Free Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge Page A

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 woollen 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 pedlar 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

     
    Mosca had never seen a pistol before, but she had jealously bartered for Hangman’s Histories and Desperate Tales , and had seen woodcuts of highwaymen and murderers. She was a little surprised at how small their pistols were. They had always been drawn large in the pictures to make it clear what they were.
    How strange it was to look down the barrel of a pistol! It was not exactly fear, more a soft shock, like being hit in the stomach with a snowball. She seemed to be able to think quite clearly, but at the same time her thoughts seemed to move so slowly that she could watch them trundle past with a feeling of disinterest.
    Most of the men were young, she noticed with a frosted calm. One of them kept swallowing, as if he was nervous, and adjusting his grip on the pistol. His head kept twitching, as if he was trying to avoid peering over his shoulder, and a moment later she heard what the robber had already heard, the sound of horses’ hoofs. None of the armed men seemed alarmed by the noise. They seemed to expect it.
    A raindrop fell unexpectedly into her eye, and she instinctively reached up to brush it away before she had time to consider how the robbers might react to such a sudden gesture. She froze, her fingers still on her cheek, pins and needles running through her chest in preparation for a hail of bullets. The robbers did not seem to consider the twelve-year-old girl a mortal threat, however. Half of their attention was trained on the coach’s attendants and half upon the man whose head and shoulders now became visible above the bracken, beyond the road’s bend.
    A few moments more, and a sturdy-looking grey turned the corner, dappled like slush. To judge by its panting, it had come some way.
    The rider of the grey was neither tall nor of Fine Athletic Build. Mosca looked in vain for any sign that he was carrying a flageolet or wearing a claret-coloured cape. But no, he was not even wearing a periwig.
    A round-brimmed hat was pulled low on his brow, keeping the wind from his ears. Beneath this, a faint attempt had been made to tie back his ragged hair into a pigtail, but many strands had mutinied. A rough cloak of hessian was flung around him, over his greatcoat.
    His face was a fearful sight. It was a good few moments before Mosca understood the meaning behind his reddened eyes, his drawn-back upper lip and the occasional puckering of his face, and she realized that the highwayman was suffering from a streaming cold.
    ‘Black Captain Blythe,’ Clent muttered wearily under his breath.
    ‘Take those men off the coach,’ Blythe ordered his men, ‘and turn out their coats.’
    He did not sweep off his hat in greeting.
    ‘Get the