The Sunken (17 page)

“Not at all. It all seems a load of Oxford poppycock to me, and I’m the Messiah of one of the bloody things. The churches run a false economy right out of the heart of London. Out here where the
real
industry is, it’s business that matters, not any of this religious nonsense. It’s when you start mixing the two you get into trouble. But try telling that to my men.”

“Your men?”

“A Messiah has got to have men, sir. Mine are the Navvies — they’re good workers, but too damned superstitious.” He sighed. “A young upstart has just been made Presbyter of my church. A Stoker, even — they’re nothing but London’s furnace fodder — and it’s set my men off something awful. I thought Stokers couldn’t innovate their way out of a grog barrel, but here’s this Brunel character, trying to make a locomotive of his own, shouting in Royal Society meetings that I’ve no right to turn a profit from my own investments. So I’m going back down to that cursed city to put a stop to it.”

“But surely this Brunel would need patronage to fund his locomotive? I would think a man of your ample—” he cringed as Stephenson sucked back another candy, “—
means
would have nothing to fear from an imitator.”

“That’s just the problem — he’s won some renown in the city, and the potty King’s given him a lucrative contract. He’s hired this architect, Nicholas Rose, who no one’s ever heard of—”

Jacques jumped. He couldn’t believe his luck. “Did you say Nicholas Rose?”

“Aye, that was his name. Have you heard of him?”

Jacques laughed bitterly. “A man — a guest in my household — murdered my wife. He’s fled, and I’ve reason to suspect he’s gone to London. He is using the name Nicholas Rose.”

“If he’s a murderer, you should simply hire a thief-taker to find him for you.”

“I haven’t the coin for that.”

Stephenson clicked his tongue sympathetically. “I hear they’ve established a Metropolitan Police Force in London now — very French, tsk tsk. They can circulate his likeness in the papers. He won’t hide for long.”

“This is …” Jacques searched for the right words, “a delicate matter. I’d rather authorities weren’t involved.”

“Dear me,” Stephenson dabbed at his face with a kerchief. “Come to my offices when we arrive in London. I can put you in touch with some men who may be able to help you.”

Six days after he was granted the contract to build a Wall and a railway in just four months, Isambard Kingdom Brunel commenced the construction of his Wall on the edge of the Belgravia district by driving in the first rivet. A crowd had gathered to watch, and they cheered and hooted as Isambard held up the hammer in triumph. Nicholas clapped too, smiling up at his friend, but his stomach fluttered with anxiety.

Aaron was not in the crowd, nor were any other Stokers save the priests. They were all occupied in Engine Ward preparing the Boiler workshops for production. Oswald scowled down at Nicholas from his position of honour behind Isambard. He’d been watching Nicholas with hawklike eyes ever since Isambard had emerged from his workshop. Nicholas stayed close to Isambard, only leaving the Ward well after midnight and carrying his knife in his pocket.

But the crowd was mostly made up of engineers, priests, and officials of other sects and churches, wishing to show their support for the new Presbyter. Among them were many from the smaller Great Conductor churches — congregations led by engineers whose ideas hadn’t yet gained notoriety. But there was the artist Turner with a number of his men, as well as priests from Banks’ Aether Church — Isambard’s most vocal enemies on the Council.

Nicholas stood near the back of the crowd, his ears pricked to hear the words of these men.

“I’ll not bow to a Stoker, no matter his rank. I’ll not!”

“This Wall is preposterous! I don’t understand what the King was thinking when he commissioned it.”

“He wasn’t thinking — that’s the problem. If ever we needed more solid evidence that he’s not of sound mind, we now have it.”

“I wouldn’t worry about Brunel,” said Turner, twirling the corner of his moustache around his fingers. “The King has given him an impossible deadline. Four months — he’ll never finish, and then the Council can dismiss him from his post. I heard Stephenson’s coming down from the north. He’ll soon put a stop to Brunel’s nonsense.”

The crowd dissipated, leaving the workers to the serious task of building a Wall and a railway. Nicholas, who had no experience of actual construction projects, planned to simply observe from a distance, but Isambard climbed off the scaffold and gestured for him to follow.

“I’ve made you foreman of Team D,” he said.

“Isambard, I
can’t.
I’m no engineer. And I can’t be seen in such public view like this. What if I am recognised? What if one of the men were to give me up?”

“Seen by whom? All who knew you in a past life have already welcomed you home again. Whoever you’re running from is all the way across the Channel in France, and if a constable were to walk through this site right now, none of these men would be sober enough to say their own names, let alone yours. “

He couldn’t talk Brunel out of it, so he scrambled into some overalls and had a lesson from Isambard on handling steel, then spent the remainder of the day up in the scaffolding in the pouring rain, helping the men to raise the struts and clip or rivet them in place.

He was just coming down the ladder for a cup of tea when he felt the familiar, dreaded creep of a creature’s mind forcing its way into his own.

He turned, and saw the dragon’s tail flicker behind the stacks of iron supports. It crouched low, silent, watching. Two men leapt off their ladders and moved toward the stacks, chatting idly as they bent to pick up a heavy beam. He called out a warning, but they couldn’t hear him over the din of the construction crew. With the beam supported on their shoulders they set off back toward the Wall.

As Nicholas watched, horrified, the dragon pounced, knocking down the first man and snapping his neck in one swift movement, slamming the iron strut down with such force it flung the other man into one of the smelting fires. The worker lay there a moment, stunned into silence, before he noticed his skin clinging to the hot iron plate. He screamed, high and terrified, and it was that that alerted the other workers on the Wall to the presence of the dragon.

Someone threw their chisel at her, and this bounced off her head, leaving a shallow gash across her cheek, which she didn’t seem to notice. She held down the man’s body with her thin forearms and tore off a chunk of flesh in her teeth. Blood pooled into deep puddles. Crying out in anger, the men at the top of the ladders threw their tools down upon her. Nicholas yelled at them to stop, but their anger had caught hold of them.

Now enraged, the dragon tore through the site, crashing through the skeleton of the Wall and sending ladders tumbling down and men flying for cover. One man swung down off his ladder with one hand, and pressed his torch against her leathery skin, singeing a bright welt across her back. Nicholas’ vision flared into red dots, and he saw the man’s face through the dragon’s eyes as she swung around and snapped off his arm.

Bang! Bang!

Gunshots rang out, ricocheting through the iron skeleton. One caught the dragon’s belly as it reared up, and Nicholas felt a new pain, white-hot as it stabbed at his stomach, arch through his entire body. He looked down and saw he wasn’t hit — it was the dragon’s pain, and it slipped away as the constable put another bullet into her head.

The men refused to return to work, and Nicholas had to close the construction site early. The first day, and two men had died, several had been injured, and only a few skeletal yards of the expansive Wall had been erected.

If Isambard doesn’t get those Boilers running soon, there won’t be a man left in London willing to work on the Wall.

From the ledge above the water tower at the back of the Stoker workcamp, Aaron and Quartz had a clear view of the Wall construction site. They shared a bottle of whisky as they watched the men clamber up the scaffold to secure the steel struts. Unlike the Stokers, who had an intricate knowledge of industrial buildings and machines, these men were labourers who worked on farms during summer and spring and came to the city when the cold weather set in. They were thick as engine oil and lazy besides.

“We should be out there,” said Aaron, anger bubbling inside him.

Quartz dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. “Let Brunel solve his own problems. There’s work enough in here for all the Stokers, for now.”

It was true — they’d never been so busy. Isambard had ordered every Stoker that could be spared to work in the Boiler workshops — he wanted them operational within the week. He’d secured some rusting factory machines from the old Navvy sheds, and they needed pulling apart and refitting to engineer and fit the precise parts of the Boilers, and new, precision parts custom-built for each specific task. With overtime pay on offer, Stokers rushed from one shift in the furnace rooms to another in the workshops, and there had never been such a great bustle of activity in the Engine Ward. But soon it would be quiet again, for when the workshops were operational, Quartz and two hundred Stokers would leave for the swamps.

“I don’t understand Isambard’s thinking,” said Aaron. “There’s a Wall over there that needs to be built quick as lightning, and here’s Isambard occupying his own workforce in making cursed
Boilers
and frolicking in the swamps.”

Quartz drained the final drops of whisky, threw the bottle into the scrap heap below, and pulled a fresh one from the pocket of his greatcoat.

From outside the Ward, in the direction of the new Wall construction, Aaron heard screaming. From this distance he could not hear the creature, but he could guess.

“Dragons,” said Aaron. He saw the workers scrambling off the scaffold.
I hope Nicholas is all right,
he thought.

“All this over a couple of dragons,” said Quartz.

“People just want to feel safe, I guess. I wish I felt safe here. But everything is changing so fast; Isambard becoming Presbyter, you going away …”
meeting another who shares the sense
.

He took another swig from the bottle, and the roar of the compies in his ears became fainter, as though he were listening through a layer of mud. He thought about what Nicholas had said last time he’d seen him — about the voice he’d heard down in Isambard’s workshop.
“It was a compie, and it was in great pain.”

But if Nicholas heard something and I didn’t, what does that mean? Is my sense somehow broken? Is
his?

Nicholas paced the length of the opulent receiving room, waiting to be admitted to the King’s private audience hall. His fingers drummed nervously against his leather document case.

Brunel, far from showing any sign of nerves, seated himself on an overstuffed French chair, folded his hands in his lap, and whistled “The Stoker and the Navvy’s Wife”. Nicholas shot him a murderous stare.

“I don’t see what you’re all worked up about,” Brunel remarked. “Your plans are brilliant, and with my new Boilers, I have the means to bring them to fruition.”

“The King wants a Wall and a railroad built in four months! And your plan … your
only
plan … involves a machine that exists as two heaps of scrap-metal in your workshop. We should be spending this time pressing as many men as possible into service, not sending the Stokers away to the swamps and trying to fund yet another engineering experiment.”

“I have every confidence in the ability of my Boilers.” Brunel smiled. “Just you wait.”

The outer door creaked open, and a maid entered, wheeling a tea-trolley and dressed in austere black skirts and a white apron. She can’t have been much older than eighteen, and was possessed of a rare natural beauty — porcelain skin, bright, intelligent eyes, and pert, delicate lips.

“Sorry to disturb you, sirs,” she said, giving a short curtsey, “but His Majesty thought perhaps you would like refreshments while you wait for him to prepare for your meeting.” She smiled at Nicholas, a warm, dazzling smile that made his head feel fuzzy.

Nicholas gratefully accepted a cup of steaming tea and a tiny scone, which she pushed into his hands with such delicate grace his nerves rather got the better of him, and they jerked uncontrollably, splashing scalding tea on the seat of his trousers and all over the French chair.

A flush crept across the maid’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry. Allow me to clean this for you, sir.”

“No, no, it was my fault. You don’t have to—” But she was already dabbing at the stain with a white handkerchief, her eyes downcast, concentrating on her work.

A few strands of her hair escaped from her bonnet in a tangle of brown curls, cascading down her face as she dabbed at his trousers. He fought the sudden, unbecoming urge to grab her by her beautiful hair and press her face to his.

No, Nicholas. Concentrate. You’re here to visit with the King.

His own cheeks flushed, and, as he leaned forward to help her up, his fingers brushed against her arm. That simple touch of soft, warm skin sent a shiver through his entire body. She leapt away, averting her gaze once more, fussing with the items on the tea-trolley.

She set a teacup and saucer down on the ornate oak end table beside him, and dabbed a spoonful of clotted cream onto a scone. He watched her intently, not caring how rude he must seem. He saw her sneak a glance at him through her pretty curls, and quickly look away again. Behind him, Brunel gave an ungentlemanly snort.

A guard entered from the inner door, his rifle resting against his shoulder. “The King will see you now.” He addressed the girl. “Bring his tea.” The girl followed with the laden tray.

Nicholas had expected exactly what he saw — an opulent chamber, dimly lit, and festooned with exotic silks and damasks. What he hadn’t expected was to see the King lying facedown upon an oak couch of German design, while a waifish girl wearing a thin chiton kneaded his back. The last time they’d visited Windsor Castle, George had been immaculately presented, receiving his guests in the stately drawing rooms, his clothing perfectly pressed, his wig and makeup flawless. Even at the Royal Society when he was confined to his chair, the King still maintained a dignified air.