Fly By Night

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 gave 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.

Clent had taken off his gloves, as he always did when he wanted to gesture aristocratically. As he approached the ostler at the door, he used them to flick away imaginary flies. Clent had also hooked his arm so that Mosca could rest her hand decorously in the crook of his elbow. This posed a few problems, since Mosca’s other hand was on the leash and Saracen wanted to look at the horses, but after a moment’s tug of war she managed to haul in the leash and recover her balance.

‘Good evening to you, my worthy fellow. Will you tell me how we might arrange for our Star-crested Eagle to enter the lists?’

The ostler, a hefty-looking man in a white apron, stared down at Saracen. He forgot to chew the piece of straw in the corner of his mouth.

‘For King Prael?’ The ostler chose a polite tone, perhaps impressed by Clent’s confidence, perhaps intimidated by the way Saracen had taken a companionable hold of one of his breech-buttons. ‘We’ll take sixpence from you then, sir, and you’ll take five shillings for every fight your beast wins.’

Clent fished out the sixpence casually, as if it would not leave a hole in his purse to pain him, and the ostler tied a piece of red yarn around their wrists to show that they were trainers. They entered the Grey Mastiff inn, Saracen reluctantly releasing the ostler’s leg.

From the high rafters dangled tiny wooden medallions, each with its own royal crest painted on it. Smoke had darkened the earth-coloured murals on the walls, where cream-coloured hounds clustered around a muscled bear on its hind legs. The animals were painted with fearsomely puckered muzzles and glaring, lopsided eyes that looked almost human.

A blackened oak door was flung wide now and again as serving men pushed through, holding great plates of roast pigeons and tartlets above their heads. The air from this door roared with heat and dripped with the smell of roasting beef. Above the door jutted a gallery along which sat a dozen or so figures in daintier dress, their faces and wigs thick with powder, their handkerchiefs held to cherry-painted mouths to keep away the chimney smoke.

For a moment Mosca took one of the ladies for Lady Tamarind, and something clutched at her stomach. The lady’s dress was a cascade of foam exactly like the one that Mosca had seen in the carriage. Her wig was styled in the same way as Tamarind’s, and a star had been painted on one cheek in the same place as Tamarind’s scar. However, her mouth was too large and clumsy, and she laughed too loudly and too often. There was also a black mark on the cuff which Mosca was sure Lady Tamarind would never have tolerated. It was several inches across, and shaped like a heart on a playing card.

In one corner, a little counter with a fringed canopy brimmed with pewter pots and was backed with barrels. Behind the counter a woman darted back and forth like a wasp war-dancing, grabbing pots, filling them, slapping them on counters with little eruptions of foam, and snatching coins from a reaching forest of hands.

‘Wattleebeezer?’ It took a moment for Mosca to run the woman’s question through her head a second time and hear it as ‘What’ll it be, sir?’

‘A pot of three-threads, and half a pot of cider for my young companion.’

‘Potthreethreadarfpotcidrcominup.’ The woman winked at Mosca. As she did so, her cheek joined in the wink by bunching, like cloth puckered by a tugged thread. ‘Thin’else?’

‘We are entering this noble animal into the beast fights. Where may we find the training rooms so we can refresh and prepare?’

‘Dorntrite.’ Only the woman’s pointing finger gave her two customers to understand that she had intended to say, ‘Door on the right.’

Carrying Saracen so that he would not get trodden on, Mosca followed close behind Clent as he shouldered a path through the crowd. The throng was thickest around a dropped pit, just below the gallery. The pit itself was quite hidden from view by the wall of men, some in velvets, some in wool, some clutching purses, some almost teetering into the pit as they leaned forward to call out abuse or encouragement.

‘Forward for King Cinnamon and the Realm!’ one gentleman was shouting into the pit, while his gestures with his tankard filled his neighbours’ eyes with foam. ‘Remember our glorious dead of Lantwich Hill! Grab him by the beak!’

Mosca knew that the beast fights were supposed to let the supporters of different monarchs compete without actual battles breaking out. However, everyone here seemed excitable enough to draw swords and leap into the pit, so she was quite relieved when she passed through the side door and heard it close behind her.

A little passage led to a sequence of small, cell-like rooms. In one, a man in his shirtsleeves squatted beside a chittering cage. He was sipping from his tankard when his eye fell upon Saracen, causing him to sneeze out his mouthful of ale.

‘Ignore him, madam,’ Clent muttered. ‘Anyone would think that he had never seen an eagle before.’

They found a little room, empty but for two stools and the smell of fear-stained sawdust. They had barely settled when a harassed-looking ostler pushed his head around the door.

‘Star-crested Eagle? You were just in time; we’re drawing tiles to see who’s sparrin’ with who right now.’

With growing qualms, Mosca helped to coax Saracen into a wooden crate, and she watched fearfully as the ostler carried the crate away.

Clent waited for him to pass out of earshot before murmuring in Mosca’s ear, ‘Come, madam, let us make use of our eyes and ears.’

They poked their heads out through the door, then Clent entered the passage one way, and Mosca the other. At the first door Mosca heard a dismal mewling and at the second the contented grunts of a young pig. At the end of the corridor was a buttery full of enormous barrels stacked on their sides. A range of cockspurs and muzzles hung from hooks on the wall. She had just taken down one of the leashes and was wondering whether to steal it for Saracen when the round lid of one of the barrels swung aside like a door, and a man climbed out. Mosca could see that the barrel was little more than the mouth to a dark tunnel behind.

The man was tall. The skin of his face had a slight lumpiness, like rice pudding. His clothes were simply styled from black cloth, but at his belt hung a silver chatelaine from which dangled five finely jewelled keys. Mosca’s eyes, however, were fixed upon his hands, which were incredibly small and delicate. His calfskin gloves might have been made for a child.

Goshawk himself is a shadow among shadows, Clent had said. It is said that his fingers are as slender and dainty as a child’s…

Eyes as colourless as oysters rested on her face. Mosca flinched as he raised one hand… then watched speechlessly as he removed his hat, handed it to her along with his cane, and walked out through the buttery door. Aramai Goshawk, the leader of the Mandelion Locksmiths, the shadow among shadows, had apparently mistaken Mosca Mye for one of the Grey Mastiff tavern wenches.

Grimacing in her effort at stealth, Mosca tiptoed after the Locksmith and was in time to see him disappear into one of the trainers’ rooms. One undignified scamper later, she was dragging Clent down the corridor to the door where she had seen Goshawk disappear, accompanying the action with much gesturing and meaningful mouthing.

The door was thick and, with both their ears warring for the keyhole, Mosca and Clent could hear little.

‘If I knew, I would tell you.’ One voice beyond the door raised its tone enough to become clear for a moment. ‘But I don’t.’

Pertellis! Mosca mouthed at Clent in glee and excitement. That’s Pertellis!

Eyes glittering, Clent led Mosca back to the door which led to the main room of the inn.

‘Quickly now. You must venture out through the street door and drop this handkerchief in a conspicuous manner. That will signal to our friends across the street that we are ready for the final scene in our little drama. I shall wait in the back corridor, ready to show them to the right room.’

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.