At the carriage window the breeze set a curtain of fine lace quivering as if in alarm. The movement caught Mosca’s attention. A single muddy droplet hung from the top of the window. The wind rolled it gently to and fro, then it became too self-important, and fell. It sank greedily into a sleeve like snow, leaving a spot the color of coffee. A white handkerchief appeared in a slender, white-gloved hand and smoothed at the stain, smoothed and smoothed until it was no more. Mosca’s gaze followed the glove as it withdrew into the shadow of the carriage, and she looked in on a world of white.

Until this moment Mosca had thought she understood white. White was old, white was ugly, white was something that had been left in the water too long.

Until this moment Mosca had thought that she understood riches. Riches was the smell of goose fat, riches was a red roll of fat on belly and jowl that kept out the chill.

This strange new world held a multitude of clinging raindrops, but each drop was a pearl.

Mosca had never seen pearls before. And there were so many of them, playing ring-a-lilies across fields of spotless silk, hanging in long strings from the wrist and throat of the carriage’s single occupant.

A face hung in the darkness, porcelain pale and perfect. Above it rose an intricate mound of whorls and curls, pinned in place and powdered until the whole might have been carved out of marble. If there had ever been any warmth or expression in the face, it had long since been smoothed away and stifled with powder. And Mosca suddenly understood that real riches was not a roaring fire or a red woolen cloak. Real riches was snow.

“Heatherson, what is wrong?”

The words were cool, soft, feathery, and Mosca suddenly realized that the woman behind the marble face was young.

“Heatherson, what is happening?”

The woman leaned forward a little to give herself a better view of the road, and Mosca saw that on the gleaming surface of the lady’s cheek lay a faint lacework of an even more brilliant white. It was a scar, splaying like a snowflake across the lady’s right cheekbone.

“My lady, I think that we might have to . . .” The driver’s voice trailed away in a sick little hiccup. “. . . I think we might . . . I think . . .”

The discussion around Mosca had stilled. The peddler no longer chirruped, the footmen no longer grumbled, Clent’s delighted tones no longer painted pictures in the air. The driver above her had raised his hands above his ears. His face was as white as the lace curtain.

Some four or five men had risen from their hiding places among the gorse. Each held a pistol, carefully trained upon the group around the carriage.

E Is for Extortion

E
IS FOR EXTORTION