Glancing up at the Tower Clock again, Mosca noted with a grim satisfaction that it was showing the wrong time. Good-lady Sylphony, who should have held dominion only over yesterday’s afternoon and evening, was still smiling in the arch instead of having been replaced by Goodman Parsley, the lord of this particular day, from dawn until teatime. Up on the roof of the tower itself she could see a shabby wooden crane from which a rope was dangling to trail across the clock’s face. Presumably it had been used to lower some unlucky artisan to work on the clock.
That clock’s a lot like the town, she decided. Looks good, sounds great, pretends to be some sort of masterpiece. But it’s broken. It’s rotten and broken right down inside where its heart’s cogs meet. That’s Toll.
The Dovespit pleasure garden, like everything else in Toll but the castle, had clearly suffered from lack of space. It was a clenched-looking ribbon of green between two stepped slopes, each studded with shrubberies, tiny grottoes and dwarf trees. In the doorway of a peeling pavilion littered with dead elder leaves they saw a single white parasol leaning against the jamb.
‘Look brisk, madam.’ Clent took the lead. ‘And this time try not to throw your gaze like a spear. The girl is gentle. Frightened. Well brought up. Thwark.’
The last word was delivered in the same calm undertone as the rest, possibly because his brain had not caught up with the fact that a snow-white parasol had just hit him in the face.
‘Thwark!’ he repeated as it hit him again, this time managing to deliver the word with the right tone of pain and surprise.
Beamabeth had changed, Mosca decided dizzily as she gazed up at the white-clad figure in the pavilion doorway. Changed… into Mistress Jennifer Bessel. Mistress Jennifer Bessel in a white muslin gown and grey shawl and kid gloves, showing no particular sign of being locked out of Toll.
Clent gave a squawk, which he somehow managed to turn into a pleased gasp of surprise, though his feet were still tending towards a rapid backwards gavotte.
‘My good gay Jen!’ He reached to firmly grasp both her hands, thus saving himself a parasol swipe to the midriff. ‘How very… ingenious of you to surprise us like this! Naturally we expected you to find some way into Toll, but you have surpassed yourself!’
‘I’ll run for a constable!’ squeaked Mosca. Mistress Bessel’s broad right hand snatched out, taking a firm grasp on Mosca’s forearm and pulling her off balance. The next moment, quite unexpectedly, Mistress Bessel released her hold with an oath. Mosca, who had been straining against her grip with all her might, promptly fell bewildered to the ground, losing her grasp on Saracen.
Mosca had no time to wonder at her sudden release, however. As her flank hit the turf there was a snapping sound, and then an ominous silence. She lay winded for a moment, then gingerly pushed her bonnet back from where it had fallen over her eyes. She froze, belly pressed to the ground.
Somehow during her fall, the frame of Saracen’s muzzle had become cracked. She was just in time to see him shake it from his face. His wings were half raised and his neck extended before him. Something had bumped and bruised him, and he was trying to work out what it was.
A second passed in which Mosca, Clent and Mistress Bessel stared at him wordlessly, then they all moved as one. Or rather, they moved as three – three each individually bent on self-preservation. Clent swiftly slipped in through the pavilion door and climbed on to a wicker chair, the seat of which promptly gave out under his weight, leaving his legs trapped within the frame. Mistress Bessel displayed remarkable agility, not to mention a pair of chocolate-and-cream striped stockings, as she hoisted her skirts and clambered into a nearby nymph-bedecked fountain. Mosca settled for wrapping both arms over her bonneted head and staying as flat and low as she could.
All were acquainted with the full destructive might of a Saracen enraged.
‘Might I ask,’ Clent ventured at last, his tone no louder nor angrier than a summer breeze, ‘what has brought you down upon us like a thunderbolt?’
‘That girl,’ murmured Mistress Bessel, her voice mellow as a cooing dove, ‘has ate my stew, milled my handkerchiefs, cheated the good doctor before he could buy me dinner and forked my money. And I’ll dance coin that she did so on your orders.’
‘You was going to leave us to rot in Grabely,’ was Mosca’s muffled offering. She paused to spit out a mouthful of dandelion clock. ‘Anyways, got in, didn’t you?’
‘How does that help me?’ Mistress Bessel’s tone sharpened, and then as Saracen swung his head to look at her, it once again became carefully buttery. ‘I did have enough money to get me through Toll and out the other side, before you stole from me. Now I’m scoured out.’ She examined Mosca and Clent keenly. ‘And you’re no better, are you, my sweetmeats? We’re all high and dry, flapping our gills and praying for rain.’
‘My most inestimable madam -’ Clent’s eyes slid from side to side, following Saracen’s patrol march – ‘you have not brought the constables down on our heads, so I must surmise that either you have your own reasons for not wanting them involved, or that you need us for something. Or… perhaps both?’
‘Not too tardy, my sugarplum, not bad at all.’ Mistress Bessel’s teeth were starting to chatter, due to the fountain water soaking into her stockings and petticoats. ‘If you will sing to my pipe, I think I have a scheme that will garner enough for you to pay what you owe me – stolen money, shop and all – and all three of us will still have enough to leave town.’
‘Sounds like your end of the bargain tastes sweeter than ours,’ muttered Mosca.
‘Don’t scorn to grab a thorn bush when you’re drowning,’ snapped Mistress Bessel. ‘After all, my spring pea, you’re born under Palpitattle. Nightbound as owl pellets. In three days you’ll be banished to darkness.’
‘My dear Jenny-wren, you do have a portion of a point.’ Clent dared to extricate one of his feet from the wicker chair. ‘You have our attention.’
‘Then listen well.’ The breeze obediently hushed, and even the lapping of the water around Mistress Bessel’s legs seemed to grow quieter. ‘There’s one thing in this town worth more than an elephant’s weight of silver.’
‘And that would be…’ Clent’s grey eyes had taken on a shine that was not fear. Jackdaw eyes, Mosca thought suddenly. Steel and avarice and pin-sharp wits.
‘The Luck,’ said Mistress Bessel.
‘The… Do you mean the Luck of Toll?’ Clent’s eyes widened.
‘Mr Clent -’ Mosca dared to tip back her hat brim a little to peer at him – ‘thought you said the Luck was like to be tuppence worth of glass pot? Nuffink said ’bout silver…’
‘Child, a thing is worth what people will pay for it. If the people of Toll believe that the Luck is the only thing keeping them from falling into the Langfeather, then it is worth more than a cataract of diamonds.’
‘So if they was to lose track of it…’ Mosca voiced the unspoken thought.
‘… and somebody was kind enough to tell them where it might be found…’ continued Clent.
‘… then there might be a good deal of gratitude of the jingling sort,’ finished Mistress Bessel.
‘So – the Luck – what is it, then?’ asked Mosca. There was an unpromising silence. ‘Do you even know?’
The large woman’s countenance suddenly become cloudy, cautious and inscrutable. ‘I have had a muckle of trouble getting folks here to talk about it,’ she murmered, ‘but a town’s Luck is commonly something small. A chalice, or a skull, or the withered core of an apple ate by a saint.’
‘If it’s so small, what do you need us for?’ Suspicion gave Mosca’s neck hairs a storm-weather tingle. ‘It won’t be too heavy for you to manage by yourself. Mr Clent, I’ll wager the only thing she wants us to carry is the blame. She’s looking for someone to go to prison for her.’