Frances Hardinge - Twilight Robbery aka Fly Trap

‘Precisely,’ answered Clent. ‘And since it is currently such fine weather for travelling, I, ah, thought I should drop by and find out how quickly you were recovering.’

Mosca jumped up. ‘I jus’ got a lot better. Where’s my blinkin’ bonnet? And where’s Saracen?’

Over the next ten minutes Mosca made short work of her lunch, scrambled into the lilac gown that had been laid out for her, then flung herself into hurried packing and goose-retrieval, after which Mosca and Clent were almost ready to make their hasty adieus.

‘Typical,’ muttered Mosca as she fitted Saracen’s muzzle. ‘After all the trouble we went to, rescuing Beamabeth from one Locksmith town, and now she’ll be trapped in another.’

‘I think not,’ Clent remarked wryly. ‘In all probability she will leave and marry Sir Feldroll – a gentleman that stormed out of Toll in the highest dudgeon this morning, by the way. The mayor, on the recommendation of his new “advisors” has said that even fewer people will be let in and out of the town from now on and all tolls will be raised from tomorrow. So poor Sir Feldroll will not be marching his army through Toll after all, it seems. Mandelion is safe from that quarter, at least.’ Clent regarded Mosca with a gleam of amusement. ‘Yes, I rather thought that would please you.’

Brave, jubilant Mandelion and its intrepid radical government were safe for now. Yes, that did make Mosca happy. So why did she still feel a strange uneasiness of spirit? Her steps slowed unwillingly and she halted by a window, biting her lip almost to bleeding point.

‘Child! More haste! We are done here. You have even avenged yourself upon the detestable Skellow, who was bent on your destruction – he is no more, I gather? Killed while on the brink of shooting Miss Beamabeth.’

‘Stabbing. But… yes.’ Mosca thought of the last breath hissing out of Skellow’s lean profile and felt queasy.

‘Stabbing, shooting, it is all the same.’ Clent gave a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Caught on the verge of committing dire damsel-icide. The point is, your nemesis is defeated. There is nothing more for us to do here.’ Clent was squinting eastwards, his mind already on the road.

But Mosca was no longer listening. Looking down through the window into the castle courtyard, she could see a young woman walking to and fro beside her vegetable stall, trying in vain to calm a squalling baby. There was something about its tremble-fisted frenzy that reminded her of Blethemy’s baby, the Gobbet. She thought of Mistress Leap with a hundred desperate mothers, all struggling to have their babies born in a lucky hour so that they could live a better life, all clutching at that one, gleaming strand of hope. That strand was about to snap. Soon Toll-by-Day would fall to the Locksmiths as Toll-by-Night had done before it, and the town would shut up like a clam. Nightfolk and dayfolk alike would be trapped under the fearful rule of the Locksmiths, and escape for either would become all but impossible.

‘Oh… oh, rat-pellets!’ exploded Mosca. ‘It’s their last chance! Wait here a few breaths, Mr Clent!’ She stamped away down the hall. ‘I have to talk to Miss Beamabeth. If anybody can make the mayor listen, it will be her! And she must listen to me, Mr Clent! Drizzle an’ dregs, I hauled her out of Toll-by-Night by her hair! That has to be worth more than spittle!’

Mosca found Beamabeth in the long reception room where they had first met a few interminable days and nights ago. The mayor’s adopted daughter was sitting at a sampler frame. From Mosca’s side she could only see the back of the design, a tangle of cream and fuschia threads. She was, Mosca noticed with relief, entirely alone.

‘How lovely to see you looking so well, Miss Mye!’ There it was again – the utterly disarming kitten smile. ‘That dress of mine becomes you very well. You must take it with you when you go. I can give you a shawl to match it.’ Beamabeth’s hair was back in ringlets, and their colour had come out like the sun. ‘You do not mind if I do not stand? My nerves are still so weak after everything that has happened.’

‘Miss Beamabeth… I wanted to talk to you about Toll. About the things the Locksmiths want the mayor to do. You got your father’s ear -’

‘Oh dear.’ Beamabeth made a pained little moue. ‘Sir Feldroll was talking to me about that sort of thing this morning, and I really cannot bear to hear any more right now. It gives me a horrible headache.’

‘But… your town is running out of time! When your father signs papers with the Locksmiths, then everything goes into the night! Toll-by-Night, but all night and all day! Listen – there is still time to let people out first so they don’t get trapped inside the town! The mayor could do it – he could let folks out without paying toll-’

‘But Father already is making sure the important people can leave. I am certain he said so.’

‘But it’s not just important people here! There’s… there’s the nightfolks. He could save some of them. Reclassify lots of ’em really fast, bring ’em into the day and let them out too before it’s too late.’

‘And have all the nightlings running around loose?’ Beamabeth looked appalled and astonished.

Mosca swallowed her annoyance with difficulty. ‘Toll is a sinkin’ ship, miss, and those left in her will drown.’

‘Yes, it is very sad.’ Beamabeth’s brow puckered as she pushed her needle into the web of threads. ‘That is why Sir Feldroll says we should live at his estates in Waymakem when we marry, instead of Toll.’ She gave a long, heartfelt sigh. ‘It really is very difficult to leave somewhere though, when you have lived there all your life. But it has been getting harder and harder here over the last two months, thanks to the loss of Mandelion trade, and we have been running out of all the essentials one by one – chocolate, coffee, sugar, tea, nutmeg. Of course such things are scarce in Waymakem too, but at least there are not so many rules-’

‘Hard for you to leave, is it?’ interrupted Mosca, forgetting her determination to match Beamabeth’s courteous manners. ‘’Tis a bleedin’ sight harder for those as cannot leave for lack of coin! Toll-by-Day might be running out of nutmeg, but Toll-by-Night is even running out of rats ! They been putting owls and robins in the cooking pots!’

Beamabeth pulled her face back, small crinkles appearing in her perfect nose. Now she was a kitten that had smelt something distasteful, or burned itself on something hot. It was a signal to Mosca that she had gone too far and should change her tone and the subject. But she had gone too far indeed, too far to stop.

‘Everybody loves you – everybody’s been risking their lives for you! And now you want to abandon them all to Goshawk’s crew and waltz off to Waymakem with Sir Fidgety-Face Feldroll so you can keep your tea caddy full?’

‘They will all be happy as long as I am happy,’ Beamabeth said simply. And smiled, as if she was saying something self-evident. ‘The town wants me to be safe. I shall be doing it for them as much as myself.’

Mosca’s mouth fell open. The surge of bitterness she had felt when she first met Beamabeth was back, and now there was no damming it.

‘You spoilt, selfish, soft-headed hoity! I thought you were supposed to be some kind of angel! Just because everybody talks to you like you’re the most precious thing in Toll, that doesn’t mean it’s true ! You’re not the only person who bleeds when they’re cut, or bruises when they’re struck. But nothing ever does bruise you, does it?’

Outside the birds hushed, and the market noises seemed to recede. Toll itself seemed to have halted in shock. The impossible had happened. Something more incredible than horses of bone or green-skinned foreigners. Somebody had shouted at Beamabeth Marlebourne.