The Iron Duke (49 page)

That suited Rhys. It’d give Mina something more to arrest him with.

Dorchester must have recognized the silence for the realization that it was. “Do you not wonder why?”

He wanted them to say it aloud? To show fear?
Bah.

“He probably only wonders what your son’s political leanings are,” Scarsdale said. “I imagine that the boy will take your seat in Parliament soon.”

As soon as the man was dead.

Rhys suppressed his grin. And though he knew Scarsdale had intended for his response to increase Dorchester’s fury, to bring him to careless rage so that the man wouldn’t be careful with his words, the admiral’s anger cooled and hardened.

“Parliament
is
the problem. They fight, they argue, they say their decisions are for the good of England. Whether the infected should inherit, whether they should be a judge. But they ignore that infection itself is the danger—and will be our downfall.”

“Is that so?” Scarsdale downed his wine. With shaking hands, the warden refilled his glass.

“You can be controlled. It would only take one of our enemies to create the right signal, and all of England burns. I have heard what happened in the revolution—and that was damage done when the infected were under no one’s control. Under the control of our enemies, the infected could destroy the country this quickly.” He snapped his fingers. “So the Black Guard fights for the security of England—and we will accomplish what the politicians don’t have the will and the courage to do.”

“Kill everyone!” Scarsdale nodded and lifted his glass to the man. “Quite right.”

“
Protect
England by eradicating the infection.”

“Yes, yes! Protect England by killing Englishmen! Sound logic, sir.”

“The infected
aren’t
Englishmen. They’re something the Horde has created. Controlled. They’re a dormant disease, waiting for something else to control them. England can’t afford the risk of having such creations on English soil.”

The warden’s face had reddened. “Sir, I must object to this—”

Dorchester touched the base of the freezing device, cutting the warden off. Scarsdale sat frozen with his wine filling his open mouth—overflowing onto his jacket. Rhys remained still.

With another touch, Dorchester released them. The warden heaved in a long breath, devastation weighing on his features. Scarsdale blinked.

“I say, did I spill? Sorry about the mess, warden.”

The man didn’t answer. He stared at the Lord High Admiral—hating him, Rhys knew, with every fiber in his body. Just as Mina would have. As everyone who’d lived beneath the Horde would have.

“You’re not men,” Dorchester said. “You’re windups. Automatons. Men use machinery. You
are
machinery. And some of the infected are worse, not machines but
animals
. We won’t let that infection spread to England, too. And there is still
another
threat, as you breed. Shall England be populated by men who are like ratcatchers? Shall children be born with armor and razor teeth? No, it
shall not be
.”

Passion reddened Dorchester’s cheeks. Carelessly, Scarsdale blotted his jacket with a handkerchief.

“That seems a waste,” he said. “Within a few generations, this might be a country full of strong men with iron bones—and bugs that can’t be controlled. Wouldn’t that make the Horde or anyone else think twice before trying to destroy us again?”

“They would be monsters who destroy
true
men. The whole world would be filled with them, stomping out all that is human.”

“I think men like that would prefer stomping on admirals who overstep their power.” Scarsdale paused, looked up—still cheerful, but not the least bit soused. “So why is it that you’re hanging us, then?”

Dorchester looked to Rhys. “First, him—the symbol of England’s freedom from the Horde. But there was no freedom. The country is still infected, and still under the Horde’s threat. So I’ll take that illusion away. I’ll quarantine the infected and give them a choice between Europe or eradication—and those who resist us will be put down. And finally, the Black Guard will take England back from the Horde.”

“And you’ll save your own life.” Rhys spoke for the first time since Dorchester had entered the warden’s office, startling the admiral.

“What?”

“You bought a weapon for over twenty-five thousand livre. The Black Guard wouldn’t have that in their coffers, not just from selling slaves. So the other members must have entrusted enormous amounts of their personal money to you.” Rhys watched Dorchester’s face tighten. The man controlled himself well, but this fear didn’t lurk deep. “You must have promised results, assured them of success—and yet you lost the weapon.”

And now, it was not just anger that drove Dorchester. Not just his belief in the Black Guard’s cause. That he’d resorted to such a drastic and self-destructive plan told Rhys that a great deal of desperation lay behind it—much like a frigate captain watching a first-rate bearing down on his ship, and ordering his men to fire the engines.

But Dorchester was all but done. And Rhys wanted to know who to go after next.

“Even now, those members of the Black Guard must be hearing the news that the weapon was sunk. Men to whom you promised an England free of buggers. So you’re still trying to give them one, because they’ll make you pay if you fail again. Who are they?”

Face pale, Dorchester shook his head. Gesturing to the steelcoat behind Rhys, he said, “It’s time to escort His Grace outside. Warden, take his chain from that loop.”

With the hiss of hydraulics and the clank of gears, the steelcoat moved behind him. Scarsdale gave a pitying snort and leaned close to Rhys, holding out his wine, chains swinging from the irons on his wrists.

“A last sip of the good stuff, captain?” When Rhys shook his head, Scarsdale lifted the mug. “Of water, then?”

“No.”

Scarsdale sighed and backed out of the way, glass and mug in hand. “It’s no use fighting, captain,” he said. “These steelcoats aren’t fast, but they’ll flatten you with a single blow.”

“So I’ve heard,” Rhys said.

Dorchester was losing patience. “Warden?”

As the man reluctantly came around his desk, Scarsdale prattled on, “I once sat and drank Jasper Evans under the table in Port Fallow. Dreadful conversationalist. All he talked about was losing the steelcoat contract to Morgan. Evans’s were a bit faster, you know. Morgan changed the boiler and made adjustments to the overall design to prove that he wasn’t stealing Evans’s—but they all added up to a slower suit.”

Keys shaking in his hands, the warden bent in front of him. Rhys gripped the chain and met the man’s gaze. The warden’s eyes widened—then narrowed in fierce satisfaction. He stepped back.

With a powerful surge, Rhys stood. The steel loop tore from the stone in a shower of mortar. From behind him, he heard a great hiss of steam, and a low gurgle. Dorchester stared at them, flabbergasted.

Scarsdale continued, “He also told me about Morgan’s design flaw—how he left the exhaust tube from the furnace wide open, so the coals were easy to douse. So easy that a single glass of water does the trick. And I say, your marine is trapped inside all of that metal, isn’t he? Another member of the Black Guard, I suppose, if you trusted him to watch over us.” He rapped his knuckles against the chest plate and shook his head over the hollow echo. “The navy ought to have paid the extra money for Evans’s design. ‘Always pay a man what he’s worth,’ that’s the captain’s—”

Dorchester reached for the Horde’s device, freezing Scarsdale midrap. Chains dangling from his wrists, Rhys stepped forward, towering over the man.

Resignation swept over Dorchester’s face, followed by stiff determination. He lifted his chin. “You may kill me, but you’ll never stop the Black Gua—”

“Pipe down, admiral!”

Christ.
Rhys could stand to listen to nonsense—hell, Scarsdale had inured him to that—but he couldn’t tolerate the shit Dorchester spewed. He knocked the freezing device to the stone floor. The spike broke. Scarsdale continued rapping.

The warden came forward, relief loosening everything from his gait to his expression. “Shall I remove your wrist irons, Your Grace?”

Mina had once told him that people might be inspired by such an image—and he still had to face all of those waiting outside. He owed them that, owed all of those who’d come for him. He might not have made all of them his, but they’d obviously made him
theirs
. So he’d see them off, and make certain as few as possible were hurt for having come to help him.

“No,” he told the warden. “But remove Scarsdale’s, and put them on the admiral. Behind his back, so that he can’t easily kill himself.”

As soon as that was done, Rhys grabbed the admiral’s hair, began dragging him to the door.

“I say, it’s a good thing you rarely come up against bald men. God knows what’s crawling through the hair you’d have to steer them around by.” Scarsdale listened at the door, pointed in the direction of the steelcoat waiting outside. “What now?”

“We give the crowd what they want.” And his inspector an arrest.

He strode into the hall. The steelcoat raised his rifle—and dropped it as soon as Rhys twisted the admiral’s head, making the threat clear. Scarsdale collected the weapon and they moved on. The warden joined them, and soon his prison guards.

“There will be more steelcoats outside,” Scarsdale said. “Surely not all Black Guard, but still under his command.”

“And the admiral will order them to stand down.”

“Never,” Dorchester said.

Rhys looked to the window as a faint tremble shook through the prison’s floor, then met Scarsdale’s eyes.

The bounder grinned. “Then again, perhaps we won’t need him to.”

 

 

Clinging to the side of the lorry, using the tire as a step,
Mina looked over the crowd. Apparently half-spider, Anne climbed up to the top and forced herself into a tiny crevice between two men.

A ripple started through the mob on Newgate Street, pushing and spreading the crowd apart. The Blacksmith’s name swept along with it, carried south along Old Bailey to Mina’s ears. Marching single file, his steelcoats came into view. Lighter than the clunky marine steelcoats, they moved more easily, and the steam and smoke coming from their boiler packs rose in wisps rather than clouds.

But what threat would they pose? Mina shook her head. “His steelcoats aren’t carrying any weapons.”

“He calls them his metalmen, not steelcoats. And they don’t have to carry weapons,” Anne said. “The weapons are built into the arms. They just have to”—the tinker cocked her wrist and gave it a flip—“and the gun mechanisms fold out. Or this”—she pulled her elbow back before throwing her hand forward, palm flat—“for the flame jets.”

Astounded, Mina looked to them again. The crowd had moved back, and the metalmen had lined up across from the steelcoats. The marines held their formation.

“If
they
are metalmen, what is a walker?”

The tinker pointed. Around them, a great cry rose up. Not terror, but an astonishment that echoed Mina’s as the machine stepped into view.

A walker, yes. On enormous steel legs constructed of pneumatic pistons and gears, it stood almost as tall as the prison walls. Steam rose from the boiler, a giant pipe cylinder that formed the walker’s body. At the base of the body, still fifteen feet off the ground, the Blacksmith occupied the pilot seat, his skin gleaming in the dull afternoon light. Standing behind his seat was Hale, clinging to a stabilizing rod with one hand and her hat with the other.

The Blacksmith reached for an item near his feet—a speaking trumpet designed to amplify sounds, which he gave to Hale. She put it to her mouth.

“ROYAL—”

Her voice exploded over the crowd, shocking all to silence. Hale jerked the trumpet down, staring at the Blacksmith. He gestured for her to continue.

“Royal Marines, on the authority of the Metropolitan Police Force, I’m ordering you to stand down! Your siege on this prison is unlawful and unwarranted.”

Newberry shook his head. “They won’t do it. Not on her authority.”

Hale must have realized the same. She addressed the crowd, instead. “Clear a path to the prison gate—in an orderly fashion, if you please!”

The response wasn’t immediate. Then the huge machine let out a great huff and one of the legs moved forward. The loosely woven path that the metalmen had left suddenly widened, and the mob seemed to move outward, squeezing and expanding like a compression wave.

Mina hopped to the ground. “Newberry, we need to be closer.”

The constable looked doubtfully over the crowd. “I don’t see how we’ll—”

Shouts erupted around them. Cries of “At the gate!” and “The Iron Duke!” rang through the mob.

Mina’s heart constricted. Was Dorchester daring to bring Rhys out to hang? Truly?

“What’s happening, constable?”

He shook his head. “I can’t see the gate, sir.”

“Newberry, please!”

The men and women on the lorry began to jump and yell, rocking the vehicle from side to side. Anne scrambled down. Mina grabbed her hand as Newberry pushed a path farther into the crowd, battling for every inch. Mina fought her despair. Reaching the front line would be impossible.

Cheers sounded from the lorry behind them—and from the front of the mob. Mina couldn’t see anything but the constable’s back. Red-faced, Newberry turned to her.

“Try this, sir.”

Giant hands circling her waist, he hauled her up, and suddenly she was seated on his broad shoulder. Mina swallowed her surprise and narrowed her gaze on the gallows scaffolding, trying to make sense of the scene on the platform.

Rhys was in his shirtsleeves, chains hanging from his wrists. In front of him stood Dorchester, head held high—and in irons. Even over the cheers, Mina heard the Iron Duke’s command.