‘I didn’t even touch you,’ she snapped, and then went still when she heard herself. She was doing now what Kuroda always did. He was furious, he lashed out, he faded back and knew he’d gone too far, but he didn’t apologise because he wasn’t sorry, not really. And then, because he wasn’t sorry, he was angry with whoever he’d thumped for being hurt.
It was different, obviously it was different, the fury voice snarled.
‘Joy,’ she said softly. ‘Come on, let’s … let’s get you up. Come and sit down in the warm. You’re cold.’ He was. His hands were bloodless when she pulled him upright. She set him down again near the fire. She knelt down too and stoked it up, though she was too hot now. He made a sign to say thank you, and then let his head drop down on his knees. She sat looking at him for a long time, turning over and over the prickling realisation that, whatever he had just done, however bad, he was so utterly vulnerable that she was going to have to be more careful. All the anger misted into the awful bleak frustration of being the strongest person in the room by far.
She caught herself on the edge of apologising, understood just in time what he was doing, and almost punched him again. Fragile he might be, but Takiko was damned if she’d let him turn that fragility into armour when he had just used Countess Kuroda’s to smash her to pieces. She didn’t know yet how she was going to do it, but she was going to get a collar on Mori if she died trying.
TWENTY
Yokohama, 19th December 1888
The tide had gone right out when Thaniel stepped down onto the dark beach with a lamp. The lighthouse rock was on dry land now, or the nearer half of it was. The little boat that had been outside before was gone. So was the white shirt at the top. It was after midnight now, and for the first time since he’d been a child, he couldn’t see street lights. Just the lights at Yoruji, and, in the lighthouse tower, a single point of candlelight. He trod over the crackly sand and started up the steps.
They were even and unweathered. At the top, the door was propped open, just, with a well-shined shoe. He tapped on the briny wood. Nobody answered. He pushed open the door. Inside was a spiral stairway that stretched up to the blackness at the top of the tower. He started up, slowly, because his lamp threw harsh shadows along the stairs that spun as he rounded the spirals, and soon he found why the lighthouse-keeper had propped the door open rather than take the keys. They were on a hook near the top of the stairs, big, churchy things that weighed hardly less than a metronome when he lifted them. They clanked as he let them go. There were four. That was a lot, he thought, for one door.
The lamp room was dark except for that one candle, which had burned right down at a desk by the window. He lifted his own little lamp, which was just bright enough to shine on all the machinery inside. Much more machinery than any ordinary lighthouse would have needed.
Parts of it in were wooden and glass casing, parts of it open strings and clockwork, some of which went up through the ceiling in exposed bronze mechanisms. The rest of the space, or almost all of it, was taken up by a table scattered about with papers, many of which were photographs. They all showed the same thing; mirror-twin zigzag lines, pale against dark backgrounds.
The machine, whatever it was, was working. Suspended inside a box, open at the moment but with a hinged side and a clasp that would lock it, was a fragile pair of metal prongs that looked like wishbones. They were moving; they drew together and apart, slowly, though the room was completely still. It was nothing to do with the wind. Beyond the big windows, the sea might have been a lake, and mist hung undisturbed at different heights above the black water.
He used to have a distrust of machinery, but he’d watched Mori teach Six, and when you were looking at something you didn’t know, the principle was always the same; start with what you did know, and trust that the rest wasn’t beyond the wit of man.
The only thing he recognised for sure was a clock. It was worked into the side of the machine, with a heavy counterweight and a pendulum that came to a precise point. The clock wasn’t framed, and the workings were uncovered at the back. A wire led up from it. He climbed on a chair to see where it went. Inside were strings and pulleys, and a little clockwork mechanism.
‘Right,’ he said aloud, because the colour of the sound made tentative thoughts look more solid. ‘So that regulates – vertical motion, so it’s pulling something up. In … front of this lens here, which …’ He had to climb down again. ‘Is a camera,’ he said, puzzled.
There were photographs on the table. He picked one up and held it beside the camera chamber until he understood. If there had been photographic paper underneath them now, the tips of the two moving prongs would be making the same patterns as the pale lines in the picture. The point of the machine was to record the motion of the moving points on a photograph.
He looked up at the ceiling, where the stem of the prongs disappeared. He opened the little glass door out onto the gantry. On top of the roof, in line with the machinery inside, was a tall lightning rod.
It wasn’t stormy now. Certainly there was no lightning. Inside, the prongs moved gently. He sighed. He never understood what was going on with electricity. Nobody had been able to tell him what was actually moving when they talked about electric current. Even Mori didn’t know. He would, he said, be dead before anyone explained it, which meant he couldn’t remember. Six said it might be ether, but nobody knew what ether was either. That wasn’t quite true; his ex-wife Grace probably did know what ether was.
The door thunked closed downstairs. There was no use hiding. He went to the door instead. The lighthouse-keeper’s steps were more than halfway up the stairs.
‘Evening,’ Thaniel called down. ‘Sorry I let myself in. I’m lost.’
The steps paused, then sped up, and a man the opposite of what Thaniel had expected appeared on the landing. He was in a nicely ironed shirt and delicate spectacles, and his hair was neat and side-parted, Western style. He didn’t look anything like a lighthouse-keeper. He looked like somebody from somewhere in the middle of the civil service. He looked flustered too. He was still tucking in his shirt in a way that seemed like he was hoping a bit desperately that Thaniel wouldn’t ask where he’d been in the middle of the night. ‘What? I don’t speak English, what are you doing up here?’
‘I was on the beach, but then the fog came in and now I’m lost. You don’t happen to know where we are?’
The man blinked twice, then took off his spectacles and polished them on a fold of his shirt. ‘In … relation to where? I’m sorry, I’m really not very good at English …’
‘I’m not speaking English,’ Thaniel pointed out, but patiently. He had a theory that for an oriental person to hear an occidental one speak understandably was a good deal like it would have been for an Englishman to encounter a talking horse who wanted to know the way to the tobacconist’s. The best you could do was get in a chunk of clear grammar, so that people knew, at least, that you were a well-educated horse.
‘Oh. Ah … you’re not, are you.’
‘I was hoping to find Baron Mori’s house?’ Thaniel said, trying to seem as unhorsey as he could. ‘I wouldn’t have bothered you, but I saw the candle, so I hoped …’
‘Oh – oh. The house. Er … it’s up that way. You can go past the big gingko trees at the top there.’
‘Thank you. So what’s this thing?’
‘Oh, heavens,’ the man laughed. ‘Rather complicated I’m afraid. It measures atmospheric electricity. We’re a weather station up here, you see. It’s called an …’ He said something Thaniel had never heard before, to do with electricity. ‘Quite neat really, only about six of them in the world til recently.’
‘Really? Beautiful piece of kit. What’s it for?’
‘Oh, you can predict storms and so forth. And we send random numbers to university mathematics departments and so forth.’
‘Random numbers,’ Thaniel said, and tried not to look too attentive. ‘Why?’
‘They use it for all sorts, I think. Codes and �
�� well, it’s a bit beyond me. But atmospheric electricity is the best source of random numbers in the world,’ he added, proud by proxy. He tapped the side of the machine, and then saw something on the strange photographic readout that made his smile falter. ‘Anyway, as I say, the house is by the gingko trees.’
The lighthouse-keeper hurried Thaniel down. When the door shut, the keys clanked as he locked all four locks.Random was random even for Mori. If Six could shock him with some dice and a firecracker, someone who had replaced dice with lightning would be able to do anything they liked.Thaniel wondered what the firecracker would be.
Thaniel was just navigating back down the uneven steps when someone whistled at him quietly from just over the pebbles. He looked round. A dark shape resolved itself into Kuroda. Behind him were two of his men, walking at a respectful distance but not too far.
Kuroda smiled. ‘Poking round, are we?’
‘Just interested,’ said Thaniel. ‘They’ve installed some wonderful stuff up there. Random data generation, that’s really something.’
‘What, did you think we lived in mud huts?’ Kuroda said with a sparkle.
‘No, sir, but it’s pretty impressive for anyone to come up with a system that allows his bodyguards to rotate at random intervals a clairvoyant can’t predict. That machine up there generates the numbers, the lighthouse goes on when it hits – what, a particular range – and then anyone who sees it rings a bell; and your men change posts. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Clever boy,’ Kuroda said. It wasn’t as patronising as it could have been. He had noticed Thaniel was having to walk slowly up the steep stretch of shale, and in a gentlemanly way that took Thaniel by surprise, held out one hand to help him over the last spray of rocks before the short stretch of flat sand. Thaniel felt himself bristle and then had to talk himself down. He was actually glad of some help, pitiful though that was. His whole chest ached, and it wasn’t just the bruises from the policemen.
‘The machine is called an … ah, you won’t know it in Japanese. Electrograph,’ he said, in perfect English. He had a precise American accent. ‘Heard of that?’
‘No, sir.’
‘No. Normally we use them just to predict the weather, but it’s good, isn’t it, how you find other uses for things.’
Thaniel nodded in the dark. Behind them, pebbles squeaked as Kuroda’s men followed. It was a horrible sound. He couldn’t tell if he thought so objectively, or because they were sticking just a fraction too near now. He could smell them; one of them smoked.
‘You know, when I took office,’ Kuroda continued, ‘I don’t think I realised what an almighty fuckabout everything would become. I can’t piss without these two coming with me. You should have seen the frothing the security detail did when I said I was visiting Mori. Clairvoyant? they said. Yes, I said. We’re going to have to think about this, they said. Cue the installation of machines and bells and hell knows. Sorry about Tanaka, by the way, he’s a bit direct. But you understand why he wants to keep an eye on everything. Mori’s been in London for years, doing nobody knows what. Now Russia.’
‘He didn’t defect. He just makes watches.’
‘You’d know, would you, if he had?’ Kuroda said. ‘Good spies don’t tell their families, you know, never mind their geisha.’
‘What?’ said Thaniel, a bit flatly.
‘Come on, lad, you’re a musician. Don’t get me wrong, you play beautifully and you’re not bad-looking, but all this is a bit beyond you.’
‘What the hell are you—’
‘Christians; give me strength,’ said Kuroda, as the muzzle of a gun pushed into Thaniel’s back and a quiet voice behind him told him to calm down. The safety catch snicked white. He put his hands up slowly. ‘Don’t get angry, son, you’re in a normal country now, no one’s going to lynch you. You can put your hands down. Let him go, let him go.’
The gun lifted away. Thaniel let his arms sink. ‘I don’t know what the hell it is you think is going on, Mr Kuroda, but—’
‘They really will have you face down in the sand; it’s fun to watch,’ Kuroda said mildly.
Thaniel put his teeth together and let his breath out, trying to get his heart back to a normal speed.
‘They had a thing or two to say about a foreign diplomat breaking into government property, actually.’ Kuroda nodded to the lighthouse, which was a gaunt, leaning silhouette against the moonlight now. ‘I’ll let it go this time, but do me a favour, lad. Don’t do it again. Stick to your music. I know it’s all interesting, but this lot will get tetchy if they think you’re interfering with ministerial security, and then they’re likely to want to interfere with you.’ He looked rueful. ‘I expect Mori will be pissed off with me if his geisha ends up in the sea tied to a brick, but he can always get another geisha. All right?’
There was nothing to do but nod and try to press down the shame and the helpless, pointless fury seething up through his ribs. A dark part of him he’d never known was there wanted to turn and punch one of the guards, because being shot and dead would be better than having to stand quiet.
Kuroda smiled. ‘Good boy. Now come on, tell me about this music you’re writing while we walk up. Mrs Pepperharrow’s always telling me I don’t get enough culture.’
Thaniel wondered if real geisha painted themselves white so that it was harder to see how angry they must be all the time.
TWENTY-ONE
Back at the house, Thaniel had to sit out on the verandah for a while, waiting to calm down. Sitting still, it was freezing, and he soon had to move to the hot slate edge of the closest pool. The steam eased the scratch in his lungs at least, and he wasn’t alone. Katsu was floating origami boats on the pool, gleaming in the light of the bright crescent moon. The moon was tipped on its side here, so that it smiled. Once the boats had drifted out a bit, Katsu dived into the water and then engulfed one like a miniature kraken, making what might have been the clockwork octopus version of kraken noises.
After a little while, Thaniel got the uncomfortable feeling that someone else was there too. He looked round twice, thinking someone had just walked past, but the place was deserted. The only real movement was the spiralling steam.
The lighthouse came on again, and again, bells sounded in the house. Mori’s door was open to the night. Thaniel looked back in time to see him jolt upright.
‘They’re random, aren’t they?’ Thaniel said, quietly, because Six was asleep in the corner. He paused, because his voice had turned smoky. His lungs still hurt, despite all the steam. ‘This is dangerous. If someone can ring a bell and take you by surprise, they could fire a gun and take you by surprise as … well.’ He had to squeeze his eyes shut when he saw what was going on. Ministerial security; what bullshit. He couldn’t believe he’d not questioned it before. Kuroda had come with a personal guard of – what? At least twenty men. Far more than even Queen Victoria had. All with guns. They weren’t a security detail. Kuroda wasn’t just visiting a friend. Kuroda had the Russian fleet floating just off his back porch, and now he had a clairvoyant.
‘Mori,’ he whispered, ‘can you even leave this house?’
Mori got up fast and dropped onto his knees beside Thaniel on the warm slate. ‘Don’t get in their way,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not doing this by accident. It’s all fine. But no spanners in the works, all right?’
‘Why won’t you just tell me what’s going on?’ Thaniel demanded. His voice split over it and he had to look away, frustrated, because he sounded like a child.
‘It’s boring,’ Mori said, smiling. He shook his head. He was starting to look worse for wear after what must have been a run of broken nights. It was the least convincing smile Thaniel had ever seen. When he tried to start saying so, Mori closed one hand over his knuckles, squeezed, hard, and flicked his eyes to the corner of the verandah, like there was someone standing there. There wasn’t. Thaniel stared at him helplessly, trying to see what in God’s name was going on. Mori was looking at him hard, every a
tom of him broadcasting a warning to shut up.
Thaniel felt suddenly like they weren’t talking softly alone on the dim verandah, but floodlit on a raised stage, surrounded by people who were invisible beyond the limelights, but very much still there.
‘I just want someone to invent an electron microscope a bit early, that’s all,’ Mori said. ‘And in a very obscure and silly way, this will help.’
‘A microscope.’
‘Yes. It’s a neat little thing, it’s worth a few interrupted nights.’
‘What’s it for?’ Thaniel said, losing steam.
Mori shrugged a little. The candlelight slung harsh shadows between the tendons in his throat. ‘Lots of things. Generally useful. You know what I’m like, I get bored with waiting for things to be invented.’ He bent his neck a little and his eyes bored into Thaniel’s. Just say yes, just say yes, let it go.
Thaniel couldn’t. ‘Kei, I really think Mrs Pepperharrow means to be a rich widow pretty soon, and I know you’ve probably got it all worked out, but if they’re pissing about with random data generation then you can’t know what—’
‘She doesn’t,’ Mori interrupted. ‘She’s doing what she’s meant to.’ It was terrible, basalt-hard certainty. If Thaniel had suggested to him that his own arms were plotting against him, he would have sounded the same way.
But Mori really didn’t sound right. He hadn’t since they’d arrived. The spotlight feeling had never gone away either. For all there was no light, and nobody nearby, Thaniel could almost hear the rattle of an audience.
He leaned close, lifting one hand to Mori’s hair to try and shield them a little from anyone close by. ‘Is someone watching?’ he whispered.
He never knew if Mori heard or not. The bells had made him flinch, and he had looked haunted when he’d caught sight of Thaniel across the room before, but his hands came up now in the fastest block Thaniel had ever had come at him in or out of the ring. He barely had time even to see it before Mori had pushed him away, hard, one hand flat into his sternum. It wasn’t designed to hurt, but he was springcoil-strong and it almost knocked Thaniel over backward.
The Lost Future of Pepperharrow Page 17
