Novel - Airman (34 page)

Isabella’s blade quivered, then froze.
What did this mean? Who was this man to invoke Victor’s name?

Declan gathered his wife and the queen behind him, sword raised for battle.

“You will show your face, sir!” he demanded. “I grant you five seconds before we duel to the death. And that death will be yours.”

Conor slowly reversed his grip, then buried the tip of his sword in the floorboards. “Very well. But before I do, tell me if you drank a toast.”

“There was no toast,” snapped Declan. “Now, off with those goggles, sir.”

Conor’s shoulders slumped and he seemed on the verge of collapse, but he drew himself erect and pulled the collar down from his chin, then pushed the goggles up to his forehead. His face was blasted black from soot and oil, but his eyes were clear, and a lock of blond hair had come loose from his leather cap.

The watchers were confused. What they were seeing was not possible.

“Father, I know you vowed to kill me should we meet again,” said Conor slowly. “But there are things you do not know. Victor did not kill the king, nor was I involved. It was Bonvilain.”

“Conor,” breathed his mother. “You live?”

Declan sank to his knees as though gut punched. His breath was labored, and tears streamed down his face. “My son lives. How is it possible?”

And suddenly Conor understood the scale of Bonvilain’s deception.

My parents genuinely believed me dead. Bonvilain spun a different lie for each party.

Isabella was the first to reach him, hugging him tightly, kissing his cheek. Her tears mingling with his. “Oh, Conor. Conor, where have you been?”

Conor held her tightly, reeling from the strength of emotions aimed at him. He had been expecting mistrust and anger. Not love.

“That was you in the cell,” moaned Declan. “I said I would kill you. I sent you to hell.”

Catherine rubbed her husband’s back, but then couldn’t keep herself away from her son. She rushed to him, taking his face in her hands. “Oh, Conor. You are a man now,” she said. “Grown as tall as your father at seventeen.”

Conor was vaguely surprised to realize that he
was
only seventeen. Conor Finn had been more than twenty.

Declan Broekhart’s face was suddenly terrible with rage. “Bonvilain did this. All of it, and by God, I will make him pay.”

Bonvilain!
In the swirl of emotions, Conor had forgotten about Hugo Bonvilain. He turned clumsily in the embrace of his mother and queen to find only a puddle of blood where Bonvilain had fallen. He plucked his saber from the floorboards and scanned the chamber to see his old enemy sliding along the wall, quietly making for the door.

“Father,” called Conor, pointing with his sword. “We must secure Bonvilain.”

Realizing that his escape was thwarted, Bonvilain reached behind a tapestry and pulled his hidden lever. The fireplace slid aside on a pulley mechanism, revealing a tightly packed group of Holy Cross guards.

Bonvilain smiled, his mouth a bloody mess, more than one gap in his teeth. “My last line of defense,” he said, spitting crimson. And to the soldiers. “Kill the women. They are impostors.”

It was a cunning order, diverting Conor and Declan from their path in order to defend Isabella and Catherine. The soldiers tumbled from their confined space, drawing daggers and swords. No guns—guns would bring the Wall Watch running.

Luckily, the secret space was cramped, and so the men were stiff and light-dazzled, which gave the Broekharts a second’s advantage. They used it well, bundling the half-dozen Holy Cross guardsmen back toward their hiding place.

“Watch the marshall,” Conor called to Isabella.

“He is no longer the marshall,” said the queen, raising the samurai sword. “I have been taught how to slice a man into three pieces,” she said to Bonvilain. “Take one step toward us and I will demonstrate those strokes for you.”

Bonvilain pinched the bridge of his nose. Ordinarily, he would rush this silly girl and crush the hands that held the sword, but the poison in his wine was beginning to affect him. Already his fingers were tingling and a volcano bubbled in his innards. He needed to be away from here before the more extreme symptoms occurred.

The path to the door was blocked by the Broekharts. His secret passage was a melee of flailing limbs and blades, and the only other exit was the balcony. Bonvilain tripped over Conor’s discarded wings and onto the balcony, searching furiously below for something to rescue him.
Imagine. Hugo Bonvilain needs rescuing. How embarrassing.

Below, the Wall Watch stripped down the Gatling Guns, apparently oblivious to the commotion sixty feet above their heads. They had obviously not noticed the giant birdlike creature crashing into their marshall’s apartments.

Bonvilain felt his stomach lurch as the poison twisted his guts.
I must escape. I need a way down.

There! Crossing the courtyard below was Sultan Arif, a duffel bag in his hand and another slung across his back.
Where the devil is that fool going?

“Sultan!” he shouted. “Captain Arif. I need you—now!”

Sultan missed a step, but he did not stop. “I am going home, Hugo,” he called without turning. “I have many sins to atone for.”

For the first time in many a year, Bonvilain experienced real rage. “Get back here!” he demanded, pounding the railing. “I don’t have time for your sulking. Send me a rope on a crossbow bolt.”

Arif disobeyed yet again. “If you have drunk the toast, then I would advise you to stay calm, Marshall,” he cautioned, quickening his pace toward the gate. “A speeding heart moves the poison more quickly through your veins.”

“Traitorous wretch,” roared Bonvilain. “Do not doubt that we shall meet again!”

“And I know where we shall meet,” whispered Sultan, his back turned on Bonvilain once and for all.

A speeding heart moves the poison more quickly.
Bonvilain realized the truth of those words as a spasm hit him and he vomited bile over the balcony.
Calm yourself, Hugo. There is still time.

With one last shake of his fist in Arif ’s direction, Bonvilain went back into his own apartment, where Declan and Conor Broekhart were battling furiously with three of the Holy Cross guards. Three were already down, clutching their wounds, or unconscious. At that moment, Declan Broekhart took a blade in the shoulder, leaving his son to fight alone, which he did.

Catherine dragged her husband clear, and Queen Isabella kept her sword leveled at Bonvilain.

That girl is really becoming quite irksome. Why did I let her live this long?
Bonvilain realized that he had allowed his schemes to become too elaborate.

I need these people dead, but more than that, I need to be in a safe place where I can regain my strength. I have funds and supporters on the mainland.

Conor drove the three Holy Cross guards back with a wide swing, then drew a pistol from his belt, firing off two low rounds A couple of soldiers collapsed with shattered shins.

Gunfire! thought Bonvilain. That and the word “poison” from the courtyard will have the Wall Watch running. I must away. The poison was in his legs now, sticking needles in his toes, cramping his muscles.

Across the room, Conor Broekhart struggled with the final guard, a huge Scotsman wielding a shortened broadsword. This was one of Bonvilain’s mercenaries and a veteran killer. For a moment Bonvilain nurtured a glimmer of hope, then Conor stepped under the big Scotsman’s swing and knocked him flat with the saber’s finger guard.

The Airman tumbled the final guard back inside the passage then reached behind the tapestry and sealed them inside. Their moaning could be heard through the grate.

“Behind you, son,” said Declan through gritted teeth. “The marshall.”

Conor rounded on Bonvilain with three years of hatred glowing in his eyes. The Airman was a figure from children’s nightmares. A man in black, wielding a bloody weapon, lips pulled back in a snarl. “Bonvilain,” he said with a strange calmness.

Generally, Bonvilain would have relished the opportunity for some choice remarks, followed by swift mortal combat with this whelp, but now his system was afire with wolfsbane. His tongue felt strange and swollen in his mouth, and his legs bent under the weight of his torso.

Soon my judgment will be gone. I must escape now.

Isabella stepped forward. “You will answer for your crimes, Hugo Bonvilain. Your reign is over. There is no escape.”

Bonvilain bent low, grunting like a wild boar. He grasped Conor’s harness and dragged the glider onto the balcony.

“Escape,” he muttered, drool dripping from his slack lip. “Fly away, Airman.”

Conor followed him, cocking his pistol. “I’m warning you, Bonvilain.”

Bonvilain managed a dry laugh. “Conor Broekhart. Always in my way. In Paris when I ordered your father’s balloon shot down. When I set the king’s tower alight. Even now. Perhaps you are magical, as people believe.”

It was difficult to understand what Hugo Bonvilain said now; his loose lips bubbled with spittle and blood. The mar-shall rolled his body up onto the balcony’s parapet.

“Keep away, or you will never know my secrets.”

Conor ached to finish Bonvilain, but Isabella’s light touch prevented it. “Don’t, Conor. I need to know everything he has done. There is so much to be set right.” Isabella turned to the marshall. “Come down from there,” ordered Isabella. “Your queen commands it.”

Bonvilain struggled to his feet, clumsily pulling the harness around his shoulders.

“I have no queen, no God, no country,” he mumbled, cinching the chest belt with rubbery fingers. That would have to do; he did not have the dexterity for the remaining buckles. “All I have is cunning.”

And with a focus born of hatred, Bonvilain reached inside his dragon robe to a dagger at his belt, with the intention of flicking it from his waist. Conor saw the gleam of the blade as it cleared the silk.

Isabella! Even now he tries to kill Isabella.
Conor swung his pistol, but Declan Broekhart was quicker, though his shoulder was wounded. He hurled his sword, spearlike, with such force that it pierced Bonvilain’s vest of chain mail and lodged in his heart.

Bonvilain sighed, as though disappointed with a book he was reading, then stepped backward off the parapet, into the night. An updraft filled the glider’s wings, floating Bonvilain over the courtyard, past the disbelieving eyes of the Wall Watch and hundreds of Saltee Islanders raised from their beds by the Gatling guns.

Bonvilain hung there for several moments, his dripping blood painting swirls on the flagstones, before a crosswind flipped the glider about, urging it out to sea.

Conor watched him go, dropping closer and closer to the cold ocean, the silhouetted sword protruding from his lifeless heart, and with him went the nightmare that Conor’s life had become.

None could tear their eyes from Bonvilain’s corpse, arresting even in death. Farther from land he drifted, and lower, too, until his toes skimmed the ocean. Conor wished to see him go down, to be certain that it was over, but he did not. Bonvilain was lost to sight before the ocean claimed him.

Below was consternation. The Watch were hammering on the Wall access door, and the people surged against the foot of the tower.

Declan Broekhart took Isabella by the hand, leading her to the parapet.

“The queen is safe,” he called, raising her hand. “Long live the queen!”

The cry that came back was relieved and heartfelt. “Long live the queen!”

CHAPTER 19: TIME APART

Queen Isabella had taken to walking the Wall every morning at sunrise. She believed that it gave her subjects heart to see her there. Before too many sunrises, she could call to everyone she saw by name.

Conor often joined his queen on her morning strolls, and on the morning before his planned departure to study for a science degree at Glasgow University, they met below what had been Bonvilain’s tower. Isabella stood with her elbows on the parapet, watching a cluster of fishing boats half a mile offshore, their small crafts bobbing in the choppy channel currents.

“They will never find him, you know,” said Conor. “Bonvilain’s mail vest has taken him straight to the bottom. He is food for the crabs now.”

Isabella nodded. “Without a body, he becomes the bogeyman. They say he has been seen in Paris, and Dublin. I read in the
London Times
that Bonvilain survives as a killer for hire in Whitechapel.”

They were both silent for a minute, convincing themselves that they had actually seen Hugo Bonvilain die.

“What will you do with this place?” Conor asked finally, slapping the tower wall.

“A diamond market, I think,” replied Isabella. “It seems ludicrous that the diamonds are here, and yet we trade in London.”

“You’re making big changes.”

“There are many things to be changed. Little Saltee for one. Did you know that only fourteen of the prisoners are from the Saltee Islands? The majority of the other poor souls are from Ireland or Great Britain. Well, no more. I will shut the prison down and contract the mining to a professional firm.”

Conor glanced at the
S
branded into his hand.
Little Saltee will always be with me. It has marked my body and mind.

“What will happen to the prisoners?” he asked.

“Every case will be reviewed by a judge. I suspect most have served their sentences, and more besides. Reparations will have to be made.”

“I would be grateful if you could look kindly on a certain Otto Malarkey. He is not as fearsome as he seems.”

“Of course, Sir Conor.”

“You will make a fine queen.”

“My father was the scientist; I am a businesswoman. You can be my royal scientist . . . on your return.”

“Mother told you?”

Isabella took his arm, and they promenaded along the Wall. “Catherine told me about Glasgow. I am supposed to talk you out of it.”

“And how would you do that?”

“I could always have you hanged.”

Conor smiled. “Like the old days. Sometimes I wish the old days were here still.”

Isabella stopped at one of her favorite spots on the Wall. A dip facing the mainland, where centuries ago masons had built a lovers’ seat. From this vantage point, at various times during the morning, it was possible to view the sun illuminating the church tower’s stained-glass window. As the sun moved, it seemed as though the Saint Christopher figure in the window moved a little, too.

Isabella sat on the stone seat, pulling Conor down beside her. “I miss the old days too. But it’s not too late for us, is it, Conor?”

“I hope that it is not,” replied Conor.

“Then I shall wait,” said Isabella, and her playful side surfaced. “Shall you fly home to see me, Sir Airman?”

“I am merely a
sir
. Is that not too common for a queen?”

“That is easily fixed. With one prick of my hat pin, you can become a prince.”

“Hat pin? Is that legal?”

“It doesn’t have to be a hat pin, so long as there is blood and you are in great pain.”

Conor took her hand in his. “I think now that I shall be in great pain until I return.”

“Then study hard, earn your paper, and come home quickly. Your queen needs you. I need you.”

And they kissed for the first time, with the stained-glass sun painting rainbows on their faces, and the hubbub of morning trade rising from the square below.

All the good-byes had been said. He had kissed his mother and dangled his little brother upside down. All that was left was to leave.

Conor strolled down to the port on a sunny morning, keeping one eye on the barrow boy bobbing down the hill with his luggage. The sea was calm, and a small passenger steamship chugged on its ropes in the outside dock. A small crowd had gathered on the deck, and Conor smiled when he saw the attraction. Linus Wynter was treating the passengers to an impromptu rendition of an aria from
The Soldier’s Return
.

He stopped singing when he heard Conor’s footsteps on the planks. “It’s about time you showed up, boy. I had to sing just to stop the captain casting off.”

“Any excuse, Linus,” said Conor, flipping the barrow boy a shilling. “You have secured the laboratory?”

“Our tower is in good hands. Uncle has moved in with a couple of his dullards, as he calls them.”

“How does Uncle smell?”

“Not so good. All we can hope for is that he will fall into the ocean with a bar of soap in his pocket.”

Conor leaped across a yard of sea onto the steamship.

“Do you think Scotland is ready for your genius?”

Linus smiled broadly, adjusting his tinted eyeglasses, which Conor had fashioned for him. “The Scots are famous for their appreciation of music. Robert Burns was a poet of the people, like myself. Glasgow will take me to its bosom, I feel sure of it. In six months we will be the toast of the city.”

“You can see into the future now, old friend?”

Linus searched the air until his hand found Conor’s shoulder. “Other men look up and down, left and right,” he said. “But men like us are different. We are visionaries.”