The Sunken (44 page)

Finally, in a low voice, so quiet Jacques had to lean forward to hear him, Brunel said, “What do you want me to do?”

Buckland ran ahead, the faint light of his lamp bobbing down the winding staircase. Brigitte followed, her arm sore from where he pinched it between his enormous hands, her slippered feet sliding across the slick stone as she tried desperately to keep her balance.

“Nicholas! What on earth is the matter? Why are we running? Is it Isambard? Is it—”

“Ah hah,” cried Buckland in delight. “Here it is! I was worried I wouldn’t find it — I’ve never come this way before.”

They crowded onto a landing, facing the stone wall. Buckland held his light up and examined the stones. Nicholas squeezed Brigitte’s hand. She opened her mouth to ask again what was going on, but Buckland gave a cry of triumph and leaned his weight against a particular stone. With a groan, he pressed his whole body into the wall, and to Brigitte’s great surprise a whole section of it slid inward, revealing a low, dark passage.

“After you.” Buckland gestured to Nicholas.

“Thank you, friend.” Nicholas clasped the man’s shoulders. “Please take Brigitte and find her a room in the city. He won’t come after her — it’s me he wants, but she should not go back to my lodgings—”

“Excuse
me
,
”
she cut in, her patience finally run dry. “But I have been dragged from a sermon I was quite enjoying, sent running after you two all night, stained my dress and ruined these slippers, and now you’re sending me from your presence with not a word of explanation. I
demand
to know what’s going on, “

“Brigitte,
please
—
”

She folded her arms and leaned back against the stone wall. “I’ll not move from this spot ’till you tell me why we’ve left the Chimney to crawl around in dark tunnels in the middle of the night—”

“Someone’s trying to kill me,” Nicholas said, his face slick with sweat. “And I’ll be damned to the Great Conductor’s fiery furnace before I let him get you, too.”

“Nicholas—” she reached out, wanting to comfort him.

“Keep away from me!” He slunk back, hiding in the shadows. “You must go with Buckland. Please, Brigitte.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes. She shot out her elbow and knocked Buckland’s arm aside, ducking into the dark passage next to him. “I’m not leaving you,” she said.

“Don’t be absurd, Brigitte. You are safer if you return to the city, pretend you don’t know me—”

She shook her head. “I’ll pretend nothing of the sort. I gave up my livelihood for you. Don’t think for one moment I’m leaving.”

“You don’t understand. If he catches you with me—”

“Then we had better make sure this man, whoever he is, doesn’t catch you,” she said firmly, taking another step into the dark passage. “I’ve decided, Nicholas, and I’ll not hear another word to the contrary. We don’t have time to argue about it anyway, by all accounts. Now, where does this tunnel lead?”

“Into the Wall,” Buckland answered, stepping in beside them and pulling the stone door back into place. “The structure isn’t solid inside, but contains many rooms and chambers for Brunel’s use. I’ve been working here on a project for Brunel, and I’ve had a chance to explore some of the tunnels and rooms around my workshop. I know a place you can hide.”

“What project?” asked Nicholas. Brigitte detected a note of suspicion in his voice.

“I cannot say. Ah, here we are. Watch your head, Miss Brigitte.” She had to get on her hands and knees to crawl under the banks of lead piping that criss-crossed over their heads. The air here felt warmer, and everything around her hummed and vibrated beneath her hands as though it were alive. Warm air moved under the pipes, caressing her bare arms, and in the distance she could hear a strange, regular
whoosh
.

Buckland stood, and helped her to her feet. She dusted off her dress and saw by the dim light of a lantern they were at one end of a long metal walkway, suspended over a floor of beam engines, all turning in unison, the rise and fall of their arms creating the
whooshing
sound.

Buckland stepped out on the gangway, and Brigitte followed, her eyes falling to the machines below, each one rising and dipping with the grace of a dancer. She saw the faint glow of fires moving between the machines — Boilers, keeping the engines running.
But what do all these engines power?

On the other side of the gangway, Buckland pulled down a steel ladder and motioned for Brigitte for ascend. “When you reach the top, lean down and I’ll hand you the light,” he said. “When Nicholas is up there with you, I will push up the ladder and close the gate on the other side. Only Brunel and I have the key, so it should be impossible for anyone to find you.”

Brigitte gathered her skirts in one hand and clambered up the ladder, pulling herself onto a cold metal floor. She reached down, and Buckland placed the heavy old lamp in her hands. She hauled it up and set it in the centre of what was a low, square room, barely ten foot from end to end. It was devoid of furniture and decoration, save the square grating of a ventilation shaft in the corner.

Nicholas heaved himself up the ladder, and knelt beside her. He looked back at Buckland. “Please,” said Nicholas. “Explain to Isambard what has happened. He saw me leave, and he will not be pleased. And do inform the other Blasphemous Men, if you should cross paths with them.”

With a cheerful wave, Buckland hurried back across the gangway. Brigitte heard a steady creak as he drew shut a metal gate on the other side. The clang of his boots against the metal faded into the darkness, and she was left alone with Nicholas and his secrets.

Brigitte set in with persistent questions, but Nicholas, so weary from the day’s activities and their flight he could no longer stand, begged for time to rest before he told his story.

“I deserve to know.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “You do, but, please … not now. We are out of immediate danger, and it is a long tale, cruel in the telling, and I have not the strength to tell it.” He slumped against the wall, and lifted up his arm.

Brigitte snuggled under it, and fell asleep quickly, her warm cheek pressed hard against his chest. But every time Nicholas’ eyes seemed to be closing, he would hear a noise or sense an animal or see an image of Julianne dancing under his eyelids, and he would be jolted awake again.

The Wall was not nearly as secure as the tunnels under Engine Ward, and Nicholas’ mind jumped from compie to compie as they raced along the pipes. Through their eyes he could see where they’d already gnawed through the metal structure in places, creating for themselves a network of secret tunnels. If he lived through this night, he’d need to have Brunel dispatch a crew to tidy up the gaps.

The compies spoke a complex language of scents, sounds, and signals, which he was only just beginning to decipher, but he’d learned enough to know that they had sensed the presence of the humans in this room. Used to the company of Boilers, these compies were wary of humans, and their scent signal leapt from body to body.
Be alert.

But they were wary of something else, too. Some great and terrible shadow lurked in the corner of their minds. They could not see it in the dark, but they had heard it, smelt it. It worried them.

Nicholas could feel this shadow also, a looming presence on the periphery of his sense. He was too weak to hold onto it, and it was too great and dark for him to sense properly, but he knew whatever it was, it was nearby, and it was hungry, and very, very angry. But he had enough to worry about now without succumbing to a nameless fear in the darkness. He tried to ignore the presence and follow the compies in his mind, skipping from one to the other as they made their rounds of the tunnels. He knew if they sensed more humans in the tunnels, so would he.

Hours drifted by, and their lamp — the oil already low — gave a final flicker and went out, plunging them into total darkness. Sometime later — when, he could not tell, for no light penetrated their cell, and he had lost his pocket watch somewhere in the tunnels — the compies did indeed sense a human presence. This man came by a different route, down from the official entrances above. The compies knew his smell instantly, and so did Nicholas. It was Isambard.

He heard the gate swing open, and the Presbyter’s footsteps across the gangway, and he prayed to the Gods that Isambard had not come to give him over to Jacques.

“Nicholas!”

The voice rang out like a battle cry in the silent darkness. Brigitte shuddered away and gripped Nicholas’ hand as they listened to Isambard climbing the ladder into their hiding place. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Nicholas opened and closed his mouth, his throat dry and his words dying on his lips.

“Nicholas?” The voice was softer, but so close Brigitte screamed and leapt back. A second later, a match struck, and a shaft of light penetrated the room. Isambard’s face appeared at the top of the stairs. He held up a lantern and a parcel.

“Buckland said you had no food, so I have brought some. And some oil for your lamp.” He crawled in beside them and set the package down on the floor. “Nicholas … why didn’t you
tell
me?”

“You are not angry with me?” Nicholas leaned away from him, remembering Isambard’s face when he’d threatened him on the pulpit.

“If I am to understand correctly, a threat has been made on your life. I am concerned for you, and determined to keep you safe, at least as long as I am able.” Isambard opened the parcel and spread out a bounty of bread and butter, jam, and a draught of beer. Nicholas could not bring himself to eat, but Brigitte ate hungrily, stuffing bread into her mouth faster than she could chew. “I am saddened you did not come to me earlier. I have power now, and what good is such power if I can’t use it to help my friends?”

“There is a good reason for my silence. The man that follows me does not simply intend to kill me — he will hurt anyone in my life if he knew their deaths would wound me. I intended to keep a low profile, to claim friendship with no one, to extract myself with little disruption from London if he did find me here. But you two—” he said, glancing from Isambard to Brigitte, and sighing.,”you have destroyed my hope of this, for I care about you too deeply. Now that he has found me I must once again go underground, for I cannot have him catch me and destroy your lives in the process. Brigitte has, against my protestations, decided to go with me, but I’ll not have you forsake your own life for my mistakes.”

“This man hates you so much?” Tears streamed down Brigitte’s face.

“If you knew my crime, you would not be so quick to side against him.”

“Nicholas.” Brigitte’s voice seemed firm, large in the darkness. “I am hiding in a tiny box in the deepest reaches of an iron wall. I am cold and I am frightened. Your friend Isambard has come down here to tend to you when he should be celebrating. It’s time you told us what is going on.”

“We cannot help you until we understand the nature of the man we’re up against,” Brunel added.

Nicholas sighed. “Very well, but when you hear what I have done, you will change your mind and cast me forever from your life, and you will be all the happier for it.”

So he told them the tale of his escape from the Navy, of his meeting with Jacques and the beguiling black-haired woman named Julianne, of his days spent studying, of his nights holding her while she cried, of how the atmosphere at the monastery had slowly turned poisonous, of his discovery of Jacques’ brutality, and of their desperate flight that ended in him driving his sword into the heart of the woman he loved.

When he finished, he was weeping, the tears hot against his cheeks. Isambard pressed the beer into his hands, and he drank, long and heavy, ’till the rawness of the memories floated away.

All three were silent for a long time, the only sound in the room the steady dripping of water somewhere in the distance and Nicholas’ wretched sobs.

Brigitte spoke, her soft voice cutting the air like a dagger. “I could not ask you to do this.”

“Brigitte—”

“She was selfish, this Julianne. She wanted you to do this for her, knowing you loved her so, knowing what it would do to you thereafter.”

“It wasn’t like that—” He caught himself. “Perhaps she didn’t expect me to live much longer.”

“But live you did. And now you’re in a world of mess, and it’s
her
fault.”

Nicholas felt a strong sense that he should be defending Julianne, but he said instead, “You do not hate me?”

“Why should I? You fulfilled the last wish of a dying woman, a woman who was already numb and dead inside, and you’ve carried the guilt of that memory like a shroud ever since. Do you think me so fickle that my love for you could be extinguished by some past crime? Do you think you alone own all the sorrow of the world?”

Love … she had spoken that word. He’d not thought about it, not dared to utter it, since that night in the valley. And here she was before him, this maid who knew nothing about him save his one greatest secret, and yet she professed her love for him.

“I do not think you fickle,” he choked, trying to keep his voice steady. “But you should not profess such things, for they cannot be taken back, and you may yet meet the same fate as the last person to utter those words to me.”

“She will not,” said Isambard. “Buckland has done right to hide you here, for du Blanc cannot possibly find you. As soon as Buckland told me of your flight, I sent a guard to your home. He saw Jacques arrive there but three hours ago, with two Navvies in tow. They broke the front window and stirred your papers into frightful disarray, but they left soon after. He tracked them back to Stephenson’s London residence, but they have not emerged since.”

“He aims to make my death look like a simple Stoker/Navvy rivalry,” Nicholas said.

“That is my guess, too. It was probably Stephenson’s idea. It will take all my cunning to design a solution to this dilemma. I do not know when next I can return to you, but when I do, it will be with your salvation.”

“Could you send someone else? What about Aaron?”