The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (330 page)

THE SAME TIME

I
T HAPPENED SOMETIMES
in the practice of physics that the student, having wrestled for hours with a recalcitrant equation, would suddenly find a way to wreak some drastic simplification upon it. Of a sudden, two terms, which he had copied out time and again, and which had become as familiar to him as his own signature, would, through some insight, or the providence of some new scrap of information, turn out to be equal to each other, and vanish from the equation altogether, leaving a wholly new mathematical sentence to be pondered. The student’s first reaction was exhiliration: pride at his own cleverness, mingled with a sense that at last he was getting somewhere. But soon sobriety took over, as he pondered the remade equation and became aware that he was really just starting on a new problem. Thus Daniel in the Black Dogg, trying to re-think all. For example: Jack Shaftoe was wearing a sword. When he had been Sean Partry, Daniel had scarce noted this, for many men went armed. But for Jack to be armed, here and now, was no mere affectation. He had set it all up so that he could kill Daniel and Isaac, if it came to that. And the king’s ransom in fine bright candles: from Sean Partry this had been simply bizarre, but from Jack it was a way to get a good look at his interlocutors’ faces whilst keeping his own phizz cloaked in the dazzle. And these were just the simple and superficial matters. Daniel would be puzzling over the deep bits for weeks.

“Newton is gobsmacked; Waterhouse nods as if he suspected this all along. Perhaps Waterhouse is cleverer than they give him credit for,” said Jack.

“I knew
something
was going on; else I could not make sense of recent happenings,” said Daniel. “But I did not expect
this
.”

“Can you make sense of it now?”

“No,” Daniel said, and glanced over at Isaac, who for once was lagging pitiably behind; his bulging eyes strayed to the hilt of
Shaftoe’s sword, lingered for a moment, then began to sweep the walls for exits.

“The entire month’s work: Bedlam, the Main-Topp, and the Stake-out: why? What was the point?” Daniel asked.

“Ask de Gex,” Jack said. “I had less than you might suppose to do with that tedious poppet-show. Through the most of it I was an amused spectator only. And an enraged, when I spied him swimming away, and knew he had survived.”

“So it is true that you and he are at odds.”

“Have
ever
been,” Jack corrected him, “though he did not wot it, I think, until your nice bit of jugglery went off in his coach, and set him on fire. Now he seems at last to’ve got it through his head that I am not his friend.”

“Because you engineered a double-cross,” Daniel said.

“The whole time it has been my misfortune to know the man, he has turned minutes into hours, and hours into days, with his jabbering about Alchemy. The last few months—since he learned that
you
had been summoned home from Boston—it has been worse than ever. As he has made me suffer so much with it, I reckoned it mere justice to use it to kill him.”

The mention of Alchemy had brought Isaac composure, and somehow made him willing to take part in the conversation. (This struck Daniel as an extremely familiar pattern; for when had Isaac ever been sociable, save when the company was Alchemists, and the topic Alchemy? Not for nothing did they call it the Esoteric Brotherhood. It was the only way he had ever made new acquaintances, with the sole exception of Daniel; it was his entire system for getting along with people, and that was its true magic.) “If ever was a moment, and a place, to ask a grossly indelicate question, ’twere now, and here,” Isaac began.

“Let her rip, Ike,” said Jack.

“If de Gex has been your hated foe for so long, why did you not kill him long ago? For unless I am mistaken this would not be difficult for one such as you to arrange.”

“
You
who have slaughtered so many at Tyburn may suppose it is an easy thing to do, and may phant’sy that I have kllled as many as Tamerlane,” Jack returned, “but killing a wretch through the machinery of the Law is easy, compared with how it must be accomplished in my world, when the victim-to-be is Father Confessor to the Queen of France.”

“So in de Gex’s obsession with Alchemy you perceived a way to get rid of him
indirectly,
” Daniel said.

Jack sighed. “It almost worked,” he said. “And may work yet,
through some convolution or other. But now is a perilous time, which is why we need to set matters straight, and get it done smartly.”

“I cannot fathom your arrogance in supposing that, after all you have done, matters may simply be
set straight
!” Isaac exclaimed.

“Maybe you had better square that, guv, with the Marquis of Ravenscar,” Jack returned. “If he’s willing to give freedom and a farm in Carolina to a varlet who’ll merely give information leading to my capture, why, what would he offer
me,
if he were in this room? What would
you
give me to have the former contents of the Pyx delivered to your house in St. Martin’s this evening?”

Daniel’s fear of being locked in a dungeon of Newgate with London’s most infamous criminal had suddenly been shoved out of his mind by fear of what Roger would have to say when he learned just how utterly Daniel had bungled the negotiation.

In his distraction he was overtaken by Isaac, who, after a slow start, had now got up to full speed. “Supposing that there is anything to that offer,” Isaac said, “how can you reconcile it with your duties as a paid agent of the King of France?”

“Ah, good, very important,” Jack said. “Leroy is a far-sighted chap. Deserves all that’s been said of him. Developed a scheme, in the respite between the wars, to win the next one by destroying the money of England. Excellent idea. Needed someone to do it for him. Haply I came along. I knew London. Knew of metals and coining. Had managerial experience, viz. Bonanza, Cairo, and other exploits. Was lacking in gentlemanly polish, though, and was of extremely dubious loyalty. How then to make good these deficits, that my salutary qualities might be put to work? De Gex. He knew me already. Is as noble as they come. Working in concert with me in London, he could get invited to
salons
—never my strong suit. He’d seen me make a fool of myself, more than once, over one Eliza—yes, Dr. Waterhouse, I spoke her name aloud—and knew she was the ticket to securing my loyalty. For by certain twists wrought on her by that perverted bitch Fortune, Eliza had married the young Duke of Arcachon, bore his children, and habitually spent half her time in France among the nobility of that land, who are prolific murderers of their own siblings, parents,
et cetera
. To poison her, or worse, should be as easy, for de Gex, as yanking out a troublesome nose-hair. Thus was the deal struck: Jack would to London to carry out the destruction of the vaunted Pound Sterling under the supervision of his tiresome overseer, de Gex, and in exchange, Eliza would be left alone.

“What a difference twelve years makes! The war is over, my friends, and France won. Oh, England wrung some scraps from them, but make no mistake, that is a Bourbon on Spain’s throne.
Leroy would still see Jamie the Rover on the throne of Great Britain, but that is not as important to him, now, as was securing the Spanish Empire in 1701! This undertaking I have toiled at, of undermining the currency, has taken on a new cast. Before, the objective was to bring about a crash in this country’s foreign trade—its only means of paying for war. Now, it is a petty matter: to create a scandal, and get the rich men of the City up in arms against the Whigs. Don’t look so indignant, Ike, you know perfectly well this is what I’ve been up to. I am in a position to accomplish this now, or as soon as Bolingbroke can arrange a Trial of the Pyx. Shall I? Shall I betray my country to France? Perhaps! For there is much to hate about this place. Do I feel strongly moved? No longer. For Eliza’s a widow. Her French children are grown up, dividing their time ’tween Paris and Arcachon. Her German boy is with her all the time. It has been two years since she graced the soil of
La France
. In sum it is a much more difficult matter, now, for de Gex to bring about her death—and it shall become more difficult yet, if
I
bring about
his
.”

“Is this going to conclude with you asking for something?” Daniel asked.

“All I seek is a dignified retirement from the brawls of the World,” Jack said, “though, since you mentioned the farm in Carolina, I think I should like to give that to my sons. They’ll only get into scrapes if they stay in London.”

“Oh yes,” Daniel said, “it is quite unthinkable that anyone should get into trouble in America.”

“
Different
trouble is all I seek for my lads,” Jack said. “
Wholesome
trouble out in the fresh air.”

THE SAME TIME

F
ROM THE STABLES
of Leicester House, Johann and Caroline had borrowed a pair of gray geldings: good but indifferent-looking riding-horses in simple tack. They rode side-by-side up Monmouth Street. Caroline was straddling her mount like a man, which was made easier by wearing a man’s pair of breeches. Her hair was stuffed up under a man’s white periwig and she even had a small-sword joggling from her left hip. Johann was dressed similarly, though he was armed with the big old rapier he had been carrying around ever since mysterious persons had begun making attempts on the lives of people who were close to him. They were supposed to look like a pair of young gentlemen out for a ride in the town.

Caroline frequently turned round to look back towards Leicester Fields. Johann had suggested that she not; but it was difficult for a royal to accept such mundane suggestions. She was quite certain that they were being followed by a fellow riding on a black horse. But Monmouth Street curved steadily round to the left as it went, so she lost sight of that rider from time to time. For the same reason they could only see ahead for a certain distance, and every pace brought new complications into view.

“When I made the plan, I had no way of knowing on what day it might be set into motion,” Johann said, “and so I did not take Hangings into account.”

“Hanging-Day is not until Friday, is it not so?” asked Caroline. It was Wednesday evening.

“Indeed. Tomorrow evening I should expect a crowd gathering along the route,” said Johann. “I did not expect one
this
evening—but—” He trailed off as they rounded the final deflection. A stone’s throw ahead, Monmouth Street joined together with two others, like tributaries of a river, to form a short but very wide thoroughfare that exhausted directly into a place called Broad St. Giles’s. Their view into that district was blocked by a wide but shallow building erected square across their path, like a sandbar at the mouth of a river. It was brick below and timber above, with a pocked tile roof, and was so generally mean in its appearance that from this distance it might have been taken for a stable. But it had a few too many chimneys for that, all of them tottering into the weather like elderly pallbearers leaning into a gale. On the side facing Johann and Caroline it had a little front court running its whole width, supervised by a veranda. Several white-haired, gray-faced chaps were strewn upon some benches there. This was the St. Giles’s alms-house, where parishioners who had outlived their means, their families, or their welcomes could be parked until they were ready for permanent berths in the nearby church-yard. For whatever reason, it had been built in the middle of the intersection so that Monmouth Street traffic must divert around it.

Now ordinarily, not being able to see into Broad St. Giles’s would have been accounted some small act of Grace. It was not precisely a street, and not a square, but a kind of drain-trap plumbing High Holbourn (which ran off to the right, toward the City) to Oxford Street (left to Tyburn Cross). As a district of Greater London it no doubt had a history and a perfectly legitimate reason for existence; but as a conduit for traffic between Tyburn and London it was a lamentable improvisation. A few kegs of gunpowder detonated in the slum to the north side of it would create a direct through line uniting the two thoroughfares, and relegate Broad St. Giles’s to a stagnant ox-bow lake, alienated from the main stream; but such improvements still lay in the future as Johann and Caroline rode toward it.

Tonight, however, not being able to get a clear view of what lay ahead was perilous. The district seemed more than normally crowded tonight. People—mostly roving tribes of young men—formed a slack eddy around the foundations of the alms-house. They did not appear to be bound for anywhere, unless Trouble could be considered a Destination; and some were already staring at Johann and Caroline, and pointing.

“Why so many people—the hanging?”

“Too soon, too soon—oh, if we
asked
one why he was here, he might claim it was for the Hanging-March—”

“But to believe it would be naïve,” Caroline said. “You think then that it is as Dr. Waterhouse warned us.”

“Yes—the Whigs and Tories have used the Hanging as a pretext to move their sympathizers—whatever you care to call them—”

“Militia?”

“Perhaps a little less than militia and a little better than the Mobb. I don’t know. At any rate they are here, getting ready to light bonfires—”

“Look, they have done it already,” Caroline said.

They had reached the place where the way broadened out, just before the front court of the alms-house. Off to their right, a bonfire had been kindled. It must have been carefully laid, and lit only a moment ago, for it suddenly flared very high, lofting a storm of incandescent twigs and leaves into its smoke-tower. It stood in the center of Broad St. Giles’s, which was a good hundred feet wide there.

“That is meant to be a gathering-beacon for some faction or other, I’ll wager,” said Johann, rising up in his stirrups and looking about. Indeed, many had altered course, and set their faces toward the flame: some
reporting
to it smartly, others merely falling in, drawn by the curious instinct of the herd. “It is good for us. Look, the crowd dwindles over yonder, to the right side of the way—we shall slip through and be on High Holbourn presently. Then straight on to the city. Let’s go!” and he drew back on his mount’s right rein, demanding a sharp turn. Caroline did likewise; but she could not resist a look back down Monmouth. There was the fellow on the black horse, now so close behind that she could have called out to him. He was making no effort to hide himself, but waving his hat back and forth above his head as if trying to catch someone’s eye. Succeeding in that, he then pointed deliberately at Johann and Caroline, and held up two fingers; then he joined those two fingers together to form a little blade, and drew it across his throat.

Caroline snapped her head round so sharply that her wig—an unfamiliar article—went askew on her head. She clapped a hand on it to hold it in place while she looked up and across the square, tracing the gaze of the man on the black horse. Immediately she saw a man standing on the roof of the alms-house, perched on the ridge, and keeping one hand on a chimney for balance. This fellow scrambled round as quickly as he could without falling, turning his back on Monmouth Street to gaze north across Broad St. Giles’s and east to one of the street-ends that spilled into that side of it.

“Charles! Come, come!” Johann was calling. Caroline’s name would be Charles for as long as she was wearing breeches. He had ridden about two lengths ahead. “Charles” could not answer without
revealing her sex to anyone in earshot. She waited for a queue of boys to thread past, then rode up toward Johann. She was hoping to draw abreast of him so that she could talk, but he spurred his mount on as she drew within a length, and began to lead her through the crowd in the direction of London.

Caroline was beginning to perceive drawbacks to the plan. It had sounded too simple to go wrong. Eliza, wearing an outfit that made her look, from a distance, like Caroline, had boarded the finest carriage available at Leicester House and driven south, parading round the perimeter of Leicester Fields in full view of all the spies who had been loitering there. She was to have gone out near Sir Isaac Newton’s house and then to have worked her way west in the direction of St. James’s, as if trying to reach the Duke of Marlborough’s house, which was not far from there. This was the sort of thing a conspiracy-minded Tory would expect Princess Caroline to do, had she been flushed out into the open; Marlborough was not back in the country yet, but had been conspicuously remodeling the house as a signal that his advent was drawing nigh. He had long-standing connexions with the Hanovers, and Caroline could seek refuge in his house in full confidence that no Mobb, Militia, or Faction would dare to molest her there.

Meanwhile Johann and Caroline had set out in the opposite direction, planning a ride of three miles or so straight through the heart of London to Billingsgate Stairs, immediately downstream of the Bridge, where a longboat would take them out to a Hanoverian sloop. A few days later they would be at Antwerp, and a few days after that, back at Hanover. So much for the plan; but Caroline had not considered until now that
if
the disguise worked, and caused their enemies to believe that she was not Caroline the princess, but Charles the nobody—why, what would it matter if such a nobody were found in Fleet Ditch with his throat cut and his purse missing?

An open space had appeared next to Johann, on his left side. She dug her heels into the horse’s sides twice and goaded it until it was alongside him. “What lies over that way?” she asked, and gestured in the same direction (left, or north across Broad St. Giles’s) that the man on the roof of the alms-house was looking.

Johann considered it. Several street-ends were visible on that side. From one of them a bobbling stream of manes, periwigs, and horse-tails issued: four, maybe as many as half a dozen riders. Their faces were indistinct at this range—but they caught the light of the bonfire clearly, as all of them were gazing up and across toward the alms-house. Caroline looked back that way; her view of the spy on the roof was now mostly blocked by the chimney, but she could see an arm
gesticulating, waving the riders on a course to close with Johann and Caroline.

“The one where the riders are coming out is Dyot Street—it leads up to Great Russell, and—”

“Ravenscar’s house?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think we have confused our enemies, in a way that could be dangerous to us,” Caroline said. “I think they believe that we are messengers, sent out from Eliza with an important note for the Marquis of Ravenscar, or whatever Whig commanders may be gathered at his house—those riders, I fear—”

“Were posted along Dyot to intercept any such communications,” said Johann, “and now they are after us. Let us ride a little faster—but not gallop, we must not show fear—and turn to the right, on Drury Lane. That will lead us away from Ravenscar’s and throw doubt on this idea that we are messengers.”

“I have heard things about this Drury Lane—”

“We shall look like a pair of young gentlemen out questing for whores,” Johann agreed. “Do not be concerned. Drury Lane is the
frontier
of a chancy district. Many of those who live there have strayed up to Broad St. Giles’s this evening. Riding the border is not so terribly dangerous. Going through it would be a bad idea—but we shan’t do that. Straight down Drury it is, all the way to the Strand.” And with that Johann guided his mount round a right turn onto Drury Lane. Caroline’s horse lurched forward in an effort to keep pace, and she almost lost her wig again. From here Drury Lane looked infinitely long, and hellishly disordered even by the standards of London: it narrowed and widened, narrowed and widened as if no surveyor had ever stretched out a line here, and buildings leaned away from it, or slumped over it, like a bench of drunks in a gin-house. She did not see any bonfires, which she counted as a sort of good news; perhaps Drury Lane would be left to the whores, procurers, and pickpockets tonight, even as other streets and intersections were employed as squares on the Whig/Tory chessboard.

“I saw something,” she said, “a gesture. I fear that violence is going to be used against us.” She could not help glancing at Johann’s Italian rapier, wagging from his left flank.

Johann tried to deflect this with humor. “Then it is good that my right arm is free,” he said, waving it in the air, “and on our vulnerable flank,” indicating the benighted neighborhood on their right. “And good as well that you have a sword.”

“A
small
one.”

“Indeed, that is what they call it: a small-sword. No one carries the rapier and dagger any more.
I
am kitted out like an old man.”

“I am glad of it,” said Caroline, for Johann’s weapon looked a fell relic of bygone times, much more formidable than the jeweled toothpick on her hip.

She could not help, now, turning round once more to look back. Drury Lane sported very few men on horseback at this hour and so it took but a moment to see two riders who had just entered from Broad St. Giles’s. They let their mounts dawdle for a moment, as they took in the sordid prospect, and got their bearings; then, catching sight of Johann and Caroline, they spurred them forward at a trot.

Caroline did not care to argue the matter with Johann and so she kicked her mount up to a trot, which obliged him to do the same.

“As you can see the right side of the Lane is perforated by countless alleys,” Johann said, loudly, in the manner of a jaded man about town explaining the lay of the land to his country cousin, “but there is a very broad street a short distance ahead that leads direct to Covent Garden Market, where are many wenches we euphemistically call flower-sellers and orange-girls. From there, several broad avenues lead to the Strand.”

Caroline wanted to ask
Why are you telling me this
but she dared not speak aloud, for she sensed a pedestrian close by on her left hand. Then she was distracted by some commotion off to the right, not in Drury Lane but back in what she assumed to be a maze of alleys behind. Shod hooves were sparking on pavement back there, and a voice commanding, “Make way, damn you!” She knew enough English by now to know that this was the voice of someone well-bred, someone with the right to bear arms. She looked behind again to see that the two men following had made up half the distance separating them; then, turning back to give this news to Johann, she observed that he was gone, with no good-bye other than a tattoo of hoofbeats down an alley, and murmur of prostitutes in his wake.

What had he told her? Do not ride into the alleys; look for a broad avenue on the right. She did so, and almost did not see it, for it was much closer than she had supposed. A rider was just emerging from it, on a bothered and winded horse that he was forcing to walk. She hoped it might be Johann, but the horse was the wrong color (chestnut) and the rider was the wrong chap altogether. He was staring her in the face, and could easily have made her out to be a woman in disguise had the sun been shining.