Until an awkwardly airborne winged inventor with goggles on his face crashes through the roof, stunning himself and dislocating an arm, then having to hide in the wardrobe till he recovers; yet giving the prisoner his first look through a hole full of twilit evening sky.
From that moment on, everything changes, and not only for Paragon Ganymede Enjolras, but for two of three nightling siblings and brave smugglers of chocolate (and tea, and laudanum, and other drugs) brave enough to go between Night and Day whose mother runs a pleasure-house, a drunken nightling artist and good-for-nothing fight club regular, a dayfolk-turned-nightling literary translator and hopeless romantic (who is part of the same fight club), the lord mayor's pampered stepdaughter among the dayfolk, the nightling-born self-made guildmaster of the Locksmiths (or Jinglers), and of course the foreign fashion designer and his dayfolk inventor partner; not to mention, dayfolk and nightlings and strangers alike, the entire community at his feet...
Much of Twilight Robbery, and by proxy As The Luck Would Have It, takes place in a town called Toll, which is perched on the edge of a precipice with a raging river (the Langfeather) at the bottom, and whose skyline is marked by the Clocktower (a prison which houses convicts in the middle and lower floors, and the Luck of Toll at the top) and the Lord Mayor's Castle (an estate within the walls where he lives with his Foster daughter). There are a few public parks, one of them with a duck pond, where well-off dayfolk go with their parasols. Toll's bridge has been worn and warped by centuries of time and weather, the rock of the ridge is crumbling and the little walled town has no army worth mentioning to defend it, and yet its townspeople are smugly confident. Why? Toll contains the mysterious 'Luck', which is BEST not to mention (like the Scottish Play) and all the locals believe that no disaster can befall them while it lies within the walls of the town. As to what sort of thing the Luck really is, it is the person born under the most fortunate signs in the community.
Toll is two towns in one. Toll-by-Day appears a bright, safe and prosperous provincial town, where the streets are mysteriously clean each morning. As dusk approaches, the good people of Toll-by-Day slam shut their doors and tremble. New openings appear in the shadows, a black carriage rumbles through the streets and a wicked underworld emerges. It is time to discover Toll-by-Night – and it's a very different place. The dayfolk wears bright colours, while the nightlings wear dark ones to mingle with the darkness.
The Committee of the Hours has the all-important task of deciding who has the right to live in Toll-by-Day, and who must be sent to Toll-by-Night.
The Frances Hardinge's Twilight Robbery AU As The Luck Would Have It may have crystallised Enj's first name as Paragon for all of StrixAlluka's crossovers, but it does more than so. It sews the Les Misérables characters perfectly into the niches of the people of Toll, be they dayfolk or nightlings (since they are a lot of them basically counterparts, or so Alluka has seen it!!); Éponine stands in perfectly for Laylow the ninja-like chocolate and tea smuggler (with little brother Gavroche as a sometimes-accomplice), Théodule Gillenormand (by proxy for his family, here wealthy war profiters from an estate on Toll's outskirts) for Lord Feldroll of Millepoyse (the enemy general and fiancé of the Lord Mayor's foster daughter), Marius for Brand Appleton, Cosette for a reluctant Beamabeth Marlebourne who is actually manipulated by her fiancé (much like Anthy Himemiya, and she equally defrosts - being far more Anthy than Beamabeth), Valjean for Beamabeth's adoptive father Lord Mayor Graywing Marlebourne, Javert for Locksmiths' GuildMaster Aramai Goshawk (an unusually corrupt Javert, with La Squadra di Esecuzioni plus Tiziano and Squalo --Enjolras' guards-- plus Polpo as the Keeper, jailor of the Clocktower, as his Locksmith underlings)... and Enjolras for Luck of Toll Paragon Collymoddle, to the point that the character lacking a first name gets that of his counterpart, canonising the full name of Paragon Ganymede Enjolras in the Allukaverse.
PS. The other Amis are also there - most notably Grantaire, cause you can't spell Enjoltaire without R, and he's a bohemian, drunken nightling who is a crazy artist (think something like Goya but younger, or Dalí but less cosmopolitan) He's partially based upon Clarín from La vida es sueño.
The Rapunzel elements also come into play at large, with a long-haired blond kept away from the outside and sheltered in a tower, until the outside knocks on his window-door (or rather crashes the roof of the tower using leather and clockwork wings) and flat out tells him what he's missing... that he realizes being the Luck is not an honour but a prison sentence. So basically mashing up Les Mis and the history of Toll also brought with it an Utena-esque deconstruction of Rapunzel (with some Happy Prince elements thrown in), echoing Calderón's dramatic play La vida es sueño; as he will finally set foot outside the walls of the tower, live between two drugged trances (being given a potion with laudanum) for a while in the outside world, and return to the outside of his own free will to start a revolution... Also, Courfeyrac, Grantaire, and Éponine sing Bellman songs. LOTS of Bellman songs!!
Now for the person who literally crashed into the clocktower rooftop and spent half a year, arm in a sling and fed in secret, in the Luck of Toll's wardrobe. Having left too-provincial Toll in order to see the wide world (as a child of foreigners from Jottland, raised on lots of stories and facts), Combeferre returns an accomplished scholar, able to fly over the walls of his birthplace, yet unsure of how his relatives will accept the marital partner he has chosen, the famous Ludist fashion designer and Baron de Courfeyrac, who introduced him to the revels of the Feast of Dolls (basically las Fallas) and the Ludist pastry specialty that 'Ferre at first, as well as many dayfolk of Toll, call "cracking bush" (croquembouche). The far more open-minded and cosmopolitan Quadaran quadrant of Ludia, from the Four Dead Queens universe, is the scene for a great many Courferre flashbacks in this series. And so is the Altavian mountainside village of Paleth, next to Bahaka, the Altavians' cavern entrance to the underworld (see Crankrats, Chapter 19); a lushly green rural village society where gender is no object - the powerful local chieftain Sayleen is a platinum-haired pregnant young woman, divorced from her raven-haired ex-wife - lady-of-war-courtier Lady Torren at the Garrison (the ruling council of Altavia) - and remarried to a redheaded young man; and her scar-faced brother Sigvald, who shares her hair colour (he got his scars when he stood for his sister in a blood match, an old Altavian tradition where you call your opponent's blood into question and fight till they submit; he fought for Sayleen because she was pregnant with her toddler daughter Alaana at the time and could not risk it), he has a raven-haired husband called Cyran (I guess it's pronounced KAI-ran, like "Kieran") and both are guards at the village gate --- there in Paleth, surrounded by greenery, Combeferre and Courfeyrac harvest yams and cabbage in the communal sowing plot, play kaeva - a popular Altavian strategy board game - for days on end, and, most importantly, get bonded, ie married Altavian style. Sometimes Altavian people find a kindred soul in another. So they split their pains and bond their blood. They become family, comrades-in-arms, or sometimes lovers or marital partners, such as Sigvald and Cyran. It's a very sacred pairing, blessed by the Great Mother, the only goddess in the Altavian religion. The bonding ritual is performed by both bonded slashing the palm of their hand and then shaking hands or high-fiving one another. In such a way, Combeferre has become Courfeyrac's bonded and vice versa. (PS. Ludist society is so into free love that there is no marriage; as a wise strategist/statesman would say; "Perhaps an abundant lifestyle permits more egalitarian views, ...")
Until nostalgia sets in and Combeferre decides to return home with his bonded in tow to tell his parents (expatriate diplomats from the royal court of Jottland --a country know for its foothills and glades-- living in Toll-by-Day) and siblings (his two youngest sisters who live at their parents' home) he's still alive... Then, Fish-out-of-water shenanigans ensue for Courfeyrac in Toll, both by day and night.
Soon everyone is embroiled, on one or the other side, dayfolk or nightlings, aware or unaware of the scheme, on a plan by the Locksmiths (or Jinglers) to abduct the Luck of Toll. And it all begins like Gurren Lagann, with two lads looking up at the twilit evening sky -- Enjolras, as he puts Combeferre's arm in an improvised sling of bedsheets, before concealing him from his keepers in the wardrobe (in a pretty Third-Reichy hiding-a-persecuted-person move).
Though, though at first this starts with Courferre (not to mention friendly Enjolferre) as the only pairing in Act the First, there is Enjoltaire in this story!! (as well as Mariusette, and Mariunine, and Montponine, and Éposette, and Valvert, and Tizialo -- each pairing gets as much screentime, showing a series of parallel vignettes of the happenings in Toll, by day and by night, that entwine gradually until flowing together as one)
The town of Toll in Twilight Robbery takes the prejudice Up to Eleven, as half the population not only have to wear badges proclaiming their status as nightlings to the world and live and work as second-class citizens, but are not permitted to exist during daylight hours, and must hide themselves indoors until night. The fact that it is totally nonsensical is, of course, the point.
Rousseau Was Right: The dayfolk of Toll live their lives thinking of the Night people as the local bugbears. However, when fire threatens Toll in the climax, the residents of Toll-by-Day smash through locked doors and false walls to save the nightlings.
The Scottish Trope: Pretty much Toll's policy. Don't talk about what goes on after dark, don't go into detail about the Luck of Toll, don't question the curfews, and really don't acknowledge the weird jingling noises that come at dusk and dawn.
As said in the title, the corona pandemic crisis is causing a major repeak of interest in As The Luck Would Have It (and not only the Utena-esque Rapunzel deconstruction modelled on Calderón, and/or the fact that there is a hypocritical, corrupt Javert in this universe!). Dayfolk and nightlings alike --ie the non-infected and the infected, respectively-- forced to shun one another, live seggregated, attend to curfews depending on the time of day literally for their lives? Toll is literally Anytown during the corona crisis. In its exploration of prejudice, confinement, the consequences of warfare... is also where this story shines and becomes relevant in this uncertain present day.
Though, though at first this starts with Courferre (not to mention friendly Enjolferre) as the only pairing in Act the First, there is Enjoltaire in this story!! (as well as Mariusette, and Mariunine, and Montponine, and Éposette, and Valvert, and Tizialo -- each pairing gets as much screentime, showing a series of parallel vignettes of the happenings in Toll, by day and by night, that entwine gradually until flowing together as one)
The town of Toll in Twilight Robbery takes the prejudice Up to Eleven, as half the population not only have to wear badges proclaiming their status as nightlings to the world and live and work as second-class citizens, but are not permitted to exist during daylight hours, and must hide themselves indoors until night. The fact that it is totally nonsensical is, of course, the point.
Rousseau Was Right: The dayfolk of Toll live their lives thinking of the Night people as the local bugbears. However, when fire threatens Toll in the climax, the residents of Toll-by-Day smash through locked doors and false walls to save the nightlings.
The Scottish Trope: Pretty much Toll's policy. Don't talk about what goes on after dark, don't go into detail about the Luck of Toll, don't question the curfews, and really don't acknowledge the weird jingling noises that come at dusk and dawn.
- Toll is not an important town, but it is built on the ruins of a castle. There are giant walls enclosing it, tight security for the two gates, and the enormous Langfeather river as a moat on one side. What's more, the town owns the only bridge crossing the river, so everyone wanting to travel south has to go through Toll.
- Crapsaccharine World: Toll-by-Day is peaceful, welcoming and remarkably sanitary. Too bad it's hiding Toll-by-Night, and both are effectively ruled by the Locksmiths.
- Psycho for Hire: This is what the mayor of Toll believes the Locksmiths/Jinglers to be. He learns why this is bad idea when they steal the Luck.
- according to town traditions, the Luck must live locked away in the clock tower.
- Master of Unlocking: The emphasis on "Master" is why the Locksmiths Guild is The Dreaded. As they build all the locks and strongboxes in the Realm, they always have the means to open every single one of them; Nothing is safe from the Locksmiths.
- The Syndicate: After they realized a Master of Unlocking makes for the best thief, the Locksmith Guild became the synonymous with the criminal underworld. The Guild Master is, for all intents and purposes, The Don.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Locksmiths seem to be an all-men gang at first, but then we learn that the Guild Master hires ladies, too.
- Conspicuous Gloves: One sure way to identify a Locksmith is that they wear gloves at all times to hide the key-shaped brand burned into their hand.
- Counterpart Culture: The Fractured Realm is meant to resemble 17th century England. There are also mentions of travelling "gypsy" girls in the Realm and the Seissian islands, which sound like a representation of Iran/Turkey/Arab lands or some blend thereof.
- Master of Unlocking: The emphasis on "Master" is why the Locksmiths Guild is The Dreaded. As they build all the locks and strongboxes in the Realm, they always have the means to open every single one of them; Nothing is safe from the Locksmiths.
- He has famously small and tender white hands and wears a chatelaine, like the rest of the Locksmiths - chatelaines were normally an attribute of housewives.
- the Locksmiths, who otherwise fulfill the position of The Dreaded in the Realm.
- Fictional Holiday: The Night of Saint Yacobray, a Grim Reaper-esque figure who is patron to killers and rides a skeletal horse called the Clatterhorse. The traditions are vaguely similar to Halloween, with children going door to door, asking for treats, with hobbyhorses made to look like Yacobray's steed (think Mari Llwyd). In Toll, however, the night is used by the Locksmiths/Jinglers as a creative way to extort money, with the Night townspeople leaving vegetables with coins hidden inside on their doorsteps, symbolically feeding the Clatterhorse. If the nightlings don't pay up, more than a few cabbages and potatoes go missing.
- Gilded Cage: The top room of the clock tower where the Luck of Toll is kept. Paragon Collymoddle/Paragon Enjolras, the current Luck, is given expensive food and clothes, sleeps in a downy bed, and plays with dolls all day, but hasn't been outside in twelve years. It's not until someone comes crashing down his chimney and flat out tells him what he's missing that he realizes being the Luck is not an honour but a prison sentence.
Letter to the Lord Mayor after the Luck's kidnapping
To Ultime Fauchelevent, Lord Mayor of Toll,
Lest you think you had been robbed in the night, I thought I should write and inform you that the Luck of Toll is quite safe. It came to our attention during the repair of the mechanism in the Clock Tower that the location used for the Luck’s protection was very far from secure, and I believe the ease with which it was removed proves our point admirably. Therefore, for the sake of the town that we both hold dear, we have moved it to a far safer sanctuary, and are more than happy to take over the duty of keeping it secure on behalf of Toll.
My next priority shall be the recovery of your adopted daughter. I believe I might claim jurisdiction here, and must ask you not to take any steps of your own in this matter. I am a little surprised at having learned of this affair through sources other than Your Lordship, but I daresay than your missive simply faded to reach me. You and I both know all too well how easily letters can go astray and fall into unexpected hands.
Your respectful servant,
Aramai Javert. (XOXO)
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: As the name implies, the town of Toll has steep prices for whoever enters its walls.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: The truth about the "Luck" of Toll is a relatively mundane version of this. Whoever has the best, most majestic name in all of Toll is locked away in the top of the clock tower, so their innate good fortune will spread to the whole town. It just happens that the person with the best name is Paragon, a boy of much youth.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: This philosophy is the reason Toll-by-Night is a moral cesspit as well as a poor slum. After the Committee of Hours decides you are a ticking time bomb unworthy of existing during the day, it's hard not to become the liar, thief, cutthroat, or anarchist your fate determines you to be.
- Fortunately, the people of Toll are especially uneducated and superstitious people, so it works.
- People being forced by their government to wear badges that publicly announce they were "born wrong." Like with the Nazi regime.
- Locksmiths' Guild (Jinglers) - once they only made locks and strongboxes, but now act as a mafia providing a wider range of security services. A Locksmith will always wears gloves as the outline of a key is branded on his right palm. The head of each cell wears chatelaine at his waist which match the brands of all the men that answer to him.
Inside the Tower:
The Keeper halted outside a small oak door,
dulled by years to the colour of gunmetal. The stairs, Mosca noticed, had
not ended, but continued upwards. The Keeper pulled back an alarming
series of bolts, many of which had all but rusted into place through disuse,
wrenched a couple of great keys in the splinter-edged locks and heaved the
door open.
It was a tapering room shaped like a wedge of cake, one small barred
window set in the rounded wall. Near it was a narrow hearth, which
curiously appeared to have been cleaned with care. No furniture, no bed. A
slack iron chain, one end fixed to a ring set low on the wall, the other to a
set of leg irons.
‘Best room in the house.’ The Keeper’s tone was one of real pride. ‘That
little window’ll give you a view as far as the sea on a clear day. You can
even pick out the spires of Penchant’s Mell. That there is the very corner
slept in by Hadray Delampley, the rebel Earl of Mazewood, during the Civil
War.’
‘Now, listen well. I have word that the Luck of Toll is hid in the room
above this pretty chamber of yours. Seems you can reach that room by the
stairway outside . . . but there’s great heavy doors barring the way, with
more locks than a miser’s spoon chest, and with guards that stand outside
night and day. So there’s no point trying that way.’ She nodded towards the
entrance to the cell.
She was in a room twice as large as the one she had just left, the walls
draped with rich but faded tapestries. The floor was choked with dusty
russet-coloured rugs and cluttered with wooden images of the Beloved,
some of whom had been arranged in lines like troops. In a corner stood a
small four-poster with a chipped chamber pot beside it. A cluster of
candlesticks was glued to the top of a low table by their own wax, one
candle still lit and casting a slanted radiance over the whole room.
Standing directly over Mosca herself was a youth of about fifteen years,
his jaw slack, his eyes popping with surprise.
His pallor reminded Mosca of the bluish wanness of the inhabitants of
Toll-by-Night. His clothes, on the other hand, were lavish, although
apparently designed for someone a few years younger. The sleeves of his
green velvet frock coat ended several inches short of his bony wrists. His
waistcoat was elaborately embroidered, but many threads had been pulled
loose. No effort had been made to tie back his long dark hair. Fuzzy dark
brows met over his nose.
For a moment or two Mosca was paralysed. The stranger, however, did
not call for help or move to the door, but seemed if anything more
flabbergasted and terrified by her sudden apparition than she was.
Mosca put her finger to lips and gave an intimidating hiss, that turned
into more of an intimidating splutter as soot caught in her throat. She
struggled to her feet, soot-stained and inexplicable.
‘Who . . . ?’ The boy’s voice was a squeak.
‘I am a . . . a Figure of Calamity!’ hissed Mosca. ‘Sent by the Beloved to
. . . to punish them that . . . do not pray enough.’
There was a short pause in which the stranger’s pale gaze wavered down
Mosca’s scraped and blackened form and back to her face again.
‘What kind of calamity?’ he whispered.
‘Fire,’ answered Mosca promptly, her heart beating a tattoo. ‘And . . .
hunger. And crime. And really bad moods. Now, keep your ugly trap shut,
or I’ll blight you.’
The youth stared at her, then extended one trembling hand towards
Mosca’s face, and with great care and deliberation poked her in the eye.
She gave a short yelp and slapped his hand away. He spent a few
moments staring at his sooty fingertip, and then broke into a long loud
laugh. It was an embarrassing laugh, the sort of unformed, yodelling noise
that Mosca would have expected to hear from a toddler or a village
simpleton. Mosca crouched back towards the fireplace and glanced
nervously at the door, but the braying laughter summoned nobody.
‘You are not a calamity,’ he said. ‘Your cheek is squashy.’
There was something odd about his speech, at once childlike and formal.
It reminded Mosca of a very small child reading lines for a play. He had other infantile tricks of manner too, the way he let his jaw hang open, and
breathed loudly through it, the way he fumbled at his own buttons, and
scratched himself in ways most people didn’t when anyone was watching.
So. Someone had been left to watch the Luck. The idiot son of some
high-ranking daylighter, to judge by appearances. And if he was an idiot . . .
then perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps he would be too addle-pated to give a
good account of her, if she crept back up the chimney to her own cell.
Perhaps he would not even notice her scooping up the Luck . . .
Heart pounding, Mosca willed herself to think. Where was the Luck?
Was it that silver plate heaped with dried raisins? That glass decanter with
purple tidemarks left by wine? That ivory-handled candle snuffer?
The stranger was examining her again with a new, keen interest, looking
in wonderment at her breeches and chemise.
‘Where is your badge?’
Mosca clutched reflexively at the place where it had been, before
remembering that it had been pinned to the dress she had left in her cell.
‘I . . .’ She swallowed. ‘I must have dropped it somewhere – don’t look at
me like that!’
‘But – everybody has to have a badge! Having no badge is against –’ The
boy broke off suddenly, and for the first time looked alarmed and cast a
glance towards the door. But instead of running to it to summon help, he
turned back to Mosca and put a clumsy hand over her mouth.
‘Talk quietly,’ he said, ‘or they will take you away.’
He took her by the arm, led her to the dark wall furthest from the door
and sat down on the rug in a jumble of angular limbs. Mosca dropped into a
crouch a yard from him, all the while keeping her feet under her, in case she
needed to sprint for the chimney. If his wits were twisted, could he be
dangerous?
‘So – what you doing up here?’ she asked, as quietly and steadily as she
could.
‘Luck,’ he muttered in a distracted way. Mosca glanced at him sharply,
hoping that he might betray himself with a glance towards the mysterious
Luck. He did not. His angular, trembling hands were busy, shaking out a
chequered rug and arranging some of the wooden Beloved upon it.
‘For Luck? Did your family put you in here because . . .’ Mosca hesitated. ...because you were broken-witted and they hoped the Luck would cure
you . . .
‘Here.’ The boy pushed a heap of Beloved towards Mosca. ‘You play this
now. You have night, I have day. I want to try the new rules.’
Only when her strange host started pointing out where on the rug she
should place ‘her’ Beloved did Mosca understand what he was doing. He
had divided the statues into the Beloved that gave daylight names and the
ones linked to night-time names. Now he was laying them out like game
pieces on the squares of the checked rug.
Playing games with Beloved icons? I fancy the priests would have a thing
or two to say about that . . .
He explained the rules, gabbling some parts in his excitement. Mosca
watched him narrowly, cupping Palpitattle in her hands, her wits snicking
against each other like sharpening knives.
‘So this is a game?’ Mosca chewed her cheek. ‘Ought to be a prize really,
then, shouldn’t there? Anything here worth using as a prize? What’s the
most valuable thing here?’
Ah! There it was at last. A small telltale gesture. Her host’s hand crept up
and came to rest near his own collarbone.
‘What is it?’ Mosca pursued her advantage. ‘Can I see it? Is it a locket?’
The youth shook his head, wide-eyed, then beamed and tapped at his own
chest.
‘What? Where? What is it? Oh.’ Mosca slumped and wiped her face with
both hands, leaving a cage-work of soot smudges across her brow. ‘Oh,
beechnuts. It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the Luck.’
‘Protector-of-the-walls-guardian-against-disaster.’ The boy’s smile was
beatific. ‘I was born under Goodman Lilyflay, He Who Makes Things
Whole and Perfect – and so I have a name full of getting-things-right and
just-as-it-should-be. The finest, brightest, luckiest name in Toll.’
‘Might ’ave guessed,’ sighed Mosca bitterly. ‘You couldn’t jus’ be a glass
cup, could you?’ She sized up the bemused-looking Luck, peered
appraisingly at the little hearth, then shook her head wearily. ‘So – what is this
brilliant name of yours, Master Luck?’
‘Paragon,’ came the answer, laced with quiet pride.
The word was slightly familiar. ‘Is that like a hexagon?’
‘No!’ He looked angry, and very confused. ‘Paragon is a . . . an ideal
example. It’s . . . perfect.’
Mosca sniffed at perfection. Perfection had no pulse and no heart.
‘Funny kind of a name.’
‘It is the best name in the town!’ The Luck looked aghast. ‘That is why I
was chosen. My parents were night-dwellers, but I was born to higher
things, born worthy of the brightest of noonday names. And . . . and now I
stay here and keep the town safe, and hold off disease, and stop the bridge
falling into the Langfeather.’ A look of feverish eagerness came into
Paragon’s eyes. ‘You come from . . . out there, do you not? Have you seen
my bridge? What do you think of it? Is it as grand and fine as they say?’
‘What? Have you not seen it yourself?’ Mosca stared with new eyes at
the little bed, the scraped crockery. ‘How long have you been in here?’
‘Since I was three years old, when the last Luck died. Twelve years and
three months and two days.’
‘Twelve years! ’ Mosca briefly forgot to speak quietly, but fortunately the
words choked in her throat.
‘Night moves first.’ The Luck had returned his attention to the game.
‘Your move, Soot-girl.’ He looked up at her, face flushed and animated,
undisguised entreaty in his eyes. Still stunned, Mosca picked up Goodlady
Jabick, moved her to an adjoining square as he had shown her and saw a
look of utter bliss pass over her companion’s face.
Twelve years. Twelve years with nothing to do but chew the ends of his
hair and invent games, elaborate games of gods with rules that Mosca could
barely remember from one moment to the next but which the Luck knew as
well as his own fingernails. As they played, his speech became faster and
sharper, explaining the mistakes she had made and helping her to find better
moves.
Before long, Mosca was facing a terrible truth. The Luck was not a
simpleton or a madman. He was clever, and his mind was starving.
‘Do you never go out?’ she could not help asking.
‘No.’ His face drooped. ‘I am too precious. But . . . they send me tutors
sometimes, or papers for me to make my mark on them. And when the
clock is working I have charge of the Beloved images –’ he waved a hand at
his game pieces – ‘and put the right ones in the wheel each day, for I have a wondrous memory and nobody else is fit to handle them'.
‘But . . .’ Mosca was still choking on the whole idea. ‘You never get to
tread on grass, or see the sky, or . . . or run? This town is mad as moth soup!
Nothing but a great big prison. Some of the cells are nicer than others, that’s
all. Precious? You’re a prisoner, like everybody else here. Protect the town,
do you? Save its people, do you? Then wave your wand, and magic us all
somewhere better.’
The Luck had dropped his gaze and would not look at her, instead
stroking at one of the Beloved game pieces as if it was a pet. She was
shouting at the wrong person.
Mosca sighed. ‘Not your fault, you big mooncalf.’ By her standards it
was almost an apology. ‘How can you know what it’s like out there, with
people starving and terrified, half of them ready to sell their own souls to
get out of this stinking town? But what about you?’ She felt an unwilling
sting of pity. ‘Do you never want to get out of here yourself? Run alongside
streams, gaze your fill at the stars?’
The Luck’s face went slack with uncertainty and longing. Perhaps the
weight of the stone walls about him had not after all smothered his ability to
dream. He was silent for a time, picking at one frayed buttonhole, then his
head drooped.
‘I cannot. I am needed. I am . . . I am the saviour. Protector of the town.’
He clasped his hands together and squirmed his fingers. ‘I am lucky,’ he
quavered, defiant but anguished.
Mosca looked around the windowless cell, the person-shaped dent worn
into the bed’s mattress, the chest full of undersized clothes.
‘You don’t look too blinkin’ lucky to me,’ she muttered.
‘So . . . you are saying that the Luck of Toll is an actual object?’ Sir Feldroll was keeping the situation under control very well, but was clearly a few pages behind when it came to understanding it. ‘I always assumed it
was a figure of speech!’
‘Not an object . . . a person,’ answered the mayor. ‘A . . . a boy. The Luck of Toll is the person born under more auspicious stars than anybody else in town, and thus granted the best and most fortunate name. They are shut away from the world, close to the bridge so that their luck seeps into it and keeps it aloft . . . and holds the cliff steady under us . . .’
‘A boy? Locked up inside a clock . . . so that his luck . . .’ Sir Feldroll cut short his sentence, perhaps realizing that it could go nowhere tactful. ‘Well, as far as I am aware the town has not noticeably fallen into the river, so if
everybody could please recover their senses –’
‘Not yet, but the power of the Luck only holds while he or she is within
the walls of the town,’ intoned the mayor. ‘Should they ever stray outside, then Toll’s good fortune leaves with them once and forever, and all is calamity. Then we shall see agues and poxes sweeping through Toll, and the wells filling with poison, and foes storming our gates unopposed, and the
ground crumbling beneath us . . .’ Somewhere on the far side of the room
the youngest footman started to whimper.
where the Locksmiths had spirited Paragon away, but ... a shrewd idea when they had done it – during the hours of Saint
Yacobray, when they could be sure that the streets were empty and that
nobody would see where they took him. Only of course the streets had not
been empty. There had been no less than three false Clatterhorses chasing
one another around Toll.
The five Locksmiths were on the alert. Two kept an eye up and down
Pritter’s Lane. One was casually keeping watch at the corner, another
attending to locking the door behind them, the last making sure the hooded
boy did not run or do anything sudden. None, however, were looking up,
and so none were ready when a grim and wiry figure dropped down in their
very midst, yanked the Luck backwards by his collar and placed the tips of
three sharp iron claws to his throat.
‘Get back!’ hissed Laylow. ‘Or it’s an unlucky day for all of us! Step
away!’
During the following long pause the Locksmiths glanced at each other
and sent furious messages using eyebrow semaphore, but there was nothing
that any of them could actually do without endangering the Luck. Carefully,
but with an air of barely reined menace, they moved backwards away from
her.
The boy whose collar she was gripping was trembling. His feet were
turned inwards and his hands were big and clumsy. He was taller than her,
but he was making tiny, squeezed sobbing noises under his face cloth, like a
little child crying under its pillow.
‘Soot-girl sent me,’ Laylow whispered, and the crying noises stopped.
‘She says you want to be free. That true?’ The clothy head-shape nodded.
‘Me too. Stick with me and we will be.’ She reached up and tugged off the
cloth, and the Luck blinked at the world around him, jaw hanging open. ‘I
will not hurt you. But we must hoodwink these people so they think I will.
Trust me.’
Paragon nodded again.
‘Hah,’ he gasped. Pale sunbeams sat on his lashes for the first time since
he was three, and his world was full of floating angel haloes.
‘Hah,’ said Paragon again. Laylow glanced at him, noticing the tiny
jewels that the spray had left on his hair, cheeks and grin. Then she looked
down over the edge of the bridge to see what he was smiling at, and nearly
lost track of where she was. She had lived all her life hearing the breath of
the Lang-feather, so that was as much a part of her life as the taste of the air
and the touch of her own skin. Now she saw it, a gleaming surge of ostrich-
feather white more powerful than a hundred lions, blue shadows cast upon
it by the jutting rocks above. Even the air was strung with the faint arcs of
rainbows. It seemed alive, it seemed female. She had been living above a
goddess her whole life and had never been allowed to see it.
Nobody was obeying her any more, she realized. They knew she was
trying to take the Luck out of Toll. Some of them were starting to edge
towards her along the bridge. She bared her teeth by instinct, like a cornered
dog.
‘Get back!’ she shouted, but her ferocity only slowed them. As she had
feared, her threat was losing its power.
‘Why do they not do as you say any more?’ Paragon whispered.
Because they would rather see you dead than free.
‘They are afraid for your life, but they are more afraid for theirs,’ Laylow
muttered unwillingly. ‘They think the whole town will perish if you leave
Toll . . . but if you die instead, at least another Luck will take over.’
The wind rose, and Paragon whooped aloud. Laylow felt sorry for him.
Did he even understand what was happening, that their plan had run
aground, that there would be no freedom for them after all? What was the
point in further attempts to explain? Let him be happy for the moment.
‘Can I shout orders now?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Laylow said through her teeth. ‘You are the hostage, remember?
The hostage does not get to shout orders.’If it had been night and she had been a little less dazzled, she might have
been ready for Paragon’s next move. As it was, she was caught off guard as
he slipped from her ‘restraining’ arm and dodged to the edge of the bridge
where the Beloved statues posed. He gripped the horns of Goodman
Fullock, and swung himself out so that his feet were resting on the very
edge of the walkway, the rest of his body leaning out over the long plummet
to the Langfeather’s foamy embrace.
‘What about now?’ he said, grinning like a string of pearls.
There was an almost universal gasp of alarm, seasoned with a few shrieks
and followed by the sounds of muskets being readied and aimed at Laylow.
‘No shooting!’ shouted the Luck, loud enough to carry to both ends of
the bridge. ‘No shooting at us, or . . . I fly away!’ He bounced on the balls
of his feet, to the consternation of the crowd who clearly thought he was
mad enough for anything.
Laylow ducked between two statues to make herself a small target,
breathing heavily and waiting for the rain of musket-balls. None came.
After a while she peered out to dart a glance up and down the bridge. The
guards had ceased their stealthy advance and stood frozen, staring at the
capering Luck in shock, frustration and terror.
‘Listen!’ Paragon’s unguarded laughter bounced off the overhanging
cliffs. ‘Everybody listen to me now!’
And they did. Even the Locksmiths who pushed stone-eyed through the
crowds at the town end of the bridge to glower impotently at the delighted
Luck. Even the mayor who appeared at a second-floor window of the Clock
Tower, looking down upon the scene. Most of the town-end crowd was
watching Paragon’s precarious slithering and capering with their faces set in
a wince, both hands raised as if to placate or fend off a blow. The eyes of
many watchers crept to the sheer fall below, the merciless bellowing engine
of the water.
It took Laylow several stunned seconds to understand why his threats
were working where hers had not. Her words had not been lost on him after
all, she realized now, and in one swift, canny move he had turned the tables
on everybody.
None of the spectators wished to see a careless boy fall off a cliff to his
death, particularly one saintly enough to have such a good name. But nearly
all of them were much more worried about the whole town following him.
A dead Luck was a tragedy, a murdered Luck a shocking blasphemy. But a Luck who ‘left Toll’ by jumping off a bridge before dying a watery death
could be a catastrophe. In their minds, if Laylow cut Paragon’s throat, then
the next-best name would become the Luck and the town itself would be
none the worse. However, if he jumped or fell, he would have ‘left’ the
town while still living, taking Toll’s luck with him once and forever. Who
could say what would happen then, or how quickly? Would people even
have time to run for the gates before calamity struck?
‘Now . . . everybody . . . make the gates be open!’ Paragon’s eyes were
shining.
This was the great test. All eyes rose to the mayor, who was clutching the
sill of his window with such force it seemed he might tear it apart like
pastry crust.
He bristled, and gave a short sharp nod. The small group of guards at the
gate end of the bridge boggled, then set about cranking up the portcullis.
‘All the gates!’ crowed Paragon. ‘All the gates and doors open! All over
the town!’
Even from below it was possible to tell from the mayor’s strained body
language that the prospect of obeying was tearing at his very soul. He gave
another curt nod.
‘You heard the Luck! Tear down the house-facings! Open all the doors!
Do everything he says!’
Nobody felt like telling the mayor that a lot of his citizens had been
doing that for some time.
At last there was only Paragon Collymoddle on the bridge. The sun had
gone in, extinguishing the rainbows, and he was shivering with the chill of
the wind and the drenching from the spray.
‘Cold now,’ he said through chattering teeth.
The mayor came down to the bridge and ventured out on to it. His steps
were slow, for he was acutely aware that nobody now stood between the
Luck and the open portcullis.
‘Come, boy,’ he said, not without kindness and some reverence, for was
this not the Luck? ‘Enough is enough. You are not used to this light or this
cold, are you?’
Paragon shook his head. He pulled himself up enough to hug the head of
Goodman Fullock as if his arms had grown tired of the strain.
‘It is all over. We will take you and make you warm and safe. No more
troubles. No more dangers.’ The mayor cautiously took step after step. ‘Just
. . . take my hand and come home. You are needed here. You have a job.
You know that, do you not?’
The boy laid his cheek against the wooden head of the Beloved as if
suddenly tired, and nodded. ‘Yes. Job. Save everyone,’ he murmured. Then
he laughed, waved at somebody in the crowds behind the mayor, and with
the same unexpected speed he had shown before swung himself back on to
the bridge and broke into a run.
‘Quick!’ spluttered the mayor. ‘Shoot . . . leg . . . something . . . !’
Musketfire vented in a patter like applause, but Paragon’s run was
lolloping and unpractised, and so lopsided that the bullets missed him. He leaped through the arch of the gateway and was gone.
‘After him!’ shouted the mayor.
Nobody moved but for one guard bolder than the rest, who darted
forward on to the bridge and sprinted past the gesticulating mayor who was
already retreating back to the safety of land himself. Two steps later,
however, there was a splintering crack and one of the planks of the famous
unshakeable bridge of Toll gave under the guard’s feet, so that he dropped
halfway through the hole. Desperately clutching at the boards, he was able
to halt his fall and managed to haul himself back up and drag himself to
safety.
There was a deathly hush, of just the sort that never lasts.
‘Flee! The Luck has run out! The Luck has flown away! The bridge is
falling down! Flee the town!’
With such cries all around, the mayor glanced behind him to see who the
Luck had waved to before his flight.
As for Paragon, nobody had any idea where he had
gone or even intended to go. He had plunged into uncertainty at a gallop,
and the moors kept his secrets for him.
Briefly she
had believed that Paragon must have been the real Luck of Toll after all,
and that his flight had left nothing holding up the bridge or protecting the
town. Even when she had gone to sleep that night on a blanket loaned by
one of Sir Feldroll’s soldiers, she had still half believed it. And she knew
that if she left things at that she would always partly believe it.
In the end of this AU, the siege and the fire destroy half of Toll but dayfolk and nightlings alike stop the fire, save those in distress, and help rebuild the other half, putting an end to centuries of apartheid.
All the Amis survive and get to live in a unified Toll, Valjean/Fauchelevent retires as Lord Mayor to live in a country cottage he kept as his secret retreat, and Marius becomes new Lord Mayor of Toll and marries Cosette. Théodule survives but fell from a rooftop while duelling Marius for the hand of Cosette, he is now confined to a wheelchair and hemiplegic. He had to stop the siege and return to his estate.
Enjolras (screaming "I AM PARAGON, THE LUCK OF TOLL!!") and Grantaire threw themselves into the Langfeather River while La Squadra fired shots at them, they're both saved by Valjean and recover in his country cottage. In the end Enj returns to the Clocktower as Luck of Toll, but now with better living conditions, being able to leave and visit his Friends whenever he likes, as long as he doesn't leave the walls, and Grantaire is housed in the cell right underneath the Luck's quarters (now equipped with a four-poster and other good furniture), being able to leave under the same conditions as Enj and to visit him and spend some time together in the Luck's quarters. The hole in the ceiling that started it all is now a skylight window: the first one a Luck of Toll ever had in history.
As for the Locksmiths, they are now led by Risotto Nero after Javert threw himself into the Langfeather, and are far more of an amigable police force than the Gestapo they were when Toll had apartheid. Now there is no more Toll-by-Day or Toll-by-Night; only Toll-by-Langfeather, still protected by its Luck.
