Fly by Night (24 page)

Mosca twisted her mouth to one side to show that she was listening and did not like what she was hearing.

‘Now, as you know, tonight we bless the Grey Mastiff with our custom.We are under orders to investigate the tavern, find out where the Locksmiths meet, and make sure Pertellis is there. Unfortunately, the part of the tavern containing the private rooms is barred to everyone but the staff, the Locksmiths and, ah, the trainers for the beast fights . . .’

‘No!’ Mosca shouted when her breath returned to her. ‘You’re not puttin’ Saracen into the beast fights! I’ll set ’im on you an’ have ’im give you extra knees where there shouldn’t be—’

‘Child, child!’ A kindly laugh wove through Clent’s words like a golden thread. ‘I thought we had reached some sort of understanding and were past such demonstrations. Mosca, you must,
must
trust me a little.’ He smoothed his hair back with the air of one who is amused but perhaps a little hurt. ‘The beast fights are not extravaganzas on the same scale as those in the Capital. Oh, I grant you that the Grey Mastiff’s posters boast of “Clashes Between All the Heraldry Beasts of the Many Monarchs” but I understand that the reality is a rather pitiful affair. Newts painted red to resemble salamanders, tabby cats standing in for tigers, calves passing for bulls.’ Clent waved the daisy-shaped rag of cloth in his hand. ‘How else could we expect to enter Saracen as King Prael’s Star-crested Eagle?’

Mosca glanced protectively at Saracen.

‘Were not your village supporters of King Prael, anyway? Where is your sense of patriotism?’

‘I keep it hid away safe, along with my sense of trust, Mr Clent. I don’t use ’em much in case they get scratched.’

‘Well, what about your sense of duty to your unfortunate fowl?’ Clent changed tack without blinking. ‘Is he never to be more than he is? You may be standing in the way of Saracen’s destiny – preventing him from becoming the toast of every alehouse, the talk of every drawing room . . .’

‘I don’t think Saracen cares much about fame, Mr Clent. Maybe that just works on highwaymen.’

‘All right, then picture this.’ Clent spread his hands and smoothed the air in front of him, as if it was sand and he was preparing to draw in it. ‘A darkened alleyway, in which two hardened ruffians squat, brandishing cudgels. There is an unwary step – the pair hearken and tense for attack. A short figure appears in the alleyway. It is an old goose, its neck swinging stiffly as it waddles. The two thieves smile – there will be goose in the pot tonight. But wait! One seizes the arm of the other to halt him. “By my troth,” he whispers, “it is the goose from the Grey Mastiff! I shall never forget the time I saw him best that pine marten tricked out as Queen Drizzlesoft’s lion.” Their eyes mist over, and the cudgels hang forgotten in their hands. They let the feathered hero pass, and their minds fly back to the exploits of their forgotten soldiering days. Noble impulses of their hearts rekindle after long years, and . . .’

Clent’s eye fell upon Mosca, and he halted abruptly.

‘But why do I persist, seeing that your breast is clearly dead to all sense of duty and compassion? Very well, let me put the matter plainly without frills or ornament.’ This sounded so unlikely that Mosca was intrigued despite herself. ‘If they are not stopped, the Locksmiths will take over the city. They will place an eye to every keyhole and an invisible knife to every throat. But why should that worry you?’ Clent gave Mosca a quick, penetrating glance. ‘Perhaps you would like to help Lady Tamarind pack?’

‘What?’ Mosca sat bolt upright.

‘It is no secret that Lady Tamarind has done her utmost to dissuade her brother from putting the Locksmiths in power. If they win, she will have no choice but to flee. Of course . . .’ Clent paused in his pacing, then sat down opposite Mosca. ‘Of course, if anyone helped Lady Tamarind by exposing the diabolical plans of the Locksmiths, she would owe them a great debt . . .’

Mosca chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment or two, then looked up at Clent with an expression somewhere between shyness and hate.

‘So it’s just newts an’ things, then?’ Her tone was blunt but uncertain.

Saracen had nudged his bowl across the floor until it chinked against the skirting board. He straightened his strong, white neck, snapped his beak at the empty air, and looked ready for anything.

Half an hour later, he was waddling fiercely towards the city’s East Gate with a star of yellow worsted drooping over one eye and a black ribbon knotted becomingly under his chin. Mosca walked a pace or two behind him with his leash in her hand, jutting her pointed chin and ignoring all the people who laughed and called out to tell her that her dog was bewitched. Clent did not appear to hear the catcalls, but walked with a swing of his cane as if his companions were the most elegant imaginable.

The Grey Mastiff was built up against the old city wall, and set back from the other houses. It gave the impression of lounging against the wall, like a rakish pickpocket watching passers-by. Into the wall were set great iron rings for tethering horses, and half a dozen boys dawdled, ready to rush to the side of any rider and offer to guard his horse for a penny. The stone walls of the inn were the stale colour of old cheese rind, and pitted as if a hundred mice had set their teeth in it. When Mosca got closer she realized that some of the holes were pockmarks left by old musket fire, probably from the civil war, and she noticed that most of the fortified wall was scarred in the same way.

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.’