Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess (63 page)

The Countess gripped Payne’s sleeve even tighter. “Payne,” her whisper sounded loud in the silence, “Are you saying that we would have to… leave
show business?
”

Everyone’s breath caught.

Payne shrugged uncomfortably. “We… might,” he admitted. Sobs were heard from the crowd.

Suddenly, another voice rang out. “It does not have to come to that!” Ardsley Wooster, clad in engine begrimed shirt-sleeves stepped forward. “You don’t even have to disband. Instead, you can come and perform for my countrymen. Come to England.”

He indicated Agatha. ”The Lady Heterodyne and myself will be heading there directly. If you come, you will all be guests of Her Majesty, the Queen. You’ll be new! Exciting! A glamorous continental import with a stunning story to tell! You’ll be the toast of Britain and will perform before Her Majesty herself!”

Payne frowned. “We’ll be used as propaganda against the Empire.”

Wooster paused. “Are we talking about the same Empire that will kill you if it catches you? Why, yes sir, I believe we are. Only you can say how firm a grasp said Empire still has upon your loyalty. For what its worth, it’s not like you’ll be asked to spread falsehoods.”

Payne closed his mouth and looked at the rest of the troupe. “Your thoughts? This affects us all.”

“I doubt we’re worth an international incident,” The Countess conceded. She brightened, “And I am a third cousin to Albia by marriage. Many, many times removed, of course.”

“Performers to Royalty always looks good on the playbills,” Rivet stated.

“Oh, yes,” André said gloomily, glancing back towards Balan’s Gap. “That worked out so
very
well the last time.”

Trish turned to Gunthar. “I think getting Balthazar into a real school might be a good thing.”

“Whoa!” the boy cried, “Hold on! They’d… they’d make me wear
shoes!
”

Dame Ædith stroked her chin. “I hear England is
crawling
with vampyres…”

Slowly, more and more of the troupe found themselves warming to the idea.

Finally, there was a call for a show of hands. The result was almost unanimous.

“Very well, Mr. Wooster,” Payne announced, “We are loath to break up our company, and there is no denying that we will be safer for a while outside of the Empire. We accept your offer.” He paused. “Do you… do you think Her Majesty would let us keep the airship?” He then winced at the fierce grip upon his arm.

“I think, for the good of diplomatic relations—” Wooster did not elucidate about whom these relationships were between, but he remembered that skillet—“We will have to return the ship, at least, to the Empire.” The look in Payne’s eyes forced him to add, “But if you tour the outer islands, I expect Her Majesty might put a ship at your disposal.”

Payne and Marie looked at each other and nodded.

“I think you made the right decision, sir,” Wooster said happily. “Let us examine the charts and we can plot the best course.”

“Yes, we have about an hour and a half before we reach Mechanicsburg,” Payne said.

Wooster checked himself. “Mechanicsburg?”

“Yes, Mr. Wooster,” Agatha said, “They’re dropping me off.”

A touch of panic filled Wooster’s face. “What?” The image of Gil’s face filled his mind’s eye. It was not a happy face. “No, back in Sturmhalten, you agreed to come to England.”

“I most certainly did not!”

Wooster stared at her.

Agatha hesitated, and turned to Zeetha. “Did I?”

Zeetha nodded. “You did, but that was when you… weren’t in your right mind.” She continued thoughtfully. “In fact, it sounded like you’d’ve rather gone
anywhere
other than Mechanicsburg.”

Agatha digested this information. “I see. That’s… interesting.” She turned to Wooster. “You think I should go to England with you.”

“Indeed I do. Right now the Wulfenbachs want you under their thumb. In England, you’ll be under the protection of Her Majesty. Once there, you’ll be able to negotiate in safety.”

Agatha thought about this and shook her head. “No. Right now, I’m just another potentially dangerous Spark. The Baron might not mind me being bottled up in England. He’d probably prefer not having a Heterodyne running around the Empire.

Plus, even though they’re at odds, I imagine that if his… fears about me are correct, then your Queen would easily be able to deal with me. Before the current rift, England aided the Empire when it was clearing the continent of revenants.

“But if I want to be treated as a Heterodyne, than I have to get to Mechanicsburg. Once I’m established, it’ll be a different discussion entirely.”

Krosp interrupted. “Oh, yes. You’ll be a sovereign power then. But that means that if you break the Pax Transylvania, he’ll legally be able to roll in and crush you like he’s done to hundreds of others.” Krosp paused. ”And I’ll be honest, from what I saw, I wouldn’t be surprised if he said to hell with the legalities and rolled in anyway.”

Agatha nodded. “Krosp, you’ve studied military history, has
anyone
ever taken Mechanicburg?”

Krosp paused. “No,” he admitted. “But that was when the Heterodynes were in control. And, I’ll point out, no one has ever successfully resisted the Baron.”

“Sounds like it’ll be an interesting fight,” Zeetha said cheerfully. “But why are you willing to have it? I thought you were talking about just living a normal life?” She glanced at the rest of the circus. “Normal-ish.” She amended.

“Yes,” Agatha admitted. “That was the plan.” She looked at Zeetha and gave her a lopsided grin. “But there’s a serious flaw with that plan, one that ruins everything. I’m not really a ‘normal person,’ now am I? I’m a Heterodyne.”

“But you don’t have to fight the Wulfenbachs,” Wooster insisted. “You can still be a Heterodyne in England.”

“Yes, I imagine that’s one of the reasons your government would like to have me. But I’m going to Mechanicsburg, and I’ll tell you why. When my mother, Lilith was about to throw me to safety, she said, ‘Go. Get to Castle Heterodyne. It will help you.’ She
knew
people, Klaus Wulfenbach amongst them, would be after me. But
that’s
where she told to go. Mechanicsburg.”

She looked Wooster directly in the eye. “And since she was one of the two people in this world that I trust completely,
that
is where I’m going.”

Wooster dropped his eyes and sighed deeply. “I see.” He squared his shoulders and grinned. “Then I guess I’d better go with you.” He turned to Master Payne. “My offer still holds, of course. But instead of going direct, I’ll give you a letter to present to Her Majesty’s ambassador in Paris. I expect you’ll all be on one of Her Majesty’s submersibles within the week.”

Agatha nodded. “Very well, Mr. Wooster, I imagine you’ll be quite useful, and I promise to visit your Queen eventually, if only to see how well my friends have been treated.”

The agent smiled ruefully. “Perfectly understandable. I’d best find some writing paper so I can prepare those letters.”

As Wooster left, Agatha turned to Master Payne and the Countess. “Thank you. For everything. I want you to know that I would have been happy working with you.”

The Countess looked at her appraisingly. “I rather doubt it,” she said frankly. “I suspect that in the end, we would have wound up working for you.” She raised a hand to forestall Agatha’s protest. “It’s the nature of the Spark, my dear. We can’t help it.”

She looked Agatha in the eye. “But we
can
help how we treat those who fall into our orbit. Treat them with respect. See to their comfort. Reward their efforts—” She hugged her husband, “And allow them the illusion that they are in control of their destiny.”

Payne nodded seriously as he patted his wife’s hand. “Yes, as you can see, that’s very important.”

The Countess froze. “Hieronymus, you filthy commoner. Are you intimating—”

Payne glanced at Agatha. “Please, m’lady, don’t argue in front of the Heterodyne.”

Marie effortlessly switched gears. “Goodbye, my dear,” she said with a tear forming in her eye. “Try to stay good.” She enveloped Agatha in a tight hug and whispered. “But if you simply
can’t
, at least remember to enjoy yourself.”

Over the years to come, Agatha would often vacillate as to whether this was the best or the worst bit of advice she had ever received, but she had to admit, that she never regretted following it.

Payne took her hand, and a small, pleasantly heavy purse was placed there. Agatha tried to hand it back. “You’ve got to be joking. I… I destroyed all your wagons. Your possessions, your props, your books—I couldn’t
possibly
accept wages.”

Payne raised an eyebrow. “I know,” he said delicately, “It’s a bill.”

Agatha hefted the purse, which seemed heavier. “Ah. Yes, of course.”

Payne waved a hand. “Oh don’t worry about it right away. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll all become so fabulously rich from the new Heterodyne plays, that we won’t need it, eh?”

“New plays?”

“Don’t be naïve, my Lady. You’ll be the subject of new stories before Wulfenbach’s troops get their cook fires lit. We, at least, will be in a position of authority, for those that care about such things, and I promise you that we will devote as much care and respect to your tales as we do to the others.”

Agatha turned to Gunthar. “I’ve never been in a pie fight.”

He considered this. “Not yet,” he conceded, “but the night is young.”

Agatha turned back to Payne. “I’ll repay every pfennig. I swear.”

Payne looked shocked. “Why, I never thought otherwise.” That said, he again turned serious. “At the moment, you’re basically a good person, Agatha. Try to stay a good person, but don’t let people take advantage of you. If you do, soon enough you won’t
be
a good person anymore, you’ll be a bad Heterodyne, and frankly, the world has had quite enough of them.”

With that he offered her his hand, she shook it, and with a swirl of his great coat, he swept off. It was only after he left that Agatha realized that there was a smaller purse in her hand, with a small tag which read: “This, on the other hand, is a gift.”

I wonder how he did that,
she thought.

With Payne and his wife gone, the rest of the circus approached, and there was much hugging, and crying, and a great many questions about the Heterodynes and her life.

Agatha had thought that the others would be shy because of who she was, but soon realized that these were people who, on stage at least, hobnobbed nightly with figures of legend. To them, at least, she was still Agatha Clay.

All too soon, the landing gongs sounded, and Agatha, Zeetha, Krosp, Ardsley and the three Jägers were escorted to one of the launch bays. There they found several fully loaded horses, and a change of clothes.

“The horses are a surprise,” Zeetha commented as she changed.

“They’re good ones. Officer grade,” Professor Moonsock said as she finished tightening the final saddle. ”You should be able to get ten gold Pax-Guilders each when you sell them. Don’t settle for less than five, or they’ll think they’re stolen.”

“But they
are
—”

“—But you don’t want people to
know
it!”

At last all the preparations were complete. The airship set down rather bumpily in a deserted field near a dilapidated farm house.

The bay door was rolled up and the Jägers leapt out and watched, as two of the roustabouts slid the ramp out and dropped it down with a dull clong.

A final round of embraces and goodbyes, and the three horses clopped down the ramp and began cropping the long grass as the four watched the ship close up.

Ognian took a deep breath of the crisp morning air and whooped. “Schmells like
home
, brodders!” The other two Jägers grinned. They all gave Agatha a slight bow, and trotted off to scout on down the road.

The ramp was slid back into place. The doors were rolled closed. The engines revved, the running lights of the airship blinked three times in salute, and it rose slowly into the sky. The figures waving from the windows rapidly dwindled and quickly became unrecognizable. Once airborne, the ship turned and headed off, away from the rising sun.

Part of Agatha felt that she should sit and watch it until it vanished from sight. She shook her head and sighed. They did that sort of thing in stories.

She pulled her horse around. The road into Mechanicsburg wasn’t far. Zeetha and Wooster waited for her to take the lead.

Agatha sat up straight and touched the horse’s flanks with her heels. She was a Heterodyne, and she was going home.

FOOTNOTES

1 As any serious student of the life of Agatha Heterodyne must be aware of by now, hard facts about things like geography are frustratingly difficult to nail down. As far as we have been able to ascertain, the mountains referred to here were probably part of The Balkans, but could easily have been part of the Transylvanian Alps. All we know for sure is that they were flat on the bottom, pointed on the top, and had ears.

2 See our previous textbook, which, due to unfortunate market forces is entitled Agatha H and the Airship City. We had suggested The Life of Agatha Heterodyne; Part One—Leaving the University. An Examination of the Causes and Tribulations Leading to the Restoration of the House of Heterodyne, A Reexamination of the Storm King Mythos and Some Clues as to the Underlying Troubles Within the Political Structure of the Wulfenbach Empire . We will concede that this was a bit dry. However we were able to prevent it from being titled Agatha’s Electrifying Orbs of Scientific Seduction! So we must take our victories where we can.

3 Othar Tryggvassen, self-styled Gentleman Adventurer, was an important figure in the life of Agatha Heterodyne. Obviously overly influenced by the legends of The Heterodyne Boys, he was, at this time, an adventuring do-gooder. Unknown to most people, he was determined to eradicate all Sparks, as he was convinced that they were the source of all the evil and madness in the world. This was an attractive theory, and even most Sparks had to admit that he had a point, in his own tiresome way. This task was complicated by the fact that Othar was, himself, a very strong Spark. It is hypothesized that a young Othar had something to do with the eradication of the city of Oslo, which would explain a lot of the evident guilt and self-loathing.