Eoin Colfer: Airman

Victor took a step back, folded his arms and took measure of his pupil. ‘You have potential,’ he said at last. ‘A slim build. The best for an airman. Most people don’t realize that flying a balloon takes a degree of athleticism, quick reactions and so forth. I imagine piloting an engine-driven heavier-than-air flying machine will take much more.’

Conor’s heart thumped in his chest.

A flying machine?

‘And you have brains. Your tower rescue proved that. More brains than that king of yours. Stocking a laboratory with explosives. He’s been doing that for years you know; it was only a matter of time. As for your personality, Princess Isabella says that you are not the most odious person in the castle, and coming from a female that is high praise indeed, Sir Conor.’

Conor winced. His title still sounded outrageous to him. If it were never used again, he would be happier. Though he had noticed today that cook gave him a toffee apple for no particular reason. And curtsied too. Curtsied? This was the same cook who had battered his backside with a floury rolling pin not two weeks before.

‘So, are you ready to learn, lad?’

Conor nodded. ‘Yes, sir. More than ready, eager.’

‘Good,’ said Victor. ‘Excellent. Now, hobble this way. I have some unguents that should help that leg of yours on its way to soundness. And exercises too, for the toes.’

All of this sounded far-fetched, but no more so than an engine-driven, heavier-than-air flying machine. It was the age of discovery and Conor was prepared to believe anything.

Victor pulled a ceramic jar from a high shelf. The lid was waxed canvas, tied on with reeds. When the cover came off, the smell was like nothing or nowhere Conor had ever smelled or been.

‘An African man from the Sahara – had a camel act – taught me how to make this.’ He took a dollop on two fingers and smeared it where the cast met Conor’s leg, below the knee. ‘Let it seep down under the cast. Smells like Beelzebub’s backside, but, when the gypsum comes off, the bad leg will be better than the good one.’

The unguent sent Conor’s skin tingling. Hot and cold at the same time.

‘If we are scientists,’ he said, keeping his tone respectful, ‘why do we need to fight?’

Victor Vigny sealed the pot, thinking about his answer. ‘I fully expect, Conor Broekhart, that between the two of us, we will learn to fly, and when that day comes, when we reveal our wondrous machine, someone will come to steal it from us. It has happened to me before. I built a glider from willow and silk: beautiful. She made the air sing when she passed. I flew a monkey over a hundred feet. For six weeks I was the toast of the fair. Tent full every night.’

Conor could see the glider in his mind. A monkey. Fabulous.

‘What happened?’

‘There was a Russian knife thrower. He came around to my wagon one night, with half a dozen friends. They burned my glider to ashes, and gave me a few licks to send me on my way. Threatened, you see, by progress. When the choices are a flying monkey or a knife thrower, who would pick the knife thrower?’

‘The knife thrower’s mother perhaps.’

Victor ran his fingers through his black hair to ensure it was appropriately erect. ‘Maybe, funny jeune homme . But then again, the females love a nice monkey. Many’s the mother would ignore her own kin for the chance to gawk at an airborne simian. The point being that, when the knife throwers come, you must be prepared.’

Conor thought about Marshall Bonvilain’s visit.

Let us hope you don’t give away all of that wondrous luck, young Broekhart. You might be needing it .

‘Where do we start?’ he asked.

Victor plucked a slim blade from the rack. ‘We start at the heart of swordplay,’ he said, slicing the air till it whistled. ‘With the foil.’

And so work began.

In later, darker times, when Conor Broekhart, alone and disheartened, remembered the life that was his, the handful of years with Victor Vigny always stood out as the happiest.

They studied martial arts, pugilism and weapons.

‘The first true fencing master to leave us an actual method of arms was Achille Marozzo,’ Victor told his pupil. ‘His Opera Nova is now your bible. Read it until it becomes a part of you. When that one is ragged, then we move back in time to Filippo Vadi.’

They spent hours on training mats putting the masters’ theories into practice.

‘First you learn to hold a sword. Think of it as a conductor’s baton. Used properly, there is not an untrained man in the world who can stand against you.’

With buttoned swords, Conor learned to thrust, parry, feint, double and riposte. He lost pints of liquid each morning in sweat, then replaced them with a jug of Victor’s foul-tasting Oriental tea.

His first weapon was a short foil, but as his wrists grew stronger he progressed to épée, sabre and rapier. Victor sawed the cast off Conor’s leg a month early, but forced him to wear a soaked bandage instead that turned his leg yellow, along with all his bed linen.

‘More circus tricks?’ Conor had asked.

‘No,’ replied the Frenchman. ‘An American friend of mine is a miracle worker with poultices and pots. Actually Nick has sent for him. I will tell you more when he has finished his work.’ And would say no more on the subject.

Victor had little time for anything heavier than a cutlass.

‘No broadsword, unless you plan to go on a crusade, and even then look what happened to the crusaders. While they were hefting their broadswords, Saladin was sticking his scimitar into their armpits.’

The Frenchman introduced Conor to escapology.

‘Scientists are the enemies of tradition,’ he said, dumping a box of assorted handcuffs on the table. ‘And tradition owns all the prisons.’

And so, more hours were spent picking locks and chewing knots. Conor found the t’ai chi most valuable when he was tied to a chair with a tantalizing apple shining at him from the table. He was now able to reach parts of his own body that previously he could not have located with a backscratcher and mirror.

Victor was a great believer in the right man for the job.

‘You need to talk to your father about guns,’ he told Conor. ‘Nick tells me that Declan Broekhart is the finest shot he has ever seen, and we spent a summer with Wild Bill Hickok in Abilene, so that’s high praise.’

Declan was delighted to help with his son’s education, and began taking Conor on Wall patrol, and down to the shooting range with a duffel bag of arms. He shot Colts, Remingtons, Vetterli-Vitalis, Spencers, Winchesters and a dozen other models. Conor was a quick study, and a natural marksman.

‘For your fourteenth birthday you shall have your own Sharps,’ his father promised him. ‘By then we should know what would suit your shoulder. I would give you one for your next, but your mother says ten is too young.’

The only weapon Victor did give Conor a few pointers on was his prized Colt Peacemaker, which Wild Bill himself had given him.

‘He invited me to come to Deadwood with him,’ he told Conor. ‘But it was not the right career choice for an aeronaut. Prospectors tend to shoot down balloons. Also I am too handsome for a prospecting town.’

All of these physical lessons were fine, but what Conor really yearned for was a mental challenge. Victor had promised him that they would build a flying machine, and the Frenchman did not disappoint. The ability to defend oneself was a necessity, but the race for flight was an obsession.

‘And it is a race, jeune homme ,’ he told Conor, one morning as they stretched silk over a balsa wing frame. The wood had been part of a special shipment from Peru. ‘Many of the world’s greatest inventors and adventurers have turned their attention to this problem. Man will fly; it is inevitable. More than twenty years ago, Cayley’s triplane glider carried a passenger. Wenham and Browning have built a wind tunnel to study drag. Alphonse Pénaud was so certain of his designs that he drew up plans for retractable landing gear. Retractable! The race is on, Conor, make no mistake, and we must be first past the finishing line. Fortunately, the king supports our efforts, so we will not want for funds. Nicholas knows what the power of flight would mean to the Saltees. The islands would no longer be cut off from the world. Diamonds could be transported without threat from bandits. Medicines could be flown in from Europe. Flown in, Conor.’