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Ed invented the hot air balloon.
Bien sûr, Izzy was there too, helping loot the fuel they required, after the Parisian government refused to cooperate with funding. Even after their demonstration at Versailles!
He had Fang and Ivan sew up the balloon, which led to thick threads and sackcloth with jagged edges that had to be tucked under, and meant that even Ed had to take a hand in the sewing, especially of all the fiddly buttons. It was a patchwork nightmare, but it worked.
But what was a balloon for?
What could he do with it—besides float around to places from which to loot more supplies and cajole more wickerwork—that was fun?
Since their first test flight had included a sheep, a duck, and a rooster, Fang suggested using the balloon to help local farmers. Carry any hurt sheep or goats off the hills and back to safety.
That took care of the weekends. Then a day or two for looting and maintenance.
That still left three wide-open days in which to float around. His old mate Jacques would’ve suggested imbecilities like flying straight towards a cliff and veering round at the last second, but Ed was getting too old for that kind of drunken jeux.
The cool air of the clear skies above the city felt good on his sore leg.
Suppose just floating isn’t so bad, he thought.
And then he saw it, on the horizon: another balloon!
A shining copper balloon! With flags!
He tugged at the ropes, changed course.
The other balloon appeared to do the same, but it was difficult to tell with the sun in his eyes.
As they approached, he made out the hair of the man in the balloon's gondola—blonde curls shaped just so, inviting a finger to twine about them—and the various objects hanging over the sides. How did he stay airborne with that many trinkets? And a champagne bottle and teacups? That was overkill.
The man waved, which meant he let go of a rope, which caused his balloon to wobble.
Ed caught a “zut, alors!” borne back on the breeze, and then he was close enough to toss over a free line, tether the gondolas together.
He adjusted his flame and called back suggestions to the other balloonist, which were taken without question, though there was some sort of navigational consultation with someone Ed couldn’t see, called Karl. Ed steered as best he could; he’d only been flying since November, after all, and the sweet upper airs of Paris in the springtime took some getting used to after battling through a wet and grey winter.
He got them safely to ground—no small feat, as he’d landed them in a field far from anywhere, not at his usual site with Izzy waiting to direct the boys to assist—and, once on solid earth, turned to bow and introduce himself.
The other man was struggling with his rope ladder. His arms flailed helplessly and his coattails flipped up, exposing a pair of delicious legs, calves caressed by white silk stockings.
Ed mastered his humour—and passion—with the level of effort he usually employed in tuning out the bitterest of Izzy’s rants, and went across to help.
“Watch my buttons!” the man cried, so Ed slid his hands down the man’s sides and gripped him at the hips instead. That earned him a smouldering, questioning sort of look, which caused him to lose his footing, and they toppled off the last rung together and landed in a heap on the grass.
The man sprang up at once and bowed. “Thank you, monsieur. Stede Bonnet, half of the Montgolfier Partnership, at your service.”
There was no way Ed could leap up as nimbly as that; now it was his turn to need a hand. He held up a palm and Monsieur Bonnet understood at once. Grasping Ed’s fingers and holding his arm, he hauled Ed to his feet.
“Edward Teach, at your service and your family’s,” Ed answered correctly, wishing the man’s grip had lingered. “Stede Bonnet.” He looked the other man directly in his—dazzling, mysterious—hazel eyes. “Who are you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer but started walking around the man’s gondola, peering at the various objects tethered to the wicker. “What’s this?” He reached up and curled his fingers about a brightly painted item. “A teeny tiny model of your balloon!” Everything about the man and his accoutrements was fascinating.
He stepped back, then, to look up at the balloon’s decorations, and nearly trod on Bonnet’s beribboned shoes. When had he gotten so close?
“Pardon me, sorry.” Ed stepped aside, reluctantly, even as Bonnet waved a hand in a think-nothing-of-it gesture. “I was trying to get a look at all those symbols up there.”
Bonnet’s balloon was as patchwork as his own, but looked to have been constructed that way on purpose. Designed, even. The vibrant colours, copper and turquoise and a riot of other shades, blended one into the other, seamlessly. Over top, embroidered patterns chased each other across the rainbow of colours. He picked out a lighthouse, a paint palette, the stylised figures of two children, a sketchbook, an orange tree, and so much more. As if that wasn’t enough, below it all, flags fluttered down, featuring all manner of outlandish images. Plus a cat.
“Do you like them?” Bonnet asked, sounding perhaps a touch apprehensive.
“They’re amazing.” He looked over at his own balloon, black and grey, without rhyme or reason in the size and cut of the cloth, save to make the completed shape as airtight as possible. Embroidery, that was a laugh. Fang had painted a few designs along the bottom edge, and added a kraken when asked, but otherwise, Ed’s balloon blotted out the sky. A dark cloud, an ink stain. The tiniest hint of colour came from the scrap of red silk he’d pinned to the main rope. He unpinned it after each flight and carried it with him. A tiny link to his mother, back in their dot of a village, lost in the mountains near the Swiss border, which Ed had left behind years ago.
“I’m fortunate; we have a good crew at Montgolfier. Everyone’s had a hand in launching our venture. Including my...” Bonnet paused. Glanced at him, sidelong. “Former wife.”
“Former?” He wished to know whether Bonnet had a particular reason for emphasising this aspect over all else that he might have mentioned. Not even a word yet about how he’d gotten into ballooning in the first place! The only connection Ed could think of was his own erstwhile employee, Pete, who’d disappeared one night after attending a masquerade ball.
“We’ve come to an arrangement, you see,” Bonnet told him. “For family and church—and balloon business—reasons, we remain married. But she went up in the balloon once and decided she hated it.” Bonnet shook his head ruefully. “That is the least of our reasons for amicably living apart. But her suggestions on design have been invaluable. Forgive me!” he added suddenly. “I have not yet inspected your balloon nor complimented the grace of your flight.”
Ed turned aside, abashed. “Nothing to admire there, Monsieur Bonnet—”
“Stede, please. And I beg to differ. I couldn’t have done this without you, after all. I’ve studied every paper you submitted to the Academy of Sciences, and to the Royal Society of London, as well! Of course, my crew has been a tremendous asset.” He glanced up at the sky, as if unable to believe he’d descended from on high. “This was my first solo flight!”
“Solo? I thought I heard— Who’s Karl?”
Stede pinked. “Karl’s the bird.” He pointed upward.
Ed peered way up to the top of the balloon and clocked a seagull, perched on the rounded cloth as comfortably as if on a bollard by the sea.
“He’s one of Buttons’ friends,” Stede added, as if that explained anything. He unhooked an attachment shaped like a little wooden puppet, and opened a side panel in the gondola. “Over here we have our lending library,” he said, waving his arm with a flourish.
Ed felt his eyebrows climbing balloon-ward. Did he even have to ask?
“You never know where you might land!” Stede said. He looked around the empty field, narrowing his eyes at some placid cows in the distance. “Someone might have need of a comfort read.”
“You’re a lunatic,” Ed told him, taking a giant step closer. Stede’s earlier words had just caught up with him. “Did you say this was your first solo flight? What are you waiting for? Let’s break out that champagne!”
He skipped around, looking for the bottle he’d spotted earlier. He went past the ladder, and clambered halfway up to look over the side of the gondola, to see what sort of knickknacks Stede had on the inside.
Something entirely different caught his eye. “Stede,” he called down. “Where’s your fuel?”
“Oh, it’s there,” Stede said, possibly a touch smugly. “Wood and hay get rather...messy, don’t you think?”
Ed looked all around the inside of the gondola, as much as he could see at any rate, given how crowded it was. A paperweight? Did Stede conduct his business from his balloon?
He slid down the ladder, skipping the rungs to spare his aching knee.
There was Stede, right up close once more. Brandishing the champagne. “It was Wee John’s idea; he’s my fuel consultant. Hydrogen!”
Ed’s brows were incapable of staying still around this man. “Gas? You’re standing next to explosive gas?”
“No, no, it’s all contained. A most ingenious device. I’ll show you later.” He held up the bottle. “Forgot the glasses, I’m afraid. Do you happen to have—”
“Are you asking me if I carry champagne flutes in my newly invented flying machine?”
Stede wasn’t listening, his face in another side panel, rooting around. “I thought I’d packed them with the biscuits,” he muttered to himself. “Or told Lucius to do it.”
“Could use the teacups.”
Stede pulled his head out and beamed at him. “Of course! This way!”
Teacups and biscuits sorted, they settled down at the foot of a beech, beside a rippling stream.
Stede flicked a handkerchief over the grass and set their cups on it. The biscuits were held in wax paper; he untwisted the top, and settled them in between the cups, paper unfurling like a new leaf.
Ed stretched his legs, booted feet crossed at the ankles, and rested against the tree. Followed Stede’s fingers as they deftly worked the cork from the bottle and sent it flying, arcing over the stream.
The champagne fizzed and frothed over Stede’s hand, and Ed wanted a piece of that. He set his palm over Stede’s, and the clear gold trickled down to his wrist.
Stede passed him the bottle, and picked up the cups one by one so that Ed could pour. Sticky-handed, they set the bottle aside, clinked cups, thumbs brushing, and took a sip.
“To your first flight!” Ed toasted.
“To our first flight together!” Stede amended.
They clinked and drank again. The bubbles warmed Ed inside and out. Stede leaned against the tree trunk beside him and let out a sigh. “This is fine.”
“Sure is.” He nudged his shoulder closer to Stede’s. A couple more sips and he’d touch that curl he’d admired from across the sky. A few sips after that and he’d ask Stede outright about his proclivities. The rest of the damn bottle and maybe he’d ask for that private tour of Stede’s gondola.
Stede met his gaze over the rim of his cup. His smile dimpled the corner of his mouth.
Then a line deepened between his brows and he pointed across the stream. “Who’s that?”