Chapter 37

The following morning, the entirety of Britain was thrown into an uproar.

I picked up the morning newspapers piled high on the bedside table one by one, and the first to catch my eye was The Morning Post, which delivered news of the high nobility.

[Royal Charity Event Plunged into a Crucible of Terror!]

[Poison Served on Her Majesty’s Table: London’s Food Hygiene, Is This Acceptable?]

The front-page headline was nothing if not sensational.

The article described the horror of yesterday’s insane tea party vividly—or rather, somewhat exaggeratedly.

[Yesterday, the gardens of Buckingham Palace were absolute pandemonium. Noble ladies sipping tea with elegance shrieked and vomited, while respectable gentlemen gagged and covered their mouths with napkins…]

Reading the article, a chuckle escaped me of its own accord.

The journalist hadn’t even been present at the scene, yet the description was so punchy it bordered on literary; terror was the most potent fuel driving human imagination.

[Calf Brains in Milk? High Society in Shock]

[Alum Bread and Verdigris Candy Strike Noble Stomachs]

The Morning Post dedicated page two specifically to focus on high society’s reactions, featuring an anonymous noble’s interview.

[I swear to God, it was truly the most horrifying experience of my entire life. I attended with the noble intent of charity, yet I never imagined I would be served the trash fit only for riff-raff. How the noble values championed by Her Majesty the Queen could be so utterly insulted—my fury has yet to subside!]

Outrage possesses a directional vector. Much like an arrow flying toward a target, rage homes in on a cause.

Yet even after enduring the exact same incident, depending on where one locates the cause, the arrow of fury points toward a completely different target.

To this aristocrat, the cause was not that poison existed, but that poison had been placed before them.

The solution, then, follows suit. It is not to eliminate poison, but merely to ensure it is not placed before oneself. Whatever happens to rest upon everyone else’s plates becomes their own concern.

“Baroness Lehzen.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“How are reactions outside? Not the newspapers, but talk among actual people.”

“Ah, that is…”

Baroness Lehzen hesitated for a moment before opening her mouth.

“Actually… a peculiar sentiment is circulating among the common folk.”

“Peculiar sentiment?”

“Well, begging Your Majesty’s pardon… there are many reactions finding it immensely gratifying.”

Just as anticipated.

In the back-alley pubs and marketplace stalls of London, this incident had undoubtedly become the prime topic of tavern gossip.

To people living day-to-day on hard bread and insipid milk, news that the nobles had consumed the exact same food and retched themselves sick must have felt like a form of dark comedy.

As expected, humans derive the greatest joy from the misfortunes of others.

I lifted my teacup.

Today’s tea was black tea brewed from extremely clean, safe leaves that I had verified personally.

Just how many people in this land could genuinely verify the safety of the tea they drank?
Those possessing that right were myself sitting in the palace and at best a few thousand aristocrats.

The remaining one million nine hundred thousand souls inhabiting London were likely swallowing today with their eyes shut tight, just as before.

“The nobles are furious, and the common folk are mocking them. The board is set quite nicely.”

Yet a well-set board does not necessarily lead to the desired outcome.

Even after playing a flawless move in chess, if the opponent fails to move in the anticipated direction, the board collapses.

And the opponent of this era, much like during the laudanum crisis, was not a single individual, but the spirit of the age itself.

“Your Majesty, Sir Charles Rowan has requested an audience.”

“Show him in.”

A short while later, Sir Charles Rowan entered, fully attired in uniform.

His expression seemed oddly bright, bearing quite a stark contrast to his bitter outrage of a few days prior when he lamented the absence of laws to punish merchants.

“Your Majesty, I bring glad tidings.”

Sir Rowan saluted with crisp precision.

“Glad tidings, you say?”

“Those scoundrel merchants who supplied substandard food to Your Majesty’s reception yesterday. We have arrested Madison and all related parties without exception!”

“Arrested?”

My eyes widened.

Had he not insisted just days ago that no legal basis for punishment existed?

While the materials employed by the merchants were scientifically proven to be hazardous to human health, no laws penalizing them existed.

“How did you manage an arrest? Did some brand-new law come into existence without my knowledge?”

“No, Your Majesty. We managed to unearth a splendid charge upon which to clap them in irons.”

Sir Rowan smiled triumphantly.

“None other than tax evasion and violations of the excise laws.”

“…Tax evasion?”

For a moment, I doubted my ears. Why on earth was tax talk suddenly cropping up amidst a discussion on food hygiene?

How was this any different from arresting a murder suspect and prosecuting them for illegal parking?

“Yes, indeed. While we cannot penalize them under a nonexistent food safety act for mixing alum into bread or watering down milk, we detected evidence that when handling materials like tea, beer, and sugar, they failed to remit appropriate taxes.”

Sir Rowan extracted a bundle of worn documents from his tunic.

“I scoured the statutes enacted during the reign of His Majesty King George III from top to bottom. It turns out that blending tea leaves or manufacturing and selling counterfeits can be prosecuted and punished as an act of stealing the King’s taxes.”

“…”

I was left speechless.

Meaning, people weren’t getting arrested because their fake tea killed or injured human beings, but because they cheated the country out of its due taxes.

“Poisoning people’s bodies isn’t a crime, but dodging taxes is…”

Indeed. This was the moral system and the hierarchy of values governing this land.
The national treasury took precedence over human stomachs, and the King’s tax revenue held greater sanctity than human life.

Poison was no crime, but tax evasion certainly was.

Taking human life fell outside the law’s purview, while shortchanging tax collections fell squarely within its interest.

Within this bizarre moral framework, the law operated merely as a padlock safeguarding the treasury, rather than a shield safeguarding humanity.

“Well, seeing as we’ve clapped the scoundrels in jail, isn’t that a positive outcome? I intend to make a thorough example of them and punish them severely this time.”

Sir Rowan looked thoroughly pleased with himself for executing justice.

He caught the bad guys. Enforced the law. Restored order. As a police officer, that sufficed.

Yet it did not suffice for me. The aftertaste remained foul.

It felt like taking medicine that failed to cure the disease while leaving behind only unwanted side effects.

The pendulum of justice had moved.

Yet it had not leaned in the direction I desired; instead, it leaned in the direction dictated by the era.

Toward the vector of money, the vector of class, the vector of taxation.

“Then what of Parliament?”

I steered the subject elsewhere. Snaring a few merchants was not the primary objective. Reforming the fundamental system—namely, forging the law—was my goal.

“Ah, Parliament is currently in an absolute uproar as well. Both the Tories and the Whigs are raising their voices in unified fury.”

“Naturally so. Such things found their way into their own mouths after all.”

“Yes, precisely. Consequently, emergency legislation is currently under debate.”

At last.

Inwardly, I cheered.

Shock therapy had worked, just as expected.

With their personal safety threatened, those indolent gentlemen of Parliament had finally begun to stir.

“Is it the Food Safety Act?”

I asked with an expectant voice.

Yet Sir Rowan’s reply flowed in a direction entirely contrary to my expectations.

“Pardon? A food safety act, you say?”

Sir Rowan tilted his head. Within that tilt was not “What might that be?”, but a sincere bewilderment asking, “Why would you ever expect such a thing?”

“What is being debated in Parliament is a special law concerning the strengthening of the crime of royal insult and the defamation of noble honor.”

“…What did you say?”

I nearly dropped the teacup I was holding.

“Royal insult? Defamation?”

“Yes. The members of Parliament are infuriated by the fact that lowly merchants dared ruin a sacred charity event hosted by Her Majesty the Queen and deceived the noble aristocracy.”

Sir Rowan was not a bad person. He was loyal, diligent, and possessed a strong sense of justice. Yet his sense of justice operated entirely within this era, and the justice spoken of by the era was nothing other than class.

“Consequently, they say they shall craft a bill to impose heavier penalties should merchants dare commit fraud or deception against the nobility on this occasion. Furthermore, a bill reinforcing inspections on goods supplied to royal events is also included.”

“Ha…”

What I desired was the right of every human being to consume safe food.

The minimum guarantee for any person, regardless of the alley of their birth or the clothes upon their back, that what entered their mouth was not poison.

Yet the answer produced by Parliament was that they would prosecute the crime of daring to deceive the nobility.

It was privilege, not universality. It was class, not rights.

By enacting a nobility safety act rather than a food safety act.

“So… the contents of that bill do not regulate the safety of food itself, but rather punish fraud committed against the nobility or the royal family?”

“Precisely, Your Majesty. How could anyone dare serve unsafe food to the tables of our betters? Once this bill passes, merchants supplying the royal family and noble households will remain on strict alert.”

Sir Rowan wore the expression of a man wondering what possible issue could be found with that.

No. This is wrong.

I had attempted to elicit public welfare by stimulating their selfishness. I thought that planting the fear that they, too, could become victims would naturally engender a law regulating all food. The expectation that protection would cascade downward from the privileged class to the common folk, much like water flowing from high ground to low.

Yet the mindset of 19th-century British aristocrats transcended my imagination. They thought of themselves and the plebeians as thoroughly segregated. Dwelling in the same city, breathing the same air, and enduring the same rain, commoners in their world were simply not human beings of the same order.

Nay, aristocrats and commoners were different species from the outset, occupying different categories, governed by different rules.

What we consume must be safe. But whatever those wretches down below eat—what business is that of ours?

This was their true inner sentiment.

The reason the merchants were arrested was not because of poison, but because of taxes—and that served as proof.

Money and class. The justice of this era operated solely upon those two axes, while human life drifted rootless and coordinate-less in the empty space between them.

“Your Majesty? Are you feeling unwell?”

Sir Rowan asked with a look of concern.

“No… simply a bit dizzy.”

I waved a hand. My chest felt stifled.

Does defeating a villain manifest justice?

Does punishing the wicked make the world a better place?

No, perish the thought.

Even tossing Madison into prison would accomplish nothing if the law remained unchanged; a new Madison would emerge. Even punishing Tomkins would change nothing if the structure remained unaltered; a new Tomkins would arise. It had been the same during the Opium War. I had to fight not a single incident, but the Zeitgeist itself. And the Zeitgeist was like the wind—it could not be struck with a fist, nor severed with a blade, and even when confined by laws, it slipped right through the cracks of the walls.

“The punishment for the merchants… what shall become of it?”

“Ah, once tax evasion charges are proven, they shall likely face asset forfeiture. And prison sentences will prove quite lengthy as well, since an example must be made.”

“And the punishment for lacing foodstuffs with toxic substances?”

“That… as I mentioned earlier, lacks a legal basis…”

Sir Rowan trailed off awkwardly.

“However, judges may exercise their discretion to lengthen the sentences, Your Majesty. Since they dared desecrate a royal charity event, could not the crime of lase majesty apply?”

The crime of lase majesty. It was a matter for laughter and tears alike.

“Understood. You have worked hard, Sir Rowan. You may take your leave.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Please rest comfortably.”

The room once left behind after Sir Rowan saluted and withdrew.
Left alone, I heaved a deep sigh.

This is genuinely formidable.

Back in my whistleblower days, fighting against the corporation hadn’t felt this suffocating. At least back then, the law had pretended to take my side. Yet here, the law itself stood on the side of the vested interests. What the law protected was property, not humanity; decorum, not life; the strong, not the weak.

Passing a food safety act required more than simply angering the nobility.

Something directly tied to their interests was necessary.

Or else, redirecting their terror toward a different vector.

Tax evasion…

A thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

If the charge upon which the merchants were collared was tax evasion, could that not be turned against them?

What if the very process of manufacturing substandard food were highlighted more prominently as an act eroding national tax revenues?

Yet that alone remained insufficient.

Ultimately, those suffering harm were the impoverished common folk, while those enacting laws were the wealthy aristocrats. Unless this chasm was bridged, no matter the effort, it would culminate in a half-baked reform.

“Haa…”

I approached the window and looked down over the cityscape of London. Beneath those countless chimney smokes, people would be enduring the day even now by chewing on poisoned bread. What good was strengthening the crime of royal insult to them? Could the crime of royal insult eliminate the bone dust in their bread, the brain matter in their milk, the arsenic in their candy?

It was at that exact moment.

“Your Majesty, Lord Melbourne requests an audience.”

Baroness Lehzen’s voice reached my ears.

For him to request an audience with me meant the situation in Parliament was evolving far more gravely than anticipated.

“Bid him enter.”

I straightened my attire and adjusted my posture.

The war was far from over.

Nay, Round 2 had merely just begun.

Creak.

The heavy oak door swung open, and Lord Melbourne entered.

Impeccably tailored in his suit as always, his expression was far more rigid than usual.

“Your Majesty.”

He bowed with formal courtesy.

“Welcome, Prime Minister. Your expression is somber.”

“…I have come because I have matters to report.”

After a brief pause, Lord Melbourne opened his mouth heavily.

“The atmosphere in Parliament is extraordinary. Taking this incident as a catalyst… certain radical members of Parliament are advancing absurd claims.”

“Absurd claims?”

“Yes, rather than stopping at punishing the merchants, they propose enacting a bill establishing safety standards for general foodstuffs, which is proving profoundly vexing.”

Lord Melbourne’s gaze grew sharp.

“Punishing those who manufactured substandard foodstuffs should suffice; I fail to see the necessity of legislating food safety standards. Though I suppose that is why they are classified as radicals.”

In this era, “radical” was a label affixed to those marching a single step ahead of their time.

And those walking a single step ahead invariably appeared mad in the eyes of their contemporaries.

Yet does history not prove that after the passage of a generation, a madman’s single step became the first stride of a new era?

As I gazed at Lord Melbourne sighing as he spoke, I felt as though I had unexpectedly encountered an ally.

“Who might the person be that claimed such a bill must be enacted?”

“A gentleman Your Majesty is also acquainted with. Sir Robert Peel of the Conservative Party.”