Empire of Unreason (43 page)

“Well, gentlemen,” Oglethorpe said, solemnly, “getting back isn’t
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our job. Keeping this redcoat army out of the South
is.
For a time.

When we decide to go home, it’ll have to be straight through them,
I’m afraid.”

6.

New Moscow

The governor of New Moscow was a nervous little man with a full
beard, a balding head, and the formidable name of Rimsky-Korsakov. He kept gnawing at his lip.

“I must insist that you surrender,” he repeated for the third time,
his voice a bit quavery through the magic mirror.

“That will never happen,” Adrienne told him. “Once you
understand that, this discussion can move on to more productive
ground. The men you take orders from are traitors and usurpers.

We represent the tsar himself, and we will not surrender.”

“The tsar is dead,” Rimsky-Korsakov said. “As I understand it, he
has been succeeded by his heir, Princess Anna. Prince Golitsyn is
her agent, and the legitimate voice of Saint Petersburg. You,
Mademoiselle, have been declared a heretic by the patriarch
himself, and your accomplices share your crimes. Furthermore,
you harbor the criminal Menshikov and have kidnapped Tsarevna
Elizavet.”

“That is outrageous!” Hercule snapped from behind her left
shoulder. “You little, bearded pig! I—”

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“A moment, Hercule,” Adrienne said quietly.

She summoned Uriel to her.

Yes, Adrienne?

I must be certain I have your aid against these ships and whatever

other forces may be marshaled against us.

The malakus seemed to sigh.
I prefer not to attract attention just

yet, but if there is no other way
—
yes.

My trail ends here. If lam to pick it up again
—
and find my son, as

you desire
—
I must win this battle.

As I said
, Uriel said.

But this time, do it as I command it. Do you understand?

I understand.

She nodded and returned her attention to the governor.

“Enough of this,” she said softly. “Governor, prepare to surrender
your city.”

“You must be joking.”

“Look out your window,” she replied.

She picked one of the flying frigates and severed all but one of the
spirits that kept it aloft. It dropped—not quite like a stone. It was
distant but not so distant that she couldn’t hear the wails of the
crew. The ship would hit hard, probably hard enough to split its
hull, but most on board ought to survive.

The governor had vanished from the view of the mirror, but he
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soon returned, stroking his beard and chewing even more
frantically at his lip.

“I will give no second warning,” Adrienne told him. “The next ship
will drop straight from the sky, so that I need not fight the crew as
infantry when my soldiers secure your fortress. By our reckoning,
you have only fifty or so troops at your disposal, anyway. Far, far
less than we expected, I must tell you. We were prepared to fight
many times that number. What’s more, do not count on your
angelic weapons—you will find them no more dependable than
your ships. Indeed, I give you half an hour to confirm this, and five
minutes more to surrender.”

She stepped away from the mirror, then quieted it with a pass of
her hand.

“
Can
we win, if it comes to it?” she asked.

“Yes,” Hercule said with certainty. “If what you said about their
weapons is true, yes. I have a hundred and half again fighting men,
more than twice what they have, unless they have some hidden
away.” He cocked his head. “Which is what worries me. Where
have their troops all gone? There should be many, many more.”

“Well,” Adrienne replied, “that is one of the things we are here to
learn.”

The magic mirror flickered in all the colors of the rainbow, a sign
that someone was trying to speak from the other end. She waved it
on. It was, as she had expected, the governor.

“I have no choice,” he said harshly. “I surrender the city to you. But
I warn you—there will be consequences, and though you command
every demon in hell, you will not avoid them.”

“Nor would I wish to try, Governor,” she replied. “The sooner these
consequences appear before me, the sooner I can dissolve them.

Recall your ships and expect troops under my authority within the
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hour.”

“Adrienne,” Crecy said softly, “look.”

She followed the direction of the redhead’s finger. In the distance,
the mist coruscated yellow and orange, a plume of color racing
away at high speed.

“Golitsyn. Swedenborg. The metropolitan.”

“The wheel, at the very least,” Crecy cautioned.

Can you stop them, Uriel?

No. I am weak, now. There was… resistance. From this moment on

lam under siege; it will remain so until this matter is resolved, or

until I die. What I warned you of has come to pass: I have been

noticed.

It was necessary
. She paused.
Thank you
.

The entity did not answer.

New Moscow was a ghost town; they saw that almost immediately.

Its streets were nearly empty, and more than half the houses were
abandoned.

“Some plague, perhaps, or attacks by the Indians?” Hercule
speculated.

“Questions to put to the governor, not to me.” Everything was built
of wood, and in that way only, it did resemble Moscow, which had
few stone structures. The governor’s house, the statehouse, and the
church were the largest; squat buildings with attempts at onion
domes on the towers. The streets were unpaved and ankle-deep in
mud. It stank almost as much as Adrienne remembered Paris
stinking.

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The governor and his staff waited to receive them, swords held flat
in their palms, ready for surrender. Adrienne watched silently as
her men collected them.

Rimsky-Korsakov was a little taller in person than she had
expected, but he flinched more.

“What will you do with us now?” he asked.

“I’m placing you and all of your officers under house arrest and
forbidding you any contact with magic mirrors, aetherschreibers,
or anything of that sort, though I’m sure any damage along those
lines is already done. Will you invite me into your statehouse? We
have things to discuss.”

Rimsky-Korsakov nodded and led the way.

Seated at a polished cedar table, Adrienne sipped some tea the
governor’s servant brought them and looked the fellow in the eye.

“First things first. Where is everyone?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“This town could hold five times as many people as I see. Barracks
that could house five hundred contain fewer than fifty. Don’t play
the innocent with me. Where have they gone? And while we’re at it,
my scouts have discovered another colony, some hundred miles
north. What is it?”

“A Mongol settlement, with a Chinese fortress.”

“It seems even emptier than
this
town. Why? Are they in the same
place your own people are?”

He shrugged. “It is not my business to ask where the Chinese have
gone. Go ask them yourself.”

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“I suggest you cooperate, little pig,” Hercule growled.

The governor looked defiant and fearful and said nothing.

“He
is
cooperating, Hercule,” Adrienne chided. “His men have
gone to the east, into the interior. Isn’t that right, Governor? You’ve
been left defenseless against
me,
because something of much
greater importance is happening out there. Yes?”

“What traitor told you this?”

“You did, just now. I was merely guessing.” She turned away from
his face as it crumpled in dismay. “Hercule, begin searching this
building, then move on to the governor’s house and the church—”

“You
cannot
search the church!” Rimsky-Korsakov shouted.

“It will be done respectfully, but it will be done. I
am
a heretic,
remember?”

“You will burn in hell.”

“We will burn here, if you continue in this way; and afterward I
venture the two of us will meet in hell, for I doubt very much that
you are a good man. What has become of your tsar, and what part
did you play in the matter?”

“I was not involved in the affair of the tsar.”

“Tell me of it, and save yourself considerable agony.”

“I will not.”

“
I
will.”

They all turned at the new voice. Adrienne actually found herself
gaping, for three reasons. The first was that the man who stood
there, firmly escorted by two of Adrienne’s Lorraine guard—had
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spoken in French. Second, he wore the black robes of a Jesuit
priest. Third—she knew him.

“Pierre Castillion!”

The priest—a man of some forty years with a narrow, ascetic face—

blinked. “I know you, Mademoiselle?”

He did not recognize her. But then, why should he?

“I know you, more properly, but that for another time. You were
saying?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Rimsky-Korsakov snapped in Russian.

“Whatever he is saying, it is bound to be some papist lie.”

“Hush,” Adrienne told the governor, “or I will have you gagged.”

“Don’t hurt him, please,” Castillion said. “He is merely a pawn in
this game. He is not responsible.”

“We are all responsible, Father Castillion, all of us. Now what do
you have to say about our tsar?”

“He is not here. He was here, but he has gone.”

As her initial shock began to fade, Adrienne noticed other things.

Castillion looked tired—no, more than tired, haggard. And he was
bleeding from a cut on his forehead.

“Did my men give you that?” she asked.

“No, Mademoiselle. I was set upon by rogues on my journey here.”

“From where?”

“The Chinese outpost to the north.”

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“That’s more than eighty miles away.”

“Indeed. I still have friends in Peking, you see, and they told me you
were coming. I walked here to meet you.”

“My apologies, Father,” Adrienne said. “I will not ask you to testify
in this state.” She turned to Crecy. “Secure the governor and his
men. The father and I will return to our ship, where I can be
assured he will be cared for in safety.”

“Your wish,” Crecy replied. “Come, gentlemen, let us see what sort
of accommodations we may offer you in your own town. Better
than you had planned for us, I’ll guess.”

A few hours later—fed, his wound cleaned, and in new clothes,
Castillion looked considerably better.

“Please take your time,” Adrienne told him. “Our cause is urgent,
but a few extra hours or so will make little difference.”

“I cannot agree with you,” the priest replied, “which is why I
walked here. But I thank you for your hospitality.” He paused.

“How
do
I know you, lady?”

She wondered again whether she should tell him, finally decided to.

“Don’t you remember teaching me arithmetic? I sat in the first
row.”

“You were at Saint Cyr?” he asked, eyes lighting. Then they
suddenly shone even more brightly. “Wait! Adrienne… de Mornay
de—ah—” He clasped his hands together. “It escapes me.”

“Montchevreuil,” she finished.

“You must have been only fifteen or so. I was so young myself—By
our savior, I
do
remember you. Very quiet. Very pensive. You
always knew the answers and never would say them.” He shook his
head. “I
must
know how you came to your present condition. It is
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beyond imagining!”

“No more strange than finding an old teacher of mine in the New
World,” she said. “Your story first, then mine.”

He nodded briskly and began telling her his tale. She found herself
savoring his voice. She, Crecy, and Hercule spoke French when
they were alone, as she did also with some of her Lorraine guard,
though many of them were more comfortable with German. But
Father Castillion had a rustic accent, not the Parisian one that
Crecy and Hercule owned. It was musical, soft and trilling, not
unlike her grandfather’s accent— or her own, when she let the
courtly training slip. It was both familiar and almost forgotten.

“After Saint Cyr I taught at the college of Louis le Grande—but my
heart was always on travel. I read Leibniz’s work on China, and it
was then that I knew where our Lord was calling me.” He smiled
ruefully. “It was more difficult explaining that to Rome, however,
for they always seem to have some other idea of what God has said,
and besides, there was trouble with the Jesuits in China. They had a
tendency, it was said, to become—strange. But at last, in the year
1719,I got my wish, and I sailed to Peking, and thus began a life I
could not—for all of my reading—have ever imagined. I do not think
I should say much of that now—I would digress, and digress again,
until all important points were obliterated.”