‘Tabitha!’ her mother shouted from halfway to the kitchen, ‘wash your mouth out, right now. You’re a lady, we don’t discuss such things. Get in here, help me put away these dishes.’
Reluctant to follow the order, Tabitha rooted into the ground, crossed her arms and tensed them harder than before, she hoped they’d see. ‘I hate this house; all you both want is to marry me off to some village gibfaced jollock, like one of those Tong idiots. Perhaps I’ll run away?’ She narrowed her eyes as though contemplating a master plan.
Harry chuckled as Marion slowly returned with a pot and forced a tea towel down its hole. ‘Really, miss? And where you going? Live with the fool you knock about with and his drunk of a father?’
‘No, Marion,’ Harry said, ‘she wants to live on the Moor, set up camp making friends with them rabids?’
Tabitha kicked her father’s chair. ‘There’s more to this world than the bloody Moor!’
Harry picked up his book and hid behind it.
‘What did you just say young lady? – Harry!’
‘Yes dear,’ he replied from behind the book.
‘Take this madam out, show her how tough it is, give her a wakeup call from whatever dreamland she seems to be in.’
He looked at them both. ‘Isn’t dinner ready soon?’
Tabitha span around and stormed up the staircase, she thumped each foot on every step.
‘There’s no use sulking about it,’ her Mother shouted.
Tabitha’s bedroom door slammed shut. She jumped on her bed and threw the sheets over her head. Her window was open and she could hear the birds singing. Normally they’d relax her. Her head ached like it was ready to give her a permanent crack. Then she suddenly remembered and looked at her watch – it was five o’clock, time for his early evening ride.
Outside, over the wall separating the two farms, she’d often hear Baxter’s horse – the only one in the village – snorting and fraying with its rider’s orders. Sometimes they were firm, rigid requests for obedience. Then at five o’clock every weekday, they’d turn to soft caring tones, some too quiet to hear. The pattern would flow into her bedroom, pull her from her pillow so she could watch him.
Baxter would say, ‘It’s ok Globe, I know you don’t like having them changed.’
He’d pet the horse, she’d watch. He’d trot up and down the wall, she’d watch. Of all her life’s routines, this was the only one she enjoyed. When she discovered Globe was his mother’s horse, Tabitha’s heart became his.
But this evening the Beechcroft field was empty. No petting, no riding, no Baxter, just his father opening and closing their stable’s creaky door. Perhaps Baxter had told her the truth and Globe was sick? There hadn’t been a ride for weeks, and Tabitha sorely missed them
CHAPTER 2
Three horizons across the moorland, over the stump forests, tors and wetlands, inside a man-made wall, past the erected chimneys dominating the Machine City’s skyline, their steel surfaces reflecting open furnace fires and the outer turbines of factories their constant grind to power producing steel, copper, brass, beyond the lower district mines screaming bi-hourly shift sirens, across rail tracks past their docks and junctions where the city smog was a spoiling smudge on every sunset – was the Seagrave compound.
The behemoth towered over all buildings, rivalled only by the Brunel Ducts. Wider than most of the city’s districts, it held production lines, factories, foundries, mills and mines. It housed all its employees at each social level, offering food and luxury. Underneath the structure, the labyrinth of mining tunnels spanned hundreds of miles into Terra’s core. Coal extraction happened daily, as did the transportation of coal to the other colonies, more regular than any of the rival territories, credit to the Seagrave fleet of airships. One hundred and twenty zeppelins silently moved out beyond the clouds to the colonies, some travelling for months on end to reach their destination. The headquarters of Seagrave Corp was an ever-expanding corpus of metal and stone, below the platform gardens’ epic stained-glass windows depicted humankind’s noble endeavours, behind them, vast and decadent rooms of the corporation’s elite. All the rooms were empty this evening, apart from one.
A raven perched on his master’s picture frame. It inspected guests as they entered the East wing’s eighth dining hall. Women dressed in multi coloured garments, their contrast strained the crow’s good eye. Men squeezed into fashions like the clothes had taken each of them prisoner. Overweight and red checked, a few of them were barely able to sit in the chairs. A harp player plucked a familiar tune in the dark corner next to his master’s servant, the old one who always struggled with his inhales. Each of the drawn breaths the old man managed sounded like his last. The guests shared awkward pleasantries, showed off their garments in a way more insecure than vain.
The tone of his master’s whistle cried out to him beyond the pluck of steel wire. Its call pierced through the chatter of his guests’ imitation ivory teeth.
With his back to everyone, his arm pointed vertical in wait for the raven to heed his command, the slender shape of his patient master diligently prepared drinks. The crow leapt from the frame with a full wing span and swooped low enough to ripple the room’s anxieties. A hoarse caw cried out from his beak. The raven found the usual perch on his master’s shoulder. Pleased, the master flattened his old friend’s feathers.
Lucian Augustus Seagrave plucked a nut from a bowl, handed it to his pet. ‘Careful, Cronus, you’ll unnerve our guests.’
The ladies’ laughs were the shrillest, their clothes and jewellery, although expensive, sounded cheap. Some guests had taken their seats and helped themselves to the feast, plates of sliced blooded beef, dark greens, earthy root vegetables and roasted potatoes. Lucian caught some guests exchange glances, no doubt wondering why they had to help themselves when surrounded with decadence.
Lucian returned to his Absinthe fountain. ‘Sidney.’ He looked at the old man in the corner.
‘Yes, my Lord.’
‘Fetch some ice. This lot,’ he tapped the glass holding the fountains water, ‘has started to melt, all this body heat – if you will.’
The old man bowed and disappeared deeper into the dark corner.
Lucian had his back to the guests. A few of them exchanged further pleasantries.
Cronus squawked gently.
‘I know, I feel it too, my friend.’ Lucian handed him another nut.
Sidney returned with the ice.
‘Leave it here, please.’ Lucian removed the Absinthe fountain’s glass lid and placed each of the frozen cubes inside. The drops sounded deeper than they were.
He positioned a glass under each of the platinum nozzles and turned their taps. He selected from one of the five Absinthe bottles – the 1943 Prussian Wormwood, a good year for the oil. A nearby jar held the crystal sugar dices, each sparkling. He plucked a number and carefully placed a cube on their respective spoon. Next, from a small draw by his hip, he produced the poison. He had enough to kill everyone in the room, even the harp player, even Sidney. Imaginary fingers tickled their excited way around the small of his back. Instead he removed one vial, the label read Poison, extracted a collection of drops into its dropper and applied equal measure on all the sugar cubes. At the rim of his own glass, he applied an extra drop. He knocked in their spoons, gave each a stir, then lastly swivelled on his heels to face his guests.
One of the ladies still stood. ‘My Lord.’ She took her place as seductively as any middle aged, has-been’s residual looks permitted. ‘If I had not known any better, I’d have said you, sir, were a butler in your former life.’
The guests laughed, apart from gentlemen who’d previously hurried lumps of beef into their mouths.
Another guest, the lady’s husband, put down his fork. ‘Yes indeed, Lord Seagrave, dine with us, have your man here serve the drinks.’
Lucian carefully walked over and placed each glass. ‘Sidney is there to serve me; he’s my valet. I have a butler, but you would all be f
alling party to a common misconception they wait on you. I am afraid butlers are heads of the house they serve, the head servant. I prefer, personally, a more traditional role of a dinner host. It gives me…’ He held his thought for no longer than a moment. ‘Pleasure.’ His voice was like silk with an accent nobody in the room had ever placed, and nobody ever would.
His left hand twitched and a drop of Absinthe escaped the rim of the glass he held. It rocked again as he tried carefully to place it. He detached a white handkerchief with a flash from his back trouser, caught the droplet before it had time to reach the tablecloth.
‘Good catch, my Lord,’ said the banker. ‘You wouldn’t want to spoil this lovely tablecloth.’ He nudged his wife – she ignored him.
The man swallowed a chunk of the soft bloody beef, Lucian lay the rest of the glasses but heard it, half chewed, forced down the flabby throat by the strongest only exercised muscles the man owned. Lucian did well to hide his repulsion.
‘Is it fashionable among Uppers then?’ said a woman.
A few stopped and looked at him. ‘Fashionable?’ Lucian replied.
‘Yes, to entertain and serve at the same time, is it fashionable among the Uppers?’ she continued.
‘I wouldn’t know.’ Lucian took a mouth full of Absinthe. ‘I’m too involved in my business affairs to notice such trends.’
‘It surprises me, my Lord.’ A few of the guests nodded and smiled in agreement.
Lucian looked at the other has-been woman. ‘Please eat,’ he said.
She bowed her head and laid her napkin.
‘It surprises you I’m focused more on my work than on the coming and goings of my class?’ he said.
‘No, my Lord, not at all, I simply mean you, I’m surprised you don’t do more–’
‘Entertaining. Yes, I’m afraid my work could never allow an Uppers lifestyle. These evenings are rare. My work always comes first.’
‘What of the rumours, my Lord?’ The has-been interrupted.
Her husband was quick to give her a glare. His stare read to Lucian the man was ready to kill her.
‘See the painting, there, my dear.’ The husband clenched his teeth, pointed one of his sausage fingers rudely over another guest’s plate of food. ‘Our Lord’s wife, Ella.’
A woman of the bankers’ rank, brazen enough to bring up gossip on her host. Lucian sneered, dumbfounded. How belligerent, he thought. ‘My wife, yes, or at least she was.’
‘Where is she?’ asked the has-been. Lucian felt her study of his expression; her eyes assiduously searched for the slightest emotion.
Lucian yielded them nothing. ‘Lady Seagrave was killed during childbirth.’ His thoughtful words stopped the clash of cutlery. All the guests took it in turns to scowl at the has-been, ponder their disgust at the effort of her enquiry.
A naïve woman, Lucian thought. Long ago her opinions were tolerated enough to fill her with this false confidence. A victim of early peaking, a common disorder among beautiful girls, their mindless yammering exchanged for aesthetically pleasing party fodder. Lucian suspected she had been several third wives, such barnacles tended to dwell in all of Terra’s major cities. They especially had an appetite for the Upper Middles. The class will have you believe they were aristocrats, all on show.
Lucian sat on the edge of the table opposite. He stretched across in the silence and plucked a potato from the banker’s plate, popped it in his mouth, and slowly swallowed. ‘Now, my lady,’ he stood up straight, ‘what of these rumours?’
‘Forgive her, my Lord’ the fat man pleaded, ‘she doesn’t know what she asks, she’s had too much of this fine Absinthe.’
She ignored her husband and brazenly continued, ‘I read Seagrave use slaves deep in the mines. Is it true, my Lord?’
‘Read?’ Lucian raised an eyebrow and looked over at Sidney who did the same.
One of the guests coughed, Lucian smiled. ‘Where did you read this gossip?’
‘An article, my Lord, in the Mercury Gazette. A reporter, Peter O’Halloran, wrote it.’
Lucian gave his valet a firmer look. Sidney bowed and left the room.
‘Do you enjoy art, my lady?’ Lucian waved his glove around at the many paintings.
‘Ah, yes.’ The husband proclaimed in a blurt behind a chunk of half chewed meat, ‘Lord Seagrave has the world’s greatest collection.’ The testimonial hurried out of his mouth faster than a downpour of Sootrail. Two of the other male guests raised their glasses and took large swigs as each acknowledged the desperate change in topic.
‘Care to see it, Agatha?’ Lucian asked.
She turned rosy in flattery in his remembering of her name.
He glided around the table, stood between them both and offered his hand.
‘Indeed, I would, my Lord,’ she said.
‘Come with me.’
She picked up her glass and just as Lucian suspected she took his hand as the valet reappeared with a folded piece of paper and passed it to him. He ushered her in front to the stairwell, and at the first step he faced his puzzled guests. ‘Please enjoy the feast, we won’t be long – Sidney, look after them while we’re away.’
The old man bowed, crooked, but with obedience.
The pair disappeared. Agatha’s husband scoured the serving trays; his eyes beamed like airship searchlights. He uncovered a silver cloche and discovered a mountain of bloody faggotts. He jabbed his fork in, took a bite and swallowed it, the juicy meat compacted with the potatoes and mashed up with the beef, and all headed for the acid riddled stomach. Muscles moved the food along faster than they had ever done before, despite his sudden loss of appetite.
II
Grand metal doors screeched a persistent echo into the gallery’s darkness. Lucian pulled a silver lever. Gas lanterns – hundreds of them attached to the walls, protruding upward – ignited flames in sequenced harmony. A regiment of illuminated snakes hissed in their five separate rows, giving the room light and releasing from the darkness a glass ceiling, domed in the centre. It reflected the hall’s disfigured twin, stalked it from above.
Ahead, set in a sculpture of thick limestone, the four Atlantean gods imitated a poem. Agatha had little knowledge of it. Some of the imagery prompted her conditioning. She tried to recall the details, certain he’d test her.
‘The Legacy epic, Agatha, remember it from your conditioning?’ As he spoke the question, Cronus took flight from his shoulder and landed on a nearby display of samurai armour.
She continued her effort, no memories appeared to have substance. ‘Is it the one,’ she feigned, ‘where the man murdered his children?’
Lucian locked his eyes on hers, held them there. Deep blue exploded with an assortment of browns, framing the black centre; they resembled the wings of a butterfly she’d once seen playing with her mother out on the Moor. Lucian was intense, intimidating and alone.
‘No, you’re referring to the Apologia. In the Legacy,’ he continued, ‘The explorer Curios warns the king the floods plaguing them of late means an impending doom, an omen, from the sea. The Atlantian prophecy the seas nations whom came from the oceans, bringing life, will take in their tides as much death the sea can swallow.’
Agatha took a sip of her Absinthe. ‘So the King rewards Curios?’
‘No, The King doesn’t listen. Blinded by his ego, he labelled Curios a traitor and exiles him out to the vast oceans. Days later the city of Atlantis is destroyed by the tidal wave named–’
‘Fate!’ She screamed, instantly embarrassed by her own outburst as the sound echoed intense amplification in the large hall.
‘Magnificent, Agatha.’ Lucian took her hand in a gentry’s gesture which signified the male obligation to their fairer counterpart.
She nodded, blushed and pretended she recalled the story. ‘What happened to Curios again?’
‘What happens to all great men audacious enough to lead the charge of change. He survived his exile.’
‘How do we know all of this?’
‘In Alexander’s library, of course, there’s a book written by him. He discovered a tribe of men in Europe, taught them the Atlantean knowledge of seafaring and established the first of the Greeks. He gave them advanced tool construction and philosophy.’
She rarely saw a man passionate about anything past the pursuit of money. ‘What a lovely tale, my Lord. It’s almost as exquisite as your collection.’
The rest of the hall was formulated into the areas of the display. Support units held the large paintings a few feet above the ground. Many frames were separated by sculptures larger than she had ever seen.
‘Thank you. Most of these paintings,’ he pointed to a huddled area of the room, which featured purpose-made walls to display the pictures, ‘as I’m sure you may already be able tell, Agatha, are from the Futurist movement.’
He led her over to the collection. ‘This one.’ He pointed. ‘The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli was, in my opinion, Carlo Carrá’s greatest work. It shows the resistance to order, captured by a scene where the government and the people collided over wanting to bury Galli who led the worker’s strikes.’
She stood in front of the painting and tried to take it in.
‘You express similar concerns yourself for the rights of the Lowers. Agatha, does this image please you to see them fighting back at their masters?’
She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, my Lord, I suppose it does.’
He moved slightly in front of her, guided her down, mentioned each of the artist’s names as they passed. Finally, they’d reached the last picture in the collection, black paint, pure black, deep with no reflection.
‘What is this frame?’ she asked, unsure what else to say about it.
Her fingers grazed the surface, a cold hand grabbed her arm, heeled her back like an untrained dog.
‘The frame’s cast from flint, ‘she sensed agitation in his voice, ‘excavated from Britannia’s sleeping volcanoes up in the northern islands. Many, when they first see it, think it’s metal, but it isn’t, it’s stone.’
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