A Lady of Integrity Page 11

  They were escorted by two men—the Master of Prisons and an assistant, one ahead and one behind, presumably so none of them wandered away, never to be seen again. Maggie was finding this particularly irksome. The damp seeped through Claire’s linen jacket, rendering the crisp fabric limp and every bit as dispirited as she herself was becoming.

  Gloria clung to Captain Hollys’s arm, and Claire did not miss the occasional glance of satisfaction bestowed on them by her father, who otherwise treated her as though she were a featherhead. As though his training of her to manage his affairs was a burden, and he didn’t hold out much hope of success. In Claire’s opinion, this was doing Gloria a grave injustice. As Maggie had so accurately pointed out, Gloria could be very handy in a pinch, being possessed of both intelligence and a most unladylike willingness to take a risk.

  From the outside, the building’s façade was of white marble, and at the water level, they had seen the mighty arches holding it up. Through these passed the boats bearing the condemned or their families and lawyers, passing from sunshine into deep shadow where even the wavering reflections of the water did not penetrate.

  “Here are the piers where the accused disembark,” their guide intoned. From where they stood, Claire could see the aforesaid arches framing the busy canal outside—the last glimpse of the familiar world that many of these poor people would ever see. “Come along. The cells are at water level. To go below that, we will need to enter a diving bell.”

  “Oh, Lady,” Maggie whispered. “I don’t want to go below the water.”

  “Do not be afraid, darling,” she whispered back. “We will be with you every moment.” She did not particularly want to go, either, but what if they caught a glimpse of Jake? “We must learn as much as we can in order to be useful.”

  For Jake, was her unspoken message.

  Maggie took a deep breath and nodded. “I don’t suppose they would leave me alone on the landing, anyway,” she said.

  “Certainly not,” said the man bringing up the rear. “No uncondemned person may pass the water gates unescorted.”

  “Is there any other way into the prison and the gearworks?” Andrew inquired.

  This brought a tightening of the man’s facial muscles that might pass for a smile. “Not many wish to come in. Plenty wish to go out, however.”

  “That is well understood. But in answer…?”

  “Yes, of course. The mighty gearworks that support the city are accessible by anyone with a diving bell.”

  “Then you must have had to deal with misguided persons attempting to free their relatives and associates?”

  Claire squeezed his arm in appreciation. She would never have dared to ask such a question, but his reputation as an engineer had preceded him even to this benighted place. The Master of Prisons fancied himself an aficionado of mechanics, and had read every monograph Andrew had ever published.

  The master turned now to provide an answer himself. “There have been attempts, but none have succeeded. Several factors must be in place, you see.”

  “Factors? Do go on.” Andrew’s face held interest.

  The Master of Prisons expanded like a flower under the opportunity to give information to a man of such a reputation in the world. “First, one must possess a diving bell and the accompanying hoses and engines which produce air. These, you may imagine, are strictly regulated. Possession by unauthorized persons is illegal and punishable by imprisonment.”

  “And who may be authorized?”

  “Employees of the Ministry, naturally.”

  “Ah,” said Andrew. “And another factor?”

  “The position of the great arms and cogs of the gearworks.” They passed through a set of oak doors so thick that they might have come from a medieval castle. The men who held them open cranked them closed behind the little party, and Claire felt the boom! and the change in air pressure in her very bones.

  Now they were trapped and at the mercy of inhospitable forces. She shivered the dread away. They were in no danger. She was being fanciful.

  “How might the position of the gears affect a rescue attempt?” Andrew inquired.

  “Ah, but this factor is best illustrated by demonstration, not explanation, in true scientific fashion.” The Master of Prisons beamed. “In a moment you will see for yourselves. The third factor, of course, is the kraken.”

  “The what?” Gloria squeaked, clutching Captain Hollys’s arm more tightly, as though she expected a tentacled arm to rise out of the water below them and wrap itself around her ankle.

  “Perhaps you are not aware that kraken are immensely intelligent,” the master went on indulgently. “A well-trained hound or even a horse is no comparison to one of these. If they are captured young and trained by the methods we have developed, they become the vicious equivalent of guard dogs. The diving bells then serve two purposes—they provide air in the first instance, and protection in the second.”

  “The kraken attack the diving bells?” Andrew asked.

  Claire’s spirits began to waver as the magnitude of their task made itself clear.

  “Oh yes. They attack anything—except the gearworks, of course, for which they have a healthy—and, it seems, hereditary—respect.”

  “And these training methods?” Claire asked, willing her voice to its normal smooth civility. “What do they involve?”

  “Ah, but that is no subject for a gently reared lady’s ears,” the master said with a plump-cheeked smile. “I will tell you, however, that our own Minister of Justice has some expertise in this area. He has studied the kraken for many years in experiments with both living and dead animals, and is considered an authority among biologists—perhaps the equal of yourself, sir—” He nodded at Andrew. “—in the corresponding field of mechanical sciences. The animals trained by him are particularly effective at protecting the citizens of Venice from the condemned below.”

  Claire exchanged a speaking glance with Andrew, the memory of that creature swimming as fast as it could down the canal in search of escape vivid in both their memories. Lizzie had said that it had looked pathetic, almost pleading. To what tortures had the poor creature been subjected?

  The fact that she could feel pity for a kraken, of all things, was perhaps the strangest of all the strange moments she had experienced thus far in this peculiar city.

  “Come,” the Master of Prisons said as a lackey opened another thick door for them. “Let us enter a diving bell so that you may see for yourselves Leonardo da Vinci’s master work.”

  *

  The Lady had entrusted the chaperonage of herself and Tigg to Alice, but in Lizzie’s mind, a resourceful young woman halfway to seventeen and a young man of nineteen already well established in a respectable career had no need of it. But Alice did not seemed inclined to hire a water taxi to take them back to the mainland and Athena, which was why they were presently dressed in holiday style, strolling around the environs of the Ministry of Justice as though it were one of the sights recommended in Baedeker.

  If anyone questioned it, they could always say they were lost.

  Her half-brother Claude had turned up at the hotel while they were at breakfast, and had lounged along with them when they’d set out. Lizzie herself was torn about how much of their purpose here she could reveal to him. While he knew the broad outlines of the plot to hold him for ransom in France a few weeks ago, he did not know that Gerald Meriwether-Astor had been behind it. He labored under the delusion that Lady Claire’s party was here on holiday, much like his own, and had questioned their activities no further. But how long would they be able to keep up the pretense?

  It dismayed her to keep anything from the dear boy, whom she liked immensely and who, she had always believed, was similar to Goria Meriwether-Astor in that the people who had been closest to him underestimated him rather badly.

  But still … they were here on a matter of life and death. How much risk would she incur for Jake if she confided in Claude? Or was she just as guilty of underestim
ating him as their grandparents were?

  Now he looked from the arches on which the building rose, to the roofline far above. “This isn’t a church,” he said. “Aren’t we meant to be going to San Marco to see the gilded interior?”

  “Oh, are we?” Lizzie said innocently. “I suppose we must find our way around this building, then. Goodness, how big it is.”

  “Lizzie, old girl, it’s a government building. Justice, I think—it’s a temple, sure enough, but filled with lawyers instead of priests. Prayers won’t do a man much good here, either, from what I understand.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Tigg said. He led them along the pavement on one side. Here, toward the rear of the building, they climbed a stair where the embankment had been built up and the arches filled in, giving what was left of the apertures the effect of windows at the street level.

  A sound filled the air, like the calling of gulls. Crying. Weeping. Coming from some distance below them.

  Alice drew in a breath. “Is that—?”

  Now it appeared the occupants had realized someone was standing outside, blocking the light far above. Cries for help, for mercy issued thinly from between iron bars. Weak voices begged that they take a message to wife, to sweetheart, to solicitor. Others merely implored God to end their misery.

  Alice’s face turned white under the shade of her lacy parasol. Claude looked as though he might be ill.

  Behind them, a rough voice demanded something in the Venetian tongue, and their four horrified gazes swung upward. A man in a blue tunic and a military cap snapped a command that Lizzie had no doubt was the equivalent of one she’d known well: “Move along, there! This is no place for the likes of you.”

  He was going to chase them off and they had no recourse but to go. But she could do one thing. Flinging herself to her knees, she wrapped her fingers around the bars. “Jake!” she screamed into the dark abyss of the dungeon. “Jake!”

  The soldier snapped another command and seized Lizzie’s arm, but not before her keen hearing clearly detected a voice far away. “Lizzie? Maggie?”

  She shrieked his name once more in a paroxysm of relief and fear, and wrenched herself from the soldier’s grip. If she were detained, she might be tossed in the clink—or worse, taken before that nasty Minister, who would do the job himself. Without thinking further, her instincts once again took over and she took to her heels, hauling up her skirts and dodging between buildings, down an alley so narrow her elbows brushed it on both sides, and out along a broad waterway she recognized as the Grand Canal.

  No, too visible. She plunged into a cobbled street that ran between the grand palaces that fronted the canal. Slumping against a railing that separated a garden from this narrow street, she caught her breath, only to be startled half out of her skin by a feminine voice above her.

  “Really, Miss Seacombe, are you so fond of our company that you must run all the way here in this precipitate fashion?”

  Arabella de Courcy was draped over the balcony overlooking the garden, gazing down at her in amusement. Lizzie suddenly realized where she was—at the palazzo rented by Arabella’s family for their daughter’s stay with her friends. Apparently the elder de Courcys were also here, though Lizzie had never seen them yet and did not expect to.

  “I believed myself lost, but you have proven me wrong,” she told the girl in what she hoped was a flippant tone.

  “Are you unescorted?”

  “Of course not. I took a wrong turn. Claude and Lieutenant Terwilliger are just behind me, no doubt looking for me.”

  “No doubt.” Arabella gazed at her, and it seemed civility finally forced her to say, “Would you care for some refreshment?”

  After what she’d just seen and heard, if she tried to swallow anything, it would likely come back up again. “No, thank you. I will rejoin my party.”

  “When you see Claude and Miss Meriwether-Astor, do tell them we are planning to attend the opera this evening. It is Die Fledermaus. We should adore Miss Meriwether-Astor’s company.”

  “I am sure she would adore yours, too, but she is too much engaged with Captain Hollys at present to have time for schoolgirls such as we.”

  Arabella’s face fell, and Lizzie felt a most unkind moment of triumph. She waved farewell in the satisfaction of having had the last word, when Arabella recovered herself and called, “Oh, Miss Seacombe, a moment. A messenger came this morning bearing a warning of the acqua alta. In case you are not staying in a hotel that might warrant such an attention, I am passing it on to you. It comes with the full moon, two days off.”

  Not for worlds would Lizzie admit she had no idea what the acqua alta was. “Thanks ever so,” she said, and walked in as ladylike a fashion as she could back down the street to the canal.

  She could only hope that the others had got away clean. Now all she had to do was find them.

  15

  “It is quite safe, signorina,” the Master of Prisons said to Claire. He held out a hand, and she was forced to draw upon four centuries of breeding and self-confidence in order to put her gloved hand in his and step inside the diving bell.

  It did not look safe at all.

  It was made of glass, and from a structure in the apex hung a web of harnesses and the kind of narrow platform favored by the brave souls who washed the windows of churches for their living. The bell, large enough to contain their party, stood upon a platform that was winched down into the water.

  “The bell is maneuvered by a man we call the campanaro, in this chamber here.” He pointed to the apex, separated from the harnessed individuals below by a brass cage. “He also controls the air hoses and the propulsion. The wonders of steam power have allowed us to create a system unique in the world.” He beamed at Andrew. “I am honored to be the one to introduce you to it.”

  “Fascinating,” Andrew murmured, gripping Claire’s hand in his.

  They were soon separated, however, and buckled into the swinging harnesses. Claire was familiar with the principles of physics that allowed the bell to be submerged and yet not fill with seawater. But familiarity was no help as the dark water closed over their heads outside the membrane of glass and they began to sink into the depths under the city.

  Maggie whimpered, swaying in her harness, feet dangling a yard above the water that swirled in to contain them completely.

  If her molars had not been clenched together so tightly, Claire might have whimpered herself.

  They descended into the Stygian depths and a lamp was lit on the bell’s apex, so powerful that they could see the wavering weed and schools of fish around them. And then Andrew drew in a breath.

  “You may well be amazed,” the Master of Prisons said proudly. “This—unseen, unknown outside of the Levant—is the real source of our Duchy’s success. No one has matched it, and no one ever will.”

  The enormous arms of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterwork became visible in the gloom. They were the size of a building—no, the size of the cliffs above Resolution. Only at a distance could one apprehend the revolving gears and massive cogs that powered the movement of the neighborhoods above.

  “This gearworks has kept the Doge safe for centuries,” the master went on. “Who can locate him when his palace may be here one day and gone the next? There is a pattern to the movement, of course, but only the true Venetian, who has felt it in his blood and flesh his entire life, can tell what it is.”

  “And the task of the convict?” Gloria seemed to force the words from her throat in order to appear brave and insouciant before her father. Such was Claire’s impression, at least.

  “You shall see for yourself.” The master said something in the Venetian tongue to the campanaro, and the bell changed its course a few degrees, approaching a massive joint in one of the enormous arms. “This arm we call Zattere,” he said.

  “Why, that is where our hotel is located,” Maggie managed to say, clearly taking her example from Gloria and Claire.

  “Then you will appreciate the skill and commit
ment of the prisoners who labor for you,” the master said complacently, as though the poor devils had volunteered for their terrifying duty. “Observe.”

  Along the massive arm that supported the neighborhood, diving bells like their own clung like tiny bubbles. As they steamed closer, Claire observed men inside, hanging from harnesses, but sloshing in the water up to their waists, scrubbing the algae off the moving parts, dancing free so as not to be caught and dragged into the mechanism. When one crew finished scrubbing, another bell floated into place.

  “What are they applying?” Andrew asked, squinting through the gloom. “Could that be grease?”

  “You are very astute,” the master said, clearly pleased with the engagement and interest of his guests. “Each part of the gearworks is greased annually. It takes an entire year for the convicts to make their way over the entire mechanism.” He turned to Gerald Meriwether-Astor, who had not said a word since they had left the lobby of the Ministry of Justice far above. “While one of course deplores that part of human nature which embraces lawlessness, one must admit that the frequency with which it happens enables the work to go faster.”

  “Quite so,” Meriwether-Astor said, tight-lipped.

  Perhaps he was afraid of water. But that could not be. He had crossed the Atlantic in an undersea dirigible called Neptune’s Fury, had he not? And planned to continue his business now in some other vessel, in order to deliver more convicts to this dreadful penance.

  “Those with life sentences have the opportunity to rise in the ranks,” the master continued. “Grease men are esteemed more highly than scrubbers. Each crew possesses a master. Highest of all are the campanari. But sadly, the life expectancy is such that rising to that rank is difficult. We are often forced to hire men.”

  Claire swallowed. “What most affects their life expectancy?”

  “Pneumonia, signorina,” he said sadly. “That and the kraken. For of course the condemned regularly attempt to save themselves by escaping the harness and swimming for the surface.”