The Confusion

Gresham’s College
10/20 JUNE 1692

Even Solomon had wanted Gold to adorn the Temple, unless he had been supply’d by Miracles.

–DANIEL DEFOE,

A Plan of the English Commerce

“MY DELIGHT AT seeing Monsieur Fatio again is joined by wonder at the company he keeps!” Feeble as it was, this was the best that Eliza could muster when Fatio walked into the library accompanied by a man with long silver hair-a man who could not be anyone but Isaac Newton.

Even by the standards of savants, this had been a socially awkward morning. Eliza had been in London for a fortnight. The first few days had gone to buying clothes, finding lodgings, sleeping, and vomiting; for obviously she was pregnant. Then she had sent notes out to a few London acquaintances. Most had responded within a day. Fatio’s message had not arrived until this morning-it had been shot under her door as she knelt over a chamber-pot. Given the lengthy delay, she might have expected it to be a flawlessly composed letter, the utmost of many drafts; but it had been scratched out in haste on a page torn from a waste-book, and it had asked that Eliza come to Gresham’s right away. This Eliza had done, not without much discomfort and inconvenience; then she had waited in the library for an hour. Now Fatio was at last here, looking flushed and wild, as if he had just galloped in from some battlefield. And he had this silver-haired gentleman in tow.

For a few moments he had stood between them, calculating the etiquette; then he remembered his manners, and bowed to Eliza, and spoke in French: “My lady. Our exploit at Scheveningen is never far from my mind. I think of it every day. Which may give some measure of my joy in seeing you again.” This had been rehearsed, and he delivered it in too much haste for it to seem perfectly sincere; but the situation was, after all, complicated. Before Eliza could respond, Fatio stepped aside and thrust a hand at his companion. “I present to you Isaac Newton,” he announced. Then, switching to English: “Isaac, it is my honor to give you Eliza de Lavardac, Duchess of Arcachon and of Qwghlm.”

Fatio scarcely took his eyes from Eliza’s face as he spoke these words, and as Eliza and Isaac curtseyed or bowed and said polite things to each other.

Eliza liked Fatio but remembered, now, why the man had always made her a bit uneasy. Nicolas Fatio de Duillier was forever an Actor in an Italian Opera that existed in his own mind. Today’s scene at the Library of Gresham’s was meant to be some kind of a set-piece. The Duchess, summoned in haste by a mysterious note, fumes impatiently for an hour-dramatick tension mounts-finally, just when she is about to storm out, Fatio saves the day by rushing in, aglow from superhuman efforts, and turns disaster to triumph by bringing in the Master himself. And it was dramatick, after a fashion; but whatever genuine emotions Eliza might have had she kept to herself, for no reason other than that Fatio was studying her as a starving man studies a closed oyster.

Newton had been dragged here; this was plain enough. But once he saw Eliza in the flesh, and she became something concrete to him, his reluctance was forgotten. Then it was a simple matter of remembering why he had been brought here.

They sat around a table, like students, all in the same sorts of chairs, with no thought given to rank. Newton fixed his gaze on a small burn-mark on the tabletop, and collected his thoughts for a minute or two. Eliza and Fatio filled the silence with chit-chat. But each kept an eye on Newton. Finally Newton’s eyes flicked up to a nearby window, and he got a look on his face as if he were ready to unburden his mind of something. Fatio broke off in mid-sentence and half turned toward him.

“I shall speak as if everything Nicolas has said of your wit and erudition is true,” Newton began, “which means that I shall not limp along with half-truths, nor circle back to proffer tedious explanations, as I might do when speaking to certain other Duchesses.”

“Then I shall strive to be worthy of Fatio’s compliments and of your respect, sir,” Eliza answered.

Which seemed to be just the sort of thing Newton had been hoping to hear, for he gave a little nod, and almost smiled, before going on. “I would address in a straightforward way the question of Alchemy, and why I esteem it. For you will think me addled in the mind, that I devote so much time to it. You will think this because all of the Alchemists you have talked to are mountebanks or their fools. This will have given you a low opinion of the Art and its practitioners.

“You are a friend of Daniel Waterhouse, who does not love Alchemy, and who looks on my time spent in the laboratory as time lost to Natural Philosophy. You know, he went so far as to set fire to my laboratory in 1677. I have forgiven him. He has not, however, forgiven me for continuing to study Alchemy. Perhaps he has, by words or gestures, communicated his views to you, my lady.

“You are also a friend of Leibniz. Now, there are those who would have me believe that Leibniz is, to me, some sort of adversary. I do not think so.” Newton’s eyes strayed towards Fatio as he said this. Fatio turned red, and would not meet his gaze. “I say that the product of mass and velocity is conserved; Leibniz says that the product of mass and the square of velocity is conserved; it seems that both of us are correct, and that by applying both of these principles we may build a science of Dynamics-to borrow Leibniz’s term-that is more than the sum of these two parts. So in this Leibniz has not detracted from my work, but added to it.

“Likewise, he would not detract from Principia Mathematica but rather add to it what is plainly wanting: namely, an account of the seats and causes of Force. In this, Leibniz and I are comrades-in-arms. I, too, would unlock the riddle of Force: Force at a distance, such as joins gravitating bodies, and Forces in and among bodies, as when they collide. Or as here.”

Newton extended one hand, palm up, and Eliza supposed for a moment that he was directing her attention to the window set into the wall above this table. But Newton waved his hand around in the air as if trying to catch a moth, and finally steadied it. His palm, which was as pale as parchment, was striped with a little rainbow, projected by some bevel or irregularity in the windowpane. Eliza turned her attention to it. The swath of colors was steady as a gyroscope on a stand, even though Newton’s hand never stopped moving. This was a trompe l’oeil to best anything daubed on a wall by a mischievous painter at Versailles. Eliza acted without thinking: she reached out with both hands, cupping them together beneath Newton’s, and cradled his wayward hand in hers, steadying it. “I see that you are unwell,” she said, “for this is not the tremor of a coffee-enthusiast, but the shivering of a man with a fever.” Yet Newton’s hand felt cold.

“We are all unwell, if it comes to that,” Newton returned, “for if some Plague were to take us all, why, these little spectra would still crawl about the room until the End of Days, neither knowing nor caring whether living hands were held up to catch them. Our flesh stops the light. The flesh is weak, yes, but the spirit is strong, and by applying our minds to the contemplation of what has been interrupted by our fleshly organs of sense, we may make our minds wiser and our spirits better, even though flesh decays. Now! I do not have a fever, my lady.” He took his hand back, and gripped the arm of his chair to stop its shivering. The little rainbow now fell on Eliza’s cupped hands. “But I am mortal and would fain do all that I could, in the time allotted to me, to penetrate this mystery of Force. Now consider this light that you are catching in your hands. It has traveled a hundred million miles from the Sun without being affected in any wise by the C?lestial ?ther. In its passage through the atmosphere it has been subjected to only slight distortions. And yet in traversing a quarter of an inch of window-glass, its course is bent, and it is riven into several colors. It is such an everyday thing that we do not mark it; yet pray consider for a moment just how remarkable it is! During its hundred-million-mile passage, is it not acted upon by the gravity of the Sun, which is powerful enough to hold even mighty Jupiter in its grasp, though at a much greater remove? And is it not acted upon as well by the gravity of the Earth and Moon, and all the other planets? And yet it seems perfectly insensitive to thse mighty forces. Yet there is embedded within this shard of glass some hidden Force that bends it and splits it with no effort. It’s as if a cannonball, hurled at infinite speed from some gun of inconceivable might, and passing through ramparts and bulwarks as if they were shadows, were deflected and shivered into bits by a child holding up a feather. What could be concealed within an ordinary piece of window-glass that harbors such potency, and yet affects you and me not at all? Or consider the action of acids, which can in a few moments dissolve stones that have stood unmarked by Time and the elements since the world was formed. What has the power to annihilate a stone God made, a stone that could support a Pyramid, stop fire, or turn aside musket-balls? Some force of immense power must be latent in acids, to destroy what is so strong. And is it so inconceivable that this force might be akin to, or the same as, what bends the light as it passes through the window? Are these not perfectly suitable questions to be asked by those who style themselves Natural Philosophers?”

“If only others who study Alchemy would form their questions so well, and state them so lucidly!” Eliza said.

“The traditions of the Art are ancient and strange. Alchemists, when they say aught, say it in murky similitudes. This is not for me to remedy, save by pursuing the Work to its proper conclusion and thereby making plain what has been occulted for so many centuries. And it is concerning that Work that I should like to say something to you concerning the gold that Jack Shaftoe stole in Bonanza.”

This was such an unexpected turn in the conversation that Eliza flopped back hard in her chair, like a doll tossed into a box. Fatio turned his face toward her and stared avidly. Newton seemed ever so drily amused by her astonishment. “I do not know the nature of your involvement with this, my lady, and it is neither my place, nor my desire, to quarry the truth out of you. It suffices that you are believed, by diverse members of the Esoteric Brotherhood, to know something about the matter; and as long as that is true, why, it is in your interest to know why Alchemists care so much about this gold. Do you know, my lady?”

“I know, or suspect, only what I have inferred from the words and deeds of certain men who desire it. Those men believe that this particular gold has some supernatural properties exceeding normal gold.”

“I do not know what the word supernatural means, really,” said Isaac, bemused. “But you are not far wrong.”

“I do not wish to be at all wrong. So pray correct me, sir.”

“King Solomon the Wise, builder of the Temple, was the forefather of all Alchemists,” Isaac said. “Set upon the throne, a young man, fearing himself unequal to the task, he made a thousand burnt offerings to the LORD; who then came to him in a dream and said, ‘Ask what I shall give thee.’ And Solomon asked not for wealth or power but for an understanding heart. And it pleased the LORD ‘so well that Solomon had desired this thing, that he gave him an understanding heart ‘so that there hath been none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall arise the like unto thee.’ First Kings, Chapter Three, Verse 12. Thus Solomon’s name became a byword for wisdom: Sophia. What is the name we give to those who love wisdom? Philosophers. I am a philosopher; and though I can never equal the wisdom of Solomon-for it says quite plainly in the chapter and verse I have quoted, that no man who came after Solomon would achieve like wisdom-I can strive to discover some of what is today hidden but was once in plain view in the Temple of Wisdom that Solomon built.

“Now it says, too, that the LORD gave Solomon riches, even though Solomon had not asked for them. Solomon had gold, and moreover he had an understanding heart, so that the secrets hidden within matter-such as I have discoursed of in window-glass and acids-could scarcely have been hidden from his gaze for long. The lucubrations of latter-day Alchemists such as I must be little more than crude mockery of the Great Work that Solomon the Wise undertook in his Temple. For thousands of years, Alchemists have sought to re-discover what fell into obscurity when Solomon came to the end of his years in Jerusalem. Most of their efforts have been unavailing; yet a few of the great ones-Hermes Trismegistus, Sendigovius, the Black Monk, Didier, Artephius-came to similar, if not identical, conclusions as to the process that must be followed to achieve the Great Work. I am very close now-” And here Newton faltered for the first time in several minutes, and took his gaze away from Eliza, and with a little nod and the faintest trace of a smile gathered Fatio once more into the discourse. “We are very close now to achieving this thing. I am told, my lady, that there are those who hold my Principia Mathematica in some high regard; but I say to you that it shall be nothing but a preface to what I shall bring forth next, provided I can only move the Work a short step further.

“It would be of immense help to us in this if we had even a small sample of the original gold given to Solomon by the LORD.”

“Now I understand it at last,” Eliza said. “That gold that was taken by Jack Shaftoe and his pirates from Bonanza is believed, by you and other Alchemists, to have been a sample of King Solomon’s gold, somehow preserved down through the ages. It is somehow different from the gold that the slaves of the Portuguese dig from the earth in Brazil-”

“The theory of how it differs has been developed in more detail than you might care to listen to, particularly if you hold Alchemy to be nonsensical,” said Fatio. “It has to do with how the particles-the atoms-of gold are composed, one to the next, to form networks, and networks of networks, et cetera, et cetera, and what occupies, or may pass into, the holes in the said nets. Suffice it to say that the Solomonic Gold, though it looks the same, is slightly heavier than mundane gold. And so even those who know nothing of the Art may recognize a sample of this Gold as extraordinary merely by weighing it, and computing its density. A large trove of such gold was found in Mexico some years ago and brought back to Spain by the ex-Viceroy, who intended to sell it to Lothar von Hacklheber, but-”

“I know the rest. But what do you phant’sy was King Solomon’s Gold doing in New Spain?”

“There is a tradition that Solomon did not perish, but rather went into the East,” said Newton. “You may credit it, or not; but what is beyond dispute is that the Viceroy was in possession of gold that was heavier than the ordinary.”

“And you are so certain of this because-?”

“Lothar von Hacklheber sent three assayers across the ocean to New Spain to verify it beyond any shadow of doubt.”

“Hmm. No wonder he was so vexed when Jack snatched it from under his nose!”

“May I inquire, my lady, whether you have heard from this Jack Shaftoe recently?”

“He sent me a present in a box, a year and a half ago, but it had quite spoiled in transit, and was buried. Mr. Newton, you may be assured that I, and certain acquaintances of mine in France, are bending all efforts to establish Jack’s whereabouts, but this is well-nigh impossible, as he seems to be flitting all about Araby trading. When I learn anything definite, I shall-”

But here Eliza broke off, for she’d been interrupted. Not by any utterance, for both Fatio and Newton were silent, but rather by the expressions that had come over the faces of Newton and Fatio, and the wild looks that were passing between them. Newton in particular seemed too preoccupied to speak.

Fatio, coming alive to the fact that the room had been silent for rather a long while, explained: “It would be a grievous misfortune if these pirates, ignorant of what they had, coined the Solomonic Gold and spent it. For then it would be dispersed all over the world, and melted down-con-fused-and commingled with ordinary gold, and dispersed to the four winds.” Fatio turned his eager gaze back on Newton. His face collapsed, and he launched himself out of his chair, alighting on a knee next to the savant. Newton had raised one trembling hand and clapped it over his eyes. He was shifting about in his chair without letup, almost writhing. Sweat had beaded up on his brow, and a vein in his temple was throbbing at a tempo twice or thrice Eliza’s pulse. In all, it seemed Newton was devoting every ounce of will to restraining his body’s wild urge to break out into a frenzy. For the moment, his will prevailed, but only just, and he could attend to nothing else.

Eliza might have supposed that Newton was suffering a stroke; but the way Fatio perched next to him, stroking his hand, suggested that this was not the first time it had happened.

Eliza stood. “Shall I summon a physician?”

“I am his physician,” was Fatio’s answer. Odd that, from a mathematician. But perhaps he’d been reading medicine-books.

To oblige the patient and his physician to rise and bid her a courtly farewell did not seem the wisest course. Eliza curtseyed and walked out of the room.

HALF AN HOUR LATER, she was in the House of the Golden Mercury. The office was full of English lawyers-not stacked lock-boxes containing three tons of silver, as she had every right to expect. Indeed, the lawyers out-numbered their clients: four (presumably German) bankers. Of these she had met three before, when she had stopped by with the Marquis of Ravenscar to present the Bills. The fourth was unfamiliar, and older. Eliza supposed that he had come in from Amsterdam.

“Is this a trading-house, or an art gallery?” Eliza inquired, if only to break the silence that had been her only greeting. “For I expected to see silver pennies stacked to the ceiling. Instead of which I am confronted by a Still Life such as has not been seen since the heyday of the Dutch Masters.”

No one was particularly amused. But it did look like a group portrait. This office was scarcely large enough to serve as a muffin-shop. It contained two heavy desks, or bancas, and diverse shelves where ledgers and rolled documents were stored. A strong-box on the floor served as a small reserve of cash; but this was not the sort of place that customarily dealt in large volumes of specie. Such would normally be handled through one of the larger goldsmith’s shops, or Apthorp’s Bank. A narrow door in the back gave way to a staircase that executed an immediate fierce turn and then shot diagonally upwards through the middle of the office, reducing its volume by one quarter; it was on these stairs that two weeks ago the strong-boxes containing the first installment of the silver had been stacked. But no strong-boxes were there now. Rather, the first stair was claimed by the old banker, who was using it as a sort of dais from which to glower at the entire contents of the London branch of the House of Hacklheber. The old banker was stout, and his bulk entirely filled the width of the stairway, so that as he stood there, just on the far side of the narrow doorway, it looked as if he had been chivvied and tamped into a coffin standing vertically on end with its lid swung open. His jowls bulged like flour-sacks, forming profound vertical crevices to either end of his upper lip, which was as high, white, and sheer as the Cliffs of Dover.

Even if Eliza had not already met the London factor and his two assistants, she would have been able to pick them out amid the crowd by their postures. For they all stood with backs exposed to the old banker, hunched forward, frozen in mid-shrug, as if with his blue eyes he were boring slow holes into their spines.

The lawyers were five strong. To judge from their ages, the quality of their periwigs, and their posture, she guessed two full-fledged barristers and three clerks. The barristers were shoulder-to-shoulder with their clients, the clerks packed like oakum into spaces beneath the stair and among bancas that were not, for the most part, shaped at all like human beings. It was well that Eliza’s morning sickness had abated, for the smell of coffee, snuff, decaying teeth, unwashed men, and colognes used to overpower same would else have sent her right back out into ’Change Alley, where she’d have gone into a fit as bad as Isaac Newton’s. As it was, she had no lack of incentive to make the conversation brief and momentous.

“With so many gentlemen here, there is no room for silver,” she remarked. “May I assume that it has all been delivered to the Mint to be coined?”

“My lady,” began the London factor. He was literally reading from a prepared script. “The two weeks since you presented the Bills of Exchange at these premises have been eventful ones. Allow me to give you a brief account. You arrived on a day when news of a French invasion was looked for at any moment. The price of silver was high; its availability, nonexistent. You presented five Bills. One was payable immediately, and we paid it. The other four were payable on the tenth of June, by English calendar; that is, today. As no silver was to be had in London we despatched a message, post-haste, to our factory in Amsterdam. Less than twelve hours after its arrival in that city, a ship was underway on the Ijsselmeer laden with silver sufficient to pay the four outstanding Bills. Under normal circumstances she would have reached London and called at Tower Dock in more than enough time for the said bullion to have been minted into English coins before the date of expiry of the said Bills. During her passage across the Narrow Seas, however, she was waylaid, and overhauled by Ships of Force flying the flag of the French Navy. The silver and the ship were taken to Dunkerque, where they remain. Because this piracy was carried out by ships flying the fleur-de-lis, it is nominated, by our Dutch insurers, as an Act of War, expressly not covered by our policy; in consequence, the cargo is a total loss.”

“Have you tried to buy silver on the local market?” Eliza asked. “There must be a glut of it now that everyone knows that the French invasion has failed. Why, I have heard that the Marquis of Ravenscar sold his holdings two weeks ago.”

“News of the piracy did not reach my clients until yesterday,” returned a barrister-a feline man not much bigger than Eliza. “Needless to say, my client has bent all efforts, in the short time since, to acquire local silver; but my client’s ability to make such purchases is founded upon the credit of his House, not, mind you, as it really is, or ought to be, but as that is perceived by other bankers of the City-” and here he could not prevent his eyes from straying toward the window; for a few of those bankers, or their messengers, had begun to gather without.

“And that has suffered a blow, hasn’t it,” Eliza returned, in a voice suffused with childlike wonder, as if this had only just occurred to her, “because of the pirates and the insurers and whatnot.”

“As to your speculations, my client has no comment,” announced the barrister, “however I must correct you on a matter of lexicography. You said pirates. A pirate owes allegiance to no sovereign. The correct word, in his instance, would be privateer. Do you ken the distinction, my lady?”

“Why, yes-a privateer flies the flag of some country or other, and is in effect a part of its Navy.”

“Your clarity, where this distinction is concerned, may perhaps reflect your status as the wife of the Grand Admiral of France-the superior of Captain Jean Bart, who confiscated my client’s silver.”

“That man is incorrigible! Why, only three years ago the rascal confiscated every last penny that I owned! I am relieved to be informed that the House of Hacklheber escaped with comparatively small losses.”

“That remains to be seen,” said the barrister. “A lady’s wealth consists of the contents of her jewellery-box, but that of a banking-house consists largely in its credit. Direct losses such as the shipment of silver may be written off, and perhaps recovered. By contrast, when a Person of Quality erects an elaborate complot to destroy the good name of a banking-house-”

“It would be terrible, I could not agree more!” exclaimed Eliza; which shut them all up for a bit, as it was not quite the sort of response they had readied themselves for. “Though, by your leave, you are wrong about a lady’s wealth being confined to her jewellery-box. Of far greater value is her honour, which is to a noblewoman what credit is to a banking-house. What I lost to Jean Bart three years ago meant nothing to me. Much more to be feared would be the damage that my good name should incur if persons, whether malicious or simply ill-informed, were to go about spreading a rumor that I had connived to swindle an honest German bank! Does your client not agree, sir?”

“Er…my client is not as fluent in the English language as you orI. Before I can speak on his behalf as to whether he agrees or disagrees with your assertion, I shall have to meet with him privily and see to it that our words are translated into German. Pray carry on, my lady; but first, know that nothing in my or my clients’ previous statements can or should be construed to imply that I or my client is directly or indirectly accusing you of participating in a swindle.”

“That is ever so reassuring. In any case, it is precisely to forestall any such damage to my name that I have rushed here this morning.”

“It is?”

“Why, yes! For I had received word that the House of Hacklheber had suffered a reversal of its fortunes. Lothar von Hacklheber is reputed to be a vindictive and unprincipled man. My first thought was that he might try to soften the blow to his reputation, by deflecting it onto me; which would be most unfair, given that he entered into this transaction of his own free will, and on his own terms, well knowing the risks. Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is that I am here in London, alone, defenseless, with no assets other than my title as Duchess of Qwghlm, which was bestowed on me by King William.”

“We are aware of your titles, my lady-English as well as French-as well as how you came by them.”

“And so I am here to offer a solution.”

“And what is your proposal, my lady?”

“The purpose for which the silver was intended no longer exists. But the Bills have been presented, and accepted, and must be paid in London before day’s end, if the reputation of the House of Hacklheber is to survive. I propose that we convert the transaction into another form of payment. France no longer has need of the silver, but she does have a perpetual need of timber-more so than ever, now that so much of her fleet has been burned in the harbors of Cherbourg and La Hougue. She purchases Baltic timber through the Compagnie du Nord, which deals with a net-work of Huguenot merchants in the north. Those same houses maintain bureaus within a stone’s throw of where we stand; indeed, as I was on my way here just now, I chanced to meet Monsieur Durand, who is the local factor of such a concern. I fetched him along with me.” Eliza waved her hand in the window. Instantly the door opened, and the last remaining volume in the House of the Golden Mercury was claimed by a big-nosed, wigless, white-haired gentleman. “I present Monsieur Durand of Durand et fils of London, Stockholm, Rostock, and Riga,” Eliza announced. “I have told him all about what has happened-though like most of ’Change Alley he had already heard much of the story. Monsieur Durand has let me know, in the most eloquent French, that, as a result of his many connexions and his long expertise in the north, he has developed a respect for the House of Hacklheber that cannot be shaken by one unfortunate incident of piracy. As such, he is willing to arrange shipment of timber to the Compagnie du Nord provided that the four outstanding Bills of Exchange are transferred to him today. He will, in other words, accept the credit of your House in lieu of actual delivery of silver bullion. The House of Hacklheber’s obligations shall be discharged in full by day’s end, and no damage to anyone’s repute shall ensue; Lothar von Hacklheber shall be Ditta di Borsa tomorrow just as yesterday, and this momentary lapse in his reputation, which has led to the abrupt hiring of so many members of the legal profession, shall be remembered-if it is remembered at all-as one of those brief irrational panics to which markets are everywhere prone.”

All of this now had to be explained to the big German at the back of the room. Eliza suspected, from this man’s age, his bearing, and the way the others deferred to him, that he must report to Lothar von Hacklheber personally. Clearly he spoke little English; which might have been more help than hindrance to him until now, as he had been gauging the mood of the room, and observing the struggle of wills and the balance of power among the participants. He had seen Eliza walk into a room in which the prevailing mood had been like that in a ravelin under siege. Yet she had astonished the beleaguered defenders by not pressing her advantage when she might have, and instead proffering a way out. Astonishment had developed into relief as Monsieur Durand made his entrance. All of these things the old banker perceived, without knowing any of the particulars; and the more hopeful his underlings allowed themselves to become, the more suspicious he waxed. Now they had to sell him the proposal, in German; but he was not of a mind to buy.

“Are we to understand,” said the London factor, translating for him, “that La France is to receive-in addition to the hundred thousand livres in silver we have already delivered to you-four hundred thousand livres worth of silver as booty in Dunkerque as well as four hundred thousand livres worth of Baltic timber, in exchange for nothing more than five hundred thousand livres in French government obligations in Lyon?”

“I recommend you moderate your tone,” said Eliza. “Voices carry out into the street; and lurking there in ’Change Alley are any number of City men who have heard all the rumors about the insolvency of the Hacklhebers. When I step out that door, I shall be interrogated like a prisoner on the Inquisition’s rack. They will know whether the Hacklhebers have been able to honour their obligations, or not. Through the generous intercession of Monsieur Durand, it will be possible for me to answer in the affirmative.” Eliza half-turned toward the door and rested a gloved hand on the latch. The room grew perceptibly darker as a Mobb of ’Change-men on the street outside noted her gesture, and drew closer to the windows, blocking out the light. Eliza continued: “This talk of yours about four hundred thousand livres here or there is quite lost on me; I am a mere housewife with no head for numbers.” She flexed her wrist and the door-latch made a clicking noise, a bit like the cocking of a flintlock. A volcanic up-welling of German sounded from the rear of the shop; Eliza could not quite follow what was being said, but suddenly the barrister spun to face her and announced: “My client is pleased to accept the proposal, pending resolution of the terms in detail.”

“Then pray resolve them with Monsieur Durand,” said Eliza, “I am going out for a bit of air.”

“And-?”

“And to let the City of London know that the House of Hacklheber is Ditta di Borsa, as ever,” Eliza added.

“WHAT WAS THAT BIT you hollered into the back, just as you were coming out the door?” asked Bob Shaftoe. “I could not make out your French.”

“’Twas nothing,” said Eliza, “only polite leave-taking. I complimented the old fellow on how adroitly he and his colleagues had managed the transaction, and expressed my hope that in future we might work together again thusly.”

“And what said he to that?”

“Naught, but only stared into my eyes-overcome with fond emotions, I should say.”

“You said before, in St.-Malo, when we-” Bob began, and got lost in his thoughts as his gaze slipped down toward her belly.

“When we were together.”

“Yes, you said you wanted your boot on Lothar’s neck. And it seems to me you had that, just as you phant’sied. But you let him go?”

“Never,” said Eliza, “never. For do not forget that every transaction has two ends, and this is only one of them.”

“Very well. I shall not forget it. But I do not understand it.”

“Neither does Lothar.”

“Will you return to France?”

“To Dunkerque,” Eliza said, “to pay my compliments to Captain Bart, and to inform the Marquis d’Ozoir that he has got his timber. What of you, Sergeant Bob?”

“I shall remain here for the present time. I’ve been to visit Mr. Churchill a time or two in the Tower, you know. He shan’t be there very much longer, mark my words.”

“The judicial proceedings against him have become a farce, such as appeals to the English sense of humor, but all grow weary of it.”

“And meanwhile King Louis himself is laying siege to Namur, isn’t he? And folks are asking, why does King William keep our best commander locked up on a ridiculous pretext, when a great campaign is under way on the other side of the Narrow Seas? No, my lady, if I were to go back to Normandy, I’d have some explaining to do, and might even be hanged for desertion. That Irish regiment’ll be sent God only knows where-for all I know, they’ll wind up in the South, on the Savoy front, a million miles from where I have been trying to go. But soon enough Churchill shall be at the head of an army, and I shall go with that army to Flanders. We shall face the French across some narrow strip of ground. I’ll scan the colors on the opposing side, until I spy those of Count Sheerness-”

“And then?”

“Why, then, I shall devise some means of ending up with my boot on his throat. And we shall enter into a discussion concerning Abigail.”

“You attempted that with his brother-Abigail’s previous owner. He almost killed you, and you did not get Abigail.”

“I do not claim ’tis a likely plan, but ’tis my plan, and it gives me something to do.”

“Can I not simply buy the girl from Sheerness?”

“It would raise questions. Why should you care about one English slave?”

“That is my business.”

“And Abigail is mine-”

“Would Abigail agree? Or would she prefer that plan that is most likely to lead to her freedom?”

This made Bob a bit stormy-looking. He strove with his temper for a bit. Then he chuckled. “What’s the point of flapping my jaw when you’ll go and do just what you please, no matter what I say? Be off to Dunkerque, then. But if my wishes have any gravity, you’ll tend to yourself and not to me. For I ween you are in a delicate way just now. That is all.”

“I am ever in a delicate way,” said Eliza, “but men pick and choose the time to take notice of it, as it suits their purposes.” At this Bob chuckled again, which provoked her. “Let us speak plainly,” she said, “for this is where our ways part-you must to the Tower to attend your master in his prison-cell, I must to dockside to arrange passage to Dunkerque.” They had arrived at the cross where Grace Church Street changed its name to Fish Street, and plunged down to the Bridge. From their right entered Great Eastcheap; under the name of Little Eastcheap it then wended its way off in the direction of the Tower. A stone’s throw down the hill, a lone, stupendous column jutted up from the city, casting a finger of shadow down the length of the street. They’d come nigh to the place where the Fire of London had been kindled a quarter-century before. The column was the Monument that Wren and Hooke had put up to it.

“When you promise to speak plainly, I know to brace myself,” said Bob, and then he did literally, leaning back against a brick wall.

“You have seen me sick, and suppose that I am pregnant. This has wrought powerfully on your mind, for you know that Abigail was given syphilis by Upnor and may not be able to give you children, even if you do pry her free from the clutches of Count Sheerness. You have stopped thinking of me as ‘Eliza the woman I roger from time to time’ and begun to think of me as ‘Eliza the expectant mother of my only child.’ This has queered your judgment and led you to consider schemes that are not likely to produce Abigail’s freedom. Know then that the f?tus-which might have been yours, or my husband’s, or any of several other men’s-miscarried the night before last. It is with the angels. I would still produce a competent heir for my husband, but must begin a new pregnancy once I have reached France. Perhaps I shall seduce Jean Bart, perhaps the Marquis d’Ozoir, perhaps a Marine who catches my fancy on the street. In any case you must give up hope that any progeny of yours shall come from here-” and Eliza rested her hand on the front of her bodice “-for I am done with being the other woman in the life of Bob Shaftoe and Abigail Frome. Done with being the poppy-elixir that makes you forget your pain, and leads you to dream stratagems that shall never avail you or her a thing. Abigail may be waiting for you, Bob. I am not. Get thee to thy projects, then.”

She was gone from Bob’s sight before the words penetrated all the way to his heart, for she was a small woman, quick, and dissolved into the traffic down Fish Street Hill like a mote of sugar in a stream of boiling water. Bob did not move, but let the brick wall hold him up for some while, until the proprietor-an insurance-man-thrust his head out the window and gave him that look that Gentlemen give to Vagabonds when it is time for them to be moving on. Bob had a soldier’s knack for moving when he did not wish to. He levered himself away from the wall, rounded the corner, and marched down Little Eastcheap toward the Tower, where his Captain would be waiting for him with orders.