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.’