Frances Hardinge - Twilight Robbery aka Fly Trap

‘What…?’ It was the stuffed stag head in Mosca’s arms that finally seemed to fracture the midwife’s mind. Welter Leap, on the other hand, had a soft moony glow in his eyes, a tender eagerness as he carried his boxes of new acquisitions into his ‘workshop’.

‘I… What… Where did you get these?’

‘They was all going for a pittance, Mistress Leap.’

‘You… you went bargain-hunting?’ whispered the woman faintly as Mosca saw to the bolts. She sank into a seat, her eyes filling with tears, and regarded Mosca with a look of weary disappointment and betrayal. ‘You spent the few coins I managed to scrape together? Then…’ She shook her head, closed her eyes and let her head droop.

‘There was no help for it, Mistress Leap.’ Mosca felt a sting of compassion, but she had already cast the die for all three of them. ‘It’s the only chance we got. Listen! We could have run down every street with your goods on our backs, and got nothing for them but spit and a wink. All this -’ Mosca set down a box of ropes, dry bones and coils of wire – ‘is nothing now, but thanks to your husband’s making ways and cunning hands it’ll be a miracle by the next dusk bugle.’

‘A miracle. Yes, we will need a miracle.’ Mistress Leap sighed.

‘I’ll tell you what kind of miracle, as well,’ Mosca persisted, her eyes black and steady as a coalface. ‘A miracle that will get us our tithe, easy as yawning. Because tomorrow night all the money we need will be right there to be grabbed – just hanging outside everybody’s doors! So we go out and we take it. And nobody will stop us, because if they look out their windows they’ll see just what they expect to see. A Clatter-horse taking the vegetables from outside the houses. Your husband’s going to make us our own Clatterhorse, Mistress Leap.’

‘But…’ Mistress Leap sat bolt upright. ‘But… we cannot! The Locksmiths would-’

‘If we cannot find the chink in time, mistress, the Locksmiths will see us river-fodder anyway,’ Mosca pointed out.

‘But… if we take others’ tithes, then other households will suffer, other families, nobody deserves-’

‘Nobody? What if we take a tithe from outside a pawnbroker’s?’ There was grit and venom in Mosca’s grin. ‘Locksmiths might not trip over ’emselves to attack another guild. And even if those pot-bellied, blood-sucking leeches do end up being chased up and down a few streets by a horse made of bone, I won’t be weeping out my heart’s juice.’

‘If anybody sees us…’ Mistress Leap had her hands pressed to her temples as if her thoughts were trying to fight their way out. ‘If the Locksmiths ever found out… If anybody ever finds out…’

‘The urchin is right,’ called Welter from his workshop, over a rasp of earnest sawing. ‘It is our only chance, Leveretia.’

‘And not just ours,’ added Mosca. ‘In a few hours the mayor will look for a letter to say his daughter has been rescued. If it is not there, then come dusk he will hang the ransom outside his counting house. Then Skellow and Appleton and those other fine boys will dance out and snatch it. And by dawn they’ll be out of Toll and halfway to Mandelion, with Miss Marlebourne slung over one shoulder like a rug.

‘And the only way we can stop them is to prevent them getting the ransom. Gallop there ahead of them. Steal it first.’

The sky paled relentlessly. From black to charcoal, to a greasy grey, to apple-flesh white. Then the Jinglers swept the town, and the nightfolk were sealed away, with nothing more they could do to prepare for the tithe except tear up floorboards and shake furniture in search of stray coins. The day-doors opened, the colours came out to play, and the people of Toll-by-Day emerged to complain about the cold and the price of pepper.

By mid-morning, unbeknown to the populace, a blazing row was taking place at the mayor’s house. Sir Feldroll was doing most of the blazing.

Until now he had taken a good deal of care to be polite and deferential in the mayor’s house. However he was growing increasingly tired of pretending that he was not the heir to a full-blown and powerful city, visiting the petty official of a self-important provincial town. Toll’s power was its position, and its position was starting to drive him steadily insane.

‘My lord mayor, listen to me! No message has been left by the men I sent into the night. None! And no word from Clent’s girl. Nothing! My men are gone, and the girl is probably dead too. They have failed. Are you still determined to leave out that ransom?’

‘Would you have me do otherwise?’ flared the mayor. ‘What is a jewel compared to my daughter?’ The mayor had a groggy, punch-drunk air, though the only blows he had received were loss of his daughter, lack of sleep and the incessant battering ram of his guest’s conversation.

‘Then the kidnappers will flee with both the jewel and Miss Marlebourne as soon as they can. My lord mayor, you must allow me to bring troops through Toll this very day, so that they can be waiting to catch them on the western side! Appleton is a radical – where would he flee but to Mandelion?’

‘If I do this, without charging toll for your troops, then Toll will be declaring war on Mandelion! Your army will march on and lay siege to her, do not deny it! We have always, always , remained neutral -’

‘My lord mayor, with the greatest of respect, neutrality is a luxury you can no longer afford! Mandelion must be crushed, or other radicals like Appleton will be inflamed and inspired! Radicals cannot be wiped out if they have a whole city to flee to whenever they wish to escape the consequences of their crimes!’

The mayor gazed out through his window towards the Clock Tower, now partly hidden by scaffolding for the repairs of the clock, and Sir Feldroll could guess all too well what was in his mind. It was the Luck, the infernal Luck of Toll. They all acted this way, the people of Toll, gazing like trusting children towards the Clock Tower where the Luck was held, knowing in their hearts that nothing too terrible could happen, because the Luck would not permit it.

Sir Feldroll had no faith in the Luck’s ability to hold up the bridge, protect Toll from attack or extract Beamabeth Marlebourne from the clutches of her captors. In fact he was starting to wonder if the Clock Tower would have to be burned to the ground before he could get a sensible conversation out of anybody.

‘Sir Feldroll, no troops will pass through the town this day. But if with the next dawn my daughter is not returned to me in exchange for the ransom… I shall give permission for your men to march through Toll without payment.’

An army of arguments massed in Sir Feldroll’s mind, but he held them back and bid them build camp until they were needed. The mayor’s promise would do. It would have to do.

‘Very well. I shall send orders for our troops to approach Toll, ready to pass through once we have your permission.’

The sun slid lazily downwards, ignoring all those who prayed for it to stay longer in the sky. The low moon brightened, and the town went through its dusk ritual of shudder, rattle and shift.

In the alcove below the clock face on the Clock Tower, the figure of a little Goodman receded joltily. With a mechanical clatter like tin hoofs a shape with a skeletal horse’s head replaced it. The Night of Saint Yacobray had arrived, and now nothing could prevent his deathly canter.

The sight of a Clatterhorse should chill one to the bone. Sure enough, when Mosca surveyed the result of Welter Leap’s day of manic construction, she was struck dumb with a sense of acute dread and foreboding. However, this was not because it was an image of Death-in-a-bridle.