Sunday, April 5, 2020
Sunday's Steampunk Spinner: The Clockwork Nightingale's Song by Amy Rae Durreson
In the automated Vauxhall Floating Gardens, high above the smoggy streets of London, Nightingale No. 48 is refusing to sing. Stern mechanic Shem Holloway brings in the Gardens' brilliant but arrogant inventor, Lord Marchmont, to fix the broken automaton. But the clockwork nightingale has a secret, and soon both men find themselves questioning whether they should be trying to fix a mechanical heart at all.
I'm not going to say too much about the particulars of The Clockwork Nightingale's Song other than it is sweet, intriguing, attention-grabbing, with likable(dare I say lovable? yes, I dare because Shem Holloway and Lord Marchmont are characters I'd love to know even if I don't particularly want to live in a world with steampunk creations😉😉) characters. This may be a short story and that can be hard to pull off in science fiction/steampunk and still create the world building I want to get lost in with so few pages. Amy Rae Durreson has done a marvelous job of doing just that. I was so immersed in the story that when the last page swiped I was shocked to realize I completely lost track of time and though it may have only been about 45-50 minutes, I could have swore I just sat down and opened my kindle. To me when an author can trigger that loss of time for the reader, I know I read a gem. I also know that if the author ever has plans to revisit the world of Nightingale, I'll be first in line to read them.
RATING:
NIGHTINGALE NO. 48 had stopped singing.
Its brass head should have been raised, not hanging low, and its jewelled wings were meant to whir. Instead, it stood atop its marble pillar (not real marble, of course, any more than the paste jewels were real, but wood painted well enough to fool the eye by gaslight) in the most secluded glade of the Vauxhall Flying Gardens. None of the thousands of visitors who flocked to the pleasure gardens every night had yet stumbled across it. Give it an hour, Shem thought dourly, once the ladies of the ton went home and the strumpets came out to play, and this would be a far more popular spot.
Better do something before then. This was the third time this month Shem had needed to repair this nightingale. Time for it to be taken apart for a proper look at its clockwork innards.
“What should we do, Mr. Holloway?” the boy asked.
“Put a cage over the top until morning,” Shem said. “Stop the guests from interfering with it. Young gentlemen don’t have much respect for property.”
“The gentlemen, Mr. Holloway?” the boy protested, his eyes going wide. “But they’re brought up proper.”
“Properly,” Shem corrected sharply. No apprentice under his charge was going to wander around the Gardens with a gutter accent. “Higher they’re born, further they fall with a drink in them. You steer clear of gentlemen, boy.”
“Yes, Mr. Holloway,” the boy said, but he still looked puzzled.
Shem sighed. He liked to take new apprentices with him on the late shift until he was convinced they’d learned some common sense (at which point it was safe to assume they were staying, and he would deign to learn their names). This one had him worried. He was hardworking, no doubt, and the masters at the training orphanage had been right when they said he was bright. Unfortunately, he was too eager to please, and pretty besides, all coltish limbs, pink lips, and slim hips.
It wasn’t just the mechanical devices the young gentlemen liked to interfere with. Some of them had a taste for mechanics. Shem kept a fatherly eye on his apprentices, for all they were only ten years younger than him. It was going to be a job to keep this one safe from wandering hands.
Shem unlocked the gate that connected the concealed path to the grove. It took an army of mechanics, gardeners, and servants to keep the Gardens running efficiently, and keeping everyone hidden maintained the illusion of magic.
“Always lock these gates behind you,” Shem instructed the boy, who nodded earnestly. It was bad enough the whores of London plied their trade in the quiet groves and dark walks. Give them access to the secret paths, and the place would be a brothel within a week and shut down within two, putting all the staff out of work. Shem had grown up poor; he had no desire to be jobless.
The cage clicked into place over the silent nightingale, and Shem showed the boy how to lock it shut. He’d come back for it once the Gardens closed, but for now the nightingale was safe.
He and the boy continued on their rounds as the Gardens grew rowdier around them. Dining was over, and the supper boxes in the central grove were overspilling, lewd and drunken chatter drowning out the wheezy music of the steam orchestra. Some young blood, likely straight down from one of the better universities, had managed to get a foothold on Atlas’s brass globe, and was being hoisted toward the smoggy heavens as his friends cheered. Neptune’s water fountain had got clogged and was spewing bubbles sideways, an urgent repair that made Shem glad to have an apprentice to send wading into the foam to clear the pump.
He paused at the end of the Grand Walk as the horns mounted in the trees suddenly blew in perfect synchrony. Nudging the boy round, Shem watched his amazed face as the fireworks began. Vauxhall was unique, and he loved knowing the whole of London looked up at them every night, watching the lights blazing in the garden in the sky.
Only once did they encounter trouble, when a ruddy-cheeked gentleman came stumbling toward them, winking at the boy. Luckily, all Shem needed to do was tap his wrench meaningfully against his thigh, and the hopeful lecher hurriedly found business elsewhere. Even when he’d been a piston boy, running coal through the tunnels below the Gardens to feed the great burners that kept them afloat, Shem had never been waifish. These days his shoulders were too wide for the tunnels, and he carried the muscle to match them. Being a senior mechanic was no light duty. Only a brave man would risk his ire.
When the trumpets sounded for closing, long after midnight, he sent the yawning boy back through the hidden paths to wait in the staff canteen until the Gardens returned to earth. Shem himself retraced his steps toward Nightingale No. 48, the Gardens going quiet around him. He could now hear the distant clang of the last airship undocking from the quay, the wind sighing softly through the treetops, and the night birds, ones that weren’t formed of gears and metal.
The ground surged beneath his feet as the first heated air was released from the floats, and the Gardens began to slide steadily back toward the earth, guided into place by chains and pulleys. A waft of steam floated across the stars, scenting the night with ash and hot metal.
As he stepped into the grove, a real nightingale began to sing, its voice rising in loose, breathy notes. And inside its cage, for the first time that night, the brass nightingale lifted its head with a soft whir and began to sing in reply, its mechanical melody just as yearning.
Its brass head should have been raised, not hanging low, and its jewelled wings were meant to whir. Instead, it stood atop its marble pillar (not real marble, of course, any more than the paste jewels were real, but wood painted well enough to fool the eye by gaslight) in the most secluded glade of the Vauxhall Flying Gardens. None of the thousands of visitors who flocked to the pleasure gardens every night had yet stumbled across it. Give it an hour, Shem thought dourly, once the ladies of the ton went home and the strumpets came out to play, and this would be a far more popular spot.
Better do something before then. This was the third time this month Shem had needed to repair this nightingale. Time for it to be taken apart for a proper look at its clockwork innards.
“What should we do, Mr. Holloway?” the boy asked.
“Put a cage over the top until morning,” Shem said. “Stop the guests from interfering with it. Young gentlemen don’t have much respect for property.”
“The gentlemen, Mr. Holloway?” the boy protested, his eyes going wide. “But they’re brought up proper.”
“Properly,” Shem corrected sharply. No apprentice under his charge was going to wander around the Gardens with a gutter accent. “Higher they’re born, further they fall with a drink in them. You steer clear of gentlemen, boy.”
“Yes, Mr. Holloway,” the boy said, but he still looked puzzled.
Shem sighed. He liked to take new apprentices with him on the late shift until he was convinced they’d learned some common sense (at which point it was safe to assume they were staying, and he would deign to learn their names). This one had him worried. He was hardworking, no doubt, and the masters at the training orphanage had been right when they said he was bright. Unfortunately, he was too eager to please, and pretty besides, all coltish limbs, pink lips, and slim hips.
It wasn’t just the mechanical devices the young gentlemen liked to interfere with. Some of them had a taste for mechanics. Shem kept a fatherly eye on his apprentices, for all they were only ten years younger than him. It was going to be a job to keep this one safe from wandering hands.
Shem unlocked the gate that connected the concealed path to the grove. It took an army of mechanics, gardeners, and servants to keep the Gardens running efficiently, and keeping everyone hidden maintained the illusion of magic.
“Always lock these gates behind you,” Shem instructed the boy, who nodded earnestly. It was bad enough the whores of London plied their trade in the quiet groves and dark walks. Give them access to the secret paths, and the place would be a brothel within a week and shut down within two, putting all the staff out of work. Shem had grown up poor; he had no desire to be jobless.
The cage clicked into place over the silent nightingale, and Shem showed the boy how to lock it shut. He’d come back for it once the Gardens closed, but for now the nightingale was safe.
He and the boy continued on their rounds as the Gardens grew rowdier around them. Dining was over, and the supper boxes in the central grove were overspilling, lewd and drunken chatter drowning out the wheezy music of the steam orchestra. Some young blood, likely straight down from one of the better universities, had managed to get a foothold on Atlas’s brass globe, and was being hoisted toward the smoggy heavens as his friends cheered. Neptune’s water fountain had got clogged and was spewing bubbles sideways, an urgent repair that made Shem glad to have an apprentice to send wading into the foam to clear the pump.
He paused at the end of the Grand Walk as the horns mounted in the trees suddenly blew in perfect synchrony. Nudging the boy round, Shem watched his amazed face as the fireworks began. Vauxhall was unique, and he loved knowing the whole of London looked up at them every night, watching the lights blazing in the garden in the sky.
Only once did they encounter trouble, when a ruddy-cheeked gentleman came stumbling toward them, winking at the boy. Luckily, all Shem needed to do was tap his wrench meaningfully against his thigh, and the hopeful lecher hurriedly found business elsewhere. Even when he’d been a piston boy, running coal through the tunnels below the Gardens to feed the great burners that kept them afloat, Shem had never been waifish. These days his shoulders were too wide for the tunnels, and he carried the muscle to match them. Being a senior mechanic was no light duty. Only a brave man would risk his ire.
When the trumpets sounded for closing, long after midnight, he sent the yawning boy back through the hidden paths to wait in the staff canteen until the Gardens returned to earth. Shem himself retraced his steps toward Nightingale No. 48, the Gardens going quiet around him. He could now hear the distant clang of the last airship undocking from the quay, the wind sighing softly through the treetops, and the night birds, ones that weren’t formed of gears and metal.
The ground surged beneath his feet as the first heated air was released from the floats, and the Gardens began to slide steadily back toward the earth, guided into place by chains and pulleys. A waft of steam floated across the stars, scenting the night with ash and hot metal.
As he stepped into the grove, a real nightingale began to sing, its voice rising in loose, breathy notes. And inside its cage, for the first time that night, the brass nightingale lifted its head with a soft whir and began to sing in reply, its mechanical melody just as yearning.
Amy Rae Durreson is a quiet Brit with a degree in early English literature, which she blames for her somewhat medieval approach to spelling, and at various times has been fluent in Latin, Old English, Ancient Greek, and Old Icelandic, though these days she mostly uses this knowledge to bore her students. Amy started her first novel a quarter of a century ago and has been scribbling away ever since. Despite these long years of experience, she has yet to master the arcane art of the semicolon. She was a winner in the 2017 Rainbow Awards.
B&N / SMASHWORDS / KOBO
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