Twilight Robbery (57 page)

‘Mye, do you ever think of the future?’

‘Do I get to have a future?’

Once again, her sidelong observation showed her a slight dimpling in his pocked cheeks, like fingerprints pushed into lumpy dough. It was that rare and unnerving phenomenon, the Goshawk smile.

‘Are you still in fellowship with Eponymous Clent, the Stationer spy? I suppose he is a useful enough model for a starting apprenticeship . . . but sooner or later you will need to make some decisions. About your future. Your loyalties.’

Mosca steadied herself against the wooden forehead of Goodlady Syropia, and felt a prickle as ice crystals melted against the skin of her palms.

‘I . . . I think Mr Clent can still teach me a lot of things right now, Mr Goshawk.’

‘Very well. Someone will come and speak to you on your next nameday to see if you have had any more chance to consider. In the meanwhile, remember that I am still looking out for that missing ransom jewel . . .’

Sir Feldroll’s encampment had become the hub for a sprawling temporary camp of the refugees from Toll. As Mosca returned to it, she found that many were already hoisting their goods on to their backs again and setting off for the cities to the east. In the distance Mosca could see the Raspberry, blinking bemused at the bookless wilderness. Further down the road were the nightlings Blethemy and Blight, the former carrying a babe that looked a lot like the Gobbet. Evidently there had been a family reunion.

Clent, with his usual shamelessness, had managed to find space for himself and his secretary in one of the campaign tents, as temporary diplomatic attachés to Sir Feldroll, and it was here that she found him quietly scrawling some notes in his black book under the heading ‘Toll’.

‘Kidnaps,’ it read, ‘bone horse – FIRE – no more town.’

‘Ah, Mosca.’ Clent glanced up at her and passed her a letter that lay beside him. ‘Another consequence of your ingenious double-dealing, I believe.’

‘That dozy footman Gravelip!’ exclaimed Mosca. ‘I
was
right! He and the rest of the mayor’s men
did
let the Romantic Facilitator slip out the net! Blunderin’ in, all red-eyed and an hour late.’

‘Do not curse them too wildly – I daresay their young mistress probably gave them a tot or two of rum to share the night before, enough to ensure their failure to rise early.’ Clent sighed. ‘Ah well, it would seem that we can now add the Guild of Pawnbrokers to the list of people who would be lethally upset with us if they ever found out precisely what we had done.’

Mosca thought he was probably right. She had seen the Pawnbrokers ‘revoking rights’ during the auction, and she still had a vivid memory of watching the ‘revoked’ individual plummeting down a mineshaft.

‘Fortunately,’ continued Clent, ‘I believe if we vacate the scene nimbly enough, most of the blame will land upon the odious Skellow and the Marlebourne creature. I suppose you know that she and her adoptive father have vanished?’

Mosca nodded. The Marlebournes had emerged from the eastern gate with the general exodus, Beamabeth veiled in a vain attempt to avoid the new scorn with which she was widely regarded.

‘I still feel . . . Mosca narrowed her eyes. ‘I feel like she got away with it.’

‘Would you have her birched in the public square? Baited by dogs perhaps? Madam, we have destroyed her
good name
, and she will find the world a much colder and darker place as a result. Even now her father is probably changing her name to Buzzletrice.

‘And you may comfort yourself with the thought that you have been the caltrop under her satin shoe every step of the way. You misdirected the Romantic Facilitator she had hired, you turned up in her own house and reported her plans to her father and when she was on the brink of snatching the ransom you careered in from stage left dressed as a pantomime horse and threw everything into disorder. And then, just when she was probably working her way towards claiming a second ransom, you
rescued
her.’

This did indeed make Mosca feel a good deal better.
After all
, she reflected,
I got an idea what happened to that radish of hers
.

‘I wonder what did happen to the first ransom?’ Clent reflected wistfully. Evidently his own thoughts had strayed in a similar direction.

‘No idea, Mr Clent,’ Mosca declared, her eyes two spoonfuls of black innocence.

‘Alack. Well, child, at least I have good news. I chanced upon a member of the Guild of Stationers, and after only a little scuffing of the truth made it plain to him that we had nobly and ingeniously prevented a town falling into the hands of the Locksmiths, for the sake of the Stationers. Once again, madam, our star seems to be in the ascendant, our colours climbing the pole. In short, it seems I shall have buyers for my poems . . . and we might not need to live on rocks and grass this winter.’

He glanced across at Saracen, who was happily tugging at the grass with his beak, his neck a muscular loop, the grass giving with a deep, meaty ripping sound.

‘Though one of our number seems to favour that diet. I can understand the grass . . . but why
does
that perilous creature of yours eat pebbles?’

‘Cos he’s only got teeth for biting, not chewing,’ answered Mosca, not quite meeting Clent’s eye. ‘He swallows little rocks and they sit in his crop and roll around each other, grindin’ his food up like little grindstones.’ She gave Clent a brief needle-sharp glance, but his interest seemed to be idle. She decided to change the subject completely.

‘Mr Clent? I . . . I just had a word with Mr Goshawk.’

Clent looked up sharply. ‘Well, you appear to be still breathing, though your countenance is not reassuring. What did Mr Goshawk have to say?’

‘He . . . He didn’t quite offer me a job, and I didn’t quite say no.’

‘I see. Well, I suppose there is only so long one can make a hobby of deciding the fates of cities before it attracts attention. Did he quite manage to say whether the morn will find our battered bodies in the river’s embrace?’

‘I told him you still had a lot to teach me, an’ he said he’d send somebody to ask me again on my next nameday.’ Mosca gave a grimace. ‘Borrowed time, that’s all.’

‘I generally find,’ Clent murmured after a pause, ‘that it is best to treat borrowed time the same way as borrowed money. Spend it with panache, and try to be somewhere else when it runs out.’

‘And when we get found, Mr Clent, when the creditors and bailiffs come after us and it’s payment time . . .’

‘. . . then we borrow more, madam, at higher interest. We embark on a wilder gamble, make a bigger promise, tell a braver story, devise a more intricate lie, sell the hides of imaginary dragons to desperate men, climb to ever higher and more precarious ground . . . and later, of course, our fall and catastrophe will be all the worse, but that
later
is our watchword, Mosca. We have nothing else – but we can at least make later later.’

Saracen showed no distress at being scooped up with every sign of haste. His world was one of disaster and near-disaster, and he was used to sudden exits, often accompanied by screams, pursuit and the smell of smoke. Another day, another exodus. He met the future with tiny, black and fearless eyes, his bully brow full of goosely daring and a crown jewel of the realm in his crop.

I would like to thank Martin for accompanying me on impulsive expeditions to Ludlow and the other walled towns and castles that inspired Toll; Ruth Alltimes and Nancy Miles for unending patience and positivity; Rhiannon, Ralph and Deirdre for an invaluable stream of feedback; Felix for providing a much-needed extra perspective; ‘A history of the auction by Brian Learmount; Mike Parker for expert advice on musical history and high-speed harp management; Muncaster Castle and other stately homes for legends of the ‘Luck’; Rachel for a vet’s perspective on the workings of a goose’s crop; and Tracy for telling me of Tongs who used Chinese carnival dragons to collect protection money hidden in cabbages, thus giving me the idea of the Clatterhorse.

Praise for
Fly By Night:

‘I wish I’d written it, but even better, I know I couldn’t have’ Meg Rosoff

‘Hardinge is a hugely talented writer of tireless invention and vivid prose’
Guardian

‘Frances Hardinge’s phenomenally inventive
Fly By Night
is remarkable and captivating, masterfully written and . . . Full of marvels’
Sunday Times

‘Mosca is, rather like Philip Pullman’s Lyra, a fierce black-eyed street survivor . . .
Fly By Night
is like delving into a box of sweets with a huge array of flavours’
TES

‘
Fly By Night
is a wonderful and wondrous novel . . . Frances Hardinge has joined the company of writers whose books I will always seek out and read’ Garth Nix

First published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books

This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com