Twilight Robbery (14 page)

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. Mistress 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.

A second passed in which Mosca, Clent and Mistress Bessel stared at him wordlessly, then they all moved as one. Or rather, they moved as three – three each individually bent on self-preservation. Clent swiftly slipped in through the pavilion door and climbed on to a wicker chair, the seat of which promptly gave out under his weight, leaving his legs trapped within the frame. Mistress Bessel displayed remarkable agility, not to mention a pair of chocolate-and-cream striped stockings, as she hoisted her skirts and clambered into a nearby nymph-bedecked fountain. Mosca settled for wrapping both arms over her bonneted head and staying as flat and low as she could.

All were acquainted with the full destructive might of a Saracen enraged.

‘Might I ask,’ Clent ventured at last, his tone no louder nor angrier than a summer breeze, ‘what has brought you down upon us like a thunderbolt?’

‘That girl,’ murmured Mistress Bessel, her voice mellow as a cooing dove, ‘has ate my stew, milled my handkerchiefs, cheated the good doctor before he could buy me dinner and forked my money. And I’ll dance coin that she did so on
your
orders.’

‘You was going to leave us to rot in Grabely,’ was Mosca’s muffled offering. She paused to spit out a mouthful of dandelion clock. ‘Anyways, got in, didn’t you?’

‘How does that help me?’ Mistress Bessel’s tone sharpened, and then as Saracen swung his head to look at her, it once again became carefully buttery. ‘I
did
have enough money to get me through Toll and out the other side, before you stole from me. Now I’m scoured out.’ She examined Mosca and Clent keenly. ‘And you’re no better, are you, my sweetmeats? We’re all high and dry, flapping our gills and praying for rain.’

‘My most inestimable madam –’ Clent’s eyes slid from side to side, following Saracen’s patrol march – ‘you have not brought the constables down on our heads, so I must surmise that either you have your own reasons for not wanting them involved, or that you need us for something. Or . . . perhaps both?’

‘Not too tardy, my sugarplum, not bad at all.’ Mistress Bessel’s teeth were starting to chatter, due to the fountain water soaking into her stockings and petticoats. ‘If you will sing to my pipe, I think I have a scheme that will garner enough for you to pay what you owe me – stolen money, shop and all – and all three of us will still have enough to leave town.’

‘Sounds like your end of the bargain tastes sweeter than ours,’ muttered Mosca.

‘Don’t scorn to grab a thorn bush when you’re drowning,’ snapped Mistress Bessel. ‘After all, my spring pea, you’re born under Palpitattle. Nightbound as owl pellets. In three days you’ll be banished to darkness.’

‘My dear Jenny-wren, you do have a portion of a point.’ Clent dared to extricate one of his feet from the wicker chair. ‘You have our attention.’

‘Then listen well.’ The breeze obediently hushed, and even the lapping of the water around Mistress Bessel’s legs seemed to grow quieter. ‘There’s one thing in this town worth more than an elephant’s weight of silver.’

‘And that would be . . .’ Clent’s grey eyes had taken on a shine that was not fear. Jackdaw eyes, Mosca thought suddenly. Steel and avarice and pin-sharp wits.

‘
The Luck
,’ said Mistress Bessel.

‘The . . . Do you mean the Luck of Toll?’ Clent’s eyes widened.

‘Mr Clent –’ Mosca dared to tip back her hat brim a little to peer at him – ‘thought you said the Luck was like to be tuppence worth of glass pot? Nuffink said ’bout silver . . .’

‘Child, a thing is worth what people will pay for it. If the people of Toll believe that the Luck is the only thing keeping them from falling into the Langfeather, then it is worth more than a cataract of diamonds.’

‘So if they was to lose track of it . . .’ Mosca voiced the unspoken thought.

‘. . . and somebody was kind enough to tell them where it might be found . . .’ continued Clent.

‘. . . then there might be a good deal of gratitude of the jingling sort,’ finished Mistress Bessel.

‘So – the Luck – what is it, then?’ asked Mosca. There was an unpromising silence. ‘Do you even know?’

The large woman’s countenance suddenly become cloudy, cautious and inscrutable. ‘I have had a muckle of trouble getting folks here to talk about it,’ she murmered, ‘but a town’s Luck is commonly something small. A chalice, or a skull, or the withered core of an apple ate by a saint.’

‘If it’s so small, what do you need us for?’ Suspicion gave Mosca’s neck hairs a storm-weather tingle. ‘It won’t be too heavy for you to manage by yourself. Mr Clent, I’ll wager the only thing she wants us to carry is the blame. She’s looking for someone to go to prison for her.’

‘Hush, child, that is hardly a courteous—’

‘Actually, she is right in a way,’ cut in Mistress Bessel.

‘What?’

‘Never you mind
what
the Luck is,’ said Mistress Bessel, pushing away an inquisitive duck with the point of her parasol, ‘but I’ll tell you
where
I think it is. The mayor has it tucked away in the one place with more locks than any other – the top floor of the town jail. It’s up in the Clock Tower by the bridge.’

‘So . . .’

‘So some ferret-faced little scrap of mischief,’ Mistress Bessel gave Mosca a pointed look, ‘gets hauled to the Pye-powder Court for a spot of purse-plucking, and thrown into the jail overnight. There this little canary-bird flies out of her cell by some certain secret means. She finds the Luck, hides it in her apron and walks out next morn when her kind friends come to clear her name and pay her fine.’

‘If it’s so easy,’ snapped Mosca, ‘why don’t
you
do that?’

‘There’s a spot of wriggle-work involved, needs to be a child. And anyway,’ Mistress Bessel added quickly, ‘my name’s too good. Jennifer – it’s a bundle of good meanings, fair and smooth and bonny and white. Nobody would believe ill enough of me to throw me in the roundhouse.’

‘Bet they’d change their minds if you took yer gloves off!’ hissed Mosca.

Mistress Bessel went deathly white. Mosca held her eye, but felt a prickle in her stomach that told her she might have gone too far.

‘We play things my way, my buttercups,’ the stout woman said at last, very quietly and evenly, ‘or we do not play at all.’

‘Then I say fie to your game, Mistress Bessel!’ Mosca leaped up. ‘Find yourself some other playmates!’

Saracen, who had been swaggering to and fro in some uncertainty, was delighted to see Mosca on her feet and screaming at somebody. At last he knew how to choose his enemy. There was a froth of white wings and a splash as he joined Mistress Bessel in the fountain.

For a few seconds Mistress Bessel and Saracen disappeared amid a mash of foam, muslin, feathers and flying lily pads. Then something in a sodden bonnet scrambled out of the stone basin and made good use of a pair of stripy-stockinged legs, leaving a broken parasol floating in the fountain. After a few seconds Saracen hopped nonchalantly on to the lip of the basin, water droplets gleaming on his white plumage.