“I saw you scurrying from beneath the walls.” He drew a knife and held it beneath Marcel’s nose. “You’ve got some secret way into town, don’t you?”
Marcel shook his head.
The soldier pressed the dagger against his cheek, drawing blood. “Tell me, you French prick, or I’ll have your eyes out.”
Marcel swallowed. He had no desire to betray the town, but what could he do? At least this way the siege would soon be over, and they could eat again.
“This way,” he whispered.
The soldier kept a hand on Marcel’s shoulder and a knife at his back as they crept across the fields toward the tangled bramble patch. The soldiers whispered to each other on the way. They had changed to English, but Marcel understood the language all too well.
“Hal, get back to camp,” the leader hissed. “Once we’re inside we’ll storm the gate and get it open. I want the rest of the boys there before these frog wankers have a chance to fight back.”
“And then?” one of the men asked excitedly.
“Then take what we want and burn the place to the ground.” The leader shoved Marcel forward. “These people said no to King Harry. Lessons have to be learnt.”
Marcel’s stomach lurched. He wasn’t going to survive this, and neither was anyone else he knew. It crossed his mind to throw himself back onto the blade, guarding the tunnel’s secret with his death. But he hadn’t the courage for that.
Instead, as they crept closer to the walls, he began to cough loudly.
“Shut up.” The soldier hit him across the back of the head. As he fell in the mud, Marcel looked up and caught a glimpse of Jean’s face. For a moment his brother was there between the battlements, then he was gone.
Faking a limp, Marcel rose and walked as slowly as he dared toward the walls. Fear still shook him, but there was pride too. The defenders would have time before these men got through the hole. Maybe long enough to kill them as they emerged, one by one, from the tunnel. Surely long enough to stop them storming the gate.
As he pulled back the bushes and led them into the darkness beyond, the unexpected thrill of adventure ran through Marcel.
But his belly still rumbled.
The Shoeless Cobbler
Olivia pushed her cart down the track, feeling each stone beneath her feet. Up ahead was a small lowland town, the sort where people kept their voices quiet and did what their lord told them. Hardly a place to start a revolution, but maybe one more she could connect in to the cause.
There was a wooden palisade around town, charred and battered by an English raiding party. No-one stopped Olivia as she walked in and set up shop in the muddy square, pulling out needles and thread, hammer and rivets, all the tools of the cobbler’s trade.
“What’s this then?” The man striding toward her was tall and stern, flanked by a pair of guards in chainmail. She knew him by reputation.
“Lord Fraser.” She bowed her head deferentially. “I’m just a cobbler on my way to Edinburgh. Hoped to drum up business here on the way.”
“What kind of Cobbler wears no shoes?” He glared at her bare feet.
“A poor one.” She didn’t say where her money had gone. Depending on his views, that could get her arrested.
Olivia’s stomach tightened as one of the guards leaned over her cart and start peering into bags. If he found her Bible, that one precious object on which she’s spent all her money, and if he realised it was a translation…
Fighting the trembling in her hands, she tore her eyes away from the cart and looked up at Lord Fraser. She took a deep breath. Perhaps she would get lucky, and he would be the contact she needed. Perhaps he’d have her locked up. But if he was going to find out anyway then better to stand by her belief than to try to weasel out of it.
“You’ll want to see this.” She rose, reached past the guard and took out the Bible. Heart racing, she handed it to Fraser.
“I see.” His voice was icy cold as he turned the page and saw it was printed in Scots rather than Latin. “Another Protestant plotter.” He slammed the book shut and glared at her. “The last thing this country needs is more plots.”
“The last thing this country needs is foreigners trying to tell us how to live.” Barely able to believe that she was talking to a lord this way, blocking out the terrified voice of panic in her mind, she nodded toward the town’s damaged defences. “Whether they’re Protestants or the Pope.”
Lord Fraser’s guards had closed in on her. One of them grabbed her arm. But then Fraser held up a hand and the man released her.
“This I should confiscate.” He held up the Bible. “But I also think it’s time I had my boots mended. And there’s no law against us talking while you do that.” He placed the Bible in the cart. “Let’s hope I don’t forget that when we’re done. Now, about my boots…”
Botany Bound
The moment we set sail from Portsmouth was the most wretched of my life. As the anchored chains rattled and the York creaked away from her berth, I slumped surrounded by other men bound in chains, set for Botany Bay. Every one of us knew that we would never see our homes or families again.
Would it ease your mind, in hearing my tale, to know that I had done wrong? Imagine that, if it helps. But if you prefer truth then you should know that all I had sought was a fair wage, and that of all the punishments that befell my group, mine was not the worst.
Once at sea we were unchained. We ate as well as a prisoner could expect, exercised on the deck, and were checked for ailments regularly by the ship’s surgeon. A goodly Presbyterian by the name of Macleod, he cared for our souls and for our minds as well as for our bodies.
“Come, Jack,” he said to me, for I went by Jack in those days. “This is your chance, laddie. Come learn your letters better, and in doing so learn the word of the Lord.”
Stubborn youth that I was, I would have none of it. I lurked in my darkened corner, refusing to come out as a deep despair settled upon me. I lived beneath a cloud far darker than any in the sky, and beneath its weight I was barely able to lift myself from hammock of a morning.
One day I heard laughter from the deck. It was the first joyful sound I had heard in many weeks, and that small thing at last drew me out onto deck. Dr Macleod looked up as I approached the group, sat around with Bibles and commentaries, many with their lips moving as their fingers crawled across the words. At least one of them I knew from jail, and he had no letters then.
“Will you join us now, Jackie?” Macleod asked. “Bill here was sharing an old Yorkshire version of the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Tis a wee bit naughty, but I dinnae think Himself will mind.”
That day I just sat with them. The next I picked up a copy of the Psalms, and managed to read a few lines. By the end of the week I spent as much time reading as I did staring blankly across the deck, unable to bear the effort of thought.
That week lifted my spirits just enough for me to fathom the depths of my despair.
I crept from my bed in the middle of the night. I knew the guards’ routines by heart, having listened to their footfalls through so many sleepless hours. Picking up a length of chain I had seen by the aft mast, I wrapped it tight around my arm. If I were to leave my miseries behind then I wanted it done quick, not to drift on the ocean waiting for an end to come.
Approaching the bow, I stared down at the white ripples of waves cresting on a night black sea. I took a deep breath and prepared to jump.
“Now, Jackie.” Macleod spoke softly as he approached. “Is this world so bleak that you must leave it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “You showed me that. But my part in it is wretched. I can’t bear that.”
“Then dinnae make it a darker place with your death,” he said. “Open up your heart and let the world in.”
I looked at those waves dancing in the moonlight. I wished for more of that beauty, but wishing was too much when I was so far from all I held dear.
“I want to,” I whispe
red. “But I don’t know how.”
“Then let me help,” Macleod replied. “Me and the good word.”
A sob burst from me, heavy and ponderous as the York leaving its dock. I let the chain fall to the deck, and soon I lay beside it, sobbing while Macleod soothed me.
By the time we reached Botany Bay, I had a better knowledge of scripture than I ever had in my life. I dare say that I was a better man. Though the darkness was not gone, it lay less heavy upon me.
“Here.” As I prepared to disembark, Macleod pressed a copy of the Psalms into my hand. “To remember that God has saved you.”
“Not God, sir.” I passed the book back to him. “After all I’ve seen, I don’t think I can believe in him. But you saved me, you and the books.”
“To remember me, then,” Macleod said. “And to comfort you now I cannot.”
I had not smiled once in that whole journey from England. But as I set foot in Australia, Macleod’s Psalms in my hand, I felt my face light up.
Steampunk
Not All Hands Tell the Time
The heart is a hard book to read, even to a woman as learned as myself. But in retrospect, I suspect that I loved Silvio di Forenti from the moment I saw him, cool and serious, standing in the doorway of my drawing room. I have met many wild animals in my travels, and intensity has come to mean more to me than all the pleasantries in the world.
His bow was stiff yet perfectly appropriate, as if he measured out manners by the ounce. It was hardly a surprise from a master of his craft.
Outside the window a carriage rolled past, and the city hall clock chimed in chorus with the one on my mantelpiece.
“Professor Liveci.” Without pausing for small talk, Master Forenti crossed the room and knelt beside my chair. His gaze focused on the stump of my wrist. “The wound has been well stitched. That will help.”
“My manservant’s surgical skills are excellent.” I nodded to where Antonio stood discretely in his usual corner, and he blushed slightly. He reddened further as Forenti, without so much as asking permission, took hold of the stump. My breath caught in my throat, both at the transgression and at the thrill of his delicate fingers on my skin.
“That makes sense for an explorer.” He opened his bag and took out two carefully jointed metal hands. The ends of their clockwork innards caught the light as he compared their width to that of my arm. “Would you prefer brass or steel?”
“I…” All I had thought about was the need for a new hand, and that I was one of the lucky few who could afford one. Now I felt like a fool - for once I had not done my research. “Whichever you think will look best.”
He ran a finger along my forearm and stared at the colour of my skin. I had only felt so intensely scrutinised once before, facing a mountain lion during the mapping of Gawatob.
My heart raced.
“Brass.” He nodded. “It will bring out your warmth.”
Rising, he placed the gleaming hands back in his bag.
“I will need a month for the main mechanism.” He glanced at Antonio. “Your man can assist with the attachment, or I can bring a surgeon.”
“I would prefer Antonio.” I hesitated as Forenti headed for the door. “Master Silvio, would you care to stay for supper?”
Now he hesitated, back still to me, before shaking his head.
“I understand the compulsion to offer me such politeness,” he said. “But there is no need.”
With that he was gone.
To my surprise and delight, Silvio di Forenti called upon me twice more during the making of the hand, to check the sizing of parts and discuss finishes for the metal. My joy in these visits was alloyed by the stiff formality of his demeanour, which spoke of no interest in me as a woman, and by the knowledge that all this would end once I had my hand.
So I determined to make one last push at conversation, that I might find an excuse to meet again.
Despite an alchemist’s draft and several good measures of brandy, the operation itself was agonising. I spent the following week sleepless, feverish and in pain, while my body adjusted to its new part. By the time Forenti returned to check on his work, I was just about lucid, and had begun to move my mechanical fingers.
“I feel that I should be striking the hours.” With slow, careful movements I brought the thumb and index finger together. It was a strange experience to see them touch but feel nothing.
“Why?” He tightened one of the joints with a tiny clamp.
“Because I have clearly become a clock,” I replied. “I have a mechanical hand, and it is driven by gears.”
“Not all hands tell the time.” He rose and packed away his tools. “I am done. I should go.”
“There is no need to rush.” Flushed with embarrassment at my failed humour, I was still determined to buy a little more time. “Perhaps you would care for a drink?”
“There really is no need for pleasantries,” he said. “I have already taken up far more of your time than I would for most. An indulgence for which I apologise.”
He half turned away, then stopped, staring at the clock on the mantelpiece. Suddenly he laughed, a sound I had never heard before.
“Hand has two meanings.” He turned to face me again. “I am sorry, I am not good with jokes. It is one reason so many find me disagreeable, but I would never wish to be disagreeable to you.”
“I am not good with pleasantries.” I smiled. “But I would like the chance to be pleasant to you. So please, will you join me for a drink?”
“If you mean it, then nothing would please me more.” He set his bag down and took a chair next to mine. “Tell me, what sort of beast took your hand?”
“A manticore,” I said. “Let me tell you the tale…”
The door creaked discretely shut as Antonio, always wise to my needs, went to take his time finding the sherry.
Smog
The mirror was buried deep, and Fred had to pull hard to drag it out of the mud. His fingertips throbbed as he grasped its edge and pulled it up against the resistance of riverside silt.
“Come on!” Polly’s scarred face was wide with alarm. “Smog’s comin’ in, we’ve got to go.”
“Not yet.” The mirror came free with a sucking sound. He slid it in among the dials, gears and cables in his sack.
“Smog’ll kill you!” The ribs of her chest showed beneath her ragged dress.
“So will hunger.”
She didn’t reply, just turned and ran after the rest of the mudlarks.
Fred reached back down, pulled out a flywheel, a strip of canvas, a handful of smaller gears. The hard edges hurt hands swollen and made soft by damp, but he kept going until his sack was full. At last he stood and swung the weight of his findings over his shoulder.
Around him, the Mercers’ factories towered above dense grey-green fog. As he strode from the riverbank up toward the streets, his eyes watered and his throat stung.
The cobbled streets were deserted, doors locked against the smog or anyone desperate enough to be out in it. Fred’s footsteps echoed off grey stone and red brick as he walked away from the factory district and its gear-strewn mud, toward the slums around the edge of the city. He’d waited longer than he should have done, and the smog was becoming dangerously thick, the chemicals from factory fumes stinging his exposed skin. Coughing and spluttering, he had to pause and catch his breath.
Desperation took hold. If the smog grew any denser it would kill him. The sack was slowing him down, but without it what would he have to sell, how would he eat tonight?
He swung the sack around, feeling the burden of its weight. But he had known whole weeks without food, curled over with the cramps of hunger, and could not bear that again.
In desperation he started hammering on doors, but each time angry voices yelled at him to go away. Swinging the bag over his shoulder, eyes watering with fear as well as pain, he stumbled on.
The fog congealed around him like tar. His skin was burning, and when he coughed he tasted blood. Doo
rways were invisible, the end of the street a distant dream. Only the vague shapes of aristocratic homes were visible, towering through the haze high above his head.
Stumbling to his knees, weak from lack of air, he looked up into that grey sky, where sunlight and clean air hung far beyond his desperate reach. A distant, forbidden realm of the rich and powerful. For him to go there was to face imprisonment or worse.
But what could be worse than death?
With trembling hands he pulled a cable from his sack and tied a loop in the end. Something protruded from the side of a building four floors above, and he flung the loop at that. It fell back useless to the ground. Blood misting his breath, he flung it again and again, until finally it caught.
His face felt like it was being pressed into a fire, and he could barely see through the blurring of his eyes. But he tied his sack to the end of the cable and climbed.
The top of the cable was hooked around a protruding drainpipe. He paused there, pulled the sack up behind him, then flung the cable up again and continued his ascent. Each time he stopped the air was a little clearer, his breathing a little easier, the pain a little less. At last he emerged into sunshine and lay back on a tiled roof thirty storeys above the smog-clogged streets.
Opening the sack to stow away the cable, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mud-smeared mirror. His face was burned all over, skin peeling away.
Fred smiled at the scarred vision. He could make it home with the wealth he had found. He would survive.
A Flash of Power
The factory rushed up and down the Lancashire hillsides, a vast mass of red bricks and frantically clattering looms, its wheels gouging up fields, ripping chunks from roads, smashing aside drystone walls. Dirk Dynamo clung to the roof like a trooper to his gun as the building continued in its unstoppable course, straight ahead, no distraction or diversion.
A Mosaic of Stars: Short Stories From Other Worlds Page 8