Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 31

by Edited by Kelly Link

  “Fuille had a drawing of a ship very like this,” said Moon. His lips were chapped. Blood came away on his hand when he touched it to his mouth. “His life’s work—”

  “‘Mind and the mellifluosity of the wind,’” echoed Ivana. She looked down at Moon, unseeing.

  “Help me up,” he said, holding out his hand. She looked at the darkening window and turned away to the door.

  “Wait!” said Moon. He tried to scramble to his feet but, still half-frozen, had more control over his wooden leg than his own. “Fuille went down to the hold. I told him you were down there.”

  “He’ll be angry then,” said Ivana placidly. She hefted the line hook, stepped out and closed the door behind her.

  Moon could not bring himself to lean against the cabin wall with its tracery of wires, and did not think calling for help would simplify matters. He levered himself up to sit on the edge of his desk and waited for life to return to his limbs. The wooden shutter banged in the ice wind. Moon lunged across the cabin and slammed it closed. Luck couldn’t be out forever, it would turn and he could get another ship—besides, he told himself, this one was losing its charms. The thought did not comfort him. He was leaning his forehead against the shutter, seeing again the weatherfinder plunge backwards into air, when Cally entered the cabin.

  “Pardon me, Captain,” he said, “But I wasn’t sure all was well. I was singing-out before, and no answer, and Tomasch said he saw someone out on the figurehead. Again. Wouldn’t have believed it if it had been Alban said it, but there it is.”

  “I’m fine,” said Moon, straightening. “Is that all?”

  “Storm’s coming. And passenger’s not best pleased,” said the steersman.

  A shot rang out on deck.

  Fuille’s pistol was a heavy one. The shot had thrown Ivana to the deck like a fist. She lay sprawled on the darkening timbers, hand clutched over what was left of her shoulder.

  Tomasch had already seized Fuille, but before Alban could, at his direction, secure the pistol, the scientist fired again. Moon fell, nearly at Ivana’s side. The steersman sprang forward and dashed the gun from the scientist’s hand. It skittered across the deck to Moon’s feet.

  The shot stunned Moon, and he was numb to the feel of blood slick beneath his hand, but he had fallen too often in the early days of his wooden leg to be much dazed by the fall itself. He was conscious of a gathering anger—Fuille would not take his leg, too. It had been too hard-won.

  Moon sat up, felt the splinters where the bullet had struck his bad leg, and reached for the gun.

  “I’d better get to the tiller, sir,” said Cally, and made himself scarce.

  “It was self-defence!” said the scientist. “I did not shoot to kill. I could have, but I did not. I requisition this woman on the authority of their Imperial Majesties’ Government—!”

  “On my ship, I’m the government,” interrupted Moon. He stood up stiffly and limped towards Fuille, who gaped. Moon put the muzzle of the pistol to the middle of the man’s forehead. Fuille stopped pulling against Tomasch’s grip.

  “This ship is stolen,” whispered Fuille, his skin turning greyer. “It was part of a project of national—international!—significance. Don’t think that by uncovering what may very well be a genuine weatherfinder, the consequences to you will be lessened. By your actions you interrupted and destroyed a very delicate and long-running Government operation, which, if disclosed to our enemies—”

  “I am tempted to conduct a delicate operation of my own,” said Moon, tapping the muzzle lightly against Fuille’s forehead. He found he did not enjoy doing so, although Tomasch looked appreciative. “The only reason I won’t is that I know it’s a capital offence to carry loaded firearms on a gas-ship.” He took the bullets out of the pistol and went to thrust it into his belt, then changed his mind and threw the weapon over the side. It was a more dramatic gesture, but it only relieved his feelings a little. “Besides, we’re nearly in the Republic’s sky, and what loyalty is it of yours that takes you and your precious experiments out of the Empire?”

  Whatever joy Fuille’s helpless rage might have given him was taken away by the sight of what lay ahead, piling up in what had been blue sky.

  “Shut him in his cabin,” he told Tomasch. “Lock him up and tie him to something. Don’t let Alban tie the knots. There’s going to be a storm.”

  “No!” said the scientist. “No, no, you must let me secure my specimens.”

  “Gag him, for preference,” added Moon. Tomasch hauled Fuille away, struggling again.

  He knelt down again next to Ivana. Alban had his bare hands clamped over the wound, blood welling between his fingers. Together they dragged her upright, but she passed out before she was standing. They towed her back into his cabin and propped her on a chair.

  “Go do what your father tells you,” Moon told Alban. “Heavy weather’s here.” Alban acquired a sickly expression but obeyed.

  Moon got the sleeve of Ivana’s coat cut away and had his own jacket against the wound before Tomasch, eyes averted from blood, arrived to report the scientist secure. When he was gone, she opened her eyes and murmured, reproachfully, “You were shot.”

  “It didn’t take,” said Moon cheerfully. “The good news is you’re not bleeding to death. He really had quite good aim—that, or the deck gave a fortunate tilt. Or possibly, though I never thought I’d say this, you owe a little thanks to Alban. The bad news is that your storm is here, and I’m going to pour the rest of the brandy into you until you’re able to get up and tell me how to get through it.”

  “I don’t want to get through it,” murmured Ivana. “Do you know what a bullet tastes like in blood?”

  “Never tried it,” said Moon. “Anyway, it’s not in you. It went straight through, more or less, and into my cabin door—you can see it if you like. There’s probably another in my leg, but I think I’ll keep it as a souvenir. Drink up.”

  “Why?” said Ivana.

  “Because Fuille is still furious and alive, and I’ll let him out if you don’t,” said Moon. “I’m only asking you to report on the storm. He wanted you to fly the whole ship. Like your brother.”

  That had the effect he wanted. “You should have killed him,” said Ivana, weak but angry.

  “I want him to stand trial,” said Moon, although privately he agreed with her.

  “He’s Government,” said Ivana. “He won’t.”

  “There are other sorts of trials. Tomasch reported some choice selections from his luggage,” said Moon, securing the bandage around her body and under her other arm. “I plan to let the newsmongers make what they will of it. Their Majesties’ precious ambassadors will have conniptions. Eliza would love to interview you—almost his next victim, and all that, and it’s pleasant when she’s grateful.” Moon knew he was talking too much, and still he could not bring himself to say what he wanted to say, or to think clearly about what that was. “Well,” he continued, “it doesn’t happen all that often. Or at all. But I think it would be nice. And then I’ll be properly surprised about her news, and a model uncle to the poor creature when it’s born, and everyone will be happy.”

  “Uncle?” said Ivana.

  “I know, and it makes me feel very old, but that’s better than not getting to be old,” said Moon, then realised that Ivana’s brother would never have the chance to say that. He cleared his throat and went on, “But we have to get to Poorfortune first, so have another drink, please, quickly, then come out on deck and tell me the way through.”

  “How long have you been flying?” asked Ivana, her voice stronger although her words were slurred.

  “I like to think we would survive,” lied Moon. “But there’s a reason small ships don’t fly this way. Besides, I’ve never flown with a real, born, weatherfinder, and I’d like to say I’ve done it once in my life. I mig
ht not get the chance again.”

  “I think I’m drunk,” said Ivana.

  The Hyssop limped over Poorfortune, ragged and battered, listing where gas cushions had burst, her spars and lines tangled, but still aloft and still bearing its crew—all bone-weary, save for the captain. He was exhilarated by survival and their neck-or-nothing passage through the great storm. When they cleared the last shreds of cloud and broke through into clear air, when Ivana—shaken—had silently pointed to the horizon while Cally corrected their course, he had wanted to take her by the shoulders and dance her in a circle. He had remembered in time that she was wounded and he could not dance, so had simply pulled out his pipe and folded his arms, grinning towards the distant port until Tomasch shouted for help with the most urgent repairs. Moon said, sadly, that he saw no need for efforts beyond those, and as Cally, given long acquaintance with Moon, had insisted on full pay in advance and suspected there was no future on the Hyssop, there was no objection from the crew.

  When Moon returned to his cabin, he had found Ivana asleep on his bed, Alban watching anxiously over her. He dismissed Alban, and stood a moment looking down at his weatherfinder. Her face was an unhealthy colour, but she was breathing and so he left her while he salvaged the few books and papers he could carry in a canvas matilda. He righted a chair and sat to compose a letter which would inspire the necessary curiosity and urgency in an ambitious journalist, and terror in distant corridors of power.

  Once he looked around the cabin, and wondered if he would miss it. The thought of the use to which the ship had once been put made his skin crawl, but that was shadowed by the quiet company of the weatherfinder and the bond of the wild flight. Ivana was awake again and watching him with her long jaw set, but she did not speak.

  As they worked their way in over Poorfortune at last, Moon dropped a package overboard carefully labelled with Eliza Blancrose’s name. The sprawling city had its own systems for such things—by the time the wounded Hyssop was in position to dock, the newsmongers of the Poorfortune Exclamation and the High Harbour Times, together with a bevy of Poorfortune police, were at the low docks crowding out a contingent of eager civil servants on the service of the Republic, and several alarmed gentlemen in dark suits whom Moon judged to be in Their Imperial Majesties’ employ. Somewhere beyond them, customs officers gesticulated, disregarded.

  Eliza was there with the linesmen, and first across to the Hyssop, helped willingly by an appreciative Tomasch. She held her hat on with one gloved hand.

  “Who are the police here for?” asked Moon by way of greeting.

  “Whoever has the best story,” said Eliza. “They’re relentlessly incorruptible, so now that they’ve seen you with me you’d better get off this tub. Does Cally have the Port Fury forms, and ship’s papers? Then you’d better clear out. Come see me at the Palm Rooms—I owe you for this story and I’ve a lead who can put you in a likely game for a real antique—”

  “I’m off old ships,” said Moon. “I need a yacht. Something white and sleek, with no skeletons in its cupboards.”

  “Less piratical, but you never know what your luck will hold.”

  “Or for how long,” said Moon. “Eliza, can you get Ivana to a doctor, quietly?”

  “Who?” said Eliza.

  Moon looked around for Ivana, but she had slipped between the eddies of people as easily as if they had been wind-currents, and was already on the dock. “I have to catch her,” he said to Eliza.

  He swung across the gap to the dock, but his path was harder. He dodged a Poorfortune policeman, was nearly collared by a hungry-looking man with a notebook and shining eyes and only caught up with Ivana at the first turn of the stairs. Her shabby coat was only slung over her injured shoulder, and came away in Moon’s hand. He said the first thing to come into his head.

  “Where’s the jacket?”

  “I left it on the storeroom door,” she answered.

  “Don’t you want it?”

  “You think I want a souvenir? What’s left of it is yours—you bought that fairly, at least.”

  Moon drew breath. The game of squares had been even, he intended to say, and just because it was chance doesn’t mean it wasn’t fair. “I don’t know your name,” he said.

  She didn’t answer him. Above, the police were engaged with Fuille, the ship and the cargo. Eliza had drawn the attention of the journalists away from Moon and Ivana where they stood hidden from the higher platform. Half a minute might pass before they must be recognised, or vanish into the streets below.

  “That needs to be seen to by a doctor,” said Moon, nodding at her shoulder, clumsily but effectively bandaged.

  “It already has been,” said Ivana with a wan smile, and touched the sleeve of her shirt. If that was meant as any sort of compliment, it struck Moon as half-hearted. His work had been brief and ugly, and throughout the short operation in the heart of the storm he had been of the impression that Ivana was careful to give her instructions in very small words.

  She turned with her hand on the railing and Moon said, “Wait. I’ve got a bit laid by, and there’s always a game in this town. We—we flew well together, you and I. Fly with me again?” He remembered that the Hyssop, unmasked as The Ravens, was as good as lost. “I’m sure to have a ship again, soon. My luck will come back, it always does. Like the wind.”

  “You have to catch luck!” said Ivana, then shook her head and laughed weakly. “You have to hold on to it, Moon.”

  “You can’t hold on to the wind,” said Moon. “But who knows? We survived that storm—maybe you are my luck. Come, Ivana! I’m sure Eliza will put you up until I find a ship and more of a crew. She knows how to keep secrets.”

  Ivana looked up to where the torn sailcloth and trailing lines of the Hyssop were visible, sagging in the breeze below the platform. “I’m going home. By sea. I’d rather mend people who’ve been foolish than hurt myself through folly.”

  Moon, standing still, felt that he was ducking and weaving again, in pursuit of Ivana vanishing, only this time he could not see his way. “I’ll get you a real weatherfinder tattoo, if you want one. I don’t want to fly blind again, Ivana.”

  But something he had said was wrong, or not enough. Ivana was descending again, faster than he could follow.

  “Please!” he called down. “I’ll pay you better than your doctor!”

  She looked up. Her face was still too pale, drawn out long like that of the lost figurehead, and Moon felt a pain of double loss.

  “You couldn’t pay me enough,” she said, disappeared around the next turning of the stairs and was lost in the human rivers of Poorfortune.

  A ship, Moon told himself. First find a ship, then a weatherfinder.

  “You haven’t any caution,” said Eliza merrily, arriving beside him with the expression of a well-fed cat. “Thank you,” she said, releasing Alban who shouldered his own duffelbag and hurried away, head down. Eliza tucked her arm through Moon’s. “Poor lad, anyone can see he’s not meant for a breezy. Well, there’s sufficient variety of employment here. Now, come with me. I have a deadline and therefore am expected to be in a hurry. You must tell me everything. And then buy dinner, for I did beat you to Poorfortune.”

  As he helped her up into a high-sprung cab she said, “Did your Ivana get away, then?”

  “Yes,” said Moon.

  “Was she pretty?”

  Moon looked up at his sister. Her face was sympathetic, amused but unsurprised.

  “No,” he said, suddenly. “Damn it, Eliza, don’t look at me like that. I’ll tell you everything later. I have to go.”

  “I’m a journalist, Moon!” said Eliza, but he had stepped back and waved the cab-driver on. She had to lean out and call the last words back. “Later isn’t good enough!”

  “And congratulations!” he shouted, but he did not wait to see if El
iza heard. He was already longing for clear sky, and pressing through the brown and crowded streets which led down to the old harbour, and the sea.

  Crazy-Sexy Agriculture = CSA

  Nicole Kimberling

  I think whoever invented the idea of paying a local farmer for a whole season of vegetables in advance, must have been some sort of subversive genius.

  The weekly delivery of the CSA (community supported agriculture) box flies in the face of modern thinking about choice—which is that you should have it, always. Contemporary cooks are accustomed to asking the question, “What would I like to make?” and then expecting to be able to go and realize their dreams of out-of-season produce from far-flung lands at any major supermarket. The CSA puts food in front of you and says, “This is dinner. Make the most of it.”

  Weekly infusions of surprise vegetables provide the ability to imagine yourself competing on some TV cooking program—or living as a subsistence farmer—whichever inspires you most. But often these same deliveries of unexpected foliage result in a sand-strewn refrigerator filled with baffling, wilted produce that you simply end up feeling guilty for not having the creative capacity to maximize.

  In this way the CSA is not only a test of ingenuity but also a test of one’s ability to submit to the restrictions of local geography and abide by the planting choices of the farmer whose produce you’ve decided to eat. The question is: are you the sort of person who can enjoy that? Can you find pleasure in all that fennel?

  Of course you can. Fennel is one of the sexiest vegetables around. It’s one of the rare produce items that can be successfully fielded as part of a floral arrangement by people who choose not to masticate it.

  So that is the first question with fennel—will you eat it or will you put it in a vase with some flowers? Before I make any decision, I usually take the opportunity to perform a fan dance with it in order to send the fragrance wafting through the air. Even people who don’t enjoy the taste of licorice usually enjoy the smell. If you are one of those people who hates fennel, I encourage you to not eat it at all. Just stop by a farm stand and purchase a bouquet of flowers and jam the fennel fronds in around it. Or use the fan-like shape as a backdrop for a fragrant herb and flower arrangement of your own. Pretend you are a perfumer creating scent from whole plants. In this way your vegetable will not go to waste.