Briefed by both Sir Feldroll and the mayor, he knew something of the town into which he was stepping. His birth under Goodman Snatchavoc the Gambler thirty years ago that very night had given him a ‘night name’ in the opinion of the Committee of the Hours, who as a result considered him to be a fiend of card and dice, reckless, undisciplined, lavish in vice and certainly unsuited to daylight. Perhaps the committee had really believed that he would be more at home in the nocturnal town but right now he could feel the enmity of Toll-by-Night tickle his neck hairs as if his collar was full of spiders.
Accompanied by his five colleagues, he slipped into the shadow beside the Clock Tower and waited. The hands of the clock above them moved, but it seemed to have lost an hour or two somewhere, and he could not tell how truly it told the minutes as they crawled by. It seemed that a winter’s worth of nights passed before they finally saw a short figure tripping determinedly towards them, keeping close to the wall and muffling its footsteps as much as possible.
It was definitely not a twelve-year-old girl. However, neither was it particularly intimidating. It was a man. A short man, alone, his small, pale, forgettable face just visible between his large, lopsided hat and the whorls of his two great scarves. Despite the new arrivals’ attempts to hide themselves, he made his way directly towards them, gloved hands slightly raised in a gesture of harmlessness and timid appeal.
‘My word. How good it is to find you.’ There was something odd and drab in his tone. Perhaps it was caused by fear, or a desire to keep his voice low. ‘Stout fellows capable of swinging a cudgel, just as promised.’ He paused, and seemed to notice for the first time that he was surrounded by suspicious gazes and tense pistol hands. ‘Friend of Mosca Mye,’ he offered in the same limp voice.
‘Describe her, then,’ hissed the leader.
‘Stands this high.’ The little man made a flat of his hand and let it droop in the air before him. ‘Black eyes, black hair, ferrety features.’ The new arrivals glanced at each other, exchanged nods, and relaxed a little. ‘Ran into some trouble at the letter drop. Somebody was waiting for her. She got away. Injured though and terrified. Poor child asked me to come in her place.’ The little man could not seem to keep his head still, but kept turning it to look this way and that, eyes luminous and watchful. ‘And it is a pleasure to speak with you gentlemen but here there is a danger of interruption. If you will permit me to show you somewhere more relaxing.’
He’s terrified, concluded the leader. Well, what do we do? The girl is not here. If we do not trust him, what else can we do and where else can we go?
In his pocket his fingertips stroked the knucklebone dice sacred to the Beloved that had given him his name. He chewed his cheek and took a gamble.
The voice that had sounded behind Mosca was adult and male, but crisp and light-toned. It sounded as if it might sidestep deeper, gruffer voices without difficulty and deftly jab a pointed remark under their guards.
Mosca leaped away from the sound and spun round, braced to flee into the night. The shape in the doorway behind her, however, made no attempt to lunge for her, but remained flattened against the panels of the door, in a strip of darkness which had concealed it from Mosca’s notice. She could make out little more than the subdued gleam of a cream waistcoat and the pallor of a face.
‘If you are looking for sentries, my dear, you are looking at the wrong wall. There is a fellow who has been sitting in the eaves just across the road from your letter drop ever since quarter past bugle.’
‘How…?’ Mosca trailed off and left the word to fend for itself. There were so many questions it could begin. How do you know about the letter drop? How did you know I was going there? How did you happen to be here at all? How did you spot the spy? But all these questions paled in comparison to one other: How do I know I can trust you? It was this unasked question that the stranger chose to answer.
‘Eponymous Clent sends his greetings to you and your winged warzone.’ Staring into the darkness, Mosca could now just make out two large eyes, the dark line of a moustache and neatly cropped sideburns. ‘I do hope that means more to you than it does to me.’
It did. ‘Winged warzone’ was just one of Clent’s many tender terms for Saracen, usually uttered in a tone of long-suffering despair. It was not a phrase that many would use.
‘Might do,’ she admitted.
‘Delighted to hear it. Your friend Mr Clent wanted us to warn you that the letter drop was compromised – betrayed, in fact. He believes that somebody in the mayor’s household is spying for the…’ He glanced about him, before mouthing the last word of the sentence. Locksmiths. ‘Now, can I suggest we go somewhere else, and quickly? If we loiter about on a night like this, we are likely to catch our death. Worse… our death might catch us.’
Goodlady Quinnet, Friend of the Willing Pupil
Mosca followed her new guide back along the wall, but kept a distance of three paces between them. She had learned to look every gift horse in the mouth. After all, it was amazing how many of them bit.
When they crossed moon splashes, she took advantage of the instant to examine her companion. He was slightly below average height, deft-gestured and dapper, despite the fact that his tailcoat was more of a collage than a garment, patches of dark wool, leather, linen and curtain fabric nestling in bewildered proximity. Two large, expressive dark eyes kept a watch on the rooftops and corners.
‘Hey!’ She risked a whisper. ‘I got to go to the Twilight Gate. There’s -’
She halted, her mouth still poised to shape the next word. A sound had grazed her ear, a distant croaking cry, so muffled that it could almost have been a raven call or cough. But the ravens were all abed, and no cough could have travelled that far, even through the eerily silent streets.
Ah.’ Somehow Mosca’s mysterious friend managed to put a wealth of meaning into that one, light sound.
That came from the Clock Tower!’ hissed Mosca. ‘They’re in trouble! There are people waiting there for me!’
‘No, I think not,’ came the clipped response. ‘Not by now,
anyway. Trust me. Let us simply withdraw while we have the chance… or… instead… you could run pell-mell towards the sound of the death cry. Wonderful.’ He gave a resigned sigh as Mosca’s sprinting figure disappeared around a distant corner. ‘Yes, let us do that instead.’
To do him credit, the patchwork stranger succeeded in catching up with Mosca a couple of streets later, only slightly out of breath. Mosca was pressed against a corner from which she could gaze out at the Clock Tower, which looked back with all its shadowy bulk, as unruffled as a whale suffering the scrutiny of a damselfish.
Nothing remarkable or bloody appeared to be taking place in the street before the tower. Indeed, it was entirely empty, and would have looked serene to anybody who did not know that six men should have been standing there. To Mosca, that omission was as glaring as the ragged remains of a ripped-out page.
‘They got to be here!’ Mosca gnawed at her fist, fighting down a sickness in her stomach. ‘They got to be here! Nothing works if they’re not! Nothing… they have to…’ She trailed off, gasping.
She jumped when her patchwork guide placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Listen, my dear, we did promise to warn you of your danger, but nothing was said about joining you in suicidal gallops. Your letter drop was betrayed, as it would seem were your reinforcements.