Jem touched his elbows and steered him to the right, to an empty compartment, which was like a small cabin with upholstered chairs.
‘First class,’ Jem explained. ‘I can’t sit on a train for twelve hours on a bench in third.’
Only twelve hours, all the way to London. How long did it take to ride from here – what, a week?
Kite sat down slowly, then let himself tip forwards and raked his hands through his hair. He could have slept there and then, though it was only seven o’clock. Jem rubbed the back of his neck and pulled him harder and harder until he dropped sideways over his knees. Jem took his scarf off and put it round Kite instead. It was dark tartan. It still smelled brand new under the soft overlay of tobacco, not quite his yet.
He heard the door open once, but if anyone said anything he didn’t catch it. When he woke up properly, it took a long few seconds to understand where they were and why. He wasn’t good at sleeping in snatches. Coming out of it was close to vertigo. He had to close his eyes again and wait for it to go off. Jem had bent over him to keep him from the glare of the gas lamp, which was much brighter than oil.
‘Food. With cutlery and real glasses,’ Jem said against his hair. He spoke like he was kneeling on the edge of a black pool and coaxing up something shy from fathoms deep.
He sat up. Jem looked relieved and Kite realised it hadn’t quite been expected. He hadn’t made any close acquaintance with a mirror since Trafalgar, but although all the burns and bruises were a painful nuisance, it hadn’t occurred to him that he looked so bad he might die for no real reason in a chair somewhere before dinner.
‘Stop looking at me like that, I’m fine. I’m just still on the watch rota.’
‘No, I know.’ Jem poured out a glass of wine each from a bottle with a French label. The plates were proper crockery. He frowned and put the bottle down.
‘All right?’
‘Just fuzzy.’
‘I’ll find you some water.’
It was strange but not unpleasant to walk down the gangways and feel everything moving. A few more people had arrived somewhere along the way. They were dressed differently than the same people would have been at home. Women’s dresses had turned cumbersome and taken a step in the direction of the seventeenth century, all corsetry and rigging. Men had turned plain, unless all of the ones he saw had a particular taste for grey.
When he came across the steward, Kite showed him some ordinary coins and asked if they were all right here. The steward hesitated, then took out a booklet full of densely printed numbers. He read down, paused, looked embarrassed, then took out a miniature key and unlocked a miniature strongbox, which was full of stacked coins and newly minted notes. There was a great deal of change. When he produced two glass bottles of water, he did it with much more of a flourish than Kite thought he would have a minute ago.
Kite managed to take both the water and the change without moving his face or looking at the money, and get all the way back to the right carriage. Once the door was shut behind him, though, he stood against a wall and pulled a coin out of his pocket again. It was new and shiny. One franc, eighteen ninety-nine; on the back was a man super-arced by ‘Napoleon IV’ in copperplate.
‘Jem. Look at this …’ He stopped, because he had made Jem jump when he opened the compartment door. ‘Sorry. This is for you.’ He gave him the water. ‘But look at these … Jem?’
‘I forgot you were here,’ Jem said.
‘Agatha does too. But—’
‘No – I mean …’ He struggled and then shook his head when Kite put the coin into his hand. ‘Sorry. What am I …’
‘Is this normal?’
Jem gazed down at the coin for too long. ‘No. It should be Queen Victoria.’ He glanced across at last and smiled. ‘Still, if the French want anachronistic, we can bloody give it to them. Pretty sure I know enough to discover electromagnetic motors early.’
Kite wanted to say he didn’t know anyone else who could take such enormities so sunnily, that it was a sort of gift, but framing it would have been trite.
Jem looked into his wine and a frown traced a line between his eyebrows,