Waistcoats & Weaponry

by Gail Carriger

  A whooshing noise interrupted her thoughts. An egg-shaped pod spat out of a tube and skidded along a specially designed trough. One of the mechanical’s arms came crashing down and cracked the egg open.

  Sophronia jumped and squeaked at the suddenness of it.

  The mechanical reached out with yet another of its appendages and unrolled the paper within. The paper was perforated with small holes of variable location. This the mechanical rested on a reader that looked like the voice coil of a standard mechanical—music box technology.

  Another arm turned a crank and the paper fed through. Sophronia supposed this would normally issue a set of protocols to the mechanical on how to pilot the ship, but in this case it caused the tinny voice of an underused vocal-quadringer to read instructions.

  “Rope ladder stashed below Pirandellope Probe, near feeding tube for capsule pipeline.”

  Sophronia knew the instructions were for her. Somehow, even though the sound was mechanized and lacked emphasis, the message conveyed Professor Lefoux’s special brand of French disinterest.

  ON FANS AND FLIRTING

  That’s it?” Sidheag was disappointed in Sophronia’s desultory description of the pilot’s bubble.

  “When did you get interested in technology?” replied Sophronia.

  “It’s not that; I was hoping that after we left, you would fall to your doom. Something exciting for once.”

  “Thank you kindly, Lady Kingair. The fact that I was initially dropped overboard by a vampire wasn’t exciting enough for you?”

  “Not with you, Sophronia, it wasn’t.” Sidheag passed over the buttered pikelets without having to be asked.

  “I spoil you, that’s the problem.” Sophronia, secretly flattered, deposited a pikelet onto her plate.

  Sidheag’s masculine face lit up with a grin.

  Teatime conversation flowed smoothly among the members of their little band. Over a year and a half’s association and Sophronia would have described the other three as confidantes extraordinaire. The best part being that she knew they felt the same way about her. Each had her own set of abilities. Sidheag had stoic strength. Dimity a guileless craftiness. Agatha… well, perhaps Agatha was a bit of a wet blanket. She was loyal to a fault and she did try. She tried too hard sometimes.

  As if to illustrate this, the chubby redhead looked suddenly panicked and began to pat her person and rifle through her reticule. “What class do we have after tea?” she asked, voice wobbling.

  Dimity looked up from applying strawberry jam to her pikelet. “Captain Niall. It’s Thursday, we always have him on Thursdays, unless the moon is full. Really, Agatha dear, how could you forget? It’s Captain Niall!”

  Agatha was relieved. “Oh, that’s all right. Unless… we weren’t meant to bring anything, were we? Scissors, or paperweights, or wheat paste, or…?”

  “No,” Sidheag answered. She was always prepared for Captain Niall’s classes. They were her favorite, and not only because he was a proper bit of sweetmeat. Sidheag liked weapons training. She was Scottish, after all. “We’re moving on from deadly library supplies to something else this evening. He didn’t say what.” She tugged on her earlobe, uncomfortable. Sophronia wasn’t certain if that was because she didn’t know what was going on or because of Captain Niall. Sophronia suspected Sidheag of harboring a good deal of romantic interest in their werewolf professor. Of course, half the young ladies of Mademoiselle Geraldine’s tendered feelings in his direction. Captain Niall was quite dashing. Sidheag, either because she was embarrassed to acknowledge any emotion or because she was disgusted with herself for belonging to a popular movement, had yet to confess said interest.

  Sophronia, as a result, rather enjoyed teasing her on the subject. “Didn’t say? Not even to you? But I thought you two were so close.”

  Sidheag walked right into her trap. “Not that close! He doesn’t share lesson plans with me.”

  “Well, then, does he share something else?”

  Dimity was feeling equally mischievous. “Dead rabbits, perhaps? Laying his kill at your feet.”

  “What?” Sidheag was genuinely confused.

  Dimity was not to be turned aside. “As if we didn’t see you nuzzling up to the lovely captain regularly.”

  Sidheag objected to this unwarranted accusation. “Nuzzling! He’s ten times my age!”

  Dimity waved an airy hand. “Immortals usually are, and he certainly still cuts a fine figure.”

  Sophronia nudged Sidheag’s shoulder. “And you know werewolves. I mean to say, you know them.” They so rarely got to rib Sidheag.

  The Scottish girl actually blushed.

  Mindful of her chamber-mate’s finer feelings, Agatha returned them to the subject of preparing for class. “Well, thank goodness it’s him. I was sure we had Lady Linette, and I’ve misplaced my chewing tobacco for card rooms and informant recruiting.”

  “Again? Really, Agatha.” Sidheag was unsympathetic.

  “To be fair, yesterday it was the lip tint. If you only kept your side of the room cleaner.”

  “You can’t blame me for your absentmindedness.”

  “Yes, I can.” Agatha only really had any gumption with Sidheag. Which was funny, because Sidheag was so gruff and Agatha so timid. But after months of their living together, Agatha had learned to stick up for herself. Sidheag was a big softy underneath her grumbling. It came, they all suspected, from being raised by werewolves. As Dimity said, “Sidheag surely does grumpy old man very well for a sixteen-year-old girl.”

  “Are you four going to sit there gossiping all night?” Preshea was standing above them, looking down her nose. A rare opportunity for the girl, as she was quite short.

  The dining room was empty. Somehow, they had missed the mass exodus. The maid mechanicals were beginning to clear the tea tables.

  “Oh, I see, you’re waiting to gather up the extra pikelets, so Agatha can have a snack later.” Preshea had a very clipped way of talking, as though each word were murdered just after being spoken.

  At the dig over her portly frame, Agatha teared up.

  Dimity gasped and put her hand to her lips.

  Sophronia was so perturbed by the direct nature of the attack that she lacked a ready rebuttal.

  Sidheag, on the other hand, simply threw her mostly uneaten pikelet at Preshea.

  “Lady Kingair,” said Preshea, shocked, “this is a new gown!”

  “Well, you shouldn’t go around being nasty when the rest of us are armed with nibbly bits, should you?” Sidheag was unperturbed by the smear of jam that now decorated Preshea’s décolletage.

  Preshea flounced off, still in possession of verbal superiority. After all, they ought to have responded with wit, not flying pancakes. But Agatha looked cheered by Sidheag’s pikelet defense.

  Dimity sniffed. “That girl is like walking, talking indigestion. Sophronia, can’t we do something about her?”

  Sophronia frowned. “I don’t know if it’s worth the risk. They’ve been watching me closely since the Westminster Hive incident.”

  “Please?” Dimity gave her big hazel-eyed look of appeal.

  “I’ll think about it. Now come on; we’re late, and the staircase won’t wait.”

  They abandoned the last of the pikelets uneaten and trooped down after the rest of the students toward the midship deck. Before they could catch the other young ladies, however, they were waylaid.

  “Lady Kingair, a moment of your time, please?”

  Professor Lefoux was the most fearsome teacher at the school. Her subjects included deadly gadgetry, high-impact weaponry, and infiltrating academia. Even Sophronia was equal parts terrified and impressed by her visage, attitude, and abilities. However, she was not the type of teacher to accost one in the hallways, nor intercept a student when she was already late for class.

  Sidheag, controlling her surprise, faced the austere lady. They were almost of a height. Professor Lefoux was the only person at the school next to whom Sidheag’s governess-like at
tire seemed soft and approachable.

  The professor, Sophronia always felt, looked as if she had been sticking her head out the side of a very fast carriage. All her hair was pulled back from her unlined face, making her seem stretched.

  “Yes, Professor, how may I help you?” Even Sidheag knew when to be polite.

  “You have received”—Professor Lefoux paused, distressed, if such a thing were to be thought possible—“a pigeon.”

  The girls gasped. Pigeons were for emergency use only.

  Sidheag blanched. “Has someone died? Is it Gramps? Has he been challenged?”

  Professor Lefoux glanced at the other three girls, who nudged up to their friend sympathetically. “It is a private matter. This way, please. Alone, young lady.” She turned and strode down the hallway, expecting Sidheag to follow.

  Dimity gave the taller girl’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “Good luck.”

  The three watched until Sidheag was out of sight ’round a bend in the passageway.

  “What do you think could possibly require such extreme measures?” wondered Dimity.

  Agatha and Sophronia looked at each other.

  “Problems with the pack,” said Sophronia, “has to be. Only a crisis in the supernatural community warrants the pigeon.”

  Agatha nodded, upset. They all knew how devoted Sidheag was to her pack of werewolf uncles. Plus, crises in the supernatural community rarely stayed localized.

  They proceeded to their next lesson minus one companion, and a great deal more somber as a result.

  Captain Niall’s classes took place groundside, on the moor proper. Like all werewolves, he was unable to float. His classes also involved all the students at the school together, some thirty-eight or so, fewer than when Sophronia had first arrived. Many of the older girls had gone out into society, and Mademoiselle Geraldine’s hadn’t taken on an equivalent number of debuts.

  The school sank as far as it safely could, the propeller whirling to steady the airship against the winds, and the staircase folded down. The deployment crank was manned by a couple of sooties up from engineering. One of them—a tall, good-looking young man with ebony skin and a quick white smile—issued Sophronia a private wink. She should, of course, have been shocked by such forwardness from an underling, but Soap was one of Sophronia’s best friends and favorite people in the world. So she winked back—when she knew none of the teachers were watching, of course.

  Once the staircase settled, partly sunk into the green grasses, the young ladies trooped down.

  Captain Niall was waiting for them. Their werewolf teacher was a truly handsome beast, if one overlooked the fact that his top hat was tied neatly under his chin, he wore no shoes, and his carefully buttoned greatcoat did not quite conceal that the rest of him was indecently bare. For some of the young ladies, not overlooking these facts actually increased the man’s appeal.

  “Good evening, ladies,” said Captain Niall in his velvet voice. “And how are we tonight?” The girls chorused polite replies, some of them blushing; the youngest ones—not yet trained in the correct method—curtsied too deeply. Sophronia was pleased to note that her curtsy was nearly perfect.

  “Follow me, if you would?”

  Captain Niall led them down the hill to a small creek. He produced a leather case from the depths of his greatcoat. About the size of a lady’s jewelry case, it looked particularly dainty in his large hands. Despite his size, Captain Niall had a harmless, floppy demeanor. Most people forgot that he was, in actuality, a supernatural creature who could decapitate the average ruffian as easily as peeling an orange, and probably faster.

  “Now, on to this month’s weapon.”

  What weapon is so tiny thirty-eight of them fit into such a small case? Sophronia wondered.

  With a flourish, the werewolf flipped the lid, displaying the contents. The case was full of fans—clunky and not very pretty fans, at that.

  “Ladies, please form a queue. One each.”

  The girls lined up by age and each received a fan. Sophronia was startled by how heavy hers was. Close examination showed that the fan’s leaves were fabric but its ribs and guards were metal, the tips razor sharp. A fan that is also a weapon, ingenious!

  Captain Niall began to demonstrate movements. Many of the techniques were similar to those of the letter opener, in whose deadly application they’d already received much instruction. He expanded on their existing repertoire, with butterfly-like movements. There were sharp, quick slashes designed to surprise. There was no stabbing with the fan; the idea was to disarm and disable, not kill. It was amusing to see a werewolf waving a fan about like some imitation of an exotic dancer in the music halls.

  The girls practiced with leather guards over their fans, for safety. This also kept Dimity from fainting. Over a year and a half of training to be an intelligencer and Dimity still fainted at the sight of blood. Poor thing, she wasn’t meant for this lifestyle.

  Sophronia adored the bladed fan the moment she took it through the first pass. As a result, she tried extra hard to master the movements. Captain Niall was impressed. After an hour’s work, he summoned her forward.

  “Miss Temminnick, Miss Buss? You’re both looking well. How about a small duel?” The teacher’s mellow brown eyes shone with anticipated glee.

  Sophronia had never before faced Preshea one-to-one, but she was game. Particularly after Preshea’s dig against Agatha.

  Preshea gave her a nasty smile, tucked a stray lock of glossy black hair behind one perfect, shell-like ear, and took up the guard position. Or at least Sophronia assumed it was guard position—hard to tell in skirts. One of the advantages of being a fighting female: legs were, for all practical purposes, invisible.

  Their movements were cautious and clumsy at first, nothing like Captain Niall’s speedy grace. Preshea mostly attacked and Sophronia mostly defended.

  Captain Niall shouted instructions, which Sophronia—at least—tried to obey.

  “Miss Temminnick, try the treble clef defense. Miss Buss, the fleur de lys attack. Well done! And now, Miss Temminnick, the pirouette. Oh, look, ladies, she’s already doing it.”

  The girls crowded around, fascinated.

  Captain Niall switched from instruction to commentary.

  “Now Miss Temminnick has taken up the Valkyrie flip. Note the curves of her movements? And a very nice snap of the wrist there from Miss Buss.”

  Sophronia caught the flicker of the werewolf’s hands as he gestured for the other students to collectively do something, but her attention was taken up with Preshea.

  The ground beneath her feet became uneven and squishy. Captain Niall was using the crowd to herd the two fighters onto the bank of the stream.

  Sophronia had barely a moment to realize this, for several things happened in quick succession.

  Preshea stripped the leather guard off her fan. With a yell of triumph she cut in, slicing at Sophronia’s unprotected face.

  Sophronia reeled, raising her free hand in defense. Her pagoda sleeve fell away, exposing the undersleeve. Preshea’s fan sliced easily through the muslin and into the flesh below Sophronia’s left elbow. A few of the younger girls shrieked. There was a thump and skirts rustled. Dimity had fainted.

  Captain Niall cried halt, but Preshea was out for more blood. A look came into her beautiful eyes that was more common during poison class. Captain Niall would have intervened, but Sophronia met his eyes briefly and shook her head. She did not strip the guard off her own fan, but she did switch from defense to attack. Also, she began to employ not only the slashing letter-opener technique Captain Niall had taught her but some of the dirty fighting she’d learned from Soap.

  She commenced a flurry of quick nips and twists, half-fleur attacks designed to alarm but not injure. Preshea was forced to guard, not realizing that Sophronia’s real intent was to edge about so that she was uphill from her opponent. Soon Sophronia was pressing Preshea back, closer to the stream.

  With her injured arm, Sophronia reac
hed for her chatelaine and the small bottle of perfume dangling there, the one they were instructed to carry at all times. She used to stock rose oil, but an incident during her debut had left her with a marked preference for lemon-infused tinctures in a metal flask with snap-top lid.

  With Preshea distracted by the wickedly darting fan, Sophronia poured out a quantity of the perfumed alcohol with, and into, her free hand. Then she flicked the liquid into Preshea’s eyes.

  The girl squealed and stumbled back, straight into the stream, landing on her bottom with a splash. Her beautiful skirts poufed out around her before sagging as they absorbed the muddy water. The skirts—a rich purple color, in a modern petal cut—looked remarkably like a water lily before they deflated. Afterward, the dress looked more like a wrinkled old prune.

  There was a round of giggles and some gloved applause from their fellow students.

  Being a true gentleman, Captain Niall went into the stream to offer Preshea a hand up.

  “Now, Miss Buss, bloodthirstiness is all well and good, but you ought to have stopped the moment you bloodied Miss Temminnick. First blood always ends a duel.”

  Preshea pouted prettily and offered no excuse, although she eagerly accepted his assistance.

  The werewolf turned to Sophronia. “Miss Temminnick, commendable defense. You are to be applauded for not buckling under the pain. Now let Lady Kingair see to your injury. Lady Kingair?”

  Of course, Captain Niall would suppose that Sidheag had knowledge of wounds, being the child of a werewolf pack. But Sidheag was not there.

  Captain Niall’s boyish face looked older when he frowned. “Where is Lady Kingair? It’s not like her to miss my class. Miss Woosmoss?”