The Liberation
Page 13
The beast glided to a smooth stop amidst the flotsam. Its tentacular oars churned the sea to a froth. The dawn sea stank of salt, seaweed, and ozone. Soon there was nothing left of the sloop larger than a matchstick.
Titanships were the pinnacle of Guild engineering, the bleeding edge of Clakker technology, and a profound leap in labor efficiency. They eliminated the need for hundreds of galley Clakkers to work the oar banks by instead turning the entire vessel into one immense Clakker. The oars weren’t rigid, either, but comprised hundreds of overlapping rigid plates, each independently controlled by the machine itself. It gave them an almost octopus-like flexibility. The titans dwarfed even the legendary ocean liners of the Blue Star Line. There were less than a dozen such vessels in existence.
And now at least one of them was corrupted.
It circled the spot where the sloop went down, its whiplike oars stirring the sea into a deadly maelstrom. It was very thorough. Only after it seemed the entire sea beyond the breakwater had been turned into a killing zone did it resume its landward bearing.
The rogue titanship scuttled every vessel in Rotterdam Harbor, crushing every hull beneath its keel. And then it obliterated the quays, heaving itself upon the sea-facing structures until they buckled and sank. Tentacle oars pulled down the cargo cranes.
By sunrise, the largest harbor in the Central Provinces was nothing but mile upon mile of devastation. And Her Majesty Queen Margreet, the living body of the Brasswork Throne, was lost at sea.
CHAPTER
8
It seemed every glazier on the island had set up shop in the nave of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Jean-Baptiste.
The basilica had been built with the intent to recapture some of the lost glory of Old France. It was to be a proud and worthy successor to Bordeaux, Chartres, Notre Dame de Paris, Reims. In truth, Saint Jean was smaller and meaner than its continental cousins. How could it not be, cramped behind high walls of stone and fear? Berenice was rare in that she recognized this deficiency not from old books but from having seen the originals with her own eyes. Even after the Calvinist desecrations, the greatness of Old France blazed in those ancient houses of worship. It eclipsed the best attempts of New World masons to re-create the arts lost in the chaos of the Exile. But a century ago, a small band of French chemists and glassmakers had joined forces. Their efforts had graced the spiritual heart of New France with iridescent, jewel-toned stained-glass windows the likes of which had never graced Europe.
Tuinier Anastasia Bell, the de facto head of the Clockmakers’ secret police, had once told Berenice that Dutch mastery of glasswork was unparalleled. She’d been making a sly reference to their alchemical glasses. But Berenice had never seen anything like the windows of Saint Jean-Baptiste during her travels in the Dutch-speaking world. For a hundred years, they had lifted the hearts and eased the burdens of all who saw them. And they would again someday.
All but one of the empty windows had been boarded over. It gave the narthex and nave the airiness and levity of a prison cell. A team of workmen on high scaffolds, within and without the cathedral, eased a new pane of clear, colorless glass into a temporary grid of mullions and muntins. It was cheap glass, bubbled in places, with a faint tint like watery piss where the sun hit it. But it did let the light in. Those faithful who heeded the call to Lauds, dawn prayer, would at least see the eastern sky brightening beyond the apse.
Berenice kept to the narthex. There she kept her promise to Longchamp’s man, and lit a candle for the dying captain. She even crossed herself, though a bit hesitantly, as it had been quite a long time.
It was there, while she was standing with head down in an attitude of half-assed prayer, that a messenger boy found her. He came in through the west door, looked around, squinting into the gloom before locking on Berenice. He approached quietly, too shy to interrupt her moment of quietude, but too artless to do anything but fidget in her peripheral vision and stare at her eyepatch.
“Well, you found me. Good job. Now you hide and I’ll try to seek you out,” she said.
“I was sent to find you,” said the boy, as if she were unclear on the concept.
“By whom?”
He shrugged. “Some of the guards.”
She waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she asked, “Aaaand, for what reason? Are you delivering a message or am I to follow you?”
The boy made a show of turning out his empty pockets while pretending not to hear. She made a show of rolling her eye, but fished a coin from her purse.
“That’s a real Dutch kwartje,” she whispered, dropping it into his palm, “straight from the dead hand of a demon-hearted Clockmaker.”
That was almost true. During her escape from Bell, Berenice had intercepted a chest headed for a Verderer safe house. Amongst other things, it was full of cash. The kwartje was practically the last of it.
He squinted at it, impressed. “How’d you get it?”
“Telling that story would take longer than you’ve been on this earth. Should I assume your errand was more urgent than that?”
He broke off from his scrutiny of the coin. “What?”
“You were sent to find me, yes? May I know why?”
“Oh. Right.”
He scampered away without bothering to see if she followed. Once outside, and no longer compelled to whisper in order to preserve the oppressive atmosphere of the dark cathedral, she said, “Lead on, Sieur du Lhut.”
She might have asked him where they were going, but she had a fairly good idea. Not why, but where. And indeed, the boy led her past countless work gangs attempting to rebuild the inner keep to the quadrangle adjoining the funicular station at the base of the Spire. The cloisters were mostly empty now, but for a priest and an altar boy on their way to the cathedral.
The fountain had been a gift from the Vatican to New France for its help getting the Holy See out of Rome and across the sea. But now, like so much of Marseilles-in-the-West, it was a ruin. Despite the previous night’s torrential rains, the basin held no water. It sported long cracks, and the cherub atop the font had lost an arm and a wing. Berenice gathered this had happened during the fight to subdue Pastor Visser.
The line of petitioners to see the king was short. Berenice credited that to the damaged funicular; it still didn’t go all the way to the top of the Spire. The Porter’s Prayer could be cold and windy even in summer.
She tried to ditch the boy. “All right. I think I get it now, thanks so much. I take it I’m going up?”
The guard interrupted his conversation with the funicular operator to assess them. He looked at Berenice, then the boy, then jerked a thumb toward the queue of grumbling petitioners.
“Line starts back there,” he said.
The messenger reached into his pants (Berenice averted her eyes, hoping there was a pocket involved somewhere) and pulled out a crackly piece of paper. The guard read it and shrugged, then handed it to the funicular operator, who also shrugged. The guard flipped the shutter on a semaphore lamp a few times. Click, clack, clack-clack-click.
While she waited, she addressed the boy again. “I’ll admit you’ve piqued my curiosity. Full marks for that. But you’re getting dangerously close to overselling this. It had better be worth all the ceremony, or I’ll feel cheated.”
He watched her as if idly wondering how many more coins he could pull from her. She doubted he had anything better to do. It was this or pick his nose down by the docks. And even that lost its charm after a while.
A moment later, a lamp atop the Spire flashed in response, then Berenice and the boy were ushered into the empty car. It rose more gently than her last ride in the funicular, which had been a short, violent journey as the inner keep fell to the ticktock horde. She expected the descending car to be full of disgruntled petitioners. But it seemed nobody’s audience with His Majesty had been cut short: The other funicular car was empty.
The ascent provided a spectacular view of the former battlefield around the citadel an
d points beyond. The crews wielding sledges and picks to break down the rubble that still peppered the fields; the ox teams hauling the rubble away. Farther away, the bare forest of the Île de Vilmenon and the sharp line where it met the mighty river. Farther still, the land that had once been called Nieuw Nederland. And everywhere, a countryside where rogue mechanicals roamed…
They rode the car as high as it would go. Then they emerged through a temporary funicular station to the Porter’s Prayer. The external cloistered staircase wound around the Spire like a dangling tassel. They climbed the final revolutions of the staircase in much the same silence as the rest of their journey, but for Berenice’s panting. How the guards managed to sprint up these stairs while carrying all their kit spoke volumes about the stout hearts of Marseilles-in-the-West. Finally, they reached the lower entrance to the Privy Council chamber.
After Louis died, after her banishment, she’d never expected nor desired to stand in this room again. The place where she’d endured countless interminable meetings, and twice as many pointless arguments. The place where she’d convinced the king that she could forever change the fortunes of nations and empires.
She’d been right about that. Oh, had she ever.
The Talleyrand post came with a seat on the Privy Council. But this wasn’t a meeting. King Sébastien sat alone at the council table.
The boy bowed. She curtseyed, saying, “Your Majesty.”
Berenice caught herself wondering, with an almost morbid curiosity, what the king planned to do about the bishop of Marseilles’s seat. It had gone empty for quite some time, and now there was no pope to appoint a new bishop.
The king asked the boy, “You told nobody? You came straight here?”
“No, Your Majesty. Yes, Your Majesty.”
The king favored the boy with a coin that glinted like gold. “Good work.”
Berenice said, “Jesus, kid. If I’d known you were rolling in the high dosh, I wouldn’t have bothered with your tip, you little thief.” The messenger bowed again and retreated for the stairs. She called after him, “This had better be worth it.”
When the door was closed, she said, “I gather you wanted to see me, Your Majesty?”
“No. I wanted you to be the first to see this,” said the king. Then he called, “Bring him out.”
A door opened. Three people emerged. Two guards and another former noble, like Berenice.
Well, not entirely like her. She gasped.
“Fuck me sideways with slivers of the true cross.”
Sergeant Élodie Chastain escorted the former duc de Montmorency across the Privy Council chamber. His hands were bound behind his back, and his downcast face bruised and swollen. He moved slowly, as though in pain. Like Berenice, he wore an eyepatch. But hers, it pleased her to note, was much nicer.
“Oh, Your Majesty,” said Berenice. “Am I dreaming? Is it Christmas?”
Montmorency froze at the sound of her voice. He squinted with his remaining eye, peering around the room until his gaze landed on her. He flinched.
The king noticed. “Good heavens. What did you do to him?”
“She carved my fucking eye out!”
Not exactly. She’d scraped a knife around the contours of his eye socket like a child determined to spoon up the last dribbles of iced cream from a narrow dessert glass.
Berenice shrugged. “I’m a good Catholic girl, Your Majesty. I know my Bible.”
“Is that what you call it, you fucking cunt?” Montmorency took a step forward. “You—”
Élodie slammed the butt of her pick into his stomach. Montmorency’s tirade ended with a heavy gasp and the wet slapping sound of him puking on his own shoes. Unable to catch himself, he fell over.
The guardswoman looked slightly embarrassed. Frowning at the mess, she said, “I beg your forgiveness, Majesty. He looked ready to do something unwise.”
Berenice said, “I see why Hugo likes you.”
“Enough of that,” said the king. “We don’t torture our enemies.” Focusing on Berenice’s eyepatch, he said, “You know your Old Testament better than the New, I’d say.”
He rang a bell. It conjured a charwoman in royal livery. She entered from a side chamber, surveyed the scene, wrinkled her nose, and returned with mop and bucket. When the king crossed the room, Berenice and the others were tugged along in his gravitational wake, so they could continue the conversation without impeding the cleaning.
The charwoman pointed at Montmorency’s shoes. “Take those off,” she said, as though he were a regular civilian petitioner with dog shit on his shoes. “Don’t track that filth. This is the heart of New France and you’ll not defile more than you’ve already done.”
Montmorency, unaccustomed to receiving such treatment from somebody so low, opened his mouth as if to protest. But Élodie nonchalantly hefted her pick again. His mouth clicked shut. The other guard held the former duke steady while he wiggled out of his shoes. They weren’t very fine, Berenice noticed.
Berenice shook her head, trying to make sense of this. She stared at the man who had been behind so many of her sorrows. Her bête noire. “What is he doing here? What are you doing here, you bastard?”
“He’s not here by choice,” said the monarch.
“Yes, I gather. But who captured him? I didn’t know we had people searching for him.”
Had the marquis somehow managed this? Though she hated to admit it, snagging the traitor raised her opinion of his brief stint as Talleyrand. It was good work for the office. And that was what mattered.
“I’m impressed,” she admitted.
“He was brought to us as a peace offering,” the king said. “New Amsterdam wants our help.”
She ought to have known. The ember of professional admiration for the marquis winked out. Like a snuffed candle of cheapest sow fat, it left nothing but stinking black smoke.
Laughter overwhelmed Berenice. But then a new thought struck her, and the laughter died in her throat. She threw herself between Montmorency and the monarch. “Get him away from the king! Dear God, get him out of here, now!”
Nobody moved. Élodie said, “It’s safe. You better believe we checked his scalp the moment they turned him over. No scars. They haven’t opened his head.”
The other guard added, “His escorts, too. No sign of evil tinkering with their melons.”
Berenice released a shuddery breath. The relief sagged her knees. Turning over an escaped traitor as an apparent goodwill gesture would be the ideal Trojan horse. What better way to get one of their altered human agents into a room with the king? The tulips almost succeeded with Visser. The priest nearly scaled the Spire with his bare hands to fulfill his regicide geas before Longchamp stopped him in a fraught encounter hundreds of feet above the inner keep.
The legend of Hugo Longchamp had grown by leaps and bounds during Berenice’s banishment. With great justification, from the sound of things.
King Sébastien looked amused. “Madam, I commend your vigilance. Nobody can ever doubt your devotion to New France.”
“What kind of help do the tulips want?”
He produced a pair of reading spectacles from a fold of one lacey cuff. When these were settled on his nose, he pulled a letter from an interior pocket and shook its folds open. “The situation in New Amsterdam is somewhat grim. A group of Guild workers requests our help defending against Clakker attacks. Chemical weapons, training, and so on.”
“That has to be the most desperate ploy I’ve ever heard.” Berenice shook her head. “You know, back in the old days, they actually put some effort into their schemes.”
“This”—the king gestured at Montmorency—“is a strong case for sincerity.”
“Is it? What do they lose by cutting him loose? The secrets he sold them became meaningless the night the New Amsterdam Forge burned.”
“They verify his collusion with enemies of New France. His treachery is now a matter of record.”
“I established it long ago, sire.”
“What of the rest of the Council?”
“They’ll have their turns.”
Berenice watched Montmorency. The man had lost the aura of untouchability formerly conveyed by his wealth. He’d once had a stature that enabled him to stand above the absurd rituals of courtly politics, eschewing wigs and never deigning to powder his cheeks. Berenice had seen that as a strong and sensible personality, secure in his position without the need to play the games of court. It was nothing of the sort, she knew now. Just a sly show of contempt.
What were the most important things they could learn from him? They already knew about the secret mine, via Daniel. Berenice herself had already uncovered the existence of quintessence, and of the icebreakers the Dutch used to move it. Did he know what it was, and why the Clockmakers prized it so highly? He might know how long the mine had been in place, and when the secret operation began. He knew more than anybody about his own (former) landholdings, of course, and about the extraction of the petroleum precursors so essential to French chemical technologies. He could advise the chemists and engineers on the best way to outfit the expedition, what they’d find, and what they’d need to do once they arrived. He might even be able to locate the Clockmakers’ secret harbor on a map…
She realized the king was staring at her. And that she’d missed something important. She cast her mind back to the last thing she remembered.
Son of a bitch.
“I beg your pardon, Majesty. Did you say they’re here?”
Sébastien was losing his patience, she could tell. “Did I not tell you that our former colleague was escorted to Marseilles?”