Pandemonium. Good.
Conor moved against the tide towards the next balloon, reaching for the stout rope fastening it to a brass ring on the battlements. Across the sound Great Saltee was a riot of lights and music. Brass-band tunes thumped across the water, echoing on itself, arriving in waves. There were so many torches and lanterns that the entire island seemed to be ablaze.
His fingers grazed the rope and a second later felt it slacken as the balloon exploded.
Conor swore and quickened his pace. Only six balloons left. He barged through the assembly, caring nothing for angry looks. If any of these gentlemen wished to fight a duel over a rough shouldering, he would have to oblige them another time.
Shouts and protests followed him down the path. He was attracting attention but there was no helping it.
It was a race now. Conor versus the Saltee Sharpshooters. He could only hope that his own father was not holding a rifle as Declan Broekhart rarely missed.
The next balloon detonated, the concussion seeming to shake the very island.
Overloaded that one. Surely.
There were four balloons aloft now and a fifth anchored on the quay wall under a tarpaulin. The moving target. The flying balloons glowed bright like the moons of some distant planet. They bobbed in the wind, difficult shots.
Not difficult enough, two more exploded in quick succession. Conor could hear the applause from Great Saltee. A grand affair indeed.
He made a decision. No time to rein in the flying balloons, he must go for the earthbound. It would be watched by a guard, but that must be risked. It was his last chance in this night of botched plans.
His way was clear now, so Conor ran, butcher’s apron flapping around his legs, the smell of pig blood hot in his nostrils. A guard blocked his way, not intentionally; he was simply there on duty. Conor thought to barge him from the wall, but at the last second changed his mind and ran him into the battlements instead. A sore head was preferable to a crushed skull.
The wall was more or less deserted. High society can move at a pretty pace when their fine garments are under attack. All that stood between Conor and the last balloon was a courtesy rope and another guard who was actually sucking on a lit pipe.
A lit pipe beside a hydrogen balloon.
‘Hello!’ called Conor. ‘You there! Guard.’
The guard stood, eyes round with a natural doziness.
‘Sir. Yessir. What can I… Who do you be?’
Conor leaped the rope with no slowing of his pace. His boots clicked on the uneven cobbles as he hurried towards the guard. The quay wall ran a hundred yards into Saint George’s Channel, acting as a breakwater and a semaphore station.
‘You are smoking, man!’ shouted Conor, in a voice of authority. ‘There is hydrogen in that balloon.’
The guard paled, and then yelped as another balloon burst into multicoloured flames. The rope sagged slowly to earth like a beheaded snake.
‘I… I didn’t know…’ he stammered, tossing his pipe away as though it would bite him. ‘I never thought…’
Conor cuffed the man roughly, knocking off his hat.
‘Idiot. Buffoon. I smell a leak. And you have put sparks on the ground.’
More stammering from the guard, but not one protest that hydrogen was an odourless gas.
‘I must… I must… run away,’ he said, tossing his rifle aside, so that the bayonet raked the cobbles, throwing up more sparks.
‘Dolt,’ said Conor.
‘I didn’t even want the bayonet,’ whined the guard. ‘It’s ceremonial.’
‘We must cut the balloon loose,’ said Conor.
‘You do it. I will commend you for a medal.’
And with that the guard launched himself into space, legs running through the air until they found purchase on a group of rich gawkers in the keep below. The lot of them went down in a pile like skittles.
Conor was alone with the balloon for the moment, but already there were more astute guards mounting the steps, perhaps wondering why a butcher was handing out orders. Conor twisted the bayonet from the rifle, no time to struggle with knots now. He pulled back the greasy tarpaulin to find a glowing balloon encased in a fishing net and tethered to several lobster pots.
Conor held the balloon with his left hand, sawing at the ropes with his right, careful not to puncture the balloon itself.
‘Tom,’ called a voice to his rear. ‘What are you playing at, Tom? That’s the entire show’s climax, that is.’
‘She’s ruptured,’ shouted Conor. ‘And the fuse has caught a spark. I can hear it buzzing. Stand back.’
So, like prudent guards who were paid less than your average street hawker, they stood back for a few moments, but then nothing much happened except a butcher hacking at ropes.
‘Eh, Tom. There’s a two-second fuse on those yokes. You shouldn’t be much more than a smear of butcher-coloured mush on the walls by now.’
‘Oh my God,’ shouted Conor over his shoulder, seeking to spread alarm. ‘God help us all.’
Pike was one of the guards, and he was all too aware that Billtoe would lump him with responsibility for the balloon, and so forged past the others up the steps.
‘Stop what you’re doing, butcher,’ he called, in a voice quavering with fear and forced courage. ‘Cease or I will spill your innards on the stones.’ He hoped the word cease would lend him more authority than he possessed.
The last strand of the last rope pinged and the balloon lurched towards the heavens, almost yanking Conor’s left arm from his socket. He would have let go, had he not tangled the arm in the netting up to the elbow.
‘Help me,’ he shouted, knowing they could never reach him in time. ‘Save me, please.’
Pike thought about shooting the balloon down, but decided against it for two reasons. If his bullet did ignite the fireworks he could kill himself and the several daring minor European royals who had wanted a closer view of the spectacle. Death by whizz-bang was not a pleasant way to go. And even if he survived the fireworks, Billtoe would use his head for a boot polisher.
Better to take a shot and miss completely. He hoisted his rifle, taking careless aim.
‘You’ve had your warning, butcher!’ he yelled, pulling the trigger.
Unfortunately Pike was a terrible shot, and his deliberate miss took the heel from Conor’s boot.
‘Halfwit,’ shouted Conor, then a gust of easterly wind caught the balloon and snatched him away.
The guards watched him go, slack-jawed and befuddled. It was obvious what had happened, but how exactly? And why? Did the man steal the balloon or did the balloon make off with the man?
Pike was struck by the strange beauty of the scene.
‘Look at that,’ he sighed. ‘Just like the fairy wot caught hold of the moon.’
And then, on remembering Billtoe, ‘Stupid butcher.’
Great Saltee
The Saltee islanders were genuinely happy. Now that Good King Nick’s girl had taken her place on the throne, things could go back to the way they had been. Queen Isabella would set matters straight. She was a good girl, a kind girl – had she not demonstrated it a hundred times? Shipping supplies to the Irish poor. Sending the palace masons into town to work on village houses. That girl remembered the name of everyone she met, and would often visit the hospital to welcome new babies to the island.
It was true that Isabella had faded since her father’s assassination. Losing Conor Broekhart had compounded her pain. No father and no shoulder to cry on. But now her grieving was done and Captain Declan Broekhart was by her side, proud as punch, for the entire island to see.
This was a day for celebration, no doubt about it. The only one wearing a sour expression was that old goat Bonvilain, but he hadn’t smiled in public since Chancellor Bismarck tripped over the church steps on a state visit in the late seventies.
Isabella was queen now and Captain Broekhart was himself again. Soon there would be no more taxes, and no more innocents hauled off to Little Saltee on trumped-up charges. No more mercenaries landing on the docks with their rattling haversacks and cruel eyes.