Daniel Friedman - Riot Most Uncouth

Angus could no longer speak, but the sound of his rasping quickened.

“He’s owed dignity, if nothing else.”

“What use have the dead for dignity?” Knifing asked.

“What else have the dead got?” I said.

“The dead have nothing,” Knifing said. “That’s why the prudent course is the one in which all of us live.”

I waved my gun at him. “While I hold this, nobody gets to live without my permission.”

“You can’t kill us both with your one gun,” said Not-Burke. “And once it’s spent, you’re at the mercy of whichever of us is left standing.”

“Well, I’ve got it aimed at you now. So stop grinning at me.”

“I don’t fear you or your toys,” Not-Burke said. “You are a coward. If you were man enough to fire, you would have already.” He knelt down and pulled his knife out of Angus’s gut. As the blade slid out of the wound, it brought with it a ruptured coil of purple viscera. Angus’s whole body seemed to clench, and his back arched, and he sucked in a long rattling gasp. After that, he did not move again. His chest was still and his unblinking eyes stared fixedly into the middle distance; toward something imperceptible to the living. And then, the flies settled upon him.

“Who is this lunatic, Knifing? And why are you protecting him?” I asked.

“I serve the King,” Knifing said. “I am here in Cambridge on His Majesty’s orders.”

I looked at Not-Burke, red and wet and naked, with insects crawling all over him. He looked like the very portrait of the Devil.

“Why would the King want this maniac protected? Why would His Majesty send you to cover up these crimes?”

“How much do you know about all this?” Knifing asked.

“I know about Blackpool,” I said. “I know about Chelmsford and Grimsby. I know there were sprees of brutal killings in each of those places, and corpses drained of blood. I know that you investigated each event, and that, each time, you arrested and executed some local laborer. I know, now, that Burke was the perpetrator of all those crimes, and you bore false witness against innocent people to protect him.”

“My name is not Burke,” said Not-Burke. “And you know almost nothing; only enough to make your death convenient.”

“My counsel in London, Mr. Hanson, collected that information, at my behest. He retains copies of all relevant documents, and knows what to do if harm befalls me.”

“I’m sure we can make some sort of a deal,” Knifing said. “Your discretion in this matter is of crucial importance to the security of England.”

“All I see is a madman bathing in human blood. England will be well served by his destruction.” I was tense, unsure whether to take my gun off Not-Burke to point it at Knifing. Both men were exceedingly dangerous.

Knifing kept his voice calm and soothing, and made no move toward me. “Let me ask, Byron, are you a loyal subject of the King?”

I shuffled my weight back and forth on my feet. My arm was starting to hurt. Not-Burke was standing as still as statuary, or as still as a predatory cat waiting for unsuspecting prey to wander within pouncing distance. “I’ll not have you cast aspersions against my honor,” I said to Knifing. “My family has a long military tradition, and my fealty is not subject to dispute.”

“So I can assume, then, that you love your King and accept his rule?” Knifing asked.

“Of course.” I took a step back and pressed my back against the far wall of the room, by the window. Neither Not-Burke nor Knifing moved toward me. I allowed my arm to bend a little, which relieved some discomfort but made me feel less safe.

Knifing leaned forward, casting a long, sinister shadow that rippled across the bloody hardwood floor of the room. “Why?” he asked. It was like he was prodding me with a rapier.

“Why do I love the King?”

“Yes.”

I studied his face for clues and found none. He was impassive and inscrutable. I couldn’t tell if the long pink scar robbed his face of expressiveness, or if it was the only thing that kept him from being completely blank. “I don’t understand the question,” I said.

He asked: “Have you ever met the King?”

“I’ve seen him, but never spoken to him at any length.” I’d appeared at court during the previous London season. His Majesty had seemed aged and unwell. After a brief introduction, I had kept my distance and focused my attentions on various available women.

“And yet you love him. You must not love him for any personal quality he possesses, for you do not know him. So, we may say that you love the King solely because he is the King. Would you love him if he were not King?”

I could not understand why Knifing was playing rhetorical games. I was trapped; the two of them stood between me and the door, which was the only route of egress from the cramped room. I didn’t say anything. The gun was starting to feel heavy. Knifing turned and regarded me with his white eye. I wondered if it was really dead, or if it still had some kind of sight, despite its discoloration.

When I did not speak, Knifing continued: “His Majesty’s periodic affliction of the mind is well known, and was publicized during the regency crisis some years back. But while the populace is convinced His Majesty has recovered, the possibility of permanent incapacity is real. The severity of his illness is a closely held secret.”

“But if the King is too infirm to fulfill his duties, the Prince of Wales may rule in his stead under a Regency Act, can he not?”

Knifing shrugged. “It has not been so long, relatively, since the American colonies rejected the Crown, and the French royalty was deposed shortly thereafter. The state of monarchy in Europe has, perhaps, never been more tenuous. The rule of a prince, even a crown prince, is not rule of a king. And if England undergoes a period of prolonged rule by something other than a king, even if it is a king-in-waiting, the Throne shall never regain its power. It has long been held that the King’s rule is his Divine Right; that the King is appointed by God. How can George be the divinely chosen King, and yet be unfit to sit the Throne? The very idea of a regency punctures the essential premise of the monarchy, and would forever erode the legitimacy of the King’s claim; of any king’s claim. Parliament is staging a coup, Lord Byron.”

I began to suspect Knifing was trying to keep me talking until my arm dropped. I braced my right hand with my left and squinted down the barrel at Burke, or whoever he was. “I see very little relation between these esoteric political concerns and Mr. Not-Burke and his vat of putrid blood.”

Knifing kept talking. “There are influential members of the House of Lords who want to see the monarchy weakened. They are agitating for a new Regency Act, a law that will frame the King as a madman and strip away the powers of the Crown without His Majesty’s consent. A few powerful Peers command legislative constituencies that can block the bill. These men wield tremendous influence over how the Empire will be ruled in the future, and this gentleman’s father is among them.”

I tried to think of a marquess or a powerful earl who physically resembled Not-Burke. I didn’t think he could be a duke’s son; most of them were relatives of the Royal family and not predisposed to betray the Crown.

“So this influential father will help to hide the King’s madness, and protect the Throne from action by Parliament, in return for the King’s assistance in covering up the son’s killings,” I said.

“My father is a swine,” Not-Burke said, and he filled the room with manic giggles. “I’d cut him up like your silly constable, if he would ever come home to see me. But I am undeserving of his attention, it seems.”