The System of the World

The Tower of London
LATE AFTERNOON, 20 OCTOBER 1714

“SO-NEAR-AND-YET-SO-FAR. That what you’ve been thinking all this time?” said Charles White. He spoke with remarkable aplomb for a man whose elbows were bound together behind his back with rope. He was displaying those elbows to the whole room, almost as if it was the latest fashion from Paris. For he had turned his back on Newton, and on the Beefeaters who were now guarding him, so that he could gaze out a window that overlooked Mint Street.

As Master of the Mint, Newton could have claimed whatever space he’d taken a whim to. But he’d always been a most practical Master, keen to better the productivity of the place, and so he had situated his personal atelier so as not to impede the coiners’ work. It was about forty feet on a side, divided into several closets, a wee chamber that communicated with the interior of Brick Tower and thence to the Inner Ward, and a single great laboratory-cum-office that commanded a view up, and down, and across this leg of Mint Street. Scarlet late-afternoon sun was angling in through rents in northwestern clouds, setting White’s left cheek and shoulder aglow, but only because they were elevated above the ground here; below them, Mint Street had already fallen into twilight, being over-shadowed by the glum row of casemates that lined the near surface of the outer wall. The casemate situated across from Newton’s laboratory and a bit off to the right was at once the best and the worst of these. Its sole practical function, lately, had been to enclose the Vault that housed the Pyx. As such it had been guarded round the clock by men identifying themselves as Queen’s, and more recently King’s, Messengers. Which amounted to that they wore silver-greyhound badges and had bits of paper bearing the signature and the seal of Charles White.

This view of the house-which was to say, Sir Isaac Newton’s view-was one that Charles White had never had the opportunity to enjoy until a few moments ago, when the Yeomen had frogmarched him in to the laboratory. He was making it clear now that he was well pleased with the picture his hand-picked Messengers made, standing there as a finely dressed and heavily-armed barrier between Newton and his magic box. When the Messengers spied White up in the window, lit up by the sun, they took to hip-hip-huzzahing him, perhaps not realizing that he was under arrest, and on a serious charge indeed-

“High Treason,” Newton was saying. He was seated at a vast table, which had turned black from hard employment. He was still wearing the crimson robes he had donned, this morning, for the Coronation. “I cannot think of any other word to describe what you stand accused of doing.”

“Accused!?” White asked merrily, and now, at last, tore himself from the window, and turned in to the room to face Newton. The sunset-light filled the laboratory like a refulgent gas, making all dull-colored things, such as the table and the faded beams of the low ceiling, even dimmer than they were. But anything that had an iota of shine or of color gleamed out of the dark like colored stars: Newton’s robes, the ribbons trapped between pages of his fat, ragged, ancient books, the brass and gold of his many scales and balances, samples of gold and silver piled here and there. “Who has accused me?”

“Jack Shaftoe.”

“Don’t suppose that has anything to do with your putting three hundred pounds of lead on his chest?”

“I do not suppose so,” said Newton, “for I suppose that you are quite guilty. But I do admit that an adroit barrister could build a case that Jack Shaftoe is an unreliable witness to begin with, made more so by the torment of the peine forte et dure.”

White now, for the first time, seemed taken aback. He had not expected Isaac Newton, of all people, to lend him a hand in erecting his legal defense. “You care not what happens to Jack-whether he is believed, or no!” White tried.

“I care not whether he was your puppet, or you his, or both of you de Gex’s.”

“But you need to establish that the Pyx was adulterated by someone, so that you’ll not be held responsible for what is found there. And Jack’s testimony, perhaps, is not deemed reliable enough to prove that beyond doubt. You need my word on it.”

“You shall have adequate time to develop that and other theories in your new lodgings,” said Newton, who stood up abruptly, and nodded to the Beefeaters. He had heard some sort of commotion down below, and wanted to go have a look. As did White; but, obeying gestures from Newton, the Yeomen laid hands on the prisoner and dragged him back before he could get near Newton, or the window. White became agitated for the first time, and cursed and made unrealistic demands, then fanciful threats as the Beefeaters dragged him back to the inner chamber, and thence into Brick Tower; from there, it would be a short march across the Parade to one of the Yeomen’s houses where White would be an involuntary guest from now on.