Timepiece

by Heather Albano

  “No,” Katarina said, sighing. “In the short term, it probably would have made things worse. But no one can dislodge this government from power, you see. The constructs work for Gladstone, enforce his authority, and, well, you saw what happens to those who oppose him. If we could ease his grip on the country’s throat, then the reformers would have a fighting chance to change the laws that need changing. They could speak, write, agitate, pressure Members of Parliament, and not fear reprisal.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “‘We.’ So you are part of Lord Seward’s...conspiracy? You and Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Trevelyan.”

  “Yes.” Katarina watched her. “Are you going to give me away, Miss Elizabeth?” She didn’t seem to find it likely, but there was a certain tension in her posture as she asked the question. “Throw your lot in with—” She gestured at the train and the paper-boy, then back down the alley. “—them?”

  “No,” Elizabeth answered slowly. “But...but I need to understand it, and I don’t. You need to tell me more about Lord Seward. And all the rest of it.”

  “I will,” Katarina promised. “There’s one more place we need to go first, and then we’ll talk.”

  Chapter 9

  London, August 27, 1885

  Their last visit was to a part of London that proved surprisingly pleasant—fine houses, wide streets, even a bit of green in the form of a park. At one end of the park rose a marble arch, the entrance to something a signpost proclaimed to be the “zoological gardens.” The hollow beneath the arch was comfortably large, and pillars around it comfortably spaced, and the sound of machinery had muted back into a drone nearly possible to ignore. You would never know Spitalfields was half a mile away, Elizabeth reflected, and felt sick at the thought.

  A cluster of men in neat suits, plus two women in cage-dresses, stood before the arch. Each of them held a notebook and a pencil, and they were engaged in calling questions to a young man with curly dark hair and overalls embroidered with the words “LONDON ZOO.”

  “...can assure you ours is safe in his cage where he belongs,” the young man said in cheerful Cockney tones as Katarina and Elizabeth reached the back of the crowd. “What happened last night is no failure of the London Zoo.”

  “Do you have any idea where Seward got the monsters that terrorized the East End?” one of the women asked.

  “Haven’t a notion, ma’am. They do say he’s a dreadful wicked man, but it wasn’t from here he got his monsters. And I’d be pleased to prove it to you. Step right this way, and you can see the Wellie in his cage. On the house, just this once, for members of the Empire’s news-agents only. Right down that path there, sir, ma’am, and turn to the left.” He waited until the last of them had filed past them before he looked over to where Elizabeth and her guide still stood. “’Afternoon, Madam Katherine,” he said then. “Surprised to see you here.”

  “Missed me?” Katarina asked, turning a dazzling smile upon him as she crossed the lawn.

  He chuckled. “Every day, love. But it’s not every day I have the pleasure of seeing you, even if I am missing you. Long walk from the Shoreditch. Why today?”

  “This is Elizabeth,” Katarina said. “She’s just joined us, up from the country. Don’t suppose you could let us slip in and have a peek at the animals?”

  He choked on the chuckle. “In the middle of the afternoon? Beg pardon, sweetheart,” he added to Elizabeth. “Bill Ellis, at your service. Come back when you’ve a night off, and I’ll—”

  “Oh, come,” Katarina coaxed, “just one peek? You’re taking that lot to the monster house, aren’t you? Can’t we tag along just that far?”

  “I—” Ellis looked at the finely dressed crowd, which had nearly reached the bend in the path, and then snatched a glance over his other shoulder. Elizabeth followed his eyes to where a sour-faced old crone sat, hemmed in on all sides by the fabric of her skirt and the metal of a small enclosure with a window. She was taking the shillings of a pair of school-aged children, and seemed to be lecturing them against misbehavior as she did so. “Oh—oh, all right, Meacham’s not looking. Come on, now. Quiet, or you’ll get me the sack.” He hustled Katarina and Elizabeth under the arch, keeping his body between them and the curdled-looking woman.

  It was easier to breathe than it had been all day, Elizabeth reflected. Perhaps the grass and trees unclenched the iron fist that had been forming around her insides. Katarina had fallen into step at Ellis’ right hand, so Elizabeth trailed along at by his left, waiting for Katarina to say something about storms.

  Beyond the arch, the path was lined with small buildings formed of brick and iron bars, and the first sight of them clenched the fist tight again before Elizabeth realized what she was looking at and what this place must be. She had heard of the Tower Menagerie, of course, but she had never visited it, and this was clearly a much larger establishment. “Bengal tiger,” Mr. Ellis murmured, directing Elizabeth’s attention to a cage with a nod. “Just about the thrillingest thing we have here.” The great striped beast lifted its head as they passed, fixing Elizabeth with its tawny eyes, then got to its feet in one smooth movement and came to the bars to investigate. Elizabeth found herself wanting both to sink her fingers into its thick fur and to retreat as expeditiously as possible. Fortunately, Mr. Ellis and Katarina were already walking on, so she did not have to choose.

  They passed an equally fearsome lion from Africa and a dromedary from the Arabian deserts, and Katarina still did not say anything about the weather. As they reached the bend in the path, Ellis detached her hand from his arm with an apologetic half-smile. “Got my job to do,” he said, and strode around to face the well-dressed crowd he had been shepherding. “So you can see it for yourself, ladies and gents, and I do hope as how you’ll tell your readers there’s nothing for them to fear from the London Zoo. Got our Wellie locked up tight where he can make no trouble, safe as houses.” The monster house sat a little ways away from the rest of the cages, surrounded by white columns like a Grecian temple. “The other beasts don’t care for the monster,” Mr. Ellis explained. “So we have to keep him separate. We’ve only got the one, can’t have no more, or they fight. Or worse yet, they plot together, and we here at the Zoo wouldn’t risk the safety of our guests. So there’s only the one, and him safe behind a wall and a moat, as you can plainly see for yourself. Couldn’t get out even if he could bend the bars, which he can’t do neither. Right then, when you’ve seen all you like, I’m to invite you to the refreshment area. Our own Mr. Chelton will be there to meet you, him that runs the office part of the Zoo, and he’ll be pleased to answer any other questions you might have. Oh, it was my pleasure, ma’am, and thank you kindly for setting the record straight about us here. Thank you, sir. Ma’am. A good day to you, sir...Have a peep,” he added in an undertone to Elizabeth as the crowd filtered away, “and then the both of you better cut back to the Shoreditch before someone here notices you never bought tickets.”

  Elizabeth hesitated.

  “It’s a’right,” Ellis reassured her. “It’s Gospel truth what I said, he can’t hurt you. You go right up to the wall and have a good look.”

  Elizabeth went up to the brick wall. It came about to her waist, and she could rest her hands comfortably against it. But the other side dropped down sharply into a pit twelve feet deep—a moat, as Ellis had said. On the other side of the moat rose an island upon which the white stone monster house sat, surrounded by Grecian columns and iron bars. Behind the bars stood a creature with a dead face, looking back at her.

  She’d had no opportunity for careful examination the night before. Seen in daylight rather than in lightning flashes, the face was less fearsome, though no less repulsive. Elizabeth shuddered at the overlong limbs, the slack and drooping skin, the thrust-forward head, the nonsensically moving lips. But the longer she studied the face, the more she thought she could discern an expression, and the more the expression looked to her like sorrow. She could not help but remember how one of them had tried to drag another out fr
om the feet of a construct.

  “It doesn’t look so fearful,” she murmured.

  “I ’spect you’re too young to remember,” the keeper said, “a little slip of a girl like you, but I mind the days when they were the terror of the countryside. No joke, they weren’t then. And it wouldn’t have been a joke if that Robert Locksley had let his whole pack loose on us, either. Lucky he was caught ’fore he could.” Ellis shivered a little, not an act. “I mind those days,” he said. “They were awful.”

  “They were,” Katarina said softly. “I remember them too.”

  “Before Her Majesty sent the constructs to save us,” Ellis said.

  Katarina murmured an agreement. And did not say anything about storms.

  “You wanted me to see the monster,” Elizabeth said. “That’s why we went to the zoo.” Katarina looked up, met her eyes, and nodded.

  They were back within the alleyways and courtyards of Spitalfields—not far from the warehouse, or so Katarina said at least, and Elizabeth had no reason to doubt her word, though she could not tell for herself. The little watch pendent that hung around Katarina’s neck proclaimed that it was now late afternoon. Elizabeth similarly was obliged to take the timepiece’s word for it, having no way to verify for herself. It was not possible to tell the time from a sun one could not see—the fog had thickened again the closer they got to the stews—and any internal instinct Elizabeth might possess was badly confused. She had been awake nearly a day and a night by now, and was thoroughly undecided as to whether she ought to have been eating breakfast or dinner.

  It was not until she found herself phrasing it that way in her thoughts that Elizabeth realized she was hungry, despite the periodic clenching in her middle. Small wonder, really. She’d had nothing but a few mouthfuls of watery tea since dining with her family some...she tried to work out how long ago. Twelve hours? Seventy years and twelve hours? She felt a momentary return of the hysterical desire to laugh mingle with the raspy air tormenting the back of her throat. Now that she was thinking about it, rather than having all her attention focused on outside things that were bizarre or horrific or both, she found that her legs had begun to tremble with weariness and the bottoms of her feet felt bruised with standing on cobblestone.

  Katarina had glanced over at her as those thoughts occurred, and seemed to read them. “Suppose we get a bite to eat on our way home.” She changed direction abruptly, and Elizabeth almost stumbled trying to keep up with her. “There’s a fish and chips shop this way. Not gourmet food, I’m afraid, but better than starvation...”

  The newspaper-wrapped cone Katarina put into her hands was slick with grease, and the breaded and fried contents glistened like the surface of the Thames, but Elizabeth was too hungry to care. She did wonder how and where they were to eat the food it contained, before Katarina answered the unasked questions by picking a chip out of her cone with her fingers. It seemed one ate fish and chips without the aid of knife or fork. While walking.

  Katarina ate neatly, with no overt enjoyment but no apparent disgust. Elizabeth watched her sideways, tasting the fish and the potatoes and the lard they had been fried in and the bitterness of the air. She turned the events of the morning over in her mind as she chewed, and slowly came to a realization. “You wanted me to see the monster,” she said, and Katarina admitted that this was so.

  Elizabeth took another chip from the wrapping and considered further. “You wanted me to see all of this,” she said. “That’s why you let me come with you.”

  Katarina gave her another long look from her luminous eyes. “Yes.”

  “So that I would understand why you want to bring it all down?”

  “In part, yes.”

  “I could have betrayed you to the authorities.”

  “You could have,” Katarina agreed, “but I didn’t think you would.”

  “How can you know what to think?” Elizabeth demanded. “You don’t know anything about me!”

  Katarina only smiled and took another chip.

  Elizabeth returned her attention to the fish. After a long while, she went on, “You said ‘in part.’ Why else?”

  “Because it hasn’t happened yet,” Katarina said, in a voice gone suddenly dark with passion. “I am—” Her mouth twisted a little, and she went on with a deliberately theatrical wave of one hand. “—I am the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come, and these are the shadows of things that may be, only. Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, but if those courses be departed from, the ends must change... But you have no idea what I am quoting, do you? That tale must not be quite as old as I thought it was...Never mind.”

  “You think I can prevent this happening?” Elizabeth said, stopping. “You think I can? My—my life isn’t—You have no idea how different my life is from yours. I’m not even permitted to walk unaccompanied through—I’m not like you!”

  “No,” Katarina said, “you’re not. I’m the natural daughter of an opera singer. I grew up in poverty and disgrace and I can’t do better than sing in a music hall. I’ve barely a coin to my name and no way to make anyone listen to me. You’re a gentleman’s daughter, you’ll be a gentleman’s wife, you live in a time when it hasn’t happened yet, and you have a pocket watch like Max’s—do you truly think you are powerless, compared to me?”

  The air hung hot and heavy between them. Finally Elizabeth looked down at the last soggy piece of fish in its soaked newspaper wrapping. “Well,” she said. “When you put it that way...” She looked back up. “You’ll have to tell me everything. I have to know what happened—what will happen.”

  Katarina nodded, and they started walking again. “Ask me whatever you like.”

  “Is it a—a coded message, what you’ve been saying about a storm coming tonight? What does it mean?”

  Katarina smiled. “It is a message, but not a coded one. It is going to storm tonight.” That was true enough; Elizabeth could feel the humid fog press against her lungs. “Mr. Trevelyan has invented a device to be used against the constructs, and it needs a lightning storm to be tested. Our friends will be providing distractions in other parts of the city while the test proceeds.”

  “Then you’ll have a weapon, is that it? That man you mentioned—Gladstone—will still have the constructs, but you’ll have something just as good.”

  “Then we’ll have a weapon,” Katarina said. “If it works, we can move on to the step of getting someone to create many of them. Then the field will be level.”

  “Oh.” Elizabeth took a breath. “This was all Lord Seward’s idea?”

  “Lord Seward is behind it, yes.” Katarina twisted the newspaper between her hands. “The problem with a venture of this kind is financing it. Lord Seward is a rich man—family money of course, and richer all the time for investing it in industry. Only someone of his wealth and position could have diverted the funds we needed. He pays the wages and other bills of a non-existent factory, and he hired Trevelyan to use that money to build him a weapon. He could have found no one better,” she added. “Trevelyan...lives for this cause. No one...no one hates the constructs or the men who made them more than he. And he’s truly a genius. Seward is another one, in a different way. This was far from his lordship’s only iron in the fire. I don’t know what they all were, even. He did have an empire of...Well. He had many irons in many fires, let’s just leave it there. It was one of the others that brought him down—I don’t know which, and the newspapers haven’t yet said—and it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that...that I believe he would have founded his ‘criminal empire’ even if Max hadn’t shown up on his doorstep and told him what was destined to happen. He would have tried to bring it all down either way, and I think Max knew that. I think that’s why Max stayed to see it through with us. Because he thinks we can win.”

  Elizabeth took another breath. “But now Lord Seward has been arrested.”

  The skin around Katarina’s eyes tightened in a wince as they had the night before. “Yes.” She took a breath of h
er own. “It makes it harder,” she said after a pause, “but we were prepared for the possibility that we might have to flee London anyway, depending how the test goes tonight. It’s simply more likely now.”

  Elizabeth found that she was twisting her newspaper cone also, digging her fingers into it so fiercely her knuckles were white. She unclenched them, trying to think what else she should ask. “Where did the constructs come from?”

  Katarina sighed, and looked off into the distance. “They were created with a good purpose, that’s the hell—the worst of it. They were created to protect us from the monsters. They did protect us. Mr. Ellis wasn’t exaggerating; I remember when the monsters terrorized the countryside to the west. I remember when the constructs came to us from London. We thought—They seemed like angels come to deliver us from harm. They did deliver us from harm. It was only later that other uses were found for them.” She smiled wryly. “It is as if we bred Bengal tigers to exterminate...well, not rats. Wolves, perhaps. Now the wolves are gone, and we are still riding the tigers.”