Twilight Robbery aka Fly Trap

had probably always been. ‘Your eyes really are jet black! I thought they were. I am so glad you managed to escape as well! We have been waiting out here for you since we left town last night – and I was worried, but then I saw your goose, so I knew you must be nearby.

‘Oh, and Mr Clent safe as well!’ Mistress Leap beamed at Clent as he approached, walking carefully around Saracen’s animated dissection of the bread loaf. ‘Glad to see you well, sir. Why do we not all travel to Waymakem together?’

‘A fine idea,’ Clent agreed with unnecessary haste. ‘Before, ah…’ He glanced at the army.

‘Oh, these troops?’ Mistress Leap cast an unconcerned glance at them. ‘Yes, I was worried myself when I came out and saw an army massing outside Toll. But I have talked to some of the young men over there, and they swear they are just passing through so they can march on Mandelion. Apparently the mayor gave his permission days ago.’

‘Ye-e-es,’ Clent answered gingerly, as if the word might give under his weight. ‘But then he… un-gave it again. I fear that the Locksmiths now hold the keys to Toll-by-Day and the mayor’s own strings, and he can give no permission without their say-so. You see, madam -’ his voice dropped to a whisper – ‘they have seized the Luck.’

‘The Luck?’ Mistress Leap clapped a hand to her mouth, her large eyes aghast and mortified. ‘Paragon? Are you telling me that they have seized poor little Paragon Collymoddle because they think he is the Luck?’

‘Alas, that is exactly…’ Clent halted as realization came knocking belatedly. ‘Pardon? What precisely do you mean, think he is the Luck?’

‘Oh, this is all my fault!’ Mistress Leap’s fingers trembled as they covered her mouth. ‘But he was so small, so very small and weak, he would never have survived in Toll-by-Night. I wanted to save him – I never imagined that I would be sending him to a different kind of danger. I-’

‘My good lady,’ interrupted Clent, ‘are you telling me that he is not the Luck? That you have in some way obfuscated the chronology of his nativity?’

Seconds passed. A beetle flew into Mistress Leap’s hair while she stared at Clent, then it struggled free and flew off again.

‘Did you lie about when he was born?’ translated Mosca.

Mistress Leap dropped her gaze. ‘He was so close to being born under Goodman Lilyflay instead of Goodlady Habjackle, so close to having a really beautiful daylight name instead of the worst sort of night name. We “scared” as long as we could, but he just would come out at the wrong time, and there was no dissuading him. Two minutes! Just two minutes more and he would have been a daylight name. So… when nobody was looking I reset my pocket watch and told his mother that she had a daylight son. I… have never lied about the paperwork before or since. My conscience has never been easy about that one time, but at least I could think of that poor little boy living in the light of the sun-’

‘But he never did!’ exploded Mosca. ‘He ain’t been in the sunlight! They locked him away in a little room in a tower, with no windows or company, and left him to go half crazy! And now he’s been stolen like a necklace or a sovereign, and all anyone cares about is what he’s worth!’ She was shouting at the wrong person of course, but Paragon’s treatment had been eating away at her for days.

‘What? Oh, the poor little thing!’ The midwife’s eyes were dazed pools of horror. ‘I… I knew he would be living in the Clock Tower, but I never thought he would be locked in there all the time!’

Mosca put her hands on either side of her head. Her thoughts had been kicked over like a cup of water, and now they were spilling off in all directions. ‘Anybody else know that he ain’t the Luck, mistress?’

‘No, of course not.’ Mistress Leap shuddered. ‘Can you imagine the scandal? Nobody knows. Except Welter, of course. Oh, and Miss Beamabeth. As soon as I heard that she was thinking of leaving Toll to marry Sir Feldroll I had to tell her. That’s why I asked you to give her that letter. Can you imagine how terrible that would have been – the Luck leaving the walls of Toll because she did not realize she was the Luck?’

Of course. Beamabeth Marlebourne had the second-best name in Toll. If Paragon did not really deserve his name, then the real Luck of Toll was… Beamabeth Marlebourne.

Mosca remembered Beamabeth’s reaction to Mistress Leap’s letter, the sudden pallor and trembling that she had explained away as a fear of the night town…

‘That letter of yours must have put a terror in her.’ Mosca snickered. ‘You did not know that the Luck was kept locked away from the light o’ day, but she did. I am surprised she did not try to – oh!’ Mosca broke off and jumped up and down on the spot, trying to jog her thoughts into order. ‘What noddies we all are! Mistress Leap – somebody has been trying to kill you! More than once!’

‘What?’ Mistress Leap stared at her aghast. Even Welter abandoned his usual glower of weary misanthropy for a look of real outrage and concern.

‘Twice, I think,’ continued Mosca. ‘That man with the dagger and the pimply face, who tried to trick you into walking off into the night with him. I seen him since in the top room of a cooper’s shop – with Skellow’s men. I knew he looked familiar. Then… there was that rock that flew out of nowhere and hit you in the head, mistress.’

‘But why would Skellow’s people try to murder Leveretia?’ asked Welter, still goggling watery-eyed at the very idea.

‘Because Beamabeth Marlebourne told them to,’ answered Mosca promptly. ‘Because if you ever told what you knew about Paragon, there was a speck of a chance that the mayor would lock her up in the Clock Tower ’stead of him.’

Not for the first time Mosca had to listen to a stuttered list of Beamabeth’s virtues, and the reasons why she would never do anything so vile.

‘She’d do a dozen worse things before breakfast, then complain if the toast was cold!’ retorted Mosca. ‘Oh, the stories I could tell you of her! No, no! I’ll be spitted before I let her win, after everything she’s done and tried to do!’

Mosca spread her arms like an enraged lilac gull.

‘She uses everybody. And when they’re bleedin’ at her feet, off she trips before she can get her satin shoes stained. Skellow served her like her own right hand, and she tricked him into taking a bullet. Oh, and that blockhead Brand Appleton is innocent! Innocent of kidnapping, anyway – innocent of aught but being a halfwit over a girl who cares nothing for him, and doing whatever she says. And now the whole city is after his blood, so even if he don’t die of fever they’ll find him and drag him to the gallows, and probably Laylow with him if she is still trying to protect him.

‘The whole rotten town is full of folks ready to die for Beamabeth Marlebourne, and she would let them. She saw Toll-by-Night, she knows what will happen to this town. And now that her plans have gone wrong, all she thinks about is gettin’ away and living comfortable. She doesn’t care a pip if Toll goes to the devil and the Locksmiths, or if Sir Feldroll burns it to the ground, so long as she can prance off to Waymakem and eat chocolate.’ It was not the best speech in the world, but the heartfelt ones never are, and it was at least loud. ‘She used us! She made us a part of her games, and I…’ She waved her arms helplessly. ‘We have to do something! Something about her… something about Mandelion… something about Toll…’

‘Mosca, child.’ Clent shook his head, and counted out slowly on his fingers. ‘One – if we denounce the Marlebourne creature, nobody will believe us, and we will probably find ourselves decorating a pillory.

‘Two – Toll and Mandelion are a cleft stick, for they cannot both be saved. If Toll-by-Day is snatched from the grasp of the Locksmiths, then these troops march on Mandelion. The only thing stopping Sir Feldroll’s army from threatening Mandelion right now is the Locksmiths’ new grip on Toll-by-day. You should be delighted at Toll’s fate – particularly since you have shown nothing but loathing for the town since setting foot in it.’

‘But what if Sir Feldroll burns half the town and marches through anyway?’

‘Three -’ Clent ignored Mosca’s question and continued – ‘even were there the tiniest thing we could do about any of this, we could not do it out here. The gates have closed behind us. We are out. They are in. Our part in this play is over.’

Mosca turned about, breathing heavily, glaring up at the dingy walls’ machiolations and arrow slits. Mistress Leap looked distraught. Welter looked bemused.