Newton's Cannon

by J. Gregory Keyes

  Adrienne returned the laugh with a small but honest chuckle of her own. “No, it is not,” she agreed, “but I am stupid in that way as well.” To her own surprise, she reached out and patted his arm.

  “Besides,” she went on, a bit clumsily, “what need have you to flatter me? You and I are inseparable.”

  He did not take it as she intended. He fell silent. She knew that she had hurt his feelings, but she had no idea how to apologize. She was trying to think of some way to make him understand that she was only joking when she suddenly understood what she had been trying to grasp that morning.

  The observatory, Fatio had said. Fatio and Gustavus needed a telescope.

  Why?

  13.

  Harmonic Sympathy

  It seemed to Ben that a great spider was probing his eyelids and ears with rasplike limbs. He could not quite work up the energy to be terrified, but he did reach to brush the horrible creature from his face, and in doing so grasped the edge of the waking world. He pulled himself awake, thankful to avoid a second nightmare.

  He could still hear the scratching of the spider's legs, though he began to recognize that it was the aetherschreiber downstairs, scribbling away.

  Ben bolted up and stumbled down to the press room.

  The schreiber chose that instant to cease. Ben managed to reach it and give its key several twists, but the machine remained still.

  He recalled that it was still tuned to the schreiber of Mr. F. The clock on the wall told him that about an hour had passed since he penned his own message, and here was the reply. He took up the sheet and as he read, his lips slowly spread into a smile.

  They did not believe him. In fact, they probably thought that their regular correspondent had sent the message as a joke. Of course, if their regular correspondent also happened to be near his machine they would both have his message, and so they would soon confirm to each other his reality. Not surprisingly, “F” also understood his “Janus” identity and had joked about it at the beginning of the letter.

  Whoever these men were, they must be leading philosophers, members of the Royal Academy in London. Who was he, a young boy from the Colonies, to have the effrontery to lecture them on what to do?

  He was Janus, that was who he was. And if Janus made a fool of himself, no one would ever know that Ben Franklin was Janus.

  Ben looked back at the schreiber. At that instant, someone sat at the other end of it, wondering if he would reply. But to be taken seriously, he must explain his solution in the language of mathematics—and John was to deliver their joint treatise tomorrow.

  Though the note was clearly in the handwriting of “F” it was signed this time “Minerva”—the Roman goddess of wisdom. But the really odd thing about the letter was its date. Today was April eleventh, but the note from Minerva was dated April twenty-second. But he knew that the letter had just now been written—the schreiber was instantaneous.

  Could “F” be so absentminded as to be eleven days off? He was very tired, and undoubtedly he was missing something.

  He took the mystery to sleep with him, but it did not solve itself in the darkness.

  The question of the telescope haunted Adrienne all the following day and into the next. Given the calculus she had glimpsed, there was now no question in her mind but that the two men were observing some celestial body, and yet that seemed completely out of keeping with the secrecy and obvious importance of the project—and with the unsolved affinitive equation. The only explanations that suggested themselves were bizarre: Were the two men designing some sort of vehicle for traveling into the outer reaches of the universe?

  In the afternoon, the aetherschreiber delivered another message from Janus. It consisted mostly of a formula. When neither Fatio nor Gustavus were looking, she secreted it in her manteau. She did not read it until that night, in her room.

  Helen and Charlotte both came running at her small, involuntary cry, but she reassured them and sent them away, turning her unbelieving eyes back to the scrawled formula. There was a certain crudity to it; a few symbols were not used in precisely the right manner, and at points the author was clearly out of his depth. And yet the essence was astonishingly clear, and it was, without a doubt, the answer to Fatio's dilemma. Almost unconsciously she reached for blank paper, a quill, and ink, and went to work. She could see the entire proof in her head. It was so simple it was actually childish; the correct affinity could be found by moving through all the possible affinities. That was certainly the method by which this Janus had modified his aetherschreiber. That was clear because the sliding potentialities he offered to solve Fatio's dilemma were couched in only a single dimension; he had worked out how to make a tunable chime. Fatio needed a formula that could operate on at least three axes. Her pen fairly raced, and twice she actually laughed aloud in delight. She forgot the king, Torcy, the duke and duchess of Orléans, and the terrible ordeal of a few days before. Only the equation mattered, and it was elegant—not a simple proof but an entire method.

  Well past midnight she finished it, and then she carefully copied it, disguising her handwriting, and signed it with the initials of M. Two. She was smiling when she fell asleep, the equation still singing in her mind like a chorus of angels.

  “… like Prometheus unfetter'd you have brought a new fire to the world, and you may be assur'd that it is a flame that shall burn brightly,” Ben read, and broke off to laugh and slap John on the back. “Prometheus we are, John!”

  John was trying to be serious, but his glee kept breaking through. “See how they changed it?” he said. “They've done things to it I never imagined, but its still my formula—our invention. We shall be famous, Benjamin Franklin!”

  “When we trade ‘Janus’ for our own names,” Ben reminded him cautiously.

  John shrugged. “I'm not even provoked at that. We have the drafts to show we proved this out.”

  “In fact,” Ben said, “I have already mailed a letter to the Royal Academy in London. The postmark on it will show our precedence. It's signed Janus, of course, but I think we can demonstrate that it was our discovery.”

  John actually skipped for the next several paces, forgetting his dignity. The two of them were walking across the broad meadow of the Commons. “Who do you think they are, Ben? Whom have we written to?”

  “Someone important. See, here, where it says that the Crown will thank us?”

  “Oh, yes,” John said, gesturing as if he were a king bestowing grace, “ ‘shine his Apollonian light upon us,’ he will! Yet we still don't know what they are about, do we? We helped them solve a small piece of some larger puzzle—”

  “I should say a very large piece,” Ben interrupted. “My impression was that this was their last stumbling block.”

  “Yes, but what are they stumbling toward?”

  Ben shrugged. “Perhaps, some sort of new cannon to use against the French.”

  “No, it still isn't a cannon.”

  “I have a better puzzle for you, John,” Ben said. “Why is this dated eleven days ahead?”

  “What?” John snatched the paper from him, frowning. “It must be a mistake,” he muttered.

  Ben shrugged. “I've checked; all the communications are dated eleven days ahead.”

  “Eleven? That reminds me of something,” John mused.

  “I've wondered if it might not be some message to us, but the earlier communications eavesdropped upon follow suit,” Ben stated.

  “That is a puzzlement,” John said, kicking at a tuft of grass. “Unless … Unless they are following the Romish calendar. It is some number of days removed from our own. It might be eleven.”

  Ben stopped dead in his tracks, staring at his friend in horror. “Oh, God,” he said, “that must be it.”

  “What do you mean?” John snapped. “What are you being so dramatic about?”

  “We've been assuming that this Mr. F is English, and that we have been writing to him in England.”

  “He writes in English,�
�� John pointed out reasonably.

  “But that might be because he was corresponding with an Englishman. John, what if this Mr. F is Spanish, or …” He stopped again.

  “John,” he said quietly, “what if he's French? His Apollonian light? God, John, that doesn't refer to King George but to Louis of France!”

  “Wait,” John cautioned, “just wait, Ben. You started this theme of gods and goddesses. You signed as Janus, he wrote as Minerva, called you Prometheus, and so on.”

  “No Englishman would call King George Apollo. Zeus or Jove, maybe. Louis XIV, the Sun King—that's what they call him. Oh, God, John, whatever we've done just now, we've done for the enemies of our country!”

  John could only stare at him, speechless.

  14.

  Renascence

  Louis awoke to the sound of his watch being wound. Versailles did not care whether Apollo could see its splendors or not—it would carry him through his day regardless.

  To Louis, that was strength. It had saved him from going mad more than once, and it would do so again.

  “How are you this morning, Sire?” Louis-Alexandre asked from quite near.

  “I am very well,” Louis answered, mustering all of his ancient strength. He had never needed to see his own face to understand what it was projecting, to twist this or that nuance into a smile, a frown. Far less so, now, when he was so much more aware of his muscles. What worried him was that he could not see the faces of others, could not read their moods—the unwilling confession of a dropped gaze, the murderous glint of a too-bright smile. He knew that if he could see who had tried to kill him, he would recognize him by his look.

  Who had it been? Which cabal? He had heard the name of Orléans muttered more than once, but he did not believe that his brother's son had done this. He had a spine of seaweed and no ambition higher than bedding every woman in France.

  It might have been, as Torcy and Bontemps seemed to suggest, an English spy. That was certainly the most satisfying possibility, and in many ways the likeliest. There was the Englishman who had been slain in the stables, the one posing as one of his Irish troops, to lend evidence to that theory.

  And yet—Marlborough was winning on the battlefield. Why should England run the risk of international disapproval? Unless somehow Albion had learned of the great weapon France and her king prepared for it. What had de Duillier called it? “Newton's own cannon”?

  There were other possibilities. It could be the old nobles, those bastards who had engineered the Fronde long years ago. Bit by bit Louis had been destroying them in favor of the more dependable and patriotic lesser nobility.

  The remaining choices were unthinkable. The duke of Maine, Louis'illegitimate son by Montespan, had a chance at the throne now that the dauphin was dead. Yet if any of his children loved him, it was Maine. And Philip, his grandson—his single surviving legitimate heir—Philip was king of Spain, thanks to him, and his ally in this war against the British.

  “Louis-Alexandre,” he said, as his valet helped him on with his dressing robe. “After I meet with my ministers, I wish to go hunting.”

  “Sire, it has only been three days since …”

  “I am aware of the days as they pass, Louis-Alexandre. And I believe that it has been too long since I have hunted.”

  “The King's Police have not finished their investigation,” Bontemps reminded him. “It is far from certain that it would be safe for you to go outside at the present.”

  “I will not cower here, Louis-Alexandre, waiting for death to find me. Send as many of the Hundred Swiss as you desire— summon the entire company of Black Musketeers from Paris if you wish—but I shall hunt this afternoon.”

  Bontemps' sigh was all but inaudible. “Yes, Sire,” he replied.

  At times, Louis wondered if the Bourbons had not somehow gotten the blood of wolves into their line, for nothing woke the fierceness in him as did the baying of hounds, the braying of trumpets. It was almost as if he could scent the quarry, feel its fear and its fierce determination to live.

  It was this wolfish sensibility that told him they were upon a stag.

  If only he could ride a horse, rather than bump along behind one in the wheeled monstrosity that had been devised for him. If only he could see the courtiers around him.

  The dogs were drawing nearer, running the stag in to them; beaters spread out through the woods were funneling the great beast toward his chariot. If only he had a musket—if only he could see to fire one!

  Open your eyes, the angel said. The angel had spoken to him often since the dauphin died. Open your eyes, and I will show you how an angel might aid you.

  Louis opened his eyes, and a grayness dawned where before there had only been night. To his astonishment, the world quickly grew lighter, until he could make out the slender saplings and thicker, hoarier trees.

  His driver pulled the carriage to a stop and waited, cocking an ear attentively to the approach of the dogs. Without thinking, Louis stepped onto the forest floor.

  The driver looked odd to Louis; his coat and boots were clear and detailed, but his face was a sort of featureless oval.

  “Sire?” the driver inquired. Louis recognized the voice immediately.

  “Bertrand,” Louis said, naming him. Almost instantly the visage sprang into focus, becoming Bertrand's long, red face complete with drooping mustache. Louis looked around, wondering at the forest. The trees were as clean of line and regular as the colonnade at Versailles, as if they were carved of marble. Perhaps twenty courtiers on horseback gaped at him, their faces as featureless as Bertrand's had been.

  His huntsman, Jean-Claude, stood near. He mumbled a formality and his face, like Bertrand's, became distinct. The courtiers might as well have been mannequins.

  “Jean-Claude, give me your weapon,” Louis said.

  He took the gun—one of the new, rifled muskets, not one of the strange scientific weapons that threw lightning or God knew what else at their targets. He had forbidden those on the hunt.

  A cry went up as the stag burst into sight. Louis saw it as if through a spyglass, and yet the beast still looked curiously perfect. In fact, it resembled a stag he had killed when just a boy, yes, even to that darkening on the shoulder blades. Its eyes were rolling, and two of the hounds virtually hung upon it. Its haunches were soaked in blood.

  Fifty paces away the beast knew its mistake and tried to fling itself somewhere, to break through its ring of tormentors. Louis gave it peace with a single lead ball through the heart.

  “Why is my sight so strange?” Louis asked the angel later.

  It is because I see for you, the angel replied. Your own eyes are ruined. But I can see through you, through your ears and your skin. Then I paint a sort of picture for you, so that you may see also. You must understand it is only an approximation of sight.

  “It is very strange. Why do some people have faces while others do not?”

  When you know them—when you have some memory of their face for me to model them from—then I can paint their faces for you. Otherwise, I do the best I can, Louis.”

  “Do angels not have eyes like men?” he asked.

  Do not presume too much, the angel answered. You may be the greatest king on earth, but my king is God, and he is yours as well. He has given you for me to watch over, but you may not question me.

  “I am sorry,” Louis said, though in his heart he was angered that even an angel might command him.

  I will forgive this once. The answer to your question is no. What my angel eyes see, your human soul could not bear. You should appreciate this gift of sight I give you, for in providing it—even in this indirect fashion—I bring myself pain.

  “I thank you most humbly,” Louis answered. He felt a sudden dread: What the angel had given him, it could take back and, strange though his new vision was, it was vision.

  Go to the mirror, Louis, for I have something else to show you, the angel said.

  Louis obeyed.

  “Shit
!” he exclaimed, unable to believe what he saw. Staring back at him was Louis XIV. He wore no wig; long, beautiful chestnut curls fell to his shoulders. A darker mustache clung to his upper lip. His face was smooth. His body was slim, and the stockinged legs bulged with firm, shapely muscle.

  He was young again.

  15.

  Of Secrets

  Adrienne wondered if she could catch Fatio if he fainted; he seemed unsteady on his feet as he gawked at the proof she had just handed him. Even Gustavus betrayed a tight little smile of triumph as he peered over Fatio's shoulder at her disguised letter.

  “By God,” Fatio finally managed, in a strangled voice. “So simple, and yet so—” He whirled upon her. “Who is this Janus?”

  Adrienne shrugged. “It came on the second schreiber.”

  “Really?” Gustavus asked, his eyes glittering. “And this is your first communiqué from this Janus?”

  She nodded, feeling the sudden weight of her lie around her neck.

  Gustavus grinned savagely at her affirmation, and she felt a sudden unwarranted thrill of fear. How did Gustavus know she was lying?

  But he merely clapped Fatio on the shoulder. “Well,” he said, “we have our answer, sir, and now we can proceed.”

  “Yes! Yes!” Fatio replied enthusiastically. “Still, I wonder whom we have to thank.”

  “I'm sure one of our English colleagues will claim the credit soon enough,” Gustavus responded, flicking his gaze to the aetherschreiber. “But let you and I strike while the iron is hot.”

  “Oh, yes! We can give the king a date, now. That will please him—” He glanced suddenly at Adrienne and then at Nicolas d'Artagnan, standing behind her. Gustavus glared, though she did not need that to know that Fatio had said more than he ought.

  A date, Adrienne repeated to herself, walking back toward the aetherschreibers. Another clue.

  That afternoon, near three, Torcy sent for her. With Nicolas in tow, she met him in the king's antechamber.