Word of Honour

'Why? Are you suspicious?'

'I deal with many people, as you know. Many foreigners, too.'

'You're a prince, Jack.'

'I'll have none of that aristocratic nonsense here.' Jack grinned. 'I have a different view of patriotism from most, I'll grant you. I see us all belonging to the community of humanity, first and foremost. Crowns and kings and borders come a distant second.'

'I'll grant you that many ills have been perpetrated in the name of patriotism.'

'That they have. And it's worse than ever, in my books. Just read the papers, or listen to your politicians. It sounds as if some of them can't wait to go to war. As if they'd be the ones going.'

'All the more reason to do what we can to prevent it. Tell me what's troubling you about the Holmlanders.'

'For one, they seem very well-off for poverty-stricken refugees.'

'They're aristocrats. They must have smuggled out some funds.'

'True, but it's the pattern I'm intrigued by. They seem to be flush with cash for a while, then it disappears and they have nothing to show for it.'

'Perhaps they're selling off the family jewellery and sending the proceeds back to family in Holmland.' Or using it to buy influence, Aubrey thought, or even to fund the Circle's activities.

'Could be, could be. I've seen that done before, too, but it's always with gloom and tears. Not Count Brandt and his crowd. It's money, not family heirlooms, that's keeping them afloat.'

'Hmm.' Aubrey rested his chin on his hand. 'On another matter altogether, how are Maggie and her Crew, Jack? Still hard at work?'

'Best messengers and errand runners in the district.'

'Of course. I was going to say that it keeps the urchins off the streets, but that's not quite the case, is it? They're scampering up and down the streets all day long.'

'Gainful employment. Mostly.' Jack took off his glasses and polished them on his vest. 'I hate to think what they'd be doing if she didn't have work for them.'

'School being out of the question.'

'Here? Not enough schools for a start. Among the younglings, not one in ten can read and write.'

Aubrey made a mental note. He could see a project on the horizon. 'I may have some work for Maggie's Crew.'

The whistle of the kettle brought Jack to his feet. 'Good. They like it when you have a job. You tend to pay.'

The tea was surprisingly good. Aubrey cocked an eyebrow at Jack.

'One of my friends at the docks supplies me.'

'From cargo that's gone missing?'

'Could be. Who's to say? Call it the workers' share.' Jack put his cup down on top of another box. 'Drink up. Then we'll go and find Maggie.'

'At this time of night?'

'She and her Crew have an unconventional working schedule. Around the clock, if needs be.'

Aubrey gulped the tea and stood, taking care that the floor was cat free. 'Take me to them.'

LITTLE PICKLING WAS A DISTRICT OF CONTRASTS. MOSTLY a warren of rooming houses and rundown tenements where once-grand houses had been subdivided and subdivided again, it also hosted many factories and warehouses and a large gasworks. Jack wound his way through this sparsely lit industrial part of Little Pickling until they reached a freestanding building that had once been impressive.

'The Society for the Advancement of Knowledge,' Aubrey read aloud from the carving over the rather grand entrance. 'A noble aim, I would have thought.'

'Noble, but doomed. The society may have wanted to advance knowledge, but the founders had no idea about money. It went broke.'

'Sad.'

'Of course, they weren't the original owners of this place. It was built for Beauchamp's engineering project. It went broke, too.'

Aubrey was about to raise the possibility of financial bad luck being integrated into a building when a low whistle came from overhead. Aubrey looked up in time to glimpse a silhouette that dropped behind a parapet.

'We've been noticed,' Jack said.

'That's bad?'

'That's good. Much better for us to be expected than unexpected.'

Just before Jack reached the boarded-over doors, he turned left. 'This way.'

The stairs seemed to go down forever, much further down than the level of the basement of the building. At irregular distances, candles in jam jars had been left, just enough to make the darkness difficult instead of impossible.

Jack held up a hand to caution Aubrey. 'Almost there.'

'Almost where?' Aubrey said. He looked around at the platform that stretched to left and right from the end of the stairway. 'This tunnel isn't part of the railways, is it?'

'Not as you know it.' Jack ran his hand along the tiled wall and stepped out onto the platform. 'This is all that's left of the hydraulic railway.'

Aubrey stopped dead. The hydraulic railway.

Great engineers were great engineers for many reasons. Great magicians, likewise. Sir Cosmo Principality Beauchamp was both. The first member of a famous engineering family to show any magical aptitude, he went on to fuse magic and engineering in ways that had never been conceived of before.

Beauchamp fascinated Aubrey, especially his tragic end. As a young man, he had immediate success in designing bridges. He managed to blend high quality steel and spells drawing on the Laws of Attraction to span gaps many thought impossible. He moved on to shipbuilding, aqueducts and other structures, all stunning in design.

Then, forty years ago, Beauchamp had fallen in love with railways.

His obsession began easily enough, engineering the Moulton–Snapesby line with its cuttings and river crossings. Soon he was engaged to construct stations, locomotives, rolling stock of all kinds, one of the many men who were bringing steam rail to the countryside of Albion.

Beauchamp's great vision was elsewhere, however. He wanted to free the choked streets of the capital, to transport people from one side of the city to the other in speed and comfort. It was the beginning of the age of the underground railway.

But being a visionary, Beauchamp scorned the normal approach of tunnels and steam engines. He had a grand plan, one that removed the steam engines from the depths and put them on the surface, for easy maintenance and repair. Instead, he dreamed of a hydraulic railway. Tunnels, not to keep water out, but to keep water in. Watertight carriages, huge steam-driven pumps to move the water – and the carriages – in smooth, quiet, cushioned grace. No wheels, no engines, no smoke, simply comfortably upholstered capsules to seat dozens of passengers.

It all fell apart, of course. The seals on the tunnels weren't tight enough to allow efficient pumping. The huge engines on the surface were plagued with problems. The tunnels leaked; the capsules ground to a halt. Beauchamp died, penniless, of lung rot brought about by supervising his workers too closely when tunnelling.

Only a short, experimental stretch of the hydraulic railway was ever finished and Aubrey was now standing in it.