better in Mandelion itself and had tried to flee to join the rebels. Now many of the local towns and cities had beadles and other lawmakers patrolling the moors in search of such refugees, ready to drag them back to a worse cell than Clent’s.
Could she last the winter in one of the nearby towns or villages to the north or south? Unlikely. Soon there would be no more apples to tug off the trees, any hint of good humour and charity would be pinched away by the cold and nobody would pay to have a newspaper read to them. Knowing would become less important than eating.
Where did houseflies go in the winter?
‘They don’t,’ muttered Mosca with her eyes full of water. ‘They jus’ die. Well, squash that for a start.’
She would go east. Somehow she would find a way across the ‘uncrossable’ River Langfeather that roared through its gorge from the mountains to the sea. She would trudge her way to Chanderind, or Waymakem; everybody said the living was easier there. But how to get past the Langfeather? The only bridge that spanned it for a hundred miles was governed by the town of Toll, and nobody could pass over without paying a fee quite beyond her means.
… But perhaps she would try her hand at getting money from a stranger one more time.
Looking back towards the edge of town, Mosca could see a figure sheltering in a broken barn, half hidden by the water that streamed in crystal pipes from the sodden thatch. He was tall, he held his shoulders slightly hunched as if his coat was too tight and he was beckoning to her.
Mosca hesitated only an instant, then tucked away her pipe, sprinted over and ducked into the little barn, hastily pushing the wet draggles of her hair out of her eyes to look at her new acquaintance.
His face was knife-thin, long-nosed. There was a strange stillness about him, which made Mosca think of a heron motionless beside a pool, waiting to became a javelin of feather and bone as soon as a trout was lulled to torpor in the water below.
‘You know your letters?’ The question was deep and gravelly.
‘Yeah, you want me to read a newspaper? I got…’ Mosca boldly brandished her fistful of sodden paper pulp.
‘No, not that. Come with me. You need to talk to some friends of mine.’
Mosca followed him into the adjoining barn, her eye making an inventory of the stranger’s mildew-coloured coat, good boots and weather-spotted felt hat, her mind caught up in feverish calculation. She would charge this man and his friends too much, of course, but how much was
There were four men in the next barn, sitting bowed on bales of hay, one of them mopping at his collar with a soaked kerchief, another trying to wring out his hat. They all looked up as Mosca and her guide entered the room.
‘So that’s the girl, is it, Mr Skellow?’ asked a young man with a mean mouth.
‘That’s her,’ answered the man who had brought her in. ‘What’s your name, girl?’
‘Mosca.’ Yes, now they would look at her and see a housefly, a snatcher of scraps, a walker on ceilings. There was no help for it. One could not lie about one’s name.
‘She doesn’t look much like a scholar to me,’ objected the mean-mouthed man. ‘It’s a ruse. She’s no more a reader than we are.’
‘I can prove it!’ exclaimed Mosca, stung. ‘Give me some letters and I’ll show you! Or get me to write some for you!’
‘All right,’ answered Skellow. ‘You there – Gripe.
A bearded man in a brimless hat looked furtive.
‘Only my given name,’ he murmured into his collar.
‘Well, scratch it out on the floor. Let’s see if she can see the sounds in it.’
Mosca watched as the bearded man knelt and drew lines in the dirt and straw scraps with his forefinger.
‘Your name’s Ben,’ she said when he was done. ‘But your B’s back to front.’
The men exchanged long looks.
‘She’ll do,’ said Skellow.
‘I charge more when it’s raining,’ Mosca added through chattering teeth. ‘Cos it’s a special service then, you see. Risk of drowning in floods, and ruining of clothes, and… and… pleurisy.’ She was pleased to see the impression created by the unfamiliar word.
‘How much more?’ asked Skellow.
Mosca opened her mouth and hesitated, breathing quickly as she assessed her chances. She held Skellow’s gaze, then found herself naming the sum needed to pay Clent’s debts, plus a little more in case he tried to haggle.
There was a cold pause, and one of the men gave a bitter cough of a laugh, but nobody moved to throw her out.
‘You must,’ Skellow said icily, ‘be very, very afraid of pleurisy.’
‘Runs in my family,’ declared Mosca promptly.
Skellow stared at her for a long time.
‘All right,’ he said.
Mosca could feel her eyes becoming larger and brighter, and the effort required to avoid a delighted grin made her face ache. She had it, she’d bluffed it, she could feel her problems loosening with a click like manacles and clattering to the ground at her feet…
Skellow reached for the purse at his belt and hesitated. ‘It’s just you I’m paying, am I right? We won’t dish out the coin and then find out you’ve got, oh, a master, or starving parents, or pleurisy-ridden brothers and sisters who need as much again, will we?’
Mosca’s mind flitted to Clent, and the thought of him as her ‘master’ rankled.
‘No,’ she snapped with venom. ‘There’s nobody. Just me. Nobody else I need to worry about.’
‘Perfect,’ said Skellow. He made the ‘t’ at the end sound like a stone chipping a windowpane, and he smiled as he did so. The corners of his mouth climbed high up his cheeks, dragging furrows in all directions, and showing rows of narrow teeth. It was the face of one who does not smile often because they cannot smile well.
And that smile was the last thing Mosca saw before a muffling, stifling weight of cloth was thrown over her head, drowning her in darkness.
Goodlady Plenplush, Binder of Bargains
There was a sack over Mosca’s head, and a tight grip around her middle that pinned her arms to her sides. The roar of the rain drowned her screeched curses, and as the sackcloth around her grew sodden she knew that she had been carried out of the barn once more, twisting, kicking and hating with all her heart and soul.
Someone gripped her wrists and tied them behind her. Then she was hefted on to what felt and smelt a lot like the back of a rather damp horse. One of her clogs fell off with a splotch, and she doubted that anyone would stoop for it. A few juddering, unwilling horse breaths, the sound of hoofs, and she was lurched into jolting motion.
She was rollicked along in this undignified way for what seemed like hours, hearing nothing but the rain and the clop of other hoofs on either side. All the while she listened for the sound of new voices or a passing wagon, some cue for her to yell for help. But no, it seemed that all the world but Mosca and her captives had the wisdom to hide from the rain.
