A Calculus of Angels (3 page)

None of us can imagine what happened across that great ocean sea. Some say they saw lights in the heavens, a red glow like sunset. Your eastern harbors were flooded, and many ships at sea were never seen again. Even our miraculous aetherschreibers have been of no use. And yet we have some rumors—of fire falling from the heavens, of forty days of darkness. I know for a fact that Paris was in flames almost two years ago. Have the devils been let loose on Earth? What man knows the truth? If there is one, let him speak it.

Here is the truth that
I
know: Each of us alone has sent ships, and each of us alone has failed. My harbors were untouched by flooding, but I had fewer ships to begin with. The great naval actions of the Flanders War were elsewhere, as you all know, and thus were the ships of France and Spain.

Now I offer you what I have left, asking only that I act as co-commander of the expedition. I give you my word as a gentleman that our armistice will hold, no matter what the case, until our ships are safe back here. Even the Sun King himself could not cause me to break this vow. I will fight against my own French brothers, if need be. My word of honor, sirs, something this pirate cannot give you.“

An uncomfortable silence followed the Frenchman’s words, and then one of the men with Teach stepped forward. Like the soldiers, he wore a red British coat. He was perhaps forty, his faced tanned and hard.

“It is understandable that you do not accept the word of Edward Teach, but perhaps you will accept mine.”

“And who, sir, are you?” the governor inquired.

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“I am Captain Thomas Nairne. I believe Mr. Teach is sincere, and I will stay at his left hand to insure the interests of the Crown.”

“That is surely not sufficient, sir,” Felton complained. “Any man can don a red coat and call himself a captain, and any captain can turn pirate, for that matter.”

“Nevertheless,” Nairne persisted, “I urge you to consider my opinion. Like you, I do not consider the position Mr. Teach has taken in South Carolina to be a lawful one, but someone had to establish order there. He is not an unpopular ruler, though you may not credit it.”

“I will not strike a devil’s bargain,” Felton insisted.

Bienville shrugged. “Then perhaps Mr. Teach and I can come to an agreement on our own.”

“Is that a threat?” Felton snapped.

“It is not. It is an option. I would see the shores of France again, sir, and know what has become of my king.”

“Right well said, sir,” Teach added. “What use have we of these popinjay do-nothings when
we
have the ships?”

Mather crooked a finger at Teach. “He needs us,” the black-clad minister asserted, his voice as confident as an iron tower. “Or he would not have come.

He wants the sanction of the Crown insofar as you governors can give it.”

“Out of the question,” Felton said, but a man in a cinnamon coat plucked at his sleeve.

“Not so quickly, sir,” he said softly. “There is much here to consider.” His rattier lean face was puckered into a frown beneath a curling white wig. “Who is this Indian? Is he with you, Mr. Teach?”

“No, indeed. He represents the Choctaw.”

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“Is this true?” the man asked. “We did invite representatives from your people, but we have had ill luck with Indians of late.”

Red Shoes cleared his throat. “I am Red Shoes of the Six-towns people of the Choctaw nation. I have a paper summoning me to this meeting.”

“I wrote that paper,” Cotton Mather said. “I invited your chief.”

“I am his nephew. My uncle and the rest of our party were slain by the Shawano while traveling here.”

“Yet you came on alone.”

“I did.”

“You speak well for an Indian.”

“I have been taught English. I have learned to read and write and do figures. I know something of history.”

“And what do you offer us? More ships?”

“No, of course not. I only offer myself, and later my words to my people.”

“Why should we value those?”

“My people are split in the matter of the white people. Many think it is time for us to be rid of you.”

Though his words were quiet, they had the effect of a thunderbolt. Good.

“Of all the insolent…” Felton began.

“Are you such a one, boy?” Mather asked.

“No. The British and the French have many things we desire, and we have many friends among them. I see no virtue in a war that might end as badly for my people as for yours. You invited my uncle, the chief, to this meeting. That A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

was good, because it shows us that you care—or worry—about what we think.

It also admits your desperation. Some of you know the trouble that waits among the Choctaw and our allies. You would have us at least remain quiet until you learn what has caused these strange changes in the world. We would know that, too. My word: Until I am dead or return, my people will not wage an unprovoked war.”

“How do your people know that you are alive?”

Red Shoes smiled. “Through a certain science, they know. When I die, they will know that, too.”

“And if you should die?”

“That will depend on many things, and I cannot speak of a situation that might exist when I am dead. I am the eyes and ears of my people. They know what I know.”

“Fantasy!” Felton asserted. But he believed. They all did. This time the pause stretched long, and there was some whispering at the table before the governor looked up, bleak-eyed. “We will discuss this matter,” he said weakly. “Rooms have been arranged for you gentlemen at a nearby inn.”

“Don’t think too long,” Teach growled, and then, as if to offset the threat, he bowed clumsily.

Back on the street, the man named Thomas Nairne approached him.
“Chim
achukma,”
he said.

“Achukma,”
Red Shoes answered. Continuing in Choctaw,
“You speak my
language.”

“Indeed. What do you think of what you heard today? ”

“I think they will accept Governor Bienville’s offer, and the Blackbeard’s, too.

I think we will all sail across the Pale Water.”

Nairne switched back to English. “A fair assessment, I think. How is it that you A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

speak English so well? I have always known the Choctaw to be solidly in the French camp.”

“We are in the
Choctaw
camp. Years ago, my uncle saw we should send someone to learn English ways. I was sent to Charles Town for five years.”

Nairne nodded. “I’m sorry to hear the rest died. I knew your uncle, I believe—I was an agent among your people some years ago—and I mourn his passing.”

“He died well.” Red Shoes felt a constriction in his throat and swallowed.

“Tell me,” Nairne asked lightly, perhaps to keep the names of the dead from being spoken, “do you really want to sail across the sea?”

Red Shoes nodded wearily but grinned. “As I said, I know something of history. I know of Columbus, and how he discovered this New World. It amuses me to think of discovering the old one.”

Nairne chuckled, and they went to the inn together.

The Evening Wolves will be much abroad, when we are near the Evening of
the World.

—Cotton Mather,

Wonders of the Invisible World, 1693

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1.

Der Lehrling

Distracted as he was, the sudden pounding at the door captured all of Benjamin Franklin’s attention. Sticking his head above the bedsheets, he stared for an instant at the source of the noise, completely at a loss.

“Katarina!” A man’s voice shouted,
profundo,
followed by ever more violent thuds.

The appropriate reaction occurred to Ben, and he swiftly disentangled himself from milky limbs with as much enthusiasm as he had earlier entangled in them.

“It’s my father!” Katarina whispered.

“Oh, only your father,” Ben hissed back, reaching frantically for his breeches.

“Ask him to come back later, then, will you?” He tumbled out of the bed and began struggling into the breeches, wondering where the rest of his clothing and his haversack had gone to.

“Katarina!” her father roared again. “Open the door. I know you have a man in there!”

“I don’t think he will listen to me,” Katarina replied.

Diving for his shirt, Ben yet allowed himself an admiring glance at tousled honey hair, half obscuring a softly rounded face still rosy from exertion. “Well, should I introduce myself?” Ben asked, yanking his shirt over his head and starting toward where his waistcoat lay crumpled in the corner. He made a A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

mental note to learn to undress more neatly, even when passion ruled.

“I wouldn’t. He has a pistol.”

“A pistol?”

“Well, he has a commission in the army.”

“What? You didn’t think this worth mentioning?”

“I wasn’t thinking much about my father just now. Besides, I thought he would be gone all day.”

“Quite understandable. This window opens?”

“Yes.” She sat up in the bed, allowing the sheets to drop away from her upper body, and despite himself, Ben grinned. The floor-length mirror behind Katarina grinned back at him from a face still rounded by the last traces of boyhood and haloed by thoroughly mussed chestnut locks. “Sorry to leave in such a rush,” he apologized, pleased at how smooth his German had become.

“Don’t forget you promised to show me the palace.”

“I shan’t, never fear. Expect my letter.”

He bent to kiss her and heard a key suddenly grating in the lock.

The kiss turned into a quick nip on the lips. “Remember me,” he said, grabbing his haversack and rushing to the window, flinging it recklessly open.

“Don’t think ill of me!” she called from behind him. “I don’t do this all the time. But I know more than I showed you…”

Ben was no longer listening, concentrating as he was on gripping the windowsill, looking down at his feet superimposed over cobblestones two stories below. He did not hesitate, for at seventeen his body was long and strong, near six feet, and he was confident of his athletic ability—at least, more confident than he was of his capacity to withstand a pistol shot.

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The pavement shocked up through the bones of his legs into his belly, forcing out a pronounced
oof,
but he straightened quickly, looking about to see if he had been noticed. Happily, the street was deserted—but he had gone fewer than fifty yards when the door banged open behind him. He was running already, not up the street or down it, but straight toward the Moldau River.

“Goddamn lech!” a man’s voice roared, accompanied by a bright barking sound. Something whizzing struck sparks on the pavement two yards to Ben’s right.

“Beelzebub!” he grunted, and then leapt again, this time vaulting over the wall that kept high waters from swallowing Kleinseit. He paused for just an instant to slip the metallic key dangling from his waistcoat into the tiny pocket near his belt—and disappeared.

Or at least to the casual observer, he reminded himself. Among other things, the aegis built into his waistcoat bent light around it, a trick that fooled some mechanisms of the eye but not others. From the corner of his eye, the vengeful father might catch a glimpse of Ben, and staring straight on he would perceive an eye-hurting blur. Of course, the aegis also emitted a repulsive gravity that turned such objects as musket balls, but Ben’s experiments had shown that as a shield the device sometimes failed. Rather than further test it, he scrambled down the stone and sand embankment to the river. There he drew out the contents of the haversack—a pair of odd-looking shoes, stiff and solid like a Dutchman’s but comically larger and more boat shaped. Behind him, the hollering continued—albeit with a somewhat confused quality—as he donned them.

Katarina had been
so
sure her father would be gone until nightfall. Or had she? Might it be some plan of hers to trap him into marriage? After all, these days he was a fine catch, and she not without ambition.

As quickly as he dared, he placed first one foot and then the other onto the surface of the river and awkwardly glided away, around the shielding bulk of little Venedig Island. The shouts faded behind him, and once he was certain he was far enough away to risk it, he drew out the key. Wearing the aegis restricted its wearer’s vision as well, faded the world to rainbow at the edges, as if one stared through prism eyes. Much like being caught in a girl’s bedroom A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

by her father, it was a less-than-comfortable sensation.

He finally found his stride, sliding his feet from side to side as if skating. It was rougher than skating, however, harder to keep his balance, but at last he was sure enough of himself to take his eyes off his feet. Just in time, too, for looking up he noticed a boat with an instant still to avoid it. He had a glimpse of a wide-eyed boatsman, heard his terrified
Gott!
before he was beyond, bouncing perilously over bow waves, and then weaving in front of the small craft.

People were staring and shouting from the shore as well as if they had never seen a man skating upon the Moldau before. But perhaps they had not, he thought smugly. Not when it wasn’t frozen.

Grinning, he pushed on, still marveling at the way his shoes pressed against the flowing water without touching it, like two magnets with like poles shoved together. He turned back upstream, laughing at the peculiar resistance, Katarina and her father already forgotten, sliding two steps forward but nevertheless moving back with the vaster sweep of the current. Turning again, he lost his balance and teetered precariously on one foot, arms windmilling, but he did not fall. He knew all about falling from practice the day before: The shoes stayed out of the water, making it hard to get his head up; the only solution was to take them off, a clumsy business.

After an instant or two, he relaxed, marveling instead at his surroundings. It was a beautiful day—or as beautiful as days got now. Fingers of sunlight groped down through billowy clouds, tearing blue portals to a more cheerful sky. In the past two years blue sky had been so rare a sight that, if it could be minted, it would replace gold and silver as the currency of nations. Sweet, honeyed light traced languidly across the eldritch rooftops of Prague, quickening copper and gilded steeples, dancing across the gray waters of the Moldau as easily as he did. For a moment, he seemed beyond himself, a part of that singular gift from the heavens, and it came to him like a wind at his back that if he could walk upon water by the labor of his own mind, his own hands, he could do anything. He could bring sunlight back to the world. He
would.