Imprudence (38 page)

“Granddaughter. You are doing well. Hold steady. Is that the werecat or our captain?”

“That's the captain. She was shot, too. Fortunately, Lady Prudence has a quick way of healing. I've asked for strong alcohol to clean the wound. What else?”

Tasherit reappeared with a bottle of Percy's best cognac.

“Good enough.” Floote took it. “Now, Lady Sekhmet, we need linen bandages. If none are available, a clean silk shawl. Lighter colour. Ask Miss Primrose. And blankets, we need to keep him warm.”

Tasherit dashed off again.

Several of the decklings appeared with their own blankets at that juncture, the ones they stored about the decks and used in their hammocks. Floote piled them over Quesnel's lower body and arms. They were not very clean, but it was a kind gesture.

Tasherit reappeared with Primrose in tow. Prim had her arms full of linen bandages. Rue had no idea Prim stocked the shipboard medicine cabinet that thoroughly, but she shouldn't be surprised. Primrose did tend to think of everything.

Prim fell to her knees next to Quesnel's body with no care for her lovely dress. In times of great stress, Prim was one of the better elements. She instantly began unfolding the bandages. She was weeping copiously, although it did not affect her efficient handling of the necessities.

Floote grabbed a strip, wadded it up, doused it in cognac, and handed it to Anitra. She used this to swab the back of Quesnel's wound, the side they could not see.

“I've iodine as well.” Prim produced a small bottle of the stuff.

“Alcohol first,” said Floote. “Iodine once it's clean.”

“Should we roll him onto his side?” Anitra wondered.

Floote considered. “Yes, to check. Lady Primrose, you'll be the brace. Decklings, man his legs. On my mark, slow but steady and gentle. We need to know if he is bleeding out.”

They rolled.

The entrance wound oozed out from Quesnel's jacket.

“Cut away the cloth,” advised Floote. “Anyone have a sharp knife?”

A rustle and then Percy, of all people, appeared and passed over a gleaming blade, from the look of it, silver, kept as sharp as one could keep silver. A vampire's son was raised to take werewolf precautions. He remained looking on, strange given his contentious relationship with Quesnel.

Floote doused the knife with the cognac and then shook his head. “My hand's too shaky. Miss Sekhmet, if you would?”

“It's silver!” the werecat hissed.

“You aren't immortal at the moment.”

“Oh, of course. I forgot.” She still looked uncomfortable.

Primrose tsked and handed Tasherit the bandages. “You hold these. I'll do it.”

Face pale but determined, Primrose took hold of the knife and began to smoothly cut away the layers of fabric around Quesnel's wound. The decklings steadied the Frenchman, who remained blessedly, but scarily, insensate.

Primrose pulled the layers of clothing off. Anitra returned her free hand to the wound in between layers, applying pressure with the alcohol-dampened rag.

Willard came to help her, applying corresponding pressure to the exit wound on Quesnel's front so she might have one hand free.

Once Quesnel's back was clear of fabric, Primrose grimly doused it with more of the cognac.

Rue expected to hear Percy at any moment, objecting to the misuse of his perfectly good bottle of alcohol. But he remained quiet, face set into an odd expression that might have been concern for another human being.

Everyone huddled in, silent as they focused on their ministrations.

One small part of Rue's brain took a moment to be worried about how many were crowded around.
Who is manning our defences?

She was about to panic when she noticed that Spoo and Virgil were not in the crowd. Nor was Willard's second, Bork. That meant Spoo was still at the Gatling, Bork was seeing to the remaining crew, and Virgil was in the navigation pit – Percy had been training him, by default, as backup navigator.

Rue wanted desperately to have her human form back. But instead she stayed with Quesnel, providing as much warmth as she could. It was all she was good for at the moment. She cursed herself for not thinking to hire a shipboard surgeon. As soon as they returned to London, she'd take out an advertisement. And for a proper bonesetter, one with real wartime experience, not one of those academically minded physicians.

Rue growled at Tasherit. She need not sit there holding bandages like a wet blanket! She should get back to captaining the ship. Rue gestured with her head, tail lashing.

Tasherit shook herself. “Yes, of course. We aren't clear yet. We don't know what kind of backup those ornithopters had. Stay on the offensive. You too, Rue. You're no more good here. Blankets have arrived.”

Indeed they had. Someone smart had thought to raid Rue's closet and brought up a ridiculous fur cape Dama insisted she pack, despite Rue's protestations that she was “travelling to a desert country, for goodness' sake.”

Quesnel would be plenty warm.

Reluctantly, Rue joined Tasherit in trotting about the ship, making sure decklings were in place. Occasionally, she reared up on her hind legs to glare out over the railing into the hostile night.

Everything looked under control and they'd no followers. Rue nosed Tasherit towards the poop deck and the helm.

“You want me to take over? That's silly. Virgil's better at it than I.”

Rue jumped down into the navigation pit. Virgil didn't even flinch at the sudden presence of a lioness. Rue lifted the speaking tube with her teeth and hissed around it at Tasherit.

“Oh, yes, of course, tell engineering what is happening.”

Rue would have liked to give her advice on talking to Aggie. She suspected that even a werecat with hundreds of years of experience would be just as awful at it as everyone else.

So it proved to be the case. Although, even with supernatural ears, Rue could only hear one side of the conversation – tubes were like that.

“Miss Phinkerlington. Yes. Yes, he's up here. No, I can't send him down. He's been shot. Yes, it is serious. No, you must stay there. We're still in danger. I don't know. Let me ask.” Tasherit looked up and shouted over to the medics, “Mr Floote, sir, engineering wants to know if you'd like a hot poker to cauterise the wound?” She returned to the tube. “He says no, and don't be barbaric. Yes, well, I thought it was a good idea, too. But I'm no surgeon. Yes, we should. I imagine the captain will rectify that soon. I don't think you should say such things about the captain!” She held the tube away from her ear briefly and closed her eyes. “That's enough, young lady. No,
you
get stuffed!” Miss Sekhmet slammed down the speaking tube. “What an unpleasant creature. Surely she realises that talk of stuffing to a werelioness brings up taxidermic nightmares?”

Rue rumbled an agreeing cat noise – half purr, half meow.

“Now, how do I get my immortality back? You look healed yourself, and you speaking at this juncture would be a good thing.

“Meroooow!” agreed Rue.

Percy came over and took the helm away from Virgil.

Virgil gave him a look that said clearer than words that even an ornithopter battle full of flying bullets and crossbow bolts was no excuse for a lost cravat.

“That boy,” Percy grumbled, sitting down in his customary position, “gets bossier and bossier.”

“He didn't say anything,” Tasherit defended the lad.

“Didn't need to.” Percy was more melancholy than usual. “Rue, could I have a private word? You don't mind, do you, Miss Sekhmet?”

“Not at all. She's all ears.” The werecat was perfectly civil to Percy but there was an edge to her voice that suggested she still hadn't quite forgiven him for publishing her existence to the world.

“Exactly why I want to talk to her now. How often does one get to bend Rue's ear without threat of interruption?”

“Rourow!” objected Rue.

Tasherit gave them both an evil smile and drifted back to the crowd around Quesnel to see if anything more was needed. Their balloon escort returned, surrounding them in a friendly flock of chubby shadows. They all hooked into the same southerly breeze and floated along at a nice pace, putting comforting distance between themselves and Khartoom.

Anitra left off her medical ministrations to give a long handkerchief-wave report to the Drifters, under the light of a single lamp. It had a beautiful dancelike quality. The waving handkerchiefs were awfully temping; Rue wanted to bat at them.

Percy snapped his fingers near her whiskers. “Rue! Do pay attention. I'm trying to have a revelatory moment. This is a serious epiphany and you're busy staring at handkerchiefs.”

Rue turned tawny eyes on him and blinked slowly. The cat version of,
I trust you. Trust me.

“Look…” Now that Percy had her attention, he couldn't seem to find the right words. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen.”

Was Percy being
contrite
?

“I overreacted about the weremonkey publication. I shouldn't have written about Miss Sekhmet without her approval. I treated her like a scientific subject, not a person. It was wrong of me.”

Rue gave a
rrupp
noise of agreement, hoping to articulate that perhaps he ought to be apologising to Tasherit, not Rue, but Percy soldiered on. Clearly her
rrupp
s were not nuanced enough.

“And now Mr Lefoux is gravely injured and it's all my fault. If I hadn't let it be known we had a werelioness aboard, we wouldn't be in this mess.”

Oh, so now he decides to have a guilty conscience?
Rue lashed her tail and grumbled at him.

“It's only that he's so friendly and everyone likes him and he's a great inventor and well regarded and I'm just” – Percy gestured to his rumpled self – “this.”

Jealousy? Rue hadn't thought to pry into Percy's motives. She'd believed his actions spawned from an arrogant belief in his own intellectual superiority. She hadn't realised he felt threatened by Quesnel. Percy never had understood his own value in society or as a friend. He saw other people as either worthy academic opponents, fellow awkward intellectuals, or irrelevant. He applied the same judgement to himself. It was why he found the constant attention of interested young ladies at parties so mystifying. He didn't understand that he was an attractive man, not to mention well connected and reasonably solvent. If only he put himself forward and tried to be polite, he might be just as charming as Quesnel, in his own way. But he never bothered to try.

Rue, of course, couldn't tell Percy any of this. So she lashed her tail and hissed at him.

Percy took this as criticism. “I will try to do better. I never wanted him to die. And now he's injured and we're all in danger and it's my fault.”

The last thing Rue needed was to lose another crew member, this time to despair.

“I've ruined everything.” Percy was displaying the Tunstell family's flair for the dramatic. “You're one of my best friends and you love him. What if he dies and it's all my doing?”

Percy was slumped over the helm, weighted by guilt. Luckily, they were floating fully in the breeze and needed no course correction, but he'd be pretty darn useless if they were attacked again.

Rue leaned forward and put her damp cat nose against his so he was forced to stare into her eyes. Then she licked his face in one massive swipe of her very rough tongue.

“Rue!” he sputtered, flicking one hand to get her away.

However, it did seem to bring him out of his maudlin humour.

Rue really wanted to talk to him but she needed to break her tether to Tasherit first. It took a whole city block back home, further during dry seasons. They could get the nets out between the balloons and she could run out to the furthest one – that might work. But could they cast nets during fast float? She could get the decklings to lower her in an improvised cat basket. But did they have rope long enough? They could dip up into the aetherosphere, but uncharted currents might yank them leagues away from their escort and course. They could head back to the Nile. Rue could dunk – full water immersion would do the trick.

But all these options would delay their journey. Right now they were making good time and had hunters after them. Aside from waiting until sunrise, Rue could see only one shipboard option for returning to human form. She gave a hiss of annoyance and, tail lashing, made her way down to engineering.

The boiler room was quiet as she climbed down the spiral stairs.

Everything but the absolute necessities had been cycled down, casting the big room in red tones and slowly shifting shadows. They must conserve as much fuel as possible if they were to make it to the source. Most of the sooties were off sleeping or on deck with the drama. Only two still tended the main boiler. Responsible for all the ship's internal functions as well as engine and propeller power, the Big Kettle was never totally cool.

Aggie had, as always, made all the correct decisions. Rue didn't have to like the woman to know she was good at her job.

Rue trotted through, annoyed by how the pads of her paws picked up soot. No wonder Tasherit avoided the boiler room.

“You!” accused Aggie.

Rue blinked at her slowly.
Cat trust, cat calm.

Aggie seemed to find this annoying.

“Shoo! Get out. You're not welcome here.”

Rue sneezed as a bit of coal dust got caught in her whiskers and then continued walking towards the back corner of the room where the preservation tank nested under its tea-cosy cover. She went up on her hind legs and kneaded it with her front paws.

“What on earth?” Aggie followed her.

Rue continued to pick at the cosy.

“You want to get inside it? Why? It's not gassed at the moment.”

“Rrrrrourrt,” said Rue.

“Oh, of course. If you immerse yourself fully, you should get your humanity back. Certain you want that,
ladyship
? You're a whole lot easier to kill when you're nothing more than prissy human.”