The Sunken (8 page)

“We’re perfectly presentable,” snapped Brunel, disentangling himself from the attendants. He grabbed Nicholas’ hand and pulled him toward to door. Nicholas met his eyes, and Brunel smiled, as if trying to reassure him.

Frowning one last time at the state of them, the steward sighed loudly, and pushed open the door. Brunel stepped out, his face calm, and Nicholas followed him, his legs shaking with nerves. Brunel reached a hand up and ran it through his hair, deliberately messing it up. Nicholas smiled weakly, but the effort just made him feel ill.

They were met by a guard, who looked them up and down with a disapproving scowl. “Are you certain you should wear
that
—”

Brunel glared at him. The guard shook his head, and beckoned for them to follow him down the hall. They paused outside two ornate wooden doors, which the guard pushed open, revealing an expansive drawing room, the walls and ceiling decorated with exquisite friezes and gilded mouldings. Nicholas gulped, forcing himself to resist the urge to turn on his heel and run.

“Mr. Brunel. Mr. Rose.” The King waved them from the doorway. “Please, you may enter and take a seat. I will have the staff fetch you some tea.”

Nicholas, his palms shaking and coated with sweat, stared at the chair the king wished him to use, its heavy oak legs carved in the French style, inlaid with delicate details leafed in gold. It probably cost ten years of an engineer’s salary. He perched gingerly on one edge and looked up at the King, who stared down his nose at them both with a stern expression. King George’s eyes sparkled with intelligence, and neither his posture nor his features betrayed his age. Nicholas tried to read his expression, to see if what he feared were true.

He’s
found me,
he thought, his chest clenched.
He’s making the King send me back so he can torture me
—

Joseph Banks stood behind the throne, his hands floating awkwardly at his sides and a leather satchel stowed between his feet. He pursed his lips, glaring at Brunel with vehemence.

“It is an honour, Your Majesty.” Unlike Nicholas, Isambard seemed calm, collected. He sat upright in his chair, mimicking the King’s strict posture. “If it pleases His Majesty, I wondered why you have called two lowly engineers into your presence today?”

Nicholas cringed at his easy use of that loaded descriptor. He did not wish to claim any such title for himself, especially not when he knew exactly what the King wanted. Banks’ eyes flashed with anger, but King George did not seem to notice.

I’m sorry Isambard. I didn’t want to drag you into this.

The King smiled, sending a chill down Nicholas’ spine.

“Many of my
current
ministers,” the King shot Banks a filthy look, “have dismissed your broad gauge railway as quackery, but I’ve been reading your papers with interest. It has not escaped my attention that you’ve entered my engineering competition, and although I cannot reveal the winner of that contest before Thursday’s Royal Society meeting, I would urge you not to miss that meeting.”

What? Did he just say … Brunel is …

Not even the presence of royalty could keep the boyish glee from Isambard’s face. “Your Majesty, it is an honour.”

“It is still
not
decided,” Banks snapped, freezing the smile on Isambard’s face. “The Council are not yet in agreement.”

The King dismissed Banks with a wave of his hand. “Don’t mind Joseph. Eventually, he comes around to seeing things my way. However, the matter I’d like to discuss today is of a different nature. The plans, please Joseph?” The Prime Minister handed the King a set of drawings, who spread them out on the table, positioning weights over the corners to keep them flat. Nicholas squinted at the delicate lines, trying to comprehend.

“I want you to build me a railway,” said the King. “Build it as fast and as well as you’re able, and if I like it, I shall give you the authority to build railways all over England.”

Brunel sucked in his breath, and he grabbed Nicholas’ arm as though he might fall over at any moment. Nicholas stared, dumbfounded, from his perch, wondering how such a remarkable fortune could have fallen into Brunel’s lap.

“But Your Majesty,” Brunel’s voice came out high-pitched. “
Why?
”

“I intend to move my household and affairs of state into Buckingham House, in the heart of the city. I want Windsor Castle to remain a religious centre, a place where I can find respite with my gods, and where pilgrims might travel to give offerings at St. George’s Chapel. But my main residence shall be moved to Buckingham, and I need a railway to transport the court and my furnishings between these residences. I intend to run it through these old sewer tunnels,” the King rapped his finger against the map. “So they will need widening and reinforcing. And I need the entire length of track to be secure — I don’t want any threat of assassination. But most of all, I want it to be
fast.
So fast I can make the trip to Windsor before a messenger could arrive at Somerset House on horseback.”

“No, I mean, why
me?
Surely choosing me over Stephenson will cause friction on the Council?”

“The nature of this project requires absolute secrecy, Mr. Brunel. Not a single citizen must know of this railway’s existence until I declare it so, do you understand me? Stephenson would not comply with this. Also, his standard gauge just won’t reach the speeds I require, and I feel he has designs for England that don’t comply with my own. I would not worry yourself about Stephenson — despite the animosity on the Council, you have a lot of support in the Royal Society.”

Isambard leaned over the table, his eyes taking on that glazed look Nicholas recognised from the pump house all those years ago. Nicholas felt sure the task was impossible, but Brunel, unblinking, took in every inch of the proposed line, all twenty-six miles of track, the tunnels to be constructed and reinforced, the complexities of secrecy on such an ambitious project. Finally, he settled back into his chair, and smiled.

“I will need to make improvements, of course,” he said. “Will I be given a workforce?”

“You will pull men from the Stoker workforce — men who can be trusted. I will pay you whatever you need from the Royal Purse. It will fall upon your shoulders to ensure this railway remains hidden.”

“What is the completion date?”

“Four months from today.”

Nicholas sucked in his breath — that deadline was
impossible.
But Brunel said nothing, merely bending his head towards the King, and continued the conversation in hushed tones.

Nicholas, who had not even seen a railway before, let alone had any experience of building one, sat back in his chair, trying to calm his thundering heart.
You’re safe, Nicholas old chum. For now, at least. But you must be more careful. If you’re going to work for Isambard, you’re going to have to be invisible
—

Something interrupted his thoughts. A noise, like a muffled screaming, came from some far-off wing of the castle. He raised his head to the door, straining to hear. There it was again — a short, sharp scream, cut off abruptly by another sound, almost like the snarl of an animal. Banks met his eyes and shook his head, but Nicholas stood up and walked toward the open door, listening intently.

Another sound; closer this time. It came from one of the rooms on the corner of the hall. A snarl, low and menacing, definitely some kind of animal.
A dragon, perhaps? But how did one get in here? And why can I not hear its thoughts?
He turned to tell the King something was in the hall, when out of the corner of his eye he saw a shadow move across the tapestries. He jumped.

“Nicholas, what’s wrong?” Isambard looked up from the table, his eyes concerned.

“I heard a noise.” Nicholas turned back to the hall. “A scream … a snarl … like an animal … and when I looked into the hall, I saw—”

Banks frowned. “You’re seeing things, Mr. Rose. There’s nothing in the hall.”

“No, there’s
definitely
something moving—”

A figure dashed across the hall.

His heart pounding, Nicholas stared down the dim hall. “It’s a man!”

With lightning speed Banks crossed the room, shoved Nicholas aside, and slammed the doors to the audience chamber shut. “Of course it was a man,” he said, his eyes flashing. “You probably saw one of the servants trying to snoop on the King’s private audience. They do like their games.”

“He was naked,” Nicholas insisted. “And that doesn’t explain the
snarling
—”

He was interrupted by the King, who let out a gasping breath and collapsed across the table. Blood splattered across the plans, causing Brunel to leap back in alarm. Banks dived for His Majesty’s body, pulling it back onto the couch and bringing his face into the light. As Banks pulled at the King’s high collar, Nicholas could see George’s eyes — bleak and bloodshot and tinged with green. In fact, his very skin seemed to give off a pallid green tinge. Banks ripped the collar open, and more blood pooled from a large scab that burst in his neck.

“Get out!” Banks screamed, shoving the King across the couch and reaching for his medicine bag. “Both of you!”

Their eyes locked on each other, Brunel and Nicholas did what they were told: they bolted for the door and ran.

“What
was
that?” Nicholas asked, his shaking fingers clutched around a chipped teacup.

Brunel had taken the carriage back to London to begin preparations for the King’s railway, but Nicholas, still shaken by the events at the castle, now sat with James Holman in the dining room of Travers College, a modest building outside the walls of Windsor Castle that housed Holman and the other Naval Knights of Windsor.

“He has been ill these past months, but I was told he’d made a full recovery. There have been some very peculiar happenings around the castle recently,” said Holman, carefully setting down his own teacup and pouring the boiling water. He used a finger hooked over the rim of the cup to check the liquid level.

“You never said anything before.”

When Holman had been forced from the Navy after his illness had ravaged his joints and left him blind, he’d returned to England and, not wanting to live the life of a beggar, had applied for a post in the Naval Knights. The order consisted of seven superannuated or disabled Lieutenants, single men without children, “inclined to live a virtuous, studious and devout life.” The Naval Knights were expected to live out their days in the modest rooms at Travers College; their only duty was to attend mass at St George’s Chapel twice per day.

At twenty-two years of age — the same age as Nicholas and Isambard — Holman was the youngest of the Naval Knights by a good forty years. Although they were only allowed to absent their duties on medical grounds, he had managed — although how he had done so still remained a mystery — to secure an extended period of leave to attend medical school in Edinburgh, about which he had written his first book.

“There didn’t seem much to say. The King stopped conducting the services at St. George’s, preferring instead to sit in his wheeled chair beneath the pulpit. I’ve heard the servants talking about sounds in the castle, screams, skitterings in the halls, and some maids and stable boys have disappeared, although I can’t imagine that’s out of the ordinary with such a large staff.”

“Have you noticed anything else? Wild animal noises, maybe?”

Holman shook his head.

“What do you suppose this all means?”

Holman shrugged. “Whatever secrets the King and this castle are hiding can’t remain secret for much longer. He has to give the presentation at the Royal Society meeting. Let us see how he fares then.”

Jacques du Blanc shifted, pulling one cramped leg out from under him and stretching it across the pile of bibles on top of which he crouched. Not allowing himself to show discomfort in his face, he stretched out the other leg, kicking a stack of books over so they scattered across the humming deck of the dirigible gondola.

He watched with interest as the leather-bound volumes slid toward the furnace, following the dip and sway of the flying machine. He didn’t bother to pick them up. Let the coal-boy deal with that.

The pilot gestured to him, yelling something Jacques couldn’t hear over the roar of the furnace and the howl of the wind. Above his head, the envelope — a huge fabric bag inflated with hydrogen, providing the craft with the means to float high in the air — shaded the deck from the sun, the wind whipping over the edges of the gondola, and tugging at his clothes and hat. The pilot turned the rudder suspended below the envelope, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere on the horizon.

Jacques followed the pilot’s gaze over the edge, and saw that they were no longer flying over water. They’d crossed the Channel and now floated over a patchwork of green fields, their bright hue visible through the smoke belching from the exhaust. England; he’d made it to England.

Fields soon gave way to forests, dense with oaks. The dirigible rose over the canopy, heading north along the edge of the valley, ’till Jacques could see plumes of smoke rising between the clouds. As they dropped through the clouds, the spires of Meliora appeared. The city jutted precariously from the trunks of the ancient oaks, each trunk spliced and threaded with platforms and winches and punctured with mechanical devices.

The Dirigires (The Steerers) — a radical sect who worshipped the goddess Mama Helios and their ballooning Messiah Jean Pierre Blanchard — had fled to England after Catholic France began persecuting worshippers of the Industrian gods. King George had welcomed them, for they brought their skill with clockwork and flying machines. He’d given them land on his private hunting estates so they could build their city, and Meliora had risen up into the clouds.

Now, with England blockaded, the Dirigires were richer than ever. They had fused gondolas and steam engines to their balloons, creating for the first time lighter-than-air craft that could be manoeuvred. With the British navy otherwise engaged with attempting to dislodge the French ships, the Dirigires could now dominate an illicit trade route between England and the rest of Europe. If you wanted it, the Dirigires could get it — bibles and illegal Christian artefacts, French wine, German books, illegal passage between England and Europe — for any man who could afford the fee.