“You caused quite a sensation, disappearing like that. For a while they thought you had burned to death in the mill, until they found the magistrate’s keys missing and Clent gone. You should go home, you know—I’m sure your family will understand that the fire was an accident. They’ll just be glad to have you home again.”

Mosca gave a little crow cough of a laugh.

“You didn’t meet my uncle and aunt, did you?”

Kohlrabi studied Mosca’s face.

“No, I didn’t.” He didn’t ask her any more about her family.

They had come to a halt at the edge of a square in which a gibbet dripped sullenly and a set of scaffolds swayed their ropes in the breeze, a patient motion like the swing of a cat’s tail as it waits by a mouse hole.

“What’s wrong, Mosca? You look ill. Come, the wind is chill, and we should get indoors soon anyway, before the Clamoring Hour.”

As they approached, the landlady of the nearest alehouse had fastened her shutters and was closing the door, but she took pity on them and let them slip inside before she barred it closed.

There was very little conversation in the alehouse, partly because all the patrons had pushed little wads of linen or leather into their ears.

From some distant bell came a series of rapid chimes, not unlike someone sounding a dinner gong.

“Ah, that sounds like Goodlady Winterblossom’s fanfare,” Kohlrabi murmured. “She always likes to get her word in first. The others won’t be far behind. Well, I suppose we have privacy of a sort. No one is listening.” Kohlrabi smiled at Mosca. It felt oddly exciting to be part of a little faction daring enough to leave their ears unblocked.

“So why were you followin’ Mr. Clent?”

“I was in Long Pursing on an errand for Lady Tamarind when I first heard his name. He had vanished overnight, leaving ruinous debts to about a dozen tradesmen. That same night the landlord he owed two months’ rent apparently fell into his own well and drowned. I promised the dead man’s son that I would listen out for word of Clent, and that promise has led me a ragged route from hostelry to hamlet, following his trail. I lost track of him in Chough . . . only to find when I returned to Mandelion that Clent was already here.”

Mosca thought of herself snatching Clent from beneath the nose of the patiently pursuing Kohlrabi, and little prickles came and went across her face.