Age Of Unreason - Newton's Cannon Part 39

"Why me, then? Why not Voltaire or some other, some older-""Is that your worry, your age? Ben, in my country men younger than you fight in the army. In yours, too, I think." Ahead, through the lane, the blue expanse of the Thames winked a million sun-glitter eyes at them. "That wasn't fair, was it?" Vasilisa sighed. "The fact is you are young, though not so much younger than me as you might think. Voltaire is considerably schooled in the ways of love. That is attractive at times, but it also makes him... um, perfunctory. You weren't perfunctory, Ben."

"Or very skilled, either. You're saying you made love to me because I am a novice?" "Look at it this way, dear. You must learn from someone. And I enjoy teaching sometimes. Also-" He felt her stiffen a bit. "Let's just say that I am choosy. I have had very bad luck with men in the past, Ben."

"Your scars-"

"I will not speak of that," she said, and for an instant she seemed icy cold.

"So you thought I was harmless, too," Ben murmured.

"Harmless? No. No man is harmless. Gentle, caring-yes. And if I can teach you to make love in that way-teach you to love women without hurting them-then both of our s.e.xes gain. And when you find your true love-" But then she must have felt him tremble. She stopped walking. They had reached the Grand Terrace on the river. Below them the Thames extended, at least a hundred small craft bobbing on its surface.

"No, I am not she," she said softly to his unspoken thought, and kissed him on the lips. He knew his face showed his anguish. He wanted to beg her to love him.

"You take it all too seriously," she said. "One day you will look back and remember how much fun it was."

"Actually, that's part of my concern," Ben replied, trying on a little smile. "I remember too link of it."

She gave his arm a playful squeeze. "Well, if you can adopt a more casual att.i.tude, perhaps we can see what we can do about that. But if I find that I'm making you more unhappy...

"Come, let's walk up the terrace," she said.

They had come onto the terrace near the mouth of the Fleet Ca.n.a.l. Facing the river, the walls and towers of the Temple college rose on their left, a little city all its own. To their right, along the curve of the river stood the ancient sentinel of the Tower, where Ben had first set foot in London. The terrace was a broad quay that ran more than a mile, punctuated by stairs descending to the water where boats might dock. The stone-paved terrace itself was crowded with the gaily dressed well-to-do on outings, with fishermen and gypsies, with beggars and hawkers. A single breath tasted salt from the distant sea, fish spoiling in the afternoon sun, tobacco, pastries, sh.e.l.lfish, and the underlying stench of sewage.

They strolled toward the Tower, though Ben guessed they had no destination.

"That was clever of you, deciphering Newton's riddle."

"It was simple enough. Any one of you would have figured it out if I hadn't."

"That's entirely beside the point. You have many talents, Ben. Have you thought of attending college?"

Ben grinned wryly. "There is only the matter of money," he said. "My father wished that I should attend a college back in America, but that was never to be, I think."

"You don't talk much about your family in America."

Ben heaved a sigh. "I try not to think of them."

"Were they so bad?"

"No, I love them very much. But I betrayed them, abandoned them."

"It seems to me you had good reason."

"I can put any face on it I want, but when my life was threatened, I fled."

"It must be more complicated than you paint it. Before this man threatened your life-

before your brother was killed- didn't you already wish your liberty?"

When he didn't respond she continued. "It was that way with me. I was born in a place

where no woman could ever be more than a wife and mother. I always wanted more- to see the world, to learn things. But it was impossible."

"Impossible? But here you are."

"Yes, here I am," she mused. "And yet it was impossible. I had to die before my life could begin."

"Die? What does that mean, Vasilisa?"

"It isn't important-a story for another time. I, too, left much behind me to be here, but

this is where people like you and I must be. We are not like ordinary people, any more than Newton is, or Maclaurin." She chuckled. "Oh, I don't mean to say that I'm a genius like they are-"

"I do know what you mean. I would have never found what I wanted in Boston." "Have you found it here?"

"Yes. Yes, but still..."

"Still what?"

"I put them out of my mind. It's as if the ship that brought me from America was taking

me across the river of the dead. That's how I tried to think of it-as an irrevocable decision. Onboard ship when I stood looking at the sea, I only looked east. I begged the captain to let me look at his charts, and I explored all the world on them, from India to Cathay-but the maps of America I left furled." He shook his head. "Mostly I looked at the charts of the coastline of England, at-" He stopped abruptly.

"What is it?" Vasilisa asked. "Are you faint?"

"Not faint," he croaked, "but I have to sit down."

"Why?"

He shook free of her and found an empty bench, sank onto it. He looked up at the sky, which suddenly seemed too close, more menacing than the sword of Damocles.

"Those other numbers," he said. "I know what they are."

"What?"

"London. In the new system, the lat.i.tude and the longitude."

He looked around him, as if in a dream. A dandy swaggered by, sword wagging like a

tail. At the base of the steps, a little boy in a blue coat and tricorn exhorted his toy boat to fire its cannon.

"What are you saying? Are you saying that the comet will strike London?""That's what Newton was trying to tell us. Oh, G.o.d, that's why he went on about Sodom and Gomorrah."

"How can it be?"

"It can't be. It's just numbers, just an equation, just philosophical nonsense." He closed his eyes, trying to think, trying to find some other answer.

When he opened them, Vasilisa was gone, vanished into the crowd. Of course she had gone, to warn her countrymen. That was where her real allegiance was. Newton's words came back to him then, and he understood two things with perfect clarity. The first was that the old man really was mad, mad beyond anyone's worst nightmares. The second was that he could trust none of the Newtonians-not Maclaurin, not Vasilisa, no one. He was alone.

The Elixir of Life

Summer marched into October undeterred by the usual logic of the seasons as Adrienne studied the notebook, such a Mediterranean heat settling upon the land as normally confined itself to August and the south. When she went out, she was accosted by sunlight that crushed her as if it had weight.

Her rooms were hot but not intolerable, a dark cave where she pored over the notebook Torcy had given her. When reading it, she took no notice of the heat, so cold and pa.s.sionless was its tale of horror. It was the story of a young servant named Martin. She read it with a sick fascination; a year before she would not have been able to read it at all. As all reading should, it brought questions to mind.

"What can you tell me of Mehemet Mira Bey?" Adrienne asked Crecy one day. They sat beneath an awning on the roof of the chateau, each holding a cup of orange sherbet that melted much faster than they could finish it.

"I saw him," Crecy remarked, "several times, in fact. He called upon my mistress La Sery at least once. She was intrigued by his foreignness, at first. She found him disappointing, ultimately."

"What was he like?"

Crecy shrugged. "APersian. He spoke little French and dressed abominably. He was a fraud, you know."

"What do you mean? The king received him as an amba.s.sador."

Crecy tipped her sherbet bowl and chased a dollop with her spoon. "The king was

dying," she explained. "I heard it told that his ministers-especially Pontchartrain- wished to give their dying king one last chance to play the grand monarch."

"You were there?"

"It was the most incredible thing I ever saw. Of course, I was eighteen and easily

impressed. The whole court was resplendent, but the king had every diamond in the treasury sewn onto his coat. He could barely walk in it.""All that for a fraud?"

"All of that for the king. That was when France still loved him."Adrienne recalled Torcy's tortured face when he spoke of the king's earlier brush with death. Yes, it would have been better if he had died then.

"Who was Monsieur Bey really, then?"

"He really was a Persian, if that's what you mean. Why are you interested in events five years gone?""This Persian gave the king an elixir of life."Crecy smiled. "I remember. That and a lot of worthless baubles. Pontchartrain and the others might have done a better job of making him seem like the real representative of an Oriental potentate, I think. But the elixir worked, I suppose, so clearly the Persian was more than what he seemed."

"Clearly. What became of him?"

"He stayed around the court, taking every sc.r.a.p of food, wine, and courtesy he could get. He remained for the most part of a year before he was finally deported." She

grinned. "Clearly the hospitality here was better than what he was used to at home. The best part was the souvenir he took with him."

"That being?"

"When his things were loaded upon his ship, the inspectors found one rather large

chest he would not allow them to open. He screeched and caterwauled that it contained books sacred to his prophet, Mohammed, and that infidels might not lay eyes upon them."

Adrienne leaned forward with interest "What manner of books?"Crecy's eyes sparkled devilishly."It was but a single tome ent.i.tled, the d.u.c.h.ess d'Espinay.""What?" Adrienne asked."It was a d.u.c.h.ess. It seems she had become pregnant by the amba.s.sador and inclined toward life in a more Oriental clime.

Really! Madame de Maintenon slighted your education if she never told you that

story!" She laughed, but stopped when she saw that Adrienne was not amused. "What is it?"

"The man sounds as if he was nothing but a swindler, a charlatan, a kidnapper. And yet

he brought the elixir of life."

"Have some imagination, Adrienne. If he could steal a d.u.c.h.ess, he could steal an elixir from some great Egyptian magus, could he not?""I suppose."Crecy shrugged. "Perhaps the elixir itself was fraudulent. Perhaps the king recovered on his own."

"No, the elixir was real," Adrienne answered. "Some of the philosophers tried it on someone else before they tried it on the king."

"Naturally. It might have been poison."