But magic didn’t seem to obey understandable rules. Logically, a magician born of two other magicians – a Mover and a Blazer, perhaps – should share both talents. And yet it didn’t work that way. A magician either had one talent or he had them all; cross-breeding magicians only seemed to produce weaker magicians with a single talent. It made no sense to Gwen, but Doctor Norwell – clearly unaware that Gwen knew about the farms – had once commented that magic clearly obeyed its own laws, even if the magicians didn’t understand them. One day, he’d told her, everything would be discovered. Knowing why something happened was often more important than knowing how something happened. It was the difference between original science and merely using someone else’s work.
Gwen had her own theory on the differences between rich and poor magicians. The rich ate regularly and well; the poor often had to scrape for their daily bread. It made sense, to her at least, that the ones who ate well would have more energy for use in their magic, giving them an advantage over the others. The Darwinists wouldn’t thank her for such a theory, she knew. They believed that birth alone made them superior.
Master Thomas’s office was surprisingly crowded when he led her into the room. Lord Mycroft was seated on the sofa, his oversized chest heaving alarmingly. Lord Blackburn was seated on an armchair, scowling at everyone – even Master Thomas. A number of men she didn’t recognise were either sitting in their own chairs or standing in front of the fire. Gwen was the only woman in the room. Even Irene, who might have been able to contribute all kinds of ideas to the meeting, had been excluded. She had a nasty feeling that that didn’t bode well.
“The fire at the bridge has finally been quenched,” Lord Mycroft said. Gwen, who had heard that Lord Mycroft hated to alter his daily routine, could hear the irritation in his voice. “I am afraid that our former prisoners escaped without loss.”
There was a long pause. Gwen had only heard that an airship had crashed into one of the many bridges crossing the Thames. Prisoners? No one had told her anything about prisoners.
“They managed to break their fellows out of the Tower of London,” one of the men she didn’t recognise said. He looked older than Master Thomas, with a long white beard that reminded her of her grandfather, before he had passed away. “No matter how we look at it, it was a total disaster. Losing so many well-connected people in the explosion...”
“To say nothing of morale at the Tower garrison,” a younger man said. He wore no uniform, but he had a military bearing. Gwen saw him as he glanced towards her and realised that he reassembled the Duke of India. The great conqueror’s son? “They could have taken the airship down in seconds, if they hadn’t had to worry about the human shields.”
“The Prime Minister is due to address Parliament this evening,” Lord Mycroft said, shortly. “We need to have something to advise him by then. The last thing we need is another rebellion on the backbenches.”
Gwen smiled, inwardly. She knew more about politics than the average noble-born girl, if only because her father had been given to discoursing at length on the subject to anyone who would listen. Lord Liverpool was aging; a successful challenge from one of the younger MPs might bring his government down, forcing a series of elections that would put a new government in power. And until the new Prime Minister was settled in office, Britain would be effectively leaderless. The ship of state would drift out of control while attention was focused elsewhere.
“This was intended as a challenge to our authority,” Lord Blackburn said, flatly. There was no Charm in his voice, Gwen realised. Master Thomas would have detected it instantly and attempting to Charm some of the most powerful men in the land would be considered Treason. Lord Blackburn would meet his end on Tower Hill, where all of the traitors were executed, before his body was cremated and the ashes dumped into the Thames. “It demands a harsh response.”
Master Thomas snorted. “Against who?” He asked. “We raided the known centres of underground activity after the...unfortunate incident at the Fairweather Ball. The underground is careful to keep its cells separated from each other, making it harder to penetrate and break them. They learned a great many lessons since they last mounted a challenge to our authority.”
He paused, just long enough to draw attention. “This was a carefully-laid plan, conceived by a madman,” he added. “They used underground magicians to distract me and keep me out of London while they raided the Tower. I fear that we must face the fact that one of our worst fears has come true. The magical underground has found a charismatic leader who has united it against us.”
“And has allied it with the other underground movements,” Lord Mycroft said. “We must assume the worst; that we’re facing a more dangerous challenge to our authority since King Charles and the Long Parliament had their deadly falling out. Parliament and the King could talk and try to find a compromise. We cannot compromise with anarchists.”
“You should be able to find your former student,” one of the other men said. He was younger than David, but older than Gwen – and trying to appear older than he was. “I thought that you magicians could sense one another’s presence.”
“If Master Jackson was using his powers constantly, we might be able to use Sensors to track him down,” Master Thomas said. Gwen realised, suddenly, that it wasn’t just the government’s power that was being challenged. Her tutor’s position as the foremost magician in England was being threatened. They couldn’t replace him...or could they? There was another Master in Cavendish Hall now; Gwen herself. But she didn’t have his years of experience yet. She couldn’t hope to fit into his shoes. “But he is careful and very capable. He won’t allow us to track him down so easily.”
“And in any case he has the assistance of other magicians,” Lord Blackburn added. “The underground has something else that they didn’t have five years ago – they have someone who can teach them how to master their powers. We knew that it was getting harder to track down unlicensed magicians even before Master Jackson returned from the dead.”
“Begging your pardon,” one of the older men said, “but I don’t like joking upon such matters.”
“It is hardly a joke,” Lord Blackburn said, tightly. His face flushed alarmingly. “We believed that Master Jackson was dead. If we’d taken precautions...”
“We did what seemed best in the circumstances,” Lord Mycroft said. He sounded tired, almost on the verge of sleep. “There is no point in arguing over decisions that were made years ago. We have to deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.”
He tapped his cane against the wooden floor. “We have to track the underground down, rapidly,” he said. “If Parliament feels that we cannot beat the underground, they may feel inclined to offer concessions to the lower classes rather than keeping them firmly in their place. I submit to you that allowing such concessions to be made would spell the end of the British Empire. The Americans, the Australians, the South Africans...they would all demand equal rights on the border of empire. We would see the end of the greatest force for civilisation and advancement in our lifetimes; the empire destroyed.”
“Not the South Africans,” Lord Blackburn pointed out. “They require our support for facing the savages. Even with the Ferguson rifles that broke the tribes, they’re still fighting more often than not. We blood the new regiments in Africa before deploying them elsewhere.”
“And rounding up more slaves for the plantations in Dixie,” Master Thomas said, flatly. “I have never seen the honour in slave-trading.”
Gwen couldn’t disagree, even though she knew that her father and brother had made fortunes by selling black slaves to the American South. There had been hundreds of antislavery campaigns in and out of Parliament, but slavery was simply too important to the British Empire’s economy to be abolished. A handful of colonies in West Africa had been founded by ex-slaves who had had their freedom purchased by religious and moral pressure groups, yet none of them were particularly successful. The Darwinists point
ed to those failures as evidence that the black man was not civilised and could never be turned into a rational man. Slavery was for their own good. Privately, Gwen wondered how anyone could believe such a claim when it was clear that the ex-slave colonies had been set up to fail, but it wasn’t something she could say publicly. There had to be a caste at the bottom to help keep the empire stable.
There were other reasons, she’d come to realise after she’d moved to Cavendish Hall. Slave rebellions were common in the American South, where frustrated and hopeless young bucks had turned on their masters. The British Army’s garrisons were often called upon to put such rebellions down, demonstrating to the Americans just how much they needed the presence of the British military. It was convincing to the aristocratic plantation farmers – and the opinions of anyone else simply didn’t matter.
“That debate is one that can be saved for another time,” Lord Mycroft said. “What do we advise the Prime Minister?”
“That we can keep the situation under control,” Lord Blackburn said. “We do have forces we can call upon in England. It’s time to show the vermin the uncovered fist.”
He stood up and paced around the room, stopping in front of a table on which was spread a giant map of London. “We know who we are looking for,” he said. “We move in the troops and seal off the entire poorer area of London. Once in control, we crack down hard, bringing pressure to bear on the...less savoury residents of the area to expose underground hide-outs to us. Everyone we catch goes under the gaze of the Talkers; we use the intelligence they develop to go after other hide-outs, building up a picture of the underground. We push factory owners to bring pressure on their workers; those who tell us useful information about the underground will be rewarded, those found to be concealing information will be sacked and thrown out onto the streets to die.”
Lord Blackburn’s dark eyes narrowed. “We can win this by a simple and effective response; brute force on a scale they could not hope to match. And if they bring themselves into the open, we could smash them like foxes caught by the hounds.”
There was a long pause. “It seems to me that such repression will only alienate the working class further,” Lord Mycroft said. “Our system worked for so long because it offered the chance for a working class person to rise to the middle class, to own and operate his own business – or even emigrate to a settlement in America or South Africa. If we come down too hard...”
“They hit the Tower of London,” Lord Blackburn thundered. “They are not scared of us, not even slightly! We cannot let them get away with this or we will lose control of the country by the end of the year.”
Gwen spoke up before she thought better of it. “Tell me something,” she said, her feminine voice drawing their attention like nothing else. “How many of the working class have risen to the middle class in the last five years?”
Lord Blackburn glared at her, not bothering to conceal his dislike. If they had been alone, she was sure that he would have told her to run back to the kitchen and mind her own business, leaving politics to the men. But they weren’t alone and while some of the men might have shared his opinion, it would have been utterly impolite to say so out loud.
“Those who have earned the rise have done so,” he said, finally.
“You don’t know,” Gwen said, tartly. If she was to have the disadvantages of being a female in male company, she might as well claim the advantages too. “Let me guess; only a handful of men have managed to rise out of poverty?”
“That is of no concern,” Lord Blackburn blustered. “I think...”
“I think that it is of very great concern,” Gwen said, cutting him off ruthlessly. “As far as I can tell, the poor will always be poor, with no chance to better themselves. Is that not correct?”
“Those who have ambition and capability are often offered the chance to strike out overseas,” Lord Mycroft rumbled. “The remainder have no fire in them...”
“They have nothing to lose, but their chains,” Gwen said. Jack would have said the same thing, she realised. And who knew what Master Thomas was thinking behind his impassive face? “If they have no hope of lifting themselves up, should they not try to force their way up? What exactly do they have to lose?”
“Their lives,” Lord Blackburn said, sharply. “We are the rulers of Great Britain and her Empire. We cannot be seen to bow to anarchist threats. It’s time to show those scum who’s in charge.”
***
“Opposing Lord Blackburn like that was not wise.”
Gwen didn’t turn. She stood on the roof, staring out over London. The streetlights were coming on, illuminating the richer parts of the city. They stood in odd contrast to the poorer regions, which were barely lit. It was easy to see why Jack had found so many converts. If she’d lived in such conditions, forced to sell herself to survive, she would have wanted to change places too.
“He has far too many friends at court,” Master Thomas said. He stood just behind her, his presence easy to detect. Gwen could feel his mind pulsing as he stared past her and out into the night. “You will need to watch yourself.”
“You told me that before,” Gwen said, tartly. She was sorry almost at once. Master Thomas didn’t deserve her scorn. “I thought we were supposed to defend the British Empire, not...”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she admitted. It wasn’t entirely true. She understood Jack better than she wanted to admit. “Why does no one care?”
“They care about their interests,” Master Thomas said. “It was far simpler when I was young, when Pitt led us to war against the French. Magic was nothing more than superstition back then...”
He shook his head. “Our goal is to protect the Empire,” he reminded her. “Whatever else you decide, remember that. We exist to protect the Empire.”
Gwen turned and looked up at him. Master Thomas looked old, as if something had gone out of him. “And what is the Empire,” she asked quietly, “without its people?”
Master Thomas said nothing. But then, there was nothing to say.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ware,” a man was shouting. “The Dragoons are coming!”
Jack stumbled awake and pulled himself out of bed. He’d slept in after they’d made their escape, trusting that the Seers and more conventional enemy agents wouldn’t be able to locate their hide. Lucy had joined him – her brothel would have been closed down – and somehow they’d found themselves in bed together. He glanced back at her as he staggered over to the windows, feeling pain trickling through his head. His body always extracted a price for pushing his powers too far.
People were scattering on the streets below, looking for cover or running into buildings. A line of troops came into view, decked out in the bright red uniform worn by British soldiers. Their commanders rode in front of the men, riding horses and daring anyone to try to take a shot at them. The red uniforms – red as blood – glimmered menacingly in the sunlight. There was no doubt that they intended to occupy the Rookery and dare the underground to challenge them directly. Jack wasn’t particularly surprised. The authorities would have to find some way of hitting back after the raid on the Tower of London and without any clear targets, pushing troops into the poorer parts of London was probably their best option. It was amazing how many people thought better of revolution after coming face to face with the government’s mailed fist.
“Cossacks,” he muttered, as he splashed water on his face. Hunger was growling inside his chest, but he ignored it. He would have to eat after he’d checked out the soldiers. “The bastards will pressure the civilians into betraying us.”
Lucy rolled over and looked up at him. “What’s happening?”
“They’ve put dragoons on the streets,” Jack said. The cold water was clearing his head. He ran one hand along his chin to check the stubble, before shaking his head in private amusement. There was no time to shave, even if he’d had the tools. “I think they’re going to start looking for us.”
&nbs
p; The thought made him smile. London was the largest city in England; Manchester, Newcastle and even Liverpool didn’t come close to the sprawling immensity of London. Searching the entire city was going to take weeks, particularly when the searchers didn’t know precisely who or what they were looking for. It would give the underground time to think and plan, but the chances were good that the searchers would stumble over one of the caches of arms. And then the chaos would really begin. Weapons were forbidden to the lower classes, if only to prevent them objecting forcefully to the way they were treated by their lords and masters. An arms dump would reveal the plans for violent revolution.
There was a knock at the door. Jack braced himself, reaching for his magic despite the throbbing pain at the back of his head, before he opened the door. Olivia stood there, carrying a basket under one arm. Jack motioned for her to come in, silently praying that the soldiers on the streets below never saw through her disguise. She’d find herself raped and worse; the army was notoriously prone to savage repression and utterly intolerant of any attempt to rein them in and treat civilians decently. The Duke of India and a handful of other commanders had kept their men under control, but others hadn’t even bothered to try.
“I brought food,” Olivia said. “Davy sent you a note too.”
Jack took it and read it quickly. Davy’s network of spies – mainly street urchins, who could go anywhere in the Rookery without inciting comment – had reported that soldiers were taking up strategic positions throughout the city. There had already been some incidents of violence when soldiers had clashed with factory workers, intimidating them as they made their way to the factories in the morning, where they were told that the harassment would continue until the underground was rooted out and destroyed. Worse, their wages had been docked for lateness, even though it hadn’t been their fault. Jack scowled as he crumpled up the message in his hands. Someone on the other side was thinking two or three steps ahead; knowing that the factory workers needed their wages, they had used them to pressure the helpless men into betraying what they knew of the underground. The handful of leaders who had tried to create unions would already have been rounded up.
The Royal Sorceress Page 31