Agent of the Crown (33 page)

A round clock almost three feet in diameter
hung crookedly on one wall, well above the shelves nearest it.
Thick glass distorted the numbers on its face and made the hands,
which looked like they might weigh a pound each, seem bent enough
to scratch the glass. Telaine looked at it in dismay.

“What’s the matter, young lady?”

“It’s…rather high, milord.”

“You can reach it by way of the ladders,
or so i’m told.
” Telaine looked at him narrowly. Personal
knowledge of how the ladders worked seemed an unlikely thing to lie
about.

He showed her a Device that slid up and down
one handrail of each ladder so she could take it with her as she
ascended. “This controls the ladder’s lateral movement, but each
ladder has its own guiderail, so its area of movement is limited. I
believe that ladder travels beneath the clock.” Telaine climbed the
ladder, sliding the Device with her, and pushed buttons until she
was centered under the clock. It was still a foot out of her
reach.

“Climb to the top step,” the Baron suggested.
Was he trying to kill her? She steadied herself, reached up, and
gently lifted the clock from the wall. The ladder swayed, and she
froze, heart pounding, until it steadied. Then she carefully
descended, releasing a breath she hadn’t known she’d held when her
feet touched the solid floor.

“I suppose I can do this on the floor, if I
move the chairs, milord,” she said. The Baron himself dragged the
chairs to either side of the fireplace and sat down in one of them.
Apparently this was to be a repair with an audience.

She turned the clock onto its face and took
it apart. Fine-tuning the Device took a while, because there were
no obvious problems and she had to search carefully before deciding
there was nothing wrong with it, whatever the Baron said. She
settled for making a show of repairing it, then turned to the
problem of the bell.

It did sound tinny, she thought, lifting the
clapper and letting it strike, but…what was this? Someone had
wedged a penny between the two bells. When she removed it, and
tried the clapper again, it rang out sweetly. She palmed the penny
and said nothing about it. If the Baron had sunk to sabotaging his
Devices to get her out here, he was even more bored than she was.
With Morgan gone, the only person he could socialize with was his
pet Deviser.

“Does that sound better, milord?” she said,
trying not to sound sarcastic.

The Baron smiled. “Much better.”

She reassembled the clock, then hesitated. “I
think it might be wise for milord’s servants to replace the clock.
They’d know better than me how to hang it right.”

The Baron nodded. “Wise indeed, Miss Bricker.
Will you join me for dinner?”

Telaine wanted nothing less than to eat with
this man, but she said, “Thank you for the invitation, milord.” It
was hard to reconcile this genial man with the murderer of Captain
Clarke. No doubt he would continue to call on her, and she would
bet his summons would always coincide with dinner. But she had no
choice but to accept, if she wanted to avoid drawing his anger.

A traitor and a murderer, and vicious
too
, she reminded herself, following him to the dining room.
The consequences of disappointing him didn’t bear thinking on.

“You want to do
what
?” Josephine said.
She held an underskirt in both hands and clutched it to her bosom
as if it were all that stood between her and indecency.

“I don’t think it’s all that shocking,” said
Telaine. “I want to see if a Device can be made using some other
case than metal or wood.

“It sounds so odd. Like…like asking a cow to
produce butter.”

“Hardly that unnatural. Please, Josephine,
help me think of something. What would be useful for fabric to
do?”

Josephine lowered the underskirt and cast her
eyes around the store. “Color changing fabric…no, even I know
that’s impractical. Self-buttoning shirt? Pointless. Heated—oh,
Lainie, I have it!” She thrust the skirt at Telaine and disappeared
into the back room. Telaine draped it over her arm and waited.
Josephine emerged with a bundle of gray wool so pale it looked
dingy white. She shook it out.

“Long underwear,” she said. It was a woolen
bodysuit, with buttons at the neck and a buttoned flap near the
groin. “It’s perfect.”

“Perfect for what?”

“A self-heating Device.”

“Isn’t long underwear supposed to keep you
warm by itself?”

“This is the usual kind. It’s heavy and bulky
and it itches. But suppose you could make it out of a thinner,
softer fabric and turn it into a Device whose heat you could
control?”

Telaine’s eyebrows rose. “Josephine, that’s
perfect,” she said. “Can you make up a suit for me in the lighter
cloth? And give me a large swatch of the fabric?”

It took Josephine only a minute to pull a
bolt of light cotton from her stores and cut a foot-wide piece for
Telaine. Swatch tucked away in her trouser pocket, Telaine walked
back to the forge. It was a clear, sunny day, and she pushed back
the hood of her cloak and breathed in the cold air. The cloak
wasn’t as practical as her coat, but it was warmer and it made her
feel mysterious, like a wise woman out of a fairy tale. Would she
dispense blessings, or curses? On a day like this one, it was
definitely blessings.

“I need a lot of thin wire,” she told Ben,
entering the forge but staying well out of his work path.

“What kind of wire?” he said, not looking up
from what he was doing.

“Copper.”

“What about the wire from the tent of lights
at the Bradfords’ shivaree?”

“It’s too thick. I need something a lot
finer.”

“I’m not experienced with copper, but happen
I can handle that.”

“Good. Can you do it soon?”

Ben shrugged. “I can draw wire as fine as you
like, but unless you have copper ingots lying around, I can’t help
you.”

Telaine slumped. “If I’d gotten into
Ellismere one last time, I’d have all the supplies I need.”

Ben glanced her way. “Is it important?”

“Could be a major invention. Not important on
the level of, say, feeding Longbourne for the winter, but important
to me.”

“There’s a copper weathervane in the basement
of the town hall. You might be able to buy it from the town. Fell
off the roof a couple years back and they never put it back up.
You’ll see why when you look at it.”

When she got into the town hall basement,
Telaine did see why. It was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen
designed to grace the top of a building. In this case, “grace”
wasn’t nearly as good a word as “defile.” A sort of gargoyle thing
rested at the center of the spire, surrounded by letters
representing the cardinal directions. A spire emerged from the base
that made it look like the gargoyle had been impaled, an effect not
lessened by the gargoyle’s expression of extreme pain.

“You want it?” asked Katrin Black,
Longbourne’s mayor and postmistress and holder of at least six
other public offices. “I could pay you to take it away.”

“I can afford to buy it,” Telaine said with a
laugh, “but I hope we can agree on a good price. And by ‘good’ I
mean ‘cheap’.”

“If you can fix the lights in the
schoolhouse, that’ll make us even.” They shook on the deal.

The weathervane produced a lot more copper
than Telaine had anticipated. She asked Ben to save half in ingot
form and to turn the rest into wire. The final diameter of the wire
disappointed her, as she’d wanted something finer, but Ben didn’t
have the right drawing plate and she had to admit, while not ideal,
it would still work.

A few days later, she returned to Josephine
with her finished product. They both looked at it critically where
it swung on a hanger in Josephine’s work room.

“It’s ugly,” Josephine said. “I didn’t think
it would be ugly.” The white cotton suit hung like someone’s empty
skin. Copper glinted at wrists, neck, and ankles, and wove in and
out of the fabric from top to bottom like red-gold snakes.

“It’s supposed to go under your clothes, not
be visible,” Telaine reminded her. “But you’re right, it
is
ugly.” She began taking off her clothes. “Let’s see if it
works.”

She put the suit on over her underclothes,
buttoned the neck and sleeves, and turned a disc at her waist. “Not
working yet. This fabric really is thin.”

“It’s what you asked for.”

“I know. That wasn’t criticism.” A trickle of
warmth spread out from near her navel. “I think it’s working.” More
heat, this time from her wrists and ankles, and a ruby warmth
circled her neck. “It’s definitely working!” She clasped
Josephine’s hands and both women jumped up and down in
excitement.

“Oops,” Telaine said. Her ankle had gone
cold. She bent to twist one of the wires, restoring heat. “I think
I might not have secured this properly.”

“I think the control knob ought to be at the
neck,” Josephine said. “Too many ways for it to get damaged or
turned off at the waist.”

“That will make the heat spread unevenly, but
I agree.” An impish smile touched Telaine’s lips. “Do you have a
back door?”

She stood behind Josephine’s shop in a
snowdrift, clad only in her long underwear and a pair of castoff
boots too large for her, and felt as warm as if it were a spring
day. “We’re going to be famous!” she shouted, and Josephine
laughed. “Famous—oh!” A snowball struck her shoulder. “You little
brat!” Another snowball caught her in the chest, and she waded
through the drifts back to the store.

“Certain sure you gave those children a
show,” Josephine remarked.

“Better them than someone who’d care about
how ugly it is.”

“Some of that’s my fault. I’ll make the next
one prettier.”

“And I’ll make it more effective.” They
grinned at each other.

Thunk
. “That was much better. You hit
the tree.”

“With the handle.”

“Better than last time, when you nearly
knocked that squirrel unconscious. Poor critter, never did you any
harm.”

Thunk
. “Should I be happy I hit the
same tree twice in a row, or disappointed that it was still with
the handle?”

“The hilt.”

“Don’t take that tone with me. I’ve got three
more knives here.”

“I beg your pardon, milord, but I don’t see
what’s wrong with the Device. It seems to be working
perfectly.”

“I believe if you take a look there, you’ll
see the problem.”

“…Indeed, milord, you’re right. You’ve
developed an instinct for these things.”

“I consider you my inspiration, my dear.”

“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me,
milord.”

“Do you think the lace is necessary,
Josephine?”

“Happen not. And it limits the appeal. But
the buttons are effective, yes?”

“I like the buttons. Would you like to try it
this time?”

“Do I have to run around in the yard like you
did?”

“Happen it’s not a real test unless you
do.”

Thwack.
“That’s three times in a row!
Point first, same tree, same…well, same general area. I think it’s
these new knives you made for me.”

“Starting to worry you might pass me up.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment and a
challenge.”

“I’m so sorry, milord, I don’t know how I
could have been so sloppy. I’m ashamed that I didn’t actually fix
the firelighter the first time. I just don’t understand it.”

“Don’t be so discouraged, Miss Bricker.
Everyone makes mistakes. Now, it seems when I click this part of
the Device, it sparks but does not ignite. Is that your assessment
as well?”

“Why, yes, milord. Once again you’ve seen to
the heart of the problem. If I make this adjustment
here
…and
that should do it!”

“
i simply don’t know how you do it
,
time after time.”

“Honestly, milord? Neither do I.”

“Now
that
is an attractive piece of
underwear. Amazing how much difference the new color makes.”

“Yes, the copper is striking against the
charcoal gray. I believe it’s your turn to test it, Lainie.”

“True. Let’s see—oof—I still say it needs
more buttons in front. All the way down to the waist. There. This
one is snugger, too.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Good, I think. See, I can still stretch.
Would you look out the back door and see if those hoodlums are
watching?

“No one’s there.”

“Oh, it’s so warm. That was fast. All right,
hold the door for me—here I go!”

Telaine woke,
stretched, and rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling. Every
morning for a month, she’d run over the telecoder message she’d
composed for when the pass was clear. It had been warmer for a
week, and the snow was melting, but when she’d expressed her
hopefulness Aunt Weaver had warned her this mild thaw wasn’t enough
to melt the snow in the pass before the next storm struck.

Telaine had seen two storms come through, one
barely more than a flurry, the other a beast with howling winds
that beat new snow into the hardpack of the old. She couldn’t begin
to imagine what the pass to Ellismere looked like. And Thorsten
Pass had to be even worse. It was hard to worry about an invasion
in the face of all this snow.

She rolled out of her warm nest and dressed
hurriedly. Her new bodysuit was a marvel. She hadn’t had to turn it
on yet, thanks to the warmer weather, but it bothered her hardly at
all under her other layers of clothing. In her woolen sweater,
thick trousers, snow boots, and jacket, she felt like a true native
of Longbourne.

She took her time eating breakfast; she had
nowhere in particular to be today, and planned to spend the morning
chatting with Eleanor before going to the tavern to see who was
available for some fun. But when she came around the corner of Aunt
Weaver’s house, she found a soldier about to knock at the door. He
made a careless attempt at a salute when he saw her. “Baron wants
you up at the fort,” he said.