A Seditious Affair (26 page)

The cold bit at his lungs, and Dominic’s greatcoat was tight on his shoulders. He shouldn’t have taken it, but it had been right there, whereas getting the coat Harry had bought him would have meant a search through the rambling corridors of Quex’s to find the room he’d slept in. He couldn’t afford the time.

Dominic had known something was up. The panic when he’d arrived, the stress in his eyes.
I don’t like where any of it is going.

Nor did Silas, not one little bit.

Dominic had gone to the jakes, and Silas, nervy and fretful with what he knew and couldn’t say, had picked up one of yesterday’s newspapers.
The London Gazette,
as it happened, since it was the first to hand. He’d done his best all afternoon not to think of the Spenceans and their damn fool plan to attack the cabinet dinner, but once he could no longer drive it out of his mind with reading and fucking, as the clock ticked, the thought had been impossible to repress. Would it come off? Could they succeed at all? How bad would it be if they failed?

There was nothing he could do, not to stop them, not to help them, but the tension was killing him. So he’d picked up the paper, with a vague urge to read the announcement of the Earl of Harrowby’s dinner over again, as if he’d learn anything new.

It wasn’t there. There was no announcement of the dinner in the notices.

That had just been tiresome. When he couldn’t find it in
The Times,
he was confused. Then it wasn’t in
The Morning Post
either, and at that point, Silas felt fear send its icy trickle down his spine.

Because he’d seen it in the
New Times.
The paper Edwards had named, the paper Edwards had specifically said to buy—not
It’s in the newspaper,
but
It’s in the
New Times
!
The paper on which they’d based their conspiracy to murder the lawful government of the land, and that conspiracy had been set off by who else but Edwards?
Don’t you see? They’ll
all
be there. . . . We can do every one of them in at once!

There was a term for it: agent provocateur.
Frenchy words, because Englishmen weren’t supposed to sink to such things. Aye, right.

Edwards had helped the Spenceans buy their illegal weapons. Helped them keep going until the noose was round their necks. He’d even persuaded Silas to agree to write seditious libel in support of a treasonous plot. Silas was the only writer of the Spenceans and, what with the Six Acts, it would be very useful indeed for Lord Sidmouth if Silas was caught in this net too.

Had George Edwards taken coin to betray his fellows? He was one of those who least needed it, as far as Silas could tell: well-spoken enough, decently dressed. Or maybe that was because the Government was paying him..

Anyway, of course they wouldn’t have a wretch as their agent again, after the Spa Fields debacle. It was the turncoat’s notorious bad character that had done for the prosecution then. This time they’d have picked a man with nothing against him. Someone who wasn’t obviously a villain, who could sound plausible and decent as he testified in court to every damned thing he’d heard them say and seen them do.

Silas couldn’t doubt it. Edwards was a traitor, and the plan was a trap, set to snare desperate men. It would prove that radicals were murdering villains and the Six Acts were necessary and just at the right moment for the general election, due to begin in a few weeks. Plenty of time for news to spread. Plenty of time for a trial.

Unless he could stop them, he thought, and heard St. George’s clock chime eight as if in mockery of that hope.

It was a bloody long way to Cato Street. Two miles, he reckoned, maybe twenty, twenty-five minutes at his jog-trot pace. He stuck his hands in his—Dominic’s—pockets, hoping for money for a hackney, and found them empty.
Useless bugger,
Silas thought, though it would not have felt right taking Dominic’s money for this.

Had Dominic known about the entrapment? Silas could swallow the Tory views, because he knew Dom held them honestly, but something so low as this, where men were lured into crime for the sole purpose of ensuring their deaths by torture? If his lover had had a hand in this filth . . .

No. He couldn’t believe that. Dominic would not have been part of this. Surely not.

Dom had talked about murder, though. Had it on his mind. If he hadn’t planned it, had he nevertheless known?

Silas cut along Oxford Street, dodging a couple of hackneys. He didn’t much know what he was going to do, only that he had to do something. He couldn’t dine in comfort with his Tory lover while his brothers were led to slaughter. His Tory lover, who might have known of that murderous plan.

As Silas had known of a murderous plan. He’d been aware that men intended to kill ministers of the Government that Dominic served, and he’d no more said a thing than Dominic had. And Dominic would know that Silas knew, because he had stolen his coat and run.

Silas had been wondering if he would be able to bear to look Dominic in the face again, if he’d see guilty knowledge. It came upon him absurdly late, like a terrible awareness in a dream, that Dom would feel the same about him, and the thought curdled in his belly like foul meat.

He took Mary-le-bone Lane off Oxford Street, cursing the way every westward road angled south when he needed to go north. Zigzagging through fine rows of fine houses, snarling at a would-be rampsman who approached with a smile and a cudgel.
Try it. I’ll rip your arm off, friend.
Running at last up Queen Street, almost there, and now he could hear the shouting.

He should have gone then. Turned and walked away, knowing that it was too late, that he’d taken Dominic’s coat and lost his respect for nothing. At least he’d have saved his skin.

But there was yelling, men’s bellows, women’s screams, the pounding of feet, and then the report of a gun. Shooting on the street. He had to know.

He came through the little alley that opened into the end of Cato Street as a man fled past him in the opposite direction, head down. It was a little narrow, obscure road, now alive with people. There was no gaslight here, and the swaying lamps and torches seemed to cast far more shadow than light. He hurried toward the other end, where the crowd gathered, and by about midway could see officers of Bow Street. They were heavily armed, swarming a stable.

He was far, far too late.

George Ruthven, a constable whose face was all too familiar to London’s transgressors, was at the back of the group shouting orders to someone. There was a gaggle of gawping watchers in the street as well, and as Silas stared, one of them turned and looked at him, and their eyes met.

It was George Edwards, standing with the Bow Street officers. Edwards’s mouth opened, and he lifted his arm to point at Silas, crying out.

Then, finally, Silas ran.

The next day, around dawn, Silas stood with his hat pulled low on his brow and read the freshly pasted bill.

London Gazette Extraordinary,

Thursday, February 24, 1820.

Whereas Arthur Thistlewood stands charged with high treason, and also with the wilful murder of Richard Smithers—

The imbecile. The stupid, blockheaded shitfire. He’d killed a man and damned them all.

—a reward of One Thousand Pounds is hereby offered to any person or persons who shall discover and apprehend, or cause to be discovered and apprehended, the said Arthur Thistlewood.

It was signed by Sidmouth. Which was remarkable, when you thought about it, because the stable had been raided around half past eight the evening before, and here it was just past seven in the morning, and in that time the bill had been written up, approved and signed by the Home Secretary, and printed, and it was now being pasted around London. Why, it was as if they’d had it planned.

Fast work was evident in the newspapers too.
The Morning Chronicle
was already on sale, and the cry of “Bloody murder” echoed through the streets. Silas picked up a discarded copy of the
Chronicle
and leaned against a wall to read.

The wall was damp, but Dom’s greatcoat was looking shabby anyway after Silas’s long night in the cold. He’d run while he could, then walked, not sure what to do, but knowing he had to stay far away from anyone he could hurt.

Information had been received at Bow Street, the
Chronicle
said, about an illegal meeting of some thirty men in a Cato Street hayloft. That sounded very impressive, though Silas doubted the numbers were any more accurate than the description of a stable as a hayloft. A formidable body of Bow Street officers had demanded entrance, it said; the persons assembled had made desperate resistance, and an officer by the name of Smithers had been stabbed.

Silas shut his eyes. That was what had done for the Gordons, Harry’s parents, the soldier killed during one of their riots. Juries were vague in their understanding of high treason, but everyone knew what murder was.

Silas read on. Some of the conspirators, including Thistlewood, had fled. Others had stayed and fought and been arrested. Several other officers had been dreadfully injured, whatever that might prove to mean. Thistlewood and the rest were sought by the law. Silas wondered if that would include himself. He’d come onto Cato Street at the other end of the stable. He’d just been standing there watching. George Edwards couldn’t truly have thought he was a part of the murder plot.

But Edwards was a traitor for the Government. Why would he care about the truth?

Every meeting for radical reform is an overt act of treasonable conspiracy against the king and his government.
Those had been Lord Sidmouth’s words, and here was his treasonable conspiracy, supported by the unlicensed meetings and possession of arms that his Acts had banned.

The Government had won. They’d proved their case, or had the Spenceans prove it for them. Silas could taste the defeat, bitter as chicory.

There was one chance left for the Spenceans, and that was a repeat of the Spa Fields trial. If Edwards could be shown in court to be an agent provocateur, they might just stave off this disaster.

He had to find one of the Spenceans who’d escaped. They’d all be arrested; he had little doubt of that. They’d be caught, and their only chance was to accuse Edwards of leading the plot. If they could make that case, there was hope. Not for Thistlewood, of course. He would swing for murder no matter what. But better to swing than to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason, and Silas believed that Thistlewood would stand by his colleagues. If he came out and blamed Edwards, with nothing to gain from it, the rest might have a chance.

Silas had to find Thistlewood, and he had a fair idea where he’d be. They’d had a few more drinks than usual one night a couple of years ago, when he and Thistlewood had been in charity with one another, and compared notes on good places to lie low. Thistlewood had mentioned a place in Moorfields, and Silas had made sure he remembered that address. It was a stone’s throw from Finsbury Square and the old Sodomites’ Walk, where a man might still pick up company for an evening. He’d gone now and again for that purpose before Dominic, and a man never knew when a place to hide might come in handy.

It was a long enough walk to Moorfields, especially since the direct path would have taken him through Ludgate, and he didn’t feel he should show his face where everyone knew him. He cut up Aldermanbury and Moor Lane rather than risk greetings from Grub Street’s scribblers and printers and ducked onto the filthy cobbles of White Street feeling content that he’d attracted no notice.

White Street was wide, for the City of London, but all that meant was more carts, more horses. The street was ankle deep in shit, rotting straw, and a mulch of whatever other matter had been trampled underfoot. It slithered.

The great bell of St. Paul’s tolled out nine o’clock, shaking the air, as Silas tramped through the mire up to number eight. It was a dark and teetering hovel even by the standards of White Street, and the front door wasn’t latched. He let himself in and looked around, temporarily blind in the darkness after the bright February sunlight outside.

There was a sharp intake of breath from right by his ear. A familiar voice said, “Silas Mason, get him!” and before he could even turn, there were hard hands seizing his arms.

Chapter 14

Silas sat in the cell and waited.

He’d been arraigned or whatever you called it at Bow Street and examined by the magistrates. There was no question but that they knew all about it, and him. He was asked about the Spenceans and talked freely, about wild schemes that would never have come to anything, about George Edwards’s generosity, and about Edwards bringing them the notice and making the plan.

It had been Edwards’s voice in the little dark hovel on White Street. They’d come for Thistlewood, and Silas had walked into the same trap.

He denied all involvement in the Cato Street business. “But we have a witness,” the magistrate informed him. “A man of good character has sworn that he saw you escaping the stable—”

“George Edwards, might that be?” Silas asked sarcastically. “He’s a liar. I was never there.”

“And can you give a location, a witness, an alibi?” the magistrate asked. “Have you anyone who can confirm where you were?”

In a gentlemen’s club in St. James’s, fucking Dominic Frey of the Home Office till he couldn’t see straight.
“No.”

The magistrate didn’t stop there. He had records, of Skelton’s visit to the bookshop, of the old conviction. “Did you write pamphlets under the name Jack Cade? Have you written works of seditious libel? Have you printed such works? Have you written works of blasphemous libel? Have you printed such works?” Over and over, aimed at wearing him down. Silas stared ahead, denying it all.

Some clerk came up to the magistrate and whispered, glancing at Silas. The magistrate whispered back. Silas read on their lips,
Harry Vane,
and it took everything he’d learned from twenty-five years of defiance to keep him on his feet then.