“Slow down a second. What exactly did he do to get charged with high treason?”
“Lord Cavendish sat on the Sirgalese Relations Committee in Parliament. That does exactly what it sounds like, and it means he had a lot of influence over what the country thinks of Sirgal and in turn its foreign policy. It appears that he was taking substantial bribes from an unknown faction within Sirgal to give false analysis of relations between the countries with the aim of suggesting that recent increases in tensions – “ Edward abruptly stops talking.
“Go on?” I say after a moment and a spoonful of porridge.
“I… may or may not have just given you information that isn’t public knowledge and which isn’t supposed to become public knowledge.”
“I won’t tell anyone. Who would I tell, anyway?”
Edward’s lips twitch in amusement. “Best I don’t give you ideas by answering that one. But yes: tensions with Sirgal are increasing and there’s a consensus within government that revealing that too widely would lead to panic and further escalation. Anyway, Lord Cavendish was trying to give the impression that Sirgalese actions were less hostile than they most likely are.”
Okay, yeah, I can see why that would be considered treason. Being in the pay of a foreign power and misleading your own government because of it is definitely disloyalty to your country. “And… what happens next?” I ask.
“There’ll be a trial – conducted as discreetly as possible for obvious reasons – “
I don’t find those reasons particularly obvious, and I’m not entirely comfortable with the way I’d have to start thinking to find them obvious. Edward was raised that way, though, I remind myself, and he often forgets most people weren’t.
“And when he’s found guilty – “
“When,” I repeat. “Doesn’t that defeat the entire purpose of the justice system?”
Edward sighs. “He is guilty.”
“How do you know? Have you seen evidence?”
“No, but my father has. He found most of the evidence. And he doesn’t make mistakes.”
I stare at him for a long moment, unable to find words to describe how completely wrong that reasoning is. “Your father,” I repeat. “I don’t mean to disrespect him, but – “
“But you’re about to. Fair enough.”
Yeah, it was pretty clear where I was going with that, and the fact he knows it only makes me feel worse about it. It has to be said, though. “Do you really believe that he wouldn’t fabricate evidence of treason to further his agenda?”
“Fabricating evidence of treason would itself be high treason, which is something my father would never even contemplate.”
I narrow my eyes, considering that. My instinctive reaction is to disbelieve it, but… why? What does Lord Blackthorn really want, and how far is he prepared to go to get it? I want to believe Edward when he says that his father isn’t evil and doesn’t want the throne, but as a historian I have to recognise that he’s an extremely biased source and can’t be relied on.
“Okay. For the sake of argument, suppose that he’s found guilty. Then what?”
I already know the answer to that question, but I don’t want to know it.
“He’ll be stripped of his titles and all official positions – they’ll likely pass to Mildred as his heir, unless she’s implicated herself, which I doubt she is. That’s standard practice for – “
“Anyone convicted of an offence above a certain magnitude. Lawyer’s daughter, remember?” I do know some things.
Including the penalty for high treason.
“Right. Yes. Sorry. Are you going to make me say it?”
“No,” I say. “I already know. But…” I hesitate. “Do you know him?”
Edward shrugs. “We’ve met a few times. He introduced me to Mildred a few years ago. Why?”
“Because… does it bother you? That he’s going to – die?”
He shrugs again. “He committed treason. That’s the sentence.”
Edward is right, but in another way he’s so, so wrong. “Mildred is going to lose her father. Do you not at least feel bad for her?”
“A little. But… it’s the law. It’s politics. You play the game, you know the consequences of losing, you pay the price if you do. How I feel about it is irrelevant.”
“If…” Maybe I don’t have the right to ask this question. Maybe I shouldn’t. But I don’t think it’s right for Lord Cavendish to be executed. “If it were your father…”
“…it would break me,” Edward admits simply.
“And yet?”
“If we stopped executing people for treason, what would happen then?”
“I’ve heard the arguments. No deterrent means we’d have far more people believing they could get off lightly and betraying their country.”
Edward swallows his mouthful of toast before replying: “That’s not the argument I’ve heard. According to my dad? Traitors are threats to the kingdom, and those threats need to be eliminated.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
That seems like the sort of thing Lord Blackthorn would say. I can’t work out whether it’s the sort of thing he’d believe, because I’m starting to realise I don’t know the first thing about him. Maybe I’ll find time for an extra-curricular research project.
“That’s… a very ruthless way of looking at it,” I say carefully.
“You can’t survive as a politician and spymaster without being ruthless.” He pauses for a moment. “Without making sacrifices.”
Sacrifices like not being there when his son needs him. I don’t think that implication was unintended, but the relationship between Edward Blackthorn and his father is not something I want to meddle in.
“Do you want to talk about something else?”
Yes, I very much want to take the conversation away from such heavy topics. I don’t want to have to contemplate the fact my classmate’s father will be executed based on evidence found by the father of another classmate.
“Countering Magical Effects in an hour,” I try. “Looking forward to it?”
“Can’t wait,” says Edward with enough fake enthusiasm that I wouldn’t know he was being sarcastic if I hadn’t suffered through Electra’s last lesson with him.
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Mildred is in Countering Magical Effects that morning, and to look at her you’d hardly know anything was wrong, even though she was there when her father was arrested. Some of the class go out of their way to ignore her, but Elsie sticks loyally by her and they still share a desk.
Electra is eager to inform us that she will not tolerate discussion of the ill-fated Harvest Ball and its consequences in her class: “You have the entirety of your time not spent within my classroom to do that. Anyone breaking that rule will be… severely punished.” She emphasises her point with another ghoulish smile.
I don’t have any problems with obeying that rule, and thanks to my work over the weekend I’m able to answer all the questions she directs my way and resist the temptation to crawl under the desk and hope she’ll go away. And something fits into place in my mind as Electra sets homework.
There’s been nothing in the papers yet about the Harvest Ball: even reporters need sleep, and there simply wasn’t time to have full articles written about Lord Cavendish’s arrest in time to have them copied or printed. Edward knew before then, thanks no doubt to his father keeping him up to date.
He knew about these tensions with Sirgal, too, when they’re still semi-secret.
Why couldn’t he have known what was going to happen at the Harvest Ball beforehand?
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We have Magical Theory next, so Edward disappears before I have the chance to interrogate him about my revelation. I need to talk to Mildred, I realise. I don’t quite know what I want to say, but –
“Mildred?” I say, moving up alongside her as the class makes its way through the corridors.
“Tallulah,” she replies. Am I imagining it, or is there a faint tinge of hostility in her voice?
“I just wanted to say – I’m sorry. Really, I am.”
She turns to look at me, and her face is as unguarded as I’ve seen it: surprise, curiosity and beneath it a deep pain. “Why should you be? It’s not as if it’s your fault.”
“I know, but… really. No-one should have to deal with… well, you know.” This is coming out all wrong: I’m trying to get across genuine feeling but everything I say sounds like an empty platitude. What difference does this apology make? “If… if there’s anything I can do to help…”
Mildred closes her eyes for a second, and somehow manages to avoid walking into Elsie’s back. “Unless you happen to have the ear of the King or an absurdly large fortune, I doubt you can make much of a difference. Thank you for offering, though.”
And that’s the end of the most awkward of the many awkward conversations I’ve had recently. It leaves me thinking, though. I don’t have the ear of the King or an absurdly large fortune, last time I checked. But I know who has both.
Lord Blackthorn.
But… I couldn’t even persuade Edward that it was wrong to execute Mildred’s father, never mind his father. And even if somehow I could find a way? Is it even the right thing to do? He did betray his country, knowing the consequences. (Well. Probably. Unless Lord Blackthorn is even more actually evil than I thought. The courts will at least give Cavendish a fair trial, though.)
More than anything, I want to go back to a time when I didn’t have to worry about questions like that, when all this would have been a story in the newspapers happening to someone I never knew. It’s selfish of me, I know, but I don’t want to take any part in this story.
I wish the last week had never happened. I wish I was back at Genford, preparing for my Certificate of Education and knowing nothing about magic and caring nothing about politics –
And being alone, always alone. Sitting on my own at meals, studying on my own in free periods, barely talking to my classmates.
Would I go back to that now, if I had the chance?
I honestly don’t know.
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My extra-curricular research project doesn’t get off to a good start, for the simple reasons that the Academy doesn’t have the books or archives I need and I can’t go elsewhere until the weekend. I do at least talk to Edward about what he knew, though.
“Everything we say here is – “ he begins once we’ve returned to the meeting room.
“Classified,” I finish. “Got it.”
“I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
I stare at him sceptically.
“My dad said… he was working on something big, and it might be prudent if I didn’t associate with Mildred. So I was able to work out roughly what was going on, but I didn’t know for sure.”
I pause to think for a moment, going through what Edward’s said about Mildred. Things do make a lot more sense knowing that. I suppose it would be awkward politically for them to be associated just before a revelation like this. “Thank you for telling me.”
Edward shrugs. “You deserve to know.”
It might seem like a small thing, but I know Edward well enough to realise that for him it’s very much not small. He trusts me, and he wants to make this friendship work, enough that he’s going against the secrecy he holds almost sacred.
Thank you isn’t enough to respond to that, but it’s a start.
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It surprises me how quickly the Academy is beginning to feel like home. I’m learning to love the softness of my pillows and the privacy the curtains give me, to get used to Robin’s quiet snoring and climbing the stairs. Even the library isn’t so unsettling after my third visit. I haven’t finished the books I borrowed at the weekend yet, but I return anyway just to lose myself in searching for new treasures.
And to page through that book on the Blackthorn family. I don’t dare borrow it, not when Rosie would see and remark on it, but… it’s the closest thing I have to an unbiased source, even if it was published ten years ago, before Edward’s grandfather died, and is thus not particularly relevant.
It is a fascinating exploration of history, though, even if it is brutally harsh about a lot of Edward’s ancestors, in particular his great-grandmother Eleanor. She was Siaril Royal at the time of the Greyford disaster, and according to this volume it was largely her fault. There’s a frustrating lack of detail, which is apparently due to much of the data about the collapse of the Portal Network still being kept secret.
I sigh and return to the final chapter, which is all I can find on the present Lord Blackthorn. He was never supposed to become a Royal Magician: he had an elder brother, Arthur, who was favoured by his father Lord Thomas until he tragically died seven years before the book’s publication and one before Edward was born. There were many rumours of a rift between Lord Thomas and Henry.
He was a senior official in the Ministry of Intelligence at that time, though not yet Minister; the book laments security meaning that none of its records can be made available to make a proper sketch of his character. All I’m able to work out is that he showed a disregard stretching almost to contempt for many traditions and unwritten rules of courtly life.
Well, I could work out more, but that would involve staying in hyperspace for longer than an hour. Which is a very bad idea. So that’s the end of my research until the weekend comes around.