“Of when I met you. Of how we fell in love, or thought we did.”
“Of course we fell in love, Lenka,” he said, exasperated.
“Then when did you fall out of it?”
“I never have. I love you still.”
She quirked her lips. “Then perhaps it is the definition of love that is in question. I thought that I knew what it was, but now I see I do not.”
He closed his eyes wearily. “Lenka, can't you take my word on this one thing? Trust that I love you. And when there is time, I will make what amends I can for any poor treatment I may have given you. But now, at this moment—”
“When will there be time? You have had ten years. You convinced me the first of them. You have not persuaded since. And when I speak of you keeping things from me, I do not mean recently. You know that. You claim to value me for my quality of thought, and yet we have not shared a conversation on matters scientific— or on anything of real importance—in years. And so I act as your wife, in bed, in public, in this country where I was not born, where the language is strange. And we have not conceived children, which might have given me some peace, or at least someone not too busy to speak to me, but no, God will not even grant me that—” She broke off, muffling tears in her sleeve.
His own voice felt thick. “And here you have deceived me, wife. When have you ever told me you felt this?”
“I have told you and told you,” she said, “in words and looks and insinuations—which, had you been an honest husband—you might have noticed. Did you think I would beg, throw it all out in front of you, what you ought to have known?”
“You're doing it now.”
“Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Because now I think it's too late to matter.”
“No. Lenka, I love you. Please, meet me later tonight, after the craftsmen have—”
“No, Benjamin,” she said. “I have my own duties to see to. Everyone must do his part in these times, and I have found a part to play.”
“What? As Voltaire's mistress?”
She blinked. “That is so unfair as to be obscene,” she said. “Obscene.” And she turned on her heel and walked off.
He ought to follow her. But what use a wife if there was no world to live in?
He could fix things. Fixing things was what he was good at. But you had to fix them in the right order …
And so he rejoined the others, and heard more of their plans, and tried to ignore the little voice telling him that his last chance had come and gone, and that some things could never be fixed, no matter how skilled the tinkerer.
Adrienne turned her face to the wall when Crecy entered.
“Ah. Still feeling sorry for yourself, I see.”
“What have you come for, Veronique?”
“To see you.”
“Strange. I thought, perhaps, to chastise me.”
“No. You have good reason to feel sorry for yourself,” Crecy replied. “I do not begrudge you that.” Then, more softly, “I miss Hercule. In my own way, I loved him, too.”
“You were jealous of him.”
“Yes, as a sister is jealous. I wished no harm to him. When I find Oliver, I will kill him.”
Adrienne turned to face her. “I think he will kill you, that is what I think.”
“Thanks for your confidence, but it does not matter what you think, in this case. Oliver is a dead man. It is not you I avenge in killing him.”
“Hercule needs no avenging. He is beyond that.”
“So you say. I disagree. Besides, Oliver has more to answer for than Hercule—and Irena, though you seem to have forgotten her.” She paused. “I have brought someone to see you.”
“I don't want to see anyone.”
“I don't care. I'll return.”
Adrienne's jaw trembled when Crecy reentered the room. She had Hercule's children with her.
“Here is your Aunt Adrienne, children. You remember little Stephen and Ivana, don't you, Adrienne?”
“I remember. Hello, children.”
“Hello, Auntie,” the little boy said. The girl said nothing, but clung to Crecy's coat.
“Your father asked Aunt Adrienne to take care of you while he is away,” Crecy said.
“Veronique—”
“And she promised she would, that she would care for you as if she were your own mother.”
“Where is Mama?” the little girl asked.
“She is dead, like Papa, you stupid thing,” Stephen said angrily.
The shaking in Adrienne's jaw was spreading to her whole body.
“This is despicable, Veronique,” she accused.
“Indeed. Children, I'm going to leave you with Auntie for a while. Will you be good?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle,” the boy replied.
“Crecy, do not leave me with—” But the redhead was already gone. The children stood there, Ivana with the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
“Come here.” Adrienne sighed. “Come sit, and tell me what you think of the Indians.”
“I think they are very brave,” Stephen said. “I think per haps I shall be one when I grow up.”
“Well, perhaps you shall.”
“I will be one, too,” Ivana said.
“That's stupid,” said the boy. “You can't be an Indian. Indians are men.”
“So are soldiers, but Aunt Nikki is a soldier,” the little girl replied.
“Anyway,” Adrienne added, “surely there are Indian women, somewhere.”
Stephen's eyes widened, as if he hadn't thought of that. Then he shrugged. “I guess so.”
They fell silent, and Adrienne couldn't think of anything to say. She had avoided children, since Nico's kidnapping— being around them only caused her pain.
Stephen, kicking at the floor, broke the silence. “You don't have to take care of us,” he said. “I can do that.”
“Can you?”
“Yes, he can,” Ivana said emphatically. “He's my brother.”
“So—we don't need your help,” Stephen amplified.
Adrienne's lips tightened. “Maybe—maybe I need yours,” she said. “What your father really said—” Was she crying? Again? “—What he really said is that you should take care of me.”
“Oh,” Stephen said. “That's different, I suppose. I suppose I could do that. But …”
“But what?”
“You aren't going to die, too, are you?”
“It happens, sometimes, as you know by now. But—I will try not to.”
“I'm not ever going to die,” the boy said, determined.
Tears turned Adrienne's eyes to prisms, and in the refracted light, she saw again the hurricane of fire, the white-hot eye of the keres.
“Could you find Auntie Crecy, Stephen? I doubt she has gone far.”
“Yes. If you will swear to watch my sister. She is younger than me.”
“I will watch her. Come here, Ivana.”
Ivana came over as the boy left. She looked at the bed very matter-of-factly. “May I come up there?”
“Yes, dear, but be careful. Aunt Adrienne has a broken leg.”
The girl climbed up and lay looking at the ceiling. She was careful not to touch Adrienne. “My leg is broken, too, see?” She flexed the tiny limb. “Right there.” She pointed at her knee.
“So it is,” Adrienne replied. “I wonder why they made such a big fuss about mine?”
“Because you're a grown-up, that's why,” Ivana said. “Do you know any stories?”
“I—I used to.”
“Tell me one.”
By the time Crecy returned, Adrienne had given up trying to remember her way through “Sleeping Beauty”—Ivana had herself fallen asleep.
“How cozy,” Crecy said.
“I despise you, Veronique. I expect perfidy from you, but this—”
“Shh. You'll wake the child, and you know how I hate them awake.”
“Yes, of course you do. Who wouldn't? Where is the boy?”
“I left him with a certain M
onsieur Voltaire, a very interesting man I last remember being a guest in the Bastille.”
“He is safe with him?”
“Boys are safe with Monsieur Voltaire, I think, and girls below the age of fourteen or so. They were playing at dueling. You wanted something?”
“Yes. Find me Benjamin Franklin. Tell him I need to speak to him—without Vasilisa, without Red Shoes. I do not want them to know we have met.”
“Achillette is done sulking in her tent?” Crecy asked.
“That's enough from you,” Adrienne said.
But when Crecy was gone, despite her desperate wish not to, she looked at Ivana's sleeping face and smiled. A promise was a promise, and she had promised Hercule to look after his children. She couldn't very well do that if the world ended, could she?
Unoka bounced down from his horse like a king's acrobat and all but dashed into the command tent.
“Gib me some o’ t'at rum,” he said.
“Ah!” Oglethorpe replied. “And I thought you just eager to report.”
“General, you not in a hurry t'hear t'is.”
“That bad, eh?”
“Could be five t'ousands o’ t'em.”
“That's all?”
“Ain't t'at plenty?”
“That's only four to one their way. At Belgrade the Turk outnumbered us two to one, but at the end they lost thirty thousand and we only five thousand. I think we can make a good fight of this.” He paused as Unoka gulped down his rum and rolled his eyes at Oglethorpe's optimism. “How long before they arrive?”
“Two day, I t'ink,” the African replied.
“Well, we shall make it a hard two days for them, shan't we? The pine forests were made for ambuscade.”
“Yes. I take my Maroons out into ‘em.”
“That's not necessary, Mr. Unoka. You've already worked them to death as scouts. Let's give ‘em a bit of a rest.”
Unoka looked levelly at him. “General, it come down to a fight in t'e ranks, my men, t'ey no good. Pickin’ ‘em off, killin’ t'ey horses—‘ambuscade,’ you call it—t'ats what we good at.”
Oglethorpe surveyed the man, noticed for the first time the blood leaking through a rag on his arm.
“You're a good man, Mr. Unoka. I've never known better, and I'm proud to serve with you. If it pleases you to do this, I won't stop you.”
“’Tis always good, when serve wit’ a madman, be a little mad you’ self,” the Maroon observed.
“Take what you need from the armory,” Oglethorpe said. “No sense in rationing now.”
“Wit'pleasure, General. An’ anot'er cup o’ rum—”
“Take the cask. For your men.”
For the next several hours, Oglethorpe bent over the maps, trying to imagine where the lines would form. They would strike at the towers, of course, but where? Though five thousand was a puny number compared to forces in the European wars, he knew he had been overoptimistic with Unoka. There was a great difference between two-to-one odds and four-to-one odds. They could come in a front so long he would have to stand very thin ranks against them.
That wasn't what he would do, if he were they. He would pick a spot and push straight through, especially if he was in the hurry these fellows seemed to be.
Nairne came in and looked the maps over, while Oglethorpe explained his reasoning.
“The best thing we can do is keep our forces mobile and alert,” he said. “The Maroons and Choctaw and Yamacraw should be able to keep pretty good account of how they're coming, though I expect more of their leapfrogging with the airships.”
“We can do a bit of that,” Nairne said. “Franklin has managed to give us two flying barges of the nondiabolic sort. We've manned them with French and Apalachee marines. We also mustered every aetherschreiber we could get our hands on, and so have instant word from our borders and a great many of our companies, so that will help us to respond.”
“Good. This will be a hell of a fight.” Oglethorpe turned his head at some commotion outside the tent—yelling and gunfire. “What's that?” The two men drew their pistols and went quickly to see what was the matter.
But the noise was a sudden burst of cheers and applause, the gunfire all aimed at the sky. A new company had ridden into the camp.
Inured to meager numbers, it seemed to Oglethorpe that the column went on forever, but realistically he knew it must be only two hundred or so. But they were such a brave sight that he almost wept. The front ranks were all smart in blue and yellow, each man with a musket and broadsword, and at the head of them a small group on horses. One of those mounted was Philippe, beaming, in French uniform, who, despite his pudginess, looked something like a soldier. The other, though, was dressed in the colors of the new company, tall in the saddle, his bloodless lips in a thin smile, his hat doffed to show his mostly bald head.
“That,” Oglethorpe told Nairne, “is His Majesty Charles XII, King of Sweden.”
“Aye,” Nairne said. “I met him, in Venice.”
The exiled monarch spotted them and swung down from his mount, as did Philippe.
Oglethorpe swept his own hat from his head in perfect time with Nairne, and they bowed as the monarchs approached. “Your Majesties,” they said.
“No need for that,” Charles replied. “We are all soldiers today, gentlemen. Margrave Oglethorpe, it's good to see you again, and thank you much for the loan of your amphibian ship. It proved a most interesting voyage, our foray to Apalachee.”
Oglethorpe nodded. Now here is a man, he thought, as he had when he'd first met the king, forty miles from the coast of South Carolina. Charles XII had eyes of gray steel and a thin, patrician nose. His manner was that of a man whose very existence was a victory. “It was my great pleasure, Your Majesty. And I cannot say what it means to have you with us.”
Charles clapped Nairne on the shoulder. “How are you, Mr. Nairne? I've not seen you since our victory in Venice. My debt to you Americans is not one I'd easily forget, nor do I ever shrink from a just war, and, by our savior, there can be no more just a war than this. I've ridden at the head of my troops for thirty years and more. How can I fail to do so now?”
“I never doubted it, Your Majesty.”
“We had to pay the devil to get here, I'll tell you, and would have paid more if it weren't for your margrave Oglethorpe, who saved us from the fire at Fort Marlborough. Even so, three ships were lost, or I would offer you many more guns. But we will show them the same thing we showed them at Venice, yes? We've stopped demon Peter before, and we shall stop him again.”
“Ah—about that,” Philippe interrupted. “You and I must have a conversation regarding Tsar Peter, before he gets here.”
“Peter himself is with the invading army?”
“Actually, no —he's with my regulars, right over there.”
A peculiar fire entered the Swedish king's eyes. “You've captured him?”
But there was no time to answer, Oglethorpe saw, for the tsar was striding straight toward them.
Charles was already looking that way. Now he drew a basket-hilted broadsword, and the glint in his eye became a blaze. “Thanks to Almighty God!” he roared.
The tsar watched him come. “I have no sword,” he said.
Charles spat on the ground. “Then get one, you coward.”
“Gentlemen—” Philippe squeaked.
“I said get one, damn your eyes!” Charles shrieked.
Peter's face spasmed, and there they stood, two madmen who happened to have crowns. “Sword,” Peter grated, holding his hand out.
No one moved to give him one, and when he saw that, he closed the distance to Charles. Angry as he clearly was, the Swedish king did not, as Oglethorpe feared, lift his blade against an unarmed man. But they stood for half a second, glaring at each other, inches apart.
Peter struck the first blow, a great backhand to the face. Charles almost impaled him then, but instead he dropped his weapon and tackled the tsar at the waist.
His men went mad, screa
ming like Turks—actually, some of them were Turks—and chanting the monarch's name.
The two men crashed heavily to the ground and began to roll, punching and clawing at each other.
“Should we do something?” Oglethorpe asked.
Nairne shook his head slowly. “It's been hundreds, maybe thousands, of years since anyone saw a spectacle like this— two great kings brawling like drunken linkmen. Who are we to stop it?”
“I understood the tsar brawled on occasion, but—”
The two had broken apart and were now boxing each other on the sides of the head. It seemed a contest of wills more than a fight—as if by agreement both had chosen not to defend, only to attack. Peter had split ears, and both men were bleeding from the nose and mouth. Both were cursing copiously, too, in their native tongues. It all sounded very colorful.
Then a single shot was fired, kicking up a branch between their feet, and both paused to see who had done the shooting.
Philippe stood there, pistol smoking, face as red as the inside of a melon.
“By God!” he shouted. “By God, you will stop or I shall shoot you both!”
He sounded convincing to Oglethorpe. He must have convinced the two kings as well, for they continued to stare at the Frenchman.
“Look, you two! The three of us are all that remain, so far as I can tell, of the old monarchies. Notwithstanding that the two of you come from countries one degree removed from Huns and Vandals, by God, when you are in my realm you will acquit yourselves like kings, not like schoolyard brats! King Charles, the tsar is under my protection. His throne has been usurped, and the army marching on us is not his. He came to me seeking asylum, and I have given it to him. If you cannot accept this, with all due respect, I thank you for the aid you have already given us and urge you back to your ships.” He whirled on the tsar. “You, sir, came here a beggar and now you repay my generosity by cheapening your station and thus my own. I will not have it. If you two must settle your differences, you will do it like gentlemen, by the sword, and you will do it when this damned war is over!”
He paused, breathing so hard Oglethorpe feared him apoplectic.
Charles and Peter looked at each other, their fists still clenched. But then slowly Charles turned away from Peter and bowed to the French king—not on bended knee, but bowing nevertheless, from the waist.
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