The Ruby Airship

by Sharon Gosling

  Squaring her shoulders, Rémy urged her pony on. “Do you actually know where we’re going?” she asked her companion, who picked up the pace to fall in beside her. “Or are we guessing the way to Périgueux?”

  Yannick grinned again. With a flourish, he produced a crumpled map from his pocket. “I’ve got a compass too,” he added. “We’ll be fine as long as we stick to the road and don’t try to cut through the forest.”

  Rémy nodded, and they rode on toward the spreading, leafy green horizon of trees ahead. The sun was at its zenith when they turned along a valley ridge, the road loose with pebbles. On one side of the road, a precipice dropped abruptly to the dry riverbed far below. On the other, a band of scrubby young trees lifted over a rocky ridge and into a thicker, deeper forest beyond. Rémy dismounted and picked her way up the incline between the saplings to get a better look. The forest stretched into the foothills of faraway mountains, an impenetrable carpet of green, made all the deeper by the darkness beneath the branches. In the heat of the midday sun, Rémy thought it looked like the perfect place for a break, but Yannick shook his head.

  “We should move on as fast as possible,” he said. “Who knows what’s lurking in there?”

  Rémy smiled slightly. “Afraid of monsters, Yannick?”

  “Not of the imaginary variety, no,” the magician said dryly. “But I’d bet fair money there’s plenty of the human sort skulking among that wood.”

  They trotted off again, the ponies puffing in the heat. Around them, the landscape grew rockier as the road rose higher and higher toward the pass.

  “What would you have done?” Rémy asked, sometime later.

  “What do you mean?” Yannick asked, puzzled.

  “If I’d got away from the gendarme on my own, fled the town before you could get to me,” Rémy expanded. “What would you have done? Gone back to Paris, to the Jamboree?”

  Yannick was silent for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I would have carried on looking for the Circus of Secrets.”

  It was Rémy’s turn to be puzzled. “Why?” she asked as they turned a sudden corner in the road. Pebbles skittered, falling down the ravine, echoing as they chinked and kinked their way to a new resting place. “You’d have a better chance of a sure position in Paris. What’s so special about —?”

  Yannick pulled his pony up short, holding his hand up to Rémy for silence. Ahead of them, a large tree lay across the road, blocking their path.

  Rémy frowned. “That looks deliberate.”

  “It is,” said Yannick, looking up at the walls of rock surrounding them. The horses pawed nervously, picking up their riders’ anxiety. “We have to go back, right now.”

  There came the sound of footsteps behind them, echoing up the rocky walls like tinny thunder. Rémy and Yannick turned their horses to see five men, burned brown by the sun, blocking the path back to the ridge. Their clothes were worn and shabby, their boots little more than scraps. But they were large, and they each carried a heavy club.

  “Time to pay the toll,” grated the largest of them.

  “What toll?” Rémy asked, keeping her voice level despite the swift thumping of her heart. “I heard of no toll on this road.”

  “Then you heard wrong,” said the beast, stepping forward.

  Rémy’s pony shied, but she held him steady. “I don’t think so,” she said, as disgusted by these ruffians as she had been by the thugs who had tried to rob Lady Sarah in London. “Move, and let us pass. Or better yet, move the tree so that we can continue.”

  There was a burst of laughter from the bandits, who as one moved closer still. “Is that so?” asked their leader, his voice laced with threat. “And who are you to talk to me so, little girl?”

  Yannick stirred nervously in his saddle. “Rémy, don’t —”

  “Not little girl,” said Rémy coldly. “Little Bird.”

  She kicked her heels into her pony’s flanks. It reared, and while the animal was still on its hind legs, Rémy pushed it to step forward — not far, not as far as Dominique could have moved in one, but just far enough. The animal’s forelegs thrashed the air as they came back to earth, catching the bandit full in the chest. He went down like a sack of flour, crashing to the shale in a spray of blood and spit.

  “Ride!” Rémy shouted in the split second before his men had fully realized what had happened. “Yannick — ride!”

  She spurred the pony between the gap left open by the fallen man, and then pulled her feet from her stirrups. It was dangerous to try circus tricks on an untrained horse, especially in boots that were meant for the road, but Rémy had no choice. She leaped up, her feet finding a hold as the pony careered on. She almost slipped against the horse’s unfamiliar back but regained her balance as one of the men came to his senses and lunged. He swung at her with his club, but Rémy jumped and he missed, the momentum and fury of his swing sending him off balance and tumbling in the dust beside his leader as she brought her feet back down as lightly as possible.

  Rémy dropped back into her seat and glanced sideways to see Yannick land a booted kick against the jaw of another of the men, who spun away but managed to right himself. She watched as the thug pulled something free from his belt, and for a moment Rémy was afraid it was a gun. Instead, though, he put it to his lips and blew.

  It was a bugle. The thin sound filled the air, a wailing cry that echoed off the rock and down the valley as Rémy and Yannick gained the ridge and fled back down the stony road, the sound still dying against the valley walls.

  They’d only got a few hundred feet when more men began to appear, running down through the scrub in answer to their fellows’ call. As one they began to walk up the road toward the charging horses, three-deep and as impenetrable as a wall.

  “Into the trees!” Yannick shouted, “It’s our only chance!”

  Rémy drove the piebald right, its shoes churning the dust and scattering stones like shrapnel. They cantered up the slope, slaloming between and over the young trees that dotted the scrub. Cresting it, Yannick charged ahead of her into the forest that had become their only chance of escape.

  “Stay clear of the river,” she yelled, one arm up to shield her face from the whipping branches. “It’s where their camp will be!”

  Yannick didn’t answer but pulled his pony right, running them parallel to the pass they had failed to cross. Behind them, the sound of the bugle came again, and then again, the shouts of their pursuers matching it as they entered the forest.

  “We should separate,” Rémy yelled. “Agree to meet at the next town.”

  “No,” Yannick barked. “We stay together.”

  “But —”

  “We stay together,” he ordered, his voice curt as they changed direction again, skittering down another short slope in a flurry of churned earth and undergrowth.

  They rode as far as they could, dodging between trees and around stumps that looked as ancient as the earth under their feet. Eventually they stopped, dismounting the exhausted horses. The four of them stood together, all breathless and panting.

  Rémy listened for a moment. The silence of the forest was as thick as a blanket. “I can’t hear them,” she said quietly. “I think they’ve given up.”

  Yannick bent double, coughed, and nodded. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

  Rémy slowed her breathing and looked around as she patted the piebald’s quivering nose. “We’re completely lost,” she said.

  “Not completely,” said Yannick, taking out a compass. He looked at it for a moment, watching the spinning, fractious hand as it finally settled. “It’s that way,” he said, pointing into the deeper forest, away from the road.

  {Chapter 20}

  NEW FRIENDS

  The ruby airship sailed over Paris like a jewel of the skies, glinting in the colors of sunset and causing quite a stir on the ground. As Thaddeus and J steer
ed the ship over cafés and bars, restaurants and theaters, people of all sorts looked up and saw her, and began to give chase. The ship’s two passengers could see them shouting and waving, knocking on their neighbors’ doors to urge them to see this great wonder that owned the air as surely as a ship owned the seas.

  “’Ere,” said J, a little uneasily. “There’s quite a crowd down there, y’know. What are they going to do when we land?”

  “I don’t know,” Thaddeus said, feeling the same anxiety.

  J blew out a breath, “Let’s just hope they’re all friendly, eh? Any sign of the circus field yet?”

  Thaddeus squinted into the indigo sky, and then pointed at a glare of rioting light on the very edge of the city. “That must be it, mustn’t it? Turn a mite to port, Captain J.”

  “Aye, aye,” said J, pulling the right lever.

  They sailed on, descending slowly like a bird on the wing coming into land. The ship headed toward the smudge of light, which as the sky grew ever darker with the onset of night, slowly coalesced into thousands of large white candles. Each was set atop a metal pole that had been driven into the ground at regular intervals to mark out a giant circle. The circle was big enough to encompass the hundreds of caravans that sat inside it, gathered in little clusters and knots but still part of the whole, like the bark of a tree that has grown to adjust for branches. There were circus tents, too, many of them, a myriad of colors melding into the dusky evening light — some were striped, white and red or yellow and blue. Others were studded with cultured stars, and still others were one large block of a glaring hue such as violet or turquoise. Around and between these, people milled, though they were different and, in turn, more wonderful than those who had chased the airship across Paris. There were clowns and stilt-walkers, fire-eaters and jugglers, acrobats and tumblers, all mingling together as if inside the circle was its own fantastical city.

  “Better set down inside, if I can,” J muttered, a look of concentration on his face. “Got a hunch it’ll be safer than leaving this beauty outside.”

  “Think you can manage it?” Thaddeus asked. “There’s not much room.”

  J nodded but didn’t answer aloud, and Thaddeus didn’t speak again. The boy continued to let gas out of the balloon in a slow, steady hiss that matched their rate of descent. Thaddeus wondered how long it would take to refill it if they needed to lift off the ground again swiftly for whatever reason but decided not to ask. It was too late to worry now — the airship had lost so much height that he could see the astonished looks on the faces of the circus folk below. Many had stopped what they were doing and were simply staring up at them, mouths agape.

  The circus tents seemed bigger now, more like the big top where Thaddeus had first seen and tried to save Rémy all those months ago. He wondered if she was down there now, looking up at them with the same amazement as everyone else. He scanned the astonished crowds, searching for her face, but could not see it. Perhaps she was mid-performance, flying through the air with a grace that made her seem as if she had been born with wings.

  “Ah,” cried J, “that’s right! That chap’s got the right idea, look!”

  Thaddeus saw that one of the circus men had spotted where J was aiming the airship — a patch of empty ground as wide as two caravans beside a scarlet-colored tent. He was directing the surrounding caravans to move back, making more room.

  The owners of the caravans were hitching their horses, pulling the wooden homes away just far enough to make space for the airship. Soon there was an empty gap of land easily bigger than the room in which the ship had been built. This was just as well, as it turned out that landing was a far trickier proposition than taking off.

  “Easy,” Thaddeus warned as the ship slipped slightly to port, her stern swinging dangerously close to the scarlet marquee.

  “I got it, I got it,” J muttered, pulling her around even as they sunk lower. They were level with the tops of the caravans now, and a horde of gawkers had gathered, held back by the man who had seen that the ship had needed more space. He was walking back and forth at the edges of the crowd, waving them back just far enough to keep them in line. He was dressed in an elaborate scarlet coat studded with gold buttons that shone in the candlelight and with tails so long they almost trailed in the dust. He carried a whip, coiled about his right hand so comfortably that it seemed a part of him. A circus master, Thaddeus supposed, used to marshaling crowds.

  The ship set down with a thump hard enough to judder their teeth. J let out a sigh of relief and rested his sweating forehead against the control desk. Thaddeus thumped him lightly on the back.

  “Well done, lad,” he said.

  “Bleedin’ ’eck,” J muttered, straightening up and wiping a hand across his face. “I won’t be wanting to do that again in a hurry, and that’s the truth.”

  The sound of the crowd was clear to hear now, a great bubble of noise — shouts and whoops, hollers and cries of, “Come out! Let us see you!” The circus master who had directed them to land appeared in front of them, smiling broadly through the glass and tipping his hat to them both and then bowing with a flourish to invite them out. Thaddeus and J nodded and grinned.

  “You ain’t got that ray gun the Professor used to spring yer that time, ’ave yer?” J asked, as they began to lower the gangplank.

  “Afraid not, J.”

  “Pity,” muttered the boy through a large, fixed grin.

  The airship’s walkway opened to a sudden hush. Thaddeus and J took a step out onto the gangplank.

  “Behold!” boomed a voice to their left. “The Magnificent Circus Maximus presents to you, all the way from Great Britain . . . The Caravan of the Air!”

  Thaddeus and J looked to see their circus master friend signaling frantically to a scrawny little man pushing through the crowd. The newcomer held a tiny trumpet, and at the master’s urging he held it to his lips, emitting a loud, bright fanfare. The crowd exploded with applause and pandemonium took over.

  “Circus what?” J asked out of the corner of his mouth, as they both stepped warily to the ground. “Caravan of the where?”

  “I think we’ve been appropriated,” Thaddeus muttered back. “How does he know we’re British? And why is he speaking English?”

  “Mes amis! My friends, my friends!” exclaimed the circus maestro, barreling toward them with outstretched arms. “What an entrance! What an act! What an amazing contraption!”

  “Thank you, Mr. . . .” Thaddeus began, feeling his hand crushed into a grip that could have been made of iron.

  “I am the Great Constanto,” declared their new friend extravagantly. “It is my great pleasure to welcome our wonderful English cousins, yes?”

  “Yes,” said J, “but ’ow in ’eck did you know we was from Britain?”

  “Ah — the flag, yes? The . . . how you say . . . Union Jack?”

  J and Thaddeus both turned to look at the ship. “What flag?”

  The Great Constanto pointed to the underside of the hull. Thaddeus and J both bent down to look. Sure enough, there was a Union Jack in its bright colors of red, white, and blue emblazoned on the underside of the ship, tainted by the jagged scrape of the mast that struck it earlier.

  “You never noticed that before?” Thaddeus asked J.

  “Never,” J admitted. “That bit were already built, weren’t it? And it’s not like I ever lifted her before, is it?”

  “Mes amis, mes amis,” the circus master interrupted. “Your public awaits!” He threw his arms wide, indicating the crowd, which whooped and hollered in response.

  “Actually,” said Thaddeus, “we’re just here looking for our friends.”

  “Then you are circus folk!” Constanto exclaimed. “I knew it! I knew such a marvelous beast of the air could be nothing else!”

  “Not exactly circus folk,” said J, eyeing the crowd. “But I bet you know our mate. Rémy
Brunel?”

  “She’s a trapeze artist,” Thaddeus added. “She sometimes performs as Little Bird?”

  “Aha!” said Constanto. “I think you mean Le Petit Moineau. Le Petit Moineau,” he shouted to the crowd. “Oui? Oui?”

  “Oui! Le Petit Moineau! Le Petit Moineau!” The crowd roared.

  “You see,” said Constanto, satisfied. “If you are friends of the great Rémy Brunel, you are friends of ours. Alas, long have I tried to persuade her to join the Circus Maximus, but she would not leave Le Cirque de la Lune without her fortune-teller friend, and I already have one of those. It would not have done to . . . set the cat among the pigeons, you see?”

  “Er,” said Thaddeus, a little overwhelmed to discover just how well Rémy was known here. “Yes, I see. But — can you take us to her? Is she performing here, somewhere? Her circus is called The Circus of Secrets now.”

  “Ah, yes, Le Cirque des Secrets,” sighed Constanto. “But non, they are not here — we are missing them from our number for this Jamboree. It is such a pity, we were all so looking forward to seeing this troupe under a new name, without that stinking cur, Gustave.” Constanto spat the name so violently that both Thaddeus and J took a step back.

  “They — they ain’t here?” J asked.

  “Non, my young friend.”

  “Well then, perhaps Rémy is here without a circus?” Thaddeus suggested. “She was traveling with a friend — a magician called Yannick?”

  Constanto frowned and shook his head. “I am sorry, mes amis, but I have not heard of her being seen. I cannot believe that Rémy Brunel would come to the Jamboree without some new tricks to show us, and there has been no talk of the girl who can fly without wings. Besides, if it were known that the great Little Bird was no longer traveling with a circus, there isn’t a master among us who wouldn’t try to buy her talents for themselves. It would be the talk of the circle — but I have heard no word of it. Still, perhaps there is someone who can help you with more news.”