Twilight Robbery aka Fly Trap

‘What about the Night Steward?’ Mosca asked. ‘Isn’t he in charge?’

‘Oh dear, no.’ Mistress Leap shook her head with a sad little smile.

‘Wait a moment.’ Mosca narrowed her eyes, remembering Night Steward Foely’s claim that Skellow had not left Toll in two years. ‘Do you think maybe some folks come in and out of Toll sometimes without it showing on the Night Steward’s records?’

‘Oh yes.’ Mistress Leap nodded. ‘I would certainly think so. After all, when somebody comes in or out there is a toll paid. Every toll the Jinglers report is money that must go to the Treasury… and every toll they do not is money they may keep themselves. Now, I do not say a word against them, for they keep order in Toll-by-Night better than anyone else could, but they always have a price. Always. And sometimes a bitter one.’

‘So… why does anyone stay here?’ Mosca erupted. ‘Why don’t they all get out?’

‘Many would if they could,’ answered Mistress Leap, her tone brisk but her eyes still lowered. ‘But it is no easy matter getting out of one of their towns.’ Mosca understood. Once a town or city fell to the Locksmiths, there was precious little chance of seeing the inhabitants again, or guessing what was happening within its walls. ‘Paying your way out of this town at night costs twice what it does by day, and with our taxes there’s no way to save the money. The walls are guarded, and even if you escape the town, they have ways of chasing you down on the moors. Some hang all their hopes on getting the Committee of Hours to reclassify them as dayfolk, so they can escape the night city that way, but I have never known that to happen.

‘A few scratch together enough to pay the toll and leave,’ continued the midwife, ‘but for most of us there are only three ways out of Toll-by-Night: a baby can be born to a daylight Beloved and go to live in Toll-by-Day, a person can die and have their coffin dropped into the Langfeather… or you can join them. Their agents come and go as they please.’

But Skellow got out of Toll-by-Night, reflected Mosca. How did he get out and back in again? And… why did he get back in at all once he was out? Toll-by-Night does not seem like somewhere you would be if you had a choice.

‘But… ah… surely there must be other ways?’ Clent sipped his tea. ‘If this child and myself can fall into Toll- by-Night by the mere misadventure of staying out too late, why do not bright sparks do the same in reverse? Surely they may hide their badges, or steal some, or make new ones?’

‘These things have been tried – of course they have. Sir, I do not think you realize how lucky you have already been in dodging the Jinglers this night. And you would need twice the luck to slip from night to day, for the Jinglers are twice as watchful at dawn as they are at dusk.

‘Many have tried to sneak into Toll-by-Day and failed. And even those that have succeeded have all been caught sooner or later. Everybody in Toll-by-Day watches out for folks without badges, and nightlings tend to stand out in the day crowds, what with their sickly look and worn-out clothes. And of course it falls apart the moment somebody asks their name. Then when they are caught the dayfolk hand them back to the Jinglers with the dusk, and after that we never see a hair of them again.’

Clent’s fingers began their dance over his waistcoat. Evidently it was dawning upon him that, however terrible all this might be for the citizens of Toll-by-Night, it might also currently be fairly terrible for Eponymous Clent. As a matter of fact, she was starting to have similar uneasy suspicions about the prospects of Mosca Mye.

‘What about us?’ Mosca asked curtly. ‘We got the right badges for daylight. What happens if we go out on the streets before dawn and just wait?’

‘If the Jinglers catch you out on the street between bugles, your badges won’t help you,’ came the answer. ‘Nobody is allowed out then except the Jinglers themselves.’

‘Mistress Leap, a child has just been born under Goodlady Twittet, yes?’ Clent’s eyes were sharply speculative. ‘And a babe so born is a passport, as it were, to the world of day. Could you perhaps… adjust the paperwork so that myself and my young charge were listed as close relations, so that when the family passed into Toll-by-Day-’

‘You do not understand, sir,’ the midwife interrupted firmly. ‘Only the babe goes to live in the daylight town. The family stay behind.’

‘Then that mother back in the other house…’ For the first time Mosca understood Blethemy’s tears.

‘… wanted a “scaring” so that her son would receive all the blessings she can never have, and live under a sun that she can never see, instead of growing up wan and thin and bow-legged with rickets.’ The midwife drew her knuckles hard across her own cheeks, as if angry that there were no tears to wipe. ‘Very soon that boy will be adopted by some daylight family… and no doubt Blethemy will find herself nursing and bringing up some night- named child born in Toll-by-Day. That sort of exchange happens a good deal.’

Mosca thought of the tremulous, furious, purple-faced baby that was so soon to be motherless, just as she had once been.

‘Poor little gobbet,’ she muttered to herself.

Clent also looked crestfallen, but Mosca guessed that his mind was still busier with the dilemma of Eponymous Clent than the plight of the Gobbet. ‘Mistress Leap, I can see you have an escape for us in mind, and mean to charge us toll in the place of the Lock – ah, in the place of them. But truly, madam, you find us without funds. Plucked. Fleeced. Bare as midwinter trees.’

‘So how were you planning to pay your way out of Toll?’ The midwife folded her arms, her bird-like face a picture of scepticism.

‘Ah…’ Clent made tiny adjustments to his cravat. ‘We… ah… anticipate being of great service to a family of consequence, and receiving our just reward. The… the mayor’s family, in fact…’

‘Oh!’ The midwife’s face thawed instantly. ‘So you’ll have seen young Beamabeth! How is that little peach?’

Mosca heard her cup crack as her grip became vice-like.

‘Hale and well, fair and blithe,’ Clent answered quickly, ‘and courted by a little lord from another town, as I hear it. But she and her family face some… difficulties which they have called upon us to remedy…’

‘Courted by a fellow from another town, you say?’ Mistress Leap’s face had fallen, and suddenly she looked quite distraught. ‘You mean… she would be leaving us? Young Beamabeth Marlebourne would be leaving Toll?’

Mosca had to clench her teeth shut. Why did everyone react to Beamabeth this way?

‘So… you will be seeing her again?’ The midwife’s brow cleared. ‘Sir, can I ask you to take a letter to her? It is a presumption, of course, for we only met once – the day I helped bring her into the world, and she will never have heard of me. But I always remembered her… and I believe I would like to send her a letter.’

Why? How had this otherwise sensible woman who had only met Beamabeth as a screaming purple blob fallen under her spell? Or had Beamabeth slipped immaculate into the world, petal-cheeked and smiling amidst gleaming golden curls?

‘I would be enchanted,’ said Clent. ‘But… ah… I would need to actually reach Toll- by-Day first. It might also help if I was alive when I did so.’

Mosca sat and chewed her knuckles as Clent negotiated with Mistress Leap. There was, it appeared, a mysterious person who could perhaps help them back into Toll-by-Day, though at considerable risk. Mosca and Clent were to go with this person and would not ask any questions. When Mosca and Clent had done what they needed to do to gain their reward, they would then leave a portion of it in an agreed place for the Leaps and this person. There was no guarantee that Mosca and Clent would be safe with the unnamed individual, but then the Leaps had no guarantee that they could trust Mosca and Clent to leave the money. It was a deal of mutual desperation.

Mosca’s eyes kept creeping to the crack-faced clock on the mantel, watching as it gnawed away the hours until dawn, a nibble at a time.

At last there came a strange rattle of raps at the door. The midwife opened it, and Mosca glimpsed a slight, youthful figure outside, dressed in a tunic, breeches and a tight cap.

‘Got parcels for me tonight, Mistress Leap?’ Only as the figure stepped forward to speak did two things become clear. First, the youth outside could not be more than sixteen years old. Second, the youth was in fact a girl. A girl with a boxer’s watchfulness and a pugnacious jaw, but a girl nonetheless.

‘Packages of a sort,’ was the midwife’s answer, as she held the door open and glanced at Mosca and Clent by way of explanation.

The new arrival seemed loath to step into the light of the room, but leaned forward a little to take her measure of the midwife’s guests.