“Mines, quarries, carts or wherries?”
“Air ships,” Logon grinned. “Travelling the skies. A passenger ship that will take ten or twelve paying adventurers, and three crew who will drive it and maintain it.”
Even more interested than he had supposed, Jak nodded. “Tell me more.”
Logon did. “This is highly secret, my friend, since we do not want to alert those who wish to profit by another’s efforts, nor ship builders and train drivers who believe an air ship would risk their own positions. We work south, in the coal quarry, leading down into the mine. The miners see us but assume simply that we have come to dig deeper and enlarge their own profits. But what we are doing is working in secret in a series of tunnels underground, and eventually will have to move up to work on a flat field suitable for our flying purposes. But by then, the way it works will be hidden below, and what we’ve developed can be safely seen as a finished design.”
“It sounds,” Jak said, smile turning to frown, “ambitious but doubtful. Am I simply pessimistic, or is this idea so far from complete, that it may prove nonsensical?”
Logon chuckled. “Well past the nonsensical, my pessimistic friend. I have seen one fly, although not too high and not too far. Just a flapping toy, perhaps. But proof enough.”
“And no one else knows?”
“Now, that’s the problem,” Logon said. “So far, there are only five of us, and I’m the last to join. The leader is Jowk and let me call him the genius and mastermind who began to invent the idea more than six years ago. There is my friend Argon, who knows everything possible about steam engines. There are also two mechanics, fast and clever, named Don and Stock. Finally, myself. I am probably the least knowledgeable and the least use, but having driven a train, I have a little expertise, and I am also useful to the others since I know their enemy.”
“Someone is working against you all? Or trying to steal the idea?” Jak asked quickly.
“Both. And you know him too,” Logon said. “It’s our dear friend Kallivan, and we have to stop him without allowing others to find out why. That’s where I thought you might be interested, my friend.”
“I’m interested in both aspects,” Jak said at once. “Eliminating Kallivan has been my aim for some considerable time, although I admit that outright attack is not my usual method. But I also find the airship fascinating and would willingly become involved. Even should it only involve shovelling coal on the fire.”
“We need to know what Kallivan knows, what he wants, and what he intends to do about it,” grinned Logon. “That would be your belt badge, my friend,” Logon said. “He’s been seen south and has invested a large sum of money in the coal mine. So we can’t throw him off unless – well you can guess how. He brings men with him, so no easy way I know leaps out. Jowl is furious. As am I, of course. But we could pretend that you’ve done the same. Investing in a coal mine is hardly a thrill but should be profitable enough. So you’d be bloody Kallivan’s competitor, and have every right to visit the quarry. He’d want to know whatever you know, and even offer partnership.”
“I’ve recently met another interesting friend of yours,” Jak said, slowly walking on. “Someone you know rather more intimately than I do.”
“Not the wretched king? I’ve no wish to involve him. He mustn’t know a thing.”
“His name’s Fraygard,” Jak said, and watched Logon beam wide.
“We shared a prison cell for a lifetime. And I can only hope he still calls me friend. Friends in prison cells are forced together, but once free they might not want to know a man who only reminds them of past misery. But if he’ll trust a new friendship under better circumstances – and I can only hope he’d be interested – he’d do well from this. We all will. If he agrees, bring him to meet me in the Dagger and Shield tonight. I’ve missed him, by all the gods, I’ve missed that man.”
“I’m positive he’ll be interested,” Jak nodded. “For your friendship, for mine, and for the enterprise itself.” Laughing, watching Logon’s eyes beam like torches, Jak said, “He’s talked a great deal about you and how much he’s missed you too. And his wife. You know her a little, I’d guess. She’s clever and will want to come with him after so many years apart.”
Three guards accompanied Stilla to the large sunny office where the asylum manager Dwarika was basking in the warmth at the end of a long day. He was not overly delighted at the disturbance, but Stilla’s message had made him curious, and he wanted to know what she meant with all this secret urgency. If it proved to be ridiculous or boring, he would be as content as usual to have the female stripped and beaten in his sight.
Although a little disappointed to see her, once she marched eagerly into his chamber, since she was elderly and wrinkled, not therefore someone he’d be keen to see stripped, he nodded cheerfully and indicated for her to sit on the opposite chair from himself. He tapped his fingers on the small table between them. “Well, girl, what have you to say for yourself?”
“My lord,” Stilla said in a hurry in case the master slung her out, “I have told you my story before, and I have witnesses who came to see you, and others who wrote sealed statements, swearing that I’m here for no good reason except my sister’s jealousy and greed.” Dwarika half stood, angry and impatient, since endless pleas for release did not interest him in the least. But Stilla hurried on. “If you should act on my information, my lord, and profit by it, which I am quite sure you will, sir, may I ask that my payment is simply to be set free?”
Plumping himself back down in his chair again, Dwarika considered this. Finally he said, “I’ll think about it. That will depend on how much I profit, whether the profit comes directly from your information, and whether I end up in a very good mood.”
She had hoped for more but began to tell her story. “There’s a real rough trollop in the cage next to mine, my lord. Her name is Doria. I don’t know where she came from, but yesterday she was visited by two mighty lords. She called the younger man Kallivan, and I believe the other man was his father, name of Thribb.” She paused, hoping for immediate recognition, but none came. So she continued. “They both threatened Doria concerning what she might tell the guards, or yourself, sir. This was evidently concerning a mill, and evidently what she could tell would be dangerous for them. But these men, both Kallivan and Thribb, were wonderfully richly dressed and must surely have been lords. Whatever they wanted kept secret must be important. Something I’m sure you’d like to know, my lord, maybe even his majesty, if two of his great lords have done something wicked or treacherous.”
“Humph,” said Dwarika. “Too many secrets.”
“And another,” Stilla said, now holding onto the edge of the table in case she was thrown from the room. “This Doria evidently murdered Lord Lydiard’s mother. They said so. I heard them. Lord Jak Lydiard, they said, would be mighty sad to know his mother was killed. And it was Doria who did it.”
Dwarika sat up and leaned forwards. “Now that’s most interesting, girl. You can prove it?”
She could not. “I overheard it, that’s all,” she said. “But I know all their names. Even the murdered mother, who was Valeria, Lady Lydiard. If you tell the king, or his steward, or someone really, really important, they’ll know she’s dead, won’t they? And that’s the proof. Doria did it. A knife, I think, and in her own home. It was Lord Lydiard who found her. Now I couldn’t know that, could I, if I hadn’t heard it all?”
“Still might not be true,” and he bit his lip. “But if it is, and I get a reward, I’ll set you free, girl. But only if you stay in touch while I work out the rest of it.”
The answering smile was utter joy. Freedom began to flicker at Stilla, and she almost collapsed. To be taken from the vile filth of a cage and to be permitted to live again would be utterly marvellous, utter happiness, paradise discovered. Stilla returned to the ignominy and public disgrace of the dirt, massive discomfort and open piss pot of her cage, but she smiled for the first time in nearly two years.
/> Doria stared at her in disbelief. “Wot you got ter smile over, silly bitch?”
“The pleasure of being a silly bitch,” said Stilla softly.
“Have we found our road to the slave-market?” Freya said.
Pod had been playing the lute, delighted to rediscover the bliss of the music he adored. Now he laid the lute gently on the sand beside him. “My love, no, not yet. You are wounded and not entirely recovered. I’m the same. Almost recovered but not strong yet. And you suppose just two little weaklings should cross the sands to attack a camp of perhaps a hundred men? Perhaps even more. We don’t know. We don’t even know exactly where it is. And I can promise you, we’d both be up for sale within the hour.”
“But we have to get rid of it. Perhaps we can burn the camp before they even see us.” She flopped down beside him and kissed his neck. “We ought to try something.”
“Perhaps burn the slaves already captured? Perhaps burn the camels you love.” Pod shook his head. “No, my beloved. “We wait one more day to recover, then we ride north. Once in the city, we report the vile trade, where it is more or less, and what should be done about it. Maybe even Symon and Tom will join us. We’ll find them easily enough.”
Freya sighed. “We go all the way to Eden? It will take ages. It’s wonderful to have the camels, but they walk slower than I do. Can’t we stop at Volliney in the south. We must be close already.”
“But we don’t know anyone.”
“We can try.”
“Alright,” conceded Pod, “we can try.”
He spoke clearly and his eyes were bright. Turning his head, which pulled on the scar across his throat, still hurt him, but now there was little else that delayed him, and although Freya’s shoulder grumbled at times, with a spasm of complaint, she was able the next morning to saddle the tethered camels, pile their belongings on the two largest, and help Pod mount before she mounted herself. The camels sat when told, which delighted them both, and Freya said, “Easier than horses. They don’t politely sit down for you to climb on their backs.”
“And they sing to us as well,” Pod shouted over the grunts, roars and bellows of their cheerful team, “I couldn’t do better myself.”
That evening he did sing to her, curled beneath a bush of tiny budding orange flowers. The lonesome heart is a noose for the hanging, yet a wild wind is the loneliest of all. When it howls and your heart howls with it, then you welcome the noose and die swinging. You and the wind both cry as you fall.
This was not one Pod had written himself, it was an old ballad, and the camels crowded around, snorting as they cuddled up, sitting around the little campfire Pod had built. Freya breathed in the aromatic smoke, wrapped herself in the old blanket, and lay her head against her camel’s side.
“Bumpity bump,” said Frink, as the under-steward showed in the next appointment.
Dwarika seemed a little startled. “You majesty?”
“Bumpity-bumpity-bump-bump-bump,” grinned the king, sitting on his throne, and energetically bobbing his knees for the very small child getting hiccups on his lap. Now four months old, the little boy enjoyed his adopted father, but was still a little young for the pre-bottle entertainment. Frink bothered to look at the short-hunched man standing in front of him. “What?” He returned to the baby, kissed its entirely bald head, and cuddled tighter. “What is it?” he then demanded. “And who are you?” He appeared to be speaking to his son, but Dwarika guessed that he himself was being addressed.
“I am Dwarika of the Asylum of the Insane,” he said loudly over the baby’s gurgles. “I was told you were expecting me, your majesty.”
“Was I?” muttered Frink. “Perhaps I was. “Now then, diddely-pom and doodily-doo, let’s pass the parcel and go to the zoo.”
“Your majesty, I have a story of great urgency to tell regarding murder and theft.” Dwarika dared step closer.
“Yes, yes,” Frink cuddled Laximan with another wet kiss to the forehead. “Come on then, hurry up and tell me. It’s nearly bottle time.”
Still somewhat puzzled, Dwarika began his story. It was a story he still did not entirely understand, but he related what he himself had been told. The king’s own grandson Kallivan had done something terrible in an old mill and had threatened an asylum inmate if she dared tell what she knew about him. A little vague, perhaps, but obviously something worth exploring. In the meantime the asylum inmate herself had murdered the Lady Valeria of Lydiard, mother to Lord Jak Lydiard, who had recently been discovered dead in her own chambers. The king began to seem interested, although not avid, and waved at one of the pages. “Hoy, you. Get me a c-size purse and call little Laxman’s nurse.”
“And shall I let the informer free in exchange for this information, your majesty?” Dwarika remained on his knees now, which seemed safer.
“Well, is she crazed, or not?” demanded Frink, looking down with hauteur.
“Umm,” Dwarika mumbled. “I ‘spose not, your highness.”
“Well, let her go, obvious isn’t it?” said Frink, suddenly annoyed. “Here,” and he threw the jangling purse into Dwarika’s hands. “And give two of those coins to the girl that told you when you put her on a wherry.”
Outside the palace, Dwarika immediately sat on the little garden bench shaded by the highest hedge, emptied the purse into his lap and counted the coins. It was less than he had hoped, but still a good sum. Whether concluding his story with the facts concerning Kallivan’s true father would have helped or hindered, he wasn’t sure. But fear had blocked those words. He waited until the next morning before informing the assistant who informed the head guard who informed a lower guard who informed Stilla that she was now free. She was handed two bright silver penies, and told to make her own way. Doria gazed through the wire in fury.
“Should be me,” she shrieked, disturbing the rest of the prisoners. “Wot’s better about that miserable cow?”
Nobody answered her, and immediately the great metal padlock was opened and the mesh door squeaked wide, Stilla ran from the cage, from the whole asylum, and from the island, leaping into a nearby wherry even though she had to wade, getting her shoes and ankles soaked, for the wherry-drivers did not like to get to close to the crazy place.
And then Stilla scrambled back on dry land, up the city bank and onto Banks Road, quickly remembering the way to her old home. She was hungry, cold and thirsty, but the exhilaration of freedom from hell was sufficient to leave her knowing only delight.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
They rode, since none were lovers of the train.
Fraygard and Logon rode ahead with Chia for they still savoured the reunion and had a great deal to talk about. Behind Jak and Symon rode together. Toby, running with extravagant delight in the hard exercise, kept just behind the horses’ hooves.
“Tis quicker by that noisy bloody train,” Symon mumbled. “I doesn’t like it, but I reckons me horse don’t like me, neither.”
“I must apologise,” Jak said, slowing his pace, “for offering only two choices, each of which you dislike. But unless you wish to climb both down and then up the great canyon and then walk across the desert, there’s little other choice. Until, of course, these interesting people achieve their interesting invention.”
“I reckoned driving a train might be wot I ends up with,” sighed Symon.
Treating this large and able man as a small child and sympathising with his recent obviously private depressions, had clearly not seemed feasible or wise. But now Jak said, “Don’t ever feel yourself bound to me, my friend. I value your company. You’ve helped me more than simple friendship demanded since you’ve saved my life and taught me a considerable amount too. I’ve an idea that boredom is something you’d like to escape. But working in the quarry won’t be boring by the sound of it. Whereas I doubt your dog could join you in the cabin of any train you drove, in the quarry, a dog could be useful. A guard, for instance, able to smell out invaders before a man could see anything.”
Looking beh
ind and down where Toby’s yellow and ginger head, earless but with bright eyes, kept silent pace with his master, Symon smiled. “Reckon that decides it, then. And I ain’t reckoning on leaving neither you, m’lord, nor me dog, as it happens. I knows the gangs and the wickedness in the Lower City. I knows the Bridge wot ain’t there no more, and I knows them old places like the Molly House and the tavern where they sells wot’s bin stole. I won’t be doing none o’ that no more, and I ain’t a fellow o’ leading nor gangs, nor followin’ anovver. So tis legit work I wants. And spendin’ a life where I’s called Symon ‘stead o’ Bugger or Beast sounds mighty fine. But best of all, tis a right sodding pleasure to think o’ spending me life up in them stars, searching fer the Paradise they reckon hides up there in them clouds.”
The coal mine was a sweep of cavernous holes and openings, the centre of the sands lying entirely uncovered, having been dug over fifty years. Rough wooden ladders led down. More ladders tipped into the pits, and where the tunnels opened level, there were torches flaring within.
Few men could be seen, most already working underground, but the sounds of the chipping and hammering were echoing from beneath the surface.
But there was another sound which did not seem applicable to the mining, for deep into one side of the quarry were two tunnels, and a repeated sound, not so loud, CHUFF-chuff,chuff,chuff – CHUFF – chuff,chuff,chuff.
“Steam,” Fraygard’s hat was pulled low over his eyes for the sun was burning, but beneath the brim his eyes still gleamed.
“And that’s exactly what it is,” said Logon. “Who’s coming in to see?”
Only Symon was frowning. “Tis a mine fer digging the coal, and then the coal tis used right away fer them chuffin’ steam engines?”
Chia took Symon’s arm, tucking hers inside his large elbow. “I have no idea what to expect either, so we shall march in upon them together.”
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