The King's Beast

by Eliot Pattison

  Despairing sounds came from Franklin as he read but he did not look up, did not speak. Mrs. Stevenson arrived with a tray and set it on the sideboard at the back wall as Judith collected the dirty dishes that had been left there. The landlady gazed at Franklin with obvious affection, then deep concern as she saw his torment. She poured tea and delivered steaming cups to Franklin and Duncan before shepherding Judith, who had also been studying Franklin with some alarm, back down the stairs. Duncan finished his cup as Franklin still read, then returned to the sketch of the strange contraption. It was beyond his experience, even beyond his comprehension.

  He thought he might be looking at some bizarre sculpture or one of the fantastic oddities seen in Bruegel paintings. On the left of the sketch was a post with something fixed to its top that put him in mind of a butterfly with two wedge-shaped wings. Under the right wing was something like an upturned flowerpot with an upside-down demijohn joined to the top of it. In the margin were scrawled the words heavy gauge steel and pressure forty-two.

  “Pierre had a formidable curiosity.”

  Duncan turned to see Franklin still staring at the letter, but now standing beside the velvet pillow. “He wanted so to share the incognitum with learned men,” the inventor continued, “saying it was a key that could unlock entire new realms of knowledge. He sent me a letter from Pittsburgh, saying he wanted to take me with him to Paris to debate its meaning with the wise men of his country.” Franklin removed his spectacles to wipe moisture from his eyes. “Dear Lord. Pierre,” he said, his voice shrunken with grief.

  “He planned to take another of these teeth to Buffon in Versailles,” Duncan reported.

  Franklin turned with raised brows and collected himself. “He confided in you, then.”

  “We traveled together for nearly two months. He knew some of the professors I had at Edinburgh.”

  “Traveled to the mysterious Lick of Kentucky,” Franklin said with a nod. “I must hear all about it,” he added, though without enthusiasm. The news of the deaths had sapped his strength.

  “When we are better rested,” Duncan suggested.

  Franklin offered a grateful nod. “I shall pay for a monument stone for Pierre. He was on the path of becoming one of our greatest natural philosophers. Bougainville. Buffon. Dumont. And poor Ezra. I met him only once but liked him immediately. A giant of body and heart who had been a great help to my wife. Deborah wrote that he was a descendant of great chieftains.” Franklin paused and examined Duncan once more. “Duncan McCallum,” he said in a low voice to himself, repeating Duncan’s name as he stepped to the mantel. He abruptly lifted a hand and lightly touched the rod of the jar at the end of the row. Duncan started in alarm as the older man’s body jerked for an instant, and he was about to leap forward when Franklin lifted his hand away, his eyes much brighter now.

  “You shocked yourself,” Duncan said.

  “The jar is not connected to the others and is much depleted,” Franklin explained with a slight smile. “Sometimes I need more than Mrs. Stevenson’s good oolong for my morning spark.” He gestured to the other jars. “If I had them all connected I would be on my back on the floor now, trust me.” Franklin straightened his waistcoat and shook his shoulders. His eyes widened. “Duncan McCallum!” he said as if the name finally signified. “The Duncan McCallum whose talents my Deborah praises in her letters? The Duncan McCallum who famously rescued several of our Sons of Liberty from captivity on a Virginia plantation?”

  Duncan bowed his head. “Your dear wife has helped me and my betrothed often and has generously entertained us at your Philadelphia table. She still complains about your lightning alarm.”

  For a moment Franklin seemed to forget the dreadful news from Philadelphia, chuckling good-naturedly as Duncan mentioned the bell Franklin had rigged with wires from a lightning rod, so that it rang whenever lightning was close.

  “She says she has to stuff wads of wool in her ears whenever it storms.”

  Franklin gave a shallow laugh, then stepped to the relic again. “A tooth, you say? Who would have thought that vile assassins would be interested in our old bones? That my friends would fall victim to common banditry? Surely one tooth is not worth so much as a life, not to say two lives. America grows very rough around its edges.”

  “The hand that directed those particular killers was in London,” Duncan said.

  Franklin scowled. “Ridiculous. No one here would even know,” he protested, but as he considered Duncan’s words his face clouded with worry.

  “Ezra and Dumont were not the only victims,” Duncan continued. “I was murdered as well. Or so the killers think. They are soldiers, sir. And now I fear for you. Before we speak of the bones and our expedition on the Ohio, might I ask if you are well protected here?”

  “Here? Craven Street? Of course we are safe. The watch in this parish is very reliable, and my secretary Mr. Quinn is a fine strapping young fellow. But surely you overreact. And as much as I am grateful for this,” he said with a falling expression, gesturing to the tooth, “if there is but this single relic my plan is unraveled in any event.”

  “I traveled with a cargo meant for you,” Duncan explained. “But the soldiers disposed of it at sea.”

  A despairing sound rose from Franklin’s throat. “All for naught, then,” he moaned. “You said soldiers? The army?”

  “But those soldiers didn’t know they were disposing of carefully wrapped bricks and pieces of wood. The real relics are due in port any day now.”

  Franklin furrowed his brow and looked back and forth from Duncan to the tooth. “I sense that my friends were wise in selecting you for this task. And I think, Mr. McCallum, that we will need another pot of tea.”

  The master of lightning listened with the attention of an eager student as Duncan recounted the tale of the expedition to the Lick, emphasizing the roles of Ezra and Dumont but leaving out his visit to the ancient shrine of the Shawnee. Franklin peppered him with questions about the size, location, vegetation, and soil conditions of the Lick, until Duncan finally asked for a sheet of paper and sketched the site for him, marking where the most significant relics had been recovered. The inventor’s eyes sparked with new interest when Duncan described the wide trail made by wood bison, suggesting that the bison were drawn by the same minerals in the soil that had attracted the incognitum eons earlier.

  “Oh, the glory of such a sight. The great beasts following the hand of the Creator!” Franklin stroked the ancient tooth affectionately, then asked Duncan to describe the other treasures brought from the Lick.

  Duncan sketched several in the margins of the paper. “No one must know,” he warned. “Not until we understand the nature of the plot surrounding them. And prithee, sir, keep my own presence a secret. The Horse Guards are a formidable enemy.”

  Franklin went still. “The Horse Guards? You just said the army. The Horse Guards?” he repeated. “Why, they are the elite, the Praetorian Guard, the Janissaries of London. You are surely mistaken. They do not serve overseas, McCallum. These men who opposed you must be impostors. The Horse Guards would never be assigned to America—they are attached to the king. And most certainly they would never trifle with old bones on the Ohio.”

  “The Horse Guards serve the Secretary at War.”

  “Technically, yes.”

  “Meaning they really serve the king’s advisers. They are the personal troops of the Court.”

  “In a sense yes, but you see—” The words died, and something seemed to catch in Franklin’s throat. For a moment he looked at Duncan with a stricken expression, then rose and stepped to the window again, as if trying to conceal his sudden distress.

  Hurried steps on the stairs broke the silence.

  On sudden impulse Duncan grabbed the tooth and pillow, laid them in the back of one of the upholstered chairs, covering the tooth, and sat in front of them.

  “Henry!” Franklin said with some relief as an athletic man in his mid-twenties appeared in the doorway. “Just in
time to meet a friend from Philadelphia. Mr. Mc—”

  “McGowan,” Duncan interrupted, rising to shake the man’s hand.

  “Mr. McGowan,” Franklin said with an uncertain glance at Duncan. “He brings news of—of the Quaker City.” Franklin nodded to Duncan, then gestured to the lean man wearing an ink-stained waistcoat. “Henry Quinn, my very capable secretary. Mr. McGowan is—”

  “A medical man,” Duncan supplied. “University of Edinburgh.” He rose to take Quinn’s offered hand but remained in front of the chair to hide the tooth.

  “We never be so healthy that we can’t stand a good dosing,” Quinn offered with a smile, then looked back at Franklin. “Have you had a complaint, sir?” he asked Franklin.

  “Just the usual,” Franklin replied, gesturing to his foot. “The price of rich living, I fear.”

  “We were discussing a case,” Duncan said. “An ancient creature who lost a tooth.”

  “Always difficult to judge whether the elderly are better off without the discomfort of extraction,” Quinn said good-naturedly, then opened the hinged top of the secretary desk and pulled one of the wooden chairs to it. “The post will be here soon,” he declared as he extracted two goose quills and a small penknife from a narrow drawer. “And we have that letter to Lord Hillsborough to finish.”

  Franklin made a show of emptying the teapot into his cup, then raised it. “Prithee, Henry, might you get Mrs. Stevenson to renew the brew?”

  As soon as his secretary disappeared down the stairs with the pot, Franklin rushed over to retrieve the tooth. “For now I will heed your advice on secrecy, McCal—McGowan,” he said, remembering. “If you wish you can use a nom de guerre, though I am sure it is unnecessary.” As he darted into the bedroom with the tooth and the pillow, Duncan glanced at the clock. Their conversation had sparked an idea for his rendezvous with Ishmael.

  “We must set an hour for more discussion,” Franklin said when he reappeared. “Tonight? I have an early supper engagement. We can meet here after.”

  Duncan nodded. “I will bring a companion who was at the Lick with me. But prithee, sir, take care in the street. Find a reason to be accompanied if you must go out.”

  Franklin offered an absent nod, then leaned closer and whispered as the sound of footsteps rose from the stairway. “I have been weighing our situation. Even if enemies are afoot, there is much reason for hope. The transit of Venus may still tilt things in our favor!”

  Duncan considered his visit to Craven Street as he walked toward Covent Garden. He had been intimidated, awestruck, and humbled by Franklin, but mostly he had been confused. He had expected a somber, intellectual statesman. Instead he had discovered a man of jovial curiosity who drew electricity out of a jar for stimulation and performed jocular experimentation with the kitchen maid. Yet he also clearly harbored secrets about high levels of government that he would not share. Duncan had warmed to the unpretentious man, but he had come away more perplexed than ever about the Sons’ mission for the incognitum. He chewed on the puzzle for several blocks as he absently navigated around hawkers and horse carts.

  He quickly found an herbalist at the large market and bought lavender, oil of juniper, and pennyroyal. The old man expressed regret that he did not have the more exotic items Duncan sought, then suggested he could recommend an apothecary if Duncan could but tell him the direction he was traveling. “There’s two apothecaries just inside the wall before the old Moorgate,” the herbalist said after Duncan’s reply, “and a fine gentleman such as yerself will want the one with the big red door. They supply the best families.”

  Duncan had a hackney drop him a block from the Moorgate and paced along the street, studying the two shops. The larger one with the big red door was busy with bewigged customers, several accompanied by servants. The second one, with a faded green door on heavy iron hinges, offered no signage but the glass jars of medical oddities in the window seemed advertisement enough.

  The proprietor of the smaller shop was a diminutive, talkative German who insisted Duncan recite the bones of the hand before selling medicines to him. “Too many snake charmers and charlatans in London, and oh the cads that see my jars and come in to ask for eye of newt!” he groused in his Bavarian accent, then brightened when Duncan mentioned his training in Edinburgh. As he prepared Duncan’s order, he revealed that he had studied medicine in Heidelberg but had been arrested not long after setting up as a doctor, for the allegedly treasonous acts of his brother, and condemned to death. The king had been merciful, however, and after executing his brother had offered him exile if he signed papers forfeiting his family estate.

  “Gnade der Konige,” the German muttered. “Where would we be without such wise men? It was all a game to take over our ancient land holdings and extinguish our titles.” He shrugged. “So, fool that I am, I came to London only to have another German king. I have plenty of laudanum and valerian, and can find some rhubarb, but this item,” he said, pointing to the next to last entry on Duncan’s list, “is very scarce. Coca leaves arrive later in the year, after the harvest in Peru. I may be able to give you a small pouch from last year’s harvest, that is all. And this one,” he said, indicating the last. “I confess I have never heard of it, and I am familiar with all the herbs of the Black Forest and the remedies of the Romany. Blood root?”

  Duncan apologized. “I forgot where I was. It is an Iroquois medicine. Sometimes I find it in Philadelphia or Boston.”

  The apothecary went wide-eyed. “Mein Gott! Medicine of the savage Iroquois?”

  “I live among them. And I expect the New World would be less savage if there were more Iroquois and fewer colonists.”

  A string of excited German syllables erupted from the man’s tongue. “I must know all about them! Have a meal with us! I beg you! Mein frau can find some sausages and good black bread. You can’t speak of living with the Iroquois then just wander back into the streets!”

  Duncan smiled. “I have urgent business elsewhere. But I shall do my best to return, Herr—”

  “Huber. Heinz Huber,” the apothecary answered, stiffening into a short bow. “Heinz Dietrich Huber. Your servant.”

  Instead of returning the bow, Duncan extended his hand. Huber looked at it, surprised, then grinned and vigorously shook it. When Duncan counted out his payment on the counter, Huber pushed back a shilling. “That’s my rebate to a fellow physician,” he declared, then pushed another to Duncan. “And this one you will still owe me,” he added, “so you are honor bound to return.” He followed Duncan’s gaze toward a worn satchel of the kind used by doctors hanging on a peg near the counter. Huber lifted it off the wall and set it in front of Duncan. “If you have use of it, I will loan it to you. I seldom need it these days. I am physician only to a few German immigrants.” As Duncan placed his purchases inside the bag, Huber reached under the counter and produced a small bundle of dried mint, which he extended to Duncan. “Against the fetor of this world,” he declared.

  Duncan’s quick survey of the Bedlam grounds revealed no sign of Ishmael. Then he spotted a huddle of sweepers and groundskeepers who seemed excited about something in a small grove of evergreens. He found his friend sitting cross-legged in front of a small smoky fire made of branches torn from the cedar tree behind him.

  He sat beside the young Nipmuc. “Perhaps, Ishmael, you wouldn’t draw quite so much attention if you put your shirt back on,” he suggested. Several of the onlookers were pointing at the intricate pattern of tribal tattoos on Ishmael’s bronze torso.

  Ishmael seemed not to hear. “I spoke with the man who tends the lawn sheep. The top floor is where the most severe cases are housed. Many of the other inmates are allowed to roam the galleries between breakfast and supper. But on the top the doors are kept locked.”

  “We don’t need all this attention, Ishmael.”

  The Nipmuc still did not seem to hear. “What if he is not in a locked cell? What if he is able to look out one of those windows and see the smoke?” he asked, indicating
the rows of windows.

  “It will not make things easier to have you taken up as another lunatic,” Duncan pointed out, instantly regretting the words, for Ishmael lifted his head as if weighing the possibility.

  “What if he thought the gods had forgotten him?” Ishmael asked.

  Duncan realized his companion had not been trying to make a spectacle of himself. He had built the kind of fire used at tribal councils, or in the lodges of tribal shamans. Fragrant smoke, especially that of cedar and tobacco, attracted the gods. Duncan extended his arms and with cupped hands drew the smoke toward him, as he would have done at a tribal fire. Then he extended the string of white wampum beads he always kept close and laid them across his open palm.

  “I vow that we will find Conawago,” Duncan said. The holder of the beads had a sacred duty to speak the truth.

  Duncan laid the beads on Ishmael’s palm, still clasping one end, and solemnly repeated the words. As he finished, the clock in the steeple down the street stuck the time, a quarter hour before two.

  As Duncan extinguished the fire, Ishmael put on his shirt. “Do you really think they will take notice?” the Nipmuc asked. “We traveled the wide Atlantic. Can the gods really be summoned so far?”

  Duncan gestured to the clouds, then to a flock of pigeons. “The gods’ breath is in the clouds,” he said, echoing an old Iroquois liturgy. “And birds whisper in their ears.”

  Ishmael didn’t seem convinced. “The home of the gods is thousands of miles away. Those birds couldn’t blunder their way out of the city. And the most important messages are carried by snakes. Snakes bring the dreams in which the gods speak to men. You heard Sarah. It was dreams that brought my uncle to London. And I doubt there are any snakes at all in London.”