A Spider In The Eye

by Mark Hayes

  To add to this indignity, I was also currently gagged. The taste of damp cotton in my mouth attested to that. I was trying to spit whatever she had jammed in there out, with as little success as my attempts to ward her off with a single flailing leg.

  In response to what little fight I was putting up, she twisted my foot to the right, hard and with a certain degree of malice, of which she left me no doubt. The resultant burst of pain almost caused me to black out again. She was stronger than she looked, stronger than I’d a right to expect from such a small woman.

  I tried to scream through the muffling cotton, as much from the pain as to inform any futile hope of salvation. By the time the pain had subsided enough for me to think clearly, she had secured my leg to the bottom of the bed and I was fully restrained. Added to which, sweat was already dripping down my forehead, stinging my eyes, and the choking feeling from whatever she had stuffed in my mouth keeping me close to panic.

  “Now that’s all sorted, Mr Smyth, I assume I have your full attention?” she said to me as she walked around the bed to the side and leaned over me slightly. She had an oddly quizzical look on her face. I suspect she was wondering what I’d do. I suspect that is always what people in her position think about when they have you at their mercy. I would not have put it past her to have been making little bets with herself. Would I cough up everything in a bid to save myself? Would I maintain that ever infamous British stiff upper lip in the face of adversity? How much would it take to break me? That kind of thing.

  If she knew the real me at all, she would have realised the answers were yes, no and nothing whatsoever. Frankly, I was still feeling ill-used by M and his damnable Ministry. Convincing her of that might be difficult, however. It’s hard to spill your guts figurative speaking, if you actually know next to bugger all. This, I couldn’t help thinking at the time, was going to be a bit of a problem.

  In reply to her question about ‘having my attention’, I nodded, quite vigorously, as I was still gagged.

  How do you say ‘I’ll tell you everything’ with your mouth stuffed full of cotton undergarments? Don’t ask me how I knew it was undergarments, I just did, alright.

  The Not-A-Maid-No-Really-She-Isn’t-I-Think-We-Can-Safely-Say-That-Now’s accent was once more American. The Home Counties were gone the way of the promise of an illicit and enjoyable encounter between consenting adults. If I’m completely honest, at this point that still felt something of a disappointment to me. She was, as you will recall, an attractive woman and one I was still finding attractive even in my predicament. But before you start judging me, let me remind you, in my defence, she’d been arousing me with her feminine wiles all evening at the bar.

  Unfortunately, she noticed this was the case too.

  “Oh my, Mr Smyth, you appear to be enjoying this…” she murmured, leaning in close until her lips were only a few inches from my ear when she spoke. Then, in a manner that would have made a Soho madam proud, she slapped the palm of her hand down hard on my crotch.

  The pain that exploded in my genitals was… well, such an occurrence requires little description, I am sure.

  “I hate to dash your hopes, my dear, but I have no interest in this ‘little’ thing of yours…” she said and then in deference to her words, she clenched her gloved left hand tightly onto the thing in question through my Y-fronts. Her fingers felt like they could keep on squeezing till it popped and I don’t mean in the pleasant much sought-after fashion. She’d an unnaturally strong grip, vice-like, and her face showed nothing in the way of effort being involved. It was as if she wasn’t even trying. Considering the pain she was inflicting right then, it was the most terrifying expression I could have seen on her face. Fear over-rides any other emotion in such a situation. I’d have quickly withered within that grip, if the blood had somewhere to flow to.

  I was left gasping, dragging what breath I could through the cotton in my mouth. I felt light-headed once more, and that sharp blinding pain was utterly intense.

  She must have known exactly what she was doing to me. She released the grip just before I blacked out yet again. My heart was pounding, and I continued gasping for air. The relief almost as bad as the pain had been, though the ghost of it still throbbed away.

  The target of her abuse quickly withered away now it could. Though there was nothing in the way of relief involved. Meanwhile, my eyes still stung with the salt of my own sweat. They must have been bulging too. It was hard to focus properly even with the pain slipping away.

  “Now that little thing is dealt with, Mr Smyth, we can move on to more important matters, I’m sure,” the Maid-Who-Was-Not-A-Maid said, and slowly started removing her elbow length gloves, first from her left and then ever so slowly from her right hand. My eyes widened slightly as she did the right, understanding as to the nature of her unnatural strength coming to me as I saw her right arm.

  Even in the dim light of my bedroom, I could see the glint of brass and the gleam of glass inspection panels over inner workings. Cogwheels, miniature pistons and springs. And even more disturbingly something that glowed an eerie lime green that looked like some form of battery like those Tesla devices use instead of steam.

  The last of the glove she slowly pulled off, over her delicate brass fingers. They were fully articulated. Made by someone with astounding skill. Indeed they were in perfect proportion to her normal, and ever so human, left hand.

  I’d seen artificial limbs before. They are, as I’m sure you know, common enough. Accidents happen, often because the many wondrous devices humanity conceives have the habit of biting the hands off their creators. Men have been losing the odd finger, arm or leg to mechanical devices for the whole of human history. In recent times we have just got better at making them. Not to mention those other devices mankind is so good at inventing, the ones that fire bullets, shrapnel or have a blast radius. And as long as we have been severing limbs one way or another we’ve been replacing them as well. Peg legs and hooks were common among sailors back in the days when the sail was king. In these days of steam, we have got a little more technical when it comes to putting people back together. Spring powered legs, the odd clockwork heart, and the occasional steam-powered arm.

  I knew a quartermaster sergeant in my RAN days who had his left arm replaced after a tussle with Croatian freedom fighters a few years before. He was a ridiculously cheerful chap, seconded to the artillery stores at Baxley Hill. Swore his new arm was wonderful. After all, it allowed him to lift twenty pounder shells single-handed, and no one ever stood in his way when he was shouldering through to the bar. Also, the plus side was he was permanently grounded and worked in the stores. Which allowed him to earn a nice little slice for himself selling mislaid stock to the likes of yours truly.

  The bulky, oily, and very noisy arm of Sergeant Hickson, with its large steam power plant strapped to his back, had, however, nothing in common with the delicately articulated mechanics of the young lady before me. His looked like it had been taken off a mechanical gorilla. Hers, on the other hand, if you will pardon the expression, had all the natural refinement of a genuine human arm.

  I’d say it had nothing in common, but that’s not strictly true. I suspected that her delicate digits had the same raw poundage per square inch strength of Hickson’s gorilla fist. Possibly more so, for all the delicate finesse it displayed.

  In a demonstration of the dexterity of her mechanical fingers, she probed them past my lips and pulled forth the cotton cloth she had stuffed in there earlier, telling me calmly as she did so, “You may well be tempted to cry out now, Mr Smyth. I would suggest, however, that you don’t. I have no great compunction against silencing you once more, and doing so completely if I need to.”

  I took her at her word. Her metal fingers tingled against my lips as she reached in and pulled out the cloth, which turned out not to be undergarments at all, but my cravat. Which I suspected was now ruined. It could have been worse, I suppose.

  Throwing it to one side, she returned
those brass digits to my throat and ever so lightly squeezed. The implication that she need not squeeze so lightly was obvious. She smiled down at me, showing her teeth in the process. It wasn’t a comforting smile.

  “Now, Mr Smyth, when last we met I had some questions for you, do you remember them?” she asked. All the malice in the world seem focused in her voice right then, for all it was spoken gently.

  “You wanted to know why The Ministry was sending me to India,” I replied choking slightly against her fingers. My mouth was dry, either because the cotton used to gag me had soaked up all my saliva or because I was terrified.

  I’ll admit, it was a coin toss which.

  “Very good, Mr Smyth, and what else?” she inquired, all sweetness, light and menace.

  “Wells… You wanted to know why they were interested in Wells,” I said. And felt her fingers tighten ever so slightly at the name. I wasn’t entirely certain if she did so on purpose or if it was a subconscious reaction. But I remember being scared by it all the same. I couldn’t think right at that moment of any worse than an emotional, angry woman not being completely in control of her vice-like grip. I had a feeling… no, truer to say I knew, she could crush my throat as easy as I could have crushed a tomato. With just as much spectacular oozing red stuff involved if she did, and I was rather fond of my ‘tomato juice’ staying in my veins where it belonged. Call me old-fashioned, but having my throat crushed and ripped out was something I wished to avoid.

  “Very good, you remember. So am I to take it you’re going to claim to know nothing again. Or are you perhaps feeling inclined to be a little more cooperative this time?” she asked, squeezing my throat just a little more to emphasise a point that needed no emphasis.

  I want to say I was belligerent. That I made a sarcastic retort. Or, perhaps, that I said something witty and disarming. Or, even, that I exhibited a modicum of defiance. I wanted to, oh I desperately wanted to. I say this just so you understand that it pained me to swallow my pride. I wanted to do all the things you would expect of a hero at a time like that.

  However, I just wanted to continue breathing a whole lot more.

  “Yes, I’ll tell you everything,” I replied.

  “Good,” she said, relaxing her grip then taking her hand away from my throat.

  I took a deep breath that was painful to inhale. I was certain she had left bruises I could already feel forming around my jugular.

  She looked at me a moment, her eyes betraying nothing, then after tilting her head in a manner that seemed inquisitive, she turned her back to me and walked across the room. This afforded me a view of the back of her dress, which I had been admiring in the walk to my room from the bar. It clung ever so slightly to her in alluring ways, just as I remembered from stolen glances in the lift. I breathed hard once more, though this time it had nothing to do with gasping for air. The way her hips moved caused me to remember another source of pain, so recently inflicted, as it throbbed ever so slightly, a reaction I’d cause to regret almost instantly as the pain reasserted itself. My throat was not the only place growing bruises.

  She poured herself a drink of water from the decanter on the dresser. Then turned to face me and leaned against it. I don’t know if this was a deliberate ploy on her part or not, but it reminded me how arid my throat felt. Deliberate or not, thirst nagged at me as she drank, reminding me, if I’d been in any doubt, that I was completely in her power at that moment in time.

  On second thoughts scratch that, I’m sure it was deliberate.

  “You’re not talking, Mr Smyth. Do I need to point out it would be wise for you to do so about now?” she said then swallowed the last of the water, looking at me with eyes with about as much humanity as that brass right arm of hers.

  “Yes, yes, of course…” I said, trying to think fast. “They think Wells has something to do with all this, well, that Wells is leading a new uprising or something,” I added with a certain urgency and sod all assurity.

  I felt a momentary prickle in my left eye as I said it, which I tried to ignore. I tried to put it down to no more than a reflex on my part. At least I hoped that was all it was. I quickly turned to look away from her. The memory of the screens in Cairo was still fresh in my mind. The idea that lip readers could be employed to monitor conversations had occurred to me more than once in the past week. If I was betraying secrets and they picked up on it from her reactions, it didn’t bear thinking about what they might make the blasted spider do to me. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about right at the moment.

  So as a consequence I didn’t see her reaction, only heard it. She sounded disbelieving, however. “You expect me to believe that? How exactly do they think Wells is going to accomplish that?”

  “They think he’s behind the new Muldarin,” I stammered slightly, feeling that same odd tingle behind my eyelid again.

  “What? He?” The disbelief in her voice was more palpable now.

  “Yes, he’s up near the northern borders and raising an army of insurrection or something.” I tried to explain, knowing that what I had been told was still only a slither of the whole, and I’d a far from firm grasp on the whys and wherefores of it all. Right then I just hoped it would be enough to gain me a stay of execution from clockwork Annie Oakley in the corner.

  “You said he…” she said. Her voice was tinged with anger once more, and I heard the sound of crystal shattering, which I assumed was the glass.

  I was finding it hard to focus now, my eyelid seemed determined to flutter, and I could feel my eye watering. Worse, I could feel the damn spider moving, I was sure of it.

  “He!” she said again. And there was a crash, which caused me to look back and see the contents of the dresser get scattered across the room.

  Then the proverbial penny dropped.

  “You’re asking about Saffron, aren’t you?” I said quickly. Wondering what possible connection there could be between the one-armed bandit girl and Miss Wells. Not that it mattered considering the way she was having a hissy fit. The next thing she decided to scatter across the room might well be me after all.

  “Yes, Mr Smyth, Saffron. I want to know what The Ministry has got on her and why she is working for those bastards. Who the hell is this he you’re talking about?” she snapped at me.

  I noticed, surprising myself by doing so, there was something about the way she said Saffron. Her tone lightened a little. I only caught it because it took the angry edge away from her voice for a moment. There was definitely something there…

  “Miss Wells’s great-grandfather, H.G. He’s the one they are really after,” I tried to explain, trying to process what was happening and read between the lines. Wondering what Not-A-Maid’s connection to Saffron was, what that odd lilt to her voice had meant.

  “He’s dead. He’s been dead years,” she said, a firmness to her voice. Whether it was true or not, she certainly seemed to believe it. There was something else again, I wasn’t entirely sure what but her tone seemed to hold the same distaste about H.G. as it did when she spoke of The Ministry.

  “Then they’re sending me on a wild goose chase if that’s the case. Because that’s my mission, find him and infiltrate his army,” I replied, feeling oddly safer now. Perhaps because I knew more than she did and now suspected a little of her motives. Only a slither, I should say, a fragment perhaps, but it was something to which I could cling and with it gain a little leverage. She cared about Saffron that was that odd lilt to her voice, cared or perhaps loved, I wasn’t sure which. But it was something along those lines.

  Yes, I will admit that may seem a bit of a leap, certainly to any of you who are of a more sheltered upbringing. I was, however, even back then, a man of the world. Those wonderfully reserved Victorian values which we hold so dear may make such a leap of logic seem surprising, but there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamed of in your… Well, actually it’s perhaps truer to say that many things men have been known to dream of are actually centred in reality. Thoug
h, sad to say, in my experience such Sapphic ladies tend to care little for involving men in their trysts. No matter how much a man may dream otherwise.

  So, while I did not know it for certain, I was reasonably sure right then, that my clockwork armed American friend was in love with Saffron, if not indeed her lover.

  I was also sure that she held nothing but distaste for her lover’s great-grandfather.

  “Wild goose chase? I take it that’s an English expression. Is that like a snipe hunt?” she asked after a moment’s consideration, a note of calm about her once more. She was collecting herself as the conversation moved on a little. Remarkably quickly now I think about it. But Bad Penny was always one for swift mood changes, I would come to notice.

  Bad Penny isn’t her name, by the way, more it is my name for her. Let’s just say she has a habit of turning up like one. But I’ll not get ahead of myself.

  “I’m unaware of the term, but I suspect so,” I replied, thinking abstractly that old chestnut about the English and the Americans, two people’s separate tongues, and all that…

  “So they have Saffron looking for her great-grandfather too? That’s their interest in her?” she asked me, her tone still levelling off. Indeed it was becoming almost conversational. Which was bizarre from my perspective, tied to a cast iron bed, still throbbing with unpleasant after pain, for none of the reasons I would usually be in such a position.

  “I suspect so. No one bothered me with their whys. I don’t know much beyond that,” I replied. Though my attention was on spiders once more. My eye felt like it was streaming by this point. I tried to blink it out, for what good it did me.

  It was only then I realised the damn thing had stopped moving and after a couple more blinks my vision started to clear. I was too preoccupied by what was going on to wonder why that was the case. Bad Penny was preoccupied too.

  “It doesn’t make sense. She hates the Empire and all it stands for. Why would she help them?” she asked, though I had the feeling the question wasn’t directed at me and was merely rhetorical.