Kohlrabi’s face had no expression at all, and suddenly Mosca could barely recognize him. His face had always seemed so honest, like an unshuttered window through which emotions shone without disguise. Perhaps his expressions had always been a magic-lantern display, a conjurer’s trick.

“You had to get rid of the body, an’ you wanted to scotch Mr. Clent, so when we was out you dressed Partridge up in women’s togs, and brought him to the marriage house. I can just imagine the marriage, Partridge lollin’ and saggin’, you sayin’ he’s drunk and dippin’ your ear to his mouth so you can pretend he’s talkin’ to you, Mr. Bockerby nippin’ through all the versadiddle ’cause a pot of porter is waitin’ for him by the hearth, an’ the Cakes throwin’ honesty pods over you, with her eyes too tear-fogged to take a good, hard look at the bride . . . an’ you carry the bride off to the private chambers with your pockets full of wedding cakes, strip off the bonnet and gown, an’ leave the body sitting up straight an’ smart on Mr. Clent’s bed . . .”

“Halk Partridge was a pillager and thief of the lowest sort,” Kohlrabi said quietly. “He had an ugly temper, and would have ended up bleeding his thoughts into a tavern’s floorboards sooner or later. The river runs more cleanly without him riding its back.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know all that when he had his back to you, did you?” Perhaps Kohlrabi’s face had worn just this masklike look when Partridge had turned in bewilderment from the printing press, his lips ready with a question that was never asked.

“What if it had been me, Mr. Kohlrabi? Would Mr. Clent have rolled in from the tavern an’ found me sitting up on his bed, periwinkle blue an’ cold as a lawyer’s heart?”

“Do you really believe that?” Kohlrabi tilted his head a little, and his eyes were bright with something that might have been hurt, and might have been moon. “Little god, you see the world through such black eyes.”

“Got no choice. My father give ’em to me.”

“I think he gave you more than that, Mosca.” Kohlrabi’s tone set something jangling in the depths of Mosca’s soul like a bucket in a well. “I told you how I worshipped Quillam Mye when I was growing up. My own father was dead, and your father became my hero. He spoke out against the Stationers when they were trying to burn all books touched with our philosophy. It inspired me. I became certain that he must secretly be a member of our faith. The Stationers destroyed nearly all his books, but I found a few copies and read them. Mosca . . . down in the hold is a copy of one of his works. It is called On the Popular Superstition and Delusion Commonly Called the Beloved.”