‘Quickly!’ A Groveller grabbed her arm and dragged her away. One corridor, two doors and a rope ladder later, they were out on the open streets.
Mistress Leap coped very well with the sudden and unannounced arrival of Mosca, Beamabeth Marlebourne and three of the most disreputable, gibbet-worthy strangers she had ever seen. She remained upright, indeed rigidly so, though for couple of minutes could manage nothing but a string of broken vowels.
‘Sorry, Mistress Leap! I had no chance to tell you the new plan! This is Beamabeth Marlebourne. I think she might have had the sense scared out of her -’
‘You poor little violet!’ Mistress Leap recovered her voice, and enfolded Beamabeth in a motherly embrace which seemed to rumple the mayor’s daughter even more. ‘You are beautiful – every bit as beautiful as they always said! I knew you would be, even when I delivered you!’
In Beamabeth’s cornflower-blue eyes, realization appeared amid confusion, like a butterfly reeling out of a dust-cloud.
‘You are… the midwife lady? The one that sent me the letter?’
‘Yes! Oh, you read it! Then you know… it must have been a shock, of course, but I am sure you always knew you were special. Ah, how I wish I could introduce you to your real parents, but they passed away of influenza ten years ago, the poor dears…’
Mosca had snatched off her basket-hat and was halfway out of her Seisian regalia.
‘Mistress Leap, we got to hurry because the Locksmiths are huntin’ Miss Beamabeth! I think we shook them all off, but we got to get her disguised. And then we need your help! We need you to take us to the Committee of the Hours.’
‘But their doors will be shut!’ protested Mistress Leap. ‘The only part still open will be… oh.’
Mosca nodded grimly as she splashed water on to her face from a bowl and began rubbing the greenishness from her skin. ‘The hatch where you put in the babies born with daylight names, along with their papers. The committee members are waiting there to pull us through the chute. Then they’ll drop down money for you – and for them.’ She gave a nod towards the Grovellers.
The midwife cast an uncertain glance over Beamabeth’s figure. ‘Are you quite sure that Miss Beamabeth will fit through?’
‘The mayor’s people measured it yesterday, and took measurements from her brocade dress.’
‘Brocade – the green brocade?’ faltered Beamabeth. ‘It is just that… of late I have had some trouble with the buttons…’
Mosca hesitated for a moment. Perhaps Beamabeth’s figure was not quite as slight and delicate as she had thought. ‘Well, you might have to wriggle a bit,’ she admitted. ‘But with us pushing, and the other side pulling like fury, we will wrench you through somehow. Now, Mistress Leap, can you give Miss Beamabeth some clothes that make her look less like a princess?’
The Locksmiths made a thorough search of the rooms upstairs, then came back to the cooper’s shop. The ex-soldier had put up a decent fight when the Locksmiths burst in, and that had been his worst and last mistake. The cooper still sat stiff-shouldered on his barrel, having worked out that clenching his eyes shut and saying nothing was his best chance of survival.
‘No sign of the Marlebourne girl.’
‘Keep searching for the ransom – and check the kitchen for radishes. Any of the kidnappers alive up there?’
There were a few heartbeats’ silence.
‘You wanted ’em alive?’
A long, drawn-out sigh, then the sound of gloved fingers irritably scratching at stubble.
‘We were told to hush them – but after they told us where to find the ransom, not before. Do you want to explain that to Mr Goshawk?’
The population of Toll-by-Night was just starting to emerge on to the streets when a dowdy threesome set out for the Committee of the Hours. There were many nods for Mistress Leap, and nobody paid any attention to the two girls who followed behind her, the eldest clutching a baby-shaped bundle to her chest, the younger carrying a large box. Many nightfolk were accustomed to seeing the midwife taking a baby to the Hours, so nobody was particularly surprised. Some even jokingly asked the baby to remember them with a groat or two when it became a rich daylighter.
Right now, however, the older girl looked as cowed and fearful as Mosca could possibly have wished on her bitterest day. Each glance shook her like a cowslip in the breeze. She had every reason to be afraid. Mosca had, with some glee, helped smear grime over Beamabeth’s perfect nose and chin, and the golden ringlets had been damped down and tucked under a stained cloth bonnet, but there was still a risk that somebody would notice the fineness of her hands or the lack of Toll-by-Night pallor and ask her to lower her baby so that they could see her badge.
Perhaps a greater danger was the restless stirring which Mosca could feel inside the box she carried. To judge by the soft hisses within, the contents were a few short minutes from an explosion of goosely impatience.
‘Oh, thank the Beloved – here we are!’
Mistress Leap had led them to a small building not far from the Clock Tower. Set in the wall was a square wooden door a foot and a half wide. Mistress Leap took a key from her pocket, unlocked the door and opened it. Beyond was a tiny cavity like the inside of an oven, but with a shaft leading upward.
‘Usually they lower a bucket for the baby and its paperwork,’ whispered Mistress Leap. She leaned forward. ‘Hello?’ she called tentatively. ‘This is Leveretia Leap!’
A bubble of eager conversation floated down the chute. ‘Do you have Miss Marlebourne there?’ came the whisper.
‘Yes! Are you ready for her?’
‘Ready!’
The threesome glanced about to make sure the street was clear, then Beamabeth handed over the bundle of dishcloths that had served as her baby. With obvious trepidation she stooped and peered up the chute. Hands reached down towards her and took hold of her forearms.
‘Pull!’
Beamabeth gave a faint squeak and started to disappear up into the chute, hauled by the hands above. Her torso vanished, then her hips, until there was nothing visible but her feet and petticoats, kicking and scrabbling at the sides of the chute. There were indecorous sounds of scuffling and whimpers of discomfort.
‘Too many candied violets,’ Mosca muttered heartlessly, once Beamabeth’s feet and skirts had vanished. After a short pause a bucket was lowered, containing six pouches.
‘Money,’ explained Mosca urgently as she pushed the pouches into Mistress Leap’s hands and loaded Saracen’s box into the bucket. ‘Three for those men in your house – but the rest’s all yours.’ Mistress Leap seemed overwhelmed, and Mosca thought she might be fighting back tears as she hid the money in her apron. ‘And if I was you, mistress, I’d take it home right now, and pack up, and get out of Toll tonight. Before the Locksmiths can work out you had any part in all of this.’
‘Believe me, my dear, I mean to be out within the hour.’ As Saracen’s box was hauled up the chute, the midwife cupped Mosca’s face in her worn hands and gave her a gentle peck on the forehead. ‘Good luck!’
‘See you under the sun.’
They exchanged a last smile before the midwife hurried off and disappeared into the alleyways.
‘This is Mosca Mye!’ she hissed up the chute. ‘You ready to pull me up?’
‘Hey!’ The call came from across the square, from a group of three men who had just turned a corner. Three men in gloves. Three men who had just noticed a young girl leaning into a chute for which she should not have had the key.
‘Pull me up!’ shrieked Mosca, ducking and manoeuvring her head and shoulders into the chute as Beamabeth had done. ‘Quick, or I’m done for!’ She could see a square of light above, with heads and shoulders silhouetted against it. Hands came down and grabbed her reaching arms, and she was rudely dragged upwards.