Age Of Unreason - Newton's Cannon Part 8

"Is it as good as your poem about Blackbeard?"

"Probably."

"We print it tomorrow, then. What of the aetherschreiber? Can you change it so that we can receive more sorts of news?"Ben stared at James, and for an instant he felt a sort of panic."Yes," he said quietly. "I am certain that I can.""Hah!" James said. "Then I was right.""Yes," Ben acknowledged. "But I need something from you.""What is that?" James asked, a bit suspiciously."Money," Ben told him. "I need money to pay a gla.s.sblower."James pursed his lips angrily. "I've already wagered a lot of money on you, Ben. How much do you need?"

"I don't know. If you give me your leave to go now, I shall find out If the gla.s.sblower works quickly, I can have your news-something-by tonight."James looked skeptical, and Ben's fury suddenly lashed forth. "It was your idea," he snarled.

"Don't yell at me! Don't take that tone with me!" And Ben realized, with a cold, sobering shock, that a tear was working down one of James' cheeks. Ben's hand darted

to his mouth in astonishment, and he suddenly felt his own tears crowd thickly around his lids.

"Go, go," James hissed, thus saving them both, for Ben had no more than reached the

street before his tears poured forth like the hot, wet drops of a summer storm.

"Will it work?" John Collins asked, touching the odd gla.s.s surface with the tip of his index finger.

Ben shrugged. "If it doesn't, James and I are in the poor-house. Father has no more

money for either of us, and with everyone in town selling the Mercury, we won't feed ourselves that way." He sighed in exasperation. "I thought I was so smart, John."

"Well, you can always sell ice," John began, trying, for once, to brighten the conversation. It didn't work; how could James know that Ben had been forbidden, essentially on pain of death, to continue his experiments?

Of course, here he was, at it again. But if Bracewell could see him here-in his own, shuttered bedroom-then what hope was there? His only hope was that his nemesis had no magical scrying device that could spy through walls.

"Well, men, try it," John continued.

"I'm afraid," Ben admitted. Once he began acting on it, the certainty of his vision had ebbed with dismaying swiftness. Now, looking at the thing the gla.s.sblower had made for him, he felt faintly ridiculous.

It was two nested gla.s.s cylinders. They stood upright and fit together tightly enough that the inner tube could be drawn up or lowered by gentle pressure from the finger but would remain in whatever position it was left in when one stopped pushing or pulling. In the lower tube rested a silvery fluid; a suspension of philosopher's mercury in its near cousin, ordinary mercury.

"And the chime itself-" John began.

"Yes, melted and alloyed with ordinary gla.s.s to form the tubes. I went to the mercantile office and found that they had several broken chimes on hand, and they sold me them for next to nothing, so they are included, too."

"It seems as likely to work as anything. How will you sound the crystal?"

"That's the thing-with this arrangement I don't think I'll have to. I guess we'll see."

Ben lifted his odd construction, fitting it into the new brace he had made. The tubes now rested where the former, flat chime had-within the translator housing. He pulled the inner tube as far out as it would come without it coming free.

"Now," he told John, "wind the scribing arm."

John did so. There was already a piece of paper waiting to be written on, and the lead pencil in the arm's grip was sharp.

"Start it," John said.

"It is started," Ben replied.

"Oh."

After a moment, Ben pushed the tube a bit farther in, but there was still no result. He pushed farther, then farther still. John gave a disappointed sigh.

The arm suddenly spasmed, and John yelped. Ben froze, his heart pounding, and then slowly eased the tube back up. The arm jumped again, and then, incredibly, began writing in a thick, crabbed hand.

The Yema.s.see continue in their rebellious ways and have contriv'd to lure away our former allies such as the Charakee to join their cause. It must be admitt'd that they are not without grievance, but it is more the problem that the Spanish provoke them at every turn, giving their warriors solace in the mission at San Luis...

Ben felt like shouting in triumph.

"It works," he muttered. "By the Lord G.o.d, it most certainly works."

"You must have known it would," John said suspiciously. "Did you try this one without me, too?"

"No, John," Ben a.s.sured him, "I wanted you with me this time in case it didn't work, to save me from throwing myself from the window."

"Move it down," John said, his voice nearly choked on eagerness.

Another half inch down and the arm jumped again. This time it wrote in a language

that neither of them understood, though the letters were Roman.

"Mark the tube," John said suddenly, "like a gauge. So you can find them again."

"An excellent thought," Ben replied.

The third schreiber they found wrote in Latin, which Ben laid aside to translate later.

The fourth was English again, and the boys followed it with great interest, for it was what appeared to be news of the European war. ... threw up three redoubts during the night, but the grenadiers made short work of two of them by midmorning. The fighting was fierce, however, and we were forced to withdraw. A second sally found their line still holding firm; they managed to entrench two, perhaps three of their drakes which spray clouds of molten lead. G.o.d willing, we shall have our own warlock cannon situat'd by morning, but the rain and the sorry condition of these French roads delays their arrival...

"There is an item for our paper," Ben said happily.

Two more untranslatable communiques followed-one of which Ben was sure was

German and another that might be Greek. They had still not moved their "divining rod"

down more than half of its length.

"And these are only those who write at this very instant," John pointed out. "Who

knows, ultimately, how many schreibers you can spy upon?"

It had already occurred to Ben that they were eavesdropping.

"We cannot print private communications without permission, I think, unless the

public interest be served-as in this dispatch about the war."

"But you can write to them, can you not? You can establish correspondence with people all over the world. There is your real stuff, Ben, not in the eavesdropping." "Yes, I agree," Ben said, again changing the position of the diviner. He stopped when the pencil began writing again.

This time it wrote in the characters of mathematical formulae.

"Here, what in the world is this?" Ben said.

"Mathematicians, exchanging love notes, I would say," John replied. He squinted at the

formula, trying to guess what it might have to do with.

It went on for two pages, ending with a brief note in English.

Ye Correspondence is inexact, but today it seems I will do no better. What is lacking, as always, is ye kind and degree of mediation. Ye mechanism is still lacking. Hope for better on ye morrow, my dear Mr. F.

As always your servant, S.

"How cryptic," John remarked delightedly. "May I take this home and look at it?" "Of course, John," Ben replied. "For it appears that I have type to set!"

The Grand Ca.n.a.l

Adrienne pursed her lips into a dubious scowl and then gasped as the servant behind her drew tighter on the laces of her bodice.

"What sort of entertainment is the king planning?" she asked the two young servant girls attending her.

"It is a sort of masquerade, I think, on the ca.n.a.l. You are to be dressed as the red savages of America," answered Charlotte, a girl of about twelve years.

"Truly?" Adrienne glanced down at her dress, but saw little of the savage about it.

"You will see when we are done," Charlotte promised, and then giggled. The other servant, a darker, older girl named Helen, only smiled. "You will be lovely, Mademoiselle," she a.s.sured Adrienne.

An entertainment on the ca.n.a.l was a fete such as the king had not held in over five years-not since just before his last illness. But Adrienne remembered stories of the lavish entertainments of the past century, when the whole of the court had dressed as sultans, nymphs, and Greek G.o.ds. Most of that had ended with the king's marriage to Madame de Maintenon, who had brought the semblance of piety to the court.

But Madame was now dead, of course. And Louis seemed to be returning to his younger ways of extravagant splendor.

Did he plan to take her for mistress, if only for a single night? She actually felt herself blush at the thought. Madame d'Alambert had been right the other evening, when she said Adrienne knew little of men. She was well beyond the age when most girls were wed or had lost their virginity to a seducer. But for Adrienne, piety was no mere fashion. Despite some intellectual arguments she might muster, in her own heart and soul she knew that G.o.d and her sainted mother would see her consumed with guilt if she succ.u.mbed to s.e.xual temptation. Living in the midst of corruption was no excuse for becoming corrupted.

If the king approached her tonight, what would she do? Could she refuse him? Should she?

Her third path-which had seemed so promising a few days before-now seemed a shaking tightrope. She knew that the few women who had walked it before her-the famous Ninon de Lenclos, for instance-had done so by cultivating important lovers but never marrying.

Refusing Louis XIV could be a very unfortunate thing, even weighed against d.a.m.nation.

It was especially infuriating to have this dilemma now, with the puzzle of Fatio's work so tantalizingly close to her. That was all she really wanted. She desired no part in the court, of the dark intrigues hinted at by Torcy. Why had she come to the attention of both the king and his would-be successor?

After what seemed another eon, Charlotte squeaked in delight and stepped back.

"Am I so hideous, Charlotte?" Adrienne asked ruefully. For answer both girls took her by the hands and hurried her to stand before a mirror across the salon.

For a moment, Adrienne simply could not speak. The woman who gazed back at her from the mirror was too astonishing.

How many times had she lain awake as a little girl, listening to the music of crickets and nightbirds, dreaming of such a gown? Imagining herself the Cinder Girl, with a fairy G.o.dmother to clothe her like the ladies of the court? But her family was poor, and though her uncle was a favorite of the king and promised to buy her such a dress one day, it had never come to pa.s.s.

Then the little girl had grown up, and grown up in Saint Cyr, where she learned to love a simpler, more austere beauty, and to put childish thoughts away. And yet...

Here she stood, in that fairytale dress. The black velvet bodice was embroidered with crisscrossing strands of white pearls. In the center of each diamond thus formed winked a real diamond. At her waist and hips were layers of ostrich plumes, and they also edged the richly brocaded silver and black skirt. Its train was short, yet as long as that of a marquise-longer than she deserved.

The bodice dipped deeply, but a white marten cape was draped across her shoulders. Her straight dark hair had been swept up into a towering creation wound through with more strands of pearls and surmounted with feathers.

Here she was at last, about to stand before the greatest king in Europe, perhaps the greatest king of all time. And all she wanted was to avoid his attention and return to the life she had worked so long to have: a life devoted to science. She knew that there was more magic in the circ.u.mference of a circle than in all of the palace of Versailles.

Louis' sedan chair swayed slightly on the shoulders of the two men who bore it briskly through the corridors of Versailles. He smiled amiably at the courtiers who packed the halls and crowded against the black bal.u.s.trades of the marble stair to make way for him.

His excitement began to rise when they left the chateau. Sedan chairs streaming from different parts of Versailles began to form a procession. Behind him was the young dauphin, his heir, and trailing him were the various dukes and d.u.c.h.esses to whom he was most closely related and, of course, Adrienne. He had taken the liberty earlier of stopping in to see her and had been almost stunned by her appearance, for she was even more fetching than he had antic.i.p.ated. The girl from Saint Cyr had grown into the woman he had imagined she might. Thinking of her now in her dress of black and silver, he felt a certain revival of interest in matters feminine. His court would not respect him if he mourned too long. He understood that plotters and schemers- and even those who wished him well-must not think him aloof from their influence.

Perhaps it was time to announce that the way was again open to his bed. Adrienne would be perfect for that; he knew her to have no political desires. She was innocent and compelling, and more than anything, she was the fine and finished product of his late wife. Maintenon had considered Adrienne an ideal young lady, and he had considered Maintenon the ideal woman. He would renew his heart with the child of Maintenon's heart.

The sedan jostled a bit as the bearers' feet met the manicured stretch of the Green Carpet, the long avenue of gra.s.s that led them toward their destination. Beyond the Green Carpet lay the Apollo Fountain, and beyond that was the Grand Ca.n.a.l, which went on until it met the horizon.