Hm. If she jimmied the largest conductive cable on the top of the power cell, it would build up a charge with no release into the rest of the mechanism. While the charge built to explosive proportions, it might give her just enough time to scramble down the stairs and get out the door before the glass globe went incandescent and blew up.
Excellent. But without help—Maggie, for instance—to work the pulleys, she was going to have to climb down onto that tangle of cabling like a monkey and do it in midair, as it were. There were plenty of ropes. It was possible—certainly no more difficult than all the climbing she and Maggie had done up and down the coaxial ladders on Athena and Lady Lucy.
She would just position herself there, near the top, where she could shin down that rope—
From directly above her came the click and whir of the trap door’s mechanism as the door slid back into its horizontal housing. A bar of red sunset light plunged down the stairs, illuminating her crouching there with cruel clarity.
“Why, Elizabeth,” her father said pleasantly, after a moment. “How very resourceful you are. Do come up.”
Fear froze her in place—fear and the frantic churning of her mind as she considered and discarded twenty different ways of escape. The ugly truth was that she had taken a risk coming up here—and had lost. If she had stayed down on the floor of the tower, she could have slipped out the door and been gone before his eyesight adjusted and he descended the stairs. Yes, he would have found Evan unconscious outside, which would have tipped him off that the jig was up, but at least she would not be trapped here like a mouse under the paw of a very dangerous cat.
“If you do not obey me,” he said, “I shall come down and kick you off that step.”
There was no help for it—and no hope but one. Maggie was still out there somewhere, and she would not let her down. If all had gone according to plan, by now the Lady would be on her way. All Lizzie had to do was play stupid and afraid—not much of a stretch, as it happened—and stall for time. Help would come.
She did not want to think about what would happen if one of the hundred things that could go wrong had gone wrong … and all had not gone according to plan.
She got to her feet, dusted off the back of her dress, and mounted the steps through the floor of the parapet. De Maupassant closed it behind her and leaned against an embrasure, the wind riffling his hair under his bowler hat.
“I am exceedingly curious to know how you come to be here and not there.” The bowler tilted in the direction of the Queen’s Tower.
She pressed herself against the stone out of arms’ reach. “I—we knotted the sheets together and I let myself down onto the roof.”
“You alone? How selfish of you.”
“S-someone had to pull the sheets back up, otherwise they would be seen from here.”
“So Margaret is still within?”
“Yes.”
“I am relieved to hear it. Though there is nothing to stop her from climbing down, since she can see that your game is up if she chooses to look outside. I hope she will not, however. I shall simply shoot her off the wall like a spider.” He pulled back the lapel of his tweed hunting jacket to reveal a pistol in a holster under his arm.
Lizzie’s blood seemed to congeal in her veins. “Sh-she will not. She will be afraid you will shoot me.”
“A wise young lady. Also most perspicacious. There is nothing to prevent my shooting you now, save for the subsequent inconvenience of disposing of your body.”
Lizzie briefly considered apologizing for that, then discarded the idea. She might not have much at this moment, but at least she still possessed her dignity.
The sky was still bright with the glow of sunset, and the wind had cooled to announce that rain was on its way. On the wind came the far-off sound of cheering, and a Catherine wheel blossomed in the darkening sky far to the south. A chrysanthemum of light cascaded around it.
“Ah,” de Maupassant said. “The Prince of Wales is come. They are giving him a fanfare in the villages as he passes.” He snorted in disgust. “Fools.”
“Will they do the same here?” she managed to ask.
“Oh, yes. Any excuse for a show. It keeps the serfs entertained and for a few moments, they forget their servitude to this bloated, greedy monarchy.”
“Why do you hate the Queen and her family so much?”
One eyebrow rose in condemnation of the violence of her language. “I do not hate them, my dear. They mean nothing at all to me. What I hate is their greed and their robbery of the coffers of this nation to finance their comfortable way of life while the poorest among the people starve.”
“The Queen has done much for the poor—she always has, since she took the throne.”
“I am surprised that, having lived on the streets and tasted poverty, you should defend her.”
“She is a very nice woman. I’ve met her.”
He regarded her without interest. “Bully for you. I am not interested in personal relationships. She represents a tradition that must end, and the sooner it does, the faster this country will embrace an elected head of government.”
He was deluded at best—and barking mad at worst. Did he not hear the cheering, see the fireworks? The people were embracing their future king, not her father’s misplaced patriotism.
“Come, Elizabeth. I have been considering all my options, and I believe I have hit on the perfect solution.”
She backed away, but the further she went, the faster the circular walls of the parapet would bring her back to him. “And what is that, sir?”
“I have decided that I will not fire the cannon and bring that ship down.”
She hardly dared believe her ears. “You will not?”
He smiled, and in the fading glow, she saw no kindness in it. “No, my dear. You will.”
*
In an agony of fear and impatience, Claire gripped Athena’s helm with both hands and peered out the viewing port. Twenty miles north of Oxford and an eternity yet to go. “Snouts, is there no way we can increase her speed?” She gave him no chance to reply before she raised her voice. “Nine, increase engine power at once.” The sound of Athena’s engines, already laboring at the top end of their ability, did not change. If dear Nine had been able to speak, he would likely have had some choice words for her.
As it was, Snouts appeared in the gangway from the engine room with a few words of his own. “I’m no Tigg, Lady. If you can’t get any more out of these automatons of yours, then it’s certain I cannot.”
“We must be in time. We simply must.” But if they were not, then perhaps a smaller, more agile device could help. “Snouts, we must send a pigeon to the Prince’s ship. We must tell them to divert their course at once and fly east until the danger is averted.”
“And His Highness will believe you, Lady? Does he trust your word?”
“He has never met me, unlike his father. Just do it, Snouts. It is a slim hope, but we cannot live with ourselves if we did not use any means at our disposal to avert this tragedy.”
He ran back down the gangway to the hold, and five minutes later, a pigeon shot away into the gathering dusk ahead of Athena’s bow.
“Come on …” she urged her ship, which had given her so much—a home, independence, inspiration. Her hands were damp on the helm, and she wiped them one at a time on her black skirt. “Just a little bit more, darling, for the sake of our girls …”
*
“I will not do it,” Lizzie said as soon as she could speak. “Just try and make me.”
She might be shaking with rage and incredulity, but he merely smiled with the utter confidence of the truly mad. Reaching under his jacket, he pulled out the pistol and waved it at her with casual negligence. “Really, Elizabeth? Is that a dare?”
“It is. I would rather die than have a hand in killing my future king.”
“It is easy enough to say so, I’m sure. But answer me this—are you willing for Maggie to die? Or your cousin Evan?”
&nbs
p; Maggie was safe, but Evan was not. De Maupassant had only to divest her of the key and there would be nothing to prevent him from walking outside, discovering poor Evan lying there unconscious, and shooting him right there in the grass. Worse, he would make her watch him do it.
“Where is Evan, by the way? He has strict instructions not to let anyone up here, but if the arming of my cannon is anything to go by, it seems he already has.”
“I expect he has gone to the house for tea. We were up here yesterday. I did it. I armed the cannon by accident. Which was how I came to discover it was not a telescope. Evan does not know.”
“If you armed it, then it is even more appropriate that you should fire it. Come along. We haven’t much time, if the fireworks are any indication.”
The first of the welcoming fireworks had already gone up in Colliford village, and in the distant sky, Lizzie could see a tiny set of horizontal lamps … the running lights of the Princess Alexandra. To the west, thunder grumbled and a fork of lightning flickered in the massed clouds, quick as the tongue of a snake.
De Maupassant grasped her upper arm with his free hand and frog-marched her across the parapet to the cannon. The brass dome had been tucked away into its housing, and the snout of the cannon pointed south. He shoved her toward the steps. “Get up there.”
“I will not! I—”
He backhanded her across the side of the head and fireworks burst behind her eyelids. “I said, get up there or I will beat you insensible.”
The illogic of this did not occur to him, but the threat of it was plain to her. She stumbled up the steps and collapsed into the seat of the cannon.
“Aim it. You will track the ship until it is within two degrees of the cross-hairs in the eyepiece, and fire when it crosses the center line. Is that clear?”
“I will n—”
He hit her again, and her head clunked against the arm of the assembly that loaded the barrel of the cannon. The pain made her fold in half, holding her head, and a howl of agony escaped her lips.
“Cry all you want, but if you do not take aim in the next five seconds, I will shoot you where you sit, and the devil take the consequences.”
Despite her brave defiance, Lizzie did not want to die. She wanted to live, and see Maggie and the Lady again, and begin the sixth form back in Munich in September. She wanted to make something of herself—something that would erase her father’s name from the face of the earth and vindicate her mother, whose very memory was being shamed in this house as they spoke.
The first thing she would do after that cup of tea was burn that portrait.
Her jaw rigid with fury, Lizzie straightened, and as she did, the corset bone tucked between her corselet and her blouse poked her in the ribs.
The repenthium corset bone.
Her gaze locked on the slot in the barrel where the missile rested, ready for her to fire. She straightened, her head ringing, the side of her face on fire where he had struck her. “All right, Father. Please do not hurt me any more.”
He let out a breath of satisfaction. “Of all the things I have noticed about you, Elizabeth, your good sense is uppermost.”
She took the guidance mechanism by its handles and pushed. The great gears and clockwork assemblies of the undercarriage began to rotate, and as she applied pressure, the barrel of the cannon swung slowly to the left and upward, tracking the course of the airship as it sailed closer.
The moment the barrel came between her and her father and blocked his view of her hands, Lizzie moved.
She pulled the rod of repenthium out of her corselet and yanked the lever that slid back the door in the barrel. There was the missile, ready to do its deadly work. She lifted it—ten pounds at least, it was—and hastily wrapped the corset bone around and around its tip, tying off the ends in a knot that she flattened out as best she could.
Then she slid the door shut, put both hands back on the guidance handles, and put her eye to the eyepiece.
Ten degrees.
Eight.
Five.
Two.
The Princess Alexandra’s golden bow passed between two marks in the eyepiece … centered …
“Now, Elizabeth, blast you!”
Fireworks exploded into the sky, the sound of cheering soaring into the air along with bright colors of red, gold, and green. Lizzie wrenched the firing lever back and her father’s cannon roared and spat out cold death into the festive night.
23
Ahead of Athena sailed the majestic bulk of the Princess Alexandra, passing over the village already welcoming its future ruler with fireworks and snatches of “God Save the Queen.” Her pigeon had clearly not been taken seriously. Now she must focus solely on Colliford Castle, isolated in its park and the next landmark over which the royal ship would sail.
Between the fireworks and the last of the sunset, Claire had just enough light to make out a tiny figure as it burst out of a door near the top of the telescope’s tower—a figure with hair the color of Brazil nuts and wearing a chestnut suit that had been made for her in Munich.
Maggie—alive!
“Snouts, bring her around over that long, flat roof,” she commanded, relinquishing the helm to him and freeing the lightning rifle from the holster on her back. “I am going to let down the basket.”
“Can you see Lizzie?”
“Not yet, but—great Caesar’s ghost!”
From the top of the tower, the telescope that was not a telescope spat fire, illuminating the slender figure in the white dress at the controls, and the darker, bulkier figure with one arm extended.
Claire’s blood stopped cold in its frantic course as she stared across space from Lizzie to the royal airship. The missile raced toward it, powered by a rocket that had been ignited in the bowels of the firing mechanism. Closer—closer—it would take the gilded gondola amidships—and then, at the last possible second, it veered aside. Once, twice, it bounced along the gondola’s keel—and then it found its direction. Its deadly speed had been halved, however, and it raced through the sky to plunge into the River Colley. It exploded with violent force, a plume of water cascading high into the air.
“Praise God and all the little angels!” Snouts shouted. Had Claire’s mind not been otherwise occupied, she might have marveled at this—she had never suspected Snouts of harboring any affection for the royal family at all.
But her mind was wholly occupied. They had only minutes to effect a rescue—if not seconds. “Snouts, Lewis—he has forced her to fire on the princes at gunpoint—and he will not like being foiled!” Claire pushed the power switch of the lightning rifle to the active position as she ran out of the gondola. “Four, open the lower hatch!”
She reached the hatch below in record time—three gasps of breath, in fact—to find that Four already had it open. She snatched up a safety line and clipped it to her leather corselet, then pulled her driving goggles down over her eyes to protect them from the wind. Snouts was bringing them around in a tight circle, but Athena could not adjust her course quickly enough. Lizzie was being marched over to a door let into the floor of the parapet, and before Claire could speak to countermand her own order, they disappeared from sight into the bowels of the tower. He would shoot her inside, and Claire could do nothing!
But outside, clinging to the ivy twining up the tower, her feet on the coping, Maggie wrenched open the door outside of which she was concealed, reached within, and dragged Lizzie outside onto the roof. Both of them leaped to the door to shut and lock it—oh, well done, Maggie!—but Seacombe was too quick—and physically, more than a match for the two of them. Inexorably, he pushed the door outward until the girls must yield or be unbalanced and pushed off the roof to their deaths.
“Snouts! Tighter!” Claire shrieked. They would not make the turn in time. The lightning rifle hummed, already at firing pitch.
Holding hands, both girls fled across the roof, legs pumping, skirts flying up before and behind as they fought the mismatched stone and slate. But
Seacombe did not follow. For he did not need to.
Claire’s worst fear came alive in front of her wide, horrified eyes as he raised his pistol, aimed it with the casual negligence of the superior marksman, and fired.
The gun spat a foot of flame, and Maggie fell forward, her own momentum and that of the bullet carrying her across the roof to land in an untidy heap against an embrasure, a host of dead leaves flying up around her.
Claire screamed in pain and rage, and time—her pulse—the very rotation of the earth—slowed to a crawl. Her mind calmed as it iced over with the sheer necessity of ridding the world of this menace. Her focus narrowed to a single target, and she brought the lightning rifle to her shoulder. Sighting through the lens, she observed the moment when Seacombe became aware that he and Lizzie were not alone on the castle rooftop—that an avenging angel sailed overhead with grief in her heart and cold accuracy in her eye.
Lizzie flung herself upon her cousin’s body, screaming, as Seacombe swung the pistol around and brought it to bear on the open hatch of Athena.
Claire pulled the trigger and a bolt of blue-white light sizzled across forty feet of empty space, catching him full in the chest. Tendrils of light splashed outward over his jacket, his trousers, his head, and his bowler hat fell off. Before it hit the rooftop on which he stood, his eyes bugged out and evaporated. All his clothes fused to his body as it slumped to the rooftop, fell, and slid down the long pitch. It caught briefly on a stone rain gutter, flipped over it, and plunged a hundred feet to the ground, where it rolled into the shadows that had already filled the moat.
Overhead, the black clouds that had sailed in to intercept the course of the two airships, broke with all the fury of a hot summer storm.
“Four, ready the ship for mooring!” she shouted. “Lewis, winch me down!”
Lewis, panting from running from one end of the ship to the other, leaped to the winch and Claire flung herself into the basket.
Maggie could not be dead. God would not have given her into her care and then torn her from her at the hands of a madman. And—and blast it all—she simply would not allow it!
Magnificent Devices [5] A Lady of Resources Page 20
