I could see you throwing away such an opportunity. What could you hope to gain by dragging that poor suffering girl out into the rain and cutting the buttons off her gown? Perhaps your men hope to cut off her hair as well and sell it to a wigmaker, and leave her quite shorn and cold?’
‘What do I stand to lose?’
‘Ah!’ Clent raised his forefinger significantly before his nose. ‘I am very glad that you asked me that. You stand to lose something of great value, something which I am in a position to offer you. But first I must ask you a question. How often have you had your boots cobbled?’
‘What?’ The young highwayman was obviously now utterly perplexed. His red-rimmed eyes flitted this way and that as if he was glancing between the unanswered first question and the perplexing second.
‘You do not need to answer,’ Clent cut in helpfully. ‘I can do that for you. The answer is: not as often as the holes merit. I can see a hole the size of a sovereign where your big toe is pushing out its head to test the wind. And why? I can answer that too. When your pockets are merry with coins, do you scurry first to the cobbler, and then to the tailor, and have yourself stitched and made watertight? No! That first night you and your comrades find a tavern, and you drink to every king or queen that has ever been toasted, and then you drink to kings that rule only the lands of your own imaginations, and then you drink until you are kings, and no laws can touch you.
‘And the next day you must be poor and prudent again, and cannot afford to cobble your boots. But that night!’ Clent spread his arms wide, embracingly. ‘What a gesture! You are shouting to the world, I may be wicked, but I will not be mean; I may be wild, but I will not be small; the mud may creep in at my boots but it will not stain my soul . . .’
After a moment’s dramatic pause, Clent let his arms drop.
‘I am a writer of ballads – I value gestures. I understand them. I know what I can do with them. Let us suppose, for example, that you allowed this young woman to stay in her carriage, handed her back her money, and wished her and her people godspeed back to Mandelion so that she could find a physician who might save her life – ah, what I could do with that!’
Blythe’s eyes asked silently what Clent could do with that.
‘I could write a ballad which would make proverbial the chivalry of Clamouring Captain Blythe. When you rode the cold cobbles of a midnight street, you would hear it sung in the taverns you passed, to give you more warmth than that thin coat of yours. When you were hunted across the moors by the constables, hundreds would lie sleepless, hoping that brave Captain Blythe still ran free.
‘And when at night you lay on your bed of earth your dripping roof of bracken, with no company but the wind and your horse champing moss near your head, you would know that in a glittering banquet hall somewhere, some young lady of birth would be thinking of you.
‘That is what you stand to lose.’
Blythe was as wide-eyed as a sleepwalker. He made several attempts to speak before he managed to get the words out. At last he cleared his throat, and took the purse out of Clent’s hand, tested the weight of it, and then returned it to him.
‘We are in the business of relieving men of their money, not girls of their health. Let her keep the purse to buy a physician.’ He looked a question at Clent, as if to ask whether these words would work well in the ballad. Clent nodded kindly to show that they would do very well indeed.
Clent was halfway back to the carriage when Blythe called him back.
‘Do you . . . do you think it would be good for the ballad if we helped them fix the wheel?’
A starry look of suppressed glee entered Clent’s eyes.
‘Yes, I think that would help a great deal.’
F is for Fair Mark
It was impossible that Mosca the Housefly could be sitting in a carriage on a cushion of white watered silk. It was impossible that the highwaymen should be letting them leave – she could hear Blythe outside telling the carriage driver what secret signals he should give if other men in the same gang accosted the coach. She felt sure that at any moment Clent’s words would slide off the highwayman like magic dew, leaving him clearheaded and choleric.
The coachman gave the horses a long, looping whistle. The carriage rocked on its wheels, then rumbled into motion. Someone thumped goodwill and a farewell into the wall by Mosca’s head, making her jump.
It was impossible that she and Clent were to arrive in Mandelion in a carriage, flanked by footmen, cushioned in white velvet like two horse chestnuts in down-lined shells. No doubt the pair of them would wake up and find themselves sleeping under a sycamore sacred to Dorace of the Whimsical Dream. Or the carriage would try to cross running water, and would collapse into a pile of dandelion seeds while their hostess spread swan’s wings and took to the sky.
Two pearls were watching her. In the lap of the lady in white lay an embroidered box, the lid adorned with a stuffed ermine stoat whose arched back served as a handle. Instead of glass eyes, small pearls had been placed in the sockets. As the rain lashed the lace curtain, the lady gently stroked at the fur along its back with a gloved fingertip, as if it was a living pet.
‘Remarkable.’
The lady did not raise her eyes, and for a moment Mos
ca thought she was addressing the stoat. It was a moment before Clent found his voice.
‘Ah, it was of course a labour of delight to be of service to Your Ladyship, and, if I may say so without offence, my oratory was inspired by the thought of one whose beauty might, ah, give voices to the very pebbles . . .’ There was something about Clent’s hopeful expression that made Mosca uncomfortable. His beaver hat offered little complaints as he bent the brim this way, that way.
‘Really? I thought that you were inspired by the prospect of employment and preferment. Come now, sir. Make your requests plainly.’
‘I had hoped, Lady Tamarind, that you might hire me to write an epic tale of your family’s fortunes. The rise of the dukes of Avourlace, their wise rulership of Mandelion over the centuries, their tragic exile during the war and the Years of the Birdcatchers, and then your brother’s triumphant return to reclaim his ancestral rights . . .’
Mosca’s eyes became round as she realized she was staring at the sister of the Duke of Mandelion.
‘Very well.’ Lady Tamarind’s words were soft and as crisp as a fox-print in snow. ‘You shall write it, and you shall be paid for it. I assume I need not read it.’
‘And . . . ah . . .’ Creak, crick went Clent’s hat brim, his eyes bodkin-eager. ‘Ah . . . I would request a letter of introduction, that I might mix with the, ah, better sort of personage.’ Mosca felt immediately that the letter meant more to him than the money.
‘In Mandelion the high and the fashionable may be met with in the Honeycomb Courts, which surround my residence in the Eastern Spire.’ Lady Tamarind paused, as if con-sidering. ‘I shall send you a letter vouching for your character and advising that you be allowed into the Lower Honeycomb Courts. I will do no more for a man I know so little.’
Clent gave a little exhalation of satisfaction.
Silence followed. The rattle of rain and the crack of stones under the wheels had no power to keep Mosca awake. Her eyelids drooped.
She tried to plan ahead, but thoughts gave under her feet and became dreams. She dreamed that she had found her father in Mandelion. He had been running a school there for years, and had not really died at all, and it turned out that Mosca had lots of brothers and sisters, and they were all studying at the school and waiting to meet her. It was time for her to attend her first day at that school, but Mosca was terrified, because when she tried to touch anything it burst into flames. She knew that there was a pair of white gloves that she had to wear which would make her safe, but Clent had stolen them, and she could not find them. She tried to explain everything to her father, but he would not look at her or speak to her. Instead, she ran to Clent and demanded her gloves back, but he sat there, smirking and smoothing the white gloves over his large hands, until she itched to grab him by the jowls and char him to a cinder.
The carriage wall rapped reprovingly on the back of Mosca’s head, and she found herself staring at the deeply sleeping Clent, the dream so vivid in her mind that she felt sparks might leap from her eyes and settle on his cravat.
‘Hate has its uses, but it will serve you ill if you wear it so openly.’
The quiet voice jarred Mosca into wakefulness. Lady Tamarind was looking directly at her and, snatching for a fistful of her wits, she struggled to explain.
‘He—’
‘Your grievances do not interest me. Your master’s request does. Why is he so keen to mix above his station?’
Sparks of hate crackled in Mosca’s mind.
‘Spying,’ she hissed recklessly. ‘He’s a mangy old nook-gazin’ spy. ’S got papers, signed by the Stationers – I seen ’em.’
Lady Tamarind’s immaculate mask of a face hung in the dusk of the coach and looked at Mosca. For several moments her features showed not the slightest motion. Perhaps she disapproved of Mosca’s indiscretion. Perhaps she did not believe her.
‘A Stationer spy,’ she murmured at last, very quietly and without rancour. ‘What is his name?’
‘Eponymous Clent.’
‘Eponymous Clent.’ There was an odd, distant note in Tamarind’s voice that Mosca did not understand. ‘How a name changes everything!’ Her gaze never moved from Mosca’s face. ‘A man’s face tells you nothing,’ Tamarind continued in her usual tone, ‘but through his name you . . . know him. Eponymous. A name suited to the hero of a tall tale. But such heroes are seldom to be trusted. And you – are you a spy, like your master?’
‘Not me, he din’t even mean me to see them papers.’
Mosca stiffened as one of Clent’s snores became a nasal hiccup. Then his sonorous breathing resumed, and she relaxed again. ‘I’m jus’ his secretary till I got something better. I’m going to school,’ she added. ‘I can read.’
Now Lady Tamarind’s arctic stare held real interest. When she spoke again it was in a softened, urgent tone that reminded Mosca of velvet rubbed the wrong way.
‘You seem interested in my pearls, girl. Would you like to have one?’
Mosca suddenly felt that to win just one of them she would willingly burn down Chough in its entirety, mill and malthouse, kiln and kitchen. She wanted to keep it, stare into it like a tiny, eider-grey crystal ball, and understand this strange new whiteness before it slipped out of her life again. She shrugged, not meeting the lady’s eye.
‘If you do something for me, and do it well, you may have a pearl, and perhaps “something better”. How much courage do you have, girl?’
‘Enough to pluck the tail of the Devil’s horse, but not enough to ride ’im.’ Mosca whispered the old Chough adage automatically.
‘What is your name?’ The lady sounded as if she might be pleased.
‘Mosca Mye.’ As soon as the words were out of Mosca’s mouth she remembered that she was a fugitive from justice. But how could she refuse to answer this snow queen? Giving a false name was unthinkable. Nobody ever lied about their name. Names were what you were. ‘And . . . you’re Lady Tamarind. The sister of the Duke. The Duke of Mandelion.’
‘I am. What would you say if I told you that even the sister of the Duke has powerful enemies? Dangerous enemies.’
Mosca remembered the conversation in the Halberd.
‘Locksmiths!’ she breathed excitedly. Lady Tamarind’s fingertip paused in its stroking of the stoat’s forehead. Mosca hurried on, ‘Heard the bargemen talking at the Halberd. Yestereve, when they thought I was drowsed. ’Bout how the Locksmiths wanted to take over Mandelion . . . like they did Scurrey . . . but how you’d never let ’em. Who are the Locksmiths?’
‘Probably the most feared guild in the Realm,’ said Lady Tamarind, after a hesitation. ‘Once they only made locks and strongboxes, but all the guilds have grown stronger and more powerful since the days when there was a king. Tell me, child, have you ever heard of the Thief-takers?’
‘Yeah.’ The Thief-takers had been mentioned in many of the Hangman’s Histories. ‘They’re the ones what you call in to catch thieves when the constables can’t find ’em, aren’t they?’
‘That is only a part of the truth. Listen well, girl. The Thief-takers are no better than the villains they seize. All Thief-takers answer to the Locksmiths, and their real task is to make sure that there are no criminals at large . . . except those that work for the Locksmiths themselves. The Locksmiths run the criminal underworld in four major cities, and are a rising force in the others. Do you understand now why I say I have dangerous enemies?’
Mosca’s jaw fell open.
‘If you are to work for me, you must speak of it to nobody, and we can never be seen together.’
Mosca nodded.
‘Good. The Locksmiths are on the rise, and if I cannot stop them, Mandelion will be theirs. I must know if others mean to act against the Locksmiths. The Stationers, in particular.’ Tamarind leaned forward and dropped her whisper, so that it was scarcely more than a tingle on the eardrum. ‘I cannot be seen to be plotting, but I must know their plans.’
‘You want me to spy on the Stationers?’ Mosca sanded
her lips with a dry tongue-tip.
‘You will stay with your master, and find out more about him. He will bring you into contact with other Stationers, and can probably find you a place in a Stationer school. And once you have been schooled properly . . . it will seem less remarkable if a person of eminence should choose to employ you. When you have information for me, seek out the city Plumery. You will find a patch of pheasant feathers planted in front of the statue of Goodman Claspkin. Hide your letter inside the quill of one of these, and place it back in the earth. It will reach me.’
Mosca blinked hard, trying to commit everything to memory.
‘Now listen, for your own safety’s sake. Beware men who wear gloves even indoors and at luncheon. Keep a close guard on your pockets and purse – the Thief-takers sometimes serve an enemy by planting stolen goods upon them. And, girl? If you think that you are suspected . . . beware of accidents . . .’
Clent drew a long, waking breath. His eyes fluttered open, and stared unseeing and glassy at the carriage roof. Tamarind drew back against her seat with impeccable composure. Mosca curled away from Clent, closing her eyes and feigning sleep.
It seemed to Mosca that she had spent barely five minutes leaning against the window frame and counting her employer’s breaths when the carriage lurched and woke her. The woman in white was staring out of the window, the scar dead white in the stony light. Mosca wondered if she had dreamed the strange conversation.
Mosca dozed, and woke, and found that villages had sprung up at the roadside. She dozed, and woke, and found that the road was running alongside the river, and above the bristle of sails quivered some half-dozen craft-dragging kites which bore the insignia of the Watermen, a silver pond-skater against a black background. She dozed, and woke, and found that the sky was dim and a harsh crosswind was flattening the curtain against the roof.
The carriage was crossing a bridge. Houses clustered along the bridge-side as if to peer back at Mosca, and between them Mosca glimpsed a stretch of water so wide that at first she took it for a lake. But no, there were the far banks, curving away to clasp hands at the horizon. This was still the River Slye, and on the far side of the bridge the city of Mandelion smoked and sprawled and scored the sky with spires.