A Calculus of Angels (31 page)

He could find not a single quaestione that had anything to do with comets.

“God damn him to hell,” Ben snarled—a request, not an idle curse.

“Oh!”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

He looked up, startled at the exclamation, having entirely forgotten Lenka. She was near the window, was uncovering something draped in a cloth. At first he thought it their old lifeboat—the one that they had flown to Prague in, but realized that it was somewhat larger, painted black with gilt trim. It also had what appeared to be sails collapsed into it.

“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, no.”

Ben joined her, looking at the thing. “This is not Newton’s,” he muttered. “This is an old thing.”

“More than a century old, though the sails are newer,” Lenka breathed. She seemed very upset, searching about it. Ben noted, behind the thing, a much larger sail of silk.

“Why—‘tis a balloon,” Ben muttered.

“No,” Lenka choked. Ben suddenly understood that she was holding back tears. “No, it is a moon ship.”

“A moon ship? What are you talking about?”

“It is,” she said again, “a moon ship. Built by Johannes Kepler.”

“Lenka, what are you going on about?”

“I can’t…” She paused in an attempt to control herself.

“What do you know of Kepler?”

She put her face in her hands, but he could still hear her strangled murmur.

“He was my father’s great-grandfather.”

“That’s no reason to be so upset.”

“No. no. My father—”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

“Wait,” Ben hissed. “Hush.”

For he heard footsteps on the stairs.

“Damn, damn,” he snarled. “It must be midnight. Who would come at midnight?” But he knew: Newton, who never slept nor ate when he wrestled with some “quaestione.”

“Lie behind the boat,” he grunted. When she had done so, he joined her, pulling the cover back over them. Lenka was still weeping, making no sound; but in the tight space he could feel her tremble against him, her head tucked beneath his chin, breath coming in irregular gasps.

The door swung open again, and too late Ben realized that he had not relocked it. Feet shuffled across the floor, and there was silence for a long space.

Lenka’s exertions lessened, and she lay more quietly against him, a supple warmth that might have been pleasant if he wasn’t imagining both their faces purpling above the golden hemp rings of a noose. And yet…

Sir Isaac—if it
was
Sir Isaac—might be so absorbed that he noticed nothing. It would be like him.

Ben had no way of knowing, but it seemed an hour passed, and then another, with only the occasional faint click or scratch to assure them that someone remained in the room. They both had to shift now and then, as their limbs numbed from lack of blood, but on their cushion of silk, Ben was sure they made no sound.

He could feel Lenka’s heartbeat, a little pattering against his chest. In one place he could feel her thigh, in others her head, her arm. In time, those points seemed to grow warmer, stronger, as if bonds were linking them. It was most disturbing, and worse, though he tried to suppress it, his manhood reacted. He knew she must notice, for that was where her thigh was pressed. It was amazing, he thought, how idiotic the body was, following such whims when mortal danger threatened.

About that time there came a low cough, a clearing of the throat, and then the familiar voice of Sir Isaac Newton breaking the silence.

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

“Benjamin? Benjamin, is it you in here?”

14.

Algiers

They watched the
Queen Anne’s Revenge
sink by the pearl light of morning.

More than one of the sailors, sotted on rum, cried when she went down. Red Shoes felt not sorrow, but a sort of joy, the joy of seeing someone die well and bravely, leaving the world with a war shriek on the lips.

The
Revenge
had served them well, given better than she got. The two caravels they now occupied testified to that, as did the pile of bound captives, the mound of loot, and the dead corsairs they had been heaving overboard all night. Of course, one of the captured ships was sinking, too, but Blackbeard claimed that with the pumps going full they might reach a port with her. If not, they could all crowd onto the more sound of the two.

“If we can find a port not full of these Barbary pirates,” Blackbeard grumbled,

“an‘ that will be a trick.”

“What matter, Cap’n?” Tug grinned. “With you a lead’n‘ us, no doubt we could take a whole townful of these lads.”

“Actually,” Nairne said, “as to the matter of a port, I’ve a fellow you might want to speak to.”

“And who would that be?”

“One Domenico Riva, a merchant of Venice. He claims that this was
his
ship A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

six days ago, as it is ours now. And he says he can get us to a safe port.”

“Does he? When he could not keep
himself
safe? Well, let us have a talk with this Venetian.”

Domenico Riva clasped thick fingers together beneath his gray-stubbled chin.

“I swear that what I say is so,” he said in good English, his coppery brown eyes wide with sincerity. “Sirs, you must believe me, for it will be to the betterment of us all.”

“You understand our reluctance,” Nairne reasoned.

“Aye,” Blackbeard added. “We’re naturally wary of the word of a Turk.”

“Sir!” Riva exploded, his almost square, fiftyish face blazing the weird scarlet that white men acquired when angry or embarrassed. “Sir, I am not Turk but a Venetian of old family. I will not be referred to as—”

“Is Veneto not a Turkish province?” Blackbeard interrupted.

Riva’s mouth hung open for an instant, closed stubbornly. “That is true, sir,”

he admitted.

“And you sailed under Turkish banner?”

The merchant nodded reluctantly, bright color fading.

“Then despite y’r Latinish name, I will call you Turk as it pleases me.”

Riva stared at Blackbeard for a moment or two, and then a little grin crept across his face. “As you wish, sir. I am a merchant, not a politician. If it please you to call me a Turk, I’ve been called worse things and still bargained with a smile. My point to you is this: You need a port and supplies and most of all, repairs. I tell you clearly that you will not find them on this side of the Gibraltar Straits unless you sail back to America.”

“Not in Lisbon? Nor anywhere in Spain?”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

“No. Those coasts have been sacked so often by corsairs, the natives will bombard you without asking. If you survive that, they will burn their towns and poison the wells. If, I say, you don’t choose a port already corsair.”

“And yet you would have us sail into Algiers, the heart of all piracy on the Barbary coast.”

Riva rubbed his hands now, all anger and fear evaporated as if it had never been there. Red Shoes began to wonder, indeed, if it
had
been there or if it had merely been a tactic. Whatever the case, Nairne and Blackbeard both were now riveted by this fellow.

“Allow me a moment, gentlemen, to tell something of recent history, if I may.

In fact—may I?”

“May you what?”

“Recover something that the corsairs failed to discover?”

The four of them spoke in a rather spacious cabin, lit by the light riddling through ornate latticework windows. Riva claimed it had once been his. He now gestured at a small shelf of books on the bulkhead. Blackbeard shrugged.

Riva went to the bookshelf, ran his finger down the edge of it, and clicked something. The shelf opened to reveal a small chamber, containing something bundled in cloth.

“Ah, indeed,” he said, unwrapping a crystal decanter, “they would have found it, given time. The bookcase hidey-hole is not the most original one can choose. But it is our fortune that my captors were uningenious.”

“What is it?”

“A certain brandy from Venice. Wonderful stuff. Here, let me drink of it first so as to reassure you.” From the same cabinet he produced small glass cups and poured a little of the amber fluid in each. He drained his own and smacked his lips. Red Shoes sniffed his; it smelled like rotten fruit. Blackbeard and Nairne seemed more than passing pleased, however.

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

“On then, with your story, Mr. Riva.”

“Indeed. Well, you know of the Rain of Stars—”

“No, we do not,” Nairne told him.

“No? Well, there came a night when flaming stones fell from the sky everywhere. I was on Crete, and the sea was a thousand plumes of steam in the moonlight, and the sky was wondrous full of flame. At the time I thought it some charming show of fireworks sent by God. Why, for an entire week thereafter, I attended Mass every day! But then the news began coming in—or in some cases, not coming in. Of how in France, before the rain—there fell a single fire from the heavens, a sort of comet, and that it struck the horizon and made a light like the rising sun but brighter.” He shrugged. “I know something of astronomy, as I must navigate my ships, but I had never seen nor read of a like thing. But whatever it was, it left behind ruin in the west, as if the hand of God had smitten England, France, Spain, the Netherlands. From England we have not heard at all; of France we now have reports, but they are all of confusion, barbarism, atrocities beyond belief. France and Spain, I think, are at war, though it is a chaotic kind of war. The navies have turned privateer, and many have simply become corsair. Almost two years ago, the sultan of Morocco invaded Gibraltar, and he gives the corsairs—of any nation—protection in his port if they serve him in invading Spain and defending him from the Sublime Porte in Constantinople. These pirates, you see, are not the old
Corsair Reis
of Algeria and of which you are familiar. They are a new breed compounded of Spanish, French, and Berber.”

“And yet you want us to sail through Gibraltar.”

“Ah, but I’m not finished. The erstwhile corsairs
in Algeria
have turned more honest. With Spain, France, Portugal, the English, and the Dutch no longer carrying out legitimate trade, the Ottoman Empire has taken up their part.

Thus Algeria and Tunisia—still part of that empire—see their profits in keeping the straits open, you see? When you control trade, there is better profit in trade than in piracy. And so a Turkish fleet, some months past, wrested the Rock from Morocco, and any ship under Turkish protection may pass safe into the Mediterranean.”

“Such as your own.”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

“Ah, well, there, sir, was my mistake. I sailed
beyond
the straits, in hope of finding trade along the coasts of Europe. It was a gamble—one I’m sad to say did not pay me—but there you are and here
we
are. But if you allow me to negotiate for you, I can find you a haven in Algiers, and I dare say come to some arrangement of commerce with the Americas, now that we know the strait is clear and there is someone across the Atlantic to receive our goods.”

Blackbeard chewed his lip in silence for a moment, regarding the Venetian. In the pause there came a light rap on the door. Teach signed for Nairne to open it. It was Coleman, the boatswain.

“Sir,” the young man said, “some news.”

“Aye?”

“We’ve sighted sail.”

“More of the same?”

“No, sir. It’s the
Dauphin
and the
Scepter
.”

Blackbeard grinned fiercely. “Good. Now we have some strength, and our own escort. But I’ll consider your words, Mr. Riva.”

“That’s all I can ask, Mr. Teach.”

“Mr. Riva,” Blackbeard said, rising, “if you are lying to me, you will find you had been better off with the corsairs.”

Riva smiled, nodded understanding, and poured himself more brandy.

On first seeing Algiers, Red Shoes could make no sense of it. Against the olive roughness of the hills stood an alabaster mountain, shining so brightly in the noon sun that no details could be discerned. He wondered where on that strange mountain the city was.

As they drew nearer, his perspective changed. The “mountain” was a mound of A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

ivory cubes, in numbers he had no words for—as if an entire field of white corn had been husked, shelled, and piled to dry. A little nearer, he saw the windows and doors piercing the “corn kernels” and understood that each cube was a house, and that his idea of
big
had changed forever.

The sky was big. The Earth was big, the sea, big. But those were all created in the beginning times, by the Ancients of animals, by Hashtali, whose eye is the sun, and so of course they were big.

But a town of human beings? It was unbelievable. Nothing in his experience—not Charles Town, not Philadelphia, certainly not Chickasaway—the largest Choctaw village—had prepared him to understand this place. It was walled and gated, guarded by a fortress bristling with cannon. The harbor teemed with ships, rendering their own flotilla inconsequential.

Here is what he had thought to see in England, the discovery he would make on this voyage. The kind of place that the white people were intent on building in his country. It was frightening, repugnant. It was beautiful, awesome. He had no words for it in Choctaw or in English. And so he stared, as details came more clear, antlike people appearing to his eyes.

“This must be the largest city in the world,” he breathed.

Tug, beside him, chuckled. “Naw, not by a long distance.” But then he sobered and said, “Well, London was a lot bigger. But I guess now—maybe now this
is
the biggest. But that Venetian fellow says ‘Stamboul is still there, and I’ve heard tell that it would make this place look a country village.”

“Oh.”

“Anyhow, you let old Tug show you around ‘Jiers.”

“You’ve been here?”

“Once, years ago.”

“Do you have any kin here?”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

“Kin? I don’t think so.”

“Then who will feed you?”

Tug just laughed at that, and Red Shoes reminded himself how very different the Europeans were from his own folk, and how far away from home he was.

Nairne wandered up to them a few moments later, clad in his best red military coat and dark brown waistcoat. “What are you two talking about?” he asked.