Deathscent: Intrigues of the Reflected Realm. Robin Jarvis

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      The stables which had once housed the finest mechanical horses of the realm were now reduced to common workshops. Shelves and benches crowded the once grand stalls and from every beam there dripped a hundred gleaming tools.

      To bolster his floundering fortunes, Lord Richard Wutton had been compelled to take in the broken and defective animals of neighbouring estates. Here, under the guidance of Master Edwin Dritchly, a man most learned in the study of motive science, Adam and two other apprentices executed repairs. Many of the county’s best animals had at some point been inside the stable workshops and even in the great isle of London there were mechanicals which bore the discreetly pasted label ‘A Wutton Restoration’.

      An endless ark of faulty creatures passed through those stable doors so there was always enough to keep Master Edwin and his lads busy, but today had been the most frantic and trying that he had known in a long while.

      Edwin Dritchly had been with Lord Richard for many years and had adapted to this new, uplifted world with greater ease than most. He was a short, round man with a chubby pink, clean-shaven face which broke out in red blotches whenever he became flustered or agitated. Since that morning, when his Lord had sprung the surprise announcement that they were to expect an illustrious visitor from the court, Master Edwin had resembled a very large and overripe raspberry.

      Huffing and sweating, he foraged through boxes of odds and ends, muttering to himself.

      “Fourteen year it’s been,” he grumbled under his breath. “Fourteen year without so much as a hafternoon revel on the green, and now all of the sudden I’m hexpected to put those old gleemen back together and make them fit to be heard. Well, I haren’t no conjuror and what I doesn’t have can’t be grabbed out of the hempty hair.”

      Thrusting the box to one side, he pushed past the other two apprentices and began searching beneath one of the benches.

      The last of Lord Richard Wutton’s finest mechanicals, the only ones which had never been sold for revenue, were two life-size mannequins: a lutanist and a recorder player. These musicians had not been used for many years, and when Master Edwin was commanded to fetch them out and prepare them for a performance that evening, his plump face had fallen and immediately blotched up.

      From their dusty corner in the stable loft the mannequins were brought down and Master Edwin groaned loudly. For too long these marvellous mechanicals had been used as the repositories of excellent spares and so when they were laid upon the workbenches he saw that they were in a truly dreadful, ransacked condition. Most of the internal works were either corroded or missing, pipes had perished and brass joints had been stripped away.

      “May the celestial orbs fall upon me!” he warbled. “I fear Lord Richard will look like an impoverished fool this night.”

      The apprentices, however, were not so easily dismayed and were certain they could manage to lash something together. They were rarely allowed to work on any automata as intricate as the musicians and were eager to show off their skills. For the whole of the afternoon they toiled unceasingly to replace plundered cogs and levers. Gears were removed from several sheep, and the legs of chickens and geese were robbed of their springs. Master Dritchly’s wife took time away from the kitchen, where a feast was being prepared, to whisk the faded velvet costumes from the mannequins. She then set to work beating the dust out of them and sewing up the holes.

      Eventually, as the day wore on, their confidence that the task would be completed on time increased.

      Inspecting the labour, Master Edwin had congratulated his apprentices. But when he opened the head of the recorder player to check that the breath pipe was still in place, he made an awful discovery and buried his face in his hands. “The cordials are gone!” he had wailed.

      Inside every mechanical, from the most crudely fashioned tin fighting cockerel, to the Queen’s own Ladies of the Privy Chamber, were glass phials containing a fluid named ichor. The sophisticated models possessed four vessels of these different coloured ‘humours’, each one governing separate aspects of function.

      The basic fluid was the green which maintained balance and motion. Vulgarly called ‘phlegm’, it was present in even the most rudimentary creature. Amber ichor, also known as ‘yellow bile’, controlled intent and obedience; a skilled master of motive science would ensure that this was in harmony with ‘temper’, the red fluid which instilled character. Last and most precious of all was ‘black bile’, a rare elixir to be found in large quantities only within the servitors of the richest households. This costly liquid imparted elementary thought to a mechanical and was valued many times higher than gold.

      At some point during the years of repairing the ‘livestock’ of other estates, the ichors of the musicians had been removed and never replaced. Without them, they could neither move nor play a single note.

      In the little time that remained before the important guest’s arrival, Master Edwin and the apprentices tried to refill the empty phials. Every cow had been rounded up and their dismantled pieces lay in corners alongside overturned or half-open sheep. Heads of all sizes stared up from the floor, the glass lenses of their eyes gazing sightlessly at the three boys feverishly topping up the musician’s vessels with scavenged cordials. But there was still not quite enough of the amber for the recorder player.

      Only a few drops more were needed and so Adam o’the Cogs had been sent out to the piggery to fetch in Old Temperance. The great sow had yellow bile in abundance.

      “Where is that clotpole of a boy?” Master Edwin called again. “Hum hum, how long does it take to haul the old pig in here?” Even as he spoke Adam came running in with the piglet under his arm.

      “I couldn’t get Old Temperance out of the sty,” he explained hurriedly. “So I brought Suet instead; there ought to be just enough in him.”

      Master Edwin waved a podgy hand at the main workbench. “Set it down and hopen it up,” he instructed. “Hardly any time left – we won’t have a chance to rehearse these gleemen.”

      Taking the piglet from under his arm, Adam placed it upon the wide workbench. The wooden creature gave a shrill squeal and went scooting from the boy’s grasp. Through a heap of small brass wheels and miniature pulleys it bolted, sending them rolling to the floor. Over a sheep’s hind leg the piglet leaped, darting this way and that as it hunted for an escape.

      “Catch it!” Master Edwin roared.

      Henry Wattle, a curly-haired apprentice who was the same age as Adam, could not help laughing as the small creature scudded across the bench. Suet looked so comical, dodging and swerving on its small trotters, that Henry was of no assistance at all. Still squealing, the piglet darted to the end of the workbench where the recorder player sat awaiting the remaining drops of amber ichor.

      Master Edwin’s stout arms came reaching across to grab it but Suet was too nimble. Nipping aside, it ran straight into the musician’s velvet-covered back.

      A high squawk sounded as the piglet’s nose squashed flat. To everyone’s dismay, the figure was knocked from the bench and went lurching to the ground.

      “Save it!” Master Edwin cried.

      Henry Wattle, who had not stopped laughing, slithered across just in time to break the mechanical’s fall.

      Pushing its nose out again, Suet hopped СКАЧАТЬ