Fly by Night

by Frances Hardinge

  Clent had taken off his gloves, as he always did when he wanted to gesture aristocratically. As he approached the ostler at the door, he used them to flick away imaginary flies. Clent had also hooked his arm so that Mosca could rest her hand decorously in the crook of his elbow. This posed a few problems, since Mosca’s other hand was on the leash and Saracen wanted to look at the horses, but after a moment’s tug of war she managed to haul in the leash and recover her balance.

  ‘Good evening to you, my worthy fellow. Will you tell me how we might arrange for our Star-crested Eagle to enter the lists?’

  The ostler, a hefty-looking man in a white apron, stared down at Saracen. He forgot to chew the piece of straw in the corner of his mouth.

  ‘For King Prael?’ The ostler chose a polite tone, perhaps impressed by Clent’s confidence, perhaps intimidated by the way Saracen had taken a companionable hold of one of his breech-buttons. ‘We’ll take sixpence from you then, sir, and you’ll take five shillings for every fight your beast wins.’

  Clent fished out the sixpence casually, as if it would not leave a hole in his purse to pain him, and the ostler tied a piece of red yarn around their wrists to show that they were trainers. They entered the Grey Mastiff inn, Saracen reluctantly releasing the ostler’s leg.

  From the high rafters dangled tiny wooden medallions, each with its own royal crest painted on it. Smoke had darkened the earth-coloured murals on the walls, where cream-coloured hounds clustered around a muscled bear on its hind legs. The animals were painted with fearsomely puckered muzzles and glaring, lopsided eyes that looked almost human.

  A blackened oak door was flung wide now and again as serving men pushed through, holding great plates of roast pigeons and tartlets above their heads. The air from this door roared with heat and dripped with the smell of roasting beef. Above the door jutted a gallery along which sat a dozen or so figures in daintier dress, their faces and wigs thick with powder, their handkerchiefs held to cherry-painted mouths to keep away the chimney smoke.

  For a moment Mosca took one of the ladies for Lady Tamarind, and something clutched at her stomach. The lady’s dress was a cascade of foam exactly like the one that Mosca had seen in the carriage. Her wig was styled in the same way as Tamarind’s, and a star had been painted on one cheek in the same place as Tamarind’s scar. However, her mouth was too large and clumsy, and she laughed too loudly and too often. There was also a black mark on the cuff which Mosca was sure Lady Tamarind would never have tolerated. It was several inches across, and shaped like a heart on a playing card.

  In one corner, a little counter with a fringed canopy brimmed with pewter pots and was backed with barrels. Behind the counter a woman darted back and forth like a wasp war-dancing, grabbing pots, filling them, slapping them on counters with little eruptions of foam, and snatching coins from a reaching forest of hands.

  ‘Wattleebeezer?’ It took a moment for Mosca to run the woman’s question through her head a second time and hear it as ‘What’ll it be, sir?’

  ‘A pot of three-threads, and half a pot of cider for my young companion.’

  ‘Potthreethreadarfpotcidrcominup.’ The woman winked at Mosca. As she did so, her cheek joined in the wink by bunching, like cloth puckered by a tugged thread. ‘Thin’else?’

  ‘We are entering this noble animal into the beast fights. Where may we find the training rooms so we can refresh and prepare?’

  ‘Dorntrite.’ Only the woman’s pointing finger gave her two customers to understand that she had intended to say, ‘Door on the right.’

  Carrying Saracen so that he would not get trodden on, Mosca followed close behind Clent as he shouldered a path through the crowd. The throng was thickest around a dropped pit, just below the gallery. The pit itself was quite hidden from view by the wall of men, some in velvets, some in wool, some clutching purses, some almost teetering into the pit as they leaned forward to call out abuse or encouragement.

  ‘Forward for King Cinnamon and the Realm!’ one gentleman was shouting into the pit, while his gestures with his tankard filled his neighbours’ eyes with foam. ‘Remember our glorious dead of Lantwich Hill! Grab him by the beak!’

  Mosca knew that the beast fights were supposed to let the supporters of different monarchs compete without actual battles breaking out. However, everyone here seemed excitable enough to draw swords and leap into the pit, so she was quite relieved when she passed through the side door and heard it close behind her.

  A little passage led to a sequence of small, cell-like rooms. In one, a man in his shirtsleeves squatted beside a chittering cage. He was sipping from his tankard when his eye fell upon Saracen, causing him to sneeze out his mouthful of ale.

  ‘Ignore him, madam,’ Clent muttered. ‘Anyone would think that he had never seen an eagle before.’

  They found a little room, empty but for two stools and the smell of fear-stained sawdust. They had barely settled when a harassed-looking ostler pushed his head around the door.

  ‘Star-crested Eagle? You were just in time; we’re drawing tiles to see who’s sparrin’ with who right now.’

  With growing qualms, Mosca helped to coax Saracen into a wooden crate, and she watched fearfully as the ostler carried the crate away.

  Clent waited for him to pass out of earshot before murmuring in Mosca’s ear, ‘Come, madam, let us make use of our eyes and ears.’

  They poked their heads out through the door, then Clent entered the passage one way, and Mosca the other. At the first door Mosca heard a dismal mewling and at the second the contented grunts of a young pig. At the end of the corridor was a buttery full of enormous barrels stacked on their sides. A range of cockspurs and muzzles hung from hooks on the wall. She had just taken down one of the leashes and was wondering whether to steal it for Saracen when the round lid of one of the barrels swung aside like a door, and a man climbed out. Mosca could see that the barrel was little more than the mouth to a dark tunnel behind.

  The man was tall. The skin of his face had a slight lumpiness, like rice pudding. His clothes were simply styled from black cloth, but at his belt hung a silver chatelaine from which dangled five finely jewelled keys. Mosca’s eyes, however, were fixed upon his hands, which were incredibly small and delicate. His calfskin gloves might have been made for a child.

  Goshawk himself is a shadow among shadows, Clent had said. It is said that his fingers are as slender and dainty as a child’s . . .

  Eyes as colourless as oysters rested on her face. Mosca flinched as he raised one hand . . . then watched speechlessly as he removed his hat, handed it to her along with his cane, and walked out through the buttery door. Aramai Goshawk, the leader of the Mandelion Locksmiths, the shadow among shadows, had apparently mistaken Mosca Mye for one of the Grey Mastiff tavern wenches.

  Grimacing in her effort at stealth, Mosca tiptoed after the Locksmith and was in time to see him disappear into one of the trainers’ rooms. One undignified scamper later, she was dragging Clent down the corridor to the door where she had seen Goshawk disappear, accompanying the action with much gesturing and meaningful mouthing.

  The door was thick and, with both their ears warring for the keyhole, Mosca and Clent could hear little.

  ‘If I knew, I would tell you.’ One voice beyond the door raised its tone enough to become clear for a moment. ‘But I don’t.’

  Pertellis! Mosca mouthed at Clent in glee and excitement. That’s Pertellis!

  Eyes glittering, Clent led Mosca back to the door which led to the main room of the inn.

  ‘Quickly now. You must venture out through the street door and drop this handkerchief in a conspicuous manner. That will signal to our friends across the street that we are ready for the final scene in our little drama. I shall wait in the back corridor, ready to show them to the right room.’

  Re-entering the main room of the inn, Mosca was almost deafened by a tide of patriotic shouting, interrupted by occasional outraged hooting. She elbowed her way to the door, Clent’s han
dkerchief in her hand. Out in the street, feeling rather foolish, she let the kerchief fall to the cobbles, where a reveller immediately trod it into a puddle. Trying hard not to look around her for Stationer spies, she pushed her way back into the tavern and towards the pit.

  Meanwhile the shouting in the room seemed to have become even louder. A man standing on the wooden stairway to the gallery was trying to make his voice heard above the racket.

  ‘. . . triumphant. The Weeping Owl of King Cinnamon is triumphant. Make good your bets, gentlemen.’ The shouting dwindled to a murmur, part grumble and part satisfaction, and coins clinked as they passed from palm to palm. ‘And now . . .’ The speaker reached into a leather pouch, which rattled as he drew out two ceramic tiles, each shaped like a heraldry shield. ‘Now we shall all witness the Struggle of two Titans of the Royal Blood, King Hazard of the line of Wilkfester, and King Galbrash the Dauntless. Gentlemen, in a moment we shall present to you the clash between . . . the Grouse Rampant of King Hazard, and the Grey Wolf of King Galbrash!’

  The floor of the pit was some four feet below the level of the floorboards, and was scattered with earth, trampled feathers and spilt ale. While offers of bets were being bellowed all around, a wicker basket and a large sack were lowered down into the pit. The sack, Mosca noticed, was undeniably rather bigger than the basket.

  Two boys with long poles reached down into the pit, one to overturn the basket, the other to prod at the sack. Something fluttered out of the basket.

  Mosca’s view was partly blocked by a fat man’s elbow, but she got the impression that the something was dappled brown and not very large.

  The sack was trying to stand. It found it could not and rolled around feverishly for a moment. Then a long nose poked searchingly through the neck of the sack, muzzle pulled back from the pointed teeth by the tightness of the gap. The rope at the sack’s neck was loose and after a moment a narrow, grey head pushed through, to be followed by powerful shoulders and starveling flanks. The animal was shaking the sack off its haunches when it noticed its opponent.

  Mosca did not see exactly what happened next, but she saw enough. A grey shape streaked across the pit, and then there was a sad little explosion of feathers.

  ‘That was a wolf,’ she whispered drily. ‘A real wolf . . .’

  ‘The Grey Wolf of King Galbrash is victorious!’ shouted the announcer on the steps. ‘But let’s drink a toast to the gents who brought us yet another fine grouse – don’t worry sirs, maybe some day you’ll find one that can rip the giblets from a wolf!’

  Applause mixed with shrieks of laughter accompanied the departure of two disappointed-looking men in barbers smocks.

  ‘Now . . .’ The announcer reached into his pouch and drew out a new tile. ‘The next Spectacular Battle will take place between the Star-crested Eagle of King Prael and . . .’ He rattled back into the pouch again.

  Please, not a wolf, thought Mosca. Please, not a tiger or a lion.

  ‘. . . and . . . the Smiling Civet of Queen Capillarie.’

  Mosca had no idea what a civet was.

  On one side of the pit a crate had been lowered. Mosca thought she heard Saracen’s characteristic chuckling sounds from within. On the other side, a sack slowly descended. It sagged shapelessly, and it was hard to tell the size of the animal inside. Not very much larger than a cat, Mosca thought and hoped.

  ‘Two shillings on the Civet!’ shouted the fat man next to Mosca.

  ‘Ten shillings on the Civet!’ someone else called out.

  Not many people seemed keen to bet on the Star-crested Eagle. Mosca had a clammy feeling that they knew more about civets than she did.

  The neck of the sack was prodded open, and an ugly smell seeped into the air. For a moment a set of dull, grey claws appeared through the sackcloth, and then from the darkness inside the sack two eyes glimmered like mother-of-pearl. Then part of a face pushed at the opening, a tapering face mottled in greys like a decaying mushroom.

  The lid of the crate was knocked aside with a long-handled pole, and Saracen’s head appeared above the rim. His star had slid downwards, so that he now appeared to have a black ribbon bow decorating his forehead and a yellow spiky beard adorning what could loosely be called his chin. The crate rocked on its base as Saracen exploded from it in a lather of white wings.

  Saracen was obviously annoyed. Something was tickling his neck, and someone had put him in a crate, and somehow he had fallen into the earth, and now the heavens were bellowing at him and spattering him with ale foam. And there was only one creature in front of him that might be responsible, a creature deftly wriggling from a sack. A brindled animal with a ridge down its back and fur in wet-weather colours. A beast with eyes full of night, and a reek like a rotting forest.

  To the delight of the audience, Saracen lowered his head, holding his neck level to the ground, and hissed. There was a cheer from some followers of King Prael.

  The civet lifted one paw, as if to wash it like an embarrassed cat, then a thrown muttonbone hit it behind the scruff, and it flattened its ears. It began edging sideways, its head turned to one side. Mosca had seen cats turn their heads that way when angling for a bite.

  Beak agape, Saracen made a rapid run at the civet, his neck extended like a knight’s lance. At the last moment the civet twisted like a flag in a gust and sprang sideways, landing with its speckled paws spread. It darted forward to bat softly at Saracen, then backed away at a crouch.

  The attack looked clumsy and gentle, like a child touching another in a game of tag; but as Saracen steadied himself Mosca saw a red spot the size of a farthing bloom above his shoulder. It had been a long time since she had seen Saracen hurt by anything.

  Mosca struggled her way through the yelling crowd to the wooden stairway. She had to tug the tavern spokesman by the sleeve several times before he noticed her.

  ‘Hello, miss – you want to stand on the steps to see better? All right, but only the second step . . .’

  ‘No, I . . . that’s my goose down there. I want my goose back.’

  ‘Well, now, can’t go interrupting mid-fight, can we?’

  ‘I can give you another sixpence . . .’

  ‘Can’t be done. Now look, I have to . . . ’ere, Carmine, come and take care of this, will you?’ A youth stopped sweeping sawdust and pigeon bones across the floor and hurried over, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘This young lady’s getting a bit excitable – take her back to the trainers’ rooms and let her out when the fight’s done, all right?’

  Carmine already had one firm hand on Mosca’s shoulder, and Mosca already had one foot drawn back to kick him in the shins, when the two of them bothered to look each other in the face. They froze as they recognized each other. Carmine was none other than the clothier’s apprentice who had knocked Mosca over in the street, four days before. Clearly he had an evening job.

  Mosca took a step in the direction of the pit, which turned into four steps away from the pit as Carmine dragged her into a clear space.

  ‘What are you doing here? More spying?’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking ’bout. You’re daft, you are, moths ate your wits instead of your waistcoat.’

  ‘I saw you, snooping round after Mr Pertellis. And now he’s gone missing. You can’t hear it, but the whisper’s out about you. We’ll spot you wherever you go in this city.’

  Mosca’s face went hot. She felt scared and confused, and she decided to be angry. Anger was easiest. She was just trying to shape words around her anger when the tavern door swung open again and two Stationers shouldered their way in, flanking a constable in a black-and-green tunic embroidered with the heraldry of the Twin Queens.

  Carmine turned his head to follow Mosca’s gaze, and his grip tightened on her arm. When his head snapped back to look at her, his face was pale with terror and seemed in an instant to have become painfully young.

  ‘You ’peached on me,’ he whispered. He sounded startled and almost hurt. ‘You really did – you
’peached on Mr Pertellis, and now you’ve led ’em to me, so they can take me away and put out my eyes . . .’ He turned and plunged into the crowd.

  A jubilant cry from the spectators roused Mosca from her stupor. To judge by the uproar, Saracen and his opponent were providing the best fight of the evening. People were standing on chairs and tables to get a view of the pit. There were enough people clustered tip-a-toe on the gallery steps now so that the announcer did not notice Mosca as she squirmed her way in among them. She was therefore in an excellent position to see everything that happened next.

  She saw Saracen turning with his wings spread, terrible as storm clouds. She saw the civet with eyes full of firelight, sputtering white feathers. She saw a great number of jostling heads obscuring the pit.

  She saw another couple of men in the Duke’s distinctive black-and-green livery push their way through the door, then another three. Mosca was not well versed in city ways, but it did seem to her that arresting one radical or even two could hardly require so many guards. However desperate they might be, they could scarcely cause that much trouble . . .

  A moment later she looked across to a darkened corner of the tavern, and saw Carmine releasing the wolf.

  Finding its cage door suddenly open, the wolf was quite willing to skulk along the wall without drawing attention to itself, while still trying to look as much like an oversized dog as possible. However, one portly man in Apothecaries’ livery felt fur brush his hand, glared down irritably, and then shrieked like a boiling kettle.

  Until now, the crowd had been divided between those shouting for the goose and those shouting for the civet. Now it was divided between those who were still enjoying a fine and ribald night out, and those who had noticed that a large and hungry wolf was wandering through their midst. In spite of the wolf’s tactful retreat, however, it could not be long before everyone became aware of the situation. Chairs were overturned; at least one pistol was brandished but, thankfully, not discharged. Suddenly the crowd was divided between those who had decided it was better to jump into the pit with the goose than stay on the level with the wolf, and those who had a ring-side opportunity to see exactly how bad a decision this had been.