Quicksilver

by Neal Stephenson

  I continued, “Why should we not conjure up some news more to our liking, and throw our enemies the Dutchmen into a gloomy mood, so that we may be infused with gaiety and joy?”

  Now most of them were nonplussed, but several took an interest—including one chap who was dressed up as Orion after he had been blinded by Oenopion, so that his mask had blood running out of the eye-sockets. Orion asked me to say more, and so I did: “Here, we are susceptible to emotion, because we are people of great feeling and passion, and accordingly we are saddened by the destruction of the Parthenon, for we value beauty. In Amsterdam, they have investments instead of emotions, and all they value is their precious V.O.C. stock. We could destroy all the treasures of the Classical world and they would not care; but if they hear bad news that touches the V.O.C., they are plunged into despair—or rather the price of the stock falls, which amounts to the same thing.”

  “Since you appear to know so much about it, tell us what would be the worst news they could hear,” said blind Orion.

  “Why, the fall of Batavia—for that is the linch-pin of their overseas empire.”

  By now Orion had come face-to-face with me and we were in the middle of a ring of costumed nobles who were all leaning forward to listen. For it was obvious to everyone that the man dressed as Orion was none other than the King himself. He said, “The doings of the cheese-mongers are a vulgar muddle to us—trying to understand them is like watching muddy English peasants at one of their shin-kicking contests. If it is so easy to bring about a crash in the Amsterdam market, why doesn’t it crash all the time? For anyone could spread such a rumor.”

  “And many do—it is very common for a few investors to get together and form a cabal, which is a sort of secret society that manipulates the market for profit. The machinations of these cabals have grown exceedingly complex, with as many moves and variations as dance steps. But at some point they all rely upon spreading false news into the ears of credulous investors. Now these cabals form and join, split and vanish like clouds in the summer sky, and so the market has become resistant to news, especially bad news; for most investors now assume that any bad news from abroad is false information put out by a cabal.”

  “Then what hope have we of convincing these skeptical hereticks that Batavia has fallen?” asked Orion.

  “My answering your question is complicated somewhat by the fact that everyone here is wearing a disguise,” I said, “but it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the Grand Admiral of the French Navy (the duc d’Arcachon) and the Contrôleur of the French East India Company (the Marquis d’Ozoir) are present, and able to hear my words. For men of such eminence, it would be no great thing to make it believed and understood, from the top to the bottom of the French naval and merchant fleets, and in every port from Spain to Flanders, that a French expeditionary force had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and fallen suddenly upon Batavia and seized it from the V.O.C. The news would spread north up the coast like fire along a powder-trail, and when it reached the Damplatz—”

  “The Damplatz is the powder-keg,” Orion concluded. “This plan has beauty, for it would require little risk or expenditure from us, yet would cause more damage to William of Orange than an invasion by fifty thousand of our dragoons.”

  “While at the same time bringing profit to anyone who knew in advance, and who took the right positions in the market,” I added.

  Now, Monseigneur, I know for a fact that on the next morning Louis XIV went on a trip to his lodge at Marly, and invited the Marquis d’Ozoir and the duc d’Arcachon to join him.

  Speaking for myself, I have spent all the time since talking to French nobles who are desperate to know what “the right position” is. I have lost track of the number of times I have had to explain the concept of selling short, and that when V.O.C. stock falls it tends to bring about a rise in commodity prices as capital flies from one to the other. Above all, I’ve had to make it clear that if a lot of Frenchmen, new to the markets, suddenly sell the V.O.C. short while investing in commodities futures, it will make it obvious to the Dutch that a cabal has formed at the court of the Sun King. That (in other words) the ground-work must be laid with great care and subtlety—which amounts to saying that I must do it.

  In any event, a lot of French gold is going to be making its way north in the next week. I will send details in another letter.

  The diligent Dutch seeing the Easiness of the managing and curing the Berry, and how that Part had no Dependence, either upon the Earth, the Air, the Water, or anything else more there, than in another Place, took the Hint, and planted the Coffee Tree in the Island of Java, near their City of Batavia, there it thrives, bears, and ripens every jot as well as at Mocha; and now they begin to leave off the Red Sea, and bring 20 to 30 Tons of Coffee, at a time, from Batavia, in the Latitude of 5 Deg. S.

  —DANIEL DEFOE, A Plan of the English Commerce

  To Leibniz, August 1687

  Doctor,

  Increase is the order of the day here;* the gardens, orchards, and vineyards are buried in their own produce and the country roads crowded with wagons bringing it to market. France is at peace, her soldiers at home, mending and building and getting maidens pregnant out of wedlock so that there will be a next generation of soldiers. New construction is going on all over Versailles, and many here have become modestly wealthy or at least paid off part of their gambling debts in the wake of the stock market crash in Amsterdam.

  I am sorry not to have written in so many weeks. This cypher is extremely time-consuming and I have been too busy with all of the machinations surrounding the “fall of Batavia.”

  Mme. la duchesse d’Oyonnax threw a garden party the other evening; the highlight was a re-enactment of the Fall of Batavia—which, as everyone knows by now, never really happened—played out on the Canal. A fleet of French “frigates,” no bigger than rowboats, and trimmed and decorated phantastically, like dream-ships, besieged a model “Batavia” built on the brink of the canal. The Dutchmen in the town were drinking beer and counting gold until they fell asleep. Then the dream-fleet made its attack. The Dutchmen were alarmed at first, until they woke up and understood it had all been a dream…but when they returned to their counting-tables, they found that their gold was really gone! The vanishing of the gold was accomplished through some sleight-of-hand so that everyone in the party was completely surprised. Then the dream-fleet cruised up and down the canal for the better part of an hour, and everyone crowded along the banks to admire it. Each vessel represented some virtue that is representative of la France, e.g., Fertility, Martial Prowess, Piety, et cetera, et cetera, and the captain of each one was a Duke or Prince, dressed up in costumes to match. As they drifted up and down the Canal they threw the captured coins in showers of gold into the ranks of the party-goers.

  The Dauphin wore a golden frock embroidered with…I have seen this man Upnor now. He enjoys a high rank in the court of James II and has many friends in France, for he was a boy here during the time of Cromwell. Everyone wants to hear about his Protestant slave-girl and he is not slow to talk about her. He is too well-bred to gloat openly, but it is obvious that he takes great pleasure in owning her. Here, the enslavement of rebels in England is likened to the French practice of sending Huguenots to the galleys, and rated as more humane than simply killing them all as was done in Savoy. I had not been sure whether to credit Bob Shaftoe’s tale and so I was quite startled to see Upnor in the flesh, and to hear him talking about this. It seems shameful to me—a scandal that the guilty would wish to hide from the world. But to them it is nothing. While sympathizing with poor Abigail Frome, I rejoice that this has come to pass. If the slavers had shown more discretion and continued to take their victims only from black Africa, no one would notice or care—why, I am as guilty as the next person of putting sugar in my coffee without considering the faraway Negroes who made it for me. For James and his ilk to take slaves from Ireland entails more risk, even when they are criminals. But to take English girls from fa
rm-towns is repugnant to almost everyone (the population of Versailles excepted) and an invitation to rebellion. After listening to Upnor I am more certain than ever that England will soon rise up in arms—and James apparently agrees with me, for word has it that he’s built great military camps on the edge of London and lavished money on his prize regiments. I fear only that in the chaos and excitement of rebellion, the people of that country will forget about the Taunton schoolgirls and what they signify about slavery in general…the tiller and rudder of which were all overgrown with living grape-vines.

  Forgive me this endless description of the various Dukes and their dream-boats, I look back over the preceding several pages and see I quite forgot myself.

  To Leibniz, October 1687

  Doctor,

  Family, family, family* is all anyone wants to talk about. Who is talking to me, you might ask, given that I am a commoner? The answer is that in certain recesses of this immense château there are large salons that are given over entirely to gambling, which is the only thing these nobles can do to make their lives interesting. In these places the usual etiquette is suspended and everyone talks to everyone. Of course the trick is gaining admission to such a salon in the first place—but after my success with the “Fall of Batavia”some of these doors were opened to me (back doors, anyway—I must come in through the servants’ entrances) and so it is not unusual for me now to exchange words with a Duchess or even a Princess. But I don’t go to these places as often as you might think, for when you are there you have no choice but to gamble, and I don’t enjoy it I loathe it and the people who do it is more accurate. But some of the men who will read this letter are heavy gamblers and so I will be demure.

  More and more frequently people ask me about my family. Someone has been spreading rumors that I have noble blood in my veins! I hope that during your genealogical research you can turn up some supporting evidence…turning me into a Countess should be easy compared to making Sophie an Electress. Enough people here now depend on me that my status as a commoner is awkward and inconvenient. They need a pretext to give me a title so that they can have routine conversations with me without having to set up elaborate shams, such as fancy-dress balls, to circumvent the etiquette.

  Just the other day I was playing basset with M. le duc de Berwick, who is the bastard of James II by Arabella Churchill, sister of John. This places him in excellent company since as you know this means his paternal grandmother was Henrietta Maria of France, the sister of Louis XIII…again, forgive the genealogical prattle. Will you please sort out everything to do with sorcerers, alchemists, Templars, and Satan-worshippers? I know that you got your start in life by bamboozling some rich alchemists into thinking you actually believed their nonsense. And yet you appear to be a sincere friend of the man called Enoch the Red, who is apparently an alchemist of note. From time to time, his name comes up around a gambling table. Most are nonplussed but certain men will cock an eyebrow or cough into a hand, exchange tremendously significant looks, et cetera, conspicuously trying not to be conspicuous. I have observed the same behaviors in connection with other subjects that are of an esoteric or occult nature. Everyone knows that Versailles was infested with Satan-worshippers, poisoners, abortionists, et cetera, in the late 1670s and that most but not all of them were purged; but this only makes it seem murkier and more provocative now. The father of the Earl of Upnor—the Duke of Gun-fleet—died suddenly in those days, after drinking a glass of water at a garden party thrown by Mme. la duchesse d’Oyonnax, whose own husband died in similar fashion a fortnight later, leaving all his titles and possessions to her. There is not a man or woman here who does not suspect poisoning in these and other cases. Upnor and Oyonnax would probably come in for closer scrutiny if there weren’t so many other poisonings to distract people’s attention. Anyway, Upnor is obviously one of those gentlemen who takes an interest in occult matters, and keeps making dark comments about his contacts at Trinity College in Cambridge. I am tempted to dismiss all of this as a faintly pathetic hobby for noble toffs bored out of their minds by the ingenious tedium, the humiliating inconsequence, of Versailles. But since I have picked out Upnor as an enemy I would like to know if it amounts to anything…can he cast spells on me? Does he have secret brethren in every city? What is Enoch Root?

  I am going to spend much of the winter in Holland and will write to you from there.

  Eliza

  Bank of Het Kanaal, Between Scheveningen and the Hague

  DECEMBER 1687

  No man goes so high as he who knows not where he is going.

  —CROMWELL

  “WELL MET, BROTHER WILLIAM,” said Daniel, getting a boot up on the running-board of the carriage, vaulting in through the door, and surprising the hell out of a dumpling-faced Englishman with long stringy dark hair. The passenger snatched the hem of his long black frock coat and drew it up; Daniel could not tell whether he was trying to make room, or to avoid being brushed against by Daniel. Both hypotheses were reasonable. This man had spent a lot more time in ghastly English prisons than Daniel had, and learned to get out of other men’s way. And Daniel was mud-spattered from riding, whereas this fellow’s clothes, though severe and dowdy, were immaculate. Brother William had a tiny mouth that was pursed sphincter-tight at the moment.

  “Recognized your arms on the door,” Daniel explained, slamming it to and reaching out the window to give it a familiar slap. “Flagged your coachman down, reckoning we must be going to the same lodge to see the same gentleman.”

  “When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the Gentleman?”

  “Forgive me, I should have said chap, bloke…how are things in your Overseas Possession, Mr. Penn? Did you ever settle that dispute with Maryland?”

  William Penn rolled his eyes and looked out the window. “It will take a hundred years and a regiment of Surveyors to settle it! At least those damned Swedes have been brought to heel. Everyone imagines that, simply because I own the Biggest Pencil in the World, that my ticket is punched, my affairs settled once and for all…but I tell you, Brother Daniel, that it has been nothing but troubles…if it is a sin to lust after worldly goods, videlicet a horse or a door-knocker, then what have I got myself into now”? It is a whole new universe of sinfulness.”

  “‘Twas either accept Pennsylvania, or let the King continue owing you sixteen thousand pounds, yes?”

  Penn did not take his gaze away from the window, but squinted as if trying to hold back a mighty volume of flatulence, and shifted his focal point to a thousand miles in the distance. But this was coastal Holland and there was nothing out that window save the Curvature of the World. Even pebbles cast giant shadows in the low winter sun. Daniel could not be ignored.

  “I am chagrined, appalled, mortified that you are here! You are not welcome, Brother Daniel, you are a problem, and obstacle, and if I were not a pacifist I would beat you to death with a rock.”

  “Brother William, meeting as we so often do at Whitehall, in the King’s Presence, to have our lovely chats about Religious Toleration, it is most difficult for us to hold frank exchanges of views, and so I am pleased you’ve at last found this opportunity to hose me down with those splenetic humours that have been so long pent up.”

  “I am a plain-spoken fellow, as you can see. Perhaps you should say what you mean more frequently, Brother Daniel—it would make everything so much simpler.”

  “It is easy for you to be that way, when you have an estate the size of Italy to go hiding in, on the far side of an ocean.”

  “That was unworthy of you, Brother Daniel. But there is some truth in what you say…it is…distracting…at the oddest times…my mind drifts, and I find myself wondering what is happening on the banks of the Susquehanna…”

  “Right! And if England becomes completely unlivable, you have someplace to go. Whereas I…”

  Finally Penn looked at him. “Don’t tell me you haven’t considered moving to Massachusetts.”

  “I consider it every day. Nonethel
ess, most of my constituency does not have that luxury available and so I’d like to see if we can avoid letting Olde Englande get any more fouled up than ‘tis.”

  Penn had disembarked from a ship out at Scheveningen less than an hour ago. That port-town was connected to the Hague by several roads and a canal. The route that Penn’s driver had chosen ran along a canal-edge, through stretches of Dutch polder-scape and fields where troops drilled, which extended to within a few hundred yards of the spires of the Binnenhof.

  The carriage now made a left turn onto a gravel track that bordered an especially broad open park, called the Malieveld, where those who could afford it went riding when the weather was pleasant. No one was there today. At its eastern end the Malieveld gave way to the Haagse Bos, a carefully managed forest laced through with riding-paths. The carriage followed one of these through the woods for a mile, until it seemed that they had gone far out into the wild. But then suddenly cobblestones, instead of gravel, were beneath the wheel-rims, and they were passing through guarded gates and across counterweighted canal-bridges. The formal gardens of a small estate spread around them. They rolled to a stop before a gate-house. Daniel glimpsed a hedge and the corner of a fine house before his view out the carriage-window was blocked by the head, and more so by the hat, of a captain of the Blue Guards. “William Penn,” said William Penn. Then, reluctantly, he added: “And Dr. Daniel Waterhouse.”

  THE PLACE WAS BUT a small lodge, close enough to the Hague to be easily reached, but far enough away that the air was clean. William of Orange’s asthma did not trouble him when he was here, and so, during those times of the year when he had no choice but to stick at the Hague, this was where he abided.