Cold Stone & Ivy Book 2: The Crown Prince (The Empire of Steam)

by H. Leighton Dickson

  “Ye’re right, Miss Ivy,” he grinned. “’e might need a bit o’fixin’ then, sure enowt.”

  And he held out his elbow.

  Still shaking, she took it and followed the Mad Lord into Strasbourg.

  ***

  London Times

  Complex Case surrounding Crown Prince

  Funeral services for Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph von Habsburg-Lorraine, Archduke and Gilded Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, will take place on February 5, 1889. According to sources, interment will take place in the imperial crypt of the Church of the Capuchin Friars in Vienna.

  While the shooting was initially reported to be a tragic accident, police are beginning to suspect the involvement of foreign nationals in the shooting death of the Crown Prince and sole heir to the Gilded Empire of Austro-Hungary. The man, reported to be a French anarchist, is said to have caused a scene at the Hofburg celebration for Kaiser Wilhelm II on the evening of January 29 and was believed to have left the country via airship on the morning of the 30th in the company of an English lord and lady. Anyone with any information regarding this man or this crime is asked to come forward to the police.

  ***

  They had found Christien drinking in a tavern but he refused to join them so they ate a meal of black bread, old cheese and cold sausage without him. The tavern owner had let them a room over the pub for three sous and forty winks. Ivy had flopped into the mattress that served as the room’s only bed. She was asleep in seconds.

  Sebastien sighed as he watched her, how her hair spilled across the pillow, how her lashes brushed the curve of her cheeks. He was a greedy man, he knew. Greedy and selfish and cold. Her death would be on his shoulders. He wasn’t certain how he would ever stand under the weight.

  “Castlewaite,” he said, turning to the man sitting under the window. “I’m going to the church down the street for a bit. You will watch Miss Savage for me, yes?”

  “Aye, sir,” said the coachman. “Ah will indeed.”

  He nodded distractedly. “And Christien? You’ll watch over Christien too? If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Ah’ll try, sir. But Mr. Christien is ‘is own man, sir.”

  “I know it. I do know.”

  He stood for a moment longer, heart heavy and conflicted, before turning and trotting down the stair.

  The tavern was dark with only a fire in the hearth for light. A woman was wiping tables and a man was putting up chairs. Christien sat at the bar, with what Sebastien assumed was his sixth beer of the night. Sebastien cleared his throat.

  “I, ah, I’m going to the cathedral.”

  His brother said nothing, merely lifted the stein to his lips. The prosthetic wheezed and clicked as if broken.

  “I need to clear my head. To think. To pray.”

  Still nothing.

  “Well, there’s a room upstairs. It’s not very big but if you push Miss Savage against the wall, I think you both should fit.”

  Christien stared into his beer.

  “Right,” he said. “Well, I’m off. I do hope the cathedral is open. I don’t feel right about picking the lock of a church.”

  He hiked the collar of his greatcoat and stepped out into the night.

  After a moment, Christien looked up at the tavern owner.

  “Did you deliver my message?” he asked in French.

  “To one of the Palace guards,” said the man and he grunted. “No one is allowed in. They’ve kicked out all the students.”

  “Students?”

  “The Palais Rohan has served as a university since the War of the Wire. The first Bonaparte lived there, did you know that? With Josephine. Before that, Louis XV and Marie Antoinette. And now, it’s a damn German university. But oh, when the Kaiser and his Gilded princesses show up, it’s a palace once again. Merde.”

  Christien raised a brow, followed soon after by the stein.

  ***

  He did, in fact, have to pick the lock for one of the cathedral doors and he cursed the loud creak that echoed through the nave. The lighting was dim and he closed his eyes, breathing deep the smell of candles and incense, old wood and marble. He loved churches. The arches and the spires, the stained glass and the quiet. Most of all he loved the quiet. The dead left him alone when he was in a church. It was one of the few places he could ever find peace.

  And so he walked slowly up the nave toward the presbytery, taking his time and admiring sandstone walls that gleamed like wine in the candlelight. It was a very tall cathedral, its vaulted ceiling pulling his eyes heavenward and his soul with it. A perfect place for prayer, he thought. To ask forgiveness for his latest, most dire sin. He wondered if he would indeed go to Hell as his brother had suggested or if Hell was reserved for those who died. He slid into a pew and sank to his knees.

  Time always slipped through his fingers when his thoughts were turned heavenward so he couldn’t tell how long it had been but at some point, a strange chime drew his attention back to earth.

  At the far end of the transept was the largest clock he had ever seen. He loved clocks, was fascinated by the mechanisms that made them work, the very fact that a device could track time, yet was so immune to its reach. Much like the orbs and he wondered if the maker of the lockets was a clocksmith.

  He rose to his feet to study it.

  Easily sixty feet tall, it reminded him of a pipe organ, with inlaid copper, brass, iron and polished wood. At the same time, it was more than a clock, with etched glass, carved panels and moving gears. Near the top, puppet-like mechanisms moved in perpetual motion, chiming the bells of midnight. Early automatons, he realized, like windup toys for children but infinitely more complex. Angels spun hourglasses, mechanical saints circled the savior, a copper cock crowed and carved figures circled a terrifying rendition of Death. Death as the skeleton, scythe held high judging all ages and stages of human life that passed before him. Infants, children, lovers and old ones, all dancing under the sickle of Death. Death himself rang the chimes, eye sockets empty, cheeks sunken, draped in tattered robes of grey. Sebastien touched his own cheeks, relieved to find them still covered in flesh.

  In the candlelight, he could see that this clock not only told the time, but the day, week, month, and year. There was a case enclosing a Computus Ecclesiastique, a set of gears that calculated the position of the moon, the planets and the zodiac. A celestial globe spun in the centre of the device and it hummed with energy. A complex machine, he realized, not unlike an Analytical Engine. A computing device of higher function, of astronomy and chronology and metallurgy, of earth and spirit and beauty and he had to remind himself to breathe as he tried to take it all in.

  His gaze wandered to the left where a pillar of angels rose up to the vaulted ceiling. Tall and slim and meticulously detailed, he wondered how such a thing could possibly serve to support the roof. It was carved with saints and symbols but the most impressive were the angels. From the Book of Revelation, he knew, angels of death blowing trumpets of judgment, calling the dead from their graves at the end of all days. It was heartbreaking and profound and so very sad. He held his breath, waiting for the white horse to leap out from the marble but nothing came.

  The clock ceased chiming and the church fell silent once again. There was a sound however, muffled and rhythmic, like a heart beating inside a drum. His eyes rose once again onto the figure of Death high above him, its motion stilled, its sickle frozen over a clockwork child with golden curls and rosebud lips.

  “Bruder,” came a childlike voice behind him.

  And the eerie figure of Sophie Friederike Dorothea Maria Josepha von Habsburg, Archduchess of Austria, appeared from behind the Pillar of Angels.

  ***

  Dearest Wilhelm,

  Your warm words of sincere participation in our grief have deeply moved the Empress and myself and done our sorrowing hearts good. Accept our warmest thanks for your loyal friendship and also for your intention to come here for the funeral. If I ask you not to do so, you may ju
dge how deeply crushed my family is if we have to address this even to you.

  Franz Joseph

  ***

  Willie,

  Do NOT come to the funeral.

  Gisela

  ***

  He was almost asleep in his stein, alone with the dwindling hearth and the remnants of his stale beer. The tavern door swung open, bringing a blast of cold wind and with a final gulp of ale, he turned in his chair. There was a woman at the door.

  “Valerie,” he said.

  She stood like a statue, her face unreadable under a sable hood. Her eyes were gathering storms.

  “Do you still like the décor?” he asked. “It’s been banged up a bit since yesterday.”

  She moved forward, lowering the hood as she came. She was wearing a dress of rich burgundy with a deep neckline and full skirts parted on one side. Underneath, he could see breeches, high boots and what looked like a pistol holster strapped to her thigh. Ready for a ball, he thought, or a barney. Either one would suit her.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “Because I didn’t die. Good idea to get on with life then, generally.”

  “Why did you send a message?”

  “I was cold and alone and I missed you.” He shrugged. “And I needed someone to pay for the beer.”

  She stopped in front of him, raised a hand to stroke his face.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes,” he answered and without hesitation, she hit him.

  He went with it, catching himself before it took him off the chair. Slowly, he raised his eyes to meet hers, steel against steel.

  With a snarl, she swung again but he caught her wrist in his clockwork hand and pushed to his feet, pulling her roughly to him.

  “Don’t,” he warned, catching her other wrist. “Don’t or your hand will drop like a stone to the floor.”

  And he increased the pressure on the mechanical grip, hearing cables ping with tension. Her eyes watered but her lips drew back in a snarl.

  “Where is your brother?” she spat.

  “Why did you shoot us down?”

  “Where is your brother?!”

  “He didn’t—”

  “He shot him!” she cried. “Shot him in the head!”

  It stung more sharply than the slap.

  “Oh yes, we know,” she hissed, her face only inches from his. “We all know what your brother does, Remy. Bertie knows so my father knows. He shoots people in the head for your clockwork Empress.”

  “No,” he lied. It was a feeble attempt and it was she who pulled him now. She was trained. Could probably kill him with a flick of her wrist.

  “He wanted that locket. We all saw it, yes? At the Hofburg. Your brother killed Rudolf to get that damned locket.

  His words had fled. Shot in the head.

  “You know it’s true, Remy. You know it.”

  “No.”

  “Where is he?” And suddenly, she melted into him, bones soft, body supple, leaned in close enough to kiss him.

  “We only want him, Remy,” she purred. “Not you. You are innocent…”

  Her lips brushed his cheek and she pressed her forehead against his. Peaches. She smelled of brandied peaches.

  “Just tell me where he is, and you can be with me tonight. And many nights after tonight.”

  His breath left his chest and he felt lightheaded. He looked at her. She was so very beautiful.

  “Dead,” he said.

  “Dead? Are you sure?”

  “Your sister shot him on the airship.” He turned her, began to move her slowly backwards to the wall. Like a dance. “You know that. You were there, Valerie, when you shot us out of the skies.”

  “Yes. I was there.”

  He pressed her into the wall, raising her arms over her head. But she was not his prisoner.

  “Your brother is dead,” he said. “And now my brother is dead. The Gilded Empire has had justice after all.”

  She closed her eyes, turned her face away, exposing her long, elegant throat. He kissed it.

  “And your girl?” she murmured. “Your little girl who dances with madmen and wears red to a ball?”

  “Dead, as well.”

  “Mm. That’s sad.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  His lips moved along her throat, up her jaw, could have kept going when he heard a footfall on the stair.

  “Remy, is it time to g—Oh!”

  He froze mid-kiss and lowered his eyes, but couldn’t help the grin that slid to one side.

  Valerie pulled away.

  “The girl?”

  Ivy Savage was standing on the stair.

  Chapter 11

  Of Airships, Steamtrains and All the Strange, Surreal Places One May Go with a Plan

  A porcelain-faced ghost slipped out of the shadows

  “Bruder,” she said.

  “How did you find me?”

  “You carry a piece of me with you. I will always find you, Bruder.”

  Sebastien reached into his pocket, studied the ivory bullet in his palm.

  She moved toward him with unnatural grace, cloak of sable sweeping the ground behind her. It rather reminded him of Victoria’s wheeled crinoline and he wondered if her legs were as inhuman as her face. He could see her eyes through the slit in the mask however, bloodshot and blue and rather small. She wheezed as she held up her hand, enclosed in a glove of thickest leather.

  “It is from my little finger.

  Her voice was thin and he wondered if it were because of the effort required to work the iron lungs.

  “Why did you shoot me?”

  “To find you. If you do not wish to be found, toss it into the gutter. Or better yet, into the bowl of holy water near the nave. That would be macabre. Magical.”

  He thought a moment, before slipping it back into his pocket.

  “You didn’t want to kill me.”

  “You did not die.”

  “I never do.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,” she said. “You are my Bruder.”

  “I’m not your brother.”

  “You are,” Sophie said and she inclined her head, mask like a China doll. “My father is your father.”

  “My father is dead, while your father is the Emperor of half the world.”

  “Our father lives.”

  “Our father?” He glanced around at the angels, at the altar, at the statues. “God? God is our father?”

  “Dummer Junge,” she said and she laughed. It was like a child, delighted with the gift of a toy. “God does not live in the Empire of Steam. God is a Habsburg.”

  Her white face tilted upwards to the astronomical clock, where Death held his sickle high above the ages of man.

  “Profound,” she said and he swallowed, remembering he had thought the very same only minutes ago. “Death rules all things, yes? He is the last, best master.”

  “I didn’t kill your brother.”

  “But we both know who did.”

  “Who?”

  She cocked her head and the drumming of her heart and lungs echoed softly though the church. He could see the iron sheen of her corset, the copper and steel cables that were her throat. Her golden curls were the only human things about her.

  “Archelicht killed Rudolf,” she said after a moment. “Archelicht, and love.”

  “Love? Love dies.”

  “Love kills.” And she moved forward. “Do you remember what it is like to die, Bruder?”

  He moved back. “I’m not your brother.”

  “I remember what it is like to be dead. It is beautiful, calm and quiet. I remember it well, like dawn at Gödöllő. That is where I died.”

  He frowned, trying to follow her train of thought but finding himself lost. She was a labyrinth of wax and cobwebs.

  “I was raised from the dead by my father, just like you. Like the Savior was raised by the Father. You and I are
Children of Death.”

  “Children of Death,” he repeated. “I understand.”

  “Nein,” she said. “You do not. But you will.”

  And she reached up to unhook the clasp, letting the cloak drop to the stone floor. He could see the iron corset clearly now, more function than fashion with its bolts and rivets merely outlining the shape of a woman. There was a key protruding from her breastbone, and she twisted it once, twice, three times. The corset clicked and swung open on a hinge, revealing a cavity as complex as any airship or steamcar or Difference Engine. Cables quivered like blood vessels, copper wires tangled over and through a central device that looked like a heart. Sparks leapt between the lungs, expanding and contracting as metal slid across metal and he wondered if there was anything even remotely human about her.

  “You,” she said. “Are much better.”

  She held out her gloved hand, and in it, an orb was spinning.

  ***

  “Lie,” Valerie hissed. “You lie!”

  Her ankle hooked his knee and she swung him around against the wall but he rolled, taking her with him and keeping her off-balance. She was skilled and it was a vain attempt to gain control.

  “Ivy!” he shouted. “Grab your coat!”

  Ivy whirled and bolted back up the stair.

  Valerie sent the heel of her palm up but he caught it and pushed her again into the wall. She thrashed like a wild woman until he drew his clockwork arm up, his hand still locked around her wrist, and he pressed both across her throat. He twisted and she gasped in pain.

  Suddenly, the door swung open and a squad of silver guards wheeled in. Behind them with twin sabres came Gisela.

  “Kill him,” she barked in German, but through the leather of Christien’s glove, a dagger sprang out. He hugged Valerie tight and pressed it into her throat.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Once I get started, there’s no telling when it will stop. Or so I’ve been told.”

  A line of red sprang up beneath the blade and Valerie grew still, struggled to control her breathing. He could feel the strain in her muscles, knew if he released any pressure, she would snap like a coil and send him to his knees.