by Eric Flint
Boscawen wondered if he should take offense at her unceremonious departure. But after a moment he decided that would probably be unwise. It was unclear what authority he really had over the woman. True, he had great rank and, once the fleet returned, considerable military force. True also, however, that Minerva could summon giant monsters.
All things considered, that was probably an issue best left unresolved, at least for the time being.
Absalom was looking at him, the admiral realized. The expression on his face had a sly sort of cast.
“Very wise man,” the freedman murmured. “Very wise indeed.”
When Boscawen emerged from the American Philosophical Society’s edifice, he saw to his surprise that the sun was beginning to set. He hadn’t thought he’d spent that much time in there.
Washington was waiting for him, with two soldiers.
“My apologies, Colonel,” he said. “I’m afraid I lost track of the time.”
“No matter, sir,” Washington said. He sounded stoic, but Boscawen had gotten to know the colonel well enough to realize that stoicism was second nature to him. A somewhat unusual trait, that, in such a young man.
On their way back to naval headquarters, Washington said: “I trust the day has gone well for you, Admiral.”
It was not a question; simply a statement of good wishes. But Boscawen saw no reason not to confide in the colonel, at least to a point. He was coming to have a great deal of confidence in Washington.
“Quite well, I’m thinking. A governor abased and a currency uplifted—all in the same day!”
Chapter 58
It is a question of control
To bring the concatenator from Albany to the encampment, Messier and LaGèndiere used a letter of introduction provided by Admiral Boscawen and countersigned by Governor De Lancey. In the instance, Messier was more than happy to leave his female companion to do most of the talking; her English was much less affected by a French accent, and she had other, more obvious charms that were attractive to Sheriff Jacob Van Schaick. In service to Boscawen and General Amherst, Van Schaick was able to provide a heavy, lumbering cart and a pair of draft horses to pull it.
Messier had been apprehensive about traveling through the wilderness once they left the region of Albany, with only a small number of soldiers as an escort. But they were favored by good fortune—although the men who escorted them were initially so startled and frightened that they almost ran off.
Not more than thirty miles from Albany they encountered a large party of Mohawk warriors who had been sent by someone named Molly Brant—an Iroquois woman herself, apparently, despite the name—to join the forces assembling against the menace emerging in the west. According to the leaders of the Mohawk party, other Mohawk warriors were on their way as well, along with men from the Oneida and Onondaga tribes.
The soldiers who’d been escorting Messier and LaGèndiere reacted to the Mohawk offer of serving as a much larger escort in a manner that LaGèndiere (although not Messier) found rather amusing. So might a small party of mice have reacted to several hundred cats serving them as an escort.
But there was no trouble. The warriors ignored them, but the party of Mohawks was accompanied by about thirty women. LaGèndiere soon became on familiar terms with several of them who spoke either English or French.
All in all, the journey went quite well. Better than Catherine had expected and much better than Messier had feared.
The cart, its cargo and occupants arrived at the army encampment on a hot, humid morning. The Mohawks had parted company with them a few miles earlier. From what the women told Catherine, they wanted to avoid clashing with the English—especially the colonials, between themselves and whom no great love was lost. The Iroquois forces who were joining the fight were assembling a mile or so away from the forces under Amherst’s command.
Catherine had slept poorly the previous night at a farmhouse where the letter from Boscawen had provided them with lodging. The farmer and his wife had offered their own bed for her use, while Messier and the soldiers lodged in the barn. While most of the little party slept exhaustedly, Catherine could feel—through the dormant concatenator—the presence of many things not far away that were distinctly unnatural. They troubled her sleep with eerie dreams.
At the boundary of the camp, the cart was halted by a troop of soldiers in irregular uniforms.
The soldier holding the reins to the cart frowned, looking from them to Messier, who sat alongside.
“Colonials,” he said.
“You seem unimpressed,” Messier said.
“There is no reason to feel otherwise,” the soldier said. “Bumpkin amateurs. I don’t even know why they’re here.”
“For the same reason everyone else is,” Messier answered. “To fight the enemy.”
“They should leave it to the professionals.” Still, the soldier composed his expression as the colonials came up to the cart.
With a few colonials in their company, the cart slowly climbed a hill to where the command tents had been pitched. At the summit, Messier and LaGèndiere dismounted from the cart. By the time they had done so, three officers were approaching. If Messier was interpreting the insignias on their uniforms correctly, all of them were generals.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“You are General Amherst,” Messier began. “I am—”
“Your pardon, sir,” Amherst interrupted. “I do not truly care who you are, or why you have come here. This is no place for civilians.”
“I think if you gave us an opportunity to present ourselves,” Messier answered, “you might feel differently. I have an introduction from Admiral Lord Boscawen.”
“Indeed.” He extended his hand, glancing at the other two generals to either side of him.
Messier drew out the letter bearing Boscawen’s seal and handed it to Amherst. He examined it, looking over the document at Messier and then back at the writing.
“You are Charles Messier, I take it.”
“Your servant, sir.”
“And this—” Amherst gestured toward the cart. “This is some sort of device intended to assist the army.”
“Yes, Monsieur General,” Messier said, his voice becoming enthusiastic. “It is an alchemetical concatenator, a—”
Amherst held his hand up, and Messier stopped. The general gave a polite nod to Catherine, and then returned his attention to Messier.
“Let me make something abundantly clear, Doctor,” he said. “We are facing an enemy, an army of savages with magical forces at their disposal. They could come out of the woods again at any moment—next week, tomorrow, this afternoon. It is impossible for me to know if any of the military men here have any chance at long-term survival. There is no way for me to protect civilians.”
“We are not asking for your protection.”
Amherst took the letter and began to crumple it, but then seemed to think better of it, and handed it back to Messier. “I . . . don’t know what to tell you, Frenchman. Your letter? Commission? Indicates that you are here to aid the effort.”
“The concatenator—”
Amherst held up his hand again. “No matter what Boscawen thinks you’re here to do, it is my order that you stay out of my way. You can camp here.”
Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away. General Wolfe, who had said not a word during the entire exchange, gave an aristocratic toss of his head and followed Amherst.
The third man, however, remained. He watched Amherst and Wolfe walk away and into the tent, then he stepped forward, smiling.
“You are the savant Dr. Messier? The astronomer?”
“At your service, General—”
The man smiled. “Prince. At least that’s what I’m going by at this moment. Edward of Hanover, Monsieur, at your service.”
“Edward—” Messier’s eyes went wide.
Catherine, who had also remained silent during the conversation, placed a hand on Messier’s arm.
> “My friend, I believe we are in the presence of Prince Edward, the grandson of His Majesty the King of England. Your Highness,” she said, smiling very slightly and offering a perfect curtsy.
“Rise, my lady,” Edward said. “We’re not standing on ceremony here, at least not court ceremony.” He extended his hand and she took it. “May I have the pleasure of making your acquaintance?”
“She is—” Messier began.
“Catherine LaGèndiere,” she said, smiling. “General.”
Unlike his colleagues, Edward was very interested in the elemental concatenator—what it was intended to do, and how it could be operated. Messier, usually quite loquacious, found himself somewhat tongue-tied in Edward’s presence, which troubled him since he had been at ease making presentations at the court of Versailles for much of his professional career. Fortunately, Catherine had the matter quite in hand.
She arranged for the crates carrying the concatenator to be unpacked and set up on top of the cart. The horses were unhitched and allowed to graze, permitting the cart itself to be anchored in place with wooden blocks.
It took the better part of an hour for the device to be assembled. It looked rather like a sort of loom, except that there were stout wires wrapped around the wooden armatures rather than lengths of yarn; and in the place where the weaver might sit there was a keyboard rather like that of an organ, though with fewer keys and no foot-pedals. Mechanisms, scarcely glimpsed, lay in a covered compartment below the loom and in front of the keyboard, and beneath the operator’s foot was a treadle that presumably made the entire thing run.
“Mademoiselle,” the prince said when she had seated herself at the keyboard, “I consider myself well-educated in the modern sciences, but I cannot fathom what this device is intended to do.”
“It is intended to impart perturbations in the æther, High—General,” she corrected herself. “It focuses the four primary elements by adjusting the balance of those perturbations.”
“Having been told this, I confess that I have learned nothing further from you. What can it actually do?”
“General.” Catherine laid her hands upon the keys, then withdrawing them into her lap. “Your opponent—our enemy—has various forces at his disposal, correct?”
“It seems so. His shaman seems to be able to summon forth the forces of nature, according to their own beliefs.”
“In order to do so, the shaman must—in some way—adjust the balance of the elements. Creatures of earth, air, fire, water. We are told that there are creatures that float through the air and swim beneath the sea, for example. According to Joseph, who told us many things on his travels with us, there are—or were—creatures of stone who attacked a French fort somewhere to the west. Those are clearly creatures of earth. As for fire, I am not sure, but perhaps these shamans with their poisoned hands call upon that element for their workings.
“I believe that, properly adjusted, this device can act upon each element and possibly counteract any or all of those forces summoned against your army. If that is the case, your regular troops can do what they are best suited to do.”
“That is . . . remarkable. If it truly can work.”
“It works,” Messier said. “It is not a matter of functionality—it is a question of control.”
Before the first light of dawn colored the east, the soldiers in the camp came awake to the sound of drums, accompanied by the low, rumbling sounds of distant chanting coming from the Iroquois encampment.
Bugles and drums roused those not already awake, and while darkness turned into light, the various troops—British regulars, French regulars and colonials—rushed onto the field, following barked orders from officers and subalterns to take up their positions. The Iroquois appeared and took their much less regular formations on the left flank of the white soldiers.
Then, just as the sun began to appear over the trees, both drums and chants suddenly, eerily, stopped. Across the lines of the army, shouts and noises seemed suddenly out of place and discordant.
A fog appeared in the trees on the edge of the encampment, not far from where the colonial troops had assembled. It was completely at odds with the bright sunlight beginning to filter across the field, and the sweltering heat of the summer day. No sooner did it form than there was a deep, heavy thrumming in the ground, as if a hundred cannons were being fired from deep beneath the earth. Something in among the trees caught the morning light—it was slightly above the height of a man, and it was moving. Then the light caught another, and another.
Edward was on horseback, with Gridley by his side and Revere close behind. He lowered a spyglass and looked at the colonial commander beside him.
“Can you see anything?”
“I’m afraid I can, Colonel. I think Guyasuta has obtained the services of some additional Stone Coats.”
“Stone Coats, Your Highness?”
Edward took a moment before speaking and then said, “They are warriors made of stone, Colonel Gridley. They are supernatural in origin, and the only time I have seen them defeated was by beings equally supernatural. And we don’t have any on hand.”
“My boys—”
“Your boys.” Edward smiled, very slightly. “Your boys will be powerless against them. They are not human, Colonel Gridley, and if there are enough of them . . . they are a terror weapon, sir.”
Gridley squinted toward the woods. Edward handed him the spyglass; Gridley gave a respectful bow of his head, took the instrument and put it to his eye.
After several moments he lowered it. “It looks like a troop of very large savages, encased in peculiar-looking armor of some sort.”
“How many can you see?”
“At least two dozen.” He handed the spyglass back. “What are your orders?”
“I . . . ” He thought for a moment. “Colonel, you must keep your men from engaging these things. But there may be something we can do. Find a few dozen of your strongest men, and gather up coils of rope, as many as you can find. We don’t want to fight them—we want to knock them over.”
The French troops were arrayed on an area of level terrain, well-trained and perfectly uniformed. As the natives began to charge from the woods, the Chevalier de Lévis took note of a formation above the treetops—five vaguely spherical objects that hovered and drifted forward. As they cleared the forest above the attacking natives, Lévis could see that each of the spheres had a toothy, twisted face, with eyes that glanced from place to place—right and left, out and down.
The chevalier knew what they were: Floating Heads, another abomination summoned from—wherever the native shamans were able to summon them. They were a fear weapon—something intended to frighten those that opposed the native army.
He raised his sword and pointed at the Floating Heads. Then, he gestured to the second ranks of the troops even as the front ranks prepared to receive the natives’ charge. With uniform precision, a few hundred musketmen loaded ammunition, rammed it home, raised their muskets, aimed and fired. If their target had been an opposing force of infantry, it would have been expected that some would fall, just as those opponents would mow down some on one’s own side.
Whether the Floating Heads were simply too far away, or the volley had simply been ineffective, when the smoke cleared the five spheres were untouched—and now, drawn by the French soldiers’ volley, they were beginning to descend toward their position.
Amherst watched the battle develop from the command hill. Montcalm stood beside him, watching as the natives came to grips with his own troops. He had been briefed on the Floating Heads and wasn’t surprised that the volley had done nothing to deter them.
“Lévis knew better,” Montcalm said. “But he made sure that the men understood.”
“Guyasuta is trying to frighten us.”
“Clearly. And if we cannot stop these . . . things . . . he will succeed. Admirably.”
The two commanders heard a noise behind them and turned. Further back on the hill, out of sight of th
e crest, the strange machine belonging to the two civilians was in operation. Amherst scowled, and waved to an aide.
“See what is happening with all that racket.”
But as he watched, he noticed that a breeze had come up, beginning to dispel the fog that had gathered over the trees. The Floating Heads, which had begun to dive at the French lines, were beginning to twist and toss, as if they had lost their way.
Amherst’s aide moved toward the sound, which was coming from some sort of unusual machine at the back of the hill. The young Frenchwoman who had arrived the previous day sat behind it, and the older Frenchman who accompanied her was bent over next to her holding some sort of black stone on a chain.
“The general presents his respects—” the young aide began, but the older man held his off hand up.
He said something in French to the woman, who nodded. Her hands moved across a keyboard spread out before her. Sweat beaded her forehead.
The aide had a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach that he could not identify. He could hear something far off, like the deep echo of a sound that wasn’t quite there. He felt a breeze rush by him, though there was none present—the trees on the hill were not moving at all, and the early morning heat lay cloying and heavy.
“What—” he began.
The woman spoke in halting syllables. As he watched, the Frenchman’s black stone, which had been swinging back and forth, began to incline forward and stopped, angled upward, pointed directly at him and beyond him downhill toward the battle.
“Tell the general that Mademoiselle LaGèndiere is attending to the problem,” the Frenchman said, and gestured in dismissal. Almost involuntarily, the aide turned away to report to the general.