He looked up into the sky.
High above, silver-radiant against the tapestry of the stars, rode a goddess. Her hands rested lightly on the reins of an enchanted steed, and her hair streamed free like the tail of some glorious comet. No road bore her weight, nor wings; the horse galloped upon the insubstantial air.
Behind her came a host of others, but Galen had no eyes for them. He sat rapt, his own mount forgotten beneath him, and turned in his saddle to watch the goddess go by. His memory, trained since childhood by a mother who loved the stories of the pagan Greeks and Romans, whispered names in his ear: Artemis. Diana. Selene. Luna.
Perfection, beyond the reach of mortal kind.
And she was riding to London.
There was no mistaking it. The enchanted host changed their course, lowering to the grassy fields just before Southwark’s edge. His heart ached to see them descend to earth. They were airy things, and her most of all, that should not be contaminated by the heaviness of the world.
Yet they were of London. He’d seen it in the serenity of her beautiful face: she was coming home. Somehow that filthy city, choked with dung and coal smoke and the cries of the poor, that maw that ate up fortune and spat out ashes, was beloved to her. Wherever she had gone, she rejoiced at her return.
I must know who she is.
Galen tugged unthinking at his reins. Nothing happened. His horse, he saw, had bent to graze on a thick tuft of grass. Growling, he yanked harder, and dragged the reluctant beast onto a neighbouring lane. But however much he spurred it onward, he wasn’t fast enough; by the time he reached Southwark, the enchanted host had vanished.
His heart pounded with passions that could not be put into words. That vision—who she was, what she was, and why she dwelt in London—
He could not leave.
A few moments ago, he’d been uncertain. Now there was no question. He could not turn his back upon the glory he had seen. Galen would stay, and search the city from Westminster to Wapping, tearing up the very cobbles of the streets if need be, until he found the lady again. And when he did, he would offer her his services, even unto death.
With tears once more upon his face, Galen turned his weary horse homeward.
But this time, they were tears of wonder.
The crowds of Fleet Street were bad enough in the evening; at four o’clock in the afternoon, they were nothing short of absurd. This time, Galen’s choice to ride in a sedan chair had little to do with economy, and a great deal to do with common sense; as slowly as he was moving, a carriage would have gone even slower. Andrews had chosen the same mode of conveyance, and as they crawled through the press, the doctor’s rear chair-man was able to carry on an entire conversation with Galen’s forward man.
By the time he and the doctor stepped out at their destination, the early heat had called forth sweat from every pore of Galen’s skin. Andrews had gone so far as to take off his wig, and was fanning himself with his hat as Galen rejoined him. “God, I hate London in the summer,” the man said with feeling. “But the food will make up for it, I assure you; we’ve had a gift of turtle recently. Come, follow me.”
They escaped the clamour of the street for the quieter—though by no means quiet—interior of the Mitre Tavern. Men sat at their dinners all along the tables, and waiters scrambled to attend to them; Galen was almost run over by one plate-laden fellow as Andrews led him toward the stairs. The private room above was a relief by comparison, even if the air within was stuffy with pipe smoke, and the gentlemen there distinguished enough to put Galen to shame.
Most of them were members of the Royal Society, but this, the similarly named Society of Royal Philosophers, was a much more select group. According to Andrews, their membership was limited to forty, and the dues collected to pay for their weekly dinners would have sent Galen’s father into an apoplexy. Though it was far from the most expensive or exclusive club in London, it was more than enough to intimidate Galen, who once again was attending only as a guest.
Andrews made the rounds of introductions. Encouragingly, a number of the gentlemen remembered Galen; those who didn’t, came rarely or never to the meetings in Crane Court, which took place after this dinner every Thursday. And there was another young man there, perhaps five years older than Galen, who was likewise a newcomer and a guest. “Henry Cavendish,” Dr. Andrews said by way of introduction, when they came face-to-face. “Son of— is your father here, Mr. Cavendish?”
The answer came in the form of a gesture toward a man Galen remembered from his first Royal Society meeting. Once again he stood in conversation with Lord Macclesfield, who was president of both societies. “You are the son of Lord Charles Cavendish?”
A nod. Galen glanced fleetingly at Dr. Andrews, perplexed by the other’s silence. But his companion was distracted. “Ah, Mr. Franklin! Good to see you again. Hadley was telling me your thoughts on evaporation—”
When everyone sat down to dinner, Galen found himself with Andrews on one side and Henry Cavendish on the other, with Franklin—who, it transpired, was a Society Fellow visiting from the colonies—across the table. His conversation with Andrews had moved on to electricity, about which Galen knew very little. While the waiter brought out the first course, Galen addressed himself to the challenge of drawing Cavendish into conversation. “Your father is the Vice President of the Royal Society, I believe. Do you have an interest in natural philosophy as well?”
Another nod, as the fellow piled his plate high with pheasant, cod, and pork. What was it going to take, to make him open his mouth? Perhaps it was simple snobbery; if Galen remembered lineages correctly, Henry Cavendish was the grandson of not one but two dukes. On the other hand, it was hard to ascribe snobbery to a man so shabbily dressed; his coat, to choose but one example, was not only plain but frayed at the cuffs and collar.
Faced with the prospect of eating in silence, or else of ignoring his companion to join in conversation elsewhere, Galen opted for a third course of action: he began to talk about whatever came into his head, with frequent pauses that invited Cavendish to contribute. Taking his cues from those around him, he kept his focus on matters philosophical, but within those constraints he gave his curiosity free rein. From Lord Charles’s work on thermometers he went on to something Franklin had said about electricity, and thence to astronomy, which—as it always did—led his tongue to fire.
“It’s a topic of great interest to me,” Galen admitted. Somehow he’d managed to empty his wineglass, wetting his throat; he would have to be more careful, lest he inadvertently make a drunken fool of himself. “I’m fascinated by an account I just read of the work done by a German, Georg Stahl—do you know of it?” He paused for the now expected nod. “I’d never considered that the calcination of metals and the combustion of wood might be the same thing, the release of phlogiston from the material. And who says it ends there? After all, the transmission of electrical fluid can cause fires, as lightning strikes have shown; perhaps that fluid is phlogiston in pure form, or at least contains it in high proportion.”
With the general chatter filling the room, Galen almost didn’t hear the response. “If it w—if it w—” Cavendish stopped and tried again, with better success. “If it were pure phlogiston, we should expect to see electricity leap into the air as a log burns.”
It was two answers in one: a refutation of his notion, and an explanation for why Henry Cavendish had not opened his mouth before. The gentleman’s high-pitched voice squeaked like a nervous girl’s, and strain showed in his eyes and jaw as he forced himself past the awkward pauses.