Shanghai Sparrow (42 page)

Liu frowned, rubbing his chin. “A Gift,” he said, slowly. “A Gift lovingly created, so much admired that people...” – he glanced back at the other room – “that people killed each other for the honour of giving it. And... now, did I steal it? Oh, yes, I think I stole it... it was intended, not for my Queen, but for the dragon god – an attempt to flatter his image and gain his favour. She’ll like that. In fact, it will delight her to think she has deprived him of such a magnificent Gift.”

“This dragon god, would he be the person you offended, maybe? What will he think of having his present stolen?” Eveline said. “Won’t you get into trouble?”

“I will ensure he hears a different story,” Liu said.

“They won’t fight, will they? I mean, go to war, over it?” Madeleine said. “Charlotte’s still there – and maybe others...”

“Go to war? Against each other? That is extremely unlikely,” Liu said. “They prefer their own hides whole.” He grinned wickedly. “Oh, Lady Sparrow, what a wonderful game!”

Eveline felt herself smile a little, despite everything. Madeleine shook her head. “A game? Really?”

“Just ’cos the stakes are high, it don’t mean it ain’t a game,” Eveline said. “Now. I know Forbes-Cresswell won’t have told anyone where he was going, and I bet he told Holmforth not to either, but it doesn’t mean nothing got around, so we’d better hurry before someone turns up looking for them. Beth, you and Mama get working on the dragon. It needs to sing pretty and if you can get it moving, all the better.”

“Yes,” Liu said. “If you can make it move, I can get it over the border. Otherwise, it will be difficult.”

“How far do you have to go?” Eveline said.

“Oh, I can make a passage in most places – the privilege of my position – but from outdoors is easier.”

“So we don’t have to try and smuggle it onto an airship, then.”

“Fortunately, no.”

“What about Holmforth?” Beth said.

“I dunno, I’ll think of something.” Beth and Madeleine hurried off.

“It would be better if he were dead,” Liu said.

“There’s enough people dead. I don’t want more.”

“Are you sure you have a choice?”

“Of course I got a choice!”

“And if leaving him alive brings down on us what we are trying so hard to prevent?”

“It won’t.”

“Eveline.” Liu touched her hand with the tips of his fingers, gently, as though she were porcelain. “I honour your gentle spirit. But...”

“I know, all right? He’s got a maggot in his head about the Folk, Liu. He wants them to pay. He’s still all fired up for the Empire... I’ll have to think.” She rubbed her eyes. “But the main thing is to get rid of that blasted dragon before it gets us all into even more trouble. And we need to do something in case someone comes looking for the old man, too. I s’pose he must have had servants, at least... wonder where they all went?”

“I should imagine they ran away, but it is possible they may come back.”

T
WO NERVE-WRACKING HOURS
later, Eveline watched as the dragon’s head reared up on its long, gleaming neck, and with hisses and clanks and an impressive exhalation of steam, its legs unfolded, raising the sinuous body off the ground.

Despite herself, Eveline took a couple of steps backwards as the head swung towards her. Liu, at the controls, gave her a cheery wave.

“If you would be so kind as to open the doors?”

They did so. Holmforth, still tied to his chair, who had spent the last hours alternately scolding, begging, and threatening, wrenched furiously at his bonds. “You can’t do this! You can’t! Thieves! Traitors!”

They ignored him as the dragon began its stately progress out of the building. Beth sighed. “Oh, it’s so wonderful. If only it wasn’t so
dangerous
. Are you sure there isn’t another way?”

“Can you think of one?” Eveline said, a little more sharply than she meant.

“No,” Beth said wistfully. “It just seems such a terrible
waste
. They’re not even going to appreciate it for what it is, for all the work that’s gone into it; they’ll just think it’s a pretty toy.”

“If they thought anything else, we’d all regret it,” Eveline said. “You sure we found all the notes?”

“I think so.” Beth glanced at the pretty porcelain stove where a bunch of papers was burning merrily. “What about the notes he says he gave Forbes-Cresswell?”

“He’d not have kept them at the office – too good a chance of someone else finding ’em. I s’pose we’ll have to check out his gaff when we get home. And his room at the Consulate.”

“You’re going to sneak into the
Consulate?
”

“Have to, won’t I?”

They followed the dragon out into the courtyard.

Beyond the gates the sun was setting, a fat red coin on grey silk. The light caught the mobile silver wires that hung about the dragon’s mouth, turning them to bloody streaks. Liu paused the beast, and turned its head to Eveline. Steam curled from its nostrils.

“You will be careful,” Eveline said.

“Of course I will,” Liu said. “Do not worry, I think it will work.”

“You’d better go, then.”

“Yes. Goodbye, Lady Sparrow of Shanghai.”

“
Zhù nĭ hăoyùn
, Foxy.”

“Luck?” Liu grinned. “Luck is for those who are not as clever as us.” He pulled another lever, and the dragon reared up on its hind legs, making Eveline gasp and Beth give a little moan, and with sudden, astonishing, fluid grace, it was out of the gate and moving across the road, a sinuous vision of gleam and vapour in the flat, empty landscape.

And strangely, another road – a thing of mist and whispers, but a road, winding across the plain and rising up at a slope the land did not accommodate – began to form itself before the dragon’s feet.

Suddenly Eveline realised that the dragon’s tail had something clinging to it, some ragged lump of cloth – had it caught on something?

No. It was Holmforth, gripping the moving tail with both hands, working his way up the spine.

“Liu, look out!” Eveline yelled, knowing that it was impossible he could hear her.

Beth fumbled out the gun she had shoved into her pocket.

“No!” Eveline said. “You might hit Liu! Come on!”

They began to run, Madeleine in their wake.

Liu had not noticed his passenger. The dragon was pacing elegantly up the vaporous road. Holmforth inched up its backbone, his face alight with fervid determination.

The dragon reared up. The air shimmered and swirled like the surface of a pearl.

“Liu!”

But it was too late. The dragon surged forward, the air shivered, and then there was a flash of painful, brilliant green light, and something tumbled down through the empty air and landed in the wet field at the girls’ feet.

Clothes. A Norfolk jacket, tweed trousers.

Holmforth’s clothes, sinking into the mud.

“They’re moving...” Beth whispered.

“Maybe they fell on one of them fancy birds, like we saw?” Eveline picked up a stick, and lifted the edge of the jacket.

It was a hare. Crouched inside the shirt, the collar loose around its neck, eyes wide and dark with terror, ears flat to its narrow head.

“Oh,” Eveline breathed.

“Why doesn’t it move? Is it hurt?” Beth said.

“No,” Madeleine said, catching up to them. “It’s probably confused. Come away, girls.”

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Eveline said.

“I don’t understand,” Beth said.

“I do,” Eveline said. “He tried to enter without permission. And he wasn’t Folk enough for that. That would probably have pleased him, poor sod.”

“Eveline, my love.”

“Sorry, Mama.” The hare kicked out suddenly, and ran, briefly trailing a fine linen pocket handkerchief from one leg, before it was gone, zigzagging into the long grasses.

“Will he turn back?” Beth said.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Beth shivered.

“We’d best pick this lot up.” Eveline sighed. “There’s still a lot to do. I hope Liu’s all right.”

“I’m sure he will be,” Madeleine said. “Come on, girls.”

“’F
ANYONE ASKS,
” E
VELINE
said, “We came to visit Mr Holmforth. Beth, you were coming out here to marry him.”

“What? Me?”

“No, all right, I was. Mama, you’re here to check he’s respectable. Anyway, he took us out for a little shooting party, right? Pheasants and such. But he heard a ruckus at that house, and sent us back to the city to be safe and he and the driver ran in, all heroic-like, to check what was happening. After that we don’t know because we was being proper ladies and doing as we was told.” Eveline realised Madeleine was looking at her with a kind of troubled wonder. “Mama... I’m...”

“You’re so quick, Eveline. So quick and clever. I’m very proud of you,” she said fiercely. “
Very
proud.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Will it work?” Beth said.

“I don’t know. But apart from the buyer, shouldn’t be anyone who knew Forbes-Cresswell was coming here. If I’d had a thought in my head, I’d have asked Liu to take the...” – she glanced at her mother – “the wretch with him, but it’s too late now.”

They took the vehicle that Forbes-Cresswell’s buyer had driven in, for fear the other would be recognised. It was at least as splendid as the Consulate’s, with seats lined in glossy red leather (which, fortunately, hid the bloodstains). Beth took the wheel, with the former driver’s cap pulled over her curls. “You know how to make this thing go?” Eveline said.

“It’s a standard steam car,” Beth said. “Except they’ve done something clever with the boiler, and some other... oh, I’d like to take her apart, have a proper look...”

“Not until we’re back at the hotel, all right?” Eveline said.

By the time they reached the city, Eveline was moving in a grey fog of weariness. The noise and colour and busyness woke her up a little; she stared out of the car, watching the parade of humanity. So many faces. The swaying women with their strange little pig-trotter feet. The brilliantly gilded sedan chairs, their occupants hidden away like jewels in a case. The rickshaws with their scrawny haulers, bowed under the weight of flush-faced, button-straining European merchants or ladies like overblown bouquets in their fine linens and lace, protecting their porcelain complexions with parasols.

It was so like London. The faces of the poor were mainly Chinese, yes... but they were at least as ragged, and as thin, as those in Limehouse. London had no rickshaws, but it had its cabbies, its crossing-sweepers, and its hostlers, easing the passage of the better-off. The backstreets of Shanghai carried the rich-sweet stench of opium, not the raw-alcohol reek of cheap gin... but they all smelled of shit and misery.

Would the Folk actually be worse?
Eveline thought, watching a rickshaw driver ducking away from the blows of a European’s heavy silver-headed cane.

Maybe not. But the Folk you couldn’t fight, or at least, not yet.

England

“S
O... WHAT HAPPENS
now?” Beth said, as they rolled away from the aerodrome. The buyer’s automobile was a lot more comfortable than the
Sacagawea.
“The school?”

“No. ’Snot safe,” Eveline said. “I reckon Forbes-Cresswell kept everything pretty quiet, but there might have been someone who knew what he was up to, who’ll come looking. And they may be looking for Mama, too. We need somewhere to hide out for a bit. We’ve got our papers, and we’ve got a bit of money.” An examination of Holmforth’s hotel room had provided their passports and some bank notes; Forbes-Cresswell’s pockets and his Consulate rooms had provided more money and, fortunately, the notes. Getting into the Consulate had been easy enough. Eveline shook her head at the memory. If she wanted to keep people out of a place, she’d do things differently.

“What are you thinking?” Madeleine said.

“I’m thinking that maybe a school isn’t a bad idea.”

“A school? Eveline, you can’t be planning to set up as a
school teacher
, surely?”

“Why not? There’s more’n enough girls could do with someone to teach ’em mechanics, and Etherics, and all that. There’s more and more machines, these days. Why shouldn’t women get a look in? You’re both better at it than any man I’ve known. And me, well, there’s things I can teach them, too. And maybe...” Eveline grinned to herself. “Maybe I know a couple other people would like the job.”

“But setting up a school – where will we get the money?” Madeleine said. “And we can’t do it under our own names, surely?”

“You leave that to me,” Eveline said. “I know people. We’ve got papers, we can easily get ones with different names on, all proper and nice. As for money...”

“No,” Madeleine said sharply. “No thieving. Eveline, I know you’ve had to do it to survive, and that’s as much my fault as anyone’s, but I’m not having my daughter spend her life a thief.”