Shadow Conspiracy (33 page)

“Well, Ileen? What is your opinion?”

“
Docteur
, I think the flesh remembers more than we know. To breathe, to eat, it is to be someone. But it is not until one loves that one knows for sure.”

“How does that fit with your theory, Soames?”

“Sir, I assure you that until I loved, I did not suffer.”

“Oh, Horace! They love!”

“I see.”

“Since Dr. Penderby does not seem to object, will—will you return to Wittgenstein, Your Highness?”

“I blush! Do not speak to me so, my Soames.”

“It is your rightful place.”

“No longer. No doubt some cousin sits on my throne now. And it would be difficult for me to prove my identity. I still remember nothing. What good is a princess who knows nothing? My country needs someone with a memory.”

“Ileen, I hope you know you are always welcome to refuge here in our home. My husband and I will always offer you shelter. I know Soames will be glad to have you here.”

“Begging your pardon, Madam, but no. I fear I cannot remain in service.”

“But Soames, we adore having you here. No one else has been able to keep order half so well.”

“If death has ruined Ileen for her royal position, love has spoiled me for this work. If she will have me, I will take her away to the Americas and seek our fortune there.”

“I say, Soames, surely we can reach an accommodation. I have hired an expedition going to darkest Louisiana next June, on a search for the famed Ivory Billed Woodpecker. It appears that Mrs. Penderby will be in labor about that time, and as my place is by her side, perhaps you would go for me? Not as a servant, but as a junior partner. Clearly you are wasted in a domestic capacity. But as a fellow adventurer, may I say a born gentleman, and may I hope a friend, you could be invaluable to me, personally. I ask not as your employer but as one man to another.”

“I am overcome, sir.”

“My Soames! You won’t leave me!”

“Your Highness, I cannot aspire to your hand, but I can adore you forever. Grant me the privilege of doing so where the dear sight of you may not tear my heart to pieces.”

“Rise, Soames. I have been an impertinent maid, and an unlucky princess, and I do not know how to find my way here, even among friends. But if you would take me with you, I could try to make more success as a free woman.”

“She
is
a free woman, Soames. You have the Society for a Broader Definition of Humanity’s blessing.”

“Don’t look at me, old boy. Whom you choose to bring with you on our expeditions is none of my concern.”

“Ah, I remember something! You must now kiss me, Soames.”

“May I?”

“It is entirely
convenable
.”

“Mrs. Penderby—Gwendolyn—I think we should look the other way.”

“Let us follow their example, Horace. I am sure it is
convenable
.”

Jennifer Stevenson loves anything that clanks. She lives in Chicago with a mad infrastructure geek and can be spotted in theme restaurants tapping on the junk nailed to the walls.

… by Nancy Jane Moore

“What could it truly be, this strange child of such a mother? I pour over her book again and again searching for clues, but find only hyperbole and misdirection. Not even Madame M. can clearly see the truth in this matter. Fraser laughs and says he believes Mary Godwin ran off with Polidori and the book is an attempt to save her reputation. It is the answer I would expect from him.

“One thing only I can make out clearly. Wherever it is, she is, for if there is a moral in that volume it is that life once created should never be abandoned.”

From the private journals of Ada Byron King, Countess Lovelace

Jane Freemantle sat in the front row, back straight, hands folded in her lap, eyes focused on the speaker. She wore a white dress, which made her brown skin appear darker than it was, and her black hair was piled atop her head in an elaborate arrangement. Every woman in Lady Fortescue’s drawing room had examined her carefully, some surreptitiously, some with frank, almost rude, stares.

The Hon. Elizabeth Freemantle was saying, “The metalmen present a danger, particularly if there is any truth to the rumour that some rogue magician”—she deliberately did not name him—“has found a way to ensoul them. Even without souls, they can be exploited by unscrupulous men and used to cause great harm.” Her voice cracked slightly on the last word and she paused a moment.

Jane shivered. She hoped no one noticed.

“Great harm,” Elizabeth said, her voice now firm. “But the most extreme risk comes from the Prometheus itself, a creature biological, not mechanical, but endowed by its creator with enhancements that make it all but indestructible.”

The audience gave a suitable gasp.

“Almost indestructible,” Elizabeth said. “Fortunately, Mr. Frayle, the distinguished engineer, has developed a weapon that, if fired through both the head and body of the Prometheus, will destroy it beyond all possible repair.”

That was Jane’s cue. She got up and walked over to the box that held the prototype of Frayle’s double-barrelled gun, and took out the weapon, holding it across her body as one might hold a hunting rifle. The two barrels were built in a V shape, with about a foot between them at the widest point on the open side. They came together about six inches in front of the trigger mechanism. Behind that was the engine that gave the weapon added power, so that it would shoot multiple heavy projectiles through each barrel.

The audience gasped again, louder this time.

“Do not worry,” Elizabeth said. “This is only a prototype and will not fire. Jane, please show the weapon to the ladies.”

Jane carried it around the room, stopping to let each woman look at it, and allowing the few who dared hold it in their hands. “It’s lighter than it looks,” one said. Another squealed as she touched the trigger.

“I repeat: This weapon will destroy the Prometheus. But one gun is not enough. We cannot just send one soldier out to find this creature, who has eluded armies time and again. We must send out many people, all well armed and equipped, in the hope that one will get close enough to kill it.

“We need funds to manufacture the weapons, and funds to train and equip the brave young soldiers who will set out to eliminate this abomination.”

Murmurs around the room. The mention of money always produced murmurs.

“And those brave young soldiers will not all be men,” Elizabeth went on, knowing her audience was drawn from the Mary Wollstonecraft Society. “My ward, Miss Jane Freemantle, will be among them.”

Jane had heard the fundraising speech so many times now that she no longer flinched when Elizabeth said this. Instead, she gave a modest smile.

“Jane will be giving us a demonstration of her shooting ability after tea,” Elizabeth said.

Jane walked around behind the ladies to return the prototype to its box, so that she wouldn’t stand between them and Elizabeth. As she walked past the last of the women, she heard someone say, “They say she’s actually a Red Indian, but her manners are very nice and she doesn’t smell like one, certainly, though she is very dark. How ever did Elizabeth find such a girl?” The person she spoke to shook her head.

Jane stiffened. Yet another reminder that she would always be, at best, a curiosity to these people, different from real human beings. She resisted the temptation to tell the woman how she and Elizabeth had met; it would shock her, certainly, maybe even impress her, but it wouldn’t change her attitude.

Though it was a good story. Jane and Elizabeth had saved each others’ lives twelve years earlier.

It was Tcax who first spotted the boat. She had been racing with the boys when they first heard the engine clanking up the Bayou Teche. In the bayou country, where most sounds came from people or animals, the noise of a steam engine could be heard for miles.

“I bet it’s that funny white man, who comes to pick flowers,” one child said. They all ran to climb trees along the bayou. Tcax picked a large oak with a split trunk, and climbed out on the half that grew across the bayou. A year ago, she had been taller than most of the boys, but they had begun to pass her in size. They taunted her for being small now, but at the top of the tree it gave her an advantage: She could crawl out farther before the bough would break.

Up the bayou she could see the boat chugging along. It was a slender vessel—no wider than the canoes and rafts used by Tcax’s people—designed for travel in the snaky bayous. The sides were low, and a long cabin took up most of the deck space. At the rear sat a huge box that puffed out steam. It was the box that made the noise, and the box that made the boat move much more rapidly than anything else that came down the Bayou Teche.

“It is the crazy white man,” she shouted down to the others. By the time the boat docked, the whole village had come out to great him. Charles Dumont was popular among the people of the village, for he always brought with him unusual objects from the great city of New Orleans—metal pots, woven fabrics, ribbons that could be worked into baskets—and treated the village elders with great respect, for all that he had never learned their language, forcing them to communicate with him in their pidgin French.

The roar of the engine—up close it sounded like the wind of a hurricane—ceased abruptly, and Dumont stepped off the boat, accompanied by two black men and a white woman. The black men, the people knew, were his servants, but the woman was someone very new. She was tall, for a woman, and had golden hair, though streaked with silver. Tcax heard one of the woman say, “She must be old enough to have grandchildren.” Despite the warmth of the day, she wore a long blue dress with a full skirt, tightly cinched at the waist and wide in the shoulders. To Tcax, attired in a loin cloth and moccasins, the clothing seemed excessive. Surely she must be suffering from the heat. Though she didn’t smell of sweat; she smelled of flowers.