9
Wren’s Voice
—1892, August 7: 3-Hour 51—
The obstacle in most cases is time. But imagine circumstances in which time was not an obstacle. Imagine watching the progress of a snail along a garden path. Watching the snail wind its slow way toward the cabbage leaf, you are in no doubt as to the future—it is obvious. Just as the snail’s fate is obvious when you see the gardener approaching with a bucket of salt. How is it not the same with us? Could it not be that astonishing prognostications of the future are, more correctly, quite un-astonishing observations of the present made with wisdom and ample time?
—From Sophia Tims’s Reflections on a Journey to the Eerie Sea
MAXINE BUNDLED THE travelers into a six-person coach in the early hours before dawn. Already wearing their disguises, they would board the earliest train to Salt Lick, which left New Orleans Station at four-hour, twelve.
She murmured quick words of encouragement and embraced each of them as they stepped up into the coach. “You look very convincing, my dear,” she said to Sophia.
“It’s dark out,” Sophia replied with a wry smile.
“You sound convincing,” Maxine countered. The tiny bells on Sophia’s cape tinkled quietly as she wedged herself in between Goldenrod and Errol. Calixta, Wren, and Burr sat across from them. “Be safe,” the fortune-teller quietly said, and shut the open door. Calixta knocked on the roof. The horses stepped forward and the coach began rolling over the cobblestones.
The coach was pitch dark, but Sophia had seen her fellow travelers in the light and warmth of Maxine’s kitchen. To her surprise, they did make convincing raiders. The ragged clothes lined with brass bells changed everyone’s appearance. Goldenrod’s mask was a bundle of silver chains covering the upper half of her face. Only her eyes were visible. On her hands were leather gloves dotted with tiny steel studs. Her hair was beaded with bright bells no larger than a fingernail. Errol, curious despite himself, had fitted one of the sets of metal teeth into his mouth and laughed at his own reflection. “Asr wrong ash I jont haf to chalk,” he managed.
“I’ll do the talking,” Calixta assured him. She wore a costume similar to Goldenrod’s, but upon her head was a crown with tall, sharp points that seemed half ornament, half weapon. Her heavy necklace was made of long, cylindrical bells that chimed with her every movement. The footwear, which she had modified herself—finding none of Maxine’s footwear suitable—was high leather boots with steel caps. “Do I win your bet?” she had asked Burr, delighted.
He and Wren had dressed almost identically, with threadbare capes over heavy, studded vests. Their trousers had rows of bells along the outer seams. Sophia held her cape, also lined with tiny bells, folded in her lap. She had kept her own clothes—they seemed threadbare enough—and opted only for gloves, a cape, and a sturdy pair of boots trimmed with steel studs. She wore a simpler version of Goldenrod’s mask: three silver chains draped delicately across her face, meeting at a single silver bead on her forehead. She found the thin chains strangely reassuring against her skin; insubstantial as they were, they made her feel protected. That’s probably why raiders wear so much metal, she reflected, looking out through the open coach window at the dark streets of New Orleans.
The train station lay a short distance from Maxine’s house. They had ridden in silence for some few minutes when the coach ground to a halt. “This isn’t the station,” Calixta muttered. “Driver?” she called through the open window. There was no response. Calixta was reaching for the door handle when a stranger’s voice cut through the darkness.
“Richard Wren. This is Bruce Davies, agent number six-one-one. Exit the coach alone. I have orders to return you to Sydney immediately.”
The travelers in the coach froze.
Calixta leaned toward the open window. “There is no Richard Wren here. We are raiders from Copper Hill headed north to Salt Lick. You have been misinformed.”
“We are rarely misinformed, Captain Morris,” came the dry reply. “I not only know the occupants of the coach, I know all of your movements for the past twenty hours. We did not approach you at the home of Maxine Bisset for reasons of our own, but we could easily be having this conversation there.” He cleared his throat. “Agent Wren?”
After several seconds, Wren leaned forward toward the open window.
“Agent Davies, I will exit the coach and accompany you to Sydney on one condition.”
There was a pause. “You are not in a negotiating position, Wren. I have four other agents with me.”
Wren hesitated. “Blast his four agents,” Calixta whispered fiercely. “You can’t go with him. We’ll get rid of them and go on to the train.”
“I must,” Wren said. “You don’t understand. We would almost certainly all be killed.” He leaned toward the window. “Agent Davies, this could be a costly engagement for you if my companions and I resist. I will go with you quietly if you promise that my friends will be allowed to continue undisturbed. The League will leave them alone. Always.”
“Look, agent,” came the reply, “you know the process as well as any of us.” There was a pause. “The best I can offer is that we won’t take them in now. But I can’t make any promises for the long term.”
There was another pause. In the sudden quiet, Burr leaned forward and addressed his sister. “Do you remember when we tried to capture Felix to take him back to Havana? What a day that was,” he ended wistfully.
Calixta chuckled, apparently not finding this unexpected recollection out of place. “How could I forget? It’s the way we met Peaches.”
“It was a well-played hand.”
“It was indeed. A little underhanded, but well-played.”
“Do you mind?” Wren snapped. “I’m trying to decide what to do.”
“Wren?” the voice from the street prompted.
Wren shifted to the front of his seat. “Very well,” he said heavily.
Before he could move, Burr, who was closest to the door, flung it open and jumped from the coach in a single bound. He slammed the coach door behind him. “Ride on,” he shouted to the driver, and the coach jolted abruptly into motion.
Wren stared, aghast. “Wait!” he cried, rising from his seat.
Calixta covered his mouth with her gloved hand and pushed him back. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
He made a muffled complaint from behind the glove and began trying to throw Calixta off.
Perched on Errol’s shoulder, Seneca fluttered his wings in agitation.
“What good will it do now, Richard?” Calixta argued, pushing him roughly.
“I can’t let him—” Wren leaped for the door.
Seneca burst into movement, flapping anxiously, his wide wings brushing the ceiling of the coach. In a rapid movement that Sophia did not entirely catch, Calixta took out her pistol and knocked Wren firmly on the head. Seneca screeched and jumped onto Goldenrod’s shoulder.
Wren slumped backward. Sophia gasped.
“What have you done?” Errol asked Calixta. Struggling against the coach’s rapid movement, he switched seats and tried to pull Wren upright.
“Oh, I was only saving him from a certain death,” Calixta said calmly.
“By knocking him unconscious?”
“Yes. Precisely.”
“And what if you are sending Burr to certain death instead?” Errol, who was not quite as tall as Wren, finally succeeded in righting the Australian, who now lolled against his shoulder.
Goldenrod held Seneca on her forearm and whispered to him earnestly, soothing the falcon in a strange language.
“Burr knows what he’s doing,” Calixta replied complacently.
There was a silence.
Sophia could not see them, but she could sense Goldenrod and Errol sending their thoughts across to one another, wondering what to do.
“Are you sure this is wise, Calixta?” Goldenrod finally asked. “We know little of the League and its ways. Perhaps we should return.”
“And take Sophia back into danger?” Calixta asked archly.
“Yes,” Sophia said, finally finding her voice. She had been too shocked until now to speak. “We should go back and help Burr.”
“No,” Errol and Goldenrod said at the same time.
Sophia could almost hear Calixta smiling. “Trust me,” the pirate said. “Burr has this well in hand. But I will need help carrying Wren to the train.”
Errol did not reply.
“Burr’s stratagem will be all for naught if we leave him in the coach,” Calixta pointed out.
“Very well,” the archer agreed reluctantly. “Though I cannot pretend to like this.”
“It would not have been my first choice, either,” Calixta admitted as they slowed to a stop. “But we could not hand Wren over, and this is the best possible course.” The lights of the station illuminated the coach. Calixta smiled brightly, as if she had not just seen her brother disappear into the night with hostile strangers wielding unknown powers. “We have just enough time to board the train. Come along!”