‘Take up the planks,’ he ordered in an undertone. ‘But if either of you makes a sound, I’ll nail the deck in place above your heads, seal the cracks with pitch, and leave you to your prayers.’
They had to lever up three planks before Eponymous Clent was able to squeeze through. He disappeared into darkness with a muffled squawk.
‘Quiet!’
‘Merciless Fates! I would like to see you hold your tongue if you had just taken Good Lady Shempoline in the eye-’
‘Silence!’
Mosca followed her employer into the cramped darkness below the deck. The darkness was almost absolute, apart from a few strands of light visible above between the deck planks. She raised her hand and felt the coarse wooden underside of the deck and wished she hadn’t. It was like finding oneself inside a wooden coffin.
The voice of the water was now far louder. Here you could hear the thoughts of the barge, how it clicked its tongue in annoyance as the wavelets slapped its flank, how it boomed and droned with effort as it strained against the ropes of the hauliers, the drag of the current.
A crickle, a crackle. Somewhere not far from Mosca’s head lay Clent’s fistful of papers. Somewhere among them lay the Stationers’ letter. Even the few lines Mosca had read were enough to prove Clent a Stationer spy. This was her chance to gain something that might give her a hold over him. ‘Somink big,’ Palpitattle’s voice echoed in her head. Her long fingers reached out stealthily and touched a papery corner.
‘… elcome aboard… seems to be the probl…’ Partridge’s voice from on deck.
‘… orders of the Duke…’ Long-suffering tones from a stranger. ‘Nay, there’s no need to uncover all o’ the bales. If we search every inch of every boat we’ll not see our wives tonight…’
Mosca carefully gripped the paper corner between thumb and fingertips, and started to pull at them. Almost immediately her knuckles took a sharp blow from what felt suspiciously like the knobbled features of Goodlady Agragap, He Who Frightens the Harelip Fairy from the Childbed.
‘… what are you looking for?’
‘… oofprints.’
Mosca’s free hand closed around a bust of Mipsquall, the Patron of High-pitched Winds, and a moment later the saint’s twin horns were jabbed firmly into Clent’s clenched fist.
‘… what?’
‘… orders of the Duke. On account of the highwayman Clam Blythe. His Grace has made it known that
Below deck, stealthy move and countermove had disintegrated into a stifled tug of war. A faint rattle told Mosca that Clent had lost his grip on Goodlady Agragap, and was scrabbling for a new celestial ally. She lashed out, too slowly to prevent him snatching up St Whillmop of the Peaceful Dream. As St Whillmop’s bland and loving features struck Mosca painfully above the eyebrow, she could not help uttering a stifled mewl.
The conversation on the deck hushed, and feet stirred above, quietly, carefully. The two fugitives froze in the darkness.
‘Just the goose puttin’ in his farthing’s worth,’ Partridge declared coolly. Saracen’s flabby steps were just audible above.
There were a few more affable murmurs, the slap of palm in palm, and then a cry to the hauliers to take up their ropes. The
Ten minutes later there was a whisper of foliage against the barge-side and a protest of ropes. Two deck planks were levered hastily, revealing a banner of blue sky and two scarlet faces.
‘Out,’ said Partridge.
The hidden passengers clambered on to the deck, Clent triumphantly clutching his mangled papers to his chest, Mosca gingerly feeling the tender place on her forehead.
‘Off,’ said Partridge.
There was a duet of protest. The land around was a featureless moor of gorse, without even a dirt track to be seen.
‘The route’s swarming withWatermen. Ye’ll pay what ye owe now.’ Partridge watched as Clent grudgingly placed a few coins in his hand. ‘And some more for this trouble, now.’
Clent looked around him at the unsmiling hauliers, and he seemed to be reckoning the odds. His mouth grew as small and round as an unripe plum.
Before Mosca could react, he had seized her around the middle, pinning her arms to her sides.
‘Keep the goose,’ he called over his shoulder, and he bodily dragged his young secretary from the barge, ignoring her kicks and spirited attempts to break his fingers.
Mosca had time to see Saracen lifting his head quizzically to observe her unceremonious departure, before her bonnet fell over her face again.
It was five minutes before her weight wearied Clent’s arms, and his ankles tired of her accurate kicks, and he dropped her in a heap amid the bracken. When she found her feet, the wincing sunlight, the ragged gorse and the slow-blinking wings of the moths were witness to an epic Trade in Exotic Terms.
Mosca’s opening offer was a number of cant words she had heard pedlars use, words for the drool hanging from a dog’s jaw, words for the greenish sheen on a mouldering strip of bacon.
Eponymous Clent responded with some choice descriptions of ungrateful and treacherous women, culled from ballad and classic myth.
Mosca countered with some from her secret hoard of hidden words, the terms used by smugglers for tell-alls, and soldiers’ words for the worst kind of keyholestooping spy.
Clent answered with crushing and high-sounding examples from the best essays on the natural depravity of unguided youth.
Mosca lowered the bucket deep, and spat out long-winded aspersions which long ago she had discovered in her father’s books, before her uncle had over-zealously burned them all.
Clent stared at her.
‘This is absurd. I refuse to believe that you have even the faintest idea what an “ethically pusillanimous compromise” is, let alone how one would…’ Clent’s voice trailed away as his eyes fixed on something beyond Mosca’s shoulder.
They could hear the racket of crude wheels over rough stones. In the distance, beyond the banks of gorse, could be seen the tottering crest of a high-loaded cart.
In an instant, the pair abandoned use of their tongues and took to their legs. Through thick grass and ragged brush they plunged after the cart, Mosca with her skirts scooped thigh-high, Clent whistling to catch the driver’s attention.
The cart was little more than a family of creaks on wheels, bound together with rope. The driver, a tiny, tanned imp of a man, was champing on a piece of bread, leaving the reins slack and trusting his ponderouslooking bay to follow her own head.
‘Lookin’ for a lift to Mandelion, are you? Clamber on up if you can find a space. Go easy, though – my wares has teeths, they does.’
Drawing back the covering cloth, Mosca’s gaze was met by two dozen metal grins, as if the false teeth of a dozen iron beasts had been stolen while they slept.
‘Traps. Any kind of traps you needs, I got. Traps for taking the toes off a trespasser, traps for taking the nose off a badger.’
Mosca replaced the cloth, and nervously clambered up to sit on the assembled heap, hearing the occasional spring sing and jaw snap.
Traps in Clent’s bed, Mosca thought. Traps in Clent’s soup. She hugged herself into bitter thinness, and said nothing. A Stationer spy would have enemies, she was sure of it. She would bide her time until Mandelion, and then
‘I makes them all myself, you know. Traps for the belt, in case someone tries to fork you of your purse…’
