Airman

CHAPTER 5: LITTLE SALTEE

The following evening Conor Broekhart was roughly bundled into a shallow-draught steamboat and shipped off to Little Saltee. He was the only prisoner on deck, and was forced to share the aft cage with two pigs and a goat. There were two guards on the grubby steamboat, and the most senior was eager to share his own importance with Conor.

‘I don’t normally ferry prisoners,’ explained the man, an Irishman, aiming a kick at the cage door to make sure Conor was listening. ‘Only the warden insisted I ship your bones personally. Myself, as it were, the order came direct from Marshall Bonvilain. So, what’s a body to do? Turn down Bonvilain? I doubt it, sonny. Not unless you want to spend the afternoon shaking hands with your maker.’

Conor was not interested in chatter. He was as lost in this day as a chick wet from the egg. On the surface, things were the same. He recognized Little Saltee’s shape to the north, but it seemed a dreadful place now even at a distance. Yesterday he had looked upon the island as the seat of justice. Only yesterday? Could it be? How much had happened in one day.

The ferry’s broad hull hammered the waves, raising a salty mist that the boat steamed through. The spray unfurled across the gunwales, drenching the cage’s occupants. Not one of them flinched. For a moment Conor felt only blessedly cool, then the salt sank into his wounds causing him to cry out.

His cry seemed to please his escort. ‘Ah! Still alive are we, Mister Conor Finn?’

Mister Conor Finn?

Conor wasn’t surprised. Bonvilain would not wish his prisoner’s real name known. So he was to be Conor Finn.

‘Conor Finn,’ continued the guard. ‘Friend to smugglers and first-class lunatic. Turf head. Scatterfool. You won’t be enjoying it in our mad wing. Not in the slightest.’

Conor Finn. Smuggler and lunatic.

Bonvilain was taking no chances. Even if there were someone to talk with. Who would believe a smuggler and a lunatic?

‘No, Little Saltee is not a place for mirth. No maypoles nor circus antics. Especially not for Conor Finn. Bonvilain says to take special care of you in the mad wing. And if Bonvilain says it, then Arthur Billtoe does it.’

Conor squinted through puffy eyelids, taking a serious look at this guard. The man was not unlike a lithograph Victor had once shown him of the Pongo Abelii or Sumatran orang-utan. His pugnacious features were ringed with a thick fringe of dirty brown and grey hair, the same hair that ran in rivulets into the neck of his ruffled pirate’s shirt. He wore thigh boots on squat powerful legs and silver rings adorned his fingers. At another time, Conor might have poked fun at this man’s swashbuckling rig. But now, his appearance was frightening. How could someone so removed from reality be trusted to perform a guard’s duties?

Still, there existed somewhere a spark of the old Conor. The Conor from yesterday.

‘Nice boots, Captain,’ he mumbled.

Billtoe was not angry, not a bit of it. He smiled, revealing half a dozen plug-stained teeth.

‘Oh, we shall have some sport with you, my lad. You have no idea. I dress how I fancy, and I do what I fancy. In my corner of Little Saltee, Arthur Billtoe is king.’

The king is dead, thought Conor, leaning back against the animals in his cage. I saw him dead.

The animals were bony and shivering and almost as miserable as Conor himself.

The steamer swung round the tip of Galgee Rock and on to a crescent beach below Little Saltee’s turreted gate. The sun was setting between gun ports and cast a red light across the sand. Crabs scuttled in rock pools fighting for scraps, and a funnel of gulls inland marked the gaol’s kitchen just as surely as any flag. Billtoe opened the cage carelessly, hauling Conor out by his manacle’s chain while his partner secured the bowline.

‘Here we are, Mister Conor Finn. I should warn you: men don’t much like soldiers on Little Saltee. Be you soldier or be you not, you’re wearing the trousers.’

For the first time, Conor regretted his height. He could easily pass for enlisting age, though there was no beard on his chin.

I wish I could fly, he thought, gazing longingly into the morning sky. Leave this nightmare behind. Fly home to…

But he could never fly home. No more lessons with Victor. No more models of gliders and airships. No more fencing with Isabella. And his father had sworn to kill him on sight; a promise was infinitely more painful than the act itself would be. A large part of Conor wished his father had made good on his promise immediately.

Billtoe tumbled Conor over the gunwale on to a low wooden jetty, into the restraining arms of the second guard.

‘Let’s get the fleas off him, Mister Pike,’ he said. ‘Feed him some slop, and get him ready for the mine.’

Arthur Billtoe dug a plug of chewing tobacco from his pocket, stuffing it between bottom teeth and lip.

‘We’re soldier boy’s family now, so let’s send him off to work with a Little Saltee kiss. A nice long one.’

The guards urged Conor along the slipway with prods from their rifle butts. As they passed into the prison proper, Conor noticed that the curtain wall was at least twelve feet thick and built of solid granite. Hundreds of years ago, Raymond Trudeau had ordered the prison built from the rock dug from the island itself. As the walls went up, the prison went down. There were cave-ins and floods and prisoners died, but prisoners dying had never been enough to stop the mining, until King Nicholas took the throne. Now that Bonvilain was in charge, inmate safety would hardly be high on the agenda.

The guards bustled him beneath a portcullis, its black iron teeth clanking with every wave shudder. They emerged into a wide courtyard overlooked by salt-blasted crenellations and at least a dozen sharpshooters.

In one corner of the courtyard was a sunken pool, which had been roughly walled. The pool was six feet by six. The depth was made unclear by the clouds of algae and slime lurking below the surface. The water stank of stagnation and rot.

‘In you pop,’ said Billtoe cheerily, a second before heaving Conor over the lip with a forearm.

‘Kill anything, those mites will,’ Conor heard him say in the fraction of a moment before the murky water closed over him, and his manacles dragged him to the spongy bed.

Conor tensed every sinew and muscle, expecting more saltwater pain, but instead the water soothed his cuts. Fresh water. Something else too. Natural anaesthetic in the weeds perhaps. Before Conor could appreciate this unforeseen bliss, the clouds in the pool moved towards him purposefully. They were alive! Conor was on the point of opening his mouth to yell out, when his good sense prevailed. He was underwater. Opening his mouth would mean inviting these microscopic characters into his gut. He sucked his lips between his teeth, sealing them tight, and fought the manacle’s weight so that he could pinch his nostrils closed. His ears would have to fend for themselves.

The mites went to work on Conor’s person, scraping his skin with their infinitesimal teeth. To Conor this seemed like macabre torture, but to his person these mites were a boon.

Plant spores, agitated by the mites, disinfected his wounds, which the mites cleaned by eating all traces of infection. They chipped off blood and scab, diving deep into gashes, chewing back to the bare wound. They ate loose hair and dirt, even gnawing the fake regimental tattoo on the boy’s forearm. The only things they ignored were the dots of gunpowder on Conor’s jowls, but those were sluiced off by the currents created by his own thrashings.

Conor didn’t believe the guards would let him drown. Bonvilain would not deliver him to this place so that he could be murdered in the courtyard. Nevertheless, the nibbling mites pushed him to the brink of despair and had the guards not gaffed his chain and lugged him from the pool, he would have opened his mouth and accepted flooded lungs rather than endure another second of mites scouring his skin.

Conor lay gasping on the rough flagstones, their ridges hard against his forehead. There were mites on him still. He could feel their vibrations on his eyebrows and in his ears, their buzzing on his skin.

‘Get them off,’ he begged his captors, hating himself for doing it. ‘Please.’

The guards did so, chuckling, with buckets of salt water lined up for the purpose. The salt sting traced burning lines along his body like sections of the barbed wire King Nicholas had imported from Texas. But even this sting was preferable to a million mites’ teeth.

Billtoe swiped the seat of Conor’s trousers with his boot.

‘Up you get, Conor Finn. Move now if you want a bed, otherwise it’s sleep in the open. Makes no difference to me, but they’re cranking the bell in the pipe tomorrow and you need all your energy for the bell.’

This talk of pipes and bells was gibberish to Conor. A church orchestra perhaps? Conor doubted that there would be anything as spiritually uplifting as church music in this place. He stood slowly, head to one side, dislodging the last of the mites.

‘What were those creatures?’ he asked, his voice strange in his own clogged ears.

‘Feeder mites,’ answered Billtoe. ‘Freshwater parasites. It takes real care to breed those little beauties. This is the only pool of ’ em outside of Australia, thanks to Wandering Heck. We heat it special.’

Conor minded this little lesson closely. Victor had told him never to disregard information. Information was what saved lives, not ignorant heroics. And yet all the information inside Victor’s head, hadn’t managed to save his own life. Wandering Heck’s proper title was King Hector II, the king of the Saltees before Nicholas. King Hector had been far more interested in exploring other continents than running his own country, a fact that must have suited Marshall Bonvilain.

Conor stood, allowing his arms to sag low, so the ground could bear the weight of his chain. Something hissed near his left eye. A heated hiss. Conor was too beaten down by the day to react. Otherwise he could have delayed the inevitable until a few more guards were summoned. As it was, a single guard was more than sufficient to hold him against the wall. Arthur Billtoe pinned his left hand to the stone with a red-hot cattle brand.

‘A Little Saltee kiss,’ said Billtoe. ‘Hope you enjoy it.’

Conor stared at it incredulously for a moment, watching the water boil off, smelling the scorched reek of his own flesh. There was no pain. But it was coming, and there was no way on earth to avoid it.

I want to fly away from this place, thought Conor. I need to fly away.

The pain arrived, and Conor Broekhart flew away, but only in his tired mind.

CHAPTER 6: IN THE MIDDLE OF WYNTER

Morning arrived early on Little Saltee, heralded by a single cannon shot aimed towards the mainland. The shot was a Saltee tradition that had been missed only twice in the six hundred years since King Raymond II had inaugurated the custom. Once in AD 1348 when an outbreak of plague wiped out half the population in less than a month, and then again in the Middle Ages when Eusebius Crow’s pirate fleet had all but overrun Great Saltee. The single cannon shot served both to awaken the prisoners and to remind Irish smugglers, brigands or even government forces that the Saltee forces were vigilant and ready to repel all attackers.

Conor Broekhart awoke on a wooden pallet to the sound of cannon echo. He had slept deeply in spite of all that had happened. His body needed time without interruption to repair itself and so had granted him a night of dreamless sleep. Numerous pains assaulted his senses, but the most urgent sang from his left hand.

A Little Saltee kiss.

So it was all real, then. The king’s assassination. The orphaning of dear Isabella, and his own father’s threats of murder.

All real.

Wincing, Conor raised his hand to inspect the wound, and was surprised to find it covered with a neat bandage. Green fluid oozed through the material’s border.

‘Do you like that dressing, boy?’ said a voice. ‘The green muck is Plantago lanceolata. I put some on your face too. Cost me my last plug of tobacco from one of the guards.’

Conor squinted across the cell’s gloom. A pair of long, thin legs poked from the shadows. A skinny wrist was draped over one knee, long fingers tapping imaginary piano keys.

‘You did this?’ asked Conor. ‘The dressing? I have… I had a friend who was good with medicines.’

‘As a young man, I rode with the Missouri Ruffians for a year during the Civil War,’ continued the man, his accent American. ‘I learned a little about medicine. Of course, when they learned that I was a Yankee spy, Jesse James himself took a poker to my skull. I suppose he thought I’d seen enough.’

‘Thank you, sir. I was not expecting kindness in this place.’

‘And you won’t see much,’ granted the Yankee. ‘But what you do see shines like a diamond in a bucket of coal. Naturally, we lunatics are the kindest of the bunch.’

Conor was momentarily puzzled. We lunatics?

Then he remembered that Bonvilain had declared him insane. A turf head, scatterfool.

The American was still talking. ‘Of course, technically, I am an invalid, not a lunatic, but we are all lumped together here on Little Saltee. Lunatics, invalids, violent cases.’ He stood slowly, extending a hand. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Linus Wynter. With a Y. In the middle of Wynter, you understand. You will be seeing a lot of me, but I won’t be seeing much of you, I’m afraid.’

Wynter emerged from the shadows like a stack of brooms falling from a closet. A tall gangle of a man, over fifty, clothed in the ragged remnants of a once-fine evening suit. Like Conor, he wore a bandage. But his was tied across the sockets where his eyes had been. Jesse James had done a thorough job with his poker, the scars of which ran in purple welts across Wynter’s high brow.

Wynter tugged on the bandage. ‘I used to wear an opera mask when I played. Very melodramatic. Very Dickens.’

Conor shook Linus Wynter’s hand as firmly as he could manage.

‘Conor… Finn. That is my name now.’

Wynter nodded, his prominent nose and Adam’s apple sending angular shadows dancing across his face and neck. ‘Good. A new name. In Little Saltee it is better to become a different person. The old Conor is dead and gone. A man needs a new sensibility to survive here. Even a very young man.’

Conor flexed his fingers. Pain scraped his tendons, but everything functioned as it should. He examined his prison cell without enthusiasm. It was as rough and ready as his previous cell with one small barred and glassed window and a couple of wooden pallets.

Something Wynter had said struck him belatedly.

Even a very young man?

Conor waved his hand before Wynter’s eyes. ‘How can you tell my age? Have your other senses compensated?’

‘Yes, they have, so if you could lower your hand. But I know all about you, young Conor Broekhart or Conor Finn, because you were fevered in the night and kept me awake with your babblings. The king? He is truly dead, then?’

Tears welled on Conor’s eyelids. Hearing a stranger say the words aloud had the effect of planting Bonvilain’s deed in the real world.

‘Yes. I saw him dead.’

Wynter sighed long and mournfully, running his fingers through fine greying hair. ‘That is indeed grave news. More than you know. Bonvilain will drag these islands back to the dark ages.’

‘You know Bonvilain?’

‘I know a lot about the affairs of the Saltees.’ Wynter seemed about to elaborate, his mouth open for the next word, when he paused, cocking his head to one side in the manner of a deer that senses nearby hunters. ‘Time for histories this evening. Over dinner perhaps.’ He leaned forward, fingers scrabbling through the air like spiders until they settled on Conor’s shoulders.

‘Now listen to me, Conor Finn,’ he said with some urgency. ‘The guard approaches. They will try to break you today. Watch carefully for trouble. A sly blade. A plank across the shins. Come through this day intact, and tonight I shall teach you how to survive this hell. There is an end to it, and we shall see it, believe me.’

‘Break me?’ said Conor. ‘Why?’

‘It is the way here. A broken man, or even boy, is not likely to upset production. And on Little Saltee production is the real king, not Arthur Billtoe.’

Conor pictured the monkey pirate who had ferried him to the prison. It was unlikely that Billtoe would lift a bejewelled finger to protect Conor.

‘What can I do?’

‘Work hard,’ replied Wynter. ‘And trust neither man nor beast. Especially a sheep.’

Before Linus Wynter could explain this unexpected remark, the door’s heavy bolt scraped through its rings with an almost musical sound.

‘Top C,’ said Wynter dreamily. ‘Every morning. Wonderful.’

This was a noise that Conor would yearn for over the months to come, a noise he heard in his dreams. The latch’s release signified liberation from his dank cell, but also served as a reminder that the liberation was temporary. Social diarists record that survivors of Little Saltee often suffered from insomnia unless their bedchamber doors were fitted with rusted bolts.

Arthur Billtoe peeped round the door, wearing the cheery expression of a kindly uncle waking his nephew for a plunge in the swimming hole. His hair was slicked back with a smear of grease and thick stubble poked through his skin like nails driven from the inside.

‘Ready for the pipe are you, Conor Finn?’ he said, jingling a set of handcuffs.

Wynter’s fingers gripped tight, like coal tongs. ‘Mouth shut. Work hard. Mind the sheep. And don’t cross Mister Billtoe.’

Billtoe entered the cell, clapping the cuffs round Conor’s wrists. ‘Oh yes, never cross me, little soldier. You lay one finger on me and you will be strapped to a low ring at high tide. And as for the sheep. Wise words from the blind man. Sheep are not for stewing here on Little Saltee.’

All this talk of sheep was strange and ominous. Conor guessed that he had a surprise coming, and not the jolly kind.

Traditionally in hostelries and even in prisons around the globe, breakfast is served before a shovel is lifted. Not so on Little Saltee. Here the morning meal was used as an incentive to work harder. No diamonds, no bread. It was a straightforward equation that had proved effective for centuries. Conor had expected a detour to a mess hall, but instead was led directly to the diamond mine, or the pipe, as the prison’s occupants called it.

Billtoe explained Little Saltee’s routine on the way.

‘Salts with a tum full of grub are inclined to be satisfied and dopey,’ he said, chewing on a hank of bread, which he stored in his pocket between bites.

To Conor, who hadn’t tasted a morsel in twenty-four hours, this was yet another form of torture. His hunger pangs were soon subdued by Billtoe’s revolting habit of half swallowing each mouthful, then regurgitating it to relish the taste once more. Each regurgitation was accompanied by a convulsion that ran along Billtoe’s spine like a flicked rope.

Though Conor was repulsed, he knew his hunger would soon return, gnawing on the lining of his stomach, as if his body had turned on itself in desperation. He was distracted from his hunger by the peal of a church bell in the distance. This was something of a mystery in such a godforsaken place.

Billtoe seemed cheered by the sound.

‘Say your prayers, boy,’ he cackled.

The guard jabbed his rifle butt into Conor’s spine, pushing him along a cobbled passageway lit by torches and dawn glow from roof portholes. The surf crashed against the granite wall on their left, which was half-natural half-hewn as though the island was growing through the structure. Each wave crash shook the entire corridor and set a hundred rivulets pulsing through mortar as crumbly as cheese.

‘Below sea level, we are,’ explained Billtoe, as though Conor needed telling. ‘A while back the prison and the mine were two separate things. But the Trudeaus’ greed and the inmates’ labour drew them together. The prison basement was heading that way and eventually the two met up. Just a matter of bashing through a wall. It was fortunate for us guards in the mad wing. Now there’s no need for us to venture out in the elements – we let the lunatics work the pipe. Half the time they don’t even know it’s dangerous and most of them will work until their hands bleed if you tell ’em that’s what Mummy would want.’

This exposition was delivered in a cheery tone that belied Billtoe’s cruel nature. If it had not been for the gun butt in his back and the burning Saltee kiss on his hand, Conor might have believed the guard a decent man.

They passed along a maze of corridors, dotted with strong doors and collapsing arches. The entire prison basement seemed in danger of imminent cave-in.

‘Looks like the whole place is coming down, don’t it?’ said Billtoe, reading Conor’s expression. ‘It’s been looking like that since I got here. Doubtless this pit will outlive you. Though you being a Salt, that’s not much of a boast.’

Salt. Conor had heard the term before. This was what Little Saltee inmates were called. Forever branded as such by the S on their hands. He was a Salt now.

They emerged from the corridor into an open area, which may have been a pantry in previous centuries. The walls were smeared with faded spice marks and flour swabs. The central flags had been excavated and ladders thrown down to the area below. Roughly a score more guards stood around, tooled with standard rifles but also more personal weapons. Conor spotted Indian blades, whips, dirks, cutlasses, American six-shooters, blackjacks and even one samurai sword. The Saltee tradition of hiring mercenaries had left its mark on local weaponry. The guards lounged about, smoking, chewing and spitting. They feigned easiness, but Conor noted that every last man of them had a fist on some weapon or other. This was a dangerous place to be, and it didn’t do to forget it.

The ladders dropped down to open water. Deep, black and ridged with whatever light could find it. More guards were ranged about the cave walls below, keeping their boots above the water line. Several convicts wrestled with a scaffolding rig, taking the weight of a huge brass bell which swung pendulously in the confined space, knocking stone splinters from the cave wall where it struck and sending huge cathedral bongs booming through the upper level.

‘Welcome to the pipe,’ said Billtoe, spitting breadcrumbs.

Conor knew something of the island’s geology from Victor’s teachings and quickly realized what was happening here. The Saltee diamond pipe was brewed in the gullet of a volcano on the other side of the world, sliced off by a glacier and deposited off the Irish coast. This meant that someday the diamond supply would run out, especially considering the constant and eager mining by the Trudeau family. This was not the first time underwater mining had been used to bolster diamond supplies, but King Nicholas had banned the practice within six months of his coronation. This brass bell was a diving bell, from the belly of which prisoners could chip rough diamonds from the underwater section of the pipe. King Nicholas’s decrees were being overturned before his body was cold. Bonvilain had clearly been plotting for long bitter years.

‘That bell is ancient,’ Conor said, almost to himself. ‘It must be a hundred years old.’

Billtoe shrugged theatrically, then unlocked Conor’s handcuffs. ‘That fact doesn’t bother me, being that I’m not the one going down in it, thank God. A man could get hurt and worse, as you will find out this fine morning. Down you go.’

Another shove from Billtoe’s rifle butt sent Conor stumbling towards a broad ladder poking from the cave’s shadows. The ladder beams jabbed him in the chest, preventing a tumble into the hole, and the end of a very short mining career.

‘One coming down,’ Billtoe shouted.

The senior guard scowled up through the gloom. Conor recognized him as Billtoe’s partner of the previous evening. His main distinguishing features were a seeming lack of any hair and a pinched stance, which made him seem almost hunchbacked.

‘We don’t need another, Arthur,’ he cried. ‘Full complement, we have. Even if a few croak it in the bell.’

Billtoe took Conor by the scruff, urging him on to the ladder. ‘That’s enough out of you, Pike. This is Marshall Bonvilain’s special boy, remember? He needs to be looked after.’

Pike’s expression changed from wheedling to leering. ‘Ah, the special boy. The little prince. Send him down. I have a few rams waiting to bump horns with him.’

Sheep again. What could it mean?

Billtoe stepped on Conor’s fingers, forcing him down a rung. ‘Down you go, Conor Finn. Don’t make me break your fingers. These are good boots and Salt blood would ruin ’em on me.’

There was a curious, expectant silence as Conor climbed down into the pit. He could feel the temperature drop with every rung, until the cold of the water crept from its surface like an invisible cowl draping itself heavily on Conor’s shoulders. He was really scared during those moments. Almost too petrified to move, but gravity tugged at his bones, helping him on his way.

The mad-wing convicts were a motley lot, favouring the stony-stare, slack-jawed demeanour. They glared at Conor with loathing and fear and the threat of harm hung heavy in the salty air. For long moments, the only sounds were the creaking ladder and the gentle slap of water on rock.

Finally Conor arrived on the surface, feeling like an enemy flag under the hammering gaze of so many hostiles. Billtoe stepped down behind him and pointed at the diving bell.

‘That there is Flora. You know what she is, Salt?’

Conor mumbled his reply. ‘She’s a diving bell.’

‘No, turf head. She’s a…’ Billtoe was frustrated to have his information stolen. He poked Conor in the chest with a rigid finger. ‘Yes, she is a diving bell. And because you know all about it you can be first into her. Flora has been out of service for several years, but I’m sure all is well with her fittings.’

Conor forced himself to study the bell, though all he wanted to do was clasp his knees in a quiet corner and cry for the bad luck that had cursed him. The bell seemed sound enough, though deeply gouged by stone in several places. She was suspended by a network of chains that hitched to an iron hoop dangling over its prow. The hoop in turn fed half a dozen more chains to the scaffolding above. The chains seemed as ancient as the bell, with several rust-dappled links shedding flakes as they swung. A cracked rubber hose poked from the top of the bell, snaking upwards to a hand-cranked bellows affair, which Conor presumed to be an ancient air pump. The pump was being cranked by two inmates. One was racked with consumptive coughing fits and the other paused regularly to spit tobacco phlegm on to the rocks. Not the ideal pair for the job. Conor would not rely on either to supply enough oxygen to fuel the lungs of a small dog.

Billtoe stepped well back and called out his command to a guard above.

‘Lower her down. Do not break the hose or the warden will tan all our hides.’

The diving bell descended in fits, according to the strength of the inmates bearing the strain and the clumsy coiling of chains on the previous use. Some of the links had fused in tangled knots and now popped free sending the diving bell lurching and swinging. The cavern walls resounded with irregular clangs and bongs, causing anyone with free hands to cover their ears.

‘Hell’s bells, man!’ Billtoe called up to his comrade. ‘It sounds like drunk day in Saint Christopher’s in here.’

Saint Christopher had been adopted by the Trudeaus as the Saltees’ patron saint. The church on Great Saltee bore his name.

‘It ain’t my fault, Billtoe,’ retorted the guard. ‘She’s coming, ain’t she. Mind I don’t land her on your head.’

It was said only in jest, but Billtoe stepped aside smartish just the same. Flora swung lower, like a skittish baby monkey on a rope, until eventually she splashed into the black water, sending wave rings rushing to the rocks.

‘Every day,’ sighed Billtoe, mopping his brow with a kerchief. ‘We have to go through this blasted rigmarole every day from this out.’ He turned his attention and annoyance to the prisoners at the pumps.

‘Crank! You apron-tugging, turnip-brained scatterfools.’

‘Yes, boss,’ they mumbled, and set to pumping the bellows, sending air through the rubber hose and into the bell itself. The hose wriggled and flipped as the air inflated it slightly.

The bell sank slowly into the sea, emitting a curious shivering hum as the water caressed its surface.

Billtoe elbowed Conor. ‘You hear that, soldier boy? We call that the siren’s song. Because it’s the last sound many of you Salts hear. Lord, I had forgotten how soothing it was.’

A band of glass with rubber seals was set into the diving bell’s dome. The window was covered with a scree of algae and filth that made it impossible to see through.

Billtoe followed Conor’s gaze. ‘Yes, pity about that port. Filthy as a beggar’s britches. We won’t be seeing much of what goes on in there today. I do hope and pray there are no unfortunate accidents.’

Conor had little doubt that whatever was coming would be unfortunate for him, but it would be no accident. Billtoe meant to break him in the bell. This whole affair was becoming nightmarish. He recoiled from the guard as he would from a brandished torch.

‘What are you twitching for, boy?’ asked Billtoe. ‘Crazed so soon? You’d best be keeping your wits about you in the bell.’

Surprisingly, these were bordering on words of wisdom from the prison guard. They were meant as a warning and Conor took them as one. Whatever his problems, he’d best forget them until he was safe in his cell. Linus Wynter would help him to survive this hellhole, but only if he lived long enough to see him again. While Conor did not believe that the traitor Bonvilain wished him dead, perhaps there was a kind of sheep that did not follow orders so well.

‘What do I need to do?’ he asked Billtoe, best to be as prepared as possible.

Billtoe was happy to deliver a lecture. ‘We lower Flora on to the pipe, then you goes down with your partner and chip off diamonds. Simple as bread pudding.’ He barked at an inmate loitering at the waterline. ‘You, fish bait. Give him your belt.’

The man placed a protective hand on his belt. ‘But, boss. I been polishing these tools for years. Got ’em from my dad.’

Billtoe tapped his head, as though there was water lodged in his ears.

‘What’s this chattering? I hear the chattering of a dead man. Must be leaking through his punctured neck.’

Two seconds later, the leather belt was in Conor’s hands. Billtoe ran through the tools.

‘You got your pick hammer for breaking down the rock. Hammer the rock, then pick out the diamonds, which will resembled nothing more than glassy marbles. Don’t worry about breaking the diamonds, you won’t be able to, because they’re the…’

‘Hardest substance in nature,’ said Conor automatically.

‘Hardest substance in nature,’ continued Billtoe, then scowled. He reached over and cuffed Conor on the temple. ‘Don’t be supplying me with information that I am supplying to you. That is a very annoying trait, which I would relish beating out of you.’

Conor nodded, ignoring the pain in his head, just as he was ignoring the other pains.

‘This here,’ said Billtoe proudly, pointing to a little trident tool, ‘is a Devil’s Fork. Invented on this very island by one Arthur Billtoe over twenty years ago. Got me a job for life, this little beauty did. Plus Marshall Bonvilain himself granted me a house on Great Saltee. It’s tele… tele…’

‘Telescopic,’ said Conor, thinking that if Billtoe could not even pronounce the word telescopic, it was unlikely that he had invented a telescopic tool. More likely he had stolen the idea from an inmate.

‘Exactly, telescopic. On the tip of me tongue, it was.’

Billtoe slipped the fork from its holder and twisted a few rings, extending the tool from eight inches to three feet.

‘Now, yer can wriggle this little beauty into cracks and spear any stones what has fallen down there. Amazing, eh?’

Conor knew enough to nod, though an extendable fork was hardly amazing in anyone’s book. It was practical though, and canny, and proved that Bonvilain knew a good idea when he saw one.

‘So all you have to do, Salt, is swim down there into the bell and dig out as many diamonds as you can until your swing is over. Stash them in your net and bring them back up. Simple as bread pudding. Naturally we search all the divers, and if we find any stones outside of that net, then I find the biggest bull of a guard on the island and have him flog the thievery out of you. Straight enough for you, little soldier?’

Conor nodded, wondering how close the pipe was to open sea.

Once more, Billtoe displayed a disturbing ability to anticipate Conor’s very thoughts.

‘Of course, you may decide to swim for it. The lure of freedom may be too strong for you. Feel free to give it your best. You may even make it – mind you, you’d be the first, and bigger men than you have tried. We still get bodies washing up in the cave, decades after they went in. And do you know something? They all look the same way. Dead.’

Conor cinched the belt round his waist, drawing it tight to the last hole. He could figure no escape from this task. In Greek mythology when the heroes were faced with daunting trials, they went about them with stoic determination and emerged victorious. Conor could not muster an ounce of determination for this trial; all he felt was a weight of exhaustion. And even if he did emerge victorious, his only reward would be more of the same tomorrow, and the day after that.

Billtoe encouraged him with a friendly wink and a jaunty tapping of his fingers upon the pistol stock at his waist. Conor set foot in the water and the cold gripped him in its icy fist, squeezing the life from his toes. An involuntary gasp escaped his lips, causing much laughter from the assembled men.

Conor took a moment to become used to the water temperature, casting a quick eye around the cave, wondering if there were a single person who would come to his aid. Every gaze he crossed was hostile. These were rugged men in evil surroundings, with little time to waste on sympathy. Conor realized that were it not for their uniforms, it would be impossible to separate the guards from the inmates. He was alone in this endeavour. Fourteen and alone. This was one of the few occasions in Conor’s life when his father was not there to provide guidance. And if Declan Broekhart had been there, perhaps he would have laughed along with the rest of them. It was an unbearable thought.

Though he was without doubt on his own, there was something in Conor Broekhart that would not allow him to give in. His mother’s brain and his father’s spirit were strong in his heart. He would endure somehow, and survive. If Conor could return to his cell still breathing, then the American, Linus Wynter, could teach him a lesson or two about Little Saltee.

Push it all from your mind, he told himself. Forget your family, the king, Isabella. Forget them all. Just live to think on them another day.

This was easier conceived than achieved, but Conor did the best he could, concentrating on the scene before him, shutting away his torment. He stepped off the rocky ledge, sinking fast into the cold, dark waters of Little Saltee.

For a moment the cold was absolute and it seemed as though nothing could ever be any colder. Conor thrashed his limbs, not from fear but to generate some heat. He had often swum on the Saltee beaches before, but the waters he was in now had never been blessed with sun. There was nothing to raise the temperature a few degrees.

Conor opened his eyes, peering through the liquid gloom. Below him, he spied a blob of orange, like a fading sun in the grip of black space.

The bell.

It is not so far down, he told himself. A chap would have to be a pretty poor swimmer not to make that distance. Ten kicks at most.

Conor duck dived, cupping his hands to better scoop the water. He had always been a good swimmer and immediately the orange blob assumed its proper bell shape and he could make out the texture of its surface. This tiny success comforted him somewhat.

I am not helpless. I can still do things.

The bell swung gently two feet above the cave bed, air bubbles leaked like pearl strings from a dozen tiny breaches. Conor hooked his fingers under its curved rim and wriggled inside. His efforts were rewarded by air, not by any means sweet or fresh but air nonetheless. Conor filled his lungs to capacity, ignoring the rubbery smell and the oily film that instantly coated his nose and throat.

The water rose six inches into the bell, and the surface below Conor’s feet was uneven, slick and treacherous. This was not an ideal working environment. The bell itself had a diameter of barely ten feet, and swung in irregular arcs with the current, butting Conor in the shoulder and elbow. He hunched his shoulders as far as possible, protecting his head. The light was murky and wavering.

Conor peered upwards through the porthole but could make out nothing more distinct than vague wavering silhouettes. Perhaps men? Perhaps rocks? It was impossible to tell. But then one of the silhouettes detached itself from the group.

Conor watched with a dread colder than sea water as the figure leaped into the ocean, shattering its surface into a jigsaw of silver crescents. The sound of the splash carried through the bell’s air hole. Another sound carried too; laughter, wafting through the pipe like ghost mirth. Dark, vicious, threatening laughter.

Conor choked down absolute terror.

Survive. You can do things. Survive.

Then something flashed past. A pale limb. Thick and muscled, swatting at the water. And on the forearm drawn with bold punctures, visible even through a sheen of scum, a tattoo of a horned ram.

A sheep, thought Conor. Sheep are not for stewing here on Little Saltee.

The figure disappeared from view, pulling itself down the bell curve. Hands slapped at the brass, setting off a cacophony of shuddering clangs inside the bell’s skirt. The clangs reverberated around the diving bell until Conor prayed for silence. Surely his ears were bleeding. Then four thick fingers curled under the bell’s rim, shimmering white in the water.

Each finger was tattooed with a single letter. Even upside down it didn’t take a scholar to read what the letters promised.

P. A. I. N.

Conor didn’t doubt it for a second.

A huge man dragged himself along the seabed, mindless of the sharp rocks scraping his flesh. When he stood inside the bell, a dozen red rivulets ran down his torso. It suddenly seemed to Conor that there was not enough air left to breath. He backed away until the diving bell’s cold metal moulded the curve of his spine.

The man’s size was doubtless exaggerated by the confined space, but still he seemed a giant to Conor. He spread his arms wide, tinkling his fingers on the brass bell as though it were a grand piano. The sweet sound was hardly appropriate for the situation. Whatever this man intended to do, he seemed to be in no hurry to complete his mission. He stretched this way and that, cracking neck and knuckles all the while wearing an expression of serene contentment. Conor read many things into that half smile. A confidence in his brutish abilities, the memories of past violence and the anticipation of the job at hand.

The man smiled, a yellow tobacco grimace, but then his expression drooped as he realized Conor’s age.

‘Hell’s bells, you’re nothing but a boy. What did you do? Lie about your age to get a ticket for the army? Are you that desperate to patrol a wall? There ain’t even a war on.’

‘You’re a sheep,’ said Conor numbly. ‘Sheep are not for stewing here on Little Saltee.’

The man stroked his tattoo fondly. ‘There are those that call us sheep, but our name proper is the Battering Rams. That being our favourite method of doing the big job.’

Conor understood the sheep references now. The Battering Rams were a notorious gang of London Irish who were involved in smuggling in ports from London to Boston and whose other main source of income was from hiring out thugs. It would seem that this particular ram had been gainfully employed.

‘Ah well,’ continued the man. ‘I’ve been paid now, and I don’t like to disappoint my employers, so you’ll have to take your licks, boy or not.’

‘Are you going to kill me?’ asked Conor. The man’s smell filled the bell, clogging the confined space. Sweat, blood, tobacco and stale breath.

The man rolled his shirt open, revealing a list tattooed on his chest. ‘I could kill you, and my employer would still be in credit, because he paid me three pounds.’

Conor read the words on the man’s pale flesh:

Punching – 2 shillings

Both eyes blacked – 4 shillings

Nose and jaw broke – 10 shillings

Jacked out (knocked out with a black jack) – 15 shillings

Ear chewed off – same as previous

Leg or arm broke – 19 shillings

Shot in leg – 25 shillings

Stab – Same as previous

Doing the Big Job – 3 pounds and up

The man buttoned his shirt.

‘He paid me the full three pounds, but said I was to spread it out. Keep punching on a daily basis until he was out of credit. That’s a fair whack of punching, but you being such a slip of a whelp, I reckon one belt a day should do it. Maybe, if the task is becoming tiresome after a few weeks, I may chew your ear off just to finish it.’

Conor was finding it difficult to believe what he was hearing. The man had such a professional manner, as though he were a roofer quoting for a slate job.

‘What will you do if your prices go up?’

The man frowned. ‘You mean the tattoo? I never thought of that. I suppose I’ll have to have it writ over. There’s a little Galway geezer what is good with the needles. Anyway, see yer tomorrow… ’

‘What?’ said Conor, but before his teeth had closed over the final consonant, the man’s huge fist had already begun its arc, swinging towards Conor’s head like a cannonball. The last things Conor saw were the letters P. A. I. N., but he remained conscious for long enough to hear the Battering Ram sing this savage ditty:

‘We stabs ’em,

We fights ’em,

Cripples ’em,

Bites ’em.

No rules for our mayhem.

You pay us, we slays ’em.

If you’re in a corner,

With welshers or scams.

Pay us a visit,

The Battering Rams.’

And then the whole world was wet and Conor gladly allowed himself to be tugged away by the currents.

Maybe this time I won’t wake up, he thought. I need never wake up again.

But wake up he did, many hours later with Linus Wynter bending over him, green paste dripping from his fingers.

‘More Plantago, I fear,’ he explained. ‘This is becoming a habit.’

Conor closed his eyes again, fearful that he would cry. He kept himself still for long minutes, breathing quiet breaths through his nose. He could feel the cold muck on his temple, where the giant had struck him, and more on his hand where the brand still scalded.

There must be an end to this? How long could a mind endure such torture and stay whole?

‘You have been asleep for nearly twelve hours. I saved your rations for you. Have some water at least.’

Water. The very word had the power to awaken Conor fully. His throat felt flaked with thirst.

Man’s primary instinct is to survive, Victor had once told him. And he will endure almost anything to follow his instincts.

‘Water,’ croaked the boy, raising his head, until the Plantago juice ran down his forehead.

Wynter held a rough earthenware cup to Conor’s lips, dribbling water down his throat. To Conor, the drink tasted like life itself, and soon he felt strong enough to hold the cup. He sat slowly, sighing gratefully for the simple pleasure of slaking his thirst.

‘And now you should eat,’ said Wynter. ‘Keep your body strong. A fever in here could kill you.’

Conor laughed, a feeble shuddering. As though fever would ever have the chance to kill him. The Battering Ram had almost three pounds’ worth of beatings to dole out, and it was hardly likely that Conor could survive those.

Wynter pressed a shallow bowl into Conor’s hand.

‘Whatever happened to you, and whatever is going to happen, you will not have a prayer without strength in your limbs.’

Conor relented, picking a chunk of cold meat from the bowl of stew. Even when hot, Conor doubted that the meal could ever have been called appetizing. The meat was tough, with a wide band of fat and hard burn ridges along each side. But meat was strength, and strength was what he would need to go back in the bell with a mad ram.

‘Now,’ said Wynter, ‘tell me what happened today. They brought you back here on a plank. For a moment I couldn’t even find a heartbeat.’

Conor chewed on a lump of meat. The fat was slick and rubbery between his teeth.

‘They put me in a diving bell with one of those Battering Rams.’

‘Describe him,’ instructed Wynter.

‘Big man. Enormous. Tattoos all over. P. A. I. N. on his knuckles and -’

‘A price list on his chest,’ completed Conor’s cellmate. ‘That’s Otto Malarkey. The top ram. That animal has beaten more men than he can count. And he can count well enough, especially when there’s coin involved.’

‘He’s been paid coin aplenty to keep handing out daily beatings. This is how they will break me.’

‘A simple but effective plan,’ admitted Wynter. ‘Set the big man beating the little man. That tactic worked on everyone, even Napoleon.’

Conor took a drink of water. Now that his senses were returning, he could taste the saltpetre in it. ‘There must be something I can do.’

Wynter thought on it, fixing the bandage across his eyes with long pianist’s fingers.

‘This problem is more important than all the daily vexations I had planned to educate you on this evening. Malarkey must be dealt with if you are to survive, young Conor.’

‘Yes, but how?’

‘You need to rest. Lie flat and think on your strengths. Draw on everything you have ever been taught. Tease out every violent daydream you have ever nursed in your darkest hours. You must have talents: you are a tall boy and strong.’

‘And if I do have talents, what then?’ insisted Conor.

‘Another simple plan,’ whispered Wynter. ‘Older even than the first. When you see Malarkey next, you must immediately kill him.’

Kill him.

‘I can’t. I could never -’

Wynter smiled kindly. ‘You are a good lad, Conor. Kind. Killing is hateful to you, and the thought that you could ever take a life is a terrible one.’

‘Yes. I am not the kind of…’

Wynter raised a conductor’s finger. ‘We are all that kind of person. Survival is the most basic instinct. But, you are sensitive, I can tell, so I will help you along the road to murder. Since my eyes were taken from me, I have become adept at recreating images in my head. I can see the concert halls of my youth. Time and concentration fill the spaces until the picture is complete. Every velvet-covered chair, every footlight, every gilded cherub.’ For a long moment, Wynter was lost in his own colourful past, then the sounds and smells of Little Saltee shattered his mental image. ‘What I need you to do is close your eyes and picture the man who sent you here. Use your hatred of him to awaken the killer instinct.’

Conor did not need to concentrate for long. Bonvilain’s face sprang into his mind’s eye, complete with hateful eyes and derisory sneer.

‘And now, Conor, tell me, do you think you can kill?’

Conor considered everything Bonvilain had done to the Broekhart family.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can kill.’

Linus Wynter smiled sadly.

‘We all can,’ he said. ‘God save our souls.’

CHAPTER 7: THE DEVIL’S FORK

In the door opposite Conor Broekhart’s bunk there was a small rectangular window. Perhaps three times in every hour a guard passed by bearing a torch. Flickering orange light poured into the gloom of their cell, casting a vague dancing flame on Conor’s hand when he raised it to examine his Saltee kiss. There, already crusted in scab, a cursive S. He was branded now, forever a criminal.

A kind of peace had descended on Conor. Events were simply so monumental that he could not deal with them, and that brought a kind of freedom. There was nothing to do but concentrate on Otto Malarkey, the deadly Battering Ram who so cheerfully swatted his prey around the diving bell.

Must he be killed? Is there no other way?

There was not, he concluded. Sadly it was either Otto Malarkey or himself. And though Conor had never been puffed by self-importance, he sincerely believed that he had more to offer the human race than the murderous Malarkey. At the very least, he would try to avoid killing any more of his fellow man.

But how to kill Malarkey? How?

What skills had he learned from Victor? The foil, of course, had always been his greatest success. He had the strength of a fencing master in his wrists. And the agility of a youth in his limbs. But how to combine the two?

I don’t even have a foil, or anything like one.

But then Conor remembered the tool belt that had been cinched about his waist. Perhaps that was not strictly true. Perhaps Arthur Billtoe had unwittingly come to his rescue.

The following day’s routine was the same as the previous one’s. Shortly after the single cannon-shot salute, Billtoe appeared at the cell door, a fresh slab of grease taming his locks. That morning he appeared to have shaved sections of his face, leaving the rest sprouting black, silver and ginger bristle.

‘Ready for round two with Malarkey?’ he asked, rifle held before him in case Conor should prove resistant to the idea of being hammered around a diving bell by a Battering Ram.

Conor stood painfully, the stiffness of various mistreatments binding his bones.

‘I am not ready, Mister Billtoe, but I don’t suppose that makes a shadow of difference.’

Billtoe chortled, fishing the handcuffs from his belt. ‘You are right, lad. You have hit the badger on the nut. Not one shade of difference. Let’s be having you, and why not order a big pot of Plantago stew from Mister Wynter, if he could see his way clear to mixing it up.’

Linus did not react to the goading, just held his face in a grim aspect. Conor took this as a reminder of what had to be done. Today he became a killer, or else a corpse.

The route to the pipe was the same, but on this morning there was a commotion behind the cell doors. Inmates roared taunts and slapped the wood with the flats of their hands.

‘Moon madness,’ explained Billtoe. ‘She was hanging in the sky last night like a silver shilling. Always gets the lunatics riled up.’

A nugget of information popped into Conor’s mind. ‘That’s what the word means. Moonstruck, from the Latin lunaticus.’

Billtoe propelled Conor along the corridor with a boot in the small of his back. ‘Don’t keep giving me information. It makes me feel stupid and feeling stupid irritates me.’

‘A familiar feeling, I’ll bet,’ muttered Conor.

Billtoe could not be certain whether or not he was being insulted, he tapped Conor with his boot again, just to be on the safe side. ‘Talk clever to Malarkey. He loves a lippy mark, just adds to his enthusiasm.’

Malarkey’s name doused Conor’s wit, and his despair was clear on his face.

‘That’s right,’ cackled Billtoe. ‘Stick that in one of your lesson books. Go on, write it down. Not so generous with the information now, are you?’

The diving bell was already below water when they arrived at the pipe, its tip poking through the surface. The blurred shapes of two inmates were visible through the porthole, hacking agitatedly at the rock below their feet. Guards chose pumpers from a gang of prisoners corralled into a wooden pen on the storeroom level, changing them often to keep the air flowing.

‘The pipe never sleeps,’ said Billtoe. ‘Not now that Good King Nick is gone. All day every day pulling angel tears out of the earth. And do we see a penny? We do not.’

Conor noted the guard’s bitterness. It could prove to be useful information, if he remained on this earth long enough to make use of it.

‘There are compensations though. Sport like this, for example,’ said Billtoe unlocking Conor’s handcuffs. ‘Not that we can see what’s going on between prisoners inside Flora. Not clearly, you understand.’

So that was it. Nobody knew anything, because nobody could see anything.

Billtoe called to Pike, the gang boss.

‘Here, switch them up. Time for Malarkey to earn his few shillings.’

He handed Conor a tool belt.

‘In case you are conscious for long enough to find a few stones.’

Pike pulled the cork bung from the bell’s air tube and hollered the order down. Moments later, two drenched convicts popped from the choppy water, to be briskly elbowed aside and frisked for concealed diamonds. It was a thorough searching that would have uncovered anything larger than a single blood drop.

Conor climbed down the ladder, eyeing the cave for Malarkey. The Battering Ram was easily spotted, reclining on a clump of rocks that bluntly resembled a throne. He threw a mock punch Conor’s way, no doubt expecting today’s performance to be a repeat of yesterday’s.

Not this time, sheep, thought Conor. This is the final show. The curtain comes down this morning.

Conor set both feet on the rock and headed directly for the shoreline. He did not wait for instruction from Pike. Conversation was the last thing he wanted now. Words would simply be a distraction. Before diving into the salty water, he patted the belt at his waist, to make sure the Devil’s Fork was in its holder. Without this simple tool, he would have little chance of overcoming Malarkey.

The water closed around him and Conor’s fingers sought out handholds on the diving bell, pulling himself along its curve until he found the rim. Once inside, the bell’s terrible confined space nearly quashed his will, and Conor was forced to draw several deep breaths before he could even force himself to stand.

Follow your instinct, he told himself. Allow it to consume you.

From the air hole, he heard a splash followed by whoops and cheers. Malarkey was on the way. The Battering Rams spurred on their champion, though none were expecting much of a contest. Displaced water waves shook the bell, sending up a rich hum within its curves.

I must act quickly. Be ready.

Conor glanced upwards. Malarkey had paused at the porthole to further torture his victim. He knocked the glass, grinning broadly, though his yellow teeth were lost in the porthole’s scum sheen.

The instant Malarkey’s face disappeared from view, Conor set to work. He quickly extended the mining tripod to its full length, tightening the rings so that the tool would not easily collapse. The tripod was roughly the same as a youth’s practice foil, but terribly balanced with the weight entirely towards the tip. Still, a makeshift foil was infinitely better than nothing.

Conor filled his left hand with the wet diamond pouch from his belt, and scrunched it into a soggy sphere. He was as prepared now as he could be, and yet this entire sequence of events had a tinge of unreality about it. Unbelievable things were happening at a terrific rate.

Like many boys his age, Conor had often imagined going into combat. This was nothing like his daydreams. In Conor’s fantasies, heroic soldiers faced off against each other on windswept battlefields to the sounds of drums and bugles. There was nothing heroic about this reality. A cramped space, the stink of oil, sweat and fear, and the sickness in the pit of his gullet at the thought of having to kill another human, however vile the man might be. It was as his father had always said: war was never noble.

A pale, water-wavering slab of arm crept under the bell rim. The temptation was strong to stab it with the trident, but that would be foolish. He would sacrifice the element of surprise for a gain of only a tiny wound. Malarkey would retreat, gather himself, then return with grim determination.

Conor held back, bending his knees, getting ready to spring. Malarkey lurched under the rim, appearing in spurts, face up, his long strands of fine hair fanning about his head like seaweed. He was smiling still, streams of air bubbles leaking between his teeth. Once his feet had cleared the rim, Malarkey flipped carelessly on to all fours and breached the water like a walrus.

Conor’s breath came fast. Strike now, or the moment was past and he had his two shilling’s worth coming.

Malarkey began to rise, and while he was still bent almost double, Conor used the knobs of the big man’s spine as a step ladder and climbed on to his shoulders. It was a precarious position, and could last barely a moment. A moment was ample to stuff his wadded diamond pouch squarely into the air duct, stoppering it.

Malarkey shrugged him off, still smiling. He was bemused in fact.

‘What yer trying to accomplish, soldier boy? Flight? Even an eagle would be bested by a ram in here.’

‘I blocked the air,’ said Conor coldly. ‘We have two minutes to escape.’

This last fact was a barefaced lie, but not one that would be weighing on Conor’s conscience. There was air enough in here for half an hour at least, but with any luck Malarkey would not know that.

For once luck ran Conor’s way and the jaunty expression slid from Malarkey’s face like greased steak from a pan as he noticed the pipe’s blockage.

‘You blasted numbskull,’ he shouted, the bell vibrating sympathetically with his words. ‘Do yer want to kill us both?’

Conor held the makeshift foil behind his back.

‘No. Not both of us.’

Malarkey’s expression changed to the peeve of a kindly schoolmaster who has finally been exasperated beyond the limits of his patience.

‘I did you quick yesterday, soldier boy. A single punch and that’s a talent. Today, I’m going to be taking my sweet time, and not minding so much about bruises or bones.’

‘That’s right, sheep,’ said Conor. ‘Keep talking, waste the air.’

Malarkey reached out, grabbing Conor by the throat.

‘Now you pop yourself back up on my shoulders and pull out that plug and I might strike you once, but charge for two.’

It was obvious from his tone that Malarkey thought this a great kindness.

Conor pulled out the trident so quickly it whistled.

‘The plug is staying in,’ he said, thrusting the tiny fork heads into Malarkey’s leg.

The Battering Ram dropped Conor, yelping like a kicked mutt. He reared back, striking his head a sound bong against the bell. The impact crossed his eyes and set his ears ringing.

Conor used the moment to settle his stance: knees bent, makeshift foil extended and left arm cocked behind him.

Attack now! his good sense urged. No time for sportsmanship.

But this was not sportsmanship. Conor wanted Malarkey to realize what was happening to him. The hired thug must never be able to convince himself that Conor had triumphed through luck. And so he waited until Malarkey’s vision cleared, then spoke, two words only.

‘En garde.’

Malarkey growled.

‘You think those words scare me? You think I haven’t heard them from a score of prissy officer types what are now no more than bones in their uniforms?’

Malarkey spread his arms wide, advancing through the water. ‘En garde it is then, soldier boy.’

Conor could almost hear Victor’s voice.

Wait for the move. Wait for him to commit.

The wait was not a long one. Malarkey swung in with the same haymaker that he had landed the day before. Conor found that it was not so lightning fast when you were waiting for it.

Conor used a simple attaque au fer, which sets up an offensive by deflecting the opponent’s blade, though in truth he was deflecting himself more so than Malarkey’s arm, which he was addressing as a military-type broadsword.

Now. Facing Malarkey’s flank, he slashed down three times, the fork blurred with speed, like a golden fan. Three red stripes appeared on the band of flesh between Malarkey’s shirt and trousers’ band.

These strikes were for pain.

Malarkey yelped once more, then howled lustily as the pain settled to a steady burn. Conor threw his shoulder into the man’s buttocks, not the most pleasant place to be even for a second, but it did have the effect of clanging Malarkey into the bell curve. His forehead collided with the brass, setting the bell ringing once more.

Now, to the rear, Conor thrust deeply through the water and above Malarkey’s heel, feeling the tines puncture the tough flesh.

That strike was for immobility.

Malarkey collapsed like a wall under cannon shot, filling the bell with spray. The Battering Ram continued to howl, demented with pain and anger. Conor felt his resolve falter.

‘Kill you,’ sobbed Malarkey. ‘I will skin the flesh from your frame.’

Conor’s resolve was firm once more.

He laid several flat strikes around Malarkey’s back and shoulders, forcing him deeper into the sea. With his free hand he shoved straight-fingered jabs into the man’s kidneys, causing him to reflexively inhale half a gallon of water. A trick adapted from karate.

Malarkey was effectively helpless. Wallowing in the shallow water, blinded by pain and salt. An infant with a mean disposition could kill him.

Conor leaned back against the bell curve, panting. His hatred for Malarkey had disappeared as quickly as it had flared up. And yet, this issue of a bounty must be solved today. Was Linus Wynter right? Must he kill this man?

Malarkey rolled on to his back and lay there sobbing, his face inches above the surface, wavelets from his own thrashings slopping water down his gullet.

Conor placed a soldier’s boot on the man’s neck, contemptuously knocking aside Malarkey’s weak grabs.

‘You see now what I can do?’ he hissed, surprised at the venom in his own voice.

Malarkey could not answer. Even if there had not been a boot at his throat, he was beyond words.

Stop talking. Kill him!

Conor jammed the trident deep into the folds of flesh beneath Malarkey’s chin. One more push and the tines would pierce the skin and sever an artery.

‘This is no lucky accident. I can kill you easy as a Sunday chicken.’

Malarkey’s eyes suddenly focused. The thought of visiting the afterlife helps to concentrate the mind.

‘Do you understand that, Mister Battering Ram? I could kill you.’

Do it. Stop your jabbering.

Conor tightened his grip on the fork, the muscles along his arm tensed. Three drops of blood pooled round the trident heads.

One last push and his tormentor would torment him no more.

‘Please,’ said Malarkey, the word gurgling in his throat.

A bead of sweat trickled into Conor’s eye. Water lapped at the bell curve, humming gently.

‘Please, spare me,’ said the mighty Battering Ram.

I can’t do it. I have no wish to kill this man.

Conor realized that he was not a killer and this filled him with warm relief, because it showed that he had not lost himself entirely in spite of all he had endured. He hadn’t been raised to gain the upper hand through murder, not if there were other avenues.

There must be another way. A more intelligent way.

Conor chewed on his problem without relieving the fork’s pressure on Malarkey’s neck. The Battering Ram must be made an ally. This struggle could not go on day after day. He quickly cobbled together a possible way out, for both of them.

‘Listen to me, sheep,’ said Conor, twisting the trident. ‘I am going to float out of this bell, just like yesterday.’

Otto Malarkey’s brow creased. ‘But I -’

‘Quiet!’ shouted Conor, with an authority he hadn’t known he possessed. ‘Listen to me now. We are hatching a plan, you and I. We will come down here every day, and you will supposedly give me my two shillings’ worth. That way, you can still be king of the sheep. The big ram. In reality we will have ourselves a quiet talk, and you can help me to survive in here.’

Concentration was not easy for Malarkey in his distressed state, but he did think of something.

‘What about my foot? I can’t walk.’

A problem, true. Water dripped from the bell curve, spattering them both with indoor rain. Conor wracked his brain for a solution.

‘After I leave. Wait an hour, perhaps two, then make a great commotion on climbing out of the bell. Thrash around underwater and say the bell trapped you. Blame your ankle injury on Flora. It is a painful wound, but not serious. I missed the Achilles tendon, luckily for you. Strap it tight, and stay off it for a few hours. You will be solid as an oak tomorrow.’

Malarkey was growing brave again; Conor could see it in the squint of his eye. He had his breath now, and fancied his chances. Any moment he would make a lunge for his young tormentor, then Conor would be forced to kill him. This newfound courage must be nipped in the bud. Conor lashed him once on each forearm, temporarily deadening the nerves.

‘Is it more stripes you want? Are you too mutton-headed for life? Accept my proposition, sheep, and you can live with your honour intact. If not, you can suffer defeat at the hands of a boy.’

It seemed as though the prospect of defeat was worse than that of death. Malarkey gritted his teeth, nodding, unable to meet Conor’s eye.

‘I have your word?’

Victor had once told him that the city gang members had developed a curious sense of honour, almost echoing that of the Samurai Bushido code.

‘Yes, blast you, my word on it.’

Conor grinned coldly, a mechanism he would come to rely on in desperate situations.

‘I will trust you on it. No need for a handshake.’

It was a cruel joke. Malarkey’s arms were dead at his side like two slabs of butchered beef.

‘Very well, then, sheep. We have an agreement. Be warned, if you try trickery tomorrow, I will not be so merciful, or silent.’

Conor twisted the rings on his trident, collapsing it.

‘No need to get up, I’ll see myself out.’

Conor was surprised at his own comment. A second malicious joke in as many minutes. It was not like him to sneer at someone whatever the circumstances, but perhaps Little Saltee was moulding him into a different person. The kind that might possibly survive.

Conor filled his lungs to slide under the rim. Before salt water clouded his vision, he saw a final frustration dropped upon Malarkey: the wadded diamond pouch fell from the air hole, plopping directly on to the man’s face.

Malarkey cursed long and filthily, but his words were muffled by the sopping bag. A bag that he was unable to reach up and brush away.

CHAPTER 8: CONOR FINN

Billtoe and Pike carried Conor back to his cell on a plank and they were careless in their work. Conor endured several bumps and jolts, which almost made up for Malarkey’s neglected two shillings’ worth.

Thinking him unconscious, they chattered on about the state of the islands.

‘Bonvilain will strip this place of anything within a million years of becoming a diamond,’ said Pike. ‘I’d feel a tot of pity for the Salts, if they weren’t lower than barnacles.’

‘Barnacles,’ agreed Billtoe. ‘But at least barnacles don’t give you lip. And you don’t put yourself in for a visit to the warden’s office if you happen to stamp on a barnacle.’

They two-stepped the plank round an awkward corner, scraping Conor’s elbow along the wall.

‘I’d say you could stamp on all the prisoners you like, now that Good King Nick is knocking at the pearlies. Bonvilain never minded before.’

‘True for you, Pikey,’ Billtoe laughed, following it with a regurgitating hurk. ‘Good times are here, that is until Isabella comes of age. Possibly she’s one for the people, like her father. I hear worrying good things about her.’

‘Ah yes, Princess Isabella,’ said Pike. ‘I wouldn’t be concerning yourself on that score. She won’t wear the crown till her seventeenth birthday and that’s two years away. I would bet my Sunday boots that something tragic will happen to our little princess after that if she starts queering things for the marshall.’

It took all Conor’s resolve not to grab Billtoe’s weapon and make a bid for freedom right then, but Conor Finn dying on a cold prison floor would do little to help Isabella. He needed to bide his time and wait for an opportunity.

The guards reached Conor’s cell and simply raised one end of the plank, sliding him through the doorway. He tumbled to the wall and lay there, limbs splayed and moaning. The moans were real.

Pike and Billtoe stood framed by the doorway.

‘You know something, Pikey,’ said Billtoe, scratching an itch on his collarbone. ‘Maybe I’m getting old and soft, but I’ve taken a liking to young Conor Finn.’

Pike was more than surprised. Liking prisoners was not Billtoe’s form.

‘Really?’

‘No,’ said Billtoe, shutting the cell door. ‘Not really.’

Conor lay still until the guards’ footsteps faded first to echoes then silence. Another minute for safety, then he crawled upon his bunk hiding his face with a forearm, though he was alone in the cell. The shaking began suddenly, racking his entire body from toe to crown, as though he had grasped a wire of the electric, like a labourer he had seen working in Coronation Square, all those years ago. On another island, in another life.

There was simply too much to think about. Father, Mother, King Nicholas, Isabella. His own plight in this prison. Bonvilain, the Battering Rams, Billtoe and Pike. Images of these friends and foes passed through his mind, branding him with more pain than a Little Saltee kiss.

Mother and Father taking him to Hook Head to fly his paper kite. King Nicholas’s stories of the American Civil War and why he fought in it. Bonvilain’s face, features set in a permanent sneer. Otto Malarkey, fear of death in his dark eyes.

Too much. Too much.

Conor gritted his teeth and imagined himself flying until the shaking stopped.

Pike booted Linus Wynter back into the cell some hours later, just as Conor was finishing his first meal of the day.

‘I put yours on the flat stone by the window,’ he said to the gangly American. ‘It’s the warmest spot in here. You sit, I’ll get it.’

Wynter tutted, heading straight for the flat stone. ‘No need. I know where the griddle is. I have been here almost a year, young Conor.’ He bent down and tinkled the air with two fingers until he found the bowl. ‘But, thank you, that was very thoughtful.’

Wynter perched on his bed, selecting a lump of gristle, dripping with grease. ‘Oh Lord, it’s hardly the Savoy, is it. I spent a night there in eighty-nine. Fabulous. Full electric lighting, a bath in every suite. And the water closets – I dream of the water closets.’

‘We’ve had electric lighting since eighty-seven on Great Saltee,’ said Conor. ‘King Nicholas says that we have to embrace change.’ Conor’s face fell. ‘King Nicholas said that.’

Wynter did not comment, chewing the fatty lump in his mouth thoroughly, lest it choke him on the way down.

‘So, young Finn, are we going to swap water-closet stories all evening, or are you going to tell me of your adventures in the bell?’

‘I let Malarkey live,’ said Conor. ‘But I thrashed him soundly and he knows I can do it again. Next time I won’t keep quiet about it, and we’ll see how long he survives as head ram after that.’

Wynter froze, a dripping gobbet of meat halfway to his mouth.

‘Hell’s bells, boy. If I could look at you admiringly, I would. Nick was right about you.’

‘Nick? King Nicholas? You knew the king?’

‘We met in Missouri. He was in the balloon corps. Actually, he was the balloon corps. He towed two raggedy hot-air rigs around to various battle sites. Our paths crossed at Petersburg in sixty-five. I wasn’t much use to anyone back then, having had my eyes poked out by the teenage Jesse James. And Nick was just about tolerated by the generals, so we struck up a friendship. He taught me how to tie knots and fill ballast bags. Even took me up a few times. I had no idea that he was royalty; of course, neither did he.’

Conor had always been a fast thinker. ‘It can’t be coincidence that you’re here.’

Wynter cocked his head to one side, listening carefully. ‘No, Conor, it’s no coincidence. Nick sent me here to spy for him.’

‘You’re a spy? You shouldn’t tell me this. I could be anyone. Another spy sent in to find you out.’

‘You could be, but you’re not. I have heard of you before from Victor Vigny. He visited me here days ago and took my news to the king. The pretext was that I had stolen from him. Such cloak and dagger.’ Wynter reached out long fingers until he found Conor’s shoulder. ‘King Nicholas thought of you as a son. Victor said you were his greatest hope for the future. You’re no spy.’

Conor felt a twinge of sadness. He had thought of the king almost as a second father.

An awful truth struck him. ‘But now, Mister Wynter, you are truly imprisoned here with the rest of us.’

Wynter sighed. ‘It would seem so. I can hardly tell Mister Billtoe that I am actually a professional spy posing as a vagrant musician.’

‘I suppose not,’ Conor agreed. ‘Who were you spying on?’

Again, Linus Wynter listened before replying. ‘Marshall Bonvilain. Nicholas had come to suspect Bonvilain of treason in many areas, but especially on Little Saltee. Bonvilain was running it like his own personal slave camp. Prison reforms were implemented only when Nicholas or his envoys came to visit. The king needed a man on the inside, and who better to spy on a music-loving warden than a blind musician. Nobody would suspect a man who cannot spy anything of being a spy.’

‘I see,’ said Conor.

Wynter grinned. ‘Do you really? What’s it like.’

Conor smiled, his first in days. The smile was a twinkle in the gloom and did not last long.

‘I don’t think I can make it through this, Mister Wynter. I am not strong enough.’

‘Nonsense,’ snapped Wynter. ‘You showed courage today, and ingenuity. Anyone who can thrash that brute Malarkey can certainly find the strength to survive Little Saltee.’

Conor nodded. There were people in worse straits than him. At least he had youth and strength on his side.

‘Tell me, Mister Wynter, how do you go about your business?’

‘What business is that?’ said Wynter innocently.

‘The business of being a spy, of course.’

Wynter pulled a convincing horrified face. ‘Spying? Me? But, you foolish boy, I am blind, which is the same as brainless and only slightly better than dead. Why, you could plant me at the piano in the warden’s office, and he would go about his business exactly as though I wasn’t even there.’

‘But now there is no one to report to?’

‘Precisely. A while back, Nicholas requested my temporary release to play in his orchestra. I gave him my first report then. There was another due tomorrow. I would surmise that I shan’t be delivering that report, or any more.’

Conor felt a sudden kinship for this tall American.

‘We are together, then.’

‘Until one of us is released. And when I say released, I mean it in the Little Saltee sense. Occasionally an inmate disappears and the guards tell us he has been released.’

‘Dead then.’

‘I would guess. Murder is the most expeditious way to prevent overcrowding. I pray that we fortunate two are never released.’

Conor was surprised. ‘Fortunate? A curious choice of words.’

Wynter wagged a reed-like, knuckle-knobbed finger. ‘Not at all. We are two like-minded, civilized men. Just think who we might have drawn as cellmates.’

Conor’s memory flashed on Malarkey’s features, shaped by the violence of his life.

‘You are right, Mister Wynter. We are indeed fortunate.’

Wynter raised an imaginary glass of champagne.

‘Your health,’ he said.

‘Your health,’ rejoined Conor, and then, ‘Clink.’

The cell itself was a study in the Spartan, not much more than a hole in the island. There was one window high in the wall, of letterbox size. The light admitted by this portal was weak and watery, without the strength to cut through more than a few feet of shadow.

The walls themselves were expertly hewn with barely a need for mortar, which was just as well as the surface mortar had long since crumbled, allowing various fungi to spread themselves across the joins. Conor estimated the dimensions to be twelve feet by fourteen. Hardly enough for two tall men to spend their confinement in comfort. Then again, comfort was hardly the issue.

As he lay on his hard cot that evening, Conor dreamed of his family. Eventually his thoughts grew so painful that a small pathetic cry crept through his lips.

Linus Wynter did not comment, he merely shifted in his bed to show that he had heard and was awake for conversation if needed.

‘You said that you would instruct me,’ whispered Conor. ‘Tell me how to survive in this place.’

Wynter turned on his back, clasped his hands on his chest and sighed.

‘What you must do, what we both must do now, is so terribly difficult that it is close to impossible. Only the most determined can achieve it.’

Conor felt that he could indeed do the close to impossible if it meant that he would survive Little Saltee. ‘What, Mister Wynter? Tell me. I need some relief.’

‘Very well, Conor. There are two parts to this scheme. The first has the sound of an easy task, but, believe me, it is not. You must forget your old life. It is dead and gone. Dreaming of family and friends will plunge you into a dark hell of despair. So build a wall round your memories and become a new person.’

‘I don’t know if I can…’ began Conor.

‘You are Conor Finn now!’ hissed Wynter. ‘You must believe it. You are Conor Finn, seventeen-year-old army corporal, smuggler and swordsman. Conor Finn will survive Little Saltee. Conor Broekhart’s body may survive, but his spirit will be crushed as surely as though Bonvilain clamped it in a vice.’

‘Conor Finn,’ said Conor haltingly. ‘I am Conor Finn.’

‘You are a killer. You are young and slim, true, but ruthless with your blade – arm as strong as a steel band. You prefer your own company, and will brook no insult. Not so much as a dirty look. You have killed before. Your first when you were fifteen, a grog head who dipped your pocket. This is all the truth.’

‘It’s true,’ murmured Conor. ‘All true.’

‘You have no family,’ continued Wynter. ‘No one to love, or to love you.’

‘No one…’ said Conor, but the words were hard to utter. ‘No one loves me.’

Wynter paused, tilting his head, hearing Conor’s distress. ‘This is the way it must be. In here, love will rot your brain. I know this to be true. I had a wife once, lovely Aishwarya. Dreams of her fuelled my days during my five years in a Bengal prison. This was enough to sustain me for a while, but then my love turned to suspicion. And finally to hate. When I heard that she had died of typhoid, the guilt nearly killed me. I would have died if they hadn’t kicked me out.’ Wynter was quiet for as long as it took him to relive those horrible times.

‘Love must die in here, Conor; it is the only way. Once you open your heart…’

‘Love must die,’ said Conor, storing images of his parents in a padlocked chest at the back of his mind.

‘But something must take its place,’ said Wynter in a stronger voice. ‘An obsession to fire your enthusiasm. A reason to live, if you like. I myself have music. I keep an opera on the broiler inside my head and in other places. Amadeus himself would weep. My music is never far from my thoughts. It is my fondest wish to have it performed in Salzburg. One day, young Conor. One day. My opera keeps me alive, you see.’ Wynter slipped two fingers under his eye bandage, massaging his ruined sockets. ‘I see music like you see colours. Each instrument is a stroke of the brush. The gold of the strings. The deep blue of the bassoon. Even as I trot out pompous marches for the warden on his rickety piano – that sound board is not even spruce – I am dreaming of my opera.’

Wynter’s lips murmured across the phrases of his beloved music.

‘And what about you, Conor?’ he asked after several bars. ‘Do you have a dream? Something that fills your mind with hope but never pain?’

The answer came quickly to Conor.

I want to fly.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have a dream.’

The night arrived though it made little difference to the light in Conor’s cell. There was a slight thickening of the dirty darkness but that was all. They were trapped in a limbo of gloom, with only food and work to instruct them as to the time of day. Conor lay on his cot wrestling with thoughts of his family, which he was not supposed to be thinking. Shrugging off one’s old self was not as simple as discarding a dirty shirt. Memories popped up unbidden, clamouring to be examined. Mister Wynter was right: this was the most difficult thing he had ever had to do. Conor could feel the sweat coating his face like a wet flannel and the voice of his mother seemed as real to him as the cell walls.

How could you do it, my son? How could you betray us all?

Conor bit his knuckle until the voice faded. He needed distraction, and proof that this new-life strategy was effective.

‘Mister Wynter,’ he whispered, ‘are you asleep?’

Cloth rustled on the other cot, then Linus answered, ‘No, Conor Finn. I am awake. Sometimes I think that I never truly sleep. One eye on the real world, so to speak. The legacy of a lifetime’s spying. Are you having trouble burying Conor Broekhart?’

Conor laughed bitterly. ‘Trouble. It is impossible, Mister Wynter.’

‘No, not impossible, but devilish hard. It took me months to forget my real self. To become this rakish, devil-may-care playboy. Even talking to you about this is opening a chink in the door to my previous self.’

‘Sorry,’ said Conor. ‘Tell me of your dream, then. The opera.’

Wynter sat up. ‘Really? You would like to hear my music?’

‘Yes. Perhaps your music will give me enthusiasm for my own project.’

Wynter was suddenly stuttering. ‘V-very well, Conor. But you are the first person ever… That is, we are hardly in the correct environment. The acoustics in here are of the worst kind; even the human voice will be mangled by these close quarters.’

Conor smiled in the dark. ‘I am a kind audience, Mister Wynter. My only request is that your music be to a higher standard than your spying.’

‘Ahh,’ said Wynter, beating his breast with a fist. ‘A critic. Of all the cellmates I could have chosen.’ But the joke had calmed him and he began his performance in confident tones.

‘Our story is entitled The Soldier’s Return. Imagine, if you will, the great state of New York. The Civil War has ended and the men of the One Hundred and Thirty-Seventh Infantry have returned to their homes in Binghamton. It is a time of mixed emotions, great joy and deep sorrow. For these men and their families, nothing can ever be the same again…’

And following this sparsest of introductions, Linus Wynter launched into his overture.

It was a grand number, but not pretentious, switching between moods. From delirious joy and relief, to unfathomable sorrow.

It could have been comical. A blind man playing all the parts of an orchestra for a frightened boy. But somehow it was not. Conor felt himself lost in the music and the story sprang up around him as he listened.

It was a sad yet triumphant tale, with fine arias and soaring marches and Conor clung to it for a while, but by and by the story faded, leaving the music alone. But music must have pictures to go with it, and in Conor’s mind the pictures were of a flying machine. Heavier than air, yet soaring among the clouds, with Conor himself guiding the rudder. It could be done, and he would be the one to do it.

I will do it, he thought. I will fly and Conor Finn will survive Little Saltee.

The third day. Billtoe arrived after the cannon, looking as though he had been dragged to work through the sewers. This, Conor was beginning to realize, was his standard appearance.

Wynter sniffed the air on hearing the hinges.

‘Ah, Guard Billtoe. Right on time.’

Billtoe flicked a chicken bone he had been sucking at the blind prisoner. ‘Here, Wynter, boil yourself some soup. And you, Conor Finn, look lively. The pipe waits. Maybe today we’ll get some work out of you, if you’re not too occupied with the unconscious floating.’

Conor sat in his bed, feeling the itch of salt and dirt on his back.

‘On my way, Mister Billtoe.’

He trudged to the door, searching his heart for a spark of enthusiasm for anything. Linus Wynter provided it with a farewell and a tilt of the head that served as a wink.

‘Until this evening then, Conor Finn.’

Conor could not help but smile. Being part of a secret is a great source of strength.

‘Until this evening, when the soldier returns.’

Wynter’s face broke into a broad smile, wrinkles stretching the scars that ringed each eye like rays from the sun.

‘I await The Soldier’s Return then.’

Billtoe scowled, uncomfortable with anything more than abject depression from the convicts.

‘Quit with the conversation and out the door with you, Finn.’

Conor Finn left the dank cell, leaving Conor Broekhart further behind with every step.

Malarkey was already in the bell when Conor swam under. The huge convict was squeezing water from his long hair like a washerwoman wringing towels.

‘Salt makes the hair brittle,’ he explained, glancing at Conor under the crook of a raised elbow. ‘If a man favours the long styles, he has to get as much out as he can. Sometimes I think it’s wasted work, as no one on this blinking rock gives my hair a second glance.’

Conor was not sure how to react to this genial gent who had replaced yesterday’s hired brute.

‘Ah… My mother recommends oil for brittle hair.’

Malarkey sighed. ‘Yes, oil. Where to get it, though; there’s the puzzle I have wrestled with for a decade.’

The man was serious, Conor realized. This was important to him.

‘Billtoe seems to have a ready supply. The man’s head is as greased as a wrestling pole.’

‘Billtoe!’ spat Malarkey. ‘That snake. I wouldn’t please him with a plea.’

Conor had a thought. ‘Well then, I have noticed that our daily stew is loaded with some form of cooking oil. A small pool collects in the bowl. I dare say it would do you more good on your head than in your stomach.’

Malarkey was thunderstruck. ‘God almighty, you are correct, soldier boy. There it was every day, three times a day, staring me in the mush, and me looking for oil. That’s good advice.’

‘And free,’ Conor added. ‘Though you may smell like stew.’

‘What matter?’ said Malarkey. ‘My hair will shine bright enough for a Piccadilly stroll.’

Conor shook the water from his own hair. He must, he thought, with the shaking and the caked dirt, bear more than a passing resemblance to a vagabond mutt. It was time to look to his appearance. Perhaps Otto Malarkey was the man to quiz on hygiene.

Malarkey finished with his hair and threw his head back.

‘Now,’ he said, in a more serious tone. ‘We have unfinished business.’

Conor tensed. Was it time for another row? Some students needed more than one pass at a lesson before the information took hold. He placed a hand on the butt of the Devil’s Fork in his belt.

‘What business is that? More paid beatings?’

‘No, soldier boy, no!’ said Malarkey hurriedly. ‘Your solution to that affair is a sound one. We fake the entire thing for a fortnight. You keep mum and that is that. Saves my knuckles and your head, best all round. A pity I didn’t think of it before now. I could have saved myself the pain of arthritis. Between the aching joints and brittle hair, this place will be the death of me.’

Conor relaxed somewhat, but left his hand on the fork. ‘I knew a cook on Great Saltee who suffered from arthritis. She always swore that willow bark is good for joint pain, if you can get it.’

Malarkey nodded. ‘Willow bark?’

‘Grind it into your stew, or simply suck on a piece. Though it is hard on the stomach.’

‘No worries on that score. I could digest a live bear with barely a twinge.’

Conor frowned. ‘So then, what is this business?’

‘I talked to Pike,’ said Malarkey, hiking a thumb at the bell porthole. ‘We decided that it would be best to do a little work before I knock you senseless. So, I thought we might dig around a bit, find a few stones then take our ease for a while. Following that, I drag you on out of here and no one is any the wiser. How does that sound, for a plan?’

Conor was about to agree, but then thought on his new identity. Conor Finn was a young devil, and would not be satisfied without profit.

‘It’s a passable plan. Most of the elements are there, but what of the three pounds you were paid to beat me?’

Malarkey was ready for this line. ‘One for you, two for me.’

‘I prefer the other way around.’

‘I have a proposition,’ said Malarkey. ‘We go straight down the middle, if you teach me how to use that fork the way you do. Proper fencing is a powerful tool. I could earn some real money, nail me a few officers.’

It was clear in Malarkey’s face that he was eager for this arrangement.

‘And can you keep the Battering Rams from slipping a blade between my ribs?’ asked Conor.

Otto Malarkey shrugged back his long hair. ‘There’s only one way to guarantee that.’ He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the horned-ram tattoo. ‘You must take the ink. Only members of the brotherhood are safe. I’ll stand for you, if you teach me fencing. I could say you took the beatings and have Irish blood in you, though your accent is well-bred Saltee. A Kilmore mum maybe? I think that you’re below army age, but that don’t matter to the Battering Rams. If you’re big enough to hold a pistol, you’re big enough to fire one.’

Joining the Rams was a sticking point. Conor Broekhart would never take up with a criminal gang, but then again Conor Finn would.

‘I’ll take your ink, but I won’t pay any dues nor swear an oath.’

Malarkey laughed. ‘Oath! The only oaths we have in the Rams are foul ones. As for dues, the fencing lessons will do enough.’

Conor rubbed his bicep where the tattoo would sit. ‘Very well, Otto Malarkey, we have an agreement. I expect the money tomorrow.’

‘Not tomorrow,’ said Malarkey. ‘From now on you will be searched every day. Wait until you carry the ram on your arm, then certain guards have hazy allegiances. Their search will be less thorough, for the right price, of course.’

Already Malarkey was proving useful. It could well be that the man’s idle chatter would be a fair trade for a few fencing lessons.

‘Very well, Malarkey, after the tattoo is dry. Until then we fence and dig. First fencing, while the mind is sharp.’

Conor extended his trident, flicking his left arm up behind him.

Malarkey mimicked the stance.

‘So, Conor Finn, you’ll teach me everything you know?’

‘Not everything,’ said Conor, smiling tightly. ‘If I did that, then you could kill me.’

Billtoe waited until Conor supposedly regained consciousness before leading him back to his cell through the subterranean hallways of Little Saltee. For the first time since his arrival, Conor took careful account of his surroundings, counting each step, noting each door and window.

This section of the prison had a bowed look, as if the entire wing had dropped a floor since its construction. Walls leaned in overhead and the floor sank like a drain. Stone arches had lost their soffits or keystones and stood crookedly, like the efforts of a child’s building blocks. The walls were dotted with pitch patches where water had wormed its way through the cracks. Dozens more rivulets had yet to be filled. A gurgling saltwater stream ran down the centre of the collapsed floor.

‘Pretty, ain’t it,’ said Billtoe, taking note of Conor’s roving eye. ‘This place could flood at any second, they say. Of course they have been saying that since long before I put on the uniform. If I was you, I’d try to escape this hellhole. That’s always good for a giggle. You should see what desperate men are willing to try. Jumping off the wall is a favourite. The crabs never go hungry on Little Saltee. Tunnelling is another one. Tunnelling! I ask you. Where does these turf heads think they are? The middle of a meadow? We got barely a spoonful of clay on this island, and yet we have these gaol-crazed prisoners spending every waking minute sniffing out a vein. I tell you straight, little soldier, if you do find some earth on Little Saltee, then you should plant yourself some vegetables.’

Conor knew not to interrupt. After all, in a previous existence he had learned that information saved lives, and there was a wealth of information to be gathered about this place. Luckily Guard Billtoe seemed eager to dish it just as fast as he could get it out of his flapping mouth.

He pushed Conor down a corridor, a full step lower than the rest. The floor ran off at a gentle gradient, water actually flowing under some of the doors.

‘Home again, fiddle dee dee,’ sang Billtoe. ‘The lunatic wing. We got all sorts here. Deaf, dumb, blind. One legged, one armed. Fellas what have got a bump on the noggin. Every class of lunatic you care to mention. We got one fellow who doesn’t do words. Just numbers. All blooming day numbers. Tens and hundreds, thousands even. Like a blooming banker he is. Don’t even know his name, so we call him Numbers – clever, eh?’

Conor stored that nugget. A numbers man could be useful if his counting meant something. There were calculations in any plan.

They arrived at Conor’s cell door. Conor noticed the steel hinges and heavy locks.

Billtoe turned a key in the lock. ‘Big door, ain’t it? These doors are about the only thing we keep repaired around here.’ He winked at Conor. ‘Couldn’t have you simpletons running around during the night, spooking each other with your crying for Mummy and counting and such. I like it better when you stay in your cell and howl.’ Billtoe wiped an imaginary tear from his cheek. ‘It sounds like a choir of angels. Helps me sleep during my time on the island.’

The man was an animal. Base and foul. In a just world he would be the prisoner and Conor a free man. The door swung open, helped along by the slant of the wall.

‘In you go, Salt. Enjoy being on your lonesome.’

Conor was halfway down the ramped floor before the words registered. He turned, but the door was already closing.

‘On my lonesome? Where is Mister Wynter?’

Billtoe spoke through a shrinking slice of light between door and frame. ‘Wynter? That cheeky blind beggar? Why, he’s been released. Solitary for you from here on out, the marshall’s orders.’

Conor felt his weight pulling him to the floor, and was on his knees before he could stop himself.

Murder is the most expeditious way to prevent overcrowding, Linus had said. I pray that we fortunate two are never released.

‘You’ve killed him,’ breathed Conor.

But he was talking to a closed door.

CHAPTER 9: LIGHT AT THE END

This latest disaster had Conor huddled at the back of the cell, sobbing like a baby. He was alone now. Friendship could have brightened time spent even here. But now there was no one. He crawled as far back as he could into the room, and was dully surprised to find the room extended deeper into the rock than he had believed. Behind Wynter’s cot was a deep alcove with roughly the dimensions of four stacked coffins. This he could tell by touch alone as not a glimmer of light extended to the black hole.

He lay there for hours, feeling his determination sliding away like weed sluiced from a slipway. The new identity he had created for himself dissolved, bringing poor desperate Conor Broekhart to the surface.

So he stayed, wrapped in nothing but self-pity, wallowing in dreams of family all night long. Useless, futile dreams. Conor could well have perished in the next few days, dead from a broken heart, if not for one little ray of light.

In the early hours, Conor woke to see a red line flickering on the opposite wall. For a long sleepy moment this line puzzled him, resembling nothing more than a ghostly number one, wavering gently. Was this a message of some kind? Could his cell be haunted? Then he awakened fully and realized that the line was, of course, a shaft of sunlight. But from where?

For distraction’s sake, Conor decided to investigate. It took no more than a moment for him to find that a narrow fissure along the seam between two blocks of the alcove extended to the outside world and was allowing weakened light to filter through. Conor tapped the left block with a fingernail and was surprised to find that it budged, scraping against its neighbours. He prodded more forcefully and the block wobbled on its base, dislodging caked muck. The block itself cracked, for it was not a true block, merely a husk of dried mud. Conor wiggled one finger along the side of the false block and popped it from its hole. A wedge of sunlight blasted him in the eyes, blinding him for several seconds. Not that it was light of any great brightness, but it was the first direct light Conor had seen in many hours.

Conor closed his eyes, but did not turn away. The heat on his face was wonderful, like a gift straight from the hand of God. He thumped at adjoining blocks, checking for more counterfeits. But there were none. The rest of the wall was solid as a mountain. One hole only, the size of his two fists.

He squatted there for a while feeling the light warm his skin, watching it trace the veins in his eyelids, until at last he felt prepared enough to open his eyes. He was not disappointed with what he saw, because he had not allowed himself to feel any hope. This hole was a devilish small one, and deep too, encased by four feet of solid rock, with barely a napkin’s worth of sky at its end. Only a rat could escape through this tunnel, perhaps a largish one would struggle. And even if by some miracle he managed to mimic Doctor Redmond, the famous escape artist, and wiggle through this narrow pipe, where would he go? The ocean would swallow him up quicker than a whale swallowing a minnow. If he managed to steal a boat, the sharpshooters on the walls would pick him off for sport. No one had ever escaped from Little Saltee. Not one single person in hundreds of years.

So, accept this light as a small secret gift, and nothing more, Conor told himself. Allow it to heat your face and wipe your mind clean of pain, if even for a moment.

Conor sagged back against the compartment wall, relishing the meagre warmth. Who had made this fake block? he wondered. And what had caused the hole? There were any number of answers to both questions, and no way of confirming one of them.

The prison walls possibly sagged an inch, concentrating vectors of force at this point, pulverizing the block. Or perhaps successive generations of inmates scraped away with primitive tools. Saltwater erosion, or rainwater. Though that was unlikely in less than a millennium. A combination of all these factors, most likely, and a dozen more besides.

Conor studied the clay block, which had hidden this treasure of light. It was chipped, but intact. It would certainly serve to hide the hole for his tenancy. But he would not hide the opening just yet; Billtoe would not arrive for a short time. Until then he would enjoy the dawn like scores of convicts before him. The devil take his troubles.

Water. A mug of water would be nice.

Conor closed his eyes again, but images of his parents tormented him so he opened them again, and for a long moment thought he was dreaming or insane. What was happening, should not, could not be happening. The wall of this hidden alcove was aglow, and not just with sunlight, with a strange ghostly green glow. Not the entire wall, just lines and dots. Familiar characters. Conor realized that he was staring at music. The walls and roof of this tiny alcove were covered in music.

Mister Wynter had said: ‘I keep an opera on the broiler inside my head and in other places.’

The other place was back here in a secret alcove. He would have shared that fact, had they not killed him.

Conor ran his fingers along a series of notes, up and down they went like a mountain range.

What was this glow? How was it possible?

Victor’s ghost tormented him.

Come on, dimwit. We studied this. Basic geology. And you call yourself a man for the new century.

Of course. It was luminous coral. It only grew in certain specific conditions, which must have been freakishly mimicked by this damp, close environment.

Conor scraped away a thin layer of mud to reveal the rough plates of luminous coral below. This part of the cell was living coral, fed by the constant drip of salt water. It must have grown up through the rock over the centuries and was activated by the sunlight. What a marvel. He had not expected to find marvels here.

There were other marks too, fainter than the musical notes. In older hands and quainter language. Conor found the diary of Zachary Cord, a confessed poisoner. And also a rambling curse scratched by one Tom Burly, damning the seventeenth-century warden for a hater of justice. Conor had no trouble accepting that as truth.

So this was how Linus had kept himself sane during his hours of solitude. He had recorded his music on the only surface available to him – a mud-covered crypt – without ever knowing his parchment was luminous. It brought tears to Conor’s eyes when he reached the final notes and the word Fin, engraved with considerable flourish. Linus Wynter had managed to finish his life’s work before being ‘released’.

It was a noble tradition, this recording, and one that Conor suddenly knew he intended to continue. He would commit his own ideas to the walls of this tiny alcove. In fact, the mere notion set his heart beating faster. To have a canvas on which to diagram his designs was more than he had hoped for.

He scrabbled around Linus Wynter’s bunk until he found what he had known must be there. His most recent stylus. It was hidden under a leg of his cot. The chicken bone Billtoe had tossed earlier, one end ground to a point. Perfect.

Conor scrambled into the alcove, lying flat on his back. He would begin on the ceiling, and he would sketch only until the cannon fired.

With confident strokes, Conor Finn etched his first model into the damp mud, allowing the luminous green coral to shine through a moment later. It was something he had been working on with Victor. A glider with a rudder and adjustable wings for lateral balance.

On the wall the diagram was static, but it Conor’s mind it soared like a bird. A free bird.

CHAPTER 10: UNLUCKY FOURTEENTH

1894. Two Years Later

Arthur Billtoe took one last chew on a wad of tobacco, then spat a mouthful of juice towards the hole in the floor. The stringy wad missed its target, landing square on the toe of his own boot.

‘Sorry,’ said the guard, then realizing he apologized only to himself, cast an eye around in the hope that no one had overheard, or they might think him simple and lock him away with the scatterfools.

No one had overheard except Pike, and that hardly mattered as Pike was only half a step removed from idiocy himself. In any case, Billtoe decided to cover up his blurted apology.

‘Sorry,’ he repeated, but louder this time. ‘It’s sorry I am for the poor lunatic Salts inside Flora this night.’

The prison guards stood in the subterranean pantry overlooking the dive hole. Below them, Flora was submerged ten fathoms in dark Saltee waters. The seas outside were rough and the tunnel to open water had become something of a blow-hole, rattling the diving bell with each bellow of bubbles from its spout. With every impact a flurry of peals rose through the chamber.

‘Sorry indeed,’ continued Billtoe. ‘They’d best move sharpish or Flora will remove a limb or two.’

Pike did not believe for a second that Billtoe was actually concerned for a prisoner, any more than he would be concerned for a blade of grass. But it didn’t do to contradict Arthur Billtoe if you were further down the prison ladder than he was, or he would set you working Christmas Eve on the mad wing.

‘Don’t you waste your legendary compassion, Arthur,’ said Pike, rubbing his hairless head.

Billtoe glanced sharply at his comrade. Was that wit? No, surely not from a man who thought that electricity was a gift from the fairies.

‘No, worry not. It’s Finn and Malarkey on the night shift.’

Billtoe nodded. Finn and Malarkey. Those two were the best pair of miners ever to work the bell. Young Finn was the brains of the pair no doubt, but whatever he pointed to, Malarkey would dig up with the strength of a giant.

And to think, two years ago when Conor Finn arrived on Little Saltee, he’d been little more than a scrap of a boy destined for a stitched-up canvas bag and a burial at sea. Now he was a force in the Battering Rams and one of the main sources of income for Billtoe himself.

Billtoe cleared his throat. ‘I’ll be searching Finn and Malarkey myself, Pike.’

Pike winked slyly. ‘As is your habit, Arthur.’

Billtoe ignored the insolence. It wouldn’t do to get into an argument about private diamond stashes, but he silently resolved to mark Pike down for supervision of the sewage works. It was bad enough that Pike’s comments were bordering on insolent, but Billtoe had also heard whispers that Pike was selling information to the Kilmore arm of the Battering Rams without cutting in his old friend Arthur Billtoe.

Billtoe leaned over the edge, peering down into the lamplit abyss. The bell glowed and shimmered in the dark waters, humming with every stroke of the current. Through the filthy porthole he could see vague movements and shadows. Finn and Malarkey mining, he presumed.

Best of luck, Salts. Bring back a goose egg for Uncle Arthur.

Billtoe spat a second wad of chewed tobacco, and this time it sailed into the hole, landing on the bell’s rubber air hose.

‘Hmmm,’ he grunted proudly, winking at Pike. Then he strode to the ladder, trying to project an air of incorruptibility. He wanted to be on the rocks when Finn and Malarkey surfaced.

‘Here, Arthur,’ Pike called after him. ‘You’re walking funny. Was it that herring?’

Billtoe scowled. He would have to do something about Pike. ‘No, you hunchbacked, hairless son of a circus oddity. I am being incorruptible.’

‘That would have been my second guess,’ said Pike, who like many dullards had a streak of sharp wit in him.

Conor Finn and Otto Malarkey fought like demons inside the diving bell. Their makeshift swords sang as they cut the air and sparked along each other’s shafts. Both men perspired freely, breathing so deeply that the water level rose at their feet. They were sucking in air faster than the pump could supply it.

‘Your balestra is clumsy,’ panted Conor. ‘More grace, Otto. You are not a hog in a pen.’

Malarkey smiled tightly. ‘Hogs are dangerous animals, Conor. If you are not careful, they can run you through.’

And with that, he abandoned the rules of fencing, dropping his blade and charging his opponent, arms spread.

Conor reacted quickly, dropping to his stomach and rolling underwater, knocking Malarkey’s legs from under him. The big man went down heavily, clanging his temple against the bell curve on his way down. By the time he recovered his bearings, Conor had his trident jammed under his chins.

‘Your hair looks well,’ said Conor. ‘A healthy shine.’

Malarkey preened. ‘You’re not the only one to notice. I’ve been eating the oily fish, as you suggested. It’s costing me a fortune in bribes and I hate the stuff, but with results like this I will suffer the taste.’

Conor helped Malarkey to his feet. ‘You need to practise the balestra. It is a dancer’s leap, not a drunken stumble. But, apart from that, your progress is good.’

Malarkey rubbed his head. ‘Yours too. That was a neat little roll just then. The king of the tinkers couldn’t have done it sweeter. I have never seen a fighter like you, Conor. There’s the sword which is mostly Spanish, but with some French. Then the proper pugilism that I would class as English. But there’s the chopping and kicking too, which I have a notion is Oriental. I saw a fellow once in the West End, gave a demonstration of that chopping and kicking. Broke a plank with his foot. At the time I thought it was trickery, but now I am glad I didn’t call him on it.’

An image of Victor flashed behind Conor’s eyes. He snuffed it out brutally.

‘I have picked up a few things in my travels,’ he said.

Malarkey huffed. ‘Typical Conor Finn. Most people in here are desperate for someone to listen to their story. Telling it to the walls they are. Not Conor Finn. Two years you’ve been instructing me, and I have learned no more than a dozen useless facts about you in that time. The most obvious being that your beard is multicoloured.’

Conor bent at the knees, examining his burgeoning beard in the water. As far as he could tell, there were strands of blond, red and even a few greys in the sparse growth. Surely grey was unusual in the beard of a sixteen-year-old boy. No matter. It gave him the appearance of someone perhaps five years older.

He had changed utterly in the past two years. Gone was the gangly skinny youth who sobbed his way through his first night of imprisonment, and in his place was a tall, muscled, flinty young man who commanded respect from inmates and guards alike. People may not like him, or seek his company, but neither would they toss insults his way or interfere with his business.

‘You should shave that beard,’ commented Malarkey. ‘All your lovely hair, then that ratty beard. People only notice the beard, you know.’

Conor straightened. His blond hair was pulled back with a thong, so that it did not interfere with his work. It had darkened a few shades since he last walked in the sunlight.

‘I am not as concerned with grooming as you, Otto. I am concerned with business. Tell me, how is our hoard?’

‘It grows,’ said Malarkey. ‘Seven bags buried we have now. All in the salsa beds.’

Conor smiled, satisfied. Billtoe had ordered the Suaeda salsa beds planted on Conor’s own advice. The plants grew like weeds, were saline resistant and provided cheap meals for the convicts. This meant a few pounds a month for Billtoe to steal from the food funds. Of course, prisoners had to be allowed to tend the beds, which was when Malarkey and his Rams buried their stolen diamonds.

‘Not that they do us much good in the earth,’ continued Malarkey. ‘Unless a diamond bush sprouts, and even then Billtoe would strip it bare.’

‘Trust me, Otto,’ said Conor. ‘I don’t intend being here forever. Somehow I will get our stones and send your share to your brother, Zeb. I promise you that, my friend.’

Otto clasped his shoulders. ‘The Rams have certain funds, but with riches on that scale my brother could bribe my way out of here. I could be a free man. I could stroll through Hyde Park with my magnificent hair.’

‘I will succeed, my friend. Or die in the attempt. If you are not free in a year, it is because I am dead.’

Malarkey did not waste his breath asking Conor for details of his plan. Conor Finn laid out his cards sparingly. Another subject then: ‘Badger Byrne has not paid his due yet,’ he said. ‘How’s about I issue a few taps?’

‘No more violence, remember. Anyway, Badger has been laid up with shingles, I hear. Let him rest a while.’

Otto Malarkey pursed his lips in frustration. ‘Rest, Conor? Rest? Always the same response with you. I haven’t dished out a beating since you took the ink.’

Conor rubbed the Battering Ram tattoo on his upper arm. ‘That’s hardly true, Otto. You near drove MacKenna into open water.’

‘True,’ admitted Malarkey, grinning. ‘But he’s a guard. And English too.’

‘All great strategists know when to use force and when to use reason. Alexander of Macedonia, Napoleon.’

Malarkey laughed outright. ‘Oh aye, little Boney was a great one for the reason. Just ask anyone that was at Waterloo.’

‘The point is that we have seven bags now, where we had none before. Seven bags. A tidy fortune.’

‘It might as well be seven bags of clay,’ scoffed Malarkey. ‘Until your plan succeeds. I don’t know how you’re going to do it. Even the guards have not managed to smuggle diamonds from Little Saltee. A man would need wings.’

Conor glanced sharply at Malarkey. Could he know something? No, he thought. Just a turn of phrase.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A man would indeed need wings.’

Billtoe was waiting for them at the shoreline, up to his ankles in water just in case another guard would beat him to the search.

‘Right you two lemon-sucking scurvy dodgers. Stand away from each other and raise your arms.’

Conor fought the urge to strike this pathetic grafter. To assault Billtoe would surely satisfy him briefly, but it would just as surely lead to a beating that would leave him near dead and incapacitated. He could not afford to be incapacitated now, not when things were going so well with the design. Not with the coronation so close.

Billtoe began his search, making a great show of being thorough.

‘You’ll get nothing past me, Finn. Not so much as a bubble of seaweed. No, sir. Arthur Billtoe knows all your tricks.’

The man was as good as advertising his intentions. Protesting too much.

Presently, he happened across the small stone in the leg of Conor’s much repaired army breeches. Without a word, he flicked the diamond up his own sleeve. This was his payment for a lax search.

‘Any news?’ Conor asked, while Billtoe moved on to Malarkey.

Billtoe laughed. ‘You Salts are devils for news, aren’t you? The most mud-boring happening is like a golden nugget to you.’

‘More like a diamond,’ said Conor.

Billtoe’s hands froze on Malarkey’s shoulders. ‘Is that insolence, soldier boy? Did I hear insolence?’

Conor hung his head. ‘No, sir, Mister Billtoe. I was trying to be humorous. Friendly, like. I misjudged the moment, I think now.’

‘I think that too,’ said Billtoe, frowning, but his expression improved when he came across the stone in Otto’s shirt pocket. ‘Then again, nothing wrong with a bit of humour. We’re all men after all. Wouldn’t want you to think that we guards didn’t have hearts in our chests.’

‘Yes, Mister Billtoe. I will work on my delivery, perhaps.’

‘You do that,’ said Billtoe. ‘Now let me deliver some news.’ He paused. ‘Did you see that? You said delivery then I repeated it in my sentence. Now that’s delivery. Pay attention, Finn, you could learn something.’

Only in prison, thought Conor, could such a bore be tolerated.

‘I shall keep my ears open and my mouth closed, Mister Billtoe.’

‘Good man, Finn. You’re learning, if slowly.’

A year ago, Billtoe would have punctuated this lesson with a dig from his rifle butt, but he hesitated these days before striking Finn. It did not do to unnecessarily antagonize the Battering Rams, and Conor Finn himself was not a young man you wanted snapping on you. He cut a fearsome figure, except for the beard, which could do with some foliage.

‘Anyway. My nugget of news. Queen Victoria of Great Britain has declared a wish to attend Princess Isabella’s coronation. She will not come on the fourteenth, because she believes the number to be unlucky, having lost a grandson on that date. So the coronation has been moved forward two weeks to the first of the month, though Isabella will be still sixteen. We will see your balloons then. Or should I say, my balloon.’

Conor’s practised composure almost slipped away from him, to reveal internal turmoil.

The first. He was not ready. Everything was not in place.

‘The first?’ he blurted. ‘The first you say, Mister Billtoe.’

Billtoe cackled and spat. ‘Yes, the first, Finn. Did you not receive your invitation? I keep mine with me at all times, tucked into my velvet cummerbund.’

Billtoe’s tasteless chuckles died in his throat as he noticed Conor’s expression. Fearsome was the best word to describe it. And while the prisoner made no aggressive move, Billtoe decided that it was best not to prod him any more. He made a silent decision that Conor Finn would have to spend a few days in his cell alone, to learn some humility, Ram or no Ram.

The guard relieved Conor and Malarkey of their diamond nets, ushering them towards the ladder. He thrust his fingers among the dozen or so wet stones in each net. The rough diamonds were like glazed eyes, slipping and clanking. Billtoe could tell it was mostly dross. The best was in his sleeve.

‘Traps shut now, both of you. Climb on out and thank God that I didn’t decide to shoot you for no good reason. You are alive today because of Billtoe, never forget that.’

Malarkey rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, Mister Billtoe. We thank God for it.’

They climbed from the pit and into the pantry. The entire room was in constant vibration from tidal shock, and scores of water jets spurted and drooped with each pulse of water. Every day for the past two years, it had seemed to Conor as though the subterranean mine must surely collapse. Every day he had longed to work above sea level with the so-called normal inmates, but his requests were refused.

Orders from the palace, Billtoe had told him. If Bonvilain wants you underground, then that’s where you stay.

In all his time on the island, Conor had only been allowed outside once to supervise the planting of the salsa garden. On that day, the salt-blasted surface of Little Saltee had seemed like a paradise.

Conor winked a farewell to Otto Malarkey as Pike took the Battering Ram to his cell. Billtoe led him away from the main building to the mad wing’s main door. As with all the wings, there were no keys to this door, just a heavy vertical bolt which was winched from the next floor up. Billtoe rang the bell, then doffed his hat and showed his face to the guard above.

‘The right place for you, Billtoe,’ called the guard, though the spy hole, then hoisted the bolt.

‘Every day,’ muttered Billtoe, flinging the door wide. ‘Every blooming day, the same comment.’

Conor waited until they were deep into the mad wing’s slowly collapsing corridor, before speaking. His arrangements with Billtoe must be kept secret.

‘Have my sheets arrived?’

This cheered Billtoe immediately. He had forgotten the sheets.

‘Ah, yes. His majesty’s extra sheets. Today or tomorrow, I am not sure. What’s your hurry?’

Conor strove to look shamefaced. ‘I cannot sleep, Mister Billtoe. My mind has convinced my body that if I had sheets, as though I were a boy in my mother’s house, then maybe a day’s rest would be mine.’

Billtoe nodded at one of the chimney flues dotting the wall. ‘Maybe we should stuff you up the chimney. The ghosts could sing you a lullaby.’

The flues ran in complicated routes behind the prison walls, once a network of hot air, now sealed tight by stone and mortar, but still Salts scrambled up, given the chance, only to lose themselves in the twists and turns, one stone corner looking much like another.

‘Anyway, sheets is against regulations,’ Billtoe said, holding out his empty hand, though he had already been paid.

Conor clasped the hand, passing on the rough diamond he had been keeping for himself. ‘I know, Mister Billtoe. You’re a saint. With a few hours’ sleep behind me I will work doubly hard for you.’

Billtoe squinted craftily. ‘More than double. Treble.’

Conor bowed his head. ‘Treble, then.’

‘And I need more ideas,’ pressed Billtoe. ‘Like the salsa and the balloons.’

‘I will set my brain on it. With some sleep, I feel certain the blood will flow more freely. I have a notion for a twelveshot revolver.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Billtoe frowning. ‘It’s one thing to allow prisoners to dig in a garden or draw a balloon, but playacting with firearms…’

Conor shrugged. ‘Think on it, Mister Billtoe. There’s a lot of coin in arms. We could be partners upon my release.’

Greed shone in Billtoe’s eyes like yellow fever. Partners? Not likely. If Finn’s twelve-shot revolver worked, then it would be Arthur Billtoe’s notion. Bed sheets were a small price to pay.

‘Partners it is. I’ll get those sheets down to you next shift.’

‘Silk,’ Conor reminded him. ‘They must be silk. I had silk as a child.’

Billtoe balked, then checked himself. A twelve-shot revolver. His name would go down in history with Colt and Remington.

‘Very well, Finn. But I warn you, these balloons of yours better work on the day. If they do not, you will suffer.’

If my balloons don’t work, I will do more than suffer, thought Conor. I will die.

During his internment on Little Saltee, Conor had managed to barter for a few basic comforts. A bucket of mortar sat on a stone and was used to patch the weeping walls. A sewing kit to repair his worn uniform was wrapped in leather and hung from a peg. He had even managed to secure a straw mattress for his bed. Linus Wynter’s cot had been converted to a table where he could study the few texts that Billtoe had deemed harmless, and work on the plans for his approved schemes, such as the salsa garden and the coronation balloons.

In fact the salsa garden had not been Conor’s idea. Victor had talked of it during one of their horticultural lessons. The Parisian had even written to King Nicholas about introducing the vegetable to the Saltees. The advantages of such a plot were threefold he explained. It would allow the prisoners outdoors for some exercise, it would teach them a valuable skill and the salsa itself would add a much needed vegetable to prison meals.

It was a harmless idea, presented by Conor to gain Billtoe’s trust. There were no disadvantages and no possibility of escape or injury. No one had ever died from vegetable assault. Coronation balloons were Conor’s next suggestion. Billtoe had seized eagerly on the idea, puffed with the success of the salsa garden. In Billtoe’s mind, the coronation balloons were his ticket to promotion, in fact they were Conor Finn’s ticket to freedom.

There were several major obstacles standing between Conor and escape to the mainland. There were locks, of course, and the doors around them, and the walls in which the doors were embedded, and the guards on duty outside these walls. But the main difficulty was the island itself. Even if an inmate could pass through the prison walls like a spectre, there were still over two miles of ocean between him and the Irish village of Kilmore Quay.

This particular stretch of ocean was notoriously unsafe, with riptides and currents that lurked beneath the surface like malignant agents of Poseidon. So many vessels had been lost in this patch of Saint George’s Channel that the British Navy painted it red on their charts. And even if the seas did not do for an escapee, the famous Saltee Sharpshooters would put a few air holes in the back of his head. So swimming for the shore was not a realistic option. No, the only way to escape Little Saltee was to fly, and that was where Conor’s coronation balloons came in.

It would be a spectacular addition to the coronation celebrations, he had told Billtoe one night on their walk to the pipe, if the Saltee Sharpshooters could pick hot-air balloons from the night sky. What a display of marksmanship.

Billtoe was not convinced.

Shooting balloons. He sniffed. A child’s trick.

Conor was expecting this response.

But what if the balloons were loaded with Chinese fireworks, he said. And, when struck, would light up the night sky with a string of spectacular explosions.

Billtoe stopped sniffing. Spectacular explosions, eh?

This is a brand-new invention, Conor continued. This has never been seen before. Marshall Bonvilain would be extremely impressed.

Impressing the marshall is a good thing, mused Billtoe.

Billtoe’s Balloons, people will call them. By next year they will be launching them in London, Paris, the next World Fair.

The guard’s eyes glazed over, lost in dreams of his own fame and fortune. Then he snapped back.

It would never be allowed. Prisoners working with gunpowder. Impossible.

I don’t need to work with gunpowder, said Conor soothingly. All I need is paper and ink to design the balloons. Have them made up on Great Saltee if you like, but make sure they are tied to our walls for an impressive shot.

Billtoe nodded slowly. All you need is paper and ink?

And perhaps a day above ground as a reward. One day a week, that’s all I ask.

Now Billtoe felt as though the upper hand was his.

Ah, so that’s it. You would have me defy Marshall Bonvilain himself.

One day. A night-time stroll even. I need to breathe the air, Mister Billtoe. These balloons could make you rich. You will be famous.

Billtoe tucked a chew of tobacco under his lip, taking several moments to mull it over.

I will give you the paper and ink, and I will have a single balloon manufactured on Great Saltee, at my expense. If a test is successful, then you shall have your day outside after the coronation. If not, then I will strip your cell of anything resembling a comfort and the next time sunlight falls on your eyes you will be too dead to appreciate it.

The test had been successful, spectacularly so, and Bonvilain immediately approved the manufacture of several fireworks balloons in a small workshop on Great Saltee. The marshall was always eager to demonstrate the island’s sophistication to visiting dignitaries, and fireworks balloons would serve both as a delightful show of innovation and a chilling reminder of the Sharpshooters’ prowess.

The marshall jovially assured Guard Billtoe that the balloons would indeed bear his name, if they exploded successfully on the night. Not only that but he would receive a commendation and a generous pension for his efforts. In truth, Billtoe had never seen the marshall so happy. He even hinted that Billtoe could well be sent to various foreign capitals for balloon demonstrations. Billtoe came away from this audience glowing, and well disposed towards Conor Finn.

The exploding balloons were clever contraptions, and Bonvilain did not believe for a second that the idea was Billtoe’s, but the test was such a dazzling success that he did not care who his guard had cut the notion from. It worked and neither the British nor the French had it.

Each pyrotechnical balloon was a simple sealed hydrogen balloon coated with phosphorous paint. Inside the balloon there was a pack of fireworks and a short fuse. All the marksman had to do was nail the centre of the glowing balloon with a nitroglycerine bullet, and the hydrogen would ignite, setting off the fuse to the fireworks’ pack.

For Queen Victoria’s entertainment, Bonvilain’s sharpshooters would pop these balloons from a distance of almost a mile. It would be a spectacular finale to the coronation celebrations.

Conor had not shared this idea with Billtoe out of a patriotic desire to excite the coronation audience. If everything proceeded according to his plan, then one of the balloons would bear an extra cargo. A human cargo.

But now, because of Queen Victoria’s superstition, the coronation was being moved forward and he was not ready. The vital silk sheets were still in a linen closet on Great Saltee. His plans were incomplete. To be thwarted now, having plotted for months, would be a cruel blow.

Conor crawled to the niche behind what he still thought of as Wynter’s bed, popping out the false brick. Crimson sun rays flooded the space, sinking into the coral, which drank the light in and converted it to green energy. He had long ago traded his day job for the night shift to allow him more daylight with his plans.

In less than a minute, the entire cell glowed with a thousand calculations, schematics and blueprints. A treasure trove of science brought to life by nature. The walls bore dozens of sketches of balloons, gliders and heavier-than-air flying machines. These scratched pictures represented two years of obsessive study. All previous diaries had been written over, except the final four bars of Linus Wynter’s opera, and the word Fin.

For the first few months, dreams of the machines themselves had been enough to fuel Conor through the long lonely hours, but a man cannot stay in the air forever, even in his dreams. And so a purpose for his flying machines was needed. A place to land.

Conor Broekhart would have flown to his parents, to Isabella, but in two years they hadn’t once questioned Bonvilain’s version of events. If they had, surely he would have received a visit or a message. Isabella could have saved him. She could have waved a royal finger and had him pardoned or banished if their young love had meant a thing to her. Obviously it had not. He was deserted and despised. Young Conor felt these things as certainly as he felt the cold rock under his feet. And so his heart hardened and selflessness was suborned by selfishness.

Conor Finn took over and Conor Broekhart was displaced. And where Broekhart had nobility, Finn had self-interest. He would make himself rich by stealing from the people who had stolen his life. The Saltee Islands would pay for the past two years. A diamond per day. And once he had money enough, he would buy Otto’s freedom, then book passage to America and begin his life anew. This was his plan, and it kept him alive just as surely as his heartbeat.

And so, how to escape? By land, sea or air? There was no land, the sea was treacherous, so that left the air. He must fly out of here, or if not fly then at least fall slowly. An idea was born, but one that was to take more than a year of planning and manipulation.

Suddenly the coronation was shifted and his schemes shattered like broken mirrors, and there were only days to put the pieces together.

Conor lay on the uneven ground, salt water darkening his clothes, studying his plans. He must memorize the designs now, and then destroy them. These plans would be valuable to any army in the world, but especially to Bonvilain. And the greatest torment that Conor could ever endure was the notion that he had somehow aided Marshall Hugo Bonvilain.

He traced each line with his forefinger. Every plane, every twist of propeller, each line and rudder, the arrows that denoted airflow, even the fanciful clouds that his artistic side had almost unconsciously etched. As soon as a glider, balloon or aeroplane was committed to memory, he smeared mud across the design, patting it into every groove.

By sunset, these amazing plans existed only inside the head of Conor Finn.

Billtoe arrived thirty minutes late that evening, swathed from head to toe in silken sheets.

‘Catch a goo at me,’ he warbled. ‘I’m the emperor of Rome, I am. Arthur Billtoe Caesar.’

Conor was waiting by the door, and was dismayed to see Billtoe’s boot heel catching on the hem of one sheet. He had enough stitching to do without repairing rips too.

‘My sheets,’ he said, in strangled tones.

Billtoe stopped his tomfoolery. Inmate Finn had that look on his face again. The fearsome one.

‘Here you are,’ he said, suddenly eager to be out of this tiny room. ‘And while you’re sleeping on ’em, dream about that twelve-shot revolver, partner.’

Partner, thought Conor doubtfully. As if Arthur Billtoe would ever accept a prisoner as partner.

Conor caught the thrown sheets, laying them carefully on his bed.

‘Thank you, Mister Billtoe. These mean the world to me. These and my walks on the outside.’

Billtoe wagged a finger. ‘After the coronation, soldier boy. After.’

‘Of course,’ said Conor contritely. ‘After.’ He took a timid step forward. ‘I was hoping to have the revolver designs ready for the coronation. Perhaps if I didn’t have to work for the next few nights…’

Billtoe backed out of the cell. ‘Don’t even ask, soldier boy. This is starting to sound like a relationship. As though we do things for each other. Favours and such. Well, it ain’t a relationship. Not of the friendly type at any rate. You do whatever you can to stop me slitting your throat in the night. That’s all there is to it.’

Conor knew better than to wheedle. Once Billtoe was set in his path, trying to change his course would only send him trundling along it faster.

‘I am sorry, Mister Billtoe. Of course you are absolutely correct. There’s work that needs doing.’

Conor thrust out his hands for the handcuffs, as he had every day for the past two years. And just as he had been doing for the past two years, Arthur Billtoe ratcheted them on tight enough to pinch. Other guards stopped cuffing their charges after the first while, but not Billtoe. Care only took seconds, but it could keep a person alive for years. Billtoe had no intention of ending his days with his head stove in by some fisheye-sucking inmate who had lost the will to live and replaced it with the desire to commit murder.

‘That’s right, Salt. Those diamonds aren’t going to just pop out of the ground and jump into the royal treasury themselves, now are they?’

Conor winced as the steel bit into his flesh.

Two more days, he thought to himself, doing his utmost to hide his hatred of Billtoe behind a mask of compliance. Two more days, then I can begin to collect my diamonds.

Billtoe was thinking too.

This one is not broke. He stands broke, but his eyes are burning. I will have to keep an eye on Mister Conor Finn.

Conor Finn was important to Billtoe, and it was not just for the clever notions, and the calm he seemed to have generated in the ranks of the Battering Rams. He was important because every so often Marshall Bonvilain enquired after the young man’s health. There was a story somewhere in soldier boy’s past but Billtoe had no desire to find out the specifics. It wasn’t healthy to have the marshall wondering how good a man was at keeping his mouth shut. He might decide that the man in question would hold his silence better on the bottom of the ocean with only the crabs to know the contents of his brain.

Billtoe shuddered. Sometimes his mind conjured the most gruesome images. Perhaps they were memories seeping from Little Saltee’s walls.

‘Look lively, Salt. There’s more’n you to be seen to, and only Billtoe to see to ’em.’

With a last regretful glance at the precious sheets on his bed, Conor followed Billtoe through the doorway and into the flooded corridor. There was a spring tide that day and salt water ran along grooves eroded into the mortar. Conor swore he saw an eel wriggling through the tiny torrent. This entire wing was a death trap, and had been for centuries. When he had first arrived, there were signs of King Nicholas’s planned renovations: scaffolds, ladders and such. But these had all disappeared within days of the king’s death.

No. Not simply death, thought Conor. Murder. His life was stolen, as mine was stolen from me.

But soon he would steal it back.

The following days were a blur of feverish toil. By night, Conor mined the pipe, sucking down the bell’s greasy air almost as fast as the pump team could send it through the vent. By day he worked on his sheets, stitching with lengths of thread he had bartered for, and cutting with a sharp stone whetted on the cell walls. There were twelve panels to be cut, hemmed and stitched. The silk was not as tightly woven as he would have liked, but there was nothing to be done about that now. It would have to do. The work was flawed, Conor knew that, but how could he be exact with poor light, improvised materials and no experience? He was most likely stitching a shroud for himself, but even the idea of a quick death held more comfort than a lifetime in this cell.

On the evening before the coronation, Conor almost gave himself away. Run ragged by stitching and mining, he began to behave like the lunatic he was supposed to be. When Billtoe collected him for his shift, Conor’s face hung from his skull like a wet cloth and his lips flapped in a dull mumble.

He is breaking, thought Billtoe satisfied. It was the sheets that did it. Sometimes reminders of home are too potent to bear. The work will go quickly now; he will be desperate to please me.

The guard clapped on the handcuffs and led the way down the flooded corridor. He enquired on Conor’s progress regarding the revolver, but all he heard in reply was a burble of counting.

Billtoe stopped suddenly, wavelets scurrying from his boot heels.

‘What’s that you’re saying? Numbers is it? A count of some sort?’

Conor barely managed to avoid shunting his keeper. He had been making a count. A vital and secret one. He realized that one slip of the lip could be disastrous to his plan.

‘A nursery rhyme, Mister Billtoe,’ he mumbled, flushed. ‘Nothing more.’

Billtoe looked him square in the face.

‘You’re red as a boiled lobster, soldier boy. Are you up to some scheming? Some numbers’ plan?’

Conor hung his head. ‘Just embarrassed. Those sheets set me thinking of my mother. Of the rhymes she used to recite for me.’

Billtoe laughed. Perhaps Conor Finn was not as fearsome as supposed. Then again, he had seen bigger men than him with Mummy’s handkerchief clutched in one hand and a bloody dagger in the other.

‘Come to your senses,’ he advised the prisoner. ‘A diving bell is no place for daydreamers. You’re away with the birds.’

Nearly, thought Conor. Very nearly.

The final day whirled past. For months, time had mocked him, prolonging itself elastically. Each second a yawning chasm. But now there was not time enough to squeeze in the day’s work. To Conor, it seemed to take an age simply to thread a needle. His fine mind was fuzzy with fear. Twice he sewed sections of his contraption upside down, and was forced to pick out the stitches. Sweat dripped constantly from his brow, speckling the silk sheets.

This is ridiculous. I am a scientist. Look upon this as an experiment.

It was no use. He could not calm himself. The spectre of failure tapped his shoulder in time with the water dripping from the ceiling. There would be other plans certainly, he already had the bones of half a dozen. Some more convoluted, some less so. He had designed a diving helmet, like a miniature bell, which should contain enough air to get him to open water, after that he could manually inflate a pig’s bladder and swim to shore by night. To amass the materials for that plan would take five years, at the very least.

Five more years. Unbearable.

Conor redoubled his efforts, blinking the fog from his eyes, pressing his fingertips together until the shake subsided. The coronation was tonight, he must be ready.

CHAPTER 11: TO THE QUEEN HER CROWN

The Saltee islanders were preparing for celebration. The British royal yacht, HMY Victoria and Albert II, a 360-foot paddle steamer, lolled regally in Fulmar Bay with the waves of Saint George’s Channel tipping her gently like the fingers of a child on a rubber balloon. The queen herself was happily ensconced in one of the palace’s sumptuous apartments. Her diary records that: I find the air of industry in this miniature kingdom wonderfully exhilarating. Looking down from my balcony window at the commerce far below, one almost feels as though one has arrived in Swift’s Lilliput.

Almost every patch of Great Saltee’s 200 acres had been appropriated for the celebrations. The South Summit was festooned with clusters of pikes decorated with crimson and gold flags. The streets of Promontory Fort were painted in the same coloured stripes. Every man with a hammer was banging in nails, and every man without one was hanging bunting from those nails. Even the weather gods were proving benevolent on the day, pouring down sunshine on the little principality, setting the waves dancing with sparkles. The southern cliffs lost some of their gloom, fringed in beards of white spume.

It seemed to the gentlemen of the world’s press as though the kingdom of the Saltees was an oasis of calm amid the political consternation of Europe. They sat in seaside taverns in Fulmar Bay, boiling up their gullets with traditional spicy gull pancakes and cooling them off again with tankards of Irish stout. No journalists were permitted on Little Saltee, and none had been invited who might press the matter.

On the surface, happiness and contentment abounded, but as in many things the surface gave a treacherous reading. Many were unhappy in the kingdom. Taxes had been reintroduced, and heavy tithes on imports. Public services were so skimped on that they were almost non-existent, and residency had been granted to an assorted bunch of motley characters who were then spivved up and handed commissions in the Saltee Army, the best barracks too. Common scarred veterans most of them, landing on the port with clanking sacks of weapons. Bonvilain was filling his ranks with mercenaries and turning away raw recruits. Building his own private army many said, though the marshall claimed that he was merely protecting the princess from revolutionaries.

Captain Declan Broekhart would, once upon a time, have objected vehemently to Bonvilain’s politics, but now he was too besieged by his own demons. Catherine Broekhart too was haunted by sadness, though she concealed it for the sake of their eighteen-month-old baby son, Sean.

Declan was consumed and ravaged by grief. He wore it like a coat. It was more a part of him now than his eyes and ears. It took his hunger and his strength. It ate away his girth and his stature. Declan Broekhart had grown old before his time.

Often Catherine would encourage him to fight his way clear of his dark mood.

‘We have another son now, Declan. Young Sean needs his father.’

His answer was always a variation on the following:

‘I am no father. Conor died at my post, doing my duty. My life is gone. Spent. I am a dead man still breathing.’

Declan Broekhart shunned close contact, eager for punishment. He grew tight-lipped and short-fused. He returned to his duties at the palace, but his manner had changed. Where before he had inspired devotion, now men obeyed him through fear. Declan worked his men hard, chastising honest soldiers who had been at his side for years. No dereliction of duty was left unpunished, however slight. Declan prowled the Great Saltee Wall at night, clothed entirely in black, searching for an inattentive sentry. He demoted soldiers, docked their pay and on one occasion had a watchman dismissed for nodding off in the guard hut.

This last was three days before the coronation, when Declan was at his most tense. When the news trickled through to him that the punished watchman was worn out with newborn twins and a wife still in her bed, Catherine believed her husband might come to his senses, but instead Declan Broekhart turned a degree colder.

Little Sean cried from the bedroom, his midday sleep disturbed.

Catherine wiped her eyes, so the baby would see her happy. ‘Do you think Conor would want this?’ she said, making one last attempt. ‘Do you think he looks down from a hero’s heaven and rejoices at what his father has become?’

Declan cracked, but he did not break. ‘And what have I become, Catherine? Am I not still a man who fulfils his duties to the best of his abilities?’

Catherine’s eyes blazed through the last of her tears. ‘Those of Captain Broekhart, certainly. But Declan Broekhart, husband and father? As you say yourself, those duties have been neglected for some time now.’

With these harsh words Catherine left her husband to his brooding. When he was certain that she could no longer see him, Declan Broekhart clasped his hands on either side of his head, as though he could squeeze out the pain.

Declan had never recovered from Conor’s supposed death, and perhaps he never would have, had two events not occurred one after the other on the day of Isabella’s coronation. Alone, these events might not have been enough to raise him from his stupor, but together they complemented one another, shaking the lethargy from Declan Broekhart’s bones.

The first was a simple thing. Common and quick, the kind of family happening that would not usually qualify as an event. But for Declan something in those few seconds warmed his heart and set him on the road to recovery. Later he would often wonder whether Catherine had engineered this little incident, or for that matter, the second one too. He questioned her often, but she would neither admit nor deny anything.

What happened was this. Little Sean came waddling from his room, unsteady on chubby legs. When Conor had been that age, Declan called his legs fat sausages and they rolled on the rug like a dog and its pup, but he hardly noticed Sean, leaving the rearing to Catherine.

‘Papa,’ said the infant, slightly disappointed that his mother was not to be seen. Papa ignored him. Papa was not a source of food or entertainment, and so little Sean toddled on towards the open bay window. The balcony was beyond, and then a low wrought-iron railing. Hardly enough to contain an inquisitive boy.

‘Catherine,’ called Declan, but his wife did not appear. Sean skirted a chair, teetering briefly to starboard, then on towards the window.

‘Catherine. The boy. He’s near the window.’

Still, no sign of or reply from Catherine, and now little Sean was at the sill itself, a pudgy foot raised to step over.

Declan had no choice but to act. With a grunt of annoyance he took the two strides necessary to reach the child. Not such a momentous undertaking, unless you consider that this was perhaps the fifth time that Declan Broekhart had set hands on his son. And at that exact moment the boy turned, pivoting on the ball of his heel, the way only the very young can, and Declan’s fingers grazed Sean’s cheek. Their eyes met and the boy reached up, tugging Declan’s bottom lip.

The contact was magical. Declan felt a jolt run through his heart, as for the first time he saw Sean as himself and not a shadow of his dead brother.

‘Oh, my son,’ he said, hoisting him up and drawing him close. ‘You must keep away from the window; it is dangerous. Stay here with me.’

Declan was halfway back to life. Perhaps he would have continued the journey in fits and jumps, an occasional shared smile, the odd bedtime story, but then there came a knocking on the front door. A series of raps, actually. Regal raps.

Before Declan had the chance to register the sounds, the door burst open and one of his own men stepped across the threshold, holding the door wide for Princess Isabella.

Declan was caught tenderly embracing his son, a most un-Broekhart-like action. He frowned twice, once for the soldier: a warning to keep this sight to himself. A second frown for Princess Isabella, who was clothed in full coronation robes. A vision in gold and crimson silk and satin, more beautiful than even her father could have dreamed. What could she be doing here? On this of all days?

Isabella opened her mouth to speak. The princess had her entreaty prepared. Declan had requested Wall duty for the ceremony, but she had needed him at her side, today of all days. She missed Conor and her father more than ever, and the only way she could get through the ceremony was if the man who she considered a second father was restored to her. And not simply in body, but in spirit. Today Declan Broekhart must remember the man he had been.

Quite a fine speech; obviously the girl would make a fine queen. However, no one heard the words, for the moment Isabella laid eyes on Declan cradling his son, her posture slumped from queen to girl and she flung herself at his chest weeping. Declan Broekhart had little option but to wrap his free arm around the weeping princess.

‘There, there,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Now, now.’

‘I need you,’ sobbed Isabella. ‘By my side. Always.’

Declan felt tears gather on his own eyelids. ‘Of course, Majesty.’

Isabella thumped his broad chest with her delicate fist.

‘I need you, Declan. You.’

‘Yes, Isabella,’ said Declan gruffly. ‘By your side. Always.’

Catherine Broekhart stepped in from the balcony where she had been waiting, and joined the embrace. The guard at the door was tempted, but decided against it.

The coronation was a wordy affair, with clergy and velvet and enough Latin chanting to keep a monastery going for a few decades. It was all a bit of a blur to Declan Broekhart who installed himself behind his queen on the altar, so he could be there to smile encouragingly when she looked for him, which she did often.

Shortly after the papal nuncio lowered the crown, Declan noticed his wife’s dress.

‘A new dress?’ he whispered. ‘I thought we weren’t coming?’

Catherine smiled archly. ‘Yes, you did think that, didn’t you.’

Declan felt a glow in his chest that he recognized as cautious happiness. It was a bittersweet emotion without Conor there at his shoulder.

They rode in the royal coach back from Saint Christopher’s towards Promontory Fort, though in truth the town now covered almost every square foot of the island. As the population increased, houses grew up instead of out and were shoehorned into any available space. The higgledy-piggledy town reminded Declan of the Giant’s Causeway, a chaotic honeycomb of basalt columns in the north of Ireland. Though these columns were marked by doors and windows and striped by the traditional bold house colours of the Saltee Islands. As for the islanders, it seemed they were all on the street along with half of Ireland, cheering themselves hoarse for the beautiful young queen.

The coach was shared with Marshall Bonvilain in full ceremonial uniform including a Knights of the Holy Cross toga worn loosely over it all. The Saltee Templars were the only branch to have survived Pope Clement V’s fourteenth-century purge. Even the Vatican had been unwilling to risk disrupting the diamond supply.

Bonvilain took advantage of the new queen’s distraction to lean across and whisper to Declan.

‘How are you, Declan? I’m surprised to see you here.’

‘As am I, Hugo,’ replied Declan. ‘I hadn’t planned to come, but I am happy to find my plans changed.’

Bonvilain smiled. ‘I am happy too. It does the men good to see your face. Keeps them alert. Nice work dismissing that sentry by the way. Sleeping sentries is just the opening the rebels need. One chink in the wall and they’re in. And I needn’t tell you the heartache they can cause.’

Declan nodded tightly, but in truth Bonvilain’s speech seemed a little hollow on this day. There had been little rebel activity for many months, and some of the marshall’s arrests had been made on the flimsiest of evidence.

Bonvilain noticed the captain’s expression.

‘You disagree, Declan? Surely not. After all the Broekharts have endured?’

Declan felt his wife’s fingers close around his. He gazed past Isabella’s shining face, through the window, over the heads of a hundred islanders and into the blue haze of sea and sky.

‘I don’t disagree, Marshall. I just need to think about something else today. My wife, and my queen, they need me. For today at least.’

‘Of course,’ said Bonvilain, his tone gracious, but his eyes were hard and his teeth were gritted behind his lips.

Broekhart recovers, he thought. His scruples are already returning. How long before the dog bites his master?

Hugo Bonvilain waved a gloved hand at the cheering citizens on the roadside.

Better not to take the chance. Perhaps it is time for a little blackmail. Declan Broekhart could not bear to lose his elder son a second time.

Little Saltee

Conor was ready for flight. His sewing was done. A double seam would have been better but there was not a strand of thread left. The device was as sound as it would ever be.

The sounds of revelries drifted across from the Great Saltee Wall. Singing, cheering, stamping of feet. A great coming together. A thousand faces flushed in the glow of the wall lamps. Conor imagined the crowds lined a dozen deep waiting for the great show of fireworks. It seemed as though the very prison walls shook, though a stretch of ocean separated prisoners from the party.

The buzz of coronation excitement had communicated itself through the prison, and many of the prisoners hooted through their windows or dragged tin cups across their barred windows.

Surprisingly perhaps, most of the inmates showed monarchist leanings in spite of their incarceration at Her Majesty’s pleasure. A ragged chorus of ‘Defend the Wall’, the Saltee national anthem, bounced off the walls and under Conor’s cell door.

He found himself humming along. It was strange to hear the words King Nicholas already replaced by Queen Isabella.

How could you believe Bonvilain’s lies? Why did you not send for me, Isabella?

Confusion bred heat in his forehead and Conor felt the strength of it cloud his brain. His senses piled on top of one another. Sight, touch, smell. Grime in the wrinkles of his forehead. The cell door seemed to shake in its housing. Sweat, damp and worse from his cell. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose. One of Victor’s tricks, brought back from the Orient.

Breathe in cold air, clear the mind.

Conor pushed thoughts of Isabella aside. Time now to concentrate. Billtoe’s steps were on the flagstones outside. One last time through the checklist.

Mud on his back?

Yes. He could feel it crusting inside his collar. At last, a use for the damp wall. There is always a use for everything, Victor had told him. Even pain.

The device secured?

Conor reached round under his loose jacket, tugging at the rectangular pack concealed on his chest. The ropes groaned at his pull, but they were homemade and imperfect. Woven from raggy ends and cut-offs. Spliced together and daubed with candle wax.

The cuff peg?

Concealed in his palm. A jagged ivory cone, measured by pressing the cuffs’ ratchet hard into his palm when Billtoe was removing them. The cuff peg was an old escapologist’s trick, and would only work on a set of single-lock cuffs with some play in the bolts, but Billtoe’s cuffs were old enough to have belonged to Moses, and Conor had been yanking at the bolts for half a year now. There was enough play. When Billtoe slapped the cuffs on, Conor would quickly plug the hole with the ivory peg. The ratchet would be deflected while appearing to close.

Mud, devices, pegs! This plan was lunacy.

And as such could never be anticipated. Conor stepped on his uncertainty with a harsh boot. There was not the time now. His plan would liberate him, or kill him, and both were preferable to more long years in this hell pit.

Billtoe’s key clanked into the ancient lock, turning with some effort. The guard shouldered the door open, complaining as usual, but with one cautious hand on his pistol.

‘An angel is what I am, sticking it out with you clods, when a man like me would be welcomed into any discerning society in the world. I could be a prince, you know, Finn. An emperor, darn it. But here I stays, so that you can tell me my twelve-shot revolver is not ready yet.’

‘It is ready,’ blurted Conor, playing the excited, eager-to-please prisoner. ‘I have the plan here.’

Billtoe was canny enough to be suspicious. Lesser brains would have lost the run of themselves and the price of their distraction would be a stove-in skull, but Arthur Billtoe’s prime instinct was self-preservation.

‘Where, exactly now, would that plan be? I won’t be doing any bending over, or fumbling in shadows.’

‘No. Lying on the table. Shall I hand it to you?’

Billtoe cogitated. Coughing up a lump of recently swallowed rations for a re-chew.

‘No, soldier boy. How’s about I cuff you as per usual, then have a little look-see at the plan myself.’

Conor extended his hands, happy to comply. ‘Do I get my walks, Mister Billtoe? You promised I would.’

Billtoe smiled as he clamped on the cuffs, one eye on the table.

‘It’s your beard that has me grinning. A pathetic shrub. It ain’t ready for growing yet. You ought to trim it back, thicken it up. The Rams ain’t going to be ordered to by some runt with a bare gorse on his chin. And we’ll talk about walks after I have a good study of this drawing.’

Billtoe plucked the page from the table with two grubby fine-boned fingers.

‘You know, I’ve been talking to a few mates. Apparently there’s a German makes twelve-shot revolvers.’ He spat a stream of tobacco juice on the flags, to show his displeasure.

‘But small calibre,’ argued Conor. ‘To accommodate the bullets. With this design the cylinder is actually a screw, so the bullets can be as big as you wish, and the weight is spread out more efficiently so it will work for rifles too.’

The design was preposterous and utterly unworkable, but looked pretty on paper.

‘I don’t know,’ grumbled Billtoe. ‘A screw, you say?’

‘Have one made. Like the balloons. Do a test.’

Billtoe folded the page roughly, stuffing it into a pocket.

‘That I will, Master Finn. And if this turns out to be a scatterfool’s daydream, the next time you see daylight will be on the day I toss you from the south wall.’

Conor nodded glumly, hoping his excitement did not shine from his forehead like the Hook Head lighthouse.

Billtoe had made a mistake. In his eagerness to see the revolver plan, he hadn’t noticed Conor’s sleight of hand, plugging the Bell and Bolton handcuffs, diverting the ratchet to one side. His hands were free, but it was not yet time to make use of this.

‘This is no daydream, Mister Billtoe. This is our future. You can register the patent, then perhaps pay a few bribes to get me out of here.’

Billtoe feigned great indignance. ‘Bribes! Bribes, you say. I am deeply offended.’

Conor swallowed, a man holding his nerve. ‘Let’s speak plain, Mister Billtoe. I am in this hole for life, unless you can pull me out of it. I’m not expecting freedom right away…’

Billtoe chuckled. ‘I am relieved to hear it. The pressure is on, says I to meself. Immediate freedom or no deal. But you’re not expecting freedom, so there’s a worry lifted.’

‘But I would dearly love a cell on the surface. Or near it. Maybe a mate to share with. Malarkey would be suitable, I think.’

‘I bet he would. Lovely and cosy, all Rams together. No wheedling now, Finn. First I have the model made, and when it doesn’t explode in my face, then we parley.’

‘But, Mister -’

Billtoe held up a flat hand.

‘No. Not a word more, soldier boy. Your balloons have not taken flight yet. I may be coming for you in the morning with a Fenian pike.’

Conor hung his head in defeat, in reality hoping he had not overplayed his role. The entire revolver notion was merely misdirection, any magician’s meat and potatoes. Fill Billtoe’s mind with notions so that he would be less attuned to what was unfolding in front of his eyes.

‘Now, let’s be off to work. Well, work for you. I’m off topside to supervise your… my… coronation balloons.’

Conor sidled past Billtoe, through the doorway, careful to keep his mud-caked back on the guard’s blind side. His plan was a house of cards, a citadel of cards. One unlucky glance could bring the entire structure down.

No time for that now. Begin your count.

His count. Another largely theoretical card in the citadel. Conor had long since discovered that there was a blind spot in the corridor between his cell door and the diving-bell wing. One of the mad wing’s occupants had been in front of him six months previously on the walk to the warden’s weekly speech. The man was tiny with a disproportionately large head, especially the forehead, which sat atop his eyebrows like a porcelain slug. It was the man Billtoe had called Numbers, because inside his strange head, everything was reduced to mathematics, the purest science. He would spout long streams of digits, and then laugh as though he were watching cabaret in Paris.

On that morning, half a year ago, Conor had watched the man lope down the line before him, muttering his numbers, measuring his steps.

Fourteen was the last in his list.

Then Numbers took a sideways hop, and disappeared.

No. Not disappeared, but certainly not as visible. There, in sudden black shadows, shaking with mirth at his own joke. A joke that could see him hanged.

Numbers held his position until Pike noticed him missing, then hopped from his hiding place.

‘Fourteen,’ he exclaimed in a screeching shriek. ‘Fourteen, eighty-five, one half.’

Pike did not get the joke, proceeding to cuff Numbers round the ear hole several times.

There were no more demonstrations from Numbers, but Conor learned quickly. He had seen the trick once and set about dissecting it.

How do you unravel a magician’s secret?

Start at the reveal and work backwards.

There was a natural blind spot in the corridor, something magicians and escapologists created artificially on stage with lights, drapes or mirrors. A tiny spot of isolated darkness, surrounded by stimuli that drew the eye. A patch of near invisibility. It would not stand up to any scrutiny, but for a second in frenzied circumstances it would do.

For the next few weeks, Conor watched the space and analysed the numbers.

Fourteen, eighty-five, one half.

It was no deep code. Numbers had taken fourteen steps from his cell door along the path, then hopped half a step, eighty-five degrees to the right. Into the belly of the blind spot. Conor simply added the five steps necessary to find the spot for himself.

Once there, he was amazed by how obvious it was. Overlapping layers of shadow, untouched by torchlight, further shaded by a slipped cornice stone, with a spume of spilled crimson paint on the flagstones a foot to the left. A cylinder of blackness that would take no more than a heartbeat to pass through. But, once inside, it formed a cloak of near invisibility that could be enhanced by further misdirection.

Billtoe walked beside him, muttering about his lack of respect for his superiors.

Twelve.

‘And the warden? Don’t talk to me about the warden. That man makes decisions that boggle the mind. Too much time in the Indian sun if you ask me. Blooming Calcutta fried his mind.’

Fifteen.

‘The money the man wastes. The cash money. It makes my heart sick. I fair feel ill just talking about it, even to a Salt.’

Nineteen.

Billtoe clicked his fingers at Conor, meaning stop where you are.

Now comes the vital moment. All strands converge. Live or die on this instant.

Billtoe stepped to the wing door, tinging the bell with his fingernail. No response for a long moment, then a familiar mocking voice from the spy hole above.

‘Ah, Billtoe. Is it out, you want? From the mad wing? Are you certain sure that’s the right direction?’

Billtoe’s posture stiffened. A dozen times a day he had to endure this ribbing.

‘Can you not simply open a bolt, Murphy? Turn the wheel and lift the bolt, that is all I require from you.’

‘Sure I know it’s all you require, Arthur. The rest is free, a little daily gift. I am the funny fairy, dropping little lumps of humour on your head.’

Six feet up, the wheel was turned and bolt lifted. The door to the mad wing swung open.

‘If I could put in words how much I hate that man,’ muttered Billtoe, turning. ‘Then Shakespeare himself could kiss my…’

The final word of Billtoe’s sentence turned to dust in his dry throat because his prisoner had disappeared. Vanished into the air.

Not my prisoner, thought Arthur Billtoe. Marshall Bonvilain’s. I am a dead man.

While Billtoe stood glaring skywards into the spy hole, Conor found himself rooted to the spot. He had imagined this moment so often that it seemed unreal to him now, as though it could never really materialize. In his mind’s eye he saw himself confidently putting his plan into action, but the flesh-and-bone Conor Finn stayed where he was. One and a half steps to the left of the corridor’s blind spot.

Then Billtoe began his turn, and Conor’s life to come flashed before him. Five more decades under night and water until his skin was leeched of all colour and his eyes were those of a tunnel rat.

Act! he told himself. It is a good plan.

And so he acted in an exhaustively practised series of movements. Conor took a pace and a half to his right, spun round so his muddied back faced Billtoe and tossed his open handcuffs into the grate of the nearest sealed chimney. The rattle drew Billtoe’s eyes away from the blind spot.

‘Stupid boy,’ he groaned. ‘He’s gone up the spouts.’

The guard hurried past Conor, who huddled camouflaged in his hiding place, his brown jacket blending effectively with the corridor walls. Billtoe kicked the grate angrily, then bent low to holler up the chimney.

‘Come down from there, halfwit. They are sealed, all of ’em. The only thing you’ll find up the spouts are the mouldering remains of other scatterfools.’

There was no response, but Billtoe imagined he heard a rustle.

‘Aha!’ he shouted. ‘Your clumsiness betrays you. Down now, Finn, or I will discharge my weapon. Do not doubt it.’

Conor moved like a prowling cat, stealing sideways to the open wing door. He must not reveal himself. This plan would only succeed if nobody worked out that he was gone. To be spotted now would mean a brief chase and a long time recovering from whatever beating the guards decided to dish out. He edged beneath the spy hole, searching for a face. There was none, just the tip of a boot and the lower curve of a cauldron stomach.

Conor slipped across the door saddle, and the closeness of freedom sent him light-headed. He almost bolted for the outer door. Almost. But one stumble now could kill him. It was so close, tantalizing. Only a dark wedge of stained wood separated him from the outside world.

The door opened and two guards strolled through, sharing a snide sniggering joke.

I will have to kill them, decided Conor. It will be easily done. Snag the first’s dagger and gut them both. I can make a run for the balloons.

He flexed his fingers slowly, getting ready for the lunge, but it wasn’t necessary. The guards simply did not see him; they turned towards the mining wing without once pointing an eyeball his way.

I could have murdered them, realized Conor. I was ready to strike.

Even this thought could not delay him for long. Little Saltee guards were not to be seen as normal people. They were cruel gaolers, who would gladly toss him from the highest turret into the maws of the sharks that patrolled the waste pipes.

Conor moved quickly, feeling that his store of good fortune was depleting rapidly, and slipped through the outer doorway as soon as the guards had rounded the corner. He found himself at the foot of a narrow stairway with a rectangular patch of starred night at its end. Twelve steps from open air.

This was the blurred section of his plan. From here to the balloons was unknown territory. He had some memory of his admission to the prison, and Malarkey had educated him in the set-up as much as he could, but prisoners did not climb these stairs, neither did they patrol the wall. He must trust to his wits, and whatever luck was left in the bottom of the barrel.

I will surely fail if I stay here, he thought, mounting the steps two at a time.

Salty air washed over him as he emerged into the darkness, and its tang almost made him cry. Of course there had been air in his cell, but this was pure and fresh, untainted by the smell of offal and sweat.

I had forgotten how sweet the sea air is. Bonvilain took this from me.

He was two steps below ground level now. A low stone wall shielding him from the main courtyard. It seemed smaller than he remembered, barely more than a walled yard. Two aproned butchers worked on a hanging pig carcass on the diagonal corner. They sliced fatty strips of meat from the haunches, rinsing them thoroughly in a water bucket, pushing their thumbs into the folds of flesh, rivulets of blood dripping from their elbows. Conor found himself lost in the image, a sight that he had missed without knowing it. Honest labour. Life and death.

An explosion boomed overhead and swathes of multicoloured sparks rained from the sky. Conor ducked low, then saw that the explosion was of his own design. They were igniting the coronation balloons.

Too early. Too early. It is not yet fully dark.

One of the butchers swore from shock, then caught himself, made a joke of it.

‘Good thing that pig is dead. The fright would have done for him.’

The second, a smaller man, pulled the kerchief from across his nose.

‘To hell with this, Tom. I’m going up on the walls. I don’t care what the warden says.’

The other butcher, Tom, pulled down his own kerchief. ‘You know what? You’re right. The lass is our queen too. Let the warden eat half an hour past due. It’s not as if he hasn’t got enough lard stored away to be getting on with.’

The butchers shared a laugh and hung their aprons on a fence post.

A second balloon exploded, releasing a swarm of dancing golden sparks.

‘Oh, the Saltee Sharpshooters are earning their pay tonight. Look lively now.’

The butchers left their work, skipping sharply up steep stone steps to the crenellated battlements above, leaving the courtyard deserted apart from the prisoner concealing himself in the stairwell. A third balloon exploded, casting stark shadows from the wall, lighting night like a photographer’s phosphorous flash.

Three gone, thought Conor. Three already. Too early.

He scrambled up into the courtyard, improvising a plan as he went. All the months of plotting fell apart in front of his eyes. Timing was everything, and it was all wrong. He skirted the walls, casting furtive glances to the battlements. There were a few soldiers, but most would be on the far side, enjoying the spectacle. And the lee of the wall was made all the darker by the shocks of light from the fireworks. Anyone who had looked directly at them would be without night vision for several moments.

This is all wrong, thought Conor, snatching a butcher’s apron from the fence post. I am supposed to have at least an hour to figure out how the balloons are tied. Billtoe thinks I have bolted up the chimney, so no one will be searching for me out of doors. I should not be harried in this way.

But harried he was, and there was little point wasting seconds rebelling against it. Every second wasted could see another nitroglycerine bullet on the way to its target.

Conor found a bloody kerchief in the apron’s pocket and tied it across his nose, then took another second to thrust his hands and forearms into the pig’s belly, greasing them with blood and gore. A butcher now, to his fingertips.

The nearest stairwell was the one recently mounted by the butchers, so Conor ignored it, boldly crossing to the western wall. He ambled slowly, imitating butcher Tom’s bow-legged gait.

He was not challenged. Nobody saw, or nobody knew. There was a wooden gate at the foot of the stairway, but it was fastened with a simple latch, more to stop it flapping than with a mind for security. Conor pushed through, and up the stairs with him, boots crunching on sand and salt.

A guard stood above, his heels half moons on the top step, rocking gently with the brass music drifting across from Great Saltee. Conor had no choice but to disturb him, edging past with muttered apologies.

‘God, you’re dripping blood, Tom,’ said the guard. ‘This is a coronation not a battlefield. Don’t let the warden smell you on the upper level stinking like that. He has a delicate stomach, though you wouldn’t know it from the size of him.’

Conor faked a convincing enough chuckle, then threaded his way through the throng of guards and staff piled on to the battlements. There were women here too, dressed in coronation finery. All the fashions of the day, Conor supposed, outrageous bodices and leg-of-mutton sleeves.

There are too many people. The warden was throwing a party. Best seats in the islands. This was not a part of my calculations. The wall should be clear for safety reasons. I told Billtoe. I told him.

The Little Saltee parapet walkway was ten feet wide, with a chest-high open gorge wall on the ocean side, and a sheer drop to the main bailey on the other. A rope had been strung along between posts to stop the drunken gentry from stumbling to their deaths. Conor recognized several guards serving drinks, dressed as prisoners in immaculate blue serge overalls. Obviously the warden was hoping to discredit the rumours of unChristian treatment of the inmates. These prisoners were so well treated that they could be trusted to pass out champagne and plates of hors d’oeuvres. There was not a nook or gap without a clay brazier stuck in it, baking skewers of shrimp and lobster for the guests to pluck at. Nowhere for an escaping prisoner to crouch and catch his breath.

Conor wiped the fine mist of salt spray from his face. The mist. He had forgotten that too. How could an islander forget the mist? One more thing on Bonvilain’s account. Worth a few diamonds surely, if Conor had the luck of the devil and managed to cast himself off from this cursed island.

Another balloon exploded, followed a second later by a dozen interlaced swirls of crimson and gold sparks. The Saltee colours. Very amusing for the watching crowd. The sparks flitted to earth in showers casting their light on the waters below, some held their energy until a wave folded over them, like a child catching a star.

A few sparks had the audacity to land on the wall, singeing expensive silk dresses. A great tragedy indeed.

I told him, thought Conor, not unhappy with this development. It is not safe here.

A genteel panic spread through the audience. Champagne glasses were tossed into the sea along with seafood platters, as moneyed folk hurried to the various stairways, preferring not to be set afire by low-flying fireworks.

Pandemonium. Good.

Conor moved against the tide towards the next balloon, reaching for the stout rope fastening it to a brass ring on the battlements. Across the sound Great Saltee was a riot of lights and music. Brass-band tunes thumped across the water, echoing on itself, arriving in waves. There were so many torches and lanterns that the entire island seemed to be ablaze.

His fingers grazed the rope and a second later felt it slacken as the balloon exploded.

Conor swore and quickened his pace. Only six balloons left. He barged through the assembly, caring nothing for angry looks. If any of these gentlemen wished to fight a duel over a rough shouldering, he would have to oblige them another time.

Shouts and protests followed him down the path. He was attracting attention but there was no helping it.

It was a race now. Conor versus the Saltee Sharpshooters. He could only hope that his own father was not holding a rifle as Declan Broekhart rarely missed.

The next balloon detonated, the concussion seeming to shake the very island.

Overloaded that one. Surely.

There were four balloons aloft now and a fifth anchored on the quay wall under a tarpaulin. The moving target. The flying balloons glowed bright like the moons of some distant planet. They bobbed in the wind, difficult shots.

Not difficult enough, two more exploded in quick succession. Conor could hear the applause from Great Saltee. A grand affair indeed.

He made a decision. No time to rein in the flying balloons, he must go for the earthbound. It would be watched by a guard, but that must be risked. It was his last chance in this night of botched plans.

His way was clear now, so Conor ran, butcher’s apron flapping around his legs, the smell of pig blood hot in his nostrils. A guard blocked his way, not intentionally; he was simply there on duty. Conor thought to barge him from the wall, but at the last second changed his mind and ran him into the battlements instead. A sore head was preferable to a crushed skull.

The wall was more or less deserted. High society can move at a pretty pace when their fine garments are under attack. All that stood between Conor and the last balloon was a courtesy rope and another guard who was actually sucking on a lit pipe.

A lit pipe beside a hydrogen balloon.

‘Hello!’ called Conor. ‘You there! Guard.’

The guard stood, eyes round with a natural doziness.

‘Sir. Yessir. What can I… Who do you be?’

Conor leaped the rope with no slowing of his pace. His boots clicked on the uneven cobbles as he hurried towards the guard. The quay wall ran a hundred yards into Saint George’s Channel, acting as a breakwater and a semaphore station.

‘You are smoking, man!’ shouted Conor, in a voice of authority. ‘There is hydrogen in that balloon.’

The guard paled, and then yelped as another balloon burst into multicoloured flames. The rope sagged slowly to earth like a beheaded snake.

‘I… I didn’t know…’ he stammered, tossing his pipe away as though it would bite him. ‘I never thought…’

Conor cuffed the man roughly, knocking off his hat.

‘Idiot. Buffoon. I smell a leak. And you have put sparks on the ground.’

More stammering from the guard, but not one protest that hydrogen was an odourless gas.

‘I must… I must… run away,’ he said, tossing his rifle aside, so that the bayonet raked the cobbles, throwing up more sparks.

‘Dolt,’ said Conor.

‘I didn’t even want the bayonet,’ whined the guard. ‘It’s ceremonial.’

‘We must cut the balloon loose,’ said Conor.

‘You do it. I will commend you for a medal.’

And with that the guard launched himself into space, legs running through the air until they found purchase on a group of rich gawkers in the keep below. The lot of them went down in a pile like skittles.

Conor was alone with the balloon for the moment, but already there were more astute guards mounting the steps, perhaps wondering why a butcher was handing out orders. Conor twisted the bayonet from the rifle, no time to struggle with knots now. He pulled back the greasy tarpaulin to find a glowing balloon encased in a fishing net and tethered to several lobster pots.

Conor held the balloon with his left hand, sawing at the ropes with his right, careful not to puncture the balloon itself.

‘Tom,’ called a voice to his rear. ‘What are you playing at, Tom? That’s the entire show’s climax, that is.’

‘She’s ruptured,’ shouted Conor. ‘And the fuse has caught a spark. I can hear it buzzing. Stand back.’

So, like prudent guards who were paid less than your average street hawker, they stood back for a few moments, but then nothing much happened except a butcher hacking at ropes.

‘Eh, Tom. There’s a two-second fuse on those yokes. You shouldn’t be much more than a smear of butcher-coloured mush on the walls by now.’

‘Oh my God,’ shouted Conor over his shoulder, seeking to spread alarm. ‘God help us all.’

Pike was one of the guards, and he was all too aware that Billtoe would lump him with responsibility for the balloon, and so forged past the others up the steps.

‘Stop what you’re doing, butcher,’ he called, in a voice quavering with fear and forced courage. ‘Cease or I will spill your innards on the stones.’ He hoped the word cease would lend him more authority than he possessed.

The last strand of the last rope pinged and the balloon lurched towards the heavens, almost yanking Conor’s left arm from his socket. He would have let go, had he not tangled the arm in the netting up to the elbow.

‘Help me,’ he shouted, knowing they could never reach him in time. ‘Save me, please.’

Pike thought about shooting the balloon down, but decided against it for two reasons. If his bullet did ignite the fireworks he could kill himself and the several daring minor European royals who had wanted a closer view of the spectacle. Death by whizz-bang was not a pleasant way to go. And even if he survived the fireworks, Billtoe would use his head for a boot polisher.

Better to take a shot and miss completely. He hoisted his rifle, taking careless aim.

‘You’ve had your warning, butcher!’ he yelled, pulling the trigger.

Unfortunately Pike was a terrible shot, and his deliberate miss took the heel from Conor’s boot.

‘Halfwit,’ shouted Conor, then a gust of easterly wind caught the balloon and snatched him away.

The guards watched him go, slack-jawed and befuddled. It was obvious what had happened, but how exactly? And why? Did the man steal the balloon or did the balloon make off with the man?

Pike was struck by the strange beauty of the scene.

‘Look at that,’ he sighed. ‘Just like the fairy wot caught hold of the moon.’

And then, on remembering Billtoe, ‘Stupid butcher.’

Great Saltee

The Saltee islanders were genuinely happy. Now that Good King Nick’s girl had taken her place on the throne, things could go back to the way they had been. Queen Isabella would set matters straight. She was a good girl, a kind girl – had she not demonstrated it a hundred times? Shipping supplies to the Irish poor. Sending the palace masons into town to work on village houses. That girl remembered the name of everyone she met, and would often visit the hospital to welcome new babies to the island.

It was true that Isabella had faded since her father’s assassination. Losing Conor Broekhart had compounded her pain. No father and no shoulder to cry on. But now her grieving was done and Captain Declan Broekhart was by her side, proud as punch, for the entire island to see.

This was a day for celebration, no doubt about it. The only one wearing a sour expression was that old goat Bonvilain, but he hadn’t smiled in public since Chancellor Bismarck tripped over the church steps on a state visit in the late seventies.

Isabella was queen now and Captain Broekhart was himself again. Soon there would be no more taxes, and no more innocents hauled off to Little Saltee on trumped-up charges. No more mercenaries landing on the docks with their rattling haversacks and cruel eyes.

The coronation ceremony had proceeded without a hitch. Isabella’s insistence that the dinner seating be rearranged to accommodate the Broekharts had ruffled a few noble feathers, but the young monarch would not be put off. Declan and Catherine had sat on her left for the entire day, with Queen Victoria on the right. Marshall Bonvilain had been forced to shuffle down two seats at the first table and was not best pleased. Not that he cared a jot where he sat, but Catherine Broekhart had been whispering into Isabella’s ear for the entire day, and he had never liked that woman. Too political for her own good.

Bonvilain sulked through the meal, complaining that the wine was tepid and the soup too salty. The lobster shell, he declared, was far too brittle.

Even Sultan Arif, a Turkish mercenary who had been with Bonvilain for more than fifteen years and risen to the position of captain, raised an eyebrow at this.

‘A Templar concerned for the state of his lobster?’ he said. ‘You have been at court too long, Marshall.’

Bonvilain calmed himself. Sultan was the closest thing he had to a friend, though he would have him murdered without remorse if it ever became necessary. Arif was the only man in the kingdom brave enough to speak plainly.

‘It’s not just the lobster,’ he said, nodding towards Declan Broekhart.

‘Ah, yes. The lapdog remembers that he is actually a guard dog.’

‘Exactly,’ said Bonvilain, happy with Sultan’s imagery.

Sultan tossed a stripped chicken bone on to his plate. ‘In Turkey, if a guard dog turns on its master, then we simply slit the beast’s stomach.’

Bonvilain smiled at the idea. ‘You can always cheer me up, Captain. But this particular dog is very popular, as is his mistress. We must consider this problem carefully.’

Sultan nodded. ‘But don’t rule out my solution.’

Bonvilain stood, as a toast was proposed to the new queen.

‘No,’ he whispered to Sultan Arif. ‘I never rule out stomach slitting.’

Sultan smiled, but his eyes were cold. Every season, he promised himself that he would leave this madman and return to Ushak. In fact, Bonvilain was barely a man any more. He was the devil. And sooner or later the devil destroyed everything in his reach. It was his nature.

After the coronation dinner, the official celebrations began, though for the 3,000 Saltee islanders and more than 6,000 visitors, the celebrations had been in full swing since the moment the papal nuncio laid the ermine-trimmed crown on Isabella’s head.

There was a strong army presence on the street. No one below the rank of lieutenant had been given leave to enjoy the coronation. In fact, Bonvilain had borrowed a company from the English General, Eustace Fitzmorris, stationed in Dublin, and paid handsomely for the privilege. An extra 130 troops with instructions not to tolerate verbal abuse or public drunkenness and to keep a special eye out for Frenchmen acting suspiciously.

There was a carnival atmosphere as Queens Isabella and Victoria mounted the dais outside the palace at Promontory Fort. The citizens congregated in Promontory Square, and listened raptly as the new queen delivered her first royal address.

Bonvilain could not fail to notice that she squeezed Catherine Broekhart’s hand for courage throughout.

Sultan leaned in to comment. ‘A fine speech,’ he said. ‘I especially liked the phrases tax revision and political amnesty.’

Bonvilain made no reply. He was beginning to wonder if he had miscalculated by allowing Isabella to live. He had supposed she would be easily manipulated, and until now she had been. Also, he needed an undisputed heir on the throne. It would be most inconvenient if a dozen or so gold-digging pretenders landed at Saltee Harbour with a family tree rolled up under their arms, and their own agenda for the Saltee diamonds. Great Britain and of course France would be delighted to see political uncertainty in the Saltees – it could be just the excuse they needed to step in and support a new order. This was Bonvilain’s kingdom, but he needed a figurehead to keep him in power.

No, Hugo Bonvilain decided. Isabella needed to live, at least until she provided an heir to rule after her. Then there would be an unfortunate accident. In the royal yacht perhaps.

Sultan spoke again. ‘Ah, you’re smiling. In public too.’

‘Thinking pleasant thoughts,’ said Bonvilain, waving a jolly wave down the line at Declan Broekhart.

Declan Broekhart was on the verge of enjoying himself, though every time a smile tugged at his lips, it was accompanied by a twinge of guilt as he remembered his dead son.

What were you doing in the palace, Conor? How could I have put you in that man’s care?

It was still difficult to believe how easily Victor Vigny had fooled them all. Catherine had refused to believe that Vigny was a spy and assassin, until a search of his quarters revealed a trunk of weapons and poisons, detailed plans of the Saltee defences and a letter from an unnamed author threatening to kill Vigny’s family unless he obeyed his orders.

Catherine saw her husband’s eyes cloud over, and realized she was losing him to memories.

‘Isn’t this fabulous, Declan,’ she said, stroking her husband’s hand. ‘Isabella is queen. A great day for the islands.’

‘Hmm,’ said Declan. ‘Those English soldiers are a disgrace. Ruffians, every last one of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fitzmorris cleaned out his prisons. Look at them, unshaven, slouching ne’er-do-wells.’

‘Your sharpshooters look well enough.’

‘Yes, they do,’ said Declan, proud in spite of himself.

A dozen of his men stood on the Great Saltee Wall across the square, level with the top step of the dais. They were buffed, brushed and smart in their dress uniforms, gold epaulettes winking in the lamplight. They seemed almost like identical toy soldiers but for one thing – each carried his own distinctive rifle. Most were Sharps, but there were a couple of Remingtons, an Enfield and even some modified guns. The sharpshooters were the best marksmen on the islands, and it had always been army custom to allow these elite soldiers the weapon of their choice.

One of Isabella’s aides passed a folded note to Declan. He read it quickly, then sighed, relieved that there was no emergency.

‘Queen Victoria is tired,’ he explained to his wife. ‘But she would like to see the balloons before she retires to the royal yacht.’

Catherine smiled. ‘Everyone wants to see these balloons, Declan. Fireworks balloons, what an ingenious idea. Nitroglycerine bullets, I imagine.’

‘You are right, as usual,’ said Declan, thinking, Conor would have adored this. It’s just the kind of harebrained scheme he would have come up with himself. ‘It’s a little early for the full effect. Not yet fully dark.’

Catherine pinched his shoulder. ‘Away with you to your men, husband. This is not a day for disappointing queens.’

‘Or wives for that matter,’ said Declan, with a rare smile.

Declan moved easily across the square. Even the biggest braggarts and drunkards stepped smartly out of his path. It did not do to trifle with an officer of the Wall with a Saltee Sharphooters’ badge on his shoulder. Especially Declan Broekhart, who didn’t have much use for life since a rebel took his son.

His men were waiting on the Wall, faces sweating above stiff collars and below hard hats.

‘Not long to go, boys,’ said Declan, digging deep inside himself to find the spring of camaraderie that once flowed freely. ‘A pint of Guinness for every man who finds the target.’ He peered across the sound at the glowing balloons straining on their leashes, nearly a mile away in half darkness. ‘Make that two pints of Guinness.’

‘Now you’re talking,’ muttered one brave lieutenant, a skinny Kilmore man whose father had served on the Wall before him.

Captain Broekhart grunted. ‘She’s all yours, Bates.’

Bates leaned a modified Winchester on the battlements, flicking up his sights.

‘Your own barrel?’ asked his captain.

‘Yessir,’ said the sharpshooter. ‘Had it bored special, and added three inches to the length. Keeps the bullet on the straight for another hundred yards or so.’

Declan was impressed. ‘A neat trick, Lieutenant. Where did you pick that up?’

‘You, sir,’ said Bates, and pulled the trigger.

It was a long shot. Long enough that they heard the gunshot before the bullet hit its mark. The glowing globe exploded in a riotous ball of Chinese sparks.

‘Two pints to me,’ said Bates, grinning.

Declan groaned ruefully. ‘I shall be a poor man before the night is out.’

He turned to wave across the square at Catherine. She was on her feet applauding, as was everyone on the dais, including the normally stern Queen Victoria. Isabella, who had not yet got the hang of royal decorum, was hooting with delight.

Declan turned to his men.

‘It looks like you boyos are to be the heroes of the night. So, who will be the next to take beer from me?’

A dozen rifles were instantly cocked.

Conor flew up so fast, it felt as though he were falling down. None of his calculations could have prepared him for the sheer chaos of his flight. He’d entertained notions of a brisk elevation, but calm and steady, with time to collect his thoughts and observe his surroundings. In short, master of the situation.

But this was a waking nightmare. Of all the elements in this equation, Conor had least control. There was wind in his face, blasting across his eyeballs, stuffing into his ears. He was deafened and almost blind. His arm was strained to the limits of muscle and bone, and finally with a violent gust of wind, nature casually dislocated Conor’s shoulder. The pain was a white-hot hammer blow that spread across his upper chest.

I have failed. I cannot escape alive. Just let me lose consciousness and wake in Paradise.

This class of fatalistic thought was not normal for Conor, but these were extraordinary circumstances.

It seemed as though his arm would be ripped away utterly, and when this did not happen, his keen senses sliced through the fog of pain and pandemonium which enveloped him.

The balloon was gaining height, but its acceleration had slowed, and the air currents were calmer at this particular altitude. Conor knew he had to make any observations he could during this lull.

Altitude? Perhaps fifteen hundred feet. Drifting towards Great Saltee.

The islands shone below him like diamonds in the foreboding sea. Hundreds of lamps bobbed on the decks of visiting crafts, anchored off Saltee Harbour. Stars above and below.

He must separate from the balloon now. He was lower than he would like, but the wind was taking him out to sea faster than he’d calculated, and with his injured shoulder, Conor would be pressed to keep himself afloat for any length of time.

It was vital that Conor disentangle his arm from the netting, but he found that even a simple act such as finding one hand with the other was almost impossible in this situation. Pain, disorientation and wind shear would make normal motor functions a challenge for a man at peak physical condition, not to mention an injured and exhausted convict.

He had no control over joints or fingers, and the pain now seemed to come from his heart. Conor had dropped the bayonet and was forced to tug at the netting with fumbling fingers. It was impossible. His arm was wrapped up snugger than a turkey in an ice box. Conor Finn was ocean bound. His only hope was that the balloon was badly made and would pop its seams in the next minute.

Below him, the second from last balloon exploded, turning a black sky gold and red for a moment before the darkness reclaimed the night.

Perfect, thought Conor, smiling numbly. It worked perfectly. High-class fireworks. Holding their light for several seconds. What a pity I am not suspended below that balloon, instead of stranded in the night sky.

In his original plan he would be suspended far below one of the balloons when the Sharpshooters shot it down. The balloon would lift him free from the prison, then a bullet would bring him back to earth.

He wondered absently if he was the first person to see fireworks from above. Probably not. No doubt some intrepid aeronaut had sent up a balloon on an anchor.

A thought struck Conor.

I am flying as no man has flown before. No basket, no ballast. Just a man and his balloon.

And, somehow, this thought gave him some comfort in spite of his dire situation. He was alone in the skies, the only man here. Breathing rarefied air, blue-black expanse on all sides. No walls. No prison door.

Where will they find me? Wales? France? Or, if the wind changes, Ireland? What will they make of the device on my chest? My innovations?

Conor felt a measure of triumph too.

I have defeated you, Bonvilain. You will not use me, or torture me at your leisure. I am free.

There was also regret.

Mother. Father. Never an opportunity to explain.

But even in this mortal danger, Conor harboured a touch of bitterness.

How could you believe Bonvilain, Father? Why haven’t you saved me?

The Coronation Balloons were a tremendous success, drawing huge applause with every successful pop. The sharpshooters were putting on a great show, with only Keevers missing his mark, and even then only because his nitroglycerine bullet exploded in the barrel, buckling his weapon like a rye-grass drinking straw.

Those firework boys were clever blighters, Declan had to admit. Each balloon was a bigger bang than the last, all carefully sequenced. The last one had shaken the very Wall itself. If Queen Isabella wasn’t careful she might lose her crown.

Catherine looked beautiful tonight, up there beside her queen. She looked beautiful every night, but he hadn’t noticed for a while. For two years in fact.

Conor would want his mother to be happy, perhaps his father too.

‘Excuse me, sir.’

It was Bates. No doubt looking for his Guinness.

‘A minute, Bates. I’m having a moment here. Thinking about my wife. You should try it instead of harassing a superior officer for beer.’

‘No, sir, it’s not the Guinness, though I haven’t forgotten it.’

‘What then?’ said Declan, trying to hold on to his good mood.

‘The moving target. The big finale, sir. They’ve let ’er up too early. Not my fault is all I’m saying. No one could hit that target. Must be over a mile, and the sea breeze has got her.’

Declan gazed across the square at Catherine. Glowing she was, and he knew why. Maybe her husband was coming home, at last. She needed a sign.

He held out his hand to Bates. ‘Give me your weapon, Sharpshooter.’

As soon as Declan’s fingers wrapped around the stock, he knew he would make the shot. It was fate. Tonight was the night.

‘Is she ready?’

‘Yes sir. One in the saddle, ready for the off. Little jerky on the recoil – hope your shoulder hasn’t gone soft. You being a captain and so forth.’

Declan grunted. Bates had a mouth on him and no denying it. Any other night and the young lieutenant would be slopping out the latrines.

‘Target?’

‘Big glowing ball in the sky, sir.’

‘Your sense of self-preservation should be all a-tingle right now, Bates.’

Bates coughed. ‘Yessir, I mean, target eleven o’clock high and right, sir, Captain, sir.’

Declan caught the balloon in his sights. It was barely more than a speck now. A pale moon in a sea of stars.

Holy God, he thought. I hope this is a straight-shooting rifle.

But he knew Bates, and the only thing sharper than his mouth was his aim.

Declan pulled the rifle’s nose up a few inches to allow for the drop off, then a few to the left to compensate for the cross breeze. Marksmanship could be learned up to a point, but after that it was all natural talent.

Balloons and guns, thought Declan. Just like Paris the day you were born, Conor. But that time you came down with the balloon.

Declan felt his eyes blur and he blinked them clear, this was not the time for tears.

Conor, my son, your mother and brother need me now, but I will never forget you and what you did for the Saltees. Look down and see this as a sign.

Declan took a breath, held it, then caressed the trigger, leaning into his right foot to absorb the recoil. The nitroglycerine bullet sped from the extended barrel towards its target.

That’s for you, Conor, he thought, and the final Coronation Balloon exploded, brightly enough to be visible from heaven.

Behind him, the entire island roared in appreciation, except for Bonvilain, who seemed lost in thought, which was never good for the one being thought of.

Declan tossed the rifle to Bates. ‘Nice weapon you have there, Lieutenant, nearly as dangerous as your mouth.’

Even Bates was awed by this impossible shot. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. That was a historic hit, Captain. Where do we stand on the beer now?’

But Declan was not listening; he was staring across the square, over the heads of the cheering mob. Catherine met his gaze across the distance. Her hands covered her nose and mouth; all he could see of that beautiful face were her dark eyes. In the orange glow of electric orbs, Declan could see that his wife was crying.

Her husband has come home.

The balloon exploded, flames igniting the fireworks pack before the fuse ever had the chance. The concussion perforated one of Conor’s eardrums and a riot of sparks peppered his skin like a million bee stings. He was engulfed in a cocoon of raging flame which ate his clothing and crisped the hairs on his arms and legs, singeing his beard back to the jawline. As serious as these injuries were, Conor had expected much worse.

Then gravity took hold, yanking him back to earth with invisible threads. Down he went, too shocked to cry out. This had never been the plan. There was supposed to be ten fathoms of rope between him and the balloon, dangerous certainly, but a lot healthier than riding the balloon itself.

There was something he was supposed to do. The plan had a next stage surely.

Of course! The device!

Conor forced his good hand down against the airflow, pulling aside the smouldering remnants of his jacket.

My God! There were sparks on the device.

The device was, of course, a parachute. Aeronauts had been jumping out of balloons for almost a century with varying success. In America, dropping animals from balloons had become popular after the Civil War. But jumps had only been performed as entertainment, in perfect weather conditions. Rarely at night, hardly ever from an altitude under 6,000 feet and positively never with a flaming parachute.

Conor located the release cord and pulled. He’d been forced to pack his chute carefully into a flour bag then strap it across his chest. He could only pray that the lines would come out untangled, or else the parachute would not even open. As it was, at this low altitude it was quite possible that the parachute would not have time to spread at all, and would merely provide him with a shroud for his watery grave.

The release cord was sewn to the tip of a tiny parachute, much like those Victor and Conor had often used to sail wooden mannequins from the palace turrets. In theory, the drag on this parachute would be enough to pull out the larger one. This was one of the many new ideas Conor had scrawled in the mud at the back of his cell. He had hoped, at the time, that all of his inventions would not have to be tested in such outrageous circumstances.

Though Conor did not see it happen, his small parachute performed perfectly, slipping from its niche like a baby marsupial from the pouch. It shivered in the wind for a moment, then popped its mouth open, catching the air. Its fall was instantly slowed, while Conor’s was not. The resulting tension dragged the larger parachute into the night air. The silk rustled past Conor’s face, bouncing the wind in its folds.

No tangled lines. No snagged folds. Please, God.

His prayers were answered, and the white silk of the parachute sprang open to its limits cleanly, with a noise like cannon shot. The severity of the deceleration caused the harness straps to snap hard against Conor’s back, leaving an x-shaped rope burn that he would carry for the rest of his life.

Conor was largely beyond rational thought now and could only wonder why the moon seemed to be following him. Not only that, but it appeared to be on fire. Angry orange sparks chewed away large sections, so that he could see the stars through the holes.

Not the moon. My parachute.

It seemed to Conor then, that he was still in his cell, in the planning stages and his imagination was throwing up possible problems.

If sparks from the balloon catch on the parachute silk, that will indeed be a dire development, because it will mean that someone has shot the balloon, in spite of me loosing it from the wall. If this happens, I can only hope that my velocity has decreased sufficiently to make a water landing survivable.

Conor’s descent was steady enough now that he could distinguish sea from sky. Below him the islands were rushing up fast. He could see Isabella’s palace and of course the Great Saltee Wall, with its rows of electric lamps, that had been described by The New York Times as the First Wonder of the Industrial World.

If I could steer, Conor thought, the lights would guide me in.

The boats spun below him in a maelstrom of light. Quickly the largest of the boats filled his vision and he realized that he would land there. There was no avoiding the craft. It loomed from the black depths like one of Darwin’s bioelectric jellyfish.

Conor felt no particular sadness, more the disappointment of a scientist whose experiment has failed.

Ten feet left and I might have survived, he thought. Science is indeed a slave to nature.

But chance had one more freakish card to play on this night of unlikely extremes. A heartbeat after his parachute dissolved into blackened embers, Conor crashed into the royal yacht Victoria and Albert II at a speed of some forty miles an hour. He hit the third starboard lifeboat, slicing a clean rent in the blue tarpaulin, which would not be noticed for two days. Below the tarpaulin was a bed of cork lifejackets, temporarily stored there until hooks could be hung to hold them.

Two days earlier and the recently requisitioned jackets would not have been on-board, three days later and they would have been distributed about the yacht.

Despite the parachute and tarpaulin, Conor’s bulk and speed drove him through the cork to the deck. His dislocated shoulder punched through to the floorboards, where he bounced once then came to rest.

The bilges must be spotless, he thought dimly. Nothing to smell but wood and paint.

And then: I do believe the impact righted my shoulder. What are the odds? Astronomical.

This was his final thought before oblivion claimed him. Conor Broekhart did not move a muscle for the rest of the night. He dreamed vividly but in two colours only: crimson and gold.