She then put down her parasol and lifted the speaking tube.
Aggie Phinkerlington said, “Yes?” sharply from the other end.
“Mr Lefoux will be with you shortly. Prepare for float-off.”
“You shouldn’t scare him like that, miss,” remonstrated the mechanic.
“I beg your pardon!” Rue was genuinely shocked at a reprimand from an underling.
The greaser did not seem to care that Rue took offence at the intrusive comment, compounding insult with instruction: “Next time, don’t be so impetuous.”
Rue hung up the speaking tube without reply, afraid she might say something unforgivable.
“Well, I say!” said Rue to no one in particular.
Percy looked up from twiddling his knobs and levers. “Gave you a talking to, did she?”
“Are you going to lecture me as well?”
Percy, blast him, took that as permission. “You’re captain of a ship now, Rue. You can’t go tearing off willy-nilly like you did when I was in short pants.”
“Wonderful. You are going to have at me.”
Percy rolled his eyes. “Next time, think about your actions before you take them, all right? You don’t have werewolf or vampire skin to fall back on. Up here in the skies, you’re as mortal as the rest of us.”
Rue bristled. Was he implying that she used her metanatural abilities as a crutch to get out of sticky situations?
Percy went back to preparing for float-off, so Rue turned to her last and best ally, Primrose.
Prim was looking inscrutably placid.
Rue knew that expression all too well. “Really, you too?”
Prim arched one eyebrow.
“Oh, bother,” said Rue. “We’ll talk about this later, after the hops. I do have an excuse.”
“Darling,” said Prim. “You always have an excuse.”
Rue ignored this. “Percy, what’s our course looking like?”
Percy grimaced. “I hate to do it, but our best option is the Tripoli Twister. The Damascus Draw is smoother and more reliable but that’ll add an extra day to the journey, possibly two.”
Rue grinned. After being roundly scolded for taking unnecessary risks, she was obstreperous enough to stay with the theme. “Twister it is. Get the Pudding Probe up and calibrated.”
Percy’s face was blank. “I guessed you’d say that. The Mandenall is already set. Shall we proceed?”
Without further ado The Spotted Custard cast off, wound up her propeller, farted gently, and eased her way out of the Maltese Tower docking port. She glided sedately up into the aetherosphere, a fat satisfied ladybird.
Little differentiated this series of hops from those previously except that they were a great deal more bumpy. The Custard handled the intervening Charybdis currents with aplomb, as did Percy who was now almost comfortable with the procedure. The first two hops went as specified by charts and calculations, but the Tripoli Twister was one of the highest, and one of the hardest to stay the course. They’d need to reef the mainsail for the rough breezes. The decklings were scrambling about belaying ropes and tying items down as if The Spotted Custard were facing a storm. They were all more seasoned floaters than Rue and her officers. A few of them had even run the Twister before. For all of them, the Tripoli Twister was considered a worthy challenge, one that would yield bragging rights once they returned to London. Very few ships dared the Twister for any distance and the Custard was about to try for the full course.
Percy eased them up several more puffs – there must have been a dozen in total. Then the Mandenall Pudding Probe spat and they knew that directly above them swept the Tripoli herself.
Rue shouted to the deckhands, “Everything secure?”
“Aye aye, captain.”
“Decklings?” Rue asked.
“All buttoned down, Lady Captain, ready on your mark,” answered a familiar chipper voice.
“Spoo? What are you doing abovedecks?”
“Transferred position, captain. Bit of a snafu down below. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve worked topside before.”
“Certainly not.”
Spoo seemed to have become unofficial leader of the decklings in a very short space of time. Some kind of coup? Rue supposed she would have to make it official if the girl proved capable. For now she was glad to have someone whose name she knew to yell.
“Wait for it,” Rue instructed the girl and turned to her next concern. “Primrose?”
Her friend was solemn-faced, seated primly off to one side of the navigation area, parasol raised against the grey nothingness of aetherosphere, hat pinned firmly down. Rue trusted her to have warned the steward, cook, and purser so that the inside staff was prepared.
Prim tilted her chin in acknowledgment.
To free her hands, Rue tossed Prim Sand and Shadows on a Sapphire Sea for safekeeping.
Prim caught it easily.
Rue picked up the speaker tube. “Boiler room, are you ready?”
“We have never been more so,” came Quesnel’s reply.
Rue said to Percy, still holding the tube so Quesnel could overhear, “Make the hop, Professor Tunstell, on my mark. Three, two, one, and… mark.”
Percy pressed the puffer. The Spotted Custard jerked up, caught the current, and began to shudder uncontrollably. It was as if the whole gondola section of the ship was shivering from cold.
“Percy, what the devil?” It felt like they were nested inside the current – why was this one so different from the others?
“Almost in, captain.” Percy reached down and twisted something. The ship rose up an infinitesimal amount. The propeller whirred madly. The ship began to tilt sideways as though being pushed from the side. The main deck angled more than was comfortable. Anything not fastened down began to slide. Including Primrose, who looked resigned to the indignity.
Percy grabbed the tiller and wrenched it upright. “Come on, sweetness,” he growled, straining against invisible aether forces.
Rue dashed over and reached for the other side of the tiller, pushing at it with all her might to assist his pulling. She was tougher than she looked – Dama’s drones liked to arm-wrestle on occasion to keep themselves in shape for competitive whist. Together they managed to push the ship upright and facing the correct direction: due east.
The Spotted Custard stopped shuddering and settled into a bobbing motion.
Percy gave Rue a relieved nod.
Rue stepped back, shaking out arms trembling from effort. Then she bounced a little at their success. “Victory is ours, current!”
She remembered her duty as captain. “Decklings, mainsail up if you would.”
Spoo began to point and shout. The decklings hopped to it with no discussion – the sootie already had them better trained than whoever had previously been in charge. Rue began to suspect that Spoo’s black eye had something to do with her jump to head deckling.
The sail was raised in no time and Rue definitely approved of Spoo in her new position. As soon as it hooked the breeze, the Custard stopped shaking and smoothed out.
Rue relaxed but only for a moment, for her ship began to spin. The Spotted Custard was still floating upright with the current, east – the aetheric particles told them that much – but the sail had caused her to start rotating like a sedate top, slowly, clockwise, round and round. It was disconcerting.
Rue leapt to help Percy with the helm but her navigator shook his head.
Rue was incredulous. “This is it?”
“They don’t call it the Tripoli Twister for nothing.”
The sensation, while not unpleasant, did make Rue slightly dizzy. “And how long are we in this waltz?”
“Three days, I’m afraid. Best not to look out into the grey, they say.”
Rue could believe it – the sensation was perturbing, to say the least.
“Very good. I shall head below. If you’re well up here? I believe your sister would like her chance to lecture me now.”
Percy’s eyes t
winkled. “Aye aye, captain. Although I think it’s jolly unfair I must miss the spectacle.”
“You have the deck, Professor Navigator, sir.” Rue made her way over to Primrose who seemed recovered from her deck-chair slide. “Things are tip-top up top – to the stateroom for a scolding?”
But Prim no longer looked like she wanted to lecture Rue – instead, she was wiggling the little pink book as though it were some strange new species of musical instrument worthy of further examination in order to make it toot.
“That can wait. First, Rue my darling, my sweet, my precious…”
“You sound like Quesnel – what has your bloomers in a twist?”
“Language,” said her friend without rancour.
“I await your pleasure.” Rue’s voice was laden with sarcasm.
“What are you doing with my mother’s book?”
Rue felt a tingle of shock. Instinctively, she looked around to see if Prim had been overheard. Apparently not, so she hissed: “Aunt Ivy wrote a book? Wait, wait. Aunt Ivy can write?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
HONEYSUCKLE ISINGLASS’S SECRETS REVEALED
“I
believe I can quite confidently claim that Aunt Ivy has never written anything more strenuous than a note to the butcher in her entire life.” Rue was circling the meeting table, her main sensation being near-paralytic confusion. Although, obviously not exactly paralytic as she was quite definitely circling.
Primrose sat placidly, hands crossed in her lap, eyes crinkled in amusement. “Terrible dark family secret. I hardly dare spill…” She allowed herself to trail off, heightening the suspense.
“Aunt Ivy is really Honeysuckle Isinglass?” Rue gave up confusion in favour of the thrill of discovery.
“Well, to be perfectly correct, Honeysuckle Isinglass is really my mother, the Baroness of Wimbledon. The hive thought it was beneath a vampire queen to publish a travel memoir, so she had to take a pen name. You know how vampires are – the respectability of the supernatural mystique, the gravitas of the blood, the nobility of the fang, all that rot. Pity, really – the book might have done better if people knew who penned it.”
“Oh, was it received poorly?” Rue tried not to grin.
“Very badly indeed. Why on earth did you buy it, Rue? It’s about Egypt not India, you do realise?”
“Primrose Tunstell, do not change the subject. Explain Honeysuckle Isinglass.”
Prim elucidated further. “Queen Mums wrote it a few years after her metamorphosis. It’s supposed to be based on notes she took while visiting Alexandria, you know, with the acting troupe and your parents back in 1876. When we were still in nappies.”
“Aunt Ivy takes notes?”
Prim ignored this and continued. “It is an alarming piece of literature. Percy is particularly embarrassed by its existence.”
“I suppose Aunt Ivy is ridiculously proud of it?”
“Ridiculously. Of course, no one else ever mentions it if they can possibly help it, and Queen Mums rarely manages to bring it up in casual conversation. Not that she doesn’t try.”
“But, honestly – Honeysuckle Isinglass?”
“I believe that was your mother’s invention.”
“My mother will have her little bouts of fun.”
“The two of them must have been holy terrors in their day.” Primrose puffed out her cheeks at the idea.
“If that book is any indication, they were certainly something – probably unholy.” Rue paused to consider. Aunt Ivy was so silly and mother so powerful, they must have been such an odd paring. She snorted. “Honeysuckle Isinglass indeed.”
Rue picked up the slim travel memoir in question and paged through it. “The amber sun sinks slowly into the tourmaline sea, a blooming peony of beauty surmounting the waving undulations of the silken sapphire depths. All unobserved, our heroine wanders along the wave-licked shores, a young lady with a soul overfilled with sentiment for the pulchritude of the bejewelled landscape radiating before her, her feet attired in Mademoiselle Membrainoux’s finest kid slippers. The slush slush slush of the sparkling iridescent waves marries to the breathless beating of her engorged heart––” Rue had to stop. “Crikey, Prim!”
Prim was giggling into her hand. “I know. It’s so bad.”
Why, wondered Rue, has a supposed acquaintance named Anitra given me a badly written slim travel memoir authored by a vampire? And does it have anything to do with my parasol being stolen by a lioness? And who’s Goldenrod? Rue snapped the book shut and turned it about in her hands, shaking out the pages, hoping for a hidden message, a dried flower, something. But there was nothing there, not even a suspicious stain.
“I should read it for clues but, Prim, I don’t think I could bear it.”
Prim said, “I do understand. And they are unfortunately ubiquitous. I mean, Queen Mums insisted they print simply thousands of them. They were so resoundingly disparaged by the critics, they were somewhat taken to heart by those who eschewed the intellectual set. Now all the very worst libraries have one. I can’t believe you haven’t encountered it before.”
“Neither can I. I can only speculate that my mother prevented copies from entering my sphere for fear of linguistic contamination.”
“Why did you buy it?” Prim pressed.
“I didn’t – it was given to me by an old friend.”
Prim stopped giggling and looked up. “You have other old friends?”
“Apparently. This one was so old I don’t remember her. Gave me her first name only – Anitra.”
“How terribly indelicate.”
“You’re telling me. Then she handed me that book.”
“Even more indelicate,” agreed Primrose. “Was that the reason you were late back to the ship? What happened to the lioness?”
“Well, that resulted in a different mysterious female. Name of Miss Sekhmet. I followed the cat into a shack, and then a beautiful woman swathed in silk came out, knew who I was, gave me back my parasol, and warned me to stay out of India. Then, when I was walking back to the ship, this Anitra person accosted me in public, also swathed in fabric, said that Goldenrod sent her with that book. And that was it.”
“Pull the other one.”
“If I were going to fib, wouldn’t I come up with a better story?”
Prim considered this and made a show of straightening the bodice of her travelling suit, carefully checking all the buttons. “I suppose so. But what does it mean?”
Rue shrugged. “I’ve absolutely no clue but I think we had better put this slim travel memoir in a safe place.”
“My brother’s library?”
“Good idea. We might have a hard time finding it again but then so would anyone else. He’s up top right now – shall we risk it?”
They made their way out of the stateroom but not before Prim had put a hand on Rue’s arm.
Oh dear, thought Rue, here it comes.
“You thought you were going to get out of it,” said Prim. Rue’s expression was wary.
“Very well, if you must. Go on.”
“Rue, and I mean this most kindly, but perhaps in future you should act with a little bit more prudence.”
“Oh, ha ha, thank you very much. Is that all?”
“And I shall be writing a letter to your mother to post as soon as we land in India on the subject of your choices thus far.”
“You are a very hard-hearted female.”
Prim made a kissy face at her and that was that. No further scolding was needed – twenty years of friendship has its benefits.
The two ladies made their way to Percy’s quarters, one half of which was also the ship’s library. The suite had started out as one of the largest but now looked as if it were the smallest. The arched chamber was a warren of books with stacks and shelves and piles everywhere. The beams supporting the deck above were the only component of the Custard still visible. Somewhere there must be walls but it was difficult to spot any. There was no doubt in either of their minds that
Percy had some manner of organisation system in place, but they couldn’t figure it out.
“Yoo-hoo?” called Rue into the stacks in case there was someone else infiltrating.
Footnote appeared, stretched at them in his version of a bow and sniffed their shoes. They stood still, allowing him to do so until, gatekeeper-like, he magnanimously began leading them through the books, tail high.
“Lady Captain?” Virgil appeared, wearing an apron and carrying one of Percy’s boots, obviously in the middle of blacking them.
Footnote sniffed his feet and then flopped over on top of them.
“Ah, Virgil, you wouldn’t clock a tick about Professor Tunstell’s filing system, would you?” asked Rue.
“Not exactly, captain. Of course, you could always ask one of the ladders.”
“Pardon?” said Rue.
Virgil put down the boot. Footnote transferred his affection to this interesting new smell. Virgil approached a ladder which hung from a long top rail that snaked about the perimeter of the room. Clearly the ladder was designed to slide for easier access to the highest shelves. Rue had thought it quite ordinary, except for being metal instead of wood, but Virgil seemed to know otherwise. On one side, down near the first rung, was a dial, and the ladder had a cranking mechanism with a pin reader at the railing above. The railing was perforated at multiple points with patterns of holes so that when the operator set the dial, the ladder would roll along until its pins dropped into the matched holes, stopping the ladder abruptly at a prescribed point.
Rue said, all innocence, “The professor lent me this slim travel memoir and I wanted to return it. To the, erm, the section with travel journals.”
Virgil bent down and clicked the dial over to the number seven. Rue made a mental note. The boy jumped onto the ladder and flattened himself against it, clutching with both hands. He then pressed a button on one side and in a puff of steam, the ladder whooshed off more rapidly than Rue thought possible. With an audible click, it stopped some distance away behind the stacks.
“This way, Lady Captain,” sang out Virgil’s disembodied voice.
Rue and Prim wended through the shelves and piles of books. The ladder was near the only porthole left unblocked in the room. Virgil jumped off.
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