Mosca had nothing sharp to say to him now. She lived in fear of him, and slept with Saracen on her chest for safety. Hour by hour she thought of running away, but she was sure he would come after her to silence her, or somehow blame her for the death of Partridge. Furthermore, she could not flee without Saracen, whom Clent now kept in the closet during her errands ‘for safety’s sake’.
‘We will lie low here for now,’ Clent said each day, ‘and wait for Her Ladyship’s response.’ And Mosca, who secretly knew that no letter would arrive, was sent out into streets that fizzed and buzzed with gossip about the Locksmiths’ arrest and Goshawk’s escape – excited, frightened, doubtful and scandalized by turn. She brought back broadsheets so that Clent could scan them for signs of the guild war.
One morning, every sheet roared of a fire that had broken out at the Papermill the night before.
‘Aramai Goshawk’s first move,’ muttered Clent. ‘It is a warning shot over the Stationers’ bows, I fancy. As I thought, he blames the Stationers for the Locksmiths’ arrest – and he means to frighten the Stationers into arranging their pardon. Fruitless, fruitless.’
Days passed, and the date of the Locksmiths’ trial approached, with no word of a pardon for them. ‘Run down to the kitchen,’ he would say from time to time. ‘I am certain I heard the front door slam. Find out if the constable is visiting again, and if he is, pray stretch those voluminous ears of yours and try to catch a word or two. And… hurry straight back.’
And Mosca would slip down the corridor and huddle behind the kitchen door, ready to dodge away if she heard steps. Usually there would be no sound but the clatter of plates as the Cakes made cakes, while singing a snatch of something that sounded very much like Clent’s ballad to Captain Blythe. Sometimes Mosca would feel a draught and realize that the front door was open, and hear the Cakes’ voice as she haggled with a hawker from the ragman’s raft.
Mosca spent hours tucked into the window, watching the parade of nervous, drunken or excitable couples approach the door. Some of the brides looked rather round-bellied, though they usually tried to hide the fact under their cloaks.
‘Run down to the chapel,’ Clent would say, when the door was opened to another pair, ‘and see if any of them keep their gloves on even to the exchanging of the rings,’ and Mosca knew that he was afraid of the Locksmiths coming after him.
But one day, when she had been sent down for the thirteenth time to listen at the kitchen door, Mosca did indeed hear the constable’s voice, asking questions about strangers in the marriage house.
‘Oh, some folks come to the door to ask after nuptyals,’ the Cakes was explaining, ‘but no one gets into the house without they’re gettin’ married. An’ the back rooms, they’re all for happy couples to stay in after the ceremony.’ She clearly thought this the most romantic thing imaginable. ‘All their names are safe down in the register, an’ you can be sure that no one else has been in the house ’cept Mr Bockerby and me.’
‘And your regular lodgers,’ the constable added.
‘Oh yes, ’cept them.’ There was a silky, slopping sound, as if the Cakes was whipping up a syllabub for her guest.
‘Tell me… these guests of yours, do they have a goose?’
‘Why yes, that they do, a fine, white, fat one. I never see one so big. Why?’
‘We’ve had a bit of excitement this morning, that’s all. Did you ever hear the pair of ’em mention a man called Partridge?’
‘Not to my face that I remember,’ the Cakes said slowly, ‘but I do start to think I might have overheard the name once, while I was passing their door. I keep my ears folded shut, mind, and I don’t go eavesdropping, but I can’t be held to blame if they will go shouting at each other all the time. But they might have been talking about a partridge to put in a pie, or something.’
‘Do you often discuss recipes so loud you can be heard in the next room?’
‘Well, no…’
‘Is Mr Clent in the house this moment?’
‘I think so – he stays in most mornings.’
‘Then I think I’d like to talk to him.’ There was a sudden scrape of chair feet against the floorboards, as if someone had risen to their feet quickly. ‘What was that? I thought I heard a rustling outside in the passageway.’
‘Oh, that’ll be nothing but some bundles of honesty I hung to dry in the Chapel of Goodman Pulk the Tardy. They make quite a din when the seedheads pop.’
Sure enough, when the constable pushed open the kitchen door and cast a curious glance up and down the corridor there was no one to be seen, and no movement but the gentle swinging of a row of honesty bundles in an unfelt draught. He walked the length of the corridor and knocked on the door at the end. A voice answered in calm tones, and when he pushed the door ajar he found Clent alone. Clent was reposing in the window seat in a pose suggestive of poetic abstraction, a roll of paper curling across one knee, a quill delicately imprisoned between the tips of his thumb and forefinger, his gaze adrift above the city as if the clouds were sharing their secrets with him.
When his gaze fell upon the constable, he rose and offered a gracious bow, blinking slightly as if he needed to refocus his eyes in order to look upon ordinary, worldly things.
‘A welter of pardons, my good sir. I thought you were Bockerby’s girl servant with a dish of tea. Do take a seat.’
The constable sat himself down on the room’s only chair.
‘Your own girl’s not about?’
‘Ah, no, I sent her to buy ink.’
‘Too bad. It was the girl I particularly wanted to speak to. No matter. I can tell you now that we have discovered the name of the dead man found at Whickerback Point. Have you heard the name Halk Partridge?’
Clent raised his eyebrows, and seemed to consider for a few moments.
‘The name is faintly familiar, but the hook floats free and will not catch upon anything.’
‘The Watermen were worried that the poor cove we found in the nets might have been knifed by a spider boat working the quays, so they put out a description of the dead man to see if anyone recognized it and could put a name to him. The river water made this hard, since by the time they pulled him out he was tending to the blue and bilious, if you see my meaning, sir. But he had a little kink in his wrist, just here.’ The constable pulled back his cuff, and rubbed at the knob of his wrist bone. ‘A most particular kind of a kink, and one of the porters on the jetty remembered seeing a barge captain with just such a kink.’
Clent wore a patient and polite expression, as if the high matters of his poem were calling to him and he was trying not to hear them.
‘So we went down to Dragmen’s Arches,’ continued the constable, ‘and we found out that barge skipper had not been seen for about a week, and we heard his first mate was bowsing at the Wide-eyed Kipper. So we searched the mate out at the Kipper, and one of my men laid a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. And quick as you can blink, the fellow looked up, saw us in the Duke’s colours, and threw his stew at my head. He was a right dog for a fight, and it was only when we had three men sitting on his chest that we got any sense out of him.
‘He had it in his head we’d come to arrest him for smuggling, and swore his own soul black as a kettle, laying curses on the pair he thought had cackled on him. A pair of passengers the barge had taken up at Kempe Teetering, was how he put it. I think his exact words were, “a bloated viper with a lawyer’s pretty manners, and a ferrety-looking girl with unconvincing eyebrows”.’
Clent shifted uncomfortably at this unflattering description, and for an instant his eyes did have a furtive, viperish expression.