Lady of Spirit, A (19 page)

Maggie could have stayed in the sunny garden all day, mining Mariah’s memories with the dedication and optimism of a diamond prospector. When she said as much, Mariah gave her one last hug.

“We will have time, my dear one. When all this is over, I will look forward to it—and Father will, too. He misses Kevern sorely, and it will do him a world of good to be reunited with you and the truth revealed once and for all. But for the moment … if what you say is true and these bathynauts are not, as everyone is being told, merely protecting our shores but actually preparing an invasion, we must inform the resistance, and quickly.”

Maggie did her best to put her own need for reassurance and love and family aside in favor of the lives and families of others. According to Mariah, there were those who believed in the republican government left to them by Napoleon only a few generations ago, which had made France a center of education and culture. They were actively resisting the return of the corrupt monarchy that had brought the country to its knees.

Of course, there were always those who enjoyed a country on its knees, and clearly it was now time to stop the slide of public opinion before they got any further in their plans.

“You must send two pigeons for me, Aunt Mariah—one to Lady Claire’s airship
Athena
, and one to the Royal Aeronautics Corps detachment on St. Michael’s Mount. Theirs is the most immediate danger from
Neptune’s Lady
and her projectiles.”

In the inn’s study, Maggie found paper and ink, and quickly wrote out two missives. When she folded them up and Mariah concealed them under the stems of rosemary and lavender in her basket, she admitted, “It is unlikely that the aeronauts will believe such a fantastical story. I hardly believe it myself. But Lady Claire will. She will inform Count von Zeppelin so that he may act on the Prussian front, and I hope it will not be too late.”

“I will be as quick as I can,” Mariah said. “While I am gone, here is what you must do.” She leaned in close to whisper, “Katrine says the master key to all the rooms is hung in the linen closet. Do not fear Serge—he is one of us and is my husband’s nephew. Once you free your cousin, take him to the church. None of the bathynauts ever go there, and the priest is among those who, like my family, do not support the Bourbon restoration. I will meet you in the Lady Chapel in an hour.”

Maggie had not used her skills as a scout in quite some time, but as she slipped down the stairs to the innkeeper’s rooms and located the linen closet, she found them coming back again. The heightened senses, the alertness, the pumping blood—all stood her in good stead as she quietly lifted the key, slipped it in her pocket, and padded up the servants’ stair to Claude’s room.

Serge had mysteriously vanished.

He looked up as she came in. “No coffee?”

“Sorry, just the key. Come along, I am spiriting you out of here. Your guard is, apparently, a member of the resistance. Isn’t that lucky?”

“I thought he had more of a sense of humor than the usual. Where are we going?”

“The church. My aunt will take you from there.”

“Steady on—who? Your aunt, did you say?”

“Yes, that lady in the garden. She is my aunt Mariah, and I will tell you the whole story once we are safely away from here. I must return the key.”

She had a bad few minutes when two of the maids came chattering along the passageway, but a chilling look down her nose and a request for directions in Gloria’s flat accents got rid of them for long enough to return the key to its hook.

“Mariah said to stay close to the cliff,” she told Claude as they went out the back door. “There is a path, apparently, so that we will not be seen on the streets.”

And so there was—a damp, dank path made so by the water dripping in rivulets down the cliff face. It was cold, too, but at least it kept them out of sight. The church came into view and Claude finally spoke.

“I say, is that really a church? It looks as though it was carved partly out of the rock.”

What would be the transept and altar in any other church was set into the cliff, as though it had begun that way hundreds of years ago with the important part, and the nave extended out from there, built later of blocks of stone quarried elsewhere. The two of them slipped into a door in the back of the transept and found themselves in the cool dimness of the church. A lamp hung over the altar, and while the sun shone through the stained-glass windows of the narrow nave, the light up here had to be provided by the hands of the faithful.

“Where is the Lady Chapel, then?” Claude whispered.

“Let’s have a look.”

Lady Claire had been in the habit of taking them to church when they’d lived in Vauxhall Gardens, and when they were together at Wilton Crescent, they would go also. She wasn’t sure about Lizzie, but Maggie had never quite been able to shake the old belief that if one were to pick a pocket, it was best done on a Sunday, when people were dressed in their best and always had a coin or two for the collection.

She would have had slim pickings in this church, Sunday or no. The nave held a few widows in black, on their knees praying for the souls of those they had lost, but the ladies paid them no attention as they crossed the transept and found the Lady Chapel on the other side.

The Lady, in this case, was illuminated by lamps set high in the ceiling. She was painted on the plaster, her halo and the cross in her hand picked out in gold leaf, her mermaid’s tail a grand sweep of Madonna blue, lilac, and deep sea-green. Her hair under its blue mantle swirled behind her as if the currents were moving it, and her eyes, deep set in the Byzantine style, were sea-blue as well.

Staring, awed at the beauty of her, Maggie bumped into a lectern and nearly knocked the book lying on it to the floor.

“Steady on, old girl. Looks like the parish register.”

Maggie’s attention abruptly left the contemplation of the mother of the One whose symbol had been a fish to a mother much closer to home.

The parish register.

She smoothed the pages into place and rapidly turned them back … back to the late winter of 1878.

And there they were, the ink faded, the French formal. Maggie translated the words in her mind.

“Claude, look,” she whispered. “These are my parents. Part of the story I’m going to tell you when we get home.”

He scanned the lines, his French as good as hers. “But … I don’t understand, old girl. I thought the pater adopted you along with Lizzie?”

“He did, but that was after my parents died.”

“You don’t say. So your birth must be in here, too, then. Unless you were born somewhere else?”

She hadn’t thought of that. She flipped one page forward, to March.

“Is that you?” Claude leaned over the page.

“It is,” Maggie said. “She called me Marguerite Marie.”

“Aren’t those the daisies you see everywhere, with the yellow centers and the white petals? The girls at school call them marguerites.”

Her mother had loved flowers, and seemed to have spoken the language of them. She scented her letters to Kevern with lilac, for first love. And she had called her only child after the daisy, for innocence.

Marguerite, innocent of the dreadful aspersions her grandparents had cast upon her. Innocent of the pain her parents had gone through for her sake. Innocent of her adoptive father’s and her grandparents’ crimes.

She pressed her lips together to prevent their trembling, and closed the book softly. The daisy had another quality, too. It was strong and hard to eradicate.

Which she was about to prove.

A whisper of petticoats announced Mariah’s arrival. With her was a boy a little younger than Maggie, whose speedwell eyes hinted that this might be her son.

“So you found it,” Mariah said with some satisfaction. “I admit to an ulterior motive in sending you here.”

“And I am glad you did,” Maggie told her with a swift kiss of gratitude.

Mariah introduced her son Guillaume. “There are more ways than by sea to leave Baie des Sirenes,” she said. “Guillaume will take you through the caves and over the fields to the next village, where my brother-in-law will arrange passage for you to Paris. We assume that is where you wish to go?”

Claude nodded. “With all the demonstrations in Paris, my lot have gone to Venice, taking in an exhibition. I think I’ll join them—unless you wish me to do something?” He appealed to Maggie, who shook her head.

“The sooner you’re out of French and Colonial hands, the better, and no one will find you in Venice, with its moving neighborhoods.” She hugged him fiercely. “Keep yourself safe—and for goodness sake, Claude, stay out of taverns.”

Ruefully, he nodded. “I’ve learned my lesson well and truly. Strong drink and sea chanties lead to the kinds of adventures for which I am definitely not suited.” He released her slowly. “You won’t do anything ridiculous like getting yourself killed, will you?”

With a shake of her head, she reassured him, “Certainly not. I have a story to tell you, remember?”

With a smile, she watched the two young men go, and then Mariah took her hand. “Are you determined to do this, Marguerite? Will you not go with Claude? The resistance has plans in motion that do not require a young girl to risk her life.”

Maggie did her best not to cry afresh at the fear Mariah could not keep out of her eyes. “But does the resistance have access to that ship and to the Kingmaker?”

She saw the truth when Mariah bit her lip. So they did not—or if they did, it was not enough to stop the invasion. “All I will say is that your true identity is known where it is most necessary, and you may find one or two allies where you least expect them. Come. I will show you how to get down to the sea caves.”

“I know the way,” Maggie protested. “It will be tricky, but I can find my way along the quay and inside.”

“Good heavens, child.” Mariah took a deep, shuddering breath, mastering her emotions as she gazed up at the mermaid Madonna high above their heads. “Not that way. We go the ancient way—the way that legend says the Lady of Heaven first came to the people here.”

“But that’s a legend.” Maggie followed her out of the chapel and around to the back of the altar.

Mariah opened a door and started down the stone steps into darkness. “In Baie des Sirenes, my dearest, you will find that sometimes legends hold more truth than facts.”

If the French resistance thought it strange that a sixteen-year-old girl had come to their aid, there was no sign of it. There was no sign of anyone, yet in at least two instances it was clear that an invisible helping hand had been extended to her.

The first was in the alarm that went up upon the arrival of
Neptune’s Throne
, the
navire
from the Americas bearing Gerald Meriwether-Astor, and the subsequent discovery that Claude was not available for either questioning or blackmail, since he was no longer in the room in which he had been locked.

The second was the partially loaded
chaloupes
floating next to the jetty, filled with supplies and destined for the
Fury
, which were left unattended while the bathynauts assembled in one of the caves for rousing speeches of encouragement from their leader and the captain of the
Fury
, who was related in some way to the Bourbon pretender that Maggie did not quite catch.

She was busy slipping into the last
chaloupe
and concealing herself behind canvas bags of equipment, and only heard about Claude when the bathynauts returned and were talking several feet away.

A detachment of men had been dispatched to seek him out, but they would be lucky to find so much as a handkerchief. By now, he would be on his way to Venice by steam train or even one of the small
ballons
she had seen floating in the sky over the village, which seemed to be used for transport over short distances.

She felt positively giddy with relief that he was safe, and when the
chaloupe
jerked and rocked in the water as its lead engine towed the vessels out to
Neptune’s Fury
, she had quite a time settling herself and concentrating on what she must do next.

From what she had gathered, the invaders were not wasting any time. The fleet of
navires
would launch as soon as ammunition and siege supplies were loaded; they had only been waiting for Meriwether-Astor’s arrival to begin.

She did not know what he thought of his daughter’s unexpected presence here. Maybe he was convinced she had escaped with Claude. In any case, it was time to shed that disguise and become the person she was meant to be: Marguerite Marie Polgarth, saboteur and English patriot.

The fact that she would probably die in the attempt and no one but Mariah and Claude would ever know about it was beside the point. One had to do the right thing, even when it was not easy. Others had been instrumental in saving her life on countless occasions—Tigg and Snouts, the Lady, and Lizzie. Now it was her turn to fill her side of the account book, and balance out that debt.

The Lady would come, and Mariah would tell her what Maggie had done, and that was a good enough epitaph for anyone. They would never find her body, but perhaps they would erect a stone in the graveyard near the double grave she had not yet seen. Then, at least, she and her mother and father could be a family in people’s memories.

Maggie remained concealed in the
chaloupe
while the bathynauts berthed it deep in
Fury
’s belly next to the Kingmaker, amusing herself by running over the mechanical construction of the
navire
in her mind until it was as clear as a blueprint in her head. The hours crept by even more slowly than the ebb of the tide. She expected the
chaloupe
to be unloaded every time she heard voices next to it, and braced herself for discovery. But evidently this particular train of supply vessels was to be unloaded once they were ashore on the other side of the Channel, and no one opened the glass shell.

At last she felt the motion of the sea in her stomach, and the shudder of powerful engines vibrating through deck and wheels and metal.

They were under way.

She unfolded her aching legs and cautiously pushed aside the canvas bags behind which she had curled, like a dragon in its fortress. After stretching and shaking to return her circulation to its former efficiency, she risked a glance over the metal gunwale.

A male voice barked, and she banged her head on the mechanism that opened the glass before dropping to the
chaloupe
’s iron deck.

“Attention all hands,” came a disembodied voice from a trumpet in the ceiling high above. “Except for vital positions, report to mess for final briefing and duty assignments.”

What were vital positions? Steering, navigation, and the like? Down here in the hold, what might be considered vital?

She only needed a few minutes. Just a few precious minutes, and her duty would be done. But one vital position could scuttle the whole enterprise.

Not until the noise of men vacating their posts and moving off into the central part of the ship slowed to a trickle did she venture to pull the lever that opened the glass top half of the
chaloupe
. She released the door locks and instead of extending the gangway, simply sat in the opening and jumped to the ground, tucking and rolling under the dripping, seaweedy hull and coming up on the other side.

There was the Kingmaker in all its terrifying glory. Her target.

How on earth did one board the ugly thing?

Maggie’s boots made no sound on the vibrating deck as she circled it, every cell in her body alert for that one man in a vital position who could ruin everything. Ah, here it was. Far above her head she could see a door in the side of the gun fortress, accessible if one used the giant wheels with their circulating treads as a ladder, and from there, stepped from one protruding bolt in its body to another. It looked as if these bolts had been constructed for just this purpose, so there was no need for extra detail such as stairs on the exterior that might slow it down.

“Halt!” came a second disembodied voice that definitely did not proceed from a speaking trumpet.

Maggie’s heart leaped practically into her mouth and she froze halfway up the black iron side of the Kingmaker like a fly on a wall.

“Before I shoot, identify yourself.” The accent was Texican.

Slowly, Maggie turned her head upward, to see a man on a catwalk holding an aural detonator rifle similar to the ones she had seen aboard
Lady Lucy
. The bell-shaped barrels of aural weapons fired sound waves to incapacitate their targets, and were used on enclosed vessels such as airships, where the incursion of a bullet would be fatal to ship and crew.

And now it was trained on her—a much bigger one than she’d ever seen.

“I—I am Gloria Meriwether-Astor,” she said, her mouth dry. “I am seeing the Kingmaker for myself, after Captain Martin gave me a tour of the
Fury
earlier today.”

“And why aren’t you under escort?”

Maggie rested both feet on the bolt and turned to face her interlocutor in as casual a manner as she could, adding a touch of huffy irritation for good measure. “Because I find it tiresome, being told what to do and observe. I gave my escort the slip when he was called forward for the final briefing. Kindly point that weapon elsewhere, sir.”

“Come down from there, miss, before you fall. No one but its pilot and crew are permitted aboard the Kingmaker. I will return you to your father at once.”

If she got down, how was she to disarm a man twice her size? If she made a break for the door in the fortress above her head, how would she evade the sound wave?

Frozen between two impossibilities, Maggie could not move.

And then she felt a popping sensation in her ears, and the guard collapsed to the catwalk, his arm twitching where it dangled in the air. The detonator fell from his hand, clanging upon the deck below.

Serge Lavande emerged from behind a stack of crates and despite herself, Maggie tensed, feeling more exposed than she ever had in her life—including that dreadful evening on the roof of Colliford Castle. Whose side was he on, at this moment of crisis? Where did his loyalties lie?

“Mademoiselle Polgarth,” he said, and grinned.

Maggie’s breath went out of her and her knees turned to rubber. But she was forty feet in the air, so she could not allow herself the luxury of collapsing with relief.

“
Merci, monsieur
,” she said.

“I see that we are now compatriots,” he said. “I do not expect to survive, but I should like to be sure that you will.”

“I do not expect to survive either, monsieur.”

“What do you plan to do? My aunt was urgent, but not specific.”

“Fire the Kingmaker’s cannon and breach the hull. Once the water pressure equalizes in this chamber, the mechanism will lower the ramp, and the Kingmaker will roll out to join the hulks of the Armada below.”

“And we?”

“I expect I will go down with it, monsieur, but if you can see your way to saving yourself, then you ought to.”

“
Au contraire
,
mademoiselle
. Democracy will lose too formidable an ally if we do not continue to work together.” He smiled and saluted her with his detonator. “I am determined that you shall survive.”

Nimbly, he collected the fallen detonator below the catwalk, and when she realized he planned to join her in the gun fortress, she climbed up and opened the door, heaving herself through it and scrambling to her feet. He followed her in and when he stood, he bowed over her hand.

“At your service, mademoiselle. I understand we are cousins by marriage.”

“I am honored to make your acquaintance properly, sir. Do you know how to fire this thing?”

“Sadly, no, but it should be fairly straightforward. Let us investigate—and quickly.”

Maggie took in the rudimentary controls at a glance. They were not helpfully labeled, but it stood to reason that anything not obviously meant for igniting the boilers, steering, and locomotion must be for armaments.

“No, not that one,” she said hastily, as Serge’s hand hovered over a lever that, when thrust forward, might send the Kingmaker rolling even without benefit of steam propulsion. “These ones here appear to control the cannon, you see? They are on a separate panel, just below this viewing window.”

It took a couple of tries, but she succeeded in making the cannon swing from side to side and nod up and down. So successful was she, in fact, that the massive barrel collided with a lateral catwalk and tore it from the ceiling with a screech of rending iron.

“Oh, dear.”

“I should hasten my explorations, Mademoiselle. Of a certainty, someone will come to investigate.”

And then she remembered something. On the roof of Colliford Castle, Lizzie’s father had installed a giant telescope that was in reality a cannon, meant to shoot the royal princes’ airship out of the sky. She and Lizzie had both sat in its cockpit after Maggie had recovered somewhat from his attempt on her life, and Lizzie had shown her how it worked. What if that cannon had also been made by the Meriwether-Astor Munitions Works? What if their cannon design was consistent across all the weapons they made?

And there it was.

Maggie pulled the lever directly below the barrel controls, and in the bowels of the fortress, gears and cogs began to turn. She pulled the lever beside the first, and with a clank, a missile of some kind fell into its slot and was ingested by the mechanism. A lamp came on.

ARMED

She looked to her right, where Serge stood beside her. Though he did not touch her, she could feel his agitation and see his body trembling. Here was the definition of courage—being terrified, and yet doing what must be done.

“Ready?”

“Marguerite, let me tell you what will happen. Once the hull is breached, water will rush in at the same speed as air rushes out. But for the first few moments, the sea will be held back by the greater air pressure within. We have just those few moments to descend from here and enclose ourselves in one of the
chaloupes
, where we will be as protected as possible from the madness that will be unleashed.”

Here was a revelation. “You mean we might survive?”

“I do not hold out much hope, but if there is a chance, we must grasp it, yes? For the war will not be over with the destruction of one machine, and we will be needed to fight another day.”

She held out a hand. “I shall follow you. We are in this together, come what may.”

He took it, his own ice-cold. “Then I leave the honor of firing this monster to you.”