Page 66 of The Armor of Light

At the end he got an enthusiastic round of applause, then peoplecrowded around the table, eager to try making the planets turn around the sun.

Eventually the audience drifted away. Roger put his orrery back in its box and went off with Amos Barrowfield. When only the committee members were left, they drew some benches into a circle and sat down.

The mood was triumphant. ‘I congratulate you all,’ said Canon Midwinter. ‘You made this happen – you didn’t need me.’

Jarge was dissatisfied. ‘This isn’t what I wanted!’ he said. ‘The solar system is all very well, but we need to know more about how we can change things so that our children don’t go hungry.’

Sal said: ‘Jarge is right. This was a good start, and it’s made us look respectable, but it doesn’t help us when food prices are sky high and people can’t find work.’

Spade agreed with them both.

The printer Jeremiah Hiscock said: ‘Perhaps we should discussThe Rights of Man, Thomas Paine’s book.’

Midwinter said mildly: ‘I believe it says a revolution is justified when the government fails to protect the people’s rights, and therefore the French revolution was a good thing.’

Sime Jackson said: ‘That would get us into trouble.’

Spade had readThe Rights of Manand was a passionate believer in Tom Paine’s ideas, but he saw the sense in the misgivings expressed by Midwinter and Jackson. ‘I have a better notion,’ he said. ‘Pick a book that criticizes Paine.’

Jarge protested: ‘Why?’

‘Take, for example,Reasons for Contentment: Addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public, by Archdeacon Paley.’

Jarge was outraged. ‘We don’t want to promote that sort of thing! What are you thinking?’

‘Calm down, Jarge, and I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. Whether we pick Paine or Paley, the topic is the same, the reform of the Britishgovernment, so we would have the same discussion. But it would look different to outsiders. And how can they object to us discussing a book that is addressed to us and tells us to be satisfied with our lot?’

Jarge looked angry, then bewildered, and then thoughtful, and at last he smiled and said: ‘By the deuce, Spade, you’re a sly one.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ said Spade, and the others chuckled.

Midwinter said: ‘A very good plan, Spade. The group may find that Archdeacon Paley’s arguments are disappointingly weak, of course, but that couldn’t possibly be construed as treason.’

Jeremiah said: ‘There’s a pamphlet calledA Reply to Archdeacon Paleypublished by the London Corresponding Society. I know because my brother printed it for them. I’ve even got a copy at home. I could print a stack.’

Sal said: ‘That would be very useful, but remember that this is for people who may not be able to read. I think we need a speaker to introduce the subject.’

‘I know someone,’ said Midwinter. ‘A clergyman who teaches at Oxford, Bartholomew Small, something of a maverick among the professors. He’s no revolutionary, but he’s sympathetic to Paine’s ideas.’

‘Perfect,’ said Spade. ‘Please ask him, Canon.’ He turned to the group in general. ‘We need to keep this to ourselves for as long as we can, and announce it at the last minute. Believe me, there are plenty of men in this town who want to keep working men in ignorance. If we let the news out too soon we give our enemies time to organize. Secrecy is the watchword.’

They all agreed.

13

AS A BOY GROWING UPin London, Hornbeam had been terrified of justices and the punishments they could impose. Now he was one of them, and he had nothing to fear. All the same there remained, deep in the back of his mind, a faint tremor, the ghost of a memory, that made him feel momentarily cold when the clerk called the Michaelmas quarter sessions to order, and the trials began; and he had to touch his wig to remind himself that he was one of the masters now.

The council chamber in the Guild Hall was also used as the courtroom for the quarter sessions and for the assizes. Hornbeam liked the grandeur of the old room. The varnished panelling and the ancient beams confirmed his high status. But when it was full of Kingsbridge offenders and their tearful families he wished for better ventilation. He hated the smell of the poor.

With the assistance of a clerk who was legally trained, the justices tried cases of theft, assault and rape in front of a jury of Kingsbridge property owners. They judged all crimes except those that carried the death penalty, for which they had to convene a grand jury to decide whether to commit the case to the assizes, the superior court.

Today they dealt with a lot of theft. It was September, and the harvest had failed – for the second year running. A four-pound loaf of bread now cost a shilling, almost double the usual price. People stole food, or stole something they could sell quickly for cash to buy food. They were desperate. But that was no excuse, in Hornbeam’sview, and he argued for stiff sentences. Thieves had to be punished, or the whole system would collapse and everyone would end up in the gutter.

At the end of the afternoon the justices gathered in a smaller room for madeira wine and pound cake. The most important decisions in the life of the town were often made at informal moments such as this. Hornbeam took the opportunity to raise the subject of Spade’s Socratic Society with Alderman Drinkwater, the chairman of justices.

‘I think it’s dangerous,’ said Hornbeam. ‘He’ll get speakers who will cause trouble, telling the hands they’re underpaid and exploited and they should rise up and overthrow their rulers as the French did.’

‘I agree,’ said Will Riddick, who had become squire of Badford and a justice of the peace when his father died. ‘That violent woman Sal Clitheroe is part of it. She was banished from Badford for trying to attack me.’