The System of the World

The Monument, London
LATE AFTERNOON

HALF-WAY UP THEY STOPPED to pant. The two younger pilgrims shared a stone ledge lit by a wee air-hole; some stone-masons had gone to a lot of trouble, here, to frame a toenail of gassy white sky in thunderous vault-work.

“Pity ’tis such an indifferent day,” said one, but not until after he’d lunged at the window and worked his lungs, for a minute, like black-smith’s bellows.

“We’ll have to gin up our own meteorology,” answered the other. He jammed a shoulder into a crevice of light that had opened up between the frame of the window and his fellow-pilgrim’s ribs, pried him out of the way, and availed himself of some air. Being London-air it could not be called fresh, but it was an improvement on the congealed miasma that filled these confines: a sort of well-shaft two hundred feet high.

An older pilgrim, several turns of the helix below them, stumbled. He was too short of breath to curse. He had to be content with inhaling and exhaling in a very cross way. “Out…of…my…light!” he then managed, one syllable per stair-tread.

The younger two-who were not really all that young, being in their middle thirties-moved up. Then they came aware of an impending need to make way for three young gentlemen who were descending. These had all prudently removed their small-swords from their hangers, so as not to trip on them, and were carrying the weapons before them like saints with crucifixes.

The two ascenders by the window were garbed all in black, except for their white collars, and even had black capes reaching below their knees. They were evidently Nonconformists: Quakers, or even Barkers. The three descenders were gaudy Piccadilly boys reeking of snuff and gin.

“Beg pardon, we have been up to view Heaven,” sang one of the latter, “and found it ever so boring, and now we are in a great hurry to reach Hell.” His companions laughed.

The pilgrims had their backs to the light and their faces to the dark. Otherwise, un-pilgrim-like amusement might have been seen.

“Make way for them, brother,” said the uppermost of the two young Dissidents, “Heaven can wait for us; Hell’s hungry for these.” He flattened himself against the wall, back to the chilly stone. But his brother was disfigured by an enormous hump on the back, and had to retreat to the window, and lean backwards into the cavity.

“You’re in my fucking light!” re-iterated the old one, now barely visible as a disembodied white collar spiraling up the dusky shaft.

“Making way for some unrepentant sinners, father,” explained the humpback. “Do thou comport thyself as a good Christian pilgrim.”

“Why don’t you take ’em hostage!? We need hostages!”

This extraordinary suggestion welled up out of the gloom just as the foremost of the three young fops was squeezing past the pilgrim who’d backed against the wall. They were so close that the latter could hear the former’s stomach growling, and the former smelt oysters on the latter’s breath. They shared a Moment there, each in his own mind weighing the threats. One had a sword, but his back was to a hundred-foot abyss. The other was pinned to a stone wall, but carrying a long pilgrim’s staff.

The Heaven-bound one averted his gaze politely-not a thing to be done with ease, as he had the look of one who had never lost a staredown-and called to the one below, “O Father, I have spoke with them, and found that they are all Englishmen. Not French dragoons as we had first supposed.” He then winked at Sword Boy-who, getting it, said, “Ah,” then, “ ’tis well-no fit place for an Engagement, this!” and then went on to maneuver past the humpback. A few moments later, the three Hell-bound could be heard bidding good day to the old pilgrim with the offensive politeness reserved for the mad.

“Time for a swop,” said the humpback. He moved up from the window, shedding some gray glare on the staggering old man, and threw off his cape to reveal a great long helmet-shaped object strapped to his back. Getting it off, and transferring it to the other, was several minutes’ feverish work. By the end of it they had made themselves near as irritable as the elder.

He had caught up with them and leaned towards the window to catch his breath. The light shone on a face imprinted with more odd and unwholesome tales than a warehouse full of Bibles. “An indifferent day,” he repeated mockingly. “I know not what you mean. The weather does not make the day. We make the day, as suits us. This day it suits me to destroy the currency of the Realm. The weather is fine.”

“This bloody stair has holiday-makers tramping up and down, can’t you keep a secret, Dad?” said the foremost, who was now trapped in a web of lashings that bound the helmet-shaped thing to his spine.

“As long as that is in plain view, ’tis farcical to make a great show of discretion, Jimmy,” returned Dad.

Taking the point, Jimmy’s brother-who now stood straight-backed, and carried the pilgrim’s staff-threw the cape over Jimmy’s shoulders, turning him into a bent hunchback. “Is there really no better way to gain entry to the Tower, Dad?”

“What do you mean!?”

“There’s public taverns crowded right against the foot of the wall. From there, a grapnel tossed up to the battlements-”

“The prisoners have maid-servants who go to and from market every day. You could disguise yourself as one of them,” suggested Jimmy.

“Or hide in one of the Mint’s hay-wains.”

“Or in one of those great bloody wagons they use to bring in the Cornish tin…”

“Or pretend to be the barber to some noble traitor…”

“I myself have sneaked in with night-time burial processions, just to have a look around the place…”

“You could bribe the Wharf-guard to overlook you when they lock the place up for the night…”

The old man said, “Danny boy, if you hadn’t spent the last month at Shive Tor making all ready; and Jimmy, if you hadn’t been toiling over the coin-presses; you’d know that half of our number did. But for me to enter by some such subtile way would not serve the purpose now, would it? Don’t stand there a-gawping at your Dad, move along, let’s get it done before the whole venture misfires! And if you get ahead of me, and you meet with any decent London folk who’d make good witnesses, why, don’t be foolish, take ’em hostage! You know how it’s done!”

A few minutes later they burst out into the light, and found themselves sharing a square stone platform with four Jews, two Filipinos, and a Negro.

“ ’Tis like the set-up for one of those tedious jests that are proffered in Taverns by Imbeciles,” muttered the old pilgrim, but no one heard him.

Jimmy and Danny were flabbergasted by the view: the new dome of St. Paul’s in one direction, about a mile away. Opposite, and only half as far, the Tower of London. Just below them, and so close that they could hear the grinding of the Dutch water-engines being impelled by the out-going tide, was London Bridge.

“Tomba! What are these bloody Sons of Israel doing here!?” he demanded of the Negro.

Tomba was sitting crosslegged at the southeast corner of the platform. In his lap was a pulley, or in nautical jargon a block, as big as a bull’s head. He removed a whalebone fid from his mouth and said, “They came up to look at the view, mon. They’ve caused us no troubles.” He had a spray of dreadlocks that would fill a bushel basket.

“Really I meant, in a larger sense, why do I encounter them everywhere I go,” said the old pilgrim-though he was now stripping off the collar and cape to reveal conventional breeches, a long-skirted coat, and a breathtaking waistcoat made of cloth of gold with silver buttons. He made sure that the Jews saw it. “Amsterdam, Algiers, Cairo, Manila-now here.”

Tomba shrugged. “They got here first. You can’t pretend astonishment, when you see ’em.” He was working on a splice. This platform on which they all stood was impaled, as it were, on the shaft of the Monument: an immense fluted column that stood alone on Fish Street Hill. Supposedly its foundation covered the place where the Fire had started in 1666. Or so ’twas asserted by the Latin inscription on its base, which blamed the conflagration on Popish incendiaries, despatched from the Vatican. At any rate the middle of the high viewing-platform was occupied by a stone cylinder, which was the upper terminus of the stairway, as well as the support for diverse Barock decorations, knobs, lanthorns, amp;c. piled on top to make the Monument that much taller. Several turns of rope had been laid round this by the two Filipinos, who’d set out their street-shoes in a tidy row so that they could work barefoot, sailor-style. The same ropes passed through the eye of the huge block on Tomba’s lap. To look at it, a landlubber would phant’sy that the pulley had already been made fast to the top of the Monument; but the Filipinos were riggers, and would not let it rest until a good deal more splicing, seizing, stropping, and serving had been effected. They’d been busy enough, until now; but the arrival of the man in the golden waistcoat threw them into a lather, and even the Jews backed away from them, lest they get jabbed by a marlinspike or bludgeoned by a heaver, and find their forelocks unfathomably convolved with a turk’s-head.

The father of Jimmy and Danny went the long way round to the east side of the platform. A spyglass emerged from his pocket and snicked out to length. He scanned some third of a mile of London, stretching from the square at the base of the Monument to the vast killing-ground of Tower Hill. Fifty years before, this had all been smoking cinders and puddles of liquefied roofing-lead. It followed that all the buildings standing there today were Stuart, and all of ’em were brick, except for a few Wren-churches, which had a lot of stone to them. Closest was St. George’s, so near by that he could jump from here and splatter on its roof. But he had no use for St. George’s today, save as a landmark to establish a heading. Raising his glass then brought him straight to a view of St. Mary-at-Hill, five hundred and some feet from the Monument’s gaudy plinth. A bloke with a spyglass was perched in its cupola; he took the instrument from his eye and waved. It seemed a cheerful gesture, not a warning, so he did not let his gaze linger there, other than to verify that there was a crossbow-man on the roof of that church, standing next to a copper tun and facing across the street (St. Mary Hill) toward a block of buildings on the eastern side. Beyond those, a few degrees to starboard, was a great hulk of a church, St.-Dunstan-in-the-East. Unauthorized personnel had likewise gained access to roof of same. It lay all of a hundred yards from St. Mary-at-Hill; and another hundred yards to the east of it was another bulky fabrique whose roof too was infested with crossbow-men and other unlikely trespassers. This would be Trinity House, the Guild or Clubb of Thames river-pilots. The lower floors would be sparsely occupied with retired tillermen drunk on sherry and wondering what all the confounded fuss was about.

Diverting now a bit to port, and some five hundred feet down-range, he found All Hallows Church, easily picked out by Barking Churchyard, which wrapped around it north, east, and south. Other than a sole sentry in the steeple, the place looked innocuous; the only activity was a funeral-procession making its way into the churchyard from Tower Street.

Beyond that was Tower Hill, an open glacis between the buildings of London and the moat of the Tower. It was put to diverse uses, viz. site of public decapitations, place for drilling of troops, and picnic-ground. Some ventured to name it a green. Today it was wholly brown, but enlivened by stripes of red. The garrison of the Tower used it as a place to rehearse their tedious drills and maneuvers. This explained why it was brown, for the grass had not been able to maintain a grip on the pounded mud. The troops were drilling at this very moment, which explained the red stripes; for the Queen’s Own Black Torrent Guard, despite their name, wore red coats. They were grouped by company, which made it easy to number them even without aid of a spyglass. Indeed their orderly battle-lines looked like nothing so much as tally-marks scratched in red chalk on a clay tile.

“I make them a dozen! There are fourteen companies in all; the First is downriver; twelve are there on Tower Hill; one, as is customary, standeth watch over the Tower. Of those, how many are out on the Wharf? Have you tallied them yet? No, never mind, ye’ll be assembling a certain Device…where is my damned bagpiper? Ah, now I see him, strolling on Water Lane…why, I phant’sy I can even hear his Heathenish Strains. Too bad for the Lieutenant! Now, where’s my Fire?” He twitched the glass hard to port, sweeping it across the whole expanse of the Tower. The northern wall and the moat flashed by, and then the stretch of Tower Hill that lay due north of the complex. This was but a narrow patch of open ground, for the city stretched out a lobe toward the Tower here, nearly pinching the Tower Hill green in half. At its closest approach, some of the buildings along Postern Row came within a stone’s throw of the Moat. These belonged not to the city of London but to the Tower of London itself; they were called the Tower hamlets, they had their own militia, their own Justices of the Peace, and their own Fire Brigade. Which was not merely a pedantic observation. For one of the buildings in the Tower Hamlets was on fire. The trail of smoke above it told that it had been smouldering for a long time; but just now, orange flames began to billow from its windows. The Fire Brigade had been called out from the taverns where they patiently waited, day in and day out, for an excuse to do their duty, and they were hastening out of the hamlets’ diverse courts and culs-de-sac, out of Distiller’s Yard and Savage Gardens into Woodruff Lane. But they were outnumbered, and generally out-run, by persons who merely wanted to see a building burn down. This was the ever-present Mobility; or, for short, the Mobb.

“My people!” exclaimed the man mawkishly. Satisfied, he took the glass down from his eye, blinked a few times, and attended to the near-at-hand for the first time in several minutes. A huge Indian, blinded by sweat, was emerging from the stair carrying a bucket of silk thread. One of the Filipinos had scaled the stone knob at the top of the Monument, a good twenty feet above, and lashed himself to the base of the lanthorn. He caught a coil of rope underhanded to him by his partner. Tomba spliced away, wielding that fib like a scribe with a pen, and glancing up alertly from time to time. The four Jews had made a cabal in the southwest corner and were avidly speculating as to what the hell was going on. The only ones completely useless were Jimmy and Danny, still gazing, gobsmacked, down into the Tower.

“Wake up, ye bloody prats!” said the old man in the golden waistcoat. “Lest I come over and knock the dust out o’ yer skulls.” Then, before he could summon up any more such endearments, he was distracted by items of interest in the river Thames.

On the downstream side of the Bridge, a derelict-looking barge was tied up to the fourth starling from the near end. A short distance downstream, a sloop could be seen anchored in the Pool. She was in the act of weighing anchor. This was not remarkable. But she was running out her guns, which was; and to boot, some hands were busy on her aft end, preparing to hoist a blue flag covered with gold fleurs-de-lis.

But even more than these, what truly commanded his attention was a huge wagon coming across the Bridge from Southwark, drawn by a team of eight horses. It looked like the sort of wagon that might be used to convey great building-stones from rural quarries into the precincts of the city. But its burden was covered by worn-out sails, and it was preceded and followed by a swarm of jubilant Black-guards who, if they were keeping to form, were probably picking pockets, purses, and shop-windows clean as they went, like grasshoppers progressing through a field of ripe grain. As they crossed the Square-the open fire-break in mid-span-a man jumped off the wagon, darted to the downstream side, leaned over the parapet, and waved a swath of yellow cloth over his head a few times. His eyes were directed toward the fourth starling. There, a cutlass severed a painter. The barge began to drift down with the tide.

“My boys. My doves,” said the man in the golden waistcoat. “Every varlet in a mile radius is doing me a favor of some description, save you twain. Do you not wot how long it took me to hoard all of the favors I am spending in this hour? Favors are harder to get than money. Faith, what I am doing here now is like shoveling guineas into the sea. Why am I doing it? Simple, boys: ’tis all for you. All I want is to provide you lads with a proper Mum to look after you.” His voice had gone thick; his face had collapsed and now bore no trace of anger. “Starin’ at yon Tower as if you’d never seen the minars of Shahjahanabad. Remindin’ me of my own self, a wee mudlark boy, first time Bob and I sallied up the river. Fascinating it might be to you, who’ve been ’tending to other matters, and ’tending well, I might add. But I am so bloody sick of the place, e’en though I’ve ne’er set foot in it. A thorough study of the Tower of London your father has made. Where the Tower is concerned, I am, as our friend Lord Gy would say, a dungeon o’ learnin’. No small toil for one as unused to study as I. Spent many hours plying with drink your Irish outlaws who have garrisoned it, and know its odd corners and passages. Sent artists in to sketch me this or that tower. Stood up here on howling bitter days peering at it through a perspective-glass. Wooed the Tower’s maid-servants, bribed and blackmailed the Warders. To me ’tis now as familiar as a parish church to its aged vicar. I have traced through f?tid streets the invisible boundary of the Liberty of the Tower. I know which prisoners are close kept, and which have been granted that Liberty. I know the amount of the stipend that the Constable of the Tower is paid for looking after a Commoner-of-

means and a Commoner-without-means. Of the guns that look out o’er the river, I know which are in good order, and may not be fired because of dry rot in their carriages. I know the number of dogs, how many of them are pets, how many are strays, and how many of the latter are mad. I know which prisoner dwells with which Warder in which house. I know the amount of the customary tip one must give to a Warder to gain entry to the Inner Ward. When the Gentleman Porter goes into the country to take the waters, and cannot ’tend to his customary duty of locking the Tower’s gates at half-past-ten in the evening, who takes over that duty for him? I know. Did you know that the Steward of the Court of the Liberty of the Tower does double duty as its Coroner? Or that the Apothecary serves by warrant of the Constable, whereas the Barber is a wholly informal and unsworn position? I do, and indeed the Barber is one of our number. All these and numberless other things I know concerning the Tower. And at the end of my studies I have concluded that the place is naught more than just another queer English town, with a rickety wooden gaol and a parish church, and the only thing of note about it is that money is made there, and its leading citizens are all Lords committed for High Treason. I inform you of this now so you’ll not be let down anon when it’s amply shown ’tis true; and also, so that you’ll stop gawping at it, and count the redcoats in the Wharf Guard, and assemble the fucking Rocket!”

Jimmy and Danny had begun to rouse from their stupor round the point in the soliloquy when their father had brought up the subject of rabid dogs-even for those who lived a life of danger, this was a certain attention-getter. The terminal word “rocket” jolted them like the noose at a rope’s end. Jimmy shrugged off his cape and let it crumple to the stone deck. For a few moments Danny looked to be committing fratricide as he worked with a dirk under his brother’s arms, but he was only cutting away the web of ropes that bound the helmet-shaped burden to his back.

“Damn me, I should watch more and discourse less,” remarked their father, surveying the rooftops below through his glass. “They’ve strung the lines while I was prating.”

A thread of gossamer now connected the steeples of St. Mary-at-Hill and St. Dunstan-in-the-East, and thence ran almost in a straight line to the roof of Trinity House. But haply he focused on the streaming gutter of Tower Street just in time to see a crossbow-bolt flying above it. This pierced the copper roof-skin of All Hallows Church. It had only lodged there for a few moments when a dark-skinned, barefoot man scrambled to it, and commenced a curious hand-over-hand pantomime. He was pulling in yards of silken thread, too fine to be resolved by the glass. It was originating from a smooth-rubbed copper vat on the roof of Trinity House, and it got thicker as he pulled it in, so that if one had the patience to stand there and watch, it might in the end become visible.

He diverted his glass a few arc-seconds down into the adjoining churchyard, where the funeral had taken a macabre turn: the lid of the coffin had been tossed aside to reveal a helmet-shaped object with a long stick projecting from its base. Stored in the foot of the sarcophagus was another vat of coiled thread.

From there it was a flick of the glass to Tower Hill. The red lines were gone! The companies of soldiers had marched away. He scanned the Hill until he’d found them again: they had done just as he’d hoped. They had marched toward the smoke and the fire. As how could they not, for the fire had broken out in a building not far from Black Horse Stables, where these dragoons kept many of their horses. The protocol of London fires was as fixed and changeless as that of a coronation: first the fire brigades came, then the Mobb arrived, and finally soldiers marched out to drive away the Mobb. All was proceeding according to tradition.

He took the glass from his eye to make sure that his sons were doing their bit for the Plan. Indeed, they had lashed the pilgrim-staff to the rocket-head, and leaned it against the railing, aimed in the general direction of St. Mary-at-Hill. Several yards of iron chain trailed from the end of the stick and were now being spliced to a loose end of cord that trailed over the brim of the kettle that the Indian had lugged up here. So that was as it should be. He glanced straight down to verify that the large wagon was booming into position at the foot of the column. Then he moved in the direction of the river, to check on his naval maneuvers; but as he came near the stair exit, his progress was all of a sudden blocked by a tall slender fellow in a long robe, who emerged not even breathing hard.

“Bloody Hell-our Supervisor’s here, boys.”

In response, spitting noises from Jimmy and Danny.

The robed one cast back his hood to reveal black hair with gray streaks and an unfashionable, but admittedly handsome, goatee. “Good day, Jack.”

“Say instead Bonjour, Jacques, so that our hostages shall make a note of your Frenchitude. And while you are at it, Father Ed, make the sign of the cross a few times to show off your Catholicity.”

Father Edouard de Gex switched happily to French and raised his voice. “I shall have more than one occasion to cross myself before we are finished. Mon Dieu, are these the only hostages you could arrange? They are Jews.”

“I am aware of it. They’ll make better witnesses, as being impartial to the quarrel.”

Father Edouard de Gex’s nose was a magnificent piece of bone architecture surmounting nostrils big enough to swallow wine-corks. He put them to good use now, literally sniffing at the Jews. He threw back and cast off his long robe to reveal the black cassock of a Jesuit, complete with swingeing crucifix, rosary, and other regalia. The Jews-who had supposed, until now, that the business with the pulley was part of routine Monument maintenance-now could not choose between astonishment and fear; We came up to take in the view, they seemed to say, and never expected the Spanish Inquisition.

“Where are the coins?” de Gex demanded.

“On your climb, did you nearly get tumbled off the stair by a great Indian who was on his way down?”

“Oui.”

“When next we see him, he’ll have the coins. Now, if you do not mind, I’d gladly have a look at the river.” Jack skirted de Gex and raised his glass, then faltered, as he did not really need it. The barge was drifting downriver with the tide-surge, and had covered perhaps a quarter of the distance to Tower Wharf. Men had emerged onto its deck and busied themselves with now-familiar preparations involving ropes and rockets. As for the sloop, she had now run out her French flag for everyone in the Pool to see, and seemed to be making a course for the Tower. Men were suddenly crowding her decks: men dressed all alike in powder-blue coats. If Jack had bothered with the spyglass, he could have seen ropes, grapnels, blunderbusses, and other Marine hard-ware in their hands.

The question was: was anyone in the Tower bothering to look? What if Jack threw a Boarding Party, and nobody came?

Behind him de Gex, in the universal manner of Supervisory Personages, was asking useless questions. “Jimmy, what think you?”

“I think too much pivots on outcomes within the Tower,” was Jimmy’s bleak answer.

De Gex seemed pleased to’ve been served up this opportunity to discharge the priestly office of succouring those who despaired. “Ah, I know the Tower is of an aspect very formidable. But unlettered man that you are, you want historical perspective. Do you know, Jimmy, who was the first prisoner ever held in the Tower of London?”

“No,” answered Jimmy, after deciding not to exercise his other option, viz. flinging de Gex off the Monument.

“It was his holiness Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham. And do you know, Jimmy, who was the first prisoner to escape from the Tower?”

“No idea.”

“Ranulf Flambard. This was in the year of our Lord eleven hundred and one. Since then very little has changed. The Tower’s inmates refrain from escaping, not because the place is so competently looked after, but because they are mostly English gentlemen, who would look on it as bad form to leave. If the place were managed by Frenchmen our plan would be certain to fail, but as matters stand-”

“Come, they’re not so bad,” Jack put in, “see how the redcoats swarm to the Wharf. The alarm has gone up.”

“Excellent,” de Gex purred. “Then a Russian and a Scotsman may achieve what no Englishman would dream of.”