Fly By Night

‘I thought…’ Clent said, handling each word carefully as if testing its edge for sharpness, ‘I thought I told you to wait in the boat.’

‘I come in out of the rain,’ she said in a voice so small that she hardly recognized it.

‘Do you have anything you want to say?’ There was something frightening about Clent when he used short words.

Mosca shook her head.

‘We will discuss all this later, but for now we must make the best of the situation. Come here and help me with this.’

Mosca hesitated, wondering if she could drop the candle and run.

‘Listen, girl, have you any comprehension of the predicament we would find ourselves in if we were discovered fixed in this tableau?’

Well, you wanted something on ’im, the rasping voice of Palpitattle whispered laconically in Mosca’s imagination. And now, the voice added as she took a few steps towards the chest, now you’re goin’ to be an accomplice an’ he’ll have something on you too.

Partridge’s eyes were closed, at least. He was crammed awkwardly into the chest, as if he had mistaken it for a truckle bed and was determined to sleep there despite all discomfort.

If I run, Mr Clent’ll know I’m going to raise the house, and he’ll catch me and kill me…

She watched as Clent folded Partridge’s errant limbs into the chest. He closed the lid, crouched, gripped one end, and then looked up at Mosca expectantly. It took a few seconds for her to understand his meaning, then she crouched and managed to slide her fingers under the chest.

The box was even heavier than she expected, and she had to drop her end on to her knee. In a shambolic, improvised way the pair of them tilted and wobbled the chest between them until Clent was supporting most of the weight. They proceeded from the room one clumsy step at a time, a strange, four-legged creature with a wooden body, Mosca walking backwards.

At any moment someone would open the door, and there they would be. ‘Thieves’, would be the cry. Bockerby would fling open the chest, and the cry would change to ‘Murderers’. Mosca suddenly felt how the cold wind would whip her clothes about her as she stood upon the scaffold. And the universities would cut her heart out to see how black it was.

Please, Mosca prayed silently to each and every Beloved, please let me get away with this. I’ll never ask for anything else, I promise, and if I get away with this, then some day I’ll make myself rich and give all the money to the shrines, but please, please, I need to get away with this. Otherwise I’ll be strung up, and hung up on a gibbet and ate by rooks and then I can’t do nothing for any of you.

In the shrine of Leampho, Clent bit off bitter words under his breath. ‘We will never get the box through the window. We shall have to sit him between us with a coat over his head.’

Saracen stared up from the boat as Mosca climbed down from the sill, and he offered no comment. A moment later, Partridge’s dead face appeared through the window, framed by the ivy. Then Clent could be seen with his arms around the river captain’s waist, heaving him through the hole.

Mosca tried to slow Partridge’s descent, but her hands seemed able to grip only feebly, and in the end the dead man fell into the boat with a crash and a splash. Mosca sank to a crouch to stop herself falling overboard as the boat bucked, and watched as one of Partridge’s boots floated away down the river, filling with water as it went.

‘Keep your eyes open. Our lives depend upon your perspicacity.’ Clent climbed down into the boat, the creeper crackling under his weight. He took up the oars and steered the boat carefully along the wall, dipping the oars silently and drawing slowly. He paused by the bank to scrabble up some slick, fist-sized stones with his plump fingers, and then he heaved on the oars again, and the bank swung away and abandoned them.

For a while the river’s current rolled the little boat about, the way a child rolls a marble between his hands. Houses fled away giddily to the left, only to reappear from the right, and the moon circled above Mosca’s head like a moth. Fat raindrops hit the dark glass of the river’s skin, each leaving a coin-shaped dent with a crinkled edge. The papery sound of the rain was so loud that Clent had to lean towards Mosca to make himself heard.

‘The island…’ He pointed towards the lonely pillar of Goodman Sussuratch in the middle of the river, then gestured towards Partridge. ‘Stones… in his clothes.’ He had to repeat it several times before Mosca understood.

The stones were deathly cold, but Mosca dared not speak or disobey. She unbuttoned Partridge’s shirt just enough to slide some stones inside, holding them all the while at arm’s length. She was afraid that if she leaned forward, Partridge’s parted lips would start to whisper.

I want your uncle’s heart spiked on a boathook so I can hear it crackle as it bakes in the sun…

There were deep creases running down each of Partridge’s cheeks, as if twin tears had worn grooves. They joined in a red crease under his chin. Maybe all dead faces looked that way, thought Mosca. Maybe death crumpled you up like a ball of paper.

They were so low in the water that when they finally reached the island the little boat slid right under the jetty, and knocked against the rocky side of the great pillar.

‘Now we wait for the mists to thicken,’ Clent said quietly.

Peering out from beneath the jetty, Mosca realized that the distant row of houses was already dimming, as a veil of vapour stealthily rose from the river. Feeling the chill of water seeping into her shoes, it suddenly occurred to her that, if Clent wanted her silence, her current position was more dangerous than it had ever been in the marriage house. She kept her breathing as steady as she could, and peered stealthily at Clent. He seemed to be staring out at the mists, but she could see his face only in silhouette, so she could not be sure that he was not stealing glances at her.

Clent’s manner had seemed so natural and casual when he had told her never to enter the closet. He had seemed so kind and good-humoured when he had given her the day off and thus kept her away from their rooms. Had it really all been an act? But Clent had been afraid of Partridge, and sometimes fear made you angry. Perhaps after years anger cooled, like a sword taken from the forge. Perhaps in the end you were left with something very cold and very sharp.

What exactly was it that Clent did for the Stationers? Was it just spying? Or were there times when a quill was not enough, and a knife was needed? Was that why they used him? Perhaps Partridge had bullied his way into the marriage house to find Clent, and found him in the middle of doing something very terrible… the way Mosca herself had just interrupted him.

‘Now,’ Clent whispered at last, ‘take his feet.’ The jetty was too low to let them stand, but somehow amid the rocking and struggling there was a splash, and suddenly there was nothing left of Partridge except a circle of foam, and his loosed cravat tracing a question mark on the water’s surface. Tiny bubbles fizzed for a few moments. Silence followed, and then Clent gave a croak of alarm.

‘There!’

Something had surfaced, ten yards downstream, and was gliding away with its wet shirt ballooning on its back.

‘Slice the moon, the fellow has shed ballast!’ Clent struggled with the paddles, but in his haste one handle became wedged between the planks of the jetty. By the time he tugged it free, the sodden shape had been swallowed by the mist.

Without a word, Clent abandoned their pursuit; he pushed away from the jetty and rowed in silence for some time. At last a bank crept into distinctness, and Mosca saw the marriage house loom into view with a mixture of relief and confusion. Why had Clent returned? Was he no longer trying to escape Mandelion?