Fly by Night (22 page)

‘Mosca . . .’ Clent glanced at her, then closed his eyes and gave a little shudder, as if he had looked down into a moral well at her benighted soul, and had been gripped by vertigo. He dropped a purse into her waiting hand. ‘Take the money. Retrieve your goose. Let us have the matter over with.’

Mosca approached the
Mettlesome Maid
with some trepidation, encouraged only by the fact that Partridge was nowhere to be seen.

‘Good morning, sir?’ she called out quietly. The crewman glanced up at her, then let his eyebrows rise and his knotwork fall into his lap.

‘Blood and breath. Well, that’s something. Hey! Dotheril! The Niece is here.’

A mournful, eerie sound rose up from the belly of the barge. It sounded like a cat in a bucket. It might have been a sob of relief.

‘Come on.’ The sailor stood up and held out a hand. Mosca took it and tripped carefully aboard up the gangplank.

‘Is Mr Partridge about?’ Best to know the worst quickly.

‘No, he’s not. I’m hoping you’ve nothing particular you need to say to him either, for I cannot tell you where he might be found. He went off yesterday, saying that he’d be gone for a while as he had some business to attend to – which I took as meaning business at the Ship Inn. When he was not back by dusk, I knew he’d crawled into a bottle. When he wasn’t back by morning, I thought maybe someone had stoppered the bottle before he could get out.’ He gave a grim laugh.

‘So – you talked to him yesterday evening, then?’ Mosca was frightened to ask whether Partridge had left his men detailed instructions involving her heart and boathooks, after chasing her over half the city.

‘No – not since yesterday lunchtime. The captain’ll roll back down that ramp like a barrel before long, I’ll take my oath, but till then I can’t tell you where to find him.’ The sailor suddenly glared at Mosca, and gave a slightly menacing motion as if loosening his shoulder. ‘Of course, now it comes into my head that perhaps the captain’s in a jail somewhere, clapped in darbies. Would you know something of that? Has your uncle decided to blow the widd?’

‘No . . .’ Mosca bit her lip, not entirely sure what she had been asked, but certain that ‘No’ was probably the safest answer. She looked about for a change of subject, and gave a vague gesture in the direction of the deck. ‘Is . . . is he all right?’

‘Not so hearty. A broken ankle, but he’ll rally.’

‘That’s not what I . . .’ Mosca stopped short of explaining that she had been enquiring after her goose, not the injured Dotheril.

‘What are you waiting for?’ There was an echoing wail from below the planks. ‘Get-this-thing-out-of-oh-Beloved-above-it’s-walking-up-my-chest-again . . .’

The sailor tugged up the edge of canvas, and gestured Mosca under it with a jerk of his head. Three planks had been left out of place, presumably to let air reach the trapped Dotheril. Mosca pulled off bonnet and cap, and swung her upper body down through the crack, head downwards.

The first thing she saw was an inverted Saracen, his white plumage gleaming moonishly in the darkness. Fat little soap bubbles of joy burst in his throat as he saw Mosca.

Another fainter sound from the region of his feet drew Mosca’s attention to the object upon which he stood.

‘Mr Dotheril . . . ’s all right, just don’t move. ’S all right, really, he only stands on your face if he likes you.’

‘I can’t say as my feelings is likewise,’ hissed Dotheril through his teeth. There were tight creases around the corners of his mouth, as if he had been doing everything through his teeth for some time. He was bracing his elbows against the shifting beach of graven godlings, and trying to drag himself backwards. One of his hands was tightening around an oaken pedestal.

‘Please don’t go hitting him with Good Lady Syropia the Forgiver, it’s not good for your soul, or your health neither. You’ll go frightenin’ him. A wild dog tried to bite him once, an’ he broke its neck.’

Dotheril’s hand faltered, and released the icon.

‘C’mon, Saracen, we’ll find you barley.’

‘Barley!’ Dotheril’s voice shook with rage. ‘It’s had bread, and cheese, and biscuits, and strips of mutton – not a scrap could they throw to me without that devil clapping its beak around it, and shaking it down its gullet . . .’

Saracen waddled forward, chuckling solemnly, until Mosca’s falling hair tickled over his beak and white neck. She closed her arms around his solid, white weight, and struggled herself upright.

Bonnet back in place, she pushed her way out through the tarpaulin. The sailor who had been waiting nearby suddenly remembered that he had left his ropework near the bow, and nearly kicked bales overboard in his haste to recover it. As Mosca climbed gingerly after him to make her farewells, it seemed to occur to him that light for working was far better at the stern, and he scrambled away from her to find a suitable seat.

‘You don’t want me to wait for Mr Partridge to come back?’

‘No!’ The sailor’s voice had a tight sound, as if he was trying to hold his breath. ‘You just . . . just go your ways.’

‘And you don’t even want—’ Mosca’s hand half reached for the money in her pocket.

‘No!’

‘Right then.’ When Mosca’s feet had crossed the plank back to the jetty, the sailor’s shoulders relaxed a little.

When he saw Mosca approaching along the street with Saracen in her arms, the muddied look of concern on Clent’s face suddenly dropped away, and he positively beamed.

‘Let us regard this latest recruit in our Grand Objective.’ Clent put his head to one side as he pretended to examine the goose, taking care all the while to stay out of reach of Saracen’s beak and wings. ‘Hmm. Chin rather weak, but fiery eyes courageously spaced. Shoulders drawn back, chest thrust forward nobly – yes, madam, I think your friend has the makings of a soldier.’

With every step away from the Dragmen’s Arches, Clent’s mood seemed to soar, and they dragged Mosca’s own spirits skyward like a man-sized kite. The smiles he directed at Saracen were so generous and affectionate that she felt a rush of warmth towards Clent. Not enough warmth to make her return
all
the money, of course, but enough for her to tell him that Partridge’s men had asked for only a little ransom.

‘Admirable – no doubt you sliced their price with that pointed little tongue of yours. There must be celebration, and now –’ he tossed his purse three yards in the air and caught it on the descent, to the disappointment of a couple of eagerly watching urchins – ‘now we have the means to conduct ourselves properly at the Grey Mastiff tomorrow night. I hear that their wine is a symphony, and that for tuppence they will sell you a cream pudding the size of a bath. Many fine ladies and gentlemen put their powdered noses through the door, and it will do you no harm to be seen there – but first we must prepare to be worth their gaze. Your poor shoes must be resoled, and I fear that we will need a muzzle and leash for our leather-footed comrade – lest he commandeer another barge as he did the
Mettlesome Maid
.’

Somehow Mosca was left with the feeling that they had come into money, rather than just losing less than expected. Somehow it was almost impossible to remember that not very long before, Clent had been arguing bitterly against cobbling Mosca’s shoes or retrieving Saracen. Clent simply swept such memories away, with the impatience of someone shoving crockery aside so that he can spread a treasure map across a table. The facts fell to the floor with a fractured tinkle and were forgotten.

The leatherworker refused to cut the price of the muzzle and lead, even when Clent explained that Saracen had once saved Mosca’s life by dragging her out of a burning church and he now had to be muzzled to prevent him turning a violent beak upon himself for having failed to rescue the rest of her family. However, the leatherworker said it was a touching tale and that it did him good to laugh now and then. He gave them each a sip of gin, which made Mosca’s nose numb and lit a candle behind her breastbone. They bought a muzzle meant for a young foxhound. When Saracen shook his head, it rattled a bit but did not fall off.

The cobbler enjoyed the tale as well, particularly with the addition of two storms and a gypsy conspiracy. Despite Clent’s insistence that Mosca had worn her soles thin on a pilgrimage to a hilltop shrine to Goodman Claspkin to pray for her dead family, the cobbler would not cut his price either. However, after he had stitched on Mosca’s new soles he gave them half an oyster pie to break between them. They cupped it in their hands and munched it on the way back to the marriage house, the juices running down their chins.

Only as they reached their rooms did Clent’s manner sober a little. ‘My mind seems alive with ideas this evening, and I must spear them with my quill. I am sure I can rely upon you not to interrupt me.’

After he had disappeared into the closet, Mosca perched on the edge of the bed with her pointed chin resting on her hands, thoughts intertwining behind her black eyes to become a plan. Perhaps a sly, buzzing whisper in Mosca’s brain told her that she had a chance to make a useful ally and put someone in her debt. Perhaps, however, a part of her had heard the Cakes’ story with a sense of recognition, and guessed at the other girl’s loneliness.

It was midnight when Mosca crept to the door of the Cakes’ bedroom, late enough for the other girl to be making no attempt to stifle the sound of her sobs. There was a snuffly sort of a gasp when Mosca knocked, and when the Cakes opened the door, her mob-cap was pulled almost down to her chin to hide her red eyes.

‘You got something of your mother’s?’ whispered Mosca.

‘What?’ The Cakes gave up and lifted her mob-cap frill to see who was talking.

‘Your father, he does the marriages sacred to Leampho with the One Wakeful Eye, don’t he?’

The Cakes nodded.

‘I was remembering . . . back where I come from, there’s this old ceremony they do sometimes, when you want to marry someone who’s alive to someone who’s dead – if they both wanted to marry. I mean, like, if they were just about to marry and then the man got stamped to death by a cow or fell in the rapids. I been thinking an’ I think I can remember how it goes. You got something of your mother’s?’

‘Yes, a bit of lace and a stuff gown. But is that sort of ceremony legal?’ the Cakes asked doubtfully. ‘I mean, legal enough to put in the register?’

‘We can’t tell anyone,’ Mosca said quickly. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you can tell about. I mean, it’s like Leampho with one eye open and one eye closed, right? Our eyes are open to see this, but the rest of the world has to have its eyes shut.’ Mosca almost believed her words herself. ‘What does it matter if no one else knows?
You
’
ll know
. Come on, and put the shawl round you. I got one of your father’s cravats off the back of a chair in one of the chapels.’

The little chapel Mosca chose bristled with clay vases full of dried honesty plants, the sheer shell pods reflecting the light of the Cakes’ candle like so many pale eyelids. The white lace shawl had split a few stitches but, draped over the head of the Cakes, it gave her an other-worldly look and hid her tearfulness. As soon as Saracen had satisfied himself that the cravat was not edible, he allowed it to be tied around his neck without further argument.

‘You stand there, and play your mother . . . and Saracen’ll be your father.’

Mosca wet her lips, took a breath, and began to speak. She pulled out rags of wedding words she had heard by listening through the thin marriage-house walls. She patched them with pompous-sounding phrases from her father’s books. She stitched the whole together with the scarlet thread of her own imagination.

In an alcove on the wall, a porcelain Leampho stood with one eye closed, as if winking to let Mosca know that he was on to her. The Cakes, on the other hand, snuffled her way through the ceremony, and at the end had to wipe her eyes with the shawl.

‘It must be a real wedding,’ she said at last, ‘or I wouldn’t be crying.’

Mosca put the cravat in her hand and left the Cakes to enjoy her tears.

Mosca retired to her trucklebed, where she lay in a state of happy sleeplessness for almost an hour, listening to the brook-like sounds of Saracen chuckling himself to sleep. It seemed that at last things were turning out as they should.

At the very moment when Mosca slipped into sleep, Tamarind was waiting for an audience with her brother. It was a peculiar and unsociable hour for an interview, but the Duke’s whims had become more irregular recently. Her face powder hid any sleepless circles around Tamarind’s eyes.

Most visitors to the Duke’s residence in the Western Spire found themselves trying to blink away double vision, and pinching the bridge of their nose to clear a headache. Every desk, every shelf, every chair, every stair, everything here had its twin. Tamarind, however, was accustomed to the obsessive symmetry, even the window-shaped alcoves painted with matching views in place of the recalcitrant countryside.

‘Beautiful Tammy!’

Resplendent in an emerald-green dressing gown, the Duke strode forward to take his sister’s hands in greeting. Like many of his line, Vocado Avourlace was a handsome man. When he had first arrived back to reclaim his family’s ancient rule over Mandelion, he had seemed the very picture of the hero come to usher in brighter times.

At first only Tamarind had noticed the awkward, disquieting way his expressions changed, as if a puppeteer were pulling wires to move his face muscles, and doing it rather badly. Nowadays she saw the fear in everybody’s eyes. Her brother was going out of tune like an old piano, and nobody would come to retune his strings. Dukes and kings may go mad at their leisure, for nobody has enough power to stop them.