There was a pause. It appeared to have brought a few friends. Apparently Mistress Bessel did not have an answer.
‘Mistress Bessel, you made me a promise.’ Mosca could not keep a tremble out of her voice. The older woman glanced at her with features still set in a scowl, and for a terrible moment Mosca thought she might go back on her word out of spite and disappointment. ‘You promised!’
‘Oh hush!’ snapped Mistress Bessel. ‘One would think that nobody had trials but you! Yes, I made you a promise, and a good deal of trouble it will bring me for very little gain. But -’ she sighed deeply and smoothed her apron with the air of a martyr – ‘I am a woman of my word, even in dealings with a rag of mischief like you.’ She pursed her lips speculatively for a few moments. ‘So… tell me about his lordship the mayor. Does he have a wife? A sister? A housekeeper? Anybody of the female sort to look after him?’
Over the next five minutes Mosca found herself answering a barrage of questions about the mayor’s household, temperament, likes and dislikes. Mistress Bessel appeared to be handling her disappointment rather better than Mosca had expected, and in spite of her colossal relief Mosca could not help wondering why.
She suspected that Mistress Bessel had walked into the jail with more than one plan up her sleeve, and when one had broken she had smoothly cast it aside in favour of the next. If so, the backup apparently involved ingratiating herself with the mayor. Mosca did not care a single pin providing it also ensured her liberty.
‘Your mayor sounds a sore old bear,’ said Mistress Bessel as she took her leave, ‘but I’ve tamed fiercer beasts before today, my honeycomb. Now, all I need is a word with Eponymous…’
Mosca did not trust Mistress Bessel any further than she could fly, but in spite of this her hopes once again began their battered, indomitable spider-climb up the grimy flue of her soul.
After four hours of bitten nails, Mosca received another visit. She was not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed to discover that it was not Mistress Bessel, but Sir Feldroll, accompanied by the portly and nervous form of Eponymous Clent.
Sir Feldroll’s manner was unusually tense and curt, and Mosca soon learned why. He had spent most of the morning arguing with the mayor, leaving his fuse all but burned out.
‘The mayor received a ransom note this morning,’ he explained, the muscles in his peaky, expressive face jumping and twitching. ‘In exchange for Miss Marlebourne’s return, the kidnappers have demanded the Soul of Santainette.’
This was a fine opportunity for Mosca to practise her blank look.
‘It is an emerald of considerable renown – and no small value, if one has the right contacts. It is the size of a child’s thumbnail, and cloudy, flawed you might even say, with a plume of smoky yellow coiling through the middle of it. But since it is said to have been prised out of the crown of the last king of the Realm…’
Mosca gave Clent the most fleeting glance, and noted the feverish interest that had glossed his eyes like varnish. Apparently he had not heard this particular detail before. Battered, hungry, frightened, cold and exhausted as Mosca was, she felt that she would cheerfully have thrown a dozen such stones into the Langfeather in exchange for a bowl of stew, a night’s sleep and an escape from Toll. The gem sounded like trouble.
‘This emerald was entrusted to the care of the mayor many years ago,’ continued Sir Feldroll, ‘and I believe that he intends to hand it over to the kidnappers as instructed a few nights from now.’
A memory jolted Mosca’s frozen mind and forced it back into life.
‘Not the night of Yacobray?’
Sir Feldroll nodded, looking somewhat surprised. ‘His lordship the mayor is under orders to place the gem within a radish and hang it outside the door of his counting house in town, just before the dusk changeover. Rather outlandish request.’
Mosca thought it sounded far from outlandish. The night of Saint Yacobray was the one night of the year when something like that could be hung outside without attracting notice, and nobody but the Locksmiths would dare touch it. Nobody, that is, except the daring conspiracy of kidnappers.
‘I have advised the mayor against this in the strongest possible terms.’ Sir Feldroll frowned. ‘This brigand Appleton is plainly obsessed with Miss Marlebourne. It is absurd to imagine that having snatched her from her family he will meekly hand her over in exchange for mere wealth. Once he has the gem, he is far more likely to use it bribe his way out of Toll-by-Night, and carry off Miss Marlebourne. To Mandelion, no doubt, for once he reaches that nest of anarchists, cut-throats and fellow radicals he knows all too well we shall be unable to reach him, or rescue his victim. Confound it, he means to marry her!’ His chin bobbed and wobbled, and his face flushed with emotion.
Mosca and Clent did not look at each other; indeed their gaze upon Sir Feldroll’s face became particularly steadfast. It did not seem a good idea to mention that they had been accomplices of many of the ‘anarchists, cut-throats and radicals’ in Mandelion, or the extent to which they had helped them take power. However Sir Feldroll was probably right to distrust the kidnappers’ promises. After all, Skellow had spoken to Clent’s ‘Romantic Facilitator’ of claiming the ransom even if Brand and Beamabeth were married.
‘Picture it.’ Clent met Mosca’s eye with an expression at once appealing and nervous. ‘That poor child, captured and unfriended… need we say more?’
There was a long and heartfelt pause.
‘Well, somebody bleedin’ well better,’ snapped Mosca. ‘I don’t see where you’re driftin’.’
‘Then I shall speak more plainly,’ answered the knight. ‘I could not talk the mayor out of paying the ransom. However, four solid hours of… discussion with him have not been entirely in vain. My persistence and Mr Clent’s eloquence had achieved little, but by the greatest good fortune Mr Clent happened to encounter a respectable lady of his acquaintance with an impeccable name.’ Evidently Mistress Bessel had acted quickly. ‘She added her arguments to ours, and between the three of us we finally succeeded in talking your cell door open. The hearing has been cancelled. I will personally be paying your release fee.’
Mosca’s heart broke into a gallop, then slowed to a doubtful canter, and finally a cynical trot. She crooked a black eyebrow and waited. Her short and bitter life had trained her to recognize the sound of a ‘but’ hovering in the air.
Sir Feldroll cleared his throat.
‘The argument which Mr Clent finally brought to bear with the mayor was this: your allotted time as a visitor comes to an end tonight. At present we have no agents in the night town, nobody at all. We have only until the night of Yacobray to find Miss Marlebourne – once Brand Appleton has the gem, I am firmly persuaded that we shall never see her again. I am asking you to help us – to help us find Miss Marlebourne, and if possible to arrange her rescue.’
‘So that’s it.’ Mosca gave a bitter laugh, and then directed a gaze of fire at Eponymous Clent. ‘This your idea, then? One of your brilliant plans? Somebody promised me I’d never have to go to the night town. Wonder who that was.’
Clent, to do him justice, did look somewhat abashed and crestfallen.
‘Child,’ he said quietly, ‘the situation was quite desperate. If I had been able to think of any other way of slipping your shackles…’
‘Yeah. Well, thank you for gettin’ me out of the frying pan, Mr Clent. So that’s the plan, is it? Throw me into the night town so I can rescue the mayor’s daughter from a nest of cutthroats all by misself? How am I supposed to do that?’
‘You will only be alone the first night,’ answered Sir Feldroll. ‘By the second I should have summoned some night-named servants from my estates. They will have the mayor’s permission to enter the night town immediately, without spending three days as visitors. Your job will be merely to dig out information – my men will perform the rescue. And the reward, if you succeed, will be generous, easily enough for you and your employer to buy your way out of Toll.’