by S. C. Green
Oswald was waiting in the Nave when they stepped out of the elevator. Neither man said a word to him, but as they crossed the Nave together, Nicholas could feel Oswald’s eyes boring into his back. Aaron pretended not to see him, joking with Nicholas as he pulled open the door and stepped out into the night.
Nicholas followed Aaron through the dark, labyrinthine streets, littered with scrap and moaning bodies — wallowing in the night’s libations, or rutting together in full sight of their neighbours. Through the tightly packed warren of Stoker shacks, they emerged in front of a row of low warehouses, their windows cracked and lewd graffiti scrawled across every surface. Pushing open the door to the first, Aaron said, “These have been empty since the Navvies moved up north. We won’t be seen in here.”
Aaron lit the Argand lamps along the walls, while Nicholas spread his papers out on the long, low bench occupying the centre of the warehouse. “I went to the British Museum today and saw some Sumerian tablets containing a curious, indecipherable script — each glyph made of straight sections and triangles — easy for the ancients to write with a triangular chisel or reed pen. I thought adopting this idea for our code might provide James enough distinction for each letter.”
Aaron measured each symbol with his finger. “I think this could work,” he said. “Is it a simple substitution cipher or something more complex?”
Nicholas showed him the code sheet. “I’ve based the key to the code on the name of our club, and have included several shorthand symbols for common words and letter combinations.”
Aaron frowned at the page. “Some of these won’t work when I emboss the plate. Hand me a pen.”
They worked for hours by lamplight, engrossed with the intricacies of the code language. Aaron embossed a series of plates using the code, ready to show to James at the next meeting. As the early rays of sunlight danced on the glass shards in the windows, Aaron said: “Did you know he was creating those … Boilers?” He spat the word, as though it would poison him.
“I knew he was attempting to devise a solution to the King’s impossible timeline. But I had no idea of the extent … already his priesthood has changed him.”
Aaron shook his head. “He’s the same Isambard, all right. He’s been waiting, Nicholas, storing up all his cunning for the day he was given that first shred of power. He is relentless, and poverty can no longer curb his ambition.”
“Aaron, do you truly wish to leave the city?”
“So you heard my conversation with Isambard.” Aaron’s voice was hard. “It has been my dream since I was a child to be with the animals in the swamps, like my grandfather. I see no reason to stay in a city that will soon replace me with a machine.”
“But why? I grew up in the countryside near Salisbury. The voices beat relentlessly against my skull, and I longed for peace. Every moment I spend in the Engine Ward surrounded by steel is a celebration of clarity.”
“It is funny how men always yearn for that which they do not have. I spent my entire life within these walls, yet desire nothing more than to escape to the countryside, to embrace the voices and hold them to me. I stay only because of Isambard.” He gave a bitter laugh. “He needs me as much as I need him. At least, he used to.”
Something had been bothering Nicholas. “Why have you never told Isambard about the sense?”
“My grandfather told me never to tell a soul, and I honoured his plea. Besides, Isambard would see me differently — I would become a curiosity to him, some natural principle he had to understand. I need his friendship, not his scrutiny. Isambard can see my great affinity for animals, and that is enough. But you did not tell Isambard, either?”
“I was afraid. When I came to London,” Nicholas said, “I was a fugitive. I killed … there was an accident on our estate, and my brother died. If my father found me, he would’ve seen me hanged. I hated myself, hated the power that had caused me so much pain and had cost me my family and my future. I did not want to be anything but a normal boy, and so when Marc Brunel found me and offered to teach me at his school, I saw a chance to forge a new life, one where no one knew what I had done or what I was capable of doing.”
“But Mr. Holman—”
“James found out later, when we were stationed together on the Cleopatra. He caught me one night on the prow of the boat, calling up a sea-necker. But that was back when things were different, when things seemed hopeful.” He gulped. “But we can trust James — he knows a thing or two about secrets himself.”
“And so does Isambard,” said Aaron. “But I’m not sure I would trust him with this.”
“Isambard has been nothing but a friend to us.”
“We’ve been friends for ten years now, long enough for me to realise he doesn’t see friendship the same way you or I do. Isambard sees people — friends, enemies, associates — as parts of a great machine, one he can re-forge and bend to his will. When his face lights up, like it did over the Boilers tonight, that’s when he’s at his most remarkable, and his most dangerous. We’re part of his plan, Nicholas, and our own hopes and dreams matter not. He’s sending Quartz away to the swamps — along with Oswald and Peter and some of the other Stokers. Quartz is the old man you met in the tunnels.” Aaron paused. “He’s looked after me ever since my parents died. Isambard knows how important he is to me, how old and frail he’s getting, but he’s still sending him away. And Quartz says the Atmospheric Railway is a cover — Isambard wants him to figure out what’s made the dragons leave the swamp.”
Nicholas leaned forward. “That explains his sudden interest in Buckland’s theories.”
Aaron nodded. “And these Boilers … they’re only the beginning. He’s planning something big, and I can’t fathom what.”
Nicholas shuddered, remembering something. “I heard a voice down there.”
“In Isambard’s workshop? No animal could find its way down there. Not without us seeing it. Besides, I didn’t hear anything.”
“I know what I heard,” Nicholas said, remembering the suffering that had washed over him. “It was a compie, and it was in great pain. But it was faint, as though I were hearing it through water. I could not return thoughts to it. I could not calm it—” His voice cracked. “It was dying, Aaron. And I know we both hear animals die all the time, but it was in so much pain, terrible pain, and just hearing the one voice, isolated like that—”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Aaron, pulling the door shut behind them.
“No,” said Nicholas. “It doesn’t. Since Isambard was made Presbyter, nothing makes any sense at all.”
***
The train chugged through green hills, rolling across the countryside and through green woods. Here, apart from the heathen priests in their bright robes pushing engineering tracts into grubby hands, and the shrines to Great Conductor overlooking every station, the north of England seemed barely affected by the country’s Industrian fanaticism. At times, the locomotive pulled them into forests so dense and wild Jacques could swear they were back in the foothills of Mount Canigou, where he’d been hiding for the past four years.
For most of the day, he was the only person in the first-class cabin. This pleased him, for he didn’t much care to converse with the uncouth English and give his origin away. A Frenchman outside of Meliora would find few friends in England. He passed his time by staring out the window and imagining how he might like to kill Nicholas when he finally found him.
At the tenth stop, a large man, his jacket buttons stretched tightly across his belly, clambered on board, lifted his nose at the four empty benches and settled himself in the bench opposite Jacques, placing his satchel down on the cushion beside him. He tugged a tin from his pocket and popped several mints into his mouth, smacking them against his cheeks in an undignified fashion.
He leaned over and offered the sticky tin to Jacques, who declined with the shake of his head, hoping the rotund man would get the hint.
But the man seemed anxious to talk. “Do you come by train of
ten?” he asked, his accent betraying his northern roots.
Jacques shook his head. “This is my first time,” he said in English, hoping the man wouldn’t question him about his obvious French accent.
But the man seemed more interested in talking about the train. “She’s a beauty, yes? She is my Rocket — every piston and rivet is of my design. She’ll have you in Liverpool before suppertime, for she’s the fastest way to travel in all the Empire. Not that we have much of an empire, anymore.”
“You made this train? We had no such transportation in France.”
“Nothing like this in all the world, my friend.” The man extended a hand. “But soon there will be. I see no reason why France, or Spain or even Norway can’t have their own locomotives, just as soon as our blasted King gets over his rudding religious bollocks and allows us to trade with Europe again. But forgive me — I’ve not introduced myself. Robert Stephenson, at your service. I run the only railway company in England, servicing the mills at Manchester, the northern mines, right down to the Liverpool port, and we’re hoping to get a line in all the way to London by the end of next year.”
“Pity. I’m travelling to London. I would have liked to go all the way by train.”
“I’m going to London also. I could share a coach with you, if you wish, after we disembark. Not that either of us look like men who need to share, but I could do with the company.” He paused. “Do you pay much attention to church politics?”
“Not I,” replied Jacques, who had long since given up hope of a silent journey, but wasn’t about to reveal his identity to this portly stranger. “Too many churches, too many gods and Messiahs and priests — I can’t wrap my head around it. I’d rather admire the machines without worshipping the men, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“Not at all. It all seems a load of Oxford poppycock to me, and I’m the Messiah of one of the bloody things. The churches run a false economy right out of the heart of London. Out here where the real industry is, it’s business that matters, not any of this religious nonsense. It’s when you start mixing the two you get into trouble. But try telling that to my men.”
“Your men?”
“A Messiah has got to have men, sir. Mine are the Navvies — they’re good workers, but too damned superstitious.” He sighed. “A young upstart has just been made Presbyter of my church. A Stoker, even — they’re nothing but London’s furnace fodder — and it’s set my men off something awful. I thought Stokers couldn’t innovate their way out of a grog barrel, but here’s this Brunel character, trying to make a locomotive of his own, shouting in Royal Society meetings that I’ve no right to turn a profit from my own investments. So I’m going back down to that cursed city to put a stop to it.”
“But surely this Brunel would need patronage to fund his locomotive? I would think a man of your ample—” he cringed as Stephenson sucked back another candy, “—means would have nothing to fear from an imitator.”
“That’s just the problem — he’s won some renown in the city, and the potty King’s given him a lucrative contract. He’s hired this architect, Nicholas Rose, who no one’s ever heard of—”
Jacques jumped. He couldn’t believe his luck. “Did you say Nicholas Rose?”
“Aye, that was his name. Have you heard of him?”
Jacques laughed bitterly. “A man — a guest in my household — murdered my wife. He’s fled, and I’ve reason to suspect he’s gone to London. He is using the name Nicholas Rose.”
“If he’s a murderer, you should simply hire a thief-taker to find him for you.”
“I haven’t the coin for that.”
Stephenson clicked his tongue sympathetically. “I hear they’ve established a Metropolitan Police Force in London now — very French, tsk tsk. They can circulate his likeness in the papers. He won’t hide for long.”
“This is …” Jacques searched for the right words, “a delicate matter. I’d rather authorities weren’t involved.”
“Dear me,” Stephenson dabbed at his face with a kerchief. “Come to my offices when we arrive in London. I can put you in touch with some men who may be able to help you.”
***
Six days after he was granted the contract to build a Wall and a railway in just four months, Isambard Kingdom Brunel commenced the construction of his Wall on the edge of the Belgravia district by driving in the first rivet. A crowd had gathered to watch, and they cheered and hooted as Isambard held up the hammer in triumph. Nicholas clapped too, smiling up at his friend, but his stomach fluttered with anxiety.
Aaron was not in the crowd, nor were any other Stokers save the priests. They were all occupied in Engine Ward preparing the Boiler workshops for production. Oswald scowled down at Nicholas from his position of honour behind Isambard. He’d been watching Nicholas with hawklike eyes ever since Isambard had emerged from his workshop. Nicholas stayed close to Isambard, only leaving the Ward well after midnight and carrying his knife in his pocket.
But the crowd was mostly made up of engineers, priests, and officials of other sects and churches, wishing to show their support for the new Presbyter. Among them were many from the smaller Great Conductor churches — congregations led by engineers whose ideas hadn’t yet gained notoriety. But there was the artist Turner with a number of his men, as well as priests from Banks’ Aether Church — Isambard’s most vocal enemies on the Council.
Nicholas stood near the back of the crowd, his ears pricked to hear the words of these men.
“I’ll not bow to a Stoker, no matter his rank. I’ll not!”
“This Wall is preposterous! I don’t understand what the King was thinking when he commissioned it.”
“He wasn’t thinking — that’s the problem. If ever we needed more solid evidence that he’s not of sound mind, we now have it.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Brunel,” said Turner, twirling the corner of his moustache around his fingers. “The King has given him an impossible deadline. Four months — he’ll never finish, and then the Council can dismiss him from his post. I heard Stephenson’s coming down from the north. He’ll soon put a stop to Brunel’s nonsense.”
The crowd dissipated, leaving the workers to the serious task of building a Wall and a railway. Nicholas, who had no experience of actual construction projects, planned to simply observe from a distance, but Isambard climbed off the scaffold and gestured for him to follow.
“I’ve made you foreman of Team D,” he said.
“Isambard, I can’t. I’m no engineer. And I can’t be seen in such public view like this. What if I am recognised? What if one of the men were to give me up?”
“Seen by whom? All who knew you in a past life have already welcomed you home again. Whoever you’re running from is all the way across the Channel in France, and if a constable were to walk through this site right now, none of these men would be sober enough to say their own names, let alone yours. “
He couldn’t talk Brunel out of it, so he scrambled into some overalls and had a lesson from Isambard on handling steel, then spent the remainder of the day up in the scaffolding in the pouring rain, helping the men to raise the struts and clip or rivet them in place.
He was just coming down the ladder for a cup of tea when he felt the familiar, dreaded creep of a creature’s mind forcing its way into his own.
He turned, and saw the dragon’s tail flicker behind the stacks of iron supports. It crouched low, silent, watching. Two men leapt off their ladders and moved toward the stacks, chatting idly as they bent to pick up a heavy beam. He called out a warning, but they couldn’t hear him over the din of the construction crew. With the beam supported on their shoulders they set off back toward the Wall.
As Nicholas watched, horrified, the dragon pounced, knocking down the first man and snapping his neck in one swift movement, slamming the iron strut down with such force it flung the other man into one of the smelting fires. The worker lay there a moment, stunned into silence, before he noticed his skin clinging to the
hot iron plate. He screamed, high and terrified, and it was that that alerted the other workers on the Wall to the presence of the dragon.
Someone threw their chisel at her, and this bounced off her head, leaving a shallow gash across her cheek, which she didn’t seem to notice. She held down the man’s body with her thin forearms and tore off a chunk of flesh in her teeth. Blood pooled into deep puddles. Crying out in anger, the men at the top of the ladders threw their tools down upon her. Nicholas yelled at them to stop, but their anger had caught hold of them.
Now enraged, the dragon tore through the site, crashing through the skeleton of the Wall and sending ladders tumbling down and men flying for cover. One man swung down off his ladder with one hand, and pressed his torch against her leathery skin, singeing a bright welt across her back. Nicholas’ vision flared into red dots, and he saw the man’s face through the dragon’s eyes as she swung around and snapped off his arm.
Bang! Bang!
Gunshots rang out, ricocheting through the iron skeleton. One caught the dragon’s belly as it reared up, and Nicholas felt a new pain, white-hot as it stabbed at his stomach, arch through his entire body. He looked down and saw he wasn’t hit — it was the dragon’s pain, and it slipped away as the constable put another bullet into her head.
The men refused to return to work, and Nicholas had to close the construction site early. The first day, and two men had died, several had been injured, and only a few skeletal yards of the expansive Wall had been erected.
If Isambard doesn’t get those Boilers running soon, there won’t be a man left in London willing to work on the Wall.
***
From the ledge above the water tower at the back of the Stoker workcamp, Aaron and Quartz had a clear view of the Wall construction site. They shared a bottle of whisky as they watched the men clamber up the scaffold to secure the steel struts. Unlike the Stokers, who had an intricate knowledge of industrial buildings and machines, these men were labourers who worked on farms during summer and spring and came to the city when the cold weather set in. They were thick as engine oil and lazy besides.