‘It gave me an opportunity,’ Father had said, his blue-green eyes bloodshot but no less penetrating. ‘An opportunity to use my Skill in ways that would be frowned upon back home. I was curious. And I found that I enjoyed it.’
Then he had told a detailed anecdote about exactly how he had used his Skill. It had Gavar putting down his glass of Scotch and not touching it again all night. He had never asked to hear more of Father’s experiences in the desert.
Whittam didn’t elaborate now, thankfully. The slaves would have been sponging the sick out of the council room carpet for days. But he had the attention of his peers as he continued.
‘My role was to apply what we call “special measures” to selected detainees. On more than one occasion, the information I secured thwarted plans that would have caused thousands of casualties and devastated civilian infrastructure. I mean cities,’ he clarified. ‘Philadelphia and Washington DC, to be exact.
‘Sometimes, those possessed of that information were not whom you might expect: not warlords, but teachers. Not religious leaders, but shopkeepers. All routes to knowledge should be explored by whatever means necessary. It is an error to consider anyone incapable of atrocity or above suspicion. Even the littlest child.’
Gavar remembered that part of his father’s reminiscences, and tasted bile in his mouth. He wondered sometimes if Lord Jardine was not a bit cracked. Wondered, too, if it was from him that he had inherited his own tendency to lose control.
To hurt people.
In fact, he sometimes wondered if he could blame every single thing that had gone wrong in his life on his father. Was that cowardly? Maybe. But it didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
The Equals around the table had fallen silent. The commoner woman was looking at Lord Jardine as if he was some kind of god, her mouth agape. Gavar had himself seen that look on women’s faces and occasionally used it to his advantage, but mostly it just repulsed him.
‘So what exactly are you proposing, Whittam?’ asked the Chancellor. ‘Are you volunteering to go to Millmoor and see what can be obtained from this suspect?’
Zelston motioned to the photograph, but his eyes were on Lord Jardine. Bouda’s gaze was darting eagerly between the pair of them. Even Rix was frowning.
‘Oh no,’ said Father, that smile slashing a little wider. ‘I’m volunteering my son and heir, Gavar.’
The rest of the meeting passed in a blur.
The Millmoor Overseer transferred her hungry expression to Gavar. Rix won his gratitude by reiterating his opinion that Equals shouldn’t lower themselves by going to a slavetown. But Father’s intervention ensured the decision was a foregone conclusion. When the vote came, the use of special measures on the prisoner detained in Millmoor was approved. The result was eleven to one, with only Armeria Tresco dissenting.
Bouda Matravers’s hand had been the first to go up.
Afterwards, as Gavar followed his father down the corridor, he heard the dull tear of high heels through deep carpet as Bouda hurried after them. She placed herself in front of Father, blocking their path.
‘Five minutes,’ she said. ‘We need to talk.’
Father’s face was unreadable, while Gavar experienced a fleeting moment of hope that she would volunteer to go to the slavetown in his place. As if. Bouda had the true politician’s disinclination to get her own hands dirty.
‘Very well.’
Father reached past her and opened the door to a side room. Bouda started talking the minute the handle clicked shut behind them.
‘How did this happen?’ she said, addressing herself entirely to Father as though Gavar were not even there. ‘The observers are under the Silence, and we’ve all accepted the Quiet. How can word have got out? Zelston must have messed up. Performed the acts wrong, or just not been powerful enough.’
She paused. What she’d said was so obvious, it couldn’t possibly be why she had pulled Lord Jardine and his heir into a deserted room for a private conversation.
Father just watched and waited. Gavar had observed, over the years, that this often made people talk, no matter how reluctant they were to share what was in their head. Sadly, he doubted it would work if he tried it on the Millmoor prisoner.
His stomach churned again at the thought of the task he’d been assigned. What would it feel like to carry it out?
What would it feel like to fail?
He’d lived nearly two and a half decades as Lord Whittam Jardine’s eldest son. They left him in no doubt as to which of those options should be more feared.
‘It makes me think Zelston’s not fit to be Chancellor.’
Gavar stared at Bouda as her pent-up thoughts spilled out in a rush.
‘This Proposal should never have been made. Zelston ought to have foreseen something like this. Even if the trouble in Millmoor ends here, it could be Portisbury next, or Auld Reekie the week after. The word is out and we can’t Silence the entire country. Today, until you intervened, he didn’t even have the stomach to take the necessary steps.’
She paused, and drew in a rapid breath.
‘He has another three years left in office. Right now, I’m not convinced that’s in Britain’s best interests.’