He clearly did not know what to do when approached by a pretty young lady wearing a wicker chicken who ought—by all standards of decency—to be long abandoned on the moor… chickenless.
Sophronia held out her hand, as if she were a bishop and wished it to be kissed.
The young Pickleman fumbled, his arms full, to finagle an appropriate response. He managed a truncated sort of bow over the offering. “Spice Administrator Bawkin, miss, how do you do? Is that your mechanimal?”
Sophronia gave him a perfect curtsy and then cocked her head, inquisitive. “Mechanimal? Where?” Bumbersnoot had conveniently rejected the fringe and was poking about the back side of the coal scuttle, out of view.
The young man abandoned that line of questioning for one of greater import. “Um, miss, how did you get here?”
Sophronia floated her fingers about in a dancer’s confusion. “I walked. You would suggest some other method?”
“No, I mean, miss, the ship was evacuated.”
“Dear me, was it? I hadn’t noticed. I do get lost in my music. It is my one true passion. Do you have a one true passion, Mr. Spice-Bawkin?” Sophronia prattled in an airy-fairy manner. She did not let him answer. “Mine is music. I simply adore music. Je l’adore, je l’adore! It’s so transporting, don’t you find? Of course you do. Everyone does. When I sit at my harp, the world simply melts away. Like, you know, that creamy icy thing that melts. What am I thinking of? Oh, yes, Nesselrode pudding. I’m afraid it may have melted too far just now, and I missed something important. An evacuation, you say? Are you the authorities? Have we been evacuated for political reasons? Oh, I always knew they would go too far.”
“Who?” interjected the young Pickleman, almost desperately, overwhelmed by her blathering.
Sophronia was breezy and dismissive, “Oh, you know, they.” All the while she chattered, she pressed the young man around and back, moving him into position by slightly crowding his social space. So vested was he in keeping the correct distance for conversation with a lady that he didn’t even realize he had been moved until he came up against Lady Linette’s mantelpiece, where her prized stuffed badger in a lace mobcap stared austerely down at him.
“Miss,” he interrupted again, “why are you wearing a chicken?”
“Oh, this old thing? It’s the very latest fashion accessory. Don’t you like it? Mine is a bit big, I grant you. I was going to put it into my hair, but it was too heavy. You don’t like it? I’m so foolish.” She widened her green eyes as though she might burst into tears.
“Of course. I mean, I do like it. It’s very, um, bendy.”
Sophronia’s lips trembled and her eyes welled.
The young man leaned in, solicitous.
She said, “I really am very sorry about this. You seem like such a nice man.”
“You are? I do? Well, they should have found you after the evacuation. We sent a sweep around.”
“My fault entirely, I assure you. I’ve never trusted chimney sweeps.” Sophronia allowed one perfect tear to trickle over her cheek, staring up into his confused face with an expression of mild adoration mixed with shame.
The poor young Pickleman. He’d had no chance from the moment he entered the room. If there were a book on befuddlement with evil intent, Sophronia had just thrown it at him.
At which point she hauled off and hit him with it.
Or, to be more precise, she hit him with Lady Linette’s copy of Mrs. Blessingbacon’s Hot Cross Buns for the Bunless. It was a heavy tome that Lady Linette had left sitting atop her mantelpiece and that had managed not to fall off during the crash.
Sophronia whacked the Pickleman on the temple, precisely where she had been taught.
Spice Administrator Bawkin fell to the ground in a pleasingly floppy manner.
“That’ll teach you to question a lady’s wicker chicken!”
It was hard to know how much time she had while he was incapacitated—only a few seconds if she’d done her job right. She hadn’t wanted to cause permanent damage. He might work for the Picklemen, but he didn’t seem that bad.
Luckily, Lady Linette had a passion for lace drapes, gold cord, and velvet runners. Sophronia converted one of the runners into a gag. She tied the Pickleman’s hands over his head and to the leg of the grand piano. She had always thought it odd, not to mention a waste of weight, that Lady Linette insisted on a grand piano in her classroom. But in this instance it proved useful. With Bawkin’s wrists tied to one leg, and his feet to the leg kitty corner, he was efficiently immobilized. Sophronia found a large shawl and draped it over the piano, anchoring it with vases. Now, should anyone look into the room, it would appear empty, the young man well hidden behind the shawl.
Sophronia now suspected that Lady Linette had a piano on board for exactly this purpose. Feeling safe for the moment, and wanting to make certain he would wake up, Sophronia shut the door. Bumbersnoot reappeared from behind the coal scuttle, looking smug, as if he had found some loose coal. She scooped up the young man’s notebook and held it in the moonlight to examine it.
The first section was filled with notes in cypher, some mathematical equations, sketches of mechanical functions, and a rough map of something mysterious. In the middle there were newer notes—messy and smudged from a hasty closing of the book. Still in cypher, the style of the text suggested names and dates combined with other pertinent information. This must be from the record room, probably an account of active intelligencers. Sophronia tore those pages out of the book.
“Bumbersnoot, come here, please.”
The little mechanimal tick-tocked over to her.
Sophronia fed him the sheets of paper, one at a time, making certain they went into his boiler and were incinerated.
There was one page of additional notes after that, even more hastily written, in a different hand. The results of Deep Voice’s interrogation, Sophronia supposed.
The rest of the book was blank. She extracted her own stick of graphite and drew a hasty schematic of the ship, marking off the locations of Picklemen and flywaymen with dots. She took great satisfaction in then putting an X through the dot representing Spice Administrator Bawkin. One down, thirteen Picklemen, three runners, and five flywaymen to go. She tore out this map, folded it up, and put it in a pocket with her stick of graphite. Then she ripped out the rest of the notes, rolled them up tight, and secured them with a bit of ribbon. She removed Bumbersnoot’s coal reserves from her cleavage to a pocket of the leather smock, and stuffed the notes there instead. Most secure place for them.
Even though the remainder of the notebook was empty, she tucked it under some couch cushions for safety. One never knew with Picklemen.
She then examined the crossbow, delighted to have it in her possession. If she could activate the soldier mechanicals, she would have a real weapon on her side. But she’d probably need Professor Braithwope for that, and who knew what mental state he was in at this point. Sophronia cannibalized a length of curtain cord to be a belt and tied the tiny crossbow to it, using more hair ribbons. Geraldine’s girls carried extra hair ribbons at all times for exactly this kind of eventuality. She shoved the bolts into the biggest of the pinafore pockets. She practically jangled like a tinker with all the items she had hanging off her, but she felt much better about life in general. She took a moment to rearrange and redistribute so she wouldn’t make noise as she snuck about.