A Seditious Affair

by K. J. Charles

  He was far, far too late.

  George Ruthven, a constable whose face was all too familiar to London’s transgressors, was at the back of the group shouting orders to someone. There was a gaggle of gawping watchers in the street as well, and as Silas stared, one of them turned and looked at him, and their eyes met.

  It was George Edwards, standing with the Bow Street officers. Edwards’s mouth opened, and he lifted his arm to point at Silas, crying out.

  Then, finally, Silas ran.

  —

  The next day, around dawn, Silas stood with his hat pulled low on his brow and read the freshly pasted bill.

  London Gazette Extraordinary,

  Thursday, February 24, 1820.

  Whereas Arthur Thistlewood stands charged with high treason, and also with the willful murder of Richard Smithers—

  The imbecile. The stupid, blockheaded shitfire. He’d killed a man and damned them all.

  —a reward of One Thousand Pounds is hereby offered to any person or persons who shall discover and apprehend, or cause to be discovered and apprehended, the said Arthur Thistlewood.

  It was signed by Sidmouth. Which was remarkable, when you thought about it, because the stable had been raided around half past eight the evening before, and here it was just past seven in the morning, and in that time the bill had been written up, approved and signed by the Home Secretary, and printed, and it was now being pasted around London. Why, it was as if they’d had it planned.

  Fast work was evident in the newspapers too. The Morning Chronicle was already on sale, and the cry of “Bloody murder” echoed through the streets. Silas picked up a discarded copy of the Chronicle and leaned against a wall to read.

  The wall was damp, but Dom’s greatcoat was looking shabby anyway after Silas’s long night in the cold. He’d run while he could, then walked, not sure what to do, but knowing he had to stay far away from anyone he could hurt.

  Information had been received at Bow Street, the Chronicle said, about an illegal meeting of some thirty men in a Cato Street hayloft. That sounded very impressive, though Silas doubted the numbers were any more accurate than the description of a stable as a hayloft. A formidable body of Bow Street officers had demanded entrance, it said; the persons assembled had made desperate resistance, and an officer by the name of Smithers had been stabbed.

  Silas shut his eyes. That was what had done for the Gordons, Harry’s parents, the soldier killed during one of their riots. Juries were vague in their understanding of high treason, but everyone knew what murder was.

  Silas read on. Some of the conspirators, including Thistlewood, had fled. Others had stayed and fought and been arrested. Several other officers had been dreadfully injured, whatever that might prove to mean. Thistlewood and the rest were sought by the law. Silas wondered if that would include himself. He’d come onto Cato Street at the other end of the stable. He’d just been standing there watching. George Edwards couldn’t truly have thought he was a part of the murder plot.

  But Edwards was a traitor for the government. Why would he care about the truth?

  Every meeting for radical reform is an overt act of treasonable conspiracy against the king and his government. Those had been Lord Sidmouth’s words, and here was his treasonable conspiracy, supported by the unlicensed meetings and possession of arms that his Acts had banned.

  The government had won. They’d proved their case, or had the Spenceans prove it for them. Silas could taste the defeat, bitter as chicory.

  There was one chance left for the Spenceans, and that was a repeat of the Spa Fields trial. If Edwards could be shown in court to be an agent provocateur, they might just stave off this disaster.

  He had to find one of the Spenceans who’d escaped. They’d all be arrested; he had little doubt of that. They’d be caught, and their only chance was to accuse Edwards of leading the plot. If they could make that case, there was hope. Not for Thistlewood, of course. He would swing for murder no matter what. But better to swing than to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason, and Silas believed that Thistlewood would stand by his colleagues. If he came out and blamed Edwards, with nothing to gain from it, the rest might have a chance.

  Silas had to find Thistlewood, and he had a fair idea where he’d be. They’d had a few more drinks than usual one night a couple of years ago, when he and Thistlewood had been in charity with one another, and compared notes on good places to lie low. Thistlewood had mentioned a place in Moorfields, and Silas had made sure he remembered that address. It was a stone’s throw from Finsbury Square and the old Sodomites’ Walk, where a man might still pick up company for an evening. He’d gone now and again for that purpose before Dominic, and a man never knew when a place to hide might come in handy.

  It was a long enough walk to Moorfields, especially since the direct path would have taken him through Ludgate, and he didn’t feel he should show his face where everyone knew him. He cut up Aldermanbury and Moor Lane rather than risk greetings from Grub Street’s scribblers and printers and ducked onto the filthy cobbles of White Street feeling content that he’d attracted no notice.

  White Street was wide, for the City of London, but all that meant was more carts, more horses. The street was ankle deep in shit, rotting straw, and a mulch of whatever other matter had been trampled underfoot. It slithered.

  The great bell of St. Paul’s tolled out nine o’clock, shaking the air, as Silas tramped through the mire up to number eight. It was a dark and teetering hovel even by the standards of White Street, and the front door wasn’t latched. He let himself in and looked around, temporarily blind in the darkness after the bright February sunlight outside.

  There was a sharp intake of breath from right by his ear. A familiar voice said, “Silas Mason, get him!” and before he could even turn, there were hard hands seizing his arms.

  Chapter 14

  Silas sat in the cell and waited.

  He’d been arraigned or whatever you called it at Bow Street and examined by the magistrates. There was no question but that they knew all about it, and him. He was asked about the Spenceans and talked freely, about wild schemes that would never have come to anything, about George Edwards’s generosity, and about Edwards bringing them the notice and making the plan.

  It had been Edwards’s voice in the little dark hovel on White Street. They’d come for Thistlewood, and Silas had walked into the same trap.

  He denied all involvement in the Cato Street business. “But we have a witness,” the magistrate informed him. “A man of good character has sworn that he saw you escaping the stable—”

  “George Edwards, might that be?” Silas asked sarcastically. “He’s a liar. I was never there.”

  “And can you give a location, a witness, an alibi?” the magistrate asked. “Have you anyone who can confirm where you were?”

  In a gentlemen’s club in St. James’s, fucking Dominic Frey of the Home Office till he couldn’t see straight. “No.”

  The magistrate didn’t stop there. He had records, of Skelton’s visit to the bookshop, of the old conviction. “Did you write pamphlets under the name Jack Cade? Have you written works of seditious libel? Have you printed such works? Have you written works of blasphemous libel? Have you printed such works?” Over and over, aimed at wearing him down. Silas stared ahead, denying it all.

  Some clerk came up to the magistrate and whispered, glancing at Silas. The magistrate whispered back. Silas read on their lips, Harry Vane, and it took everything he’d learned from twenty-five years of defiance to keep him on his feet then.

  They took his—Dom’s—coat. That was a cruelty, because it was cold, and because he could smell Dominic on it and he’d held on to that painful comfort. Then they put him in a cell with a number of others, none of the Spenceans, and there he sat, because he had no choice.

  Edwards had named Silas as present in that stable-turned-arsenal, and if that was believed, he faced a conviction for high treason along with the rest. And it would be be
lieved because Silas was a man of bad character now. He wasn’t a respectable shopkeeper with a home these days but a vagabond with a conviction for seditious libel. He wouldn’t stand a chance when it was one man’s word against another. And of course, any claims he made about Edwards would be seen as him trying to discredit the witness.

  He should have arranged himself an alibi, had one ready and someone to swear for him, instead of trying to find Thistlewood. All he’d done was make things worse for himself, the others, and Harry.

  And Dom. If this touched Dom— He couldn’t think of that. But he had to, because they had the coat, a gentleman’s expensive greatcoat, and he didn’t think they’d fail to look at that.

  If there was a laundry mark or what have you to identify it as Dominic’s, a letter in some pocket, Silas might have brought his Tory down.

  I stole it, he decided he’d say, because it wasn’t like that could make anything worse, but he couldn’t decide where to say he’d stolen it from. Where, other than Quex’s or Millay’s, could he have encountered Dominic?

  Silas slumped back against the clammy wall. He wanted to sleep, but not in this carrion company, where every man would descend on the first to show weakness. At least he’d slept and eaten well recently. Most of his cellmates looked like half-starved, emaciated scarecrows. He’d never been the prosperous one before, but a week in a gentleman’s care did that.

  He’d had a week of seeing Dom every day. A better week than he’d ever had in his life, in comfort and warmth, with Dominic Frey, who loved him. He probably ought to face the gallows in contentment knowing he’d had that week.

  In fact, the thought of it just made him want to hit someone, because if there was anything worse than having nothing, it was having everything and then seeing it snatched away.

  Time passed, hours in the dull grime of the cell. The small barred window was too high up to see out, but the little light was fading to twilight when he heard the commanding, ice-cold notes of a wildly out-of-place voice in the corridor outside.

  “No, I shall not be patient. I have been patient throughout an excessively long period in this repugnant cesspit, and my patience, sir, has expired. Do you intend to do your duty, or shall I be obliged to raise my voice further?”

  Everyone turned, a fair few of them jerking upright as if by habit. No surprise, because if ever Silas had heard the voice of an officer, that was it. Crystal diction, born to command, and cold as a witch’s tit.

  The lock rattled. There was a bellow from outside, warning the men crowded inside to move back, and the heavy door was flung open.

  A dandy stood on the threshold. He wore a waistcoat that sparkled with silver thread, a pale blue coat, and an expression of frozen revulsion.

  “There you are, Mason,” he said. “Come on, I don’t have all day.”

  Silas stared at him.

  Julius Norreys exhaled through his nose. “I assume you have been struck dumb by your sufferings. I have done violence to my feelings by dragging myself to this dreary locale, I was obliged to converse with the most tedious Jack-in-office to procure your bail, and you might consider my feelings and depart this squalid pit with a little more alacrity. I am quite distressed.” The word came with a viper’s hiss. The officer behind him, a stolid, foursquare man, swayed back a little. He looked as though he’d been talked at.

  Silas got up. Made his way through the mass of staring men, past the staring officer. Followed the dandy through the corridors of Bow Street.

  “My coat,” Silas said suddenly.

  “Forget the coat,” Norreys said.

  Silas grabbed Norreys’s arm, slim but strong. “No. I need it.”

  Norreys shot him a look of remarkable malevolence. “You do not. Stow your prattle, now.”

  Silas had to bite his tongue. He wanted to shake the man, but drawing attention to that accursed coat would be even worse.

  They headed past the desks and out of the door, onto the street as though he were a free man.

  Norreys’s hand closed on Silas’s sleeve. “If you even consider running, I shall cut your hamstrings,” he said in a conversational tone. “That carriage, over there.”

  “The coat—” Silas began.

  “Is Dominic’s. We are well aware of that. Come on, will you?”

  Silas followed him. It was near dark, but he could see that the carriage bore a crest on the door.

  “What’s this?” he managed.

  “Get in.”

  Silas climbed in. Norreys followed after, slammed the door, and rapped on the roof with his cane. The coach moved off. Silas hadn’t been in many coaches, since London wasn’t too big to walk and he’d never felt the need to go anywhere else, but those he remembered had been bone rattlers. This one had a smooth motion that barely jolted at all.

  “Right,” Norreys said. “First things first. Dominic assures us you cannot have been part of this conspiracy because you were committing crimes against nature with him well into yesterday evening. Is he deluding himself? Were you part of this? And don’t lie to me. We are going to prevent you from having your neck stretched either way, for Harry and for Dominic, but we need to know what we’re up against.”

  “I knew about it,” Silas said. “Wasn’t at Cato Street for it, didn’t want to be part of it.” He set his teeth, knowing the next thing wouldn’t be believed. “I went to stop them. The whole thing was government entrapment. I wanted to warn them.”

  “So you were there.”

  “Aye, too late. A man, a government spy, saw me on the street. He’s claiming he saw me in the stable.”

  Norreys’s breath hissed out in the darkness. “Very well. Now listen to me. You are going to cooperate with us, fully and without argument. If you are tried for conspiracy to murder and treason, let alone convicted, you will damn Harry for good, and if you do that, you gutter-blood werewolf, I shall kill you myself if I have to mount the scaffold and fight the executioner for the privilege, do you understand?”

  Silas understood that very well, and it was a relief in this quagmire to know that someone competent and determined had an eye on Harry. “I hear you. Cooperate in what?”

  “I have no idea,” Norreys said calmly. “That, I hope and trust, has been decided in my absence. I was charged with retrieving you from durance vile. Greater minds, supposedly, have been applying themselves to the problem of what to do with you now.”

  “Dominic—”

  “If I were you, I should practice calling him Mr. Frey. You don’t know him. Remember that, if you remember nothing else. Now give me the whole story, from the start.”

  —

  The coach halted in a mews somewhere, at the back of a row of tall townhouses that were doubtless gracious from the front. An expressionless servant in dark green livery waited at a back door. “You’re to go to the book room, sir,” he murmured, taking Norreys’s hat, stick, and greatcoat deftly.

  Norreys led the way, evidently knowing the house well. He waved Silas into a room that—

  Books. Even with everything weighing on him, the fear and despair and bewilderment, all he could see for a moment was books. Five sets of shelves, running around the entire room, hundreds of books, right there within a few feet of him, filling the room with the smells of leather and paper and print. And a well-upholstered chair in front of the fire, with a little table by its side and a candlestick. A space just for reading.

  Silas had never wanted anything so much in his life.

  Someone coughed, and he belatedly noticed that there were two other men in the room.

  Familiar men. He’d seen them both that day they’d come to fetch Harry away. Lord Richard Vane, standing maybe six inches taller than Silas, imposing and set faced. And his valet Cyprian, Foxy David himself, slender and sly in dark green livery, with his hair thickly powdered white.

  “Good evening,” Norreys said. “Richard, this is Mason. He has been charged with high treason on the basis that he was part of the Spencean group that plotted the assas
sination and present at Cato Street last night.” He paused, wincing. “Unfortunately, both of these allegations are true.”

  “What?”

  “Indeed, but—”

  “No buts. Get him out of the country.” Lord Richard jerked a hand at Silas, as though brushing away a fly.

  “I posted his bail,” Norreys said mildly. “And more to the point, he assures me that he declined to be involved in the conspiracy. It sounds—”

  “A lifetime in sedition and plots is involvement enough,” Lord Richard interrupted. “No, Julius, he must be got rid of, at once. If it were not for Harry, I should refuse all assistance. This is outrageous.”

  “If you would hear me,” Norreys snapped. Silas looked from him to Lord Richard as they argued, talking about him like he wasn’t even there, and to Cyprian, who might as well have been not there himself for all anyone looked at him. Wealthy men, dictating how the world would be. Again.

  “It is the only reasonable course of action,” Lord Richard said flatly. “We must have him out of the country.”

  “I don’t like it, Richard. Dominic won’t like it either.”

  “I don’t give a curse for Dominic’s opinion! His urge for degradation ceased to be tolerable at the point where it threatened the rest of us. I will not indulge his perversity to his ruin or Harry’s. This man is guilty of treason—”

  “You are not listening—”

  Lord Richard didn’t stop. “And Dominic will accept an end to this insanity, all of it, or I will make him.”

  “You won’t,” Silas said.

  Lord Richard turned his head slowly. Cyprian blinked once.

  “I beg your pardon?” Lord Richard spoke in that authoritative voice, the one that was supposed to make you quail and retreat to your place. Well, Silas chose his own damned place.