‘Well,’ Clent rubbed his hands, ‘since we are telling stories, I think I might tell another. It is a curious tale of a kidnapping – or should I say an elopement – or should I say a betrayal… You shall make up your own minds, gentle friends. Really Mr Brand Appleton should be telling it, since he has been the most cruelly abused in this affair, but I suspect that he is gagged by chivalry. I, however, appear to have woken in a lamentably unchivalrous mood this morning, so…’
By the time a messenger panted his way into the castle courtyard to inform the mayor that Paragon Collymoddle was alive, well and being held at claw-point on the Toll bridge, Clent had finished telling the story of Beamabeth’s villainy, and several score of the Toll townfolk were staring at the mayor’s adopted daughter as if they had seen her bite a kitten in two.
Laylow and Paragon had reached the bridge before they found themselves stalemated. At first the growing crowd around them was content to give them a wide berth, fearful eyes upon the metal claws so close to Paragon’s throat. When they stepped out on to the bridge, however, their escort realized that this strange clawed girl really did intend to take their precious Luck out of the town.
Now the pair stood in the middle of the bridge. On the eastern side, the town end of the bridge, an ever- growing crowd of watchers gathered to gawp from the archway and the Clock Tower windows. On the western side, the gate to freedom and the road to Mandelion were tantalizingly visible, but the way was blocked by a small crowd of waiting guards and a heavy portcullis. Even the life-size wooden Beloved statues that flanked the walkway along the length of the bridge seemed to regard the fugitive pair with relentless hostility.
Laylow herself could barely see them, blinded by daylight and the spray rising from the Langfeather. She had shouted herself hoarse over the roar of the river, and even when her words did carry across it did not always help.
‘I want everyone let out of the nask and brought here!’ she was screaming. ‘Particularly a red-headed bird-wit called Brand Appleton! And I want those drumbelos with the muskets out of our way and the gate open, or your precious Luck is gone to Peg-trantums!’
‘Did anyone understand a word of that?’ asked the Raspberry, who had come out of his office in the Clock Tower to discover the cause of the rumpus. A dozen people shook their heads. ‘Oh for pity’s sake… run and find somebody who speaks cant!’
‘Hah,’ said Paragon again. Laylow glanced at him, noticing the tiny jewels that the spray had left on his hair, cheeks and grin. Then she looked down over the edge of the bridge to see what he was smiling at, and nearly lost track of where she was. She had lived all her life hearing the breath of the Lang-feather, so that was as much a part of her life as the taste of the air and the touch of her own skin. Now she saw it, a gleaming surge of ostrich-feather white more powerful than a hundred lions, blue shadows cast upon it by the jutting rocks above. Even the air was strung with the faint arcs of rainbows. It seemed alive, it seemed female. She had been living above a goddess her whole life and had never been allowed to see it.
Nobody was obeying her any more, she realized. They knew she was trying to take the Luck out of Toll. Some of them were starting to edge towards her along the bridge. She bared her teeth by instinct, like a cornered dog.
‘Get back!’ she shouted, but her ferocity only slowed them. As she had feared, her threat was losing its power.
‘Why do they not do as you say any more?’ Paragon whispered.
‘They are afraid for your life, but they are more afraid for theirs,’ Laylow muttered unwillingly. ‘They think the whole town will perish if you leave Toll… but if you die instead, at least another Luck will take over.’
The wind rose, and Paragon whooped aloud. Laylow felt sorry for him. Did he even understand what was happening, that their plan had run aground, that there would be no freedom for them after all? What was the point in further attempts to explain? Let him be happy for the moment.
‘Can I shout orders now?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Laylow said through her teeth. ‘You are the hostage, remember? The hostage does not get to shout orders.’
If it had been night and she had been a little less dazzled, she might have been ready for Paragon’s next move. As it was, she was caught off guard as he slipped from her ‘restraining’ arm and dodged to the edge of the bridge where the Beloved statues posed. He gripped the horns of Goodman Fullock, and swung himself out so that his feet were resting on the very edge of the walkway, the rest of his body leaning out over the long plummet to the Langfeather’s foamy embrace.
‘What about now?’ he said, grinning like a string of pearls.
There was an almost universal gasp of alarm, seasoned with a few shrieks and followed by the sounds of muskets being readied and aimed at Laylow.
‘No shooting!’ shouted the Luck, loud enough to carry to both ends of the bridge. ‘No shooting at us, or… I fly away!’ He bounced on the balls of his feet, to the consternation of the crowd who clearly thought he was mad enough for anything.
Laylow ducked between two statues to make herself a small target, breathing heavily and waiting for the rain of musket-balls. None came. After a while she peered out to dart a glance up and down the bridge. The guards had ceased their stealthy advance and stood frozen, staring at the capering Luck in shock, frustration and terror.
‘Listen!’ Paragon’s unguarded laughter bounced off the overhanging cliffs. ‘Everybody listen to me now!’
And they did. Even the Locksmiths who pushed stone-eyed through the crowds at the town end of the bridge to glower impotently at the delighted Luck. Even the mayor who appeared at a second-floor window of the Clock Tower, looking down upon the scene. Most of the town-end crowd was watching Paragon’s precarious slithering and capering with their faces set in a wince, both hands raised as if to placate or fend off a blow. The eyes of many watchers crept to the sheer fall below, the merciless bellowing engine of the water.
It took Laylow several stunned seconds to understand why his threats were working where hers had not. Her words had not been lost on him after all, she realized now, and in one swift, canny move he had turned the tables on everybody.
None of the spectators wished to see a careless boy fall off a cliff to his death, particularly one saintly enough to have such a good name. But nearly all of them were much more worried about the whole town following him. A dead Luck was a tragedy, a murdered Luck a shocking blasphemy. But a Luck who ‘left Toll’ by jumping off a bridge
‘Now… everybody… make the gates be open!’ Paragon’s eyes were shining.
This was the great test. All eyes rose to the mayor, who was clutching the sill of his window with such force it seemed he might tear it apart like pastry crust.
He bristled, and gave a short sharp nod. The small group of guards at the gate end of the bridge boggled, then set about cranking up the portcullis.
‘All the gates!’ crowed Paragon. ‘All the gates and doors open! All over the town!’
Even from below it was possible to tell from the mayor’s strained body language that the prospect of obeying was tearing at his very soul. He gave another curt nod.
‘You heard the Luck! Tear down the house-facings! Open all the doors! Do everything he says!’
Nobody felt like telling the mayor that a lot of his citizens had been doing that for some time.
The townspeople busy battling the fire had need of every strategy they had to hand, for the fire was hungry and ingenious. It leaped from balcony to jutting jetty with the agility of a burglar, crossing streets in a single flurry of sparks. It found out hidden stores of gunpowder, oil or liquor in cellars. However the people of Toll were fighting back. Some grabbed small barrels, butter churns and leather buckets and formed chains, passing water in a line from the wells to the blaze. Others ran for ladders and axes for making firebreaks, or even came up with proper long-handled firehooks for tearing down roofs and masonry.
At first breaking through the Locksmith barriers had been an impossibility, then the recourse of a courageous few, then a terrible necessity. But the mood had changed. Now the self-appointed firefighters attacked the locks and barriers with a passion. Daylighter and nightling fought the flame side by side without a glance at each other’s
