A Seditious Affair

by K. J. Charles

  “Stay,” Dominic said. “I’ll leave if you want me to, but the room is taken for the night. You might as well. It’s warm.”

  “Christ. You don’t understand a thing, do you?”

  “I understand that it’s a bitter winter. I know you’re cold.”

  Silas shook his head, suddenly weary beyond words. “Everybody’s cold out there, Tory. Everybody. And if you think it’s enough for me that you make one man warm, you’ve not listened to a fucking word I’ve said.”

  He walked away then. Away from Dominic and his expression of bewildered hurt. Away from temptation and back to the hard, cold, hungry places he belonged.

  —

  The old mad king died three days later, to a predictable accompaniment of sentimental drivel in the newspapers, with people who’d forgotten the very name of George III putting on mourning and long faces. Doubtless a magnificent funeral and an equally magnificent coronation would follow. Speculation began at once as to whether the new King George IV would have his loathed, unfaithful, and long-estranged wife beside him as queen.

  “The pair of them can rot in hell for all I care,” Brunt growled, and followed it up with some spectacularly filthy speculations on Queen Caroline’s activities during her long exile abroad.

  The Spencean Philanthropists were meeting in Brunt’s back room, in Fox Court off Grays Inn Lane. Adams had been released from debtors’ prison; whisper was that George Edwards had paid off the debt for him. He was there, listening as ever, along with Ings, Davidson, and a few of the others.

  Silas wasn’t sure why he’d come, except defiance. The Spenceans, led by the bloodthirsty Thistlewood, were talking about staging a coup now. They would amass arms, the Six Acts be damned, and while the army was preoccupied by the king’s funeral, they would seize power and take control of London.

  It was pure, pathetic fantasy, the ramblings of men who drank because they couldn’t afford to eat, who plotted to take over London while squatting in darkness because they couldn’t afford chairs any more than candles, and who had been pushed so far that reality held no appeal. Forty men with pikes seizing a city was lunacy on its own, never mind that they didn’t even have forty men. Thistlewood muttered obscure reassurances when he was asked about where the reinforcements would be coming from, then lost his temper.

  It kept them happy, Silas supposed. There was little else to do that.

  They had pikes now, or at least piles of staves and blades ready to be assembled. That was more planning than Silas would have thought Thistlewood capable of; it wasn’t clear where the funds for the weapons had come from. What they didn’t have was ferrules to attach the spear ends to the staffs. A man named Bradburn had been given money to buy those some days ago. It didn’t look like he’d be returning.

  Silas could hardly blame Bradburn. He had no desire to be sucked into Thistlewood’s madness either. But these men were colleagues and fellow believers, and mostly they were desperate. Every time someone left the group it was a body blow to the rest. Silas couldn’t bring himself to do it when they had nothing remaining except belief.

  That didn’t mean he wanted to be picked up for high treason. That was what they were plotting, ludicrous dream though it was, and he couldn’t shake Dominic’s warning. He knew something, he suspected there was trouble on the way, and he wanted Silas out of it.

  It was most likely his writings. He couldn’t publish anything lawfully now, since none of his readers bar Harry Vane could afford the crippling sevenpence duty, and when—blast Dominic and his “when”—Silas was caught and convicted, he would be transported. There was no doubt in his mind of that, and he had no delusions as to what it meant. So he did the only thing he could: wrote fiercer words, because if he was going to lose this fight, he was going to lose it hard, and he was damned if he’d let them see he was afraid.

  It felt like he was acting out a nightmarishly real form of the defiance Dominic showed on those odd nights, the ones when he had to be forced. I won’t do what you say and you can’t make me—spoken in the full knowledge that his tormentor could and would. The difference was, Dom wanted the consequences. But then, being made to kneel was just a game for gentlemen. The reality was different.

  Silas pledged destruction to king, church, and state in an abstracted sort of way and trudged home to the cold of the bookshop. As he strode along Paternoster Row, key already in his hand, a frantic, furious female voice hailed him. “Mr. Mason! Wait!”

  Martha Charkin, eyes snapping with anger. “What is it?” Silas demanded.

  “I know who took my money. George’s money. It was the Hobhouse boys. Will you help me?”

  Silas knew the Hobhouses, a loud, roistering family who lived on Ave Marie Lane, just around the corner. The bully of a father had raised four bullying sons, reducing their mother to a silent, sunk-eyed ghost before one beating too many made it final. Silas had had words with John Hobhouse and his boys more than once. If ever Silas had met a set of men who’d steal a dead son’s money from a widow mother, it was the Hobhouses; if ever Dominic met them, he’d see proof that the lower sort didn’t deserve the vote, freedom, or anything except a good whipping.

  Silas sighed. “I’ll get my cudgel.”

  —

  Dominic was a little late to meet Silas the next Wednesday, and didn’t want to think about why.

  It was a week since Silas had walked away from him in anger. Dominic had wanted to run after him, to chase him down the street, to go to the bookshop the next day and say, You mistook me. Let me explain. Let me help.

  He couldn’t do any of those things, because he might as well cut his own throat as bring their relations to public notice, and he was aware of a slow-burning anger of his own because of this, one that he suspected echoed Silas’s permanent state of simmering resentment.

  Silas had lent him, under strict promise of secrecy, an unpublished essay entitled “Offences Against One’s Self.” It was copied in Silas’s rough, determined hand, but he had sworn the text was by Jeremy Bentham, the lawyer-philosopher. It was without doubt the product of a highly educated and formidably intelligent mind, and it demolished the justification for anti-sodomy laws with forensic skill. Among many other points, the author argued that it was a human failing to condemn other people for their different preferences. From a man’s possessing a thorough aversion to a practice himself, the transition is but too natural to his wishing to see all others punished who give into it.

  Dominic agreed with that—he could hardly do otherwise—but the ramifications of his agreement left him unsettled. He could not accept Silas’s arguments for reform. He’d seen too many demagogues calling for riot and chaos; he had no faith in the ability of the masses to govern themselves when they could not even feed themselves. But Silas and his ilk were surely entitled to hold their political beliefs, however wrong and repellent, and entitled to argue for them as long as their argument remained within the law.

  Except that the law had been changed in order to silence those arguments, because the government, Dominic’s party, wanted to make the expression of the reformists’ preferences illegal.

  Dominic huddled into his coat, pacing to their assignation. He wanted to talk this through with Silas, to pick out a coherent thread from his knotty thoughts that would allow him to make sense of his feelings. He suspected Silas would tell him he was trying to square a circle by thinking.

  The damned nuisance that he was. The strain on Silas was visible, marking lines around his eyes. He was obviously going hungry, and Harry had told Dominic why. Silas hadn’t even taken that damned purse Harry had sent. And because he was Silas, distress and need made him more obstinate and more aggressive. Dominic would have handed him a hundred pounds and told him to feed his whole damned street with it as long as he’d fill his own belly, but he knew too well how that would be received.

  It was sheer perversity, Dominic thought irritably, as he headed up the stairs. Silas ranted about the rich who didn’t give to the poor, yet he�
��d be consumed with outrage if Dominic tried to give him money today.

  If he was there. That was what Dominic had been trying not to think about, the fear that Silas wouldn’t be there because of anger or hunger, illness or arrest. Dominic had spent a week trying not to think about what he’d do if Silas didn’t come back this Wednesday, and it was only when he pushed open the door and saw the man sitting at the little table, wolfing down a brick-sized chunk of bread and cheese, that he knew how afraid he had been.

  Silas turned, and a whole variety of greetings, their tone ranging from anger to sarcasm to affection, died on Dominic’s lips. “What the devil happened?”

  Silas swallowed his mouthful. “Sorry, Tory, couldn’t wait for you. Aye, well, the other man came off worse.”

  “Who? What happened? No, wait. Just tell me that it wasn’t anything to do with the law, and then eat, and then tell me, yes?”

  Silas had bruising along his cheek and under his eye and a cut, swollen lip. He seemed unconcerned. “Not the law, no. Bit of a local disagreement.”

  “Thank the stars for that.” Dominic sat on the bed with a glass of wine as Silas ate. He wasn’t an elegant eater, tearing into hunks of cold ham with unrestrained appetite. Of course, elegant manners assumed a lack of actual hunger.

  Dominic made mild conversation, the kind that could be carried on with no responses but grunts and nods, and waited till Silas finally pushed back the plate. “Christ, I needed that.”

  “Mmm. Who hit you?”

  “Ah, well. Did I tell you some bugger robbed Martha Charkin, my George’s ma, of her twenty guineas? Turns out it was a lout living round the corner, him and his brother. Robbing a widow woman who lost her son. So I had a word.”

  “Quite a rough word,” Dominic observed, with a pointed look at Silas’s battered knuckles.

  “Couple of hectors, all brawn, piss, and wind. Bragged about the drinking and whoring they’d done with her money.” Silas’s face darkened with the memory. “So we had a set-to”—he made a little unconscious gesture that suggested holding a cudgel—“and I hauled ’em into the street, told a few of the folks around what they did. They’ve got a couple more brothers, and their old man’s free with his fists too. Bit of a turnup, in the end. But, I got twelve guineas back off the buggers for Martha, so it was worth a split lip.”

  “Will she prosecute?”

  “Don’t be bloody stupid.”

  “Then may I? No, listen. Harry gave her, or George, that money. I took responsibility for it. I have a right to prosecute its theft.” And he could afford to bring a prosecution, which was more than any of the Ludgate denizens could do.

  Silas was giving him an exasperated but affectionate look. “You don’t want to mix yourself up in that. I gave both Hobhouse boys a sound thrashing. They’ve been told. And it ain’t as though they can pay her another penny, so what’s the use of arresting ’em?”

  “The enforcement of the law.”

  “Aye, and if the state wants the law enforced, the state should do it and pay for it too.”

  “I’m offering precisely that.”

  “You ain’t the state. Leave it, Dom. The Hobhouse boys are a nasty lot; I don’t want them turning on Martha.”

  And what about you? Dominic carefully didn’t say. “Well, as you wish. How are you otherwise?”

  Silas hesitated, then put down his glass. “You want to know? I’m tired, Dom, that’s the truth. I’m tired and hungry and cold. I’m tired of fighting, I’m tired of the people I’m fighting for, and I’m afraid.”

  Dominic sat rigid, not daring to move.

  “I’m not giving up,” Silas added. “Not now or ever. But I’m tired, and I took it out on you and spoiled the one thing in my week, in my life— Well. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to say so.”

  “Aye, I do. And now I have, so that’s all you’re getting.” Silas reached for his hand. “Funny thing, I never feel weaker than when I’m with you. But after, I can keep going another week, because there’s you at the end of it.”

  Dominic breathed the words in, making them part of himself. Their tone, the feel of Silas’s fingers, their tightening grip. He etched it all in his memory, to be taken out and examined reverently when he was alone.

  There were a number of things he wanted to beg for and just one he’d get. “Please, Silas. Come to bed.”

  They didn’t play games, not as usual. Silas was worn down. Dominic silenced him with kisses before he could speak and crawled down his body with worshipful care. If only he could make it good, good enough to lift the shadows, good enough that Silas would consider an alternative to his obstinate course to destruction…

  Nobody sucked cocks that well, but he did his best.

  Afterward, they lay together in unusual quiet, until Dominic said, “When I said last time that the Six Acts had to be enforced, I didn’t mean for the good of the country. I meant…the government has to. They—we—Lord Sidmouth cannot pass draconian measures and then not apply them. That would make it appear as though those measures were unnecessary, which will not do. Especially now the king’s passing means there must be a general election.”

  “Aye. I worked that out, maybe…Friday. Shouldn’t have—”

  “I’m not asking for an apology,” Dominic interrupted. “Although if you would occasionally listen, it would make for a pleasant change. I wanted to make sure you understand what I was saying.”

  “And I do, and what should I do about it?”

  “Stop writing sedition; stop associating with seditionists. Take the work Richard offered. Leave the country. I don’t know, Silas. At the very least, avoid snares.”

  “You got something in mind?”

  “No. Or rather, yes, but I don’t know what, and I couldn’t tell you anyway. Oh, blast it.”

  The Home Office knew of an ongoing conspiracy, was working with Bow Street, and Sidmouth himself had a finger in the pie. Of more than that, Dominic had no idea. He’d put himself at arm’s length from radical cases, ostensibly in case his friendship with Harry Vane affected his work, and to ask about them now would at best look like unprofessional gossip-mongering. At worst it might make people wonder why he was asking.

  If Silas was involved in a real threat to England’s stability, Dominic had no idea what he’d do. He wanted to tell Silas plainly: There is a plot discovered. Watch out. But if he did that, he might be warning traitors. He had averted his eyes from Silas’s seditious writings, but he could not sink so far as to condone action against the country or its lawful government.

  So all he could do was pray that his lover had more sense than to be involved. His forty-year-old lover who had just pressed a fight on a pair of gutter-bloods half his age and whose chest as well as face bore painful bruises because he was ready to mete out violence for what he felt right, and damn the law.

  Silas was looking at him. Dominic shrugged, helpless.

  “Ah, Tory. You don’t make your own path easy.”

  “It’s not me making it difficult,” Dominic said with feeling.

  “ ’Course it is. If you had sense, you’d be living the life with your Richard—”

  “Not my Richard. Very much not.”

  “Oh, aye. So wanting to have me pressed, then that offer of work…?”

  “Richard will do anything for his friends,” Dominic said. “In my case, that includes offering a means by which my lover might remain safe in a time of such danger that I feel, frankly, sick with apprehension. Silas, if I begged you—”

  “Don’t.” Silas’s voice was thick. “I can’t—not if you do that. Don’t.”

  Dominic folded a hand, dug his nails into his palm. “You have no idea how much I want to. I want to make you give up your principles almost as much as I should like to give up mine. I’m afraid for you every day. I want you to be safe. I want you warm and fed. I want a thousand things for you that you won’t take from me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I know. You
can’t accept a damned thing except for the trivial matters of my heart, my soul, and my moral certainty. You’ve helped yourself to those quite freely.”

  “And your arse,” Silas said. “I don’t mind taking that either. I got to stand on a level with you, Dom, or I’m nothing.”

  Dominic inhaled deeply, striving for control. “Heaven preserve me from a man of principle.”

  “Ah, you love it. Politics, pricks, and principle, that’s what you like most.” Silas rolled over, straddling him and not gently. Dominic grunted as the man’s weight came down on his chest, and again as Silas leaned back to cup a hand between his legs. “And it seems to me we’ve had enough of two of those.”

  “If you say so. Would you like to discuss the forthcoming election?”

  Silas’s face was a little more careworn, but his grin was as savage as ever, and his hand was tightening painfully. “Almost right, Tory. One letter off. And I’m going to make you work for this one.”

  It wasn’t all that Dominic wanted. He wanted promises and capitulation, or at least acceptance. He wanted Silas to face the way things were instead of fighting battles that had been lost before they started, against a foe too powerful to challenge.

  But this, for now, would do.

  Chapter 10

  Two weeks later, Silas didn’t arrive. Dominic sat in the little anonymous room feeling cold with fear in a way the blazing fire couldn’t quell.

  It was Wednesday, the day of King George III’s burial in Windsor. A state funeral, with magnificent pomp, for the old monarch whom most of his subjects had half-forgotten in life, the streets of Windsor lined with Life Guards and Foot Guards, all of them drawn from London.

  There had been something coming. Dominic had gleaned it from crumbs and careless words and a sense of subdued excitement in the office. The radicals had planned to strike tonight, in the absence of so many soldiers, and the Home Office was many, many steps ahead. Dominic’s colleagues knew exactly what was going on, and they would be ready.

  He’d wanted, desperately, to warn Silas, in case he was part of such a mad plan. He couldn’t do it, and he couldn’t not. If there was a real conspiracy and Silas part of it, a warning would be flat treachery. If Dominic didn’t warn his lover, Silas’s fate would be the most terrible of all penalties: hanging, drawing, and quartering. Which he’d deserve, if he was a traitor, but…