Newton's Cannon

by J. Gregory Keyes

  Adrienne, standing, crossed her arms across her breast and stared at him, silently daring him to raise his gaze to meet hers. “And how is that, Nicolas? How is it that what you ‘had to do’ was betray me? You say that you love me.”

  He looked up at the ancient red marble of the pavilion, the grape vines crawling from the forest to swallow it, the tiny chapel nearby.

  “Believe me or not,” he said. “But I brought you here to tell you. If you had not confronted me—”

  “I am certain you speak the truth,” she retorted. “For I am infallible regarding you, am I not? You have played me like a harp, Nicolas. You have plucked my strings, and I have sung your tune. But I—” Her breath caught. This wasn't going as she wished.

  At last, his dark eyes focused on her, wells of remorse, and she faltered. “I meant to tell you,” he repeated. “I had to report to Torcy. If I had not, someone else would have, and then he would no longer trust me. And he must trust me when I betray him. Adrienne, look to your heart. You know I love you.”

  “My heart? My heart is an imbecile. There is nothing trustworthy about my heart. And what do you mean, betray Torcy? What—” Hot tears streamed down her face, but her voice stayed steady.

  “Come here,” he said almost harshly, his long frame unfolding. In four steps he had reached her, taken her arm in a grip almost too tight. She jerked violently, but his grasp remained secure.

  “Come,” he said more softly and tugged her toward the little chapel.

  “I found this place long ago,” he told her. “I think it must have been here even before Louis XIII built the first Versailles. No one else comes here.”

  They now stood just within the dimness of the building. Nicolas withdrew a small, glowing stone from his pocket, and the single room grew visible.

  Inside was a small, austere altar and crucifix. In the right-hand corner there was a pile of blankets, leather packs, a musket.

  “Nicolas? What is this?”

  “We are leaving Versailles,” he said, “today. Now. I have the things there that we need—forged documents, supplies, everything.”

  “Why?”

  “Torcy knows you will fail to kill the king,” Nicolas hissed. “He hopes your attempt will drive him mad or some such. Torcy is desperate, Adrienne, and he does not care what becomes of you. I do.”

  “How long have you planned this?”

  “Since first I met you, I think,” he replied. “I hope that in time you will understand. I hope you will forgive me.”

  She took his head in both hands and kissed him, burying her lips against his. He was a furnace, a portal to flame and alchemical mystery, to immolation. She sought more and more, until in the end they slipped together onto the chapel floor, bodies gripping tighter than hands enfisted until they reached the physical limits of human embrace, went a pace farther, and finally collapsed back into space and time, exhausted.

  Lying there, counting his ribs, she laughed and kissed him with lips still salty from tears.

  “What?” he panted.

  She gestured at the crucifix. “I suppose now that I am damned beyond redemption,” she said. “But I love you, Nicolas d'Artagnan.”

  “Then you will go with me?”

  “No,” she said. “No, but afterward …”

  He reached his hand up to her lips, and she kissed the tips of his fingers. “There will be no afterward,” he said. “Not if you try to kill the king. You will not survive, Adrienne.”

  “Yes, I will, Nicolas, and then we shall away together. Not before.”

  “Adrienne—”

  “Shhh. You asked me to forgive you. So I shall, my sweet, but you must abide my wishes. For a change, we must do as I say.” She hesitated. “It tempts me, Nicolas, but I must do this.”

  His tender gaze turned somewhat stony, but at last he nodded.

  “Good,” she said. “Now—” She gently disentangled from his embrace and stood naked in the dark chapel, feeling instantly shy. Ruefully she picked through her clothes. “It was here somewhere,” she said. “Ah!” She brought forth a folded note. “Take this to Torcy and tell him I need this made.”

  Nicolas sat up, leaned back on his elbows, and after a moment surrendered a little half-smile. “Give me a kiss first, and I will consider it.”

  She did, and thus another half hour passed before they emerged from the chapel, Adrienne inspecting her clothing for damage. Most of it was unseen, and Adrienne thought how pleased Crecy would be at the state of her stockings.

  19.

  Traitor

  Ben pounded on the door, his fist driven by a rising sense of desperation. “Robin!” he shouted. “Please, open up!”

  Something rattled beyond the portal; someone cursed. Finally came the scratch of the bolt drawing, and the door opened a crack.

  “Damn,” Robert muttered from within. “I was wonderin' when you'd be back.” Even through the narrow gap, Ben caught the faint juniper stench of gin. “What th'hell do y' want?”

  “It's important, Robin. Let me in, please.”

  Robert grunted and pushed the door open, stumbled back into the apartment. “Lost my job,” he explained. “Not that I expect you t' care. What did y' come back for, t' press the debt I owe you?”

  “You don't owe me any debts, Robin. It's I who owe you.”

  “That's a fine thing to say,” Robert grumbled. “But y' must want something. You didn't come back here out of friendship.”

  “I did.”

  “Hum. So will y' visit Boston next, an' y'r friends there?”

  Ben felt he could hardly breathe. “Look, Robin, I can't explain it,” he gasped, not sure what he was saying. “I seem to have a knack of putting people out of my mind. When I think about it, it grieves me, but not so much as I do anything about it. I don't know why I'm that way.”

  Robert arched an eyebrow and then traced the sign of the cross. “Well, my son,” he muttered sarcastically, “now that I've heard your confession—”

  “Dammit, Rob, I've come back to save your life!” Ben shouted. “Dammit, dammit …” His pulse was rushing in his ears. He seemed to be outside himself, watching some sort of poorly written comedy. As his knees buckled and he sank to the floor, he thought what a pity it was that theatrics were so often substituted for wit.

  He came to with Robert flicking beer into his face. “No water,” the older man said gruffly. It seemed like an apology. “I shouldn't have given you such a hard time for doin' what I myself have done a thousand times. Hell, Ben, you don't know how often I thought about taking your money and just leavin' you.” He grinned toothily. “I s'pose it's like with a woman. No matter how often y' think a' leavin' them, when you find they've gone and left you, it grieves you. Now. Suppose you trace back a few steps and tell me what got you so upset.”

  Ben still felt faint. His skin had a sort of papery feel, and his mouth was dry. “Give me a cup of that beer,” he gasped.

  It was small beer, weak and cidery, but it wet his tongue and lips and made him feel a bit better.

  “This will sound mad, Robin, but you have to believe what I say.”

  “Go on.”

  “In less than a week, London's going to be annihilated, and I'm to blame.”

  Robert blinked, but otherwise his expression didn't change. “Go on,” he said.

  “I know it sounds mad,” Ben repeated, and told him the story. In his mind, it had acquired a sort of crystalline structure, all of the elements coming together at once—not unlike how he had seen the way to tune an aetherschreiber. His correspondence with the unknown philosophers; their calculations of trajectories and their search for a way of altering those trajectories. Then Newton's cryptic model, and finally, all at once, the two mysteries meeting.

  “I gave them the key,” he finished. “I made it possible.”

  Robert pushed his fingers through his copper-tinged hair and sighed. “You want me to believe that the French king has summoned down a comet from the heavens t' smite London?
Jesus and Mary! This thing you're after telling me …” He waved his hands despairingly.

  “I know. But it's true.”

  “Why tell me? Tell your fine scientific friends! Tell the king!”

  “I'm telling you because I want you to leave London and save your life.”

  “That's it?”

  “No. I also needed to tell someone I trust. In case something happens to me.”

  “Now what are y' going on about? No more of your mysterious talk, Benjamin Franklin. Everything plain!”

  “I don't know. Just a feeling. All the way back in Boston, Bracewell knew. He knew that I had gained some information about this plot. I don't know how—maybe some way of tracing the aetheric path back to my schreiber—”

  “I thought he threatened y' before y' made the schreiber.”

  “That was on general principles. But after I wrote to the French philosophers, all hell broke loose. Don't you see? He's connected to all of this. Now Maclaurin and Vasilisa—all of us—we all know about the comet. And they must know we know.”

  “Because you think there's an Englishman informing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Aye. Because the transactions were in English and Latin. So even if the magi behind all of this are French—”

  “They certainly had help from here. They would have had to, to aim the comet so precisely. Robin, they had to tune the comet to harmonize with London.”

  “What about this other society, the Philosophical Society? Might they be the villains?”

  “Maybe. But I think I know who the traitor is, Robert.”

  Ben finished the mug of beer in one long draught and set the cup down. “I think it's Sir Isaac himself.”

  “Sir Isaac?” Robert turned incredulous eyes upon Ben.

  “Hear me out.”

  “I'm listening.”

  “One. Sir Isaac has ample reason to be angry at the Crown—”

  “This isn't the Crown, Ben. 'Tis the city of London and a million souls!”

  “Two,” Ben continued stubbornly, “he could be deranged. All of his disciples think he is and have therefore either quit the Royal Society—which I remind you has been dissolved—or have stuck with him from loyalty. I have met him, and he hardly impressed me as sane.”

  “Three?”

  “Three, he made the model—”

  “Which goes against your case. Why would he arrange all this and then warn his disciples?”

  “You just said it, Robert. He's warning the only people he still cares about.”

  “And the only people who could cast some counterspell.”

  “It doesn't work like that. Even if we had all his notes and all the French notes, we would still have to construct a counterspell. That would be the work of months, not a week. And even if we had an equation to divert this comet—and the apparatus to implement it, which I can't even begin to imagine—it's still too late.” His voice rose to a nearly hysterical shout.

  “You don't know that fer sure,” Robert said.

  “No, I don't, but it's damn probably the truth.”

  “Well, y' should be finding out, not cracking y'r teeth here with me.”

  “I wanted you to know. I left one friend to die. I won't do it to another.”

  Robert covered his eyes with his palm. “I wish I were more completely sober,” he said, “for heaven help me, I'm starting to believe you.”

  “Then you'll leave London?”

  “A week, eh?”

  “Yes. Unless Newton intentionally lied. But by the time I get back, Maclaurin will have checked this all astronomically.”

  “Well then, let's go see him.”

  Ben stared. “Us?”

  “Aye. I'm no philosopher, but it sounds as if y'r worried about physical danger—that this Bracewell or some wild Frenchman or even Newton will attack you. That is something I know how t' handle. I'll bodyguard the whole lot of you.”

  “That's a generous offer,” Ben said quietly. “But Sir Isaac has philosophical weapons and protections. I'm far from certain—”

  “Ben,” Robert interposed, “I'm at home in a lot of cities, but London has a special place in my heart. I'd rather not see her buried under this big rock of yours. Just let me get my sword and pistol.”

  “You have weapons?”

  “Always, milad. I'll clean up and escort y' back t' Crane Court. And then we'll see what other philosophic heads might have t' say about all this.”

  Returning to Crane Court, Ben had to admit that having Robert with him did lend a certain feeling of security, with his confident swagger and his sword.

  It gave him enough peace of mind to think, to wonder where Vasilisa was, and he reluctantly considered the possibility that she might be involved in the foreign plot. After all, his assumption that the philosophers on the other end of his aetherschreiber were French was a purely circumstantial one.

  “Robert, do you know which calendar the Russians use?”

  Robert uttered a guttural chuckle. “What a question.”

  “That means no?”

  “That means no,” he affirmed. “Russia I've never been to.”

  Ben decided to let the matter drop. His suspicions about Vasilisa were probably groundless. A much more likely candidate for traitor within the group was Voltaire, who—not being a philosopher—had a rather thin excuse for always being present.

  “This is the place,” Ben told Robert as they came up on Crane Court. By now it was quite dark between the street lanterns, but the windows of the former Royal Society were lit from within.

  “Let me do the introductions,” Ben said. “For now you are a cousin of mine from Philadelphia.”

  “Y'r facility with deception is developing quite nicely, Ben,” Robert whispered.

  “Thank you,” he replied as he opened the door.

  In the shocked pause that followed, Robert was the first to react, his hand snaking toward the pistol at his belt. Ben was still a statue.

  “No, no!” shouted Bracewell from where he sat in the hall, two pistols trained on the door.

  Robert did not pause. In an instant he was standing behind Ben, arm straight out as a ramrod over Ben's right shoulder. If he pulled the trigger, the pan would spark right at Ben's cheek. Ben closed his eyes, waiting for the thunder.

  It did not come. Instead, Bracewell chuckled and held his own weapons steady.

  It was Bracewell. He wore an eye patch, and his generous wig could not entirely hide the stippling of scar tissue on his face and neck. Of his two weapons, one seemed a normal flintlock, while the other had three small barrels clustered together. The latter Bracewell gripped in a metallic hand, much too skeletal to be a gauntlet. He wore his uniform jacket, a black waistcoat, and a surfeit of lace about his neck.

  “Well, Ben, well met. But I would advise that you have your ape-man lower his pistol, or I shall be forced to shoot through you to kill him.”

  “I'm willin' to bet that Ben's body will stop y'r ball,” Robert said. “I'm just wondering where I oughta open a hole in you.”

  Two more men entered from the hall, each armed with kraftpistoles.

  “What's this?” one of them asked Bracewell, raising his own weapon.

  “A silly situation,” Bracewell explained.

  “You haven't fired yet, so it can't be all that silly,” Ben managed.

  “Oh, but I will fire,” Bracewell said. “It would be more convenient for me if you were to live a bit longer, that is all. But I assure you, rather than let you escape again, I will kill you. There are three of us.” This last to Robert.

  “I don't care about the other two,” Robert clarified. “It's you I plan t' kill.”

  “Do we know each other, sir?”

  “I don't think so,” Robert said, “and I would certainly remember a face such as yours.”

  “Tish,” Bracewell said. “You can do better than that, I expect, if you wish to insult me. Ben, where did you find such a droll acquaintance? Quite unlike that other fello
w—what was his name? John. Yes, John.”

  “What did you do to John?”

  “Why, I'm not obliged to tell you that,” Bracewell said. “Though if you ask nicely—and have this good fellow point his gun elsewhere—I might.”

  “Robert—” Ben began.

  “No,” Robert said evenly. “Whatever happened t' y'r friend is over and done. I don't know this fellow's game, but I do know that if I put this here pistol down, you and I are both dead men fer sure.”

  “You are dead men no matter what. Though I would prefer Ben live long enough to see what he has accomplished.” Bracewell still hadn't moved a muscle below his neck.

  “Sir?” one of the men said. Ben thought he might have a French accent.

  “We have time—a few moments, at least. You see, Ben, in the end I am delighted that you failed to heed my friendly advice regarding the scientific. If you had, certain acquaintances of mine might still be frustrated. It was necessary to kill you afterward, of course, but you eluded me. Very clever.”

  “Why are you bothering with this now?” Ben asked. “We found your plan out too late.”

  “That may or may not be so,” Bracewell said. “When I came upon Maclaurin, he was hard at work on a counter formula. You see, as we expected— Oh, hello, James.”

  James Stirling had just entered the room. “Mother of God, Bracewell, what's going on here?” he said, eyes darting about at all the gun barrels.

  “Well, you neglected to inform me that young Ben here had a watchdog.”

  “I don't know this man. Ben, step inside. Tell that man to put down his gun.”

  “You!” Ben said.

  “Ben, where is Vasilisa?”

  “Safe, I hope. She left after I—” He shut his mouth stubbornly.

  “Ah. You worked it out,” Stirling smiled.

  “But you knew all along.”

  Stirling's face changed. A kind of concern had overwritten his normally bland expression, but now his lips parted in a grin that showed teeth. “And you announced yourself to me. Didn't it occur to you that when you used your schreiber to send your brilliant little communiqué to F that two machines would receive the message? F's and the one that his was originally paired with? For better than two months I fretted about who the hell Janus could be, and then here you appear, with your notes to Newton, right here in London. Janus! I still didn't believe it could be that simple—that you were just a boy who blundered into the situation. I imagined some crafty, unseen opponent, a brilliant tactician, using you as his pawn. You scared the hell out of me, Ben, especially when you and Newton started having your little meetings. I had to keep Bracewell off you until I was certain, and that wasn't easy at all, I promise you.”