Fly by Night (25 page)

Re-entering the main room of the inn, Mosca was almost deafened by a tide of patriotic shouting, interrupted by occasional outraged hooting. She elbowed her way to the door, Clent’s handkerchief in her hand. Out in the street, feeling rather foolish, she let the kerchief fall to the cobbles, where a reveller immediately trod it into a puddle. Trying hard not to look around her for Stationer spies, she pushed her way back into the tavern and towards the pit.

Meanwhile the shouting in the room seemed to have become even louder. A man standing on the wooden stairway to the gallery was trying to make his voice heard above the racket.

‘. . . triumphant. The Weeping Owl of King Cinnamon is triumphant. Make good your bets, gentlemen.’ The shouting dwindled to a murmur, part grumble and part satisfaction, and coins clinked as they passed from palm to palm. ‘And now . . .’ The speaker reached into a leather pouch, which rattled as he drew out two ceramic tiles, each shaped like a heraldry shield. ‘Now we shall all witness the Struggle of two Titans of the Royal Blood, King Hazard of the line of Wilkfester, and King Galbrash the Dauntless. Gentlemen, in a moment we shall present to you the clash between . . . the Grouse Rampant of King Hazard, and the Grey Wolf of King Galbrash!’

The floor of the pit was some four feet below the level of the floorboards, and was scattered with earth, trampled feathers and spilt ale. While offers of bets were being bellowed all around, a wicker basket and a large sack were lowered down into the pit. The sack, Mosca noticed, was undeniably rather bigger than the basket.

Two boys with long poles reached down into the pit, one to overturn the basket, the other to prod at the sack. Something fluttered out of the basket.

Mosca’s view was partly blocked by a fat man’s elbow, but she got the impression that the something was dappled brown and not very large.

The sack was trying to stand. It found it could not and rolled around feverishly for a moment. Then a long nose poked searchingly through the neck of the sack, muzzle pulled back from the pointed teeth by the tightness of the gap. The rope at the sack’s neck was loose and after a moment a narrow, grey head pushed through, to be followed by powerful shoulders and starveling flanks. The animal was shaking the sack off its haunches when it noticed its opponent.

Mosca did not see exactly what happened next, but she saw enough. A grey shape streaked across the pit, and then there was a sad little explosion of feathers.

‘That was a wolf,’ she whispered drily. ‘A
real
wolf . . .’

‘The Grey Wolf of King Galbrash is victorious!’ shouted the announcer on the steps. ‘But let’s drink a toast to the gents who brought us yet another fine grouse – don’t worry sirs, maybe some day you’ll find one that can rip the giblets from a wolf!’

Applause mixed with shrieks of laughter accompanied the departure of two disappointed-looking men in barbers smocks.

‘Now . . .’ The announcer reached into his pouch and drew out a new tile. ‘The next Spectacular Battle will take place between the Star-crested Eagle of King Prael and . . .’ He rattled back into the pouch again.

Please
,
not a wolf
, thought Mosca.
Please
,
not a tiger or a lion
.

‘. . . and . . . the Smiling Civet of Queen Capillarie.’

Mosca had no idea what a civet was.

On one side of the pit a crate had been lowered. Mosca thought she heard Saracen’s characteristic chuckling sounds from within. On the other side, a sack slowly descended. It sagged shapelessly, and it was hard to tell the size of the animal inside. Not very much larger than a cat, Mosca thought and hoped.

‘Two shillings on the Civet!’ shouted the fat man next to Mosca.

‘Ten shillings on the Civet!’ someone else called out.

Not many people seemed keen to bet on the Star-crested Eagle. Mosca had a clammy feeling that they knew more about civets than she did.

The neck of the sack was prodded open, and an ugly smell seeped into the air. For a moment a set of dull, grey claws appeared through the sackcloth, and then from the darkness inside the sack two eyes glimmered like mother-of-pearl. Then part of a face pushed at the opening, a tapering face mottled in greys like a decaying mushroom.

The lid of the crate was knocked aside with a long-handled pole, and Saracen’s head appeared above the rim. His star had slid downwards, so that he now appeared to have a black ribbon bow decorating his forehead and a yellow spiky beard adorning what could loosely be called his chin. The crate rocked on its base as Saracen exploded from it in a lather of white wings.

Saracen was obviously annoyed. Something was tickling his neck, and someone had put him in a crate, and somehow he had fallen into the earth, and now the heavens were bellowing at him and spattering him with ale foam. And there was only one creature in front of him that might be responsible, a creature deftly wriggling from a sack. A brindled animal with a ridge down its back and fur in wet-weather colours. A beast with eyes full of night, and a reek like a rotting forest.

To the delight of the audience, Saracen lowered his head, holding his neck level to the ground, and hissed. There was a cheer from some followers of King Prael.

The civet lifted one paw, as if to wash it like an embarrassed cat, then a thrown muttonbone hit it behind the scruff, and it flattened its ears. It began edging sideways, its head turned to one side. Mosca had seen cats turn their heads that way when angling for a bite.

Beak agape, Saracen made a rapid run at the civet, his neck extended like a knight’s lance. At the last moment the civet twisted like a flag in a gust and sprang sideways, landing with its speckled paws spread. It darted forward to bat softly at Saracen, then backed away at a crouch.

The attack looked clumsy and gentle, like a child touching another in a game of tag; but as Saracen steadied himself Mosca saw a red spot the size of a farthing bloom above his shoulder. It had been a long time since she had seen Saracen hurt by anything.

Mosca struggled her way through the yelling crowd to the wooden stairway. She had to tug the tavern spokesman by the sleeve several times before he noticed her.

‘Hello, miss – you want to stand on the steps to see better? All right, but only the second step . . .’

‘No, I . . . that’s my goose down there. I want my goose back.’

‘Well, now, can’t go interrupting mid-fight, can we?’

‘I can give you another sixpence . . .’

‘Can’t be done. Now look, I have to . . . ’ere, Carmine, come and take care of this, will you?’ A youth stopped sweeping sawdust and pigeon bones across the floor and hurried over, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘This young lady’s getting a bit excitable – take her back to the trainers’ rooms and let her out when the fight’s done, all right?’

Carmine already had one firm hand on Mosca’s shoulder, and Mosca already had one foot drawn back to kick him in the shins, when the two of them bothered to look each other in the face. They froze as they recognized each other. Carmine was none other than the clothier’s apprentice who had knocked Mosca over in the street, four days before. Clearly he had an evening job.

Mosca took a step in the direction of the pit, which turned into four steps away from the pit as Carmine dragged her into a clear space.

‘What are you doing here? More spying?’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking ’bout. You’re daft, you are, moths ate your wits instead of your waistcoat.’

‘
I
saw you, snooping round after Mr Pertellis. And now he’s gone missing. You can’t hear it, but the whisper’s out about you. We’ll spot you wherever you go in this city.’

Mosca’s face went hot. She felt scared and confused, and she decided to be angry. Anger was easiest. She was just trying to shape words around her anger when the tavern door swung open again and two Stationers shouldered their way in, flanking a constable in a black-and-green tunic embroidered with the heraldry of the Twin Queens.

Carmine turned his head to follow Mosca’s gaze, and his grip tightened on her arm. When his head snapped back to look at her, his face was pale with terror and seemed in an instant to have become painfully young.

‘You ’peached on me,’ he whispered. He sounded startled and almost hurt. ‘You really did – you ’peached on Mr Pertellis, and now you’ve led ’em to me, so they can take me away and put out my eyes . . .’ He turned and plunged into the crowd.

A jubilant cry from the spectators roused Mosca from her stupor. To judge by the uproar, Saracen and his opponent were providing the best fight of the evening. People were standing on chairs and tables to get a view of the pit. There were enough people clustered tip-a-toe on the gallery steps now so that the announcer did not notice Mosca as she squirmed her way in among them. She was therefore in an excellent position to see everything that happened next.

She saw Saracen turning with his wings spread, terrible as storm clouds. She saw the civet with eyes full of firelight, sputtering white feathers. She saw a great number of jostling heads obscuring the pit.

She saw another couple of men in the Duke’s distinctive black-and-green livery push their way through the door, then another three. Mosca was not well versed in city ways, but it did seem to her that arresting one radical or even two could hardly require so many guards. However desperate they might be, they could scarcely cause
that
much trouble . . .

A moment later she looked across to a darkened corner of the tavern, and saw Carmine releasing the wolf.

Finding its cage door suddenly open, the wolf was quite willing to skulk along the wall without drawing attention to itself, while still trying to look as much like an oversized dog as possible. However, one portly man in Apothecaries’ livery felt fur brush his hand, glared down irritably, and then shrieked like a boiling kettle.

Until now, the crowd had been divided between those shouting for the goose and those shouting for the civet. Now it was divided between those who were still enjoying a fine and ribald night out, and those who had noticed that a large and hungry wolf was wandering through their midst. In spite of the wolf’s tactful retreat, however, it could not be long before everyone became aware of the situation. Chairs were overturned; at least one pistol was brandished but, thankfully, not discharged. Suddenly the crowd was divided between those who had decided it was better to jump into the pit with the goose than stay on the level with the wolf, and those who had a ring-side opportunity to see exactly how bad a decision this had been.

The Duke’s men completely ignored this havoc. They also showed no interest in Carmine, who, in a tearful frenzy of panic, was untethering hawks, tipping badgers out of crates, loosing owls, and upending a jar to release something that looked very much like a red-painted newt. Instead, the Duke’s men progressed resolutely towards the door to the trainers’ rooms.

Barely a minute after the door had closed behind them, it opened again, and Goshawk walked out through it. His stride spoke of calm haste, but his pale eyes were opalescent with rage. As he reached the street door he made a small, impatient gesture as if dusting something from his cuff, then he slid a set of manacles from his wrists and hung them over the side of an unattended tankard. He vanished out into the street – without, Mosca noticed, bothering to retrieve his cane and hat.

Two of the Duke’s men burst out through the back door and stood on tiptoe, scanning the crowd with expressions of alarm and annoyance. As Mosca watched, two more of them re-emerged, each gripping one of Hopewood Pertellis’s elbows. His tricorn and his spectacles were missing. There was a bloodied slit in the corner of his lip. Something plummeted in Mosca’s stomach, and the taste of her cider thickened and sickened on her tongue.

Behind this trio followed the rest of the Duke’s men, frog-marching a group of startled-looking middle-aged men who all wore elaborate chatelaines at their belts, calfskin gloves, and keys on chains round their necks.

‘Mosca.’ Somehow Clent had appeared beside the gallery steps. ‘Much as I hate to drag you away from these entertainments, I find that they start to pall.’ His plump face was glistening with perspiration.

It was a lot easier to approach the pit now, because no one seemed quite so keen to cluster around it any longer. The civet’s owner was leaning over the edge of the pit, while a friend held on to the back of his breeches, and making ‘Here, puss’ tweeting sounds to lure it out from behind Saracen’s crate. Fortunately, it seemed that someone had tried to throw a chair at Saracen at one point, which made it an easy matter for the goose to clamber up on it, and then beat his way through the air to Mosca’s waiting arms.

‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen!’ The announcer could be heard shouting, his voice ragged as Mosca and Clent pushed their way to the street door. ‘Contain yourselves, please, gentlemen, no pistols! The fight is called to a halt, but I am glad to announce that the Star-crested Eagle of King Prael has shown the greatest valour, and is the victorious . . .’ The door closed behind them before he could finish his sentence.

If Mosca’s mind had had room for anything but Saracen’s safety, it might have occurred to her that something must be badly wrong if Clent was not claiming the five shillings for his victory. She might have thought it strange that Clent was leading them away through the night streets alone without looking for a linkboy to light them. And if she had looked up from Saracen’s tiny cuts to observe Clent’s face, white and haggard in the moonlight, she would have realized that the night was only just beginning.