Coat of Scarlet: A Clockpunk Tale, Part 4

by Siri Paulson

Read previous installments: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

“Oh, no you don’t!” Marius shouted, pelting after the red justacorps coat as it vanished into the crowd. The thief moved faster, but it wasn’t hard to keep that bright a colour in sight.

As he dodged piles of lumber and moving carts, his thoughts galloped along just as fast. What kind of misbegotten son of a poxy dog would steal a coat anyway? Did they want it for the valuable fabric, or because they recognized it as Niko’s, or because there was something valuable in it he hadn’t noticed? Some of the seams had felt a bit bulky, but he hadn’t particularly wanted to unpick them to check whether something was hidden inside, on account of Niko being an airship pirate and all. Now he wished he’d known what exactly he had been entrusted with…

Just how furious would Niko be if Marius couldn’t bring it back in time? He thought of Niko angry, the way the pirate had shoved him up against the wall of his own shop without any effort at all. Then he pictured Niko’s eyes clouded with an expression of betrayal. His stomach sank.

He leaped over a coil of rope, ducked under a descending basket, and dove between two sailors of the female persuasion.

A scrap of scarlet fluttered just ahead. Marius threw himself forward and tackled the thief.

Two breaths later, and Marius was on his back in the dirt, with the coat on top of him and a knife at his throat. A really big knife. One might even call it a small sword.

Over the sword, a very young woman glared at him, her slanted eyes narrowed in annoyance.

“Finders keepers,” she said. “It’s the law of the skies.”

“Too bad I’m not a sky-sailor.” Marius bucked his hips, trying to throw her off balance. She only laughed and pressed the tip of the knife into his skin until he was forced to stop lest he cut his own throat.

“You’re on the docks. Our laws rule here. If I cut your throat right now, no-one would care. Can you think of a good reason why I shouldn’t?”

“It would make me sad?” Marius suggested, and winced.

“A good reason, I said.” She grinned fiercely.

Marius glanced down at the justacorps coat that was crushed between them. “You’d ruin all this beautiful velvet.”

The knife wavered as her expression changed to one of confusion. “I’d…what?”

Marius heaved his left hip up, pulled his right shoulder back, and rolled. She fell onto the coat as he rolled free. He scrambled to his feet and yanked at the coat. She grabbed and hung on. A tearing sound met his ears as the velvet ripped.

Marius swore.

She let go, looking disgusted. “Now who’s ruining the blasted coat?”

She rose to her feet, stuck her knife in her belt, spat on Marius’s boots, and walked off.

Marius glanced around wildly. He needed to inspect the damage to the coat, and check for damage to his person, but there was no time. He grabbed up his bag, slung the coat over his arm again, and set off in a random direction, more cautiously than before.

The light was fading, the wind dropping, the bustle of the docks dying away. Who would set sail at night, anyway? Oh, right. Pirates. Most of the airships lay quiet, their crews dispersing into the city. All but one.

At the far end of the airship docks, a beehive of activity clustered around the very last ship. It hulked big and black on its spire in the twilight, even with the warm yellow lights in every porthole and on the ground below. Now that he saw it up close, there was no doubt that it was Niko’s ship, though it bore no name on its hull. The lights caught the gleam of gold-painted trim—at least he thought that was paint—and copper around every porthole, polished to a shine. He thought about hanging off the outside of the airship to do that polishing, and felt his stomach turn over. Well, the sailors of the clouds were made of stronger stuff than he, no doubt.

Except that he was going to climb up there himself. Voluntarily. On account of this coat that now needed more mending, and cleaning to boot.

“You’re a madman, Marius,” he muttered aloud.

Nearby, a male sailor eyed him sidelong. Then looked again. Then said, “Hey!”

Before Marius could react, the sailor had drawn a sword—a real sword, bigger than he would have thought practical to wear on one’s hip.

Not again! Marius turned to run, got tangled in the coat and his bag, and looked up to find himself staring at the business end of a clockwork pistol.

He froze.

Close behind him, the first sailor said, “Where did you get that fine justacorps, pray tell?”

Marius started to point, but the pistol was thrust closer into his face, backed up by a tall woman in a tricorn hat. He stopped moving and said carefully, “I’m a tailor. Niko brought it to me to mend. I’m bringing it back to him.”

The woman’s eyebrows went up. “Niko?” Her voice was deeper than Marius’s, but he didn’t care about that. It was the tone that told him to beware.

“That was the name he gave me. Is he here?”

The man behind him said, “His precious coat looks the worse for having encountered you. I think you are no tailor. You were trying to run off with it. Yes?”

Marius sputtered. This was too much.

The woman did something to her pistol. Gears whirred, and then there was a loud click.

“Please—I have matching gold braid and crimson thread in my bag!” Marius said desperately. “I promised him that I would bring his coat before the ship embarked.”

The man snorted. “And yet it’s not mended. Funny, that.”

“We had a deal!”

“You. Had a deal. With the captain.”

Someone behind the woman cleared their throat. “As a matter of fact, he did.”

Both sailors sprang away from Marius, leaving him weak-kneed and clutching onto the bag and the coat for dear life as he swayed.

There stood Niko, majestic as ever. Something flickered in his eyes, as if he wished to take Marius by the shoulders for support. Instead he clasped his hands behind his back. “Is that mine, perchance?”

“Yes.” Marius swallowed. “Sir.”

Niko looked down at the coat, and one eyebrow rose as his expression grew colder. “I do not recall leaving it with you in such a condition. Dirt is very difficult to get out of velvet, you know. Almost as difficult as bloodstains.”

“You’re lucky there aren’t any of those, then,” Marius blurted. “I almost got killed trying to deliver this to you. Twice,” he added, glancing at the two sailors, who seemed entirely unrepentant.

Niko’s other eyebrow went up, a smile playing on his full lips. “Surely the docks aren’t as dangerous as all that.”

“Maybe not for a man such as yourself,” Marius said, rubbing his throat almost unconsciously. He fancied he could still feel the tip of that knife.

“Good Lord, you’re serious.” Niko paused, studying him. “So you held onto my coat, at risk to your very life and limb, to bring it back to me.”

When put like that, it sounded downright foolish. “Yes,” Marius admitted.

Niko’s expression softened for the first time, making him look vulnerable for just an instant. Marius’s heart quickened.

“Thank you,” Niko said, holding Marius’s gaze. “I am in your debt.”

“It was my pleasure,” Marius managed, still trying to work out what that meant for a pirate and whether it was a good thing.

Niko’s half-smile returned, and the distance between them was aback. “Of course, now you have a greater debt of your own to work off, since the coat is in worse condition than when I left it in your care. Fortunately, we are going on a long voyage.”

Marius thought of his poor shop, and gulped. “How long?”

“Long enough for you to finish my coat and for us to finish our business.”

“What is your…” Marius caught himself and trailed off. “…ah, never mind.”

“Just so.” Niko stepped back, looking even more like a captain and even less like a man that Marius might get to know, and gestured to a large basket that lay at the base of the airship spire, tethered to massive ropes that snaked up to the hull far above. “After you.”

Marius looked up at the pirate airship, swallowed, and stepped into the basket. It was just big enough for himself, his bag, and the coat, which Niko seemed content enough to let him keep for the moment. Niko yanked on the rope. The basket rose into the air, smoothly enough yet entirely alarming. Marius looked over the edge as he left the ground behind and ascended to his new life, wherever the dickens it might lead. The only thing that kept him from succumbing to his terror was Niko’s gaze, fixed steadily upon his own.

To be continued…