“Claptrap,” said Calhoun.

Margaret looked at him coldly. “The tragedy of your life, sir, is that despite all your ambition, you’ll never be king.”

Calhoun turned red and started to answer, but the King raised a hand to silence him. He was quite a young man, perhaps younger than Margaret and there was an air of quiet assurance about him that she rather liked, especially since he seemed interested in what she had said. “All I want to know,” he said, “is the name of the one they call the taker of names.”

“But you already know it,” she said to him. “Several witnesses have told you about Denmark Vesey.”

“Ah, but we know about him because of excellent investigative work. How do you know?”

“I know that he’s innocent of any ill intent,” she said.

A man handed the King a paper. “Ah, here it is,” the King said. “Your name is Margaret Smith, yes? Married to an accused slave thief. And you’re here in Camelot to meddle in our ancient practice of servitude. Well, tonight we’ve seen where leniency takes us. Do you know how many slaves told us about plans to kill entire White families in their sleep? And now I find that there’s a White woman intimately involved with the conspirators.”

With sick dread, Margaret saw herself playing the leading role in some nasty futures in the King’s heartfire. She hadn’t bargained on this. She should have probed into her own future before coming to the King with wild-sounding stories about Blacks giving up their names voluntarily, for safekeeping, and then getting them back suddenly. “You must admit it sounds like a fable,” the King explained kindly.

“Your Majesty,” said Margaret, “I know that there are those who urge you to punish this revolt with brutality. You may think this is necessary to make your subjects feel secure in their homes, but Your Majesty, extravagant measures like the one Mr. Calhoun proposes will only bring greater danger down upon you.”

“It’s hard to imagine a more heinous danger than our servants turning their knives on us,” said Calhoun.

“What about war? What about bloody, terrible war, that kills or injures or spiritually maims a generation of young men?”

“War?” asked the King. “Punishing revolt will lead to war?”

“The rhetoric surrounding the issue of whether the western territories of Appalachee will be slave or free is already out of hand. A wholesale slaughter of innocent Black men and women will outrage and unify the people of the United States and Appalachee, and stiffen their resolve that slavery will have no place among them.”

“Enough of this,” said the King. “All you have succeeded in proving to me is that you are part of a conspiracy that must include at least one of the servants in the palace. How else could you know what John Calhoun’s proposal is? As for the rest, when I need advice from an abolitionist woman on affairs of state, you’re the very person I’ll call upon.”