Chapter 281: The Mark of Iron

Ernest turned his head, his dark eyebrows raised. "Why not?"

"Because you’ll spend three weeks testing paint formulas to see if the rain washes them off," Wallace said.

A sudden rumble of laughter broke out along the table. Even Aldren smiled behind his hand.

Ernest scowled down at his notes, though his jaw relaxed. "Legibility is not a joke, Wallace."

"No, my lord," Wallace said respectfully. "It just takes a long time."

***

By mid-afternoon, the argument had moved from speed to something far more contentious: the drivers themselves.

A wealthy alderman who owned several flour mills leaned across the table, his gold rings catching the light. "If a gentleman has paid seven hundred thousand riels for a motorcar, he has the right to drive it wherever he pleases. We do not require gentlemen to hold a paper license to drive a private phaeton."

Wallace shook his head before he could stop himself.

The alderman caught the movement. "The driver from the palace disagrees?"

Wallace looked at Aldren, who gave him a brief, curt nod to speak.

"Driving a phaeton is not the same thing, sir," Wallace said, standing up from his chair. "I drove four-horse carriages for twenty-two years. When a carriage horse sees a ditch, the horse has sense enough to stop, even if the driver is a fool. A motorcar has no brain. It only does what your feet and hands tell it to do."

He walked two steps toward the table, holding up his calloused hands.

"When you take the wheel of a Model One, you have to manage a hand throttle, a spark lever, two foot bands, a brake lever, and the steering box. If an inexperienced lad panics on wet cobblestones, he doesn’t pull the brake. He freezes, stomps the wrong pedal, and runs the machine through an iron railing at twenty miles an hour."

The police superintendent tapped his pen on the wood. "We saw that very thing outside the theatre two nights ago. A young gentleman mistook the high-speed clutch for the brake and drove clean into a stone mounting block."

"Then what do you suggest?" the chairman asked. "A municipal examination?"

"Not yet," Ernest said, cutting in before Arthur could object. "The city watch does not possess examiners who know how to operate the machinery. If an examiner has never cranked an engine, how can he certify another man’s competence?"

"The police can be trained," the superintendent argued.

"In time, yes," Ernest conceded. "For now, the manufacturers must bear the responsibility. Teucher Motor will issue a certificate of operational competence only after a driver completes twelve hours of supervised road handling and basic roadside maintenance. The city can recognize that certificate."

Arthur smiled across the table. "And we will gladly instruct drivers who purchase machines from other workshops, for a modest administrative fee."

Ernest gave Arthur a dry, sideways look, but said nothing.

The final debate of the afternoon concerned identification.

The chief clerk of the municipal court stood up, holding a piece of white tin painted with black numbers. "If a motorcar strikes a cart or exceeds the speed limit, our watchmen cannot identify the vehicle. They look identical from fifty paces away. Dark green paint, brass radiators, black leather."

Arthur frowned. "Each chassis has a serial number stamped into the left frame rail."

"A watchman cannot read a frame stamp while the vehicle is driving away at fifteen miles an hour, Mr. Pendelton," the clerk said flatly.

Ernest looked at the tin plate. "A visible registration mark. Stamped sheet iron, mounted to the front crossmember and the rear luggage rack. White numerals on black lacquer."

Arthur stared at him in pure disbelief. "Ernest, you are voluntarily inviting the government to hang iron tags on our carriages."

"If someone steals a Model One, how else will the watch recover it for our customer, Arthur?" Ernest asked reasonably. "A registered number protects the owner as much as the public."

Arthur opened his mouth, found no logical counter-argument, and slumped back into his leather chair with a defeated groan. "I am surrounded by men who love ledgers."

The meeting adjourned at half-past five.

Nothing was yet signed into royal law, but the framework was written: speed boundaries marked by painted boards, certified driver instruction, and numbered tin plates stamped by the municipal registry.

When Ernest, Arthur, Aldren, and Wallace walked out onto the stone steps of the municipal building, the cool evening air was thick with the scent of roasted chestnuts and burning coal.

A half-dozen reporters from the Helmarte broadsheets were waiting on the pavement, their pencils poised over small notebooks.

"Baron Teucher!" a young reporter called out, pushing through the iron gate. "Will these new restrictions destroy the market for your road carriages?"

Arthur moved to step in front, but Ernest raised a hand and answered directly.

"The rules will not destroy the market," Ernest said, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet street. "When the railway was first laid across the realm, men argued that running thirty tons of steam through the countryside would ruin the farms and poison the sheep. Today, the kingdom cannot survive without the rails."

He stopped on the bottom step, looking at the carriages and carts rattling past in the dusk.

"A machine without order is a nuisance," Ernest continued. "A machine with clear rules becomes part of the city. The motorcar is here to stay, gentlemen. We are simply teaching it how to behave."

The reporters scribbled frantically. Arthur smiled, clearly approving of the quote, and signaled for the carriage to take them back to the hotel.

As they walked toward the curb, Wallace looked down King’s Avenue.

A private Model One, painted dark green with brass lamps gleaming in the twilight, was rolling past the corner of Crown Square. It slowed down smoothly behind a two-horse brougham, waited for an old woman with a vegetable basket to step onto the footway, and then turned cleanly down the western road.

No one shouted. No horse panicked. No crowd ran to stare at the wheels.

It was just a carriage moving through the evening mist, doing its work, ordinary and unnoticed.

Wallace adjusted his cap, feeling a small, quiet satisfaction in his chest.

"Well, Sixty-Four," he murmured to himself. "Looks like you aren’t a miracle anymore. You’re just traffic."