Chapter 3
Chapter Three
AIDAN
The Maggot, a tough and nasty-smelling neighborhood in Inverness, was little more than a rabbit warren of crumbling cottages, deserted warehouses, and ruined malt houses.
On one side of the flat, muddy green used for drying wash, the blackened skeleton of a recently burned distillery stared with vacant eyes at the River Ness.
And everywhere, the poor milled about, crowded into shacks and decrepit houses and filthy alleyways.
Mangy dogs and ragged children scavenged for anything of value on the riverbank.
All of these Highland folk were victims of the clearances and of the lingering effects of the fateful Jacobite rebellion that had ended here, on a bloody field outside of Inverness, decades ago.
“You’re my only chance, Mr. Grant. The only one I trust to keep me safe. You must keep me safe.”
“I must do nothing,” Aidan retorted sharply. “To be frank, I’d as soon feed you to a pack of hungry dogs, but I’m afraid they’d sicken and die from the effects of you.”
Robert Sparrow, as he was calling himself at the moment, had good reason to fear for his life.
So many people wanted him dead that likenesses of him had been circulating among the societies of reformers in cities to the south.
But that hadn’t stopped him from moving north and continuing his work in the employment of the British authorities, assisting them in their spying and entrapment operations.
Many Scots, including the throng of poor folk trudging by them now, would certainly relish the prospect of killing this collaborator. Aidan didn’t particularly blame them.
“Beg pardon, sir. I misspoke. I . . . I’m pleading with you. I’m desperate. I’m trying to make amends for my mistakes.”
Aidan thought of those who’d already been transported or hanged in the cities south of here. It was too late for them. But two more still waited to stand in the dock. It was for their sake alone that he listened.
“You’re the only one I know with a shred of honor. You’re the only one able to get me out of this trouble I’m in.” A wracking cough from deep in his chest shook the man’s body, leaving him gasping.
“What trouble?”
Sparrow was somewhat unsteady on his feet, and he leaned heavily on an ivory-headed cane.
Middle of height and build, he was pale, almost ashen, and he was sweating profusely beneath his old-fashioned wig and tall beaver hat.
Under the sturdy travel cloak, Aidan caught sight of a suit of forest green and a gold brocade waistcoat.
A thistle pin held a stock and cravat in place.
He dressed well, courtesy of the blood money received from the hands of his British masters, but not so well as to attract unwanted attention.
He held a soiled handkerchief in one hand that he used constantly, dabbing at the pinched corners of his mouth.
“I’ve only just arrived in Inverness, and I can see all their eyes on me. They know who I am.”
A group of young dockworkers coming up from the waterfront passed them, and the informer shrank away, using the tall figure of Aidan’s brother Sebastian as a shield.
“They want me dead. Everyone wants me dead.” Fear was written across Sparrow’s face. “Please. Help me.”
“You’re afraid? Go to your masters.”
“I can’t. The English are after me too. I can’t go to them.”
“Why? What have you to fear from them?”
Sparrow glanced at two red-coated soldiers passing by. “I told them I’d done so much already. I couldn’t help them anymore.”
Aidan was certain the people working for Sir Rupert Burney, the director of Home Office activities in Scotland, had not taken the news too well. The decision to retire was not for an informer to make.
“Their response?”
“They told me to take the coach to Aberdeen. There’d be a packet sailing to Africa. To the new Cape colony. They were giving me land there. And money to make a go of it.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“A friend sent word. Their plan was to punch a few holes in me and leave me under a dock.” He clutched the cane tightly in his fist. “So I bolted. Wrote to you.”
It was true that if the English thought there was a chance Sparrow would expose their underhanded actions, an assassin would cut out the double crosser’s tongue and then put a dagger in his heart. The Home Office didn’t look favorably on those who changed sides.
“Why did you write to me?”
“You’re the best.”
Aidan leaned forward, devouring the space between them. “Don’t you dare flatter me.”
Sparrow pressed against the wall and raised his hand in defense.
“Sir, everyone knows who you are and what you stand for. For a decade now, you’ve argued for abolition, for better wages, for reform.
You’re the best lawyer Scotland has. You’re the only one brave enough to stand up to Sir Rupert Burney. ”
What Henry Brougham, the queen’s legal defender, was doing in Parliament, Aidan had been trying to do in Scotland. Both men wanted the same thing, a voice for their people.
“I also know the weavers’ leadership committee and their people sent for you to come represent the Chattan brothers in their trial.”
Edmund and George Chattan had been languishing in a cell, charged with planning an attack on the Lord Mayor’s offices in Elgin at the time of the Military Governor’s visit.
The trial was not to take place in Elgin but in Inverness at the beginning of next month.
Aidan had already met with the two this week.
The brothers swore they’d been tricked by a fellow member of their reform committee . . . someone like Sparrow.
“You still haven’t told me why I should help you.”
“I told you in my letter. I have information. I can help you with names, places. I know the very one who was responsible for setting up the Chattans. He’s gone, moved on already. But I’m here, and I can testify for you.”
Robert Sparrow was a thief. An art forger.
A villain who for years had committed his petty crimes with impunity by playing his part as an informer and an agent provocateur.
His actions in entrapping leaders of the reform movement in Edinburgh had led to executions.
He’d been moved north for a reason. Aidan had no doubt he had firsthand knowledge of government spying operations in the Highlands. His testimony could help Aidan.
It was impossible to ignore Sebastian’s imposing figure beside him. Aidan’s brother had been against coming here and listening to this viper.
“If I had one whit of assurance that you would help us, I would throw a rope around your neck and drag you to some safe house until the trial. But as my brother would no doubt remind me, you can’t put a leash on a snake.”
“I swear to you . . .” Another cough wracked Sparrow’s body, cutting off his words.
“I swear that I’ll help you. No one knows what I know.
No one has seen what I’ve seen. No one has done it as long as I have.
I’ll tell you exactly who gave all of us orders and what those orders were.
The Chattan fools were only one case. There are others being lured into traps right now. ”
Aidan fixed his stare on the man with the same intensity he’d used on a hundred witnesses in scores of court cases.
“You still haven’t said one word that would help me convince a jury that you matter, or that you’re telling the truth, or that you were even working for the government as a provocateur.”
“March twenty-first. I called together the committee in Glasgow. Everyone was arrested at that meeting. My partner was John King, a weaver working for the Home Office. April fourth. My plan incited three score men in Germiston to seize weapons from the Carron Ironworks in Falkirk. You had clients that were part of that committee. The dragoons were waiting for them. I was sent to Elgin right after.”
Aidan exchanged another look with Sebastian. This was the kind of information that would influence a jury.
“We’ll take you.”
“I can’t stay in Inverness. I won’t be safe here.”
“I said we’ll take you,” Aidan repeated more sharply.
“I need to fetch my bag. I’m staying at an inn by the river. I’d feel safer if you came with me.”
Aidan heard knuckles cracking. He didn’t need to look to know it was Sebastian, squeezing his hand into a tight fist.
“Go ahead of us. And do it before we change our minds.”
The informer opened his mouth to argue but quickly snapped it shut, recognizing Aidan was done negotiating. He pulled up the collar of his coat and hurried along.
“He’s playing you for a fool.” Sebastian scowled as Sparrow edged past a group of street urchins.
“I need him.”
“You think he’ll stand before a magistrate and testify against the Home Office? He won’t. This is a bloody mistake, and you know it.”
“He’s already given me more for this case than I had.”
“Too trusting, as always. The cur is using you to slip out of the grip of his English paymasters. Either that, or he’s setting you up.”
His brother fell in step with Aidan as they started along the busy thoroughfare.
The two of them were the only survivors of the father and four sons who’d gone off to fight against Napoleon, though Sebastian had lost an arm at Waterloo.
After the war, Aidan quickly found that opposing the English government in politics and in the courts was a dangerous business, and his younger brother took it upon himself to become his protector.
Aidan trusted Sebastian’s judgment, but right now, the Chattan brothers’ lives depended on Sparrow’s testimony.
“We came. I spoke to him. And I have you beside me. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“You need to be smarter, or I’ll be beside you on an English gallows.”
A woman carrying a basket filled with wet clothes nearly careened into Aidan, but his brother pulled him out of the way.
“Come now. What did the bard say? Screw your courage to the sticking place—”
“How about if I screw my boot in your ear?” Sebastian scoffed. “I fear nothing.”
“Watch him there,” Aidan said as Sparrow turned down a side street. They quickened their steps.