Thunderer (14 page)

T
hen walk with me, Captain.”

The Countess set aside her work—she had been carefully pruning and shaping her roses—and rose from the bench. She stood with a sigh of stiffness and removed her thick-cuffed gardening gloves. Arlandes took her arm.

Light streamed in through the glass of the greenhouse. The air was hazy with dust and pollen and with thick smells of loam and night soil. Arlandes walked arm-in-arm with the Countess past the roses, the tulips, past petals and pistils in reds and yellows, purples and blues, and in subtler shades than he could name, past thorns and glistening grasping swellings of orchids. The Countess paused twice to snip away some imperfection or to gently straighten a failing stalk with wire and twine. She pointed out a kind of creeping vine that grew, she said, in street-side ditches on refuse and offal, in the north, near the Mountain; it was very rare. It was gorgeously purple and it quivered and wavered its fronds. Arlandes attempted to admire it.

Two servants stood at the door. She waved them away. “I will be quite safe with my Captain, thank you.”

The Countess was not in her finery. She wore plain overalls, loose and dirt-stained. She wore no wig; her hair was grey and wiry and pulled back stiffly from her scalp. Her face was unpainted; stripped of her usual smooth whiteness, her face was deeply lined and brittle-boned. Even her eyes were different: the glittering emerald of her eyes was the product of delicate and exotic gels purchased from distant eastern districts. Without her lenses her eyes were brown and almost soft.

It was a rare honor to be permitted to see her like that. Which meant, Arlandes had always thought, that the jewels and paint and lace that she presented to the outside city were gestures not of respect, but contempt.

The greenhouse stood at the top of the hill, where the light was best. The estate spread out below, red flags fluttering and high windows flashing gold in the sun. Beyond that were stands of ash and oak (in the shadows of which were spring-guns and mantraps) and the spiked walls of the estate. Below that was Laud Heath, rolling out green down to the river. Crowds milled back and forth over the Heath: the women’s brightly colored parasols were like a haze of distant flowers.

The Countess steered Arlandes’ arm toward a path through the trees. He went passively, silently. Her arm was bird-thin and her grey head no higher than his shoulder.

She stroked the silk of his sleeve.

“You still wear black, Captain.”

He nodded.

“It speaks well of you, Captain. Sacrifices must be made for the city. But we do not forget them. Some of our peers, Captain, for instance the Gerent of Stross Mercantile, may treat the lives of ordinary folk as if they are currency, to be spent and forgotten. But he is a vulgar man. We feel more finely.”

“She was not ordinary to me, my lady.”

“Of course not. Captain, I have never been married, as you well know. But I have mourned my father. And I have mourned four brothers, dead of plague, or murder, or war. I have mourned more nephews than I care to count. Do not presume to instruct me in grief, Captain.”

“I apologize. My grief spoke for me.”

She smiled and touched his sallow cheek. “I understand.”

The path divided and they took the more shadowed route, beneath the oaks.

“They love you, Captain. In your grief. Our people in all our districts mourn with you. Do you know that? They love you perhaps more than me.”

“No, my lady.”

“But of course they do! It is different for men and women, my Captain. You carry a sword. You command men in battle. You take to the sea, or to the skies, as it may be now, and destroy their enemies, while I remain here. Tending my garden. You are a hero. They will never love me the way they love you. I will plan and scheme for them and bring order to the chaos of their lives, and they will only fear me. You’ll rain down fire on them and slash your sword around and they will love you for it.”

“This is politics, my lady. I will not presume to disagree with you on that subject.”

“Very wise, Captain. I have buried four brothers; I know these things.”

She stooped to inspect a twining plant, a dull green thing that crept up the trunk of one of the oaks. She curled it round her thin fingers. “When spring comes round again, this will flower the most beautiful blue, Captain.” She let it go and stood again. “Why have you come to see me?”

“I wished to discuss my orders. My lady, you have ordered me…”

“It’s good that you’ve come down again to earth. Do not forget whom you serve as you flit around up there.”

“I do not forget.”

“Good.” She took his arm again. “Since you’ve come to me, I have a new task for you. Shh, Captain. My prior orders stand, and you will do as I command. We will speak no more of it. Let me explain what else I want from you.”

They emerged from the copse. She gestured down over the Heath, where the distant crowds shifted.

“Captain, these are uneasy times. Although aren’t they always? Unrest and strange passions. There was an incident not far from the docks last night. A number of buildings were burned. Buildings of no account, but still: it is an affront to my order. My people tell me it was the cult of the Flame. Those
nasty
boys.”

“The
Thunderer
cannot strike against street-children with torches and clubs, my lady. If I turn the ship’s guns on the city—well, the cure will be far worse than the disease.”

“I know, Captain. I know. It’s too early for that. Those boys will burn themselves out soon enough. They are only a sign of the times. And soon enough, if it’s violence they want, I’ll make room for them in my armies.”

“My lady?”

“Don’t be naïve, my Captain.” She smiled and pressed a finger to his lips. Her nails were short, chewed-down and ragged, not the jeweled painted curling things she wore in public. Her skin was thin and brittle. “Back to the challenge of the present moment. This present unrest makes us look weak. Did we not promise that the
Thunderer
would be a swift sure hammer of order? Yes, we did. I think that we did. There is a man—one Mr.
Shay
—who has been troubling us. He conducts a very blasphemous business.”

“Blasphemous?”

“Sorcerous. Tampering with the gods and powers of the city.”

“Like our own Professor Holbach?”

“He differs from Holbach in that Holbach has my protection, and Shay does not. Shay comes into my territory without my permission. And he
angers
my people. He disgusts them. There have been protests. The priests come to my palace to complain. I bid them be patient, and they nod, and they go back to their temples regardless and whip their congregations into a fury. This is not the first time he’s come through these parts; he was here ten years ago, and he was heard of in Mass How twenty years ago. It always leads to riots in the end. Have you not heard of his name?”

“I have not.”

“You have not been paying attention to the city. Don’t forget us, Captain, in your grief. Don’t forget us up there in the blue skies. Are they very blue?”

“You should come up with us one day, my lady.”

“Ha! Can you imagine me climbing your rope-ladders, Captain? Besides, women are bad luck on warships, are they not?”

“So they say. I think an exception could be made in your case, my lady.”

“You think my position allows me to escape from the burdens of my sex? Quite the opposite is true, Captain. Ssh now, Captain. If you do not know of Shay, there are many people in my employ who can inform you. Talk to Holbach. This is a matter of blasphemy. This is god business. This is Holbach’s business. I want this man removed; talk to Holbach first.”

Arlandes bowed. They walked in silence, following the path down across the lawns toward the mansion.

“My lady? The
Thunderer
has spent the last week patrolling Stross End. At your orders. We are not welcome there. The mercantile, the Gerent: they do not want us there. They have started to place riflemen on the towers of their factories. They are moving in cannon and arming their towers. Every day we anger them more.”

“Are you afraid of the cannon? Can they harm you?”

“I am afraid of nothing, my lady. I do not believe they can harm us. What good will it do if they hole our hull? We can hardly sink; we have no business floating in the first place.”

“If they fire on you, will you shrink from returning fire? Are you too softhearted in your grief?”

“If you order me to fire, I will fire. If you do not, I will not. I would only ask that you tell me why; if you fear unrest, why anger the Gerent in this way?”

“And if I do not answer, will you refuse to serve me?”

Arlandes did not answer. Soon they were walking up the steps to the mansion’s west wing. The Countess sighed. She let go of Arlandes’ arm as her courtiers poured out around her, bowing and pleading for her attention, holding out her robes for her.

“Oh, my beautiful Captain. It would sadden me greatly if one day I had to doubt your loyalty. Go talk to Holbach.”

I
n the Observatory?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Right under our noses? Are you quite certain?”

“Quite certain, Captain. He’s not hiding, after all; he’s in business. He
advertises.
”

Holbach shrugged. The chairs in Arlandes’ office were hard wooden things, and his soft plump backside shifted uncomfortably.

Arlandes sifted through the papers on his desk: the pamphlets, the news rags, Holbach’s own notes and jottings. He sighed and pushed them all aside.

“This is disgusting, Professor.”

Holbach shifted again, and plucked at the brocade of his coat. He looked nervous; he looked as if Arlandes made him nervous. That strange bitch Holbach dragged around with him—the girl who wore a man’s tailcoat, who carried a heavy silver-tipped stick like a man, whose manner was altogether so arrogant and offensive that Arlandes refused even to remember her name—stood behind him, arms folded behind her back. She claimed to be a lawyer, which did nothing to endear her to Arlandes.

“
Shay
. Can he do what he promises, Professor?”

“I would say that I’m almost entirely sure he cannot. No one I’ve ever heard can do it. But the city’s a very big place. There are a great many wonders in the Atlas. Last year no one thought men could take to the skies. But here we both are, eh?”

“It’s disgusting whether it’s real or fraud. It’s causing unrest. Disorder. Disrupting our precious peace. The Countess wants me to do something about him.”

“You, meaning the
Thunderer
?”

“What else would I mean, Professor?”

“You’ll destroy him with your cannons? Blast the old Observatory to rubble?”

“I imagine so.”

Holbach turned and looked back at the girl, who shrugged.

“Captain, may I suggest that you leave him to me? Discretion and circumspection may be the better way to approach this man.”

Arlandes, running his thumb’s flesh firmly up and down his letter-opener’s dull blade, studied Holbach closely. And the woman. “You want to question him?”

“Well, not me personally. I expect he’s only a fraud, a con-man. I am far too old and fat to go confronting criminals in their lairs. But my curiosity is piqued.”

“Some people say you have too much curiosity, Professor.”

This plump oily pervert, libertine, freethinker, coming into Arlandes’ office and dropping sly hints about the Atlas, as if Arlandes didn’t know, was too stupid a soldier to suspect that Holbach was involved up to his fat neck in that vicious and subversive publication. The woman too, probably.

Holbach looked nervous and pale. Arlandes turned his sneer into a half-smile and Holbach relaxed visibly.

Arlandes leafed through the papers again. The Countess had given him an order. And it would be a pleasure to thwart Holbach. But—but—
but
. This man Shay. This was nasty business. This was blasphemy. This was sorcery. Unless it was fraud, in which case it was simply beneath his dignity. This was god business, as the Countess had put it. This was the sort of thing that had killed Lucia. It disgusted him.

No; it
scared
him. That sickness in his gut was
fear
. And he was too weak, too tired, too lonely to fight that fear. With a great surge of relief he folded and sank back in his chair.

“I’ll give you two days, Professor. Then the guns.”

“Thank you.” Holbach rose from his chair, grunting a little. Then he stood awkwardly, rubbing his hands together, clinking his finger-rings nervously.

Finally Arlandes raised an eyebrow and Holbach spoke. “How are you faring with your command, Captain?”

“The
Thunderer
performs ably. I don’t know or care to know how, but it performs ably.”

“I meant to ask after your own well-being, Captain. In light of your loss. I meant to express again my—”

“I spend my days and nights servicing a great machine, of your making, Professor, the fuel for which is my wife’s life. The fuel that it burns is her memory. That is my state of mind, if you must inquire after it.”