Mosca reached deep into the hole, and the flat of her palm struck the grooved wood of the barge bottom. She waved a hand through the darkness, and something knobbed batted at her fingers. Grabbing it, she lifted it into the half-light. It was a small, heavy, wooden figure of Goodman Grayglory, He Who Guides the Sword in Battle. Was there a whole tribe of icons, ripped from their shrines, huddling in the darkness like captives in the hold of a slave ship? And why would anyone be secretly transporting them down the river?

Biting her lip white with caution, she lowered the Goodman back into darkness, and replaced the plank. She pushed the canvas aside, and emerged on hands and knees, and began crawling alongside the hay bales on the side farthest from the bank, and from Eponymous Clent.

The secret cargo was not hidden among the bales, but she was fairly certain that something else was.

Why had Clent hidden the parcel of papers? Perhaps he was afraid that a Waterman’s scull might slip alongside the barge and he might be forced to open it. Where had he hidden it? Somewhere out of sight, but easy to reach in a hurry if he had to make a quick escape.

If Mosca had not been looking for something of the sort, she would never have noticed the string trailing from between two bales. Simple, but effective. In an emergency, Clent could pull the string, and . . .

She drew on the string, and the parcel slid out from its hiding place. Taking the bundle binding in her mouth, she cat-padded her way back on all fours, and dived into the darkness beneath the canvas awning.

When she had dragged off the string and pulled away the burlap, Mosca found herself with a lap full of printed papers. Most were chapbooks of criminals’ lives, the pages roughly stitched into their cloth covers. Some were large loose pages, or “broadsheets,” most of which had ballads printed upon them. All bore the seal of the Company of Stationers. Between them, however, was the packet Clent had labored to hide. It opened to Mosca’s eager fingers, and she was at first disappointed to find that it seemed to be a letter of introduction: “. . . Testifying that Eponymous Clent is acting upon the behalf of the Company of Stationers in investigating certain illicit . . .”

The page suddenly became a great deal easier to read as the canvas awning was twitched back, and Eponymous Clent pushed his head into the little cave.

His smile slid away like water off a candle, and his plump face became absolutely expressionless in a way that told Mosca that he was very angry. She stared back, her black eyes burning with triumph.

“How did you find those?”

“You’re working for the Stationers? You’re a spy?”

“You can read?” Clent stared at her in disbelief as he struggled into the makeshift cabin.

“Full of surprises, me,” whispered Mosca savagely.