The Sunken (53 page)

“How dare
I?
How dare
you!
” Aaron’s rage flew from his mouth. He grabbed Brunel’s collar and pulled him onto the platform. “Have you no concept of what you have done? You’ve made us redundant. You’re turning our homes into workshops for those abominable machines.”

Brunel smiled, and in that instant, Aaron knew what he’d suspected for many months; Isambard was forever lost to him.

“You misunderstand me,” Brunel said, his voice calm. “I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m sending the Stokers back to the swamps, to hunt once again.”

“You’re sending … us …
away?”

“Yes, as you have pointed out, the Stokers are useless here in London,” Brunel said. “I have no need of them anymore. But I do have a job for them, one my Boilers cannot do. I need them to hunt in the swamps, to send as many live specimens back to London as possible. The larger the animal, the better.”

“Why?”

“My experiments are of no concern to you. You will be the foreman, of course, and you will lead the hunters, just like your grandfather. Isn’t that just what you wanted, to live with the mud and the animals?”

“You … you ….” Aaron had no words. He balled his hands into fists.

“You can thank me for this boon later.” Brunel shoved him back toward the staircase. “But right now, I have a congregation to address. You’ll receive your new instructions tomorrow.” He clambered back into the hatch, pulled the door shut, and locked it from the inside.

Aaron beat his fists against the grating, barely noticing the rough steel cutting his hands. He buried his face in his hands, slivers of blood mixing with his tears as he wept for the friend he had lost and the doom of his people.

“Nicholas! Open this door!”

The window on the upper story flew open. “Aaron? What are you doing? It’s three in the morning,
again
—”

“Now you see what your beloved Messiah has done?” Aaron roared, beating his fists against Nicholas’ door. “He’s no friend of mine!”

“You’ll wake the whole neighbourhood!”

“He’s sending the Stokers away! We finally have the opportunity to make a good life for ourselves here in the city and he’s sending us away!”

“Stop yelling. I’ll be right down.” Nicholas’ head disappeared from the window. Aaron paced across the stoop, his rage boiling, until he heard the bolt slide across the lock and saw Nicholas open the door.

“He’s a rotten scoundrel and I hate him!” Aaron yelled in his friend’s face, painfully aware he was being uncouth and vile, but too drunk and angry to stop himself.

“You need to calm down.” Nicholas grabbed his shoulders and shook him roughly. “You’re drunk, aren’t you? By Great Conductor’s steam-powered faeces, man, we’d best get you inside before you wake the whole neighbourhood.”

He pulled Aaron into the downstairs drawing room and settled him into a chair. “I saw you in Mass today, climbing up to the pulpit like a drunken fool,” he said sternly. “I can see you’ve further inebriated yourself.”

Brigitte appeared at the doorway, clutching a candle, her nightcap askew. “Aaron? Nicholas, what’s the matter?”

“He’s just a little upset. Could you fetch us some water, love? And perhaps a bread roll for Aaron.” She disappeared across the hall.

“Do you
want
to stay in the city, Aaron?” asked Nicholas, holding his friend’s face upright. “Is that what you want? Because I can talk to Brunel for you and see if he’ll let you stay—”

“No!” Aaron bolted upright, his eyes flashing. “My people need me, and I will be stronger in the swamps. Every day I live inside that Ward, surrounded by iron and without the comfort of the voices, I feel the press of my own madness, Nicholas. Even if there are no tricorns anymore, I want to walk where my grandfather walked, hunt with the dogs, feel the breath of the dragons on the back of my neck.”

“If this is what you wanted, why are you so upset?”

“Brunel has sent the Stokers to a death trap. Those swamps are swarming with dragons, and no one knows how to hunt anymore. When Stephenson hears Brunel intends to connect London and Bristol, he’ll descend with force. Even though he’s not a Messiah anymore, the Navvies still outnumber us five to one, and they’ll fight us to the death to keep the southwest free of broad gauge. I won’t allow my son or my wife to die in the mud, not while I still have breath in my veins.”

“Blood in your veins, Aaron. Breath in your lungs, blood in your veins, although I think yours might be well supped with alcohol.”

Nicholas remembered Quartz’ warning, not to allow Aaron to return to the swamps. He brushed the thought aside. That was the last thing Aaron needed to hear right now.

Brigitte returned with a roll and a pitcher of water. She set them down on the table in front of Aaron. He stared at her with reproach, then leaned over and snatched up the roll.

“I think you misunderstand Brunel’s intentions—”

“I think
you
misunderstand,” Aaron cried, globs of sticky bread dribbling down his shirt. “Did you know these new Boiler workshops would be built over our homes?”

“No, of course not—”

“I know how his mind works, and he’s consumed by those machines. His entire being is focused on their creation, on their
perfection.
He doesn’t care about the Stokers — he never has. He doesn’t care about you, Nicholas. I’m his oldest friend, and look what he’s made of me.” He gestured to his bedraggled frame.

“You did this to yourself,” Nicholas said. “He cares for you very much. He thought this was what you wanted.”

“Is that what he told you? No, Nicholas, he stopped caring about me when that first Boiler rolled out of the factory. He—” Aaron fell back into the chair, his eyes glazing over and his head flopping onto his shoulder. He started to snore.

Nicholas patted Aaron’s hand, and together, he and Brigitte stretched him out across the couch, placed the pitcher of water beside him, and left him be.

Nicholas stood outside the door of Isambard’s workshop, peering through the gap, just wide enough for a thin man to squeeze through, into the gloom beyond. Brunel sat in his wingback chair by the roaring furnace, the spidery apparatus that had sprung from his sleeve on the night they’d killed the King now holding a teacup to his lips. “May I come in? I want to talk to you about Aaron—”

“I don’t want to talk about Aaron,” Brunel snapped.

“He thinks you hate him. He thinks you’re sending him away.”

“Don’t I? Aren’t I?” Brunel smiled. “Pull up a seat, Nicholas. Let me tell you about Aaron Williams.”

Nicholas squeezed through the door, found an empty crate under the workbench, tipped it over, and sat facing Brunel. The mechanical arm held out a teacup for him, but he waved it away.

“Don’t you like it? Without this arm, I couldn’t have saved your life, remember?”

“I remember, but why do you wear it?”

“I like it. A man can never have too many arms.” He extended the limb to its full length. “Besides, it has more strength, more flexibility, and more
functionality
than both my real arms put together.”

“Is it painful?” Nicholas saw parts of the machine — gears and rods — extended under Brunel’s shirt, into his skin.

“Not at all. It is partly my own design, partly made with Dirigire technology. Those Frogs understand fine clockwork better than I understand steam. Now, I was going to tell you why I sent Aaron away.”

Nicholas leaned forward.

“He’s not taking this very well.” Brunel gestured around himself, at the Chimney, the Boilers, and his mechanical hand. “When we made the engine all those years ago, he told me he didn’t want any credit. He didn’t want to hang if anything went wrong, and so he left me, alone, to live or die by the whim of the priests. Things could have gone very differently for me, and Aaron knows it. He knows if I had died, it would have been on his hands. He feels guilty, because he deserted me when I needed him most. And over the years, that guilt has turned to resentment, that resentment, to jealousy, and that jealousy to his current rage. He hates me, Nicholas, and has hated me for a long time. Here in the city, hemmed in by my success, he’s falling apart. He’s drinking more than ever, haven’t you noticed? And Chloe ….” He frowned, leaning forward and lowering his voice, even though there was no one else to hear. “I’ve seen her, Nicholas, walking through the Ward with bruises on her face and arms. The men fear his temper. He’s cracking up. He needs to leave the city as soon as possible. I had to send him away. Do you understand?”

Nicholas felt ill.

Aaron loved his wife, he would never …
but Nicholas remembered how rough he’d been with her when they’d shown up at his home, how he’d dismissed her, how his eyes shone with hatred, how he saw fault in everything Brunel did.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Perhaps you’re right.”

Holman and Nicholas saw Aaron off at the train station. They were two of only a handful of non-Stokers present, for the Stokers’ work and insular society afforded them few friends in the city. Brunel, the Metal Messiah himself, was not in attendance.

The train they piled into was barely functional. The carriages had no walls, only wiry metal frames secured with chains. The locomotive itself spluttered, spewing sickly gases through a cracking blowpipe. Aaron knew his men could have done a better job, but men hadn’t made this locomotive — Boilers had. He’d seen them churning away in their new workshops for the past two weeks, putting together this prototype to send the Stokers away.

Aaron settled Chloe into one of the forward carriages, then rushed up and down the length of the platform, checking the supplies and machinery had been correctly loaded and secured. He was the last to board the train when the whistle blew.

His friends waited for him, and he faced them both, shrugging off his exile with his usual bravado. It was Holman who broke the silence first, extending his hand a little from his body in the habit of a blind person, and Aaron reached over and shook it.

“Goodbye, friend.” Holman’s voice was kind. “I trust you to be safe and look after this sorry lot.”

Aaron smiled. “As well as I’m able, James. And you stay out of trouble.”

“You know that’s too much to ask.” Holman let go of his hand, and Aaron turned to Nicholas, the only other man who understood the voices, the man whose peace he’d shattered and whose drawing room he’d thrown up in.

“Goodbye, Nicholas, and good luck with everything.”

“Thank you, Aaron, and … I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Nicholas leaned forward and embraced him, patting his shoulders. Aaron returned the embrace, savouring the texture of his friend’s wool coat and that familiar smell of fresh aftershave.

“How will we contact you?” asked Holman.

From the hidden pocket inside his greatcoat, Aaron pulled a thin metal plate, which he pressed into Holman’s hand. “There’s a woman in this village. You can trust her, but to be on the safe side, you should use the code.”

He shook each of them by the hand again, his eyes imparting more than his lips could say. He collected his bag and climbed the steps onto the train. Setting down his rucksack, he leaned out against the railing and gave one final wave just as the whistle blew and the train lurched forward. For the last time, he stared at the soot-stained London cityscape, her regal buildings and lush pleasure gardens whizzing by in a blur, the great Engine Ward far in the distance — a black smudge on the skyline. He knew he would never set foot inside the city again.

He was going home.

Fiction is a reworking of established truth. All things subtly shift under the author’s pen, and even the most infallible facts become relative. As the
Engine Ward
series is set in an alternate history, I have taken certain liberties with the historical evidence. For your interest, I’ve detailed some of the more blatant fallacies below.

Brunel, Banks, Babbage and Holman are all historical figures, although whether any of them met in life is not recorded. Joseph Banks died in 1820, ten years before his appearance in this book, but I figure if he could keep the King alive well past his time, he was probably cheating his own death a little, too.

James Holman was blinded at age twenty-five in a manner similar to that described in this book. He returned to London, took a degree in medicine (secretly), and, after securing a post as one of the Poor Knights of Windsor, he set out on a journey across the world. The most thorough account of Holman’s unique experiences can be found in Jason Robert’s riveting biography,
A Sense of the World,
which I highly recommend.

George III’s mania was believed to be caused by prolonged exposure to arsenic, resulting in the malady
porphyria
. Victims of porphyria suffer from abdominal pain, vomiting, seizures and mental disturbances. Porphyria affects
heme
(a vital molecule for the body’s organs), causing the skin to blister when exposed to sun and the gums to retract around the teeth and the canines to become pronounced. Many scientists have speculated that porphyria accounts for some historically documented cases of vampirism. Canadian biochemist Dr. David Dolphin has popularised this theory with research suggesting ingesting human blood relieves the symptoms of porphyria. Scientists tested follicles of George III’s hair and found large amounts of arsenic, known to be a cause of the disorder. He was not, to the knowledge of any historian, actually a vampire.

Isambard Brunel was appointed chief engineer of the Great Western Railway (affectionately known as the
Goes When Ready,
due to its rather loose interpretation of a “schedule”) in 1833, and the first train ran in 1838. He built several notable English bridges, including the Clifton suspension bridge and the Royal Albert Bridge – and two of the largest and most innovative ships of his time – the
Great Western
and the
Great Britain
. He had no delusions of godhood. Probably.