Steampunk Voyages

by Irene Radford

  “You also know that my previous mistress repented of her affaire de couer with one of those comrades and escaped him.”

  Again she nodded and drew her knitted lace shawl tighter around her shoulders. Good black wool, as light as a cobweb and expensive ten years ago; but scant protection from the autumnal chill creeping through the ancient walls.

  She had not indulged in steam heat or gas lights in this shabby and isolated home. She must know the dangers as well as the benefits of the new sciences. Or she couldn’t afford them. Rumour had it that she was still paying off her husband’s debts with her own money, some months after his supposed death.

  I knew all too well that Lord Byron was not quite dead enough. His secret work with the madmen who ensouled machines and dead meat had been nearly complete when he…“died.”

  At least with a body buried at the entailed estate of Southwell Abby and the title passed to a distant cousin, George Gordon Noel-Byron, Lord Byron, couldn’t lay claim to any of his, or his wife’s, income. Nor could he publish under his real name and reputation without revealing his sacrilegious secrets of rising from the dead. He’d have to earn a living by his wits.

  “And you will have heard that my employer spent the last eight years escaping from both Mr. Shelley and Lord Byron.” I didn’t mention the disgraced Dr. John Polidari. His name was even less respectable than the poets’. Shelley and Byron at least could claim artistic sensibility for their perfidy. Polidari could claim only negligence and unbridled curiosity that had cost at least two patients their lives.

  Lady Byron opened her heavily lidded eyes and stared into mine, challenging me with her silence.

  “I protected Miss Mary, her children, and her new husband more than once. I know what to look for in a man to know if he is an agent of your husband.”

  “My husband died. He is no longer a threat to me or my daughter.”

  This time, I held her gaze, forcing her to think about the unspoken truth. She didn’t back down, but she did speak. “My daughter, Augusta Ada, is in need of tutors in mathematics and the sciences. Firm men who will drive any shadow of artistic nonsense from her.”

  I continued my silence. I knew this. I also knew that before his “death” Lord Byron had sought out some of those same mathematicians and scientists to help him rebuild his soul transference engine. They could still work for him and corrupt his daughter—or trick her into redesigning Polidari’s engine. I wished, not for the first time, I’d done a more thorough job of smashing the original into oblivion.

  “What do you know?” she blurted out, almost angrily. But I knew her anger was not directed at me.

  “I know how to keep secrets.” Secrets of how Lord Byron was obsessed with immortality. He and the incompetent Dr. Polidari had tried more than once to transfer Byron’s soul into a more perfect body than his own malformed one. Polidori had used the bodies of drowning victims. Percy Shelley had reportedly drowned two years ago in a boating accident in Italy. He was a very handsome man with an exquisite body.

  That I knew from firsthand experience. Shelley had practiced Godwin’s free love philosophy with less… discrimination than had Lord Byron. Shelley merely liked his paramours young, very young. Byron insisted they be petite and dark-haired as well. I didn’t qualify as female, in his opinion.

  “Secrets? You will have no secrets from me. If I employ you.”

  I arched my left eyebrow in reply.

  “I have no doubt that you can protect my daughter, physically. But what can you teach her? She has had the finest tutors in mathematics and the sciences.”

  “I speak and read five languages fluently.” What child of Switzerland didn’t? “I have read history extensively. I have observed politics in action all over Europe. I know the social graces acceptable in Geneva, Paris, Rome, Athens, and Copenhagen. They differ, if only slightly. Knowing that difference when dealing with international personalities in London will be an asset to you and your daughter.” I had more arguments in my favour. Lady Byron dismissed them with a tired wave of her hand.

  My stomach bounced and wriggled uncomfortably. My vision narrowed. I needed to see with my Gypsy vision . . . . The blackness crowding into my periphery sparkled brightly around a twirling figure that might be a young girl. Or me. Though I’d never had a vision for myself.

  Then something dimmed the scintillating lights.

  Anything Lady Byron might have said was lost in a sharp shattering of glass. I dove for the floor beside the door, dragging the lady with me.

  A rock bounced from the couch where she’d been sitting, to the floor and across the worn carpet.

  Sharp shards sprayed across us. I tasted blood before I felt the burn of a slice across my cheek.

  I had not paid a ruffian to throw that rock. Honestly, I had not, though my younger sister Trudé, budding pirate that she was, would have gladly done it, if I offered her the last gold crown in my reticule.

  “Did . . . did you know of this?” Lady Byron turned a glacial gaze upon me as I heaved myself to my feet and straightened my skirt. I retrieved from my sleeve a grey handkerchief that matched my gown in colour and serviceability and pressed it hard against my now burning cheek. I surveyed the side yard from the safety of the heavy draperies rather than glance her way.

  I saw no movement or strange shadow that might betray whoever threw the rock. He was probably long gone, having run while we sought shelter.

  My gut churned and my vision closed down to a narrow tunnel. If I had a cup of tea, or even a glass of water, I might see something in the whirlpool as I stirred.

  Was that a misshapen lump huddled next to the beech tree?

  Only then did the lady notice the crimson stain on my face. “The glass cut you,” she said flatly.

  “Yes, m’lady,” I replied just as flatly. Emotion was wasted on such as she. She wouldn’t allow hysterics in herself, let alone her daughter or a staff member. Oh, well, I could save a bout of tears and shakes for another, more receptive audience.

  “The rock could have hit me if you had not acted so quickly.”

  I shrugged. The obvious needed no answer.

  “I owe you thanks.” She didn’t actually offer them. Perhaps I could teach her some manners.

  I nodded graciously, keeping a keen eye on the grounds visible from the long window in the small room.

  The lump at the beech tree had shifted to the opposite side and seemed larger.

  A new thought wiggled into my brain. If the target had not actually been Lady Bryon, then the missile was merely a ruse to distract from the true purpose.

  “Where is your daughter, m’Lady?”

  “At her studies.” She rose anxiously and hastened for the bell. Carrick, the reedy butler of indeterminate years, answered too promptly, obviously expecting the summons to escort me out rather than the anxious query of his mistress. “Send Miss Augusta to me immediately,” she demanded, hands reaching out like claws to clutch at his lapels. She restrained her gesture at the last second, not quite touching him.

  I surmised they had been together a long time. Just how much familiarity had developed between them?

  Wouldn’t be the first time a lady had sought comfort with a trusted servant when she had not seen an estranged and disreputable husband in nigh on ten years.

  I wondered if Carrick’s eye strayed beyond his mistress while I assessed his long and lean form. We stood nearly eye to eye, he topping me by at least half an inch.

  Before the expression had a chance to reach my eyes, a child’s scream sent my heart pumping and my mind whirling. Without a thought, I hiked my utilitarian grey serge skirt almost to my knees, shouldered aside lady and butler, and dashed up the stairs.

  Damn this corset. I had laced tightly this morning to make the ensemble fit properly, not anticipating having to run up stairs and breathe at the same time.

  Thank whatever gods might be, Lady Byron kept her child close to her in the family living quarters on the first floor above stairs, rather t
han a drafty attic two more stories up. A second scream directed me to the left, last door on the left, facing the front drive.

  I kicked open the door, not caring about splintering the lock. A dark-coated figure with a woolen scarf wrapped around neck and lower face held a knife tightly across the throat of a little girl. A long black, vorpal blade glinted in the lamp light. I noted the girl’s dark hair and swarthy skin—not quite as sun burned as her father’s—and her huge frightened eyes.

  I didn’t waste time assessing the danger. I’d done this before.

  Three strides in, a kicked his knee as hard as I had the door. Before he could react I drove my fist into the side of his head.

  He grunted, the sound muffled by his face-concealing scarf. I closed my free hand around a slender wrist and twisted.

  Snap.

  A bone broke. Clatter. The knife fell to the floor. I pushed the girl back toward her mother.

  The black-garbed creature scuttled out the open window faster than I could follow. One look and it scampered from ridge line to chimney pot, then, using only the left hand and feet, it swung down a twist of ivy like a Gibraltar monkey.

  I ran back down the stairs. The grounds were empty as far as I could see. Miss Augusta Ada Byron was safe for now. I decided the name was too big and pretentious for such a fragile child. Ada she would be to me. And to the world, though I didn’t know that yet.

  Chapter One

  Above London, early June 1838

  The gas flames hissed as the hot air balloon’s pilot pushed more gas into the envelope above us. I looked up and up to the interior of the dull grey silk. Cool air caressed my cheeks. I marvelled that no wind blew my braids where they dangled down my back. This was how I knew that we moved at the same speed as the gentle wind.

  Up here, one thousand feet above civilization, the air was fresh and clean. The smoke of tens of thousands of coal fires lay like a pall over London’s rooftops below, with only an occasional church spire rising to my view.

  Steam powered engines lightened the burdens of life, giving us many advances in transportation, communication, and household appliances. But the burning coal needed to convert ordinary water into steam left filth behind.

  Below us the city sprawled in unruly lines and clumps, blurred by smoke. The dome of St. Paul’s rose above the smoke, one of a few distinctive landmarks. Once I’d anchored my sense of direction in that eternal symbol of solidity, permanence, and hope, my eyes pushed aside the fuzzy blanket of smoke and found other familiar places. Tower Bridge, Westminster, Piccadilly Circus.

  The winds pushed us west and north, following the Thames, the heart vein of transportation and commerce of southern England.

  “There be Windsor, Miss Elise.” Jimmy Porto pointed up river. That was further than I wanted to go.

  I winced at his use of my original name. Since Miss Ada Byron had married, I’d transformed myself into a new personality (not with Lord Byron’s dreaded transference engine—merely a new name, a new attitude, and a new wardrobe). No more the drab, respectful governess. Jimmy had known me too long. But he was useful as a pilot when I needed one, as a friend and go-between with his Romany family spread across the entire island and half the continent.

  His people had helped me protect Miss Ada many times, over the last decade. They also kept me apprised (as only wandering Romany can) of Necromancers taking up residence in ruined castles, and scientists moving their experiments away from the ethical and moral strictures of Oxford and Cambridge.

  “Deploy the aelerons, Jimmy. I need to circle the city,” I said.

  “Be prettier out here,” he replied, not moving his hand to the brass lever near the ring joining the firebox to the envelope. He drew in a long breath. I mimicked his inhalation, tasting clear country air smelling of freshly tilled fields, trees leafing out, and meadow flowers, and appreciated why he wanted to linger, drift aimlessly with the breeze.

  “This is important, Jimmy. I love the green land as much as you. I love the freedom of the roving life that you have transferred to roaming the skies. But I need to see the patterns of movement through the city. I need to know if a malevolent force drives them or if my visions are failing me.”

  We spoke in Romany. Most of Jimmy’s country accent disappeared in his native language. He spoke correctly… mostly.

  “Aye, Miss Elise. I feels it too. Something wicked stirs the air and the people. I’ll get you as low as I dare.” He flashed me a cheeky grin as he engaged the lever that sent the aerelons outward, and tacked back to the city, much as a sailboat would move against the wind. “I used fog grey for the envelope just so’s we’d stay invisible a bit longer.”

  He really was attractive in his slender, olive-skinned, dark-eyed way. Alas, he was much too young for me, and though his tribe respected me for my visions, I was gorgí, an outsider, forbidden to touch.

  “Romany know how to hide.” I returned his grin, grateful for the lessons they’d taught me.

  We drifted back over the city, moving over the dark, poverty-stricken jungle of Southwark, south of the river. Evil could hide in the open streets and opulent houses on the north side just as easily as the tenements. Armed military men were reluctant to enter Southwark. Criminals lived openly there, protected by neighbours. Military might would be put to better use protecting our new queen, the young and beautiful Victoria. I had my own ways of making sure her upcoming coronation occurred on time, without the blemish of an assassination attempt I’d seen in three of my visions. It would come.

  “There, Jimmy!” I pointed to a dark object hovering in the lee of St. Paul’s.

  Another balloon. Black envelope, black basket, seemingly empty.

  “Hovers, it does,” Jimmy said quietly on a long exhale. “Balloons need to move. They flow with the air, which is never still.”

  I dropped a single magnifier over my flying goggles. The black basket jumped into sharper detail. Not a lot of room between the rim and the firebox.

  Then a long telescope snaked out over the edge of the black basket. It pointed down. Whoever was in there looked at individuals, not large patterns.

  “Pointing that thing toward Trafalgar Square, they be,” Jimmy muttered.

  His young eyes were better than mine. I hated admitting that I needed spectacles.

  “What is there besides a monument to a beloved but fallen admiral and his mighty victory over the French?”

  A memorial to the dead. Necromancers needed death to fuel their magic.

  And then the patterns of cloud-shadow shifted and I spotted the glint of sunlight on a brass circular opening in the bottom corner of the basket. A musket barrel? Or a small cannon?

  We descended rapidly, away from that black monster.

  <<>>

  By the time I got to Trafalgar Square, all was normal, and the black balloon had disappeared. I could neither see nor smell anything out of the ordinary. If Jimmy hadn’t seen it too, I might think I’d dreamed it.

  So I returned to my home.

  “That’s Madame Magdala,” a stout woman dressed in black from bonnet to boots to lace parasol whispered, jabbing her younger companion in the ribs with that wicked parasol. I wondered if she could extend the tip into a knife. I knew I wasn’t the only woman in London who’d purchased such an instrument from Georges’ Emporium of Fine Imported Lace. I guessed she was a widow of minor means, from the classic cut of her gown.

  “The natural daughter of the Gypsy King?” asked the slight woman beside her. She sounded awed. She wore a travelling gown in dark green, a fashion at least two years out of date. I guessed she was daughter or niece of the widow. They would have come down from the country for the coronation—and for the opportunity to meet an eligible man.

  “I don’t know any way to birth a child but the natural way,” I muttered in disgust. If they wanted to parrot my new name and way of life they should use the appropriate term. Bastard. But then, I was sure they considered themselves too proper, upright, and faithful daughters of t
he Church of England, to use such language.

  Hastily I shoved my goggles atop my leather flying helmet and peered at the crowds filling Charing Cross Road. A number of genteel couples adjusted their path around me. My leather jacket atop jodhpurs and high boots couldn’t disguise my feminine figure, even if I did stand taller than most of the men. Many of the gentlemen let their gaze linger while their female companions sniffed in disdain.

  “Too damned many people in London these days,” I said. I found the key to my café and reading room in a convenient pocket.

  I sniffed and peered to see if any of the crowd bore the taint of magic manipulation. Nothing. Whoever had spied from the black balloon today had not used magic. One more piece of a giant puzzle of odd bits of information I stored for Ada Byron King, Countess Lovelace. Yes, the dark-haired and frightened little girl I had nurtured through adolescence had married a wealthy man who adored her. He could also listen attentively and mostly understand when she spoke of the beauty and magic of mathematics. She had purchased the café and put my name on the deed so that our inquiries could not be traced back to her ever-so-proper husband and his titles.

  I heard much speculation that the pretty, nineteen-year-old girl who now sat on the throne of England would return a semblance of propriety to English society after the… delicious… scandals of her royal uncles.

  I hoped not. Life would be ever so dull without new scandals every other day.

  A “lady” jabbed my knees with her parasol as she passed.

  “Thank you for reminding me that if I linger gawking I’ll be late to my own salon,” I whispered just loud enough to make sure she heard me. She flinched.

  The bells inside my door tinkled invitingly as I strode inside with long, mannish strides. I know I should affect a more feminine walk. But why waste the freedom of trousers and boots?

  That freedom was short-lived. In less than an hour I needed to be corseted, beribboned, and draped in swaths of fine silk, ready to greet my guests. I wondered if anyone new would grace us with scintillating conversation or controversial issues to debate. Hmm.… I needed to collect the latest newspapers from Hong Kong, New Delhi, Beijing, and Tokyo, delivered weekly to my café by dirigible express, so we’d have new information to dissect. Amazing what insights and patterns of unrest I could uncover when I listened while others read aloud interesting tidbits from afar.