by C. S. Quinn
‘I’ll see if I can’t put in a word,’ I say, ‘to get you something for standing about in.’ I wink at him as I walk past, and through the main doors.
The dark interior closes around me as if I’d never left. The smell of beeswax polish, the richly coloured walls and oil paintings, the feeling of never belonging.
Garlands of flowers are festooned all around today and there’s a hum of modernity. Servants are polishing glassware rather than tarnished old chalices. The wedding breakfast is fashionably understated. No huge sides of game or suckling pigs. The new Lady Morgan’s influence is like a breath of fresh air.
I’m eyeing the small crowd, trying not to listen to the whispers about my father’s new wife – an American slave-abolitionist, who has already scandalized London with her lack of English decorum.
‘Attica!’ I hear a high-pitched voice and realize the Spencer sisters have seen me. It’s too late to beat a retreat. They close in, ribbons and bows flapping.
The older and younger siblings are almost identical, with fish-like blue eyes and mousy hair, sculpted upwards into precipitous waxy towers. As usual they are dressed for determined husband-hunting. Single men are giving them a wide birth.
‘We have someone who is mad to meet you,’ enthuses the older sister.
I scan the room for a way out. Likely one of their greasy cousins has come of age.
The younger Spencer sister makes some frantic beckoning into the crowd. A rather silly-looking blonde girl is the target of her wild gesticulating.
‘This is her!’ announces the elder, proudly, stepping back so her friend might get a full view of me. ‘Attica Morgan, the escaped slave.’
CHAPTER 4
LONDON SOCIETY CAN BARELY BREATHE IN THE FETID AIR of its own stale gossip, yet I’m perpetually surprised by how resistant everyone is to forgetting my origins. If you believe the rumours, my brilliant father, Lord Morgan, sailed away from his acrimonious marriage into the arms of an African princess. She was captured by slavers whilst pregnant with me and my father was tricked into thinking her dead. His laudanum haze followed. Then some years later I docked at Bristol, a glowering little beast, so they tell it, who refused to speak a word of English and bit the first Lady Morgan’s jewelled hand.
My recollection is rather less straightforward. Nevertheless, it’s true I arrived in England as a small girl, to an estate of horrified relations and servants.
I have a similar sensation now, as a girl with solid blonde curls pasted to her forehead makes towards me, cooing as though I’m a monkey in a cage.
‘Amelia is mad to meet you,’ says the older Spencer sister, taking the blonde girl’s arm. ‘We’ve told her all about your daring getaway.’
‘I thought she’d be darker,’ says Amelia, sounding disappointed. ‘She could pass for Spanish. Do you speak any English words?’ she asks, speaking slow and loud.
‘Attica is frightfully clever,’ says the oldest Spencer quickly. ‘You would hardly know her mother was a savage. She is a translator of languages, isn’t that right? You were helping the Russian ambassador.’
She glances around the room. Several young men look away in panic.
‘I don’t know how you can stand such dry work,’ she says. ‘How do you find time to embroider?’
‘It’s not as dull as it sounds.’ I keep my tone impassive. ‘Though I must admit my needlework has suffered.’
‘You must apply yourself,’ cautions the younger Spencer, her blue eyes wide. ‘You will never catch a husband if your sewing is poor.’
Her sister elbows her in the ribs and the younger reddens, realizing her blunder. ‘Very sad,’ she ventures, in a strange babyish voice, ‘that your wedding didn’t go ahead?’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I cannot say that it was.’ The relief, the sheer relief, of escaping the bonds of wedlock. I can still call it to mind now, like a waterfall of gold washing me clean. ‘I thought England had no slavery,’ I tell them, ‘until I learned about marriage.’
They all laugh a little too loudly. The new Lady Morgan has, after all, just become my father’s legal property.
‘Very good,’ says the blonde girl approvingly. ‘Don’t get glum about it.’ She gestures to a table where the remains of hot buttered rolls, tongue, eggs and ham are being cleared away. A large bridal pie with cornice-like fluting is being brought forth.
‘Perhaps you will get the slice with the glass ring in it.’ She holds up two crossed fingers inches from my head, her features scrunched earnestly.
‘What good fortune that would be.’ I keep my face perfectly neutral.
‘You know you really are rather pretty,’ she continues, encouraged. ‘Those grey eyes are quite striking and not all men would mind such a tall woman. Perhaps another suitor can be found.’
‘Unfortunately, we African brides eat our husbands on the wedding night,’ I say. ‘So it is a hard match to make. Would you excuse me?’
I make them a brilliant smile, curtsey and vanish into the crowd, leaving them wide-eyed in shock. I’m making my way to the servants’ door when a hand tightens on my arm.
I turn around and find myself looking directly into the dark brown eyes of Lord Pole. I feel as though the warmth has been sucked out of the room.
How much does my scheming uncle know about what I did in Russia? I wonder.
Lord Pole is dressed in the clothes he wears to Whitehall: a bear-fur collar, long black robes, and a square felt hat, like a scribe might wear.
A thousand thoughts race through my head. ‘No dress coat,’ I ask, ‘for your own brother’s wedding?’
‘I’ve come from urgent business,’ he replies, watching the wedding crowd with a thoughtful expression. He frowns as a servant hands us each a dainty glass of red wine and a plate of bridal pie.
Besides being my uncle, Lord Pole is one of the most important men in English intelligence. He is keenly aware that, matched to the right husband, I could get into all kinds of drawing rooms and bedrooms. But so far his plans to have me married to the enemy have been averted. His dark eyes are surveying the room again. We are all outcasts, us in the low business of espionage, and Lord Pole is no exception. His long nose and swarthy features are courtesy of his German father – a Bavarian count whose scandalous lineage Lord Pole dedicates his life to nullifying. The rest of his time is spent plotting, an activity at which he is masterly.
‘As if your father’s African wife wasn’t scandal enough for one family,’ he says, more to himself than to me, ‘now he weds an American heiress and it isn’t even for her money.’
‘Be sure not to follow his example, Uncle,’ I say. ‘You risk a happy marriage.’ I take a small mouthful of pie. It is made of the traditional offal and oysters and loud with expensive spices, a nod to my father’s generation, whose artifice and grandeur are now out of favour.
‘I think the new Lady Morgan will be good for him,’ I conclude. ‘Less laudanum.’
Lord Pole hands his untouched plate impatiently to a passing servant.
‘It’s bad luck not to eat the pie,’ I say.
‘I don’t believe in luck.’
There’s a girlish shriek in the corner. One of the Spencer sisters is holding up a grubby glass ring, a symbol she’ll be next to marry. Lord Pole’s expression clouds in disapproval.
‘I imagine you’re looking forward to your own wedding one day soon,’ he says, returning his attention to me.
‘I hadn’t considered it,’ I say, careful to stop the tremble in my hands. ‘I am told I provide a useful service to my country.’
‘Yes.’ He lifts his glass and swallows the contents. ‘Become indispensable in the active spy network. That has been your game, has it not?’
‘It isn’t a game.’
Lord Pole locks eyes with me suddenly. It’s an arresting, disconcerting sensation to be the sole focus of that calculating gaze.
‘Don’t think I don’t know of the plots that were made to abort your wedding last summer,’ he says. ‘V
ery convenient that a mysterious fortune came into the hands of the bride who took your place.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
His dark brows knit together. ‘Do not forget the service this country did for you, Attica. You arrived as legal property of a plantation. We turned a blind eye.’
‘Because you saw my potential to marry the right man and spy on him,’ I fill in. ‘Or is it usual to train English girls in code-breaking and lock-picking?’
Lord Pole smiles but I see his fingers curl tighter. He hates for anyone to see his machinations at play.
‘We only capitalized on your father’s irresponsible beginnings,’ he says, ‘letting you into the cigar rooms, allowing you to cavort with his maps and instruments. I took the chance to gain you an advantage. Yet you squander it.’
He gives me a long look. ‘The reprieve your father negotiated for you was supposed to end with one mission. It’s true your abilities are exceptional, but we never meant you to become a crusader.’ He waves his hands to signal the inexplicability of it all.
‘You are afraid your pawn is not behaving as you expect,’ I observe. ‘I have been proving too useful in the field.’
‘You have surpassed expectations,’ he admits. ‘Yet I’ve been hearing things. Your obsession with breaking up slave rings has compromised your neutrality. You were supposed to bring Gaspard back to France, not release two hundred Kurds into the bargain.’
I have a sudden queasy feeling that he’s been waiting for me to slip up.
‘What does it matter?’ I say. ‘I brought Gaspard to a safe house, as was asked of me.’
‘A woman’s usefulness will always be different to a man’s. You are a year from spinsterhood, at which point your value will plummet. It’s time your more female qualities were put into service.’
‘What of my feelings on the subject?’ I manage to keep my voice perfectly steady.
I’ve a terrible prescience Lord Pole is formulating something that will be difficult to evade.
‘Ah! Feelings,’ says Lord Pole. ‘Yes. You young people seem to have so very many of them.’
CHAPTER 5
MY HEART LIFTS AS I SEE THE FAMILIAR HOTCHPOTCH buildings of Whitehall. Barefoot children with baskets of quill pens and reeds of cheap ink are pestering the wigged and waistcoated men entering parliament. Street stalls fry pancakes and sell pea soup by the pint from a cluster of tankards swinging on chains. A bird-catcher sits, emptying a net of chirping goldfinches into a small wooden enclosure.
I approach him, dip a hand in my purse and hand over a shining guinea. His eyes widen and his hand stretches out uncertainly.
‘Let them all fly away,’ I say, closing his hands around the coin.
He nods rapidly, opening the cage with a disbelieving grin. Clutching the money tight to his chest, he walks away, unable to stop smiling.
The birds take flight. They streak past me, black, red and gold, as I turn my attention back to the grand Whitehall buildings.
Tacked against the turreted wall of Westminster Palace is a threadbare canopy over a cauldron of hot green peas. A man with one eye and a single tooth stirs it with a long stick.
I move towards him, smiling.
‘Hello, Peter,’ I say.
‘Attica!’ He beams, treating me to the full view of his sole tooth. ‘Those lyin’ bastards said you was dead. Where’ve ya bin then, girl?’ Peter leans over his tepid wares and grasps both my hands in his wizened old claws.
‘Russia.’ I grip his hands in return.
‘Ah.’ His eye lifts skyward, considering. ‘That’s north of Oxford, is it?’
I hide a smile. ‘Yes.’
He tilts his head, taking in the new scar, running deep, just below my jawline.
‘Robber got ya?’ he suggests.
I touch it with my fingers, feeling the long track of raised red. It feels like it belongs to someone else.
‘Something like that,’ I say.
He leans back, assessing.
‘Well, you’ve looked worse,’ he concludes. ‘Least you’ve some meat on your bones.’
He’s referring to my training in Sicily, in preparation for which I’d spent far too long running in forests with logs on my back, so as to pass for a boy.
In the months that followed, my knife was so rarely from my hand, the palm muscles began to atrophy in the shape of the handle. By the end, those still alive could slash five different arteries in thirty seconds – abdomen, wrist, throat, thigh, chest – and no one ever deduced why a boot to the groin affected me so much less than my fellows. The final test was two sleepless weeks, hunted by assassins. Then fighting blind-fold, waist-deep in cold water. Two of us graduated – that is to say, lived.
Peter had been the first familiar person on my return. I’d lost so much weight my jaw jutted. My face held the burning gaze of what the Italians call ‘blood on the soul’.
‘I’m different now,’ I remember telling Peter, looking at him with pupils blown wide from exhaustion.
He’d considered this for a long moment before heaping a ladle of peas into a tankard and pushing it into my hands.
‘Drink this,’ he’d said, looking at me steadily. ‘Nothing’s happened to you, girl, that hot peas and a good night’s sleep won’t fix.’
I still think about that sometimes.
‘Good to have you back,’ Peter says now. ‘They’re a savage lot Scotland way, so I hear.’ He sniffs and wipes his nose on his sleeve. ‘It’s not the same without you here,’ he continues, with a glance at Whitehall. ‘They bin sayin’ I can’t empty me slops into the gutter.’
‘I’ll talk to them,’ I promise. ‘Is Atherton inside?’
‘Yes.’ His face turns wary at the name. Peter holds up a warning finger, eyeing the surging parliament men behind me.
Peter waits for his moment before stepping aside, motioning me behind his smoking cauldron. At the back of his stall is a hessian curtain; to all appearances it covers nothing but wall, but as I lift it, immediately beneath me is a set of old stone steps.
Whitehall’s secret entrance. Once used by the King to smuggle in his mistresses, in these times of espionage it is employed for a different purpose. I descend into torchlit gloom, turn a corner and open another curtain into an underground room. The dark explodes into light.
This is the society of the Sealed Knot. We lie, steal, deceive and risk summary execution so upstanding soldiers and generals might win wars and medals publicly. They are the closest thing I have to a family.
And after almost a year in Russia, I’ve come home.
CHAPTER 6
IN THE SEALED KNOT’S LABYRINTHINE HEADQUARTERS, candelabras and candles burn along every wall, illuminating the carved wood-panelled ceilings. Large tables are lined with men, maps and papers of every kind.
The familiar bubbling chatter of plans and schemes surrounds me. Servants move about, pouring wine and brandy punch, putting down plates of meat and bread. The air is fuggy with pipe smoke and intrigue.
Naturally, the dirty underhand war of intelligence is staffed by those whom polite society shun. There’s no one here without a scandal to tell, a price on his head or a court martial to run from. Though no recruitment was more shocking to our sensible German King than mine, so I’m told.
I pass through and a few faces turn to me, eyes wide. I raise my finger to my lips and head to a corner where a little knot of men are huddled over a large book. As I approach I can hear them arguing loudly about a wager that should be paid out.
I put my hand on the shoulder of the nearest – a dark-haired man with nut-brown skin and an expensive fencing sword at his hip.
‘You should have bet higher, Emile,’ I say.
He whips around. His face makes a strange contortion.
‘Attica!’ He grabs me in a bear-embrace. I wince. Emile fled from France to England after a fight with the wrong man; his upper-body strength is vicelike. Like me, he grew up with a gypsy camp, so we share a
common language and have always been favourites to one another.
The other gamblers are welcoming me home now, delight on their faces. These are my friends, my comrades. Besides fencing champion Emile, there’s a highwayman, an excommunicated young priest and a playwright-turned-forger. Like me – the tawny-skinned illegitimate daughter of an English lord – they are all outcasts with extraordinary talents useful to England’s underground secret service.
‘I thought you were dead!’ Emile admonishes. ‘The last German ship docked on Thursday.’
‘I knew you bloody Hellfires would run a bet,’ I say, ‘so I spent a night in Southwark instead of coming straight. Only narrowly made it to my own father’s wedding.’
I eye the open book over his shoulder.
‘Congratulations, Emile,’ I grin, ‘I knew you’d take the longest odds.’ I wag my finger at the rest of them. ‘And you all should have more faith,’ I admonish, smiling. ‘Since when did some cold water stop me getting home?’
The assembled spies laugh, enjoying the joke.
I look to a tapestry hanging at the back which everyone is pretending a little too hard isn’t there. The way to Atherton’s door.
‘He’s in there?’ I ask, nodding to it. The mood instantly changes.
‘Ye-es,’ ventures Emile. ‘But he’s in a foul temper. Something’s happening in France. Missing diamonds or some such. People are turning on the Queen. You’d think Atherton would be happy,’ he adds with a confused shrug. ‘We’ve spent a lot of manpower trying to bring King Louis down.’
I glance at the tapestry. The power of life and death lies beyond. No one goes through without good reason. Or, more likely, bad reason.
‘Best I find out more,’ I decide, breaking away from the group. ‘You can buy me brandy from your winnings later,’ I toss over my shoulder to Emile.
I slip underneath the tapestry. A spiral staircase is on the other side and I ascend to another part of Whitehall. Atherton’s office is the clandestine bridge between secret spying and public politics.
