The Royal Sorceress

by Christopher Nuttall

  “It’s what the land ought to be everywhere,” he assured her, with a smile. “But the factories have been taking their lands and people for generations.”

  The thought was a chilling one. In the five years since the Unrest, the rich had been consolidating their hold on the poor. There were thousands of farmers and farmhands leaving their lands now, even though some of them had been offered the chance to stay on and work for their new masters. The rebellion might have failed, but America still offered the poor a chance at a better life – if they managed to make it across the Atlantic and into the sprawling untamed wilderness of the New World. Jack knew that much of America was still inhabited by redskins, but no one in London or New York would care if the savages exterminated the colonists. It would remind them not to be too independent of the British Army.

  He pursed his lips as he remembered meetings in Paris, just after the Unrest. Franklin – a descendent of the legendary Benjamin Franklin, one of the few rebels to escape the noose after the destruction of the rebel army – had told him that French officers suspected that the British had been quietly encouraging the savages to raid American settlements. It sounded absurd, until one considered that the Viceroy would be quite happy to see the settlers reminded of how much they needed military protection – and if a few thousand redskins were killed into the bargain, so much the better. The last time the American settlers had thought they no longer needed the British Army, there had been a rebellion. No one wanted to repeat that disastrous episode.

  Olivia sensed his mood and looked away, studying the green fields as the boat headed upstream, towards the west. A large mansion was coming into view, near a jetty already waiting for the puffing steamboat. Jack allowed himself a brief smile as Smith brought the boat in to the jetty, and his black servant – who had been brought to England as a curiosity and then abandoned in London – jumped ashore and secured the boat to the stone harbour. Olivia hadn’t been able to avoid staring at Tonga; she’d never seen a black man in her life. it had only been a few years since the Cotton Gin had made slavery profitable in the American South; Blacks were commonly regarded as savages, fit only for slavery. Jack knew better than to believe such lies. The rebellious blacks on Haiti had soundly thrashed two French armies before the third had finally achieved an uneasy peace. They bled red too, just like white men.

  “Thank you,” Jack said, as he scrambled ashore. “Stay with the boat; I’ll have food and drink sent out to you.”

  Smith nodded. He was a sour-faced man with very little to say, not least because his eldest son had been caught up in a riot and killed by the Dragoons. His wife disapproved of him assisting the underground, but she had done nothing to stop him or his younger son. The younger son had even enlisted in the rebel army. Jack helped Olivia up onto the jetty and strode up towards the manor. Kelmscot Manor, a house built by minor gentry back in the 16th Century, had fallen on hard times. The current owner was a drunk, who had no idea that his estate was serving as a recruiting and training base for the underground. His butler, a common-born man who had climbed through the ranks by dint of hard work, had been Jack’s ally for years. Jack trusted the resentment he felt at knowing that higher positions would be barred to him because of humble birth. An intelligent and capable man, trapped by circumstances beyond his control, tended to develop resentment. It was a dangerous combination for his lords and masters.

  The air smelt fresh and clean as they passed through the garden and up to the gates. A man was waiting for them there, wearing the pristine clothes and faintly disapproving expression of a Butler. Butlers, in Jack’s experience, often turned out to be bigger snobs than their masters, offsetting their low birth with an attitude that would have done Lord Fitzroy credit. This one, at least, didn’t take himself too seriously. Jack respected him for his willingness to get his hands dirty, even though his master simply couldn’t afford to hire additional staff. The owner of Kelmscot might have been spendthrift and a drunk, but at least he wasn’t checking the grounds and wondering why some of his fields had been turned into parade grounds.

  “Welcome back to the house,” the Butler said. His voice, at least, was perfect; richly upper-class, with just a hint of disdain when he saw Olivia. Jack was wearing an outfit that suggested he was minor gentry himself – and Olivia was his son – but a snob would probably have been able to see through the disguise. “The General is waiting for you in the lobby.”

  Jack frowned. “Chancy,” he said. “Is your master not awake?”

  “He won’t be up until afternoon,” the Butler assured him, as he led Jack through corridors that had once held fine paintings and expensive artworks. They’d all been sold, one after the other, to keep the house’s current master on his steady course towards drinking himself to death. “The sleeping draught I put in his drink will see to that.”

  “Good thinking,” Jack said. It was lucky that such a man wasn’t on the other side – but then, if the government had allowed competent and capable men to rise, there would be no need for the underground. Or Jack himself, for that matter. What would he do, Lucy had asked him once, when they won? Jack hadn’t been able to find an answer. “Let’s see the General, shall we?”

  The Butler led him into the lobby, standing aside so Jack could see the man he’d made a General. Ruddy – his real name had been forgotten, not least by him – had once served as a recruiting sergeant in Colchester, a position that would have made him a target for Jack and the underground if he’d remained in the army. But he’d watched in horror as the Dragoons charged a mob of unarmed women and deserted later than evening. Jack had taken the opportunity to Charm him into total loyalty, just in case the former soldier thought better of working with the underground.

  He was a tall man, only slightly shorter than Jack; his unshaven face darkened by exercise and hard living. They clasped hands for a long moment, reminding Jack that Ruddy was stronger than him, at least physically. The former sergeant had lost none of his strength, or the skills that had allowed him to start turning the scum of the earth – as the Duke of India had affectionately called his men – into proper soldiers. Jack disliked knowing that anyone was indispensable to the underground, even him, but there was no one else like Ruddy, with the skills they needed. The former sergeant knew that he was needed. Jack only hoped that he didn’t know how much.

  “Good to see you again,” Ruddy grunted. He looked down at Olivia. “And this is…?”

  “My assistant,” Jack said, firmly. Ruddy would have been able to see through her disguise, if anyone could. He had had plenty of years of experience dealing with recruits who tried to lie about their pasts or exaggerate their skills. “How is the army?”

  Ruddy shrugged. “We’ve put five thousand men through the training course,” he said. “We won’t know how good they will be until we actually have to fight, of course. I had to put a couple in irons for drinking while in training and a couple more needed to be knocked about before they learned some discipline, but the rest are coming along nicely. You selected good men.”

  Jack nodded, although it had largely been Davy and his recruiters who had selected the prospective soldiers. Smuggling them out of London hadn’t been easy, all the more so because they needed to conceal their destination. Some would be captured – or desert – and the less they knew, the less they could reveal. The real challenge was in finding a place to hide them in London, a place where they could pass unnoticed until the time came to start the uprising. And then the Establishment would know just how well they’d prepared the groundwork for revolution.

  “They’ve fired off enough rounds to learn their trade,” Ruddy added, after a second. “Once they get their weapons, they’ll be ready to move.”

  “Excellent,” Jack said. The first shipment of smuggled weapons was already in London, concealed in a warehouse near the Thames. It wasn’t unknown for ships to bring in cargos and leave them in London until they were needed, but the longer they remained unused, the greater the chances of discovery
. “Are there any major problems?”

  “We need more space to train,” Ruddy admitted. “There just isn’t enough room for real training – and none in a city.”

  Jack nodded, slowly. He’d watched the skirmishes between France and Prussia from a safe distance two years ago and had been shaken at the bitter fighting that had raged through a medium-sized town. The advantages of the French Army had been offset by the Prussian willingness to fight from cover and force the French to destroy the town section by section. In the end, the struggle had been settled by a treaty and both sides had retreated to lick their wounds and learn their lessons. Jack, who had found it hard to choose a favourite between the Prussians and the French, had drawn his own conclusions. Half-trained troops could hold off an army if they were fighting in a city.

  The Unrest had failed to cause the ruling class to make concessions for three separate reasons. It had largely taken place in the countryside. There had been no coordination between the different groups. And the government had not been weakened; despite the chaos, it had never lost its grip on events. In a way, they’d had a fourth advantage; they’d had magic, the Royal Sorcerers Corps. Jack scowled, remembering the bloody skirmishes and how they’d ended. This time, he promised those who had fallen when London’s cobblestones had run red with blood, it would be different.

  “We may have to improvise,” he admitted. Finding one estate to use as a training ground had been a stroke of luck. Finding a second would require a miracle. “Can we start moving the combat units into London soon?”

  Ruddy frowned. “You intend to move soon?”

  “Sooner rather than later,” Jack said. Upsetting Master Thomas and scaring the aristocracy had been fun – with the added bonus that Jack now knew about Master Thomas’s new apprentice – but it had also put them on alert. There would be more guards in London for the next few months, rendering similar raids far harder. “Time isn’t on our side.”

  “We can start moving the first few companies within the week, if you have a place to hide them,” Ruddy said. “But you will have to ensure that they’re fed and watered, or they will be useless.”

  Jack nodded. There were a few more points, but the important one – preparing for the uprising – had been settled. He didn’t have a firm date yet – plans never survived contact with reality, let alone the enemy – yet he knew that he could start thinking about a date. If they weren’t betrayed…if they weren’t exposed…if they weren’t discovered. Jack had worked with Master Thomas and the Royal Sorcerers Corps for years; he knew their strengths and weaknesses. One leak would be all it took to destroy his entire plan.

  And then the walls of aristocracy would never come tumbling down.

  He allowed Ruddy to lead them outside, heading down towards the fields on the other side of the estate. Guns were rare in the countryside – at least for the commoners – but the nobility were allowed as many guns as they liked. No one would take any notice of gunshots from the estate, even if it did sound like a small army of men drilling for combat. Up close, it would be a different story. It was lucky that Lord Wooster had plenty of acres of fields and forest to conceal Jack’s men.

  The underground had used Ruddy and a handful of others to train a cadre of soldiers. Those men had, in turn, trained others, who now marched about in the field as if they were real soldiers. Certainly, no regiment of the British Army could have marched with more pride. Guns in their hands and a chance to actually fight back against their oppressors had done wonders. Jack would have bet on them against a regiment commanded by chinless wonders whose sole qualification for command was aristocratic birth, some of whom would have served their country better by charging the enemy and getting themselves killed at the earliest opportunity.

  “Soldiers!” Ruddy barked, in his parade ground voice. Beside him, Jack was aware of Olivia flinching. She would know to be wary of soldiers wandering away from their barracks, looking for beer, whores and gambling. They tended to start fights and rough up anyone who got in their way. “Present...arms!”

  The soldiers snapped to attention. Jack had watched French soldiers on parade and hadn’t been too impressed, but his men looked more determined – and tougher – than the Frenchmen he’d seen. Perhaps it was the rough uniform, barely more than a green overall and metal hats. British officers wore red so that the blood wouldn’t show and upset their men, a theory that had suited the Duke of India just fine in the endless series of wars that had won the subcontinent, but Jack preferred something that didn’t make an easy target for enemy snipers. Some of the Frenchmen he’d seen with rifles had been deadly, swift to slaughter unprepared enemy commanders. The green tunics made his men harder to see, especially against the grass, but they’d have to find something else for the coming uprising in London.

  Jack inspected them one by one, checking weapons and supplies. Ruddy, at least, had a good grasp of logistics; the men would have their weapons cleaned and ready for use at all times, on pain of heavy punishment. Jack disapproved of flogging men and it was true that the more successful British commanders boasted about how rarely they had to flog their men, but a soldier who didn’t take care of his rifle was more of a danger to his fellows than the enemy. And Jack knew that when the time came to strike, the vast might of the British Empire would be brought to bear on his rebel army. A single lost battle would mean destruction.

  A handful of the men had done particularly well and Jack – prompted by Ruddy – singled them out for special attention. Their fellows would see and emulate them, he hoped. The small number of miscreants looked downcast as Jack glanced at them and purposely looked away, fighting to hide his smile. At least they hadn’t had any deserters, but then they’d chosen their men carefully. The more they brought in, the greater the chance of one of them becoming dissatisfied and trying to slip away into the night. And one deserter could betray them all.

  “Excellent,” he said, finally. The soldiers in earshot straightened up noticeably at his words. “I would bet on them against anyone.”

  “So I would hope, Governor,” Ruddy said. The old sergeant’s gaze met Jack’s. “They’re ready for action. Boredom is our greatest enemy now.”

  Jack nodded, shortly. “We will act as soon as we can,” he promised. Taking some of the men back to London would help ease the pressure, but young men who had been taught to fight would tend to grow restless. And London offered so many temptations for a would-be deserter. It didn’t take any imagination at all to know how badly things could go wrong. “Did you have a chance to think about Aldershot?”

  “Yes, Governor,” Ruddy said, as they walked away from the troops. The other sergeants – men Ruddy had trained – could handle the next few hours of training and exercising. “It’s not going to be easy, even with surprise. The Duke of India is there half the time and he’s a right hard-ass about preparation.”

  “True,” Jack agreed. Oddly, given the size of the British Empire, the British Army was relatively small. There were garrisons scattered through North America, India and a handful of other places, but most of the Empire was upheld by native troops. The reserves in Britain itself were all that could be deployed to a trouble spot, something he suspected worried Lord Liverpool – and the Duke of India. Those men were the only reserve the Empire could deploy quickly. The militia – and the Trained Bands of London – weren’t worth their uniforms. “We may need to find another way to pin down the garrison.”

  “And then there are the smaller barracks,” Ruddy added. “You do know just how many there are, don’t you?”

  Jack smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said, affecting a confidence he didn’t feel. “I will deal with them all in due course.”

  Chapter Twenty

  My name is John Wellington Wells,” the man said. He held out one hand for Gwen to shake. “I’m a dealer in magic and spells.”

  Gwen frowned, studying the man closely. He looked the part, she had to admit. Dressed in a black evening suit, with a top hat, and carrying a silver-top
ped cane, he reminded her of Master Thomas when he was wearing his formal clothes. He was handsome, with dark hair and a strong chin: almost too handsome. There wasn’t a blemish anywhere on his face. His handshake was strong and firm. He looked too good to be true.

  “He’s a fake,” Master Thomas said. It had been his idea to visit the store, promising to teach Gwen something new about magic – or magicians. Gwen wasn’t sure what she was intended to learn, other than the fact that people in magician’s clothes weren’t always magicians. There had been a tendency for black to go out of fashion for a few years – at least according to the maids – because magicians and sorcerers wore black. The tendency hadn’t lasted long, Gwen knew, if only because black was required at funerals.

  “I resent that,” Wells said, letting go of Gwen’s hand and pulling himself up to his full height. “I am a dealer in magic from many a source.” He reached forward to Gwen’s ear. When he pulled his hand back, there was a golden coin held in his palm. “Magic is my stock in trade.”

  “Slight-of-hand,” Master Thomas informed Gwen. “Only the credulous would believe in him, I’m afraid. And that goes for all of his stock.”

  He waved an elegant gloved hand towards the shop’s merchandise. Gwen studied it, unsure if she should laugh or cry. A hundred bottles of coloured liquid, marked as everything from love potions to healing potions, dominated one shelf. Beneath them, glittering crystals that promised to help a person concentrate, or learn quicker than they might expect. There were silver talismans that promised to ward away evil and dusty parchments that offered to teach someone how to curse their enemies. On the other side of the shop, there were relics from religious organisations, each one claimed to have magical power. Gwen picked up a splinter of the True Cross and looked at it doubtfully. Whatever accommodation had been reached between the Church and the Royal College, she doubted that it extended to obvious fakes.