by Jasmine Walt
What? Did he just say … Brunel is …
Not even the presence of royalty could keep the boyish glee from Isambard's face. "Your Majesty, it is an honour."
"It is still not decided," Banks snapped, freezing the smile on Isambard's face. "The Council are not yet in agreement."
The King dismissed Banks with a wave of his hand. "Don't mind Joseph. Eventually, he comes around to seeing things my way. However, the matter I'd like to discuss today is of a different nature. The plans, please Joseph?" The Prime Minister handed the King a set of drawings, who spread them out on the table, positioning weights over the corners to keep them flat. Nicholas squinted at the delicate lines, trying to comprehend.
"I want you to build me a railway," said the King. "Build it as fast and as well as you're able, and if I like it, I shall give you the authority to build railways all over England."
Brunel sucked in his breath, and he grabbed Nicholas' arm as though he might fall over at any moment. Nicholas stared, dumbfounded, from his perch, wondering how such a remarkable fortune could have fallen into Brunel's lap.
"But Your Majesty," Brunel's voice came out high-pitched. "Why?"
"I intend to move my household and affairs of state into Buckingham House, in the heart of the city. I want Windsor Castle to remain a religious centre, a place where I can find respite with my gods, and where pilgrims might travel to give offerings at St. George's Chapel. But my main residence shall be moved to Buckingham, and I need a railway to transport the court and my furnishings between these residences. I intend to run it through these old sewer tunnels," the King rapped his finger against the map. "So they will need widening and reinforcing. And I need the entire length of track to be secure – I don't want any threat of assassination. But most of all, I want it to be fast. So fast I can make the trip to Windsor before a messenger could arrive at Somerset House on horseback."
"No, I mean, why me? Surely choosing me over Stephenson will cause friction on the Council?"
"The nature of this project requires absolute secrecy, Mr. Brunel. Not a single citizen must know of this railway's existence until I declare it so, do you understand me? Stephenson would not comply with this. Also, his standard gauge just won't reach the speeds I require, and I feel he has designs for England that don't comply with my own. I would not worry yourself about Stephenson – despite the animosity on the Council, you have a lot of support in the Royal Society."
Isambard leaned over the table, his eyes taking on that glazed look Nicholas recognised from the pump house all those years ago. Nicholas felt sure the task was impossible, but Brunel, unblinking, took in every inch of the proposed line, all twenty-six miles of track, the tunnels to be constructed and reinforced, the complexities of secrecy on such an ambitious project. Finally, he settled back into his chair, and smiled.
"I will need to make improvements, of course," he said. "Will I be given a workforce?"
"You will pull men from the Stoker workforce – men who can be trusted. I will pay you whatever you need from the Royal Purse. It will fall upon your shoulders to ensure this railway remains hidden."
"What is the completion date?"
"Four months from today."
Nicholas sucked in his breath – that deadline was impossible. But Brunel said nothing, merely bending his head towards the King, and continued the conversation in hushed tones.
Nicholas, who had not even seen a railway before, let alone had any experience of building one, sat back in his chair, trying to calm his thundering heart. You're safe, Nicholas old chum. For now, at least. But you must be more careful. If you're going to work for Isambard, you're going to have to be invisible—
Something interrupted his thoughts. A noise, like a muffled screaming, came from some far-off wing of the castle. He raised his head to the door, straining to hear. There it was again – a short, sharp scream, cut off abruptly by another sound, almost like the snarl of an animal. Banks met his eyes and shook his head, but Nicholas stood up and walked toward the open door, listening intently.
Another sound; closer this time. It came from one of the rooms on the corner of the hall. A snarl, low and menacing, definitely some kind of animal. A dragon, perhaps? But how did one get in here? And why can I not hear its thoughts? He turned to tell the King something was in the hall, when out of the corner of his eye he saw a shadow move across the tapestries. He jumped.
"Nicholas, what's wrong?" Isambard looked up from the table, his eyes concerned.
"I heard a noise." Nicholas turned back to the hall. "A scream … a snarl … like an animal … and when I looked into the hall, I saw—"
Banks frowned. "You're seeing things, Mr. Rose. There's nothing in the hall."
"No, there's definitely something moving—"
A figure dashed across the hall.
His heart pounding, Nicholas stared down the dim hall. "It's a man!"
With lightning speed Banks crossed the room, shoved Nicholas aside, and slammed the doors to the audience chamber shut. "Of course it was a man," he said, his eyes flashing. "You probably saw one of the servants trying to snoop on the King's private audience. They do like their games."
"He was naked," Nicholas insisted. "And that doesn't explain the snarling—"
He was interrupted by the King, who let out a gasping breath and collapsed across the table. Blood splattered across the plans, causing Brunel to leap back in alarm. Banks dived for His Majesty's body, pulling it back onto the couch and bringing his face into the light. As Banks pulled at the King's high collar, Nicholas could see George's eyes – bleak and bloodshot and tinged with green. In fact, his very skin seemed to give off a pallid green tinge. Banks ripped the collar open, and more blood pooled from a large scab that burst in his neck.
"Get out!" Banks screamed, shoving the King across the couch and reaching for his medicine bag. "Both of you!"
Their eyes locked on each other, Brunel and Nicholas did what they were told: they bolted for the door and ran.
"What was that?" Nicholas asked, his shaking fingers clutched around a chipped teacup.
Brunel had taken the carriage back to London to begin preparations for the King's railway, but Nicholas, still shaken by the events at the castle, now sat with James Holman in the dining room of Travers College, a modest building outside the walls of Windsor Castle that housed Holman and the other Naval Knights of Windsor.
"He has been ill these past months, but I was told he'd made a full recovery. There have been some very peculiar happenings around the castle recently," said Holman, carefully setting down his own teacup and pouring the boiling water. He used a finger hooked over the rim of the cup to check the liquid level.
"You never said anything before."
When Holman had been forced from the Navy after his illness had ravaged his joints and left him blind, he'd returned to England and, not wanting to live the life of a beggar, had applied for a post in the Naval Knights. The order consisted of seven superannuated or disabled Lieutenants, single men without children, "inclined to live a virtuous, studious and devout life." The Naval Knights were expected to live out their days in the modest rooms at Travers College; their only duty was to attend mass at St George’s Chapel twice per day.
At twenty-two years of age – the same age as Nicholas and Isambard – Holman was the youngest of the Naval Knights by a good forty years. Although they were only allowed to absent their duties on medical grounds, he had managed – although how he had done so still remained a mystery – to secure an extended period of leave to attend medical school in Edinburgh, about which he had written his first book.
"There didn't seem much to say. The King stopped conducting the services at St. George's, preferring instead to sit in his wheeled chair beneath the pulpit. I've heard the servants talking about sounds in the castle, screams, skitterings in the halls, and some maids and stable boys have disappeared, although I can't imagine that's out of the ordinary with such a large staff."
"Have you notice
d anything else? Wild animal noises, maybe?"
Holman shook his head.
"What do you suppose this all means?"
Holman shrugged. "Whatever secrets the King and this castle are hiding can't remain secret for much longer. He has to give the presentation at the Royal Society meeting. Let us see how he fares then."
Jacques du Blanc shifted, pulling one cramped leg out from under him and stretching it across the pile of bibles on top of which he crouched. Not allowing himself to show discomfort in his face, he stretched out the other leg, kicking a stack of books over so they scattered across the humming deck of the dirigible gondola.
He watched with interest as the leather-bound volumes slid toward the furnace, following the dip and sway of the flying machine. He didn't bother to pick them up. Let the coal-boy deal with that.
The pilot gestured to him, yelling something Jacques couldn't hear over the roar of the furnace and the howl of the wind. Above his head, the envelope – a huge fabric bag inflated with hydrogen, providing the craft with the means to float high in the air – shaded the deck from the sun, the wind whipping over the edges of the gondola, and tugging at his clothes and hat. The pilot turned the rudder suspended below the envelope, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere on the horizon.
Jacques followed the pilot's gaze over the edge, and saw that they were no longer flying over water. They’d crossed the Channel and now floated over a patchwork of green fields, their bright hue visible through the smoke belching from the exhaust. England; he'd made it to England.
Fields soon gave way to forests, dense with oaks. The dirigible rose over the canopy, heading north along the edge of the valley, ‘till Jacques could see plumes of smoke rising between the clouds. As they dropped through the clouds, the spires of Meliora appeared. The city jutted precariously from the trunks of the ancient oaks, each trunk spliced and threaded with platforms and winches and punctured with mechanical devices.
The Dirigires (The Steerers) – a radical sect who worshipped the goddess Mama Helios and their ballooning Messiah Jean Pierre Blanchard – had fled to England after Catholic France began persecuting worshippers of the Industrian gods. King George had welcomed them, for they brought their skill with clockwork and flying machines. He'd given them land on his private hunting estates so they could build their city, and Meliora had risen up into the clouds.
Now, with England blockaded, the Dirigires were richer than ever. They had fused gondolas and steam engines to their balloons, creating for the first time lighter-than-air craft that could be manoeuvred. With the British navy otherwise engaged with attempting to dislodge the French ships, the Dirigires could now dominate an illicit trade route between England and the rest of Europe. If you wanted it, the Dirigires could get it – bibles and illegal Christian artefacts, French wine, German books, illegal passage between England and Europe – for any man who could afford the fee.
Jacques du Blanc was a man who could afford the fee, and the Dirigires didn't bat an eyelid at his fine clothes and the curved rapier strapped to his belt. They got all types on this crossing.
Even above the splutter of the dirigible's engines, Jacques could hear the seamless tick of the city. Before the purging, he'd fought alongside Dirigire priests at the Battle of the Pyrenees, and they had told him tales of their fantastical city, a shrine to their goddess of the skies. Now, it seemed, he would see her for himself.
The pilot let out the regulator, and the dirigible jerked downward, sending more bibles sailing across the deck. Jacques watched the scene on the landing pads. Workers swarmed around the dirigible, tying down the lead ropes and pulling down the deflating envelope so it didn't catch on anything. If a single spark caught the flammable hydrogen gas inside, the explosion would probably be felt in Paris.
As soon as the envelope was down and the gas pumped away, a crew of men stormed on board to unload the cargo. Bibles, casks of wine, and boxes of holy relics all left the ship to be sent out across the countryside to buyers.
Jacques hugged his portmanteau to his chest and tried to squeeze his way through the workers. A high priest waited on the platform. As Jacques swung his legs over the edge of the gondola and descended the ramp, the priest reached up and steadied him. Jacques tipped his hat in reply, his legs wobbling as he accustomed himself to solid ground once again.
"Don't walk near the edge for a few hours," the priest said. "Your mind and body need time to adjust to the height."
The effort of lifting his portmanteau left him breathless, and his temples throbbed. Jacques gasped, desperately trying to remain upright in the pounding wind, his lungs hungry for air. He’d been some months away from his home in the Pyrenees, and his body had already forgotten the rigors of high-altitude breathing.
"Are there … rooms available … in the city?" he huffed.
"We've prepared one already," the priest replied, reaching for Jacques’ portmanteau. "Your name is known in the city. Many remember you from the Acadamie, before the purgings. We're not often visited by such noteworthy men."
They were joined by the pilot, who thanked Jacques in grating English for flying with him and offered a cigar. The priest drew one from the box, and Jacques followed suit. "We should get out of the wind," he said in French, his legs shaking more than ever.
To Jacques' relief the pilot led them to a tavern two levels below the landing pads. They descended on a staircase that moved of its own accord, a belt that circled around on a series of giant cogs, powered by steam from an engine room far below. Jacques closed his eyes and gripped the balustrade with white knuckles. He knew better than to look out over the expanse of Meliora.
Inside the bar the pilot dropped a crate of champagne on the counter, pulled one bottle out, uncorked it, and poured them all a drink. He lit up the cigars, and leaned back in his chair, scuffed boots on the table, his gaze making Jacques nervous.
"So you're du Blanc," he sneered in that horrid English accent, draining his wine and running his tongue around the rim of his glass. "I never bagged you for a toff, hiding out in the mountains for years while the rest of us risked our necks for liberty. They say you went wild and ate a girl—"
"Show some respect," the priest snapped. "This man's crusade has preserved our rights to worship whom we choose."
The pilot looked unconcerned. "Did you get a lot of crusading done on the top of that mountain?" he asked.
"Tell me," Jacques said, not bothering to answer the pilot's question. "A friend of mine made this journey, not two months ago now, and I'm desperate to find him. An Englishman, though his French would be impeccable. He wouldn't have been carrying much – a portmanteau, maybe? He had sandy hair, probably hidden under a hat or cloak, and grey eyes—"
The pilot shrugged. "Everyone looks the same to me. Ask around in the city – if he stayed a few days or bought passage with one of the traders, someone will remember him. But don't expect to get answers for nothing, even in your fancy clothes. We do a fine trade in secrets here, Mr. du Blanc."
The pilot picked his boots off the table and sauntered toward the door. The priest wiped the table with the edge of his sleeve.
"I apologise," he said, reverting to his native French now the pilot had gone. "Some of the wealthy families insist on sending their boys off to English schools. They all return sounding just like him. I am François, the High Priest of Meliora, and I may be able to help you in your quest."
Jacques set two coins down on the counter. The priest eyed them with interest. "The man," he said. "Did he come here?"
"When a man passes through Meliora, he prefers our folk not knowing the reasons. We'd be a poorer people, sir, if we gave out every slip of information on our passengers. We'd soon find ourselves with none."
Jacques set another coin down on the counter. All three pieces disappeared into the priest’s sleeve in an instant, his eyes never leaving the Frenchman's face.
"He stayed here two nights," the priest offered. "He had nothing with him save a tattered portmanteau
. He travelled under the name ’Nicholas Rose’, and I never saw him change clothes. He bought passage with one of the traders, heading for London, though whether he intended to travel the whole distance or not, I cannot say. This was a month ago, now."
"You've been most kind. Where might I find transport to London?"
"No wagons are due for another three days, but if you take the railway, it'll get you as far as Bristol, and that's a traveller town."
The sweet smoke curled around Jacques' head. He lifted his cigar to his lips and took another deep drag, a smile creeping across his thin lips.
I'm coming for you, Nicholas. I'm coming for what's mine.
James Holman's Memoirs – Unpublished
At precisely eleven minutes past nine on the fifteenth of July I strode across the lobby of Somerset House, Nicholas trailing at my heels. I bowed my observance to the Industrian gods – represented by ten alabaster statues set into two rows of niches flanking the long hall – and entered the vaulted chambers of the Royal Society. As I suspected, our late carriage had conveniently missed the opening prayers (which, with ten Gods, do go on for some time), and the pre-lecture drinks had started in earnest.
When I had been invited to join the Royal Society after the publication of my first book, I had thought it nothing more than a weekly meeting of learned gentlemen interested in pursuing the "natural philosophies". With numerous influential members and centuries of Royal patronage, the Society enjoyed much influence and stocked an impeccable cellar of the world's finest brandy, which I admit somewhat swayed my decision to accept membership.
But it seemed my opinion of the Society had been very much mistaken. Since His Majesty abolished the Church of England and disbanded Parliament, the Royal Society had become the foremost power in England, answerable only to King George himself. The eminent minds of our bright new age chose their gods, started their own congregations, and became as power-hungry and dogmatic as the priests of the church they had outlawed. Inventions became no longer the work of intelligent men, but the manifestations of the Gods of Industry on earth.