Twilight Robbery aka Fly Trap

it looked as if his stones were bigger than hers.

Goodman Giddersing, Guide in High and Treacherous Places

Mosca’s glee burned itself out in a second. She dropped down to sit on a boulder like a lilac-coloured imp. All these troops and weapons were meant for Mandelion, for people she knew And so she could only stare at the soldiers raising tan-coloured campaign tents, the riflemen cleaning their guns, Eponymous Clent handing a paper over to Sir Feldroll in exchange for a small purse of money…

Clent did not look round as Mosca ran to join him, but continued pointing out details on the map in his hand with a tone of airy pride, as if everything it showed belonged to him.

And, as you can see, it was originally a map of Toll-by-Day, but some of the night-time alterations have been added in ink, should your men find themselves fighting their way through the streets after dark. And I have marked in a few “murder holes” I noticed above the gates for dropping hot sand or pitch on invaders -’

‘Hopefully this will not be needed,’ responded Sir Feldroll, whose face had now settled into a steady crimson twitch-gavotte. The close attention he was paying to the map rather suggested that he thought it would be needed. ‘My thanks, Mr Clent – Miss Mye – you at least have been as good as your words throughout this bitter business. I am glad to

see that the pair of you are leaving, before everything becomes… difficult.’ He halted, clenched his jaw and regarded the walls of Toll with a resentful but appraising eye.

‘This is our last chance to strike against Mandelion before winter settles in,’ he added through his teeth. ‘If not now, then the radicals of Mandelion will have months – months! – to strengthen their position and find their feet. I have given the mayor an ultimatum. If he does not keep his promise and arrange for the troops to have passage through Toll by noon… then perhaps a carcass over his walls will serve as a warning and show him how serious I am.’

Mosca boggled. She remembered carcasses from Mandelion, great barrels of burning matter hurled out of a cannon.

Sir Feldroll the mild-mannered, attentive fop had vanished. This was a nobleman who was not used to being opposed, and who was reaching an impressive powder keg of temper at the end of a two-month fuse. Perhaps he still cared about winning Beamabeth’s goodwill, but evidently not enough to stop him bombarding her town.

‘But, Sir Feldroll -’

Mosca’s outrage was clipped before it could fly by Clent grabbing her arm and dragging her away, directing a warm and engaging smile over his shoulder at Sir Feldroll as he did so.

‘Mr Clent!’ squeaked Mosca. ‘You sold him my map!’

‘And why not?’ answered Clent in an undertone, still guiding her from the simmering knight. ‘We have no further need of it, and that gentleman might do. What we do need at this time is travelling expenses… with which we are now supplied.’

‘You got no more soul than a toadstone, Mr Clent!’ spat Mosca, yanking her wrist free. She screwed her features into a scowl and looked away so that he would not see the tears prickling into her eyes.

‘Do you really imagine that your scrawl of a map has just sealed the fate of Toll and Mandelion?’ Clent asked quietly but coolly. ‘Madam, it will make no real difference. We are simply not that important. We are ants watching the clash of dragons, and trying not to get cooked to a crisp by creatures that have barely noticed us.’

‘We did make a difference once.’ Mosca dug her nails into her hands. ‘We made a difference in Mandelion.’

‘Perhaps.’ Clent gave a long sigh. ‘Yes, in a small way we helped Mandelion to revolt. And even that – what good has it done? We have seen the whole area between the rivers plunged into a state of near famine, Toll collapsing from within and turning to the Locksmiths, and now the armies of the other cities marching in against the “radical threat”. And if Mandelion does not fall now more armies will march next year, and there will be yet more bloodshed. Bold actions have consequences, child.’

Mosca felt a tear threatening to tip out of one of her eyes, and she wiped it angrily away with her knuckle.

‘I ain’t sorry.’ She glared at him. ‘Even with all that has gone wrong since, it was right. We made a good difference!’ And maybe that is the only thing either of us will ever do that was worth anything. And if Sir Feldroll’s army gets there it will have been for nothing.

‘Well… put your mind at peace. The mayor is unlikely to give in to Sir Feldroll, even when he does start pelting the town with burning debris. He will count on the Luck to stop Sir Feldroll invading successfully. So instead the mayor will turn to the Locksmiths and sign papers with them all the faster, a couple of unlucky people will be cooked in their houses and Toll will become a Locksmith town by nightfall. There will be a siege until Sir Feldroll gets bored, some people will starve… and Mandelion will be safe a little longer.’

‘But that…’ That was not much better. ‘There has to be a way…’

Clent’s expression had set up camp somewhere between amusement and pain. ‘Sometimes I forget that your small size is the result of youth, not pickling. You are… young, Mosca.

‘To be young is to be powerless, but to have delusions of power. To believe that one can really change things, make the world better and simpler in good and simple ways. To grow old is to realize that nobody is ever good, nothing is ever simple. That truth is cruel at first, but finally comforting.’

‘But…’ Mosca broke in, then halted. Clent was right, she knew that he was. And yet her bones screamed that he was also wrong, utterly wrong. ‘But sometimes things are simple. Just now and then. Just like now and then people are good.’

‘Yes.’ Clent gave a deep sigh. ‘Yes, I know. Innocent people force one to remember that. For you see, there is a cruelty in all innocence.’

Mosca remained silent for a few moments, daunted by the colossal sadness in his voice. ‘I’ll never understand you,

Mr Clent,’ she said at last.

‘Mosca,’ he replied simply, ‘I truly hope you never do.’ They might have spent another few minutes in pensive

silence, if down by the road Saracen had not decided to begin

the war on his own.

To be fair, he had been provoked. Two soldiers who had already pitched camp had broken open a loaf without any thought for the hunger of waterfowl in the vicinity. The soldiers in question were now hiding on the far side of one of the provisions wagons, and one had sneezed gunpowder over his arm and shoulder while trying to load his pistol in too much haste.

‘Don’t shoot!’ Mosca sprinted down towards Saracen’s enraged green-and-white form. Nonetheless she might have been too late, had another figure not run in to place a restraining hand on the soldier’s arm.

‘No, please, I know this goose, it belongs to a friend of mine -’

‘Mistress Leap!’ It was indeed the midwife, with her bundle of goods on her back and her husband in tow, who had interceded on Saracen’s behalf. ‘You got out of Toll!’ Mosca was genuinely relieved, for she had been worried that the Locksmiths might have guessed at the Leaps’ involvement in Beamabeth’s escape and stopped them leaving.

The soldier with the pistol very reluctantly lowered it, all the while meeting the gaze of Saracen’s fearless, unblinking black button eyes. The man did not seem reassured, but there was little he could do with a happy reunion taking place between him and his enemy-in-plumage.

Mistress Leap pulled Mosca into a hug, and then the pair of them held each other at arm’s length and studied each other by daylight for the first time. Despite the overcast sky, the midwife was having to squint against the light, but her spirits seemed to be giddily high. Her husband stood nearby, and had the look of a rabbit that has just realized the pen door is open and is staring at everything beyond it with rapt terror. He seemed particularly afraid of gorse.

‘Look at you!’ Mistress Leap beamed, and Mosca could see how dingily pale and hollow her cheeks were and