A Calculus of Angels (16 page)

shifted his interest to cabalistic texts—most especially the rambling, obtuse
Zohar.
In consequence, Ben was having to learn Hebrew, though his lack of enthusiasm made progress slow.

Stepping up to the door, he rapped smartly on it.

Minutes passed. He knocked again. He was just coming to the unpleasant conclusion that the tenant was either not home or soundly asleep—something Newton would not be pleased at all to hear—when the door squeaked ajar.

Methuselah himself peered out at them. His eyes were almost buried in crinkled hollows, below which sharp cheekbones threatened to cut through the translucent parchment of skin stretched over them. A beard clung like some albino, alpine moss to the fissures of his lower face, depending stringily to his little round belly. Wispy hair protruded likewise from beneath a small black cap, and a blue vein stood out like a ridge on his forehead. Ben was unable to tell if the man’s frown was one of puzzlement or irritation—or if in fact it was a frown at all, and not the natural creases of his face.

“It is early,” said Methuselah, his voice quavering. “I was finishing my prayers.”

“I beg your pardon, mister—” Ben stopped, realizing that he did not know the fellow’s name. Hiding his embarrassment, he started again. “My name is Benjamin Franklin, a pupil of Sir Isaac Newton’s. My master sent me—”

“I know who you are.”

Ben stopped in surprise. “My master sent word ahead?”

“No. There are tales of you, Herr Zauberlehrling. You are the boy who wears the Garment of Adam.”

Ben blinked. “I don’t understand you, sir.”

Methuselah sighed heavily. “What have you come for?”

Ben brightened. “Then you
have
had word.”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

The beard wagged back and forth. “No again. Young Christian boys do not venture into Judenstadt to pester old men unless they have been sent for something.”

“I see. Well, it is here…” He handed the paper to the old man, but the fellow made no move to take it.

“I haven’t my glasses on. Read it to me.”

“Um—
The Sepher Ha-Razim
. A book.”

Methuselah regarded him for a long moment, an enigmatic little smile on his face. The speechless gaze stretched so long that Ben wondered if he was going to answer. Uncomfortable with the silence, he asked, “I am embarrassed to say that I don’t know whom I am addressing, sir.”

“I never for an instant thought you did,” the man replied. “I am Rabbi Isaac ben Yeshua.” He pursed his lips. “I have no manners. Come in.”

“Now, sir, about the book.”

“Indeed. I have such a book, young sir, but I wonder what your master Newton would want with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I have read his work—or some of it, you see. I am an alchemist of sorts myself. This book is a silly thing, doubtless of no use to him.”

Ben shrugged. “I have long since ceased trying to guess what will interest my master. But I know that he has great regard and respect for the work of the Jewish sages. He believes that knowledge was most perfect among the ancient prophets.”

The rabbi looked a bit surprised. “This is so?”

“I assure you.”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

Rabbi ben Yeshua nodded thoughtfully. “I still wonder if it would be wise for him to have this book. It is not a book for just anyone, I fear, but only for those who have long meditated upon the Talmud and perhaps the Zohar.”

“I know him to have read both of those.”

“I did not say read,” the rabbi emphasized. “I said
meditate
!”

Ben sighed. “Sir, had I my way, I would take your opinion. However, my master wants the book.”

“He may go wanting. I am not certain I can easily lay hands upon it.”

“Sir, I plead with you to discover it. My master’s request carries the weight of the emperor.”

“Request. I see. Request.” He frowned at the floor and then shrugged. “Very well. Wait for me here.”

He was gone a long while, which gave Ben ample time to congratulate himself on his acumen.

After a few more moments still, he began to worry— perhaps the rabbi had slipped out by some secret way—but then the old man returned, grunting with the weight of a massive tome beneath one arm. He handed it over to Ben only reluctantly.

“That is the book, yes?” Rabbi ben Yeshua asked.

Ben turned to the title page. It was, of course, in Hebrew. There on the far right was the first letter,
samekh,
which was like “s,” and that next one was "e,"

and then
resh.
No vowels, of course, but the word was probably
Sepher.
He could look at the paper again, but if he did that—or spent any longer trying to puzzle it from memory—he would only be admitting his ignorance to the old man.

No point in seeming ignorant. Ben smiled, passing the cumbersome volume to Robert, and held out his hand to the rabbi. “I thank you, sir, and my master A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

thanks you.”

“You will return it?”

“Of course, sir.” He turned to go, and then turned back curiously. “What did you mean, that I had been seen in the ‘Garment of Adam’?”

The rabbi lifted a bony finger. “When Adam was cast out from the garden, God gave him special garments that rendered him invisible and untouchable.”

“Oh. You mean the aegis.”

“Call it what you will. It is a stolen thing, not meant for you.”

“Stolen? I made it with my own hands.”

“You made it with knowledge, and knowledge can most assuredly be stolen.”

His gaze seemed to rest on the book in Robert’s arms as he said this.

“Surely knowledge is meant to be discovered,” Ben countered. “Surely God is pleased that we come to understand his world, the better to appreciate it.”

The rabbi grinned. “Do you know who last mishandled the Garment of Adam?”

“No, sir.”

“From Adam they passed through the generations, finally coming to Nimrod.

Nimrod used the garment to make himself worshipped as a god, to raise up a tower against heaven. He was punished for it. Good day.”

“A nice bite y‘ gave ’im,” Robert commented, as they settled down at a table in the Three Little Bears.

Ben thumped the book. “Whatever else Sir Isaac may say of me, he shall never say I failed in an errand.”

“It is a mystical book?” Frisk asked curiously.

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

"I suppose. I don’t know what
Sepher Ha-Razim
means exactly.
Sepher
means

"book,” I think.“ He opened the volume and flipped through it, hoping to find an illustration or two to give him some clue to the tome’s nature. He saw a number of what seemed to be lists and possibly incantations, but no illustrations.

“Your pardon, Herr Franklin—”

“Please,” Ben said, “I own no title, nor desire one. It’s just plain ‘Ben.” “

“Ben here has a theory that the age of kings and lords is nearly over,” Robert explained.

Frisk’s eyes widened. “And how is that? If people are not to be governed by their kings, then by whom?”

“Why, by themselves, I should say.”

“You think that common folk are suited to govern themselves? I’m a soldier, and I say a soldier is worthless without a general.”

“A good example. How many of these court popinjays do you think knows as much of war as you?”

“Prince Eugene is a great soldier.”

“Name another.”

“Well, you have the advantage of me, Mr. Franklin. I am not yet well acquainted with this court.”

“Yes but—” Ben sighed. “There were able men in the days of the Bible, you agree? And yet you don’t find them going by ‘the right honorable Moses, esquire, marquis of the desert,” do you? Or ’Adam, the duke of Eden.“ They just went by name, for their
deeds
were their fame. If men. were titled only by their merit, Prince Eugene would still be a great man. It’s not his sort I begrudge, but those human slugs who have no talent or use, yet I must
bow
to them.”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

Frisk was frowning deeply. “But there are kings in the Bible, called as such.

King David. King Solomon—”

“Whose position and fame rested equally on the backs of birth and accomplishment. Ah, our beer.”

He lifted the mug up. “To such as us, gentlemen, who are the future of the world.”

Frisk hesitated an instant, shrugged, and raised the glass in toast. He did not, however, drink. “In any event,” he said, “our debate has interrupted my question. If you cannot read the Mosaic script, how certain are you that you got the right book?”

“Well, I can read a bit. And I have this…” He fumbled out the slip of paper with the name of the book scrawled in Newton’s sloppy Hebrew.

“You see,” Ben began, and then stopped abruptly. He had read the first word correctly enough—
Sepher.
But with a deep sinking in his chest he knew that last word was not
Razim.

He had been given the wrong book.

2.

The Monochord

For Adrienne, the next two days were uneventful, though there was a considerable bustle all around her as servants and soldiers prepared for the A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

long march east. They got news that the Muscovite camps were still more than twenty miles away and stationary. Less dependable sources spoke of pitched battles near Paris, and d’Argenson speculated that the Russians were delaying their siege of Nancy to reinforce the more important thrust toward the French capital.

“Why not aid the French defense?” Adrienne asked d’Argenson, as they picked their way amongst the vine-fettered statues of a neglected garden.

D’Argenson grinned a bit ruefully and brushed back his thin brown hair. “Paris will fall, if not to armies, from within. You can only fight so many wars and build so many grand chateaux on the bellies of the poor before they go mad, like starved dogs. The king, begging your pardon, never really understood that.”

He rubbed his chin. “We cannot even hold Lorraine, with only twice a thousand men. With that number and some good fortune, we
might
reach Prague. Myself, I would rather march down to Tuscany, for I hear that even a man with a small army can make much of himself there. But the duke—well, he dreams of the Holy Roman Empire. He fancies himself an emperor one day, I think.”

“He has some claim?”

“No. But Emperor Karl has two young daughters, and he has had them named his heirs, since he has no sons.”

“I see. And his men will follow him, this young duke?”

D’Argenson pulled at the facings of his burgundy coat and nodded thoughtfully. “Those with weak loyalties are long gone. Those remaining believe that the old days will return, and throw their lot with one who might be emperor.”

“I take it you disagree with such sentiments.”

D’Argenson leaned against the marble column of a small pavilion and folded his arms. “Know you something of history? How in the dark days after the fall A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

of Rome, barbarians ruled? How from them came a few strong men, like Carolus Magnus, who founded empires and brought order?”

“Yes, of course.”

D’Argenson smiled. “The kings of today make fine lineages for themselves, don’t they? Pretending that their ancestors were once Roman senators or Trojans or what have you. And yet the discerning student of history can see that even the great Charlemagne was really just the strongest and ablest of the barbarians, of as mean a birth as anyone. That is, I believe, our sort of epoch.

Rome is falling. History is killing old, diluted lines to make way for younger, cleaner blood.”

Adrienne eyed him doubtfully. “Do you fancy your blood clean, Hercule d’Argenson?”

“Me? Bah! What need have I of an empire, of enemies on every front, of sons squabbling over my gains and shredding them in the process? As I said, Mademoiselle, I have read altogether too much history.”

“What then?”

“Oh—enough to eat, and good food rather than slop. Entertainments that divert and surprise me. Able companions to make my days and nights memorable.” His eyes sparkled devilishly at her, and she found that there was a certain charm to his broken nose, if not beauty.

“Even those things require a modicum of affluence,” Adrienne remarked.

“Indeed. I never said I wanted
nothing,
Mademoiselle, nor to live contemptibly like a monk. No, I am content to watch for those who might be king, to wait my chance, to serve them, and then ask my reward. Nothing extravagant—a small duchy, an estate in the country.”

“So you think the duke might be emperor after all.”

“He will at least take me nearer those who might be. And I have little better to do.” He shrugged. “Francis has the makings of a good king, I think, and it will A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

be some few years before all credit of noble blood is bankrupted.” He smirked again. “As to my pleasures and companions, I take them where and when I may. I will not forfeit the living of my life until it is secure.”

“I am sure you will not, Monsieur,” Adrienne answered, reflecting that once such a bold remark would have brought a blush. No longer; the virgin hue was long gone from her cheeks. “I was wondering…”

“Yes?” He arched his brows.

“Wondering if there is any good I might do in these preparations.”

“But of course! You could ease the suffering of one who labors mightily in that cause.”

She smiled primly. “I had rather thought to be of some use in packing necessities.”

D’Argenson heaved an extravagant sigh. “It seems I will have no surcease from my sorrows.”

“I am sure consolation awaits you within these walls,” Adrienne said dryly, “for there are maids and cooks aplenty. If I can be of some other use…”

“As a matter of fact, you can be,” d’Argenson said, more seriously. “The duke has a library of some size. He wishes certain volumes selected to travel with us.

I am aware that you were schooled at Saint Cyr—”

“I would be glad to do that,” Adrienne assured him. “Could you show me the way?”

“Now?”

“If you please.”

“Other things would please me better”—he leered playfully— “but it shall be, as in all things, as you wish.”