The King's Beast

by Eliot Pattison

  Franklin had a hard time controlling his mirth until they had crossed the Westminster Bridge. “Fresh air! Fresh air!” the Philadelphian called out as he rapped his cane on the coach roof, and for a fearful instant Duncan thought he might be suggesting he was about to take one of his air baths. But then the coachman opened the screen behind his bench and Franklin settled back in his seat, gesturing for Woolford and Duncan to roll up the leather flaps covering the windows.

  Fields of crops appeared on either side of their road, and as the breeze brought the sweet scent of newly cut hay, Duncan looked out to see half a dozen men with forks pitching hay into a wagon drawn by two heavy Shire horses. Beyond the field, rows of fruit trees extended toward the horizon.

  Franklin closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Two or three extra miles at least, but who can complain on such a fine summer day? An excellent suggestion, to conduct this reconnaissance.”

  “Extra miles?” Woolford asked.

  “The King’s Road runs directly to Hampton Court and the deer park, a fast, well-maintained road, but of course it may only be used for royal business. Years ago I was a guest at a banquet at Hampton and so my coach was allowed on it after I showed my invitation,” Franklin explained, bouncing as the coach lurched over a rut. “A fine road, and considerably smoother than this,” he added good-naturedly. “The Astronomer Royal and I discussed whether the incognitum might travel on it but decided that was too risky.” Franklin leaned out the window. “Just look at this scenery! Industrious agrarians! Breathe in the green, growing scents! And orchards! Nothing like a good apple for avoiding the physicians.”

  Duncan and Woolford exchanged an awkward glance. While waiting for Franklin that morning, Woolford had handed Duncan a piece of paper bearing the crossed-sword printer’s mark, torn from a document. It held another mocking couplet, this one about the special apples Deborah Franklin sent to her husband, which he insisted were better than any available in England:

  Newtown Pippins, Pippins of Newtown

  From over the sea to fatten the clown.

  The apples, Duncan had learned from Judith the maid, were sent secretly because they were in very short supply and Franklin chose to share them only with the household. Duncan could not help but wonder if there were any secrets of the Craven Street household that had not been compromised. In the night he had recalled Darby’s warning, that the shadow of death hovered over him, and every compromise brought that shadow closer. You will die, again and again, Catchoka had warned.

  As Franklin leaned out the window, studying the countryside, Duncan extracted a slip of paper and handed it to Woolford. The sketch on it was of the small pin Xander had shown him the night before, temporarily removed from Lieutenant Nettles’s waistcoat. It was in the style of the other pins from Milbridge that Woolford had shown Duncan, but he could not make any sense of it. The image was of a lightning bolt with a bursting star superimposed over it. Along the edge of the golden pin were the Latin words POMPA FULGUR VINCERET. Fireworks conquer lightning.

  Woolford studied the sketch, then took a lead from his pocket and quickly scrawled on the bottom of the paper. Famous racehorse named Lightning, he wrote. M. must own horse named Star or Starburst or such that beat Lightning.

  As their vehicle settled into a more even gait, Franklin settled back in his seat and addressed Woolford. “Deputy Superintendent. Most impressive. How is my friend Superintendent Johnson? We have corresponded for years, though I have never had the pleasure of meeting him face-to-face.”

  “Very fit when I bid him farewell four months ago.”

  “And his Indian bride, of such famed beauty?”

  Woolford exchanged an uneasy glance with Duncan. They both were well aware of Johnson’s ambiguous relationships with tribal women. “The Mohawk princess Molly Brant is the bright star of Johnson Hall, the superintendent likes to say, illuminating all who visit with her brilliance.” Woolford brightened, thinking of a change of subject. “I was at the ceremony for the naming of your son, sir.”

  Franklin stiffened. “I don’t follow.”

  “Your son the governor of New Jersey. It was to honor him for bringing murderers of several tribal members to justice. He was granted a tribal name. The Doer of Justice, the Mohawk called him, a great honor.”

  Duncan puzzled over the sour expression on Franklin’s face, then recalled that Deborah had told him that Benjamin and his son, born to another woman before their own marriage, had fallen out years earlier and almost never spoke with each other. Though they had both spent years in London, they lived in different houses. Franklin’s son had in fact penetrated the social circles of the high aristocracy, a feat that had always eluded his father.

  Woolford seemed to sense his blunder. “Superintendent Johnson has an avid interest in electricity,” he ventured, and Franklin’s expression thawed as the deputy superintendent explained that a whole room at Johnson Hall was filled with equipment for experimentation. “One of his great joys in recent years had been reenacting the experiment he read about in which a cork connected to a glass tube with a hundred feet of wire was electrified by rubbing the tube with a piece of silk. Extraordinary. A tribal chief saw the spark at the end of the wire and said Johnson was another wizard of lightning, but the superintendent declared no, there can be but one wizard of lightning, and that is Dr. Franklin.”

  The tale banished Franklin’s dour expression and soon he was explaining to Woolford how Johnson should set up a lightning alarm at Johnson Hall, with a proud description of the alarm he had rigged in his own Philadelphia home. They passed another quarter hour in pleasant conversation about Franklin’s latest observations on the currents of the Atlantic, based on measurements taken on his last voyage, then the inventor sobered as he recollected news for Duncan.

  “I had unsettling news from my old friend, Joseph Priestly. Half a dozen of the Horse Guards came to his house and roughly searched through the upper floors, cursing him and abusing his belongings, demanding to know where the American bones were. They found nothing, of course, but he thought I should know. The American bones,” Franklin repeated.

  “Is he near Hewson’s house?” Duncan asked with sudden worry.

  “Not at all. He lives in Mayfair on Blue Moon Street. They were most quarrelsome, those soldiers. He is thinking of filing a complaint.”

  Duncan gazed out the window, trying to make sense of the news. “Blue Moon?” he asked. “You have a blue moon in your window,” he reminded Franklin.

  “Why, yes, but that hardly signifies.”

  “You sent a message to Polly Stevenson.” Duncan extracted his writing lead. “Can you recall its words?”

  “Of course,” Franklin said, then found a scrap of paper in his pocket and began writing. “A test,” he said with a smile as he handed the paper to Duncan. “Polly is a quick study, and I think she has mastered it.”

  The note to Polly was in Franklin’s phonetic alphabet. Myi spyi, it said, mor pyyrlz amyng iur trezhyrz. Luk thru thi mun hwen it is blu, upsterz, and fyind iur harts dizyir.

  “My spy?” Duncan asked. “You actually began with ‘my spy’?”

  “It’s a game we play. We pretend we are a secret army. We call Mrs. Stevenson the field marshal.”

  Duncan read the message to Patrick. “My spy, more pearls among your treasures. Look through the moon when it is blue, upstairs, and find your heart’s desire,” he recited, then explained it was about a pair of earrings before turning to Franklin. “Your friend lives on Blue Moon Street. And the Guards searched upstairs.”

  “Yes but it was all a misunderstanding of some kind.”

  “They found nothing because they were looking for the incognitum.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I was there when Polly found her pearls in your blue moon, upstairs. You said this message was misdirected to the prime minister.”

  Franklin’s brow furrowed. “Yes . . .”

  “Your message referred to a treasure you would present. It wa
s upstairs, connected to a blue moon.”

  “All perfectly harmless,” Franklin argued.

  “No. Someone is intercepting the prime minister’s mail. And what they saw was a coded message referring to your spy. Joseph Priestly is a renowned natural philosopher and a friend of yours. Your note led them to that connection.”

  “Duncan! Surely not!” Franklin protested, but Duncan saw the surrender in his eyes. “Dear God. I did put Polly’s message in the envelope addressed to the prime minister. If only Henry had been there—such a mistake would never have happened.”

  “The Guards will consider it further proof that you are working against the War Council. If you were not going to present the bones to the king then the prime minister would be the obvious alternative.”

  Franklin sagged and spoke no more until they reached their destination.

  Although the king’s new observatory was in the royal deer park, Sinner John, who was proving a rich source of information about London’s secrets, knew of a hidden access road for the construction crew. While the observatory had been complete enough for the king’s observations of the transit, the small castle-like structure still required much finishing work, and the masons, carpenters, and other tradesmen would never be allowed to clutter the King’s Road. Thus it was that Franklin, Woolford, and Duncan stood a hundred yards away from the building in a construction yard, wearing the long tunics of tradesmen, borrowed at the cost of a few pennies.

  Woolford studied the building and its grounds with the eye of a stealthy ranger. “The king won’t come without a bodyguard,” he observed.

  “If he comes,” Duncan said, “it will be knowing it is for a secret meeting with Benjamin Franklin, a meeting neither side will want to publicize. Many in the court would oppose it. The king won’t want a lot of witnesses.”

  “A small bodyguard, then,” Woolford concluded. “Two or three men.”

  “The danger isn’t after the king arrives,” Franklin said. “I will be here alone, with only the Astronomer Royal as a companion. Neither of us is too intimidating.”

  “The danger is before,” Duncan agreed. “From those who seek to block any conciliation, those who do not want the king to meet the incognitum. That danger is why we came,” Duncan reminded Franklin. “To discover how we will conceal the bones once here.”

  Woolford pointed to canvas-covered piles of materials. “They must be disguised as construction stores.”

  “Patrick,” Duncan protested, “we have a great arcing rib and a long tusk. How do you propose we disguise those?”

  Woolford studied the piles, then pointed to the roof of the building. A compact dome-shaped structure lay at one end of the roof, the seat for the king’s telescope. The frame for another was being erected at the opposite end. He then gestured to a pile near the tree line, which contained several arcing struts of wood. “They can hide among the arches for the second dome, wrapped with canvas so they just look like more struts.”

  Duncan weighed Woolford’s suggestion, then slowly nodded. “We will have men of the Galileo watch over them. If the king comes, it will mean he is curious about what Dr. Franklin has to offer. He will tolerate the unexpected appearance of goods brought from his construction yard, especially once he sees the massive rib and tusk.”

  Franklin nodded. “But can you really arrange for dependable guards?”

  Duncan smiled. “They will compete for the privilege. For months they will be telling their shipmates how they stowed away in the king’s own park.”

  Speaking so matter-of-factly seemed to calm their nerves, so much so that as a party of workers set off for the observatory, Franklin pulled his hat down and joined them. Woolford gasped and seemed about to call out when Duncan grabbed his arm and pulled him to the rear of the column of men. As they passed a pile of sand, he borrowed two shovels and laid them on their shoulders.

  Newly emboldened, Franklin let his mischievous nature take over, telling the men he was an inspector and asking how deep the foundations had been laid and whether there were sufficient resting places for the king at the stairway landings. One of the older workers mentioned that the marble rubbing crew was off that day so he could take the inspector inside. Woolford muttered a curse and Duncan pushed forward to join Franklin.

  Suddenly the atmosphere seemed to shift. The workers stiffened. Those few sitting back by the stacks of materials shot up and grabbed tools. A ringing sound came from a gravel road leading into the forest. Woolford, recognizing it instantly, darted to Franklin and pulled him from the column.

  Six riders in the uniforms of the Horse Guards were trotting down the road, each leading two riderless horses. The jingle of the harnesses echoed through the woods.

  “Exercising the mounts,” Woolford whispered.

  Franklin, his bravado gone, accepted the shovel Woolford thrust at him. Duncan had to hold his arm a moment, for he seemed about to run in the direction of their waiting coach. “Steady on, sir. Show them nothing suspicious and they will just focus on their task.”

  Franklin’s protest came out in a hoarse whisper. “If we’re found here I will be ruined!”

  Woolford caught Duncan’s eye. “If we are found out we will all be ruined.” The horses seemed to veer toward them. “Do not show your faces,” the deputy superintendent warned.

  The ground shook as the eighteen horses trotted by, so close Duncan could hear their heavy breathing. When the three men reached the partial cover of the construction yard they all turned to look at the wooded road where the soldiers had disappeared.

  “There’s ancient chambers under the Horse Guards Palace,” Woolford said suddenly, “said to be part of the old Palace of Whitehall. They say it is haunted by the ghosts of knights killed on the tilting ground where the Horse Guards parade ground is now. King Charles was beheaded just outside and is rumored to roam those halls at night. And they say that Henry the Eighth had dungeons there that the Horse Guards still use. Dungeons and machines used to coerce Henry the Eighth’s prisoners when they were reluctant to confess. God knows those would be particularly vengeful ghosts.”

  “Surely they would not dare to misuse me in such a place,” Franklin said, his voice still hollow.

  “I wasn’t speaking of you, sir,” Woolford replied. “They would find something less physical for you. But they wouldn’t hesitate to take Duncan or me down to meet those Tudor phantoms.”

  Franklin flushed with color as he recognized the callousness of his words. He studied the former captain of rangers for a few heartbeats. “I sense more anger than fear in your words.”

  “I’d be a fool not to fear the possibility,” Woolford answered. “But yes, sir. Even greater is my fury that we need worry about Englishmen doing such things to other Englishmen. If King George allows such things right under his nose, then think how little he must care about what happens to distant colonists.”

  Sarah—I recently passed a memorable hour with Dr. Franklin. As his secretary Henry, quite the genteel and efficient fellow, transcribed some letters, the great inventor took me to a rear room on the floor he rents, which he called his experimentation chamber. Oh the wonders, Sarah! It was strewn with papers and experiments, all the products of his extraordinary imagination. There was his famous armonica, which is twenty-five glass bowls mounted on a spindle rotated by a treadle, which in vibrating can be modulated by the fingertips. There were plates from his stove, which he is trying to have manufactured here, and an amazing three-wheeled clock that he claims is more reliable than any other except those made for Greenwich. On one table he had parts of spectacles and lenses, and he explained that he is looking for an artisan who can make a lens with different properties on the top and bottom, for close and far seeing.

  We spent a quarter hour at a long table with several battery jars and a maze of wires. He is attempting to devise a simple method to demonstrate how electrical flows have positive and negative charges and how they always seek equilibrium, though I confess his zealous description was
beyond me. At last he showed me the workbook for his remarkable phonetic alphabet with reformed spellings that are such simpler than the ones we use, and which he and the landlady’s daughter employ in letters to each other. A pox on those who would call him too awkward, too much the rogue, or woefully absentminded. The man is the Da Vinci of our age!

  At Bedlam a small crowd had gathered under a second-floor window at the west end of the long building, from which tin cups, articles of clothing, towels, small stools, chamber pots, and other random items were being tossed. Ishmael lingered near the entry, watching as onlookers braved the rain of objects to snatch up anything of value. “I’ve seen this before,” he observed. “When the keepers stray away too long, the patients roaming in the galleries like to express their frustrations.”

  “The keepers can’t be everywhere at any given moment,” Duncan observed.

  “Not what I mean. I speak of the crowds outside. Whenever something interesting happens here, dozens of people materialize to take advantage, in just minutes, as if they are keeping watch.”

  Duncan nodded absently and then Ishmael’s meaning struck him. “A distraction, you mean,” he said. A crowd of people from the surrounding neighborhoods would provide cover for the work of a few men trying to evade the keepers.

  Ishmael rolled his eyes as if disappointed in Duncan’s slowness, then led him up the stairs.

  Duncan’s business had kept him away in recent days, and he longed to see Conawago, to try again to break through the spell he was under. The visitors were not so numerous as before and the benches before the Chamber of the Immortals were empty. The heavy double doors were closed and the nearest patients in the long gallery were keeping their distance, casting nervous glances at the doors.