Quicksilver

by Neal Stephenson

  APTHORP: Hmmm, yes…I take your meaning.

  WATERHOUSE: I beg of you, do not say ‘I take your meaning’ with such ponderous significance…I do not wish to be Jack Ketch’s next guest. You have asked, sir, over and over, why I am sitting here in a chair. Now you know the answer: I came to see justice done.

  APTHORP: But you knew ‘twould happen—you had aught to do with it. Why did you set it in the ‘Change? At Tyburn tree, during one of the regularly scheduled Friday hangings, ‘twould’ve drawn a much more appreciative crowd—why, you could burn a whole library there and the Mobb would be stomping their feet for an encore.

  WATERHOUSE: They don’t read books. The point would’ve been lost on ‘em.

  APTHORP: If the point is to put the fear of God into literate men, why not burn it at Cambridge and Oxford?

  WATERHOUSE: Jack Ketch hates to travel. The new carriages have so little leg-room, and his great Axe does not fit into the luggage bins…

  APTHORP: Could it be because College men do not have the money and power to organize a rebellion?

  WATERHOUSE: Why, yes, that’s it. No point intimidating the weak. Threaten the dangerous.

  APTHORP: To what end? To keep them in line? Or to put thoughts of rebellion into their minds?

  WATERHOUSE: Your question, sir, amounts to asking whether I am a turncoat against the cause of my forebears—corrupted by the fœtid atmosphere of Whitehall—or a traitorous organizer of a secret rebellion.

  APTHORP: Why, yes, I suppose it does.

  WATERHOUSE: Then would you please ask easier questions or else go away and leave me alone? For whether I’m a back-stabber or a Phanatique, I am in either case no longer a scholar to be trifled with. If you must ply someone with such questions, ask them of yourself; if you insist on an answer, unburden your secrets to me before you ask me to trust you with mine. Assuming I have any.

  APTHORP: I think that you do, sir.

  Bows.

  WATERHOUSE: Why do you doff your hat to me thus?

  APTHORP: To honor you, sir, and to pay my respects to him who made you.

  WATERHOUSE: What, Drake?

  APTHORP: Why, no, I refer to your Mentor, the late John Wilkins, Lord Bishop of Chester—or as some would say, the living incarnation of Janus. For that good fellow penned the Cryptonomicon with one hand and the Universal Character with the other; he was a good friend of high and mighty Cavaliers at the same time he was wooing and marrying Cromwell’s own sister; and, in sum, was Janus-like in diverse ways I’ll not bother enumerating to you. For you are truly his pupil, his creation: one moment dispensing intelligence like a Mercury, the next keeping counsel like Pluto.

  WATERHOUSE: Mentor was a guise adopted by Minerva, and her pupil was great Ulysses, and so by hewing to a strict Classical interpretation of your words, sir, I’ll endeavour not to take offense.

  APTHORP: Endeavour and succeed, my good man, for no offense was meant. Good day.

  Exits.

  Enter Ravenscar, carrying Principia Mathematica.

  RAVENSCAR: I’m taking this to the printer’s straightaway, but before I do, I was pondering this Newton/Leibniz thing…

  WATERHOUSE: What!? Jack Ketch’s performance made no impression on you at all?

  RAVENSCAR: Oh, that? I assume you arranged it that way in order to buttress your position as the King’s token Puritan bootlick—whilst in fact stirring rebellious spirits in the hearts and minds of the rich and powerful. Forgive me for not tossing out a compliment. Twenty years ago I’d have admired it, but by my current standards it is only a modestly sophisticated ploy. The matter of Newton and Leibniz is much more interesting.

  WATERHOUSE: Go ahead, then.

  RAVENSCAR: Descartes explained, years and years ago, that the planets move round the sun like slips of paper caught up in a wind-vortex. So Leibniz’s objection is groundless—there is no mystery, and therefore Newton did not gloss over any problems.

  WATERHOUSE: Leibniz has been trying to make sense of Descartes’ dynamics for years, and finally given up. Descartes was wrong. His theory of dynamics is beautiful in that it is purely geometrical and mathematical. But when you compare that theory to the world as it really is, it proves an unmitigated disaster. The whole notion of vortices does not work. There is no doubt that the inverse square law exists, and governs the motions of all heavenly bodies along conic sections. But it has nothing to do with vortices, or the cœlestial æther, or any of that other nonsense.

  RAVENSCAR: What brings it about, then?

  WATERHOUSE: Isaac says it is God, or God’s presence in the physical world. Leibniz says it has to be some sort of interaction among particles too tiny to see…

  RAVENSCAR: Atoms?

  WATERHOUSE: Atoms—to make a long story short and leave out all the good bits—could not move and change fast enough. Instead Leibniz speaks of monads, which are more fundamental than atoms. If I try to explain we’ll both get headaches. Suffice it to say, he is going at it hammer and tongs, and we will hear more from him in due course.

  RAVENSCAR: That is very odd, for he avers in a personal letter to me that, having published the Integral Calculus, he’ll now turn his attention to genealogical research.

  WATERHOUSE: That sort of work entails much travel, and the Doctor does his best work when he’s rattling round the Continent in his carriage. He can do both things, and more, at the same time.

  RAVENSCAR: In the decision to study history, some will see an admission of defeat to Newton. I myself cannot understand why he should want to waste his time digging up ancient family trees.

  WATERHOUSE: Perhaps I’m not the only Natural Philosopher who can put together a “moderately sophisticated ploy” when he needs to.

  RAVENSCAR: What on earth are you talking about?

  WATERHOUSE: Dig up some ancient family trees, stop assuming that Leibniz is a defeated ninehammer, and consider it. Put your philosophick acumen to use: know, for example, that the children of syphilitics are often syphilitic themselves, and unable to bear viable offspring.

  RAVENSCAR: Now you are swimming out into the deep water, Daniel. Monsters are there—bear it in mind.

  WATERHOUSE: ‘Tis true, and when a man has got to a point in his life when he needs to slay a monster, like St. George, or be eaten by one, like Jonah, I think that is where he goes a-swimming.

  RAVENSCAR: Is it your intention to slay, or be eaten?

  WATERHOUSE: I have already been eaten. My choices are to slay, or else be vomited up on some bit of dry land somewhere—Massachusetts, perhaps.

  RAVENSCAR: Right. Well, before you make me any more alarmed, I’m off to the printer’s.

  WATERHOUSE: It may be the finest errand you ever do, Roger.

  Exit Marquis of Ravenscar. Enter Sir Richard Apthorp solus.

  APTHORP: Woe. Bad tidings and alarums! Fear for England…O miserable island!

  WATERHOUSE: What can possibly have happened, in the Temple of Mercury, to alter your mood so? Did you lose a lot of money?

  APTHORP: No, I made a lot, buying low and selling high.

  WATERHOUSE: Buying what?

  APTHORP: Tent-cloth, saltpeter, lead, and other martial commodities.

  WATERHOUSE: From whom?

  APTHORP: Men who knew less than I did.

  WATERHOUSE: And you sold it to—?

  APTHORP: Men who knew more.

  WATERHOUSE: A typical commercial transaction, all in all.

  APTHORP: Except that I acquired knowledge as part of the bargain. And the knowledge fills me with dread.

  WATERHOUSE: Share it with Pluto, then, for he knows all secrets, and keeps most of ‘em, and basks in Dread as an old dog lies in the sun.

  APTHORP: The buyer is the King of England.

  WATERHOUSE: Good news, then! Our King is bolstering our defences.

  APTHORP: But why d’you suppose the Jew braved the North Sea to come and buy it here?

  WATERHOUSE: Because ‘tis cheaper here?

  APTHORP: It isn’t. But he saves m
oney to buy it in England, because then there are no expenses for shipping. For these warlike commodities are supposed to be delivered, not to some foreign battle-ground, but here—to England—which is where the King intends to use ‘em.

  WATERHOUSE: That is extraordinary, since there are no foreigners here to practise war upon.

  APTHORP: Only Englishmen, as far as the eye can see!

  WATERHOUSE: Perhaps the King fears a foreign invasion.

  APTHORP: Does it give you comfort to think so?

  WATERHOUSE: To think of being invaded? No. To think of the Coldstream Guards, the Grenadiers, and the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards fighting foreigners, ‘stead of Englishmen, why yes.

  APTHORP: Then it follows, does it not, that all good Englishmen should bend their efforts to bringing it about.

  WATERHOUSE: Let us now choose our words carefully, for Jack Ketch is only just round the corner.

  APTHORP: No man has been choosing his words more carefully than you, Daniel.

  WATERHOUSE: Lest native arms fraternal blood might shed,

  For want of alien foes and righteous broil,

  We’d fain see foreign canvas off our shores,

  And English towns beset by armèd Boers. Our soldiers,

  if they love by whom they’re led,

  May then let foreign blood on English soil.

  And if they don’t, and let their colors fall,

  Their leader never was their King at all.

  Versailles

  1687

  To d’Avaux, March 1687

  Monseigneur,

  Finally, a real spring day—my fingers have thawed out and I am able to write again. I would like to be out enjoying the flowers, but instead I am despatching letters to tulip-land.

  You will be pleased to know that as of last week there are no beggars in France. The King has declared beggary illegal. The nobles who live at Versailles are of two minds concerning this. Of course they all agree that it is magnificent. But many of them are scarcely above beggars themselves, and so they are wondering whether the law applies to them.

  Fortunately—for those who have daughters, anyway—Mme. de Maintenon has got her girls’ school open at St.-Cyr, just a few minutes’ ride from the château of Versailles. This has complicated my situation a little. The girl I have supposedly been tutoring—the daughter of the Marquise d’Ozoir—has begun attending the school, which makes my position redundant. So far, there has been no talk of letting me go. I have been putting my free time to good use, making two trips to Lyons to learn about how commerce works in that place. But apparently Édouard de Gex has been spreading tales of my great skills as a tutor to the Maintenon, who has begun making noises about bringing me to St.-Cyr as a teacher.

  Did I mention that the teachers are all nuns?

  De Maintenon and de Gex are so shrouded in outward Godliness that I cannot make out their motives. It is almost conceivable that they believe, sincerely, that I am a good candidate for the convent—in other words, that they are too detached from worldly matters to understand my true function here. Or perhaps they know full well that I am managing assets for twenty-one different French nobles, and they wish to neutralize me—or bring me under their control by threatening to do so.

  To business: returns for the first quarter of 1687 have been satisfactory, as you know since you are a client. I pooled all of the money into a fund and invested it mostly through sub-brokers in Amsterdam, who specialize in particular commodities or species of V.O.C. derivatives. We are still making money on India cloth, thanks to King Louis who made it contraband and thereby drove up the price. But V.O.C. shares fell after William of Orange declared the League of Augsburg. William may be full of bluster about how the Protestant alliance is going to rein in the power of France, but his own stock market seems to take an extremely dim view of the project! As does the court here—tout le monde finds it tremendously amusing that William, and Sophie of Hanover, and a grab-bag of other frostbitten Lutherans believe they can stand up to La France. There is brave talk about how Father de Gex and Maréchal de Catinat, who suppressed the Protestants in Savoy with such force, ought now to ride North and and give the same treatment to the Dutch and the Germans.

  For now it is my rôle to set aside any personal feelings I may have concerning politics, and to think only of how this might affect markets. My footing here is soft—I am like a mare galloping down a mucky beach, afraid to falter, out of fear that she may be treading on quicksand. With markets in Amsterdam fluctuating hourly, I cannot really manage assets from Versailles—the day-to-day buying and selling is carried out by my associates in the north.

  But French nobles will not be seen doing business with Dutch hereticks and Spanish Jews. So I am a sort of figurehead, like the pretty mermaid on the bow of a ship that is laden with other people’s treasure and manned by swarthy corsairs. The only thing to be said in favor of being a figurehead is that the position gives one an excellent view ahead, and plenty of time to think. Help me, Monseigneur, to have as clear a view as possible of the seas we are about to plow up. I cannot help but think that in a year or two I shall be forced to gamble all of my clients’ assets on the outcome of great events. Investing round the time of Monmouth’s rebellion was not difficult because I knew Monmouth, and knew how it would come out. But I know William, too—not as well—but well enough to know I cannot gamble against him with certainty. Monmouth was a hobbyhorse and William is a stallion. Experience gained riding the first can only misinform me as to what it shall be like to ride the second.

  So inform me, Monseigneur. Tell me things. You know your intelligence will be safe in transit, because of the excellence of this cypher, and you know it will be safe with me, for I have no friends here to whisper it to.

  Only small minds want always to be right.

  —LOUIS XIV

  To d’Avaux, June 1687

  Monseigneur,

  When I complained that Fr. de Gex and Mme. de Maintenon were trying to make me over into a nun, I never imagined you would respond by making me out to be a whore! Mme. la duchesse d’Oyonnax has practically had to post Swiss guards at the entrance of her apartments to keep the young blades away from me. What sorts of rumors have you been spreading? That I am a nymphomaniac? That a thousand louis d’or will go to the first Frenchman who beds me?

  At any rate, now I have some idea as to who belongs to the cabinet noir. One day, all of a sudden, Fr. de Gex was very cool to me, and Étienne d’Arcachon, the one-armed son of the Duke, called on me to say that he did not believe any of the rumors that were being spread about me. I think I was meant to be bowled over by his nobility—with him, it is difficult to tell. For on the one hand he is so excessively polite that some affirm he is not in his right mind, and on the other (though he has no other!) he saw me at the opera with Monmouth and knows some of my history. Otherwise why would a Duke’s son even give the time of day to a common servant?

  The only circumstance under which a man of his rank and a woman of mine could ever be seen conversing with each other is a fancy-dress ball, when ranks are of no account and all the normal rules of precedence are suspended for a few hours. The other evening, Étienne d’Arcachon escorted me to one at Dampierre, the château of the duc de Chevreuse. He dressed as Pan and I as a Nymph. Here any proper Court lady would devote several pages to describing the costumes, and the intrigues and machinations that went into their making, but since I am not a proper Court lady and you are a busy man, I will leave it at that—pausing only to mention that Étienne had a special prosthetic hand carved out of boxwood and strapped to his stump. The hand was gripping a silver Pan-pipe all twined about with ivy (emerald leaves, of course, and ruby berries) and from time to time he would raise this to his lips and pipe a little melody that he had Lully compose for him.

  As we rode in the carriage to Dampierre, Étienne mentioned to me, “You know, our host the duc de Chevreuse is the son-in-law of a commoner: Colbert, the late Contrôleur-Général, who built Versaille
s among other accomplishments.”

  As you know, this is not the first such veiled remark that has been directed my way by a Frenchman of high rank. The first time it happened I became ever so excited, thinking I was about to be ennobled at any minute. Then for a time I affected a cynical view, supposing that this was like a snatch of meat dangled high above a dog’s nose to make it do tricks. But on this evening, riding to the splendid château of Dampierre on the arm of a future Duke, the burden of my low rank lifted for a few hours by a mask and costume, I phant’sied that Étienne’s remark really meant something, and that if I could use my skills to achieve some great accomplishment, I might be rewarded as Colbert had been.

  Pretend now that I have dutifully described all of the costumes, the table-settings, the food, and the entertainments that the duc de Chevreuse had brought together at Dampierre. This will spare enough pages to make a small book. At first the mood was somewhat gloomy, for Mansart—the King’s architect—was there, and he had just received news that the Parthenon in Athens has been blown up. Apparently the Turks had been using it as a powder-magazine and the Venetians, who are trying to bring that city back into Christendom, bombarded it with mortars and touched off a great explosion. Mansart—who had always harbored an ambition of making a pilgrimage to Athens to see that building with his own eyes—was inconsolable. There was some blustery talk from Étienne to the effect that he would personally lead a squadron of his father’s Mediterranean fleet to Athens to take that city back into Christendom. This was a faux pas of sorts because Athens is not actually located on the water. Therefore it led to a few moments’ awkward silence.

  I decided to strike. No one knew who I was, and even if they found out, my status and my reputation (thanks to you!) could scarcely sink lower. “So gloomy are we because of this news from abroad,” I exclaimed, “and yet what is news but words, and what are words but air?”

  Now this produced only a few titters because everyone was assuming that I was just another empty-headed Duchess who had read too much Pascal. But I had their attention (if you could see my gown, Monseigneur, you would know I had their attention; my face was hidden, everything else was getting a good airing-out).