‘Ah.’ Clent appeared to reflect, then inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘You might have the right of it, child.’
‘And if I try to tell them, nobody will believe me! Not against Gravelip, with his Goodman Juniperry name!’ Mosca stamped and fumed like a muslin kettle.
‘Be it even so, now is the time for calm calculation… and not for sending your web-footed apocalypse on a one-goose rampage through the house of the mayor. Mosca, rein in that viperish temperament of yours, and we shall yet have the reward. It will simply take longer than we thought.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ snapped Mosca. ‘You can wait around for that reward long as you like. I got three days.’ Until yesterday Mosca had been trapped between two rivers, desperate to get out before winter arrived. Toll had looked like her only means of escape. Now, however, she wondered if she had traded one prison for another, a smaller prison with high walls. If she was not out of it before her allotted time as a visitor ended, then the mysterious night town with its twilight cacophony would claim her.
‘Have no fear – we will be out in three days, child,’ Clent murmured. ‘By hook or by crook.’
Probably by crook, thought Mosca, noting Clent’s narrowed gaze.
‘Something extremely peculiar is happening in this town,’ continued Clent, ‘and since we have a duty to call in at the Committee of the Hours in any case, let us begin our enquiries there. And… Mosca? I have a suggestion. Carry your demonfowl in your arms. It will cover your badge as we pass through the streets.’
As it turned out, this strategy was only partly successful. Wearing a dark wood badge earned one suspicious and hostile glares, but so did carrying around oversized, cantankerous waterfowl with a penchant for cheerfully pecking people in the eye. With Saracen in her arms, however, Mosca did find the crowd more likely to part before her, and thus she was able to look around and observe more of the town. Once again she was struck by the way Toll’s brightly painted wood and plaster contrasted with the grim, flint-ribbed cottages of the villages in the county she had just left.
Mosca was already disposed to regard Toll bitterly, and everywhere she looked she found reasons to compare it unfavourably with Mandelion. With her endless thirst for reading she looked for posters and found almost none. Bet nobody here can read without mouthing the words, she thought.
‘Interesting,’ Clent said after they had been walking for a little while. In answer to Mosca’s questioning look, he flicked a glance to the nearest hanging sign, which showed a row of painted candles. ‘A town is like a tapestry, Mosca, a story to be read from pictures. Look at the shop signs, and tell me what they tell you.’
They walked on in silence for a little longer, and Mosca obeyed, staring at the signs that swung over doors and along walkways. Some were tavern signs, some bore symbols of the various guilds of the Realm. The Stationers, the Wig-makers, the Playing-card Makers, the Watchmakers, the Goldsmiths – the powerful guilds that kept the splintered Realm from collapsing into anarchy, and who nonetheless spent their time circling one another, wary as winter wolves.
‘Well?’ Clent asked at last.
‘Pawnbrokers.’ For the sixth time, Mosca had caught sight of the triple hanging bauble of the Pawnbrokers’ Guild. ‘There’s lots of pawnbrokers.’
‘Indeed. No doubt many pay their way into Toll in the hope of earning or begging enough money to pay their way out again, and end up pawning everything they own. What else do you notice? What is missing?’
Mosca chewed her cheek for a moment, then inspiration struck her.
‘Coffeehouses! There are no coffeehouses!’
Back in Mandelion there had been half a dozen of them.
‘No coffeehouses,’ agreed Clent. ‘No chocolate houses either. No tobacco-sellers. None that are in business, anyway.’ He paused, dusted a grimy pane with his sleeve and looked in through a window into an abandoned shop where pipe racks were still visible under a fine fur of dust. ‘And look at the stalls – can you see any silks, any Laemark lace, any loaves of sugar, any spices?’
Mosca realized that she could not.
‘All the big cities and towns in the Realm, including Toll, have agreed that they will not trade with Mandelion,’ Clent murmured, ‘in the hope of starving her out. What none of them seems to have noticed is that Mandelion is a port. If she needs anything, she can send out ships and trade with other countries. Mandelion does not suffer greatly from the ban – but Toll does.
‘Mandelion is the only major port on this part of the coast. Toll needed Mandelion, needed the traders who came to and fro through this town, paying in silver and loaves of Salamand sugar, gold and Grenardile port.’
‘So… that’s why they put the tolls up, then? They’re running out of money here too?’
‘You have the beginnings of perspicacity. Now… what is not visible in these streets? What is there here that we cannot see?’
Mosca made a number of guesses. ‘A way out of town’ was apparently not the right answer. Neither was ‘any sign of that chirfugging reward’.
‘Think.’ Clent’s impatience was evidently being held at bay only by his pleasure in revealing his own cleverness an inch at a time. ‘What do you remember about these streets last night, just before we found sanctuary?’
‘You mean apart from all the doors fastened against us, and the great, big bolts, and the giant latches on the shutters, and the great, big shiny locks on the… oh.’
A penny descended with an inaudible plink. Mosca stood back and looked up and down the street. Nowhere did she see a sign with silver keys crossed on a black background.
‘There should be ’undreds of ’em,’ she muttered, instinctively lowering her voice. ‘Toll locks itself up like a chest every night – there must be guineas’ worth o’ good locks in every street.’
‘Indeed.’ Clent cast a nervous glance over each shoulder, despite the fact that neither had spoken the word that was in both minds.
Locksmiths.
‘So,’ whispered Mosca, ‘where are they? Why aren’t they here?’
‘Oh, they are here.’ Clent’s words slipped out through barely open lips. ‘We cannot see them, but they are here in Toll. Mark my words.’
They reached the Committee of the Hours just in time to avoid Clamouring Hour. All over the Realm, for one hour every other day, it was traditional for bells to be rung in worship of each and every Beloved, not only in the churches but in every house and public place. In towns and cities the sound was usually deafening, and it was a good idea to be indoors when it happened.
The Raspberry was still enthroned in full glory when they entered the office of the Committee of the Hours. As before he managed a nod of smileless courtesy towards Clent, and icily ignored Mosca. While young red-headed Kenning ran to claim their visitors’ badges and replaced them with ‘second-day’ badges bordered in yellow, Clent took pains to engage the Raspberry.
‘Good sir, I have been admiring your town’s, ah, curfew arrangements.’ Clent’s voice was careful. ‘An… intriguing system. And very logical.’ He flicked the briefest glance across at Mosca before moving companionably towards the Raspberry and adopting a confidential tone. ‘After all… if one knows who the bad apples will be from birth, then why mix them with the good?’
‘Precisely.’ The Raspberrry glowed with satisfaction. ‘It has served us well for eighteen years, ever since Governor Marlebourne established it. All through the Civil War and the Purges we held to it, sir, which is why Toll retained order even when the rest of the Realm gave in to butchery and brouhaha. And for the last two years our system has been nigh infallible, thanks to the new measures.’ He mimed turning a key in a lock.
‘It must present some ingenious problems, however.’ Clent frowned. ‘That is to say… is it not difficult for the day town to keep track of what happens at night? For example, how can your committee keep track of those who enter or leave the town during the hours of darkness?’
‘Oh, that is really q
uite straightforward,’ the red-faced clerk assured him. ‘The Night Steward’s office passes our committee all details of those who are born, who die, who leave and who arrive in the night town so that we can enter them into the town’s records.’
‘I suppose -’ Clent hesitated – ‘that the Night Steward’s Office never makes… mistakes. Have they ever left names off the records they give you?’
The Raspberry managed to redden about the neck and blanch across the cheeks at the same time. He cast a fearful glance towards his papers as though they might suddenly rebel against him.
‘That,’ he whispered, ‘is unthinkable.’ In Mosca’s experience, such statements generally meant that a thing was perfectly thinkable, but that the speaker did not want to think it.
‘But, my good sir,’ Clent followed up his advantage, ‘how exactly are the reliable clerks and forces of law chosen for the night town? Surely any appointed constables must have trustworthy names, so if everybody with a trustworthy name is a day-dweller…’
Clent let the sentence trail. The Raspberry did not pick it up. It lay there on the desk between them like a stunned weasel.
‘So,’ Clent tried again, ‘the Night Steward and his men control the town at night? Might I ask what manner of men can have names bad enough to be barred from daylight, yet names good enough to be placed in charge of law and order after dark?’
‘There are certain kinds of cur,’ the Raspberry said after a long pause, ‘whom you would never let in the house, but which are good enough to guard the yard. Biters and barkers, but suited to the task once you have them on a leash.’
It was clear that the bristling clerk would not be further drawn, so Clent sighed and changed the subject. The Raspberry appeared all too happy to seize upon a new topic of conversation.
‘… ah yes, of course I remember that scapegrace Brand Appleton.’ Gradually the Raspberry was thawing again, his colour mellowing to a gentle raspberry wine. ‘Reclassified as a nightling just a few months after his engagement to Miss Beamabeth Marlebourne. Nothing to be done about it, of course. Young Appleton made a fuss and talked of appealing or rattling our heads until our ears fell off, but what do you expect from someone born under Sparkentress? Showing his true colours at last, that is all. Miss Marlebourne had a lucky escape there. And of course her father is considering a far better match for her now – you have heard of Sir Feldroll, I trust? The young governor of Waymakem.’
So the mayor planned to marry his daughter to some young noble from another city. Mosca filed the detail away for later. Waymakem was a small thriving city on the far side of Toll, the side that she and Clent so urgently wanted to reach.
‘Of course, some say that it is partly a political marriage,’ the Raspberry added in a lower tone. ‘Waymakem and other cities to the east have been raising an army, hoping to march on Mandelion – the radical city – and put a respectable government in charge. But they are all on the wrong side of the Langfeather. The best and nearest bridge is ours, and they do not want to be setting about a long march with winter setting in. And they cannot pass through Toll without paying tithes for every soldier, unless they win our mayor around, so Sir Feldroll came to Toll to do just that.’
Mosca pricked up her ears again. It was not so surprising to hear that other cities wanted to crush Mandelion. After all, what powerful lord would want his lowly populace hearing of this radical city with its wild notions of equality, and getting ideas?
What was perhaps more surprising was the way Mosca’s spirits surged to the defence of the rebel city, despite the fact that it had brought her nothing but trouble. It was too late to stop her Getting Ideas. Not only had she seen the fiercely joyful Mandelion reborn, she had been a tiny part of making it what it was. When its name was spoken she felt more than affection, she felt a pride so powerful it hurt.
Fortunately it sounded as if for the moment most of Mandelion’s enemies could do nothing but shake their fists from across the Langfeather.
‘So… where is Appleton now? Is anything more known of him?’ Clent had a manner of polite and engaging interest.
‘Nightbound. Probably not dead – there would have been a report. Of course we regularly review all the borderline Beloved in case they need to be reclassified, but Sparkentress?’ He shook his head. ‘Nightbound, and unlikely to change. Still, a small price to pay for a safe town.’
Safe, is it? Mosca gave a small snuffle of bitter mirth. Funny how nervous people get around dusk, then, isn’t it?
Taking advantage of this pause in the conversation, Kenning darted up like a dragonfly, and dipped his head to whisper in the Raspberry’s ear.
‘Indeed? I see. Mr Clent, it seems that a message has been left here for you. Apparently a lady wishes to speak with you.’
Clent glanced at Mosca. She guessed that he had reached the same conclusion as herself. The only lady in Toll who might have a reason to speak to them was Beamabeth Marlebourne. Her father had described her languishing in her sickbed, but perhaps his daughter was capable of acting on her own behalf. Perhaps she was even capable of secretly slipping out of her father’s house, if she had something important enough to say. Beamabeth would know that all visitors had to report to the committee each day. It was the best and easiest way to get word to them.
‘And, ah… did she say how I might find her?’
‘She said that she would be in the pleasure gardens by the Dovespit Playhouse until one of the clock, Mr Clent.’
‘Then we shall thank you kindly, and make our farewells. A lady should not be kept waiting.’ Perhaps it was Mosca’s imagination, but she thought the Raspberry seemed somewhat relieved to see them go. Then again, perhaps that was just because of Saracen’s muzzled but persistent attempts to eat Kenning’s inkwell.
As they left, they passed a crowd of people half dragging, half carrying a small bespectacled man to the Clock Tower like a trophy.
‘… no badge…’ she could hear them explaining animatedly to the guards. Sure enough, there was no wooden badge pinned to his jacket.
‘I can explain!’ he squeaked as he was manhandled inside. ‘I lost it! It… it must have fallen off my coat on to the grass! I tell you I am a visitor! A visitor!’ The door closed behind him and his captors, cutting short his wails of dismay.
Glancing up at the Tower Clock again, Mosca noted with a grim satisfaction that it was showing the wrong time. Good-lady Sylphony, who should have held dominion only over yesterday’s afternoon and evening, was still smiling in the arch instead of having been replaced by Goodman Parsley, the lord of this particular day, from dawn until teatime. Up on the roof of the tower itself she could see a shabby wooden crane from which a rope was dangling to trail across the clock’s face. Presumably it had been used to lower some unlucky artisan to work on the clock.
That clock’s a lot like the town, she decided. Looks good, sounds great, pretends to be some sort of masterpiece. But it’s broken. It’s rotten and broken right down inside where its heart’s cogs meet. That’s Toll.
The Dovespit pleasure garden, like everything else in Toll but the castle, had clearly suffered from lack of space. It was a clenched-looking ribbon of green between two stepped slopes, each studded with shrubberies, tiny grottoes and dwarf trees. In the doorway of a peeling pavilion littered with dead elder leaves they saw a single white parasol leaning against the jamb.
‘Look brisk, madam.’ Clent took the lead. ‘And this time try not to throw your gaze like a spear. The girl is gentle. Frightened. Well brought up. Thwark.’
The last word was delivered in the same calm undertone as the rest, possibly because his brain had not caught up with the fact that a snow-white parasol had just hit him in the face.
‘Thwark!’ he repeated as it hit him again, this time managing to deliver the word with the right tone of pain and surprise.
Beamabeth had changed, Mosca decided dizzily as she gazed up at the white-clad figure in the pavilion doorway. Changed… into Mistress Jennifer Bessel. M
istress Jennifer Bessel in a white muslin gown and grey shawl and kid gloves, showing no particular sign of being locked out of Toll.
Clent gave a squawk, which he somehow managed to turn into a pleased gasp of surprise, though his feet were still tending towards a rapid backwards gavotte.
‘My good gay Jen!’ He reached to firmly grasp both her hands, thus saving himself a parasol swipe to the midriff. ‘How very… ingenious of you to surprise us like this! Naturally we expected you to find some way into Toll, but you have surpassed yourself!’
‘I’ll run for a constable!’ squeaked Mosca. Mistress Bessel’s broad right hand snatched out, taking a firm grasp on Mosca’s forearm and pulling her off balance. The next moment, quite unexpectedly, Mistress Bessel released her hold with an oath. Mosca, who had been straining against her grip with all her might, promptly fell bewildered to the ground, losing her grasp on Saracen.
Mosca had no time to wonder at her sudden release, however. As her flank hit the turf there was a snapping sound, and then an ominous silence. She lay winded for a moment, then gingerly pushed her bonnet back from where it had fallen over her eyes. She froze, belly pressed to the ground.
Somehow during her fall, the frame of Saracen’s muzzle had become cracked. She was just in time to see him shake it from his face. His wings were half raised and his neck extended before him. Something had bumped and bruised him, and he was trying to work out what it was.
Twilight Robbery aka Fly Trap Page 10