‘The privilege of the weak, I fear. People must have someone to blame. If you live to be older and wiser, you will look back and wonder not that we were turned out of the city, but that we were allowed to walk away. Keep walking.’
Mosca thought about the sullen, heavy-wigged guildsmen fretting that their power had been taken away and given to a highwayman, and knew that she did not feel at all sorry. In fact, she felt fiercely pleased about it.
‘Mr Clent…’ Mosca remembered the discussion in the antechamber. ‘Lady Tamarind had a pocket watch shaped like a pistol, didn’t she?’
‘The same thought had occurred to me.’
‘But you don’t think we should tell…’
‘No, madam, I do not propose to tell the Stationers that one of their best operatives was probably held at pocket-watch point long enough to let an arch-criminal escape. I do not think they would take the news well.’
‘S’pose not. You got bits of cotton stuck ’tween yer teeth, Mr Clent.’ It looked as if he had been nervously chewing the ends of his cravat.
‘Yes… a rather trying interview, what with seven of Mandelion’s keenest minds all trying to fillet me like a fish. If I were a vain man, I might have taken offence at how many of their questions were about you. They seemed particularly eager to know whether you had read any of the infamous Birdcatcher books. Fortunately, I was able to put their minds at rest.’ Clent cast Mosca a twinkling glance. ‘“She is as sharp as a hornet’s breeches,” I told them, “and keen to learn, but her education has been sadly lacking. She can scratch out her letters, but she has no particular way with words.”
‘Curiously, I am not convinced that they believed either of us. The Stationers will probably have us followed out of the city and beyond, to see if we lead them to the press.’ Clent gave Mosca one of his sharp, questioning looks. ‘Of course… you really did send the press to drink deep of the Slye, did you not?’
‘Course,’ answered Mosca without hesitation.
‘Naturally. Though… sweet petals of Goodlady Aesthelia the Flower-faced, I could not have done so,’ Clent murmured with feeling.
‘It was tricky,’ admitted Mosca.
‘All those books unborn, waiting to spring out of it,’ added Clent.
‘Stories of genies an’ songs about kings with their heads cut off,’ said Mosca. They exchanged guilty, hungry smiles. ‘So, s’posing someone jus’ let the raft with the printing press slide off down the river – what do you think would happen to it?’
‘Well… if it was not found by the Stationers or nests of waiting Birdcatchers… I rather think it would float right out to sea to haunt the visions of late-night helmsmen and perhaps wash up against an exotic shore to cause more mischief.’
‘Good,’ muttered Mosca. When she had released the rope and watched the ragman’s raft float away down the river, she had felt much as she had watching the lantern fall from her hand into the gorse stacks on her last night in Chough. It occurred to her that perhaps, just perhaps, a part of her really had decided to set fire to her uncle’s mill, so that she would have no choice but to run away. ‘Some kinds of places need some kinds of trouble,’ she finished gnomically.
Mosca and Clent trailed their way along the Drimps, laden like two pedlars, and won hardly a glance from the shopkeepers, who were decorating sills and eaves with every ribbon, kerchief and stocking they could find to serve as flags. Many boats on the river had run up the silver swallowtail flag of celebration, and the kites of the coffeehouses danced and spiralled instead of hauling their strings in a workaday fashion.
‘I suppose,’ Clent asked casually, ‘I suppose there were no ready-printed books lying around the press? Not that I am saying you would sully your eyes with Birdcatcher books…’
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
‘Y’know what, Mr Clent? I don’t think books make you mad at all. I mean, I started readin’ ’em really slow, an’ stoppin’ now and then to see if I felt any more inklinged than before. Once I was feelin’ all fuzzy and light in my head, an’ I thought maybe that was me startin’ to go mad. But then I realized that I was just bored. The Birdcatcher books were mostly just boring, and a bit silly.’ Mosca wiped her nose up the length of her sleeve. ‘My father’s book was much better.
‘It was this funny story ’bout how all these people up in the Capital was arguing ’bout how they had to have a king or queen, and they had to choose right, cos the Beloved knew who should get the crown and you couldn’t wish it different without being sinful. They argued so loud, the Beloved heard, an’ started tryin’ to decide between ’em who should rule. They held a big, old meeting in the horizon-halls but they couldn’t agree to anything. Syropia wanted to crown the meanest and maddest to show her forgiveness, an’ Cramflick wanted someone with an ’ead like a potato, an’ Sussuratch wanted a sailor, an’ while they were arguing Palpitattle an’ Varple stole all the food for the meeting. An’ while they was all cooin’ an’ squeakin’ an’ boomin’ an’ shriekin’ like six winter winds trapped in a chicken coop, each of ’em thought of a sudden that if they ran back to the world of men, they could get their word in first.
‘So all the men praying for the Beloved’s advice felt a great big wind about them which swivelled their wigs an’ blew their garters right off so their stockings came down. They run out of the cathedral with Beloved swarming all over ’em, like bees over a beekeeper, all buzzin’ their wishes at once. The men run straight to the river an’ jumped in, but the Beloved hung on. When the men was almost goin’ mad with the sound of thousands of voices, they covered their ears and yelled for the Beloved to leave ’em to decide everythin’ for themselves. The Beloved said they were needed there to keep the moonblot beetles out of the lanterns, an’ peel the skin from the milk, an’ stop the snarps stealin’ children. But the men told ’em to leave the world anyway… an’ the Beloved did. And nothin’ changed at all, cos there never were any Beloved, just people making their voices up in their heads, the way I often do with people.’
‘That is a very charming story, Mosca. Never tell it again.’
‘My father didn’t believe in the Beloved, but he didn’t believe in the Heart of the Consequence either – he wasn’t a Birdcatcher. Mr…’ Mosca had been about to say, Mr Kohlrabi worshipped him but he’d got him all wrong. But she was not ready to think about Kohlrabi yet. When she thought of his name she felt nothing, but she felt nothing in a way that hurt.
‘No, from what you say your father was an atheist, an out-and-out unbeliever. Atheism will see your head spiked on a church spire just as soon as Birdcatchery.’
Mosca was silent for a few moments.
‘But, Mr Clent,’ she said at last, ‘what if he was right? What if it’s true?’
‘I think we will have to leave the clerics and scholars to decide that.’
‘Why?’ Mosca slowed her pace.
‘Who else should?’ Clent gave her a sideways glance. ‘You perhaps? Ah, I foresee frightful things when you are old enough to work your will on the world. Cathedrals torn down, mention of both the Consequence and the Beloved banned from the common speech, and children brought up to believe in an empty, soulless heaven…’
‘No, I…’ They were passing a cluster of shrines. As she watched, a troop of grateful citizens trooped past the shrines, dropping different thanksgiving offerings before each icon. A biscuit for Goodman Blackwhistle. A mackerel for Goodman Sussuratch. A shiny coin for Goodman Greyglory. The little gods looked so good-humoured, sitting side by side, none of them fighting to have all the worshippers to themselves, and Mosca felt a rush of weary tenderness for the Beloved. It was so different from the cold, inhuman zeal of Kohlrabi. Perhaps, as her father had thought, the Beloved were toys that a childish world needed. Perhaps, too, the world was growing up, and even now was starting to put them aside, affectionately but forever.