The Dragon Men (18 page)

“I don't understand,” Alice said. “You just said—”

“The Dragon Men haven't found a cure in large part because the emperor has never ordered them to look for one. If my son sat on the throne, I could tell him to order all the Dragon Men in the empire to look for a cure. Since China would not be at war, the Dragon Men would be . . . unoccupied. Imagine how much they might accomplish if the Jade Hand forced them all to work together.”

“Oh. I—I don't think so,” Alice said. “Frankly, I don't know that I can trust you, Lady Orchid, rude as that sounds.”

“I understand fully, but what other options do you have, Lady Michaels?”

“Gavin is brilliant. He might find a cure on his own.”

“Perhaps.”
Lady Orchid's tone was languid now.
“Does he have a full laboratory on that ship of his? We didn't see one. Has he shown any expertise at working with the blessing of dragons? I don't recall hearing of any.”

“No,” Alice admitted. “But we could go look for someone who does have it. Unless you plan to keep us here.”

“Of course not. You are not prisoners. You are free to leave at any time.”
She paused.
“How much time does your fiancé have before the blessing takes him, more or less?”

“I don't know. A month, we think. Two at most.”

“And in that time, you think you can find a Dragon Man, persuade him to begin research, and create this cure you seek.”
Lady Orchid examined her nails.
“That would be quite an accomplishment.”

“She's toying with you,” Phipps added after the translation.

“I'm aware of that. I don't like it.”

“You won't find any such Dragon Man in China, of course,”
Lady Orchid continued as if there had been no interruption.
“No Chinese Dragon Man would work on a cure. So you must spend a certain amount of time traveling back the way you came. That may prove difficult. Your ship is rather conspicuous. You yourself do not blend in with Chinese. And you do not speak our language. I wonder how far such a lady could run before Su Shun found her, especially with so many people seeking her.”

Alice sighed. “Let's cut through the treacle.”

“I don't know how to translate that,” Phipps put in.

“You are saying that if I don't help you,” Alice said, “then we have no chance of finding a cure before Gavin . . . succumbs, and I stand a good chance of being captured and killed. But if we
do
help you, you'll put all your resources toward creating a cure.”

“I give you my sworn word as a member of the Imperial Court, Lady Michaels. I swear to you by the spirits of my ancestors and as a lady of the Yehenara clan that if you help me, I will fulfill this obligation to you.”

And she bowed low before Alice.

“She is bowing as if before a lord,” Phipps said. “Either she means every word, or she is the most skilled liar in all of China.”

Alice still didn't trust Lady Orchid, but neither did she see an alternative. “All right,” she said. “I agree to your terms.”

A look of palpable relief crossed Lady Orchid's face.
“Thank you, honored lady.”

“I would like to see Gavin now.”

Here, Lady Orchid hesitated.
“That may not be wise.”

Alice tensed. “What's wrong?” She bolted out of the bed and realized for the first time she wore no shoes or stockings. The maid bustled forward to slip her feet into a pair of soft white slippers. “You said—”

“It is possible to see him,”
Lady Orchid said quickly.
“I am just uncertain that you truly wish it.”

“Lady—”

“Very well.”
She said something to the mute maid, who scurried out. Moments later, the door opened again and a strange chair entered. Alice had seen wheelchairs before, but this one walked on delicate spider legs. White curtains shrouded the occupant. Alice strode forward and thrust them aside. Gavin sat within. In stark contrast to all the white clothing Alice had seen so far, Gavin wore plain black silk from neck to ankle. A round cap that flared out on all sides covered his hair. A day's worth of pale stubble covered his chin, and the ugly salamander still curled around his left ear. He didn't look up when Alice yanked the curtains away. His attention was rooted on a small painting in his lap. On the canvas, a woman with a white face and tiny ruby lips in a trailing red robe fanned herself near a shimmering brook. Chinese characters flowed down one side of the painting. Gavin stared at the painting as if he might fall into it.

“Gavin?” Alice touched his arm. “Gavin!”

He didn't respond. Alice's heart twisted and sank. It was his first fugue state in quite some time, and she had been hoping that the plague might have somehow left him. A foolish hope.

“The painting hung on the wall of his room,”
Lady Orchid supplied.
“If he is like other Dragon Men, he will eventually come out of this state and work on something fantastic.”

“And burn out his mind all the faster,” Alice retorted. “Gavin! Darling, speak to me!”

But Gavin continued staring at the painting. Alice licked her lips. Clockworkers experienced two kinds of fugue states. The first, often triggered by an odd idea or a piece of machinery that needed repair or even a stray word, sent them into a frenzy of experimentation, designing, and building. The second, often triggered by something beautiful, usually something with a pattern to it, drew them into a trance. Music was a favorite trigger, but artwork or the spreading pattern in a droplet of blood could do the trick as well. Both fugues disturbed Alice greatly. During a building fugue, clockworkers turned into snarling monsters that treated even their closest loved ones like filth, and during a trance fugue, clockworkers stared and drooled. Alice always feared Gavin might not come back from whatever place he was visiting.

“Gavin,” she repeated.

“He is speaking with dragons,”
Lady Orchid said through Phipps.
“It is very bad luck to disturb him.”

Alice ignored this. She shook Gavin's shoulder. “Gavin! Darling, listen to my voice. Come back to me. Please, Gavin. Follow my voice and come back to me.”

Still no response. Disregarding the presence of Phipps and Lady Orchid, Alice leaned into the chair and kissed him. The kiss went delicate and deep. She felt like a single leaf landing on a pool to create tiny ripples that flowed out in all directions. Gavin jerked and gasped for breath. He blinked and looked around.

“What—?” he said. “Alice?”

Alice sighed with relief. “I'll explain in a moment. Can you stand up?”

“Yes.” He started to glance down at the painting in his lap. “What is—?” Alice took the artwork away from him.

Lady Orchid's face was hard with disapproval, but she only said,
“It is not good to discuss powerful ideas with the door open.”

Gavin scrambled out of the chair, looking like his old self. He snatched the cap off his head and stared at it. “What happened? What's going on? Why am I wearing black pajamas and a hat indoors?”

Alice quickly explained the situation to him. When she finished, Gavin nodded. “We need to work with her, then. Where's my ship?”

“Prince Kung's men deflated your ship and brought it here under cover of darkness last night. It and all the automatons aboard it are safely hidden on the palace grounds.”

“What about Lieutenant Li and his men?”

Alice had completely forgotten about them, and she felt a little guilty that she hadn't asked after them.

“They are safe.”

“Safe? What does that mean?” Gavin asked.

Lady Orchid cocked her head.
“Is he important to you, Lord Ennock?”

“I'm not a lord—”

“The blessing of dragons makes you a lord.”

“Oh. Uh, Li is important to me, yes. I want to know what happened to him and his men. Did you turn them over to Su Shun for execution?”

“Certainly not!”
Lady Orchid looked horrified at the idea.
“Su Shun would torture them to find out what they know, and we would be undone. At the moment, they are waiting in one of the outbuildings. The men who can read and write will be executed with honor so they cannot be forced to write what they know, and those who are illiterate will have their tongues cut out so they cannot betray us. We are merciful here.”

Phipps clearly had a hard time translating these words. Gavin looked as unhappy as Alice felt.

“No,” Alice and Gavin said together.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No,” Gavin repeated. “Li is a good man who did his duty, and his men don't deserve any of this. If you kill or maim them in any way, I won't help you. That's the end of it.”

“But—”

“I won't discuss it.” Gavin folded his arms. “I'd rather go mad from the plague.”

“I . . . very well, Lord Ennock. We will keep them here until this is over.”

Gavin bowed to her in a perfect imitation of the gesture Lady Orchid had made earlier. “Thank you, Lady Orchid. You are most kind.”

His words seemed to placate her a little.
“We must discuss what to do next, then.”

“You don't know?” Phipps said. “I thought you had a plan.”

“Your pardon. I have only recently arrived in Peking with my son after fleeing Jehol for our lives. There has been little time for planning.”

“Well.” Alice sat on the bed again, and Click moved into her lap. “It seems to me that there's only one quick, sure way to put your son on the throne, Lady Orchid.”

“And what is that?”

“We must steal the Jade Hand.”

Chapter Eleven

A
faint tremble shook the table as Cixi set her teacup on it. Prince Kung paused ov
er his own cup to glance at the ceiling, as if it were at fault.

“The war machines are stomping about,” Kung said. “I wonder if Su Shun will invade even if he does not find Lady Michaels.”

“He cannot hold the throne if he does not invade,” Cixi said. “No emperor can be so disfigured as he. This war is a distraction from his disqualification.”

“He is a warlord, and he intends to prove it to the world.” Prince Kung drained his cup. They were sitting in his chambers, again with the spy holes closed. Zaichun was squirreled away in another room, still in disguise. So far as the servants were concerned, Kung was sheltering a recently widowed cousin, a casualty of the second war over opium. “One wonders what you thought of the conversation with the foreigners.”

Cixi pursed her lips. “It is difficult to discuss anything with such people. They have no manners, and they ask direct questions that make a lady of any delicacy blush. One is forced to say things one would never normally say. It is quite shocking. No wonder they are called barbarians.”

“They say the opposite of us, you know. They claim we never say what we mean and that our faces are inscrutable.” He started to refill his cup from the pot, but Cixi quickly leaned forward to do it for him, automatically taking the role of concubine. “The philosophers remind us that everything must have its opposite. Nothing can exist by itself. Yin and yang.”

“Perhaps,” Cixi conceded. “But I do not see how philosophy is helpful.”

“And there is a seed of each thing in its opposite. We know yin has a spot of yang, and the other way around. You yourself experienced it just now.”

“This is difficult to understand.”

Prince Kung hid a smile behind his hand. “After years of living in the Imperial Court, where one must watch every word and ensure every sentence has two, three, or even four meanings, was it not the tiniest bit refreshing to speak with people who expected you to say exactly what you meant and gave you the same thing in return?”

“Hm.” Cixi toyed with a bit of fish in the bowl before her with her chopsticks and considered. He had a point. Talking to these foreigners had been shocking, but with that had also come a little daring thrill, and afterward she had to admit she found it . . . interesting even if their manners were distasteful. “Perhaps a tiny bit refreshing.”

“I found it so as well, before Xianfeng sealed the borders. Another reason why our two worlds must cooperate. Everyone thinks the other side is dreadful, but once the sides begin talking to each other, we inevitably find the other side interesting and refreshing. They are more like us than we know.”

“Lady Michaels is quite devoted to Lord Ennock,” Cixi admitted. “I did not know Westerners felt that way about one another. One hears about . . . depravities in their bedchambers, but nothing about deep feeling.”

“Another rumor they spread about us.” Kung shifted on the floor pillow. He still looked strange and unkempt with his hair and beard growing out. “I will need to meet them soon to talk further. Where are they now?”

“On their ship in the third stable. Lord Ennock insisted on examining it, and it seemed to me a good place to hide them. We took them out in a spider palanquin with the curtains shut so the servants wouldn't see. They are eating. I think even you couldn't bear to watch that, my lord.”

“I do have my limits. What do you think of Lady Michaels's idea to take the Jade Hand?”

“It makes me nervous.” Cixi picked up an empty cup and ran her finger around the rim. Her ribs felt tight. “It
would
be the fastest way to unseat Su Shun.”

“The difficulty is that Su Shun has returned to the Forbidden City and spends all his time within the red walls. My spies tell me he does not leave it for fear someone will seize the throne from him.”

“Which is exactly what we are attempting to do,” Cixi mused. “Can we lure him out?”

“That's a possibility, though he will surely be heavily guarded if he comes outside. His generals and the Dragon Men speak for him outside the Forbidden City. They are handling most of the day-to-day decisions now.”

Cixi blinked. “Dragon Men?”

“Yes. Su Shun gives them basic orders, but they carry them out in their own fashion.”

“So China is being run by
Dragon Men
?
But they are . . . it is . . .”

“Yes,” Kung repeated. “They are powerful but not fit to rule. Already in the southern provinces, peasants are being ordered to tear out rice fields and plant lotus instead because Lung Min finds the lotus more aesthetic.”

“But Xianfeng was planning to expand those fields next year. This will cause food shortages!”

“It will. And Lung Chao is causing new roads to be built in characters that spell out mathematical equations. More peasant labor being taken from the fields.”

“He will drain the treasury,” Cixi said tightly. “Why is Su Shun allowing this?”

“Everything is a distraction from his weak position on the throne. And he is busy overseeing the new military. It is quite impressive, as we have already been feeling.”

“China is ruled by lunatics. We must stop this quickly.”

“And for that, we need the Jade Hand.” Kung gestured at the Ebony Chamber, which sat on one corner of the table. The gold dragons chased one another like playful flames across the black wood. “Speaking of the treasury, I have discovered that my own resources are wearing thin. As I am out of favor with the new Imperial Court, I have lost several important contracts. It has also become more expensive to maintain good spies in the Forbidden City. It did not help that we unexpectedly had to dress everyone in the household in white for the emperor's mourning.”

His hinting couldn't have been broader. Cixi felt on firmer ground here. She knew what was expected, and she knew what to do.

“Of course.” Cixi slid the box to her. “I took many, many valuable jewels with me when I fled. I am sure even a handful will make up for your losses.”

She spun the phoenix latch wheels to 018 and opened the Chamber.

It was empty.

Ice water ran down Cixi's back. “This is impossible,” she whispered.

She felt around the box's interior, then tipped it upside down and shook it, a nonsensical move, but one she couldn't help. The dragons twisted under her fingertips. Nothing. A fortune in jewels, vanished, and all her hopes gone with them.

“What happened?” Kung asked.

“I do not understand,” she said in horror. “The Chamber never left my sight except when I talked to the foreigners, and then it was locked away in my room. No one can open the phoenix latch. They would have to steal the entire box, and they clearly did not.” Panic swept over her, and only a lifetime of training kept her from bursting into tears. “What will I do? What will
we
do?”

Kung puffed out his cheeks. His worried eyes looked even more worried now. “We will think.” He paused to do just that. Cixi found her mind couldn't work at all, and she merely sat. Su Shun would now keep the throne, and eventually he would hunt her down and kill her and Zaichun.

“I will take a moment to be as blunt as a foreigner, since we are in extremis,” Kung said at last. “I have enough money to keep my household running for another two weeks. That is not taking into account spies and bribes and everything else associated with trying to wrest the throne away from Su Shun. Without your jewels, I will have to sell property to remain solvent, and that is a dragon eating its own tail.”

Cixi sat upright, her fingers gripping the table. Now was not the time to panic. Now was the time to act. “Very well, then. We need to do two things. We need to find out what happened to the jewels, and we need to talk to the foreigners. We need to make a plan.”

“A plan,” Kung said, “that does not involve money.”

*  *  *

Gavin poked at the strange food with the two sticks he'd been given to eat with. Clockwork reflexes or no, he couldn't seem to get the trick of eating with them. Some of the food seemed to be little dumplings folded in half, and he had solved the problem of eating by simply stabbing them with one stick like a single-pronged fork, but anything with rice or bits of chopped vegetables in it were beyond him. Phipps, who was sitting at the table on deck across from him, used the chopsticks with ease, and Alice, though a bit clumsy, was already at least competent. Gloomily he stabbed another damp dumpling and wondered why Lady Orchid hadn't provided them with the eating spiders he'd seen Yeh and the Chinese ambassador use back in London.

“This is quite good,” Alice said. “I could rapidly get used to this cuisine. What's in it, do you suppose?”

“I've learned the hard way,” Phipps replied, “that it's best not to ask. Rather like sausage.”

They were sitting on the
Lady
's deck, but not outdoors. The ship currently lay hidden within an enormous storage building within Prince Kung's compound, and they had been given strict instructions not to show themselves outside for fear they'd be discovered. The large storage building around them was warm and stuffy in the August heat, and Gavin was glad for the light silk pajama-style outfit he'd been given, though he refused to wear the round cap indoors. Phosphorescent lanterns gave them light without additional heat.

Since Lieutenant Li's men already knew what was going on, Prince Kung had posted a handful of them at each of the exits, though whether to keep the foreigners safe or ensure they didn't escape, Gavin wasn't quite sure. They showed him a great deal of deference, however, and the salamander made strange weight around his ear. He tried not to think about the bit of machinery it had inserted into his brain or Cixi's revelation about the clockwork plague, but it was difficult. He found the chopsticks becoming heavy in his hand, and his appetite faded.

The
Lady of Liberty
herself was partly dismantled. Gavin had arrived in the building to find Kung's men had deflated her envelope and folded it neatly. The endoskeleton had been collapsed in on itself and rolled up, as it had been designed to do, and both endoskeleton and envelope lined the gunwale. The paraffin oil generator purred to itself and puffed steam. Gavin's wing harness was attached to it. Now that they weren't flying anywhere, he could use the generator to charge the battery. Not that he was going to fly anywhere in the near future. He saw a long line of devastating failures stretch out before him: Alice hadn't been able to spread her cure as they had hoped; he had finished a pair of wings but barely used them; and, not least, he was dying of the clockwork plague.

Damn it, he hated this. He hated feeling unhappy (though who enjoyed it?), and he hated feeling so out of balance. It wasn't normal. It wasn't
him.
It must be the clockwork plague. Or was it? Could he blame all his problems on the disease? It would certainly be convenient, a nice way of avoiding a depressing truth. He poked morosely at his food bowl, the chopsticks clumsy in his hands.

“Having trouble, darling? Here.” Alice plucked a bit of something from her bowl and held it out to Gavin, who wryly accepted it. Click, who was sitting on a stool of his own, watched with vague interest, then licked a paw with his steel wool tongue.

“Delicious,” Gavin pronounced.

“Feeding tidbits to your fiancé.” Phipps set her own bowl aside. “I believe the term for that is
twee.
”

“What's the point of having a fiancé if one cannot indulge in his tweeness?” Alice said.

Gavin choked on the bit of food and coughed wildly. Phipps thumped his back with her brass arm. Alice sipped some tea with a perfectly straight face.

“What?” she said. “You know I've always admired your tweeness, Gavin. It's so noticeable.”

Now even Phipps's face was turning red. Gavin slapped the table, making the lantern jump and dishes rattle, his face contorted with suppressed laughter.

“You . . . didn't just . . . say . . . ,” he gasped.

“Of course. Why, every woman knows she can judge a man's worth by his tweeness.”

Gavin lost it. The laughter burst from him in small explosions. His fists pounded the table. Phipps joined in, and at last Alice smiled, then giggled, then laughed. The sound rose on wings to the rafters and disturbed the pigeons roosting above. Gavin felt lighter for it, and he touched Alice's hand.

“This is quite the reversal,” she said. “Usually you're the one who keeps my spirits up.”

“The world is upside-down,” he admitted. “Everything is backward.”

One of Alice's little automatons, a whirligig, sputtered up from one of the hatchways carrying a brass spider. It flitted over to Alice and deposited the spider on the table in front of her. It twitched and tried to walk, but all four of its left legs weren't working. The whirligig backed away and chittered.

“Now what happened to you?” Alice asked, turning the spider over. “Click, would you bring my tools, please?”

Click regarded her for a moment, then jumped down and trotted away. A moment later, he came back with a black bag in his mouth. Alice accepted it from him with thanks and extracted from it a roll of black velvet, which she unrolled across the table, revealing a set of small, intricate tools. The velvet was embroidered with
Love, Aunt Edwina.
Alice tried to select a tool with her left hand, but the corks on her fingertips got in the way.

“Bugger this,” she muttered, and pulled the corks off with little squeaking sounds. “No one will see in here.”

Gavin glanced around and lowered his voice. “You could start spreading the cure here, you know. It wouldn't be difficult to pull one cork away and scratch a servant or two. The cure would spread fairly quickly through Peking after that.”