Horatio Lyle

by Webb, Catherine

She tried to count seconds in her mind, but couldn’t tell whether they were heartbeats, seconds or the tick tick tick of the metal.

  Thomas’s hand rested on the wood of the door in front of her, ready to push. She grabbed it. His pulse underneath the shirt was racing desperately fast. She swallowed.

  Tick tick tick . . .

  She counted a hundred ticks, never once letting go of Thomas’s sleeve, and gently pushed open the door. The room beyond was black apart from the red-hot slivers of shattered metal and a few, feeble fires still clinging to the contorted skeleton of the furnace, most of which was now embedded in various parts of the wall. The floor was littered with twisted metal and wood. There were dead Tseiqin lying still, some trapped under the debris of the explosion, some just lying with their eyes open in shock. Tess’s hands and knees shook as she picked her way across the floor. Near the wardrobe there was a bloodstain that was human, deep red. And there was a lot of it. Tate started barking, and suddenly ran ahead, bounding into the corridor. Tess and Thomas followed as fast as their shaking legs allowed them.

  Mercy Chaste was curled up, knees to her chin, in the corridor, quaking in wordless terror. Thomas knelt down next to her. ‘Miss?’ he murmured.

  ‘Mnnmnn!’ she chattered, trying to eat her fingers.

  ‘Miss, are you all right?’

  ‘Mnnnmnnn!’

  Tess put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. ‘We’ ve got to get to Lord Lincoln. Thomas!’

  He looked up weakly at her. ‘Tess?’

  ‘We’ ve got to get to the Palace. Come on! It’s still not finished! ’

  She dragged him away.

  CHAPTER 22

  Cathedral

  Lyle thought he heard a carriage, felt it bumping over stones. Odd. I wonder if I’m dead? He pondered this. Well, I’m breathing, and I think that’s a pulse going on somewhere down there, which is always a good sign.

  And as awareness slowly came back, it brought with it memory and pain.

  He opened his eyes. Mr Dew stared at him and grinned. He gently patted Lyle on the cheek, before leaning against the back of the carriage, smile still fixed.

  ‘Damn,’ muttered Lyle, then turned his face away and closed his eyes again. There were some things he just didn’t want to see.

  *

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘I’m coming!’

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘I’m coming! Cabby! Cabby!’

  ‘What in Gawd’s name are you?’

  ‘This is Lady Teresa de le Hatch. I am the Honourable Thomas Edward Elwick. Take us to the Palace!’

  ‘You tryin’ to be funny, laddie?’

  ‘Oi! Don’t talk to him like that. My uncle’s king of . . . China . . . you know?!’

  ‘Children, get to bed. Go on, be off with you.’

  ‘You don’t understand! It’s urgent! The fate of the Empire depends on it!’

  ‘Be off with you.’ A clattering sound. ‘Oi, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Bigwig, what are you doing?’

  ‘If you won’t drive us, I’ll take us there myself !’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You what ?’

  ‘Get in, Teresa!’

  ‘Lad, a joke is a joke, but this is . . .’

  In the sound there was a dull thwack, followed by a reverential silence. Finally, ‘Christ.’

  ‘Come on, Teresa.’

  ‘Can you drive this thing?’

  ‘I am familiar with all arts of horsemanship, including the long rein . . .’

  ‘That means you can drive it, or not?’

  ‘I’m sure I can.’

  ‘But you just hit . . .’

  ‘No time to think about that now! Come on!’

  ‘All right!’

  And across London the church bells are proclaiming the hour anew, and the clouds are gathering and the pigeons are cooing in the gutters of old roofs and the drains are burbling with the rivers of rainwater that run down Ludgate Hill and slosh over the sides of Blackfriars Bridge into the sluggish river, which rises higher against the stone of the banks as the tide changes. And the factories yawn and the rigging creaks and the fires burn and the rain falls, always the rain falls, cutting through the night and making the streets shine silver. And the rain falls on Horatio Lyle as he is dragged out of a carriage that is just one in a convoy of carriages, and looks up slowly at the towering round dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, half-covered in scaffold that runs right up one side of the dome. And overhead, lighting stabs the sky, and thunder trails after it, a loyal shadow in the broken night.

  Horatio Lyle, filthy, bloody Horatio Lyle, shirt torn and blackened, wrapping his bloody arms around himself as the rain falls, watches while the sleepwalking Feng climbs out of another carriage, carrying reverentially in both hands the Fuyun Plate.

  A fist grabs Lyle by the hair and pulls his head back until he can see the golden cross on the top of the cathedral, half-lost behind the rain that stings his eyes. In his ear Mr Dew whispers, ‘You make gods of gold and iron, Mister Lyle. But we are the lords of flesh and blood.’

  And Moncorvo is hammering on the iron doors of the cathedral, and while Lyle thinks No! the door is opened by a priest who peers out from the candlelit interior and says, ‘Yes?’

  The priest is now crumpled in a corner as Lyle is dragged up the central aisle of the cathedral, across the marble floor, towards the altar beneath the towering dome. Shaking with cold, he looks up at the lightning flashing behind the windows in the nave. Moncorvo walks unhurriedly up to him.

  ‘Why aren’t I dead or sleepwalking?’ snaps Lyle, fear giving him confidence. He meets Moncorvo’s green eyes without flinching.

  Moncorvo doesn’t answer. His eyes move past Lyle to a pair of struggling, sweating Tseiqin. Lyle turns slowly and stares. The two drag large sacks behind them. They drop them on to the ground. Moncorvo nods briskly at Lyle. ‘Open it.’ His voice leaves no room for disagreement. Lyle kneels and, thinking of snakes and venom, reaches into the bag. His fingers close around something cold. He pulls it out. It is a cable of thick copper wire, almost as fat as his arm. He looks back up at Moncorvo, who wordlessly tosses something down on to the floor by Lyle. He picks it up uncertainly. It is a diagram, neatly drawn on a piece of battered paper. He looks back up at Moncorvo. ‘A Faraday wheel?’

  Wordlessly, Moncorvo points up into the dome. Lyle looks, and sees, running round the inside of the dome, a long, long way up, the iron railing of the Whispering Gallery. Lightning flashes again in the windows. He glances down at the diagram and thinks, Lightning strikes the highest point it can find, taking the path of least resistance. St Paul’s is the tallest building in London . . . run the wire from the cross to the Whispering Gallery, wrap it round the railing as a core, run the secondary coil down to earth, wait for lightning to strike . . .

  . . . locked in an iron box . . .

  . . . Thunderstorms . . . are . . . magnetic, aren’t they, Mister Lyle?

  Oh Jesus. The magnetic field will be big enough to repolarize. They weren’t waiting thousands of years to take the Plate back because of any mystic sensibilities - they were waiting for the technology to develop, for someone to understand the principles of magnetism, for the knowledge needed to repair the Plate, to put it into a large enough magnetic field and . . .

  He studies Moncorvo’s expression. In one corner, Feng stands utterly motionless, head bowed, holding the Plate. In another, the priest is slumped. The endless candles dazzle Lyle’s tired eyes.

  Moncorvo points imperiously at the diagram. ‘Make it work.’

  And Lyle thinks, They need me aware, because they don’t want to handle all that magnetic material . . . they need my knowledge of science . . . they want me to make them immune to the iron, to its power, so they can destroy everything I’ve ever believed in, everything I’ve ever done . . .

  And Lyle knows that if he says no, they’ll kill him, and find someone else.

  Lyle stands up. He thinks,
This is still magnetic. The Plate is still magnetic. I’m not affected by it. They are. There may still be a chance.

  He swallows. ‘I need to go to the Whispering Gallery.’

  Moncorvo starts to smile.

  *

  And the dogs bark in Piccadilly, and the cats mew in Chancery Lane, and the lawyers snore in Lincoln’s Inn, and the politicians slumber in Westminster, and the guards shiver in the Tower, and the bobbies shuffle in Aldgate, and a carriage races through the streets of London, from which voices can be faintly heard.

  ‘I thought you knew where we were going?!’

  ‘I do!’

  ‘It’s left! Left there!’

  ‘How many times have you been to the Palace?’

  ‘Once!’

  ‘Oh. Really?’

  ‘Turn there!’

  ‘I’m driving!’

  And a little, quiet hiss. ‘Badly.’

  And in the high Whispering Gallery of St Paul’s Cathedral, watched over by the saints, Lyle passes his hand along the smooth stone of the dome, and looks at the iron railing running around its interior. He felt along the cold black iron, feeling the green-eyed stares of Tseiqin above and below fixed on him. He takes the end of a long piece of heavy copper cable, draws a long, deep breath, and slowly starts to wrap it round and round the iron rail.

  Outside the Palace, a frantically weaving carriage skids to a halt and a pair of dishevelled figures and their dog leap down, running through the rain, hammering at a side gate. ‘Let us in!’

  A hatch opens. ‘Who are you? What are you?’

  ‘You’vegottoletusinit’surgentwhere’sLordLincolnthey’vegot MisterLyle . . .’

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘We’ve got to see Lord Lincoln!’

  ‘His lordship doesn’t just see anyone! Go and find your . . .’

  ‘Do you know who I am, you peasant? It is no ordinary person to whom you address yourself! I am the Honourable Thomas Edward Elwick, son and heir to Thomas Henry Elwick, Baron of that name, Order of the Magpie, Cross of the Sallow Oak, Knight of the Daffodil, and I am here on the business of Her Most Royal Majesty Queen Victoria, by the grace of God Regina Britannicae and Defender of the Faith, Empress of the Seven Seas, Lady of the Red Rose of a Thousand Years, Dame of the Yellow Garter, and I demand by the terms of my service and my duty to be admitted to the presence of Lord Lincoln immediately!’

  ‘Oh. Well, when you put it like that . . . I’ll see if he’s receiving, shall I?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s no trouble. Don’t go anywhere, erm . . . sir.’

  ‘We won’t.’

  And in the scaffold that clings to half of the dome of St Paul’s, there is a small, wet, cold figure climbing, a mass of copper wire slung over one shoulder, pulling himself up wobbly ladders as the rain lashes and thunder rumbles overhead, until finally he is at the top of the dome. Horatio Lyle balances precariously on the edge of the scaffold, and reaches out towards the golden cross raised majestically above it all. For a second he is alone, looking down on a slumbering, dark city stretching all the way to the darker fields beyond, the lightning flashing off the river far below. He feels the cold wind tearing through his fingers, feels the excitement and the lurch of the drop far below, and thinks, for just a second, that what he’s looking at, that filthy, dark compression of squashed, crawling life, is really very beautiful indeed. He can feel dry blood caking the back of his head and hand, but the cold wind coming down from the storm is soothing the pain, driving it back into a numb, colder place. For a second, he almost smiles.

  ‘Whenever you are ready, Mister Lyle.’

  The voice, that alien, inhuman voice, brings him back to reality. He swallows, and starts looping the copper wire over the gold cross. Somewhere in the distance, a stab of lightning digs into the darkness. Lyle hesitates, counting under his breath. Fifteen seconds later, the thunder breaks slowly across the city, rolling like a wave from the sea. Lyle waits for it to pass, and keeps wrapping wire. He hesitates briefly at the next stroke of lightning, and counts. Ten seconds later, the thunder strikes. The storm is getting closer.

  And in the depths of the Palace, Lord Lincoln pushes open a door. He is wearing a burgundy dressing gown and thick tartan slippers. He is also wearing a nightcap. Tess tries not to snigger.

  Lord Lincoln stares icily at them, and snaps, ‘Where is Horatio Lyle?’

  ‘They’ve got him, sir,’ said Thomas quietly. ‘And the Plate.’

  Lincoln doesn’t blink, but Tess sees his lips grow white. She feels in her pocket, and her hand closes round something small, circular and metal. She pulls it out. It gleams in the candlelight.

  ‘Where did they take it?’

  ‘We don’t know, sir. He was hurt.’

  ‘Was this Moncorvo?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Moncorvo and Lady Lacebark, sir.’

  Lincoln briefly scowls, eyes darkening. ‘Did he say anything? Do you have any idea where they have taken the Plate?’

  ‘No, sir, perhaps the Norfolk Club or . . .’

  Very quietly, Tess looks up and says, ‘I know where they’ve gone, sir.’

  Two pairs of surprised eyes turn on her. Tess holds the open compass in her hand. She points at the door. ‘That way’s north, isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Is this relevant?’

  She holds up the compass. Slowly, without her moving, the needle is starting to spin.

  CHAPTER 23

  Storm

  Lyle dropped the last coil of wire. It fell to the floor, spinning as it dropped, from where he’d wrapped it round the rail of the Whispering Gallery inside the cathedral, and hung like a creeper just next to the altar. He looked slowly up into Moncorvo’s impassive face. ‘That’s it,’ he said quietly.

  Moncorvo glanced thoughtfully around at the dome. Wire was coiled everywhere, running along the iron railing and up the stairs out of the gallery towards the roof. The dull slap of the wire against the dome as the wind buffeted it made Lyle flinch with each bang. The Tseiqin were assembled all round the edge of the gallery. Those who couldn’t fit into the gallery were crowded around the altar down below, staring upwards. Feng appeared from the dark, narrow doorway at ground level and solemnly raised the Plate. Lyle looked round the gallery by the dull flickering candlelight, and saw how drawn the shadows were on the faces of all the saints. He thought, Dear God, I don’t believe in you, I never have, but if you can give a miracle now, please, please do.

  He felt an icy hand brush his cheek. He flinched, and Lacebark smiled. ‘If this doesn’t work, Horatio,’ she whispered, leaning in so her face was right next to his, ‘you, and every man, woman and child who lives within a mile of this place, will die.’ Lyle flinched as she very gently kissed his cheek and, smiling, drifted on to stand next to Mr Dew and Feng at one end of the dome, looking down on the altar, far below. Moncorvo walked slowly towards Lyle, careful not to touch the iron railing.

  ‘Horatio Lyle,’ he said in a drawn-out, almost sad voice, ‘you and your kind are not as old as we are, but you have spread. Like flies to a corpse. I have seen your cities and your towns grow, watched you squeeze into smaller spaces like maggots. Everything your kind touches is contaminated. You bring burnt darkness and smoking fires wherever you go. I have seen whole forests wither and die, the deserts grow and the mountains crack. I have seen blood dye the rivers, the fish choking on your life and your death, flapping breathlessly on dirty banks where the soil has been scraped clean of its goodness to feed fat bellies that feast on the flesh of creatures that have lived fifty years or more, kings of their own worlds. You don’t just break a world, you break all worlds. You destroy the worlds of every other creature that has to live on the same Earth as you. It is fitting that your people should have learnt so early to kill each other with iron. Your life depends on it, on blasted craters in still-growing mountains, you live and breathe it. It eats your hearts. Your life will be your death, Mister Lyle. And the only good you will ever do in you
r life is to die, decay and return to the soil all that your life has stolen from it.’ Feng stepped forward, offering the Plate. Moncorvo smiled. ‘Hold out your hand.’

  Lyle couldn’t stop himself. He tried to fight it, but there was nothing there to fight with. He held out his hand. Moncorvo slipped a bronze knife into it. Lyle tried to stab at him, tried to move. He couldn’t. Moncorvo’s smile widened. Lyle saw himself turn the knife round, rest the blade on the palm of his own hand and pull it back slowly. He did feel the pain, and every nerve jerked and cried out for him to stop. He couldn’t. He watched the blood well up in his palm. Feng offered the Plate. Lyle shook as he tried to resist, tried with every ounce of strength he had to will his own hand not to move. His arm ached. He felt the knife fall from his other fist as his whole body shook with the effort of not moving. The shaking sent little waves through the blood cupped in his palm. A drop fell. It hissed as it struck the Fuyun Plate. Lyle’s control snapped, and his hand jerked, the blood falling directly into the Plate.

  Overhead, thunder roared.

  Later, the 1864 Storm would be put down as something of a climatic phenomenon. Scientists would say that the way every clock that had an ounce of metal suddenly stopped, every gear straining towards the eye of the storm, and the way every screw shook, the way all the birds suddenly started screaming, the way the ravens in the Tower were seen to cry, the way the tide in the river suddenly and unexpectedly changed, was all to do with ether. The storm, they said, was clearly affecting the way everything interacted. The ether was being shaken up by all the air moving around. As it stirred, it rubbed against air travelling in other directions, and that stirred up the ether, which also moved around, being pushed outwards, creating an ether vacuum around the storm, and then falling inwards. When it fell inwards, it dragged lots of things with it. Metal things.

  It would take another twenty or more years for someone to prove that this hypothesis was very, very wrong. By that time, no one really cared any more.