Quicksilver (127 page)

“Then, a quid says he has a disposition sweet as clotted cream.”

The tavernkeeper looked pained. “It slays me to turn your foolish bets away, but again, I have such knowledge to the contrary as would make it an unfair practice.”

“I’ll bet you a quid he has the most magnificent set of eyebrows you’ve ever seen—eyebrows that would serve for pot-scrubbers.”

“When he came in he kept his hat pulled down low, and his head bowed—I didn’t see his eyebrows—I’d say you’ve got yourself a wager, sir.”

“Do you mind?”

“Be at your ease, sir, I’ll send my boy round to be the judge of it—if you doubt, you may send a second.”

The tavernkeeper turned and caught a lad of ten years or so by the arm, bent down, and spoke to him for a few moments. The boy went directly to the man in the corner and spoke a few words to him, gesturing toward the glass; the man did not even deign to answer, but merely raised one hand as if to cuff the boy. A heavy gold ring caught the light for an instant. The boy came back and said something in slang so thick Daniel couldn’t follow.

“Tommy says you owe me a pound then,” the tavernkeeper said.

Daniel sagged. “His eyebrows were not bushy?”

“That wasn’t the wager. His eyebrows
are
not bushy, that was the wager.
Were
not bushy, that’s neither here nor there!”

“I don’t follow.”

“I’ve a blackthorn shillelagh behind this counter that was witness to our wager, and it says you owe me that quid, never mind your weasel-words!”

“You may let your shillelagh doze where it is, sir,” Daniel said, “I’ll let you have that quid. I only ask that you explain yourself.”

“Bushy eyebrows he might have had yesterday, for all I know,” the tavernkeeper said, calming down a little, “but as we speak, he has no eyebrows at all. Only stubble.”

“He cut them off!”

“It is not
my
place to speculate, sir.”

“Here’s your pound.”

“Thank you, sir, but I would prefer one of full weight, made of silver, not this counterfeiter’s amalgam…”

“Stay. I can give you better.”

“A better coin? Let’s have it then.”

“No, a better circumstance. How would you like this place to be famous, for a hundred years or more, as the place where an infamous murderer was brought to justice?”

Now it was the tavernkeeper’s turn to deflate. It was clear from his face that he’d much rather not have any infamous murderers at all in the house. But Daniel spoke encouraging words to him, and got him to send the boy running up the street toward the Tower, and to stand at the back exit with the shillelagh. A look sufficed to get Bob Shaftoe on his feet, near the front door. Then Daniel took a fire-brand out of the hearth and carried it across the room, and finally waved it back and forth so that it flared up and filled the dark corner with light.

“Damned be to Hell, you shit, Daniel Waterhouse! Traitorous, bastard whore, pantaloon-pissing coward! How dare you impose on a nobleman thus! By what authority! I’m a baron, as you are a sniveling turncoat, and William of Orange is no Cromwell, no Republican, but a
prince,
a nobleman like me! He’ll show me the respect I merit, and
you
the contempt you deserve, and ’tis
you
who’ll feel Jack Ketch’s blade on his neck, and die like a whipped bitch in the Tower as you should’ve done!”

Daniel turned to address the other guests in the tavern—not so much the comatose dregs of last night as the breakfasting sailors and watermen. “I apologize for the disruption,” he announced. “You have heard of Jeffreys, the Hanging Judge, the one who decorated trees in Dorset with bodies of ordinary Englishmen, who sold English schoolgirls into chattel slavery?”

Jeffreys got to his feet, knocking his table over, and made for the closest exit, which was at the rear; but the tavernkeeper raised the shillelagh in both hands and wound up like a woodman preparing to swing his axe at a tree. Jeffreys shambled to a stop and reversed
direction, heading for the front of the room. Bob Shaftoe let him build to full speed, and let him enjoy a few seconds’ hope, before side-stepping in front of the doorway and whipping a dagger out of his boot. It was all Jeffreys could do to stop before impaling himself on it; and the casual look on Bob’s face made it clear he would not have turned the point aside.

The men in the tavern had all got to their feet now and begun reaching into their clothes, betraying locations of various daggers, coshes, and other necessaries. But they did this because they were confused, not because they’d formed any clear intentions. For that, they were still looking to Daniel.

“The man I speak of, whose name you have all heard, the man who is responsible for the Bloody Assizes and many other crimes besides—judicial murders, for which he has never dreamed he would be made to pay, until this moment—George Jeffreys, Baron of Wem, is
he.
” And Daniel pointed his finger like a pistol into the face of Jeffreys, whose eyebrows would have shot up in horror, if he still had any. As it was, his face was strangely devoid of expression, of its old power to stir Daniel’s emotions. Nothing he could do with that face could now make Daniel fear him, or pity him, or be charmed by him. This was attributing more power to a set of eyebrows than was really sensible, and so it had to be something else instead; some change in Jeffreys, or in Daniel.

The daggers and coshes had begun to come out—not to be used, but to keep Jeffreys hemmed in. Jeffreys was speechless for the first time since Daniel had known him. He could not even curse.

Daniel met Bob’s eyes, and nodded. “Godspeed, Sergeant Shaftoe, I hope you rescue your princess.”

“So do I,” Bob said, “but whether I live or die in the attempt, do not forget that I have helped you; but you have not helped me yet.”

“I have not forgotten it, nor will I ever. Chasing armed men cross-country is not something I am very good at, or I would come with you now. I await a chance to return the favor.”

“It is not a favor, but one side of a contract,” Bob reminded him, “and all that remains is for us to choose the coin in which I shall be repaid.” He turned and bolted into the street.

Jeffreys looked around, taking a quick census of the men and weapons closing in around him, and finally turned his gaze on Daniel: not fierce any more, but offended, and bewildered—as if asking why? Why go to the trouble? I was running away! What is the point of this?

Daniel looked him in the eye and said the first thing that entered his mind:

“You and I are but earth.”

Then he walked out into the city. The sun was coming up now, and soldiers were running down the street from the Tower, led by a boy.

JULY
1689

The
Venetian
Republick began thus; a despicable Croud of People flying from the Fury of the
Barbarians
which over-run the
Roman
Empire, took Shelter in a few inaccessible Islands of the
Adriatic
Gulph…THEIR City we see raised to a prodigious Splendour and Magnificence, and their rich Merchants rank’d among the ancient Nobility, and all this by Trade.

—D
ANIEL
D
EFOE,
A Plan of the English Commerce

To Eliza, Countess de la Zeur and Duchess of Qwghlm

From G. W. Leibniz

July 1689

Eliza,

Your misgivings about the Venetian Post Office have once again proved unfounded—your letter reached me quickly and without obvious signs of tampering. Really, I think that you have been spending too much time in the Hague, for you are becoming as prim and sanctimonious as a Dutch-woman. You need to come here and visit me. Then you would see that even the most debauched people in the world have no difficulty delivering the mail on time, and doing many other difficult things besides.

As I write these words I am seated near a window that looks out over a canal, and two gondoliers, who nearly collided a minute ago, are screaming murderous threats at each other. This sort of thing happens all the time here. The Venetians have even given it a name: “Canal Rage.” Some say that it is a
new phenomenon—they insist that gondoliers never used to scream at each other in this way. To them it is a symptom of the excessively rapid pace of change in the modern world, and they make an analogy to poisoning by quicksilver, which has turned so many alchemists into shaky, irritable lunatics.

The view from this window has changed very little in hundreds of years (God knows that my room could use some maintenance), but the letters scattered across my table (all delivered punctually by Venetians) tell of changes the like of which the world has not seen since Rome fell and the Vagabond Emperor moved his court to this city. Not only have William and Mary been crowned at Westminster (as you and several others were so kind as to inform me), but in the same post I received word from Sophie Charlotte in Berlin that there is a new Tsar in Russia, named Peter, and that he is as tall as Goliath, as strong as Samson, and as clever as Solomon. The Russians have signed a treaty with the Emperor of China, fixing their common border along some river that does not even appear on the maps—but from all accounts, Russia now extends all the way to the Pacific, or (depending on which set of maps you credit) to America. Perhaps this Peter could march all the way to Massachusetts without getting his feet wet!

But Sophie Charlotte says that the new Tsar’s gaze is fixed westwards. She and her incomparable mother are already scheming to invite him to Berlin and Hanover so that they can flirt with him in person. I would not miss that for the world; but Peter has many rivals to crush and Turks to slay before he can even consider such a journey, and so I should have plenty of time to make my way back from Venice.

Meanwhile
this
city looks to the east—the Venetians and the other Christian armies allied with them continue to press the Turks back, and no one here will talk about anything else but the news that came in the latest post, or when the next post is expected. For those of us more interested in philosophy, it makes for tedious dinners! The Holy League have taken Lipova, which as you must know is the gateway to Transylvania, and there is hope of driving the Turks all the way to the Black Sea before long. And in a month I’ll be able to write you another letter containing the same sentence with a different set of incomprehensible place names. Woe to the Balkans.

Pardon me if I seem flippant. Venice seems to have that effect on me. She finances her wars the old-fashioned way, by
levying taxes on trade, and this naturally limits their scope. By contrast, the reports I hear from England and from France are most disquieting. First you tell me that (according to your sources at Versailles) Louis XIV is melting down the silver furniture in the
Grands Appartements
to pay for the raising of an even vaster army (or perhaps he wanted to redecorate). Next, Huygens writes from London that the Government there has hit upon the idea of financing the Army and Navy by creating a national debt—using all of England as collateral, and levying a special tax that is earmarked for paying it back. I can scarcely picture the upheaval that these innovations must have created in Amsterdam! Huygens also mentioned that the ship he took across the North Sea was crowded with Amsterdam Jews who appeared to be bringing their entire households and estates with them to London. No doubt some of the silver that used to be part of Louis’ favorite armchair has by this route made its way via the
ghetto
of Amsterdam to the Tower of London where it has been minted into new coins bearing the likeness of William and Mary, and then been sent out to pay for the building of new warships at Chatham.

Thus far, in these parts, Louis’ declaration of war against England seems to have had little effect. The duc d’Arcachon’s navy is dominant in the Mediterranean, and is rumored to have taken many Dutch and English merchantmen around Smyrna and Alexandria, but there have not been any pitched sea-battles that I know of. Likewise, James II is said to have landed in Ireland whence he hopes to launch attacks on England, but I have no news thence.

My chief concern is for you, Eliza. Huygens gave me a good description of you. He was touched that you and those royals you have befriended—the Princess Eleanor and little Caroline—went to the trouble of seeing him off on his voyage to London, especially given that you were quite enormously pregnant at the time. He used various astronomical metaphors to convey your roundness, your hugeness, your radiance, and your beauty. His affection for you is obvious, and I believe he is a touch saddened that he is not the father (who
is
, by the way? Remember I am in Venice, you may tell me
anything
and I cannot be shocked by it).

At any rate—knowing how strongly you are attracted to the financial markets, I fret that the recent upheavals have drawn you into the furor of the Damplatz, which would be no place for one in a delicate condition.

But there is little point in my worrying about it now, for by this time you must have entered into your confinement, and you and your baby must have emerged dead or alive, and gone to the nursery or the grave; I pray both of you are in the nursery, and whenever I see a picture of the Madonna and child (which in Venice is about three times a minute) I phant’sy it is a fair portrait of you and yours.

Likewise I send my prayers and best wishes to the Princesses. Their story was pathetic even before they were made into refugees by the war. It is good that in the Hague they have found a safe harbor, and a friend such as you to keep them company. But the news from the Rhine front—Bonn and Mainz changing hands, &c.—suggests that they shall not soon be able to return to that place where they were living out their exile.

You ask me a great many questions about Princess Eleanor, and
your
curiosity has aroused
mine;
you remind me of a merchant who is considering a momentous transaction with someone she does not know very well, and who is casting about for references.

I have not met Princess Eleanor, only heard strangely guarded descriptions of her beauty (e.g., “she is the most beautiful German princess”). I did know her late husband, the Margrave John Frederick of Brandenburg-Ansbach. As a matter of fact I was thinking of him the other day, because the new Tsar in Russia is frequently described in the same terms as were once applied to Eleanor’s late husband: forward-thinking, modern-minded, obsessed with securing his country’s position in the new economic order.

Caroline’s father went out of his way to welcome Huguenots or anyone else he thought had unusual skills, and tried to make Ansbach into a center of what your friend and mine, Daniel Waterhouse, likes to call the Technologickal Arts. But he wrote novels too, did the late John Frederick, and you know of my shameful weakness for those. He loved music and the theatre. It is a shame that smallpox claimed him, and a crime that his own son made Eleanor feel so unwelcome there that she left town with little Caroline.

Beyond those facts, which are known to all, all I can offer you concerning these two Princesses is gossip. However,
my
gossip is copious, and of the most excellent quality. For Eleanor figures into the machinations of Sophie and Sophie Charlotte, and so her name is mentioned from time to time
in the letters that fly to and fro between Hanover and Berlin. I do believe that Sophie and Sophie Charlotte are trying to organize some sort of North German super-state. Such a thing can never exist without princes; German Protestant princes and princesses are in short supply, and getting shorter as the war goes on; beautiful princesses who lack husbands are, therefore, exceptionally precious.

If precious Eleanor were rich she could command, or at least influence, her own destiny. But because her falling-out with her stepson has left her penniless, her only assets are her body and her daughter. Because her body has shown the ability to manufacture little princes, it is enfeoffed to larger powers. I shall be surprised if a few years from now, your friend Princess Eleanor is not dwelling in Hanover or Brandenburg, married to some more or less hideous German royal. I would advise her to seek out one of the madly eccentric ones, as this will at least make her life more interesting.

I hope that I do not sound callous, but these are the facts of the matter. It is not as bad as it sounds. They are in the Hague. They will be safe there from the atrocities being committed against Germans by the army of Louvois. More dazzling cities exist, but the Hague is perfectly serviceable, and a great improvement over the rabbit-hutch in the Thüringer Wald where, according to gossip, Eleanor and Caroline have been holed up for the last few years. Best of all, as long as they remain in the Hague, Princess Caroline is being exposed to
you,
Eliza, and learning how to be a great woman. Whatever may befall Eleanor at the hands of those two redoubtable match-makers, Sophie and Sophie Charlotte, Caroline will, I believe, learn from you and from them how to manage her affairs in such a way that, when she reaches a marriageable age, she shall be able to choose whatever Prince and whatever Realm are most suitable to her. And this will provide comfort to Eleanor in her old age.

As for Sophie, she will never be satisfied with Germany alone—her uncle was King of England and she would be its Queen. Did you know she speaks perfect English? So here I am, far away from home, trying to track down every last one of her husband’s ancestors among the Guelphs and the Ghi-bellines. Ah, Venice! Every day I get down on my knees and thank God that Sophie and Ernst August are not descended from people who lived in some place like Lipova.

At any rate, I hope you, Eleanor, Caroline, and, God willing,
your baby are all well, and being looked after by officious Dutch nurses. Do write as soon as you feel up to it.

Leibniz

P.S. I am so annoyed by Newton’s mystical approach to force that I am developing a new discipline to study that subject alone. I am thinking of calling it “dynamics,” which derives from the Greek word for force—what do you think of the name? For I may know Greek backwards and forwards, but
you
have taste.