Age Of Unreason - Newton's Cannon Part 30

Ben agreed, finding that he liked sharing secrets with Vasilisa.

They were halfway through a cup of chocolate when Maclaurin and Heath arrived.

"Already here, eh?" Maclaurin said when he saw Ben. "Have you been makin' too free of our secrets, Vasilisa?"

"Colin, you astonish me," Vasilisa demurred.

"Oh, certain," Maclaurin said. "Well, whatever. Finish up, me boy, for you've much work to do."

"Work?"

"Aye. Didn't you come here in hopes of 'prenticing to Sir Isaac?"

"I... ah-" Ben started.

"Well, with luck, all of us students together might add up to a single Newton."

Ben stared at the Scot, wondering if he was really saying what he seemed to be saying.

"We've agreed," Maclaurin explained, slowly, as if to a dimwit. " You can be 'prentice to us all."

Ben soon discovered that being an apprentice to philosophers was much the same as being any other sort of apprentice; it mostly involved doing the boring, menial tasks that the adepts did not themselves care to do. His first day he washed gla.s.sware, swept floors, brought water and coffee. But he got to see three of the laboratories and wonder at the alchemical and philosophical devices that filled them, and even if he had not, his moment that morning with Vasilisa and the orrery would have paid for all of his work.

After a week of sweeping and washing and answering the door, he was no longer certain. He finally confronted Maclaurin about it.

"I'm supposed to be an apprentice, and yet I'm not learning anything," he grumbled. "Or being paid, for that matter."

"Didn't I tell you?" Maclaurin said, taking a bench and rubbing his eyes. "Tomorrow you'll build us one of your aetherschreibers. Besides that, the library and the little laboratory are open to you, should you wish to use them." He paused briefly. "We've not much to pay you with, but you can take a room here, just as Vasilisa has."

"I... well, the thing is, I'm sharing a house with a friend of mine. I'm expected to help with the rent there." And yet the thought of actually living here, of having every spare moment to spend with whatever experiments he might conceive... "I'll think about it," he finished.

"I can't say I blame you," Robert said quietly. "These new friends of yours must be a h.e.l.l of a lot more interestin' than a footpad like me."

"It's not that, Robin. It's that they've nothing to pay me with but the room. And I've nothing to pay you with for this one."

"I still owe you a few pounds. Besides, I can get you on as an adjustant on a locomotive," Robert replied.

"By my reckoning you've paid me in full," Ben said. "If it weren't for you, I'd probably be dead several times by now."

Robert nodded absently. "The thing is, Ben," he said, "I'm in a bit of a spot. I had some ill luck at the gambling tables the other night. I'm more than a little in debt. I was truly hoping you would take the locomotive job and stay here until I can settle up and start paying rent again."

A sort of sinking feeling had begun in Ben's belly. He owed Robert a lot, he supposed.

But not that much.

"Robin," he said, "I... your gambling and drinking are your affairs. I don't mean that to

sound harsh. You're the best friend I have in London. If I had more money to lend, I

would. But I have to do this 'prenticeship. It's what I came to London for.""That's odd," Robert remarked somewhat coldly. "I had the idea that you came here because you were fleeing Boston. How many debts did you leave behind there?"

Ben's face flushed hot, and he stared hard at the floor.

"I thought I could count on you," Robert said softly, "but I should know by now that Robert Nairne must count only on Robert Nairne."

Ben had no answer for that.

Ben moved to Crane Court the next day. The whole scientific world lay before him.

Sin

Louis arose, leaving Adrienne drenched in their commingled sweat. She drew the sheet up over her nakedness. Pressing the linen against her face, she blotted the tears there, knowing that if Louis could not hear her cry, he would not know of it. Whatever sorcery gave him vision would not show him tears.

I am becoming the ghost of Maintenon, she thought.

Tonight her body actually hurt. The king was never brutal, but she still bore the bruises from today's adventures, and the dull ache that followed s.e.x was like a key that unlocked those other pains.

No word had yet been heard from Nicolas, and that was a whole different species of pain.

Crecy and she had reached the country home that had been their destination, where Adrienne had been bathed and dressed in proper women's fashion. She had then returned to Versailles as if nothing had happened. Bontemps himself had greeted her, asking no unusual questions, and that evening she had played cards with the king and Torcy. Torcy told her of the strange trio who had invaded the masque of the duke of Orleans and slain a number of musketeers, but he did so without irony. The king had quite casually asked about Nicolas, and she had lied, saying that she had released him for two days to visit a cousin in Paris. It had already occurred to her that the king and his minister might know exactly where Nicolas was, but if so she was probably already doomed. At the king's suggestion, she had returned to her rooms early, and he had come to her shortly thereafter.

She wished she could peel off her body like a soiled dress and throw it on a trash heap, but the best she could do was to hide it from her sight. It had been bad enough that her flesh had been dirtied without the sacrament of marriage. Now she knew she had been wh.o.r.e to the bringer of the apocalypse. Nothing could cleanse the stench of monster from her.

It was lying there, weeping for dead Nicolas and her own dead soul, that she began to understand what her remaining purpose was.

She, Adrienne, would kill the king.

Who else could do it? Who else could have him alone and naked, without his protections against bullets and daggers?

She might already have waited too long. If Nicolas had been killed, if the musketeers had his body...

But Louis, who had just lain with her, could not suspect much unless, in his madness, he thought himself invulnerable.

The outer door creaked open again. "I've ordered you a bath," Crecy's voice said gently, after a moment.

Adrienne didn't answer, but presently she heard maids bringing in hot water and pouring it into her tub in the adjoining room. When Crecy had helped her into the hot, scented water, she felt better, especially when the other's immensely strong fingers began stroking her shoulders. As the knots in her neck and back were kneaded loose, she considered again how she might murder the king. Feeling the strength of Crecy's fingers, she wondered if Crecy and the Korai had always known that it would come to this, if their plan was to kill Louis XIV all along.

It seemed reasonable, but she could not work up the anger that she should. After all, someone had to stop him.

"Is this too hard?" Crecy asked.

"No." She paused. "May I call you Veronique? Now that I no longer have Nicolas..." she started, but on his name she choked and began to whimper.

"I had uncharitable thoughts about you the other night, Cre- Veronique."

"You would not be the first, Adrienne," Crecy answered.

"I thought you a wh.o.r.e for using your body to extort information from Fatio."

Crecy's hands paused, then resumed their work. "Perhaps I was," Crecy replied. "I did not have to use very much of my body. I did not f.u.c.k him, Adrienne, but I would have, to learn what we learned."

"You see, I would not have," Adrienne said bitterly, "though I would let a king f.u.c.k me because I have been told to do so. Doing what you did would not have been pa.s.sive enough for me."

"Don't speak of yourself so," Crecy admonished. "It is difficult enough to survive the humiliations heaped upon you by others without adding your own."

"Is it easy for you?" Adrienne asked. "Do you enjoy it?"

"Do you mean s.e.x?" Crecy asked.

"I suppose. Did you enjoy seducing Fatio?"

Crecy chuckled throatily. "I suppose I did-it is a feeling of power, to see men become helpless. Fatio was not much of a challenge."

"I used to enjoy my power over him," Adrienne admitted, "though I was never so bold as you. I only smiled, only implied possibilities. I was jealous of you, I think."

"Jealous?"

"Stupid, isn't it? It's just that I never conquered much, Veronique, and you so quickly overran my possession."

"Some would consider the king a great prize," Crecy pointed out softly. Adrienne stiffened. "I did not do that," she said. "Can't you see that with your prescience? The king's love is for some creature of his mind that I have the poor fortune to resemble." "I said 'some'," Adrienne. I do not envy you-your pain is too apparent. I wish I could extricate you from this mess, for I know that I am in large measure responsible." "No," Adrienne averred, "you may have seen it, but you did not bring it about. I thought that I would be the queen, and powerful. I thought the king might-that I might even enjoy..." She sighed. "I betrayed myself." "You are very young," Crecy said. "You must want many things you are told you should not have. Such conflict makes one stupid.""I suppose. I suppose that I thought with the king, it would not be sin.""Pfah. Sin. There is your problem, Adrienne. Have not your researches shown you that the universe has no need of G.o.d?"

"Perhaps I have need of G.o.d," Adrienne answered shakily.

"Weakness."

"What would you know of weakness?" Adrienne asked. "You, who do as you please,

who hold a man's position in the Hundred Swiss, who wield a sword like Roland or Oliver?"

Crecy laughed. "You admire this?"

"I have always wanted..." Adrienne stopped. "Castries was right," she went on. "I have

always sought some middle path between marriage and the convent."

"Yes, yes, that is clear," Crecy said. "But I tell you again, your agony is in the contradiction. You want the fruits of the life of Ninon, but you insist on the principles of Madame de Maintenon. As if she had principles."

"What? What slander is this? I knew Maintenon, I saw her piety-"

"You saw her in the prison she built for herself, but she was not always thus. Let me tell you a story, Adrienne. It begins many years ago. Maintenon was Ninon's pupil in love and life. She married the cripple Scarron, who was Ninon's dearest friend. Does this sound like a lie yet?"

"No," Adrienne whispered.

"Scarron was worthless for the l.u.s.ts of a young beauty like Maintenon. Ninon pa.s.sed her hand-me-downs to Maintenon. Ninon lent them a room for their lovemaking. And Ninon and Maintenon shared the same bed for some three months."

A terrible little thrill jolted through Adrienne's belly. "Are you saying..."

"I leave it for you," Crecy replied, her mouth quite near Adrienne's ear, so that her breath touched it with warmth. "In the end, Maintenon had another sort of ambition than Ninon. Ninon wanted nothing more than to lead life on her own terms, beholden to no one. Maintenon craved riches and power. When she managed to become governess of the king's b.a.s.t.a.r.ds by Montespan, she saw her chance. She saw the king had begun to feel the guilt of his many sins. And so, to win him, she put on the mask of piety. And she succeeded, replacing Montespan as mistress. When the queen died, she replaced her, too. The woman you knew, Adrienne, was a woman whose mask had become glued to her face."

Crecy fell silent, and Adrienne stared up at the baroquely patterned ceiling. She felt sick, but it was a new sort of sickness. It was true, she knew it.

"Why do you tell me this?"

"I told you," Crecy said quietly. "One day we shall be friends. I want to save you, Adrienne, from Maintenon's fate. You wear a mask, but it has not yet become fixed."

"Then you should not have told the Korai of your vision," she replied.

"That would not have saved you, only prolonged your silly illusion. Maintenon's so-called morality is what keeps us chained, Adrienne. You cannot be her and Ninon at once."

Adrienne wiped her eyes of tears she had not even realized were present and felt a sudden strength, as if something wobbly within her were suddenly unshakable. "Come where I can see you, Veronique. Sit on that stool, please."

Crecy did so.

"You are very convincing," Adrienne told her, "though I know you lie to me often. But you are right; I have been playing at the wrong game and losing. Torcy once wondered whether I was a queen or a p.a.w.n, and I vowed to be a queen. I failed because I did not understand that the queen is as lacking in free will as the p.a.w.n. What I wish now is to be neither. I wish to move the pieces myself."

"I understand you," Crecy replied, a suspicion of a grin brightening her features.

"Good. I do not know what your obligations to the d.u.c.h.ess and the Korai are, Veronique. Frankly I do not care what they are, so long as they do not impede my own designs. Some things need doing, and I would prefer help in doing them. These things are very dangerous. Will you help me?"

Crecy's smile vanished. She stood up from her stool. For the first time since they had met, Crecy looked eager.

"There you are!" she exclaimed. "The woman I have seen in visions, the woman I hoped you to be. Command me. I am yours."

"Do not mock me," warned Adrienne.

"Adrienne, I do not mock you. This is not sarcasm. I am giving you what pledge I can."

"What does 'what pledge I can' mean?" Adrienne asked.

"I cannot lay aside any earlier oaths, but henceforth I will make no new promises without your permission."