Bethany let him go with a small smile. Farley had already been drawn away, engaged by a Captain that had a special interest in marksmanship. They had retreated to the quietest corner of the mess and pen and paper were now employed in contesting some mathematical point.

“I like this sort of party, nobody expects me to play hostess,” Clotilde whispered.

“Did you before?”

“Yes, once my mother died, before father remarried, I inherited it.”

“Well, it is alright, I never thought I would see a Vice-Admiral drunk.”

“Is he?”

“Clearly, and he was probably even more so when he conceived of that cake.”

“Well, it was rather charming.”

“Are battle plans meant to be charming?”

“It suggests, at least, he isn’t fearful. Yes, it was a fine thing, but then again you would be ill disposed toward him.”

Bethany cocked her head, “why?”

“He snubbed you, called Farley a Captain and you nothing at all.”

“Farley is a Captain, a Captain of Marines.”

“But he does not command the ship nor outrank you.”

“No, he does not.”

“Then why him first?”

“You were a hostess, so eaten up with protocol! He’s a proper officer, perhaps they had met, it doesn’t trouble me, after all, what am I to them?”

“A worker of miracles! I know you saved Fletch, the steward told me. You ought to be famous among them, among the entire nation. Granger will get a statue for what, managing to die well?”

Bethany gave Clotilde’s sleeve a tug, “I am famous, you know that, you want my story to be told everywhere? Well it must begin with my stabbing a fourteen year old in the heart and escaping the gallows, no matter what I do in my life it will always be shadowed by that, if I go wrong its proves I was wicked, when I do well, as now, it proves it was truly an accident, but no matter how much good I do it will never be washed away, it’s too good a tale. You have heard what the papers did with only the first part, can you think what they would do with this. I shiver every time I am introduced, heavens I ought to change my name.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I did, when I was running, I could not on Fletch, they all know my father’s name and they know I am his daughter.”

“Will you, when the war is over?”

“Not until I have my inheritance, my father would never suffer that insult.”

“He is content to have, as you say, such a shame on the family name?”

“Far from it but I do not wish to give him a reason to disinherit me, I am sure he is looking for one.”

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

“Is he so cruel?”

“I will not say he is, he was not when I was a child, right up until... well he had to think of the rest of the family, I think he believed I was guilty, I would have, on the same evidence. Now though, well I barely said ten words to him before he packed me off onto Fletch. He lost my mother and brother while I was gone, my younger sister too, she is locked away. He went very cold, that’s easy to do in a grand, empty house.”

“You allow them all too much, have you no sense of justice?”

“If I did I would hang myself straightaway or at the very least devote my life to charity or what have you. Accident or intent, and more and more I know it was both, Angeline Becker lies dead. Her and heaven knows how many Bexarians, some of them truly boys, younger than either of us. Do not say that war is different, it is but, not if your standards of justice are hoisted so high.”

Clotilde looked about the room, it was now choked with tobacco smoke and a few officers were asleep in chairs. Her face was very sour but she brightened it before asking Bethany “might we go?”

Bethany glanced at Farley and Badrine in their corners then to her, “we shouldn’t call the launch back yet, not until our companions are ready, but we can go outside, I’m sure.”

Outside was not easy to find. Howl was a maze, the corridors narrowing and darkening as they moved away from the officer’s mess. They came across a sailor who stopped dead a pace from them, wide eyed. When he composed himself he gave rambling, partly accurate directions. Half following them and half moving up whenever they could, Bethany and Clotilde emerged, finally, onto the battleship’s forecastle. A marine with a carbine slung passed them, stopped dead, turned and was about to speak when Bethany explained, “we’re from the dinner in the officer’s mess, we will go back down if we must but we needed some clear air.”

The marine appraised them, “did you close every hatch you opened along the way? If not I must send someone to do it at once, it’s regulation.”

“We did and besides there were only a few, a sailor sent us an easy way,” Bethany assured him.

“Right, very good, touch nothing and if you get into trouble call out, a watchstander is certain to hear you,”

The night was clear and bright with a full moon. Valse steamed just in front of them, her wake merging with Howl’s bow wave. To port ran Sophie and to starboard Despatch, the unarmed collier clinging to the protection of the battleship’s long guns. Tens of lights burned, stern and bow lanterns, lamps in bridges and cabins. When the wind gusted they winked out briefly, obscured by a rush of coal smoke from the fleet’s funnels. The marine who had stopped them was now several decks above but still in the open air. He knelt behind a railing to strike a match, rising a moment later with a lit cigarette. He walked on, heading aft, and disappeared beyond a vent.

Clotilde fell on Bethany. It was almost an embrace but her grip was too slack - if Bethany moved away she would fall flat on the deck. Her head rested on Bethany’s shoulder, deadweight, as if she had fainted.

Without lifting her head she spoke, softly but clearly, “I’m going to kill myself tomorrow, you should as well.”

Bethany started, nearly dropping her. She put a hand beneath her chin, lifting her face and staring at her. Clotilde was quite collected though she had gone pale. Her eyes did not look back at Bethany. Bethany sighed, “oh, I thought you were feeling better.”

“I was, this is not about what happened, but what is bound to.”

Clotilde looked at her now, sharply, “the airship will kill us all, everyone knows it. I see now, they are afraid, they drink and sing so they might ignore it. It’s like the old stories, the knights who charged cannon. Well, we might be fine knights and many but the Bexarians have the cannon today.” She began to tremble, coming undone, and finally shed a few tears. Beating them back, she stammered, “I am not going to be blown up, I’ve come close enough to that, and I’d rather not drown. Yes, yes and if I have to be shot I’d rather it be quick.”

“Clotilde, that airship is built like a solarium, you know, with thin steel beams, Badrine has showed me plans from Hegalia, it’s all webs of metal and canvas skin.” She placed her hands on Clotilde’s shoulders, turning her to face the massive gun turret rising from the deck behind them, “this fires a shell almost the size of a water keg, faster even than the speed of sound. Heavens if we were alone I would agree with you, but this fleet can cut that thing to pieces.”

“No, no! My father’s men, they hit and their shells did nothing! It’s a wicked thing, something, something like what you can do protects it.”

Bethany considered that, finally whispering, “were it true I would know, I think. Listen to me please, you will be safe on Fletch, she won’t be doing anything important and will be far from the battle.”

“They should not try to take it, if we must go anywhere near it, it should be killed outright as soon as it can be,” Clotilde persisted, not hearing her.

Bethany took off her coat and put it on Clotilde, “you’re tired, come along, we will get Farley and Badrine and go back to Fletch.

Clotilde was quiet but plainly sick on the launch. She did not button Bethany’s coat but pulled it tightly against herself. She sat on the first bench, just behind the lantern on a pole at prow which she stared at, passing out of awareness. At Fletch, it was necessary to lift her on deck, Farley and Badrine did this and as Bethany led her toward her cabin, Farley asked, “did she have anything to drink?”

Bethany shook her head. Farley huffed, “the Bexarians have driven her mad, then.”

Clotilde swung round, shouting “no more than all of you!”

She could have said anything to Farley and he would have ignored it as a raving. He took a step toward her, bowing his head, “I should not have said that, miss. You need to rest.”

The steward had remembered to light the stove in Bethany’s cabin though the fire was weak. Bethany tried to direct Clotilde to the bunk but she sat on the desk chair. Bethany stood over her, hoping, in the warmth and privacy she would speak. When she did not, Bethany did, saying “I am going to go make tea, unless you wish to sleep right away, that would be better but I don’t think you will.”

“No, go and make it, but tell me, are the pistols still under the bunk?”

Bethany frowned, “they are.”

“And you would leave me with them, do you not care then, if I die? You did it before as well, though we thought the Bexarians were coming then so it might be excused.”

“I care, of course, of course. It would be two suicides in as many months for me, I would make three, I’m certain,” Bethany insisted. She knelt before Clotilde’s chair, eyeing her warmly. “There’s no point in my taking the pistols away, you have the ocean an arshin from you, it will kill you almost as quickly. If you are going to do it I won’t begrudge a quick way.”

“You would feel different if I went I through with it.”

“I would. Will you?”

Clotilde hid her face in her hands and muttered “not tonight, not tonight, go make tea.”

“Why not tonight?”

“I won’t leave you, not if it would kill you too. I’ll not be a double-murderer. I will wait and if we are both certain to die to the airship, then.”