No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [82]
“I thought the government was consulting the king,” Matthew replied.
Shearing looked up at him. “Oh, they are! They have! And what happens if the king sides with the Ulster Loyalists? Has anybody thought of that?”
Matthew clenched inside. He had been too consumed with the murder of his father, and the question of the document and what might be in it, to give deeper thought to such an idea. Now he did, and it was appalling. “He can’t! Can he?” he demanded.
The anger in Shearing’s face was so sharp its power filled the room. “Yes, he damned well can!” he spat, glaring at Matthew.
“When will they reach a decision?”
“Today . . . tomorrow! God knows. Then we’ll see what real trouble is.” He saw the question in Matthew’s eyes. “Yes, Reavley,” he said with level, grating calm. “The assassination in Serbia is bad, but believe me, it would be nothing compared with one at home.”
“An assassination!” Matthew exclaimed.
Shearing’s eyebrows rose. “Why not?” he challenged. “What’s the difference? Serbia is a subject part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and some of its citizens think assassination of a royal duke is the way to freedom and independence. Ireland is part of the British Empire. Why shouldn’t some of its subjects assume that the assassination of a king might earn them the freedom they want?”
“Protestant Northern Ireland wants to remain part of the British Empire,” Matthew replied, keeping his voice level with difficulty. “That’s what the term Loyalist means! They don’t want to be swallowed up in Roman Catholic Ireland!” But even as he was saying it he knew the words were empty.
“Very rational,” Shearing said sarcastically. “I’m sure if you say that a little louder all the madmen with glory in their brains will put their guns away and go home again.” He pulled a thin sheaf of papers out of the drawer in his desk and held it out. “Go and look at those, see what you make of them.”
Matthew took them from him. “Yes, sir.” He went back to his own office with his fingers numb, his head singing with ideas.
Matthew attempted to work on the papers all day. They were the usual notes on intelligence information intercepted, reports of the movement of men either known or suspected of Irish independence sympathies. He was still looking for any threat to Blunden and his appointment to the War Ministry, with the obvious effect it would have on further military action in Ireland, the need for which seemed almost certain.
If the position went to Wynyard, with his robust opinions and more volatile judgment, it might not only hasten the violence, but make it worse, possibly even spreading it to England itself.
He found it difficult to keep his mind on the subject. It was too nebulous to grasp, the connections too remote. And one name occurred a number of times: Patrick Hannassey. He had been born in Dublin in 1861, the second son of a physician and Irish patriot. His elder brother had gone into law, and died young in a boating disaster off the County Waterford coast. Patrick also had studied law for a while, and he married and had a daughter. Then tragedy had struck again. His wife had been killed in a pointless exchange of violence between Catholic and Protestant, and Patrick, in his grief, had abandoned the slow-moving workings of the law in favor of the swifter struggle of politics, even of civil war.
It would suit his avowed purpose very well to succeed to the War Minister’s post, where he could be taunted, defied, and mocked into action that would seem to justify armed retaliation, and the beginning of open warfare. He preached uprising, but he did it subtly, and he was a hard man to catch: elusive, clever, never overreaching himself with arrogance, never betraying those who trusted him, not