The Iron Wyrm Affair

Interlude The Cliffs Will Be No Bar

The rain had stopped as Tideturn swirled through the streets; but with the coming of night the fog resurged. It boiled down to the surface of the streets, and as the brougham thundered along at a steady pace towards the station, its driver occasionally cracking the whip, Clare steepled his fingers again and did his best to tease out the implications bothering him so.

This was difficult for a number of reasons, one of which was Sigmund, who could not or would not cease muttering about his new-found admiration for Miss Bannon. Valentinelli occasionally snorted, but otherwise held his tongue. The carriage roared along, clockwork hooves and the jolting a severe distraction – especially since Clare had taken his fraction of coja before setting out. The resultant sharpening of his faculties and dulling of his limitations would have been wonderfully soothing had he been alone.

“Such grace!” Sig muttered. “Baerbarth will be hero, yes! And so will Clare. Good man, Clare.”

Dear God, we are possibly about to die, and he cannot stop himself. Leave it be, Clare.

Three players, then – or at least, three players that Miss Bannon was willing to admit to. A dragon, obviously. His reluctance to believe in such beasts had taken rather a shock lately. Gryphons were all very well, but the wyrms who could halt Time itself, the harbingers of disaster and great concentrators of irrationality, the beasts supposedly responsible for teaching Simon Magister, the great mage who had offered gold to Petrus for God’s powers, and been hailed by the surrounding crowds as a greater miracle-worker than a disciple of the Christos …

… that was a different thing entirely. Although the logic engines created a field of order and reasonableness sorcery would not penetrate, a dragon’s irrationality was so vast it might not matter. The other conspirators might hope that it would – the question was, who exactly were those other conspirators? For Clare did not think even he could deduce a dragon’s motivations.

Except Miss Bannon had already provided them. The destruction of Britannia? Was it even possible to destroy the ruling spirit of the Empire? She was ageless, changeless, accumulating knowledge and power with every vessel’s reign. What was the nature of the dragons’ quarrel with Her? He could not guess, and shelved the question for later.

Cedric and a sorcerer – Lord Sellwyth. The Earl of Sellwyth, who I do not know nearly enough about. What would tempt Cedric? Power, obviously. And the sorcerer? Power as well. Ambition is a sorcerer’s blood, they say.

“A Hexen, yes. But that can be overcome, eh, Clare? I will build her something. What do you think Hexen want from mechaniste? Not my Spinne, no. But—”

“I rather think Miss Bannon is not the marrying type, old chap.” Why Prussian capacitors? he wondered, suddenly. They are of high quality, yes … but for the mecha I saw, not necessary to this degree. Davenports or Hopkins would work just as well, and could be transported with greater chance of secrecy. Why Prussians?

Ludovico’s lip curled. He maintained his silence, however, and Clare was suddenly glad. He longed for a few moments’ worth of peace and quiet to follow this chain of logic. “Why Prussians?” he murmured, staring out of the window at the gaslit fog, dim shapes moving in its depths.

Well, why not? Standardised to make the process of building the mecha easier – and there was another problem, Clare acknowledged. Who had built the damn things, including the smaller engines? Two or three mentaths were not capable of such a feat, and Miss Bannon’s investigations should have uncovered a factory or two busily churning out the massive things if they were made in Londinium’s environs – or even shipped to the city from elsewhere, a massive undertaking in and of itself.

Not to mention the … parts … of unregistered mentaths. Harvested.

Something is very wrong here.

He cast back through memory as Sigmund began meandering on about Miss Bannon’s dark eyes again.

Becker. The hevvymancer. Something in that conversation …

“Most curious. Who is buying Prussian capacitors now?”

“Naught. Some gents like to tear their own hair out waiting; some says they’re in France somewhere, others say held up in the Low, one or two wot might know says the Pruss factories holdin ’em. Frenchie glassers and Hopkins shinies selling hand over fist now, since Prussians ent to be had.”

“Aha,” he murmured, his fingers tightening against each other. The pleasure of a solution spilled through him, tingling in his nerves.

The second group, of course, would be a domestic party wishing Victrix controlled in some way – she was Britannia incarnate, of course, but while she had been unmarried she had been led by a coterie headed by her mother. The Duchess of Kent was banished to Balgrave Square, of course, and had been since the marriage. The Prince Consort was rumoured to be pressing for a reconciliation between Victrix and her mother, but so far it had come to naught.

The third party in Miss Bannon’s allusions? Why, ridiculously simple once he considered it logically. Of course, this line of logic depended on much supposition—

“I shall build her lions!” Sigmund suddenly crowed. “What do you think, Clare? Lions to draw her carriages! Shining brass ones!”

“Do be quiet a moment, Sig.” Rudely interrupted, Clare frowned. That was the problem with coja. If one was jolted free of the reverie, it was rather difficult to exclude all the endless noise about one and gather the traces again. “I rather think …”

“What is it you rather think, mentale?” For once, the Neapolitan was not sneering. “I tell you what I am thinking. La strega send me with you, she expect bad trouble. Everything to now, pfft!” A magnificent gesture of disdain was curtailed by the lack of space inside the brougham. “No, this is where trouble begin. Ludo has sharpened his knives.”

“You may very well need them,” Clare retorted. Would none of them grant him some time to think? “For I believe we may be facing not merely mecha, my dear Neapolitan prince, but perhaps, also, a deeper treachery.”

And the white cliffs of Dover will be no bar to it.