But . . . who would pay to learn of an unlicensed school, teaching radical books? The Stationers would. They would give her money, and she would buy back Saracen. They would be pleased with her, and send her to school, the way Lady Tamarind wanted.

By the time Eponymous Clent came home, smelling of wine and wearing an orchid pinned to one lapel, Mosca’s mind was quite made up. He gave her a giddy, pink-nosed smile as he handed her his hat.

“Ah, an admirable day. To have my poetry appreciated by persons of quality . . . and means . . .”

Mosca thought that for a Special Operative, Clent seemed rather easily distracted.

“I hope you managed to occupy yourself today, my dear?”

Mosca grinned grimly.

“Shuffle your thoughts snug, Mr. Clent. You’ll need room in yer skull for everything I got to tell you.”

While Mosca was telling Clent all about her adventures with Partridge and the alley school, Linden Kohlrabi was preparing to make a report of his own. The strange young girl with her wild stories and excitable black eyes had provided an amusing and welcome distraction from this unpleasant duty, but now it could be avoided no longer.

The footmen at the gates to the Eastern Spire had been told to expect him, and he was shown in to meet Lady Tamarind immediately.

“Your Ladyship. I regret to say that Eponymous Clent has evaded me. I traced him, I trailed him, I caught up with him and in a little village called Chough I lost him. He is still at large.”

“I know,” answered Tamarind. “He is in Mandelion.”

“Already?” Kohlrabi raised his eyebrows. “I suppose he took a boat downstream?”

“He arrived by coach. My coach. We picked him up by the roadside.”

There are a number of things one cannot say to the sister of a duke, and Kohlrabi spent several icy moments not saying them.

“My lady,” he burst out at last, “if he were not so diabolically dangerous . . .”

“. . . then I would have risked throwing him out of my carriage as soon as I learned who he was,” finished Tamarind. “But I have turned the accident to the best advantage possible. I have recruited an agent to watch Clent’s every move, so that we are forewarned if he intends any harm. I do not yet know how reliable this agent will prove, but she shows promise . . .”

J Is for Judgment

J
IS FOR JUDGMENT

The next morning, Caveat of the Stationers left the safety of the Telling Word, and traveled by sedan to call upon a bookbinder in Pell-mell, where Eponymous Clent had been told to leave any reports.