The King's Beast

by Eliot Pattison

  Duncan closed his eyes for a moment and pushed down his bile. “I thought your group of natural philosophers stood for advancing civilized society,” he coolly replied. “But apparently buttons are more important. I will mind the buttons and ignore those who murder, steal, and smash survey stones and telescopes, even if I may consider them against the interests of civilization.”

  His words brought an unexpected silence. Rittenhouse, the reserved astronomer, spoke for the first time, with alarm in his thin voice. “Prithee, surely I misunderstand. Did you say survey stones? I heard about the telescope but nothing about survey stones.”

  “A Mason Dixon marker was smashed. Pieces of it were brought into Lancaster in the hope that it might be replicated. Reports from witnesses say it was the same man with the jagged scar who met Ezra’s killers and later tried to stop Ishmael and Pierre with the bones.”

  Rittenhouse lowered himself onto a bench as if suddenly weak. “Charles, dear God! Perhaps these other acts are not so random as we think! A marker stone! The barbarians!”

  Duncan stared in confusion at Thomson and Rittenhouse, both of whom seemed stricken by his news of the survey stone. “The boundary line is still well known,” he suggested. “And the incident with the telescope may just have been an impetuous act venting temper on some boys. No business of the Sons.”

  “No, Duncan,” Thomson murmured. “I fear it is part of that chess game you mention. It was an act against all the American scholars working on the transit of Venus. If these are truly related, then God knows what else they have in mind. Smashing precious chronographs?”

  “I fear, Charles,” Mulligan interjected, “that Mr. McCallum and I are not so well versed on astronomical matters.”

  Thomson gave a humorless smile. “It’s about Charles Mason, you might say. He is the most eminent of the transit scholars. He was awarded the commission to survey the Maryland line because he and Dixon did such an outstanding job of observing the last transit, from South Africa in 1761. There were those in London who were furious that he came to America for the survey commission because it meant training mere colonists for astronomical observation. He created a great appetite here for more learning and soon offered up the precise mathematical calculations needed for the transit. Before he returned to London, he assisted Mr. Rittenhouse and others in preparation for the coming transit. These men wrecked a telescope in Lancaster. The group there was following the chart that we published in the Gazette.” Thomson reached into his desk and produced the folding chart Duncan had seen on the wall of the shed in Lancaster. “Did you not read along the bottom?” he asked, pointing to the acknowledgement, which Duncan had forgotten. Charles Mason had supplied the chart.

  “Smashing that stone was a strike against Mason, against all of those interested in advancing natural philosophy in the New World. If what you report is true, these men are indeed not simply set against Dr. Franklin’s bones—they are set against everything the Sons do, and more.” Thomson fixed Duncan with a conciliatory gaze and nodded. “Perhaps the Sons do have to stand for advancing civilized knowledge, not just liberty.”

  While Thomson was speaking, Dumont had, in his pragmatic napkin-wiping fashion, collected and cleaned enough wine glasses for all of them. “Are they not the same?” the Frenchman asked as he presented them, filled, on a tray. “Is not the essence of liberty giving men and women the power to freely pursue whatever knowledge they desire?”

  When his guests responded with solemn nods, Dumont raised his glass for an announcement. “Messieurs, if we are to embark in this chess game then I must confess that I have a piece on the board already.”

  They sipped his claret and listened to the Frenchman, who began with a reminder of how the French adviser to King Louis, Buffon, had loudly dismissed North American flora and fauna, and in so doing had dismissed the contributions of the natural philosophers from the continent. Dumont waved a letter in the air. “This was waiting for me in Philadelphia. I have opened a chink in Buffon’s armor.” Dumont went on to explain that Buffon had agreed to accept a bone from the famous Kentucky Lick and was expressing an interest in the views of the colonies, accepting Dumont’s premise that natural philosophers based in North America should have a voice in discussing the fauna of their continent.

  “I am not sure how this plays to our strategy,” Mulligan said.

  “Convincing Buffon is convincing the French king! If King Louis accepts the advice of Philadelphia’s scholars, then King George and Parliament will have to take note! Are we not trying to make the voice of the colonies heard? Nothing will push the king toward us more effectively than competition from Paris!”

  Thomson and Rittenhouse were both nodding their affirmation as Dumont held up a finger. “There’s more! I have an idea, a brilliant idea, I’d like to think. Once you have shipped the bones and successfully measured the transit, you must finish merging your societies and elect Buffon as a member! The only aspect of Buffon more bloated than his intellect is his ego. We will send him a ribbon or medallion or such to reflect his prestigious status!”

  The mood of the room changed instantly. Dumont was praised for his clever insight, Duncan was patted on the back, and more wine was poured before they began reviewing Thomson’s draft report.

  Duncan retreated half an hour later, going not immediately onto the street but to the summer kitchen behind the house. Mulligan’s Irish guard, armed with a long shovel handle, greeted him with a nod and stepped aside to let Duncan in the door. The bones were scattered everywhere, with the smaller ones laid on planks arranged on sawhorses, the larger ones leaning against the wall or lying on beds of straw. They had a strangely calming effect on him as he walked along them, lightly touching their ancient surfaces. When he closed his eyes he was back with Catchoka in the ancient bone shrine, hearing the warning that the gods were following the relics. The very old artifacts could become responsible for something very new in the affairs of men. He recalled Dumont’s eloquent words. Maybe it was true. Perhaps the essence of liberty was indeed allowing men and women to freely pursue whatever knowledge they sought.

  At Preston House Sarah and her crew were covered with fine layers of flour, looking ghostlike in the moonlight. Wooden crates were being lined with straw to receive the tin plate smuggled from Virginia, being assembled in stacks by the crates. Duncan expressed surprise at the large number of tin sheets.

  “Tin is so difficult to obtain,” Sarah explained with an authority that surprised him. “Thousands and thousands of buttons can now be made,” she boasted, clearly proud of her work. “Our friends can start taking orders,” she added, referring to the itinerant tinkers and peddlers who called on Edentown and were some of the most important members of Duncan’s network for information gathering.

  “I would prefer the crates be gone for Edentown as soon as possible,” Duncan stated. “You mentioned a boat?”

  “A schooner is waiting on the Delaware, to deliver the crates straight to the landing on the Hudson.”

  “We should load them and have them dockside by dawn.”

  “Our people need sleep,” Sarah objected.

  “No, they don’t, not until everyone is safely out of this city. There is treachery afoot, Sarah. We need to be gone. I will help. Ishmael will help, if he ever returns from his wanderings. His curiosity sometimes gets the better of him, I fear.”

  “Ishmael is on an errand for me,” Sarah explained in a tone that brooked no inquiry. “But no doubt he will be back shortly and will soon be covered in flour like the rest of us.”

  Duncan removed his waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves. “First he should go to the livery down the street and arrange for a wagon to move your crates as soon as they are filled. We should aim to leave the docks in the morning. And, Sarah,” he added as she turned to help Mrs. Pratt. “Tell Jenkins to come out of hiding. We need all the strong backs we can find.”

  She did not offer the explanation he hoped for, only nodded impassively and hurried to Mrs. Pratt�
�s side.

  As they packed the last of the smuggled button stock, a fresh idea for evading the killers began taking shape in Duncan’s mind. When they had finished loading the crates on the wagon he excused himself, promising Sarah he would return by midnight, in ample time to board the schooner sailing on the morning tide. She grabbed his hand with an oddly troubled expression and seemed about to speak. Then she thought better of it and unexpectedly wrapped her arms tightly around him, as she might when he was leaving on one of his weeks-long journeys.

  Mulligan’s guard was nowhere to be seen as Duncan returned to the summer kitchen behind Dumont’s house. Hearing sounds inside, he lifted a hoe by the door and raised it like a weapon.

  “Duncan, mon ami!” Dumont gasped with relief as he lowered the pitchfork in his own hands. “You gave me a fright!”

  “The guard is missing.”

  “I told him to get some sleep since I would be here. The poor man was up all last night. And those brigands would never strike in the heart of Philadelphia. No doubt they have fled by now. And after our time with Deborah Franklin today, I felt the need to honor Ezra by honoring the bones, if that makes sense.” They had spent an hour at the Franklin house earlier that day to speak of Ezra with Deborah, who had vowed to light a candle on her mantel each evening for a month in memory of the freedman, who had briefly been part of her household.

  Duncan had spoken a Gaelic prayer, Pierre a French one, and they had in turns spoken of memories of their lost friend. “Ezra had such a dauntless curiosity about life,” Dumont recounted. “Mon Dieu, he walked with elephants! When I finally publish, I shall acknowledge Ezra as a hero.”

  “Miss Sarah came by and left her own token,” Lizzie, the scullery maid, reported as she joined the impromptu wake. Duncan went to the mantel, where he discovered a little carved bird, wings outstretched. It was a tribal token, for birds carried news of the dead to the other side, though he was not inclined to explain that to his companions. He was confused not by the bird itself but why she had left it. “Sarah didn’t know Ezra,” Duncan said to Deborah Franklin.

  “Of course she did, Duncan,” Deborah replied. “They met in this very parlor more than once, speaking of the tribes and the Ohio and such.”

  Duncan wanted to tell her that was impossible, but then he realized that neither he nor Sarah always accounted for their days while he was away from Edentown for weeks at a time. Certainly he had been surprised at her manufacturing enterprise for the Covenant. But why would she speak of the tribes and the Ohio with Ezra, as if she knew of the secret Mississippi trade plans?

  Dumont interrupted his musings by extending a wooden box for his examination.

  Duncan lifted the lid and discovered one of the ancient teeth, packed in straw. “You said you would send a bone to Buffon in Paris,” he said, looking back at the tables containing the bones meant for London.

  “I’m afraid I secretly excavated one of the large molars for that purpose when I was at the Lick,” Dumont replied with a sheepish grin. “I wouldn’t presume to diminish the collection for Franklin.”

  Duncan gestured to a large journal that lay open on a bench by the empty hearth. “You were honoring the bones,” he said, and lifted it. He discovered an intricate, highly accurate drawing of one of the giant vertebrae, which now sat nearby under a bright whale-oil lantern. Turning the pages, he found other meticulous drawings of a rib, a tusk, and a jaw with several teeth intact, some drawn of the same relic from different perspectives, with measurements noted for the dimensions of each object.

  “These are worthy of publication,” Duncan observed.

  Dumont shrugged. “I am only interested in creating a record. Eventually you and I will be dust, but these bones will remain. Haven’t you wondered, Duncan, why these bones were left, or why the Lick exists at all? I am convinced Providence preserved them for a reason, and not for lessons of fire and brimstone.” Dumont grew very sober as he lifted the big vertebra he had been drawing, then sat on the bench to study it more closely. “What fools we are to think that our knowledge of this world, gained from experiencing it for a short span of years, is sufficient to truly comprehend it. There are things we have not even dreamed of. On the canvas of existence, out of all God’s creation, our human world occupies a vivid but tiny corner. The rest is a gaping blackness that mocks us. When we solve one mystery, it just leads us to another. But in this momentous year we have both the transit of Venus and the incognitum. We are at a crossroads of enlightenment!” He raised the bone higher, closer to his face, to peer down its central cavity. “But do we even know what questions to ask? All we know is from a dark tunnel created by our own ignorance.” To emphasize his point, he swung the bone up to peer at Duncan through the long hole in the bone. “How can we presume to know the world when we don’t even understand these simple relics? The world of such creatures was a far different one than the one we know.” He looked up to Duncan with an oddly distraught expression. “What if it was a better world?”

  Duncan had no answer.

  “I shall pose those questions to the great Franklin when I meet him,” Dumont promised.

  “That is a dialogue you must surely record,” Duncan suggested, “so you can share it with me upon your return.”

  Dumont replaced the bone by the lantern, then stepped closer to Duncan. “I shall tell you a secret, Duncan, that only my sister knows. When I am in London I shall ask Dr. Franklin to endorse my expedition to the vast unmapped West! If anyone can cause it to happen surely it would be him. Perhaps I shall yet draw the living, breathing incognitum!”

  “I very much look forward to seeing your proof of its existence,” Duncan said.

  “No! No! You must come with me! I know you, Duncan, you are the bold man who makes others’ dreams come true, the chevalier of the wilderness. You made our Ohio River expedition a success despite our setbacks. We are the perfect team to penetrate terra incognita! We shall make our own place in the history books! Christopher Columbus! Magellan! McCallum and Dumont!”

  Duncan smiled. He was touched by his friend’s fervor. “For now, let’s focus on the dream of getting you and your bones safely across the Atlantic. On your return,” he added as he paced along the relics from the Lick, examining them from the perspective of his new idea for foiling their enemies, “on your return you must come to Edentown, Pierre. You know that bones of the incognitum have also been found up the Hudson Valley. You and I can go on a quest less fraught with danger.”

  “We shall make it so! We shall discover the rest of that giant of Claverack!” the Frenchman exclaimed. “And I shall interview all your Iroquois friends about their legends of the great beasts. They know chapters of humankind that are obscured to us.”

  Duncan paused to use his forearm to measure one of the bones. “You are aware, professor, that several ships depart for London each week?”

  “Of course, of course. Mr. Mulligan has arranged passage. The bones and I shall travel on a fine bark, the Galileo, a commodious three-masted vessel, I am told. And such a propitious name!”

  “You are more familiar with this port than myself. But I have often seen timber and lumber for shipbuilding being loaded for England.”

  “Often, yes. It comes down from the great forests along the upper Delaware.” Dumont eyed Duncan. “Why do I sense you are referring to your chess game? But you heard Thomson. The villains have long fled. Do not trouble yourself with unnecessary schemes, mon ami.”

  Duncan examined a flat bone the size of a dinner plate, wondering if the incognitum wore it like armor, before replying. “The Sons enlist me in many tasks. But ultimately what they use me for is my intuition, my instincts. And my instincts say the danger is far from over. I need to keep you safe, and keep the incognitum safe. Stay close to the bones, Pierre, and to the guard that Mulligan has provided.”

  Dumont shrugged. “I am a harmless scholar, a threat to no one. And the incognitum has survived all these years without a guard. The bones have a destiny. And y
ou have a destiny, Duncan, with Sarah. Go back to your Edentown and rest for our great adventure to the Pacific sea. You and I shall tame two of the great beasts and ride them into Philadelphia!”

  Duncan endured a fitful sleep, in which he kept having visions of Catchoka keeping lonely vigil in his shrine, then threw his blankets onto the parlor floor of the Preston House and sat up against the wall. Images of his time with Catchoka still entered his mind unbidden, and in a sleepy daze he wondered if this meant the gods were indeed with him. He slumped, more asleep than awake, thinking of questions he wished he had asked the prophet, until suddenly the peal of an alarm bell lifted his head. Fire was a constant danger in the city, and anyone within the sound of the neighborhood bell was obliged to assist the fire brigade. Rising groggily from the floor, smelling smoke, he stretched, then came desperately awake as he saw the smoke was coming not from outside but from down the passageway.

  His heart hammering, he raced up the stairs to the third floor sleeping chambers, pounding on each door, before slamming Sarah’s door open. She was already smoothing out the dress she had slipped on. “Where?” was all she said.

  “The workshop, I fear. Use the front stairs,” he shouted, then ran to make sure the other rooms were being vacated and out into the back courtyard to retrieve the tools left there the night before.

  By the time the members of the fire brigade arrived carrying leather buckets and axes, fingers of flame were reaching out of the second-floor windows. Preston House had become an inferno, its old timbers cracking and snapping, the fire so hot the crew could not approach it. A chain of helpers was formed from the nearest town pump to convey buckets of water to throw on the adjacent buildings. After half an hour of the hot work, Duncan broke away to join Sarah, who was comforting a very distraught Mrs. Pratt beside the prostrate form of Edwin Jenkins, who had been found unconscious by the courtyard gate.