Six weeks in a foreign country, how the time flew
- from "Destiny Rules" by Fleetwood Mac
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Thus far, Alek's contribution to his own rescue has consisted of wearing other people's clothes and trying not to look like an emperor. That shall change - soon, he vows - but it remains true that he does neither very well.
Deryn nudges him in the side with her elbow. "Slouch," she says in a low voice. "You look like you've a scepter up your bum."
"It was installed at the coronation," he says dryly; she snorts, amused, which was his goal. Obediently, he lets his shoulders droop and his back curve. Slightly. Not enough to appear hunchbacked, he hopes. "How is this?"
"Better," she judges.
It feels bizarre. He has been trained to stand perfectly straight since he was old enough to walk, and now it takes a great deal of concentration to hold himself incorrectly.
Currently, he is a young man escorting a pretty girl around the manicured greenery and gravel paths of le Jardin des Tuileries. Perhaps they are courting. Perhaps it is a secret tryst. They stop often to murmur tenderly to each other, to gaze adoringly at one another - or rather, to exchange observations and keep a lookout for assassins and spies.
Since the pretty girl is Deryn, and she looks very pretty indeed in her blue dress and cloche hat, Alek has little difficulty with the murmurs and gazes.
He wishes it was real, and not a pretense.
Ah well. After all of this is concluded, he shall escort her around the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace. They're larger than the Tuileries, anyway, and she'll be able to wear trousers.
They pause at one of the statues on the north side of the Grand Carré. A small sign proclaims it to be Cassandre se met sous la protection de Pallas. "What's this one?" Deryn asks, because she is facing away from the statue, scanning the square while pressing one hand to the side of Alek's face.
The warmth of her hand, the scent of it, immediately puts him in mind of their morning kisses. Focus, he tells himself, for that is a perilous sort of memory to summon forth in public. He removes her hand, kisses the back of it, and tucks her arm into his again. "Cassandra Placing Herself Under the Protection of Athena."
Deryn gives the statue a dubious look as they move on, their shoes crunching on the fine gravel. In French, she says, "She'd do better to put herself under the protection of some clothes."
She is, of course, right.
Alek lets her lead the way, since he hasn't any idea of what Mr. Eddie Malone looks like, and regardless, he must concentrate on maintaining his slouch. They stroll to the south side of the pond, and Deryn clicks her tongue. In English, sotto voce, she says, "There he is. Sodding bastard."
There aren't many people around, which helps Alek with the identification. Mr. Malone is sprawled carelessly on a bench before another statue, a small notebook in hand and a large frog perched on one shoulder. Alek and Deryn's clothes are fresh from a second-hand shop, but Malone appears to have got dressed in the dark, perhaps in someone else's closet, perhaps while falling down a flight of stairs. The overall effect is haphazard enough that Alek is amazed the reporter's shoes match.
He looks up from his notebook as they approach, and his initial expression of impatient boredom is quickly replaced by a grin. It's more friendly than predatory, but still, his greeting cuts deeply. "Lieutenant Sharp! Nice to see you again."
Deryn's face clouds over.
Alek has already forgot to slouch. Now he says, in his most imperial voice, "Hauptmann Sharp is an officer of my Aviation Troops, and you will address her as such."
Malone glances at Alek for the first time. There is a moment where one can observe the gears turning behind the man's eyes, and then a slow, delighted smile spreads across his face. "Your Majesty," he says, the American accent making it sound odd, inclining his head in Alek's direction. To Deryn, he says, "How did you manage this, Captain?"
"You know me," she says, murderous. "And if that frog records a word of this, I'll stuff it down your throat."
Malone's shrug is of the it was worth a try variety, and unrepentant at that. He scratches and taps at the frog's bulbous head. It blinks its wide-set eyes and resettles itself slightly on Malone's shoulder, and he gives it a pat on the back that is pure affection. "There. Rusty's off-duty. Am I allowed to take notes the traditional way?"
"You may," Alek says. He uses the neutral tones of an indifferent monarch, although the frog is staring straight at him, which is most unnerving.
Malone sketches a mock salute and starts scribbling.
"You aren't going to ask for proof of my identity?" Alek and Deryn had discussed it, but there's really no way for him to prove his claim to a stranger. Emperors don't carry identification any more than they carry money.
"Nope," Malone says, cheerful. "For one thing, she -" he points his stub of a pencil at Deryn "- is terrible at lying. She only fooled the Air Service because no one expected her to be crazy enough to do what she did."
Deryn drops herself inelegantly onto the opposite end of the bench. "And I was a bloody brilliant airman."
Alek diplomatically sits between Malone and Deryn, the better to avoid bloodshed, but Malone concedes her point with a nod. To Alek, he says, "Also, the gossip columns out of London yesterday were all about you two canoodling at some party."
Alek isn't certain what canoodling means. Deryn colors slightly, though, and he concludes it's what they were doing this morning.
God's wounds, he needs to stop thinking about that. They are trying to escape Paris; the last thing he should want is to spend the entire day shut up in a seedy hotel room.
He takes a fresh grip on his walking stick and glances at the statue behind them. A god, or perhaps merely a Greek hero, has been driven to one knee by an unseen enemy, but he faces them unflinchingly, sword tightly gripped, the other arm raised to shield himself from a blow. Alek rather sympathizes.
"Now, let's hear it," Malone says.
Alek obliges. He knows how to give a general's succinct accounting of events, and he does so, beginning with the ambush in Calais, their theory of a conspiracy amongst his ministers, and ending with their arrival in Paris.
He omits the shared hotel bed. And the canoodling.
Malone's pencil scratches furiously while Alek talks, and for a few moments after. "This is better than a film serial," he says, positively ecstatic. "The emperor of Austria saved by Britain's angel of the air!"
Deryn snorts. "Two days ago I was Britain's biggest disgrace."
Now Malone's smile is unmistakably predatory. Clever, though; a fox, not a wolf. "You won't be, not after this."
"No," Alek says. Swift and firm. He taps his walking stick on the ground for emphasis, then feels a fool for doing so.
Two sets of puzzled eyes look at him. Three, if one counts the frog, although it's less puzzled than complacent.
"You will not name her," Alek tells Malone. "It will only put us at further risk. Let the world believe they are looking for two men."
Malone is already shaking his head. "She's the best part of the story. No offense, Your Majesty."
He is not offended, because he agrees: Deryn is easily the best part of this. "Then delay the revelation of her identity until we reach our next destination, at least."
"How long?"
Deryn says, "Two days."
Malone narrows his eyes, clearly calculating. "I can guarantee you one day," he says eventually. "Two is pushing it."
Alek exchanges a glance with Deryn. She shakes her head slightly.
"Two days," he says. "Please."
Malone has had his eyes on Deryn, and the look of calculation is still very much present. "All right. Two."
Deryn leans across Alek suddenly, hand out. "D'you have the money, then?"
Malone blinks behind his spectacles, then grins. Digging around in his jacket, he says, "I thought maybe you were trying to blackmail me, Sharp. But this is money well spent."
He presses a crumpled wad of paper francs into her hand, then produces a handful of coins that he drops into Alek's. Alek has only passing familiarity with the money of his own empire, which is not among these coins. He hopes no one asks how much he's holding.
Does the discomfort show on his face? He is accomplished at acting like an emperor, but that's hardly the same as acting.
"Here," Deryn says, gesturing for him to pass it on. She's already tucked the paper money away somewhere.
Alek gives her the coins. "Hauptmann Sharp is in charge of our travel arrangements," he says to Malone.
Malone makes a noise of agreement. "She's well-traveled. Knows a lot of shady characters, too. Has she told you about the Committee?"
"I've told him about you," Deryn retorts.
Far from taking offense, Malone laughs. "Fair enough. Well, it's been a delight as usual, Sharp, but I have a story to write. Sir - very nice to meet you. Best of luck."
"Wait," Deryn says as the reporter rises from the bench, and he pauses. "Any word on the men in Calais? Captain Wells, Lieutenant Ackermann?"
"Oh, the captain. He's fine. The fall caused more injuries than the bullet, if you can believe that. Your man -" with a gesture to Alek "- was touch-and-go, last I heard. Still, doing better than the other fellow. Dead as a doornail."
Relief loosens a knot inside Alek's chest. Captain Wells is alive; more astonishingly, there is still hope for Ackermann. May Providence continue to smile upon them. "And the second assassin?"
Malone's eyebrows lift. "There were two?"
Alek looks at Deryn as the relief vanishes beneath a wave of foreboding. That sounds like the second man escaped - or was released. Perhaps via bribes. Or perhaps there was an official in Calais sympathetic to his cause. Many Darwinists would be pleased to see another Clanker empire fall in the wake of the war, after all.
Suddenly danger is prickling up and down his spine, and despite all of their precautions, he is certain they are being watched.
Deryn stands abruptly, hauling Alek to his feet as well. "We'll be leaving, aye? And two days. You promised."
"On my honor," Malone says easily, to which Deryn snorts. A deserved reaction, it seems.
Alek looks at the statue again, and realizes it is neither a god nor a hero. The plaque proclaims it to be Alexandre Combattant.
Alexander Fighting.
Well. He is that. And he is alive to do so only because of the airman at his side.
Deryn puts her arm in Alek's and tugs, but Alek holds his ground for a moment longer.
"Mr. Malone," Alek says in his crispest, most kingly tone. "One final request. When you reveal Hauptmann Sharp's identity - do make her an angel of the air, as you said. An avenging angel."
Malone's eyebrows have raised above the frames of his spectacles. "Flaming swords don't mix well with hydrogen, Your Majesty."
Alek shakes his head, impatient with the man's flippancy. "Joan of Arc, then."
Malone opens his mouth - no doubt to mention Jeanne d'Arc's own unfortunate connection with fire - but Alek forestalls him by holding up his hand.
"I want her hailed as a hero," Alek says. "Let Austria-Hungary know she is coming to save them."
Malone scratches his chin, then grins again. "I suppose if any monarch is entitled to divine intervention, it's the descendent of the Holy Roman Emperors. And," he adds, with a nod to Deryn, "if anyone deserves good press, it's you, Miss Sharp."
There is true regret in those words. True guilt. Eddie Malone had thought she intended to blackmail him today - and he'd brought money regardless. Perhaps they have misjudged him.
It's rather crucial to their plans that they haven't.
Alek nods to Malone and the besieged Alexander the Great, and then, with as much dignity as he can muster, allows Deryn to drag him away.
She waits until they're well out of Malone's earshot before leaning in and hissing, "What was all that blether?"
He remembers her voice this morning. Small. Forlorn. Resigned. I had to fly. Simple as that.
As though she deserved to be struck down for doing something at which she excelled. The same something currently saving his life.
Alek adjusts her arm in his. They are strolling north again, around the large pond and toward the street that runs parallel to the gardens. The sensation of being watched remains, although he cannot see anyone in the gardens themselves that strikes him as suspicious. "I meant what I said."
Deryn mutters a stream of curses foul enough to make him cough into his fist.
"Be that as it may," he says, returning to French, "how was my performance?"
"Not bad." Begrudgingly. "The bit with the money was clever."
"The opposite, to be honest." At her questioning glance, he adds, embarrassed, "I never handle money."
She laughs. It's not as loud and free as it was at the party in London, but it still pulls at him like a lodestone. "Kings are hopeless," she says to no one in particular.
He leans in, close enough that he accidentally grazes her ear with his mouth as he whispers, "Just as well that I'm an emperor."
Perhaps it wasn't an accident. Given the way her breath catches and her eyes darken and her hand tightens on his arm, it's an accident he ought to repeat in the future.
They pass poor unclothed Cassandra again. There are two men walking in their general direction, but they look like friends having a chat, not assassins stalking their prey. Then again, the assassins in Calais were dressed as ground crew.
Focus, Alek chides himself again. There will be time for distractions later.
The edge of the gardens is framed by an alley of trees, probably at their loveliest in the spring and autumn. With their branches trimmed to a courteous height, the trees offer little concealment. Beyond the trees is a city street, with buildings crowding the far side. Handsome, quintessentially Parisian, they face the Tuileries with three stories of cream-colored stone and a roof of curved, leaden metal.
Unlike the trees, that roof would make an excellent perch for an assassin, he thinks, and as he does, there's a sudden, pinprick glint of light atop it.
The sight on a rifle?
No. Not a rifle.
He curses and breaks into a run, pulling Deryn with him. She stumbles, not expecting it, then delivers a curse of her own as she lags behind. It's the skirt. She can't run in it. She curses again and hikes her skirt up indecently high - but at least she is running. They race for the trees.
Fire flares from the roof. There is a horrible, screeching whistle overhead, and the rocket strikes the middle of the manicured path behind them.
The explosion is very loud and very close. Too loud. Too close.
It knocks Alek down and leaves him on the ground, ears ringing, head spinning, chest aching, vision blurred. Worse, it separates him from Deryn.
Where is she? He pushes himself up with a desperate heave. Staggers. Leans on his walking stick, which he's somehow kept hold of even as his hat has vanished. Coughs; there is dust and smoke everywhere. People are running to and fro in the distance. Probably shrieking as well, though he can't hear them.
"Deryn!" he calls. Useless. His voice is muffled and strange to his own ears. He coughs and wipes at his eyes. "Deryn!"
A human shape looms up and before he consciously notes the posture, the height, the shape, the intent of the assassin's motions, reflexes honed in a hundred thousand fencing sessions have him bringing his walking stick up to parry the attack.
He thus keeps the knife from biting into his neck, but the walking stick is not so lucky. Fabricated ebony is far harder than the natural wood - that's why he'd insisted on purchasing it.
Even so, that was meant to be a killing blow, and it leaves a sizable gouge in the wood. It also jars the stick nearly out of his grasp.
Alek stumbles backward, trying to find his footing. The assassin strikes again before he does, and another piece of fabricated ebony is hacked out of the stick as Alek falls to the ground.
He lands, he realizes with grim humor, in almost exactly the same pose as Alexandre Combattant: on one knee, arm up to shield, enemy looming over him. But his shield is a walking stick, and his free hand holds no sword.
The assassin has to move in and crouch down to press his attack - the difficulty with close-range weapons like knives is that one must be close to use them - and as he does, Alek dishonors the memory of his namesake by fighting dirty. He kicks at the man's knee and, with his free hand, flings dirt and gravel from the path at the assassin's face.
The assassin flinches backward. Alek is on his feet and lunging forward in the same instant. The tip of his walking stick narrowly misses impaling the man's skull - but Alek hadn't counted on it succeeding; he only needed the space to regain his footing.
The assassin strikes again, with a bit more desperation: the smoke and dust are clearing, and in the background, people are beginning to move toward them, instead of away. Alek parries and this time lands his riposte on the assassin's bicep, with enough force to make the man's lower arm go numb. Instead of dropping the knife as Alek had hoped, the man merely grunts and tosses it to his other hand.
Wunderbar.
Alek doesn't wait for the next attack. He feints toward the assassin's face again and, as the assassin moves to avoid being struck, steps inside the man's reach. He punches the assassin in the solar plexus, then switches his grip and, with as much force as he can, drives the handle of the walking stick up under the man's chin.
The assassin drops.
Alek steps back, breathing hard, looking about the clearing smoke for any other enemies. All he sees, however, is a friend.
Deryn. Unsteady, dirty, bloodied, but alive and whole. Standing over the motionless body of another assassin. This one has a bandage on his temple, and Alek realizes it's the assassin she struck with her rigging knife in Calais.
He's dead now. Blood is slowly crawling across the graveled path, away from his torso.
"Deryn," Alek says, with a relief that closely resembles joy.
She shakes her head as she joins him, pointing at her ear, and he nods in understanding. He gestures at the assassin he fought, lying insensate, his jacket flopped open to reveal a pistol in a shoulder holster.
She frowns, then crouches next to the man - nearly tips over - and removes the pistol. A Frommer, Alek notes in one corner of his mind. Either these men are soldiers in the Hungarian Army, or someone means to make it look that way.
Deryn checks the ammunition in her compressed-air pistol before tossing it onto the ground. She must have used the last of the bullets on the other assassin.
Standing, she needs both hands to steady her aim. For all that, the bullet strikes true.
It's the only sensible thing to do. They left the one man alive in Calais, and he nearly killed them again. There is at least one more assassin out there besides these two; they cannot risk it. But part of Alek flinches away from the death even as he recognizes the necessity of it.
Deryn sticks the pistol into the waistband of her skirt, hiding it beneath her own jacket.
Alek tucks his walking stick under his arm and holds out his hand. She takes it, and they are running again, this time toward the street. A crowded omnibus drawn by a some large, vaguely bovine animal is lumbering past, and they jump aboard.
Far from being shouted at and shooed off by the other passengers, they are greeted with concern and solicitation and urgent questions about what just happened in the Tuileries.
Alek shakes his head and gestures to his ears, and the questions stop, but the concern continues. They are offered seats and an elderly lady presses a clean handkerchief into his hand. For a panicked moment, Alek worries he will be recognized - but then he catches sight of his reflection in the window glass. Bloody, dirty, and disheveled, he looks nothing like the official portrait printed in the morning's newspapers.
Deryn does a marvelous impression of a trembling, weeping girl, one badly frightened and in want of comfort. Alek is less sure of his role as the stout-hearted young man doing the comforting, but it gives him the opportunity to put his arms around her and hold her tightly.
They change omnibuses more than once, as per the plan they'd worked out before venturing into the Tuileries, and reach their next destination without further incident. There they retrieve the carpetbag from its locker without incident. Deryn ushers him into a public washroom and stands guard at the door while he cleans up as best he can; he then does the same for her before they move on, again without incident.
In the morning, as they disembark from the train in Lyon, the newspapers are all proclaiming the same thing.
VIVE ALEXANDRE!
In a triumphant scoop for Le Monde, American reporter Eddie Malone has revealed that Emperor Aleksander is alive, though the target of an attempted coup d'état by members of his own government - an allegation hotly denied by said government. Without revealing his sources, Malone has sworn the emperor was rescued by a decorated British lieutenant in Calais, and they are now both aboard an airship, racing to Vienna.
It is, as Alek expected, largely ridiculous. Still, he is in great charity with the world this morning, and he smiles as he reads the article. An airship indeed. Perhaps Malone was fooled; perhaps he decided to aid their escape by pointing their foes in the wrong direction.
Meanwhile, Deryn purchases their train tickets to Bern via Geneva. By this time tomorrow, they will be nearly to his father's Swiss castle. In one week...
Well. He looks forward to reading the headlines then.
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Note: So…*ahem*. The next part, which covers that train ride from Paris to Lyon, will be added to my ficlet collection "Goggles" due to its rating.
