A Radical Act of Free Magic

by H. G. Parry

  “Oh, that. I stopped being hurt by that a long time ago, or I should have. I knew you were acting according to your principles.”

  “The problem is,” Wilberforce said confidentially, “we’re both so irritatingly principled, aren’t we?”

  Pitt looked at him for a second, and then, for the first time in a long time, burst out laughing. It swiftly turned into a cough that took a while to get back under control, but by that time Wilberforce was laughing too.

  “God, Wilberforce,” he said when he could. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I never went anywhere.”

  “Neither did I. Well, not very far.”

  “Apparently we just kept missing each other.” He tried to keep his voice mock-dignified. It was difficult when he felt so very, very thankful. “I think we need to begin again.”

  “From how far back? The duel? The Concord? Whenever it was that we first met?”

  “You don’t even remember, do you?”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course I do! The winter before we turned twenty-one, in the gallery of the House of Commoners. I think Burke was speaking on free magic or America or something.”

  “You’re right, he was. About the way in which liberty focuses itself around the question of magic.”

  “You would remember that.”

  “Word for word, I’m afraid. But then, I’ve had occasion to think about it rather a lot.”

  Wilberforce smiled. “Do we forgive each other, then, after all this time?”

  “I’ve quite forgotten what we’ve been blaming each other for. It must have been idiotic.”

  “That doesn’t sound like us.”

  Pitt laughed a little, then winced. “We’d better not argue or laugh too much more, actually. The last thing I want is for Forester to come back.”

  “I’m sorry.” Belatedly, he remembered that Pitt was very good at seeming quite himself when he was very unwell indeed.

  “No, don’t be,” Pitt said. He sounded breathless but sincere. “I needed both.”

  “So did I.”

  Pitt settled back on the pillows carefully. He did look very pale, and Wilberforce suspected the bout of coughing had hurt far more than he could see. Still, he sounded very like his old self, and the smile that had flickered across his face did something to alleviate the lines of pain around his eyes.

  “How are you?” Wilberforce asked seriously. “Truly?”

  “What did Forester tell you?” Pitt said; knowing him, the question was rhetorical. He would hate nothing more than to have his diagnosis repeated back to him. “It’s probably true enough, although I do think he takes rather too bleak a view of matters.”

  “He said that you came very close to dying.”

  “That is indeed a rather bleak view of the matter. He might have said that I survived.” He sighed. “I did come close, I think—to be honest, the last few days are something of a blur. I’m quite convinced I’m very far from it now. Please don’t worry.”

  “I always worry about my friends. We’ve just ascertained I have a right to do so. And apparently when I don’t worry about them, I start arguments with them.”

  “To be fair, you do that when you are worried about them.”

  “Well, stop worrying me.” He hesitated. “Your resignation had nothing to do with what I said the day after the duel, did it?”

  “In what way?”

  That wasn’t an answer, of course. That was Pitt trying to gauge how much the other person knew or suspected before he decided what answer to give. “I told you that you would never give up power. I didn’t mean it. I was being cruel.”

  “You were being tactless. I’m not convinced you know how to be cruel.”

  “I do, I’m afraid. Please don’t ever doubt it.”

  “I’ll try not to.” He shifted, painfully. “If your fear is that I was trying to prove you wrong on that score, then you can rest assured that it wasn’t the case—though I did do that as well, now you mention it, and please be prepared for me to hold it over you for the rest of your natural life. But you were right about a good many other things. Whether they were necessary or not, and I maintain they were, there have been too many compromises lately. The reforms I came to power to implement are all far too dangerous for wartime. The king won’t allow them, even if my government would, and if I’m only there to do as the king thinks best, I may as well not be there at all. Besides, both you and Forester were right about something else: the enemy and I are too close. He speaks to me all the time now. He can see into my childhood. The danger isn’t only what he might persuade me to do—I can guard against myself. It’s what else he may be able to see. You suggested, did you not, that the attempt to stop Bonaparte reaching Egypt may have been foiled because the enemy had access to the mind of someone in government?”

  He frowned. “You think it might be you?”

  “I fear it might be. I never mentioned it to you, because I had no desire for you to confirm those fears. But I should have resigned as soon as I suspected. It was too great a risk to take.”

  Wilberforce thought about it, long and hard, putting the evidence under the most brutal light he could conjure. It was the way he examined his own conscience, lying in bed at night or writing his diary by candlelight, and he trusted the truth of what it illuminated by how painful it was to bear.

  “I don’t think it is,” he said at last. “I think if the enemy could see into your secrets, the damage would be greater.”

  “Perhaps it is, and we simply haven’t identified all of it.” Pitt shook his head. “I appreciate your reassurance, believe me. I still won’t take the risk.”

  “And so you stepped down.”

  “I did.” Whatever Wilberforce’s face was showing, it made him smile a little. “It wasn’t so great a decision, in the end. It was time for someone else to hold the castle for a while, in any case. I said, when I took power all those years ago, that I had no great desire to come into government, and no great reluctance to leave it again.”

  “I remember. I believed you.”

  “That was very kind of you. I had no idea at the time if it was true. I still don’t. But it’s the correct way to be, and so I intend to act as if it is true. Perhaps this way, without the enemy and I each driving our side of the war, this country will be free to make peace with France on its own terms. Either way, I can’t keep going as I was without becoming something I don’t want to be. God, I can’t even remember why I wanted all this in the first place, all those years ago.”

  “Eliot used to think you couldn’t stand to see the country run badly when you thought you could do it better,” Wilberforce said. “I always assumed you just got bored.”

  He smiled. “Well, I’m certainly not bored now.”

  “No, but you did nearly die yesterday. Give it a day or so.” He went on before Pitt could reply. “I’m glad you stepped down, for your sake. Even before Forester told me that the elixir was unequal to the task of keeping you alive, I could see that it was no good for you. Perhaps power is no good for anyone.”

  “For my sake,” Pitt repeated thoughtfully. He had plainly caught what Wilberforce was hesitating to say. “And what about for the sake of the country?”

  “It’s too soon to tell.” It felt like a cowardly answer under the circumstances. He tried to give a better one. “I hope that you’re right, and you were the enemy’s insight into our plans, so that insight has been lost to him. It does, I’ll admit, look as though under Addington we may be headed for peace. But whatever happens between England and France, that still leaves you fighting a vampire war. As long as the enemy and you are still alive, there will be no respite from that.”

  Pitt nodded slowly. “If that is what concerns you, you needn’t worry. I don’t intend there to be.”

  “Good. Then please, whatever else you do, remember that I’m fighting it with you. Please, don’t try to conceal anything from me for fear I will no longer trust you, because I will always trust you,
and don’t ever, ever try to protect me. Are we agreed?”

  “I’m almost afraid to. We haven’t agreed on anything in so long.” He shook his head. “Very well. I promise to tell you everything, and take you into any peril. Are you satisfied?”

  “For now,” Wilberforce conceded cheerfully. “Yes.”

  “And people wonder why I never asked you to serve on my government.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Wilberforce asked before he could stop himself. He wished he could take it back immediately, especially when Pitt’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have accepted a position if you had, of course. I value my political independence greatly—”

  “I knew that without asking, which was a good enough reason in itself.” Another flash of pain crossed his face, but his mind seemed somewhere else altogether as he turned the question over. “It certainly wasn’t the only reason, of course. It was such a long time ago, and I hardly think I knew why myself. In retrospect…”

  “I wasn’t always the most reliable when I was twenty-four, I suppose,” he said, trying to release his friend from the question.

  “That’s certainly true,” Pitt said with a half smile. He didn’t seem to wish to be released, however; he was still considering. “Whatever my thoughts were originally, I know the reason I never offered you a place subsequently was because I valued your political independence. I trusted your support, because I knew it was coming from your heart and not from any political agenda, and I trusted my judgment more when I found it aligned with yours. I still do. I never thought it might cause you offense; it was certainly very far from my intentions.”

  “It didn’t,” Wilberforce said. His heart felt very full, and he had to swallow hard before he spoke again for fear of making things awkward. “I always thought it was absolutely right.”

  “Good. So did I.”

  He really was starting to sound tired now, and Wilberforce took the hint. He had already stayed longer than he had meant, and he feared, whatever his friend said, that he had done more harm than good in coming at all. But he could never bring himself to be sorry for their conversation, and he suspected Pitt wouldn’t be either. He felt lighter and more hopeful than he had in months.

  “I truly hope that you stepping down will quiet the war in France,” he said. “I hope the war between the two of you will quiet too. I especially hope that you have a chance to rest and get better, because I’m still very worried about you, whatever you say. I just fear that none of it will be that easy.”

  Pitt nodded. “I can believe that, unfortunately,” he said. “In my experience, few things are.”

  Paris

  December 1801

  Napoléon didn’t even want to go to the opera. It had been a long, difficult day, and a night among the beau monde of Paris seemed too high a price to pay for Haydn. But his wife, her daughter, Hortense, and Napoléon’s sister Caroline were dressed in their finery; from below, he could hear Joséphine’s laugh as she swatted Jean Rapp with her shawl. That was the real reason he had agreed to go, if he was honest. Rapp was a good-looking man, and there were a lot of eyes at the opera. He couldn’t have his wife and his aide flirting in public with him nowhere to be seen.

  The Paris through which their carriages would travel was very different from the one he had taken just over a year ago. It was a quieter place, better ordered, less dangerous. Magic was still free, but the laws surrounding its use had tightened. The Knights Templar had been permitted to take up residence in the city again; the Aristocrats who had fled the country had been permitted to return if they so chose without punishment. Most of the press was shut down or brought into line, with only a few dissenting voices left in order to avoid accusations of repression. Theatre and literature were plentiful on the surface but tightly controlled beneath it. There was no real ideology save pragmatism governing the new Republic, at least not from Napoléon. He meant to rule the people as they wanted to be ruled, at least for now. It seemed by far the easiest way.

  “We have finished the novel of the Revolution,” he told his government. “We now have to pick out only those of its principles that are real and practical. To do otherwise would be to philosophize, not to govern.”

  There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Napoléon was the governor. He had moved into the palace at the Tuileries, where Marie Antoinette and Louis had resided only years ago, and the building had once again taken on the guise of a royal court. It was a rather farcical royal court, admittedly: Napoléon had never had anything to do with courts or even high society, and his best guesses at protocol were haphazard and often lapsed entirely. He dressed better now, and kept his hair perfectly cut and his hands manicured, but at heart he was a soldier, swiftly bored with the etiquette of knives and forks and given to hitting and pinching people to show he liked them. It never occurred to him that people didn’t like to be hurt. He was clever at reading others’ talents and loyalties, but he knew there was something missing in his perception of them—some insight into mood or character that others seemed to have. If he had thought to ask anyone who knew him, they could have told him it was called empathy. Chances were, though, they wouldn’t have dared.

  Joséphine was invaluable in this regard. Her lavish decorations, draining as they were on his personal finances, gave the palace the right air of sophistication; she was kind and gracious to those Napoléon inevitably offended; her skill at magic lent credibility to Napoléon’s claims to Republicanism even as he grew in power. Moreover, though his ardor for her had cooled, he remained genuinely fond of her.

  On this one night, though, she was trying his patience.

  “For God’s sake,” he growled as she fussed over her shawl. “It’s eight o’clock. You were the one who wanted to go to this thing.”

  “I still do,” she said, unperturbed. Sometimes she was afraid of him. This was not one of those times. “But there’s no need to rush. The opera never really builds momentum until the end of the first act.”

  He threw his hands up in exasperation. “Very well. I’ll go with my staff. You women can follow when you see fit. You can take her,” he added to Rapp. “She’s yours for the night.”

  Rapp looked startled, and not a little nervous.

  Napoléon’s temper cooled quickly once he got into his carriage, to the relief of the three officers riding with him. It was only a short drive from the palace to the opera, after all, and he was content enough to miss the opening himself now that he had nobody to blame for it.

  It was dark outside, and light rain dashed against the windows. He could hear the sounds of the Paris streets, but the armed escort between him and the carriage blocked any other view. The drone of the carriage wheels made him sleepy. He closed his eyes and let himself drift into the thin, light doze of a soldier in enemy territory.

  The dream around him was hazy and indistinct. Only the voice was clear, and it might have been heard in his waking mind.

  Wake up. It was his friend, his voice low and urgent. Something’s very wrong.

  His eyes snapped open.

  “Where are we?” he asked sharply.

  It was General Lannes who answered. “The place du Carrousel,” he said. “Still only halfway. The roads are very crowded—there’s something blocking the bridge. I’ve just asked the coachman to slow down.”

  “Tell him to speed up.”

  The general began to speak and caught himself. When Napoléon gave an order, he expected to be obeyed. “Yes, sir.”

  He tugged on the rope inside the carriage—not, to Napoléon’s eyes, fast enough. He pushed him out of the way, grabbed the rope himself, and yanked it.

  “Driver!” he called. “Forward! Quickly!”

  The driver might have heard; he might have just seen a gap open up between the carriages. In any case, the whip cracked, and the horses streamed forward at top speed, pushing past one carriage and narrowly missing the wheels of another. They turned the corner, toward the opera, and the street dropped behind t
hem.

  Napoléon twisted in his seat to look back.

  “Is there a problem?” Lannes asked cautiously.

  “I’m not certain,” Napoléon said. The voice in his head was silent, but his nerves were still on edge. “I think—”

  At that moment, directly behind them, the coach that had blocked their way exploded.

  They were some distance from it now, but still the force of it rocked the carriage. The horses shrieked and bolted; Napoléon was flung against the side of the carriage as it careened wildly on two wheels. Someone fell against him, crushing his shoulder. For a horrifying second, the window filled with the cobbled pavement. Then the driver regained control. The horses settled to a walk, then stopped; the carriage righted itself.

  Napoléon fell back into his seat, dazed and shaken. None of his generals spoke. He tasted blood and realized dimly that he had bitten his lip.

  Someone was rapping on the window—one of the escort. Napoléon started to open the window, then changed his mind and wrenched the door open. The night air was frosty, and the rain bit his face as he stepped out.

  “Are you injured, sir?” the commander asked.

  “Not at all,” Napoléon said absently. His attention was fixed on the aftermath behind him.

  The street had become a battlefield. The houses were ablaze, and after the first stunned silence screams filled the air. Some were cries of fear or shouts for help. Napoléon thought of the people they had passed only moments ago. Many of them would be dead or dying.

  They were no ordinary flames, Napoléon could tell. It was mage-fire. Most couldn’t tell, but he had spent enough time at war to recognize the flicker of green against the yellow orange. But the sound had been too loud for a mere burst of fire magic; the devastation had been too great. Some combination of alchemy and fire magic, then. He had used similar combinations himself in Egypt.

  “That was meant for you,” Lannes said from the carriage, dazed.