by Anna Butler
“Thought?” Banger Bill was onto that like a terrier on a rat.
“The real machine lies underneath us,” Ned said, “in a chamber carved out of the rock. It’s the one making all the noise. The other spiral staircase Rafe mentioned leads down to it.”
“If we’re on the stairs or the landing when the clockwork ticks, it’s unpleasant but it’s just noise.” I shrugged for emphasis. “Ignore it and plough on.”
They shuffled their feet and clung to their pistols with all the fervour of a dowager clutching her pearls, but they all nodded.
And up we went.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Traversing the pyramid’s stairs and corridors when you knew where you were going was child’s play compared to our cautious exploration the previous day.
The pyramid’s clockwork heart gave one beat while we were about to climb the stairs to the Star Map Chamber. We’d skirted the downward spiral leading to the pit beneath the pyramid, with several guards giving it a sidelong glance that seemed both speculative and suspicious. When the sound boomed up, we waited it out in silence. Banger Bill and his squad, forewarned, stood with their heads tilted towards the pit as if to hear more clearly, but didn’t seem as unnerved as the rest of us had been when we’d heard it for the first time.
Banger grunted when the last echoes were swallowed by the shadows clinging to the underside of the roof. “That’s that. Like you said, can’t hurt us.”
“No.” Ned nodded towards the stairs to the Star Map Chamber, and started up them.
I took a couple of longer strides to reach him, so we went side by side with the guards on our heels. “Why did you knock the Prussian down?”
His eyes gleamed in the semidarkness. “Did you want to slit his throat?”
“Not particularly.”
A short pause, then Ned said, tone slow and contemplative, “It felt too close. Too personal. I know it’s illogical, but shooting the others wasn’t so intimate a way of dealing death. That was war, but cutting that man’s throat would be more like…”
Murder. It would be more like murder. I hadn’t been in anything like an equal contest with him. The man had been helpless in my grip, the knife blade pricking his throat.
Ned shifted his brimstone to the other hand and slipped his free hand under my arm. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” I pressed my elbow into my side, trapping his hand. “I know what you mean.”
He smiled. “I knew you would. We’ll have to fight and we’ll have to kill. But we’ll play the game by our own rules. We’re better than them.”
This wasn’t Ned, one of the best archaeologists of his generation. It wasn’t Ned, the temperate, reticent man in public, or the passionate, bold, and ardent lover in private. This was the First Heir of Convocation House Gallowglass, trained to a hair, taking on the Gallowglass’s mantle of command and authority, probity and honour.
The best and worst of the Imperium, in one package. I could live with that.
Right then, though, my priority was to make sure we would live. So I’d play by Ned’s rules as long as his life wasn’t in immediate peril. But if ever it came to a choice between him and honour, then honour, decency, fairness and all that claptrap could, most decidedly, go hang.
I opened the door into the Star Map Chamber with a quiet caution. Like the one below, it swung soundlessly on its spindle hinge.
The chamber beyond was empty.
To our left, on the north wall, was the doorway to the ledge; ahead of us, in the southeast corner, the corridor to the vestibule outside Thoth’s huge laboratory, the Place of Verification. All was still, all was quiet.
I pushed the door closed again and turned to the guards gathered at the top of the stairs. “The vestibule outside the Verification Chamber is about a hundred and fifty feet inside, and just beyond it is the corridor to the staircase down to where our people are. We’d better assume Altenfeld has someone at the top of that staircase, and proceed accordingly. We’ll have to be quiet.”
“We’re trained to move silently.” George touched the guns on his belt.
“Still, too many of us to reconnoitre the vestibule without risking detection. I’ll go.”
“George will go with you.” Ned used the “I’m the First Heir of the biggest Convocation House in the Imperium and you don’t argue with me” tone in which, to be fair, he seldom indulged.
I wasn’t going to waste time in argument anyway. “No lights, George.”
A quick clutch at Ned’s hand. His quiet “Be careful” sounded in my ears as George and I opened the door and slid into the Star Map Chamber. We traversed the corridor in the dark, guiding ourselves with a hand on the walls. My fingertips travelled over the cold stone, feeling my progress by the sharp little “valleys” of the joins marking the edges of the smooth-faced blocks. As we neared it, the blueish light spilling out into the vestibule from the open portal to the Verification Chamber gave us something to aim for, a reassurance we weren’t going to be stumbling along narrow corridors in the dark forever.
George put out a hand and stopped me just before we reached the vestibule. Once again we waited, listening. Voices sounded from the Verification Chamber to our right, the sound squeezing its way through the portal to batter against the smooth basalt. Nothing else. No sound of breathing close by, or shifting feet, or sighs. Nothing to suggest anyone was in the vestibule.
He brought his mouth so close to my ear his breath stirred my hair. “We’ll move in. Then you stay there while I check out the staircase.”
It made more sense. George was better at this game than I was. I nodded, and we slipped into the vestibule. I flattened against the wall on one side of the entrance to the Verification Chamber, while George, staying close to the far wall opposite the opening, worked his quiet way to the other side. He vanished into the shadow cloaking the corridor, and I was left trying to merge myself unobtrusively into the walls while listening to the people in the Verification Chamber. Most of it was German, but for one sharp stab of a conversation. Günter Reitz’s voice, in his familiar excellent English, though I couldn’t quite hear what he said, and then Nell’s louder, indignant tones.
“Theo and I have no idea where they can be. How could we? You know exactly where we’ve been since my brother and Mr Winter went outside. Please don’t be such a birdbrained dunderhead!”
I took a split second to thank every god in the pantheon for preserving the life of my opinionated, brave, indomitable little sister.
A spate of German came next, but not from Günter, because he laughed, and a moment later he was soothing and conciliatory. “I do know, Fräulein, and I am sorry to press you. Graf Von Saxe-Eichshofen-Altenfeld wants to talk to Ned, of course, about what has been found here.”
Nell’s sweet tone bit like acid. “Were you sleeping through the day, Herr Reitz, that you cannot answer this man’s questions yourself? Oh, no! Silly me. We were the ones who were sleeping.”
“It’s not worth it, Nell.” Theo’s voice. “Save your breath.”
George ghosted back into the vestibule, flattening himself against the wall on the other side of the portal. He gestured over his shoulder towards the staircase and made a sharp slashing sideways movement with his hand.
All clear.
It seemed the Lancaster Luck was holding.
I supposed Altenfeld, having left the majority of his forces downstairs to watch over the Gallowglass guards, felt secure enough to eschew keeping a sentry at the top of the stairs. Given that the mass of stone rendered Marconis useless over any distance except for keeping the dust out of your ears, he had no means of checking what was going on in the Deliberation Chamber. The man was proving himself to be ridiculously cocksure.
George turned to face me and slid his shoulder down the wall until he was kneeling. He tilted his head to one side and moved so he could see around the edge of the opening. Clever old George. Only his eyes would be visible, and well below the height a watchful guard might ex
pect. I followed suit.
Cocksure, but not quite a fool. Altenfeld had set his three men at the points of a triangle, the majority of the chamber under harquebuses they’d probably taken from the Gallowglass guards downstairs. Two of them were the archaeologists who’d been with Altenfeld in Cairo when I saw him there in November. Archaeologists, indeed. Prussian Army musketeers, if ever I’d seen one.
Nell sat on one of the stools, side-on to the entryway, Theo standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders. The stool had been moved to stand before the great throne. Günter—no. Reitz. He didn’t deserve more. Reitz leant over a low table set between the throne and Nell’s stool. He had stacked a large pile of papyri on the tabletop.
I couldn’t see Altenfeld at first. Then he appeared on the square stone island in the middle of the pit, where the narrower column sprang up within the embrace of the four-sided Antikythera machine. He was inching his way around, his arms outspread as if he, in his turn, was embracing the machine. He never took his hands from it, caressing it, his expression one of reverence and a sort of delighted wonder. When the pyramid’s heartbeat came with its regular chukkkkka-thunk, Altenfeld was directly beneath the great worm wheel. He clung onto the machine, face upturned to watch the gears move and shift, and when the sound died away and he came back across one of the gangplank bridges, his face glowed with a quite unholy ecstasy.
Altenfeld went to stand close in front of Nell and Theo, staring down at them. Too close. A deliberate ploy by a tall man, using his height and power to daunt and subdue. Both Nell and Theo stared back at him, chins lifting. Little fools! A man like Altenfeld, burning to prove himself, wouldn’t give a fig about their show of pride and defiance.
He broke his silence. “I wish to speak with Ned Winter.” He made a gesture towards the papyri on the table. “About these, and where we might find more. You would do very well to tell me where he is.”
“We don’t know.” Theo sounded both weary and defiant.
“A great pity.” Altenfeld sneered at them for another moment before turning away and joining Günter Reitz.
Behind him, Nell’s shoulders sagged, and Theo bent over her. I let out a long, quiet breath and took my hand from my pistol. One more step in Nell’s direction, and I’d have shot Altenfeld where he stood.
Opposite me George eased back and rose silently to his feet, jerking his head in the direction of the Star Map Chamber. He went to the far wall of the vestibule before sliding along it, to keep out of sight of anyone in the Verification Chamber. I got up and stepped away from the portal.
George looked as grim as I felt. My jaw ached, and I worked the tension out of it, grimacing like a dog biting a wasp. Twice on the way back to the Star Map Chamber, I rolled the anger and fear out of the iron bands squeezing me around the chest and shoulders.
Banger Bill was waiting at the end of the corridor. He nodded us through, and backed to the top of the hidden staircase.
I waited until the secret door was closed again. “Altenfeld, three other Prussians and Reitz. They have Nell and Theo in there with them.”
“No one on the staircase down to our people.” George pulled pistols from his belt that I knew for a certainty he had already checked more than once. He started the ritual of checking over them again. “This isn’t going to be easy, sir. They’re set up in the big room where the machine is. They’ve spaced out the men with guns. If we burst in, odds are one of the three gunmen could shoot Miss Nell and Mr Theo before we took them down.” He gave us a wry smile. “It’s been set up the way I’d do it.”
“Altenfeld is focused on you, Ned, at the moment. And the papyri.” I shrugged. “Understandable. He isn’t going to be able to take the machine to Berlin, not yet. But those papyri are gold to him. He’s looking for the same one you were.”
“He wants you, Mr Edward,” George agreed.
Ned sighed out a deep breath. “Then we’d better give me to him.”
Good thing that over a hundred and thirty feet of solid stone sat between us and Sam Hawkins. Sam would have had an apoplexy at the thought of Ned putting himself into danger. George and Banger Bill argued, of course they did. But they didn’t have the relationship with Ned that Sam did. It was more distant, less intimate. He was their First Heir, and his word was law to them, despite their discomfort and apprehension.
Damn it to hell, Ned was right. We needed to change the setup inside the Verification Chamber to something that would give us a chance of rescuing our siblings unharmed. As things stood, any one of the three Prussians standing guard could kill Nell and Theo before we reached them. Get in there, do something to change that, and perhaps we had a chance.
Ned was a great many shades of stubborn. “You’re saying we can’t just charge in without risking Nell and Theo. Then our only alternative is for me to try and work something from the inside. A diversion of some sort. You’ll all be ready in the vestibule, of course.”
From his expression, George had inadvertently sat on a shovel of hot coals. “Mr Hawkins will kill me if I let you do this, sir.”
Cutting Ned off from Sam Hawkins had the oddest effect on him: “loose cannon” being somewhat inadequate to describe the fire, havoc, and carnage Ned seemed determined to leave in his wake. “No choice. Thoughts, Rafe?”
Ah, well. I quite liked cannons.
All the same, I wanted better odds before I’d be putting down my hard-earned sovereigns on the wager. “We’ve done this before, walking up to our enemies and announcing we’re there.” And as Ned looked at me, quirking an inquiring eyebrow, I added, “The Prussians at the Brunel. And John Lancaster in Abydos two years ago.”
Ned nodded. “So you understand—”
“We had a plan at Abydos, Ned. We had the diversion ready. That’s why it worked.”
And because Tatlock, of course, saved my skin. This time I’d have to do the saving myself.
“We have nothing like that now,” I went on over Ned’s mulish muttering. “We are not going to rush in without some idea of what we’ll do, how we’ll create a diversion.”
“Won’t the shock of me walking in be enough?”
“It’ll only last seconds, and unless we use it instantly, we lose any advantage.”
Ned huffed, but nodded.
I’m sure George breathed everlasting gratitude in my direction, but all he said aloud was “We need to flank them, and with just the one way in, I can’t see how we manage it.”
One way in. One way—
Oh, great day in the morning! Bless the man.
“Brilliant! We do need to flank them, and I know how to do it.” I couldn’t keep still for a moment, as if I were crawling with ants and wasps. I couldn’t pace, not on a staircase, but I found myself stepping down, stepping up repeatedly. Helped me think. “Listen. We know the Marconis still work if we’re close enough, and if there’s not a lot of stone between us, right? We can use that. Main thing, though, there is another way in.” I shot a sidelong glance at Ned. “Up the column in the shaft to the pit.”
Ned’s jaw dropped. “Hell’s teeth. The ladder!”
“Yes. The ladder.” I forced my breathing to calm. “This is how it can work. I’ll go back down to the big machine downstairs and climb the column. As soon as I’m just below the floor of the Verification Chamber, I’ll signal you on the Marconi, Ned. You’ll be outside in the vestibule with everyone. Then you make your big entrance, I dodge out into the room to cause a secondary diversion, George rushes in with the men, and there we are. Better than you walking in without me to improve the odds.”
“It’s still dangerous for Mr Edward.” But Banger was thoughtful.
“We’re all in danger.” Ned frowned at me. “It has to be at least three hundred feet. We couldn’t be sure the ladder went all the way up. What if it doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll come back, and we do it your way. We have nothing to lose by trying.”
George and Banger exchanged glances, but neither of them was grinning. Indeed, th
ere appeared to be two shovels of hot coals. In the end, George sighed reluctant acceptance. “If I’m lucky, the bloody Germans will kill me before Mr Hawkins can,” he said to Banger.
Banger was an unsympathetic sort. “He’ll still kick your arse.”
I could only hope we’d all be alive to see it.
One last look at Ned, hoping my eyes were as eloquent as my tongue wished to be. But all my tongue said, in a depressing, unromantic way, was “Right, then. Let’s get started.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I hadn’t gone more than fifty steps when George joined me.
“He sent me to go along with you. Makes sense you don’t try this on your own.”
“I didn’t think you’d leave him.”
“He has Banger and four men with him. They’ll die before they let anything happen to him.” George’s eyes gleamed in the dim light. “You know how that works, sir.”
Well, Tatlock knew, at least.
It wasn’t the time to argue. Truth be told, I welcomed the company. Climbing up and down pyramid staircases was one thing; climbing ladders set in the side of a bottomless pit with the certainty of a battle at the top of it gave a somewhat different meaning to “rising to the occasion”. George was a good man to have with me. As good as Sam Hawkins.
As good as Tatlock.
So I nodded, and we kept on down the stairs at a canter, if not quite a gallop. If I was going to break my neck that day, I’d rather it didn’t happen on the way to committing derring-do on the aforementioned ladder. Too unheroic for words.
We pounded across the landing and onto the second spiral staircase, with me explaining the pyramid’s structure as we went.
“All pits, stairs, and shafts, then,” George said. “Do we put a stop to the bigger machine on the way through?”
“Better not. We don’t know what the effect might be. I’d rather do it when we’re ready to go and can make a run for it if the damn thing gives us a black eye in return.” I managed a grin. “Even if it does mean more running up and down stairs. When this is all over, I’m moving to a one-storey bungalow and never, ever, getting on a staircase again.”
