Her brother had winced as if the birdsong gave him toothache, and had swiped at the shuttlecock, first listlessly, then so savagely that the fronds enmeshed themselves in the strings of the racket. Tamarind had run to help him disentangle them, but he had shaken off her hand. At her feet, water was puddled in the hollows of the lawn and her reflection had regarded her with delight and surprise.
‘Look, Vocado!’ She had pointed at her reflection. ‘I have a twin!’
A twin. Nothing could have triggered Vocado’s anguish like those innocent words. She had looked to her brother for a smile, just as his racket completed its savage swing at her face . . .
Down in the courtyard, the constable was lifting his brand away from the felon’s hand, and turning to face the judge. In the spire room one could hear no screams, feel no heat, smell no burning, but Tamarind knew that the constable would be speaking the traditional words as he displayed his handiwork to the gathering.
‘A fair mark, my lord.’
G is for Gentleman’s Agreement
‘Hoi!’
Mosca shifted from sleep to waking in her usual way, flinging out her fists to left and right. On this occasion, she bruised her knuckles on two close wooden walls, and was shocked into total clarity. Above her an unfamiliar set of rafters was looped with long, dusty, cobweb banners. The sound of water nearby made her think herself back in Chough for a moment. But this was a watery voice of a gentlemanly sort, each lap like the idle slap of a horsewhip against a calf.
‘Hoi!’
Mosca’s head was turned to one side at an awkward angle, and her pantaloon-clad knees were hooked over a wooden footboard. Below the rafters was a single window, the grey pre-dawn sky sliced into diamonds by the window leading. Somewhere beyond the window, someone was trying to shout under their breath.
Mosca heaved herself out of the truckle bed, and pulled the window open. Below, a woman with a fat yellow pigtail and a wide, frog-like mouth was hauling her gentleman companion to his feet, her strong, plump arms around his middle.
‘Hey! You up there!’ The woman was using the hoarse, hushed call of one who is trying to rouse the house without waking the neighbours. ‘You does marriages, right? We wants to get married. Don’t we?’
‘Bwuzzug,’ her friend agreed, and smiled at the bottle in his hand.
A little further along the wall, another window opened and a head of wild red hair appeared.
‘You need a marriage done quick?’ The voice was young and as sharp as a thorn. ‘You got three shillings, and sixpence for the late hour?’
‘Right here in me purse.’ The strain of holding her fiancé upright was starting to show in the colour of the plump woman’s face.
‘I’ll come down and let you in, then,’ declared the red-haired girl. ‘You’ll have to guide his hand when you’re signing the register, though, looks like.’
Somewhere in the house, a tinder scratched and heavy soles flapped on wooden boards. Then the front door opened and swallowed the woman and her drunken friend.
Five minutes or so later, the other window swung wide again. The red hair had been pushed roughly under a mob cap, and there was a wise, pale face the colour of uncooked pastry beneath it. The face’s owner scanned the windows until she spotted Mosca.
‘Sorry for you bein’ woken, ma’am, I hope you an’ your husband will have no more trouble.’ Mosca could only assume that the other girl could not see her face properly. It was strange to be called ‘ma’am’ by someone who looked two years older than her.
‘I’m not here for marriage – we’re just stayin’ here, that’s all.’
‘Oh.’ The red-haired girl relaxed and grinned. ‘What are you here for, then? I’m the Cakes.’
‘What?’
‘I does the Cakes. For after the nuptyals. What you here for?’
‘I’m a secretary.’
‘Oh.’ The Cakes’ face fell as if she did not think she had been told the truth, and then she shrugged as if to show that that was Mosca’s business. ‘See you at breakfast, then.’
While the sky silvered behind the distant spires, Mosca tried to patch the tatters of her plans. The slumber-bewitched conversation with Lady Tamarind had changed everything. Had it really taken place?
Thinking of Lady Tamarind, Mosca felt her stomach twist. It was excitement – but excitement of a not entirely pleasant sort. Rather, it was a sudden awareness of something she lacked, something she had sensed in the rich otherness of the lady in the coach. The lack ached, like a hole in a tooth.
To work for Lady Tamarind! Sooner or later Lady Tamarind’s strange white wealth and power must surely rub off on Mosca like powdered snow . . . and Mosca would become . . . she could not clearly see what she would become. The thought seemed to pass on soft wings behind her, close enough to stir her neck hairs with the breeze of its passage. There was the faintest sensation of little golden drops of venom trailed across her skin, like those bled by a bee after the sting.
At six o’clock the market bell rang, and hawkers gradually filled the streets. With a sense of infinite luxury, Mosca gazed down at the step to watch pewter being polished by someone other than herself. By the time she followed a carefully spruced Clent down to a late breakfast, she could not imagine why she would wish to be anywhere else. Bockerby greeted them in the parlour with a new wariness and crispness that made Mosca realize he had been drunk the night before.
‘Ah, yes – I recall you saying that you are a friend of Jen – how is dear Jen?’ Bockerby asked as they all sat down.
‘Brown and bonny as a wren, and becoming quite the mistress of means. She is growing plump on it, and has taken on two apprentices.’
‘Ah, plump now, is she? She always had a hungry wit – I was surprised to hear she’d retired. Ah, all of us respectable nowadays . . . even Jen.’
‘She lost a taste for the profession after a magistrate . . . gave her a strongly worded letter, you might say.’ Clent gave a wince of a smile.
Bockerby grinned mirthlessly, and touched each of his teeth in turn with his tongue-tip, as if counting them.
‘That’d be a letter “T”, then,’ said Mosca through a mouthful of bread.
Bockerby looked at Mosca as if she had appeared from nowhere. After scrutinizing her briefly, he looked sharply to Clent. ‘Is this one flash?’ he asked, nodding towards her.
Clent inclined his head in something between a nod and a shrug. ‘Safe enough, for immediate purposes.’
Bockerby gave a wordless murmur of dissatisfaction.
‘How old is she? Ah, it cannot be more than thirteen years . . . a bit green, a bit green. Still –’ Bockerby hacked himself another piece of bread – ‘if I were you I’d marry her anyway. They’re often more pliable, you know, once they bear your name.’
‘Have you traded your sense for pence?’ Clent’s outrage was deafening. Somewhere beyond the fragile wall, the drone of a marriage ceremony halted briefly, before continuing more hesitantly. ‘I am little enough pleased to find myself having to think for two, without shackling myself in perpetuity.’
Bockerby shrugged and wafted his glass over the jug before drinking, in honour of King Prael.
Mosca could only conclude that she had suddenly become invisible. She decided that, if this was so, it was probably a good time to steal all of the bread and cheese left on the table.
‘Well.’ Bockerby watched Clent shrewdly over his meaningless grin. ‘You must do something about her sooner or later, you know.’
‘Yes, yes, I know . . .’
‘Mr Bockerby?’ The red-haired girl pushed her head around the door, and blew a stray ringlet off her nose. ‘Need you in the east chapel, Mr Bockerby.’
‘Well . . . to work. Beg pardon.’ Bockerby stood, and slapped his broad-brimmed chaplain’s hat on his head. ‘My sacred duties call me. Now, my friends, as you return to your rooms, do remember you are set up in apartments usually set aside for our customers, so if you pass anyone in the corridor, pray try t
o look . . . blissful.’
Mosca was not quite sure how to manage ‘bliss’, and Clent clearly had something on his mind, so it was perhaps just as well that they encountered nobody in the passageway.
When they were safely in the privacy of their rooms, Clent slid the bolt to.
‘Sit down. No, over there by the desk.’ He rummaged through his bottomless pockets, and drew out a few objects, each of which he put down on the desk in front of Mosca. ‘Ship’s articles,’ he declared.
Mosca stared down at a roll of unused paper, a bottle of ink, and a slightly mangled quill.
‘Are they?’
‘If you must interrupt,’ Clent responded tersely, ‘you might at least do so intelligently. Ahem. Sometimes two privateer ships may be forced to sail abreast for a time. They may have a common aim, or a common foe, but, for whatever reason, to squabble is to founder. In such circumstances these gentlemen of the waves are accustomed to draw up a list of articles – of rules – to be observed by all parties. Do you understand now?’
Mosca understood that a truce was being proposed. She chewed on her cheek for a few moments, but she had promised Lady Tamarind to hold with Clent for now. What was more, without Saracen, Clent had become her only link to the world she understood.
‘Do I write them down, then?’
‘You are my secretary, are you not? Take these down and write small – paper is dear. First, that Mosca . . . ah . . .’
‘Mosca Mye.’
‘Mosca Mye . . . will serve Eponymous Clent in the capacity of Secretary, obeying all Reasonable Instructions without Question, and in exchange Eponymous Clent will provide for the said Mosca Mye’s meals and lodging . . . and . . . ah . . . twenty shillings per annum to be paid at the end of each year.’
‘. . . and a pipe . . .’ Mosca added, with a bitter emphasis. And a goose, she wanted to add, but she did not dare to think too hard about Saracen.
‘What? Oh, very well, but if you require tobacco you must find that for yourself.’
‘. . . and clothes . . .’ Mosca continued stubbornly.
‘Adequate clothing,’ Clent amended. ‘And for the moment your current apparel seems to serve very well.’
Without looking up from her writing, Mosca extended one foot to show the worn state of the shoe. The flat soles of the shoes she had found in Mrs Bessel’s chest had been walked to ruin by some younger child.
‘Let us not be delicate about this, your shoes will serve very well for a few— Songs of the celestial, child, are you wearing breeches?’
Mosca pulled her feet back under her skirts.
‘They’re wading breeches,’ she explained defensively.
‘My dear frog, you are no longer living in a puddle. Now I dare say that you could pass for a measly kind of a boy, but right now you are neither fish nor fowl. Take this down. Second, Mosca Mye will choose one gender and stick to it.’
‘Third, Eponymous Clent promises not to take things what are Mosca’s, or use ’em to pay for things, or run off sudden.’
‘Oh . . . if you please.’ Clent waved one hand airily, as if the idea of him doing anything of the sort was clearly absurd. ‘Fourth . . .’ Without looking up, Mosca could tell that Clent had paused by the window. She could not be sure whether he was gazing out at the view of the river or watching her reflection in the glass with his clever grey gaze. ‘Fourth, Mosca Mye shall not divulge anything of a sensitive nature pertaining to her employer without his permission, nor shall she rifle through his papers or repeat his conversations.’
‘Fifth, nor shall he peach on her neither, nor handle her things.’
‘Sixth, she shall not hoard information from his attention, but shall be diligent in keeping him informed.’
‘Seventh, he will keep her wise about stuff what concerns them, and persons what they are working for.’
‘All right, that will do, sign at the bottom.’ Clent added his signature to hers.
‘So –’ Mosca watched as Clent rolled the paper once more and slid it into his top pocket – ‘why we workin’ for the Stationers, then?’
‘This evening you shall sup full on answers, but in the meantime we both have work to do. I must write the ballad I promised to that cut-throat of the road, and you . . . well, my last secretary, for all his faults, always took the greatest care that my boots were kept clean – I believe that there are some rags beside the ewer. Furthermore, the sorry state of my coat currently reflects badly upon your diligence. And . . . for goodness sake, before we go out, do something about your eyebrows.’
Clent retreated to the little closet, and Mosca pulled a bit of charred wood out of the fire and, using her reflection in the window, carefully drew herself new eyebrows with the charcoal tip.
The rest of the day Mosca spent removing gorse spines and travel dust from Clent’s cloak, darning the seams, and cleaning his boots. From time to time Clent himself would explode from his closet, gripped by fits of poetic rage.
‘St Bibbet lend us light! Why must the man have a name so unsuited to verse? I have already used “lithe”, and unless I use “writhe” I shall be forced into repetition.’ He would smooth his hair as if combing his thoughts, then return to the closet.
A little after supper he finally emerged, scanning a scribbled paper like a mother looking for signs of sickness in a newborn baby.
‘It must do, it must do.’ He glanced at Mosca’s new, coal-black eyebrows, and gave a thin, despairing ‘hhssst’ through his teeth. He donned his coat, picking and preening over it with hands that trembled. ‘And thus,’ he murmured in apprehensive tones, ‘must we brave the gaze of Mabwick Toke.’
‘Who’s he then?’
‘Mabwick Toke is the head of the Stationers’ chapter in Mandelion. He can quote the whole of Pessimese’s “Endeavours”, from Amblebirth to Aftermath, in the original Acrylic. He can speak twenty languages, half of them living, including two from the Aragash Heights, and one that can only be spoken with a coin under the tongue. When he travels, his carriage is lined with shelves so snug with books that the very breeze must squeeze for entry. He once uncovered a league of subversives by identifying a single silken thread in the paper weave of an opera ticket. If wits were pins, the man would be a veritable hedgehog.’
‘If he’s so sharp, what do they need you for?’
‘Because there are delicate matters afoot, and they require a Special Operative who is not too obviously linked to the Stationers. I am an Unknown Quantity, and may pass through Mandelion Like A Ghost.’
To Mosca’s mind, Clent did not look as if he had haunted anything but a pantry, but she managed not to say so.
‘When do we go see Mr Toke the hedgehog, then?’
‘Now. Put on your bonnet and follow me.’
Mosca snatched up her bonnet, slipped her outdoor clogs over her leather indoor shoes, and clattered after Clent.
Out in the street, Mosca’s sharp eyes were dazzled by a hundred sights. The sound of hoofs on cobbles was deafening, and Mosca started as a horse’s head appeared directly in front of her, blowing through its nose with a sound like a broken bellows.
‘My good fellow, where might I find the Telling Word?’
A tinker paused in response to Clent’s cry and stared skywards, as if judging the position of the sun.
‘The Telling Word? You’ll find her on Morestraws, just outside the Papermill.’
Clent strode across the cobbles, paying little attention to his secretary, who followed him at a hop, still fastening the buckle of one clog as she struggled to keep up with him.
At last he halted outside a large building with a mighty mill wheel which jolted Mosca with the memory of Chough. From within came a vigorous whoomp! whoomp! whoomp! as if many pairs of giants were playing battledore at once. Several men, stripped to their shirts, were hurrying to and fro with barrows, some full of white rags, others full of coloured rags, rope ends and scraps of sailcloth. This was clearly the Papermill, and the rags were destined to be shredd
ed and pulped and thumped into paper.
Peering through the open window of an adjoining building, Mosca saw two rows of women sorting scraps of cloth with quick, practised fingers, cutting them into pieces and slicing off buttons. Fascinated, she scampered to the next window.
And here, criss-crossed by the diamond-pane light from the window, was a Stationer printing press, its square-shouldered wooden frame standing up straight like a gutted dresser. A large man in his shirtsleeves lowered paper gripped in a hinged frame on to a blackened tray of type, then pushed the tray on rollers into the heart of the press. A mighty heave on a lever, and the machine stressed and pressed the paper down on to the type. Mosca could almost feel the flexing of the metal, forcing words into the world. The lever was raised, the tray dragged out, the frame lifted and the printed page tweaked free. A second man dipped the ends of what looked like fat drumsticks into a pot of ink, and slathered the mix over the type again, in readiness for the next page. The two men glistened with heat and effort. The press glistened with lamp-black and varnish. On the other side of the room an elderly, fox-faced man scanned each page carefully. In one hand he held a stick of wax, which he softened in a candle before drawing a molten splotch in each page corner and stamping it, using a ring with the Stationers’ seal.
Mosca nearly broke her neck turning her head upside down to read the drying sheets. They were posters in big, crumbly-looking capitals, advertising ‘Clashes between the Heraldry Beasts of the Many Monarchs’, to be held at the Grey Mastiff Inn.
Clent, meanwhile, had approached a smaller building across the road, flanking the river. It was unlike anything Mosca had ever seen before.
She knew it was a coffeehouse, for the sign above the door bore the image of an elegant Eastern coffee-pot. Even with her limited knowledge of the world, Mosca had heard of the coffeehouses of the big cities. Many men chose them as a place in which to relax, or cut deals, or talk of high matters with the like-minded. Each coffeehouse had its own character, and usually its own loyal band of customers, close knit as any club.
Fly by Night Page 9