Twilight Robbery aka Fly Trap

Goodman Garotten, Red-handed Bringer of Retribution

There were a lot of questions Aramai Goshawk wanted answered. Why, on the night of Saint Yacobray, had his men stumbled upon a come-as-a-Clatterhorse party? How had Mistress Bessel been detected as his spy in the mayor’s household? But at the moment the most pressing question was, where is Beamabeth Marlebourne? And the woman before him apparently could not answer it.

‘So what do you know?’ he asked, without looking up.

Mistress Bessel was perched on the edge of her seat, under the gaze of two dozen golden eyes. Stuffed owls regarded her from bench and shelf with frozen, predatory astonishment, as though she was a novelty mouse.

‘Only what the mayor himself told me before Eponymous tumbled to my secret – but that was a good deal. The names of the kidnappers’ ringleaders – Rabilan Skellow and Brand Appleton.’

‘Appleton,’ repeated Goshawk, with such relish that the word might indeed have been an apple to be polished on his mind’s sleeve.

He prided himself on noting curiosities and inconsistencies, because they were so often important. Hence he had noticed that of late a well-brought up young man – by the name of Appleton – had been exposing himself to the hazards of the Bludgeoncourt to win sweetmeats and little luxuries. Now he was experiencing the exquisite satisfaction of one who has preserved half a broken cup just long enough to find the other half. ‘So that is why he had such a need of candied violets – he had the tastes of a little captive princess to pamper. How gentlemanly.

‘Now what in the world,’ Goshawk murmured, raising his eyes to stare at Mistress Bessel, ‘should I do with you?’

His colourless gaze covered her face like a cold, damp cloth, just long enough for her autumnal ruddiness to wane and pale under his scrutiny.

‘I think your talents will serve us best in Dogmalton for a while, until we can discover how far news of your… allegiance has spread.’ She read his dismissive gesture correctly, and gratefully fled his presence.

As a matter of fact, Aramai Goshawk was fairly well pleased with Mistress Jennifer Bessel, particularly for helping him with his long-term plan to seize the Luck, but he had no intention of telling her so. Such as she were often most useful when kept slightly uneasy and off balance. He cleared his throat, and by the time he looked around two men were at his side, gloved hands neatly clasped before their bellies.

‘Brand Appleton,’ Goshawk said aloud. ‘He has lodgings in Preck Street, and he might be just stupid enough to be found there. If not, hunt down the girl known as Laylow. If she is suiting her actions to her name, seek out every rat-cranny she has ever used as a bolthole. Tell her that we are looking to take Appleton, and if she helps us find him we might choose to take him in one piece.’

Ah, the difficulties of balance. If one wished to control, the balance of fear had to be just right. You could not allow people to become desperate, or they lost all fear and did wild and unpredictable things. And yet you could not let them become complacent, or they became impudent and rash. These kidnappers, for example. Daring to set up their own little scheme in Goshawk’s town without consulting him.

The daughter, if she could be recovered, would be valuable, for it seemed that most of Toll-by-Day was within half a hop of falling in love with her. However he doubted that she was still alive, now the ransom had been paid. The jewel, however, was of considerably more interest. If he gave the kidnappers time to catch their breaths, they would find eager buyers among the Pawnbrokers, and if that happened the gem would slip through his fingers and out of Toll.

‘Abject lessons are in order, I think.’ His tiny, childlike hands interleaved, forming a toy church and steeple. ‘These kidnappers must be dead by dawn. Find this ransom, and silence anybody who sees you taking it. Have a couple of men watching the Twilight Gate entrance in case the mayor or this Sir Feldroll have sent any more clod-hopping oafs to rescue Miss Marlebourne. If any such do appear… follow them and arrange for them all to be personally introduced to the Langfeather.’

His oyster-pale eyes narrowed for a second.

‘If the mayor heeds my letter and sends nobody, we might even ransom his daughter back to him, if we can recover her alive. But if he does send more marauders into our streets… then I suppose poor Beamabeth Marlebourne will have “died during a botched raid by the mayor’s men”. A lesson in the dangers of taking things into one’s own hands instead of leaving it to the professionals. She is useful to us, but, now that we have the Luck, not essential.’

The finger-church unfolded itself, and Goshawk thoughtfully fiddled with his blotter before speaking again.

‘If you can… try to keep that headstrong urchin girl alive.’

‘The urchin – do you mean Eponymous Clent’s girl, sir? The one he sent nightside a couple of nights ago?’

‘Mm? Oh. No, actually I meant Laylow. As for Clent’s girl… yes, I suppose it is possible that she is still alive after three nights. If so… she is just another messy detail. Dispose of her.’

In the heart of the Clock Tower cog fought cog in darkness, each biting with all the force of its metal teeth, never guessing that they were part of one great, relentless machine. Somewhere on the walls of the town a bugle blew, and the clock answered with a tinny ditty of its own. Across Toll, the day retreated indoors and at the same time the little model of Goodlady Blatchett with her bright eyes and sack of toads retreated into the darkness of the clock archway. As the second bugle sounded and night prepared to advance, Goodman Garotten emerged to take the Goodlady’s place with his sickle and scales. His painted eyes were yellow as yolk, his tiny teeth clenched and bared.

Without knowing it, Mosca Mye was at that very moment imitating his expression exactly, not twenty yards away, her stomach knotting itself with apprehension. As soon as the locks on the false wooden wall covering the secret frog-door had been unfastened and the sound of jingling faded, she had emerged and sprinted for the Twilight Gate. Now she sat watching from the furthest reaches of the street. The plan that she had contrived that afternoon with Clent and Sir Feldroll was about to be put into action.

As she watched, the little door to the Twilight Gate opened and five figures emerged. Without a moment’s hesitation they scattered, each taking their own pre-planned route. If there were spies watching for new arrivals, it was unlikely that they would be able to pursue all of them.

Mosca grinned with relief as she saw the plan being followed, then turned about and ran towards the agreed rendezvous. The rags she had tied about her clogs turned her feet into fat, ragged mopheads, but they did not ring out against the cobbles.

The reinforcements would be a medley of all the cooperative nightnames that could be mustered in desperation at a few hours’ notice. One ex-soldier attached to Sir Feldroll, one man with a visitor’s pass who had consented to join the rescue in exchange for the toll out of Toll… and three prisoners from the Grovels, the grisly cell into which Mosca had been thrown a couple of nights before. All three had leaped at the first chance of pardon and freedom they had seen in several long years.

The rendezvous point was a darkened archway that Mosca had chosen because the slanting light of the early-evening moon did not touch the neighbouring alleys, and it could be reached at a run without stepping into the light. She was the first to arrive, and tucked herself away into the recess, hugging her ribs and forcing her breathing to slow. At last she heard footsteps and panting breaths approach.

‘Prattler’s Jack!’ she whispered, tensed to run again if the right password was not given.

‘Sangrin’s Tumble!’ came the answer. Both were the names of dice games. ‘Is that Mye?’

‘Every inch. Tuck yourself in here with me – we wait five minutes for the others and then we wait no more.’

Three more figures arrived to whisper the right password within the next two minutes. Mosca clenched her fists and counted her heartbeats until five minutes had passed without any sign of their last comrade.

There would be no more waiting. The plan had been quite specific on that point. If any of you thinks you are being followed, then do not go to the rendezvous. If you cannot lose your shadow, then lose yourself in Toll, and pray that you are not lost in good earnest.

‘We’re in your hands, Mye.’ Mosca thought it was probably Sir Feldroll’s man speaking. ‘Where now?’

‘The Chutes,’ whispered Mosca. ‘Undertaker district. Stay close, and keep your steps soft.’

In your hands. The hands in question were shaking, and not just with the cold. Fear of the Locksmiths and Skellow’s thumb-cutting knife flooded Mosca but did not fill her. Somehow there was room in her core for an angry little knot of excitement, tight and fierce as a pike’s grin.

Being a Locksmith meant never having to kick down a door. A flick, a click, and there you were in the hallway.

Sometimes there were screams, but usually the breath people drew in to bellow at you leaked out in little whimpers once they realized what you were. Sometimes the truth hit them like a fist to the belly, and they literally crumpled to the floor. Something had brought the Locksmiths to their door, and they would do anything, say anything, sell anyone to make them go away again.

‘Yes, Laylow does stay here sometimes – but she has not been here this last week! Here – let me show you the room she uses! And this is where she hides her packages, under the floorboard! Yes, I can give you the names of her friends…’

Search the room, picking up her few belongings. Gather up the chocolate-scented, muslin-wrapped packages from their hole in the wainscot. Snatch up a chicken leg from the landlady’s table on the way out.

Being a Locksmith meant never having to say sorry.

‘Nobody told me you were a foreigner.’ Sir Feldroll’s ex-soldier sounded disgruntled and suspicious. The little rescue party’s steps had taken them now into more open streets, and when they crossed a patch of moonlight Mosca’s outlandish garb and greenish skin had become visible.

‘Well, nobody told me you were a slack-bellied noddy with a busy jaw,’ Mosca retorted sharply. ‘I guess we both got cause to complain.’

‘Just show us the Chutes, you peppery little minx!’ the other snapped.

It was not just the fact that she was green, Mosca suspected, that was causing her new comrade’s sudden hostility. Perhaps he had not realized until now how young she was. Perhaps now he felt absurd at having placed himself under her captaincy. The giddy, terrifying sense that she was in control of a unit of men started to slip away from her, like a giant’s boot falling absurdly off her narrow foot.

‘How would you like a new grin for a necktie?’ came a sudden snarl from behind Mosca. She turned to find that one of the ex-prisoners from the Grovels was glaring at the soldier hot-eyed. His face seemed to have been used as a whetstone, and a mesh of scars folded his forehead and left his eyebrows as dotted lines. ‘Leave the little mort be, or I’ll tie your tongue to the railings!’

The threat, implausible as it was, served to silence the other man. Perhaps he reflected that even a failed attempt to execute it was likely to be very, very painful. Or perhaps he had noticed the way in which the other two ex-convicts had moved supportively to Mosca’s side.

‘Pratin’ popinjay,’ one of them whispered in her ear. ‘Bold enough in the street, ain’t he? But if he was dropped into the spring-ankle warehouse, he’d be keening like a kitten.’

Mosca understood, and turned her head to give the speaker a nasty little grin of agreement, which he answered with a wink. ‘Spring-ankle warehouse’ was a cant term for prison. Somehow, in spite of her disguise, the Grovellers had recognized her as their former cell-mate – perhaps because they had met her in darkness and known her only through her voice and temper. In the Grovels she had been their prey, but now they were part of the same fraternity – at least while there was a chance to gang up on somebody who had never known leg irons. Belatedly, it seemed, Mosca was getting her garnish-worth.

‘Any more gabble? No? Then come this way.’ She hoped she was sounding confident. The rescue party’s odds were poor enough without them fighting among themselves.

‘Laylow? Yes, came in here for a dram o’ gin two nights ago with that young radical cove, the firebrand with the mad eyes. No, I never listen in, but the Beloved put ears on our heads, and mine pull in sound something fearsome. So… I hear him asking her for help, saying he don’t trust some folks… something about a horse…

‘No, I do not know where she lays her head. Perhaps you ask her radical friend? What? No, not as such, but I have often seen him a-walkin’ off towards the Chutes…’

It was in the Chutes, of course, that the plans became shaky, for Mosca had never even been in this district before. There were a few wrong turns in the glistening streets, and Mosca’s hairs rose at the thought of her ‘followers’ losing confidence in her. On either side of the streets were ominous stacks of person-size boxes. Some were cracked and battered wood, and she slipped past them as fast as she could, fearful of glimpsing a dead eye or pallid hand through a crevice. Here and there in tiny shrines models of Goodman Postrophe stood sentinel, ready to squirt mellowberry juice into the eyes of any dead who decided to climb out of their boxes. His presence was only slightly reassuring.

There were sounds as well, from deep in the icy, intestinal tangle of streets. A stutter of wood being dragged across cobbles. A shriek of a metal winch. A clatter of hatches. A weightless handful of silent seconds, then a smash far below, softened by echo, so that it was little more than a cough in the Langfeather’s throat.

‘There.’ It was exactly as Brand Appleton had described, a cooper’s shop opposite an abandoned alehouse with a broken door. It stood on the corner, a small cask swaying from a chain over the door. It was a mean, narrow little shop with one small shuttered window at the front, and two floors above it.

‘How many inside?’ asked the soldier.

‘Five,’ answered Mosca. ‘Maybe six. And the lady.’

‘Then we’ll have to move fast – knock down anyone in the shop, then run upstairs, kick in the door and cover all within with our pistols before they can hurt the lady…’ The soldier trailed off, realizing that nobody was actually listening to him. Mosca and the other ex-Grovellers had formed a huddle and gone into muffled conference.

‘… milled a ken like this when I was nine,’ one was saying. ‘No point in puffing our way up the stairs and expecting to catch ’em winking – these old wooden steps ring out underfoot like a regiment of drums.’

‘Roof, maybe?’ Another ex-convict leaned back. ‘Boggarts take it, I can see no holes. Pity we cannot whip in at a glaze – and the chimney looks too narrow, even for Mye-’

‘No – the trick is to sneak up there, or bring those bullies down the stairs, one at a time,’ interrupted the first again, the man with the whetstone face. ‘We need a lay to hook ’em in.’

‘Well, however we gull ’em, it had better be sweet and swift,’ whispered Mosca. ‘Or we shall have the Jinglers snappin’ at our heels!’

She glanced up at Sir Feldroll’s man, and felt a bittersweet flush of malicious satisfaction. Perhaps she felt out of place in Toll-by-Night, but it was plain that this was nothing compared to the plight of the soldier. His eyes looked fearful, dazzled by the unfamiliar mosaic of murk and moonlight. The thieves’ cant terms that were starting to roll off her tongue so glibly bounced off his ears like pebbles.

Mosca was a fast learner, and after three nights she was starting to think and speak as a nightling. She was learning to see in the dark. At another time, this might have worried her.

A tall Locksmith came out of a gin-shop’s back room, pulling off his gloves. He tucked them in a pocket and replaced them with clean ones.

‘The cooper in the Chutes,’ was all he said to his companions. Without another word they rose and followed him out through the front-door. They left it ajar, letting the wind play over the broken furniture within.

The cooper looked up from the splayed staves of a half-fashioned firkin when the door of his shop swung open. Two men had entered, both of them strangers, rolling in a heavy-looking hogshead barrel over three feet high.

‘Hey, cooper!’ called one of them. ‘We’ve a barrel that’s split and starting to spill – can you take a look and tell us if you can mend the crack without taking out all the grain? We’re in a hurry.’

‘Not likely.’ Whistling under his breath, the cooper strolled towards his customers, a hammer dangling from one strong, calloused hand. ‘But let us have a look at it.’ He prised away the lid of the cask, and froze.

Holding her breath inside the barrel, Mosca saw the rounded roof of her cramped world tugged away abruptly and replaced by the face of a startled young man. He was not handsome, having a bunched sort of nose that wanted to be a fist. His lumpy, good-humoured mouth was pursed with whistling, but as he saw the pistol gripped tightly in her hands the whistle died and was replaced by a breathy little thread of sound.

Mosca could hardly breathe. Her knees were tucked tight against her chest. The metal of the pistol was very cold, and her two fingers tucked around the trigger shook uncontrollably. The cooper had wide, light-coloured eyes. She thought they might be green.

‘Keep whistling,’ whispered the Groveller with the whetstone face, ‘and put down your hammer.’

The cooper wet his lips and managed a husky warbled note. He stooped and obediently laid down his hammer.

‘Clever lad,’ murmured Whetstone-face approvingly. ‘Keep your wits this way, and you’ll live long enough to bounce grandchildren on your knees.’

While one of the Grovellers took up the cooper’s whistle, mimicking the tune perfectly, the cooper obeyed the orders muttered by Whetstone-face. He sat down on a barrel, and let his hands be tied behind his back. He answered questions about the rooms upstairs, the number of people, the stations of the guards. Mosca listened, her stomach curdling. Everything was going according to plan, but somehow she did not feel like a rescuer any more. She felt like a robber. It was the fearful eye-whites of the cooper, and the fierce, oily smell of the pistol.

‘Come on, Mye,’ said one of her comrades, tipping her barrel so that she tumbled out of it and dropped her gun with a clatter.

One Groveller listened at the door behind the counter, then very carefully turned a key from the cooper’s belt in its lock and opened it. The cooper was bound and gagged, and left in the care of the increasingly perplexed and disdainful ex-soldier. Two of the Grovellers slipped through the door and on to the stairway beyond, Mosca and the third Groveller just a few paces behind. The man in front of Mosca took the greatest care to step along the edges of the stairs so they did not creak, and Mosca copied him.

They had just reached the door at the top of the stairs when there was a crash from the shop below, and a hoarse cry. Instantly the door before them was flung open and two men hurled themselves out of it. To judge by their expressions, they only realized mid-hurl that they were flying past four flabbergasted strangers who had just flattened themselves against the wall to let them pass. With remarkable presence of mind, Whetstone-face stuck out a leg to hook the ankle of the foremost, and the pair went tumbling down the stairs, using their bellies and faces as toboggans.

Still pressed back against the wall, Mosca saw the Grovellers bound through the door into the open room. She wondered whether she was supposed to be holding the fallen men prisoner with her little pistol. But she could not bring herself to point the pistol at them, for in her mind’s eye she could so easily imagine hiccuping with fear and sending a little bead of death through somebody’s forehead. In any case, they did not seem ready to get up yet.

From the room into which the Grovellers had rushed there came two pistol cracks, then a lot of crashes, oaths, moans, scuffles and floorboard creaks. Then, quite suddenly, about four people shouting at once.

‘Easy, easy -’

‘Halt – put your pistol -’

‘Get back! Back, or I’ll…’

Mosca entered the room and found it in a state of stalemate. Two men lay motionless on the floor, and she could not tell if they were alive or dead. One she recognized as one of Skellow’s men from the bastle house. Another lay amid the wreckage of a broken table and had a thin, pocked face that also looked faintly familiar. All three of the Grovellers had weapons drawn, though one had a hand clasped to his side. All were currently bow-tense, their attention focused upon a tall, angular sickle-faced figure. It was Rabilan Skellow, and he had a pistol held to the head of Beamabeth Marlebourne.

Skellow was backing slowly away with his captive, his breath coming raggedly through his teeth. His eye flickered over Mosca and lodged there, and she could see him grappling with frayed shreds of recognition.

‘You! ’

For a moment Mosca was afraid he would turn the pistol on her instead, but he kept it against Beamabeth’s temple and reached behind him with his free hand to open a door. He backed slowly through it, dragging the mayor’s daughter along with him. Her eyes were kitten-wide, her face pale and wondering, and one of her satin shoes was missing. Her hands were tied behind her back.

A few seconds later the Grovellers forced their way through the same door, Mosca just behind them, and found themselves in an apparently empty room. Just as they were spinning this way and that looking for the vanished pair, there was an ear-splitting shriek.

It appeared to come from behind the wall. Whetstone-face kicked at the plaster, which tore before his boot, proving to be no more than a dingy canvas panel concealing a passage beyond. One good yank slid the panel aside, and beyond could be seen a narrow corridor, illuminated by a side window. In the middle of the passage Beamabeth was kneeling, Skellow standing over her with a knife in his hand, the blade almost touching her limp ringlets. He looked up as the canvas tore, and it seemed to Mosca that he stared directly at her, his teeth bared in a parody of his horrible smile. Then there was a deafening crack, and Skellow gave a sort of backwards nod, drew himself unsteadily up on tiptoe and then collapsed.

Something seemed to jump in Mosca’s chest, and her nose filled with the smell of the old wine cellar where Havoc Gray had met his end. For a moment she wondered wildly whether it was her gun that had fired. But hers was cold and still in her hand. Smoke was drifting from Whetstone-face’s pistol.

Beamabeth still sat quivering, but quivering was better than no motion at all. She raised her head, and blue eyes peered out at Mosca without recognition or much in the way of wits. Whetstone-face strode forward and pulled her to her feet.

‘All right, lass. We’re here to take you home to your father.’ It was said kindly enough. Apparently Beamabeth’s magic was working even here.

From behind there came the thunderous noise of many boots on the stairs. A sound as loud as a battle-drum, just as the Grovellers had said. One pair of boots might have been their comrade the ex-soldier. A whole gang of boots could only mean trouble.

There was no going back the way they had come. They could only go forward, down the corridor which Skellow had hoped would provide him with escape. Whetstone-face scooped up Beamabeth.

‘Come on!’ he rasped, then turned and ran down the passage. The others followed.

In spite of the thunder of her own blood, Mosca could not help wavering an instant as she passed the fallen body of Skellow, the man she had come to Toll to undo. There was a spreading darkness on his chest. She knew that he must be dead. And then he spoke.

‘Little witch,’ was all he said before his lizard-hiss breath stilled. His long fingers released the knife in his hand. Mosca felt as though she had killed him, and she was filled with too many emotions at once to know whether it made her happy or not.

‘Quickly!’ A Groveller grabbed her arm and dragged her away. One corridor, two doors and a rope ladder later, they were out on the open streets.

Mistress Leap coped very well with the sudden and unannounced arrival of Mosca, Beamabeth Marlebourne and three of the most disreputable, gibbet-worthy strangers she had ever seen. She remained upright, indeed rigidly so, though for couple of minutes could manage nothing but a string of broken vowels.

‘Sorry, Mistress Leap! I had no chance to tell you the new plan! This is Beamabeth Marlebourne. I think she might have had the sense scared out of her -’

‘You poor little violet!’ Mistress Leap recovered her voice, and enfolded Beamabeth in a motherly embrace which seemed to rumple the mayor’s daughter even more. ‘You are beautiful – every bit as beautiful as they always said! I knew you would be, even when I delivered you!’

In Beamabeth’s cornflower-blue eyes, realization appeared amid confusion, like a butterfly reeling out of a dust-cloud.

‘You are… the midwife lady? The one that sent me the letter?’

‘Yes! Oh, you read it! Then you know… it must have been a shock, of course, but I am sure you always knew you were special. Ah, how I wish I could introduce you to your real parents, but they passed away of influenza ten years ago, the poor dears…’

Mosca had snatched off her basket-hat and was halfway out of her Seisian regalia.

‘Mistress Leap, we got to hurry because the Locksmiths are huntin’ Miss Beamabeth! I think we shook them all off, but we got to get her disguised. And then we need your help! We need you to take us to the Committee of the Hours.’

‘But their doors will be shut!’ protested Mistress Leap. ‘The only part still open will be… oh.’

Mosca nodded grimly as she splashed water on to her face from a bowl and began rubbing the greenishness from her skin. ‘The hatch where you put in the babies born with daylight names, along with their papers. The committee members are waiting there to pull us through the chute. Then they’ll drop down money for you – and for them.’ She gave a nod towards the Grovellers.

The midwife cast an uncertain glance over Beamabeth’s figure. ‘Are you quite sure that Miss Beamabeth will fit through?’

‘The mayor’s people measured it yesterday, and took measurements from her brocade dress.’

‘Brocade – the green brocade?’ faltered Beamabeth. ‘It is just that… of late I have had some trouble with the buttons…’

Mosca hesitated for a moment. Perhaps Beamabeth’s figure was not quite as slight and delicate as she had thought. ‘Well, you might have to wriggle a bit,’ she admitted. ‘But with us pushing, and the other side pulling like fury, we will wrench you through somehow. Now, Mistress Leap, can you give Miss Beamabeth some clothes that make her look less like a princess?’

The Locksmiths made a thorough search of the rooms upstairs, then came back to the cooper’s shop. The ex-soldier had put up a decent fight when the Locksmiths burst in, and that had been his worst and last mistake. The cooper still sat stiff-shouldered on his barrel, having worked out that clenching his eyes shut and saying nothing was his best chance of survival.

‘No sign of the Marlebourne girl.’

‘Keep searching for the ransom – and check the kitchen for radishes. Any of the kidnappers alive up there?’

There were a few heartbeats’ silence.

‘You wanted ’em alive?’

A long, drawn-out sigh, then the sound of gloved fingers irritably scratching at stubble.

‘We were told to hush them – but after they told us where to find the ransom, not before. Do you want to explain that to Mr Goshawk?’

The population of Toll-by-Night was just starting to emerge on to the streets when a dowdy threesome set out for the Committee of the Hours. There were many nods for Mistress Leap, and nobody paid any attention to the two girls who followed behind her, the eldest clutching a baby-shaped bundle to her chest, the younger carrying a large box. Many nightfolk were accustomed to seeing the midwife taking a baby to the Hours, so nobody was particularly surprised. Some even jokingly asked the baby to remember them with a groat or two when it became a rich daylighter.

Right now, however, the older girl looked as cowed and fearful as Mosca could possibly have wished on her bitterest day. Each glance shook her like a cowslip in the breeze. She had every reason to be afraid. Mosca had, with some glee, helped smear grime over Beamabeth’s perfect nose and chin, and the golden ringlets had been damped down and tucked under a stained cloth bonnet, but there was still a risk that somebody would notice the fineness of her hands or the lack of Toll-by-Night pallor and ask her to lower her baby so that they could see her badge.

Perhaps a greater danger was the restless stirring which Mosca could feel inside the box she carried. To judge by the soft hisses within, the contents were a few short minutes from an explosion of goosely impatience.

‘Oh, thank the Beloved – here we are!’

Mistress Leap had led them to a small building not far from the Clock Tower. Set in the wall was a square wooden door a foot and a half wide. Mistress Leap took a key from her pocket, unlocked the door and opened it. Beyond was a tiny cavity like the inside of an oven, but with a shaft leading upward.

‘Usually they lower a bucket for the baby and its paperwork,’ whispered Mistress Leap. She leaned forward. ‘Hello?’ she called tentatively. ‘This is Leveretia Leap!’

A bubble of eager conversation floated down the chute. ‘Do you have Miss Marlebourne there?’ came the whisper.

‘Yes! Are you ready for her?’

‘Ready!’

The threesome glanced about to make sure the street was clear, then Beamabeth handed over the bundle of dishcloths that had served as her baby. With obvious trepidation she stooped and peered up the chute. Hands reached down towards her and took hold of her forearms.

‘Pull!’

Beamabeth gave a faint squeak and started to disappear up into the chute, hauled by the hands above. Her torso vanished, then her hips, until there was nothing visible but her feet and petticoats, kicking and scrabbling at the sides of the chute. There were indecorous sounds of scuffling and whimpers of discomfort.

‘Too many candied violets,’ Mosca muttered heartlessly, once Beamabeth’s feet and skirts had vanished. After a short pause a bucket was lowered, containing six pouches.

‘Money,’ explained Mosca urgently as she pushed the pouches into Mistress Leap’s hands and loaded Saracen’s box into the bucket. ‘Three for those men in your house – but the rest’s all yours.’ Mistress Leap seemed overwhelmed, and Mosca thought she might be fighting back tears as she hid the money in her apron. ‘And if I was you, mistress, I’d take it home right now, and pack up, and get out of Toll tonight. Before the Locksmiths can work out you had any part in all of this.’

‘Believe me, my dear, I mean to be out within the hour.’ As Saracen’s box was hauled up the chute, the midwife cupped Mosca’s face in her worn hands and gave her a gentle peck on the forehead. ‘Good luck!’

‘See you under the sun.’

They exchanged a last smile before the midwife hurried off and disappeared into the alleyways.

‘This is Mosca Mye!’ she hissed up the chute. ‘You ready to pull me up?’

‘Hey!’ The call came from across the square, from a group of three men who had just turned a corner. Three men in gloves. Three men who had just noticed a young girl leaning into a chute for which she should not have had the key.

‘Pull me up!’ shrieked Mosca, ducking and manoeuvring her head and shoulders into the chute as Beamabeth had done. ‘Quick, or I’m done for!’ She could see a square of light above, with heads and shoulders silhouetted against it. Hands came down and grabbed her reaching arms, and she was rudely dragged upwards.

In the street there were further cries and sounds of running steps. She felt a strong hand grab at her ankle and gave a squawk as she briefly became the rope in a tug of war. She kicked, and kicked, and then her shoe flew off and hit somebody to judge by the sound, and the grip on her ankle was released. Then the half-dozen hands on her arms dragged her upwards and into the light.