Sons of Liberty (26 page)

“They wouldn't want that,” Raechel protested.

“
I’m pretty sure the Highlanders didn’t want to have their clans broken up and their lands confiscated, when they rose in support of the Young Pretender,” Gwen snapped. Her voice grew louder. “That didn’t stop it from happening! They launched an uprising without the weapons or popular support they needed to actually win. Getting all the way to Derby was a minor miracle in its own right, but it cost them everything.

“
They’re young, young and idealistic. Half of them don’t have the slightest idea what it takes to run the government. And I’d bet that many of their supporters are so poor and desperate that they have nowhere else to go. But that doesn't mean they’re in the right! I won’t say the empire is perfect, because it isn’t, yet it’s a damn sight better than living under the French king.”

“
And you’re the one who wants to have servants treated like people,” Raechel said, before she could stop herself. “The Sons might do it.”

“
Or they might create a tyranny of their own,” Gwen warned. “There’s no government structure in place for them, not now. Building one in the middle of a war won’t be easy.”

She met Raechel’s eyes. “I understand how you feel,” she said, her voice softening. “But the Sons cannot be allowed to doom us all.”

Raechel lowered her gaze. “Is it wrong to be idealistic?”

“
No,” Gwen said. “But it is wrong to be so idealistic that it blinds you to reality.”

She sighed. “Maybe the Viceroy will make concessions,” she added. “But right now, we have to regard the Sons as a potential threat, an enemy within. Anything you can dig up will be very helpful.”

“
I understand,” Raechel said, reluctantly. “And I know my duty.”

Gwen met her eyes. “It's never easy to force the head to rule the heart,” she admitted. “But the head must rule.”

Raechel scowled as Gwen reached out with her magic and opened the door, inviting Irene into the room. Men had been saying that women were ruled by their emotions since time out of mind, insisting that women were ill-fitted for government because they couldn't think logically. But, in her experience, men were ruled by their emotions too. It was just a different set of emotions, emotions that could be just as destructive to men as they were to women. Very few people could think logically and reasonably on a consistent basis.

And even when they do, she thought, recalling Irene’s words, they may be reasoning from false premises.

“
I wish you luck,” Gwen said. She rose. “I’ll see you afterwards, I hope. Right now, I have to get back to the hall.”

“
We’ll see each other after the war,” Raechel promised. “And I won’t let you down.”

She watched Gwen leave, then looked at Irene. “I’m ready.”

“
Very good,” Irene said. “Do you think Jane had any reason to suspect you?”

“
She would have thrown me out, if she had,” Raechel said. She hoped that was the case. “I kept my thoughts under careful control.”

“
Lady Campbell was offering me a small fortune for your hand in marriage,” Irene said, wryly. “Her son is in dire need of a wife.”

Raechel had to think for a long moment. Lady Campbell’s husband was an industrialist, if she recalled correctly, one who might well have overextended himself. She couldn't remember anything about the son. He hadn't danced with her at the ball, unless he’d been so unmemorable she’d forgotten him. It was quite possible.

“
Lord Campbell is a staunch loyalist and his son was educated in England,” Irene continued, seemingly unaware of Raechel’s thoughts. “He is unlikely to have anything to do with the Sons of Liberty. In any case, Lord Campbell still makes his decisions for him.”

“
Poor man,” Raechel said, sarcastically. “I would feel sorrier for him if every woman didn't have the same problem.”

“
Quite,” Irene agreed. “Lady Campbell has good reason to want to bribe me, naturally. I shall inform her that I have not only accepted her offer, I have talked your guardians into accepting it too. You will be officially informed of this in a small party, which we shall hold in three or so days. At this point, you’ll throw a fit and escape.”

She stopped, waiting.

Raechel thought fast. “And the Sons would have good reason to want to take me in,” she said, finally. Irene liked it when she used her brain, unlike her aunt and uncle. “They won’t want the match to go ahead.”

“
Of course not,” Irene said. She gave Raechel a mischievous smile. “Your family’s resources would end up in the hands of a known loyalist. It gives them some incentive to hide you.”

“Good plan,” Raechel said.

Her blood was suddenly very cold. If Irene had been a genuine unscrupulous chaperone, she could sell Raechel to the highest bidder and no one would give a damn. Her guardians would have no reason to think that anything was wrong, not if Irene was telling them how wonderful Raechel’s new family was. They’d sign the papers in London without ever meeting their new kin.

“
It happens,” Irene said, quietly. “More often than you might think, too.”

Raechel felt her temper flare. “Stop reading my mind!”

“
I’m not the mind-reader you need to worry about,” Irene told her, sharply. Her voice hardened as she rose. “And if Jane gets one hint that this is all a put-up job, you will wind up dead!”

Chapter Twenty-One

“You’re joking!”

“
I wish I was,” Gwen said. She’d called Wayne into her office as soon as she returned to the hall. “The French have launched their invasion, they’re probing north towards Amherst and we have to be in place to join the defenders.”

“
We’re not ready, My Lady,” Wayne said. He still sounded stunned. Apart from her, he was the only British combat sorcerer in America - and he’d had a year of training before winning his badge. “We’re nowhere near ready.”

“
I know,” Gwen said. “But His Excellency hasn't offered us a choice.”

She scowled at the map, hanging from the wall. It was a minimum of five days from New York to Amherst, unless the lines were cut so badly they couldn't be repaired on the fly - and if that happened, she had no idea how long it would take them to reach their destination or if they would arrive in time to make a difference. Indeed, given just how badly the demands of war had snarled up Britain’s far more developed railway lines, she rather suspected it would be a long time before the reinforcements reached Amherst.

“
We’re meant to be leaving in two days,” she said. “We’ll do as much training as we can in that time, then practice as best as we can on the trains.”

“
It won’t be enough,” Wayne said. “My Lady, this is not a reliable force.”

“
I know,” Gwen said. She assumed Lord Mycroft had read her messages, but even if he dispatched reinforcements instantly it would still be at least three weeks before they reached New York. Longer, perhaps, if they reached New York at all. The French had an extremely good motive to attack convoys making their way across the Atlantic. “But it’s the best we’re going to get.”

She scowled to herself. Jane was a Talker ... and there was a rogue magician out there, a magician with far better training than anyone else she’d met outside Cavendish Hall. If that magician was American, he should be fighting alongside her, not plotting an uprising at the worst possible time. She wondered, briefly, if she could get away with conscripting Jane before deciding it would be pointless. Talking was a useful skill, but not during a battle.

“
The servants can close up the hall once we’re gone,” she added. She’d have to do something about the classified documents, knowing that no one could be trusted to protect them. There wasn’t much for French spies to steal, but what there was could cause real problems in the wrong hands. “Hopefully, we'll come back to New York after the war and take possession.”

“
Yes, My Lady,” Wayne said. His tone suggested he doubted it very much. “We may well be outmatched and outnumbered.”

“
Yes, we may,” Gwen said. “But British forces have been outmatched and outnumbered before and still prevailed.”

“
Only by the Sikhs,” Wayne warned her. “And the Sikhs would have won if they hadn't fallen prey to infighting at the worst possible time.”

Just like us now, Gwen thought. Infighting between the Viceroy and the Sons might give the French an easy victory.

“
But we still won,” she said, out loud. “And the French may only have committed a handful of magicians to America. They needed to concentrate on invading Britain.”

The next two days passed quickly, far too quickly. Gwen worked hard to train the magicians, showing Fife how to use his powers more creatively while pushing Harry and Vernon into expanding their abilities. Neither of them learned how to fly, even though it was a fairly easy trick. Gwen had a private suspicion that they saw their powers as extensions of their fists, not something separate from the remainder of their bodies. They could pick her up and hurl her around the battlefield, but carrying themselves was beyond their abilities.

At least their punches are strong, she thought, after picking herself up from the grass. They will be formidable if they’re given enough time to train.

She’d half-expected a delayed departure, but Colonel Jackson arrived on the selected date to inform her that the trains were ready. Gwen had already ensured that the seven magicians had an excellent dinner; she ordered Wayne to get them into the carriages while she gave the servants their final orders. She’d had to burn a number of papers, just to make sure they stayed out of enemy hands, but the remainder of the hall wouldn't help anyone, if it were to be captured. There had been no sign of the rogue magician, which worried her. Had he been a French spy? Or was he biding his time until Gwen left the city?

“
You’ve done well,” Jackson said, as she joined him in the final carriage. “I’ve seen much less promising material.”

“
It’s the wages,” Gwen said, cynically. She’d already paid the six conscripts more than enough money to have a decent life after the war, even if they never worked again. She had a feeling most of it would be spent on drink, but she didn't care as long as it happened after the war was over. “And they are not ready to face trained magicians.”

Jackson rapped on the panelling, ordering the driver to start moving, then looked at her. “I have seen less promising material,” he assured her. “They may have their problems, but they’ll do better than some of the others I’ve seen.”

“
I hope you’re right,” Gwen said. Normally, she had little to do with selection. The RSC took almost every magician who applied, although not all of them passed the final tests and became sorcerers. “I don’t even know if half of them are loyal!”

“
There’s a lot of that going around,” Jackson said. “My ... very ... distant relative is in deep ... ah ... trouble.”

Gwen smiled. “How bad is it?”

Jackson shrugged. “The French clearly had a working plan to destroy most of the plantations,” he said. “Many slaves have already revolted or fled; the remainder have been marched away from the plantations or simply massacred. Hundreds of plantations and minor farmsteads are on fire. It will take generations to recover, if it ever does.

“
As for the bulk of the French army, it is still proceeding slowly towards Amherst,” he added, after a moment. “They are being slowed down by the pickets, so they may just starve to death before they arrive.”

Gwen looked at him. “Do you believe that will happen?”

“
I would be astonished,” Jackson admitted. “The French are masters at supporting an army in the field, Lady Gwen, and there are plenty of foodstuffs in the vicinity. Thanks to the slave revolts, it will be hard for us to get everything out of their way before it’s far too late.”

“And so the French may be able to lay siege to the city, rather than trying to take it by storm,” Gwen said.

“
Precisely,” Jackson said. “And with thousands of refugees already heading into the city, food supplies are likely to get short rather quickly.”

Gwen shuddered. She’d seen people on the brink of starvation in Russia ... and she’d heard stories from the last bout of European warfare. More people had been killed by starvation or disease than in fighting, although countless peasants had been robbed, raped and murdered by one side or the other. Just burning a farm to the ground could condemn an entire community to die. Hundreds of thousands of starving people, crammed into a city ... it didn't bear thinking about.

The carriage rattled to a halt before she could think of something to say. Jackson opened the hatch, revealing a long steam train attached to a line of coaches that stretched off into the distance. Some were clearly passenger trains, like the London-Brighton express some of her sorcerers took every weekend, others were designed for cattle or freight. Hundreds of porters worked frantically, loading the fright trucks with supplies for the front, while sergeants barked orders, marching red-coated soldiers onto the trains. The scene looked as chaotic as anything she’d seen in London, before the Battle of Dorking.

Fewer trains, she thought. Bridging the river hadn’t been that much of a challenge, after British engineers had bridged hundreds of coastal rivers in Britain, but America was just so much bigger. Parts of the colonies had only one rail line, if they were lucky enough to have one in the first place. And that means our logistics will get harder.