Quicksilver

by Neal Stephenson

  As she rode down into the woods the susurration of the waves was muted, and supplanted by the hissing of a light, misty rain against the leaves. But she did not enjoy the sudden peace for very long. A man in a hooded cloak rose up from behind one of those trees and clapped his hands in the horse’s face. The horse reared. Eliza, completely unready, fell off and landed harmlessly in soft sand. The cloaked man gave the horse a resounding slap on the haunches as it returned to all fours, and it galloped off in the direction of home.

  This man stood with his back to Eliza for a moment, watching the horse run away, then looked up at the crest of the dune, and down the coast to that distant watch-tower, to see if anyone had seen the ambuscade. But the only witnesses were crows, flapping into the air and screaming as the horse charged through their sentry-lines.

  Eliza had every reason to assume that something very bad was planned for her now. She had barely seen this fellow coming in the corner of her eye, but his movements had been brisk and forceful—those of a man accustomed to action, without the affected grace of a gentleman. This man had never taken lessons in dancing or fencing. He moved like a Janissary—like a soldier, she corrected herself. And that was rather bad news. A fair proportion of the murder, robbery, and rape committed in Europe was the work of soldiers who had been put out of work, and just now there were thousands of those around Holland.

  Under the terms of an old treaty between England and Holland, six regiments of English and Scottish troops had long been stationed on Dutch soil, as a hedge against invasion from France (or, much less plausibly, the Spanish Netherlands). A few months earlier, when the Duke of Monmouth had sailed to England and mounted his rebellion, his intended victim, King James II, had sent word from London that those six regiments were urgently required at home. William of Orange—despite the fact that his sympathies lay more with Monmouth than with the King—had complied without delay, and shipped the regiments over. By the time they had arrived, the rebellion had been quashed, and there had been nothing for them to do. The King had been slow to send them back, for he did not trust his son-in-law (William of Orange) and suspected that those six regiments might one day return as the vanguard of a Dutch invasion. He had wanted to station them in France instead. But King Louis—who had plenty of his own regiments—had seen them as an unnecessary expense, and William had insisted that the treaty be observed. So the six regiments had come back to Holland.

  Shortly thereafter, they had been disbanded. So now the Dutch countryside was infested with unpaid and unled foreign soldiers. Eliza guessed that this was one of them; and since he had not bothered to steal her horse, he must have other intentions.

  She rolled onto her elbows and knees and gasped as if she’d had the wind knocked out of her. One arm was supporting her head, the other clutching at her abdomen. She was wearing a long cape that had spread over her like a tent. Propping her forehead against her wrist, she gazed upside-down into the hidden interior of that tent, where her right hand was busy in the damp folds of her waist-sash.

  One of the interesting bits of knowledge she had picked up in the Topkapi Palace was that the most feared men in the Ottoman Empire were not the Janissaries with their big scimitars and muskets, but rather the hashishin: trained murderers who went unarmed except for a small dagger concealed in the waistband. Eliza did not have the skills of a hashishin, but she knew a good idea when she saw one, and she was never without the same kind of weapon. To whip it out now would be a mistake, though. She only made sure it was ready to hand.

  Then she lifted her head, pushed herself up to a kneeling position, and gazed at her attacker. At the same moment, he turned to face her and threw back his hood to reveal the face of Jack Shaftoe.

  ELIZA WAS PARALYZED for several moments.

  Since Jack was almost certainly dead by now, it would be conventional to suppose that she was looking upon his ghost. But this was the reverse of the truth. A ghost ought to be paler than the original, a drawn shadow. But Jack—at least, the Jack she’d most recently seen—had been like the ghost of this man. This fellow was heavier, steadier, with better color and better teeth…

  “Bob,” she said.

  He looked slightly startled, then made a little bow. “Bob Shaftoe it is,” he said, “at your service, Miss Eliza.”

  “You call knocking me off my horse being at my service?”

  “You fell off your horse, begging your pardon. I apologize. But I did not wish that you would gallop away and summon the Guild.”

  “What are you doing here? Was your regiment one of those that was disbanded?”

  His brain worked. Now that Bob had begun talking, and reacting to things, his resemblance to Jack was diminishing quickly. The physical similarity was strong, but this body was animated by a different spirit altogether. “I see Jack told you something of me—but skipped the details. No. My regiment still exists, though it has a new name now. It’s guarding the King in London.”

  “Then why’re you not with it?”

  “John Churchill, the commander of my regiment, sends me on odd errands.”

  “This one must be very odd indeed, to bring you to the wrong shore of the North Sea.”

  “It is a sort of salvage mission. No one expected the regiments here to be disbanded. I am trying to track down certain sergeants and corporals who are well thought of, and recruit them into the service of my master before they get hanged in Dutch towns for stealing chickens, or press-ganged on India ships, or recruited by the Prince of Orange…”

  “Do I looked like a grizzled sergeant to you, Bob Shaftoe?”

  “I am laying that charge to one side for a few hours to speak to you about a private matter, Miss Eliza. The time it will take to walk back to the Hague should suffice.”

  “Let’s walk, then, I am getting cold.”

  Dorset

  JUNE 1685

  I never justify’d cutting off the King’s Head, yet the Disasters that befel Kings when they begun to be Arbitrary, are not without their use, and are so many Beacons to their Successors to mark out the Sands which they are to avoid.

  —The Mischiefs That Ought Justly

  to Be Apprehended from a

  Whig-Government, ANONYMOUS,

  ATTRIBUTED TO BERNARD MANDEVILLE, 1714

  IF POOR JACK’S RAVINGS have any color of truth in them, then you have been among Persons of Quality. So you have learnt how important Family is to such people: that it gives them not only name but rank, a house, a piece of land to call home, income and food, and that it is the windowpane through which they look out and perceive the world. It brings them troubles, too: for they are born heirs to superiors who must be obeyed, roofs that want fixing, and diverse local troubles that belong to them as surely as their own names.

  Now, in place of “Persons of Quality” substitute “common men of soldier type” and in place of “Family” say “Regiment,” and you will own a fair portrait of my life.

  You seem to’ve spent a lot of time with Jack and so I’ll spare you the explanation of how two mudlark boys found themselves in a regiment in Dorset. But my career has been like his in a mirror, which is to say, all reversed.

  The regiment he told you of was like most old English ones, which is to say, ’twas militia. The soldiers were common men of the shire and the officers were local gentlemen, and the big boss was a Peer, the Lord Lieutenant—in our case, Winston Churchill—who got the job by living in London, wearing the right clothes, and saying the right things.

  Those militia regiments once came together to form Cromwell’s New Model Army, which defeated the Cavaliers, slew the King, abolished Monarchy, and even crossed the Channel to rout the Spaniards in Flanders. None of this was lost on Charles II. After he came back, he made a practice of keeping professional soldiers on his payroll. They were there to keep the militias in check.

  You may know that the Cavaliers who brought Charles II back made their landfall in the north and came down from Tweed, crossing the Cold Stream with a regiment und
er General Lewis. That regiment is called the Coldstream Guards, and General Lewis was made the Duke of Tweed for his troubles. Likewise King Charles created the Grenadier Guards. He probably would have abolished the militia altogether if he could have—but the 1660s were troublous times, what with Plague and Fire and bitter Puritans roaming the country. The King needed his Lords Lieutenant to keep the people down—he granted ’em the power to search homes for arms and to throw troublesome sorts in prison. But a Lord Lieutenant could not make use of such powers save through a local militia and so the militias endured. And ’twas during those times that Jack and I were plucked out of a Vagabond-camp and made into regimental boys.

  A few years later John Churchill reached an age—eighteen years—when he was deemed ready to accept his first commission, and was given a regiment of Grenadier Guards. It was a new regiment. Some men and armaments and other necessaries were made available to him, but he had to raise the rest himself, and so he did the natural thing and recruited many soldiers and noncommissioned officers from his father’s militia regiment in Dorset—including me and Jack. For there is a difference ’twixt Families and Regiments, which is that the latter have no female members and cannot increase in the natural way—new members must be raised up out of the soil like crops, or if you will, taxes.

  Now I’ll spare you a recitation of my career under John Churchill, as you’ve no doubt heard a slanderous version of it from brother Jack. Much of it consisted of long marches and sieges on the Continent—very repetitive—and the rest has been parading around Whitehall and St. James, for our nominal purpose is to guard the King.

  Lately, following the death of Charles II, John Churchill spent some time on the Continent, going down to Versailles to meet with King Louis and biding in Dunkirk for a time to keep a weather eye on the Duke of Monmouth. I was there with him and so when Jack came through aboard his merchant-ship full of cowrie-shells I went out to have a brotherly chat with him.

  Here the tale could turn ghastly. I’ll not describe Jack. Suffice it to say I have seen better and worse on battle-fields. He was far gone with the French Pox and not of sound mind. I learnt from him about you. In particular I learnt that you have the strongest possible aversion to Slavery—whereof I’ll say more anon. But first I must speak of Monmouth.

  There was a Mr. Foot aboard God’s Wounds, one of those pleasant and harmless-seeming fellows to whom anyone will say anything, and who consequently knows everyone and everything. While I was waiting for Jack to recover his senses I passed a few hours with him and collected the latest gossip—or, as we say in the military, intelligence—from Amsterdam. Mr. Foot told me that Monmouth’s invasion-force was massing at Texel and that it was certainly bound for the port of Lyme Regis.

  When I was finished saying my good-byes to poor Jack I went ashore and tried to seek out my master, John Churchill, to give him this news. But he had just sailed for Dover, London-bound, and left orders for me to follow on a slower boat with certain elements of the regiment.

  Now I’ve probably given you the impression that the Grenadier Guards were in Dunkirk, which is wrong. They were in London guarding the King. Why was I not with my regiment? To answer I would have to explain what I am to John Churchill and what he is to me, which would take more time than it would be worth. Owing to my advanced age—almost thirty—and long time in service, I am a very senior non-commissioned officer. And if you knew the military this would tell you much about the peculiar and irregular nature of my duties. I do the things that are too difficult to explain.

  Not very clear, is it? Here is a fair sample: I ignored my orders, cast off my uniform, borrowed money on my master’s good name, and took passage on a west-bound ship that brought me eventually to Lyme Regis. Before I embarked I sent word to my master that I was making myself useful in the West, where I had heard that some Vagabonds wanted hanging. As I’m certain you have perceived, this was both a prophecy of what was soon to come, and a reminder of events long past. Monmouth had set sail for Dorset because it was a notorious hotbed of Protestant rebellion. Ashe House, which was the seat of the Churchill family, looked down into the harbor of Lyme Regis, which had been the site of a dreary siege during the Civil War. Some of the Churchills had been Roundheads, others Cavaliers. Winston had taken the Cavalier side, had brought this riotous place to heel, and he and his son had been made important men for their troubles. Now Monmouth—John’s old comrade-in-arms from Siege of Maestricht days—was coming to make a bloody mess of the place. It would make Winston look either foolish or disloyal in the eyes of the rest of Parliament, and it would cast doubts on John’s loyalty.

  For some years, John has been in the household of the Duke of York—now King James II—but his wife Sarah is now Lady of the Bedchamber to the Duke’s daughter, the Princess Anne: a Protestant who might be Queen someday. And among those Londoners who whisper into each other’s ears for a living, this has been taken to mean that John’s merely putting on a show of loyalty to the King, biding his time until the right moment to betray that Papist and bring a Protestant to the throne. Nothing more than Court gossip—but if Monmouth used John’s very home ground as the beach-head of a Protestant rebellion, how would it look?

  Monmouth’s little fleet dropped anchor in the harbor of Lyme Regis two days after I had arrived. The town was giddy—they thought Cromwell had been re-incarnated. Within a day, fifteen hundred men had rallied to his standard. Almost the only one who did not embrace him was the Mayor. But I had already warned him to keep his bags packed and horses saddled. I helped him and his family slip out of town, following covert trails of Vagabonds, and he despatched messengers to the Churchills in London. This way Winston could go to the King and say, “My constituents are in rebellion and here is what my son and I are doing about it” rather than having the news sprung on him out of the blue.

  It would be a week at the earliest before my regiment could come out from London—which amounts to saying that Monmouth had a week to raise his army, and that I had a week in which to make myself useful. I waited in a queue in the market-square of Lyme Regis until the clerk could prick my name down in his great book; I told him I was Jack Shaftoe and under that name I joined Monmouth’s army. The next day we mustered in a field above the town and I was issued my weapon: a sickle lashed to the end of a stick.

  The next week’s doings were of some moment to John Churchill, when I told him the tale later, but would be tedious to you. There is only one part you might take an interest in, and that is what happened at Taunton. Taunton is an inland town. Our little army reached it after several days’ straggling through the countryside. By that time we were three thousand strong. The town welcomed us even more warmly than Lyme Regis; the school girls presented Monmouth with a banner they had embroidered for him, and served us meals in a mess they had set up in the town square. One of these girls—a sixteen-year-old named Abigail Frome…

  Shall I devote a thousand words, or ten thousand, to how I fell in love with Abigail Frome? “I fell in love with her” does not do it justice, but ten thousand words would be no better, and so let us leave it at that. Perhaps I loved her because she was a rebel girl, and my heart was with the rebellion. My mind could see it was doomed, but my heart was listening to the Imp of the Perverse. I had chosen the name of Jack Shaftoe because I reckoned my brother was dead by now and would not be needing it. But being “Jack Shaftoe” had awakened a lust I had long forgotten: I wanted to go a-vagabonding. And I wanted to take Abigail Frome with me.

  That was true the first and possibly the second day of my infatuation. But in between those long sunny June days were short nights of broken and unrestful sleep, when fretful thoughts would dissolve into strange dreams that would end with me shocked upright in my bed, like a sailor who has felt his ship hit a reef, and who knows he ought to be doing somewhat other than just lying there. I’d not bedded the girl or even kissed her. But I believed we were joined together now, and that I needed to make preparations for a life altogether differe
nt. Vagabonding and rebellion could not be part of that life—they are fit for men, but men who try to bring their women and children along on that life are bastards plain and simple. If you spent any time on the road with Jack, you will take my meaning.

  So my Vagabond-passion for this rebel girl made me turn against the rebellion finally. I could flirt with one or the other but not with both; and flirting with Abigail was more rewarding.

  Now came word that the militia—my old regiment of local commoners—was being called up to perform its stated function, namely, to put down the rebellion. I deserted my rebel regiment, crept out of Taunton, and went to the mustering-place. Some of the men were ready to throw in their lot with Monmouth, some were loyal to the King, and most were too scared and amazed to do anything. I rallied a company of loyal men, little better than stragglers, and marched them to Chard, where John Churchill had at last arrived and set up an encampment.

  This is as good a time as any to mention that while sneaking through the rebel lines at Taunton I had been noticed—not by the sentry, a dozing farmhand, but by his dog. The dog had come after me and seized me by the leg of my breeches and held me long enough for the farmer to come after me with a pitchfork. As you can see, I had let things get out of hand. It was because I have a fatuous liking for dogs, and always have, ever since I was a mudlark boy and Persons of Quality would call me a dog. I had removed the sickle from the end of my stick and left it in Taunton, but the stick I still had, so I raised it up and brought the butt down smartly between the dog’s brown eyes, which I remember clearly glaring up at me. But it was a dog of terrier-kind and would on no account loosen its bite. The farmer thrust at me with his pitchfork. I spun away. One tine of the fork got under the skin of my back and tunneled underneath for about a hand’s breadth and then erupted somewhere else. I made a backhand swing of my stick and caught him across the bridge of the nose. He let go the pitchfork and put his hands to his face. I pulled the iron out of my flesh, raised it up above the dog, and told the farmer that if he would only call the damned creature off I would not have to spill any blood here, other than my own.