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Content Warning: Graphic descriptions of food adulteration and bodily discomfort. (You may want to finish eating before reading!)
After Isidore and Daguerre departed, I rested my chin on my desk and fiddled with Queen Victoria’s diary. The texture of the leather against my fingertips served as the sole reminder that I was currently standing firmly in reality. All other senses were numb. The word Daguerre had left behind at the very end remained embedded deep within my ear like a poisonous stinger, continuing to ooze venom.
Arsenic.
The oldest poison remembered by history.
The favorite death-seasoning humans had utilized for millennia to kill kings, lovers, and enemies alike, supposedly smeared across children’s candy.
“Well, this is an all-out disaster.”
Not only making tea out of sheep excrement, but also manufacturing children’s candy out of the poison arsenic.
No matter how much 19th-century Britain was a place where only the strong survived, wasn’t this going entirely too far?
Tea followed by candy.
Were other foodstuffs safe, then?
Probably not.
Beneath visible corruption, invisible corruption inevitably lay waiting just below the surface.
Announcing this through the press had to be postponed.
Beginning a battle without knowing the extent of the enemy’s frontline was the surest shortcut to defeat in war.
I shook my head vigorously, summoned Baroness Lehzen, and called for three men.
The next day, a private drawing room in Buckingham Palace.
I sat at the head of the table and gazed at the three men lined up before me.
Royal Physician Sir James Clark, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Rowan, and botanist Dr. John Lindley.
Medicine, law, and science.
Figures representing the reason of this era.
Varying hues of tension were etched across each of the three men’s faces. Sir Clark’s tension was a physician’s characteristic worry, Sir Rowan’s tension was the vigilance of an ex-military man, and Dr. Lindley’s tension was a scholar’s curiosity blended with unease.
“Your Majesty, I have hastened here upon your summons… I pray nothing is amiss with your health…”
Sir Clark asked cautiously, worried whether I might be unwell, but I shook my head. It wasn’t I who was unwell.
The nation itself was diseased.
“I have gathered the three of you to entrust you with a most vital mission.”
Pausing briefly to catch my breath, I spoke point-blank.
“We shall establish a Special Food Safety Investigation Task Force.”
“Food… safety, you say?”
Sir Rowan’s eyebrows twitched.
He wore the expression of a man who caught criminals, not someone who fussed over food.
Within that expression, I could read how unaccustomed this era was to placing the words food and safety side by side.
Food was something to eat, safety was something fretted over on the battlefield, and the intersection where the two met had not yet been drawn upon the map of this era.
“Sir Rowan, you understand the state of London’s back alleys better than anyone, do you not?”
“Yes, I do.”
“The fake Earl Grey currently circulating in the market. You are well acquainted with it?”
“Ah, that sheep… ahem, the tea mixed with foreign substances, you mean.”
He cleared his throat and trailed off.
“Do you suppose that problem is restricted solely to tea?”
“…Pardon?”
“Could merchants have played tricks only with tea? Are those who mix counterfeits even into a one-guinea tea going to be honest regarding the bread and milk consumed daily, or the candy eaten by children?”
The expressions of the three men stiffened. Silence descended.
It was the silence that arrives when a truth one already knew yet deliberately ignored is finally spoken aloud.
Human beings remain silent far more deeply before things they knew yet pretended not to know than before things entirely unknown.
“Dr. Lindley.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Gather competent chemists from the university and researchers skilled with microscopes. Sir Rowan, take along police officers to raid the shops designated by Dr. Lindley and collect samples.”
I glared at them one by one as I issued my orders.
“Bread, milk, beer, candy, meat… Bring everything that London citizens put into their mouths. And Sir Clark, invoking the authority of the Royal Medical Society, analyze what harm those foreign substances inflict upon the human body.”
“Understood. However, Your Majesty, investigating such a vast quantity…”
“Worry not about the budget; I shall raid the royal treasury to support this.”
I clenched my fists tightly.
“Unearth every single detail and bring them to me. Because I must see clearly precisely what I and my people have been consuming to survive.”
A week later, when I faced the three men once more in the southern greenhouse repurposed as a temporary laboratory, I could gauge the gravity of the results simply from their faces alone.
Dr. Lindley, who usually maintained composure, had a face the color of dirt, and even Sir Rowan, a veteran of countless battles, kept wiping his mouth as though his stomach were upset. As for Sir Clark, he was staring into empty space with a completely vacant expression.
The table was piled high with collected samples and analytical reports, neatly organized for readability, yet the contents contained within that neatness formed an index to hell.
“…The results are in, I take it.”
My voice trembled slightly. Dr. Lindley stepped forward with heavy footsteps.
“Your Majesty, it is… deeply distressing even to report this.”
“Speak. I am prepared.”
Prepared. Even as I uttered that word, I wondered whether I was truly in a state where I could claim readiness.
Yet, to ask to hear despite doubts, to press forward despite fear—was that not perhaps the most honest form of courage?
“First, let us begin with bread.”
The doctor pointed toward the first plate. Visually, it was a white, appetizing loaf of bread—the very lifeline that London laborers earned through day-to-day toil and purchased to survive.
In Western societies including Britain, bread was society’s oldest promise to the individual.
The promise that if you cultivate wheat with your labor, society will grind the wheat and bake bread to sustain you.
That trust and promise lay upon the plate in the form of bread.
“This bread was collected from a bakery in eastern London. It appears very white and soft.”
“Indeed it does.”
“…Yet it is not flour.”
Dr. Lindley picked up a scalpel and sliced the cross-section of the loaf.
“The primary ingredient is low-grade flour, but a substantial amount of alum was mixed in to impart this whiteness. Alum makes the bread whiter and retains moisture, increasing its weight.”
Alum? What was that?
When I wore a puzzled expression, Dr. Lindley added an explanation.
“Put simply, you may regard it as finely ground mineral containing aluminum.”
Aluminum? The stuff used to manufacture beverage cans?
It was absurd, but the doctor’s explanation did not stop there.
Much like saying a basement lay beneath the floor, beneath the abyss lay yet another abyss.
“And… this was mixed in to further lower production costs.”
As the doctor pointed toward a microscope slide, I peered through the lens with trembling eyes.
Irregular, sharp particles were visible.
“What is this… Dr. Lindley? Is it stone dust?”
“Bone dust.”
I clapped both hands over my mouth, unable even to scream.
Bones. The bones of animals—or perhaps… humans—that had once lived.
They were ground into a fine white powder and mixed into the bread.
To produce a white color. To increase the weight. To earn an extra penny.
Bread was a promise society made to an individual.
The promise: ‘Devote yourself to your labor with peace of mind, for professionals specializing in bread will bake proper loaves for you.’
Yet the contents of that promise turned out to be bone dust?
However, hell was only just beginning.
“Next is milk.”
The doctor held up a milk bottle.
It was thick-looking milk with a thin film resting upon the surface.
Milk is the world’s oldest gift, given by a mother to her offspring.
That gift now awaited questions within the glass bottle.
“Ninety percent of the milk sold within London proper originates from so-called ‘iron-tailed cows’.”
“Iron-tailed cows?”
“It refers to pumps. In other words, water has been added.”
Watered-down milk.
Though it violated standards, it wasn’t nauseating. Yet I perceived from Dr. Lindley’s expression that he had shown something acceptable first, only to pull out the unacceptable next.
“Adding water dilutes the color and makes the flavor insipid. To conceal that, merchants mixed in the most extraordinary things.”
The doctor used tweezers to pick out a clump of something viscous from inside the milk bottle.
“To impart a thick texture… they ground up calf brains.”
Calf… what?
A vertigo struck me at a word soaring far beyond expectations.
Instantly, Sir Rowan failed to suppress himself and retched.
A stomach that had endured exploding artillery shells on the battlefield surrendered before a milk bottle.
Milk with calf brains floating around… you say?
Thinking of parents who fed that to their children believing it was healthy plunged my mind into darkness.
“Thanks to that, the cream-like phenomenon you see on the surface occurs… which made it resemble milk.”
Dr. Lindley’s voice was dry, yet its contents were more horrifying than a horror film.
Feeling nauseated, I covered my mouth with a handkerchief while listening, yet I did not order him to halt his explanation.
Dr. Lindley wore the smile of a professor gazing fondly upon an undergraduate with good study habits, then moved on to the next sample. This time, it was a jar filled with brightly colored candies and jellies.
“These are candies favored by children. The colors are quite vivid, are they not?”
Particularly striking was a vibrant green candy. A green glowing with the brilliance of an emerald.
“What do you suppose was used to produce this green?”
This wasn’t a university pop quiz—what on earth was it?
Even as I thought that, an ominous premonition struck me.
Green, the 19th century, pigments. A single word flashed through my mind.
“Surely not…”
“Correct. Scheele’s Green. That is, a compound of arsenic and copper.”
Arsenic.
When Daguerre spoke that word yesterday, a sliver of my heart had hoped he might simply have misseen.
Yet what emerged from Dr. Lindley’s mouth just now was indisputable fact.
“The quantity of arsenic contained within a single piece of this candy is sufficient to slowly poison and kill a young child.”
Sir Clark added with a grim expression.
“We doctors merely assumed it was typhoid or cholera. But… to think it was candy killing the children all along…”
Candy was killing the children.
Every single word of the sentence contradicted the others.
Candy was meant to delight children, children were beings who ought not to die, and candy and death had no business occupying the same sentence.
Yet they coexisted in a single sentence, in a single reality.
The finger joints gripping the chair’s armrests turned deathly white.
Surpassing anger, a sense of terror even took hold of me.
“Is there… more?”
I asked as though squeezing the words out, but the doctor continued his report calmly, yet cruelly.
“As for black tea… you already know, so I shall skip it, but coffee is mixed with dried horse liver and chicory. Copper sulfate was poured in to impart a green hue to pickles, and red lead, a lead component, was confirmed in the red coloring of cheese.”
He snapped the report shut. The sound echoed inside the greenhouse like the striking of a verdict.
“In conclusion, Your Majesty. I can assert that at present, not a single pure foodstuff exists within the London market. We are all dying slowly and surely.”
“…”
At that moment, my vision wavered.
The glass ceiling overhead seemed to spin in circles.
What I… what was it that I ate?
The soft bread I ate this morning.
The fragrant (or so I thought) tea I drank in the afternoon.
The pretty snacks I occasionally popped into my mouth when my blood sugar dropped.All of them flashed past like a revolving lantern.
Those things were actually lumps of bone dust, brain matter, and arsenic?
-Thud!
“Your Majesty?!”
“Your Majesty! Pull yourself together!”
I heard someone calling out urgently, but the sound echoed as though heard underwater.
Something hot surged up from within.
Revulsion.
Disillusionment with humanity. And terror of death.
I relinquished consciousness right then and plunged straight into darkness.
“…Ha.”
A familiar ceiling.
A sharp scent of ammonia lingered at the tip of my nose.
“Your Majesty!”
Baroness Lehzen grasped my hand with a tearful expression.
Beside the bed stood Sir Clark with an anxious look upon his face.
“Have I… collapsed?”
“Yes, the shock appears to have been excessive. For now, please take your rest and regarding the matters from earlier…”
“No.”
I forced myself upright with difficulty.
My head throbbed, but the horrifying images embedded within my mind refused to fade.Nay, they grew even sharper.
“Commissioner Rowan… Where is Commissioner Rowan?”
“He is waiting outside the door.”
“Have him come in.”
A short while later, Commissioner Rowan entered hesitantly.
He, too, looked hollow-faced, as though the shock had not yet worn off.
“How fares your body, Your Majesty?”
“My body is not what matters.”
I clutched the duvet tightly. Sparks felt as though they might fly from my eyes.
“That roster… you secured it, didn’t you? The scoundrel who put bone dust in bread, the wretch who spiked milk with brain matter, the villains who laced candy with poison.”
“Yes, we have secured the ledgers of the shops from which samples were collected.”
“Arrest them immediately.”
My voice was resolute.
“Round up every last one of them. And lock them away in the Tower of London. Nay, I should like to force the food those wretches peddled right down their own throats.”
Attempted murder.
No, this was mass slaughter through depraved indifference.
Yet, Commissioner Rowan did not move.
He stared down at the floor with a troubled expression.
“…Commissioner?”
“Your Majesty… that is…”
“Why aren’t you moving? Is the police force insufficient, by any chance?”
“No, that is not the issue.”
Commissioner Rowan heaved a deep sigh and lifted his head, his eyes brimming with powerlessness.
“We cannot… arrest them.”
“What did you say?”
“There is no legal basis to punish them.”
No legal basis.
The moment those words slipped from Commissioner Rowan’s lips, I felt the world tilt once more. Yet this time, I did not fall.
“You say there is no legal basis! Dr. Lindley revealed it! That arsenic is inside, that bone dust is inside! If that is not evidence, what is?”
“It constitutes evidence. However… that act itself is not designated as ‘illegal’.”
Commissioner Rowan explained grimly. His voice was imbued with the peculiar shame a guardian of the law feels in the presence of the law’s absence.
“Falsifying the weight of bread constitutes fraud. But mixing other ingredients into bread… is regarded as a sort of manufacturing method (recipe).”
“Even when poison is added? Even when human bones are ground and tossed in?!”
“Unless someone drops dead immediately from eating it… we cannot arrest them merely on the grounds that it might prove harmful to health. Judges will declare them not guilty on the grounds of infringing upon merchants’ freedom.”
Freedom, you say?
It was utterly absurd. How on earth did this country manage to interpret the word freedom?
Was the freedom to poison others also considered freedom?
“What about putting brain matter in milk? That is unmistakable fraud!”
“The merchant will argue thus: I utilized a special secret ingredient to enhance the milk’s flavor. And since the purchaser bought it believing that, the transaction is valid.”
Commissioner Rowan clenched his fists tightly; as a police officer, he too must have found this situation infuriating.
“Under current laws… one can merely point fingers calling them unconscionable merchants, but we cannot slap handcuffs on them. That is precisely the law of this land, Your Majesty.”
A sense of futility robbed me even of laughter.
Are they genuinely out of their minds?
The empire upon which the sun never sets?
The vanguard of the Industrial Revolution?
Don’t make me laugh.
What kind of nation preaches about the law while feeding dung and poison to its own subjects!
At that exact moment, the concept of social Darwinism spoken of by Herbert Spencer brushed through my mind.
The theory that nature is harsh, and only those adapted to their environment survive while the eliminated perish.
A city where only children possessing iron stomachs capable of digesting bone dust mixed in bread, enduring brain matter spiked in milk, and refusing to die even from arsenic smeared on candy grow into adulthood.
If this is not the survival of the fittest, what is?
A country where not the strongest, but only the most vicious survive.
Were God to witness this, He would undoubtedly find it breathtakingly absurd.
Beings fashioned in His own image were shoving poison down one another’s throats while calling it freedom.
“…Ahahaha.”
A hollow laugh escaped my lips.
“Indeed. There is no law, is that it.”
I climbed out of bed. My legs wobbled, but I forced myself to stand. Baroness Lehzen attempted to support me, but I raised a hand to stop her.
“If there is no law, they cannot be punished…”
I walked over to the window. I parted the curtains. The London cityscape draped in darkness overlooked me.
Countless lights. Beneath every single one of those lights, someone at this very moment was likely eating poisoned candy, someone was chewing bone dust bread.
And that someone, should they be fortunate enough to survive until tomorrow morning, would eat the same thing once more.
Because there were no options. Because there was no law. Because nothing existed to protect them.
As I did so, I beheld the two faces of this city simultaneously.
One was the face of civilization illuminated by gaslamps, while the other was the face of barbarism lurking where that light could not reach. And between those two faces, I perceived the vacant void known as law.
“Commissioner Rowan.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You said they cannot be caught without a law?”
I turned back slowly.
“Then, we simply need to make a law.”
“…Pardon?”
“Parliament? Judges? Merchants’ freedom?”
I scoffed. A plan—flawless, meticulous, and somewhat wicked—gradually formed within my head. If talking fails, demonstration is required. To show them how the freedom they worship threatens their own dining tables. To show them what their freedom is feeding the children of this nation.
“Baroness Lehzen, we shall host a tea party next week.”
“Pardon, a tea party?”
“Yes, a most grand one. Invite key members of Parliament, heavyweights of the legal profession, and prominent merchants of London alike.”
I smirked.
Restoring a torn page? Experiencing execution poison upon failure?
Nay.
Before I am forced to drink execution poison, I shall make them drink it first.
We shall all eat and die together. So thoroughly that even if three die after two partake, no one will ever know!
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