Helpless with excitement, Mosca wriggled to the edge of her seat, leaning out through the window for a better view. To the east and the west two spires rose above the rest, and the city stretched between them. Behind a long piecrust of crumbling wall clustered a mosaic of roofs, and a great dome that seemed in the dull light to be as glossy and ethereal as a soap bubble. To the west along the waterside unfinished ships bared ribcages of stripped wood to the sky. The creak and crack of the shipyard was as faint as a cricket orchestra.
The wind roared with an estuary freshness. It carried the smell of sandflats and sea-poppies, and the pale wails of wading birds, and the clammy, silver-eyed dreams of fish. Although she had never known the coastlands, Mosca felt with a thrill that somewhere beyond the edge of sight the ocean hugged its unthinkable deeps and dragged its tides in shrug after monumental shrug.
The carriage reached the end of the bridge, and now the tallest buildings Mosca had ever seen flanked the road. Evening had swallowed their black timbers and left their white plaster faces floating in the air like flags. To Mosca it seemed that they must in some fashion belong to the lady in the white dress, for they too were white. The gleaming white sails on the river had to belong to the lady. The fat white moon, sitting on a sliver of cloud like a clot of cream on the blade of a knife, had to belong to the lady.
‘Tell the driver where you would like to be set down, Mr Clent,’ remarked Lady Tamarind.
‘I believe our, ah, friends reside in East Straddle Street, my lady.’ The carriage steered around a squabble of hansoms and took a riverside road, the gleam of water occasionally visible between the buildings.
At last it drew up alongside a shuttered shop. Unwillingly Mosca let Clent guide her out on to the street.
‘Your Ladyship, the, ah, the, ah, letter . . .’
‘. . . will be sent to you at these lodgings shortly.’ There was a chill finality in the childlike tones as the porcelain face faded behind the curtain. The carriage lurched back into motion. Clent, hiding his disappointment, turned to knock at the door of the shop.
Mosca stared up at the hanging sign above the door. It depicted a man’s hand clasping that of a woman.
‘Mr Clent . . . why we stoppin’ at a marriage house?’
Before Clent could answer, the door was opened by a man as squat as a pepper pot, wearing the broad-brimmed hat of a chaplain and an expression that seemed to be a compromise between piety and a suppressed sneeze. A few whispered words from Clent, however, and the man’s face broke into a broad, badger’s grin, revealing a fine array of caramel-coloured teeth.
‘Ah, Mistress Bessel give you my name, did she? If you’re a friend of Jen, come in and be welcomed by Bockerby. You must take a pinch of snuff with me before you sleep.’ His every sentence began in a deep, sonorous, church-bell voice, and ended in a chatty, rough-cut tone like a pedlar’s shamble.
Mosca and Clent were led through a cramped, ill-swept corridor into a cramped, ill-swept parlour. The tabletop was crowded with vases. These were filled not with flowers but with bunches of dried, branching honesty plants, crowned with glossy seedpods the size of sovereigns and the colour of jaded paper. On a stand stood a name-day book, so that each couple who came to the marriage house could see if a match between their names was auspicious.
A host of tiny Beloved idols sat in rough-cut recesses in the wall, rather as if the little gods had gouged out their own homes like nesting birds. Many of the Beloved shown were unfamiliar to Mosca, but with some apprehension she recognized Goodlady Mauget of the Almost-Truth, Goodman Happendabbit of the Repented Oath, St Leasey, He Who Lends His Cloak to the Sly-in-the-Night, and Goodlady Judin of the Borrowed Face. The largest shrines were to Leampho of the One Wakeful Eye, a goodman who according to legend would smile upon contracts and unions that Torquest the Joiner of Hands would not touch with the tiniest finger of his steel-gloved hand.
Mosca knew that all respectable weddings took place in church, but for couples with too little money or too much to hide there were the marriage houses. Girls with child, forbidden love matches, would-be bigamists, anyone who did not want their affairs boomed to the congregation – all of these could creep with their sweethearts to a marriage house, and have a licence for a handful of shillings. To judge by his outfit, Bockerby served as cleric and master of ceremonies for this establishment.
Bockerby had fetched a mahogany box from the mantel, and now he offered it to Clent, who placed the daintiest pinch at the base of his thumb, before lowering his nose to his wrist and taking an energetic sniff.
‘So –’ Clent settled in a large rocking chair and gestured Mosca towards a stool by the wall – ‘what news in your brave city, Mr Bockerby?’
‘Been here before, sir? No?’ Bockerby gave a one-shouldered shrug and drew in a pinch of snuff, creasing his brow into a map. ‘Ah . . . truth is, Mr Clent, you find us in a bit of a hubble-bubble.’
‘I noticed your city wall was badly burned.’
‘Mostly old fires, Mr Clent. Yus, Mandelion’s a battered old nell.’
‘The old war?’
‘The old war. And then . . . the Birdcatchers. We was hit bad, worse than most. I was only about eleven when they took over, but I remember it, clear as clarion.’
Mosca waited for Clent and Bockerby to glance at her and drop into vagueness, but to her surprise neither of them did. Somehow, without noticing, Mosca had become old enough to hear about such things.
‘First thing they did was ban the whelkmaids’ dances on St Squeakle’s Day. Any they caught “devilish frolicking”, as they put it, had their toes tied together so tightly they could hardly walk. Then came the purges. I remember seeing whole family pews empty, and no one telling me why.’ Bockerby laughed, and Mosca wondered why so many people laughed at memories, even the ones that weren’t funny. ‘Right little clinger I was when it came to questions then. Real little crab.’ He made stubborn pincer-motions with his thumb and forefinger. ‘What I remember clearest is stealing off to fish downriver by the Leaps, and coming home in the dark. No moon, all pitch.
‘The windmills along the bank all tick and creak different as their sails turn, so I always used the sound to tell my way, but this one night I could hear not so much as a click to guide me. I was just starting to think I was witched and would never find my way home when I saw two little lights a-bobbing, and I realized it was the lantern of a linkboy crossing the Ashbridge over his reflection. I was so blanched by the dark and the silence, I stayed on the bridge till morning, and when the dawn came I saw why the windmills were silent.
‘From the sails of every mill wooden birdcages were hanging, each the size of a puncheon, but full of people instead of ale. Men, women, children, all dressed for the festival of St Jarry. The Birdcatchers had surprised them during the midnight candle-walk, wrung their necks, and winged them.’
‘Winged them?’ Clent asked cautiously.
‘Perhaps they never did that outside Mandelion. See, they put long pins in the quills of feathers, and then they stuck the sharp ends of the pins into . . .’ At last Bockerby seemed to remember Mosca, glanced at her, and gave a small gesture as if pushing away a memory. ‘You can imagine how glad everyone was when the present Duke came back from Jottland with his sister.’
‘How is the Duke?’ Clent asked carefully, as if asking after an illness of a delicate nature.
‘He’s . . . not what he was.’ Bockerby seemed to be choosing his words carefully. ‘When he first come back from exile, seventeen years past, just after we’d kicked out the Birdcatchers, we was all flags and smiles and thrown hats. Then a couple of years later there was that rumpus during the Year of the Dead Letter, when the Stationers were fighting among ’emselves. The Duke put those riots down hard, an’ nobody saw him the same way after.
‘Now we got new riots, folk fear he’ll put musketmen out on the streets again. I don’t speak against him, mind. His . . . funny little ways get funnier every year, but that’s all trim for a duke. Show m
e a man with blue blood, an’ I’ll show you a man with a bonnetful of bees.’
Clent sighed. ‘Well, Beloved preserve the wits of the mighty, and spare the skins of the small! Good Mr Bockerby, I fear we droop upon sleep’s altar. If you might show us our rooms . . .’ He flicked sharply at Mosca’s nose to rouse her to alertness.
Bockerby took the candle and led them from the parlour. Mosca shambled after Clent through another corridor to a little chamber with a desk, a closet, and a smell of long-forgotten mouse-adventures.
When Bockerby had gone, Mosca gratefully collapsed into a truckle bed at the foot of the main bed, but her mind was no longer quite ready for sleep. Strangely, her betrayal of Clent’s secret to Lady Tamarind had taken some sting out of her hatred. Too much newness had broken like a wave against her mind and, odious as he was, Clent’s presence was almost comforting.
‘Is the Duke pixelated, Mr Clent?’
Clent shuddered. ‘That is a judgement upon me for seeking to extend your vocabulary. If I hear you using such words to describe a duke in my hearing again, I shall put you on a diet of dry verbs and water until you have learned to speak more wisely. In Mandelion, an illchosen word in the wrong company may cost you your neck.’
‘Well, if he’s not pixelated, what’s all this ’bout bees an’ bonnets an’ pairs, then?’
‘Ah,’ Clent said significantly. ‘Pairs.’ He settled himself comfortably on the sill. ‘The Duke’s love of pairs dates from his sojourn with Queens Meriel and Peri. You have heard of the Twin Queens?’
‘They’re granddaughters of the last throned king?’
‘Very good. And do you know why their portraits always show them in long, trailing sleeves?’
Mosca, who had never seen a picture of the Twin Queens, shook her head.
‘All twins are born together, but the Twin Queens were born hand in hand. The outside edge of Meriel’s right hand was joined fast to the edge of Peri’s left. Between their little fingers grew an extra finger, which both sisters could move at will.
‘When they were five, it was decided that this strange bond had to be broken. Meriel was allowed custody of the extra finger, but ever since they were divided the queens have taken to wearing gloves and long lace sleeves to hide their difference. The superstitious say that both sisters can still move the finger, even though it grows on Meriel’s hand.
‘Our current Duke of Mandelion, Vocado Avourlace, and his sister, Lady Tamarind, were born in exile in Jottland, where their family had loyally followed the Twin Queens and their mother. As a youth he spent much time in the company of the young queens, and when he came of age he began wooing them with zeal. The problem was that he was unmistakably courting them both, for in truth there was little to choose between them.
‘At last the sisters made it clear that he must pick one bride. He chose Peri, and at first there was general rejoicing. However, Peri wanted to know why she had been chosen, and the Duke admitted that he had chosen Peri because Meriel’s extra finger frightened him. After this confession, Peri ended the engagement. Some say that she was angry at the slight to her sister, but others say that she still felt the finger to be part of her, and would not marry a man who could not accept it.
‘Even now, back in his homeland, it is said that the Duke spends every waking moment dwelling on thoughts of the Twin Queens. At mealtimes he arranges his chicken bones and cherry stones into pairs, and he sighs over the coins that display the queens’ identical heads: Meriel on one side, facing right, Peri on the other, facing left. And he still dreams that if he rebuilds Mandelion with a beautiful symmetry worthy of the Twin Queens, they will forgive him, and come to rule the Realm with Mandelion as their capital.’
‘Will they ever come to Mandelion, do you think?’ Mosca asked.
‘Perhaps, on a day when the sun turns to soup,’ Clent remarked drily. ‘In the meantime, it looks ill for the Duke’s line, for he will marry none but they.’
‘But Lady Tamarind might have children! Is she married?’
Clent gave Mosca an astute glance, and she blushed, fearing that he would see how the noblewoman had left her spellbound.
‘No, nor can I find that she has any suitor or favourite.’
‘Why? Is it because of her scar?’
‘Lady Tamarind wears her scar like a flower,’ Clent said softly. ‘If she is unwed, it is because she would have it so.’
‘Where did Lady Tamarind get her scar?’
‘That I do not know, though I believe she was already marked when she came back from Jottland as a child of thirteen.’
Lady Tamarind was at that very moment nearing the end of her long journey home from the Capital to Mandelion’s Eastern Spire. She had disembarked from her carriage, and a sedan now bore her through the Honeycomb Courts towards the spire. Although she was quite unconscious that she was the subject of fascinated discussion in the marriage house, her thoughts also happened to be focused upon the scar that marked her cheek.
The scar was not something she could easily ignore. On the few occasions when she smiled, it pulled taut against her cheek, as if trying to pull her back into solemnity. In winter she could feel the cold through it, as if a real snowflake had landed on her skin. The nearest she knew to fear was a throbbing flutter behind her scar, and as she recalled the events of the carriage ride she could feel it, like a moth’s wing beating at her cheek. Ah, she thought without emotion, I suppose that episode must have frightened me.
As one footman handed her from the sedan, his fellows busied themselves with unfastening the six great locks to the door of the Eastern Spire.
‘My business in the Capital is concluded,’ Tamarind explained. ‘Kindly send a letter to Mr Kohlrabi’s lodgings, telling him that I require his presence as soon as he is back in the city, then bring me a dish of tea, the latest issue of the Gazette and a bag of dead cats.’ Five minutes later her ladies-in-waiting were at her side with the requested items, and together they entered the spire.
One by one the locks slid to behind her with smooth, liquid clicks. The great locks bore the Guarantee of the Locksmiths. This meant that they were of the very finest quality. It meant that if they were broken, the Locksmiths would pay a small fortune in recompense. It meant that word had been put out across the underworld that the Eastern Spire was a no-go area, so that no clear-thinking thief would consider milling the locks, in case the Locksmiths’ dreaded Thief-takers were sent after him.
All of this might have reassured Lady Tamarind, if she had been hoping to lock out anyone but the Locksmiths themselves. She had resorted to other measures to make sure that the Locksmiths could not wander into her apartments and search them at will.
As she climbed the stairs she slid on a long leather glove that reached to her shoulder. At the door of the salon she paused, then drew out one of the dead cats by the tail and carefully flung it towards the middle of the floor. There was a rasp, like the hiss of sand through a straw, and a low, leatherbound river of wickedness snaked out from the darkness below the harpsichord. Its jaw opened impossibly wide, like a lean book crowded with teeth, and caught the cat before it could touch the ground.
The two ladies-in-waiting stayed at the door while Tamarind advanced to examine her pet. With satisfaction she noted its distinguishing features, the dirt-coloured dent above its left eye, and one flattened tooth jutting out from its fellows.
Originally her rooms had been guarded by a Shrieking Foxhawk that would lunge for the eyes of any but herself. One day she had returned to find the hawk strangely docile, and slightly larger than before. Next, she had bought a savage wolfhound to keep intruders from searching her apartments, but she became aware that there had been another switch when Tartar unexpectedly bore puppies. It had taken longer for the Gravyscale Python to be replaced, and after that she had resorted to ever more exotic animals. By the look of things, the Locksmiths had not yet succeeded in finding themselves a substitute crocodile.
As the animal snapped at the carcass with a s
oft rip like a spade biting through turf, Tamarind settled herself on the window seat and opened her stoat-handled embroidered box. The signet ring she had brought all the way from the Capital was still within, safe from the bloodied hands of highwaymen and the gloved fingers of Locksmiths. The ring had been expensive to fashion in secret. She was all too aware of the consequences, should it be discovered in her possession.
Below her window, Mandelion spread itself like a butterfly of brick and slate. Even from this angle the extraordinary symmetry of the city’s design was obvious. The Eastern Spire had its match in the west, where the Duke of Mandelion kept his quarters.
The thought of her brother’s obsession caused a pulse to flutter beneath Tamarind’s scar. I must be feeling something, she thought. Could it be fear? No, it is not fear. She moved to another window and gazed down towards the pillory and gibbet in the yard.
Far below in the courtyard, a man was on his knees. The constable was selecting a long branding iron from the fire, and considerately dipping it in water before pulling the felon’s hand towards him. Maybe the brand was a ‘T’ for thief, or an ‘F’ for forger. It would be quicker and simpler to hang them outright, Tamarind reflected. Brand a man as a thief and no one will ever hire him for honest labour – he will be a hardened robber within weeks. The brand does not reveal a person’s nature, it shapes it.
With a tip of one long finger she traced a tiny circle around the snowflake on her cheek. Could it be fear? No, not fear.
The house in Jottland where she had been born and spent her childhood had looked over a glade that was set aside for badminton. Too clearly she recalled the last time she had ever played the game. She remembered the glistening of the rain-stricken garden as she dragged her elder brother by the sleeve with all her thirteen-year-old might. She had only hazily understood how deeply his rejection by Queen Peri had cut him. However, she had known that it could not be good for him to sit for hours in his closet, staring at coins, or at two faces in a locket. She had known that it was her task to distract Vocado and draw him out of himself.
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