by H. G. Parry
“Entirely my fault. I don’t usually sit here this late—well, I do, come to think of it, but not in the dark. I couldn’t sleep, so I came out here to work, and found I couldn’t manage that either. There didn’t seem any point in keeping the candle burning.”
“This is your office?”
“It is.” He said it without accusation, although he must have wondered what she was doing there. “And that window looks directly across the Channel. If an invasion fleet comes, we’ll first see the sails on that horizon.”
“He’s over there.” The pull of his magic across the water was unmistakable. “The stranger.”
“Yes,” Pitt said, so readily that she wondered what he felt. “Quite often, when I’m working at that desk, I glance across, and for a fraction of a second I can feel him looking back. Imagination, probably, but it concentrates the attention rather.”
“I saw him once,” Fina said. “In person. He came to the camp to meet with Toussaint.”
There was a pause. “What did he look like?”
“He was just a man. White skin, blue eyes. His nose was sunburned. He didn’t look at me. I was beneath him.”
“I think he would consider most people beneath him.”
“Hester said people say that about you.”
“Did she? I believe they do. It isn’t true.” He stood—quite normally, probably to light the candle, but Fina flinched back before she could stop herself. He paused, or froze.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to imply that you were.” He did seem genuinely surprised. “Why would you be?”
“You were the leader of the country that enslaved me for years, and still enslaves my friends. You’re the one who sent men across the sea to take Saint-Domingue from us and put us back in chains. And you’re like him. The stranger.”
“I see,” Pitt said carefully. He sat back down. “You’re right, of course. I am all of those things.”
“I’m not afraid of you. I spent ten years at the side of Toussaint Louverture.”
“He was remarkable. I’m very sorry for his death.”
“He died so his people could hold their own country.”
“And they will.”
“They will,” she said, with some bitterness. “But he never lived to see it. Toussaint never wanted the whites to be massacred without mercy, as Dessalines will do if he wins. He wanted us to be civilized.”
“‘Civilized’ is a very difficult word. Slavery is considered to be civilized, and nothing Dessalines has done is worse than what he suffered under that particular piece of civilization. He hasn’t acted out of blind cruelty either. From what I can tell, he does what seems politically expedient.”
“I suppose you’d massacre us without mercy?”
“No.” For the first time, he sounded stung. “Of course I wouldn’t.”
“Yet you were willing to conquer Saint-Domingue and enslave us again. When it was politically expedient. Perhaps we’d have preferred death to that.”
“I didn’t—” He caught himself. “That’s entirely fair. I did that. I could apologize—I do, in fact, apologize very sincerely for the fact that despite all our efforts, England still hasn’t agreed to abolish even the slave trade, much less slavery itself. And in retrospect, the invasion of Saint-Domingue was a major tactical mistake—possibly the greatest I made during my time in office, though I’m sure there were many other contenders. We poured money, resources, and lives into that colony for years, and lost it all without a fraction of return, thanks, in very large part, to Toussaint Louverture. But I don’t know that I’d do any differently again, faced with the same information and the same set of circumstances. I’m neither a visionary nor an idealist. I was the leader of a country at war, and I was trying to act in the country’s best interests. I understand if that justification seems inadequate to you, but it’s all I have to offer.”
Fina considered that carefully. As an apology, it was inadequate, of course. She was no more inclined to forgive him than she was before. But so much of what men did in war was unforgivable. She had learned from Toussaint that alliances needn’t be built on complete forgiveness, and certainly not on trust.
“As to being like the stranger,” Pitt added, “I hope that’s only true at the most basic level of bloodlines. I can’t swear to it: I don’t know the stranger well enough to say. But I do promise that I’m trying to do the honorable thing by everyone, and I try to be open to being told what that is.”
“I don’t know if I can trust you.” He might not deserve much from her, but he did at least deserve her honesty in return for his own. “I can’t see enough of you. I can see what you are to other people, in their heads. But I can’t see what you are in your own.”
“I understand,” he said. “But I don’t know how I can show you. Frankly, I don’t know how I’d look.”
They were silent for a long time after that. Fina didn’t realize that he was waiting for a response from her until he sighed quietly.
“Forgive me—I think perhaps I am rather tired after all. Don’t let me disturb you any further.” He stood, more carefully this time, and this time she didn’t react. “Please feel free to wander anywhere in the house you desire. There’s a very clear view of the French coast from the battlements down the corridor.”
“Would you like me to stay out of this office?”
“I’d prefer it, I admit. I’m not terribly important at the moment, but there are still some important documents in my keeping.”
“They’d be safe from me,” she said, with only a little bitterness. “I can’t read.”
“Would you like to learn? It would be very easy to arrange someone to teach you. Though I warn you Hester might insist on doing it herself. She’s very fond of telling people how things should be done.”
She smiled involuntarily, not so much at the words as at the wry affection in his voice. “I’d like to learn to read. And write.”
“I’ll speak to Hester about it in the morning. Good night.”
“I have something to ask you,” she said abruptly.
He nodded. “Of course.”
“Why did you stop governing this country?” It probably wasn’t the right word—she knew the power structure of the colonies far better than she understood that of the colonizers. It didn’t matter.
“For a lot of reasons that seemed very important at the time.” He considered carefully. “I think, in the end, I was trying to save myself. Or I was trying to save the country.”
“From what?”
“From myself—on both counts. I didn’t want to become what I thought I would have to become to keep leading through a war. I didn’t think I could survive it, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. And then the war ended, and I hoped I didn’t have to.”
She understood that, if nothing else. She thought of the last summer, the summer she had spent at Toussaint’s plantation while the war waited outside the walls.
“But the war never ended,” she said. “It came to us, for a time, but it’s back with you now. And it won’t be over until things end between you and the stranger.”
“I know,” he said. “I just don’t know if my taking the country back is what I need to do to end it. I only know that doing so is beginning to look inevitable, one way or another.”
“I don’t know either.” She hesitated. “This might not help. But there was something I didn’t tell you, about the stranger.”
He nodded, and waited.
“I’ve been in the stranger’s head as he’s talked to Bonaparte, and to my friends in Jamaica. But they weren’t the only people he talked to. He also talks to people here. He has for a long time.”
There was no difficulty at all in reading his reaction this time. His entire body went rigid. “Can you tell me who?” he asked after a moment.
“It isn’t talking in the same way. They don’t see hi
m in the space where their minds meet. He just slips into their thoughts and nudges. The way he does across France, all the time. But—the night I came to Clapham, there was a man on the road outside. He was one of them.”
“The night you came to Clapham. Last Wednesday?”
She nodded.
“I knew of one man who heard a voice that we think was the stranger. We think the enemy was using him, among other things, to delay abolition—which makes far more sense in light of his plans for Jamaica. But that can’t have been him on the road. He’s been insane and confined to his rooms for many months.”
“There are many of them,” she said. “No women, as far as I know—just men. I almost didn’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t know how much I wanted you to succeed,” she said honestly. “Your country enslaves my people. I don’t know if I can trust you. But Mr. Wilberforce trusts you, and so does Hester. I’ve met you now, and whatever else you are, I know you’re less of a danger to us than the stranger. I also know you won’t defeat him without everything I can give you, and everything you can give yourself. He’s stronger than you.”
“I see. Well, that sounds perfectly reasonable,” Pitt said, so calmly she suspected she’d taken him aback.
She inclined her head. “Good night. Sleep well.”
“I’m suddenly very much awake again, strangely enough. But thank you.” He paused. “This man you saw, the one you say the stranger was behind. If you saw him again, would you know him?”
“I don’t think so,” Fina said honestly. “But I would know the stranger behind him. If he was looking through his eyes.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Parliament meets again at the end of summer. This may be asking more than I have a right to—I am well aware you have no reason to care about the government of our country. But if you were to sit in the gallery of the House of Commoners, might you be able to see who if anyone was being influenced by the enemy?”
“You’re right,” she said. “I have no reason to care about the government of this country. But if the stranger is using his influence to halt the abolition of slavery in your country, as you’ve just said, then I care very much. I don’t know if I can find the enemy the way you want me to, but I can certainly try.”
After Pitt left, Fina went one last time to the window. The Channel glittered in the moonlight, and the French coast looked very far away. It wasn’t far enough.
London
September 1803
Are you ready?” Hester asked from where she was seated beside Fina. Her white face was flushed with excitement. “Remember, I’ll be right here to pull you out if I see anything amiss.”
“I’ve done this before, you may recall,” Fina said, with what she hoped sounded like amusement. It was difficult not to try to match Hester’s flippancy at times. It was a form of courage.
By the current law, women were allowed to listen to the debates in the House of Commoners, but not to watch the debaters—or, perhaps more pertinently, to be watched by them. They sat behind a screen in a hot, dim, dusty space in the gallery, straining to hear the muffled voices over the vibration of the walls behind them. Unsurprisingly, few bothered to attend.
Fortunately, Fina didn’t particularly care to hear the debates, and she didn’t need her own eyes to see. Wilberforce was raising a motion to abolish spellbinding in Jamaica, but even he had very little hope that it would succeed—the only way to outlaw spellbinding, he had told her, would be to abolish the slave trade first. While the trade remained lawful, the traders had too much power in the House. But the debate would have one certain effect. If the stranger had any influence at all in the House of Commoners, he would exert it now to the utmost to make sure the motion failed. And Fina, if she was right, would be able to sense him doing so.
In truth, she was more worried than she wanted to admit. She didn’t like the thought of being vulnerable, outside her body in the heart of the British government. She didn’t like how conspicuous she felt in the press of people, or how vulnerable in the flimsy red-brown dress Hester had given her. Hester’s presence was a comfort, of sorts—in the few weeks she’d been at Walmer, Fina had seen how quick and sharp-eyed the younger woman was, and how swift to protect her own. Still, she could never believe herself to be safe in London.
A sharp nudge to her ribs brought her back before she could reach out with her magic; she turned, blinking, to Hester next to her.
“They’re talking about Saint-Domingue,” Hester said quietly. “The usual rubbish about whether or not the rebellion would have happened had the slaves been spellbound, but I thought you might want to hear.”
“Oh.” Fina’s heart, which had quickened in alarm, relaxed; she sat forward, straining her ears for familiar names. Even without the screen to distort them, the words were difficult to make out—they were English, but a very different kind from that she’d heard spoken even in England, much more like the upright, prickly language used in Wordsworth’s poem about Toussaint. But she heard Dessalines’s name mentioned, and Port-au-Prince. It conjured a flash of heat and dazzling sky that made her heart contract in longing.
“He’ll take it from them soon,” she said softly.
“Do you miss the Caribbean?” Hester asked. Most wouldn’t think to ask her that, when so much of her time in the Caribbean had been spent in enslavement and war. Hester had a way of asking questions that were either very tactless, or very astute.
“I do,” Fina admitted. “I miss it very much.”
“I’d love to go there one day,” Hester sighed. “I saw some of Europe, before the war came back, but my companions were no fun at all. A fidget married to a fool. I convinced them to cross the French Alps by mule, and that put paid to any further adventuring. But in any case, Europe isn’t really far enough. I want to go to Egypt and Damascus and the Far East. I want to see the whole world.”
Fina smiled, but her chest ached. There had never been any room in her life for the kind of yearning that was in Hester’s voice. All her life had been a battle—for her freedom first, and then for the freedom of those she loved. What Hester wanted was a kind of freedom too, but the chains that held her were very light by comparison.
There was a battle taking place in that debating chamber too. It was a battle she could be a part of, if she chose. Wilberforce had introduced her to Olaudah Equiano and the other African abolitionists, at her own request—they had shown her what they had achieved through persistent argument, and offered to make a place for her if she elected to join them. She was learning to read and write in English quickly, with Hester’s rather bossy and easily distracted help, and she liked the idea of making her voice heard. The only trouble was, that path seemed so slow and so laden with obstacles. It was very different from the kind of freedom she had meant to bring to Jamaica, if Toussaint had lived and Dessalines had kept his promise, the kind won with fire and storm and shadow.
Someone new had evidently risen to speak now—a higher voice, a little hesitant. Fina closed her eyes, and opened her mind.
It was strange using her magic in that unfamiliar place. It latched onto the man speaking, as Fina had hoped, and all at once she could see the vast chamber, hot and crowded with white men and dust and opinions, their faces oddly distorted without sound. She felt the effort it was taking the man to speak from his diaphragm, the tension between his eyes and at the base of his skull, the perspiration beneath his cravat and powdered wig. Beneath that, she felt his anger, his quivering outrage. The strange thing was, she couldn’t tell for what side he spoke. The feelings were the same on both. Both were so sure they were right.
And then, beneath the surface layer of his thoughts, she felt it stir.
“That one,” she said, even before her eyes flew open. There was a taste of iron in her mouth, as though she’d swallowed blood. It had worked. The stranger was among the men of the House of Commoners, and her magic had found him.
Hester’s eyebrows shot up. “Truly?�
��
“Yes,” Fina said. She could hear the voice of the man she’d left now, straining for volume above the roar of the benches. “Who is he?”
“That’s Henry Addington.” Hester seemed somewhere between horrified and fascinated. “That’s the prime minister—the one who made peace and then pushed us back into war, the one who’s doing such a terrible job of the defenses. Dear God.”
“The stranger’s only touching his mind,” Fina cautioned, before Hester could get carried away. But she felt sick. “Enough to nudge, and to help him fight his cause. There’s no way this Addington could know he was there, and no way the stranger could force him to go against his own wishes. I doubt the stranger could make him intentionally sabotage his country.”
“He’s always been weak,” Hester said derisively. “He used to listen to my uncle, but lately he’s stopped. I thought power had gone to his head.”
Somewhere very deep down, Fina could almost have felt sorry for the man, who had apparently spent years unknowingly pulled between the last two vampires in Europe.
“Wait until the next man gets up to talk,” Fina said. “I’ll look again.”
The debates continued for five hours. By the end of it, Fina’s magic was as exhausted as it had been after days of battle. And she had a very long list of names.
It was after midnight when the debates finished, and the House cracked wide open to spill its members into the night air. It seemed a dizzying whirl of English voices and English faces to Fina, though this may have been because she still felt only vaguely settled back into her own body. She was following Hester across the entrance hall to the door when one of those voices called out to her.
“You, there!”
On instinct, she turned, and knew even as she did so that she had made a mistake.
Standing in front of her was a man, well built and strong, with very dark eyes in his weathered face. There was little to differentiate him from any of the other politicians who had been on the floor that night, except that he held himself in a way she instantly recognized from Saint-Domingue—the square, straight-backed stance of a military man.
