A Calculus of Angels (27 page)

“Well, let me ponder that,” Robert answered, with an exaggerated air of the philosophical. “The emperor tried to assassinate you; soldiers search Prague f’r us and likely will till doomsday—doomsday bein‘ pretty near—and the” only hole you deem hidey-worthy is the cellar of a Jew who commands demons—who,
oh, yes—
you just
robbed?

Ben chewed his lip, unable to explain what had led him back to ben Yeshua’s door. Intuition had told him that the rabbi would not turn even his worst enemy over to the soldiers, and intuition had been right. Besides, who would look for them here?

“Now, I’ll grant you I’m no scientific,” Robert went on, “but it seems to me that Prague is not where we belong just now. There are other places we might seek our fortune.”

“And just where might we go, in your opinion?”

“The Muscovados seem keen enough for your company.”

“Well, I’m not for theirs. I’ll hear none of that, Robin. You throw in with them, if you wish, but I shan’t.”

“I’ve nothing they want, save you,” Robert pointed out.

“Aye, and you don’t
have
me,” Ben snapped. “That’s the mistake everyone makes, thinking Ben Franklin is someone’s
thing
to be bought, traded, or killed at whim. Don’t you make that mistake, Robert—or you either, Frisk. If you think to sell me to anyone, best count on selling a carcass, because I am mightily sick of the uses I’ve been put to.”

“Listen, Ben,” Robert said, low. “I’m y’r friend. If I wasn’t, I’d have cheerfully left you at the Moldau—or better yet, clobbered you across the back of the skull and left you fer the emperor’s bullyboys, for I know they’d not pursue me without you. But from the first day in this kingdom, you’ve let your pride rule A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

you, and with that tyrant in y’r head, y’r a blind man. Now, think what y‘ will of kings and nobles—Lord knows I think little enough of ’em—but f’r them there is no treachery, no sin, but only politics an‘ necessity. If y’ don’t see that, clear and cold, nothing will keep y’r body and soul together. A leviathan has wakened, and you best keep far from its maw.”

Ben glanced up. “Done with your soliloquy, Robin?”

“Done enough. At least until we reach the point of eating one another down here, in which case I might ask y‘ for the salt.”

Ben forced a little chuckle. “Experience is a hard school,” he admitted, “but a fool will learn in no other. The thing is, Robert…” He suddenly felt very near to tears, and took an instant to force them back. “The thing is, there are things I’m accountable for. There are wrongs of my own doing I have to right. I’ve spent two years playing at the dandy, trying to forget that; but it always comes back to me. I may not be able to save this city, but who else will even try?”

“Now, listen closely,” Robert said, as if explaining to a child. “This here’s what I mean by
pride.
Just because you want to do something doesn’t mean you can. See?”

“I understand you.”

“No, you don’t. Y‘ don’t, don’t, do
not’t.
Y’ could never have saved London, and if ever there was a thing you could do for Prague, you’ve missed the chance.”

“Robert, you don’t understand. I—”

“Listen.”

The single word came like the crack of a musket from the almost forgotten Frisk. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded, lips tight, lamplight playing in the craters of his pockmarked face, reminding Ben inappropriately of the moon, and Lenka, and the hope of the night before.

“Listen, you two nurslings. One or the both of you is going to explain to me what goes on here, or I will break your necks. When—if—the Jew returns, I will A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

bow to him and leave him your corpses.”

Ben sighed. “Captain Frisk, I’m sorry you’ve been drawn into these matters.”

“No. Don’t apologize and don’t dissemble. It’s my own concern that my lot is cast with yours, but by
God
I will know what game I am playing.”

Ben had never heard Frisk’s voice like that. He had never heard
anyone’s
voice like that. Frisk’s tone carried a conviction that Ben
would
explain himself because he
should,
because Frisk expected and deserved it.

Ben lowered his head. “It began when I was a boy in Boston…” he whispered.

It took an hour or two, for he and Robert together told Frisk all, the Swede nodding now and then, eyes unwavering and undoubting. When the story was done, Frisk stretched his arms back behind his head, worked his shoulders and neck thoughtfully against them, and smiled.

“Well,” he said, “I got more than I expected. How long before this comet rubs away the city?”

“I don’t know. Newton seemed in no hurry.”

“Well, naturally not. Sir Isaac has the means to leave at his leisure, doesn’t he?”

Ben hesitated, and then lifted his hands. “Probably, though I should think that he is watched closely.”

“Not closely enough.”

Robert frowned. “You know something, Cap’n Frisk?”

“Aye, as would the both of you, if you were more careful about what questions you asked, and of whom.”

“And why would you, a simple soldier of fortune, ask such questions?”

Frisk rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Mr. Franklin, in light of your earlier A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

outburst, I think you will not like what I’m about to tell you. I came to Prague in search of Sir Isaac and you.”

“I won’t say I’m surprised. I was always suspicious.”

“You should have been. Though I didn’t come to kidnap you, but to win you over—and failing that, to kill you.”

Ben noticed Robert tense; his hand had been inches from his sword for some time, and now it slid a bit closer.

“Never fear,” Frisk said, pointing languidly at Robert’s hilt. “I’ve changed my plan.”

“That were wise,” Robert replied softly.

Frisk smiled. “You’re a brave man, Robert, and loyal, and those are both rare and valuable things. Certainly more than this boy here seems to appreciate.”

“He’s young,” Robert said.

“I was younger than he when first I took up arms, and far more foolish,” Frisk admitted. “I have come to value young Mr. Franklin, despite his flaws. It seems to me that he is a better prize than his master.”

“I thank you for your endorsement,” Ben said. “But if you want me to fear you, best devise another stratagem. As I’ve said, I’ve been bullied enough, and if you think I know horror from your threats, you’re as big a fool as I.”

“I never did threaten you,” Frisk said mildly. “You’ve explained to me why we sit in this dungeon. I’m explaining why I’m here with you, if you care to hear it.”

“I would dearly love to hear,” Ben acknowledged.

“I am of the Swedish army,” Frisk said. “That far, I told you the truth. But I did not desert my country; I came here for the crown of Sweden, and for no one else.”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

“King Charles sent you?” Robert queried.

“He did. To persuade you to join us. You see how Russia rumbles down from the north. In all Europe, no army can challenge the tsar’s. Already he camps in Holland, in the Rhineland, on the Black Sea. Who will stop him?”

“Not Sweden, I’d think,” said Robert. “Fer twenty-two years King Charles has been in the field against the tsar, each year been driven farther from Russia and Sweden both.”

“There were mistakes and bad fortune,” Frisk confessed. “And yet at times we were so near. So
near ..
.” His cobalt eyes suddenly seemed mirrors for ghosts.

“It was the winter that stopped us, not the tsar. Our men died in their blankets, stiff as icicles. Others lived, but their noses and feet rotted off. I still hear their wailing.” His mouth tightened. “And still they fought, because their king asked them to! Because
he
never wavered from the front line, never left to rest in warm springs and dine on goose. Because soldiers will follow a soldier in a just war!”

“I doubt that none,” Robert replied. “But it matters not how y‘ were beaten, only that y’ were.”

Frisk shook his head. “No. We have recovered, and the men of Sweden are ready to fight again—especially now, when all hangs in the balance. And the Turks will join us, if they can be shown we will win.”

“But you admit that the tsar is beyond you.”

“Moscow may be beyond us, but the king no longer dreams of that. His desire now is to draw a border, to say to the tsar, ”This shall never be Russian.“ ”

“And this has what to do with us?” Ben inquired.

Frisk nodded. “The king has heard of you. Everyone knows of magical Prague, holding out with scarcely an army, beating back all attacks—not by force of arms but by wizardry. That is what we lack. Men we have in plenty, and swords and guns and cannon. But the Russian drakes and mortars spit lightning and A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

flame, intelligent things that always find their targets. Demons march with them. These are too much for simple bravery and military stratagems. We must have science of our own, gentlemen. I have come to convince you of that.”

“Or to kill us, you say,” Ben remarked.

“The tsar mustn’t have you,” Frisk said. “He mustn’t.”

Ben was quiet for a moment, and then looked frankly at Frisk. “What I see are wars between kings that I give not the slightest damn about. Do you know what concerns me, Captain Frisk? That the butter-headed tyrants of this world think nothing of tossing planets at one another in hopes—in hopes of what? Of calling themselves the lords of a blasted hell? That is what the world is becoming, sir, under their tender ministrations. I want nothing to do with any of it.”

“Oh? You were all willing to let the emperor feed you pheasant and clothe you in silk—to make him toys and weapons and whatnot, weren’t you?”

“For a purpose!” Ben snapped. “To give me opportunity to devise proofs against the worst of this, to counter sword with shield, not with other swords!”

“Very good. But your opportunity for that is lost here, as our good Mr. Robert Nairne here has made clear. Sweden will offer you that opportunity again, I promise you. We have swords aplenty; it is shields we desperately need.”

Ben frowned, hoping for some brilliant response, but his head felt like a cauldron bubbling. There was too much in the pot already, without
this.

“A moment, Captain Frisk—” he began, but the secret door banged open, and a shaft of light fell down the stairwell.

Frisk sprang upright and armed in a heartbeat, Robert right with him. Ben scrambled to his own feet, clumsy beside the two.

“Come up, thief and friends of thief,” a quavery voice called down. “Come up.”

Isaac ben Yeshua daubed at his head with a kerchief, both of which were A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

stained bright red. “What happened?” Ben asked him.

“Well, thief,” the rabbi said, “the emperor, it seems, wants you very much. Yes, very much indeed.”

“The soldiers did that to you?”

“Yes, thief, for they know that you were here before, don’t they?” He indicated a bench next to the wall. “Sit, thief and friends of a thief.”

Ben wished that the old man would stop referring to him as “thief,” but it was, after all, true; and it would just be another stupid exercise of his pride to try and claim otherwise. He sat down.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry that they hurt you.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you are. And you are sorry by now that you stole my book.”

His eyes sparkled with anger, but also a sort of terrible satisfaction.

“Sir,” he began.

“Two more have died, if that is what you mean to ask.”

“Two more… ?”

“In the castle. The Golem has slain two more servants. The deaths are blamed on you, in case that interests you.”

“They are innocents, sir. They should not be punished for my misdeed. You must call this—Golem?—back.”

“Oh, mast I, thief?”

“Please. If you wish vengeance on me, I will await it here. I beg you, recall your creature from the castle.”

“First of all,
thief,
it is not ‘my creature.” It was made long ago, to protect my people. When it became more dangerous than useful, its body of clay was A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

dissolved, but its spirit remained, in case it should be needed again. What
I
did, you see,
thief,
was to keep that spirit here, quiet, harmless. That was all the power I had over it. I am not Solomon or Rabbi Low, to command or unmake such things. I leave it to you; Herr thief-lehrling, to set right the trouble you have caused.“

“You could have warned me,” Ben said. “I had no choice. My master told me to obtain the book.”

“Don’t speak such nonsense—you ‘had no choice.” How can you talk with so much shit in your mouth? Don’t you hate the taste?“

Blood rushed into his face. “What must I do?” he asked.

“Bring the book back here, of course.”

Ben nodded. “I will.”

Robert grunted as if struck. “Are you mad? You’ll never get into the castle.”

“Yes, Robin, I will. For more than one reason. I must know what Sir Isaac knows. And if I cannot save Prague, we must at least set about warning her people. And I must retrieve the book. If this Golem were killing the likes of the emperor or the courtiers, that were one thing. But poor Stefan…” He had a horrible thought. “I wonder—oh, God, I wonder who else is dead?”

“Two girls: Mila and Anna.”

“Anna.” Ben grunted, remembering the beautiful curve of her face, the enviable lines beneath her dress.
But not Lenka, thank God. Not yet.
But she was Newton’s maid. How long could she survive?

He frowned at a sudden thought. “Rabbi, how is it you know who died in the castle tonight, and the like?”

The old man smiled, fissuring his face with lines. “I have many friends among the servants of the castle,” he said. “It is good for us in Judenstadt if we know what winds blow in Hradcany.”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

“Then you might get a letter into the castle?”

“I know how such a thing could be done.”

“Good. Very good. Then may I borrow pen and ink?”

“Why not steal it, thief?”

“Please, Rabbi.”

“Yes, yes. Come this way. Steal a writing desk, too.”

Ben nodded briskly and turned to where Frisk watched with a careful expression. “Captain Frisk,” he said, “you have a deal, but you must wait. The rabbi calls me a thief, and thief I am. You must allow me to steal a thing or two more before we leave. If you do, it will greatly increase my worth to His Majesty of Sweden.”