Quicksilver

by Neal Stephenson

  The better half of this strange Frenchman’s head looked to be between forty and fifty years of age. He was Louis de Duras, a nephew of Marshal Turenne but a naturalized Englishman. He had, by marrying the right Englishwoman and raising a lot of revenue for Charles, acquired the titles Baron Throwley, Viscount Sondes, and the Earl of Feversham. Feversham (as he was generally called) was Lord of the Bedchamber to King Charles II, which meant that he really ought to have been over in Whitehall just now. His failure to be there might be seen as proof that he was grossly incompetent. But he was also a Commander of Horse Guards. This gave him an excuse for being here, since James, as a highly unpopular but healthy king-to-be, needed a lot more guarding than Charles, a generally popular king at death’s door.

  Around a corner and into another hall, this one so chilly that steam was coming from people’s mouths as they talked. Daniel caught sight of Pepys and veered towards him. But then a wind-gust, leaking through an ill-fitting window-frame, blew a cloud of vapor away from the face of the man Pepys was talking to. It was Jeffreys. His beautiful eyes, now trapped in a bloated and ruddy face, fixed upon Daniel, who felt for a moment like a small mammal paralyzed by a serpent’s hypnotic glare. But Daniel had the good sense to look the other way and duck through an opportune doorway into a gallery that connected several of the Duke’s private chambers.

  Mary Beatrice d’Este, a.k.a. Mary of Modena—James’s second wife—would be sequestered back in these depths somewhere, presumably half out of her mind with misery. Daniel tried not to think of what it would be like for her: an Italian princess raised midway between Florence, Venice, and Genoa, and now stuck here, forever, surrounded by the mistresses of her syphilitic husband, surrounded in turn by Protestants, surrounded in turn by cold water, her only purpose in life to generate a male child so that a Catholic could succeed to the throne, but her womb barren so far.

  Looking quite a bit more cheerful than that was Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, who’d been rich to begin with and had now secured her pension by producing two of James’s innumerable bastard sons. She was not an attractive woman, she was not Catholic, and she hadn’t even bothered to pull on green stockings—yet she had some mysterious unspecified hold over James exceeding that of any of his other mistresses. She was strolling down the gallery tête-à-tête with a Jesuit: Father Petre, who among other duties was responsible for bringing up all of James’s bastards to be good Catholics. Daniel caught a moment of genuine amusement on Miss Sedley’s face and guessed that the Jesuit was relating some story about her boys’ antics. In this windowless gallery, lit feebly by some candles, Daniel could not have been more than a dim apparition to them—a pale face and a lot of dark clothing—a Puritan Will-o’-the-wisp, the sort of bad memory that forever haunted the jumpy Royals who’d survived the Civil War. The affectionate smiles were replaced by alert looks in his direction: was this an invited guest, or a Phanatique, a hashishin? Daniel was grotesquely out of place. But his years at Trinity had made him accustomed to it. He bowed to the Countess of Dorchester and exchanged some sort of acrid greeting with Father Petre. These people did not like him, did not want him here, would never be friendly to him in any sense that counted. And yet there was a symmetry here that unnerved him. He’d seen wary curiosity on their faces, then recognition, and now polite masks had fallen over their covert thoughts as they wondered why he was here, and tried to fit Daniel Waterhouse into some larger picture.

  But if Daniel had held a mirror up to his own face he’d have seen just the same evolution.

  He was one of them. Not as powerful, not as highly ranked—in fact, completely unranked—but he was here, now, and for these people that was the only sort of rank that amounted to anything. To be here, to smell the place, to bow to the mistresses, was a sort of initiation. Drake would have said that merely to set foot in such people’s houses and show them common courtesy was to be complicit in their whole system of power. Daniel and most others had scoffed at such rantings. But now he knew it was true, for when the Countess had acknowledged his presence and known his name, Daniel had felt important. Drake—if he’d had a grave—would have rolled over in it. But Drake’s grave was the air above London.

  An ancient ceiling beam popped as the Palace was hit by another gust.

  The Countess was favoring Daniel with a knowing smile. Daniel had had a mistress, and Miss Sedley knew it: the incomparable Tess Charter, who had died of smallpox five years ago. Now he didn’t have a mistress, and Catherine Sedley probably knew that, too.

  He had slowed almost to a stop. Steps rushed toward him from behind and he cringed, expecting a hand on his shoulder, but two courtiers, then two more—including Pepys—divided around him as if he were a stone in a stream, then converged on a large Gothic door whose wood had turned as gray as the sky. Some protocol of knocking, throat-clearing, and doorknob-rattling got underway. The door was opened from inside, its hinges groaning like a sick man.

  St. James’s was in better upkeep than Whitehall, but still just a big old house. It was quite a bit shabbier than Comstock/Anglesey House. But that House had been brought down. And what had brought it down had not been revolution, but the movings of markets. The Comstocks and Angleseys had been ruined, not by lead balls, but by golden coins. The neighborhood that had been built upon the ruins of their great House was now crowded with men whose vaults were well-stocked with that kind of ammunition.

  To mobilize those forces, all that was needed was some of that kingly ability to decide, and to act.

  He was being beckoned forward. Pepys stepped toward him, holding out one hand as if to take Daniel’s elbow. If Daniel were a Duke, Pepys would be offering sage advice to him right now.

  “What should I say?” Daniel asked.

  Pepys answered immediately, as if he’d been practicing the answer for three weeks in front of a mirror. “Don’t fret so much over the fact that the Duke loathes and fears Puritans, Daniel. Think instead of those men that the Duke loves: Generals and Popes.”

  “All right, Mr. Pepys, I am thinking of them…and it is doing me no good.”

  “True, Roger may have sent you here as a sacrificial lamb, and the Duke may see you as an assassin. If he does, then any attempt you make to sweeten and dissemble will be taken the wrong way. Besides, you’re no good at it.”

  “So…if my head’s to be removed, I should go lay my head on the chopping-block like a man…”

  “Belt out a hymn or two! Kiss Jack Ketch and forgive him in advance. Show these fops what you’re made of.”

  “Do you really think Roger sent me here to…”

  “Of course not, Daniel! I was being jocular.”

  “But there is a certain tradition of killing the messenger.”

  “Hard as it might be for you to believe, the Duke admires certain things about Puritans: their sobriety, their reserve, their flinty toughness. He saw Cromwell fight, Daniel! He saw Cromwell mow down a generation of Court fops. He has not forgotten it.”

  “What, you’re suggesting I’m to emulate Cromwell now!?”

  “Emulate anything but a courtier,” said Samuel Pepys, now gripping Daniel’s arm and practically shoving him through the doorway.

  Daniel Waterhouse was now in the Presence of James, the Duke of York.

  The Duke was wearing a blond wig. He had always been pale-skinned and doe-eyed, which had made him a bonny youth, but a somewhat misshapen and ghastly adult. A dim circle of courtiers ringed them, hemming into their expensive sleeves and shuffling their feet. The occasional spur jingled.

  Daniel bowed. James seemed not to notice. They looked at each other for a few moments. Charles would already have made some witty remark by this point, broken the ice, let Daniel know where he stood, but James only looked at Daniel expectantly.

  “How is my brother, Dr. Waterhouse?” James asked.

  Daniel realized, from the way he asked it, that James had no idea just how sick his brother really was. James had a temper; everyone knew it; no one had th
e courage to tell him the truth.

  “Your brother will be dead in an hour,” Daniel announced.

  Like a barrel’s staves being drawn together in a cooper’s shop, the ring of courtiers tensed and drew inwards.

  “He has taken a turn for the worse, then!?” James exclaimed.

  “He has been at death’s door the whole time.”

  “Why was this never said plainly to me until this instant?”

  The correct answer, most likely, was that it had been, and he simply hadn’t gotten it; but no one could say this.

  “I have no idea,” Daniel answered.

  ROGER COMSTOCK, SAMUEL PEPYS, AND Daniel Waterhouse were in the antechamber at Whitehall.

  “He said, ‘I am surrounded by men who are afraid to speak truth to my face.’ He said, ‘I am not as complicated as my brother—not complicated enough to be a king.’ He said, ‘I need your help and I know it.’”

  “He said all of that!?” Roger blurted.

  “Of course not,” Pepys scoffed, “but he meant it.”

  The antechamber had two doors. One led to London, and half of London seemed to be gathered on the other side of it. The other door led to the King’s bedchamber, where, surrounding the bed of the dying monarch, were James, Duke of York; the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was Charles’s primary mistress; Father Huddle-stone, a Catholic priest; and Louis de Duras, the Earl of Feversham.

  “What else did he say?” Roger demanded. “Or more to the point, what else did he mean?”

  “He is dim and stiff, and so he needs someone clever and flexible. Apparently I have a reputation for being both.”

  “Splendid!” Roger exclaimed, showing a bit more merriment than was really appropriate in these circumstances. “You have Mr. Pepys to thank for it—the Duke trusts Mr. Pepys, and Mr. Pepys has been saying good things about you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pepys…”

  “You’re welcome, Dr. Waterhouse!”

  “…for telling the Duke that I have a cowardly willingness to bend my principles.”

  “As much as it offends me to tell such beastly lies about you, Daniel, I’m willing to do it, as a personal favor to a good friend,” Pepys answered instantly.

  Roger ignored this exchange, and said: “Did his royal highness ask you for any advice?”

  “I told him, as we trudged across the park, that this is a Protestant country, and that he belongs to a religious minority. He was astounded.”

  “It must have come as a grievous shock to him.”

  “I suggested that he turn his syphilitic dementia into an asset—it shows off his humane side while providing an excuse for some of his behavior.”

  “You didn’t really say that!”

  “Dr. Waterhouse was just seeing if you were paying attention, m’Lord,” Pepys explained.

  “He told me he had syphilis twenty years ago at Epsom,” Daniel said, “and the secret—it was a secret in those days—did not get out immediately. Perhaps this is why he trusts me.”

  Roger had no interest whatever in such old news. His eyes were trained to the opposite corner of the room, where Father Petre was shoulder-to-shoulder with Barrillon, the French Ambassador.

  One of the doors opened. Beyond it, a dead man was lying in a stained bed. Father Huddlestone was making the sign of the cross, working his way through the closing stanzas of the rite of extreme unction. The Duchess of Portsmouth was weeping into a hanky and the Duke of York—no, the King of England—was praying into clasped hands.

  The Earl of Feversham tottered out and steadied himself against the doorjamb. He looked neither happy nor sad, but vaguely lost. This man was now Commander in Chief of the Army. Paul Barrillon had a look on his face as if he were sucking on a chocolate truffle and didn’t want anyone to know. Samuel Pepys, Roger Com-stock, and Daniel Waterhouse shared an uneasy look.

  “M’Lord? What news?” Pepys said.

  “What? Oh! The King is dead,” Feversham announced. His eyes closed and he leaned his head on his upraised arm for a moment, as if taking a brief nap.

  “Long live…” Pepys prompted him.

  Feversham awoke. “Long live the King!”

  “Long live the King!” everyone said.

  Father Huddlestone finished the rite and turned towards the door. Roger Comstock chose that moment to cross himself.

  “Didn’t know you were Catholic, m’lord,” Daniel said.

  “Shut up, Daniel! You know I’m a Freedom of Conscience man—have I ever troubled you about your religion?” said the Marquis of Ravenscar.

  Versailles

  SUMMER 1685

  For the market is against our sex just now; and if a young woman has beauty, birth, breeding, wit, sense, manners, modesty, and all to an extreme, yet if she has not money she’s nobody, she had as good want them all; nothing but money now recommends a woman; the men play the game all into their own hands.

  —DANIEL DEFOE, Moll Flanders

  To M. le comte d’Avaux

  12 July 1685

  Monseigneur,

  As you see I have encyphered this letter according to your instructions, though only you know whether this is to protect it from the eyes of Dutch spies, or your rivals at Court. Yes, I have discovered that you have rivals.

  On my journey I was waylaid and ill-used by some typically coarse, thick Dutchmen. Though you would never have guessed it from their looks and manners, these had something in common with the King of France’s brother: namely, a fascination with women’s undergarments. For they went through my baggage thoroughly, and left it a few pounds lighter.

  Shame, shame on you, monseigneur, for placing those letters among my things! For a while I was afraid that I would be thrown into some horrid Dutch work-house, and spend the rest of my days scrubbing sidewalks and knitting hose. But from the questions they asked me, it soon became obvious that they were perfectly baffled by this French cypher of yours. To test this, I replied that I could read those letters as well as they could; and the dour looks on the faces of my interrogators demonstrated that their incompetence had been laid bare, and my innocence proved, in the same moment.

  I will forgive you, monseigneur, for putting me through those anxious moments if you will forgive me for believing, until quite recently, that you were utterly mad to send me to Versailles. For how could a common girl such as I find a place in the most noble and glorious palace in the world?

  But now I know things and I understand.

  There is a story making the rounds here, which you must have heard. The heroine is a girl, scarcely better than a slave—the daughter of a ruined petty noble fallen to the condition of a Vagabond. Out of desperation this waif married a stunted and crippled writer in Paris. But the writer had a salon that attracted certain Persons of Quality who had grown bored with the insipid discourse of Court. His young wife made the acquaintance of a few of these noble visitors. After he died, and left this girl a penniless widow, a certain Duchess took pity on her, brought her out to Versailles, and made her a governess to some of her illegitimate children. This Duchess was none other than the maîtresse déclarée to the King himself, and her children were royal bastards. The story goes that King Louis XIV, contrary to the long-established customs of Christian royalty, considers his bastards to be only one small step beneath the Dauphin and the other Enfants de France. Protocol dictates that the governess of les Enfants de France must be a duchess; accordingly, the King made the governess of his bastards into a marquise. In the years since then, the King’s maîtresse déclarée has gradually fallen from favor, as she has grown fat and histrionic, and it has been the case for some time that when the King went every day to call upon her at one o’clock in the afternoon, just after Mass, he would simply walk through her apartment without stopping, and go instead to visit this widow—the Marquise de Main-tenon, as she was now called. Finally, Monseigneur, I have learned what is common knowledge at Versailles, namely that the King secretly married the Marquise de Maintenon recently and that she is th
e Queen of France in all but name.

  It is plain to see that Louis keeps the powerful of France on a short leash here, and that they have nothing to do but gamble when the King is absent and ape his words and actions when he is present. Consequently every Duke, Count, and Marquis at Versailles is prowling through nurseries and grammar-schools, disrupting the noble children’s upbringing in the hunt for nubile governesses. No doubt you knew this when you made arrangements for me to work as a governess to the children of M. le comte de Béziers. I cringe to think what awful debt this poor widower must have owed you for him to consent to such an arrangement! You might as well have deposited me in a bordello, Monseigneur, for all the young blades who prowl around the entrance of the count’s apartment and pursue me through the gardens as I try to carry out my nominal duties—and not because of any native attractiveness I may possess but simply because it is what the King did.

  Fortunately the King has not seen fit to grace me with a noble title yet or I should never be left alone long enough to write you letters. I have reminded some of these loiterers that Madame de Maintenon is a famously pious woman and that the King (who could have any woman in the world, and who ruts with disposable damsels two or three times a week) fell in love with her because of her intelligence. This keeps most of them at bay.