Newton's Cannon (21 page)

“Thank you, Madame Duchess. What, then, are we met here to discuss?”

“Why, we are here to discuss
you
, Mademoiselle,” Castries answered. “You have recently become a woman of some importance.”

“Do you mean the king's interest in me?”

“Among other things,” the elder woman said. “First let me confirm that the secret order of Athena has long worked to place a woman in the Academy of Sciences, and you have been placed there. We have also worked to move one near to the king, and
voila
, there you are as well.”

“This was your doing?”

“The first—the appointment to the academy—yes, of course. You have Madame Duchess here to thank for that. The second was more providential, but we must make use of it.”

“I …” Adrienne stumbled. “I do not think I am as close to the king as you may think.”

“Oh, no, Mademoiselle,” a new voice intruded. “On the contrary, you are much closer than you suspect.” Adrienne was startled; despite her striking appearance, the Mademoiselle de Crecy had been so silent that she had faded from notice. But now she had the full attention of everyone.

“What do you mean?”Adrienne asked.

“I mean that you will
marry
him,” Crecy said, quite matter-of-factly. “You, Adrienne de Mornay de Montchevreuil, shall be the next queen of France.”

The shouting of the crowd faded behind him as Ben flew up Treamount and then right onto Beacon Street. Several people hurrying in the other direction stared at him curiously.

“Hey, there, what's on fire?” shouted a man Ben vaguely recognized. Another man he knew—militia captain Samuel Horn—also ran by. Ben wondered if he should seek help. How could Bracewell harm him from jail—or better yet, from the gallows?

But he recalled that horrible eye. He could still see James' eyes, glazed in death, still feel Bracewell's vicelike grip. No, it was leave Boston now or die.

“Leave Boston,” he said aloud. Bracewell was going to kill him if he stayed here. Maybe Bracewell would follow him anywhere. And if not Bracewell …

He remembered the scrawled note:
I see you.
Bracewell hadn't sent
that
—it had come from France or wherever. And yet, it could not be a coincidence that so soon after the message, Bracewell had reappeared to do murder.

Now he turned right, running across the Common and up around the base of Cotton Hill. Leaving Boston was no easy matter; the town was located on a peninsula connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus aptly named “the Neck.” All Bracewell had to do was wait for him there.

He tried to fix his mind on some plan, separate some strategy out of the whirling images and emotion—something that would save him, bring James back, set everything right. And then it came quite clearly, or part of it anyway: Mr. Dare's boat, which he had used only a few days before, would get him away from
Boston, at least give him time to think. His feet had already turned him in the right direction—around behind the hill, back up along the flats toward Barton's Point.

Behind the hill, the Frenchman's dogs began to bay, howling as they had that morning when he had first been attacked by Bracewell. It was a chilling, angry cry, almost undoglike. In eerie counterpoint, the cry of a whippoorwill warbled from the black tangle of trees ahead, a farewell to the remains of daylight staining the iron gray clouds, a welcome to the moonless night descending. And worst of all came the distinct, if still distant, drumming of hooves.

Running as quickly as he dared, Ben drew James'coat tighter and gripped his device in one hand. His fearful calculations had Bracewell catching him well before he could reach Dare's little quay. Or should he cross the Roxbury Flats, where a horse surely could not follow? In the dark, in the salty marshlands, he might be able to hide.

More likely than not he would drown.

What if he could reach the bluff at West Hill? He changed the course of his flight slightly. Fleeing the city for the wilderness that bordered it suddenly seemed like a stupid idea. But it was too late now. He could only hope that he knew the little-traveled parts of the peninsula better than Bracewell.

Behind him, the dogs bayed louder as, puffing, he ran up the low part of the ridge between Beacon Hill and Cotton Hill. On the top of the ridge, a wind, gathering strength from the endless sea beyond, rushed up to Ben and embraced him.
Flee
, it seemed to urge,
flee.

A horse whickered. Ben plunged downslope toward the noisome flats, dim puddles of iron stretching to the edge of sight.

Behind him, the hoofbeats grew louder. Ben hit a trough and then was climbing up the lesser slope of West Hill. Glancing back, he saw horse and rider, black against the sky. Flitting orange will-o'-the-wisps described arcs around them.

“Benjamin Franklin!” Bracewell roared.

Ben did not think he could run faster, but he did, charging up the slope. And then he was on the bluff, looking down at the dark nothingness. He hesitated for just an instant too long, lungs
burning, feet slipping at the edge of the unseen cliff. He realized stupidly that he still held his device. Lightning struck near, a bright flash and a sound like boards slapping together in his ears. The hair on his nape stood up, and heat blazed close. He shrieked, tripped, fell to his knees, and then all the noises met as the horse pounded to a halt behind him. Slowly, Ben stood and turned.

Bracewell was watching him, no more than ten paces away. His
kraftpistole
, still glowing red, was pointed at him.

Bracewell chuckled. “Some boys are incorrigible,” he said. His eyes glinted beneath the brim of his hat, perhaps catching the glow of the misty phosphorescences flitting about him.

“You killed James,” Ben said, surprised to find his voice so strong.

“He would have died anyway, in time,” Bracewell said reasonably. “Still, he might have lived out his natural span if he hadn't had the misfortune of being the brother of a boy who doesn't do as he is told.”

“I hate you,” Ben snarled. “What right have you, to … to—”

“To what, Ben? It isn't a matter of rights, you stupid boy, but of
power
. I have the strength to do what must be done, that is all.”

“But why? Why?”

“I prefer not to answer that, Ben, for it would be a waste of breath. And then if I told you, I would feel compelled to tell John before I killed him.”

“John?” Ben gasped. He had forgotten all about John.

“Of course,” Bracewell said, gesturing grandly with the
kraftpistole
. Ben knew his last chance when he saw it. His lanternlike device was already pointed in Bracewell's direction; he raised it and slid the trigger out, a tingle racing up his arm even as he tossed the thing away from him. He closed his eyes and threw himself flat on the ground, but even so he still saw the flash of white flame arcing between the
kraftpistole
and his invention. The horse shrieked.

Ben rolled backward, and space opened up below him as he spun head over foot. He tore through a screen of briars, bounced off the lower slope of the bluff, and then hit something that
slammed all of the breath out of him. He tried to draw breath, knowing that he
must
have broken something.

But through the pain he also felt a vicious feeling of triumph. The projector had worked! In his dream Bracewell had carried what Ben guessed to be a
kraftpistole
; if the weapon had been anything else, all of his effort would have been wasted, and he would be lying dead on that bluff. He pulled himself carefully to his feet. Miraculously, a brief inspection seemed to prove nothing was shattered. The smell of burned flesh and hair suddenly reached him.

And then, incredibly, against the faint luminescence of the sky, a lean shape rose up unsteadily.

“Damn you,” it gasped distinctly. Bracewell should not be in pain; he should be dead from his weapon's uncontrolled discharge. But Bracewell stood above Ben, and the lean, long claw of his sword snicked from its scabbard.

The bluff was bordered even at high tide by a mucky slope of soil and stones. Ben ran like a mad animal, tripping and falling until his palms were torn, until his knees were battered and bleeding. Before, he had been afraid of death; now he was afraid of something worse, something he could not name. But it stumbled along the ridge behind him, eyes glowing, surrounded by familiar spirits.

The bluff sloped downward, but he seemed to be moving faster than Bracewell. Now the lights of the copper works on Barton's Point made wrinkled footprints of radiance on the Charles River. Halfway to the point was the small quay where he had last left Mr. Dare's boat, just below the man's cottage.

At last Ben reached the boat, beached as he had left it. He fumbled at the rope, cursing the knot and the blood from his hands that slickened it. He could see nothing behind him, but the very darkness felt sharp to him, and he flinched, imagining the long blade sliding into his body.

The rope came loose, and, sobbing, he pushed the boat. It would not move. He stumbled to the stern and began to heave, his feet sucking in and out of the muck.

The boat jolted forward; he redoubled his efforts, and it slid out farther. He kept pulling until he was almost waist deep and
felt the keel float free. Splashing around, he threw both arms up over the edge of the boat and tumbled in.

“Who is that down there?” he heard someone shout from up the shore. “Who is that mucking around with my boat?”

Ben glanced up frantically. There was Mr. Dare, a black shadow against the open doorway of his house. In the same instant, Ben saw the pale, flitting lights that accompanied Bracewell.

Words froze in Ben's mouth. There was no time to put up the sail and precious little wind. He grasped one of the oars and fitted it into the lock. The first footstep splashed into the water. Panic took him, and he cried out and began swiping at the water with the single oar.

“Leave my boat alone!” Mr. Dare shouted, as Ben worked frantically to seat the other oar in the lock. The boat suddenly jerked, a pale hand gripping the stern; there, in the darkness, he saw Bracewell's awful eyes. Hardly aware of what he was doing, Ben stood, lifted the free oar, and brought it down on the hand, then swung it again with all of his might and felt it strike Bracewell's head. The man fell away. Ben swung a third time and slapped water, overbalanced, and fell. Only the mast kept him from falling into the bottom of the craft. Breath gurgling in his throat, he locked the oar, sat down, and rowed with all of his strength. As he paddled, he stared frantically back toward shore. Mr. Dare was still shouting from his doorway when something at the water's edge rose to eclipse him.

“Mr. Dare! Flee!” Ben shouted hoarsly, rowing all the harder. He did not slow even when he reached the channel and the current began to carry him along of its own accord. The tide was going out, rushing seaward. Behind him, the lights of Boston— and the dreadful shadows they cast—dwindled.

“Queen?” Adrienne blurted. “That is absurd.”

Crecy merely smiled. “You may have heard of our sister, Crecy, and you may not have,” Madame de Castries said. “She is one of our secrets. I first met Mademoiselle when she was eight years of age, in 1706. At the time, I was Madame's lady-in-waiting.” She indicated the duchess.

“Which was when we became acquainted and I joined the Korai,” the duchess put in, casting an admiring glance at Castries.

“Indeed. In that year, the duke, Madame's husband, came home one day with the strangest tale of a little girl who could see into the future.”

The duchess interrupted. “My husband is always being fooled by charlatans,” she confided. “His interest in both science and the dark arts makes him gullible. He had made the acquaintance of a certain gentleman from Vienna who claimed to see the future in a glass of water.” She screwed up her face in distaste. “The duke was at the time having an affair with that whore, La Sery, and they were at her apartment. This magician said he needed an innocent girl to look into the glass.” She gestured at Crecy. “Mademoiselle had the poor fortune to be in the charge of the whore at that time.”

Castries took the story back up. “The duke had the sense to test the method of the Viennese gentleman. He challenged Demoiselle Crecy to look into the glass and see the nearby apartment of Madame Nancre, and he then sent a man next door to confirm what the little girl had seen—the room's occupants, the position of the furniture, everything. Crecy was correct in all particulars.” Castries rubbed her hands absently, as if they
pained her. “When this came to my attention, I myself investigated, and quickly discovered that the gentleman from Vienna was indeed a charlatan, but that our dear Crecy here was not. Over the years, her prescience has proven itself infallible. Nine years before the king cheated death by using the Persian elixir, Crecy saw the entire event.”

Adrienne had kept her eye on Crecy throughout the strange story, but the young woman betrayed little emotion at this description of her abilities.

“When she was old enough,” Castries continued, “she was introduced to our secret order.”

Adrienne faced Crecy squarely. “And you have foretold my marriage to the king?”

Crecy nodded. “Yes, Mademoiselle. I have seen the ceremony, seen you standing together before the archbishop. There is no doubt.”

“There must be doubt,” Adrienne returned furiously. “I might refuse.”

Castries stared at her and then grimly shook her head. “You must not refuse, Mademoiselle de Montchevreuil. You must marry the king.”

“Why?”

The duchess answered. “Maintenon, as you know, was never one of us,” she said. “Indeed, never even knew of us. But my mother, the king's mistress before Maintenon,
was
. When my mother was mistress, the Korai, through her, had his ear— though of course
he
never knew that. Now we do not.”

“Is it all so simple?” Adrienne asked. “Is that all that concerns you, having the king's ear? For two years I have heard nothing from the Korai, and now you have me kidnapped so that you can tell me I must destroy my life, abandon all that I love, to give you a hand on the throne?”