The System of the World: Volume Three of the Baroque Cycle

by Neal Stephenson

  Her hatred of the box and passion to know what was going on urged her to shove her head out the window and look forward. Simple prudence said otherwise. The horses were galloping now. In a few yards they’d reach a tee, and be obliged to turn left or right on Hedge Lane; she braced her feet against the opposite bench, and her hands against the sides, and prayed they would go left. For she was convinced now that the heartbeat-like thumpa-thumpa-thumpa she heard on the left, and felt through the bones of the carriage, was a bad spoke or two.

  This tactic—ramming-speed in the streets of London—seemed insane from within the box. But it was not really so, for (as she was recollecting) the carriage had a long pole—not unlike a ram on a galley—that extended all the way forward, between each pair of horses in the team, and to which all the harnesses were connected. People got killed by these things all the time: some by impalement and others by having their brains dashed out. Even supposing there were a squadron of Jacobite cavalry trying to bar their escape onto Hedge Lane—and that had to have been a phantasm, hadn’t it?—all of them would get well clear of that deadly pole, once they perceived that it had built up too much speed to stop. What they might do then, when they’d regrouped and got their blood up, was another matter—but no point in fretting about that now.

  It seemed to have worked, anyway, for the carriage’s speed slackened even as she was tensed for a crash, and it began to manage a turn—a left turn, thank God, and not so fast—onto Hedge Lane. And really not so much a full turn as a quick leftward jog into the next west-going street, Little Suffolk, which would run straight to Hay Market, and dump them out directly across from the triple-arched façade of the Italian Opera House that Vanbrugh and the Whigs had built there.

  She heard horses all round during this maneuver, and voices shouting; but could not make out words until they had got well established on Little Suffolk, and built up to a steady canter that would bring them to the Opera House in considerably less than one minute. There seemed no point in letting those seconds go to waste. Eliza could hear the riders all around shouting absurd things such as “Halt!” and “I demand that you stop this carriage.” She wanted no such thing to occur; but neither did she want the driver to press forward if someone was about to shoot him. The important thing was the illusion.

  She shot open the window on the carriage’s left side and got a burqa-impression of several riders, all of whom abruptly went silent; which was so gratifying that she slid over to the right and shot that window open as well. She risked a peek out and forward, and saw a row of building-fronts ahead. This might have been any of London’s newer streets. But her eye was arrested by one building-front twice or thrice as broad as its neighbors.

  Like them it was made of brick, but so much of its façade was spoken for by arched windows and doorways, and by the massive grooved voussoirs that framed them, and the stacks of deeply rusticated blocks that ascended from its corner-stones, and the broad friezes and cornices that spanned its width between storeys, that it really seemed to have been fabricated out of massive clods of pale stone, with brick and mortar spackled into the narrow traces between. It was meant to look as dramatic as what went on inside of it: for this was the Italian Opera, and it stood in the Hay Market. Though Eliza loved and, like a good Whig, subscribed to it, it was of no utility whatever tonight, save as a landmark. Narrow streets such as Little Suffolk might be barricaded by a few men and a bonfire, but the Hay Market was nearly a hundred feet in breadth. It would take a company to stop them there.

  “Ignore these men!” she said, “straight on, and stop for no one!” Which was only an indifferent snatch of libretto, as it went; but what made all the difference was that she uttered it in German. Eliza had been in many a salon, in Versailles and Amsterdam and elsewhere, and spoken many a clever or shocking mot, and created many a frisson—but all were as nothing compared to the effect that these words had on the riders around her. “It is she! It is the Princess!” one of them shouted, and spurred his horse to a gallop, riding forward to the intersection with Hay Market, now perhaps fifty yards away. Eliza was so pleased by this that she feared she might be recognized as an impostor, and spoil the effect; so before any of the riders on the right side could get too long a look at her, she withdrew and skidded back to the left side to have a look out that window.

  But there enjoyment ended. Ahead, she saw meteors of flame bobbing and swirling on the end of torch-handles. One of these stooped to the pavement and vanished in an orb of dull fire-glow, which broke open into a rush of brilliant yellow flame. Someone had put a torch to the base of a well-laid bonfire. The carriage faltered as the horses saw it. The driver cracked his whip over and over, and permitted the team to divert to the right as much as they could in the confines of Little Suffolk. Hope that they could skirt the fire, and fear of the whip and of the shouting riders, drove the horses into an undisciplined rush forward. Just as they burst through into Hay Market, someone tossed a handful of firecrackers into the flames. They went off in a barrage so close and hot that Eliza felt bursts of heat reaching in through the window to slap at her face. She tried to move to the right. But the team had gotten a worse scare than she, and moved away from it with all the power of several tons of muscle. The carriage veered right, and went up on its left wheels. Eliza would have dropped straight into the left door had she not lashed out to grip the sill of the window on the right. For a moment she was suspended, gazing up through the burqa-slot to see nothing but chimney-tops, storks’ nests, and stars in the sky.

  Then the left wheel collapsed. The entire carriage dropped an arm’s length or so, and landed with its full weight on the end of the left axle. Or so she collected from the sounds and the movements. Her right hand was jarred loose from the windowsill, so she dropped like a sack of barley into the left door. Its latch gave way and it fell open; but it could only open so far, as it was nearly skidding along the pavement. The only thing holding it above the cobbles of Hay Market was that axle, which projected beyond the side of the vehicle for a short distance. And so Eliza, lying on her back on the broken door with the wind knocked out of her, was able to turn her head and see pavement rushing away only a few inches from her nose, taking her chestnut-colored wig with it.

  But presently the pavement slowed and stopped. The horses—who must be driverless now—had decided that the place they had reached—the front court of the Opera, by the looks of it—was safer than any other place in view, and resolved to stop here. Eliza began trying to squirm out of the half-open door; she phant’sied there was enough space between the ground and the flank of the carriage to admit her body. This very soon turned out to have been overly optimistic, for the door was not open quite wide enough to let her out. She got her head, a shoulder, and an arm free, but the remainder of Eliza would not come unless the door were removed. It was held in place by hinges of ox-hide. Eliza’s left arm was still imprisoned, but she could move it around, and find one of the hinges by groping. She had a little Turkish watered-steel dagger in the waistband of her dress: a nasty old habit. She found it with her left hand, and drew it out. A few moments later she was sawing away at one of the leather hinges.

  And she was thus busily engaged when a pair of polished black riding-boots presented themselves before her face. The hem of a long dark cloak roiled about them like a cloud. A chestnut wig fell to the pavement. “You are not the woman I was looking for,” said a voice in French.

  Eliza looked far, far up to see the face of Father Édouard de Gex staring down at her. He was perspiring freely. “But you will do, madame, you will do.” In his gloved hands he was twirling a dagger that gave off an oily sheen in the light of the bonfires that were springing up all around.

  The Black Dogg, Newgate Prison

  A FEW MINUTES EARLIER

  “I HAVE THE HEAVY GOLD. You know this,” Jack said.

  “The Solomonic Gold?” Isaac corrected him.

  “Funny, that is what Father Ed calls it, too. Whatever you call it, I have it, and I k
now where I can get more. Now, suppose Bolingbroke demands a Trial of the Pyx. The refiner’s furnace shall be set up in Star Chamber. A jury of London money-men shall open up the Pyx and take out a sample of coins—”

  “Coins that you put in,” Isaac said.

  “That you can’t prove—but in any case, you are personally responsible for every one of those coins,” Jack reminded him. “They shall be counted and weighed first. And it may astonish you, Ike, to hear that the coins I put in there shall pass this first test. I made the blanks a bit thicker, you see—not enough so as you would notice, holding one between your fingers, but enough to make them of legal weight, even though they are allayed with base metal.”

  “But when they are assayed—?” Daniel said.

  “When those same coins are melted in the cupel, and the quantity of gold in them is measured, they’ll be found wanting. And this is where I may be of service to you, Ike, and to that Marquis who got you your post at the Mint.”

  “You can supply me with heavy gold, as you call it.”

  “Indeed. Which, slipped into the cupel by a bit of prestidigitation—easily arranged, have no fear—will give the assay greater weight, and make all the numbers come out as they should.”

  Isaac Newton, who had been strangely unmoved by all that infiltrated his nostrils and stuck to the soles of his shoes here in Newgate, was nauseated by this. Jack Shaftoe was quick to note it and to know why. “I disgust you, Ike, for the same reason I disgust Father Ed, which is that to me the heavy gold is only that. And when I offer it to you as a part of our present transaction, I offer it, not as a mystical essence for use in your divine sorcery, but as a bit o’ spare weight to save your nuts during the Trial of the Pyx that is soon to come. Our conversation here would seem a good deal nobler, wouldn’t it, if it were about that rather than this; if it were about that, why, you could phant’sy yourself living out a sort of latter-day sequel to the Bible, and Newgate, foul as it is, would be like those leper-towns where Jesus walked: not so foul, because part of a fair story. But because it is about this, namely, Ike Newton not getting his balls and his hand chopped off, why, you look about yourself and say, ‘Eeeyuh, I am in the Black Dogg of Newgate Prison and it stinketh!’ I see this clearly only because I have seen it so oft on the face of Father Ed, for whom all of London might as well be Newgate Prison when it is compared to Versailles. But I shall solace you with the same words I have spoke to Father Ed when he turns thus green about the gills.”

  “I am astonished that you have any words left,” said Isaac. “But as I have heard so many, a few more can do no harm.”

  “It is simply that when all of this has played out, and you are left holding a bit of that Solomonic Gold, why, you may believe, concerning it, whatever you choose, and do with it what you will.”

  “A question,” Daniel said. “Since you know that Sir Isaac desires it, and you know he is aware that you have got some, why this elaborate scheme concerning the Pyx? Why did you not simply treat directly with Sir Isaac long ago?”

  “Because there were other parties to be accounted for. On my side, there was de Gex, who had a say in the matter until I began trying to kill him a couple of weeks ago. On your side, Ravenscar, who does not believe in Alchemy any more than I do. To extract anything from him I needed something a bit more substantial than a spate of malarkey about King Solomon.”

  “Since you hold my views on the matter in such contempt, this conversation cannot be any more pleasant for you than it is for me. Let us bring it to a head directly,” Isaac suggested. “You have offered a way to get me out of difficulty in the event that Bolingbroke demands a Trial of the Pyx. But this is of no utility to me if he doesn’t. For as all the world knows, he has been gathering in guineas of late, preparing to assay those coins that have been circulating in her majesty’s currency. Many counterfeits shall be encompassed in any such sample. At any time of Bolingbroke’s choosing he may change his tune, and say, ‘Behold, the Pyx was tampered with by Jack the Coiner, its contents are no reliable sample of the Mint’s produce, we must instead assay the coins in circulation.’ Such an assay shall prove deficient, both in the weight of the coins, and the fineness of the metal, because it shall include so many counterfeit guineas.”

  By way of an answer, Jack reached into the pocket of his breeches and drew out a little packet, which he tossed across the Black Dogg. Isaac got his hands up quickly enough, bobbled it, and trapped it against his breast. Daniel did not have to look to know what it was. “One of the Sinthias you stole from the Pyx in April.”

  “I have the rest stored away nice and safe,” Jack said, “and can produce them when and where needed, to prove that you put only good coins into the Pyx, Ike. So, you see, whether Bolingbroke orders a Trial of the Pyx or no, I can save you: if he does, by supplying heavy gold, and if he doesn’t, by supplying the rest of those.” Jack nodded at the packet, which Isaac was now fondling near a candle-flame.

  “In exchange for which, I suppose you require that you not be prosecuted, and that your sons get the farm in Carolina.”

  “My sons, and Tomba,” Jack said. “That is an African who has been with me since we met him racing horses on the beach near Acapulco. Fine lad.”

  “I remind you that there is a reason why we insisted that this conversation happen this evening,” Daniel said.

  “Bolingbroke has Ravenscar backed up against the wall,” Jack returned, “and Ravenscar needs something.”

  “Yes.”

  “Show Bolingbroke that, then.” Jack nodded at the Sinthia. “It’ll hit him like a bolt between the eyes; for he has pestered me without letup these many months, wanting them from me.”

  This silenced Daniel and Isaac for some moments. They had to look at each other for a while, before they looked at Jack. “Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, her majesty’s Secretary of State, has been pestering you?”

  “Call him by as many names as you like, the answer is yes.”

  “Let us go and see your good friend Bolingbroke, then,” Daniel suggested, with a not very subtle look at his watch.

  “He is not my friend, but a damned nuisance,” Jack returned, “and I’d not go in to his house again even if he invited me. But you may have that packet, as proof of my bona fides, and I shall ride with you to Golden Square, and go for a constitutional round the green, as you go in to strike your bargain with him. When you have done, come out and tell me the results. I’m keen to know whether the next English King is going to be German or French.”

  “The only defect in your plan is a terribly mundane one,” Daniel said. “We came in a phaethon.”

  “What a rake you are, Dr. Waterhouse! Do stay away from my sons!”

  “Two may fit inside, only with a lot of stuffing and bending.”

  “Then do you stuff and bend yourselves into it,” said Jack, walking over to the door. He hauled it open and extended a hand to say, after you. “I shall ride on the running-board, like a footman, as befits my station in life, and if any footpads or Jacobite fops get after us, why, I’ll run ’em through.”

  The phaethon had been waiting in the Press-Yard next to the gaol. This opened onto Newgate Street intra muros. Driving west, they passed immediately beneath the vault of the city gate: a Gothick castle housing wealthy prisoners. Thence they could have got directly to Holbourn and taken a northerly route toward Golden Square, but Daniel knew it was an infernal gantlet of bonfires to-night: the bright line where Whig and Tory orders of battle were being drawn up. So he requested the southerly approach. The Old Bailey connected to the street extra muros and took them south to Ludgate Hill which, going west, became the last bridge over the Fleet Ditch, which became Fleet Street, which became the Strand.

  The scheme of placing Jack on the running-board worked well, for the phaethon was equipped with a grate, situated next to where a footman’s face was likely to be, so that master and servant could mis-communicate as freely and grievously on the road as they did at home. Daniel left it open.
Jack was able to chat with the passengers almost as easily as if he were sharing the compartment with them. He was in a cheery mood—more so than Isaac, certainly—and offered up wry comments upon the Old Bailey, the odor of the Fleet, the Royal Society’s headquarters, Drury Lane, the Kit-Cat Clubb, and other exhibits as they rattled past. Daniel took most of these in good humor, but Isaac, who suspected that Jack was baiting him, fumed quietly, like a beaker just tonged from a furnace. There were bonfires, fist-fights, and dogs fucking each other in Charing Cross, and Jack was silent for a while, because alert. But Roger’s driver—who was of the best—negotiated this adroitly and got them on the short street called Cockspur that would soon fork into Pall Mall and Hay Market just before the Opera House.

  “There must be an opera tonight,” Jack remarked through the grate.

  “ ’Tis not possible,” Daniel returned. “It is out of season. I do believe they are erecting sets, and rehearsing, for a revival of The Alchemist by Ben Jonson.”

  “I saw that a hundred times as a boy,” Jack said, “why ever are they reviving it now?”

  “Because Herr Handel has written new music for it.”

  “What? It is a play, not an opera.”

  “Styles change,” Daniel said. “Mr. Vanbrugh’s theatre, there, is nothing like the theatres of your boyhood: it is all indoors, and ornate beyond description, and the actors are imprisoned on a stage, behind a proscenium.”