The Royal Sorceress (30 page)

“There are countless young women with no prospects,” Jack said. “Often, they have children and families to feed, and the only things they have to sell are their own bodies. So they go out on the streets, find men coming home from work and offer them sex in exchange for money. And if the man just happens to beat them to death afterwards instead of paying...well, there’s never any shortage of whores.”

He nodded towards a grim-faced man smoking in the darkness. “One of the pimps,” he said, flatly. “The women who don’t have pimps soon find that one will take them into his service, or cripple them if they refuse. He will keep most of their earnings and give them a pittance, if anything at all. And if a stronger pimp comes along, the women will pass to his service while the old pimp is turned into a beggar – or killed. What does it say about a world where a woman in a whorehouse is safer than one on the streets?”

Gwen caught a flicker of magic and barely had time to react before Jack smashed the pimp against the nearest wall. The pimp’s head was crushed, leaving his body to collapse to the ground. Gwen felt sick, yet...surely, the pimp had deserved his fate. He’d sent women out onto the streets to work for him, without caring what happened to them after they died...

“There will be a new one soon enough,” Jack said, darkly. “No judge has ever judged a pimp too harshly, not when half of them use pimps themselves. But the women...they’re convicted of prostitution and sent to jail, or transported overseas. And yet it isn’t really their fault if there’s no other way to make a living. How can anyone judge them too harshly?”

He shook his head, bitterly. “What would have happened to you, I wonder, if you’d grown up on these streets?”

Gwen said nothing. It had honestly never crossed her mind that the poor lived so badly. The servants who had worked for her mother, or worked at Cavendish Hall, had had good clothes and good food; Gwen had never wondered if they might want anything better. She cursed her own oversight even as her eyes stung with tears. How could anyone live like this?

“A few years ago, the Church sent a party of Ministers into the streets to try to put an end to prostitution,” Jack said, as they passed an old church. “They had the idea that the women could work at spinning or weaving instead. But they forgot that machines had replaced women and that they only paid women a few shillings for their work. Even the pimps paid better! And so they went back to their churches and loudly declared that the women were whores who deserved no better than they got. I wonder if they remembered that Jesus spent more time with the poor than with the wealthy?”

Gwen didn’t answer the question. “But surely...someone could do something...”

“Of course they could,” Jack said. “All they would have to do is care. But they don’t care – and why should they? People like your friend Lord Blackburn think that the poor are poor because they deserve to be poor – because they were born poor. The Indians have a caste system, one that confines their lives by patterns of birth. I wonder how long it will be before the poor here discover that they’re trapped in a caste system every bit as brutal.”

He grinned at her, savagely. “I never knew either,” he said. “I was twelve when they discovered my magic; I was twelve when I was taken away and apprenticed to Master Thomas. I never knew about the poor, or what had happened to them. I never knew that the machines we’d invented had pushed so many people off the land and into the cities. I never knew...

“I committed terrible crimes,” he admitted. He looked down at the cobblestones for a long chilling moment. “And if they catch me, they will hang me – but they won’t hang me for any of my crimes. They’ll hang me for wanting to make a difference.”

There was a long moment where he seemed to be lost in his memories. “Come on,” he said. “There’s something you have to see before you decide where you want to go.”

Gwen followed him through the streets, inwardly recoiling at the poverty and squalor all around her. Windows opened and buckets of human waste were tossed out onto the streets, with blithe disregard for anyone underneath when the waste was thrown away. Rats, cats and dogs ran feral, hunting each other and weaker humans; the rats, in particular, carried diseases through the streets. There were a handful of dead bodies lying on the ground, their clothes long since removed by the street gangs along with anything valuable they might have had with them. A small girl, wearing a pretty dress that looked oddly out of place, was selling flowers, offering them to the hardy sailors and workers who were trying to drink themselves to death.

“The girl’s parents will send her out to sell her wares,” Jack explained, as he gave the girl a coin and collected a bunch of flowers, which he made vanish inside his clothes. “The men here are tough bastards, but they often have a soft spot for young children. But there are also men on the streets who want to use children for their sexual games – and if the child dies, no one will care. There are plenty more where she came from.”

He paused, and then looked at her. “Do you know where I found Lord Fitzroy?”

Gwen shook her head. No one had mentioned that at all, which – in hindsight – struck her as odd. But the Fitzroy family was well connected and if they’d wanted to bury something, it could have been buried without the rest of High Society ever guessing at the truth. It would hardly be the first time a nobleman had died under mysterious circumstances.

“I found him in a brothel,” Jack said. Gwen looked up, sharply. She knew that many male noblemen were given to visiting brothels, though she wasn’t supposed to know about them, or even what a brothel
was
. “But this was no ordinary brothel. This one catered for a very select clientele.” He leaned forward. “The people who visited this brothel wanted to have sex with children, girls and boys so young that they hadn’t even begun to mature.”

Gwen stared at him, unable to believe her ears. “They forced their way into the children,” Jack said, sharply. “They were often injured – and the injured were thrown out onto the streets to die. Lord Fitzroy was one of the brothel’s most powerful patrons.”

Abruptly, he turned and headed down the street. Gwen followed him, her mind spinning. If Lord Fitzroy had been having sex with children...she felt revolted, disgusted. She’d been introduced to him, socially, and he’d kissed her hand. It was irrational, but she wanted to scrub her hand thoroughly, scrape off the skin and remove all traces of his lips...Jack was moving faster now and Gwen almost had to run to keep up with him. How could
anyone
do that to a child? How could anyone...?

She looked around her and, for the first time, understood what Jack was trying to tell her. The urban poor had literally nothing to lose, but their chains. Savage repression and ignorance – and magic – was all that kept them from rising up against their masters. And Gwen, if she became the Royal Sorceress, would be a part of that repression. And...what had they done to deserve such suffering? Gwen prided herself on being intellectually honest – and the only thing they’d done wrong was being born to the wrong parents. What was the difference between Gwen and the girl who had been selling flowers, but an accident of birth?

Jack stopped outside a building on the edge of the wealthier part of town. “I’m going to show you something that many people would say wasn’t fit for female eyes,” he said. “Which is very strange, because the things in this building are happening to females.”

He leapt into the air and rose up to the rooftop. Gwen followed him, her mind still spinning, and watched as he opened a hatch and reached down into the darkness. He motioned for her to wait while he dealt with the sentries, and then called for her to come down into the building. The air seemed thicker somehow, glowing with the scent of magic. Gwen watched as Jack created a light with his magic and illuminated the hallway. A handful of doors lay ahead of her, each one with a tiny glimmer of light coming from just above the carpet. Jack slipped forward, listened at one of the doors, and then opened it a crack. Gwen followed and looked inside.

It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing. A pair of naked buttocks – male buttocks – were heaving up and down on the bed. She flushed, almost looking away despite a kind of queasy fascination, and then realised that there were two pairs of feet. There was a woman under the man, gasping as he thrust deeper and deeper into her...Gwen skittered away, flushing bright red. She had never seen a man and a woman having sex before, not ever. It seemed louder than she had expected...

Jack smiled as he opened a second door. This time, the girl was bent over the bed, the man standing behind her and thrusting into her. It looked painful; Gwen was sure that the woman wasn’t enjoying herself at all. Magic rose inside her, only to be dampened by Jack’s presence. He pulled her back to the hatch and they floated up and out, leaving Gwen stunned as one thought kept spinning through her mind. She’d
recognised
the second man. Lord Blackburn was unmistakable.

“The women here aren’t here of their own free will,” Jack said, twenty minutes later. They sat together on the rooftops, looking over in the direction of Buckingham Palace. “Every poor child who shows signs of magical ability is taken by the Royal College. The street gangs get paid for each child they deliver to Master Thomas and his subordinates – very few magical children escape the net. Each of the boys is adopted by a wealthy family, one who can meet his every need. He is encouraged to forget his real parents. The girls are taken to one of the farms, like this building here. They are raised carefully, and then...bred with male magicians, each one eventually becoming pregnant. A pregnant woman is well cared for, but her children are taken from her at birth. The males, again, to be raised by good families and eventually become magicians; the females to be raised in...other establishments before being sent to the farms.”

Gwen found it hard, almost impossible, to comprehend. “But why...?” She managed, finally. “Why all...this madness?”

“It isn’t madness,” Jack said, seriously. “The great advantage Britain has over the rest of the world is an organised magical system. It won’t last and Master Thomas knows it. Here, in places like this, they’re breeding the next generations of magicians. They hope that by...cross-breeding the talents, they will breed more magicians with multiple talents. The results weren’t too successful when I was still working for Master Thomas, but they’ve had plenty of time to experiment since then.”

He looked up at her. “I came out of one of those programs,” he said, softly. “I never knew my real mother or father. I was raised by a wealthy family until Master Thomas came for me. He may even have been my father, Gwen; every male magician in the Royal College is expected to do his bit for the program. Lord Blackburn is far from the only one to come here and attempt to impregnate the girls. None of the poor women have any choice about what happens to them...

“When I found out, I knew that I could no longer stay with Master Thomas,” he admitted. “If you had been born to a poor family, you would have wound up here – or dead.”

He shrugged. “But it’s time for you to head back to Cavendish Hall,” he said. “If you still want to go back, that is...”

Gwen hesitated. “I don’t know,” she admitted. She felt terrible, and confused. “I just don’t know.”

“I understand,” Jack said. He pointed towards Big Ben. “You can find your own way home from here?” Gwen nodded. “We’ll see each other again, sooner or later. And I hope you make the right choice.”

Gwen stared at him. “But what is the right choice?”

Jack chuckled. “The right choice is the one that allows you to sleep soundly at night,” he said. “I wonder just how well Master Thomas sleeps these days.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

W
here the hell have you been?”

Gwen ignored Cannock as the guard showed her into Cavendish Hall. It had been a difficult walk back to the Hall, if only because her mind was spinning. She’d seen Lord Blackburn forcing himself on a woman – and how many others, she asked herself, had done the same over the years? Cannock was a powerful Mover, even though he was a complete pain in her posterior. Had he been ordered to impregnate any number of unwilling women?

“You’re lucky Master Thomas isn’t here,” Cannock said, getting in front of her. Gwen had started to walk towards the stairs, ignoring him. “He’s out on a raid for the police – but he was worried about you. We’ve had all kinds of reports.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Where the hell have you been? And what the hell are you wearing?”

Gwen fixed him with a look that would have done her mother proud. “Take your hand off me, now,” she said, icily. Cannock let go of her and stumbled backwards, either shocked by his breech of etiquette or suddenly reminded that Gwen had far more talents than he possessed. “I am going upstairs to my rooms. You will inform Master Thomas, when he returns, that I am catching up on my sleep. He will doubtless wish to talk to me himself.”

She walked up the stairs, silently daring Cannock to follow her. He shouldn’t have been in charge at Cavendish Hall, but she could see him assuming control if all the senior magicians were out of the building, looking for her. Or perhaps Master Thomas was somewhere other than on a raid. He had made little fuss about her attending David’s birthday dinner…perhaps he was at one of the other farms, impregnating other women. The thought chilled her to the bone as she stumbled into her rooms. She locked the door behind her, even though she knew that any magician with a hint of magic would be able to break through the locks and force his way in. How many women had been sacrificed on the altar of necessity?

Despite herself, she yawned. It had been a long day, even though she’d been unconscious for part of it. She pulled at her outfit, suddenly aware that she must look a sight, and undressed rapidly. The mottled pattern of new skin that she remembered from when she’d been with the underground was rapidly fading. By morning, she suspected, it would be gone completely. The aches and pains still haunting her body were all that remained of injuries that should have killed her outright. Lucy’s talent was a miracle, a miracle that Master Thomas and his men would have done anything to acquire. Absently, Gwen wondered if Lucy had any children – and, if so, if they shared the healing talent. How many other talents were known to the underground, but not to the establishment?