Marque of Caine

by Charles E Gannon

  “Cei. I’m Cei.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Just Cei.”

  Becca looked up at him, pushing a strand of red-gold hair out of her eyes. “That’s a funny name. Is it like chi, the Greek letter?”

  The unexpected question prompted Riordan to raise an eyebrow; the resulting tug at his lacerated cheekbone made him wish he hadn’t. “No. It’s C-e-i.”

  She frowned. “Well, that’s not right. That’s a Welsh name, usually. And ‘Kay’ is how it’s said.” She considered Riordan thoughtfully. “Then again, you’re no Welshman. You’re a climber, right?”

  Riordan frowned. “A ‘climber’?”

  That drew stares, even from the group around the dead woman.

  “You know,” Becca urged, “an American.”

  “My parents were from there,” Riordan answered truthfully. “Where did you learn about Greek letters, Becca?”

  She smiled up at Pip. “M’uncle. Back before he had to leave.” She hugged Robinson. “But now he’s back, and he’ll show those Blackhands a thing or—”

  Robinson, moving again, shook his head. “I’m not here to stay. I’m here to get you. Just heard about your mum a few weeks ago.” He kissed her sadly on the head, then leaned into the compartment where Caine had first awakened. “There’s enough wood to get down the Thames, but I’ll wager there’s no starter coal on board. Here now, Mr. Cei, are you handy with a steam engine? Or a gun?”

  “More the latter than the former.”

  Robinson stared at his reply. “You’ve been to university, have you?”

  Caine shrugged off the question. “What kind of gun?” He glanced at Pip’s musket, which had a handle protruding from the left side of the action.

  Pip saw the look, shook his head. “No, not this. We’ll need something heavier to keep them at a distance.” He nodded toward the boat closing in from upriver.

  Riordan shrugged, discovered that the field of vision in his left eye was shrinking as his cheek continued to swell. “What do you have in mind?”

  “A customs cutter like this one should have an old Puckle gun on board. A fine fit for our purposes.”

  “What’s a Puckle gun?”

  Another stare from Robinson. “Are you quite all right, Mr. Cei?”

  “I’m fine. Show me the gun.”

  “In a moment. Becca, I don’t know why all those people thought it was a good idea to jump down to this boat.”

  “Better’n being shot in the street by the Blackhands!”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so. Here’s their choice: they climb back up the scaffolding and make for the bank quickly, or sail with us right now. I’ll let them off downstream, as soon as we’ve given the blaggarts the slip.”

  “Right you are, Uncle Pip!”

  “Good girl. But Becca, be sure they understand: anyone who gets off must run to the bank. No shilly-shallying on the bridge.” Becca saluted and ran to the others.

  Riordan looked up at the bridge as he followed Robinson forward. “Why do they need to get off the bridge?”

  “Mr. Cei, do you remember the ditty, ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’?”

  Riordan looked back at the low stone arches again, recognized the outline, and nodded. “I understand. Charges hidden in the scaffolding?”

  Pip nodded.

  But Caine, following him along the portside gunwale to the pilot house, kept staring at the mighty pilings beneath the bridge. Although not a demolitions expert, even he knew that it would take dozens of barrels of black power to bring down a stone bridge, particularly without any way to direct the blast upward into the structure. But, if the year here is slightly more advanced than it looks…“Nitroglycerine?”

  Robinson stopped, looked at him with a smile. “We, Mr. Cei, are going to get along famously, I wager. Now, duck in the storeroom back of the pilot’s station. There’s the Puckle gun. We’ll need it up on the top deck. I’ll help you get it up the ladder.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  JULY 2124

  LELTLOSU-SHAI (VIRTUA), BD+75 403A

  Once it was set up, Riordan remembered reading about the Puckle gun. Essentially a tripod-mounted small bore cannon that operated like a revolver, it had been created in the early eighteenth century, saw little use, and even less adoption. However, in this version of Earth, it had apparently been adopted and improved. Its original flintlock action had since been refitted to use far more reliable percussion caps. With a bore of just over three centimeters, this model’s ten round drums were thicker and heavier, mostly because each chamber held more powder, thereby increasing range and lethality.

  After Riordan fixed the weapon’s tripod in place, he quickly checked the reloading mechanism. A breech handle unlocked a hinged rear plate, allowing the gunner to demount the spent cylinder and mount the next one.

  Below him, through an open panel in the roof of the pilot house, he could hear Robinson calling instructions back to the escapees now working as the stokers and tenders of the customs cutter’s boiler. As they pulled slowly away from the foot of London Bridge’s midriver piling, Pip’s makeshift crew proved to be highly motivated. They had been involved in that morning’s coal riot, and none of them were first time offenders. For many, the gallows were a distinct possibility. However, their natural inclination—to heave as much wood into the burner as fast as they could—had to be restrained. The cutter could not afford to run out of fuel until they were quit of London and well beyond any downriver towns that riders could alert in a timely fashion. Which meant that the following boat, its boiler already hot with a full head of steam, would catch them before they could match its speed. Unless, that is, Caine could dissuade them.

  He examined the Puckle’s sights: conventional v-notch and post. No tangent for estimating the drop of a projectile over range, but there was a series of four even marks on the sights and four corresponding notches for raising the barrel. “Pip, what’s the range interval on the elevation marks?”

  There was a silence before Robinson shouted up his reply. “Base setting is for one hundred yards. Each notch adds another hundred. But the last one is bollocks.”

  “So beyond four hundred yards or so, it shoots like a rainbow.”

  “Yes. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

  “Not exactly, but I’m familiar with the principles.” Riordan glanced at the pursuing boat. Although angling toward them, it was devoting most of its speed to drawing abreast. Probably to give its musketeers a broader and easier target. “Are you planning to run straight or add some evasive maneuvers?”

  “Bloody hell, Mr. Cei. You sound like an officer. We’ve no time to do anything but run.”

  “If you change your mind, let me know how and when you’re going to zig or zag. I don’t want to waste ammunition.”

  “Right-o. Might want to stand-to, now. They’re nearing four hundred yards.”

  “I’m letting them come to three hundred before I even try a ranging shot.”

  Another pause. “That’s a bit close, don’t you think?”

  “Not with a gun like this. If we shoot early and miss by too wide a margin, they could become more confident and come on harder. But if our first shot is close, and by the third, we’re hitting their hull, they’re more likely to back off.”

  Pip’s laugh was a rich baritone. “Well, I’ll leave off giving advice to the chief gunner!” He raised his voice for everyone to hear. “Stay out of sight. Under the gunwales, if you can. Stray shots will go through the sides of the pilot- and engine-houses.”

  Leaving the Puckle concealed under a tarp, Riordan crouched low behind the upper deck’s weather siding. He studied the oncoming boat through the gaps between its waist-high sections. “Pip, if that ship is like ours, where’s its Puckle gun?”

  “That’s a new cutter. Smaller and faster, but not enough room for any deck guns. I wouldn’t want to bet the same about the two just joining the chase back near Blackfriars.”

  “Nor I,” Riordan
agreed. Their immediate pursuer had closed the range to three hundred and fifty yards.

  Apparently Caine was not the only one gauging the distance. Two narrow, horizontal plumes of smoke jetted over the enemy’s gunwale, trailed by the barks of twin musket discharges. One ball raised a divot of water almost fifty meters off the starboard quarter. There was no sign of the other.

  Staying beneath the rim of the weather siding, Riordan crept back to the Puckle, worked his way under the tarp, lifted it an inch off the barrel. Azimuth was not hard to fix and hold. Although the enemy boat was going faster, it wasn’t changing relative position that quickly, and the Puckle’s free traverse enabled minute adjustments.

  However, the same was not true of the elevation. If Pip was right about the unreliability of the range marks, there was a good chance that the gun would undershoot even at the three-hundred-yard setting. Time to find out if it did.

  Riordan eased the Puckle’s hammer back to full cock, rotated the cylinder clockwise until the first chamber’s percussion cap clicked into place. Sighting along the barrel, Caine cheated the aimpoint just forward of the enemy cutter’s midship line, slid the tarp off, leaned away, and squeezed the trigger.

  The Puckle’s report was not as loud as Caine had expected; it was merely an amplified musket. The recoil, however, was enough to make him glad that he’d secured each leg of its tripod to the topdeck. A small geyser marked where the round hit: fifteen yards short of the enemy’s hull. Ducking down, Riordan spun the breech handle, rotated the cylinder until chamber two locked into place, refastened the handle, laid flat, and waited.

  Two seconds later, the crackle of distant musketry reached his ears but no sound of balls hitting the cutter. Not surprising. Firing a long arm from a moving boat, even using a braced rest, was difficult. And he could also count on reloading taking more time than usual. Unless…“Pip, that rifle of yours, is it a muzzleloader?”

  Pip’s first reply was a startled laugh. “Shite and eggs, Cei, are Americans really raised in caves? Cor, I haven’t seen a military muzzleloader since I was a lad. We’re just lucky this lot are still armed with muskets.”

  Wait, a musket that’s not a muzzleloader? “So, you use, er, breech-loading muskets?”

  A long pause. “If we get out of this, Cei, I’m bringing you round to a doctor, find out if that pistol whip cracked your brain pan. The London Irregulars use Lorenzonis. Us, too. Ball and powder for eight shots in closed ports behind the breech. Surely you’ve at least seen one.”

  Lorenzoni. A vaguely familiar name from firearm history. A Florentine gunsmith. “How many shots a minute, Pip?”

  “Out here? Maybe four. Besides, most London Irregulars are just hoodlums with guns. Never trained a day in their life.”

  Riordan crept back alongside the Puckle, cocked the hammer, and nudged the azimuth. Probably about two hundred sixty yards, now. The rate of closure was decreasing as their own cutter’s speed increased. Leaving the elevation at the three-hundred-yard mark, he pulled the trigger.

  The Puckle barked, flinching against its deck moorings. A white spout appeared ten yards beyond the enemy boat. Caine frowned. So, if the three-hundred-yard mark shoots to about two seventy, the two-hundred-yard mark will probably shoot to about one hundred ninety. He turned the cylinder to the third round and cocked the hammer.

  As he finished, enemy musket fire sputtered in reply to his last shot. One ball clawed a few splinters out of the starboard gunwale. As Riordan waited for the range to close, he checked the percussion caps on the four spare cylinders: firmly seated, no sign of moisture. He leaned toward the opening that communicated with the pilot-house. “Pip, how long does it take to fully reload one of those Lorenzonis?”

  “Moving on the water and with spray flying, it could take a minute, maybe longer.” He glanced toward the enemy boat. “They’ll be given the order to fire at will quite soon, now.”

  “I’m counting on it.” Hell, I’m going to provoke it. Riordan crept back to the Puckle, dropped the elevation to two hundred yards, and raised his head to sight along the barrel. He shifted its aimpoint to the enemy’s bow and squeezed the trigger.

  A white jet appeared a few yards beyond and in front of the cutter’s prow.

  A wave of musket fire answered as Riordan ducked down. He heard a few faint zipping sounds, well overhead. The Irregulars were overcompensating, aiming too high.

  Caine reloaded hastily, jumped up, made a small adjustment, cheated the aimpoint a little further back along the bow, squeezed the trigger.

  A puff of dust and paint blossomed out from the enemy’s forward gunwale. Spalling wood and splinters erupted inboard where the round exited on the other side. Riordan reloaded quickly, staying low. Now that he had the range, he had to lay down fire as quickly as he could.

  A second, more ragged wave of musketry swept the cutter, balls spatting the length of its gunwale. A few hit the pilot house and smokestack. One punched through the weather siding a yard away from Riordan as he checked his aim and fired again.

  And missed. The round passed over the foredeck, clipping the far gunwale.

  Riordan hated wasting the time it took to reload from a crouched position, but now that the enemy was closer, he couldn’t allow them to draw a steady bead on him. He rose just high enough to sight down the barrel, musket balls whining overhead, a few plunking into the hull and pilot house.

  Pip’s shout was incongruously calm. “Mr. Cei, if you please…”

  “Working on it,” Caine muttered, fired the gun, unlocked the cylinder…

  …and saw his round hit the enemy’s pilot house. There was no way to tell if it had inflicted any casualties, but the pursuers’ reactions became excited, urgent. And most important, distracted.

  At last.

  Riordan stood so that he could reload and fire as quickly as possible. One of the next two rounds hit, just above the waterline. He leaned on the barrel for the next several shots, three of which hit just at or below that mark.

  More excitement on the enemy ship. A mad flurry of poorly aimed return fire, and then the bow of the pursuer started swinging away. But even though they were trying to open the range, the inertia of the Irregulars’ ship would keep them in Riordan’s firing envelope about a minute longer.

  Riordan did not rotate the cylinder this time. Instead, he yanked it off the mount, slapped a fresh one into place, and began firing.

  Sometime between the third and fourth round from that new, ten round cylinder, the pursuing boat pulled hard to starboard, opening the range even faster. Caine maintained his rate of fire, but paid the predictable cost in reduced accuracy. Several rounds plunked harmlessly in the water, as far as five yards from the enemy hull. But the reward was three more hits at or just beneath the waterline. And it was now clear that at least a few casualties had been inflicted and that the Irregulars were shaken. They were no longer reloading quickly nor coordinating their fire.

  “Rum show, Mr. Cei!” Pip called up. Becca’s addition was a cheer, soon taken up by the engine-tenders.

  “Not done yet,” Riordan shouted down as he tossed aside the third cylinder and started mounting the fourth.

  “But they’re running!” Becca objected.

  Pip’s reply proved he was no stranger to military engagements. “Running does not mean they won’t eventually come about and dog us at a safe distance. Until we know they can’t chase us, we’ve not made good our escape.”

  Riordan resumed firing at the receding boat as rapidly as he could. He might have scored another two or three hits, but he hardly cared once he saw the distinctive motion of men bailing water.

  He was mounting the last cylinder as a precaution when Pip emerged from the wheelhouse, carrying a tightly wrapped package under his arm. Riordan glanced warily back along the port quarter. Behind them, the Tower of London was still in range. If the garrison had Puckle guns or heavier pieces—

  Pip grinned up at Caine. “There’s nothing coming from there, Mr. Cei. We took ca
re to ruin their powder this morning. Inside job, as it were.” He undid the bindings on the package. The wrapping fell away, revealing a pair of signal rockets.

  Riordan nodded. “I think I know why you’re not worried about the other two boats catching up to us.”

  Pip grinned. “I knew you’d done this before, Mr. Cei.” He clamped a sleeved bracket to the cutter’s short foremast, fitted a rocket’s launching stick into the sleeve. A quick strike of a friction match lit the fuse. Robinson strode back to the cover of the pilot house, where Becca had been keeping a steady hand on the wheel.

  The tail of the rocket flared. It leaped away as if scalded. In a moment, it had hissed high overhead and burst—a faint pink color.

  Pip appeared on the afterdeck with Becca and two others, watching as the bridges of the Thames shrank into the distance. Riordan looked back along the same vector, wondered what year it was in this strange version of Earth, remembered he probably had an answer in his pocket. He fished out the note from Kutkh and read:

  Welcome to London, 1869 AD, twenty-two years after the conclusion of the Great Coal War. You have been inserted into a place where you have a more than “sporting chance,” to borrow the local idiom.

  My persona is Lord David Lawrence Weiner the Third, Earl of Greater Connecticut. You will have no problem gathering information about me. The accuracy of that information is another matter entirely.

  Kutkh

  Caine crumpled the note and tossed it into the wind, which carried it over the transom. With the crisis passed and the adrenaline fading, he became aware of the throbbing ache that was the left side of his face. Riordan sat heavily on the roof of the pilot’s house, looked up at the gray sky, closed his eyes…

  And realized that, until he read Kutkh’s note, he had once again been halfway to forgetting that this world—all the people, pain, and death—were just an illusion.

  Far behind the boat, a wide jet of smoke shot up from London Bridge, followed almost instantly by a long rumble that growled toward them over the wavelets. Chunks of stone and the skeletal remains of scaffolding flew up out of the cloudy chaos. As Riordan watched the fragments soar higher, a widening froth ran outward, the shock waves and small debris pummeling and churning the Thames into what looked like wild, flat rapids.