Thunderer (11 page)

They shouted that they were not.

“We broke out from all over. We were all given the signal, and we took it, and we broke out from everything, all over. No one can take us back, if we don’t want to go. We can take whatever we want. Who’s scared of the Flame?” No one was. “They got a uniform and they got a name, and that makes you think they’re something special.
We’re
special. Not them.”

The little ones cheered. The older ones looked skeptical. It was all so much grander and better and more obviously
right
in his head than he had words to express. His mouth was dry. But they sensed his excitement, and watched him intently.

“So what I think is, I think we need a name, too.”

He unfolded the
Era
’s print of the flying warship, and held it up against the light. “Know what this is?”

Several hands shot up among the little ones. “That’s the Countess’s ship,” Namdi said. “I saw it.”

“Wrong. That’s our sign.
Ours
. Namdi, you remember the day you got out from Lime Street? Beth, you remember? Turyk, you remember when you told that Master of yours where to stick it? That’s the same day this thing went up. The same thing that made us free, made this thing free. I saw it, too, up in the Tor. It’s incredible. It can go anywhere. No one can stop it or touch it. Like they can’t touch us or stop us, not if we keep moving.”

Namdi nodded, grinning. “It’s amazing.”

“Same day as we all escaped. Same thing that brought us all together. It
is
amazing. It’s the future. It’s going to be our sign.”

They were all looking at him. Bright faces in the attic’s shadows. He was unsure what to say next, so he said again, but louder, “This is our sign.”

He handed the print to Fiss, who looked at him curiously and passed it wordlessly to Aiden, who shared it with Beth; then they all gathered in, looking at it and at Jack. The
Thunderer:
the Thunderers. No mere thieves or vagrants. It would be their name and their strength: they, too, would amaze. He was very excited; he thought they liked it. It was a start.

A
rjun spent the day
on Fraction Street, up on Mass How, in the instrument-makers’ shops and workshops, in dark spaces full of jangling wires and strings and clanking brass and the cacophony of poorly made instruments being tuned, of untutored would-be musicians banging away. All of the city’s tunes, few of which he liked, none of which was the music he hoped to hear, all sounding at once, and mostly badly played. He was ejected from one shop after another when it became clear that he had no money. It crossed his mind to apply for work, but he did not wish to be tied down there, to be caught in those dusty webs of catgut and piano-wire. Perhaps when his money ran out he would reconsider.

He came back to Shutlow in the evening to find the streets full of bunting. Clotheslines were hung with red flags, and, if flags weren’t available, with cloth or rags dyed red. Red banners flew over Seven Wheels Market, stitched in black with the image of a ship, lightning at its prow, lifted by a swelling balloon. Moore Street’s evening shadows glittered with broken glass and scattered flags. Off in the distance there was still cheering and the honking of a brass band. On the horizon—north, over on the Heath—there was the faint spark of fireworks against the black sky.

He sat in the guests’ room in the unraveling green armchair in the corner. Haycock was there warming his feet by the fire, jotting down sales and prices in a crabbed hand in an overstuffed ledger-book.

“Was there a festival, Mr. Haycock? Or a parade?”

“Too bloody right there was. Bloody awful racket. Where’ve you been? Don’t you read the papers?”

“Hardly ever, Mr. Haycock.”

“Ignorance is bliss, ain’t it? There’s been a famous victory, they say. Or the Countess says, and so everyone else says. With that bastard ugly ship of hers. Over pirates. Or what the Countess is pleased to call pirates. The distinction between our city’s glorious leaders and a bunch of pirates being a subtle one that’s probably beyond a foreigner such as youself. We’re all so very bloody excited, waving our little banners. Though what good it’s going to do me is beyond me. Don’t talk to that puffed-up bootlicker Heady, that’s my advice. He’s insufferable tonight.”

D
own on the Heath it was dark, lit only by firework flashes. The great ship
Thunderer
hung darkly far overhead, fixed and frozen in the night.

From the
Thunderer
’s prow Arlandes could still see the sunset burning sullenly down behind the cranes and factory towers of Agdon Deep.

The crowds on the Heath had screamed and cheered loud enough for the
Thunderer
’s crew to hear them. They were dispersing now; it was a cold evening. It was colder still up on the deck, and Arlandes hugged his thick black wax-coat tightly around himself.

They had taken the
Thunderer
down through Goshen Tor, hanging so low they were level with the tops of the tallest buildings, and the bankers came running close to the windows to stare, shouting silently and banging their fists on the thick glass. The crew had saluted back at them and laughed. It was enough, probably, to have driven the Chairman to a blind fury: to have that weapon parading itself through his territory, his own people cheering it…But the Countess had ordered it, so Arlandes obeyed.

She smiled all the time now. Her painted jeweled face, her white skin and red lips, curled into a constant sly smile. She was full of plans.

The battle—if you could call it a battle—had been fought that morning, at dawn, as the sun rose over the Bay so that the water seemed stained with blood. There was an island in the Bay, a rocky island, crowned with a fort: Sleutel’s Island and Sleutel’s Fort. The rocks and the reefs made it almost unapproachable by unfriendly ships, so Sleutel and Sleutel’s predecessors had generally been left alone. They seized the occasional ship; it had always been seen as a kind of tax.

The Fort crumbled at the first volley from the
Thunderer
’s guns. It was built of some soft yellow sandstone and it turned back to sand. There had been riflemen on the turrets firing pointlessly at the
Thunderer
’s side; when the walls burst into powder and smoke they’d fallen screaming. The inner structures of the Fort were made of wood, and burned. The
Thunderer
’s bombards had sprayed oil and powder and flame wherever they struck. It had been a resoundingly successful test.

There had been perhaps two hundred people in the Fort. Not all of them had been men, though Arlandes did not know their exact numbers, and had not cared to descend into the rubble to count.

Arlandes was neither proud nor ashamed. The fireworks exploded over the Heath and lit his face violent reds and greens and he still stared blankly at the sunset.

What crowd there still was, was still cheering. They couldn’t see him, of course; only the great black hull blocking out the stars.

He knew what they said about him. He rarely went anywhere these days except the Countess’s estates and the
Thunderer
itself, but he’d overheard the gossip: the Mourning Captain, all clad in black. There were stories in the papers and ballads sung in the streets. The
Era
’s editorials called him a throwback to a nobler, more sensitive age, which sat poorly with their claims that he and his wonderful ship were heralds of the city’s future; but it sold papers either way. He’d caught the popular imagination. Romantics pictured him grieving at the prow of his ship; he’d confiscated a chapbook from one of the men on which, under the words
GRIEF’S LONELY WARRIOR
, he was pictured in black, a single tear on his chiseled cheek, gazing at the horizon, hand on his sword. It was a publication of disgraceful and dispiriting stupidity. Young women wrote him letters by the sackful; after reading a few—perfumed, appallingly florid—he’d ordered his valet to burn them and all similar missives.

Less-romantic gossip pictured him going mad in his quarters, clutching the bloody dress to himself in the darkness, weeping and pleading. That was possibly closer to the truth; though he’d let the dress go, he clutched it close in his dreams. And certainly he saw nothing romantic in his situation. Every day it was harder to rouse himself from his bunk. There was a constant numb ache in his head. His men avoided him; he snarled and swore at them, and had found himself more than once gripping the hilt of his sword with half-formed intent. He was not sleeping; his dreams were waking dreams, and cold, and repetitive, and pointless. But when the guns fired—when the walls burst and those tiny, fragile figures had scattered and fallen—well, that was something. That was a sort of feeling. The flash and the thunder were like a kind of joy.

T
he next morning,
Arjun followed Heady to the fortress of the Marquis Mensonge, which crowned the arc of the Diorite Bridge like a helmet’s plumes. There were flags everywhere, purple and silver. A soldier at the gate, in purple and silver, too, planted his mailed fist in Arjun’s ribs and shoved him back into the street, telling him to waste someone else’s time, if he must.

The day after, Heady gave Arjun directions to the Mass How Parliament, and he queued all day outside its stolid bronze-red bulk. The queue seemed to move no faster than the dead dignitaries carved into the walls. The police turned them all away in the evening. Arjun began to doubt Girolamo’s advice.

He went walking down to the Fourth Ward. He leaned over the edge of a dry canal and listened to a group of children down in the mud. They formed a circle to sing together. Something about a plague; one by one, they clapped hands and fell laughing out of the circle onto their backs. Arjun recognized the tune: it was a simplified form of a hymn the cantors of Lavilokan sang, up on Goshen Tor. They scattered when they saw him watching.

In the evening, he joined the crowds up on Laud Heath, for a carnival thrown by the Countess Ilona. Clowns and fire-eaters entertained the jostling crowds. Fireworks exploded overhead. At the west end of the Heath, the Countess’s orchestra played for a quieter audience. Arjun slipped in at the back to listen.

As the last light drained from the sky, the orchestra came to the final, jubilant crescendo of Karpinsky’s
Sacred Dance,
a crashing of cymbals and a banging of drums; and up over the hill, across the sky from behind the Observatory, the
Thunderer
came in ominous progress, a black shape limned by fireworks, hanging over the Heath. Arjun felt for a moment that he and the crowds down on the dark Heath were all underwater, looking up. The orchestra went silent as the great ship’s guns took up a slow, pounding rhythm, both celebratory and threatening.

On his return, he found that Madam Defour had cajoled all her lodgers out into the garden, where, in the weak candlelight, she conducted a strained flirtation with Heady. The other lodgers sat around the table making desultory conversation. Arjun had no choice but to join them. He asked Haycock about his day.

“Fucking awful. I hike all the way up to Tyn Wald and I sit myself in some godsawful café all afternoon until the pervert running it wants to know whether sir will be ordering anything further and I’m out on my arse, my purchasing options being limited, which ain’t surprising given that I have waited all day to meet a man to purchase a copy of
Arcana Caelestia,
which perhaps I might sell, keep me in food and drink for long enough to eke out the whole horrible business a little longer, were it not that the bastard did not show up, all bastard day.”

“Arcana Caelestia?”

“You interested?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of it. I was wondering about the language.
Arcana
sounds like—”

“Not interested. What
are
you interested in? Heady says you just drift around like a fart listening to music all day.”

“As I’ve said, I’m here to represent my order to Ararat’s Estates, in hope of commerce between our—”

“
Balls.
You’re looking for something. You’re no kind of merchant-trader; I mean
look
at you. And from what I hear, you haven’t ‘represented your order’ to anyone but a lot of buskers and other street filth, who are, I can tell you, one rung down on Ararat’s great ladder from book-dealers, which I can say from experience is a rung that is sunk deep indeed in the shit. Heady believes your story ’cause he’s a creature whose senses are highly specialized to detect the tiniest
quivering
motions of power, which you’ve not got, so he can barely see you. But
I
see. It’s my business. Tell me and maybe I can find it for you.”

Arjun told him. He was relieved to get it out. He had not told anyone the truth about his mission; it was too private. But this was the first time he had been pressed, and why not?

Haycock then changed the subject, starting an argument with Norris and Clement about some sporting event; a team sponsored by the Countess had pulled off a surprise win against a team sponsored by the Agdon Worker’s Combine, up at the Urgos-Eye Stadium. Some game with balls, it seemed, and spikes; Arjun couldn’t follow the rules. Nor, it seemed, could old Norris, quite, though he tried; and whenever the poor enfeebled man tried to agree with Haycock, which he did with doglike eagerness to please, stuttering and tongue-tied, Haycock would take a sharp turn, vehemently denying whatever he had asserted with equal vehemence the second earlier, until Norris’s blotchy face dripped with tears and snot, and Clement was snorting with nasty laughter.

In the morning, Haycock accosted Arjun in the hallway and presented him with a list of books that might shed light on his problem. Anything and everything that had been written on the relation of the city to its gods:
The Detective of Dreams; The Gutter and the Stars;
Lodwick’s
Extrapolations;
Varady’s
Speculations; Riddles and Their Riddlers; Those Whom We Cannot at Present Name but Are Possessed of Animal Heads.
“What languages can you read?” Haycock asked. “Tuvar; really? Akashic, too? What a lot of hard work; aren’t we eager? Then there’s a lot more I can get you. Let me think.”

Arjun was sorry, but he had no money. He really didn’t, he told Haycock, he was sorry. He was sorry. He looked down at Haycock’s bald head. It was lined, like a thumb. The deep grooves seemed to pulse with irritation. Haycock stamped off, thinking.

H
aycock stamped all the way up Cato Road, and into Foyle’s Ward, dragging his heavy weather-beaten case behind him, snarling and spitting at anyone who got in his way or slowed him down. It was the end of the month and he had an appointment with Professor Holbach. Holbach provided Haycock with a generous allowance for transport by carriage. As was his usual practice, Haycock had opted to pocket the money and walk, and by the time he’d crested the hill he was, as was his usual practice, in a foul mood.

He met Holbach in the garden of Holbach’s mansion; they sat by the fishpond. The mansion and the grounds bustled—thin, pale scholars; artists, fashionably disheveled; various young women. Clever and elegant people. Haycock stuck out like a bruise. The whole pile, and all Holbach’s other airs and graces, including expecting household visits from professionals like Haycock, who had other pressing commitments and had their own professional dignity to consider, was all paid for by the Countess for services rendered. That was what one or two clever ideas could do for a man. That was what a man could do for himself if only—if only!—he could get himself off the grinding wheel of business for a few short days so that he could think deep thoughts and plan big plans. Some men had good fortune and others never did; but Haycock swallowed his resentment and offered a smile that was close enough to pleasant that the fat professor had to pretend not to be offended. Haycock lit a cigarette and opened the case.

“So there’s a distinct nautical theme to this week’s haul, Professor. Nautical and riverine. Everything smells of moss and weed and coal-dust this month. There’s mildew on ’em, more than usual, but it scrapes right off.”

“Do you have the books I asked you to find? Do you have the Ferdomas or the Celyn?”

“Hold on, Professor. The river flows where it flows, you know? I’ve brought a lot of bloody heavy stuff up here, for your eyes only, out of the goodness of my aching thumping heart, so let’s have a look. Here!” He produced a thin folio volume, rough-edged, cheaply printed, and waved it under Holbach’s chin (which withdrew, like a turtle’s head, into Holbach’s coat’s folds of velvet and lace). “First printing of
The Captain Unmoored: A Play in Three Acts,
featuring the tragedy and
et cetera
of your friend what’s-his-name. The notorious
mis
printing, the one where the printer’s boy got drunk and inserted that dirty joke at the Countess’s expense. Not all were destroyed. I know a boy works at the censor’s office. Interested?”

“Gods, Haycock, get that thing away from me.”

Haycock tossed it back into the case with a grunt and a smirk. He’d only brought it to annoy Holbach—to start him off guilty and wrong-footed. He knew how the fat man moped over the girl’s death. “How about this, then? An account of the famous sinking of the
Duchess Marina
back in ’04, as told by a survivor, a serving maid. Last of the pleasure-cruises in these parts, that was. A slice of history. Not a lot of survivors; not many of ’em ever put pen to paper about it. Not much of a market for it. Black water and grinding hulls. Screams from the riverbanks, drunk men from the bars throwing ropes that won’t reach. Watching her poor old mother going down for the last time, bony old hand clutching sinking drift-wood. It’ll give you nightmares. Up your alley?”

“Haycock, did you manage to find anything that I actually asked for?”

“Old Pastor Crane from the Candlers died and left behind a nice collection. Here’s a rare one. A compendium of nautical diseases; illustrated plates by the famous Dr. Van Duers. Diseases of both sailors’ flesh and ships’ timbers. Take a look at that! You’d shoot yourself if something like that started growing on your face, you’d think.”

“Oh dear. Oh goodness. I don’t think so.”

“Well then, these illustrations may be more to your taste. From the library of a client who’ll go unnamed; Galliatin’s
Erotica of the Sea-Kingdoms.
Beautiful, isn’t it? Lovely fucking economy of line. Pretty little mermaids. Strapping young sailor-lads. Miracle it’s never been burned—the publisher was. Shame to let it go to someone who won’t appreciate its many virtues.”

“Hmm.”

“Or Dr. Montagu’s
The River and Its Economy: An Historical Account.
Found this one in a lot they were selling off at the Malvern.” Haycock flipped through pages and pages of statistics and ledgers, past technical illustrations of barges and cranes and mill wheels and steam saws, before coming to rest on a map of the river. “Dull, yes? But look at this: look where the river runs.”

“It appears to run through Agdon, rather than Barbary, and northwest through, ah, that’s odd, is that Grafton?”

“Exactly. Not much like
our
river, is it? So what do we have, Professor: Dr. Montagu methodically going mad, counting every last penny of business up and down the river, and he’s not noticed where the river fucking
is,
or is this one of
those
books, from one of
those
places, that’s found its way here? Now
that’s
up your alley, Holbach, and you know it.”

“Yes, yes, all right. What do you want for it?”

“And then there’s this.” The little red book had no apparent title. “Also from Pastor Crane’s collection. Collected papers from the trial of one John Harrifon, barge-hand, strangler, hanged man. Did for a dozen little children before they caught him. Wrapped ’em in sacks, weighed ’em with bricks, threw ’em in the river, like a less ambitious artist might with cats.”

“This is disgusting, Haycock. You really do have the most depraved taste.”

“Is that right? Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you meet me in the garden, Professor.” Haycock jabbed his finger under Holbach’s nose. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you won’t have me in your fucking house. Don’t think your money’s so good you can treat me like dirt. I’ll throw your retainer right back in your face, Professor. Don’t forget I know things about you, Professor, Professor Loyal-Servant-of-the-bloody-Countess, Mr. Bloody
Atlas
.”

Holbach’s pink face went white. Haycock, who had risen to his feet, settled back into his chair. He spat into the pond and startled the fish. Holbach said, “My apologies. I continue to trust to your discretion, Mr. Haycock.”

Haycock grunted. They sat for a while in silence. Haycock lit a cigarette.

“Anyway, Professor, the point is the man, old John Harrifon, swore blind all the way to the hangman’s scaffold that he’d killed those little buggers as sacrifices for the river-god. Or one of the river-gods. And he had a lot to say about it. Mad stuff. Your sort of thing, right? God stuff.”

“I suppose so. I suppose I’ll take it.”

“I suppose you bloody well will.”

“Haycock, did you for some strange reason make a deliberate
effort
to seek out books of an aquatic nature? I’m sure I never asked you to do so. I’m sure I asked for the Ferdomas, and the Celyn.”

“I bring you what I find, Professor.”

“That’s interesting, of course. The city speaks to us in signs of all kinds, you know.”

“So you always say, Professor. Me, I’ve got a business to run. We can’t all be pet geniuses for the Countess.”

“Signs and portents. Potential shifting and reweighting. Certain energies subside and others rise to prominence. Certain threads thicken in the weave. A shifting toward
water,
perhaps? Perhaps, ah, perhaps in response to the raising of the
Thunderer
. Water reasserting itself. Reclaiming its primacy over air in the city’s life. Though perhaps I flatter myself. Perhaps I flatter myself to think the city notices my efforts. Hmm. I’m just thinking aloud, of course, Haycock. Your trawl is hardly a sufficient source of data from which to work. The calculations of this science are very complex. But still. But still.”