The Shadows of God (41 page)

* * *

Golitsyn glared at her above a three-day growth of beard. One hand was bound up, evidence of his duel with Don Pedro after the collision of Franklin’s airship and the Ezekiel wheel. From all reports, it hadn’t lasted long.

“Metropolitan.” She nodded at the cleric, who seemed to have lost considerable weight-since she had last seen him.

She didn’t bother to say anything to Swedenborg, whose eyes were permanently fastened somewhere beyond the world. What he saw there, Adrienne did not know, nor would she ever know, now. Her explorations of the physical world were now confined to the limitations of the five normal senses.

“Get on with it, bitch,” Golitsyn growled. “I expect no mercy from you.”

“I did not bring you here to speak of mercy,” Adrienne said simply, “but to speak of Russia.”

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“What of it? My family and Dolgoruky’s still hold it.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Many of the troops you tricked into fighting their own tsar—the troops you then turned the dark engines upon — have survived. They do not look with much favor on you, nor will they give glowing reports when we return to Russia.”

“How will you return to Russia, without airships, without—”

“There are still ships, and there are still seas,” a new voice intruded. All heads turned to see Elizavet enter. She was dressed simply in a dark green manteau.

“We are building ships even now. Like my father, I will work on them with my own hands. We
will
return to Russia, Prince Golitsyn. I promise you that.”

“And what do you want from me?”

“A letter to your family, explaining your mistakes and endorsing the proper way of things.”

“Why shouldn’t I speak to them myself, if we are to return?”

Adrienne settled back in her chair. Elizavet held the floor now. She seemed to belong there.

“Prince Golitsyn, you betrayed my father, tried to murder his chosen regent, waged an unprovoked and unsanctioned war—which, I might add, you
lost—

and made attempts on my life and the lives of my friends. You do not think that you will return to Russia, I am sure.”

Golitsyn lifted his chin. “Then why should I write your letter?”

“For your own sake. If you do not write it, I will have you knouted to death.

Better yet, we can let some of your former Indian allies — who, I remind you, have been howling for your blood—try some of their inventive tortures on you.

If you
do
write it—in sorrowful detail, making quite clear you are remorseful —we will give it out that you wrote it on your deathbed, a hero mortally wounded in defense of his true tsar. You will live here, in secret, in a rather comfortable prison. But you will live.”

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“What of me?” the metropolitan cried. “I was tricked as surely as anyone. I never knew the tsar was still alive —the prince lied to me.”

“I have always assumed that to be the case,” Elizavet lied smoothly. “And so, of course, under certain conditions, you will return with me to help rebuild our country and our people. Our people, after all, need their faith.”

The metropolitan nodded rapidly. “Yes, of course. I only want what is best for the souls of Russia.”

“Well, Golitsyn?”

“I suppose you propose to take the throne from your cousin.”

“I do. It is mine by right, not hers. I also intend to strengthen the senate into a more representational body. Your family may or may not be included in that body—it depends much on your own actions today.”

Golitsyn sighed and nodded. “What you offer is generous — if it is true. I suppose I can have this in writing, with the personal word of the French king to assure it?”

“Of course. But I warn you, Prince —cross me, and you will wish my father were still alive. Even he would be more merciful.” She smiled. “Why, look, I suppose we speak of mercy after all.”

A few moments later, when the prisoners had been led away the tsarevna turned to Adrienne.

“That was well done —Empress,” said the Frenchwoman.

“I am not empress yet. Indeed, there is one other who might try to claim that title, hmm?”

“Me?” Adrienne asked. “No. I don’t have the right or the desire. You will make a fine empress. Once I could not have said that.”

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“I owe it to you, Mademoiselle. You have shown me what a woman might do. I will not forget it.” She looked suddenly shy. “Will you stay with me, help me?”

Adrienne shook her head. “I cannot. I feel, somehow, my place is here. But I trust you, Elizavet. You have your father’s strength; and the soldiers adore you.

If you need my aid, I will give it. But I will no longer dwell in Saint Petersburg.

It can’t be my home.”

“What will you do here?”

Adrienne smiled and shrugged. “I will find something.”

They embraced, and Adrienne found in that moment, despite it all, not only hope but excitement. She had lost much, and her mourning would not be set aside soon. But now, for the first time since her childhood, she saw how much there was to gain as well. Finally, through years of wandering, she had found it, her third path.
Her
path.

Two weeks after the battle, Franklin found Voltaire and Euler playing cards in a darkened apartment. They both looked up at his scratch.

“Mr. Franklin,” Voltaire said.

“Gentlemen,” said Franklin, “may I observe this hand?”

“Indeed, if you wish to see me in ignominious defeat,” Voltaire declared.

“Please, take that seat there.” He continued to study his cards. “Come to apologize, have you? Well, I accept your overture, sir.”

“That’s very gracious of you, considering.”

“I understand something of affairs of the heart, Monsieur, and understand as well the terrible threat that my wit and good looks pose to the ordinary sort of man. But I hope you also understand that I do not treat friendship—with man or woman—lightly. It is far more valuable than sweaty exercise, however delightful that is in its moment.”

“I have much to learn about friendship,” Franklin admitted. “God has given THE SHADOWS OF GOD

me better friends than he has given
my
friends. As in many things, I shall try to do better.”

“Yes, well, perhaps as a friend, you can console me. See, Mr. Euler has triumphed once again, and wins the gold watch the king gave me.”

“Another man I owe an apology,” Franklin remarked, turning to Euler.

“None needed,” Euler replied, folding his cards onto the table. “In fact, I deceived you, though I felt it necessary. You were right to doubt me.”

“I always suspected something strange about you. After all, if you were rid of all malakim influence, why should my compass have found you? Are you still

— ”

“We are still one. The great lady became flesh with me, and flesh she remained when the world became new.”

“No wonder you are so adept at cards,” Voltaire said. “You see beyond me.”

“No.” Euler’s voice was drenched with sorrow. “No, I am like you now, flesh and nothing but flesh. I see no more than you do.”

“And your brethren? What of them? What became of the malakim?”

Euler picked the cards up and tapped them into a deck again. “I do not know.

The change Mademoiselle Montchevreuil caused was not one any of us anticipated. But nothing created by God is ever truly destroyed.”

“Is there a God?” Ben asked earnestly. “Have you seen Him? Your foe, it is said, pretended to be God, but is there, in reality, a supreme being?”

Euler shook his head. “I speak metaphorically. My brethren and I played the game of being the gods and angels your people desired and feared. Our own beliefs were always quite… different, and very difficult to explain. But most of us did believe that there was one beyond the world we knew, just as we were beyond the world
you
knew.” He looked frankly at Ben. “We
were
the templates for your souls. About that we did not lie—we are too much alike, the THE SHADOWS OF GOD

links too strong and demonstrable. And there was a time before when the world changed, and that changed the nature of our existence, limited us. But whether that was due to our own experiments, or blind fate, or a true god, we will perhaps never know. We have been telling ourselves your stories for so long, we have forgotten, ourselves, what is true —if we ever knew.”

“The beauty of truth,” Voltaire offered, “is that it must be found, that we must exercise our highest, most noble mind to discover it. I suggest that it is only in reason —real reason —that we approach the true God.”

Ben smiled. “That is a philosophy that suits me for the moment. It is, at least, a philosophy which promotes useful things. And speaking of philosophy—and not to detain more serious card playing—but we soon have a convocation to attend.”

“And I think I am ready for it,” Voltaire said. “Most especially because I want
you
to read what I have written.”

“Nonsense. You are the author—”

“I was the pen. You are the true author of this thing.”

“You only wish me to get the blame if it’s taken awry.”

“Ah, you prick me with yet another dart. I feel another apology coming my way, in a few hours.”

“Voltaire, if this succeeds, I shall give you more than an apology—I shall bend my knee and kiss your ring.”

Voltaire raised an eyebrow. “I look forward to it, sir. I truly do. I shall make certain my ring is scrubbed clean and scented, to make it as pleasant as possible.”

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

The weather could have been better. It was hot, so hot that the cracked mud of the plaza had barefoot boys hopping from one foot to another, searching for a shadow to stand in. The sun blazed from a-nearly white sky, save at the horizon, where gloom gathered, a thunderstorm forming. Already its heralds had arrived, blustering winds like the breath of an iron foundry.

And yet, as Benjamin Franklin stepped out into the center of the crowd and surveyed it, he knew it was a good day.

Not one of the hundreds gathered in that sweltering plaza in Mew Paris had not been punished cruelly for the simple crime of being alive. Not one had not lost loved ones. Some had lost much more. In the front were rank upon rank of soldiers —French, English, German, Indian, Negro, Maroon, Swedish —missing arms, legs, ears, noses. Behind them were those injured only in the soul, who had watched their comrades fall and who nestled the most terrible fears a man can fear as near as their own hearts. Beyond them were the children, wives, mothers, and invalids who had waited and wondered whether their loved ones would return. Many—no, most—had been disappointed. And here they were, come to listen to him.

No, not to him, but to the words Voltaire had written, that the leaders of the new Commonwealth Nations had looked upon just that morning and unanimously put their names to.

As he took his place, the sound of the crowd faded until the rasping of the wind through trees in the distance, the squealing of gulls, and cawing of crows were his only competitors.

He cleared his throat and began.

“My friends, we are free. We were created free by God. By natural right, we deserve freedom. By civil government we preserve it. By neglect we lose it. By struggle we win it back.

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“A child is born to freedom but not in it. He comes to liberty as he comes to reason, for one without the other is mere anarchy. Before reason, the child is subject to his parents, who have grown into their estate, and that is as it should be. But a tyrant is not a father, a despot is not a mother, and their subjects are not children, but are reasoning, free, and equal persons, rightly subject to no arbitrary power. We hereby declare that we are not children, that the only just government is one which derives its power from the immediate consent of the governed, which exists solely to secure for its peoples the rights, privileges, and property to which nature and nature’s God entitles them.

“And so, though God has declared it, let us declare it again in a single voice, the voice of the Commonwealth Nations of America, a voice that will make every tyrant on Earth tremble. We
are free.
No man owns another, no nation owns any man, no nation owns another nation. Our law derives from trust, duty, and above all consent. We stand resolved in this, a fortress wall, mortared with the blood of those who fought and died, guarded by those who fought and lived, and by their children, and theirs. So say we all. We are free.”

He began to read the names signed below, but before the first syllable left his mouth the crowd roared, in that single voice of which Voltaire wrote —
“We
are free.”

They were still shouting it when the storm came, and Franklin could no longer tell his tears from the raindrops or his laughter from the thunder. They sang it to the dark skies, and when it cleared they were still there, every one of them, and the celebrations really began.

As night fell, and Maroon drank with ranger, and Indian with dragoon“, Franklin wondered how long it could last, this unity, this peace. But in a brilliant, exquisite moment, he knew it did not matter. What could be once, could be again and again, as long as there were people of the heart and will to speak and act.

This was the first invention of a new age. It most likely would be the best, and it would not be forgotten.

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About the Author

J. Gregory Keyes is the author of the Age of Unreason series, featuring
Newton’s Cannon, A Calculus of Angels, Empire of Unreason,
and
The
Shadows of God.
He is also the author
of The Blackgod
and
The Waterborn.

Under the name Greg Keyes, he is the author of the New Jedi Order novel
Edge of Victory
Book One:
Conquest.
Keyes holds a Ph.D. in the anthropology of belief systems and mythology. He was born in Mississippi and was raised there and on a Navajo reservation in Arizona. He lives in Savannah, Georgia, with his wife.