“Philosophic mercury,” he muttered. The “head” was a chime, a conduit between matter and aether. He glanced back at the similar sphere, hovering above the pyramid, and a profound shiver ran through him.
“God, Sir Isaac, what have you done?”
The thing reclined in a chair. In its lap rested The Sepher Ha-Razim. On the table nearby, an open notebook.
Ben turned to the latter frantically, suddenly aware again that he and Lenka could be discovered at any moment. The half-finished page before him was mostly calculation and alchemical formulae. He excitedly thumbed back through it, searching for some sort of summary.
What it contained was a series of “quaestiones,” in Sir Isaac’s writing. It was the style he used, and which he had begun to teach Ben before he closed and locked the door between master and apprentice: ask a question and then amass relevant information, observation, and experiments regarding it. Ben found himself staring at “Quaestione Sixty-one.”
Quaestione Sixty-one: What is the nature of the animal spirit?
Ye animal spirit must be of a mix’d nature, for some substance must mediate between ye aethereal impulse and ye expansion and contractions of grosser matter. It has been observ’d that ye Malakim are of such mix’d nature, and as such represent an imperfect fit betwixt the two, as they can only alter fix’d substances in most cases; as in ye case of the Seraphim, the Cherubim, who respectively can only thicken or lighten the substance of aer and lux. And yet I might postulate other orders which have a mediating effect on magnetism or gravity and ye other affinities etc. And have devised proofs for detecting such. And further, I have seen by my experiments that there exist those who are universal mediators but lack the power to expand or thicken a particular sort of atom. But likewise there must exist those of a pure animal spirit. And yet to test the basic notion does not require this animal spirit, but merely an atomic one. Take the materia integumenta as can be made …
(here followed a long alchemical formula that Ben skipped over)
Contrive, by the philosopher’s mercury, to give entrance to a spirit of the sort which impinges upon damnatum, and command that it expand and contract in simple manner.
The margins were filled with diagrams of the devices littering the tables. Ben began skimming. Newton had experimented, it seemed endlessly, using his captive malakus to simulate muscular movement in the devices.
Several pages later, there was an annotated design of the thing in the chair. It was labeled Talos.
Fascinated and sickened, Ben leafed farther back through the “quaestiones.” Each had to do with some aspect of the malakim; many being the dissertations hinted at in the last quaestione. Quaestione twelve was, “For what purpose has God contrived to create the malakim,” and there followed some eighteen pages of notes from various books—some in English, most in Latin, a fair number in Hebrew.
He could find not a single quaestione that had anything to do with comets.
“God damn him to hell,” Ben snarled—a request, not an idle curse.
“Oh!”
He looked up, startled at the exclamation, having entirely forgotten Lenka. She was near the window, was uncovering something draped in a cloth. At first he thought it their old lifeboat—the one that they had flown to Prague in, but realized that it was somewhat larger, painted black with gilt trim. It also had what appeared to be sails collapsed into it.
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, no.”
Ben joined her, looking at the thing. “This is not Newton’s,” he muttered. “This is an old thing.”
“More than a century old, though the sails are newer,” Lenka breathed. She seemed very upset, searching about it. Ben noted, behind the thing, a much larger sail of silk.
“Why—’tis a balloon,” Ben muttered.
“No,” Lenka choked. Ben suddenly understood that she was holding back tears. “No, it is a moon ship.”
“A moon ship? What are you talking about?”
“It is,” she said again, “a moon ship. Built by Johannes Kepler.”
“Lenka, what are you going on about?”
“I can’t …” She paused in an attempt to control herself.
“What do you know of Kepler?”
She put her face in her hands, but he could still hear her strangled murmur. “He was my father’s great-grandfather.”
“That’s no reason to be so upset.”
“No, no. My father— ”
“Wait,” Ben hissed. “Hush.”
For he heard footsteps on the stairs.
“Damn, damn,” he snarled. “It must be midnight. Who would come at midnight?” But he knew: Newton, who never slept nor ate when he wrestled with some “quaestione.”
“Lie behind the boat,” he grunted. When she had done so, he joined her, pulling the cover back over them. Lenka was still weeping, making no sound; but in the tight space he could feel her tremble against him, her head tucked beneath his chin, breath coming in irregular gasps.
The door swung open again, and too late Ben realized that he had not relocked it. Feet shuffled across the floor, and there was silence for a long space. Lenka’s exertions lessened, and she lay more quietly against him, a supple warmth that might have been pleasant if he wasn’t imagining both their faces purpling above the golden hemp rings of a noose. And yet …
Sir Isaac—if it was Sir Isaac—might be so absorbed that he noticed nothing. It would be like him.
Ben had no way of knowing, but it seemed an hour passed, and then another, with only the occasional faint click or scratch to assure them that someone remained in the room. They both had to shift now and then, as their limbs numbed from lack of blood, but on their cushion of silk, Ben was sure they made no sound.
He could feel Lenka’s heartbeat, a little pattering against his chest. In one place he could feel her thigh, in others her head, her arm. In time, those points seemed to grow warmer, stronger, as if bonds were linking them. It was most disturbing, and worse, though he tried to suppress it, his manhood reacted. He knew she must notice, for that was where her thigh was pressed. It was amazing, he thought, how idiotic the body was, following such whims when mortal danger threatened.
About that time there came a low cough, a clearing of the throat, and then the familiar voice of Sir Isaac Newton breaking the silence.
“Benjamin? Benjamin, is it you in here?”
14.
Algiers
They watched the Queen Anne’s Revenge sink by the pearl light of morning. More than one of the sailors, sotted on rum, cried when she went down. Red Shoes felt not sorrow, but a sort of joy, the joy of seeing someone die well and bravely, leaving the world with a war shriek on the lips.
The Revenge had served them well, given better than she got. The two caravels they now occupied testified to that, as did the pile of bound captives, the mound of loot, and the dead corsairs they had been heaving overboard all night. Of course, one of the captured ships was sinking, too, but Blackbeard claimed that with the pumps going full they might reach a port with her. If not, they could all crowd onto the more sound of the two.
“If we can find a port not full of these Barbary pirates,” Blackbeard grumbled, “an’ that will be a trick.”
“What matter, Cap’n?” Tug grinned. “With you a lead’n’ us, no doubt we could take a whole townful of these lads.”
“Actually,” Nairne said, “as to the matter of a port, I’ve a fellow you might want to speak to.”
“And who would that be?”
“One Domenico Riva, a merchant of Venice. He claims that this was his ship six days ago, as it is ours now. And he says he can get us to a safe port.”
“Does he? When he could not keep himself safe? Well, let us have a talk with this Venetian.”
Domenico Riva clasped thick fingers together beneath his gray-stubbled chin. “I swear that what I say is so,” he said in good English, his coppery brown eyes wide with sincerity. “Sirs, you must believe me, for it will be to the betterment
of us all.”
“You understand our reluctance,” Nairne reasoned.
“Aye,” Blackbeard added. “We’re naturally wary of the word of a Turk.”
“Sir!” Riva exploded, his almost square, fiftyish face blazing the weird scarlet that white men acquired when angry or embarrassed. “Sir, I am not Turk but a Venetian of old family. I will not be referred to as—”
“Is Veneto not a Turkish province?” Blackbeard interrupted.
Riva’s mouth hung open for an instant, closed stubbornly. “That is true, sir,” he admitted.
“And you sailed under Turkish banner?”
The merchant nodded reluctantly, bright color fading.
“Then despite y’r Latinish name, I will call you Turk as it pleases me.”
Riva stared at Blackbeard for a moment or two, and then a little grin crept across his face. “As you wish, sir. I am a merchant, not a politician. If it please you to call me a Turk, I’ve been called worse things and still bargained with a smile. My point to you is this: You need a port and supplies and most of all, repairs. I tell you clearly that you will not find them on this side of the Gibraltar Straits unless you sail back to America.”
“Not in Lisbon? Nor anywhere in Spain?”
“No. Those coasts have been sacked so often by corsairs, the natives will bombard you without asking. If you survive that, they will burn their towns and poison the wells. If, I say, you don’t choose a port already corsair.”
“And yet you would have us sail into Algiers, the heart of all piracy on the Barbary coast.”
Riva rubbed his hands now, all anger and fear evaporated as if it had never been there. Red Shoes began to wonder, indeed, if it had been there or if it had merely been a tactic. Whatever the case, Nairne and Blackbeard both were now riveted by this fellow.
“Allow me a moment, gentlemen, to tell something of recent history, if I may. In fact—may I?”
“May you what?”
“Recover something that the corsairs failed to discover?”
The four of them spoke in a rather spacious cabin, lit by the light riddling through ornate latticework windows. Riva claimed it had once been his. He now gestured at a small shelf of books on the bulkhead. Blackbeard shrugged. Riva went to the bookshelf, ran his finger down the edge of it, and clicked something. The shelf opened to reveal a small chamber, containing something bundled in cloth.
“Ah, indeed,” he said, unwrapping a crystal decanter, “they would have found it, given time. The bookcase hidey-hole is not the most original one can choose. But it is our fortune that my captors were uningenious.”
“What is it?”
“A certain brandy from Venice. Wonderful stuff. Here, let me drink of it first so as to reassure you.” From the same cabinet he produced small glass cups and poured a little of the amber fluid in each. He drained his own and smacked his lips. Red Shoes sniffed his; it smelled like rotten fruit. Blackbeard and Nairne seemed more than passing pleased, however.
“On then, with your story, Mr. Riva.”
“Indeed. Well, you know of the Rain of Stars—”
“No, we do not,” Nairne told him.
“No? Well, there came a night when flaming stones fell from the sky everywhere. I was on Crete, and the sea was a thousand plumes of steam in the moonlight, and the sky was wondrous full of flame. At the time I thought it some charming show of fireworks sent by God. Why, for an entire week thereafter, I attended Mass every day! But then the news began coming in—or in some cases, not coming in. Of how in France, before the rain—there fell a single fire from the heavens, a sort of comet, and that it struck the horizon and made a light like the rising sun but brighter.” He shrugged. “I know something of astronomy, as I must navigate my ships, but I had never seen nor read of a like thing. But whatever it was, it left behind ruin in the west, as if the hand of God had smitten England, France, Spain, the Netherlands. From England we have not heard at all; of France we now have reports, but they are all of confusion, barbarism, atrocities beyond belief. France and Spain, I think, are at war, though it is a chaotic kind of war. The navies have turned privateer, and many have simply become corsair. Almost two years ago, the sultan of Morocco invaded Gibraltar, and he gives the corsairs—of any nation—protection in his port if they serve him in invading Spain and defending him from the Sublime Porte in Constantinople. These pirates, you see, are not the old Corsair Reis of Algeria and of which you are familiar. They are a new breed compounded of Spanish, French, and Berber.”
“And yet you want us to sail through Gibraltar.”
“Ah, but I’m not finished. The erstwhile corsairs in Algeria have turned more honest. With Spain, France, Portugal, the English, and the Dutch no longer carrying out legitimate trade, the Ottoman Empire has taken up their part. Thus Algeria and Tunisia—still part of that empire—see their profits in keeping the straits open, you see? When you control trade, there is better profit in trade than in piracy. And so a Turkish fleet, some months past, wrested the Rock from Morocco, and any ship under Turkish protection may pass safe into the Mediterranean.”
“Such as your own.”
“Ah, well, there, sir, was my mistake. I sailed beyond the straits, in hope of finding trade along the coasts of Europe. It was a gamble—one I’m sad to say did not pay me—but there you are and here we are. But if you allow me to negotiate for you, I can find you a haven in Algiers, and I dare say come to some arrangement of commerce with the Americas, now that we know the strait is clear and there is someone across the Atlantic to receive our goods.”
Blackbeard chewed his lip in silence for a moment, regarding the Venetian. In the pause there came a light rap on the door. Teach signed for Nairne to open it. It was Coleman, the boatswain.
“Sir,” the young man said, “some news.”
“Aye?”
“We’ve sighted sail.”
“More of the same?”
“No, sir. It’s the Dauphin and the Scepter.”
Blackbeard grinned fiercely. “Good. Now we have some strength, and our own escort. But I’ll consider your words, Mr. Riva.”
“That’s all I can ask, Mr. Teach.”
“Mr. Riva,” Blackbeard said, rising, “if you are lying to me, you will find you had been better off with the corsairs.”
Riva smiled, nodded understanding, and poured himself more brandy.
On first seeing Algiers, Red Shoes could make no sense of it. Against the olive roughness of the hills stood an alabaster mountain, shining so brightly in the noon sun that no details could be discerned. He wondered where on that strange mountain the city was.
As they drew nearer, his perspective changed. The “mountain” was a mound of ivory cubes, in numbers he had no words for—as if an entire field of white corn had been husked, shelled, and piled to dry. A little nearer, he saw the windows and doors piercing the “corn kernels” and understood that each cube was a house, and that his idea of big had changed forever.
The sky was big. The Earth was big, the sea, big. But those were all created in the beginning times, by the Ancients of animals, by Hashtali, whose eye is the sun, and so of course they were big.
But a town of human beings? It was unbelievable. Nothing in his experience—not Charles Town, not Philadelphia, certainly not Chickasaway—the largest Choctaw village—had prepared him to understand this place. It was walled and gated, guarded by a fortress bristling with cannon. The harbor teemed with ships, rendering their own flotilla inconsequential.
Here is what he had thought to see in England, the discovery he would make on this voyage. The kind of place that the white people were intent on building in his country. It was frightening, repugnant. It was beautiful, awesome. He had no words for it in Choctaw or in English. And so he stared, as details came more clear, antlike people appearing to his eyes.
“This must be the largest city in the world,” he breathed.
Tug, beside him, chuckled. “Naw, not by a long distance.” But then he sobered and
said, “Well, London was a lot bigger. But I guess now—maybe now this is the biggest. But that Venetian fellow says ’Stamboul is still there, and I’ve heard tell that it would make this place look a country village.”
“Oh.”
“Anyhow, you let old Tug show you around ’Jiers.”
“You’ve been here?”
“Once, years ago.”
“Do you have any kin here?”
“Kin? I don’t think so.”
“Then who will feed you?”
Tug just laughed at that, and Red Shoes reminded himself how very different the Europeans were from his own folk, and how far away from home he was.
Nairne wandered up to them a few moments later, clad in his best red military coat and dark brown waistcoat. “What are you two talking about?” he asked.
“Tug was offering to show me Algiers.”
Nairne frowned. “Take no offense, my friends, but that may not be so sound an idea.”
“You doubt I can keep ’im safe?” Tug grunted. “Me an’ the boys’ll look out for him.”
“I don’t doubt that, but I have my worries about this place. Pirates do not turn honest so easily.”
Tug frowned. “Who says that pirates hain’t honest? How is it we are less honest than some filly-gree lord on his manor? At least we work t’ eat our bread. And I’ll say this about pirates and pirate ports, ’specially this one. They don’t give a good damn what family y’ come from, or whether you pray to Mary, Mahomet, Jesus, or Beelzebub. I can’t say as much for yer fine European cities.”
Nairne regarded Tug coolly. “I’m not going to argue with you, for I’ll wager you know the truth deep down in you. What I am saying is that we were nearly lost ourselves in England, and this place seems even riskier.”
“You can’t be savin’ we won’t go ashore?”
Nairne sighed. “If it was up to me, yes.”
“Then you would have mutiny. How long do y’ think good men—or bad—can go without wine, song, a good thrum? Everyone knows the tales of ’Jiers, and many enough have sampled the wares. Try and stop ’em, Mr. Nairne. Try and stop me.”
A Calculus of Angels Page 24