A Star Shall Fall

by Marie Brennan

  Galen was already on his feet. Despite the messenger’s obvious hurry, the Prince offered a hand to Irrith, and helped her up from the grass. “Are you attending the ball, Dame Irrith?”

  It would almost be worth it, just to watch Galen try not to sigh over Lune, but even that could not drag her into so elegant an event. “No, I must talk to Ktistes. But I hope it goes well.”

  He bowed, and then followed the twitching messenger out a nearby arch.

  Left alone, Irrith knelt again and touched the plaque. Dr. Hamilton Birch: 1750–1756. It was . . . 1758 now, she thought. Galen was twenty-two. Nineteen when he came to the Onyx Hall.

  She didn’t know when his birthday was, nor when in 1756 he’d succeeded Lord Hamilton, but he couldn’t have been in the Onyx Hall for more than a year or two before he became Prince of the Stone.

  Quick elevations had happened before. Usually it was because something had happened to the previous Prince. And Hamilton Birch had reigned for only six years.

  Then gave way to an uncertain young man whose chief qualification seemed to be adoration of the Queen.

  Irrith liked Galen well enough. He clearly had a generous heart and an overwhelming desire to serve Lune faithfully. He was, however, also naïve enough to make Irrith feel like a jaded politician. Why had the Queen chosen him? Especially at so crucial a moment, with the Onyx Hall itself in mounting danger. Lune must have her reasons, but Irrith could not fathom what they were.

  But then, Irrith didn’t know Galen all that well. She’d managed to accumulate a little bread, though—enough that she could spend some time sniffing around in the world above.

  The time had come, she decided, to take a closer look at this new Prince.

  Memory: September 16, 1754

  Leaving behind the seventh draft of a note explaining the necessity of his decision, Galen St. Clair rode south out of London.

  Darkness and the threat of tears obscured his vision as he crossed the new Westminster Bridge, descending into the open fields of Lambeth. Galen tried to force the latter down. He’d wept enough already; all of them had, from his mother down to little Irene.

  All except his father.

  Fury made his best guard against misery. Charles St. Clair had refused to share the details of the disaster, but Galen had gotten them from Laurence Byrd; he now knew to an excruciating degree of fineness how his father had gambled his fortune on a series of dubious investments, and lost it through the same. They were not penniless—his father kept saying so, louder every time, as if that made the situation more palatable. Not penniless, but they would have to practice a great deal of economy, and even that would not save the three St. Clair daughters. Their marriage portions would be small indeed.

  Unless money was found, somehow. And so Galen wrote a letter, sealed it, and left it on his father’s desk, then took horse for Portsmouth and the Royal Navy. Britain was fighting France in the Ohio Country; there was hope of proper war, and with it, prize money.

  In the madness of his desperation, this was the life Galen had chosen for himself.

  He pulled his horse to a stop in the middle of a narrow lane, bracketed by hedgerows. His breath came hard in his chest, almost crossing the line into sobs. Could he do this? Abandon his mother, and his sisters, and the soil of England itself, to go to sea and court death in hopes of a brighter future?

  It seemed to him that the darkness lifted a bit, as if the clouds had cleared, uncovering the moon. Galen’s breathing slowed when he realized two things: first, that the night was already clear, and second, that the moon was new.

  He looked up into the sky.

  High above, silver-radiant against the tapestry of the stars, rode a goddess. Her hands rested lightly on the reins of an enchanted steed, and her hair streamed free like the tail of some glorious comet. No road bore her weight, nor wings; the horse galloped upon the insubstantial air.

  Behind her came a host of others, but Galen had no eyes for them. He sat rapt, his own mount forgotten beneath him, and turned in his saddle to watch the goddess go by. His memory, trained since childhood by a mother who loved the stories of the pagan Greeks and Romans, whispered names in his ear: Artemis. Diana. Selene. Luna.

  Perfection, beyond the reach of mortal kind.

  And she was riding to London.

  There was no mistaking it. The enchanted host changed their course, lowering to the grassy fields just before Southwark’s edge. His heart ached to see them descend to earth. They were airy things, and her most of all, that should not be contaminated by the heaviness of the world.

  Yet they were of London. He’d seen it in the serenity of her beautiful face: she was coming home. Somehow that filthy city, choked with dung and coal smoke and the cries of the poor, that maw that ate up fortune and spat out ashes, was beloved to her. Wherever she had gone, she rejoiced at her return.

  I must know who she is.

  Galen tugged unthinking at his reins. Nothing happened. His horse, he saw, had bent to graze on a thick tuft of grass. Growling, he yanked harder, and dragged the reluctant beast onto a neighboring lane. But however much he spurred it onward, he wasn’t fast enough; by the time he reached Southwark, the enchanted host had vanished.

  His heart pounded with passions that could not be put into words. That vision—who she was, what she was, and why she dwelt in London—

  He could not leave.

  A few moments ago, he’d been uncertain. Now there was no question. He could not turn his back upon the glory he had seen. Galen would stay, and search the city from Westminster to Wapping, tearing up the very cobbles of the streets if need be, until he found the lady again. And when he did, he would offer her his services, even unto death.

  With tears once more upon his face, Galen turned his weary horse homeward.

  But this time, they were tears of wonder.

  The Mitre Tavern, Fleet Street: June 15, 1758

  The crowds of Fleet Street were bad enough in the evening; at four o’clock in the afternoon, they were nothing short of absurd. This time, Galen’s choice to ride in a sedan chair had little to do with economy, and a great deal to do with common sense; as slowly as he was moving, a carriage would have gone even slower. Andrews had chosen the same mode of conveyance, and as they crawled through the press, the doctor’s rear chair-man was able to carry on an entire conversation with Galen’s forward man.

  By the time he and the doctor stepped out at their destination, the early heat had called forth sweat from every pore of Galen’s skin. Andrews had gone so far as to take off his wig, and was fanning himself with his hat as Galen rejoined him. “God, I hate London in the summer,” the man said with feeling. “But the food will make up for it, I assure you; we’ve had a gift of turtle recently. Come, follow me.”

  They escaped the clamor of the street for the quieter—though by no means quiet—interior of the Mitre Tavern. Men sat at their dinners all along the tables, and waiters scrambled to attend to them; Galen was almost run over by one plate-laden fellow as Andrews led him toward the stairs. The private room above was a relief by comparison, even if the air within was stuffy with pipe smoke, and the gentlemen there distinguished enough to put Galen to shame.

  Most of them were members of the Royal Society, but this, the similarly named Society of Royal Philosophers, was a much more select group. According to Andrews, their membership was limited to forty, and the dues collected to pay for their weekly dinners would have sent Galen’s father into an apoplexy. Though it was far from the most expensive or exclusive club in London, it was more than enough to intimidate Galen, who once again was attending only as a guest.

  Andrews made the rounds of introductions. Encouragingly, a number of the gentlemen remembered Galen; those who didn’t, came rarely or never to the meetings in Crane Court, which took place after this dinner every Thursday. And there was another young man there, perhaps five years older than Galen, who was likewise a newcomer and a guest. “Henry Cavendish,” Dr. Andrews said by way of intr
oduction, when they came face-to-face. “Son of— is your father here, Mr. Cavendish?”

  The answer came in the form of a gesture toward a man Galen remembered from his first Royal Society meeting. Once again he stood in conversation with Lord Macclesfield, who was president of both societies. “You are the son of Lord Charles Cavendish?”

  A nod. Galen glanced fleetingly at Dr. Andrews, perplexed by the other’s silence. But his companion was distracted. “Ah, Mr. Franklin! Good to see you again. Hadley was telling me your thoughts on evaporation—”

  When everyone sat down to dinner, Galen found himself with Andrews on one side and Henry Cavendish on the other, with Franklin—who, it transpired, was a Society Fellow visiting from the colonies—across the table. His conversation with Andrews had moved on to electricity, about which Galen knew very little. While the waiter brought out the first course, Galen addressed himself to the challenge of drawing Cavendish into conversation. “Your father is the Vice President of the Royal Society, I believe. Do you have an interest in natural philosophy as well?”

  Another nod, as the fellow piled his plate high with pheasant, cod, and pork. What was it going to take, to make him open his mouth? Perhaps it was simple snobbery; if Galen remembered lineages correctly, Henry Cavendish was the grandson of not one but two dukes. On the other hand, it was hard to ascribe snobbery to a man so shabbily dressed; his coat, to choose but one example, was not only plain but frayed at the cuffs and collar.

  Faced with the prospect of eating in silence, or else of ignoring his companion to join in conversation elsewhere, Galen opted for a third course of action: he began to talk about whatever came into his head, with frequent pauses that invited Cavendish to contribute. Taking his cues from those around him, he kept his focus on matters philosophical, but within those constraints he gave his curiosity free rein. From Lord Charles’s work on thermometers he went on to something Franklin had said about electricity, and thence to astronomy, which—as it always did—led his tongue to fire.

  “It’s a topic of great interest to me,” Galen admitted. Somehow he’d managed to empty his wineglass, wetting his throat; he would have to be more careful, lest he inadvertently make a drunken fool of himself. “I’m fascinated by an account I just read of the work done by a German, Georg Stahl—do you know of it?” He paused for the now expected nod. “I’d never considered that the calcination of metals and the combustion of wood might be the same thing, the release of phlogiston from the material. And who says it ends there? After all, the transmission of electrical fluid can cause fires, as lightning strikes have shown; perhaps that fluid is phlogiston in pure form, or at least contains it in high proportion.”

  With the general chatter filling the room, Galen almost didn’t hear the response. “If it w—if it w—” Cavendish stopped and tried again, with better success. “If it were pure phlogiston, we should expect to see electricity leap into the air as a log burns.”

  It was two answers in one: a refutation of his notion, and an explanation for why Henry Cavendish had not opened his mouth before. The gentleman’s high-pitched voice squeaked like a nervous girl’s, and strain showed in his eyes and jaw as he forced himself past the awkward pauses.

  Galen felt instant remorse for having thought the man a snob. Nothing could change that unfortunate voice, but surely a gathering of this sort, filled with strangers and free-flowing conversation, made his stammer worse. No wonder Cavendish was quiet.

  Having achieved the tiniest bit of success, though, Galen was not about to abandon the effort. “I suppose that’s true. I confess, I’ve only just encountered Stahl’s phlogiston theory; a friend gave me the book last week.” One benefit to Cavendish’s reticence; he wouldn’t ask about the friend, and therefore Galen wouldn’t have to come up with a lie with which to disguise Wilhas von das Ticken. “Have you done any experiments on the matter?”

  The conflicted expression in Cavendish’s eyes was familiar to Galen: a profound desire to indulge in his passion, warring against an equally profound reluctance to speak of it. Their respective situations might be very different, but the result looked remarkably similar.

  “Hard to do,” Cavendish finally mumbled, after another excruciating set of attempts to get the words out. “Need to isolate phlogiston. Might be able to do it with iron filings and acid—Boyle’s experiment. Drive the phlogiston out of the metal and ca—and ca—”

  Galen stopped himself just short of saying “capture it.” Interrupting someone of Cavendish’s stature would be rude in the extreme. Besides, even as the words formed in his mind, the association they called up startled him so badly he dropped his fork. Perhaps it’s already been captured.

  Captured—and exiled to a comet.

  Salamanders, according to the fae, were the embodiment of fire, and the Dragon was that same concept writ large. And what was phlogiston—the substance that escaped wood when it burnt, and metals when they calcined—but the fundamental stuff of fire?

  “Dangerous,” Henry Cavendish said, in an overenunciated squeak, apparently responding to some speculation he’d made while Galen wasn’t listening.

  He was far more correct than he knew. “I think,” Galen said, his thoughts racing ahead almost too quickly for his own mind to catch, “that I might have a notion of another way to do it. To obtain a pure sample of phlogiston—or close to pure, at any rate. If I brought such a thing to you, would you—”

  He didn’t even have to finish the sentence. Henry Cavendish’s eyes blazed from the phrase pure sample onward. Behind the awkwardness was revealed the sort of mind Galen had hoped to find when he first came to the Royal Society. This grandson of dukes might not be another Sir Isaac Newton, bringing fundamental revelation to the world, but neither would he be a mere dilettante scholar, writing rambling letters to the Society about the curious rock he found on his estate. The passion for knowledge was there, and the intelligence necessary to seize it.

  From the other side of Galen, Andrews said, “Pure phlogiston? If you obtain that, Mr. St. Clair, you must share it with the Royal Society at once! Not merely the substance, but the means by which you isolated it. This could be a tremendous advancement.”

  Far too much attention was falling on Galen now. Bring a salamander to Crane Court? It was unthinkable. Using his dropped fork as an excuse to hide his face, Galen mumbled, “Well, I—I am not confident it will work. And I would have to, ah, repeat my results, to be certain they’re reliable. You understand.”

  The waiter saved him. He entered the room just then, followed by two of his fellows bearing a large silver platter. With a flourish, they lifted the cover to reveal the promised turtle, and Galen’s reckless declaration was forgotten in the ensuing approval.

  By most. Andrews, however, did not forget. While the dish was being served, he leaned closer to Galen and said, “If you need any assistance, Mr. St. Clair, do not hesitate to ask. I know this is quite aside from my usual studies, but I would be extremely interested to see that result.”

  “You shall,” Galen said, arriving at a decision without warning. I’ve dithered long enough. There are minds here who can help the Onyx Court—but only if they have information to work with. Cavendish was too new; Galen had known him for less than an hour. Andrews, on the other hand, he’d been studying for six months. The time had come to make a decision.

  Andrews saw the change in him. Softer yet, he asked, “What is it, Mr. St. Clair?”

  Galen shook his head. Not here, and not until he had a chance to notify the Queen. But once that was done . . .

  “Might I call on you tomorrow, Dr. Andrews?” The older man nodded. “Excellent. I have a few things to share with you, that I think you will find very interesting indeed.”

  Holborn and Bloomsbury: June 16, 1758

  Galen half-wondered why no one commented on the strange drumbeat coming from within the sedan chair. Surely his heartbeat was audible all the way to the river. Lune’s encouraging words last night had fortified him enough to prop
el him out the door, but now that he was here, the magnitude of what he was about to do threatened to overwhelm him.

  Momentum alone carried him out of the chair, up to the suddenly menacing door, into the cool entrance hall of Dr. Andrews’s townhouse. The words he’d carefully rehearsed all through the Royal Society meeting last night, through the hours when he lay unable to sleep, through the breakfast he didn’t eat and the journey to Red Lion Square, now ran about like frightened mice in his head, scattered and incoherent. Telling himself that others had done this before him didn’t help; he hadn’t taken the time to study preferred methods of revealing the Onyx Court, and now it was too late.

  The obvious solution—fobbing Andrews off with some other topic, and trying again later—was out of the question. Galen knew himself an occasional coward, but that was a retreat he could not accept.

  “Coffee?” Dr. Andrews offered, once he’d emerged from his laboratory and washed his hands clean in a basin the maid brought. “Or brandy, perhaps?”

  That his host should offer spirits told Galen just how visible his nervousness was. Licking his lips, he thought, Delaying will only make it worse. I must do this now, or not at all.

  “No, thank you,” he said, and somehow those commonplace words of courtesy steadied him. “Dr. Andrews, I do not wish to give offense, but—are your servants the sort to listen at keyholes?”

  The older gentleman’s eyes hardened. “They are entirely loyal to me, Mr. St. Clair, and they know I will not tolerate indiscretion.”

  The frostiness, Galen thought, was not directed at him. A household like this, without a wife to manage it, was often an ill-run menagerie; it took a wise choice of housekeeper and a stern disciplinary hand to prevent gossiping, pilfering, and general shabbiness of service. Dr. Andrews, it seemed, had achieved that success.