Heart of Steel

by Meljean Brook

  “Hassan,” she said. “Who is he?”

  “One of Temür Agha’s advisors. His prime counselor, though he has retired from the position, and gives quiet support to Temür’s opposition. He enjoys more freedom than most in Rabat, and that retirement is how he traveled here without question—he has been taking small tours, so that his absence would be unremarkable.”

  Yasmeen doubted that. Any man who did not note the comings and goings of a close advisor was a fool, and Temür Agha was not. But she cared little about politics; if Hassan could grant them entry to the city, she would take it. “Who is he to you?”

  “When I was smuggling, he was Temür’s right hand. I often negotiated and secured weapons from him when Temür wasn’t available, sent messages through him. He’s a good man.”

  Now he made no sense. “Weapons from Temür Agha? I thought he was buying them from you—that you got the weapons from the rebels.”

  “He is a rebel.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” he insisted quietly.

  “He burned Constantinople to the ground to destroy a rebellion. Do not tell me I am wrong; I was there. I heard the screaming as the firebombs dropped and the war machines rolled over homes. I smelled the bodies roasting and left to rot.” She would never forget that smell. “Do not say he is a rebel.”

  His face dark and eyes haunted, Archimedes nodded. “You aren’t wrong. But I have heard another story—though probably only bits of it. Hassan can tell you.”

  Perhaps he could, but it didn’t matter. Rebel or not, the only thing to know was that Temür Agha was a ruthless man, not to be crossed lightly.

  “So tell me about this expedition—and why we are married.”

  Archimedes closed his eyes. “It’s aboard Ceres.”

  “Ceres?” Her laugh started, and she couldn’t hold it back. “Guillouet will never let me aboard.”

  “He will, because you won’t be crew, but part of the expedition.”

  Would money outweigh Guillouet’s self-righteous loathing toward her? Oh, but that would be fascinating to see. “Then why are we married?”

  “Because Kareem al-Amazigh, who is paying for the expedition, doesn’t believe that unmarried women should be flying around without the protection of their brothers and fathers. So we’ll be married and sharing a cabin.”

  She laughed again, loving the absurdity of it. Though the protection of a loved one was a noble sentiment, most of the women in Rabat didn’t even know who their fathers and brothers were. In the occupied territories, the Horde’s practice of taking laborers’ children from their parents and raising them in a crèche erased all familial ties.

  Finally able to breathe, she wiped her eyes. “So he has found religion, then? He sounds much like your father.”

  “Even my father hired you.”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t a woman. I was foreign.” She grinned when he tilted his head back, groaning as if in memory of his father’s speeches. “But don’t worry—I won’t shoot Kareem al-Amazigh. Hopefully.”

  “He won’t be aboard.” He met her eyes again, and the sudden seriousness of his expression stopped her response. “I have to warn you now. Perhaps I should have spoken up when we made our agreement, but before I spoke to Hassan, I’d still hoped that the woman we saw wouldn’t be Temür Agha’s guard and we wouldn’t have to travel to Rabat to find the sketch. It’s a long story, but I was shot, and Hassan gave me a transfusion of his blood—infecting me with his nanoagents so that they could heal me.”

  “I see.” Each occupied territory had a different tower, operating on a slightly different frequency. An infected Englishman could travel to Morocco without being affected by the signal. But a man infected by someone susceptible to the tower would be, too—even if the infection were passed on far away from the occupied territories. As soon as he traveled within the tower’s range, it would affect him. “Will you be useless to me in the city?”

  His skin had drawn tight, paling over his cheekbones and jaw. “I can follow orders, carry out instructions. I can act of my free will, but there’s no driving emotion, no need, no fear. I wouldn’t react to danger or respond to a threat in the same way.”

  “So you’d lose your balls of iron and silver tongue.”

  “Yes.”

  And that terrified him, she realized. Yet he wasn’t backing out of this arrangement. He still planned to help her . . . if he could.

  “We will see what happens,” she said. “Perhaps it will not matter at all. And as long as we are discussing possible shortcomings—”

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed. The crack of her knees sounded like muffled gunshots.

  “Mornings are difficult,” she said. “They loosen up, but I don’t know how quickly I can move before they do. If we’re ever attacked, I’ll probably just stay in bed and shoot whoever comes through the door.”

  Gaze locked on her knees, Archimedes slipped out of his chair, knelt in front of her. Fingers hovering an inch above her skin, he traced the path of the still-fading scars.

  “The ones on the right leg are cleaner,” she said. “Those were Jannsen’s—the surgeon on Mad Machen’s ship. Ivy tells me that Eben’s hands were shaking a bit on the left leg, because he’d just spent most of the night in the harbor looking for me, but he wouldn’t let her take over. There are about thirty screws still in the bones. Sometimes I think I should have just let Eben cut them off, but they are fine legs, aren’t they?”

  He looked quickly up into her face, brows drawing together as if not quite believing her wicked tone. When he saw the grin that matched it, he gave a smile of his own.

  “Very fine legs. But I’m still waiting.”

  “Why? We’re married now.”

  “I will not even kiss you until my heart is so full of longing that I cannot help myself. And if you initiate a kiss, I’ll consider it a sign that you’ve fallen madly in love with me, too.”

  He was serious, she realized. “I’ll say I love you in bed, if that’s what you want to hear.”

  His brows rose. “Would you truly?”

  Would she? If he came to love her, could she tell him the same? Yasmeen had no compunction about lying, but she’d been on the receiving end of such a lie before, and the knife to her belly had hurt less. She wouldn’t do that to him.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Thank God,” he said. “Because I’m not ready for you to break my heart.”

  “But if you fall in love with me, I will.”

  “I know. But try not to break it in Rabat, where I wouldn’t feel the anguish properly.” He stood and held out his hand. “Now, then. Shall I help you loosen up? Ceres awaits us . . . Mrs. Fox.”

  “Captain Fox,” she said, clenching her teeth as he pulled her to her feet and slid his arm around her waist. “And now I’m doubly glad you didn’t call yourself ‘Stallion.’ ”

  “That will be your secret name for me. I hope you tell everyone.”

  She laughed through her first step, gritted her teeth again. But with every step, anticipation built. They’d soon be en route to the sketch.

  And she was going to completely ruin Captain Guillouet’s day.

  Chapter Seven

  They found Ceres tethered on the main dock, spars extended and sails furled. Constructed in the fashion of a sugar sloop, a fat balloon held up her heavy-bellied ship, and two propellers flanked a tapered tail. Well made, and although not as sleek or as swift as her lady, Ceres would have been fine to look upon if she hadn’t been decorated to advertise Guillouet’s loyalties. A Huguenot cross was emblazoned across both sides of the balloon in gold and blue, shouting his allegiance to the French king.

  Yasmeen hopped out of the steamcoach, and held open the carriage door while Archimedes dragged out their trunk and hefted it onto his shoulder. They didn’t have to walk far, though they missed the cargo lift’s current run. Four marines and their equipment were already ten feet into the air when she and Archim
edes reached the loading platform. Marsouins, by the regimented look of them, skilled in aerial and underwater combat—and as they weren’t wearing uniforms, probably turned soldiers-for-hire. If Kareem al-Amazigh had secured them for this expedition, he must be expecting Archimedes to find a significant amount of treasure. Al-Amazigh would need at least ten livre just to recoup the cost of the mercenaries.

  Archimedes set the trunk by his feet. “Aside from his famous opinion that women shouldn’t be serving aboard airships, what have you heard of Captain Guillouet?”

  “That opinion is not just his, but famously a navy opinion,” Yasmeen said.

  No matter the New World nation, very few sailing ships allowed females to join their crews. Guillouet had simply carried on the tradition after he’d been decommissioned and purchased Ceres.

  “So the makeup of his crew isn’t cause for concern, then.”

  “Don’t mistake me, Mr. Fox: I don’t have much confidence in any ship that doesn’t include women. It means that either the captain doesn’t trust his crew to follow his rules, or he doesn’t trust his own ability to keep them in line.”

  “Or he thinks women have no place aboard an airship.”

  For Guillouet, it was probably a bit of both. “I think sailors have no place aboard an airship—and Guillouet is still a sailor. He has no business in the air.”

  “Is captaining a boat so different from captaining an airship?”

  “You truly ask? I’d hate to kill you on our first day of marriage.” When he grinned, Yasmeen looked up at Ceres with a sigh. “See how he’s dressed her up? Guillouet treats her like a whore, parading her around and pandering to patriotism simply to secure a few more rides and a few more coins.”

  “Forgive me, but—you hired out your lady for men to ride.”

  She turned narrowed eyes on him. “I didn’t say she wasn’t a whore. I said he treats her like one.”

  His brows rose. “And that makes all the difference?”

  “If ever you’d been treated like a whore, you’d know it does.” His lack of reply felt like a brief, angry silence. On her behalf? It was kind of him, but she was sorrier for the airship. “Guillouet was also a cousin to Rousseau.”

  “Your Rousseau?”

  “Yes. They both served the French in the war—Guillouet with the navy, Rousseau with the aeronauts. When the treasuries ran low, they were among the first to go. But Guillouet still claims that the continued Liberé Obligation was justified.”

  “I see,” Archimedes said.

  Probably better than Yasmeen did. She hadn’t arrived in the New World until a few years before the end of the decade-long war, which had been brewing for centuries. Every person gave a different reason for it, but almost everyone agreed that the root of the conflict lay in the sixteenth century, when the zombie infection began to spread west across Africa. The Huguenots, who’d already established settlements in the Caribbean and plantations in the southern American continent, had sent fleets of ships to the west coast of Africa on a mission of mercy. Full kingdoms were given passage across the Atlantic and resettled on Huguenot territory north of the Great Cinnamon River, their only obligation to pay for the use of the land with gold or labor.

  Of the next hundred years or so, Yasmeen knew little—until the French, embroiled in a war for territory with the Catholic Lusitani-ans to the north, offered to release any Africans of their Obligation if they joined the French armies. Thousands went, but Castile and the native confederacies put their weight behind Lusitania, and the French gained little territory north of the Caribbean Sea. The war over, thousands of families who’d fought for the French—now calling themselves the Liberé—found few places to settle and work, and many were told they weren’t fit for anything better than pulling carts. Some returned south, but many more moved north, where trade and land agreements with the native confederacies made for more factories and fields offering pay equal to skill.

  Archimedes’ sister had overstated when she’d claimed that every family in the New World had Liberé and native relations. Many did now, it was true. But if she’d said “neighbors,” it would not have been an exaggeration at all.

  In the southern American territories, still owned by the king, the Liberé name slowly spread—even among the French nobles and officials who governed the territories. Resistance began with the refusal to acknowledge the longstanding Obligation taxes, still imposed on anyone of African descent. French troops moved south, squashing rebellions as they flared up. Governors and officials were assassinated or replaced, and nobles fled. Overt resistance faded, and began to gain strength in parlors, instead. Supported by the king, churches in the French islands spoke eloquently of duty and obligation—and cart-pulling families like Rousseau’s and Guillouet’s spent more time in churches than in parlors. When the king promised full citizenship for those who fought for him, they both answered the call.

  When the war fizzled, the French began to cut costs. In the first order, twenty thousand commissioned and warrant officers were pared away—the majority of them Liberé. Though the government claimed the decision of whom to let go had been based on officer seniority, Rousseau had said he’d finally seen the truth of where he stood with his countrymen, and would stand with them no longer. Guillouet had accepted the promised citizenship.

  But now he was here, because there’d been little opportunity for him in the remaining French territories following the war.

  “And what do you think?” Archimedes said.

  “Of the war?” At his nod, Yasmeen laughed. Oh, but she’d started many entertaining tavern brawls this way. “I think that the French kings owned the land, and that taxes are the way of the world.” When his face darkened and his mouth opened, she grinned and continued, “I also think that, for hundreds of years, it was in the Huguenots’ best interests to think of the Liberé as cart-pullers, and so they justified their every action with the original obligation so that they could continue believing they were right—and continue filling their treasury.”

  The thunderous expression lightened. “I can still fall in love with you, then.”

  He would do well to wait until she was done.

  “I also know that the Liberé are burning down villages and massacring natives to clear land and grow more coffee. The Lusita-nians supported the Liberé in the war, but they smuggle in slaves from the Horde-occupied territories to work their mines. The Castilian queen and her court eat from plates of gold while her people starve in the streets and call for her head.”

  “And Johannesland?” His eyes were bright with amusement. “My mother’s people are not so terrible.”

  “Their princes squabble among themselves, and they supported the French simply because the king is not Catholic. They are not terrible, but they are stupid, and that is almost as bad.” She looked up as the cargo lift began to descend. “The French are no better or worse than all of them, because everyone serves their own interests. And that is why I prefer Port Fallow and the Ivory Market to all the rest of the world: No one pretends they are doing anything else.”

  “Including you . . . even though it would serve your interests to reach Rabat more quickly aboard Mad Machen’s ship.”

  Damn him for picking at nits. Of course she’d thought of that, and rejected it. “It serves my interests not to have my friends killed while helping me.” She gave him a smile that showed the sharp edges of her teeth. “A husband, however . . . it will be quicker than divorce.”

  His laugh was loud and full, and continued over the clank of the lift coming to a rest on the platform. He dragged their trunk aboard—filled primarily with his weapons and contraptions, and the warmest of their clothes. For Yasmeen, that meant all of her clothes, and the few heavy woolen and fur pieces she’d traded for her silver cigarillo case that morning.

  She braced her feet when the lift began to rise. “Did you bring any cigarillos?”

  “A few, but not many. I only smoke them with you.”

  Because they were
so expensive. Yasmeen sighed. “I’ll probably become irritable.”

  “Do you think I’ll notice the difference?”

  The look she gave him would have cowed a lesser man, but nothing of Archimedes Fox was less, including the width of his grin. She could not help but laugh, and it was still in her mouth when the lift locked into place against Ceres’ side. Waiting to welcome them aboard, Captain Guillouet stood a few feet away, looking so much like his cousin Rousseau that pain stabbed her chest.

  His gaze landed on her, and his face contorted with disbelief and anger, erasing all resemblance to his cousin. He turned to the man waiting next to him, who by description Yasmeen guessed was Hassan.

  “That is the wife?”

  Every aviator on deck turned to look. Clearly taken aback by Guillouet’s tone, Hassan only nodded.

  “She is not welcome on this vessel!”

  Guillouet bellowed the declaration so that everyone would hear—and would know him for a fool when he was overruled on his own ship. Yasmeen barely contained her amusement; that would not go over well with the crew, either. No need to antagonize the only people who could make this trip unbearable.

  Hassan looked bewildered. “Explain, Captain.”

  “Corsair. She calls herself Lady Corsair. It means she was a privateer—a friend to the French, you understand? But she was no friend to us.”

  She’d done every single job well. Yasmeen reached for her cigarillo case, but it wasn’t there.

  When Hassan looked to her, she said, “The French newssheets gave me the name.”

  “Newssheets.” Guillouet spat. “Misguided fools, supported by the nobles. You took our money and Liberé money that rightly belonged to our king.”