The Havoc Machine ce-4

by Steven Harper

  The circus, meanwhile, was caught in a delightful flurry of performance and rehearsal, with sold-out performances in the evening and frantic rehearsal in the morning and afternoon to create and perfect new acts for the tsar. Thad set up a target and threw knives at it. His right hand was perfectly good, of course, but his left was still unsteady. He could swallow knives and short blades that he would withdraw one-handed, but he didn’t dare swallow an entire sword or multiple knives, both of which required two steady hands. Swallowing even multiple knives wasn’t worthy of a royal performance, however, so, Thad was still relegated to the sidelines, a source of more frustration for him.

  The day of the performance arrived. That morning, Dodd called a meeting for the entire cast in the Tilt. He went over the schedule of performers, then set the list aside with a serious look.

  “You know how it is with royal performances,” he said. “The tsar and most of the court will be there, along with whatever other hangers-on can wriggle in. Most of them don’t much care about us. They care only about gaining the tsar’s favor. The tsar loves a circus, and if he enjoys our performance, Russian landowners-counts and dukes and barons and even generals-might see friendship with one of us as a route to the tsar. They will praise you and offer you presents and enticements. Accept the praise, but refuse everything else with polite thanks. Best is to pretend you don’t understand the language they’re speaking. We can’t afford to become involved in politics. Russia is extremely volatile right now. The peasants-serfs-are half in revolt. Taxes are at an all-time high. The landowners conscript men and boys into military service for life. And now rumors are running about that Tsar Alexander may set all serfs free.”

  A ripple went through the performers. Beside Thad on the grandstand bench, Sofiya remained motionless as marble. He knew she must be thinking of her sister and her former village. Her sister wasn’t living as a serf anymore, but everyone she had known, childhood friends and trusted neighbors, still were.

  “As you may imagine, this would have immense political ramifications,” Dodd continued. “Most of the landowners don’t care for the idea, to say the least. However, Alexander wants to bring Russia into more modern times, with a more modern economy, and serfdom isn’t part of such a plan. In any case, I’ve learned that many of the landowners are deeply in debt to the tsar or to the state banks. A great many of them have mortgaged their land-and their serfs-in order to keep up their lifestyles at court. If Alexander emancipates the serfs, the landowners might have to pay their mortgages off all at once, and they simply don’t have that kind of money. Or the tsar could forgive the debts, but that would mean the banks would be in trouble. You can see the mess, and understand why we need to steer clear of it.”

  Thad glanced sidelong at Sofiya. For all the expression on her face, she might have been watching fish in an aquarium. He remembered her absolute composure when he had shot off his own hand in the wagon. Didn’t anything truly touch her?

  Nikolai, for his part, sat very close to Thad. He sported his new clothes, but his scarf often slipped around his neck, and he didn’t wrap his metal hands at all. Another bag of metal scraps sat in his lap, and he crunched down bolts until Thad made him stop-the chewing noise was disconcertingly loud.

  “You never know what might be driving anyone who talks to you,” Dodd said. “Assume the man-or woman-has an ulterior motive and act accordingly. We’re all experienced at dodging flatties. These are simply flatties with money. And, ladies, I don’t need to remind you that the men often see a circus as a traveling brothel, so don’t get caught alone. That advice might apply to some of the more attractive male persons among us. Ask Nathan who you are.”

  A laugh went through the performers at that, and some of the tension that had been building eased. Still Sofiya did not react.

  “All right then,” Dodd said. “Be in your places when the cannon fires at noon. Tsar or no tsar, we’re giving just another performance by the Kalakos Circus of Automatons and Other Wonders, the best circus in the whole damned world!”

  The performers clapped, then rose to scatter. Sofiya nodded once at Thad and vanished out the exit flap before he could speak to her. Nikolai crunched a nail from his paper bag.

  “Is the tsar scary?” he asked.

  “I suppose he can be,” Thad told him. “He can make laws and order men thrown into prison or flogged.”

  “Has he done?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Though I’ve not heard of any king that didn’t do such things, so I suppose he has.”

  “Would he do it to me?”

  “No,” Thad replied absently, still staring at the exit where Sofiya had gone. “You’re an automaton. He’d have you melted down or the like.”

  It was several moments before Thad realized Nikolai hadn’t answered. He looked down. The boy was staring at the ground. A little pang went through Thad’s stomach. How much an idiot was he? He knelt down in front of Nikolai.

  “No, no,” he said. “The tsar won’t do any such thing.”

  “I heard the Tsesarevich beat the clockworker and ordered his machines to pull him to pieces,” Nikolai whispered, eyes still down. “Mightn’t he order me to-”

  “Good Lord, no,” Thad interrupted. “You needn’t worry about such things, Niko.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know. I won’t let him.”

  Here, Nikolai did look up. “How could you stop him?”

  “I have this, of course.” Thad made a fist with his brass hand. “It would stop a hundred Tsesareviches. No more nonsense now. We must get ready.”

  “I need more alcohol. Mordovo gave me some very good brandy once. May I go ask him for more?”

  Thad sighed. He would need to talk to Mordovo. On the other hand, if the magician could provide Nikolai with a steady food supply, what was the problem? He gave Nikolai a few coins. “Once is a nice favor. After that, you should buy it.”

  For the first time in days, Nikolai scampered out of Thad’s sight. Still Thad marveled at how lifelike his movements were despite his metallic face and body. He wandered back toward his wagon, which was still parked with the others near the train cars. On the way, he passed the Black Tent. The boxcar’s sliding door was open a few inches, which was odd, and he thought he heard a soft sound from inside. On instant alert, he eased up to the opening, which was at face level, and pressed an eye to it.

  Sofiya was inside. She was standing next to one of the workbenches with Dante’s inert form before her. It seemed a strange time to work on repairs, with the tsar’s performance starting soon. Then Thad realized the framed photograph of Olenka, the woman in the wheelchair, was propped up against Dante’s body, and Sofiya was speaking in a low voice.

  “I don’t know how long I can hold on, Olenka,” she said in Russian. “There is so much. I have promised to fix this parrot and to build an elephant for the circus and I must perform for the tsar and keep watch on Nikolai. You would like Nikolai, Olenka. He is so like brother Nishka at that age. It breaks my heart every time I hear him speak.” She touched the photograph propped against Dante’s dented feathers. “I am trying to keep the fugues away, but when the madness comes…the pain and the fear and doubt all fade away. I want the madness, and yet I fear it. Does that make me insane?”

  Thad felt uncomfortable now. He hadn’t known Sofiya talked to herself. He felt he should slip away, but curiosity kept him where he was.

  “I am sorry, my sister, sorry for everything I did. I know I say this every day, and every day I hope you hear me and understand,” she murmured. Her voice was thick and tears slid down her face. It was so different from anything Thad had seen from her that he had a hard time understanding what he was seeing. It was like discovering that one’s cat was actually a giraffe.

  Sofiya took a deep breath. “I must tell you, Olenka, that I broke my promise. A few days ago, I made myself go into a fugue on purpose. Can you understand? I needed to save someone important to me. Please don’t be angry. I won’t l
et it happen again. I love you, Olenka. Even when you will not speak to me, I love you.”

  When she straightened her cloak and moved for the door, Thad eased away from it with years of stealthy practice. He hid around the corner of the Black Tent until Sofiya had exited, her normal mask of indifference firmly in place. Her scarlet cloak vanished among the other tents. Thad ran a hand, his brass hand, over his face. It would be better, he decided, to say nothing and let her have her private pain. He knew what that was about.

  * * *

  The tsar, of course, would not attend any performance in a mere tent, and if the tsar would not come to the circus, the circus quite naturally would come to the tsar. Dodd found this arrangement perfectly amenable-it gave him a chance to create a spectacle.

  The parade lined up around the Field of Mars. The joeys in their bright costumes and wide greasepaint smiles cavorted about cages containing lions and leopards. The sole surviving elephant waited patiently in her place behind the Tortellis, who wore their glittering performance costumes of silk and finely woven wool. The Stilgores strode about in their high-legged stilt walker costumes, he with his cane, she with a tiny dog. The calliope hooted a merry tune on its colorful wagon. Nelson Merryweather blew a ball of fire into the air. Word had gotten out that the Kalakos Circus was performing for the tsar, which brought in new acts, and Dodd had added a seal trainer, an escape artist, and a troupe of Russian acrobats. They joined the parade as well. At the front rode Sofiya on Kalvis the Mechanical Wonder Horse, and before her, ready to burst with pride, came Nikolai. He wore a bright red jacket, and his face and hands were uncovered, revealing his half-human, half-mechanical face. Thad felt a simultaneous pride of his own that mixed with a nauseating dread. They pulled him in two equal directions. It was a fine thing to see a little boy-or something that mimicked one-appear so happy. What child didn’t dream of leading a circus parade? But this child, this machine, was the product of a lunatic genius, and Thad still didn’t know what its purpose might be.

  Thad straightened his pirate’s outfit, patted his knives, and automatically checked for Dante on his shoulder. But Dante wasn’t there. He was still in the Black Tent, his gears gummed with muck. Damn the bloody bird anyway. Thad flexed his brass hand. It was now nearly as good as his flesh hand had been, but it still had a tiny delay that kept him from swallowing blades. Everyone made parade, however, and Thad didn’t care to give up a chance to see the Winter Palace in any case.

  The Winter Palace faced the River Neva a scant ten-minute walk from the Field of Mars, a short parade. Dodd, however, had no intention of taking a direct route. Once he obtained consent from the tsar’s aides to make an actual parade, he pushed permission to the limit, choosing a path that would take the circus through a good part of Saint Petersburg. A circus lived on publicity, and a parade was the best publicity in the world.

  As Nikolai’s handler, Thad was assigned a spot behind him near Sofiya and Kalvis at the front of the parade. Kalvis bore a trick-riding saddle, which sported loops and an extra-long horn. Sofiya wore a tight bodice of rich blue, with long leggings and a skirt that went down to her knees. Gold stars that matched her hair dotted the outfit, and they glittered in the chilly afternoon light. Her scarlet cloak had been cleaned, and she had thrown it over her shoulders while her sunlight hair spilled down her back. The effect was quite electric, and Thad, who had long since grown used to women in scandalously tight outfits, found himself staring at her nonetheless while the rest of the circus hustled itself into place. A crowd of soldiers and officers from the barrack assembled on the side of the street to watch, creating the head of a line of spectators that stretched far down the street. The men all stared at Sofiya.

  “Is something wrong?” Sofiya asked.

  Thad shook himself. “Not a bit. You look resplendent.”

  She looked startled. “Spaceeba, ser. And you are quite handsome when you dress as a pirate.”

  The noon cannon boomed from the roof of the prison where the clockworkers were kept, and on that signal, the calliope set to playing. Nikolai, a few paces ahead of Kalvis, looked uncertainly over his shoulder at Thad. Thad gestured encouragingly, and Nikolai started forward. Sofiya urged Kalvis to follow. He snorted steam, cranked his ears forward, and stepped smartly ahead, the curlicue designs on his polished skin gleaming with every move. Thad walked beside them.

  “Wave to the nice people,” he told Sofiya, who set about doing just that.

  The parade left the Field of Mars and reached the street, which had been cleared of traffic. The worst of the mud had been overlaid with straw, though the unfortunate clowns at the end of the parade would still get churned-up muck. Thad started to remind Nikolai which way to go, but the boy turned in the correct direction. He never forgot anything.

  The people lining the streets often oohed and aahed and pointed when they saw such a lifelike automaton, and Thad abruptly realized that audiences would now come to the circus expecting to see Nikolai. He wondered if Dodd would want to put the boy in the sideshow until-or if-he worked out an act.

  A circus parade always lent the city a temporary carnival atmosphere. Food sellers and other merchants were taking advantage of the assembled crowd to hawk their wares from boxes and trays tied around their necks. Parents in patched clothes hoisted ragged, hollow-eyed children onto their shoulders so they could see. Shopkeepers temporarily closed their doors and workers paused in their labor to come out and look-bakers in their hats, coal sellers with their distinctive caps, fishmongers pushing barrows, house servants in livery or wearing aprons. For those too poor to buy tickets, this would be the only chance they had to see the circus, though Dodd was notoriously lenient about children who sneaked under the tent flaps, to Nathan’s everlasting despair. Thad waved his brass hand to the onlookers. His strange little…he didn’t want to call it a family, but the word was apt in a number of ways…was providing all the automatons that made the circus’s full title a truth, and it occurred to Thad that he should therefore ask for a raise.

  Sofiya let her cloak fall from her shoulders and did a handstand on Kalvis’s back, then lithely leaped down to his near side, catapulted back over him, and landed on his off side. The crowd applauded. Thad suppressed a snort. Sofiya was cheating. The true trick riders farther back in the parade trained their entire lives for something Sofiya received without effort. Still, she had a paid a dear price for her abilities, and Thad was positive the other trick riders wouldn’t trade places with her. He certainly wouldn’t.

  A lion roared in the back, and the elephant trumpeted, temporarily drowning out the calliope. Kalvis walked ahead, unmoved by any of this, and Nikolai marched steadily along the predetermined path. Then Sofiya stiffened and lost her balance in midflip. She nearly tumbled from the saddle, and only snatched her equilibrium back at the last moment. Her smile faltered also, but she regained it with her customary calm. Startled, Thad followed her line of vision and caught sight of a spider clinging to a balcony above the street. Two spiders. Thad himself faltered, then kept going. He caught Sofiya’s eye. What did this mean? Thad flexed his hand uneasily.

  A block later, Thad saw another spider, this time on a windowsill. A woman opened the window as the circus approached and squawked at the sight of it. The spider scuttled away. Another spider looked down at them from a chimney. After that, Thad stopped counting. His smile became something he pulled on to hide his nausea, like a skin stretched over a drumhead. Was this a signal from Mr. Griffin? A message of some kind? Or just notice that he was watching? Thad didn’t know, and he hated not knowing. It made him feel helpless and stupid. Nikolai seemed to have no idea what was going on. He marched tirelessly through the straw-strewn streets, smiling and waving his metal fingers while hidden spiders looked on.

  At last they arrived at the Winter Palace. The vast building, shaped like two squares sharing a side, was actually a complex of palaces and courtyards started by Peter the Great and got its name not because the tsar lived there in the winter-he lived there
year round-but because the palace ruled the north, where winter held sway. The circus came to the south side, away from the River Neva. The palace facade, three stories tall, ran down the entire street as far as the eye could see. Its walls were marble and granite, blue and white, with intricate windows and pillars. The portico at the south entrance was flanked by four huge columns carved like gods holding up the sky at the top of a double staircase. A sturdy ramp had been hastily constructed so the animal cages and the wagons and the elephant could climb it more easily. Before each pillar reared up an enormous brass bear, the symbol of Russia. The crowd was thicker around the palace, and consisted of more servants. Yet more people leaned out of every one of the dozens of windows, and they waved handkerchiefs like little flags. Nikolai hesitated only a moment. He marched up the ramp, between the great pillars, and toward the bears. When he reached the halfway point, the bears roared in unison. Nikolai backpedaled with a yelp. Thad jumped, himself, and the peasants who had gathered to watch the parade flinched. Some of the children began to cry. Sofiya seemed unperturbed, though she checked Kalvis so he wouldn’t overrun Nikolai. The parade ground to a halt on the street behind them and the calliope music wound down.

  An automaton emerged from one of the great arched gates inside the pillars. It wore imperial livery of scarlet and gold, and its hands were little more than metal mittens. It skimmed along on wheels fitted under its feet. This device was meant to travel across nothing but polished floors.

  “The tsar bids you welcome,” the automaton said in metallic Russian. “Follow me to the Nicholas Hall. Enter to entertain, and you will be rewarded.”

  Nikolai made a fluid little bow and marched forward again, past the now-silent bears. The calliope started up again and the entire circus paraded into the palace. The wagons and cages and elephant squeezed through the high gate with some difficulty, but in the end it was done. The peasants watched them go with hungry eyes. Beyond the gates lay a long, wide hall of high arches and marble floors and heavy doors. Everything was decorated lavishly, every surface carved with curled designs, every wall painted in bright, airy colors, every window and doorway framed with intricate scrolls of copper, brass, and gold. The wagons and horses, including Kalvis, left marks on the perfect flooring, and Thad didn’t want to think about what might happen if-when-the elephant decided to relieve itself. But the tsar had ordered that the circus, including the animals, perform within the palace, and so it would be done. The aftermath was someone else’s problem.