Chapter Six
Unlike the enormous bullet-shaped dreadnoughts that Sheffield made for the aerocorps, Lady Corsair sported a long, cloud-white balloon over a wooden ship that resembled a brown seal—ridiculous and awkward if stranded on its belly, but sleek and maneuverable in its element. At the sides of the ship, the yardarms that should have been extended like oars in preparation for their journey were still tucked against the hull, the sails furled. The propellers at the tail of the ship twirled slowly in the breeze, and Mina couldn’t detect the quiet rumble that always accompanied an idling engine. Despite the duke’s message, Lady Corsair hadn’t been readied for departure.
Beneath the bloodied bandage that still wrapped his head, Trahaearn’s expression didn’t appear either surprised or angry. He glanced at Mina, who was watching him warily and waiting for an explosion.
“She’s never liked being told what to do,” he said, and before Mina could ask Who? a rope ladder swung past her face. Startled, Mina stepped back, looked up.
Her heart caught in her throat. A woman was sliding down the ladder, too fast, as if she couldn’t find her grip and couldn’t stop herself on one of the rungs. Mina’s fingers clenched, urging the woman to hold on, waiting for the inevitable horrifying drop to the ground.
Then the woman kicked her legs, twisting her body around. Flipping like an acrobat at a Horde pony festival, she rolled twice in the air and landed in a crouch at Trahaearn’s feet.
Mina wasn’t certain whether to applaud or to draw her weapon. No doubt this woman was the airship’s mercenary captain, who went by the same name as her ship: Lady Corsair. She rose from her crouch, a head taller than Mina and armed with a cutlass across her back, pistols at her hips, and daggers tucked into the tops of her long leather boots. She wore a ruby kerchief over her black hair, the silk knotted at her nape, its trailing ends twisting around her braids. Wide cheekbones tapered to a pointed chin. With her cat-green eyes narrowed to slits, she was obviously spitting mad—fury she directed straight at Trahaearn.
“ ‘Be ready for me?’ ” Even tight with anger, her voice was husky, with an accent Mina couldn’t place. Lady Corsair flung her arms wide, and her short aviator’s jacket opened to reveal two more knives tucked into a wide crimson belt. “Look around us, Trahaearn. There are plenty of asslickers here, all of them with airships. You go and find one.”
Unfazed, Trahaearn simply said, “I want Lady Corsair.”
“And so I’m to take you on, just like that?” Her lips curled into a snarl, exposing teeth that seemed too sharp. “Too late, captain. I’m already under contract to sail out tomorrow, half paid up front. I won’t break it.”
“We’ll return by tonight. We only have to cross the Channel to Calais.”
Curiosity flashed through the woman’s expression. Her gaze flicked to his bandages before she sized up Mina and Newberry. “With a cargo of London coppers? That’s not worth my time. Find another ship, Trahaearn.”
She reached for the rope ladder.
“Twenty-five livre,” the duke said.
Mina’s mouth fell open. The equivalent in English pounds would cover all of her family’s expenses for five years: the servants’ wages, food, taxes—with enough leftover to refurnish the town house.
Lady Corsair turned back to Trahaearn, smiling. “Welcome aboard, captain.”
Mina hadn’t realized how cold the open deck of an airship became after it started moving. Shivering, she buckled her overcoat, trying to remain out of the aviators’ way as they ran forward and aft, hauling on the sail lines. Near the ship’s bow, she finally found a seat on a wooden chest that no one seemed to be using, and high enough that she could look over the side. Below, the Medway ran like a sparkling ribbon through the yellow fields. The sun dazzled her eyes, but she looked up and out, amazed by the blueness of the sky. Even the clouds were a surprise, a faint wisp across the heavens and so incredibly white. She’d never seen anything so white, not even bone.
A vibration started up her legs, beneath her bottom. Glancing back, she saw the propellers begin to pick up momentum, felt the thrust of the engines as the airship gained speed. Lady Corsair stood on the quarterdeck, strapping on her goggles. Mina faced forward again. The icy wind whipped tears from her eyes, its roar almost deafening. She hunkered down in her overcoat, pushing up her collar—but she wouldn’t be able to stay up here long. She’d have to join Newberry in the forecastle below, and be content with the view from the portholes.
A pair of aviator’s goggles suddenly dangled in front of her face. Mina glanced up. Trahaearn stood beside her, carrying a second pair of goggles and a brown woolen scarf. Gratefully, Mina took both, buckling on the goggles and covering her ears with the scarf.
The wooden chest she’d chosen unfortunately proved wide enough for two—though barely. When Trahaearn sat, his hard thigh pressed against hers. He’d removed the bandages and washed away the blood, leaving his dark hair wet and slicked behind his ears, those small gold rings on full display.
They drew her gaze like a magnet almost as strong as the sky. She wished he’d cover them.
Her stomach tightened as he leaned in to speak, his mouth only an inch from her cheek. Though the only alternative was shouting against the wind, a raw throat and ringing ears seemed preferable to his disquieting proximity.
“Baxter sent Haynes to the Gold Coast as a messenger boy.”
Mina pulled back, frowning. “Why?”
He gestured her close again. “Keep still. I’ll tell you all that he said to me.”
His breath heated the air between them, and she wanted to pull away again, but it would be over more quickly if he relayed the admiral’s reasons all at once. She nodded.
“Six months ago, Baxter was asked to meet with a friend—he didn’t give me a name—in Port Fallow. You know of the city?”
Only by reputation. The notorious walled city had been built on Amsterdam’s remains, and provided a safe haven for anyone on the run—including many criminals and pirates. Whoever he’d met with probably had a reason not to come to England, and Baxter probably hadn’t sailed into the port under an admiral’s flag.
She tilted her head so that their cheeks were almost aligned, the better for him to hear her. “So you were not the only unsavory type he’d befriended.”
His startled laugh reverberated against her skin. “No. No, I wasn’t.”
She heard the grief that suddenly deepened the last word, as if his amusement had been a crack that let other emotions spill through. Jaw tightening, Trahaearn turned his head. Cold air rushed between them.
Only a moment later, he angled his head to hers again and continued, “He told Baxter that he’d received an invitation from Jean-Pierre Colbert to attend an auction on the Gold Coast. And the only reason for an exclusive auction in the Ivory Market is so that word doesn’t reach the wrong ears.”
Like the ears of a Royal Navy admiral, Mina guessed. And the Frenchman’s name sounded familiar. “Colbert?”
“Brimstone Island,” he said.
That Colbert? Mina shook her head in disbelief. Situated in the Antilles, Brimstone Island had another, official name, but after the French and Liberé war, during which a military camp on the island had been used to hold prisoners of war, the island was only known by the name given to it by the thousands of prisoners who’d suffered there. Colbert, a pipelayer, the camp’s commandant—and an illegitimate relation of the French monarch—had hired mercenaries to oversee the prisoners. The mercenaries had taken the money for food and medicine, and left the men nothing to live on. The accounts of starvation and sickness from the surviving prisoners had been beyond horrifying.
“I thought Colbert had been hanged?”
“No. He was quietly pardoned and shipped over to the Ivory Market. Now, he runs an auction house—and when truly rare items come into his possession, he makes certain that his family knows of them, and holds exclusive auctions like these . . . usually with invitations issued to parties who won’t have the funds to outbid the French Crown.”
Fixing the auctions in favor of his family—probably to regain their favor. “Did the invitation indicate what kind of item was up for auction, then?”
“A weapon. One-time use, powerful, but no other details were given. No one would lay out that much money on an untested weapon, though—so Colbert scheduled a demonstration, during which the interested buyers would settle on a date for the auction.”
A demonstration of a weapon that could be used once? Mina frowned, but as if anticipating her question, Trahaearn shook his head. “Baxter didn’t know what they’d planned to use for the demonstration. But his friend intended to view it—and was to pass along a description of the weapon to Haynes, along with the date the auction would take place.”
“So the Terror was supposed to have sailed to the Gold Coast and collected this message?”
“Yes.”
“And while there, join the Gold Coast fleet.”
“Yes. The fleet is scheduled to return to England shortly, and would have escorted the Terror home.”
“So either Haynes didn’t locate the fleet, or Dame Sawtooth took the ship before the Terror reached the Gold Coast.” Another thought struck her. “Or after Haynes received the message, he couldn’t wait for the fleet, and tried to return alone. When was the demonstration supposed to be?”
“Six days ago. But if he received information that demanded immediate response, he’d have gone to the fleet commander.”
Immediate response . . . such as if the weapon posed an imminent threat to England. “Has there been word from the fleet?”
“No. But Baxter doesn’t expect any for another week.”
Something tightened in Mina’s chest. Baxter didn’t expect any. Trahaearn seemed to notice his slip, too. He fell silent.
Mina sat back, looked out over the airship’s bow. A hundred questions took their places at the tip of her tongue, like lemmings preparing to leap. But the Iron Duke was at the forefront of them, not a captain dead by unknown means, not a ship lost, not the woman who had taken it.
She chose another instead. Turning back, she glanced at his face and wished she hadn’t. Some men looked ridiculous in goggles. Some were dashing. With his gold hoops and a half-day’s growth of stubble darkening his lean jaw, the Iron Duke simply looked the rogue.
And he watched her, even now. The train, the steamcoach, and the bow of an airship. She couldn’t escape him.
With a sigh, she gestured him closer and leaned in to speak. He dipped his head, his cheek brushing hers. Deliberately, she was certain. Her fingers curled against her thighs and she tilted her face away from him, looking directly at the top of his ear—and was struck by a sudden and powerful need to lick him there, to feel the gold rings against her lips, to learn whether the wind chilled the metal or if his body heated them. To bite him, gently. To draw in the scent of his warmth and to bury her fingers in his hair while she flicked her tongue over the hoops.
Insanity.
Appalled by the strange compulsion, Mina shook herself. What had she meant to ask him?
A moment later, she remembered. “I saw something that looked exactly like the freezing device in the Blacksmith’s office this morning. Surely he doesn’t make them?”
Mina could imagine the Blacksmith capable of many things, but not that—and not because devices that emitted radio signals had been outlawed in England. She simply couldn’t believe that any man would build and sell a device that might be used to control him.
“He doesn’t,” Trahaearn confirmed. “That device came from one of my men, Mad Machen, who took it from a slaver ship near Anglesey. He sent it to London, hoping that the Blacksmith might recognize where it came from.”
“It’s obviously a Horde device,” she said.
“Yes, but these men aren’t part of the Horde. On the slaver ship, the man carrying the device called himself a member of the Black Guard.”
Mina drew back to frown at him. The Black Guard? Those rumors fell into the same category as the stories of a kraken off the Welsh coast, the fears that a bugger magistrate could be mind-controlled, or a New Worlder’s certainty that every infected person became a zombie after death. Fueled by paranoia, the whispers about the Black Guard had begun in the slums, and flourished whenever someone disappeared unexpectedly. But Mina had seen too many unidentified corpses collected off the streets to put any stock in tales of buggers who were frozen in their beds at night and taken away by the Black Guard.
Frozen in their beds. Oh, blue heavens.
Trahaearn must have seen the realization on her face. Nodding, he tugged her forward again. “Mad Machen has run into fourteen Black Guard members on these slaver ships. They always kill themselves rather than be captured—or he has to kill them—and so we still don’t know what they want.”
“Or why they would murder your friend.”
“Yes. That wasn’t like anything we’ve seen them do before. They run, they hide, and they abduct their slaves under cover of night—not assassinate a man in broad daylight.”
“That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened before. The murderer just wasn’t caught—or cornered against a garden wall.”
“The rutting coward.” His voice hardened. “There’s no use in the world for men who can’t face the consequences of what they’ve done.”
Mina almost snorted. That, from a pirate turned duke? But since she agreed with him, and because that coward had just murdered his friend, she let it pass without comment.
“What of Dame Sawtooth?” Mina wondered. “Would she be part of the Black Guard?”
He suddenly grinned, shaking his head. “The Dame has never done anything quietly—and she’d never join any organization that expected her to kill herself rather than make a scene.”
“You know her well?”
“From the day I took the Terror from Adams until the year after I blew the tower, there wasn’t a moment when the Dame wasn’t trying to kill me. After almost a decade of keeping an eye out for her, I know her well enough.”
A full decade dedicated to chasing after him? Even the Horde hadn’t expended that much effort to catch him, and Mina could only imagine one reason to pursue a man for that long: revenge. “Why does she hate you so much?”
“She was Adams’s woman.”
And Trahaearn had said he’d left Adams bleeding in dung. “Did she witness the mutiny?”
“No. She was on the stage in Port-au-Prince.”
“An actress?”
He nodded. “After she heard what happened, she purchased Bontemps and came after me.”
“Just to kill you? Then why take the Terror now? Why not drop a firebomb on your house instead of a man?”
“It’s always been about the Terror. If she killed me, if she returned the ship to Manhattan City, she thought Adams’s reputation would be restored.”
But his reputation hadn’t been destroyed because he’d lost the ship; it had been destroyed because a quarter of his crew had starved, been hanged, or whipped to death.
He must have read Mina’s disbelief. “I deserted the lieutenants and the crew who didn’t want to join with me. When they were returned to Manhattan City for the court-martial, half of them spoke the truth about what had happened under Adams—and the Dame believed the others. She still wants to clear his name.”
Mina shook her head. “So to restore his reputation, she took to piracy, and became a thief and murderer?”
“To finance her pursuit. She had to pay her crew.”
Unbelievable. “And you never killed her?”
“Why would I? She surprised me now and again, but never had me on the straights.”
After destroying the tower, however, he hadn’t been continually on the move. He’d begun building his house on the Isle of Dogs. The Dame could have easily killed him then—Oh.
“You gave up the Terror, and you cut her off at the knees,” Mina said quietly. “But that meant you wouldn’t have to kill her.”
Trahaearn tensed beside her, and she realized he hadn’t expected her to make that leap. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted her to make that leap.
Had he felt sorry for the woman? Mina couldn’t. “And if she is the one who murdered Haynes?”
Iron determination hardened his response. “Then she’ll pay for it.”
Mina sighed. She didn’t suppose he intended for the Dame to pay with an arrest and trial. So when the time came, Mina would have to go around him . . . or end up arresting the Iron Duke for murder, instead.
But since she didn’t want to spend the rest of this flight contemplating the destruction of her career, she asked, “What has the Dame been doing since?”
“She took up with Jasper Evans—”
“The steelcoat inventor?” And the bounder who’d been cheated out of a fortune fifteen years earlier, when Cornelius Morgan stole his patent to build the armored suits. When the navy didn’t support Evans’s claim—Morgan’s bid came in at half the price—he’d gone mad. “I’d heard he was dead. That he drowned himself in one of the suits, jumping off a ship taking him out of Manhattan City.”
“No better way to stop the navy from searching for you.”
“So he’s not insane?”
“He is.” Trahaearn’s grin flashed. “And angry enough that he holed himself up in Calais, so that no one could steal his work again. The Dame’s there with him now, though—has been for the past eight years.”
Probably stewing in her resentment and hate. “If he’s holed up, how do you know this?”
“They sail to Port Fallow regularly for supplies and to spend a few nights at the taverns. They both drink too much, and talk even more.”
Mina laughed softly, shaking her head.
A bell rang behind them, a sharp chime audible over the engines and the rushing wind. Trahaearn looked round and stood. “Yasmeen has something for us.”
Lady Corsair’s name was Yasmeen? That narrowed her accent, then. Either she’d escaped from the territories that the Horde still occupied in the Orient, or she’d grown up in one of the Arab tribes who’d settled along the southern coast of the South American continent.
They joined her on the quarterdeck, where she stood behind a thick, curved sheet of glass that formed a windbreak around the helm. Cigarillo in hand, she’d pushed her goggles up, and exhaled a mouthful of tobacco smoke past the windbreak.
The aviator captain had expensive tastes—but if she earned twenty-five livre in one day, Mina supposed the woman could afford them.
“The wind is in our favor, captain. I’ll have you to the Dame’s fort in less than an hour.” Though it was quieter behind the glass, Lady Corsair still had to raise her voice over the engines. “Where’s the windup boy? Scarsdale won’t thank you for having to miss a reunion with the Dame—and I’m sorry that I won’t see you knock him unconscious again in order to get him up here.”
Mina couldn’t read the expression that passed over the duke’s face. Part concern, part irritation.
“He was still abed,” he said.
“Hungover?” Yasmeen gave her head a little shake before looking Mina over. “You’re keeping strange company in his place, captain. I’m not sure what’s worse—that you’ve taken up with the Horde, or that you’ve taken up with a London copper.”
Mina’s jaw clenched.
“Yasmeen.” Trahaearn’s voice held a warning.
The woman grinned, her green eyes keen and suddenly full of humor. “I don’t hold it against you,” she told Mina. “I am only surprised that Trahaearn doesn’t. I remember a time when his only purpose was to destroy the Horde, along with every New World government and institution therein—including the police forces. And look at him now: a duke who conducts most of his business legally and pays taxes to the Crown. God’s truth, it’s heartbreaking. Smoke?”
After the barrage aimed at Trahaearn, the offer Yasmeen tacked on took a moment to sink in. Curious, Mina nodded. Yasmeen withdrew a silver case and a small spark lighter from her belt, and passed her cigarillo to Mina to hold while she lighted it. They traded, and Mina observed how the other woman drew another mouthful before putting the cigarillo to her lips.
“The Lusitanians make a fortune on this stuff,” Yasmeen said, then glanced at Trahaearn. “You have, too?”
“Shipping it, yes.”
His gaze had settled on Mina’s mouth as she sucked in a long breath. Yasmeen burst into a deep and throaty laugh, accompanied by a shake of her head.
“I should have warned you—inspector, is it? Shallow inhalations. You’ll feel that one.”
Mina already was feeling it—dizzy, light-headed.
“And you’ll want more,” Trahaearn added, not as amused as Yasmeen, but smiling.
Mina wasn’t sure if she would. The taste wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t good, either. It most certainly wasn’t worth the price. “Why will I?”
He shrugged. “Ask Yasmeen to make this her last, and to never smoke another again. She won’t be able to. Perhaps she’d last until tomorrow, but no longer.”
“I could,” Yasmeen said. “I don’t want to.”
Mina glanced at the cigarillo between her fingers and thought of the opium pipelayers in their dens. She looked to Trahaearn. “How do you know?”
“When I realized how much I needed it, I meant to quit them. But I only managed to stop after I ran out when I was still six weeks from any port.”
“You stopped because you needed it?” Yasmeen shook her head, laughing. “Did you stop eating, too?”
That decided her. Mina liked to eat—but if her tastes began to run toward these cigarillos, she wouldn’t be able to afford any food afterward. Carefully pinching out the burning end, she gave the remainder back to Yasmeen. “Thank you.”
The other woman tucked it into her case. “Such manners. And you don’t speak like a crèche baby.”
“No, I don’t.”
Yasmeen narrowed her eyes, then looked around when a bell chimed. One of the crew pointed out over the bow, to a faint blue line across the horizon. Mina’s heart leapt. She gripped the side of the windbreak, peering through the thick glass. That had to be the Channel—her very first glimpse of the sea.
Turning back to them, Yasmeen said, “We’re almost to Dover, then. Are you heading into Evans’s fort, just the two of you?”
“And the constable,” Trahaearn said.
“That red giant?” The other woman pursed her lips. “Yes, yes, that will make all the difference, I’m sure. I want payment upfront, captain.”
With a laugh, the duke shook his head.
Mina frowned at him before looking to Yasmeen. “Why don’t you think we’ll return? The Dame is hoping for a ransom. Won’t she wait to see whether it will be paid?”
“She’ll honor a ransom payment, but getting Trahaearn out again is another matter.” Her gaze ran over Mina from head to toe. “You obviously can’t pay me, and your employer won’t.”
No, Mina couldn’t pay her—or a ransom. She asked Trahaearn, “What if the boys are there? Will you pay for their release?”
Yasmeen snorted. “And play the hero again? If you do, this reward won’t compare to the last you received. Dukedoms only come with towers.”
Trahaearn’s mouth tightened, and that awful detached expression came over his features. “No.”
Mina stared at him. “No?”
“They aren’t in danger. Their families will pay, and the Dame won’t risk harming them before they return home.”
“Yes, but if she’s the one who killed Haynes, then I’m going there to arrest her. If those boys aren’t at the fort, how will we find them? But if we pay the ransom first and verify their location, then bringing Haynes’s murderer to justice won’t come at the expense of the boys’ lives.”
Aghast, Yasmeen gaped at her before looking to the duke. “It’s worse than I thought. Not just the Horde, not just the police—you’re keeping company with someone who has principles.”
“Unfortunately,” Trahaearn said.
Very well, then. Mina could think of several other reasons not to leave the boys to rot. “If the Dame lies about the Terror’s location, those boys can probably tell you who has it now and where it was headed. At the very least, they can tell you where it was taken. If their lives aren’t worth the money, surely the information they have is?”
He frowned at her, and Mina supposed she ought to have quivered or cowered. She turned to the airship captain, instead.
“What can we expect at the fort, Captain Corsair?”
“Zombies, the Dame’s crew walking about in Evans’s steelcoats, and whatever mad inventions he’s spent the past fifteen years creating. Then there’s the Dame herself. Sawtooth isn’t just a name, but a role she’s determined to play to the very, very end.” Yasmeen waved her cigarillo in a dramatic flourish before glancing over at Trahaearn. “I truly think you should pay me upfront.”