by Robin Jarvis
Suddenly the horse screamed worse than ever and, with a clash of gears and whining metal, it bolted forward. No power in this uplifted world could stop it. Like the devil’s own infernal steed the mechanical came thundering, smoke steaming from its nostrils.
Blundering back, Master Dritchly cried out, but the nightmare raged straight for him. High it reared – up into the dark, smashing its steel head into the lintel of the door. The oak beam splintered and Belladonna brought her bronze hooves plunging down.
“No!” Adam yelled.
A rioting blur of destruction filled the boy’s cringing eyes as those massive legs stamped and kicked, and Master Dritchly was caught beneath them. Battered to the floor, the man crumpled like a bundle of linen. Belladonna trounced and pounded, tossing her buckled head and flicking her tail in a frenzied, murderous dance.
Across the length of Malmes-Wutton the grisly tattoo went drumming. The demented horse’s shrill, insane whinnies echoed beneath the vaulted firmament, penetrating the outlying woods where even Old Scratch, the wild boar, withdrew into the deepest shadows.
Jenks was hurled across the yard and the horrific crunching slaughter continued. Each of the apprentices turned away in revulsion. The entire household was roused now and everyone came streaming towards the barn bearing candles and lanterns.
Rivers of deep blue vapour were flooding from the horse’s mouth, and within its mad, prancing frame, bright flashes of fire crackled as brilliant sparks spat from its joints. Abruptly, the wild capering halted. With its steel legs splashed scarlet, the bronze hooves steeped in Master Dritchly’s blood, the horse reeled away from the man’s crushed and broken body, then keeled over and fell to the ground with a tremendous crash.
CHAPTER 3
Lantern Illuminates
The interior of the barn bounced with light as sharp tongues of flame lapped around the fallen beast. Still quaking and trembling, the mechanical lay upon the floor, plumes of blue smoke rising from every warped and gaping crevice.
At the threshold, all eyes gazed on Master Edwin’s stricken corpse but not many could bear to look at him for long. The most learned master of motive science in Suffolk was dead, and for several moments the only sound was the harsh clicking and grinding of his mechanical destroyer. The people gathered around were too distressed and aghast to utter a word.
Sir Francis Walsingham’s calm, cold features betrayed nothing but, beside him, his secretary was almost wilting, covering his face with jittery hands. Sorrow and compassion were graven in Doctor Dee’s solemn, white-bearded countenance, yet when he shifted his glance to the collapsed horse, fierce curiosity assumed their place.
Met with the sobering sight of his dead servant, Lord Richard Wutton searched for Mistress Dritchly in the crowd.
Master Edwin’s widow was not among the assembled faces and, looking back at the house, he saw the plump, prim-looking woman, with her greying hair tied up in curling papers, come bustling towards them.
“Jack,” Lord Richard said hastily. “Go to her – she must not see her husband thus. Take her back indoors.”
Dragging himself away from the stunned group, the apprentice nodded and hurried to obey.
Henry Wattle’s eyes were bulging from his head. “Squashed and stamped on!” he breathed. “You could slide the bits under a door.”
“Don’t,” Adam balked.
“Fetch a cloak to cover him,” Lord Richard commanded, and Henry scampered away. Then, with a face as grim as the appalling scene before him, the master of Malmes-Wutton glared at his distinguished guests and strode to confront them.
Sir Francis Walsingham and Doctor Dee had already stepped over the dead man’s crushed body. Remaining at a safe distance, their black and red figures peered at the quivering mechanical horse through the billowing blue reek which bled from every opening.
Into this fog Lord Richard went wading. “A man is dead!” he roared. “Yet all you care about is your vile charger! What manner of ice-blooded creature are you?”
Walsingham waved a silencing hand which only served to enrage his host all the more. “This tragedy would never have happened if it were not for you,” he cried.
Sir Francis ignored him and gave a signal to his secretary. With a handkerchief of Holland cloth clamped over his mouth and averting his eyes from the gruesome spectacle, Master Tewkes tiptoed into the barn.
“Lord Richard,” he began, spluttering in the smoke and the sharp stench of scorched metal. “Do you not see? Yet another skilled craftsman has met with an unlikely accident. This is not the work of unhappy chance – it was purpose meant and blackly done. Your man has been murdered.”
For an instant Richard Wutton’s anger was quelled as he struggled with this awful revelation. The secretary seized this opportunity to expound.
“Verily!” he declared. “Here again do we see the malevolent ministries of the hated Catholic powers. This is assassin’s work! May the Lord visit his vengeance upon their evil heads!”
“Tewkes!” Walsingham scolded. “If you can curb the damning of our enemies for a moment, make yourself of use and send that melancholy audience away.”
Tucking the handkerchief into his sleeve, the secretary turned to face the gathered members of Lord Richard’s household. “Be off with your morbid goggling,” he told them. “There is naught you can do for Master Dritchly now. We shall attend to what must be done.”
The servants shifted uncomfortably but made no move until Lord Richard added, “Go – pray for Edwin’s soul, my friends.”
Slowly the group drifted back to the manor, but Adam o’the Cogs was reluctant to leave and lingered at the threshold.
Nursing a badly grazed arm and hobbling upon an injured foot, the groom returned to the barn and Master Tewkes eyed him with undisguised hostility.
By now the choking vapour had thinned to a haze and Doctor Dee edged closer to the fallen horse. Faint tremors still shivered across Belladonna’s battered form, but the flames were dying and the astrologer stooped over her to prise one of the contorted sections free. A fresh cloud of smoke rose from inside and he held his whiskery face clear until it dispersed.
“Now,” he said, bending over the hole he had made, “let us see how this wickedness was achieved.”
“Permit me, My Lord,” Jenks said, limping towards him. “I know the workings better than any.”
Master Tewkes thrust out his hand to prevent the man from going any further. “You remain where you are!” he objected, his voice loaded with reproach and accusation. “You have engineered enough this night.”
Startled by the charge, Jenks backed away in fright. “You cannot think I was responsible for this,” he gasped. “My hands are clean of any blame.”
“Was it Spanish gold or French which bought your base treason?” Tewkes persisted. “A quartering is too merciful a punishment for you!”
The groom turned pale and he stared imploringly at Sir Francis. “It is not true!” he denied. “On my life it is not!”
Peering over Doctor Dee’s shoulder, Walsingham did not even look up at him. “I will listen to neither plea nor indictment till we have determined what truly happened here this night,” he said. “What have you learned from this wreckage, Doctor?”
The astrologer raised his head and drummed his slender fingers irritably upon one of the steel flanks.
“Alas!” he confessed. “My limited knowledge of the new stars is greater than my understanding of this once noble charger’s internals. ’Tis a grievous pity that the one man who could aid us was the beast’s victim.”
Covering Master Dritchly’s body with the cloak that Henry had just brought, Lord Richard snorted with contempt at the scholar’s apparent lack of concern. “Grievous indeed!” he said.
Hearing the talk, Adam plucked up his nerve and stepped into the barn. “Beg pardon, My Lords,” he began, “but I may be able to assist.”
Everyone stared at him and in the accompanying silence the boy wished he had not volunteered bu
t had waited instead for the return of Jack. Lingering by the door, Henry watched in admiring fascination. He would never have dared approach those nobles and he suspected that his friend had just earned himself a whipping.
“You?” the secretary snapped in amused disbelief. “What can a cog urchin possibly …?”
“I know how to put a cow together, make it walk and eat so its bags fill with milk,” Adam retorted impulsively. “Which is more than you do.”
Master Tewkes gave a shout of indignation and raised his hand to strike the insolent boy.
“Wait!” Lord Richard intervened. “The lad’s mine to deal with – not thine, Master Secretary. If any discipline is needed, it’ll not be measured by your hand.”
Tewkes’ nostrils flared in outrage and his bird-like head darted aside, looking to Sir Francis for support. “Let the boy approach,” came Walsingham’s astonishing response.
Leaving the secretary fuming behind him, Adam crossed to where the great mechanical lay upon the ground and knelt before it. The metal was still hot. His face tingled in the baking airs and his fair hair rippled as he leaned over the opening that the astrologer had made.
“Bum boils,” he murmured, unconsciously using a favourite phrase of Henry’s. Never in his life had he seen such a mangled confusion of workings. Within the stricken creature all was twisted and blackened. Strands of stinking smoke curled up from the inaccessible recesses where occasional sparks still spat and sizzled, but there was no more danger and Adam lowered his head inside for a more thorough inspection.
Along the horse’s length, a few brass wheels were still spinning, but others were fused and welded to their spindles. Springs were stretched and distorted, the teeth of every cog had been worn smooth, levers were bent and broken, and the four pendulums which Belladonna boasted had actually been melted out of shape.
“This was no shaking sickness,” he declared. “Master Dritchly never told of this happening.”
An indulgent smile lifted the corners of Doctor Dee’s white beard. “What then?” he asked. “Enlighten us.”
Gingerly reaching his hand up inside the neck, the apprentice felt along the bellows pipe and winced when his fingers burned on a fragment of smouldering metal. Cursing under his breath, he proceeded until his stinging fingertips found what he was seeking.
“The ichors are there,” he said, “but the vessels are all cracked and broken. The cordials have leaked out and boiled away.”
A puzzled frown scrunched the boy’s brow.
“What is it?” the astrologer asked.
“Not sure. There seems to be something else here … if I can only …”
Master Tewkes folded his arms and tutted peevishly. “What use is this?” he complained. “The young idiot is making geese of us all.”
“Here!” the boy exclaimed, extracting a small glass phial from the horse’s insides. “It was attached to one of the ichor pipes – definitely doesn’t belong there.”
Taking it from him, Doctor Dee walked over to where a lantern hung on the wall and examined the vessel in detail. The bottle was spherical in shape, with a tapering neck tipped with a barbed, silver needle which appeared capable of piercing the toughest leather. Inside the phial were the dregs of a dark, indigo-coloured liquid and the old man sniffed them tentatively.
Thoughtful and silent, he passed it to Walsingham and the Queen’s spymaster received the object with great solemnity.
“Is it as we feared?” he asked.
Doctor Dee inclined his head. “It is,” he answered. “The enemies of Englandia have contrived a way of distilling a new and deadly ichor.”
“Then the intelligence furnished by my agents in Europe was correct,” Walsingham reflected. “With this mordant liquid those hostile powers can transform any mechanical into a killing engine.”
The old astrologer looked questioningly at Adam. “In your opinion,” he began, “how long would the effects of this loathsome venom take to work its evil within such a creation as that horse?”
“Can’t tell you that, Sir,” the boy replied, taken aback to be treated with such respect from so important a figure. “I never seen nothing like it before.”
“Your finest guess then?”
Adam looked in at the extreme damage once more and shrugged. “Not long I don’t reckon,” he said finally. “To pump round all the feeder veins wouldn’t take no more than a quarter hour.”
“Remarkable boy,” the Doctor observed.
Weighing the glass vessel in his palm, Sir Francis brought his piercing glance to bear upon the groom and the man struggled to proclaim his innocence.
“No other has been near the horses this night!” Walsingham said, his assured, level voice more daunting than any shouted threat. “Who else could have done this?”
“As God is m–my witness …” Jenks stammered.
“Search him and his belongings,” Walsingham commanded.
Eager to obey, Master Tewkes snatched a leather purse from where it hung at the groom’s waist and emptied the contents into his eager hand. “Ha!” he proclaimed, casting groats and pennies to the ground but brandishing a small object with a jubilant flourish. “Behold – the knave’s guilt is proved beyond further doubt.”
Held between the secretary’s fingers was a second phial of glass, identical to the one Adam had discovered – yet this one was full.
“Who can say for whom this was meant!” Master Tewkes cried, shaking the blue fluid within. “One of Her Majesty’s own steeds perhaps?”
Jenks stared at the bottle with a look of horror etched into his face. But, before he could voice any protestation, Doctor Dee prowled forward, his keen eyes sparkling.
“Your next words may condemn you,” he warned. “So choose them with wisdom. Tell me truthfully, what happened here this night?”
Jenks blinked and nodded at the other mechanical horses which were still standing at the darkened end of the barn.
“I saw to the beasts,” he said. “Unloaded them, polished the dust away, brushed the manes and tails then sat and ate the bit of supper the kitchen girl brought out to me.”
“Is that all?”
The groom nodded. “It was then that Belladonna started. A frightful noise she made.”
“No, no, no,” the astrologer remarked with a disappointed air. “That will never do. Like many puzzles this is merely a question of mathematics. You have left out the most significant factor in your account.”
Jenks shrank against the wall, looking like a cornered animal of the old world about to be delivered to the wolves. “It’s true I tell you!” he cried wretchedly. “Every word.”
Master Tewkes spat at him. “The rack will teach you the meaning of truth,” he promised.
“Hold!” Doctor Dee’s voice rang sharply. “I had not finished, hear me out.” He waited until he had their complete attention, then continued. “Observe the groom’s appearance,” he said. “Does it not speak of more than he has related?”
“I always thought he looked like a surly gypsy!” the secretary put in, unable to stop himself.
A warning glance from Walsingham caused Master Tewkes to bite his own tongue and say no more.
“Note the particles of straw in this man’s hair,” Doctor Dee resumed. “There is also a quantity upon his back; is that not suggestive? Look also to the great heaps piled yonder – mark you that singular depression?”
He indicated the hills of straw kept at the back of the barn. Upon the lower slopes there was a curiously deep hollow.
“The fact you omitted to tell us,” he said, returning his attention to the groom, “is that you fell asleep. Replete with Mistress Dritchly’s victuals, you sat at your ease and were awakened only when Belladonna began making those horrible sounds. No doubt there were preliminary whirrs and other signs of distress, but you missed them entirely until they were loud enough to rouse you from slumber. Perhaps in all the confusion you did not realise you had even closed your eyes, but it is the only hope of sa
lvation you have for the moment.”
Walsingham pursed his lips and considered what the astrologer had said. “Then some other party may have stolen into this place and tampered with the horse,” he said. “It is possible.”
“Fanciful nonsense!” Master Tewkes blurted. “The groom had the other phial in his keeping. Of course he is the one! He was the only person here this night and he is responsible!”
To everyone’s surprise, the Doctor gave a slight chuckle. “Oh no,” he corrected. “There you are mistaken. As I have said, the solution to this enigma is mathematical in nature. I shall demonstrate how, in this instance, one plus one can equal three. Jenks was not alone in the barn – there was another.”
Stepping aside he lifted his lined face and called out, “Lantern!”
Still kneeling by the ruined wreck of Belladonna, Adam picked up the light that was nearby and offered it to him. Doctor Dee declined with an amused smile and pointed to the shadow-filled corner of the barn, beyond the remaining horses.
“The illumination I seek,” he said, “is of another sort.”
Everyone stared. Standing by the entrance, Henry peered around the door and held his breath.
From the gloom he heard a rustling. There, in the dun murk, one of the straw mounds was moving. It shook and wobbled for a moment, then a dark shape clambered free and Jenks choked in fright.
“The imp from Hell!” he breathed.
Both Henry and Adam recalled what the groom had told them about Doctor Dee. Over there in the unlit corner, a small, dwarf-like figure was brushing the dust and hay from its shoulders, then through the shadows it came.
“Gentlemen,” the old astrologer announced, “permit me to introduce my own personal secretary – Lantern.”
The squat shape ambled towards them, the discs of its eyes glowing with a pale green radiance. Adam gazed at the stranger in wonder. It was a mechanical, but the most peculiar one that he had ever seen.
Fashioned in the shape of a short, round man, Doctor Dee’s secretary was wrought almost entirely from copper. The head was a gleaming globe and, apart from the large circular eyes, the only other feature was a hinged hatch in place of the nose.
