Fly by Night

by Frances Hardinge

  ‘Beautiful Tammy!’

  Resplendent in an emerald-green dressing gown, the Duke strode forward to take his sister’s hands in greeting. Like many of his line, Vocado Avourlace was a handsome man. When he had first arrived back to reclaim his family’s ancient rule over Mandelion, he had seemed the very picture of the hero come to usher in brighter times.

  At first only Tamarind had noticed the awkward, disquieting way his expressions changed, as if a puppeteer were pulling wires to move his face muscles, and doing it rather badly. Nowadays she saw the fear in everybody’s eyes. Her brother was going out of tune like an old piano, and nobody would come to retune his strings. Dukes and kings may go mad at their leisure, for nobody has enough power to stop them.

  ‘Come and sit down, I have wonderful news.’

  Tamarind seated herself.

  ‘Your good news, Vocado,’ she prompted him gently, with the same quiet, level tone she used for her pet crocodile. The Duke’s eyes were large and brown, but dull and lifeless. He blinked, and for a moment they became very bright, like pebbles licked over by a wave. After a second they dulled again, as if drying in the sun.

  ‘I thought I would never hear from Them again, after . . .’ A small palsy passed across the Duke’s face. He never spoke directly of his broken engagement to Queen Peri. ‘But They have forgiven me.’ Reverently, he drew out two identical letters with matching seals, and placed them on his lap. ‘Their Majesties . . .’ There was a world of awe, ache and longing in the whispered words.

  ‘That is wonderful, Vocado.’

  ‘You never believed They would forgive me, Tamarind,’ he added sharply.

  ‘Of course I did.’ Tamarind softly stood and moved around behind him so that he could not see her face. Her hands trembling slightly, she lifted his ornate, powdered wig from his head. She took an ivory comb from her hair and ran it through his brown hair, as carefully as if she was calming a dangerous beast. ‘What do the letters say?’

  ‘They say that I must find the master of the printing press that profanes their good name. And I shall. I shall make harpsichord keys out of his bones for Their Majesties to play when they come back to rule Mandelion. Little white keys for their little white fingers.’ The Duke twisted his head to look into Tamarind’s startled face. ‘I am joking, Tammy.’ He gave a sudden, disquieting smile. ‘You never seem to know when I am joking any more.’

  It was true. Even Tamarind, who had spent her life trying to govern her brother, was finding him ever harder to predict or understand.

  ‘What else do they say?’

  ‘They advise me on how to know my enemies,’ he murmured, then looked at her suspiciously over his shoulder. ‘Why are you so keen to know? You have things on your mind, Tamarind. Some day I think I will open up your head to find out what they are.’ He stared at her for a few moments, then smiled to show that he was joking. Above the smile his eyes kept staring at her.

  Tamarind’s gaze dropped to the letters on her brother’s lap. With satisfaction she noted the wax seal on each letter, the imprint of the Twin Queens’ insignia. It had cost her considerable trouble and expense to have the signet ring made secretly in the Capital, but she prayed the fruits would be worth it.

  ‘And . . . have they helped you know your enemies, Vocado?’

  ‘My mind will not settle.’ The Duke gently stroked the letters with his fingertips, as if the paper was living skin. ‘Sometimes when I have been reading these letters I look into the clouds for the face of my enemy, and I seem to see Aramai Goshawk staring back at me. But, Tamarind, what am I to do? This radical conspiracy must be crushed – I see their hand in everything – helping highwaymen escape, rousing my people to riot . . . My constables are useless. The Stationers too. Goshawk tells me that he has troops upstream who can be in Mandelion in two days if I give the word. Only the Locksmiths can help.’

  ‘That is not true.’ Tamarind circled her brother to stand before him, and dropped to her knees. ‘Goshawk is not your only choice. I can help. Off the coast a ship stands ready with troops from Jottland – awaiting word from me.’

  ‘The Watermen have sworn that they will not permit any troops to be brought along the waterways from the coasts, until the Succession is decided,’ the Duke answered dully.

  ‘You might distract them. If you gave them enough money, you might persuade them to go upstream and delay the Locksmiths’ ships and . . .’

  ‘Why do you wish to put me at odds with the Watermen, Tamarind?’ The Duke scowled, and Tamarind could sense the floor becoming quicksand beneath her feet. It was time to gamble all her gains, and she did so without a tremble.

  ‘You must listen to me, Vocado. The Locksmiths are playing you false. The Stationers have discovered the identity of the man running the radical conspiracy, the master of the villainous printing press. They have not arrested him because he is being protected. The Locksmiths are hiding him, Vocado.’

  An ugly sickle curl was developing in the corners of the Duke’s mouth. The curl appeared when he was on the brink some cruel or violent act. It had appeared on the day of the fateful badminton match.

  ‘I can prove it.’ A frightened moth was a-flutter behind Lady Tamarind’s scar. She could not read her brother, or guess whether his current anger boded ill for Aramai Goshawk or for herself. ‘Put some men at my disposal, and I will prove it to you by tomorrow night. You . . . will want time to think about this, Vocado. I will leave you.’

  She composed herself outside the door. Her scar throbbed so hard it numbed her cheek. In one instant she had staked everything – her influence over her brother, the fate of Mandelion, her own life. All now depended on the decision the Duke was about to make. Vocado Avourlace was alone with the voices that only he could hear. They murmured from twinned smiles in painting, tapestry and stained-glass window. The words that whispered from the newly arrived letters, however, spoke most clearly.

  ‘We have every faith that you will find the culprits,’ whispered the twin voices, ‘and when you do, arrest them without hesitation. The law is your lance and you may wield it as fiercely as you see fit in order to crush the evildoers . . .’

  ‘Yes . . .’ For days the Duke’s thoughts had been circling giddily like tea leaves in a cup. Now at last they were settling, and soon they would form a pattern which would spell out destiny for Mandelion and everyone in it.

  L is for Lock-pick

  To Mosca’s delight she was granted the next morning off without even having to ask.

  She left the marriage house and immediately turned her steps towards the Plumery. Perhaps there would be a chance to take her own letter back. Perhaps there would be a response from Lady Tamarind. In truth she was not sure where her hopes lay.

  Again she walked between the desolate feather lawns, again she knelt before Goodman Claspkin. She pulled up the message feather, and could instantly see the dark roll of her letter through the translucent yellow horn. She was safe, she was in time, she was bitterly disappointed. She pulled it out . . . and discovered that it was not her letter.

  ‘You have done well,’ it read. ‘Keep me informed of your employer’s doings and let me know when you have found a place in a Stationer school.’ A tiny object rolled out of the letter into Mosca’s palm. It was a seed pearl.

  With the pearl wrapped in her handkerchief and hidden deep in her skirt pocket, Mosca sleepwalked back through the streets. She would never sell the pearl. She would keep it forever. She had a piece of Lady Tamarind in her pocket.

  She was roused from her trance by the cries of the ‘chapmen’, pedlars who carried cheap books for sale. It was hard to part with the little money she had slyly won, but she could not resist the sight of a stack of chap-books, with their rough-cut pages and bright cloth covers.

  ‘You got anything ’bout what happened to the Ragged School?’ Mosca asked one chapman, who stooped to search his pack.

  ‘You want something on the Book Riots, do you? Who you buying it for?’

 
‘Me.’

  The chapman did not look as if he believed her. ‘Bit bloody for a lass – wouldn’t you like a nice ballad about Captain Blythe like the other girls?’

  ‘I don’t mind blood. I like books with gizzard and gunpowder in ’em.’

  ‘Right you are, then, here’s “A Report on the Tumultuous Disorders of the Year of the Dead Letter”.’ A yellowed, well-travelled chapbook was placed in Mosca’s hand.

  Soon Mosca was squatting on the grass of a pleasure garden and chewing her way through a penny loaf, eager to devour her new chapbook on the Book Riots.

  . . . In Mandelion the Year of the Dead Letter will be forever remembered for the so-called Book Riots, where murders and mischief were committed by a deluded mob, spurred on by the words of one Quillam Mye . . .

  Mosca felt as if someone had filled her head with gunpowder and then blown sparks into her ear.

  . . . After the fall of the Birdcatchers the Stationers decreed that all books should be hunted out and brought to them. All those that bore no Stationer seal or that smacked of Birdcatchery were piled high in the marketplace and burned while children danced around the pyres with much merriment . . .

  . . . a celebrated Stationer named Quillam Mye condemned the Book-burnings. He wrote Pamphlets commanding all free men to defend their books, and made Speeches from atop the Unlit Pyres. Inflamed and deceived by his words, a vast Mob took to the streets, offering outrage to the Duke’s men, breaking Windows without number, and bloodily striking down all who would not join them in shouting Mye’s name . . .

  . . . it is said that Quillam Mye used witchcraft to escape Mandelion before justice could befall him, so that he might spread Birdcatchery and trouble in other cities . . .

  ‘You’re all pixelated!’ Mosca gasped aloud. ‘Witchcraft my socks! If he was a witch he’d have witched us out of Chough in three winks! And as for Birdcatchery . . .’

  Her father had hated the Birdcatchers. Of course he had. Hadn’t he? It suddenly seemed to her that when talking of the Birdcatchers her father had nearly always given her facts, not opinions.

  She desperately tried to remember him ranting against the Birdcatchers the way everybody else did. Instead she recalled that once she had asked him who had started the rebellion against the Birdcatchers.

  ‘Unwise people,’ had been his only answer, though he had looked at her with unusual warmth. Unwise people. What did that mean? Her eyes dropped to the page again.

  . . . Panople Twine, Headmaster of the Ragged School, had sided with Mye, and after Mye’s disappearance the Duke in his wisdom had the walls of the Ragged School battered down. Twine’s tears fell as fast as the bricks, and he died soon after of a broken heart . . .

  ‘You broke the school,’ she whispered aloud. Somehow this was the only part of the tale that she could feel and understand. Her father had broken the school.

  But how could it be the same Quillam Mye? Mosca could not accept it. Try as she might, Mosca still could not imagine her father frothing at the head of a deluded mob. Then again, looking around at the green lawns, the marble fountains, the gentry having their likenesses painted in the Playing-card Makers’ pagodas, it was hard to imagine Mandelion the scene of shrieks and blood and discharged muskets. But clearly the city was not as calm and sane as it seemed.

  Mosca received a further hint that something was amiss when she got back to find Eponymous Clent making hats for Saracen.

  Sensibly enough, he had chosen to keep his distance while doing this. While Saracen gobbled barley from a chipped china bowl, Clent crouched by the door, watching him critically with one eye shut, like an artist judging an angle for a portrait. At arm’s length he held up a scrap of yellow damask, as if trying to judge how it would look against Saracen’s bulging brow. A few moments later he dropped the scrap, and held up a blue rag.

  ‘Mr Clent . . .’ Mosca was for a moment afraid to ask what he was doing, in case his answer revealed that he had gone mad during the day. Perhaps this was what happened when you stole berries from shrines.

  ‘Ah, you’re back. Tell me, do you think your friend Saracen would permit a ribbon or lace to be tied below his, as it were, chin?’

  ‘Probably bite your ears off,’ Mosca replied curtly. ‘What d’you want to tie ribbons on him for?’

  ‘Mosca, sit down.’ Clent’s tone was that of a kindly uncle who must break the news of the death of a beloved kitten. Mosca sat, wincing as the broadsheets in her petticoat pocket crackled loudly. ‘As you doubtless recall, we agreed that Saracen should pay his way in the service of the Stationers’ Company.’

  Mosca twisted her mouth to one side to show that she was listening and did not like what she was hearing.

  ‘Now, as you know, tonight we bless the Grey Mastiff with our custom.We are under orders to investigate the tavern, find out where the Locksmiths meet, and make sure Pertellis is there. Unfortunately, the part of the tavern containing the private rooms is barred to everyone but the staff, the Locksmiths and, ah, the trainers for the beast fights . . .’

  ‘No!’ Mosca shouted when her breath returned to her. ‘You’re not puttin’ Saracen into the beast fights! I’ll set ’im on you an’ have ’im give you extra knees where there shouldn’t be—’

  ‘Child, child!’ A kindly laugh wove through Clent’s words like a golden thread. ‘I thought we had reached some sort of understanding and were past such demonstrations. Mosca, you must, must trust me a little.’ He smoothed his hair back with the air of one who is amused but perhaps a little hurt. ‘The beast fights are not extravaganzas on the same scale as those in the Capital. Oh, I grant you that the Grey Mastiff’s posters boast of “Clashes Between All the Heraldry Beasts of the Many Monarchs” but I understand that the reality is a rather pitiful affair. Newts painted red to resemble salamanders, tabby cats standing in for tigers, calves passing for bulls.’ Clent waved the daisy-shaped rag of cloth in his hand. ‘How else could we expect to enter Saracen as King Prael’s Star-crested Eagle?’

  Mosca glanced protectively at Saracen.

  ‘Were not your village supporters of King Prael, anyway? Where is your sense of patriotism?’

  ‘I keep it hid away safe, along with my sense of trust, Mr Clent. I don’t use ’em much in case they get scratched.’

  ‘Well, what about your sense of duty to your unfortunate fowl?’ Clent changed tack without blinking. ‘Is he never to be more than he is? You may be standing in the way of Saracen’s destiny – preventing him from becoming the toast of every alehouse, the talk of every drawing room . . .’

  ‘I don’t think Saracen cares much about fame, Mr Clent. Maybe that just works on highwaymen.’

  ‘All right, then picture this.’ Clent spread his hands and smoothed the air in front of him, as if it was sand and he was preparing to draw in it. ‘A darkened alleyway, in which two hardened ruffians squat, brandishing cudgels. There is an unwary step – the pair hearken and tense for attack. A short figure appears in the alleyway. It is an old goose, its neck swinging stiffly as it waddles. The two thieves smile – there will be goose in the pot tonight. But wait! One seizes the arm of the other to halt him. “By my troth,” he whispers, “it is the goose from the Grey Mastiff! I shall never forget the time I saw him best that pine marten tricked out as Queen Drizzlesoft’s lion.” Their eyes mist over, and the cudgels hang forgotten in their hands. They let the feathered hero pass, and their minds fly back to the exploits of their forgotten soldiering days. Noble impulses of their hearts rekindle after long years, and . . .’

  Clent’s eye fell upon Mosca, and he halted abruptly.

  ‘But why do I persist, seeing that your breast is clearly dead to all sense of duty and compassion? Very well, let me put the matter plainly without frills or ornament.’ This sounded so unlikely that Mosca was intrigued despite herself. ‘If they are not stopped, the Locksmiths will take over the city. They will place an eye to every keyhole and an invisible knife to every throat. But why should that worry you?’ Clent gav
e Mosca a quick, penetrating glance. ‘Perhaps you would like to help Lady Tamarind pack?’

  ‘What?’ Mosca sat bolt upright.

  ‘It is no secret that Lady Tamarind has done her utmost to dissuade her brother from putting the Locksmiths in power. If they win, she will have no choice but to flee. Of course . . .’ Clent paused in his pacing, then sat down opposite Mosca. ‘Of course, if anyone helped Lady Tamarind by exposing the diabolical plans of the Locksmiths, she would owe them a great debt . . .’

  Mosca chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment or two, then looked up at Clent with an expression somewhere between shyness and hate.

  ‘So it’s just newts an’ things, then?’ Her tone was blunt but uncertain.

  Saracen had nudged his bowl across the floor until it chinked against the skirting board. He straightened his strong, white neck, snapped his beak at the empty air, and looked ready for anything.

  Half an hour later, he was waddling fiercely towards the city’s East Gate with a star of yellow worsted drooping over one eye and a black ribbon knotted becomingly under his chin. Mosca walked a pace or two behind him with his leash in her hand, jutting her pointed chin and ignoring all the people who laughed and called out to tell her that her dog was bewitched. Clent did not appear to hear the catcalls, but walked with a swing of his cane as if his companions were the most elegant imaginable.

  The Grey Mastiff was built up against the old city wall, and set back from the other houses. It gave the impression of lounging against the wall, like a rakish pickpocket watching passers-by. Into the wall were set great iron rings for tethering horses, and half a dozen boys dawdled, ready to rush to the side of any rider and offer to guard his horse for a penny. The stone walls of the inn were the stale colour of old cheese rind, and pitted as if a hundred mice had set their teeth in it. When Mosca got closer she realized that some of the holes were pockmarks left by old musket fire, probably from the civil war, and she noticed that most of the fortified wall was scarred in the same way.