Fields of Gold: A steampunk adventure novel (Magnificent Devices Book 12)

by Shelley Adina

  The silence in the face of her tears slowly changed from respect to discomfort. She must recover herself. After mopping her eyes, she blew her nose and sat up. “I do apologize,” she murmured. “This news has me quite overcome.”

  Honoria patted her hand. “Would you like some refreshment, dear?”

  “No, no. I am quite well now, thank you.”

  When she raised her gaze to those of the bishop and the Ambassador, the eyes of the former were filled with relief at not having to witness female vapors any longer. And the eyes of the Ambassador…

  Gloria forced herself to remain still. To not flinch in the face of such naked suspicion and loathing. “You have done this,” he whispered.

  “Your Excellency?” the bishop inquired.

  “You have done this,” de Aragon said in a stronger voice, pointing at Gloria. “I do not know how, but through some nefarious and devil-inspired means, you have caused that dam to fail.”

  “Mind your tongue, sir!” Honoria said.

  The Ambassador backed away until he was pressed against a heavy oak bookcase, his pointing finger now shaking—the very figure from a medieval painting of a visit from Old Scratch. “I see it now, as though God has caused the scales to fall from my eyes. You have never supported the late Viceroy’s vision—his plans, so carefully constructed and carried out with years of effort. You said yourself that his dreams of commerce, of shipping and transport along the river into the heart of the continent, were old-fashioned and inefficient. You are the head of a company that uses airships, and in your manic determination to line your own pockets, you have made sure that the late Viceroy’s dream would die and your godforsaken airships would take its place!”

  “Silence!” Honoria snapped. “You go too far in your mad imaginings, sir. Have you no respect for the lives of your countrymen—to say nothing of my future bride?”

  “I have all the respect in the world for the former,” the Ambassador retorted. “But I am very much afraid that this woman—this viper whom you have clasped to your bosom—does not. In all likelihood it was she who paid spies and assassins to rig explosives and cause the dam to fail!”

  “You are utterly mad,” Gloria managed through cold lips. “You have shanghaied hundreds of men for slave labor. Say rather that someone with engineering skill has purposely built a fault into your dam, and you are reaping the bitter fruit of your actions!”

  “Far from it,” he snarled. “I am the only one in this room—in all the kingdom—whom you have not been able to blind with your simpering charm and your feminine blandishments that drip honey in the ears while they hold a dagger to the heart.”

  Now was not the time to point out his distressing mix of metaphors. Not when the confusion in the bishop’s eyes could turn to suspicion and then conviction between one breath and the next.

  “Enough,” Honoria said. “You will cease these mad ravings and apologize to your future princess at once.”

  “Even Our Lord did not apologize when He spoke the truth, though it meant His death.”

  “Do not compare yourself to Our Lord lest you be guilty of heresy as well as treason,” Honoria said in a tone hushed with the threat of power. “Upon your knees, sir, and apologize, or you may hope I will merely have you banished from the kingdom.”

  “Whereupon I would call upon all the leaders of the surrounding territories with whom I have been building treaties and agreements all these years, and ask them to join me in taking back the country from the worm at its heart.”

  “How dare you!” Gloria said on a gasp.

  “I am not alone.” The ambassador drew himself up with pride and looked Honoria in the eye. “There are those who share my dedication to your father—who would follow him into battle even as you shrink from it.”

  “Are you implying—”

  “I imply nothing. I simply state that men such as I—many men—may fight for what they believe in, no matter how young and deceived their prince may be.”

  “Treason! Guards!” Honoria shouted. Immediately, the sentries standing in the corridor burst into the room. “Take him, and imprison him where his ravings cannot be heard.”

  “You shall not touch me,” the Ambassador said with acid contempt. “Guards, take that woman. She has poisoned the mind of your prince and must be removed at once for his safety.”

  The six men moved several steps into the room in instinctive obedience before the one in front gathered his wits enough to realize he would have to go through Honoria in order to get to Gloria.

  Honoria stared them down. “Think very carefully about the next movement you make, sir. Treason is found in actions as well as words.”

  Helplessly, the men looked to the bishop for instruction.

  “For the love of all the saints, man, you must not lay a hand upon the anointed of God!” he snapped in exasperation. “Do as your prince tells you!”

  As one man, they turned to seize the Ambassador. But he had already slipped behind them, and before they could cross the room, he was out the door. One of them drew a horn from a cord at his side and blew a blast upon it, and they tumbled out in pursuit.

  But Gloria knew it was already too late. Ambassador de Aragon had connections and spies and men who were beholden to him in ways even she could not imagine. He would vanish, and then reappear when he was least expected, armed and dangerous, even if it were only with his poisonous tongue.

  When the detachment of soldiers returned an hour later, it was to report that the Ambassador could not be found.

  “Have the trains stopped at the stations before this one,” Honoria commanded. “Search the town, the rancho, and the outlying farms. He is a traitor and must come before me in manacles to answer for his crimes.”

  But de Aragon had been too quick, his contingency plans too efficient. He had vanished like the morning mist heated by the rising sun. Gloria had no doubt whatsoever that, before the seamstresses could even finish her wedding gown, the country would be plunged into civil war.

  Chapter 18

  Though she was in her own navigation gondola once again, her hands on the helm, Alice still could not quite comprehend the manner of their salvation. They sailed in a huge circle over the water meadows and watched the tiny figures below as what had clearly been rescue operations became salvage and cleanup operations. No one fired at them. No one paid any attention to them whatsoever, other than the occasional individual who shaded his eyes to look up at a sight he had clearly never seen.

  “We’ve been working on Swan for days,” Jake explained again. “While you lot were rabbiting about in the bush, Benny and me got the creases pounded out of her hull, and May Lin found us a propeller. It’s the wrong size, and makes her list a little—”

  “I noticed that,” Captain Hollys said absently, his gaze on the vista below.

  “But she’s in a lot better shape than she was, all stove in and helpless up on that mesa.”

  “But the gasbag,” Alice said. “I never would have believed it could be repaired.”

  “Nor I,” Jake admitted. “But May Lin and Mother Mary are a pair of magicians, for true. Squirreled in those tunnels were a few lengths of silk. Mother Mary said they were for a wedding dress for someone, but I don’t believe that. The stuff is peacock green.”

  “It looks a bit funny,” Benny said, “and it’s holding air, not gas, but beggars can’t be choosers, innit?”

  “No indeed.” Alice rumpled his hair with affection. “I’m half tempted to promote the pair of you for bravery and skill beyond the call of duty—both for the rescue and for making our ship as whole as she can be outside of dry dock.”

  “That rescue certainly warrants it,” Ian told them. “I have never been closer to a miracle than that moment, not even in the canal in Venice when the kraken had Claire and Lizzie in its coils. And it’s down to you two.”

  Benny flushed with pleasure, and even Jake looked close to it.

  “We weren’t really running away from you that night, Capt
ain,” Jake said to Alice, his voice rough with emotion. “I hope you know now that we were running to get Swan in the air. We knew you would need a second if something went wrong, and Swan was all we had.”

  “That’s more than many a man will ever have,” Alice told him, heroically resisting the urge to kiss him upon the cheek, which would have embarrassed him so much he’d likely have fled the deck. “I feel a mighty need to offer our services down there. Those poor men don’t deserve what we did to them. Our objective was the dam, but that don’t mean we don’t have their deaths on our hands. Maybe we could ferry a few to hospital, if they don’t have the means to help them here.”

  Benny pointed. “Captain, look! Is that the behemoth? Cor, what a monster it is, for true!”

  Alice leaned to look out of the viewing port. “Last I saw of that thing, it was aiming its great cannon at Evan and Gloria.”

  “It waved at us!” Benny bounced upon his toes and waved back, though it was unlikely the pilot could see him.

  That decided the question. “If Evan is aboard, maybe he can turn that thing into a mooring mast and make himself useful.”

  Swan did not respond to the helm with her usual grace, but that was only to be expected. None of them had the trim of her yet, with the deck tilted from the too-large propeller on the one side, one gasbag full of air instead of its proper contents, and the forward vane crushed beyond recognition, but still … she was in the air. Alice reckoned that was one hundred percent better than being at the bottom of that riverbed, dead as a doornail.

  In a banking turn, Alice brought her around and they sank toward the behemoth. Men scattered out of her shadow like sparrows from beneath a stooping hawk. As Swan settled into a landing position, the behemoth stumped over to meet her. Awkwardly, it reached up, its hooklike appendage snapping fruitlessly in the air.

  “It’s trying to grab the bow line!” Benny exclaimed in delight. “It’s Evan. See him there in the viewing port?”

  On the fourth try the mechanical marvel managed to wrap one of its pincers around the line, holding it taut as Swan floated gently to the ground. There wasn’t so much as a bush on the flat, scoured clean by the rage of the escaping river, but when they leaped down, Benny and Jake managed to find a boulder to tie her two aft ropes to.

  They disembarked to see Evan, Captain Fremont, and a stranger clambering down the iron ladder built into the behemoth’s right leg. Evan’s face was lit with delight as he hugged Alice and shook Ian’s hand with vigor.

  “I never thought—” He caught himself. “I mean, I am glad to see you. Fancy Swan being flightworthy again.”

  “Thank Benny and Jake,” Ian said. “The good Lord knows we did, having seen more of the west side of your building project than we intended to.” His long glance at the swath of destruction in which the behemoth had been working was enough to tell the tale, and Alice saw, not understanding, but confirmation dawn on both Evan’s and the captain’s faces.

  The less said of what they’d done, the better.

  She turned to the man who had been with her friends in the behemoth, but who now hung back, gazing up at Swan’s fuselage as though trying to remember where he’d seen it before. “Will you introduce us to your companion?”

  “I wish I could,” Evan said. “He was with Joe—sorry, Honoria and I in the gaol here. But he has no memory of who he is or where he comes from.”

  The man clicked his heels in the Prussian manner and gave Alice a courtly bow. “They call me Dutch, and I would be honored if you would address me by that name, too. I find I do not mind it so much on the tongues of friends.”

  She held out her hand and shook his. “Alice Hollys, and this is my husband, Captain Ian Hollys. My navigator, Jake Fletcher McTavish, and my gunner, Benjamin Stringfellow.”

  “These are names worthy of good men,” Dutch told the boys, shaking their hands firmly. “But you have heard that the law forbidding flight is now repealed? Is that why so many of the Californios are treated to this so unusual sight?”

  “We came to offer help,” Ian told him with a glance at Evan.

  “That I have no doubt will be gratefully received,” Dutch told him. “Here is your welcome party.”

  Alice turned to see a company of horsemen riding toward them, their faces tilted up in astonishment at the sight of el Gigante holding Swan’s bow line the way a child holds a balloon at the fair.

  “Senor Douglas,” called the man at the head of the party, “I have seen you put el Gigante to use in many ways, but I confess I never expected such a sight as this.”

  His horse snorted and skittered as Swan moved gently in the wind, her shadow brushing it and frightening it as though its very shade were alive. The man must be an expert horseman, for he brought the animal under control with his knees alone, the reins loose in his hands.

  Quickly, Evan made the introductions. So this was the Commander de Sola who had befriended Evan in the prison, whose dream Evan had interpreted and which had led in the end to the outrageous plan to switch the Viceroy with his half-sister. Had any two men been friends with such enormous secrets standing between them? What was the likelihood their friendship would survive the unveiling of even one of those secrets?

  But now was not the time to wonder about that.

  “We have come to offer our help,” Ian said. “If there are injured men who need care that you cannot provide here, may we take them by air to a hospital?”

  De Sola must have stiffened, for his horse danced sideways and was again brought under control. “How is it possible that our suffering is known already east of the mountains?”

  Here was a poser, but Ian was up to it. While Alice felt herself blanch at the word suffering, her husband said, “Anyone in contact with the river knows of it for hundreds of miles. The drop in the water level tells its own story. We assumed some disaster had occurred, and set out as soon as we could. As we crossed the mountains, we could see what had happened.”

  De Sola looked as though he was having trouble overcoming his astonishment enough to speak. “That is … singular of you, Captain. Such generosity from citizens of a foreign nation is—Frankly, I am having difficulty believing it.”

  If you knew the half of it. Alice, keep your composure. There will be time enough for guilt and mourning later.

  “In battle, sir, you know that the code of a gentleman in the care of the injured takes no sides. And while our nations are not at war, I believe that when nature itself goes on the attack, men from all walks of life may band together to help one another.”

  De Sola gazed across the water meadows to where the dam had been, and where there was now nothing except a rushing torrent, its roar faint in the distance. “If I could be sure it was nature, as you say, I would rest more easily,” he said, almost to himself. “There will be questions.”

  Now Alice’s blood halted in her veins altogether, and it was with an effort that she kept her gaze upon him and did not glance at her companions like a guilty bandit. Beside her, Benny shifted, and she laid a hand, heavy with caution, upon his shoulder.

  “If we may be of assistance,” Ian went on as though he had not heard, “I hope you will allow it. Where is the closest military hospital?”

  “We have none such.” De Sola brought his attention back from wherever it had been questing. “The missions possess apothecaries and doctors who can provide expert care. How many men can your ship take?”

  “A hundred at least.” Ian glanced at Alice for corroboration, and she nodded.

  “We have that and more,” de Sola said sadly. “Some we can care for here, but the men most severely injured will be glad of your help. It is not likely they would survive two days on the train to Reno, which is north and east of here, and where the most skilled of our doctors are.”

  “We can make the journey in two hours,” Alice said.

  He shook his head in amazement. “How can such a thing be possible? Never mind—I cannot myself contemplate it. If you will moor your ship near t
he fort, we can begin bringing out the men at once.”

  “Truly?” Alice said. “They will not raise a fuss about flying?”

  “Senora, many of them are in no condition to fuss—in fact, there may be angels waiting to bear them even higher into the heavens while you fly. But we will accept your generous offer in hopes that one or two angels will be disappointed.”

  With a salute, he wheeled his horse about and the company followed, cantering back in the direction they had come. As the dust blew gently southward on the breeze, Ian said, “There goes a man of true leadership. I can only hope that he never finds out what we have done.”

  “Is that likely?” Evan asked. “Were you able to make it look like an accident?”

  “Stuffing an iron boiler full of explosives in the flow regulator?” Jake said. “If any bits survived, anyone might see it was deliberate.”

  “We ought to check for debris soon, before they recover enough to conduct an investigation,” Captain Fremont suggested. “We might use the pretext of searching for survivors from the guard towers.”

  “There were some from the south tower,” Alice said. “They ran onto the mesa. And there were a few scouts up on the north cliff who saw us underwater, because they shot at us.”

  “So you can be identified?” Captain Fremont asked, a worried frown creasing his brow.

  “The submersible could,” Alice allowed. “If pieces of it survive. But they wouldn’t have seen Ian and me personally. They might suspect sabotage, but there is nothing to connect the pilots of the Chaloupe with the captain of Swan rendering aid, that I can think of.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Ian said grimly. “We shall have to live with the consequences of what we have done in any case. Let us set to work, then, and expiate our sins as best we can.”

  “Shall I tow you over to the fort?” Evan said with an attempt at lightening their spirits. “I don’t imagine I’ll ever get the chance again to fly such a kite.”

  “Only if you let me up into that monster so I can see how it works,” Alice said.