May 1817

On Sunday afternoon, the blacksmith's apprentice knocked on the servants' door in the back of Duffield Hall and delivered into the arguably capable hands of the hall-boy a letter from Mr. Hastings to "Miss Margaret." The hall-boy gave it to the footman, who gave it to the butler, who gave it to Mrs. Hughes, who finally tracked Maggie down and handed her the letter with a stern warning not to let it distract her from her work. Maggie tucked it in her pocket almost as soon as she received it; she didn't need more than a glance at the writing on the front to know who it was from and what news it likely contained. It weighed heavily all through her afternoon work, and it was nearly three when she had the chance to read it— just in time. She made up an errand to Mrs. Hughes, and she and Milly hurried across town to Yew Tree Farm.

Neither of them talked much. Milly seemed rather preoccupied, and she rebuffed Maggie's few attempts at conversation. Maggie didn't mind; she was not in the mood to discuss trivialities, and any more serious topic of conversation shouldn't be spoken of where there was a possibility of being overheard. Eagerness and anxiety swirled in equal measures in Maggie's stomach. Now was the time for the success or failure of her plan to protect the Johannites from her brother's scrutiny to be revealed. She hoped desperately for success.

The others were already there when the women arrived, and Hastings smiled tightly as he invited them into the farmhouse.

"I hope this means you have good news," Maggie said.

Hastings shrugged one shoulder and closed the door firmly behind them. "I'm not sure."

Maggie's stomach sank, and she exchanged a glance with Milly. For some reason, Milly looked nervous as well.

Ainsworth was pacing the length of the kitchen when they entered. His red hair was mussed, as though he had run his hands through it multiple times in agitation. "Three more men were given their walking papers this week," he said without preamble. "All from Greene's mill, all for no reason but a whim."

"James and I will talk to them," Hastings said. "Get 'em angry, maybe get 'em in with us."

Goddard nodded his agreement. "Anyone we know well?"

"Cole, Branson, and Whitby." Ainsworth sighed. "I know Whitby well enough. His wife is Sarah's cousin. But, my friends, that is precisely why I called this meeting. It is increasingly clear to me that talk isn't good enough now. We have been talking, to each other and to other men, for months now. You will all notice that our number hasn't grown."

As Ainsworth spoke, Maggie felt a pit of dread growing in her stomach. She thought she knew what Ainsworth's speech was leading up to, but she hoped she was wrong. Not now, of all times, with John Childermass snooping around and the militia breathing down all our necks! She wanted to shake Ainsworth and yell at him not to act out of blind temper.

"We are beyond talk, my friends," Ainsworth continued grimly. "The time has come for action. We must demonstrate that we will no longer allow ourselves to be treated in such a way, with no regard for our families or our livelihood. We must refuse the cruelty and the abasement, not only for ourselves but for Cole, Branson, Whitby, and the thousands of other men in this country just like us. We are Johannites, and the time has come to prove it. Johannites do not just talk." He paused in his pacing and looked around at his enraptured audience. "My friends, we have been ignored for too long. Let us do something that cannot be overlooked or dismissed. I believe the target is obvious."

A short silence followed his pronouncement, as though a spell had fallen over the kitchen and frozen the inhabitants in place. Maggie hardly dared to breathe for fear of shattering the fragile moment. A creeping sort of dread slowly seized her as the company sat quietly, contemplating Ainsworth's words. He had set them all upon a dangerous path, and Maggie wasn't sure if she was prepared to follow.

"This is madness," Milly whispered.

Every eye in the room turned to her.

"I beg your pardon?" said Ainsworth.

Milly glanced nervously at Maggie but lifted her chin to meet Ainsworth's eyes. "This is madness. You cannot achieve what you want by— by burning down the mill. You think that will make the owner want to hire more men?"

Ainsworth opened his mouth to speak, but Goddard cut him off. "Miss Greene," he said in a tone much colder than his usual affable state, "if you are uninterested in taking part in a revolution, why on Earth are you here?"

"I am here for the same reason as the rest of you," Milly said. "I believe in a better future. But you cannot get there through wanton destruction!"

"What do you propose we do?" Hastings asked. "Peter's right. Talking's gotten us nowhere."

Milly seemed to be at a loss for words, and she quailed beneath the unfriendly stares still aimed at her. "I do not know what you should do. Talk to more people, perhaps, or change your strategy. But please, sirs, this is a mistake. This is not what the Raven King would want."

"Oh, you know him personally, do you?" said Ainsworth. "Very good friends you must be, if he trusts you to speak for him."

Milly said nothing and glared at a knot in the wood of the table.

"Miss le Roy, you've said nothing on this topic," Hastings said. "What are your thoughts?"

Maggie had scarcely had time to gather her thoughts, and now she was expected to voice them! She took a deep breath to give herself a moment to think. Ainsworth wasn't thinking rationally, but maybe she could make him see sense. "I regret to say, sirs," she began hesitantly. "I agree with Milly. The time isn't right— public opinion is against us, and we have no way of knowing if any action we take would bring us good or ill will."

Hastings looked at her sadly. "You sound like your brother."

Maggie started at that. "You spoke with him?"

"This morning," Hastings said with a nod. "Just after church. I told him nothing. Only…" he frowned. "He asked me how I knew you. I replied that I did not, and I referred to you as Miss Childermass. I'm not entirely sure he believed me."

Maggie sighed. John was too clever by half, the bastard. She couldn't be sure if Hastings had evaded whatever trap her brother had laid for him, and she wouldn't know until she spoke with John again. "That's alright," she said. "I'm sure nothing will come of it."

Hastings didn't look convinced.

"I spoke with Mr. Childermass as well," said Ainsworth. "Obviously, he did not join our cause, but he told me he believed England is in such turmoil that any spark could start the flame of a revolution. He put it in rather less favorable terms, of course, but that is the essence of what he told me." He strode to the window and paused, his face in profile outlined by the afternoon sun. "My dear friends, I believe we are meant to be that spark. If there is to be a revolution, let it be ours, and let us— and the Raven King— build a better England from the ashes."

"Hear, hear," said Goddard quietly.

"What'll it be, ladies?" Hastings asked.

Maggie had made her choice months ago out of the few that were available to her. Suddenly, and for the first time, she wondered if she had made the wrong one. The men couldn't possibly believe they were ready for a revolution, could they? Who on Earth would join them, if they moved now? Ainsworth was hasty, too hasty by far. She glanced at Milly and saw her worries reflected in her friend's eyes. "We must take time to consider it," Maggie said. "This is too important to be decided on lightly."

Hastings shook his head. "I admit, I'm disappointed, Miss le Roy. I hadn't taken you for a coward."

Maggie pressed her lips together, stung. Practicality is not the same as cowardice! she wanted to scream, but her dear Hastings was nothing if not stubborn. It was a dangerous mixture— Ainsworth's temper and Hastings's stubbornness. The one was inflamed too easily, and the other would never back down once committed to a fight. "I am not a coward," she said eventually, "because I am not afraid. But I can't support your burning down the mill. The time is wrong. You don't know if men will rally to your cause if you go through with this plan! There is more work to be done first, more—" she gestured helplessly. "Recruiting. Organizing. We must have more men on our side before we take action."

"It always starts small," said Hastings quietly. "Men doubt change. How could we not, when it is beaten into us since we are born that nothing can change, and we must be content with our lot in life? But we can give them hope, Miss le Roy." He reached across the table to grasp Maggie's hand in both of his. "Don't you hope for a better future?"

"Of course I do," Maggie said. "But you're not thinking about this. What happens after you burn the mill? How will you protect yourselves from being arrested?"

"We won't get caught," said Hastings. "We go in at night, as Johannites do. And as for afterward—" his face hardened into a frown. "We do it again, and again, and again, as many times as it takes to show the lords and the factory owners that we are not a force to be lightly ignored. Men were afraid, but they're getting angrier every day."

"Aye, and do you think men will be angry with you or at you?" Maggie asked.

Hastings smiled— not the warm, genuine smile Maggie had seen so often directed at herself or his daughters, but a cold, predatory sort of baring of the teeth. It was not an expression she had ever seen on his face, and it troubled her to see it now. "Both, at first, but anger can be directed like light through a lens, and then, my dear Miss le Roy, you may ignite a flame."

Maggie looked to Goddard for support— surely genial, good-humored Goddard could not agree to such a reckless plan!— but he seemed as resolved as the other two men. No hesitance, no uncertainty clouded his expression. "Many men would only join us after a show of defiance. This is only the beginning, Miss le Roy, Miss Greene. This should have been clear to you when you agreed to join our cause."

"It was," Maggie said. "When I joined, I agreed with your reasons, and I still do. It is your plan, your bloody foolish plan, I take issue with."

Hastings snorted. "Now you really sound like your brother."

Maggie ignored him. "We know each other's thoughts. It seems I can't stand with you, for this endeavour, at least. I hope that afterward, regardless of your success or failure, we may be united in purpose once more."

"You had best leave, then," said Ainsworth gently. "So you will be quite innocent when the time comes."

There was a stretch of silence where none of the Johannites could meet each other's eyes. Maggie expected to feel sadness or betrayal, but perhaps that would come later— now she felt only a cold sort of shock, like the time she had been knocked over in the street following a failed pickpocketing attempt, and all the breath had left her body. She had been left disoriented, her head spinning as she gasped for air. It left very little room for other emotions, like disappointment at her failure or anger at her own incompetence.

Milly was the first to speak. "We should get back to the house. We both have work."

Maggie, still catching her breath, could only nod in agreement. It took only a moment for her and Milly to gather their things, hurrying about the kitchen like scullery-maids who had taken too long to make up the fireplace and must now escape the judgemental eyes of the mistress of the house while smudged head to toe with soot.

"Well, that's put a bit of a damper on things," Maggie heard Goddard say as she and Milly slipped down the hall and out into the garden.

She had failed. Or perhaps she had succeeded, to her own detriment— if John had known from the beginning about her involvement, maybe he could have done more to prevent the Johannites from making a move. Either way, they were heading toward disaster, and Maggie could do nothing to stop it.

Or perhaps—

Ainsworth talked a great deal about love, in his speeches. He loved his country and his countrymen, and he loved the Raven King, and most of all, he loved his wife.

Sarah was scattering grain for the chickens out by the coop. She looked up in askance as Maggie and Milly passed her by. Maggie hesitated, then turned back to face her. "Madam, your husband is a reckless man."

Sarah scarcely looked surprised, despite the odd greeting. "What has he gotten himself into now?"

"It is not what he has gotten into. It is what he plans on getting us all into— or the men, at least." Maggie glanced at Milly before continuing. "Ask your husband about his plans for the mill. I daredn't say more, but perhaps he will listen to you, though he would not listen to us."

"That'll be the day," Sarah said darkly. "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon," Maggie echoed, and she and Milly set off for the house once more.

Milly managed to escape Maggie's fearful grasp just before they reached the house by claiming to have forgotten some necessary article in her cottage. She felt guilty for the falsehood, far more guilty than she had felt for any others she had told in the past month. Maggie looked lost and uncertain in a way that Milly had never seen before, and she knew her friend was in need of comfort and reassurance. Milly wanted nothing more than to clasp Maggie in her arms and brush her shining pale hair back from her brow. She wanted to do everything she could to ease the burden of Maggie's heart. But first, Milly had decisions to make.

There were no good roads from here, she knew. Milly could not allow her father's mill to be burned, thus casting her family so deeply into financial ruin that they would be beyond all hope of recovery. She had a duty to Oakes, her cousin who had offered to become her husband— and therefore did she not also have a duty to herself, to protect her own future? Did she wish to be a governess forever, scorned by servants and nobility alike, for she could never truly be either? Certainly not! She must warn Captain Oakes of the plan to burn down the mill, and thus save her family from ruin.

Oh, but if she did, she would have to reveal how she knew of it— and she would have to reveal her own involvement. Oakes would want to make arrests. He would press her for the names of all the Johannites, and she had always been a terrible liar. Sooner or later, his eye would fall on Maggie. It would be hopeless to lie. She oughtn't even attempt it. She should put her life behind her and find a new position in a new house. It would not be so difficult, the second time around. Mrs. Porter was sure to give her a good reference. But she would lose everything— she would never escape the solitary life of a governess, and her family would succumb to debt, and it would all be her fault.

If she spoke, she would lose Maggie. If she did not, she would lose everything else. Milly could no longer walk two roads: the time had come to decide. She fell back on her bed and stared at the ceiling as though the grain of the wood might arrange itself to spell out the correct answer. That had been something the Raven King once did, hadn't it? He had sent messages in strange, supernatural fashions. Maybe he would reward her faith, such as it was, by revealing the correct path to her.

Milly thought about the Raven King, and about loyalty. Who was she loyal to? Maggie, or her family, or herself?

She couldn't continue to walk two paths, but maybe she could still salvage something of her future.

"I want to make a bargain with you," Milly said. She looked up from the delicate table in Captain Oakes's makeshift sitting room and met the captain's eyes.

Oakes paused in the act of pouring tea. "What manner of bargain?"

"I have information about the Johannites that will allow you to make arrests. I have uncovered their names and their plans. I will tell you, under two conditions."

Oakes nearly dropped the teapot. "Certainly I agree!" he said as he fumbled for a napkin to wipe up the spill. "What are your conditions?"

"Firstly, that you guarantee they will not be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If you execute them, they may very well become martyrs, and you may have an uprising on your hands. You will have to go through all the trouble of putting it down. I doubt my father would appreciate even more trouble, wouldn't you agree?"

Oakes nodded slowly, his blue eyes wide. "Yes, execution seems rather extreme for men who have taken no illegal actions. It seems prudent to deal with this quietly."

Milly smiled. Truly, her father was lucky to have a nephew so obliging. "Secondly, there is a woman I want protected. And in return—" Milly took a deep breath. "I accept your offer of marriage, if it still stands."

Oakes's face lit up in a brilliant smile. "I am glad to hear it, Miss Greene. I believe the Baron Segrave will be delighted with our union."

He will be a tolerable husband, Milly thought dispassionately. It is easy enough to keep him happy. Out loud, she said, "I agree. I suggest you write to him for his blessing after we conclude our meeting. I have no doubt that he will give it happily."

Oakes nodded eagerly, then very shyly took Milly's hand and kissed it. Milly closed her eyes and willed her tears away. "You must be very careful with the information I give you," she warned. Her voice held a slight tremor, and she took a deep breath to collect herself. "The Johannites have decided to make a public move. Their goal is to burn down my father's textile mill."

"Burn down the mill!" Oakes repeated, his eyes wide. "How horrible!"

"Well, they are Johannites," said Milly dryly. "This sort of behavior is only to be expected."

A frown flickered across Oakes's expressive face. "I suppose so," he said. "Who is this woman you want protected?"

"Maggie. That is— Miss Margaret le Roy. She is a maid up at the hall."

"The same hall in which you are a governess?"

Milly inclined her head.

"By the by, I hope you have no plans of continuing your work after we are married."

Milly did not like being a governess— rather, she did not like the loneliness that came with the position. She could not eat with the servants, nor could she eat with the family, so she ate alone— except, sometimes, for Maggie. Even so, she bristled. "And why not? Do you think it inappropriate for married women to work?"

"Certainly not!" Oakes looked baffled at Milly's sudden irritation. "It is only that— ahem. I had assumed you would be joining me in managing the estate. After all, you grew up there. It is your home, and I am unfamiliar with its inner workings."

"Oh." Milly's temper cooled as quickly as it had flared. "Yes, I suppose I will."

Oakes smiled at her. "That's settled, then. Tell me, why does Miss le Roy need protection, and from whom?"

Milly's stomach clenched, and she had to remind herself that she was doing this both for Maggie's good and the good of her own family. She only wished that it did not feel so much like a betrayal. "From you, Captain Oakes," she said. "Because Miss le Roy is associated with the Johannites."

To her own credit, Milly told herself later as she stared into the darkness above her bed, she had not dramatized the moment. She had not fallen prey to hysteria, that mysterious illness which men so often accused women with whom they disagreed, or whose views they deemed too radical, of harboring. She had told Oakes only the facts, and she had cautioned him against acting without care. Certainly, she had betrayed her friends and her principles— but at least she had done it cleanly.

Milly wondered when Oakes would act. She hoped he would not over-publicize the arrests; she didn't want her name associated with the Johannites in the public consciousness in any form. Notoriety was bad for one's social circle, and Milly would need every advantage she could get if she wished to rejoin polite society— which, apparently, she did. And of course, there was the matter of Maggie. She had saved Maggie from imprisonment, but there was no doubt in Milly's mind: they would not be friends, afterward. Maggie would hate her forever, but at least she would not hate her from the confines of a cell.

And what had Milly gained for her treachery? She was not so naïve to believe that she alone had saved her family's fortune, but she had at least prevented them from sinking irreparably into debt. The Baron Segrave was canny; surely his business sense would pull them the rest of the way out of the hole. He would be delighted to hear of her intentions to marry Oakes (a not-insignificant portion of that delight, Milly knew, would be because he would not have to set her up with a living). She had won herself security, the potential for respectability, and a husband, and all it had cost her was an act of betrayal worthy of the worst villains in history.

Milly rolled over and buried her face in the pillow and very determinedly did not allow herself to cry. Her slumber, when it came for her, was disturbed by dreams of the Raven King. He taunted her and darted between the shadows of trees in a massive wood, until the trees became the bars of a cell, and Milly realized she was trapped.