The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [137]
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 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 philosophythat 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 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 New 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.
“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