A Calculus of Angels (55 page)

Lenka was as pale as the lilies surrounding her, and as beautiful. His breath caught unnaturally in his chest as he approached her still form and knelt, hoping his heart would survive.

Gently, fearfully even, he touched her cheek.

She stirred, and her eyes fluttered open, confused for only an instant when she saw his face. “Where is this?” she asked, flicking her gaze from side to side.

“A convent,” Ben replied. “You’ve been rather unwell, and the sisters here have been tending you.”

“Unwell?”

“A musket ball pierced your belly.”

“Indeed?” She rose up to look, then winced. The nun— only a few feet away, and quite watchful—snapped something rather stern in Italian.

“Am I going to live?”

“It seems so.”

“Oh. Well, that is good. How long have I slept?”

“Almost two days.” He paused significantly. “We won, of course.”

“Of course.” She frowned a bit. “That Indian—”

“Red Shoes is safe and sound,” Ben replied.

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“Good. I remember riding up in the balloon—”

Ben laughed harshly. “Yes, I remember that, too. It becomes very confusing thereafter, but I will try to tell you about it later. They say now you are still weak, and can stand visitors in small doses only.”

“Doubtless I could stand visitors other than you in larger quantities,” she replied, a devilish spark in her eyes.

“Doubtless. You see, already I tire you.”

“Yes. You promise that I am not dying?”

“I promise.”

“Good. So Venice is saved. What happens now, Benjamin Franklin?”

“Now?” He shifted uncomfortably. “Now I go home. To America. To Boston.”

She blinked at him, and he plunged on. “This is no place for me, this Old World. There is so much that needs to be done, so much that must be understood. How can I accomplish anything here, with this war or that war always interfering? They tell me that America is quieter, at least for the moment. And they need me there.”

She nodded. “Very well,” she said.

“Very well?”

“Yes.” She yawned. “I tire now, Benjamin. But I need to tell you something quietly, if you would lean close.”

“Yes?” he said, bending his head.

“Closer, you fool,” she muttered.

He bent nearer still, and her lips brushed his cheek. They felt like the warm A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

petals, immeasurably sweeter than a lily. “And what shall I do in America?”

she asked very gently.

Ben swallowed hard and found that he did, after all, have the courage he needed. “I suppose,” he replied, “that you might consent to be my bride.”

“You suppose quite a lot,” she said.

He kissed her on the lips, then, carefully. They tasted very sweet indeed, until the nun tugged him up—much less gently—by his hair. Lenka did not notice; she had fallen asleep, her lips still pursed for kissing.

Adrienne lurched against the rail, trying to stay upright, trying to see, to
see.

But there was nothing.

“You must come away,” Hercule said. “You must rest.”

“He is alive,” she managed. “My son is alive.”

“You determined that his guardian spirits are not,” he reminded her gently.

“I know what I said. They are gone. But he is not. Tell the tsar I will search more.”

“He—” Hercule touched her shoulder lightly. “He has already given the command to return to Saint Petersburg. We are under way.”

“I will remain, then.”

“He will not let you.”

“I saved his fleet. Does he think he can stop me?”

Hercule was silent for a long moment. “Crecy said—”

“Crecy!” she managed to snarl.

“You should speak to her.”

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“I cannot.”

“You must.” Crecy’s voice came, from behind. “If you want to see him again, you must. He is not here, Adrienne.”

Adrienne spun too quickly, so that her exhausted body failed her. Only Hercule saved her from joining Nico over the rail. “You let him go! You released him!”

Crecy trembled visibly. “I did not. I
had
him. I would have fallen and died before I let him go. He was
taken
from me, Adrienne. He was…”And then tears started in her eyes. She clenched her jaw and then went on, voice quaking.

“The
malfaiteurs.
They made use of your basket and took him.”

Adrienne broke free of Hercule, staggered toward Crecy. “Why?” she rasped.

“Where have they taken him?”

“I don’t know. I only felt them at the end.”

“You were
one
of them!” She slapped Crecy so hard that a red handprint remained on her pale cheek. “What do they want with my son, Crecy?” She knew her voice had taken on a note of hysteria, but it seemed a somehow distant thing. Crecy, eyes sparkling with pain, shook her head again. Adrienne hit her again, and again, and then with both fists, while Crecy did nothing but absorb the blows, until her broken lips smeared Adrienne’s hand sanguine, and Adrienne collapsed, sobbing, into the redhead’s arms.

“Crecy…” she murmured. And for the first time they cried together, salt of blood and tears mingling, intertwined like their fingers.

Red Shoes stood at the rail of the
Scepter,
watching fragments of the sun sink into the waters, and found he no longer feared Venice, or the underneath.

“It’ll be good to go home,” Tug said from nearby.

“Indeed it will,” Red Shoes replied.

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“What’lly’do there?”

“Go back to my people. Tell them all I have seen.” He smiled at the big man.

“Take you with me, if you want. Show you what a Choctaw woman looks like.”

“I would’n mind it,” Tug said.

“What
have
you seen?” Nairne asked, from his right.

Red Shoes smiled at the white man. “I really don’t know,” he said truthfully.

“But I know this: Our folk go into the future together, whether we like it or no.

Our destinies are bound, I think.”

“Are they?”

Red Shoes nodded. “I know what you are thinking—that my people might try to push you back into the sea. A good time for it, too. Would England send troops to fight us? France? Spain? I don’t believe so.”

Nairne nodded grimly.

“But I will advise against it.”

“May I ask why?”

“It’s the story of the bundled arrows. A single arrow can be easily snapped. A bundle of arrows held together cannot.” He looked out at the distant horizon.

“If I am not wrong, we shall need every arrow we can find to face what is coming.”

And in his shadow, something dread stirred, as if to confirm his words.

Ben had coffee with Robert and King Charles in a room flooded with sunlight and the scent of honey. The monarch poured, left-handed—his right thickly bandaged from having grasped a living blade.

“Well, my good Captain Frisk,” Ben inquired, “what plans have you now?”

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Charles shrugged. “I am a soldier,” he remarked, “and I have always sworn I would never shrink from a just war.”

“So you pursue the tsar back to his cold homeland?”

Charles raised his cup in salute. “I do not shirk, but I do rest. For now, I’ve made promises to Venice and I will keep them.”

“You will reign here as monarch, then?”

Charles laughed sharply but with real humor. “There will be no monarch in Venice,” he said. “They will not have one. The Janissaries hold their own council and distrust strong leaders, and the Venetians are no better. For near a thousand years Venice was a republic, and now they will be a republic again.”

“Now see, this is what I was talking about earlier, Your Majesty,” Ben said.

“When I said that the age of kings was over. It’s time for men to rule themselves.”

“Yes, we said we would return to this conversation again, didn’t we?” Charles said. “But I won’t debate a philosopher. Perhaps you are indeed correct. But in my own experience, men have little faith in themselves. It takes a strong man to accept both the responsibility and the blame for his own actions, and few are equal to the task. Most would rather have a king—even a foolish one like me—make their decisions for them. It isn’t kings that must change, Benjamin, but men.”

“And you won’t miss being a king?”

“I am still king,” he said, with polite formality, and set his cup down. “And you, Benjamin? Would you remain here, as a favorite of the king? There is much to be done.”

“I’m sorry, Captain Frisk, but my struggle is elsewhere. Mankind has a worse enemy than the tsar of Russia or the sultan of Turkey. Despite all his flaws, we have lost our best defender against that foe in Sir Isaac. I must take up where he left off.”

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“Do you
know
where he left off?”

Ben shook his head. “No. I have many of his notebooks now, but it may take me years to understand what he has written.” He lowered his head. “I am not his equal, and it grieves me that only his death proves that to me.”

“Bah,” Robert snorted. “You are not his equal; you are his better, for you have a
heart,
where he had none.”

Ben continued staring at the floor. “He came back for me, Robin. He came back for love of me, and it killed him. And he died without a kind word from me.”

“He saved us all,” Charles said. “You should be proud of him.”

“Proud I am,” Ben said. “But I fear to wear his shoes.”

“Fear teaches us the most,” Charles replied.

“Then I suppose you will never learn a damned thing, Captain Frisk,” Robert said. And the three of them laughed together genuinely. Sunlight came in through the window, and Ben felt a stab of triumph, of fierce, heady victory, a hope more blinding than the sun.

Nico laughed at the dark air and waved at the stars. Earlier he had been frightened by the noise and the strange lights, by the worried sound of his mother’s voice. But then his friend had come, and the gentle motion of the basket had rocked him to sleep, to happy dreams.

Stretching awake, the sky had greeted him with these thousand funny lights.

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They reminded him of his mother, of her pointing at the lights and saying words—those strange words that buzzed in his ear rather than appearing as words ought to, inside him, where his own words did, or as when his friend spoke to him.

He hoped his mother would return soon; he missed her. Lately she had been away from him often, which had upset him at first. He did not care for strangers. But his friend had always been there, telling him strange and funny things, and that had made it better.

He stood and toddled to the side of the basket, but he could see nothing below, only an empty darkness, and on the horizon, a great orange sphere.

“La looon!” he cried, recognizing it. “La loon.”

Naming it the way his mother would, with a sound, reveling in the strange feel of making his word into a noise and the noise back into a word again.

First it made him laugh, and then it made him afraid.
Where was mother?

Where was
everyone?“

“You are safe, little prince,” the voice of his friend murmured. “You are safe, and you need have no fear.”

“Maman?” He had known the sound-word—like so many words—but had never thought to use it before.

“She is safe,” his friend told him. “She has put you in my care. Soon you will have a wonderful new home, as befits a prince.”

Nico did not know what a prince was, but the feelings and images that came with the word were ticklish, warm, happy. He looked out at the moon again, reached to try and touch it.

“La loon,” he cooed again. Content once more, he watched the night go by.

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