by Ed Greenwood
* * *
The scuttling hands were all back in their boxes, for Norbert Marlshrike craved peaceful quiet in which to think.
If one must finalize the details of murder, why not enjoy doing so?
Lacking the public profile and immediate full weight of beagle response enjoyed by the banks, the “twisters”—as the lower orders called them—were an obvious target. They, the banks, the very-well-guarded vaults of the largest underwriters, and the even-better-guarded mint buildings were almost the only locales in southern England where lots of coin could be had in one place.
Moreover, the twisters were decidedly unloved. If they suffered losses, they were by and large on their own, with no one’s hand raised with overmuch enthusiasm to their aid. The citizens of the Empire generally saw them for what they were: fat, filthy rich moneylenders who backed ventures too risky for the banks to touch—and who guarded themselves against ruin by such savory activities as opium-running, slave trading, arms-dealing (often using weapons stolen from Her Majesty’s armories), and embezzling from the banks when they could, too.
So it had really come down to which particular twister to plunder, leaving Marlshrike pondering a choice between the three he knew and six others he’d have to learn a lot more about to dare moving against—learning that would require time he didn’t have to spare. So, the three: Aunders, Micklethwaite, and Pauncefoot.
From the first, he’d leaned toward Pauncefoot, and after considering all the good reasons he could concoct for choosing someone else, he returned to the selection his instincts had made from the first: Montague Pauncefoot.
A grotesquely fat man who spent his days sitting in an ornate chair in Demaeleon Hall, his London mansion, devouring the finest meals a succession of short-hire fine chefs could prepare—auditions for his sponsoring of their restaurants, for a copper saved is a copper earned—and guzzling the very best wine and whisky.
Pauncefoot had lots of sinister hired guards, all of them huge beefy thugs well armed with revolvers, metal smash gauntlets (Marlshrike had helped refine these; they were brass knuckles that covered the entire hand and forearm, reinforcing wrists against strain), and frying rods (electrical batons charged by flywheels attached to sewing-machine treadles, then carried about in shielded leg scabbards; they worked by end touch only, and, whereas beagle batons merely stunned, Marlshrike had made quite lethal ones for many clients, Pauncefoot included). So, having equipped Pauncefoot’s guards, Marlshrike had a fairly good idea of how many guards the man had under hire.
Knowing that and what he did of Demaeleon Hall, he considered himself ready. The moment, that is, he returned from the back pantry with an empty box of sufficient size.
* * *
“This entire area is the most likely,” Tempest concluded, tracing a kidney-shaped and all-too-large area in the air above the sugar-cube-studded map, “but we really don’t know enough yet to eliminate here and here, I’m afraid…”
The door behind them opened. They all looked up—into the eyes of an unfamiliar beagle, who said, “We’ve received a report from the butler at Rathercoats Manor—one Jenkins, by name. The Iron Assassin is there right now. Inside and remaining, I’m given to understand. Sirs and madam.”
“Thank you,” Tempest snapped, and struggled to his feet. Hardcastle sprang to assist him, and they hastened after the retreating beagle.
Lady Rose hurried with them, announcing crisply, “I’m not staying behind. The Prince has a houseful of big strong beagles with guns; he doesn’t need me to protect him.”
At that, Tempest looked thoughtful. “The beagles,” he said. “We don’t think enough about the possible danger from them. That is to say, from traitors within them.”
Hardcastle spread his hands helplessly. “When we get back?” he offered.
Tempest nodded, and they started hurrying again.
* * *
The ride was both deafening and jolting, not to mention noisome, but wouldn’t be a long one.
Marlshrike hung from his ice tongs, breathing the stench of the filthy tarpaulin covering him, and tried to stay still, his toes hooked under the lowest grab iron of the ladder that led up the back of the coach to its top. He knew by the echoes when they passed through the arch in the Demaeleon walls but kept motionless until he heard the drover cluck to the horses and their clopping hooves begin to slow. Then he unhooked his toes, let go of the tongs, leaving them still closed around the topmost grab iron, and dropped out from under the tarp, striding briskly away the moment his feet touched the ground, the large box under his arm.
As with many illicit entries, one could go far and achieve much by acting as if one belonged in a place, and was unconcernedly going about one’s business.
The moment he was far enough away from the wagon for its crew to assume he belonged to Pauncefoot’s men, he headed for the open back door into the pantries, which the foremost grocer had just propped open so he and his lads could form the usual line, shuttling the foodstuffs they’d brought in to place on the tables under the watchful eye of the cook.
Whom Marlshrike ignored, striding past with his box held up carefully level in front of him. As he’d expected, the cook assumed he was one of Pauncefoot’s contacts, bringing something precious and probably illicit for the master’s eyes only, and said not a word as Marlshrike walked on into the depths of Demaeleon.
In truth, the box was full of Marlshrike’s scuttling hands. He couldn’t really control them, not beyond simple orders to slay anything living except him, so he released them in a dark and deserted alcove to go and do just that, while he sought Pauncefoot’s library.
It proved to be as dusty and disused as he’d expected, so he closed the door and went to relax in an armchair he doubted Pauncefoot could fit into these days, to calmly dip into a handful of the most interesting volumes he could find in a brief inspection of the shelves.
He read with idle disinterest, more to kill time than to educate himself. He was, after all, waiting for his hands to kill everyone else in the large house. He’d give them four hours or so, then go looking for tea as he called them back to himself.
Through the closed door came the muffled sounds of gunshots. Norbert Marlshrike smiled and went on reading.
* * *
The fields were drenched with heavy dew, but Straker was heading for a destination adjoining Foxden, so it was faster to walk across country than to have a carriage readied and go by the roads.
As they neared Rathercoats Manor, an airship passed overhead.
Straker glanced up at its dark, silently scudding bulk, then over at the great clock gleaming wetly atop Westminster Towers.
He favored it with a frown. “The transoceanic mail is late,” he said disgustedly. “Again.”
“This is news?” Hardcastle asked dryly.
“To assume the institutions of the Empire fail daily is not an act of loyalty,” came the reply, in the mellifluously dignified tones of an elder lord of the Empire.
“No, it’s the act of a realist,” Hardcastle retorted. “Of whom the Empire stands in increasingly short supply.”
Rose chuckled. “A hit, a palpable hit!”
Tempest chuckled, too, and asked her, “How well do you know Lady Rathercoats?”
“Not well,” she replied. “She did not foresee success for our family, with Father having but one heir, of what she deemed the ‘wrong’ sex, and said so. I was thought to be too young to care, but I did—and considered it churlish of her to blame me for my gender, seeing as how I had no say in the matter. So we’ve had very little to do with one another.”
“This,” Hardcastle observed, “bids fair to be interesting.”
Jenkins greeted them in grateful silence and led them to the upper rooms used by Lady Rathercoats. Tempest led the way, lurching stiffly in his exoskeleton in a way that reminded Rose—she shivered, despite herself—of the Iron Assassin.
Who proved to be sitting with the last of the Rathercoats on her bedroom balcony. Lady Amel
ia Rathercoats was old and wrinkled and looked rather grotesque in the somewhat racy and decidedly diaphanous lingerie she’d donned. It seemed likely to Tempest that she’d dressed this way to dissuade her ardent suitor—but had then felt the chill and thus put on a fur coat over her silks and was now sipping strong cordial after strong cordial to gain warmth and a measure of courage from that source.
The Iron Assassin was sitting across a small circular white table from her, stirring a pot of honey with his finger and regarding Lady Rathercoats rather sadly.
Tempest struggled out onto the balcony, bowed low to the lady, and almost fell headlong in doing so, then turned and confronted his creation.
“Steelforce,” he said, “you’re a hard man to keep up with!”
The Iron Assassin shot to his feet, glaring. “You,” he said, and plucked up the table and flung it over the railing with casual ease to give himself room to stalk forward. “You.”
Rose and Hardcastle gently but swiftly lifted Lady Rathercoats to her feet and rushed her back inside.
“Get her well away, to where he won’t easily find her, and leave Jenkins guarding her,” Hardcastle hissed, “then hurry back.”
Rushing to do so with the feeble self-recriminations of Lady Rathercoats quavering in her ears, Rose found herself treasuring those last three words of his.
The Iron Assassin towered over his creator. Who hadn’t retreated an inch and showed no signs of doing so.
“I … hate you,” the skull-headed man told Lord Tempest.
“As well you might,” Jack Straker replied, meeting his glare with a look of remorse. “For I perceive I have wronged you. Yet I did what I did with the best of intentions.”
“Intentions,” the Silent Man snarled, taking another step forward and flexing his hands. “I’ll give you … intentions.”
“I had the good of the Empire foremost in mind,” the tinkerer noble told him, neither retreating nor flinching. “And submitted myself to the experience first.” He held up his hands, open and empty, palms up.
The Iron Assassin lurched to a halt, peering at them, appearing to notice the exoskeleton Tempest wore for the first time.
“I sought someone who needed a second chance. Someone who was dying, who would be lost if I did nothing. So I did something.”
Tempest took a step forward, closer to his creation.
“I did it for the Empire, yes, but I also did it for you. I insisted, as my price, and the Lord Lion agreed. So your wife and children are well provided for: good food and lodgings, good educations, Whitehall employment awaiting—not many sons of chimney sweeps rise that far, and for your wife and daughters there will be positions in the royal household when they’re ready, if they want them; the obligation is the Crown’s, not theirs.”
“Bentley Roper will be a name folk fear,” the Assassin said bitterly. “I never wanted that.”
“Bentley Steelforce is the man they’ll fear,” Tempest told him gently. “You see, I know what it is to besmirch one’s name and live with the consequences. I’m the crazed lord, remember?”
The Silent Man regarded him thoughtfully, a frown playing about his brows as he wrestled inwardly. Then, slowly, he nodded, his gaze falling again to Tempest’s exoskeleton.
Which chose that moment, as if it had a mind of its own, to spit some sparks, leaving its wearer wincing in pain.
“I walk the walk,” Tempest said, from between clenched teeth, “rather than just glibly sending others to do dirty-handed work while I play the clever lord. Sometimes, I feel not so clever. At all.”
“Not so clever,” the Iron Assassin echoed, and sat down again. Then he looked around in bewilderment for the table, which seemed to have gone missing.
After a moment, he peered over the balcony railing, sighed heavily, and slumped in his chair.
“Not so clever,” he repeated mournfully.
* * *
Norbert Marlshrike consulted his pocket watch, nodded contentedly, and unhurriedly returned the books he’d been reading to their places on the shelves.
Then he ventured out of the library into a still and silent Demaeleon Hall.
The dimly lit passages were roamed by oversized scuttling spiders, his animated hands, now drenched in fresh blood, running along on their fingertips.
Here and there lay the evidence of their, er, handiwork. Gouged-out eyeballs lying glistening, mostly, but as he proceeded deeper into the great house, Marlshrike came across the sprawled and strangled corpses of Pauncefoot’s thugs and servants.
He wended his way slowly but methodically, checking inside every room and listening intently for sounds that might mean someone was lurking nearby, as opposed to his aroused hands prowling.
When he came to the kitchens, he came across a still-warm teapot and helped himself to its contents. He took his tea black and couldn’t abide sugar in it or dribblings of milk. This was good tea.
Marlshrike sipped and enjoyed it, taking his time and deciding not to think of what had probably befallen the cook.
Eventually, he went on his way refreshed, having checked the readiness of his pistol and the knife on its ankle sheath inside his sock, adjusted the armor he wore under his clothes slightly because one edge of his chest plate was digging into his hip at each step, and borrowed a duster pole from a maid’s cupboard.
Death was everywhere in Demaeleon Hall, though he found no sign of Pauncefoot or his riches. That didn’t mean his quarry wasn’t at home; it almost certainly meant Pauncefoot was in his office, the room Marlshrike had deliberately left for last.
He did not enter it by its usual door. Rather, he made use of the secret passage he’d learned of years before, whose door into the room was concealed by a bookshelf. He thought a twister was less likely to put traps on his preferred escape route than on the door his clients—potential future enemies, all—would be conducted through.
The bookshelf door squealed, which surprised him not in the slightest. Twisters only grew more paranoid as the years passed; if they failed to do so, very soon years forever ceased to pass for them.
As it opened, he hung back, in case Pauncefoot was ready with artillery or perhaps a glass canister of some noxious gas—easy access to plentiful steam allowed just about twisted anybody to play slaying scientist these days.
The opening door afforded him a rear view of the moneylender sitting alone in his chair. The smashed remnants of many hands he’d bludgeoned to immobility lay scattered all around him. A heavy cane and a walking stick lay ready on the desk in front of Pauncefoot, who was even fatter than Marlshrike remembered. His smartly clad but drooping flesh overlapped the seat of his grand chair on all sides; perhaps he couldn’t rise from it without assistance these days.
Or perhaps he could. Well, at least there was no servant lurking in the kneehole of the desk with a brace of pistols, or anything of that sort …
Warily, Marlshrike pushed the door all the way open with the duster pole, peering this way and that for any sign of a servant waiting along the wall on either side of the passage door with weapon ready and murderous intent.
Nothing and no one.
Nothing but silence, broken at last by Pauncefoot’s wheezing, which rose to become a bitter snarl. “Oh, come in, man. You’re letting in a draft.”
Marlshrike set the pole where it would prevent the door from closing behind him, sidled cautiously into the room, and hastily sidestepped along the wall, peering everywhere for any sign of traps, other doors into the room, or anyone in hiding. None of any of those things was immediately apparent, so he came cautiously around to regard the moneylender, keeping well back from the desk.
It was a massive and magnificent piece of furniture, with rounded carved-oak legs thicker than many men Marlshrike knew and a top that was bare of papers and inkstands. In fact, it displayed nothing at all but a huge and unblemished blotter and the cane and walking stick lying parallel across it.
Above them, Mister Montague Pauncefoot was glowering.
; He was bleeding down one cheek and from his chin, from fresh, shallow gashes made by the nails of the hands that had leaped at him. With his sad, baggy eyes and drooping skin, he looked like a bloodhound. An extremely annoyed bloodhound.
From under bristling eyebrows, he glared at Marlshrike.
“I thought so,” he growled. “Such a gift, and you use it for this?”
Marlshrike shrugged. “I find myself unashamed.”
“No doubt. You think this will profit you?”
“I believe it to be a swifter form of piracy than yours and find myself in pressing need. No particular ill will, man—though your greed is not to be commended—but rather hard necessity. You are … convenient.”
“‘Convenient.’ Hmph. Hardly a stirring epitaph, is it?”
“I always prefer to avoid drama. Flamboyance. The overly grand gesture. Besetting faults, in my opinion. Wastes of time, energy, and enthusiasm that would be better put to advances, large and small, for the benefit of all.”
“Yourself first, of course.”
“Of course. Why, Pauncefoot, did you think yourself the only one who understands the way the weary world works? Make yourself too annoying, too inconvenient, too great a drain … and you make it worth someone’s while to remove you rather than continuing to endure you. The error of overreaching, I fear.”
“Speaking of overreaching…” Pauncefoot growled, and tried to lever himself up out of the chair.
Only to fall back with a growl.
Again—and this time, to descend in defeat with a groan.
By the third time, Marlshrike was drifting closer to watch and smirk—and this time Pauncefoot sprang to his feet with no effort at all, snatched up the walking stick, pointed it at Marlshrike’s face, and did something to its handle.
The room rocked as the stick fired, with the crash of a heavy gun rather than the “crack” of a light piece.
Yet Marlshrike hadn’t been idle. Throwing up one arm to shield his face, he’d flung himself back and away. Pauncefoot, anticipating such evasion, moved the walking stick as he fired, to follow the moving target.