Clent strode across the cobbles, paying little attention to his secretary, who followed him at a hop, still fastening the buckle of one clog as she struggled to keep up with him.

At last he halted outside a large building with a mighty mill wheel which jolted Mosca with the memory of Chough. From within came a vigorous whoomp! whoomp! whoomp! as if many pairs of giants were playing battledore at once. Several men, stripped to their shirts, were hurrying to and fro with barrows, some full of white rags, others full of colored rags, rope ends, and scraps of sailcloth. This was clearly the Papermill, and the rags were destined to be shredded and pulped and thumped into paper.

Peering through the open window of an adjoining building, Mosca saw two rows of women sorting scraps of cloth with quick, practiced fingers, cutting them into pieces and slicing off buttons. Fascinated, she scampered to the next window.

And here, crisscrossed by the diamond-pane light from the window, was a Stationer printing press, its square-shouldered wooden frame standing up straight like a gutted dresser. A large man in his shirtsleeves lowered paper gripped in a hinged frame onto a blackened tray of type, then pushed the tray on rollers into the heart of the press. A mighty heave on a lever, and the machine stressed and pressed the paper down onto the type. Mosca could almost feel the flexing of the metal, forcing words into the world. The lever was raised, the tray dragged out, the frame lifted, and the printed page tweaked free. A second man dipped the ends of what looked like fat drumsticks into a pot of ink, and slathered the mix over the type again, in readiness for the next page. The two men glistened with heat and effort. The press glistened with lampblack and varnish. On the other side of the room an elderly, fox-faced man scanned each page carefully. In one hand he held a stick of wax, which he softened in a candle before drawing a molten splotch in each page corner and stamping it, using a ring with the Stationers’ seal.

Mosca nearly broke her neck turning her head upside down to read the drying sheets. They were posters in big, crumbly-looking capitals, advertising “Clashes Between All the Heraldry Beasts of the Many Monarchs,” to be held at the Gray Mastiff Inn.

Clent, meanwhile, had approached a smaller building across the road, flanking the river. It was unlike anything Mosca had ever seen before.

She knew it was a coffeehouse, for the sign above the door bore the image of an elegant Eastern coffeepot. Even with her limited knowledge of the world, Mosca had heard of the coffeehouses of the big cities. Many men chose them as a place in which to relax, or cut deals, or talk of high matters with the like-minded. Each coffeehouse had its own character, and usually its own loyal band of customers, close-knit as any club.