Good to Wake’s word, The Pony Express was well on it’s way to get them to the other side of the country in just over a week. Four days into the journey they had now traversed half a continents length. It seemed hardly possible to them, despite that they had heard tales of the steam engines the Ottoman’s employed. Of course, all those stories had been what the Ottoman’s themselves had put, or allowed, out. Most of the public thought them to be fanciful puffery.

How little they knew.

Late in the afternoon of that, the fourth day, something of a disaster struck.

Fast becoming accustomed to the lifestyle, they were going about their daily routines, having found that rail travel was infinitely less disruptive as travel by sea or carriage. Having neither the same movement as those other forms, nor being as tightly confined in an enclosed space, Angelique was certain it would fast become the most popular means of travel.

And while, of course, locomotives could not travel over sea, the same engines that powered them could be employed to make seafaring travel all the faster.

Should they succeed, that is.

This particular train, though as told by Agent Wake, would be utilised for the express use of the President of the United States, after this, its maiden voyage.

Being told that they hurtled across the land in an as yet untested vehicle made constable Beechworth all the more nauseated, until he too had become acclimatised. It did not , however, diminish his fear of perishing in a calamitous and fiery crash.

He certainly was not encouraged when he was thrown forward at great speed as the great metal and wood earthbound leviathan came screeching to a halt.

Cursing and blasting, Beechworth emerged from his quarters in his undershirt, pant braces hanging by his sides, face half lathered.

“I could have cut my blasted throat!” he yelled as he entered the lounge car.

The others were picking both themselves and other items off the floor.

Hideyoshi muttered something to Angelique that made her laugh.

“What the devil is your brother saying about me now?” he demanded to know.

She’d long since made their relationship known.

“He says, you are like the old oxen we had in our village as children, loud and foaming.”

“Well, you tell your brother,” he held his hand up, razor glinting.

The young man stood, puffed up, and spoke in angry Japanese. He bore down on the constable, who held his hands up and attempted hasty apologies, the razor nestled between finger and thumb.

Angelique moved swiftly. Her hands fell on Hideyoshi’s chest as he continued to lambast the man.

She shouted at her brother, also adopting his mother tongue. “Why must you keep taunting him?” she said in mock anger. Her brother could hide his smile from the others, but not from her. His eyes shone with mirth.

“I’m bored. And it’s fun.” he answered as angrily as he could.

She shook her head and left him, moving back to the table where she was playing cards with the American before they had scattered.

“You know,” Wake said in a lazy drawl and a grin on his face as he scooped up cards and chips, “you didn’t have to cause a catastrophe just to cover up the fact you were losin’.”

She returned the smile. “Tell me, does your president always used marked cards?”

Wake’s smile became wry. “You noticed that, huh?”

“Next time,” she said consoling him, “don’t try to swindle an artiste.”

He cleared his throat, stood and dropped the mess on the table. “Shall we, uh, go and see what all the fuss is?”

She shrugged and offered her arm, which he took, patting her hand. As Wake leapt down from the carriages now open door, she grabbed a parasol in an umbrella holder by the door. Wake extended a set of steps, which she descended, and offered her hand for him to help her to the ground. Instead, he placed his hands on her hips and gently lowered her.

Pushing away, she slapped his hands playfully with the parasol, then opened it in his face before lofting it high. “Don’t you know it is improper to manhandle a lady in public?”

He stretched his hands out to the wilderness. “We aren’t in public. And I daresay, as this mode of transportation catches on, it will become the height of bad manners not to assist a lady down from a train.”

“Next time, Agent Wake,” she said with good humour as they walked along the car, “I suggest you keep your hands to yourself, unless you have permission.”

“Next time, ma’am?” He was certain her eyes darted to him with a sparkle. “In that case, I will ensure to say, ‘may I’.”

“See that you do.”

As they reached The Pony, they saw both Yardley and Süleyman on the tracks, trying to clear a rock fall.

“Apologies for the sudden stop,” Yardley said between grunts and huffs.

The Reis made no sound as he hefted a much larger stone and sent it rolling away.

Wake scanned the space between the front of the train and the heap. “Seems a might close.” He indicated a wedge shaped scoop at the nose. “Wouldn’t that have cleared the way?”

“Firstly, that is simply to ensure that cattle and other vermin do not get caught under the wheels and gum things up things,” Yardley informed, a look of disgust on his face.

“I’m glad that was not the case.” Angelique’s lower lip pouted. “Poor cows.”

Yardley regarded her as if she were speaking affectionately of nightmare creatures. “Quite. Secondly, it is only thanks to Suleyman’s keen eyes and spyglass that we avoided this at all. Had it not been for him, we may have derailed.”

“Is nothing,” the man shook his head, then grabbed Yardley by the arm and pulled him away as a rumbled vibrated the soles of their feet.

A shower of rock, debris and dust undid what small amount of work they had managed, and added to it significantly.

Angelique waved her hand in the air, squinting. “I’m going to go fetch the others to help.”

“You mean, you’re not goin’ to hike up your skirt and dig in?” Wake grinned. “More’s the pity.”

She ignored him and spun about, but smiled once her back was to him. “You would like that far too much, wouldn’t you?” She stopped short. Turning back, she walked to the men and, not stopping, climbed atop the pile.

“I was only pulling’ your leg,” Wake said. “This ain’t no job for a—“

“Firstly, if you continue that sentence I will show you just how deadly a parasol can be.” Saying so, she blocked the sun with the dainty thing, but raised her hand to her brow when the lace did nothing to halt the suns rays. She peered into the distance. “Is that a wagon train?”

Süleyman left the group to run back to the cabin and returned with an ornate spyglass. He held it up for Angelique.

She frowned at the man, but thanked him as she took it,. Extending it to its full length, she brought it to her eye and confirmed her suspicion.

“No, absolutely not!”

She lowered the thing and turned to see Yardley following Wake away from the rubble, the two of them in argument, Yardley the louder of the two. Hideyoshi walking passed them.

“Where are they going?” she said, annoyed.

Hideyoshi shrugged. “The American said something about a foal, and Yardley seemed agitated.”

Süleyman smirked as he went back to work, muttering something in Turkish. He caught Angelique glancing at him and tapped the site of his forehead. “He crazy.”

They didn’t have to wait long to see what Wake’s insanity was.

Beechworth and Hideyoji’s expressions said they were in complete agreeance with the ex-sea captain.

Wake came thundering toward them on a vehicle the likes of which she had never before seen. He lifted goggles from his eyes, and sat up straighter on the thing. “What do you think of The Foal?”

The thing had two steel spheres at the front and the rear covered with round, flat-headed metal spikes that resembled large thimbles. These were joined by a frame of steel laden with brass pipes, panels and wood. At the centre of the thing was a seat that was more saddle. At it’s rear and pointed at the ground, steam vented from four open pipes — two to a side.

“It looks like a velocipede,” Angelique exclaimed as she eyed the thing. “Though none like I have ever seen.”

“Indeed,” Yardley said, still annoyed at Wake and casting him sidelong daggers. “This is the aeolipede.”

“How does it work?” She was intrigued by the thing and looked it over minutely. “I see no external moving parts like The Pony. No fire to stoke or means of adding fuel.”

“This is all she needs to gallop,” Wake enthused as he twisted a wide cap and withdrew a glass container with brass rods spaced around it.

Inside the cannister was a crimson liquid that shone as if lit from within, sparkling with an almost magical quality.

She looked at it in awe. “Is that—”

“Greek fire!” Wake’s eyes widened as he spoke, seemingly smitten with the material.

“See,” Süleyman said as he continued working. “Crazy.”

“Due to the properties of the material,” Yardley said, taking on a lecturing tone, “when it comes into contact with water, it causes an explosive discharge of steam. That is what allows The Pony to operate as she does. If not for the Greek Fire, she would not have the power to weight ratio to—”

Hideyoshi scoffed. “Explosions? No one would be stupid enough to—”

Angelique closed her parasol with a grin and slapped it against her brother’s chest. “Hold that for me until I get back.”

“Oi,” Hideyoshi barked before a stream of invectives only she understood.

“You sure you wanna take a ride?” Wake asked. “You’re not exactly attired for—”

Wake paused open mouthed as he watched Angelique bend over, lift the hem of her skirt and thrust her hands beneath. She grabbed at something and pulled, the entire length of material bunched up above her knees.

“My word!” Yardley exclaimed and turned about, the Turk doing the same.

Hideyoshi’s voice rose as she attached two brass rings to what everyone had assumed were decorative buttons at her waist on her sides.

“Ready when you are,” she said, hands on hips. “May I?” She cocked her head.

“Oh, you may indeed. But please try to be careful as—”

Angelique put a booted foot on one of the pipes and kicked the other over deftly to straddle behind him. “You were saying?”

“Nothin’.” Wake chuckled. “Though if you feel the urge to take liberties from our close proximity—”

“Mister Wake!” Yardley bellowed. “The Foal has not been nearly tested enough. And now is hardly the time for a jaunt across the—”

With a sound like something that had fled Tartarus, the aeolipede shot forward, leaving the three men coughing in the cloud it left.

“Baka!” Hideyoshi yelled after his sister, brandishing the parasol after her.

#

The Pony crept along at a slow pace after the track had been cleared. Wake and Angelique hadn’t returned, and Hideyoshi was adamant that he would not come down from the top of the lounge carriage with the spyglass until she had.

Beechworth checked his pocket watch for what was the seventh time but felt a dozen times that number. “They’ve been gone a blasted long time!”

There was no one there to answer him.

He exited the car and ventured part way up the ladder and repeated himself to the young man and was as equally ignored. “Is there any bloody sign of them?”

Since they had moved the train, they had lost the vantage point of the hill it had been stopped on, but Yardley insisted they get moving to build some momentum, saying the smoke would guide them back and sounding The Pony’s haunting whistle every so often.

Now all they could see were rocks and trees.

“There,” Hideyoshi shouted and pointed.

The constable craned his neck to see, almost slipping and falling, and decided to get down and inform Yardley and the Turk instead. As he opened the door to the engine and prepared to creep along the narrow ledge at its side to the cabin, Hideyoshi dropped down silently and moved ahead of him.

“I’ll just prepare some drinks then, shall I?” Beechworth muttered to himself, and he turned about face.

As the gradient decreased, so too did the trains speed with a screech of brakes and rattle of couplings. He left the thick bottomed, heavy tumblers on the felted bar top. Raised brass tubes at its edges acted as rails to ensure they would not slide off. Hea exited the car once more, and climbed down as they came to a full stop.

The machine he had only heard of, and heard on its departure, returned with a lone figure. As it passed him he felt his cheeks redden at the sight of the young woman.

Her face and clothes were rimed with dirt, her stockinged legs taking the brunt of things, caked brown and tattered in places. Despite her appearance, she had a grin on her face as she pulled up the goggles covering her eyes, revealing two pale circles of untouched skin.

“A lovely day for a ride, wouldn’t you say constable?” she shouted above the din of the machine, guiding it to the storage car at the rear.

A little while after, Agent Wake arrived with a wagon, which he too moved to the rear of the train, doffing his own goggles as one might a hat as he passed.

“Madder than hatters, all of them!”

Beechworth returned within to help himself to several drinks, losing all interest in whatever it was the pair had acquired. Strangely enough, he found himself more concerned with the pair of horses on the wagon than anything else.

He laughed nervously as he swallowed down a third glass ,and considered, if they were the hatters, what that made of himself.

#

Several days later they reached the port city of San Francisco, the final stop for The Pony, in both that it was their journeys end, and that without further Greek Fire she would only be able to make part the way across the continent once more.

They left the train in secret, Hideyoshi doing so well before it had come to a stop to meet up with them. Wake knew for certain the Ottoman’s had spies everywhere, and they would be watching. The American spy network had information that the Ottoman’s knew about the rails they had laid across the country, but their assumption had been that this was a wasted effort.

It was monumental proof of success that, given the resources, it was indeed possible, and the Ottoman’s would be livid. All the more excuse for subterfuge. But the arrival of The Pony was proving to be a much needed distraction as much as it would be a catalyst for the Ottoman’s.

They reconvened soon after at the docks by creaking and swaying ships that lined the crowded waters.

“You gotta get us more of that magic formula, Angie, so we can get The Pony to the capitol,” Wake said.

“And share it with us poor ‘limey’s’, of course?” Beechworth crossed his arms.

Wake smiled. “Of course, Constable.” He took up Angelique’s hand, stopped short and looked up at her with a playful look in his eyes. “May I?”

She returned his gaze with a small smile and a nod as he kissed her hand. “Ah, to hear those words again,” she sighed.

“Perhaps when you return?”

“Perhaps,” she offered, and turned about without so much as a goodbye.

“I really do think I have fallen for your sister, Mr Hideyoshi,” Wake said, slapping him on the shoulder with gusto. He snatched the limb back at the deathly glare he was given.

“Again?” The menace in Hideyoshi’s voice touched his stare, making it icier still. “She said, to hear those words again.”

Beechworth balked and looked at the American, aghast. “You don’t mean to say that you and she… She and you…”

Wake held up a finger and tutted at the two, shaking the proffered digit. “A gentleman does not speak of such things.” He grinned as he too walked away.

“If he does,” Hideyoshi grunted at the constable, “I will make a trophy of that finger.”

Beechworth was left speechless. “Well, err… I think I’ll see to our belongings,” he blurted out, and scurried away.

“Do you really think this… contraption is really going to secure your path into the palace?” the Engineer was saying, eyebrows dancing a jig with indignation.

Angelique had had no doubt. She and Wake had acquired the thing as soon as she’d clapped eyes on it. It had taken a considerable amount of the gold Kaylock had given them, to be delivered by Wake after they had left. Even then she had to call on his governmental ties to make the purchase. The previous owner had been loathe to part with it empty handed.

“You’ve still not said how you convinced him to,” Yardley said. “The amount you paid him, he could have made many times over again, if all accounts of its popularity are true.”

“Agent Wake can be very… persuasive,” she said with a mischievous look. All the men present, barring her brother who was further rankled, shuffled and looked about in discomfort. “Oh, I do wish you wouldn’t all be such prudes.”

The men harrumphed and argued with her observation, Beechworth the loudest, as she had looked directly at him when she’d said it.

“Did you tell your fiancé that you were travelling with a woman?”

“I most certainly did,” he said proudly.

“And what did you tell her of me?” She raised her head, looking down her nose at him, expectant of the response.

The constable stumbled his words before he managed to emit them. “Why… I told her the truth. That I was to escort a criminal and it was of utmost importance to the British Empire that I did so and had been hand picked for the task.”

“She did not ask if I was attractive?”

He made no response, but for a slight twitch to his face.

Angelique gave a throaty chuckle.

“She may have asked,” he spat out in anger, “but it does not mean—”

“It means everything, you silly little man, to a woman.” She walked to him and prodded him in the chest. “Society says that what I — a grown woman in charge of my own life and capable of taking care of myself since childhood — have done is far worse than if I were born with a different set of anatomy!” With a last prod, she stalked away.

“That, Mademoiselle,” Beechworth said in a loud boom, “is hardly my fault, nor a facet of my character that is within my control.”

“I disagree, but if that is what you say…” She looked over her shoulder at him with some hostility. “You had best get used to not making a show of your feelings in my presence, Constable. They are unwanted, unseemly, and infuriating. And I promise you, you do not want to infuriate me.”

Beechworth’s brow rose and fell with the gamut of emotions that coursed across his face. They settled in a stern line, much like his lips. “Very well.” He glanced around for something to do, and settled on fetching a wagon to carry their things to the shipyard. He set off through the gathered throng, aided by government guards that were awaiting their arrival at the port.

Angelique watched him go, her eyes narrowed.

“You’ll make no friends behaving that way,” Hideyoshi spoke from behind her. “And, more importantly, you will stick out.”

“That, little brother,” she said with a perfect British inflection, “is precisely the idea.” She looked about and, affecting her French accent once more, called out, “Now, we must find a fast ship with a reputable captain to take us to Ise Bay.”

“I know a captain,” Süleyman Reis’s voice called from the storage carriage of The Pony. He uncurled from pushing the massive crate that contained Angelique’s acquisition ever closer to side opening of the car, and gave a lopsided grin.

Next Chapter: Chapter Five