Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War (30 page)

Another worry assailed Buckle. He had sensed some honor in Alhambra Cortez, but as a whole he did not trust the Tinskins at all. Then he noticed that Sedgwick had left his rum glass sitting on the bedside table; though Sedgwick had raised it in the toast, he had left the alcohol untouched, and it annoyed Buckle in some obscure way.

“I do not trust a man who won’t drink his rum,” Ivan grumbled. “It’s bad luck.”

A tall figure appeared in the doorway. “Lieutenant Windermere reporting as ordered, Captain,” he announced with a handsome grin.

“Ah, grand, Windermere!” Buckle said, jumping forward to shake his hand. “Please come in. Help me cheer up sourpuss Ivan here.”

“With gusto, aye! I am most honored to be invited,” Windermere replied. His dark-gray coat and tails hung from his tall frame with the perfect drape of a tailor’s mannequin, and his milk-and-coffee-colored skin set off his white smile and green eyes. His black top hat, resplendent with a red feather planted in the band, was tucked under his arm.

“Windy is far too cheery a soul for me,” Ivan groused, drawing his pipe out of his pocket again in a tumble of loose tobacco.

“I have the most current report, Captain,” Windermere offered. “All goes well. We are on schedule, and we should be under way just after dawn.”

Dawn.
The word raised a fount of sadness in Buckle’s heart. At dawn he would oversee the funerals of his lost crew in the citadel courtyard, with the empty pyres lit and burning, the mothers’ faces streaming with tears.
Snap out of it
. Buckle forced his cares away. The funerals were at dawn. He could not be aboard his airship until after the Seasonal ball. He determined that he would enjoy himself at the dance despite it all.

Buckle winked at Windermere. “Now, my dear Windermere, please help me get that rat-chewed Russian beaver off the top of our chief mechanic’s head.”

“I swear by the ass hairs of the very devil himself,” Ivan howled, backing up as Buckle and Windermere advanced upon him, “I shall geld the first blaggart who dares touch my topper!”

THE SEASONAL

B
UCKLE STOOD ON THE UPPER
balcony of the great timber-and-stone ballroom, between two scarlet banners draped over the porticoes, and the swell of music rising up from the dance floor seemed to want to lift him off his feet. Eight massive chandeliers hung in spiraling wheels of metal and paraffin candles above the dance floor, along with sixteen smaller oil-lantern chandeliers, stacked squares, dispersed lower and between, while rows of buglights lined the walls—a nod to the airship tradition of the Crankshaft clan—their pulsing light imparting a living glow to the borders of the chamber.

On the western wall loomed a gigantic clock, its face the centerpiece of the room, above the gigantic stone fireplace, where cords of wood burned in multileveled andirons behind a chain-link screen. The clock was a complicated construction of mahogany, brass, copper, whale ivory, and porcelain, with quicksilver Roman numerals and two brass hands that swung quite visibly when the minutes and hours clicked. The frontispiece was illuminated with white boil—the glass tubes smoked with a chemical that made the emerald bioluminescence appear white—and the clock glowed with an unearthly, streaming light.

On the dance floor below, their paired forms illuminated in ebbing turns by chandelier, lantern, fire, and firefly, near one hundred couples waltzed, looking like the pied cogs of a fantastical machine from above, turning in unison, every man dressed in black, brown, or gray, every woman a splash of jeweled earrings, feathers, and bright, swirling-skirted color. The faces of the waltzers, glimpsed as they spun, were smiling, eyes bright in the ecstasies of dance and expectation. The bedchambers would be busy tonight. It was widely reported by the midwives that there was a flurry of births exactly nine months after the Seasonal gala.

The music of the waltz surged from the seventy-two valves of the pipe organ built into the northern wall of the room, its towering fan of polished brass pipes sweeping up to the ceiling. The organist, Percival Boyd, his hands pounding the ivory keys and pressure wheels, refused to sit as he played, his big back partially obscured by the jets of steam issuing from his behemoth instrument; the thirty-piece orchestra played with gusto from their podiums on the flanks, sawing the rosin off their bows.

The Crankshaft clan notables and their guest ambassadors, all glorious in their finery, collected at the fringes of the dance floor below, nursing glasses of gin. Horatio and his wife, Miranda, were there, accompanied by four of their daughters, including their youngest, Elektra, one of the debutantes. Horatio was the official chaperone of all the year’s new ladies—Elektra and a dozen more fifteen-year-old females dressed up like glittering faeries—and the young men had to obtain his permission before they could scribble their names on one of the girls’ dance cards.

Rutherford Washington and Orlando Churchill were both in attendance, along with the sprawling branches of their families,
and so was Swordmistress Gweneviere Gray—her whiplike figure dressed in gray, of course, laced with white ermine and brilliant-green silk.

“The pastries are damned capital!” Ivan yelled at Buckle’s shoulder, jamming a napkin-wrapped lemon tart into Buckle’s hand. Ivan, as usual, had charged straight to the food. The banquet tables, buried under warming pans and steaming kettles, were a glorious confusion of pies, scones with clotted cream, fastmilk in ice, blood pudding, kidney pies, sliced roast beef and cuts of pork, endless boiled, roasted, peppered, and cheesed potatoes, punch bowls, beer kegs, coffee urns and teapots, black bread, soft butter, and, most exotically of all, cold tins of sliced greenhouse apples, oranges, whole cherries, and chilled asparagus.

“Thank you, Ivan,” Buckle said. He already had a cold mug of beer in his hand—the dark ale, the first-rate stuff, the yeasty flavor of it bright on his tongue—and he placed the tart on the balcony rail.

“One must make it to the pastries early, you see—before the bounders snap them all up!” Ivan said, jamming a tart into his mouth. Despite his efforts to the contrary, Ivan looked good. Buckle and Windermere had managed to replace his ratty ushanka with the top hat now sitting at a rakish angle atop his head, and his open jacket allowed his red ascot and cummerbund to draw attention away from the machinery visible on his face, neck, and hand, which did not stick out in the crowd as much as Buckle might have guessed, for most of the Crankshaft women incorporated metal elements into their fur-trimmed wardrobes.

Ivan stopped chewing, crumbs cascading from his chin. “Awwww, criminy!” he muttered.

Buckle followed Ivan’s stare. Gliding toward them through the crowd came the beaming Sabrina and Holly, each girl holding on to an arm of a grinning Balthazar.

The two young women were a sight to behold in their finery, appearing to float just above the surface of the earth as the bottoms of their dresses swept effortlessly across the waxed floorboards. Holly, her light brown tresses curled about her face and held up with a small white bird’s-nest hat accented with cardinal fathers, wore a scarlet gown with elbow-length silk gloves. The tops of her breasts plumped up roundly above her bodice. At her neck, the stiff collar, brocaded with white lace, framed a choker cameo with a white whale-ivory silhouette set in relief over a garnet stone.

Sabrina wore an emerald-green dress edged in black fur, and her crimson hair, unfurled and sweeping about her shoulders, rippled brightly under the oranges and yellows of the lanterns and candles. The open tunic collar of her dress jacket sported a double row of black buttons edged with black lace, running along the length of the tapering coat as it plunged down to her waist. She wore short black gloves, for the sleeves of her dress jacket were long and snug, ending in cuffs at her wrists with swirls of black fur.

Buckle took a short breath. Holly looked gorgeous, but Sabrina was nothing less than a vision.

Ivan spewed an unintelligible excuse through his mouthful of lemon tart and started to bolt. Buckle snatched him by the scruff of his collar.

“Stand fast, damn you!” Buckle whispered loudly at Ivan. “Stand fast!”

PECCADILLOES AND PETTICOATS

“W
IPE YOUR FACE
,
QUICKLY
!” B
UCKLE
yelled into Ivan’s ear.

Ivan rubbed his mouth with his sleeve, downing a gob of tart in one swallow, nearly choking on it.

Balthazar released Holly and Sabrina as they arrived. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I have delivered the young ladies into your care. Now, regretfully, I must return to our guests.”

“Thank you so much, Admiral,” Holly said, offering Balthazar a deep curtsy.

“Thank you, Papa,” Sabrina said, kissing Balthazar on the cheek, bouncing a little on her feet.

“I demand that you all enjoy yourselves immensely,” Balthazar shouted as he hurried away.

Buckle watched Balthazar depart. He felt strangely remote from his father at that moment, shouldered away by Balthazar’s unwillingness to disclose the secrets of his love life to at least one of his sons, though feeling such a way made him aware of being petty.

“You see, I told you!” Sabrina laughed to Holly, her cheeks powdered but still pink and shining. “Romulus always comes up here and hides.”

“I am not hiding,” Buckle said. “Just getting oiled up for the party.”

“That is a shame and a waste,” Holly said, her eyes darting toward Ivan and then back to Buckle. “For a man widely considered one of the finest waltzers in the clan.”

Buckle grinned. “High praise, though grossly misplaced. And yet I would be most delighted if you allowed me the honor of a slot on your dance cards.”

Holly handed Buckle her card, but her gaze was on Ivan, who looked like he was about to be shoved into an iron maiden. “My younger sister, Meagan, has been assigned to the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
as the assistant signals officer, as I am sure you are aware, Captain.”

“Of course,” Buckle replied. Ivan was quaking at his shoulder.

“Meagan is beyond excited,” Holly continued. “She reported to the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
an hour after she received her posting, and she is still aboard now, I am sure, her nose buried in a signals compendium. I have no doubt that you and Sabrina shall look after her.”

“She is already under my wing,” Buckle said with a smile. “Now, I am certain you are familiar with my brother, Ivan.”

“Good evening, Ivan,” Holly said as she curtsied.

“Good evening.” Ivan coughed, bowing—and then he saluted.

Buckle laughed inwardly as he signed Holly’s card. His first instinct was to try to save Ivan, to jump in and salvage whatever shred of a chance he might still have with the girl, but even Buckle knew—from the way Holly’s eyes shone when she looked at Ivan—that Ivan’s awkwardness was not going to deter the pretty girl who was enamored with the strange Russian-blooded mechanic.

The lovely Holly came to Ivan’s rescue, anyway.

“I hate to trample all appearances of etiquette,” Holly said, taking a step up to Ivan, who was pinned against the balcony rail. “But I do desperately wish to be dancing. Ivan, would you be so kind as to sign my card for the next waltz?”

Holly thrust her dance card at Ivan, who accepted it with a trembling hand. Ivan would readily stick his face into the guts of an exploding boiler, but here he was transfixed, confounded, utterly helpless—he was absolutely, spectacularly, deliciously doomed.

“I, I would find that to be most acceptable,” Ivan mumbled, scratching his name on Holly’s card and handing it back to her.

Holly paused, waiting. She raised an eyebrow.

Buckle slapped Ivan on the back. “Bow and offer the lady your arm, good gentleman,” Buckle said. “And escort her to the dance floor.”

Ivan bowed and jerkily offered Holly his undamaged arm. “Please, may I have this dance?”

“Most absolutely!” Holly said, snatching Ivan’s sleeve with a grip so tight that it startled him. “Let us go then, shall we?”

Ivan carefully led Holly away through the crowd.

“Poor Ivan.” Buckle laughed, turning to find Sabrina’s jade eyes sparkling at him.