A Clockwork Fairytale

by Helen Scott Taylor

  Once she finished, the silence hummed in her ears, the air thick and heavy with solemnity. The Flower Jinns had gone completely silent. The tiny hairs on her arms prickled and she shivered. She suddenly wanted to get this over with and get out of the chapel. She clambered to her feet, picked up her box, and went to the back of the room where she could see a shadowy alcove. The word INFIRMARY was painted on the door. She realized she had already started to take reading for granted.

  She pushed open the infirmary door carefully. A hall stretched in front of her, lit by a single gaslight at the far end. She walked silently in her suede boots. As she made her way down the corridor past a row of closed doors, she heard a strange low drone interspersed with hissing sounds as though an angry insect was trapped. She crept cautiously as she approached the final door, which stood ajar. The noise was coming from the room, a pumping, hissing drone, along with a disgusting smell like rotten fish. Screwing up her nose, she peeped around the doorframe.

  Melba’s whole body jolted in horror at what she saw inside. Master Maddox lay on a narrow bed, naked except for some stained drawers. Leather straps anchored his chest and hips to the bed and his wrists and ankles were tied to the headboard and footboard. He whimpered like a whipped dog, his body tense and trembling as nasty gray goo oozed from his skin. Two monks in golden robes were with him. One was tending a machine that looked like a trash barrel with a large concertina bellows going up and down on top of it, while the other monk wore goggles, a mask, and a leather harness with a pipe attached to it. At the end of the pipe was a shiny brass head he scraped across old Maddox’s skin.

  Suddenly, Melba’s Flower Jinns screeched in panic. The shock made her drop their box and the lid burst open, releasing them to skitter madly around her head. At the noise, the two monks wheeled around to face her, the one wearing the harness brandishing his brass sucker at her as if he expected her to attack. Melba jumped back but found her way barred by another monk who gripped her shoulders and held tight.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A ship with no port will not survive the storm.

  —Bluejackets’ saying

  Melba ducked and twisted out of the man’s grip using the thief’s escape move Maddox had taught her. But the man was determined. His hand locked around her arm, jerking her back when she tried to scarper.

  She caught a glimpse of a tall gray-haired monk with cold, piercing blue eyes; then her three Flower Jinns dived at his face and he raised an arm to protect himself. While his attention was diverted, Melba wriggled out of his grip and dashed toward the chapel.

  “Wait, girl,” he shouted. Ignoring the old codger, she crashed open the door and belted through the silent chapel, her suede boots slapping on the mosaic tiles. By the time she reached the street, her flutterbys had caught up with her. Instinct took over and she headed for the nearest drain into the flood defense system. She slid aside the metal grating over the hole, jumped down into the dark pipe, and reached up to replace the cover.

  The flood defense network was designed like a huge wheel with the hub under the Royal Palace and six spokes radiating out across the island to the sea. Numerous smaller pipes, like the one she was in now, linked the main spokes. She crawled along the pipe by the faint light through the gratings, heading toward the nearest of the six main conduits. As it was summer, no rain had fallen recently, so the pipe was dry. Instead of getting wet hands and knees, she stirred up the dusty debris, making herself sneeze.

  The sound of trickling water warned her she was nearing one of the main drains. They always carried a little leakage from the canal in the inner circle. In darkness, she clambered out of the narrow pipe and stood with her back pressed against the curved brickwork of the big drain. Her three Jinns settled on her shoulders, emitting a faint luminous glow. Gradually her frantic breathing calmed. None of the golden robes would follow her through the pipes. She was safe.

  What had the monks been doing to Master Maddox with their strange machine? Just the memory of the awful smell and the horrible gray stuff oozing out of him made her feel sick. It could only be some sort of bad magic, maybe even a Foul Jinn. Poor old Maddox had been terrified of Foul Jinns.

  Without consciously deciding where to go, her feet carried her toward the bakery in the third circle. She recognized the broken grating high on the wall and the familiar sound of the organ grinder’s warbling music outside the tavern on the corner of Jangle Alley. She turned off the main drain into a smaller pipe and emerged from the first grating, bringing her out behind the row of shops and houses where the bakery was. Still in a shocked daze, she fished the spare key for the bakery back door out from under a rock and let herself in.

  A faint whiff of the horrible bad-fish smell from the infirmary hung in the main shop. Melba’s breath hitched. She ached inside from all the distressing things that had happened to her and she could hardly think straight. She grabbed Maddox’s oil lamp off the counter and lit it before going to the storeroom behind the oven. But the room wasn’t snug and warm as she remembered. She flattened her hand on the back of the chimney breast to find it cold.

  Poor old Maddox never let the bakery oven go out, because it took three days to reach an even temperature to bake the loaves. She dropped onto the small cot in the corner by the flour sacks and snuggled under the ragged blankets, missing the other lads.

  Her eyelids drooped. All she wanted was sleep, but she had to decide what to do next. She could stay here for a while, but surviving would be difficult as she couldn’t pass for a boy anymore. That meant she had two choices: she could go to the Royal Palace like Turk wanted her to, or she could try to get a job and probably end up in a brothel. She didn’t want to go to the Palace, but the other choice was unthinkable.

  She curled up in the thin blankets, shivering. The comfy warm bed at Turk’s palace had started to make her soft. Her flutterbys settled on top of her, humming soothingly inside her head. She must have dozed, because she had arrived in the middle of the night but now she heard the chatter of domestic servants on their way to market and the rattle of handcarts on the rutted alley outside.

  A sound in the other room made her huddle behind the flour sacks. She peeped through a gap at the storeroom door, dreading the sight of a golden robe come after her. Turk appeared in the doorway and her breath hissed out in relief. He looked tired and rumpled, still in the tatty bluejacket’s uniform he’d had on the night before.

  Despite her effort to hide, he came straight toward her. “Oh, Melba, what are you doing here? You’ve had me worried out of my mind.” He crouched and pulled her into his arms, hugging so tightly he squeezed the breath from her. He wore no neck cloth and she pressed her face into the warm hollow of his throat, breathing in the reassuring scent of him. For a moment, she clutched at him, comforted by the feel of his arms around her. Then the memory of his rejection of her marriage proposal crashed over her. Her few seconds of pleasure shriveled. She turned her face away from him and stared at the furry spots of moldy flour on the wall.

  “Why did you run away? Tell me what happened,” he demanded.

  He gripped her shoulders and tried to look at her face but she hung her head. She didn’t feel like explaining anything to him. When he’d rejected her, it was as if he’d put a wall between them. “I wanted to see old Maddox,” she whispered.

  “I told you he was sick, Melba. You should have waited for me to check on him. Come back to Waterberry House with me and we’ll get you cleaned up.”

  She stared at her filthy, wet suede boots, meant for walking the skyways. When she ran from the infirmary, she’d forgotten to go up to the skyways. She’d instinctively gone down to the waterways she’d used all her life. How would she survive in the Royal Court if she forgot everything Turk had taught her the moment she panicked?

  After what Gwinnie had said about the nasty nobs, she didn’t want to go to the Royal Palace alone. But Turk didn’t want to go with her, so there was no point in harping on about it. She had to be strong and look out
for herself. Releasing her breath slowly, she pulled out of his grip. She raised her gaze and looked him steadily in the eye. “I’ve decided. I’m ready to go and meet me pa now.”

  ***

  Turk had been frantic with worry when he discovered Melba was missing and he blamed himself for her running away. She’d knocked him for a loop with her proposal and he’d upset her with his fumbling idiotic response. He had no experience with emotional matters, or with women. He should have told her he was a monk, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit it when she thought the Brothers were unnatural.

  According to Gregorio, Melba had witnessed Maddox being cleansed of the Foul Jinn and had run from the infirmary in a panic. Turk had expected her to be upset, but she stared at him with calm determination in her eyes.

  Beneath the brown cap, her pretty face and bright blue eyes were no longer those of a ragamuffin. A few gold curls peeped out of the cap, and the brown suit stretched tight over her shapely chest and hips. She looked like a young lady dressed down for a lark. He glanced around the disorganized storeroom and then back at Melba. Perhaps returning to the bakery had made her realize that she no longer belonged here and it was time to move on.

  Turk stood and helped Melba to her feet. “Keep your hat pulled down and your face averted so nobody recognizes you’re a young lady, Melba. We don’t want to be stopped by any bluejackets asking awkward questions.”

  “Why would the bluejackets stop us?”

  He was fed up with telling her half truths. It was time to be honest. “They’re looking for you.”

  He expected her to question him, but she simply nodded. Her calm acceptance unnerved him. What had happened to the spirited, curious Melba he knew? Maybe her lack of reaction was caused by shock and she’d relax and be herself once they got home—not that they would have long to relax. He touched his pocket containing a note inviting him to an audience with the king that afternoon.

  He grabbed an old blanket from the cot and draped it around her shoulders to hide the obvious female curves. The Flower Jinns danced around her head, sensing they were going somewhere. “You’ll have to hide them on the way back.”

  “How?” she asked.

  Turk rubbed his temples. He’d intended to explain this and so much more. “It’s very easy. Decide where you want to hide them, up your sleeve is usually a good place, then connect with them in your mind and instruct them.”

  Melba closed her eyes and screwed up her nose in concentration. The three Jinns fluttered up her jacket sleeve. Her eyes opened and she peered after them. “It worked.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised. You’re capable of much more than raising and controlling Flower Jinns.” I wish I had time to teach you more myself. But they were nearly out of time. The realization settled like a cold hard lump in his gut. From now on it would fall to the king to arrange her tutoring. Turk suppressed a sigh of disappointment and ushered her toward the back door. “We cannot use the skyways at this time of day. We’ll be seen.”

  The early morning flurry of people had calmed as the sun rose toward the noon hour. They hurried along the rutted lanes of the third circle into the second circle, then took the quieter streets so they didn’t attract too much attention. When they started along the service track at the back of the elegant row of tall palaces where Waterberry House was situated, Turk started to relax. Then he caught the glint of the sun on gold buttons. He pulled Melba down beside a trash barrel at the back of a neighboring property and put his finger to his lips.

  “What’s the matter?” she whispered.

  “Bluejackets.” He angled his thumb toward his palace. And they weren’t just ordinary bluejackets. The smart uniforms told him they were Royal Guards, directly under Vittorio’s command.

  Melba peeped out. “I see three bluejackets. Why are they here?”

  “They’re the Royal Victualler’s men. He must have heard you’re staying at my palace.” How casual he made it sound when Vittorio had been scouring the island to find him and Melba.

  “Should I go in then and he can take me to me pa?”

  “No!” Turk’s heart nearly burst out of his chest. “He wants to find you before you return to your father. He wants to marry you and present you to the king as his wife.”

  The little bit of color in Melba’s cheeks drained away. “I don’t want to marry him.”

  “No. You don’t,” Turk agreed. “He doesn’t want you, Melba. He sees you purely as a way to gain the throne. He is not to be trusted. Remember that, my little Star.”

  She peeped out again and Turk pressed his back to the wall, considering what to do next. They couldn’t risk entering Waterberry House, even via the skyways. If Vittorio had tracked him here, he might also know about the bunkhouse, and there was little point in going to his bolt-hole. That really left only one option—Turk would have to take Melba to the Royal Palace now. He glanced down at his grubby bluejacket’s uniform. Because he’d spent last night scouring the city for Melba, he hadn’t changed or bathed since he’d visited the trash barges yesterday. For the visit to the Royal Palace, he had planned to wear his best frock coat and have Melba beautified and resplendent in her blue silk dress. What would King Santo think when they turned up looking like scoundrels?

  “Our only choice is to go straight to the Palace,” Turk whispered.

  Melba nodded.

  “But there aren’t any skyways into the Palace,” he added, thinking aloud. And if they presented themselves at the door looking like this, they would be tossed back out on the street.

  “We could go in via the waterways,” Melba suggested. “I went right to the chamber beneath the Royal Palace once for a dare.”

  In the interests of research, Turk had traversed the major drains beneath the city when he first became a spymaster. He had studied the layout of the minor pipes on diagrams, but he was no lover of crawling through wet muck in the dark. “The waterways it is,” he said, trying to sound encouraging. “As you’re the expert, I’ll follow you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The wise man sets a firm course. Only a fool lets the wind blow him where it likes.

  —Gregorio, Primate of the Shining Brotherhood

  Melba crawled along the flood defense pipe that led from near Waterberry House to a main drain. She glanced over her shoulder at Turk as they passed under a patch of light coming through a grating. Poor Turk had bumped his head twice, and he was frowning with a mixture of concentration and distaste. He might be agile and fast on the skyways, but his tall frame did not fit so well in the narrow flood pipes.

  When they clambered out into one of the bigger main drains, she heard him stretch and rub his dirty hands on his trousers. “Thank the Great Earth Jinn we’re out of that rat run,” he grumbled.

  Melba stood for a moment in the darkness, nerves over meeting her father adding to the awful tightness gripping her insides at the thought of leaving Turk. She glanced over her shoulder at the deeper patch of shadow that was all she could see of him. How could he not want to be with her when she wanted him so much? She nearly pleaded with him to marry her, but pride stopped her making a fool of herself again. She had always made the best of her lot and that was what she must do now. She blinked, making out the curved walls of the tunnel in the faint ambient light, clenched her teeth in determination, and set off at a trot along the large drainpipe. The sound of boots slapping in the shallow water behind her confirmed that Turk was following.

  The center of the flood system under the Royal Palace was close as they were already in the inner circle, and they didn’t encounter any other thieves or runners. They traveled in near darkness, their way lit only by the faint light penetrating through the air vents. When the echo of their footsteps grew loud and hollow, Turk touched her arm. “Sounds like we’re nearly there. Let me go in front now.”

  She moved aside and he brushed past. Ten yards farther on, he slowed and halted. She came up behind him and peered out of their tunnel into a circular chamber built from anc
ient red bricks that must have come from the mainland. All six main drains fed onto the chamber, the dark openings evenly spaced around the wall. A draft brushed her face, carrying a strange cocktail of city, woodland, beach, and marsh from all corners of the island. The place was eerily silent except for the occasional drip of water. At the top of the chamber, light penetrated through four windows, revealing a staircase circling the wall.

  “There’s a door near the top of the steps.” Turk raised an arm to point and she squinted, making out a small opening high on the opposite side of the chamber. “Let’s go up,” he said, jumping out of their pipe. He stopped and peered through a huge metal grate in the center of the chamber floor. “Don’t stand on that. It’s rusty.”

  “What’s down there?” Melba joined him. She picked up a stray beach pebble and dropped it into the dark hole beneath the metal grating. She listened for a plop but instead heard a strange whistling. Dark smoke streamed up through the metal grid. She stumbled back and would have landed on her backside, but Turk caught her. She hardly had time to right herself before something crashed up through the grating, sending it clattering aside. She and Turk ducked to avoid the flying metal and then he was dragging her back, pulling her close to his body and trying to shield her.

  “Keep down.” They ran back to the black circular opening of the drain they had come out of and clambered inside. Turk pushed her behind him and she crouched in the darkness, peering around his shoulder. A huge metal thing that looked to be half beast, half humanoid had climbed out of the pit beneath the grating. Its metal body was stained and dented and as it tried to raise itself from four legs to two, the old metal creaked and groaned, joints popping and tearing. The lower section of one of its upper limbs broke off and clattered to the stone floor, rivets tearing out where the joint had rusted.