Yuletide Miracle (The Steam Clock Legacy Book 3) Page 4

  Edmond leaned forward and read:

  Ambition Soars.

  The World Is Yours Theirs.

  The Truth Is Caged And No One Cares.

  Demand The Leviacrum Secrets Be Made Public.

  Your Freedom Hangs In The Balance

  In the middle of the page, a witty cartoon depicted the Leviacrum tower as the raised middle finger of a giant metallic hand. Its insult was aimed directly at the reader, as if to say, Up Yours, Britain! Below that, the caption Everything That Rises Must Fall, and a final flourish:

  Don’t Suffer Their Insult Any Longer.

  Let Freedom Be Denied No Man.

  Reclaim Your Nation While You Can.

  Down The Leviacrum!

  “Yeah? So what?” Angharad hooked her arm over Edmond’s shoulder. Though she smelled strongly of cod liver oil, he felt safe enough under her shawl.

  “You don’t see the treason in this?” Satan asked.

  “Do I hell.” The air seemed to crackle around her as she spoke up. “Since when is criticizing a bunch of scientists the same as treason? Oh, I know they’re a lot more than that these days—those bleeders pull more strings in Parliament than a barkeep pulls pints—and every man Jack in the empire knows it, too. But that’s my point. They all know it, but they daren’t say it out loud. God, no. They’d be hawked in front of a magistrate and their necks’d get stretched quicker and quieter than an MP’s britches ripple when he farts. And you can squeal that to whoever you want, Parnell. I ain’t no thug who beats up sentries, but I don’t kowtow to anyone or anythin’ neither. Bust that bloody tower open, I say, and let’s be seeing what our taxes are really paying for.”

  “You’ll get no arguments from me, darlin’.” The stick-thin man folded his arms, crossed his legs. The sleeves and collar of his turtleneck jumper gaped several inches, as though the fabric was barely in contact with him at any point.

  “Nor from me.” A hunched man next to him, who appeared to suffer from palsy, spoke up. “And what’s any of this got to do with us, Parnell?”

  Satan shook his head, sighed. “I can see where this is going. You’ve formed your little clique of unfortunates, and that’s fine. Good for you. I for one think veterans are treated shabbily by the empire. And no doubt you’re going to stonewall whatever I propose. Again, good for you. Solidarity is a rare thing these days. But mark my words—” The command with which he roved his pointed forefinger over the hostile group made Edmond swallow—“you’re not bringing me down with you. I’ve worked hard to get to where I am, and I’ll not have any washed-up servicemen with delusions of insurrection putting the kibosh on my tenure here.”

  He held up the same pamphlet. “This and one more like it were found inside an emporium cashbox used by several members of this group. And Scotland Yard has evidence that similar seditious letters were mailed from this vicinity. Whichever of you it is, I advise you to move on as soon as possible. The powers that be are mobilizing for a major clampdown in London—any whiff of terrorist sympathies and they’ll cart you off before the words are black on your lips.

  “The rest of you I’ll give until tomorrow lunchtime, but that’s it. If you’re not packed and out of the emporium by then, you might be leaving by very different means. One or two Leviacrum agents have already snooped around the stalls today. No doubt you served them without knowing it. And no doubt they’re boning up on your military records as we speak. The ones they can find, that is.” He cast a sharp glance at Mr. Mulqueen, but the old soldier appeared quite unimpressed, even snorted at whatever inference Satan had made.

  “So there it is. Pray return to your festivities, and I shan’t interrupt you again. For what it’s worth, thank you for all your hard work this past week, and I’d like to extend to each of you a merry Chris—”

  “Oh, blow it out your craphole!” The one-armed woman tossed Edmond’s potato skin at the squat proprietor, scored a hit, prompting Satan to storm out, huffing and puffing.

  Shortly after, the stick-thin man raised his hands like a choir conductor and piped up with a stubborn reprise of God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.

  But this time, no one joined in.

  Chapter Four

  “I never did care much for museums anyway—if a thing still works, work it.” The grime from Red’s fingers greased the brass levers as he practiced how to steer the machine. Right lever forward to turn left, back to turn right. The aerogypsy was an almost identical locomotive design to the early ‘horseless carriages’, but with a critical difference—two rotor blades, atop and astern, gave the vehicle flight.

  “Just make sure you bring her back in once piece.” Joe uncoupled the winch from the cockpit roof, having lowered the aerogypsy down by crane from its podium near the hangar entrance. “Vagrancy I can handle; grand larceny...not so much.”

  “You fusiliers always were whiners.”

  Red bid the boy join him in the glass-domed cockpit, for the ride of the youngster’s life. After such an unpleasant Christmas Eve—narrowly avoiding a police reprimand and death in the same day—Edmond had earned this impromptu adventure. “Hop in, lad. Don’t worry, I’ve flown these things more than I care to remember,” he lied. But he had grown proficient over the course of his eleven unsupervised flights, even if this ’gypsy was rather more...antique than he was used to.

  “Your parents need never know. Come on, I’ll land us in Vincey Park and we can walk the rest of the way. Think of it as a special Christmas hack to dinner, and I promise we’ll get to see London like no one else.”

  Edmond seemed unconvinced, holding a puzzled scowl as he inspected the gleaming brass framework at length. “Who designed it?”

  “An ingenious Norwegian fellow named Mikael Sorensen. 1882, I believe.”

  “Professor Sorensen?”

  “The same.”

  The lad’s eyes lit up. “My father works with him at the Leviacrum. He says Sorensen has the sharpest mind in all Europe.”

  “He’s not far wrong at that.”

  Edmond climbed in, plonked himself down on the padded passenger seat and let Joe strap him in.

  “Don’t get too ambitious, Red. The wind can whip ’round some of these taller buildings and throw you out of flunter. I’ve seen it happen. Keep her flat and low.”

  “And bring me back some dessert,” Angharad said to Edmond. “I’m partial to rhubarb pie with clotted cream.”

  “Will you settle for apple strudel?”

  “Will I? Ha ha, I love this boy. Red, if you don’t bring him back to see us again I’m disowning you.” She straightened his bob hat, tucked his scarf inside his collar, and re-checked his harness. “Have a marvellous Christmas, young ’un. Don’t forget us now.”

  “I won’t. And thank you.”

  “All right, here we go.” The first rattle of the pipes under steam pressure shot a buzz of nervous excitement to Red’s scalp. He forced the two propulsion valves open. The boiler hissed loudly. The squeaking axles eased the vehicle forward over the cobblestone, out onto the main road.

  Despite a heavy fog, light from the streetlamps appeared to bow in opposing ranks across the icy cobbles, as though they’d laid an amber carpet for passing dignitaries to find their way. Dim lights originated from living quarters in the backs of shops, where families had gathered to celebrate one of the only times of the year when everyone, no matter their circumstance or station in life, had permission to make merry, to abandon their shackles and rejoice atop the summit of their year’s labours.

  But few would feel as lucky as Red this evening, he reckoned. It had been years—too many years—since he’d last enjoyed a family dinner, or any meal of note outside an airship cabin or a safari tent. Those eating places had, at best, offered a promiscuous sense of comfort, in the company of friends, colleagues, those he’d left behind for this mission to London. And even more years had passed since he’d seen, or more importantly felt­, what it was like to have a wife and son to come home to. In his long experience, that remained an
unbested investment for a man’s heart and soul.

  Alas, so easily snatched away.

  He sensed the boy’s excitement at his side. It fed into him, too. Ice crunched beneath the aerogypsy’s wheels as it gathered speed. He’d need to find a junction or an open quadrangle before he could take off—the velocity of ice pellets the rotors flung up might cause damage to nearby windows or passers-by. He cranked up his side window and bid Edmond do the same. “So’s we’re not fighting the wind in here as well.”

  “Is this legal, Mr. Mulqueen, if you don’t mind me asking?” The lad didn’t look worried in the least.

  “A sensible question, but to be honest, I haven’t the foggiest. Airships have to follow set flight paths when taking off or landing, and it’s frowned upon for a big ’un to fly low over anywhere inhabited—the limit’s a thousand feet, I believe. But the aerogypsy isn’t used much except abroad, to scale cliffs and such, or to cross devilish terrain. I don’t suppose London has even considered them as air traffic. They’re military luxuries, on the whole, as rare-seen as badgers are in the daytime. ”

  Edmond beamed at that last remark, then pointed out one of his friends from primary school, a tall, gamine girl with an even taller mother. Strangely, Red couldn’t recall a single friend of his own son’s, and it vexed him. So few details from his family years had escaped him, and he’d always pictured his son as something of a solitary boy—perhaps selfishly on his own part, not wanting to share the poor lad with anyone else. How much of life was channelled by perception, secrets, self-obsession.

  Did I ever really know my boy at all? Did he know me?

  “There’s a tram depot if you take the next left,” Edmond said. “Lots of open space. You could take off there.”

  “Good. That’ll do nicely.”

  “I think you’ll like Mrs. Simpkins’s cooking. She’s a peach.”

  Red looked at the boy, saw that he was blushing. A crush on the housekeeper? He’s full of surprises.

  ***

  The rotor blades’ rapid chopping rhythm overhead accelerated to a steady whir as the aerogypsy lifted, a tad nose-heavy at first, into the frosty night. The force of the spinning blades tore up loose snow and ice from the tram lines, and flung it into its own localised hurricane. Edmond gripped the brass door handle on his left side, then let go in fear of it popping open. He hadn’t known what to expect when he’d suggested sneaking into the emporium—tomfoolery, perhaps even a little meddling with the steam-powered gadgets—but he could never have predicted this, actually getting to fly in one. The old soldier piloting the craft was like one of those daredevil adventurers in his halfpenny comics. He’d visited exotic places, fought in far-flung battles, and knew the ins-and-outs of every fantastic machine in existence.

  He was the opposite of Father, or rather he was the man Father might have been had he not chosen life in a laboratory over the real world. Mr. Mulqueen would make the most excellent grandfather ever. Just to hear the tales of his exploits abroad, why, every boy in England would be jealous.

  I should ask him if he wants to keep in touch. To have a real life war hero for a correspondent—better than a thousand made-up tales of the Amazon.

  “Sir, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course, lad.”

  Smoke wavered up from chimneys and trended eastward toward the Thames in shreds of smog. The vague glow from streetlamps through the ground fog below teased like hordes of dragons’ gold on the bed of a misty lake. It was at once eerie and magical, and not at all like Christmas.

  “Where have you done? In the military, I mean. You said you were in the British Air Corps. Where’s the furthest you’ve been?”

  “Oh, France, Gibraltar, the Benguela Plateau in Angola, deep into the rainforests of Central Africa, even the far north of Europe, into the fjords at the top of Norway. I’ve been as far as man has travelled in every direction and lived to tell the tale. I met some of my greatest friends on those travels—scientists, lords, African aeronauts. Many are still alive somewhere out there, making new maps, fighting for good.” His face tightened, and he glanced at Edmond from the corner of his undamaged eye.

  “But I’ll tell you a secret, young Master Reardon. We were none of us happier than when we had families and loved ones to go home to. A man once told me, a true adventurer only ever leaves home for the joy of his return—the farther his journey takes him, the sweeter his homecoming. Someone who travels for travel’s sake is at heart not an adventurer but a nomad. He has no home to return to, so it doesn’t matter how far he travels, his roots are wherever he is. In my experience, most people stuck at home for long periods wish to see the world, while most who make epic journeys wish, above all, to see home again. It’s best to not get too carried away with adventures; their novelty is the fair-weather kind. A family is much more enduring.”

  Edmond wasn’t sure if the old man really meant all of that. For one thing, he’d been to the ends of the earth time and again, for long periods in the Air Corps. Not exactly the best one to give a cherish-thy-family pep talk.

  London was burnished in browns and golds and the red lantern glare of the setting sun. It was a fantasy realm that barely seemed to breathe. Spires here and there pierced the smog, while only three buildings were identifiable above it: the Westminster Observatory, with its brownish metal dome and giant, resting telescope; Big Ben, lording over the empty docking wharfs; and the colossus of London, the Leviacrum tower itself, whose copper and iron shell hid the secrets of an empire. Its uppermost beacon, a lighthouse for airships in bad weather, pulsed inside the gathering clouds, thousands of feet up.

  “And now I have a question for you.” Mr. Mulqueen banked the aerogypsy left, heading over what Edmond guessed was Pitcairn Park, going off the ring of dark clusters in the mist.

  “Yes?” What on earth can he want to know about me?

  “You seem to have a talent for getting into trouble. And I could tell in the way you scowled when Angharad asked you about school, you’re not entirely happy there. So what’s the matter, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Great. The one way to ruin my whole flight.

  But the old man did seem genuinely interested—unlike Father—and seeing as he’d shared some of his war stories, why shouldn’t Edmond? After all, Mr. Mulqueen might even have a solution to his problem. A problem that grew worse every day.

  “Um, no, it’s all right. I mean—you’ve been good and all, letting me fly like this.”

  “Let me guess. You’re in a boarding school? First, second year?”

  “Second. But how did you—”

  Mr. Mulqueen tapped his knuckles on his brass leg. “Experience, lad. Plus, I’m a pretty good guesser.”

  Very well. Here goes.

  Edmond took a deep, shuddery breath. “I got into a fight. Started off as nothing, ended up as—yeah, serious, and I never told Mother and Father about what happened, about what the school said afterwards.”

  “What was that?”

  “Um, it happened a few days before we broke up for the holidays, so when I arrived home early, I just told Mother and Father we’d been given an extra few days off, for Christmas. But I was really...expelled.” He drifted outside himself again, for shame. Expelled. The word that had weighed him down like a wet ballast bag ever since Principal Williams’s office. He’d had to drag that ballast behind him to the Winchester station and onto the train and off the train, all the way home, but now it vanished like a wisp into the wintry night. Yes, Mr. Mulqueen would know of a way out of this—he hoped.

  “I see. And the school didn’t try to telephone your parents? Send them a telegram?”

  “Our telephone line hadn’t been repaired, so I kept checking at the telegraph office. I intercepted two and never let on. Then I kept a lookout over the front path every morning, just in case the postman brought a letter. He did, the day before yesterday, so I intercepted that as well. I’ve hidden all three in my room.” He shifted in his seat, and was almost reliev
ed when the harness tightened across his chest, keeping him in his place, in the cockpit, away from the horror forming again around thoughts of home.

  “You’re in a pickle, lad. No denying that.” The old soldier shook his head, without the amused expression adults tended to have when children told them their troubles. “But I tell you what—you explain to me exactly what you did to get expelled, and I’ll help make it right with your parents.”

  “Eh? How can you—”

  “Trust me. This is what I do—did—solve problems for a living. So go ahead, son, give me your story and I’ll give you an ending.”

  There’s no way on earth he can get me out of this. No way. Edmond’s stomach knotted. But his ending has to be better than mine. Maybe he can do something.

  “It will be my Christmas present to you, for helping me to see the world through young eyes again.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, sir.”

  Mr. Mulqueen laughed hard. Somehow, Edmond had known he would. It was almost impossible to be this loose, this natural around Father, let alone tell jokes like that, whereas with this man he’d only just met, who seemed from another world, a rapport had sprung up the likes of which he’d always hoped for at home. What he couldn’t tell Father in a million years, he wanted to share with this soldier with the clockwork leg. This was one weird Christmas Eve.

  “Actually, there’s not much to tell,” he said. “Snot-faced Jimmy Jones attacked me with a cricket bat for making fun of Wales, so I fought back and wrestled him into a headlock. The tricky part came when his friends tried to pry me loose. They punched me and kicked me, but I ended up squeezing so hard, Jimmy cried. The next thing I knew, someone even stronger yanked me off and twisted me ’round, nearly broke my shoulder—the bruise is still there—and thumped me on the side of my head. I didn’t know who it was, so I flung a fist, full power...” He demonstrated with a smack on his palm, “...and bust Mr. Jones’s nose. He was our geography teacher, and Jimmy’s father. A bit later, when Principal Williams tried to make me apologize, I said, ‘Only if Mr. Jones apologizes as well.’ I bust his nose, yeah, but that was an accident. He damn near ripped my shoulder out of its joint and punched me, and that weren’t an accident—he did out of revenge because I’d got the better of his son in self-defence. At least that’s how I saw it.”