Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War

by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

  Oh, Welly, Sabrina thought—not the schoolboy crush. Not now.

  “You may have a total of three,” Sabrina said, handing him her dance card. “For my sisterly affections for you know no bounds, my dear Welly. But I cannot keep you from the other girls—such a thing would be terribly unfair to them.”

  Wellington smiled shyly, quickly filling four spaces with his name. “I shall be at your beck and call, Lady Serafim,” Welly said, bowing under her distracted smile before he doffed his top hat and strode away.

  Holly appeared at Sabrina’s shoulder, huffing and slightly pink in the cheeks from dancing. Sabrina wanted to dance. “Is poor Welly still so terribly enamored with you?” Holly asked. “The poor child.”

  “Actually, he has never asked me for anything more than a dance, Holly,” Sabrina said.

  “Just moons over you all day and night, then,” Holly laughed, eyeing Sabrina’s punch glass. “No beer tonight?”

  Sabrina winced. How could such a harmless, and truthful, question sting her so? “I was trying,” she said slowly, “to be a little more of a lady this evening.”

  Holly’s eyes widened. “Well, I am flabbergasted. Have you not seen yourself in the mirror, young lady? You are the jewel in the crown this evening. You could guzzle beer all night long and still you would not lose one whit of your luster.”

  Sabrina could not help but laugh. “My dear friend, you are a wonderful liar.”

  “I have not uttered one falsehood, and you know it,” Holly answered, tasting her punch and shuddering. “And personally I would prefer a nice lager to this sap; it is so sweet it closes the throat.”

  Sabrina handed her glass to Holly. “Would you mind, please?” When the music stopped, she was going to slip out onto the dance floor and commandeer Buckle for herself.

  “Of course, my love,” Holly replied. “Have you a dance on your card?”

  “No. I am going to save Romulus from Ilsa Gallagher,” Sabrina replied, committing to a visceral course of action she felt like her brain had not even considered.

  “He does not look like he needs saving to me. They share a great deal of affection,” Holly said.

  Sabrina shook her head. The affair between Romulus and Isla was not a secret, nor did it need to be. Holly, she believed even with her considerable perceptiveness, had not sensed Sabrina’s new attraction to her captain, thank the Oracle. But she needed an excuse. “He tires of her quickly.”

  “He told you that?” Holly asked, mildly surprised.

  “Aye, he told me,” Sabrina replied, lying again, a shocked spectator to the silver flipping of her tongue. Stop it. “And where is Ivan?”

  Holly smiled happily. “Oh, he excused himself to get me more of this syrupy punch—he thinks I like it.”

  “You are frightening the poor lad,” Sabrina said with a grin.

  Holly gave a wry smile. “I told him he was a wonderful dancer, even though he kept stepping on my toes.”

  Sabrina smiled. She was inordinately happy for Ivan that her dear friend was smitten with him. “He is a bit raw, but my Russian-bred brother, as you plainly know, is a good egg.”

  “You see!” Holly enthused. “That is what I see in him, dear friend. Goodness pours out of every inch of his unusual, perplexing soul, and when I am near him I feel light, joyous, adored, and amused. And people do not understand how I could be smitten with such a fellow. Pah!”

  Sabrina laughed. She moved forward as the music wound down to its ending flourish. Her eyes scanned for Buckle, found him, and latched on. She struck out across the dance floor before the folds of the women’s dresses stopped swaying.

  When Sabrina arrived at Buckle’s place on the floor, she found him giving Ilsa a little bow, and Ilsa leaning forward on her tiptoes to whisper something amusing into his ear.

  Their sweethearting made Sabrina sick. She stopped beside them, waiting for Buckle to notice her.

  Buckle flashed his grand smile. “Hello, Sabrina.”

  “My apologies for the intrusion, Ilsa, but Romulus, could you assist me with one quick dance? Wellington is being pesky, and I am in need of sanctuary.”

  “Of course,” Ilsa said, not in the least bit threatened. “He is all yours, Chief Navigator.”

  Sabrina stepped up to Buckle as Ilsa floated away and the orchestra wound up again, the opening strings of the waltz.

  “Shall we, my dear?” Buckle said, taking Sabrina’s left hand in his right, and encircling her waist with his long left arm, drawing her closer to him.

  Sabrina felt a pure joy as they swung into the flow of the music, her waist cradled in the powerful loop of his arm, her right hand resting on the soft cloth of his coat shoulder, her left hand clasped in the strong, warm fingers of his right. She saw nothing but the tower of his chest and the amber and gold whiskers on his chin, and found herself in a trance of motion, a hypnotic state of bliss, a place where every sense hummed vibrantly, but only in the bubble that contained her and Buckle. Everything beyond was a muffled blur of colors and music that propelled them around and around.

  It was so unfair that the moments one wanted to last in life always passed more quickly than one would expect.

  THE WARRIOR AND THE WALTZ

  ONCE THE MUSIC ENDED, BUCKLE released his hold on Sabrina and stepped back to bow. “Thank you for the honor of the dance, Miss Serafim,” he said.

  “You are most welcome, Romulus,” Sabrina replied with a curtsy, laughing at their formality. The laugh had a nervous trill to it, though.

  Buckle felt off balance; Ilsa was a beautiful girl, a doe-eyed lover voluptuous both in face and form, but she held not a candle to Sabrina, standing before him in a vision of crimson hair and emerald silk, her freckled, elfin face turned up to him with a smile tinged with a promise of something he had never seen there before.

  But she was Sabrina—adopted from an unknown bloodline, yes, but she was his sister, if in name only. She had been a latecomer to Balthazar’s brood, adopted at the age of thirteen, and while she had always been fanatically loyal—a brawler when it came to the dignity of her family—she had always been a mystery to Buckle, a sibling without a history, and she had never once mentioned what had happened in her life “before,” an earlier life now cast into darkness by its enigmatic links to the Founders, and the infamously red hair of Isambard Fawkes.

  But Sabrina was his shipmate, his chief navigator and first mate. Buckle had a rule never to engage in dalliances with members of his own crew. This rule was maintained most of the time, Ilsa being his most current transgression, but he rarely saw Ilsa aboard the Pneumatic Zeppelin. With Sabrina, he was rubbing shoulders for an entire watch.

  “I would love another dance, if you are available,” Sabrina said. “I have an empty slot on my card, and it sounds like the band is warming up for a quadrille.”

  Buckle swallowed, tasting beer on the back of his tongue. He desperately wished to pull Sabrina into the crux of his arm again, to smell her perfume, to feel the slender rise of her hip against his fingers, the muscles taut beneath the cloth. No. He could not think clearly. He had to quickly extricate himself. Confusion was a condition foreign to his mind.

  Balthazar’s arrival rescued Buckle.

  “Ah, my children!” Balthazar enthused, looking hearty and hale. Diplomacy always got his heart pumping, and he looked much better for it, strutting in his felt top hat and swallowtail jacket. Sibley, his black hair slicked rakishly against his head, followed at Balthazar’s heels, the much-trusted old hen ready to whisk him away if his apoplexy started up again. It worried Buckle that the two strongest personalities in the Grand Alliance, the glue holding together the whole flimsy construction, were Andromeda and Balthazar, and both of them were badly damaged.

  “Hello, Father,” Sabrina said. “We are having such a grand time!”

  “Then it pains me to drag Romulus away, but I must,” Balthazar said, thumping his beefy hand on Buckle’s shoulder. “Come with me, son.”

  Buckle followed Balt
hazar through the stream of dancers positioning for the quadrille.

  “Katzenjammer Smelt has just arrived—fashionably late,” Balthazar said, his breath smelling of his pipe. “And he has brought his daughter with him, dressed to the nines. I want you to dance with her.”

  “Of course, Father,” Buckle answered. He did not want to dance with an Imperial girl, especially Valkyrie, beautiful as sparkling ice and just as cold, but he understood why Balthazar wanted his son to dance with Smelt’s daughter. Ilsa’s voice echoed in Buckle’s head, words that she had spoken to him as they danced.

  “Have you seen the Imperial princess yet?” Ilsa had asked. “Valkyrie?”

  “Yes. She attended the negotiations with her father,” Buckle had replied.

  Ilsa had given Buckle her all-knowing look. “She is stunning, my dear captain—frankly, I cannot imagine how you might keep your hands off her.”

  Buckle had winced. “She is an Imperial princess, Ilsa. She is a Smelt, for crying out loud.”

  “If I may be so bold as to point out, sir, you have cracked far tougher nuts before. Myself not included.”

  “Horsefeathers,” Buckle had countered. “And I must say I find it humiliating that you are so flip over the prospect of me wooing another.”

  “It is the only way a girl can have you, Captain,” Ilsa had said, and laughed.

  Buckle and Balthazar crossed the dance floor and arrived before Katzenjammer Smelt, his chest a wall of brilliantly ribboned medals. The Imperial officers in his entourage were dressed in their impeccable sky-blue uniforms with scarlet and gold piping, their boots and pickelhaubes all spit-and-polish.

  When Buckle saw Valkyrie, he shivered. Her powder-blue gown, trimmed with red lace and white fur, the front of the bodice gleaming with a double row of gold buttons, was a masterpiece upon her slender body. Her face was a sculptor’s dream, pale pink and perfect in proportion, framed by her lustrous yellow hair woven into a French braid that ran down the center of her back.

  Valkyrie was looking away, and she had not yet noticed the approach of Buckle and Balthazar. Buckle knew that every man in the hall was looking at her, either out of the corners of their eyes or through the backs of their heads, and he was equally certain that she noticed none of them.

  “Be nice,” Balthazar whispered harshly into Buckle’s ear just before they stopped in front of the Imperial contingent.

  “Admiral Balthazar,” Smelt blurted, his crane face forcing a less than genuine smile. “I commend you upon such a grand party. Many thanks for your kind invitation.”

  Balthazar opened his arms. “Thank you, Chancellor. The Crankshafts are honored that you chose to attend.”

  Smelt regarded Buckle, his glance standoffish and difficult to read. “And good evening to you, Captain Buckle,” Smelt said coldly.

  “Chancellor,” Buckle replied with a nod of his head.

  “My son has a request to make of you, Chancellor,” Balthazar said.

  Damn, that was quick, Buckle thought. Oh, well. “Yes, Chancellor,” he said, clearing his throat. “I request the honor of a dance with the princess.”

  Smelt raised the eyebrow behind the glittering monocle. The request was no surprise—it was proper etiquette for the son of the host to dance with all eligible daughters of prominent guests—but he most certainly disliked the idea of Buckle touching his own daughter.

  Valkyrie turned her inscrutable, ice-cold gaze to Buckle. He saw nothing in her eyes but disdain.

  “Of course you have my permission,” Smelt said with a forced pleasantry. “But my daughter makes her own choices.”

  Valkyrie stepped forward. She was almost as tall as Buckle, but as she scrutinized him down her strong, blue-blooded nose, she seemed taller.

  “Princess Valkyrie,” Buckle said with a bow, mustering his finest charm. “I would be most grateful—the entire Crankshaft clan would be grateful—if you would bestow upon me the honor of the next dance.”

  Valkyrie did not smile. “I, too, would be honored, Captain. Of course.” Her voice was gentle, her tone dismissive.

  Buckle offered Valkyrie his hand, and she slipped her white-gloved fingers into his, moving with him out onto the dance floor. The quadrille had just ended, and another waltz was about to begin. Buckle stopped, and she slipped into position under his hands. In the moment before the music began, he found her cool, confident, and bored eyes gazing into his.

  The strings of violin and cello rose in the air; Buckle and Valkyrie set into the same motion as the seventy other pairs on the floor. Valkyrie’s graceful body responded to Buckle’s lead like the wing of a swan, but she was a touch slow in her steps and anticipation, a sign that she had been well schooled in ballroom dancing, but had not actually danced much. Buckle noticed a small brown mole on her throat, just above the lip of her high scarlet braided collar, and when he looked up, he found her eyes hard upon him.

  “May I say, you look lovely tonight, Princess,” Buckle offered, resisting the urge to say something witty, but settling on something safe.

  “You are very kind, Captain,” Valkyrie replied, her chin high. “But you need not feel compelled to compliment me overmuch.”

  “It is not duty but your beauty that fuels my compulsion,” Buckle replied. That was a damned good line. Damned good.

  “Please, reserve your treacle for the little girls, sir,” Valkyrie said. “I am dancing with you as a diplomatic gesture.”

  “And yet,” Buckle continued, undeterred, actually enjoying her disapproval of him, “would not my compliment on your loveliness also be considered a diplomatic gesture?”

  “In that case, I am compelled to compliment you as well, sir.”

  “On my loveliness? Well, I do manage to clean up on occasion.”

  “You could do with a shave, in my opinion—if you are serious about cleaning up.”

  “Lose the whiskers?” Buckle replied. “I have been told they impart to my countenance a grand aeronautical air.”

  “They would, if there were more of them,” Valkyrie said.

  “Ah, my wounded manhood. I would be tempted to retort with a criticism of your appearance, but then again, you seem to be perfect.”

  “Perhaps all of my flaws are internal, as opposed to yours,” Valkyrie said.

  “I think I have just been insulted. A diplomatic incident may ensue.”

  Valkyrie’s jaw remained set, but Buckle saw a spark of warmth flash in her glacial eyes. “I do love a good party,” she said.

  DISTURBING NEWS

  BUCKLE FOUND HIMSELF ALONE ON the ballroom balcony, and it pleased him in some small, abstract way. The last vestiges of daylight had ebbed out of the high overcast, to be replaced by the brilliant, silvery issue of the moon. It was too early in the evening for the lovers to seek out the freezing privacy of the balcony to cling to one another behind the pillars, or for the smokers to seek an open space to light their pipes. The outdoor fireplace roared, two freshly oiled logs finding their full expression of flames, the last cinders of the kindling falling away at their haunches, spent and combusted. The two gargoyles guarding each end of the balcony rail seemed alive in the waving light, staring at the world with marble eyes, waiting, knowing that even they, one day, would dissolve away to dust. Festive double rows of oil lanterns hung from the battlement hooks, their tangerine light taking on a liquid, lavalike quality in the places where the frost had taken hold of the rock.

  Buckle folded his arms across his chest to ward off the cold. He glanced back at the high ballroom doors with their rippled, murky glass and the beating pulse of light, color, and music within, and he was glad to be outside. He always preferred to be outside. Perhaps his early years in the wilderness were to blame.

  It was not that Buckle did not like parties. He loved parties, when the mood was right. But he needed the quiet to clear his head. The two women inside the glass, Sabrina and Valkyrie, stirred him up in a witch’s pot of lizard tongues and rose petals—his newfound attraction to Sabrina, subtle
, strong, and unwanted and the undeniable fascination he had with the haughty Valkyrie almost infuriated him. He had a bloody serious job coming up. Negotiating with the wily Russians of Spartak required an unmuddled mind.

  Buckle stepped to the balcony rail, overlooking the citadel’s lantern-dotted courtyard and main gates. The portcullis was still raised, and dozens of coachmen and footmen milled about, muttering to one another over their pipes, offhandedly peering at an odd stack of chicken cages piled against the bailey wall, the birds within quiet at the fall of night. High overhead, the Khartoum patrolled, running at too great an altitude for Buckle to be able to hear her engines, an ellipsoidal shadow against the clouds, her gondolas twinkling with interior light.

  The sight of the Pneumatic Zeppelin on the airfield, her elephantine back looming over the smaller airships hugging the earth at their mooring towers, her hawsers lined with cheerful rows of buglights, made Buckle’s heart race. He so wanted to leave the party, hurry aboard, run the rudder wheel in his hands, boilers pounding in her guts, propellers awhirl, and drive her into the sky. To have air under his boots again! But, alas, his mighty airship was not quite ready to go. Dozens of buglights clustered under her belly, some in motion, as the ground crews, the copper-sheathed wheels of their mule carts gleaming dully in the lantern light, manned the derricks and swung the Arabella—the emergency repair crews still finishing their work aboard her—back into her berth inside the Pneumatic Zeppelin’s launch bay.

  Buckle unfolded his arms and leaned on the balcony rail. Late arrivals to the party approached in clattering, lantern-bouncing carriages, coming along the main road as it meandered up from the packed houses and boulders of the town.

  In the courtyard, a guardsman strode with an oil lantern, two blackbang pistols gleaming at his belt; it was quiet enough for Buckle to hear the sounds of his footsteps, the leather soles of his boots padding across the flagstones. Buckle was used to the noisy quiet of a zeppelin running at night: the steady drone of the propellers, the hum of the machinery. He was not so familiar with the sounds of the city at night: the distant clang of the ironsmith, the slow rattle of the market carts with their braying donkeys, the random barking of dogs, and the faraway cries of the sweepers and streetlarks, the little boys who collected horse dung from the avenues and ran errands for halfpennies and farthings.