Airman

CHAPTER 12: ANGEL OR DEVIL

Little Saltee, 1894

On the night Arthur Billtoe met the devil, he was indulging himself in one of his favourite pastimes. The prison guard was on the skive in a comfy spot near the cliffs on the island’s seaward side. Billtoe had half a dozen such spots all over the island, places he could set down his head when prison life did for his nerves.

Dossing off was not a simple thing on a walled island with a fort perched on the south-eastern wedge and a dozen lookout towers along the wall itself.

Stupid electric lighting, Billtoe often thought. How’s a man supposed to grab a kip?

This particular comfy spot was Billtoe’s favourite, a shallow little dugout near the salsa garden, fifteen paces from the base of the wall. The floor was an ancient tarp the ferry boys were flinging, and the roof was one of the old doors from Wandering Heck’s days, frame and all, still on the hinges. The entire thing was near invisible from the outside, covered as it was with mud, grass and scrub that had crept down over the door.

Billtoe felt a swell of pride every time he sneaked himself into its pungent, welcoming darkness. Of all his doss spots, this was his favourite. Dry as a bone come hell or high water, and he could uncork the spy-hole and use it as a chimney, which saved him revealing his embers to the watch.

One more smoke, thought Billtoe. One more and then back on the job.

Arthur Billtoe had been spending more and more time in his hidey-holes in the six months since Conor Finn had disappeared. He wasn’t nursing a tender spot for the soldier boy, but he was fearful that Marshall Bonvilain had a plan for that young man, and him being dead was not part of that plan.

On the night of Finn’s disappearance, Billtoe had stood in the chimney stack roaring for hours. When that had proved fruitless, he had fetched a twelve-year-old Cockney boy who was doing a dozen or so years for robbing toffs, and sent him up the stacks with a promise of a few years off his sentence. The boy came down empty-handed after half a day, and Billtoe sent him right back up again at gunpoint. Forty-eight more hours in the labyrinth and the boy came back down with bloody knees and no news. It was no use. Conor Finn was not up there. Somehow, Arthur Billtoe had been duped.

Then he began to wonder about the butcher who had become entangled in one of the coronation balloons.

Could that have been Finn? Could soldier boy have got above ground somehow?

Billtoe could never know for certain and this itched him like a beetle crawling under his skin. Maybe Finn was desiccated in the chimneys, or perhaps he had a lungful of brine in Saint George’s Channel. Dead was dead and bones was bones. But that wouldn’t be the end of it. Sooner or later Bonvilain would come looking for his special prisoner and then all hell would be brought down on Arthur Billtoe’s head.

Unless. Unless…

Unless the marshall would be fooled by his deception. Billtoe had considered upping sticks and hopping a steamer to New York when Finn disappeared; one of his possible fathers was in New York, if he were still alive. Even if he weren’t, then there could be some form of estate. But that was all eating rat and calling it turkey. He hadn’t the money for the Atlantic, nor would he have with a year of saving. It was frustrating to have a fortune in stolen diamonds that he could not convert into hard cash.

Anyway, things were rosy on the island at the present moment. He was Bonvilain’s boy, what with his coronation balloons being such a success. Pretty soon, he might find himself at one end of a promotion’s handshake. Maybe then Arthur Billtoe might be in a position to smuggle some of his diamonds off the island, and then maybe he could travel first class on that steamer to New York.

Until then, he would have to pray to whatever god would have him that Marshall Bonvilain did not look too closely at the bearded youth he had slung into Conor Finn’s cell. The boy was roughly the same age, build and colouring. After a few beatings he had the same haunted eyes and lopsided looks. It could be the same young man, if you didn’t look too hard. Billtoe hoped that Conor Finn was a simple hostage job and not someone with facts in his skull, because if it was information that the marshall was after, then he’d best be looking up high and down low, because he wouldn’t be finding it in Conor Finn’s cell.

Billtoe had a sudden idea.

I should cut out the ringer’s tongue. Say it happened in a fight with Malarkey. The marshall couldn’t hold me responsible for that, as it was he who ordered me to set Malarkey on the boy.

That, as far as Billtoe was concerned, was a capital idea, far better than salsa gardens or coronation balloons. Or twelve-shot revolvers for that matter, which had turned out to be a pile of fool’s gold. A Kilmore gunsmith friend of Billtoe’s had nearly lost a finger trying to build that particular weapon.

I will slice that boy’s tongue out as soon as I get back, thought Billtoe, tapping his boot to make sure his good knife was nestled there against his shin.

Mightily pleased with this notion, Billtoe blew a final flute of smoke through the peephole, then stubbed out his cigarette on a clamshell he kept in the hidey-hole for that purpose. He toed the door open a crack to release any lingering smoke or smells, then clambered up into the darkness like a corpse rising from its grave.

Not only will cutting that ringer’s tongue out serve a purpose, vis-à-vis my plan, but it will also improve my mood.

Billtoe’s general routine was to hug the wall until he reached a stairwell, then trot up as if he were simply taking the air. No one would challenge him, especially since the coronation. He was a big shot now, was Arthur Billtoe.

That’s Mister Billtoe, to you, Pike.

As he had become fond of saying lately.

The night was overcast, with barely a star winking through the clouds. The Wall crenellations had an orange haze drawn above their blocks by the electric lighting. Billtoe used the orange line as a marker, easy to navigate by. He nipped across the springy rock grass under cover of darkness, a little sharpish as it turned out, because his boot heel slipped on a pat of moss and he went down on his back. The wind went out of him like dust from a beaten rug.

Billtoe lay there on his back, wheezing and gasping, when suddenly the clouds parted, letting a silver guinea moon shine through. When Billtoe recovered his wind, his lips spread in a plug-stained smile, because finally, after so many years, he could make out the man in the moon that everyone prattled on about. Must be the angle, because before this moment he had never seen anything but smudges.

I can see the face now for the first time. And I get to cut out a prisoner’s tongue. Happy day.

Then, through the gap in the clouds came some kind of figure. A man with wings. Flying.

This kind of event was so strange, so impossible, that Billtoe was not even surprised initially.

A man with the wings of a bird. An angel in black.

The angel banked sharp starboard so as not to overshoot the island, then descended in a tight curl, spiralling down until Billtoe could hear the craft as well as see it. It creaked, flapped and fluttered and the human-looking creature fought it as though he were being borne away by a great eagle.

I know what is happening here, Billtoe realized.

Arthur Billtoe had in his life read two books. London’s Most Gruesome Murders by Sy Cocillée, which he found most educational, and The Noble Indian by Captain George Toolee, which he had hoped would concern itself with settler massacres and scalping, but which actually turned out to be an in-depth study of the Indians’ culture. Billtoe had almost tossed the book into the fire, but it had cost him a few shillings so he persevered. One chapter described a tent known as the sweat lodge, where the Indians got themselves good and smoked up until their spirit guide appeared.

My hidey-hole is like a sweat lodge. Now my spirit guide has appeared, and it’s a swearing bird-man.

The bird-man contraption came down fast, wings cracking as the air filled their sails. It seemed as though the creature would break itself against the rocks, like a sparrow against the window – which Billtoe always found amusing – when at the last possible second the angel creature pulled up his nose, gliding in for a smooth landing.

His speed took him running for a dozen steps until he managed to halt himself.

Billtoe gazed up, terrified at this otherworldly creature who loomed above him, the moon haloing his head. It was close enough to stab. But what would be the point? There was no killing a creature like this.

The creature was dressed in black from the top of his leather cap to the tip of his knee-length riding boots. His face was concealed by a pair of glassed goggles and a scarf pulled tightly across the mouth. His breath was ragged though the scarf, and his chest heaved.

Something twinkled on the angel’s chest. An insignia of some kind. Two golden wings, springing from a letter ‘A’. Could it stand for Angel?

Arthur Billtoe wished with all his heart to remain still and silent. He felt once more like the seven-year-old boy he had been in a Dublin alley, hiding in a water barrel, being hunted by a drunken crone for the sixpence in his pocket. His life was worth no more now than it had been then. This creature would kill him with a glance. He longed to draw the grass and weeds around him like a blanket and sleep until this fearsome flying creature had departed.

Do not whimper, he told himself. Whimpering at times of danger had always been a failing of his, and had earned him bruises more than once in the past.

Hold it in, Arthur me boy. Suck it down to yer boots.

He might have managed it, had the creature not pulled a sabre from its scabbard at his belt and began plunging it into the ground, as though seeking to wound mother earth. Each thrust brought him closer to where Billtoe lay shuddering.

Finally he could absorb the fright no more.

I will die if I don’t speak. My poor ticker will burst her spring.

‘What are you?’ he hissed, the power of his emotions lifting him to his feet. ‘What do you want with Arthur Billtoe?’

The creature reared back, then steadied himself. Its glass eyes flashed orange in the lamp glow, then blackened as they landed on the prison guard.

‘Billtoe,’ it growled. ‘Arthur Billtoe!’

If Billtoe could have, he would have changed his name on the spot, such was the hatred in the creature’s voice. These winged types must be hateful by nature.

While Billtoe was contemplating this, the airman darted forward, his curved wings rearing upwards from the sudden movement, lifting the black-clad stranger into the air. He dropped to earth like a giant snarling gargoyle within arm’s length of Billtoe, a fact he put to good use by clasping the guard’s windpipe in steel fingers.

‘Billtoe,’ he said again, laying his sabre blade flat along Billtoe’s pale throat.

‘A-are you angel or devil, sir?’ stammered the guard. ‘I needs to know. Are you taking me up the ways, or down?’

The glass circles studied him for a long second. Billtoe felt the blade slide along his Adam’s apple, he felt the keen cut sing. Then the blade stopped its deadly arc and the creature spoke.

‘I can be angel or devil, monsieur,’ it said. ‘But in your case, I will always be a devil.’

‘Will you kill me now?’ asked Billtoe, his voice almost a shriek.

‘No, monsieur, not now. But you are making a lot of noise so…’

The devil lifted his sabre high, and brought the pommel down on Billtoe’s brow. The guard collapsed like a dropped puppet.

He was not quite unconscious, but Billtoe thought it would be better to seek out the darkness, rather than open his eyes and incur the wrath of the airman. He kept his eyes closed and soon drifted away.

When Arthur Billtoe awoke, it was daybreak. His head felt like one giant wound, and the warden’s dog walker, Poole, was standing over him, encouraging the little terrier to use Billtoe’s boot as a piddling spot.

‘Geddoff!’ snarled Billtoe, kicking at the dog, then remembered the French devil, who could still be in the area.

He rolled himself from the marshy puddle in which he had lain, and scrambled to all fours, unable to go any higher because of the pain hammering his skull.

‘Devil,’ he panted. ‘French. Big ruddy wings. Flying about like a nighthawk. Did you see it?’

Poole’s response to this lunacy was to pretend he didn’t hear. He coughed furiously to cover Billtoe’s chatter, then chastised the terrier.

‘Bad, Sir Percival, bad, making to piddle on Mister Billtoe like that, and he coming out of a dream, the details of which I have no desire to hear. I would kick you, Percy, if you weren’t such a lovely lad.’

He picked up the dog and delivered the message he had been sent with.

‘Warden is looking for you,’ he said, unable to meet Billtoe’s eyes. ‘He says he’s full fed up of you and your hidey-holes. And you can either fill ’em in yourself, or he’ll fill ’em in with you inside. And that’s what he said to me, word for word. I been repeating it to myself over and over.’

Billtoe was still wide-eyed, his gaze darting around the rocky area, a thin string of drool hanging from his lips.

‘He found me. He found me. I was in the barrel with sixpence, and he found me.’

Poole decided to misunderstand. It was easier. ‘Yes, sir. The warden finds everyone. He must have eyes in his backside.’

Poole chanced a flash of wit as he trotted after Sir Percival back to the guards’ billet.

‘Or maybe he has a set of wings and he flies over the island at night looking down on us.’

Billtoe sat himself down on a rock, prodded the goose-egg bump on his forehead and began to cry.

The sky

Conor Finn was flying, but it was not the gentle experience he had hoped for. The glider was a beast, and to conquer it meant constantly wrestling with the contraption as they soared through the air. Truth be told, it did not feel like soaring, rather a buffeting battle with the elements. The wings banged, cracked and jerked, threatening to snap their ribs with every gust of wind. The harness bit into his chest, restricting his breathing and even a collision with a sea bird would send him spiralling to the earth. Nevertheless, Conor would not have missed the experience.

I am the moon, he thought. I am the stars.

And then.

Look out. A seagull.

The glider was holding together as well as he could have hoped, though he would swear that the third rib to starboard was splintering. He would slip it from its sleeve later, and replace it with a new rod. The steering bar, one of his own innovations, was working perfectly, allowing him to shift his weight and exert a certain control over his trajectory. But it was a tenuous control, and one that could be contemptuously overruled by the smallest updraught or current.

The night sky was heavy with clouds, reflecting the lights of nearby Wexford and Kilmore on their underbellies. Every now and then, Conor passed below a hole in the clouds and the full moon would spotlight him with her silver rays. Conor hoped that from below his silhouette would be that of a large bird, but nevertheless he was glad of his decision to use black fabric for the wings. Dyed black not painted. Paint would be too weighty.

Up close and in broad daylight, it would be obvious that the glider was little more than a cleverly designed kite. Two elongated eight-foot curved ovals for wings, linked by a central circular space where the pilot hung suspended in his leather harness. A short-stemmed tail rudder with leg braces and a nudge pole that could be tipped by the feet, and a trapezoidal steering bar which was attached directly to the main wing strut. In theory, if one could successfully locate rising thermals, it was possible to fly forever, suspended below a glider like this. Of course, this was a very optimistic theory, which did not allow for wear and tear, bad science and the simple fact that thermals were only slightly less difficult to locate than unicorns.

Conor himself was outfitted in the sturdiest ballooning gear, leather chin-strapped cap, goggles and tight boots. His uniform was a convincing copy of that worn by the French Army’s aeronauts, but all in black down to the trouser piping, and no insignia’s apart from a mysterious winged ‘A’, which could possibly stand for Aeronautique.

If I do happen to crash on the Saltees, thought Conor, I will look for all the world like a French airman, who does not want to be identified as such. In other words, a flying spy. That should stoke Bonvilain’s mistrust of the French Army.

It was a small comfort, but twisting a thorn of disquiet into Bonvilain’s heart was better than dying and leaving nothing but a corpse.

His luck had held tonight. A good launch from the tunnel, with everything performing as it should. The steam fan had popped a few of the tunnel planks out of their grooves, but that was easily repaired, and there hadn’t been any great loss of wind power. His mounting mechanism had worked a thousand times in suspension from a tower beam, but tonight it had worked in the open air and he had managed to lean forward in the body harness and ratchet his legs back into the stirrups. This was one of his major innovations, though there were a thousand small ones, from the steam shaping of the ribs, to the tail rudder.

The coastline approached, and the black sea – with the Saltee Islands glowing upon it like two nests of fireflies. The moment he cleared Saint Patrick’s Bridge, the long bar of shingle that curved from the mainland to point like an arthritic finger towards Little Saltee, the thermal he had been riding disappeared and his gilder stalled, tilting forward at the nose.

Conor was prepared for this, but not ready. If the stall lasted more than a few moments, he would plummet to earth to a certain death.

In the event of a stall, hold the nose down and set loose the bands.

There were three ropes tied off to the steering bar and all three were linked to Conor’s wrist. He released the bar, tugging sharply downwards, untying the hitches on all three ropes.

The central rope was connected to a hinged forward panel – the beak – which pulled the nose down. The other two slipped from the blades of two wooden propellers, which were immediately set whirring by the released energy of two stout rubber cords.

The rubber-band propellers would only work once per flight, and the amount of thrust they provided was minimal, but it might be enough to pull him out of a stall.

It was. The glider jumped forward barely a yard, but it righted itself and caught the sea breeze. Conor felt it running along the length of his body, smelled the salt in each gust.

Before him, the Wall lights of Little Saltee marked his target in the blackness.

Heart-shaped, he thought. From up here, the island looks like a heart.

And then. I am returning to Little Saltee. God help me, I am going back.

And he could not suppress a shudder that was more dread than cold.

On the night of his daring escape, Conor had spiralled flaming from the sky like Icarus of legend, crashing into a lifeboat on Victoria’s royal yacht, which was a-bustle with preparations for departure.

Conor Finn lay undiscovered below a scattered dozen of cork life preservers for the duration of the overnight voyage, unable to move even if the rough hand of discovery landed on his shoulder. The hand never came, and Conor was able to sleep until the yacht blew its horn to alert a skiff in its path.

Fortune had smiled on him once more in London, where he had been able to slip overboard a couple of leagues out of harbour and swim to a slipway on the Thames.

Conor stole a jacket, which fortunately had some bread and cheese in the pocket, then spent the remainder of the day walking the docks, listening for an Irish accent. By dusk he had spotted a group of London Irish who had too few teeth and too many tattoos to be Customs spies.

If you ever do make it out of this hellhole, Malarkey had often said, find my brother Zeb on the London docks. Show him the ink and he will look after you.

Conor rolled up his sleeve for the dockworkers, revealing his Battering Ram tattoo, and spoke the magic word. Malarkey. Inside the hour, he was up to his neck in soapy water with a mug of coffee in one hand and a fine cigar in the other. Zeb Malarkey was a man of means, most of these means being fruits of his own personal import tax.

Zeb himself had arrived at the inn a couple of hours later, and without a word of greeting examined both Conor’s tattoo and the Little Saltee brand.

How’s Otto? he wanted to know. How’s his hair?

Conor supplied the crime boss with as much information as he could. Hair silky, health fine. Nice little line in rackets going.

Zeb had already heard of Conor through a prison guard on Little Saltee who took bribes to pass on information.

Conor Finn? The soldier boy. Otto speaks highly of you. Says you put order on the Rams what is locked up. Fancy doing the same here?

It was tempting, simply to shed his old life completely, like a reptile shrugging off a brittle skin. But Conor knew enough of his own heart to recognize that being a waterfront enforcer was not for him. He may not be Conor Broekhart any more, but he was not entirely divorced from his mother’s morals. He could hurt another person to survive, but not for payment.

He was an airman. That was his destiny. He needed to stick to the plan. Go to Ireland, build the means to reclaim his diamonds and then sail for America with the funds to equip his own laboratory.

So he told Zeb Malarkey thank you, but no. He had business on Little Saltee. Business that could make the Rams a lot of money. Perhaps Zeb had a few men in Ireland or perhaps on the Saltees who could help?

The Rams have men everywhere. What kind of business? Revenge?

Not exactly. There are items on the prison grounds that belong to me and your brother. I gave Otto my word that I would see him free. My thanks for his friendship these past years.

Zeb Malarkey tossed him a purse of guineas.

Go then, islander. Go and spread chaos.

Which was exactly what happened.

Little Saltee was suddenly below him. In less than three minutes he had crossed the two-and-a-half-mile wide band of ocean between the prison island and the mainland. If he had been one of an army, the island would have been overrun before they could sound the warning cannon.

Conor’s body ached from the constant stress on his joints and he was relieved to pull back on the bar and swing his glider into a descending curve. In test flights, he had succeeded in landing the glider inside the fences of a field far smaller than this island. But that field had hedges instead of guards. And the hedges were populated by badgers and squirrels, none of whom were likely to aim a rifle at flying creatures.

Even at night, a bird’s-eye view was very revealing. There were three guards on the wall, all at the northern end in the shelter of a tower. Conor could see the glowing bowls of their pipes bobbing close together. They should be evenly spaced and on the move, but centuries of quiet had bred complacency in them.

There were actually two walls on Little Saltee. The main outer ring, and an inner wall that circled the prison building. In between the two was the work area where inmates took exercise and toiled over their salsa gardens. This was where Conor wished to land. Where the diamonds were buried.

A thermal suddenly took his craft, causing him to overshoot his preferred landing spot by a hundred yards. Conor kicked the nudge bar to extreme port, and pointed the nose down. This put him into a tail-spinning descent, but his alternative was to land in the ocean. It would be a pity to drown tonight, having flown further in a glider than any man before him.

Victor would be proud.

The thought unsettled him. In prison he had tried not to think of the family and friends from his old life, but since his escape he could think of little else.

I could simply go back. Explain. Father could challenge Bonvilain.

Yes. And be murdered for his pains. Mother too. Best to simply nail the door shut on the past and begin his new life.

Conor dropped quickly. Rocks and hillocks grew from what had been syrupy black space. The glider fought him all the way down, and he fought back, cursing at his infernal craft, refusing to allow it its head.

Once inside the wall’s shelter, the turbulence disappeared and the glider grew docile and sweet, lifting her neck graceful as a swan. Conor’s boot heels dug into soft earth, and he ploughed twin furrows for ten feet before he cranked the wings up behind him with a winch on his belt, and came to a halt.

There was no time to rejoice in his landing, or congratulate himself on the effectiveness of his collapsible wings, though at the moment they were technically only hoisted. To be fully collapsed, two struts had to be removed.

To work, to work.

The diamonds were buried one foot beyond the northernmost corner of each salsa patch. Seven patches, seven bags of diamonds. The nearest prison garden was virtually at his feet. If he worked quickly and was not discovered, he could possibly retrieve three bags tonight.

Conor drew a sabre from his belt, using it to dig into the sod, searching for diamonds, but was distracted from his labour by the sight of a dark and distraught figure rising from the earth.

A trap. I am trapped.

But that was not the truth of it. The shivering figure spoke. ‘What are you? What do you want with Arthur Billtoe?’

Conor felt an anger so intense that it was physical. His brow burned and the sabre’s leather-bound pommel creaked in his fist.

‘Billtoe,’ he growled, springing forward. ‘Arthur Billtoe!’

The speed of his motion caught the air, and the wings jerked skywards. Conor was elevated briefly, but if Billtoe thought he could escape, he was wrong. Conor landed not two feet from the terrified guard, wrapping steel fingers round the man’s gullet.

How the tables have turned. Who is the master now? Not twenty yards from where you bullied and humiliated me.

‘Billtoe,’ he said again, laying his sabre blade flat along Billtoe’s pale throat.

‘A-are you angel or devil, sir?’ stammered the guard. ‘I needs to know. Are you taking me up the ways, or down?’

Conor considered killing him. The urge was strong. In all likelihood, this wretch had murdered Linus Wynter. He indulged this desire to the tune of a small cut on the guard’s neck. But he could not complete the motion.

Still not a killer, Linus might have said.

Stick to the plan. You are a French spy.

‘I can be angel or devil, monsieur,’ said Conor. ‘But in your case, I will always be a devil.’

‘Will you kill me now?’ cried Billtoe.

‘No, monsieur, not now,’ said Conor with more than a touch of regret. ‘But you are making a lot of noise so…’

He struck Billtoe sharply on the temple with the sabre’s hilt, relishing the thump of contact. Funny, the guard did not seem so threatening now, stretched in the grass. A coward without his gun or the weight of authority behind him.

Get the diamonds. One bag at least.

Conor’s plan to unearth three bags was shot. Billtoe could wake at any moment, and, tempting as the notion might be, he could not keep bashing the Billtoe’s skull all night. Neither could he bind and gag the man, as he did not have a rope or cloth. Something to remember for his next visit, should he survive this outing.

Conor returned to his digging, levering clods from the earth with the sabre. It occurred to him then that Malarkey could have lied, and secreted their booty in another spot, but Conor thought it was unlikely. In spite of inauspicious beginnings, Otto Malarkey had become his friend, and the Battering Rams had a strong sense of loyalty. They would mount the gallows’ steps before betraying another man who bore the mark.

Conor’s trust was warranted. His blade soon clinked against a clutch of diamonds. He put away the sabre and scrabbled in the dirt with his gloved fingers, pulling the pouch of diamonds from the earth.

One found. Six more to go.

He was tempted to try for another. With a second bag on his belt, his future would be secure and he could leave for America tomorrow.

Go now. Be prudent. Billtoe could wake at any second.

One more. Just one.

Conor ran to the second salsa bed, all the time imagining that Billtoe regained his senses.

Should I have killed him?

No. A dead guard would raise suspicions. There would be an investigation. Billtoe having conversations with a flying Frenchman on the other hand would be viewed as the ramblings of a drunkard, unless Bonvilain got wind of them.

Too late now. Fetch the second bag.

The salsa bed was further north along the wall’s curve. Conor ran close to the plinth, avoiding the swirling currents that flowed over the island’s hillocks, and also the salty mist that would weigh down his wings.

The glider needs to collapse further, he told himself. The wings catch every breath of air.

The second pouch was as easy to find as the first had been. Otto Malarkey had followed his instructions well. The bag slid from the earth, trailing clods and pebbles. It was the size and weight of a small rabbit.

Heavy enough. Two found.

Now it was most certainly time to fly. To attempt one more search was to invite disaster. Conor had a sudden image of passing the remainder of the night back in his old cell and a shudder rippled along his spine. He must be away.

The guards were doubtless huddled in the northern tower, filling their pipe bowls, so he would make his escape from the south. Conor returned to the base of the wall, and followed his nose until he found the garderobe, a privy hollowed into the base of the wall with a drain running through into the ocean. Garderobes were normally near the stairwell, so the guard would need as little time away from his post as possible.

And, just as he had hoped, the stairwell was a mere three paces past the garderobe, built as a stepped bulwark to the main wall. Conor crab-walked up, keeping his wings behind him, safe from damage, but open to gusts of wind. More than once he was forced to brace his legs against the efforts of his hoisted wings to drag him from the steps.

Not yet. Higher still.

There was neither sight nor sound of a sentry on the wall walk, though he himself would be visible plain enough as soon as he emerged from the stairwell. It was all exactly as planned, but for Billtoe. What in heaven’s name had the man been doing? Sleeping in the outdoors?

Conor lay his body flat along the top steps, peering along the wall’s curve at each side. The cobbles, worn smooth by centuries of patrol, shone orange in the electric light. The crenellated parapet was head high with rows of horizontal gun ports. The wind whistled through each one, sending up an eerie banshee howling.

An offshore wind. Still strong.

It would have been most fortuitous had the wind changed to a sea breeze, blowing back towards the mainland. But these were the kinds of odds that could not be relied upon. Take advantage when lady luck smiles, but do not plan for it. And so Conor’s immediate destination was not Kilmore, but Great Saltee, for that was where the wind was going.

Conor gathered his feet under him, pushing his harness lower. He gripped the wing-hoist lever in one hand and the rudder bar in the other.

Once more into the air.

He stood and ran across the wall walk. His footsteps seemed absurdly loud as his boots clacked on the stone. Surely the sounds would march along the wall to the guards’ tower.

Concentrate on your actions. The slightest slip could be the death of you.

It was curious, but sometimes the voice in Conor’s mind sounded like Victor Vigny.

I have a guardian angel, and he is French.

This made him grin, and so in spite of the life-or-death situation, it was a smiling Conor Finn who hoisted himself on to the Little Saltee parapet, and launched himself into the night sky.

I am flying home.

Sebber Bridge, Great Saltee

Pike generally worked the early shift on Little Saltee, then spent sunlight hours and leisure days on the big island, nursing his one-legged mother and fixing the cottage wall, which he had been working on now for fifteen years. When he wasn’t mixing mortar for the wall, Pike was making himself money hand over fist selling information to the Battering Rams.

Pike was never going to be in the gang’s inner circle, but he was a useful man in any situation because in spite of his apparent lack of grey matter, he had an uncanny knack of accumulating information. The warden, a political man, appreciated this and granted Pike extra leave time to hook him any court gossip he could, while the Battering Rams paid him handsomely for any Customs information he was able to wheedle from his mates on the docks. Two bags of coin per week and neither party any the wiser.

As well as information, Pike ran the odd errand for the Rams. Nothing violent that could see him hanged, and also he was an inveterate coward. His latest job was simplicity itself, if a little puzzling. Until further notice, on any night there was a stiff breeze from the mainland he was to tow a skiff around to Sebber Bridge and leave it there. Simple as that. Beach the boat on the shale outcrop below Promontory Fort, then row back up the coast to the harbour. No lights, no whistling nor singing sea shanties, or the Saltee Sharpshooters would put a bullet in his behind. Simply beach the boat and go. The skiff would make its own way back to Saltee Harbour the next day.

Simple orders, but not to Pike’s taste. Thanks to his double pay packet, he was well aware just how valuable good information was, and he felt certain that there were those who would pay to know what manner of person was picking up a skiff on Sebber Bridge in the wee hours. Not someone on the up and up, that was for certain. Honest citizens came and went through the harbour without the need for skulduggery like this.

The trick was how to sell the information without falling foul of the Battering Rams. But he could chew on that problem when he had some information to sell.

So Pike decided to delay his departure awhile, until the mystery sailor had set sail. Then he would know what kind of a nugget he had, and how much it was worth.

He concealed his own punt under a bank of weed, then crawled high into the rocks and settled in to wait.

After a couple of hours, he was regretting not bringing more tobacco along, and was considering stuffing his pipe with seaweed, when something whooshed overhead, causing him to drop his pipe altogether.

If that was a bat, then it was a big one. Low-flying gull more like, or a kestrel over from the mainland.

Pike had a vague sense of the creature’s bigness.

There would be some eating in a bird like that. A pity I don’t have my slingshot along. Even a gull can taste passable when you cook it right.

He wriggled forward out of his crevasse just in time to see a man with wings swoop in to land on Sebber Bridge, his heels dragging up arcs of shingle.

A flying man, he thought, flabbergasted. A man that can fly.

Pike knew instantly that this was the most valuable thing he would ever see. He pulled a pad from his pocket, licking the stub of a pencil that hung from a string on the binding.

A good tout never knows when a nugget will need recording. Keep your pencil close to your heart, and you’ll never miss a trick.

So, with his heart rattling his ribs and his fingers shaking, Pike sketched the winged airman hanging on to the skiff’s gunwale, lest the breeze carry him off to the moon.

He drew arrows pointing to the wings and above the arrows wrote wings, as if writing the word made what was before his eyes more believable. He noted it down when the airman pulled a lever and his wings were hoisted behind him. He drew a diagram of the harness and how it cradled the sky rider from shoulder to knee. He saw how the man took himself out of the harness like a lady from her bodice, and collapsed the whole contraption down by pulling out a few stays, till the wings folded up neater than a picnic blanket.

Perhaps I should just take those wings, thought Pike. That airman don’t look so big. I could part his ribs with my knife and present those wings to the warden. Perhaps that would be the best course of action.

But then he noticed a sabre on the man’s belt, and a revolver on his other hip. There was also the possibility that these airman types possessed strange mystical powers such as the evil eye, or the deathly hex.

Best leave it at pictures for today, he decided. Next time I will be prepared, and he will be relaxed. A nice short-handled axe should do the trick.

The airman stowed his gear neatly under the aft seat, then dug his toes into the shale, pushing off. The skiff slid sweetly into the dark water with no more of a splash than the waves were making on the north shore.

He’s gone, thought Pike. I am safe.

But perhaps he thought his thoughts too loudly, because the airman froze and turned his glass-goggled eyes towards the rocks. His head was cocked like a puzzled deer, and he scanned the higher levels with twin orange circles.

His eyes are on fire, thought Pike. He can see in the dark.

But then the strange flying man turned, leaping neatly into the skiff, his landing sending her scudding out across the water, prow slapping the waves. In seconds the dark sail unfurled, and she tacked to starboard wide of the island.

Pike sighed in relief.

Perhaps a short-handled axe will not do the job, he decided. Perhaps I need something with a long handle.

CHAPTER 13: THE SOLDIER’S RETURN

Kilmore Quay

Conor tacked wide, riding the offshore wind as far as possible, before dropping sail and rowing towards Kilmore Harbour. The clouds had thickened and a few spatters of rain knocked on the planking. The tide was on the rise, so he made good time in spite of the wind on his back.

Conor had expected to feel elated at this moment; he had been wishing for it long enough. There were diamonds at his belt and freedom in his future. Zeb Malarkey had sent him new papers so he could book passage to New York tomorrow if he so wished.

Enough to start a new life.

He did feel a certain satisfaction, but it was grim and muted. It seemed as though memories of his old life were reclaiming their place at the forefront of his mind now that he was out of prison.

Conor wondered if he could ever feel true joy again without his loved ones to share his accomplishments with. He allowed himself a brief daydream. He imagined landing his glider not on Little Saltee, but on the long mainland beach of Curracloe, which ran straight and flat for several miles. This was the spot where Victor had incessantly talked of testing their aeroplanes.

There would be crowds present, of course, and journalists from all over the world. Gaggles of sceptical scientists too. But Conor did not care a fig for any of them – he was on the lookout for his parents, and Victor too. They would be hugging each other with excitement and pride. His father would reach him first as he swooped in to land. Perhaps Isabella would attend.

His heart sank. Isabella.

She believes that I helped to kill her father. How could she believe that?

Instead of gliding on to the golden sands of Curracloe, he was alone in a boat, with no one to boast to. No one to celebrate with. The power of flight was no longer an achievement in itself – it was a way to aid him in his thievery.

I have flown further than any other man. I have flown over water at night. No one to tell but the stars. The only person who knows is a cruel prison guard. A buffoon who thinks that I am the devil. I am the world’s first flying thief.

Conor shook his head to dislodge this disquieting daydream, then threw his back into the oars. He sculled skilfully, as his father had taught him. Bend forward, dip the blades but not too deep. Pull with the back and then arms. Develop a rhythm and let that rhythm calm you. A man can be truly at peace on the water in a small boat, even though only a plank of wood separates him from the cold, unforgiving ocean.

Can a thief be at peace? For a time perhaps.

Conor tied the skiff off at the quay, stuffed his hat and goggles into a jacket pocket then draped the coat over the folded glider. He hefted the nondescript package on to his back and climbed the ladder to the pier. The diamonds clinked like bags of marbles with each step he took along the quay wall. He hailed two boys patching a net on the slip and gave them two shillings.

One for the ferry back, and the other for yourselves.

It was common for visitors to the Saltee Islands to have one tankard too many and miss the last ferry. Common enough not to raise suspicions. There were always a couple of boys on the docks willing to return a borrowed boat, for a fee naturally.

I may have need of these boys a few nights more, thought Conor. Then I leave this place forever.

But there was no relish in the thought. As thoughts of his family grew stronger, his dream of America had paled. Nevertheless he would persevere, as staying here, close enough to home to see the kitchen light burning, would be intolerable.

I am Conor Finn now. I have no family.

Kilmore village was quiet enough due to the lateness of the hour, though there was still some argy-bargy emanating from the doorway of the Wooden House, the local pub built almost entirely from the deckhouse of a sunken Greek ship.

Conor was tempted to go inside and sit himself down with a bowl of stew, but the cargo on his back and belt was too valuable to stow under a tavern table, so he trudged on up the hill, leaving the village behind.

His new home was two miles past the village, off the old coast road. Conor climbed a stile and followed a worn path along the cliff edge to a set of late medieval gates, with eagles perched on their mossy pillars.

Eagles, thought Conor. Victor’s little joke.

The wrought-iron gates were imposing enough, and might have deterred thieves had not the walls on either side been cannibalized by locals over the years to build their dwellings. Cut stone is not so cheap that it can be left piled high on a derelict estate. There were no more than odds and halves left now littering the grass.

Conor stepped over the broken wall, walking along an avenue that wound through a copse of willow trees. Behind this screen stood a Martello tower, a squat cylinder of stone with walls of a prodigious thickness, built by the British Army to keep an eye on the Saltee Islands. The single door was eight feet from the tower’s base and could only be reached by ladder and the windows were letterbox gun ports that would allow the garrison stationed inside to pick off any poor unfortunates unlucky enough to be on the offensive.

Conor disentangled a ladder from the weeds at the base of the tower, propping it up against the tower wall, then, balancing the weight of the collapsed glider on his shoulder, he edged slowly up the rungs.

A pity to survive night flights over Saint George’s Channel only to crack my skull falling from a ladder.

The door seemed flimsy, of dry, crumbling wood held together by rivets and steel bands, but there were many deceptive things about this tower. Conor had spent many hours working on the structure, almost exclusively on the inside. No need to advertise the renovations. A steel door lay behind the wooden one, housed in a reinforced frame. Conor threaded a key though the lock, and let himself in.

He sighed in almost unconscious relief as he locked the door behind him.

Home. Alive.

The inside was far more salubrious than the exterior suggested. On the first storey was a fully equipped laboratory for the study of aeronautics, with more advanced machinery than would be found in many a royal college. Charts were nailed to the walls. The theories and diagrams of da Vinci, Cayley, the Marquis de Bacqueville. Models of gliders to various scales hung from the ceiling beams. Tyres, tubes, wings, engines, oil drums, timber planks, frames and reams of fabric were stacked neatly around the walls. Baskets of reeds. Ball bearings, magnets, rivets and screws lay neatly in wooden bowls on the long bench. On a steam-winch platform to the roof sat rifles, revolvers, swords, two small-calibre cannon and a pyramid of cannonballs.

Victor was preparing for a battle. He knew Bonvilain wanted him dead.

A Corsican tower at Mortella Point had once withstood bombardment from two British warships for almost two days with the loss of only three men. The British had copied the design and misspelled the name, changing Mortella to Martello. If Bonvilain wished to gain entry to Victor’s laboratory, he would have to pay dearly for the privilege.

It had not been difficult to locate the tower Victor had told him about on the last day of his life. There were two Martello towers in the vicinity of Kilmore and one had been occupied for the past fifty years. That left the gloomily named Forlorn Point. The tower had originally been called simply Saltee Watch, but the men of the garrison stationed there had soon taken to calling the tower after the headland it stood on. A name more in tune with the unrelenting winds and typical leaden weather of the region than the almost cheery-sounding Saltee Watch. So Forlorn Point it became, made somewhat notorious by the folk singer Tam Riordan in his ‘Lament of Forlorn Point’, which began: ‘’Tis off I am to Forlorn Point for my sins.’ The second line was no jollier. ‘And if there’s a tide, I aim to throw myself in…’

It was said that the tower was haunted by the ghosts of thirty-seven men who were burned alive inside its walls when the armoury caught fire. No wonder it slid to dereliction.

That is until Victor Vigny decided that it would make an ideal workshop and persuaded King Nicholas to fund the project. The Frenchman purchased the tower in his own name, to hide Nicholas’s involvement, then had a series of shipments sent there from London, New York and even China.

The materials had been winched to the roof and then humped downstairs to the laboratory floor, and there they had lain for two years, undisturbed by the drunken local caretaker until Conor arrived to find a key waiting for him in the talons of the pillar’s stone eagle.

Conor was not worried about the ghosts, indeed he was thankful for the legend as it kept the superstitious locals away. Once in a while a lad would bring his girl as far as the tower wall, so they could touch the clammy stones then run away squealing, but besides those minor intrusions he was left alone.

He was civil in the village, but did not invite friendship. He bought his supplies, paid with coin and went on his way. The locals were not sure what to make of the pale, blond young man living at Forlorn Point.

He walks like a fighter, some said. Always ready to draw that sabre of his.

Handsome but fierce, concluded the women.

One girl disagreed. Not fierce, she said. Haunted.

The innkeeper had chuckled. Well, if it’s haunted Mister Handsome-But-Fierce wants, he’s in the right place.

Conor’s living quarters were underneath the laboratory at ground level, but he did not spend much time down there, as the gloomy enclosure reminded him of his cell on Little Saltee. Victor had equipped it luxuriously with four-poster bed, bureau and chaise longue. There was even a toilet plumbed down to the ocean, but when the lights went out and the walls juddered with every wave crash, Conor was transported back to Little Saltee. Each morning he was woken by the booming cannon shot from the prison and one night he found himself almost unconsciously scratching some calculations into the wall with a sharp stone. It was difficult enough living in such proximity to home, he decided, without recreating his prison cell here on the mainland.

And so he slept on the roof, or, rather, what had been the roof, but was now an extra level: Victor’s pièce de résistance. Martello towers were constructed with completely flat roofs that could bear the weight of two cannon and the men to operate them. Victor had used this strength and flatness as a base for a powerful wind tunnel, driven by four steam-powered fans. For years, they had been forced to study the effects of wind over wing surfaces using a whirling arm device, but now lift, drag and relative air velocity could be accurately measured using the most powerful wind tunnel in the world. The device was unsophisticated, but effective. Twenty feet long and twenty-five feet square powered by a steam injection system that was capable of producing a flow velocity of sixty miles per hour.

With this tunnel, Conor had learned that many of his prison designs were flawed, and that many more showed promise. Four of his gliders made it past the model stage, and he was convinced that his engine-powered aeroplane would fly too, when he put it together.

There was another use for the wind tunnel. Conor used it to augment his launch from the tower roof. He would hitch himself up, spread his wings then duck obliquely into the wind stream, to be propelled into the sky as though shot from a cannon.

You are taking risks, Victor would have undoubtedly said. Leapfrogging over several steps in the scientific process. And your records are vague and often coded. What manner of scientist are you?

I am no more a scientist, Conor would have replied. I am an airborne thief.

That morning he sat on the roof, back resting against the wind tunnel’s planking, swaddled in a woollen blanket and eating from a can of beef. The rising sun cast a golden glow over the distant Saltee Islands, as though they were some kind of magical place. Mystical islands.

He thought of his parents and of Isabella, then in a fit of irritation sent his fork sparking across the stone roof and tramped down the stairs to the lower level.

I will sleep below and be reminded of my cell. I need strength of purpose.

Two days later, Conor had finished repairing the wind-tunnel planks and made the trip to Kilmore. He fancied a cooked meal, and to hear the voices of others even if they were not addressing him. It had come as something of a shock to him when he realized that his loneliness had intensified since escaping from prison. It was necessary for him to seek out the company of men for the sake of his own sanity.

It was market day in Kilmore and so the quay was lined with stalls, and for every stall a dozen beggars. There was great excitement over a humongous steam engine, painted green and red, which rumbled on metal wheels along the seafront, belching out great puffs of acrid smoke. A penny a ride.

Conor had a quick look at the engine, but quickly saw that there was nothing for him to learn here. This engine was twenty years old, a fairground workhorse, not at all the scientific marvel its owner claimed it to be.

He stepped inside the Wooden House, found himself a corner table and called for a bowl of stew.

Life was being lived in front of his eyes. He could see it and hear it and smell it. The scratch of elbows on tables, the knocking of wonky chairs. Sunlight through the pipe smoke. Yet there was a distance between him and the world. All he could feel was an intense irritation towards people in general. Everything upset him: the sound of chewing, the slurp of porter, the nasal whine of a drunkard’s breathing. He could make allowances for nothing.

I have forgotten how to be human. I am a beast.

Then Conor’s mood was lightened by music drifting through the tavern window, a gentle violin that rolled itself out like a fine carpet, playing overhead, riding the stale air and pipe smoke. It seemed to cut through the fog surrounding Conor’s heart, warming it with its melody.

I know that music, thought Conor. I have heard it before somewhere. But where?

The landlord arrived with his stew, a rich soup of beef and pork with vegetable chunks floating on the surface.

‘Generally I move the beggars on, young man,’ he remarked. ‘But this blind fella, the way he plays, reminds me of my childhood in the stables. Wonderful years.’ He wiped a tear away with a tattooed knuckle. ‘Onions in the stew,’ he blubbered, then moved on.

Conor worked on the stew, savouring its flavours and textures, enjoying the strangely familiar music.

I will throw a shilling to the musician as I leave, he decided. What is that tune?

The more Conor listened, the more the puzzle vexed him, and then suddenly everything became clear.

I have heard this music and I have read it. ‘This blind fella,’ the landlord said.

Conor dropped a brimming spoon halfway to his open mouth, rose from his chair as though in a daze, and barged his way through the fair-day crowd. Outside the sudden sunlight blinded him after the tavern’s smoky gloom.

Follow the music.

He ran on like a rat in thrall to the piper of Hamelin. To the side of the Wooden House, a small throng had gathered, swaying as one to a gentle adagio. A tall black-garbed figure at the crowd’s centre led the sway with the tip of his violin bow, lulling the listeners.

Conor stopped in his tracks, completely flabbergasted. He could not decide whether to laugh aloud or weep, eventually settling on a hybrid of the two.

The musician was, of course, Linus Wynter.

‘So, Billtoe did not lie. You actually were released?’

They sat at Conor’s table in the tavern, enjoying a glass of porter after their stew. Linus Wynter’s gangly limbs were too long for the furniture and he was forced to straighten his legs to fit them under the table. His crossed feet poked out the other end.

‘Released I was,’ he said, fiddling with pipe and tobacco pouch. ‘Though I fully expected to be released, if you see what I mean. Nicholas had signed the order before he died and it took a few days to reach the island. And as Marshall Bonvilain had not expressly forbidden it, out I slipped. Free as a bird.’ He rasped a match along the tabletop and played the flame over the pipe. ‘I doubt you slipped out so easily.’

‘Not quite,’ confirmed Conor.

Wynter smiled, smoke leaking from between his teeth. ‘I was playing in Dublin in a nice alehouse. Then I began to hear rumours of a baker, flying up to the moon on a balloon.’

‘It was a butcher, and he never got anywhere near the moon, believe me.’

‘So I thought to myself, all Victor ever talked about was balloons, and young Conor was his student. Coincidence? I think not. So, I began taking the train from Westland Row to Wexford once a week or so, hoping you would show yourself. I was beginning to think you hadn’t survived.’

‘I almost did not. It is a miracle that I sit here today.’

Linus patted his violin. ‘You remember The Soldier’s Return?’

‘How could I forget? I committed large sections to memory.’

‘Ah, you found my notes.’

‘I used the space for my own diagrams. Did you know that the coral was luminous?’

Linus tapped his temple. ‘No. Blind, don’t you know. Dashed inconvenient in the area of luminous coral and such. It gave me comfort to trace the notes with my fingers, helped me to remember. There was also the danger that I would die in that place and my music would be lost forever.’

‘Well, Linus, your notes shone. It was something to see.’

‘My notes always shine, boy. A pity the rest of the world doesn’t see it.’ Wynter took a deep drag on his pipe. ‘Now to business – do you have a plan? Or would you like to hear mine?’

‘A plan to do what?’

Wynter’s puzzlement showed in the lines between his ruined eyes. ‘Why to ruin Bonvilain, naturally. He has robbed us of everything, and continues to destroy lives. We have a responsibility.’

‘I have a responsibility to myself,’ said Conor harshly. ‘My plan is to collect all the diamonds buried on Little Saltee, then begin a new life in America.’

Wynter straightened his back. ‘Hell’s bells, boy. Bonvilain killed your king. He killed our friend, the incomparable Victor Vigny. He has torn your family apart, taken your sweetheart from you. And your answer to this is to run away?’

Conor’s face was stony. ‘I know what has happened, Mister Wynter. I know something of the real world now too. All I can hope for is to leave this continent alive, and even that is unlikely, but to attack a kingdom alone would be lunacy.’

‘But you are not alone.’

‘Of course, the boy and the blind man will attack Bonvilain together. This is not an operetta, Linus. Good people get shot and die. I have seen it happen.’

Conor’s voice was loud, and attracting attention. Bonvilain was not a name to be bandied about even on the mainland. It was said that informers took the marshall’s coin in every country from Ireland to China.

‘I have seen it happen too,’ said Wynter in hushed tones. ‘But lately I have not seen it and have had to imagine it instead, which is far worse.’

Conor had imagined death many times in prison, and not just his own. He had imagined what Bonvilain would do to his family if they ever found out the truth of Nicholas’s murder.

‘If I fight, he will kill my parents. He will do it in the blink of an eye, and it will cost him not a moment’s sleep.’

‘Do you believe that your father would thank you for making him the marshall’s puppet?’

‘My father thinks that I had a hand in the king’s murder. He denounced me for it.’

‘All the more reason to tell him the truth.’

‘No. I am done. I love my father and hate him too. All I can do is leave.’

‘And your mother,’ persisted Linus Wynter. ‘And the queen?’

Conor felt his melancholia return. ‘Linus, please. Let us enjoy our reunion. I know that we were only cellmates for a few days, but I see you as my only friend in the world. It is nice to have a friend, so let us avoid this topic for the moment.’

‘Don’t you want to clear your name, Conor?’ persisted Linus. ‘How can you let your father live with the idea that you have murdered his king?’

The idea would eat Declan Broekhart from the inside, Conor knew, but he couldn’t see a solution.

‘Of course I want to prove myself innocent. Of course I want to expose Bonvilain, but how can I do these things without endangering my family?’

‘We can find a way. Two brains together.’

‘I will think about it,’ said Conor. ‘That will have to be good enough for now.’

Linus raised his palms in surrender. ‘Good enough.’

Wynter turned his face towards the window, feeling the sun on his face. ‘Can you spy a clock, Conor? I can’t read the sun from in here. I need to return to Wexford for the train.’

‘Forget the train, Linus Wynter, you are coming home with me.’

Wynter stood, his hat brushing the ceiling beam. ‘I was so hoping you would say that. I do hope the beds are comfortable. I stayed in the Savoy once, you know. Did I ever tell you?’

Conor took his elbow, leading him towards the door. ‘Yes, you told me. Do you still dream of the water closets?’

‘I do,’ sighed Linus. ‘Will we have privacy in this house? We must have privacy if I am to hatch my schemes.’

‘All the privacy in the world. Just you and I, and a small company of soldiers.’

‘Soldiers?’

‘Well, their ghosts.’

Linus plucked his violin strings in imitation of a music-hall suspense theme.

‘Ghosts, indeed,’ he drawled. ‘It seems, Mister Finn, that once again we are destined to share interesting accommodation.’

CHAPTER 14: HEADS TOGETHER

Linus quickly settled into his new digs, and Conor was happy to have him. Usually his thoughts stayed inside his head so it was a relief to let them out. They sat on the roof together, and while Conor tinkered with the skeleton of his latest flying machine Linus worked on his compositions.

‘A lute here, I think,’ Linus would say. ‘Do you think a lute too pastoral? Too vulgar?’

And Conor would reply. ‘I have two main problems. Engine weight and propeller efficiency. Everything else works; I have proven that. I think, I really think that this new petrol engine I have built will do the trick.’

So Linus would nod and say. ‘Yes, you are right. Too vulgar. A piccolo, I think, boy.’

And Conor would continue. ‘My engine needs to supply me with ten horsepower at least, without shaking the aeroplane to pieces. I need to build a housing that will absorb the vibration. Perhaps a willow basket.’

‘So, you’re saying a lute? You’re right, the piccolo simply does not command the same respect.’

‘You see,’ Conor would say, chiselling his latest propeller, ‘there is no problem we cannot solve if we put our heads together. We need to bump skulls, as Victor used to say.’

They were reasonably happy days. The spectre of Marshall Bonvilain watched over them from the islands, but both man and youth felt a sense of camaraderie that they had not known in years.

Of course they argued, most notably when Conor set the steam fans whirling in preparation for his second flight. Linus Wynter climbed the ladder from his bedchamber, shouting over the steam engine’s noise.

‘Hell’s bells, boy. What do you need engines for at this time of night?’

And so Conor told him, and the musician almost fainted.

‘You are going to hurl yourself into a windstorm, so you can fly into a prison? Why don’t you write that sentence down and read it? Then perhaps you would realize how insane you are.’

Conor settled his goggles. ‘I have to do this, Linus. That island owes me. Five more bags and I leave – we leave – for America.’

‘You have to hurl yourself into space for greed? For science I can understand, barely – that’s what Nick and Victor dedicated their lives to.’

‘It’s more than greed. It’s right.’

Linus barked a bitter laugh. ‘Right? It would be right for you to rescue your parents and your queen from the madman who has deceived them.’

This gave Conor pause. Linus was speaking the truth. His loved ones were in danger and he had no idea how to save them without dooming them all. And, if he were honest with himself, he dreaded seeing that look of pure hatred in his father’s eyes.

‘There’s nothing I can do,’ he said finally. ‘Nothing except take my diamonds.’

Linus raised his arms like a preacher. ‘All of this. All of it for diamonds. It’s beneath you.’

Conor ratcheted up his wings, ducking into the wind stream.

‘Everything is beneath me,’ he said, but his words were snatched away, as he was, into the night sky.

Great Saltee

Billtoe and Pike were in the Fulmar Bay Tavern, spending their evening off over a bucket of half-price slops as was their custom.

Pike followed a long swallow with a belch that shook his stool.

‘Them’s good slops,’ he commented, smacking is lips. ‘I’m getting wine, beer, brandy and a hint of carbolic soap, if I’m not mistaken.’ Pike was rarely mistaken when it came to slops, for it was all he ever drank, even though with Battering Ram money in his pocket he could afford actual beer, rather than whatever ran off the bar into the slops’ tray.

‘What do you say, Mister Billtoe? You tasting soap? Goes down easy, but doesn’t stay in long, eh?’

Billtoe was not in the mood for tavern chatter. He wanted nothing more than to drink himself into oblivion, but he was mightily afraid that when he reached oblivion, the French devil would be waiting there for him. Since that night on Little Saltee one week ago, Arthur Billtoe had not been his usual cruel and cheerful self. He felt the presence of the flying demon looming over him, waiting to bring down his blade. Then there was the small matter of Marshall Bonvilain’s dead prisoner. Billtoe lived each waking moment struggling with his panic. The effort was such that he had developed a shiver.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you, Mister Billtoe,’ said Pike, ‘if there’s something wrong with you. You ain’t been taking the usual care with your ruffled shirts, and they’re your pride and joy. You been shaking a lot and mumbling too. And that’s plague right there, or maybe Yellow Jack, though I never heard of that this far north.’

Billtoe’s mood was darkened by the realization that Pike, the hairless simpleton, was his only friend. He never had much use for friends before now. When you had as many dark secrets as Arthur Billtoe, the last thing you needed was friends to wheedle them out of you. But tonight he was on the brink of utter despair and he needed words of comfort that came out of an actual mouth, and not just the imaginary voice of his favourite slipper to which he talked occasionally.

‘Pikey, can I ask you something?’

‘Of course you can, Mister Billtoe. I would appreciate nothing with numbers or directions though, cos they give me blinders.’

Billtoe took a deep, shaky breath. ‘Do you believe in the devil?’

‘Warden’s the devil, if you ask me. I mean, why can’t the convicts eat each other? Two birds with one stone right there. Convicts get fed, and we don’t have to bury the dead ones.’

‘No!’ snapped Billtoe. ‘Not the warden, the man himself. Old horned head.’ He turned on his barstool to face Pike. His face was gaunt and his eyes were wide and red-rimmed, and the ruffles of his pirate shirt did seem wilted. ‘I’ve seen him, Pikey. I’ve seen him. With his wings and flaming eyes. He landed on the island last week, coming for me he was. Called me mon-sewer. The devil called my name, Pikey. He called my name.’

Billtoe buried his face in his forearms, and soon his back shook with sobbing.

Pike licked his palm, then smoothed back his one strand of hair. He had seen the devil too, except it wasn’t your actual devil, it was a man with wings strapped to his back. Pike saw them taken off and folded up. It was a shame to see Arthur all broke up with his devil talk, but information like this was worth money, which Pike himself could collect as soon as the Rams sent their man for a parley.

Then again, if anyone knows how to make real money out of a situation, it’s Arthur Billtoe. And won’t he just love me when I take away his devil.

Pike wrestled his sketchpad from the pocket it was bent into, opened it to the sketches he had scratched at Sebber Bridge and slid the book across the bar.

‘I seen him too, Mister Billtoe, your devil.’

Billtoe’s bleary eyes peeked out from over his sleeves. For a moment he didn’t understand what he was seeing, then he recognized the figure that Pike had drawn. And if Pike had seen the devil too, then Arthur Billtoe was not losing his mind. His eyes assumed their usual piggy cunning and one hand scuttled out crablike to grab the notepad.

‘That’s him, ain’t it, Mister Billtoe?’ said Pike. ‘Only he ain’t no devil – he’s a man like you and me, except taller and better made than us. You being stumpy and me being, well, me. But that’s him I’ll bet, ain’t it, Mister Billtoe?’

Billtoe straightened shrugging off his mood like a dog shaking water from its coat.

‘Call me Arthur, Pikey my friend,’ he said.

Pike smiled a gap-toothed smile. He was familiar with that look in Billtoe’s beadies. It was the same look he got just before he searched a prisoner. Billtoe could smell guineas.

An offshore breeze blew constant and the moon was a silver shilling behind a veil of clouds. The perfect evening for clandestine flying. Conor Finn felt almost contented as he dipped the glider’s nose, swooping in to land on Sebber Bridge. His control of the craft was much improved and there was no greater impact on his heels than if he had jumped from a low wall. The propeller bands were still fully wound as fortune had steered him clear of stalls. There was also the heartening fact that he had recovered three bags of Battering Ram diamonds from the salsa beds on Little Saltee without a sniff of a prison guard. He had worried that Billtoe might have swallowed a bottle or two of courage and come looking for his devil with a few cronies, but there had been neither sight nor smell of Arthur Billtoe.

I scared that rat for now. But he won’t stay scared long.

One more trip. And I shall have all seven pouches.

Why do you need all seven? was a question that Linus might have asked, and now Conor asked himself.

I need seven as compensation for my imprisonment. It is a matter of honour.

This was the argument that had sustained him in prison. He would do what Billtoe could not: take his diamonds off the island. But now, this plan seemed flawed. Why expose himself to danger time and time again, when he should already be on the steamer to New York? It was true that Otto had been promised half of the diamonds, but even if he paid off the Malarkeys in full, he would still have more than enough diamonds to buy him a passage to America and a new life when he got there.

I do not wish to leave, he realized. But I must.

Staying was of no benefit to him or his family.

Seven pouches. Then America.

The skiff was beached high on the shale, with a single set of tracks heading back towards Fulmar Bay. Zeb Malarkey was keeping his end of the deal, and why wouldn’t he, with half the diamonds in his coffers and more to come.

Conor sat on the boat’s gunwale, unfastening the glider’s harness. Not much flight damage tonight, but he would check every rib and panel tomorrow to make sure. Even the tiniest tear in the wing fabric could unravel an entire panel and drop him from the sky like a plugged pigeon.

One of the diamond pouches slipped from inside the harness, clinking on the shale. To Conor, the sound seemed louder than a gunshot. He squatted low in the skiff’s shadow, then gathered the bag to his chest like a babe, scanning the Wall for movement. There was none, but the liquid shimmer of lamplight.

Take care, airman. One mistake could see you on the ferry back to Little Saltee.

He stowed the pouches under the aft bench and laid his collapsed glider gently on the deck. Then something happened that made him smile.

Conor stood straight, raising his palm to feel the breeze.

The wind has changed. I can sail directly to Kilmore.

He slid the skiff along the shale to the lapping waterline.

Still waters and a fair wind. Good omens.

Conor felt the water raise the skiff, and hopped on board, the deck shuddering under his weight. With one hand he untied the sail, shaking it loose of the mast, with the other he grasped the extended tiller, setting a course wide around the west coast of Little Saltee.

Home in an hour, he thought. Perhaps Linus would play something. Music is a tonic for the soul.

Conor’s sail caught the breeze, pulling the small skiff across the waves.

A good boat. She skips along.

He sailed for his new home, forcing himself not to look back. Nothing behind but heartache.

From high in the rocks, Arthur Billtoe watched the strange airman depart. And though a sharp rock pressed into the guard’s stomach, he would not so much as twitch until the man he had believed to be a demon had disappeared completely round the bend of Little Saltee’s coastline.

Pike did not have the necessary concentration span for such caution; he had relieved himself and was skipping stones into the surf before Billtoe joined him at the groove sliced by the skiff’s keel in the shale.

‘Dunno why they call it Sebber Bridge,’ muttered Pike. ‘It’s not a bridge is it? Just a spit of stones going out into the current.’

‘It used to be a bridge, thousands of years ago,’ said Billtoe, the words rattling nervously out of him. ‘Before the sea washed it away. Went from here to Little Saltee, then from there on to Saint Patrick’s Bridge on the mainland.’

‘That airman really turns your backbone soft, don’t he, Arthur?’ said Pike, changing the subject.

‘He had a sword at my neck. A ruddy big sword, none of your fencing namby-pamby pinprickers. This thing could take the top off an oak tree.’

‘He’s a man, though, Arthur. You seen it yourself. Those wings of his are some sort of kite. That’s all.’

‘That’s all!’ said Billtoe incredulously. ‘You idiot! Don’t you realize what we have just witnessed?’

‘Idiot? Arthur, idiot?’ said Pike, injured. ‘I took away your devil, didn’t I? You can sleep again because of my gift. Idiot seems a bit harsh.’

‘Not harsh enough,’ snapped Billtoe, who was fast forgetting his fear. ‘That man has a flying device. Have you any idea how much the Battering Rams would pay for that? They could just drop into whatever port they pleased, and hang Customs. A device like that would change smuggling forever.’

Pike cleared his throat. ‘As it happens, I knows a few gents who might have ties to the Rams. Possibly.’

Billtoe clamped a hand over Pike’s mouth, as though the gents in question could somehow hear. ‘No. No. We don’t involve the Rams until we have those wings locked up safe somewhere. Otherwise those treacherous coves would nab the wings themselves and feed us to the sharks. What we want is to get ourselves into a strong bargaining position.’

Pike shrugged off Billtoe’s hand, which stank of sweat and worse. It was clear to him that they were friends no more. It was business as usual for Arthur Billtoe, which meant that Pike was back to being a lackey to be abused.

‘Whatever you say, Arthur.’

‘That’s-’

‘I know, that’s Mister Billtoe to me.’

He turned to the sea, skipping one of the stones in his hand across the surface.

Typical Arthur Billtoe. I took away his devil, and he forgets it with the first sniff of a payoff. I thought it was Pikey and Billtoe to the end. How wrong I was.

Throwing the stones calmed him, each successful skip reminding him of his childhood. He was reaching back for a big throw when Billtoe grabbed his arm, then wrestled the stone from his fingers.

‘Where did you get this?’ he demanded, excitement reddening his cheeks.

Pike wondered was this one of those questions that weren’t really questions, and if he answered it, would he look stupid?

‘It’s a stone, Arthur… Mister Billtoe. I just picked it up.’

Billtoe dropped to his knees, scrabbling in the shale until he found half a dozen more stones that pleased him. He held them in his cupped palms, like a tramp guarding his egg breakfast.

‘Arthur. Are you feeling ill? Would you like me to collect a few more stones for you? I saw a nice piece of wood further along.’

Billtoe was too happy to be annoyed. ‘These are not just stones, Pikey. These are rough diamonds. That’s why our airman was stopping off on Little Saltee. He’s a diamond smuggler.’

He rubbed his hands together, clinking the diamonds like voodoo bones.

‘Are you trying to tell the future with those things?’ joked Pike, the naked greed in Billtoe’s eyes making him nervous.

‘I know the future,’ said Billtoe. ‘We round up a few of the boys, we ambush this airman, sell his wings and steal his diamonds.’

‘What about the airman? We let him go free I suppose.’

Billtoe elbowed him good-naturedly. ‘Nice one, Pikey. Let him go free. No, we kill him, cut him into little pieces and then burn the pieces. As far as the world is concerned, this airman never existed.’

Pike swallowed. All this talk of blood made him nervous. He resolved there and then never to invent anything useful, or Billtoe might orchestrate a gruesome end for him too.

CHAPTER 15: HOME

There was almost perfect peace as Conor sailed the skiff north-north-east between the Jackeen and Murrock Rocks in the Saltee Straits. These rocks spent most of their lives submerged, but sometimes a trough dipped low, exposing their flattened peaks. When the five-year-old Conor had first seen these gnarled oblong shapes one evening on the patrol boat with his father, he was convinced they were crocodiles and would not be calm until Declan agreed to fire a warning shot. Sure enough, the crack of gunfire did the trick and the two crocodiles sank below the waters.

This little story had become one for the fireside, and it was dusted off whenever a friend visited for brandy or lemonade. It had always made Conor scowl, but now it near drove him to tears.

I cannot endure this. They are too close.

His mother’s face seemed to hover before him, calling him home, and he could ignore her no longer. No doubt she suffered as much as he did, perhaps more. He needed to know.

If I could just see them. Look on their faces once more before I leave, to make sure they endure.

Conor nudged the tiller with his knee, and tightened the sail for a south-west tack. He was going home.

From a distance, Saltee Harbour seemed much as Conor remembered it. A grand tiara, points shining silver and orange. Inside the pincers of the sea walls, it was clear that some of the tiara’s lustre had faded over the past few years. Sea slime crawled along the granite and the dock was clogged with haphazardly berthed boats, trussed together like tangled tops. The new outer-wall project had been abandoned, and the half-built structure trailed off into the sea like an eroded sand fort. The planned beacon tower was only half built and stood askew, a crumbling reminder of a past era, rather than the proud symbol of a new one. King Nicholas’s loss was being keenly felt, even here on the waterfront.

Conor knotted the skiff’s stern line to a mussel boat, and tossed the anchor into the half tide. It fizzed, bubbled, then sank quickly, bearing with it three securely fastened satchels of diamonds. Conor skipped across the prows of half a dozen bobbing fishing boats, before hauling himself to the quayside flagstones with the aid of a brass hitching ring.

He strolled nonchalantly along the quay, flicking his eyes upwards to the Wall guards. Whatever else grew slack and haphazard, Declan Broekhart would not allow his sharpshooters to lower their standards. Four guards stood atop the Wall, their wind capes fluttering around them. Conor saw the glint of a barrel and he knew that at the first sign of belligerence a warning shot would kick up sparks and slivers at his feet, at the second sign he would be dead before his body hit the water. He moved slow and easy with both hands in plain sight.

The quayside walkway curled the length of the outer wall to a cobbled market area, which would be bustling with stalls during the day. Merchants, innkeepers and housewives converged on the market each morning to fill their baskets with mackerel, cod, pollock, mussels, lobster, crab, crayfish and salmon. Boats arrived empty from Kilmore and left full or vice versa, depending on which crew had the run of the waters that day.

By evening, the air was tangy with smells of turning fish and salt. Scrubbers pumped water from the harbour, hosing the blood and guts into the sea. Most young lads on the Saltees had done their time as scrubbers, armed with stout bristled brushes and the energy of youth, they scrubbed the grime from the flagstones, only for them to be splattered crimson once more the following day.

Conor walked beneath the Wall arch, past a Customs booth.

‘Anything?’ asked the guard.

Conor raised his empty palms. ‘Just a raging thirst, sir, and a rendezvous with my sweetheart.’

The guard smiled. ‘Ah, the beer and Bessies. Two good reasons to visit the Saltees. It’s not your first time inside the Wall, then?’

Ahead, on the hill, the palace turrets poked into the night, blotting out patches of stars.

‘No, sir. I’ve been here before.’

As a boy, Conor had not spent every minute lost in his studies. He’d passed his share of time up to his armpits in mud and seaweed. He’d climbed cliffs, built dams and on occasion stolen eggs from the puffins that waddled along the flat rocks like clockwork toys.

These manly endeavours sometimes caused him to miss his curfew, and when this happened Conor would spy through the windows of the Broekhart apartments to see whether or not his father was home or even what kind of mood his parents were in.

He occupied the same spot now, straddling a gargoyle drain, ten feet off the ground across the square from the Broekhart house. Water from the salt spray trickled from the gargoyle’s mouth, painting white streaks on its twisted stone lips. Even climbing the wall brought pangs of longing for home.

My feet find the footholds in the stone. I climb this wall as though I had done it only yesterday.

The Broekhart home was quiet and dark, but for a single candle in the kitchen window. There was no sign of his parents.

It is late, I suppose.

Conor was greatly disappointed, but relieved too. The knot of nerves in his stomach was tighter now than it had been during his balloon flight from prison. He knew that if he had seen his parents in abject misery, it would have been almost impossible not to venture inside and reveal the truth.

They hate me now, Mother and Father both, but it is a false hate. Manufactured. Underneath there will still be love.

Inside the Broekhart dwelling, a shadow drifted into the kitchen. Conor felt his pulse throb in his forehead.

Perhaps my mother cannot sleep; nightmares haunt her, as they do me.

It was his mother. Catherine Broekhart drifted past the window, her hair sleep dishevelled. Her eyes were half closed, and both hands waved the air, until her eyes adjusted to the sudden light.

Mother. Oh, Mother.

The simple sight of her tore down the barriers Conor had erected round his heart. It was time to end Bonvilain’s cruel charade. The consequences were on the marshall’s head, not Conor’s.

He shifted his weight, to dismount the gargoyle, then froze. His father had entered the kitchen and he was not alone. There was a child in his arms, tousled toddler, lower lip jutted with bad temper.

A child. My brother.

His father was not the broken man he imagined. Declan Broekhart wore a familiar smile as he coddled the little boy, wrapping him in the sleeve of his robe. He spoke, and through the open window Conor recognized his tone even if he couldn’t quite make out the words.

My father is happy.

Catherine poured a mug of water for the little boy, and they fussed over him together, sitting by the fireplace while he had his drink. Gradually the child’s temper softened, as the memory of his nightmare was replaced by the sight of two loving parents.

Outside on the gargoyle, Conor felt scalped, as though the final remnants of Conor Broekhart had been cut away.

A child. A brother.

Things were not as he had imagined them. It seemed as though he was the only one suffering. His parents had rediscovered happiness with their new son.

The cold of the stone gargoyle spread through his thighs, creeping up into his chest. Salty spray fell in sheets over the Wall drenching his jacket, the chill soaking through to his shoulders.

They have a good life, thought Conor. They are happy again.

Conor knew that he could not reveal himself, or the truth.

Bonvilain would kill them without a second’s hesitation. It would be my fault.

Conor turned his face away from the window and swung himself down from the gargoyle.

I am Conor Finn, he told himself, taking quick determined steps towards the harbour.

The airman flies one more time. Two bags of diamonds and then America.

Forlorn Point

Linus Wynter was busy when Conor reached the tower. He had completely rearranged the sleeping chamber to his personal preference. There was hot chocolate on the stove, along with a pot of bacon and potatoes and he was stitching a seam on the sleeve of his dress coat.

‘It’s the middle of the night,’ said Conor, climbing through the elevated door.

Linus tapped his temple. ‘It’s always night for me, boy. I sleep when I am tired.’

Conor peered down into the cellar. ‘Why do you bother to move the furniture? We leave in a few days, I told you this.’

‘In a few days? Your precious flying machine is not finished.’

When Conor was not patching the wings on his glider, he spent every minute constructing the aeroplane he had designed in prison, complete with petrol engine and retractable landing gear.

‘It is almost complete. Anyway, if needs be, I can ship it to America.’

‘We’re not tethered to one another,’ said Linus, laying the needle against his finger to find the ripped seam. ‘Maybe I’ll stay behind and save your family myself.’

‘My family don’t need saving. They live in a palace with a new son.’

This gave Linus pause. He listened for Conor’s breathing, then walked carefully towards him, feeling for his shoulders.

‘You are so tall,’ he said, surprised. ‘Victor said you would be. Long bones, Frenchy always said. So you have yourself a little brother. That is wonderful news. Wouldn’t you like to meet him before you leave?’

Conor felt tears film across his eyes. ‘I… I, of course that is what I would like, but what would it mean for the child… My…’

‘You can say it,’ said Linus. ‘He is your brother.’

‘What would it mean for my brother?’ blurted Conor. ‘Bonvilain would murder him. If my father challenges the marshall, he will kill them all.’

Linus seemed to glare down at Conor, as though he could see through the silk scarf tied across his eyes. ‘And what of Isabella? I hear talk in the village, she has already repealed taxes and abolished import duty. She is becoming a true queen. How do you think Bonvilain will respond to that?’

Conor wiped his eyes. ‘She is the queen. She has people to protect her. She loved me, she said, and yet she believed that I helped to kill her father.’

‘That’s not what I hear. There is talk of Conor Broekhart in the village too. He was a hero, they say. He died trying to protect the king.’

Conor snorted. ‘The official story. Bonvilain said that my part in the murder would be covered up to spare my family. That was his gift to the Broekharts.’

‘And you are certain that Isabella was included in this deception.’

This was a startling thought. What if Isabella had not known? Imagine if she believed her young suitor to have perished that night.

Don’t think about it. It is too painful, and it makes not a jot of difference.

Conor sat at his workbench, clenching both fists before his own face.

‘Please, Linus, stop. I can’t bear to explore possibilities. My connection with the Broekharts is severed. I cannot be responsible. Bonvilain is too big. I am Conor Finn.’

‘The name Finn. Bonvilain’s gift to you.’

Conor felt as though his forehead were collapsing, crushing his brain.

Love, family, happiness. They were luxuries. Life was the prize. Stay alive and keep your family alive.

‘I am alive. I will stay alive.’

Linus barked a short laugh. ‘Stay alive? Which is why you hurl yourself daily from a tower.’

‘I made a promise to Otto Malarkey.’

‘So, you would kill yourself for diamonds, but not for family or honour. I think Victor would be much disappointed in his student.’

Conor surged to his feet. ‘Do not lecture me, old man. You are not my father.’

‘Exactly right, boy,’ said Linus softly, the anger draining from his face. ‘I am not your father.’

Conor turned his back without another word, gathered the collapsed glider under his arm and climbed the ladder to the roof.

CHAPTER 16: SNAKES IN THE GRASS

Conor and Linus barely spoke the following day, apart from a few grunted greetings. The American purposefully bashed himself against the furniture a few times, hoping to squeeze some concern from Conor, but without result. Either Conor didn’t hear the groaning or he was ignoring it.

His heart may have been hardened by Little Saltee, thought Wynter, but it was petrified by the sight of his little brother.

Night came with little change in mood, but when Conor primed the engine for the wind tunnel, Linus felt he had to speak.

‘You cannot fly tonight, Conor. The wind is wrong.’

Conor did not turn round. ‘You are not my father, remember? And the wind is not wrong, it is a few degrees more to the south than I would like, but I can manoeuvre around it.’

‘And the moon? There should be a harvest moon tonight.’

Conor buttoned his black jacket, scanning the panorama before him. There was barely a cloud in the sky. A glowing moon was reflected in dancing sections on the ocean’s surface. As clear a night as he had ever seen.

‘It’s overcast,’ he said brusquely, positioning himself below the glider, which hung from a gantry overhead. ‘Lower the glider, would you?’

Linus, familiar now with the rooftop layout, counted the steps to a winch bolted to the wall.

‘Ready?’

Conor raised his arms, ready to thread through the harness. ‘Lower away. Five cranks of the handle.’

‘I know. The same as yesterday. Will I bother with dinner?’

‘Yes. Sorry about last night. I was in no mood for eating.’

‘Nothing fresh, mind. I will reheat last night’s fare.’

‘The hot chocolate too? I regretted walking out on that. The roof is cold.’

Linus smiled. ‘Sometimes a tantrum is expensive.’

The glider settled on to his back, and Conor buckled the harness across his chest, and drew the straps up between his legs. He reached down, curling his fingers around the harness winch handle, like a gunfighter checking the butt of his pistol.

‘I wound the propellers,’ said Linus.

Conor twanged one of the bands. ‘Good and tight. Nicely done.’

‘I have a heightened sense of tautness,’ quipped Wynter, locking the winch. ‘Can’t you wait, Conor? The wind is wrong. I can smell the salt.’

Conor buttoned the flying jacket to his chin, then fixed his goggles. Once disguised, his entire demeanour changed. He stood taller and felt capable of more violence, no more a boy.

‘I cannot wait, Linus. Not another night. I will have my diamonds and be done with this life. America awaits. We can open a business together. I will fly my gliders and you can test the tautness of things.’

Wynter’s smile was tinged with sadness. ‘I am not ready to return home just yet, boy. Nicholas brought me here to do a job and I intend to see it through. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I shall not rest while Bonvilain flourishes. He took the best men I have known away from me. Tonight, I fear, he may take another.’

Conor drew his sabre, balancing it on one wrist to test its weight. ‘Do not fear for me, Linus. Fear for anyone who stands in my way this night.’ He sheathed the sword, then checked the load in both revolvers.

‘Oh, and would you turn off the wind tunnel before you go to bed?’

Conor ducked into the wind tunnel and was blasted into the night. Linus heard him go in a whoosh of air, creak of wood and trailing whoop.

Come back alive, boy, he thought. You are their only hope.

And then.

Perhaps I will make dinner from scratch. Some of my famous grits perhaps. An airman deserves to eat well. Fresh hot chocolate too.

Conor held his breath while the tunnel blast filled his wings and propelled him towards the stars. That first moment of tumult and force was as confusing as ever. He could not tell sea from sky, stars from their reflections. The air pummelled his torso with ghostly fists until the glider aligned itself with the wind’s direction.

Then came the moment of pure flight when the wind lifted him, his glider creaked and took the strain and he was propelled bodily further from earth.

A moment of happiness. Nothing to do but be at peace.

Conor found that he relished this brief stretch more each time he flew. It was a calm before the storm, he knew, and yet while he flew with the wind at his back he could forget his troubles; they were as earthbound as most humans.

Rising thermals lifted him to an altitude higher than he had ever flown. The land spread out below him like a living map. He could see white tops stretching in lazy meanders for miles along the coast, like contour lines on a map. Several small boats bobbed gently on the silver black sea, fishermen taking advantage of the night tide and calm waters. Conor thought he heard a chorus of halloos from one boat. Had he been seen? It didn’t matter – after this night the mysterious airman would fly no more. The next time he took to the air would be as a free American citizen with papers to prove it, thanks to Zeb Malarkey. He would ship the flying machine in parts to be assembled in Nebraska, or Wyoming or maybe California. Whichever was furthest from the Saltee Islands.

Conor moved hand over fist across the steering bar, turning the glider in a wide arc. Time to concentrate on his work or he would overshoot Little Saltee. Two more salsa beds, two more bags. Then Otto could buy his freedom and there would be plenty left for a secure life in America.

Great Saltee

Billtoe and Pike lay behind the ridge above Sebber Bridge, a series of soot-blackened blades arranged in the long grass around them.

‘That cleaver is my special favourite,’ said Pike fondly. ‘Does for any sort of flesh. Fish, fowl or human. It will put a fair fracture in a bone too, it will.’

Billtoe begged to differ. ‘Your common cleaver is clumsy, you gotter swing yer arm too high. Plenty of time for me to nip in and tickle a lung with this beauty.’ He dinged a long and deadly ice pick with his nail.

‘I favours my beloved sabre, name of Mary Ann,’ said a husky Irish voice behind them.

‘Quiet, you dolt,’ hissed Billtoe. ‘The airman could be here any moment.’

‘You was talking,’ said the man, wounded.

‘I was whispering,’ corrected Billtoe, and then to Pike. ‘Why did you bring this scatterfool?’

‘I could only shave three men from the prison guard,’ said Pike. ‘And you said it would take the half-dozen to knobble the airman. So I picked Rosy up in the pub. He hasn’t had more than a quart of ale.’

Billtoe was not pleased. ‘You saw the airman. He was a six footer at the very least and armed to the gills. We need sharp eyes and quick hands to take him, not drunken red nosed Paddies.’

Rosy snorted. ‘You is a Paddy yerself, Arthur. And I can chop down any man you point me at. Let’s face it – this airman of yours, he’s no more real than the banshee; he’s just one of those yokeybobs, ain’t he?’

Billtoe chewed his bottom lip, causing his chin stubble to quiver. ‘A yokeybob?’

‘You know. In yer brain. A phantom cos of you in that barrel.’

‘You told him, Pikey,’ said Billtoe reproachfully.

‘You told me yourself in the tavern,’ laughed Rosy. ‘You told anyone who would listen all about the devil and poor little Billtoe in the barrel. There ain’t no airman. I’m only here for the five shillings’ payment. Why all the blades anywise? One bullet would do the trick.’

‘We need the blades, you beer-brained beetroot face,’ fumed Billtoe, ‘because a gunshot would have the Wall guard on us like flies on a cow biscuit. And that would lose us any bounty our airman might be carrying.’

‘If there was an airman.’

Billtoe wrapped his fingers around the hilt. ‘Well, Rosy, if there ain’t an airman, why don’t you tell that there fellow in the sky above you that he’s just a yokeybob sprung from my brain.’

Rosy glanced up fully expecting to see nothing but stars. What he did see had him pawing the grass for his beloved sabre.

‘God preserve us,’ he breathed, crossing himself with his weaponless hand. ‘A man with wings.’

‘Yokeybob, my eye,’ snorted Billtoe, then talked no more as his teeth were clenched on a dagger blade.

Conor had succeeded in unearthing the final pouches, but they had cost him dearly. The silver moonbeams lit his wings like Chinese lanterns.

A guard had seen him glide over Little Saltee’s outer wall, and being one of the few stout chaps on the island had decided to chase what he took for an albatross. He stalked his prey to the salsa beds where he realized his mistake and put a round through one of the glider’s wings, just as the strange airman bent low to retrieve some kind of pouch. Only a slight nervous shake to the guard’s hand spared Conor a bullet in the brain gourd.

The shot split a stone at Conor’s feet, throwing up a shard that scored a lightning flash on the left lens of his goggles.

He reacted quickly, ditching the glider with two yanks on the harness belts, then spinning towards his attacker, pistols drawn.

‘Yield or die, monsieur,’ he called, cocking the revolvers.

The guard could not decide whether he wished to yield or die, or something in between. Yielding was not something he was comfortable with, but neither did he relish a midnight battle with a flying Frenchy. Those fellows were dangerous enough without wings, as his grandfather had learned at Waterloo.

By the time he had considered his options and thought to cock his firearm, the black-clad airman was upon him, leaping from rock to stone with the speed of a cat, the guard would later swear. And growling too, like a hungry wolf. A cat-dog Frenchy, twirling guns and with blades clanking on his thighs.

‘Bonsoir, monsieur,’ said the airman, then clocked the surprised guard on the crown.

Conor was examining his glider almost before the guard fell. The upper port section had been punctured, but there were no rips radiating from the hole and the heat of the bullet had sealed the edges well enough. It would hold to Sebber Bridge if he could get himself into the air.

Conor threaded his arms through the straps then rolled both shoulders into the harness, cinched it tight and ran for the nearest stairwell. His wingtips scraped the walls on both sides, and he chided himself for not binding them in leather. The stairwell funnelled wind from above and it rattled his wings, pushing him down, but Conor struggled against it, forcing his way head first to the top step.

The gunshot had woken every guard in the billet, and they converged on the stairwell in ragged formation, clutching at rifles and trousers, shaking dreams from their heads. The sight of Conor had half of them convinced that they still slept.

One loosed a shot, but it was wild and high. The rest stared stupidly, mindless of each other until they tangled and fell in a bundle. Conor took advantage of the confusion to mount the parapet and leap into the sky, catching as much air as he could.

A wind, he prayed. One tiny draught.

Jupiter heard his prayer and sent a gift. An uplifting breath that filled his wings and threw him high above the heads of the watching guards. They scowled and screamed and stared in silence. Two thought to aim their weapons but the one who might have hit the target was accidentally shot by the other who pulled his trigger too early. In the blink of a crow’s eye, the airman had disappeared into the night. Swallowed by black, like a stone sinking in the night sea.

For a long moment, nobody on the wall uttered a syllable. Then they began to jabber furiously, each man telling his own version of what he had seen. Even the wounded man gabbed with the rest, mindless of the blood pooling at his foot. This was a story they would tell many times and it needed to be made solid now. Wrap words around the bone before daylight made the whole thing seem unlikely.

It was an airman, they decided. The Airman. Hadn’t there been a whisper of something like this on Great Saltee?

We saw the Airman. Seven feet tall with fiery, circular eyes.

The story was started. The word was spreading.

Word spreading is not what a man wants when he is a smuggler and a thief.

Conor rode the fair wind to Great Saltee, heart pounding in his chest. His blood was up, and he knew that was dangerous.

A man takes risks when the battle fever controls him, Victor had once told him. I have seen too many clever men die stupidly.

Be calm. Calm.

There was not time for calm. The air grew suddenly choppy and Conor was forced to wrestle with his craft simply to stay aloft. Great Saltee loomed below him, as though the earth had revolved to meet him. Conor pointed the nose down, holding it there against the tug of air resistance. Wind pulled at his goggles and poked fingers through the bullet hole in his wing.

On a night like this one, Conor could almost believe that men were not supposed to fly.

He came down at a sharp angle, too fast and too steep.

I will be lucky if my ankles survive this, he thought, gritting his teeth against the impact.

Though his vision was impaired by a cracked lens and whirling elements, Conor saw the skiff on Sebber Bridge, and he also spotted the men lying in wait for him behind the ridge.

Snakes in the grass, he thought without a shred of fear, utterly ready for a fight. He shifted left on the steering bar in order to come down in their midst.

May as well have a soft landing.

Rosy was attempting to run when Conor crashed into him, driving both boots into the man’s shoulders. He heard something snap and the man rolled howling down the rocky slope. The rest jumped to their feet and ranged about him in a ragged circle. None attacked, sizing up their opponent.

These men cannot understand the principles of my rig, thought Conor. Therefore I am a ghost, or a creature. That will not last long. Soon enough they will see for themselves that my wings are fabric and my chest heaves with exertion. Then they will shoot me dead.

Or perhaps not. No guns were drawn yet, though there were plenty of blades.

Of course. There will be no gunplay here. The reports would bring the Wall watch down on us, and these brigands are not here to arrest me.

One of the five remaining men stepped forward a pace, brandishing an ice pick.

‘Gibbus de dymon,’ he said, then removed the dagger from his mouth and spat. ‘I said give us the diamonds, Airman.’

Diamonds. The dropped pouch! He had left a trail.

‘Billtoe,’ growled Conor, his voice coarsened by deep hatred.

The prison guard quailed. ‘Who are you? Why me, personally? I never wronged no parlayvoo.’

Billtoe will be first to fall, thought Conor. At least I will have that.

His hands flashed to twin scabbards at his hips, drawing two battle sabres.

‘En garde,’ he said and lunged forward. A breeze caught the glider, elongating his stride, and Billtoe who had thought himself at a safe distance was suddenly face to face with the Airman.

He tried a move employed in a dozen bar fights – a sly dig with his ice pick – only to find the weapon batted aside.

‘Shame on you, monsieur,’ said the Airman. ‘Bringing a kitchen tool to a sword fight.’

Conor slashed down and out, his blade biting deep into Billtoe’s thigh. The guard squealed and grabbed the wound. He was no longer a threat. Both hands would be employed trying to keep the blood inside his leg.

Even now I do not wish to kill him, Conor realized. There is only one man I could kill.

He heard a rustling behind him as two men advanced.

They are too cautious. The strange uniform scares them.

A fortuitous breeze snapped his wings and Conor added to its force by leaping directly upwards. The two men passed below and the Airman descended on them with boots and blades. Both were soon dispatched. Neither dead, but certainly nursing a reluctance to participate in moonlight ambushes.

Two men left. One was quaking and the other circling warily, biding his time, watching for weakness. It was Pike, and he did not seem inclined to retreat.

‘You go ahead, matey,’ he said, propelling his comrade towards Conor.

The unfortunate man had barely time to squeak before Conor knocked him senseless with a casual blow from the sabre’s guard.

‘Jus’ you and me, Airman,’ said Pike, sporting a careless grin. He studied Conor, took in the stance and the muscle and the weapons dangling from fist and belt.

‘To hell with this,’ he said, reaching for his pistol. ‘I’ll take my chances with the Wall watch.’

Conor drew faster, exchanging the sword in his right hand for a revolver.

‘The guards can hear my shot or none, monsieur. The choice is yours.’

Pike was already committed to his action, so Conor buzzed a shot past his ear to regain his attention. The guard fell, temporarily deafened, to his knees, gun tumbling from his fingers.

‘A warning shot. The next one will put a hole in you.’

It was useless to speak. Pike could not hear and combed the grass with his fingers, till he found his weapon.

‘Drop that pistol,’ said Conor. ‘I have the advantage over you.’

But Pike could not or would not hear and lifted the barrel, his intention clear.

Conor shot him in the shoulder, the copper-jacketed slug bowling the guard diagonally over the ridge, screeching like a barn owl.

Gunshot and screeching, and at night too. Noises certain to attract the attention of the Wall watch. Conor jumped over the ridge, squatting behind it. On the Wall above, three lights were extinguished. This was protocol. At the first sign of disturbance, the guards plunged themselves into darkness to avoid becoming targets. Next half a dozen flares came arcing over the Wall, painting the bay with harsh red light.

It was time to leave. Quickly now, before the flares dipped low enough to light the skiff. Conor collapsed his wings and ran doubled over to the small boat. There was no time for careful folding of the glider, and several of the craft’s ribs snapped as he shoved it under the seat.

No matter. Wooden ribs by the stack in the tower. My own ribs are more difficult to replace should they be splintered by gunshot.

He pushed hard into the gunwale, scraping the keel across the stone and sand until the water took its weight.

Shouts behind him now as guards poured from a fortified gateway, hurrying along the coast path. Some on horseback. The baying of hunting dogs echoed across the flat sea.

Dogs! The watch wasted no time leashing their hounds.

Conor leaped into the skiff, his momentum pushing it to sea and safety. He tugged the mast from its bracket, laying it flat across the planks. Less of a profile from shore. Cold water splashed over the prow, spattering his face and he was glad of it. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears like great hollow drums in the distance.

I wish to be a scientist. Doing injury holds no pleasure for me.

Not even Billtoe? Did you not enjoy that cut?

Conor ignored the question. He would deal with the workings of his mind on another day.

You will be a scientist again. In America. A new life, new inventions, home, friends and perhaps another girl who does not remind you of Isabella.

Conor turned his mind to rowing. He could not even contemplate girls without a vision of Isabella blooming in his mind.

So, the ocean. Conor felt confident that he was safe now. The robust little craft bore him away on the current. The skiff had served him well. Already Great Saltee was little more than a dark wedged hump receding.

Billtoe had called him Airman. That will be a short-lived title.

The glider lay on the planks, its wings folded awkwardly like those of a broken bird.

No matter. It is over now. The mysterious Airman will fly no more.

The Martello tower was visible on the Irish coastline, a lantern burning in an upstairs window. A beacon to guide him home.

Conor smiled.

Linus has forgiven me, he thought.

And then.

I hope there is hot chocolate.

CHAPTER 17: TANGLED WEB

Two hours later, Arthur Billtoe sat on a fruit box in Marshall Bonvilain’s office trying to hold the flaps of his wound together. His trousers were soaked and small gouts of blood pumped between his fingers in time with his heartbeat.

Marshall Bonvilain entered the room, and the gouts pumped faster.

‘Sorry about the fruit box, Arthur,’ said Hugo Bonvilain, sitting behind his desk. ‘But the brocade on my chairs is worth more to me than your life, you understand.’

‘O-of course, Marshall,’ stammered Billtoe. ‘I am bleeding, sir. It is quite serious, I think.’

Bonvilain waved this information away. ‘Yes, we will come to that later. For now, I wish to talk about this creature.’

He took a notepad from his desk drawer and spun it across the desk towards Billtoe. It was Pike’s notebook, open to a dynamic sketch of the Airman.

‘They are calling him the Airman and he can fly apparently.’

In cases like this, Billtoe had learned that it was always best to plead ignorance.

‘We was taking a walk, and he sprung himself on us. Amazed I am.’

‘Hmm. So it was all a coincidence? You just happened to be at Sebber Bridge making yourselves a target for the Wall watch, when this Airman descended from the heavens?’

Billtoe nodded eagerly. ‘That’s it exactly. You have gone straight to the nub of the matter, as usual.’

‘And did Mister Pike do his sketching before or after he was shot? I don’t see how he could have done it at either time.’ Bonvilain leaned forward, his bulk casting a shadow on Billtoe. ‘Could it be that you are lying to me, Arthur Billtoe?’

Blood pulsed between the guard’s fingers. ‘No, sir, Marshall, never.’

Bonvilain sighed, obviously enjoying his game of cat and mouse.

‘You are weaving yourself a tangled web. I think it’s best if I tell you what I think you’ve been up to, and then when I am finished speaking, you colour in any details I might have missed. How about that, Arthur?’

Billtoe nodded, as if he really had a say in proceedings.

‘So, firstly, there’s you giving me ideas for flying and salsa beds. Then there are reports of a flying man digging up things in the salsa beds. Things which Pike tells me are diamonds.’

‘Pike is raving,’ objected Billtoe. ‘Bullet fever.’

Bonvilain raised a finger. ‘No time for lies, Arthur. You’re bleeding, remember? And I have not finished speaking.’

‘Sorry,’ mumbled Billtoe.

‘Now, you are far too ignorant and short-sighted to have thought up this diamond scheme yourself…’

‘Exactly,’ said Billtoe, relieved. ‘Ignorant and shortsighted, that’s me.’

‘So you must have been manipulated by whoever supplied these ideas. Now I know of only one person on Little Saltee with a fascination for flying.’ And here Bonvilain’s easy manner was replaced by cold, hard danger. ‘Be careful what you say here, Billtoe, because if your answer displeases me, you will not live long enough to die of that leg wound… Were these ideas Conor Broekhart’s?’

‘Who?’ asked Billtoe, genuine confusion writ large on his features.

‘Finn. Conor Finn.’

Whatever blood was left in Billtoe’s face drained from it. He had always known this moment would come. Only one card left to play.

‘Yes, Marshall,’ he said, shamefacedly. ‘He sold his ideas for blankets and such. It seemed a harmless deception.’

Bonvilain grunted. ‘Until he escaped on that coronation balloon. With your help, I’ll warrant.’

‘No, sir,’ said Billtoe, squeezing the flaps of his wound together. ‘Finn is locked up in the mad wing, just as you ordered. No escaping for Conor Finn.’ Billtoe paused guiltily. ‘Though he may look a tad different than he did last time you saw him. The years have been hard on the poor lad. What with the bell work and the beatings that you ordered. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t even recognize young Conor Finn.’

Bonvilain laced his fingers, squeezing them until the tips were white, then rolling the knuckles along his forehead. He knew what had happened, of course he knew. It was his own fault.

Conor Broekhart should have been tossed out of the window years ago, not kept alive on the off chance he would be needed to control his father. What tangled webs we weave…

Bonvilain admitted to himself that he had liked the idea of having a witness to his genius. How much more agonizing must Conor Broekhart’s imprisonment have been, knowing his father believed him to be a murderer.

The marshall smiled tightly. No, it had been a good plan. Incredible circumstances had scuppered it. An Airman, if you please. How could a man prepare for eventualities that had not yet been invented.

Conor Broekhart may be a genius, but Hugo Bonvilain was ingenious. This situation was a test of his mettle. It would involve some quick thinking, but already the germ of a new plan was sprouting roots in the marshall’s mind. There would be murder involved, but that was not really an issue, except it could very well be murder at a high level, and when indulging in such murders one must seem completely blameless. European royal families did not approve of commoners disposing of their monarchs. And royal disapproval generally took the form of approaching warships and annexation. Hugo Bonvilain did not intend to share his diamonds or his seat of power with anybody, especially not with Isabella’s close friend, Queen Victoria of the British Empire.

The Bonvilains had been striving for too many centuries to reach the very position that he was in now for him to pack his satchel at the first sign of worthy opposition.

Bonvilain remembered the night his father died. He had been raving from the leprosy that he had picked up on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and much of what he had said was gibberish but there were moments when his eyes were as clear as they had ever been.

‘We have been pruning,’ he’d said to the young Bonvilain. ‘Do you know what I’m saying to you, Hugo? For centuries we have been pruning the Trudeaus. They breed like rabbits, God blast them, but we have set the crown on the right head, keeping the Saltee Islands independent. You must finish the job. You are the last in the line of servants, and the first in a line of Bonvilain masters. Promise me, Hugo. Promise me.’

And the dying man had clutched at his son’s forearm with bandaged hands.

‘I promise,’ Bonvilain had said, unable to look at the wasted remains of his father’s face.

It occurred to Bonvilain that he had been rocking in his seat, knuckles to forehead for several moments now, which may appear strange. He leaned back, tugging straight the red-crossed, white Templar stole over his navy suit.

‘That’s my thinking position, Arthur. Any objections?’

‘No, Marshall. Not a one.’

‘Glad to hear it. Anything else you care to tell me about our Airman?’

Billtoe fished inside his head for some pertinence that the marshall would appreciate.

‘Um… erm… Oh! He speaks French, calls a body mish-yoor.’

Bonvilain slammed the desk with both fists, bouncing his writing set into the air.

French. That clinched it. He had in a moment of miscalculation revealed his Francophobia to Conor Broekhart. It seemed as though the boy had a sense of humour. Best to dispose of him as soon as possible. The last thing he needed was a vindictive Airman flying around stealing his diamonds and undermining his plans.

‘So, Arthur, you maintain that Conor Finn languishes in his cell?’

Billtoe swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘Apart from the languishing bit, which I am not certain on, yes. He is in his cell.’

‘Good. I would like to speak to him.’

‘What? Now?’

‘Yes, now. Does this pose a problem for you?’

‘No, there is no problem.’ Billtoe’s features were drawn with pain and desperation. ‘Except that I’m bleeding, Marshall, quite badly. This wound needs closing or I might not survive the ferry to the prison.’

Bonvilain glanced at the fireplace. Flames crackled orange and blue in the hearth, and a model broadsword, used as a poker, hung from a hook by the coal scuttle.

‘You’re right, Arthur,’ he said brightly. ‘It is time to seal that wound.’

Bonvilain boarded the ferry with Captain Sultan Arif, his most trusted officer. Billtoe cowered in the stern, every now and then poking at the scar of fused flesh on his thigh, seeming surprised each time the contact caused him pain. He passed out during the short trip and each time woke up blubbering like a babe and blurting the word barrel.

Bonvilain found that he was not in the least anxious now that he had considered the night’s developments. In fact, he felt invigorated by the challenge of maintaining his position, or even improving it. After all, Conor Broekhart was a youth with a kite. Hugo Bonvilain was a military strategist with an army behind him. Apparently young Conor was reluctant to commit murder, whereas Bonvilain regarded murder as a time-honoured and valid political tool.

The marshall leaned close to Sultan Arif’s ear.

‘There may be some poisoning later. Ready your potions.’

Sultan nodded casually, toying with his splendid moustache. ‘Yes, Marshall. May I ask who we may be poisoning?’

‘Myself, I regret to say,’ replied Sir Hugo.

Sultan seemed unsurprised. ‘There will be others, I take it?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Bonvilain confirmed, his gaze distant. ‘There will be others.’

Little Saltee

There was a prisoner in Conor Finn’s cell, but it was not Conor Finn.

‘And who, pray tell, is this?’ asked Bonvilain, pointing to the terrified wretch huddled in the corner away from the lamplight.

Billtoe knew he was rumbled. ‘Don’t kill me, Your Worship,’ he begged, dropping to his knees, and grabbing the hem of Bonvilain’s Templar stole.

‘Please spare me. I don’t know how the blighter escaped. One minute he was there, the next gone. Some form of magic. Perhaps he ’ypnotized me.’

Bonvilain did not kick him off immediately, enjoying the grovelling.

‘What I don’t know yet, Arthur, is if you were actually Finn’s accomplice. You helped him escape, and you were his smuggling contact.’

‘Oh no sir, Marshall,’ gibbered Billtoe. ‘I never done no colluding. I don’t have the depth of thought for that.’

‘I’m not so sure. This substitute scheme of yours might have worked with any other prisoner. You were unfortunate to lose this particular one.’

‘That’s all it was, sir. Bad blasted luck, not an ounce of co-operation with the prisoner in it.’

Bonvilain decided a display of anger was called for, after all Sultan was watching.

‘You lied to me, Billtoe,’ he shouted, his voice echoing in the tiny cell. ‘You stole my diamonds!’

The marshall whipped his stole from Billtoe’s fingers then delivered a mighty kick, which sent the guard tumbling over the bed and into the wall behind. A muck plate cracked and fell. Billtoe lay in a heap like a spilled sack of laundry.

‘Well struck, Marshall,’ said Sultan. ‘On the point of the chin. He rolled like a cartwheel. Should I finish him off?’

‘No,’ replied Bonvilain. ‘Something more poetic, I think. Perhaps our friend Arthur needs some time to reflect on his shortcomings.’

He was distracted by a strange glow from the rear of the cell. Billtoe’s forehead had knocked some mud from the wall, and strange ghostly scribblings shone behind.

Curious, Bonvilain stepped closer, bending to examine the markings.

‘Coral, I imagine,’ he mused. ‘Old Wandering Heck would have loved this.’

But the markings were man-made. Diagrams and equations. Someone had tried to cover up these markings with mud, but the mud had not bonded completely with the damp surface below. A glider was plainly visible on the wall. Bonvilain tapped it with a gloved finger.

‘Hello, Airman,’ he whispered. ‘It seems I provided you with your laboratory.’

He drew a pistol from his belt, rapping the wall with its grip. Another plate of mud cracked and fell, revealing that the glider had been launched from the roof of a tower.

‘And you have left me your location. And more valuable secrets, I shouldn’t wonder.’

On the floor, Billtoe moaned.

‘Am I to be executed now, sir. Is that my fate?’

‘Not at the present time,’ said Bonvilain, stretching. ‘I have use for you, Arthur Billtoe. Your immediate fate is to clean the dirt from these walls, then transcribe every mark you find underneath.’

‘Oh thank you, sir,’ said Billtoe, tears of relief dripping from his nose. ‘I shall have one of the inmates get to it immediately. Top of my list.’

‘You misunderstand, Arthur,’ said Bonvilain, catching the guard’s lapels in his fist, wrenching the very coat from his back, tumbling Billtoe further to the back of the cell.

‘You will not be supervising this task as prison guard, you will be performing it as inmate.’

Bonvilain turned to the young man who had occupied the cell for almost a year.

‘What is your name, boy?’

‘Claude deVille Montgomery, Yer Majesty,’ answered the youth promptly. ‘Though me nears ’n’ dears call me Spog.’

Bonvilain blinked. Life never failed to surprise.

‘Old Billtoe there said to answer Conor Finn if anyone, ’specially yerself, ever got around to asking, but that was only if he didn’t get around to pulling me tongue out, and as you can see…’ Spog opened his mouth wide to reveal two teeth and a grey tongue.

‘Thank you, eh, Spog. Tell me, has Mister Billtoe been unkind to you?’

Spog’s whole face frowned. ‘Blinkin’ nasty, the evil scut. With the hitting and spitting. Pulling hair too, which is hardly gentlemanly, is it now?’

‘Well then, now is your chance for revenge,’ said Bonvilain tossing him the guard’s jacket. ‘You are now the prison guard, and he is the prisoner. Do unto him and so forth. His life is yours, and yours his.’

Spog greeted this announcement with complete calm, as though his fortunes were reversed every day.

‘I’m yer man, Yer Highness,’ he said, approximating a salute. ‘What’re yer views on torturin’ them what used to be guards?’

‘I am all for it,’ said Bonvilain. ‘It builds character.’

Spog smiled, his teeth like gateposts in his mouth. ‘I’ll make you proud, Yer Worship.’

The marshall winced. ‘Let’s stick with Marshall, shall we?’

‘Yessir, Yer Worship.’

Billtoe’s senses were swirling around in his head like spirits in a witch’s cauldron, but still he managed to get the gist of what had transpired.

‘I’m… I’m an inmate now?’ he gasped, hauling himself on to the bed.

Bonvilain patted Spog’s shoulder. ‘Handle your prisoner, Mister Montgomery,’ he said. ‘I don’t deal directly with criminals.’

Spog’s eyes glowed with vengeful malice. ‘Yessir… Yer Worship. My pleasure – you might want to avert yer eyes.’

Bonvilain folded his arms. ‘Perhaps. But not right away.’

Billtoe backed away from his new gaoler, deeper and deeper into the cell till his elbows knocked mud from the walls, revealing blocks of diagrams and calculations.

The coral’s green glow traced the dawning horror on Arthur Billtoe’s face. The misery he had visited on so many others was now to be his.

Bonvilain winked at Sultan. ‘As I said. Poetic.’

Forlorn Point

Due to the night’s activity, not one fight but two, Conor got no more than an hour’s sleep. And that sleep was filled with dreams of prison guards with blades for hands and diamonds for eyes. There was something else, though, leaping up and down in the background, seeking attention. A small memory of Conor and his father rowing across Fulmar Bay when he was nine.

Watch the oar’s blade, Declan Broekhart had said. See how it cuts the water. You want to scoop the water, not slide through it.

Then in the dream Declan said something that he had never said in real life.

The same theory applies to the blades of a propeller. That might get your aeroplane off the ground.

Conor sat up in bed, instantly awake. What was it? What had he been thinking? Already the dream was fragmenting. The oar. Something about the oars. How could an oar help to fly an aeroplane?

It was obvious really. The oar had a blade, just like the propeller.

See how it cuts the water…

Of course! The oar was not bashed flat into the water, it was presented at an angle to reduce drag and maximize thrust. The same ancient principle must be applied to the propeller. After all, the propeller was really a rotating wing. When the aeroplane eventually flew, the propeller would have to absorb the engine’s power and overcome the flying machine’s drag. It must be treated like a wing, and shaped accordingly.

Flat propellers are of no use, thought Conor, hurriedly pulling on his clothes. They must be angled and the blades shaped to provide lift.

By the time Linus negotiated the stairs with bacon, soda bread and hot coffee, Conor was chiselling the second blade on his new propeller.

‘Ah,’ said Linus. ‘A new propeller.’

This pronouncement stopped Conor in mid-motion. ‘You are blind, are you not? How can you possibly know what I’m doing.’

Linus laid the breakfast tray on a bench. ‘I have mystical powers, boy. And also you’ve been talking to yourself this past hour. Lift, drag, propulsion, all that interesting stuff. We blind folk ain’t necessarily deaf you know.’

The scientist in Conor wished to continue to work, but the ravenous young man dragged him away from his precious propeller to the delicious breakfast.

Linus listened to him tuck in with a cook’s satisfaction.

‘I picked up the bread fresh in the village. The folk down there are all a-frenzy over stories about this Airman creature. Apparently he slew twenty men on the island last night.’

‘I hear he’s ten feet tall,’ said Conor, around a mouthful of bread.

Linus sat beside him at the bench.

‘This is no joke, Conor. You are in danger now.’

‘No need to fret, Linus. The Airman’s short career is over. No more night flying for me. From this day on, scientific flights only.’

Linus stole a strip of bacon. ‘Perhaps you might think of finding yourself a girl. You are of an age, you know.’

Conor could not help but think of Isabella. ‘Once, there was a girl, or could have been. I will think of females again when we reach America.’

‘When you reach America. I plan to stay here and conspire against Bonvilain. There are others who think like I do.’

‘You mean it,’ realized Conor sadly. ‘I had hoped you would change your mind.’

‘No. I lost friends. We both did.’

Conor had no desire to rake over the coals of this familiar argument.

‘Very well,’ he said, pushing away his plate. ‘The tower is yours, and there will be abundant funds too. But I am going. In America there are airmen like me, eager for the sky.’

‘I see. And when will you go?’

‘I had planned to leave today, but now I am impatient to test this new propeller. She is a thing of beauty, don’t you think?’

Linus Wynter tapped the velvet sleep mask that he now wore over his ruined eyes.

‘I’ll take your word for it. I had this mask sent from the Savoy. Did I ever tell you that I once stayed there?’

‘Let us make a bargain,’ said Conor. ‘Today I transport my aeroplane to Curracloe beach. It will take two days to assemble and another to test. When I return we will ship my equipment to New York and go by ferry and train to London. We will live like kings for one week in the Savoy, with no talk of revolution or science, then review our situation.’

‘That is a tempting offer,’ admitted Linus. ‘Some of the suites have pianos. My fingers twitch at the thought.’

‘Let us agree then. One week for ourselves, then back into the world. Separately perhaps, but I pray that we will be together.’

‘I pray for that too.’

‘Then we are agreed. The Savoy.’

Linus extended a hand. ‘The Savoy.’

They shook on it.

Bonvilain and Sultan came ashore incognito, faces shadowed by broad-rimmed toquilla hats. Their Saltee uniforms lent them no authority on the mainland and they were unlikely to attract attention dressed in civilian clothes. Local rowdies are far less likely to trouble dangerous-looking strangers than they are soldiers off their patch. In fact, some of the Kilmore lads knocked huge sport from taunting Saltee Army boys who were under strict orders not to retaliate. Bonvilain and Sultan were restrained by no such orders. They made no overtly hostile gestures and were the very definition of gentility, but still the local harbour boys got the impression that to trifle with this odd pair would lead to immediate and lasting discomfort.

They strolled down the quayside and into the smoky depths of the Wooden House.

‘I have visited taverns all over the world,’ confided Hugo Bonvilain, ducking under the lintel. ‘And they all have one thing in common.’

‘Drunks?’ said Sultan Arif, toppling a sleeping sailor from his path.

‘That too. Information for sale is the common factor I had in mind. That wretch for example…’

The marshall pointed to a solitary man, elbows on the bar, staring at an empty glass.

‘A prime candidate. He would sell his soul for another drink.’

He sidled up beside the man, and called to the innkeeper for a bottle of whiskey.

‘Do I know you?’ asked the innkeeper.

‘No, you don’t,’ replied Bonvilain cheerfully. ‘And I recommend you keep it that way. Now leave the bottle and make yourself busy elsewhere.’

Most good innkeepers develop an instinct about their customers and their capabilities. The proprietor was no exception. He would ask no more questions, but he would check the load in his shotgun just in case the oddly familiar broad-beamed customer and his grinning companion unleashed the trouble that they were surely capable of.

Bonvilain opened the bottle, turning to the solitary, glass-gazing man.

‘Now, good sir, you look like a gent that could use a drink. I certainly hope so, because I have no intention of imbibing one drop of this ripe spirit, which by the smell of it has already been passed through the stomachs of several cats.’

The man pushed his glass along the bar with one finger. ‘I’ll do you a favour and take it off your hands.’

‘Very noble of you, friend,’ said Bonvilain, filling the glass to the rim.

‘We ain’t friends,’ said the man, grumpy in spite of his sudden good fortune. ‘Not yet.’

Half a bottle later they were friends and Bonvilain steered the conversation as though the man had a rudder fixed to the back of his head.

‘Stupid gas lamps,’ said the man. ‘What’s wrong with candles? A candle never ruptured and exploded. I hear a gas explosion destroyed an entire city in China, ’cept for the cats what are immune to gas.’

Bonvilain nodded sympathetically. ‘Gas. Dreadful stuff. And as for foreigners buying our buildings…’

‘Stupid foreigners,’ blurted the man vehemently. ‘Buying our buildings. With the big smug heads on them. Do you know the English own one hundred per cent of the big houses around here? If not more.’

‘And don’t they just love living in towers, lording it over the rest of us.’

‘That they do,’ agreed the now-sozzled man. ‘We got us a right scatterfool at Forlorn Point. Takes on a blind musician to cook and clean for him.’

Bonvilain was extremely interested in this scatterfool. ‘A boy like that shouldn’t even own a tower,’ he prompted.

More whiskey was slopped into the glass. ‘No! Blast it. No, he shouldn’t. Boy like that. Should be out cutting hay like the rest of us at that age. But what does he do? Buys reams of material. Sends off for all sorts of mechanical parts. What’s he building up there? Who knows. Like Doctor Frankenstein he is. Whatever he’s doing, the noise coming out of that tower at night is enough to waken a dead pig.’

The man downed his drink in one, its harshness shocking his system from stomach to eyeballs.

‘And don’t tell me lobsters aren’t getting smarter. I caught a lobster last month and I swear he was trying to communicate. With the clicking claws and the pointy head yokes.’

The landlord rapped the bar with a knuckle. ‘You can shut up now, Ern. They’ve gone.’

‘Don’t matter,’ said Ern, clutching the bottle protectively to his chest. ‘I don’t like fellows with hats anyways. Never trust a hatter.’

The landlord was tactful enough not to point out that Ern himself sported a jaunty cap.

It took mere minutes for Bonvilain and Sultan Arif to find Forlorn Point. The old British Army marker stone by the roadside helped quite a bit.

‘The place is well named,’ noted Arif, placing his shoulder satchel on a tree stump. From inside he selected twin revolvers and a selection of knives, which he arranged on his belt.

‘I presume we are not sending for help.’

‘As is occasionally the case, Sultan, you are correct,’ said Bonvilain. ‘This is a Martello tower; we could have a battleship off the coast and still not gain entry. We proceed cautiously. Diplomacy first, then guile, and finally violence should it become necessary.’

They stepped over the ruined remains of the wall and across the yard, careful not to snag their boots on treacherous creepers that snaked from the rocky soil.

‘It doesn’t look much,’ said Sultan, picking moss from the tower wall.

Bonvilain nodded. ‘I know. Clever, isn’t it?’

A quick circuit of the tower confirmed that there was indeed only one doorway, above head height and plugged with a wooden door.

‘I’ll wager that door is not as flimsy as it looks,’ muttered Bonvilain.

Sultan placed his cheek against the wall. ‘The stones vibrate from a generator, Marshall,’ he noted. ‘I can hear classical music. It sounds as though there is an entire orchestra in there.’

‘A phonograph,’ said Bonvilain sourly. ‘How very modern. Conor Broekhart always liked his toys.’

‘So, how do we get in? Throw stones at the doorway?’

This is the Airman’s tower, thought Bonvilain. He enters and leaves from the roof.

‘I throw stones,’ he said to his captain.

‘You always had a good arm for stone throwing. What can I do?’

‘You can search in that bag of yours and see if you brought your crossbow.’

Sultan’s eyes glittered. ‘No need to search. I always bring my crossbow.’

Linus Wynter was enjoying Beethoven’s Ode to Joy while he fried up some traditional Southern grits on the pan. His secret ingredient was cayenne pepper – of course, Conor’s limited galley did not have any pepper so he was forced to use a pinch of curry powder instead. It may not be quite up to his normal culinary standards, but it was unlikely that Conor would complain after two years of Little Saltee food. At any rate, Conor had left for Curracloe beach not more than five minutes previously, and by the time he returned the grits would be no more than a distant memory.

That phonograph was a scientific wonder. Conor had explained how an orchestra could be transferred to a wax cylinder, but in all honesty Linus hadn’t made much of an effort to understand. The sound was scratchy and the cylinder had to be changed every few minutes, but it was sweet music all the same.

In spite of the crackling music and the sizzling grits, Linus heard the muffled voices outside. At first he assumed it was the local lads poking about, but then he heard the word Marshall, and his mild curiosity turned to a ball of dread in his stomach.

Bonvilain had found them.

Wynter had never been much of a marksman, but all the same he felt a little comforted once his thin fingers closed round the stock of the repeater rifle concealed beneath the worktop.

Just let Bonvilain open his mouth and I will do my utmost to close it forever.

Seconds later, a rock thumped against the door, followed in quick succession by three more. The last ringing against a steel band.

‘I thought as much,’ said a voice. ‘A reinforced door.’

Linus checked the breech with his thumb, then shouldered his way along the wall to a gun port.

Loaded and ready. Say something else, Marshall.

Bonvilain did. ‘Conor Broekhart. Why don’t you come down so I can finally kill you. May as well be blunt.’

Linus sent six shots winging towards the voice.

Perhaps God will favour the virtuous, he thought as the gunshots echoed around the tower’s curved walls and the discharge smoke sent his windpipe into spasms.

‘So,’ called Bonvilain. ‘Conor is not at home and the blind servant pulls the trigger. Just so you know, blind man, you just grievously wounded the pillar I was sheltering behind.’

Or perhaps the devil looks after his own, Linus concluded, covering his nose and mouth with a wet cloth from the sink.

I must warn Conor. He must not be taken. I will fire the emergency flares.

Conor was worried about Linus alone in the tower, in spite of the fact that the American had survived wars and prison for fifty years without his help, and so he had rigged a series of emergency flares to the roof. The fuses trailed down to various spots throughout the tower and were capped with sulphur sleeves. It was only necessary to yank off the sleeve to light the fuse. The fuses were linked so if one sparked, they all sparked.

The nearest fuse was in what they jokingly referred to as the lounge, a collection of chairs clustered around the fireplace, which Linus was using as a gin still.

Fifteen steps from the rifle slot to the lounge. One step down. A bench by the wall. Nothing I don’t pass by a hundred times a day.

Linus coughed the last of the rifle smoke from his lungs and began his short walk carefully. What a shame it would be to come unstuck from a twisted ankle. There was plenty of time. Bonvilain would be reluctant to enter through the front door, as there could be any number of guns pointed at that target.

Walk slowly but surely.

Linus was thrown into turmoil by a series of gunshots, each one clanging against the door, setting the metal ringing like a bell.

Wynter dropped to all fours, puzzled.

Has the marshall grown stupid? The door is reinforced; he said it himself. Why shoot at it?

The answer was obvious, and occurred to Linus almost immediately.

He is not trying to kill me, he is trying to distract me. The marshall is not alone…

Something cold, sharp and metallic pressed against Linus’s neck.

‘You left the roof door open, old man,’ said a voice in heavily accented English. Linus knew immediately who it was. Sultan Arif, Bonvilain’s deadly second in command.

‘You of all people should know,’ continued Sultan, ‘that sometimes trouble comes from above.’

The fuse. I must ignite it.

Linus made a lunge for the lounge, suffering the blade at his neck to gouge deeply, but there was no escaping Sultan Arif. The captain grabbed him as though he were a struggling pup and hoisted him to his feet.

Keep your bearings. Know where you are.

It was a difficult task with such distractions to his senses. There was pain in his neck and wet blood down his back. The gunshot echo had not yet faded and Sultan swung him around. Linus was utterly disorientated.

Concentrate. Where are you?

In the end, Sultan made it easy for him.

‘Let’s go down and meet our master, shall we?’ he said, pushing Linus across the room. Wynter heard the door bolts scrape back and the gush of cool air against his face.

I am in the doorway, he thought, fingers questing for the frame.

Sultan’s voice was loud by his ear. ‘I have him, Marshall,’ he called. ‘The blind man is alone. There is a rope ladder here, I shall tie it off.’

‘Don’t be so tiresome, Sultan, throw him down,’ said Bonvilain. ‘Nothing is more amusing than watching a blind man fall.’

Sultan sighed, this was a task without honour, but honour was not a quality greatly prized by the marshall.

‘Relax, old man. Tight bones are broken bones.’

The leather in his coat creaked as he bent his arm to push. Linus waited for the right moment, and as Sultan propelled him into space he screamed. Loudly enough to mask the sound of a sulphur sleeve being ripped from a fuse running along the doorframe.

Linus cried as he regained consciousness, for as his head had struck the earth he had seen something. A flash of light – just for a moment – now all was dark again. His breathing was restricted by the weight of a boot on his chest.

‘I remember you,’ said Bonvilain. ‘You played piano for the king. Very clever, a blind spy. Well, old boy, your piano-playing days are over. Your spying days too, come to think of it.’

‘Damn you, Hugo Bonvilain,’ rasped Linus valiantly. ‘There is a special pit in Hell reserved for your ilk.’

The marshall laughed. ‘I have no doubt of it, which is why I intend to delay my departure from this life as long as possible. Your departure, however, is imminent, unless you answer my questions promptly.’

Linus’s own laugh was bitter. ‘Just kill me, Bonvilain. Your prison couldn’t break me, and neither can you.’

‘Do you know, I think you’re right. I believe that you would resist me with your final breath. I shall never understand you principled people. Sultan has a few principles, but he can ignore their berating voices when the situation calls for it. I don’t really need you at any rate. Broekhart will be back and I will be waiting, simple as that.’

‘Perhaps not so simple,’ said Linus.

At that moment, the linked fuses sent half a dozen flares rocketing into the sky. They exploded pink and red, their light reflected on the bellies of dark clouds.

Bonvilain watched their slow descent with catty dismay.

‘Warning flares. How this young Broekhart wriggles. I swear, sometimes it seems I have been trying to bury him for his entire life.’

‘Help is on the way,’ gasped Linus. ‘The fire brigade will be called.’

Bonvilain thought briefly, knocking his knuckles on his forehead, then called to Sultan. ‘Fetch me pen and paper from the tower. I will nail a special invitation to this man’s head.’

‘I am not eager to murder a blind man, Marshall,’ said Sultan calmly.

‘We have talked about this, Captain,’ hissed Bonvilain, in the tone of a parent who does not wish his children to hear. ‘In your soldiering days you had no such morals.’

‘That was war. They were soldiers. This is a blind old man.’

‘Fetch me the pen,’ insisted Bonvilain.

‘I did not unfurl the ladder.’

‘Unfurl? Unfurl? Are you William Shakespeare now? Fire another bolt then, climb up another rope.’

Sultan nodded towards the village. ‘That will take several minutes. I do not believe there is time.’

Bonvilain scowled petulantly. ‘This is really too much, Sultan. I fervently hope this old man is the one who puts a knife between your ribs. I will lean over your dying body just to say I told you so.’

Sultan bowed low, to show his continued loyalty.

‘Too late for bowing now, my good man. I am very disappointed in you.’

‘My apologies, Marshall.’

‘Yes, of course, apologies. How useful. At least do me the kindness of tying this spy to the pillar.’

‘Of course, Marshall.’

Linus was hoisted upright and thrust roughly against the gate pillar. Bands of rope crossed his legs and torso, cinching tight enough to burn. Sultan’s footsteps circled round, making him dizzy.

Dizziness without sight. Darned unfair.

But at least it seemed he was to live, though with Bonvilain involved there would definitely be a condition.

‘Very well, blind man,’ said the marshall’s voice to his left, low and mocking. ‘You have earned yourself a reprieve. Deliver this message to the Airman. Tell him that I am hosting a gathering tomorrow night. A small dinner to celebrate the life of Conor Broekhart, which I find amusingly ironic. It will be the third anniversary of his death. Family and friends only. Wine will be served for a special toast, a potent vintage. Very potent. It will seem as though the rebels have managed to infiltrate the kitchen. Tragic.’

Linus did not have the breath for insults.

‘Be sure to tell Conor that I am going to all this trouble because of him,’ continued Bonvilain, fingers digging into Linus’s shoulder. ‘If he had remained where I left him, then none of this would be necessary, but because he escaped and then stole from me, his brother becomes an orphan. You know, perhaps I will make the infant my ward. Raise him as my own. A little marshall.’

Bonvilain chuckled, enjoying his own twisted sense of humour.

‘How the people would love me. Noble Bonvilain adopts another man’s child.’

Linus managed a short sentence. ‘No one loves you, Bonvilain.’

‘You’re right,’ said the marshall. ‘And you would think that might bother me, but no, I seem to find all the fulfilment I need in material wealth.’

Sultan moved, bowing, into Bonvilain’s line of sight. ‘Marshall, those flares could attract attention.’

Bonvilain was disappointed. No doubt the villagers would come to investigate the flares. No more time for gloating. A pity – he enjoyed it so, and there were all too few occasions. Ah well, poisoning the queen and the Broekharts was something to look forward to. And with any luck Conor would throw himself into the pot too. And, even if he did not, Bonvilain would soon be prime minister and nothing anyone said would be able to change that.

Time for one last word with the blind man.

‘I suppose the Irish will untie you,’ he said. ‘But, even so, do not run away. Remain here and deliver my message, or your master will not have the chance to kill himself attempting to foil my plans.’

Bonvilain slapped Linus hard across the cheek. ‘After that, spend the rest of your life wondering when I will kill you. As we know, you will not see me coming.’

Linus kept his lip stiff and his frown in place, but he was breathing hard through his nose, and had the ropes not held him he would surely have collapsed.

I hate myself for feeling this terror. I have seen war and plague. I have lived in darkness with the ever-present fear of pain. But terror? Never before, until now.

‘Damn you, Marshall,’ he sobbed defiantly. ‘The devil take you.’

But he knew by the hollowness of the air and the drift of his voice that he was alone. Bonvilain had gone to make preparations for his celebration.

I should be happy, Conor Finn thought. My plan has succeeded and I am a scientist again, with funds to continue my experiments far into the future. I should be at least content.

But he could not escape the knowledge that this was not his life. He was skirting the borders of it as though banned from entering. And somewhere, just beyond his reach, another true life was waiting.

Further away will be better. How can I start again when every time I raise my eyes I see the Saltees on the horizon.

Conor was steering his horse and cart down the coast road to Wexford, and from there to Curracloe beach, five miles on the other side. It was already noon, as it had taken longer than expected to winch the wings down the side of the tower. He would have to sleep on the beach for an extra night, perhaps two, depending on conditions.

The journey too would take longer than expected. They had travelled less than a mile from Kilmore, and already the horse tired from such a load. Wings, engine, tail, body and of course his new propeller. It was a heavy burden for an old horse. He would see about trading the beast in on the Wexford docks.

He thought of Linus, and laughed aloud.

My mind compares Linus to an old beast. He would not be happy to hear that.

With Linus Wynter on his mind, he glanced over his shoulder to check for flares, as he had a dozen times already on this trip.

As if Linus needs me. As if Linus needs a…

The flares were up. All of them it seemed. Pirouetting to earth, leaving pink trails like the spokes of a ghostly umbrella.

Linus was in trouble.

It must have something to do with last night’s encounter. It could not be coincidence.

Conor pulled the cart off the road, driving it deep into a wooden copse. The horse complained, shying away from low branches, but Conor drove her on, wedging the cart tight between two trunks. The trees shook raining pine needles down on man and horse.

In seconds, Conor had unhitched the horse and was urging her back along the coast road. With this animal there were two choices. He could run her short and fast, or slow and long. Conor chose fast, something told him that long would be too late.

Conor arrived at the tower to find his only friend tied to the pillar, his face and neck rent with contusions. His first thought was, Dead. I have lost him again. But then the old man coughed.

‘Linus!’ he said, taking the American’s weight. ‘You’re alive.’

Wynter seemed surprised. ‘Conor. I didn’t hear a horse.’

‘She collapsed outside the village. Her heart I imagine.’

He quickly sliced through the rope, sliding his friend down along the pillar.

‘You won’t die today,’ said Conor, conducting a quick check for broken bones. ‘But there’s not a piece of skin on you that isn’t bruised. Your blood is blue, you’ll be delighted to know. I always suspected you were royalty.’

‘Listen to me, Conor,’ said Linus, his throat raw and ropeburned. ‘It was Bonvilain.’

Conor actually fell backwards to the grass. ‘The marshall himself? Here?’

‘Him and his bloodhound, Arif. I left the roof door open, to clear the cooking fumes. Stupid old man. They only left because they thought the villagers would come to investigate the flares. I could’ve told them that you’ve been firing up flares and God knows what for weeks now and the locals are bored rigid watching them. I could’ve told them that, but I didn’t.’

‘What did he say?’ Conor demanded. ‘Tell me, Linus.’

Linus sighed deeply. His face scarred by pain and sadness. ‘He knows you are the Airman, Conor. He plans to murder your family, Isabella too. Poison most likely, at a dinner tomorrow night. A dinner for Conor Broekhart.’

Conor squatted on the grass, dumbstruck by these tidings. It was the worst possible turn of events.

He plans to murder your family.

What can I do? What can be done?

Linus read his mind. ‘You must forget America now, Conor. It is time for action.’

‘I know. Of course. But what must I do?’ asked Conor.

‘It’s a puzzle,’ replied Linus. ‘Bonvilain knows you are coming. Exactly when and where. They will be watching sea and sky, waiting for the Airman.’

‘I could surrender myself,’ blurted Conor, desperation large on his features. ‘Then the marshall would have no need to kill anyone. His secrets would be safe.’

Linus disagreed vehemently. ‘No! It’s too late for that, Conor. Bonvilain doesn’t know who you have spoken to or what army you may have gathered with your stolen diamonds.’

‘But why does he tell me about the dinner? To torment me?’

‘To ensnare you,’ corrected Linus. ‘All of his enemies die in one night and the Airman is their murderer. Blaming you for murder is a tried-and-trusted method for Hugo Bonvilain.’

Conor sat still as a statue, staring at the stones as though they would yield up the solution to his terrible dilemma. A breeze funnelled through his fingers, and sunshine warmed his crown, but what could these normal things mean to him. Would a normal life ever be his?

‘Conor?’ said Wynter, crawling forward, one hand reaching ahead, patting the air. ‘Conor? Are you all right?’

Conor made no sound but shallow breathing and Linus realized that he would have to take charge.

‘We must leave the tower,’ he said, attempting to sound brisk and businesslike. ‘We load what we can on to the cart and leave here tonight. Even if Bonvilain sends soldiers to hunt for you, they may not know to look for Conor Finn.’

There was a rustle of grass and cloth as Conor climbed to his feet. If Linus could have seen his young friend’s eyes, he would have been struck by the sudden determination burning there.

‘Conor Finn?’ said the Airman. ‘Conor Finn is dead. My name is Conor Broekhart and I need to speak to my father.’

CHAPTER 18: HEAVIER THAN AIR

It was clear to Conor that there was only one way to end this nightmare. He must expose the marshall as a murderer. Running away was no longer an option now that Bonvilain was threatening his loved ones. Confronting the marshall would at least give the Broekharts and the monarchy a fighting chance to survive.

That is how my father would wish it. He may hate me, but surely the truth will change that.

Conor knew now that he should have made himself known that night on Great Saltee, when he had seen his young brother, but his parents had seemed so happy without him. So safe. To embrace him as part of the family would have put them all in danger.

False reasoning. Weak logic.

Making contact now would be close to impossible. Bonvilain was expecting him and would have every man on the Wall with orders to shoot on sight, as often as possible. They knew he travelled by glider and boat and so would be expecting those crafts, but there may be a third option.

Conor purchased a fresh horse in the village for an exorbitant amount, and rode it hard back to where he had hastily concealed the laden cart. Not a moment too soon, as there were half a dozen local boys perched atop the tarpaulin, picking at the ropes like curious monkeys. Conor considered hunting the lads off, but decided to employ them instead. Each boy was offered the staggering sum of a rough diamond for his strength and silence. Needless to say, the offers were accepted, as a single stone was worth a year of a grown man’s wages.

Even with the help of his new apprentices, it took sweaty hours of heaves and grunts to free the cart from within the tree trunks, and almost as long to back it on to the road.

‘Now, buckos,’ Conor said to his troops, once the horse was hitched and ready. ‘Hot chocolate for all if we make it to Saint Patrick’s Bridge before dark.’

The boys put their shoulders to the cart with gusto. Hot chocolate, diamonds and mysterious cargo! They felt like princes on a quest.

Saint Patrick’s Bridge was a long shingled bar, curving from the mainland towards the Saltees. Legend had it that when Saint Patrick was chasing the devil from Ireland, he finally managed to trap him in the Galtee Mountains. The devil took two huge bites from the slopes to clear himself a path, and off he scarpered into County Wexford with Saint Patrick in hot pursuit, hurling rocks and boulders gathered in the fields.

Old Nick was forced into the water at Kilmore, and swam hard for the open sea, stones peppering the water around him. These stones were to form Saint Patrick’s Bridge. A couple struck the devil on the noggin, knocking the chunks of mountain from his gob and into the ocean. The smaller became Little Saltee, the larger Great Saltee.

Conor had never believed these stories, putting his faith in coastline erosion and ocean currents, but today, glancing out to sea at the dark, jagged islands, it was easy to believe that they were the devil’s work.

Conor and his crew arrived at the field above Saint Patrick’s Bridge with an hour of sunlight still left in the day. A winding path led down to the bridge itself, but it was too treacherous to be negotiated by horse and cart. Everything would have to be carried.

Conor stood on the cart and issued instructions like a general commanding his troops.

Carry the lot down. Lay the pieces high on the bridge, above the waterline. Everything was breakable and secret. So care and silence were the orders of the day.

The moment Conor stripped back the tarpaulin it became obvious what the secret cargo was. Wings, engine, propeller.

One boy, the leader of the small pack, stepped forward, half-terrified, half-incredulous.

‘Sir, would you be the Airman what stuck it to those prison guards?’

Conor noted the gleam in their eyes, the lust for extraordinary adventure. ‘I am indeed the Airman, and I need your help. What say you, boys?’

The leader mulled it over on behalf of the group.

‘Well, Mister Airman,’ he said, ‘I have a brother on Little Saltee for life, didn’t do more than rob a few guineas and perhaps break a few bones. So I say, let’s get to carrying.’

The rest cheered and rushed to the cart, eager to be first down the lane.

I hope their enthusiasm lasts, thought Conor. A long night of work lies ahead.

Boys are fickle creatures, and by midnight three had been distracted by hunger or mischief or parents calling them home. Three stayed, though, and finished the lugging of aeroplane parts down to Saint Patrick’s Bridge. Whether they negotiated with their parents or were there without permission, Conor did not know and had not time to find out.

He sent one with a message for Linus, and a while later the American arrived with food and oil lamps, picking his way down the steep path. Seeming uncertain on his own lanky legs, like a beginner on stilts.

The boys gathered firewood and they lit fires around the workspace where Conor laboured among engine parts, tubs of grease, crank handles, springs, pistons, lengths of unsealed muslin, rolls of wire, pots of glue, stiff brown paper, a strange curved propeller. And slowly the aeroplane was assembled.

The boys’ leader, who went by the unlikely name Uncle, displayed a surprising aptitude for mechanics and was invaluable when it came to fetching tools, and even predicting which tools were needed.

‘I need a wrench, Uncle. The medium.’

‘I think prob’ly the small, Airman.’

Of course Uncle was proved correct, and lit himself a celebratory smoke.

Conor took to explaining his innovations to keep his mind on his work and off his family.

‘Steam engines are too heavy for aeroplanes. To lift a steam engine you need a bigger steam engine. So, Victor, my teacher, suggested a compressed gas engine, or gasoline, which is better but still too heavy. But then I remembered aluminium.’

‘Isn’t that rare? Like gold.’

‘It was. Fifty years ago, aluminium was so hard to produce that bars of it were exhibited at fairs. But now the Bayer Process makes it and, if not plentiful, then it is at least obtainable. So my crankcase and water jacket are made completely from aluminium. This engine is light enough to lift itself and the aeroplane, and it will give me at least ten horsepower in the air.’

‘You hope,’ said young Uncle.

‘Yes. I really do hope. And Uncle?’

‘Yes, Airman?’

‘I hate to say it, but you smell rank. Don’t you wash?’

Uncle stubbed out his cigarette on a boot heel. ‘No, Airman. I follow the Egyptians on washing. Bad for the soul.’

The sun rose on a new day, to find the five workers huddled around a brazier sharing a pot of chocolate. All were exhausted, but none were in a mood to quit. By mid-morning, the little band was back to full strength, as the boys who had taken off the night before happily played hookey for a chance to see the Airman fly.

‘Pick any large rocks from the bridge and toss them aside. I need a smooth runway.’

This was a simple task, and Uncle set the slower boys to it.

‘Pointless asking the dullards to help with mechanics,’ he explained. ‘Stone clearing is exactly the work for those ones. All you need are open eyes and a strong back. Every ten minutes or so, I assures them of their genius.’

Conor nodded with exaggerated gravity. Uncle was proving invaluable.

While the others cleared the sky road, Conor bolted on the wings, which were constructed from steam-curved ash ribs covered with unsealed muslin.

The craft’s shape was clear now. Single wing set, thirty feet across. A long thin body resembling a river punt, with the aluminium four-inch-bore engine centre mounted behind Conor’s new-shaped propeller.

‘I ain’t never seen a propeller like that,’ commented Uncle, who was apparently an expert on everything. ‘How’d she go in tests?’

‘What tests?’ grunted Conor, tightening the last nut on the propeller.

Linus kept the food and drink coming and when the boys flagged he pulled a tin whistle from his pocket, playing a jig or a reel, and without knowing it the boys would pick up their pace again.

The labour consumed the better part of the day, but finally the aeroplane was ready, sitting on the spit of shale on three wheels like a great sleeping bird. It was a marvel, and for long minutes the little band was silent, simply gazing at the craft, absorbing its every curve and strut.

There was fear too and none of the workers would lay a finger on the material for fear of waking the bird. Only Linus Wynter was not awestruck. He had Conor lead him to the aeroplane’s propeller, then gave the craft a thorough examination.

‘Victor would have been proud,’ he said.

‘I hope so,’ said Conor. ‘The theory is as much his as mine, which is why I did this…’

Conor pulled a strip of paper from the nose and laid Linus’s hand on what lay beneath. The American felt flaky lines of dried paint under his fingers. The paint spelled out two words.

La Brosse.

Wynter smiled sadly. ‘He would like this, that French peacock. I declare, if my tear ducts were working I would cry.’ He wiped his nose, and pulled the lapels of his dinner suit together. ‘I should have written something special. An aria to speed you on your way.’

‘There’s still time. I need at least a hundred feet to take off, so I cannot leave until low tide.’

Uncle overheard this comment, mainly because he was standing at Conor’s elbow listening.

‘Tell me something, Airman. If you need a hundred feet to take off, how many do you need to land?’

It was a pertinent question but not one that Conor seemed inclined to answer. He turned and strode towards the flat rocks, avoiding the enquiring gazes following him.

‘It’s complicated,’ he mumbled. ‘Technical. I still have some calculations to complete.’ And then, as though that was the end of the matter, ‘Anyway, where are those ash ribs? I have a few repairs to make.’

Uncle lit himself another cigarette. ‘I know Great Saltee well enough. If Airman needs the same to land as he did to take off, he’s not going to find it on that island. Anything flat on Great Saltee has a house on it. The only place he could possibly land would be outside the Palace Gates in Promontory Square.’ Uncle laughed at the lunacy of this notion. ‘Promontory Square. Imagine. If Marshall Bonvilain were a spider, that would be his web. Which would make Airman…’

‘The fly,’ breathed Linus.

Great Saltee

Marshall Hugo Bonvilain was uncommonly excited, after all this day was to be a momentous day, not just for him but for every Bonvilain who had ever been forced to toady to an idiot king. Today all their sacrifice would be made righteous. Hundreds of years it had taken to accomplish the task, but finally the Bonvilains were about to supplant the Trudeaus.

And so, when Sultan Arif had arrived in Bonvilain’s office that afternoon, he’d found the marshall almost giddy with anticipation. Bonvilain stood at the office window, clapping his hands rapidly in time to the Strauss waltz being played by a lone violinist in the corner.

Sultan cleared his throat for attention.

‘Ah, Captain, you’ve come,’ said Bonvilain delightedly. ‘What a day, eh? Historic and all that. I love Strauss, don’t you? People take me for a Wagner man, but I say just because my duties are sometimes gloomy it doesn’t mean I have to be. No, Strauss is the man if you’ve had a trying day. I think I shall have an Austrian orchestra brought over for my swearing in as prime minister.’

Sultan was surprised by this lack of discretion, and it showed in his face.

‘Oh, don’t worry about him,’ said Bonvilain, jerking a thumb at the musician. ‘Poor chap was run over by a horse and carriage a few years ago, left him deaf and blind. He plays from memory. I got him from Kaiser Wilhelm, only arrived this morning. It’s an omen I said to myself. How can anything go wrong today.’

Sultan began to feel nervous. Things always went wrong around the marshall, usually for other people.

‘God willing, all will proceed well.’

‘How can it not?’ asked Bonvilain, stepping in from the balcony. ‘The queen and her loyal supporters will soon be dead. There are no heirs and so I will be sworn in as prime minister. This Broekhart boy, this Airman, will no doubt attempt some form of rescue, and then we will have him too. And even if he does not come, once Isabella is gone he will be nothing more than a disgruntled fugitive.’

The marshall sat at his desk, smoothing the felt surface with one palm. ‘Now, let us talk about poison.’

Sultan Arif placed a corked ink bottle on the desk. It was half-filled with a pale yellow powder.

‘This is wolfsbane from the Alps,’ he explained. ‘A thimble of this can be mixed with a glass of wine or sprinkled over food. Several minutes later the victim will experience a strange tingling in the hands, followed by chest pain, extreme anxiety, accelerated heartbeat, nausea, vomiting and eventually death due to respiratory arrest.’

‘Eventually,’ purred Bonvilain. ‘I like that.’ He picked up the bottle, holding it to the light as if its deadly qualities would become more apparent. ‘Now, Sultan, you know how vital it is that I appear blameless in all of this. I must suffer with the rest, and only my strength shall save me. It cannot be sham. The queen’s own physician must confirm that I am at death’s door.’

‘Then you must only drink half of your glass,’ said Sultan. ‘That is half a thimble of wolfsbane. You will suffer as wretchedly as the others, but without the respiratory arrest.’

Bonvilain poured a glass of brandy from a crystal decanter. ‘Half a thimble you say? Are you certain? You would wager my life on it?’

‘Reluctantly,’ replied Sultan.

‘I have an idea,’ declared Bonvilain, tapping a pinch of powder into his glass. ‘Why not test the measure on the musician.’ He pulled a sad face. ‘But you are so fond of blind men, and I am eager to hear more of his repertoire.’

Sultan felt a bead of sweat run down his back. ‘There is no need to test it, Marshall. We have used this method before.’

‘But not on me. I want you to take it, that would reassure me.’

‘But it will take hours to recover,’ protested Sultan weakly. ‘I am needed today.’

‘You are needed, Captain,’ said Bonvilain, proffering the tumbler. ‘And this is what you are needed for.’

‘But if the Airman arrives?’

‘If the Airboy arrives I will deal with him. I have been on a few campaigns, Sultan. I do know how to swing a sword. I am asking you to drink this, Captain. Will you refuse me again?’

Sultan felt trapped in this opulent cage. The portraits of Bonvilain marshalls though the ages glared down at him, daring him to disobey.

I could kill him, he thought. At least I could try.

But it was a battle of the mind and Sultan had already lost. He had been doing the marshall’s bidding for years now.

I have done worse than this. Much worse.

Sultan Arif thought of the damage he had done in the name of the Saltees, the lives he had ruined. The men who suffered in prison still.

He reached out, took the glass and threw the liquid into the back of his own throat.

‘Bravo,’ cried Bonvilain. ‘Careful with that glass now, it’s crystal.’

Sultan plonked the glass on the table and waited for the poison to take effect. Numbing of the extremities was the first symptom of wolfsbane. When his fingers bean to tingle, Sultan stared at them as though they belonged to a stranger.

‘Numb,’ he said.

‘Capital,’ cried Bonvilain. ‘It begins.’

Sultan was all too aware of the misery the coming hours contained. He would suffer the pain of the damned and if he was lucky live to forget it.

‘Play something doleful,’ Bonvilain called to the violinist, though the man could not hear him. ‘The Captain needs cheering up.’

An hour later, when Sultan was clawing at the carpet, his lungs aflame, each breath like a dagger wound, Bonvilain squatted before him, clicking his fingers for attention.

‘Now, Captain,’ he said genially. ‘The next time I tell you to kill a blind man, you do it. Understood?’

Sultan may have nodded, or he may have lapsed into spasm. Either way, Bonvilain felt certain that the lesson had been learned.

Saint Patrick’s Bridge

The time had come to fly. Sundown and low tide. The shale bridge was as smooth as it could ever be and the engine was primed for take-off. There was nothing to hold Conor back but his own anxieties.

He sat on the flat rocks watching the sky for birds.

‘Do you hear any bats?’ he asked Linus, who reclined beside him, long skinny legs stretching down to the sand.

‘Bats?’

‘Yes. If this is a haunt for bats, they could gum up the propeller.’

Linus was silent for a long moment. ‘No. No bats. But something is lurking on the ridge. I hear shuffling. A lot of shuffling.’

Conor stood, craning his neck backwards for the view. The villagers lined the ridge like teeth in a vast mouth, more arriving every second to fill the gaps. They peered down to catch a squint of the Airman.

‘All of Kilmore is here,’ he groaned.

‘What? Did you expect to give away diamonds, build a heavier-than-air flying machine on the beach and stay a secret? You are the Airman, come to fight Bonvilain. He is not a popular man.’

‘Look, they’re lighting torches now. They have lamps.’

Linus tapped his temple. ‘I can’t look, boy. Blind remember. And, anyway, couldn’t you use a few lights?’

‘My God!’ exclaimed Conor. ‘Of course. Lights would be most helpful.’

‘Well then, invite those good folk to come down. After all, in a few hours none of this will matter. The queen will know the truth, Bonvilain will be banished and you will once again be Sir Conor of the Saltee Islands.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Conor. ‘There is an alternative ending.’

Linus stood, brushing off the seat of his pants. ‘Not tonight, my young friend. The planets are aligned, the runes have been thrown, I found a four-leaf clover in the grass. Tonight, after three years, Conor Broekhart comes back from the dead.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Conor. ‘But for how long?’

Great Saltee

Two-year-old Sean Broekhart lay in his bed, but he was not sleepy.

‘I think he has a fever,’ said Catherine, touching the back of her hand to the young boy’s forehead. ‘Perhaps we should stay at home.’

‘Stay home,’ agreed the smiling Sean.

Declan stood in the doorway, shoulders broad in his dress uniform. ‘Sean is fine, darling. He thrives. Were he any stronger I would enlist him right now. If you don’t want to go, just say the words. No need to drag little Sean into your schemes.’

Catherine straightened a row of medals on her husband’s chest. ‘I have been saying the words since the invitation arrived. It’s so strange, don’t you think? This sudden desire of the marshall’s to celebrate Conor?’

Declan’s brow creased. A lot had changed in these past weeks. He felt more himself than he had in years, three years to be exact. And while he still felt gratitude for what Hugo Bonvilain had done for Conor and the family, he had concerns about the man’s methods, especially the tight rein he held over Little Saltee. Recently his men had begun to tell him horror stories about the prison.

‘It’s not strange, it’s natural. Hugo feels some guilt too. After all, his men were supposed to be guarding the king. That was always the problem with Nicholas, he did not want to live his life under guard. He was too trusting by far.’

‘Talk to Isabella, Declan. She is expecting it.’

‘You have already spoken to the queen about this?’

Catherine took her husband’s arm. ‘She spoke to me. Isabella has concerns too. She needs an ally that the men will listen to. You are the only one who can challenge Bonvilain.’

Declan did not want this burden. ‘The marshall is my superior officer and he has been very good to us.’

‘I don’t wish to wound you, Declan, but your mind has been elsewhere these past years. You have been blind to the injustices that grow commonplace on the Saltees. Nicholas’s dream was to create a Utopia for the people. That has become Isabella’s dream too. It is not Hugo Bonvilain’s. He wishes to be prime minister; he has always wished it.’

Declan admitted the facts like shafts of light through chinks in a heavy curtain. ‘I have heard things. Perhaps I can investigate.’

Catherine’s grip tightened on his arm. ‘One more thing, perhaps this is not the night to say it, but Victor Vigny, a traitor?’

‘They found letters in his apartment detailing the island’s defences. My own men were with Bonvilain when he found the bodies.’

‘I know all about the evidence, but I knew Victor too. He saved us, remember?’

‘He saved himself,’ countered Declan, then gently, ‘Victor was a spy, Catherine. They are a cold breed. We saw of him what he wished us to see.’

There were tears in Catherine’s eyes now. ‘Just promise me you will stand by Isabella, whatever she decides to do. Your first loyalty is to her.’

‘Of course, she is my queen.’

‘Very well,’ said Catherine, drying her eyes. ‘Now I must ready myself again. Why don’t you tell your son a story, put him off to sleep before the nanny arrives.’

Little Sean seized on the word. ‘Story, Daddy,’ he called. ‘Story, story, story.’

Declan squeezed his wife’s hand before she left the room. ‘I am here now, Catherine. I will take care of us all, including the queen.’

He sat on Sean’s bed, and as usual he could not gaze upon one son without thinking of the other, but he forced the melancholy look from his features and smiled down at the boy.

‘Well, Sean Broekhart, not feeling sleepy tonight?’

‘No sleep,’ replied Sean belligerently, tugging his father’s sleeves with small fingers.

So small, thought Declan. So fragile.

‘I think one of my stories might do the trick. Which one would you like? Captain Crow’s army?’

‘No Crow,’ said Sean, his lip jutting. ‘Conor. Tell me Conor story. Sean’s budder.’

Declan was taken aback. Sean had never asked about Conor before and for some reason, Declan had never anticipated this moment.

‘Conor story,’ insisted Sean, pummelling his daddy’s leg.

Declan sighed. ‘Very well, little one. A Conor story. There are many tales about your brother, for he was a special person who did many amazing things in his life. But his most famous deed, the one for which he earned the gold medal in the cabinet, was the rescue of Queen Isabella. Of course, she wasn’t a queen in those days, merely a princess.’

‘Princess,’ said Sean contentedly.

‘On this particular summer afternoon, Conor and Isabella had exhausted the fun to be had tracking an unused chimney to its source and decided to launch a surprise pirate attack on the king’s apartment…’

And so Declan Broekhart told the story of the burning tower, and when it was over and the princess saved, he kissed his sleeping boy and left the bedchamber with a heart that felt strangely lighter.

Saint Patrick’s Bridge

This is madness, thought Conor. Lunacy. There are so many things that can go wrong.

The engine could prove too weighty in spite of the aluminium casing. The propeller has not even been tested in a wind tunnel and could rip the nose apart as easily as propel the craft. The untreated muslin was lighter than the treated variety but may not deflect the air currents sufficiently to give lift. The steering was rudimentary at best and would allow no more than a twenty-degree turn and even that could pull the wings off. The wing tips may not provide enough balance for a take-off.

So many things.

Saint Patrick’s Bridge had become a cathedral of sorts. The villagers had made the trek down the steep path for the spectacle, and most were crowded into the natural amphitheatre above the shale outcrop. They wiggled into comfortable positions, opened baskets of food and chatted amicably while they waited. The rest lined both sides of Saint Patrick’s Bridge, holding their lanterns aloft, lighting a path for the Airman.

More expectations, thought Conor. As if overthrowing a military leader were not enough, now I must entertain a village into the bargain.

He made a final tour of La Brosse, holding an oil lamp close to the underside of each wing, searching for tears, smoothing down bumps. No more need for delay.

‘That’s your fourth final inspection, if my ears serve me correctly,’ said Linus from the shadows. ‘Go now, Conor, or you will miss the tide.’

‘Yes, of course, you are right. I should leave, immediately. It must seem silly to everyone. All this preparation for such a small journey.’

Linus stepped into the lamp’s glow. The light caught him from below, casting ghostly shadows along his thin face.

‘You are wrong, boy. This is a momentous journey. Historic.’

Conor buttoned his aeronaut’s jacket. ‘Not historic, I am afraid. There will be no official record, no photographs. Nothing is acknowledged without at the very least a fellow of the Royal Society. Every week a new crackpot appears claiming to have flown.’

Linus raised his arms high to the watchers, like a conductor acknowledging his audience.

‘Every man, woman and child here will remember what is about to happen on this beach for the rest of their lives, no matter what the history books say. The truth will never die.’

Conor strapped on his goggles and hat. ‘Linus, if something happens – something unfortunate – will you find a safe way to contact my father? He must know the truth.’

Linus nodded. ‘I will find a way, boy. This old spy has a few tricks up his sleeve, but I have faith in you.’

Conor climbed the short ladder to the pilot’s seat, positioning himself carefully on the driver’s bench.

Something on his jacket clinked against the frame. It was the winged ‘A’ symbol.

‘I don’t suppose I need this any more,’ said Conor, unfastening it. ‘Bonvilain knows exactly who I am.’ He tossed it twinkling over Linus’s head to the boy known as Uncle.

‘A keepsake for you, so that when people tell you that this never happened, at least you will know different.’

Uncle polished the winged ‘A’ on his shirt. ‘Thanks, Airman. I was hoping for the goggles, but I suppose you’ll be needing those.’

‘Unfortunately, yes. But you can have this pair if I come back, in return for one last favour.’

‘Anything,’ cried the boy, already imagining strutting along Kilmore quay, goggles at a jaunty angle on his crown. ‘So long as it doesn’t involve bathing.’

‘No. No bathing. I need two of your tallest boys to stand at the wing tips. They must be strong, and they must be quick on their toes.’

Uncle summoned his two tallest boys and positioned them as Conor had asked.

‘These two are so thick they make the village idiot look like Sherlock Holmes,’ Uncle confided to Conor. ‘They’ll run straight into the sea if you want.’ Then to the two lads: ‘Run fast, won’t ye, buckos. Hold the wings level and I’ll swap those diamonds for two bars of toffee.’

‘Righto, Uncle,’ said one.

‘Toffee,’ said the other, who looked a lot like the first.

‘They can stop before the water,’ said Conor, fixing his goggles. ‘I need them to run alongside and keep the wings balanced. As soon as I lift off, they let go. Can they do that?’

‘Of course they can, they’re not thick,’ said Uncle. ‘Sorry, they are thick. But not that thick.’

Conor nodded. ‘Good, Uncle, if things go badly for me tonight, I want you to stay with Mister Wynter, he will pay you a decent wage.’

‘Will he make me bathe?’

‘No, he will debate the matter with you until you decide to wash.’

‘Ah. One of those. Very well – for you, Airman. Though I may have to murder him in his sleep.’

‘Fair enough.’

I waste time talking with this boy. Time to be off.

Conor braced his feet against two wooden blocks and stood, leaning forward to grasp the engine’s crank. The engine had always run well enough on a block in the tower, but that was the way of things. Engines ran well until they were needed.

The engine caught on the second revolution, coughing like a sick dog then spluttering forth a roar. The crowd cheered, and Conor felt like doing the same. Stage one complete, now if he had done his calculations correctly, the vibrations would not tear his aeroplane apart for a while at least.

After an initial burst of enthusiasm, the engine settled to about ten horsepower, spinning Conor’s revolutionary propeller and sending the exhaust fumes streaming over his shoulder. The aeroplane bounced and reared, eager to be off, a wild beast on a tether.

This can never work. I have no speed control. This frame cannot last for more than five minutes.

Too late for doubts now. Too late.

Conor strapped on his harness, then released the brake lever and the plane leaped forward, bumping over the shale surface.

In his peripheral vision, Conor saw Uncle urging one of the runners on with strokes from a switch. With one hand, he buckled his harness across his chest, while the other struggled to keep the tiller straight.

You should have buckled your harness before releasing the brake. Idiot.

The ocean was approaching fast, and he had not sufficient speed. He urged the craft forward with jerks of his torso, and tried to ignore the smoke and oil spattering on his face and goggles.

You should have fixed an exhaust pipe to the body. What were you thinking?

Lanterns sped past on either side, speed trails blurring one into the next. It was all he could do to keep the aeroplane between the lines. The vibration was terrible, rattling his backbone, clicking his teeth, rolling his eyes in their sockets.

Some form of absorbance is needed. Cloth padding, or springs.

This was not the time for ideas. The aeroplane, though just brought to life, was already dying. Rivets popped, material ripped and ribs groaned. It had minutes left before the engine shook it to pieces like a dog shaking a rag doll.

Conor’s feet found the pedals on the floor and he pushed forward, angling the wings. The aeroplane lifted a fraction, then dropped to earth. He pushed again and this time the lift was greater and the vibration decreased. No longer could he feel the bump over each stone transmitted through the wood into his rear end, which was a relief.

The water loomed black before him and then underneath. Conor vaguely registered his two runners splashing into the ocean, then he was airborne and away.

I am flying a machine, he thought. Can you see me, Victor? We did it.

Great Saltee

Marshall Bonvilain had arranged for the dinner to be held in his own apartments, which was very unusual. None of the guests had ever been in the marshall’s rooms before this night, and they had never heard of him extending an invitation.

Bonvilain’s tower was separate from the main palace, further south along the Wall, and had been occupied by his family since its construction. It had the distinction of being the tallest structure on Great Saltee, and sat grey and imposing on the skyline like a reminder of the marshall’s power. He could often be seen on his balcony, brass telescope screwed to his eye, keeping a watch on everything, making the entire island feel guilty.

The dining room was sumptuous, decorated with swathes of Oriental silk and painted paper screens. The table itself was circular and low to the ground, surrounded by thick cushions.

When Queen Isabella and the Broekharts were ushered into the area, it felt as though they had stepped into another world.

Catherine was especially amazed. ‘It’s so… It’s so…’

‘Cultured?’ said Hugo Bonvilain, stepping from behind a screen. In place of his usual sternly cut blue suit and Templar stole, he wore a Japanese robe.

Bonvilain could not help but notice his guests’ surprised faces. ‘This is a Yukata Tatsu robe. Tatsu is the Japanese word for dragon, embodying the powerful and turbulent elements of nature. I spent a year in Japan in sixty-nine, as personal bodyguard to Emperor Meiji, before my father died and I was called back. Emperor Meiji insisted I take some of Japan home with me. I rarely have it taken out of storage, but this is a special occasion and I thought you might like to see a more relaxed marshall.’

Catherine was the first of the small group to recover from her surprise. ‘You look striking, Marshall.’

‘Why thank you, Catherine. No one minds sitting on cushions, I hope.’

No one objected, though cushions are not the most comfortable of seats for those with ceremonial swords at their belts, nor for that matter for those in fashionable dresses.

‘Thank goodness bustles are no longer fashionable,’ Catherine commented to the queen, ‘or we should be rolling about like skittles.’

The meal was mostly fish and rice, served by a single wizened servant.

‘Coco is also the chef,’ said Bonvilain. ‘I lured him away from a restaurant in London with the promise of a decent kitchen. He is Portuguese, but can cook any meal you wish. Japanese is one of his specialities.’

An hour passed slowly, in spite of several cultural lectures from the marshall. Eventually Catherine’s patience reached its limit. She made a small snuffling sound and twisted her napkin as if to strangle it.

Declan winced. He knew that snuffling sound well. Trouble was brewing.

‘The meal is lovely, Marshall,’ said Catherine. ‘But I am sure we did not come here just for food and small talk. Your invitation was vague, and so I would like know – how do you propose to celebrate Conor’s life?’

Bonvilain’s face was a mask of regret and understanding. ‘You are right, Catherine. I have been shying away from tonight’s raison d’être. Conor. Your son. The hero of the Saltee Islands. I thought we could share our memories of that brave young man, and then perhaps raise a toast. I have been saving a special bottle of wine.’ It was a good performance and the marshall felt that, if needed, he could produce a tear.

‘But why now?’ prodded Catherine. ‘I admit to being a little puzzled, Marshall.’

He was spared the need to answer by the sound of a bugle piping from the Wall.

Declan leaped instantly to his feet.

‘That’s the call to arms!’ King Nicholas had insisted that the Saltee buglers learn US Army signals.

‘No need for panic,’ said Bonvilain, hurrying to the balcony. ‘I was warned he might show up.’

‘Who?’ asked the queen.

‘An enemy of the state, Your Majesty,’ explained Bonvilain, fixing his eye to a brass telescope. ‘This one calls himself the Airman.’

‘Airman,’ said Declan. ‘I’ve heard rumours about him. You mean he’s a real threat?’

‘Real? Yes,’ said Bonvilain, squinting into the eyepiece. ‘A threat? Absolutely not. Simply a Frenchman with a kite. Come and look. The lenses in this thing are quite fabulous.’

Catherine grasped Declan’s arm to stop herself shaking. All this talk of flying and Frenchmen had put Victor Vigny in mind.

‘A Frenchman in a kite?’ she said, voice strained.

‘Oh, dear God, of course,’ said Bonvilain, feigning shock. ‘Exactly like Vigny the murderer. I believe this Airman could be one of his acolytes. A curious hybrid of crazed revolutionary and scientist. I should not have even mentioned him; how insensitive of me. Please remain indoors. The Wall guard will shoot him down.’

Declan took Bonvilain’s arm, leading him to one side. ‘Shoot him down, Marshall? But you said he posed no threat.’

Bonvilain bent his head, spoke in a low voice. ‘Not a realistic one, though my men have found a grenade workshop.’

Declan blanched. ‘Grenades! Marshall, I am Captain of the Wall watch. Why do I not know all of this?’

‘Captain. Declan. My informants on the mainland reported to me barely two hours ago. I fully intended to broach the subject after dinner, but, in all honesty… a Frenchman, in a glider, dropping grenades? It seemed ludicrous. Something from a penny dreadful. At any rate, the wind is towards the mainland tonight, so how could this madman possibly glide here?’

At that moment a clunking mechanical noise echoed across the channel. It thrummed from a low register to a high one, spluttering alarmingly.

‘Perhaps this Airman does not rely on the wind,’ said Declan, snatching the telescope from its stand. ‘Conor always said that one day man would build an engine-powered aeroplane.’

‘Engine-powered,’ said Bonvilain, through gritted teeth. ‘A clever one that Conor, eh?’

Declan glanced down at the Wall. The watch had extinguished their lights and gathered in a cluster at the third tower. Several had climbed the parapet and were pointing skywards. Two held telescopes pointed thirty degrees skywards north-east. Declan raised the marshall’s telescope to his eye and followed their line. For a moment he saw nothing but night sky and stars, but then something flashed across his field. Not a bird. Too big to be a bird.

Declan zigzagged the telescope, trapping the object in his circle of vision. What he saw took his breath away.

It was a flying machine. Conor’s dream come alive in front of his eyes.

The aeroplane could not be called graceful, but it was flying, lurching through the air, trailing billowing streams of smoke. In the moonlight, Declan saw the Airman seated behind the engine, shoulders hunched as he wrestled with the controls, face obscured by goggles and soot, gritted teeth white against the blackness.

‘I see him,’ he gasped. ‘The Airman. He’s flying.’

Catherine rushed to the balcony, leaning over the rail, peering skywards.

‘Oh my goodness. If only Conor could have seen this.’ She turned to her husband. ‘This cannot be coincidence. You need to talk with this sky pilot.’

Behind them a shrill whistle blew twice, and immediately the Wall watch stripped off their cloaks, twirling them like bullfighters. Three Gatling-gun teams hoisted their weapons on to custom wall mounts. Whoever this Airman was, he was headed straight for a hail of fire.

Bonvilain still had the whistle to his lips. ‘The order is given. I had no choice, Catherine. He may be carrying grenades. My first duty is to the queen. Declan, surely you understand?’

Catherine turned to her husband, eyes blazing, fully expecting his support, but it was not forthcoming.

‘The marshall is correct,’ admitted Declan, though it pained him to say it. ‘There is an unidentified craft approaching the island. The pilot may be armed. There is no option but to open fire.’

‘He is flying a motorized kite,’ said Catherine, her eyes stung by Declan’s betrayal. ‘The walls are four feet thick. Had he a brace of cannon on his wings, he could not penetrate the tower.’

Declan would not be swayed from his duty. ‘This man has conquered the skies so perhaps he can conquer our walls too. I hear rumours of grenades filled with poison gas. We must not expose the queen.’ He took Catherine’s hands in his. ‘The queen cannot die, do you understand?’

Catherine searched her husband’s face for a deeper meaning to his words, and she found it.

The queen cannot die because if she does Bonvilain becomes prime minister.

‘Very well, Declan. I understand,’ said Catherine dully. ‘The queen must live, so the Airman must die.’ She dropped her husband’s hand and stepped across the threshold. ‘I have no stomach for this murder. Enjoy your victory, Marshall.’

Absolutely, thought Bonvilain, but aloud he said, ‘One never enjoys the death of another, madam. I have been involved in many battles, but no matter how righteous the cause I have always concluded they could have been avoided. This time, sadly, there is no alternative.’

And with a regretful half-smile on his lips, the marshall raised his whistle and blew one final blast.

Below, on the Great Saltee Wall, the Gatling operators cranked their handles, pouring a thousand rounds a minute into the sky through their revolving barrel system. The bullets sped towards the Airman trailing grey smoke tails.

No one can survive that, thought Declan. No one.

Bonvilain was thinking exactly the same thing.

It was a battle of vectors and gravity. The Gatling cradles would only allow for a certain elevation, and even though they had a level range of 6,000 feet the Airman was as yet too high to be struck. But gravity was his enemy too. His fragile craft could not stay aloft forever, and when it dropped the bullets would shred it to confetti.

The noise and sheer concussion from the guns were shocking. It seemed as though the very island shook. It was easy to imagine the Wall being pounded to dust under repeated recoil. The chambers belched long cylinders of smoke, and steam rose in clouds as the water boys cooled the barrels by dousing them from buckets.

Declan had never seen Gatling guns at work on a battlefield, but he had heard that a single round could tear a man apart. There was enough lead in the air now to defeat an entire army. The sky was thick with their buzzing, like a dense swarm of metal hornets determined to find the same target.

Declan raised the telescope for one last look at the Airman. Even from this distance, it was clear that he was in dire straits. Hot oil bubbled on his face and goggles. Both hands were locked in struggle with a vertical rudder, and strips were coming loose from his wings, flapping behind the aeroplane like May Day ribbons.

Declan lowered the telescope.

He is gone. We will never know his true purpose.

Seconds later, the Airman lost his battle for control and altitude. His engine spasmed, growled and died. It seemed then as though there was a moment of echoes, as the craft spiralled down and the marksmen held their ammunition. Waiting.

It was not a long wait. Mere seconds. A short command was barked from the Wall, and the Gatling cranks were turning once more. Eighteen barrels spat fire and a fresh blizzard of rounds rocketed into the night sky. Spent cases clinked on the parapet like coins thrown to a beggar.

The bullets tore through the craft’s wings and body, almost halting its descent. The impact was terrible, splintering the fragile body and tearing the wings to nothing. Round after round slammed into the engine until it exploded in a tight orange burst. Tendrils of flame shot along ribs and ropes, tracing the remains of the aeroplane against the night sky.

They did not hear a splash.

The night sky

Conor flew his machine through the sky above Great Saltee. A savage crosswind sheared across his bow, tilting him to starboard and he noticed a congregation of lights by the third tower. Lights meant guards.

The lights below winked out one by one, and Conor’s stomach heaved with dread.

I am the target now.

For a moment there was nothing but shadowed activity from the third tower, then dots of fire flashed and a hail of shot erupted towards the heavens. A second later Conor heard the scream of the bullets and their frustrated cry as they passed below.

Pure panic bubbled in Conor’s chest, and he almost jumped bodily from the machine.

Wait. Wait. I must pass Bonvilain’s tower.

The engine was stuttering, missing beats like a failing heart, losing its battle with the skies. Both wings were in tatters now, the wind’s claws ripping strips of muslin from the frame. Below Conor’s toes, the pedal had broken free from its stanchions and jiggled uselessly.

Almost in position. A few more yards.

A second swarm of bullets blasted towards him, and Conor felt the highest missiles tugging at the landing gear, sending the wheels spinning. He was in range now. Time to say goodbye to La Brosse. All evidence of his flight would soon be destroyed.

Conor knew that the marshall would never have allowed him to reach Great Saltee alive, so the trick was to persuade Bonvilain that the Airman was finally dead. This was a challenge. As a master of deception, Bonvilain was not an easy man to deceive.

But he knows nothing about flight. In the heavens, I am the master.

Conor wore his glider harness with one extra strap that connected him to his flying machine. The rest were, as usual, buckling him to his glider, which lay folded across his back, ribs slapping against his flying jacket, ripples running along the fabric. Linus had repaired it for him and it was stronger now than it had ever been.

One more flight, old friend.

It was difficult reaching down in all the confusion, it was difficult figuring which way was down, so Conor ran his hand along his own body, finding the strap at his waist. He yanked it upwards freeing the buckle and the aeroplane rocked loosely around his torso, but did not fall away as they were still bound together by momentum and gravity. The bullets were splintering the wood around his legs now – if he did not separate, his invention would become his coffin.

With a practised motion, Conor reached for the spring-loaded lever at his side. One swift tug, and the glider’s wings deployed. They spread themselves wide against the stars like some great night bird, acting like a powerful brake, lifting Conor clear of the doomed aeroplane.

He watched it go, dipping into the shoal of glinting bullets. His historic invention was obliterated completely. Nothing left but burning fragments and a crushed metal heart.

The engine exploded, blew itself into fist-sized pieces, which spun into the darkness.

Gone. No place in history for La Brosse.

Far below on Great Saltee, a haze of gun smoke shrouded the Wall and through it Conor saw the muted glow of electric globes.

They turn the lights back on because they believe themselves safe.

Conor hung in the sky, finding his bearings. Bonvilain’s tower was marked out by the rectangular glow of an open door. Isabella and his parents were inside that tower, in mortal danger. It could be that he was already too late.

Into the lion’s den, thought Conor, then dipped the glider’s nose, aiming for the light.

Bonvilain’s tower

Marshall Bonvilain stepped over the threshold into the dining room, his face an exaggerated picture of regret. Behind him the last flames of destruction flickered out in the sky. From below on the Wall came the sounds of high-spirited congratulation, and the hiss of steam rising from glowing gun barrels.

‘A great pity,’ he said, chin low. ‘That man had so much to teach the world.’

The gathering had been morose before, now the humour had switched to irate. Bonvilain took one look at the mood writ on his guests’ faces and realized that a crisis was fast approaching.

‘There was no other way, ladies… Declan. As marshall, I could not permit an assault on the Wall.’

Isabella stood by the fireplace, flushed cheeks contrasting with a high-collared ivory dress.

Bonvilain was unsettled by her expression, as he had not seen this look before. Ever since the coronation Isabella’s confidence had been growing; now she had the temerity to glare at him. And just after he had supposedly saved her life.

I sincerely prefer the old Isabella, he thought. Confused and grief-stricken is how I like my monarch.

No one was talking, and they were all treating Bonvilain to the same disgusted stare.

They have been conferring, Bonvilain thought. While I was on the balcony.

‘Are we all distressed?’ he asked innocently. ‘Shall I close the window?’

And still no one spoke. Bonvilain saw that the queen was working up the courage to deliver a lecture.

‘I think I shall sit for this,’ said the marshall calmly, dropping cross-legged to a cushion. ‘Else my legs may give way. You have something to say, Majesty?’

Isabella took a step forward. Her dress almost disguising the shake in her legs.

‘The sweep found something, Marshall. In my father’s chamber.’ These were her first words of the evening.

‘Oh really?’ said Bonvilain brightly, but inside he was discomfited. In his position, there was no such thing as a good surprise.

‘Yes, Marshall, really.’ Isabella took a small leather-bound book from her bag, and held it close to her heart. ‘This is my father’s diary.’

Bonvilain decided to brazen it out. ‘Why, that’s wonderful, Majesty. Something to connect you to King Nicholas.’

‘Not so wonderful for you, Marshall,’ continued Isabella, clutching Catherine’s hand for support. ‘My father was very suspicious of your activities. He wrote how you abuse your power to build a personal fortune. How you cultivate a network of spies on the mainland. How you are suspected of complicity in dozens of murders. The list goes on.’

‘I see,’ said Bonvilain, while in his head plotting.

It will be difficult to make them take the poisoned wine now. Already they do not trust me.

Isabella’s legs were no longer shaking, and her tone was regal. ‘Do you see? I think not, Marshall. Did you know that my father planned to see you in prison? Did you know that he planned to completely revise the power structure on the Saltee Islands? To inaugurate a parliament?’

Bonvilain managed to maintain his bland expression, but he knew that a crisis was upon him.

Typical, he thought. Murder one enemy and three more spring up in his place.

‘May I read something for you?’ asked Isabella.

Bonvilain nodded. ‘It is not my place to allow or forbid, Majesty.’

‘I shall take that as a yes,’ said Isabella, with a curt smile. She released Catherine’s hand to open her father’s diary. ‘“Hugo Bonvilain is a scourge,”’ she read. ‘“His power is formidable and he abuses it at every opportunity. When I have proof of his crimes, he will spend the rest of his life staring at the same cell walls he has condemned so many to suffer within. But I must be careful: nothing is below the marshall and I believe if he knew of my plans then he would take whatever steps necessary to thwart them. I do not fear for my own life, but Isabella must be kept safe. She is my heart.”’

Isabella’s voice almost broke at the end, but she reached for Catherine’s hand and finished strong.

Bonvilain clapped both palms on his knees. ‘Well, that’s damning stuff,’ said Bonvilain. ‘Obviously the text is a forgery, planted by one of my enemies.’

I must make them drink. How to do it? How?

‘I know my father’s hand,’ said Isabella firmly.

‘I have no doubt of it, but an expert forger can deceive sharper eyes than ours. Have the book verified by an expert of your choice. I insist on it. This book is a grave insult to my life’s work, and I will have my name cleared.’

‘I have not finished,’ declared Isabella. ‘You are removed from office immediately. Declan… Captain Broekhart will take your place.’

Bonvilain kept the rage inside him corked up tight. ‘Declan would certainly make a fine marshall. I thoroughly approve, but surely I deserve an opportunity to…’

‘Enough!’ ordered the queen, in a tone that brooked no argument. ‘You will remain here under house arrest until your affairs can be investigated.’

Bonvilain silently cursed himself. He had provided the queen with the perfect forum to launch her attack. He had some men hidden in a secret compartment behind the wall, but it was difficult to reach behind a tapestry and pull a hidden lever under such scrutiny.

Everything rests on the poisoned wine. If it were just the queen I could force it down her gullet, but Declan Broekhart would run me through with that darned ceremonial sword, and if his wife’s stares were daggers I would be dead already.

A great relief shone in Isabella’s eyes, and shoulders dipped as the tension drained from her body. The prospect of this confrontation had terrified her since the diary’s discovery. She had planned every word in her speech and, finally, victory was hers, and her father’s.

‘And now, Hugo Bonvilain,’ she said, ‘I think we should conclude what we are here to do. We should raise a toast to our beloved Conor Broekhart.’

Bonvilain bit his lip.

Oh, thank you, spirits of irony. The gods have a sense of humour after all.

Bonvilain’s expression was peevish. ‘I hardly think… Under the circumstances…’

Catherine stepped forward, plucking the special bottle from the ice bucket.

‘I realize that you invited us here in a transparent attempt to toady to Isabella and Declan, but we wish to honour our son and you will raise a glass with us.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ grumbled Bonvilain. ‘But I, of course, will not cause my queen displeasure.’

He stood and slouched while Declan opened and poured, Bonvilain muttered under his breath and threw hateful stares. The picture of a beaten bully, and certainly not a schemer on the verge of his greatest coup.

They held their crystal glasses aloft, Bonvilain’s at half-mast. With Catherine’s smile of approval, Isabella gave the toast.

‘To Conor, my best friend. My prince and saviour. Look after my father.’

Tears sparkled in Catherine’s eyes, and Declan actually moaned. Bonvilain tried not to laugh, but it was difficult.

Look after my father? You can look after him yourself if I have my way.

Bonvilain waited for his guests to drink, but they did not. He abandoned his surly expression for a moment to glance at their faces. Each one regarded their twinkling glass with dawning suspicion.

Perhaps this wine is poisoned. Perhaps this is why Bonvilain invited us here.

There was only one way for Bonvilain to allay this suspicion.

Ah well, there goes my evening. It’s the water closet for me until morning.

‘To the Broekhart boy, how I miss him,’ he said, quaffing half of his glass in a single swallow.

‘To Conor, my son,’ said Declan. ‘Heaven is lucky to have him.’ And raised the glass to his mouth.

But before he could do more than wet his lips something dark detached itself from the night outside and pounced on Hugo Bonvilain. Something dark with wings.

Conor hurtled through the window, a creature of the night, crashing into Bonvilain, tumbling them on to the low table. Crockery and cutlery flew, and both men were instantly entangled in swathes of gold embroidered tablecloth. Only Conor’s wings remained exposed and he must have resembled a giant moth, attracted to the cloth’s bright pattern.

Declan reacted quickly, throwing his glass aside and wrapping his fingers round the grip of his ceremonial sword. Ceremonial, but razor sharp nonetheless.

It is the Airman, he thought. Come to kill the queen.

The situation with Bonvilain must be set aside until this common enemy was dealt with. He grabbed a hank of tablecloth, bent low and used his weight and strength to spin the warring pair from the table. They rolled across the floor, still battling, though Bonvilain’s blows were growing weak and ineffective. The Airman drove his fist repeatedly into his enemy’s face, until Bonvilain’s eyes lost their focus.

Declan reached for the collar of the intruder’s jacket but was too slow. The Airman spun around, speaking urgently.

‘Did you drink? Have you raised the toast?’

A strange question for an assassin to pose, thought Declan. But no time for distractions; put him down then ponder his questions.

He swung his sword, intending to render the Airman unconscious with the flat of his blade, only to find it almost causally batted aside by his enemy’s forearm.

‘The toast. Did you drink?’

Something in the man’s attitude unsettled Declan, as though he were about to make a terrible mistake. The face or perhaps the voice. Something. He held back from striking, uncertain now of his strength of purpose.

Catherine had no such doubts. She saw nothing of the Airman’s face. From her angle there was only her husband and the man attacking him. She hitched up her skirt and planted a solid kick square in the Airman’s side, following it with a dashing blow from a handy flower vase.

Conor staggered sideways, dripping water and wearing daffodils.

‘Wait,’ he gasped, shrugging off his harness and wings. ‘Don’t…’

But he was given no respite. Isabella pulled a samurai sword from its presentation case, and adopted a fencing stance before him.

‘En garde, monsieur,’ she said, then launched a blistering attack. Conor’s sabre barely cleared its scabbard in time to parry the first thrust.

‘Isabella,’ he gasped, completely disorientated. ‘You must stop.’

The queen was in no mood to stop anything.

‘I will stop when you are dead, assassin.’

Conor managed a lucky counter riposte, which bought him the second he needed to find his balance.

Isabella had improved as a fencer since their lessons with Victor, but Conor could still see the bones of his teachings.

‘You have studied Marozzo well,’ he gasped. ‘Victor would be proud.’

Isabella’s blade quivered, then froze.

What did this mean? Who was this man to invoke Victor’s name?

Declan gathered his wife and the queen behind him, sword raised for battle.

‘You will show your face, sir?’ he demanded. ‘I grant you five seconds before we duel to the death. And that death will be yours.’

Conor slowly reversed his grip, then buried the tip of his sword in the floorboards.

‘Very well. But, before I do, tell me if you drank a toast.’

‘There was no toast,’ snapped Declan. ‘Now, off with those goggles, sir.’

Conor’s shoulders slumped and he seemed on the verge of collapse, but he drew himself erect and pulled the collar down from his chin, then pushed the goggles up to his forehead. His face was blasted black from soot and oil, but his eyes were clear, and a lock of blond hair had come loose from his leather cap.

The watchers were confused. What they were seeing was not possible.

‘Father, I know you vowed to kill me should we meet again,’ said Conor slowly. ‘But there are things you do not know. Victor did not kill the king, nor was I involved. It was Bonvilain.’

‘Conor,’ breathed his mother. ‘You live?’

Declan sank to his knees as though gut punched. His breath was laboured and tears streamed down his face.

‘My son lives. How is it possible?’

And suddenly Conor understood the scale of Bonvilain’s deception.

My parents genuinely believed me dead. Bonvilain spun a different lie for each party.

Isabella was the first to reach him, hugging him tightly, kissing his cheek. Her tears mingling with his.

‘Oh, Conor. Conor, where have you been?’

Conor held her tightly, reeling from the strength of emotions aimed at him. He had been expecting mistrust and anger. Not love.

‘That was you in the cell,’ moaned Declan. ‘I said I would kill you. I sent you to hell.’

Catherine rubbed her husband’s back, but then couldn’t keep herself away from her son. She rushed to him, taking his face in her hands.

‘Oh, Conor. You are a man now,’ she said. ‘Grown as tall as your father at seventeen.’

Conor was vaguely surprised to remember that he was only seventeen. Conor Finn had been more than twenty.

Declan Broekhart’s face was suddenly terrible with rage.

‘Bonvilain did this. All of it and by God I will make him pay.’

Bonvilain!

In the swirl of emotions, Conor had forgotten about Hugo Bonvilain. He turned clumsily in the embrace of his mother and queen, to find only a puddle of blood where Bonvilain had fallen. He plucked his sabre from the floorboards and scanned the chamber to find his old enemy sliding along the wall, quietly making for the door.

‘Father,’ called Conor, pointing with his sword. ‘We must secure Bonvilain.’

Finding that his escape was thwarted, Bonvilain reached behind a tapestry and pulled his hidden lever. The fireplace slid aside on a pulley mechanism, revealing a tightly packed group of Holy Cross guards.

Bonvilain smiled, his mouth a bloody mess, more than one gap in his teeth.

‘My last line of defence,’ he said, spitting crimson. And to the soldiers. ‘Kill the women. They are impostors.’

It was a cunning order, diverting Conor and Declan from their path in order to defend Isabella and Catherine. The soldiers tumbled from their confined space, drawing daggers and swords. No guns – guns would bring the Wall watch running.

Luckily the secret space was cramped, and so the men were stiff and light dazzled, which gave the Broekharts a second’s advantage.

They used it well, bundling the half-dozen Holy Cross guardsmen back towards their hiding place.

‘Watch the marshall,’ Conor called to Isabella.

‘He is no longer the marshall,’ said the queen, raising the samurai sword.

‘I have been taught how to slice a man into three pieces,’ she said to Bonvilain. ‘Take one step towards us and I will demonstrate those strokes for you.’

Bonvilain pinched the bridge of his nose. Ordinarily he would rush this silly girl and crush the hands that held the sword, but the poison in his wine was beginning to affect him. Already his fingers were tingling and a volcano bubbled in his innards. He needed to be away from here before the more extreme symptoms.

The path to the door was blocked by the Broekharts. His secret passage was a melee of flailing limbs and blades and the only other exit was the balcony.

Bonvilain tripped over Conor’s discarded wings and on to the balcony, searching furiously below for something to rescue him.

Imagine. Hugo Bonvilain needs rescuing. How embarrassing.

Below, the Wall watch stripped down the Gatling guns, apparently oblivious to the commotion sixty feet above their heads. They had obviously not noticed the giant bird-like creature crashing into their marshall’s apartments.

Bonvilain felt his stomach lurch as the poison twisted his guts.

I must escape. I need a way down.

There! Crossing the courtyard below was Sultan Arif, a duffle bag in his hand and another slung across his back.

Where the devil is that fool going?

‘Sultan!’ he shouted. ‘Captain Arif. I need you, now!’

Sultan missed a step, but he did not stop.

‘I am going home, Hugo,’ he called, without turning. ‘I have many sins to atone for.’

For the first time in many a year, Bonvilain experienced real rage. ‘Get back here!’ he demanded, pounding the railing. ‘I don’t have time for your sulking. Send me a rope on a crossbow bolt.’

Arif disobeyed yet again. ‘If you have drunk the toast then I would advise you stay calm, Marshall,’ he advised, quickening his pace towards the gate. ‘A speeding heart moves the poison more quickly through your veins.’

‘Traitorous wretch,’ roared Bonvilain. ‘Do not doubt that we shall meet again!’

‘And I know where we shall meet,’ whispered Sultan, his back turned on Bonvilain once and for all.

A speeding heart moves the poison more quickly.

Bonvilain realized the truth of those words as a spasm hit him and he vomited bile over the balcony.

Calm yourself, Hugo. There is still time.

With one last shake of his fist in Sultan Arif’s direction, Bonvilain went back into his own apartment…

… Where Declan and Conor Broekhart were battling furiously with three of the Holy Cross guard. Three were already down, unconscious or clutching their wounds. At that moment, Declan Broekhart took a blade in the shoulder, leaving his son to fight alone.

Catherine dragged her husband clear, and Queen Isabella kept her sword levelled at Bonvilain.

That girl is really becoming quite irksome. Why did I let her live this long?

Bonvilain realized that he had allowed his schemes to become too elaborate.

I need these people dead, but, more than that, I need to be in a safe place where I can regain my strength. I have funds and supporters on the mainland.

Conor drove the three Holy Cross guards back with a wide swing, then drew a pistol from his belt, firing off two low rounds. A couple of soldiers collapsed with shattered shins.

Gunfire! thought Bonvilain. That and the word ‘poison’ from the courtyard will have the Wall watch running. I must away.

The poison was in his legs now, sticking needles in his toes, cramping his muscles.

Across the room, Conor Broekhart struggled with the final guard, a huge Scotsman wielding a shortened broadsword. This was one of Bonvilain’s mercenaries and a veteran killer. For a moment Bonvilain nurtured a glimmer of hope, then Conor stepped under the big Scotsman’s swing and knocked him flat with the sabre’s finger guard.

The Airman tumbled the final guard back inside the cavity then reached behind the tapestry and sealed them inside. Their moaning could be heard through the grate.

‘Behind you, son,’ said Declan, through gritted teeth. ‘The marshall.’

Conor rounded on Bonvilain with three years of hatred glowing in his eyes. He was a figure from children’s nightmares. A man in black, wielding a bloody weapon, lips pulled back in a snarl.

‘Bonvilain,’ he said, with a strange calmness.

Generally Bonvilain would have relished the opportunity for some choice remarks, followed by swift mortal combat with this whelp, but now his system was afire with wolfsbane. His tongue felt strange and swollen in his mouth and his legs bent under the weight of his torso.

Soon my judgement will be gone. I must escape now.

Isabella stepped forward. ‘You will answer for your crimes, Hugo Bonvilain. Your reign is over. There is no escape.’

Bonvilain bent low, grunting like a wild boar. He grasped Conor’s harness, dragging the glider on to the balcony.

‘Escape,’ he muttered, drool dripping from his slack lip. ‘Fly away, Airman.’

Conor followed him, cocking his pistol. ‘I’m warning you, Bonvilain.’

Bonvilain managed a dry laugh. ‘Conor Broekhart. Always in my way. In Paris when I ordered your father’s balloon shot down. When I set the king’s tower alight. Even now. Perhaps you are magical, as people believe.’

It was difficult to understand what Hugo Bonvilain said, his loose lips bubbled with spittle and blood. The marshall rolled his body up on to the balcony’s parapet.

‘Keep away, or you will never know my secrets.’

Conor ached to finish Bonvilain, but Isabella’s light touch prevented it.

‘Don’t, Conor. I need to know everything he has done. There is so much to be set right.’ Isabella turned to the marshall. ‘Come down from there,’ ordered Isabella. ‘Your queen commands it.’

Bonvilain struggled to his feet, clumsily pulling the harness round his shoulders.

‘I have no queen, no god, no country,’ he mumbled, cinching the chest belt with rubbery fingers. That would have to do, he did not have the dexterity for the remaining buckles. ‘All I have is cunning.’

And with a focus born of hatred, Bonvilain reached inside his dragon robe to a dagger at his belt, with the intention of flicking it from the waist. Conor saw the gleam of the blade as it cleared the silk.

Isabella! Even now he tries to kill Isabella.

Conor swung his pistol, but Declan Broekhart was quicker, even though his shoulder was wounded. He hurled his sword, spear-like, with such force that it pierced Bonvilain’s vest of chain mail and lodged in his heart.

Bonvilain sighed, as though disappointed with the book he was reading, then stepped backwards off the parapet, into the night. An updraught filled the glider’s wings, floating Bonvilain over the courtyard past the disbelieving eyes of the Wall watch and hundreds of Saltee islanders raised from their beds by the Gatling guns.

Bonvilain hung there for several moments, his dripping blood painting swirls on the flagstones, before a crosswind flipped the glider about, urging it out to sea.

Conor watched him go, dropping closer and closer to the cold ocean, the silhouetted sword protruding from his lifeless heart, and with him went the nightmare that his life had become.

None could tear their eyes from Bonvilain’s corpse, arresting even in death. Further from land he drifted, and lower too until his toes skimmed the ocean. Conor wished to see him go down, to be certain that it was over, but he did not. Bonvilain was lost to sight before the ocean claimed him.

Below was consternation. The watch were hammering on the Wall access door, and the people surged against the foot of the tower.

Declan Broekhart took Isabella by the hand, leading her to the parapet.

‘The queen is safe,’ he called, raising her hand. ‘Long live the queen.’

The cry that came back was relieved and heartfelt.

‘Long live the queen.’

CHAPTER 19: TIME APART

Great Saltee. One month later

Queen Isabella had taken to walking the Wall every morning at sunrise. She believed that it gave her subjects heart to see her there. Before too many sunrises, she could call to everyone she saw by name.

Conor often joined his queen on her morning strolls, and on the morning before his planned departure to study for a science degree at Glasgow University, they met below what had been Bonvilain’s tower.

Isabella stood with her elbows on the parapet, watching a cluster of fishing boats half a mile offshore, the small crafts bobbing in the choppy channel currents.

‘They will never find him, you know,’ said Conor. ‘Bonvilain’s mail vest has taken him straight to the bottom. He is food for the crabs now.’

Isabella nodded. ‘Without a body, he becomes the bogeyman. They say he has been seen in Paris, and Dublin. I read in the London Times that Bonvilain survives as a killer for hire in Whitechapel.’

They were both silent for a minute, convincing themselves that they had actually seen Hugo Bonvilain die.

‘What will you do with this place?’ Conor asked finally, slapping the tower wall.

‘A diamond market, I think,’ replied Isabella. ‘It seems ludicrous that the diamonds are here, and yet we trade in London.’

‘You’re making big changes.’

‘There are many things to be changed. Little Saltee, for one. Did you know that only fourteen of the prisoners are from the Saltee Islands? The majority of the other poor souls are from Ireland or Great Britain. Well, no more. I will shut the prison down and contract the mining to a professional firm.’

Conor glanced at the S branded into his hand.

Little Saltee will always be with me. It has marked my body and mind.

‘What will happen to the prisoners?’ he asked.

‘Every case will be reviewed by a judge. I suspect most have served their sentences and more besides. Reparations will have to be made.’

‘I would be grateful if you could look kindly on a certain Otto Malarkey. He is not as fearsome as he seems.’

‘Of course, Sir Conor.’

‘You will make a fine queen.’

‘My father was the scientist; I am a businesswoman. You can be my royal scientist… on your return.’

‘Mother told you?’

Isabella took his arm, and they promenaded along the Wall. ‘Catherine told me about Glasgow. I am supposed to talk you out of it.’

‘And how would you do that?’

‘I could always have you hanged.’

Conor smiled. ‘Like the old days. Sometimes I wish the old days were here still.’

Isabella stopped at one of her favourite spots on the Wall. A dip facing the mainland where centuries ago masons had built a lovers’ seat. From this vantage point, at various times during the morning, it was possible to view morning sun illuminating the church tower’s stained-glass window. As the sun moved, it seemed as though the Saint Christopher figure in the window moved a little too.

Isabella sat on the stone seat, pulling Conor down beside her.

‘I miss the old days too. But it’s not too late for us is it, Conor?’

‘I hope that it is not,’ replied Conor.

‘Then I shall wait,’ said Isabella. And her playful side surfaced. ‘Shall you fly home to see me, Sir Airman?’

‘I am merely a sir. Is that not too common for a queen?’

‘That is easily fixed. With one prick of my hat pin, you can become a prince.’

‘Hat pin? Is that legal?’

‘It doesn’t have to be a hat pin, so long as there is blood and you are in great pain.’

Conor took her hand in his. ‘I think now that I shall be in great pain until I return.’

‘Then study hard, earn your paper, and come home quickly. Your queen needs you. I need you.’

And they kissed for the first time, with the stained-glass sun painting rainbows on their faces and the hubbub of morning trade rising from the square below.

All the goodbyes had been said. He had kissed his mother and dangled his little brother upside down. All that was left was to leave.

Conor strolled down to the port on a sunny morning, keeping one eye on the barrow boy bobbing down the hill with his luggage. The sea was calm and a small passenger steamship chugged on its ropes in the outside dock.

A small crowd had gathered on the deck and Conor smiled when he saw the attraction. Linus Wynter was treating the passengers to an impromptu rendition of an aria from The Soldier’s Return.

He stopped singing when he heard Conor’s footsteps on the planks.

‘It’s about time you showed up, boy. I had to sing just to stop the captain casting off.’

‘Any excuse, Linus,’ said Conor, flipping the barrow boy a shilling. ‘You have secured the laboratory?’

‘Our tower is in good hands. Uncle has moved in with a couple of his dullards as he calls them.’

‘How does Uncle smell?’

‘Not so good. All we can hope for is that he will fall into the ocean with a bar of soap in his pocket.’

Conor leaped across a yard of sea on to the steamship.

‘Do you think Scotland is ready for your genius?’

Linus smiled broadly, adjusting his tinted eyeglasses, which Conor had fashioned for him. ‘The Scots are famous for their appreciation of music. Robert Burns was a poet of the people, like myself. Glasgow will take me to its bosom, I feel sure of it. In six months we will be the toast of the city.’

‘You can see into the future now, old friend?’

Linus searched the air until his hand found Conor’s shoulder. ‘Other men look up and down, left and right,’ he said. ‘But men like us are different. We are visionaries.’