Fly By Night

assume that the other girl could not see her face properly. It was strange to be called ‘ma’am’ by someone who looked two years older than her.

‘I’m not here for marriage – we’re just stayin’ here, that’s all.’

‘Oh.’ The red-haired girl relaxed and grinned. ‘What are you here for, then? I’m the Cakes.’

‘What?’

‘I does the Cakes. For after the nuptyals. What you here for?’

‘I’m a secretary.’

‘Oh.’ The Cakes’ face fell as if she did not think she had been told the truth, and then she shrugged as if to show that that was Mosca’s business. ‘See you at breakfast, then.’

While the sky silvered behind the distant spires, Mosca tried to patch the tatters of her plans. The slumber- bewitched conversation with Lady Tamarind had changed everything. Had it really taken place?

Thinking of Lady Tamarind, Mosca felt her stomach twist. It was excitement – but excitement of a not entirely pleasant sort. Rather, it was a sudden awareness of something she lacked, something she had sensed in the rich otherness of the lady in the coach. The lack ached, like a hole in a tooth.

To work for Lady Tamarind! Sooner or later Lady Tamarind’s strange white wealth and power must surely rub off on Mosca like powdered snow… and Mosca would become… she could not clearly see what she would become. The thought seemed to pass on soft wings behind her, close enough to stir her neck hairs with the breeze of its passage. There was the faintest sensation of little golden drops of venom trailed across her skin, like those bled by a bee after the sting.

At six o’clock the market bell rang, and hawkers gradually filled the streets. With a sense of infinite luxury, Mosca gazed down at the step to watch pewter being polished by someone other than herself. By the time she followed a carefully spruced Clent down to a late breakfast, she could not imagine why she would wish to be anywhere else. Bockerby greeted them in the parlour with a new wariness and crispness that made Mosca realize he had been drunk the night before.

‘Ah, yes – I recall you saying that you are a friend of Jen – how is dear Jen?’ Bockerby asked as they all sat down.

‘Brown and bonny as a wren, and becoming quite the mistress of means. She is growing plump on it, and has taken on two apprentices.’

‘Ah, plump now, is she? She always had a hungry wit – I was surprised to hear she’d retired. Ah, all of us respectable nowadays… even Jen.’

‘She lost a taste for the profession after a magistrate… gave her a strongly worded letter, you might say.’ Clent gave a wince of a smile.

Bockerby grinned mirthlessly, and touched each of his teeth in turn with his tongue-tip, as if counting them.

‘That’d be a letter “T”, then,’ said Mosca through a mouthful of bread.

Bockerby looked at Mosca as if she had appeared from nowhere. After scrutinizing her briefly, he looked sharply to Clent. ‘Is this one flash?’ he asked, nodding towards her.

Clent inclined his head in something between a nod and a shrug. ‘Safe enough, for immediate purposes.’

Bockerby gave a wordless murmur of dissatisfaction.

‘How old is she? Ah, it cannot be more than thirteen years… a bit green, a bit green. Still -’ Bockerby hacked himself another piece of bread – ‘if I were you I’d marry her anyway. They’re often more pliable, you know, once they bear your name.’

‘Have you traded your sense for pence?’ Clent’s outrage was deafening. Somewhere beyond the fragile wall, the drone of a marriage ceremony halted briefly, before continuing more hesitantly. ‘I am little enough pleased to find myself having to think for two, without shackling myself in perpetuity.’

Bockerby shrugged and wafted his glass over the jug before drinking, in honour of King Prael.

Mosca could only conclude that she had suddenly become invisible. She decided that, if this was so, it was probably a good time to steal all of the bread and cheese left on the table.

‘Well.’ Bockerby watched Clent shrewdly over his meaningless grin. ‘You must do something about her sooner or later, you know.’

‘Yes, yes, I know…’

‘Mr Bockerby?’ The red-haired girl pushed her head around the door, and blew a stray ringlet off her nose. ‘Need you in the east chapel, Mr Bockerby.’

‘Well… to work. Beg pardon.’ Bockerby stood, and slapped his broad-brimmed chaplain’s hat on his head. ‘My sacred duties call me. Now, my friends, as you return to your rooms, do remember you are set up in apartments usually set aside for our customers, so if you pass anyone in the corridor, pray try to look… blissful.’

Mosca was not quite sure how to manage ‘bliss’, and Clent clearly had something on his mind, so it was perhaps just as well that they encountered nobody in the passageway.

When they were safely in the privacy of their rooms, Clent slid the bolt to.

‘Sit down. No, over there by the desk.’ He rummaged through his bottomless pockets, and drew out a few objects, each of which he put down on the desk in front of Mosca. ‘Ship’s articles,’ he declared.

Mosca stared down at a roll of unused paper, a bottle of ink, and a slightly mangled quill.

‘Are they?’

‘If you must interrupt,’ Clent responded tersely, ‘you might at least do so intelligently. Ahem. Sometimes two privateer ships may be forced to sail abreast for a time. They may have a common aim, or a common foe, but, for whatever reason, to squabble is to founder. In such circumstances these gentlemen of the waves are accustomed to draw up a list of articles – of rules – to be observed by all parties. Do you understand now?’

Mosca understood that a truce was being proposed. She chewed on her cheek for a few moments, but she had promised Lady Tamarind to hold with Clent for now. What was more, without Saracen, Clent had become her only link to the world she understood.

‘Do I write them down, then?’

‘You are my secretary, are you not? Take these down and write small – paper is dear. First, that Mosca… ah…’

‘Mosca Mye.’

‘Mosca Mye… will serve Eponymous Clent in the capacity of Secretary, obeying all Reasonable Instructions without Question, and in exchange Eponymous Clent will provide for the said Mosca Mye’s meals and lodging… and… ah… twenty shillings per annum to be paid at the end of each year.’

‘… and a pipe…’ Mosca added, with a bitter emphasis. And a goose, she wanted to add, but she did not dare to think too hard about Saracen.

‘What? Oh, very well, but if you require tobacco you must find that for yourself.’

‘… and clothes…’ Mosca continued stubbornly.

‘Adequate clothing,’ Clent amended. ‘And for the moment your current apparel seems to serve very well.’

Without looking up from her writing, Mosca extended one foot to show the worn state of the shoe. The flat soles of the shoes she had found in Mrs Bessel’s chest had been walked to ruin by some younger child.

‘Let us not be delicate about this, your shoes will serve very well for a few- Songs of the celestial, child, are you wearing breeches?’

Mosca pulled her feet back under her skirts.

‘They’re wading breeches,’ she explained defensively.

‘My dear frog, you are no longer living in a puddle. Now I dare say that you could pass for a measly kind of a boy, but right now you are neither fish nor fowl. Take this down. Second, Mosca Mye will choose one gender and stick to it.’

‘Third, Eponymous Clent promises not to take things what are Mosca’s, or use ’em to pay for things, or run off sudden.’

‘Oh… if you please.’ Clent waved one hand airily, as if the idea of him doing anything of the sort was clearly absurd. ‘Fourth…’ Without looking up, Mosca could tell that Clent had paused by the