Frances Hardinge - Fly By Night

Then the Birdcatchers began killing the Beloved.

First the new rulers had declared Goodman Criesinthedark a demon. Everybody had been very shocked to learn this, but Criesinthedark had very few worshippers, so there had been little outcry when they were whipped in the marketplace and the Goodman’s shrines burned. Ah , sighed the old men, how relieved we were that we had found out about Criesinthedark in time!

But the next month the shrines of Goodlady Jobble were in flames, and her worshippers were being branded above the eyebrow. A month after that, Goodman Haleweather was also declared a demon. His church icons vanished, never to be seen again… and so did his worshippers. That is the last of it , everybody had told each other. The Birdcatchers have saved us from these demons , but that is the last of it …

But the nightmare continued, and day after day the people were told that another of the Beloved was really a demon in disguise as they watched their neighbours being led away in chains. It took most of them years to face the fact that the Birdcatchers meant to stamp out belief in the Beloved altogether. The worst of it , said the old men, was the feeling that the gods themselves were helpless and frightened . The Birdcatchers had spies everywhere, and people grew afraid to pray, to speak, to think…

… and then, after ten years of terror, something changed in the hearts of the chidden population. The fearful murmurs of protest became a buzz like summer-maddened bees, and then a hurricane roar of outrage. Heedless of menaces and musketfire, the people of the Realm had risen up and driven the Birdcatchers into hiding, into the sea, into the prisons and execution yards.

After the fall of the Birdcatchers, the Stationers had made it clear how much of the madness had been spread by the Birdcatchers’ books, their terrible, poisonous books. These books had been burned, and the Heart had been ripped out of every church in the country, leaving an empty hole.

Perhaps the Heart would have given a sense of oneness and completeness that the rabble of reinstated Beloved did not provide. The Heart would have given one the chance to lose oneself in staring away and away into a brilliant nothingness. Perhaps that would have been something worth believing in, Mosca thought dangerously, giddy with her own treason.

A thin wind blew through the gap and chased straw in circles around the floor. Mosca gave a sharp wriggle of her shoulders, and shrugged off her unease. She pulled out the purse, felt it for weight, and then opened it. A moment later she was running from the church, banging her shoulder against the door in her hurry.

The purse contained only a farthing, two pieces of slate and a jumble of metal scraps and mellowberry pips. With the keen instincts of the unloved, Mosca knew that Clent had contrived this errand so that he could abandon her in Kempe Teetering.

Mistress Bessel looked up quickly as Mosca clattered into her shop, and did not seem surprised to see her agitated and out of breath. She peered down at the jumble of oddments in Mosca’s palm and tutted.

‘Well, that was a mean trick to play. I thought he would at least leave you with a little money in your pocket. Still -’ she sighed in a motherly way – ‘you’re not far from home, so I dare say you can make your way back to Chough having learned a lesson, and no harm done.’ Mistress Bessel’s shrewd blue eyes moved across Mosca’s face as if she was itching to ask whether any harm had been done.

Mosca clenched her mouth shut, biting back the words that were buzzing to be released.

‘There now,’ said Mistress Bessel, mistaking Mosca’s silent rage for distress. ‘Has he… taken something from you, blossom?’

Mosca gave her a dark, furtive glance, came to a quick decision and nodded.

‘Well, that is a little too bad of him, but you should have known better than to put your faith in a scapegrace like Eponymous Clent. Did you really mean to traipse all the way to Mandelion at his heels?’

So, Clent did have a destination in mind… he had sent her away so that he could make his arrangements… and he was headed for Mandelion, the very city where her father had once lived…

‘He’s taking a boat downriver, then,’ Mosca said, her hot, black eyes fixed on Mistress Bessel’s face, ‘an’ he won’t want to hire a Waterman.’

The Company of Watermen, originally a guild of boatmen carrying passengers, had long since taken on the task of policing the river. If Clent was nervous enough to change his clothes, he would probably avoid the Watermen.

‘You know which boat he means to take.’ Slowly Mosca uncurled her fist again, and separated the farthing from the other scraps.

Mistress Bessel watched with a smile that was still indulgent, but the warmth had drained from her eyes.

‘You had a pipe when you come in,’ she said evenly.

Mosca tugged the pipe out of her pouch, and slapped it into Mistress Bessel’s waiting hand, along with the farthing.

‘Well, I told you nothing, mind, and you chanced on him by your own good luck. He’s taking passage with the Mettlesome Maid , a barge fastened on the near bank. She flies a flag for King Hazard – you cannot miss her.’

Mosca took a couple of rapid steps towards the door, and then halted. Something was missing

‘Where’s my goose?’

‘The goose?’ Mistress Bessel whistled through her teeth regretfully. ‘Eponymous said it was his. I give him the names of some contacts in Mandelion and told him a place where he could stay, and he give me the goose in exchange. You better take the matter up with him when you find him.’

Mosca clenched her fists, and bristled like a cat.

‘Saracen!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs. ‘Foxes!’

Around the doorway a muscular white neck curled questingly. Into the shop proper came Saracen with his sailor’s strut, making a sound as if he was swallowing pebbles and enjoying it. Mosca knelt and reached for him.

‘Farthingale!’ In answer to Mistress Bessel’s sharp cry, a young man with an armful of stone nettles put his head around the door. ‘Take that goose away and keep it under control, will you?’ Farthingale wiped his free hand on his apron, and went to obey.

Rather a lot of things happened in quick succession. Since most of them happened after Mosca had ducked under the nearest table and pulled her new bonnet down over her face, she could only guess at their nature. However, they were loud, and violent, and sounded as if they might be expensive.

‘Throw a rug over it, boy, and grab it!’ she could hear Mistress Bessel shouting.

Farthingale must have followed her instructions, since a moment later there was a hoarse cry of pain and a sound like the counter breaking. To judge by his yelling, though, Farthingale was still alive, which relieved Mosca. He was bellowing a great many words that were new to Mosca and sounded quite interesting. She memorized them for future use.

At last she raised the broad bonnet brim and gazed cautiously out into the shop. The floor was awash with the chalky shrapnel of shattered leaves and shivered ribbons. Through the debris swaggered Saracen, trailing a hessian rug like a cloak, a sprinkling of stone dust across his orange beak. Farthingale had taken refuge behind the wreckage of the counter, and was cupping one hand over his bloodied nose. Mistress Bessel had scrambled on to a rickety chair, her skirts hitched. The wood beneath her portly weight creaked nervously as the goose strutted barely a yard from her feet.