Book Read Free

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

Page 25

by H. Leighton Dickson


  Chapter 20

  Of Strange Angels, a Wall of Bones and the Shadow of the Prince of Wales

  The day before the funeral of the Crown Prince of Austria, strange things were happening in Vienna.

  Eduard Sacher, owner of the famous Sacher hotel and restaurant, was roused from his bed to inspect the foul odours coming from his famous hotel kitchen. He found everything save the vinegar spoiled, including his ingredients for the famous Sacher-tortes. Several chefs and sous-chefs were sacked on the spot, but that did not help his predicament. The food simply had rotted in the cupboards.

  Down from the Sacher the grocer, Ivan Eisler, went down to his storage cellar to check on his winter store of root vegetables. Upon opening the small door, he gasped at the sight. His produce was gone, having rotted away since checking them the night before. There was nothing save fungus and green slime. He staggered out of the cellar, knowing he and his family had lost everything that might carry them through this long, horrible winter.

  Next was the butcher shop run by Pieter Kirchmann and his sons. His brother owned one of the farms that supplied the Hofburg with beef but Pieter butchered some of the animals and sold them in his own shop. He was awakened to the sharp and recognizable stench of rotting meat. When he went down to check, he was horrified at the state in which he found the carcasses. Mold had turned every cut green and he knew in an instant there was no way to salvage any of it. He prayed his brother had more cattle ready for the saw.

  Unfortunately for Pieter, his brother woke to find the same problem with his feed lot. All cattle marked for slaughter were dead, bellies bloated, tongues pushed grotesquely out of their mouths.

  And so it went throughout the region. Hector Neuner’s barns of wheat, eaten overnight by a legion of rats. Ernst Mayr’s sheep, brought down from the high fields to harbor winter in pens, ravaged by wolves. Georg Schatt’s seed stock, sacks piled to the ceiling, caught fire and burned to the ground along with the sheds they were stored in. Milk went sour, wine became acid. Cakes became stale, bread grew mold. Overnight, the entire city of Vienna lost its food supply, although they didn’t realize the scope of it for days.

  As for the historic centre of the Holy Roman Empire, the Hofburg had become little more than an airship hangar.

  Seven dirigibles hovered over the palace, the latest easing in from the northwest. The SMAS Eisenklaue, or ‘Iron Claw’, dropped her mooring hooks onto the statue of Francis II in the centre of the Inner Courtyard, digging up the footings and pulling the bronze figure from the pedestal. Painted across its underbelly, the black eagle of the Empire of Blood and Iron as Kaiser Wilhelm II came to lead the summit. It joined the HMAS Royal Carolina alongside a strange sleek ironclad vessel, reminiscent of a Viking ship. She was inlaid with steel plates and flying a silver canvas with the insignia of a double-headed eagle in red, clutching a wolf in one set of claws, a bear in the other. The Twelve Apostles, flagship of Tsar Nicholas’ Empire of Steel.

  Dwarfing them all naturally, the Stahl Mädchen.

  Meanwhile, crossing the border at Linz, two Eisnemanner rolled on their track wheels toward the Austrian capital. In any other country by any other country, it would have been an act of war but Austria and Germany were allies, cousins, links in the same immutable chain of history and so it was not yet marked as an act of war.

  A grandstand had been erected on the site of the Old Theatre, but it could not contain the crowds. From the Court Chapel to the small Church of the Holy Capuchins, people massed on the streets and laneways along the route, hundreds deep, faces pale, garments black. For days, people had waited in the snow, in the rain, all to get a place to wait for the procession, for a glimpse of the carriage that would carry their Rudolf to his final resting place. The vendors were especially helpful, selling sausages, bread and pies to those lining the streets. That was, of course, before the food went bad.

  Unaware of any of this, Ivy Savage huddled in a very old church near the centre of town.

  She had lost all track of time. She had lost all track of her hands and feet and face as well. The skirt she had been wearing since Melk was now little more than a tattered crinoline over torn breeches and once again she was thankful for them. Marvelous handy for Girl Criminologists fleeing Black Swans. She wondered if she were dead. If she were, then she was being tended by a very strange angel.

  After her spectacular fall, the people on the street had brought her, ragged and numb and very much alone, to this old church and left her in the care of the priest. He spoke not a word of English but sat with her in the pew, dabbing her scrapes with a cloth. He had dark eyes, bushy brows and the largest beard Ivy had ever seen. If he were an angel, she reckoned he had to be St. Peter.

  He smiled at her, pointed out her torn breeches and bloody knee. She nodded slowly, still numb. At the moment, she fully understood Sebastien – she’d give anything for a cup of tea but hadn’t the words to explain.

  Sebastien. How she missed him.

  A man in an Austrian fedora approached. He was carrying a satchel and leaned in to speak in St. Peter’s ear. It wasn’t German, Ivy was certain, but rather something that reminded her of Lonsdale and the Russian patient known as Grigori. He had cursed her and called her the Virgin Mary.

  Funny. She missed Lonsdale too.

  She sighed, let her eyes wander. The little church was beautiful. Not beautiful in the ‘Melk Abbey’ way, but a simpler, more austere beautiful. Dark wood, white walls, low curved ceilings. Candles instead of gaslight giving off a serene glow. A small choir echoing minor chords to the heavens and soothing souls right here on earth. She had never felt this way in a church, not even at the funeral of her brothers. Masses said over five little black coffins had almost destroyed her mother. She had never thought of a church as safe until today.

  She thought of Sebastien, of the morning when he had found her in the snowy gorse. Silently, she thanked him for all the training in the field and out of it and for all the adventures and all the time he’d invested in her and she knew that she loved him and cursed herself for not taking that first terrifying step and kissing him in the gorse.

  They might not have ended up as fugitives in Vienna.

  Her chin trembled but she lifted it, determined to overcome the rush of emotion. Still, the tears were stinging.

  “Maria?” asked St. Peter.

  Ivy looked at him, blinked, tried to focus.

  “Maria von Vetsera?”

  And he held up a stack of letters, wrapped in twine.

  “The letters,” she gasped as she clutched them to her chest. “Oh thank you, thank you so much…”

  Damn her chin now. St. Peter smiled, dabbed it with the cloth and she let the tears win.

  He began to speak but she didn’t understand. He gestured at the man with the fedora, who nodded. They both nodded. Still, she didn’t understand.

  “Franz Salvator,” she said. “I need to go to the palais of Prince Franz Salvator. Can you help?”

  “Prinz, da,” said the man in the fedora and he nodded. Ivy rose to her feet.

  “Thank you,” she said to St. Peter. “Thank you so much.”

  He smiled, made the sign of the cross. She curtsied and made the sign too, not really knowing what it meant. It seemed like the right the thing to do.

  Clutching the letters to her chest, she whirled and followed the fedora back onto the street.

  ***

  It had taken hours for the man to die.

  Christien drew the sheet over the body of the valet. It was more of a shell than a body, the man having withered away until he was nothing more than skin stretched across bones, breaths fading like cool air in summer. Christien had called for broth but was told there was none. He had called for bread or fruit puree but apparently there was nothing in the palais that could help stave off the advance of the valet’s condition.

  Truth be told, he hadn’t a clue what had killed the man but damn, if it didn’t look like starvation.

  He shook his hea
d and rose to his feet. The valet’s room was tiny and on the fourth floor of the palais. Servants’ quarters were markedly different from the rest of the building, with low slanted ceilings and tiny windows, limiting the already limited February light. It was morning but there was no sun. It would come out tomorrow, he figured, for the funeral. It would be ironic – such pompous ritual to mark the end of an unorthodox life. Rudolf couldn’t have planned it better had he tried.

  From these windows, he was barely able to see rooftops let alone the courtyard below. He could see the dome of the Hofburg, however, the many airships dotting the sky and casting shadows across the city. Airships with both the black and the dual-headed eagle along with two ironclads – the Stahl Mädchen and another, flying the flag of Steel. All because of Bastien. He had heard Franz’s carriage leave this morning, wondered when the Hussars would come. Ivy would be discovered, Valerie would turn coat. Either way, they were done for. A shame, really. This was not how or where he wanted to die.

  He looked back at the airships. He had owned an airship, once.

  One of the ships looked familiar. He narrowed his eyes to see it flying the colours of the House Saxe-Cobourg and Gotha.

  “By god,” he breathed. “Bertie?”

  And for the first time in months, he felt his spirit stir with something other than despair until it was suddenly dashed with the sound of hoofbeats.

  He sighed, steeling his nerve. At least three carriages and even more horses clattering into the courtyard. Hussars, he knew. He looked back at the body of the valet, wondered how he would explain. Perhaps it was for the best. They could shoot both brothers and purge the world of the hell that came with the name de Lacey.

  He left the servant’s room, followed the winding stair down to the smoking room. Prodded the fire with a poker, causing it to leap in its bed. Poured himself a large Scotch, swallowed it straight and poured a second as footsteps pounded down the hall.

  Six Silver Hussars burst into the smoking room, forming a circle around him, sabre-arms drawn as Gisela strode between, blonde hair pulled back from her severe face. Trailing behind them all was Franz Salvator, with Valerie on his arm.

  “Christien de Lacey,” said Gisela, raising a pistol to his eyes. “You are under arrest.”

  ***

  Conquest. War. Famine. Still, he was incomplete and he knew he needed another horse.

  Sebastien blinked slowly. Seeing was difficult now, the edges of his vision blurred by creeping blackness, much like flies crawling across a window. Or, in fact, like the flies now crawling along the ceiling. The dead were too many to count and no matter where he looked, they were there in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands. He could barely see the walls for the empty eyes and gaping mouths of the dead.

  Breathing was difficult too. It felt like a weight of bricks on his chest but the bricks were inside and he was drowning in mortar. He wondered what it would be like once he stopped breathing entirely, if his lungs would rebel or accept the change like a new huntcoat or pair of boots.

  Truth be told, he wouldn’t miss his skin but then a kiss from Miss Savage would be unlikely. It was a conundrum.

  No one had bothered him while he sat in the cellar. Not Christien, not the prince, not a single footman or valet or kitchen boy sent to fetch a bottle of wine. The wine was sour, he knew, just vinegar in fancy bottles. That was only the beginning. By tomorrow, the city would be rotten and filled to brimming with nobility. Germans, Austrians, Russians and English. No French, no Italians. The world of princes was a funny place. And by the day after tomorrow, the entire countryside would be ablaze with cannons and long guns, all because of him. And the lockets.

  War was coming on iron feet.

  Ghostlight was near but Arclight was nearer. He could hear her voice, sweet like music in his veins and he knew he could summon an orb whenever he wished. Perhaps Arvin Frankow’s. A part of him very much wanted to see how the little man died. His throat tightened at the thought and he chased it away, along with thoughts of the infirmary and nights spent by the fire with good Scotch and bedtime stories and Mumford.

  He hardened his heart, like the bricks. Like the stone.

  It had been Mumford who had taught him to see. Mumford had taught him to speak. Mumford had saved his life, not Frankow. Frankow had conspired with his father and the Ghost Club of London. The Ghost Club had been their life and he their little toy. It wasn’t surprising that he had forgotten so much, but then again, there was much he’d never wanted to remember. A shattered skull changed things.

  He could feel the sting of tears and he wiped his cheeks, only to study the glistening blackness on his palms. Weeping oil, weeping tar. No wonder he was drowning in mortar. Perhaps he was finally turning to stone. Cold, hard stone.

  And Ivy.

  He wondered how she was, if she was safe, if she was afraid. She was such a brave woman. She had made him feel like he could live, if even for a brief time. He hoped she could escape the coming destruction but if not, he would watch for her at the doors of the dead. They would be his to rule once the last horse came.

  The tunnel ahead was quiet and dark and filled with the dead. They had been here for hundreds of years, a thousand perhaps, most embedded in the earth. He wondered if he could release them from here or if that would cause problems in the foundations of the city. That would be bad, all things considered.

  An orb appeared, first black and shiny like obsidian but quickly spinning into the familiar mirrored silver. He cocked his head, wondering who he would see this time and soon, a child came barefoot from the tunnel. She was a very young girl – barely walking, a toddler – with baby blonde curls and sunken eyes. She was wearing a tattered nightgown over desiccated feet, and looked to have been dead for many years. She stopped directly in front of him.

  “Sophie,” he said. “You found me.”

  He reached into his pocket for the tiny white bone, held it out to her in his palm. She smiled an infant smile but shook her head, folded his fingers back over it. He marveled at how tiny her hands were before returning the unusual bullet to his pocket. He took that hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet.

  The orb hovered a moment before disappearing into the tunnel. Together, they followed and were almost immediately swallowed by darkness.

  ***

  Christien raised the Scotch to his lips, ignoring the pistol marked squarely between his eyes.

  “Hello Valerie.”

  “Remy.”

  The Archduchess peeled herself from Franz’s side, slipped between the Hussars to stand next to her sister. Imperial swans, both dressed in black.

  “Where is your brother?” she purred.

  “Where is Ivy?”

  “I’m not certain.”

  “Odd. Me neither.”

  A shot cracked the tension of the smoking room, almost deafening Christien as the bullet whipped past his ear to shatter a fine landscape framed in gold. Gisela moved the pistol back between his eyes.

  “Next time, your head.”

  “You can’t shoot him,” growled Valerie. “We need him. Where is your brother?”

  Christien sipped the Scotch, grateful he was holding it with the clockwork hand. The right was shaking. He slipped it casually into his pocket.

  “Why?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gisela cocked the hammer a second time.

  “I wasn’t lying,” he said. “I was tending the valet in an upper room.”

  “That is true,” said Franz from the doorway. “The miracle man was in the cellar.”

  Gisela nodded sharply and a pair of Hussars spun their torsos to clank down the hall.

  “He died, by the way,” said Christien. “In case you cared. He seemed a fine servant. I hope you paid him well.”

  The prince swallowed, said nothing.

  “You will help us,” said Gisela. “And you might be allowed to live.”

  “I will only help you if
I know that Ivy is alive and will continue to be alive after I help.”

  “Why does that matter to you?” asked Valerie, her eyes cutting him as surely as a blade. “She does not love you.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “She is annoying,” said Valerie.

  “She is that.”

  “Then why?”

  “Scandal and misery come with the name de Lacey.” He sipped the Scotch, allowing the heat to burn his throat. “But she’s not one of us. She’s a silly street girl, all brains and pluck, but she’s innocent enough. It would be a sin to let her die.”

  “What do you know of sin?” asked Gisela.

  “You have no idea.”

  “If we find her, we will not shoot her.”

  “How comforting. What do you need from me?”

  The sisters exchanged glances. Gisela barked orders and the last of the Hussars clanked from the smoking room. She lowered her pistol.

  “Maman has a plan.”

  Christien looked at Franz. “I’d like one of those cigars, if you don’t mind.”

  Franz stared at him.

  “And another glass of this Scotch.” Christien held up the tumbler. “Fetch it for me. Now please.”

  The prince scrambled to obey.

  “No more Scotch,” said Valerie. “You will need your hands steady.”

  “Good lord,” he said. “Am I to operate?”

  “You are.”

  “I don’t operate anymore. I’m a clockwork monster, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  And the gears in his wrist began to whir and click. Marvelous, he thought to himself. It was all in the timing.

  “It won’t matter.”

  “So what patient is so ill that I am the only surgeon skilled enough to cut him? And remember, I was in line to be a police surgeon. I only ever worked on the dead.”

  “Then you are perfectly suited for this,” said Valerie.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will operate on a dead man,” said Gisela.

  “On a dead man,” he repeated flatly.

 

‹ Prev