There Will Be Phlogiston (7 page)

And then Lady Mildred would have all his kisses.

They made an aimless circuit of the sideshows. In
one tent was a flock of flying monkeys, who chittered and shrieked,
and swooped about, occasionally snatching up a gentleman’s hat or
tangling their claws in a lady’s hair. In another, stood a
clockwork elephant, fashioned of leather and brass, who swayed his
trunk and flapped his ears when his key was wound. His eyes were
slowly turning cogs, from which the lubricating oil dripped like
tears.

In a third—“Beware, gentle ladies, children, and
those of a nervous disposition”—secured by heavy chains, a maddened
thing. A writhing mass of flesh and metalwork, with eagle claws,
and cloven feet, and three heads—goat, snake and lion—that would
sometimes turn and savage each other. Its horns had been sanded
down, the snake de-fanged, and the lion’s teeth carefully blunted,
but its misshapen body was a ruin of scars, suppurating wounds, and
flaking rust.

Rosamond was about to throw pride to the wind, and
beg the marquess to take her home when a warbly fanfare sounded,
and she found herself being hustled into the big top by rather
rough-looking gentlemen. The rest of the party were already inside,
and she had no choice but to manoeuvre her skirts between the
tiered wooden benches and squash up next to Lady Mildred.

She wished the marquess would say something to
her.

And she was not quite so reduced in circumstances
that she was ready to contemplate engaging Mildred in
conversation.

It was a fairly large space, but over-warm from all
the bodies in close proximity to each other, and being under canvas
made her feel slightly stifled. It gave the light a reddish tinge.
She watched it saturate her gloves like a stain.

At last came another fanfare, a drumroll, and a man
stepped into the centre of the ring. He looked, Rosamond thought,
like a jolly sort of uncle, with a curling, auburn moustache and
bright blue-green eyes that seemed to be twinkling at her all the
way across the tent. He had a tall hat and tall boots, both very
shiny, and a scarlet coat trimmed in gold.

He lifted his hands in welcome. “Ladies, gentlemen,
and children of all ages, I am the Brass Alchemist and this is my
Clockwork Circus.” His smile flashed, as white as a crescent moon.
“In this very ring, you will witness wonders such as the world has
never seen nor dreamed possible. Miracles of biometallurgy, marvels
of neuropneumatics, phantoms and chimeras, the stuff of nightmare
and legend brought to material and articulated life before your
very eyes. Ladies, gentlemen, children, I give you Icarus, the
Winged Man.”

As one they looked towards the roof, and there,
standing on a narrow platform, was the slender shadow of a man. He
spread his arms, and leapt, his body drawn tight as an arrow.

Rosamond nearly choked on her own breath.

She heard someone else scream.

With a crack and grind of metal, brass wings
unfolded from the man’s back, pulling him from his plummet a bare
moment before he hit the ground. He hovered above the crowd, a
man-made angel, gold, silver, and skin.

He was so beautiful that Rosamond nearly forgot her
disquiet.

But as he swept into a spin, she saw beneath his
wings the ruin of his back, the deep scars and mutilated
muscle.

His blood and sweat soaked the sand as he flew.

And the applause was rapturous.

Other acts followed: The strong man Samson, who bent
metal bars and lifted audience members with arms reinforced by
hydraulic pistons. Leda and her Swans, dancers who had the shapes
of women beneath their grafted feathers. And Medusa, the snake
charmer, whose hair was a tangle of hissing serpents. Clockwork
clowns, a centaur, a minotaur, a lamia, four part-mechanical horses
the Brass Alchemist called the Mares of Diomedes, who circled the
ring at a gallop, steam jetting from their noses, oil shining on
their flanks. Their trainer harnessed them together, made them rear
on command, and extend their forelegs as though they bowed to
him.

Rosamond wished she had not come. There were no
marvels here, only prisoners.

When finally it was over and the money collected,
and they were permitted to file out of the big top, she thought she
had never been so glad for cold air and rain.

“How did you enjoy the circus?” asked the marquess.
It was a perfectly innocent question, she knew that, and his manner
was perfectly conciliatory. But his eyes were so cold, his mouth so
thin.

She mustered a flimsy excuse for a smile. “It was
charming, but I . . . I think I should like to go home.”

“Whatever you wish, my love.”

She let go of his arm and picked up her skirts, just
wanting to get away. Away from him, and the way he looked at her,
away from Lady Mildred and Anstruther Jones (who would soon be
kissing), and away from the Clockwork Circus, and all its trapped
and broken things.

It was unladylike to move at the pace she was
moving, but fuck that, fuck everything. She skirted the edge of the
big top, scrambling over the ropes, heading for the marquess’s
carriage as quickly and directly as she could.

And that was when she heard the scream.

Not a human sound—it was beast and metal—but she
recognised pain, she recognised fury. She rounded a corner, running
now, in time to see the horse trainer struggling with one of his
steeds. The black, the grey, and the chestnut had already been
secured in their boxes, but the gold was fighting every step of the
way, teeth bared and eyes rolling, the struts and rivets standing
out on her straining neck.

She reared up, and the trainer jumped aside,
snarling curses Rosamond was rather glad she could not decipher. He
was holding something that looked a little like a riding crop,
except it was considerably thicker and made of metal but for the
handle. As he lifted it, she saw it glow red. Then he brought it
crashing down.

The horse screamed again, and bucked frantically,
deep black scorch marks streaking her flanks.

“Stop!” Rosamond hardly recognised her own voice.
She had never in her life spoken so immoderately, so heedlessly.
“You’re hurting her!”

But the trainer’s attention slid past her as though
she were nothing. “Get out of here.”

Perhaps she ought to have taken the warning, but her
ears were still ringing with the sound of pain, and all she wanted
to do was make it stop.

Take a little hurt from the world. Do something that
mattered.

She rushed forward, and made a grab for the
trainer’s arm, but he was taller, stronger, unhindered by skirts,
and dodged her easily. It reminded her of the way her elder brother
used to taunt her, holding her things out of reach because it
apparently made him laugh to remind her that she was powerless.

So she did now as she had done then.

She stamped on the man’s foot, as hard as she could.
He howled, staggering, and she slipped past, putting herself bodily
between him and the horse.

A foolish plan, she would later chide herself, to
say nothing of physically dangerous.

Rosamond could hear the animal’s anxious weaving,
her hooves thudding on the wet grass, and her heavy, panicky
breaths, the click and grind of metal parts. But she didn’t bite or
kick or lash out, and when Rosamond reached up to touch her neck,
she seemed to calm.

She was hot to touch. A faint thrum running through
skin and steel alike. Her eyes were the colour of mercury, pricked
here and there by red and black, and the spittle that flecked her
mouth, like the sweat that streaked her body, was mottled
black.

She was monstrous. Unlovely.

And Rosamond felt strangely protective of her.

“Out of my way, you daft scab.” The trainer came
towards her, step by swaggering step, in no hurry, because
bullies—secure in violence, ignorance, and hate—never were.

It was hard not to shrink from him on instinct
alone, a purely animal response to a perceived threat, but Rosamond
would be damned before she showed anyone fear. She did not think he
would dare to strike her, not in public at least. And she knew some
other places men were vulnerable to a well-placed boot. “Stay where
you are.” Bold words, but her voice wavered. “I will not let you
hurt this creature. I . . . I am the daughter of Lord Wolfram of
Gaslight, fiancée to the Marquess of Pembroke.”

The trainer just grinned, showing teeth both black
and gold.

And that was when she realised just how alone she
was.

She put up a hand as if she could ward him off by
pure social superiority. “Sir, I warn—”

His hand closed around her wrist. A cruel tug sent
her sprawling into the mud in a flurry of silk and petticoats.

And that was it.

That was all the threat he thought she posed.

It made her furious. Rudeness, anger, even
manhandling she could—to a degree—tolerate. But underestimating
her? Never!

She kicked out, hooked her foot round his ankle and
brought him crashing down. He spat out grass and curses, which
was—she had to admit—a little bit entertaining. But he was on his
feet before she could untangle her hoop, and when he was standing
over her, wielding a rod of still-smouldering metal, her moment of
triumph seemed as flimsy as it had been fleeting.

Also the squishy bits between his legs were out of
rage.

She pulled back her foot, just in case, but then he
kicked her—he actually
kicked
her—hard in the ribs. Thank
heavens for steel boning, but it still hurt.

It hurt in a humiliating way. A sharp, red pain that
left her breathless and aching and small.

“Not so uppity now, you little—”

She told herself she could not have warned him even
had she wanted to as a hoof slammed into the back of his head. He
toppled face-first into her lap. Lay very still indeed.

The horse came slowly forward, lowered her head, and
nosed curiously at her trainer. Then she ripped his arm off.

Rosamond waited a moment to see if she was the sort
of woman to swoon at the sight of blood—for there was quite a lot
of it, as well as other more generic gore—but, apparently, she was
not.

The horse blinked down at her with its liquid,
long-lashed eyes. Strips of flesh were hanging from between the
creature’s teeth.

“Gracious,” said Rosamond. Her gown was quite
ruined.

A new shadow fell across her, oddly cold, its edges
as rough as a charcoal sketch. The horse stilled, every joint and
muscle tight, like a mouth stretched in a scream. Some deeper chill
went through her. She twisted, and there was the ringmaster. He
smiled his wide, white smile.

“My dear young lady,” he said, “you seem to be in a
bit of a pickle.”

Rosamond stuck out her chin because that was what
they did in the novels. “This gentleman, who I believe to be in
your employ, was . . . was mistreating . . . your . . . your . .
.”

“My creation,” he finished for her. “Everything here
is mine.”

“Well, I don’t think they should be hurt.”

“Pain is nothing more than the by-product of
art.”

Rosamond was starting think the Brass Alchemist was
not quite sensible. She nodded at the armless, partially
decapitated corpse still lying in her lap. “I believe this man may
need a doctor.”

“I will see to him. My talents far exceed mere
medicine.”

“How lovely for you. You know, I think I should be
going. My betrothed—he is the Marquess of Pembroke—and all his
friends, for we came as a large party, will be wondering what has
happened to me.”

She pushed at the body, but it had a clammy solidity
that at once faintly nauseated her and made it difficult to
move.

She supposed this what they meant by
deadweight
.

And the ringmaster was still smiling at her. “Rare
are the opportunities to practice at the limit of my art. My dear,
I owe you my gratitude.”

“Oh no!” Rosamond attempted a light laugh that came
out like a cat being squeezed. “You don’t owe me a thing. In fact,
if you were just to help me up . . .”

“You are a very interesting young lady.” He lowered
himself onto his haunches. Up close, his coat and his eyes made her
dizzy. “In my hands, all flesh is mercury, all matter mutable, all
dreams possible. Tell me—” his smile surrounded her, unwavering
“—what is it you dream of?”

She could have told him. It would have been so easy
just then to empty everything into the blue-green nowhere of his
eyes. But Rosamond had been hoarding her dreams her whole life.
“The same as everyone else, I expect.” She fluttered her lashes. “A
kind husband, children, a home of my own.”

His mouth was suddenly full of sharp teeth. “If
you’re not careful, you’ll get them.”

Rosamond flinched away from him, wondering if now
would be a good time to start screaming. Given she had already been
in a fight, and there was a man—albeit a deceased one—on top of
her, the case for abandoning propriety seemed to be a strong
one.

She drew in a deep breath. If she was going to yell
like a fishmonger at market, she was going to do a good job of
it.

“Hel—”

At which point, her entire party came round the side
of the big top.

She experienced a moment of profound and
excruciatingly disconnection: seeing herself through their
eyes—through the marquess’s eyes—on the ground, covered in blood,
skirts everywhere, mouth hanging open as though to admit passing
traffic.

She hastily closed it.

“Rosamond?” Anstruther Jones broke from between Lady
Mildred and the marquess. “Bloody hell, what’s happened?”

She was not pleased to see him. She was not pleased
to see him. She was not pleased to see him.

Or, even if she was, it was purely circumstantial.
She should have been equally happy to see anyone who wasn’t staring
at her as if she were a rat at a dinner party. “Lady Rosamond to
you, sir.”