There Will Be Phlogiston (28 page)

The next day, he resolved to speak to the
bishop.

But he didn’t do that either.

He descended instead to the Stews, the twisting
paths that had grown familiar to him. The darkness deepened,
thickened, until it swallowed the night and congealed into an
impenetrable smog of tar and shadow: an artificial sky, as
unforgiving as a coffin lid, intermittently smeared oily orange
from the gas lamps. Dust coated the backs of his hands and the back
of his throat. His mouth filled up with the taste of filth and
metal. But he had grown accustomed to it.

Somewhere in the depths, down some wretched alley,
three ragged ruffians came at him with fists and flashing blades.
Having grown accustomed to this also, he disarmed them swiftly, and
saw them off. Milord might have sneered at Ruben’s sword, but down
here the weapons were knives and knuckles, desperation and brute
cunning, and Ruben’s sabre had far better reach.

He did not walk the Stews entirely without purpose,
though he hesitated to own it, even to himself. Crime was as much a
part of the undercity as the smog, and just as all-pervading and
ephemeral. But the newspapers had mentioned a place, an alehouse
known sometimes as the Chicken, for its sign had long since rotted
away beyond any hope of recognition.

Ruben found it at last, a mean little building at
the far end of a mean little street, sagging between an opium den
and a bawdy house. There appeared to be a corpse on the doorstep,
but Ruben was relieved to discover the man was merely unconscious.
He possessed nothing worth stealing, so he was probably not in any
immediate danger. Ruben moved him carefully into what little
shelter the slop alley could provide and left him there, his head
propped on his elbow so he would not choke on his own vomit during
the night.

This too was something Ruben had learned: kindness
had no place here. So he tried instead to make usefulness its own
virtue. It was not what he might have imagined. On those dreamy
afternoons at Cambridge in Jaedrin’s arms, goodness had seemed as
certain as skin, a grand and golden thing. And now it was little
more than a succession of acts, too random and too individualised
to acquire any great meaning. Too petty to effect or motivate
change.

His faith in God had not wavered. His faith in
people, though, that had become its own problem. For Ruben, the two
were inextricable, the Creator and His creation. One saw the
watchmaker in the watch, though more than mere reflection. A kind
of prefiguration, he had called it once to Jaedrian, in a moment of
intense bodily unity. And later, more dangerously, in the pulpit.
“If you want to see God,”
he had told his congregation,
“look at each other. If you want to feel God’s love, love each
other. If you want a glimpse of Heaven, see the world. If you want
to understand what—for lack of a better word—we have called Hell,
simply close your eyes, and turn away.”

Later, Jaedrian had tried to protest. “It’s not
biblical,” was what he’d said.

“Damn the Bible,” Ruben had cried. “It’s just words.
Truth isn’t words.”

That had been in 1859, about six months before the
publication of two books that would change Ruben’s life
forever.

He pushed open the door to the Chicken and stepped
over the threshold. He hadn’t known quite what to expect from a
reputed den of iniquity, but inside it seemed merely unpleasant.
Dank, smoky, and redolent with the aromas of sweat and stale
beer.

Conversation did not dwindle as he entered. Nobody
dropped a glass. A few bullyboys glanced his way, sizing him up,
but for the most part life went on.

He moved carefully through the crowds, a hand
resting lightly on his sword hilt. As he approached the bar, the
man behind it reached under the counter for a bottle, uncorked it
with his teeth, and splashed about a finger width of liquid into
the bottom of a very dirty glass. Then he pointed to the chalkboard
fixed to the wall behind him. All it said was “1d” in a barely
legible scrawl.

Ruben handed over a penny and the barman—or the
bluffer
, as he would have been called in the local
dialect—slid the glass across the bar straight into Ruben’s
slightly unwilling hand.

He had little taste for gin, and even less for cheap
gin possibly adulterated with rat poison. All the same, he lifted
it to his lips and took a sip. It was about as bad as he had
imagined.

When his stomach had stopped roiling, and he had
blinked the water from his eyes, he leaned across the bar. “I’m
looking—”

The barman jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the
door at the far end of the room.

And that seemed to be all the answer Ruben was going
to get.

He nodded his thanks, picked up the glass, and went
through to the back room. Now people were watching him, and Ruben
felt a prickle of anxiety run down his forearms and across the nape
of his neck. Being able to take care of himself meant knowing when
to be afraid.

A sensible man would probably have turned, walked
away, and never looked back. But Ruben had always been ruled by his
passions.

The room into which he stepped seemed to be little
more than a converted cupboard, though Ruben suspected at least one
of the walls was false, and he could also see a faint mismatch at
the centre of the flagstones, suggesting the presence of a
trapdoor. In a spill of dirty yellow candlelight, four sat at play
around a battered table, and the only one to glance up from their
cards as Ruben came in was a tall, loose-limbed woman at its
head.

She had swung her chair onto its back legs and was
lolling in it like a lion taking its ease, one booted foot resting
on the tabletop, her skirts rucked carelessly under her knee to
reveal not only her entire ankle but a good deal of stocking too.
She was handsome in a bold, vulgar way: square jawed and wide
lipped. Her hands and forearms were covered by a writhing tangle of
brightly coloured ink disappearing under the shabby green velvet of
her gown.

“Well, well, well—if ain’t Lord Iron hisself.” Her
voice carried a veneer of Gaslight, but her vowels were southern.
“You’d better be stopping right there, my duck. Not anuver step til
you put down that toasting iron.”

Ruben’s hand had flown so swiftly to his sword, he
had barely been aware of it.

“I think it would be unwise to do that,” he said
mildly. “But I assure you, I mean you no harm.”

She blinked, the cards slipping between her fingers
to land beside her knee. “Oh, you assure me, d’you? Well then.” Her
gaze flicked to one of the other players. “’Parently we’re assured.
D’you feel assured, luvvie?”

This man, too, put his cards down. “Well, I dunno,
Nell. Don’t reckon we’re in the business o’ being assured just cos
some swell says we are.”

Ruben took a step backwards, only to discover
someone had closed the door behind him.

Nell yanked her skirts still higher, pulled a pistol
from her garter, and levelled it at Ruben. “You ain’t calling no
shots here. Now, drop the sticker and come sit down wif us.” She
smirked. “Or d’you need some
assurances
.”

Sighing, Ruben pulled his sword free and dropped it
onto the floor. “Would they be worth anything?”

“I ain’t no bravo, Ruben Crowe. I don’t crash a cull
wifout cause. You going t’give me cause?”

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

“I heard tell you was a clean fella.”

They jostled along to make a space for Ruben at the
table, and he had no choice but to sit with them. Nell had her
elbow braced next to her leg, the pistol still pointed,
unwaveringly, at his heart.

Oh God
, he thought, too ruefully for it to be
much of a prayer,
I’m going to die.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Nell, they call me. Little Nell.” It did not strike
Ruben as a likely descriptor. And perhaps it was a common thought
for she shrugged and went on. “The name was given to me when I was
just a kinchin. ’Tis sommat folks ne’er reckon on, ain’t it?”

“I’m sorry, what isn’t?”

Her eyes held his, flat and cold as the gun in her
hand. “Ye grow.”

And, in spite of himself, Ruben shivered. “And your
friends?”

“My friends?” she repeated. “Well, my culls, if it
ain’t your lucky days. Lord Iron wishes for an introduction to your
right respectable selves.”

None of them seemed willing to meet his eyes. Or to
speak to him at all. He thought it wasn’t so much fear as a kind of
superstitious avoidance. As though he were a black cat or a ladder
they preferred not to walk beneath.

“See,” Nell went on, “the canting crew tend to get a
might particular when it comes to fings could be put on a poster or
told t’ the beck. But, err—” she gestured carelessly towards the
others with her free hand “—this ’ere fine gentleman is one Jemmy
Fellow, and this gentry mort ye can call Daisy Cutter, and this
topping cove is Nob Thatcher.”

The so-called Jemmy Fellow sniggered unpleasantly
into his tankard. And Ruben knew he was being mocked, though the
precise nature of it eluded him. Not that it mattered. His pride
could be easily healed later.

“Now, if we’re all done wif making civil whiskers—”
Nell grinned at him, her incisors flashing gold “—what can I do for
ye?”

He was out of his depth. Too many people recently
had seemed to know far more about him than he did about them. But
he knew better than to show his uncertainty. “I was only looking
for information. You know there will likely be consequences were
you to hurt me.”

“Are you threatening me? In m’own ken?”

“Not at all. It was simply a . . . a point of
information.”

She huffed out a sigh. “Y’see what’s staring right
at you? That’s the point o’ my gun. She’s called Stella. Her sister
Fanny’s in m’other boot.”

Ruben had never been introduced to ordnance before.
He was not particularly enjoying the experience.

“Trust me, Ruben, you don’t want to know ’em any
better.”

Sweat had gathered under his hat brim. “What do you
want with me?”

“I want you to pike off, and I reckon the sharpest
way t’ see it ’appen is giving you what you came for. Chant says,
you bin up t’ the top o’ the Spire.”

He didn’t see why it was any business of Nell’s, but
he supposed the presence of Stella made it her business. “I was
sent there, yes.”

“But now you’re sniffing abaht ’ere. Bit of a rum
turn abaht, wouldn’t ye say?”

And Ruben, at last, understood. This woman thought
him Milord’s cat’s paw. Which meant . . . “You’re his . . .
usurper.”

“Successor, luvvie, falls more kindly on a lady’s
lugs.”

“I truly have no interest in the politics of your .
. . of your operation. I am not—” for some reason he stumbled over
the name and could not bring himself to utter it “—
his
agent.”

Nell’s eyes, which were simply brownish,
unremarkable, narrowed as she studied him. “Y’know sommat, I
believe you. But it still don’t esplain what you’re looking
for.”

Ruben felt himself blush like a schoolboy. “I was
looking for something that would help me understand him.”

Laughter from around the table. He had truthfully
not expected otherwise. But it still made him feel foolish.

“Ain’t nowt to understand. He was the Arch Rogue,
til he weren’t.”

“You betrayed him.” It wasn’t quite a question.

“Someone was going to. Just ’appened t’ be me.”

“But they’ll kill him for what he’s done.”

“And ’ow any people do you fink he’s killed?
Tortured? Maimed?”

“He’s still a man,” said Ruben sharply. “And he’s
not beyond hope. Or redemption.”

Ruben’s words spun in the silence like gold coins.
Then Nell chuckled. “You sweet on ’is lordship, Preacher?”

He tried not to cringe. What he’d felt, shoving the
fragile, straining body of the erstwhile crime prince of Gaslight
against the floor of his cell, had been far from
sweet
. “I
have been tasked with saving his soul.”

“Hypocrisy don’t look good on you.” Nell shrugged.
“You’re not the first, Ruben. I reckon you won’t be the last. He’s
got his ways, ain’t he? Ol’ Black Jack Callaghan would’ve pulled
the stars down one by one if Milord had only asked ’im.”

“Who was—”

“Arch Rogue afore Milord. My bleeding eyes, you’re
as green as a flat after a bubber of All Nations. I ne’er met the
cove, but from the tellin’, Black Jack was a balls-the-wall baddun
through ’n’ through. Though Milord twisted him rahnd his little
finger like he was ribbons for a Mayday maiden.”

Ruben thought of cold eyes and a voice of silk and a
face to make devils weep with longing—and could believe it. “And he
took over when Black Jack was caught?”

“Lord love you, you don’t catch a cove like Black
Jack. They’re still finding bits ’n’ pieces of ’im in the Humber.
Compared wif what Milord did t’ him, what I done’s a kindness.”

“Somehow I don’t get the feeling kindness figures
much in your thinking.”

“’Tis a luxury for ’em as can afford it. And I like
a little luxury in m’life. Silk stockings ’n’ wine that ain’t been
watered ’n’ being able t’ be kind when the occasion warrants. And
there’s plenty’d see that poncy motherswinker dead.”

“He will be dead. In less than a week.”

She laughed, tossing nut-brown braids clear of her
shoulders. “The Spire won’t hold ’im. But it’s a bit of a deterrent
for them as ain’t too committed to snuffing him personal-like.”

“You aren’t worried about him coming after you?”

“’Tis a risk, but I don’t reckon he will. He knows
he can’t be Arch Rogue no more so what’d be the point?”

Ruben lifted a brow. “Personal vengeance?”

“That ain’t his dance. He don’t do what’s personal.
He does what’s necessary.”

“It sounds almost like you admire him.”

“Mebbe. He’s a queer cove, make no mistake, but he
had a clean way abaht him. Ne’er went back on hisself, ne’er backed
down, ne’er left aught t’ chance, paid up ’n’ paid well.”