it occurred to Calvin that maybe he ought to beg permission to write to his brother so he could get Alvin over here to cure the Emperor and win Calvin's freedom. But he immediately despised himself for the cowardly thought. Am I a Maker or not? And if a Maker, then Alvin's equal. And if Alvin's equal, why should I summon him to bail me out of a situation which, for all I know right now, might need no bailing?
He sent his doodling bug into Napoleon's leg.
It wasn't the sort of swelling that Calvin was used to in the festering sores of beggars. He didn't understand what the fluids were - not pus, that was certain - and he dared not simply make them flow back into the blood, for fear that they might be poisons that would kill the very man he came to learn from.
Besides, was it really in Calvin's best interests to cure this man? Not that he knew how to do it - but he wasn't sure he really ought to try. What he needed was not the momentary gratitude of a cured man, but the continuing dependence of a sufferer who needed Calvin's ministration for relief. Temporary relief.
And this was something Calvin did understand, to a point. He had learned long ago how to find the nerves in a dog or squirrel and give them a sort of tweak, an invisible pinch. Sometimes it set the animal to squealing and screeching till Calvin almost died from laughing. Other times the creature didn't show pain, but limped along as if that pinched limb didn't even exist. One time a perfectly healthy dog dragged around its hindquarters till its belly and legs were rubbed raw in the dirt and Father was all set to shoot the poor thing to put it out of its misery. Calvin took mercy on the beast then and unpinched the nerve so it could walk again, but after that it never did walk right, it sort of sidled, though whether that was from the pinch Calvin gave it or from the damaged caused by dragging its butt through the dirt for most of a week Calvin had no way to guess.
What mattered was that pinching of the nerve, to remove all feeling. Bonaparte might limp, but it would take away the pain. Relief, not a cure.
Which nerve? It wasn't like Calvin had them all charted out. That sort of methodical thinking was Alvin's game. In England, Calvin had realized that this was one of the crucial differences between him and his brother. There was a new word a fellow just coined at Cambridge for people who were ploddingly methodical like Alvin: scientist. While Calvin, with dash and flair and verve and, above all, the spirit of improvisation, he was an artist. Trouble was, when it came to getting at the nerves in Bonaparte's leg, Calvin couldn't very well experiment. He didn't think a strong friendship would develop between the Emperor and him if it began with the Emperor squealing and screeching like a tortured squirrel.
He pondered that for a while until, watching a secretary rise up and rush from the room, it occurred to him that Bonaparte's weren't the only legs around. Now that it mattered that Calvin find out exactly which nerve did what, and that his pinch deadened pain instead of provoking it, he had to play the scientist and test many legs until he got it right.
He started with the secretary who was next in line, a shortish fellow (smaller even than the Emperor, who was a man of scant stature) who fidgeted a little in his chair. Uncomfortable? Calvin asked him silently. Then let's see if we can find you some relief He sent his bug into the man's right leg, found the most obvious nerve, and pinched.
Not a wince, not a grimace. Calvin was annoyed. He pinched harder. Nothing.
Then the current secretary jumped to his feet and rushed from the room. It was now the turn of the short fellow Calvin had pinched. The man tried to shift his body in his chair, to adjust the position of the lapdesk, but to Calvin's delight a look of astonishment came over the man's face, followed by a blush as hebad to reach down and move his right leg with his hands. So. That large nerve - or was it a bundle of very fine nerves? - had nothing to do with feeling. Instead