“Succinctly put, Mr. Copperback,” said Goshawk, without any sign of resentment. “Three months ago, the Duke was almost ready to sign any charter we wanted. Her Ladyship must have set up the secret printing press as a last desperate gamble. An inspired gamble, with one important effect—the Stationers’ Guild became involved. She persuaded the Stationers that we were running the press in order to manipulate the Duke. Then she made it appear that the Stationers had plotted our arrest. No doubt she has amused herself greatly watching our guilds tearing one another apart.”

“But surely that is a rather shortsighted plan?” Pertellis blinked across at the Goshawk-shaped patch of murk. “In time, both sides were bound to compare notes and realize they had been tricked. She will be left vulnerable.”

Mosca’s blood suddenly ran cold.

“No, she won’t,” she said. “I heard the Duke give her a by-your-leave to bring in a big ship from the coast, all up to its ears in troops for keeping order. That’s who the new Birdcatcher printings are for . . .”

“The Watermen would never allow it!” exclaimed Miss Kitely.

There was a murmur of assent from the rest of the room.

“In case you have not noticed, madam,” Goshawk interjected, “there are currently hardly any Watermen in Mandelion. Most of them disappeared upstream several days ago.”

Mosca looked sideways at the Locksmith leader. “I heard Lady Tamarind say something about that too. They’ve been sent to ‘delay’ the Locksmith troops that she knew were waiting upstream.”

“Are you saying that the waterway is clear for a ship full of Birdcatcher troops to sail into Mandelion and take it over?” Pertellis was cleaning his monocle hard enough to push the lens out. “When does this ship arrive, Miss Mye?”

“She said it would take ten days to get ’ere. An’ that was . . . about ten days ago.”

“Beloved above,” whispered Pertellis. “They could turn up at any moment.”

The conversation became very animated and confusing, so Mosca went and sat next to Eponymous Clent, and kicked her heels against the chair leg for a minute or so.

“So, you just found the barge captain’s body in the clothes chest, then, did you?” she asked at last. She was not very good at apologizing.

“On the bed, actually. When you found me, I was trying to, ah, hide it. I fear I was not thinking with my usual crystalline lucidity. I even suspected for a while that you might have been responsible for, as it were, spilling the fellow’s claret. You need not look so shocked—younger than you have done worse, and you have a wealth of rage in that reedlike form of yours.”

“But you didn’t cackle on me?”