Newton's Cannon (20 page)

Why? Why? He thought he had the answer for a second, but then the roof of the shop collapsed, and a billion red demons leaped up toward heaven. He followed those winged little flames and lost the thread of his thought, as somewhere in him—from a deep and ancient place—the animal stirred that cared for nothing but that it should continue to live.

James was dead. If he did not act quickly, he would be dead, too. That was reality. He hadn't worked out the details of
why
, but the animal didn't care. It wanted to run.

Ben rose shakily to his feet, pressing tears from his eyes. Bracewell was probably here, looking for him. Ben cast about him. A few items had been laid on the street nearby, things that someone or other had saved from the burning building: a book, a sheaf of papers, James' coat.

I can use the coat
, he thought dully, lifting it.

Underneath was his strange-looking lantern. His head tingled with a sickening surge of hope, anger, and terror. He snatched up the coat and the projector. He looked carefully up and down the street, seeking his foe, his brother's killer, and soon enough found him. Bracewell was still on his horse near the church and square. His face was no more than a shadow, but Ben knew that the manslayer was watching him and waiting.

Ben thought no more, but turned the other way and ran. Though it was impossible, he imagined that he could already hear the hoofbeats coming up behind.

Adrienne stared into the pointed metal shaft of the
kraftpistole
. She had never seen one this close, certainly not aimed at her. A part of her considered the terrible weapon, remembering the principles by which it functioned, but much more of her wondered how long she had before lightning snuffed out all of her thought and life.

The man behind the pistol spoke, his voice muffled by the cloth tied over his mouth and jaw. Ahalf mask concealed his nose.

“I am very much afraid, Mademoiselle, that I must ask you to don this.” His outstretched hand thrust a black blindfold toward her.

“Nicolas,” Adrienne managed. “What have you done to Nicolas?” She could see his body stretched prone on the ground, along with those of the mounted escorts.

“He is alive, as is your coach driver. I am not a murderer, Mademoiselle. Now, please, don the blindfold.”

Adrienne shifted her gaze between the unmoving body and the unwavering pistol. She strained to see Nicolas' ribs moving, and fancied—but was not certain—that she did.

“Very well,” the man snapped. “Turn around.”

She did so, aware that her knees were shaking.

“Stay still.” In the next moment the cloth came down across her eyes; the point of the pistol was pressed against her back.
There must be two of them
, she thought,
at least two.
Her captor then knotted the blindfold behind her head.

“There,” he said. “Now, take my hand.”

She held her hand out and felt his—it was smooth, soft.

“I'm going to lift you onto a horse now,” he said. “Can you ride?”

“I have ridden, of course,” she replied. She felt sick. These men were not bandits, or simple highway thugs:
Kraftpistoles
were very expensive, owned mostly by high-ranking officers and the king's pistoleers. Also, her captor's hands were not the roughened hands of an outlaw. This was a kidnapping.

Someone took hold of her waist and lifted her. “I'm afraid you will not be riding sidesaddle, milady. I regret the indelicacy of the situation, but you must sit astride.”

Compliantly, she swung her leg over the saddle. Her narrow skirt shucked up to her thighs as she groped for the pommel.

“Lean back, lady,” said a second voice. In the next instant a man's body was in front of her, pressing her almost out of the saddle. “You will have to hold around my waist, lady,” said the rider. His accent was precise, Parisian. She had heard the voice before.

When the horse suddenly jerked into motion, she reached around a surprisingly slim, muscular torso, clasping her hands across the buttons of a waistcoat. The horse broke from trot to gallop; the world blurred to a dark cipher of motion and noise. She clung to her enemy, wishing him dead.

She guessed that they had been riding for the better part of the night. Twice the men stopped and fed her, and four times they gave her water. They did not speak again. The air became more chill, and she felt terribly tired. She wondered, again and again, if Nicolas was still alive. It seemed, to her, unlikely.

Day came gradually behind the blindfold, a reddening against her eyelids. By then, she seemed to have become a part of the horse—and of the man. She clung to him as she imagined one might a lover, as if their separate bodies had become a single ferment—horse, man, woman.

She tried several times to get her captor to speak, but he did not respond, perhaps sensing that she recognized his voice. She knew him as the same man who had saved her from the canal.

At last, the horses' hooves clattered upon cobbles. This time when she was helped to dismount she was led indoors, where
someone took her hand and directed her, stumbling, down a carpeted corridor.

“Just another moment or two, lady,” a woman's voice whispered, heavy with some foreign accent.

“Where am I?” Adrienne choked out. “What has become of me?”

“I am not allowed to answer these questions, lady, only to try and make you comfortable.” A door creaked open. A flush of warmth and perfume engulfed her. The air was damp.

The woman untied the blindfold, and for a moment Adrienne felt dizzy and swayed a bit.

She was in a bathhouse, lit only by a few candles. The bath, set into the floor, was filled with hot water.

Adrienne turned to face her escort, a plump woman, probably in her midthirties, in servant's dress.

“Please, milady, have a bath,” the woman beseeched.

“I have just been kidnapped,” Adrienne said levelly. “I believe my escort was killed. I have been carried on horseback all night. The king was expecting me at Marly.” She realized how disjointed this sounded even as she said it.

“I know, Mademoiselle. I can only tell you that you will be well treated here. You will not be harmed.”

“I have already been harmed,” Adrienne insisted.

The servant looked as if she might cry. “Please,” the woman said, “a bath will make you feel better. And I shall fetch you some wine.”

Adrienne tried to protest, but the woman began working at the laces of her bodice. Before she knew it, she was resting in the scented water, allowing it to buoy her. When the servant brought her wine, she drank the first cup in two draughts, after which she sipped more carefully.

Oddly enough, the wine seemed to sharpen her senses. She turned to the servant.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Gabriella,” the woman replied.

“Gabriella, tell me why I have been brought here.”

“
Signorina
, I don't know,” the plump woman answered. “Only Madame knows that.”

“Madame?” Adrienne asked rather sharply.

The servant turned quickly away. “Please don't ask me any more,” she whispered.

Adrienne closed her eyes, feeling the heat soothe into her bones. “Very well, Gabriella,” she sighed. “You have an accent of—is it Tuscany?”

“Yes, Tuscany,” Gabriella replied, a hint of surprise in her voice.

“Tell me about Tuscany, then, about your home.”

“Well …” Gabriella began, uncertainly. “It isn't like France. The sky is bluer, and the cedar trees grow straight up, like towers. We used to …” She broke off. “Is this what you mean?” she asked, embarrassed.

“Yes.”

“I remember going to pick olives for the Seignior. And there were yellow flowers—I don't know what to call them in French …” Her voice lilted on as the wine lulled Adrienne into sleep. She remembered hoping she would not drown.

She awoke in a small, well-appointed room without windows. A demure brown manteau with black ribbons, much as she had worn at Saint Cyr, was laid out on the bed. As she donned it, Gabriella entered, helping her to finish dressing.

“Do I learn why I have been kidnapped now?” she asked.

Gabriella nodded. “This way, milady.”

The servant led her down a series of halls, occasionally passing windows through which Adrienne caught glimpses of gardens and rolling countryside, but nothing that really signified where she was. A chateau in the country, any of a thousand such.

She was ushered into a small salon, and there she had reason to bitterly recall Nicolas' observation about her smile. Confronting her captors, who all stood awaiting her, she felt it frozen on her face.

Adrienne dropped a curtsey. “Duchess,” she said.

“Oh, well done, Mademoiselle,” the duchess of Orléans said. “I would never be so composed after such an ordeal.”

“Why have you done this, Duchess?” Adrienne said, her
voice nearly shaking with anger. “What possible use am I to you?”

The duchess of Orléans put her hand to her breast. “My dear, you were abducted, but your kidnappers made the singular mistake of crossing the lands of my brother, the count of Toulouse, whose huntsmen rescued you. Naturally you were brought here, where I happened to be visiting.”

“I remember no such a thing,” Adrienne said.

The duchess smiled ingratiatingly. “Understandable,” she replied, winking. “I have been most rude,” she went on. “Let me present my companions, who accompanied me here from Paris: Madame de Castries and Mademoiselle de Crecy.”

Adrienne meant to treat the two women with studied indifference, to show no courtesy to her kidnappers. But when Madame de Castries was named, Adrienne blushed and curtsied. It was a name she knew well, a name important to her.

Castries was a tiny, frail woman. Her face was plain; she might have been forty or sixty. In her dark eyes, however, danced sparks of intelligence that only faintly insinuated the intellect Adrienne knew smoldered behind them.

Crecy stood in marked contrast. She was very tall—at least six feet—yet as lovely as a porcelain doll, perhaps twenty-five years in age. Her hair was copper red. Her gray eyes betrayed nothing whatever. Adrienne was powerfully, unaccountably, reminded of Gustavus.

“Now that those pleasantries are behind us,” the duchess went on, “shall we take some morning chocolate?”

Adrienne nodded, intent on the equation. She had already solved one part, of course. By the owl on the note, she had known the duchess to be one of the Korai. And of the Korai, Castries was the queen, perhaps the greatest female intellect in France.

The salon was modest. Four chairs clustered around a small card table.

Adrienne hesitated before taking the seat offered her. At Versailles it would be unthinkable for someone of her rank to sit in a chair unless alone; even duchesses usually had to make do
with folding stools. Orléans smiled at her reluctance. “Sit dear. Here, for this moment, we are equal.”

The chocolate arrived, steaming in ornate cups, and when Gabriella left, she secured the heavy doors.

Then Castries cleared her throat, lifted her cup, and chanted, singsong,
“Chairete, Korai, Athenes therapainai.”
It was Greek, meaning
“Hail, Korai, maidens of Athena.”

“Chairete,”
Adrienne answered with the others, automatically.

“Enthade euthetoumen temeron,”
Castries went on.

“He glaux, ho drakon, he parthenos,”
Adrienne finished with the rest. And then, together with Castries, she said,
“What is said here is not repeated.”

Castries smiled and sipped her chocolate. “Now then, Adrienne,” she said, “I have heard much of you from our sisters at Saint Cyr. I am pleased to meet you at last.”

“And I you, Marquise,” Adrienne replied. “Though if I had been asked to come, I would have complied willingly— and without loss of life.” She shot what she hoped was an angry glance at the duchess.

The duchess sputtered on her own chocolate. “There has been no loss of life, my dear, I assure you,” she insisted, wiping her lips.

“How could you know this for certain?”

The duchess smiled. “The bandits who kidnapped you were questioned. Anyway, Marly has already been contacted; your bodyguard is even now on his way, and you will find that your young guard is intact. But that means our time together, you see, is rather limited.”

“Very well,” Adrienne replied, “I am listening.”

“I take it that you did not realize that the duchess was a member of our sisterhood?” Castries asked.

“I did not,” Adrienne confirmed, “until she passed me the symbol of Athena.”

“I was not certain you saw it,” the duchess said, her brow creasing for the first time, “in the confusion following …”

“Madame Duchess,” Adrienne said, “whoever was responsible for it, I was kidnapped and manhandled through the night on horseback. I am tired and my skin is bruised, and so you
must pardon my candor. The minister, Torcy, suspects that you and the duke might have been responsible for the murder of the dauphin and the attempt upon the king's life. I want to hear from your lips whether this is true or not.”

The duchess closed her eyes, and when she opened them they were moist. Her face looked older than her forty-three years. “Despite his flaws, Mademoiselle, the king is my father. And he did what no other king has ever dared to do—he legitimized my brothers and me.”

“Yes, which nettles all of France and most especially your husband. It occurs to everyone that with the dauphin dead, the duke of Orléans is next in line, by the law of primogeniture.”

“My dear husband has many gifts,” the duchess replied, “but ambition is not one of them. He is incapable of the kind of insidious, brilliant plotting of which he has been accused. Regardless, you wanted my vow, not my protestations. I did not plan the massacre you and I were witness to, nor did I know of it. I swear to God, to Jesus, and before all of the sisters of Athena that I and my husband are innocent.” She leaned forward, her cup clinking loudly onto the table. “Though should I discover who
was
responsible, he will find that the duchess of Orléans
does
know something about assassinations,” she finished savagely.