By this point, Mosca was listening so hard that she felt her ears might poke holes in her muslin cap. She did not understand everything that was being said, but three things were becoming clear. First, her conversation with Lady Tamarind had been no dream. Second, the Stationers did not like the Locksmiths any more than Lady Tamarind did. Third, Clent was heartily terrified of them.
‘Ah. Ahem. I must say, had I known that you wanted me to spy on the
‘Mr Clent,’ rapped Toke, ‘you were caught with sixteen illegal burlesque chapbooks of “King Cinnamon and the Milkmaids”, hidden in a hurdy-gurdy. You wisely chose to work for us rather than hang. You, sir, are caught between the frying pan and the fire, so you will sizzle and like it.’
Clent visibly wilted and, despite herself, Mosca almost pitied him.
‘We chose you as our agent because
Caveat nodded rapidly, and twittered faintly.
‘I could survive thus for weeks, but Mandelion will not. Do not be deceived by the city’s calm, Mr Clent, there is hanging thunder in the air. The last time Mandelion crackled like this, it was just before that terrible Mye trouble, fifteen years ago…’
Mosca gave a guilty start, before recollecting that Mye was a common surname, and that anything happening fifteen years before was unlikely to have been her fault. Perhaps it was her nervousness that made the floor seem to plunge and rise again beneath her feet.
Toke finally noticed her. ‘Mr Clent – is that girl yours?’
‘Ah, yes – it became necessary to retain the services of this child. I brought her that she might be signed up as an apprentice of some sort, so we could bind her to secrecy…’ So she was to be bound to secrecy again, even after signing the ‘ship’s articles’. Mosca was getting the distinct impression that Clent did not trust her.
‘As you wish. Caveat, fetch the appropriate papers and have her sign articles as an apprentice rag-sorter.’
When Caveat returned, he was struggling beneath two great scrolls of paper. Speaking his sentences piecemeal, in a strange, pouncing, broken fashion, he listed the terrible things that would happen to Mosca if she gave away Stationer secrets, and then pointed to a place at the bottom where she could ‘make her mark’. Mosca’s pen trembled. What was the ‘Mye trouble’? Would the Stationers be prejudiced against her if they discovered her name? She could not sign with a false name. It would sit like a china mask over a real face – everyone would surely see the
‘Does this mean I’ll be goin’ to a Stationer school, then?’ she whispered to Caveat as she handed back the papers. ‘I mean, you’ll want me lettered up proper, won’t you?’
‘I dare. Say that if your employer gives. A good account of you it will be considered.’ Hearing Caveat was like watching an animal scuttle from cover, pause halfway to look about itself, then continue its low run. He attempted a smile, but eye contact seemed to alarm him, and he scurried away, cradling his scrolls.
Clent was giving an account of his meeting with Lady Tamarind, the promised letter of introduction and access to the Honeycomb Courts.
‘Good.’ Toke looked more good-humoured now. ‘If you learn anything in the Courts, leave your report at the bookbinders in Pellmell Street. Your girl can mingle on the streets, and keep her ears open.’ He studied Mosca acutely for a moment or two. ‘Have I met you before, girl?’ He frowned when Mosca shook her head in bemusement. ‘You look familiar. No matter.’
‘Come, Mosca,’ Clent whispered. Mosca was rather relieved that nobody actually seemed to want to drag her off to sort rags there and then, and she followed Clent back out to the street.
The crowds were sparser now, and Mosca noticed Clent’s gaze darting nervously to the remaining dawdlers.
‘Mr Clent,’ hissed Mosca, as she hurried along beside him, ‘how do we know if we’re bein’ followed by Locksmiths?’
‘A true Locksmith will always wear gloves, because the outline of a key is branded into his right palm,’ Clent whispered back. ‘The head of each secret cell also wears a chatelaine at his belt – with keys on the belt that match the brands of all the men that answer to him.’
‘Mr Clent… most gentlemen wear gloves out o’ doors, don’t they?’
‘Yes, child, they do.’ Clent’s eyes darted from one street corner to the next. ‘Anyone we meet on the street might be a Locksmith spy.
‘Goshawk himself is a shadow among shadows. It is said that his fingers are slender and dainty as a child’s, and that he has kept them so by binding them every night in lemon-drenched muslin. He has fashioned keys so quaint that only he can use them, and he can pass through a triple-locked and bolted gate as easily as you or I might walk through rain. He can sense a secret passage or compartment the way a cat’s pink nose can scent a crock of cream. We have been commanded to spy upon the Wind.’
H is for High Treason
The next day, the letter from Lady Tamarind arrived in a whitewood scroll box, and Clent began fussing over his apparel like a dowager before a dance.
‘Oh false fates, to leave me without wig powder – child, see that you whisker your way to the kitchens for a spoonful of flour, it will have to serve…’ And again, ‘I cannot go to the Honeycomb Courts without scented gloves… pray slip into one of the ten-shilling rooms and borrow a basin of rosewater.’
‘What ’bout me?’ Mosca scattered flour liberally over Clent’s wig, and then brushed the loose grains out of his eyebrows. ‘What do I wear?’
‘I have let your aspirations climb too hastily,’ Clent declared, washing his hands daintily in the rosewater, and examining his nails. ‘Because I have allowed you to meet the most eminent Stationer in the city, now you think yourself ready for a debut in ducal circles. I can scarcely walk the Honeycomb Courts trailing some unweaned driggle-draggle.’
Mosca pushed her tongue into her cheek, and tweaked Clent’s cravat into shape. Nothing in the unweaned driggle-draggle’s manner revealed that her head was buzzing with a dozen furtive plans of her own, and that she was feverishly calculating for how many valuable hours the Honeycomb Courts would keep Clent out of her hair.
‘You, madam, have a pair of voracious and inquisitive ears. I recommend that you employ them around the city, and see if they can gather anything of use.’ And with that, Clent was out of the door with a swing and swagger.
Five minutes later, his secretary slipped out of the marriage house into the cool of the early morning.
Mosca’s plan was this. She would hunt down the ‘ragged school’ her father had mentioned, and dazzle them with her learning. Perhaps Mr Twine, the schoolmaster her father had mentioned warmly, would remember the name of Quillam Mye and lend her some money, so that she could buy back Saracen when Partridge reached Mandelion. If not, then there was nothing for it but to work for the Stationers and hope that they paid her before Partridge sold Saracen or ate him.
When she thought of Lady Tamarind, her heart tried to tug itself in two. She had promised to report the Stationers’ plans to Tamarind, but so much had happened since then. For better or worse, she had signed articles with Clent, and been taken on as a Stationer apprentice. If she gave away Stationer secrets and they ever found out, they would use her hide to bind books. And after all, did she know anything worth reporting? Only that the Stationers did not trust the Locksmiths.
