Within minutes, the wash of water receded to the behemoth’s knees, and at the same time, the pressure in the boiler reached working levels. Dutch seemed to force his jaws to relax by sheer effort of will, and hoarsely said, “Thanks be to God for His protection.”
“Thanks be to the Meriwether-Astor Manufacturing Works for building such a sturdy machine,” Fremont managed, surprising a huff of a laugh out of Evan, who had honestly wondered if he would ever be able to laugh again.
Then the magnitude of the disaster sobered him, and he brought the behemoth to a full standing position. “Come,” he said. “Let us see if we can save some lives, now that ours have been preserved through the grace of God and no efforts of our own.”
“I have an idea,” Fremont said. “Allow me to grasp that corner beam of the palisade. Perhaps we can encourage men to climb upon it. If they also climb the legs, we might save twice as many.”
“An excellent plan.”
And so, with Fremont working the pincer arm, they hauled the sole remaining corner post out of the ground and set off toward the main encampment. The streets of the town were running with two feet of water, but to their amazement, it seemed that the little adobe buildings were tougher than they looked. Not a single plant remained, though one or two of the older trees still stood. The church bell began to ring the alarm, so it was clear that at least one of the friars had survived.
“We will bring any survivors to the mission,” Evan said. “Surely someone will be able to render medical aid—and if not, I will leave the behemoth to the two of you, and do it myself.”
“But I have only had a day or two of experience at the walking controls,” Fremont objected from his perch in the gunner’s chair. “I cannot do it!”
“It is amazing what we are capable of when we must do something,” Dutch told him. “For now, let us concentrate on our task.”
The behemoth waded into the water meadows, which were ten feet deep in muddy water and debris. Men clung to bits of wood, to swimming horses, to doors and furniture, waving frantically. From the hatch, Dutch leaned out and encouraged them to climb on to legs and beam. Some brave souls pushed unconscious comrades onto the beam before them, and climbed on themselves, clinging and screaming in terror as the behemoth lifted them into the air above the flood. Evan’s brain calculated angle, weight, and speed with lightning rapidity, the fear of what might happen if he made a single error with so many lives at stake forming a cold weight in his stomach.
They sloshed back to the mission with thirty men, lowering the beam and kneeling outside the gate so that the survivors might climb down. Then it was back into the water with cries of thanks and grief ringing in their ears.
On the fourth trip, it became clear that the water was receding. The able bodied formed ranks, and Evan was relieved to see that at the head of one such rescue party, about to set off, was Commander de Sola.
He cranked open the vents and leaned into the communication horn. “Ho, Commander! I am glad to see you are among the living.”
De Sola shaded his eyes and gazed upward. “And I am even more glad to see you and el Gigante. I have never seen such heroism in all my years, senor. You shame me.”
Heat crept into Evan’s cheeks, which was a change from the bloodless fear in which he had been operating since the moment he had been startled awake. “Not at all, sir. I had a means to help at my disposal, and it appears that God might have been merciful as well.”
“Truer words have never been spoken. I will leave you to your good work, and we will follow to see if any are yet alive in the shallows.”
If it had been possible to make the behemoth snap a salute, Evan might have done it. As it was, he could only turn them about and stump off into the water, wading along what had been the access road toward the riverbed.
“At least we can be thankful our friends acted at night,” he said. “Imagine what would have happened had the dam been swarming with hundreds of workers.”
“I am sure they took that into account,” Fremont said from the gunner’s chair. “But the Californios have paid an awful price all the same—and when an investigation is mounted, there will be another price to pay.”
“Perhaps there will be no evidence left,” Dutch suggested from the hatch, where he hung outside and waved men toward them.
“I do not think the Californios will need evidence in order to find someone to blame,” Fremont said. “Dams do not simply fail without reason.”
“They will blame engineers such as myself,” Dutch predicted. “I do not wish to be executed after surviving such an ordeal as we have survived this morning.”
This awful possibility clung to Evan’s thoughts like a particularly unpleasant cobweb even as they delivered dozens of men to safety, even as the day wore on and the water receded more and more. For such a dreadful event must have a cause, and whatever else they might be, men like de Sola and Ambassador de Aragon were not stupid.
Questions would be asked, and answers demanded. And it was not likely that he and his friends would like what would be found. They may have been successful in saving the witches and all the inhabitants of the river’s banks and tributaries, but at what cost?
Evan was very much afraid that it would not be long before they found out.
Chapter 16
Gloria lay in bed, watching the sky lighten with the sunrise, wondering if she dared get up. Twice this week she’d flung off the quilt and stood, only to be assaulted by such dizziness that she’d fallen back to the mattress, reeling and practically in a faint.
Now, added to her fear that her ruse with Joe would be discovered was the fear that she herself was being poisoned. They had been so careful, testing everything they ate, eating only foods that were shared with the family, drinking wine that others had tasted first. But even the wine had lost its savor and tasted flat.
Something was wrong—and yet when she looked in the mirror, she did not look ill. Other than lately, her color was good, and her hair seemed willing to behave when Ella put it up, which was not like it at all. Her eyes were not hollow, as the Viceroy’s had been, nor did she dream violent and otherworldly dreams. Perhaps those were common only to the advanced stages of ergot poisoning. How long did the process take? And what should she do if every precaution could not save them?
Someone knocked briefly on the door and then Ella came in bearing her cup of chocolate—an indulgence of which Gloria had grown very fond. Ella closed the door with her hip, shutting out whomever might be listening in the corridor. “Are you awake, sister?”
“I am, but I’m afraid to get up.”
“If you do not, you know the Ambassador will drag you out by main force. He is determined to get you and Joe on the train to San Francisco de Asis today. You have been lucky that the fainting spells have held him off for as long as they have.”
Gloria did not remind her that they were not indeed a strategy. They were real.
With another knock, Isabela came in. They had turned the first hour of the morning into an agreeable custom of feminine conversation and plans for the day before she joined Joe for breakfast in his parlor. No one was allowed to interrupt them; in fact, Gloria rather suspected that Isabela’s parents encouraged it, in hopes of a place at court for their youngest daughter since she had become such a confidante of the future Vicereine.
What they did not know was that Isabela yearned every moment for news of Evan, and as his irregular letters came only to Gloria, the girl had taken to visiting with the post in hand. In the absence of a letter, that had grown into a daily visit that all three of them looked forward to, almost like a breakfast for the soul. And through Isabela Gloria kept up to date on the movements of the women of the kingdom.
For her wearing of roses on the day her engagement had been announced had blazed through the kingdom in a silent wave that even now still lapped upon the shores of this house. She might meet a maid or a laundress in a corridor and see a rose discreetly tucked in a cotton cap, or a band of
them embroidered on the brim, and a smile and a glance of encouragement would pass between them. She might walk with Isabela and Ella along the avenue, or to the mission for Sunday service, and exchange a nod with a woman in a beribboned black dress with a rose in her hair. Should she need a message passed from rancho to rancho, there was a hidden chain of unremarkable, unmemorable women who could cause the smallest of her wishes to be carried out.
With every glance, every smile, she acknowledged the silent sisterhood of the Royal Kingdom—women who had no voice yet managed to speak. Whose only loyalty was to husband, father, and prince, yet managed to rebel. Whose only tasks were in hearth and home, yet still wove a tapestry of loyalty and communication throughout the kingdom that resulted in help where it was needed, a letter passed where it must, a request given and granted.
In these weeks since Evan and Gloria’s erstwhile husband had taken the Viceroy to safety, she had learned the true extent of the horror in the old Viceroy’s and the Ambassador’s treatment of Joe’s mother. For Clara had been isolated from the community of women, and once abandoned in the desert, they had not been able to find her. If it had not been for the witches… Gloria thought of Joe, whose bravery and confidence continued to amaze her, and shuddered.
“Are you going to be sick?” Ella asked anxiously.
“No, I—” And then, as though Ella had spoken the nausea into being, she put down her cup abruptly and bolted for the water closet.
When she returned, pale and chilled, she could not face the chocolate, and pushed it away.
Ella and Isabela exchanged a wide-eyed glance, and Ella covered her mouth as though holding back a torrent of words.
“What is it?” Gloria said, rather irritably. “I cannot be expected to be perfect all the time. Inform the Ambassador I am ill and will not be able to travel today. If he puts up a fuss, show him the chamber pot.”
Isabela’s eyes danced. “My dear friend, you are not ill.”
“I certainly am!” Gloria said with some indignation. “Would you like to see the chamber pot?”
“That is one of the signs, sister,” Ella said. “You are with child!”
Gloria’s jaw dropped for a moment before she collected herself. “Balderdash. Good heavens, I am an unmarried woman.”
“You are now. But last month you were not,” Ella informed her.
Gloria’s ability to think ground to a halt, and memory flooded in to take its place. Memory of the one night she and the captain had spent as husband and wife in every sense of those beautiful words. The one night that was all she had to cherish in the face of the long months of the masquerade that was saving the young prince’s life. One night that it now appeared would change every single night to come for the rest of her life.
“Surely not,” she whispered. “It cannot happen after only one night.”
“It can happen after only one time,” Ella said. “Just ask Tia Clara. The old king had her once and when he found out she was expecting, he cast her off to the beast from San Gregorio.”
Gloria had been wife to her husband more than only once during that wonderful night. Good heavens. Could it really be so?
As though someone had draped a warm blanket about her made of the finest, most fluffy wool, joy bubbled up and spread from her heart to her fingers and toes, warming her and bringing a smile to her lips. “I shall be a mother,” she whispered. “I shall have our child—the captain’s and mine!”
The two girls flung themselves upon her with hugs and kisses of congratulation, until at last Isabela drew away. “How long have you been having these spells, Gloria?” she asked.
“Why—why, I hardly know. I am not an expert in these things at all. I have never even spoken with a woman who was expecting. In Philadelphia, you know, one doesn’t go out in public once one begins to show. But … I suppose a week?”
Ella did some rapid calculations. “Then we have a month or two before it becomes noticeable.”
“And you will bear the child in the winter. Near Christmas,” Isabela put in.
Christmas! Could any gift be more wonderful? She and the captain—
No, she and Joe—
“Oh, dear heaven above.” The blood seemed to be draining out of her head, and with one look at her face, Ella leaped to the pitcher and poured her a glass of water. Isabela brought over the basin, just in case. She drank the water down. When she could speak, she said aloud the thing that it was clear the girls had already concluded. “Joe. We—we must marry immediately, mustn’t we?”
Isabela nodded slowly. “You must—and well before you begin to show. Within the month. Otherwise …” A new thought seemed to strike her rather unpleasantly. “My dear, you will fail the doctor’s prenuptial examination.”
“I shall not have the wretched examination. We discussed this before. Joe will simply tell them it will not happen.”
“They make everybody have it.”
“Then he will tell them that we—we anticipated the wedding.” Gloria lifted her chin defiantly, feeling herself blush at saying something so unladylike. “Or he can change the laws.”
“You may change many things, but I am not certain you will be able to change that,” Isabela said sadly.
“At the very least you must announce a date,” Ella said. “We will solve the examination problem another day.”
“You are right.” Isabela straightened her back and became her usual practical self. “Today, it is urgent that the date be set. You cannot be exposed to gossip, and there must never be a whisper that the child is not the Viceroy’s. Thank heavens the real Viceroy had your marriage annulled for non-consummation, and not some other reason. If it had not been approved by the church and announced in every congregation, you would be in a pretty pickle now.”
“I am in a pickle as it is,” Gloria retorted. “I do not wish to marry Joe. I want to find Stanford and marry him—again!”
“Also a problem for another day,” Isabela told her. “Now, you must dress and tell Joe. Then go to the bishop and request that he set an early date. That is how it is done here.”
Gloria’s brows knit in an expression her father would have recognized as mulish, but deep down she acknowledged that Isabela was right. Much as she hated it, she must still keep up this charade. But …
What would happen when the Viceroy returned to find her married to his half brother and expecting a child? For when they switched places, what would happen then? Would she have to stay married to him? For heaven’s sake, would Stanford’s child inherit the kingdom? Would she be forced to leave him or her here in order to be with the man she loved? No, that was mad. This was the point at which her plan had failed before. And she had as useful an answer now as she had then—which was to say, no answer at all.
“I must speak with Joe. Help me dress.”
In ten minutes, she was dressed in a dark green linen skirt and a lacy blouse embroidered at high neck and cuffs with pale green leaves. The observant eye would note they were the leaves of briar roses, but just to be sure, Ella tucked a silk one into her coronet of braids.
Then she forced herself to walk calmly along the colonnade to Joe’s suite of rooms, instead of doing what she really felt, which was picking up her skirts and running helter-skelter in a panic. The guards at the door bowed as they did every morning. She smiled as she did every morning, and waited for them to announce her.
And then the door closed behind her and she did what she had never done—she burst into tears. They welled up with no warning, spilling down her cheeks in a torrent.
“Gloria!” Joe snatched up a damask napkin from the table, on which breakfast had already been laid, and pressed it into her hands. “What’s the matter? Are you ill?”
“I wish I were,” she wailed into the spotless cloth.
But she must take herself in hand. This was no time to break down—not after all they had been through. And besides, poor Joe didn’t deserve to be afflicted with a snuffling mess. None of this was his fault.
“Only of—of a personal nature.” She hiccupped and willed herself to speak coherently. “I thought I was being poisoned—fainting in the morning, being ill, things not tasting as they should.”
His brows rose. “I thought you were doing all that on purpose. Stalling. So we wouldn’t have to go to San Francisco de Asis.”
“That was a side benefit.”
“You are not being poisoned, surely? For if you were, I would have all the same symptoms. We eat everything together.”
The thought of him having such symptoms made her smile, and he relaxed a little, though he could not know the source of her humor.
“That would be impossible. You see, Isabela and Ella have just now informed me that I am expecting a child. Who could imagine that the symptoms would be the same as poisoning?”
His face went utterly slack.
In the ringing silence she went on, “They also inform me that it is now a matter of some urgency that we marry. We must go to the mission at once and ask the bishop to set an early date.”
“But—but we do not want to marry. Each other.”
She nodded, and squeezed the long-fingered tanned hand lying on the tablecloth. “I know. This is where my plan broke down before, do you remember? We thought we could figure it out as we went along … but no one anticipated this turn of events.”
“No. Are—are you sure?”
“Quite sure. I have no experience along these lines, but you may rest assured that every woman in this house has, whether directly or in their endless preoccupation with marriage and children. Isabela and Ella have no doubt I am expecting … and I am sorry that it means we must take this charade farther than we want to.” She hesitated. “I know your feelings for Ella. Just as I want to be married to the captain, I know you would much rather be married to her.”
His face, which had gone pale at her revelations, now flooded with color, and he pulled his hand from under hers. “Ella and I will never marry.”
Fields of Gold: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices Book 12) Page 15