Why have his men stopped firing at us? Blythe wondered, as he leaned against the chimney for support. A glance over his shoulder answered his question. The sky was thick with kites, all bearing the Watermen’s insignia. The swift wherries had slipped in among the other river traffic, only now throwing up kites to declare their presence. There would be no more gunfire on their patch.

Skin me, thought Blythe, that girl must have got her message through to the Stationers after all. The far cries of the crowds were as shrill and gleeful as gull calls over a plowed field, and Blythe looked about him, dazed, as distant hats were hurled into the air, and little boats ran up flags of celebration.

Among the figures thronging the Ashbridge, Blythe thought for a moment he saw a short and slender figure in an olive-green dress, a point of stillness amid the jubilation. But a fit of light-headedness came over him again before he could be sure whether it was Mosca, and by the time it cleared, the figure was gone.

U Is for Undefended

U
IS FOR UNDEFENDED

So this is what living honestly is like, Mosca thought as she waded through bristling, rustling plants. The thick green seedpods that patted the skin of her arms were as cool and rough as the pads of cats’ paws. The riverside paths had been easy enough to follow in daylight, but now the light was starting to dim. Her only hope of finding the ragman’s raft again was to follow the river, so she struggled along within sight of the water even when the bank became overgrown.

Ugly Mr. Toke had told her that the high tide would cause wild water. The ragman’s raft was tethered by just one mooring pin in the soft bank. She needed to moor it more safely so that the river would not drag it loose and chew it to pieces, the way he had described. And she needed to find a better hiding place for it so that the Stationers did not find it.

No, she did not want the Stationers to find it; she knew that now. She had realized that while she was staring into Toke’s clever little eyes. The Stationers would cage the press like a wild animal, and break its spirit. Suddenly she had known that the printing press should be hers and hers alone.

There was a terrible excitement in the thought of the press lurking in its darkened lair with its iron grin and ink-stained teeth, ready to whisper forbidden secrets to her. If there is paper, there may be books, whispered a voice in her head. Dangerous books, gunpowder books, books that could burn away the castles of the mind and change the color of the sky.