Fly by Night (27 page)

‘I come in out of the rain,’ she said in a voice so small that she hardly recognized it.

‘Do you have anything you want to say?’ There was something frightening about Clent when he used short words.

Mosca shook her head.

‘We will discuss all this later, but for now we must make the best of the situation. Come here and help me with this.’

Mosca hesitated, wondering if she could drop the candle and run.

‘Listen, girl, have you any comprehension of the predicament we would find ourselves in if we were discovered fixed in this tableau?’

Well
,
you wanted something on
’
im
, the rasping voice of Palpitattle whispered laconically in Mosca’s imagination.
And now
, the voice added as she took a few steps towards the chest,
now you
’
re goin
’
to be an accomplice an
’
he
’
ll have something on you too
.

Partridge’s eyes were closed, at least. He was crammed awkwardly into the chest, as if he had mistaken it for a truckle bed and was determined to sleep there despite all discomfort.

If I run
,
Mr Clent
’
ll know I
’
m going to raise the house
,
and he
’
ll catch me and kill me
. . .

She watched as Clent folded Partridge’s errant limbs into the chest. He closed the lid, crouched, gripped one end, and then looked up at Mosca expectantly. It took a few seconds for her to understand his meaning, then she crouched and managed to slide her fingers under the chest.

The box was even heavier than she expected, and she had to drop her end on to her knee. In a shambolic, improvised way the pair of them tilted and wobbled the chest between them until Clent was supporting most of the weight. They proceeded from the room one clumsy step at a time, a strange, four-legged creature with a wooden body, Mosca walking backwards.

At any moment someone would open the door, and there they would be. ‘
Thieves
’, would be the cry. Bockerby would fling open the chest, and the cry would change to ‘
Murderers
’. Mosca suddenly felt how the cold wind would whip her clothes about her as she stood upon the scaffold. And the universities would cut her heart out to see how black it was.

Please
, Mosca prayed silently to each and every Beloved,
please let me get away with this
.
I
’
ll never ask for anything else
,
I promise
,
and if I get away with this
,
then some day I
’
ll make myself rich and give all the money to the shrines
,
but please
,
please
,
I need to get away with this
.
Otherwise I
’
ll be strung up
,
and hung up on a gibbet and ate by rooks and then I can
’
t do nothing for any of you
.

In the shrine of Leampho, Clent bit off bitter words under his breath. ‘We will never get the box through the window. We shall have to sit him between us with a coat over his head.’

Saracen stared up from the boat as Mosca climbed down from the sill, and he offered no comment. A moment later, Partridge’s dead face appeared through the window, framed by the ivy. Then Clent could be seen with his arms around the river captain’s waist, heaving him through the hole.

Mosca tried to slow Partridge’s descent, but her hands seemed able to grip only feebly, and in the end the dead man fell into the boat with a crash and a splash. Mosca sank to a crouch to stop herself falling overboard as the boat bucked, and watched as one of Partridge’s boots floated away down the river, filling with water as it went.

‘Keep your eyes open. Our lives depend upon your perspicacity.’ Clent climbed down into the boat, the creeper crackling under his weight. He took up the oars and steered the boat carefully along the wall, dipping the oars silently and drawing slowly. He paused by the bank to scrabble up some slick, fist-sized stones with his plump fingers, and then he heaved on the oars again, and the bank swung away and abandoned them.

For a while the river’s current rolled the little boat about, the way a child rolls a marble between his hands. Houses fled away giddily to the left, only to reappear from the right, and the moon circled above Mosca’s head like a moth. Fat raindrops hit the dark glass of the river’s skin, each leaving a coin-shaped dent with a crinkled edge. The papery sound of the rain was so loud that Clent had to lean towards Mosca to make himself heard.

‘The island . . .’ He pointed towards the lonely pillar of Goodman Sussuratch in the middle of the river, then gestured towards Partridge. ‘Stones . . . in his clothes.’ He had to repeat it several times before Mosca understood.

The stones were deathly cold, but Mosca dared not speak or disobey. She unbuttoned Partridge’s shirt just enough to slide some stones inside, holding them all the while at arm’s length. She was afraid that if she leaned forward, Partridge’s parted lips would start to whisper.

I want your uncle
’
s heart spiked on a boathook so I can hear it crackle as it bakes in the sun
. . .

There were deep creases running down each of Partridge’s cheeks, as if twin tears had worn grooves. They joined in a red crease under his chin. Maybe all dead faces looked that way, thought Mosca. Maybe death crumpled you up like a ball of paper.

They were so low in the water that when they finally reached the island the little boat slid right under the jetty, and knocked against the rocky side of the great pillar.

‘Now we wait for the mists to thicken,’ Clent said quietly.

Peering out from beneath the jetty, Mosca realized that the distant row of houses was already dimming, as a veil of vapour stealthily rose from the river. Feeling the chill of water seeping into her shoes, it suddenly occurred to her that, if Clent wanted her silence, her current position was more dangerous than it had ever been in the marriage house. She kept her breathing as steady as she could, and peered stealthily at Clent. He seemed to be staring out at the mists, but she could see his face only in silhouette, so she could not be sure that he was not stealing glances at her.

Clent’s manner had seemed so natural and casual when he had told her never to enter the closet. He had seemed so kind and good-humoured when he had given her the day off and thus kept her away from their rooms. Had it really all been an act? But Clent had been afraid of Partridge, and sometimes fear made you angry. Perhaps after years anger cooled, like a sword taken from the forge. Perhaps in the end you were left with something very cold and very sharp.

What exactly was it that Clent did for the Stationers? Was it just spying? Or were there times when a quill was not enough, and a knife was needed? Was that why they used him? Perhaps Partridge had bullied his way into the marriage house to find Clent, and found him in the middle of doing something very terrible . . . the way Mosca herself had just interrupted him.

‘Now,’ Clent whispered at last, ‘take his feet.’ The jetty was too low to let them stand, but somehow amid the rocking and struggling there was a splash, and suddenly there was nothing left of Partridge except a circle of foam, and his loosed cravat tracing a question mark on the water’s surface. Tiny bubbles fizzed for a few moments. Silence followed, and then Clent gave a croak of alarm.

‘There!’

Something had surfaced, ten yards downstream, and was gliding away with its wet shirt ballooning on its back.

‘Slice the moon, the fellow has shed ballast!’ Clent struggled with the paddles, but in his haste one handle became wedged between the planks of the jetty. By the time he tugged it free, the sodden shape had been swallowed by the mist.

Without a word, Clent abandoned their pursuit; he pushed away from the jetty and rowed in silence for some time. At last a bank crept into distinctness, and Mosca saw the marriage house loom into view with a mixture of relief and confusion. Why had Clent returned? Was he no longer trying to escape Mandelion?

She followed Clent up the ivy with Saracen. Obeying Clent’s silent signals, she helped him carry the chest back to their rooms. Although it was now empty, her legs trembled, and twice she almost dropped it. When they reached their rooms, they found the candle low in a mess of tallow.

‘Why’ve we come back, Mr Clent?’

Clent gave a bitter little shrug, and dusted off his lapels with a shadow of his usual manner.

‘That fellow will be found. If we vanish the same night, the hue and cry would be after us. I fancy we have little choice but to brazen the matter out.’ He pulled off his wig and stretched himself out upon the bed without bothering to remove his boots. His lids drooped for a moment with an air of utter exhaustion, and then flicked open once more. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I . . .’ Mosca had taken a few steps towards the door without even thinking. ‘I got to see to Saracen. The civet hurt him, an’ I got to rub the place with brandy. The Cakes got some.’

‘Very well. But do not go far, and be sure not to wake me when you return.’

Mosca took up Saracen’s leash in one slack hand, and led him away.

The Cakes opened the door to Mosca’s knock. She was wearing a knitted nightcap, and her red ringlets hung to her shoulder. She had been looking pinker and happier since the midnight marriage, Mosca noticed.

‘Come in! Are you hungry?’ The Cakes seemed pleased and surprised at her nocturnal visitor, although her smile crumpled a little as Mosca pushed through the open door, dropped to a squat, and tucked her knees to her chin. ‘What is it?’

Mosca buried her nose between her knees, and stared up at the other girl with big, black, helpless, hostile eyes.

‘Mosca . . . what is it?’ The Cakes’ face started to take on that drooping, beaky look it always had when she was about to cry. ‘You’re scaring me. Has someone hurt you?’

Mosca shook her head.

‘Is it a bad dream? I know how it can be with dreams. You can stay here for a bit if you like.’ The Cakes went back to her bed and sat down on it, sensible and big-sisterish. She pulled off her nightcap, and combed her fingers through the ringlet-wrangle on her head. ‘There’s some pieces of cake there on the dish, if you’re hungry; they’re a bit stale but still good enough. A couple we had earlier went straight to bed without eating a thing – the bride was so far in her altitudes she couldn’t hardly stand.’

The Cakes floated before Mosca’s eyes in her halo of candlelight. It seemed to Mosca that she was looking up at the other girl from the bottom of a well so dark that she could not see her own hands, and that the Cakes’ world was a tiny, bright bubble drifting almost beyond reach. Mosca wanted to reach out to that world, but it seemed to her that if she did she might burst it, and then she would be left alone in an infinite blackness.

‘Was it a dream?’ The Cakes wrinkled her nose as a stray hair tickled it.

‘Yes,’ said Mosca huskily. ‘It was just a dream.’

N is for Not Proven

Just a bad dream . . .

Mosca lay in her truckle bed, wondering why it was so dark and why she could hear water clicking against the wood like a great tongue. Her questioning fingers discovered that the bed had a lid, locked shut, half a foot above her face. The air was becoming warm and unbreathable. She beat against the lid until the lock splintered.

The lid swung back, and the white face of the moon stared down at Mosca through the lace curtain of the mist. She sat up, and found that she was sitting in the oaken clothes chest, which was floating past the pillar of Goodman Sussuratch.

Close by, a slender galleon gleamed like mother-of-pearl. High up on the deck sat Lady Tamarind upon an ivory throne. The threads that sang from her white spinning wheel stretched away through the mists to every unseen corner of the city. Other threads intertwined with them and linked them, until Mosca started to fancy that they formed a pattern like a great spider’s web.

‘I’m trying to get to the Eastern Spire!’ called Mosca. ‘I don’t want to drown in this black water!’

‘Catch this thread, and my boat will pull you to the spire.’ Lady Tamarind pulled loose a slender thread from the wheel and threw it in Mosca’s direction. It touched the open lid of the box and clung there, as if it sparkled with some sugary, sticky essence. Mosca reached for it, then she hesitated and took a moment to pull her sleeve down over her hand. She did so partly because the line seemed too bright to touch with her grimy fingers, and partly because it frightened her with its ground-glass glitter. While she hesitated, the thread peeled loose, fell into the water, and snaked away from her grasp.