Elizabeth kept her emotions hidden as she walked up Churchgate from the omnibus stop, heading into the Leicester Backs. Tears would have looked wrong on the face of a man. Edging down the narrow walkway between grimy walls, her eyes began to prickle. But it was only as she stepped into the room above the ale house and bolted the door behind her that they welled up.
When she turned to face John Farthing he was already looking away, following the custom that had grown up between them.
She dried her face as she wiped away the makeup, but it wouldn’t do. In the time it took her to cast off the male guise, her cheeks had become rivers again. Instead of dressing as a woman, she threw down the last intimate garments and stood naked.
Perhaps he’d heard the catch of her breath, because he was already turning as she launched herself towards him. Trusting the strength of his arms, she let herself drop.
He held her. “Elizabeth? My darling. What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t answer, but pressed her mouth to his. And then, though she hadn’t thought to do it, she unbuckled his belt and reached for him. He returned the kiss, uncertainly at first, as if startled, but with more pressure as her tongue touched his. His fingers inched down the lines of muscle in her back, as if questioning.
She whispered: “Yes.”
Beyond that there was no more uncertainty. Her abandon had set the same fire in him. For a time she disappeared, and so did her sorrow.
It would usually have been him who broke the moment. But this day would be different. He lay holding her, contented for once, his face pressed into her hair. His breath came slow and even. She focussed on the angle of her hip as it pressed on the hard floor, the coldness of the autumn air, a sulphurous tang of coal smoke from somewhere outside. She dug her thumbnail into the soft skin of her upper arm, focussing on the physical pain. But no discomfort would be enough.
When his sleep had deepened, she lifted his arm from across her shoulder and rolled free. Clothes were scattered. They’d crashed about on the table and a chair before grabbing the rug from the carpet bag and taking their place on the floor.
She slipped the chemise over her skin and was gathering the rest of her clothes when he spoke.
“What’s wrong, Elizabeth?”
“Julia is dead.”
She was surprised to hear her own words come out so flat and factual. She watched their meaning take hold of him; his puzzled expression, then shock, then concern. He scrambled to his feet and held her. This time she didn’t relax into him.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“I found out today. Her father sent a messenger.”
She felt his hand caressing the back of her head. “What happened?”
“It was three weeks ago.”
“In America?”
“On the journey. There was some kind of accident. She was flying on an airship, the American Frontier, and…”
She felt the tensing of his stomach, the hesitation, then the speeding up of his hand as it stroked her hair. And then the too deliberate relaxing as he tried to cover the tell. She prised herself free from his embrace. He gave her an expression of sympathy, but she knew him well enough to see through it.
“Tell me what you know!” she said.
“The airship went down.”
“What else do you know about it?”
“Only what was in the newspapers. Elizabeth, what are you…”
“It wasn’t in the papers!” she snapped, not letting him finish. “I went to the library and searched. All they printed were obituaries for the dead. It was all vague – as if no one wanted to report it straight. And no article about the accident itself.”
Farthing looked to the floorboards. “Then I must have heard people talking.”
“Agents of the Patent Office?”
“Elizabeth, I can’t always be open about what I hear. There are secrets I’m bound to keep.”
“John Farthing! We’re talking about Julia. My dearest friend in the world. If you know something about her death, you will tell me now!”
He turned his face away, as if by the force of a slap. “I’m bound by oath of office… to not speak of certain things.”
“What about celibacy?” She knew the damage her words were doing, but couldn’t stop. “Wasn’t that an oath as well?”
He reached behind him for the support of a chair, then slumped down onto it. She held her breath. He lowered his face.
When he spoke, his voice was muffled by his hands. “There’s a case open that involves the downing of the American Frontier. There’ll be a file but I haven’t seen it. I didn’t know Julia was a passenger. I’m so sorry.”
“How did she die?”
“I just don’t know.”
“But could you find out?”
He sat there, naked, still not meeting her eyes. “It’s a different department.”
“Get me the file,” she said.
“I’m not supposed to have access.”
“Bring it to me. I need to see it. Steal it if you must!”
Elizabeth took her time walking to the Swain household, a place of rose bushes, bay windows and neat brickwork on the hill overlooking the canal. She’d been dreading her first meeting with Julia’s grieving parents.
Mr Swain welcomed her in the tiled hallway. He said a few words, which she couldn’t afterwards remember. The sense of them was that he was sorry for any loss that she herself might have suffered in the tragedy. Then he took himself away to his workshop, his back held perfectly upright, his each step brittle. The maid showed her through to the drawing room, where Mrs Swain sat venting grief, as if tears were a medicine that might cure the world of pain.
Afterwards, not ready to return home, Elizabeth found a place next to the canal, away from the bustle of the wharf. There she sat, staring at the dancing reflections of trees on the far bank. A group of townsfolk came cycling along the towpath, laughing at some joke they’d shared. They didn’t seem to notice her. As they passed, she felt the urge to call out to them, to tell them that Julia had died. The most true, honest, bright and joy-filled woman that they might ever have met was now gone. They would never have the chance to know her. But she held her tongue and she held her tears and then they were gone.
A rustling in the grass made her turn. It was Tinker, barefoot again; the boy could never keep a pair of shoes for long. He sat next to her, chin resting on knees. She’d been hiding her sorrow from him. He was just a scrap of a boy, after all. He’d been through enough of his own suffering before latching onto her as a surrogate parent. He had no business sharing the darkness that lay in her mind and heart.
“What shall we make for dinner?” she asked, food being his chief concern.
Instead of answering, he leaned over, laying his head in her lap. He took her hand and made it stroke his hair, until she would do it with her own strength, whereon he let go and she began to cry. He’d always had a way of seeing to the truth of her.
The days passed slowly after that. There was no body, so there could be no grave nor a funeral in the ordinary sense. The congregation of the Secular Hall had donated money for a memorial plaque. A meeting was scheduled to celebrate Julia’s short life. Mr and Mrs Swain, each in their own way, threw themselves into organising. Having something practical to do seemed to bring them together. But whenever Elizabeth saw them, she felt the burden of the things she couldn’t say. They might busy themselves with caterers and invitations. But there was more to be known, beyond the simple fact of the tragedy. And secrets had always been Elizabeth’s domain.
And then, ten days into the turmoil of unresolved loss, a messenger arrived with a card written in John Farthing’s hand: I have it. Come now.
It was evening by the time she reached the Leicester Backs but the sun had yet to dip below the roofscape. Two crows sat on the ridge tiles of the latrine roof. They watched as Elizabeth climbed the steps to the room above the ale house. She had never before come so early to the rendezvous. Inside, the south-facing wall radiated heat into the room. The windows were all sealed shut with old paint.
“Did you bring it?” she asked.
John Farthing wouldn’t say anything until the door had been closed and bolted.
She’d expected the report on the downing of the airship American Frontier to be properly bound; a leather volume perhaps. But three box files lay open on the card table. Two of them were full of papers, the third half full. She flicked through one of the piles. Most were loose sheets but some had been pinned together. She sat, still dressed as a man, and tried to force her jittery focus onto the documents. At first he paced behind her, the floorboards creaking under his feet. Then he took one of the chairs and dragged it back to the corner near the door and sat.
She pulled out a sheet on which background data had been laid out. Twenty airships shuttled the North Atlantic every week, it said; more than that near the end of the financial year. Their main cargos were businessmen and information. It was the safest method of travel, and by far the quickest.
Accidents had been common in the early years of the twentieth century. But the technology of flight had developed, within limits set by the International Patent Office. Attention to detail had improved; the checking and rechecking of engines, the training of pilots and the precautionary principle in weather forecasting. In the final decade of the century no airships had been lost.
The raw data had been tabulated in fine copperplate on the following pages. Elizabeth brought her head closer to the table. It was written in brown ink, the lines closely spaced, which made for difficult reading. She placed the sheets side by side on the table, trying not to think about her lover just behind her. His chair creaked as he shifted.
Faithful to his promise, he’d borrowed the report from the Patent Office filing room. Stolen would have been the better word, but the plan was to get it back in place before anyone noticed it was missing. She knew it was distressing him. The betrayal of the vow sat like a heavy chain across his shoulders. Thinking of his pain began to overwhelm her, so she wrenched her mind back to her own raw wound, the death of Julia Swain, her dearest friend.
The chart on the table showed columns for the nationalities of airship, weather conditions at the time of loss, the manufacturers and model numbers of the engines, a demographic breakdown of casualties and more. Decades had been scored out as rows. At first she could make no sense of it. It appeared to show a single loss in the 1980s, no losses in the 1990s and three losses in the 2000s. But there were seven losses listed at the bottom of the chart that she could at first make no sense of. Then she realized that all seven had come in the two years since 2010. The American Frontier was the last of them.
Name:AS American Frontier
Date:12th/13th April 2012
Weather: Assumed fair
Visibility: Assumed good
Altitude:8,000 feet
Passengers: 40
Crew:8
Airship status: Total loss
Witnesses: None
Cause of loss: Unknown
Survivors: Nil
Farthing’s voice broke her concentration. “If you plan to read every line, we’ll still be here tomorrow,” he said.
“You stole it for me. Shouldn’t I read it?”
She knew her words would be poison to him, but couldn’t stop them.
“It’s not like a book,” he said. “You don’t work through it from page one. And even if you did, you wouldn’t understand.”
“But you do?”
“I do now. I’ve had to piece the clues together. These things aren’t widely known, even among agents.”
“Tell me what happened to my friend!”
“Her airship came down.”
A fist of pain tightened around Elizabeth’s chest. It had been holding her since the news came of Julia’s death. For an hour she might forget. But it was always ready to renew its grip should she be reminded of her loss.
Farthing, sitting behind, wouldn’t be able to see her anguish.
“The American Frontier disaster isn’t the only subject of this report,” he said. “Not precisely. It’s about the Gas-Lit Empire and what will happen to it. The Patent Office isn’t just agents and law courts. There are people you don’t see: future-casters, who tell the judges which technology should be allowed and which forbidden. These papers come from their department.”
She turned to face him. “Why are you telling me this? I need to know what happened to Julia!”
“This is the only way I can explain it,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
He should have said something arrogant. Elizabeth wanted to lash out and he was denying her. John Farthing just sat looking at his hands, which lay interlocked in his lap. She took a breath, trying to calm herself.
“Then what do future-casters do? Do they predict the future?”
“No one can do that. Their job is to identify moments of uncertainty.”
“Everything’s uncertain.”
“No. The future can’t be predicted. But that’s not true for uncertainty itself. Think of this: there’s a high chance of the government in Carlisle being the same tomorrow as it is today. One of the guardians might die, though it’s unlikely. We could predict the chance of that happening in any given day, but not the outcome if it did. There’d be an election. It might even change the balance of the government. But these changes aren’t usually important. They modify the detail. But the system is the same. In twenty years time, who would even remember?
“When the Gas-Lit Empire was first formed, the world was all chaos. But as more nations joined, peace and stability spread. We came to the Long Quiet. It’s then that the science of future-casting began. The future-casters never tried to say what would happen tomorrow. It’s been their task to chart scenarios in which degrees of certainty about the future fall away to nothing.”
“Chart?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“They’re making a map?”
“Of a kind, yes. They’re making a map of future situations where the equilibrium of the world could flip. Moments beyond which we can’t see. It’s called the Map of Unknown Things.”
When he’d started, his words had been laboured, as if each sentence had to break his vows afresh. But as the discourse developed, he’d spoken with more conviction. Now it was a flood. The dam of secrecy was being washed clear.
“Consider what might the world be like if we’d not done this.”
“Full of marvellous inventions,” she snapped, frustrated at not getting the information she needed.
“Full of war machines,” he said.
“Have you seen this map?”
“It isn’t something that can be drawn out on a sheet of paper. It’s vast, continually updated and maintained; an equation of mathematics, economics, history and psychology. It identifies scenarios of danger. These are given to the judges and agents. We use our influence to steer the world away from them, maintaining the Long Quiet.”
The tension of concentration had become almost unbearable. She’d asked for answers to a question that she didn’t understand. He was placing pieces of a completely different puzzle in front of her. She stood, knocking over her chair. He flinched as it crashed to the floorboards.
She started pacing. Five steps took her from the hot sunbaked wall to the north-facing one. She touched her forehead to the bricks, focussing on what little coolness they had to offer.
“Will you please tell me what this file means.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said. “If I could change anything, I would. But this file is about more than that. The downing of the American Frontier has pushed the world towards something that mustn’t be allowed to happen. At any cost.
“When the future-casters work through their predictions, there’s one scenario they keep coming back to – the most impenetrable future, where certainty falls away to nothing. That scenario is this – communications are cut between Europe and America. It’s the biggest unknown in the Map of Unknown Things. The most dangerous moment in history.”
“I thought the Patent Office had ended history!” Again, her words came out too sharp.
“Listen to me, Elizabeth! If the Gas-Lit Empire fell, the world would be plunged into a perpetual war.”
“You contradict yourself. You said you couldn’t predict the future!”
“We predict change. What can peace change to but war?”
“How can you know it would be perpetual?”
“Can you name a year before the coming of the Great Quiet when there wasn’t war in the world? We’ve protected you from that for almost two centuries. We’ve steered you away from the unknown things.”
“You? We?”
“You’re still not listening! Airships are going down over the Atlantic. We can’t intervene because it’s beyond our mandate to operate outside the Gas-Lit Empire. We’re impotent. And if air travel were to be cut, we’d be blind as well.”
“So what happened to Julia? What happened to these other airships?”
“They were shot down.”
“At eight thousand feet?”
“Some were flying even higher. It seems impossible. But, unregulated, technology is always turned to the science of destruction. Weapons are being developed out there beyond our power to stop them. We don’t understand what they are. But they threaten to cut Europe from America.
“The waters near the middle of the North Atlantic Gyre have for over a hundred years been home to renegade sailors. Pirates, you might call them. Away from the trade routes, they could exist, no trouble to the Gas-Lit Empire, constantly fighting each other. When news of them dried up some twenty years ago, we assumed they’d finally torn each other to pieces. Now it seems we were wrong. A single warlord has come to ascendency. A floating nation has been born. News dried up because all our informers had been neutralised.
“We’ve tried to place spies since then. All but one were killed.”
“How do you know they were killed?”
“From the one spy they didn’t find. We learned of the others from her report.”
It took a moment for the significance of the word to hit home. “Her?”
“Yes,” he said. “All the men we sent were killed. The floating nation is entirely female. They allow no men to live.”
At first, she couldn’t speak. The world he was describing was so different from anything she could have imagined that she found herself doubting him. She searched his face but found only sorrow.
“Their barbarism is no reflection on your sex, Elizabeth. The wilds make animals of all who live there. Men and women.”
“Then Julia might be alive?”
“She’d have had to survive the airship coming down.”
“Send me,” Elizabeth said. “You must send me as a spy!”
John Farthing shook his head. “You have no idea what chaos lives out there. It would mean your death. I cannot think of it!”
“But the woman you sent survived! Please, you must help me go there. Ask your masters in the Patent Office. I can be their spy.”
“Our spy sent just one message. Then she was gone as well. You cannot go. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”