Black Iron

by Franklin Veaux

  “In prison with his traitor brother, Rory. They helped the traitor Alÿs escape. What do you want?”

  “Nothing. Nothing, I…I was just looking for him, because, uh, I had something for him.”

  “Do you? Give it to me,” the man said.

  “What?”

  “Give it to me,” he repeated. “If you have something for the stablemaster, then whatever you have is for me. If you have something for Henry personally, then you’re in league with traitors and I will turn you over to the Guard.” He held out his hand. “Either way, whatever you have, hand it over.”

  “I…” Alÿs looked around. “I don’t…”

  “That’s what I thought.” He grabbed her wrist. “Right. I’m taking you to the Guard.”

  The next thing that happened seemed to do so of its own accord, without the intervening of conscious thought.

  Alÿs twisted her arm sharply. Her foot came up, catching him between his legs. A remote, detached part of herself took note, with no small measure of satisfaction, of the way his expression changed, his eyes getting big, his face contorting into a cartoonish grimace. She pushed with all her strength and was a little surprised at how violently he flew backward. The lantern fell. She turned and ran, dashing through the door before it had time to hit the ground. Behind her, she heard him start to cry out in surprise, but by then she was already back on the street, darting past a surprised-looking clanker driver dragging a wheeled cart full of coal. She reversed direction, keeping the coal cart between her and the stables.

  The man ran out of the stables, roaring with rage and pain. He looked both ways down the street, then tore off down the street, disappearing around the side of the Palace.

  Alÿs kept pace with the clanker for a few yards, then slipped around behind the coal cart. She took a deep breath and darted across the street and into the stable. Heart still pounding, she moved quickly between the rows of stalls until she found the servants’ entrance to the Palace. She tried the door.

  Locked.

  She looked around wildly. A lantern hung from a hook on the wall, shedding a soft pool of yellow light over the stable’s work table. A pile of horseshoes and nails were scattered haphazardly across it. A torn saddle strap hung over the edge. And there…

  Alÿs picked up the hammer. She turned it over in her hands, then brought it as hard as she could against the edge of the door, swinging with both arms.

  The door never had a chance.

  Wood splintered. The door, or what was left of it, slammed open with a bang. Instantly, Alÿs was through. She pushed it closed behind her. The latch was ruined, and the door would not stay shut. She wedged the hammer under the doorjamb as best she could, then looked around.

  She was in a long hallway that led through the heart of the servants’ part of the Palace, the part where those of high birth seldom trod. By a blessing of fate, there was nobody in the hallway. Gas jets hissed quietly in their wall mounts.

  Alÿs hustled down the hallway, wary of approaching footsteps. The staff would not trouble her, but coming to the attention of the Queen’s Guard could create problems she didn’t know how to solve. Kicking and running might work with a stablehand, but against a Guardsman? Expecting to evade the Guard that way struck her as perhaps too optimistic.

  Nerves jangling, she crossed the invisible dividing line between the servants’ palace and the palace inhabited by the royal Court. She felt conspicuously out of place. If anyone saw her, dressed in the clothes of a blacksmith’s apprentice, she would almost surely be detained. She kept to the less-traveled passageways as much as she was able, moving quickly over floors of rare marble and exotic wood.

  She stopped in front of a gold-trimmed door and rapped on it with her knuckles. “Eleanor? Eleanor, let me in!”

  Voices down the corridor set her heart racing again. She rapped once more on the door, more urgently this time. “Eleanor! Open the door!”

  A sleep-blurred voice came from the other side. “What? Who’s there?”

  The voices came closer. In a moment, their owners would round the corner, and all would be lost.

  “Eleanor! It’s me! Alÿs! Let me in!”

  “Alÿs? It can’t be you. You’re supposed to be missing!”

  “Open the door!”

  A small group of ladies rounded the corner. The door opened. Alÿs pushed through and closed it quickly, breathing hard.

  Eleanor shrieked.

  “Eleanor! It’s me!” Alÿs took off her cap.

  “Alÿs! Are you okay? They said you were taken by foreigners!” Eleanor threw her arms around Alÿs. Then she released her and stepped back. “You aren’t a heretic, are you? Julianus and that other one, they said you’re a heretic! They told me that associating with you would be treason! I heard you were there, when the Cardinal was attacked! You weren’t there, were you? They’re saying all kinds of terrible things about you! Please tell me they aren’t true!” She burst into tears.

  Alÿs put her arms around her. “They’re not true,” she said. “I was there when the Cardinal was killed. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Was it Shoe Man? I bet it was, wasn’t it? I told you not to go, I did! They aren’t like us. Italians are monsters! I bet he killed the Cardinal, didn’t he?”

  “It was a monster, but it wasn’t Thaddeus,” Alÿs said, then instantly gave herself a mental kick.

  “Thaddeus? Is that the Italian’s name?” Eleanor sniffled. “That doesn’t sound like an Italian name.”

  “He’s not Italian,” Alÿs said. “Listen, I need your help.” She tucked her hair under the cap and pulled it back on.

  “My help?”

  “Yes. I need to see Margaret. Something bad is happening. I need to talk to her.”

  “She thinks you’re a traitor!”

  “I don’t care. I have to talk to her.”

  Eleanor shook her head. “No! No no no. The Guard already questioned me. And those stableboys who helped you, they’re down in the cells! If they find you here, they’ll put me in the cells too!”

  Alÿs sighed. “They’re not going to put you in the cells.”

  “You don’t know that! Everyone got really angry after you left. They’re saying things about you that you just wouldn’t believe!”

  “Do you believe them?” Alÿs said.

  “No! Well, I don’t think so. I don’t know what to believe!”

  Alÿs took Eleanor’s hands. “We’ve been friends for a long time. Margaret is my friend too. She’s in trouble. I know who’s causing all of this. The ring, everything. It’s all part of a plot, and you’re the only one who can stop it. Can you get me in to see her?”

  ✦

  Roderick shifted his weight back and forth, shivering in the cold. Ever since that ridiculous man with his ridiculous shoes had flung himself from the back of the Queen’s airship on that ridiculous night, Roderick had found himself assigned to the late-night shift in the guardroom. Most of the Palace was fast asleep like reasonable human beings, but not Roderick, oh no.

  He was standing in the small alcove in front of the great iron gate placed exactly in the center of the high fence surrounding the Palace. He held his gun, a standard-issue Bodger & Bodger Model 301 Cartridge-Loading Rifle, at his side, ready to defend Queen and country against the incursions of a couple of very fat rats and the occasional wayward moth. High overhead, the blazing arc lamps atop their tall towers filled the courtyard with false day.

  He wasn’t even entirely sure what he was being punished for. He was certainly being punished, that much seemed plain. Word was, Margaret herself had ordered him out here, standing in this tiny guardhouse next to some other equally unfortunate fellow as a mark of her displeasure for his involvement, accidental and peripheral as it was, in the dreadful mess on the airship. Now whoever was normally in this place at this hour was sleeping i
n a nice warm bed, while Roderick shivered.

  It was hardly fair, was it? He’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and seen someone jump out a door, and now here he was.

  Cold, damp air caressed him with icy tendrils. Little squalls of rain, blown by eddies of wind, slapped him in the face, dripped down his collar, soaked his cape.

  “Guardsmen! Stand aside!”

  Roderick wiped the rain from his eyes. A man on a horse, wearing the red and black uniform of a levy officer, approached him. He swung down off his horse and walked up to the booth. Behind him, a column of mounted men swung round and took positions along the fence. A long line of soldiers on foot came to a halt.

  “Excuse me?” Roderick said. “Who are you?”

  “Major Charles Archibald, Lord Rathman’s Fourth Lord’s Levy Battalion. We have urgent business with the Queen.”

  Roderick’s eyes narrowed. The mounted horsemen formed up outside the gate, facing toward the street, rifles ready. Major Archibald’s hand rested on the pommel of his sword.

  “What is the nature of your business?” Roderick said.

  “That is not your concern, Guardsman. We were sent by Lord Rathman himself. Stand aside.”

  “At this hour?”

  “It’s okay,” Roderick’s fellow Guardsman, a bloke named Bellingsworth or Birmingham or something like that, said. He moved the lever that opened the gate.

  Major Archibald gestured. Foot soldiers began marching through the gate, two abreast.

  “Hey! You are not authorized to enter the Palace grounds,” Roderick said.

  “Stand aside, Guardsman.” Archibald’s hand tightened on his sword. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “What are you doing?” the other guard—Bremmerton, that was his name!—said. “He’s a levy officer!”

  “He isn’t authorized,” Roderick replied. “Major, recall your soldiers. I will consult with the captain of the Queen’s Guard.”

  Archibald drew his sword with a metallic scrape.

  Roderick leaped, catching the major square in the chest before the man’s sword had cleared its scabbard. The major went down with a surprised oof! Roderick swung his rifle. The butt and Archibald’s head connected with a satisfying crack. He leaped over the fallen man and darted through the gate toward the Palace.

  “Get him! Kill him!” Archibald cried.

  Roderick scrambled toward the Palace, running across the courtyard as fast as his legs would take him. Behind him, he heard shouts and the sound of running feet. A group of four men, alerted by Archibald’s cry, turned to cut him off.

  Adrenaline surged through him. Ahead of him, the soldiers were already drawing their swords. He slowed, sighted along his rifle, pulled the trigger. Sparks flew. A cloud of acrid smoke poured into his face. The gun roared, kicking savagely against his shoulder. The closest man fell.

  Roderick lowered his head and charged.

  ✦

  The door to Margaret’s chambers was flanked by two men, one wearing the white cape of the Queen’s Guard, the other in the red cape of the Cardinal’s Pontifical Swiss Guard. They turned toward Eleanor, surprise registering on their faces.

  “Her Majesty is not receiving visitors,” the white-caped man said. He was tall and broad of shoulder, but his red eyes spoke of too many hours standing in front of a door watching an empty hallway.

  “She will see me,” Eleanor said firmly. “She always sees me. Stand back, Percival Goldsworth, or I will see to it that you get such a thrashing.”

  He glanced over at the Cardinal’s guardsman. “My lady, it’s late,” he complained. “Her Grace is asleep. She left word not to disturb her.” He looked over Eleanor’s shoulder. “Who is this boy?”

  “He’s from the stables,” Eleanor said firmly. “There is a problem that needs the Queen’s immediate attention.”

  “In the stables?” Percy Goldsworth rubbed his eyes. “Can’t it wait? She will have my head if I let you wake her up. Maybe literally.”

  “She might have your head if you don’t,” Eleanor said. She drew herself up to her full height, marched up to the door between the two men, and knocked loudly.

  The Cardinal’s guard grabbed her by the wrist. “Let me go at once!” Eleanor shrieked with all the outrage she could muster, which, as it turned out, was quite a lot. A lifetime among the upper classes is excellent training for the mustering of outrage.

  “My lady, it is late,” he said. “Please return to your quarters.”

  “Who do you think you are, to lay your hand on a lady?” Eleanor demanded.

  “Rudolf Hunziker, Swiss Pontificate Guard. And the Cardinal will have my head if you go in there. Maybe yours as well.”

  “Very well. Maybe you’re right,” Eleanor said. She looked back at Alÿs. Alÿs felt her heart sink. She shook her head slightly.

  Eleanor stomped on the Cardinal’s guard’s foot. He let out a cry, half surprise, half pain. Eleanor jerked her arm free and knocked on the door again. “Your Grace! It’s Eleanor!”

  “Seize them!” the red-caped man said. He seized Eleanor’s arm tightly. Percy grabbed Alÿs’s arm with a steel grip.

  The door opened to reveal a rumpled monarch in her nightclothes. “What is going on here?” Margaret demanded.

  “Your Grace!” Alÿs said. She snatched off her hat. “It’s me, Alÿs! It’s Rathman! His army is coming! I think he means to do something terrible!”

  A commotion rose from the end of the hallway. Max and Julianus tore around the corner, followed by the stablehand and a small cluster of Guardsmen. “There he is!” the stablehand said. “That’s him!”

  “Arrest them both!” Max said. “Eleanor and the traitor Alÿs!”

  26

  “There it is,” Claire said. “That must be the estate.”

  The roadway leading up to the estate was narrow and flanked with tall trees, crowded close together as if afraid to be out alone on such a night. It ended at an enormous, imposing iron gate set in a tall stone wall. Inside the gatehouse, two men watched them warily.

  “What now?” Elias asked.

  Donnie smiled. He walked up to the gate, stopping just short of it. “Evenin’,” he said. “I’m Donnie Bodger. I have business with th’ lord o’ the house, Lord Rathman.”

  The guards stepped out of the gatehouse, blocking his path. One of them gazed levelly back at him. “Lord Rathman is not presently in attendance,” he said. “Now I suggest you and your—” He scowled at the loose cluster of apprentices. “Whatever they are, turn around and go.”

  Claire came up beside Donnie. “We’ve come a long way on a miserable night. Seems inhospitable to not welcome us in.”

  “Maybe we ain’t feeling hospitable,” the second man said. He cradled his gun in his arms, not exactly pointing it at them, but not exactly pointing it away either. “His lordship ain’t here. Come back some other time.”

  “Gentlemen,” Donnie said, smiling his most disarming smile, “let’s be reasonable.”

  “I ain’t going to tell you again. Get los…unh!” The man blinked once and sagged to the ground.

  “Hey!” the first guard said. “Wha—unh!” His eyes glazed over and he fell forward in the mud.

  Thaddeus and Jake appeared out of the shadows behind the fallen men. Jake tapped a wet, heavy-looking sock in his hand, grinning wickedly.

  “Nice,” Claire said.

  Thaddeus picked up a lantern from the small table inside the gatehouse. “Now where is…ah, got it.” He hauled on a length of chain. Slowly, ponderously, the gate swung open.

  “That was easy,” Claire said. “Tie them up. Take their guns.”

  “Mind if I take their coins too?” Jake asked.

  Claire shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just do it quickly. Leave the gate open. We might be in a hurry on our way back out.”

&
nbsp; They headed through the gate, leaving Jake and Thaddeus to deal with the guards. The two of them bound the luckless men with leather cords and dragged them into the gatehouse.

  “We should just kill ’em,” Jake said.

  Thaddeus shook his head.

  “They’re gonna wake up and come after us, you just watch,” Jake said.

  “That would be really dumb. Claire’ll shoot them,” Thaddeus said. “Though I’m a little surprised they were so easy.”

  “I ain’t,” Jake said. He removed the money pouch from each unconscious guard and looked inside them. “Pfaw. Hardly any coin on ’em.” One of the men groaned and started to move. Jake punched him. He went still. “Guys like this never expect trouble, you know? You spend night after night an’ nothin’ happens, you start to expect nothin’ to happen. Take off their clothes.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You take away a man’s gun, he might come after you with his fists. You take away his clothes, he ain’t runnin’ after you in his underthings.”

  “Ah, right,” Thaddeus said. “Clever.”

  When they were satisfied the two men were unlikely to cause any trouble, Thaddeus and Jake scurried after the others. The estate yard was dark. The main house was also dark, with but a single window glowing. The shadow of the great tower loomed overhead, with light pouring from its uppermost windows. Nothing moved.

  “Weird,” Jake said. “Don’t like this none. Place like this, I’d expect more folks to be about.”

  They kept to the shadows near the wall, where the darkness was almost complete. Donnie gestured them to stop. “That must be the stable,” he said, pointing ahead at the long, low building, a vague dark shape in deeper darkness at the foot of the tower.

  He dropped the canvas bag to the ground and unzipped it. He lifted the apparatus inside and started strapping the heavy, cumbersome thing to his back. Behind him, five of the apprentices did likewise.

  “Hey Muddy,” Claire said. “You know how to use this?” She held up one of the guns they had taken from the guards.