by Robin Jarvis
“Is She really as beautiful as talk would have Her?”
Doctor Dee’s features took on a solemn aspect and in a low, almost reverent voice said, “She is Gloriana. In the old world that is gone, She ruled us with honeyed words and a lion’s heart. Flattery deified Her then, but now She is indeed a Goddess. Though we ordinary folk endure our extended years more ably than before, hardly a mark of age blemishes Her countenance. Where we weather one year, a single day passes for Her. Yes, She is beautiful, but then what is beauty? The sea may be deemed a ravishing sight, and yet ships are lost and men drowned.”
At that moment, a stern voice called from the yard. Walsingham would wait no longer.
“I think that’s as much as can be done anyway,” Adam said. “I’ve strengthened the joint and fixed a few bits that Jack overlooked.” Covering the mechanisms, he helped Lantern from the bench and the copper secretary took a couple of hesitant steps.
Adam had proven better than his word for the leg was stronger than ever. The limp was gone completely and, as his confidence returned, Lantern gave a dance for joy and bowed repeatedly to the apprentice.
“We are grateful,” Doctor Dee announced. Then, giving the scrawny boy a long, appraising look, said, “This is not the end of our acquaintance, young Adam o’the Cogs. We are destined to encounter one another again. Perhaps you will even inspect my library at Mortlake; it is considered to be the greatest in all Englandia. I look forward to that day.”
Wrapping his dark red robe about him, he left the stables and Lantern went skipping after.
At the entrance, however, the mechanical paused. His round head swivelled about and the green eyes shone back at Adam, the gentle light flickering uncertainly. Retracing his steps he stood before him once more and opened a small door set into his side.
“What are you doing?” the boy asked, puzzled. “They’re waiting for you.”
Taking an empty bottle from the workbench, Lantern proceeded to syphon a small quantity of black ichor from his own internals and handed it to Adam with yet another low bow. It was the most precious thing he had to give and the only way of expressing his gratitude.
Deeply touched by the startling, unexpected gift, Adam was not sure what to say, but Lantern was already bustling from the barn.
In the yard, Walsingham, Doctor Dee and the groom were seated upon their horses when the secretary came pattering out. The astrologer hoisted the mechanical up behind him and they were ready.
Surveying the darkened manor of Wutton Old Place, Sir Francis commended himself upon the highly favourable outcome of his plan. The traitor had been dealt with, and in such an unimportant, benighted place that only minor ripples would ever reach the court. Confident that he had served his sovereign well that evening, and regretting only the loss of a most valuable steed, he spurred his inferior horse into action.
Emerging from the stables, Adam watched them depart. Along the road which led through the village, the four horses went galloping, merging with the black shapes of the night. Only the candle which still burned within Lantern’s hat disclosed their progress, but more than once the boy imagined he saw two circles of green light glow beneath it.
When even that receded into the distance and passed out of sight, and the only sounds to be heard were remote mechanical hoof falls, Adam wandered across to the piggery and sat upon the fence.
In the manor house a solitary light bobbed behind the windows as Lord Richard ascended to his bedchamber. He had observed the nobles’ departure and earnestly prayed to God Almighty that he might never have to deal with any from court again. A grim silence settled over the estate, broken only by a faint bellowing which echoed from the outlying woods.
“Even Old Scratch has been disturbed and upset,” he muttered dismally. “None of us can get any rest this evil night.” And he tramped to his room, a candle in one hand, a jug of ale in the other.
With his back against the pigsty, Adam listened to the distant trumpeting of the wild boar which terrorised the woodland. His mind was churning over everything that had happened. The horrendous events of the night were only just beginning to sink in. He had never encountered death before and it frightened him. In this uplifted world people aged much more slowly and only lost their lives through sickness or misadventure. This loathsome murder was the first death to have blighted Malmes-Wutton since before he was born.
Edwin Dritchly would never praise nor criticise his work any more and tears streaked down Adam’s face when he realised he would not hear that familiar “Hum hum” again. Bowing his fair head, the boy wept quietly.
Presently he became aware of a soft snuffling noise at his feet and, swivelling around on the railing, he saw that Suet had come toddling from the sty and was gazing up at him.
“Hello,” Adam said, wiping his eyes. “Is Old Scratch’s booming bothering you too?”
The piglet’s nose puffed in and out, and O Mistress Mine rose up composed of grunts and snorts.
A sad smile spread across Adam’s face at the sound of Master Dritchly’s favourite tune. Then, on impulse, he took from his pocket the phial of black ichor which Lantern had given to him and eyed Suet critically.
Next moment he was running back to the workshop with the little wooden piglet wriggling in his arms.
CHAPTER 4
The Scorched and Drunken Bee
Edwin Dritchly was buried two days later in the neglected churchyard of Malmes-Wutton. In the one hundred and seventy-five years since the Beatification only four people had been interred in the overgrown cemetery and Master Blackwill, the parson, had been forced to refresh his memory of the order of service.
It was a warm June morning. The twenty-three inhabitants of the estate gathered to pay their respects to a man they had all liked, and Mistress Dritchly murmured gentle words of thanks to each. Watching the coffin being lowered down into the grave, Adam thought that it was really too beautiful a day for anything so sad as a funeral to take place. It seemed so unreal.
Henry thought so too, and that, coupled with a peculiar, giddy nervousness, compelled Master Wattle to hang his head lower than anyone else in an effort to hide the silly grins which flashed without warning across his face. Mistress Dritchly was not so consumed with mourning that she was incapable of administering a sharp smack.
The man’s death had cast a dismal pall over Malmes-Wutton and a dejected languor crept into everyone. In the workshop, Jack Flye was finding it difficult to concentrate on repairing the animals and was daunted by the extra responsibility of Master Dritchly’s duties. Henry and Adam did their best to help, but as the only work they had was reassembling all those sheep, cows and poultry, their minds wandered and the dreary task took three days longer than it ought to have done.
Finally, when all the mechanicals were back out in the fields, swimming on the village pond or scratching around the yard, Jack was at a loss what to do next. No fresh consignment of faulties was due to arrive until the thirteenth of the month and so, as was the custom in the stables of Wutton Old Place, the apprentices were free to do as they pleased.
During these infrequent intervals, it was usual for them to work on their own pet projects, which they constructed from whatever scraps they could scavenge. Jack Flye had spent every spare moment of the past fifteen months building a bear from large wooden barrels. In the bear pits of nearby islands such beasts were much in demand, for the mechanicals baited there were always of a very poor quality. Jack was determined to make the finest that the gamblers of Suffolk had ever wagered upon. Originally it had begun as a way of earning enough money to set himself up in business elsewhere, but now he had succeeded Master Dritchly, his heart was no longer in that dream and he decided to let the others complete what he had started.
Adam and Henry were delighted. At that moment, however, they were both too busy with their own little schemes to take on Jack’s unfinished bear. They were adding the last touches to a pair of tin hawks which they believed were finally ready for a first trial fl
ight. Standing at the edge of the manor’s wide lawn, they made last-minute adjustments and cast professional glances over each other’s creations.
Adam’s was a faithful representation of a goshawk, with neat talons forged from steel and a deadly-looking hooked bill. The tin feathers had been painstakingly coloured in grey and black, according to the drawings in Master Dritchly’s bestiary. But Henry’s was hopeless. He had painted it a garish blue on the top, while underneath it was a striking red with yellow stripes.
“I’m calling her Quicksilver,” Henry announced.
Adam resisted the temptation to point out that in all of the ludicrous colouring, there wasn’t a patch of silver anywhere. Instead he said, “The wings are too large – she’ll be too strong. If she were any bigger she’d be an eagle. You didn’t follow the plans properly, did you?”
Sporting a shapeless straw hat to shield his eyes from the sunlight which blazed through the painted panes of the firmament, Henry lifted the brim so that his friend could observe the rude face he was making. “Privy slop!” he scoffed. “You’re starting to sound like Hummy Hum hisself.”
“The diagrams are there to keep animals in proportion,” Adam insisted.
“Who cares any more? I don’t see why the birds or beasts I make can’t be stronger and brighter than the real things were. Neither you nor me ever saw the genuine articles so I don’t see why you get so priggy about it.”
“You might as well make giant mice then,” Adam retorted.
Henry hastily pulled the hat back down over his face and hid the knowing smirk which had suddenly appeared. “Least I got the eyes right this time,” was all he said.
Sitting at Adam’s feet, Suet the piglet looked up at him. Since that night when the boy had added Lantern’s gift of black ichor to its internals, the little creature had idolised him and, whenever possible, followed him about like an adoring puppy. Every time Adam went for a walk, Suet squealed in the piggery to be let out, then trotted happily at his heels.
Donning thick leather gauntlets, the boys laid the inert hawks on the backs of their hands and carefully pressed the small Wutton crests they had set on top of the birds’ heads. There was a rattle of tin feathers as the creatures clicked into life, the tiny ichor vessels bubbling inside each one. Strong claws gripped the leather-clad wrists as they scrabbled upright, spread their metal wings for balance and jerked their heads about.
Seeing the hawks shake into being, Suet sprang up and started running in circles about Adam, snorting with excitement. The boy raised his hand, then flung the hawk high into the air.
Furiously, the mechanical wings flapped and up the goshawk flew, soaring over the lawn. The piglet bolted along beneath until Adam called him back.
“Look at that!” the boy breathed, greatly pleased with himself. “She flies perfectly. The best set of wings I ever made.”
Screwing up his face to watch the bird’s progress against the scant-rendered clouds, Henry gave an impish snigger and let his own creation loose.
The garish Quicksilver shot away, flying swifter than even Henry had anticipated or hoped for, and he went rolling back in the grass, hooting with pleasure.
“How’s that, Coggy?” he crowed. “She’ll outstrip yours in no time.”
Up and up the gaudy bird ascended, cutting through the air like an arrow. Within moments it reached Adam’s goshawk and the boys heard a chime of metal as the tips of their wings brushed together. Briefly, the two mechanicals flew side by side, heading out over the woodland, skimming the tops of the trees. Then Quicksilver sped onwards, dashing faster and higher, rising in an arching curve to match the underside of the buttressed firmament above.
“If she’d a fork of lightning up her tail she couldn’t go better,” Henry called, clapping his hat over his heart. “Oh, Coggy, don’t it make you green? Yours flaps like a roast goose next to mine.”
Adam had to confess that he was impressed. Quicksilver’s speed and agility were incredible. Viewing his own goshawk wheel almost lazily above the trees, he wondered if adhering to the principles laid down in the diagrams was such a good idea after all. Henry’s brilliantly coloured bird was exhilarating to watch. It catapulted itself from one side of the estate to the other, then suddenly down it swooped – plunging with frightening velocity.
“Henry!” Adam shouted. “She’s falling like a stone.”
Ramming the hat back on his head, the other boy stared at the blur that was Quicksilver, rushing unerringly towards the outlying woods. “What’s the matter with her?” he groaned. “She’ll dash herself to bits.”
Through the tin feathers of his hawk’s wings the wind went rattling as down she plummeted. Then at the last instant, just before she disappeared below the topmost branches, Quicksilver gave a piercing cry and rocketed over the trees, straight and level – the momentum propelling her faster than ever.
“She’s headed right for my goshawk!” Adam murmured. “She’s going to attack!”
Her talons outstretched, ripping up the tips of leaves in her bolting progress, Quicksilver went racing after her chosen prey. She would share the confined space beneath the firmament with no other and for Adam’s bird there was no escape. There was a crunch of colliding metal as Quicksilver cannoned into her target, knocking it from the sky.
The goshawk spiralled down, but Henry’s aggressor snatched it up, and even as she flew over the wood her savage bill went rending and ripping. The cruel talons slashed at those wings which were so much smaller than her own, shredding the delicate creation into ragged strips.
Adam could not believe what was happening, but Henry was jubilant and jumped up and down, punching the air.
“Good girl!” he cheered. “Go on – slice that skinny sparrow to ribbons. Oh yes, Coggy, that is what I call a hawk. Snot and glory – I’m a genius!”
Torn tin scraps rained down upon the trees, the bright splinters glittering in the sunlight and Quicksilver shrieked her victory as vainly as her creator as she circled above the woodland.
Furious, Adam turned on the other boy and thumped him in the chest. Henry stumbled and Adam hit him again until he fell over.
“You did all that on purpose!” Adam yelled. “You put too much red ichor in that monster of a bird, didn’t you? Just so it would attack mine.”
Henry could not help giggling. It had been a marvellous stunt. “Toe cheese!” he snickered. “She’s a beauty and your piddly squawker wasn’t worth keeping.”
“My hawk was accurate – yours is a flying devil. We’ve already got one horror skulking in Malmes-Wutton – now you go make another.” Adam was so annoyed that Suet brushed up against him, then toddled forward and grunted threateningly at the other boy.
Henry laughed all the more.
“It’s not funny,” Adam told him. “You go too far – I can’t even go retrieve all the pieces because Old Scratch is in that wood.”
Propping himself up on one elbow, Henry threw his hat at Adam. “Cease your puling!” he said.
That was too much for Suet. Thinking that his master was being assailed, the piglet lunged at the boy and gave his arm a sharp nip. Henry howled and sprang to his feet, while Suet leaped up at him. The small mechanical clacked his lower jaw against his snout, trying to pinch the apprentice again.
“Call this deranged swine off me!” Henry demanded, hopping across the lawn with the piglet in pursuit. “If you don’t, I’ll whistle Quicksilver over and get her to carry it off.”
Enjoying the spectacle for a little while longer, Adam hesitated before clapping his hands. Obediently, Suet forsook his victim and came trundling to heel.
Henry kicked at the lawn and glared at the pair of them. Then he craned his head back to see where his hawk had got to.
After destroying Adam’s bird, Quicksilver had flown steadily higher, surging upwards until at last she could go no further. At the absolute apex of the protective firmament, Henry’s creature was angrily battering her metal wings against the leaded panes.
Far below the boys could hear the insistent clattering, but however loudly Henry called, Quicksilver took no notice and remained up there, floundering hopelessly beneath the glass.
“She’ll never come down now,” Adam said. “I told you she was too strong. A bird like that needs a bigger isle than this to fly in. All that temper you put in didn’t help either.”
“But she’s so high,” Henry declared. “You’re only jealous, you with your pet pig.”
Adam shook his head and threw a stick for Suet to fetch. “That hawk of yours will be stuck up there until the tin rusts or she bumps her crest on the glass and stills herself. I’ll warrant that before either of those happen, we’re all going to be heartily sick of her incessant, clacking din.”
This had not occurred to Henry and he gave a gloomy sigh. He was a dreadfully light sleeper and detested any form of noise at night. Lord Richard would not like it, and nor would anyone else on the estate.
“Fish wigs!” he droned.
For the rest of that day the inhabitants of Malmes-Wutton tried to grow accustomed to the annoying clatter with little success. Everyone was angry with Henry. Lord Richard reprimanded him, Mistress Dritchly scolded and threatened him with mouldy bread and maggot soup for a month. Folk in the fields grumbled and shook their fists at the nuisance bird, and when the boy’s father heard who was responsible, he came marching from the village to administer a belated beating.
When evening came and the hawk still tapped and rattled against the glass, Henry climbed into the darkened loft and eased himself on to his bed, grimacing from the bequeathed bruises. “What with them and that row,” he griped miserably, “I won’t get no sleep at all. No one wants me round here. Don’t know why I stay.”
Lying close by, Jack heard Henry’s grumbles and tried to console him. Thus far he was the only person in all of the estate not to have made any complaint. “Don’t get maudlin,” the older boy said. “We’ve all made mistakes in our time. Look what I did when I was your age – the first job Dritchly entrusted me with and I went and put too much temper into Old Scratch. Terrible devil that thing is and it’s all my fault. Learned from it, though; always measured the cordials exactly ever since.”
