Each of the others in turn took a moment to greet him: Mortimer called him dude and chucked him on the back, Rebecca was stiffly mothering, Erzsébet complimented herself on her role in helping with his rescue. He and Robin exchanged quick but fierce hugs, since they’d already had their reunion. He did not ask about Frank.
“Okay, bring me up to speed,” he said.
“You should debrief one-on-one with Mel first,” said Rebecca. There was something grim in her tone that brooked no argument. “Then check in with the rest of us. It will get messy if we’re all trying to give you our perspectives at the same time. Use Frank’s study. I’ll make you some tea.”
“Tea?” said Tristan. After a confused moment, he said, almost sheepishly, “Not coffee?”
“I can make coffee,” she said, businesslike.
“No,” he said. “When in Rome . . .”
“Right. Tea, then,” she said, and headed for the kitchen.
Tristan and I went into the study and closed both doors. Alone, he wrapped his arms around me and gave me a strong, lingering hug. He pushed against me enough that I was anatomically reassured about the nature of his affection for me. Since I had no immediate way of returning the favor, I waited for him to say—as I knew he would—“Are we . . . ?” and then quickly said, “Oh yeah.”
He pinked a little. “Good. Now let’s get to work.”
Handwritten letter on fine linen paper
from His Majesty King James I
to Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery
My only sweet and dear one,
The Lord of Heaven send you a sweet and blithe wakening, sweet heart. I pray thee, as thou loves me, accept these diamonds I send to recover yourself from your debt at cards, which I hope shall save you a good deal of money. And now, my sweet gossip, I must give you a short account of my yestereve and yesternight that you have missed. I was for the whole of the afternoon shut up in conference with the Right Reverend Lancelot Andrewes, who is nearing completion of his translation of the Bible. I requested that he dedicate it to you, sweet baby, but he insists he must name it after me.
Towards sunset, I was treated to a most welcome diversion. I saw performed by the King’s Men, in my cousin’s Banqueting Hall, the Scottish play of Mr Shakespeare’s, the anticipation of which has been a delight of gossip, as you know. It was the queerest thing I have ever seen onstage, but I dearly enjoyed the spectacle, especially the witches, which were the source of great entertainment and nothing like real witches, except in their costume and demeanour. As we were exchanging courtesies and compliments with the players after, there was a disturbance the details of which I wot not, and we returned in great haste to the royal wing, where we enjoyed a great deal of wine and dried fruits, and a jig performed especially for us by the comedian Robert Armin. He was joined in his exertions by a Yeoman of the Queen’s Guard, who by a most remarkable chance has also been a player with the company.
My enjoyment was marred only by receiving a message very late last night from my Master of the Revels, who has abruptly and without explanation resigned his office. The Queen is beside herself with disappointment at his selfishness, for there is a masque due to be staged soon.
And thus God send me a joyful and happy meeting with my dear boy in my arms tomorrow.
James Rex
From Whitehall Palace, 29 April 1606
Journal Entry of
Rebecca East-Oda
MARCH 16
Temperature 39F, cloudy, barometer steady.
Mei and the girls will be arriving tomorrow to help with the memorial service.
It took me three minutes to type that sentence.
Robin is managing all right—quite well, in fact, for a young woman with no training for what she just accomplished. I’m sure she is grieving. And I don’t even know how to talk about Tristan’s . . . immersion? Re-immersion? In the other Strand, he had not proposed the East House Trust real estate expansion (or, as Mel referred to it several times in a self-mocking tone, the Rogue-DODO love nest)—but he has been gung-ho and we’re about to close on it.
Erzsébet’s számológép advised us that Mel should go back on one more Strand. She went on the 4th of March, and per all her previous Strands, we expected her to return between the 8th of March and the 10th. Here it is a week later, and she’s still gone. Tristan has pretty much moved into the living room, sleeping on the couch, to make sure he’s here when she gets Homed.
I remember Arturo Quince from DODO. He was hardheaded, and sometimes hotheaded, and we now know that he believes Mel to be a traitor to her country (how ironic) . . . but he was a decent, upright fellow. We must trust that even if she’s gotten into trouble in his hands there, his only concern will be accomplishing his DEDE. He would never do anything untoward to her.
Would he?
FINAL LETTER FROM
GRÁINNE to CARA SAMUELS
County Dublin, After Easter 1606
Auspiciousness and prosperity to you, my friend!
As I have been writing of these matters here, I have also spent time enough with you four hundred years hence. I am confident of your character.
In these pages have I laid out what my goal must be and why; the diverse ways I endeavour to achieve it; and what (and who!) my obstacles, which would be easier to overcome had I a friend to work with. You, Caralia, must be that friend. Not only is your magic excellent, but your connections in the modern world give you tremendous power. I pray you, regard the Fuggers as I do DODO. Use their resources for your (our!) ends while they believe themselves to be employing you for their own. They have stationed you so perfectly for it!
Confident enough I am of you that, when the ink has dried upon this sheet, I’ll take all that I have written since I met you, glue it into a large sleeve of vellum for protection, and then carry it to the heart of this new university the English have been constructing in Dublin, name of Trinity. I never thought a college would be of use to one such as me, but here’s a fine way to employ this one! I shall arrange to have my letter nailed up into some university wainscoting.
Because I’m not a trusting eejit, however, I will be placing it in the wainscoting of Leenane House, which does not survive until the present day. So you cannot blithely sally over to Dublin in the modern day to retrieve it and then show it to the Blevins or the Fuggers. As I shall tell you in person when I see you next, you must go back in time to find this and then leave it lie, as inanimate objects are incapable of diachronic travel. If you’re intrepid and curious enough, you’ll do this, and the next time we meet in modern Cambridge, sure I’ll know by the glint in your eye.
But ’tis possible you’ll read it and yet I won’t be around to see your glint. For I’ve learned a great deal over these past few months, and now I shall be acting on all I’ve learned. ’Tis the little deeds (and DEDEs) that are to be endeavoured, while grandiose schemes are best left undone. For even though the Tuscan DEDE was a success, the slave girl Dana was, as we know from DOer Chira’s report, taken out of circulation—yet still Leonardo managed to get himself born, curse him. ’Tis right there in the history books, only now they have him born of a peasant girl and not a slave at all. So Leonardo’s clearly destined to appear upon this planet, and I’ll waste no more time battling the cosmos over him. Perhaps my greatest learning from all this is that ambition can creep as well as soar. Creeping is less easily detectable than soaring.
So it’s one wee DEDE at a time I’ll be attempting now on, and I’m not finished with Berkowski yet. Hell-bent I am, on preventing that feckin’ solar eclipse photograph from ever being taken, for ’tis the first step to undo all of photography, backwards. I’m still chuffed with my particular scheme of moving the Royal Observatory out of the path of totality. ’Twould have been handily managed via the Mosaic Gambit, if only that poxy Mel had not interfered so in Roman Sicily.
But to look at misfortune is a useful thing for learning and improvement. In this case, I know precisely what the problem is, and that p
roblem’s name is Melisande Stokes. She is going back there for another Strand, as surely as I write these words.
I won’t be Sending Arturo Quince again.
This time, I’ll go myself.
The End
Acknowledgments
Above all, a special thanks to Neal Stephenson. Of course. Both for trusting me to keep the story going and also for nudging me in the right direction when nudging was required.
As always, I’m so grateful to my agent, Liz Darhansoff, and my editor, Jennifer Brehl—I am lucky to have you both in my corner. Thanks also to everyone involved in the designing, marketing, and selling of my books. Of all books! (Or most, anyhow.) What a noble and resilient industry you represent.
For their time and expertise, I am grateful to: Alec Stoll, Flip Tanner, Andrew Riggsby, Linnea Coffin, Alan & Maureen Crumpler, Laurence Bouvard, Giuseppe Taibi, Brandon Soozo, and Diane & Andrea Venturini.
I am grateful to my longtime early readers, Brian Caspe and Eowyn Mader, whose critiques, as always, were incredibly helpful (even when I argued with you).
For helping me hash out ideas, or at least prevent me from bashing my head too hard against the nearest wall, thanks to: Dan Sheldon, Jefferson Goethals, Ned Gulley, George Fifield, Sam Korn . . . and, above all, the funniest Shakespeare geek/problem-solver I have the privilege to know, Austin Tichenor.
The fight scenes in this book were plotted out by the inimitable combat consultant Scott Barrow (abetted bodily and spiritually by Mac Young, Brian Ditchfield, and Amy Sabin Barrow). If you’re aiming to be crucified, Scott’s your man.
Finally, as ever, I give thanks for the Gorgeous Group: Kate Feiffer, Jamie Kagleiry, Laura Roosevelt, Cathy Walthers, Lara O’Brien, Melissa Hackney, and Nancy Aronie.
I write this in lockdown, far away from my desk; I’ve compiled my thank-you list from memory, without notes, and I apologize to anyone who knows they deserve to be mentioned but has not been. (We’ll fix it in the next printing!)
Cast of Characters
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS
(* = historical figure)
Twenty-first-century Cambridge, MA
Tristan Lyons, founder of DODO and now leader of Rogue-DODO
Robin Lyons, his sister
Dr. Melisande Stokes, historical linguist; Tristan’s first recruit to DODO
Dr. Frank Oda, physicist and ODEC creator; husband of Rebecca East-Oda
Rebecca East-Oda, his wife; a witch
Erzsébet Karpathy, a Hungarian witch
Mortimer Shore, systems administrator, swordsman, and general geek at Rogue-DODO
Gráinne, Irish witch from seventeenth century now working for DODO in twenty-first century
Dr. Roger Blevins, head of DODO
Chira Yasin Lajani, DOer, Lover class; mole for Rogue-DODO
Dhakir, her brother (offstage)
Aliye, her sister (offstage)
Lieutenant General Octavian Frink, Director of National Intelligence and Blevins’s boss at DODO
Dr. Constantine Rudge, head of IARPA, advisor to DODO, and intimate of the Fuggers
Julie Lee, classical oboist, Rogue-DODO agent, and witch (offstage)
Felix Dorn, former DOer, Strider class, now Rogue-DODO agent (offstage)
Dr. Esme Overkleeft, former DOer, Sage class, now Rogue-DODO agent (offstage)
Mei East-Oda, daughter of Frank and Rebecca (offstage)
Sundry DOSECOPS and Secret Service officers
Cara Samuels, witch in collusion with the Fugger Bank (offstage, but very present)
Arturo Quince, DOer, MacGyver/Closer class
Tony Bianco, DOer, Forerunner class, code name Angelo (offstage)
Frederick Fugger, a man of business
Yamamoto Akifumi, his bodyguard
Diego Gabriel, DOer, Forerunner class (offstage)
Lauren Abernathy, HOSMA, socio-cultural historian (offstage)
Marcello Lombardo, HOSMA, Renaissance language specialist (offstage)
Peter Salvino, HOSMA, wilderness survival specialist (offstage)
Bill Morrow, HOSMA, violence specialist (offstage)
Dr. Paul Livermore, Director of Psychiatric and Mental Fitness, DODO
Dr. Larinda Schroeder, PTSD specialist, DODO
NMS, Roger Blevins’s personal assistant (virtual)
Chris Burton, RN, DODO nurse (offstage)
1640 Cambridge, America
Goody Mary Fitch, a witch
Goody Brown, neighbor to Goody Fitch
Ann Brown, her daughter
1606 London
*Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels
*King James I
*Queen Anne
*Guy Fawkes, Gunpowder Plot conspirator
*Thomas Knyvett, English baron
*Edmund Doubleday, English politician
*Christophe Mountjoy, landlord
*Marie Mountjoy, his wife
*Emilia Lanier, noblewoman
*William Shakespeare, playwright
*Edmund (Ned) Shakespeare, his brother
*Richard Burbage, actor
*Cuthbert Burbage, producer (offstage)
*John Lowin, actor
*Robert Armin, actor
*Henry (Hal) Condell, actor and company manager
*John Heminge, actor
*Hal Berridge, boy actor
*Edmund Knight, prompter
*Sundry other actors
Andrew North, actor
Rose, an English witch
Landlord of the Mitre Tavern
Athanasius Fugger, banker (offstage)
Sundry Yeoman Guards at Whitehall Palace
Sundry wherrymen on the River Thames
Sundry messengers, clerks, players, stagehands, officials, and nobility working in or visiting the Office of the Revels
Sundry patrons at sundry taverns in London and Southwark
*Ben Jonson, playwright
*Inigo Jones, architect and theatrical designer
Music master in the Revels Office
Harry, a constable
*George Weale, Clerk of Works for Whitehall Palace
Fr Peter Boroughs, inquisitor
*George Buck, presumptive future Master of the Revels Office (offstage)
*Thomas Howard, Lord Chamberlain (offstage)
*Philip Herbert, Baron of Shurland (offstage)
*Earl of Pembroke, his brother (offstage)
*Sundry members of the Stationers’ Company (offstage)
1397 Florence
Dana, young Tartan slave
Matteo del Dolce, wealthy wool merchant
Agnola Battista, his wife
Piero Lapi, her cousin
Giovanni, wagoner and Dulcinite
Lucia, a witch
Watchman at the Via Roma gate
Signore Iacopo Moschardi, butcher
Lena Moschardi, his wife
Paolo Uccello, artist (offstage)
Bartolomeo Corsini, patrician (offstage)
309 CE Sicily
Marcus Livius Saturninus, Roman patrician
Livia, his elder daughter; a witch
Julia, her sister
Arria, an attendant
Thalia, an attendant
Rufus, a slave
Hanno Gisgon, master mosaicist from Carthage
Vilicus, steward
Tutor to the girls
Servants and officers of the villa
Marcus, wagoner
Soldier (unnamed), witness to Diachronic Shear
*Constantine, eventual emperor (offstage)
1450 Kyoto
Seiko, a witch
Her husband
Shinto priest
*Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Shogun (offstage)
Eighteenth-century England
*Edward Jenner, creator of smallpox vaccine (offstage)
1851 Prussia
*Charles Berkowski, photographer (offstage)
Glossary
Acronyms
ATTO
&nbs
p; Ambient Temperature Tactical ODEC
DEDE
Direct Engagement for Diachronic Effect
DODO
Department of Diachronic Operations
DOer
Diachronic Operative
DOSECOPS
Diachronic Operations Security Operations
DTAP
Destination Time and Place
HOSMA
Historical Operations Subject Matter Authority
IARPA
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency
KCW
Known Compliant Witch
ODEC
Ontic Decoherence Cavity
ODIN
Operational DODO Intranet
PEP
Performance Enhancement Plan
QUIPU
Quantum Information Processing Unit
UDET
Unity of DOer-Experienced Time
Terms
áireamhán
Irish name for broom-quipu object used like abacus by witches
Anachron
historical person brought forward in time to modern day
Diachronic Shear
infernal, catastrophic response of the universe to too-extreme changes being wrought as a result of diachronic activity
GRIMNIR
neo-ragtag successor to ODIN; not an acronym
Strand
parallel universe
számológép
Hungarian name for quipu-like object used like abacus by witches
Wending
witch practice/superpower of jumping sideways between Strands
About the Author
NICOLE GALLAND is, with Neal Stephenson, the author of The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., a New York Times bestseller. She is the author of five historical novels: The Fool’s Tale; Revenge of the Rose; Crossed; I, Iago; and Godiva. She has also written two comedic novels—Stepdog and On the Same Page—and pens a humorous advice column for the Martha’s Vineyard Times. Galland is one of the seven coauthors of the Mongoliad Trilogy. She is a lifelong Shakespeare nerd and an occasional stage director. At the time of publication, she is living in Ireland, but don’t hold her to that.
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