Not Less Than Gods (Company) Read online

  Not Less Than Gods

  BOOKS BY KAGE BAKER

  The Anvil of the World

  Dark Mondays

  Mother Aegypt and Other Stories

  The House of the Stag

  The Empress of Mars

  Not Less Than Gods

  The Company Series

  In the Garden of Iden

  Sky Coyote

  Mendoza in Hollywood

  The Graveyard Game

  Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers

  The Life of the World to Come

  The Children of the Company

  The Machine’s Child

  Gods and Pawns

  The Sons of Heaven

  Not Less Than

  Gods

  KAGE BAKER

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  NEW YORK

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  NOT LESS THAN GODS

  Copyright © 2010 by Kage Baker

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Baker, Kage.

  Not less than gods / Kage Baker.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN 978-0-7653-1891-6

  I. Title.

  PS3552.A4313N67 2010

  813'.54—dc22

  2009040728

  First Edition: March 2010

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  In loving memory of David McDaniel (1939–1977)

  Yet they who use the Word assigned,

  To hearten and make whole,

  Not less than Gods have served mankind,

  Though vultures rend their soul.

  —Rudyard Kipling, “A Recantation”

  Not Less Than Gods

  1824: Daughter of Elysium

  Lady Amalthea R. was a trial to her father, and considered something of an adventuress by the rest of polite society. She reveled in the distinction. Having been told to go straight to hell by her enraged parent after refusing what would have been a respectable and advantageous marriage, Lady Amalthea chose instead to take a small house near Hyde Park. She was financially independent, having inherited certain sums from her late mother, and so set herself up in an establishment with her deaf and ancient nurse, Mrs. Denbigh. Attendant also were a handsome butler, a more handsome footman, a gardener so handsome he might have posed for Michelangelo, and a quite plain maid of all work.

  By the time Lady Amalthea had reached her mid-twenties, she was well established as a ruined woman. The fact that she was strikingly beautiful, with the looks of a slender valkyrie, guaranteed that she never wanted for company anyway. She dabbled in politics, was given to radicalism of the deepest dye, and her bitterest regret was that she had failed to seduce Lord Byron before he decamped for the Continent. When Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was widowed, Lady Amalthea wrote her reams of consolatory advice and insisted on hosting a dinner party in her honor when that exhausted lady returned to England.

  Lady Amalthea belonged as well to several Societies, scientific, philosophical and musical especially. It chanced therefore that one smoky evening at the end of October 1824 she made her way to the house of a similarly notorious lady to hear an excerpt from Beethoven’s new symphony, his Ninth. The entire work was scheduled for its official London premiere the following March, but an enterprising member of the Philharmonic Society of London had adapted the choral movement for two pianofortes and four singers.

  Lady Amalthea arrived as punch was being served out, and circulated for a while chatting with others in her dazzling and disreputable set, as Mrs. Denbigh wandered after her like an amiable little dog. There were young intellectuals, feminists, politicians, musicians, even an actor or two, and one gentleman to whom her eye was particularly drawn. He was lean, saturnine, darkly handsome, reminding her rather of a clean-shaven Mephistopheles, and this alone would have been enough to pique her interest in him. However, the more Lady Amalthea saw of the gentleman, the more she was convinced she’d seen him somewhere before.

  When they entered the ballroom, furnished with chairs for the performance, she was pleased to note that he took his seat near hers. He caught her eye, smiled and nodded, with a certain quizzical lift of eyebrow that made her heart race pleasantly. All thought of potential trysts fled from Lady Amalthea, however, when she glanced down at the lyric translation sheet she had been handed.

  Schiller’s sentiments charmed her, appealed to her sense of idealism. That the beggar and the Prince might be brothers! Heroes striving toward noble conquest! A benign and starry universe in which universal liberation waited! And then the music began . . .

  Lady Amalthea sat bolt upright, spellbound. Her eyes were bright, her lips moist, her breath came quickly. Even Mrs. Denbigh nodded along in what she perceived to be time. When the glorious music ended, Lady Amalthea sagged backward in her chair, panting, one hand on her bosom, quite overcome. Had the composer been present, he would most certainly have been embraced by Lady Amalthea, and there and then invited back to her boudoir.

  Unable to confer such favor, Lady Amalthea settled for milling about afterward, excitedly discussing the symphony with her acquaintances. She made discreet inquiries as to whether the tenor or baritone might be interested in coming home with her for a cup of cocoa, only to discover that Lady Maria P. and Mrs. H. had beaten her to them; but so elevated were her spirits still, in the music’s afterglow, that Lady Amalthea was yet smiling as she took her leave and swept out, Mrs. Denbigh trotting behind her.

  Here, however, fate took an odd turn with Lady Amalthea. Her footman appeared, sweating and muddy, to inform her that both rear wheels had unaccountably fallen off her carriage. Even as she was registering this, a gentleman’s suave voice spoke next to her ear, offering her a seat in his own conveyance. Lady Amalthea turned and came face-to-face with the dark gentleman, who bowed and kissed her hand.

  He identified himself as Dr. Nennys, reminding her that they had been introduced at a supper party some months previous. Lady Amalthea was happy to accept his generous gesture on her own and Mrs. Denbigh’s behalf. He gave them sips from a small vial of brandy concealed in his walking-stick, against the evening’s chill, and chatted with her about Beethoven as they waited for his coach to be brought. In short order both Lady Amalthea and Mrs. Denbigh were comfortably seated in Dr. Nennys’s coach. He bowed, wished them a good night, and shut the coach door. They rolled away into the darkness. Lady Amalthea remembered glimpsing a pair of All Hallows’ Eve bonfires low-flickering, burning down to coals at the bottom of the drive.

  And that was the last thing Lady Amalthea remembered with any clarity.

  There was a confu
sed dream, to be sure, dimly recalled afterward: she was in her private chamber with Beethoven, and he was a glorious giant, a hero, of godlike physique, profoundly amorous. Oddly enough, the act of love itself was a little chilly and awkward, even uncomfortable. There was a sense of indignity. But the music welled up and floated her away to bliss, fully orchestrated, and the soloists had the voices of

  angels. Lady Amalthea wept for happiness at the spirituality of it all. Pleasure was given even to the Worm, and the Cherub stands before God . . .

  She woke, warm and rosily content, in a bed; but not her own. Lady Amalthea rolled over and stared in some confusion at the Honorable Henry B., with whom she had carried on sporadic amorous relations during the past year, though not as recently as her equally passionate relations with Lord F. or Pratt the gardener. Confusion gave way to horror as Lady Amalthea spotted the Honorable Mrs. B. lying just the other side of her husband; but Lady Amalthea’s consternation was as nothing to the Honorable Henry B.’s, when he opened his eyes and saw his erstwhile mistress lying beside him, fully clothed.

  Frantic inquiries and denials were hissed back and forth sotto voce. A discreet exit was somehow contrived, both parties white and shaking, as Mrs. B. slept on untroubled. Lady Amalthea was obliged to take a hackney coach to her own residence, where she found Mrs. Denbigh peacefully unconscious on her bed, though likewise fully clothed. When roused, and made to understand that something was amiss, Mrs. Denbigh was unable to provide any details about anything that had passed the previous evening.

  So it was with some alarm, two days thereafter, that Lady Amalthea heard that Dr. Nennys had come to call upon her. She met him with trepidation well concealed, however. He greeted her with the utmost courtesy, apparently much concerned. His coachman had informed him that, upon the night of the concert, Lady Amalthea had ordered him to drive her to Lord F.’s residence and there leave her, with the request that Mrs. Denbigh should be taken on to the house by Hyde Park. Dr. Nennys wished to be assured that nothing improper had taken place. Lady Amalthea assured him that nothing had, and he took his leave.

  Yet by Twelfth Night, Lady Amalthea had determined beyond all doubt that something improper had certainly taken place with someone, though whether with Lord F., the Honorable Henry B., or indeed Pratt the gardener was anyone’s guess.

  Lady Maria P. was able to provide Lady Amalthea with excellent practical advice, having been in such circumstances herself. Lady Amalthea shortly announced her departure for an extended tour of the Continent, and retired instead, under an assumed name, to a private establishment in the country. On the first of August she was delivered of a vigorous boy. Consigning him into the hands of the proprietress of the establishment, Lady Amalthea packed her bags, returned to London, and never troubled herself to think of the matter again.

  1825: Adagio Molto e Cantabile

  Mr. Septimus Bell was a gentleman, if of comparatively recent gentry. He was small and dapperly made, with smooth dark hair and rather fine dark eyes. He married one Dorothea Carr, a lady small and vivacious, as like him as a sister might be in appearance, and the two were as happy together as a pair of robins in one nest.

  The nest they preferred was situated in London, at No. 10 Albany Crescent, a nicely furnished terrace house with a complete staff. Richardson, the butler, was a former sergeant-at-arms and kept the establishment running with military precision, so the happy couple had little more to do with their days but bill and coo.

  After ten years of married bliss, however, their mutual affection had yet to produce a child. This was the only shadow on their happiness, but it loomed more darkly with each passing summer. The household staff observed that Mrs. Bell was now given to occasional weeping fits at the slightest provocation. She complained of headaches and unspecified malaise, and often sat gazing mournfully out into Albany Square, sighing whenever a governess and her charges passed the window.

  Mr. Bell was at his wit’s end seeking to make his wife happy. For the first time, quarrels, or something perilously near to them, could be heard emanating from the love nest upstairs. Distinguished doctors came to call at No. 10; patent nostrums arrived by post, as did a number of patent devices whose functions could only be guessed at by the scandalized household staff. In the course of time, however, all these efforts bore the desired fruit. Mrs. Bell was suddenly smiling through her still-frequent tears, and Mr. Bell stood perceptibly taller, walked with a perceptibly lighter step.

  The incipient heir was formally announced to the household. Congratulations were tendered from all the staff. An expectant hush settled on No. 10, and Nature took her course.

  The long-awaited day, Lammas Eve, came and stretched into night, and thence into another day, as a second doctor was called in to consult with the first. The two maids ran to and fro on their tasks, periodically reporting back to the staff downstairs. By noon of the second day they were in tears. At last they came down slowly, silent, and only patient questioning on the part of Richardson was able to elicit news of the arrival and subsequent departure of a small boy, the image of his father but blue as the Bluebird of Happiness. He had never been persuaded to take so much as one breath of mortal air.

  The well-appointed nursery sat empty, while the funerary arrangements were made. The ghastly prettiness of the tiny coffin and hearse, all white silk and winking crystal beads, the little confection of a white marble gravestone selected by Mr. Bell, the avalanche of consolatory correspondence, all had their due effect on Mrs. Bell’s nerves. She took to her bed and went mad. Weeping incessantly, she insisted that her child had not died, that the fairies had stolen it away, and implied that Mr. Bell was no manner of a man if he failed to go into Fairyland and retrieve it for her.

  Mr. Bell went instead to Brook’s, and remained there, gambling away a great deal of money. He had very nearly bankrupted himself, and was considering whether he ought to quarrel with a noted duelist or simply borrow a pistol and take matters into his own hands when he was approached by a fellow member.

  For a brandy-sodden moment Mr. Bell thought Dr. Nennys was the Devil, dark and sleek and faintly smiling as he was; but Dr. Nennys spoke solemnly and, indeed, kindly, asserting that Mr. Bell’s headlong rush to self-destruction was ill-advised. He pointed out that, sad as Mr. Bell’s loss had been, countless other parents suffered bereavement daily and the ways of the Almighty were not to be questioned. He proposed, in any case, to ameliorate Mr. Bell’s sorrows both familial and financial.

  There was, it seemed, a child born the selfsame day as Mr. Bell’s own boy, to a lady of noble blood by a lord similarly well-bred, unfortunately without benefit of clergy. A suitable home was wanted for the young person. Dr. Nennys had been authorized to seek out appropriate foster parents for him, and moreover to offer substantial monetary compensation, paid quarterly. Dr. Nennys named a certain sum, and Mr. Bell’s eyes widened. It was more than enough to offset his losses at cards. Stammering, he accepted Dr. Nennys’s offer. Dr. Nennys arranged to bring the infant to No. 10 that evening, at a discreetly late hour.

  At midnight precisely a black coach drew up before No. 10. A black-veiled woman emerged with a bundle in her arms. Mr. Bell hurried down the walk, closely followed by Richardson. The coachman leaped down, set a trunk on the pavement, resumed his seat and drove off at some speed. The woman nodded curtly to Mr. Bell and informed him she was the infant’s nursemaid, that her name was Mrs. Melpomene Lodge, that the infant was Edward Alton Fairfax, and that she would be pleased to inspect the nursery at Richardson’s convenience.

  The following morning Mr. Bell preceded the breakfast tray into Mrs. Bell’s sickroom, bearing the infant dressed in one of their dead child’s gowns. When Mr. Bell had got her to look at him, he announced that he had gone to Fairyland as she requested, and brought back their son. Mrs. Bell left off crying, astonished, and as she stared at him he set the infant in her arms. She looked down at it.

  Nothing was said for an interminably long moment, in which Mr. Bell had occasion to r
eflect that this child bore no resemblance to the one they had buried. It was bigger, robustly pink, and had an abundance of fair hair. The only mar to its perfection was a slight bruise on the bridge of its nose. Mr. Bell held his breath, waiting for a reaction from his wife.

  At last Mrs. Bell said that it had no eyelashes. Mr. Bell replied that they were certainly there; the infant was simply too fair for them to show much. She acknowledged this by pursing her lips slightly. For a while longer she continued to regard the infant, as though puzzled, and at last laid it down on the counterpane. She thanked Mr. Bell, but said she didn’t think she wanted it, and might she have her breakfast tray now?

  The housemaid, who had been waiting all this time with Mrs. Bell’s tray, thrust it at Mr. Bell, caught up the infant and rushed from the room in tears. Aghast, Mr. Bell waited on his wife, trying to think of a way to explain that they must keep the child or face financial ruin. To his great relief, Mrs. Bell made no further reference to it, but dried her eyes and spoke calmly and coherently of small domestic matters, the first time she had done so since the death of her son.

  Indeed, from that day her madness receded, until only those who had known Mrs. Bell in happier times would have said she was in any way altered. The servants remarked, amongst themselves, that she had quite a different expression in her eyes now. She was willing to tolerate the infant’s presence to a certain extent, though as it grew older and obstreperously affectionate she became reserved and withdrawn, and endured its visits in tight-lipped silence. Mr. Bell, desperate to please his wife, took her away to the Continent when she was well enough to travel. In the pleasant air of Italy her spirits revived considerably. Husband and wife walked together, admired the scenery together, posed for portraits together, and were very nearly happy again.