Marie Brennan - A Star Shall Fall

“And the Prince?” Irrith asked. “This is a mortal thing, after all.”

Segraine’s hesitation was barely visible, but not quite absent. “And the Prince,” she agreed.

Why the pause? Anything having to do with the mortals of London fell under the Prince’s authority; Lune would probably tell Peregrin and Segraine so. That was how it was done with the Princes Irrith had known. But this one was new, she remembered. Perhaps Segraine didn’t fully trust him yet.

She didn’t really want to ask. That was politics, and something she intended to stay far away from. Instead she flicked the advertisement in her hand and offered Segraine her most impudent grin. “Only one question, then.”

“And that is?”

Irrith’s grin got wider. “Which of us has to be the lady?”

Letters of introduction, unfortunately, were insufficient to bring a man into the hallowed chambers of the Royal Society. To come among that august body, Galen needed his father to bring him in person.

He had, with extreme reluctance, begun attending what small social events offered themselves in this season, when most people who could afford to—and who, therefore, presented suitable targets—had retired from London. He did not enjoy it, and Charles St. Clair growled at the lack of results; in consequence, neither was pleased.

But it achieved what Galen needed: together, he and his father went to Crane Court, a narrow lane off of Fleet Street, to the home of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge.

Whatever Galen expected of the place, he didn’t see it. The facade in front of him might have belonged to any one of a thousand townhouses in London, with a narrow front, three windows across, and a short staircase leading up to the door, all in simple Palladian style. But the fellowship that met within its walls counted among its past number some of the greatest minds in all of Britain: Robert Boyle; Robert Hooke; Sir Christopher Wren, the guiding genius that rebuilt London in the aftermath of the Great Fire. Edmond Halley, whose calculations had called the spirit of that Fire home to roost. Sir Isaac Newton himself.

Charles St. Clair said nothing to his son, either during the journey or once they arrived. He merely went up the stairs and rapped on the door with the head of his walking stick. A footman in livery welcomed them in and directed them up to the piano nobile , where a spacious room overlooking the garden would be the stage for tonight’s meeting. It held an assortment of cabriole-legged chairs, an abundance of candles with mirrors to reflect their light, and a small number of gentlemen, all respectably dressed in gray powdered wigs and cravats.

His father introduced him around with a brusqueness bordering on rudeness. Galen bowed, made pleasantries, and was somewhat relieved to be rescued by the beginning of the meeting. Perhaps after it was done, and he had more to converse upon, this would become less awkward.

The meeting, alas, no more displayed the marks of intellectual brilliance than the building did. Galen could forgive it the routine business with which it began: every society that wished to survive for more than a brief time must conduct itself in an orderly fashion. He soon found himself struggling, however, against the urge to yawn, as someone read an interminable extract from what was presumably even more interminable of a lecture on the lymphatic vessels of animals. Galen lost the thread of it a few minutes in, and returned to alertness only when he realised the group was ordering thanks to the doctor who had delivered the lecture.

He made a better effort to stay alert for the letter that followed, and was rewarded with a name he recognised: Dr. Halley. For a moment, he thought someone might mention the comet. But no; the topic was magnetism, and Halley’s work on charts of the same. Which might be of great use to navigators at sea, certainly—just not of use to Galen.

Be patient , he told himself, and put down the hand that wanted to fidget with the cuff of the opposite sleeve. This is only one meeting. The impatience that plagued him at Mrs. Vesey’s had returned; his heart kept beating faster, his breath shallowing, as he thought of his purpose. What did he care, if some labourer had grown extraordinary tumors on his head? No doubt it was a great inconvenience to the labourer himself, and Galen mustered what sympathy he could, but that sentiment was in short supply.

By the time one of the Fellows produced a stone dug up by the New River Company, in which Galen could see no interest or value at all, he was nearly beside himself with impatience. Fortunately—but also frustratingly—that seemed to be the end of the evening’s business. After ordering thanks to the man who presented the rock, the Society broke up, leaving Galen afraid that his inspired suggestion was, in fact, a waste of time.

But there was more to the Society than merely its lectures. The real wealth was the members, whose interests ranged across every field of philosophical inquiry. If there was help to be found, it would be among them—and that meant Galen must not leave yet. Bowing to his father, he said, “I thank you, sir, for bringing me here tonight. I should like to stay a while longer; there are gentlemen I would like to speak with.”

St. Clair grunted. “Hire a chair, not a carriage.” And with that miserly advice, he took his leave.

Drawing in a deep breath, Galen squared his shoulders and surveyed the room. His best prospect was a man he had greeted before the meeting, the closest of his father’s acquaintances here. Galen approached before he could grow too nervous. “Dr. Andrews, if I might trouble you for a moment?”

The doctor was an older gentleman, almost the inverse of Galen’s father: pale instead of ruddy, thin instead of stout, thanks to long illness. “Yes, Mr. St. Clair?”

“That reference to Dr. Halley’s work made me think—did I not read something in the Gentleman’s Magazine a while ago, regarding some predicted return of a comet?”

Andrews gestured to the front of the room. “There, Mr. St. Clair, is the man to ask: Lord Macclesfield is twenty times the astronomer that I am.”

Galen felt like he’d swallowed that supposedly interesting rock. Though the St. Clairs might be a good family, they were nowhere near the rank of the Society’s President, the Earl of Macclesfield. When he formed his intention to speak with men here, he hadn’t aimed that high.

“Come,” Andrews said. “I will introduce you.” When he moved, Galen had no choice but to follow.

The earl was in conversation with another man, but turned as Andrews approached. “My lord, may I introduce to you Mr. Galen St. Clair?”

Galen bowed deeply as Andrews presented him to the earl and to Lord Charles Cavendish, the Vice-President of the Society. Then the doctor said, “Mr. St. Clair was inquiring about this comet business.”

A look of mingled pity and annoyance crossed the earl’s face. “I could damn that Benjamin Martin to the depths of Hell—yes, and John Wesley, too—for filling people’s heads with such fears. No, my boy, the Earth will not pass through the cometary tail on the twelfth of May. And even if it did, there is no reason to suppose it would result in the end of the world. While Halley may have suggested that a comet was the cause of the Deluge, it does not necessarily follow that his comet will be of equal consequence.”

Galen cursed his fair skin, which advertised his slightest embarrassment to all the world. “My lord… that was not the intent of my query.”

“Oh.” Macclesfield’s expression was the stuff of comedy. “My apologies, Mr. St. Clair. What did you wish to know?”