The Iron Assassin Read online

  “Uncomfortable because I’m a woman?” She flared.

  He shook his head. “No. Uncomfortable because you’re so damned brilliant.” He turned his back on London and started to walk again. “I don’t know if you should be risked like this. The Empire needs your mind, but just now I’m in desperate need of an agent who can pry where any Sworn Sword already in the ranks whom I send in will be recognized—and so rendered useless—in an instant.”

  “Pry into what, and where?”

  “We’ll get to that. After the oath. For now, let me say that we have very good reason to believe that the Prince Royal’s life is in grave and immediate danger.”

  Lady Rose may have been sheltered from some things, but, this close to London’s gossip, politics wasn’t one of them. She knew the sudden death of the Prince Royal would almost certainly plunge the Empire into bloody civil war.

  OCTEMBER 3

  The Yard was not that old a building, but it looked like a castle of yesteryear. A frowning fortress of massive stone, it always smelled of damp and stale tobacco smoke, underlaid by sweat and fear. It had been cramped and crowded from the day its doors had opened, and nigh every room and passage was now piled high with stout wooden lockboxes heavy with written case accounts.

  This meeting room, for all its grand table and greater size than most chambers in the Yard, was no exception.

  The untidy stacks of boxes, labeled haphazardly by divers hands, made an interesting backdrop for the three crisply uniformed officers of the Queen’s High Constabulary facing Jack Straker across the lone tobacco-scarred table.

  “Lord Tempest,” the equally scarred, ginger-haired, and bewhiskered beagle on the left—Commander Albert Hindmarsh, known to all simply as “Old Bert”—said gravely, “We find ourselves in need of your utmost discretion in this matter.”

  “Of course,” Straker replied. “You need hardly issue the caution, sirs. You should know that by now.”

  The tall lean man in the center of the trio cleared his throat with an embarrassed air and growled through his fiercely drooping mustache, “Especially discreet, this one, Lord Jack. Very sensitive.”

  It must be, for the Commissioner of the beagles to even be in this room. Lord Percy Harkness did not like to be seen to personally concern himself with any particular case or concern of the force, though he did like to keep an eye on all dealings the Constabulary had with the nobility. Usually from behind a discreet screen or curtain, so he could later deny having been there and heard anything. There would come a day when a vine or weed tree thriving along one of the fences the Commissioner liked to remain on would have time enough to grow up into a rather tender part of his anatomy, but Straker suspected it would be years hence. Pity. He did want to be around to see that.

  If Hindmarsh was five ranks below the man beside him, the stolid man on the Commissioner’s other side was lowlier still. Chief Inspector Theo Standish was here because he was the beagle who most often had dealings with Tempest. The one who knew best how to find him, if it came to that. They were friends, but the battered-nosed, balding, hard-eyed man was doing his best to conceal that, wearing his expressionless look and keeping the mouth hidden behind his ragged and abundant fall of mustache firmly closed. The florid hue of his nose bespoke recent indulgence in small beer. Much small beer.

  “The killing of Richmond has been hushed up,” Old Bert growled. “So far.”

  “I can hear the ‘but’ in your voice,” Straker observed. “What’s amiss?”

  The three men shifted in their chairs, hemmed, and exchanged glances. Just what could they be so reluctant to tell him?

  The Commissioner actually elbowed Standish, who sighed heavily, exhaled to blow his mustache out of the way, and announced, “We manacled your—er, the Silent Man—and locked him in an old bear cage we had in the cellars down here.”

  Straker frowned. “And?”

  “Cage, man, and all are gone!”

  “Gone how?”

  Hindmarsh shrugged. “We know not. It’s just … gone missing! We’ve searched the building, and the alleyways all around, too, but…”

  He shrugged again.

  Straker sat back, shaking his head. He’d met more competent men than the beagles, but this took some doing, even for—

  “We’ve most of the force out hunting for him right now,” the Commissioner said swiftly, leaning forward as if proximity could convince Straker of his zeal, “and set a watch on the man Marlshrike. A slayer of Ancient Order members we dare not bring to trial is one thing, but a killer who can erupt to murder just anyone is something far different. So if you have any way of curbing your Silent Man, or calling him home, we need you to—”

  “Later,” Hindmarsh interrupted. “We have bigger fish to fry, just now.” He looked around the table grimly. “The Prince Royal is off to hunt foxes again.”

  Everyone in the room knew those words meant the Lord Lion was going to Bishop’s Bottom, to his little mansion in the countryside there. And all of them knew the primary purpose for which Foxden was currently used.

  Standish produced a paper and laid it out grimly on the table in front of Straker. “So as you’ve just heard, we need you to find your Silent Man and bring him to heel, but that must wait. First we need you—we need every Sworn Sword who isn’t already guarding the Queen—to help us keep guard watch over Foxden. We’ve guns and men in uniform enough; we need your eyes out beyond our perimeter, in the night. Nor is your duty likely to be mere yawning away the hours up some tree in the countryside. The Crown Anarchists—or someone else!—have again put a threatening warning in several of the papers.”

  Straker peered down at the poorly printed columns. “‘Invest in plantations of ripening tea?’ Oh, yes, that’s sinister. Very sinister.”

  “Not that, man. Down here!” A pointing finger tapped a particular passage impatiently.

  Straker read, and frowned. “He who hunts foxes in bed is in danger of losing his uncrowned head.” He sat back. “Yes, I see. I quite see.”

  As an Investigator Royal, he outranked every beagle in the Empire. He was their superior, not their equal, did not have to sit up some tree at their behest. Yet he and the uniformed police shared the same clear before-all-else duty.

  Keeping the Prince Royal alive to see the next morning. And the next. And so on.

  * * *

  Norbert Marlshrike was a badly frightened man.

  He did not know why one of the highest members of the Ancient Order of the Tentacles had sent for him, but none of the reasons could be good.

  And he was bound to the Tentacles for the rest of his life. The mere fact that he knew the man he was going to visit was high in the Order meant they would not allow him to part ways with them and live.

  He looked up and down the street seeking anyone paying attention to him before he crossed into the alley, but saw no one looking his way. So he strode across the cobbles with an air of brisk unconcern and went to the rear servants’ door he’d been instructed to knock at.

  It opened as he raised his stick, and a black-gloved hand shot forth to intercept his stick and wrench it from his hand.

  Marlshrike let go of it and found himself face-to-face with a sinister man who’d brought him the words of the Order several times before.

  Who beckoned him impassively within, and stepped back into deep gloom to allow him to advance. Expressionless face with eyes the hue of water in a fine crystal glass, sideburns that came to razor-thin points, a gloved hand now holding Marlshrike’s walking stick, and an ungloved one that wore a bulky metal gauntlet.

  Or rather, as Marlshrike had been told, was a gauntlet. A clockwork metal hand that could thrust forth killing blades in a deadly instant.

  That hand rose and kept nearest to Marlshrike as the bodyguard silently gestured at him to walk along a passage.

  It ended in stairs, so Marlshrike ascended without query, stopping on the landing where they ended.

  The bodyguard stepped past him to open the ce
ntermost of the three closed doors opening off the landing and murmured sardonically, “Uncle is at home to you.”

  Marlshrike inclined his head in silent thanks and strode through the doorway. There was a black curtain beyond, and he stepped through it into a cozy parlor dominated by large and splendid models of ships—both nautical and aerial—in glass cases.

  Immaculately dusted, Marlshrike noticed. But then, the man was a wealthy lord.

  “Marlshrike,” a bored voice greeted him, from the depths of a high-backed chair.

  “Uncle,” he replied politely, moving to stand where he could face the masked occupant of the chair.

  The bodyguard was already standing behind it, facing him impassively, some sort of weapon Marlshrike did not recognize trained steadily upon him.

  “You will have been wondering why I requested this meeting,” Uncle began. “You will have felt some small apprehension. You are right to have done so.”

  Marlshrike merely nodded and waited.

  The ghost of a smile seemed to rise to the lips of the masked man in the chair, but was gone again before Marlshrike could be quite sure of it.

  “Marlshrike,” the lord said flatly, “you’re a fool, and your foolishness is becoming a liability.”

  “How so, Uncle?”

  “Your most dangerous foolheadedness is getting romantically entangled with Lady Iolanthe Hailsham. Take a doxy or some farm girl and leave the well-connected nobility well alone. They’re all too apt to be spies for the Crown or harbor idiocies of their own. In this case, both. She’s poison, man—yours, if you persist in seeing her. Consider this a firm order to have no further contact with her.”

  “I see. Is that all?”

  Uncle shrugged. “For now. It pleases me to see that you can keep a grip on your temper; see if you can similarly govern your … urges. Oh, don’t deceive yourself that we don’t know all about what you’re up to, most notably your greedy little sideline of kidnapping street children of London and selling them to experimenters, brothel keepers, and slavers, and keeping a handful for your own experiments. Unsavory and dangerous if you grow careless at it, but we grant that it’s financially necessary. The love potions, the poisons…” he lifted one many-ring-adorned hand in a dismissive wave.

  “Just stay away from Hailsham. Now go.”

  * * *

  “No doubt he’s amusing himself right now dressing down Marlshrike. A waste of breath if ever I heard of one.”

  “Yes, Lady.”

  “If you persist in agreeing with me in that supercilious tone, Grimstone, I shall begin to believe that you neither agree with a single word I say nor believe me in the slightest. Try to sound sincere; you’ll live longer.”

  “At your pleasure, Lady Roodcannon.”

  “Indeed, Grimstone, indeed. Now you speak simple truth.”

  “I strive to be a simple man, my lady.”

  “And there the deadpan sarcasm returns. Ah, never change, Grimstone. I shall miss your velvet maliciousness.”

  “I learn from the very best, Lady Roodcannon.”

  “Base flatterer! You were an expert well before I succeeded my father, as I recall. In many things.”

  “I find myself in the presence of an exalted flatterer.”

  “So take yourself hence and get more wine. The chill has quite gone off this.”

  “It grows warm indeed, my lady.”

  “Oh, stop it, you!”

  * * *

  The soft chime of the bell confirmed that Norbert Marlshrike had departed the house and the outer doors had been duly closed behind him.

  As its delicate din faded, Uncle stirred. He sipped thoughtfully from a wineglass, then turned to the impassive man beside his chair. “Have Lady Hailsham investigated. Use a Whitechapel rat we’ve no further use for.”

  His bodyguard wordlessly raised his left hand—the one that had been a clockwork gauntlet for years. Making a fist, he triggered the stud that made wicked blades snick out of it in all directions. Then he lifted his brows in a silent question, face still impassive.

  His master replied crisply, “Only if you must. It’s cleaner if we do things the usual way. That’s why it’s the usual way, Whipsnade.”

  His bodyguard nodded and headed for a door at the far end of the room. He was about to reach for it when another bell chimed, unexpectedly.

  Both men stiffened, and Whipsnade spun around as if he was a steam tram on well-greased rails and hastened back toward his master’s side.

  Uncle had set down his glass and caught up a four-barreled firearm from its shelf under his edge of the table, shifting it to where it could fire beneath the table at anyone coming through the door Marlshrike had so recently used.

  That portal promptly swung wide, to reveal a breathless underling.

  Uncle and Whipsnade relaxed only a trifle. “What is it, Ffloukes?” the master of the house asked sharply.

  “Th-three beagles were tailing Marlshrike, sir,” Ffloukes gasped. “But they’re all dead; I saw to it. Bludgeoned and bodies in the river. No one’ll know Marlshrike came here.”

  Uncle’s voice turned even sharper. “So while you stand here spouting, man, who’s tailing Marlshrike now?”

  “Lackland, sir. From the moment he stepped out of this room.”

  Uncle nodded. “Very good. Start tailing Lackland. If he goes down, take over watching Marlshrike. Clever steamcraefters aren’t to be trusted.”

  * * *

  “Lord Tempest,” came a voice Straker knew, “a word!”

  Straker halted in mid–brisk stride and turned. No one walking the halls of the Yard, beagle or guest, ignored the Commissioner’s Hound.

  Stout, balding, and massive of shoulders and hands, Assistant Commissioner Alston Drake was all the strong right arm Commissioner Harkness needed to maintain discipline within the force. Not to mention frighten the life and liver out of any member of the public who crossed the beagles and came within the Hound’s reach.

  Straker put a pleasant smile on his face. “Yes?”

  Drake was frowning. “You’ve heard?”

  “Many things. In particular?”

  “This Harminster woman. We’re … less than pleased.” The Hound thrust his head forward to peer intently into Straker’s face, trying to read the lord’s expression.

  Straker gave him a shrug. “Early days yet to be enthused or otherwise. Investigator Royals lend the Empire skills possessed by those who by their nature will always stand outside the upstanding strength and discipline of the High Constabulary.”

  “Yes, yes, man, but a sheltered noblewoman? An Investigator Royal? What’s the Lord Chamberlain thinking?”

  Straker shrugged again. “As to that … I know not.” He knew the cause of Drake’s anger; an Investigator Royal was empowered to deal with the Yard and Tower Street as a superior, not an equal. But was it Drake’s own temper, or more widely shared? “Yet you’re clearly concerned; pray tell me why.”

  “Well, look here, Straker, the woman’s an incompetent meddler!”

  “Oh? You’ve a file on her?”

  Drake scowled, planted his feet wide, looked at the ceiling, and recited, “Brilliant, antisocial, fiery-tempered, restless. Chafes at the traditional social roles of women of her class. Has embraced the recent ‘airship explorer’ movement as a way of breaking out of the restrictions placed on her sex.”

  Straker spread his hands. “I’ve known many a man of her age to take up wild and varied interests, seeking to make his own path in the world. Is it not usual, hmm?”

  Drake threw up his hands and started to stride along the way Straker had been going. They walked along together. “Oh, I know we must cooperate with her, given her new rank, but … dash it, I’m—we’re—reluctant, Straker!”

  “I confess I’m not personally familiar with the woman. You’d like me to sound her out, or you’d not be talking to me of her at all. So tell me what you’re most afraid of.”

  “Nobles—begging your pardon, Lord; you we
know—are dilettantes at best. Why, she could harbor any sort of political foolishness in her head!” Drake said grimly. “And this is only his first appointment; is this Lord Chamberlain going to be an utter dunce and a foolheaded danger to us all?”

  “That remains to be seen,” Straker replied. “As for the lady—if she does, she won’t live long. I’ll see to that.”

  OCTEMBER 4

  An owl hooted. Again.

  And nearer. But was it really an owl, or someone calling out a signal?

  Lady Harminster swallowed a sigh and frowned at herself in the growing gloom. The trees of the Bishop’s Woods pressed close around the glassless windows of Lord Barnstaple’s small stone folly, and evening was coming down swiftly.

  She hadn’t thought the waiting would be so hard.

  And all she was doing was just sitting here and keeping quiet, not doing anything perilous. What had she gotten herself into?

  She took her gloves off for the twentieth time and thrust them through the belt of her jacket. She wore breeches, boots, and jacket for riding, deeming that skirts had no place in night forays onto lands other than her own, involving possible danger.

  Yes, danger. She felt for the pitchfork she’d found forgotten against a wall outside, felt the reassuring hard heft of its handle, and told herself to relax. Again.

  She sat in the innermost room, the only one that was roofed over against the sky, and peered nervously out its windows, moving nothing but her head. For warmth and to avoid making noise, Rose had decided to keep herself pressed into an angle where the stone bench ended and a wall curved out to shelter it, on its way to forming the front wall of the room that was pierced by the archway that was the only dignified way in or out. Close by her shoulder, an open window offered a long drop into the trees; across the room, a larger open window afforded a splendid view over the rolling upper meadows of the Sefton estate—and an even greater fall to the ground.

  All the estates about Bishop’s Bottom had follies, every one, though she’d visited few of them. Of stone, without exception, though varied architecture, to be sure. The one she’d grown up playing in and around looked like a fragment of a ruined Greek temple, but some were like miniature churches or castles. This one was an uneasy marriage of church and Hellenic temple and had no doubt been chosen for her initial meeting with her unknown contact in the Sworn Swords for its remote location. It stood far from the Barnstaple home, down rolling hills to her left, and was nigh hidden in the forest that sprawled along most of the estates.