When Gods Die

Intent on intercepting the Home Secretary before he left Whitehall for the Regent’s fete, Sebastian directed his coachman toward Westminster.

The shadows were only just beginning to lengthen toward evening; the Regent’s first guests wouldn’t be arriving for hours. But the streets were already packed with crowds surging toward Carlton House in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the exiled French royal family and two thousand noblemen and -women arriving at what was being called the grandest, most extravagant sit-down dinner in the history of the European monarchy. By the time Sebastian’s carriage had passed Temple Bar and swung onto the Strand, the horses were barely moving. They sidled nervously in their traces, the lightly sprung coach rocked from side to side by the jostling crowd.

Sebastian threw open the door. “Get the carriage out of this,” he shouted to his coachman. “I’ll make better time on foot.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Leaving the carriage awash in a sea of ragged humanity, Sebastian threaded his way through a crowd that grew increasingly surly as he neared Somerset House. “They say they’s gonna let us in tomorrow to look at the place,” yelled one man. “Them nobs, they get to eat and drink their fill. All we getta do is look.”

“Hear, hear,” murmured a score of men near him.

Sebastian pushed on, aware of the sullen looks being cast his way. He found himself regretting the exquisitely cut coat of fine blue cloth, the skintight leather breeches and shining top boots that unmistakably marked him as a gentleman. Prinny had planned this fete as a grand celebration of the inauguration of his Regency. But it occurred to Sebastian as he looked into the sweating, bitter faces around him that the Prince had misjudged his populace. People were angry, resentful. Tomorrow, the Prince would again leave London for Brighton. What better time, thought Sebastian, to stage a coup?

Someone up ahead began to sing, “Not a fatter fish than he/Flounders round the polar sea….”

An ugly chorus of jeers swelled through the crowd. A dozen more voices took up the ditty, “See his blubber and his gills/What a world of drink he swills….”

“Oy, who ye think yer shovin’ there?” growled a voice behind Sebastian.

Sebastian threw a glance over his shoulder. A dark-haired man with a craggy face, lips peeled back and jaw set in determination, was pushing his way through the crowd, his gaze fixed on Sebastian.

The mob surged, hemming in Sebastian. Craggy Face lunged, his right hand fisted around a dagger. Sebastian tried to feint to the left, but the crowd was too close. The searing edge of the blade slid across his ribs, slicing through coat, waistcoat, and shirt to nick the flesh beneath.

“Every fish of generous kind,” sang the throng, “scuds aside or shrinks behind….”

“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian, bringing the edge of his hand chopping down on the man’s wrist. “You’ve ruined another of my coats!”

Craggy Face yelped. His fist reflexively opened to drop the knife into a scuffle of rough-booted feet.

“But about his presence keep,” roared the crowd, “all the monsters of the deep….”

The man grabbed for Sebastian’s arm. Cupping his left hand over his right fist, Sebastian drove his elbow back into Craggy Face’s stomach. The man’s eyes flared wide, the breath gusting out of his pursed lips as he doubled over. He stumbled back, careening into a carpenter’s apprentice in a paper cap.

“’Ey, what the ’ell?” the apprentice swore, his fists coming up.

Twisting around, Sebastian scanned the sweat-sheened, hostile sea of faces around him, lit now by the rich golden light of a fading day. His head swam with the close-packed odors of sunbaked stone and brick, of hot men and foul breath. He saw a clean-shaven man with dark hair and a patrician nose, and recognized him from the alley near the Norfolk Arms. Then Sebastian’s gaze locked with the hard gray stare of a man whose auburn head towered above the ragged crowd.

The Earl of Portland wore the dark, unassuming coat of a man who has dressed with the intent of not calling attention to himself. At his side Sebastian glimpsed a familiar, half-grown lad: Nathan Brennan from Ha’penny Court.

“Bloody hell,” Sebastian swore under his breath. How many more were there?

A fat baker with graying whiskers threw back his head and sang, “Name or title what has he? Is he Regent of the sea?”

Sebastian cast a quick glance up the Strand. The crowd ahead was too thick, too hostile for Sebastian to have any hope of pushing his way through it. He began to slip sideways, edging his way toward a narrow lane he could see opening up just beyond the alehouse on his right.