A Study in Ashes (22 page)

The three prisoners were brought to a halt, the muzzle of a rifle to each of their heads. Nick stood, feet braced a little apart. Keeler slumped to one side; a bearlike man named Ambling loomed on the other. In the clean white room with its shining brass lamps and scrubbed wooden floor, the prisoners seemed a species apart, a smelly offshoot of the human race due to be extinguished as a bad job best forgotten.

Rose looked from one of them to the other, a thin, disapproving crease forming between his brows. Then he turned to address his guards. “Is this the best you could do?”

“These were doing shoveling, sir,” replied the one who had fetched Nick. “Strong ’uns.”

“Nimble?” Rose looked doubtfully at Ambling. “I need someone who can climb. Someone who won’t matter if he falls.”

The guard helpfully pointed to Nick.

“Whatever it is, I’ll do it,” Keeler broke in. “It truly doesn’t matter if I fall.”

But no one paid him any heed. Prisoners were regarded as no more than the insubstantial dead.

“Why is he here?” Rose pointed to Ambling.

“Public drunkard,” the guard replied.

“And him?” Rose pointed at Keeler.

“Second-story man.” That meant he was a thief who specialized in sneaking in my lady’s window to pilfer her jewels.

“And him?” Rose pointed to Nick.

“A vagrant. Probably a thief, too. Found wandering the road with no excuse for being there.”

As usual, Nick held his tongue, since piracy and magic were both guaranteed to see a man swing. And since Dr. Magnus—he of the sorcery and all-black wardrobe—had broken free of their midair death struggle and was now a grease spot south of London, there was no one to give Nick away.

“A second-story man would have the best chance at this,” Rose decided. “But keep the vagrant here as backup. The drunkard can go.”

Ambling was led away, back to the scrap heap. Nick and Keeler stayed put.

Rose steepled his fingers. “I’m prepared to grant clemency to the man who successfully completes this mission.”

Nick and Keeler shared a glance. Nick noticed he didn’t say “freedom,” and “clemency” was too vague for his liking. Still, he listened.

“We require someone to assist in the retrieval of a rather valuable piece of equipment.”

“Where is it?” Keeler asked.

This time Rose acknowledged him. “The Church of St. Margaret and St. Anne.”

Nick had been brought to Manufactory Three, along with a few dozen other prisoners, in the windowless boxcar of a train. He wasn’t sure where in England he was, but the name of the church was vaguely familiar. However, as he’d grown up in a circus that traveled all over the country, that didn’t mean much.

Rose went on. “The equipment was part of a personal
flight device that these gentlemen came to demonstrate today. Unfortunately, the church got in the way.”

“It crashed,” said one of the merchant airmen flatly. “There is no point in mincing words. It crashed and what we need is on the steeple. Someone has to go up and get it, but there are too many obstructions on the roof to reach it safely from the air.”

“How heavy is the equipment?” Nick asked. That would make a difference.

The airman gave a quick, approving nod. “Barely a pound. It’s part of the pilot’s harness. It will have to be cut free.”

“Captain, we can’t give a prisoner a knife,” Rose snapped.

The airman snorted. “We will unless we want him to chew through the strapping.”

“Is the pilot alive?” Keeler wanted to know.

“That depends on what happened with the propeller,” the captain replied. “We can’t tell. The roofline is too irregular.”

Rose chopped the air with one hand. “The equipment is the priority. The Scarlet King does not wish his maker’s work to fall into enemy hands. There is a war on, you know.”

Nick and Keeler exchanged a startled glance. It was the first either of them had heard of it.
What side are these men on?
Nick wondered. The Scarlet King’s, obviously, but what did that mean? That was the difficulty with politics in the Empire—there were too many choices for an obvious answer. And that led to an equally interesting question.

Who is the enemy?

THE WINDOWS UPSTAIRS GAVE A VIEW OF THE DISTANT
church. The airmen argued for Nick’s presence as they all trooped up the stairs to watch Keeler’s progress. Accordingly, Nick climbed the steps, the heavy chains around wrist and ankle clanking loudly in the stairwell. Guards marched before and behind, muttering that there was more valuable work to do. Nevertheless, Rose agreed with the airmen. If Keeler failed, the next man up would need to know where the first had gone wrong. It was good logic, but it would have been better if Nick had not lost his spyglass in the wreck of the
Red Jack
. It was hard to see much at this distance beyond the building itself.

The Church of St. Margaret and St. Anne was an unusual design—at least as far as Nick had seen. The roof was in two parts. The front had the usual tall steeple, and the back of the building was a long rectangle with a steep peak and the usual buttresses, gargoyles, and other medieval fancy. But someone along the way had liked the first steeple so much they’d added more points. They weren’t true spires, but were tall, slender points needling into the clouds. One sat at each corner of the rectangle and halfway down the long side, creating a cluster of obstacles that meant the roof was impossible to access from the air.

A Steamer eventually appeared near the church and men piled out, Keeler still in chains. The clutch of men disappeared inside the building, presumably to use the stairs to access the roof. Twenty minutes later, Keeler was a small black dot inching up the side of a steeple toward a patch of something Nick couldn’t make out. He squinted, irritated by
the fact that he couldn’t quite see what Keeler was doing. Plus, the tickle of a rifle muzzle caressing his ear was more than tiresome. Backbreaking labor was preferable to the constant tease of a quick death. But then again, no one was asking Nick’s opinion.

The room where they stood wasn’t much to look at—empty except for oak cabinets containing the paper records for Manufactory Three. There was enough room to stand by the row of windows, the workings of the plant strewn several stories below. Nick had never seen this view of the place and studied the layout carefully, keeping his features a blank. His pulse quickened as he noticed the slash of turned earth on the west side, where a new building was going up. The fence was down there, but extra watchtowers had been raised. Was that an opportunity for escape?

And then he heard a collective intake of breath. His gaze slid back to the dot on the rooftop, his own chest wrenching tight. The dot was moving downward with excruciating slowness. Nick shifted slightly, wanting a better angle, and felt the rifle jab him in the neck.

“Stand still,” the guard ordered.

Nick clenched his teeth, swatting his own anger aside. Keeler had got himself in trouble trying to reach something that had wedged between the slope of the roof and the base of the southeast tower. Keeler was approaching the join of roof and tower from below, but the angle was too steep and he kept sliding down. After every attempt, he would dangle precariously over the sheer drop to the paving stones below, kicking until he found the strength to pull himself up. Keeler was sick and couldn’t keep that up for long. Ignoring the guard, Nick leaned forward, as if a few inches would make a difference to his ability to see.

“He should have gone down from the ridge,” Nick muttered. “He could have used a rope.” But then Keeler was a second-story man, used to nipping up drainpipes and trellises to pry open house windows.
Dark Mother protect him!

“You’ve some experience with heights?” the airman standing near him asked. They were all subdued, and Nick guessed why. That was their friend who had crashed on the
church roof. “Not everyone can stand being near a high balcony, to say nothing of being up there with the birds.”

Nick’s vision fuzzed with memory, blocking Keeler from sight. Nick had grown up as part of Ploughman’s Paramount Circus, ropewalking almost as soon as he learned to run. “I have some. Not as much as you, I’m sure.” That was a lie, but Nick preferred to be careful.

The man met Nick’s eyes, ignoring the shackles. “Ever been on a flying ship?”

Nick choked on a sudden longing for open air, for the feel of a cloud kissing his skin. That was where his magic lived, the very stuff that called his Blood. His answer came out clipped, almost hostile. “Yes, but it seems a long time ago now.”

The rifle poked him again, and Nick’s fist clenched. The chains clanked, the cold metal speaking his anger. And then someone cried out. Nick’s attention was instantly back on the spire. He sprang toward the window, stumbling in the chains. He grabbed the window frame to break his fall, but it wasn’t his own fall that he cared about. “Damn it to hell!”

Keeler was already plunging to his death.

WITHIN THE HOUR
, Nick had traded his place by the window for a view from the church roof. The assignment remained the same: to untangle their precious equipment from the harness of the airman who by now was surely dead.

He’d asked for a rope, along with a small pocket knife. The fact that no one had agreed to a safety line for Keeler spoke volumes about just how expendable the prisoners were. Ropes and prisoners were a bad mix, to say nothing of blades. However, it was clear the airmen didn’t have the patience for a third attempt, and that forced a change of rules. Nick was to keep trying until he got the prize—but he got his equipment and now he stood by the door to the rooftop.

“Don’t think you’re going to try anything,” growled his guard. “I’m right here, and there’s a man at the door on t’other side.”

Nick simply nodded and held out his wrists. They’d had to remove the iron shackles from his feet to climb the narrow, winding steps that led all the way up there. Grudgingly, the guard produced a heavy key and rattled the locks, exposing Nick’s chafed wrists to the blessed air. As the irons fell away with a clatter, Nick immediately felt a hundred pounds lighter, his perception as sharp as if a blindfold had been stripped away. He felt the first stirrings of his magic, weak from long exposure to the iron chains but still alive.

“Don’t get any ideas,” the guard warned. “There’s nowhere to go.”

He was right about that much. The roof doors were simply small access points for maintenance. There was little place to stand beyond the opening. The roof sloped on the right down to a narrow gutter, and over that edge, somewhere below, was what remained of Keeler. Nick decided right then he wasn’t going to look down.

On the left was a sharp rise to the ridge. The spine of the roof was decorated with a long line of wrought metal decoration turned to verdigris. The roof itself was overlapping sheets of lead and copper that reflected back the warmth of the sun. Nick surveyed the roof dubiously. No wonder Keeler had trouble climbing—the slick metal offered few footholds, especially at that angle.

“Only a lizard would keep its grip up here,” the guard mumbled. So far he hadn’t put one booted foot outside the stairwell.

“I’m fine with heights,” Nick replied.

The guard’s only reply was the rattle of the rifle.
Fool
, thought Nick. With so many obstacles on the roof, it would be almost impossible to get a clean shot—unless the guard ventured onto the roof himself and, from the pallor of the man’s face, that wasn’t going to happen. Nick turned his attention to the task at hand, and threw the loop of his rope toward the metal filigree on the roof ridge above. On the third try, it caught.

Nick knew better than to trust his weight to the metalwork, but it might catch him if he slipped. Until the
Jack
had gone down, he had scoffed at things like safety lines, but
that last fall had taught him caution. There had been too much time on the way down to think. So, hand over hand, he began the careful ascent of the roof, placing each foot firmly as he went. The wind ruffled the long tangle of his hair, carrying the clean scent of pine and meadow. For that moment, balanced between flight and falling, Nick was a prisoner no more.

As he reached the roofline, he could see for miles. Closest to them was the ruin of a monastery, the high arches supporting only half a roof. A little farther along there were pleasant houses with chickens scratching around the doors and gardens arranged in tidy rows. He saw the silver arc of a river, rolling fields, and a tousled blanket of trees. He spied a ribbon of railway tracks heading south, with crows circling above them in search of anything good to eat. Best of all, the sky opened up all around him—wide-open freedom that he’d lacked for almost a year. And there was birdsong—few had ventured near the great furnaces, but here they chattered with abandon.

Yes, that’s the place!

You don’t say?

Huge worms! The good ones!

I like a good worm. Better than grubs any day
.

Birds weren’t always profound, but at least they were cheerful. He balanced at the peak, unhooking the rope and lightly gripping the curling metalwork. He closed his eyes for a moment, tasting the breeze. He knew there were guards in the staircases and at the foot of the walls. Although airships couldn’t maneuver easily near the forest of spires along the roof, there was a small zephyr-class vessel patrolling the sky, watching his every move. Nevertheless, he could feel the potential magic in the air.