Lady of Spirit, A (20 page)

The explosion rendered Maggie deaf.

Before her terrified eyes, the missile tore through the iron hull of the
Fury
and shot out into the dark depths, leaving a ragged hole the size of a small cottage in its wake.

Serge’s mouth opened in a shout, but through the ringing silence in her head, she could not hear it—or her own screams, though the pain in her throat told her she was indeed screaming. He grabbed her hand and they flung themselves out the fortress’s door, falling, scraping, bouncing from bolt to bolt until they landed on all fours on the enormous treads. Lights of alarm flashed over their heads, and Maggie felt the vibrations change under her feet. Hesitate. Increase, as though the
Fury
herself had realized what had happened and succumbed to sudden panic.

And then the water leaped through the aperture and into the Kingmaker’s nest with the force of a geyser out of control. It spewed the length of the holding bay, soaking the two of them with cold seawater in moments.

Serge yanked on her hand and they sloshed across the floor as fast as the rapidly rising water would allow.

“Halt!” came a shout from above that broke with terror. “Halt!”

Without a word, Serge turned, aimed, and fired the detonator he still held at the men on the catwalk above. He tossed Maggie the second one that had been looped over his shoulder, and she got in a volley, too, before the men in the rear realized that if they did not alert the rest of the crew, the entire ship would be lost.

But Maggie knew in her bones it was already too late for that. The men fled through an iron door and slammed it shut behind them. The clang was dull, as though heard underwater, but her hearing seemed to be recovering from the blow it had taken.

The water was up to her knees now, freezing her feet in her boots, dragging at her skirts, slowing her down.

“Come!” Serge shouted. “In here!”

He pulled a lever on the hull of the lead
chaloupe
, the one that possessed an engine, and she ran to the stern and released the coupling to the train of inert vessels behind it. When she ran back, he had boosted himself up and through the hatch, and reached down to pull her inside. Kicking, pushing on bits of the hull, she hung onto both his hands as he landed her like a great gasping fish.

Within moments, he had the hatch closed and locked, and glanced up at the glass dome over their heads as if imploring it to hold for the next few minutes.

“Now what?” Maggie said breathlessly.

“I will ignite the
chaloupe
’s engine so as to be ready when the landing ramp opens. And then we wait—and hope. If you are on good terms with the Almighty, Marguerite, you might offer a prayer on our behalf.”

Since that was the only thing she could do besides glue herself to the glass and watch the water rise, she did.

In a far shorter time than she ever would have believed possible, the sea invaded the chamber to the point that the water toyed with the
chaloupe
, attempting to lift it from the deck. Its level rose more—and yet more—and they were submerged, their view now tinged with green, and blurred with the swirling of the angry current trapped in the landing bay with nowhere else to go. Crates and barrels seemed to attack them from every side as they were swirled and flung willy-nilly in the maelstrom.

And then the sound of metal screeching on metal reverberated through the walls. A horn sounded—or perhaps that was just the agony of the
Fury
, realizing at last the truth of her awful situation.

The deck tipped out from under them.

The massive chains mooring the Kingmaker to the floor snapped as the war machine rolled forward, the whipping motion of their release slowed by the enormous volume of water that now engulfed it.

Slowly, mindlessly obeying the demands of physics, the deck continued to lower, all the contents of the landing bay—Kingmaker,
chaloupes
, landaus, crates, pallets, and machinery, all sliding down the ramp in one huge roiling mass.

The sea’s triumph was complete now as it filled the entire bay and began its assault on the rest of the
navire
. Maggie was deafened for a second time from the cacophony of objects striking the hull of the
chaloupe
—so deafened that she could hardly hear Serge’s shout.

“We have lost our rudder!” he cried, working the navigation wheel like a madman as they fell slowly into the depths. “That wretched crate of rifles struck us and has bent it—she will not obey the helm!”

When Maggie turned toward the stern with the thought that she might be able to repair it with something, she looked up through the glass.

All the blood seemed to leave her head from sheer horror.

She grabbed Serge’s arm and swung him around to look. For the Kingmaker’s enormous weight meant that it was the last thing to be disgorged from the
Fury
’s sagging jaw. Their
chaloupe
had gone out with the crates and equipment, propelled by the little engine, and with the precipitous angle of the
Fury
, which now pointed at the seabed, the Kingmaker was literally falling—slowly, ponderously—on top of them.

“Move! Move!” she shrieked.

“I cannot! I have no rudder!”

“Goose it—in any direction. Serge, quickly!”

But no matter what he did, the behemoth pushed all before it, their little bubble of glass and brass trapped between its horrific weight on one side and the pressure of the water on the other.

Maggie could do nothing at all but cling to Serge’s soaked wool sleeve, watching as the Kingmaker came for them both, as inexorably as death.

“This is completely unacceptable,” Claire snapped, hanging onto her temper by its last thread.

In the sea parlor at Seacombe House, she, Andrew, Michael Polgarth, and Lizzie faced down the formidable obstinacy of Demelza Seacombe. The woman stood in front of the fire, back ramrod straight, her gaze unyielding. Claire’s stomach was hollowed out with fear for Maggie, and she struggled against her rage at the injustice this woman and her husband had dealt to her girl for no better reason than snobbery.

And now Maggie’s and Claude’s lives were at risk because of it.

“Are you seriously telling me that you have no idea where they could have been taken?”

“We are not in the habit of following smugglers to and fro,” Mrs. Seacombe said in quelling tones, but the pallor of her skin suggested she was more affected than she was letting on. “The goods come from America via France. We cannot be responsible for the behavior of criminals in the night.”

“No, heaven forbid you should be responsible for anything,” Claire said. “You are quite willing to accept the profits of those activities, however, to support the style of living to which you have become accustomed. But that is neither here nor there. I find it very difficult to believe that you have no feeling for Claude and the peril of his situation, even if you cannot spare a drop of compassion for Maggie.”

“They will not harm Claude,” Mrs. Seacombe repeated, as stubborn as a rock and, Claire suspected, with as little imagination. Her own imagination was working at a furious rate, and it was making her positively ill. “I must believe that is true. Now, if you will excuse me, my husband lies practically at death’s door after an apoplexy, and I must return to his bedside.”

Lizzie pressed against Claire’s side. “It is my fault. I told them about the
navire
and the ‘second phase’ that the captain was talking about, and Grandfather collapsed.”

Claire reached the last reserves of her ability to be civil, and passed an arm about Lizzie’s waist. “It is not your fault. If a man will engage in criminal activity, it is his own fault if his conscience catches up with him.”

“Claire, we are getting nowhere here,” Andrew said in a low tone. “We must apply our minds in a different direction.” To Mrs. Seacombe, he said, “We must see a set of charts immediately. If they are crossing the Channel, they will use the shortest and least dangerous route. Perhaps we can trace some possibilities if we can see the lay of the land.”

“Not only the land,” Lizzie said. “The seabed, too.”

“An excellent point. Marine charts, Mrs. Seacombe, if you please, at once.”

If she objected to being spoken to in such peremptory tones, Mrs. Seacombe did not show it. Perhaps she knew that one more sign of reluctance to help would ignite Claire’s temper—and Claire had not missed the astonished glance she had bestowed on the lightning rifle in its holster on her back when they’d pushed their way past Nancarrow and demanded an audience.

Wordlessly, Mrs. Seacombe led them downstairs to her husband’s study. She deposited the charts on a table and swept from the room. The marine charts showed the floor of the Channel as well as the land masses they knew so well on this side at least. Andrew ran a finger from their location at Penzance to the closest landing in Cornouaille.

“There are miles of possibilities here, but at least it would be a place to start. Perhaps we will be fortunate and see one of the undersea dirigibles surface. From the air, it might be easier to spot them than from land, though since the sun has gone down, that is a slender hope.”

Michael Polgarth leaned over the chart and pointed to a tiny dot. “Baie des Sirenes,” he said with a sad smile. “That is where Maggie was born.”

He had told them the story in the navigation gondola on the way here, its details contradicting in nearly every particular the one that the Seacombes had told her. If Claire had had a moment for regrets, it would be that she had not taken the time to hear the story from Maggie herself. Instead, she had listened to a lie and passed it on believing it to be the truth—and what damage it had caused!

“Baie des Sirenes,” Andrew said slowly, tracing the route between that location and theirs. “In the absence of any other information, it is as good a place to start as any. Shall we take it as an omen of good fortune and set our course there?”

Claire made up her mind instantly. “Lizzie says the
navire
—the undersea dirigible—was called
Neptune’s Maid
. Neptune’s daughters were mermaids. And this translates to Bay of the Mermaids. I believe it is a sign.” She let the chart roll itself up with a snap, and scooped it off the table. “Let us lift at once.”

Athena
was moored rather awkwardly in the orchard, but Claire had not had time to choose a more suitable landing place—or one that would not involve broken branches. But she was in no mood at present to care about the yield of the Seacombes’ apple trees. While Michael and Andrew attended to the ropes, Lizzie dashed down to the messenger cage, which she had visited at least twice already, looking for a missive from Maggie.

“Up ship!” Claire called, the men pulled in the ropes, and
Athena
fell into the night sky like a lark leaping for the heavens.

“Lady!” came a shriek from below. “It’s Maggie!”

*

Slowly, ponderously, the Kingmaker’s enormous weight bore it toward the sea floor, pushing all before it. Maggie clung to Serge, watching unblinkingly as the monster thrust them ahead of it. How many moments of life did they have left before they were crushed? How deep was the Channel here?

A shadow darkened one side of the glass, and Maggie watched in wonder as
Neptune’s Fury
spiraled past them, huge air bubbles trailing it like a bridal veil as the water rushed into the
navire
’s decks and crushed the life from the fuselage.

She sent up a quick prayer for the souls of the men aboard, as misguided as they had been, and thought of Jean-Luc Martin, that cheerful flirt who had been so helpful to the young woman he believed to be Gloria Meriwether-Astor. Where was
Neptune’s Maid
at this moment? What would happen to the rest of the undersea fleet when they learned of the fate of their greatest hope, the Kingmaker? Was Gerald Meriwether-Astor even on that ship? And most important of all, had her message reached the Royal Aeronautics Corps outpost in time for them to mount a defense?

Serge’s arm tightened about her shoulders and she felt him stiffen, preparing himself for the worst as the Kingmaker began to roll. His lips moved in a soundless prayer—Maggie braced herself likewise—

—Lord have mercy on my soul—

—oh, Lizzie, Lizzie, think of me—

—and a massive bubble issued from the cockpit of the armed fortress, slowly rotating as its heavier weight bore the behemoth to the bottom. The bubble caught them—lifted them—and spat them out to the side.

Maggie and Serge lost their balance as the
chaloupe
rolled. The floor became the ceiling, and Maggie snatched at whatever protruding instruments she could, to no avail. They were flung like dolls from one side to the other until the air within triumphed over the water without, and the
chaloupe
righted itself, glass side up.

Serge dragged himself from the curved wall, blood trickling down the side of his face, one arm held tightly to his body in pain. “We must surface as quickly as possible.”

On hands and knees, hardly able to believe she was alive, Maggie gasped, “But we will be discovered!”

“It matters not. If
Fury
did not get off a distress signal to the fleet, they will proceed as planned. If they did, the fleet will be in the disarray absolute. In either case, they will not be surfacing in the middle of the Channel. It is the safest place for us.”

Maggie sucked in a breath of pain as she picked herself up from the deck. A quick catalogue of arms and legs proved that all were still operational, though her head hurt and it seemed her leather corselet may have protected her from a possible broken rib. The bruising was going to be ugly, though.

But these hurts were nothing in comparison to the horrific death they had been saved from by a bubble, of all things. Maggie would take the bruises and cuts and be grateful for them.

Serge increased the air pressure just enough to send them shooting to the surface. Seawater sheeted from the glass and cleared, leaving them a view of stars and moon gazing calmly down from far above.

Maggie had never seen anything so lovely in all her life.

“May we open the glass?” If she could only take one breath of fresh air, she would never ask anything of the universe again.

Serge shook his head, pain clearly stripping him of the energy for civilities. “We will be swamped. The pumps will keep us in air until we are rescued, which is all we may hope for without the ability to make way.”

“How long will that be?”

He gave a most Gallic shrug of one shoulder. “If we are lucky, sometime tomorrow. But I should prepare myself,
ma petite
. On the French side, all will be focused on the invasion. To the north, England will leap to its own defense. No one will be looking for
une petite chaloupe
bobbing in the middle of the Channel. The tides will take us where they will—and we must pray that it is east and not west.” He stopped, out of breath, and folded himself to the deck to recover.

It took a second for Maggie to understand what he meant. The tides could sweep them toward Dover, like a cork in a funnel, where they might make landfall. Or they could be borne westward, out into the Atlantic, where they and their disabled vessel would be lost.

She swallowed, attempting to moisten a mouth gone dry. “Can we repair the rudder? I could go out and attempt to bend it back. I am a very good swimmer.”

“It is solid iron,
ma petite
. Even I would not be able to do it without a forge and tools.”

“Serge, there must be something we can do to help ourselves.”

But he did not answer.

Catalogue your resources, and then use your imagination, Maggie.

Right. They had no rudder, but they had propulsion, and air. Perhaps if they could get the
chaloupe
pointed north and east, they could assist the flow of the tide—or resist it if it went the wrong way.

But which way was east?

She could see no shore—the Channel here was a hundred and fifty miles across. The moon was up, but what time was it? Where was north, exactly?

“Serge, you are a bathynaut—help me!” Rapidly, she outlined what was in her mind.

He did not respond.

“Serge?” Alarmed, she shook his shoulder. “Serge!”

His face had gone pasty white, and he was unconscious. The blows he had taken were obviously more serious than either of them had thought. What if he had gone into shock? There wasn’t so much as a blanket in here, and the canvas equipment bags were torn and ruined from having been flung about during their ascent.

Maggie whipped off her practical brown skirt, thankful for the black ruffled petticoat underneath, and covered him with the length of tightly woven gabardine wool. The deck upon which he lay was wet, which would not help the situation, but she tried to tuck as much of the skirt under him as possible. Then she stuffed canvas under his head and heels.

When she had done what she could, she took stock. The undersea fleet would not come for them—unless it was to shoot them out of the water for ruining their plans. The aeronauts on St. Michael’s Mount would have their hands full. Mariah and the other members of the resistance were occupied in securing the sea caves and seeing Claude to safety.

If the pigeon had flown true, only one person remained who knew where Maggie was and what she was doing.

Only one person would not give up until she was found.

Maggie tried to imagine the sea from above, with the moon shining down, creating a path of wrinkled silver. The
chaloupe
would be invisible—its glass top as transparent as the bubble from which it took its design.

What did the sea creatures do to be seen? What had been the first thing she had noticed about
Neptune’s Maid
when it surfaced?

Its eerie greenish-yellow glow.

Maggie leaped to the
chaloupe
’s simple control panel. Lights. She must have lights. She must create the world’s largest moonglobe so that they would be seen from above—a tiny beacon in all this vast ocean.

She flipped levers and pressed buttons—most of which were no longer capable of responding. One of them began to open the glass top, splitting along its brass seam, and Maggie hastily pushed it the other way before the waves sloshed in and swamped them.

Nothing seemed to activate the lights.

Think!

The path of energy was being blocked somehow, after all their acrobatics below. Therefore, she would have to take it from elsewhere. Propulsion was useless without Serge’s knowledge of navigation. They did not need it—so she could reroute what power they still had from the engine to the lights.

Maggie snatched a moonglobe from the navigator’s station and dove under the control console. Gears and cogs and a small rotating shaft … move this wheel … switch the pressure and direction from here to here … the gears meshed in their new pattern and behind Maggie’s shoulder, light glowed.

She increased the power with the propulsion lever and the interior of the
chaloupe
became illuminated with a yellowish-green light. Stronger it grew, until she could see everything inside clearly and in detail.

Including poor Serge’s face. He looked dreadful—as though he were not merely unconscious, but dead.

No, she could not think such things. They would be found in time. They had to be.

They had no propulsion at all, and were utterly at the mercy of wind and waves, but Maggie was quite sure that the little
chaloupe
could now be seen from the Lizard to Dover.

That is, if anyone was out there looking.