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story from you I’ll pay for it. Speaking of which, do you have any thieves to sell me this month?’
    Mosca felt her mouth go dry. Could Clent really mean to sell her out already?
    ‘Of course, Jen. Four of them. An angler, a diver and two knights of the road.’ From reading the more lurid chapbooks, Mosca knew that ‘anglers’ were thieves who sat on roofs and used long, hooked poles to tweak bags from the top of coaches. A ‘diver’ was a pickpocket, and a ‘knight of the road’ was a highwayman.
    Mistress Bessel reached out eager hands and received a bundle of rough pages, printed in large type. Each bore a large seal of red wax, the seal of the Company of Stationers. Mistress Bessel was too busy slowly and silently mouthing out words to observe the corner of another packet of papers jutting from Clent’s burlap package. Clent noticed it, however, and pushed it back into hiding with a furtive urgency. The moment was not lost on the secret watcher.
    ‘Ooh . . . I do like to keep abreast of news in the profession, even now.’
    ‘I thought you would like to see this one, Jen.’ Clent extracted a particular sheet and began to read. ‘“An Account of the Ingenious Crimes and Stratagems of the Gang led by Rosemary Peppett, otherwise known as Lady Lighttouch . . .” Here we are . . . “not since the time of the infamous Mistress Fleetfinger have we seen such Craft and Courage in a Female Breast, and such Cunning use of her Sex’s softer charms that the Victims might even count themselves blessed . . .”’
    Mistress Bessel gave a wistful laugh.
    ‘Slop and feathers!’ she exclaimed. ‘Softer charms indeed – I never made use of my looks as Mistress Fleetfinger. I could have done though.’
    ‘That you could, Jen,’ Clent said gently.
    The corners of Mistress Bessel’s mouth drooped slightly, and she thoughtfully smoothed the back of her gloves. Then she gave a sniff and looked up at Clent with a forced brightness.
    ‘So – what kept you?’
    ‘I fear I made myself rather popular in Chough, so much so that they could not be persuaded to part with me. Indeed, when I finally tried to depart, they . . . put me in the stocks.
    ‘Ah, your taking ways. So how much did you take before they caught you?’
    ‘I was not caught,’ Clent declared in an affronted tone. ‘I fancy I was betrayed – I know that a stranger stayed in Chough with the magistrate last night. And . . . ah, perhaps I am growing old and fearful, but I have been feeling a shadow at my back since I left the Capital.’
    ‘The gallows casts a long shadow,’ murmured Mistress Bessel, ‘and sometimes it cuts out the sun. I got tired of feeling the chill of it on the back of my neck, which is why I turned respectable. That, and these.’ She held up her hands. There were dark shapes on their backs, faintly visible through her light gloves, each in the shape of a ‘T’. Felon’s brands , thought Mosca. T for thief .
    ‘It is not the fear of the gallows, my inestimable Jen. My shadow is flesh and bone and walks on two legs. Jen . . . I cannot linger here. It will not be long before the rabble of Chough work out where I have gone.’
    ‘Eponymous –’ Mistress Bessel sounded quite serious – ‘what devilish soup have you got yourself into? We were in fellowship once, and now you will not even tell me who you have been working for so secretively this last two years.’
    There was a long silence. Clent chased a chapbook around the tabletop with a fingertip. Finally Jen gave a short, bitter sigh. ‘Your girl’s been gone a long time,’ she remarked. ‘She’s got long fingers, I noticed that. If I miss anything from upstairs, you’ll be floating away downriver, but not in a boat.’
    Mosca decided that this was a good moment to reappear.
    Mistress Bessel turned a motherly smile upon her as she pushed open the door. ‘Ah, now, that’s better, my blossom.’
    ‘Mosca,’ Clent interrupted quickly, ‘we will need a few things from