They were doomed. Each of the men on board the Madman had been equipped with alchemical weapons and protections—aegis and adamantium—but already three of the hastily built shields had failed. Janissary and Swede alike fought like devils, but there were too many Russians. It had always been a desperate plan, Ben knew, with little likelihood of success, but he had imagined somehow that he would not actually be here. After finding Lenka he should have followed his normal custom and run, rowed for the mainland, hoped for the best. Fortune usually favored Benjamin Franklin when he lived close to his wits and far from his courage. How was it he had not thought to flee?
His brain had tricked him again. Looking down at Lenka’s bleeding form, he wondered if she were already dead.
A fierce hail of fire erupted nearby, and two more men became visible as their aegises failed. One of them was Charles, who still wore a breastplate of shimmering adamantium. His broadsword rose and fell like a terrible machine, surrounding him in a cyclone of blood.
Four men attacked Ben then, apparently having noted his faint appearance when he slew their comrades. Heavy swords slashed at his aegis and were deflected, but the sheer force of their attack was communicated to him, and he went back beneath them, managing to stab one in the belly before they all crashed into the deck together. He winced away from a blow that should have cut his face in half at the bridge of his nose, struggling to free his trapped arms.
One, two, three men fell away from him, as another blur intersected them. “Ben?” someone shouted. It was Robert.
“Yes, it’s me. Thanks to you, Robin.”
“This is a rout, Ben. We’ve got to get away.”
“What? Where to?”
“We might hide.”
“But Lenka—”
“They won’t kill her if she isn’t dead.”
“But Charles—”
“A madman.”
Charles was still on his feet, back-to-back with one of the Janissaries, fighting ten men. As many Muscovites were closing warily on Ben and Robert.
“I think we will not be able to hide, Robin. I think that we will have to kill them all.”
He felt pressure at his back and knew that his friend stood there. “Well enough,” Robert said.
“You’ve been a dear friend, Robin, better than ever I deserved—”
“Shut up y’r overeducat’d mouth, Ben Franklin,” Robert said. “Save y’r breath for fighting.”
* * *
Adrienne found herself swept away from the skirmish in a press of the tsar’s personal guard, frustrating her attempts to organize her djinni in any concerted counterassault. Their attackers wore the same sort of aetheric armor, as had their balloon; but since she could make out where they were, they were more vulnerable. If, that is, the damned soldiers would release her.
Suddenly she got her wish, as the outer shock of a murder gun struck them. Three of her protectors dropped, groaning, and she was suddenly free. Through the melee she saw Nico’s basket spinning across the deck, and screamed, clawing her way toward him.
She noted the blur coming toward her almost too late, understood in the same flash that he was probably moving past her and toward the tsar. But she was in his way, and the blast of the kraftpistole, while it did not touch her skin, seared her lungs. She staggered. Then Crecy was there, of course, her broadsword a liquid arc. As Adrienne put her back to the rail and gulped the cool sea air, her Lorraine guards were suddenly around her, a phalanx, supporting her.
Crecy’s unseen foe scored a blow on her cheek, marring the perfection of her face, and Adrienne felt filled up with murder. This man was between her and Nico! He had hurt Crecy! But even before she could react, Crecy beat viciously against the unseen, again, again—and suddenly, in a flash of light, there he was, a stone-jawed Swede twice her size, gray eyes shining with malice. Visible, Crecy’s sword took him in less than two seconds.
“Nico!” Adrienne shouted, gesturing. She could just see the basket, a few yards past Crecy, his little head peering curiously out. He was still alive! She opened her hand and called her djinni, for now that she had seen the shield fail, she knew how to make the rest fail as well. At the same time, she began to press toward her son, her guard around her.
But then the aether filled with a most peculiar shrieking, a horrible cacophony of mingled triumph and pain. It took only an instant to understand what was happening. Above her, the globes which held the ifrit were unraveling. In seconds they would begin to fall—she, Crecy, the tsar, Nico.…
It was a very long way down.
Grimly, she reached up to the ifrit. “Keep to your task,” she commanded.
“Lady, you do not command us,” one shot back. “Our restraints are gone, and we fly.”
“They are not yet gone,” she replied. In an instant they would be, however. What was happening? And then she saw the unraveling harmonic that spoke to the globes above them. It was strong, subtle, perfect, the hand of a maker unmaking.
She threw the weight of her servants around the globes, adjusting, probing, adding her own voices to the disruptive harmony until it no longer had any effect.
She could not do it for long. Despite the strain, she opened her mortal eyes and saw what she had expected.
Hercule, she thought, despairing. Not you, too.
Red Shoes clung to the capsized boat, gazing at a sky gone more than weird, even in his ghost vision. Something stronger than he had ever seen before was stretching its grasp over that sky. No, not one something, but two, locked in combat.
He was very, very tired. He barely blinked when the Russian airships began to fall from the heavens, conjuring only enough energy to hope one did not fall upon him.
Ben managed to send three more men down before his aegis failed, and then he set his jaw grimly, for he knew that he could match not even the least swordsman if they could see him. There weren’t actually that many Russians left in the fray. Most had withdrawn across the deck, presumably to protect the officers, or the tsar if he really was aboard. Others seemed fascinated by something over the rail. This only angered Ben the more—they should at least be watching when he died.
The three men he still faced grinned almost in unison when he appeared, happy to see the devil they had been fighting was really hardly more than a boy with little clear idea how to hold a sword. But almost immediately, their expressions changed, eyes drawn up as if to an angry God, and they scrambled away from him with the same unanimity with which they had smiled. Swaying, Ben watched them go, puzzled. Charles, back against the rail, side to side with a Janissary, also gawked, then redoubled his attack. He caught one blade in the palm of his hand, cut its wielder’s neck so viciously that the head flopped over like a marionette at the end of an act. In two more blows he was free, hurling himself toward Ben.
I don’t understand, Ben thought.
Then a rope ladder hit him in the face, and he, too, looked up. A small airship stood ten feet over him, Newton’s concerned face looking down from the rail.
“Take hold,” Newton shouted. “The talos will pull you up. You are safe for the moment.” A chorus of muskets barked, balls whining harmlessly away as if to underscore that point.
“Lenka!” he shouted up. “I won’t go without her!”
Newton pursed his lips in annoyance, and then nodded curtly. In the next moment, the silvery body of the talos leapt into view, falling gently to the deck. He took up Lenka in his arms.
“Climb,” Robert gasped.
He did, struggling up the ladder. When he dragged himself over the rail, Newton clasped him. “I’m sorry, my boy,” he said. “I’ve tried to make it up to you.”
“You might have helped sooner—” Ben began, but then he saw the sincere pain in his mentor’s eyes, and he stopped and returned the embrace. Behind him, Charles and the Janissary followed Robert onto the ship, even as the talos settled back onto the deck, Lenka limp in his arms. Groaning, Ben rushed to her. There was so much blood that he could not tell what sort
of wound it was, or even exactly where—somewhere in her abdomen, it seemed. Blood bubbled from her nostrils, so she was still breathing.
“We must go,” Newton said. “And quickly. There is something here I do not understand. The ship below us should have fallen by now.”
“What do you mean?”
“The rest have already fallen,” Newton explained, as the ship swiftly rose. “I saved this one for last, but something interrupts the process.”
“I thought you said it was too dangerous, this process.”
Newton didn’t answer, but instead said, “You remember how to steer this ship?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do so. I must see to the talos.”
The creature now stood in the bow of the ship; Newton stepped up behind it and placed his hands against its back, and suddenly a sort of sheen—not like the aegis, but a silvery film—sprang up around them.
Adrienne gnashed her teeth in frustration; her servants were failing, and there seemed nothing she could do about it. They had managed to reach Nico’s basket—and Crecy had tight hold of it—and so, finally, she could stop dividing her efforts. She stared at the ship above them almost curiously, at the strange gray-blue automaton—the source of the lethal harmony. It was a sort of djinn, but more powerful, more focused than any she had ever seen before. And it was something else, too, something familiar.…
The entire ship lurched as one of its supporting globes disintegrated and the captive ifrit went howling free. She grasped after the willful spirit, but her control was stretched thin maintaining the others. Crecy seemed to be shaking her, but she ignored her, seeking the answer, the sum. How could the—thing—be familiar?
She could not fail. If she failed, Crecy and Nico would die, and her own hopes would be at an end.
Another globe went, and the deck jolted to a peculiar angle. From the corner of her eye, she saw Crecy slam into the deck, still gripping the wire hoops at the top of the hamper. She and Nico fetched against the rail and hung there, as the boat tilted farther and farther. A terrible thing broke loose in Adrienne then, something so far beyond fury that it had no name. She drew her djinni to heel beneath her feet and around her hips, and compelled a wind from them, wings to bear her up, for in that instant of clear-eyed rage, she saw everything. The automaton was like her hand—a chime, a pathway, a universalizes It was a tool, the man behind it the real power. And yet, there was also a resistance between them, a reluctance, perhaps even anger.…
Then she laughed, an utterly humorless laugh that was as much agony as anything else, and she reached with her hand and twisted a single unguarded constant, changed one small harmonic. Then, her will spent, she fell.
As she hit the still-tilted deck, she had a glimpse of Nico’s basket, floating languidly out into space. He was waving at her.
“There went a second globe,” Robert chortled. “Whatever he’s doing, it is virtuous!”
“No other ships remain aloft!” Charles said, his voice strangely humble. “What—”
“Enough of that,” Ben snapped. “One of you see to Lenka. Please, I must—” He knew he could leave the complicated tiller for a moment, but he could not bear it if Lenka died in front of him. Besides that, he had no medical knowledge at all.
In the end, it happened incredibly fast. Ben had a glimpse of a woman in a dress as blue as lightning, black hair cascading around her lovely ivory face like a thunderhead, one hand an actinic slice of starlight. He heard her laugh, a perfect, cold laugh of absolute malice. She was floating in the air. Her fingers spread wide, and Newton screeched, and then the talos turned and seized him.
“Ah, God, no!” Newton wailed. “Benjamin, I’ve lost—” The talos gave Newton’s head one sharp twist; Ben heard the bones of the neck crack like lighter knot popping on a fire. Then, quite casually, the talos tossed Sir Isaac Newton into the morning air, and, as if in afterthought, leapt after him. Ben lurched to the rail and watched them fall, a spot of blood, a dot of gray, until they were lost to the distant, yellow sea. He stayed there until Robert dragged him gently back to the tiller, for they were rising fast and aimlessly. The Muscovite ship dropped off steeply shoreward.
I have no tears to weep, Ben thought, watching the pearly clouds gathering above. I have no tears. They are gone, and no science can bring them back.
But moments later, a gentle rain began, and Ben thought, bitterly, that though God seemed to have few other virtues, he had tears enough for them all.
13.
A Bundle of Arrows
Ben stood for some time, gathering his courage, listening to the ululating song of a mullah filtering into the long hall and, as if in counterpoint, the tolling church bells above. Did God care whether he was beseeched by way of bell or song? Probably not. And for the moment, to all appearances, neither did Venice, for the balance of her inhabitants—Catholic, Protestant, Mussulman, Jew—were in celebration over the victory against the Muscovites, whatever differences they might have amongst themselves for the moment set aside. For the first time in almost two decades, the city was free, ready to govern herself.
Ben wished her well.
He had gathered all the courage he could, he realized. Sighing, he pushed the door open, bowing to the nun who greeted him.
Lenka was as pale as the lilies surrounding her, and as beautiful. His breath caught unnaturally in his chest as he approached her still form and knelt, hoping his heart would survive.
Gently, fearfully even, he touched her cheek.
She stirred, and her eyes fluttered open, confused for only an instant when she saw his face. “Where is this?” she asked, flicking her gaze from side to side.
“A convent,” Ben replied. “You’ve been rather unwell, and the sisters here have been tending you.”
“Unwell?”
“A musket ball pierced your belly.”
“Indeed?” She rose up to look, then winced. The nun—only a few feet away, and quite watchful—snapped something rather stern in Italian.
“Am I going to live?”
“It seems so.”
“Oh. Well, that is good. How long have I slept?”
“Almost two days.” He paused significantly. “We won, of course.”
“Of course.” She frowned a bit. “That Indian—”
“Red Shoes is safe and sound,” Ben replied.
“Good. I remember riding up in the balloon—”
Ben laughed harshly. “Yes, I remember that, too. It becomes very confusing thereafter, but I will try to tell you about it later. They say now you are still weak, and can stand visitors in small doses only.”
“Doubtless I could stand visitors other than you in larger quantities,” she replied, a devilish spark in her eyes.
“Doubtless. You see, already I tire you.”
“Yes. You promise that I am not dying?”
“I promise.”
“Good. So Venice is saved. What happens now, Benjamin Franklin?”
“Now?” He shifted uncomfortably. “Now I go home. To America. To Boston.”
She blinked at him, and he plunged on. “This is no place for me, this Old World. There is so much that needs to be done, so much that must be understood. How can I accomplish anything here, with this war or that war always interfering? They tell me that America is quieter, at least for the moment. And they need me there.”
She nodded. “Very well,” she said.
“Very well?”
“Yes.” She yawned. “I tire now, Benjamin. But I need to tell you something quietly, if you would lean close.”
“Yes?” he said, bending his head.
“Closer, you fool,” she muttered.
He bent nearer still, and her lips brushed his cheek. They felt like the warm petals, immeasurably sweeter than a lily. “And what shall I do in America?” she asked very gently.
Ben swallowed hard and found that he did, after all, have the courage he needed. “I suppose,” he replied, “that you might consent to be my bride.
”
“You suppose quite a lot,” she said.
He kissed her on the lips, then, carefully. They tasted very sweet indeed, until the nun tugged him up—much less gently—by his hair. Lenka did not notice; she had fallen asleep, her lips still pursed for kissing.
Adrienne lurched against the rail, trying to stay upright, trying to see, to see. But there was nothing.
“You must come away,” Hercule said. “You must rest.”
“He is alive,” she managed. “My son is alive.”
“You determined that his guardian spirits are not,” he reminded her gently.
“I know what I said. They are gone. But he is not. Tell the tsar I will search more.”
“He—” Hercule touched her shoulder lightly. “He has already given the command to return to Saint Petersburg. We are under way.”
“I will remain, then.”
“He will not let you.”
“I saved his fleet. Does he think he can stop me?”
Hercule was silent for a long moment. “Crecy said—”
“Crecy!” she managed to snarl.
“You should speak to her.”
“I cannot.”
“You must.” Crecy’s voice came, from behind. “If you want to see him again, you must. He is not here, Adrienne.”
Adrienne spun too quickly, so that her exhausted body failed her. Only Hercule saved her from joining Nico over the rail. “You let him go! You released him!”
Crecy trembled visibly. “I did not. I had him. I would have fallen and died before I let him go. He was taken from me, Adrienne. He was …” And then tears started in her eyes. She clenched her jaw and then went on, voice quaking. “The malfaiteurs. They made use of your basket and took him.”
Adrienne broke free of Hercule, staggered toward Crecy. “Why?” she rasped. “Where have they taken him?”
“I don’t know. I only felt them at the end.”
“You were one of them!” She slapped Crecy so hard that a red handprint remained on her pale cheek. “What do they want with my son, Crecy?” She knew her voice had taken on a note of hysteria, but it seemed a somehow distant thing. Crecy, eyes sparkling with pain, shook her head again. Adrienne hit her again, and again, and then with both fists, while Crecy did nothing but absorb the blows, until her broken lips smeared Adrienne’s hand sanguine, and Adrienne collapsed, sobbing, into the redhead’s arms.
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