“Crecy …” she murmured. And for the first time they cried together, salt of blood and tears mingling, intertwined like their fingers.
Red Shoes stood at the rail of the Scepter, watching fragments of the sun sink into the waters, and found he no longer feared Venice, or the underneath.
“It’ll be good to go home,” Tug said from nearby.
“Indeed it will,” Red Shoes replied.
“What’lly’do there?”
“Go back to my people. Tell them all I have seen.” He smiled at the big man. “Take you with me, if you want. Show you what a Choctaw woman looks like.”
“I would’n mind it,” Tug said.
“What have you seen?” Nairne asked, from his right.
Red Shoes smiled at the white man. “I really don’t know,” he said truthfully. “But I know this: Our folk go into the future together, whether we like it or no. Our destinies are bound, I think.”
“Are they?”
Red Shoes nodded. “I know what you are thinking—that my people might try to push you back into the sea. A good time for it, too. Would England send troops to fight us? France? Spain? I don’t believe so.”
Nairne nodded grimly.
“But I will advise against it.”
“May I ask why?”
“It’s the story of the bundled arrows. A single arrow can be easily snapped. A bundle of arrows held together cannot.” He looked out at the distant horizon. “If I am not wrong, we shall need every arrow we can find to face what is coming.”
And in his shadow, something dread stirred, as if to confirm his words.
Ben had coffee with Robert and King Charles in a room flooded with sunlight and the scent of honey. The monarch poured, left-handed—his right thickly bandaged from having grasped a living blade.
“Well, my good Captain Frisk,” Ben inquired, “what plans have you now?”
Charles shrugged. “I am a soldier,” he remarked, “and I have always sworn I would never shrink from a just war.”
“So you pursue the tsar back to his cold homeland?”
Charles raised his cup in salute. “I do not shirk, but I do rest. For now, I’ve made promises to Venice and I will keep them.”
“You will reign here as monarch, then?”
Charles laughed sharply but with real humor. “There will be no monarch in Venice,” he said. “They will not have one. The Janissaries hold their own council and distrust strong leaders, and the Venetians are no better. For near a thousand years Venice was a republic, and now they will be a republic again.”
“Now see, this is what I was talking about earlier, Your Majesty,” Ben said. “When I said that the age of kings was over. It’s time for men to rule themselves.”
“Yes, we said we would return to this conversation again, didn’t we?” Charles said. “But I won’t debate a philosopher. Perhaps you are indeed correct. But in my own experience, men have little faith in themselves. It takes a strong man to accept both the responsibility and the blame for his own actions, and few are equal to the task. Most would rather have a king—even a foolish one like me—make their decisions for them. It isn’t kings that must change, Benjamin, but men.”
“And you won’t miss being a king?”
“I am still king,” he said, with polite formality, and set his cup down. “And you, Benjamin? Would you remain here, as a favorite of the king? There is much to be done.”
“I’m sorry, Captain Frisk, but my struggle is elsewhere. Mankind has a worse enemy than the tsar of Russia or the sultan of Turkey. Despite all his flaws, we have lost our best defender against that foe in Sir Isaac. I must take up where he left off.”
“Do you know where he left off?”
Ben shook his head. “No. I have many of his notebooks now, but it may take me years to understand what he has written.” He lowered his head. “I am not his equal, and it grieves me that only his death proves that to me.”
“Bah,” Robert snorted. “You are not his equal; you are his better, for you have a heart, where he had none.”
Ben continued staring at the floor. “He came back for me, Robin. He came back for love of me, and it killed him. And he died without a kind word from me.”
“He saved us all,” Charles said. “You should be proud of him.”
“Proud I am,” Ben said. “But I fear to wear his shoes.”
“Fear teaches us the most,” Charles replied.
“Then I suppose you will never learn a damned thing, Captain Frisk,” Robert said. And the three of them laughed together genuinely. Sunlight came in through the window, and Ben felt a stab of triumph, of fierce, heady victory, a hope more blinding than the sun.
Epilogue
Nicolas
Nico laughed at the dark air and waved at the stars. Earlier he had been frightened by the noise and the strange lights, by the worried sound of his mother’s voice. But then his friend had come, and the gentle motion of the basket had rocked him to sleep, to happy dreams.
Stretching awake, the sky had greeted him with these thousand funny lights. They reminded him of his mother, of her pointing at the lights and saying words—those strange words that buzzed in his ear rather than appearing as words ought to, inside him, where his own words did, or as when his friend spoke to him.
He hoped his mother would return soon; he missed her. Lately she had been away from him often, which had upset him at first. He did not care for strangers. But his friend had always been there, telling him strange and funny things, and that had made it better.
He stood and toddled to the side of the basket, but he could see nothing below, only an empty darkness, and on the horizon, a great orange sphere.
“La looon!” he cried, recognizing it. “La loon.”
Naming it the way his mother would, with a sound, reveling in the strange feel of making his word into a noise and the noise back into a word again.
First it made him laugh, and then it made him afraid. Where was mother? Where was everyone?
“You are safe, little prince,” the voice of his friend murmured. “You are safe, and you need have no fear.”
“Maman?” He had known the sound-word—like so many words—but had never thought to use it before.
“She is safe,” his friend told him. “She has put you in my care. Soon you will have a wonderful new home, as befits a prince.”
Nico did not know what a prince was, but the feelings and images that came with the word were ticklish, warm, happy. He looked out at the moon again, reached to try and touch it.
“La loon,” he cooed again. Content once more, he watched the night go by.
For my grandparents,
Earl and Helen Ridout
Acknowledgments
By necessity, these acknowledgments are cumulative—everyone I noted in Newton’s Cannon deserves another mention here. In the interest of saving space, I’m limiting this list to those I didn’t mention last time.
My thanks to:
Terese Nielsen for great paintings, Jie Yang for the production work on the cover, and Jaana Mattson for the maps.
Robert Stauffer and Allison Lindon for proofreading, Erin Bekowies and Becker Strout for cold reading.
Jennifer Lattanzio and Adrian Wood for their work on Newton’s Cannon. Shelly Shapiro—who should have been mentioned long before now—Christopher Schluep, Anh Hoang, and Tim Kochuba.
Eleanor Lang, for keeping me safe on the road.
William Ridout—my uncle—for his expert knowledge on the crafting, use, and history of black powder weapons. And for sneaking me black powder now and then when I was a kid …
The instructors and fencers at Salle Auriol Seattle, and especially my foil coach, Charles Sheffer. Thanks also to Marshall Hibnes and Allen Evans for their comments and opinions on eighteenth-century fencing, my cadre mates Bobby Cortez, Mel Gregory, Adam Herbst, and Zabette Macomber—and of course to our Maitre d’Arms, Leon Auriol.
The supportive enthusiastic members of Flanders
Fantastic, and especially Didier Rypens. Helen Stack, for her very interesting and informative comments about her ancestor Charles Portales and his good friend, Fatio de Duillier …
Don McQuinn, Dave Gross, Ben Diebold, and Gavin Grow for general moral support. Add to them the whole Keyes clan, and especially Nell K. Wright and Mary K. Skelton.
By J. Gregory Keyes
Published by Ballantine Books:
Chosen of the Changeling
THE WATERBORN
THE BLACKGOD
The Age of Unreason
NEWTON’S CANNON
A CALCULUS OF ANGELS
BABYLON 5: DARK GENESIS
The Birth of the PSI Corps
BABYLON 5: DEADLY RELATIONS
Bester Ascendant
A Calculus of Angels Page 43