A Star Shall Fall

The Lord Keeper picked up a neatly bound stack of newspapers, grimacing as the cheap ink came off on his fingers. “Sanist reactions are as you would expect. The profound lack of logic and reasoning on display is nothing short of astounding; some have leapt to the conclusion that the Calendar Room operates by draining your life, madam, and that you are therefore mortal now.”

Lune sighed. She knew better than to think the common subjects of her realm were all stupid; some goblins and pucks were very clever indeed, just as some of her courtiers were utter fools. But many of those common fae were uneducated, knowing nothing beyond what their own natures inclined them to, and that made them easy prey for rumors.

Some of which, she knew, were spread deliberately.

Aspell shook his head before she could ask. “I do agree with you, madam, that there is a leadership of some kind among the Sanists—a group actively seeking your replacement. But they are more careful than the fools who drink in the Crow’s Head. I doubt we’ll be able to find them until they make a clear move.”

The fact that he was right made it no easier to swallow. And even if she broke up the Sanist leadership, the sentiments would remain; it might give her a brief respite, but nothing more.

She lifted one hand to pinch her brow, then made herself lower it. While there was no great warmth between the two of them, she couldn’t fault Aspell’s effectiveness; he’d served her almost continually since her accession to the throne, and proved his use more times than she could count. Sooner or later he would find the right thread to pull, and unravel this knot.

She just hoped it came sooner. It would be pleasant to have one less problem to deal with.

“Keep watch over Carline,” Lune said at last. “If she isn’t involved, they may yet approach her. Inform me if you uncover any signs of trouble.”

Ordinarily she put the Lord Keeper’s spies to a variety of uses, but they were useless in the matter of the comet, and the Sanists were by far her second greatest worry. Anything else could wait. Valentin Aspell bowed deeply and said, “Madam, I will do everything I can.”

ST. JAMES, WESTMINSTER

14 February 1758

Miserably chill rain washed across Westminster in sporadic waves, but the interior of Gregory’s was warm, and laden with the competing scents of coffee, wig powder, perfume. The close of the Christmas holidays, the sitting of Parliament, and the prospect of approaching spring meant the quality were returning to London from their country estates, and marshaling themselves for the beginning of the Season.

Of Galen’s companions, two had retired in such fashion, while one—like him—had stayed in London, for lack of money to make that country estate habitable. Today was the first renewed gathering of their usual club, which Mayhew had dubbed the Feckless Scions. It was more a joke than anything else. They were just a small group of friends meeting in a coffeehouse; nothing like so organised as White’s, or even the clubs of the whores or the Negroes. It was, however, the only one Galen belonged to. There was one for men associated with the fae, but it was an awkward thing; they were too mismatched of a lot, and as Prince, he felt very self-conscious in attending.

Besides, those men would not have been able to help him with his current problem. Galen drained his coffee cup, clapped it onto the table, and said, “Friends, I need your assistance. I have to find a wife.”

His declaration met with appalled looks. Jonathan Hurst, eldest of their coterie at twenty-five, said, “What for? By any decent standard, you’ve got at least five more years of free whoring ahead of you, before being shackled to a wife.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve sired a bastard,” Laurence Byrd said suspiciously.

Peter Mayhew smacked him on the shoulder. “He said find a wife, idiot. If he had a bastard, logic says it would come with a woman attached.”

“Not if the mother’s dead, or unsuitable! He might need another woman to raise the child for him.”

“I don’t,” Galen said, before their speculations could saddle him with enough scandal to occupy society gossips for a week. “There’s no child—at least not that I know of. But my father is forcing my hand.”

Noises of comprehension sounded around the table. All had met his father, and knew Charles St. Clair’s manner. “It had to happen sooner or later,” Byrd agreed, his countenance now sympathetically gloomy. “Well, there’s one silver lining: the sooner you’re married, the sooner you get out from under his thumb. You have that to look forward to, at least.”

For what it was worth. Galen knew better than to believe his wedding and departure from Leicester Fields would mean freedom from his father. He knew men of thirty years’ age who still flinched when their sires spoke.