Fly by Night

by Frances Hardinge

  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.

  ‘I didn’t catch it!’ she called out, distraught. ‘Please, can you throw it to me again?’

  ‘There is only ever one chance,’ answered Lady Tamarind and, above her, white lace sails swelled despite the stillness. The web-threads swung softly over their reflections as the pearl-galleon slid away through the mist. ‘Someone wishes to speak with you.’

  The wake of the galleon was a ruffled ribbon of white lace, and in its throes bobbed a sodden shape, face down, its hair floating like weed and its wet shirt ballooning on its back. It drifted towards Mosca in spite of the tug of the current and the drag of the galleon’s wake.

  There were splintered sculls in her hands, so in terror she started to row. The marriage house floated up to greet her, without bothering to bring the shore with it. She clambered in through the scallop-shaped window, and stumbled from room to room. Behind her she heard a dripping and a dragging and the flabby slapping of dead, wet feet against floorboards. She ran into her room and hid in her truckle bed, knowing that Goodman Postrophe could not stop the dead coming home, because she and Clent had eaten all his mellow-berries.

  And it was in her bed that she awoke, wondering why it was so light, and why she could hear only the lap of the water, and the screech of the gulls, and the sound of a town crier bellowing his news in the street.

  ‘. . . Body found Stabbed through the Vitals with Brutal Force . . . Body found Tangling in the Trout Nets by Whickerback Point . . .’

  Mosca clenched her eyes shut, and pushed her fingers into her ears. Let it be a dream let it be a dream let it be a dream . . . She gave the Beloved every chance to rearrange the world so that the events of the previous night had not happened, but when she pulled her fingers out of her ears the crier was still shouting.

  Perhaps Clent had taken flight in the night? Mosca sat up carefully and peered hopefully towards the larger bed. But no, there he was, his great stomach swelling and falling in slumber, his nostrils widening and narrowing as he breathed steadily.

  Saracen’s tiny wounds had faded from live-poppy-red to dead-poppy-red, and he was demonstrating his hearty good health by trying to eat the spluttered mess of candlewax. He looked up at Mosca as she swung a leg out of the truckle bed, and if he saw her as a murderer’s helpmeet there was no hint of it in his coal-chip eyes. Mosca knew that she could have laid waste to whole cities without losing his regard, and she felt a throb of comfort.

  ‘Mr Clent!’ A token knock at the door was followed by the sudden entrance of the Cakes, her pointed face pink and excited. ‘The constable has come for to ask everyone some questions an’ can you come down to the breakfast room please?’

  Clent sat up with impressive if graceless promptness, snatched his wig from a bedknob, and slammed it on his head back to front. Only then did he go about the business of actually waking.

  ‘I beg a multitude of pardons . . . a constable?’

  The Cakes nodded, pleased and self-important.

  ‘He says I’m a sharp young thing,’ she announced happily, ‘on account this morning I noticed our coracle was tied under the window not to the tree how it always is. And I run down to report it to the beadle, and they says it might have something to do with a body they found this morning. An’ the constable thinks maybe it’s a gang of wandering cut-throats and robbers, who might have tried to get into our house to steal from the shrines and kill us in our beds . . .’

  Clent and Mosca had remembered to return the clothes chest to its place. They had forgotten about the coracle.

  Oh sweet Beloved Spare us Sores, thought Mosca. Look at us, we’re thieves, and mill-burners, and spies, and one of us is a cut-throat as well. We’re Criminals of the Murkiest Hue, and we’re not even very good at it.

  ‘We would of course be delighted to speak with your admirer, madam,’ Clent assured her with haggard courtesy. ‘Perhaps you will allow us a few minutes to refresh and make ourselves respectable.’ The door closed behind Cakes, leaving Mosca and Clent to furious whispering.

  ‘Yer wig’s on back to front!’

  ‘And your eyebrows are smudged down over your nose! And where by the feathered head of St Minch are my . . . oh, there they are. Turn your apron inside out. The right side looks as if you have been chasing rats up chimneys.’

  ‘Yer boots are all over mud, Mr Clent . . .’

  ‘And a hundred men’s boots will be so in this weather, calm yourself. Wait – bring the ewer and bowl to me. Stand still . . .’

  Mosca’s shoulder blades knotted themselves as Clent dipped his handkerchief in the bowl and dabbed at her face. It took all her willpower to avoid flinching from his hand, as he wiped away her coal-dust eyebrows and carefully drew on a new set with a pencil, his own eyebrows waggling with concentration as he did so.

  ‘We returned from the beast fight and went directly to bed,’ he muttered as he added the final touches. ‘Nothing woke us, we heard and saw nothing. If we both hold to this, I think we shall brave the storm without capsize.’

  Mosca followed Clent down the passage with her heart bursting. Goodlady Syropia regarded her with pitying wooden eyes. Goodman Trybiscuit hardly dared watch her through his painted fingers. Please I need to get away with this please please please . . .

  The constable was a man in his forties with ragged red hair and tired-looking eyes that drooped downwards at the corners. A bottle of gin stood on the table, suggesting that the Cakes had added a nip of comfort to his coffee to take away the chill of his morning walk. He was playfully tossing his hat from one hand to the other as he talked to her, and his laugh only faded into formality when Mosca and Clent entered the room.

  ‘This is the gentleman who lodges with you regular, then?’

  ‘I am Eponymous Clent, and the honour is mine. I fear I am unlikely to be of help to you, sir, but any trifling assistance I can offer you is indubitably yours.’

  ‘That’s very gentlemanly of you, sir.’ The constable seemed a little flabbergasted by Clent’s manner. ‘But I do not know why you should feel you cannot be of help.’

  ‘Perhaps I have misunderstood,’ Clent began again, quickly. Too quickly, Mr Clent, careful, Mr Clent . . . Mosca was horrified to find herself trying to advise a murderer to caution in her mind. ‘I apprehended that some blackguards tried and failed to rob this house, and cut the throat of some other poor devil later in the night. I fear that I was in too profound a sleep to have heard anything of use.’

  ‘Well . . . I don’t see that they can have failed to get in, sir. There was a boat tied up by the window, you
see, sir, and if they didn’t get in that way . . . then how did they get back to the bank? There’s another thing, sir –’ the constable reached out and broke off a single husk of honesty, and rubbed its papery disc between his thumb and forefinger – ‘there were lots of these in the dead man’s collar and hair. You don’t get them growing round here, not till you’re way downriver to Fainbless. I think our poor devil was in this house not so long ago.’

  There was a small noise like a trodden fledgling. Mosca wondered at it for a moment until she realized that she had made it. The constable did not seem to have heard, but Clent gave her a wary glance.

  ‘Then it would seem that I have tumbled into misapprehension,’ he said with a smile, lowering his weight into a chair and resting his elbows on the table, where his hands began nervously tearing pieces of crust and arranging them in lines. ‘I am of course solicitous to answer your questions, but perhaps I might send the girl away. Her years are rather tender for matters of mortality, and she has her errands to perform.’

  Too clever, Mr Clent, too wordy. People don’t like you when you’re too knowing.

  ‘Can I ask what errands are so urgent that she cannot pause to help track down a murderer?’ The constable’s tone was cold.

  Inspiration suddenly bit Mosca like a gnat.

  ‘I got to deliver a message to Lady Tamarind.’ She spoke reflexively, just as she might have slapped at an insect’s bite. ‘Mr Clent works for Lady Tamarind.’

  ‘Lady Tamarind . . .’ The constable was shocked back into courtesy. ‘Can you prove this, sir?’

  Clent went pale, then he evidently remembered Lady Tamarind’s letter introducing him as a poet in her employ, and sent Mosca to fetch it. The constable’s face relaxed as he read it, and soon he was wearing his jovial expression again.

  He rolled the letter carefully and handed it back with a new respect. ‘Well, good sir, make no delay for me, I would not have Her Ladyship kept waiting on my account.’