The Great Game (Royal Sorceress)

by Nuttall, Christopher

  Gwen flushed, but shook her head.

  “At least you were wiser than I,” Lady Mary told her. “I went too far and paid the price.”

  She reached out and gave Gwen a hug. “I understand what you must have felt when you found out the truth,” she added. “And I forgive you for it. Rudolf... may take longer to forgive you, but I’m sure he will. He cares about you, whatever you may have said to him when you were last here.”

  “I hope so,” Gwen said. At least David didn’t know the full story. “And I’m sorry...”

  “It’s part of growing up,” Lady Mary admitted. She smiled, suddenly. “Your grandmother was always very upset with me...”

  Gwen nodded. She had never understood her grandmother’s tales until now. Hard as it was to imagine Lady Mary as a child, she would have been a rebellious girl at one point... and she had managed to get herself into deep trouble. Now, she had been doing her best to prevent Gwen from making the same mistake. She could understand that too.

  “I’ll write to father,” she said, standing up. “And thank you for seeing me.”

  Lady Mary stood up and gave her another hug. “That, young lady, is what mothers are for,” she said, firmly. “But you should drop in more often.”

  Gwen nodded. Spending more time with her mother, now that they knew each other without the masks, would be better for them both, she hoped. And if not, she told herself, it could serve as penance, both for screaming at her mother and growing too close to Sir Charles.

  “Goodbye, mother,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Her carriage was waiting outside; she climbed inside and told the driver to take her to Pall Mall, where David was waiting for her. Her mind insisted on replaying everything she’d done with Sir Charles in a carriage, reminding her of her own foolishness. At least she’d survived without doing something really stupid, she told herself, although Polite Society might have disagreed. But they seemed to believe the official story.

  David had booked them both a table at a nearby cafe. Gwen allowed the waiter to show her to his table and smiled as he looked up from his book.

  “So,” he said, as Gwen sat down. “How was your meeting with mother?”

  Gwen blinked in surprise. How had he known?”

  “Father was not too happy about whatever you said to him,” David admitted. “I had to remind him that you have plenty of friends in high places and it could be disastrous if he pushed around too much.”

  “I will write to him,” Gwen said, remembering what she’d told her mother. “But I don’t know what he will say to me.”

  “It’s a start,” David said. “Just be grateful you’re not facing him after coming home drunk.”

  Gwen nodded. She’d been twelve at the time, but she still recalled her father’s shouts echoing through the house. He’d been furious at David’s loss of control, lecturing him on how his uncle had drunk too much as a young man and ended up seriously hurt. Her brother hadn’t been able to sit properly for several days afterwards.

  “I think what I did was worse,” she said, ruefully. “How is Laura?”

  “Still pregnant,” David said, wryly. “One of your Healers visited her and pronounced the child a healthy baby boy.”

  “Father will like that,” Gwen admitted. “Someone to carry on the family name.”

  “You adopted a child,” David reminded her.

  Gwen snorted. Olivia would never be considered her biological daughter; there was no point in trying to deceive anyone into believing it. Gwen would ensure that Olivia inherited most of her wealth, but she wouldn’t be considered a proper heir. And if they learned the full truth, they’d want her dead.

  “That doesn’t count,” she said. “And even if I had a natural child...”

  David nodded. If Gwen married and had children, they’d have their father’s name.

  The waiter returned. David ordered for them both.

  “Parliament ratified the Airship Treaty this morning,” he said, once the waiter was out of earshot. “It will be formally announced tomorrow in all the major newspapers. We have a working alliance with the Turks.”

  Gwen smiled. War hadn’t broken out in the weeks since Ambassador Talleyrand and his daughter had been declared personae non gratae, but there had been some nasty reports, including Franco-Spanish troops mustering near Gibraltar and troop convoys en route to Mexico. Apparently, the Governor-General of America was pressing for a pre-emptive strike on Mexico and worrying over the loyalty of Hispanics and Mexicans in Louisiana. Gwen wasn’t too surprised; the French had made a big deal over incorporating Hispanics and Mexicans into their empire, even offering them full legal rights. Who knew what they would do if war broke out?

  “There will also be an immediate requirement to send magicians over to help the Turks,” David added. “Do you have a list of volunteers?”

  “Yes,” Gwen said, allowing her smile to widen. The mission would have to be led by a high-ranking magician and Lord Brockton was top of the list. If he refused to go, the Privy Council would certainly show its displeasure by pressing for his resignation – or forcing Gwen to sack him. She would be reluctant, naturally, but she would obey. How could she defy the highest council in the land?

  “I’m glad to hear it,” David said. “The way things have been recently, it is alarmingly likely that war will break out within the month.”

  The waiter returned with two plates piled high with food. “This might be the last meal I get to share with you for a while,” David added, as his plate was put in front of him. “My gut says that we are about to become very busy.”

  Gwen couldn’t disagree. Little was known for certain about the French magicians, but her gut said that Simone wouldn’t be the only one. It was quite possible that the French had assembled a small army of magicians... hell, a few Talkers would go a long way towards evening the balance between the two empires. And she had persistent nightmares about the French finding a Master of their own – or two. How many women had Jack impregnated while he’d been in France?

  But his children might not be Masters, she thought, grimly. And even if they were, they’d still be children...

  She tucked into her food as David continued to talk. “The Prime Minister warned the Houses of Parliament that he might be calling up the militia within days,” he added, softly. That was a surprise; the Duke of India had been on the record complaining that the militia were either skiving farmhands or noblemen who preferred sporting fancy uniforms to actually fighting. “If the French attempt to land we’ll give them a warm welcome.”

  Gwen nodded. Maybe the Duke was wrong – or exaggerating to get more money for the army. These days, the militia consisted of almost every able-bodied male in the country. The war scare – and the Swing – had caused no end of panic and patriotic determination to fight the French if they dared to land on English soil. Sir James had expressed his doubt over the militia’s combat value, but Gwen hoped that they at least looked intimidating. Maybe the French would think better of trying to land in England if they thought that every bush concealed a rifle.

  “Merlin is near Dover right now,” she said, although she had no idea where the French might try to land. On the other hand, the magicians could move much faster than marching soldiers. “And I’ll be in London with the reserves.”

  “I’m glad you won’t be in the front lines,” David said, quietly. “At least Colonel Sebastian was man enough to admit that he was wrong.”

  Gwen scowled. Colonel Sebastian had begged an interview with her a week after she’d faced the Privy Council and, puzzled, Gwen had agreed to see him. He’d told her that his niece had been one of Howell’s victims and that he had been wrong about her all along. Gwen had thanked him, then arranged for him to join the magicians based near Maidstone. She wasn’t really sure if she was rewarding him or putting him somewhere where he might well die. But it had won her some points from the other senior magicians.

  “Yes,” she said, finally. “Do we have enoug
h time to make our alliance with the Turks work?”

  “We should pray that we do,” David said. “Besides, even a handful of Talkers would make their operations easier. As far as we know, Russia has few magicians and Persia is still burning any magician they catch.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Gwen said. “But we know almost nothing about Russia’s research.”

  Russia was an enigma; they had to have a magical program, but almost nothing had leaked out from the vast country. Even the wars Russia had fought with the Ottoman Empire, after the advent of magic, had revealed little of Russia’s magic. It would be nice to believe that the Russians had simply followed the Vatican’s lead and concentrated on exterminating magicians, but she knew better than to indulge in wishful thinking.

  “The Russians may join France if war comes,” David reminded her. “We might find out the hard way.”

  Gwen nodded. Russia could attack British North America through Alaska, or try an advance through Central Asia to attack India... or, more practically, concentrate on invading Turkey and Persia. Once the British-Ottoman alliance was announced, it was quite likely that Persia would throw in with Russia; the Persians suspected that the Turks would happily crush them if they had the opportunity. The new Sultan’s army was far more capable than anything the Persians could build for themselves.

  “Yes,” she said. Between them, the French and the Russians might have more magicians than anyone realised. “We might...”

  She winced as a thought crashed into her head. LADY GWEN, the Talker said. Gwen could sense the panic flaring through the Talker’s mind, enough to almost infect her own thoughts. She bit her lip to maintain her concentration. You have to return to Cavendish Hall!

  David stared at her. “War?”

  “It could be,” Gwen said, as she stood up. Her body swayed; she closed her eyes and centred herself, wondering just who had allowed a half-trained Talker to call her. He hadn’t been ready to contact minds that weren’t pure-Talkers. “I have to get back to Cavendish Hall.”

  She walked outside, grabbed hold of her magic and hurled herself into the air. Flying in public still bothered her, but there was no choice. The moment she was high enough, she saw a pillar of smoke rising up from the direction of Cavendish Hall, reminding her of the early hours of the Swing. Thankfully, Cavendish Hall seemed to be the only victim this time.

  The damage didn’t look as bad as she had feared, she realised, as she flew closer. One of the outbuildings seemed to have exploded; it was commonly used for training Infusers, who might accidentally blow up the entire building if they weren’t careful. Gwen remembered her own training sessions with some embarrassment – and she’d had nowhere near the power or dedication of pure Infusers. Quite a few Infusers had been sent to join the army in the hopes that they’d blow up the enemy instead of themselves.

  “Lady Gwen,” a voice called as she dropped to the ground. She was surprised to hear Martha running towards her. “She’s gone!”

  Gwen felt a sinking sensation in her chest as she turned to look at her maid. Martha looked terrified. Could the explosion have been intended as nothing more than a diversion? Everyone had run to deal with it at once, fearful of the consequences if the flames had been allowed to spread out of control, clearing the way for someone with bad intentions. They should have prepared better for an assault on Cavendish Hall, she thought, and cursed herself. The Swing should have taught her that chaos could strike at any time.

  “Who’s gone?” She asked, although she feared that she already knew the answer. “What happened?”

  “Olivia,” Martha said. Tears were streaming down her face; she’d been fond of Olivia, once she’d got used to the girl’s poor manners and worse eating habits. “She’s been kidnapped!”

  Twenty minutes later, Gwen knew the worst. Olivia was gone – and so was one of her tutors, a grim-faced man who had been teaching Olivia how to write properly. The remaining tutors were dead...

  ... And there was nothing to lead her to where Olivia might have been taken.

  The Royal Sorceress Will Return In

  Necropolis

  Coming Soon!

  Afterword

  [I wrote this after reading some of the reviews of The Royal Sorceress.]

  The past is a foreign country, as the old saying goes. They do things differently there.

  There are times when I am perversely glad that I had such poor schooling in history while I was in my teenage years. What little I did have was centred on such absurdly boring subjects as sheep-farming in Lancashire and a deliberately slanted version of World War One that made Blackadder Goes Forth look historically accurate (it isn’t). Maybe not quite the Norwegian Leather Industry, as Adrian Mole complained so incessantly, but completely useless (as well as boring) to a growing boy. Had my teachers concentrated on interesting subjects, I have no doubt that they would have managed to suck the life out of them too.

  Instead, I read history books – and discovered that I rather liked history. I read hundreds of books covering World War Two, then branched out to World War One, the Napoleonic Wars, the American Revolution... and all the way back in time to the Persian Invasion of Greece, which should be studied in every school. (It isn’t, even though it was the first moment that gave birth to the ‘West.’) History explains so much about society; indeed, if the teachers had done their jobs properly, they might have managed to teach us why sheep farming was so important.

  But, unless things have improved in the thirteen years since I left school, the general level of historical teaching is still appallingly bad.

  It is unfortunately natural that we look back to a long-lost golden age. Very few generations seem willing to believe that they live in a better world than their predecessors. Some Britons look back to the days of Empire and consider them superior to the present day; Americans look back to the days of the wild west, before America became the second hyperpower in global history. I have no doubt that the belief in a mythical past existed even in states that were hardly inclined to come up with justifications for building their empires. Even as Rome became an Empire, traditionally-minded Romans bemoaned the loss of the values that had made them so indomitable in the first place. But those values were inevitable casualties of Rome’s rise to power.

  The problem with this urge to look back is that it tends to concentrate on the good rather than the bad.

  Let us consider the many miracles of modern life in Britain, or anywhere else in the West. We have hot and cold running water, purified so that it can be drunk straight from the tap; clean toilets that actually flush; medicine and dentistry that actually works; a reasonable level of sexual equality; equality before the law... and so much else. How many of those do you think existed prior to 1945, let alone earlier? If you have children in the present day, you have an excellent chance of seeing them born and growing to adulthood. In the times of Ancient Rome, even the most powerful Roman was helpless to watch as his wife and children died in childbirth.

  The world of Lady Gwen’s time was very different from ours. There was no such thing as a secret ballot, for example, which meant that if you happened to vote against your landlord, you could expect to be out on the streets within days. Nor was there any form of social security network; if you were a young boy or girl without a family or a home, you would be lucky if you ended up in a workhouse. Oliver Twist provides a good, if grim, depiction of what life was like for the poor – and there was rarely a happy ending.

  It was worse for women, even among the upper classes. You may laugh at the social pretensions of Lady Mary and Lady Bracknell, but maintaining such a cloak of hypocrisy was a survival necessity for women. A wife was her husband’s chattel – a slave, to all intents and purposes. She could not bring a suit against her husband for adultery, no matter how many times he strayed; a husband could destroy his wife’s reputation and ensure that she never married again, even if they remained separated. Indeed, he could legally drag her back to his home and keep her a prisoner,
if he saw fit. Given the legal right of the husband to actually sue his wife’s lover, on the grounds that his property had been damaged, it is surprising that there were any cases of adultery at all.

  A girl who was alone with an unrelated man, for any reason, might be considered defiled, even if she could prove that she still had her virginity. Courtship in the 1800s was a heavily ritualised procedure, with the parents involved at almost every stage; if the father disapproved, it was unlikely that there would be a marriage. (The happy couple could run off to Scotland and get married there, but they often suffered the wrath of their parents and had to live on their own resources. A woman might be reduced to effective prostitution to make ends meet.)

  With all of this in mind... why would anyone want to live in the past?

  Christopher G. Nuttall, Kuala Lumpur, 2013.

  Elsewhen Press

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  The Royal Sorceress

  The first book of the Royal Sorceress series

  Christopher Nuttall

  1830, in an alternate Britain where the ‘scientific’ principles of magic, discovered 60 years previously, allowed the British to prevent American Independence. The ageing Royal Sorcerer, Master Thomas, must find a successor: a Master of all the known magical powers. There’s only 1 candidate, who has displayed such a talent from an early age. A candidate perfect in all ways but one: the Royal College of Sorcerers has never admitted a girl before.