Mud and Brass

by Andrew Knighton

dare. Then it passed and her smile returned. She placed the watch on the table, settling herself on a nearby stool.

  Niggle went to the wall, fetching needle nosed pliers and tiny files. He took a seat, prising open the watch and starting to unravel its workings, but the silence played on his jittery nerves.

  'What do you do, Gloria?' He felt terribly daring using her first name, but she didn't seem to mind. He knew the answer to the question, but he wanted to hear her talk.

  'Do? Me?' She laughed. 'I don't work, if that's what you mean. It's not nice to sit idle, but Daddy won't let me have a job. So I study - not in the Imperial Colleges of course. Miss Vanderast – have you heard of her? - she has her own informal college. She studied in the East, where women are allowed to learn, and now she teaches women here. We're not permitted a library or teaching halls, so we swap books, we hold seminars in coffee houses, and we try not to be noticed. It's a quiet sort of revolt, Miss Vanderast says.'

  She fell silent, and Niggle looked up from his work.

  'Are you alright?' he asked, seeing her worried expression.

  'You won't tell anyone, will you?' The words might have been lost if they weren't sat so close.

  'No. I understand. Sometimes secrets are important.'

  There was that smile again, a smile that took in the whole world. Niggle had to look down at his work, to keep from sitting grinning back at her.

  'I write as well,' she said. 'Daddy allows that. Women can write novels, as long as no one knows who they are.'

  'Have you been published?'

  'Not yet, but Miss Vanderast is helping with that too.'

  A deep, hollow voice joined the conversation. 'Miss Vanderast is a very helpful lady.'

  Niggle looked up in alarm. Mercer Shackleton filled the doorway, his fierce presence dominating the room.

  Gloria jerked guiltily away from Niggle.

  'Daddy,' she said, her voice quavering. 'Have you been there long?'

  'No,' the Mercer said. 'Who is this?'

  'This is Mister Thomas Niggle,' she said, relaxing a little. 'Mister Niggle, this is my father, Mercer Arnulf Shackleton.'

  'Niggle.' Shackleton didn't move, just stared at him with suspicion. 'Do I know you?'

  'No,' Niggle said. But you should, he thought. I certainly know you.

  'Then what do you think you're doing unchaperoned with my daughter?'

  'Oh Daddy, don't be silly. Mrs Crocker is about.'

  'She was the one who informed me of this... incident.' Shackleton took a step forward, still glaring at Niggle. 'Now answer my question.'

  'This watch,' Niggle said, pointing at the open case, with the piles of worn parts and replacements. 'I'm fixing this watch.'

  'Mummy's watch,' Gloria said, like it was a challenge. 'You remember?'

  Shackleton snorted. 'Sentimental nonsense. I've told you before, if something doesn't work buy a new one. Don't waste your time on broken things.'

  'Daddy!'

  'Fine.' He waved a hand dismissively. 'You can have the watch fixed. How long will it take?'

  Niggle gathered his thoughts. This could be his opportunity. Say the wrong thing and he could be sent packing. But this might be his only chance, he had to take it.

  'There's a problem with the pinions,' he said. 'Fiddly work. An hour, maybe two.'

  Shackleton narrowed his eyes, looking at Niggle, then his daughter, then back again.

  'Fine. You stay down here and work. Ring the bell when you're done.

  'You.' He turned to Gloria. 'Come upstairs and do your writing, or drink tea, or whatever you choose, where Mrs Crocker can keep an eye on you.'

  He turned and stalked from the room.

  Gloria followed him, brushing past Niggle as she went. She paused in the doorway.

  'I'll see you soon,' she murmured with a smile.

  And then she was gone.

  Alone, Niggle hunched over the watch, sliding pieces in and out, keeping up the appearance of hard work. Once he was sure they were safely gone he popped in the new balance wheel, tightened a screw and snapped the case shut. He shook the watch, checking that the time ran smooth and nothing could be thrown loose, then pocketed it along with the spare parts.

  Time for action.

  He snatched up his bag and went to the door, glancing up the corridor. no one about. He crept to the nearest staircase and down, into the bowels of the factory.

  A lone cotton loom, Niggle knew, made a clattering noise, like wooden spoons rattling around empty bowls. With two or three looms you got a fast, steady tapping like a woodpecker. In the Shackleton factory, the cotton looms roared.

  Niggle lurked in the shadows of the largest hall, watching the machines at work. There were the looms, long arms rising and falling as they poured cloth onto pallets. Then there were the cutting arms, rigged with weights and levers to slice off carefully measured bundles. And the cranes, lifting full pallets away and empty ones back.

  People scurried between them. Men fetching and carrying. Women working the looms, pulling levers, shoving shuttles, feeding in coloured strands. Children in the innards of machines, small fingers tying snapped threads, teasing out obstructions, nudging caught gears back into place.

  The sound was deafening, the heat overwhelming. Niggle had barely stepped out onto the floor and already he was soaked in sweat.

  The shrill blast of a whistle rose through the noise. One of the looms came to a halt, a huddle of figures clustered round its frame. They pulled back and a man emerged with a girl in his arms, her crumpled leg dribbling blood. Her mouth stretched in a scream, but the sound was lost in the thunder of the machines. No sooner had they stepped clear than the loom started up again.

  Niggle pressed down the anger rising inside him. He'd kept himself in check this far, he could manage a little further. But the power of it still glowed inside him, an ember ready to blaze.

  He made his way to a row of looms. No one paid him any attention. They were all too busy to worry about what others did.

  He crouched down by the last loom in the line, skulking in the shadows beneath a high, dirt-smeared window. Thick smog had settled outside, and the hall was gloomy despite the gas lamps that flared around the walls, their flames flickering with a green tinge. The loom hid him from their light, letting through only the briefest moments of brightness as its arms flashed up and down, back and forth, a constant frenzy of creation.

  Niggle pulled the device from his bag, its copper shell cool and smooth in his hands. A flash of light glinted off pincers, the edge of blades as sharp as he could make.

  So much effort for tools of tearing, he thought. Was this what he had become, not a creator but a destroyer, driven by that dark shard of hate? No. This was not just about destruction, it was about rebirth, remaking what was broken. And what could be more broken than this place, which ground people up and spat them out? He was a protector, a renewer, and if his own rage was sated along the way, what was the harm in that?

  He opened the device's small boiler and set a match to the fuel inside. The whiff of sulfur was quickly lost in the dusty air of the factory.

  The device stirred, rising on thin legs. Pincers unfurled and touched the vibrating threads on the nearby loom. There was a scissor snick as, with inhuman precision, it severed the nearest strand, coiling loops of thread around a pincer and passing the other end to Niggle. Then it scurried forward, under the machine and away.

  'I'm not naïve like my daughter,' growled a voice behind him. 'I can smell a con man coming, and you stink, Master Niggle.'

  Niggle turned to see Mercer Shackleton looming behind him, flanked by a pair of his grey-clad porters, sweat dribbling from beneath their hats.

  'You've played on Gloria's affections to get inside my factory.' The Mercer's words sent a shiver of guilt through Niggle. But it was replaced by anger and fear as the Mercer loomed forward, his tone cold as steel. 'But you're nothing but a common thief, come to steal what's mine. When these men shake you upside down, I expect all
sorts of things to fall from your pockets. Sketches of my machines. Samples of my dyes. The bundle of money my competitors paid to send you here. But none of that'll do you any good, Master Niggle, because my men are going to drown you in bleach and toss your faceless remains to the gulls.'

  The porters grabbed Niggle, nerves jarring as they twisted his arms behind his back.

  'You think I want to see inside your factory?' Niggle struggled for calm and failed, rage bubbling up inside him. 'I was born in your factory. I grew up in your factory. I watched my parents die in your factory, torn and tangled in one of your bloody machines. I still have my own scars.' He wriggled his arm around, showing the Mercer the twisted flesh of his wrist. 'I'm not here to steal your secrets. I'm here to tear them down.'

  'Really?' Shackleton leaned forward, his breath stinking like old beef. 'And how are you going to do that now?'

  His fist was a rock hitting Niggle's jaw, slamming his head back between the porters. Blood seeped between wobbling teeth, but Niggle pulled his head up and looked the Mercer in the eye.

  'Like this.'

  He tugged the thread his device had given him, its end still clutched in his hand. The arm of the loom beside him dipped, threads snapping as it swung round, smashing one porter in the head and forcing the other back.

  Niggle dived beneath the machine, shuttles clattering back and forth above him as he scrambled across the floor. He grabbed stray threads as he went, tugging to test the results, glancing up into the chaotic web his device had spun. It was a wild criss-crossing of strands that connected levers, gears and