The Iron Assassin Read online

  “Yet seeing as you’re here, standing amid criminal disarray wrought by others, suppose you tell me just why you were here. Just to avoid misunderstandings, sir. I’m sure you, being the leader of the Empire you are, understand that we want to avoid those.”

  And Morrowpyke found himself gabbling like a frightened schoolgirl. He hated himself for it—but staring into the hard, steady gazes that the tall and burly beagles looming all around him were giving him, he found he couldn’t stop.

  * * *

  Lady Rose stood stiffly beside the royal bed, trying not to look at Lil entwining herself around the man—the man whose face she knew from dozens of portraits and a few fleeting glimpses across crowded rooms full of finery—who was, just now, wearing only a smile.

  “You sent for me, Your Royal Highness?”

  “I did indeed, Lady Harminster.” The Prince Royal flashed her a winning smile—God, but his eyes were blue! And he had a nice smile, a smile she liked very much—as he gently disengaged Lil’s hand from what it had burrowed under the bedclothes to find.

  “Leave us, Lil,” he said gently, in what was unmistakably a command. “Delcoats has the bath warm by now, I believe.”

  Lil pouted visibly but obeyed, rising silently and deftly and padding swiftly to a door in the far wall. It closed behind her as softly as a sigh.

  The Lord Lion of England and the Empire then rose from the bed right in front of Rose, careless of his nakedness. She could not help but stare, though she could feel warmth rising on her cheeks. He was a handsome figure of a man, with only the slightest beginnings of a paunch.

  Giving her another friendly—brotherly? not ardent or flirtatious, at least—smile, the man who was almost King and Emperor unhurriedly took up a silken robe that was draped over a side table. It was of the deepest, most exquisite royal blue and embroidered with the royal arms on the breast. He donned it, and only as he tied up the sash did Rose see what had been lying on the polished tabletop beneath it.

  A wickedly long-barreled pistol.

  The Prince took up the pistol and dropped it into one of the robe’s deep front pockets, kept his hand in there with it, slid his feet into leather slippers, and said, “Walk with me, Lady. I wanted to meet you.”

  “Of course, sir,” Lady Rose replied.

  The Prince led the way through another door, along a passage and through yet another door that he unlocked by thrusting his fingers into the correct few of a cross-shaped pattern of many holes.

  It gave into a private courtyard, open to the sky in the heart of Foxden, where flowers and small trees overhung a massive stone bench by a tiny pool. He indicated wordlessly that she should sit on the bench. When she did so, he sat down beside her.

  Not like a suitor, or a gossip, but like an old friend reclining at ease on a bench somewhere in the rolling countryside.

  “We’ve met before, you know,” the Lord Lion said softly, gazing into the pool. “You were a little thing then, of course, and so was I. Forgive me if my … paramours offend or unsettle you. Despite what Lil implied, it is not my intention to seduce you. I have plenty of that when I … desire it, and find myself more in need of loyal people I can trust. You came armed, of course?”

  “No, sir, nor do I—”

  The Prince took the pistol from his pocket and clapped it into her hand. “Royal gift, and it comes with a royal command: have it with you at all times, and keep it loaded. If Buckingham hasn’t arranged for shooting practice for you, I’ll see that he does. Hope you’ll never need it, but I’m afraid we both know the world better than to consider such hopes as anything more than forlorn.”

  He reached under the bench, felt to the right until his reaching arm was almost under her, then pulled back, dragging a plain, dark, and evidently heavy metal box out into view. It opened with the flip of a simple clasp to reveal several pistols and bullets for them. Selecting the smallest, the Prince Royal loaded it with the swift ease of a hunter handling a familiar weapon and put it into the same pocket that had held the gun he’d just given her.

  Then he turned to face Rose, looked her straight in the eye, and asked, “So, what do you think of me?”

  “Sir,” Rose replied quietly, aware she was blushing again, “I hardly know you. I’ve heard rather more truth about the Lord Lion than, say, the press offers, or widows gossiping in Wapping, yet even so, I know the lord regnant, not the man.”

  The Prince waved her words aside with a casual hand. “Of course. Forgive my politeness. Let me speak more bluntly. Does what you’ve been told of my behavior disgust you?”

  “No,” Rose told him steadily, “not at all. I cannot be a bold champion of women being allowed to be their own masters and to live their own choice and style of life as much as circumstances and money allow yet deny that same freedom to one who is supposed to enjoy the most mastery within our Empire—yet carries such a burden of demands, expectations, and time-taking practicalities as to have all too little real freedom.”

  The Prince nodded, and there was approval in his eyes. “Well said. And yet?”

  “No, sir, there is no ‘yet.’ Truly. You of all men have every right to do as you please, with whom you please, as often as you please. I do not judge.”

  She smiled, for a fleeting instant, and saw her pleasure reflected in the Prince’s face. He wore the same expression that her father had done from time to time, and she had never forgotten what he’d said the first time she’d exclaimed at it—that he found himself wishing he could see her smile longer and more often, for her smile lit up her face.

  “So long,” she added dryly to the Lord Lion, “as my father used to say, you frighten not the horses.”

  “Ah, yes, your father. I remember him very favorably. You miss him.”

  “Of course. The passing of my parents forced me to become what they had been, even with my aunts and my brothers as my elders. None of us are carefree younglings any longer.”

  The Prince nodded. “A common affliction,” he agreed, in tones as dry as hers. “Buckingham will have briefed you, or had someone brief you—but not enough. Never enough. Not a woman; they always believe there are some things better left unsaid. You are aware that I have more than my share of enemies, even within the Empire.”

  It was not a question; Rose nodded.

  “Have you been told anything of Lady Roodcannon?”

  “No, sir. I know the Lady Constance Roodcannon to be beautiful, and can call her face to mind readily, for I have seen her at many exhibitions of art. Bold, bright-edge-of-the-moment art. Which she sponsors and invests in, I’m given to understand.”

  “Indeed. That she does. You will also have heard that she and I were lovers for more than a decade.”

  “Yes, sir. All the Empire knows.”

  “And does all the Empire know the danger she poses to the Lion Throne now?”

  Rose shook her head, genuinely puzzled. “No.”

  “It did not end well between us, and she went to the Continent.”

  Again, a flat statement.

  Rose inclined her head. “That much, I do know, and I believe most of the Empire heard.”

  “This is not to be bruited about, but—Roo has become my deadliest foe. Although I knew it not at the time, she departed England then for a remote Austrian castle, bearing my child within her.”

  Rose winced. She did not need the import of that spelled out for her, but the Prince Royal quietly and calmly did so.

  “Her year was spent in hiding effective enough that she gave birth to my son without anyone in England knowing. She has reared and controls the child, who is thus far my only progeny. So if I should die—a demise she seeks to hasten—she will no doubt emerge as my ‘secret bride,’ produce my Lionel as the royal heir, and rule as Regent. With the backing of certain lords whose identities Buckingham is very busily trying to uncover. Thus far without much success.”

  “Your Royal Highness, why are you telling me this?”

  “I hate secrets, Rose Harminster. Th
ey may be the grease and oil that enable the gears and pistons of the Empire to turn daily, but they are poison between persons. I want no secrets between us, or any I consider trustworthy and loyal. And I very much want to trust you and rely on your loyalty.”

  “Sir,” Rose almost whispered, “you have it.”

  The Prince tilted his head and gave her an arch look. “Careful, Lady Rose. Don’t say that next line.”

  “Might they be the words, ‘Take me, O my Prince’?” she asked, with an impish grin.

  The Prince Royal threw back his head and guffawed, then thrust out his hand to clasp hers and shake it heartily, as if she were a man.

  “Buckingham,” he said happily, “has chosen well.”

  * * *

  Jack Straker ran and ran toward the light, but it seemed to recede around him, leaving only darkness, a flickering gloom as hot and sulphurous as hell, complete with sparks. And now flames, too, raging up around him as he raced desperately on, though the light he sought was ever farther away, and he was—he was—

  Gasping and springing up from a hard surface beneath his shoulders, panting into bright lights above him that were shining down into his eyes except where a burly shoulder blocked them. The solid dark shoulder of … Theo Standish.

  The man from the Yard was bending over him. Straker peered up and managed to husk, “You missed me that much? My, my.”

  “Lord Tempest,” the beagle said grimly, “you shouldn’t be alone for this.”

  “For what?” Straker asked. Standish just shook his head. His cheeks were wet.

  Standish crying?

  Tempest fought to sit up. He hurt all over, and his arms didn’t seem to obey him; he was shaking like an unbalanced steam engine by the time he managed it, and it took him a moment or three to clear his head and focus.

  Corpses. Corpses on tables just like his, ranged down the room, and right beside him—

  Iolanthe?

  No. No. But it was. Part of him wanted to scream Nooooo! even as his eyes told him, yes, yes.

  He looked at Standish, Standish looked back, and as if from a great distance Lord Tempest heard himself mutter, “Oh, hell. Boiler-bursting, steam-sparking hell.”

  And then he started to cry.

  Somewhere in the torrent of helpless weeping, Standish silently came and clasped his shoulder.

  Jack tried to turn to his friend, tried to form words, but … they wouldn’t come. His old friend lifted him up into a sitting position and wrapped strong arms around him.

  They sobbed together.

  OCTEMBER 8

  Norbert Marlshrike was getting a mite weary of presenting himself like a naughty schoolboy before the various leaders of the Ancient Order, but if doing so was the price of funding his experiments …

  The footman escorting him opened the towering, magnificently carved wooden door before him with a white-gloved hand, stepped back, and indicated that his charge should enter with a silent, understated flourish.

  Marlshrike gave him a polite nod and did so, striding forward on the crimson carpet with as strong and unconcerned an air of confidence as he could, coming to the inevitable stop at the spot where he was forced to by the arrangement of furniture in the room.

  He was in a private chapel, and the gap where his carpeted route passed between the two sides of the altar rail had been blocked by filling it with a prie-dieu. That prayer desk didn’t match the rest of the furniture, so it must have been hastily brought from elsewhere.

  Ahead, the carpet ascended two steps to the former apse, which had been cleared of altar, font, and pulpit to accommodate a huge, spire-topped, carved wooden throne facing squarely down the carpet at him. Seated at it, framed by a magnificent round stained-glass window behind her in the Garandin style of “airships and smokestacks conquering the stars,” sat the Lady Constance Roodcannon, at ease, her long legs crossed over each other. Standing silently behind the left end of the throne was her watchful armed bodyguard Grimstone, all in black leather, his eyes cold as they measured Marlshrike. In one hand he held a steam-propelled dart gun pointed at the ceiling and emitting lazy curls of steam as the unseen piston that maintained its pressure slowly rose and fell; in the other, in just as ostentatious a display of menace, he hefted a glass globe that contained a hungry, angry viper, ready to hurl.

  Lady Roodcannon was as beautiful as ever, from her lush mouth to her deliciously rounded bosom, which the leather stomacher—or whatever women called them these days; Norbert Marlshrike paid little attention to feminine fashion—she wore supported, uplifted, and displayed. Her leather gown was slit high, so all could see that her unblemished and curvaceous legs were as ivory white as her shoulders and bosom; her jewelry was tiny and exquisite; her raven-black hair lustrous, straight, and seemed almost impossibly long—and her large, liquid black eyes were as cold and lizardlike as ever.

  She was stunningly beautiful, but to gaze into those eyes was to shiver, or have to suppress doing so.

  “Report, creature,” she murmured, as if teasingly encouraging a lover.

  Marlshrike stiffened from the effort of quelling a shudder, managed a polite smile and a briefly bent head, such as a butler might give the lady he served and respected, and said, “I enjoy some progress with the five keys. However, the Iron Assassin continues to wander the countryside. Completely uncontrolled, so far as I have been able to establish. The junior members of the Order you so graciously assigned to me have been most helpful in searching for Straker’s creation and reporting back to me as I experiment. Their observations confirm that no matter what I do to any of the mechanisms—short of dismantling or destroying any of them, of course—the Assassin is entirely unaffected and shows no signs of knowing control attempts have been made.”

  “So the keys might in future prove useful to us, if you alter someone—five someones—so as to be controlled by them.”

  “Indeed. There is a possibility of modifying at least one of the five keys to try to control the Silent Man, and I believe I now know how to go about doing this. It will take some time, and further experimentation—but far less of both than procuring and preparing five new assassins.”

  “Then do so,” she ordered. “With all speed. Grimstone will show you out.”

  Well, “all speed” obviously meant “waste not a second longer” in courtesies.

  That had been close to the shortest meeting of his life.

  He must take care that it did not also turn out to be one of the last meetings of his life.

  * * *

  He fell back onto the table, eyes and throat raw. Cried out. For now.

  “Standish,” he husked. “There’s something I must tell you.”

  “Not now, Jack,” the Yard man said gently. “Let it fade. Once said, it can’t be—”

  “Beagle work, damn it,” Straker croaked. “That fire was set to kill me and make sure I couldn’t quickly make more keys, and to hide the fact that my early mechanisms were gone. Stolen. Someone, probably the Ancient Order, has the control keys to compel five assassins.”

  “Five?” Standish swore.

  “But not the Iron Assassin; I still have that key. My most advanced control mechanism.” He fished in his pocket and held it up triumphantly.

  A blackened fragment fell from its midst.

  And then another.

  “Oh, hell,” Jack Straker snarled weakly.

  * * *

  He settled the mask into place, gave his mirror a smirk and a mocking salute, and passed out of the bedchamber through his office, the lush maroon carpet soft and nigh silent underfoot, into the first of the three large galleries of paintings.

  Its floor and pillars were of polished marble, the gleaming burl-oak-paneled walls hung with painted scenes of exquisite beauty, many of them larger than many barn doors, there were two even larger rooms, similarly adorned, beyond this one—and it was his, all his.

  Oh, this stately pile was inherited, of course, but although he’d spent lavishly, he’d made far more, and
his wealth was increasing month to month. Much of it ill-gotten, but what of that? Neither a king nor pontiff could claim that every coin was gained justly and ethically—not if they had any acquaintance with honesty at all.

  That thought took him through the last gallery and down a back stair of polished marble and windows as tall as four men to a grand and gilded ballroom that stood empty and almost dark, with only one of the new electric chandeliers lit.

  He crossed it, his gilt-heeled boots echoing down its deserted length, passed through a retiring room beyond, flung open a door himself because his servants had all been forbidden to come near this part of the house until noon tomorrow, and stepped into a back hall where eight people stood waiting.

  They were murmuring together, but the talk died in an instant at his appearance. Gratifying.

  They were all masked—one woman and seven men—and were garbed as finely and expensively as he was. Small wonder, for they were all fellow nobility and fellow senior members of the Ancient Order.

  “Uncle,” one of the eldest men greeted him politely.

  He inclined his head in silent reply, then announced to them all, “I’ve decided to put our plans on hold for the nonce. Marlshrike is experimenting with a means of controlling the Iron Assassin that should meet with success, and in time give us the ability to send out our own compelled assassins—half a dozen or so. That is so valuable a goal that I don’t want to get in his way. Moreover, Auntie has earned the right to try her scheme first.”

  “Roodcannon, always Roodcannon,” one of the masked men—“Cousin Alfred,” though that was very far from being his real name—complained. “She’s barely one of us! Doesn’t even ride to the hounds!”

  “She’s spoken to me of villainy and opposing the Prince Royal as some sort of game,” said another scornfully. “To be pursued for entertainment’s sake, not for the greater good.”

  “Nevertheless,” Uncle told them sternly, “she has made the best progress so far and deserves the right to proceed.” He shrugged. “Should she fall at the next fence, well, she’ll have weakened the royal forces substantially, making all of our strivings much easier. So we sit back, and watch, and wait—is this quite clear?”