The Virtuous Feats of the Indomitable Miss Trafalgar and the Erudite Lady Boone

by Geonn Cannon

  Trafalgar said, “You want to go.”

  “Ridiclous, isn’t it? You do all this for me, pull me up so far in society that I’m riding to Rome on a damn airship with a proper lady... and then as your reward, I turn ‘round and run away just ‘cause things got scary.” She shook her head. “I’m being a kid.”

  “You’re doing no such thing. I would be alarmed if you weren’t having these thoughts, to be honest. We both have Adeline’s blood on our hands. I can still feel it on mine. Perhaps that will change once we’ve gotten vengeance for her, or once we put her to rest, but I don’t know if it will ever go away. I can’t ask you to stay out of sheer loyalty to me. I won’t.”

  Leola had tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  Trafalgar laughed. “I’ve been alone most of my life. You and Adeline made things easier, but...” She looked toward the shuttered window. “Adeline was ripped from my life. If you remain with me there’s a chance you will meet the same fate. I would much rather be alone knowing you’re out in the world than have solitude forced upon me by our enemies. And I would not want you to stay with me out of blind loyalty. If you wish to go, then I wish you well.”

  Leola stood and knelt in front of Trafalgar. “I’ll stay with you until we complete this mission. For Adeline. And then I will seek other employment.”

  Trafalgar said, “I will help you. Whatever you require.” She leaned in and kissed Leola’s forehead. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

  “Of course.”

  “For now, we should get some sleep. It’s another ten hours before landfall in Rome.” Leola nodded and stood up to return to her own bed. Trafalgar gripped her hand. “I couldn’t have gotten as far as I have without you watching my back. Thank you.”

  Leola nodded. “If you ever need me again...”

  “I’ll remember. But I will try to not need you.”

  Leola smiled and kissed Trafalgar’s knuckles before getting into bed.

  Trafalgar turned out the light to be polite, but she remained seated in the darkness for a long time after Leola drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was still early by Dorothy’s internal clock, but the ship went into nighttime mode in anticipation of making landfall in the middle of the night. Rome’s terminals operated around the clock, so they would be greeted by a full staff. Araminta wanted the crew to be alert and responsive as well. Dorothy retired to her room, took a pill to help alleviate her monthly issues and changed into her nightgown. She’d warned Beatrice she wasn’t up for spending the night together, and Beatrice suggested they could share a bed and just sleep. Dorothy accused her of just wanting the bigger room, which Beatrice curiously did not deny.

  They passed Paris close to an hour ago and now all she could see below them were dark squares of green, yellow, and brown, the Mondrian pattern of France’s countryside. So much of it had been torn apart and scarred by the war, so much beauty needlessly shredded by boots and bombs and burials. She had been behind enemy lines, she had witnessed some of the horrors being wrought in the name of... what? Ideals? Fighting to protect your country whilst simultaneously ripping the country apart, fighting to protect your people while sending those people to die for it... the whole thing made no damned sense.

  She had a feeling perhaps her anger was due to discomfort and exhaustion. At the moment Beatrice was sleeping in the bed behind her, nude with the sheets twisted around her waist like a rope ladder. Dorothy was at the cabin’s built-in desk with the light turned low and angled so she could see her book. She looked over her shoulder at Beatrice’s bare back, the intricate branches of her tattoo blending with the shadows and the loose curls of her hair.

  Though she longed to cross the room and crawl under the blankets, there was too much to be done before they reached Rome. She turned back to the journal and focused on the nonsensical words. There had to be some sort of pattern to the code, some system she could crack. Taking notes in the field required speed and shorthand. If Solomon couldn’t decipher what he had scrawled down then there was no reason to take notes at all. He had to have a system.

  The teletype embedded in the wall next to the desk came to life, beeping and scratching out its message. The noise startled her enough that she put her palm against her chest and turned to make sure the clatter hadn’t disturbed Beatrice’s sleep before taking the slip of paper from the feeder.

  “Sorry for the lateness. New message from IS. Kestrel tucked in for night in Paris. Resuming trip tomorrow 0430. Should have a twelve-hour lead on them. Sweet dreams. AC.”

  Dorothy smiled and whispered, “Sweet dreams to you as well, Minty.” She folded the note and looked at the journal again. She would never be able to explain why everything slipped into place for her then; whether it was looking away for a moment and then re-focusing, or if looking at Araminta’s shorthand from the teletype had pushed her brain into the proper position to see it, but suddenly the words in Solomon’s journal didn’t look quite as random as they had before. She placed her hands on either side of the book and looked down at the swirls and loops of ink, willing the letters to make sense. It was like trying to hold onto the snippet of a dream long enough to remember everything that happened in it.

  “Come on,” she whispered. “Come on, stay with it, Dot. You can see it. It’s right there in front of you.” She ran her bottom teeth against her top lip and narrowed her eyes.

  Her grandmother had slapped the top of her head just hard enough to make her flinch. “If you expect every answer to be spelled out, you won’t last very long in this profession. Look harder.”

  “I’m looking, Grandma,” she whispered. “I can’t see it... I... wait.”

  A single letter seemed to stand out to her. The letter T, by itself, unconnected to the letters around it, and capitalized. Dorothy found a blank sheet of paper and wrote T=I. She flipped back to the coordinates Trafalgar had identified as Djibouti. There were two Ts in it, and she translated the word into the new alphabet. T was a substitute for I, and that meant D was an O. It was the most simplistic cypher he could have used, but the use of random spacing between words would have made it impossible to crack if he hadn’t made one mistake. He had been writing too swiftly and his brain told him the personal pronoun needed to be on its own and capitalized.

  Dorothy rapidly scribbled the code on her paper, then began translating the final entry. “Believe we have found the perfect receptacle for our host. Willing to defend herself against stronger opponents, willing to fight unarmed, strong, intelligent (learned language in a matter of days to a degree that she was able to converse in English). The girl lacks a name and therefore has no sense of self. The host will easily overwhelm whatever personality the girl may have and subsume her completely. As a child she will be pliable. The host will be like a child and therefore susceptible to whatever the Society wishes. We can mold it into our own champion with minimal effort.”

  This paragraph encircled the drawing of Trafalgar’s head. Dorothy touched the cheekbone, horrified at what Solomon and his ilk had planned for an innocent child. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, settling her brain back into its proper channels. It had taken her nearly an hour to translate one paragraph, and she’d been helped by repeated words. Translating the entire journal would take too long to be very helpful.

  If they worked backwards, perhaps they could learn what the Society had been planning for Trafalgar. If they knew that, they might have a clue about what to expect in Rome. She looked at the clock and winced, knowing she should get to bed if she had any hope of getting rest. She sharpened her pencil with the blade of her penknife and wet the nib with her tongue. Behind her Beatrice murmured in her sleep, speaking rapid and desperate Mandarin. She had done it before; Dorothy only waited for the burst of language to fade away before she bent over her page again.

  Another hour and she could have the page translated. Then she could lie down and take a quick nap so she was rested when
they reached their destination. She put a finger on the journal’s page and dragged it along each letter to keep her place as she began translating as quickly as she could.

  #

  Beatrice woke to the sway and sweep of the gondola. Her fingers tightened on the bedding and she took a moment before opening her eyes to remind herself that she wasn’t in the hold of the ship. Her earliest memory of clinging to the moth-eaten sweater of an old man fading as her brain caught up with her body. She wasn’t at sea, she was in flight. She was an adult, she had more memories than blankness, and she knew precisely who she was. Her first years, her mysterious years, didn’t matter as much as the years that came afterward.

  The fear subsided and she opened her eyes. The room smelled ever so slightly of Dorothy’s perfume, but she was alone in the bed. She let the sheet fall away as she sat up and looked at the desk. Sure enough, there was her employer and sometimes lover, head down on the desk and fingers still curled around her pencil. Beatrice climbed out of bed and draped the sheet over her shoulders like a cape, walking on the balls of her feet to wrap her arms around Dorothy’s slumbering form. She gently removed the pencil from Dorothy’s grip and massaged the divot in the pad of her forefinger until it faded. The gentle massage stirred Dorothy.

  “Mm.”

  “You fell asleep,” Beatrice whispered against the shell of Dorothy’s ear. She nipped at the lobe as Dorothy tried to sit up and pressed against her.

  “Miss Sek, I do believe you are nude.”

  Beatrice said, “I do believe that is the way you prefer me.”

  Dorothy reached back and ran her hand over the curve of Beatrice’s hip. “What time is it?”

  “Quarter to two.”

  “Damn. We’ll be landing in Rome soon.” Beatrice took a step back and let Dorothy up. “I should dress and join Minty on the passerelle.” She turned and pushed the sheet out of the way to admire Beatrice’s curves. “Or... perhaps... a quick shower first. These rooms are equipped with private bathing facilities. I think I definitely require a bit of a wake-up if you’re willing.”

  Beatrice nodded and pecked Dorothy’s bottom lip. “Always willing, Lady Boone. I’ll get those hard to reach places.”

  Dorothy lowered her voice to a seductive purr. “And maybe a few of those that are easy to reach, but are just no fun reaching by myself.”

  They kissed, and Beatrice’s sheet drifted to the floor around their feet. A minute or so later when they retreated to the head, they didn’t bother to retrieve it.

  #

  Dorothy arrived on the passerelle in a snug brown waistcoat, the collar of her shirt open to reveal a crimson ascot. Her hair was still wet from the shower and bundled in a loose braid that fell over her shoulder. The brief slumber at her desk had been enough to screw up her sense of time. It felt like morning to her and yet the world outside the front windows was full dark. Araminta was once again in her station in full uniform, the only difference being that her hair was now styled in a looser and more casual do. Dorothy wondered if she had actually been to bed.

  “Good morning, Dot.” Araminta cast an appreciative eye over Dorothy’s outfit. “You missed the Alps. Always a spectacular sight to behold, even by moonlight.”

  “Sounds romantic,” Dorothy said.

  Araminta arched an eyebrow and smiled. “We shall be descending into Rome in approximately twenty minutes. Make sure everyone has their papers ready.”

  “I shall.”

  “Did you receive my text regarding the Kestrel’s overnight plans?”

  “I did, thank you.”

  Araminta said, “We’ve received no further missives since then, but they should be on the ground in Paris as we speak. Shall we make life difficult for them? Send a missive to the authorities that they’re smuggling contraband?”

  Dorothy smiled. “A tempting thought, but no. We need them to arrive eventually so we can follow them to whatever their next destination might be. We’ll take advantage of our early arrival to arrange a surprise once they arrive. Is Trafalgar awake yet?”

  “She passed through here about half an hour ago. I believe she’s in the galley having some breakfast with that bodyguard of hers.”

  Dorothy nodded and went to the window. They were flying over the hills that surrounded Rome, and even at the early hour she could see lights burning in some of the windows. She loved ancient architecture like this, cities that seemed to grow organically from the countryside like strange flowers. Cities like London razed the fields, flattened the hills, and shored up the waterways to make the world more convenient. It made for comfortable and cozy towns, but she had to believe there would be a point when the world had become too torn apart to sustain them further.

  When Dorothy arrived in the galley, she saw Beatrice had already joined Trafalgar and Leola in their breakfast. She helped herself to a banana and peeled it as she sat beside her friend across from their former quarry.

  “Minty says we’ll arrive in twenty minutes. Still no word from Ivy since last night.”

  Trafalgar said, “Should we be worried about that?”

  Dorothy shook her head. “Hardly. There’s no reason to believe she’s been captured. I know from experience that she can be slippery even in an enclosed environment. She once managed to elude a constable while riding in the backseat of a car with him. She may not have any further information, or it may be impossible for her to gain access to the teletype to send another note. Whatever the reason, we’re stuck waiting here until someone arrives to point us in the right direction.”

  “Let us hope Miss Sever is still aboard when they arrive,” Trafalgar said.

  “In the meantime...” Dorothy took a few folded pages from her pocket and spread them out on the table. “I managed to find the key for unlocking Solomon’s journal. I translated a swath leading up to his encounter with Trafalgar, and he wrote briefly about the stone he attempted to use in his ritual. It’s something he called chalcedony, unless my cryptography was off.”

  Leola shook her head. “It’s a fibrous variety of quartz.”

  “All right,” Dorothy said. “This particular variety of the stone is extraordinarily rare. It was excavated from a site which had been saturated with mystical energy by ancient wizards. The stones have long been rumored to open a channel between two beings. One mind is opened and another is given the opportunity to step inside. Much like opening a window and letting a burglar crawl inside. Even a thousand years ago there were only a handful of the chalcedony stones, but today even finding one was considered to be a monumental discovery. The Watershed Society took it to mean their plans were blessed. Apparently they had been searching for it since the middle of the nineteenth century and finally found it in a tomb near Athens.”

  Trafalgar said, “Perhaps they found another tomb. Our final destination may be Athens.”

  Dorothy nodded. “It’s likely, but I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. If we tell Minty to prepare the ship for Athens and the second stone turns out to be in Majorca...”

  “True. Then we shall wait. Are we being allowed to leave the ship once we arrive?”

  Dorothy said, “Of course. We can investigate Watershed’s presence in the Mediterranean and gear up for a potential assault. If Ivy can’t provide any more information before their ship arrives we may be forced to hijack them and ask them what their plans are. We cannot allow them to achieve their goal. I don’t know what they have in store for this Felix Quintel, but I’ve no intention of finding out.” She took out her fob watch to check the time. “Now, we’ll be coming in for a landing soon. I suggest we get our papers in order and strap ourselves in.”

  They took the last of their breakfast and retired to their rooms. When they were strapped securely to the chairs in Dorothy’s suite, away from the ears of Trafalgar and Leola, Beatrice said, “Do you really believe Ivy is still at liberty aboard the Kestrel? It’s a long time to avoid someone running into her. Even invisible she might have accidentally revealed herself a dozen time
s by now.”

  “I have faith in her. Even when we’re at odds, the woman has proven herself to be a formidable opponent. I’m sure the Watershed Society would have a difficult time capturing her even if they became aware of her presence.”

  Beatrice said, “Or they became aware of her presence, found out her intentions, and offered her a big payday to play us for fools. The woman is only interested in money. She could’ve been bought.”

  Dorothy said, “True. But if we begin second-guessing every piece of intelligence we receive from her, we’ll render her useless. She’s far too valuable to ignore at the moment. Either her information will prove worthy or the truth will be revealed soon enough.”

  Beatrice pressed her lips into a thin line but said nothing more on the subject.

  The landing was as gentle as they could hope for, and Araminta was waiting by the gangplank to see them off. She had donned her uniform cap and revealed she was sending her crew out to see if there were any cargo contracts heading back to England.

  “No reason for this trip to be a complete lark.”

  Dorothy wished her luck and kissed her cheek before leading her unlikely crew out into the hangar. The Burattini Docks were located at the very furthest reaches of Rome, a fact Dorothy found utterly inexplicable considering the winds coming in off the Tyrrhenian Sea. The potential for a dirigible to be knocked against the mooring masts or sent careening off-course would have been enough for her to suggest a location on the other side of the city, but Araminta had handled their arrival with aplomb.

  As predicted the docks were as lively as a market in the middle of the day. Four other airships were circling the area as they awaited permission to land. Crewmen in bright orange jumpsuits were running to and fro on the tarmac, checking their lists before sending a signal to one captain or another that they were cleared for takeoff. Ahead of them, Dorothy could see into the terminal. Even at three in the morning there was a crowd of passengers waiting to be ferried to the far reaches of the globe. She wondered how humans satisfied their wanderlust before airships and sea travel were commonplace. She passed two tourists in brown leather jackets who paused to appreciate her suit before continuing on their way. She winked at them before getting to the matter at hand.