by H. G. Parry
“I’ll consider it.” Little Barbara, now almost two years old, was teetering dangerously close to the fire. Wilberforce scooped her up, glad of the distraction. He knew his wife was right but was reluctant to concede her point. Pitt could indeed refuse to answer, and Wilberforce suspected he would.
He did consider it, or told himself he did. But when tomorrow came, he was so busy that it was easy to decide not to call.
It was some weeks later that he received word that a visitor was downstairs. This was no novelty, of course—there nearly always was, when Wilberforce was at home. But this one came very late, well after dark, when he and Barbara were on the brink of retiring to bed. Moreover, it was a name with which he was certain he had no personal acquaintance. His memory was admittedly eccentric, but he never forgot people.
When he came downstairs, he found a young woman waiting for him. Her scarlet traveling dress was rumpled and her curls were in some disarray, yet she held herself with utter self-possession.
“Mr. Wilberforce.” She held out her hand. “I hope you don’t mind my visiting. I’m Lady Hester Stanhope.”
Finally, his memory snatched at the name. “Oh! You’re Hester Pitt’s eldest daughter, aren’t you? Pitt’s niece.”
“I am,” she said.
He could see it now: there were some traces of Pitt in her height and her coloring, though her hair was darker and her complexion more strikingly pale, and even more of Pitt’s father, the first Earl of Chatham. She had the same arched brows and oval-shaped face, the same clear, direct gaze that Wilberforce had seen in portraits of the Great Commoner—although it looked very different in a stylish young woman.
Hester’s own father, Wilberforce recalled now, was a political firebrand: a brilliant, tempestuous shadowmancer who took every opportunity to fight his own version of the French Revolution in the House of Lords. Hester was estranged from him now, but she had inherited more than enough of his fire, and she lit a path of scandal and mischief wherever she went. Rumor had it she had run away from home after a fight with her father, and she had since been the subject of several rumored elopements and a duel.
“Of course,” Wilberforce said. “You live with Pitt’s mother now, do you not, at Chevening?”
“I do. But I’m actually visiting my uncle at present. It looks increasingly like England and France might be on the verge of peace, and if so I want to make plans to tour the Continent.” She rushed on before Wilberforce could reply. Her pale complexion was flushed. “Mr. Wilberforce, normally I like nothing better than talking about myself, truly, and I’ve always wanted to meet you socially. But I’ve come with a question. I hoped, because you know of our family bloodlines, and you also know a good deal about Commoner magicians… Do you know any alchemists, illegal or otherwise, who would be capable of composing an elixir for blood magic?”
His heart had known something terrible was coming before he had; it was already quickening. “I understood that could be done without an alchemist,” he said, as calmly as he could. “That it had in fact been done that way since Dr. Addington’s death.”
“Well, it hasn’t been done right. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been done right for years, and now it’s almost too late.”
“It must have been done right. I thought Pitt would die without it.”
“Yes. Exactly. He’s dying right now with the one he has.” She folded her arms tightly. “He says he isn’t, of course, but that’s a lie for my benefit. I can always tell.”
“I had a letter from him only last week,” Wilberforce said. He thought it was last week, at least. Possibly it had been longer. He was never very good at answering letters. “He said he had been somewhat unwell, but he was recovering.”
“He told us the same at Chevening. Possibly it was true, or at least he believed it to be. But I arrived at Walmer on Tuesday, to stay the night, and he was not recovering. I said I’d stay until he was well, and I’m glad I did, because by the next morning his fever had soared and he couldn’t keep food or water down. By the afternoon, he was barely conscious. His physician is no good, of course. I’m positive it’s the elixir at fault. If we can just find someone to fix it…”
“We can’t.” His head was spinning, or perhaps his world was. “If anyone finds out what he is, he’ll be executed anyway.”
“I know he thinks that. But, honestly, is it still true? Times are changing. No matter what the government tries to do about it, there are illegal Commoner magicians all over the place these days. My friend Beau Brummell hasn’t worn a bracelet for years—he had his taken off when everyone was supposed to change to Forester bracelets, and simply never had another put on.”
“Some of the more wealthy and audacious did that, I know. But there was also a shockingly high number of arrests afterward, even among the Aristocrats. And Mr. Brummell, I assume, isn’t a blood magician.”
“That’s true, but I still don’t see that there’s so great a danger. That dreadful Mr. Forester knew about my uncle, after all, or suspected, and he hasn’t reported it.”
“Excuse me?” The world straightened itself sharply. “Anton Forester? The King’s Magician?”
“The same. Horrible man. I don’t really understand religious people of any shape or description, no offense meant, but I understand Knights Templar least of all.”
“He knew about Pitt and his Inheritance? But why wouldn’t he report it?”
“I have absolutely no idea. Perhaps he had no proof. Perhaps while my uncle was prime minister he hoped to use the information to leverage political advantage.”
“But if that’s the case, then why wouldn’t Forester report Pitt after he resigned? He had nothing to gain from him then, and he would be risking his own position by keeping silent.” A thought struck him. “Does Forester have anything to do with why Pitt resigned in the first place?”
“I did wonder as much at the time,” Hester conceded, “but he’d never tell me. I’m not really very well acquainted with my uncle, you know. He used to visit with Aunt Harriot and Uncle Eliot when I was a little girl, and I’ve visited him in town over the last few years, that’s all. I suspect he still thinks of me as a child. He writes to my grandmother, of course, but he really only reassures her that everything’s fine and he’s perfectly well and busy but not too busy, if you know the sort of thing.”
“Yes,” Wilberforce said dryly. “Yes, I’ve received some of those letters myself.” His mind was still on the King’s Magician. “But he told you about Forester?”
“He warned me,” Hester corrected. “He would never have told me otherwise. But apparently Forester made some threats against me, as well—I say threats; they were really just allusions to the fact I exist. I suspect he would like to test me for blood magic. I also suspect he’d be disappointed—I’m a mesmer, nothing more—but perhaps he wouldn’t. These days the rules governing what is and is not classified as dangerous magic can be very flexible. My uncle wanted to stop me from drawing Forester’s attention.”
Wilberforce couldn’t help but smile. “Forgive me. You don’t strike me as being afraid to draw anyone’s attention.”
“I’m not,” she agreed. “And I have to say, neither is my uncle. If Forester made him resign, he didn’t do it through intimidation. I have no real evidence he did anything of the kind, only suspicions. I was visiting him in town at the time, and I saw Forester call, that was all. And I saw my uncle’s face afterward.”
“If Pitt were being blackmailed, I can’t imagine his face would show a single thing.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “That was the face I meant. Do you know of an alchemist who might be able to help?”
“I might, after all,” he said slowly. “But… Lady Hester, this would be an enormous risk. Are you absolutely certain that it’s necessary?”
“Am I certain that he’s dying, do you mean?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Her own young face was suddenly very serious. “Yes. I watched my mother die when I was very young, Mr. Wilberforce.
I know very well what it looks like.”
“Does Pitt know you’ve come to me?”
“Of course. He told me not to, at first. Then he said it might be a good idea, if it was no inconvenience.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He looked at Hester. “He really is dying, isn’t he?”
“I’m generally honest. And when I do make things up, those things are far more sensational.” It was a light answer, but her tone was anything but. “I know you two aren’t on the best of terms—”
“Did he say that?” He was surprised, after all these years, at how it squeezed at his heart.
“Isn’t it true?”
“We’re not on the terms I would wish to be on,” he said. “But I would still do almost anything in the world for him, if he needed me to.”
“Well,” she said, “he needs you to.”
Not long after dawn the following morning, Wilberforce took a carriage up Fleet Street and called at the Temple Church. It had been a long time since he had been within its sand-colored, stained-glass walls. In the old days, he’d had friends in the Temple Church—Frederick Holt, from university, among them. But the Clapham sect and its inhabitants hadn’t been on comfortable terms for a very long time; since the Forester bracelets, their cool relationship had turned to frost. The young redheaded Templar who came to greet him did so with reserve bordering on hostility.
“It’s all right,” Wilberforce said. “I haven’t come to speak to Master Holt this time. I would hate to get him into trouble again. Besides, my understanding is he was posted to Sussex.”
“That had nothing to do with his friendship with you,” the Templar said.
“I didn’t mean to imply that it did. I’ve come to speak to Master Forester, in fact. Is he here?”
The Templar blinked. “The King’s Magician?”
“He’s still a research magician here, is he not? My understanding is that his position at court is separate from his standing within the Order.”
“Of course. But…” The Templar shook his head. “No matter. Very well, I’ll show you to his office. You’re fortunate. He’s often with the king this time of morning.”
Master Templar Anton Forester had gained weight in the years since he had become the King’s Magician. It suited him, softening the sharp contours of his face under his powdered wig and lending him the gravitas he had once lacked. Officially, as Wilberforce had said, his position at court lent him no increased status within the Order. He lived in the same office Pitt had visited him in at the time of the first Saint-Domingue uprising, with its books and old scrolls and candlelight. And yet he was an important person now. It showed in every line of him, in his air of controlled impatience as he stood to greet Wilberforce and the disdain of his ice-blue eyes.
“Master Morgan said you wished to speak to me?” he asked.
“We haven’t formally met,” Wilberforce said. “But I believe we’re acquainted with each other’s work.”
“We are indeed, Mr. Wilberforce,” Forester said coolly. “And I believe, if you’ll forgive me for being so blunt, we are each no real friend to the other’s.”
“We both want to serve God and country. We differ on how that might best be done. But still, I think we have far more in common than otherwise. It’s one reason I thought it might, in fact, be worth approaching you.”
“On what matter?”
“You know what Pitt is,” Wilberforce said bluntly. “And you haven’t told the Knights Templar.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Forester said. But his eyes had flickered toward the door to see if it was closed.
“I’m very sure you do.”
Forester seemed to be waiting for Wilberforce to say more. Wilberforce stood there and waited too.
“Assuming I knew something about any kind of illegal magic,” Forester said at last, “not informing the Knights would go against the deepest and most important rules of my own order. Why would I do this?”
Since Wilberforce had never mentioned illegal magic, it was as much of an admission as he needed. “As far as I can tell,” he said, “there are two possible reasons. The first is that you hoped to gain by blackmail. But I think you knew Pitt well enough to know that wouldn’t happen. Pitt would step down the moment he felt his honor to be at stake, and he would very likely have taken you with him. I assume you did, in fact, have something to do with that resignation?”
“Something very simple,” Forester said calmly. “I asked him to resign. You were quite right. I suspected, and my suspicions grew stronger over time. I didn’t threaten him, nor did I resort to blackmail. I went to him last year, and I asked him to please consider the danger he could pose to the security of the British Empire if he continued to lead her government. He resigned a few days later. I had no need to do anything more.”
That gave Wilberforce a good deal more to think about, but for once he didn’t allow himself to be distracted. “But you had no need to ask him to resign at all. You could have reported him from the first. He would certainly not have been leading the British government then, and you wouldn’t have risked your own position. Which brings me to my one other reason you wouldn’t report him, the only one that makes any sense to me.”
“And what might that be?”
“You’ve left a blood magician alive in England because you know that there’s a stronger one in France, and as much as you hate it, Britain might need one of her own in the time to come. You’ve left Pitt alive because you know that England is already in a vampire war, and it can’t afford to lose.”
Forester stilled. “Did Pitt tell you this?”
“About you, or about—?”
“About the vampire in France.”
“We learned of it together, in fact.”
“And you’re certain it’s true?”
“It’s true.”
Forester nodded very slowly and lowered himself into his chair. His movements had the careful deliberation of someone unsure of his own body or the world it moved in. “I suspected. I wasn’t certain. I confess, I hoped I was wrong.”
Wilberforce sat opposite. “Are you aware of the experiments the Temple Church carried out on the children of blood magicians after the end of the Vampire Wars? The attempts to make an elixir that would enable them to live?”
“I am—though I’m not sure how you are. I’m one of the few in the Order who is. It was foolish. They should have killed them all. It would have been more merciful to all involved.”
“The blood magician in France is one of those children, we think. He escaped his captors as a very young child. That elixir is also what has enabled Pitt to survive past his own childhood.”
“If you’re correct about either or both of these things, then things are very much worse than I feared.” He rubbed his eyes briefly, as though to brush away a speck of grit, then looked at Wilberforce. “Why are you here?”
“Because if I’m not mistaken, Bonaparte is about to become sole emperor of France. Once he does, we’re one step away from the enemy taking firsthand control of Europe. And because according to what I’ve just heard, Pitt is going to be dead very soon.”
“I see.” Forester’s face didn’t change. “What do you expect me to do about these things?”
“About the enemy, nothing at all. But you can remake the elixir.”
“That elixir was never made to work in the first place.”
“Not on pure blood magicians. But it was made to work for Pitt. It was made by your order in the first place. And you’re a very gifted alchemist—surely you can make it work as it once did, even if you can’t perfect it? At the very least, you can certainly try.”
“I would be excommunicated if I did any such thing.”
“You would be excommunicated if they found out you had let a blood magician live unreported.”
“Are you blackmailing me now?”
“I don’t know,” Wilberforce said honestly. “I’ve never blackmailed anyone before. I hope very mu
ch I can just appeal to your better nature, or at least your sense of duty. I just told you that a human being will die without your help. Perhaps that’s no matter to you, given that your order would have killed him long ago given the opportunity. But if he dies, Britain has lost one war. It won’t be long before it loses the other.”
“I’m aware. I’m also aware that if that elixir is ever truly perfected, blood magic could come back into the world.”
“You mean you will no longer have an excuse to kill blood magicians at birth. Their abilities could be perfectly safe.”
“That is exactly what I mean. I’m not ashamed of it. I joined this order because I believe magic can and should be controlled. For the most part, my research is about doing so humanely and safely. Magic is wild and dangerous; the people born with it cannot help that. I want to keep them safe as much as I want to make them safe. But blood magic cannot be made safe. It goes deeper than mere abilities. Its practitioners seek power and control in a way that others don’t. It isn’t merely a magic; it’s a way of life that nearly tore Europe apart. There are still, despite all our efforts, a few children born every generation with blood magic in their veins. If they were given an elixir and allowed to survive, we would soon be back in an age of vampire kings.”
“The world has changed since then. There’s no reason why any blood magicians born today wouldn’t change along with it.”
“Then why did the only living blood magician in England become prime minister at the age of twenty-four?”
“The king appointed him,” Wilberforce said. “You seem to have no issue with that particular branch of magical authority. You seem to have no issue, in fact, with your own as King’s Magician.”
“I have no issue at all with what you describe, which is the established order of this country.”
“Well, that’s very fortunate, because neither does Pitt. Neither do I, for the most part, although I have several friends who think I’m being naive in that regard.”