A Calculus of Angels

by J. Gregory Keyes

  “If you like.”

  Crecy was always pale, but now she was as translucent as finest porcelain. Her hair fanned on the pillow like a halo of flame. Her chest rose and fell only slightly.

  “Be well, Veronique,” she whispered, bending to place a kiss on her friend’s cheek.

  Two slivers of blue ice suddenly appeared, as Crecy’s lids opened. A hissing cough escaped her lips, flecking them with blood. Holding Nico in one arm, Adrienne knelt at Crecy’s side and took her hand, but it did not grasp back.

  “We have found you,” Crecy rasped, in a voice like a knife on whetstone. “We have found you.”

  And then she closed her eyes again.

  Adrienne felt her strange hand tremble, then almost hum. She suddenly realized that she had gripped Crecy’s fingers with it. She let go of her friend, a terrible icy chill working up her arm and into her spine. Suppressing a cry, she backed from the room.

  Nicolas woke as she fled to her room, staring at her. Before reluctantly returning him to the kind-faced nurse, she sang him a lullaby, trying to escape Crecy’s strange words. They were no doubt simple delirium, and yet there had been something utterly un-Crecylike in her eyes and tone.

  Un-Crecylike, or perhaps Crecy par excellence: the cold-eyed stare she usually hid, the remorseless tones she commonly draped in the silk of emotion and care—an actress not acting.

  Adrienne loved Crecy, but even now she did not trust her. Even now she feared her.

  “Mademoiselle, the duke …”

  The girl had followed along, fidgeting restlessly.

  “Thank you, my dear. I would be honored to see the duke now.”

  Neither the duke Francis Stephen of Lorraine nor Hercule d’Argenson seemed much put out by her late arrival. They sat at the table, wine and soup untouched, awaiting her, conversing in low tones. When she was shown in, both rose.

  The chamber was quaint, almost antique, though it was brightened by an alchemical lanthorn in the form of the moon depending from the high ceiling. A tapestry of men pursuing a stag draped one wall, the Lorraine crest another. A haunch of venison lay steaming on a platter, and Adrienne understood suddenly how very hungry she was.

  “Mademoiselle, please join us,” said the young duke.

  Adrienne sat, her frame vibrating with appetite, but she waited until the duke began to sip his soup before touching hers. A lifetime of etiquette had been swept away in the dark months after the fall of the comet, but now she understood just how entrenched her training had been.

  Once she actually tasted the soup, however, her will broke, and she gobbled at the meal like a starving dog, never pausing to touch the utensils near her plate.

  The duke smiled brightly. “I take it you are unused to good meals, Demoiselle?”

  Adrienne nodded, speaking between mouthfuls. “It is true, Your Grace. I have not eaten meat in—” She counted. “—more than a month. And then it was not nearly so good as this.”

  “Mutton?”

  “Dog.”

  “Oh, dear!” Francis of Lorraine laughed again. “We shall try to keep you better fed than that.” He glanced at d’Argenson. “Though I fear we shall have to put you back on the road quite soon.”

  Adrienne looked up.

  “He means with us, not to your own devices,” d’Argenson clarified. “We must abandon Lorraine, I fear. We have not the men to hold it against the Muscovite force.”

  “This is all strange to me. I have lived …” How much did they know about her? Did they know that she and Crecy had tried—and failed—to murder the king? Probably not, or she would not have this reception. Or if d’Argenson had been a friend of Nicolas d’Artagnan, perhaps they did know but did not care. “I have lost touch with things, I fear.”

  “So have we all, my dear,” d’Argenson said. “After your abduction, as you know, the great flame fell from the sky, and the world went mad. Much of the coast was drowned, Versailles and Paris burned and then soaked in the hundred-night rain. The king, you understand, died.”

  Adrienne nodded. That much she knew.

  “What became of you and your friend?” the duke asked.

  Adrienne frowned, and decided to lie. “Our kidnappers took us to the Midi; but as you say, flame and flood washed out roads and bridges. Torcy and d’Artagnan were killed, and the rest fought amongst themselves. They then met with ruffians rougher than they.”

  “Those men we found you with?”

  “No. Crecy and I escaped, you see, and fled to stay with an acquaintance of hers.” Half truths. The truth was that there had been no kidnapping. They had all fled Versailles together after trying to kill the king. “We stayed with this friend—Madame Alaran—for some months, but as you know the weather only worsened. Her servants turned on her, in the end, and we barely escaped with our lives. We wandered, but the whole country had fallen into barbarism, like the days of the Goths, and everywhere there were bands of evil men. We finally were captured by Le Loup—the captain of the brigands you saved us from. We had no choice, so Crecy lent them her sword arm. As evil as they were, they were our only protection.”

  “I am sorry that we killed them, then,” d’Argenson said.

  “No, do not be. They were not good men. Soon they would have raped and killed us both, I am certain. No, Monsieur, you have saved our lives.”

  “It was a privilege, as I said before. And so you know nothing of the state of France?”

  “Rumors only, and undependable ones at that.”

  D’Argenson took a long draft of his wine. “There are three kings of France now, or perhaps a hundred, depending on your reckoning. Many of the noble houses have simply declared themselves sovereign, or formed pacts of mutual protection, effectively carving France to bits. Worse, the duke of Orleans has declared himself king, though he really rules little more than Paris. Philip of Spain, of course, claims all France, and has of late sent troops inward to secure the southern portion—”

  “Ah! We met many fleeing that army.”

  “Just so. The third king is the duke of Main, whose whereabouts are presently unknown, though some say he has gone to New France.”

  “Who controls the army?”

  “No one—everyone.”

  Adrienne nodded. “Many of the gangs on the roads and towns were once of the army, but surely some remain loyal.”

  “Yes. Some to Orleans, some to Main, others to their old commanders, who do with them as they see fit. Orleans has had to split his forces—half to defend against the Muscovites coming from Flanders, half to defend against Philip in the south, though Philip claims, of course, that he is only coming to aid France against the Muscovite foe.”

  “The Netherlands?”

  “Holland drowned; the dikes were broken and the sea came in. Tsar Peter sent thousands of men and ships to their aid. Much rebuilding has been done, but now the Muscovite grip on the Netherlands is strong, and he marches on Lorraine and Paris—a long front, but he has the men and weapons to sustain it. Terrible weapons, even more fearsome than those we saw used in the Flanders War.”

  “And so now we must flee my duchy,” the duke broke in. “But I will return for it, one day. Those bears will not dance in Nancy and Metz forever!”

  The young duke sounded more excited than chagrined at the prospect of losing his duchy, she noticed.

  “Where, then, shall you go?” she asked.

  The boy’s eyes shone. “It shall be a grand adventure, I promise you, Mademoiselle. My army and I shall march to the east—through Muscovite and Turk—and we shall offer ourselves to the Holy Roman emperor in Prague. And, God willing, with our aid, we shall free Vienna besides!”

  Adrienne asked, “You have a large army, then?”

  “Almost two thousand souls!” Francis of Lorraine said, raising his glass. “To the empire and the glory of God!”

  “The empire!” d’Argenson echoed.

  Adrienne wondered if she had just fallen from one fire into another.

  7.
/>   At Court

  Karl VI, the Holy Roman emperor, was the first monarch Ben had ever seen, and now as at that first meeting, he found himself far from impressed. Eyelids drooping, jowls pendulous, ringleted wig falling like gigantic, floppy ears, Karl more resembled a mournful hound than the heir to a lineage said to date back to Aeneas. Today he seemed more melancholy than usual.

  It was an informal audience, and while Ben preferred those to formal ones, he still found them anything but relaxed. The room—one of the smaller galleries in the palace—was nevertheless crammed with gaudily dressed halberdiers, the Gentlemen of the Golden Key, the Gentlemen of the Black Key—all of whom Ben thought of as merely “the old men”—assorted courtiers, advisers, and servants. And, of course Sir Isaac, Sir Isaac’s valet, and Sir Isaac’s apprentice. Newton himself wore a vermilion coat embroidered in gold, while Ben wore the comparatively somber black coat and waistcoat chosen for him by the maid.

  A string quartet played something dreadful in a nearby alcove as they waited, hats tucked under their arms, for the “informal” audience to get under way. At last, the chamberlain beckoned them forward. Newton went first, performing the Spanish genuflection, bowing deeply thrice and then dropping to one knee. When it was Ben’s turn, he did the same, sweeping his hat gracefully before him.

  He was rewarded by a gasp from the entire court, and for an instant he was well pleased with himself, believing that his performance had been somehow superlative—until he suddenly understood his mistake. At the end of his bow, he had—quite inadvertently—replaced his hat on his head. That made exactly two people in the room wearing hats: himself and the emperor.

  He hastened to remove the offending headgear, and though Karl deigned not to notice the breach of etiquette, the “old men” stared angrily at him for the remainder of the audience.

  The emperor nodded at Newton and cleared his throat. “How fare things scientific, Sir Isaac? Have you discovered anything of gravity?”

  Ben chuckled aloud, but he was the only one in the room who did so. No one ever dared to laugh at the emperor’s jokes, probably because the emperor himself never even twitched a smile. “A very clever pun, Your Majesty,” he said, bowing once more. The emperor inclined his head toward Ben, but then returned his attention to Sir Isaac. A few belated and forced titters drifted about the room, accompanied by additional venomous gazes directed at Ben.

  “Indeed, Sire,” said Newton, “I have been making great strides of late in the development of a new system, one which, by comparison, shall make even my Principia appear rather pale.”

  “That is good to hear. The empire has need of such ‘new systems,’ I am certain.” He raised a brow. “I hope in this new system you make certain matters clear.”

  Ben knew what he meant. Everyone was aware Newton had discovered some means of recovering his youth, and the emperor—and a good number of others—took a rather extreme interest in that, though the interest went mostly unspoken or couched, as now, obliquely.

  Newton understood him, however. “Yes, Sire. It is a matter of regularizing an accident, of making it mathematically predictable. It is the difference, you might say, between taking—accidentally—enough of a virulent poison to cure an illness but not kill and being able to reliably prescribe that dosage. His Majesty will understand that I hesitate to experiment upon him in such matters.”

  “I should say I do,” the emperor replied. “But I speak of more important things than this ‘medicine.’ ”

  “Yes, Sir Isaac,” another man put in. “How will this new system aid us in our struggle to reclaim the empire from its enemies?” This speaker was nothing like the emperor. Though an older man, he hardly looked it. If the emperor was a weary bloodhound at the age of thirty-eight, Eugène of Savoy at fifty-nine was a wolf. Though childlike in size and proportion, what there was of his slight body seemed made of wire, piano string tuned so tight as to be near the breaking point. Still, just as Karl VI did not, at first sight, strike one as being an emperor, the prince of Savoy did not look like the greatest general of his age—not, that is, until you noticed the metallic glitter of eyes, windows into a head full of dancing knives.

  “I durst not say,” Sir Isaac replied, keeping his gaze upon the emperor’s knees. “Unless His Majesty should ask me himself, and even then I would beg for a private audience.”

  “Quite right,” the emperor said. “That is as it should be, given recent events. Considering all you have done for the empire, it pleases us to trust you. And yet, I could wish for some results soon, Sir Isaac, something of practicality. You must know how heavily it burdens me that Spain, our rightful possession, languishes under Bourbon rule. Harder still that glorious Vienna, queen of all cities, cracks beneath the weight of fat Turks. But as you well know, Prague herself is now threatened. Why, we have heard even today that a Russian mob threatened our sorcerer’s apprentice.” He gestured with thumb and forefinger at Ben, who bowed, wondering how long one’s knees could last at court.

  “I apologize for that incident, Majesty,” Newton replied. “I have instructed Mr. Franklin to remain, henceforth, on this side of the Moldau.”

  “The matter is weightier than that,” the emperor said. “We have had cooperation from the prisoner taken this morning, the leader of this gang, and he has admitted to being an imperial Muscovite agent. His charge was to steal one or both of you away from us. Gentlemen, we do not care for this at all. Prague—all Prague—must be more secure, and we must have weapons that will make the Russians think twice of trying to shuck this oyster for its pearl.”

  “I assure you, Sire, that you will have such weapons soon enough.”

  “Very well. Is there anything else that either of you have to say, then?”

  Ben stepped up and bowed once more. “Yes, Sire. I have a present for you.”

  The emperor did not smile, but his eyebrows rose, a sign of his pleasure. “How thoughtful,” he said, and gestured for the chamberlain to take the box Ben indicated, the one that Newton’s valet had carried in a few feet behind them. The old fellow took the package and drew out the shoes, which Ben had hastily painted black.

  “Well, how unusual,” the emperor said, and this time the laughter around the court was a bit freer.

  “If it please Your Majesty, like the men who accosted me, they are more than they seem.”

  “I guessed as much. Well, there are no wings upon them, so I suppose they are not the fleet shoes of Mercury.”

  “No, Sire, more those of Poseidon. With them, you may skate upon the liquid surface of water.”

  “What a delightful thought. I should like to see this.” He paused for an instant. “I should like to see this now.”

  The move to the first courtyard and its fountain pool took a full hour, though the distance traversed was less than a hundred yards, because moving the party meant that everyone present had to sort themselves into the proper order, from emperor to servant and all of the somewhat-disputable degrees between. Ben had never seen a more profound waste of human effort and ingenuity, and he reflected privately that it was no wonder that the empire had withered to a single city if this ossified ceremony was indicative of how affairs of war and diplomacy were also conducted.

  They at last reached the courtyard, and he bounced lightly up onto the edge of the fountain pool, donned his inventions, and began to shuffle about upon the marble-confined puddle. Only silence greeted his performance until the emperor gave an enthusiastic exclamation and a single clap, and then the applause pattered around Ben like rain. This cheered him up, and that the courtiers could not even decide whether something amused them eased his anger into jovial disdain.

  He twirled about and bowed, still standing on the water, and then stepped down from the fountain, bowed, presented the shoes to the emperor.

  “I shall furnish more for your daughters, if you wish, Your Majesty,” he said, “and I have taken the liberty of engaging a boatwright to modify one of your pleasure craft in like way.”

/>   “A boat that touches not the water?” Prince Eugène mused. “I think I might see some advantage in that.”

  “Yes, yes!” the emperor exclaimed. “Sir Isaac, again you have amused the court and shown us something useful. We are very pleased, and it would please us mightily if you would attend Mass with us tomorrow.”

  Ben felt a bit of guilty delight; though Newton always got the ultimate credit for Ben’s inventions, it was Newton who had to pay the price by attending state functions—and worst of all, church. In all the world, Newton despised nothing so much as the Catholic Church, and in Bohemia, there was no other church, unless one counted the Jewish temples. Newton felt it a mortal sin to attend—as he put it—the “lying, pagan rituals” of Catholicism.

  But Newton knew his limits, too, and the boundaries of the emperor’s favor. “If it please Your Majesty,” he conceded, bowing.

  Yes, let him have the credit—and let him be the one lying prostrate in the cathedral whilst Ben found diversions with less devout playmates.

  The audience began breaking up. It was nearing the dinner hour, and as soon as it was polite, Ben took his leave. As he crossed the courtyard, however, he found himself suddenly confronted by a bizarre procession.

  Some ten or so dwarfs in miniature courtly garb were marching into the yard. First came halberdiers, followed by bearers supporting a small sedan chair, behind which trailed pygmy versions of courtiers, “gentlemen,” “ladies,” and most interestingly, one small man all in red, wearing a peaked astrological hat and little round spectacles.

  As the weird cortege drew up abreast of him, the window of the sedan chair lowered a few inches. Inside, Ben could see a little girl, perhaps five or six, with strikingly blond hair and unreasonably serious eyes.

  “Hello, Mr. Franklin,” the girl called. “Could you come here for a moment?”

  Ben bowed thrice and went down on one knee before he approached the chair. “Good afternoon, Duchess,” he said.

  “Archduchess,” she corrected him, with a bit of childish petulance. She was dressed exactly as a great lady—in a blue and silver gown trimmed with gold and large, dangling sleeves: an empress with a court made to scale.