Pauline wheeled to stare at him, and read her fears on his face.
“Crikey, Da’!” exclaimed Bertie. But it was too late. Big Bert and Lakshmi did well to cushion Pauline’s fall as she slumped onto Bertie’s deck.
~*~*~*~*~
“This should do just fine,” Winston decided. Flute had spotted a door standing slightly ajar at the street entrance of a large Thames-side dockyard shop and warehouse bearing a Royal Navy insignia. The shipwrights, stevedores, and warehousemen had been in such a hurry to finish work and start their Jubilee celebrations that someone had neglected to push the door all the way closed.
“Lucky break. Perfect cover. Snug, rig the street door so it looks closed and locked, but make sure we’re not locked in. Then work on getting all the doors open, including the doors onto the dock on the river.”
Snug moved quickly away, clicking through various tool attachments. Cobweb danced along above him.
Starveling, Quince, Bottom, and Snout arrived a few minutes later, led by Mustardseed, who danced for a few moments with Cobweb, then quickly sped away on another errand.
The day’s exertions were taking their toll. The Musketeers collapsed to whatever resting postures suited them best. Some began oiling and winding. Snout pawed through a stack of scrap lumber, looking for timbers stout enough to make good balls for Bottom’s blowgun.
Churchill walked the perimeter of the shop and warehouse, taking stock of the position. When he returned to where the Musketeers rested, he had covered his conspicuous cavalry officer’s uniform with a shipwright’s long duster, and traded his plumed hat for a bowler and welder’s goggles.
“I found firearms,” he noted, “and old-fashioned cutlasses, and lots of things we can use to improvise our defense. We can be sure the Enforcers will eventually find us if we stay in one place too long. So let’s use this time to prepare to fight back. Here’s what I want you to do . . .” For several minutes, he outlined preparations for each man, including one item for them all to work on together.
“You’re good lads all,” Winston told them. “We’ve been through a lot today, and more is coming—more than anything any of us could have imagined when the day began. But we must all be strong. When you’re going through hell, best just keep going,” he said, smiling grimly.
“Miss Cobweb, the Friends are tracking Miss Spiegel, Mr. MacIntyre, and Miss Hozier? Yes? Please lead me to them. We must let them know where we are and get them back to our protection.” He pulled the bowler low and stepped out into the street, followed by Cobweb and Snug.
~*~*~*~*~
In Captain Mecham’s sparse living quarters, Pauline swam up toward consciousness. She opened her eyes and found herself looking into Lakshmi’s sorrowful face. “So it’s true. I didn’t dream it.” She closed her eyes again and rolled onto her face, burying her head in her arms.
“I’m so very sorry,” Lakshmi answered. “Enforcers went to the Golden Gear—”
“Just as he predicted they would,” Pauline said into the pillow.
“—and in trying to extract information from him about Jubal, one of them struck him. He was killed instantly.”
Pauline felt tears overwhelm her. “He died protecting me,” she sobbed. “He knew they would be after us, and wanted to bait as many of them as he could and keep them concentrated on himself.”
“And he did exactly that,” Lakshmi assured her. “If more Enforcers had been left behind to watch the train station, you would certainly have been caught. You would be beyond our help.”
Lakshmi cleared her throat delicately. “My dear, your father died nobly, in the way he would have chosen, on his own terms: protecting the daughter who meant all the world to him.
“Now, much as I hate to leave you at this terrible time, there is much to be done. The timing is sensitive and the outcome precarious. Bertie will take you to the hospital dock, where you must hurry and warn Alex and Clemmie that the exits are watched. They must leave the hospital as soon as possible. Believe me—there is nothing the doctors there can do for Alex.
“I, too, must hurry away. My dirigible will be arriving at Berth 32 in moments, and I have urgent, vital business to attend to onboard.” She embraced Pauline one last time, climbed the ladder to the deck, and was gone.
~*~*~*~*~
“Everyone done with the tasks the lieutenant left for you?” Quince asked. One by one, each of the Musketeers reported his preparations for an Enforcer onslaught. Each face was grim and determined. Everyone knew the odds: seven soldiers against dozens, maybe more. But they had each other. Plus, they had Lieutenant Churchill. And his bright idea.
“The lieutenant is a genius,” Quince stated emphatically. “We’re lucky to have met him.”
~*~*~*~*~
The ground crew at Victoria Station finished the arrival procedures for the last dirigible of the night, and hurried back to their whist game. With all the berths now occupied and no departures scheduled the rest of the night, it was time to relax.
The platform was quickly deserted and silent, with only widely spaced gas lights, so there was no one to observe and wonder when a swirling, metallic blue ball appeared out of the dark and settled toward the walkway next to the gondola of the newly arrived dirigible in Berth 32.
Before it could touch down, a tall, black form jumped from the shadows, reached into the swirling ball of swallows, and emerged with Doctor Lakshmi Malieux gripped roughly by the back of the neck. The swallows exploded in panic in all directions.
Before she could react, Lakshmi was face-to-face with Jubal. The flash of the blue diamond lit the walkway and the dirigibles bright as day. Lakshmi fell limp, dangling like a rag doll from Shaka’s black metal fist.
~*~*~*~*~
“Right then, chaps,” Peter Quince began as he flexed his mechanical knee and pressed the oil can into Starveling’s outstretched hand. “Off yer bloomin arses! We’ve got a play to rehearse and we won’t be making it back to the Oil Can anytime soon.”
“Ah, the Oil Can!” Bottom sighed. “I could use a pint right about now. Or even a nice cuppa.” Brandishing his blow gun, he bowed dramatically and began to thrust and parry with an unseen opponent.
“You face the mighty Pyramus, you dastardly villain! Doubt not my righteous resolve! You must depart my realm, ne’er to return, or I’ll dispatch thee to the flames of hell! Fool, be gone! Hie thee back to the underworld and trouble this fair damsel no more!” He dispatched his imaginary foe with a mighty flourish.
“Good energy, Nick! That’s the spirit. Too bad there’s no sword fighting in the play. You do it ever so well.” “It’s all this talk of Musketeers, y’see. Ain’t there some place in the play for a good brawl?” Bottom asked.
“These mighty ladies doesn’t care for brawling, Nick. A tragedy’s the thing: true love thwarted, the damsel in peril, a good weepy death—you know. Lady stuff.”
Bottom pondered this. “Oh, yeah—star-crossed lovers and all. Make ’em weep into their hankies. Got it.”
“Right, then,” said Quince, “them four cargo pallets makes a fine stage for our tragedy. To the left and right of them will be our backstage, where the audience can’t spy us before we enters. Now let’s do lines as well as actions—just like we will for the queen.”
“About them ladies, Peter—” Snout began.
“Aye?”
“Pyramus must draw a sword and,” his voice dropped to a low whisper, “kill himself. Might this not offend their delicate natures?”
“Ooh!” breathed Starveling. “What if the queen were to faint? What then? Perhaps we leave out the killing, when all is said and done?”
“The whole play is Pyramus’ death, you silly sods!” Bottom reminded them. “Anyways, I have an idea so as to not upset the ladies. You will write me a prologue, Peter, a prologue saying we will do no harm with our swords and that Pyramus is not killed, truly. Better still, we should tell them that I, Pyramus, am not really Pyramus, but Bottom the Bellows. This will put them ladies o
ut of fear.”
“Smashing idea, Bottom! I’ll get to it straightaway!”
“Peter, wait,” said Snout. “What of the lion? Won’t the ladies be afeared of the lion? Snug can be awesome fierce.”
“It scares me, sure!” shivered Starveling.
“Everything scares you, Robin!” Bottom answered. “But these highborn women is fragile. That’s the way the highborn men likes ’em.” He winked and flounced across the cargo pallet stage.
“But to bring a roaring lion out in front of such dainties—”
“Another prologue must say that he is not really a lion and will not eat them!” Snout insisted.
“Hmm,” said Bottom, pondering again. His ruddy face brightened. “I know! We make Snug’s face be seen through a hole in the lion’s neck. He says something like,” he said, striking a supplicant’s pose and saying in a mousy little voice, “ ‘Fair ladies, I entreat you. Do not fear or tremble here. I would never bring you harm. To be true, I am dressed as a lion, but I am no such thing. I am Snug the Joiner, a mech like any other mech.’ Or something of the like. You get the idea, right, Peter? Peter? Are you listening? You’re awful quiet there, Peter, what do you say?”
Peter Quince scribbled furiously, using a stack of crates for a makeshift desk, a carpenter’s square pencil wedged between his smallest tongs. “Slow down! Slow down! I never was fast at writing, and certainly not weighty important things like this. Got to get this down so’s I can give it to Snug when him and the Lieutenant and Miss Cobweb gets back.” He finished with a flourish.
“Another thing,” he continued, laying down his pencil. “How do we bring moonlight into the hall? Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.”
“The moon was full last night, so it will be full and bright tonight and tomorrow,” Snout said. “That means we can put out the lights in the hall, open a window, and the moon will shine upon our stage. What? Don’t look so surprised. I have good ideas every now and then.”
“Elegant solution. Elegant. Now let’s put our heads to one more puzzle.” Peter moved from his crates and stepped to the stage. “We must have a wall,” he said, pacing the tiny stage. “The story says Pyramus and Thisbe did talk through the chink of a wall.”
“We can’t bring a wall into Buckingham Palace,” Snout protested. “They already has lots of walls in there already. What can we do, Bottom?”
Bottom made a great show of pondering once again. “One of us must be the wall.” They all turned to him, puzzled. “He must have some plaster, or some moss on him to portray him as a wall.” He studied the various mechanical limbs of his friends. “You, Snout! You will hold up your square and your ruler like this.” He arranged Snout’s limbs just so. “This will be the chink through which the lovers whisper.”
“That just might work,” Peter nodded. “Now the lines, mates. From the top. Not a minute to spare. Our young friends will return before we’ve even begun. Then it’s back to work.”
“Just a minute more, then we’ll get to it,” said Bottom. “Got to shake hands with the king.” He turned and walked out the door.
“Wait–with the–what? Where’s he going?” demanded Starveling.
“Excess fluids, you git,” answered Quince. “The privy’s out that way.”
The privy shared by the row of shops was several doors down the road, and—by the foulest of luck—on his way back, Bottom walked almost directly into the arms of a pair of Enforcers coming the other direction. They were nearly as surprised as he was, but not too surprised to swing a sap that instantly put out his lights.
ToC
There was a naughty boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be.
—There was a Naughty Boy, by John Keats
Chapter Fourteen
A Mother and Child Reunion
The SMY Kaiseradler, home-on-the-seas to the Dowager Empress of Germany and Queen Mother of Prussia, pounded her way up the Thames. All her flags were flying, ensigns snapping, all lamps ablaze, twin smokestacks streaming, horns screaming, paddlewheels slapping the waters of the English homeland to a froth.
Her arrival had been timed perfectly so that she transited the British capital in the cool of the midsummer evening, when the maximum number of Londoners would be strolling the banks of the river. Even with her speed, it seemed to take forever for all of her three hundred thirty-four feet to pass each admiring spectator.
Coverage of her arrival in the English daily papers was virtually guaranteed. The Princess Royal Victoria, wife of the late Kaiser Friederich, mother of Kaiser Wilhelm, Queen Victoria’s little girl, was home to see her mamma.
Kaiseradler’s arrival at Canary Wharf was no less attention-grabbing. The band was on deck playing lively English tunes, her detachment of marines marched to the shouted orders of its officers, and deckhands and stevedores thronged and shouted busily.
Kaiser Wilhelm, pacing the drawing room aboard the SMY Hohenzollern II in the adjoining berth, was not amused. “General von Lyncker, could it not have been arranged to berth the two yachts further apart? And why the showy arrival? Why must she upstage me like this?” He waved his empty brandy glass, and a footman quickly supplied another.
“Majesty, I believe your arrival on the Bodensee was far more impressive than the arrival of your mother’s yacht. I must admit she certainly does have a flare for the dramatic.”
“Damnable nuisance!”
“Truth be told, Majesty, she isn’t even aboard the Kaiseradler, though everyone is meant to assume so. Until this afternoon, she was riding to the hounds with Beaufort. Now she is aboard her train en route here to London.”
“Not quite.” Vicky strode into the room, still in riding clothes, pulling off kid gloves as she came. “The French ambassador was gracious enough to offer me a ride into town on his airship. My train won’t be here for hours. This way, I can sleep in my own bed at Buckingham Palace—after I have a little chat with my darling boy.”
She crossed to Wilhelm and embraced him, kissing him on both cheeks. “I believe you know Lady Randolph? Jennie Churchill to her friends.” She stepped aside to reveal the American.
Wilhelm snapped a shallow Prussian bow. “It has been years, but I believe our paths have crossed. Welcome, Lady Randolph.”
Jennie, still dressed in her jarring American cowboy outfit, stepped close and offered her hand. “I was a little slip of a thing, newly married, when we met. You were the Crown Prince. Quite the dashing figure.”
Jennie’s charms were entirely lost on Wilhelm. He made a perfunctory bow over the proffered hand. “Mother, to what do I owe this pleasure? Please, take a seat,” he offered belatedly. She already had.
Vicky patted the seat next to her, and Wilhelm came a step closer. “Willy, my heart is troubled.”
“But whatever for, Mamma? Surely there is nothing you lack?”
“I am worried about you, my son. I am worried . . .”
Wilhelm turned to the general. “That will be all, von Lyncker. We will speak in private. Lady Randolph, if you would be so kind—”
“I would very much like Jennie to stay,” said Vicky.
“Very well.” At Wilhelm’s gesture, von Lyncker and the footmen left the room. The Kaiser’s valet arranged a chair for Jennie as Wilhelm took a seat facing his mother.
“What is this all about?” he sighed. “You have gone to some trouble to see me. You make it seem quite urgent.” He stared into his brandy.
“It is of the utmost urgency. We are, all of us—the entire family—concerned about your ambitions, both foreign and within Germany. This ‘New Course’ of yours will have consequences that will be disastrous for the whole continent. Dumping von Bismarck was a mistake.”
“Mother, we have had this discussion before. I should have begun charting my own course long ago. Chancellor von Bismarck tried to use me as a tool of his own ambitions.”
“Of course he did. Just as he did with your
father, and your grandfather. But at the same time, he advanced the interests of the empire. It wasn’t such a bad thing—not at all. His interests were Germany’s interests.”
“He took far too much on himself. And outstayed his usefulness to me. It was time for him to go.”
“Von Bismarck unified the German states. Your grandfather trusted him explicitly for decades, as did your father.”
“Wilhelm the Great unified Germany!” the Kaiser exclaimed, jumping from his seat and pacing the floor. “Von Bismarck was merely his tool! Now, I, the third generation of German emperors, true heirs to the Caesars, will march Germany into its place in the sun!” He paused with a finger pointed triumphantly to the heavens, foam flecking the corners of his mouth.
Vicky let the echoes of her son’s tirade fade. Her reply was quiet, but insistent. “Remember the Iron Chancellor’s last warning to you: twenty years after you cast him from his post, the Continent would descend into war. He knows whereof he speaks, my son.”
He sat, leaned back, and drained his glass. “If he is right, then so be it. I shall see to it that it is a war we will win.”
“So you will take the Continent to war?”
“If I must. If the other families fail to see reason and concede what is rightfully mine, then it is they who have chosen war, not I!” He gestured for another glass.
“You must know in your heart that your grandmamma is very aware of all this, and will use all her influence, both within the family and outside of it, to maintain the peace. She has great influence with the English people.”
“Hah! The English!” sneered Wilhelm, gesticulating with his stunted left arm. “An English doctor killed my father. An English doctor gave me this monstrosity of an arm. And you, my English mother, who would never allow a German doctor anywhere near any of us—what, pray tell, do I owe the English?”
“Until your Prussian tutors got hold of you, you were a good English boy in every respect. It was only then that you started on this ridiculous militancy. They have turned my darling boy into something I barely recognize.”
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