The Policeman of Secrets

Chapter 14 Part 1

He headed for the street. “First, though, I think we shall steal a carriage. We have had quite enough exertion already.”

Lord Stone loved the way his steps echoed forcefully around the hallway beneath Parliament. There was something so powerful about the steady, booming rhythm. Get out of the way, it said. A man of vigor is here.

The impression was reinforced by the frightened looks of the people who backed away before him. Some were staff, and therefore unworthy of any consideration whatsoever. Of course they would avoid him; their lack of breeding, and the Subjugation Assembly, told them to. Obey those in green, obey those who carry the silver crests, obey. Obey.

No, what he most enjoyed was seeing those who would have once considered themselves his equal, the Members of Parliament who had only rarely deigned to favor him with their company or patronage as he made his way through their ranks.

Now they were his to use as he would. Now it was he who ruled the country in all but name.

Approaching him along the corridor, exactly as forecast, was Phillip Reynolds, a baronet who called four hundred acres of best Norfolk farmland home. Thanks to Broadstairs’ spies, Stone knew that Reynolds kept three mistresses, two of them the young daughters of a close friend, the decrepit Duke of Northumberland. He was a habitual cheat at cards, and had once, if the rumors were true, murdered a leading German noble who caught him with three jacks where there should have been only one. Not a weak or timid man.

Today all that was history. Now he was nothing but another thrall of the Assembly.

It had been nicely done, Stone had to admit. At his request, Elizabeta had staged a magnificent orgy, inviting eighty of the key players who had, due to ignorance or luck, somehow avoided any of the books the Arcanum had been so careful to distribute. Her reputation for hosting licentious evenings, and her generosity with her favors to both sexes, had encouraged all but a few to attend. Stone stayed away; he preferred to spend his evenings alone or with a handful of intimates, and he had been forced to rely on Broadstairs’ agents for information. Their reports had been most detailed and, experienced as he was, even he had been shocked by the depths to which some might sink in their pursuit of new flesh.

Once the bacchanal was at its height, a naked Elizabeta had taken each person aside and in various ways encouraged them to read the highly erotic book she held, a book of the most invigorating language. It was actually filled with the words of the Subjugation Assembly, and the weakest-willed had fallen within a few lines while others went under after a few pages. Reynolds, who was so indefatigable that he had managed to couple with six women before Elizabeta pressed the book into his hands, had been one of the last to lose his mind. Stone found it all the more satisfying to see such a strong-minded man struck down. Those few who did not attend the evening’s delights were on one of the exhaustive lists compiled by Broadstairs—who was a thorough and diligent man despite his lamentable lack of hygiene—and would all receive their just desserts. It was only a matter of time.

“Ah, Reynolds,” said Stone buoyantly, standing in such a way as to block the other man’s path. “So good to see you.”

There was the pause to which he had become accustomed, as the victim’s addled brain ran through the list of thoughts it had been ordered to follow: the silver device. The green coat. You will follow this man. You will obey.

“Lord Stone.” The voice was not emotionless, but it had none of the life a rake like Reynolds might once have shown.

“You are well, I trust? Not too broken by Lady Elizabeta’s latest soiree?” Stone could not hide the amusement in his tone.