Soot

by Dan Vyleta

  And then the match. Smith did not enjoy it as much as he once might have. Perhaps this was due to the constraints of the occasion, or the fact that much of the joy he used to feel resided in the mingling of Smokes. Perhaps, too—and this is a troubling thought for Smith, for it suggests a future reduced in possibilities—prolonged exposure to the beetle’s spore dulls the passions to some degree. But even so he imagines it was easy to see that he fought his opponent not like a eunuch or machine, sapped in his affects by the refined juices of the Smoke Poppy, but like a man: self-contained—complete—in anger, vainglory, and triumph. The prisoners certainly had seen it and had hushed. And Renfrew? The Lord Protector had simply sat there, pale and shivering, trying not to smoke. Like a man clenching himself against a bout of diarrhoea, too proud to use the crapper that’s but three steps away. It was unfathomable.

  Unless, that is, Renfrew has another offer, which is to say there is another player in this game of buy and sell.

  Smith would dearly like to know who.

  He had pictured it all quite differently, starting with their arrival. Smith had not envisioned them limping into harbour, most of the crew dead, the ship listing with engine damage, Eleanor treated as some kind of saviour even though it had been he, locked in on the bridge, who had defended the rudder and guided them through the Storm. Someone had seen her emerge from belowdecks, leading Mowgli by the hand; the Storm buffeting her, flooding her with hatred, then pouring back out of her body cleansed. It was nonsense, of course, a fairy story; they had left the thick of the Storm by then, and in any case, all the witnesses were off their heads. But that’s what the sailors told the fishing boat that met them near the coast. The fishermen turned it into gospel by the time they reached shore. By now the story had the girl standing in the prow all through the Storm, piloting them to safety; a halo over her streaming hair. The Shy Madonna. She was welcomed like a victorious general, whisked to Pentonville in a coach. Smith was allowed to accompany her only as an afterthought; the poor relation cadging a ride.

  No, what Smith had envisioned was presenting Eleanor as an opening present; unveiling her, as it were, to a disbelieving uncle, rattled for once in that famous composure, receptive to Smith’s influence. Then the demonstration, followed by disbelief and excitement; an eager bid for his goods. Instead Renfrew had smiled. Not a superior smile, the smile of someone who wanted to appear unimpressed, but rather a cold, calculating, rational smile that took the measure of Smith’s miracle and put it to a use beyond Smith’s ken.

  It is precisely this—the thought that he is shut out; that History has spurned him and he is to be but the bridesmaid at another’s wedding—that fills Smith with despair. Moved, he walks to the desk and, still clad only in his underwear, composes a sentimental letter to his wife and son that he will post when he has occasion. Then he dresses, combs his whiskers and crest of yellow hair, and steps out into the corridor in order to find Renfrew and talk to him man-to-man.

  [ 10 ]

  Smith does not meet a great many people on the way to Renfrew’s chamber. Two or three servants, running errands for their masters. A group of dandies in brushed velvet dinner jackets, wearing embroidered Smoke masks tucked into their belts. Three workmen charged with examining all the coal filters that can be slid in front of the windows in the event of a Gale. Then he reaches the Lord Protector’s door. There is a guard outside, armed with a pistol. His hand is on the holster as he sees Smith approach.

  Beyond the door lies an ordinary cell no different from all the other rooms in the building. Despite its sparse furnishings it feels crowded. There is a narrow bed and an equally narrow desk; a wardrobe and two plain wooden chairs. Renfrew’s servant is there, one Godfrey Livingstone, smelling as always of sweets. He, too, carries a pistol at his belt. Unlike the guard outside, he looks like a man who enjoys its use.

  As for the Lord Protector himself, he does not rise from behind his desk when Smith enters. He looks shrivelled, ill. Rumour has it that, ten years ago, the doctors had to remove much of his lower intestine. He is said to be living on a diet of gruel that runs through him like water. Nobody ever actually sees him eat. The desk in front of him is strewn with little squares of papers, wrinkled as though they have been crumpled, and covered in dense writing. The telephone that hulks amongst them is dusty with disuse.

  “Mr. Smith.”

  “Dr. Renfrew. I came to discuss business.”

  “Yes, of course. Sit.”

  Smith settles himself deliberately. The chair is hard, uncomfortable; his big thighs overhang it on both sides.

  “I am displeased,” Renfrew opens flatly. “Wrestling is illegal. It’s a Minetowns aberration that encourages needless Smoke. When the story spreads, people will say I have grown lax with the law.”

  When the story spreads, there will be a queue of people making propositions to Smith. Already the place must be abuzz with rumours. Smith knows this and has considered the potential of coming to an agreement with some other party. Renfrew has enemies, those who would unseat him. But his authority runs deep, and his opposition is divided. Months of infighting would ensue, with uncertain results.

  “You understand what I am offering, Dr. Renfrew? It does not bind the Smoke, the way sweets do, sapping a man’s passions. One simply stops smoking.” And then, more passionately: “I have brought you a cure, Dr. Renfrew. An end to the Smoke! So stop acting coy.”

  “Oh, I quite understand. You have found a way of making evil invisible. The body ceases to speak. All our moral corruption is to remain hidden, shut up within the flesh. You are privatising vice—but I see that my words amuse you. You find my views outdated. The concerns of another age.”

  Smith does not respond at once; wriggles his arse upon the chair, looking for comfort. Then he tries another tack.

  “All I am saying is that you must be practical, Dr. Renfrew. The nation’s broken. All you hold is the south and west. You have forged a coalition and are assembling an army, but it is unable to fight a war. If you march it on the North, it will get caught in a Gale. The next thing you know half your soldiers will have defected to the Miners. You can supply them with sweets, of course—or you could, if you had the money—but the effects are weak and, when it comes down to it, few men can kill without anger. As for the Smoke masks, you saw your soldiers today. Gasping for air after standing still for a quarter hour. No, your army cannot march in masks. And it certainly cannot fight in them.” He waits a beat, lets it sink in. “I can solve all that.”

  “That’s it then, your offer. A drug that enables us to march on the North. And to fight: with passion. The Miners will crawl underground, of course, into their tunnels. Then years of siege, while you bleed us dry selling us your product. No doubt my successors will sue for peace the moment I drop dead. And by the end we’ll live in a world where we have given up on fighting evil. We will simply hide it within our breasts.” Renfrew sighs, wearied by the exertion of talking. A sip of water steadies him. “What is it, your magical substance? A new distillation process of the same old flower? No, if that were the case, my Company sources would have told me about it. Something else then. A synthetic product? Or something you found? My sources say you like to travel.”

  Smith’s answer is blunt. “There is no pressing need for you to know.”

  “Is there not? I could order your stores seized, Mr. Smith. You are a guest upon my soil.”

  “The stores are Company-owned, standing on land ceded to us by your government. Which would make any seizure an act of war. You cannot afford war with the Company, Dr. Renfrew. It keeps your kingdom in grain. You would starve without us.”

  “You are not the Company, Mr. Smith.” But even as he says it, Smith can see that Renfrew concedes the point. He finds a clean sheaf of paper, uncaps a fountain pen. “Your price? How much will it cost me to inoculate my army against Smoke?”

  Smit
h does not hesitate. “The city of London and its surrounding lands. From Edgware to Croydon, from Hounslow to Deptford, along with exclusive rights to the River Thames. Not a lease, mind, but permanent ownership. It’s worthless to you as it is, a stretch of wasteland, picked over by vagrants. I will rebuild the city, turn it into a thriving heart of commerce.”

  “You want to be paid in land. I suppose every carpetbagger secretly yearns to be a king.” Renfrew pauses, recaps the pen. “Very well, I will consider it.”

  This angers Smith. He sees no reason to hide it.

  “Don’t think too long, Dr. Renfrew, or the North will march on you. They have figured out a way to bottle Gales. They may use them as a weapon.”

  For once Renfrew looks startled. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. While I was in New York, I came across a rumour, about a theatre group whose performances summoned the Second Smoke. A miniature Gale. Not all their performances, mind, but only some, here and there. Like they were trying out some new technique. So I made a point of looking up their director.”

  “His name?”

  “Balthazar Black. Don’t bother looking for him. He and his men died in the Storm.”

  But Renfrew’s face tells him they did not.

  “He’s alive?”

  “There are reports,” Renfrew concedes, “that Mr. Black is in Minetowns.”

  So you have spies there. How very interesting.

  Smith looks again at the little squares of paper scattered on Renfrew’s desk and wonders what has crumpled them so. There are, now that he comes to think of it, an awful lot of pigeons about the place.

  “Tell me more,” Renfrew says now, “about these bottled Gales. Do you have a sample?”

  “No. By the time I spoke to Mr. Black they had all been used up.”

  “So it might just be a rumour. People getting excited about a theatre act.”

  “Oh, it is no rumour. I talked to Black myself. He was heading back to Minetowns to replenish his supplies. I tell you, the Miners are developing a weapon, something that takes ordinary Smoke and makes it volatile. Go ask your niece. She was a part of Mr. Black’s little troupe. It’s where I found her.”

  [ 11 ]

  The servant fetches Eleanor at the hour of her dinner. When he comes in, she assumes it is simply to put down her tray of food and water. But he stands empty-handed, the door wide open at his back. A hand gesture, curt, impatient—that’s all she receives by way of invitation. Uncle wants to see me. Up close, the servant’s breath is rich with sweet.

  Twenty steps, a flight of stairs, another thirty steps. Empty tracks of corridor, not a soul about. A single soldier, guarding an unadorned door, straightening when he catches sight of them. Curiosity is written in his features as he watches her approach in the floor-length shift she was given to replace her Soot-spoilt clothing. The guard steps aside; the servant opens the door. And just like that they are reunited, uncle and niece. He rises to greet her with a kiss.

  “Eleanor.”

  “Uncle.”

  “God, how you’ve grown! Already a woman. And pretty!”

  He is not at all how she’d imagined him. Thinner, older. Diminished.

  But it’s not this that gives her pause.

  “You frown, my dear. Have I grown so very old?”

  “No,” she answers, hesitates. “I did not think that you would dress like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “The dinner jacket. It suits you. It looks expensive. Like you are going to a ball.”

  The remark amuses him. And something else: a glitter behind the eyes. She remembers it from childhood, when she did something well or said something clever. A flash of pride.

  “Ah, well, what did you expect, a hair shirt and a smock? You see, what happened was that no sooner had we created some semblance of order—reassembled Parliament, organised food distributions and an agricultural quota, set up shelters against Gales—all the young gentlemen at once went to Paris. Literally all! And when they returned after a month of debauchery they all came dressed in dapper suits. Le dernier cri. Some even brought back their own tailors. I resisted, of course—it seemed insultingly frivolous; we were fighting for our lives, the country was in tatters, famine and disease—but then it occurred to me that it was a simple way of finding acceptance. Dr. Renfrew, that dry old stick, wearing the latest rags. It appeased those who eyed me with suspicion and helped me build bridges with my onetime enemies.” He pauses, smiles. “You see, my dear, I am quite changed. I have grown practical. But please, take a seat. I apologise for the chair. It’s like an instrument of torture.”

  If she did not expect her uncle’s slim-framed elegance, neither did she expect his fussing, offering to send for tea, closing the window against the draught. Only then does he assume the pinched, precise manner familiar to her from childhood. He dons it like a pair of gloves: it will help protect his delicate hands.

  “I would like you to tell me,” he says without further preamble, “what happened on the ship.”

  “You already know. There was a Black Storm.”

  “Yes, I interrogated the surviving sailors.” He pauses, makes a point of finding her eye. “But I want to hear it from you.”

  She tells him. She omits Mowgli, the beetle, the hour spent in Smith’s cabin; tells him instead about the Storm’s slow approach, the dun wall spanning the horizon; about the other ship being swallowed up within its darkness; about Smith defending the bridge with his gun.

  “A cloud of pure hatred,” she explains, “turning everyone into a beast.”

  “Yet here you are, healthy and unmarked. People are telling stories about you. How you soothed the waters and repelled the winds. Like a magician.” He pauses, paces awkwardly, his legs stiff and body clenched, then slumps onto his chair. “Did Smith give you something? A drug, an injection? Some kind of sweet?”

  “No.”

  “Then you weren’t…immune?”

  “No.”

  “Smith was. Or so he has me believe.”

  She does not react, unsure of what her uncle knows and what to entrust him with. All through the years of her flight with Cruikshank she feared him. The old man had been convinced that Renfrew’s agents were looking for her, to bring her home, punish her, resume her moral education. That Renfrew had an inkling of her nature—her talent—and wanted it to put it to use. Now all she sees is a grey-faced man in nicely tailored clothes; a blackguard for a servant.

  “Come, dear,” he says now, “the stories have their root in something. Tell me what happened.”

  What happened. The Smoke reached for them, her and Mowgli, cowering in Smith’s cabin. For a few minutes, they did not feel it and she was aware of her wonder at the fact; the beetle’s taste upon her lip. Perhaps it bought them time; perhaps every minute’s respite carried them out from the dark heart of the Storm and into its peripheries. She remembers the engine still chugging deep within the hull; the ship hurtling itself against the sea. Then madness: things pouring out of their bodies too raw and ugly to acknowledge, Mowgli thrashing in his bonds. So she did something; an exercise of talent. Took in the darkness, transformed it; gave back something of herself. Then she walked outside, out onto the deck, where men were screaming, fighting, dying of their rage. She stood amongst them until the skies had cleared. They said to her later that it looked as though she’d drunk them clean.

  “I swallowed the Storm,” she says to her uncle.

  “I think,” she says, “it is inside me still.”

  [ 12 ]

  He curls his lip. He does not believe her. Perhaps he wishes to; wishes it very much even, to believe this girl he helped create; wants to ponder with her the potentialities implicit to her miracle. But Renfrew’s a practical man now; he has talked to Smith. There are other questions pre
ssing on his mind.

  Her relief is so visceral, it takes effort not to wreathe it in Smoke.

  “Tell me,” her uncle says, “about this theatre troupe I have been hearing about. Smith says you had joined a group of players. Over there, in the New World. I did not know you could act.”

  “I can’t. I saw them in Saint John and they took me with them, to New York. I handed out leaflets, put posters up on walls.”

  “Smoke Theatre,” says Renfrew. “I need not tell you that the very thought is distasteful to me. Think carefully now. I have had a report that their performances made use of something, a sort of trick. Making the Smoke volatile. Like it was then.” (A hand on his midriff as he says it, on those missing yards of gut beneath his ivory-buttoned shirt, torn out by Julius’s dog, the stories say, and cauterised by Soot.)

  “Smith told you.”

  “Naturally. Is it true?”

  “Yes. I witnessed it once.”

  “Was it like a Gale?”

  “It was beautiful,” she says, and a ring of Smoke comes out with the word, hangs in the air between then, then falls upon his desk and leaves an iodine stain amongst his many letters.

  Her uncle does not stir. He wants to know: “How was it generated?”

  “A vial. Ask Smith. He, too, came running, asking questions, wondering how he could steal the miracle and turn it into cash.”

  “Then you don’t know.”

  “You will have to ask the players. Only they are at the bottom of the sea.”

  “How petulant you have grown, Eleanor, how bold. You used to be such a timid little thing. You will forgive me for saying I rather preferred you as you were.”

  He frowns, bends down to his papers, pretending to read. Minutes pass, his fingers smoothing letters. When he speaks again, his voice lacks all inflection or affect. A dead voice. It may be the voice he uses to make confession to himself.