Newton's Cannon

by J. Gregory Keyes

  James nodded. “I've that trouble myself now and then.” He stepped fully into the room and closed the door. His eyes were just a bit glassy and his speech slightly slurred. Ben knew that James had been out at a tavern. “Normally when I find you up, however, it's with a book in your hand.”

  “I had a bad dream,” Ben explained. He wanted, then, to tell James everything, about Bracewell's attack, about the dream just now. If only he knew how to begin it without sounding insane.

  “What are you setting there? I thought we were done,” James asked, settling heavily onto a bench and stretching his back so that it cracked audibly.

  “What? Oh, it's the latest letter from Silence Dogood.”

  “Ah, the good widow,” James said. “I must admit, I wonder who she is. We were just discussing her down at the Green Dragon.”

  “You and the Couranteers?”

  “Aye. Do you realize that she has been published in New York, as well as here?”

  “Yes,” Ben answered. “I send them her essays in trade for what they send me.”

  James frowned and wagged a finger. “You should keep me informed of these things, Ben. Else what will I do when you run off to sea?”

  Ben puffed out his cheeks. He wasn't prepared to deal with James' peevishness just now. “James …” he began, but his brother waved him to silence.

  “Never mind, Benjamin, I was wrong to say that. You've a smart mouth, but lately you've been a good 'prentice, and you've given me no cause to whip you in many a day. What's more, I owe you much, and we both know that.”

  Beer sometimes made James feel generous, and it sometimes made him mean—occasionally both. “Thank you,” Ben said.

  “This is a new age, Ben, a time such as has never been in all of history. Everything is being invented anew, reforged, beaten into new shapes!” He emphasized his last point by slamming his palm into the table. He leaned forward, his eyes alight. “Here in Boston, we will take that reshaping in our own hands, Ben.”

  He reached into a pocket of his coat and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Here, look at this!”

  Ben took the paper and unfolded it. For an instant, he was puzzled; it was a handwritten layout for the first page of a newspaper, all ready to be set into type. It looked like their own paper, the Courant. But then Ben took better notice of the caption:

  The Little Compton Scourge

  or

  The Anti-Courant

  “Who wrote this?” Ben asked, his eyes already picking down the page. There was a long essay attributed to “Zachariah Touchstone,” surely as fictional a name as “Silence Dogood.”

  James lifted his hands. “One of the ministers; I suspect the Reverend Walker or Increase Mather, or perhaps several of them. Here, give it back, I want to read you something.”

  Ben dutifully handed the paper back to his brother, who searched it a moment, and then, clearing his throat, began to read.

  “It is most abundantly clear that the advertisements of the Courant are the scribblings of a nonjuror, and that the supposed Couranteers comprise no less than a Hellfire Club.”

  James looked up at Ben, eyes flashing. “Oh, they shall reap the whirlwind for this! We'll set it first thing in the morning.”

  “You will print that? That libelous attack on your own person?”

  “Of course! I gave it out that I would publish anything sent me, did I not? Sure I will show that I am a man of my word.” He leaned forward intently. “But then I shall have their words before me, for all the world to see, and I shall vivisect them on the table of my next issue like an anatomist taking apart a dog. We shall see who looks the more foolish in the end.”

  Ben couldn't help smiling, and he felt a sudden, unexpected pride for his brother. Still, a part of him could not help but say, “The ministers are the masters of Boston. Are you so certain that you wish to provoke them?”

  “They have done the provoking—calling us a ‘Hellfire Club.’ Taking issue with my opinions on science and God is one thing; attacking my person and the persons of my friends is another. We are moving into a new age, Ben, and our good ministers belong to the old one.” He gestured at the type Ben had been setting. “Silence Dogood believes the same. Even her name is a lampoon against Cotton Mather, taken from his own ‘Essays to Do Good.’”

  He rose up and stretched, patted Ben's shoulder, and gave it a little squeeze. “These are great times, and we must strive to be great with them. I somehow feel that in the battle to come, Silence Dogood will weigh in on my side,” he said softly, and winked. Then, he pushed through the door and off to his room.

  Ben sat staring after him, blinking back tears. He ran his fingers blindly over the raised type, feeling there, for the first time, a powerful science, a compelling magic: a spell to shape minds, a knife to stab at tyrants.

  It was a science he had never expected to learn from James.

  He realized, then, that he had not told his brother about Bracewell, as he had intended; James had too quickly launched into showing him the Anti-Courant.

  The hell with Bracewell, he thought suddenly. I won't run from him.

  I have some ideas of how to deal with you, Trevor Bracewell, he thought, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  And he had something else to do, as well. Mouth set, breathing hard, he walked purposefully over to the aetherschreiber. He took up the stylus, slid a fresh sheet of paper beneath it, and began to write.

  My Dear Mr. F:

  Your correspondence on matters mathematical has recently come to my attention. I wish to assure you that I have not intentionally eavesdropp'd upon your conversations, but a new sort of aetherschreiber—of my own design—has allowed me to do so. I believe, however, that you will be less rankl'd by my intrusion into your correspondence when I tell you that I believe I have a part of the solution for which you have been searching so diligently. Though I wish only to serve, my partner and I would appreciate some credit in the publishing of your results when the time comes. If you are agreeable to this, and if you desire my advice, please reply at your earliest convenience. You need only use the schreiber which you receive this on. If you wish me to ever after cease intruding upon your private matters, you need only say so, and I will most happily desist with sincerest apologies.

  Your Most Humble Servant,

  Here Ben paused. He could not bring himself to sign his real name, not now. So instead, he gripped the pencil more tightly and signed, in precise letters, Janus.

  11.

  Three Conversations

  The next day Adrienne was allowed to go to Mass, though she was accompanied at each step by a guard of the Hundred Swiss. In the ornate chapel she knelt and prayed as earnestly and unaffectedly as possible for the dauphin and for the king. She wished to pray for her own safety, but God knew what she was and was not innocent of—he would help her if it pleased him.

  As they returned to her apartments, she glanced up at the silent, tall guardsman. He was a young man—perhaps a year or so older than she—with eyes slightly too far apart but otherwise handsome in a lean, rangy way. The gaudy blue coat of his uniform, with its red facings and silver lace, seemed ill-suited to him. Only his battered scabbard seemed to belong with the rustic accent he revealed only reluctantly, when she forced him to speak.

  “You seemed a bit lost in the chapel,” she observed quietly as they stepped into the neighboring courtyard. Rain had dampened the stone, spicing the air with a gritty marble scent, and somewhere nearby a finch trilled.

  “It seems more a cathedral to me,” the young man admitted. “I am used to poorer surroundings.”

  “I'm sure you mean humbler, for no church is poorer than another in the eyes of God,” she replied. “But I understand you. To pray at Versailles is difficult.”

  He nodded and when they had gone a few steps surprised her by speaking again. “I wasn't distracted when I prayed,” he said.

  “I have prayed often in the past day.” He glanced at her shyly. “I prayed for you,
Mademoiselle.”

  She felt a slight heat at that, but did not look at him. “Really?” she said. “For what reason?”

  “You are in my charge, milady.”

  “As to that, sir,” she began, pursuing the question she had begun the conversation to ask, “why are you tasked to follow my every move?”

  Now he colored slightly. “To keep you safe, milady.”

  “Safe? Safe from whom?”

  “From the murderer, lady.”

  “He has not been found?”

  “No. We are not, in fact, certain how the deed was accomplished.”

  “I see.” They had by now reached her apartment, and he opened the door for her.

  “I shall be outside, milady,” the guardsman assured her.

  “I do not doubt it,” she replied, and to her surprise found that she meant it. She hesitated, for she felt that there had been some question she meant to ask him, but it had now stolen from her tongue. She reluctantly returned to what was clearly a fashionable prison cell.

  Perhaps two hours later, there came a scratch at her door, and Helen hurried to answer it. Adrienne was gazing out the tall window. In the sky, the gray pall of the previous day and morning had boiled away. The warmth of the sunlight, however, was an illusion; the window might have been a pane of ice to the touch, and Adrienne drew a shawl tightly over her new grand habit. She had asked Charlotte to find her something simpler, but as of yet the girl had not been able to procure anything.

  There was a whispered conversation behind her, and then Helen called, “You have a visitor, Mademoiselle. Monsieur Fatio de Duillier.”

  Adrienne turned in astonishment. She could see him in the doorway, turning a tricorn with both hands, hair disheveled. She strode briskly toward the parlor. “But of course, Helen, let the gentleman in.” The door swung wider, and she could see her guard there as well, face carefully blank.

  “You may leave the door ajar, Helen,” Adrienne said.

  Fatio shuffled clumsily forward, reaching for her hand. He kissed it and, continuing to hold it, met her eyes. Above his beaklike nose, his eyes seemed almost miserable with concern.

  “Very good, Monsieur,” Adrienne said, trying to appear cheerful. “Here in Versailles your scratching was most appropriate. You are learning the manners of the court, I see.”

  “Ah … yes,” Fatio muttered. “I had heard you were on the barge. I … are you well?”

  She patted his hand. “Never fear for me, dear Fatio,” she replied. “My back was scorched a bit, no more. By good luck I happened to be lying down when whatever happened happened.”

  “Very good,” Fatio went on. “Still, the shock, the awful shock of seeing …”

  Her breath felt a little quick, a little strained. “I think I shall sit down.”

  “I'm sorry; I shouldn't have brought it up,” Fatio hastened. She was afraid he might weep, and he mustn't, for then she would weep. She had not known them, those blackened corpses, but she might have once, if only at a distance.

  She hadn't even prayed for them. She had just forgotten— the scene of the dead and dying had leaked out of her mind. But it hadn't leaked far, just to her eyes now. She covered her face with her hands.

  “Oh, dear,” Fatio said. “I'm sorry; I shall leave and return later.”

  “No,” Adrienne managed through her sobs, “no, stay here, sir, for my sake.”

  Helen and Charlotte came over and held her, stroked her hair, wiped her face with a damp cloth. A few minutes passed before Adrienne gently pushed the two girls away.

  “Pardon me,” Adrienne apologized, nearly in control of her voice again. “I believe I interrupted you.”

  Fatio shrugged. “I don't remember what I might have been saying,” he answered.

  “Then tell me how you happened to come to Versailles so quickly.”

  Fatio blinked. “Oh, why, the king sent for us.”

  “For you and Gustavus?”

  “Yes … well, no … I mean, he sent for all of us—the entire academy.”

  “What?” she said, astonished.

  “The academy is being moved to Versailles. All of my equipment will arrive by tomorrow.”

  “This is … that is incredible,” Adrienne stammered. And mad, she finished inwardly. What would they use for laboratories? “Have you seen your accommodations?”

  Fatio nodded. “Our quarters are less than they might be,” he confided. “But the rooms for our work are more than adequate. We can begin almost immediately. Of course, I will find someone to replace you, until you are well enough to …”

  “What? Oh, no, Monsieur, I am well enough, I assure you.”

  “Adrienne, I could not think of asking you to work so soon after this ordeal. I'm sure—”

  “Sir, no!” Adrienne shouted, shocked at herself. “I mean I need to work, Fatio. If I am idle I will only dwell on things. At Saint Cyr we were taught that work and dutifulness are antidotes for any ill.”

  His eyes searched into hers, as if he stood some chance of finding in them her true desires, and, surely failing, he nodded reluctantly. “Whatever you wish,” he said. “But I would not have others say I required you to return too soon.”

  “They shall not, I assure you. The king has already returned to work, and as you may know, his grief and injury are far greater than mine.”

  “The king seems … distraught,” Fatio offered, his careful choice of words making it clear that a more extreme adjective might have been more accurate, if not appropriate.

  “You have seen him?”

  “We were practically dragged before him. He demanded—” Fatio stopped and made a little grimace she was certain was intended as a smile. “I understand that the king is usually quite polite.”

  “I have rarely seen him lose his civility,” Adrienne agreed, “but these must be considered the most trying of times. What was he … abrupt with you about?”

  Fatio nodded. “Abrupt is a good description. He wished me to conclude my research quickly. I have promised him great things, you see.”

  “Which I am sure you can deliver,” Adrienne soothed.

  “I hope so,” Fatio said sincerely. “It's just that I believed I would have a bit more time.”

  “Well, then,” Adrienne said, “we should return to work as soon as possible. Is tomorrow soon enough?”

  Fatio made a last attempt to protest, but he bowed to her steadfast insistence.

  When he had gone, she called the guardsman over to her.

  “Monsieur,” she said, “tomorrow I shall need to return to my work. Ask whomever you must, accompany me where you will, but I can no longer remain in this room.”

  Hours trickled by until the shadows lay long and black outside. Helen and Charlotte lit a fire in the fireplace. Adrienne wrapped a second blanket around herself, remembering something that Madame de Maintenon had once said. “For Louis,” the queen had remarked, “a draft counts for nothing next to the perfect symmetry of having two doors precisely opposite one another.”

  It was not yet night when Torcy arrived.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, “I am a busy man. Someone has tried to kill the king, and we must all do our part to discover who has done so.”

  “Is not the king's valet pursuing the investigation?” Adrienne asked.

  “Indeed. And he has appointed me to look after certain elements of it.”

  “I understand,” Adrienne said, “and I am thus all the more grateful that you have agreed to see me.”

  Torcy flashed his predatory grin. “I would have come to see you, Mademoiselle, whether you had asked it or not.”

  Adrienne stiffened. “I don't understand,” she replied.

  Torcy answered. “I will be plain. You remember our previous conversation about the duke of Orléans and your appointment to the academy?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you will understand why I must ask you what you and the duchess of Orléans had to discuss yesterday, shortly before the tragedy.” />
  Despite herself, Adrienne felt a stab of anger. “Pleasantries, sir,” she said, “nothing more. I was seated next to her.”

  “Yes, I know. I seated you there myself, wondering what might pass between you. Now, be honest with me. What did she tell you?”

  Adrienne frowned. “Do you suspect the duchess?”

  Torcy scowled. “The duke and duchess of Orléans have been suspected before. When the first dauphin died, and the duke and duchess of Burgundy. It was said that they might have been poisoned.”

  “The king never believed that,” Adrienne said.

  “Oh? So you defend the duchess then?”

  “No,” Adrienne said, but was astonished to discover that she wanted to. “No, if the duchess conspired to assassinate the king, then I wish only God's pity on her, for she shall get none from me. I simply state the facts: the king never believed that the duke and duchess of Orléans were guilty of murder. In fact, he never believed that there was murder at all, but blamed some strange disease.”

  “And how would you know this, my dear? You were but nine years of age.”

  “I remember, Monsieur. The duchess of Burgundy came often to Saint Cyr. Years later, when I was Madame de Main-tenon's secretary, those ugly rumors still flourished. But if the king did not credit them and the queen did not credit them, I don't see why I should.”

  Torcy took a deep breath. She noticed that his hands were clenched and his knuckles white.

  “To be truthful,” Torcy admitted evenly, “I never believed those stories either. I believe that the three dauphins and the duchess died of a malignancy—measles or scarlet fever, perhaps. But now I must consider every possibility. And I must consider you, Mademoiselle.”

  “I had no part in this murder,” Adrienne insisted. “I know nothing except what I witnessed.”

  “Tell me what you witnessed, then.”

  Adrienne related everything she could remember, including her conversation with the duchess of Orléans, omitting only the passing of the note and its contents.

  Torcy nodded. “You tell me nothing that I did not already know, but I thank you for your testimony,” he said. He then bowed and turned to leave.