knew enough thieves’ cant to know that a ‘micher’ was a sneak thief, a ‘little snakesman’ was a slang term for a child passed in through a window to open the door of a house, and that ‘cony-catching’ had more to do with con artistry than catching real rabbits.
‘’Tis a good thing my cousin Larkin had a sharp set of wits,’ offered Perch in his quavering tones, his country vowels spreading like butter. ‘Found a way to leave me a letter ’neath a stone. Says that running loose on the streets at night is a doddypol’s game and a good way to die.’ Remembering her brief excursion into Toll-by-Night, Mosca could not help but silently agree. ‘Told me to seek him out in Slake’s Way, by the grand old beech, in a tavern under a yellow sign – they call it the Whip and Masty. He’ll find us a place to stay.’
A little before dusk the guards returned for them, now looking somewhat stony and nervous.
‘You’ll come with us.’
Mosca and her new coterie were shown into a long, narrow stone-walled cell, which was almost entirely taken up with an enormous black iron turnstile, reaching from ceiling to floor and from wall to wall.
‘It’s the Twilight Gate,’ one of the guards said curtly. ‘Only turns one way. Through you go.’
Havoc went first, walking in among the black metal branches and pushing hard at one ‘bough’. There was a squeak, and then a long grinding note as the vast turnstile began to revolve, a jerk at a time. Havoc vanished beyond it, and Jade followed, then Perch, and finally Mosca ventured with Saracen into the forest of cold iron prongs. It took all her weight to turn it, and she found her comrades on the other side, squeezed between the stile and a small wooden door.
‘Hey!’ Havoc’s voice echoed through the cell. ‘How long do we have to wait here?’
No response.
‘Hey!’
‘They won’t hear us now,’ Jade said quietly. ‘We’ve passed through the stile. We’re nightside. They can’t admit we exist.’ The door beyond closed, leaving them in darkness.
There was no room to sit, so they stood in a non-existent huddle. They all sensed that silence was an enemy, so Havoc sang songs. Of a man who bludgeoned his landlady and her daughters, one, two, three, and went to the gallows without ever saying why. Of a gang of crows following Murthering Drack across the county, ‘For where Merry Drack has been, there the dead men lie.’ Havoc’s voice was deep and tuneless and bleak but with a terrible jollity, and the others held their tongue as they would during a hymn.
The sound of a bugle. Even Havoc’s tune halted.
Night air had a smell too, Mosca decided, as she heard the distant music of approaching Jinglers. Night smelt the way Havoc’s songs sounded. It smelt of steel and rushlights and the marsh welcoming a misstep and anger souring like old blood.
A rattle, a ring, a clatter, a clang. Bolts drawn away, a creak like a gate. Suddenly there was light through the keyhole of the nearby door. A long pause. A second bugle.
Havoc pushed at the door, and it swung open upon a silver scene, the cobbles glittering with frost stars. Once again Toll-by-Night had burst out of its captivity, like a monstrous jack from an innocent-looking box. And this time Mosca was a part of it.
Goodlady Bollycoll, Spirit of Solidarity
‘No dallying!’ hissed Havoc. ‘But no slouching or scurrying! Walk as if you eat your enemies’ hearts for breakfast.’ The others fell in on either side of him like a pack of mastiffs of varying size and tried to match his loping confidence.
Mosca knew that their group had been noticed, but their grimly determined stride seemed to afford them a certain magical protection. Their journey was full of meetings that did not quite happen. Shapes that flitted out of alleys before them, outlines of heads on rooftops that bobbed down and were seen no more, rapid exchanges of whistles ahead of them that caused a turbulence in the shadows and then stillness.
Jade had noticed the grand old beech’ in Toll-by-Day, and led the way, with more than a few false starts due to the changed position of the streets. Havoc insisted that they never stop, never look lost, so they continued to stride with fierce determination even when they had no idea where they were going. At last, however, they stood beneath the beech, and saw opposite a cream-coloured sign on which a man with a great whip was flogging a snarling but chastened-looking black dog.
Beneath the sign stood two great barrels, crude and splintered faces cut into their wood as if they were turnip lanterns. The light of the clustered candles within leered out through
narrowed eyes, chipped noses and quivering crooked grins. Between these an open archway led to a set of downward stone steps.
‘I’ll go first,’ said Havoc. ‘Mye – keep a pace behind me. You others follow up and keep an eye out behind.’
The steps descended into what was clearly a vast old buttery cellar. Where once barrels had been stacked, however, now the proprietors had decided to cram people. From wall to discoloured wall the stone-flagged floor was clustered with shabby tables, some of them no more than crates or upended butts.
There was no hearth, just a myriad sickly candles. Everybody was breathing white vapour, and Mosca guessed that the cellar might have been as cold as the street, had it not been warmed in some small measure by the press of bodies. Skinny-looking young children squeezed through the crowds with bottles or casks slung on their backs, and flitted from table to table taking money and filling tankards.
Havoc picked a table close to the wall.
‘I like this one.’ He ran his fingernail across a rugged set of gouges in the woodwork of the tabletop, as if testing the mill of a coin. ‘Someone’s been using a dagger on this. That’s good luck, that is. Don’t anybody light our candle – we want to see folks around us better than they see us.’
Mosca pressed her fingers against her eyelids for six seconds, then opened her eyes and blinked hard, willing her night sight to strengthen. Having a table on the edge of the crush made sense, but left her feeling as if she could be cornered. The backmost recesses of the buttery were very dark, and although she could glimpse the movement of figures, the taller ones stooping beneath the low vaulted roof, she could make out no faces. It was busy, and yet strangely quiet for a tavern, and it reminded Mosca of the times she had spent lying along one of the rafters of her uncle’s mill, watching the mysterious and dusky traffic of the mice down below. All the movement was full of meaning and stealthy signals that she did not understand. A language of whisker-twitches and tail-flicks.
A small dark boy with great, wary fish-eyes took coins from Havoc and poured what looked and smelt like dishwater into four wooden cups.
‘You know what I think?’ Jade whispered, as the boy moved on to the next table. ‘I think this is where everyone comes to meet and talk – might as well be the town hall. See those down there?’ She nodded towards a series of passageways leading off the main cellar. ‘Private rooms, I’ll hazard. For making deals and talking quiet.’
Hearing this, Mosca glanced about her with renewed interest. She had, after all, her mission to consider. If this was Toll-by-Night’s talking shop, perhaps this would be a good place to start her investigations.
‘Someone’s coming our way,’ murmured Havoc. ‘Perch – is that your cousin?’
Perch looked up eagerly, and then the welcoming smile on his face faltered and faded. ‘No, that’s not him.’
The man approaching was bundled to bear-like dimensions in a great coat and two scarves, a large but lopsided hat perched on a small, pale, forgettable face.
‘My word,’ he said, through chattering teeth, which he showed a second later in a lifeless smile. ‘My word.’ He rubbed his gloved hands vigorously, held them palm out towards the dead candle on the table, then rubbed them again. ‘Havoc Gray. What a thing of wonders. You’ll let me buy you a drink. Fancy meeting Havoc Gray, what a story to tell the little woman.’ There was something oddly colourless about his tone.
A small girl ran up and placed a cup of wine on the table before Havoc, then scuttled away, a veil of fair hair hiding her face, and her chin tucked to her chest. The new arrival had not, as far as Mosca was aware, signalled to her in the slightest. The scarf-muffled man reached for a chair, pulled it over and seated himself, still warming his hands at the imaginary flame. Or perhaps he was warming them against Havoc, it was hard to tell.
‘I do not remember inviting you to join us,’ rumbled Havoc.
‘No.’ The smaller man took off his hat, and his thinning hair tried to follow it in surprised-looking wisps. ‘But
