The Iscariot Sanction (15 page)

‘I do not know if what I have heard in the upper clubrooms is true or not, but the fact that I have heard such things at all displeases me. It displeases me a great deal. I shall say this to you once, and only once, and I shall say it as one man to another, so that our rank and titles may not muddy the waters: stay the hell away from my daughter.’

7th September 1860
—In a statement issued by the Palace, Queen Victoria has today publicly endorsed the growing Spiritualist movement, which has until recently been mostly confined to practices in the Americas. Her Majesty the Queen revealed that a recent telegram received from a leading Spiritualist figure, one Catherine Fox, accurately diagnosed a hitherto undetected medical condition of the Queen’s Consort, Prince Albert. Through further consultation with acolytes of Miss Fox, the Prince is said to be on the road to recovery from what could have been an otherwise fatal illness.

The Queen has extended an invitation to Catherine Fox and her sister, Margaret, to visit England and hold the first Royal Spiritualist Society meeting at Buckingham Palace. Whether the invitation will be accepted remains to be seen, but there is already talk in Parliament of extending the freedom of the City of London to the two American sisters.

Lillian jumped awake as the coach jolted.

‘Back in the land of the living?’ John said. ‘You missed Godalming altogether.’

‘What? You should have woken me. Where are we?’ Lillian craned her neck to see out of the window.

‘Coming up on Havant. Last stop. I didn’t have the heart to wake you. You seemed to be having a nightmare again. Oh, don’t pretend—I’ve heard you calling out in your sleep the last couple of nights. Something troubles you.’

‘It’s nothing,’ she lied. ‘But we really must stop soon so I can make myself presentable.’

John nodded. ‘Ten minutes at most. Selby hasn’t set a new record, but he’s come deuced close, I can tell you.’

Lillian was cross with herself for nodding off, but troubled at yet another nightmare. She hoped she hadn’t been too fitful. Even now, she was possessed of a sense of dread, and when she closed her eyes she could see the creature that haunted her dreams; the creature with the pallid skin, sharp claws, and those shining, violet eyes that glittered like amethysts in twilight. She could hear the voice, too, whispering to her from some place far away. A place she knew and yet had never been.

She shook her head, as if to shake away her own foolishness. At that, she realised John was looking at her curiously. She ignored him. If the nightmares became worse, she knew she should confide in her brother, though it crossed her mind that she might need a Majestic rather than a confidant.

Presently, the coach left a wide, gritted track and began to rattle once more over cobbled roads, which proved enough to shake the last of the sleep from Lillian’s head. A minute later, they drew into the courtyard of a half-timbered inn called the Bear, and Lillian alighted without waiting for Selby to bring the step. It was late afternoon, and the inn looked fairly quiet.

The sky was not clear, but it was also not as fierce as back in London, and Lillian took a breath of fresh air before heading into the inn to refresh herself.

Less than half an hour later she was sitting in a cosy snug drinking strong coffee, earning a disapproving glance from the landlord’s wife, but caring little. A fire crackled low in the hearth. John sat opposite her in a comfortable armchair, stretching himself after being cooped up for so long.

‘The lad has just returned, sir, ma’am,’ the landlord said, poking his head around the timber frame of the snug. ‘Your carriage will be here in ten minutes, I reckon.’

‘Thank you, Denton,’ John replied. ‘I trust the settlement for your services is satisfactory.’

‘Aye sir, more than satisfactory. Your agency can always depend on us.’

Apollo Lycea, under various guises, had safe-houses across the country, with staunch men and women from all walks of life ready at a moment’s notice to act as servants to the Order, knowing only that, in some small way at least, they served the Crown. For Denton, like so many others, that was enough. That, and the fact that the Order paid them well. Lillian wondered if the safe-houses in the north were still loyal to the Crown—whether such folk as Denton hid their allegiance from those who would oppose England’s authorities, or if they had been compromised by whatever forces were sweeping the land. She wanted nothing more than to head northwards to find out for herself.

‘I see our boys are in a spot of bother in Caboul,’ John said, rustling his newspaper.

‘Afghanistan… Father will be vexed, though I imagine it shall get worse until we can mend this situation with the munitions supplies.’

‘Yes, I rather suppose you’re right,’ John said, his brow furrowed. ‘Better finish our coffee. When the carriage gets here we’ll have to be off to the docks.’

‘I wonder if this Tesla fellow even speaks English,’ Lillian mused. ‘Could be an awkward journey back to London otherwise. My Russian is not up to scratch.’

‘
A nam ponravilos
, dear sis,’ John said with a wink.

‘My, you are full of surprises,’ Lillian replied, somewhat annoyed at her brother’s apparently fathomless skills.

‘If you knew where and why I’d picked it up, you wouldn’t be half so impressed. Now come along and finish your coffee. We have another carriage ride to look forward to, and then we’ll finally meet our mysterious charge.’

* * *

The great Russian ironclad that awaited them at Portsmouth’s naval docks was an imposing if outdated vessel; an oversized reminder of Imperial Russia’s fading glory, rusting, creaking, belching smoke and steam, and yet bristling with cannon and swarming with regimented sailors who laboured like clockwork men.

The two sailors who flanked the Russian naval captain on the gangway were straight out of an adventure novel—striped shirts, cocked berets and near-identical square jaws and barrel-chests—standing to attention as though they alone represented the pride of the Imperial Navy. The captain himself, a stern-looking fellow named Novikov, returned John’s salute when the latter was introduced as a lieutenant. Novikov’s eyes did not so much as glance towards Lillian.

A small party of Royal Marines stood with the two agents, eying up their Russian counterparts as a curiosity, for few soldiers and sailors from these two great nations had encountered one another during the uneasy peace that had followed the Awakening.

Lillian wondered at first where Tesla was; there appeared to be no civilians present as John exchanged pleasantries. That was, until she observed a mass of unruly black hair poking out from behind one of the Russian marines, followed by a pale, gaunt face. It was a young man, barely twenty years of age if his wispy moustache was any indication, and now he leaned most comically around the burly sailor, looking about twitchily like a newborn fawn. He eventually saw that Lillian alone was looking at him directly, and flinched back behind the sailor, who pretended not to notice he was playing mother doe. Slowly, the young man gathered himself and stepped out into the light, dusting his palms down the front of his ill-fitting suit jacket, and trying to act nonchalant. It was only then that Lillian saw his manacles.

‘If you will sign here, Lieutenant,’ Captain Novikov was saying, ‘and the consignment will be yours.’

John took a hefty docket offered to him by the nearest Russian sailor. There were scores of pages of neat, printed text, which John looked at confusedly.

‘What is all this?’ he asked.

‘A formality. Do not worry about the details; they have been already agreed between our superiors.’

Lillian spoke up at last. ‘Why is this man chained?’

The Russian captain looked at her with an air of distaste. ‘Madam?’

‘Agent,’ she corrected. ‘Why is this man chained? I did not understand him to be a prisoner.’

‘Then perhaps you do not understand much about these… “Intuitionists”, you call them? He is chained for his own safety, and for the safety of my vessel.’

He spoke to Lillian like a child or, worse, an inferior. She glared at him boldly, and without taking her eyes from his, said quietly to her brother, ‘Sign the papers, John, and let us take our leave. I should like to be back in the bosom of enlightenment before midnight.’

John did not turn around, but Lillian saw from the tensing of his shoulders that she had put him in a predicament. Much as she regularly cursed the limitations of her sex in London society, she was thankful she wasn’t serving with the likes of Captain Novikov, who seemed only to acknowledge her under sufferance.

Tesla was pushed forward—looking more bewildered than frightened—and one of the English marines took him by the shoulder. The Russian sailor presented his counterpart with the key to Tesla’s manacles.

Lillian checked to make sure that John had signed the dockets and, satisfied that he had done so, gave her orders to the marines, loudly and clearly, for the captain’s benefit.

‘Release this man, and show him to our carriage. He is to be treated as a guest.’

‘Yes ma’am.’ The marine obeyed, but did not salute—unlike many other agents of Apollo Lycea, she had no rank, not even an honorary one. Another disadvantage of her sex, but one that she rarely allowed to hinder her; as the daughter of Lord Hardwick, her social status and reputation often proved sufficient.

Lillian turned to the captain, who was trying to ignore her. ‘Good day, Captain,’ she said, with a thin smile and all the courtesy she could muster. ‘I trust your voyage home will be an uneventful one.’

He clicked his heels together and bowed his head sharply. ‘A pleasure, my lady,’ he lied.

As Lillian walked along the gangway to terra firma, she was dimly aware of John exchanging words with the captain and his men in Russian, followed by low laughter from all of them. It was his way to ease tensions with jests; she fancied, rather scornfully, that the jest was about her.

* * *

A Royal Navy doctor had been allowed five minutes to examine Tesla, passing him as fit to travel irrespective of whether he was or not, and then the Intuitionist had been bundled onto the Victoria. He had requested a cup of tea, but had been denied—time for that, Lillian had informed him—when they reached Havant. It was dusk, and it had already been a long day.

Soon they were underway back to the Bear, where Selby and his team of horses would be waiting.

‘The sky here is so strange,’ Tesla said, popping his head out of the carriage.

Lillian remembered that he had been aboard a ship for goodness knows how long. Had he even been allowed on deck?

‘It is worse in London,’ she said. ‘But surely the sky burns the world over.’

‘Oh, in Moscow most certainly,’ the young man replied. ‘But I have not seen a city for some time. I am in Siberia for…’ He moved his head rhythmically, counting to himself. ‘Three hundred-and-seventy-one days. We still see the stars in Siberia, when they let us outside.’

‘Your countrymen leave a lot to be desired,’ Lillian said.

‘They are not my countrymen. I am Serbian,’ he replied, puffing out his chest with affected pride.

‘What? Then how did you end up their prisoner?’

‘I work in Austria when the—what do you say?—Awakening happen. My parents try to hide my talents, try to stop me building things. They want me to go to America, to work for the great Thomas Edison, though I think he is not so great these days, no? But the Russians hear of the things I can do, and they pay the government much money. My steamer to America is intercepted by Russian warship, and I am put to work in a secret project in Moscow.’

‘And… what is it that you build, that makes you so valuable to the Russians?’ John asked, hesitantly.

‘Generators,’ Tesla replied.

‘We have generators. Lots of them. What is so special about yours?’

‘My generators do not need fuel, or even cables. With my first prototype, I create power for my village before even your great London had electric lighting. It lasted for ten days before it explode, but I think I know what go wrong. My new creations will produce a hundred times more power than the largest electrical generators anywhere in the world. Perhaps more, given the correct conditions.’

John stole a glance at Lillian before continuing. ‘If there are no cables, how do they conduct power?’

Tesla let out a small sigh. ‘Through the air, of course. I send it, and I trap it, between metal coils—I call them Tesla coils.’

‘Of course you do,’ muttered Lillian.

‘You do not like the name, dear lady?’ Tesla said earnestly. ‘For you, I change it!’

‘And the Russians,’ John went on, ‘they had you building these Tesla coils?’

‘Big ones, yes, but they say it take too long. So they send me to a factory where I work eighteen hours a day, and I build other things for them.’

‘What other things?’

‘Weapons, mostly.’

John shot another look at his sister. Lillian guessed he was wondering what their father had in mind for the scientist: generators, or weapons.