I stayed awake for the rest of the night, shaking and furious and watching the door and wanting him to come through, because it would have felt better to do something, even if that something was stabbing a man in the neck. I suppose you find it shocking that a woman could be that violent. We are violent creatures, but ours is a rage much more accustomed to suppression than the flabby undisciplined version found in men.
At Herault’s next noon session, Charles had top marks again, and there were more points of interest on the observatory timeline. The rest of us were still on bread and water. A week, that’s all it really took; a week, and I think the rest of us all felt like there was no getting away, and no useful course of action. While Charles huddled into his coat, we all glanced at each other. The other four already looked worn out and strained.
‘But,’ Herault said in his maddeningly cheery way, ‘I thought you might all like some time together. We’ve brought you some coffee.’
I could see what he was doing just as clearly as you do. After a week of bread and water, coffee was a phenomenal luxury. The five of us swung round like bloodhounds. It was bestial. Most of what made our thinking human and logical had eroded away already.
It felt very good to sit down in among the observatory’s pretty couches (upholstered in fleur-de-lis embroidered tapestry in lapis blue no less) and drink the coffee. Herault and the soldiers had theirs at the next table. We were too aware of them, and silent at first, but they ignored us, laughing about something to do with someone’s brother and a pet monkey, and after a while, that invisible wall between tables at teahouses solidified. At last, Frank, the first mate, said,
‘You’re a prick, Stevenson.’
‘I didn’t write very much, I swear,’ Charles said. He was red. ‘I just …’
‘Couldn’t help yourself? Madeline must know as much as you but she’s kept her fucking mouth shut, pardon my French, ma’am.’
‘I think your French is excellent,’ I said into the coffee, and like I’d hoped, a sort of wan laugh went through us all.
William, who had been silent until then, set his cup down on the saucer with a clink. He was Charles’s assistant, but he was the same age, and probably cleverer, just less fortunately born. For the whole week we’d been on the Kingdom, I’d felt awkward around him. I wanted to sympathise about the patronising way Charles spoke to him, and I wanted to say everyone could see he was brilliant, but coming from me, in my ridiculous Belgravia voice, it would have sounded just as bad as it did from Charles. Sometimes I feel as though the voice of the English upper class has been specifically tailored to sound as though it is addressing a favourite dog, even when it’s aimed at people.
I’m not surprised the French killed all their aristocracy, to be honest.
‘Look, I think we all need to talk about what we do now,’ William said quietly. ‘If we carry on with bread and water, we’ll go insane or collapse before long. I think every week, we need to elect someone who’s going to tell him something useful. Then someone eats properly, and this stupid competition thing he’s trying to set up won’t work, because we will have decided, ourselves.’
Nobody argued. There was just a silence.
‘Well,’ Frank said finally. ‘Stevenson’s had his turn.’
We all laughed again, even Charles, who looked relieved we were joking about it and not throttling him.
‘I think we need to let Madeline go next,’ William murmured. ‘She didn’t exactly start out fat and she’s less of a way to go before she starves.’
I don’t often behave as I’d like, but I think I did then. I wasn’t relieved, just offended, and I tried to argue.
‘All respect, but do be quiet,’ he said gently. He was rubbing the scar over his eye. It was still vivid, a nasty right angle from where some piece of debris had smacked him aboard the Kingdom. ‘What does everyone apart from Madeline think?’
‘Who put you in charge?’ Charles said crossly.
‘Shut up,’ I said. My voice is good for some things.
Charles shut up.
Frank glowed. I smiled back and had a vision of that night on the Kingdom, when the poker match had boiled down to just the two of us and he’d shaken my hand when I won, like he’d enjoyed being beaten.
‘Everyone for,’ William murmured, with a sidelong glance at Herault and the soldiers.
He, Frank, and Sean, the engine stoker who never said anything about anything, all hinged their fingertips up to vote yes. Eventually, Charles did too.
I said something unladylike.
‘We need to decide what you’re going to tell him,’ William said, once they had all stopped laughing. ‘Just – I think now we can agree it can be anything except major battles of the Napoleonic Wars. Mr Stevenson?’
Charles hesitated, then nodded. ‘What about the railway system? It isn’t going to do our time a massive amount of damage if the French come up with the Métro a bit early. Maybe they’ll be able to move goods faster, but if they invent this stuff then so will our side. Steam engines already exist now, in mines.’
‘I don’t know,’ Frank said. He had a habit of rubbing his jaw when he was worried, and because he hadn’t shaved this week, the rough skin on his fingertips made a sandpaper sound. I like him a lot, but hunger grinds your nerves and the noise was so irritating
