Two Crowns for America, Page 21

  Justin Carmichael knew nothing of these events as he drove up to Prince Karl’s palace at Eckernförde, in Schleswig-Holstein, early that same morning. He had been directed thence from Prince Karl’s other residence in Leipzig, for Saint-Germain had moved his operation in the spring. Again Prince Karl did not seem to be in residence, though the man who answered the door was Rheinhardt, Saint-Germain’s majordomo, whose presence suggested that his master was, indeed, in residence.

  “Herr Carmichael,” the man said, inclining his head. “Please to come in. You are expected, but I must inquire whether His Highness can see you immediately.”

  Justin had learned not to question how Saint-Germain always seemed to know people’s movements in advance. Surrendering his hat and sword to a liveried footman, he followed Rheinhardt into an anteroom to wait while the majordomo withdrew to make inquiries.

  Even though the shutters had been opened, the morning sun did not enter at this time of day, and the room was dim and a little musty smelling, perhaps from being closed up all winter. The decor was in a heavier, more Germanic style than the residence in Leipzig, with no books in evidence, so Justin bided his time by examining an oak cabinet carved with greenery and gargoyles, whose shelves displayed a collection of salt-glazed pottery. The stark primary colors on a cream background were not to Justin’s taste, and he found little of interest in the German village scenes thus depicted, but surveying them was better than staring at the walls.

  Very shortly Rheinhardt returned to usher him into a lower level of the palace, where Saint-Germain himself was waiting in a candlelit room hung with black velvet, almost invisible save for his snowy linen and the pale oval of his face. The Master threw a fringed black silk drape over a large standing mirror as Justin entered, motioning him toward a high-backed chair across from the one in which he himself settled. He looked uncharacteristically strained in the flickering candlelight.

  “I am very pleased to see you, Mr. Carmichael,” he said. “Your arrival is most timely. I believe you have letters for me?”

  “I do, sir.” Justin handed over the oilskin-wrapped packet that had traveled next to his heart all the way from Boston, trying not to gawk at the room. “These are from Simon and Andrew.”

  “Thank you.” Saint-Germain’s dark gaze swept Justin appraisingly. “Your initiation went well, then.”

  “It did, sir, though there was a—complication we hadn’t anticipated. My sister—”

  “Yes, so Lucien informed me,” Saint-Germain said with a faint smile, holding up one beringed hand. “I am pleased on both counts. Meanwhile, as I have already said, your arrival is most timely. We have important work to do later this evening, so you will pardon me if I withdraw to read these and continue preparations.”

  As Saint-Germain stood, Justin got hastily to his feet as well, his mind awhirl at the implications of what Saint-Germain had just said.

  “Sir?”

  “I shall explain more this evening. I wish you to observe. Meanwhile, I shall ask you to return upstairs and have Rheinhardt show you to a room to rest. You may have water, but nothing more. Do you understand?”

  Justin swallowed, wide-eyed, for the Master’s instructions seemed to suggest a part for him beyond mere observation.

  “Yes, sir,” he managed to whisper.

  “Bon,” Saint-Germain replied. “In that case, I give you leave to set about your own preparations. I shall have Rheinhardt summon you at the appropriate time.”

  Faithful to Saint-Germain’s instructions, Justin put himself in the hands of Rheinhardt, who conveyed him to an apartment where his baggage had been brought from the carriage and left him to sleep if he could, or at least to rest. He did rest with his eyes closed and thought he dozed for a while, though images of the black-draped room and Saint-Germain’s face kept intruding in his mind’s eye.

  Early in the afternoon Rheinhardt returned to conduct him to an adjoining chamber where a bath had been drawn and fresh clothing laid out—smallclothes and breeches, stockings and soft slippers, a scarlet waistcoat, and a long black velvet robe intended to belt over the rest with a scarlet silk sash. Thinking back, Justin thought that Saint-Germain might have worn similar attire, though it was hard to recollect against the blackness of the room itself.

  A clock somewhere was striking four by the time Justin had bathed and dressed. He had drunk from a flask of water provided, but he was hungry—though he knew that fasting was required for some esoteric operations. Rheinhardt was waiting dutifully outside the door and conveyed him downstairs without comment.

  The room in which Saint-Germain had received him before was now lit by only two candles flanking the mirror. The air was close. Justin did not see Saint-Germain as he stepped inside and Rheinhardt closed the door behind him, and he started as the Master suddenly seemed to materialize at his right elbow.

  “Please come and take a seat, Mr. Carmichael,” the Master murmured, his dark gaze ensnaring Justin’s. “I intend that you should only observe, but I may require your assistance.”

  As he led Justin to the left-hand of the two armchairs set before the mirror, Justin found his focus captured by the mirror, whose darkly roiling surface seemed to pull at him, even as he sank down in the chair.

  “Close your eyes, please,” the Master whispered, his hand reinforcing the command as it brushed across his brow and two fingers pressed briefly against his eyelids. The touch also seemed to distance Justin a little from his body, so that he slumped against the chair’s high back without resistance, hands slack on the chair arms.

  “Forgive me for taking such liberties,” the Master murmured, “but powerful magic is already at work in this room, and I would not have you overwhelmed betimes. Have you any idea what is happening today in the statehouse in Philadelphia? You may speak.”

  Justin only shook his head, for words were not necessary to convey his ignorance.

  “You are aware, I trust, that through Andrew I made my influence known when the General and other patriot leaders were designing a flag for the United Colonies. In a like fashion I have intruded certain guidance in the preparation of a document set today before the Continental Congress, which will declare American independence to all the world.”

  Independence! Justin thrilled to the very word, but he felt himself stilling as Saint-Germain continued.

  “Yet it is a weighty undertaking that these brave men contemplate,” the Master said. “Failure of the American endeavor will mean a traitor’s death for all who sign this document and do not fall in actual battle—yet sign it they must. The speeches have begun, and Andrew is prepared to be my voice again. I must watch and wait, and be ready to act if it becomes necessary. Your assistance will help me conserve my strength until the appointed time. Are you willing to do this?”

  “I am,” Justin managed to whisper, both thrilled and fearful to be caught up in such high endeavors.

  “Très bon, mon ami,” the Master murmured. “Then watch and wait with me. Open your eyes and gaze into the mirror, and see with the inner vision of your soul.…”

  Justin opened his eyes, blinking in the candlelight, at once drawn back to the mirror before him as Saint-Germain took a seat beside him. As he tried to pierce the roiling mists that obscured what lay beyond the mirror, the Master turned aside to pour a small amount of ruby-clear elixir into a thimble-sized glass cup. This he set to Justin’s lips, bracing his other hand behind the younger man’s neck to tip his head back so that a few drops of a sweet, volatile liquid ran onto Justin’s tongue.

  It numbed where it touched, then seemed to permeate his entire mouth and explode through its roof and into his sinuses. His vision reeled, and he grabbed at the chair arms for stability.

  “Breathe in sharply through your nose,” the Master commanded.

  Obedience caused Justin to cough sharply several times and made his eyes water; but then his vision cleared as his breath steadied. As he let his gaze drift back to the mirror, relaxing a little, the mists gradually seemed to
dissipate.

  “Simply watch now,” the Master whispered, settling back into his chair beside Justin. “Watch and listen—and learn.”

  In one of the galleries of the Philadelphia statehouse, Andrew Wallace sat quietly in a back row and listened, eyelids lowered, his empty eye socket filled by an orb of precious Venetian glass given him by a king. Disguised by the rusty black raiment of the Professor, he was aware of Another’s presence all but overshadowing his own will, focused through the moonstone pendant hanging next to his heart, but he was content that it be so. Arabella sat in the opposite gallery, doing her best not to look as if she was watching him, but no one else had noted his arrival or his presence; the Master’s glamour ensured that. All the galleries were packed with patriotic citizens waiting to see what would transpire, and the lower doors had been locked and guards posted to prevent interruption.

  Andrew had been here for several hours already, for the matter under discussion was of grave importance. After the reading of the draft declaration submitted by Jefferson’s committee, Jefferson himself had spoken at length, followed by John Adams of Boston and Dr. Franklin of Pennsylvania. As the summer hours stretched on, some of the delegates remained undecided, for passage of the matter now under consideration would have drastic implications for everyone. The conclusion of the declaration had said it all, following on the words of the motion originally made by Richard Henry Lee: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

  It was late in the afternoon by the time discussion began to focus on just what the would-be signers were risking, with mention of axes and scaffolds and gibbets. As the images washed over Andrew, so also did the Presence that had been watching and listening through him; and at length he found himself rising to move to the edge of the gallery, setting his two hands on the balcony railing as all eyes lifted to him and silence fell upon the occupants of the statehouse.

  In the weeks leading to this day, he had spoken several times to the framers of the declaration about the document they were preparing: that the parchment on which it would be written was, in fact, a Golden Fleece. Not the secret of immortality, like the original golden fleece, but a magic formula of human hope—the secret of the immortality of human society.

  Now he spoke of the words on the document that lay before them, which would live long after the bones of every man and woman present had returned to dust, whatever means of death might claim them. They must not fear gibbet or scaffold or the most ignoble grave, for the ideals enshrined in that document would never die, if only those present had the courage to pledge their all. He spoke of a New Order, and the benevolent Providence that had decreed the proliferation of freedom in this New World, to be bought with the blood of its sons and daughters upon the altar of freedom.

  “God has given America to be free!” he declared.

  He was not aware of finishing, or even of much of the content of what he had said, but he found himself suddenly outside the statehouse gallery, ducking into a small antechamber to change his rusty coat hastily for a blue one Arabella produced from a small carpetbag, to let her brush his hair back into a more conventional queue and apply an eye patch over the glass eye.

  “Is it finished?” she whispered as she handed him his stick.

  “For now, I think so,” he murmured. “Let us be gone now and let them do their work.”

  They made their way back to the rooms they had taken in a nearby inn, across from the City Tavern, where Andrew made a more complete return to his own persona and then lay down for a well-deserved rest. Not long afterward bells began pealing all over the city; and a little while later came a sudden and unexpected knock at the door.

  It was Dr. Franklin who doffed his hat as Arabella answered the door, inclining his head in a gallant little bow but setting his hand firmly on the edge of the door as he stepped slightly into the doorway to peer past her at where Andrew was sitting up on the bed.

  “ ‘Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,’ ” he said with a faint smile. “That is the message cast into one of the bells you hear ringing. Leviticus twenty-five, I believe. May I come in? I thought the Professor might like to know how matters transpired after he made his rather hasty departure from the statehouse.”

  Arabella stiffened slightly and glanced back at Andrew, but the latter only raised an eyebrow, inviting Franklin to enter with a nod.

  “Please come in, Doctor. Will you take a glass of port with us?”

  “Thank you, I will.” As Arabella closed the door behind him, he came to sit on a straight chair beside the bed, gazing mildly over his spectacles as Andrew poured wine into three glasses.

  “I had my suspicions after the Professor’s second appearance, when he assisted us with the drafting of the declaration,” Franklin said as Andrew handed him a glass.

  Andrew said nothing, only raising his glass slightly in salute to Franklin and taking a sip.

  “It was when I saw Mistress Wallace sitting in the statehouse gallery this afternoon that I made the connection,” Franklin went on. “I do believe we all take guidance from the same Master.”

  Andrew calmly set aside his glass, fixing Franklin with his single eye.

  “I don’t believe I know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Oh, I believe you do,” Franklin replied. “I tell you, Brother Wallace, on the level, that the personage to whom we all answer is a poor widow’s son who lives on Weldon Square.”

  “Indeed?”

  Franklin smiled and took a healthy swallow of his port. “I, too, have been instructed to avoid mention of his name whenever possible, but ’tis clear that you require further reassurance. I first met the Count of Saint-Germain while visiting a Lodge in Paris several years ago. As you know, I have lived abroad this past decade and more, looking after colonial interests.”

  “And?”

  “It was an auspicious introduction—and no chance meeting, as I later learned,” Franklin went on. “Since then I have had opportunity to meet and observe an even wider variety of interesting and useful people. Your Brother Rohan is an excellent example. I am quite aware that he is actually the Prince Lucien de Rohanstuart, whatever other names he may go by. Granted, I might have gained this information from your Bostonians, but I think by now you know that I did not. Let us say that his presence at Justin Carmichael’s raising to Master Mason was no surprise to me; nor was what happened to Sister Wallace.”

  Had Franklin’s smile been less avuncular, Arabella might have been alarmed as he turned to gaze at her over his spectacles, but Andrew’s delighted laugh utterly disarmed any remaining fear.

  “Very well, Brother Franklin, you have amply made your point,” he said, taking up his glass again. “How may I help you?”

  “I am hoping to enlist the further services of the Professor,” Franklin said. “His insights regarding flags and a golden fleece were extremely enlightening, even before he spoke out today. I should like to hear his opinion regarding a Great Seal.”

  “A Great Seal?” Andrew repeated blankly.

  Franklin inclined his head. “One will be needed to complete the evidence of the act of independence. A committee to design it was named shortly after the Professor left, following the actual approval of the declaration.”

  “It finally passed, then,” Andrew said. “I had guessed as much, from the bells.”

  “Aye, the vote was unanimous—though further revisions were made, as one might expect. Poor Jefferson. He squirmed at every change—and there must have been dozens.”

  Andrew quirked a faint smile, well aware how Jefferson had agonized over every word of the original draft. “That will have been a sore trial for him. What happens next?”

  “Ah.” Franklin took another sip of his port. “The declaration will be printed tonight over the signatures of Hancock and Thomson. Tomorrow post riders will s
tart distributing copies to the colonial assemblies, the committees of safety, and the commanding officers of the Continental Army, to be read out at public gatherings.

  “Meanwhile, we have yet a few loose ends to tidy up. New York was the final sticking point, as you know, but her delegates finally went against their instructions and voted for independence. This means that a formal ratification still must be obtained, but I feel certain that will be forthcoming very quickly, now that the deed is done. As soon as that occurs, a fair copy will be engrossed on parchment—the Professor’s ‘Golden Fleece.’ If all goes well, it should be ready for signing within a week or so.”

  “But it takes effect from today, even without the signatures?” Andrew asked.

  “Oh, indeed. A typeset copy will be sealed into the Rough Journal of Congress tomorrow. Meanwhile, the declaration gives the newly created free and independent states the power to—let me see if I can remember the exact words we finally adopted: ‘to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.’ Hence the need for a Great Seal—which brings us back to the reason for my coming. Might the Professor be persuaded to lend his counsel to the committee?”

  By the tone of the request Franklin clearly did not understand that the Professor was, in fact, an overshadowing by Saint-Germain himself. Nor was it Andrew’s place to tell him. While it might, indeed, be in the Master’s plans to assist in this way, Andrew had no way to inquire save by letter—a four-to-five-month proposition at best, unless Saint-Germain himself initiated extraordinary measures. There was a further document that had accompanied his instructions regarding the declaration, not to be opened until today’s mission was accomplished; but whether it related to a Great Seal remained to be seen.

  “Who composes this committee?” Andrew asked.

  “Myself, John Adams, and Jefferson,” Franklin replied. “A proven combination. I trust that is satisfactory?”