A small young man tended the stoker’s box, the train’s equivalent of a sootie. Hard to tell if he was a hireling or a minion, but he turned to face the fray, attracted by the noise. He seemed befuddled into inaction, but he was armed with a large shovel. No time to think on him further; Sophronia spun in against the driver, bumping him.
“What?”
“Oh, my god, what’s that!” she screamed, pointing out the open cab door. There was real fear in her face, as if she were seeing a poltergeist.
The driver turned to look.
Sophronia shoved him with all her might. It shouldn’t have worked—she was too slight and he was too large—except that Sophronia nipped one foot out and behind his leg, tripping him up. The SOS maneuver—startle, obstruct, and shove—was a classic tactic in which Captain Niall had trained them well.
Sophronia had never made it work before. When one was practicing, one’s opponent always knew the startle was coming. But the driver reacted perfectly, and as a result tumbled out of the train.
She stuck her head out after. He seemed to have fallen harmlessly to one side. The train was moving just quickly enough that even a fit human couldn’t catch up.
She yelled up to Sidheag. “Room for you now. Waiting for an invitation?”
Sidheag dropped down and swung in easily, no finesse but no wasted effort, either.
The girls turned to face the stoker.
He looked from one to the other.
Sophronia looked mean and scruffy and had just shoved his boss from a moving train.
Sidheag was awfully tall and imposing.
The stoker put down his shovel and put both his empty hands out in a pleading manner. “They hired me, young masters. I’m only along for the pay and the ride.”
“Sidheag, if you would deal with this?” asked Sophronia.
Sidheag looked the young man up and down. “Delighted.”
She said, in her most commanding Lady Kingair voice, “You know, friend, I’ve always been terribly interested in the running of trains. If you wouldn’t mind continuing to shovel? I’m sure we can match your pay. In the meantime, if you could please tell me everything you know about everything, that would be topping.” And, because Sidheag knew well how to recruit a willing participant, she added, “Would you like a bit of kidney pie? We happen to have brought a few on board with us.”
Sophronia went to help Soap with Monique.
It was an awkward scrap of a fight. Soap was very conscious of his position in society, or lack thereof, and he was never one to strike a lady regardless of station. Therefore, he was trying to apprehend Monique without actually touching her anywhere indelicate or injuring her in any way. Monique was not correspondingly delicate. She had several more years of training than Sophronia and wasn’t half bad, even if she had left Mademoiselle Geraldine’s in disgrace. She was giving Soap a very challenging time of it, and she was armed.
Soap was mainly dodging out of her way and blocking her from doing anything drastic. She spat curses at him, lashing out with her knife. Soap hadn’t drawn the letter opener to combat it.
Sophronia reached into her pocket and pulled out the bladed fan. Time to test its paces.
“Soap, if I may?”
Soap glanced over at her in relief. “Oh, would you?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
Only then did Monique realize who had taken over her train. She saw right through Sophronia’s boy’s garb to the oval face and green eyes that had given her so much trouble at school. “Of course, it would be you, wouldn’t it? Always messing everything up, aren’t you, Sophronia?”
“That’s my sole purpose in life, Monique, to inconvenience you.”
The two girls circled each other warily. It was close quarters in the cab of a locomotive, particularly with three fellows. Sophronia was confident that Soap and Sidheag would, between them, get the train in hand. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Soap take the driver’s station.
Monique nipped in and slashed. A real kitchen knife, too, no pretense at some more upstairs-friendly implement. Although it did have a nice ivory handle.
Sophronia whipped out her fan and shook off the leather guard.
“Had that lesson, have you?” sneered Monique.
Sophronia concentrated on the shift of Monique’s shoulders under her traveling gown, hints as to where she might move to strike next.
“I never liked the fan. Too flashy,” said the blonde, nipping in again.
In Sophronia’s experience, nothing was too flashy for Monique, so this must mean that Monique wasn’t any good with the fan. Sophronia had been practicing as much as she could since the first instance. This new one felt inexplicably natural in her hands.
She spun it in against Monique, a fancy wiggle and shift.
The girl’s beautiful blue eyes widened in horror. She backed up a bit.
“Careful with that thing, Sophronia, you could hurt somebody!”
“I thought that was the idea,” replied Sophronia, twirling the fan expertly around her wrist in a blur.
“No, peewit, that’s my task!”
Sophronia whipped the fan in, cutting away at Monique’s sleeve and nearly chopping the blonde’s hand off at the wrist where she held the knife.
Both girls gasped: Monique at the narrow escape, Sophronia at the very idea that she had almost cut off someone’s hand. Shocking.
Odd, thought Sophronia, that if Monique were a stranger, I’d have a much easier time hurting her. But because she’s a person I know, even though I don’t like her, I struggle to be ruthless. Do all intelligencers have similar scruples?