The Aeronaut's Windlass (26 page)

Her
batman, Sark, stood on the other side of it. The fellow reminded Espira of a hunting spider—he was warriorborn, tall, gaunt, with long, slender limbs and hands that seemed a little too large for the rest of him. His hair was black and short, and covered his face, head, neck, and what showed of his hands in a sparse, spidery fuzz. Sark had the feline eyes of his kind, one of them set at a slight angle to the other, so that Espira could never be sure precisely where the man was looking.

“What?” Sark asked. His tone suggested that he would rather have killed Espira than spoken to him.

Espira had not become the youngest major in the history of the Auroran Marine Corps by allowing himself to be intimidated by hard men. “Is she here?” Espira asked Sark.

“Why?”

“There’s a problem.”

Sark looked at, or slightly past, Espira and made a growling sound.

Espira lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. “This is above your pay grade, Sark. Unless you’d prefer to explain to her why you turned away the man who came with a warning of a threat to her plan.”

Sark didn’t move for a moment, as still as any spider who senses that prey is coming near. Then he made a throaty sound and stepped back from the door, leaving it open.

Espira walked in boldly and pressed his crate of vegetables into Sark’s hands as though the man were a common servant. Sark accepted the burden, but his crooked eyes narrowed. Espira could feel them crawling over his back as he walked past the batman and down the gloomy hallway to the copper-clad steel door to her chamber.

He knocked and waited rather than entering. He was bold, not suicidal.

After a moment, a woman’s voice said, “Come in, Major.”

Espira opened the door, which moved easily and soundlessly on its hinges, and entered the room beyond. It was a luxurious chamber, a sitting room by design. Lumin crystals glowed in wall sconces. A large sculpture of Spire Albion resided in one corner of the room, with walking space all around it. Opposite the Spire was the graceful shape of a large harp nearly five feet high. A trickling fountain that had been carved into one wall made quiet whispering sounds, and the water fell into a small pool filled with floating flowers and small, slithering forms that could only barely be glimpsed beneath its surface.

She sat in one of two chairs near the pool with a serving table placed between them. She was preparing two cups of tea, her motions calm and precise, somehow ritualistic. She wore a dark blue, conservative gown, well fitting, elegant, and expensive. She was neither young nor old, her lean, predatory features were intriguing, and something in the reserve of her movements whispered that a searing sensuality might lurk beneath her perfectly composed surface.

It was her eyes that made Espira uneasy. They were the cold, flat grey of the mists that covered the world, and she rarely blinked.

Espira made her a proper and polite bow. She remained still for a moment, and then nodded to the second chair. Espira approached and sat. “I pray you will forgive this intrusion, Madame Cavendish, but it was necessary to speak to you.”

Instead of answering, she passed him a cup of tea on a fine ceramic saucer. He accepted it, of course, with a smile, and bowed his head in thanks.

Madame Sycorax Cavendish was a very proper woman. Anyone who behaved toward her in any other fashion, so far as Espira could tell, did not survive the experience. So he smiled, waited until she had taken up her own cup, and sipped tea together with her.

The tea, he noted, was his favorite—Olympian mint, and braced with the perfect amount of honey. Obviously his visit had not taken her by surprise. She’d had no way to know he was coming; yet, dammit, she’d known anyway.

Her flat eyes watched him steadily over the rim of her teacup.

He suppressed a shudder.

“Renaldo,” she said. Her voice was extraordinary, mellow, warm, and soft, the kind of voice that could give rest to weary convalescents—or gently lure an aeronaut to his doom on the surface. “You know I enjoy your visits. Is there something I can do for you?”

She would not be pleased by his news, but there was no helping that. “Our command post has been discovered.”

Her cold eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Oh?”

“A verminocitor stumbled across it in the pursuit of his duties, I’m afraid,” Espira said, keeping his tone neutral, simply reporting objective facts. “He was captured before he could escape and warn anyone of our presence.”

Madame Cavendish arched an eyebrow. “Captured?”

Espira pressed his lips together for a second, then nodded. “The Verminocitors’ Guild of Landing requires them to work in pairs. He claims that he was working alone, that he didn’t want to split the contract with one of his fellows.”

“And he volunteered this information?”

“His story didn’t change, even after vigorous inquisition,” Espira said. “But we are too close to our goals to allow some small mischance to undermine us now. We need to be sure.”

“I see,” she said. She took another small sip of tea, her expression thoughtful. “You would like me to determine his veracity.”

“In essence,” Espira said. “Better safe than sorry.”

“One might say,” she murmured, her voice silken, “that more foresight would have prevented this unfortunate event from coming to pass.”

He’d seen men die just after the woman used that particular tone of voice. Espira took a moment to consider his reply carefully. “One might also say that the view behind us is always clearer than that before. There are always unforeseen problems. The most vital skill a commander can possess is to recognize them when they appear and adapt to overcome them.”

Madame Cavendish tilted her head, as if considering that statement. “I suppose that is a practical mind-set, for a military man,” she allowed. “Thus you have sought out the support of an ally to adapt to this adversity.”

“Indeed, madame,” he said. “You know how highly I regard your judgment and your skills.”

The barest hint of a smile haunted one corner of her mouth. “Major. I know precisely what you think of me.” She resettled her fingers on her teacup and nodded slightly. “Very well. I will assist you.”

“You are most gracious, madame,” Espira said, rising. “Time is of the essence, so—”

Madame Cavendish’s voice came out in two pulses of dulcet music, and the lumin crystals in the walls flickered a sullen scarlet in time with them. “Sit. Down.”

Espira’s heart abruptly leapt into his throat, a thrill of something like distilled panic flashing through his belly. He arrested his momentum and clumsily—quickly—took his seat again.

Madame Cavendish’s mouth widened into a smile, and she said, as if explaining to a child, “We’re still having tea.”

Espira’s mouth felt very dry. “Of course, madame. I pray you, please excuse my . . . enthusiasm.”

“I should think most successful soldiers bear the same burden,” she replied, still smiling. They sipped together for a few more minutes, the silence deafening. Then Madame Cavendish put down her cup and saucer and said, “I trust you have arrangements in place to dispose of the remains, once I am finished.”

“I do.”

“Wonderful,” she said. She picked up a matching serving plate artfully arranged with a number of foods appropriate to the setting and offered it to him with a smile. “Do have a scone, Major. I made them myself.”

Chapter 20

Spire Albion, Habble Morning, Spirearch’s Manor

G
wendolyn Lancaster took the lead as they followed the Spirearch’s batman deeper into the manor. Barely half a day had passed since the Auroran attack, but a good many things had changed—not the least of which was that she and Bridget, along with the rest of the recruits, had exchanged their training uniforms for the functional livery of the Spirearch’s Guard—a simple white shirt with dark blue trousers and jacket, the arms and legs seamed with gold piping.

“I cannot but think that this seems ill-advised,” Bridget said from behind her. “A war has begun. Have we therefore somehow mystically acquired the knowledge we need to serve in the Guard?”

“I should say it is a practical act, Bridget,” Gwen replied. “We have, after all, already faced the enemy and triumphed.”

Bridget sounded doubtful. “‘Triumph’ seems . . . an awfully evocative word when compared to what actually happened.”

“We met the enemy with deadly force, foiled their designs, and survived,” Gwen said.

“And were
rescued
by those aeronauts.”

“We were most certainly
not
rescued,” Gwen said. “Not by aeronauts and most specifically not by a man who was cast out of the Fleet for cowardice.”

“This should be interesting,” Benedict said. “What did happen, then, dear coz?”

Gwen sniffed. “My plan embraced the necessity of cooperation to overcome greater numbers. We kept the enemy pinned in place until the proper amount of force could be brought to bear against them. We were the anvil to the hammer of our reinforcements.”

“Is she serious?” Bridget asked Benedict.

“Sweet Gwen lives in a very special world,” Benedict replied soberly, even kindly. “Apparently it looks only somewhat like the place in which we mere mortals reside.”

Gwen turned and gave her cousin a narrow-eyed glare. “In function, which part of my description is inaccurate?”

At that, the tall young man frowned. After a moment he shrugged and said, “The part where you make it sound like that was your plan all along, instead of something you desperately improvised on the spur of the moment.”

“Of course I improvised it on the spur of the moment,” Gwen snapped. “They ambushed us.”

“But . . .” Bridget said. “Gwen . . . the fight started when you discharged your gauntlet into that officer’s face.”

“It is hardly my fault if they did not ambush us more effectively than they did,” Gwen replied. “And if they had, or if I had not done what I did, none of us would be here right now.” She walked a few more steps before saying, “And in any case, we did keep our heads in the midst of a great panic, and we saved poor Barney’s life. Which is what trained members of the Guard are supposed to do, I believe.”

“That is certainly true,” Benedict said with a note of approval in his voice. “I should say as well, coz, that I have never seen you flinch in the face of adversity, but one can never tell how a given person will react to real combat. You more than lived up to my expectations. Nerves of steel.”

“Thank you, coz,” Gwen said in a more subdued voice.

She didn’t turn to look back again. The flash of her gauntlet’s discharge kept playing back through her thoughts. The Auroran officer had been taken completely unaware by her sudden blast. There had been a slightly confused expression on his face, as if he hadn’t quite heard the last phrase she’d said, and wished her to repeat it. She hadn’t realized until much later how young the man had been. In the panic and concern for Barney, in the dust and the blood, she had seen a man in a uniform. But in her mind’s eye, she had gradually discerned that he had been little older than she was, and certainly no older than Benedict.

A young officer, perhaps one of the elite new crop of the Auroran Marine Corps, chosen to lead a small team on a straightforward but important support mission, bringing explosives to an assault team at a critical target. In the eyes of the men who planned the attack, it must have seemed an ideal assignment for a bright young prospect—simple, unlikely to lead to direct combat, in which an officer with an agile mind would be far more valuable than one experienced in battle, especially if he had the watchful eye of an experienced noncommissioned officer like Ciriaco to guide him. Surely to some commander it seemed a fine mission to set a new rising star upon his ascendancy.

And Gwendolyn had wiped the life from him as swiftly and as surely as the darkness swallowed shooting stars in the night.

She wanted to feel remorse over it, to regret what she had done. It seemed to her that it was the sort of thing a decent person should feel. But when she sought for such emotions within herself, she mainly discovered a profound relief that she and her companions were still alive.