Fly by Night (42 page)

‘Not holed yet, as I saw. The Duke’s men just shot a fish and killed a kettle,’ replied Mosca, feeling her arms where the gypsies’ strong fingers had left tender places.

‘What about Him?’ asked the younger of the two,

‘Him?’

‘It’s no secret,’ explained the older. ‘When he swung out and cut away the mooring ropes with his sword, Mr-Woolnough-the-Physician’s-youngest-daughter-Tinda caught a sight of him, and couldn’t stop herself squealing out his name. The Duke’s men and everyone else heard her, and the constables started shouting that Black Captain Blythe was aboard, and if the
Bower
didn’t pull to they’d run to the Western Spire, drop a carcass in the cannon, and burn ’em to the waterline.’ Mosca had read enough of piratical battles to know that a carcass was a can of oiled rags that could be used to set fire to buildings or ships. ‘Well, we couldn’t be having with that. Not a coward trick like that against brave Captain Blythe.’

‘Brave and handsome Captain Blythe,’ the younger added. ‘Is he as handsome as they say?’

‘Three times as handsome,’ Mosca answered without hesitation. ‘An’ . . . he got a commandin’ eye which makes him look six times as handsome.’

‘What colour are his eyes?’

Mosca paused. She had no idea what colour Blythe’s eyes were.

‘Well, they sort of change like the sky when the clouds are skittish. When he’s starin’ down a foe, all undomitable, they’re all silvery grey like stone in moonlight. And . . . when he smiles they go a merry sort of blue. And other times they’re all sorts of other colours.’

‘But sometimes they’re green?’

Mosca could not mistake the note of hope in the younger gypsy’s voice.

‘Oh yes. Course.
Most
of the time they’re green.’

‘I
knew
it. Didn’t I say Captain Blythe would have green eyes?’

The musket-wielding deputies on the bank paid the little bumboat
All-awry
very little heed as it detached itself from the convoy surrounding the
Laurel Bower
and made for the bank. After all, there were only three gypsy girls aboard, and youthful ones at that. So what if one of them seemed a good deal paler than her companions? Her eyes were as black as theirs, if not blacker.

‘The
Telling Word
is moored at Whitherwend Street until the next bell,’ the eldest gypsy whispered as Mosca climbed out, ignored by the waterside throng.

The cathedral bell rang when Mosca was halfway down Witherwend Street, and the Stationers’ coffeehouse was still distant. The
Telling Word
had, it seemed, been searched, along with the other coffeehouses, and outside its fantastical collage walls a number of bewigged and bespectacled gentlemen waited with patient belligerence, many still holding their coffee dishes. As the bell rang, however, they started to file back along the gangplank. The crew on the roof was readying the sails and preparing to cast off.

Everyone in Mandelion seemed to have seethed to the waterside to watch the drama on the river – cooper and cockle-seller, weaver and wheelwright. The carriages could find no way through, nor did they seek it, and dozens climbed on to the motionless wagons for a better view of the water. Facing a wall of fustian fronts and woollen backs, Mosca realized that she was going to miss the coffeehouse.

With trembling hands, she pulled her printed apron from her capacious skirt pocket, and flung it over her own head. She emitted what was meant to be a blood-curdling shriek, but which came out sounding more like the battle cry of a militant shrew. However, the screams that ensued all around her were a lot more convincing and impressive.

‘It’s print! Print! Hide your eyes!’

Suddenly there were no bodies pressed against her. She ran forward, praying to the Palpitattle in her head, to the Little Goodkin around her wrist, and to any Beloved who might be skilled at preventing young girls running blind off the edge of jetties. Just as she was thinking that she must be nearing the
Telling Word
, someone snatched the apron away from her face, and she found herself staring up at the red-headed constable from the jail. Fortunately he busied himself with flinging the apron into a herring barrel full of brine and lunging at it with his sword to make it sink, so she sprinted the last few steps to the coffeehouse and jammed her clog in the door as it was closing.

‘I got an important message for Mr Mabwick Toke, from Mr Eponymous Clent!’

Two minutes later she was standing in the
Telling Word
, watching as Mabwick Toke broke the seal on Clent’s letter. He unfolded it, shaking out the two small and elaborate keys Mosca had seen Goshawk give to Clent. Toke read quickly, drawing the side of one long finger to and fro against his tongue, as if sharpening it.

‘Your employer tells me,’ Toke said at last, raising his eyes to Mosca’s face, ‘that he has secured a wealth of evidence against Lady Tamarind as a traitress, dissident and queen of a poison press, all of which he promises to place in my hands in the fullness of time if I act against her now. Is any of this true?’

Mosca nodded.

‘He says that you carry proof of the . . . old enemy’s involvement?’

The printed apron was drowned in the herring-barrel, so there was nothing for it. Mosca rolled up her sleeve and showed her forearm, bending back her hand to smooth the creases on her wrist.

‘’Fraid I got no Stationers’ seal,’ she remarked, her Chough accent thickening the words in her mouth like dry oats. ‘You goin’ to burn me?’

‘Not while your skin is evidence, girl.’ The corners of Toke’s mouth dragged sharply down in what seemed to be a curious sort of upside-down smile. Then he sat in silence, his eyes flitting, unseeing, from one side of his desk to the other, as if Mosca had passed him a secret thread and he was following it to find out how it twisted through a mighty web.

‘What a mind that woman must have!’ he said with admiration. It was the hushed tone of a jeweller studying the largest and finest diamond he will ever see. ‘Where did you find the press?’

‘Ragman’s raft, down under a trap.’

‘Of course . . . rags . . . no wonder we could not trace them through their paper, they were making their own . . . That explains the wool threads mixed in with the cotton, and the poor pulping . . . clever rats, clever rats. But we have our own clever rats, don’t we, girl?’ He gave her his upside-down smile again. ‘Where is the press now?’

‘Still in the raft, most likely. I ’ad to skip out quick. Didn’t want the ragmen findin’ me.’
The press is mine mine mine mine
. . .

‘No, of course.’ His pale, unblinking eyes were fixed on her face. ‘Let us hope those devils have left the raft tethered far downstream – if I read the wind aright, the next high tide in the estuary will rush the river and cause wild water for miles. The river can tear loose all but the strongest moorings when it’s in that mood, and chew boats to pieces.

‘Now, I trust that you can leave more quietly than you arrived . . .’

As soon as the coffeehouse had made fast to the shore and the door had shut behind Mosca, Toke’s yellow head snapped up like the lock on a pistol.

‘Wove! Take two men, and do not let her get out of sight!’

‘Who, sir?’

‘The ferrety-looking girl with the unconvincing eyebrows, of course! The world is full of liars of different humours. Coy liars drop their eyes. Bold liars forget to blink. I saw that girl bite a truth into silence, and that’s a lie in another coat. I’m sure she knows where the press is. She believed my fairy story about the estuary tides, so she’ll soon be running to the press to make it safe. Follow her long enough and she will lead you to it – go!’

Wove left with two stout men. Toke took paper from his writing box, penned a hasty letter, then folded and sealed it.

‘Jot! Ride upstream until you find a Waterman – deliver this letter to them and bid them take it to their leader. There is a river battle the Watermen must halt before too many lives are lost. And there is a ship coming from the coast which must be stopped before it reaches Mandelion. Find a fast horse and teach it to fly – go!’

As Jot ran from the room, Toke exhaled and went back to studying the invisible web.

‘What a pity I will never play cards with Lady Tamarind.’ And yet he did feel that he was playing cards with her, trying to read signs in her implacable, snowlike countenance. ‘Do you know what courage is? Not a willingness to fling oneself into danger without proper thought – that is nothing, nothing. There is cowardice in all impulse. Real courage lies in thinking things through, seeing all the risks, and taking them anyway. Lady Tamarind has courage. The question is, do I? I think she has misplayed her hand, but dare I gamble our lives upon it?’ For a few seconds he shook the two keys in his palm like dice, then came to a decision.

‘Caveat, you will need these where you are going. They are the keys to the inner door of the Eastern Spire.’

Caveat was lost in a flutter and a stutter.

‘How. Did we come. By . . .’

‘Provided with the Locksmiths’ compliments. Haul that jaw back up to your face, man. Is that how you wish to be seen when you walk in to arrest Lady Tamarind?’

‘La . . . la-la-lady-Tama-ma-ma-rindledindle . . .’

‘Here.’ A sealed parchment was slapped into Caveat’s hand. ‘The Duke has given us a warrant to search any room or house we please, and arrest all within if we find a trace of the printing press. Be sure you find something, or we shall all dry in the wind after this Assizes. Take three men, and a brace of pistols.’

Some
.
Kind of boat race probably
, thought Caveat, noticing the large, excitable crowd jostling on the jetty.
How very foolish and
.
Dangerous
.

Mr Toke always knows exactly
.
What he is doing how cold
.
It is I shall have Martha tell the girl
.
To patch those old curtains and
.
Hang
.
Them after all
.
But no one else is shivering so
.
Perhaps I am sickening for something
.
Mr Toke always knows
.
What he
.
Is
.
Doing
.

The crowds parted before men in Stationers’ livery, as they always did. The guards at the gate of the Eastern Spire glanced at the Duke’s seal on the parchment, then stood aside.

How shabby I must
.
Seem next to these fine ladies and gentlemen I wish
.
I had been
.
Given time to fetch my
.
Silk cravat and good bag-wig
.

‘Duke’s business!’ he snapped crisply, waving the warrant in the face of the footmen at the door to the spire. Before they could protest, he pulled back his great cuffs and flourished the little silver keys, then turned them in the locks with all the confidence he could muster. The uniform, the keys and the air of confidence were enough. Someone ran off to report, but no one stopped him.

Halfway up the stairs he passed a young man with a warm and open face who gave him a look of guileless curiosity but did not question him. Caveat climbed the stairs, his pistol barrel chilling him through his shirt.

Lady Tamarind sat at her dressing table, mending her face. A tiny crack in the powder had appeared at the corner of one eye. The blemish was so small that it would probably have been invisible to any eye but hers, but she plied a tiny cat’s hair brush dipped in powder and smoothed her skin back to perfection.

How had her mask of powder cracked? Had she winced at something, crinkling her eye? What was there to wince at? Her Birdcatcher spies had informed her of the stand-off between the
Laurel Bower
and the Duke’s men. She was sure that the Duke would soon lose patience and rain fire upon the coffeehouse, and let the little convoy burn or scatter. Soon the highwayman Blythe, Pertellis’s radicals and the Locksmiths on board would be nothing but a sad and sooty memory. Soon the ship carrying her Birdcatcher allies would slide into Mandelion, ready to take control.

On the dressing table lay two letters, which her forgers had written in the handwriting of the Twin Queens, just like the others. She had sealed them with the false signet ring she had brought back with her from the Capital. The letters thanked the Duke for his faithful service. They also included a list of men and women who should be arrested immediately. It was a short list, for Tamarind was patient. Later letters would contain longer lists.

There was no need to falter or fear now. Her plans were perfect.

In the glass she surveyed the face that she had made hers, looking for any hint of a flaw. Perfect.

Lady Tamarind reached out to lay her brush next to her powder tin, and stayed her hand. The smooth white perfection of the powder in the tin was marred by a struggling blackness, battered black armour, dull shards of wing-glass. It rucked and ravaged the creamy surface, scrambling a trail. It was a fly.

There were footsteps on the stairway outside her door, and a pulse fluttered beneath the scar on her cheek.

Through ear-slits like buttonholes in its leathery hide, the crocodile heard the silvery chuckle of key in lock. It heard the swish of skirts as Lady Tamarind stood up hastily. As the door opened to let in four men, the crocodile’s mouth opened to let in the taste of the air. The men brought smells that meant nothing to it: ink, pipesmoke, by-the-way mud. But they definitely smelt of strangeness and of fear, and the crocodile was fairly sure that this meant it was allowed to eat them.