‘Eponymous – that’s Phangavotte,’ snapped the Raspberry.
‘Mosca – that’s Palpitattle. Kenning – the Book of the Hours!’
In response to these orders, a red-haired boy of about eleven clambered up on to a precarious-looking stool and disappeared between the leaves of a vast leatherbound book chained to a pulpit-like stand on which it rested.
Phangavotte? Palpitattle? Sure enough those were the Beloved under which Clent and Mosca had been born, but why this pompous interest?
‘Phangavotte’s names are daylight… just about,’ came the boy’s thin, chirping voice from within the book. ‘Committee of the Hours have considered it for endarkening six times though. On grounds of Phangavotte being a patron of wile, guile, tall tales and ruses. Acquitted on account of Phangavotte being a patron of inspiration, myth and proud dreams.’ The whisper of more pages. ‘Palpitattle – night. Children of Palpitattle judged to be villainous, verminous and everywhere that they’re not wanted. No plans to review this judgement.’ The boy reappeared, and the book gave a wumph as it closed.
There was a long cool silence, during which the Raspberry carefully wiped his quill before looking up at Clent with an air of pleased surprise, as if the latter had just that moment materialized most agreeably before him.
‘I see. Mr Clent, are you planning to stay long in our fair city?’ The Raspberry’s tone had suddenly become more civil. His pale blue eyes rested steadily on Clent, with not the slightest flicker in Mosca’s direction to acknowledge her existence.
‘Ahh, no alas, just passing through… I have patrons in Mickbardring who will not be denied…’ Clent himself seemed rather confused by the sudden change in reception.
‘Do you plan to stay longer than three days?’ continued the Raspberry. ‘No? Then, sir, we shall provide you and your household with visitors’ badges.’
Had Mosca imagined it? The tiniest pause before the words ‘your household’, and during that interval, the quickest, coldest flicker of a glance in her direction? No, she had seen it. She could feel that look stinging her cheeks like a snowball’s graze. She was used to being looked on with disdain, but the Raspberry’s eyes had held a contempt so deep that it was almost loathing. She looked around the room at the guards standing against the walls, and as she met the eye of each their gaze slid off her as though she was somehow indecent.
What? she wanted to demand. What is it? Whatever ‘it’ was, she could feel it surrounding her, like a patch of frost spreading from beneath her feet.
‘Visitors are permitted to remain in the daylight city for no more than three full days after the day of their arrival,’ continued the Raspberry, ‘and must report to the Committee of the Hours daily to have their badges renewed. After those three days, if they are still within the walls of Toll they are issued with a resident’s badge. Of course in your case, Mr Clent, you would still be eligible for daylight citizenship. A man with a good name is always welcome in this city.’
‘Ah… good.’ Clent seemed rather baffled. ‘That is… I…’ His eyes strayed uncertainly, almost guiltily, towards Mosca. He too had evidently noticed the slight emphasis on the word ‘your’. Whatever ‘daylight citizenship’ meant, Mosca had a strong feeling that it was not to be granted to the rest of ‘his household’.
Kenning, the eleven-year-old assistant, emerged from a side door with two wooden brooches. One brooch was of dark wood and had an outline of a fly carved into it. The other was of light-coloured wood and featured what looked a little like a crudely carved picture of a Punch and Judy box. Both had pale blue borders. Kenning brought both badges to Clent, taking a curved circuit so that he would not pass too close to Mosca herself.
Mosca stared at Clent’s badge, then at her own. It sounded rather as if Kenning’s great book had a list of all the Beloved, each marked as belonging to either ‘day’ or ‘night’. It was certainly true that the period of each year sacred to Palpitattle fell within the hours of darkness… but the same was true of Phangavotte. Why then did the Book of the Hours devote Palpitattle to ‘night’ and Phangavotte to ‘day’?
‘The “arrival day” visitors’ badges have blue borders,’ the Raspberry explained. ‘Tomorrow you will be issued with yellow-rimmed badges, then the following day with green-edged badges, and the day after that with badges bordered in red.
‘Now, it is very important to keep to your Hours,’ he went on. ‘Our town, that is to say the town of daylight, exists from dawn until sunset. Between sunset and dawn, however, please remember that none of us exists, and we are expected to act accordingly. So you will be requiring these.’ He pushed two slips of paper across his desk towards Clent. ‘Hand them in at any tavern, and you will be given a room for the night. The hostel owner will claim the money from us afterwards. It will not cover your food of course, but you will be off the streets. Each day when you come to change your badges, you will be given tavern passes for that night.
‘You will hear a bugle just before dawn. A little later you will hear a second bugle, and this will tell you that your doors have been unsealed from the outside, and you should feel free to unlock them, emerge on to the streets and start existing. There will be another bugle call at sunset – this will be a signal that you have no more than a quarter of an hour to get back to your appointed residence. You must – must – make sure that you do so.’ The Raspberry leaned forward over his desk, his pale eyes agleam with meaning. ‘After all, Mr Clent, no city can be expected to tolerate non-existent people wandering around and drawing attention to themselves.’
There was an icy and pregnant silence.
‘Ah. Yes. I see.’ Clent nodded sagely, then a little less sagely, then with the cautious air of one who thinks his head might fall off. ‘At least… that is… no. No, actually, I do not see at all. My good sir, I mean no slight to your shining town and your eminent self, but I really do not have the flimsiest idea what you are talking about.’
The Raspberry hesitated with a vexed and weary air, as if contemplating the prospect of a lengthy explanation, then dismissed it with a shake of his head. ‘Just treat it as a curfew, Mr Clent.’ He dipped his quill and signed a piece of parchment, then dribbled wax on to it and sealed it with his signet ring. ‘Toll has its own system for keeping respectable people like yourself safe from dangerous elements, that is all.’ He stood and offered a small bow, his manner still crisp and footman-formal, then handed Clent a piece of paper. ‘Nothing you need to worry about during your stay, sir. Thanks to our precautions, Toll is the safest town under the sun.’
Responding to this cue, a pair of guards at the far side of the room swung open matching doors, and Mosca and Clent were ushered through. Whereas Clent was allowed to continue down the corridor, Mosca almost immediately found Kenning by her side, beckoning her through a side door.
‘Excise wants a word,’ he whispered.
As it turned out, the two briskly dressed women on the other side of the door wanted more than a word. They wanted to find out if Mosca was smuggling in any chocolate, coffee, Laemark lace, pepper, ginger, laudanum, silks, tobacco or anything else that might show that she had been secretly trading with the abhorred radicals of the port town of Mandelion. They searched through their edicts with a scowl, before admitting that there was nothing to forbid the import of geese. Just when Mosca was wondering if they meant to turn her upside down and shake her till the contraband fell out, they changed their tack, and Mosca found herself vigorously interrogated to see if she had any pocks, pimples, pustules, plagues, agues, aches, quakes or queernesses that might indicate she was bringing some dire disease into the town. For a ghastly moment it seemed they might try to inspect Saracen for similar ailments, but thankfully some light in his beady black eyes deterred them from laying hands on him. Finally, just as Mosca really was feeling as if she might be some huge, disease-dripping housefly, they meaningfully read out a list of the punishments due for a range of petty thefts, and released her back into the corridor.