Flaxie, a good-natured baby, enjoyed his attentions, and it pleased me to watch them together. He was equally attentive to Calyxa, and made sure she had all she wanted of luxuries and kindnesses during her recovery. “The only thing he hasn’t given me,” Calyxa remarked at one point, “is an exemption from that damned Ecclesiastical Writ”—but he would have done so, had it been in his power; and he continued to vex Deacon Hollingshead about it, among other weighty issues.
Sam was equally absorbed in the domestic business of his marriage to Emily Baines Comstock (now Godwin), and I was afraid that Julian would grow lonely without the kind of close companionship Sam and I had formerly offered him. For that reason I was glad of his burgeoning friendship with Pastor Magnus Stepney of the Church of the Apostles Etc. The two of them had lately become inseparable, and their amiable arguments over God and Destiny and such topics were, for Julian, a welcome relief, and a distraction from the burdens of the Presidency.
In the military realm Julian won accolades for consolidating the few gains his uncle had made, for withholding further ground initiatives until the Army of the Laurentians had been restored in strength and spirit, and for pursuing the battle with the Dutch at sea rather than on land. Admiral Fairfield conducted several successful naval maneuvers during this time, and the strategic Mitteleuropan coaling station at Iqaluit was shelled into submission. If it wasn’t “the final crushing blow to European aggression” so many had expected of Julian Conqueror, it was at least enough to satisfy patriotic sentiment.
In truth, that spring and summer season, I gave little thought to the future, except on those nights when Flaxie slept soundly in her crib, and Calyxa and I lay in bed together, talking.
“We’ll have to leave, you know,” Calyxa said on one such night in June. A warm breeze came through the bedroom window, which we had equipped with sturdy screens to discourage insects and Giraffes. “We can’t stay here.”
“I know,” I said, “though it’s been pleasant enough.” I would miss the Preserve, the Statuary Lawn, the respite from urban noise and clutter; but we couldn’t make the Palace grounds a permanent home. “We can find a place in the city as soon as Julian has that Writ annulled.”
She shook her head. “The Dominion won’t annul it, Adam. It’s time we admitted the truth of the thing. The Writ is a point of honor with Deacon Hollingshead. He won’t relinquish it until he’s in his grave, and he has the whole weight of the Dominion behind him. Institutions like the Dominion of Jesus Christ on Earth don’t surrender power willingly.”
“That’s pessimistic. Unless the Writ is annulled, we can’t leave the Palace grounds.”
Calyxa turned her head away, and the moonlight made a reflection in her pensive eyes. “How long do you think Julian will keep the Executive, if he insists on picking fights with Senators and Deacons?”
“He’s only just become President.”
“What guarantee is that? Presidents have had shorter terms.”
It was true that, in the course of history, certain Presidents had been removed or murdered after a brief term of office. But only under unusual circumstances. Most famously, young Varnum Bayard had been deposed after less than a week when he inherited the Executive in 2106; but that was because he was twelve years old, and not experienced enough to defend himself against a coup. I said that Julian seemed safe enough for now.
“That’s an illusion. Sooner or later, Adam, we’ll have to leave, if we want to live out our lives in safety. Six months from now—a year, maybe—almost certainly not more than that.”
“Well, but where would we go? We would hardly be more anonymous in the city, with my career as a book-writer. And the city isn’t a safe place either, given the new Pox that’s going around.”
“In the worst case, Adam, we might have to leave the city altogether. Maybe even the country.”
“The country!”
“To keep Flaxie away from harm, wouldn’t it be worthwhile?”
“Of course it would, if that was the only practical way to protect her, but I hardly think it is—certainly not yet!”
“Not yet,” Calyxa agreed; but her mouth was pursed in a frown, and her eyes seemed focused on some point well beyond the encompassing walls of the Guest House. “No, not yet; but time passes, Adam. Things change. Julian is on a dangerous path. I don’t mind him tackling the Dominion—he’s brave to do it—but I don’t mean to let anything happen to Flaxie, no matter the politics of it.”
“Of course we won’t let anything happen to Flaxie.”
“Tell me again. Say it again, Adam, and then I might be able to sleep.”
“Nothing will happen to Flaxie,” I promised her.
“Thank you,” she said, sighing.
She did sleep then. I couldn’t; for the same conversation that settled her fears had aggravated mine. After an hour of restlessness I put on a robe and went to sit on the porch of the guest-house. The broad swathes of lawn and forest that comprised the Palace grounds lay dark under a clear and moonless sky. The appointed hours of the Illumination of Manhattan had passed, and the city cast no special glow. Summer constellations performed their calendrical marches overhead, and I reminded myself that the same stars had shone indifferently over this island back when it was inhabited by Secular Businessmen, or Unchurched Aborigines before that, or even Mammoths and Giant Sloths (if Julian’s evolutionary narratives were to be believed). Because my wife and child were sleeping in the house behind me, away from immediate danger, I prayed that this particular moment of time would linger indefinitely, and that nothing would happen to change it.
But the world would change, one way or another—it couldn’t be stopped from changing. Julian had preached that homily to me in Williams Ford, long ago; and events since then had only driven home the truth of it.
The stars set, the stars rose. I went back to my summer bed.
* * *
Mr. Hungerford had wanted A Western Boy at Sea published by the Fourth of July, in the belief that the patriotic emotions of that Universal Holiday might boost its sales. His printers achieved the goal he set for them: the book was impressed and available for purchase by the first of that month. I attended a small event at the offices of the Spark to celebrate the release.
Apart from Mr. Hungerford, I hardly knew any of the persons present in the room. Some were authors of other books in Hungerford’s line—generally a seedy bunch (the authors, I mean, not necessarily their novels), many displaying the visible effects of dissipative living. Present as well were certain Manhattan businessmen who distributed books, or shopkeepers who sold them—also a roguish crew, but less hopelessly inebriated than the writers, and more genuinely enthusiastic about my work. I said polite things to all these people, and reminded myself to smile whenever I detected a witticism.
Copies of A Western Boy had been stacked on a table. They were the first I had seen in finished form. I remember to this day the nervous pleasure of holding one of these specimens in my hand and inspecting the two-color blind-stamped illustration on the front of it. The illustration showed my protagonist, the Western boy Isaiah Compass, with a sword in his right hand and a pistol in his left, battling a Pirate beneath a sketchy Palm Tree, while an Octopus—inexplicably out of his native element—looked on menacingly. I had not included an Octopus in my story, and I hoped the general reader, his interest aroused by this illustration, would not be disappointed by its absence from the text. I mentioned my concern to Mr. Hungerford, who said it didn’t matter; there were better things than Octopuses in the novel, he said; the Octopus was only there to snag the attention of potential customers, in which role it admittedly performed a useful service. Still, I wondered if I ought to put an Octopus, or some other exciting and deadly form of oceanic life, into my next book, in order to compensate readers who might feel cheated by this one.