Chapter 1 of The Vanquished & the Surviving:
You won’t want to skip the excitement of Chapter 57:
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The Vanquished & the Surviving, Chapter 58
At his portrait studio, Endymion Radcliffe gazed thoughtfully at Vincent before lifting his paintbrush and speaking his thoughts. “Customarily I find youth your age less than interesting. They’re only half-formed creatures without enough experience or wisdom to catch my attention. But you’re different. You have a spark.”
Vincent stood as still as he could on the dais. “Splendid. Or, if you’ll forgive me for saying this, do you find me fascinating because of the trauma I’ve experienced?” Memories flashed through his mind: his brother glowing green, himself sitting by a tower window with only the light of one candle. He recalled Lady Hester and Sir Hubert in their carriage… their comment about his soul….
Radcliffe grimaced. “Oh dear. I didn’t mean—there is so much more to you than that…. Yet I daresay there's truth to what you say.”
Vincent belatedly realized he’d spoken tactlessly. He felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment and regret. Radcliffe painted in silence for several minutes.
“Dear boy, be careful. You shouldn’t be wandering about alone like you have. The streets aren’t safe. Where is your friend Percy?” Vincent glanced about the studio and reflected that he had never seen it empty of callers. Radcliffe and he were alone.
Vincent felt pressure on his heart, as he recalled what his father read aloud at breakfast that morning. When he started painting red eyes on the streets and pasting up handbills, he hadn’t imagined such violence and chaos. “You read this morning’s paper? About the rebellion at the Magistrates’ Court?”
“I’ve word that the Marshals have concluded you’ve stirred citizens to action, inciting them to act up. The Marshals and Fawlkin resent this.”
Vincent exhaled and shifted position, although he was supposed to remain still for the portrait. “I can assure you, sir, I can take care of myself and watch my own back.”
“That’s as it may be, but these are difficult times, especially what with the burning of the Magistrates’ Court last night.”
Vincent’s lip trembled. “There were deaths, too, weren’t there? It needn’t have happened like that. I did hope people would act against the Ministry, certainly, but… I didn’t imagine this happening. People died last night.”
Radcliffe put down his paintbrush and gazed at Vincent with a slight frown and a sadness in his eyes Vincent had never previously seen. “Yes, indeed. It wasn’t ideal, but real life is messy.” Radcliffe cleaned his brush and wiped his hands. “I don’t feel like painting any more today, in truth.”
Vincent nodded, stepped down from the dais. He sank into an armchair.
Radcliffe poured two glasses of sherry, handed one to Vincent, and sat down beside him. “You can be sure, Cornelius Fawlkin must be furious and blaming you.”
Vincent gulped and sat up straighter. “For that? I had no part in the fire.” He thought of the handbills he’d pasted on walls around London. “Unless I’ve inadvertently inspired it.”
“Yes, yes, I know, but Fawlkin doesn’t. And he’ll wish to take it out on you. Think: who is most likely to have inspired the rebellion? The public was terrified into seeming apathy before you came out of the tower.”
“Have I been foolish? Have I done wrong?” Lifting a trembling hand, Vincent took a sip of sherry.
“You did what you believed was right.” Radcliffe downed his glass, set it down, and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad result, my boy. Dare I say the means may justify the ends?”
Vincent frowned and knit his brow. He wasn’t sure he agreed.
When it was time to depart, Vincent felt calmer but still melancholy, as he stepped out of the portrait studio. As the door closed behind him, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye seconds before strong hands gripped firmly onto each of his upper arms.
Vincent froze and felt a flutter of panic in his chest. “What the deuce!”
“You’re coming with us to see his Honor,” one of several cloaked figures said in a deep voice, dragging Vincent forward.
Vincent turned toward his barouche and four at the side of the road and widened his eyes at the coachman, Hugh Smith. Vincent had no time to observe whether Smith saw him. The Marshals yanked him to the right and trudged along the walk in the opposite direction from the barouche.
Vincent struggled and tried to shake them off, but their grips were firm, and he sensed a cluster of other adversaries directly behind him, keeping up these Marshals’ pace. “Are you bamming me? This is preposterous!”
The Marshal on his left said, “Nothing of the sort, milord. Releasing you from the tower was a grave mistake, if you ask me.”
The cloaked figure on his right said, “You’ll always be a traitor, even without your magic powers.”
Vincent’s attempts to shake off the Marshals proved futile. “I believe posterity will prove you are the traitors, not I.”
Vincent heard shouts on the street. “Oy! What do you think you’re doing!” Despite the tight grips on his arms, Vincent managed to turn sufficiently to glimpse a small group of young women in working clothes charging toward the Marshals from several feet away.
But the Marshals shoved Vincent forward to their carriage. Two Marshals who tagged behind fired pistols at the women. Vincent heard screams and the sound of running feet on the cobblestones.
Vincent worried for the ladies’ safety. He called, “Please come no closer! I was hoping this would happen!” His concern was unnecessary, since the witnesses appeared to have turned and scattered. The only figure he saw was dashing through the door of a shop across the street.
A Marshal behind him muttered something about Bedlam before giving him another shove. Vincent thought: Let the Marshals think I’m mad for wishing to be captured and taken to Cornelius Fawlkin. His words were true and, to his mind, sane. Since the previous night, he had been wishing to speak with Fawlkin, because he had a plan to resolve their differences with words, not violence. Vincent surmised that, considering the events of the previous night and early morning, Fawlkin would surely realize his moment of power was finished.
One of the adversaries behind Vincent shoved him, forcing him to stumble forward. He winced with soreness in the sockets of his arms, as the two cloaked figures flanking him still grasped his arms tightly and didn’t step forward quite fast enough to prevent yanking him.
After only a few steps, the Marshals nudged Vincent up into a carriage. He clambered aboard. Two Marshals already occupied the carriage on the side away from the curb. He slid across the seat until he sat beside one of them. The other Marshals noisily joined them with much rustling of fabric and thumping of feet followed by the slamming of the wide carriage door. This was a capacious barouche, like a public coach.
The cloaked figure who had accused Vincent of being a traitor said, “Dem your impudence, boy! We work for the most important branch of the government.”
The Marshal to Vincent’s left was a tall figure whose head nearly brushed against the roof of the carriage. He said in a deep voice, “Be silent! Your chattering is getting on my nerves!”
The first Marshal shrugged. “You never were a talkative type. That’s your problem!”
“We aren’t here to chat with this traitor! We’re here to take him to the Honorable Fawlkin.”
“La, what is so honorable about such behavior?” Vincent raised his eyebrows at the cloaked figure directly across from him. He stuck his nose up in the air. “You abduct a harmless boy—”
“Oy, what a laugh! You’re hardly what I would call harmless!”
“You forget I no longer have my powers, after my confinement in the tower.” Vincent, whose fingers were crossed behind his lapel, hoped they believed this ruse.
“Poor baby,” one of the cloaked figures sneered. This one hadn’t previously spoken.
Vincent glowered at this figure, whose hood was pulled down so far that it must obstruct his vision. Vincent said, “If you’re so proud of your work, so certain you’re in the right, then why do you hide your faces under those hoods?”
The cloaked figure on Vincent’s right tightened his grip on his bicep until Vincent winced. “Silence, boy!”
Vincent took a deep breath. He didn’t wish to obey orders, but he anticipated bruises on his arms and shoulders after this ordeal, assuming he survived meeting with Fawlkin in his office, his territory. For all Vincent knew, Fawlkin would order his execution. Worse, Fawlkin might eat his soul. He was an unscrupulous monster, inclined to change laws more readily than follow them.
Perhaps I should remain silent and pliant until they take me to Fawlkin. Vincent closed his eyes. He would indeed be meeting his adversary at last. It would be time to act, he surmised, if he lived long enough to do so.
Vincent turned with the intention to gaze out the window during what would inevitably be a tense ride, but as though reading his mind, Marshals drew the curtains in each window. The fabric proved to be heavy and black, ensuring a passenger such as Vincent had no opportunity to enjoy scenery. He sighed deeply, sat back, and closed his eyes. Perhaps the Marshals would keep quiet and allow him to meditate, something he’d never tried during a bumpy carriage ride.
Vincent closed his eyes and meditated on sound. The clopping of the horses and rattling of the carriage were loud, though not quite loud enough to prevent him from hearing the voices of pedestrians and street hawkers calling, selling buns, pies, fruit, and vegetables. A total of six Marshals occupied the barouche with Vincent, who had the less than pleasant experience of smelling one Marshal’s flatulence in the close confines of the carriage. Vincent wrinkled his nose without opening his eyes.
For the remainder of the short ride, Vincent sensed most of those half-dozen Marshals disliked him. Not only did they sit stiffly and refuse to speak politely to him, but in addition they emanated hostility. It made his nerves flutter faintly. This intense awareness of others’ energy, he reminded himself, was the cost of being a powerful Sensitive.
The carriage stopped, Vincent surmised, near the Magistrates’ Court. He opened his eyes. A Marshal whose hood had slipped back enough to show some of his face turned to Vincent and gave him a murderous glare. “You wait here.”
Vincent raised his eyebrows and watched three cloaked figures slip out the opposite door. He waited and made futile attempts to make eye contact with the Marshal sitting straight across from him, who hadn’t pulled down his hood during the ride.
The door on Vincent’s immediate left flew open, and down below stood the first three Marshals. The closest, who had growled at him before descending, reached a long arm up and grabbed Vincent’s wrist.
Vincent sighed and began to slide toward the door. “That isn’t necessary, you know.”
As he slipped down from the carriage, Vincent thought it fitting that the sky was overcast, dark gray, with a menacing black cloud hovering directly above the Marshals’ carriage. Six Marshals surrounded Vincent on the sidewalk. Sure enough, the edifice before them was a court building across the street from the burnt-out shell, formerly the Magistrates’ Court. Architecturally it was much the same, a four-story Georgian stone structure.
Flanked by two Marshals, Vincent reluctantly ascended the stairs. He recognized a face he didn’t think he would ever again see. The Marshals tugged on his arms and snapped something at him, but their voices and tugs seemed afar.
Rupert Caldecott stopped a few steps above and scowled at Vincent. The tutor was as well-clad as Vincent remembered but had acquired a few gray hairs. Vincent wondered if stress caused the grayness and if Caldecott admitted even to himself that his reprehensible work vexed him.
Vincent stared back and was too flustered to remember good manners. “Caldecott. What the blue blazes are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you, Lord Whisperwood. I see you’re still a troublemaker. I have nothing to hide or of which to feel ashamed, having merely stopped at Fawlkin’s office to update him on the progress I’ve made in teaching an entire Sensitive family how evil Sensitives are. And you?”
The Marshals paused and stood still on the steps. Apparently they respected Caldecott.
Vincent wished he had quelled his outburst before it came out—yet he observed Caldecott sounded defensive, as though unsure of his own innocence. Vincent ignored his former tutor’s question and raised his eyebrows. “Then you are teaching lies. Where does this family reside now? In a dungeon, I suppose. I trust you enjoy calling on them in such a place.”
Caldecott scowled as though he thought his facial expression could kill. “No, they occupy a tower of their own mansion. I’m sure you can relate.” He scanned the Marshals, and his mouth twisted into a vicious grin. “I trust you’ll experience that again soon, though I hope I shan’t be your tutor this time.”
Vincent almost felt relieved as the two Marshals resumed dragging him up the stairs rather than allow him to continue these unpleasantries.
Caldecott, for one, only moved to turn around and watch with a great deal of satisfaction as the Marshals took Vincent through the double doors. Vincent imagined him thinking, That arrogant boy will get his comeuppance at last. No doubt he was the one who started all this rebellion, for it began soon after his imprisonment ended.
The two Marshals flanking Vincent held firmly onto each of his arms and practically dragged him up the steps. “Where are you taking me?” Vincent gasped.
“His Honor’s new office,” one of the cloaked figures said. “Now shut your mouth!”
Vincent was struck silent with shock that someone would address him in such a disrespectful manner. He began trembling uncontrollably. It was quite as though he were reliving his capture and the beginning of his imprisonment. He would as lief die as undergo that ordeal yet again.
Vincent had grown so much during his three years in the tower that, at five foot ten, he was close in height to each of the cloaked figures. It was quite different when he was a boy of fourteen and dwarfed by all the Marshals. Yet his heart pounded furiously, and he felt as though he were having a nightmare, so it wasn’t terribly easy for him to keep up the marching pace of these two Marshals. Vincent was also all too conscious of the four other Marshals marching behind them. He stepped quickly for fear that their stomping boots would tread his heels.
Entering the building, they continued moving at the same pace across a large front hall with several closed doors and a sweeping staircase. They moved steadily to a side door.
Straight ahead, the door flew open. A grotesque figure with a gloating sneer stood on the threshold and crossed his arms. “Very well done, Marshals,” Cornelius Fawlkin said to the cloaked guards. “Bring him in here.”
Vincent’s heart pounded wildly. He reminded himself of the crowd in the street. Fawlkin was extremely unpopular and surely knew it. That put Fawlkin at a disadvantage, although meeting Fawlkin on his territory put himself at a disadvantage.
The Marshals prodded Vincent forward, and with two of them still holding him by the arms, he reluctantly headed straight to the open door. Fawlkin, with a corner of his mouth turned up, slipped silently through the door. Vincent realized that, despite his intention to attempt reason with Fawlkin, he felt numb, as though his emotions were muted and dream-like.
Inside a small, cupboard-like office with only one high window, a desk, and two chairs, the Marshals released Vincent. He straightened up and pulled on his lapels while the cloaks bowed reverentially to their leader. The walls felt too close. Vincent doubted all six Marshals could fit into the office and, with a sideways glance, confirmed that only the two holding him had crossed the threshold. Behind the desk stood Fawlkin, smugly grinning.