A Calculus of Angels by J. Gregory Keyes Page B

but—”
    “Then please take me there.”
    The girl bowed.
    “And have my son brought to me, please.”
    The physician attending Crecy was a slim young man with little in the way of a A CALCULUS OF ANGELS
    chin. “She must rest,” he insisted, when she entered.
    “Will she live?” Adrienne murmured, nestling a sleeping Nico against one shoulder.
    “She should not, but she may,” he replied. “Her constitution is very strong.”
    “She is my dear friend, sir. I will be very much in your debt if she lives.”
    He shook his head. “Not in my debt, but in God’s. I have done little here, for there was little to do save remove the balls and sew shut the holes.”
    “Nevertheless,” she replied. “May I look at her?”
    “If you like.”
    Crecy was always pale, but now she was as translucent as finest porcelain. Her hair fanned on the pillow like a halo of flame. Her chest rose and fell only slightly.
    “Be well, Veronique,” she whispered, bending to place a kiss on her friend’s cheek.
    Two slivers of blue ice suddenly appeared, as Crecy’s lids opened. A hissing cough escaped her lips, flecking them with blood. Holding Nico in one arm, Adrienne knelt at Crecy’s side and took her hand, but it did not grasp back.
    “We have found you,” Crecy rasped, in a voice like a knife on whetstone. “We have found you.”
    And then she closed her eyes again.
    Adrienne felt her strange hand tremble, then almost hum. She suddenly realized that she had gripped Crecy’s fingers with it. She let go of her friend, a terrible icy chill working up her arm and into her spine. Suppressing a cry, she backed from the room.
    Nicolas woke as she fled to her room, staring at her. Before reluctantly A CALCULUS OF ANGELS
    returning him to the kind-faced nurse, she sang him a lullaby, trying to escape Crecy’s strange words. They were no doubt simple delirium, and yet there had been something utterly un-Crecylike in her eyes and tone.
    Un-Crecylike, or perhaps Crecy par excellence: the cold-eyed stare she usually hid, the remorseless tones she commonly draped in the silk of emotion and care—an actress not acting.
    Adrienne loved Crecy, but even now she did not trust her. Even now she feared her.
    “Mademoiselle, the duke…”
    The girl had followed along, fidgeting restlessly.
    “Thank you, my dear. I would be honored to see the duke now.”
    Neither the duke Francis Stephen of Lorraine nor Hercule d’Argenson seemed much put out by her late arrival. They sat at the table, wine and soup untouched, awaiting her, conversing in low tones. When she was shown in, both rose.
    The chamber was quaint, almost antique, though it was brightened by an alchemical lanthorn in the form of the moon depending from the high ceiling.
    A tapestry of men pursuing a stag draped one wall, the Lorraine crest another.
    A haunch of venison lay steaming on a platter, and Adrienne understood suddenly how very hungry she was.
    “Mademoiselle, please join us,” said the young duke.
    Adrienne sat, her frame vibrating with appetite, but she waited until the duke began to sip his soup before touching hers. A lifetime of etiquette had been swept away in the dark months after the fall of the comet, but now she understood just how entrenched her training had been.
    Once she actually tasted the soup, however, her will broke, and she gobbled at the meal like a starving dog, never pausing to touch the utensils near her plate.

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    The duke smiled brightly. “I take it you are unused to good meals, Demoiselle?”
    Adrienne nodded, speaking between mouthfuls. “It is true, Your Grace. I have not eaten meat in—” She counted. “—more than a month. And then it was not nearly so good as this.”
    “Mutton?”
    “Dog.”
    “Oh, dear!” Francis of Lorraine laughed again. “We shall try to keep you better fed than that.” He glanced at d’Argenson. “Though I fear we shall have to put you back on the road quite soon.”
    Adrienne looked