Dark Age

by Robert T. Bradley

  ‘You tap the outer case in the centre, Father.’ The young Baxter leant awkwardly forward and showed him.

  His father’s jaw tensed as he danced his hand over random tools on his desk. Finding his loupe magnifier, Alfred Nightingale wedged it in his eye socket. ‘Is it enamel?’ he asked, examining the watches face.

  ‘Yes,’ Baxter replied, ‘and the case is made from silver.’

  ‘Where did you get silver?’

  Baxter detected pride in his father’s voice, he was sure of it. ‘Uncle Nicholas gave me a few old rings and a knife.’

  ‘Not your grandmother’s cutlery, I hope.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he lied, knowing fair well he wouldn’t notice the missing teaspoons.

  ‘Did he help you smelt it?’

  ‘No, just gave me the parts for the case.’

  ‘And the crucible?’

  ‘I made it.’

  ‘Out of clay?’

  ‘Yes, father.’

  ‘How do you open the back?’

  ‘You twist it clockwise.’

  He watched as his father struggled to turn it. ‘Here, it’s a little fiddly even for–’

  ‘Leave it, I can manage.’

  Finally, it cracked open to display the watch’s inner workings. Alfred’s head lifted away from him, exposing his father’s neck, and Baxter noticed how red it looked.

  ‘Your relay is wrong, the casing isn’t level, and your second-hand cog is too big.’ Alfred passed it back, but he might as well have thrown it.

  IV

  The stench of stale cigarettes filled the inspector’s office. A chair with torn-away leather and a small desk populated the cramped space. The conductor leant over Tabitha and twisted the gaslight. ‘Take a seat.’

  Old leather groaned under her buttocks, she gripped the sides and nervously fingered the rivets.

  ‘Pass me the pad.’ The man pointed with a yellowed finger and removed a box of cigarettes with his other hand.

  ‘If you’ll allow me the time, I can send a letter to my father.’ she said, handing him the pad.

  ‘It’s my last day today.’

  ‘Oh? Retirement?’

  He lit his cigarette then nodded.

  ‘Congratulations–’

  ‘There’s nothing to congratulate,’ said the conductor in a cloud of smoke, ‘all I’m going to do now is rot.’

  Tabitha suddenly became aware her shoulders had stiffened.

  ‘Open the draw for me,’ he said.

  Tabitha followed to where the conductor pointed, and pulled the stiff draw open. A whisky bottle rolled from the back to the front. He flipped over a glass and took the bottle from her.

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Not a whisky lover?’

  Tabitha shook her head.

  He poured himself a drop, gave Tabitha a look, paused, then added another drop of near equal measure.

  ‘Sir, my father has the money to cover my fare, please just let me get a message to him...’

  ‘Won’t happen,’ he said, downing the content of the glass. ‘I’ve been doing this job for sixteen years. How old are you, girl?’

  ‘Twenty.’

  The man reached back for his cigarettes and offered her one.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Would you believe in all those years,’ he took a drag from his cigarette and inspected the end, ‘not once have I ridden in First Class. Have you, miss? With your rich father, I guess you have.’

  ‘No, we, I mean, I’ve. This is my second time on a train and my father isn’t rich.’

  ‘Really?’ He looked down at her breasts. His eyes rolled from one to the other as he took a long draw from the cigarette.

  Tabitha hurried her arms in front of her, her face tanning to red. One of the fingers at the rivet in her seat broke through, tearing a hole in the leather.

  ‘Now miss,’ he said, putting out his cigarette. ‘Get to your feet, it’s my last day.’

  ‘I know, erm I don’t want to be–’

  ‘It’s my last day, I deserve a ride in First Class.’

  ‘Are we going back to First Class?’

  ‘No, I deserve a ride in First Class.’

  Her body stiffened. ‘What?’

  V

  ‘If you want to build watches, Baxter, you need to get a better eye for details. Where did you make this?’

  ‘In my quarters?’

  ‘With the light off?’

  ‘No, in the evenings I used my lantern.’

  ‘Well, you need…’

  ‘…I did my best with the tools I had, it keeps the time.’

  ‘Does it indeed son?’

  ‘Yes, it’s exactly half past three.’

  His father pulled out his own watch and compared them. ‘Baxter, it’s four in the afternoon.’

  VI

  ‘You heard me. Turn around, lift up your skirt.’

  ‘No,’ she cried, desperate to get past him.

  The conductor’s mass covered the doorway. She hurried instinctively for a gun in her belt, nothing, Baxter had it. He grabbed her with his shovel hands, one grip crushed her fingers his other arm wrapped around her ribs. She kicked the door and screamed. He slammed her on the desk like a butcher handling a dead pig, knocking the whisky bottle to the floor.

  ‘No use screaming, dearie, these walls are solid oak, nobody’s going to hear you.’

  She punched him in the face, his head collided with hers, splitting her nose. Her arms trembled under his strength. One hand wedged over her mouth the other rammed up her skirt. ‘This is going to be first class!’ His octopus fingers hurried at her knickers.

  ‘Get off me you fucking animal, Baxter!’ The pain soared, tightening Tabitha’s limbs to an uncontrollable quake: lava was ready to blast from her head.

  ‘Fight as much as you want, the guards need to see you were a handful.’ He ripped her shirt apart and squeezed her breast, digging his fingernails in her flesh. His face gained ground close enough to lick the side of her cheek. She twisted and spat on him. The tongue rolled and lapped it up.

  ‘A fighter. Country tarts don’t half ‘ave some vigour about ya.’

  His barbaric strength equalled only to the volcano she had built up inside. He had her pinned, everything was shaking and her world tainted to ash.

  VII

  Baxter threw the worthless watch in the fire and spent the night lying awake in bed. The next day, after he’d finished the feeds, he went back to his chamber. Next to his bed, sat on the desk was a brand-new lantern and magnifying ring with an envelope perched against it. The note read:

  I hope these help. Father.

  The sound of the train rolling over each of the track’s connections beneath Baxter soothed his temperament. Emerging from the tunnel, the daylight displayed the last part of the Moor, it tamed gradually to hedged fields. The repetition of hedgerows sent Baxter adrift. As his eyelids closed, they entered the final tunnel through the city walls. A dream arrived in his mind rapidly from another place.

  His eyes sprang open. He looked at his watch, where was Tabitha? You heard stories about the folk in towns, how they treat girls. His uncle had told him a story about how slaves met all manner of desires. Had Tabitha become this conductor’s slave? They’d do it to people who couldn’t front their tickets, punishments were harder here.

  Standing quickly, he exited the compartment, forgetting his pistol. Halfway to the next carriage he remembered, went back, grabbed it and tucked its cold steel under his belt. He walked toward the back of the train and stopped at the door to First Class. Adjusting his posture, tucking in his shirt and straightening his trousers, he pressed his hand to the door. Then remembered his pistol, re-un-tucked his shirt, covered it and opened the door.

  Music came flooding out of the carriage. A gang of men stood smoking and laughing about some game or other they enjoyed.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Baxter said, trying to get past them.

  ‘What
is this,’ a man pointed at Baxter’s stains.

  ‘Is it Wine?’ said one of them from the top of their pointed nose.

  ‘It’s blood,’ Baxter replied, pulling his shirt tight enough to reveal the shape of his pistol.

  Floorboards popped with age under Baxter’s boots, heading toward the rectangle of light ahead, he drew his peacemaker and cocked the steel firing pin: expecting the worse. His sweaty palm tightened around his gun as he approached the door. He heard grunts, moans and a muffled scream.

  He slowly tried the handle, expecting resistance, but none came and the door opened. There in front of him was the conductor, his back to the door and trouser at his ankles. He was thrusting hard. Baxter’s blood turned to an inferno. He held out his pistol, shaking under fury. He stepped closer and jammed the tip into the man’s skull.

  The beast ceased. His hands spread open and upward.

  ‘Get away from her,’ Baxter ordered behind clenched teeth.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the old man whimpered.

  Baxter grappled at Tabitha, moving her swiftly behind him.

  ‘She, the girl she... asked me to do it.’

  ‘Liar!’ Tabitha screamed. ‘Shoot him, Baxter, shoot him!’

  ‘No sir, please, take the money, here, you needed it anyway I’m sure, please just take it.’

  A load of silver coins fell to the floor, and Tabitha was quick to grab them.

  Baxter’s hand shook with nervous hesitation.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Said Tabitha, ‘shoot him.’

  Sweat beads collected together on Baxter’s brow and ran down from his forehead into his eyes, blurring his vision. He wiped them.

  ‘Baxter?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Baxter said. ‘I can’t do it.’

  Tabitha snatched the gun out of his shaking hand and pointed it at the conductor.

  ‘No, miss please wait, it’s my last–’

  She pressed the trigger. The bullet flew out of the barrel and broke its way through the air, skimming the rapist’s skull. The man’s body fell limp, tumbling to the ground.

  ‘Are you all right Tabs?’ said Baxter.

  She didn’t say a word, her body shaking and eyes open the widest Baxter had ever seen them, she looked wild.

  ‘Come, quick.’ He removed his jacket and wrapped it around her. ‘Let’s get off this train.’

  The locomotive’s whistle made a loud chirp as the two of them hid by the doorway of the darkened carriage. The train shot out of the tunnel, riding on a narrow bridge and stuck to the track.

  ‘Not too long now and we’ll be in the city.’ He knocked a part of her hair back from her eyes, both fixed on the small window of the carriage door.

  He squeezed her in further. ‘Don’t worry Tabs, we’ll get out of here as soon as it stops.’ She felt as delicate as paper.

  VIII

  Elegantly clothed citizens stood on the station platform as the moorland locomotive rolled in and settled. Some of them, aware the train had come from the Moor, applied their face masks and moved well away from the path of the alighting travellers.

  ‘Can you walk?’ Baxter asked.

  ‘I’m okay.’ Tabitha waited for his eyes to focus elsewhere, then inspected herself quickly. It was wet and sore. She looked at the finger and saw the red of it.

  ‘Who should we tell, the City guard?’ he said.

  ‘No, no-one.’

  Before the train had time to stop, Baxter opened their carriage door and swung out on the steps. She was quick to grab his arm and tuck in deep.

  Together they narrowly escaped the blind thrusts of shrill umbrellas weaving in and out of folded-up newspapers as bookshelf voices bellowed from men with wardrobe postures. Above them a large clock hung suspended from the iron ceiling. As Tabitha continued to pull through the crowd, Baxter applied his goggles and focused in on the clock. Along the bottom was the name “Nightingales of Upper-Thames St”. Ahead, a group of four concerned station staff shared bamboozled expressions as they tried to board the newly arrived train. Passing them both, Tabitha hid her face in what remained of her ripped shirt. She pushed Baxter to hurry him, knocking his goggles from his head to the station officer’s path. Ceaseless solid leather shoes marched over them, smashing the goggles to pieces.

  ‘Leave them,’ she said, looking back at the men. She pulled Baxter’s arm as they seeped themselves in the crowd of colour and disappeared.

  CHAPTER 9

  ‘There, Jeremiah, I told you.’ A young boy pushed open a door to a grand hallway, dimly lit with paintings hanging from the walls, he smiled slyly at his brother. ‘See, what did I say… No guards.’

  Wooden flooring chilled the underside of both the young boys’ feet, a fresh varnish scent of bees wax tickled Jeremiahs nose; he sneezed.

  ‘Quiet.’ Snapped Byron.

  ‘Stop walking so fast.’ said Jeremiah.

  ‘I thought you wanted this completed swiftly?’ Byron said.

  ‘I do, to be sure brother.’ Jeremiah raised his nightgown from the varnished planks, remembering the pain last time he tripped.

  ‘Well? Make haste.’ His older brother glided back and pushed him under the gaslight, exposing Jeremiah’s scared face to detail. ‘Let’s get on with it shall we, my darling Prince Moon face?’

  ‘Don’t.’ Jeremiah shook his long blonde locks in front of his face to conceal his scars.

  ‘I’m sorry brother, it’s just with the light, it did, for a moment, look like a moon with the craters and the crescent–’

  ‘Alright, you’ve made your jest in my favour. Now come, we should be in bed.’

  The boys pressed on, sliding on thick carpet to the rosewood door at the end of the hallway.

  ‘Look at Grandfather in this one.’ Byron struggled to hold his laughter, pointing at the old man’s groin.

  ‘Odd to think he was ever so young?’ Their grandfather wore a military uniform, patterned with ribbon awards and a crown too big for his head.

  ‘What’s he wearing on his crotch?’ Byron pointed, thinking he looked more like a prized pony than anyone’s king.

  ‘Keep it down!’ Jeremiah pressed a finger to his brother’s lips. ‘I’m sure you want to wake the entire palace and weasel your way out of having to pay me.’

  ‘Weasel? Goodness, you certainly know how to spin an insult.’

  ‘Weasels the slyest, are they not?’

  ‘Indeed, but call me a bastard, or a bloody bugger.’

  ‘Good Lord, Byron, you just cursed,’ Jeremiah held out his hand and counted, ‘three times!’

  ‘Indeed I did, and I’ll do it again!’

  What a pint of chocolate milk before bed can do to a boy’s zeal, Jeremiah was sure of it. ‘We’re going to get caught.’

  ‘You overestimate those silly walking tins.’

  ‘It’s not the guards I’m worried about. I’ll be taking both our punishments.’

  ‘You won’t.’ He bashed Jeremiah on the arm. ‘Anything happens, I’ll take the fall.’

  He’d said it before, yet Jeremiah always got the blame. A curse for having a foolishly adventurous brother who was an heir to a kingdom and convinced he was invincible.

  ‘I see,’ said Jeremiah, ‘open this door, set off the alarm and let’s get this finished.’ He pulled out his Nightingale watch, holding it up to the painting’s light he studied the face. ‘It’s half past two. We’ll be in enough trouble as it is.’

  Byron snatched the watch. ‘You still have this, after everything that happened?’

  ‘It’s a good watch.’ Jeremiah replied.

  Byron flung it back at him, the chain narrowly missing the side of his younger brother’s face. ‘You’re a strange one sometimes. If father knew you had it still...’

  ‘…I don’t think he’d care.’

  Byron sniggered. ‘I don’t believe you know our father.’

  Jeremiah looked beyond his brother to the door. Air whistled as it escaped from the gap at the bottom. Both boys wrapped them
selves in all the fabric of their dressing gowns. The wind’s howl echoed up the corridor rolling its way toward the young twin princes.

  ‘I’m going back,’ Jeremiah said, with certainty in his voice.

  Byron hung his head and snapped it back. His eyebrows met, producing the lines of frustration the less-spirited can cause. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’

  ‘It’s you who doesn’t know father!’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes, you underestimate him and uncle.’ Jeremiah shuddered at a horrifying thought. ‘What if he thinks it’s a guard? He’ll have one of their heads for sedition.’

  Byron stopped. ‘I didn’t think about that.’

  Relief washed over Jeremiah. ‘Good, lets head back, getting this far is enough achievement for your roguish adventures dear brother.’

  It’s fine,’ Bryon shook his head, ‘both of those fools will think it’s the pipes.’ He placed a patronising hand to Jeremiah’s chest. ‘Trust me.’

  The two boys continued down the corridor until they got to the door. Jeremiah noticed the dust on the handles. ‘When was the last time father wore his crown?’

  Byron produced a lock and pick. ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’

  ‘Where did you get those?’

  One corner of Byron’s mouth smiled. ‘Haven’t you figured it out yet, Prince Jeremiah? I’m a rogue Brotherhood bandit!’

  ‘You’re a twit,’ he said, as Byron inserted both the pins. ‘It’s not going to work.’

  Byron gave his brother a cocky wink and twisted the two pins in.

  After some time, the locking mechanism clanked. Byron slowly looked at him, his eyes ablaze with a sheen of smugness. ‘See?’

  The heavy door opened with a long drawn-out noise of old wood straining against tired metal hinges. Stale air whooshed up the corridor in a howl lasting less than a second.