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London,
May 1819
Harry
was stacking revolutionary polemics into piles when the knock came on
the shop door above them.
He
jolted, clutching the papers. George, crouching on the floor by the
press, cursed under his breath. “Who’s that?”
“Is
the door bolted?” Silas demanded.
“I—yes,
I’m sure it is.” Harry could feel the sweat spring, despite the
damp chill of the cellar beneath Theobald’s Bookshop. Silas cocked
his head, listening. After a few seconds of silence, there was
another knock.
“What
if it’s the police?” George hissed. “What if it’s the
soldiery?”
“Quiet,”
Silas snapped. “Just a customer, like as not. They’ll go.”
Of
course it was a customer, Harry told himself. It wasn’t
the police or the soldiery. They’d have broken the door down.
He
glanced down at the piles of handbills. They proclaimed, in great
black still-damp letters, An
End to the Tyranny of the Hanoverians, Bloated Leeches on the Body of
England, that Draw Blood yet Leave their Patient Unheal’d.
Silas had a turn of phrase that had seen him gaoled for seditionary
libel once already, and this pamphlet was stark treason. If they were
caught with these, all three of them would be going to some dark,
stinking gaol, likely after a good flogging. And there was no way
out, no way to disguise the press, nowhere to hide the evidence. . .
.
Harry
stared at his fingers, stained an incriminating black. Every nerve he
possessed was stretched in anticipation. Even so, he jumped when the
knock came a third time.
Silas
put his spanner down and strode to the little wooden flight of
stairs, brushing paper dust off his ink-stained hands. Harry heard
him swear under his breath. The bolt rattled, and then the heavy door
was pulled open with a forceful thump.
“You
again.” Silas didn’t sound welcoming.
“Indeed,
Mr. Mason.”
Harry
clapped his hands to his mouth. George shot him an accusing glare.
They both recognized the dry, educated voice.
Your
bloody latitat!
George mouthed silently and furiously, jabbing a finger at Harry.
His
lawyer. Or, rather, the lawyer who had come here in search of Harry
twice already. Silas had packed him off with barefaced denials on
both occasions: nothing good came of lawyers. But now he was back
again, looking for Harry, who lurked in the ink-stinking cellar
running out treasonous polemics on a hand press.
Now
inside the shop, the lawyer was speaking with unpleasant authority.
“Your denials will not serve, Mr. Mason. I seek Mr. Harry Vane,
passing under the surname of Gordon. I know he is here. I will speak
to him and you will not gainsay me.”
Silas
growled. There was no other word for it: he sounded like a mastiff.
Harry could imagine him leaning forward, broad shoulders set and
muscles thickening. “Unless you’ve a warrant, take yourself off
before I help you out of here.”
There
was a slight scuff of retreating feet, but the lawyer’s next words
sounded testy, rather than alarmed. “Sir, I have no intention of
arresting
Mr. Vane. I have information to his advantage.”
George
rolled his eyes. They all knew that one.
“Aye,
well, if any such fellow wants advantage from you, he’ll come and
find you. Out.”
“You
do your friend a disservice, sir.” The lawyer’s voice was rather
faint, as though he’d stepped outside. “Tell him to contact me—”
The
door slammed shut. Harry let out a long breath, sagging back against
the grimy wall. “God. God.”
“Aye.”
George stuck his grubby hands in his pockets to hide their shake.
“What’s this about?”
“I’ve
no idea.”
“Why
didn’t you go up, eh? Ask the old pettifogger what he wants with
you? Easier to hide behind Silas, eh?” George sounded a great deal
braver now that the man had gone. Typical George Charkin, all piss
and wind, ever ready to seize on Harry’s fears and forget his own.
He hadn’t been arrested yet.
“He’s
a good man to hide behind,” Harry said, as the subject of their
discussion clomped down the stairs, nail-studded soles clacking on
the wood. “Silas . . .”
“That
lawyer again.” Silas’s face was grimmer than usual. “You can’t
think what he wants with you?”
“I’ve
no idea. Unless— You don’t think it’s the warrant, do you,
Silas? From when I was a boy?” That had been preying on his mind
since the lawyer had first come.
Evidently
it had occurred to Silas too because he was shaking his head as Harry
spoke. “They’d send bluecoats or red for you then. No, that’s
not it. Maybe someone thinks you know something useful.” He
considered Harry for a moment then made a face, dismissing the
possibility in a rather unflattering manner. “You must have some
idea.”
Harry
threw his hands up helplessly. “None in the world. For all I know
there is
something to my advantage out there. Maybe I’ve come into a
fortune.”
George
cackled. “Aye, that’s it. You’re the Regent’s true son,
hidden away by the Brunswick sow to spite her Husband-Hog.” That
came straight from their last pamphlet on the royal family. Nobody
could accuse Silas of an excess of monarchical enthusiasm. “We’ll
all be riding in a golden carriage and sleeping on feather beds by
week’s end.”
“All?”
Harry struck a dandyish pose and fluttered an imaginary fan. “My
dear louse-ridden fellow, you
shall not sully my feather bed with your common flesh.”
