Timepiece (12 page)

Katarina led her at a brisk walk in the direction where fog had already swallowed Thompson and his companions. Along the way, they passed small groups of similarly dressed men. Many of these nodded to Katarina in a friendly manner. Some asked after Lord Seward. To them all, Katarina mentioned a coming storm.

The drone in the air grew more insistent, and then loud enough to be called a clatter. It clanked rhythmically, like Trevelyan’s loom. Da-da-da-DUM, it said, over and over, increasing in volume with every step they took closer to it.

Behind them, a church bell began to faintly toll six o’clock—and over it, through it, screeched a sound that made Elizabeth duck her head and clap her hands to her ears. When she looked up, the fog ahead cleared enough for her to see where the sound had originated, and she stood still to stare at it.

Great black wrought-iron gates, larger than any she had ever seen surrounding a country estate, rose up before her. Behind them was a building of tired-looking brick that might well compare with a country house in size—not so wide, perhaps, but taller, and with space cleared respectfully all around it. At its very top were the largest chimneystacks Elizabeth had ever seen, belching great clouds of black smoke into the thick gray air. On either side, dwarfing the crowd, heads nearly level with the chimney stacks, stood two of the copper giants she had run from the night before.

She tensed, but glanced at Katarina and inferred there was no reason to run now. Katarina did not return her look, but the older woman’s fingertips brushed her wrist—unobtrusive, comforting. Elizabeth tried to breathe.

The giants did not look as though they were planning to stomp forward and offer harm to her or anyone else. They stood quiescent, heads unmoving—though their eyes, Elizabeth noticed suddenly, swiveled in their sockets, rolling first one way and then another. She watched the eyes of the one nearest to her as it sought restlessly in all directions. No blue-white light shone from them now; perhaps there was no need of it in daylight. Those eyes could see, she thought. But the head had no other features, neither mouth nor nose nor ears.

She couldn’t keep looking at the wrongness of that blank, staring face. She looked elsewhere instead. Seen with time to consider, the giant’s red-gold body reminded her even more strongly of a teakettle—or perhaps a coffee urn—a long cylinder, dully gleaming. The legs were slimmer cylinders, with knee joints like a man’s and feet that looked as though they could crush anything in their path. The arms—

Elizabeth found herself shivering at the wrongness again. The arms looked like arms up until the elbow joint. But then the left one ended in a gaping cannon-mouth, and the right one in a collection of smaller rifle-mouths gathered in a circle. Between the enormous arms, four evenly spaced bolts the size of Elizabeth’s hand held a square plate to the creature’s chest.

Below the giants’ watchful gazes, close enough that they could have struck the metallic legs as they passed, a line of men stumped through one side of the iron gates toward the building. From the other side stumped a second, identical line, headed from the building. Some exchanged greetings, brief enough not to mar the rhythm of marching feet.

Katarina positioned herself where she could speak with a few of the exiting men—casually, and once they were sufficiently far outside the gates that they might pause without causing others to pile into them from behind. Elizabeth did not try to overhear. She was too busy staring at the building and the copper creatures.

“Never seen the like, have you, love?”

The voice spoke at her elbow, and Elizabeth jerked around. The boy standing there was nice-looking enough, though terribly dirty. He grinned at her. “New to London, are you?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth managed. “I’ve—I’ve just come up from Kent. What is this place?”

“This here,” the boy said with pride, “is the factory what makes coppers for the Empire. The constructs,” he clarified in response to her confusion, and pointed at the giants. “Them great big stompy things keeping the monsters away.”

“You—” Elizabeth cleared her throat. “You make them, do you?”

“I do,” the boy said. “I screw in parts now, but someday I’ll be a supervisor or something grander.”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s not so bad,” he said, with affected carelessness. “Better than drudging on a farm, at least. What’s your line of work, love?” His eyes ran down her trouser-clad legs. “Music hall?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve, ah, I’ve just been engaged.”

“Have you? Lovely bit of costume they’ve given you.” He reached out to finger Elizabeth’s sleeve. Smudges appeared at once on the shabby linen. Elizabeth glanced at her own fingers and saw a sift of black dust clinging to them as well. She hadn’t even touched anything, not that she could remember; this was only from walking about outdoors. “Whereabouts do you sing?” the boy asked, leaning closer.  

“The Shoreditch Empire,” Katarina’s voice said crisply behind them. “There’s shows every night, young sir, we’d be delighted to see you. Now, now—” She plucked his hand off Elizabeth’s arm. “When you can pay us a penny, you can have a proper look, but until then, we’ve other business to be about. Come along, then,” she added, and Elizabeth was only too glad of the excuse to follow. The boy, though he protested, abandoned pursuit soon enough; but the staring blank eyes of the constructs seemed to bore into her back for a long time.

Machinery clattered and groaned in deafening orchestrations as Trevelyan stared at William. “How did you—?” he started. Then his eye fell on the scrapbook. “Oh.”

He put his hand out for it, and William gave it to him. Trevelyan turned without a change in expression and walked to the back of the room. He dropped the book into the forge, and it went up in a whoosh of flames. “Seems Max was right,” he commented, returning to where William stood. “Too great a risk to leave that lying about. I didn’t think anyone but him could figure it out from those clues, and he already knew.”

“Anyone but he and you, you mean,” William said.

“Anyone but him and me,” Trevelyan agreed, mouth twitching slightly at the corner.

William folded his arms across his chest, using the fingers of the left to coax the right into position. “So I’m cleverer than you thought? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“As it happens, you’re wrong, but you got closer than I would have liked from that information. Not that it matters any longer, but we’ve been burning anything we don’t absolutely need, in case they burst in here.”

There were a number of interesting tidbits in that statement. William bypassed the implication that the snowstorm of papers still in the laboratory were all absolutely necessary, and decided against asking outright how close he had in fact gotten. Instead he repeated, “‘Not that it matters any longer’?”

Trevelyan sighed. “Yes,” he said, “Seward is Locksley. The world knows this now; Seward was arrested for treason the night before last. The constructs do not belong to Seward, however. They belong to a man named Gladstone, whom Seward opposes. Seward is
Locksley,
Mr. Carrington, the clue is in the name.”

“Then the monsters—the Wellingtons? Those belong to Seward?”

“No.”

“There’s a third faction?” William guessed.

“Not exactly.”

The temptation to shout was growing overwhelming, but William didn’t think shouting would succeed in impressing or intimidating the man in front of him. “If you wish me to be any help at all,” he said calmly, “perhaps you could spend five minutes laying out what the devil is going on?”

Trevelyan reached for a rag to wipe his hands. “I suppose I have five minutes. And it’s probably better you know the truth than act from supposition. You will likely find it entertaining, Mr. Carrington,” he went on, mockery creeping into his voice. “It’s quite a Celtic ballad, really. The tale of two students. ’Twas the best of times and the worst of times—”

He glanced at William, so obviously expecting an impatient reaction that William resolved to give him nothing of the kind. Trevelyan smiled a little and dropped the theatrical tone into something closer to normalcy. “It was, though, truly. It was the best of times, and a rich young student who had everything he could desire strove for one thing more. He wished to make life from death, and he did; he set a torch to the world he knew by creating a monster from dead flesh, for no better reason than to amuse himself. And then—later, in the worst of times—when the children of that monster ran free and destroyed everything in their path, a poor young student who had nothing but the love of one lass lost her. He built a new monster, this one out of metal and gearshifts and clockwork, and turned Britain into a funeral pyre for a woman he loved.”

William digested this. “And Locksley?”

“Seward is trying to dismantle the funeral pyre, but can’t while the constructs guard it. He needs a weapon that can bring them down.” Trevelyan indicated the workroom. “You might consider him my patron.”

“I...see,” William said, and he did, at least in part.

He heard a slam from the far end of the corridor, and recognized it as the front door opening with some violence. “Elizabeth!” he said, drenched in relief, and turned to welcome the two women back.

It was not, however, Elizabeth and Katarina returned. It was instead Maxwell, whose fingers had frozen on the locks at William’s exclamation. “No,” he said, turning, his tone flat and dangerous. “Not Elizabeth, just me. Is she not
here
?”

“Er,” William said, wondering how he could possibly defend the moment of pique that had allowed this circumstance to occur, “no. She went out with Madam Katherine to—”

“She
what
?” Maxwell’s face went the color of chalk. “Elizabeth Barton is wandering about out there? Trevelyan, have you lost your
mind?”
He looked ill—physically nauseated—and more afraid than angry. William felt his stomach settle somewhere in the vicinity of his boots.

 
London, August 27, 1885

“Who is this Lord Seward?” Elizabeth asked, and got at least part of her answer from the flash of pain that crossed Katarina’s face. “A friend?”

“It would be presumptuous of me to call him so,” Katarina said after a pause. “He is a philanthropist. He does great good throughout the city using his personal fortune, and aims to do more good still with his Parliament seat. Aimed to do more, at least.”

“Before he was arrested,” Elizabeth said.

“Yes.”

“What crime did he commit?”

Katarina did not answer.

The fog had grown lighter but hotter, a searing humid miasma. It had also grown considerably more crowded. Drab shapes appeared out of it without warning, shouldered past Elizabeth, disappeared again. Voices rose and fell, murmuring and calling and weirdly echoing, and over them the clanking pounded out a monotonous rhythm. That sound came from too many directions to originate just from the one factory they had visited, Elizabeth thought; might there be many factories, on all sides? Katarina stopped at a bakery, a fishmonger’s, and a tobacconist’s shop, where she purchased nothing and spoke to the proprietors about the weather.

They emerged from the tobacconist’s and Katarina stood for a moment on the street, glancing up and down it before choosing a direction and setting off. “I need you to keep quiet for a bit,” she said, though Elizabeth had been listening far more than talking all along. Before Elizabeth could agree or argue or defend herself, Katarina turned sharply to the left, leading the way into an alleyway so narrow Elizabeth thought she might suffocate from the closeness of the buildings. 

The path wended and twisted like a knotted rope, and Elizabeth followed Katarina down numerous left- and right-hand branchings for what felt like a long time. The clank of the factories faded back into a drone that was almost possible to ignore. The fog seemed to be really thinning as well, for a particularly sharp turn brought Elizabeth suddenly within sight of the alleyway’s exit, and she could actually see a little bit of the street upon which it opened. Katarina led her to within a few feet of the exit, then stopped. Elizabeth drew breath for a question, forgetting that she wasn’t supposed to talk—and the breath caught in her chest as heavy footsteps shook the street.

She looked up, and could see the red-gold head of the construct over the high brick buildings on either side. In a moment, she could see the thick legs and feet as the metallic man stomped down the cross-street a few feet away. Katarina waited until the head was out of sight—waited longer until the ground ceased shaking—and then took Elizabeth’s hand and drew her out of the alleyway.

The fog was definitely sparser here, and the street was wider, smoother, largely free of rubbish piles. “Made it!” Katarina murmured in a tone of satisfaction. “The disadvantage of a regular patrol. I’ve never been able to determine whether they think we can’t count, or—” She glanced over, took note of the blankness on Elizabeth’s face, and actually offered an explanation. “Spitalfields—where the warehouse is—is the oldest part of the city, and possesses many streets too narrow to allow the constructs to traverse them. They patrol what they can, but they know their surveillance is imperfect, so they are all the more careful to guard the edges of the stews. They patrol with great care the streets just outside, drawing a ring around us, trying to keep us penned in—but they walk a beat to do it, and there’s one very specific disadvantage to having a routine like that: people like me can figure out what it is. If that copper had seen us cross into a respectable neighborhood from Spitalfields—dressed like this, no less—there would have been questions. But until they actually build that fence they’re talking of, it’s easy enough to slip through the alleys when their backs are turned. At least for those of us who can count.”

Elizabeth almost understood. They walked through a better neighborhood now, she could tell that. The buildings stood straight-backed rather than bent with age, and horse-drawn carriages clopped along the smooth cobblestone between them. There was plenty of foot-traffic in between the carriages, but no shoving as there had been in the streets of Spitalfields. The voices from this crowd were not so shrill.

Two young gentlemen passed close by them, arm in arm, talking in low tones of something that sounded important. They were dressed more like Maxwell than Trevelyan, so they were not laborers. They might be barristers or office clerks. Discussing business concerns, perhaps. The nearer one glanced at Elizabeth, then looked her up and down in a way that confirmed her suspicion about the significance of breeches. 
If we had crossed into a respectable neighborhood dressed like this,
Katarina had said. The other man was staring now too; the two breech-clad women were attracting attention. Katarina would have attracted attention even had Elizabeth not accompanied her. What were they
doing
here?

Katarina, apparently oblivious to the stares, drew the tiny timepiece pendant from her bodice and consulted it. The gentlemen moved on. Katarina leaned against the closest piece of brick wall, arms folded and legs improbably crossed, and fixed her eyes on a door opposite.

“We are waiting for someone?” Elizabeth asked.

“We are.”

“So you can discuss the weather?”

Katarina smiled, but did not otherwise reply.

The door in question opened a few minutes later, and a young woman exited—very obviously a lady by her dress and bearing, though something in the drab beige shade of her costume made Elizabeth think not a wealthy one. Katarina pushed off the wall at once and crossed the street to her. “Beg pardon, miss?”

The young lady turned her head. Elizabeth saw fair hair gathered into a knot under the drab hat, large blue eyes, a plain countenance. She was closer to Katarina’s age than Elizabeth’s. Her eyes passed over the two of them, and she made as if to walk away. “This is a respectable neighborhood,” she said. The heads of respectable people were turning all over the street, watching the breech-clad woman and the gown-clad lady.

“I mean no harm,” Katarina said, the guttersnipe whine twining through her words. “Please, miss, just a moment of your time? My friend and me, we’re in a bad way, we just need a bit of help—”

The woman was walking away now, but not quickly, and Katarina’s long legs kept pace with her easily. There was no way the woman could outdistance Katarina wearing that gown, Elizabeth thought. It was more like a cage than any garment she had ever seen. It seemed the fashions of the previous century had returned, and with a vengeance, for the top half of the dress pinched close around a waist whose incredible narrowness could have only been achieved by a long corset full of whale-bone, and that savagely tight-laced. The bulging bottom half was so stiff it must be held in place by a metal frame in the shape of a skirt, rather than anything soft like a petticoat. Not that the last century’s underskirts had been so very comfortable, but this seemed to be worse; the sight of it made Elizabeth feel lightheaded in sympathy with the woman’s little puffing breaths. It must be as difficult to sit in such a gown as it was to breathe. It must be as difficult to stand upright—with the weight of all that metal and cloth tugging at the lower back—as it was to take more than a mincing step. The inconveniences inherent in her own simple frock, now drying in the warehouse scullery, seemed tame by comparison.

“—we’ve nowhere to sleep, and there’s a storm coming tonight—”

“Is there?” The woman turned her head at that, eyes meeting Katarina’s for a bare instant before she dropped them and resumed the performance. “I am sorry to hear it, but I cannot—”

Katarina had not ceased talking. “—even a penny or two would help—”

“Is this person bothering you, miss?” a gentleman’s voice asked, raised to be heard about the thundering construct footsteps that shook the street. Elizabeth looked up to see a man dressed as Maxwell had been, hovering before their little tableau.

“No.” The woman in the cage-dress likewise raised her voice, though her accent stayed genteel. “No, there’s no trouble; I’m sure she was just leaving—”

The tremors in the cobblestones did not subside as they should have, and Elizabeth looked around for the construct. Of course, in this part of the city, with wider streets, it could come closer—

It slammed around the corner as Elizabeth thought the words, standing still for an instant and blocking all view of the cross-street with its bulk. Then it paced deliberately forward, one pounding step at a time. The street shook even after it had stopped moving—Elizabeth jerked her head to look behind her—and from the other side came a second one, likewise blocking the way to the cross-street, likewise moving in. Behind each construct filed a line of half a dozen men, wearing black uniforms trimmed with copper and helmets that somehow echoed the lines of the constructs’ smooth expressionless heads. They were all carrying muskets.

A voice came from the mouthless head of the first construct, seeming to set the street shaking all on its own. “Miss Temple?”

The woman’s face went gray. Katarina’s had already drained of color, and the gentleman had disappeared. “Oh my God,” Miss Temple whispered. Katarina grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and dragged her at a run back into the alleyway.

“Miss Rachel Temple of the
Gazette?”
the voice repeated behind them.

Katarina was pulling her deeper into the alleyway, or trying to, but Elizabeth set her feet and twisted her wrist against Katarina’s sweat-slick palm. It was like the moment under Maxwell’s coat the night before; she couldn’t bear to be shielded and not know, and her promise to avoid anything dangerous was momentarily the farthest thing from her mind. She wrenched free and got most of the way around before Katarina caught hold of her again.

Elizabeth had an instant’s plain view of the woman in the drab beige dress, standing framed by two walls of brick, looking up at the construct who had just asked her a question.

“Yes,” the woman said hoarsely.

“Miss Temple, we have some questions for you regarding your friend Lord Seward. Please come with us.”

There was a moment of absolute stillness. Then Rachel Temple made a mad dash for the alleyway.

Elizabeth knew what was going to happen the instant before it did. She had seen it the night before. But she was still shrieking a denial, struggling against Katarina’s grip to run forward and somehow stop it, when her vision was dazzled by blue fireworks and Miss Temple fell in a bloodied pile on the cobblestones. It
was
a metal frame holding her skirts out, after all.

“Be quiet,” Katarina was hissing, “Elizabeth, be
quiet,
you will draw their attention, now come away, come away from this—” But Elizabeth could make no proper sense of the words, could hardly hear them over the sound she only later realized was her own sobbing voice. Katarina tried to pull her into an embrace, less perhaps to comfort than to smother the sobs, but Elizabeth fought blindly against her. She wrenched free a second time by using her nails like some mad cat, and she ran back through the twisting alleyway and as far from the body on the cobblestones as she could get.

She stumbled as though through a nightmare, down a path that twisted and turned and offered no way out. Bricks bruised her hands as she tripped and fell and caught herself, and she must have drawn the attention of the constructs after all, for she could hear them keeping pace on the broader streets to either side. She gave a little gasping moan and tried to run faster, but caught her foot and pitched forward, fetching up against an iron fence twice her height and wrought into ornate flower-shapes.