“You lose somink, love?” asked a passing stevedore.

“I lost a coffeehouse,” Mosca answered indistinctly. “It . . . floated off down the river.”

The stevedore peered after the receding coffeehouse. “Half an hour late, too. ’Spect they were waiting for one of their regulars.” This reply was somehow unsatisfactory.

Mosca tried again. “It floated away down the river.”

“Wanted to catch it, did you? Well, the Laurel Bower stops on Tootle Street for sugar, that’s your best chance of boarding her this side of the river. Ye’ll have to run, though.”

And so, without pausing to question the strangeness, Mosca darted in the direction of his pointing finger.

She struggled down street after street, her eyes following the white kite above the roofline. And yes, at last, there was the coffeehouse, sliding to a halt alongside the jetty.

The door opened, and several men stepped out into the sun. One of them looked slightly familiar, and as Mosca tried to push past him he stepped forcibly into her path.

Mosca was taken roughly by the shoulders, and suddenly her feet were no longer touching the ground. The face of Partridge, the barge captain from the Mettlesome Maid, was inches from her own.

“Do you know what I want?” he hissed. The knot in his cheek was tying and loosing itself with frightening rapidity.

Mosca shook her head.

“I want . . . my . . . barge . . . back.”

“We ’aven’t got it!”

“No.” Partridge glared into her eyes with an intensity almost insane. “The goose has it.”

For a moment Mosca had a nightmarish image of Saracen biting through mooring ropes and taking the barge out, perhaps learning to trim the sails by himself . . .

“We plucked up the planks to get out our cargo,” Partridge explained slowly, “and the goose got down there, and we couldn’t get it out. And so we couldn’t get our cargo out. And then we sent Dotheril down belowdecks, and the goose broke his ankle, and now we can’t get him out. I want my barge back!”

Mosca nodded slightly.

“And I want money—compensation for time and business lost.”

Mosca nodded again, a little uncertainly.

“And you know what else I want for my trouble with the goose? I want your uncle’s heart spiked on a boat hook so I can hear it crackle as it bakes in the sun.”

I Is for Informer

I
IS FOR INFORMER

Mosca looked into Partridge’s eyes, judging his gaze and the force of his fingers against her shoulders.

“I’ll get yer money! You just got to let me go, an’ I’ll get yer money! Beloved blind me with brands if it ain’t so!”

Partridge stared at her distrustfully, and his grip tightened on her shoulders. There was nothing Mosca had wanted more than to find Partridge and buy back Saracen. However, right now her pockets were empty, and Partridge seemed to have gone a little mad.