Chapter Eighteen
I remembered the hated gymnastic lessons of climbing a rope dangling from the ceiling and blessed Trevor for challenging me to a race to the roof so many times. I worked my way with agonizing slowness toward the pilot. I could see him trying to pull disk weapons out of his launcher, trying to twist in his harness, trying to throw the deadly sharp things at me as I struggled higher and made myself an easier target. All the while the craft sank lower, not plummeting, but surely weighted down and descending.
The pilot’s boot struck me in the face as I came within range. Stunned, I still managed to hang on and got onto the top of the machine. The pilot twisted, still strapped in, brandishing a disk in either hand. I jammed one foot into the gouge the guard had made with her shot at the wing and hung by one hand on a wing strut, lashing out with my fist. The pilot tried to block the blow but his arm snapped back against his body. The disk he held sliced through his harness belt and my counterweight threw the ship into a spin, all at the same moment.
The pilot was wrenched three-quarters out of his harness, screaming and dangling and spinning. I lurched, grabbed hold of the handrails, and puzzled over the controls while trying to keep the man from falling. For my altruism I was rewarded with the flat of a razor-edged disk across the face. It glanced along my shoulder and sliced through my waistcoat and shirt. I ran out of both pity for a fellow human being and the compulsion to have a live suspect to question. I seized hold of the disk and cut the last of the harness holding the man to the spy ship. His shriek was brief, interrupted by the thud of his body against the ground below.
I saw that Tod had managed to get Twist’s airship down, though it lay at a disturbing angle. I also saw that Tod had a hatch open and was pulling whoever the passengers were hastily out with a wary eye on the sky. I was completely unable to right or keep the spy ship aloft so I settled for learning how to slow its already sluggish descent and guide it onto the half-deflated surface of the airship. It made a reasonably soft landing, though it tipped over at the last minute and I bounced and rolled to the turf.
People converged on the airship from all directions. A shaky but resolute Elinor Ferrars led Tatiana by the hand away from the area and Uncle Vanya immediately engulfed his daughter in his thick, floury arms. Doctor Mac and Tod, however, headed straight for me.
“Oy ‘ad you pegged f’r a Toff, Prince Charming,” Tod grinned, reaching out a hand to me as I lay on the ground. “Thanks for proving me wrong.”
“Lie still,” Doctor Mac exclaimed. “I need to check you out before you move a muscle--”
Tod made a rude noise as he hauled me to my feet. “‘E’s a’ roight,” he scoffed. “Ain’t you just, Princey?”
I staggered briefly and Tod steadied me. “I -- I believe I am all right,” I said wonderingly. “Thank you for your concern, Doctor Campbell.” Tod set about smacking me all over with his coiled whip to beat the grass and dust out of my clothes. He seemed to have become my new best friend, until Kera and the security guard who had been on the roof ran up.
“The hero of the day!” The handsome back woman, having the longer legs, reached me first and almost tackled me as she threw her arms around me. I reddened but was certain I could not step back without giving offense.
“If you had not damaged his wing he would not have come close enough,” I demurred, pulling free after as short an interval as I thought reasonable. I looked past the security guard to Kera, but could not read the expression on her face. The others swarmed in at that point and I received all the congratulations as gracefully as I could.
Finally the commotion calmed down. Doctor Mac discovered that the spy ship pilot was in fact not dead. They bore him into the house but the doctor said the prognosis was uncertain at best. Elinor and Rose were pressed into service as nurses. Tod set about cheerfully repairing the airship and the security team went back to their stations. The nannies took charge of the children and I was suddenly left alone with Kera.
“I am so glad you are not injured,” she whispered, looking at the ground. “You leaped as if God Himself would bear you up.”
“He did, I am certain, on wings of great mercy. It was the most incredibly idiotic I have ever done. Never in my life have I deserved so little praise and gotten so much.”
“Well, I thought it was an incredibly idiotic thing to do, also.” Kera lifted her eyes and I saw that they sparkled with both tears and mirth. “But it was so brave, Florrie. I love your selfless courage. I love it so much. Nothing else could have stopped that disaster except what you did, but I wanted to die when you went off the roof. I thank God for bearing you up, my father in Christ.”
I held out my hand to her. “You got us up on the roof to see what was happening and be in position to succeed. We are all three of us rooftop heroes, Little Vessel.” I saluted the markswoman, who was back up on the roof. “Come. We must welcome Tatiana, and then we must see if she or Uncle Vanya can give us any more clues that will help us find Dodge.”
Uncle Vanya was in full bread ball-making mode when Kera and I entered in the kitchen. Apparently it was just what he did, happy, sad, or in-between. Tatiana was helping him and he kept stopping to cup her face and make floury prints on her cheeks and scatter white dust all through her dark hair. She had many cuts and bruises but did not seem to be seriously injured. Kera approached uncertainly.
“I am so glad you are safe, Tatiana,” she murmured.
“Because of you!” Tatiana hugged her, startling the Indian girl. “They told me you knew where to find me.”
“But I involved you and your papa with Dodge in the first place.” Kera’s eyes filled. “I never, ever meant for you to be hurt.”
“But God meant it for good!” Vanya nodded ferociously in agreement with his daughter’s words. “Don’t you see? You and papa were full of anger and far from God before, like Joseph’s brothers. You both made a choice to serve the Cyclops. You didn’t force papa. He wanted the money, and so in a way he sold me to that man. But God sent me to that terrible place so that all those others would be rescued. And now you and papa know God is good and I am so happy!”
Kera glanced up over Tatiana’s head at me, clearly bewildered. I could not think of a thing to add to the sweet testimony but smiled at Kera’s confusion, knowing she would come to expect God to do the extraordinary if things kept happening as they had been.
“And sir, I owe you thanks as well,” Tatiana insisted, offering a floury hand to me.
“Me? Why do you owe me thanks, Little One?” I laughed.
“For saving my golden angel -- I mean my Oliver -- from papa’s rolling pin,” Tatiana blushed. “The first person I saw when I opened my eyes and realized I was free from those people was him. He said he had been going from person to person, getting more and more afraid that I had not been rescued after all, when he heard a voice say ‘It is my angel!’ and found me. I called him a sweet angel to papa after you left that night. He snarled at me and warned me never to speak of him again. But I have never had any boy dare to kiss me right in front of papa, and he kissed me twice!”
“Oh, he is your Oliver, then?” Kera teased.
“Of course. Didn’t you hear me say he kissed me twice? He said he had never kissed a girl before, and wouldn’t do it again because papa would break his head and the prince wouldn’t be there to save him. So I reminded him that papa couldn’t break his head because he wasn’t there either.” Vanya growled good-naturedly at that.
“Da liddle angel haff kissed you again, den?” he demanded.
“Yes, papa.” Tatiana seemed just a little uncertain, but Vanya beamed at her and she smiled.
“He is rich. I not haff to keep da shop when he marry you, da?”
“He is very rich, papa, and so beautiful. He made the ship that flies in the air, and so many more wonderful things!”
“Da ship dat fly in da air make your papa dizzy.”
“I loved it. It is like a little round palace, isn’t it? We almost cra
shed, but the prince saved us, didn’t he?” Tatiana impulsively hugged me. All this hugging was making me very uncomfortable.
“Can either of you tell us anything that might help us find this Dodge, this evil man who took you and sold you, Tatiana?”
“We neffer see him, neffer know where he come from, before dat night,” Vanya insisted. “Visha giff money, leave message, different peoples come take message away. He come in da shop and ask about Visha. I not know he da evil one until he turn into da light and I see da eye he haff in da goggle glass. Tatiana, she almost faint. He laugh at us an’ tap da glass an’ make da eye bounce.”
“‘I’ll give Little Pretty here a jar to keep one of hers in,’ he said, and turned toward me,” Tatiana shuddered. “I want my Poison Maiden. Where’s she at, Little Pretty?’ I told him we didn’t know, that Visha hadn’t come in for a while.
“Then we heard the three of you coming down the street, just like that! The Cyclops dashed over and got in the storage room just as you came in. We were so afraid of him we didn’t dare tell you he was there.” Kera stroked Tatiana’s shoulder comfortingly.
“You tell me to add da Bohemian t’ing to menu, an’ I get da chalk an’ da board, but when I go back to make da bread balls he come out da odder storage room door an’ hiss at me, like a snake hissing, an’ say, ‘Find out who iss da liddle yellow-haired one, quick, old man.’ So I ask, but you make joke an’ he mebbe not sure. He go out back door of shop, away down da alley.
“After you go up in da sky he run in from da street. He stomp an’ swear an’ swear more an’ he say, ‘Greenland! Iss Greenland! Where he go?’ We say, ‘He go up in da sky, like an angel.’ He hit me hard in da neck, here--” Uncle Vanya showed them a bruise extending out from under his beard on his thick neck.
“I drop like da ox. I wake up, Tatiana iss gone, an’ da chalkboard iss on my chest where I lie on da floor. ‘Get da liddle angel out of da sky or neffer see girl again’, in my daughter’s writing.” Vanya paled but he folded his daughter to his barrel chest and was all right again after a moment.
“What can you tell us, Tatiana?” Kera coaxed. “Anything could help. Anything you can remember.”
“He hit papa and I screamed.” Tatiana let her father hug her as tightly as he pleased and tightened her own arms around his bull neck. “He grabbed me by the hair, spun me around, and put his other hand over my mouth. Right against my face came that horrible goggle-eye. He whispered in my ear as he lifted the heel of his boot over papa’s throat, ‘Shall I just stamp down hard, or shall you come along like a good girl and save your papa’s life?’ He made me write the message to papa while he held my mouth and twisted my hair. Then he dragged me out, hurting my hair so much, twisting it tighter and tighter. He ducked in and out of abandoned buildings, changed streets, went into alleys, until I had no idea where we were. He went everywhere that was darkest, and filthiest, and loneliest, and he went so fast. I tried to fight, to grab onto doorposts, to stop myself on stairs and furniture we passed. I lost my shoes and cut and bruised my hands and feet, but he never even slowed down. He would just slam my head against something or rip out a handful of my hair and laugh at me.” She looked up at her father and he rested his head on top of hers.
“Finally he knocked at the door of a black old brick place. A woman whose clothes were falling off of her opened it and the Cyclops shoved me at her. She caught me. I was so bruised and weak I couldn’t stand up, but a tall, strong man in only trousers came up behind her and grabbed me before I fell. Right there in the doorway he pulled my hands up over my head and shoved me against the door frame. The woman squeezed and stared at me, shoving away my hair and staring and staring. She said some word I couldn’t understand and smiled. The man -- he touched me and stared too. She poked him with an elbow and he pulled out money and gave it to the Cyclops. He laughed and said, “More.” They both looked away from me to him and I saw in their eyes that they were afraid of him. The man gave him more. They threw me in a corner and searched for more money. I think they gave him all the money they had. And the Cyclops laughed, jingled it, and said, “‘I’ll be back when you’ve been paid for her.’ Then he was gone. That was the place where the Indian man and the tall woman with the guns found me. Those people gave me things to eat and drink that made me so sleepy.
“I can’t remember anything but being slapped awake and given food and water that had drugs in it, and being tied to a bed, and hands touching me and faces staring at me.” She closed her eyes and Vanya stroked her head.
“No more,” he rumbled. “She talk no more.”
“Please, good Uncle Vanya, just a moment more,” Kera begged. “Tatiana, you know nothing else about Dodge -- About the Cyclops? Nothing that would help us find him?”
“The man called him Jack,” the girl said. “But what of it? A thousand men are called Jack. The Cyclops stabbed out at him, to hit him in the throat like he did papa. The man barely moved out of the way in time. He swore and snarled, ‘Wish you’d kicked off in prison, and left us alone with our bits and ends.’
“‘School for Scandal,’ the Cyclops laughed. That’s what I graduated from. It taught me how to survive -- How to be the master. I owe Greenland for that, too. Think I mighta found an old friend.’ Those were the words they spoke to each other.”
“Again he speaks of Twist,” I murmured. “Do we have the keepers of the slave pen in custody?”
“I don’t know.” Tatiana shook her head. “But when I was there before they called each other Morris and Carlotta.”
“We have to get back to London,” I fumed. “I feel as if our information is becoming scattered, that we must put together pieces each of us has and then we might know where to search for Dodge.”
Kera and I approached the airship out on the lawn and found Tod applying patches to the leather surface. “It’ll be twelve hours at least before these set and it’s safe to lift off,” Tod grunted. “Check with young Master Naughty, though. He says he can fix that spy glider sooner than that.”
I turned in surprise to see Mowgli’s son Sararati poring over the glider and rattling in a chest of tools Tod had apparently lent him. I had thought the boy could hardly be more than six or seven but realized that he was just small for his age and might be as old as Dulcinea.
“What are you about there, Naughty?” Kera asked with a smile. The boy had his long hair pulled back into a coil. His feet were bare and he even stretched out with his toes to grab tools as he worked feverishly over the machine. Neither of us had taken Tod’s claim seriously at first but to our astonishment the boy abruptly started up the little buzzing motor of the spy craft and the clockwork began to turn, halted, started again when he tinkered some more.
“It was not much hurt,” Sararati said solemnly. “It is good you broke its fall or I might not have been able to fix it. But the harness is all cut to pieces. I will have to go find some leather or canvas or something to replace it so you can fly it back to London.”
“How can you have learned so quickly -- ?” I spluttered.
“Papa and Mama and I came to London with Memsahib Phoebe weeks and weeks ago. There was never anything to do while the concerts were going on, and Doctor Twist liked to come and play with us sometimes, and sometimes worked on things at the hotel. I watched him all the time, and I asked questions. He never got angry or impatient like papa does when I can’t climb a tree fast enough or stare Bagheera down and make him mind the way papa can. He answered my questions and showed me lots of his things.”
“You are certain this thing is safe?” Kera asked.
“If I can fix up a good harness it will be as safe as it ever was,” the boy shrugged. “Papa does not mind hanging upside down in Kaa’s coils from fifty feet up in a tree, and it is no more dangerous than that. Kaa just lets go sometimes for fun, though, and, just so, I cannot say doing such things is truly safe. I would rather stay on the ground, but since the prince can already jump into the air and land in God’s hands as my fathe
r does, perhaps he will not mind getting to London on it.” The boy gave me a sidelong glance with a perfectly straight face.
I thought I would mind very much getting to London that way, but I didn’t see a choice in the matter. Kera and Sararati and I spent the next two hours finding and sewing together harness materials and testing them and the flying machine. It was not possible to make the replacement harness material go “stealth,” of course, but I hoped I would not become a target before I could reach the hotel where I should find the others of the Alexander Legacy Company.
Sararati criticized my uncertainty in learning to control the spy craft. “It is very simple,” he repeated over and over. “Push this, go up. Push this, go down. Left, right, and this one shoots the disks.”
The older children had all been given garden gloves and been told to be very careful before being sent to gather up the disks that had been shot in the air battle. I prayed I would not need them but the boy showed me how to load the weapon.
“You must hurry, then, Bohemian, if you don’t mean to fly in the dark,” Sararati admonished.
Doctor Mac interrupted the preflight to say he had been able to relieve swelling in the fallen pilot’s brain and he was now conscious. He led us into the familiar sickroom and I saw the pale man lying in the same bed I had occupied, and Rose reading the Scriptures to him. His hands and feet were strapped to the bed frame and two of the security guards stood watch.
“Who are you?” I demanded. The man spat curses but halted abruptly when Madame Rose reached forward and squirted something into his mouth from a little container she held. He coughed and spat and glared at her.
“What is that?” Kera asked.
“Soap, of course,” Rose said placidly. “He’ll get more if he doesn’t answer your questions.”
“Charley Bates, not ‘at it means anythin’ t’ yew,” the fellow responded. He eyed me uncertainly. “Yew daft, guv’ner?”
“He is a good man, and full of courage,” Rose exclaimed, squirting more soap. “Keep a civil tongue in your head, please.”
“Gorm, mekker stop a’ready,” Charley Bates pleaded, spitting and coughing again.
“Who sent you to spy on this place?” I asked.
“Dodge.”
“How did he know to send you here?”
““Didn’t know. ‘Eard a rumor ‘em Campbells ‘ad a country ‘ouse an’ Oy bin buzzin’ about lookin’ fer it. Was jist troyin’ t’ get a look ‘ere an’ when people started in shootin’ figured this might be the place. Seein’ ‘at airship kinda sewed it up fer me. Dodge’ll enjoy burnin’ down this little nest when Oy gets loose an’ lets ‘im know,” he finished savagely.
“I am not so certain Dodge will be happy to see you,” I said. “He will wonder why we patched you up and treated you with such kindness. How will he feel about your failure and your capture? How will he know you haven’t told us everything we need to know to capture him? We also have your spy craft, you know. Or does it belong to Dodge? I am certain he will not be happy to have lost that.”
Bates tried to stare me down but I was in no mood to flinch. He saw Mac towering over him with his best grim face. His confidence faltered until he spotted Kera behind me.
“Oy! if it ain’t th’ poison princess! Dodge’ll be glad t’ know yew gone over t’ t’other side. What’chew blabbed about, girlie? Mebbe Dodge won’t be so worried about ‘ow Oy got loose as ‘ow she got ‘ere! An’ ‘ow yew know yew kin trust ‘er, anyhow?”
I stepped closer to the man even as Kera shrank back. “Suppose I come to a hawthorn tree looking to make jelly,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Should I look for thorns or apples?”
Bates looked at me as if this were further evidence that I had gone mad. “Gorm,” he said finally. “Apples, natch.”
“You spend your life finding thorns because that is what you look for. I did that for many years, and found them in abundance. Then one day a young woman taught me there can be apples among the thorns.” I beckoned to Kera and she crept forward, putting her hand in mine.
“This is that young woman. Christ sent her to let Him show me that sometimes I can pick apples instead of always pricking my fingers on the thorns or burning down the tree. The jelly can be a little tart, sometimes, from a thorn apple tree--” I squeezed Kera’s hand “ -- and I still prick my fingers now and then, but on the whole my life is sweeter for having trusted God to show me the fruit He wants me to see, instead of the sin that He can cover with Christ’s blood.”
“Gorm,” Bates said. Tears had started to fall from Kera’s eyes. The man was silent so long I finally stood up to leave, putting a hand lightly on Kera’s shoulder and guiding her toward the door.
“You a preacher?” Bates stopped me with the question. I turned back and laughed.
“Hardly. A man does not have to be a minister to know God and to love to have Him work in his life.”
“Apple jelly’s good, all right, an’ Oy guess Oy ‘ave been lookin’ at thorns long enough. Oy ‘spec Oy gotta be apples an’ not thorns m’self, first, yeah? Gorm. ‘Ow do Oy go about ‘at, then?”
I glanced out the window and saw that the sun was setting. Panic filled me. I shot a look at Doctor Mac and Rose who looked from Bates to me in disbelief.
“None better than these good people to explain that to you, Charley Bates,” I chuckled. “They have more experience with roses and Scotch thistles than with apples and thorns, but I believe there is a good lesson there, too.”
“You will fly to London in the darkness?” Kera breathed. I had confiscated Bates’ flight clothes, which were made of a material like the wings of the spy ship and made me shimmer and go almost invisible when I was fully clothed in the gear. Todd had helped us bring the glider up to the highest hillside above the estate and pointed it in the general direction of London.
“I am sure I must get there as soon as possible.” I was filled with terror at the prospect but I allowed Sararati and Tod to strap me into the machine.
“Please, my Father in Christ--” Kera broke off, crying again, unable to finish whatever she had begun to say. She knelt on the ground under the glider, so close to my face I had to reach out and once more touch her hair. This time, however, I brought a shining lock of it to my lips.
“God willing, I will get to ask you a question that He seems to have put on my heart, Little Vessel,” I said softly. “Don’t cry. Pray instead.”
Just as I was about to start the run down the slope Doctor Mac appeared in the twilight and tucked a paper into my flight suit.
“Show that to Phoebes when you see her,” he said cryptically. “A present from Charley Bates, who is thorny no more. God bear you up and speed you on, Florizel the Flying Prince.”
The machine became airborne almost at once. It stupefied me how easy it was for the thing to get aloft and climb. An exhilaration I had never imagined overtook me and I wanted to see how high I could really go. I pursued a course almost straight up and for a long time rode that giddy, euphoric sensation with no consciousness of direction. The moon broke out of the clouds silver bright and I determined to chase Diana as her hounds had chased Actaeon.
But when it suddenly became hard to breathe it dawned on me that I had come near the threshold where there was no air for mere mortals. I looked down and the glider began to plunge earthward. Possibly the stealth glider needed air also for some reason. Down and down I hurtled, an Icarus of the night, until I regained control of the thing just before plunging into a river. I skimmed the water’s surface and even got my whole left side wet before I soared up again. Greatly chastened, I consulted the guidance system on the display in front of me.
It was necessary to avoid solid structures of all kinds, and once I nearly knocked myself out of the air colliding with a pigeon, but on the whole it was easy to forget my terror and exult in flight when the path was clear. I praised God for making me do this and I could not help thinking how Twist would enjoy the opportunity to study
this marvelous glider. London appeared on the horizon and I almost regretted that my flight would soon end.
The Bronze Cascade hotel swam into view below me, but at that moment the winds suddenly grew contrary. Currents pulled me away from the hotel and I twisted and whipped and almost took a header into the Thames. Getting control of the machine again I soared upward but too high to angle in to the rooftop garden. Round and over and down I tumbled as the wind caught me again.
I righted the craft once more and this time managed to steer a straight, sloping path that promised to send me up the middle of the roof. I saw the platform where the airship always came to rest and made for it. That was when one last gust tickled my wings and the glider tumbled end over end. A camel’s hump rushed up to meet me. I thrust away from it and tumbled again. My feet actually touched the ground alongside an American Bison, which nodded its head in greeting, but the glider jerked me back up again and tumbled a third time.
This time a handsome ram, patriarch of a small herd of mountain sheep on the very edge of the roof, caught a wing on its horn just as its preset clockwork motion caused it to turn its head outward toward the night lights below. The glider and I were pulled over the edge and I arced, upside-down, suspended by the ram’s horn, straight toward a penthouse window.