There Will Be Phlogiston Page 5

  They should wed. Neither of them could likely hope for better and with her family (moderate) and his wealth (excessive), everyone would say it was a fine match.

  And then Lady Mildred would have all his kisses.

  They made an aimless circuit of the sideshows. In one tent was a flock of flying monkeys, who chittered and shrieked, and swooped about, occasionally snatching up a gentleman’s hat or tangling their claws in a lady’s hair. In another, stood a clockwork elephant, fashioned of leather and brass, who swayed his trunk and flapped his ears when his key was wound. His eyes were slowly turning cogs, from which the lubricating oil dripped like tears.

  In a third—“Beware, gentle ladies, children, and those of a nervous disposition”—secured by heavy chains, a maddened thing. A writhing mass of flesh and metalwork, with eagle claws, and cloven feet, and three heads—goat, snake and lion—that would sometimes turn and savage each other. Its horns had been sanded down, the snake de-fanged, and the lion’s teeth carefully blunted, but its misshapen body was a ruin of scars, suppurating wounds, and flaking rust.

  Rosamond was about to throw pride to the wind, and beg the marquess to take her home when a warbly fanfare sounded, and she found herself being hustled into the big top by rather rough-looking gentlemen. The rest of the party were already inside, and she had no choice but to manoeuvre her skirts between the tiered wooden benches and squash up next to Lady Mildred.

  She wished the marquess would say something to her.

  And she was not quite so reduced in circumstances that she was ready to contemplate engaging Mildred in conversation.

  It was a fairly large space, but over-warm from all the bodies in close proximity to each other, and being under canvas made her feel slightly stifled. It gave the light a reddish tinge. She watched it saturate her gloves like a stain.

  At last came another fanfare, a drumroll, and a man stepped into the centre of the ring. He looked, Rosamond thought, like a jolly sort of uncle, with a curling, auburn moustache and bright blue-green eyes that seemed to be twinkling at her all the way across the tent. He had a tall hat and tall boots, both very shiny, and a scarlet coat trimmed in gold.

  He lifted his hands in welcome. “Ladies, gentlemen, and children of all ages, I am the Brass Alchemist and this is my Clockwork Circus.” His smile flashed, as white as a crescent moon. “In this very ring, you will witness wonders such as the world has never seen nor dreamed possible. Miracles of biometallurgy, marvels of neuropneumatics, phantoms and chimeras, the stuff of nightmare and legend brought to material and articulated life before your very eyes. Ladies, gentlemen, children, I give you Icarus, the Winged Man.”

  As one they looked towards the roof, and there, standing on a narrow platform, was the slender shadow of a man. He spread his arms, and leapt, his body drawn tight as an arrow.

  Rosamond nearly choked on her own breath.

  She heard someone else scream.

  With a crack and grind of metal, brass wings unfolded from the man’s back, pulling him from his plummet a bare moment before he hit the ground. He hovered above the crowd, a man-made angel, gold, silver, and skin.

  He was so beautiful that Rosamond nearly forgot her disquiet.

  But as he swept into a spin, she saw beneath his wings the ruin of his back, the deep scars and mutilated muscle.

  His blood and sweat soaked the sand as he flew.

  And the applause was rapturous.

  Other acts followed: The strong man Samson, who bent metal bars and lifted audience members with arms reinforced by hydraulic pistons. Leda and her Swans, dancers who had the shapes of women beneath their grafted feathers. And Medusa, the snake charmer, whose hair was a tangle of hissing serpents. Clockwork clowns, a centaur, a minotaur, a lamia, four part-mechanical horses the Brass Alchemist called the Mares of Diomedes, who circled the ring at a gallop, steam jetting from their noses, oil shining on their flanks. Their trainer harnessed them together, made them rear on command, and extend their forelegs as though they bowed to him.

  Rosamond wished she had not come. There were no marvels here, only prisoners.

  When finally it was over and the money collected, and they were permitted to file out of the big top, she thought she had never been so glad for cold air and rain.

  “How did you enjoy the circus?” asked the marquess. It was a perfectly innocent question, she knew that, and his manner was perfectly conciliatory. But his eyes were so cold, his mouth so thin.

  She mustered a flimsy excuse for a smile. “It was charming, but I . . . I think I should like to go home.”

  “Whatever you wish, my love.”

  She let go of his arm and picked up her skirts, just wanting to get away. Away from him, and the way he looked at her, away from Lady Mildred and Anstruther Jones (who would soon be kissing), and away from the Clockwork Circus, and all its trapped and broken things.

  It was unladylike to move at the pace she was moving, but fuck that, fuck everything. She skirted the edge of the big top, scrambling over the ropes, heading for the marquess’s carriage as quickly and directly as she could.

  And that was when she heard the scream.

  Not a human sound—it was beast and metal—but she recognised pain, she recognised fury. She rounded a corner, running now, in time to see the horse trainer struggling with one of his steeds. The black, the grey, and the chestnut had already been secured in their boxes, but the gold was fighting every step of the way, teeth bared and eyes rolling, the struts and rivets standing out on her straining neck.

  She reared up, and the trainer jumped aside, snarling curses Rosamond was rather glad she could not decipher. He was holding something that looked a little like a riding crop, except it was considerably thicker and made of metal but for the handle. As he lifted it, she saw it glow red. Then he brought it crashing down.

  The horse screamed again, and bucked frantically, deep black scorch marks streaking her flanks.

  “Stop!” Rosamond hardly recognised her own voice. She had never in her life spoken so immoderately, so heedlessly. “You’re hurting her!”

  But the trainer’s attention slid past her as though she were nothing. “Get out of here.”

  Perhaps she ought to have taken the warning, but her ears were still ringing with the sound of pain, and all she wanted to do was make it stop.

  Take a little hurt from the world. Do something that mattered.

  She rushed forward, and made a grab for the trainer’s arm, but he was taller, stronger, unhindered by skirts, and dodged her easily. It reminded her of the way her elder brother used to taunt her, holding her things out of reach because it apparently made him laugh to remind her that she was powerless.

  So she did now as she had done then.

  She stamped on the man’s foot, as hard as she could. He howled, staggering, and she slipped past, putting herself bodily between him and the horse.

  A foolish plan, she would later chide herself, to say nothing of physically dangerous.

  Rosamond could hear the animal’s anxious weaving, her hooves thudding on the wet grass, and her heavy, panicky breaths, the click and grind of metal parts. But she didn’t bite or kick or lash out, and when Rosamond reached up to touch her neck, she seemed to calm.

  She was hot to touch. A faint thrum running through skin and steel alike. Her eyes were the colour of mercury, pricked here and there by red and black, and the spittle that flecked her mouth, like the sweat that streaked her body, was mottled black.

  She was monstrous. Unlovely.

  And Rosamond felt strangely protective of her.

  “Out of my way, you daft scab.” The trainer came towards her, step by swaggering step, in no hurry, because bullies—secure in violence, ignorance, and hate—never were.

  It was hard not to shrink from him on instinct alone, a purely animal response to a perceived threat, but Rosamond would be damned before she showed anyone fear. She did not think he would dare to strike her, not in public at least. And she knew some oth
er places men were vulnerable to a well-placed boot. “Stay where you are.” Bold words, but her voice wavered. “I will not let you hurt this creature. I . . . I am the daughter of Lord Wolfram of Gaslight, fiancée to the Marquess of Pembroke.”

  The trainer just grinned, showing teeth both black and gold.

  And that was when she realised just how alone she was.

  She put up a hand as if she could ward him off by pure social superiority. “Sir, I warn—”

  His hand closed around her wrist. A cruel tug sent her sprawling into the mud in a flurry of silk and petticoats.

  And that was it.

  That was all the threat he thought she posed.

  It made her furious. Rudeness, anger, even manhandling she could—to a degree—tolerate. But underestimating her? Never!

  She kicked out, hooked her foot round his ankle and brought him crashing down. He spat out grass and curses, which was—she had to admit—a little bit entertaining. But he was on his feet before she could untangle her hoop, and when he was standing over her, wielding a rod of still-smouldering metal, her moment of triumph seemed as flimsy as it had been fleeting.

  Also the squishy bits between his legs were out of rage.

  She pulled back her foot, just in case, but then he kicked her—he actually kicked her—hard in the ribs. Thank heavens for steel boning, but it still hurt.

  It hurt in a humiliating way. A sharp, red pain that left her breathless and aching and small.

  “Not so uppity now, you little—”

  She told herself she could not have warned him even had she wanted to as a hoof slammed into the back of his head. He toppled face-first into her lap. Lay very still indeed.

  The horse came slowly forward, lowered her head, and nosed curiously at her trainer. Then she ripped his arm off.

  Rosamond waited a moment to see if she was the sort of woman to swoon at the sight of blood—for there was quite a lot of it, as well as other more generic gore—but, apparently, she was not.

  The horse blinked down at her with its liquid, long-lashed eyes. Strips of flesh were hanging from between the creature’s teeth.

  “Gracious,” said Rosamond. Her gown was quite ruined.

  A new shadow fell across her, oddly cold, its edges as rough as a charcoal sketch. The horse stilled, every joint and muscle tight, like a mouth stretched in a scream. Some deeper chill went through her. She twisted, and there was the ringmaster. He smiled his wide, white smile.

  “My dear young lady,” he said, “you seem to be in a bit of a pickle.”

  Rosamond stuck out her chin because that was what they did in the novels. “This gentleman, who I believe to be in your employ, was . . . was mistreating . . . your . . . your . . .”

  “My creation,” he finished for her. “Everything here is mine.”

  “Well, I don’t think they should be hurt.”

  “Pain is nothing more than the by-product of art.”

  Rosamond was starting think the Brass Alchemist was not quite sensible. She nodded at the armless, partially decapitated corpse still lying in her lap. “I believe this man may need a doctor.”

  “I will see to him. My talents far exceed mere medicine.”

  “How lovely for you. You know, I think I should be going. My betrothed—he is the Marquess of Pembroke—and all his friends, for we came as a large party, will be wondering what has happened to me.”

  She pushed at the body, but it had a clammy solidity that at once faintly nauseated her and made it difficult to move.

  She supposed this what they meant by deadweight.

  And the ringmaster was still smiling at her. “Rare are the opportunities to practice at the limit of my art. My dear, I owe you my gratitude.”

  “Oh no!” Rosamond attempted a light laugh that came out like a cat being squeezed. “You don’t owe me a thing. In fact, if you were just to help me up . . .”

  “You are a very interesting young lady.” He lowered himself onto his haunches. Up close, his coat and his eyes made her dizzy. “In my hands, all flesh is mercury, all matter mutable, all dreams possible. Tell me—” his smile surrounded her, unwavering “—what is it you dream of?”

  She could have told him. It would have been so easy just then to empty everything into the blue-green nowhere of his eyes. But Rosamond had been hoarding her dreams her whole life. “The same as everyone else, I expect.” She fluttered her lashes. “A kind husband, children, a home of my own.”

  His mouth was suddenly full of sharp teeth. “If you’re not careful, you’ll get them.”

  Rosamond flinched away from him, wondering if now would be a good time to start screaming. Given she had already been in a fight, and there was a man—albeit a deceased one—on top of her, the case for abandoning propriety seemed to be a strong one.

  She drew in a deep breath. If she was going to yell like a fishmonger at market, she was going to do a good job of it.

  “Hel—”

  At which point, her entire party came round the side of the big top.

  She experienced a moment of profound and excruciatingly disconnection: seeing herself through their eyes—through the marquess’s eyes—on the ground, covered in blood, skirts everywhere, mouth hanging open as though to admit passing traffic.

  She hastily closed it.

  “Rosamond?” Anstruther Jones broke from between Lady Mildred and the marquess. “Bloody hell, what’s happened?”

  She was not pleased to see him. She was not pleased to see him. She was not pleased to see him.

  Or, even if she was, it was purely circumstantial. She should have been equally happy to see anyone who wasn’t staring at her as if she were a rat at a dinner party. “Lady Rosamond to you, sir.”

  He was laughing, but there was a shaky edge of relief to it, as he pulled away the body, and lifted her onto her feet. She wobbled a little—purely gravitationally; she was fine—and he put an unseemly arm round her waist to steady her.

  The Brass Alchemist rose with regal grace. The horse shied, steam jutting from her nostrils. His hand snapped out, caught the lead rope, and drew it tight. Rosamond stared into blood-and-silver eyes, full of pain and hate and pleading, and saw her own reflection.

  “What is the meaning of this?” The marquess’s voice cut thin and sharp across her somewhat disordered nerves.

  She pulled abruptly away from Jones. “It’s . . . it’s not what it looks like. He . . . They . . . they were hurting her.”

  “Hurting whom?”

  “The . . . the horse.” She sounded shrill and childish. Frightened. And she hated herself for it.

  Mildred tittered in the silence.

  The ringmaster adjusted the jaunty angle of his hat, unfurled his avuncular smile. “My lords, ladies, this is the merest misunderstanding.”

  “I very much hope so,” returned the marquess. The words were for the Brass Alchemist, but his heavy-lidded eyes never left Rosamond.

  She shivered. Then realised she couldn’t stop shivering. She gripped her elbows tightly, trying to bring her wayward body back under control.

  Movement at her side. It was Jones, pulling off his coat. And the next thing she knew, he had flung it across her shoulders. It was an awful thing, heavy and made of—she thought—oilcloth, but it covered the mess she was in, and it was so blissfully warm.

  It smelled a little of him too, reminding her of the shape of his body, the taste of his mouth. Real, solid, lovely things. Nothing like this.

  It was wrong, she knew it was, but she drew Anstruther Jones’s coat tightly around her, and felt a little like herself again.

  “My lord,” she said. “I will not stand idle by while this animal suffers.”

  “Suffering is not your concern, my lady. Come, I will take you home.”

  He held out his hand and she stared at it blankly. “Please. You must—”

  “I must do absolutely nothing. We are leaving.” And, with that, he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Leaving Rosamo
nd frozen in mingled outrage and uncertainty. She had no wish to run after him like a child, but she had already made a spectacle of herself once today. She had no wish to compound it by flagrantly disregarding her fiancé in public. She was sure engagements were broken for far less than that.

  Having secured a marquess, if she got herself jilted by a marquess, her life would be over. But what was the use of being a marchioness if you could do . . . nothing?

  Less than if you weren’t.

  Later, she would deny the instinct that made her look to Jones. Her faith in him. At the time, she was too shocked to really notice. And, more pressingly still, in the confusion and her distress, she had somehow forgotten that in giving his coat to her, he had been obliged to remove it.

  Which meant he was . . . he was . . . in his shirtsleeves.

  She had never seen a man in such a state of undress before.

  But there he was, in broad daylight, with nothing but clinging cotton between her eyes and the bare skin of his arm. She could see the shape of his muscles. The indentations between them that seemed designed to fit her fingers.

  She somehow managed to work her way up to his eyes. Found them gentle.

  “He’s right,” he said softly. “This is no place for you.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” She whirled round, and pointed at the blackened streaks upon the horse’s flank. “They were hurting her. And I wish to see it stopped.”

  The oddest, sweetest smile tugged at the corners of Jones’s mouth. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  And even odder and sweeter still, she believed him.

  The carriage ride home was undertaken in silence.

  She was summoned to her father’s study the next day. In the afternoon. Presumably because he was too busy in the morning to call her a disgrace to the family.

  It was a lecture with which she was already acquainted. She had heard him deliver it to her half brother once, but she had never expected to be its recipient. She was so careful. She tried so hard. She did everything right. Why couldn’t he see that?

  Why couldn’t he see her?

  She tried to let the speech wash over her—not what he expected of his daughter, inappropriate, thoughtless, unbecoming, an act of unthinkable wilfulness that had brought shame on her parents and jeopardised her prospects of making an advantageous match—but it was no use. His father’s words stuck in her like porcupine quills, and they hurt.