Ancient Appetites

the restless engimals: clanking, clacking, whirring, ticking, whistling and any number of other faint sounds. Hugo and his sisters listened with interest. They must have seen enough engimals in their time, but Daisy knew there would have been nothing like the Wildenstern Zoological Gardens in their century.

But they could see very little without lighting each enclosure individually, so they walked on as Hugo had requested, to see the most magnificent first. As they strolled arm in arm, Hugo would rub Daisy's arm against his side and she could feel the hard links of the chain mail beneath his jacket. Sometimes he stroked her fingers. His touch made her skin crawl and she was glad that the diameter of her crinoline kept him a good two feet away. Every now and then he gave her a smile that she supposed was meant to be charming, but merely made him look like the depraved old man that he was.

As they moved along the path, they passed an enormous bronze birdcage. There was a faint white glow emitting from it. Elizabeth stopped to peer inside and even Daisy turned to look. She hadn't seen the leaf-lights in darkness for some time. Roberto had taken her here at night, during their first year of marriage, for one of his well-orchestrated romantic evenings.

Daisy wondered bitterly if he had ever taken Old Hennessy to the zoo.

There was a thick pane of glass between each intricately shaped bar of the cage, forming a solid dome.

'I saw creatures like these once,' Elizabeth whispered in a sensuous voice. 'On a campaign in France. Do you remember, Hugo? They flew past my tent one night when we camped in a forest.'

The leaf-lights lay on the floor of the cage. It appeared as if someone had taken a ream of paper – of sheets about six inches square – and cast them across the boards. But these sheets of paper glowed, and as the people approached the glass, the creatures floated up into the air and fluttered in a rustling cloud towards their visitors.

Elizabeth put her hand to the glass, but it was the servants holding the lanterns who interested the engimals. They drank light; during the day they basked in the sun and in the evening they took to the sky in wild and meaningless dances. They danced now, whirling in a dizzying display of agility. Elizabeth clapped her hands and Brunhilde pointed and laughed.

'We didn't come here to look for toys,' Hugo said after a few minutes.

'Yes,' Gideon replied, making a big hand gesture so that his rings caught the light. 'You wanted something magnificent. Come this way. I don't think you'll be disappointed.'

The most magnificent engimal was a behemoth even larger than Trom. It was an eight-wheeled juggernaut, brought all the way from North America, where it had roamed the endless plains of the midwest. Now it was held in an enclosure of little more than three acres; it would spend days and nights rolling around the perimeter one way and then the other, tirelessly searching for a way out. Its body was black, gold and purple, with a narrow sloping tail and a huge muscular torso shaped like a tightly clasped fist with two thumbs. It was scarred along its front and sides from territorial battles. But its fighting days were over. Now it stood listlessly at its water trough, sucking up water.

'This is Colossus,' Gideon announced proudly as they stopped at the railing to peer across the moat at the gloomy scene. 'It is the mightiest, most untameable monster this side of the world. You would have to go to Africa, or even Asia to find its match.'

'Indeed.' Hugo stared across the moat with a faint smile on his face.

There was a raised pier that ran out over the stonewalled moat, so that visitors could look down on the engimal from above. Hugo let go of Daisy's arm and ran up the steps and along the length of the walkway to the end. He stood there, his tall, upright figure silhouetted against the sky, the lanterns casting a faint light from below. The others followed him up more slowly, and Daisy felt a sense of foreboding come over her as she came up the last few steps and saw the new Patriarch leaning over the railing, a look of wonder on his face.

There was a knife in his right hand, and as they watched, he pressed the tip into his left palm. Blood welled forth, looking almost black in the dim light. Hugo held his wounded hand out over the railing and squeezed it into a fist. Daisy reached the rail and looked over in time to see a few drops of blood fall into the darkness below. She could just see the outline of the water trough below the brow of Colossus. Hugo was feeding the creature his blood. The engimal stopped drinking and sniffed. Steam drifted up from its nostrils. Then its eyes blazed with a blue light and it backed away from the trough, snorting warily.

'Untameable, you say?' Hugo asked Gideon.

'Irredeemably savage,' Gideon replied. 'We would all be dead were it not for this moat.'

Hugo jumped over the rail and dropped the twenty feet to the ground in front of the juggernaut, landing with the grace of an acrobat. It towered over him and he stared back at it, shielding his eyes against its light.

It could have crushed him like an insect, but instead it rocked back and forth like a shy child being introduced to a stranger. Hugo held up his bloodied hand, fingers splayed, and the juggernaut edged forward. The wound closed up, the edges knitting together, leaving only the bloodstain. With a timid movement, the machine the size of a house leaned forward and nudged his outstretched fingertips.

'My God!' Gideon exclaimed.

'My brother.' Elizabeth corrected him with a smile.

XXX

'SORRY FOR YOUR TROUBLES'

It was over two hours later when the party of four returned from the zoo. Daisy, already disturbed by what she had seen there, was shocked at the change in her husband. Roberto seemed to have aged and he looked ridiculously relieved to see her walk through the door. She felt a mix of feelings at his reaction. Even though she could not bring herself to forgive him for cheating on her, she still had hope that she could win him back. But that could all come later. First she needed him to be strong – to protect herself and their sister like a good husband should, instead of letting his emotions get the better of him.

They could not allow themselves to be intimidated. With a shudder, she thought about the macabre acts she had just witnessed at the zoo. They could not allow themselves to be seen to be intimidated, at least.

Berto was in an armchair by one of the tall windows, flanked by two of his treacherous cousins, both of whom held revolvers. The curtains were open and she knew he had been watching for their return. Tatiana was sitting on a stool beside him, holding his hand. She looked less bothered by their situation than by the effect it was having on her brother. He smiled like a puppy at Daisy, who stared back sternly at him, urging him to show a bit more backbone.

'Nathaniel has escaped,' one of the Gideonettes informed them as they walked in. 'He got his velocycle as far as the wall, but had to abandon it, so we know he's on foot. Slattery has gone after him. The bailiff knows his business – we should have our little outcast by daybreak.'

Hugo nodded, taking his seat behind the desk. Stroking his goatee, he stared with empty eyes at Roberto. He chewed the inside of his mouth, a pensive expression on his face.

'If he still intends to vanquish me and return to Wildenstern Hall, he won't seek help from outside the family,' he mused. 'We must discredit him, so there will be no help available to him. Spread word that it was he who shot that wretch of a blackamoor we killed at dinner. Say it was over some petty breach of etiquette or other. Make him into a murderer.

'We will not speak of Edgar's death and there will be no funeral yet. The body will be kept until a more convenient occasion arises. Instead, we will say that he has been struck down by the fever and is at death's door. Needless to say, he is highly infectious and is not receiving visitors.'

'And then what?' Daisy asked. 'What are you going to do with us?'

'Our two errant young boys will be kept alive only for as long as they are useful,' Hugo replied. 'And I don't anticipate that being very long at all. You and Tatiana will be spared… But you will spend the rest of your days within these walls. The family needs good breeding stock.'

'You can't do that,' Daisy said in a tight voice. 'The Rules don't allow for Aggression against women.'