The Choir Boats

by Rabuzzi, Daniel

  Isaak tried to jump into the fraulein’s lap as she said this.

  “Isaak, you know better!” said Sally, crossing the room to collect the cat. “Why, Fraulein Reimer, what a marvellous picture!”

  The fraulein shook her head but displayed the oval needleworking: a picture of a house, with the words Trost der Erloesung stitched above, and Not bricht Eisen stitched below.

  “‘The Solace of Salvation,’ and ‘Need Breaks Iron,’” read Sally. “Do come and see, Uncle Barnabas, it’s our very own home on Mincing Lane.”

  Barnabas peered at the needlework and said, “So it is, right down to the blue trim on the windows! Capital job, Fraulein!”

  “Look,” said Sally, holding Isaak in her arms. “There you are with Sanford in the partners’ room.”

  “Ah hah!” said Barnabas. “And there’s Cook in the dining room, followed by her niece. What do you suppose she is serving?”

  “Goat’s meat for Mr. Sanford,” said the fraulein.

  “Well said,” laughed Barnabas. “Oh ho, do I spy our garden out back? Buttons and beeswax, I can just make out my smilax bushes.”

  Sally, Barnabas, and Fraulein Reimer gazed at the picture for a minute before anyone spoke again.

  “Uncle, we have little time left,” said Sally. “I have a plan to save Yount, but it will mean a voyage back to London.”

  “We are besieged, Sally, how will you — ?”

  “With the Cretched Man’s help, strange as that sounds to me still.”

  “What do you propose to do in London?”

  Sally paused, shook her head, and laughed.

  “I am going shopping, Uncle!”

  Barnabas leaned forward, tugging on his vest, and said, “Sally, out with it!”

  “I am going to build the largest Fulginator ever built — nay, larger than any ever imagined, a Fulginator large enough to move not just a ship but an entire world.”

  “This world,” said Barnabas. “Yount. You aim to fulginate all of Yount.”

  “Back to its original place, yes, Uncle, all the way home. Wherever that is.”

  Barnabas clapped his hands and said, “Archimedes lever!”

  “Yes, that’s right. So I need the finest tools, the finest materials in two worlds, and the best minds in natural philosophy, in the nautical sciences, in metallurgy and engineering. Thus I am going to London. And I will need your help, and Sanford’s.”

  “Of course, of course, my girl. Why, figs and feathers, you would have our help whether you wanted it or not!”

  Barnabas paced up and down the room, one hand strangling his vest, the other punching the air as he spoke.

  “Sedgewick, we must speak to Sedgewick immediately when we land,” said Barnabas. “He has extensive dealings with the Admiralty, you know, and can help us gain audience there. Why, he might even get us to see Sir John Barrow himself! Also, he has friends and relations throughout the Treasury and the Office for War and the Colonies. Most useful, I’m sure. Then there’s Matchett & Frew, rum fellows with even stranger connections — they will be most interested in our adventures, no doubt, no doubt. . . .” Barnabas paused, suddenly doubtful, and said, “Sanford and I are meant to come with you, right? I mean — ”

  “Of course you are, silly man!”

  Barnabas rose up on his toes and almost yelled, “Hurrah then for the McDoons! Oh, and, when we’re home again, we shall have to make time for a trip to Fezziwig’s; I am so dreadfully eager to order new vests and stockings. After all, one cannot save the world looking like a soused gournard! Oh, oh, and a trip to the apothecary would be lovely. I am all out of my Bateman’s pectoral drops.”

  Sally hugged Barnabas.

  “Oh, uncle, thank you. We’ll charge at ’em like Rodney against the French, isn’t that right?”

  Barnabas stood at attention and then mimed the actions of an officer on the poop deck of a frigate. The fraulein joined in the laughter.

  Barnabas grew thoughtful and said, “We cannot just wish ourselves back to London, Sally, we’ll need — ”

  “We need to see the Queen straight away. She likes you particularly, Uncle, so let’s ask her to call a meeting for this evening.

  Just us McDoons, our closest friends and . . . the Cretched Man.”

  Sally opened the door. Isaak raced down the hall towards the Queen’s chambers, with the McDoons on her heels.

  That evening the Queen met with Sally, Barnabas, Sanford, and the fraulein. Standing around the table were Dorentius Bunce, Reglum Bammary, and Noreous Minicate. The Cretched Man sat half-shadowed in one corner and the four remaining Minders leaned against the wall next to him. The Yountians glanced at him out of the corner of their eyes.

  “Where are Tom and Afsana?” asked Barnabas.

  “Coming,” said the Chamberlain. “They have become so well known we needed to cloak their movements, lest their arrival be marked. Captain Nexius is coming too, by a separate route.”

  Even as she spoke, the door opened and the three warriors entered the room.

  “Your Majesty, bad news,” said Nexius. “The Ornish have advanced as far into the city as Palombeay.”

  “Palombeay!” said the fraulein. “We must rescue the Karket-soomi!”

  “Yes,” said the Queen. “They are under my protection, and are now threatened from all sides in this war.”

  “One among them is especially important,” said Sally. “A young girl, related to our fraulein, a girl who may be one of the seven singers who will — ”

  “Say no more; we will send Marines this very night. Lieutenant Bammary, see to that as soon as we finish this meeting.”

  “I will go too,” said the fraulein. “To show you the way and reassure my sister and my niece.”

  “Very well, and now to the main business at hand,” said the Queen. “Sally, I ask you to speak.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. To the point: I have a plan to save Yount. For the plan to succeed, I must return to Palipash, to London in England. Without delay.”

  “Sally, whatever do you mean?” said Tom. His eyes were rimmed with dirt and charcoal.

  “Do not judge me mad, brother, until you have heard me out. My plan is to build a Fulginator large enough to move all of Yount back to its home.”

  Sally repeated herself in Yountish. Everyone spoke at once as the implications sank in.

  “Impossible!” said Noreous Minicate. “That would be an engine the size of . . . the size of . . . the palace!”

  “My initial calculations show that a structure the size of a large ship could be built with enough power and precision to move this world,” said Sally first in English and then in Yountish.

  “Even so — and I doubt that one the size of a ship would suffice — a Fulginator the size of a ship is, with respect, madness,” Noreous replied. “Dorentius, you are the expert here. What do you think?”

  “Actually, dear friends,” said Dorentius, looking as happy as anyone had ever seen him. “Sally included me in some of the calculations she mentions, while swearing me to secrecy. I know it sounds mad, but I believe it might be done. It just might.”

  Noreous was not so easily convinced. He pointed at the Cretched Man and said, “Is this some plot of his? A trap?”

  Everyone turned towards Jambres, who stood up and said, “I understand your suspicion, but I had no part in this plan’s original devising, which was all of Sally’s doing. Rather, as she can attest, I first told her that such a plan’s audacity was matched by its lunacy.”

  The group digested these words.

  Nax said, “Will it work?”

  “I do not know,” said Jambres. “Enormous uncertainties abound, obstacles and risks of every sort confront this undertaking. Possibly a Fulginator of this size, if it can even be built at all, will send Yount further into the void. I truly cannot say.”

  The Queen shook her head, saying, “I fear to risk so much.”

  Reglum spoke. “Your Majesty, your fears are shared by us all. However, i
f I may, I believe the danger just outside our door compels us to take risks that no previous generation would have accepted.”

  The Chamberlain spoke. “Why go to Palipash? If we beat back the Ornish, could we not build such a device here with our own materials and technology? Why has no one thought of such things before?”

  “Sound questions, your Honour,” said Dorentius. “Members of the Analytical Bureau have over the centuries conjectured about such a Fulginator as Sally describes, but all have concluded we could not build it because we lack key materials. For example, without getting too detailed, there is a ceramic ingredient called ‘china clay’ in England that would be necessary for a Fulginator powerful enough to free us. We lack this substance altogether in Yount. Likewise, we do not have the skills of the Karket-soomi in certain technologies necessary for this project, certain forms of precision engineering such as the gearing seen in their timepieces.”

  The Queen, with a side glance at the Cretched Man, said, “We speak here as engineers and cameralists, but what about opposition from those who have pent us here? Will those powers not resist an effort by us to remove ourselves?”

  Again all faces turned to Jambres. He looked around the room and adjusted his red, red coat before saying, “Oh yes, very much they will resist. The time is not yet come for the end of your sentence, make no mistake about that. But some sentences may be meted out unfairly or unclearly. Sometimes the prison door is left unlocked, leaving the prisoner to discover this fact and exploit it.”

  Everyone shifted uncomfortably.

  Tom said, “Remember that Jambres has more to lose than any of you. He has cast his lot with us.”

  “Thank you, Thomas,” said Jambres, his coat glistening in the lamplight. “Too well I know their mourning-markets, the ribbed closet in their winter-house. I will not lead you thither.”

  Isaak hopped off the table and walked to Jambres, her golden fur glowing against his red clothes. Jambres bent down and picked Isaak up. She nestled into the crook of his arm as he continued.

  “The Mother stirs in her sleep, I feel it. She will help us if we can waken her. To waken her, and to power a Fulginator the size of a ship, we need to assemble a choir of singers the likes of which have never been heard in all the worlds before. We will call together seven singers who can sing the Mother from her slumbers, who can sing a wall too high for the Wurm-Owl to fly over, who can sing winds of knowing into the Fulginator.”

  A whisper of music ran through every head in the room, shreds of the songs sung at kjorraw, of the evensong in churches and temples in two worlds.

  Sally spoke. “Four of the seven are in this room, and a fifth is in the city. We think the sixth is in London, which is another reason why I need to return.”

  Nexius growled, “I will support you in whatever venture you propose. You trusted us when we sent you the key, so shall we trust you.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” said Sally.

  “But practical matters concern me,” said Nexius. “How will you travel to London? Where will you build this Fulginator-ship of yours?”

  “We will build the Fulginator in Sanctuary, the hidden place guarded by the Cretched . . . by Jambres,” said Sally.

  “Will he also transport you to London then?” said Nexius.

  “No, I cannot,” said Jambres. “A few individuals I could possibly take through but not an entire ship there and back — that is beyond my power. And a ship must go, to bring the necessary supplies back from London.”

  Noreous said, “Which ship then? How will the ship break the blockade? We are at war!”

  Dorentius replied, “We have one tough ship still relatively unharmed: the Gallinule. We could leave in two days time. We will simply have to blast our way through the blockade and outrun the Ornish until we reach the gates to the Interstitial Lands.”

  “We will divert the Ornish fleet with a general attack from the harbour,” said Nexius.

  “I will cast a glamour on the Gallinule,” said Jambres. “Something to baffle the aim of the Ornish cannoneers.”

  The Chamberlain said, “Even if the Gallinule wins through and returns to build this gargantuan Fulginator, Yount Great-Port will . . . I hesitate to say this, but we have no time for false courtesies — will have fallen. We are straitly besieged now. You speak of possible salvation to come in, what, a year, two years, maybe three? We who remain will be dead or worse by then.”

  Afsana said, “We will never surrender!”

  “No, but we may be overrun nevertheless,” said the Queen. “My duty is to think of even such terrible possibilities. What say you, Captain Nexius?”

  Nexius clenched his fists and said, “You are both right: we will never surrender but we may be overrun. We cannot withstand the siege much longer. I have already been making plans for breaking the blockade and taking to the hills to continue resistance.”

  The room was silent for a moment.

  “That means death and enslavement for many,” said Afsana.

  “Yes,” said Nexius. “But a chance to fight again for some. We have no choice.”

  The room fell silent again.

  Jambres broke the silence. “The Captain is right, I fear. But his point brings us back to Sally’s London voyage, which can also be a mission to seek aid from the British government . . . and from other sources.”

  Everyone spoke at once.

  “Buttons and beeswax!” said Barnabas. “Splendid idea!”

  “You mean we should break our ancient policy, and announce ourselves to Karket-soom?” said the Chamberlain. “You know that could lead to civil war within Farther Yount, ruining whatever chance Farther Yount has of defeating the Ornish.”

  “Nonetheless, this is the path I advocate,” said Jambres. “British troops, British technology . . .”

  Tom, Barnabas, and Sanford thumped the table in agreement.

  “There’s more,” said Jambres. “I will send William and his companions back to their home-country with Sally, not only to protect her with their lives, but also to recruit an army for you. Yes, an army of the dispossessed, the poor and hungry, those searching for justice and freedom. Oh yes, William will return with a great army fit to battle the Ornish here — and those on Karket-soom who think like the Ornish. Sally’s machine, the choir boat, the Fulginator the size of a ship, has been called other things: ‘The breast-plate of judgement, the throne-chariot of God.’ We shall build it in the workshop of desire, anneal it with our passion. What do you say to that, William?”

  Billy Sea-Hen and the other Minders stepped forward as one, out of the shadows on the wall and into the light from the lamps above the table. Billy winked at Tom across the table.

  “Judgement, your Grace, has a very fine ring to it,” Billy said. “We’ll rouse the Claverites, we will, and the preachers of the Deathless Sermon. We’ll enlist the followers of John Jea and the congregations of the Potter. We’ll arm the Grantlings in their tabernacles, the flocks of Lady Huntingdon’s Connection, the ragged pastors of St. Adelsina, and the Matabrunians. Our officers we’ll find at the Tailor’s shop in Charing Cross Road, and among the disciples of Spence at the Pineapple and Mulberry Tree. Your Grace, Your Majesty, and gentlefolk, we will bring you an army of fiery love with iron in its soul.”

  Sally did her best to translate Billy’s words, though she could not decipher many of the specifics. No one needed a translation, however, to understand Billy’s meaning.

  Jambres cocked his head and said, “I must leave now — the Learned Doctors know I am here; they will find us out. I will help you outfit the Gallinule and in whatever other ways you want. Send Sally back to London the day after tomorrow.”

  The Queen rose and said, “So be it! All old prescriptions have run dry; all our wisdom has been turned upside down. We send Sally and her company to Karket-soom on the Gallinule. Captain Nexius, please direct this to happen.”

  The meeting broke up. Jambres lingered long enough to hand Isaak back to Sally.

  “Tha
nk you,” he said to Sally and to the Queen.

  “No, thank you,” said the Queen. “Truly, this is a world gone mad, and a fitting end to the Hullitate line, that I should be the first ruler of Farther Yount to ally herself with, of all people, the Cretched Man.”

  “Stranger things may yet happen, Your Majesty,” said Jambres. He bowed, put his hat on his head, and walked out of the room through a dark corner, followed by Billy and the Minders.

  The Ornish bombarded the city that night with great force. Fires burned unchecked, as water ran low. Smoke filled the streets. Just before dawn a Marine banged on Sally’s door and escorted her to a guardhouse in one of the palace enclosures. Reglum met her there, with a bloody bandage on his face. Sally ran to him.

  “Reglum, what is it? Dear Reglum!”

  “Sally, oh Sally . . . I have . . . here, prepare yourself. . . .”

  “Reglum . . . Reglum?”

  Sally knew then, as grey light entered the square, as smoke seeped into her lungs, as Reglum turned away, at that moment Sally knew Fraulein Reimer was dead.

  “Oh no,” she said. “Oh no, no, no . . .”

  “Sally, I am so sorry,” said Reglum. “We . . . nothing we could do. We went to collect the Rehnstock girl, me and five Marines, and your German governess.”

  “Malchen? Is she . . . ?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Reglum. “I cannot hear very well, you see, because of the explosion. Oh, the little girl . . . yes, she is alive, and so is her mother — they are both inside.”

  Sally grabbed Reglum’s shoulder but refused to buckle further. She said, “What happened? Spare no details.”

  “The bombardment grew worse on the way back. We heard a whistling near us several times, ducked for cover. The last time — right overhead — the explosion knocked us all down. The fraulein never got up.”

  Sally walked into the guardhouse. Malchen and her mother sat on a bench, too shocked to cry. A Marine covered in blood lay on one table. He was missing a leg. Sally went first to the Marine.

  “What was his name?” she said.

  Reglum told her. She nodded and then slowly turned to the figure on the other table.

  “Oh,” Sally said.