Clent she found in another room, where he appeared to have been given a bracing cup of hot wine and a plate of seedcakes.
‘Ah, there you are at last, madam. Well, if you have quite finished delaying these poor people…’ The door at the end of the corridor was swung open for them, and Clent and Mosca emerged on to the street, Saracen muzzled at their side.
And there it was – Toll, under the sun. Mosca took in an eyeful of colour and had to blink until she could see straight.
They had emerged from a building built into the side of a tower, evidently the same tower that they had entered from the bridge. From left to right ran a thronging thoroughfare, curving slightly away from them in either direction as it followed the town’s perimeter wall. Opposite was a long rank of townhouses some three or four storeys high, bold in their milk-white and butter-yellow paint, their walls criss-crossed with the stripes of dark timber beams, all varnished with dew.
The street was aglitter with people, and suddenly it seemed to Mosca that for the last long month the world had been washed drab of colour. And here was where the colour had been hiding – the rich red of market cloaks, the green-gold of young lemons in a basket hoisted shoulder high, peacock-coloured brocade spilling languorously from the door of a sedan. The people ducked through the timber archways that pocked every wall like mouse holes leading into dark, covered alleys. They greeted one another on the finely carved wooden balconies and footbridges that crossed the gaps between the upper storey.
There was a metallic chime from above Mosca, and she turned to find that the nearby tower was adorned with a large, gleaming clock face decorated in blue and gold. Directly beneath the face was a foot-high arch in which a tiny wooden figure of Goodman Jayblister could be seen, blowing his silver trumpet. As she stared a brief tinny ditty issued from the belly of the clock, and Jayblister receded jerkily into the darkness, to be replaced by the Goodlady Sylphony, made unmistakable by her pink-gold wings and long honey-dipping nose. Yes, she realized dizzily, this would be about the time that the hours sacred to Jayblister yielded to those devoted to Sylphony. Perhaps all the Beloved were hidden in miniature inside that great clock, waiting for their turn to waltz out and smile benignly over this sun-blessed city.
It took a moment or two for Mosca’s dazzled eyes and mind to adjust and see the cracks in the stonework, the many blank and boarded windows. Not a real city, she reminded herself. Not like Mandelion. Just a fat little tick of a town sucking money out of travellers and swelling up all proud. But, she admitted grudgingly to herself, as towns went, Toll did look passing fair right there and then, under the sun.
However, her gaze was soon drawn to the badges worn by every passer-by. A very few had coloured visitors’ badges like the ones she and Clent had been given, and a couple of these were of dark wood like hers. The vast majority, however, were plain-bordered residents’ badges, and these were all of light-coloured wood. The picture on every brooch was different, and she started to make guesses at what each meant. There went a sickle, representing Goodman Uzzleglean, He Who Keeps the Harvesting Tools Sharp. That was the face of a pig, standing for Goodlady Prill, Protector of Pigs. Grey-glory, Upperfit, Syropia… barely a Beloved among them who was not considered auspicious.
Now at last she started to understand why Skellow’s letter had spoken of his Romantic Facilitator having a name ‘good enough for daylight’. People with day names didn’t have to be born by day; they just had to be born under a ‘good’ Beloved.
Everyone who glanced at the fly on Mosca’s own badge would know in an instant that she was born under Goodman Palpitattle, the grinning godling of bitter, buzzing things. She had a bad name, in short. Or to use Kenning’s word, a ‘night’ name. If she had not been a visitor, she would not have seen this street in daylight at all.
Yes, Toll was passing fair in the light of the sun, but she had a shrewd idea that for any who saw it by night it would be anything but fair.
Goodlady Sylphony, Queen of Butterflies
Names were important. You carried your name like a brand. You never lied about it, for fear of angering the god under which you were born.
In theory, there were no unlucky Beloved. All of them had their place in the world, and even those who munched head lice or inspired the artistry of spiders’ webs were useful and to be praised. However, the fact was that some Beloved were seen as luckier, brighter, more trustworthy, more generous, more worthy, and so were those born under them.
As a child of Palpitattle, Mosca was used to seeing noses wrinkle and gazes chill when she admitted to her name. Palpitattle’s job was to keep the flies in order and out of mischief, but this he could do because he was a fly, the emperor of flies. The thinly veiled loathing she was sensing now, however, was something new.
The more devoutly someone worshipped the Beloved, the more seriously they took the lore of names, and the more severe the reaction. Looking around at the Beloved faces carved into every timber beam, and the painted Beloved in the Clock Tower, Mosca could see that the people of Toll took the Beloved very seriously indeed.
‘Let’s go warn this plump heiress, grab the reward and get out of this spittle-kettle,’ she growled.
‘It is true, dispatch is of the essence,’ muttered Clent as he surveyed the crowds. ‘We are a few steps ahead of your friend Skellow for now, thanks to your ingenuity in sending his Romantic Facilitator astray. However… we have received repeated warnings to be off the streets by dusk. Let us strive to have our business finished by then.’
After finding an inn, and reserving a room by flourishing the documents given to them by the Committee of the Hours, Clent, Mosca and Saracen set off to track down the imperilled heiress. Fortunately this proved to be relatively easy. The mere mention of ‘the mayor’s daughter’ brought gleaming smiles to the faces of the guards at the Clock Tower.
‘Ah, you’ll mean his adopted daughter, Miss Beamabeth Marlebourne! Oh, we all know of her, thank you, sir. She’s the Peach of Toll, the Perfectest Peony. Mayor Marlebourne’s family live in old judge’s lodgings, up in the castle courtyard.’ A vague gesture to the north. ‘Ask anyone as you go, they’ll all know where to send you.’
And indeed they did.
‘Ah, you’re going to speak with Miss Marlebourne? Then I envy you, sir, for she is the finest sight within Toll’s walls. Seeing her, you’ll think the Beloved made a person out of honeysuckle…’
‘Miss Beamabeth Marlebourne? Sweetest creature on ten toes. Smile like a spring day. Yes, just take this alley to the end, and you’ll see the brocade curtains she’s hung at her windows, bless her…’
Toll, tucked tight within its walls, had solved the problem of room by building upwards, and cramming as much as it could into a tiny space. Shops were stacked above shops, each with little wooden boardwalks in front of them for wares to sprawl. Some of these walkways even bridged the narrow streets, creating covered alleyways. Mosca soon got used to the creak of clogged and booted feet overhead. There was a smell too, which came as a shock after the chill, clear air of the open meadows, the stifling reek of a lot of people living close together – unwashed clothes, ginslops, last week’s mutton, chamber-pot throwings.