The Lady Astronomer (22 page)

*

The Great Dining Hall was set for a
banquet, for Lucretia had been declared well enough to travel home by the royal
physicians.

The entire royal family were in attendance,
with Princess Twelve as guest of honour alongside Lucretia and her brothers.

The tables groaned with cakes, fancies,
sweets, biscuits, jellies and all manner of other sugar-laden confectionary at
the request of the little princess who was allowed to choose what the guests
ate.

“Chip off the old block, what what?”
The king smiled at his small daughter. “I know I have a rather sweet
tooth, but really, Princess Kitty, this is a bit much.”

“Father, you remembered my name!”

“Did I?” The king looked around
innocently and whispered, “Don’t tell your brothers and sisters, for
goodness sake. One cannot be required to remember every name all the time.”
He winked and his daughter put her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

“Do you like my dress?”

“Pretty as a picture. I shall have the
court portrait painter come to paint a picture of just you, my dear.”

Lucretia smiled softly at the interaction
between father and daughter and absentmindedly fed Leibniz as much sugar as he
could take without a recurrence of what had happed back in the kitchen at
Slough.

“Majesty?” Freddie cleared his
throat nervously.

“Yes, Mr. H?”

“Majesty, you have not once enquired
about the telescope.”

“I assume it is progressing nicely.”

Freddie nodded, dumbfounded.

“Capital,” replied the king. “But
now, if I could have your attention, my lords and ladies.” He cleared his
throat and pushed back his chair, standing before them all. “Ms. H, on
behalf of myself, I would personally like to apologise for everything that has
befallen you since you came to stay as my guest.”

“Majesty,” started Lucretia.

“Please, my dear, let me continue. You
have shown bravery again and again, and you are to be applauded for the
sentence that was set for your attackers. Not every man or woman would be able
to let them away with their lives.”

Lucretia blushed under the scrutiny of the
room, and Al held her hand, squeezing it proudly.

“Now, do you accept my apology?”

“I do, Your Majesty, I do.”

“Marvellous! Now, before the feasting
continues, I have a few things to say. Firstly, Mr. H, could you stand? Which
one? Oh, silly me, bad with names, what what.” He winked at his daughter. “Freddie.
That is so. Mr. H, it is with great pride that I award you the title of court
astronomer.” Freddie beamed as the king leant over and pinned a medal to
his chest.

“The other Mr. H, if I may?”

Al stood, uncertainly.

“No need to look scared, not after I
saw your mettle on the fencing floor! To you, sir, I would like to award the
title of Official Cog of the Clockwork Court. And I should like you to come,
all of you, to court whenever you like. My castle is your castle.”

Al sat, beaming.

“Now, lemur? Leibniz?”

The lemur jumped onto the table top and
looked at the king quizzically.

“You, my brave soldier, shall be
awarded as many exotic fruits, sugars, and spices as you can eat for the duration
of the rest of your life, direct from the castle stores.”

“Oh, Your Majesty, thank you!”
Lucretia took Leibniz from the table and hugged him.

“Not so fast, Ms. H. It is your turn.”

Lucretia stood and the king walked to her
and kissed her hand, looking into her eyes.

“You are quite the bravest person I
have ever met, and the most clever. For you I have some gifts, but only if you
stay on as your brother’s assistant, teach my children Astronomy, and write to
me often, are we agreed? Good.

“Ms. H, I should like you to have a
yearly wage for all of your efforts, my darling queen remarked that women work
just as hard as men, and I quite agree with her.”

Lucretia curtsied the queen, who bowed her
head and smiled.

“Now,” continued the king. “You
have admirers, Ms. H. So I have learned over the space and time of the last few
days. First, I should like Wodehouse to come and live with you. Will you take
him as yours?”

“I will, Your Majesty,” replied
Lucretia, delighted. “But he is not mine, nor anyone else’s. He shall come
and go as he pleases.”

“Well, here he is, Ms. H, and should
he wish it he will follow you to the ends of the earth.”

Wodehouse walked to the table and stood
behind Lucretia, looking like he would never leave her side.

“There is another person, not here
this evening, who has made clear his feelings to me. He is currently at work
with the
Zwerge
on the Forty-Foot. Ms. H, would it please you if I put
Rammstein nearer to work so he had to travel much less and could see you more?”

Lucretia coloured and nodded.

The king laughed. “So it is then, he
shall never be parted from you for long. Finally Ms. H, though you must come to
me should you ever need anything, the cat who stayed with you during your time
in the prison has taken a certain, shall we say, liking to Empress. We have
determined that he is a boy, and I have been told by my physicians that there
may be kittens sometime later this year. I would like you to have a royal
kitten as your own.

“Most importantly, my dear, we talked
of our love of birds, did we not? I can never replace your friend, Orion. But I
am going to set up an owl sanctuary in his name, and the first owlet that is
born shall be yours.”

Lucretia couldn’t say a word, but stood
mute as those around her applauded.

*

“Oh, my, it feels so good to be here.”
Lucretia stood in the middle of the street. If it could be called a street. She
turned slowly and took in what she had already seen. A wonky wooden sign,
proclaiming ‘Slough!’ in badly chiselled letters. A dusty road. Trees. The Inn.
The Shoppe.

“Oh, Freddie,” she whispered.

“Come now, Lucretia. We will be home
soon, but there are some people that are very eager to see you,” he
replied.

They were interrupted by a small woman
entirely in white waddling their way. Even her hair, tucked into a prim,
ruffled cap was white.

“Well met, and welcome back to Slough!”
She beamed. “Jim! We have company!”

“Ms. H, it is so good to see you.”
Mrs. V enveloped Lucretia in a bear hug. “I have been up all night baking
so I have, and you have to come for tea and cake. No other brother with you?”

“He has gone ahead, Mrs. V, and it is
lovely to see you too, although I am not sure that Freddie is up for cake. Are
you Fred?”

Freddie felt around for his chipped tooth,
testament to the last time he had tried some of Mrs. V’s baking and chuckled. “A
cup of tea would hit the spot right about now, Mrs. V. Very kind of you.”

“Ah, here’s Jim now, and Mr. Trotters
with him.”

“Are he and Miss Porky no longer an
item, Mrs. V?”

“That’s very much still on, Ms. H, but
he followed my Jim home the other day. Perhaps there was an argument, who can
say?” She linked arms with Lucretia and led her into her kitchen where the
table was laid for tea.

“Pleasure to see you, Ms. H,”
mumbled the long-suffering Jim. “Pleasure indeed. No lemur today?”

“He has gone on to the house with Al,
Mr. V, to see to. To see to…”

“I understand, m’dear.” The kind
old man took her hand and patted it. “Those of us with creatures of our
own, mechanical or flesh, understand how it is. Ah, now I did not mean to bring
tears to your pretty eyes. Let us sit here a while before you have to leave us.
To friends, here with us, and those that are sadly not.” Jim lifted his
cup in toast.

*

Lucretia and Freddie left with well wishes
ringing in their ears, and Lucretia feeling that Mrs. V must have cracked a rib
she had hugged her so hard.

“Well, her baking has improved. I
still have all my teeth. Oh, sorry, Lucretia.”

“Freddie, honestly, people are going
to have to stop treading on eggshells around me.” She spurred her horse
on, relishing the feeling of the wind through her hair, desperate to get back
to see if Orion would be waiting for her or not.

Lucretia dismounted in the courtyard,
having passed the Forty-Foot standing resplendent in its wooden frame.

She ran to Al’s workshop and threw open the
door.

“Mr. D, how good it is to see you.”

“And you my dear, some of my Vivacity
Potion will soon bring the roses to your cheeks.”

“You and your roses, Mr. D! But tell
me, please, put me out of my misery. For I can tell you truly, I am absolutely
miserable.”

“Lucretia, my dear, come and sit.”

“Well?”

Al and Freddie came to stand behind her,
providing a protective backdrop. It would be some time before the brothers left
her to her own devices again.

“Lucretia,” Mr. D coughed to
clear his throat. “I am so sorry, darling girl. By the time Orion got to
us, he had been gone too long for me to re-animate his essence. We all tried. The,
uh, corpse–I am sorry, but there is no better word–the corpse must be fresh for
Vitalism to work, with the person only just deceased. Otherwise there is no way
of jump-starting the heart into feeding the brain and so on again.”

Lucretia kept her head down, so miserable
that she couldn’t even cry.

“I am so sorry, Lucretia. I tried. You
know that I would do anything for you, don’t you?”

“Lucretia,” Freddie called softly.
“The rest of our family is here, the O’s, they would like to greet you,
too. And Mrs. P with Miss Porky. And the
Zwerge
. And Rammstein, they all
want to see you, come away now, sweetheart.”

She let herself be led; numb, devoid of
feeling. She had never let herself think that Orion was gone, and now that he
truly was, she was utterly bereft.

She suffered the perfumed embrace of Mrs. P
and the snufflings of Miss Porky, who presented her with a rather chewed up
truffle. The warm hugs of Mrs. O, the Younger and Mr. O. The solemn handshakes
of the
Zwerge
.

And then Rammstein. She looked up into his
concerned face and it was too much. Lucretia ran until she felt her heart would
break in two and sank under a large tree. She didn’t know what the wailing noise
was until she suddenly realised that it was herself and shocked, she stopped and
wiped her nose.

“Lucretia.”

“Rammstein.”

“It is good to see you,
liebling
.”

He was on his knees in front of her.

“And you.”

“I have missed you.”

“And I have missed you.”

He shuffled over and sat beside her. “Ah,
they have taken your spark. You are not yourself. You speak differently. Where
has your joy and your quick tongue gone? I miss you still. Those people, pure
evil. And if I should ever come across them, they shall rue the day they were
born.” His heart broke at the sight of her, so unsure, so very miserable.
He felt fury and contempt for her attackers, and clenched his fists.

“Don’t.”

“Come here,
liebling
, come
here. You are home now.” He held her close. She trembled in his arms, and
he stroked her hair, talking to her softly, calming her. If he could have taken
out his heart and given it to her for strength and happiness he would. It was
hers anyway. He kept her close as her breathing settled and her shivering
subsided.

Hand in hand, they walked back to the house,
Lucretia sniffling now and again.

“I must look a state,” she
remarked, weakly, wearily.

“You are beautiful.” Rammstein
kissed her hand. “But look, Lucretia, see how hard they have worked.”

He let go of her hand and gently pushed her
further into the courtyard.

“What am I meant to be looking for,
Rammstein?” The shadows had deepened as they had sat and talked under the
tree and she squinted, waiting for her monoscope to be fixed.

She heard metallic steps on the cobbles.

“Oh!”

*

“He seems to recognise me! How could
that be? Oh, my goodness me, how lovely you all are to me, after I have been
such a brat! I can’t believe it!”

Lucretia’s friends beamed delightedly and
shared a thankful glance.

Al knelt in front of her. “Lucretia, I
was pretty sure that nothing would bring Orion back as soon as Wodehouse and
Leibniz came with him. And the fortuitous timing of the arrival of Mr. D
confirmed that. However, as Wodehouse is animated, so the brand new Orion is
animated. He is an exact replica of himself, and even winds his own clockwork
mechanism every time he beats his wings. He has optics not unlike what are used
in your monoscope, and if you open his chest plate, you will see that we saved
his feathers, which give him his sense of self, potted as they are with the
plant.”