The Emperor's Gold

by Robert Wilton

  Outside, the last of the light was disappearing into the woods. The place, the conversation, felt weirdly isolated.

  ‘Reverend, we both know that Sir Keith’s… friendship with you is partly sympathy of mind and partly the fact that you have good connections with… people of interest.’

  ‘People of interest? For heaven’s sake, Roscarrock, there’s no “we” and “they”! Or if there is, I am definitely and completely one of the “they”, and the whole population of this country is with me. The only “we” is Tom Roscarrock and His Majesty King George, God save you both. I and my acquaintances with our occasional suppers, we’re like poor Cobb, and Mitchell the weaver. We have our resentments – at God, at the injustice of the world. And, like the itinerant radical men, the end-of-the-world prophets and the London philosophers, we have our inspirations.’

  ‘Reverend, I’ve no interest in what’s in men’s souls. That’s your work. But you know as well as I do that among the thousands of men who’ll talk violence into their beer there are a few men of true intent and true malice. When the Irish rebelled half a dozen years back, there were clever, designing political men at their head, and they put weapons into the hands of peasants, encouraged them to bloody murder and led them to their deaths. The same thing in England; I’ve seen it half a dozen times in the south-west alone.’

  The Vicar’s words flowed fierce, weeks of stagnation and unfulfilment unleashed on a willing listener. ‘You’re the connoisseur of the realities of life, Tom. Here are two: unhappy men, and dangerous men. The second can’t exist without the first. And if the first exists, the second is inevitable.’ He grabbed at a decanter from the table and splashed wine into each of their glasses. ‘Now, the great meeting. Two months ago, near Stamford. Three or four thousand people – who on earth knows? – terrified Magistrates, aggressive dragoons, a warm night, hot words. One man died of wounds from a skirmish with the soldiers, a few people – one lad from this village – have wounds that will cripple them permanently – merely an average evening’s entertainment. This’ – he took a large mouthful of wine – ‘this is what the Cabinet see when they have their nightmares of rebellion. Burning torches, burning words, and soon they’re burning hayricks and from there it’s a short step to burning London. But actually there was no rebellion. The ricks remain unburnt, I and my fellow authority figures remain unhanged. After the soldiers and the angrier element had expressed their frustrations on each other, everyone went home. The Magistrates had a fit of sense and only imprisoned three or four of the leading figures.’

  ‘So?’

  Forster pulled the spectacles from his face and gazed at his guest. ‘All those fiery seditious words, Roscarrock: it’s just resentment and inspiration.’

  ‘You’re saying there’s an excuse.’

  ‘I’m saying there are no lines to be drawn. In determining sedition, the Government is far more capricious than the most extreme Paris revolutionary. In our world, God and the King and the Cabinet have set themselves up as the sole authorities. When someone’s angry, who else do they turn against?’ He stopped, breathless, and Roscarrock had the sense that he’d seen the Reverend enjoy a vigorous day’s hunting after all. ‘I’m… frustrating you. I’m sorry.’ He replaced the spectacles on his face, winding the supports around his ears with precision.

  ‘Reverend, I’ve no argument with most of what you say. But you’re talking us into chaos. Intellectually you might reach purity, but you imply anarchy. I’d rather be irrational but stable here, than intellectually immaculate in a political hell like Paris.’

  ‘And innocents must suffer in your search for stability?’

  ‘I don’t care about the drunken dreams of labourers and you know I don’t. That’s why I’m talking to you and not the Magistrate. I care about those few men – and they are only a few, but they exist – who carry determined violence in their minds and chaos in their knapsacks. Because they’re as fatal for your flock as the pox.’

  The Vicar nodded, sadly. ‘You’re right, of course. But, regardless, innocents will suffer.’

  ‘Reverend, in education and experience I’m closer to your farm labourer than I am to you. I understand how a man can feel anger and humiliation enough to want to throw a stone at the Magistrate’s house or to kill the King. But I don’t think they should be allowed to do it. Your religion gives man a hierarchy, tells him to do what he’s told.’

  The Vicar beamed. ‘My rel— Isn’t it yours too?’

  Roscarrock shrugged. ‘Sailor’s rules.’

  A knowing smile. ‘I see. My religion, as it works today, was no doubt the creation of governments, and is the servant of governments just as much as if every priest in the Christian world was passing reports to someone like you. But my religion also offers us the image of a better world – the possibility of freer, truer men – a heaven on earth.’ The words became quicker and more fluent, and Roscarrock wondered at the solitary evening sermons the Vicar had spoken to himself, knowing that he would never be able to preach them. ‘Tom, I crave stability and security as much as you, as much as anyone, and I accept my place in this creaking old society of ours comfortably and gratefully. But I betray the mind that the creator gave me – I betray his divine offer of the perfectibility of man – if I close my eyes to the horrors that exist around me – in the houses of my neighbours.’

  He leant forwards, fists clenched in front of his swaying body as if to close with Roscarrock for another bare-knuckle round. ‘Do you know the terrible injuries a man can get just working too long on a farm? Do you know what infection does to a broken leg or a back that’s been flogged a hundred times? Have you seen a young girl unable to open her eyes for the smallpox blisters? Have you seen infants and pigs sharing the same filth? Have you seen a child starving to death because his mother doesn’t have milk enough in her own wasted body, Roscarrock? Did you ever look into the dead eyes of that father?’

  Roscarrock’s face had changed somehow, and the clergyman broke off. ‘I’ve seen all those things, Priest. Don’t preach to me about the working man, because I’ve been the working man. And don’t try to touch my Christian compassion for the humble family, because it doesn’t mean anything to a man who never had a family. I never had the luxury of a father’s love, hate or indifference, and I never felt the influence of your God all that much. God is an inspiring fellow when he’s at the university, but once he settles down to his daily work he can be a miserable bastard.’ He hissed out one harsh breath. ‘I believe there’s a better world out there, Reverend. And honest men, working steadily and patiently, will get there. They don’t need Irish rebels and French philosophers with short-cuts, because they’re all just tricksters offering alternative ways to die.’

  He held his hands flat and steady, and lowered them evenly onto the oak arms of the chair. ‘I can’t say I’ve much affection for your God, Reverend, or for his methods. Same holds for the Government. But changing gods or changing governments won’t feed the hungry. If God and the Government will interfere with me as little as possible, I’ll trust myself to muddle through.’

  The Vicar was watching him with a mixture of sympathy and wariness. ‘Has it struck you, Mr Roscarrock,’ he said sombrely, ‘that you may be in the wrong job?’

  Tom Roscarrock laughed, half a dozen grim chuckles. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Reverend. Who better than a man of doubts, to try to represent God to a hungry parish? Who better than a rebel to explain sedition to the Government?’

  ‘A man of doubts.’ The Vicar tried the taste of it in his mouth. ‘Roscarrock, I’m not going to give you lists of names. Sir Keith never expects that, and it is not why I have these conversations. I believe men have a right to their resentments and their inspirations, and every now and then there comes from among them a true prophet. But I will think on men whose resentment and whose inspiration might leave them particularly susceptible to men of malice.’

  ‘You have anyone in mind?’

  ‘I seem to remember
a description – just in conversation recently – an itinerant… a tailor, I think. I’ll ask some questions, and I will contact you in the usual way. Ask me no more.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He said it simply and earnestly.

  ‘And Roscarrock, if you’re in London, and Sir Keith is still loose in the landscape somewhere, you would do worse than talk to a man called Rokeby Harris.’

  Roscarrock said the name of Rokeby Harris himself to be sure of it, waited for elaboration that did not come, and repeated his thanks. Then, on a whim: ‘Reverend – your reports – just remind me: when did you send the most recent?’

  ‘Perhaps… a month ago? Six weeks?’

  ‘Fine.’ Roscarrock stood, stretched his neck. ‘As you’ll have realized, I’ve not been around that long.’ He wandered idly to the window, picked up a candlestick from the sill, examined the base, and replaced it.

  ‘I wrote to Sir Keith at the usual address. The usual precautions.’ As Roscarrock sat down again, the Vicar was watching him, thoughtfully. ‘And what message have you just passed to your colleague?’

  Roscarrock smiled. ‘Not to come and join us.’

  ‘Ah. That’s good.’ The Vicar grinned at the implied confidence, then as suddenly turned serious. ‘You realize, of course, Roscarrock, that they’re using you to get to me.’

  Roscarrock nodded silently.

  ‘They know I’m not as comfortable talking to someone who doesn’t have Sir Keith’s explicit confidence, which very few men do. I’ve spoken more freely with you than I would with your colleague, for example.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you’ll tell him what I’ve said.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because this organization is the closest thing to stability you can find. Your way of avoiding chaos.’

  ‘Yes. Only there’s no stability in it.’ Roscarrock took one slow breath, and released it. ‘I am… at sea, adrift in ways even you can’t imagine, Reverend. But I’m a sailor. I’m used to having no steady place to stand.’

  The Vicar nodded, then said emptily, ‘I’m no sailor.’

  ‘No.’ Roscarrock watched the blank face. ‘It’s damnable, isn’t it, Reverend?’

  Another nod, sad and slow. Then, with sudden inspiration: ‘It is actually damnable – it’s a purgatory of rootlessness, of disloyalty, of…’ – he focused sharply on Roscarrock – ‘of loss of faith.’

  Roscarrock nodded quiet understanding. Then he glanced at the sideboard, and smiled. ‘So, Reverend, am I teaching you sailor’s rules, or are you teaching me real chess?’

  It was the natural time for the Minister’s servant to step out into the filth of the Paris streets and run such errands and make such purchases as the Minister’s frugal domestic habits required. It was likewise natural that the Minister’s servant should step into the inn at the sign of the Sun to refresh himself. But Joseph’s journey to the inn was feverish and most unnatural. Subject to the dominant emotion in his head, fear of what strode behind or embarrassment at the bemused glances of those in front, he walked or ran or staggered at an uncomfortable trot through the mud. He hurried oddly, the leather wallet clasped to his chest. He hurried with wide, frightened eyes and frequent, desperate checking over his shoulder. Each corner, the possibility of momentary invisibility to anyone behind, taunted him with its distance through treacle steps. Each corner he celebrated, leaning back for a second against the new bulwark and regathering himself, setting off with self-conscious, measured steps before the urgency in his chest hastened him into a trot again. But in the streets of Paris, swarming with men mad with poverty and hunger or mad with blood and ideas or mad with the loss of everything, there was no one to see and remember one more lunatic fugitive.

  Joseph fell into the inn at the sign of the Sun with a clatter, and slammed the door behind him, pushing his limited weight against it. The inn’s solitary customer, a heavy market trader, looked up at the noise and gave Joseph an uninterested and unimpressed examination. From the counter the landlord was staring at Joseph with undisguised surprise and anger, and this restrained his panic. He swallowed and walked to the table nearest the counter. After a moment the landlord carried over a mug of beer, placed it heavily on the table, and hissed, ‘Get hold of yourself. Don’t say a bloody word. Drink.’ Then he ambled back to the counter.

  Three long minutes later the trader left. Joseph’s eyes were still locked to the tabletop, not even following the man’s departure. The landlord walked to the door, spent a long time examining the street, then shut out the day.

  Joseph didn’t look up until the landlord sat down opposite him, account book at the ready.

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I’m finished. They know about me. They’re after me.’

  ‘They’re what? And you came here? Oh, bloody—’ The alarm in the normally placid man sent new shudders through Joseph’s fragile grip on himself. ‘They’re actually after you?’

  ‘I – I don’t know. The Minister knows there’s a spy somewhere. I didn’t – I couldn’t – I had to get out.’

  ‘Well, he knows who it is now, doesn’t he? And you came here. Bloody hell.’

  ‘I had to get the report out. Where else could I come? I was always taught—’

  The landlord leant slowly forwards. ‘Bloody anywhere else is where.’ Then his words began to tumble out: ‘And you ran through town like that. Did they see you go? Were you followed?’ Joseph shrank back, pitiful, and this seemed to resolidify the landlord. ‘All right. All right then, you miserable sod. Let’s have it all, then, good and precise, just like we were taught.’

  He made Joseph go through the Minister’s conversation with more than usual pedantry. But he wouldn’t let his eyes shift to the door.

  The parade ground at Colchester on the 26th of July, and another member of the West Suffolk Militia strapped half-naked to a wooden frame in the middle of the square theatre of restive faces. The muttering was in the front ranks now, and still the Sergeants made little effort to challenge it. The officers’ nonchalance was forced, their eyes moving hurriedly around the arena.

  This time the Colonel addressed the troops, his horse stuttering backwards and forwards under him as he pulled at it. ‘This is a country at war!’ he yelled towards the blocks of men. ‘Our task is to defend it against invaders and traitors, and you have all sworn an oath to fight for your King. With the survival of our nation in peril, there can be no greater crime than a failure of duty, and a betrayal of trust.’ He hesitated, trying to pick the words. ‘It is well-known that some voices in this company – idle voices, drunk voices – have tried to lead impressionable minds down the fatal path of questioning the natural authority in this army and in this land. I will not tolerate any sympathy for vile doctrines and practices learnt of the French, and I will not tolerate any disruption of the proper respects and responsibilities of military command.’

  Lashed to the frame, Corporal Tubb willed his body to succumb to the alcoholic stupor offered by friendly hands in the minutes before he’d been dragged out. The warmth of the morning was already touching his shoulders and back, taunting him with his own capacity to feel.

  ‘This man was given authority over his fellows. With authority comes responsibility. He has betrayed that responsibility, and he has betrayed the men who follow him, by spreading ideas contrary to proper military discipline and the laws of this country. Gentlemen, I will have you understand that this regiment must be built on absolute respect for discipline. There is no greater crime than the betrayal of that discipline by a man picked to enforce it, and I have no hesitation in ordering the most severe punishment. This man will be flogged to the uttermost. He will be stripped of his rank. He and his platoon, who misguidedly sympathized with his foul words, will have their rations halved and their pay stopped for two weeks. You will learn respect, gentlemen.’

  Even a typical flogging could cripple a man for life, and Corporal Tubb’s punishment was more than typical. He was unco
nscious long before the last stroke from the Sergeant’s exhausted arm scorched across his ruined back, slumped in the ropes, and as they were untied he collapsed in the dust, a broken toy. Around the warming square the stench of vomit lurched in nasty gusts, hardened men unable to swallow nature as they stared at the sacrifice offered for their education.

  Tubb had stood on parade for the last time, at any rank, and he was not the only one. When the roll was called the next morning, two silences echoed around the square from his platoon. Within an hour, the body of a soldier was found in a ditch just outside the barracks. The shallow stagnant water had darkened and soiled his coat and, through the reeds, dragonflies patrolled over his battered face, gagged mouth, and flaming bruised neck.

  27th July 1805

  When Jessel walked in, the Admiral was focused on something he was writing, but his left hand thrust a paper towards the door while his right continued to scratch evenly across the page. ‘You’ve read this?’

  Jessel had spent the day on the road, and wanted to escape to a tavern or a bed soon. He took the single sheet and scanned the top. Field report, received the 27th day of July 1805 (Military direct). He nodded. ‘Just now, My Lord.’

  ‘An object lesson in outstandingly stupid intelligence work.’

  ‘Pretty unwise, My Lord.’

  ‘Is the army staffed entirely with buffoons? One tries to respect them but… if we’re ever left with them between us and Napoleon – and if they were let loose in Dublin! – God preserve us. The poor man had begged them not to act on his information, but they went ahead because their absurd pride couldn’t have anything else, and now they’ve lost a solid intelligence source and probably the morale of the regiment with him.’