{"id":836,"date":"2026-10-09T08:38:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T08:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insidemayasmind.com\/?p=836"},"modified":"2026-10-09T08:39:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T08:39:57","slug":"queen-victoria-vs-the-ministry-of-darkness-chapter-14-the-calamitous-commotion-of-the-east-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insidemayasmind.com\/?p=836","title":{"rendered":"Queen Victoria vs The Ministry of Darkness – Chapter 14, The Calamitous Commotion of the East End"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

15th<\/sup> October<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Dickens and Miss Nightingale have returned to me bearing the most troubling of reports. It would appear that the case of the missing Members is not simply one of abscondence but is, in reality and as I had feared, an abduction. There is compelling and highly damning evidence to suggest the involvement of that most wretched of persons who calls himself The Rat King, which, if proved true, would constitute a most flagrant and unforgivable violation of The Truce.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the present, I will keep this information to only the closest of my confidants. I simply cannot risk word of this reaching the ears of the Ministry of Darkness, for that would without doubt invite a most reckless retaliation. The Empire cannot afford a repeat of the horrors of 1666.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To add to my grave discomfort, further distressing news has just this morning reached my ears. Within this very hour, I have received Commissioner Henderson of the Metropolitan Police, here in my private rooms. While he seems an intelligent and capable individual, he brought grave news indeed. Word of civil unrest spreading through the East End. He pleaded I despatch military intervention to assist the police in containing this disturbance. He even recounted, with the most inappropriate mirth, the reports of certain constables who swore they had witnessed the dead rising from their graves.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I too find such extraordinary tales highly improbable, a quiet fear has long lingered among certain corners of my government that the Ancient may try to push his influence past the boundaries of London by Dark and into London by Day. Considering this peril together with the peculiar actions of The Rat King, I have, as a measure of utmost precaution, ordered the deployment of a detachment of the Black Watch forthwith. They are a regiment far better suited to this manner of threat than any other in the British Army.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

\u201cSergeant!\u201d said a soft, gentrified voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sergeant Gordon spun on his heel, the hobnailed soles of his highly polished black brogues screeching against the grit-strewn cobbles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His back snapped into place, straighter and stiffer than a frost-hardened plank of Caledonian pine. His chest puffed out, straining the silver buttons against the bright red wool of his jacket – buttons that were prevented from pinging off like shrapnel only by the bone-white leather belts crossing his front. His hand moved in a well-practiced blur, striking the stock of his rifle in salute with a solid thwack,<\/em> accompanied by a soft rattle from the iron bars and rowan wood sewn into the thick, heavy pleats of his dark tartan kilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSir!\u201d Sergeant Gordon\u2019s voice was a sharp crack in the thin yellow mist that swirled around them in the unnaturally still air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking up at him was the ruddy, flushed face of Lieutenant McAllister. The young officer\u2019s neck craned backwards to meet the eyes of the Sergeant, who towered a good eighteen inches taller. The boy looked no more than a day older than Gordon\u2019s own lad, who was probably at that very moment chasing the stubborn geese across the sweet-smelling, heather-covered slopes of their croft near Glenfinnan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSet up a barricade across the road. Use whatever you can find, perhaps those wagons,\u201d the soft-voiced officer said, nodding towards a handful of wagons that Sergeant Gordon had already spotted and taken note of as soon as they\u2019d arrived. \u201cOh, and Sergeant, standard ordnance today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sergeant\u2019s eyes blinked at the command. Had Lieutenant McAllister noticed his nervous twitch? If he had, he didn\u2019t show any signs of having done so; his face remaining entirely smooth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLieutenant, sir?\u201d Gordon\u2019s tongue curled around the words. \u201cAll due respect, sir, but standard ordnance? The stories\u2026 we don\u2019t know what we\u2019re facing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStandard ordnance, Sergeant,\u201d the Lieutenant repeated the order. \u201cBy Major MacCowan\u2019s command. Silver rounds and iron bayonets cost the Crown money, Sergeant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAye, of course, sir!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gordon\u2019s palm struck the stock of his Enfield rifle with a violent force that left his hand stinging. The second salute said everything that his voice dared not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major MacCowan, that swell-headed toff, smelling of French cologne and tobacco, had never seen a real conflict in his life. His family\u2019s coin had bought his commission, and now it kept him tucked up safely behind a mahogany desk at Whitehall, as far from the front as he could ever hope to be. He wouldn\u2019t hesitate to throw the Sergeant\u2019s men and this green, young Lieutenant to a very messy end, if it saved a few shillings in the regiment\u2019s ledgers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou all heard the Lieutenant, lads,\u201d Gordon\u2019s voice rolled through the fog like a thunderous cannonade, sending a flock of crows scattering from a nearby soot-covered chimney. \u201cGet moving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

\u2018Big Dog\u2019 Carter stood before the hulking, green-painted oak doors of the warehouse, shut tightly and bolted firm. The fetid stench and filth of the River Thames stung in his nostrils, a disgusting brew of dead fish and human shit. The putrid green waters oozed by slowly, the wet slapping of the current against the wharves and jetties echoing in the silence. The opposite bank was little more than a dark stain against the thick yellow fog, which sucked the colour from the world and reduced the sun to a pathetic, watery glimmer in the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His hands clenched tightly on the handle of the heavy shovel. He barely even noticed the splinters that dug into his skin, skin that had grown rough, hard and calloused through years of hauling crates off ships and breaking heads in the pubs and backstreets of Wapping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat the bloody hell\u2019s going on?\u201d a second man, a whole head taller and about twice as wide as Carter, said in a thick, gravelly Irish lilt which seemed to boom from deep within his barrel-like chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow am I supposed to know, O\u2019Shea?\u201d Carter replied curtly, never taking his eyes off the swirling mist. \u201cAll I knows is Fagin said that we can\u2019t let nuffin\u2019 get into them there warehouses. So, keep your peepers open and that great Irish cake hole of yours shut.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carter\u2019s nose crinkled as a gobful of chewing tobacco landed on the cobbles with a squelch just an inch from his boots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou be bloody careful with that stuff, you great lumping bog-trotter,\u201d Carter snarled. \u201cYou get my boots dirty with that filth, and I\u2019ll stove your skull in myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chewing tobacco, a disgusting Yankee habit. Much better to use the leaf in a pipe, like what a proper gentleman would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like this, Carter. Something ain\u2019t right.\u201d O\u2019Shea spoke up again. \u201cSome folks are saying that it\u2019s the Vampires lookin\u2019 for a bit of a shindy. Or maybe them hounds or the other\u2026 things, have got across the river. And during the day too, how can that be?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carter hoisted the shovel into the air, feeling the heavy weight of the steel head in his hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Carter said, sparing his companion a brief glance. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s the bloody Mother Mary herself. If anything comes this way, it\u2019s going to get a clout.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15th October Mr Dickens and Miss Nightingale have returned to me bearing the most troubling of reports. It would appear<\/p>\n

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