by D. J. Butler
Etienne bowed deeply. The two bishops looked at each other, and then Miami extended his ring-heavy hand.
Etienne kissed it, and then did the same with the offered episcopal ring of Atlanta.
He moved slowly, kept his motions humbly constrained and submissive.
“Your Graces,” he said. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“You believe,” Atlanta grunted, “the bishopric of New Orleans is for sale.”
The Bishop of Atlanta was a heavy man whose swarthy complexion hinted at his partly Memphite ancestry. His hair was cropped short and his bulk was draped in yellow silk; he stared at Etienne through slitted eyes.
“My father is the Bishop of New Orleans,” Etienne said. There was a third couch in the room, but he remained humbly standing, and laced his fingers behind his back. “I have no wish to shorten his term of office. He’s a good man, and he does good things for the city.”
“While you are a bad man,” Atlanta snorted. “You corrupt your city in the old de Bienville tradition, and you would bribe us with the hoard you thereby accumulate.”
Etienne shrugged. “I don’t wish anything from you.”
“Not now, perhaps,” Miami agreed. He was bone-thin, with a hooked nose, thick lips, and a mottled complexion. Thick eyebrows clung imperiously to the top of his forehead. “But when your father dies.”
“All men die,” Etienne agreed. “And when my father passes, the Synod will appoint a new bishop in his place. And who will that be? Some stranger? Some nominee of the emperor, or the despised chevalier? Some Geechee tent-worker, an aspiring Haudenosaunee prelate, or a Yonkerman savant? Or will you simply appoint the beloved son of the beloved departed bishop?”
It was a rehearsed speech.
“Ha!” Miami clapped his hands once. Behind his back, Etienne heard the padding feet of servants on the stone floor.
“What makes you think I can be bought?” Atlanta asked.
Because you took the money. Because you invited me here to discuss it. “I’m not trying to buy you, Your Grace. If I were to give the income of my gaming establishment, or my other businesses, directly to the poor, or to the Bishopric of New Orleans for distribution to the poor, would that be wicked?”
Atlanta chuckled. “You would merely give the money to me so that I can distribute it to the poor.”
“Your wisdom and good judgment are famed throughout the Empire.” Etienne smiled. “Didn’t the Lord tell us ‘ye have the poor with you always’? Did he make some exception for the people of Atlanta?”
The Bishop’s chuckle broke into a loud guffaw.
“Vino!” the Bishop of Miami called to the servants at Etienne’s shoulders. “Algo blanco!”
The feet padded away.
“On the whole, the Synod is quite happy with its choice in Bishop Ukwu,” Atlanta said, shifting his bulk about in anticipation of the arrival of the wine. “It has been refreshing to have a genuinely righteous man serving the poor of New Orleans.”
“Was that your desire? Righteousness?” Etienne asked. “I rather thought the goal was to take power away from the chevalier’s family. The Le Moyne branch retained civil leadership, but removing the de Bienvilles from the cathedral was one way to curb the family’s ambitions. And indeed, such an obvious one, I have to wonder whether the Synod alone desired the curbing, or if perhaps other powers in the Empire were also interested.”
Atlanta cocked his head to one side like a parrot and stared. Miami licked his lips.
“And if such is the case, then I think in choosing a successor to my father, you should desire not righteousness, but effectiveness.”
“Meaning,” Miami said, “that you know how to get things done.”
Etienne shrugged humbly. “I hope my contributions to the poor of Atlanta and Ferdinandia would help convince you of that fact.”
Miami crooked a finger at Etienne’s sash. “The de Bienville Bishops have long been usurers, corrupt simoniacs, and worse. But they have been Christians.”
“Does my traffic with the loa discomfort you?” Etienne smiled. “I understand. You are not of New Orleans, you’ve heard terrible things. You fear witchcraft, Satanism, black magic.”
Miami grunted his agreement; Atlanta shrugged.
“But didn’t God place his host in heaven? And didn’t that same host sing at the announcement of his birth? And isn’t he the Lord of the host?” Etienne touched two fingers gently to his sash. “If I, then, pay special respect to Saint Peter or the Virgin among the host, how am I not Christian?”
“You slippery bastard.” Etienne thought he heard admiration in Atlanta’s voice. “You might indeed make an excellent cleric.”
Etienne nodded his thanks. “Someday, perhaps. When the time has come. And if the other members of the Synod could be persuaded.”
“If,” Miami agreed.
Etienne heard padding feet behind him again. “I’m pleased, Your Graces, that you choose to take a little refreshment. It offers me the chance to demonstrate my…spiritual…efficacy to you.”
“What do you mean?” Atlanta grunted.
The servant was a Hidalgo boy, maybe thirteen years old. He carefully carried a wooden tray on which he balanced a green bottle sealed with wax, a small knife, and three wineglasses.
“May I serve you, Your Graces?” Etienne rolled his tunic’s sleeves up above his elbow as he asked, and without waiting for an answer, he took the tray, shooed the serving boy away, and set the bottle and glasses onto the pedestal.
“‘I am among you as he that serveth,’” Miami quoted. “Luke. God knows, you can cite enough scripture to be bishop, but that’s never been a requirement of the office. Men have become bishop who weren’t previously priests. Knowing your gospels isn’t a sign of spiritual efficacy.”
“Agreed.” Etienne nodded, scraping the wax off the bottle with the small blade. “And this isn’t what I mean.”
“Well, then?” Atlanta’s eyes were so narrowly slitted they almost disappeared. “What are you up to?”
Etienne removed the bottle’s cork. “Our Lord’s first miracle, according to the Gospel of John, was at the wedding in Cana.”
“Water into wine,” Miami said.
“Very good.” Etienne smiled and filled the three glasses. “I see that you also know enough scripture to be bishop.”
“And?” Atlanta asked.
Etienne passed each man a glass, and then took one himself. “And today I perform the miracle in reverse.” He sipped from his glass and tasted cool spring water.
The other men also drank.
And stared.
“Magic?” Miami asked. “A Vodun trick?”
Atlanta shook his heavy head. “Haven’t the Polites warded this building for you? This is more subtle.”
“If you were to descend into your excellent wine cellar, Your Grace,” Etienne said, nodding to the Bishop of Miami, “you would find that all of the bottles of your justly famous collection have become mere water.”
“The cunning little whelp is showing you he can get to you,” Atlanta said to the other bishop. “Don’t you see? If he can bribe or threaten someone into replacing all your wine with bottles of water, what’s to stop him from corrupting one of your own servants into cutting your throat while you sleep?”
“A threat!” Miami gasped.
“No, Your Graces.” Etienne smiled. “A miracle.”
Setting down his own glass, he bowed a final time and left. As he reached the front door his breath was already coming quicker, and he heard the Brides calling.
* * *
Thomas Penn gulped cold wine and stared into the shadowed end of the hall. There, on a low stone dais, sat the Shackamaxon Throne. He’d had it carved from the wood of the elm tree under which William Penn had agreed to his first treaty with the Lenni Lenape. The wood was stained such a dark red it almost looked purple in the dim light, and the throne’s upholstery was blue, bearing the Imperial ship, horses, and eagle stitched in gold thread.
As a symbol of Imperial rule, it would be powerful.
As it was, the Shackamaxon Throne sat unused in this empty hall, forbidden to Thomas Penn by a gaggle of squabbling upstarts who, together with the Lightning Bishop, had enslaved John Penn. Unused, except on such occasions as this.
“I’ve done it, grandfather!” Thomas called.
He knelt on the cold stone floor. By day, light would have filled the hall from its high windows, but instead the room was lit by a single torch Thomas had placed in one of the brackets beside the doors. He set his goblet on the floor beside himself, touched his forehead to the stone in the direction of the Shackamaxon Throne, and called again.
“I’ve done your bidding!” He ached
The man he summoned was already present, at least in spirit and in image. On one high wall hung two paintings of William Penn: one portrayed him kneeling in a tray of earth, abovedecks on a sailing ship, praying for the vessel’s safe arrival at the land in whose soil he knelt; the second show Penn marching alone through the forest, a fanciful representation of the Walking Purchase..
He rubbed his cold fingers together, caressing his rings. On his right hand he wore the ring of Jupiter, tin with a white chalcedony set into it, and inscribed into the stone a man riding an eagle and wielding a javelin. On his left was the ring of Mars, iron, engraved with the image of an armored warrior holding a naked sword in one hand and a severed head in the other. Together, the rings brought him the service of men, eagles, lions, and vultures, and assistance in all the works of those two great planets.
“I’ve done as you asked!”
And then the Presence filled the throne.
Thomas was allowed no closer than this, not yet. He could see that the Presence took the form of a man. He hoped that one day he would sit on the throne and the Presence would fill and strengthen him. The Presence was the shade of William Penn, his ancestor, the true founder of the empire that by rights should bear his name.
The shade wore plate armor, and Thomas couldn’t see its face. Then it spoke, and a voice like bells being hammered against an anvil filled the Shackamaxon Hall.
“I was with thee in the Slate Roof House, my servant Thomas. Unseen, I consecrated the death of thy sister to the good of the Empire, as I consecrated her confinement. I heard thy command to our servant Ezekiel Angleton.”
Thomas liked the sound of the words our servant. They made him feel he was a joint actor with William Penn in creating this bold new world. He forced his forehead to the stone again.
“I receive and bless thy work, my servant Thomas.”
“Thank you, grandfather.” Not his father’s father, John Penn, but his ancestor several generations before that.
Then the Presence was gone.
Thomas rose to his feet, bringing the wine with him. The wine was essential. In truth, Thomas had lost his sister years earlier, when she had married the Ohioan princeling Elytharias. And any part of her or her relationship with Thomas that had survived that corruption had surely shattered after Thomas had arranged Elytharias’s death—under the guidance of his grandfather’s Presence, of course—and Hannah had subsequently gone mad.
Still, however much her spirit and sanity or their joint familial feeling might have been long gone, it had been a blow to see her body finally pass. Especially twisted, as it had been, by the rack.
Had he chosen the rack, or had the Presence dictated it? Thomas no longer remembered. He had done what he’d had to do, for the good of the Empire.
He took another bracing gulp of wine.
The announcement of her passing, if not the details, had been communicated to the news-papermen of Philadelphia the day before she actually succumbed. By that act, Thomas had committed himself and given himself strength to do the necessary thing.
Thomas walked back into the lit portions of Horse Hall. Men in his livery smiled and saluted as he passed. Thomas finished the wine and made a point of saluting back, with volume and cheer. He gripped the hilt of his saber and rattled it in its sheath. His servants responded with bigger grins.
Thomas dallied a moment in the main entrance of Horse Hall, admiring his own portrait. The painting was twelve feet tall, nearly twice his height, and it bore all the marks of Jupiter. Painted, Thomas stood upon the Seal of Jupiter, a circle quartered by a cross with small knobs at each of the cross’s four tips, and the faintest suggestion of stylized zodiacal swirls surrounding the circle; his belt buckle was woven of two interlocking glyphs, the S-like sign of Jupiter’s intelligence and the more angular symbol of the planet’s spirit; the buckles of his painted shoes were zetas, for Zeus. The portrait’s face was Jovian, radiating regnant cheer and benevolence, and his body was Jupiter’s as well, corpulence reflecting physical health and prosperity, flushed pink skin a sure sign of virility. They were the face and body of Jupiter, who ruled over serpents. Thomas had stood for the painting, and the artist had executed his work, only at hours when Jupiter was strong, to capture all the planet’s beneficent influence. This was Thomas as emperor, as ruler.
This was Thomas who bowed to no man.
“Your Imperial Majesty. Lord Thomas.”
Your Imperial Majesty was a form of address prescribed by the Philadelphia Compact, though the Electors had exempted themselves from using it, and instead only had to call Thomas Mr. Emperor. What kind of god-damned form of address was Mr. Emperor, anyway? It was a travesty! Thomas’s servants additionally used the form Lord Thomas, which reminded him of his days as a military man. It also reminded him that his servants were sycophants, but he was willing to accept a certain amount of flattery for the good he did his people.
“Gottlieb,” Thomas said.
Gottlieb was Thomas’s body servant, his valet. He helped Thomas dress for state occasions and he ran small errands for his master at all times. Gottlieb rose from his bow with a dull glow to his pasty block-shaped face and a foxlike glint in his jaundiced eyes. That expression meant Gottlieb knew something secret. At this late hour, he might have foregone the powdered perruque without occasioning any remark, but he hadn’t—Gottlieb’s dress was impeccable.
“Your Imperial Majesty has visitors in the library. Two separate parties.”
The library was Thomas’s private reception room. Thomas changed course to head upstairs toward the library and Gottlieb clung to his flank.
“Tell me more, Gottlieb.”
“Signor Mocenigo has been waiting longer.”
The Italian was an astrologer, exiled from his native Venice and more recently a refugee from the Caliphate. He had composed several charts for Thomas and clearly wished to compose more, though Thomas had never asked him for any. For what preferment did the Venetian hope? Land? A salary? “I will deal with Zuan Mocenigo tonight. And the other?”
“Schmidt has just arrived.”
Thomas frowned. “Schmidt who operates the coal mines south of Pittsburgh? Has he had to close the mines again?”
“Schmidt the Ohio Company Director.”
“Ah, yes.” The Imperial Ohio Company had five Directors, and Notwithstanding Schmidt was one of them. Thomas had promoted her from within the Company’s ranks two years earlier, and Schmidt had shown an admirable willingness to take his orders literally and fulfill them with imagination.
They reached the library doors. Thomas nodded to dismiss Gottlieb and let himself in.
The library was high-ceilinged, its walls lined with books. Divans and writing desks were arranged around the perimeter of the room with deliberate asymmetry. Against one wall was a cabinet containing liquor and planks of imported tea, and in the center of the room stood a single large table. At that table had been sitting the Venetian Mocenigo, who now stood. He was short and slight, and he held his shoulders thrust back and his eyes wide open, which gave him the appearance of perpetual surprise. He wore a blue and gold robe, the sort of theatrical apparel one might wear on a market day to announce one’s st
atus as a wizard or a palm-reader. With his balding head, he looked like a parody of a monk.
In the corner stood Notwithstanding Schmidt. Her strong cheekbones and the mole on her right cheek might have been beautiful on another woman, but Schmidt had the solid physique of a baker, or a farmwife, or a blacksmith. She stood with her feet planted apart and her fists balled in front of her, as if ready to fight, and her short hair might have been worn with equal elegance by a man.
Thomas found that he felt irritated.
“Please sit, Madam Director,” he called to Schmidt. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
She sat.
Zuan Mocenigo bowed. “Mr. Emperor.”
“That is a title permitted to Electors under the Compact.” Thomas sighed. “Thou mayest address me as Your Imperial Majesty.”
“Forgive me. Your Imperial Majesty.”
Thomas nodded. “Signor Mocenigo. I was not expecting thee.”
Mocenigo bowed again and sat. Before him on the large table lay spread a nativity, thoroughly filled in. “I have heard that my services may be of use to you. To thee.”
Thomas felt empty. “Speak thou clearly, Chaldean.”
Mocenigo looked suspiciously at Schmidt in the corner and then back at Thomas. “Thou hast recently learned of the birth of children to…thy sister Hannah.” The astrologer whispered slowly, as if the Jacobean pronouns of Court Speech were a challenge.
Thomas kept his voice low as well, and dropped into Penn’s English to speed up the interview. “I had imagined you were here to tell me of an auspicious day to move against the Cahokians.”
Mocenigo shook his head. “I have taken what data the Empress…that is, Mad Hannah was able to give you, and I am attempting to construct a nativity.”
“Of the three children.” Thomas gripped the hilt of his saber. “And who passed this data on to you, stargazer?” It wouldn’t have been Ezekiel Angleton; the Covenant Tract man hated astrology and everything that resembled it. Curious, given what a star-enthusiast old John Winthrop had been. And the famous Covenant with the House of Spencer had been the repudiation of Oliver Cromwell and his works, not any of the other arcane arts. Angleton himself was something of an accomplished gramarist.
