The Court of the Air

‘Those two jokers back at Hundred Locks were real policemen?’ said Harry. ‘That’s a turn up for the books. I had them pegged as toppers with counterfeit inspector brass. What’s the world coming to when you can’t trust a crusher?’

‘Complicates things,’ said Mother.

‘Yes it does,’ Harry agreed. ‘The blood machines won’t do Ham Yard any good though. My records were given a right old hocus when I joined the Court. My blood code on the census belongs to a poulterer called Jeremiah Flintwinch who died of syphilis twenty years back.’

Mother jerked a thumb in Oliver’s direction. ‘And his blood code? You can leave the boy with me, Harry. Safer for the both of you.’

‘I do have a name,’ Oliver protested.

‘And a good one at that,’ said Harry. ‘The station that got rolled up was run by Titus Brooks. Mother, meet Oliver Brooks, as in the son of Phileas.’

‘Phileas Brooks,’ said Mother. ‘Now there’s a name to conjure with. Bloody Circle, dearie, that’s a lot to live up to.’

‘There seems to be no shortage of people in the kingdom aiming to make sure I don’t,’ said Oliver.

The old woman got up and stretched her arms, ‘I can see it now, Harry. Like listening to Phileas’s ghost talking. Well, boy, let’s see if old Beth can help you even the odds a little. Now, where’s that useless beanpole of an assistant of mine?’

As if on cue a young apprentice turned up with a tray of hams wrapped in wax paper.

‘Creakle, I told you to lay in victuals, not to buy the store.’

‘Of course, damson. Sorry, damson. I was delayed by the crowds from the county fair.’

‘Delayed by a tot of Puttenland cider, by the looks of you, Creakle. Now open the door to the wagon, we’ve got clients to attend to.’

‘Very good, damson.’

Inside the wagon a workbench and counter had been squeezed in between dozens of tiny cupboards. It was just large enough to accommodate the four of them at the same time, Mother sitting down while the others stood.

‘Alright,’ Mother said. ‘Harry, your pleasure?’

‘Something discreet, small enough to fit under a coat, but large enough to pack a punch. Not a long-arm, but it might need range.’

‘And young Master Brooks?’

Harry looked at Oliver. ‘Did Titus ever take you out hunting or the like?’

Oliver shook his head. ‘We didn’t have any guns at Seventy Star Hall. Uncle used to say that a man’s mind was his best weapon. Guns just give you a false bravery – make you behave stupidly.’

‘He didn’t like them, Oliver,’ said Harry. ‘But never confuse disliking fighting with not being able to fight. He kept a pistol in a secret compartment in his desk. Much good that it did him in the end.’

‘That old Tennyson and Bounder?’ said Mother. ‘You’d have better luck spitting at an enemy. He should have let me make him a proper pistol. Circle knows, I made the offer often enough.’

‘We all get sentimental about things, Mother,’ said Harry. ‘They were all the go when I was a boy.’

‘Oh, sir,’ said Mother’s apprentice. ‘When you were a boy? Leaaf addict were you, sir? Oh, a Tennyson and Bounder, they belong behind the glass in a museum.’

Harry looked at the young assistant with a glimmer of irritation in his eyes. ‘You like guns, old stick?’

‘Oh, sir. I do. All sorts. Duelling pistols, gas guns, mail-coach pieces. Special commissions for navy officers, long-arms for the gamekeeper, but I have a particular fondness for ladies’ weapons sir. Nice delicate pieces, sir. The sort of thing you can tuck into a purse or under a skirt.’

Mother rolled her eyes at Harry. ‘We apprenticed Creakle as an arrangement of a debt with one of Locke’s gambling companions.’

‘Well then, apprentice, what would you recommend for my friend here who has never shot before?’

The odd young man moved over to Oliver and started feeling his arm, sizing up his height, weight and balance. ‘Never shot, sir? Not often we get a virgin through the doors at Loade and Locke. Something flared I think, sir, something with a bit of heft to make sure it doesn’t jerk around. Would you like a bit of heft, sir? No need for customization, just something to get you going, something to set you off, something off the peg.’

He opened one of the drawers, rummaged around, and drew out a black pistol with a bell-ended barrel. ‘Our boatsman model, sir. Intended for the salty sea dog, the gentleman of the ocean, where the yaw and pitch of the waves renders accuracy obsolete. Not good for long range, but should you let off your weapon at a close distance, sir, you will find the results are quite devastating.’

Harry signed his approval of the choice for Oliver. ‘You need to fire that, Oliver, do me the favour of making sure I’m standing behind you at the time.’

Mother pulled out a couple of drawers and began scattering parts across the work counter – barrels, chambers, hammers, clockwork igniters. She began to run her fingers across the pieces, muttering instructions to her assistant, sending him scuttling off into the dark recesses of the wagon for some part or another. When she was happy with her selection, Mother began assembling the parts, slipping pieces together, sometimes reaching for a set of fine watchmaker’s tools. Her old fingers seemed to shrug off age as they danced across the flat surface, adjusting, tinkering, pressing pieces of clockwork against her ear and listening to the whirr and click of each mechanism. The gun began to take shape before Oliver’s eyes, a square blocky pistol with a long barrel.

Harry looked on with interest, appreciative of Mother’s craft. ‘You’re using a Catosian breech ejector.’

‘Nothing but the best, Harry. Talk while I work. I like to hear chatter. Dig out some charges for young master Brooks.’

Mother’s apprentice produced a bag of crystal bullets and passed them across to Harry. ‘Did they grow blow-barrel trees in Hundred Locks, Oliver?’

‘No. There was talk of setting up an orchard a few years ago, but the voters in the town got the permissions refused. Said it was too dangerous.’

Harry held up a glass shell in front of the oil lamp, gripping it between his thumb and finger. ‘A bullet is blown by a glassmaker in pretty much the same way as nature grows the seed-barrels on the tree. Two chambers filled with sap, separated by a thin membrane. Each sap by itself is harmless, but mix the two and you’ll lose a hand in the explosion.’

‘Someone in Claynark died when they were hit by a seed-barrel from a wild tree. They found the sapling five miles away,’ said Oliver.

‘A mature tree can blast its seed-barrel up to twenty miles,’ said Harry. ‘When you trigger your pistol, the hammer mechanism strikes and shatters the weak point in the shell’s glass casing, breaks the mixing chamber and ignites the charge.’

‘Oh sir,’ said the assistant. ‘The crack, boom and whine of a bullet, it’s like a symphony. Does the young sir know the rules?’

‘You press the trigger and nothing happens, Oliver, that’s a misfire. Never turn around and show the gun to anyone whose life you value. Hold the gun away from you, break it in the middle like this, then pull the lever on the side to eject the charge,’ said Harry. ‘If you need to clear a used charge manually, take the rod off the side of the gun and push it out and down the barrel. Never use your hand. Blow-barrel residue can burn through your fingers; that’s why the charge is blown crystal, not cast metal. When you’re on the field of battle, be careful where you step. A charge that hasn’t fired is likely to have been blown too strong in the glassworks, jettisoned with a crack that can shatter when you step on it, taking off your boot – with foot attached.’

‘Never skimp on the charges, dearie,’ said Mother as she worked. ‘You can’t afford to buy cheap ones. Shoddy crystal’s killed more soldiers than accurate fire ever did. Cheap crystal will shatter in your gun when you don’t want it to; you take a wallop against your charge sack and your friends will be scraping pieces of you off the grass for your coffin.’

‘Same reason you never walk around with your gun charged. You wait until you’re looking trouble in the face, then break the gun and load,’ Harry said. ‘In polite company, like a shoot or a hunt, you walk around with your gun broken in the middle so everyone knows your weapon is safe.’

Mother held up her nearly assembled pistol to the light. ‘It’ll take you a while to learn the glassmaker’s marks on the charges, dearie. Quick way to tell cheap crystal is to check if one half of the charge has the sap a different colour or not. Natural blow-barrel seed sap is as clear as water, both left chamber and right chamber. A good gun maker will add dye to the liquid on one side or the other. I use red dye on right-chamber sap. Cheap gunsmiths that sell to fools won’t spend the extra coin on the dye.’

Harry passed Oliver a crystal charge. There was a hollow in the glass shell, forward of the two explosive sap-filled chambers – packed with dozens of lead balls. ‘Your blunderbuss uses these; they’re called buckshot charges. Not good on range, but then I haven’t got the time to make a marksman of you. You let off that bessy and the charge will spread the shot in front of you. Ain’t intended to discriminate, you understand?’

Oliver looked at his bell-barrelled gun. Now he understood what Uncle Titus had meant. The false bravery seeped from the weapon like warmth from a hearth. Next time some bent Ham Yard crusher tried to slip a noose around his neck, he had better come armed with more than a Sleeping Henry and a police cutlass. ‘I understand, Harry. No friends in front of me when I fire.’

‘Young sir,’ said Mother’s apprentice. ‘You are a fast learner. What a magnificent piece you have. Quite the young duellist now, sir.’

Mother passed Harry his newly assembled pistol. He began to check it, looking down the barrel and sizing up its weight in each hand. The old woman looked at Oliver. ‘If you ever travel abroad, dearie, you might come across what we in the trade call suicide guns.’

‘Suicide guns?’

‘Two-barrel guns, tri-barrels, quad-barrels, even accordion guns. Stay clear of them. You load more than one charge in a gun, the first charge goes off and weakens the crystal in the other shells. Each extra shot and the chance of the gun exploding on you rises real fast. My first husband died in Concorzia that way when he was called out packing a tribarrel. Never could shoot worth a damn anyway.’