Unseemly Science

by Rod Duncan

  “Fifteen thousand,” said Julia.

  “Seventy-five tonne a night,” said the wrinkled man.

  The figure seemed extraordinary. I wondered how much of the year it fell below freezing. Being the highest land between the Welsh mountains and the east coast, there would be nothing to stop the wind. It would howl across the tops in winter. Imagining the scene, I found Gideon’s belief in a cruel God easier to understand.

  “How do they count the blocks?” asked Julia.

  “Best shown,” said the wrinkled man. Then he set off along the line of a small gully that traversed the hillside. It was a man-made water course, though with only a trickle in the bottom. But in winter I imagined it would be full. And frozen. There could be no better surface to slide a heavy load along than ice. Perfectly flat, almost frictionless. I thought back to the strange implements we had seen in the outhouse. Some of them might indeed have been designed to hook ice blocks and haul them.

  I glanced behind and saw that Peter followed on with the last stragglers at the back of the group. He had kept to himself all morning, smoking most of the time. He seemed more isolated than before. If he had recognised me, I did not believe he’d mentioned it to Gideon, - who remained unchanged in character. Or, if something had passed between them, the older man must have brushed it off as ridiculous.

  The path now rounded a bluff. Ahead of us it dipped into a small valley and disappeared into a dark opening in the mountainside. There were other people here. Families dressed just like the ice farmers we’d already met. Greetings were waved. Some shook hands. But it was Julia and I who drew their interest. All eyes followed us as we approached the hole in the hillside.

  Gideon and the wrinkled man each took a candle lantern from a niche in the wall and led us into a downward sloping tunnel.

  “You dug this?” I asked.

  The wrinkled man laughed. “Not us. Miners dug it long ago.”

  “The hills are full of holes like this,” said Gideon. “Lead, copper, zinc. They dug it all here.”

  I thought back to the strange trackway we had followed, also built by the miners.

  The temperature dropped as we descended. Then, quite suddenly, the chill became intense. The wrinkled man hauled open a wooden door and winter flooded out to meet us. “This is what tha come for to see.”

  He held up his lantern, revealing ice stacked all around. I was vaguely aware of someone closing the door behind us as we stepped along a narrow way between piled blocks. Every few paces there were side corridors, identical to the one we were walking along. I couldn’t see the full size of the chamber, which receded into darkness all around.

  “What’s all this ice worth?” My breath steamed as I spoke.

  The wrinkled man chuckled. “It’s worth nowt.”

  “It’s worth nowt yet,” Gideon explained. “That’s the trick. Four month of freezing. One month for mending broken kit. Then seven month for carting ice down to the bargemen. That’s the life up here. What’s frozen water at Christmas – by midsummer it’s treasure.”

  “Who counts the blocks?,” I asked.

  “It’s family by family. Eldest keeps tally.”

  “In a ledger?”

  “Don’t need to write it,” said the wrinkled man tapping the side of his head with a crooked finger. He strode off down the passage gesturing to one pile of blocks after another. “Logan, Linnell, Speller, Bradshaw, Mansell, Martin, Williams...”

  “The ice farmer families,” Gideon explained.

  “Men from Derby come to fix the bargain – that’s the price. Then we haul the ice down to the canal and the boatmen take it.”

  “So it’s never written down?” asked Julia.

  “No use writing,” said Gideon. “None of us can read.”

  It was past noon by the time our guides suggested we take our leave. The wrinkled man shook my hand. His finger joints were distorted and the skin felt like roughly sawn wood. Then he moved to Julia.

  “Goodbye,” she said.

  “Tha knows how it is being poor?” he asked.

  The question seemed to unsettle her.

  “I know what it’s like to be hungry,” I said.

  He nodded and let go of her hand. “What they take – it’s nowt but pennies. But it’s bread to us.”

  “We’ll stop them,” said Julia. “I promise.”

  I bit my lip, wishing her words unsaid.

  The journey back to the cottage was quicker for being downhill. Peter and Gideon strode off ahead. But to guard against injury, Julia and I were obliged to walk with eyes fixed on the uneven path before our feet. There was little conversation.

  At the cottage, Gideon saw to the horses, which had been tethered on long ropes so they could graze circles in the thin grass. As dusk fell, Peter built a fire in the grate. The men seemed immune to the smoke, which failed to properly clear up the chimney. But Julia and I were made of weaker stuff and retreated to sit by one of the outhouses. The sky was so clear that it seemed milky with stars.

  “Out here there’s no one to know who you are,” Julia whispered.

  “They might already know.”

  “Nonsense! You could live in a cottage in the mountains and never be found.”

  “What would I do for food?”

  “It would cost so little. I’d send money.”

  “And how long before news spread of the eccentric woman huddled by a peat fire in the mountains?”

  “You’d see them coming. You could move on.”

  “And on. And on again.”

  “Then why not live in secret on the wharf. The boat people would keep you safe.”

  “They’d turn me in.”

  “No!”

  “You didn’t see how they changed when the Kingdom flag went up in Bessie’s porthole.”

  Julia regarded me with a sceptical eye. “You’ve surely misjudged them. In your distress you’ve imagined ill-feelings that they don’t hold.”

  “Someone told the constables to look for me in the library.”

  “As I might have done if I hadn’t known the dangers! If you came back to the wharf we’d explain to them. You’d be cared for by those who admire you – who are many.”

  I shook my head. “There’s nowhere in the Gas-Lit Empire for me to hide.”

  “Well I surely hope you won’t be hiding beyond it!”

  “No,” I said. “No chance of that. There’s too little law beyond the Empire. Yet too much law within it.”

  We had been able to hear the sound of Peter and Gideon conversing inside the cottage. Now Gideon began to sing. I couldn’t make out the words but the tune I knew from my childhood as the King of the Faeries. One of the trick riders in the Circus of Mysteries had whistled it to the horses to calm them.

  “Have you thought more about the code?” I asked.

  “I’ve put it out of my mind,” she said.

  “You mentioned a code book. What might it look like?”

  “I’ve never seen one.”

  “Can such things be bought?”

  “You’d make one yourself,” she said. “Or rather, you’d make two. One for the sender to put the message into code and one for the receiver to turn it back to plain text.”

  “It might look like a notebook, then?”

  “Perhaps. Or loose sheets. Or anything you could write on. Best put the puzzle out of your mind. There’s no solving it.”

  My instruction to Tinker had been to look for papers. He might not have recognised a book as being important enough to take. Or, if it was a small thing, the man might have kept it on his person. In a pocket perhaps, or sewn into the lining of his coat.

  “You’re more likely to find answers in the newspaper pages,” Julia said, interrupting my thoughts. “At least those we can read.”

  The truth was I had read through the sheets of newsprint three times already. The only articles that could relate to the case were two that mentioned Mrs Raike, but they were of no consequence. The first being a notice of
a fund-raising dinner and the second being an article about charitable foundations in the city.

  “Ice is mentioned three times,” I said. “There’s a list of commodity prices on one page. Tea, coal and the like. And ice. But I can’t fathom why that could be important. What difference if the ice farmers have lost ninety-nine pennies or one hundred? It’s mentioned once more in the business section – an article on the profitability of the canals through the year. The phrase there was ‘ice-bound’. And once in the foreign news – the report of a public execution in Bristol. They hanged a murderer from a low drop so the neck bones would be preserved. The body was quickly packed in ice and transported for medical research.”

  “Public executions,” Julia said, speaking the words as if she had swallowed rancid milk. “How are Royalists so callous?” And then quickly she added: “I don’t mean you, Elizabeth. You’d never go to see such a thing.

  Chapter 24

  If you want to be believed, tell them what they want to hear. And if you want to be safe, beware, beware the man who does the same for you.

  The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  Having slept our second night in the cottage, we were woken by our guides moving about below. Julia called down to ask the hour. Gideon shouted back that it was past the time to be off. So we hurried to dress, splashed pump water over our faces, and rode away in the grey light of pre-dawn. As we reached the top of the ridge, I turned for a final look, knowing that every step from here on was taking me back towards the constabulary.

  There was little talking as we descended. For a time we followed the mining trackway, but half way down, we stopped and dismounted.

  “We’ll meet again at the bottom of the hill,” said Gideon, who then continued on with the animals and our luggage.

  “It’s just us now,” said Peter, not meeting my eyes.

  We set off along a side-path, which grew narrower as we progressed until it was little more than a goat track. Presently we found ourselves traversing a slope that stretched up to the skyline above and down to woods and fields far below. There was nothing horizontal on which to fix the eye. As the drop grew precipitous, I noticed Julia leaning back into the slope.

  “Stand upright,” I said. “It’s easier to balance that way.”

  She seemed unable to do so. Such was her vertigo that I began to think we’d need to turn back. But then we rounded a bluff and I saw our destination immediately ahead. Julia rushed the last few paces to the security of a small platform cut into the slope.

  Here was a system of pulleys and ropes anchored to the platform by a stout iron post. While Julia rested, I looked up and down the slope, taking in a gully that ran past us from the top. A wagon had been tied in the gully next to us. If the rope snapped it might career all the way down to the tree line below. Looking down, I saw that our platform was merely one station in a chain of similar platforms. A wagon was tethered next to each. Julia took my hand and pulled me back from the edge.

  “What happens here?” I asked.

  “Wait,” said Peter. “You’ll see.”

  There had been no time for breakfast and such provisions as we had were being carried down the mountain by the horses. Peter sat chewing on a strip of dried meat which he’d produced from the pocket of his trousers.

  Julia believed the awkwardness of his glances at me came from romantic attraction. I feared he recognised me from the fugitive poster. There had been nothing to prove the matter one way or the other. With no constables in the high mountains, there had been no one to whom he could have turned me over. I’d felt in less danger whilst Gideon was with us. My instincts told me the old man was as straightforward and decent as he seemed.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a rumbling sound from up the slope and men’s voices calling. I stood and looked around but could see nothing until, without warning, a rope went taut and the wagon next to us jolted into movement, climbing fast.

  Descending along the same gully came another wagon, passing the first at the half way point. Within seconds the new wagon had pulled up level with us. This one was full of ice blocks.

  Two men jumped down. One of the faces was familiar from the crowd we had met at the mine. They moved quickly, hooking and unhooking ropes, making them fast and pulling levers. Then they beckoned to us. Peter clung on to the side of the wagon, as did the ice farmers. We climbed up on the back, taking the standing positions the men had previously occupied. Clinging on, I looked over to Julia, who had her eyes tightly closed, and was about to speak some reassuring words when I heard the clunk of machinery being set and we lurched off down the slope so abruptly that it felt as if my stomach had been left behind.

  Half way down, we passed yet another wagon on its way up. I had a glimpse of a man and a woman riding it before they flashed up the hill to where we had been.

  And so our journey continued. I lost count of the stages or the number of ice farmers being raised up the hillside by the weight of our cart descending. The scale of the operation began to sink in. Imagining the flow of ice and wagons and people, I wondered whether some would be left to climb the mountain on foot at the end of the day. It seemed more likely that they would wait until the next morning to get a ride.

  Presently the gully was surrounded by trees and the slope decreased. I noticed Julia had opened her eyes and seemed less terrified. The men operating the machinery were sweating, but I was feeling the chill of the ice and had to continually adjust my grip to stop my fingers going numb. Then, quite suddenly we emerged from the trees and the wagon stopped. We had reached flat land. There were no more ropes and no more pulleys.

  Inhaling the unmistakable scent of standing water, I jumped down. A wharf lay immediately before us, complete with hand cranes for loading and unloading. A canal boat was moored with her hatches off, ready to take on cargo. The name plate was so tarnished and blackened by dirt that I could only just read it: The Peary.

  I had lived on the canal for five years and thought I knew the character of the people. But this was different. On the North Leicester Wharf, I was one of a community. But here, accompanying the ice farmers, I found myself an outsider. Or worse. Searching the faces on the boat, I found only suspicion.

  A price must already have been agreed because the wagon was immediately manoeuvred under the crane and the loading began. All that seemed to matter was the number and quality of the blocks. The ice farmers and the boat captain kept count.

  “Can’t have that one,” said the captain, kicking the toe of his boot into a block that had been swung across and was dangling above the hold.

  I could see what he meant. The bottom corners had broken off. It was three quarters of a block rather than a full one. The ice farmers didn’t like it but there was no other customer to sell it to so their bargaining position was weak.

  “Call it half a block,” said the captain.

  They argued it back and forth. It took five minutes before ice was being loaded again. The delay would be no good for either side. I had little idea how big or small the difference would be – a fraction of a penny perhaps.

  The ice farmers heaved the empty wagon back to the base of the slope and made it secure to the rope once more. They waved goodbye to us and climbed on. There was a pause. Then the wagon jolted up the slope and away. A loaded wagon passed it half way and presently a fresh group of ice farmers were working the crane, swinging ice blocks over to the hold of The Peary.

  “She’s a narrowboat, isn’t she?” I asked one of the crew.

  He looked at me suspiciously. “She is,” he said.

  “What locks do you have between here and Derby?”

  “Why’d you want to know?”

  “I’d have thought you’d use a barge for a cargo like this. Unless the locks haven’t been widened.”

  He nodded, slowly, as if assessing me anew. “There’s a long flight. All narrow.”

  “Must take time to get through them all,” I said.

  “It is what we’re paid for.” Then,
after a pause he added: “What do you know of boats?”

  The more of my life I revealed to him, the more information he’d be able to give to any bounty hunter who might be following. But if he believed that I belonged to the canal, he would be less likely to gossip to outsiders. So I said: “My home’s on the North Leicester Wharf. The boat I live on was built narrow for speed. But it’s not a real narrow boat. She wouldn’t pass the locks you have to get through. My neighbours are real boat people. Not like me.”

  Ironically, it was that last part that convinced him – my understanding of the difference between a person who merely lived on a boat and one who worked them. By putting myself further away I had halved the distance between us. Seeing the change in his face, I asked: “May I come aboard?”

  He offered a hand, which I took, though I didn’t need any help to step across from the bank. The captain shot him an angry look.

  “She knows her boats,” said my new ally.

  I could see the captain wasn’t convinced, but he was busy keeping watch on the ice blocks and couldn’t leave his post. I had no doubt the ice farmers would sneak through more substandard blocks if he turned his back. He was keeping no written tally that I could see.

  The Peary was unlike any working narrow boat I’d seen before. Instead of a canvas tent covering an open cargo hold, it was arranged more like an oceangoing steamer. The hold was accessed via rectangular openings in the flat metal deck. Into this void, the crane lowered the blocks. I could hear voices below.

  I stepped to the edge and looked down but it was so dark inside I couldn’t make out any detail.

  “It’s not like a coal boat,” I said.

  “Coal don’t melt,” said the boatman.

  “How do you know how much ice you’re carrying?”