I may, William, if you have no love of labor, then you have no love of life. You will be successful when you find as much pleasure in the work as in the results. If your contentment lies in the creative process of the craft, then you will always be happy and the results will come naturally. When you are always happy you never tire. When you never tire you live forever.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Hancock added.
“Living forever and the desire to don’t always coincide,” Adams added.
“So we all must leave our minds open to new administrative philosophies,” said Hamilton.
“No longer a monarchist?” Madison suggested.
“Again, your pressmen,” Hamilton sneered. “Looking back at my life I’m quite convinced that the greatest man in history was General Washington.”
“That’s very kind of you, Alex, but I’m not buying the next round,” Washington returned.
Everyone at the table chuckled in sync.
“Not at all, Mr. President,” Hamilton replied. “Despite our fondness for debate and abuse at this table, as well as serving our own initiatives with quarreling, I’ve finally come to realize that the most heroic person in our midst was the man who did the least talking.”
“Hear, hear,” Adams chimed in.
The founders all tipped their glasses to the General who gazed out at them with humble appreciation. He then looked to Will and winked, seeing that the young man was himself quietly getting lost in the conversation’s obscure erudition. He raised his glass to Will, who did likewise, and took a drink.
“I’m glad to be able to reconcile you two before our meal has arrived,” Washington addressed. “While we have a moment of privacy before the serving staff starts fussing over us, can we consent to the meeting suggested to Franklin by the kidnappers? It is the only way I can envision acquiring enough information to lead us to Vivienne. Are there any dissenting opinions?”
The founders all looked around the room with the same semblance of adherence to Washington’s direct bid for consensus.
Madison spoke up. “I too, as Mr. Hancock put, was somewhat inconvenienced by the abrupt disturbance to my tranquil ambitions. Certainly, it is of the utmost importance to our communal existence to recover Vivienne as quickly and discreetly as we can. As I’ve spent the afternoon discussing the matter with Mr. Hamilton, this merits at least a brief meeting with her abductors.”
“Thank you, James,” Franklin answered. “I wouldn’t trust her wellbeing to any other band of rebels and cutthroats.”
“Hear, hear,” Wayne raised his glass to universal approval.
“When we meet them we will do so with as few as we need, barter for time, and entrust the rest to follow them to wherever they are hiding,” Washington planned. “Our first move will be to understand what they’re capable of before we attempt an attack. At the moment we’re at a tactical disadvantage, having an undeclared enemy with unknown resources.”
“It’s the most prudent course,” Greene supported. “Ben, what do you think?”
“Vivienne’s loss has caused me incredible anguish, and despite my haste to restore the safety of my daughter and my home, I know that it must be done tactfully. Thank you, gentlemen, for your patience and your aid,” Franklin submitted.
“Trouble to one American’s liberty is a trouble to all,” Washington sympathized.
“The perpetuation of rights depends on their being mutually intertwined,” Madison theorized.
“We have been too long apart, too self-interested, too comfortable, myself included,” Washington encouraged. “We forgot ourselves as a protectorate. Let us rekindle the pact we sealed with blood centuries ago.”
“Yes,” Hamilton added, “we must always think continentally.”
A third toast was raised, to which a longer sip was joined. At that moment a pair of punctual servers arrived with more beer and pitchers of water. Each diner’s order was taken and tensions eased with another drink. The immortals began to relax and recline in their seats. The old rush of patriotism they felt when they were young comrades in arms came tingling back, before the uproar of the Constitutional Convention and the mudslinging of the first four presidencies. Genuinely humane laughter replaced the brandished cackles of clever insults.
“I was about your age, William,” Hamilton reminisced, “when I began the greatest adventure of my life alongside our dear General. That was, of course, short of debating the formidable Mr. Adams years later. You should feel yourself fortunate to be in as good a company as I was amongst the three strategists at the end of the table.”
“Formidable, indeed, Mr. Hamilton,” Adams replied, “but you had no shortage of words yourself. No one since the Second Continental Congress had as many with me.”
Will recalled a legend. “I heard, Mr. Hamilton, that when you were a student a mob threatened to beat the loyalist dean of your university, but you spoke to the crowd so long that he escaped.”
“True,” Hamilton beamed. “The man was contemptible, but I was never a proponent of mob violence.”
“What did you say to them?” Will asked.
Hamilton thought for a moment. “I don’t really remember. I just started talking until I convinced them that they were in fact not a violent mob, but rather a peaceful demonstration of honorable patriots.”
“However, as you alluded to earlier, Alex,” Madison surmised, “it won’t be our eloquence that most effectively manages this crisis. Not unless it raises another army.”
“Unlikely,” Hancock agreed. “I’m sure we’ve divulged enough already in front of William to overcomplicate the matter. I can only imagine the stress he must feel at having to ingest so many contradictions in so short a time.”
“Yes, Will,” Adams urged, “you must have some burning questions by now.”
“Plenty,” Will started eagerly. “How did you all manage to convince everyone that you had actually died?”
“Fortunately, most of us died at home,” Washington said. “In mine and Martha’s case, the matter was simply a public announcement.”
Wayne interjected, “But in Alex’s case, death in a public duel with Jefferson’s Vice President was a little more difficult to cover up.”
“Says the man whose bones were scattered across Pennsylvania,” Hancock jabbed at the General.
“At least it was less suspicious than John holding out unnaturally long and poetically selecting Independence Day to retire alongside Jefferson,” Hamilton argued. “Speaking of, where is that lanky planter?”
“En route. Though I recommend you wait to trade punches in a sober forum,” Franklin volleyed.
“Of course. How could I possibly contend with the expert of all things?” Hamilton joked. “I’m sure by now he has twice read everything that has ever been written, without once leaving his home in the last hundred years.”
“At this point, he’s also written half of it,” Hancock jabbed at the absent solitary third President.
“But no one noticed that you weren’t aging?” Will interrogated further.
“We were already possessed of convincing age,” said Franklin.
“Not to mention bearing decades drowsiness from years of long nights building a new nation,” Adams added.
“Which is why I quit the business in 1793,” Hancock said with a laugh. “Having to sit and listen to this lot for the prior eighteen years was as much as I could endure.”
Will continued, “Who else is still alive besides Jefferson?”
“Along with our wives, we are the last,” Madison acknowledged.
Will pushed, “Of all the people involved in the Revolution, how did you decide who was chosen?”
“That honor rested solely at the discretion of the Marquis de Lafayette,” Washington answered. “He was the vehicle of the Grail’s delivery to America from its protectors. The Marquis remained impartial to our designs by retaining his foreign nobility, and closely monitored our progress. He approached those whose labors it became apparent to him needed
to be prolonged.”
“It was not long after we passed the Constitution,” Hancock said, “that we were all brought together by secret missive to a private hall where the marquis expressed his confidence in our new beginning and performed the immortal rite. Since I had already made my fortune and the cause of creating the Republic was burgeoning with so many great young legal minds, I elected to remove myself from mortal life. Along with Ben and Nate, we were free to found the network in which the Grail would be secured and woven with the national destiny constructed by these fine gentlemen. As global warfare was threatening Europe again and the politics of the colonial era was becoming unwieldy, I got the impression that the relic’s previous guardians feared for its safety. America was therefore the furthest outpost where they trusted it could be effectively sheltered. I suppose you might say I served as the first ambassador to the international body of immortals.”
Will continued carefully. “Why send it to a group of people whose political interests were not always aligned?”
“On the contrary,” Madison fielded the question, “our personalities provided the perfect set of checks and balances to prevent its abuse.”
“That makes sense, I guess. It’s amazing that wars weren’t fought over it before it even got here.”
“There definitely were, just not openly,” Hancock replied. “There was certainly a sector of the Vatican that was aware of its existence, and made many attempts at retaking it. Our strict policy of separating religion from