“Debauching your niece!” Luke gave a short, incredulous laugh. “When she has been living openly with King Izaiah for over a year? You must be jesting!”
“On the contrary. Just how serious I am, you will learn to your cost, if you do not give Luden and Mademoiselle a very wide berth.”
His blood boiling, Luke stripped off his gloves, actually had one gripped in his hand, ready to administer the deadly insult from which there could be no going back—when he remembered his promise to Tremeur.
With an effort, he swallowed his wrath. “As you can see, Lord Flinx, I am just on my way out,” he said coolly. “When I return to Luden, I will do myself the honor of calling on you, and we can discuss the matter then.”
“You will find me at home,” said the Prime Minister, with a sneer and a nod of his head. “Though perhaps in the meantime you will grow wiser.” Turning on his heel he left the house without another word.
But Luke stood looking after him for several minutes. “It’s possible I will grow wiser,” he said under his breath. He generally did think better of these impulsive actions. Though by the time he had the leisure to think about this one, he would be in far too deep to consider turning back.
Book Three
Fermouline on the River Ousel: she was a town of mazes, of courts within courts, alleys behind alleys, a town where every turn, every byway, every stair, every gate, seemed to lead deeper and deeper into the heart of confusion.
Where Hawkesbridge had been building up for more than a thousand years, the residents of this city in Chêneboix had been digging down, burrowing under, adding on, subdividing, building in back-yards, on commons, sometimes even encroaching on the already narrow lanes and byways, in an effort to utilize every square foot of space available. Laws had been passed over the centuries Forbidding this practice, but like many such laws, they failed of their intent. All they accomplished was to render title to the shops, stalls, and houses extremely questionable, which in turn led to careless building, the use of cheap materials. Why would a man waste money constructing a house that would last for decades, when he might be required to raze it at any moment? So the buildings were shoddy. As they aged, half-hearted attempts were made to shore them up: with beams, crimps, bars, and the like, bearing walls added on at odd angles, and a hundred other shifts and expedients that only made the town uglier, crazier, more crowded than she had been before.
This was especially true down by the river, near the saw-mill, the brewery, the sugar-baking houses, and other manufactories, where the workers lived crowded—sometimes five or six families to a house—inside a great warren of shacks, tenements, and subterranean hovels.
Even in the better parts of the town, where the streets were clean, the houses well-built, the parlors sunny, there was not much elbow-room. If there were lanes too narrow to admit a carriage—no matter, it only made work for the chair-men. Gardens were practically unknown—but a flower in a pot was as good any day (said the doughty citizens) as an entire plot. They had adjusted to their crowded conditions, and even seemed to thrive on them. It was said that when a resident of Fermouline had to go elsewhere, the wide open spaces oppressed them. It was certain, anyway, that visits to the surrounding countryside were extremely rare. What had begun as expedience had become a necessity. Noise, smells, the constant press of humanity, had become as vital to her people as the unwholesome air that they breathed.
37
Fermouline, Chêneboix
—9 Floréal, 6538
None of the clocks in the town kept the right time. That was one of the first things that Will noticed when he rode into Fermouline on the big buckskin gelding he had purchased in Fernbrake. Pausing in a square fronted by no less than three churches—each with its own dial prominently displayed—Wilrowan reached into a pocket of his long coat, pulled out his own timepiece, and flipped open the cover. His watch said noon, the church dials read one, two, and half past three, respectively. Judging by the position of the sun directly overhead, his watch was as accurate as ever.
Weaving a path through the complex pattern of streets, stopping every now and again to ask for directions, Will came at last to the Cinque d’Or, a rambling triple-galleried structure with a slate roof and a half-dozen chimneys, built on a stretch of rising ground about a mile from the Ousel. Entering the innyard through a sooty brick archway, Will dismounted, turned over the gelding to one of the hostlers, and asked for the landlord.
Having located the proprietor in the steamy coffee-room, and engaged a room on the top floor, he then headed for the comparative quiet of the taproom, where he found Nick Brakeburn and Corporal Gilpin awaiting him. Will hooked a ladder-back chair in passing, and pulled it up to their table. Then he sat down, and received their report. They had taken a room at the nearby Rouge-Croix, according to his instructions. They had been in town since the night before but had so far seen nothing worth mentioning, unless it might be: “A certain universal tension, a sense of unease,” said Nick. “Whether it’s the result of the proximity of the professors’ infernal engine, I really can’t say, but you have only to look at the faces of the people you meet in the streets to see they are disturbed about something.”
Will nodded his agreement. Strained faces and generally skittish behavior on the part of the Fermouline citizens had been another thing he noticed on coming into town. “And Lieutenant Odgers?”
Odgers had yet to be heard from, but as he and Nick had travelled together most of the way and only parted some thirty miles back, it was likely that he would appear shortly.
With the arrival of his baggage, Wilrowan went upstairs to change his clothes. He explored the town until sunset, getting his bearings, then returned to the inn, where a message from Odgers awaited him. The lieutenant had engaged a room on one of the lower floors. He had entered the town on one of the barges that plied the river; there had been some problem with the mechanism that emptied and filled the locks and made travel against the current possible, hence his late arrival. He extended his apologies, but thought the captain might be interested in the cause of the delay. Will was interested—as he must be interested in anything that involved pumps or similar machinery—but he was also exhausted, and put off a visit to the locks until morning.
Going to bed that evening, he had the oddest and yet the most distinct impression that Lili was somewhere quite close, and that she was thinking about him. But that, he knew, was absurd. Climbing in between the threadbare sheets, Will dismissed the impression as wishful thinking. He closed his eyes and almost immediately fell into a deep, troubled sleep, dreaming of gears, wheels, pumps, and spinning compass needles all night long.
His first action, once he was dressed the next morning, was to unroll a large map he had purchased the afternoon before, and tack it up on one wall. Then it was down to the coffee-room, where he ate a quick breakfast of kidneys, bacon, toast, and sardines, in company with Nick and the other two men.
By mid-afternoon, Will had made his first discovery: his watch was running backwards. This he remedied with the purchase of a pocket sun-dial in a shagreen case.
During the following six days—as he received reports from his men, as he went out himself on long forays, gathering information—Wilrowan made many marks on his map. Nothing escaped his interest: fires, brawls, carriage accidents, broken machinery. By the end of that first week, he found that his notations were largely concentrated in a single section of the town: a square mile of shops and small manufactories down by the river. The neighborhood looked peaceful enough when strolling through the streets, or when observed from a boat on the Ousel, but that was deceptive. In fact, it was much too quiet. A busy paper mill and a large factory where felt had been made for sale to hatters had both closed down, with a consequent decrease in traffic. Yet behind the innocent facades of the shops and mills there had occurred a murder, a suicide, and three fatal accidents involving machinery, all within the last few weeks.
Remembering what Doctor Fox had said about the malign
effects of magnetism on the Human nervous system, Will concentrated his personal efforts on this one neighborhood.
For another week, nothing happened. In a variety of disreputable disguises, he haunted the district, while his first excitement gradually turned to impatience, and then to boredom. Then one day, lounging outside an ironworks and trying to look inconspicuous, Will’s disinterested glance fell on a ragged-looking guardsman, who happened to be engaged in earnest conversation with a small, fair-skinned female in a flowered silk gown and a frivolous hat. It was only as the two parted company, heading off in opposite directions, that Will recognized something in the way the guardsman walked. He was a Wryneck—no, he was the Wryneck—and the female probably the very same woman that young Dagget had seen with the Goblin in Hawkesbridge.
For a moment, Wilrowan hesitated, not knowing which one he ought to follow. But just as she was whisking around a corner, he decided on the woman.
That she was Human, he had no doubt: She was too tall and too perfectly formed for an Ouph or Padfoot, too small and too indisputably female for a Wryneck or Grant. It seemed to him that the Goblins in this conspiracy had been treated as though they were expendable; the woman, therefore, would make a more valuable prisoner.
Pretending to a nonchalance he was very far from feeling, Will slouched after her. Rounding the corner, he had no difficulty spotting her as she moved down a narrow lane between stalls selling baskets, hares, turkeys, guinea-fowl, cabbages, and second-hand clothes—though by now she was so far ahead that he was forced to quicken his pace to avoid losing sight of her again.
For the next several hours she led him a merry chase through the town: on foot, by sedan-chair, then on foot again. She seemed to know the city well and to be intent on some object. She never hesitated or paused to consult a single sign-post, but continued resolutely on through the maze of streets and courts and alleys, at a steady, tireless pace, moving from the fish market, to the fashionable quarter, to a district of small cafes and discreet rooming-houses, then back to the factories and grog-shops near the river, only stopping when the traffic of coaches and wagons forced her to do so, only looking back when some other pedestrian brushed past her, or her hat blew off in a gust of wind. Not wishing to be seen following her, Will dodged around corners, watched her from doorways, and generally exhausted himself in the pursuit.
To his frustration, she never entered any house or shop, nor paused to speak to anyone after she abandoned her sedan-chair. Since it was unlikely she carried the Chaos Machine with her, he had hoped to discover where she was staying and where she visited, before he made any attempt to apprehend her. But as the day wore on, he began to doubt the wisdom of this plan. If he put off arresting her, he ran the risk of losing her entirely.
She led him down to a dock by the river, where she boarded a public ferry, heading for Chalkford in Bridemoor, on the opposite bank. The ferry was preparing to cast off as she boarded. Will shouldered his way through the heavy crowd on the dock, searched frantically through his pockets for the necessary fare, which he handed over to the man who guarded the wooden turnstile—and then watched the boat slip away from its moorings while he was still on the wrong side of the barrier. Once through, he took several running steps, then gathered himself for a long leap across the ever-widening expanse of churning water.
He landed on the deck with a loud thud and turned his ankle painfully in doing so. He steadied himself, then looked around him. Behind him, one of the boatmen was just fastening a gate across the gap in the railing.
The broad deck was crowded. The other passengers had all scrambled aside when Wilrowan landed; now, they resumed their former places, blocking his view. Not being able to locate his quarry, he feared for a moment he had made a mistake. Then a stout gentleman in a mole-skin waistcoat stepped out of his way, and he spotted the woman, just sitting down on a bench.
Limping slightly, Wilrowan stationed himself by the railing, where he could observe her movements for the rest of the trip. In doing so, he was able to study the pretty, somewhat round face under the beribboned hat. How old was she? It was impossible to tell. Her skin was smooth and unlined, her eyes clear, yet he somehow thought she was not so young as she appeared at first glance.
And how had this demure little woman, sitting there so primly in her flowered silk, with her white-gloved hands folded in her lap, ever come to be involved in such an infamous plot? Had he made the wrong choice outside the iron-works? But Dagget had described the Wryneck’s companion as entirely genteel, and she certainly fit that description.
The river was broad between Fermouline and Chalkford, and it took almost an hour for the ferry to cross. The sun was setting, streaking the water with a reflected glory of crimson and gold, when the boat finally docked and everyone disembarked. Moving across the boardwalk, the woman dropped a small beaded purse. Without thinking what he was doing, Will stooped to pick it up and hand it back to her. As they stood face-to-face, a curiously intent expression appeared briefly in her eyes.
Though she thanked him politely and turned away with a fine show of disinterest, Will cursed himself for a fool. He was lightly disguised—his chin unshaven, his hat worn low on his brow, his auburn hair rubbed with soot to darken the color—but he had no way of knowing how well she knew him. If she had recognized him, there was no point allowing her to go any further; she would not venture anywhere near the Chaos Machine while he was following her.
Will pulled out a pistol from his coat pocket, made certain it was loaded and primed, and hurried after her. She was twenty feet ahead of him, crossing a wide boulevard, when a sudden surge of foot and horse traffic came between them. The streets of Chalkford were busy; though he kept her straight little back and her brightly colored silk gown in sight for another quarter of an hour, he could not catch up to her. Then she turned down a narrow passageway between two buildings, and by the time Will rounded the corner she was nowhere to be seen.
He stood staring around him in stunned disbelief. There were no visible doorways opening on this alley and no ground floor windows, just a long line of weather-stained brick walls, the backs of shops and houses. Yet there was no place for the woman to hide herself, either. The only outlet was at least two hundred yards further on, and there had been no time for her to sprint even half that distance.
Had she used some Goblin magic to disappear? Perhaps a Padfoot cloak of invisibility? Such garments, he knew, were sometimes very light, woven of stuff so fine that she might have carried the cloak in the very same jet-beaded purse he had obligingly handed her. If that was so, he would never find her now.
For all that, he spent the next four hours searching the surrounding streets, first in the gathering dusk, and then by lamplight. At midnight, he gave it up. Berating himself for botching the thing so badly, he headed back toward the river and the ferry.
The afternoon sun was beating down. Lili was tired, dirty, and hot, inside her heavy bombazine gown, under the black net veil of a widow’s bonnet. Lifting her hem in order to examine the scuffed toes of her black leather shoes, she shook her head in disgust. The soles were crusted with the curiously adhesive and corrosive mud that characterized Fermouline. People said it was made up in equal parts of dirt, Human waste, and metal particles struck from the wheels of the carts and carriages which made up the constant traffic. Whatever its origin, it stank to high heaven. To make matters worse, her shoes pinched. Though they had seemed to fit well enough back in Hawkesbridge, in Hawkesbridge she had never been obliged to spend so many long hours on her feet, to travel so many long miles of cobblestone and brick.
Lili looked around her for a shady spot to sit and rest. There was no place to sit—and perhaps, after all, it was time to move on to a new location. She had already been up and down this street twice, in and out of a score of shops, all without any success.
Rounding a corner, she found herself suddenly face-to-face with her cousin Nick. In her surprise, she almost spoke his name out loud. With a pounding heart she
waited for him to speak, but he merely nodded politely and stepped aside, allowing her to pass. Thank goodness she was wearing the veil! Were it not for that, he would have known her in an instant.
Lili leaned up against a dirty brick wall. What was Nick doing here anyway? Had he come with Wilrowan? Several times during the last two weeks, she had been forced to dodge around corners or to hide in doorways as Will walked past. She had been on the lookout for him from the very beginning, knowing he must soon arrive on the scene, congratulating herself that there she had the advantage at least. But with Nick in town, too, her chances of discovery were doubled.
But this is ridiculous! she thought. I should be concentrating on the Chaos Machine and the people who took it, not on hiding myself from my own husband and my favorite cousin.
Indeed, her entire visit to Fermouline was beginning to assume the appearance of one long farce: the intrigue, the disguises, the elaborate game of seek-and-find, played on so many different levels—and all for what? She was no closer now to finding the Mountfalcon Jewel than she had been a fortnight ago, when she first came into the town.
It was late afternoon when Lili finally turned her weary steps toward the neat stone house on the east side of town where she and Sir Bastian were staying. The people who lived there were Specularii—or at least they had been, many years before. Now they were well past eighty, a quiet old couple, not very interested in Lili or her quest, but kind and hospitable. Staying with them was far more convenient than staying at an inn, and more respectable, too.
Not, she told herself, that it would matter a jot to Wilrowan. If he had any idea she was here with another man, no matter how elderly, Will simply would not care how many decent old people there were in the house. He would make no end of a fuss.
The Queen's Necklace Page 40
