‘They say that I must find the master of the printing press that profanes their good name. And I shall. I shall make harpsichord keys out of his bones for Their Majesties to play when they come back to rule Mandelion. Little white keys for their little white fingers.’ The Duke twisted his head to look into Tamarind’s startled face. ‘I am joking, Tammy.’ He gave a sudden, disquieting smile. ‘You never seem to know when I am joking any more.’
It was true. Even Tamarind, who had spent her life trying to govern her brother, was finding him ever harder to predict or understand.
‘What else do they say?’
‘They advise me on how to know my enemies,’ he murmured, then looked at her suspiciously over his shoulder. ‘Why are you so keen to know? You have things on your mind, Tamarind. Some day I think I will open up your head to find out what they are.’ He stared at her for a few moments, then smiled to show that he was joking. Above the smile his eyes kept staring at her.
Tamarind’s gaze dropped to the letters on her brother’s lap. With satisfaction she noted the wax seal on each letter, the imprint of the Twin Queens’ insignia. It had cost her considerable trouble and expense to have the signet ring made secretly in the Capital, but she prayed the fruits would be worth it.
‘And… have they helped you know your enemies, Vocado?’
‘My mind will not settle.’ The Duke gently stroked the letters with his fingertips, as if the paper was living skin. ‘Sometimes when I have been reading these letters I look into the clouds for the face of my enemy, and I seem to see Aramai Goshawk staring back at me. But, Tamarind, what am I to do? This radical conspiracy must be crushed – I see their hand in everything – helping highwaymen escape, rousing my people to riot… My constables are useless. The Stationers too. Goshawk tells me that he has troops upstream who can be in Mandelion in two days if I give the word. Only the Locksmiths can help.’
‘That is not true.’ Tamarind circled her brother to stand before him, and dropped to her knees. ‘Goshawk is not your only choice.
‘The Watermen have sworn that they will not permit any troops to be brought along the waterways from the coasts, until the Succession is decided,’ the Duke answered dully.
‘You might distract them. If you gave them enough money, you might persuade them to go upstream and delay the Locksmiths’ ships and…’
‘Why do you wish to put me at odds with the Watermen, Tamarind?’ The Duke scowled, and Tamarind could sense the floor becoming quicksand beneath her feet. It was time to gamble all her gains, and she did so without a tremble.
‘You must listen to me, Vocado. The Locksmiths are playing you false. The Stationers have discovered the identity of the man running the radical conspiracy, the master of the villainous printing press. They have not arrested him because he is being protected. The Locksmiths are hiding him, Vocado.’
An ugly sickle curl was developing in the corners of the Duke’s mouth. The curl appeared when he was on the brink some cruel or violent act. It had appeared on the day of the fateful badminton match.
‘I can prove it.’ A frightened moth was a-flutter behind Lady Tamarind’s scar. She could not read her brother, or guess whether his current anger boded ill for Aramai Goshawk or for herself. ‘Put some men at my disposal, and I will prove it to you by tomorrow night. You… will want time to think about this, Vocado. I will leave you.’
She composed herself outside the door. Her scar throbbed so hard it numbed her cheek. In one instant she had staked everything – her influence over her brother, the fate of Mandelion, her own life. All now depended on the decision the Duke was about to make. Vocado Avourlace was alone with the voices that only he could hear. They murmured from twinned smiles in painting, tapestry and stained-glass window. The words that whispered from the newly arrived letters, however, spoke most clearly.
‘We have every faith that you will find the culprits,’ whispered the twin voices, ‘and when you do, arrest them without hesitation. The law is your lance and you may wield it as fiercely as you see fit in order to crush the evildoers…’
‘Yes…’ For days the Duke’s thoughts had been circling giddily like tea leaves in a cup. Now at last they were settling, and soon they would form a pattern which would spell out destiny for Mandelion and everyone in it.
L is for Lock-pick
To Mosca’s delight she was granted the next morning off without even having to ask.
She left the marriage house and immediately turned her steps towards the Plumery. Perhaps there would be a chance to take her own letter back. Perhaps there would be a response from Lady Tamarind. In truth she was not sure where her hopes lay.
Again she walked between the desolate feather lawns, again she knelt before Goodman Claspkin. She pulled up the message feather, and could instantly see the dark roll of her letter through the translucent yellow horn. She was safe, she was in time, she was bitterly disappointed. She pulled it out… and discovered that it was not her letter.
‘You have done well,’ it read. ‘Keep me informed of your employer’s doings and let me know when you have found a place in a Stationer school.’ A tiny object rolled out of the letter into Mosca’s palm. It was a seed pearl.
With the pearl wrapped in her handkerchief and hidden deep in her skirt pocket, Mosca sleepwalked back through the streets. She would never sell the pearl. She would keep it forever. She had a piece of Lady Tamarind in her pocket.
She was roused from her trance by the cries of the ‘chapmen’, pedlars who carried cheap books for sale. It was hard to part with the little money she had slyly won, but she could not resist the sight of a stack of chap-books, with their rough-cut pages and bright cloth covers.
‘You got anything ’bout what happened to the Ragged School?’ Mosca asked one chapman, who stooped to search his pack.
‘You want something on the Book Riots, do you? Who you buying it for?’
‘Me.’
The chapman did not look as if he believed her. ‘Bit bloody for a lass – wouldn’t you like a nice ballad about Captain Blythe like the other girls?’
‘I don’t mind blood. I like books with gizzard and gunpowder in ’em.’
‘Right you are, then, here’s “A Report on the Tumultuous Disorders of the Year of the Dead Letter”.’ A yellowed, well-travelled chapbook was placed in Mosca’s hand.
Soon Mosca was squatting on the grass of a pleasure garden and chewing her way through a penny loaf, eager to devour her new chapbook on the Book Riots.
…
Mosca felt as if someone had filled her head with gunpowder and then blown sparks into her ear.
…
…
