The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [9]
“My father was French,” Penigault said. “My mother was Alibamon. I was schooled in New Paris, but I prefer to live here on the frontier, with my mother's people. We keep the borders, as I told you.”
“Thank you for the brandy. I've never tasted the like.”
“Good, yes? We make it from persimmons and wild plums. Now, tell me of your adventures with the Cowetas. We are eager for news of them, and of the Carolinas. We hear little these days, what with the war.”
“I'll want to know what you know of the war,” Franklin said. Is my wife alive? But they couldn't know that.
“Not much,” Penigault said. “The English king has taken both Carolinas. The margravate of Azilia still stands, but word is for not much longer.”
Franklin nodded. “The English king, as you call him, is a pretender to the throne, James Stuart. He took the seaboard colonies by trickery and with the aid of Moscovado troops.”
“Moscovado?”
“Russians,” Voltaire clarified.
“Ah, yes. Tsar Peter. We have heard of him.” There was something in the man's voice, as if he had a secret.
“Yes, well. You may know that years ago the English colonies signed a treaty of mutual protection with Louisiana, with the Cowetas, and with the Spanish in Florida. I've been trying to unite those signatories to fight together against the Pretender and his allies. I went first to the Coweta, and from there was to continue on to New Paris, to treat there with King Philippe.”
“The Cowetas are snakes. They attacked you?”
“They had already been approached by emissaries from the Pretender. They outstripped us, you see, for they came on a flying craft—”
“Shaped something like a great leaf and gliding like a buzzard?”
“Yes. You've seen it?”
“We have. We thought it was a lightning hawk—a creature of legend, a sort of demon that eats children.”
“You were not far wrong in that. Their craft is engined with a demon of sorts. In any event, they had already struck a bargain with the Coweta king, and he determined that we should die by torture. But my good friend Don Pedro prevented that.”
“Praise God, not me,” the Apalachee said, sounding nevertheless quite pleased. “It was our Lord gave me the strength and the foresight to rescue you from the heathens.” He hunched forward. “I assume, my friend, that you are a baptized man?”
“I am,” Penigault acknowledged.
“Then God has delivered us back to Christian lands, as I knew he would.”
Penigault acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. “And so you escaped the Coweta,” he pressed. “Did you take many scalps?”
“I do not brag,” Don Pedro said, “For He-Who-Sits-Above saw it all and knows I tell the truth. I took four scalps myself, and would have taken many more, but it was not for me to risk glorious death that day but to make certain I survived, to deliver Mr. Franklin to his destiny. I see that clearly. We are engaged not merely against the English king or the Russian tsar but against the very forces of hell, and those deceived monarchs merely twitch like puppets for them. Our true enemies are not flesh and blood, but are the damned spirits that ride the wind at night and by day stay hidden in black clouds that crawl in the spaces beneath the world, shunning light.”
Penigault, whom Franklin had reckoned a pragmatic sort, suddenly shivered and crossed himself. “The dark things stir,” he said. “It is well known. The accursed beings walk amongst us. Old men have died, eaten from within. Strange warnings and signs come from the west, where demons dwell. They say the house of the dead has opened up and the damned come to take all our souls. Is this true, Mr. Franklin?”
Franklin drew his brows together, wondering how to explain. The malakim were indeed both the angels and devils of superstition, but they were more than that. Moreover, science had proved them real, and it rankled him to hear them spoken of in these medieval terms, just as Newton's biblical appellation rankled.
A soft voice spoke from beyond the circle of light.
“It is true.”
Franklin peered out and saw faintly red-glinting eyes. Penigault gasped. “A sorcerer.