Newton's Cannon

by J. Gregory Keyes

  “No,” Ben said, and then, firmly, “No, sir. I'll sell you the boat, and I'll load the provisions. Then I'll cut you a crutch so you can get to the boat. More than that I won't do.”

  “Agreed. Load up my boat and I'll tell you where to get the money.”

  “And where to go from here.”

  “And where to go,” Blackbeard replied.

  It didn't take very long to load everything useful on the beach into the boat. The heaviest was a half cask of rum, of which Blackbeard demanded a cup the instant Ben found it. He found some ship's provisions. Besides that, there were two crates the pirate insisted on taking with him.

  When all was loaded, Ben edged cautiously back toward Teach. The pirate regarded him for a long moment but didn't raise his pistol. “My crutch,” he said.

  “My money,” Ben replied.

  The pirate reached into the ample pockets of his gray coat. He withdrew a sack and tossed it at Ben's feet. It jingled. “There, damn you,” Teach said.

  Ben counted the sterling on the way to the forest edge. It came to just two hundred pounds. Using a jackknife Teach had given him he laboriously cut a sapling with a forked crotch and trimmed it into a rude crutch. He threw it to Blackbeard from fifteen yards away.

  “There,” he shouted.

  Blackbeard nodded, raised his pistol, and pulled the trigger. There was an enormous explosion and a plume of black smoke puffed toward Ben like dragon's breath.

  “Double damn!” Blackbeard snarled, as Ben felt his chest and found no wound. “One day they'll make a pistol as can hit something.”

  “The hell with you, Edward Teach!” Ben snapped.

  “Don't take it personal, boy.” With that, Blackbeard lurched up, with the help of the crutch, and began hopping toward the boat. When the pirate reached the little craft, he turned to shout back at Ben. “Wait till I'm out of sight, then light a fire. If you do it while I'm still in sight, I'll come back and kill you, I swear it.”

  It seemed possible. He had moved more nimbly on his crutch than Ben had guessed he would.

  Watching the sail grow smaller, Ben hoped that the hole he had made in the boat would be slow to show itself. He had stuffed it tight with a plug of hard bread; it wouldn't let water in until the bread had dissolved.

  When he couldn't see the sail anymore, he did as Blackbeard had suggested and built a fire with the remaining wood and some deadfall from the forest. He lit it using now-dry powder from the flintlock Blackbeard had flung down. After the fire was going steadily, he watched from the shelter of a large elm, ready to hide deeper in the woods.

  Near sundown, he saw the sails of an approaching frigate flying the King's Jack.

  “That was clever thinking, I'll be bound,” Captain Caldwell told him.

  “I saw the battle the night before,” Ben explained.

  “That was the Champion,” Caldwell said. “She went down with all hands. We lost them both in the dark and came too late to help.” He gritted his teeth. “We'll get Teach, though. Come hell or the deep blue sea, we'll get him.”

  Ben nodded tiredly.

  “Boston lad, eh?” the captain went on. “How do I know you aren't a pirate yourself?” Then he laughed at Ben's expression. Ben found he was quickly tiring of the laughter of seamen. “Never fear, lad,” the captain went on. “You don't have the look, the clothes—in short, I believe you. But if you have any idea where Teach was headed …”

  Ben shrugged. “I hulled his boat, but he may have been able to fix that. He certainly didn't tell me where he was headed.”

  “No, I shouldn't think he would. Smart thinking, to sabotage his craft. Should make it easier to find him.”

  “Pardon me, sir,” Ben said. “But where will you put in to port next?”

  “After we find Teach? Then it's Philadelphia.”

  “Philadelphia? Not Boston?”

  “No, lad, I'm sorry. But you can book passage to Boston easily enough. I can probably find a captain as will do it for free.”

  “I don't know,” Ben said, swallowing hard. “I was leaving Boston anyway. I was headed to Philadelphia to see my uncle and then to England.”

  “Good lad,” Caldwell said. “I may be able to help you there, too.”

  Four days later, there was still no sign of Blackbeard, and the Hornbeam reluctantly put in to Philadelphia. Two days after that, Ben was on a ship bound for England. He did his best to keep thoughts of John Collins, his mother, and his father from his mind. In Boston the best thing he could do was die. In London he could find out what he and John had done to call up the wrath of hell, and maybe he could solve whatever problems the two of them had created.

  And though he no longer believed in a God who answers prayers, he still prayed for God to keep his friends and family safe—and he prayed for James, wherever he might be, to forgive him.

  Part Two

  THE CANNON

  1.

  City of Science

  “There they are, Ben,” Robert Nairne observed, thrusting his index finger toward the horizon. “The white cliffs! England at last!”

  Ben nodded eagerly and drew in a deep breath, certain that he detected the faint scent of land. Their good ship the Berkshire now drew her wake through the straits of Dover, nearing the mouth of the Thames. More ominous was the green line of France in the east, though Ben supposed what he saw was Calais, in British hands at the moment. Unless he had inadvertently furnished the French with some new weapon, one which, during his three-month voyage, had allowed them to push Marlbor-ough's troops into the sea. But since the Berkshire was equipped with an aetherschreiber and the captain had kept them apprised of most news, he imagined he would have learned of a new French offensive.

  “I'd be in love with any land I saw right now,” Ben said. “And happy with any sod beneath my feet.”

  “Let's hear you repeat that in a week,” Robert said, shaking back his thick auburn hair. His changeable eyes were green with the sea, or perhaps with the emerald fields peeping over the chalky cliffs. “Three years I've been away this time. I once said I would never miss England, but I repent it all. There's some wonderful wild places on the Earth, Ben, but there's no coast in India nor the South Seas nor the Caribbean as can compare.”

  Ben shrugged. It was hard not to envy Robert's travels, but at the moment the thought of another ocean voyage did not provoke any excitement in him. For between the destinations there was only the monotonous, endless sea. Everything on a long voyage wore out—the wonders of porpoises and flying fish, the novelty of travel. People said the same things over and over again. Fortunately, one of those people had been Robert. The son of a military man, Robert was now, at twenty-one, something of an adventurer, and he had many interesting stories to tell—some probably even true. They had begun swapping pirate stories after Robert had learned of Ben's encounter with Blackbeard, and they had quickly discovered they had many interests in common. Though his scientific book learning was scanty, Robert had a quick grasp of new ideas. Their long days of discussing what could be had kept Ben from dwelling on what had been.

  “I've a mind just where we might stay,” Robert went on.

  “We?”

  “Well, certain, if y'd like. I had no mind t' turn you loose in London alone!”

  “I'd be happy of a guide and a friend in London,” Ben said quickly. “I hear 'tis something bigger than Boston.”

  “Something bigger? Oh, yes,” Robert replied. “London! The best food, the finest entertainments, the sweetest little whores in all the world.”

  Ben's ears burned a bit. “Well, I've more to do than that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, but o' course, my young philosopher. You'll be seekin' out those scientific men and whatnot. But I'll wager I can find some time to help y' learn the finer sorts of pleasures.”

  Ben blushed furiously, both angry and embarrassed.

  Robert patted him on the shoulder. “Don't let me devil you, Ben. I just do it for the joy it gives me. But I do mean to show
y' London.”

  “I'll be grateful for it,” Ben assured him.

  The breeze freshened; a few of the sailors cheered hoarsely, which Ben took for a good sign. By afternoon they had put into the mouth of the Thames. Ben and Robert watched the sun set against land for the first time in more than eighty days.

  By dawn, they could make out the gray, bunched houses of Gravesend and the impressive fortress of Tilbury.

  The banks of the Thames were verdant, adorned with picturesque villages and fields. Most of the stone buildings in Boston were no older than himself, and he had believed the new church to be grand. Yet in the first two hours that morning he saw two manors thrice as imposing as even the Faneuil mansion back home. And this was the countryside. What would London be like?

  He had always thought that James had exaggerated the provincial nature of Boston, but Ben began to fear just the opposite. He was suddenly grateful that he had met Robert.

  He realized his fingers were fidgeting, as if impatiently awaiting the chance to open a present. No trepidation could overshadow the waxing excitement in his breast.

  They had to drop anchor nearly a league from London, as it turned out, when the tide receded. Ben's fidgeting increased five-fold, for even from there, the London skyline was visible, and it was unbelievable indeed. It compassed the whole of the northern and eastern horizon, its buildings so legion that Ben could sort little sense into them. Only the church steeples gave him any notion of scale, thrusting into the lavender dusk like the sharp silhouettes of twenty or more fingers pointing the way to God. Twenty gesturing preachers in a crowd of thousands, packed shoulder to shoulder.

  Among these giants stood a titan, the majestic domed profile that Robert identified as Saint Paul's Cathedral. Closer by, the right bank of the Thames was betowered by the hulking shadows of windmills; five of the monstrous engines were in sight, their great wheels creaking in the evening breeze.

  When night fell, it did not fall uniformly. The sky north of them glowed. It was unnatural, in its own way the strangest thing Ben had ever seen, including the sorceries of Bracewell.

  A thought came to him then: This invasion of light was what Bracewell sought to prevent. Perhaps he feared that every town would become as London, banishing night's dark mantle and perhaps robbing darker things than night of their strength as well.

  “Amazin', i'nit?” Robert said from the nearby rail. “Even a few years ago, when I was a boy, 'tweren't as much light as this.” He looked speculatively at Ben. “Let's you and me take a boat and row up to the city. We can be there in under two hours.”

  “Steal?” Ben replied, raising his fist to his chest as if horrified. “Heavens, no. We could just borrow one, though …”

  Behind them, the lights of the Berkshire were lost among those of the thousand or so other boats. This near the city, the river itself was a town. Merchantmen and frigates were its churches, masts thrusting up like steeples. Steam barges and pleasure craft were its gaily adorned missions; houseboats and smallboats the common dwellings. As they moved through this floating village toward the greater brightness of the city, conversations waxed and waned around them, snatches of Dutch, French, Spanish, and languages that Ben could not even begin to guess at.

  “What'll we tell 'em when we land at the Tower?” Ben asked Robert as he pulled on the oars.

  “That'll be no problem. They'll just assume we got permission to come ashore. By the time anyone tells 'em different, you and I will be to Fleet Street. And after all, there's no harm done; the cap'n'll get his boat back from the Tower—it has the Berkshire written on it, plain as day.”

  “Good enough,” Ben replied.

  At about an hour before midnight Benjamin Franklin first set foot in the City of Science. Above him loomed the Tower of London—castle, prison, mint—an ancient medieval edifice resplendent with alchemical lanterns.

  Beyond was an endless sea of stone and light, a millionstrong tide of humanity, that Ben had to navigate to a single man: Sir Isaac Newton.

  2.

  Menagerie

  The beast slammed into the bars with such force that they screeched in their sockets. Fatio gave a little gasp and hopped back, but the king stood impassively, watching the huge animal.

  “It looks like a cow,” Louis complained.

  It did not look like a cow to Adrienne. No cow Adrienne had ever seen possessed shaggy fur and a mountainous hump of muscle above its shoulders, nor stood near five feet at the shoulder. And no cow expressed such utter rage at its captivity as to shatter its horns against adamantium bars.

  “What is it called, Sire?” Fatio asked.

  “A boeuf-a-l'eau,” Louis replied, disappointment still edging his voice. “I am told they are quite dangerous.” He turned his still blind-seeming eyes toward them and shrugged. “But to me it looks like a cow.”

  Louis gestured them on. “Come and see my lion. I acquired it some years ago, and it at least, is quite impressive.”

  The lion, actually, was rather old and bony. The wildness in its eyes had dimmed to a memory. In a horrible way, the lion reminded Adrienne of Maintenon in her last days.

  How long before she reached that state? What did the king see when he looked at her? That anomalous vision that perceived a cow in a raging monster and a rampant lion in this shrunken kitten—what did it see in her? Whatever he looked at, whomever he was making love to, it was not her.

  Her throat tightened, but she was nearly past the grief of her lost virginity. She might have resisted the king longer, she knew, but why delay the inevitable? Why risk his displeasure? Madame de Maintenon had taught her that one should not expect too much from the carnal act. And yet she had hoped that Maintenon was wrong. She hoped when Louis came to her— for he had once been a famous lover—that she might gain something to compensate for what she lost.

  But Louis was old and fat, and she had discovered no undreamed-of ecstasy but only a form of revulsion that she had never known.

  She tried to comfort herself that she was serving a higher purpose, but in her honest moments she knew that was not why she was marrying the king. She did not believe in the prophecies of Crecy, or in the Korai—for they saw her only as an instrument. No, she had taken Torcy at his word: she became queen because she feared being a pawn more.

  “Come, my dear,” Louis said, “these are mere samples of what you shall see in the menagerie proper.” The king, Fatio, and the rest of the retinue had moved on. She joined them and caught Nicolas watching her, an expression of concern upon his face. She flashed him a wide smile.

  I should ask the king for a different guard, she thought, for perhaps the hundredth time. But three months ago she had begged Louis to retain Nicolas, despite his failure to prevent her abduction. He had been in a generous mood after her acceptance of his marriage proposal and so had agreed. She was selfish to keep him near, but it would be harder to send him away.

  “Well, de Duillier,” the king said as they walked along to the next beast, “may I plan my wedding now?”

  “Indeed, Majesty,” Fatio replied, his voice bubbly. “The completion of our project can be named to the day.”

  Louis nodded, his face nearly as radiant as the Apollo he thought himself to be. “This is wonderful news, my good fellow. Please pass on my compliments to your staff.” He paused to glance at Adrienne. “And accept my apologies for stealing away its loveliest member.”

  “You rescued her only from dreariness, Sire,” Fatio said.

  They finished their tour of the menagerie at the Triannon Palace and then returned to Versailles on foot. On the way, Fatio made the mistake of venturing a few questions about the war against England and her allies, which the king dismissed brusquely, despite his obvious good cheer. Back at Versailles, Louis kissed Adrienne, sent her back to her rooms, and then swept Fatio along to a closed meeting with his ministers.

  Her suite had become her sanctuary. Not for her body, of course—the ornate doors could not protect her from the King's lecher
y—but for her mind. Alone there, she could take pen and ink and contemplate the hidden places in her soul where the king could never go—and conceal the written evidence of her explorations with comparative ease.

  That evening, however, she found little comfort as she pored over the results of three months' work. Her attempts to discern the purpose of Fatio's project had not met with complete success, so she had diverted herself with her own speculations. She designed a craft for flying to the moon and painstakingly calculated its trajectory, then recalculated voyages to Jupiter and Saturn. Improving upon Janus' formula, she outlined the basics of a “universal” aetherschreiber that would carry the voice and image of its operator. Other, less pertinent theoretical explorations had yielded a mirror that could “remember” what it reflected for an indefinite time and other, sillier things. But she could neither perform experiments to bear out her calculations nor publish her hypotheses. The only positive result she could perceive from her efforts was her certainty that Fatio was not laboring at any of these projects. “Newton's own cannon,” he'd said. What could that mean?

  If only she had her copy of the Principia she might be able to find a clue.

  So she sat, considering burning her calculations when she heard a scratch at the door. Sighing, she hid her papers in Main-tenon's old secret drawer and called out, “Come in.”

  She found herself confronting the tall form of Crecy.

  “Hello, Mademoiselle,” Crecy said. “We have not met. My name is Veronique de Crecy. I am to be your lady-in-waiting.”

  “What?” she demanded. Why was this woman pretending not to know her?

  And then she realized a guard stood no more than twenty paces away. When the tale of her abduction and “rescue” had been told by the duchess, Crecy must have been left out of it.

  “May I come in?”