The Liberation Read online

  The women strolled arm-in-arm past low hawthorn hedges and winter-bare rosebushes. Each kept to herself as if waiting for the other to begin. The awkward moment stretched like cheap wool. Anastasia ransacked her conversational cupboard but found it bare as the rosebushes. She chewed her lip to stave off a twinge of panic. Such anticipation, only to find herself bashful as a schoolgirl? The injuries had changed her.

  Rebecca proved the more courageous. “Did we neglect to remove the cast from your tongue?”

  Caught off guard, but also relieved, Anastasia laughed like an uncouth fishwife. “I’m filing a malpractice suit this afternoon.”

  Ice broken, conversation came easier after that. They turned east, toward the canal.

  Rebecca pointed to a hansom weaving through traffic on the Torenstraat. The steel rims on its wheels struck sparks from the paving stones. The servitor pulling it moved so quickly its legs were almost invisible.

  She said, “Heavens. He’s in quite a hurry.”

  The taxi fishtailed onto the hospital’s horseshoe drive. It sent a fine spray of gravel pattering like hail against the windows when the servitor brought the carriage sliding to a halt. A man leapt from the cab and disappeared inside the hospital. He passed too quickly for Anastasia to be certain, but he looked familiar. She tensed. But Rebecca shrugged, and her smile dispelled the unease. They resumed their walk. The din of the city swelled; the races out at Scheveningen Pier must have been quite exciting.

  Worried a medical emergency might cut short their visit, Anastasia asked, “Have you younger siblings, Rebecca? Taking care of others is second nature to you, I think.”

  “Now, who told you that?”

  “Nobody. But I’m quite good at reading people.”

  “I do have—”

  Behind them, the door to the south vestibule banged open. “Tuinier! Tuinier Bell!”

  Anastasia froze. Oh, no. Please, don’t do this to me.

  “Goodness!” Rebecca turned for the source of the commotion. Anastasia did likewise, one eye on the man running toward them and the other on the nurse, hoping beyond all reason that he’d shut up.

  “Anastasia Bell!” he called across the gardens. “Wait, please! I must speak with you at once!”

  The medical servitor sprang forward. It landed lightly beside them and said, “Mistress, I believe that gentleman wishes a word with you. It appears to be a matter of some urgency. Shall I convey you to him?”

  No. No, no, no, not now.

  The man from the taxi jogged closer. She recognized Malcolm, a fellow Verderer. She craned her neck to look at the hansom again, but couldn’t see the door. “Tuinier Bell!” he cried. “Tuinier Bell, wait!”

  Anastasia groaned. Shut up, you fool.

  Muscles twitched in Rebecca’s arm. “That man. He’s calling you, ‘Tuinier.’”

  Anastasia closed her eyes. Damn it. “Yes. He is.”

  “Oh. I… Rebecca’s gaze flicked back and forth, never meeting her eyes, as though she were a cornered rabbit and Anastasia a fox. “I knew you’re a Guildwoman, of course. Because of your injuries. I mean the glass—I mean, I haven’t seen it, but your hand, I haven’t pried, honestly, but after Doctor Huysman went away… But you didn’t seem—Oh! I mean, I didn’t realize… the Verderers…

  The Verderer’s Office: that special arm of the Sacred Guild of Horologists and Alchemists charged with protecting the Clockmakers’ secrets, and thus by extension the de facto secret police for the Dutch Empire. True or not, everybody had heard dread tales of the Verderers’ clockwork centaurs, the Stemwinders, and their human masters. The tales never emphasized the Verderers’ vital role in perpetuating the Dutch Golden Age; only dark rumors of what that entailed. The Verderers patrolled the walled garden of Guild secrets, ensuring nothing entered—not the tiniest aphid—as well as eradicating any shoots that might poke past the walls. The Tuinier was the chief gardener.

  Anastasia sighed. “Yes. I command the Stemwinders.”

  And… there it went. Like a feat of emotional alchemy, that four-word incantation transmuted flirtatious attraction to quiet fear. It extinguished the coquettish sparkle in the nurse’s eyes. In its stead came the flat, fragile glassiness that always materialized when somebody took a tight rein on her thoughts and words. Anastasia had seen it a hundred times.

  “I’m still your patient. I’m still the Anastasia Bell you’ve come to know. And, I hope, like,” she said, loathing the desperation in her voice.

  “Of course. And I’m still dedicated to your full recovery,” said the nurse. She didn’t shrug off Anastasia’s hand, but the shift in her posture turned their contact from something intimate to something professional. “I’m sure you have extremely important duties. You’ll be able to resume them soon.”

  Malcolm slipped in the gravel, but the medical servitor streaked forward and caught him before he went sprawling. Anastasia shook her head.

  “I’ll be resuming them imminently, I fear.”

  Rebecca stiffened. She tried to suppress it, but Anastasia could feel the tremble in her arm. She stroked the nurse’s hand as though trying to calm a frightened horse. “Don’t fret. This has nothing to do with you.”

  She smiled, too, but the other woman wouldn’t look at her. Anastasia crouched—ignoring the twinge from her ribs—to intercept the gaze Rebecca now cast at her own feet. No help there; she reacted as though Anastasia had bared her teeth. Sighing again, she released the nurse’s arm and turned to the approaching Clockmaker.

  Well, I’m sleeping alone tonight no matter what. The calf has already drowned; no point filling the well. No longer any point trying to convince her I’m a nice person.

  Such was the price a woman paid for the privilege of defending the Empire. It was a crucial post, but lonely.

  Oh well. Once this blew over, whatever it was, she could have Rebecca taken by the Verderer’s Office for questioning. And then, after the poor innocent woman spent a night shivering in a cell and listening to the real prisoners, Anastasia could swoop in to “save” her from a terrible bureaucratic mix-up. She’d be the nurse’s savior… and what she couldn’t win by honest wooing, she’d receive by virtue of desperate gratitude.

  Malcolm joined them, panting. He propped his hands on his knees to catch his breath. His Guild insignia, an onyx pendant inlaid with a cross of rose quartz flanked by a small golden v, swung from his neck like a pendulum. Rebecca wrestled with the urge to flee the impromptu gathering of secret police. Fidgety feet etched furrows in the path.

  The newcomer said, “Tun—”

  “I don’t care how urgent you think your business is. You’ve already destroyed what promised to be a very special day for me. So I assure you that if the next words out of your mouth are anything other than, ‘Tuinier, it’s the end of the world,’ I’ll have the Stemwinders twist your fucking head off and toss it in a canal for fish food.”

  Rebecca gave a mousy squeak. She’d excavated all the gravel underfoot; the muddy furrow smelled faintly of shit.

  Anastasia said to her, “I’m so sorry you had to hear that. I apologize for my language. I’m usually not so coarse. Truly, I’m not. Please don’t think less of me.”

  Why do I still plead for her affection? She thinks I’m the Devil incarnate.

  Malcolm blinked. His lips moved, like a goldfish blowing bubbles. The dash across the gardens had left him flushed, his fading-pink cheeks at odds with the rest of him, which had gone pale. His pupils were dilated.

  Malcolm found his voice. “But, Tuinier… it is the end of the world.”

  The din from Scheveningen Pier swelled again. But the crowd wasn’t cheering, she realized.

  It was screaming.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Anastasia said, “Tell me.”

  Malcolm licked his lips. He glanced at the nurse.

  Oh, very well. Anastasia laid a hand on Rebecca’s forearm again. She flinched.

  “I’ll need to press for a discharge. May I impose upon
you to speak with Doctor Riordan and gather my belongings while I chat with my colleague?”

  In truth, there was nothing to gather. Anastasia had returned from the New World with nothing but injuries; the hunters had cut the blood-stiffened clothes from her body back in the demolished safe house. But the naked relief on Rebecca’s face stung like a slap. Her shoulders had taken on a frightened hunch, like a dog cowering from an angry master. Now the tension in the nurse’s shoulders melted as each step took her farther from the Verderers. Anastasia’s gaze lingered on the retreating nurse, as though she might salvage the morning with the force of her yearning. Gravel crunched under Rebecca’s feet, seagulls cawed, mechanicals ticktocked on their myriad errands, and in a part of the city not far away, people raised their voices in fear.

  A frisson of unease tickled the unscratchable spot between Anastasia’s shoulders.

  An attack? The war in the New World had been winding down when the Guild physicians deemed Anastasia stable enough to endure a midwinter sea voyage back to the Central Provinces. Acadia had already fallen to the thousands of mechanical soldiers swarming over the border from Nieuw Nederland, as had most of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, including the Vatican. All that remained was the seat of King Sébastien III in Marseilles-in-the-West, and the defense of that beleaguered citadel had already begun to falter. That had been weeks ago. Surely the French had folded. Ships carrying news of the victory were expected any day.

  As soon as the nurse was out of earshot, Anastasia turned to her subordinate. “There. Now, tell me—”

  But Malcolm wasn’t listening. Instead, he snapped the chain on his Guild pendant and thrust it at the crystalline eyes of the medical servitor. She knew at once his intent; her unease turned to fear.

  “I am a representative of the Verderer’s Office of the Sacred Guild of Horologists and Alchemists,” he announced to the machine. Words spilled from his mouth as he rushed through the formal expression of the Verderer’s Prerogative: “My work is that of Guild, Crown, and Empire, which supersedes all domestic and commercial geasa. I hereby negate your lease and sunder any geas not directly in service of my requirements.”

  It was the sort of thing one kept up one’s sleeve for very special circumstances. As a rule the Verderer’s Office didn’t advertise this feature, which was engineered into every single Clakker except those in direct service to the Brasswork Throne. Civilians pitched a fit when they learned their very expensive leases could be overridden at any time. The Prerogative only came out during emergencies.

  The Clakker vibrated. The ticktock rattle of its body crescendoed, then fell quiet. “I understand, master. How may I serve the Verderer’s Office?”

  The Guildman tossed the pendant to Anastasia. She plucked it from midair. She’d intended to get a replacement when she returned to work. He pointed at her, saying, “You will protect Tuinier Bell above all others, excepting Her Majesty, at any cost. Take her to my cab, and thence to the Ridderzaal with all speed. You will stop for nothing, not even the safety of pedestrians, nor will you acknowledge alarms. Go!”

  Before she could protest, the machine had scooped her up as though carrying a child to bed. She gasped. The touch of cold metal behind her knees and across her back caused the aches to flare anew. Piercing pain shot through her shredded hand, as though the glass embedded there recognized the proximity of an alchemical machine and pulsed in time to the Clakker’s mainspring heart. Cradling her as though she were made of the finest porcelain, the servitor bounded across the garden with five-meter strides and leapt the hawthorn hedges. The servitor that had pulled the hansom saw their approach and opened the cab door. It was a city cab, she saw, rather than a Guild vehicle. Together the two machines secured Anastasia within the cab mere seconds after Malcolm issued his order. As the carriage lurched into motion, another unsettling thought landed on her like an angry wasp.

  Servitors. But if this is an emergency, why didn’t Malcolm call upon the Stemwinders? And why didn’t he arrive in a Guild carriage?

  The servitors’ arms ratcheted backward so each could grab a pull-pole. Normally a single taxi servitor pulled a hansom, but the machines, driven by the implacable geas imposed by Malcolm, worked in perfect synchrony. They spun the cab through such a tight turn it lurched momentarily upon a single wheel, tossing Anastasia from her perch. The flare of agony from her sore ribs stole her breath away. The wheels etched furrows in the drive.

  Confused by pain and the events of the past minute, Anastasia watched for Rebecca, hoping for one last glance. It wasn’t to be had, so she shook her head, then patted herself on the cheeks. And again, less gently. Enough of that. You’re not a moon-eyed schoolgirl.

  “Machines!” she called. “What is the crisis?”

  Just then a piercing shriek blanketed the city: the Rogue Clakker Alarm. It emanated from the general direction of Scheveningen, but swelled in volume almost exponentially. Each machine that heard the cacophony was metageas-bound to freeze and add its magically augmented voice to the din. Thus the alarm crossed the city at the speed of sound, until all Clakkers and humans in earshot were aware of the rogue in their midst. The Rogue Alarm could blanket hundreds of square miles in minutes.

  Yet her drivers sprinted along the Paviljoensgracht without a hitch in their stride. Malcolm had overridden their vulnerability to the Rogue Alarm. As if he’d been expecting it. But how could he have known before a single Clakker raised the alarm?

  Another lurch sent Anastasia slamming against the boards. She almost passed out from the pain. She wiped the tears from her eyes, wondering if her bones would still be healed at the end of this hectic ride. “I’m not a sack of flour! If that happens again, I’ll have you both thrown into the Grand Forge and melted for ashtrays. See if I won’t.”

  A rogue was bad news, yes, but not the end of the world. What could warrant such panic? Even the rogue Stemwinder in the safe house had eventually been subdued, and that had been in the wild sticks of Nieuw Nederland. Here, in the heart of the Central Provinces, any malfunctioning mechanical would be dogpiled by a dozen machines within moments.

  Once on the Torenstraat, the servitors accelerated. The city became a sunlit blur. Even the largest cities shrank when one’s mechanicals sprinted at full speed. Silver sparks spewed from the rims as though the wheels were Roman candles. Anastasia exhaled with relief. They’d get her to the Ridderzaal momentarily. The ancient Knights’ Hall, headquarters of the Clockmakers’ Guild, loomed over historic Huygens Square: the plaza at the center of the Binnenhof, the complex of buildings that formed the nexus of administration for the Central Provinces and, hence, much of the world.

  Another Clakker-drawn carriage, this a much larger growler, swerved perilously close.

  “Watch out!” she cried.

  Traffic accidents were almost unheard of, particularly amongst Clakker-driven vehicles. She’d certainly never witnessed one.

  Her drivers tried to haul the hansom out of danger. The cab lurched. Metal screeched. Shattered boards pelted her with splinters. The dented carriages swerved to and fro as their drivers attempted to pull them apart. Anastasia slipped and she fell toward the wheels for a gut-wrenching fraction of a second before the medical servitor caught her. Running backward, its legs a blur, it hauled her from the wreckage and leapt free.

  It carried her down the boulevard with high-bounding strides. And Anastasia stopped wondering how the growler had smashed into her hansom: The entire city, or at least this district, had gone mad. The roads were choked with people fleeing the piers.

  And then, over the panicked heaving of the crowd and the ticktock rattle of her escort, she heard the sound she’d learned to dread: the reverberating cymbal crash of metal against metal. It was the sound of Clakkers pummeling each other. The sound of something having gone very, very wrong.

  A bead of sweat chilled her brow. The last time she’d heard that sound, it had left her at death’s door. The rogue Stemwinder had taken half a second to murder her colleague, and would
have done the same to her if the other mechanicals in the building hadn’t leapt upon it. They had ignored her entirely, yet still she took catastrophic injuries. When titans hammered at each other with fists of alchemical steel, soft humans got squished.

  Clang. Crack. Smash.

  Clakkers fighting each other. Dear God, WHY?

  The golden light of a rising sun glinted on the copper rainspouts of the tall shops along the Torenstraat. But there was something peculiar about the sunlight. It rippled with the rainbow sheen of oil upon water… or with the faint shimmer of alchemical alloys. She recognized the coruscation of light playing across dozens of Clakker carapaces. Mechanicals swarmed the rooftops, sprinting over the buildings to keep pace with the exodus of panicked citizens. Oh. She relaxed the tiniest bit. The machines were a defensive cordon, a protective escort.

  But from what?

  The medical servitor’s path to Huygens Square sent it sprinting alongside the Spui River canal. Her stomach lurched with every bounce. She tried to pick out stable landmarks, like a ballerina spotting during a pirouette, and settled on a group of men and women arguing with the canalmaster. They wanted to hire his trekschuit, his towboat. The women wore thick fur stoles; gems sparkled on one man’s cufflinks when he pointed downstream. Anybody of such obvious means owned several Clakker leases. Why weren’t their own servitors whisking them to safety?

  Anastasia wanted to berate their idiocy. Stay with the escorts, you fools! They’ll protect you!

  The machines in the flanking protective cordon saw the canal-side negotiation. A trio of mechanicals peeled away from the troop on the rooftops. They hurled themselves into the air, briefly folding into aerodynamic cannonballs to milk as much distance from the leap. In the final instant they became sleek javelins to spear the pavement alongside the canalmaster’s hut. One of the wealthy men screamed. The synchronized impact shattered windows and pulverized concrete. Waves sloshed over the canal edge. Normally, a subclause buried within the hierarchical metageasa would have prohibited such property damage. Apparently in this case the intricate calculus of compulsion prioritized the stragglers’ safety.