Heaven's Bones (31 page)

But he only brought out a parcel, wrapped in paper and tied with string, and placed it on the tea table beside him that was currently serving to hold an assortment of pencils.

“Seed-money,” he said. “Pray do Doctor Robarts the favor of using it to obtain and secure what facilities you need for your research. When you are ready, send word to Bryani House and more will be forthcoming.”

Trueblood rose and Henry, bewildered, stumbled to his feet a moment later. With a pleasant “good evening,” the messenger bowed himself out, leaving Henry with a swirl of emotions—joy, relief, and persistent doubt—that left him speechless.

Almost absently he scooped up the parcel, hefting it in his hand and looking out the window where he could see a few swallows swoop and forage for the insects that emerged with the cool air of dusk.

Secure what facilities you need
.

Could it be true? Would he be allowed to continue his work?

Distracted, he thumbed open the string and unwrapped the package. It had been secured in a paper that looked like it had been manufactured abroad, thick and faintly patterned, and giving off a slight spicy odor.

He couldn't help a gasp when the paper fell away. In his hand was a brick-sized packet of hundred-pound notes—more than he'd ever earned in a year, more than his father had earned, or his professors, or his so-disapproving uncles.

He sat back down in astonishment, money in hand, watching
outside as the swallows darted to and fro and later, when it was dark, the bats.

Bryani House, the Mists

Trueblood had a half-dozen books spread out on the Library table. He was bent over one manuscript that seemed to consist mostly of illustrations which looked like complicated cityscapes—until one looked closer and saw that they were diagrams of wheels and gears, interlocking in fantastical and curious ways.

To the side and slightly behind him stood Seriah. The flaps of skin that Robarts had peeled away hung from her back, and she resembled nothing so much as a bat with its wings folded in rest.

Trueblood had scribbled notes in the margins of the manuscript: neat little rows of lettering that resembled no alphabet that had existed on Earth for thousands of years. Here and there were words scribed in recognizable Greek, Arabic or English.

One was “Antikythera,” and below that a crude diagram of a large gear with several smaller wheels adjoined, like a mother hen with her chicks, and around that, an arrangement of stars.

“Seriah,” he said. She remained frozen in position, and “Seriah,” he said again, louder this time, pointing at the word and the diagram. Still she didn't move, and now he clenched his fist as if grabbing a fly.

She started as if he'd struck her, and bent over the page.

After a considered pause, she said, “Nothing.”

“No?” he said, clenching his fist tighter. She shuddered, and drops of sweat stood out on her brow.

“No,” she gasped. “I can't see anything. It's darkness to me.”

Impatiently, he opened his fist and the Recording Angel flinched back away from him. Trueblood continued his perusal as if nothing had happened.

“Here,” he said, after a moment. He flipped over the pages of the book with the elaborate diagrams. “Here,” he said again, running his finger down the margins where the traces of something that had once been bound in the manuscript could still be seen. “And here—something's been torn out, once, twice, three times at least. Look, Seriah, and tell me what you see.”

She bent again, and this time she reached out with thin, tentative fingers and brushed the feathery remains of the torn sheet. A slow smile spread across her face.

“What is it?” Trueblood breathed, not wanting to interrupt her vision. “It's Harun El-Iman's
Book of Wondrous Objects
, and it's like every other copy of it I've seen, except for those remnants.”

“The Caliph made him write everything down,” she said. “So that his inventions would not be lost to time.”

“The Mechanical Elephant, the Golden Nightingale with its jeweled plumage and beautiful voice,” said Trueblood. “The chess-playing Automaton that was sent to the Regent's Court. All of these El-Iman made, and more. The book is rare, but not unique. What makes this one different?”

“There were secrets he hid from even the Caliph,” she said, still stroking the book. “Cunning ways of working metal, methods of constructing objects so realistic you would swear they were flesh and blood. He didn't want to share that knowledge with the world. So he bowed to the Caliph's wisdom and wrote his book, but in one copy only he bound the sketches of his cleverest, most remarkable creations. That book alone he kept for himself.”

“What happened to them?” Trueblood reached for Seriah's hand, then thought better of it and withdrew.

She shook her head. “I can hardly see—wait—”

She closed her eyes and swayed. “Darkness, and a candle, and a book wrenched open to the light. A man lying on the ground, his head in a black puddle. Somebody tearing, and tearing again.”

“Who?”

“I can't tell.”

He took her by the shoulder and she writhed away from him, wrapping her arms protectively around herself.

“I can't see! I don't know!”

Trueblood sighed.

“Very well.”

“I can't …”

“Quiet!” he snapped, and she withdrew to the corner, curling up on herself, becoming as small as she could.

Presently all that could be heard in the Library was the scratch of Trueblood's pen in the margin, and the occasional scrape of a book against the table as he pulled one closer.

After an hour he began to chuckle. From her corner, Seriah glanced up, startled.

Trueblood laughed outright.

“No wonder you couldn't see who it was,” he said when he could speak again.

“I still can't,” she said.

“No, I don't imagine so,” he said. He rose and stretched his cramped arms.

“But you will,” he remarked over his shoulder as he left the room.

London, 1882

“But I don't understand, Henry. If it can't fly …”

Henry Thorpe reached for a cake. The tearoom was filled with women meeting each other for refreshment and gossip.

“Oh, it could fly, theoretically, at least. But it didn't when Ader tested it, and it won't if he tries again. The engines are too bulky, and the wings won't be able to support their weight.”

“Then why …”

“Because, my dear practical cousin, the only way Mankind will fly is to fail many, many times over. It's the grim side of invention we don't like to talk about too often.”

Sophie was watching Henry's hands, which wouldn't stop fiddling with the objects on the table. He put down the fork only to take up the teaspoon and twist it between forefinger and thumb. Leaning over the table to describe the latest developments in gliders, he unconsciously picked up the saltshaker, unscrewed the silver top, examined the threads and replaced it. His fingers were long and white, calloused at the tips and stained with what she supposed was grease or some other substance he used in his work. Surreptitiously she glanced at her own, decorously folded in her lap. Her nails were cut far too short for elegance, the skin dry from constant washing, no matter how often she applied lanolin.

She picked up her cup and lifted it to her lips, hiding a smile. How appalled her mother would be at her chapped fingers, at the stains about Henry's nails. It was one thing to choose to work; it was another to let one's hands show the world how they were used.

“How dreadful for M. Ader, Henry,” she said, lowering her cup. “I do wish I could have seen it.”

Henry grinned sheepishly at his cousin. “Oh, it would have done your black heart good, I'm sure.”

“Is it possible, do you think, that that this
Echo …”

“The
Eole
, my dear.”

“Goodness, Henry, what a pedant you are. Is it possible that it did fly? Perhaps the French Military had unrealistic expectations.”

“I have no doubt they did. I am willing to believe M. Ader to some extent—that it glided, or even that it did fly, in the strictest sense of the word, a few yards. Ader is an honest man, but hope and expectation are capable of blinding the most analytical of minds.
But I must say it could not have flown far. The wing structure completely forbade it.”

“And your craft, the
Echo …”

“The
Eole
, Sophie. Come now—do I confound the Fallopian tube and the Eustachian simply to provoke you?”

Sophie reached for a sandwich. “You'd be surprised how many darlings of the medical set do. But go on. The wing structure?”

“It's all in that, I know it. The question is: How does a wing lift an object that is heavier than air? No bird is propelled by steam power. I was getting close, with my modification of the
Eole.”

“And all that research is lost now? Surely not. Your notes …”

“Oh, I've notes a plenty. But da Vinci had notes. It's no use without resources and, therefore, the ability to test, and fail and test again. Success needs failure, and failures cost money. All the notes and sketches in the world can't predict humidity, say, or a freak gust of wind.”

He leaned back in his chair.

“But it looks like that might change now. It seems I've acquired a patron.”

“Oh!” Sophie clapped her hands, and Henry had to laugh at the girlish gesture. “That's wonderful, Henry!” She ignored the glances, equally distributed between offended and amused, from the other denizens of the teashop. “Who is it? What's he like?”

“To be honest, I don't know. I've only dealt with his assistant so far—or manservant—or messenger. Queer chap.” He gave a little shake of his head. “But the name's Robards—no, I'm sorry. Robarts. A Sebastian Robarts. Evidently he's been abroad some time.”

“I know that name from somewhere.” Sophie frowned, trying to remember.

“Never heard of him myself.”

She shook her head. “I'll think of it eventually. Anyway, do go on. Did he give you lots and lots of money?”

Henry snorted. “Enough to stand you tea this afternoon, you greedy beggar.”

“Then we can order more cakes, since you've eaten the lot.”

Sophia heard Lady Cecelia's voice in the waiting room and smiled. She washed her hands thoroughly in the bucket and removed her bloodstained smock—the birth had been uneventful save for a tear in the perineum that had threatened to develop into a fistula, and she had spent a long time stitching it up. She enjoyed Cecelia's visits: the philanthropist seemed instinctively to know when to come, when to encourage, and when to leave one to one's work.

She opened the waiting-room door, for once free of patients, to see her patroness standing with a distinguished-looking man, perhaps a few years older than her. It was difficult to say, however: Sophie's practiced eye saw that the lined face and strained features of the gentleman might be due to ill health rather than age. He had the look of one who had suffered either a devastating sickness or an unbearable grief, and was only lately beginning to recover.

Lady Cecelia turned to her eagerly.

“Sophia, this is my brother-in-law, Doctor Sebastian Robarts,” she said. “Sebastian, allow me to present Doctor Sophia Huxley. We are very lucky to have Sophia to administer to the patients here; I count myself fortunate that Doctor McPherson recommended her.”

“Robarts!” Sophie exclaimed. “But this is wonderful—Henry Thorpe is my cousin, Doctor Robarts. Today he told me that the entire future of aviation will benefit thanks to your patronage.”

“It's my pleasure, although I haven't yet had the chance to meet the gentleman,” said Dr. Robarts in a husky voice, bending over Sophie's hand. “And a pleasure to see that the fair sex has made such strides in the profession during my absence. I am beginning to feel quite the Rip van Winkle.”

At Sophie's puzzled look he smiled. “An American story about a man who sleeps for a hundred years, finding everything alien to him when he wakes.”

“And you've been abroad, I understand?” asked Sophie.

“You might say that,” he said, the lines in his face deepening. He suddenly looked very tired.

“Sebastian has been in retirement for the last fifteen years, after the passing of my sister,” interjected Lady Cecelia. She put her arm through his and drew him close. “And we are very happy to have him back again.”

“I'm so sorry,” said Sophie, feeling maladroit. She was racking her brain—surely she had run into the name of Sebastian Robarts at some time during her medical studies. And the death of his wife—that struck a familiar note as well.

“I am giving a supper party to welcome Sebastian home,” said Lady Cecelia. “Just family and a few intimates. Do come.”