“I thought he was supposed to be a member of your family, long ago, when he affected a different name.”
“That is another conversation for another day,” said the Baron, in good English. “I say, did you and Enoch discuss the matter aloud, in the presence of others, in Boston?”
“In a tavern. But we were discreet. I did not mention the author of the letter even to my own wife. I told her only that someone of great importance had asked for me.”
“What of the letter itself?”
“That’s a different matter. Mr. Root did allow some persons to see the Seal. So it could be inferred that I had been summoned from Hanover.”
“Pray continue.”
“Well, ’tis very simple. I was aboard Minerva that very night. We were held back by contrary winds for a month. Then one day a whole bloody pirate-fleet descended upon us. My god, what a thing it was. In all my days I have never lived through such a—”
Johann von Hacklheber, sensing that his Narrator was about to wax discursive, interrupted: “Pirates are said to be as common along the New England coast as fleas on a dog.”
“Yes, we had some of that type, too,” said Daniel Waterhouse, strangely enthusiastic. “Caitiffs in row-boats. But we shook those off easily. I am referring to a literal fleet of formidable pirate-ships, under a disaffected British sea-captain named Edward Teach—”
“Blackbeard!” said Johann, before he could stop himself.
“You have heard of him.”
“He has already been the subject of picaroon-romances, which are sold by the barrel-load at the book-fair in Leipzig. Not that I would ever read such a thing,” Johann said, and then waited tensely, fearing that this Daniel Waterhouse was the sort who would miss the jest, and assume he was being a snotty little baron. But the old man caught it, and batted it back: “In your researches, have you learnt that this Blackbeard is aligned with Jacobite interests?”
“I know that his flagship is christened Queen Anne’s Revenge, and I collected, from this, that he had some axe to grind.”
“He assaulted the ship I was on—Minerva—and sacrificed one and possibly two ships of his fleet to get at me.”
“To get at Minerva, you mean, or—”
“To get at me, I say. He asked for me by name. And any other sea-captain would have given me up; but Otto van Hoek would not give a pirate a wormy biscuit, much less a passenger.”
“Now, if I may play devil’s advocate,” Johann said, “for Enoch to come into this Bostown, which you describe as a sort of backwoods encampment, waving a document with a Hanoverian seal, must have drawn attention. Your departure must have been the talk of the town.”
“No doubt they are talking about it still.”
“In every port are men of low character who pass along such intelligence to criminals, pirates, and the like. You said that a whole month elapsed while you were becalmed—”
“I should rather call it, ‘bestormed,’ but yes.”
“That is more than enough time for word to have spread to every pirate-cove in New England. This Teach must have heard the news, and surmised that you were a man of importance, who might be held for ransom.”
“This is what I was telling myself all the way across the Atlantic, to calm my nerves,” Daniel said. “I even trained myself to overlook the chief fault in that hypothesis, which is that, outside of Barbary, pirates do not, as a rule, hold hostages for ransom, and especially not old men who are likely to drop dead at a moment’s notice. But when I reached London, efforts were made to blast me, or someone close to me, to pieces. And during the months since, I have had intelligence from two distinct sources, one high, one low, that there is, here in Hanover, a spy who passes information to the Jacobites in London.”
“I should like to know more concerning that,” said Johann, who had been trying a moment ago to soothe the old Englishman’s ridiculous fears, and now found himself in need of some soothing.
“An old acquaintance of mine—”
“Acquaintance, but not friend?”
“We are such old friends that we refuse to speak to each other for decades at a time. An Infernal Device, packed with gunpowder, exploded. It might have been meant for me, for him, or for both of us. He has begun to investigate the matter using his own resources—and you may be assured that his resources vastly exceed mine in almost every respect. He has heard that highly placed Jacobites—”
“Bolingbroke?”
“—highly placed Jacobites are receiving information from a source close to the Electoral Crown—someone who, to judge from the timeliness and accuracy of his despatches, comes and goes freely in the Leine Schloß and in Herrenhausen Palace.”
“You said that you had a low as well as a high source?”
“I know a man with many connections among London’s Flash: coiners, Black-guards, et cetera—the same element from which Blackbeard recruits his seamen and what I shall politely call his ‘longshoremen.’ ”
“You trust such a man?”
“Unaccountably, irrationally, inadvisably, I do. I am his father confessor. He is my disciple and bodyguard. It is another conversation for another day—”
“Touché.”
“This fellow has made inquiries. He has found evidence that the order to hunt me down was despatched to Ed Teach from London.”
“I did not think pirates took orders from London.”
“Oh, on the contrary, it is an ancient, celebrated practice.”
“So by combining these data you have settled upon a hypothesis that some spy here became aware of the letter that her royal highness sent to you via Enoch Root; that this spy sent word to an important Jacobite in London; who then sent a despatch to Ed Teach off the coast of Massachusetts, using some London Black-guard as his Mercury.”
“That is my hypothesis, admirably stated.”
“It is a good one. I have one question only.”
“Yes?”
“Why are we walking down the Herrenhäuser Allee in the wee hours of the morning?”
“What, the sun’s been up for hours!”
“My question still stands.”
“Do you know why I came to Hanover?”
“Certainly not for the funeral, as Sophie was alive when you got here. If memory serves, you were a part of the delegation that brought Sophie the letter that is said to have killed her.”
“I haven’t heard anyone say that!”
“Its contents are said to have been so vexatious as to have struck the Electress dead on the spot.”
“The Viscount Bolingbroke is known to have a genius for such word-play,” Daniel mused, “and he probably penned it. But it is neither here nor there. Yes, I was included in the delegation, as a token Whig. No doubt you have already met my Tory counterparts.”
“I have endured that honor. Again, why are we walking down the Herrenhäuser Allee at this time?”
“It occurred to me, on the journey hither from London, that if the Jacobites did have a spy in Hanover, why then my Tory companions would make every effort to arrange a tryst with him, or her. So I have been alert since we arrived—while spreading the rumor, and fostering the illusion, that I was senile, and deaf to boot. Yester evening, at dinner, I heard two of the Tories asking questions of a minor Hanoverian noble: what is that park that extends from the Herrenhäuser Allee north and west to the banks of the Leine? Is it solid ground, or marsh? Are there any notable landmarks, such as great trees or—”
“There is a noble oak-tree just ahead and to the right,” Johann remarked.
“I know there is, for that’s just what this Hanoverian said.”
“So you guessed that they were arranging a spy-tryst, and needed to choose a place. But how did you settle upon such a horrid time of day?”
“The entire delegation shall attend the funeral. Immediately after, we depart for London. This was the only possible time.”
“I hope you are right.”
“I know I am.”
“Ho
w do you know it?”
“I left word with the servants that I wanted to be awakened at the same time as the other Englishmen. A servant woke me up at dawn.”
With that Daniel Waterhouse cut sharply in front of Johann von Hacklheber, forcing the younger man to shorten his stride. Daniel stepped off the central road of the Allee and passed between two of the lime trees that screened it from the narrower paths to either side. Johann followed him; and as he did, he glanced down the length of the road and saw a lone man on horseback approaching from the direction of Hanover.
Daniel had already hiked off into the adjoining park and found a winding lead between shrubs and trees. Johann followed him for a minute or so, until his peripheral vision was darkened by the crown of an enormous oak. In the distance he could hear voices conversing, not in German. It struck his ear rather like a sheet of tin being wobbled.
He nearly tripped over Daniel, who had squatted down behind a bush. Johann followed his example, and then his gaze. Gathered a stone’s throw away beneath the spreading limbs of the oak, and looking for all the world like artists’ models posing for a pastoral scene, were three of the English Tories who had come with Daniel from London.
“Sir, my admiration for your work is mingled with wonder that a man of your age and dignity is out doing things like this.”
Daniel turned to look him in the eye; and his creased face was grave and calm in the morning light. He looked nothing like the daft codger who had come to dinner yesterday evening and embarrassed the other English by dribbling wine down his shirt-front.
“Listen to me. I did not wish to be summoned by your Princess. Summoned, I did not wish to come. But having been summoned, and having come, I mean to give a good account of myself. That’s how I was taught by my father, and the men of his age who slew Kings and swept away not merely Governments but whole Systems of Thought, like Khans of the Mind. I would have my son in Boston know of my doings, and be proud of them, and carry my ways forward to another generation on another continent. Any opponent who does not know this about me, stands at a grave disadvantage; a disadvantage I am not above profiting from.”
It was then that the hoof-beats out on the road turned into soft thuds as the lone rider from Hanover drove his mount off the beaten track and into the park. He was headed directly for the oak. At a glance they could see he was richly attired, hence, probably had begun his ride in the Leine Schloß. On a second look Johann recognized him. He crouched down lower and spoke into Daniel’s ear: “That is the Englishman—supposedly a staunch Whig—Harold Braithwaite.”
“IT SEEMS SO OBVIOUS in retrospect,” Johann lamented, a quarter of an hour later, after they had stolen back through the park to the Allee, and begun walking back toward Herrenhausen Palace.
“Great discoveries always do,” Daniel said, and shrugged. “Ask me some day how I feel about the Inverse Square Law.”
“He and his wife came here, what, five years ago, just as things began to go awry for the Whig Juncto. Oxford and Bolingbroke were plotting the Tory resurgence, getting the Queen’s ear—as I recall, there had been a run on the Bank of England, occasioned by rumors of a Jacobite uprising in Scotland.”
“Is that what Braithwaite said when he showed up here penniless? That he’d been ruined in the bank run?”
“He mentioned that the Mobb had rioted against the Bank.”
“That it did. But this has little to do with Braithwaite. He is the sort of Englishman who is exported with great enthusiasm by his countrymen.”
“There were rumors—”
“Just enough, I am certain, to make him out as a saucy picaroon, and get him invited to dinner.”
“Indeed.”
“The true story is depressingly familiar. He spent his inheritance gambling. Then he became a highwayman—not a very good one, for on his first outing he scuffled with one of his victims, and gashed him with a cutlass. The wound suppurated, the victim died, the victim’s family—Tories, who had money—posted a reward so high that every thief-taker in London cleared his calendar. Braithwaite fled the Isle, perhaps the only prudent thing he has ever done.”
“He painted himself as an arch-Whig.”
“In that there was some truth, for his oppressors were Tories. But he has no principles whatever.”
“That much is now proved. But why would such a man act as a spy for the Tory Lords?”
“His legal situation is awkward. This means he might benefit enormously from some adroit manipulation of certain affairs in London. He must make his peace with whatever Faction has the power to assist him; behold, the Whigs are out, and the Tories are in.”
“What did you think of the letter?” Johann asked; a non sequitur that prompted Daniel to twitch his head around. They had come so close to the end of the path that they could smell the green fruit in the orangerie, and hear the stables and kitchens awakening: sharp crisp sounds hushed and muffled by the distant teeming of the great fountain.
“What do you mean, mein Herr?” Daniel asked, slipping unconsciously into etiquette now that they were in earshot of a palace. For they had moved off the Allee and were passing between stables toward the parterres at the garden’s northern end, where a few early-rising nobles were already out stretching their legs.
Johann continued, “I mean, how was it written—the letter you received from Caroline? Was it in French?”
“No, English.”
“Good English?”
“Oh yes, very proper. I see where you are going now.”
“If it was in proper English, then her English tutor must have helped her write it. And that is Mrs. Braithwaite.”
“It shall be most awkward,” Daniel pointed out, “if the mistress of the Prince of Wales proves to be a spy for men who are dead set against his family acquiring the Crown.”
“I know the woman. She is immoral but not malicious, if you know what I mean. After she helped Caroline write that letter, she probably mentioned it, innocently, to her husband, who, as we have seen, is the true spy.”
“Difficult to dispose of him, without a scandal in the household—” Daniel observed.
“Oh, not really,” Johann murmured.
Now that they had entered the garden, his notice had been drawn by a coach and four emerging from the hill of mist that shrouded the environs of the great fountain. As its outlines became more distinct, he remarked, “That looks like my mother’s carriage,” and then, “but the lady looking out the window, there, is not my mother but Princess Caroline. Odd for them to ride, when they could walk. I shall go and bid them good morning.”
“And I shall excuse myself,” said Daniel Waterhouse, “as there is no plausible excuse for me to be seen in such company.”
Princess Caroline’s Bedchamber,
Herrenhausen Palace
LATER THAT MORNING
“MRS. BRAITHWAITE, I SHALL depend on you to have the ivory thing near to hand at all times,” said Princess Caroline.
“I know just where it is, my lady.” Henrietta Braithwaite rose from the stool where she had been fussing with the Princess’s wig, twirled herself about in beautiful and attention-getting style, and crossed the room to where a selection of implements was arranged on a tabletop. These could have been mistaken for the trade-tools of a cook, physician, or torturer, save for the fact that the surface on which they rested was a slab of polished pink marble, topping a white-and-gilt dressing-table-cum-sculpture done up in the new, hyper-Barock style named Rokoko. It was adorned, for example, with several cherubs, bows drawn, eyes a-squint as they drew beads on unseen targets, butt-cheeks polished to a luster with jeweler’s rouge. It had, in other words, all the earmarks of a gift that had been sent to the Princess by someone with a lot of money who did not know her very well. On it were diverse mortars and pestles for compounding makeups; trowels, spatulas, and brushes for inflicting it; and certain objects whose purposes were not so obvious. Henrietta picked up a long-handled implement whose business end consisted of a gently curved
tongue of polished ivory, stained pink around the edges from use. “See to it that it has not become stiff, as sometimes happens when these things get old,” Caroline commanded, “and inspect it for any rough edges—last time, I got an ugly welt.”
“Yes, my lady,” said Mrs. Braithwaite. With a curtsey, she turned her back on the Princess. Three other ladies-in-waiting were engineering her clothes, hair, and jewelry, some of which were already mounted on Caroline, others on wooden effigies. The Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm sat across from her, keeping her company. She was already dressed, albeit more simply. For anyone below the rank of Princess, dressing for mourning could be a simple undertaking. Eliza’s yellow hair was screened behind a fontange of stiff black lace and the rest of her was in black silk. It was expensive and well executed as such costumes went, but still deserved the name traditionally given to such garments: weeds.
“My son has reprimanded me,” announced the Duchess.
Caroline gasped and put a hand to the base of her throat in a gesture of mock outrage, as she understood that Eliza was being facetious. Henrietta Braithwaite, who knew the Duchess only by gossip, had to turn around and look to discern as much. Then, realizing she had been obvious, Henrietta turned back to the work at hand: running her fingertips over the ivory tool, inspecting for rough places.
“And why would such a well-brought-up young man speak to his mother so?” Caroline demanded.
The Duchess leaned closer, and spoke a bit more softly. All of the ladies in the room suddenly found ways to do whatever they were doing in nearly perfect silence. On the pretext of needing better light, Henrietta Braithwaite turned towards a window, bringing one ear to bear upon the target.
“I am sorry!” the Duchess said. “Until he told me, I had no idea that I had stupidly interrupted something! I thought I had found you alone in the garden.”
“You did find me alone—but only because, when he heard a carriage approaching, he took flight, not knowing it was only you.”
The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World Page 272
