It could not last all day, or course. Evening darkened before the sun was low, olive clouds squatting like giant toads on the horizon. There seemed no actual danger of rain, but she returned Nicolas to the greater safety of the wagon, and rode out ahead. Her mood began to change with the weather, the strange thoughts and revelations of the past days now demanding their due, and when she looked at the heavens again it was to wonder what monsters might hide there.
They halted not much later to camp. They were still in no hurry; the way looked clear to the border and it seemed unlikely that the Muscovites would try to prevent them from leaving Lorraine essentially defenseless.
She joined Creey in the carriage once she saw the physician leave, finding the redhead awake but flushed.
“Do you have a fever?” Adrienne asked, touching her friend’s forehead but finding it cool.
“Where is Nicolas, Adrienne?”
Adrienne frowned slightly. “The nurse has him in another carriage.”
“Have you abandoned your son?”
“No. He rode with me most of the day.”
“I wish you would bring him so that I can see him.”
“Crecy! Is this affection?”
“Perhaps.”
“I shall bring him to see you later, for I think he sleeps now. I do not mean to hurry you,” she said, “but we may not be alone for long. I must know what you meant yesterday.”
“It is a strange story.”
Adrienne shrugged.
“I was born human enough, I suppose,” she began. “The Korai say that the blood of Lilith flows more strongly in some, and perhaps that is how they choose us.”
“Choose?”
“Understand that I was seven years old before I knew that aught was amiss, Adrienne. Seven years before I understood that other children could not hear the voices I heard, see the things I saw.”
“You were Joan of Arc, then?”
“Joan of Arc was one of us, of course.” Crecy sighed.
“One of the Korai?”
“No, not one of the Korai. One of the—Well, we have no name. Call us fey, for the sake of convenience.”
“Fey. Like the forest sprites of peasants.”
“It is only a name. But they take human children and then leave one of themselves … here.” She reached up slowly to tap her temple.
“When I think of my childhood, I think of the voice. My earliest memories are of songs, strange little tunes which I hummed sometimes, and my mother—my human mother—asked me where I had heard them. I told her I just heard them, and she laughed. But my mother was more distant to me than the voice. The voice was my real mother, Adrienne. It made my body grow stronger, swifter than other children. In short, my dear, it shaped me. By the time I was twelve I knew what I was to do.”
“And what was that?”
“I have told you. I was to work toward the destruction of humanity, to play my part in the great plan. I have assassinated, Adrienne, and I have slept with men to gain secrets. And in the end they put me to being your friend, to fill you and Korai with false prophecies—”
“False?” The word burned her throat like vitriol.
“I never foresaw you marrying the king, Adrienne. It was a lie I was forced to tell you.”
“A lie?” She hissed. “God curse you, Crecy. I ruined my life for that lie! And Nicolas died, Torcy died, everyone died—” She choked off, realizing that she had known it all along. “Do you know—” She had to stop again. She felt stripped naked and tied before the world to amuse it. Almost, she wanted to die, it was so awful.
“Adrienne,” Crecy whispered, “you must let me finish.”
“Goddamn you,” Adrienne whimpered, not knowing what else to say.
“Surely God has never loved me,” Crecy said steadily. “Yes, I betrayed you. But when I did that, I betrayed a woman I did not know, did not love.”
“You said that you had seen us as friends, that you felt a love we had not yet had. That was a lie, too?”
“Not entirely. But I did not see that until the day we first met, when I first touched you in the canal.”
“That was before the lie about the king.”
“Days before. I was confused, Adrienne. I thought I knew what my purpose in life was. I held to duty instead of my heart. That was my sin.”
“Pretty words, very pretty. And now I am to trust you?”
Crecy closed her eyes, and to her utter astonishment, Adrienne saw a tear squeeze from one of them. “I know. I can’t even ask your forgiveness. Why do you think I haven’t told you? But I betrayed them, Adrienne. I helped you attack the king, though it went against the command of the voices. You remember Gustavus, who tried to stop us?”
“Of course.”
“A fey, like me. I fought him for you. I tore the voices out of my head for you, Adrienne, my mother and my sister, and everything I had ever known—” Her breath caught short. “You cannot hate me now. Please do not hate me. You and Nico are all that remain to me.”
“Are you so certain, Crecy?”
The redhead opened watery eyes. “What do you mean?”
“As you lay injured, you spoke to me, but I do not think it was you. I think it was your ‘voice.’ ”
“What did I say?”
“You said, ‘We have found you.’ ”
“I don’t remember that.”
“I’m sure you do not.” She was in control of herself again, her ridiculous bout of crying being gradually replaced by a sort of cold, hollow anger.
Crecy bowed her head. “Voices have found me again. But not the same voices.”
“No? Perhaps these are the ones who spoke to Mademoiselle d’Arc.”
Crecy ignored the gibe. “I think they must tune us like the chime of an aetherschreiber—the way that the elixir of life tuned the king, made him receptive to ministrations of the malakus that guarded him. I think without the potion, it takes many years; so they must begin with us as infants—perhaps even with our mothers. But somehow I shut them out, cut them from my brain—These two years, I have never heard my voice. But when I was fevered, and when I dreamed, seraphim came to me. I told you that there were two sorts of malakim. This was the second sort.”
“The ones who wish us well?”
“Yes. They are those Lilith befriended, those loyal to the true God, if we are to believe the Korai mystery. Whatever the reason, they oppose the death of our race. And, Adrienne, they have been searching for us. They are willing to offer their help.”
Adrienne regarded Crecy, and for an instant felt a profound pity for the woman. If everything she said was true …
“Will you accept it?” she asked, softly.
“It is not for me to accept. It is you they wish to serve, Adrienne. You.”
5.
The Mathematical Tower
When Ben awoke he was so pleased to be alive that he spent a moment giving thanks to whatever powers might be listening. It seemed a sensible precaution; though he seriously doubted that the creator of the universe was paying attention to Ben Franklin of Boston, there might well be some provincial god who was doing so—especially considering what he had learned lately.
The night had been hard, as each stirring of air suggested the thing slipping up on him; even the flexions of his own heart became a suspicious, fragile commodity. Added to the fear was the anticipation of at last managing to gaze upon whatever secrets obsessed Newton. The sum of that computation came to sleepless hours.
But his body was wiser than he and would not bear two nights without real sleep. Near midnight it sent some physic thief tiptoeing to his brain to steal his consciousness.
Humming, he rose, changed clothes, and left his rooms at about ten to look for Robert. Emerging into the hall, he noticed a clump of servants absorbed in some serious discourse near Newton’s rooms. One of them—a plump maid named Gertruda—was crying. Curious, he strode toward them.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, as he drew near. He knew two
of the four—Gertruda and an elderly valet named Milos. The other two—a raven-tressed beauty of perhaps twenty and a plain woman with gray-shot hair perhaps twice that—he had seen but did not know by name.
“Your pardon, Herr Franklin,” Milos said, bowing.
“No need to ask for pardon,” Ben said. “I was only wondering what Gertruda was crying about.”
“It is Stefan, sir, the sweeper.”
“What of him? Is he ill?”
“No, sir, he is dead. They found him here.”
“Dead? Of what cause?”
“God took him, sir.” Gertruda snuffled. “There was never a mark on him. It was as if he just—died.”
An extremely unpleasant notion struck Ben. “I remember Stefan,” he said. “He was not an old man.…” He looked more closely at the door to Newton’s apartments. The entire wall seemed to waver faintly, as if seen through water.
“He was only twenty-five,” the beauty said with peculiar vehemence. Ben turned a speculative eye on her—which he had done before, with other interests in mind.
“Anna,” Milos said softly. “Hush.”
Ben cocked his head. “No, please, speak. Better—” He looked around, and lowered his voice. “Better, come into my rooms for a moment that we might all speak privately.”
They exchanged nervous glances, but Milos nodded almost imperceptibly, and they all followed.
Once the door was shut, Ben paced over to sit on his bed.
“Please, sit down.” He indicated some stools. “Now, Mrs.—Anna, what do you suspect?”
“Nothing, sir. I should not have spoken.”
“But you think Stefan died of unnatural causes.”
Anna hesitated and looked at the others for support; but they gave her none, their eyes fastened on the carpet, the ceiling—anywhere but her.
“Anna, this is important. You say that Stefan died near my master’s door. Is my master well?”
“He is well,” Milos said. “The guard inquired after him, of course.”
“What did he say when he learned of Stefan?”
“He nodded,” Anna said, a little heat in her voice. “He nodded, like he knew something, and then—” She stopped, because Milos was looking at her now, sternly.
“We have to be going, sir,” the older man said, “else we will be wondered at.”
That was that, Ben knew from experience. The servants had their own ways and were as stubborn in them as the nobles they served. But he knew that that thing had come for The Sepher Ha-Razim. Newton had erected a barrier against it, and it had slain poor Stefan.
“Wait,” Ben said. “Just a moment.” He rose up. “Did Stefan leave relations?”
Gertruda nodded. “A wife and two boys.”
Ben, feeling sicker, reached into his leather wallet. “This is nothing,” Ben said. “It is not a husband for her, nor a father for her children, but it is all I have.” He reached a handful of coins toward Gertruda. “I know that you will see to them.”
Gertruda stared at the gold. “Yes, sir,” she mumbled.
“And all of you, take care,” Ben warned. “Avoid this hall when you can.”
“We already do, sir,” Milos answered somewhat gruffly.
He tried for two hours to see Newton, to no avail, and finally sought out Robert. He found him where he thought he might, in Saint Thomas’, a dark and ancient Kleinseit tavern that served good meals and better beer.
“I could wish y’ wouldn’t make as free with yer life,” his friend told him over a plate of roast beef and boiled dumplings, “but I’ll admit y’ put the bite on the old man—and Frisk an’ me as well.”
“I don’t know who has bitten whom,” Ben replied dubiously. “Have you heard about the death of Stefan?”
“The sweeper? Aye, ’tis all the talk of the servants.”
“They seem to suspect something dark.”
“They always do, where Newton is concerned.”
“This time I think they have cause,” Ben said, and then outlined his adventures in stealing The Sepher.
Robert took it all in, frowning more deeply each moment. “What was it?” he asked. “Another one of those things as accompanied that Bracewell fellow? Some witchy familiar?”
“A different sort,” Ben replied, shaking his head. “I think Newton knows, but he will not say.”
“How many sorts of these things can there be?”
Ben pressed his forehead with his fist. “Only God knows,” he muttered. “There are a thousand species of life on the links below us in the chain of being. It may be that there are at least as many above, between us and God.”
“Like the angels? Don’t Newton call ’em angels?”
“Yes.”
“That seems strange. If they’re nearer t’ God, I’d think ’em more perfect—we’d have naught to fear of ’em.”
Ben smiled grimly. “Oh? You mean as an insect underfoot has nothing to fear from you?”
“Ah.” Robert took a thoughtful bite of his beef. “And so Stefan ’uz the insect.”
Ben nodded. “That’s my guess. The thing scents after the book, but Sir Isaac has erected a barrier. It beats at the obstacle, enraged, and when a servant comes around …”
“Yet you stood near his door an’ went unaccosted.”
“True. I have no explanation.”
“How’s this? Maybe our master struck a bargain with the devil. Maybe he gave ’im Stefan as sacrifice.”
“Oh, come, Robin—”
Robert pushed back his plate, and Ben saw his friend was really angry. “How is it that y’ are so credulous an’ so skeptical all in the same breath?” he snapped. “Y’ concede the existence of the things, y’ guess that one murdered Stefan, an’ swear that Sir Isaac is makin’ up a system about ’em the like of you know not what. And so tell me, if they be angels or devils or the whatnots from the dark caves of the moon, then why may they not drink Christian blood or come at a dark Sabbath? If the devils exist, why is it that what we hear of them is wrong?”
Ben regarded Robert for a long moment, ordering his words, and then leaned forward. “Robin, the sun, moon, and stars were known to Aristotle, and he could not have been more wrong about them. It isn’t what you know, but how you come to know it—whether you can trust the method. Now, I will not trust Aristotle about the sun going ’round the earth, and I will not trust some medieval necromancer on the nature of aethereal beings. I will know what I know because I observe, because I experiment, because I observe again, because I keep my conclusions in the bounds of what I have seen, can demonstrate, can do again. Do you see? And so you say that the sun revolves around the earth, and I say how do you know that, and you say, ‘because I read it in Aristotle.’ And do you know what that makes you?”
Robert’s sour expression twisted just slightly so as to form a sardonic smile. “The graduate of a university?”
“Just so,” Ben replied, pleased to feel the tension ease between them. “Just so. And so you say that you heard that the Jews sacrifice Christians to demons or that the angels bleed honey. I’ll agree with you that there are angels—or some things we might name as such—”
“Aye, good, stop up y’r maw. Y’r point has found me. But just answer me this. This method—is it Newton’s?”
“He is the author of it. He is the master of it.”
“In his madness, could he have forgotten it himself?”
Ben stared at his plate for eight or so heartbeats before replying. “God help us if he has.” He sighed, reaching for his nearly untouched food. “But soon, by heaven and earth, I shall discover it.”
Ben shivered beneath the weight of the cathedral rising night against night above him, its thousand knobbed spires like the spines of some poisonous insect, beautiful and terrible at once. It seemed to Ben a place built from fear of God rather than love of Him, as if its dark quills and snarling gargoyles could keep the Almighty at bay, prick His toes if He trod upon the castle.
“The air is cle
ar,” a woman’s voice said, from nearby. Ben turned to regard Lenka, some ten paces away.
“I didn’t hear you approach,” he said.
“I didn’t. I’ve been waiting here.”
“It may not be safe, wandering the castle alone.”
“I heard about Stefan,” she said. “I heard that you sent his widow money. It won’t work. They still won’t talk to you.”
He suppressed an angry retort, and instead said, “Will you?”
She pointed a finger at the moon.
“Very well.” He sighed in resignation. “Come along.”
They crossed the courtyard, passing a statue of Saint George battling a dragon of decidedly unheroic size. Beside the mass of the cathedral, the tower rose, slender by comparison, a fairy-tale spire decapitated by science, its ancient conical roof replaced just that year with a polyhedron of tough alchemical glass.
“Take my arm,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“If you want to get into the tower, take my arm.”
“Very well.” She slipped her small-boned arm around his, and he was abruptly reminded of another woman holding him so—Vasilisa Karevna. Was that what disturbed him about Lenka?
A guard nervously greeted them as they drew near. “Who goes?” he grunted, hand on his sword.
“Benjamin Franklin, apprentice to Sir Isaac Newton. I’ve business in the observatory.”
“Oh, yes, I know you now, sir. And the lady—”
“My assistant,” Ben replied, winking broadly.
“I see,” the man replied knowingly. “Please be free.”
Ben gave him a little bow, and they passed on.
“Was that so necessary?” Lenka asked, as Ben opened the door and produced a small lanthorn to guide them. “It’s difficult to keep a good reputation in the castle.”
“Especially accompanying me, eh? Well, there’s a cost for everything, as you’ve shown me.”
A Calculus of Angels Page 16
