by Celia Rees
Augusta hated it here: the Duke’s ludicrous palace, the stifling heat, the general somnambulance. She was shown to her own apartments. It was as though she’d never been away. The rooms were airless and smelt of dust. She felt as trapped as the flies that buzzed against the shutters and flew about in pointless, zigzagging patterns. She left Annie to air it out and went up to the loggia at the top of the palace.
The great bell of the cathedral boomed, deep and sonorous, sending pigeons skywards. Lesser bells sounded from all over the city. The streets were deserted; houses and shops shuttered. All work stopped at noon.
The loggia was open on three sides to catch the slightest breeze. Swifts screamed, darting in and out of the slender pillars on flashing scimitar wings. Below her lay the Palace Gardens. For the Duke’s use only. The raked paths were perfect; low box hedges, clipped and barbered, bordered the formal beds; at the centre of each an orange or lemon tree, pruned into a perfect ball, the glowing fruit inspected every day, the imperfect discarded. A large aviary spanned the end of the garden, bright with exotic birds: finches and hummingbirds in jewelled flight among the bigger birds’ scarlet, azure and emerald plumage. At a glance, it appeared that nothing confined them, but Augusta knew they were caged within a fine mesh that disappeared at a distance, so that they looked to be flying free.
She moved her gaze to the glitter of the town’s many towers, the glare of the marble palaces blinding under the whiteness of the afternoon sky, the terracotta roofs baking in the lesser town. She longed for grey skies, grey stone walls, drab little hedgerow sparrows, the lonely curlew’s call, the cool bite of a wind that held the promise of rain. Her country was near. Near enough to see it from this high point in the town, but when she looked in that direction, her hills and mountains seemed insubstantial, clouds within clouds, grown even hazier from the tears of anger and frustration filling her eyes. They had no right to keep her here.
Augusta looked beyond the city walls to the glassy, still waters of the Great Harbour, hoping to see John Ross’s brig Alexander or William Parry’s Hecla and Griper returned from their Northern voyaging, triumphant at finding the elusive North-west Passage that led into the Pacific Ocean. They would then set sail, taking her with them to found her own land of Gondal… But there was no sign of them. Instead, the harbour was filled with black hulls, black sails flying the Red Rover. Rogue’s flag. A dart and heart dripping blood. Just offshore lurked a black freighter, also flying the Rover, the guns on her deck trained on the town.
What is that doing there? Is Rogue holding Glass Town to ransom?
Augusta turned for the stair, Keeper at her heels. She may have been confined by the city walls, like the birds within their aviary cage, but she had to find out what was happening here.
SHE TOLD ANNIE to say that she was resting and not to be disturbed, should anyone enquire, and went to find Tom. He was up in the servants’ quarters, which made it quite a lot easier to get out undetected.
“Where are we going?” Tom asked, as Augusta led him down a little-used, circular stairway. She’d stayed in the palace since she was a small child, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. She knew all its secret panels and passages, exits and entrances. She might not be a prisoner but there was no need to advertise what she was about.
“Bravey’s Inn,” Augusta replied, as she opened a small doorway at the bottom of the stone steps. “I want to know what’s going on. We should find Wellesley there.”
The door led into an internal courtyard, which was why it was not locked. Augusta went through a door on the other side and into a wide stone passageway used for deliveries. It led past the kitchens and buttery, through an archway and out.
Augusta stopped and looked up and down the street. It was deserted. She leant against the wall for a moment. Now she was outside, now she could breathe.
“Who’s Wellesley?” Tom asked.
“Lord Charles Wellesley is the Duke’s other son. Unlike his father and brother, he’s not a military man. He edits a magazine.”
Bravey’s was like no inn that Tom had ever seen. They went in through an entrance nearly as grand as the Duke’s Palace. The light from a great glass dome set into the ceiling was broken into shafts by drifting tobacco smoke. Logs burned in a wide fireplace, despite the heat.
“That’s Bravey.”
The man behind the bar was huge, his coat stretched tight over his shoulders, his belly bursting from his straining waistcoat, his features made small by his jowls and mutton-chop whiskers. His little hands poured ale and cider into crockery pots and pewter tankards, filled thick glasses with wine and spirits. Serving girls whisked away trays to be conveyed to the various tables that crowded the wood-panelled room.
The serving girls were the only women there, as far as Tom could see, apart from Augusta. By the window, gentlemen sat in earnest conversation or reading the newspapers and periodicals kept on poles for common reading. Many of them were drinking dishes of coffee or tea dispensed by a serving woman from a pot and a kettle hanging over the fire.
That didn’t seem to be the beverage of choice for the young men at a long table at the far end of the room, their noisy discussion dominated by a skinny young man with a thatch of bright red hair and milky pale skin. His rusty black suit looked a size too small; his bony wrists stuck out from his frayed shirt cuffs. He was on his feet, his thin-fingered hands weaving his words in the air.
Charles Wellesley folded his copy of the Young Men’s Magazine.
“Augusta!” He rose to meet her, kissing her on both cheeks. “How delightful. I heard you’d come back to us.”
“Not willingly, I assure you.”
“I heard that, too. And who is this?” Wellesley looked enquiringly at her companion.
“This is Tom.”
“And who might Tom be?” he went on. “One of Parry’s, are you? Or perhaps you serve with our brave Commander Ross?”
“He’s with me,” Augusta supplied.
Lord Charles’s look of enquiry remained but Augusta gave no further explanation.
“Whether or no, I’m pleased to meet you… Tom.” He offered his hand. “I am Lord Charles Wellesley. Son of the Duke, brother to Douro, although they rarely claim me. Call me Charles or Wellesley. I find Lord a little too… formal.”
“Reading your own magazine, I see.” Augusta picked up the folded copy.
Tom glanced at the front page. It looked handprinted.
“And enthralling it is, too. All the gossip, the scandals, who’s in love with whom, who is plotting against whom. There’s an entertaining account of a recent bout of body-snatching…” He glanced sideways to a white-haired old fellow sitting on an adjacent table. “Dr Bady up to his tricks again.”
The old man at the adjacent table rattled his copy of The Intelligencer. It had the same kind of print and weird font.
“I heard that, Wellesley,” he said. “All in the pursuance of knowledge and science, I may assure you.”
“All written by me, so, of course, everything in it is true.” Wellesley steepled his manicured fingers. “Within the bounds of what is possible to be true. Allowed truth, if you follow. I have no desire to pine my life away as an unwilling guest of my father, the Duke, in the commodious accommodation he keeps under the Tower of All Nations. I print what is politic to print. Other messages are there for anyone who has the wit to see them.”
Lord Charles Wellesley seemed harmless enough. An affable fellow, bland and cheerful, with curling, light brown hair, but his pale blue eyes were lit with a shrewd intelligence that said he was not to be underestimated.
“All peppered with a seasoning of poetry,” he added, looking towards the table in the corner. “Some of it of questionable quality.”
“How would you know, Wellesley?” the pale young man with the red hair shouted across the room. “D’you know what I think of the rag you write? I wouldn’t wipe my arse with it. I’m starting my own magazine,” he added, to a roar of support from his friends. “See
how you like what I’ll write about you!”
“That is Young Soult,” Wellesley said for Tom’s benefit. “A poet—of sorts. A poetaster, a rhymer. Very thick with Rogue.” He dropped his voice to a theatrical whisper. “I hear they’ve formed a secret society to plot revolution!”
The doctor snorted. “They are always plotting revolution.”
“We’re past the plotting.” Soult was approaching them. “This time it’s going to happen.”
“Oh, really? You and who?” Wellesley nodded towards the table Soult had just left. “Petty thieves, poachers and brawlers, hot bloods and rare lads, pugilists and dog fighters—sots like yourself? I hope Rogue, or Northangerland as he now calls himself, is not relying on the likes of you.”
“We have the support of the people. Dark Lantern Men.” Soult looked down at Augusta. “You’d know all about them.” He turned to Lord Charles. “We’ll give you something to write about, you see if we don’t. That’s if you’ve still got a press to print on. That’s if it hasn’t been burnt down!” He spoke slowly, anger and passion replaced by the hiss of cold menace. “It. Will. Be. Soon.”
“What is he saying?” Augusta leant forward. “Could it be true?”
They’d seen those words, It Will Be Soon, on the way here, scrawled on walls, on doors: ghost letters painted over, repainted and painted over again.
“Anyone can daub on walls.” Lord Charles was inclined to be dismissive. “There has been unrest in the city. Mostly calm on the surface but the dungeons are full to bursting. The city is ripe for revolution. The Duke runs it like his own personal fiefdom and he is unpopular. They’ve begun throwing brickbats at his carriage. Douro’s just as bad. The people see him as weak and vain, and I wouldn’t disagree. But is Rogue the right person to lead them? He’s been getting bolder, stirring the people up with his speeches while his rare lads go about the streets, cudgels at the ready, fomenting trouble and inciting rebellion—and the Watch finds urgent business elsewhere.”
Augusta was frowning. “But that would just replace one tyranny with another…”
“Indeed. You took my very words. A merry band of rebels and regicides threaded through with the Duke’s spies, all changing sides in a bewildering kaleidoscope of intrigue and plotting.” Wellesley turned to Tom. “Welcome to Verdopolis, young man.”
“Verdopolis?” Augusta frowned.
“That’s what it is to be called from now on, by the Duke’s decree. He thinks it has a better ring. Mixture of French and Greek. A more fitting name for what he now calls the Great Glass Town. It’s all to do with the Duke’s pretensions, his grasping after grandeur.” He turned to Augusta. “Shouldn’t you be at the palace? Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”
“For what?”
“The reception before the Grand Ball that is to be held in honour and celebration of your betrothal.”
“I have no intention of attending. The very idea is absurd. I’m not going to marry Rogue or Douro, or anyone. Why me? There must be any number who’d jump at the chance.”
“Tripping over each other in the rush to the altar, I shouldn’t wonder.” Lord Charles laughed. “But only you will do. Which one of your suitors will it be?” He narrowed his eyes, his head to one side in pantomime speculation. “My money’s on Rogue.”
“People are betting on this?” Augusta looked outraged.
“Most certainly. The odds are brisk and shortening among the sporting fraternity.”
“Why Rogue? Pray tell me.”
“Well, let me see…” Lord Charles marked the points off on his fingers. “He likes to win. He likes a challenge—and you are a challenge—plus he wants your lands.”
“Doesn’t Douro want the same thing?”
“Not as much. And what Rogue wants, Rogue gets, in the general way of things. Besides…” Lord Charles shrugged. “He has his guns trained on the town. If we want peace… If we want to avoid unrest, shall we say? You are the price to be paid. The hope is that, once he has what he wants, he will go away.”
“Taking me with him like a prize pig at a country show?”
“I wouldn’t quite have put it like that.” Lord Charles looked down at the toe of his highly polished boot. “A filly, maybe.”
Augusta wasn’t laughing.
“I like it no better than you do…” Lord Charles went on.
“But you’re not prepared to do anything about it.” She turned to confront him. “What about Douro? The Duke?”
“The people hate both of them, I told you. They’ll be lucky to get away with their lives.”
“If Rogue isn’t stopped?”
“Quite so.”
“And I’m to do the stopping?”
“That’s the sum of it.”
“And if I refuse him?”
“All hell will break loose.”
As if his words were prophecy, glass showered over a startled gentleman sitting in the window and a cobblestone bounced across the floor.
Wellesley brushed shards from his shoulder. “Perhaps it has already.”
There was a rush to the street outside. Soult’s table rose with a great roar, some to hurl insults and pint pots, others to join the march outside with cries of “Insurrection!”
Men and women were filling the street, workers carrying banners and the tools of their trade. The march was for the most part peaceful, although a few hotheads were running up and down the sides of the crowd like harrying dogs, shouting slogans, cobblestones ready for throwing.
Lord Charles watched from Bravey’s door, his mild blue eyes suddenly sharp and darting, assessing, taking note of everything.
“Ah, Bud!” he hailed a tall, bony, muscular fellow, following the crowd with a shambling gait, notebook in hand. “What the devil is going on?”
“As if I’d tell you!” he snarled.
“Captain Bud’s manners don’t change, I see,” Augusta remarked as he lurched off.
“Rival scribe,” Wellesley explained. “He writes for the Intelligencer. No love lost between our publications, you might say.”
Tom nodded. No change there, then.
“There’s Johnny Lockhart.” Augusta pointed. “He’s likely to be a little more forthcoming.”
A fresh-faced, fair-haired young man came running over, his stockings torn, with what looked like fresh blood spattered across his shirt.
“You’re hurt!”
“Don’t fuss, Augusta.” Johnny Lockhart sniffed at the blood dribbling out of one nostril. “A bloody nose, that’s all.”
Lord Charles proffered a handkerchief to staunch the flow. “What’s happening, Johnny?” he asked, taking pencil and notebook from his pocket. “Care to comment?”
“Yes, I would.” He blew his nose copiously and handed back Wellesley’s kerchief, now bloodied.
“Oh, do keep it.” Lord Charles opened his notebook. “Now, what is this all about?”
“This is a peaceful march. Mill workers protesting about wages and working conditions; hand weavers unable to feed their wives and children on account of those very mills and factories. All demanding no more than fairness and a say in the government of our city.” He pushed his long curly hair back and looked at the passing crowd. “Their purpose is to present a petition but I fear they will not get as far as the Tower of All Nations. There has already been trouble. Rogue’s rare lads and bully boys have come pouring out of the alleys and the pot-houses intent on causing trouble, starting fights and smashing windows, doing everything they can to provoke the Duke. He’ll have the Guard out—and that’s what they want. It’ll play right into Rogue’s hands. What started as a peaceful march will end in massacre, and there’s nothing stirs the people like a field of innocent dead.”
“Do you think that is his purpose?” Lord Charles looked up from his scribbling.
“Undoubtedly. His ruffians are everywhere. I’ve seen Scroven, Laury, Poacher and here come two more. Naughty! Pigtail! Care to tell us what you’re up to?”
The two men slo
uching past turned to scowl at him. Naughty was on the skinny side, his small eyes as dull as the steel axe that he wore in his belt. He was dwarfed by Pigtail. Getting on for seven-foot tall, and ugly with it, with a big shapeless nose, a mass of black beard and a greasy cue of hair hanging down his back. The cudgel looked like a toothpick in his huge hands.
“Careful,” Wellesley breathed. “Either one would cleave your skull as soon as look at you.”
“Let them try!” Johnny Lockhart patted the pistol at his side. “I’m not afraid of Naughty and his kind.”
“I’ll come with you,” Lord Charles said, as Lockhart made to rejoin the crowd.
“We’re coming, too.” Augusta seized Tom’s hand.
“No.” Johnny shook his head. “It’s too dangerous—did you not hear what I said?”
“Since when did danger bother me? I’m as brave as you are, Johnny Lockhart.”
“You won’t keep her out of it.” Lord Charles grinned.
“Very well. Stay with me. First sign of trouble—who’s this fellow?” Johnny frowned at Tom, as if seeing him for the first time.
“Tom. A friend.”
“Is he?” Johnny Lockhart narrowed his eyes. Then his face relaxed into a smile. “Pleased to meet you, Tom.” His strong grip tightened on Tom’s hand. “You look after her or you will answer to me.”
“I’ve been friends with Johnny since school days,” Augusta said, as Johnny led them into the crowd. “He’s one of the few I trust.”
“What about Lord Charles?” Tom asked.
“I’d rather trust an adder. I’m going to catch up with Johnny. Find out what’s happening.”
She ran on while Tom lagged a bit behind, marching along with men, women, even children; respectable folk but poorly dressed, clothes well worn and well darned, some little more than rags sewn together. Hunger showed in some. Gaunt, hollow-eyed men trudged silently; their women pale, yellowish; their children barefoot and ragged, their limbs stick thin or bent with rickets.