The Sunken (33 page)

Quartz didn’t ask Aaron where he went every night, but Aaron could feel the old man’s eyes on him as he climbed into bed in the early hours of the morning.

“That Isambard is trouble,” he said over breakfast one morning.

“Huh?” Aaron looked up from his bread.

“He’s got
ideas,
” said Quartz, “in his
head.
Ideas Stokers ought not to have. And look at you — he’s got you out at all hours, burns and bruises all up your arms. I admired Marc Brunel as much as the next man, but I’ve no desire to join him, and I don’t want you shipping out to Van Dieman’s Land, either.”

“We are careful,” said Aaron. “And what Isambard’s doing is
important.
I think he could really change things for the Stokers, this time for the better.” He kissed Quartz on the forehead as he pulled on his coat. “I’m in Boiler C this morning, and I’ll be back late again tonight. Don’t wait up.”

“If you get deported, I’m keeping the shack!” Quartz yelled after him.

They could not risk testing the engine in daylight, for men would sometimes hunt through the scrap heap for salvageable materials. But nor could they test it late at night, where the hiss of the steam and the clanging of the tracks would rouse even Quartz from his grog-soaked dreams. The only time they had available to test the engine was when everyone in the Engine Ward was occupied — during the evening sermons.

So when the bells began to toll the hour, calling people to their prayers, and the churches flung open their doors to accept the waiting hordes of scholars, acolytes, and workmen, Aaron slipped away from the Stoker camp and made his way to the abandoned churchyard.

Isambard waited for him. He’d fired the boiler the night before, so the engine was hot and ready to go, and he’d cleared the debris from the rails, leaving the full length of the track visible. Isambard’s smile was almost as wide as his seven-foot gauge track.

“We don’t have much time,” he said, ushering Aaron inside. They crowded into the cab, which was really a footplate with barely enough room for the two of them to squeeze past each other. Aaron fell to his knees and took up the small coal shovel, while Isambard checked the gauges.

“The pressure is at one-sixty.” He released the brake and gave the regulator a squeeze. “Let’s go.”

And they went. With surprising smoothness they rolled out of the workshop and over the churchyard. Aaron added another shovelful of coal, pushing it right into the corners of the firebox to give an even spread, then looked up at his friend. Isambard leaned against the regulator, whooping as their engine clattered over the track, the heat from the firebox casting dancing shadows over his face.

Down the straight she flew, steam hissing from her pistons, and Isambard pulled in the regulator, slowing her around the corner. Aaron held his breath as they came at it too fast. The wheels slipped on the track, and the whole engine lurched dangerously to the left.

Down they slammed, and the wheels found the rails again, and Isambard closed the regulator and pulled on the brake. Aaron closed the firebox door, and with a screech they lurched to a stop.

Isambard pulled him to his feet. “We’ve done it!” he cried, embracing Aaron. “We’ve built a locomotive and she goes! She really goes!”

Aaron couldn’t help but beam back at him. They laughed together, hugging each other, patting the engine like she were a housecat, reliving over and over again the joy of that short ride. Suddenly, they were startled from their celebration by the tolling of a bell.

“The sermons are finished,” said Isambard, staring in the direction of the churches. “We must get her back inside before anyone sees her.”

He pulled on the regulator, taking the corner more slowly this time. The engine, which would have to cool overnight, did not need any more coal, so Aaron leaned against the coal buckets and enjoyed the rush of cool evening wind past his face.

“She’s beautiful,” he cried as they pulled her back into the workshop, shut her off, and opened the firebox door to cool the engine.

Isambard nodded. “A few minor adjustments and she will be ready for the grand unveiling.”

The now-familiar rumble of fear settled in Aaron’s stomach. He could not name his fear exactly, but it felt as though he stood at the edge of a swirling black ocean, the waves ready to swallow him at any moment, and Isambard was paddling a boat through the maelstrom, calling for him to pull up an oar.

“What are we going to do, Isambard? We can’t simply wheel her out by the cooking fires and expect the priests to hand you a medal.”

“You worry too much. I have it all figured out.”

“That’s precisely what I’m worried about.”

Isambard had given as much thought to how he would reveal the engine as he had to its design. He knew he had the support of the workers, whose discontent still bubbled just below the surface of the current calm state of affairs. They dwarfed the priesthood in number, but not in influence, and the success of his unveiling depended on his ability to convince at least some of the church authorities — people on the Council of the Royal Society — that he should be allowed to innovate.

The night before the Festival of Steam, Isambard had Aaron drive the engine out onto their makeshift track. They had managed to extend it for quite some distance along the edge of the scrap heap by covering their progress with piles of old, twisted iron. In the early hours of the morning they uncovered the track and cleared away any debris that might impede her journey. They fired up the engine, oiled the mechanisms, and made a few last-minute adjustments to the drive shaft. Isambard hummed while he worked.

In his heart, Aaron had never truly expected the engine to be completed, much less be revealed to the Industrian priests. Now they were on the eve of the reveal, and he was terrified. In the shadow of Marc Brunel’s deportation, they’d flouted too many laws and created something too revolutionary to be accepted by the wider religious population. He pictured himself walking on board a vessel bound for Van Diemen’s land, his hands in shackles, or worse, standing on the wooden stage of a hangman’s porch.

“This isn’t going to work,” he said aloud, adding fresh coal to the buckets for tomorrow’s performance.

“Nonsense. The engine works perfectly.”

“You know I don’t speak of the engine. Isambard, I know you miss your father, but there’s no reason for us to join him—”

“We won’t share his fate, I
promise.
If you’re so worried about it, I won’t let on that you helped with the engine. I will take all of the blame if it goes wrong, but I’ll also take all of the credit for whatever transpires.”

“Is that a promise?”

Isambard only smiled.

Aaron slept poorly that night, tossing and turning as he thought of what tomorrow might bring. Even if Isambard took the blame, it would be easy for the Council to figure out he had had Aaron’s help. Besides, Aaron didn’t want to see Isambard hanged or deported as a traitor. When he finally slept, dreams assailed him, fretful nightmares of burning buildings, of an England, years from now, ruled by fiery engines, and of Isambard, wearing the crown of England and smiling from a tall iron tower while the streets below ran red with blood.

Finally, he could take it no more, and pulled himself out of bed. As he dressed, he glanced at the first rays of sunlight pricking the window, dulled by the fog of steam and soot that blanketed the air. He pulled on his coat and, leaving Quartz snoring away on his bunk, went outside to watch the preparations.

As the feast day of one of the Gods of Industry, the Festival of Steam attracted engineers and their followers from all over the empire. Sects who worshipped the Great Conductor travelled hundreds of miles to London to offer up their inventions to his grace. At the centre of the festival, a replica of Richard Trevethick’s
Puffing Devil
, the first locomotive ever built, stood on a plinth, its base crowded with offerings.

Worshippers crowded the streets, jostling Aaron out of the way as they hurried to the dawn service at Stephenson’s church. The Festival of Steam opened with public honours being given to Trevethick, the church’s first Messiah, and to all the church elders and their inventions. Stephenson’s cathedral was already filled to bursting, and people crammed into the corrals set up on the street outside. As Messiah, Stephenson should be performing the ceremony, but he’d declined to attend the festival this year, preferring to remain in Manchester. He had, however, sent a contingent of Navvies, who camped on the northern edge of Engine Ward, as far from the Stokers as it was possible to get.

Aaron gazed up to see a regiment of Dirigires, the fanatical followers of Jean-Pierre Blanchard, the first man to fly a balloon across the channel, float across the sunrise. They had arrived the day before, to much fanfare, bobbing over the city in their black-bellied flying balloons, smoke spluttering from their steam engines, before touching down on the great promenade of the Engine Ward.

Aaron skirted around the edge of the promenade, where a parade of all the different sects in Engine Ward was in full swing, the steam rising from their showy inventions shrouding the marketplace in thick mist. Keeping to the early-morning shadows, he scrambled to the top of the scrap heap and looked down. Isambard was there already, running through the final preparations. He looked up, saw Aaron watching, and gave him a casual wave.

Aaron gave a little flap of his hand in reply, not wanting to appear too enthusiastic. He scrambled back down the scrap heap and took a deep breath.

It was now or never.

The parade had just passed by, and the crowd milled about on the street, waiting for the next amusement to begin. Aaron started running, pushing through conversations, using his elbows and heavy boots to dislodge anyone who stood in his way. Men grumbled, women cried out in alarm, and several faces turned from the parade to see what was going on.

“Quick!” Aaron yelled. “There’s a fire behind the slag heaps! A church is burning!”

Everyone ran. Isambard was right — each party assumed it was their own church in danger. A great plume of black smoke curled up above the spires, and the crowd panicked. The priests waddled as fast as they could in their constricting robes, quickly overtaken by the tide of people, led by the Stokers and other work groups. They tore over the scrap heap, legs churning, voices raised in surprise, as they discovered just what was going on.

Aaron — who’d been given no explanation of the plan by Isambard — expected to see the spire of the old Morpheus church alight, but when he gazed down he saw it was the church next door, an elaborate shrine to Trevethick — built by the Navvies when they’d resided in the Ward — which was ablaze. Two Navvy priests banged on the glass windows, trapped inside.
What has Isambard done? Those men could die if the engine fails. That isn’t part of the plan!

While men shouted for water to be sent, another plume of smoke approached from the left. With a hiss, Isambard’s engine trundled along the final stretch of rail, which stopped alongside the shrine, dragging a wagon containing a small water pump. He pulled on the brakes, and, when he rolled close enough, directed the hoses at the source of the fire. Within a few moments it was over, and he jumped down from the cab, clambered inside the soot-choked building and pulled the Navvies to safety.

Astonishment rippled through the crowd. No one could believe what they’d just witnessed. The men clattered across the tracks and surrounded Isambard’s locomotive.

“He saved these two men!”

“That’s Isambard Brunel. He’s a Stoker. But look at that contraption!”

“Brunel? You mean that chap we had in court a few years back—”

“It may very well have saved them, but what
is
it?”

“And why is a Stoker driving it?”

Oswald pushed through the crowd, and gazed up at Isambard on the footplate with a sneer. “Well, Isambard, you really do take after your father, and you’ll soon die like him.” He turned back to the crowd. “Rest assured, ladies and gentlemen, this man will be dealt with to the sternest measure of church law.”

“There ain’t no law against it!” a voice called from the back of the crowd.

“What was that?” Oswald snapped.

Stokers — William Stone and Matthew Harris and, of course, Quartz — pushed through the crowd. Ladies fell over each other to move out of their way, lest the soot on the overalls rub off on their dresses.

“I
said
,” Quartz growled, “there ain’t no law against Isambard creatin’ an engine, if he so wishes.” Grumbles of assent rippled through the crowd.

“Stokers are followers of Great Conductor, same as Navvies and Newconens and James Watt’s crew. Day in and day out we work under these very streets, keeping the cogs oiled and the furnaces stoked. And if one of our own has the mind of an engineer,” he folded his arms as a gasp went through the crowd, “then I say, he knows his craft better than most men.”

“How do we know this infernal contraption is safe? How do we know it’s not some kind of weapon—”

“It saved the lives of two men.”

“You don’t even know what
it
is,” roared Oswald.

“I think I can explain that.”

Every head turned toward Isambard, who disentangled himself from the grasp of a grateful Navvy woman and stalked toward them.

“This is a locomotive engine, built by my hands and my hands alone.” His eyes met Aaron’s pointedly as he spoke. “She is of a similar design to those run by the Messiah Robert Stephenson, but she runs on a broader gauge track — seven and a quarter inches, to be precise. This gives her a unique advantage. She can ride faster over long distances than any of Stephenson’s engines. And she carries a heavier load — like this double-sized water tanker I carry today — and more carriages. When she carries passenger cars, they will be wider and fit more seats in them.”

“This is preposterous!” cried a Metic priest. “He dares to argue with the Messiah’s own designs!”

“If every Stoker were off inventing locomotives, who would operate the Engine Ward—”

“He should be thrown in the tower!” Oswald cried. “Look at how he flaunts his invention with no regard for his position. He thinks himself among equals here. He should be sent away, like his traitorous father.”