Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War

by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

  “Then I shall ask,” Bismarck blurted, eyes flashing, but infinitely better at hiding his emotions than his father, “why are you here?”

  “Ah, straight to the point, are we?” Goethe said as he handed his folded gloves to Wallach. “Even before you offer me tea?”

  “There is no tea,” Bismarck said.

  “Pity,” Goethe replied. “I was anticipating a brilliant cup.”

  “What do you want?” Bismarck asked.

  Goethe sniffed. “I have tried to keep the tone of this meeting pleasant, but it appears such a wish, faced with insulting accusations, a lack of tea, and the aggressive tone of your voices, is not a possibility. Fine. As you wish, Chancellor. The Founders clan is prepared to make the Imperial clan an offer of friendship.”

  “Friendship?” Valkyrie repeated, as if the words stung her tongue.

  “Yes, friendship, my lovely Valkyrie,” Goethe answered. His aide handed him a leather satchel, from which he drew a wax-sealed parchment scroll. “A pact of nonaggression and preferred trade that will reforge our association during these difficult times.”

  Buckle did not need to read the scroll—and neither did the Imperials—to know it was nothing more than a sugarcoated sham. Things were about to get ugly.

  “On whose terms?” Valkyrie asked.

  “The terms are laid out in the agreement,” Goethe said, offering the scroll to Smelt. “And I assure you, much to my own personal surprise, they are quite advantageous to you.”

  “Are these terms negotiable?” Smelt asked.

  “No,” Goethe replied. “Such a document, once ratified by the Founders parliament, is irreversible.”

  “We would demand to negotiate our own terms,” Smelt said.

  “Not possible,” Goethe replied, still trying to hand the scroll to Smelt, who so far had made no attempt to take it.

  “And if we refuse this ‘deal’?” Bismarck asked.

  “Break the seal and read it first, at least, I would highly recommend,” Goethe said.

  “As a sovereign clan, we present our own terms, Ambassador,” Smelt said.

  Again, Goethe thrust the scroll toward Smelt. “I urge you to reconsider. A rash action could prove highly unfortunate for you and your people.”

  There was a long pause. The still air glittered with disrupted marble powder.

  Goethe stood there, still offering the scroll, the insult of its rejection visible in his face. Buckle enjoyed that.

  “You know that we are no easy target, Ambassador Goethe,” Smelt said.

  “And that is why we urge you to join us, Chancellor,” Goethe replied. “Together we can form a mutual defense that will ensure the survival of both of our clans, and potentially win us more territory in the bargain.”

  “We are not interested in war,” Smelt said coldly. “But we know you are gearing up for invasion.”

  “You should not trust spies,” Goethe replied coldly.

  “As much as you trust yours,” Smelt answered.

  Anger flared across Goethe’s face, and he waved the scroll like a schoolmaster. “Do you think me a fool, Chancellor? Do you think Isambard Kingdom Fawkes a fool? Do you really think we do not know of your clandestine meetings up in the mountains, of your secret alliance of rogue clans to the east, your girding for war? The Grand Alliance—ha! You have signed your death warrants. And do not think that the offending Gallowglasses, Tinskins, and Alchemists shall be given clemency from their crimes either.”

  “I do not know what you are talking about,” Bismarck said, but Smelt clutched his son’s arm.

  “We shall all suffer the same fate as the Brineboilers, shall we?” Buckle said venomously. He could hold his tongue no longer, and he wanted to knock a hole in Goethe’s condescending smugness.

  The anger disappeared from Goethe’s eyes; he sighed, never acknowledging Buckle. “Securing your trust in the least trustworthy clans shall only bring you to ruin, Chancellor. They shall surely fail you once fire and blood is in the air. Think about that.”

  “We Crankshafts are with the Imperials as well,” Buckle said. “And we fail no one.”

  Goethe looked at Buckle as he might look at a fly he was about to squash. “The Crankshafts?” he said with a laugh.

  “If all you did was come here to force your will upon us, take your scroll and go,” Smelt said. “We have no need of your one-sided terms.”

  Goethe glared. “I recommend that you quickly reconsider. For you should surely know that the Founders are of a strength and capacity far exceeding your own, even grouped in an illegal coalition, and that if you resist you shall be overrun, and the more strenuously you resist, the more your people’s backs shall bleed for it.”

  Buckle’s hand shot to his sword handle. He wanted to rage, to howl his indignation, to be in the thick of it. But he stilled himself.

  Valkyrie stepped forward, shaking with a fury that showed in her body, but not in her voice. “You, Leopold Goethe, you are no ambassador. You are the mouthpiece of a war machine, and your words are designed to sow fear. But hear this—your bloody machinations shall fail you, for your treachery reaps only hatred and resolution.”

  Goethe looked at Valkyrie, not with hatred, but the way a man looked at a wounded horse just before he shot it. He turned and jammed the scroll into the open hand of a half-chiseled statue beside him, then grimly drew his white gloves from his pocket and tugged them on. “So be it,” he muttered. He turned for the exit but suddenly halted, lifting his chin to look up at the ceiling. “And you—I know you,” he said.

  “Know who?” Bismarck snapped.

  Buckle looked at Sabrina. Her eyes shone with fright, her throat shifting with an odd swallow.

  Goethe laid his gaze upon Sabrina.

  “You most certainly do not know me, sir,” Sabrina replied, her voice defiant.

  Goethe laughed. “Do not play games with me, Sabrina—it is Sabrina, is it not? Or did you change your name on the outside? I remember you. Yes, I remember you. You are a Fawkes, a Fawkes with hair more scarlet than Isambard’s himself.”

  Gasps filled the room. Buckle’s chest tightened up so fast he barely could breathe. The opaque layers surrounding Sabrina’s carefully guarded past were being peeled away—if Goethe was to be believed. And the mustard in the pudding was that Buckle did believe him, not so much from his assertions as from the haunted look on Sabrina’s face.

  “My name is Sabrina Serafim,” Sabrina said evenly, her face now as hard as granite.

  “Serafim? A nice choice of name, Sabrina Fawkes, but it cannot hide your face, or that magnificent scarlet hair,” Goethe said, pressing her harder. “I do not know what lies you have told your new clan, if the Crankshafts are the ones you call your masters now, but we are the same generation, cousin. We grew up together as children, you and I—do you not remember me? I am hurt. And what of your twin sister, with hair as red as yours, each of you the spitting image of the other? I know that she wonders every day where you might have gone. It shall break her heart if you have forgotten her.”

  Sister. That made sense to Buckle. The steampiper woman he had fought on the Pneumatic Zeppelin, the doppelgänger, could have been nothing less than Sabrina’s twin. But Leopold Goethe’s cousin? Buckle’s mind raced. It surely was a lie. But then he realized what it was about Goethe’s appearance that unsettled him so. Goethe had graceful, soft, low-lidded eyes, eyes with a distinct Asian character.

  And Sabrina had the same exact kind of eyes.

  “Once again, I must respectfully suggest that you are mistaken,” Sabrina answered, her jaw clenched. “I do not know you, sir. And I have no sister.”

  Buckle knew that Sabrina was lying, but her past was her own business, mortifying as it appeared to be, and Buckle would be damned if he would stand aside while any member of his crew was interrogated by Leopold Goethe. “Enough!” Buckle shouted, striding forward. “You have delivered your message, and your answer has been given, Goethe. Be off with you.”

  “
Silence, you bastard dog of a bastard clan! This is a Founders affair!” Goethe seethed.

  “It is time for you to go, Ambassador,” Smelt announced.

  “I have not been given an acceptable answer,” Goethe said, calming as he smoothed out his coat sleeves.

  “You have your answer,” Smelt said.

  “I came here, old man,” Goethe replied, “as an act of kindness. I came here to offer you a path away from your own destruction. You do recall, Chancellor, that even though we Founders have not lately enforced our suzerainty over you, you have never been declared independent—you are still our colony. I shall make my offer one last time. I pray that you shall swear to lay down the arms you have raised against us.”

  “You may go on your way, Ambassador Goethe,” Smelt replied with a cool voice. “And you may tell your tyrant that the Imperial clan has cast our lot with the Grand Alliance, and we shall be visiting you soon.”

  Goethe laughed. “I admire your wolverine spirit, Chancellor, though in the end it shall earn you nothing more than a burning city and a trip to the gallows.”

  “We shall see,” Smelt said.

  “Very well. I have done all that I can do,” Goethe said, turning on his heel to leave. He motioned for Sabrina to follow him as he passed her. “You are with me. Come!”

  “I most certainly shall not,” Sabrina said, surprised.

  Goethe halted in front of Sabrina. “You are the blood and flesh of the Founders clan. The choice is not yours to make. You belong to us. Come with me.”

  “I would rather die,” Sabrina snarled.

  “By the claim of the crimson blood I am your master,” Goethe said, and snatched Sabrina by the arm. “Take her!” he shouted to the steampipers, who immediately advanced.

  Sabrina wrenched free of Goethe’s grasp, whipping out her sword. Buckle had already lunged, the gleaming silver length of his blade hovering in front of Goethe’s nose.

  “To arms!” Rainer shouted.

  A swishing clatter rang out as the Imperial cavalrymen yanked their swords loose from their scabbards. The twenty steampiper officers drew their pistols as one. Rainer and Albard leapt in front of Smelt, swords drawn, shoulder to shoulder.

  Everyone held still in the tense silence, eyeing the gleaming swords and pistol muzzles. “I say,” Buckle said dryly. “The negotiations seem to have taken an unfortunate turn.”

  BY THE CLAIM OF THE CRIMSON BLOOD

  “YOU HAVE NO CLAIM UPON my sister,” Buckle snarled at Goethe. “Her loyalties are her own.”

  “Your sister?” Goethe said, his eyes widening before he unleashed a dark, insidious smile. “I see she has worked her treacherous wiles upon you, Captain. But you are mistaken. She is the blood of the Founders, and as such, she belongs to the Founders.”

  “The Crankshaft navigator is here as my guest and under my protection,” Smelt said, stepping forward. “I shall not have you or anyone taking her against her will.”

  “Then we have a problem, Chancellor,” Goethe announced. “For I shall not leave without her.”

  “You shall leave without her,” Buckle said. “And leave you will. Now.”

  “It would be most tragic for you if this situation came to blows, Chancellor,” Goethe said, ignoring Buckle.

  “You dare not fire upon us!” Bismarck snarled.

  “I must do what I must. And where would your poor Imperial clan be after that?” Goethe asked. “With their chancellor and his vaunted children all dead. They would be lost sheep without a shepherd, easy prey for the wolves.”

  Smelt stepped alongside Buckle. “Leave my city, sir. Or draw your sword.”

  “No need,” Goethe answered. “My death is meaningless in the scheme of things, Chancellor. You or your Crankshaft captain may well run me through, if either of you can move faster than a musket ball, yes, but once the smoke clears you shall be dead, and Sabrina Fawkes shall be returned to the Founders.”

  Sabrina Fawkes. The name stabbed Buckle in the heart. Sabrina Fawkes.

  “I cannot allow it,” Smelt said loudly. “The young woman is coerced.”

  Another long pause, heavy as lead, weighed down the atmosphere of the room.

  Buckle rammed his sword home in its scabbard. He would not have another sister, regardless of her name, taken from him by the Founders. Not as long as he still breathed. He saw a way out. It was not a good option, but better than a hailstorm of bullets and blades. “I take great personal umbrage and insult when you lay your hands upon my sister, Goethe,” he said. It was not a subtle tactic. Goethe would see what he was trying to do. But by the requirements of honor, he would be powerless to stop it.

  Sabrina certainly realized. “Romulus, no!” she blurted.

  “Personal umbrage? A duel? With you?” Goethe laughed. “Do not be foolish, Captain. I would cut you to pieces.”

  “Captain,” Sabrina pleaded. “I can fight my own battles.”

  “Pistols or blades?” Buckle asked Goethe.

  “Blades,” Goethe replied quickly, his laugh fading into a serious grin. “Gentleman’s Rules, of course.”

  “Gentleman’s Rules. It is done, then,” Buckle said, unbuttoning his coat. “If you prevail, Serafim goes with you. If I prevail, she is free and the matter is settled.” Buckle was lying. Even if Goethe won—assuming Buckle was still alive—Buckle would board the Pneumatic Zeppelin, bomb the Founders train off the tracks, and take Sabrina back. Goethe was very, very far from home.

  “Very well, then. I am in the mood for a bit of sport,” Goethe said, his eyes brightening at the prospect of action.

  The steampipers and cavalrymen lowered their weapons as Buckle, Goethe, and Wallach strode out to an open patch of floor under the chin of the stallion statue.

  “I shall act as the captain’s second,” Valkyrie said, stepping into place alongside Buckle.

  Buckle undressed down to his waistcoat—avoiding Sabrina’s angry stare as he disrobed—and handed his top hat and coat to Valkyrie. He drew his sword from his scabbard as Valkyrie held it out for him, the finely sharpened metal ringing in the silence.

  “Good luck, Captain,” Valkyrie said aloud, then leaned to whisper in Buckle’s ear. “Know this—if you fall, I shall not allow your navigator to be lost. That train shall never leave the station.”

  “Thank you, Princess,” Buckle whispered back, swinging his saber back and forth rhythmically, sensing its balance, warming his muscles to the weight of the long steel. “But it shall not be necessary, for I am devastating with the blade.” Buckle stepped out onto the dueling ground, testing how his boots might slip in the dust on the floor stones.

  Goethe stood at a workman’s table with Wallach holding his coat, cloak, and scabbard, also assessing the swing of his double-edged rapier. He looked fit and lean in his tight-fitting white waistcoat, a gold pocket-watch fob glittering at the pocket.

  Smelt stepped into the center of the floor. “This duel is to be fought according to the Gentleman’s Rules, as agreed upon by both parties. When one man is unable to continue, being either incapacitated or dead, the winner shall be declared. Cross swords!”

  Buckle and Goethe strode out onto the floor, circling one another, their swords gleaming in the air between them. Intense study of one’s opponent kept one calm and steady, Buckle knew. He watched how Goethe held his sword, the angle of the blade he might favor. Buckle’s confidence in his swordsmanship was immense—but he was also smart enough not to underestimate Leopold Goethe.

  Enough damned pussyfooting.

  Always the aggressor, Buckle attacked, his boot soles squeaking across the powder-sloshed marble. Goethe held his ground, one hand tucked behind his back, looking bemused, sword low, as Buckle lunged. Goethe raised his rapier at the last instant, nonchalantly parrying Buckle’s first swing.

  “Really, Captain?” Goethe chortled. “Subtlety and the counterfeit stroke glorify the art of the blade, not the wild cutlass-hacking of a drunken boarder.”

  Buckle advanced on Goethe, sla
shing and shoving, attempting to roll him back on his heels, but the duke never allowed him the opportunity. Their swords leapt back and forth, spewing sparks when they clashed, the harsh clangs echoing off the high walls of the cavernous terminal. Goethe was murderously quick, quicker than Buckle, but Buckle was a physically stronger man, with better finish to his moves. Buckle eased back on his attack; such useless thrashing was going to wind him.

  Seeing his chance as Buckle disengaged, Goethe feinted high and spun low, his blade tracing a wide arc, aiming to saw Buckle off at the knees. Buckle leapt over the swipe, slashing his saber at Goethe’s sword arm, but Goethe was dastardly quick, again deflecting the cut. Goethe whipped his sword up and across Buckle’s descending blade; it was a small, slick move, but it offered a mortal blow—if Buckle had not jerked his head back. If his boots had slipped ever so slightly on the powdery marble, he would have been killed. The razor-sharp tip of Goethe’s steel whipped past Buckle’s windpipe, slicing away a bit of his beard under the chin.

  Buckle sprang back, sword weaving in front of him. That was far too close. That was what you got for dropping your guard.

  Goethe smiled, looking a touch bored, a shiftless gleam of joy in his blue eyes. “Let me ask you, Captain,” he asked, his voice sudden and unreal in Buckle’s ears. “Just which sister is it you are fighting for?”

  “What?” Buckle asked, his battle-soaked brain not comprehending.

  “He is trying to rattle you, Romulus,” Sabrina shouted. “Do not listen to him!”

  “This navigator of yours,” Goethe continued. “The redheaded Founders lass you are deluded into thinking is some sort of relative. Sister? She is not your flesh and blood. But you, you, Romulus Buckle—you have a real sister, do you not?”

  Elizabeth. Buckle blinked.

  And that blink was almost, very nearly, the end of Romulus Buckle.

  Goethe’s rapier flashed. Buckle caught the lightning-fast glint of the blade and raised his sword to meet it—but he knew he had not been quick enough. Jumping back, he arched his spine, head and hips jerked forward, and Goethe’s blade passed his stomach. Goethe’s sword tip ripped a mother-of-pearl button away from Buckle’s waistcoat, and it skittered away across the floor stones.