“You mean a caretaker?” John hesitated before stepping out of his front door. His overbearing mother had dressed him like an Eskimo at sun-down, with two scarves, a hood over his Klondike hat, and fur-lined Wellies almost up to his knees. Not the most nimble attire for sneaking in through tight gaps. But John was a hardened little rebel—he’d earned his stripes over the years, and had the reputation of not giving a fig for getting caught once he’d started a mission. That, in turn, had made him more and more reluctant to get involved at the outset. He’d paid the price for his recklessness more than once.
“A retired soldier, not far off coffin duty. Has a weird clockwork leg he limps about on. We met him earlier, on his way back there. A bit of a freak.” Shame jabbed at Edmond’s gut. He hated, hated how he’d skipped all the facts that mattered most to him about Mr. Mulqueen—the timely heroics, the polite, friendly manner, the stupendous design of his mechanical limb, the mystery of his letters. Why did have to say what his friends wanted to hear all the time? Is that what they did for him? Why were they all so pathetic?
“Ah, he won’t be a problem.” Saul grabbed hold of John, closed the front door behind him and frog-marched him down the gritted steps. “This’ll be just like old times—no fear nor nothing, right, John?”
“Um, can’t we go skating instead?”
“On your arse, if you like.” Saul shoved him into the street, where John slipped on his backside. The little trouper got straight up and set about pummelling his much bigger opponent, with predictably laughable results. The full force of John’s swipes merely thwacked on Saul’s padded coat. The latter’s plump, reddish cheeks dimpled as he laughed himself silly.
To even the odds, Edmond grinned and crouched behind the bully, flicked his smaller friend a wink. John pursed his lips, took a run-up and barged Saul backward off his feet.
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Edmond sped off with his nippy friend in tow.
“You little buggers!” Saul lumbered after them, shedding snow and his flat cap onto the road. “Just wait till I get hold of you, Rear-End. You’ll both piss ice, I swear.”
Edmond found a few small rocks and fired one at him with his slingshot, missed on purpose. Then he flung another at a snowman across the street, using his best aim, strips almost at full arm’s length. A headshot! He was by far the most accurate of anybody he knew with a catapult, which was one of the reasons Mother had banned it.
Ha! Try banning it now.
He and John both played cricket and soccer and had pretty good footing, while Saul’s idea of sport was sinking shandies and snooker balls at the local pub. He didn’t catch them, and by the time they stopped across the road from the emporium, about twenty minutes later, the big ape was too out of breath to do anything more than shake them feebly by their coats.
“I’ll get you...both for that...next time, when you’re...least expect—”
“Shut it, Fat Man.” At not even five feet tall, John was suddenly the biggest of them, in his rare daredevil groove. “Go wheeze on your own somewhere. We can’t sneak in anywhere with a bloody lunger walrus hanging on.”
Saul raised a finger, opened his mouth to answer, but his boiler was empty. He bent to recover, his hands resting on his knees.
“Where do we get in, Eddie?” John asked.
“There’s a gap in the fence, between the third and fourth trees. We can reach the ladder on the corner of the building. Up there, just below the slope of the roof, Brandy and I found a loose panel. You have to bend it but it’s easy to squeeze through. That brings you onto one of the highest platforms inside—then you make your way down, one platform at a time. Easy-peasy, Pekinesey. You ready, Fat Man?”
“Yeah, but it’d better be easy...to fit through. If I get stuck, I’ll kill you, Rear-End.”
“If you get stuck, you’ll freeze to death. And me and John’ll come and stick a carrot in your foul mush.”
“A pipe, too,” John said. He nudged Edmond. “Do you smoke it?”
“Funny little buggers, aren’t you?” Saul barged them aside and stopped at the gap in the tall, iron fence, a gap too narrow for a grown man. The sun perched on the smoky rooftops across the Thames, its pinks and reds bleeding into the grim sky beneath dark clouds. There would probably be more snowfall tonight. After checking to make sure no one else was watching, Saul squeezed through the gap and ploughed through deep snow under the line of bare ash trees.
John went next. Edmond could see the gap in the roof from ground level. He noted the flickering amber glow, and how quiet the emporium seemed—indeed, how quiet London was for a late afternoon on Christmas Eve. A convoy of airships circled far, far above. He glanced behind him to the main street. Where were the rickety cars hissing steam, the clack-clack of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels on the icy cobblestone?
He swallowed nervously as John and Saul beckoned him. If anyone happened by, it wouldn’t take Quatermain to follow these tracks in the snow. But it would be dark soon and Edmond had no cause to worry. He patted his father’s dynamo lamp in his pocket. A custom design.
A light that—he hoped—would never go out.
***
A Meeting Of Minds: Professors Holly and McEwan Keynote Speakers At Antediluvian Presentation. A report by Julian Polperro.
Red frowned, scrunched the newspaper in a piercing moment of paranoia. He vaguely recalled hearing about the lecture, but nothing more. Yet now, with everything he knew, all the shocking, seditious information he was privy to—that he’d included in the letters he’d posted—those names in the headline carried a heavy sense of foreboding.
Holly and McEwan! To the reading public, they were famous explorers, eminent scientists, eccentric celebrities never far from the gossip columns. Horace Holly had survived the deadly Ayesha, Queen of Kor, had trekked far and wide with Quatermain; he had helped solve the infamous Bairstow case, which had finally debunked Lady Law’s miraculous crime-solving legacy. Ralph McEwan’s iron mole had successfully burrowed deep into the earth’s crust and discovered a lost, subterranean realm with startling properties.
And then there was the name Polperro—Agnes Polperro, member of the Leviacrum Council—a woman whose frumpy, schoolmarm appearance belied the poise and claws of a hellcat. Truly one of the most dangerous figures in the empire.
But who knew how pivotal these characters really were? The parts they played beyond their newspaper headlines? Their positions on the chessboard of imminent war?
I know. God help me, I know too much.
Hopefully the letters would reach their destinations and persuade as he intended. If not, it would take more than advent candles and slow-burning Yule logs to ward off the shadow poised to envelop Britain.
“Red, darling, you were in Africa. What’s a tribal word for Christmas?” Angharad poked his ribs with her imitation candy cane the length of a parasol. It tickled.
“Excuse me?”
“Between the eight of us, we’ve served pretty much everywhere in the world at one time or another. We’ve been trying to remember all the foreign words for Christmas. So far we’ve got French, Noel; Danish, jul; Spanish, Navidad; and Russian, Rozhdestvo. Have the natives over there got one?”
“Um, I don’t recall the Ovambo word, if they even have one, but the Zulus call it ukhisimusi, I believe. Most Africans I’ve met are nonplussed by the importance we attach to Christmas, but they seem to like the stories.”
Joe DiStepano thrust his hipflask out, proposed another toast. “Here’s to being good sports, nonplussed or not.”
“Hear! Hear!”
Reggie Portillo, former bough nest lookout man aboard the Elpidia—a noted airship in the Second Crimean War—now emaciated almost to skin and bone by an incurable he’d picked up in the far east, was in rare voice as he belted out a chorus of Ode to a Nor’west Maidenhead:
True be her ways and true be her gaze through the winters that await her;
Steer firm, steer sweet, my maidenhead, from storm an
d nymph and satyr.
Hold firm, hold sweet, O maidenhead ’til nor’west o’er the equator,
Till England rises, true and green—aye, rich and true and green;
Nor’west, nor’west, my maiden Queen, till England rises, green.
Even sitting several feet away from the brick-making kiln when its core temperature approached white hot was not enough to escape a thorough toasting, so Red inched his wooden chair back to a more palatable distance. He removed his sock and massaged the sole of his foot. Bliss. He heard a metallic chirp, like the squeak of an unlubricated hinge, somewhere high in the scaffolding to his right. Too much weight on the joints perhaps.
Meanwhile, Joe helped Alain Desbrusleys, a deaf French defector from the 1854 cross-channel stand-off, retrieve jacket potatoes from the kiln’s rim. They smelled so delicious, and together with Angharad’s butter, tasted even better.
“So what do you all plan to do after Christmas is over?” Red swigged his gin, then poured a cup for Alain. The Frenchman flashed his toothless upper gum in a disconcerting smile.
“That’s right, you weren’t here last night.” Reggie stroked his days’ old stubble, which stood out like oil smears on his skeletal jaw line. “Proprietor came by, said he might’ve worked somethin’ out for us with management, said he’d be back tonight to fill us in.”
“Yeah, but he also said there’ve been enquiries—about our credentials,” Angharad said.
“What about them?” Red slowly sat up, set his mug of gin on the floor.
She shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. He just said they can’t offer us any kind of wages other than food and lodgings ’less all our credentials are up to snuff. Bloody cracked really, when you think about it. I mean what kind of portfolio do they think we tote around between our bum cheeks?”
“The way you cook, they might be better off looking there,” Reggie said.
She threw her spud skin at him. “And if you stood side-on, they’d hoist you up as a Jolly Rodger.”
“Tart.”
“Fart.”
“Bog Irish.”
“Bog ugly.”
“Fann—”
“And on a less exciting note,” Joe interrupted, to much groaning and a chorus of rude noises from the group—how dare he stop a game of one-up-the-other in mid-flow! “Red was asking some serious questions, and I think we should all think long and hard about our next opportunity. I don’t know about you, but I’ll wager this is as good as it’ll get for us in London—having this, I mean, this makeshift corps we’ve got going. We watch out for each other well enough, don’t we? We do all right? A lot better than if we were out on our own, that’s for sure. So what I want to say is, I’d be proud to have you all stick by me, and I’d be proud to stick by you, through whatever hardships may come our way. Here and now, right this moment, that’s what Christmas means to me.”
Red reckoned he could hear a pin drop. Apart from a few slurps of grog, the odd scattered crackle from the kiln, the emporium was eerily silent.
“Crikey, Joe. How many’ve you had?” Reggie drew snickers from the group, but perhaps more resentment, as Red sensed Joe’s outpouring was not only a real stretch for him, it represented the way everyone felt in the emporium this Christmas Eve. How many chances did flotsam have of finding its like in an icy sea? All things considered, their dining here together, warm, employed, and under the biggest Christmas tree in London, was something to cherish. To hold on to for as long as they could.
“O come, O come, Emanuel,” Angharad began, so off-key it practically ensured the Emanuel wouldn’t show this year, “and ransom captive Israel...”
One by one, they joined in with such gusto it sent a shiver down Red’s spine, and he soon found himself belting out the hymn in a trill, youthful voice he hadn’t used since his courtship days. Days he remembered now—a nerve-wracking blur of waltzes, choirs and serenades he’d bested to win the hand of a lady unequalled in his lifetime.
Would that you were with me now, darling. This next one is for you.
He segued into her favourite Christmas carol, God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, and the others followed in hearty accord, with tremendous rhythm.
***
“What do you reckon?” John cupped a gloved hand over his mouth, whispered even lower to Edmond. “Should we go?”
The wooden platform wobbled as Saul shuffled between them, its scaffold squeaking ever-so-slightly beneath. “I reckon they’re sozzled,” Saul said. “We’re wasting our time up here. Looks like they’re in for the night. Bunch of freaks, Roundhouse Circus rejects, probably seen no more fighting than my Aunt Petunia.”
Edmond felt his upper lip curl with rage. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” And that applied pretty much whenever the fat pillock opened his gob.
“Oh yeah?” Saul landed a heavy, thudding fist on the small of Edmond’s back, winding him. “That’s for the stunt earlier, and for wasting my time with this old fogey’s parade.”
“Do that again and I’ll kill you!”
“You and whose fogey army? Theirs?” Saul snatched Edmond’s slingshot from his belt and fired a small piece of plaster out toward the veterans below. Then he dropped the catapult and ducked, giggling to himself.
Their carol singing continued without pause, but Edmond knew it was time to leave. His urge to leather Saul Lewisham had never been stronger, nor, he knew, as warranted. These were not freaks, they were fascinating and mysterious, one and all, and they had stories to tell. The black man in the blue tunic seemed to be in charge. His speech had sounded heartfelt, genuine. This was his family, and he didn’t want them to leave.
Like when you get packed off to boarding school.
“Oi, who’s up there?”
Edmond froze. A lamplight dazzled up through ladder slats to his left. Its bright core rose to the level of his platform. He knew the game was up. Though he couldn’t see who it was, they could see him. He squinted and uncrumpled to his feet, shielded his eyes with his sleeve—anything to hide behind, just for a moment, before his Christmas was over. Finit. Now another year away. Father would belt him black and blue for this.
He hung his head, imagined himself the size of Tom Thumb so he could slip unseen through the nick in the knot in the wood at his feet.
“Right, you young hoodlum. Caught you red-handed this time.” A squat, pudgy-faced man with a Satan’s goatee wrenched Edmond by the neck of his coat. “Think you can break in and half-inch anything you like? I’ll bloody show you.”
Edmond didn’t have chance to fetch his slingshot, so he had to leave it there. He made a mental note of where it was so he could collect it another time, if he’d ever be allowed out again. He went from soft and pliable to sharp and resolved in the time it took Satan to waddle his way down the second ladder. Outside himself, Edmond had accepted his fate, and the only thing that mattered now was for him to not go to pieces in front of the veterans, in front of Mr. Mulqueen.
The rest was out of his hands.
John and Saul had legged it without being spotted. They’d left him to face this alone. What was going through their minds right now? Would they be worried about him? Or would they be impressed that he’d stood his ground and taken the blame for them?
“Just so you all know—” Satan’s unblinking glare made him think of the car headlights and the driver’s round goggles hurtling at him, moments before he ought to have died. Ought to have died. “—this little bugger has been spying on you from aloft. Probably not the first time. So if you said anything in confidence, anything personal, it’s odds on he’s got the goods on you, the little terror.” He slapped Edmond upside his ear, making it smart.
“Unhand that boy, right now!” Mr. Mulqueen, cheeks port-red, fists squeezing the back of his chair, drew startled gazes from his colleagues. Edmond’s heartbeat drummed in his throbbing ear. “You’re about five seconds away from wearing that torch like a bloody Jack O’ Lantern.” The old soldier limped forward—clack, click-clic
k, clack—and there was no other sound in the emporium. “If you’re partial to chewing your goose, Parnell, I’d let go of my great-nephew immediately.”
“Your—why, I-I didn’t—how was I to know?”
“Did you think to ask him?”
“Well, no, I—” Satan let go his grip. “I’m terribly sorry, Mulqueen. He came here with you?”
“Yes, and he’ll shortly be leaving with me. We’ve a family dinner to attend.” The old soldier’s one good eye sparkled. “So unless you have further business here, I suggest you toddle off to your counting house, or whatever it is you do on Christmas Eve.”
While Satan cleared his throat, Edmond stole away toward the semi-circle of watchful veterans. One of them—the slim redheaded woman with a tatty shawl and only one arm—beckoned him to her chair, held out a plate for him. The cloven, piping hot jacket potato and the wedge of butter melting inside looked and smelled divine.
“Actually, I do have an announcement.” Satan dipped his shoulders and marched defiantly to the front of the gathering, where he thumbed his lapels, rocked on his expensive heels. “If you recall—” The discomfort of standing so close to the kiln bit at his oversized backside and he shuffled to a safer distance, mumbling to himself and rubbing his rear.
The skin-and-bone man tittered. “Spit it out, guv’nor. Yule time’s wasted.”
“Very well.” Satan’s hands trembled as he retrieved a multi-leaf document from his jacket pocket. He licked his thumb to turn the page. “As you all know, my position as proprietor of the emporium grants me complete autonomy with regards whom I employ, temporary or otherwise.” Chin jutting, he scanned their faces. “It has been brought to my attention that one or more members of this group may not be who they claim to be, that the goodwill I have shown those individuals is not reciprocated.”
He dropped his gaze, pursed his small, narrow lips. “Scotland Yard and the Leviacrum’s intelligence arm have intercepted several messages in the past few days—several rather worrying communiqués. It appears three sentry officers were attacked and badly beaten around the Leviacrum tower’s perimeter today. The same pamphlet was found pasted to each of their backs.” He held up a copy for everyone to see.
Yuletide Miracle (The Steam Clock Legacy Book 3) Page 3