by H. G. Parry
“It does. And the reprisals from the French have doubtless been more horrific still. Either that revolt will be brutally suppressed, or the island will be plunged into civil war for the foreseeable future. Regardless, the death toll is going to escalate. Here’s something true that I didn’t tell the Knights Templar: the white planters have offered to accept British sovereignty if we come and take back the colony for them.”
“Really? The richest colony in the Caribbean? Are you going to—”
“No. It’s not a situation we want to be involved in; under the circumstances, I doubt we could take it if we wanted to, or hold it if we did. For all we know, it’s torn itself apart by now. I’m afraid the abolition bill might have to wait until next year.”
Wilberforce had been expecting this, of course, but he shook his head firmly. He’d had the drive across town to think over the situation. “It can’t. We’ve already lost two years to these ridiculous hearings and delays. We need to push ahead. You said the last time we presented that we had every chance of pushing the bill through once all the evidence had been heard.”
“Provided nothing happened to change things. I didn’t foresee the French Commoners overthrowing the Aristocracy. And I certainly didn’t foresee this. The ongoing bloody massacre of thousands of slave owners is not going to endear people to the plight of the slaves.”
“I understand that,” Wilberforce conceded. “But can’t they see that it’s an argument against slavery? The slaves wouldn’t revolt if they weren’t desperately unhappy. And, from a pragmatic point of view, if the spellbinding can be broken, it’s dangerous to keep accumulating a larger and larger army of tortured individuals—many of them magicians—ready to rise up and slaughter their oppressors.”
“You don’t need to tell me—I’m perfectly convinced. But any form of revolution, particularly magical revolution, is a sore point at the moment—or perhaps I should say a frightening point. Saint-Domingue isn’t the only impending war I’ve had news of this week. Austria has issued an official warning to France that if they harm Louis or Marie Antoinette, the Austrian army won’t hesitate to respond. And, more worryingly, France hasn’t taken it well.”
“But surely the Assembly won’t harm the king. It wants to work with him.”
“Factions of it do. But other factions don’t. Some of those factions who want to work with the king also want war with Austria, because they believe their new Declaration of the Rights of Magicians should spread to other countries. And if they push for a war, then other countries are going to have to step in to stop them. Potentially even us.”
It wasn’t all new information, but it sounded far worse put together. “I had no idea the situation was so volatile.”
“In fairness, neither did we. A lot of this came yesterday from the daemon-stone with our ambassador in Paris, and he didn’t get it all from official channels. What troubles me more is that France’s new constitution still hasn’t agreed on the new laws regarding Commoner magic, and until then their bracelets are inactive. From what the Templar I spoke to today told me, they’ve all but broken with the Temple Church. It strongly suggests that if they do go into battle, they may break the Concord.”
The Concord had been made between the major powers in Europe after the Vampire Wars in the fifteenth century. It was, essentially, a promise that no country’s army would employ magic on a battlefield. As long as it held, and it had always held, there was no possibility of another plunge into dark magic like the kind that had nearly destroyed the world. Even America, when it had rebelled against British sovereignty a few decades ago, had accepted and held to the Concord; once they had become independent, they had taken the oath themselves. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.
“They couldn’t, surely?” Wilberforce protested. “It would raise all of Europe against them!”
“I don’t know if they care. We are sending them an offer, in private, that England will be willing to recognize the Assembly as a legitimate government as long as they cease their aggression on other countries. It might work.”
“It might work better if you made it public,” Wilberforce said. “I’m sure it would produce an immediate effect in France.”
“It wouldn’t.”
“It’s such a monstrous idea that two great kingdoms are using all the talents which God gave for the promotion of general happiness for their mutual misery and destruction.”
“Wilberforce, for God’s sake, we are doing all we possibly can,” Pitt sighed. It was such an uncharacteristic lapse that Wilberforce felt a pang of guilt. He had forgotten that his friend looked his most self-possessed when his calm was running out.
“Of course you are. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
“You didn’t,” Pitt said, having caught himself. “I’m the one who should apologize. It’s just been a rather difficult morning. And I didn’t mean to imply the abolition bill was entirely hopeless. I do think, though, that you might do better to wait until this blows over.”
“And if it doesn’t? If things only get worse, and we do head for war?” He shook his head. “This isn’t only about political strategy, you know—there are human lives at stake. One year means thousands more captured and subdued against their will. It isn’t my battle; it’s theirs. Any chance of progress at all… I have to do what I can.”
Pitt nodded slowly. “I understand. And if you present it, then of course I’ll support it.”
“Thank you.” Wilberforce sighed himself. “I do appreciate what you’re saying. I’m hopeful about Saint-Domingue, I really am. Perhaps they can come through war and find a solution. But in terms of our cause, this couldn’t have been worse timed if it had been brought about on purpose.”
“I wonder.”
“What?”
“Nothing, possibly. It just occurs to me that this is not the first act of inexplicable magic connected with abolition recently. What we know, and the Knights Templar don’t, is that someone summoned an undead a little over three years ago—before the storming of the Bastille, so not someone from within its walls. And the shadow in question almost killed the greatest political advocate of the abolition movement.”
“You think the shadow in Westminster and the Saint-Domingue uprising are connected? But one, if we’re correct, is aimed against abolition; the other freed thousands of slaves. Directly opposing aims, surely?”
“Unless the purpose behind the Saint-Domingue rebellion wasn’t really their freedom. As you so correctly pointed out, if one wants to destroy faith in abolition, terrifying people with accounts of freed slaves raping, burning, and murdering is a very good way to do it.”
“It seems a very elaborate ploy,” Wilberforce said, but he couldn’t quite dismiss the idea. “All the same, I’d be very interested to know if any of the anti-abolitionists in France are alchemists.”
“I’ll make some discreet inquiries,” Pitt said. “It’s a good deal easier than looking for a necromancer. And since the Knights Templar have very little power in Paris, I see no reason why we shouldn’t investigate ourselves. God knows we have enough French eyes and ears in our pay these days.”
It was the first time Pitt had spoken of the frantic building of intelligence networks rumored to be taking place on both sides of the Channel. Wilberforce glanced at the daemon-stone on the desk, and his stomach tightened.
The news about Saint-Domingue reached France at the same time. The National Assembly of Magicians agreed that the insurgents had every right to rebel, and even to demand their freedom. It was, after all, what they had been promised under the Declaration of the Rights of Magicians; it was what the Commoner magicians had risen to demand on the streets of Paris. They sympathized entirely. Unfortunately, they couldn’t afford to grant freedom to them now. Not now that Austria had threatened them with war, and the colonies’ imports were so badly needed. Not when it would be so inconvenient.
The trouble was, as Britain had learned, there were factions in the Assem
bly who wanted to go to war. It was as simple and as frustrating as that. The group that had formed around the powerful orator Jacques-Pierre Brissot, sometimes called the Girondins for the region many of them came from, was one of them. They had been friends with Robespierre and Camille in the early days, but their interests were beginning to diverge. They were nearly all unmagical Commoners, for one thing, and so they were cautious about magical rights in practice. They were more willing to work with the king. And, above all, they wanted to go to war. They weren’t content to bring harmony to France, to build a republic. They wanted to spread the Revolution abroad, to increase France’s holdings. They wanted an empire. And that, for better or worse, required the colonies.
Robespierre argued against the decision furiously in the Jacobins.
“How can we fail to grant freedom to the slaves of Saint-Domingue?” he demanded. “Their freedom shouldn’t even be ours to grant! According to the principles of the Revolution, we are all equal, and all free.”
“In principle, you’re right,” came a dissenting voice. “But in practice, without the slaves, the colony will perish.”
“Then let the colony perish, rather than a principle!” Robespierre retorted. He reached for the flare of mesmerism; it came, but only the weak, reluctant mesmerism that belonged to him. His benefactor had not strengthened it himself for some time. Not since the night he had asked him to kill the king of France.
That, he knew, was the real problem—the reason the Girondins had been able to push the country as close to war as they had, against all Robespierre’s wishes. It had been three months, and the command still echoed in Robespierre’s head. When he would drift into exhausted sleep, he would hear it in the voice of his benefactor, with increasing anger. And still he had not killed the king. He had no intention of ever doing so. His benefactor was displeased with him, and so the full heat of mesmerism was being withheld from him. He was fighting for the new world with a blunt knife.
This was made all the harder by the fact that he was, by his own choice, no longer a member of the National Assembly. There was a new set of people on the Assembly now, many of them magicians. Robespierre had proposed, successfully, that none of the Assembly that had brought in the constitution be eligible to take office under it, in order to prevent corruption. It caused his reputation to soar even higher among the Commoners. They called him the Incorruptible, and the name stuck. He felt he’d done the right thing—even the strategic thing. True power, these days, belonged to those with popular support and not a title. Still, at times like this, he could find it in his heart to wish he had been less principled, less strategic, and more direct.
“The National Assembly are only concerned about the colonies and their wealth because they want to go to war,” he told the Jacobins. “A war that France is not prepared for, and that will taint our revolution by turning it into an exercise in empire building. If we don’t stop, we’ll find ourselves in a republic no better than the ancien régime.”
Many of the Jacobins listened to him, mesmerism or not. The Assembly didn’t; or, at least, it found the pressure of the slave owners and anti-abolitionists too powerful to wholly resist. A delegation was sent to Saint-Domingue, granting equal citizenship to the middle class of free black and mixed-race people. It was an unprecedented advancement, it was true, but slavery remained the official policy of France. To Robespierre’s surprise, his benefactor was unconcerned, even content. Even pleased.
“Leave it, Robespierre,” he said in Robespierre’s dreams that night. “You’re wasting your time on battles that make no difference at all.”
“How can you say they make no difference?” Robespierre demanded. “It’s a question of liberty. What is this revolution about, if not that?”
“You need to trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone.” He paused. “You withheld your mesmerism from me again tonight. I need it. Now I’ve come this far, and defied so many enemies, it could soon become dangerous for me not to have it.”
“You have no right to demand anything of me.” His benefactor’s voice was suddenly sharp. “I told you what needs to be done. I told you to kill the king of France.”
“I told you,” Robespierre said—firmly, without plea for understanding. “I can’t do that.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Both. He’s the king, for God’s sake. Even if I wanted to walk in there and shoot him through the heart, he’d be too well protected. But I don’t want to. I don’t kill people, not even kings, and he’s little more than a harmless prisoner now.”
“A prisoner in a gilded palace, with a government at his back and a slew of countries at our borders that could go to war at any time to reinstate him. Hardly harmless.”
“I’m not an assassin.”
“Not an assassin, not a member of the Assembly. You’re nothing at all, as far as I can tell.”
“I’m not nothing,” Robespierre said. His own anger rose in response. “Don’t ever say that. I’m not.”
“Then what are you? I didn’t raise you up not to do what was necessary.”
“You raised me up because you thought I could save France. I can.”
“Not by making speeches in an old monastery you can’t. If you want my help, you need to do what I tell you, and trust that I’m telling you for the good of what you care about. I’ve seen the France in your head, Robespierre. This isn’t it.”
It wasn’t. It was better than the France before the Bastille, it was true. They were a constitutional monarchy. They had a National Assembly and the room to make new laws. Camille and the other petitioners had even been allowed to return home, with a full pardon, though their voices had been all but stifled lately. But it wasn’t the France in his head. There was no freedom of magic, and very little freedom of any other kind either.
And yet surely the France in his head wouldn’t come into being with blood sacrifice. Surely he had soiled his conscience enough already, that one night on the eve of the elections to the Estates General. His benefactor was right: he had been nothing then. Now his reputation was rising every day. It wasn’t enough for him to be a revolutionary, as Camille was. He wanted to be a lawgiver: fair, just, principled, resistant to the tide of human passions. The people now called him the Incorruptible. He wanted it to be true.
“I don’t believe in capital punishment,” he said. “I certainly don’t believe in murder.”
“If you believe in France,” his benefactor said, “you may find you’ll have to start believing in other things as well.”
Jamaica
Autumn 1791
Molly died in autumn. She had been fading for weeks, her breathing becoming harsher and slower, her resistance to the spell weakening until she was locked entirely within her own head. The overseers had given her medicine at first, then stopped. Since she wasn’t better, the reason was obvious. They had decided she was past healing and determined instead to save money and get as much work as they could from her before her heart wore out. Fina sat by her side every night and held her hand in the dark until, finally, one night just before the dawn, she could no longer hear her breathe at all. She was free of the spell to cry now, but she didn’t. Instead, she felt hot fury burn in her chest.
“Is she gone?” Jacob’s voice came. It had none of its usual confidence; it sounded very quiet, and very tired. “Fina? Little one?”
“She’s gone,” she said.
The next night, she left the plantation and the island forever.
It wasn’t too difficult to escape from the sleeping quarters at night. Even with all the trouble in Saint-Domingue, the masters didn’t expect the slaves to be able to move. Half the time, they didn’t bother to lock them in; when she tried the door, it slipped open at a push. The hardest thing was facing her friends for the last time.
“Don’t go,” one of them said as she passed, in the strangled whisper that was all she could manage. She was a small, pretty woman, little more than the child Fina had been when
she arrived. In the two years she had been with them, she had rarely been able to get free enough of the spell for Fina to get to know her. Too many of those with whom she lived and died were blanks in her knowledge. “They’ll hurt us if you go. They’ll hurt us to punish you.”
“You shut up,” Clemency said to her. Her voice was fierce, but Fina suspected it was to hide tears. “Of course she’s got to go. You’d go, in her place.”
Still, the whisper made her hesitate, anguished. She was scared enough for herself. She was, deep down, still looking for an excuse to stay. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone hating her for leaving, the thought of them being hurt or killed, and cursing her name.
“Fina,” Jacob said. He fought to sit, and fell back; it was too early in the night for that yet. “Look between the floorboards, by my hand here.”
She dropped down beside him and felt for his hand in the dark. They had never touched before. His skin was warm; she felt a shock go through her body before she moved her own hand to the floor. She quickly found the gap he meant.
“There’s a paring knife there,” he said. Her fingernails caught on it as he spoke. “I stole it last winter, from the overseer. He looked up and down for it; it never came to him that one of us could have taken it. I thought I might use it on one of them, if I ever got free for a moment the way Augustus did. But I’ll never get free enough to use it. Take it. You might need it.”
She took the knife and folded her fingers around it gently. Something of courage returned to her. She took Jacob’s hand again, wordlessly, and kissed it. He squeezed it with what must have been all his willpower; she felt the faint pressure, like the brush of a leaf.
“Go,” he said.
“I’ll come back.” She raised her voice so that everyone could hear. It was her excuse—not to stay, this time, but to leave them. “I’m going so that we can all be free. I’m going to find the voice on Saint-Domingue, the voice that broke the spellbinding. When I find him, he can free us as well. We can rise up and reclaim ourselves. I’ll come back.”