Competence

by Gail Carriger

  It did not occur to Prim to doubt Percy’s accusation. She thought, in the end, that Mr Tarabotti might be perceived as gluttonous, or at least indulging in a significant lack of circumspection. But then, he did not seem the type of man to deny himself anything. He had been raised to believe he was evil, after all.

  Prim’s aether float from that point forward was spent in rather a tizzy of distressed finer feelings. She did not like it when the world, or the people in it, behaved beyond the bounds of polite expectations. Not that she was entirely fixed in her opinions.

  Prim had enlarged her views in order to accept Rue’s outrageousness with regard to keeping and maintaining a French lover, in the manner of some sordid opera singer. She had accepted this because she had learned to expect the outrageous from Rue. She filed Rue under the auspices of being perhaps overly fast. Although Prim would never say this to Rue’s face. But at least her friend was engaging in horizontal exertions with a man.

  Beyond that, Prim became flushed and distressed. She did not wish to know the preferences of imprisoned Italians. She did not like how accepting her brother was of such things.

  Imagine, said Italian flirting with Percy! And Percy, no doubt in his brusque and uncaring way, simply brushing these advances off like specks of dust from a shirtsleeve.

  How could Percy be so untroubled by such a thing when every time Miss Sekhmet comes near me I come over all faint and angry and rush for escape in either mind or body? It isn’t fair. I’m supposed to be the composed twin.

  This line of thought proving fruitless and vexatious, Prim spent the lion’s share of her time - oh dear, there it is again, lion’s share - investigating reports on the high mountains of South America and any possible vampire presence therein. She brushed up on her Spanish, which never would be as good as her French or Arabic. Well, who would have thought one would need Spanish in one’s life? And generally spent more time in Percy’s library than he did, for a change.

  Footnote was delighted. They had always gotten along quite well. Primrose had an affinity for cats. He was happy to occupy her lap the moment she sat down. He performed his ritual of kneading imaginary bread and circling three times before the flop and purr with about as much seriousness as a cleric about his Sunday sermon.

  And then, well, and then it came time for the next hop.

  Primrose went up on deck, more for a chance at sunlight and fresh air while they dropped out of the aetherosphere than out of interest about the depuff and current transition.

  Everyone was tense.

  It was no secret Percy anticipated this hop would be as bad as, if not worse than, the last. He made noises about the unreliability of the charts they were using. The only charts they had. This was likely a way of blaming someone else for any prospective mistakes. She knew this was a pattern to Percy’s behaviour in the past, but it had been years since he’d emphasised so vehemently the flaws in his tools rather than himself. Over the years, Percy had grown into his confidence as well as his arrogance. It was more like him to admit to no possible mistakes at all. Which made Prim think that perhaps there really was something wrong with their charts.

  The fact that Quesnel Lefoux was equally nervous did not help. Rue’s paramour was, in general, such a relaxed individual that to see him concerned at all was a profound shock to the system. To see him pacing about and barking orders in a decidedly French accent put everyone on edge.

  The depuff was easy enough and the Spotted Custard popped out into the atmosphere without fanfare or flourish.

  It was nighttime over the South Pacific, the skies around them free of clouds. This was both a delight and a relief, since they might easily have hit a tropical storm on a blind depuff like that.

  The stars were vast and twinkling with savage cheer above them, and the sea was a vast and satin-rich bed of cruelty below. Primrose shivered at her own fancy, but there was something about the wide emptiness that terrorised. I suppose I am nothing if not a creature of cities with bustling streets and cosy hearths. This vastness is not for me. And I am not for it.

  Prim tried to recall a time when she had floated so far offshore that land was no longer visible. She could remember none. Here, for all its rotund spotted majesty, their dirigible felt desolate. Abandoned. As a child Prim had crossed to Egypt by steamer, but she was too young to remember that journey. Since her mother became a vampire and settled in Wimbledon shortly thereafter, Primrose rarely left London (except to shop in Paris, of course). But crossing the Channel was nothing like this. Steaming to Paris was a rough-and-ready passage, well used and crammed with other boats and fellow travellers.

  Here Primrose looked down to the ocean and saw nothing: no one else, no longships, no gallant naval vessels. Nothing.

  “Isn’t it glorious?” A warm, mellow, slightly accented voice broke her loneliness. Primrose didn’t need to turn to know who spoke.

  She shivered. “No. It’s too much.” Just like you.

  There was a rustle at the railing next to her and Tasherit appeared, leaning out over the abyss, perfect in profile. Tempting, utterly off limits, vast in her possibilities. As terrifying as the ocean below.

  Ordinarily Prim would have been on guard, and annoyed, and secretly pleased. Tasherit always awoke and sought her first. It was clear she’d recently emerged from her bed, for the werecat wore only a long flowing robe and her hair was loose and unbound.

  Primrose shook off her sentimental mood and her terror, chiding herself for behaving like her mother - lowest of the low in Prim’s opinion. She tried to simply be happy to have the company, as the crew went about their business in a tense silence. The decklings were usually prone to chatter and songs, but the vastness affected even them.

  Primrose managed a calm, pleasant demeanour, angling politely towards the werecat.

  Tasherit spoke to her but continued to face outwards. “There are places in the deep desert as still and abandoned as this, but there is something more lonely about the open water than the rolling sands.”

  “I’ve never been this far from land before.”

  “Nor have I. It is strange to have a new experience when one is as old as I.”

  Primrose wondered, because she was warped and perverse, if Tasherit had ever been with a man. Was she like Rodrigo Tarabotti, ambitious in her wanting, or was she one as marked in her preference for women as Lord Akeldama was in his preference for men? Was there something about being supernatural or preternatural that made one more flexible in one’s desires? Or was it simply that having lived in and through multiple histories and times, one’s judgement was less confined by the culture of the day? Had there been a time, once, when it was more common for a woman to be coupled to a woman than a man? Surely not.

  Primrose shook her head at her own warped ideas. Where is my mind wandering this evening? It’s as off course as Percy’s damnable charts.

  “How was the first leg?” asked the werecat.

  At last, normal conversation. “Not so bad, really. Rough passage into the right current. But smooth once we hooked in. That’s why everyone is so tense right now. Percy is worried about his calculations for this next hop.”

  “And it’s the longer one.”

  It was not a question but Primrose answered it as if it were. “Yes. And if he has miscalculated, there is a chance we could go far off course. You’ll be asleep throughout regardless. Speaking of, should we get you fed before we pop back into the grey?”

  Tasherit looked at her, then nodded. “Who am I to turn away food? Will it be only us?”

  Prim tried not to flinch. “Yes, the others are occupied and we only have a short window. I’ll let them know there’s tea in the stateroom should they need it, but nothing formal. They can stop in when they have the chance. Let me alert Cook. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes?”

  The lioness inclined her head.

  Twenty minutes later, they managed to be civilised about it. Prim felt the burn of the werecat’s cho
colate gaze on her at odd moments, but Tasherit did not press the advantage afforded by a mostly private tea. Her questions remained broad. She concerned herself with the state of the crew and ship.

  She was mildly interested in Percy’s book group. But frankly she was overburdened with soul and did not need ethics to fill a moral vacuum. Prim said she thought there were enough members already. She did not say that she did not like the idea of Tasherit sitting so close to a preternatural killer. He was, after all, trained first and foremost to assassinate supernatural creatures. Prim didn’t think it a good idea to throw Tasherit into the mix. Might be too much of a temptation. Knowing that Rue attended the meetings was bad enough.

  The rage Prim’s missing engagement ring had engendered before seemed to have dissipated while Tasherit slept. Or perhaps the werecat merely stifled it. She looked at Prim with more concern than desire. Prim wasn’t certain how to take that. So she drank her tea and made polite talk. Her stomach being strangely uneasy, Prim ate little, pressing meat pies and cups of cream upon her dining companion instead. Worried that on this next leg Tasherit would be asleep for six days straight. How might this detrimentally affect her health?

  Formerly Floote joined them briefly, materialising through the wall as he made his rounds. He did it most evenings first thing and always after any length of aetheric travel, drifting about through the public areas of the Spotted Custard as if running a check on staff and crew, assuring ship’s safety and ascertaining that all was up to his ghostly standards.

  Primrose decided she might ask him a delicate question, given the privacy of the tea. Ordinarily she would not interfere but there was no proper chaperone aboard the Custard so she felt it her duty. “Formerly Floote, may I have a word, please?”

  The ghost paused and rotated in the air, settling across the table from her. Tasherit watched them both with interest.

  “Certainly, Miss Tunstell. How may I be of service?”

  “It is a delicate matter, a question about your granddaughter.”

  “Yes?”

  “When she first boarded, she said something about not being available for courting. Or she said it to Rue and Rue told me about it. I can’t quite recall. It was something to do with coins or bells being absent from her veil.”

  “Yes?” Formerly Floote was not the most loquacious of ghosts.

  “Is this something chosen by her or by her family? If a gentleman were interested, how might he change her mind or advance his prospects?”

  The ghost looked thoughtful, and then intrigued. “Is your brother…?”

  Primrose blushed. “Oh, no, forgive me. I am not asking for Percy. Another has expressed interest. I am concerned for her respectability and safety.”

  Formerly Floote smiled. “Anitra can take care of herself, I assure you.”

  Primrose wanted to tell him about Rodrigo Tarabotti’s interest. That she suspected the girl was not as repulsed as she ought to be. But somehow she felt this would be betraying a confidence. She would not meddle if it was unwanted.

  So she only inclined her head. “If you trust her judgement, so do I.”

  “Very good, ma’am,” said the ghost, before floating on his way.

  Tasherit shifted in her seat and put down her cup of cream. “What was that about, little one?”

  Primrose shook her head. “Anitra’s choices may not be so good as her grandfather believes, but it is not for me to expose them to others without grounds.”

  “Quite right. Who are you to call into question the viability of anyone else’s relationships?”

  Was that a cut? It certainly felt that way. Primrose hung her head. “It is true. I have been engaged more often than not. I am fickle.”

  “Is that what you think I mean?”

  “It is all this travel I do. In very short order, any decent gentleman will want nothing to do with me. I shall be too worldly.”

  “Then perhaps you should stop looking in that particular direction.”

  Primrose put down the teapot. She shut her eyes and took a small breath. “Miss Sekhmet, I mean to marry.”

  “Yes, so I gathered.”

  “I wish to keep my own house. I want children. Family. Stability.”

  “Ah. So.” The werecat flinched and took a gulp of her cream. Then she stood. “I should head to bed. We are almost to the puffing hour.”

  Prim watched her go. Then, very slowly, she listed forward and thumped her forehead on a spot of the table that was empty of dishware and available for such a necessary thing as knocking sense into young ladies of quality.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Very Warm Welcome

  The puffing went much more smoothly than Percy had expected. This meant he felt foolish for his concern, and angry with everyone else for doubting him. Even after having doubted himself. He solved this contrary sensation by ignoring all humanity for about twenty-four hours. Only Footnote was deemed acceptable society, and because Tasherit was once more abed, Footnote was off courting Prim. This only served to irritate Percy further. Why his cat so vastly enjoyed the society of his irritating sister was a complete mystery of unfair proportions.

  However, Percy attended the next philosophy club meeting as if nothing had happened. Everyone followed his lead in this, because, frankly, nothing had happened. This time the group discussed the first half of The Higher Common Sense. Percy felt that if Fausse-Maigre couldn’t cure Rodrigo Tarabotti of what ailed him (whatever that was) nothing could.

  They traded around the book. Fortunately, Percy had two copies, as everyone should. Higher Common Sense was a masterpiece of modern thought, even if he hadn’t written it. The book discussion was animated and persisted over the next few days while they floated in the grey. Even the aetherosphere couldn’t subdue Higher Common Sense.

  It was a lazy float, in the end. With nothing better to do, the sooties and decklings played cards, Primrose and Rue did each other’s hair, Anitra quietly flirted with Rodrigo, and Percy read a great deal. Any reports on vampires in the mountains of South America were maddeningly elusive or mainly oral in nature. (It was not, certainly not, that his library was subpar.)

  Percy should have known, of course. Such peace never lasts.

  The Spotted Custard depuffed off the coast of South America to find, spread out below them, a massive vivid emerald lushness. This was marred only by a spine of brown, which represented the high-peaked mountains, and a ribbon of butter-coloured sandy beach before the rich teal of the ocean. It was so lovely that Primrose considered having a dress designed in that exact colour palette.

  It was a bright sunny day, the kind of day one expects from the tropics. Too much for an immortal. Thus, Primrose doubted Tasherit would be joining them for floatdown, to lean over the rails and make euphemistic commentary. That Prim missed the werecat was no excuse to go back below to ascertain if said werecat was awake. More than likely, Miss Sekhmet would sleep solid through until nightfall.

  Prim did not like how long she took to convince herself of this fact. Really, she thought, self-delusion is extremely hard work.

  Percy depuffed them several times, dropping the Custard by stages down through the atmosphere towards the city of Lima, which proved to be a white smudge of civilisation nested near the shore at the base of one of the many mountains.

  Once the buildings became moderately distinct, he fired up the propeller to steer them in properly.

  Rue, assured that everything was sufficiently under control, came over for a chat.

  “What do we know about Lima, Prim dear?”

  Primrose shrugged. “You realise that I haven’t any guidebooks for South America?”

  “You must know something.”

  Prim scrunched up her nose. “It’s Spanish speaking. Adobe houses. Good seafood. It is the source of alpaca, or this part of the world is the source at any rate.”

  “Alpaca?”

  “A kind of cute, furry, goaty creature with very big eyes, mak
es wonderful wool. You know that afternoon dress I have with the skirt and sleeves of mignonette green? That’s alpaca.”

  “Oh!” Rue remembered. “The one with the white silk bodice and the velvet neckband? That’s alpaca? Soft.”

  “Yes, so you always say when I wear it. Then you pet me.”

  Rue tilted her head. “I’m irresistibly tempted by soft fabric. Oh, stop looking frowny, you adore me. So, what else do we know about Lima or its highlands? Or hinterlands?”

  Prim considered. “Republic of Peru. You’d be better off asking Percy about local politics.”

  “But then I’d have to listen to him talk.”

  Primrose gave her friend a look.

  Rue rolled her tawny eyes. “Percy doesn’t have the same kind of insight as you. And I know you must have been reading up on the place. You like to pretend all you care about is hats and shopping, but I know better. Spill!”

  Prim spilled. “Catholic, although I think I heard somewhere that they had trouble converting the highland tribes.”

  Rue grinned. “Recommendations?”

  “Approach the lowland city for refuelling. Send Percy and anyone else who speaks Spanish out to listen in taverns or pubs or whatever the equivalent is in Lima. You’re truly planning on vampire hunting or rescuing, or hunting to the rescue, as it were?”

  “As instructed. Could be fun.”

  Primrose felt, as always, that Rue’s idea of fun was warped at best. Still, it was her duty to be the prepared one in their relationship, always had been. “Any local supernatural element will be entirely in hiding. The conquistadors would have seen to that hundreds of years ago and the church would have instituted an ongoing Inquisition ever since. So don’t you or Miss Sekhmet dare change forms unless you absolutely must. They behead in this country. Keep a tight guard on Mr Tarabotti too. He could disappear easily here, and I doubt preternaturals are known or understood.”