There Will Be Phlogiston (26 page)

We ogled each other.

After a bit, I said, “Is he saying that stuff goes
round in circles?”

“I believe so. In a world of mere phenomena.” They
sounded pretty serious about it, but then I realised ’twas their
way of making fun.

I measured out the sentence, which was what you
might call a hefty handful. “Don’t see why he couldn’t just’ve said
that then. I used to think reading was some kinda wonder, but now
I’m starting to think it’s all a bam.”

“It does rather seem that way.”

I was struck suddenwise by a thought. “You ain’t
going to tell Ruben, right?”

“That reading is, um, a bam? Well, I think he ought
to know. As a philosopher and a theologian, he has rather devoted
his life to the practice.”

“No . . . ’bout me . . . and . . . y’know.”

The air sorta shifted in the room, and I was sorry
for it. I saw a cove once blowing glass, and if I was inclined
towards religiousifying, which I ain’t, I might’ve said ’twas
probably how the earth got made, bright-hued miracles spun out of
matter. And I felt that mebbe Byron Kae was like that, strong and
fragile at the same time, and I’d just mebbe shattered sommat.

“Not if it’s what you want.”

I nodded with much eagerness.

“He wouldn’t think any less of you,” they
murmured.

“That ain’t the point.” Except it totally was.

We staggered on some with the education of the
world, and mebbe I started to see patterns in the sound of things,
or mebbe I didn’t. ’Twas hard to tell, with the only thing going in
circles being the book. Leastways, far as I could see.

And I think I must’ve dropped off in the middle or
sommat, cos when I woke up later, I found all the books neatly
stacked next to the bunk, one of them even having a little piece of
paper in it marking the place, proving that I, Piccadilly, was
reading it.

And I felt about ten feet tall.

SNEAK
PEEK: SHACKLES

Dear Mr. Dickens,

Since you was so kind as to publish my story in your
magazine, lots of folks have been sending me lots of letters asking
me about stuff what happened what I don’t know about. Seems like
they want to know how a priest what got himself chucked out the
church, and the Arch Rogue of Gaslight, being only the prissiest
motherswinker whatever held a knife to your throat, wound up in
what I reckon ye might call love, or as near as passes for it.

Things is, I never did get the whirligigs to ask
Ruben himself, but I done some asking round, and I think I got the
shape of it.

’Cos it’s Ruben’s story, I tried to write it all
proper and inkhornish like he’d like it, and Byron Kae has checked
all the spellings for me, so you don’t have to ask that nice Mr.
Collins this time.

I ain’t so sure about the commas.

Piccadilly

Ebook: ISBN: 978-1-62649-226-4

riptidepublishing.com/titles/shackles

There were many stories about the crime prince of
Gaslight.

So many that Ruben Crowe, climbing the thousand
stairs to the top of the Spire, half fancied he had been sent to
meet a monster. But waiting in the iron-grey cell, his face turned
into a stream of dusty moonlight, there was simply a man.

Who twisted as the door grated open, chains clanking
at his wrists and ankles.

“It has been many years since I have seen the sky.”
His voice was smoky sweet and as refined as any gentleman’s. “Tell
me, do you think it beautiful?”

Three days ago, Ruben had received a personal visit
from the Bishop of Gaslight. This was somewhat surprising, for the
last time they had met, the bishop had revoked Ruben’s licence. He
had also professed himself disappointed.

In truth, it had not been unexpected. Ruben Crowe,
it was generally agreed, was a poor fit for the Church. When, after
leaving Cambridge with first-class honours, he had announced his
intention of taking orders, his father—the late Lord Iron—had
declared that Ruben would be home by Candlemas. He, too, had
professed himself disappointed.

Ruben received the bishop in the Citrine Drawing
Room and served him Darjeeling first flush tea in translucent bone
china. The sunlight that slipped through the arched windows paled
in the savagely glittering splendour. As did the bishop.

He reached for one of the fancies, a cunning spiral
of air and sugar, flavoured with saffron and lavender and, at last,
essayed a conventional enquiry into Ruben’s health and happiness.
Dr. Jaedrian Forrest was a lean, gilded lion of a man and not
usually uncertain of his words.

Ruben gave assurances that he was quite well. He had
just returned from the Stews. Dust had soiled the edges of his
cuffs and clung to his hair. His fingers left rough, dark stains
upon his teacup.

“I understand,” remarked the bishop, “you have been
visiting the malcontents in the Lower City.”

“I wasn’t preaching.”

“No, of course not. That was not my intended
implication.”

There was a long silence.

Dr. Forrest leaned forwards in his chair and
steepled his fingers. His episcopal rings flashed darker and deeper
than the gemstones that encrusted the room.

The motion was so startlingly familiar that Ruben’s
heart shied like a roe deer. It was too easy to remember and easier
still to forget. He could half imagine they were friends as they
had used to be. The worldly bishop and the ardent young curate,
ensconced together with tea, crumpets, and the debates of the day.
And other pleasures, perhaps less easily reconciled with doctrine.
Ruben knew too well the twist and arch of that silken, sinew-roped
body. The chill pressure of those rings, warming like flesh beneath
the weight of his palms.

“Do you still believe,” asked the bishop, “that all
souls can be saved?”

Ruben did not hesitate. “Yes.”

“No matter how iniquitous or unrepentant?”

“Especially those.”

“Hmm.”

Ruben had little patience for what he had always
termed “state room theology.” Church politics, in other words. So
he watched the light skitter sharply across the surface of his tea,
gold over gold, like Jaedrian’s eyes. And he felt, almost as if
from nowhere, the soft stirring of loss, a restless and familiar
longing for impossible things.

He remembered his father’s funeral. The silver
apathy of the rain and the moment he realised that now he could
never earn Lord Iron’s approval. Like most of his youthful
ambitions, it had always been something he believed he could do
tomorrow.

“Ruben, have you heard of the crime prince of
Gaslight?”

He glanced up in some bemusement. He was not the
sort of man to concern himself with fables. “I’ve heard the
stories, but they’re just stories.”

“They’re not stories. They caught the man.”

“They caught
a
man.”

The bishop’s tawny eyes held Ruben’s steadily. “The
reality hardly matters any more. It’s what he represents.” There
was a pause. “He burns in less than a week.”

Under the laws of England, a condemned criminal
would die by fire in order that they might repent in the last
moments of their life and thereby save their soul eternal torment.
However, if the condemned made a full confession and showed
penitence, he would merely be hanged. The state called this mercy.
Ruben was not so certain. “You must send someone to him,” he
said.

Dr. Forrest stared at his own interlaced fingers. “I
did.”

“And? Wouldn’t he repent?”

“He killed the man.”

An eerie chime sounded through the room as Ruben’s
fingers slipped on his teacup.

“You see my quandary,” murmured the bishop.

Ruben wouldn’t precisely have called it a
quandary
, but he nodded.

“I cannot in good conscience send a criminal to the
stake who has not received every opportunity to confess. But,
equally, I cannot send another man into danger.”

Ruben’s lips quirked wryly. “But you seem to be
sending me?”

Dr. Forrest had the grace to blush. “I’m asking
you.”

“You may recall,” said Ruben mildly, “that you
revoked my licence. Even if I was willing, I would be unable.”

“I could provide a dispensation.”

“Could you now?”

The bishop pinched the bridge of his nose wearily.
“Ruben, I—”

“Of course I’ll do it.”

“I feared you might,” sighed Jaedrian, looking
suddenly both older and younger than his years.

“You knew I would.”

“Yes.” Another pause, and then with a touch of
pleading: “But you will be careful, won’t you?”

Ruben did not answer, but across the gleaming table,
their hands met and roughly, tightly entangled, as if they were
still lovers.