“You did not see us go out because we did not go out, Alexander,” Crecy finished for him.
The guard's face waxed scarlet. “Whatever you wish,” he mumbled.
“How gallant. I hope you were as thoughtful of Marie's needs.”
The guard's expression promised that she had made her point clear.
Helen was asleep in a chair in the antechamber and roused muzzily when the door opened.
“Mademoiselle,” she murmured.
“Helen, go to your chamber and sleep properly. My presence was again requested by the king.”
“Yes, Mademoiselle.”
When they were alone, Crecy helped her undress.
“I am so tired.” She sighed.
“The devil!” Crecy said, examining Adrienne's stockings. “No grass stains! Now there's a trick I've never learned.”
Adrienne giggled. Her blood felt as if it were fizzing like champagne. Outside, the sky was already gray, the morning star a bright spark.
“We didn't do that,” she said shyly. “He just kissed me.”
“Didn't he even try?”
Adrienne laughed. “I suppose he did, but he was very polite. He let me have what I wanted and asked for nothing.” She noticed Crecy's skeptical smile. “No, really,” she went on. “I know it's stupid, Veronique. I've been with the king many times. But in this way, I'm still a virgin. Does that make any sense at all?”
Crecy's expression softened. “Yes, it makes sense. And if it is of any consequence, I still regard you as a virgin.”
Adrienne studied Crecy carefully for any signs of mockery. “Thank you,” she said.
“You are the only woman in Versailles who would thank me for such an accusation. Nevertheless, you are welcome. Now, not to say that your little encounter with Nicolas would not have made all of our efforts worthwhile, but did you—”
“Oh! I found it in his room, just as I thought I might.”
“How did you know?”
“Do you remember at the party in Paris, the way Fatio went on about Newton? Once Fatio and Newton were very close. The impression I get of Sir Isaac is that he is a very cold man with few friends. But I think Fatio was his friend.”
“Do you think they were lovers?”
Adrienne paused, embarrassed that she had considered that already. “No. But Crecy, there is something to your question. These two men were once dear to each other, that is clear. Yet they have not spoken in twenty years. All this time, I think that Fatio has been trying to win back Newton's heart, and I think that his love has turned to venom. He has created a weapon that will kill everyone in London, using Newton's own theories to do so.”
“And that is why you suspected he has a way of communicating with Sir Isaac.”
“Yes. He wants him to know, Veronique. Maybe not until the comet is plummeting to Earth. Or maybe he means Sir Isaac to flee London and truly understand what he has wrought. But a man like Fatio lives for the praise of others. For Fatio, this would have all been for naught if Newton were to die without knowing who had killed him.”
“And so?”
“And so I sent a message to Newton. Fatio will discover this when he tries to send his own, I think. Also, Veronique, something saw me in the laboratory.”
Crecy narrowed her eyes. “Something?”
“Yes, a sort of cloud with a red spot in the center, like an eye.”
A tremor seemed to pass across Crecy's face, an unguarded instant of some emotion Adrienne had never seen her or anyone express. Then Crecy's face hardened to porcelain again, perfect and smooth. Had that been fear? Despair?
Whatever else it had been, it had been recognition.
“What? Veronique, what was it? You know.”
Crecy shook her head, but Adrienne grabbed the other woman's wrist. “Veronique, there may be things you are sworn not to tell me. I accept that, even though I don't like it. You say that in the future we will be friends. But if you and Nicolas are not my friends now, then I have none. I know both of you have secrets from me. Both of you have some goal involving me of which I am unaware. I know this, and yet I need—” Tears threatened to clot her throat, but she swallowed them. As she continued, her tone remained as cool and controlled as Crecy's. “You must trust me. You have helped me solve one equation. Now help me solve the one in which I am a variable.”
“There are still things I cannot tell you,” Crecy cautioned. “But ask me now what you most want to know. Understand, it is not you I do not trust, Adrienne, but myself.”
“Do not dare to play games, Veronique. I need answers now.”
“It is not a game,” Crecy replied. “Did someone see you? Besides your big red eye?”
“Gustavus might have.”
“Gustavus? Have I met this man?”
“No. He is Fatio's assistant. He was not at the masque at the Palais Royal—or if he was, we did not see him.”
“Assistant. Damn. I should have known.”
“Veronique—”
“Adrienne, what is your question?”
“I want to know what that thing was.”
Crecy looked away. “You have chosen the worst question,” she said. “To see one of them is one thing. That they can forgive. But if one such as you knows about them— Adrienne, I already fear for your life. Do not make me triple my fear.”
“Trust me,” Adrienne said. “If doom finds me, let it not find me in ignorance.”
Crecy reached to stroke Adrienne's chin. For a strange moment, she thought Crecy would kiss her, but she did not. “I will tell you what I know,” she said. “But I promise you, you will not like it.”
13.
Vasilisa
Vasilisa's throaty accent at his shoulder was a shock, coming unannounced by footsteps. Ben jerked as if stung, involuntarily slamming his book in the process.
Throaty her accent might be, but her laughter was silver chimes. Ben blushed furiously as he turned to find her framed by the door to his room, beautiful as always. Today her dress was pure London, an azure skirt and loose, low-cut blouse that revealed the hollow beneath her throat and just a hint of …
“I didn't mean to frighten you,” she explained.
“Ah,” Ben replied, feeling stupid. “No, it's just that when I read—”
“The storm of words smothers all other sounds. Yes, I know that feeling well. What is that you're reading?”
“Oh, it's nothing,” Ben said quickly, but Vasilisa was already frowning a bit at the title.
“The Daemonicum?” she asked. “What are you doing reading such a silly book?”
“I got it from the society's library,” he replied defensively.
“Well, it's still silly,” Vasilisa maintained. “At least you'd best not let Colin or James—or especially Mr. Heath—see you with that.”
“Why?”
“Demonology is a favorite topic with the Philosophical Society right now. It's all the rage.” She rolled her eyes and then showed him a sliver of smile. “I came to see if you might accompany me to a tavern for a bite to eat.”
“What of Mr. Voltaire?”
Vasilisa blinked. “What about him?”
Ben suddenly felt that he had committed a colossal blunder. “Well, I don't know … I thought that you and he … ate … ah, dinner together.”
Vasilisa burst out laughing, and Ben felt his face redden. “You mean you heard us in my room the other night. Why, Benjamin, how rude!”
Ben was certain that his head would simply catch fire and burn to a cinder. He wished it would, in fact. “Well, no, I didn't hear anything, I just thought …”
“It's no matter, Benjamin. With just the two of us staying here, there can be few secrets of that sort between us. Monsieur Voltaire did ‘dine’ with me a night or two, but he and I are very … um, casual friends. I don't know where he is tonight. He's probably at one of those coffeehouses with his literary friends.” She paused and assumed a bit more gravity. “What passed between Voltaire and me—I don't mind
you knowing, Ben, but it's not something I wish generally spoken of.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Ben replied. “Discretion is my watchword.”
Vasilisa's brow puckered in a tiny frown. “You don't think worse of me now, do you, Ben?”
Ben wasn't sure precisely what to think. He had never known a woman so bold about such things—except Sarah, who was a whore. To know a woman who sought sex for the same reasons as a man—well, Robert had spoken of such things, but Ben had begun to despair of ever meeting such a woman.
All that went through his head, but what he said was, “Of course not, miss.”
“Come, Ben, call me Vasilisa. And let's go to a tavern, for if you aren't hungry, I could devour a bear.”
Once the roast was in front of him, Ben found that he did, indeed, have an appetite. It might have been the walk that did it. Vasilisa wished to eat at a tavern in “the city,” and so they had made their way up Fleet Street and across the canal. Then again, it might be the glass of dry Portuguese wine glowing in his belly, and the Russian's flattering attention.
Another thing he liked about Vasilisa: She didn't let food get in the way of conversation. To Ben, conversation was what was enjoyable about a meal—it was the only time you could get people still long enough to pursue a topic in any depth. And even though he was thousands of miles from the table he was brought up at, dining in a grand tavern in the heart of the City of Science with a woman from Russia, it reminded him of his childhood and of his father in the most pleasant way possible.
“I'm glad that you met him,” Vasilisa was saying around mouthfuls of roast beef. “Even if you never meet him again, it is something to tell your children and their children about.”
“Yes,” Ben agreed. “I can tell them that I met Sir Isaac Newton after he became senile and mad.”
“Who has more right to go mad?” Vasilisa asked. “Never has there been a more brilliant man. The memory of my own meeting with Newton—even given his state of mind—is something I will always cherish.
“Tell me why you were really reading that book, Ben,” Vasilisa insisted, pouring them each another glass of wine and then signaling to the server. When he came she placed three shillings in his hand. “Another bottle of the Portuguese, please,” she said. When the server was gone, she arched her brows at Ben. “Well?” she asked.
“You remember my story? The man Bracewell?”
“Yes. The one you believed to be a sorcerer.”
“Vasilisa, I left two things out of my story. I thought you would all think me stupid. Maybe you will, if I tell you.”
“Well, we should find out,” she murmured. “Here, drink your wine to give you courage!” and she swallowed more of her own.
I'm going to regret this, Ben thought. But he followed her example.
“Now tell me what you didn't tell us before, and I'll promise not to think you stupid.”
Ben drank some more of the wine, and then he told her about Bracewell's strange familiar, about the similar eye that had appeared above the aetherschreiber. She did not laugh at him or call him stupid; she watched him with utter fascination.
“Now I see,” she said. “You are not the first to witness such things, you know.”
“I'm not?” he asked.
“No. In my country, there are many such things. Witches keep them at their beck and call. I am a philosopher, like you, Benjamin, but even I believe I have seen these things.” She lowered her voice further. “Even here in London. Before it dissolved, certain members of the Royal Society died mysteriously. They say lights such as you describe were seen nearby.”
“But they cannot be … I mean, there must be some explanation,” he said.
“Yes, I agree. Think of this, Benjamin. For many years the mechanical philosophy of Descartes was the prevailing truth, was it not? The belief that every action of every material in the universe was caused by the impact of one particle against another. You have seen those absurd diagrams that explain magnetism by postulating a plethora of screw-shaped particles turning their way around a magnet, attaching themselves to iron and dragging it in like gear teeth?”
Ben could not help but laugh. He remembered those diagrams, and thinking back on them, they did seem extremely absurd.
“Fifty years ago, no philosopher in his right mind would dare to postulate unseen, occult forces working between matter, and yet Sir Isaac not only dared theorize this, but proved it and then harnessed those forces. It was his willingness to explore what the prevailing philosophies dismissed as superstition that brought about the new science.”
“Yes. Yes! So you're saying—” Ben was sure he was following this.
“Maclaurin and the others would be quick to dispute what I'm about to say,” Vasilisa continued, “but I think you will see my point, Ben. Perhaps Newtonians have too quickly invented their own orthodoxy when they refuse to consider these genies, these angels and devils that haunt the places of darkness and of light. Were the Greeks merely fools to speak of gods and spirits? Was my grandmother an idiot to leave milk out for the domovoi? Here is a whole realm of phenomena that science will not attempt to speak to.”
“I found one book,” Ben said. “It's an essay called The Se cret Commonwealth in two parts, one by this Kirk fellow and another by Mr. Deitz, a commentary on the first part. He speculates about Leibniz and his monads—”
“Yes, yes,” Vasilisa said enthusiastically. “I freely admit that in many ways Leibniz was the worst sort of Cartesian, and yet at the same time he considered the possibility that sentience might exist in the aether—”
“That's what I'm thinking!” Ben noticed that he was waving wildly as he interrupted Vasilisa. Tides of wine seemed to be rising and ebbing in his head, but here was someone he could finally tell his thoughts to. “It seems to me—well, I mean, I read this, but it makes sense to me—that if there is a great chain of being, from the lowest to the highest—”
“As Browne discussed, for instance.”
“Yes!” Ben agreed. “Shur Thomash Browne.” He grinned and giggled at his slurring. “If this chain leads up through animalcules and insects and frogs and dogs, and so on to us, and if above us there are the angels and finally God—well, what if we're about midway up, instead of close to the top? I mean, why couldn't there be as many kinds of creatures between us and God as there are between animalcules and us?”
“No reason at all,” Vasilisa said, pouring more wine.
Ben awoke curled against something warm, his nose pressed into a head of dark hair. He felt an instant of panic, but then he began to remember. He remembered her kissing him good night—and that it went on and on. That she had laughed a lot. That she had sung something in Russian afterward.
Now what should he do? She was still asleep. He was surprised that he felt so good. He was theoretically acquainted with hangovers from observing first James and later Robert.
It was difficult to draw his eyes away from Vasilisa, who was naked and mostly uncovered. Last night it had been dark, but today his eyes could appreciate her lithe limbs, her pale skin. He frowned and looked more closely. She had scars, too, on her back and arms and legs. He wondered how she had gotten them.
Already his heart was beginning to ache. Why had she made love to him? Because she had been drunk, and he had been there. But not because she was in love with a fourteen-year-old boy.
Unfortunately, he was totally, completely in love with Vasilisa Karevna.
It got worse as the day went along. He managed to rise without disturbing her, dressed, and went for a morning walk. He feared being alone with her, feared what she would say. Or would she say anything? She might pretend it had never happened. He couldn't decide if that would be best or worst.
When he got back a few hours later, Maclaurin and Heath were already there, but Vasilisa—both to his sorrow and relief— was not.
“There y'are, Ben,” the Scot said. “How would y'like to take notes at a meetin'?”
“Sir?”
&
nbsp; “Dr. Edmund Halley is in the meetin' room. We were aboot to speak to him on Sir Isaac's behalf. I canna find Vasilisa anywhere, and James is late.”
“Halley?”
“Yes, yes, but you mustn't gape,” Heath hissed. “And don't forget, he is the enemy now.”
“That is such an unfortunate thing to say,” a rich baritone voice complained from behind them. Heath—who rarely was flustered by anything—suddenly turned red. Ben turned to see a man of perhaps sixty, broad-faced, determined about the eyes.
“Dr. Halley,” he said, “I'm sorry, I only meant—”
“I know what you meant, sir,” Halley replied. “And I consider it a terrible shame. It may be that the Crown and Sir Isaac have a quarrel of sorts, but I have been his truest friend since before you were born, young man. I financed his first Principia.”
“Dr. Halley,” Maclaurin conciliated, “please know that all of us have nothing but the greatest respect for you. I urge you to have a seat while we prepare some coffee.”
“What, so I can be further slandered behind my back?”
“I only meant,” Heath went on evenly, “that you are a competing philosophical society.”
“Philosophers should not compete,” Halley replied. “They should work together. They should pool their knowledge into oceans rather than divide it into rivulets. I have invited you all to join the London Philosophical Society; that invitation is still open.”
“And appreciatin' it we are,” Maclaurin answered. “But until Sir Isaac—”
Halley placed his hand on Maclaurin's shoulder in what appeared to be a friendly gesture. “Sir Isaac has had episodes like this before,” Halley said, “but this one has been longer and more painful than most. It torments me to speak of it, but his correspondence with me has been quite … irrational. He has walked out onto a narrow limb, my worthy colleagues, and as his friends we should coax him off it.”
“I don' pretend to know what Sir Isaac requires,” Maclaurin stiffly replied. “If you would, please?” He gestured toward the meeting room.
Halley puffed out a breath, and it seemed some of his pomposity stole out with it. “No, my friends, I wish I had time for your company. I do miss it—especially my wayward student James. I had hoped to see him, at least. No, I am here in my official capacity as the royal astronomer.”
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