Mosca reached deep into the hole, and the flat of her palm struck the grooved wood of the barge bottom. She waved a hand through the darkness, and something knobbed batted at her fingers. Grabbing it, she lifted it into the half-light. It was a small, heavy, wooden figure of Goodman Greyglory, He Who Guides the Sword in Battle. Was there a whole tribe of icons, ripped from their shrines, huddling in the darkness like captives in the hold of a slaveship? And why would anyone be secretly transporting them down the river?
Biting her lip white with caution, she lowered the Goodman back into darkness, and replaced the plank. She pushed the canvas aside, and emerged on hands and knees, and began crawling alongside the hay bales on the side furthest from the bank, and from Eponymous Clent.
The secret cargo was not hidden among the bales, but she was fairly certain that something else was.
Why had Clent hidden the parcel of papers? Perhaps he was afraid that a waterman’s scull might slip alongside the barge and he might be forced to open it. Where had he hidden it? Somewhere out of sight, but easy to reach in a hurry if he had to make a quick escape.
If Mosca had not been looking for something of the sort, she would never have noticed the string trailing from between two bales. Simple, but effective. In an emergency, he could pull the string, and…
She drew on the string, and the parcel slid out from its hiding place. Taking the bundle binding in her mouth, she cat-padded her way back on all fours, and dived into the darkness beneath the canvas awning.
When she had dragged off the string and pulled away the burlap, Mosca found herself with a lap full of printed papers. Most were chapbooks of criminals’ lives, the pages roughly stitched into their cloth covers. Some were large loose pages, or ‘broadsheets’, most of which had ballads printed upon them. All bore the seal of the Company of Stationers. Between them, however, was the packet Clent had laboured to hide. It opened to Mosca’s eager fingers, and she was at first disappointed to find that it seemed to be a letter of introduction, ‘… Testifying that Eponymous Clent is acting upon the behalf of the Company of Stationers in investigating certain illicit…’
The page suddenly became a great deal easier to read as the canvas awning was twitched back, and Eponymous Clent pushed his head into the little cave.
His smile slid away like water off a candle, and his plump face became absolutely expressionless in a way that told Mosca that he was very angry. She stared back, her black eyes burning with triumph.
‘How did you find those?’
‘You’re working for the Stationers? You’re a spy?’
‘You can read?’ Clent stared at her in disbelief as he struggled into the makeshift cabin.
‘Full of surprises, me,’ whispered Mosca savagely.
At this moment the awning was flung violently aside and, as one, Mosca and Clent jumped to sit on the papers, landing with a thump, hip to hip.
Partridge was stooping at the opening, the crooked corner of his mouth flexing and relaxing like an angry fist.
‘Are you people trouble to me?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Only there’s five or so Watermen wherries blocking the river up ahead, and it looks to me like they’re searching boats.’
D is for Daylight Robbery
Mosca and Clent exchanged glances, and silently settled a single matter between them. They were on thin ice, on the brink of disaster, but for now they were also on the same side.
‘Ah, now, it would seem that we have an interest in common,’ Clent began quickly, turning back to Partridge. ‘You do not wish the Watermen to discover that you have been taking passengers illegally, and we… we are in no hurry to be found. So let us hurry to an understanding, and, ah…’
‘And what? What exactly do we do, you lily-handed sack of suet?’
In answer, Clent reached down and knocked once on the planks of the deck, which answered hollowly.
‘What, stow you below boards and risk your bootnails inside the belly of the Maid? I’ll see you gull food first. Dotheril!’ The head of another crewman appeared at the opening in the awning. ‘I think you’d better hail the Watermen and tell ’em we’ve just this minute found a couple of stowaways. Doesn’t it look that way to you?’
‘I’d say so, sir,’ agreed Dotheril coolly. ‘Guess they must have crept aboard while we was docked at the Halberd.’
‘If you give us up,’ hissed Mosca, ‘I’ll tell them about the other stowaways already down there. They don’t seem to be hurting your boat none. More of holiness than holes down there, I’d say.’
Clent rallied well, considering that he had no idea what Mosca was talking about.
‘Yes, I fear the secret is out. We know that your boat, like many other “maids”, hides a secret in her belly. My niece, you see, has an enquiring mind and, while I have tried to damp her desire to peek and pry, it is her nature and there is little I can do about it. Well, Captain, I am at my wits’ end – have you decided what is to become of us all?’
‘We cannot dally long,’ whispered Dotheril. ‘We could nudge the bank and buy time that way, but if we did that, there might be a rattling in the…’ His eyes dropped pointedly towards the deck.
Partridge’s mouth twitched once, twice, as if he was trying to crack a tiny nut between his teeth.
‘Take up the planks,’ he ordered in an undertone. ‘But if either of you makes a sound, I’ll nail the deck in place above your heads, seal the cracks with pitch, and leave you to your prayers.’
They had to lever up three planks before Eponymous Clent was able to squeeze through. He disappeared into darkness with a muffled squawk.
‘Quiet!’
‘Merciless Fates! I would like to see you hold your tongue if you had just taken Good Lady Shempoline in the eye-’
‘Silence!’
Mosca followed her employer into the cramped darkness below the deck. The darkness was almost absolute, apart from a few strands of light visible above between the deck planks. She raised her hand and felt the coarse wooden underside of the deck and wished she hadn’t. It was like finding oneself inside a wooden coffin.
The voice of the water was now far louder. Here you could hear the thoughts of the barge, how it clicked its tongue in annoyance as the wavelets slapped its flank, how it boomed and droned with effort as it strained against the ropes of the hauliers, the drag of the current.
A crickle, a crackle. Somewhere not far from Mosca’s head lay Clent’s fistful of papers. Somewhere among them lay the Stationers’ letter. Even the few lines Mosca had read were enough to prove Clent a Stationer spy. This was her chance to gain something that might give her a hold over him. ‘Somink big,’ Palpitattle’s voice echoed in her head. Her long fingers reached out stealthily and touched a papery corner.
‘… elcome aboard… seems to be the probl…’ Partridge’s voice from on deck.
‘… orders of the Duke…’ Long-suffering tones from a stranger. ‘Nay, there’s no need to uncover all o’ the bales. If we search every inch of every boat we’ll not see our wives tonight…’
Mosca carefully gripped the paper corner between thumb and fingertips, and started to pull at them. Almost immediately her knuckles took a sharp blow from what felt suspiciously like the knobbled features of Goodlady Agragap, He Who Frightens the Harelip Fairy from the Childbed.
‘… what are you looking for?’
‘… oofprints.’
Mosca’s free hand closed around a bust of Mipsquall, the Patron of High-pitched Winds, and a moment later the saint’s twin horns were jabbed firmly into Clent’s clenched fist.
‘… what?’
‘… orders of the Duke. On account of the highwayman Clam Blythe. His Grace has made it known that his loyal people would never harbour such a rogue -’ there was a wealth of weariness and cynicism in these words – ‘so Blythe must be a-comin’ from lands across the river, an’ we’re to stop all boats to look for signs that they’ve given him an’ his men an’ their horses passage across to Mandelion. Hoofprints, dung, signs of horses where there should be none…’