Reticence

by Gail Carriger

  She kept Lady Manami and the Wallflower talking as a distraction while Percy limped behind a bush after his robe. It transpired that Lord Ryuunosuke’s tether source was a volcano of some ilk, west of Tokyo near a place called Hakone. Arsenic supposed if a dragon were to be tethered to a hot spring, volcanoes made perfect sense.

  They now had to get to the other side of Tokyo. And convince The Spotted Custard to meet them there, with both dragon and fox. Her life seemed to be turning into an Aesop’s Fable.

  Lady Manami said she thought that Lady Sakura’s pack should be summoned as well. She dressed and disappeared, presumably to send out invitations.

  The Wallflower followed them back to the temple and asked, before they parted ways in pursuit of sleep, for the name of their preternatural.

  “I’m aware of the metanatural, of course.”

  “Who isn’t?” muttered Percy.

  “She’s not supposed to be kept secret?” The Wallflower seemed sublimely uninterested in their captain. Arsenic suspected this meant she knew everything there was to know about Rue.

  Percy shrugged. “Imagine Rue keeping anything secret, least of all her own nature?”

  Arsenic smiled. “Fair point.”

  “She keeps getting in trouble with the queen. Her marriage was pronounced a good thing because it might settle her.” Percy unsuccessfully tried to hide a snort. “Preposterous sentiment.”

  Arsenic agreed. Ten minutes in Rue’s company was sufficient to divine that nothing would ever settle Lady Prudence Akeldama.

  “Oh?” She pressed to see what Percy would say.

  “A heap of flimflam and nitty-water, if you ask me.” He did not disappoint.

  They turned back to the Wallflower, remembering she was there.

  She’s verra good at being forgotten. Must get annoying, that.

  Percy finally answered her question. “Our preternatural is Rodrigo, Rue’s cousin. Rodrigo Tarabotti, decent chap, once you get over him having dispatched so many people in his youth.”

  Lady Manami returned in time to catch the tag end of this explanation. “What did you say?”

  Percy turned to her. “Rodrigo Tarabotti. That’s our, how you say, fangxiangshi.”

  Lady Manami shook her head. “Tarabotti? Of course it is Tarabotti.” She gestured for them to follow into the temple.

  Percy stopped Arsenic with a touch and a question in his eyes.

  “Aye, m’eudail?”

  Percy dipped his head and hid a smile. It was rather adorable how much he liked the pet name, and how much he struggled to find one for her. Arsenic supposed she must have a tiny bit of her mother in her, that she enjoyed engendering discomfort in the man she adored.

  Percy pontificated. “We must orchestrate a gathering. How do we convince the Custard to meet us at a volcano west of Tokyo?”

  The Wallflower cleared her throat. “I might be able to get word to them.”

  “How? And why didn’t you say so sooner?” Percy was understandably annoyed.

  The Wallflower only became more bland in tone. “It’s an illegal technique fraught with difficulty, only good for relatively short distances, and it presupposes that you have a certain individual aboard. I’ve been in the field awhile and I don’t keep a close eye on logistics. That’s what Goldenrod is for.”

  Arsenic didn’t know that name. She looked at Percy.

  Percy shrugged at her. “It’s probably a secret, but honestly I can’t remember what I’m supposed to hide and what I’m allowed to talk about. Goldenrod is Lord Akeldama, which means she’s likely referring to Anitra. Anitra is his spy. Or we believe she is. She’s never outright admitted it.”

  Arsenic nodded. “Better the spy you know than the one you dinna notice.”

  “Besides, one assumes Lord Akeldama knows everything or will soon enough. It’s his only hobby. Well, that and absurd clothing.” Percy shook his head. “I don’t understand the man at all. He has all the time in the world. He could be doing science.”

  The Wallflower looked like she was hiding a smile. “Not all of us are cut out for academia.”

  “No? Pity.”

  “What should I put in the message?” she asked.

  Percy looked at Arsenic for help. Arsenic was getting used to that. Poor m’eudail, he needed a keeper. Fortunately, he seemed to realize that, most of the time.

  She helped. “We have the location. We need a time to meet up. Then we hope Rue’s adept enough to get there, and to bring the kitsune and the dragon. When’s full moon?”

  “Tonight,” said the Wallflower. “It should be up soon.”

  “Can you get them a message and can we get to the dragon’s source before moonrise?”

  “Maybe,” the Wallflower replied, cautious.

  “How many hours should we give?”

  “Four should do it.”

  “Four it is. You’ll need to tell them to bring Rodrigo, Lady Sakura, and Lord Ryuunosuke to Hakone at full moon.” She turned to Percy and tucked a lock of wet red hair behind his ear. “They can figure out where that is?”

  Percy accepted her touch without question. “It’s on the map I left out in the library. Before Japan closed its ports, there were enough visitors to write something down, and hot springs were of interest. Now I understand why.” He gave a disgusted gesture towards the bath.

  “Trust the English to be fascinated by communal bathing,” replied the Wallflower.

  “I notice you didn’t partake,” snapped Percy.

  She ignored him. “Shall we tell Lady Manami of our plan?”

  “Do you trust her?” Arsenic asked, pulling her hand away from Percy. Really he did have a very nicely shaped skull. She wanted to keep touching, but they were in public and she liked it too much.

  “I’m an intelligencer, girl, I don’t trust anyone. I don’t trust you. That’s how I stay alive.”

  “Sounds lonely.” Arsenic was glad her mother, for all her failings, had allowed herself to trust one man long enough to marry and be happy. Didn’t the Wallflower even have that? “Have you no one at all?”

  The Wallflower rolled her eyes.

  “Are you ever going to tell us your actual name?”

  “Since I have seen you both starkers, I suppose we can dispense with the formalities. You may call me Agatha.”

  Arsenic thought it exactly the right name, which made her wonder if it was the real one. Since Percy was looking grumpy, she answered. “Thank you. And you may call us Arsenic and Percy.”

  “Whoa!” said Percy.

  “Oh, dinna fret. We’re clearly on terms of some intimacy.”

  Percy wrinkled his nose.

  The Wallflower drifted off, presumably to wherever she spent her time when she wasn’t skulking near them in the shadows being cryptic. And to send a message to The Spotted Custard.

  They made their way to the receiving room in the temple, which for lack of any other options, they’d adopted as their own. It was still full of root vegetables and cushions.

  Percy wondered out loud, “So how do we get to Hakone? Is the temple taking us? Do train tracks go to dragon volcanoes?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  “I like it when you touch me.”

  “I like it too. Your skeleton must be very symmetrical.”

  Percy grinned. “That’s a nice thing to say, dearest.”

  “No, not dearest either, keep trying.”

  “Of course, my little mangelwurzel.”

  Arsenic was ridiculously pleased with him.

  Sunset brought the lanterns back on and the Japanese captain and his soldiers back aboard the Custard. The two hostages remained below.

  Spoo overheard Lady Captain instruct Miss Prim to wake up Tasherit and introduce her to the fox-lady. Even if the werecat fell immediately back to sleep, the captain wanted Tasherit’s perspective on their guests. Spoo wondered if Tash would puff up like Footnote, metaphorically, of course.

  Something happened, because the scaly lord came u
p on deck, looking shaken, or what Spoo assumed was the Japanese equivalent of shaken. Otherwise known as his helmet thingy being slightly askew.

  He seemed not best pleased to see the soldiers. Lady Captain wasn’t best pleased either, as Spoo gathered through the judicious application of eavesdropping on Anitra’s interpretation efforts. Apparently, the Japanese had deployed troops to hunt Percy and the doc ground-side. But the two had managed to escape and hide in a roving church or something odd like that. It was all rather confusing.

  Lady Captain expressed her opinion that if an army was after her, she, too, would run and hide, so really what did they expect? Especially when one of them had been pushed out of an airship. Yes, she now knew the scaly lord wasn’t part of the army, but Percy didn’t know that.

  Spoo wondered why the scaly lord had pushed Percy. The lord couldn’t have gotten emotional, that didn’t seem like something he got. She wondered if he knew there was a parachute in play. She wondered if this was all contrived. Had he planned to be taken hostage? Whose side he was on, apart from his own?

  The scaly lord revealed nothing. It was maddening. But he had brought his sword with him. That was telling.

  It appeared that negotiations were not going well. Lady Captain expected to have her professor and doctor back by now. The guards expected to have their hostages back. But Lady Captain was refusing to give over the hostages.

  Miss Prim returned abovedecks and relayed Tasherit’s opinion on their guests. It was a cryptic, “Foxes and reptiles are annoying but not amoral.” Miss Prim was now carrying her battle parasol.

  Spoo crossed her fingers that they’d be able to negotiate one more night of grace. It being full moon and all. Except that the captain was a lady of action. Leap first, everything else later was her motto. If the army below had failed to retrieve her friends, then she would bally well do it herself!

  Spoo began to inch away, towards where the clamp was fixed. Aggie and her crossbow were there, as well as a few other decklings, and a defensible position.

  Everything quieted with the toffs.

  With exaggerated care, Lady Captain picked up a large hard biscuit. She weaved this back and forth in the air in front of the Japanese captain’s face. Ostentatiously, she dipped it into her cup of tea. She then withdrew it with a flourish and raised it high into the air. It sagged, dropped, and then disintegrated and fell to the deck with a splat.

  All hell broke loose.

  Apparently, in Edo, dunking one’s biscuit was tantamount to a declaration of war.

  Every soldier drew his gun. The deckhands stood ready to fight. Rue and Anitra looked fierce. The tea things scattered. Biscuits shattered. The carnage was unnecessarily tragic.

  Spoo whistled three sharp short blasts. Tasherit Sekhmet might be incapacitated in their hold, but she’d trained them hard over many months. The decklings hadn’t any guns, but they had mops, and knives, and all sorts of useful tools stashed about the deck. The Custard might have been stripped of obvious weapons, but no ship could be stripped of all weaponry. Decklings were nothing if not resourceful. Make do was essentially their battle cry.

  They all knew what Spoo’s whistles meant, even if the officers didn’t.

  The decklings quietly and efficiently armed themselves and shifted position. Spoo knew where every single one of her friends would go. Whether in the rigging (the better to swing around for dropdown access) or near the gangplank (the better to trip anyone trying to board or escape). One was behind a large barrel – bucket of slop in hand, prepared to render slippery disservice. There were many ways to fight, and when one was young and undersized, sabotage was the best option.

  Lady Captain didn’t know what her decklings were capable of. She didn’t need to know. Spoo had made it her business to ensure that decklings were, above all things, capable. Their captain trusted them because of this, and that was good enough for Spoo.

  With Percy gone, Lady Captain gestured Virgil into the nav pit. He was their next best navigator, assuming Quesnel stayed with the boilers. Their Frenchie had come over all odd since the captain got corked up, so he might defy orders and come abovedecks if he thought she was in danger. But Spoo hoped he’d stay below. He was a better engineer than he was a scrapper.

  Virgil would stay out of the brawling. He’d sprouted in the countryside, like a turnip, and couldn’t fight any better than one. Spoo would never have thought she’d be friends with a valet from West Wittering.

  Bork and Willard were good in a brawl, but they’d a dozen trained and well-armed soldiers occupying their deck. Not to mention the lord in scales with a ruddy big sword and no sense of his allegiance. They were outmatched, out-bladed, and out-gunned.

  Anitra, the captain, and the head soldier were in fierce argument.

  Spoo realized she couldn’t see Rodrigo. She suspected that with Anitra in the thick of things he was around, only hidden. This was good. Tasherit had taught them a lot, but she’d trained as a knight, or whatever her people called knights hundreds of years ago, old-fashioned military. Rod wasn’t so fussy. He was all dirty fighting, designed to go up against monsters. He and Tash had done some display fisticuffs for them once. They were well matched, which was saying something because Tash was supernatural fast and strong, and Rod was only human. Spoo was beyond glad he was on their side. If he was off being stealthy, well, good.

  “Ho there, Spoo,” Nips hissed at her from behind the railing near the clamp. Unobserved, he’d snuck around from the other side of the deck. The boy was part spider.

  Spoo didn’t show in any way that he was there. Aggie didn’t change her stance either. Finger to the trigger, bolt trained on the lordling.

  Spoo whistled a long low note of understanding.

  Nips said, “Herself wants us prepped to break free of the clamp.”

  “She does?”

  “And a rescue option in place.”

  Spoo said without hesitating, “Get the mushroom filled.”

  “Custard’ll droop.” The helium would be taken from the main balloon, which meant their airship would sink.

  “Not with this clamp still holding.”

  “Then it’ll tilt all over wonky.”

  “That’s the idea, put some strain to it. So, go fill the dropsy. Stop flapping at me. She wants her prof back, she does.”

  “And we might be needing a doctor soonish.”

  “Go, Nips.”

  “But what if there’s fighting?”

  “Rod is nearby.”

  “He is?”

  “Must be.”

  “Then I suppose a few of us can drop position.”

  “I’ll explain to Tash why we did, if she ever wakes up and demands explanations.”

  Nips climbed away.

  Spoo bent to check the state of the clamp. They’d sawed most of the way around it. The only bit left was where it held to the flange of the deck, the point where the railing attached. She thought it was pretty much ready to rip free. She hoped.

  The crow’s nest gave a warning holler.

  Spoo braced for a cannonball impact. Instead a great flapping raptor bird of some ilk appeared off the port side, hurtling towards them. It was an eagle or falcon, only very large and definitely focused on The Spotted Custard. It whooshed close, under the balloon and right over the main deck where they all stood. A couple of the soldiers shifted to aim at it, although it was only a bird.

  “Is that a pigeon?” screeched the captain. She had a horror of pigeons.

  It was clasping something in its talons. Mayhap a big dead critter? Then the critter gleamed metallic in the light of the lanterns. Spoo wondered if it was an explosive.

  Who sends a falcon to explode an airship shaped like a ladybug? It was all very animalistic.

  The bird was near enough over the toffs that they ducked. Most of them. Lady Captain didn’t bother, she was too short to mind, even with her big hat.

  The bird dropped its prey, which landed with a clatter and rolled across the deck, coming to r
est against Miss Prim’s shoe. She shrieked and swung at it with her parasol as if it were a golf ball.

  It skidded across the deck towards Spoo, stopping near Aggie, who, keeping her crossbow pointed at the lord, strode forward and glanced at it quick. Since it was made of metal, a gadget of some kind, and that was basically her whole world, no doubt she was mighty interested.

  The object unfurled, revealing itself to be a toy. A clockwork dog. One of those sausage-shaped ones. It had four short legs and a small, spiky tail. Spoo thought it was kinda charming.

  Steam emanated from its underbelly. Smoke came out from under its leather earflaps. It started tottering about, all on its lonesome.

  Aggie reared back in horror and pointed her crossbow at it. She was terrified. Spoo didn’t think Aggie could get that scared.

  “Mechanimal!”

  Everyone looked startled, but no one was as upset as Aggie.

  Lady Captain yelled across the deck, “I thought those were illegal.”

  Spoo said, “Guess they aren’t in Japan.”

  Aggie backed away as far as she could. “That’s not Japanese. That’s old Euro-tech and it’s pre-compliance. In fact, it’s English made, unless I really don’t know my cog-and-bolt styles. Rhetorical statement, Spoo, because I do know them.”

  Spoo didn’t want to set her off. “It’s cute.”

  “It’s a menace to society and a danger to all civilization, is what it is.”

  “Still cute.”

  The sausage dog swayed about a bit and then trotted hopefully away from them and towards the larger crowd, mechanical tail wagging in a reassuring ticktock manner.

  The Japanese soldiers parted for the mechanimal warily, some guns pointed at it.

  The only person who didn’t move out of its way was Anitra.

  Upon reaching the Drifter’s feet the mechanimal stopped. Anitra wasn’t in the least upset. Her eyes above her veil were crinkled in pleasure. He (Spoo decided the dog was a he) squatted down and emitted a tube of glass out his backside. The offering was shaped like a valve in one of those aetheric communicators.

  Spoo found this act slightly disgusting and rude, and thus, of course, liked the little dog even more.