Quicksilver

by Neal Stephenson

  I let out a groan.

  So did the King.

  I let out a scream.

  So did the King.

  “Oh, gentle, it is my first time!” I shouted, as the King shouted curses at the chirurgeon, muffled by a silken pillow Father Édouard was holding to his face.

  So it went. For a while I continued screaming as if suffering great discomfort, but as the minutes wore on, I changed over to moans of pleasure. It seemed to go on for much longer than a quarter of an hour. I lay down on a rolled-up carpet and tore at my own clothes, pulled the ribbons and braids from my hair, and breathed as heavily as I could, to make my face flushed and sweaty. Towards the end, I closed my eyes: partly to block out the hellish things I was beginning to see in the middle of the room, and partly to play my role more convincingly. Now I could clearly hear the courtiers in the gallery.

  “She’s a screamer,” said one of them admiringly. “I like that, it makes my blood hot.”

  “It is most indiscreet,” said another scornfully.

  “The mistress of a King does not have to be discreet.”

  “Mistress? He’ll throw her away soon, then where will she be?”

  “In my bed, I hope!”

  “Then you had best invest in a set of earplugs.”

  “He had best learn to fuck like a King before he’ll need them!”

  A drop of moisture struck me on the forehead. Fearing that it was a splash of blood, I opened my eyes and looked vertically upwards into the face of Father Édouard de Gex. He was indeed all spattered with the blood royal, but what had fallen on me was a bead of sweat from his brow. He was glaring straight down into my face. I have no idea how long he had been watching me thus. I glanced over towards the bench and saw blood everywhere. The chirurgeon was sitting on the floor, drained. His assistants were packing rags between the King’s buttocks. To stop all of a sudden would be to give the ruse away, and so I closed my eyes again and brought myself to a screaming—if simulated—climax, then exhaled one long last moan, and opened my eyes again.

  Father Édouard was still standing there above me, but his eyes were closed and his face slack. It is an expression I have seen before.

  The King was standing up, flanked between a pair of assistants who stood ready to catch him if he should faint. He was deathly pale and tottering from side to side, but—somewhat incredibly—he was alive, and awake, and buttoning up his own breeches. Behind him other assistants were bundling up the bloody sheets and drop-cloths and rushing them out through the back door.

  Here is what the King said to me as he was leaving:

  “Nobles of France enjoy my esteem and confidence as a birthright, and make themselves common by their failures. Commoners may earn my esteem and confidence by pleasing me, and thereby ennoble themselves. You may please me by showing discretion.”

  “What of d’Avaux?” I asked.

  “You may tell him everything,” said the King, “so that he may feel pride, inasmuch as he is my friend, and fear, inasmuch as he is my foe.”

  Monseigneur, I do not know what His Majesty meant by this, but I am sure you do…

  To Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

  29 September 1685

  Doctor,

  The season has turned and brought a noticeable darkening of the light.* In two days the sun will sink farther beneath the southern horizon as I journey with Mme. la marquise d’Ozoir to Dunquerque at the extreme northern limit of the King’s realm and thence God willing to Holland. I have heard that the sun has been shining very hot in the South, in the country of Savoy more on this later.

  The King is at war—not only with the Protestant heretics who infest his realms, but with his own doctors. A few weeks ago he had a tooth pulled. Any tooth-puller chosen at random from the Pont-Neuf could have handled this operation, but d’Aquin, the King’s doctor, got it wrong, and the resulting wound became abscessed. D’Aquin’s solution to this problem was to pull out every last one of the King’s upper teeth. But while he was doing this he somehow managed to rip out part of the King’s palate, creating a horrendous wound which he then had to close up by the application of red-hot irons. Nonetheless, it too abscessed and had to be cauterized several more times. There is another story, too, concerning the King’s health, which I will have to tell you some other time.

  It is nearly beyond comprehension that a King should suffer so, and if these facts were generally known among the peasantry they would doubtless be misconstrued as an omen of Divine misfavor. In the corridors of Versailles, where most but not all! of the King’s sufferings are common knowledge, there are a few weak-minded ninehammers who think this way; but fortunately this château has been graced, for the last few weeks, by the presence of Father Édouard de Gex, a vigorous young Jesuit of a good family when Louis seized the Franche-Comté in 1667 this family betrayed their Spanish neighbors and flung open their gates to his army; Louis has rewarded them with titles and a great favorite of Mme. de Maintenon, who looks to him as a sort of spiritual guide. Where most of our fawning courtier-priests would prefer to avoid the theological questions raised by the King’s sufferings, Father Édouard has recently taken this bull by the horns, and both asked and answered these questions in a most forthright and public way. He has given lengthy homilies at Mass, and Mme. de Maintenon has arranged for his words to be printed and distributed around Versailles and Paris. I will try to send you a copy of his booklet. The gist of it is that the King is France and that his ailments and sufferings are reflections of the condition of the realm. If various pockets of his flesh have become abscessed it is a sort of carnal metaphor for the continued existence of heresy within the borders of France—meaning, as everyone knows, the R.P.R., the religion prétendue réformée, or Huguenots as they are known by some. The points of similarity between R.P.R. communities and suppurating abscesses are many, viz…

  Forgive this endless homily, but I have much to tell and am weary of writing endless descriptions of gowns and jewels to cover my traces. This family of Fr. de Gex, Mme. la duchesse d’Oyonnax, and Mme. la marquise d’Ozoir have long dwelt in the mountains of Jura between Burgundy and the southern tip of the Franche-Comté. It is a territory where many things come together and accordingly it is a sort of cornucopia of enemies. For generations they looked on with envy as their neighbor the Duke of Savoy reaped a harvest of wealth and power by virtue of sitting astride the route joining Genoa and Lyons—the financial aorta of Christendom. And from their châteaux in the southern Jura they can literally gaze down into the cold waters of Lake Geneva, the wellspring of Protestantism, where the English Puritans fled for refuge during the reign of Bloody Mary and where the French Huguenots have enjoyed a safe haven from the repressions of their Kings. I have seen much of Father Édouard lately because he pays frequent visits to the apartments of his cousines, and I have witnessed in his dark eyes a hatred of the Protestants that would make your flesh crawl if you saw it.

  This family’s opportunity finally came when Louis conquered the Franche-Comté, as I said, and they have not failed to take full advantage of it. Last year brought them more good fortune: the Duke of Savoy was forced to take as his wife Anne Marie, the daughter of Monsieur by his first wife, Minette of England, and hence the niece of King Louis XIV. So the Duke—hitherto independent—became a part of the Bourbon family, and subject to the whims of the patriarch.

  Now Savoy also borders on that troublesome Lake and it has long been the case that Calvinist proselytizers would come up the valleys to preach to the common folk, who have followed the example of their Duke in being independent-minded and have been receptive to the rebel creed.

  You can almost finish the story yourself now, Doctor. Father Édouard has been telling his disciple, Mme. de Maintenon, all about how Protestants have been running rampant in Savoy, and spreading the infection to their R.P.R. brethren in France. De Main-tenon repeats all of this to the suffering King, who even in the best of times has never hesitated to be cruel to his subjects, or even his own family
, for the good of the realm. But these are not the best of times for the King—there has been a palpable darkening of the light, which is why I chose this hexagram as my encryption key. The King has told the Duke of Savoy that the “rebels” as he considers them are not merely to be suppressed—they are to be exterminated. The Duke has temporized, hoping that the King’s mood will improve as his ailments heal. He has proffered one excuse after another. But very recently the Duke made the error of claiming that he cannot carry out the King’s commands because he does not have enough money to mount a military campaign. Without hesitation the King generously offered to undertake the operation out of his own pocket.

  As I write this Father Édouard is preparing to ride south as chaplain of a French army with Maréchal de Catinat at its head. They will go into Savoy whether the Duke likes it or not, and enter the valleys of the Protestants and kill everyone they see. Do you know of any way to send warnings to that part of the world?

  The King and all who know of his late sufferings take comfort in the understanding that Father Édouard has brought us: namely that the measures taken against the R.P.R., cruel as they might seem, are more painful to the King than to anyone; but that this pain must be endured lest the whole body perish. I must go—I have responsibilities below. My next letter will come from Dunquerque, God willing.

  Your most affectionate student and servant,

  Eliza

  London

  SPRING 1685

  Philosophy is written in this immense book that stands ever open before our eyes (I speak of the Universe), but it cannot be read if one does not first learn the language and recognize the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without the means of which it is humanly impossible to understand a word; without these philosophy is confused wandering in a dark labyrinth.

  —GALILEO GALILEI, Il Saggiatore

  (THE ASSAYER) IN Opere, v. 6, p. 197,

  TRANSLATION BY JULIAN BARBOUR

  THE AIR IN THE COFFEE-HOUSE made Daniel feel as if he’d been buried in rags.

  Roger Comstock was peering down the stem of his clay pipe like a drunken astronomer drawing a bead on something. In this case the target was Robert Hooke, Fellow of the Royal Society, visible only barely (because of gloom and smoke) and sporadically (because of table-flitting patrons). Hooke had barricaded himself behind a miniature apothecary shop of bottles, purses, and flasks, and was mixing up his dinner: a compound of mercury, iron filings, flowers of sulfur, purgative waters from diverse springs, many of which were Lethal to Waterfowl; and extracts of several plants, including the rhubarb and the opium poppy. “He is still alive, I see,” Roger mused. “If Hooke spent any more time lingering at Death’s door, Satan himself would have the man ejected for vagrancy. Yet just as I am wondering whether I can make time for his funeral, I learn from Sources that he is campaigning like a French regiment through every whorehouse in Whitechapel.”

  Daniel could think of nothing to add.

  “What of Newton?” Roger demanded. “You said he was going to die.”

  “Well, I was the only way he ever got food,” Daniel said weakly. “From the time we began rooming together until my ejection in ’77, I kept him alive like a nursemaid. So I had good reasons for making that prediction.”

  “Someone else must have been bringing him food since then—one of his students?”

  “He has no students,” Daniel pointed out.

  “But he must eat,” Roger countered.

  Daniel glimpsed Hooke stirring up his concoction with a glass rod. “Perhaps he has concocted the Elixir Vitae and is immortal now.”

  “Judge not lest ye be judged! I believe that is your third helping of usquebaugh,” Roger said sternly, glaring at the amber dram in front of Daniel. Daniel reached out to guard it in the curled fingers of his left hand.

  “I am entirely serious,” Roger continued. “Who looks after him?”

  “Why does it matter, as long as someone does?”

  “It matters who the someone is,” Roger said. “You told me that when he was a student Newton would lend out money, and keep track of his loans like a Jew!”

  “Actually I believe that Christian lenders also prefer to be paid back…”

  “Never mind, you know what I mean. In the same way, Daniel, if someone is providing for Newton’s upkeep and maintenance, they may be expecting favors in return.”

  Daniel sat up straighter. “You think it’s the esoteric brotherhood.”

  Roger raised his eyebrows in a cruel parody of innocence. “No, but evidently you think so.”

  “For a while Upnor was trying to get his barbs into Isaac,” Daniel admitted, “but that was a long time ago.”

  “Let me remind you that among people who keep track of debts—as opposed to forgiving ’em—‘a long time ago’ means ‘lots and lots of compound interest.’ Now, you told me he vanishes several weeks out of each year.”

  “Not necessarily for sinister purposes. He has land in Lincolnshire that needs looking after.”

  “You made it sound sinister, when you told me of it.”

  Daniel sighed, forsook his dram, clamped his temples between the thumb and fingertips of one hand. All he could see now was his pink palm—cratered from smallpox, now. The disease had converted perhaps a quarter of Tess’s body to pustules, and removed most of the skin from her face and torso, before she’d finally given up the ghost. “To be quite honest with you, I do not care,” he said. “I tried to hold him back. Tried to turn his attention toward astronomy, dynamics, physics—natural philosophy as opposed to unnatural theology. I failed; I left; here I am.”

  “You left? Or were ejected?”

  “I misspoke.”

  “Which time?”

  “I meant it in a sort of metaphorical way, when I used the word ‘ejected.’ ”

  “You are a damned liar, Daniel!”

  “What did you say!?”

  “Oh, sorry, I was speaking in a sort of metaphorical way.”

  “Try to understand, Roger, that the circumstances of my break with Isaac were—are—complicated. As long as I try to express it with a single verb, videlicet, ‘to leave,’ ‘to be ejected,’ I’ll be in some sense a liar, and inasmuch as a liar, damnable.”

  “Give me more verbs, then,” said Roger, catching the eye of a serving-girl and giving her a look that meant I have him going now, keep it coming and keep the sleeve-tuggers away from us. Then he leaned forward, looming in an alarming way through the smoke above the table, catching the light of a candle on the underside of his chin. “It is sixteen seventy-six!” Roger thundered. “Leibniz has come to London for the second time! Oldenburg is furious with him because he has failed to bring the digital computer, as promised! Instead Leibniz has devoted the last four years to fooling around with mathematics in Paris! Now he is asking extremely awkward questions about some maths work that Newton did years ago. Something mysterious is afoot—Newton has you, Doctor Waterhouse, copying out papers and encrypting arcane mathematical formulae—Oldenburg is beside himself—Enoch Root is mixed up in it somehow—there are rumors of letters, and even conversations, between Newton and Leibniz. Then Oldenburg dies. Not long afterwards there is a fire in your chambers at Trinity, and many of Newton’s alchemical papers go up in particolored flames. Then you move to London and refuse to say why. What is the correct verb? ‘To leave’ or ‘to be ejected?’ ”

  “There was simply no room for me there—my bed took up space that could have been used for another furnace.”

  “To conspire? To plot?”

  “The mercury fumes were making me jumpy.”

  “To burn? To torch?”

  Daniel now gripped the arms of his chair, threatening to get up and leave. Roger held up a hand. “I’m President of the Royal Society—it is my duty to be curious.”

  “I’m Secretary, and it is my duty to hold it all together when the President is being a
fool.”

  “Better a fool in London than fuel in Cambridge. You will forgive me for wondering what went on.”

  “Since you’re pretending to be a Catholic now, you may expect cheap grace from your French priests, but not from me.”

  “You are showing the self-righteousness I associated with upright men who’ve secretly done something very wrong—which is not to assert that you have any dark secrets, Daniel, only that you act that way.”

  “Does this conversation have any purpose other than to make me want to kill you, Roger?”

  “I simply want to know what the hell Newton is doing.”

  “Then why harry me with these questions about what happened in ’77?”

  Roger shrugged. “You won’t talk about now, so I thought I would try my luck with then.”

  “Why the sudden interest in Isaac?”

  “Because of De Motu Corporum in Gyrum. Halley says it is stupendous.”

  “No doubt.”

  “He says that it is only a sketch for a vast work that is consuming all of Newton’s energies now.”

  “I am pleased that Halley has an explanation for the orbit of his comet, and even more pleased that he has taken over responsibility for the care and feeding of Isaac. What do you want of me?”

  “Halley is blinded by comet-light,” Roger scoffed. “If Newton decides to work out the mysteries of gravity and of planetary motion then Halley cares not why—he is a happy astronomer! And with Flamsteed around to depress the statistics, we need more happiness in the astronomical profession.”

  In anno domini 1674, the Sieur de St. Pierre (a French courtier, never mind the details) had been at some excellent Royal soiree when Louise de Kéroualle and her cleavage had hove into view above the rim of his goblet. Like most men who found themselves in her presence, the Sieur had been seized by an unaccountable need to impress her, somehow, some way. Knowing that Natural Philosophy was a big deal at the Court of Charles II, he had employed the following gambit: he had remarked that one could solve the problem of finding the Longitude by plotting the motions of the moon against the stars and using the heavens as a big clock. Kéroualle had relayed this to the King during some sort of Natural-Philosophic pillow talk, and his majesty had commissioned four Fellows of the Royal Society (the Duke of Gunfleet, Roger Comstock, Robert Hooke, and Christopher Wren) to find out if such a thing were really possible. They had asked one John Flamsteed. Flamsteed was the same age as Daniel. Too sickly to attend school, he had stayed home and taught himself astronomy. Later his health had improved to the point where he’d been able to attend Cambridge and learn what could be taught there, which was not much, at the time. When he had received this inquiry from the aforementioned four Fellows of the Royal Society, he had been just finishing up his studies, and looking for something to do. He had shrewdly written back saying that the proposal of the Sieur de St. Pierre, though it might be possible in theory, was perfectly absurd in practice, owing to a want of reliable astronomical data—which could only be remedied by a lengthy and expensive research program. It was the first and the last politic thing that Flamsteed had ever done. Without delay Charles II had appointed him Astronomer Royal and founded the Royal Observatory.