Fly by Night (14 page)

‘
Fifth
,
nor shall he peach on her neither, nor handle her things
.’

‘
Sixth
,
she shall not hoard information from his attention
,
but shall be diligent in keeping him informed
.’

‘
Seventh
,
he will keep her wise about stuff what concerns them
,
and persons what they are working for
.’

‘All right, that will do, sign at the bottom.’ Clent added his signature to hers.

‘So –’ Mosca watched as Clent rolled the paper once more and slid it into his top pocket – ‘why we workin’ for the Stationers, then?’

‘This evening you shall sup full on answers, but in the meantime we both have work to do. I must write the ballad I promised to that cut-throat of the road, and you . . . well, my
last
secretary, for all his faults, always took the greatest care that my boots were kept clean – I believe that there are some rags beside the ewer. Furthermore, the sorry state of my coat currently reflects badly upon your diligence. And . . . for goodness sake, before we go out, do something about your eyebrows.’

Clent retreated to the little closet, and Mosca pulled a bit of charred wood out of the fire and, using her reflection in the window, carefully drew herself new eyebrows with the charcoal tip.

The rest of the day Mosca spent removing gorse spines and travel dust from Clent’s cloak, darning the seams, and cleaning his boots. From time to time Clent himself would explode from his closet, gripped by fits of poetic rage.

‘St Bibbet lend us light! Why must the man have a name so unsuited to verse? I have already used “lithe”, and unless I use “writhe” I shall be forced into repetition.’ He would smooth his hair as if combing his thoughts, then return to the closet.

A little after supper he finally emerged, scanning a scribbled paper like a mother looking for signs of sickness in a newborn baby.

‘It must do, it must do.’ He glanced at Mosca’s new, coal-black eyebrows, and gave a thin, despairing ‘hhssst’ through his teeth. He donned his coat, picking and preening over it with hands that trembled. ‘And thus,’ he murmured in apprehensive tones, ‘must we brave the gaze of Mabwick Toke.’

‘Who’s he then?’

‘Mabwick Toke is the head of the Stationers’ chapter in Mandelion. He can quote the whole of Pessimese’s “Endeavours”, from Amblebirth to Aftermath, in the original Acrylic. He can speak twenty languages, half of them living, including two from the Aragash Heights, and one that can only be spoken with a coin under the tongue. When he travels, his carriage is lined with shelves so snug with books that the very breeze must squeeze for entry. He once uncovered a league of subversives by identifying a single silken thread in the paper weave of an opera ticket. If wits were pins, the man would be a veritable hedgehog.’

‘If he’s so sharp, what do they need
you
for?’

‘Because there are delicate matters afoot, and they require a Special Operative who is not too obviously linked to the Stationers. I am an Unknown Quantity, and may pass through Mandelion Like A Ghost.’

To Mosca’s mind, Clent did not look as if he had haunted anything but a pantry, but she managed not to say so.

‘When do we go see Mr Toke the hedgehog, then?’

‘Now. Put on your bonnet and follow me.’

Mosca snatched up her bonnet, slipped her outdoor clogs over her leather indoor shoes, and clattered after Clent.

Out in the street, Mosca’s sharp eyes were dazzled by a hundred sights. The sound of hoofs on cobbles was deafening, and Mosca started as a horse’s head appeared directly in front of her, blowing through its nose with a sound like a broken bellows.

‘My good fellow, where might I find the
Telling Word
?’

A tinker paused in response to Clent’s cry and stared skywards, as if judging the position of the sun.

‘The
Telling Word
? You’ll find her on Morestraws, just outside the Papermill.’

Clent strode across the cobbles, paying little attention to his secretary, who followed him at a hop, still fastening the buckle of one clog as she struggled to keep up with him.

At last he halted outside a large building with a mighty mill wheel which jolted Mosca with the memory of Chough. From within came a vigorous
whoomp! whoomp! whoomp!
as if many pairs of giants were playing battledore at once. Several men, stripped to their shirts, were hurrying to and fro with barrows, some full of white rags, others full of coloured rags, rope ends and scraps of sailcloth. This was clearly the Papermill, and the rags were destined to be shredded and pulped and thumped into paper.

Peering through the open window of an adjoining building, Mosca saw two rows of women sorting scraps of cloth with quick, practised fingers, cutting them into pieces and slicing off buttons. Fascinated, she scampered to the next window.

And here, criss-crossed by the diamond-pane light from the window, was a Stationer printing press, its square-shouldered wooden frame standing up straight like a gutted dresser. A large man in his shirtsleeves lowered paper gripped in a hinged frame on to a blackened tray of type, then pushed the tray on rollers into the heart of the press. A mighty heave on a lever, and the machine stressed and pressed the paper down on to the type. Mosca could almost feel the flexing of the metal, forcing words into the world. The lever was raised, the tray dragged out, the frame lifted and the printed page tweaked free. A second man dipped the ends of what looked like fat drumsticks into a pot of ink, and slathered the mix over the type again, in readiness for the next page. The two men glistened with heat and effort. The press glistened with lamp-black and varnish. On the other side of the room an elderly, fox-faced man scanned each page carefully. In one hand he held a stick of wax, which he softened in a candle before drawing a molten splotch in each page corner and stamping it, using a ring with the Stationers’ seal.

Mosca nearly broke her neck turning her head upside down to read the drying sheets. They were posters in big, crumbly-looking capitals, advertising ‘Clashes between the Heraldry Beasts of the Many Monarchs’, to be held at the Grey Mastiff Inn.

Clent, meanwhile, had approached a smaller building across the road, flanking the river. It was unlike anything Mosca had ever seen before.

She knew it was a coffeehouse, for the sign above the door bore the image of an elegant Eastern coffee-pot. Even with her limited knowledge of the world, Mosca had heard of the coffeehouses of the big cities. Many men chose them as a place in which to relax, or cut deals, or talk of high matters with the like-minded. Each coffeehouse had its own character, and usually its own loyal band of customers, close knit as any club.

The walls of this coffeehouse, however, were almost completely hidden under a jostling patchwork of sunbleached, slantwise posters and printed snippets. Along the guttering, newspaper cuttings fluttered loosely like scarecrow rags. Each page bore the red blot of the Stationers’ seal, so that the coffeehouse seemed to be suffering from a slight case of measles.

‘Eponymous Clent, poet,’ Clent declared airily, brandishing his scrawled poetry at a quiver-cheeked man at the door. ‘Here to speak with Mabwick Toke.’ The door swung back, and Mosca followed Clent into the
Telling Word
.

They entered a large square room filled with tables that bore a startling resemblance to writing desks, complete with ink splashes and glass quill stands. Several customers, indeed, had their own writing boxes open before them, quills and steel pens nestling on the green felt lining. Coffee fumes mixed with the metallic scent of ink, and instead of brisk tavern chatter there was the deadened murmur of voices hushed through habit.

Mosca’s eyes were helplessly drawn to the sheaves of words pinned here and there on the walls, and the advertisements behind glass. Words, words, words. This was her gingerbread cottage. The smell of ink, however, seemed to be dizzying her. From time to time she could swear that the floor was gently dipping and rising.

Mosca and Clent were led to an unsmiling little man of fifty with a gnawed, yellow look like an apple core. The little man’s mouth was a small, bitter V-shape, and seemed designed to say small, bitter things. His wig frightened Mosca; it was so lustrous and long, so glossy and brown, one could think it had sucked the life out of the little man whom it seemed to wear.

‘Ah . . . Master Printer Mabwick Toke? Ah, I am honoured to meet a man so celebrated among the Stationers—’

‘What I would like to know, Mr Eponymous Clent, is why you have chosen to meet me at all,’ Toke interrupted sharply. ‘We have agents of our own in Mandelion. Our whole reason for bringing you here was our wish to use someone who was not obviously connected to us.’

‘Assuredly, assuredly.’ Clent spread his plump hands reassuringly. ‘However, as a poetic practitioner it would be strange if I did not approach the Stationers about publishing my works. On this occasion –’ he passed his scroll of paper across the table – ‘I have taken the precaution of preparing an excuse for my visit.’

Mabwick Toke ran a quick eye over the ballad, droning the words to himself in his throat. Absent-mindedly, he caught up a quill to jot and correct, occasionally licking at the nib to wet it. This was clearly a habit of his, since the tip of his tongue had become as black as that of a parrot.
He drinks ink
, thought Mosca, looking at his black tongue.
He eats nothing but paper
, she added to herself, noting his dry, pale lips and the crumpled-looking skin of his face and hands.

‘Fair. A little florid, but it will sell. Your invalid lady is not named, but that is no great matter. You paint your highwayman in colours too bright for his craft perhaps. It lacks moral instruction. Could you add another verse to say that he has gone to the gallows, but that he repented his wickedness at the eleventh hour?’

‘With respect, my good sir, I hardly think so. The fellow still lives . . .’

‘Too bad. Well, I suppose we must print the ballad as it stands until this man Blythe has been caught and hanged.’ Toke rolled the ballad carefully, and laid it inside his mahogany writing box.

‘Good sir –’ Clent cleared his throat – ‘the truth is, without this man Blythe we would never have reached Mandelion so soon or so safely. It has been the only stroke of good fortune in a journey otherwise blighted by calamity. To relate the details would be to tell a tale of hazard, indignity, betrayal and misfortune . . . for which, ah, you are clearly too busy. Suffice to say that since leaving Long Pursing I believe that I have been followed. In Webwyke I heard that a well-spoken man had been asking for me by name, and in Lampgibbet he enquired after me by description. I tried to shake him off by taking the narrow roads, and took lodgings in a dismal hovel-stack called Chough, but I fancy he found me out even there. Some gentleman arrived there unexpectedly, I know that much, and spent hours talking with the magistrate. That very afternoon I was dragged from my tea table by a howling mob and clamped into the stocks. If I had not proved ingenious, I think his slanders might have seen me hanged. Master Toke, someone meant to prevent me reaching Mandelion.’

A gentleman arrived unexpectedly
. . . Mosca suddenly remembered the conversation she had heard from the dovecote, between the magistrate and the man with the voice like warm milk. But she was already biting her tongue to stay mum and secretary-like, and she wasn’t sure she could capture her tongue again if she stopped holding it.

‘Mr Clent, were the seals on the letters I sent you intact?’

‘Letters? Good sir, I received only one letter, calling me to Mandelion and recommending secrecy.’

‘Two letters were sent. The second, which gave further details, has clearly been intercepted. I would assume therefore that
someone
knows all too well why you are here – and that you yourself have not the slightest idea.’

Clent ruefully inclined his head.

‘Very well, the reason for summoning you is this. There is an illegal printing press in Mandelion.’

A silence fell across the room, as if everybody there had expected his words but had hushed out of respect for the gravity of the announcement. One or two of the eavesdropping Stationers clutched reflexively at little Beloved talismans on chatelaines for reassurance. Clent raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips in a silent whistle, as if he had been told that Mandelion sat on a layer of gunpowder. Only the child of Chough thought that a printing press did not seem half so exciting after meeting a real live highwayman.

‘Caveat! The printed villainy!’ The quiver-cheeked young man approached with a step as rapid as a stutter, carrying a mahogany box as if he thought it contained live vipers.

‘Mandelion has been flooded with pamphlets.’ Toke unlocked the box to reveal a small square of brownish printed paper which seemed to have been torn from some larger sheet. Using a pair of tongs, Toke lifted the fragment and extended it towards Clent, whose eyebrows climbed as he read.

‘Madness, and mischief, and menaces of murder,’ Clent muttered under his breath. ‘Radicals, I assume.’

Mosca had heard a little about radicals from chapbooks about the trials of traitors. She had a fuzzy idea that most radicals shouted a lot, and threw grenadoes at anybody rich or powerful, and tried to stir people with hoes into charging at people with muskets. All the would-be kings agreed that they were mad and dangerous, and radicals could be prosecuted for treason in any part of the Realm.