'Our cannon's range will stretch a little further than that, dear mammal,' said Coppertracks.
The commodore looked at the box the steamman's drones were bearing. 'More messages from King Steam?'
'Not this time,' said Coppertracks. 'I spent the morning visiting our old friend at Saint Vine's college.' He waved at his drones and they pulled out a series of tomes, laying the books out on a garden bench in the shadow of Tock House's courtyard. 'The college's library is always my first source for mining the depths of historic esoterica.'
Purity was quick to move over to the bench. 'You found something to help me?'
'I promised that I would,' said Coppertracks. 'Your description of your madness, your visions, led me to a very specific period of Jackelian ancient history: the long dark ages following the fall of the Camlantean civilization. The pre-Circlean age, when the Council of Druids and the Stag Lords still ruled Jackals. The legends say that a warrior queen united the tribes and that her royal bloodline held sway until the age of ice, blood that was later to re-emerge as the lineage of the first kings. Your ancestors!'
Purity looked at the drawing inked on ancient vellum, an angular illustration of an armoured woman riding a chariot pulled by lions, her hair wild and spread by the wind. The face! The face was the same as that of the woman whose body she had shared on the ancient beach of shale.
'Elizica!'
'Elizica of the Jackeni,' said Coppertracks. 'There is not much beyond myth that we know of that period of history. What the glaciers of the coldtime didn't erase, you fastbloods did when you burned your books to keep warm, and the majority of tomes that survived the age of ice were later tossed on the fire by the Circlist church for containing too many religious references for your atheist faith's tastes. These manuscripts are copies of copies, the originals made at some personal risk by a heretic monk and buried in a cathedral meditatory.'
'The woman in my dreams really existed then,' said Purity. 'I'm not going mad!'
'Hardly,' said Coppertracks. 'The Steamo Loas are my race's ancestors and it is considered a great blessing to be ridden by the Loas, to be touched by our gods. The steammen's great pattern is not so different from the one sea of consciousness your Circleans put their faith in.'
'What do these books say about her?'
'That she was a great queen who defended Jackals from an invasion by one of the underwater races. The geographic record King Steam's scholars have compiled indicates the Fire Sea was expanding at that time, so there may well have been mass migrations by the underwater kingdoms during Elizica's age; the Kingdom of Jackals with its long coastlines would have been a tempting target for any fleeing refugees.'
Purity traced a curious finger over the raised ink of the bound volume's leather pages. It was warm to the touch, as if the monk who had illuminated the original had leaked his spirit into the illustrations. 'It's beautiful.'
'Myth always is.' Coppertracks opened one of the accompanying volumes – notes by a modern Jackelian academic. 'I dare say the reality was more prosaic. She is linked to the legends of the Bandits of the Marsh, two hundred warriors who were outlaws, fey-born and sworn enemies of the Stag Lords. This volume speculates that Elizica led the Bandits of the Marsh against the underwater invaders, and then overthrew the corrupt Stag Lords who had been making treaties with the occupiers, clearing the way for your Circlist faith to replace the druids' many gods. Monarchy and Circlism, the precursors to Jackals as we know it today – strong enough to survive even the long age of ice that was to follow.'
'A long-dead queen, now,' said Commodore Black. 'What good will she be in this fight that is coming?'
'If the Army of Shadows is composed of the slats that attacked Tock House, the help of any Loa that comes to our aid will, I suspect, be deeply welcome,' said Coppertracks. 'You were with me outside King Steam's command tent when we saw the lions running through the sky.'
'What we saw that day was a projection,' protested the commodore. 'A trick of the mind from the fey.'
'You should have more faith in the power of your land, my softbody friend,' said Coppertracks. 'Whose lions were they, running through the sky? You know the answer – when the kingdom is threatened, it is said the first kings will return from the hills where they sleep, led by a great warrior – a sword-saint. Those lions in the sky gave heart to your army when it seemed as if all was lost. The kingdom was threatened then and it is threatened now.' Coppertracks laid an iron hand on Purity's shoulder. 'And lo, our new house guest hears the whisper of an ancient queen, her life now protected by the Hood-o'the-marsh, the marsh, mind, while something terrible comes upon us from the north.'
The commodore sadly met Purity's gaze. 'That is the way of it, then, lass. I would shoulder this burden of yours if I could. You already on the run from the scoundrels and dogs of parliament. Now you have to hear the whisper of some long-dead queen, too.'
'I don't mind,' said Purity. 'I really don't. All my life I've been treated like an outcast for the fits I suffered – but they helped me escape the Royal Breeding House and now I know them for what they are. Not a madness, but a gift. It's as if I've been suffocating all my life and now I can breathe again.' Tears welled in Purity's eyes. 'I think this is what happiness feels like.'
'You've a forgiving heart,' said the commodore. 'And you shame an old u-boat man with it.' He looked down at her bare feet. 'And it pains me to see you without some fine cow leather to wrap around your toes. If you will not take one of Molly's spares, will you at least let me buy you a new pair of shoes?'
Purity shook her head and picked up one of the books Coppertracks had brought back from the college. 'I need to feel the land beneath my feet. But shoes or no, I don't think I'm a sword-saint, however quickly I may have taken to your sabre practice. Can I take these books to my room and read them up there?'
'Of course you may, young softbody,' said Coppertracks, his drones collecting the remaining volumes for her as he spoke. 'But you must follow the house rules I explained when I showed you Tock House's library.'
'I remember – no food or drink, no book-marking by folding the pages, no breaking the spines…'
'Quite correct. Books are a little like the Loas. They allow our ancestors to reach out from the past and touch our boiler-hearts with the wisdom of ages long forgotten; although with books, of course, you decide when to ride them, rather than the Loas calling upon you.'
Commodore Black looked at Purity. 'You've practised enough with sabres today, lass. But make sure you read the books in your room and not the library, now. That mad old shiftie is working in there and the further away you stay from him, the better I shall like it.'
Purity left with Coppertracks' drones carrying the tomes for her, their master thoughtfully rocking back and forth above his caterpillar tracks.
'You are wrong about Timlar Preston,' Coppertracks said to the commodore. 'He is a gentle man.'
'And the more dangerous for it. Many a smithy of pistols and blades can say the same… but you put the fruits of their labour in the hands of wicked men like me and the result is dead bodies on the duelling fields and fatherless children left crying after a battle.'
'Yes,' said Coppertracks, 'fatherless children. When will you tell her?'
'Tell who what?'
'Please, Jared softbody. I am a steamman slipthinker. I see patterns, the little patterns that make up the great pattern. While many of my less travelled brothers back in the Steammen Free State might say that all softbodies look the same to them, I have lived long enough alongside your people not to count among their number.'
Commodore Black seemed to slump and grow smaller at his friend's words. 'You're a canny one, old steamer. There's no denying that.'
'The geometry of Purity's facial patterns matched against yours was enough to pique my curiosity. It was an easy enough trick to use my vision plate to capture a magnified image of her eyes and compare the inheritance vectors against your own. I do not know how it has come to pass, but there's a ninety-four per cent level of probability that Purity Drake is your daughter.'
'It feels like another age,' sighed the commodore. 'When I was younger and still welcomed adventure. What the news sheets called the Prince Silvar affair.'
'The prince was substituted for a double,' said Coppertracks. 'Broken out of captivity from the Royal Breeding House. But I thought that was perpetrated by agents of Quatershift?'
'So it was meant to look, that fine day,' said the commodore, wistfully. 'It was before the fall of Porto Principe, when the royalist court in exile still had a taste for mischief and I wore the face, name and title of
