A Radical Act of Free Magic

by H. G. Parry

  Wilberforce raised his hand and waved. “Did you get here without being seen?”

  “As far as I could tell.” Pitt stumbled a little as he hit the ground, and up close he was shivering in the cold. His voice was steady and cheerful, though. “At least the snow decreases the risk of being noticed. Or does it increase the risk of leaving tracks? I really haven’t any idea.”

  “Since we can’t alter the weather either way, it’s probably best we think positively.” A gust of wind shrieked around the corner of the house, and Wilberforce felt a pang of guilt. “Either way, I’m keeping you standing out here in the snow when you’re already frozen and the papers are saying you’re not well. I’m so sorry. Please do come in. John will take care of your horse.”

  “Be kind to her,” Pitt told the groom who approached. “I took us both here by some truly godforsaken pathways, if any pathways leading to the Clapham Saints could be described thus.”

  “This way,” Wilberforce told him unnecessarily; even had Pitt never been to Clapham before, the doors to Broomfield would have been perfectly obvious. Still, he felt the need to shepherd him inside. “Barbara will be getting some tea, and the children will be delighted you’re here. It’s so good to see you, you know.”

  “And you,” Pitt returned sincerely. “Though I wish it were under different circumstances. And I’m afraid your wife is wishing you’d never met me.”

  “Don’t think that for a moment,” Wilberforce assured him, with the guilty suspicion that Pitt was quite right.

  Barbara surprised him once again, though, by her fortitude in times of actual crisis. However indifferent or fragile a hostess she might be at other times—and Wilberforce had always been willing to forgive her any amount of fragility in light of the strength of her affections—she was waiting for them inside with every appearance of being very pleased to see Pitt safely arrived.

  “Mrs. Wilberforce,” Pitt said, with a bow and a smile.

  “Mr. Pitt,” she returned, with a smile and curtsy of her own. Her smile faltered as she straightened and looked at him, and Wilberforce saw her give a little start of surprise. It made him look at Pitt properly for the first time and see what she was seeing; he had to admit, it was a little alarming. It might have been the cold and the journey, but his friend looked deathly pale and gaunt, and climbing the stairs to the house had seemed to take almost more effort than he had to command.

  All Barbara said, though, was “The papers reported that you were unwell. I hope you’re recovering.”

  “Rather slowly, but certainly, thank you,” Pitt said. “Illnesses tend to get inflated in papers, rather like riots and taxes. Are you all well?”

  “Perfectly, thank you,” she said. “We had a wonderful Christmas.”

  “We invited you,” Wilberforce reminded him, as usual reassured by Pitt’s obvious good humor. “You didn’t come.”

  “It was my misfortune, believe me. Christmas in Bath can be exactly the wrong sort of fun.”

  “The sort that you’re desperately trying to convince yourself that you’re having?”

  “Whilst everybody else talks and dances and eats as fast as they can to convince themselves of the same, exactly.” His laugh made him cough, and when he spoke again, Wilberforce could hear his lungs working for breath. “I fortunately had an excuse to miss a good deal of it, and it sounds very surreal drifting in from the street. Excuse me, do you mind if we sit down by the fire? I’m dripping water on your floor.”

  “Of course you are,” Wilberforce exclaimed. “Get your wet coat off, at least, and come sit down. You do look frozen, actually… You can borrow my second-best dressing gown if you’d like.”

  “It might have escaped your notice for the last twenty-five years, Wilberforce,” Pitt said, as the footman came to help him peel off his snow-soaked coat, “but you come to the approximate height of my elbow.”

  “You haven’t seen my second-best dressing gown. It’s big enough for two of me. It was given to me by a well-meaning relative who plainly thought I was still waiting on a growth spurt at the age of forty. The trouble is, I haven’t seen my second-best dressing gown either, not for ages. The servants probably know where it is.”

  “I’ll go and ask,” Barbara told him, neatly extricating herself from the tangle of coats and shoes that littered the entrance hall. “You both sit down, and help yourself to tea.”

  The tea was cold, but the fireplace was not, and Pitt sank down into the armchair with a sigh. Wilberforce curled up in the one opposite, grateful enough for the warmth himself, and shooed away the servant who had belatedly arrived to pour.

  “Thank you, Mathers, but we’ll manage,” he said pleasantly. “Could you perhaps help Mrs. Wilberforce? And shut the door on your way out?”

  “Very good, sir,” said Mathers. Like most of the servants, he was kept more for affection than for efficiency, but in this case that was an advantage. There was very little chance he or any of the others would intrude.

  Wilberforce waited for the door to shut before turning to Pitt, sinking into true seriousness for the first time. “I didn’t like to ask by letter in case it was intercepted,” he said. “But is everything in place?”

  “Everything,” Pitt said, suddenly equally grave. “The contingent out at Walmer have their orders to evacuate the castle tomorrow evening. They’ll be back in place by the following afternoon, if all goes well, but it will give the enemy an opportunity to land, and for us to meet him there.”

  Wilberforce took a mouthful from his cup and made a face. “Ugh, this is horrible tea. Have some toast and jam instead. I suppose we cannot simply tell the army to move in and take the stranger once he comes to Walmer, and save ourselves a good deal of danger?”

  He was half joking, and Pitt smiled. “That would be very convenient. But he would know if there was anybody in the immediate vicinity—the same way I would know, only more strongly. He’s kept himself hidden for perhaps hundreds of years; he won’t reveal himself now by accident. Besides, I promised. The challenge has been made and accepted. To break the terms of that challenge when the enemy is within the country risks giving him a victory.”

  “And will he hold to those terms quite so punctiliously?”

  “He has to,” Pitt said. “Between his campaign on Saint-Domingue and the Battle of Trafalgar, he’s lost the army of the dead. Bonaparte has taken control of the dragon. He can’t fight both Bonaparte and England at once. Our best hope is to challenge him now, while he’s weak, and then deal with Bonaparte later; his best chance is to do the same to us. Besides, he thinks he can win.”

  “Can he?”

  “Of course he can. But so can we. We have to.”

  There was a great deal Wilberforce could have said to that. He didn’t. “And so we face the enemy alone,” he said instead.

  “We do.” Pitt coughed, and cleared his throat. “Forester will meet us a few hours from the castle; he’s accepted that he can come no closer. I’d rather he didn’t meet us at all, of course, but he still believes he can improve the elixir, and that might make all the difference if it does come to a duel of magic.”

  “And Hester and Fina are still at sea,” Wilberforce supplied. “That’s true, isn’t it? I thought the Victory should have made port by now.”

  “Yes, it should. It was towed to Gibraltar for repairs after the battle. The last anyone heard, it had left for England—it should be here any day. And before you ask, yes, I am concerned about it being late, but I think that concern is born from my regard for those aboard. Logically, it isn’t so very delayed. And now we’d better be quiet, because your wife’s moving down the hall.”

  A few seconds later, Barbara reappeared. “Excuse me, dearest,” she said to Wilberforce. “Nobody has the slightest idea where your second-best dressing gown is. Mrs. Maddock thinks you might have given it to a pauper.”

  “Oh dear,” Wilberforce sighed.

  “But I’ve just checked with the servants, and for once we have a guest room act
ually warmed and ready before the guest has arrived. If Mr. Pitt needs to rest after his journey, it’s perfectly all right.”

  “Is it so obvious?” Pitt asked. He said it wryly, but some of the animation had ebbed from him with the acknowledgment.

  “You do look rather tired,” Wilberforce admitted, as normally as he could. The fact that it was obvious enough for Barbara to notice troubled him. “I expect you don’t quite have your strength back after being ill for so long.”

  “Not quite.” He coughed again; this time, a spasm of pain crossed his face before he could smooth it away, and it was a little while before he could speak again. “Forgive me. I am rather tired, but I did mean to spend the first time I’ve seen you in weeks actually looking at you.”

  “You’ve seen us,” Wilberforce said cheerfully. “Go and lie down for a while. It’s the first door on the left up the stairs, same as usual. The fire’s been going all day, so the room should be nice and comfortable. There’ll be plenty of time for us to all look at each other during dinner once you’re warmed and dried and rested.”

  “There’s no need to come down for dinner at all if you don’t choose,” Barbara put in. She was looking at him very closely.

  “Not only do I choose; I insist,” Pitt said, with a quick smile that Wilberforce was forced to admit illuminated his face only briefly. “But I think I will rest a little, if you don’t mind, and don’t be concerned if you don’t see me again until then. It’s been a long journey in the cold.”

  “Dinner’s still an hour or so away,” Wilberforce told him. “We’ll send for you.”

  Barbara gave Wilberforce a look as the door closed behind him and they heard footsteps—much slower than they had been in the days when the two of them had raced up the stairs at Holwood—ascending to the first floor.

  “What?” Wilberforce asked. He knew he sounded defensive.

  “He’s dying,” she said simply.

  Wilberforce felt very cold, but he refused to shiver. “Don’t be silly,” he said, more cuttingly than he usually spoke to his wife. “He’s been unwell. He said he was getting better.”

  “I know you’ll find this hard to understand, Wilber,” Barbara said with genuine sympathy, “but when he said that, he was lying like a rug.”

  “Pitt never lies,” Wilberforce said.

  “Maybe not to the House of Commoners,” Barbara said, with understandable skepticism. “I don’t know anything about that. But he lies to the people he loves if it will spare them worry. So do you.”

  That was the worst part: it was true. It was true of both of them. “Not in this case,” Wilberforce insisted. “He’ll have recovered by dinner.”

  Barbara seemed about to argue further, then glanced at her husband’s face and softened. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said in a tone that was very familiar to him. “You know him far better than I.”

  “I do,” Wilberforce said.

  He meant to send someone up to tell Pitt when dinner was ready, but when it came to it, he found himself going instead. He knocked very softly on the door and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t get a response. He opened the door quietly and went in.

  As he’d suspected, his friend was asleep as only he could be, utterly abandoned to dreaming and yet ready to wake and think the instant someone shook him hard enough. He’d curled up under the covers of the bed, fully clothed, but despite that and the heat of the room he still didn’t look quite warm.

  Wilberforce did know him far better than Barbara did. This time he looked at him carefully, and critically, trying to find any signs of recovery or hope of recovery in the familiar lines of his face. He was sleeping deeply, and apparently peacefully. But that in itself was troubling: he had indeed had a long journey in the cold, but he was an excellent rider, and he simply shouldn’t have been so tired. He was also thinner than Wilberforce had ever seen him, to the point where it was no longer thinness, but emaciation, and his face was no longer pale, but the yellow white of faded parchment. The rise and fall of his breathing was so faint and labored that it seemed to fade into the evening without a sound.

  Wilberforce left without waking him. Barbara didn’t question him when he returned, but afterward when they found themselves alone together, she wrapped her arms around him and held him for a moment.

  It was only half past eight as Wilberforce sat in his study that night, but it was already dark as midnight save for the moonlight that spilled through the window. He didn’t bother to light a candle—he wasn’t even pretending to work or read—and the view out the window stood out starkly against the deeper black of the study.

  The house was very quiet. Normally, he would still be downstairs, probably talking with the guests he would have had well into the small hours, or sitting reading or working by the fire as Barbara sewed, or even, if it were not too cold, taking a walk about the grounds in the dark. The thought of the journey ahead seemed unreal, and almost too remote to fear or plan for.

  He heard the door open, and flinched.

  “Don’t worry,” Pitt’s voice came. “It’s only me.”

  “Welcome back,” Wilberforce said with a smile and a rush of relief. “Do you feel better now?”

  “Much,” Pitt assured him, with a touch of embarrassment. “Thank you. I’m sorry to have been such a poor guest.”

  “Don’t be silly. How did you find me?” Without a candle or fire lit, the room should have looked unoccupied from the hallway. He himself could scarcely see his friend in the darkness, though if he squinted, he could make out the familiar outline against the doorway.

  “How do you think?”

  “Oh,” said Wilberforce, with a surge of interest. Even now, he tended to forget. “I’ve never asked. What do my bloodlines feel like?”

  “Very pure Commoner,” Pitt replied. “Which is far more unusual than you probably think. Even your children have latent streaks of empathy and metalmancy, and your servants are mostly muddles of various magic. You’re like a streak of lightning through clouds.”

  Illogically, Wilberforce felt quite pleased with this. “Do you think that’s partly why it targeted me?” he asked. “Back in the early days, before it became more subtle?”

  “No,” Pitt said, now with a trace of amusement. “That’s just because you were being very annoying. May I join you, or would you prefer to be alone?”

  “No, please, come in. I’d love the company. Barbara’s putting the children to bed; I’ve said my good nights to them.”

  He’d wanted to stay longer, but his children had no idea of what the night held, and it would have made them suspicious. Especially when he wanted to hug them all very tightly and not let go, just in case letting go meant letting go for the last time.

  “So,” Pitt said as he approached. His voice was carefully neutral. “How was dinner?”

  “I knew you’d be annoyed,” Wilberforce sighed. “But we didn’t really have very much; just a joint of beef and potatoes and fresh bread, which you can go and get in the kitchen whenever you choose. And you were sleeping so soundly.”

  “I’m not annoyed. It was probably for the best. I wasn’t very hungry in any case.”

  “You should eat before we set off, though.”

  “Yes,” Pitt agreed, but he made no move to do so. Wilberforce heard the clink of the decanter opening and the faint splash of wine hitting glass. “Have you rested?”

  “I tried,” Wilberforce said, a little wistfully. “I’m not in the least bit tired, though. I came up here to keep watch for anything lurking out in the dark. I’m keeping watch now.”

  “You’re keeping watch,” Pitt said, and Wilberforce could hear the smile in his voice. “With those same eyes you were using twenty years ago when you failed to distinguish between me, a lamppost, and a shadow?”

  “We came through very well then,” Wilberforce reminded him, trying to sound haughty when he himself wanted to smile at the memory. “We will again.”

  “We were much younger then.”
/>   “I consider myself improved with age.”

  “Yes,” Pitt said. His painfully thin silhouette flashed briefly across the light from the window, before he sank back into the chair next to it. “I consider you so too.” He paused. “When did you plan to begin the journey tonight?”

  “I thought two this morning. It gives us the cover of darkness, and we should have enough time for a long stop at Scoatney to recover from the journey before… I thought we’d get to Walmer shortly before midnight tomorrow.”

  “On a Sunday.”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you said one couldn’t duel on a Sunday?”

  “It isn’t that sort of a duel,” Wilberforce said. “I think this can be considered God’s work. Besides, I doubt the enemy shares my principles.”

  He was certain Pitt would have smiled. “And when were you planning to wake me?”

  “Soon. I wouldn’t have left without you, if that’s what you were fearing. You just… You were very tired.”

  Pitt didn’t answer, and Wilberforce returned his gaze to the window. Outside, the grounds looked like a charcoal landscape, and he drew strength from the glimmer of the moonlit snow. Nothing was out there, at least. The enemy was miles away, at Walmer Castle, and they would be riding out to it and leaving his home and family safe behind them.

  The tree outside was an oak tree, the same as the one at Holwood under which he had first broached the subject of the slave trade. It had been spring then, and the sun glimmering through the leaves had been like a promise of better things to come. It seemed a very long time ago now. He wondered what had happened to it.

  “Wilberforce?” Pitt said after a while.

  “Mm?”

  “In all the years you’ve known me, we’ve never talked about what you should do if, when the time comes, I don’t let myself die.”