Fly By Night

From Mosca’s knothole she could see nothing but the yellow sail, but a minute later she heard gasps from a couple of the radicals at other spyholes.

‘It’s the Peck o’ Clams,’ cried Miss Kitely, ‘sails close- hauled to hide us, dragging anchor to slow her down to our pace. What are they doing?’

There was no answer to this question. All that Stallwrath could report as he crouched behind the safety of the coffeehouse chimney was that they were suddenly surrounded by a convoy of little boats, whose grimly smiling captains saluted them but offered no explanation. For the moment there was little danger of being shot, and as little chance of firing at their attackers on the bank. Everyone on the Bower quickly realized they could get on with the argument they’d been itching to have.

Miss Kitely was sure that if the Watermen knew what was happening, they would rush back to defend the Laurel Bower, then charge to the coast to stop the Birdcatchers. Everyone else thought that the Watermen were unlikely to accept the word of a huddle of outlaws against the word of a duke.

Goshawk wanted to send one of his men on a fast horse to the Locksmith troops waiting upstream, so that if everyone in the Laurel Bower perished, ‘the Duke would pay the price’. Everyone else thought this sounded extremely dangerous, and they were not at all keen on the bit about everyone in the coffeehouse dying.

Hopewood Pertellis suggested that he should borrow a little dinghy from the convoy and approach the shore under a flag of parley to explain everything ‘and stop all this foolishness’. Everyone else was very polite about this idea, then changed the subject completely.

‘There is another way,’ Eponymous Clent said. In fact, he said it several times without anyone hearing, but Copperback accidentally sparked the powder in his pan, deafening everyone and filling the room with smoke. While they were all still coughing, Clent declared loudly, ‘There is another way. Perhaps the Watermen will not listen to us, but they will certainly listen to the Stationers’ Guild. The two guilds have been on excellent terms for years.’

‘Which does us little good, since the Stationers’ Guild will certainly not listen to us,’ retorted Copperback, as he primed his rifle again.

‘They will listen to me,’ Clent declared with simple grandeur. ‘Particularly when they learn that someone has tried to trick them into a guild war.’

There was an impressed silence. ‘So,’ Pertellis said slowly, ‘you are saying that we should send you to tell the Stationers about Lady Tamarind’s plot against the Locksmiths and persuade them to warn the Watermen about the Birdcatchers?’ A hush followed this question while everyone tried to piece the sentence together in their heads. ‘Oh dear, this is complicated… perhaps if I drew a diagram to make things clearer?’

‘Whatever happened to simple plans?’ muttered Blythe, still sighting along his gun through the doorway.

‘Do you have a better idea, sir?’ asked Clent coolly.

‘I’m far too confused to have a better idea!’ flared Blythe.

Mosca found herself warming to him.

Blythe looked Clent up and down. ‘How well do you swim?’

‘Ah…’ Clent dropped his eyes. Most of the radicals and Locksmiths were looking similarly sheepish.

‘I can swim,’ said Mosca.

Clent raised his eyes to heaven. ‘What was I thinking? Gentlemen, this girl was brought up in a drowned village, nursemaided by frogs and swaddled in lilies. She can swim like a Timberline trout, and she is a contracted apprentice of the Stationers’ Guild.’ He drew Mosca with both hands into the centre of the room. ‘She can take a missive from me to the Stationers at the Telling Word coffeehouse. Miss Kitely, do you have a small boat of any sort?’

‘I fear we do not, Mr Clent, but there is a wooden washing tub in which we sometimes lower one of the girls when we need to look to the hull.’

Mosca had flushed bright red and suddenly couldn’t understand anything that was being said, although the fog of faces was smiling at her. She seemed to have volunteered, and things were happening so quickly she could hardly keep her feet. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Goshawk beckon Clent over, whisper to him, and place two keys in his hand.

‘Miss Mye -’ Pertellis was looking into her face with his usual expression of dazzled concern – ‘no one will blame you if you choose not do this.’

‘That isn’t true, is it, Mr Pertellis?’ Mosca whispered back gently.

Miss Kitely took control. While Clent wrote his letter, Mosca was to eat a little supper in the back room and compose herself. Mosca was glad of the privacy, but she had no stomach for the apple pie that was brought to her. She had just pushed it aside when Blythe entered, stifling a cough. He looked embarrassed to find himself observed, and settled for staring at an ornamental anchor hanging on the wall. Blythe reminded Mosca of the civet, trapped in a battle it did not understand, its eyes reflecting images of its lost freedom.

‘So, do you want to marry Miss Kitely?’

‘If she’d have me.’ Blythe looked as if he would like to be angry at the question but had too much to think about. If Mosca said nothing more, he would start thinking about the heath again.

‘She’s got strange eyes.’

‘She has very fine eyes.’ The highwayman sounded affronted. ‘She’s… like no one I’ve met before. A real lady. And…’ A dreamy look crossed his face. ‘… she can clean, load and present a pistol in twenty heartbeats.’

Mosca thought this a much better reason to be in love with someone. But Miss Kitely seemed so unlikely in every other way, so prim and high-collared. Then she remembered the gentle way the coffee mistress had said the highwayman’s name, Clam…

‘Were you born under Goodman Sicklenose-’

‘He Who Lures the Shelled Fish into the Hungry Net. Yes.’ Blythe peered at her. He mouthed the name ‘Mosca’ to himself, then raised an eyebrow. ‘Palpitattle?’ Mosca nodded, and they exchanged a smile of grim sympathy.

‘It would have been my twenty-ninth nameday two weeks from now.’

‘It would have been my thirteenth in eleven months.’

This seemed to be all that needed to be said.

‘All right,’ growled Blythe. ‘Let’s go. Our friends need Black Captain Blythe to be a hero, and you have a washing tub to catch.’

T is for Trial by Combat

When Mosca emerged from the back room, Clent placed a sealed letter in her hand, but seemed reluctant to release his end of it.

‘You… you do swim well, I trust?’

‘Like a Timberline trout,’ Mosca replied promptly.

‘Ha. Hum. Mosca, when you have delivered this letter, make your way to the Ashbridge. If our dice fall ill, leave Mandelion with all dispatch. If you see smoke rising from the river, assume the worst.’

‘If the worst comes… you’ll let Saracen out of ’is box, won’t you, Mr Clent?’

‘I swear it upon my muse.’

Mosca knew that, like Clent, she wore the expression of one who has heard a trickle above become a rumble, and is waiting for the avalanche. They did not know what was happening in Mandelion, but they were fairly sure it would end up happening to them.

‘They’re… they’re like a sack of kittens chucked in a river,’ Mosca whispered as Clent accompanied her through the crowd of radicals. He slowly lowered his lids once in silent agreement.

Fear made everyone look very alive in a strange and fragile way, like the last flare of a candle before it dies. It cannot end well, said a leaden weight in Mosca’s stomach. Some of them will die, perhaps all.