“Take up the planks,” he ordered in an undertone. “But if either of you makes a sound, I’ll nail the deck in place above your heads, seal the cracks with pitch, and leave you to your prayers.”

They had to lever up three planks before Eponymous Clent was able to squeeze through. He disappeared into darkness with a muffled squawk.

“Quiet!”

“Merciless Fates! I would like to see you hold your tongue if you had just taken Goodlady Shempoline in the eye—”

“Silence!”

Mosca followed her employer into the cramped darkness below the deck. The darkness was almost absolute, apart from a few strands of light visible above between the deck planks. She raised her hand and felt the coarse wooden underside of the deck and wished she hadn’t. It was like finding oneself inside a wooden coffin.

The voice of the water was now far louder. Here you could hear the thoughts of the barge, how it clicked its tongue in annoyance as the wavelets slapped its flank, how it boomed and droned with effort as it strained against the ropes of the haulers, the drag of the current.

A crickle, a crackle. Somewhere not far from Mosca’s head lay Clent’s fistful of papers. Somewhere among them lay the Stationers’ letter. Even the few lines Mosca had read were enough to prove Clent a Stationer spy. This was her chance to gain something that might give her a hold over him. “Somink big,” Palpitattle’s voice echoed in her head. Her long fingers reached out stealthily and touched a papery corner.

“. . . elcome aboard . . . seems to be the probl . . .” Partridge’s voice from on deck.

“. . . orders of the Duke . . .” Long-suffering tones from a stranger. “Nay, there’s no need to uncover all o’ the bales. If we search every inch of every boat we’ll not see our wives tonight . . .”

Mosca carefully gripped the paper corner between thumb and fingertips, and started to pull at them. Almost immediately her knuckles took a sharp blow from what felt suspiciously like the knobbled features of Goodlady Agragap, She Who Frightens the Harelip Fairy from the Childbed.

“. . . what are you looking for?”

“. . . oofprints.”

Mosca’s free hand closed around a bust of Mipsquall, the Patron of High-pitched Winds, and a moment later the saint’s twin horns were jabbed firmly into Clent’s clenched fist.

“. . . what?”

“. . . orders of the Duke. On account of the highwayman Clam Blythe. His Grace has made it known that his loyal people would never harbor such a rogue”—there was a wealth of weariness and cynicism in these words—“so Blythe must be a-comin’ from lands across the river, an’ we’re to stop all boats to look for signs that they’ve given him an’ his men an’ their horses passage across to Mandelion. Hoofprints, dung, signs of horses where there should be none . . .”