A Calculus of Angels (8 page)

He scrambled back, trying to gain his feet, as another of their attackers spied him and started forward.

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Near his ear, Frisk howled, leapt up, and hurled himself like a thunderbolt at the blue-eyed man. The fellow scarcely got his blade up before steel dissected the hand that held his weapon, and he clutched at the stump, eyes wide with disbelief.

Frisk did not even pause but swept past him, launching the edge of his saber at the burly fellow approaching behind. The Muscovite cried out and swiped wildly with his sword; Frisk beat the blade away as if it were a toy wielded by a child and pressed on. The fellow fell back, grunting, cut viciously at the Swede’s head; but Frisk wasn’t there, was instead skipping to the side, bolt upright, sword flicking like a snake’s tongue despite his shirt and waistcoat being drenched in his own blood.

And then the larger man was down, wrapped around his own belly and its deep new navel.

In the ten or twelve seconds this took, Ben struggled to his feet. All but one of their foes had fallen, and the fifth vanished around the corner as Ben watched.

Robert reappeared, rushing toward him.

“Ben? Are you injured?” he shouted.

That hadn’t even occurred to him yet, though his chest throbbed as if a horse had stepped on it. He looked down, fearing to see a hole gaping in his breast, but there was nothing save a dark scorch on his waistcoat, and the aegis key dangling loose, apparently jogged out of his pocket by the concussion.

“It would appear not,” he gasped. “But Frisk…”

Frisk was kneeling by the now-one-handed man, wrapping his gasping foe’s wrist with a cloth. “Here is one to make some explanations,” he said grimly.

“You need a surgeon,” Ben grunted. “Your shoulder—”

“Is not as bad as it looks,” Frisk asserted, turning back to them. “But if you have a surgeon handy—”

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“Get him to the castle,” Robert said. “I’ll watch these. Send back the guard.”

Ben nodded. “Come along, then, Captain Frisk. You’ll get your recommendation sooner than you thought.”

“I am in your debt, sir,” Frisk replied.

Ben stared at him, unbelieving, and then laughed.

Newton’s eyes flicked around the room nervously, refusing to actually settle on Ben, a sure sign that the great philosopher was agitated. “Were you injured, dear boy?” he asked.

“No, sir. Bruised is all.”

“Good. I am relieved to hear it. I would be— I would be unhappy if anything happened to you.”

“I’m sorry to have worried you.”

“Worried? What cause had I to worry?” Newton’s voice was suddenly a bit sharper, his eyes focusing on Ben.

“Sir?”

“What cause had I to worry? What baffles me is how a gang of assassins roamed so freely here in Hradcany, where the emperor’s guard patrols in such numbers.” His brow creased in a frown. “You
were
in Hradcany, weren’t you?”

“Ah—no, sir.”

“In Kleinseit, then? You were perhaps in Kleinseit, acquiring the books I asked you to borrow from the library at the Wallenstein Palace?”

“Umm—no, not in Kleinseit.”

Newton nodded grimly. His face was a young one, thin lipped, dimple chinned A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

—he could have been twenty, if his eyes did not give it the lie. They seemed subtly polished— almost eroded—by some eighty years of vision, jewels handled by a million fingers, and yet still luminescent with passion. “Well, look here,” he grated, his earlier concern suddenly fled, “this is passing—

passing
odd, Mr. Franklin, for though you seem to have been set upon by ruffians, this does not seem to have happened in Hradcany or Kleinseit. Now in that part I am not surprised, for in these two sections of town the guard is most efficient and well staffed, and thieves and murderers keep well away.

Now if you had been attacked in Old Town or New Town or Judenstadt,
that
would be no surprise, lawless as they are. And yet I am entirely certain that you were not in any of those places, because I have told you time and again to avoid them. So it is most surpassing strange that you could have encountered these men you speak of.”

Ben nodded throughout the tirade, and when it was done, he met Newton’s ancient eyes square on. “I was in Old Town,” he admitted distinctly.

“Yes, of course you were, you imbecile. And
that
is what I am sick unto death of. I think, indeed, that it is high time that I found a new apprentice.”

Ben managed a weak grin. “I’m glad that you were concerned about me, sir.”

Newton stared at him incredulously for a moment, and then rested his forehead on his fist. “Benjamin, what am I to do with you? How can I keep you from the hands of the devil?”

“Sir—” Ben considered for a moment, then plunged on. “Sir, I was never so proud as the day you made me your apprentice. Proud I still am. But of late, you do not include me. I hardly feel your apprentice anymore.”

“This excuses your behavior? Is that what I shall tell the emperor when he hears of your exploits?”

“It is no excuse, I agree. I do not offer it as such.”

“It seems to me that you do,” Newton said, his voice suddenly weary. “I have perhaps neglected your education, somewhat. But I do what is for the best, and you are good at educating yourself.”

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“But, sir, to be barred even from your new laboratory—”

“My current endeavors are of too delicate a nature to disclose. This is as much for your sake as anyone’s, I promise you. Meantime, you still have the old laboratory to putter about in.”

“But it is my wish to help you.”

“You help me in what you do.”

“Making toys for the emperor? Scientifical baubles for the archduchess?

Forgive me, sir, but I had hoped for more. I thought you promised me more.”

“Perhaps I did, but we must suit our actions to the times. Had I all leisure, I would devote myself to your education. But the world is at the edge of a fearful precipice, and I cannot fail it to serve you.”

“I don’t understand,” Ben said, feeling a little angry. “If the importance of your present work is so great, would it not serve us all better for me to aid you?”

Newton’s eyes lit with an answering fire of their own. “I have said I cannot discover these things to you now, Benjamin. In time I will. That should be enough for you.”

Ben nodded in sudden understanding. “You don’t trust me.”

Newton tapped his finger on the armrest, looking at the floor. “I have already been betrayed by one I trusted deeply,” he said, softly, “the only one I ever gave my trust to. You are bright, and have a good heart somewhere in you, but you are also reckless. I cannot risk your becoming another Fatio de Duillier.”

Ben kept his tongue still, a dam against a flood of angry words.
Perhaps it is
this very sort of mistreatment that made de Duillier betray you,
he thought.

But he could not say that; it would only make matters worse. Instead, he took another tack.

“I have been working at affinity,” he said. “I’ve found a method to repel against water.”

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“And made something amusing for the emperor?”

“Yes, I think so. But in working with repulsions, I hope to eventually solve the problem of the comet.”

Newton smiled indulgently. “My new system has that in hand, never fear.

Now, clean yourself up. We are to see the emperor in an hour, and your present appearance would, I daresay, displease him.”

After undressing and dabbing at himself with a cloth, Ben felt more human but no less frustrated. Newton’s casual dismissal of his work stung, and the admission that he did not trust Ben was even worse. After two years of being Newton’s apprentice, it was almost as if they had come full circle to the day they first met.

Except that it was worse now, because in those days he had thought Newton a god, and now he had begun to have his doubts. What he could glean of this

“new system” seemed very dubious to him, as Newton drew chiefly on strange, superstitious texts. It hardly seemed science at all to Ben. If only he could get a glimpse of what his master was working on, find some assurance that the elixir that made Newton young again had not also driven him into a subtle insanity.

Newton had a history of periodic madness, and the last time he had been mad, a comet had destroyed London.

Ben was certain he knew where the new laboratory was: a floor below the old one, in the Mathematical Tower. He was certain, too, that the key that would open its mysterious lock was somewhere in Newton’s private chambers. If only he could enter them, get the key, find Newton’s notes on this “new system.”

Pondering this, he selected a shirt of white linen and struggled into it. It felt good against his bare skin, better than the rough linsey-woolsey of his childhood, and he reminded himself that he owed such luxuries to Newton.

As he turned to select a suit, someone rapped at the door.

“Who knocks?” he called.

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“The maid, sir.”

“Indeed?” Ben replied, perking up a bit. “Enter, then.”

The door squeaked open and a young woman of perhaps fifteen entered. Her eyes widened at his near-undressed state.

“Your pardon, sir,” she said, “but I can return at another time.” She had a sharp, almost birdlike face, not unpleasant but not exactly beautiful either. She composed herself quickly, and he reasoned that she was not the giggly sort of chambermaid but one of the more serious kind. One he might consider as a challenge at some other time, if he did not have so much to worry about—and if she were a bit prettier. She looked familiar, too.

“Where is Ludmilla?” he asked her.

“She has taken ill, sir. I’ll be your maid until she recovers.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No, sir.”

And then, like a breeze returning as a tempest, he remembered his earlier conversation with Robert about the servants and the things they said. And he remembered also where he had seen this one before: she was the customary maid for Newton’s apartments.

“Good,” he exclaimed. “And now you can do me a most wonderful favor.”

“Oh, can I?” she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

Ben tried to appear taken aback. “Well, yes,” he replied.

“There are some sorts of favor I am not required to do,” the maid said, stepping in and closing the door.

“I am quite certain I have no idea what you are talking about,” Ben said.

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She flashed him a crooked little smile that made her suddenly more compelling. “They talk of you, sir.”

“Who? Who talks of me?”

“Ludmilla. The other girls.”

“Oh. Well, I can tell you that slander is a high art in this castle, and so I hope you haven’t taken much of what you’ve heard to heart.”

“I take little to my heart, sir, or any other part of me. I wonder if you might consider dressing?”

Ben grinned. “Well, that was the help I was after. I wondered if you could help me select a suit to attend court in.”

She curtsied, though Ben thought he detected something faintly mocking in her carriage. “If you wish, sir.”

“And please call me Ben. All of my friends do.”

“I understand that, sir,” she said, strolling over to the wardrobe. “I should think you would want some black and red. Red hose, of course…”

“I had thought to wear white hose,” Ben murmured, studying her back, wondering what sort of shape was beneath those petticoats, if it was fairer than her face. God often rewarded in some areas what he had penalized in others.

She seemed a bit on the slim side.

Unaware of this attention, she shook her head. “No, white won’t do, as you must know. The emperor will call you a Frenchman and have you thrown from the hall. No, it must be in the Spanish style, so your hose must be red or black ”

“Red, in that case. You see how desperately I needed you?”

She ignored that, continuing to paw through his wardrobe. “And for your A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

coat…” She pushed through a few and then pulled out a rather full-skirted coat of watered black silk. Starting to hand it to him, she frowned and reached back in. “No,” she said, “I should like to see you in these, first.” And she handed him a pair of black knee breeches with scarlet bows.

Ben accepted them, stepping a bit closer to do so. “I have not met you before,”

he said. “I wonder if you would tell me your name.”

She raised her eyes to meet his, and they were nearly black. “I am a servant, sir, and so what need have I of a name? Call me what you will.”

“There’s no need to be unpleasant,” Ben remarked.

“Was I unpleasant? I hoped to be accommodating.” Her smile was bright and probably false as she returned to selecting clothes for him.

A sort of funny feeling rumbled in Ben’s stomach, a slight vertigo, an uncertainty. He thought furiously for something else to say, but his throat remained empty of words until she had laid out the last of his suit. He pulled the breeches on, suddenly feeling foolish. “Thank you,” he finally managed.

“You are welcome, sir.”

“Please call me Ben.”

At that she only smiled enigmatically, returning to her work, leaving him feeling as stupid as a child.

5.

London

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“Goddamn,” Blackbeard muttered, tugging at his braided beard, and then more forcefully,
"Goddamn.
Where’s the
Thames?"
The pirate shook his fists at the coastline. Red Shoes stared at the brackish mudflat, verdigris with sickly and crouching scrub, trying to understand what the problem was. It bothered him that there were no trees anywhere—it was alien to his eye—but he had gathered in his time among Europeans that trees were scarce in Europe.

“The longitude and the latitude are correct,” Thomas Nairne insisted. “Of that I have no doubt.”

“No? Then where’n hell is the river?”

Red Shoes turned to study Nairne and caught him staring sourly at Blackbeard’s back. Beyond Nairne the Pale Water stretched endless as time, dwarfing the remainder of the ships in their flotilla. They were eight, all told, and to Red Shoes they had once made an impressive sight, each larger than anything made by his own people. Swallowed by sea and sky for two months they had diminished in his eyes, and now, come to this strange, dead shore, they seemed smaller than ever, bubbles in the eddy of a swift stream.