The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World

by Neal Stephenson

  Your coachman is Mr. John Hammond and I have charged him to convey you anywhere you desire, until your errand is accomplished; but I have led him to believe that most of your perambulations shall be confined to the triangle formed by London, Cambridge, and Mr. Apthorp’s country house. If you conceive a need to hie to John O’Groats or Land’s End, do break the news to him gently.

  Yours very sternly,

  (signed with a flourish, two inches high)

  Ravenscar

  P.S. I seem to have lost my poniard—have you seen it?

  Roger was completely free of any taint of cowardice. Craven he might be, but a coward? Never. A trifle. Roger was sincere when he called it that.

  It was impossible for Daniel to read in the dim, rocking vehicle, and he had no one to talk to, so sleeping and thinking were the only ways to pass the long drive through the rain up to Cambridge. As he contrasted his fear of Mr. White (which was very much akin to the fear he had previously had of Jeffreys) with how he had once felt about this rock that was now in his pocket, a new hypothesis of cowardice came into his head. The Stone had made him sad, reluctant to die, and anxious—but his fear of it had been as nothing compared to his fear of Jeffreys, and now of White. Yet those men had only spoken threatening words to him. Even when Hooke had reached up between his thighs with the scalpel, Daniel had been gripped by a sort of animal fear, but nothing like the dread of Mr. White, which had kept him awake all last night.

  The only difference he could think of was that Hooke liked Daniel and White hated him. Could it be, then, that Daniel’s true cowardice lay in that he could not stand for people to think poorly of him?

  That would be a strange shape for cowardice to take. But it tallied well with Daniel’s experiences to date. It was Daniel’s biography in a sentence. Further, perhaps it was the case that there were certain men, such as Jeffreys and White, who were adept at detecting this particular type of fear, and who had learned to cultivate it and use it against their enemies. Mr. John Hammond, the driver, had a long coachman’s whip and used it frequently, but never actually struck the horses with it. Rather, he made it crack in the air around the heads of his team, and used their own fear to drive them.

  When Daniel had sent Jeffreys to the Tower and to his scaffold-top meeting with Jack Ketch, he’d phant’sied that he had slain a dragon, and put an end to that part of his life. Yet now Mr. White had appeared out of nowhere. An alarming chap! But much more alarming was what this all implied, namely that the world had more than one dragon—that it was infested with them—and that a fellow who was afraid of dragons must perforce spend all his days worrying about one or another.

  This was all very much of the essence, because when Daniel tracked Isaac down, wherever he was, he would not be able to do what needed to be done without first mastering this fear.

  AS IT TURNED OUT, he had no occasion to master it in Cambridge. He arrived at Trinity College in time to have a wash and a cat-nap in one of the guest chambers. Then, when the bell rang, he threw on a robe and went to the dining hall and took a place at the high table. Rather close to the head of that table, as it turned out. For between apoplexy and smallpox, Daniel was becoming more senior with every passing month. He was shown respect and even affection. He understood now why men afflicted with his particular brand of cowardice would gravitate to stations like this one, even though the College had fallen on very hard times, and was dishing up thin gruel little different from what was served in the poor-house.

  When he inquired after Newton and Fatio, heads turned toward a young man seated near the foot of the table—too far away for Daniel to converse with him—who was called Dominic Masham. This suggested much to Daniel, for he knew that the family Masham were close friends and patrons of John Locke. Locke had been living on their estate at Oates since he’d come back from exile in Holland round the time of the Glorious Revolution. Daniel presumed that Locke had established some sort of alchemical laboratory there, for Newton and Fatio had frequently gone there for lengthy stays, as had Robert Boyle until his death a year or two ago. The Mashams had many children and Daniel guessed that this Dominic was one of them, and that he was here as a protégé of Newton.

  It was explained to him that Newton, Fatio, and Locke had all been staying in Newton’s (and formerly Waterhouse’s) chambers here until yesterday morning, when they’d all gone away, leaving Masham behind to tie up some loose ends. Newton and Fatio had gone off together bound for Oates. Locke had gone off by himself down the Barton Road, which led generally southeastwards. But he had declined to state his destination.

  “I went right by them,” Daniel remarked. For the Mashams’ estate lay just off the London-Cambridge road, some twenty miles north of the capital. “What were those fellows up to?” For they also collaborated on theological projects.

  It made the men at High Table nervous that Daniel had even asked.

  “That is to say, what sorts of stimulating conversations have I missed by being so long absent from this table? Surely, three such men did not sit here in silence.”

  Everyone sat in silence for a few moments. But then, fortuitously, dinner was over. They all stood up and chanted in Latin, and filed out. Daniel tracked Dominic Masham across the Great Court, and caught up with him beyond the main gate as he was unlocking the portal to Newton’s private courtyard. Masham had a distracted and hurried look about him, which suited Daniel’s purposes well enough. Daniel had a lanthorn, which he used to illuminate Masham’s face.

  “Going home soon, Mr. Masham?”

  “Tomorrow, Dr. Waterhouse, or as soon as I can gather up certain…”

  Daniel let Masham’s pause dangle embarrassingly for a while before saying, quietly, “You offend me with this affected coyness. I am not a lass to flirt with, Mr. Masham.”

  This had the same effect on the younger man as a whip-crack by a horse’s ear. He froze and began trying to frame a suitably glorious apology, but Daniel cut him off. “You are charged with gathering together the necessaries for the continuation of the Great Work that Misters Newton, Locke, and Fatio are undertaking at Oates. These may be books or chemicals or glassware—it does not matter to me—what matters is that you are going to Oates in the morning, and you may convey this packet to Mr. Newton with my compliments. It came to me the other day in London. It was sent to Newton by Leibniz.”

  The mention of the name Leibniz threw a look into Dominic Masham’s wide green eyes.

  “It consists of a letter, and a book. The letter is unique, and more important. The book, as you can see, is the first printing of Leibniz’s Protogaea, and you may feel free to peruse it during your trip; it will teach you things you have never dreamed of.”

  “And the letter—?”

  “Think of it as an overture, an attempt to mend the breach that occurred in these chambers in 1677.”

  “Sir! You know what happened in 1677!?” Masham exclaimed, in a tone of voice that was somewhat wistful, which seemed to say that he didn’t.

  “I was here then.”

  “Very well, Dr. Waterhouse, I shall not let it out of my sight until it is in Mr. Newton’s hands.”

  “The future of Natural Philosophy revolves around it,” Daniel said. “Please tell those three gentlemen that I shall call on them in two days.”

  “By your leave, sir, there are only the two of them there now. Mr. Locke has gone to…another place.”

  “Again you do me a disservice. I know perfectly well that Mr. Locke has gone to Apthorp House.”

  “Sir!”

  SIR RICHARD APTHORP’S COUNTRY dwelling was situated about midway between Cambridge and Oxford, not far off the high road that ran from London northwest in the direction of Birmingham. The nearest town of any size was called Bletchley, and Daniel had to stop to ask for directions there, because Sir Richard had in no way made his house an obvious one. This bland countryside seemed oddly well suited for the hiding of secrets in plain sight. In any case, Daniel did not have to utter a word, only slide h
is window open and watch three Bletchley stable-boys jumping up and down in the street vying with one another to tell him the way to Apthorp House. Meanwhile an older fellow struck up a cheerful exchange with John Hammond. He let Daniel’s driver know that the stables at Apthorp House had long since gone full up, and that Sir Richard, as a courtesy to his guests, had retained this man to look after the overflow at his livery stable, which was just round the corner.

  Indeed, the lane that meandered between low hills to Apthorp House was nearly paved with horse manure, and when Hammond drew his team up in front of the main building—yet another Barock neo-classical compound fraught with pagan-god-statues—Daniel’s eyes were treated to the sight of the finest fleet of carriages he had ever seen, outside of a royal palace. The coats of arms told him who was inside the house. The Earl of Marlborough, Sterling Waterhouse, Roger Comstock, Apthorp, Pepys, Locke, and Christopher Wren were all personal acquaintances of Daniel’s. Also well represented was a category Daniel thought of as “men like Sterling,” meaning sons or grandsons of the great Puritan trader/smuggler/firebrands of the Cromwell era, including particularly several Quaker magnates with large holdings in America. There were men with French surnames and others with Spanish: respectively, Huguenots and Amsterdam-Jews who had established themselves in England during the last ten or so years. There were a few nobles of high rank, notably the Prince of Denmark, who was married to Princess Anne. However, Persons of Quality were quite under-represented here, considering the amount of wealth. The nobles who had shown up were what Daniel thought of as “men like Boyle,” meaning sons of great lords who were not especially interested in being great according to the ancient feudal definition of that word, and who instead devoted their lives to hanging around the Royal Society or sailing across oceans to trade or to explore.

  “This is the world you have made,” Mr. White had said to Daniel—blaming him somehow for the Glorious Revolution. But Daniel saw it rather differently. This was the world Drake had made, a world where power came of thrift and cleverness and industry, not of birthright, and certainly not of Divine Right. This was the Whig World, and though Drake would have abhorred everything about most of these people, he would have had to admit that he had in a way caused this Juncto.

  None of these people really had time to talk to Daniel and so his conversations had a meted-out feeling to them. For all that, they were pleased to see him, and interested in what he had to say, which was soothing for a man equipped with Daniel’s particular form of cowardice.

  “My Lord Marlborough, if I may just pursue you down this gallery—”

  “I am pleased to see you are in a condition to do so.”

  “Thank you, my lord. On the night that James II fled, you spoke to me on the Tower causeway and voiced grave concern as to the motives and machinations of Alchemists.”

  “You do not need to remind me, Mr. Waterhouse, I am not the sort who ever forgets.”

  “Pray, where stand you now on such matters?”

  “I must admit they seem very quaint and queer to me today, where once they seemed occult and menacing. Yet the Marquis of Ravenscar is very forward in saying that one of the Esoteric Brotherhood ought to be put in charge of our Mint. And I do confess I am loath to throw my money in with this new Bank, and my lot in with this Juncto, when our money is to be recoined by a savant whose ideas are recondite, and whose motives are a source of endless puzzlement to me.”

  “That will never change, my lord. But if some way could be devised for the motives of this alchemist to be aligned with yours, so that you agreed on the means whilst perhaps differing as to the ends, would that satisfy you?”

  “Such alignments of interest are a staple of politics and of war. They may serve for a time. But in the end is always a divergence, and a catastrophe.”

  “That is a Janus-like utterance, my lord, and for now I will prefer to look only upon its smiling face.”

  “MY LORD RAVENSCAR, tomorrow morning I am off to Oates to tender a version of your proposal to Mr. Newton, unless you say to me beforehand that you have changed your mind.”

  “Why on earth should I change my mind?”

  “Perhaps you would prefer a Mint-master who, insofar as his motives were more intelligible, would prove more manageable.”

  “I am sure I have no idea what you mean, Daniel.”

  “I am sure you lie like a dog in the sun. A time-serving hack—a tapeworm—is easy to understand. He will run your mint for you because he receives a stipend, a place to live, influence and prestige. But you must get it very clear in your mind, Roger, that Newton wants none of this. He will benefit from a steady income, it is true. But if I am to interest him in this job, I must hold out enticements. And I say to you that he has the hard, bare soul of a Lincolnshire Puritan, a type of soul I understand well, and the usual incentives are less than nothing to him. If he does it, he shall do it in the name of ideals, and in the pursuit of goals, you may find incomprehensible. And inasmuch as you shall be unable to comprehend his ends, you shall be unable to control, or even influence him.”

  “That’s perfectly all right, Daniel, I can always write you a letter in Boston and ask you to explain what he’s on about.”

  “MAY I ASSIST YOU carrying one of those tomes, Mr. Halley?”

  “Daniel! An unexpected pleasure! I can manage, thank you, but you may assist by telling me in which of these rooms I might find Mr. Pepys.”

  “Follow me. He is meeting with one Cabal or other at the end of the opposite wing.”

  “Ah, then wait with me while I rest my arms.”

  “Are these for his book collection?”

  “These are money.”

  “On the pages I see numbers. Rumor has had it, Mr. Halley, that you have hired up every computer on this island, and set them to a great work. Now I see the rumors were true.”

  “These are only the first fruits of their lucubrations—I have brought them up, at the request of Mr. Pepys, to show them as a sort of demo’.”

  “Why do you say that they are money? To me they could be sines and cosines.”

  “These are actuarial tables, a sort of extract or distillation from the records of births and deaths of every parish in England. Supplied with these data the Exchequer can raise capital by selling annuities to the general public; and if they sell enough of them, why, the law of averages dictates that they will make a profit without fail!”

  “What, by gambling that their customers will die?”

  “That is no gamble, Dr. Waterhouse.”

  “SAFE JOURNEY TO OATES; I shall see you there on the morrow, Mr. Locke.”

  “You may expect nothing but the warmest hospitality from the Mashams. From Newton you may expect—”

  “You forget I have known him for thirty years.”

  “Right.”

  “…”

  “I can only guess what machinations you are about, Mr. Waterhouse. But I admit that I shall look forward to your arrival and that I shall feel a weight lifted when you arrive.”

  “Why, Mr. Locke, what weighs ’pon you?”

  “Newton is unwell.”

  “Love-sick?”

  “That is the least of his ailments.”

  “I shall be there soon, Mr. Locke, with what feeble medicine I may proffer.”

  “MR. WATERHOUSE, MY SCHEDULE IS a monolith, seamless and unbroken. Except for piss-breaks. Shall we?”

  “As I need hardly explain to you of all men, Mr. Pepys, nothing now gives me greater satisfaction than pissing—but to piss with you, sir, would be to compound honor with pleasure.”

  “Let us then leave the company of these fellows who know not what it signifies, and go piss in each other’s company.”

  “If it would please you to turn to your right out this door, Mr. Pepys, you shall come in view of a garden wall that, earlier, I was sizing up as—”

  “Say no more, Mr. Waterhouse, ’tis a magnificent wall, well-proportioned, secluded, admirably made for our usage.”

>   “…”

  “I say, Mr. Waterhouse, have you been buying your breeches from Turks?”

  “I am a man of almost fifty, sir, and am permitted a small repertoire of eccentricities. As pissing gives me so much pleasure I will brook no interference from my clothing—I’ll have my yard out smartly and be finished with my work while you are still fumbling with buttons and clasps.”

  “Not so, sir, I am only moments behind you.”

  “…”

  “Makes you want to sing hymns, eh?”

  “I do, sometimes.”

  “Word has reached me that you are off to visit Newton tomorrow. I wonder if he has an answer for me on my lottery question.”

  “Another way of raising money?”

  “Think of it rather as a way for ordinary men to enrich themselves at the (trifling) expense of vast numbers of other ordinary men. Of course the Exchequer will have to collect a small rake-off for overhead.”

  “Of course. Mr. Pepys, when we got the Royal Society going, never did I dream you would find such uses for the knowledge it would generate.”

  “That is the rub—the lottery is a game of chance, and will founder unless we get the mathematicks just so. I have brought in Newton as a consultant.”

  “No harm in going straight to the top.”

  “But he seems to be up to too many other things, Mr. Waterhouse, for he rarely answers my letters, and when he does, he does not discourse on probability but rather accuses me of being in league with Jesuits, or of setting fire to his laboratory…”

  “Stay. Everyone who has spoken to me concerning Newton in the last few days has employed euphemisms and circumlocutions meant to suggest that he has gone clean out of his mind.”

  “I always thought Hooke was our Lunatick in Residence, but lately Newton…”

  “Enough. I shall try to get to the bottom of it.”

  “Right. Now, on your knees, Mr. Waterhouse!”

  “I beg your pardon!?”

  “Never fear, I shall be joining you in moments…my knees being older work slower…er…ah!…owf. There. Now, let us pray.”