"Those six fine gentlemen were a little impatient. They'd formed a ring, and they'd convinced themselves that the king was a vicious tyrant who would like nothing more than to dream up new ways to torment the workers. You know, I think-judging by your own history hooks how it goes. The mainstream movement spawns tributaries, some of which harbor currents that flow fast and deep.
The Black Fist Freedom Guard, as they called themselves, followed the king in a pair of fast motor carriages until they learned his habitual routes. Then they assassinated him, along with the queen, and one of his two daughters, by means of a petard."
"They what?" Miriam sat down hard. "That's crazy!"
"Yes, it was." Erasmus nodded, calmly enough. "George Frederick himself pulled his dying father from the wreckage. He was already something of a reactionary, but not, I think, an irrational one-until the Black Fist murdered his parents."
"But weren't there guards, or something?" Miriam shoo her head.
"Oh yes, he had security. He was secure in the knowledge that he was the king-emperor, much beloved by the majority of his subjects. Does that surprise you? John Frederick goes nowhere without half a company of guard and a swarm of Polis agents, but his father relied on two loyal constables with pistols. They were injured in the at-tack, incidentally: one of them died later."
He took a deep, shuddering breath, then another sip of the brandy. "The day after the assassination, a state of emergency was declared. Demonstrations ensued. On Black Monday, the seventeenth, a column of demonstrators marching towards the royal complex on Manhattan Island were met by dragoons armed with heavy steam repeaters. More than three hundred were killed, mostly in the stampede. We were... there, but on the outskirts. Annie and I. We had the boys to think of. We obviously didn't think hard enough. The next day, they arrested me. My trial before the tribunal lasted eighteen minutes, by the clock on the courtroom wall. The man before me they sentenced to hang for being caught distributing our news sheet, but I was lucky. All they knew was that I'd been away from my workplace during the massacre, and I'd been limping when I got back. The evidence was merely circumstantial, and so was the sentence they gave me: twelve years in the camps."
He took a gulp of the brandy and swallowed, spluttering for a moment. "Annie wasn't so lucky," he added.
"What? They hanged her?" Miriam leaned toward him, aghast.
"No." He smiled sadly. "They only gave her two years In a women's camp. I don't know if you know what that was like... no? Alright. It was hard enough for the men. Annie died-"he stared into his glass"-in childbed." "I don't understand-"
"Use your imagination," Erasmus snapped. "What do you think the guards were like?"
"Oh god." Miriam swallowed. "I'm so sorry."
The boys went to a state orphanage," Erasmus added. "In Australia."
"Enough." She held up a hand: "I'm sorry I asked!"
The fragile silence stretched out. "I'm not," Erasmus said quietly. "It was just a little bit odd to talk about it. After so long."
"You got out... four years ago?"
"Nine." He drained his glass and replaced it on the Occasional table. "The camps were overfull. They got sloppy. I was moved to internal exile, and there was a- What your history book called an underground railway. Erasmus Burgeson' isn't the name I was known by back then."
"Wow." Miriam stared at him. "You've been living under an assumed identity all this time?"
He nodded, watching her expression. "The movement provides. They needed a dodgy pawnbroker in Boston, you see, and I fitted the bill. A dodgy pawnbroker with a hisstory of a couple of years in the camps, nothing serious, nothing
"I'm- " She shook her head. "It's crazy."
