Time to take stock of matters—to bring the situation in hand. The hull was blocking his view. Other than it, all he could see was a sparkling bay, and a stony break-water. He strode into the sea, watched curiously by the man with the mushroom-headed yard, and, once he was out knee-deep, turned around. What he saw then made it more or less obligatory to fall right on his arse.

This bay was spattered with bony islets, close to shore. Rising from one of them was a squat round fortress that (if he was any judge of matters architectural) had been built at grand expense by Spaniards in desperate fear of their lives. And apparently those fears had been well founded because the top of that fort was all fluttery with green banners bearing silver crescent moons. The fort had three tiers of guns on it (more correctly, the fort was three tiers of guns) and every one of ’em looked, and sounded, like a sixty-pounder, meaning that it flung a cannonball the size of a melon for several miles. This fort was mostly shrouded in powder-smoke, with long bolts of flame jabbing out here and there, giving it the appearance of a thunderstorm that had been rammed and tamped into a barrel.

A white stone breakwater connected this fort to the mainland, which, at first glance, impressed him as a sheer stone wall rising forty or feet from this narrow strip of muddy beach, and crowded with a great many more huge cannons, all being fired just as fast as they could be swabbed out and stuffed with powder.

Beyond the wall rose a white city. Being as he was at the base of a rather high wall, he wouldn’t normally expect to be able to see anything on the opposite side thereof, save the odd cathedral-spire poking out above the battlements. But this city appeared to’ve been laboriously spackled onto the side of a precipitous mountain whose slopes rose directly from the high-tide mark. It looked a bit like a wedge of Paris tilted upwards by some tidy God who wanted to make all the shit finally run out of it. At the apex, where one would look for whatever crowbar or grapple the hypothetical God would’ve used to accomplish this prodigy, was, instead, another fortress—this one of a queer Moorish design, surrounded with its own eight-sided wall that was, inevitably, a-bristle with even more colossal cannons, as well as mortars for heaving bombs out to sea. All of those were being fired, too—as were all of the guns spraying from the several additional fortresses, bastions, and gun-platforms distributed around the city’s walls.

The man with the outlandish johnson—swarthy, with wavy black hair in a curious ’do, and a knit skullcap—hitched up his robe, and sloshed out to see if he was all right. For he still had both hands clamped over the sides of his head, partly to stanch the bleeding of the barnacle-gashes, and partly to keep the sound from blowing the top of his skull out to sea. The man peered down and looked into his eyes and moved his lips. The look on his face was serious, but ever so slightly amused.

He reached up and grabbed this fellow’s hand and used it to haul himself up to his feet. Both men’s hands were so heavily callused that they could practically catch musket-balls out of the air, and their knuckles were either bleeding, or else recently scabbed over.

He had stood up because he wanted to see what was the target of all of this shooting, and how it could possibly continue to exist. A fleet of three or four dozen ships was arrayed in the harbor, and (no surprise here) they were all firing their guns. But the ones that looked like Dutch frigates were not firing at the ones that looked like heathen galleys, nor vice versa, and none of them seemed to be firing at the vertiginous white city. All of the ships, even the ones that were of European design, flew crescent-moon banners.

The intensity of the cannonade waxed, if such a thing were possible, and reached a climax as the gold-plated galley drew up alongside a stone pier that projected into the harbor not awfully far away. Then, all of a sudden, the noise stopped.

“What in Christ’s name—” he began, but the rest of his utterance was drowned out by a sound that—compared to hundreds of cannons firing at once—made up in shrillness what it lacked in volume. Listening to it in amazement, he began to detect certain resemblances between it and musick. Rhythm was there, albeit of an overly complicated and rambunctious nature, and melody, too, though it was not cast in any civilized mode, but had the wild keening intonations of Irish tunes—and then some. Harmony, sweetness of tone, and other qualities normally associated with musick, were absent. For these Turks or Moors or whatever they were had no interest in flutes, viols, theorbos, nor anything else that made a pleasing sound. Their orchestra consisted of drums, cymbals, and a hideous swarm of giant war-oboes hammered out of brass and fitted with screeching, buzzing reeds, the result sounding like nothing so much as an armed assault on a belfry infested with starlings.

“I owe an ’umble apology to every Scotsman I’ve ever met,” he shouted, “for it isn’t true, after all, that their music is the most despicable in the world.” His companion cocked an ear in his direction but heard little, and understood less.

Now, essentially all of the city was protected within that wall, which shamed any in Christendom. But on this side of it there were various breakwaters, piers, gun-emplacements, and traces of mucky beach, and everything that was capable of bearing a man’s weight, or a horse’s, was doing so—covered by ranks of men in divers magnificent and outlandish uniforms. In other words, all the makings of a parade were laid out here. And indeed, after a lot of bellowing back and forth and playing of hellish musicks and firing of yet more guns, various important Turks (he was growingly certain that these were Turks) began to ride or march through a large gate let into the mighty Wall, disappearing into the city. First went an impossibly magnificent and fearsome warrior on a black charger, flanked by a couple of kettledrum-pounding “musicians.” The beat of their drums filled him with an unaccountable craving to reach out and grope for an oar.

“That, Jack, is the Agha of the Janissaries,” said the circumcised one.

This handle of “Jack” struck him as familiar and, in any case, serviceable. So Jack he was.

Behind the kettledrums rode a graybeard, almost as magnificent to look at as the Agha of the Janissaries, but not so heavily be-weaponed. “The First Secretary,” said Jack’s companion. Next, following on foot, a couple of dozen more or less resplendent officers (“the aghabashis”) and then a whole crowd of fellows with magnificent turbans adorned with first-rate ostrich plumes—“the bolukbashis,” it was explained.

Now it had become plain enough that this fellow standing next to Jack was the sort who never tired of showing off his great knowledge, and of trying to edify lowlives such as Jack. Jack was about to say that he neither wanted nor needed edification, but something stopped him. It might’ve been the vague, inescapable sense that he knew this fellow, and had for quite a while—which, if true, might mean that the other was only trying to make conversation. And it might’ve been that Jack didn’t know quite where to begin, language-wise. He knew somehow that the bolukbashis were equivalent to captains, and that the aghabashis were one rank above the bolukbashis, and that the Agha of the Janissaries was a General. But he was not sure why he should know the meanings of such heathen words. So Jack shut up, long enough for various echelons of odabashis (lieutenants) and vekilhardjis (sergeants-major) to form up and concatenate themselves onto the end of the parade. Then diverse hocas such as the salt-hoca, customs-hoca, and weights-and-measures-hoca, all following the hoca-in-chief, then the sixteen cavuses in their long emerald robes with crimson cummerbunds, their white leather caps, their fantastickal upturned moustaches, and their red hobnailed boots tromping fearsomely over the stones of the quay. Then the kadis, muftis, and imams had to do their bit. Finally a troop of gorgeous Janissaries marched off the deck of the golden galley, followed by a solitary man swathed in many yards of chalk-white fabric that had been gathered by means of diverse massive golden jeweled brooches into a coherent garment, though it probably would’ve fallen off of him if he hadn’t been riding on a white war-horse with pink eyes, bridled and saddled with as much in the way of silver and gems as it could carry without tripping over the finery.

“The new Pasha—straight from Constantinople!”

“I’ll be damned—is that why they were firing all those guns?”

“It is traditional to greet a new Pasha with a salute of fifteen hundred guns.”

“Traditional where?”

“Here.”

“And here is—?”

“Bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?”

“The English name is Algiers.”

“Well, in Christendom I have seen entire wars prosecuted with less expenditure of gunpowder than Algiers uses to say hello to a Pasha—so perhaps your words are not mere bravado. What language are we speaking, by the way?”

“It is called variously Franco, or Sabir, which in Spanish means ‘to know.’ Some of it comes from Provençe, Spain, and Italy, some from Arabic and Turkish. Your Sabir has much French in it, Jack, mine has more Spanish.”

“Surely you’re no Spaniard—!”

The man bowed, albeit without doffing his skullcap, and his forelocks tumbled from his shoulders and dangled in space. “Moseh de la Cruz, at your service.”

“ ‘Moses of the Cross?’ What the hell kind of name is that?”

Moseh did not appear to find it especially funny. “It is a long story—even by your standards, Jack. Suffice it to say that the Iberian Peninsula is a complicated place to be Jewish.”

“How’d you end up here?” Jack began to ask; but he was interrupted by a large Turk, armed with a bull’s penis, who was waving at Jack and Moseh, commanding them to get out of the surf and return to work—the siesta was finis and it was time for trabajo now that the Pasha had ridden through the Beb and entered into the cité.

The trabajo consisted of scraping the barnacles from the hull of the adjacent galley, which had been beached and rolled over to expose its keel. Jack, Moseh, and a few dozen other slaves (for there was no getting round the fact that they were slaves) got to work with various rude iron tools while the Turk prowled up and down the length of the hull brandishing that ox-pizzle. High above them, behind the wall, they could hear a sort of rolling fusillade wandering around the city as the parade continued; the thump of the kettledrums, and the outcry of the siege-oboes and assault-bassoons was, mercifully, deflected heavenwards by the city walls.

“It is true, I think—you are cured.”

“Never mind what your Alchemists and Chirurgeons will tell you—there is no cure for the French Pox. I’m having a brief interval of sanity, nothing more.”

“I don’t feel good, mind you, but I don’t feel feverish.”

“But a few weeks ago, you and several others came down with violent cases of la suette anglaise.”

“Never heard of any such disease—and I’m English, mind you.”

Moseh de la Cruz shrugged, as best a man could when hacking at a cluster of barnacles with a pitted and rusted iron hoe. “It is a well-known disease, hereabouts—whole neighborhoods were laid low with it in the spring.”

“Perhaps they’d made the mistake of listening to too much musick—?”

Moseh shrugged again. “It is a real enough disease—perhaps not as fearsome as some of the others, such as Rising of the Lights, or Ring-Booger, or the Laughing Kidney, or Letters-from-Venice…”

“Avast!”

“In any event, you came down with it, Jack, and had such a fever that all the other tutsaklars in the banyolar were roasting kebabs over your brow for a fortnight. Finally one morning you were pronounced dead, and carried out of the banyolar and thrown into a wain. Our owner sent me round to the Treasury to notify the hoca el-pencik so that your title deed could be marked as ‘deceased,’ which is a necessary step in filing an insurance claim. But the hoca el-pencik knew that a new Pasha was on his way, and wanted to make sure that all the records were in order, lest some irregularity be discovered during an audit, which would cause him to fall under the bastinado at the very least.”

“May I infer, from this, that insurance fraud is a common failing of slave-owners?”

“Some of them are completely unethical,” Moseh confided. “So I was ordered to lead the hoca el-pencik back to the banyolar and show him your body—but not before I was made to wait for hours and hours in his courtyard, as midday came and went, and the hoca el-pencik took a siesta under the lime-tree there. Finally we went to the banyolar—but in the meantime your wagon had been moved to the burial-ground of the Janissaries.”

“Why!? I’m no more a Janissary than you are.”

“Sssh! So I had gathered, Jack, from several years of being chained up next to you, and hearing your autobiographical ravings: stories that, at first, were simply too grotesque to believe—then, entertaining after a fashion—then, after the hundredth or thousandth repetition—”

“Stay. No doubt you have tedious and insufferable qualities of your own, Moseh de la Cruz, but you have me at a disadvantage, as I cannot remember them. What I want to know is, why did they think I was a Janissary?”

“The first clew was that you carried a Janissary-sword when you were captured.”

“Proceeds of routine military corpse-looting, nothing more.”

“The second: you fought with such valor that your want of skill was quite overlooked.”

“I was trying to get myself killed, or else would’ve shown less of the former, and more of the latter.”

“Third: the unnatural state of your penis was interpreted as a mark of strict chastity—”

“Correct, perforce!”

“—and assumed to’ve been self-administered.”

“Haw! That’s not how it happened at all—”

“Stay,” Moseh said, shielding his face behind both hands.

“I forgot, you’ve heard.”

“Fourth: the Arabic numeral seven branded on the back of your hand.”

“I’ll have you know that’s a letter V, for Vagabond.”

“But sideways it could be taken for a seven.”

“How does that make me a Janissary?”

“When a new recruit takes the oath and becomes yeni yoldash, which is the lowliest rank, his barrack number is tattooed onto the back of his hand, so it can be known which seffara he belongs to, and which bash yoldash is responsible for him.”

“All right—so ’twas assumed I’d come up from barracks number seven in some Ottoman garrison-town somewhere.”

“Just so. And yet you were clearly out of your mind, and not good for much besides pulling on an oar, so it was decided you’d remain tutsaklar until you died, or regained your senses. If the former, you’d receive a Janissary funeral.”

“What about the latter?”

“That remains to be seen. As it was, we thought it was the former. So we went to the high ground outside the city-walls, to the burial-ground of the ocak—”

“Come again?”

“Ocak: a Turkish order of Janissaries, modeled after the Knights of Rhodes. They rule over Algiers, and are a law and society unto themselves here.”

“Is that man coming over to hit us with the bull’s penis a part of this ocak?”

“No. He works for the corsair-captain who owns the galley. The corsairs are yet another completely different society unto themselves.”

After the Turk had finished giving Jack and Moseh several bracing strokes of the bull’s penis, and had wandered away to go beat up on some other barnacle-scrapers, Jack invited Moseh to continue the story.

“The hoca el-pencik and several of his aides and I went to that place. And a bleak place it was, Jack, with its countless tombs, mostly shaped like half-eggshells, meant to evoke a village of yurts on the Transoxianan Steppe—the ancestral homeland for which Turks are forever homesick—though, if it bears the slightest resemblance to that burying-ground, I cannot imagine why. At any rate, we roamed up and down among these stone yurts for an hour, searching for your corpse, and were about to give up, for the sun was going down, when we heard a muffled, echoing voice repeating some strange incantation, or prophecy, in an outlandish tongue. Now the hoca el-pencik was on edge to begin with, as this interminable stroll through the graveyard had put him in mind of daimons and ifrits and other horrors. When he heard this voice, coming (as we soon realized) from a great mausoleum where a murdered agha had been entombed, he was about to bolt for the city gates. So were his aides. But as they had with them one who was not only a slave, but a Jew to boot, they sent me into that tomb to see what would happen.”

“And what did happen?”

“I found you, Jack, standing upright in that ghastly, but delightfully cool space, pounding on the lid of the agha’s sarcophagus and repeating certain English words. I knew not what they meant, but they went something like this: ‘Be a good fellow there, sirrah, and bring me a pint of your best bitter!’ ”

“I must have been out of my head,” Jack muttered, “for the light lagers of Pilsen are much better suited to this climate.”

“You were still daft, but there was a certain spark about you that I had not seen in a year or two—certainly not since we were traded to Algiers. I suspected that the heat of your fever, compounded with the broiling radiance of the midday sun, under which you’d lain for many hours, had driven the French Pox out of your body. And indeed you have been a little more lucid every day since.”

“What did the hoca el-pencik think of this?”

“Eeyeh, give me the bull’s penis any day!”

“It’s expected he may be able to stand up again in a month or two. In the meanwhile, as we wait out the equinoctial storms, we are careening and refitting our galley, as is obvious enough.”

DURING THIS NARRATION Jack had been looking sidelong at the other galley-slaves, and had found them to be an uncommonly diverse and multi-cultural lot: there were black Africans, Europeans, Jews, Indians, Asiatics, and many others he could not clearly sort out. But he did not see anyone he recognized from the complement of God’s Wounds.

“What of Yevgeny, and Mr. Foot? To speak poetically: have insurance claims been paid on them?”

“They are on the larboard oar. Yevgeny pulls with the strength of two men, and Mr. Foot pulls not at all—which makes them more or less inseparable, in the context of a well-managed galley.”

“So they live!”

“Live, and thrive—we’ll see them later.”

“Why aren’t they here, scraping barnacles like the rest of us?” Jack demanded peevishly.

“In Algiers, during the winter months, when galleys dare not venture out on the sea, oar-slaves are permitted—nay, encouraged—to pursue trades. Our owner receives a share of the earnings. Those who have no skills scrape barnacles.”

Jack found this news not altogether pleasing, and assaulted a barnacle-cluster with such violence that he nearly stove in the boat’s hull. This quickly drew a reprimand—and not from the Turkish whip-hand, but from a short, stocky, red-headed galley-slave on Jack’s other side. “I don’t care if you’re crazy—or pretend to be—you keep that hull seaworthy, lest we all go down!” he barked, in an English that was half Dutch. Jack was a head taller than this Hollander, and considered making something of it—but he didn’t imagine that their overseer would look kindly on a fracas, when mere talking was a flogging offense. Besides, there was a rather larger chap standing behind the carrot-top, who was eyeing Jack with the same expression: skeptical bordering on disgusted. This latter appeared to be a Chinaman, but he was not of the frail, cringing sort. Both he and the Hollander looked troublingly familiar.

The Dutchman shook his head incredulously and went back to work on a single barnacle, which he was dissecting off a hull-clinker as carefully as a chirurgeon removing a stone from a Grand Duke’s bladder.

“Thank you for not making a scene,” Moseh said, “it is important that we maintain harmony on the starboard oar.”

“Those are our oar-mates?”

“Yes, and the fifth is in town pursuing his trade.”

“Well, why is it so important to remain on good terms with them?”

“Other than that we must share a crowded bench with them eight months out of the year, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“We must all pull together if we are to maintain parity with the larboard oar.”

“What if we don’t?”

“The galley will—”

“Yes, yes, it’ll go in circles. But why should we care?”

“Aside from that the skin will be whipped off our ribcages by that bull’s pizzle?”

“I take that as a given.”

“Oars come in matched sets. As matters stand, we have parity with the larboard oar, and therefore constitute a matched set of ten slaves. We were traded to our current owner as such. But if Yevgeny and his bench-mates begin to out-pull us, we’ll be split up—your friends will end up in different galleys, or even different cities.”

“It’d serve ’em right.”

“Pardon me?”

“Pardon me,” Jack said, “but here we are on this fucking beach. And I may be a crazy Vagabond, but you appear to be an educated Jew, and that Dutchman is a ship’s officer if ever there was one, and God only knows about that Chinaman—”

“Nipponese actually, but trained by the Jesuits.”

“All right, then—this only supports my point.”

“And your point is—?”

“What can Yevgeny and Mr. Foot possibly have that we don’t?”

“They’ve formed a sort of enterprise wherein Yevgeny is Labor, and Mr. Foot is Management. Its exact nature is difficult to explain. Later, it will become clear to you. In the meantime, it’s imperative that the ten of us remain together!”

“What possible reason could you have for giving a damn whether we stay together?”

“During the last several years of touring the Mediterranean behind an oar, I have been developing, secretly, in my mind, a Plan,” said Moseh de la Cruz. “It is a plan that will bring all ten of us wealth, and then freedom, though possibly not in that order.”

“Does armed mutiny enter into this plan? Because—”

Moseh rolled his eyes.

“I was simply trying to imagine what rôle a man such as myself could possibly have in any Plan—leastways, any Plan that was not invented by a raving Lunatick.”

“It is a question I frequently asked myself, until today. Some earlier versions of the Plan, I must admit, involved throwing you overboard as soon as it was practicable. But today when fifteen hundred guns spoke from the three-tiered batteries of the Peñon and the frowning towers of the Kasba, some lingering obstructions were, it seems, finally knocked loose inside your head, and you were put back into your right mind again—or as close to it as is really possible. And now, Jack, you do have a rôle in the Plan.”

“And am I allowed to know the nature of this rôle?”

“Why, you’ll be our Janissary.”

“But I am not a—”

“Hold, hold! You see that fellow scraping barnacles?”

“Which one? There must be a hundred.”

“The tall fellow, Arab-looking with a touch of Negro; which is to say Egyptian.”

“I see him.”

“That is Nyazi—one of the larboard crew.”

“He’s a Janissary?”

“No, but he’s spent enough time around them that he can teach you to fake your way through it. Dappa—the black man, there—can teach you a few words of Turkish. And Gabriel—that Nipponese Jesuit—is a brave swordsman. He’ll bring you up to par in no time.”

“Why, exactly, does this plan demand a fake Janissary?”

“Really it demands a real one,” Moseh sighed, “but in life one must make do with the materials at hand.”

“My question is not answered.”

“Later—when we are all together—I’ll explain.”

Jack laughed. “You speak like a courtier, in honeyed euphemisms. When you say ‘together,’ it means what? Chained together by our neck-irons in some rat-filled dungeon ’neath that Kasba?”

“Run your hand over the skin of your neck, Jack, and tell me: Does it feel like you’ve been wearing an iron collar recently?”

“Now that you mention it—no.”

“Quitting time is nigh—then we’ll go into the city and find the others.”

“Haw! Just like that? Like free men?” Jack said, as well as much more in a similar vein. But an hour later, a strange wailing arose from several tall square towers planted all round the city, and a single gun was fired from the heights of the Kasba, and then all of the slaves put their scrapers down and began to wander off down the beach in groups of two or three. Seven whom Moseh had identified as belonging to the two Oars of his Plan tarried for a minute until all were ready to depart; the Dutchman, van Hoek, did not wish to leave until he was good and finished.

Moseh noticed a dropped hatchet, frowned, picked it up, and brushed away the damp sand. Then his eyes began to wander about, looking for a place to put it. Meanwhile he began to toss the hatchet absent-mindedly in his hand. Because its weight was all in its head, the handle flailed around wildly as it revolved in the air. But Moseh always caught it neatly on its way down. Presently his gaze fastened on one of the old dried-up tree-trunks that had been jammed into the sand, and used to prop up the galley so that its hull was exposed. He stared fixedly at this target whilst tossing the hatchet one, two, three more times, then suddenly drew the tool far back behind his head, stuck his tongue out, paused for a moment, then let the hatchet fly. It executed a single lazy revolution while hurtling across several fathoms of air, then stopped in an instant, one corner of its blade buried in the wood of the tree-trunk, high and dry.

The seven oar-slaves clambered up onto the footing of the colossal wall and made for the city gate. Jack followed along with the crowd, though he could not help hunching his shoulders, expecting to feel the whip across his back. But no stroke came. As he approached the gates he stood straighter and walked more freely, and sensed a group coalescing around him and Moseh: the irritable Dutchman, the Nipponese Jesuit, a black African with ropy locks of hair, the Egyptian named Nyazi, and a middle-aged Spaniard who seemed to be afflicted with some sort of spasmodic disorder. As they passed through the city gates, this fellow turned and shouted something at the Janissaries who were standing guard there. Jack didn’t get every word of the Spanish, but it was something like, “Listen to me, you boy-fucking heathen scum, we have all formed a secret cabal!” Which was not exactly what Jack would’ve said under the circumstances—but Moseh and the others only exchanged broad, knowing grins with the Janissaries, and into the city they went: Den of Thieves, Nest of Wasps, Scourge of Christendom, Citadel of the Faith.

THE MAIN STREET of Algiers was uncommonly broad, and yet crowded with Turks sitting out smoking tobacco from fountain-sized hubbly-bubblies, but Jack, Moseh, and the other slaves did not spend very much time there. Moseh darted through a pointy keyhole-arch so narrow that he had to turn sideways, and led the others into a roofless corridor of stone that was not much wider, forcing them to go in single file, and to plaster themselves up against walls whenever someone came towards them. It felt much like being in a back-hallway of some ancient building, save that when Jack looked up he could see a splinter of sky glaring between blank walls that rose ten to twenty yards above his head. Ladders and bridges had been set up between rooftops, joining the city’s terraces and roof-gardens into a private net-work strung high up above the ground. Sometimes Jack would see a black-swathed form flit from one side to the other. It was difficult to get a clear look at them, for they were dark and furtive as bats, but they seemed to be wearing the same sort of garment as Eliza had when Jack had met her beneath Vienna, and, in any event, from the way they moved he could tell they were women.

Down in the street—if that word could even be used for a passage as strait as this one—there were no women. Of men there was a marvelous variety. The Janissaries who made up the ocak were easy to recognize—some had a Greek or Slavic appearance, but most had an Asiatic look about the eyes, and all went in splendid clothing: baggy pleated trousers, belted with a sash that supported all manner of pistols, scimitars, daggers, purses, tobacco-pouches, pipes, and even pocket-watches. Over a loose shirt, one or more fancy vests, used as a sort of display-case for ribbons of lace, gold pins, swatches of fine embroidery. A turban on the top, pointy-toed slippers below, sometimes a long cape thrown over the whole. Thus the ocak, who were afforded never so much respect by all who passed them in the street. Algiers was crowded with many other sorts: mostly the Moors and Berbers whose ancestors had lived here before the Turks had come to organize the place. These tended to wear long one-piece cloaks, or else raiments that were just many fathoms of fabric swirled round the body and held in place by clever tricks with pins and sashes. There was a smattering of Jews, always dressed in black, and quite a few Europeans wearing whatever had been fashionable in their homelands when they’d decided to turn Turk.

The question only befuddled everyone except for the rope-headed African, who laughed and shook his head. “It is very dangerous to ask certain questions,” he said. “I should know.”

“Who’re you then, and how came you to speak better English than I?”

“I am named Dappa. I was—am—a linguist.”

“That means not a thing to me,” Jack said, “but as we are nothing more than a brace of slaves wandering around lost in a heathen citadel, I don’t suppose there’s any harm in hearing some sort of reasonably concise explanation.”

“In fact we are not lost at all, but taking the most direct route to our destination,” Dappa said. “But my story is a simple one—not like yours, Jack—and there will be more than enough time to relate it. All right then: every slave-port along the African coast must have a linguist—which signifies a man skilled in many tongues—or else how could the black slavers, who bring the stock out from the interior, make deals with the ships’ captains who drop anchor off-shore? For those slavers come from many different nations, all speaking different languages, and likewise the captains may be English, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Arab, or what-have-you. It all depends on the outcomes of various European wars, of which we Africans never know anything until the castle at the river-head suddenly begins to fly a different flag.”

“Enough on that subject—I’ve fought in some of those wars.”

“Jack, I am from a town on the river that is called, by white men, the Niger. This is an easy place to live—food grows on trees. I could rhapsodize about it but I will refrain. Suffice it to say ’twas a Garden of Eden. Save for the Institution of Slavery, which had always been with us. For as many generations as our priests and elders can remember, Arabs would occasionally come up the great river in boats and trade us cloth, gold, and other goods for slaves—”

“But where’d the slaves come from, Dappa?”

“The question is apt. Prior to my time they mostly came from farther up the river, marching in columns, joined together by wooden yokes. And some persons of my town were made slaves because they could not pay their debts, or as punishment for crimes.”

“So you have bailiffs? Judges?”

“In my town the priests were very powerful, and did many of the things that bailiffs and judges do in your country.”

“When you say priests I don’t imagine you mean men in funny hats, prating in Latin—”

Dappa laughed. “When Arabs or Catholics came to convert us, we would hear them out and then invite them to get back into their boats and go home. No, we followed a traditional religion in my town, whose details I’ll spare you, save one: we had a famous oracle, which means—”

“I know, I’ve heard about ’em in plays.”

“Very well—then the only thing I need to tell you is that pilgrims would come to our town from many miles away to ask questions of the Aro priests who were the oracles in my town. Now: at about the same time that some Portuguese began coming up the river to convert us, others began coming to trade with us for slaves—which was unremarkable, being no different from what the Arabs had been doing forever. But gradually—too gradually for anyone to really see a difference in his lifetime—the prices that were offered for slaves rose higher, and the visits of the buyers came more frequently. Dutch and English and other sorts of white men came wanting ever more slaves. My town grew wealthy from this trade—the temples of the Aro priests shone with gold and silver, the slave-trains from upriver grew longer, and came more frequently. Even then, the supply was not equal to the demand. The priests who served as our judges began to pass the sentence of enslavement on more and more persons, for smaller and smaller offenses. They grew rich and haughty, the priests did, and were carried through the streets on gilded sedan-chairs. Yet this magnificence was viewed, by a certain type of African, as proof that these priests must be very powerful wizards and oracles. So, just as the slave-trains waxed, so did the crowds of pilgrims coming from all over the Niger Delta to have their illnesses healed, or to ask questions of the oracle.”

“Nothing we haven’t seen in Christendom,” Jack observed.

“Yes—the difference being that, after a time, the priests ran out of crimes, and slaves.”

“What do you mean, they ran out of crimes?”

“They reached a point, Jack, where they would punish every crime, no matter how trivial, with enslavement. And still there were not enough slaves to sell down the river. So they decreed that henceforth, any person who appeared before the Aro oracle and asked a stupid question would be immediately seized by the warriors who stood guard in the temple, and flung into slavery.”

“Hmmm…if stupid questions are as common in Africa as they are where I come from, that policy must’ve produced a flood of wretches!”

“It did—yet still the pilgrims flocked to our town.”

“Were you one of those pilgrims?”

“No, I was a fortunate boy—the son of an Aro priest. When I was very young, I talked all the time, so it was decided I would be a linguist. Thereafter, whenever a white or Arab trader came to our town, I would stay in his lodgings and try to learn what I could of his language. And when the missionaries came, too, I would pretend to be interested in their religions, so that I could learn their languages.”

“But how did you become a slave?”

“One time I traveled downriver to Bonny, which is the slave-fort at the mouth of the Niger. En route I passed many towns, and understood for the first time that mine was only one of many feeding slaves down the river. The Spanish missionary I was traveling with told me that Bonny was only one of scores of slave-depots up and down the coast of Africa. For the first time, then, I understood how enormous the slave trade was—and how evil. But since you are a slave yourself, Jack, and have expressed some dissatisfaction with your estate, I’ll not belabor this. I asked the Spanish missionary how such a thing could be justified, given that the religion of Europe is founded on brotherly love. The Spaniard replied that this had been a great controversy in the Church, and much debated—but that in the end, they justified it only by one thing: When white slavers bought them from black slavers, Africans were baptized, and so the good that was done to their immortal souls, in that instant, more than compensated for the evils done to their temporal bodies during the remainder of their lives. ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ I exclaimed, ‘that it would be against the law of God for an African who was already a Christian to be enslaved?’ ‘That is so,’ said the missionary. And so now I was filled with what you call zeal. I love this word. In my zeal I got on the next boat bound upriver—it was a Royal Africa Company longboat carrying pieces of India cloth to trade for slaves. When I reached my town I went straight to the temple and—how do you say it—‘jumped the queue’ of pilgrims, and went before the highest of the high Aro priests. He was a man I had known all my life—he had been a sort of uncle to me, and many times we had eaten from the same bowl. He was sitting there resplendent on his gold throne, with his lion-skin, all draped about with fat garlands of cowrie-shells, and in great excitement, I said ‘Do you realize that this evil could be brought to an end today? The law of the Christian Church states that once a man has been baptized it is unlawful to make him a slave!’ ‘What is your point—or, to put it another way, what is your question?’ asked the oracle. ‘It is very simple,’ I said, ‘why don’t we simply baptize everyone in the whole town—for these Catholics make a specialty of mass baptisms—and furthermore why don’t we baptize every pilgrim and slave who walks into the city-gates?’ ”

“What was the oracle’s answer?”

“After no more than a heartbeat’s hesitation, he turned towards the four spear-men who stood by him, and made a little twitching motion with his fly-whisk. They rushed forward and began to bind my arms behind my back. ‘What is the meaning of this? What are you doing to me, uncle?’ I cried. He answered: ‘That makes two—no, three stupid questions in a row, and so I would enslave you thrice if such a thing were possible.’ ‘My god,’ I said, as I began to understand the full horror of what was being done to me, ‘can you not see the evil of what you are doing? Bonny—and all the other slave-depots—are filled with our brothers, dying of disease and despair before they even get on those hellish slave-ships! Hundreds of years from now, their descendants will live on in faraway lands as outcasts, embittered by the knowledge of what was perpetrated against their forefathers! How can we—how can you—seemingly a decent man—capable of showing love and affection towards your wives and children—perpetrate such unspeakable crimes?’ To which the oracle replied, ‘Now, that is a good question!’ and with another flick of his fly-whisk sent me off to the holding-pit. I returned to Bonny on the same English boat that had brought me up the river, and my uncle had a new piece of India cloth to brighten his household.” Dappa now laughed out loud, his teeth gleaming handsomely in the rapidly deepening dusk of a crevasse-like Algiers back-street.

Jack managed a polite chuckle. Though the other slaves had probably never heard Dappa’s story told in English before, they recognized its rhythms, and grinned on cue. The Spaniard laughed heartily and said, “You have got to be one stupid nigger to think that’s funny!” Dappa ignored him.

“It is a good enough yarn,” Jack allowed, “but it does not explain how you ended up here.”

Dappa responded by pulling his ragged shirt down to expose his right breast. In the gloom Jack could barely make out a pattern of scars. “I don’t know letters,” he said.

“Then I’ll teach you two of them,” said Dappa, reaching out quickly and grasping Jack’s index finger before Jack could flinch away. “This is a D,” he continued, running the tip of Jack’s finger along the ridge of a scar, “for Duke. And this is a Y, for York. They trade-marked me thus with a silver branding-iron when I reached Bonny.”

“Not to rub salt in your wound, there, Dappa, but that same bloke is King of England now—”

“Not any more,” Moseh put in, “he was run off by William of Orange.”

“Well, there’s a bit of good news at least,” Jack muttered.

“From that point my story’s unremarkable,” Dappa said. “I was traded from fort to fort up the coast. Bonny slaves fetch a low price because, since we grew up in paradise, we are unaccustomed to agricultural labor. Otherwise I would’ve been shipped straight to Brazil or the Caribbean. I ended up in the hold of a Portuguese ship bound for Madeira, which was captured by the same Rabat corsairs who’d earlier taken your ship.”

“We must hurry,” Moseh said, bending his neck to stare straight up. Down here it had been night for hours, but fifty feet above them, the corner of a wall was washed in the red light of the sunset. The little slave-column doubled its pace, trotted around several more corners, and came out into a street that was relatively wide (i.e., Jack could no longer touch both sides of it at the same time). Onion-skins and vegetable-trimmings were strewn about, and Jack reckoned it to be some sort of a market, though all of the tables had been cleared and the stalls shuttered. A young, dark-haired man, oddly familiar-looking, was standing there waiting for them, and fell in stride as they passed. His Sabir was infused with an accent that Jack recognized, from his last Paris sojourn, as Armenian.

Moseh had mentioned to him earlier that they lived in something called a banyolar and Jack reckoned this must be it: a courtyard surrounded by galleries divided into many small cells, one ring of galleries piled upon the next to a height of several storeys. To Jack, the overall design was much like certain old-fashioned theatres that stood along Maid Lane between the marshes of Southwark and the right bank of the Thames, viz. the Rose, the Hope, and the Swan. The big difference, of course, was that those Bankside theatres had armed men trying to keep Jack out whereas here they were abusing him for not having entered soon enough.

This, of course, was no theatre, but a slave-quarters. And yet the galleries, up to and including the flat roof of the banyolar, were crowded (at the moment anyway) with free Algerines, and so was most of the courtyard. But one part of that yard, off to one side of its central cistern, had been roped off to form a stage, or ring; and any number of torchères had been planted around it, so close to one another that their flames practically merged into a square window-frame of fire that shed fair illumination on the empty plot in the center.

All of the Turks packed turban-to-turban around the galleries were very excited, and rowdier than any group Jack had ever seen outside of a Vagabond camp. When not jostling for position or transacting elaborate wagers, they were paying close attention to certain preparations underway at the corners of the ring. As far as Jack was concerned, only two attractions could account for this degree of excitement among so many young men; and since sex, for Janissaries, was banned, Jack reckoned that they must be about to witness some form of violence.

Following Moseh towards one of the corners of the fiery square, Jack was struck—but not particularly surprised—to discover Yevgeny, stark naked save for leather underpants and a thick coating of oil, and Mr. Foot, dressed up in scarlet finery and shaking a leather purse bloated with what Jack could only assume was specie. But before Jack could push his way in closer and begin asking questions, Yevgeny went down on his right knee: in and of itself, nothing remarkable. But here it was like setting off a granadoe. Everyone near him flung himself back, making an empty space with Yevgeny in the center. The crowd in the gallery went silent for a moment—then exploded with cheers of “Rus! Rus! Rus!”

Nothing changed for several minutes, except that the torchères blazed and the cheers rang down from the deepening night sky. Finally another well-lubricated man in leather underpants performed the same series of movements and ended up standing next to Yevgeny in the same pose: this was a very dark-skinned Negro, not as tall as Yevgeny, but heavier. The cheering redoubled. Mr. Foot, who had added an expensive-looking cape to his ensemble, now came into the ring and hollered some sort of announcement up into the galleries, turning slowly round as he did, so that every member of the audience could inspect his tonsils even if hearing him was out of the question. Having concluded this, he scurried out of the ring. Yevgeny and the Negro turned to face each other in the middle of the fiery ring. Soon they had clasped their hands together, palm to palm like children playing at pat-a-cake. Rearing their heads back they smashed their faces together as hard as they could. Jack was startled; then they reared back like vipers preparing to strike, and did it a second time, and he was fascinated. Then they did it a third time, with no less violence, and Jack started to be appalled, wondering whether they would continue it until one of them was left senseless. But then they let go of each other and staggered apart with blood running down their faces from lacerations on their brows.

“Rus! Rus! Ruuuuus!” howled the worthies of the ocak. Yevgeny paraded around the ring, looking philosophical, and Mr. Foot pursued him holding up a yawning purse into which Turks flung money—mostly, whole pieces of eight. Jack liked the looks of this—until the whole purse was delivered direct into the hands of a large Turkish gentleman who was sitting on a sort of litter at ringside, his feet mummified in white linen and propped up on an ottoman.

“IN RUSSIA, I BELONGED to a secret society, wherein we trained one another to feel no pain under torture,” Yevgeny said, offhandedly, later.

This remark dampened all conversation for a few minutes, and Jack took stock of his situation.

After a long series of wrestling-bouts, the torchères had been extinguished and the Turks and free Algerines had departed, leaving the banyolar to the slaves. Both the starboard and the larboard oars, in their entirety, had now convened on the roof of the banyolar to smoke pipes. The night was nearly moonless, with only the merest crescent creeping across the sky—out over the Sahara, as Jack supposed. Consequently there were more stars out than Jack had ever seen. A few lights glimmered from the embrasures of the Kasba, but other than that, it seemed that these ten galley-slaves had the night to themselves:

Larboard Oar

Starboard Oar

“The workings of the market dictate that tutsaklar who are likely to be ransomed, and for large fees, are well-treated—”

“And ones like us end up as galley-slaves,” Jack said. “And ’tis clear enough to me why I am assessed a low value by this market, and my nuts gripped most oppressively by the Invisible Hand of which you spoke. Likewise, Mr. Foot is broke, Yevgeny’s of a daft sect whose members torture one another, Dappa is persona non grata in all lands south of the Sahara, Vrej Esphahnian’s family is chronically ill-funded. Señor Jeronimo, whatever fine qualities he may possess that I haven’t seen evidence of yet, is not the sort that anyone who has spent much time with him would be disposed to pay a lot of ransom for. I know not the tale of Nyazi but can guess it. Gabriel is on the wrong side of the fucking world. All plain enough. But van Hoek is some kind of a naval officer, and you are an intelligent-seeming Jew—why have you two not been ransomed?”

“My parents died of the Plague that ravaged Amsterdam when Cromwell cut off our foreign trade, and so many honest Dutchman were cast out of their homes and took to sleeping in pestilential places—” van Hoek began, rather peevishly.

“Avast, Cap’n! Do I look like a Roundhead? ’Twasn’t my doing!”

“I was suckled by government-issue wet-nurses at the Civic Orphanage. The worthies of the Reformed Church taught me reading and figures, bless them, but in time I grew up into a difficult boy.”

“Fancy that—who would’ve expected it from a short, Dutch, ill-tempered, red-headed step-child?” Jack exclaimed. “Still, I’d think some corsair-captain could find a use for you more exalted than barnacle-scraper.”

“A dozen years I lived in continual fear of pirates. Finally all of my nightmares came true and my ship was stolen from me—you can see her riding at anchor in the harbor some days, flying the Turk’s flag, and if you cock an ear, and the wind’s right, you can hear the lamentations of the captives she has taken, being brought in to wait for ransom.”

“I am beginning to collect that you have a certain dislike of pirates and their works,” Jack said, “as any upright Dutchman should, I suppose.”

“Van Hoek refuses to turn Turk—so he rows alongside us,” Moseh said.

“What of you, Moseh? Reputedly, Jews stick together.”

“I am a crypto-Jew,” Moseh said. “In fact, more Crypto than Jew. I grew up on the Equator. There is an island off the coast of Africa called Sáo Tomé, which is the sovereign soil of whichever European country has most recently sent a fleet down there to bombard it. But for many years only the Portuguese knew where the hell it was and so it was Portuguese. Now, my ancestors were Spanish Jews. But two hundred years ago, in the very same year that the Moors were finally driven from Spain, and America discovered, Queen Isabella threw all of the Jews out. Those who, in retrospect, were intelligent, put on the stockings of Villa Diego—which is an expression meaning that they ran like hell—and settled in Amsterdam. My ancestors simply edged across the border to Portugal. But the Inquisition was there, too. When Alvaro de Caminha went down to Sáo Tomé to be its governor, he took with him two thousand Jewish children whom the Inquisition had torn from the bosoms of their families. Sáo Tomé had a monopoly on the slave trade in that part of the world—Alvaro de Caminha baptized those two thousand and put ’em to work in its management. But in secret they kept their faith alive, performing half-remembered rituals behind locked doors, and muttering in broken Hebrew even as they knelt before the gilded table where the body and blood of Christ were dished up. Those were my ancestors. Almost fifty years ago, the Dutch came and seized Sáo Tomé. But this probably saved my father’s parents’ lives, for, in all the lands controlled by Spain and Portugal, the Inquisition went on a rampage after that. Instead of being roasted alive in some Portuguese auto da fé, my father’s parents moved to New Amsterdam and worked for the Dutch West India Company in the slave trade, which was all they knew how to do. Later the Duke of York’s fleet came and took that city for the English, but not before my father had grown up and taken a Manhatto lass for his wife—”

“What the hell is a Manhatto?”

“A type of local Indian,” Moseh explained.

“I thought there was a certain je ne sais quoi about your nose and eyes,” Jack said.

Moseh’s face—illuminated primarily by the red glow of his pipe-bowl—now took on a sentimental, faraway look that made Jack instinctively queasy. Undoing the top-most button of his ragged shirt, Moseh drew out a scrap of stuff that dangled round his neck on a leather thong: some sort of heathen handicraft-work. “It is probably not easy for you to see this tchotchke, in this wretched light,” he said, “but the third bead from the edge in the fourth row, here—it is a sort of off-white—is one of the very beads that the Dutchman, Peter Minuit, traded to the Manhattoes for their island, some sixty years ago, when Mama was a little papoose.”

“Jesus Christ, you should hang on to that!” Jack exclaimed.

“I have been hanging onto it,” Moseh returned, showing mild irritation for the first time, “as any imbecile can see.”

“Do you have any conception of what it could be worth!?”

“Next to nothing—but to me, it is priceless, because I had it from Mama. At any rate—getting on with the story—my parents put on the stockings of Villa Diego and ended up in Curaçao and there I was born. Mama died of smallpox, Papa of yellow fever. I fell in with a community of crypto-Jews who had collected there, for lack of any other place to go. We decided to strike out for Amsterdam, which was where our ancestors should have simply gone in the first place, and seek our fortunes there. As a group, we bought passage on a slave-ship bringing sugar back to Europe. But this ship was captured by the corsairs of Rabat, and we all ended up galley-slaves together, rowing to the strains of the Hava Negila; which, owing to its tiresome knack for getting stuck in the head, was the only Jewish song we knew.”

“All right,” Jack said, “I am satisfied, now, that it is true what you said: namely that the Invisible Hand of yonder market is gripping our cojones just like that Nubian wrestler did Yevgeny’s. And now I suppose you’re going to say we should all do like the Rus and ignore the pain and swelling and score some sort of magnificent triumph of the human spirit, or some shit like that. Anyway, I am willing to listen, as it seems preferable to bedding down in the banyolar to listen to the antiphonal coughing of a thousand consumptive oar-slaves.”

“I believe I can speak for all the other nine in saying you have our full attention, there, Excellentissimo—” Jack began, amiably enough; but the Spaniard cut him off, saying, “Shut up! Or I’ll cut off what remains of your poxy yard and ram it down your Protestant throat with my hard nine inches!”

Before Jack could take exception to this, Jeronimo continued as if it hadn’t happened: “Not for long did I linger in this El Dorado, for we were met at dockside by a wagon, driven by nuns of the same order, save that these were Indias. We traveled up winding tracks out of the jungle and into the mountains of Darién, and at last came to a convent that, as I then understood, was to be my new home; and my misery at having been torn from the bosom of my family was only made more doloroso by the resemblance of this nunnery to my ancestral home. For this, too, was a vertiginous fortress rising out of a crag, making queer moans and whistles as the trans-isthmian gales blew across its narrow cross-shaped embrasures.

“Those sounds were almost the only ones that reached my ears until I had grown up, for these nuns had taken a vow of silence—and in any case, I soon enough learned that the Indias came from a certain vale in the mountains where in-breeding had been practiced on a scale exceeding even that of the Hapsburg Dynasty, and none of them could hear. The only speech I ever heard was that of the carters and drovers who came up the mountain to bring victuals, and of the several other guests who, like me, were the beneficiaries of the nuns’ Christian hospitality. For at no time were there fewer than half a dozen residents in the guest-house: men and women both—who, judging from their clothes and personal effects, were of gentle or even noble families. My fellow-guests appeared healthy, but behaved strangely: some spoke in garbled words, or remained as mute as the nuns, others were continually tormented by fiendish visions, or were imbeciles, unable to remember events that had occurred a mere quarter of an hour previously. Men who had been kicked in the head by horses, women whose pupils were of different sizes. Some spent all of their time locked in their rooms, or tied into their beds, by the nuns. But I had the run of the place.

“Satisfied, though never happy, with this explanation, I applied myself to the improvement of my mind and spirit: my mind by reading the ancient books that Mama shipped over from the library of our castle in Estremaduras, which told the tales of my ancestors’ wars against the Saracens during the Crusades and the Reconquista, and my spirit by studying catechism and—at the behest of the nuns—praying, an hour a day, for the intercession of a particular Saint who was depicted in a stained-glass window in a side-chapel of the church. This was Saint Étienne de la Tourette, and his emblems were as follows: in his right hand, the sailmaker’s needle and thong with which his lips had been sewn shut by a certain Baron, and in his left, the iron tongs with which his tongue, on a later occasion, had been ripped out by the Bishop of Metz, who was later canonized as St. Absalom the Serene. Though at the time the significance of these tokens did not really penetrate my thoughts.

“Now I will encompass the entirety of several years in one sentence: El Torbellino taught me, of the arts of war, everything he knew; as well as some things I suspect he made up on the spur of the moment. In this way he brought the phant’sies and romance of those musty old books within my reach. But not within my grasp; for never mind my skill with the cutlass, the rapier, the dagger, pistol, and musket. I still lived in a nunnery in Darién. As I grew into the fullness of manhood, I began to make a plan of escaping to the coast, and perhaps raising a crew of sea-dogs, and going out on the Caribbean to hunt for boca-neers, and, after making a name for myself, offering my services as privateer to King Carlos II. That King was in my thoughts every day: El Torbellino and I would kneel before the image of St. Lemuel, whose emblem was the basket he had been carried around in, and pray on His Majesty’s behalf.

“But as it happened, before I could go out and find the pirates, they came to me.

“Even men such as you, so ignorant and stupid, probably know that some years ago Captain Morgan sailed from Jamaica with an armada; sacked and pillaged Porto Belo; and then crossed the isthmus at the head of an army and laid waste to the city of Panama itself. At the time of this atrocity, El Torbellino and I were off on a long hunting trip in the mountains. We were trying to find and kill one of the were-jaguars that are spoken of, with such apparent sincerity, by the Indios…”

“Did you catch one?” Jack asked, unable to contain himself.

“El Torbellino and I were armed with all of the necessaries that two gentlemen would normally take on a long were-jaguar-hunting campaign in the ravenous and all-destroying jungles of Darién, and we had the advantage of surprise; furthermore, we were on the side of God, and we were very, very angry. Yet these advantages might have gone for naught, at least in my case, for I was untested in battle. And it is universally known that many are the young men who have filled their heads with romantic legends, and who dream of fighting gloriously in battle—but who, when plunged into a real flesh-and-blood conflict, with all of its shock, confusion, and gore, become paralyzed, or else throw down their weapons and flee.

“As it turned out, I was not one of those. El Torbellino and I burst out of the jungle and fell upon those drunken boca-neers like a pair of rabid were-jaguars descending upon a sheep-fold. The violence was exquisite. El Torbellino killed more than I, of course, but many an Inglés tasted my steel on that day, and, to summarize a very disagreeable story, the surviving nuns carred barrow-loads of viscera into the jungle to be torn by the condors.

“We knew that this was no more than an advance-party, and so we then turned our energies to fortifying the place, and teaching the nuns how to load and fire matchlocks. When the main force arrived—several hundred of Captain Morgan’s rum-drenched irregulars—we gave them a warm Spanish welcome, and decorated the court with a few score bodies before they forced their way in. After that it was hand-to-hand combat. El Torbellino died, impaled on thirteen blades as he stood in the infirmary door, and I fought on for some while despite having been butt-stroked in the jaw with a musket. The commander outside ordered his men to withdraw and regroup. Before they could make another attack—which certainly would have killed me—he received word from Captain Morgan that another way over the mountains had been found, and that he should disengage and go via that route. Seeing that there was more profit, and less peril, in sacking a rich city, defended by poltroons, than a modest convent, defended by a single man who was not afraid to die in glory, the pirates left us alone.

“I knew nothing of this, for I had fallen gravely ill of my wounds, as well as various tropical maladies picked up on the were-jaguar-hunt which only now were coming into their full flower. I had taken leave of my senses, despite the prodigious bleedings, and volcanic purges, administered every day by doctors who came to the convent during the aftermath of the battles I have described. When next I was aware of my surroundings, I was on a galleon coasting along the Bahía de Campeche, approaching Vera Cruz, which, as even bumpkins such as you may understand, is the sea-port most convenient to Mexico City. I could not open my mouth. A Jesuit doctor explained to me that my jaw-bone had been fractured by the blow of the musket-butt, and that bandages had been wound tightly round my head to clench my jaw shut and hold all in place until the bone knit. In the meantime my left front tooth had been punched out to create a small orifice through which a paste of milk and ground maize was injected, using a sort of bellows, three times a day.

“In due time we threaded the Western Channel of Vera Cruz and dropped anchor under the walls of the castle, there, then waited out a sandstorm, then another, and finally went ashore, forcing our way through fog-banks of gnats, and keeping our pistols at the ready in the event of alligators. We parleyed with the crowd of Negro and Mulatto mule-thieves who make up the citizenry, and arranged for transportation to the City. The town was crowded with shabby wooden houses, all boarded up—it was explained to me that these were the property of white men, who flocked to town when the treasure-fleet was forming up around the Castle, but otherwise retired to haciendas up-country, which were more salubrious in every way. The only part of Vera Cruz that can be called civilized is the square of the churches and the Governor’s house, where a company of troops is garrisoned. When the officer in charge there was informed of my arrival, he had his artillery-men fire a salute from their field-pieces, and gladly wrote out a pass for me to travel to the Capital. So we rode out of the landward gate, which had been wedged open by a passing dune, and began our passage west.

“The less said about this journey, the better.

“For several days I was squired around town and fêted by various important men including the Viceroy and his wife: a Duchess of very high birth, who looked like a horse when the lips are pulled back to inspect the teeth. Of course I could not eat any of the fine meals that were set before me, but I learned to drink wine through a hollow reed. Likewise I could not address my hosts, but I could write after-dinner speeches, which I did in the heroic old-fashioned style I’d learned from those family histories. These were very well received.

“Now I am come to the part of my Narration where I must summarize many years’ events quickly. I think you know what occurs next: in time the bandage came off my jaw and I was conveyed to the Cathedral where, in a splendid Mass, I was knighted by the Viceroy.

“When the ceremony was finished, the Archbishop came up to give his compliments to me, and to the Viceroy, and to the Viceroy’s wife, whom he praised for her chastity and her beauty.

“To which I said as follows: that this was certainly the most wretched piece of brown-nosing I had ever heard, for whenever I laid eyes on the Viceroy’s wife I could not decide whether to give her the vigorous butt-fucking she so obviously craved, or to climb on her back and ride her around the zócalo firing pistols in the air.

“The Viceroy clapped me in irons and put me in a bad place for a long time, where I probably should have died.

“Letters made their way down the King’s Highway to Vera Cruz and into the holds of galleons, to Havana and finally to Madrid, and other letters returned, and evidently some sort of explanation was proffered, and an arrangement made. After a while I was moved to an apartment where I recovered my health, and then I was conveyed back down to Vera Cruz and given command of a three-masted ship of thirty-two guns, and a fair crew, and told to go out and kill pirates and come ashore as infrequently as possible until I was given other instructions.

“What’s it mean,” asked Jack, “and why’d they paste it on you, who already had such a surfeit of other names?”

“It means, Forsaken by God. For tales of my struggles, and my confinement in the dungeons of Mexico, had preceded me; from which even one such as you, Jack, who has parts missing both fore and aft, may understand why I was called this. Know that whenever I sailed into Havana I was saluted by many guns, though I was never invited to come ashore.

“Then, two years ago, the treasure-fleet was scattered by a hurricane after it had departed Havana. I was sent out into the Straits of Florida to round up stragglers—”

“Wait a moment there, El Desamparado. Is this going to be one of those yarns about how you, but only you, know the whereabouts of some sunken treasure-ship? Because—”

“Pigs?!” exclaimed several; but here Jack for once was able to make himself useful. “El Desamparado means, not the squealing animals with curly tails, but the irregular bars of silver made by the refinery at the head of a mine by pouring the molten ore out into a trough of clay.” And here Jack was prepared to go on at some length about the silver refineries of the Harz Mountains, which he had once visited, and had explained to him, by the Alchemist Enoch Root. But it seemed that his comrades had already heard many of these details from his own lips, and so he moved on to what he assumed was the point of Jeronimo’s story. “Pigs are strictly an intermediate form, meant for one purpose only: to be taken direct to a refining furnace, re-melted, purified, and made into bars, which are assayed and stamped—at which point the King would normally take his rake-off…”

“In New Spain, ten percent for the King and one percent for the overhead, viz. assayers and other such petty officials,” Jeronimo put in.

“And so the presence of pigs aboard this ship proved beyond argument that it was in the act of smuggling silver back to Spain.”

“For once, the Vagabond has spoken truthfully and to the point,” said Jeronimo. “And you will never guess what person we discovered in the best cabin on the ship: the Viceroy’s wife, who still remembered me. She was on her way back to Madrid to go shopping.”

“What did you say to her?”

“It is better not to remember this. Knowing that she would make a full report of these events to her husband in Mexico City, I did not delay in writing the Viceroy a letter, in which I related these events—but obliquely, in case the letter was intercepted. I assured him that his secret was safe with me, for I was a Caballero, a man of honor, and he could rely upon my discretion; my lips, I told him, were sealed forever.”

There was now a long and somewhat agonizing silence there on the roof of the banyolar.

“Some months later, I received a communication from this same Viceroy, inviting me to go to the Governor’s House in Vera Cruz on my next visit to that port, to receive a gift that awaited me there.”

“A lovely new set of neck-irons?”

“A pistol-ball to adorn the nape of your neck?”

“A ceremonial sword, delivered point-first?”

“We entered the central plaza of Vera Cruz from a direction that they did not expect, for instead of proceeding up the main street with its boarded-up houses, we had come in from the depot of the arms merchant, which lay on the other side of the town. Our first hint that something was amiss came from the countless fine tendrils of smoke spiraling up from various places of concealment around the town square—”

“Matchlocks!” Jack said.

“Of course our pistols were already loaded and at the ready, for this was Vera Cruz. But this gave us warning to break out the muskets and to knock the lids from several cases of granadoes. The matchlock-men opened fire on us, but raggedly. We charged them with cutlasses drawn, intending to kill them before they could reload. Which we did—but we were astonished to discover that these were Spanish soldiers of the local garrison! At this point fire came down on us from all around: the windows of the Governor’s House and of the churches and monasteries ringing the square all served as loop-holes for this emboscada.”

“The soldiers had occupied all of those buildings?” exclaimed Mr. Foot, whose capacity for indignation knew no limits.

“As for myself, I tried to make my way back to Spain so that I could return to the place of my birth in Estremaduras. But when Gibraltar was almost in sight, my ship was captured by the Barbary Corsairs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

“It is a ripping yarn,” Jack conceded, after a few moments’ silence, “but the best story in the world does not amount to a Plan.”

“That is my concern,” said Moseh de la Cruz, “and I have a Plan that is nearly complete. Though it has one or two leaks in it, which you might be able to plug.”

Rossignol stared, with a kind of Natural-Philosophick detachment, at the viscous streak of baby-vomit probing a fold of his sleeve. His son let out a howl; the father winced and turned his head away. A door at the other end of the room was ripped open, and a woman pounded in, already cooing for the baby; then, seeing a strange man, she drew herself up and looked to Eliza. “Please, mademoiselle, be my guest,” said Rossignol, and extended his arms. He had never seen the woman before, and had no idea who she was, but it did not require a Royal cryptanalyst to read the situation: Eliza, despite being trapped and detained in Dunkerque with no money, had not only figured out a way to move into this vacant château, but had also managed to retain at least one competent, loyal, and trusted servant.

Nicole—for that was this woman’s name—did not move until she had seen Eliza nod. Then she stepped forward and snatched the infant away, glaring at Rossignol—who responded with a grave bow. By the time she had reached the room’s exit, the baby had stopped crying, and as she hustled him off down the corridor he began to make a contented “aaah.”

Rossignol had forgotten the baby already. The bundle count was down to two. But he had the good manners not to pay undue attention to the packet on the side-table, even though he knew it to be filled with stolen diplomatic correspondence. All his attention, for now, was fixed on Eliza.

Eliza was accustomed to being looked at, and did not mind it. But she was preoccupied now for a little while. Rossignol had no feelings whatsoever for the baby. He had not the slightest intention of being its father. This did not surprise her especially. If anything, it was simpler and easier that way. He wanted her for what lay at either end of her spinal column—it was not clear which end he favored—and not for her spiritual qualities. Certainly not for her offspring.

At the same time—though she had not realized this until later—he had been observing her even more shrewdly. Many of her letters to Leibniz, and Leibniz’s letters back to her, had crossed his desk, for he was a member of the Cabinet Noir, whose purpose was to open and read foreign correspondence. He had found her letters to be curiously long, and filled with vapid chatter about hairstyles and the cut of the latest fashions. His true purpose in strolling with her in the gardens of Versailles had been to determine whether she was as empty-headed as she seemed in her letters. The answer, clearly, was no; and moreover she had turned out to know a lot about mathematics, metaphysics, and Natural Philosophy. This had sufficed to send him back to his family château at Juvisy, where he had broken the steganographic code that Eliza had been using to correspond with Leibniz. He could have destroyed, or at least damaged, her then, but he had lacked the desire to. For a kind of seduction had taken place between the two of them, which had not been acted upon until thirteen months ago.

It would have made matters a good deal simpler if he had fallen in love with the baby and proposed to elope with her, and him, to some other country. But this, as she now saw clearly, was unthinkable in so many different ways that to dream of it any more was a waste of time. Oh, well (she thought), if the world were populated solely by persons who loved and desired each other symmetrically, it might be happier, but not so interesting. And there would be no place in such a world for a person such as Eliza. During her weeks in Dunkerque, she had gotten better than ever at making do with what Fortune sent her way. If there was to be no doting father, so be it. Nicole was an ex-whore, recruited from one of Dunkerque’s waterfront brothels. But she had already given the baby more love than he would get in a lifetime with Bonaventure Rossignol.

“Now you show up!” she said finally.

“Correction, monsieur: the last time you know about.”

“C’est juste. On that occasion, war was brewing on the Rhine, and I had a plausible reason to go that way. Finding you, mademoiselle, in a most complex predicament, I endeavoured to assist you.”

“By impregnating me?”

“I did that out of passion—as did you, mademoiselle, for our flirtation had been lengthy. And yet it did militate in your favor—perhaps even saved your life. You seduced Étienne d’Arcachon the very next day.”

“I let him believe he was seducing me,” Eliza demurred.

“Just as I said. Tout le monde knew about it. When you turned up pregnant in the Hague, everyone, including le Roi, and Étienne, assumed that the baby was the spawn of Arcachon; and, when it was born healthy, this made it seem that you were that rarest of specimens: one who could mate with a scion of the de Lavardac line without passing on its well-known hereditary imperfections to the child. I did as much as I could to propagate this myth through other channels.”

“Are you referring to how you stole, and decyphered, my journal, and gave it to the King?”

“Wrong on all counts. Monsieur le comte d’Avaux stole it—or would have, if I had not galloped post-haste to the Hague and co-opted him. I did not decypher it so much as produce a fictionalized version of it. And since the King owns me, and all my work, I did not so much give it to his majesty as direct his majesty’s attention to it.”

“Couldn’t you have directed his majesty’s attention elsewhere?”

“Mademoiselle. You had been witnessed by many Persons of Quality carrying out what was obviously a spy-mission. D’Avaux and his minions were doing all in their power—and they have much power—to drag your name through the muck. To direct the attention of le Roi elsewhere would have booted you nothing. Rather, I produced for his majesty an account of your actions that was tame compared to the fabrications of d’Avaux; it deflated that man’s pretensions while cementing the belief that the baby had been fathered by Étienne de Lavardac d’Arcachon. I was not trying to rehabilitate you—that would have required a miracle—only to mitigate the damage. For I feared that they might send someone to assassinate you, or abduct you, and bring you back to France.”

And now he stopped because he had talked himself into a faux pas, and was mortified. “Er…”

“Yes, monsieur?”

“I did not anticipate this.”

“Is that why it took you so long to get here?”

“I have already told you that the King’s cryptanalyst has responsibilities—none of which, as it turns out, place him in Dunkerque. I came as soon as I could.”

“You came as soon as I incited your jealousy by praising Lieutenant Bart in a letter.”

“Ah, so you admit it!”

“I admit nothing, monsieur, for he is every bit as remarkable as I made him out to be, and any man in his right mind would be jealous of him.”

“It is just so difficult for me to follow,” said Rossignol.

“Poor Bon-bon!”

“Please do not be sarcastic. And please do not address me by that ridiculous name.”

“What is it, pray tell, that the greatest cryptanalyst in the world cannot follow?”

“At first you described him as a corsair, a boca-neer, who took you by force…”

“Took the ship I was on by force—pray watch your language!”

“Later, when it was to your advantage to make me jealous, he was the most perfect gentle knight of the seas.”

“Then I shall explain it, for there is no contradiction. But first take off that cassock and let us make ourselves more comfortable.”

“The double entendre is noted,” said Rossignol crisply, “but before I become dangerously comfortable, pray tell, what are you doing in the residence of the Marquis and the Marquise d’Ozoir? For that is where we are, to judge from the scutcheon on the gates.”

“You have decyphered the coat of arms correctly,” said Eliza. “Fear not, the d’Ozoirs are not here now. It is just me, and my servants.”

“But I thought you were under arrest on a ship, and had no servants…or did you write those things solely to make me come here the faster?”

Eliza clamped a hand on Rossignol’s wrist and dragged him through a door. They had been conversing in a foyer that communicated with the stables. She took him now down a corridor into a little salon, and thence into a larger drawing-room that was illuminated by several great windows facing toward the harbor.

All of which was to say that it was not and never would be a place for a great lord to pile up a brilliant château, or a great lady to spread a fragrant garden; and while those dunes might be speckled with watch-towers and mortar-batteries, no grand maréchal would ever make them terrible with a high citadel. The Marquis and the Marquise d’Ozoir had had the discretion to know as much, and so had contented themselves with acquiring a compound in the middle of things, near the harbor, and improving it, building up rather than out. The exterior of the main house was still old Norman half-timbered style, but one would never know it if all one saw was the interior, which had been remade in Barock style—or as close to it as one could come without using stone. Much wood, paint, and time had been devoted to fashioning pilasters and columns, wall-panels and balusters that would pass for Roman marble unless you went up and rapped on them with a knuckle. Rossignol had the good grace not to, and attended, instead, to what Eliza wished to show him: the view out the window.

From here they could see most of the ship-basin: a pool, deepened by dredging, and a-mazed by moles, causeways, wharves, sea-walls, &c. Beyond it the view was chopped off by the rectilinear bluff of the fortress-wall. Eliza did not have to explain to her guest that part of the basin was still used by the ordinary sea-faring folk who had always dwelled here, while another part was for the Navy; as much was obvious from looking at the ships.

Rossignol ignored the remark, and so, blushing slightly, she went back to the main thread: “I began to liquidate all of my short-term positions in the Amsterdam markets. It would be impossible to manage them from across the sea during a war. This was done easily enough—the result was a pretty hoard of gold coins, loose gemstones, and vulgar jewelry, as well as Bills of Exchange payable in London, and a few payable in Leipzig.”

“He was a spy,” said Rossignol, “in the pay of d’Avaux.” It was not clear whether he had guessed this, or already knew it from reading the man’s mail.

“I had guessed as much. It had not troubled me at all when I had thought I was going to end up in London, where this man would be impotent. But now we were on our way to Dunkerque, where the passengers would be left to shift for themselves. I could not guess what sort of mischief might befall me here at this fellow’s hands. And indeed, when we reached Dunkerque, all of the passengers except for me were let off. I was detained for some hours, during which time several messages passed between the ship I was on, and the flagship of Jean Bart.

“Now as you may know, Bon-bon, every pirate and privateer has lurking within him the soul of an accountant. Though some would say ’tis the other way round. This arises from the fact that their livelihood derives from sacking ships, which is a hurried, disorderly, murky sort of undertaking; one pirate may come up with some gentleman’s lucky rabbit’s foot while the fellow on his left pulls an emerald the size of a quail’s egg from a lady’s cleavage. The whole enterprise would dissolve into a melee unless all the takings were pooled, and meticulously sorted, appraised, tallied, and then divided according to a rigid scheme. That is why the English euphemism for going a-pirating is going on the account.

“The practical result in my case was that every one of Bart’s men had at least a general notion of how much had been pilfered and from whom, and they knew that the gold taken from my strong-box and the jewels plucked from my body were worth more than all the other passengers’ effects summed and multiplied by ten. Bon-bon, I do not wish to boast, but the rest of my story will not make any sense to you unless I mention that the fortune I had lost was really quite enormous.”

Rossignol winced. From this, Eliza knew that he must have seen the figure mentioned somewhere.

She purposely refrained from saying our baby, as this sort of remark only seemed to make him restive.

“In time I was put aboard a longboat and taken to the flagship. Lieutenant Bart emerged from his cabin to welcome me aboard. I think he was expecting some dowager. When he saw me, he was shocked.”

“It is not shock,” Rossignol demurred. “It is an altogether different thing. You have witnessed it a thousand times, but you’ll go to your grave without understanding it.”

“Well, once Captain Bart had recovered a little from this mysterious condition that you speak of, he ushered me into his private cabin—it is the one high in the sterncastle, there—and caused coffee to be served. He was—”

“Here I beg you to skip over any further adoring description of Lieutenant Bart,” said Rossignol, “as I got quite enough of it in the letter that caused me to wear out five horses getting here.”

“As you wish,” Eliza said. “It was more than simple lust, though.”

“I’m sure that’s what he wanted you to think.”

“Well. Let me jump ahead, then, to review my situation briefly. I am rated a Countess in France only because le Roi decided to make me one; he simply announced one day at his levée that I was the Countess de la Zeur—which is a funny French way of denoting my home island.”

“I wonder if you know,” said Rossignol, “that, by doing so, his majesty was implicitly reasserting an ancient Bourbon claim to Qwghlm that his lawyers had dredged out of some pond. Just as his majesty has made a base navale here, to one side of England, he would make another like it in Qwghlm, to the opposite side. So your ennoblement—startling as it might have been to you—was done as part of a larger plan.”

“I’d expect nothing less of his majesty,” said Eliza. “Whatever his motives might have been, the fact is that I had repaid the favor by spying on his army and reporting what I saw to William of Orange. So le Roi had reason to be a bit cross with me.”

Rossignol snorted.

“But I had done so,” Eliza went on, “under the ægis of Louis’s sister-in-law, whose homeland Louis was invading, and continues to ravage at this very moment.”

“He does not ravage, mademoiselle, but pacifies it.”

This commercial metaphor made Rossignol confused, and perhaps a little queasy.

“In France it is not honored,” Eliza explained, “for France deems James Stuart the rightful King of England and does not grant William any right to create Duchesses. Even if they did, they would dispute his sovereignty over Qwghlm. At any rate, these facts were all new to Lieutenant Bart. It required some time for me to convey them to him, for, of course, I had to do so diplomatically. When he had absorbed all, and pondered, and finally made to speak, the care with which he considered each utterance was extraordinary; he was like a pilot maneuvering his vessel through a harbor crowded with drifting fire-ships, pausing every few words to, as it were, take soundings or gauge the latest shift in the wind.”

“Or maybe he is just not, in the end, very intelligent,” Rossignol suggested.

“I shall let you be the judge of that, for you shall meet him presently,” Eliza said. “Either way, my situation is the same. Let me put it to you baldly. The money that Bart’s men had stripped off my person was gold or, as some name it, hard money, spendable anywhere in the world for any good or service, and extremely desirable on both sides of the English Channel. Such is terribly scarce now because of the war. Living so near Amsterdam and dealing so rarely in hard money, I had quite lost sight of this. As you know, Bon-bon, Louis XIV recently had all of the solid silver furniture in his Grands Appartements melted down, literally liquidating 1.5 million livres tournoises in assets to pay for the new army he is building. At the time I heard this story, I had dismissed it as a whim of interior decoration, but now I am thinking harder about its meaning. The nobles of France have hoarded a stupendous amount of metal in the past few decades, probably banking it against the day Louis XIV dies, when they phant’sy they may rise up and reassert their ancient powers.”

Rossignol nodded. “By melting his own furniture, his majesty was trying to set an example. So far, few have emulated it.”

“Now, my assets—all in the most liquid possible form—had been seized by Jean Bart, a privateer, holding a license to plunder Dutch and English shipping and turn the proceeds over to the French crown. If I had been a Dutch or an English woman, my money would already have been swallowed up by the French treasury, and available for the contrôleur-général, Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, to dispense as he saw fit. But since I was arguably a French countess, the money had been put in escrow.”

“They were afraid that you would lodge an objection to the confiscation of your money—for how can a French privateer steal from a French countess?” said Rossignol. “Your ambiguous status would make it into a complicated affair legally. The letters that passed back and forth were most amusing.”

“I am glad you were amused, Bon-bon. But I was faced with the question: Why not claim my rights and demand the money back?”

“It is good that you have posed this question, mademoiselle, for I, and half of Versailles, have been wondering.”

“The answer is, because they wanted it. They wanted it badly enough that if I were to put up a fight, they might turn against me, denounce me as a foreign spy and a traitor, void my rights, throw me into the Bastille, and take the money. Put to work in the war, it might save thousands of French lives—and balanced against that, what is one counterfeit Countess worth?”

“Hmmm. I understand now that Lieutenant Bart was presenting you with an opportunity to do something clever.”

“He dared not come out and say it directly. But he wanted me to know that I had a choice. And this little Hercules, who would not hesitate to send a ship full of living men to David Jones’s Locker, if they were enemies of France, did not wish to see me taken off in chains to the Bastille.”

“So you did it.”

“ ‘The money is for France, of course!’ ” I told him. “ ‘That is why I went to such trouble to smuggle it out of Amsterdam. How could I do otherwise when le Roi is melting down his own furniture to save French lives, and to defend French rights?’ ”

“That must have cheered him up.”

“More than words can express. Indeed he was so flummoxed that I gave him leave to kiss my cheeks, which he did with great élan, and a lingering scent of eau de cologne.”

Rossignol twisted his head away from Eliza so that she would not see the look on his face.

“Some part of me still phant’sied that I’d be aboard a Dover-bound boat within hours, penniless but free,” Eliza said. “But of course it was more complicated than that. I still was not free to go; for as Jean Bart now informed me with obvious regret, I was being held on suspicion of being a spy for William of Orange.”

“D’Avaux had made his move,” said Rossignol.

“That is what I came to understand, from hints given me by Lieutenant Bart. My accuser, he said, was a very important man, who was in Dublin, and who had given orders that I was to be detained, on suspicion of spying, until he could reach Dunkerque.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Two weeks.”

“Then d’Avaux might get here at any moment!” Rossignol said.

“Behold his ship,” said Eliza, and directed Rossignol’s attention to a French Navy vessel moored elsewhere in the basin. “I was watching it come round the end of the jetty when I saw you riding up the street.”

“So d’Avaux has only just arrived,” said Rossignol. “We have little time to lose, then. Please explain to me, briefly, how you have ended up in this house; for only a moment ago you told me that you were detained on the ship there.”

“I was already ensconced in one of her cabins. It was practical to remain there. Bart caused the ship to be anchored where you see it, so that he could keep an eye on it—both to protect me from lusty French sailors and to be sure that I would not escape. He rounded up a few female servants from gin-houses and bordellos and put them aboard to stoke the galley fires and boil water and so on. As weeks went by, I learned which were good and which weren’t, and fired the latter. Nicole, whom you saw a minute ago, has turned out to be the best of these. And I sent to the Hague for a woman who had become a loyal lady-in-waiting to me there, named Brigitte. Letters began to reach me from Versailles.”

“I know.”

“As you have already read them, to list their contents would be redundant. Perhaps you remember one from Madame la marquise d’Ozoir, inviting me to—nay, demanding that I make myself at home in this, her Dunkerque residence.”

“Remind me please of your connexion to the d’Ozoirs?”

“Before I was ennobled, I required some excuse to be hanging around Versailles. D’Avaux, who had put me there in the first place, concocted a situation for me whereby I worked as a governess for the daughter of the d’Ozoirs, and followed them on their migrations back and forth between Versailles and Dunkerque. This made it easy for me to travel up the coast to Holland when business called me thither.”

“It sounds, by your leave, somewhat farcical.”

“Indeed, and the d’Ozoirs knew as much; but I had treated their daughter well, and a kind of loyalty had arisen between us nonetheless. So I have moved into this house.”

“Other servants?”

“Brigitte has arrived, and brought another good one with her.”

“I saw men?”

“Yes, they had that look about them. And if I may ask an indelicate question, mademoiselle, how do you pay all of these servants when by your own tale you have not a sou in hard money?”

“A reasonable question. The answer lies in my status as a Countess and benefactress of the French treasury. Because of this Lieutenant Bart has been willing to open his purse and lend me money.”

“All right. It is improper, but clearly you had no choice. We shall try to improve on these arrangements. Now, there is one other thing I must understand if I am to assist you, and that is the bundle of letters from Ireland.”

“After I had been living on that boat for two weeks, my mail began to catch up with me, and one day I received that packet, sewn up in tent-cloth, which had been posted to me from Belfast. It turned out to be correspondence stolen from the desk of Monsieur le comte d’Avaux in Dublin. It contained many letters and documents that were state secrets of France.”

“And so knowing that d’Avaux was en route to accuse you of spying, you have held on to them as bargaining counters.”

“Indeed.”

“Excellent. Is there a place where I could spread them out and go through them?”

Here, though she would never show it, Eliza felt a sudden upwelling of affection for Rossignol. In a world full of men who only wanted to take her to bed, it was somehow comforting to know that there was one who, given the opportunity, would prefer to read through a big pile of stolen correspondence.

“You may ask Brigitte—she is the big Dutch woman—to show you to the Library,” Eliza said. “I will keep an eye on the harbor. I believe that the longboat over yonder, just rounding the end of that pier, might be carrying d’Avaux.”

“Carrying him hither?” Rossignol asked sharply.

“No, to the flagship of Lieutenant Bart.”

“Good. I need at least a little bit of time.”

The interview proceeded as follows: first, courteous greetings and chit-chat. Second, a momentary pause and adjustment of postures (because of a recent exploit, Jean Bart still could not sit down without suffering the torments of the damned, and d’Avaux, ever the gentleman, spurned all offers of chairs). Third, a long and, Eliza did not doubt, most entertaining Narration from Lieutenant Bart, enlivened by diverse zooming and veering movements of his hands. Slowly mounting impatience shown in d’Avaux’s posture. Fourth, interrogation of Bart by d’Avaux, during which Bart held up a ledger and ticked off several items (presumably rendering an accompt of all the jewels, purses, etc., that had been taken from Eliza). Fifth, d’Avaux jumped to his feet, face red, and worked his jaw violently for some minutes; Bart was startled at first, and went a bit slack, but gradually stiffened into a dignified and aggrieved posture. Sixth, both men came over to the window and looked at Eliza (or so it seemed through her spyglass; they could not see her, of course). Seventh, aides were summoned and coats and hats were donned. Which was Eliza’s cue to summon Brigitte and Nicole and the other female servants of her little household, and to begin putting on clothes. She borrowed a dress from the closet of Madame la marquise d’Ozoir. It was from last year; but d’Avaux had been in Dublin since then, and so to him it would look fashionable. And it was too big for Eliza, but with some artful pinning and basting in the back, it would serve, as long as she did not stand up. And she had no intention of standing up for d’Avaux. She arranged herself, a bit stiffly, in an armchair in the Grand Salon, and discoursed sotto voce with Bonaventure Rossignol. For Bart and d’Avaux had only required a few minutes of time to reach this house from Bart’s flagship, and were being made to wait in another room, so nearby that Bart’s pacing boots and d’Avaux’s sniffling nose (he had caught a catarrh en route) were clearly audible.

Rossignol had had time by now to sort through the stolen letters. Certain of these he gave into Eliza’s hands, and she arranged them on her lap, as if she had been reading them. The rest he took away, at least for the time being. He withdrew into another part of the house, not wishing to be seen by d’Avaux. A few minutes later Eliza sent word that the caller was to be admitted. The furniture had been arranged so that the sun was shining hard into the side of d’Avaux’s face. Eliza sat with her back to a window.

“Your voice is hoarse,” Eliza observed. “Is it a catarrh, or have you been screaming a lot?”

“I am not afraid to raise my voice to inferiors. In your presence, mademoiselle, I shall comport myself properly.”

“Does that mean you no longer intend to have me dangled over hot coals in a sack full of cats?” Eliza turned over a letter, written by d’Avaux, in which he had proposed to someone that such was the most fitting treatment for spies.

“Mademoiselle, I am shocked beyond words that you would connive with Irishmen to enter my house and ransack it. There is much that I would forgive you. But to violate the sanctity of an ambassadorial residence—of a nobleman’s home—and to commit theft, makes me fear I over-estimated you. For I believed you could pass for noble. But what you have done is common.”

“These distinctions that you draw ’tween noble and common, what is proper and what is not, seem as arbitrary and senseless to me, as the castes and customs of Hindoos would to you,” Eliza returned.

“It is in their very irrationality, their arbitrariness, that they are refined,” d’Avaux corrected her. “If the customs of the nobility made sense, anyone could figure them out, and become noble. But because they are incoherent and meaningless, not to mention ever-changing, the only way to know them is to be inculcated with them, to absorb them through the skin. This makes them a coin that is almost impossible to counterfeit.”

“’Tis like gold, then?”

“Very much so, mademoiselle. Gold is gold everywhere, fungible and indifferent. But when a disk of gold is stamped by a coiner with certain pompous words and the picture of a King, it takes on added value—seigneurage. It has that value only in that people believe that it does—it is a shared phant’sy. You, mademoiselle, came to me as a blank disk of gold—”

“And you, sir, tried to stamp nobility ’pon me, to enhance my value—”

“But then—” he said, gesturing to the letter, “to steal from my house, shows you up as a counterfeit.”

“Which do you suppose is a worse thing to be? A spy for the Prince of Orange, or a counterfeit Countess?”

“I believe that on the other side of yonder straits are many who would take the opposite view.”

“But you are on this side of those straits, mademoiselle, and will be for a long time.”

“In what estate?”

“That is for you to decide. If you wish to continue in your common ways, then you will have a common fate. I cannot send you to the galleys, as much as that would please me, but I can arrange for you to have a life as miserable in some work-house. I believe that ten or twenty years spent gutting fish would re-awaken in you a respect for noble things. Or, if your recent behavior is a mere aberration perhaps brought about by the stresses of childbirth, I can put you back at Versailles, in much the same capacity as before. When you vanished from St. Cloud everyone assumed you had gotten pregnant and had gone off somewhere to bear your child in secrecy and give it away to someone; now a year has gone by, and it has all come to pass, and you are expected back.”

“I must correct you, monsieur. It has not all come to pass. I have not given the child away to anyone.”

“You have adopted a heretick orphan from the Palatinate,” d’Avaux explained with grim patience, “that you may see him raised in the True Faith.”

“See him raised? Is it envisioned, then, that I am to be a mere spectator?”

“As you are not his mother,” d’Avaux reminded her, “it is difficult to envision any other possibility. The world is full of orphans, mademoiselle, and the Church in her mercy has erected many orphanages for them—some in remote parts of the Alps, others only a few minutes’ stroll from Versailles.”

Thus d’Avaux let her know the stakes of the game. She might end up in a work-house, or as a countess at Versailles. And her baby might be raised a thousand miles away from her, or a thousand yards.

Or so d’Avaux wished her to believe. But though she did not gamble, Eliza understood games. She knew what it was to bluff, and that sometimes it was nothing more than a sign of a weak hand.

It was also, admittedly, ridiculous. Rossignol, for his part, had not killed anyone in years. Jean Bart (for this had to be Jean Bart) probably did it more frequently, but never in rich people’s houses. If it had somehow come to swordplay, they’d have been civil enough to take it outside. And yet they did not know each other. There was no harm in taking precautions, particularly if they were as inoffensive as standing in a certain position, and maintaining a certain distance. These measures did not even require conscious thought; Rossignol had been thinking about something he had read in one of d’Avaux’s letters, and Bart (he could safely assume) was thinking about fucking Eliza, and both men had relied upon habit to plan and execute all of these maneuvers.

Bart made a half-turn on the balls of his feet so that he could look Rossignol in the eye. Still his right arm was wrapped across the front of his body. His eyes popped down to Rossignol’s left hip and, spying a rapier, checked Rossignol’s left hand for a dagger, or the intention to draw one.

If Rossignol had been dressed en grand habit it might have gone otherwise, but as it was, he looked no better than a highwayman. So he spoke: “Lieutenant. Pray forgive my interruption.” He had prudently drawn up short of cutlass-backhand range, but now, as a sort of peace-offering, he drew back an additional pace, so that Bart was no longer in range of a long rapier-lunge. Bart noted this and responded by turning more fully towards him, causing his right hand to become visible, and then raising that hand a bit, so that his arms were crossed over the barrel of his torso.

“I have not had the pleasure of meeting you, and you will rightly wonder who I am, and what is my business in this house. As I am a visitor in your town, Lieutenant, I beg leave to introduce myself to you. I am Bonaventure Rossignol. I have come here from my home in Juvisy in the hope that I might be of service to Mademoiselle la comtesse de la Zeur, and she has done me the honor of suffering me to cross the threshold of this house and bide here for some hours. It is, in other words, my privilege to be an invited guest here, as she would tell you, if you were to go and ask her. But I beg you not to do so while Monsieur le comte d’Avaux is present, for the matter is—”

“Complicated,” said Jean Bart, “complicated, delicate, and dangerous, like Mademoiselle la comtesse herself.” Both of his arms sprang free, which made Rossignol jerk; but those hands were moving towards Rossignol, away from the weapon. Rossignol let his own hands drift farther from hilts, pommels, &c., and even allowed Bart a glimpse of his palms.

This was triple-edged, in that Bart was admitting to an interest in Eliza, conceding Rossignol’s priority in the matter, and needling him for having been too long getting here, all at once. Rossignol tried to think of a way to defuse this little granadoe while they were still safely gripping each other’s hands. “I have heard some in the same vein from the lady in question,” he admitted drily.

“Ha ha, I’ll bet you have!”

“I do all in my power to satisfy her,” said Rossignol, “and when that fails I can do no more than throw myself upon her mercy.”

“It is good to meet you!” Bart exclaimed, seeming genuine enough, then let go Rossignol’s hands. The two men burst asunder. But there was no more of furtive glancing at hands. “Now we wait, eh?” Bart said. “You wait for her, and I wait for d’Avaux. You have the better of me there.”

“I am certain that Monsieur le comte will not tarry in Dunkerque, if that will cheer you up.”

“It must be wonderful to know so many things,” said Bart—a way of stating that he knew what Bonaventure Rossignol did for a living.

“Many of those things are very tedious, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, but the power, the understanding it gives you! Take this painting.” Bart extended a blunt, thick hand toward the landscape he had been pretending to inspect a moment earlier. It depicted rolling countryside, a village, and a church, all seen from the garden of a manor house. In the foreground, children sported with a little dog. “What does it mean? Who are these people? How did they end up there?” He indicated another landscape, this one in a dark mountainous country. “And what significance do all of these sieges and battles have to the d’Ozoirs?” For, despite the occasional pastoral landscape, the art in the gallery was heavily skewed towards massacres, martyrdoms sacred and sæcular, and set-piece battles.

“Forgive me for saying so, Lieutenant, but given the importance of the Marquis d’Ozoir to the Navy, it strikes me as remarkable that you do not know everything about his family.”

“Ah, monsieur, but that is because you are a gentleman of Court. I am a dog of the sea, oblivious. But Mademoiselle la comtesse de la Zeur has instructed me that I must attend to such matters if I am ever to rise beyond the rank of Lieutenant.”

“I should be in your debt, monsieur!”

“Not at all. Now, even if you are as deaf to politics as you claim, you must know that Monsieur le marquis d’Ozoir is a bastard of Monsieur le duc d’Arcachon.”

“That has never been a secret,” Bart agreed.

“Since the Marquis cannot inherit the name or the property of his father, it follows, by process of elimination, that all of these paintings and whatnot are from the family of—”

“Madame la marquise d’Ozoir!” said Bart. “And that is where I want instruction, for I know nothing of her people.”

“Two families, very different, forged into one.”

“Ah. One dwelling in the countryside of the north, I’m guessing,” said Bart, nodding at the first landscape.

“De Crépy. Petty nobles. Not especially distinguished, but middling affluent, and fecund.”

“The other family must have been Alp-dwellers, then,” said Bart, turning to regard the gloomier and more horrid of the two landscapes.

“De Gex. A poor dwindling clan. Die-hard Catholics living in a place, not far from Geneva, that had become dominated by Huguenots.”

“So the two families were quite different! How did they come to be joined?”

“The family de Crépy were tied, first by proximity, then by fealty, and at last by marriage, to the Counts of Guise,” said Rossignol.

“Err…I am vaguely aware that those Guises were important, and got into some sort of trouble with the Bourbons, but if you could refresh my memory, monsieur…”

“It would be my pleasure, Lieutenant. A century and a half ago, a comte de Guise distinguished himself so well in battle that the King created him duc de Guise. Of his aides, squires, lackeys, mistresses, captains, and hangers-on, several were of the de Crépy line. Some of these developed a taste for adventure, and began to conceive ambitions beyond the parochial. They lashed themselves to the mast, as it were, of the House of Guise, which seemed like a good idea, and served them well. Until, that is, a hundred and one years ago, when the two leading men of that House—Henry, duc de Guise, and Louis, cardinal de Guise—were assassinated by the King or his supporters. For they had waxed more powerful than the King himself.”

There was a pause now to look at some rather sanguinary art-work.

“How could such a thing happen, monsieur? How could this rival House become so powerful?”

“Nowadays, when le Roi is so strong, it is difficult for us to conceive of, is it not? It may help you to know that much of the power that so appalled the King was rooted in a thing called the Holy Catholic League. It had its beginnings in towns and cities all over France, where local priests and gentlemen had, in the wake of the Reformation, found themselves engulfed in Huguenots, and so banded together to defend their faith from that heresy and to oppose its spread.”

“Ah, here is where the de Gex family enters the picture, no?”

“I am almost to that part of the story. You are correct that the de Gexes were typical of the sorts of men who in those days founded local chapters of the Holy Catholic League. The House of Guise had forged these scattered groups into a national movement. After the assassinations of Henry and Louis de Guise, the decapitated League rose up in revolt against the King—who was himself assassinated not long after—and there was chaos throughout the country for a number of years. The new Huguenot King, Henry IV, converted to Catholicism and re-established control, generally at the expense of the ultra-Catholics and to the benefit of the Huguenots. Or so it seemed to many fervent Catholics, including the one who assassinated him in 1610. Now, during this time the fortunes of the de Crépy family went into eclipse. Some were killed, some went back to their ancestral lands in northern France and melted back into bourgeois obscurity, some scattered abroad. But a few of them ended up far from home, in that part of France that borders on Lake Geneva. It was the best, or the worst, place for Catholic warriors to be at the time. They were directly across the lake from Geneva, which to them was like an ant’s nest from which Huguenots continually streamed out to preach and convert in every parish in France. Accordingly, the Catholics in that area were more ardent than anywhere else—the first to create local branches of the Holy Catholic League, the first to swear fealty to the House of Guise, and, after the assassinations, the most warlike. They had not assassinated Henry IV, but only because they could not find him. The leading nobleman of that district—one Louis, sieur de Gex—had gathered around him a small, ragged, but ferocious coterie of like-minded sorts who had been driven out of other pays, and gravitated to this remote outpost from all over France as the fortunes of their party had declined.”

“Among them, I’m quite sure, must have been several of the de Crépy clan.”

“I suppose most of the people in their district who knew how to make money had become Huguenots,” mused Bart.

This drew from Rossignol a sharp look, and a reprimand. “Lieutenant Bart. I believe I understand, now, why Mademoiselle la comtesse de la Zeur sees a need to instruct you in how to be politic.”

Bart shrugged. “It is true, monsieur. All the best merchants of Dunkerque were Huguenots, and after 1685—”

“It is precisely because it is true, that you must not come out and state it,” said Rossignol.

“Very well then, monsieur, I vow not to say anything true for the remainder of this conversation. Pray continue!”

After a moment to collect himself, Rossignol stepped over to a stack of portraits leaning against a wall, and began to paw through them: men, women, children, and families, dressed in the fashions of three generations ago. “When the Wars of Religion finally came to an end, both families, having nothing else to do, began to produce children. A generation later, these began to marry each other. Here I may get some of the details wrong, but if memory serves, this is how it went: the scion of the de Gex line, Francis, married one Marguerite Diane de Crépy around 1640 and they had several children one after the other, then none for twelve years, then a surprise pregnancy. This ended in the death of Marguerite only a few hours following the birth of a boy, Édouard. The father construed the former as a sacrifice to, the latter as a gift from, the Almighty; and considering himself too old to raise a boy by himself, gave him to a Jesuit school in Lyon where he was found to be a sort of child prodigy. He joined the Society of Jesus at an exceptionally young age. He is now Confessor to de Maintenon herself.”

Rossignol had found a portrait of a lean young man, dressed in a Jesuit’s robes, glaring out of the canvas in a way that suggested he could actually see Rossignol and Bart standing in this back-hallway, and did not approve much of either one of them.

“I have heard of him,” said Bart, and edged out of the portrait’s sight-line.

“Even I have heard of that!”

“Really, Lieutenant? I am surprised, for it is landlocked.”

Rossignol’s jest almost went by Bart, for Rossignol was not, by and large, a fount of clever bon mots. But Bart caught it after a few awkward moments, and acknowledged it with a smile and a nod. “It is a part of the world over which the Kings of France have been fighting with the Hapsburgs for a long time, is it not—like two enemies trapped in a longboat together and struggling for the possession of the one dagger.”

“The analogy, though nautical, is apt,” said Rossignol. “During the reign of Louis XIII—whom it was my father’s great honor to serve as Royal cryptanalyst—Oyonnax had allowed the King’s armies to use his land as a base for invading the Franche-Comté, which they did frequently. In exchange for which he had been elevated to a Count. Such was his rank when he married the young Anne-Marie de Crépy. A few years after, he performed a like service for the legions of Louis XIV, which, since it led to the annexation of the whole of the Franche-Comté to France, caused the King to elevate him to a Duke. He and the new Duchess moved to Versailles, where he got to enjoy his new status for only a few months before she poisoned him.”

“Monsieur! And you accuse me of not being politic!”

Rossignol shrugged. “It is a harsh thing to say, I know, but it is true; everyone was doing it in those days—or at least all of the Satan-worshippers.”

“Now I think you are only pulling my leg.”

“You may believe me, or not,” said Rossignol. “Sometimes I cannot believe it myself. Such behavior has all been suppressed by de Maintenon, with the help of Father Édouard de Gex—who probably has no idea that his cousine was one of the ringleaders.”

“That is quite enough of such topics! What about the younger daughter?”

“Charlotte Adélaide de Crépy was scarred by the smallpox, though she goes to great lengths to hide it with wigs, patches, and so forth. Marrying her off was more of a challenge; but that of course makes it a more interesting story.”

“Good! Let’s have it, then! For it seems that Monsieur le comte and Mademoiselle la comtesse will never finish.”

“You have obviously heard of the de Lavardacs. You may know that they are a sort of cadet branch of the Bourbons. If you have had the misfortune of seeing any of their portraits you will have guessed that they have undergone quite a bit of Hapsburg adulteration over the centuries. You see, many of their lands are in the south, and they make tactical marriages across the Pyrenees. Through all of the troubles with the Guises, they were stolidly loyal to the Bourbons.”

“They switched religion whenever the King did, then!” exclaimed Lieutenant Bart, trying to muster a small witticism of his own. But it only drew a glare from Rossignol.

“To the de Lavardacs it is not such an amusing topic, for they suffered diverse assassinations and other reversals. As you know far better than I, they have developed a family association with the French Navy, which is passed on from father to son by survivance. The current Duke, Louis-François de Lavardac, duc d’Arcachon, like his father before him, is Grand Admiral of France. He held that position during the time that Colbert expanded the French Navy from a tiny flotilla of worm-eaten relics to the immense force it is today.”

“Seven score Ships of the Line,” Bart proclaimed, “and God knows how many frigates and galleys.”

“The Duke profited commensurately, both in material wealth and in influence. His son and heir is, of course, Étienne de Lavardac d’Arcachon.”

It was not necessary for Rossignol to add what Bart, along with everyone else, already believed: He is the one who got Eliza pregnant.

“I have only seen Étienne from a distance,” said Bart, “but I gather he is a good bit younger than his half-brother.” He gestured to a recent painting that depicted the owners of this house, the marquis and the marquise d’Ozoir.

“The Duke was but a stripling when he begat this fellow off a woman in the household. Her surname was Eauze. The bastard was raised under the name of Claude Eauze. He went off to India for a while to seek his fortune, and later made enough money in the slave trade that he was able—with a loan from his father—to buy a noble title in 1674 when they went on sale to finance the Dutch war. Thus he became the Marquis d’Ozoir, which I take to be a play on words, as his name, to that point, had been Eauze. Only a year before buying this title, he married none other than Charlotte Adélaide de Crépy: the younger sister of the duchesse d’Oyonnax.”

“You’d think he could have found someone of higher rank,” said Bart.

“By all means!” said Rossignol. “But there is something at work you have forgotten to take into account.”

“And what is that, monsieur?”

“He actually loves her.”

“Mon Dieu, I had no idea!”

“Or, barring that, he knows that they form an effective and stable partnership, and is too cunning to do anything that might queer it. They have a daughter. Our friend tutored her for a while, last year.”

“That must have been before the King woke up one morning and remembered that she was a countess.”

“Let us hope,” Rossignol, “that she will still be one, when d’Avaux is finished.”

“IT IS A PITY,” Eliza began, “that Irishmen broke into your house, and stole your papers and sold them on the open market. What an embarrassment it must be for you that everyone knows that your personal correspondence, and drafts of treaties written in your hand, are being bartered for drinks by scullery-maids in Dunkerque gin-houses.”

“What! I was not informed of this!” D’Avaux turned red so fast it was if a cup of blood had been hurled in his face.

“You have been on a boat for a fortnight, how could you be informed? I am informing you now, monsieur.”

“I was led to believe that those papers had come into your possession, mademoiselle, and it is you I shall hold responsible for them!”

“What you have been led to believe does not matter,” said Eliza, “only what is. And so let me tell you what is. The thieves who stole your papers sent them to Dunkerque, it is true. Perhaps they even entertained a phant’sy that I would buy them. I refused to lower myself to such a dishonorable transaction.”

“Then perhaps you will explain to me, mademoiselle, why you have some of those very papers on your lap at this moment!”

D’Avaux was at a loss for civil words, and could only shake his head and mutter to himself.

“You may be chagrined, monsieur, and ungrateful; but I am pleased that I have been able to repay some small part of my personal debt to you by recovering some of your papers—”

“And returning them to me?”

“As I am able,” Eliza answered with a shrug. “To recover them all does not happen in a single day, week, or month.”

“…”

“Now,” Eliza went on, “a minute ago, you were indulging in some speculations as to where I shall end up. Some of your ideas on this topic are quite fanciful—Barock, even. Some of them are distasteful to persons of breeding, and I shall pretend I did not hear them. I can see well enough that you have lost confidence in me, monsieur. I know that you must do as honor dictates. Go then to Versailles—for I cannot travel as fast as you, encumbered as I am with an infant and a household, and busy as I am with this project of recovering your papers. State your case to the King. Let him know that I am no noble, but a common wench who deserves no better treatment. He will be startled to learn these things, for he considers me to be a hereditary Countess. I am a dear friend of his sister-in-law and moreover have recently loaned him above a million livres tournois of my own money. But your persuasive powers are renowned—as you demonstrated during your posting in the Hague, where you so effectively reined in the ambitions of that poseur, William of Orange.”

This was truly a knee to the groin, and rendered d’Avaux speechless, not so much from pain as from a curious admixture of shock and awe.

Eliza continued, “You may induce the King to believe anything—particularly given that you have such strong evidence. What was it again? A journal?”

“Yes, mademoiselle—your journal.”

“Who is in possession of this book?”

“It is not a book, as you know perfectly well, but an embroidered pillowcase.” Here d’Avaux began to pinken again.

“A…pillowcase?”

“Yes.”

“In English they call it a sham, by the way. Tell me, are there any other bedlinens implicated in the scandal?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“Curtains? Rugs? Tea-towels?”

“No, mademoiselle.”

“Who has possession of this…pillowcase?”

“You do, mademoiselle.”

“Such items are bulky and soon go out of fashion. Before I left the Hague, I sold most of my household goods and burned the rest—including all pillowcases.”

“But a copy was made, mademoiselle, by a clerk in the French Embassy in the Hague, and given to Monsieur Rossignol.”

“That clerk died of the smallpox,” Eliza told him—which was a lie that she had made up on the spot, but it would take him a month to find this out.

“Ah, but Monsieur Rossignol is alive and well, and trusted implicitly by the King.”

“Does the King trust you, monsieur?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Monsieur Rossignol sent a copy of his report to the King but not to you. It made me curious. And what of the monk?”

“Which monk?”

“The Qwghlmian monk in Dublin to whom Monsieur Rossignol sent the plaintext to be translated.”

“You are most well-informed, mademoiselle.”

“I do not think that I am particularly well-or ill-informed, monsieur. I am simply trying to be of service to you.”

“In what way?”

“You have a difficult interview awaiting you at Versailles. You shall come before the King. In his treasury—which he watches with utmost care—he has a fortune in hard money, lately deposited by me. You will make him believe that I am a commoner and a traitor by describing a report you have never seen about a pillowcase that no longer exists, supposedly carrying an encrypted message in Qwghlmian, which no one reads except for some three-fingered monk in Ireland.”

“We shall see,” said d’Avaux. “My interview with Father Édouard de Gex will be a simple matter by comparison.”

“And how does Édouard de Gex enter into it?”

“What will you confess to de Gex, then?” Eliza asked. “That you have had impure thoughts about the Countess de la Zeur?”

“It is not in a confessional where I shall meet him,” d’Avaux said, “but in a salon somewhere, and the topic of conversation will be: Where is this orphan boy to be raised? What is his Christian name, by the way?”

“I have been calling him Jean.”

“But his Christian name? He has been baptized, of course?”

“I have been very busy,” Eliza said. “He is to be baptized in a few days, here at the Church of St.-Eloi.”

“How many days exactly? Surely it is not such a demanding calculation for one of your talents.”

“Three days.”

“Father de Gex will be, I’m sure, suitably impressed by this display of piety. The christening is to be performed by a Jesuit, I presume?”

“Monsieur, I would not think of having it done by a Jansenist!”

“Excellent. I look forward to making the acquaintance of this little Christian when you bring him to Versailles.”

“Are you certain I’ll be welcome there, monsieur?”

“Pourquoi non? I only pray that I shall be.”

“Pourquoi non, monsieur?”

“Certain important papers of mine have gone missing from my office in Dublin.”

“Do you need them immediately?”

“No. But sooner or later—”

“It will certainly be later. Dublin is far away. The inquiry proceeds at a snail’s pace.” Which was Eliza’s way of saying he’d not get his precious papers back unless he gave a good report of her at Versailles.

“I am sorry to trouble you about such matters. To common people, such things are important! To us they are nothing.”

“Then let us let nothing come between us,” Eliza said.

AS BONAVENTURE ROSSIGNOL HAD FORESEEN, d’Avaux did not tarry by the sea-side, but was en route for Paris before cock-crow the next day.

The coat of arms painted on the door of that carriage matched the one on the gates. Or so she guessed. To verify as much would have required a magnifying-glass, a herald, and more time and patience than Eliza had just now. The arms of Charlotte-Adélaide were a quartering of those of de Gex and de Crépy, and to make the arms of d’Ozoir, these had been recursively quartered with those of the House of de Lavardac d’Arcachon—themselves a quartering of something that included a lot of fleurs-de-lis, with an arrangement of black heads in iron collars, slashed with a bend sinister to indicate bastardy. At any rate, what it all meant was that the lord of the manor was back. Just as he stepped down from his carriage, the bells in the old, alienated belfry down the street began to toll noon. Eliza was late for church, and that was an even worse thing than usual, because on this day the proceedings could not go forward until she and her baby arrived. She sent an aide down to explain matters, and to tender apologies, to the Marquis, and hustled out one door with her baby and her entourage just as Claude Eauze entered through another. Presently he did the chivalrous thing, viz. got his carriage turned round and sent it rattling down the street after her. But so close was one thing to another in Dunkerque that, by the time the carriage caught up with her, Eliza was already standing at the church’s door. She might have given it the slip altogether if she had gone in directly. But she had paused to look at the Église St.-Eloi, and to think.

The dream was interrupted by the raucous vehement on-rush of the carriage of the Marquis d’Ozoir, which was about as fitting and about as welcome in this scene as musketry at a seduction. Lest she get trapped outside exchanging pleasantries with the Marquis, she hurried through the door.

The church’s vault was supported by several columns that were arranged around the altar in a semicircle, reminding Eliza of the bars of a giant birdcage: a birdcage into which she had been chased, not only by the banging and rattling carriage, but by divers other sudden and frightening onslaughts as well. She could fly no farther. She was caught. Best to flutter up onto her new perch, preen, and peer about. The Marquis slipped in alone, and took a seat in his family pew. She peered at him; he peered, discreetly, at her. Jean Bart watched them watching each other. They, and several servants and acquaintances who’d showed up, joined in the standings, sittings, kneelings, mumblings, and gestures of the Mass. Jean-Jacques turned out to be one of those infants who accepts the dunking, not with hysterical protests but with aghast curiosity; this made his godfather immensely proud, while giving his mother a vision of long rambunctious years ahead. The Jesuit crossed his forehead with oil and said that he was a priest and a prophet and that his name was Jean-Jacques: Jean after Jean Bart, who became his godfather, and Jacques after another man of Eliza’s acquaintance who was unable to attend the rite, being either dead, or crazy and chained to an oar. No mention was made of the child’s natural father. Indeed very little notice was given to the mother; for the story being given out was that Jean-Jacques was an orphan rescued from some massacre in the Palatinate and only being looked after by Eliza.

Over joyous bonging from the belfry, the Marquis—who, she now remembered, was a tall man, physically impressive, and handsome in a disreputable way—insisted on a celebration at his place. The produce of local vines, orchards, and distilleries was made available to a small and select list of guests. Some hours later, Jean Bart could be seen making his way home, tacking down the street in the manner of a ship working to windward.

“Ships.”

“Closer yet.”

“Timber on the shore, piled up like ramparts.”

“You know, of course, of my family’s connections to the Navy.”

“Tout le monde knows that your father is Grand Admiral of France and that the Navy has grown prodigiously during his tenure.”

“During his tenure as a man in a glorious uniform, attending ship-christenings and twenty-one-gun salutes, and throwing magnificent fêtes. Yes. But tout le monde also knows that it was Colbert who was responsible for it. In addition to Grand Admiral, my father was Secretary of State for the Navy until 1669, did you know that? Then he sold the post to Colbert, for a lot of money. Did he want to sell it? Did he need the money? No. But he knew that the funds had been advanced to Colbert—a commoner—by the King himself, and so he could not refuse.”

“He was fired,” Eliza said.

“In the most polite and remunerative way imaginable, he was fired. Colbert became his superior—for of course the Grand Admiral of France is accountable to the Secretary of State for the Navy!”

“When you put it that way, it must have been an interesting time for the Duke.”

“It is just as well I was living as a Vagabond in India at the time. I could almost hear his screaming from Shahjahanabad,” said the Marquis. “In any case, he was well paid for the demotion, and he went on to make a great fortune out of the ship-building program that Colbert then instituted. For whenever so much money flows from the Treasury to the military, there are countless ways for those within the system to profit. I should know, mademoiselle.” And he glanced around the interior of the salon. Like much in Dunkerque, it was small. But everything in it was magnificent.

“You had your title in ’74,” Eliza said, “and made yourself useful as a part of this Navy-building project.”

“I am always eager to be useful to my King,” he said.

“God save the King,” Eliza said. “I of course share the same eagerness to be of service to his majesty. Did you say you required some timber?”

“Oh, but of course. There’s a war on. To this point, naval engagements have been few—a small battle in Bantry Bay when our ships were taking the soldiers to Ireland, and of course the heroics of your friend Jean Bart. But great battles will come. We need more ships. We require timber.”

“France is blessed with enormous size, and deep forests,” Eliza pointed out.

“Indeed, my lady.” His eyes strayed inland, to the crests of the dunes, which were held together with scrub, which here and there gave way to the firm straight lines of new earth-works concealing mortar-batteries. “I do not see any forests hereabouts.”

“No, this is like Holland, or Ireland. But farther inland, as you must know, are forests that cannot be traversed in less than a fortnight.”

“Fetch me some timber, then, if you wish to be of service to the King.”

“Would it be as useful to le Roi, if the timber came instead to Le Havre, or Nantes? For Dunkerque is not at the mouth of any great river, but those places are, and this would make the shipping infinitely easier.”

“We have shipyards in those places, too; why not?”

Here, Eliza ought to have paused to wonder why there was a shipyard in Dunkerque at all, given its location; but after weeks of boredom here, she was so pleased to have been given something to do that she did not give any thought to this paradox.

“Timber costs money,” she reminded him, “and I have given all of mine away.”

He laughed. “To the French Treasury, mademoiselle! And you shall be buying the timber on behalf of the King! I shall send letters to the Place au Change in Lyon. Everyone there shall know your credit is backed by the contrôleur-général. Speak to Monsieur Castan there—it is he who makes payments to those who have had the honor of lending money, or selling goods, to the King of France.”

“You are suggesting I am to journey to Lyon?”

“It is a terribly important matter, my lady. My coach is at your disposal. You seem in need of an airing-out. Whether the timber is delivered to Nantes or Le Havre, or even here, is all the same to me; but you, mademoiselle, I will meet back here in six weeks.”

When Moseh was finished, a voice above them spoke in Turkish, which was translated into Sabir: “Sole of our slipper, inform the floor that we are well aware of the existence of Spanish treasure-fleets, and would make them all ours, if we had the wherewithal to assault scores of heavily armed men-o’-war in the broad Atlantic.”

This led to a palpable cringing from the Turk who owned Moseh, Jack, and the others, and who was kneeling behind them; a position not only correct for a man of his station, but comfortable for one who still had very little skin on the soles of his feet. He began to bleat something in Turkish before the translation was even finished; but Vrej Esphahnian boldly cut him off.

“O glorious and sublime Floor, please make it known to the sole of the Pasha’s slipper that, according to Armenians in Havana, with whom I have recently corresponded, the Viceroy who figures in this story has finished his time in Mexico and next spring, weather permitting, should be on his way across the Atlantic in his brig.”

“Whose shot-lockers, it is safe to assume, will be filled, not with cannonballs, but with pigs of silver and other swag,” added Moseh.

“Slipper,” said the Pasha, “remind the Floor that this ship of the Viceroy’s, when surrounded by the Spanish fleet, is akin to a tempting morsel lodged between the open jaws of a crocodile.”

“Slipper, inform our Floor that we understand, now, that when the treasure-fleet reaches Cadiz next summer, the swag-barge of the orgulous and thrice-damned ex-Viceroy will have no choice but to break away from it, and make the passage up-coast to Bonanza by itself. But fail not to remind the Floor that it is no more a wise idea for us to send our war-galleys across the Gulf of Cadiz to assault the sand-choked estuary of the Guadalquivir, than it would be to stage a frontal assault on the high seas.”

“Floor most polished and enduring, so nigh unto what is holy, and so far from the profanities of the infidels, it would be difficult, and wholly unnecessary, for you to muddle your thoughts with the shabby fragments of knowledge that so clutter my mind: for example, that while war-galleys of the Dar al-Islam are distinctly unwelcome in the said Gulf, it is common for trading-galleys to be seen there. For whereas the former type of ship is crowded stem to stern with scimitar-, dagger-, blunderbuss-, and pistol-brandishing Janissaries, the latter is occupied primarily by wretches chained to oars, and, hence, is less likely to incite all manner of alarm in the superstitious minds of the bacon-eaters.”

“Slipper, for that same reason they are useless as offensive weapons.”

“Seamless Floor, for that reason they can substitute stealth for might, moving among other ships without creating alarm; and if the oar-slaves are unchained at the right moment, and if they happen to be a redoubtable crew of disgraced Janissaries seeking to recover their honor, Jesuit Samurais, harpoon-hurling wrestling champions, Caballero Desperadoes, and such-like, and if one of them happens to be personally familiar with the brig under attack; then, Floor, I put it to you that the Viceroy’s hoard could be taken in the name of the Faith rather easily.”

“And what then, Slipper? For if we understand the nature of the Viceroy’s smuggling operation, the proceeds will be in the form of silver pigs, which, like the four-legged sort, are unclean, and unwelcome in polite company. The coin of this realm, and of the wide world, is Pieces of Eight.”

Now, a lengthy conversation in Turkish between the Pasha and their owner. Finally the translation into Sabir resumed: “Slipper, rumors have reached us that a rabble of galley-slaves propose to do battle against the Spaniards in the estuary before Bonanza, seemingly a desperate undertaking, and this would seem to raise the possibility of what the Jesuits would call a quid pro quo.”

“Floor, it would demean you to be subjected to the numerical calculations, which have been worked out in paralyzing detail by me and my Armenian comrade, here; but when the smoke clears, and the galleot returns from Cairo laden with coffee-beans and other treasures of the East, the proceeds—after various taxes, fees, commissions, baksheesh, rake-offs, and profit-takings—should suffice to pay the embarrassingly modest ransoms of all ten of the oar-slaves concerned.”

“Slipper, it is written in the Holy Koran that the holding of hostages is a sin, and so it grieves us indescribably that, owing to circumstances not of our making, we have, at any given time, several tens of thousands of them languishing in our banyolars. Therefore the plan, as described, is not lacking in virtue. And yet all men are subjected to temptation, and Christians are evidently more susceptible than most; and so what is to prevent these slaves, once unchained, from assaulting their overseers, and rowing this galleot—and the silver—to freedom?”

Jack was wondering to himself what the Penalty of the Hook was, and so almost missed his cue; but Dappa nudged him and he began to rattle off the speech he had rehearsed, albeit with certain improvements that had only just entered his mind. “My words are addressed, not even to the floor, but rather to the dirt wedged between the tiles, as, until such time as I have regained my dignity and rank as a Janissary, I do not feel worthy to address even the Floor directly; and yet here’s hoping that some of my reflections will make their way up to the ears of some piece of furniture or whatnot that is in a position of responsibility.” Several more nudges from Dappa and throat-clearings from Moseh had punctuated this first part of his oration, and made it difficult for him to establish a rhythm. “Unforgivably, I allowed myself to be taken prisoner at the Siege of Vienna, and knocked around Christendom for a while—it is a long story with no clear beginning, middle, or end. Suffice it to say, O magnificent Dirt of the Floor-Cracks, that before I completely lost my mind and became the wretch that I am today, I learned that there is, in France, a Duke who has polluted the seas with hundreds of infidel war-ships, brand-new and heavily armed; and that said Duke, who dines on the most unclean foods imaginable, is not wholly unknown to the Corsairs of this city, perhaps even to the extent of investing in some of their galleys; and that he owns several of the white, pink-eyed horses considered so desirable by the exalted. This Duke, if he were made aware of our Plan in advance, could easily give orders to his fleet that infests the Bay of Biscay, and tell them to monitor the coast (for our galleot, lacking navigational aids, can on no account stray out of sight of land) and stop any vessels matching the description of ours.”

Much discussion in Turkish. Then: “Slipper, if you should encounter any dirt on my floor, which strikes me as unlikely given the immaculate condition of my dwelling, tell it that I know of this French Duke. He is not the sort of man to take part in such a plan out of charitable motives.”

“Floor-dirt—or perhaps that is a dust-mote that I carried in on an eyelash—said Duke would almost have to be in on the plan anyway. For the galleot will require some sort of escort to Cairo, lest she fall into the hands of the pirates of Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Calabria, or Rhodes. The terrifying armada of this City has other errands; but the French fleet plies those waters anyway, shepherding the merchant-galleys of Marseille to and from Smyrna and Alexandria—”

But here the Pasha had apparently heard enough, for he clapped his hands and uttered something in Turkish that caused all of the slaves, and their owner, to be ejected from his audience-chamber and into the octagonal yard of the Kasba. Which Jack looked upon as bad, until he saw the smile on the face of their owner, who was being lifted onto his sedan-chair by Nubian slaves.

Jack, Dappa, Vrej, and Moseh ambled out of the gate into the City of Algiers, and happened to end up standing beneath a row of large iron hooks that projected from the outer wall of the Kasba, a couple of yards below the parapet, some with enormous, gnarled chunks of what appeared to be jerky dangling from them. But others were unoccupied. Above one of those, a group of Janissaries had gathered around a man who was sitting on the brink of the wall.

“What did the Pasha say, there at the end?” Jack asked Dappa.

“In more words, Jack, he said: ‘Make it so.’ ” Dappa had spent a lot of time rowing with Turks, and knew their language thoroughly, which is why he had been invited along.

A solemn look then came over the face of Moseh de la Cruz, as if he were uttering a prayer. “Then we are on our way to Bonanza, as soon as the season wheels round.”

Above them, the Janissaries suddenly shoved the seated man off the edge of the wall. He fell for a short distance, gathering speed, and then the iron hook caught him between the buttocks and brought him up short. The man screamed and wriggled, but the point of the hook had gone too far up into his vitals to allow him to squirm off of it, and so there he stayed; the Janissaries turned and departed.

But that was not the only reason Jack felt somewhat uneasy as he and the others made their way down into the lower city. The Pasha had, several times, gone on at great length in Turkish. And furthermore Dappa was regarding Jack with a certain type of Look that Jack had seen many times before, from persons such as Sir Winston Churchill and Eliza, and that usually boded ill. “All right,” Jack finally said, “let’s have it.”

Dappa shrugged. “Most of what passed between the Pasha and his advisors was of a practical nature—he was far more concerned with how to do it than whether.”

“That much is good for us,” Jack said. “Now, tell me why you are favoring me with the evil eye.”

“When you mentioned that execrable French Duke, the Pasha knew who you meant immediately, and mentioned, in passing, that the same Duke had lately been pestering him for information as to the whereabouts of one Ali Zaybak—an English fugitive.”

“’Tis not an English name.”

“It is a sort of cryptical reference to a character in the Thousand and One Nights: a notorious thief of Cairo. Time and again the police tried to entrap him but he always squirted free, like a drop of quicksilver when you try to put your finger on it. Zaybak is the Arabic word for quicksilver—accordingly, this character was given the sobriquet of Ali Zaybak.”

“A pleasant enough sounding færy-tale. Yet Cairo is a long way from England…”

“Now you are playing stupid, Jack—which in some jurisdictions is as good as a signed confession.” Dappa glanced up at the wall of the Kasba where the man squirmed on the hook.

“Perhaps you are right about Jack, Dappa, but my confusion is wholly genuine,” said Moseh.

“In Paris, Jack has a reputation,” put in Vrej Esphahnian. “There is a Duke there who does not love our Jack ever since he crashed a party, strangled one of the guests, chopped off the hand of the Duke’s first-born son and heir, and made a spectacle of himself in front of the Sun King.”

“Then perhaps this Duke got wind of Jack’s misadventures on the high seas,” Dappa said, “and began to make inquiries.”

“Well, as a lost Janissary, recovering from a grievous head injury, I know nothing of such matters,” Jack said. “But if it will help our chances, by all means let it be known that information as to the whereabouts of Ali Zaybak is to be had—if the duc d’Arcachon will only invest in the Plan.”

He wanted to know, in effect, what the hell she was doing here. For some reason the question irked her a little bit.

She had showed up exhausted and dirty last night, with no thought of doing anything save putting Jean-Jacques to bed somewhere, and then collapsing into some bed of her own and sleeping for a few decades. Instead she’d been up half the night making love to Bon-bon. Yet she felt more awake, more refreshed now than if she’d spent the same amount of time slumbering. And so perhaps what she had taken for tiredness, yester evening, had been some other condition.

He’d had the good grace not to inquire what was going on. Instead he had accepted, with grace and even humor, the sudden arrival of Eliza and her entourage at his gates. She’d liked it that way, and she’d liked what had happened after. But now that the sun was up and they had gotten the sex out of their systems, there was this tedious need to explain matters. Certain parts of her mind had to be woken up, and were not happy about it. She stared at the dead garden, tracing the patterns of the hedges with her eyes, and mastered her annoyance.

“You had mentioned in a note to me that you contemplated a journey to Lyon,” Rossignol said, trying to prime the pump. “That was six weeks ago.”

“Yes,” Eliza said. “The journey to Lyon took ten days.”

“Ten days! Did you walk?”

“I could have done it faster by myself, but I was traveling with a five-month-old. The train consisted of two carriages, a baggage-cart, and some outriders and footmen borrowed from Lieutenant Bart and from the Ozoirs,” Eliza said.

Rossignol grimaced. “Unwieldy.”

“The first twenty miles were the most difficult, as you know.”

“Dunkerque is scarcely connected to France at all,” Rossignol agreed.

“Have you been to Lyon?”

“Only a little, passing through en route to Marseille.”

“And did you find it strangely bleak and austere compared to Paris?”

“Mademoiselle, I found it bleak and austere even compared to the Hague!”

“That is because you have no regard for commerce. I found it most interesting.”

“Oh. Yes, I know about that,” Rossignol conceded. “The great crossroads where the Mediterranean trades with the North. It sounds as if it ought to be interesting. But if you go there, you see only warehouses and silk-factories, and tracts of plain open ground.”

“Of course it seems boring if all you do is look at it,” Eliza said. “What renders it interesting is to take part in what goes on in those boring warehouses.”

Rossignol’s black eyes strayed to some papers resting on a bedside table. He was already regretting having asked her to explain this, and was hoping she’d make it quick.

Eliza stepped over to the side of the bed and swept the papers off onto the floor. Then she got a knee up on the bed and crab-walked across it until she was straddling Rossignol, sitting down firmly on his pelvis. “You asked,” she reminded him. “and I have got an answer for you, which you are going to listen to, and what is more, by the time I am finished, you will confess that it is interesting.”

“You have my attention, mademoiselle,” said Rossignol.

“Lyon. I suppose they used to hold sprawling country-style fairs there, two hundred years ago. It was colonized, you know, by Florentines hoping to make fortunes selling goods to this wild northern place called France. There are still fairs, four times a year, but it is not so rustic. It is more like Leipzig now.”

“That means nothing to me.”

“It means people standing in courtyards of trading-houses, screaming at each other, and trading goods not physically present.”

“But the warehouses—?”

“Silly, the goods are not present in the trading-houses. But neither can they be terribly remote, for they must be inspected before and delivered after the sale. Much of the traffic on the streets is commerçants going to this or that warehouse to look at a shipment of silks, herring, figs, hides, or what-have-you.”

“That helps me to understand some of what was, to a gentleman, so incomprehensible about the place.”

“What were you doing there, mademoiselle?”

“Buying timber for Monsieur le marquis d’Ozoir. I required some expert help. After I had been a week in Lyon, I was joined by my Dutch associates: Samuel and Abraham de la Vega and their cousin. I had sent a letter to them before I left Dunkerque, for I knew they were in London. It had caught up to them at Gravesend. They had changed their plans and made direct for Dunkerque, which they passed through five days after I had departed. As they passed through Paris they enlisted their cousin, one Jacob Gold, and the three of them followed me down and encamped at the house of a man they knew there—a wholesaler of beeswax that he imports from Poland-Lithuania.”

“Now I see why this thing took six weeks! Ten days to creep down to Lyon, a week to wait for all of these Jews to show up—”

“The delay was not a problem for me. It took me and my staff that long anyway to recover from the journey, and to set up housekeeping in Lyon. Monsieur le marquis d’Ozoir, bless him, had sent word ahead, and arranged for us to stay at the pied-à-terre of someone who owed him a favor. Once we had established ourselves, I had begun to make contacts among the crowd who frequent the Place au Change. For I knew that the brothers de la Vega would spare no effort in ransacking the wholesale timber market and finding the best wood on the best terms. But their efforts would be of no use unless I had made arrangements for a bill of exchange to be drawn up, transferring the agreed-on sum from the King’s treasury to whomever sold us the timber. Likewise we would need to strike a deal with the shipper, and to purchase insurance, et cetera. So even if the de la Vegas had arrived at the same time as I, they should have little to do for a few days. And the need to feed little Jean-Jacques posed the most absurd complications.”

It was a mistake to mention this, for now Rossignol’s eyes drifted from Eliza’s face down to her left breast. Earlier she had wrapped herself in a sheet, but this had slipped down as she wrestled with him.

“The de la Vegas invited me to visit them at the beeswax-warehouse where they were lodging.”

Rossignol scoffed, and rolled his eyes.

“It would have seemed a very odd invitation to my ears before I had gotten to know Lyon,” Eliza admitted, “but when I reached the place, I found it to be perfectly congenial. It is on a meadow that rises up above the Rhône to the east of the trading district. They have more land than they need, and let it out to an adjacent vineyard. The growing season was over and so the vines were not much to look at, but the weather was fine, and we sat under a bower on the terrace of this stone building full of wax and drank Russian tea sweetened with Lithuanian honey. The daughters of the wax-magnate played with Jean-Jacques and sang him nursery-rhymes in Yiddish.

“To Samuel and Abraham de la Vega and Jacob Gold, I said that Lyon struck me as a very strange town.”

“I could have told you that, mademoiselle,” said Rossignol.

“But you and I think it is strange for different reasons, Bon-bon,” said Eliza. “Listen, and let me explain.”

“What of these Jews? What did they think?”

“They felt likewise, but had been reluctant to say anything. And so what I was trying to do, Bon-bon, was to get them talking.”

“And so were these Jews responsive to your gambit, mademoiselle?” Rossignol asked.

“You are impossible,” Eliza said.

SAMUEL DE LA VEGA, at twenty-four, was the senior man present—for the elders of the clan had more important things to do. He shrugged and said: “We are here to learn. Please say more.”

“I phant’sied you were here to make money,” Eliza said.

“That is always the object in the long run. Whether we make a profit on this matter of the timber remains to be seen; but we have heard of this place and want to know more of its peculiarities.”

Eliza laughed. “Why should I say more, when you have said so much? You come here not knowing whether it is possible to make money. It is a place you have heard of, which is no great testimony to its importance, and you approach it as a sort of curiosity. Would you speak thus of Antwerp?”

“Let me explain,” Samuel said. “In our family we do not recognize a profit—we do not put it on the books—until we have a bill of exchange payable in Amsterdam or (now) London, drawn on a house that maintains a well-reputed agency in one or both of those cities.”

“To put it succinctly: hard money,” Eliza said.

“If you will. Now, as we rode down here with Jacob Gold, he told us of the system in Lyon, and how it works.”

Jacob Gold looked so nervous, now, that Eliza felt she must make some little joke to put him at ease. “If only I could have eavesdropped on you!” she exclaimed. “For yesterday at dinner at the home of Monsieur Castan, I was treated to a description of that same system—a description so flattering that I asked him why it was not used everywhere else.”

They found this amusing. “What was Monsieur Castan’s reaction to that?” asked Jacob Gold.

“Oh, that other places were cold, distrustful, that the people there did not know one another so well as they did in Lyon, had not built up the same web of trust and old relationships. That they were afflicted by a petty, literal-minded obsession with specie, and could not believe that real business was being transacted unless they saw coins being physically moved from place to place.”

The others looked relieved; for they knew, now, that they would not have to break this news to Eliza. “So you are aware that when accounts are settled in Lyon, it is all done on the books. A man seated at a banca will write in his book, ‘Signore Capponi owes me 10,000 ecus au soleil’—a currency that is used only in Lyon, by the way—and this, to him, is as good as having bullion in his lock-box. Then when the next fair comes around, perhaps he finds himself needing to transfer 15,000 ecus to Signore Capponi, and so he will strike that entry from his ledger, and Signore Capponi will write that he is owed 5,000 ecus by this chap, and so on.”

“Some money must change hands though!” insisted Abraham, who had heard all of this before but still could not quite bring himself to believe it. He was fourteen years old.

“Yes—a tiny amount,” said Jacob Gold. “But only after they have exhausted every conceivable way of settling it on paper, by arranging multilateral transfers among the different houses.”

“Wouldn’t it be simpler just to use money?” Abraham asked doggedly.

“Perhaps—if they had any!” Eliza said. Which was meant as a jest, but it stilled them for a few moments.

“Why don’t they?” Abraham demanded.

“It depends on whom you ask,” Eliza said. “The most common answer is that they do not need it because the system works so smoothly. Others will tell you that when any bullion does become available here, it is immediately smuggled out to Geneva.”

“Why?”

“In Geneva are banks that, in exchange for bullion, will write you a bill of exchange payable in Amsterdam.”

Abraham’s eyes blossomed. “So we are not the only ones who are worried about how to extract hard money profits from Lyon!”

“Of course not! For that, we are competing against every other foreign merchant in Lyon who does not share the belief, common here, that entries in a ledger are the same as money,” said Samuel.

“What kind of person would believe such a thing, though?” Abraham asked.

Jacob Gold answered, “The kinds of people who have been here for so long and who make a comfortable living off of those ledgers.”

Eliza said, “But the only reason this system works is that these people know and trust each other so well. Which is fine for them. But if you are on the outside, as we are, you can’t take part in the Dépôt, as this system is called, and it is difficult to realize profits.”

Jacob Gold added, “It is fine for those who have the houses here, the land, the servants. They transact an enormous amount of business and they find ways to live well. The lack of hard money is only felt when one wants to cash out and move somewhere else. But if that is the kind of person you are—”

“Then you don’t live in Lyon and you are not a member of the Dépôt,” Eliza said.

“We can talk about this all day, going in circles like the Uroburos,” said Samuel, clapping his hands, “but the fact is that we’re here and we want to buy some timber for the King. And we don’t have any money. But we have credit from Monsieur Castan who in turn has credit because he lives here and is very much a member of the Dépôt.”

“Thank you, Samuel,” Eliza said. “You are correct: people trust Monsieur Castan; when one of the other members of this Dépôt writes in his ledger ‘M. Castan owes me such-and-such number of ecus,’ to them that’s as good as gold. And what we need to do is turn that ‘gold’ into some timber arriving at Nantes.”

“Thanks to Monsieur Wachsmann,” said Jacob Gold, referring to our host, “we have some ideas as to where we might go and make inquiries about who has timber, and might be willing to sell it to us; but how do we actually transfer the money to them from the King’s Treasury?”

“We need to find someone who is a member of this Dépôt and who is willing to write in his ledger that the King owes him the money,” Eliza said.

“But that still doesn’t get the money into the hands of him who sells us the timber, unless he is a member of the Dépôt, and I do not phant’sy that lumberjacks are invited,” said Samuel.

“And it provides no way for us to realize a profit,” Abraham, the ever-vigilant, reminded them.

Eliza reached out and pinched him on the nose to shut him up while she pointed out, “True, and yet wax, silk and other commodities are sold here in immense quantities, so there must be some way of doing it! And some do realize hard money profits, as is proved by the covert transfers of bullion to Geneva!”

Monsieur Wachsmann was therefore brought in. He was a stolid gray-headed Pomeranian of about threescore years. They explained their puzzlement to him and asked how he sold his goods, given that he was not a member of the Dépôt. He replied that he had a sort of relationship with an important businessman in town, with whom he kept a running account; and whenever the account stood in Monsieur Wachsmann’s favor, he could leverage that to get what he needed. The same would be true, he assured his visitors, of any timber wholesaler big enough for them to consider doing business with.

“So a plan begins to take shape,” said Samuel. “We will negotiate terms with a timber-wholesaler, denominated in ecus au soleil, never mind that they are a wholly fictitious currency, and then take the matter to the Dépôt and allow them to clear it on their ledgers. We end up with the timber; but is is possible for us to extract any profit?”

Monsieur Wachsmann shrugged as if this was not something he paid much attention to; and yet his estate showed that he had profited abundantly. “If you would like, you can route the profits to my account, and I will owe them to you, and we may plow these into later trades within the Dépôt, which may eventually turn into some material form, such as casks of honey, that you could sell for gold in Amsterdam.”

“This is how people move to Lyon, and never leave,” muttered Jacob Gold, combining in this one remark the Amsterdammer’s amazement at Lyon’s business practices with the Parisian’s disdain for its culture.

Monsieur Wachsmannn shrugged, and looked at his château. “Worse fates can be imagined. Do you have any idea what Stettin is like at this time of year?”

“What about getting some bullion and running it to Geneva for a bill of exchange?” Abraham demanded. “Much quicker, and easier to carry to Amsterdam than casks of honey.”

“Now, there is a familiar name,” Eliza said. “I have been to their factory in Leipzig, and been ogled by Lothar himself.”

“I have never heard of them,” said Samuel, “but if this Lothar was ogling you it means he is not altogether stupid.”

“They are metals specialists,” said Jacob Gold, “I know that much.”

“When the Genoese here went bankrupt,” said Monsieur Wachsmann, “it happened because the Spanish mines had hiccuped in their delivery of silver to Seville. Bankers of Geneva and other places came to Lyon to fill the void left by the Genoese. They had connections to silver mines in the Harz and the Ore Range, which flourished for a brief time, until Spanish silver once again flooded the market. Anyway, one of those banking-families had an agency in Leipzig, and the people they sent thither to look after it became linked by marriage to this family of von Hacklheber. Because of the Hacklhebers’ connections to the mines, they had older ties to the Fuggers. Indeed, it is said that this family goes all the way back to the time of the Romans…”

Abraham snorted. “Ours goes back all the way to Adam.”

“Yes; but to them this is all very impressive,” said Monsieur Wachsmann patiently, “and by the way, now that you have had your bar mitzvah you might spend less time poring over Torah and more learning social graces. At any rate, fortune favored the Leipzig branch, and before long the Hacklheber tail was wagging the Geneva dog. It is a small house, but reputed extraordinarily clever. They are in Lyon, Cadiz, Piacenza: anywhere there is a large flux of money.”

“What do they do?” Abraham wanted to know.

“Lend money, clear transactions, like other banks. But their real specialty is maneuvers such as the one we are talking about now: shipment of bullion to Geneva. Do you remember when I warned you that there would be a discount if you converted your earnings to bullion here? It should have occurred to you to wonder just where the missing money disappears to in such a case. The answer is that it goes into the coffers of Lothar von Hacklheber.”

Monsieur Wachsmann rolled to his feet, and paced across the terrace once or twice before going on.

“I trade in wax. I know where wax comes from and where it goes, and how much wax of different types is worth to different people in different times and places. I say to you that what I am to wax, Lothar von Hacklheber is to money.”

“You mean gold? Silver?”

“All kinds. Metals in pig, bullion, or minted form, paper, moneys of account such as our ecus au soleil. To me, money is frankly somewhat mysterious; but to him it is all as simple as wax. Or so it would seem; like honeycombs in a boiler, it melts together and is con-fused into one thing.”

“Then we shall go and talk to his agent here,” Eliza said.

“Agreed,” said Samuel de la Vega, “but I say to you that if they simply had a few coins lying about the place, we could get this whole thing done in an hour. That this system works, I cannot deny; but this Dépôt reminds me of certain towns up in the Alps where people have been marrying each other for too long.”

“THE NEXT DAY,” Eliza continued, “I met Gerhard Mann, who is the Hacklheber agent in Lyon.”

She now relaxed her grip on Bonaventure Rossignol’s testicles. For in the end, this was the only way she had found to maintain Bon-bon’s attentiveness as she had discoursed of ecus au soleil and the Dépôt and so forth. But the mention of the name Hacklheber brought Rossignol to attention.

“Lothar von Hacklheber,” she continued, “is not the sort who gladly suffers an employee to while away the afternoons sipping coffee in the café.”

“I should think not!”

“He has so arranged it that Mann has more work than he can handle. This forces him to make choices. He is always dashing about town on horseback like a Cavalier. Carriages are too slow for him. Arranging the meeting was absurdly difficult. It required half a dozen exchanges of notes. Finally I did what was simplest, namely remained still at the pied-à-terre and waited for him to come to me. He galloped up, naturally, just as I was beginning to suckle Jean-Jacques. And so rather than send him away, I invited him in, and bade him sit down across the table from me even as Jean-Jacques was hanging off my tit.”

“Appalling!”

“But I did this as a sort of test, Bon-bon, to see if he’d be appalled by it.”

“Was he?”

“He pretended not to notice, which was not an easy thing for him.”

Rossignol shuddered. “What did you talk about?”

“We talked about Lothar von Hacklheber.”

“YOU MET HIM IN LEIPZIG?” Mann asked.

“It had to do with a silver-mining project in the Harz,” Eliza said, “in which he elected not to invest: a typically shrewd decision.”

Eliza explained to Mann what she had in mind. He pondered it for a few moments. At first she saw concern, or even fear, on his face, which made her suspect that he did not really wish to do it, yet was loath to refuse, for fear of what he might say, were Eliza to go to him and pout. Mann was a young man—indeed, would have to be, to last for very long, working as he did—and Eliza saw clearly enough that he had been posted to this place to prove himself, or to fail, so that he could decide where to send Mann next. Mann had blue eyes a little too close together, and a broad brow, so expressive that in its creases and corrugations she could read his feelings like sonnets on parchment. He was intelligent, but lacking in resolution. She guessed that someone of strong personality would one day get the better of him, and that he would end up sitting at a banca on an upper floor of the House of the Golden Mercury in Leipzig, peering down into the courtyard with a mirror on a stick.

After a few moments’ thought, Mann relaxed, and began to sift through the vocabularies of diverse languages to express his thoughts. “It would be—” he began, and then switched to German in which Eliza could make out the word-part “sonder,” which to them meant “special” or “exceptional” or “peculiar.” This was his polite way of telling her that the sum involved was too small to be worth his time. “But we are encouraged to make such transactions. Sometimes they are like the first trickle of water coming through a tiny crevice in a dike; the amount that comes through is not as important as the channel that it cuts along its way, which presently carries a much greater volume.” Which was his way of saying that he had heard she was backed by the French government, and wanted to participate in what she was doing, now that expenditures were rising because of the war.

“It is not a similitude that shall be of any comfort to Dutchmen,” Eliza said, having in mind her colleagues, the de la Vegas.

“Ah, but if you cared about the comfort of Dutchmen you would not be on such an errand,” Gerhard Mann reminded her.

“SO THROUGH HIS OWN CLEVERNESS Gerhard Mann had devised a way to escape from the interview without giving me or him any cause to be angry,” Eliza said. Tired of sitting on Bon-bon, she now rolled back and sat cross-legged on the bed between his spread knees.

Rossignol said something under his breath about la belle dame sans merci.

“Very well then,” said Eliza, “suffice it to say that some entries were made in some ledgers. A fast coach went to Geneva, which is some seventy-five miles away as the crow flies, though considerably farther as the horse gallops. Abraham got his Bill of Exchange, though the margin of profit was scarcely enough to cover their time and expense. The timber was ours.

“At this point—mid-November—we supposed the matter concluded. For we had the timber, and had arranged shipping. An Amsterdammer would consider the deal closed. For to such people it is a perfectly routine matter to ship any amount of goods to Nagasaki, New York, or Batavia with the stroke of a quill.

“We, as well as the logs, had to go north: Jacob Gold to Paris and the rest of us to Dunkerque, whence the de la Vegas could find sea-passage north to Amsterdam.

“The fastest way would have been for me to climb back into the carriage I had borrowed from Monsieur le marquis d’Ozoir and go north by road. But there was no room in it for the de la Vegas. The weather had turned cold. We were in no particular hurry. And so we decided to send the horses and carriages north by road to Orléans, where the drivers could rent mounts, or hire another carriage, for the de la Vegas.

“The Loire, as you know, flows on past Orléans to Nantes. So the route I have just described to you was the same as that of the timber. And so there was another advantage to the plan I have described, which was that as we went along, we would be able to keep an eye on the King’s logs. In the unlikely event that some problem arose en route, we would be on hand to fix it.”

“But, mademoiselle,” said Rossignol, “by your account, this was almost a month ago. What on earth has been happening in the meantime?”

“A full recitation would take another month yet. You know that each of the component pays of la France controls its own stretch of road or river and has the right to extract tolls and tariffs, et cetera. Likewise you know that the population is a quilt of guilds and corporations and parishes, each with its own peculiar privileges.”

“Which are granted by the King,” said Rossignol. For he seemed a little bit nervous that Eliza was about to say something impolitic.

Which she was; but she felt safe in doing so here, in the kingdom of secrets. “The King grants those privileges in order to make people want to join those guilds and corporations! And thus the King gets power by offering to broaden, or threatening to restrict, the same privileges.”

“What of it?” Rossignol sniffed.

“After a few days, Abraham joked that this voyage was impossible unless one went accompanied by a whole squadron of lawyers. But this makes it sound too easy. Since every pays has its own peculiar laws and traditions, there is no one lawyer who comprehends them all; and so what one really has to do is stop every few miles and hire a different lawyer. But I have only mentioned, so far, the entities with formal legal rights to impede the movement of logs on a river. This leaves out half of the difficulties we faced. There are on these rivers people who used to be pirates but have degenerated into extortionists. We paid them in hard money until we ran out, at which point we had to begin paying them in logs. Every night, others who were less formally organized would come around and help themselves. We suspected this was happening, but the night-watchmen we hired were barely distinguishable from the thieves. The only reliable sentry we had was Jean-Jacques. He would wake me every couple of hours through the night, and I would sit in my boat-cabin feeding him and watching through a window as the locals made off with our logs.”

“It cannot all be as disorderly as you make it out to be!” Rossignol protested.

“There does exist an apparatus of maintaining order on the roads and waterways: diverse ancient courts of law, and prévôts and baillis who report to the local seigneurs and who are reputed to have bands of armed men at their disposal. But they were never there when we needed them. If I shipped logs down the river every week, I should have no choice but to come to understandings with all of those seigneurs. Whether this would prove more or less expensive than being robbed outright, I cannot guess. Our run down the Loire surprised many who would have stolen more from us if we had operated on a predictable schedule.

“The Loire, particularly on its upper reaches, is obstructed by sand-bars in many places, and different arrangements must be made to get past each: here one must find and hire a local pilot, there one must pay the owner of the mill to release a gush of water from his mill-pond that will heave the logs over the shallows.

“I could go on in this vein all day. Suffice it to say that when we at last reached Orléans, ten days behind schedule, Jacob Gold and I dashed north to Paris and cashed in our Bill of Exchange at a swingeing discount. Jacob returned to Orléans with the money, which he used to cover all of the unexpected expenses that had cropped up en route. I came here. Soon I’ll go on to Dunkerque and meet that bastard who sent me on this fool’s errand, Monsieur le marquis d’Ozoir, and explain to him that half of the logs have evaporated, along with all of our profits, and six weeks of our lives.”

WHERE BONAVENTURE ROSSIGNOL HAD FIBRILLATED between boredom and disbelief, the Marquis d’Ozoir was richly amused when Eliza told him the same story. At the beginning of the interview, she had been merely furious. When he began to smirk and chuckle, she tended toward homicidal, and had to leave the room and tend to Jean-Jacques for a little while. The baby was in a gleeful mood for some reason, grabbing his feet and fountaining spit, and this cheered her up. For he had no thought of anything outside of the room, nor in the past, nor the future. When Eliza returned to the salon with its view over the harbor, she had quite regained her composure and had even begun to see a bit of humor in this folly of the logs.

“And why did you send me on such a fool’s errand, monsieur?” she demanded. “You must have known how it would all come out.”

“Everyone in this business knows—or claims to—that to get French timber to French shipyards is an impossibility. And because they know this, they never even try. And if no one ever tries, how can we be certain it is still impossible? And so every few years, just to find out whether it’s still impossible, I ask some enterprising person who does not know it’s impossible to attempt it. I do not blame you for being annoyed with me. But if you had somehow succeeded, it would have been a great deed. And in failing, you learned much that will be useful in the next phase of our project—which I assure you is not impossible.”

He had risen to his feet and approached the window, and by a look and a twitch of the shoulder he invited her to join him there. Gone were the days when one could look out over the Channel and see blue sky above England; today they could barely make out the harbor wall. Raindrops were whacking the windowpanes like birdshot.

“I confess the place looks different to me now, and not just because of the weather,” Eliza said. “My eye is drawn to certain things that I ignored before. The timber down at the shipyard: how did it get here? Those new fortifications: how did the King pay for them? They were put there by laborers; and laborers must be paid with hard money, they’ll not accept Bills of Exchange.”

The Marquis was distracted, and perhaps a bit impatient, that she had strayed into the topic of fortifications. He flicked his fingers at the nearest rampart. “That is nothing,” he said. “If you must know, the nobility have a lot of metal, because they hoard it. Le Roi gets to them at Versailles and gives them a little talk: ‘Why is your coastline not better defended? It is your obligation to take care of this.’ ” Of course they cannot resist. They spend some of their metal to put up the fort. In return they get the personal gratitude of the King, and get to go to dinner with him or hand him his shirt or something.”

“That’s all?”

He smiled. “That, and a note from the contrôleur-général saying that the French Treasury owes him whatever amount of money he spent.”

“Aha! So that’s how it works: These nobles are exchanging hard money for soft: metal for French government debt.”

“Technically I suppose that is true. Such an exchange is a loss of power and independence. For gold can be spent anywhere, for anything. Paper may have the same nominal value but its usefulness is contingent on a hundred factors, most of which are impossible to comprehend, unless you live at Versailles. But it is all nonsense.”

“What do you mean, it is all nonsense?”

“Those debts are worthless. They will never be repaid.”

“Worthless!? Never!?”

“Perhaps I exaggerate. Let me put it thus: The nobleman who built these new fortifications around the harbor knows he may never see his money again. But he does not care, for it was just some gold plate in his cellar. Now the plates are gone, but he has currency of a different sort at Versailles; and that is what he desires.”

“I am tempted to share in your cynicism, for I don’t wish to seem a fool,” Eliza said slowly, “but if the debt is secured by a sealed document from the contrôleur-général, it seems to me that it must possess some value.”

“I don’t wish to speak of fortifications,” he said. “These were built by Monsieur le comte d’——” and he mentioned someone Eliza had never heard of. “You may make inquiries with him if you are curious. But you and I must not let our attention stray from the matter at hand: timber for his majesty’s shipyards.”

“Very well,” Eliza said, “I see some down there. Where did it come from?”

“The Baltic,” he returned, “and it was brought in a Dutch ship, in the spring of this year, before war was declared.”

“No shipyard could exist in Dunkerque, unless it got its supplies from the sea,” Eliza pointed out, “and so may I assume that this was a habitual arrangement, before the war?”

“It has not been habitual for rather a long while. When I came back from my travels in the East, around 1670, my father put me to work in the Company of the North down at La Rochelle. This was a brainchild of Colbert. He had tried to build his navy out of French timber and ran afoul of the same troubles as you. And so the purpose of this Compagnie du Nord was to trade in the Baltic for timber. Of necessity, this would be shipped mostly in Dutch bottoms.”

“Why did he put it all the way down in La Rochelle? Why not closer to the North—Dunkerque or Le Havre?”

“Because La Rochelle was where the Huguenots were,” the Marquis answered, “and it was they who made the whole enterprise run.”

“What did you do, then, if I may inquire?”

“Traveled to the north. Watched. Learned. Gave information to my father. His position in the Navy is largely ornamental. But the information that he gets about what the Navy is doing has enabled him to make investments that otherwise would have been beyond his intellectual capacity.”

Eliza must have looked taken aback.

“I am a bastard,” said the Marquis.

“I knew he was wealthy, but assumed ’twas all inherited,” Eliza said.

“What he inherited has been converted inexorably to soft money, in just the manner we spoke of a few minutes ago,” d’Ozoir said. “Which amounts to saying that he has slowly over time lost his independent means and become a pensioner of the French Government—which is how le Roi likes it. In order for him to preserve any independent means, he has had to make investments. The reason you are not aware of this is that his investments are in the Mediterranean—the Levant, and Northern Africa—whereas your attentions are fixed North and West.” And here he reached out and took Eliza firmly by the hand and looked her in the eye. “Which is where I would like them to stay—and so let us attend to the matter of Baltic timber, I beg you.”

“Very well,” Eliza said, “You say that in the early seventies, you had Huguenots doing it in Dutch ships. Then there was a long war against the Dutch, no?”

“Correct. So we substituted English or Swedish ships.”

“I am guessing that this worked satisfactorily until four years ago when le Roi expelled most of the Huguenots and enslaved the rest?”

“Indeed. Since then, I have been desperately busy, trying to do all of the things that an office full of Huguenots used to do. I have managed to keep a thin stream of timber coming in from the Baltic—enough to mend the old ships and build the occasional new one.”

“But now we are at war with the two greatest naval powers in the world,” Eliza said. “The demand for ship timber will go up immensely. And as the de la Vegas and I have just finished proving, we cannot get it from France. So you want my help in reëstablishing the Compagnie du Nord here, at Dunkerque.”

“I should be honored.”

“I will do it,” she announced, “but first you must answer me one question.”

“Only ask it, mademoiselle.”

“How long have you been thinking about this? And did you discuss it with your half-brother?”

“I know—because I breed true.”

“No, mademoiselle. You are a fool if you believe that. There are many pretty young noblewomen who can make healthy babies, and most of them are less trouble than you.”

“What other possible reason could he want me?”

“Other than your beauty? The answer is Colbert.”

“Colbert is dead.”

“But his son lives on: Monsieur le marquis de Seignelay. Secretary of State for the Navy, like his father before him, and my father’s boss. Do you have the faintest idea what it is like, for one such as my father—a hereditary Duke of an ancient line, and cousin of the King—to see a commoner’s son treated as if he were a peer of the realm? To be subordinated to a man whose father was a merchant?”

“It must be difficult,” Eliza said, without much sympathy.

“Not as difficult for the Duc d’Arcachon as some of the others—for my father is not as arrogant as some. My father is subservient, flexible, adaptable—”

“And in this case,” Eliza said, completing the thought—for the Marquis was in danger of losing his nerve—“the way he means to adapt is by marrying Étienne off to the female who most reminds him of Colbert.”

“Common origins, good with money, respected by the King,” said the Marquis. “And if she is beautiful and breeds true, why, so much the better. You may imagine that you are some sort of outsider to the Court of Versailles, mademoiselle, that you do not belong there at all. But the truth of the matter is thus: Versailles has only existed for seven years. It does not have any ancient traditions. It was made by Colbert, the commoner. It is full of nobles, true; but you fool yourself if you believe that they feel comfortable there—feel as if they belong. No, it is you, mademoiselle, who are the perfect courtier of Versailles, you whom the others shall envy, once you go there and establish yourself. My father feels himself slipping down, sees his family losing its wealth, its influence. He throws a rope up, hoping that someone on higher and firmer ground will snatch it out of the air and pull him to safety—and that someone is you, mademoiselle.”

“It is a heavy charge to lay on a woman who has no money, and who is busy trying to raise an infant,” Eliza said. “I hope that your father is not really as desperate as you make him sound.”

“He is not desperate yet. But when he lies awake at night, he schemes against the possibility that he, or his descendants, may become desperate in the future.”

“If what you say is creditable, I have much to do,” said Eliza, turning from the window, and smoothing her skirt down with her hands.

“What shall you do first, mademoiselle?”

“I believe I shall write a letter to England, monsieur.”

“England! But we are at war with England,” the Marquis pointed out, mock-offended.

“What I have in mind is a Natural-Philosophic sort of discourse,” Eliza said, “and Philosophy recognizes no boundaries.”

“Ah, you will write to one of your friends in the Royal Society?”

“I had in mind a Dr. Waterhouse,” Eliza said. “He was cut for the stone recently.”

The Marquis got the same aghast, cringing, yet fascinated look that all men did whenever the topic of lithotomy arose in conversation.

“Last I heard, he had lived through it, and was recovering,” Eliza continued. “Perhaps he has time on his hands to answer idle inquiries from a French countess.”

“Perhaps he does,” said the Marquis, “but I cannot understand why the first thing that enters your mind is to write a letter to a sick old Natural Philosopher in London.”

“It’s only the first thing, not the only thing, that I’ll do,” said Eliza. “It’s a thing easily done from Dunkerque. I would begin a conversation with him, or with someone, concerning money: soft and hard.”

“Why not discuss it with a Spaniard? They know how to make money that people respect all around the world.”

“It is precisely because the English coinage is so pathetic that I wish to take up the matter with an Englishman,” Eliza returned. “No one here can believe that Englishmen accept those blackened lumps as specie. And yet the trade of England is great, and the country is as prosperous as any. So to me England seems like an enormous Lyon: poor in specie, but rich in credit, and thriving through a system of paper transfers.”

“Which will boot them nothing in a war,” said the Marquis. “For in war, a king must send his armies abroad, to places where soft money is not accepted. Therefore he must send hard money with them that they may buy fodder and other necessaries. How then can England war against France?”

“The same question might be asked of France! By your leave, monsieur, her money is not as sound as you might like to think,”

“Do you suppose that this Dr. Waterhouse will have answers to such questions?”

“No, but I hope that he will engage in a discourse with me whence answers might emerge.”

“C’est juste, monsieur, but do not forget that there is trade not only in tangible stuff like Monsieur Wachsmann’s wax, but also in money itself: the stock in trade of Lothar von Hacklheber. Which is a murky and abstruse business, and a fit topic of study for Fellows of the Royal Society.”

“I thought they only studied butterflies.”

“Some of them, monsieur, study banks and money as well; and I fear they have got a head start on our French lepidopterists.”

The front door of the main house swung open and color burst forth: a dress in green silk, complicated by ribbons and flounces in many other colors, a pink face, blue eyes, yellow hair held up with diverse jewelled pins and more ribbons. She turned about to bid a last farewell to someone inside, which made the skirt flare out, then turned again and walked into the courtyard. Her attention was fixed on the one person here who had not yet mounted a horse or climbed aboard a vehicle: a man as brief and stout as a mortar, in a long coat and boots that had turned black from damp. His hat—a vast tricornered production rimmed in gold braid and fledged with ostrich-plumes—had toppled from his head and listed on the snow like a beached flagship. The prints made in the snow by his boots, and the furrows carved by the skirts of his coat and the scabbard of his small-sword, proved that he had been eddying about the court for quite a while. His gaze was fixed on a small bundle that was in midair just in front of him.

The woman in the green dress bent down to pick up the forgotten hat, and gave it a shake, releasing a flurry of snow from the ostrich-plume.

The bundle reached an apogee, hung there for a moment a few feet above the man’s bare head, and began to accelerate toward the ground. He let it drop freely for a moment, then got his gloved hands underneath it and began gently to slow its descent. The bundle came to a stop only a hand’s breadth above the ground, the man bent over like a grave-digger. A scream emerged from the bundle, which made the woman’s spine snap straight; but the scream turned out to be nothing more than the prelude to a long, drawn-out cackle of laughter. The woman relaxed and exhaled, then jerked to attention again as the man emitted a long whoop and heaved the bundle high into the air again.

A few hundred yards along, they slowed for a few moments so that the woman in the green dress could gaze out the window at some new earthworks that had been thrown up there: a revetment for a pair of mortars. Then they moved on, a thicket of legs and a storm of reins, black against the fresh snow, which muffled the sounds of their passage and swallowed them up, leaving nothing for a painter to depict except a blank canvas, and nothing for a writer to describe except an empty page.

“ONE OF THE OTHER THINGS they have at Versailles is physicians.” The voice emerged from a grate in the back of the coach.

“Oh, but we have those in abundance aboard our ships, my lady.”

“You have barbers. You have consulted them for months, and still cannot sit down! I am speaking of physicians.”

“It is true that barbers make a specialty of the other end of the anatomy from that which concerns me,” said the man on the perch. “Nature, though, offers her own remedies. I have packed my breeches with snow. At first it was shocking, intolerable.” He had to wait now, for some moments.

“You laugh,” he went on, “but, my lady, you do not appreciate the relief that this affords me, in more ways than one. For not only does it relieve the pain and swelling aft, but also, a similar but not so unpleasant symptom fore, which any man would complain of who went on a journey of any length in your company…”

Two of the women laughed again, but the third was having none of it, and answered him firmly: “The journey is not so long, for those of us who can sit down. The destination is a place where wit is prized, so long as it is discreet and refined, and does not offend the likes of Madame de Maintenon. But these sailorly jests of yours shall be immense faux pas, and shall defeat the whole purpose of your coming there.”

“You are forever fussing over your ships, Lieutenant Bart, wishing that you had more, or that the ones you have were bigger, or in better repair…”

“All the more reason, my lady, for me to jump off of this unnatural conveyance and return to Dunkerque post-haste!”

“And do what? Build a ship with your own hands, out of snow? What is needed is not Jean Bart in Dunkerque. What is needed is Jean Bart at Versailles.”

“What purpose can I serve there, my lady? Pilot a row-boat on the King’s reflecting-pool?”

“You want resources. You compete for them against many others. Your most formidable competitor is the Army. Do you know why the Army gets all the resources, Lieutenant Bart?”

“Do they? I am shocked to hear this.”

“That is because you never see them; but if you did, you would be outraged at how much money they get, compared to the Navy, and how many of the best people. Let us take Étienne de Lavardac as an example.”

“The son of the duc d’Arcachon?”

“Do not affect ignorance, Lieutanant Bart. You know who he is, and that he knocked me up. Can you think of any young nobleman with stronger ties to the Navy? And yet when war broke out, what did he do?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“He organized a cavalry regiment and rode off to war on the Rhine.”

“Ungrateful pup! I’ll work him over with the flat of my cutlass.”

“Yes, and when you are finished you can go to Rome and poke the Pope in the eye with a stick!” suggested the smaller of the Countess’s two assistants.

“It is a splendid idea, Nicole—I shall do it for you!” Bart returned.

“Do you know why Étienne made such a choice?” asked the lady, unamused.

“All I know is, someone needs to teach him some more manners.”

“That is exactly wrong—someone needs to teach him less. For he is generally agreed to be the politest man in France.”

“He must have forgot his manners at least once,” said Jean Bart, pressing his face to the grate and peering at little Jean-Jacques, who had his face buried in his mother’s left breast.

“Hmm!”

“At last I have rendered you speechless, Jean Bart, and so I’ll take this rare opportunity to explain further. Every man at Court professes his loyalty to the King, indeed does little else but prate about it from sunup to sundown, which pleases the King well enough in times of peace. But in time of war, each and every man must go out and demonstrate his loyalty with deeds. On a battlefield, a Cavalier may attire himself in magnificent armor and ride forth on a brilliant steed to engage the foe in single combat; and what is better, he does so in full view of many others like him, so that those who survive the day can get together in their tent when it is all over and agree on what happened. But on the sea all is different, for our dashing fop is lumped together with all of the other men on the ship, who are mostly common sailors; he lives with them, and cannot move from place to place, or engage a foe, without their assistance. To order a gang of swabbies, ‘charge your cannon and fire it in the general direction of yonder dot on the horizon,’ is altogether different from galloping up to a Dutchman on a rampart and swinging your sword-blade at his neck.”

“We do not fire at dots on the horizon,” huffed Jean Bart, “however, I take your meaning only too well.”

“You, because of your recent exploit, are a shining counterexample to this general rule; and if we can get a physician to patch up your arse so that you can sit down at dinner and regale some Court ladies with the story—preferably without resorting to profanity or any other ribald elements—it shall translate directly into more money for the Navy.”

“And more Court fops to adorn my decks?”

“That comes unavoidably with money, Jean Bart, it is how the game is played.” And then she was banging on the carriage ceiling. “Gaetan! Over there, I see what looks like a new powder-magazine, let’s go have a look.”

“If my lady wishes to review all of his majesty’s new coastal fortifications,” said Jean Bart, “it is a thing more easily done from the deck of a ship.”

“But then I don’t get to interview the local intendants, and learn the gossip behind the fortifications.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

“Yes.”

“What did you learn?”

“That the chain of interlocking mortar emplacements we viewed this morning was financed by a low-interest loan to His Majesty’s Treasury from Monsieur le comte d’Etaples, who melted down a twelfth-century gold punchbowl for it; and at the same time he improved the road from Fruges to Fauquembergues so that it can carry ammunition-carts even during the spring thaw; and in return the King saw to it that an old lawsuit against him was delayed indefinitely, and he got to hold a candle one morning at the King’s levée.”

“It makes one wonder what fascinations may be connected with yon powder-house! Perhaps some local Sieur cashed in his great-grandpère’s ruby-set toenail-clippers to pay for the roof!” exclaimed Jean Bart, to stifled gurgles from Nicole and the large woman inside.

“Next summer, when Baltic timber is stacked to three times your height around the shipyard of Dunkerque, we shall see then if you are still mocking me,” said she who was not amused.

“I BEG YOUR PARDON, mademoiselle; but this sound that you are making, ‘yoo-hoo! yoo-hoo,’ has never been heard before in his majesty’s stables, or anywhere else in France that I know of. To the humans who live here, such as myself and my lord, it is devoid of meaning, and to the horses, it is a cause of acute distress. I beg you to stop, and to speak French, lest you cause a general panic.”

“It is a common greeting in Qwghlmian, monsieur.”

“Ah!” This brought the man to a hard stop for several moments. The stables of Versailles, in December, were not renowned for illumination; but Eliza could hear the gentleman’s satins hissing, and his linens creaking, as he bowed. She made curtseying noises in return. This was answered by a short burst of scratching and rasping as the gentleman adjusted his wig. She cleared her throat. He called for a candle, and got a whole silver candelabra: a chevron of flames, bobbing and banking, like a formation of fireflies, through the ambient miasma of horse-breath, manure-gas, and wig-powder.

“I had the honor of being introduced to you a year ago, along the banks of the Meuse,” said the gentleman, “when my lord—”

“I remember with fondness and gratitude your hospitality, Monsieur de Mayet,” said Eliza, which jerked another quick bow from him, “and the alacrity with which you conducted me into the presence of Monsieur de Lavardac on that occasion—”

“He will see you immediately, mademoiselle!” announced de Mayet, though not until after they had watched a second candelabra zoom back and forth a few times between the stall where they were standing, and one that lay even deeper in the penetralia of the stables. “This way, please, around the manure-pile.”

“TRULY, MONSIEUR, YOU ARE SECOND to none in piety. Even Father Édouard de Gex is a wastrel compared to you. For in this season of Christmas, when all go to Mass and hear homilies about Him who lived His first days in a stable, Étienne de Lavardac d’Arcachon is the only one who is actually living in the same estate, and sleeping on a pile of hay.”

“To piety I can make no claims whatever, mademoiselle, though I do aspire, at times, to the lesser virtue of politeness.”

They had fetched out a chair for her to sit on, and she had accepted it, only because she knew that if she didn’t, Étienne would be too stricken with horror to speak. He was squatting on a low stool used by farriers. The floor of the stall had been strewn with fresh straw, or as fresh as could be had in December.

“So Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon explained to me, when I arrived at La Dunette yester evening, and found that you and your household had moved out of it; not merely out of the house, but the entire estate.”

“Thank God, we had received notice of your approach.”

“But the purpose of my sending that notice was not to drive you out to his majesty’s stables.”

“No one has been driven, mademoiselle. Rather, I am lured hither by the prospect of assuring your comfort at La Dunette, and preserving your reputation.”

“That much is understood, monsieur, and deep is my gratitude. But as I am to be lodging in an outlying cottage, which cannot even be seen from the main house, and which is reached by a separate road, your mother is of the view that you may stay at home, even as I lodge at the cottage, without even the most censorious observer perceiving any taint. And I happen to agree with her.”

“Ah, but, mademoiselle—”

“So firm is your mother in holding this view that she shall be gravely offended if you do not return home at once! And I have come to deliver the message in person so that you can be under no misapprehensions as to my view of the matter.”

“Ah, very well,” Étienne sighed. “As long as it is understood that I am not being driven from here by what some perceive as its discomforts and inconveniences—” and here he paused for a moment to glare at several Gentlemen of the Bedchamber and other members of his household, who were fortunate enough to be hidden in darkness “—but, as it were, fleeing in terror of the prospect that my conduct is, in the eyes of my mother, other than perfect.”

Étienne d’Arcachon shielded his eyes with one hand, “Not from the light, which is nothing, but from your beauty, which is almost too great for a mortal man to gaze upon.”

“Thank you, monsieur,” said Eliza, shielding her own eyes, which were rolling.

“Pray, where is this orphan that some say you rescued from the clutches of the Heretics?”

“He is at La Dunette,” said Eliza, “interviewing a prospective wet-nurse.”

THE QUILL SWIRLED and lunged over the page in a slow but relentless three-steps-forward, two-steps-back sort of process, and finally came to a full stop in a tiny pool of its own ink. Then Louis Phélypéaux, first comte de Pontchartrain, raised the nib; let it hover for an instant, as if gathering his forces; and hurled it backwards along the sentence, tiptoeing over i’s, slashing through t’s and x’s, nearly tripping over an umlaut, building speed and confidence while veering through a slalom-course of acute and grave accents, pirouetting though cedillas and carving vicious snap-turns through circumflexes. It was like watching the world’s greatest fencing-master dispatch twenty opponents with a single continuous series of maneuvers. He drew his hand up with great care, lest his lace cuff drag in the ink; it inflated for a moment as it snatched a handful of air, then flopped down over his hand, covering all but the fingertips that pinched the pen, and giving them an opportunity to warm up. Twin jets of steam unfurled from Pontchartrain’s cavernous elliptical nostrils as he re-read the document. Eliza realized she’d stopped breathing, and released her own cloud of steam. As she emptied her lungs, her dress hugged her suddenly around the waist while relaxing its grip on her thorax. Some milk leaked out of her breasts, but she had anticipated this, and swathed herself in cotton. It was most unusual for a virgin, who had merely adopted an orphan, to lactate. She smelled like a dairy. But the room was so cold that no one could smell anything but dust and ice.

Those corridors, and the divided, subdivided, and sub-sub-divided apartments that crowded in on them, were Versailles as it was. The wing where Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, contrôleur-général, had his offices, were Versailles as it was meant to be, meaning that the rooms were spacious, the windows many and large, the floors turd-free. Pontchartrain sat at a table with his back to an arched window that looked out over the gardens. His bony ankles, protected only by silk stockings, were crossed, like a pair of sticks being rubbed together. The sun was on his back. His periwig cast an Alp-like shadow across the table, and the document. The amount of money that Jean Bart’s corsairs had taken from Eliza, and that she was loaning to the Treasury, was written out on the page, not in numerals but in words; and so large was the amount that, fully expressed to all of its significant digits, it spread across three lines of the document, and had forced the Count to dip his quill twice. It was like a chapter of the Bible; and as she read it, her mind was invaded by any number of memories of the deals she had arranged, the people she had met, the nights she had gone without sleep as she had accumulated this fortune. These recollections, which were of no utility to her now, and which she did not desire, simply leaked out. Milk was leaking out of her breasts, she could feel a leaky period coming on, she’d been suffering loose stools, she needed to urinate, and if she kept thinking about these things any more, tears would leak from her eyes. She had a passing phant’sy that she ought to go round and fetch Jean Bart from whatever salon he was regaling with corsair-tales, and put his nautical mind together with that of some corset-maker, and get them to invent some garment, some system of stays, laces, rigging, lashings, and caulk that would wholly encase body and head, and keep all unwelcome fluids and memories where they belonged.

But it was not available just now. She felt the warmth of the sun on her face; or maybe that was the gaze of the contrôleur-général. “The amount is correct,” she announced, and hitched up her skirts in the rear with her cold hands and tired arms, and stepped back until her face was protected in shadow.

“Very well,” said the Count in a gentle voice, like a kindly physician, and rotated his large brown eyes toward an aide, who for the last several minutes had been edging closer and closer to a fireplace at the other end of the room. Pontchartrain dipped his quill, set it to the page, and executed a lengthy series of evolutions, moving his arm from the shoulder. A vast mazy PONTCHARTRAIN took shape at the base of the page. The aide bent forward and countersigned.

Pontchartrain rose. “I hoped that my lady would consent to join me for some refreshment, while…” and he glanced at the aide, who had moved into the Count’s place at the table and was busying himself with a panoply of wax-pots, ribbons, seals, and other gear.

“I would gladly do so, or eat rocks, for that matter, if it is to happen near the fireplace.”

The Count offered the Countess his arm and together they glided to the pagan spectacle that answered to the name of fireplace here. Two chairs had been set out; both were armchairs, for the guest and the host were of equal rank. He got her settled in one of them, then picked up a log with his own two hands and threw it onto the fire; not a wholly normal thing for a Count to do, and presumably a coded gesture, meant to convey to Eliza that the Count did not mean to stand on ceremony. He dusted his hands together and then polished them with a lace handkerchief as he sat down. A maid shuffled forward on cold and unresponsive feet, worried her hands out of her sleeves, and poured coffee, sending up gales of steam.

“You’ve been doing a lot of these, my lord?” Eliza asked, looking over at the table, where the sealing process was just entering its opening rounds.

“Rarely for such amounts. Never for such a charming creditor, my lady. But yes, many Persons of Quality have followed the King’s example, and lent idle assets to the Treasury, where they may be put to work.”

“You will be gratified to know that those assets have been working very hard indeed along the Channel,” Eliza said. “Any English Ship of Force that dares sail that way stares up into many new guns, protected by new revetments, fed by powder-houses linked by excellent roads that were only cow-paths when his majesty added those lands to France.”

“It pleases me very much to hear this!” exclaimed the Count, crinkling up his eyes and rocking forward in his chair. Eliza was startled to see that he was entirely sincere; then wondered why it was so startling.

“Soon all that will be behind you, my lady, and you can enjoy the season! You should get some rest. This soirée that Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon is hosting tomorrow…”

“Yes. I do need to conserve my energies, if I am to remain awake for even one-third of that.”

“I do hope that when you have recovered from the journey, my lady, we shall have more opportunities to converse. As you know, I am rather new to the post of contrôleur-général. I accepted the position gladly, of course…but now that I have had a few months to settle in, I find that it is far more interesting than I had ever imagined.”

“Everyone imagines it to be interesting in a financial sense,” said Eliza.

“Of course,” said Pontchartrain, sharing her amusement. “But I did not mean it that way.”

“Of course not, monsieur, for you are an intelligent man, not motivated by money—which is one of the reasons his majesty chose you! But now that you are here, you find it fascinating intellectually.”

“Indeed, my lady. But you are one of the very few at Versailles who can understand this.”

“Hence your desire to carry the conversation forward. Yes, I understand.”

Pontchartrain dropped his eyelids and inclined his head minutely, then opened his eyes again—they were large and handsome—and smiled at her.

“Do you know Bonaventure Rossignol, my lord?”

The smile faltered. “I know of him, my lady, but—”

“He is another fish out of water.”

“He does not even live here, does he?”

“He lives at Juvisy. But he will be at La Dunette tomorrow. As will you, I trust?”

“Madame la duchesse has honored us with an invitation. Neither of us would miss it for anything.”

“Seek me out there, monsieur. I shall introduce you to Monsieur Rossignol, and we shall found a new salon, restricted to people who love numbers more than money.”

“AH, HERE COMES OUR CHAPERONE at last!”

“Our chaperone!?”

This name was sufficient to make Rossignol turn his head, or want to. But the head was encased in a wig that cascaded over his shoulders, over which he had draped a heavy wool blanket, rendering independent movement of head and torso inadvisable. He rose to his feet, triggering small avalanches—for he and Eliza had been waiting in this open sleigh long enough for drifts to form in their laps. As he tottered around to get a view of the garden entrance of La Dunette, he reminded Eliza of a club balanced on a juggler’s palm. He had much in common physically with Pontchartrain; but where the Count’s eyes were warm and brown, Rossignol’s were hot and black. And not hot in a passionate way, unless you counted his passion for his work.

A recorder arpeggio—some fragment of a minuet—leaked out of the doors for a moment as servants pulled them open. Pontchartrain stepped out, looked up, and blinked at the falling snow, then pirouetted towards his hostess, who had fallen behind, and was shooing him forward in violation of all rules of precedence. An aurora of red silk bloomed around her as she drew out a scarf and allowed it to settle atop her wig. With fingers slowed by cold, fat, and arthritis, she knotted it under a chin, then accepted Pontchartrain’s proffered arm and stepped out into the frozen garden with more gingerness than was really warranted. The gravel paths near the château had been swept clear of snow; the sleigh was stopped a stone’s throw away, on a track that wandered off into the Duke’s hunting-park. Party-goers surged to the door and the fogged windows to bid the Duchess farewell, as if she were sailing to Surinam, and not just going on a quarter of an hour’s sleigh-ride on her own property.

Rossignol rotated back around to gaze at Eliza. There was no point in sitting, as he’d just have to stand up again when the Duchess and the Count arrived.

“Monsieur Rossignol,” said Eliza, “every child knows that the juice of a lime, or a bit of diluted milk, may be used to write secret messages in invisible ink, which may later be made to appear by scorching it before hot coals. When you stare at me in this way, it is as if you phant’sy that some message has been writ upon my face in milk, which you may make visible by the heat of your scrutiny. I beg you remember that more often than not the procedure goes awry, and the paper itself catches fire.”

“I cannot help that God made me the way I am.”

“It is obvious enough that you are flirting with me.”

“Flirtation is customarily more or less obvious, monsieur, but you do not have to mention it!”

“You invited me on a sleigh-ride, and led me to think it would be you and me alone together—‘it shall be never so cold, Bon-bon, and I shall freeze to death if I do not have anyone to share my blanket with’—and then we waited, and waited, and now it is obvious that I shall be sharing my blanket with a Count, or a Dowager. It is a little étude in cruelty. I observe such all the time in people’s love-letters. I understand this. But it would be very foolish of you, my lady, to believe that you shall achieve some power over me by playing such girlish games.”

Eliza laughed. “Never crossed my mind.” She lunged forward, spun around, and took the seat next to Rossignol. He looked down at her, startled. “Why not?” Eliza said, “as long as we are chaperoned.”

“Flirting with you without result is more interesting than doing nothing,” Rossignol insisted, “but since our adventure, you really have paid me very little attention. I think it is because you got into some trouble you could not get out of by your own wits, and so became indebted to me in a way; which you chafe at.”

“We will speak of chafing later,” said Eliza, and then actually batted her snow-laden eyelashes at him. She patted the seat next to her.

“I must greet the Count and the—” but he was cut short as Eliza grabbed the back of his breeches and jerked down hard. She had only meant to force him to sit down; but to her shock she all but depantsed him, and would have stripped him naked to the knees had he not sat down violently. Like a bullfighter wielding the cape, she heaved the blanket over his lap just in time to hide all from the Count and the Duchess, who looked their way at the sudden movement.

“You must put some meat on your hips, otherwise what is the point of wearing a belt?” she whispered.

“Mademoiselle! I must stand up for the Count and the—”

“Dowager, is that what you called her? She is no dowager, her husband is alive and well, and tending to the King’s affairs in the South. Don’t worry, I shall fix it.” She leaned against Rossignol’s shoulder and raised her voice: “Madame la duchesse, Monsieur le comte, Monsieur Rossignol is mortified, for he would stand up to greet you; but I won’t let him move. For his slender frame makes as much heat as a coal-stove, which is the only thing keeping me alive.”

She was matronly, decent, and genuinely popular: the living embodiment of the traditional Lavardac virtues of simple sincere loyalty to King and Church, in that order, without all of the scheming. In other words, she was just what a hereditary noble was supposed to be; which made her both an asset and a liability to the King. By supporting him blindly, and always doing the right thing, she made of her family a bulwark to his reign. But by exhibiting genuine nobility, she was implicitly making a strong case for the entire idea of a hereditary peerage with much power and responsibility, and making the new arrivals—Eliza included—seem like conniving arrivistes by comparison. Sitting in the Duchess’s sleigh and firmly massaging the erect penis of the King’s cryptanalyst, Eliza had to admit the validity of this point; but she admitted it to herself. She had no choice but to make do with what she had—which at the moment was nothing at all, except for a handful of Rossignol. She still did not have more than a few coins to her name.

The sleigh moved briskly on the trail, which had been groomed in advance of the party. In a few moments they passed out of the formal garden and into a huddle of buildings that was concealed from view of La Dunette’s windows by adroit landscaping. The scent of manure from the hunting-stable of Louis-François de Lavardac d’Arcachon was driven away suddenly by a cloud of lavender-scented steam, surging from the open side of a shed where a servant was stirring a vat over a great smoky fire.

“You make your own soap here?” Eliza said. “The fragrance is wonderful.”

“Of course we do, mademoiselle!” said the Duchess, astonished by the fact that Eliza found this worthy of mention. Then something occurred to her: “You should use it.”

“I already impose on your hospitality too much, my lady. Paris is so well-supplied with parfumiers and soap-makers, I am happy to go there and—”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed the Duchess. “You must never buy soap in Paris—from strangers! Especially with the orphan to think of!”

“As you know, my lady, little Jean-Jacques is now in the care of the Jesuit fathers. They make their own soap, probably—”

“As they had better!” said the Duchess. “But you bring clothes to him sometimes. You will have them laundered here, in my soap.”

Eliza did not really care, and was happy to give her assent, since the Duchess of Arcachon was so firm on this point; if she hesitated for a moment, it was only because she was a bit nonplussed.

“You should use the Duchess’s soap, mademoiselle,” said Pontchartrain firmly.

“Indeed!” said Rossignol—who, given the circumstances, would probably be speaking in one-word sentences for a while.

“I accept your soap with all due gratitude, madame,” said Eliza.

“My laundresses do not wear gloves!” huffed the Duchess, as if she had been challenged on some point. This rather dampened conversation for some moments. They had passed clear of the out-buildings, and circumvented a paddock where the Duke’s hunting-mounts were exercised in better weather, and entered now into a wooded game-park, bony and bare under twilight. Pontchartrain opened the shades on a pair of carriage-lanterns that dangled above the corners of the benches, and presently they were gliding along through the dim woods in a little halo of lamplight. In a few moments they came to a stone wall that cut the forest in twain. It was pierced by a gate, which stood open, and which was guarded, in name anyway, by half a dozen musketeers, who were standing around a fire. The wall was twenty-six miles long. The gate was one of twenty-two. Passing through it, they entered the Grand Parc, the hunting-grounds of the King.

The Duchess seemed to regret the matter of the soap, and now suddenly worked herself up into a lather of good cheer.

Pontchartrain smiled. “Madame la duchesse, you would have me and Monsieur Rossignol believe that when two such ladies as you and the Countess are together in private, you have nothing better to do than talk about us?”

The Duchess was taken aback for a moment, then whooped. “Monsieur, you tease me!”

Eliza gave Rossignol an especially hard squeeze, and he shifted uneasily.

“So far, it does not seem to be happening, for Monsieur Rossignol is so quiet!” observed the Duchess in a rare faux pas; for she should have known that the way to make a quiet person join the conversation is not to point out that he is being quiet.

“Before you joined us, madame, he was telling me that he has been wrestling with a most difficult decypherment—a new code, the most difficult yet, that is being used by the Duke of Savoy to communicate with his confederates in the north. He is distracted—in another world.”

“On the contrary,” said Rossignol, “I am quite capable of talking, as long as you do not ask me to compute square roots in my head, or something.”

“I don’t know what that is but it sounds frightfully difficult!” exclaimed the Duchess.

“I’ll not ask you to do any such thing, monsieur,” said Pontchartrain, “but some day when you are not so engaged—perhaps at the Countess’s salon—I should like to speak to you of what I do. You might know that Colbert, some years ago, paid the German savant Leibniz to build a machine that would do arithmetic. He was going to use this machine in the management of the King’s finances. Leibniz delivered the machine eventually, but he had in the meantime become distracted by other problems, and now, of course, he serves at the court of Hanover, and so has become an enemy of France. But the precedent is noteworthy: putting mathematical genius to work in the realm of finance.”

“Indeed, it is interesting,” allowed Rossignol, “though the King keeps me very busy at cyphers.”

“What sorts of problems did you have in mind, monsieur?” Eliza asked.

“What I am going to tell you is a secret, and should not leave this sleigh,” Pontchartrain began.

“Oh, it is not foreign spies I am concerned about in this case, but domestic speculators,” said the Count.

“Then it is even more safe; for I’ve nothing to speculate with,” said Eliza.

“I am going to call in all of the gold and silver coins,” said Pontchartrain.

“All of them? All of them in the entire country!?” exclaimed the Duchess.

“Indeed, my lady. We will mint new gold and silver louis, and exchange them for the old.”

“Heavens! What is the point of doing it, then?”

“The new ones will be worth more, madame.”

“You mean that they will contain more gold, or silver?” Eliza asked.

Pontchartrain gave her a patient smile. “No, mademoiselle. They will have precisely the same amount of gold or silver as the ones we use now—but they will be worth more, and so to obtain, say, nine louis d’or of the new coin, one will have to pay the Treasury ten of the old.”

“How can you say that the same coin is now worth more?”

“How can we say that it is worth what it is now?” Pontchartrain threw up his hands as if to catch snowflakes. “The coins have a face value, fixed by royal decree. A new decree, a new value.”

“I understand. But it sounds like a scheme to make something out of nothing—a perpetual motion machine. Somewhere, somehow, in some unfathomable way, it must have repercussions.”

“Quite possibly,” said Pontchartrain, “but I cannot make out where and how exactly. You must understand, the King has asked me to double his revenues to pay for the war. Double! The usual taxes and tariffs have already been squeezed dry. I must resort to novel measures.”

“Now I understand why you would like the advice of France’s greatest savants,” said the Duchess. Whereupon all eyes turned to Rossignol. But he had suddenly braced his feet and jerked his head back. For a few moments he stared up at the indigo sky through half-closed eyes, and did not breathe; then he exhaled, and took in a deep draught of the cold air.

“Will we see a lot of this sort of thing, then, at the salon?” asked the Duchess, giving Rossignol a very dubious look.

“Only occasionally,” Eliza assured her. “But perhaps we ought to change the subject, and give Monsieur Rossignol an opportunity to gather his wits. Let’s talk about…horses!”

“Horses?”

“Those horses,” said Eliza, nodding at the two that were drawing the sleigh.

She and Rossignol were facing forward. The Duchess and the Count had to turn around to see what she was looking at. Eliza took advantage of this to wipe her hand on Rossignol’s drawers and withdraw it. Rossignol hitched up his breeches weakly.

“Do you fancy them?” asked the Duchess. “Louis-François is inordinately proud of his horses.”

“Until now I had only seen them from a distance, and supposed that they were simply white horses. But they are more than that; they are albinos, are they not?”

“Ths distinction is lost on me,” the Duchess admitted, “But that is what Louis-François calls them. When he comes back from the south he will be glad to tell you more than you wish to hear!”

“Are they commonly seen? Do many people have them here?” Eliza asked. But they were interrupted by, of all things, a man riding an albino horse: Étienne de Lavardac d’Arcachon, who had ridden out from the château to meet them. “I am mortified to break in on you this way,” he said, after greeting each of them individually, in strict order of precedence (Duchess first, then Pontchartrain, Eliza, horses, mathematician, and driver), “but in your absence, Mother, I am the acting host of the party, and must do all in my power to please our guests—one of whom, by the way, happens to be his majesty the King of France—”

“Oooh! When did le Roi arrive?”

“Just after you left, Mother.”

“Just my luck. What do his majesty and the other guests desire?”

“To see the masque. Which is ready to begin.”

The name of the production was La Métamorphose. Leading man and guest of honor was one Lieutenant Jean Bart, who knew as little of what to do on stage, during a masque, as would a comedian in a naval engagement; but never mind, it had all been written around him and his dramaturgickal shortcomings. The opening number took place on the beach at Dunkerque. A mermaid, perched on a rock, looked on as Jean Bart and his men (dancers dressed as Corsairs) attended an impromptu Mass celebrated on the beach. Exit Priest. Jean Bart led his men onto their frigate (which was no larger than a rowboat, but wittily decked out with masts and yards sprouting every which way, and fleur-de-lis banners). The frigate took to the Channel’s bobbing waves and headed for England. The mermaid, stranded solus downstage right, sang an aria about her lovesick condition; for she had quite fallen in love with the handsome Lieutenant (in an earlier version, there had been no Mass on the beach; it had opened with Jean Bart spawled on the rock in a state of deshabille and the mermaid feeding grapes to him; but the Duchess had had words with the players, and mended it).

Neptune now arose from the waves and sang a duet with the mermaid, his daughter. He wanted to know why she was so morose. Learning the answer, he became cross with Jean Bart and vowed to take revenge on him in the traditional godly style of subjecting him to an inconvenient metamorphosis.

The next scene took place far upstage, on the English shore, where the French sailors were pent up in a prison in Plymouth, gazing out barred windows across the Channel and pining, at considerable length, for France. This was by far the dullest part of the production and gave many a Countess an opportunity to powder her nose; but the upshot was that the mermaid, hearing their dirge, and spying the valiant French corsairs imprisoned through no fault of their own, begged her father to undo the spell he had laid on Jean Bart. Which was grudgingly done, though not until Bart, in his smaller, feline form, had slipped out between the bars of his cell and scampered onto the beach. Changed back into a man, he climbed into a rowboat, shoved it off the beach of Plymouth, and rowed to France.

When Jean Bart had achieved this feat for real, a few months ago, it had taken him fifty-two hours. That was compressed into about a quarter of an hour here. The passage of two days, two nights, and four hours was suggested as follows: Apollo, in a golden chariot suspended from an overhead track by wires, appeared low in the east (stage left); traversed the entire stage in a great arc, singing an aria all the while; and set low in the west (stage right) just as his sister Diana was being launched from stage left in a silver chariot. When she set in the west, Apollo reappeared (for his chariot had been unhooked and rushed around the back of the château) at stage left again, and sang through the second day of Jean Bart’s epic row. Then Diana sang through the second night. During the first day and night, Apollo and Diana respectively mocked the poor figure below them, refusing to believe at first that anyone would have the stupid-ity or hubris to row a boat from Plymouth to France. During the second day and night, they literally changed their tunes: Astounded to see that Jean Bart was still alive, and still hauling on those oars, they began to sing his praises and to cheer him on.

It concluded at the end of the second night with Diana setting at stage right, Apollo rising at the left, and Jean Bart center stage, desperately trying to row the last mile or so to freedom. Apollo and Diana sang a duet, urging him on; and finally Neptune (who had perhaps had enough of their caterwauling) popped out of the waves, sang an additional stanza about what a magnificent chap Jean Bart was, and, raising his trident, ordered that the waves of the sea escort this hero safely back to shore. Which they did, in the form of four dancers painted blue and wearing foamy white caps.

Even this audience, which included some of the most jaded and cynical persons on the face of the earth, could hardly keep a dry eye as Jean Bart finally staggered up onto the beach where it had all started, accompanied by a flood tide of patriotic music; but just as the party-goers were erupting in an ovation, yet another god descended from the rafters, dressed in gold, brandishing a lightning-bolt, and crowned with a laurel-wreath: yes, Jupiter himself, but all bedizened with French touches to make of him a hybrid of France with the King of the Gods; or rather, to imply that there was no substantive difference. Apollo, Diana, and Neptune were amazed, and did obeisance; the insouciant Jean Bart favored Jupiter with a courtly Versailles bow. Jupiter had come to make his ruling, which was that Jean Bart did indeed deserve to be subjected to a metamorphosis: but of a rather different sort than being turned into a cat. He handed down a package in golden paper, crowned with a laurel wreath, and Mercury took it from his hand, pranced about for a while in a gratuitous solo, and delivered it to Jean Bart, setting the laurel wreath on Bart’s head. Lieutenant Bart opened the package. Out tumbled a bolt of red. He held it up, and it unfurled: the long red coat and red breeches of a Captain in the French Navy.

The rigging that held the various Gods and Goddesses in the firmament now went into creaking and groaning movement, pulling those Olympian figures up or away so that Jean Bart was left alone on the stage to receive an ovation from the crowd. He hugged the uniform to his chest, turned stage right, and bowed very low to the King. This caused the laurel wreath to fall from his head. He snatched it just before it struck the floor and everyone in the room said, “Oh!” at once. Then, seized by an idea, he straightened up and tossed the wreath directly at Louis XIV, who did not fail to catch it. Everyone in the room said, “Ah!” The King, not the least bit discomposed, raised the laurel to his lips and kissed it, eliciting a great cheer from the assembled nobles of Versailles. For that moment, everything in France was perfect.

Rossignol danced like a cryptanalyst: perfectly, but with little self-expression. “You did not understand the soap conversation,” he said to her.

“Monsieur, was it that obvious? Please explain it to me!”

“During the time of the poisonings, ten years ago, where do you suppose all of those ambitious courtiers got their arsenic? Not by their own labors certainly, for they are helpless in practical matters. Not from Alchemists, for those style themselves holy men. Who, other than Alchemists, has mortars and pestles, vats, retorts, and ways of getting exotic ingredients?

“Soap-makers!” Eliza exclaimed, and felt herself blushing.

“Some laundresses wore gloves in those days,” said Rossignol, “because their mistresses would have them go into Paris and buy soap that was loaded with arsenic. They would wash the husband’s clothing in that soap, and he would absorb the poison through his skin. And so for a Duchess to make her own soap, on her own estate, is more than just a quaint tradition. It is a way for her to protect herself and those she loves. When she offers you, mademoiselle, the use of her soap, and of her laundry, it means two things: first, that she has true affection for you, and second, that she fears someone might wish you ill.”

Eliza could not speak. She scanned the crowd over Rossignol’s shoulder for a glimpse of d’Avaux, and, not finding him, forced Rossignol to spin around so that she could see the other half of the room.

“I beg your pardon, but which one of us is leading, my lady?” asked Rossignol. “Who is it you look for? You think of someone who wishes you ill? Do not be too sure of your first assumptions—that is a common error in cryptanalysis.”

“Do you know who—?”

“If I did I should tell you at once, if for no other reason than that I should enjoy another sleigh-ride some day. But no, mademoiselle, I cannot guess who it is that the Duchess is so worried about.”

“Excuse me, but may I break in?” said a man’s voice behind Eliza.

“We are in the middle of something!” Eliza snapped; for men had been pestering her all night. But Rossignol had stopped dancing. He released his grip on Eliza, backed away one step, and bowed deep.

Eliza spun around to see King Louis XIV acknowledging the bow with a warm look. He loved his codebreaker.

“But of course you are, mademoiselle,” said the King of France, “when my two most intelligent subjects put their heads together and converse, why, pourquoi non, how could they not be in the middle of something? But your expressions are so grave! It does not befit a Christmas celebration!” He had caught Eliza’s hand somehow, and drawn her into the pattern of the dance. Eliza was no more capable of intelligent speech than she had been a minute ago.

“I have much to thank you for,” said Louis XIV.

“Oh, no, your majesty, for—”

“Has no one ever told you that to contradict the King is not done?”

“I beg your pardon, your majesty—”

“Monsieur Rossignol has told me that you did a favor for my sister-in-law last autumn,” said the King. “Or perhaps it was for the Prince of Orange; this is not clear.”

“Come back to me,” he was saying—and not, she guessed, for the first time. “There. You are back. I see it in your face. What is it you fear so much? Have you been threatened by someone? Tell me who has done it, then.”

“No one in particular, your majesty. The Prince of Orange—”

“Yes? What did he do?”

“I should not tell you what he did; but he said I must spy for him or he would put me on a ship to Nagasaki, for the amusement of the sailors.”

“Ah. You should have told me this immediately.”

“That—my failure to be perfectly frank with you—is truly the source of my fear, your majesty, for I am not without guilt.”

“I know this. Tell me, mademoiselle. What drives you to make such decisions? What is it you want?”

“To find the man who wronged me, and kill him.” In truth, Eliza had not thought about this for so long that the idea sounded strange to her ears, even as it came from her lips; but she said it with conviction, and liked the sound of it.

“Certain things you have done have pleased me immensely. The ‘Fall of Batavia.’ The loan of your fortune. Bringing Jean Bart to Versailles. Your recent efforts for the Compagnie du Nord. Others, such as the matter of the spying, displease me—though now I understand better. It is good that we have had this conversation.”

Eliza blinked, looked around, and understood that the music had stopped, and everyone was looking at them.

“Thank you, mademoiselle,” said the King, and bowed.

Eliza curtseyed.

“Your majesty—” she said, but he was gone, engulfed by the mobile Court, a school of expensively cinched waists and teased wigs.

Eliza went into a corner to get coffee and to think. People were following her—her own little Court of petty nobles and suitors. She did not precisely ignore, because she did not really notice, them.

What had happened? She needed a personal stenographer, so that she could have the transcript read back to her.

She had inadvertently given the King the wrong idea.

“Do you enjoy the soirée, my lady?”

It was Father Édouard de Gex.

“Indeed, Father, though I confess I do miss that little orphan—he stole my heart in the weeks we were together.”

“I am indebted to the Count.”

“We all are,” said de Gex. “Little Jean-Jacques is a splendid boy. I look in on him whenever I have a moment. I hope to complete what you have begun, and d’Avaux has carried forward.”

“And that is—what precisely?”

“You snatched the lad from death physical—the war—and spiritual—the doctrines of the heretics. D’Avaux saw to it he was placed in the best orphanage in France, under the care of the Society of Jesus. To me, it seems that the natural culmination is that I should raise him up into a Jesuit.”

“I see, yes…” said Eliza dreamily, “so that the little Lavardac bastard does not create further complications by breeding.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady?”

“Please forgive me, I am not myself!”

“I should hope not!” De Gex was actually blushing. Which wreaked a great change for the better on his face. He was dark, with prominent bones in the cheeks and nose, and had it in him to be handsome; but usually he was very pale from too many hours spent in dark confessionals listening to the secret sins of the court. With some pink in his cheeks he was suddenly almost fetching.

“Please,” Eliza said, “I am still flustered by the memory of dancing with the King.”

“Of course, my lady. But when you have gathered your wits, and remembered your manners, my cousine would like to renew her acquaintance with you.” He leveled his burning gaze at a corner where the duchesse d’Oyonnax was smiling into the eyes of some poor young Viscount who had no idea what he was getting into.

De Gex took his leave.

She had spoken the truth to the King. For on the day she’d been swapped for the albino stallion, and loaded on a galley for Constantinople, she’d made a vow that one day she would find the man who was responsible for her and Mummy being slaves in the first place, and kill him. She had never divulged this to anyone, except Jack Shaftoe; but now, unaccountably, she had blurted it out to the King. She had done so with utmost conviction, for it really was true; and he had seen the look on her face, and believed every word.

“I have much work to do tomorrow, thanks to you, mademoiselle.”

It was Pontchartrain, again favoring her with a benign smile.

“How so, monsieur?”

“Then I shall not detain you any later, monsieur.”

“Good night, mademoiselle.”

The King thought she was referring to William of Orange. She had made some reference to William—again, if only she had a transcript!—and a moment later she had changed the subject and said she wanted to find the man who had wronged her, and kill him—and the King had put those two truths together to make a falsehood: his majesty now believed that Eliza’s goal in life was to assassinate William! That she had spied on William’s behalf only as a ruse so that she could get close to him.

She spun around, hoping to find the King, to get his attention, to explain all—but found herself looking into the face of a man dressed all in red. Jean Bart, putting his corsair skills to use, had hacked his way through a throng of female admirers to reach Eliza. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “Madame la duchesse has announced that this is to be the last dance. If I might have the honor?”

She let her hand float up and he took it. “Normally, of course, I should make way for Étienne d’Arcachon in such a case,” he explained, in case Eliza had been wondering about this—which she hadn’t. “But he is outside, bidding farewell to the King.”

“The King’s leaving?”

“Is already in his carriage, mademoiselle.”

“Oh. I had been hoping to say something to him.”

“You and everyone else in France!” They were dancing now. Bart was amused. “You have already danced with his majesty! Mademoiselle, there are women in this room who have sacrificed babies in the Black Mass hoping to conjure up a single word, or a glance, from the King! You should be satisfied—”

“I don’t want to hear about such things,” Eliza said. “It makes me cross that you would even mention such horrors. You have been drinking, Captain Bart.”

“You are right and I am wrong. I shall make it up to you: As it happens, I shall see the King in a few hours—I have been summoned to his levée! We will discuss naval finance. Is there anything you would like me to pass on to his majesty?”

What could she say? I don’t really mean to kill William of Orange was not the sort of message she could ask Captain Bart to blurt out at the levée; nor was I don’t really know precisely who it is I mean to kill.

“It is sweet of you to offer and I do forgive you. Does the King talk much at his levées, I wonder?”

“How should I know? Ask me tomorrow. Why?”

“Does he gossip, tell stories? I am curious. For I told him something, just now, that, if it were to get around, would make me very unpopular in England.”

“Pfft!” said Jean Bart, and rolled his eyes, dispensing with the entire subject of England.

“Do ask the King one thing for me, please.”

“Only name it, mademoiselle.”

“The name of a physician who is good down here.” She let her hand slide down a few inches and patted him. She did it with exquisite caution. But nonetheless Jean Bart yelped and jumped, his face split open in agony. Eliza gasped and jumped back in horror; but his grimace relaxed into a smile, and he lunged after her and snared her back, for he was only joking.

“I have already been to see such a physician.”

“That is good,” said Eliza, still laughing, “for I would see you sit down before you go home.”

“Fifty-two hours of rowing did its damage, this is true; but this physician has been at my arse with all manner of poultices, and unmentionable procedures, and I am healing well. And this is the best bandage of all!” brushing some lint from the epaulet of his new red coat.

“If only all wounds could be healed by putting on new clothes, monsieur!”

“Don’t all women believe this to be true?”

“Sometimes they behave as if they did, Captain Bart. Perhaps I simply have not picked out the right dress yet.”

“Then you should go shopping tomorrow!”

“It is a fine thought, Captain. But first I need some money. And as there is none in France, you must go out to sea and capture some gold for me.”

“Consider it done! I owe it to you!”

“Try to keep that in mind tomorrow, Jean Bart.”

Before dinner was served, the Duke and Duchess of Arcachon invited their guests—twenty-six in all—to stroll out to the gazebo, enjoy the breeze (for the day was warm), and take in the view of the Royal Château of Versailles, its gardens, and its waterways. From this distance it was difficult to make out individuals and impossible to hear voices, but large groups were obvious. Out in the town, beyond the Place d’Armes, the Franciscans had lit a bonfire before their monastery and were dancing around it in a circle; from time to time, a few notes of their song would blow past on a slip of breeze. Another revel was underway along the Grand Canal, a mile-long slot of water stretching away from the Château along the central axis of the King’s garden. From here, it was a milling mob of wigs. Even the stable-hands out in the Place d’Armes had got a bonfire going, which had attracted hundreds of commoners: townspeople, servants of Versailles and nearby villas, and country folk who had seen the pillars of smoke and heard the pealing of bells, and come in to find out what all the excitement was about. Many of these probably had only the haziest of ideas as to who William of Orange was and why it was good that he was dead; but this did not hold them back from lusty celebration.

They did so.

“The only event,” Étienne continued, “that could make the day more glorious would be a victory at sea, to match the one on land; and voilà, God has answered our prayers accordingly. The French Navy, of which my father has the high honor of being Grand Admiral, has routed the English and the Dutch off Beachy Head, and even now menaces the mouth of the River Thames. France is victorious on all fronts: on the sea, in Ireland, in Flanders, and in Savoy. To France!”

Now that was a toast. Everyone drank. Then it was “to the King!” and then “to the King of England!” meaning James Stuart, then “to Monsieur le duc!” which le duc had to sit out, since it was bad form to toast oneself. Servants scurried about cradling swaddled magnums and refilled glasses for the next round. Then M. le duc raised his glass: “To the Countess de la Zeur, who has done so much to give the Navy its sinews.” Which obliged Eliza to say, “To Captain Jean Bart who, they say, distinguished himself yet again off Beachy Head on his ship Alcyon!”

“Ah, it is a great day,” announced the Duke, who looked, in his formal Grand Admiral uniform, like a galleon on legs. He was saying it to his wife; but something occurred to him, and he added, “and it will only get better, for France, and for us. God willing.” His eyes turned in their sockets towards Eliza. As his head was covered in a wig, and the wig had an admiral’s hat planted athwart it, he did not like to turn his head from side to side if he could avoid it; such complicated maneuvers demanded as much prudent premeditation as tacking a three-masted ship.

Eliza, recognizing as much, sidestepped into the Duke’s field of view. “I cannot imagine why you look to me when you say this, Monsieur le duc,” she said.

“Soon, if I have my way, you shall hear from Étienne a certain proposition that shall make it all perfectly clear.”

“Is it anything like the proposition you have spoken of in your letters to me?”

The very mention of this made the Duke nervous, and his eyes flicked left and right to see if anyone had heard; but soon enough they returned to Eliza, who was smiling in a way that let him know she had been discreet. The Duke stepped forward in the cautious bent-kneed stride of an African matron with a basket of bananas on her head. “Don’t be coy, Étienne’s proposal will be of an entirely different nature! Though it’s true I should like to see both of them come together at the same time, in the autumn—say, October. My birthday. What do you say to it?”

Eliza shrugged. “I cannot answer, monseigneur, until I know more of both propositions.”

“We’ll get that sorted out! The boy is still young in many ways, you know—not too old to benefit from some fatherly advice, especially where affairs of the heart are concerned. I have been away too much, you know? Now that I am back—for a little while, at least—I shall talk to him, guide him, give him some backbone.”

By now the Duke had drawn close to Eliza. He had put on cologne recently, something Levantine, with a lot of citrus. It did not quite mask another odor which put Eliza in mind of rotting flesh. A bird, or some little scurrying creature, must have given up the ghost some days ago under the gazebo, and gone foul in the heat.

“Time for dinner soon,” said the Duke. “My time here is short. Meetings with the King, and the Council. Then to the Channel coast to greet the victorious Fleet. But after that I go south. I have already despatched orders to my jacht. You and I must talk. After dinner, I think. In the library, while the guests are strolling in the garden.”

“The library is where I shall be,” said Eliza, “at your service, and waiting for you to explain all of these cryptic statements.”

“Ah, I shall not explain all!” said the Duke, amused. “Only enough—just enough. That will suffice.”

Eliza’s head snapped around to a new azimuth, and her attention settled on a group of guests, mostly men, who had migrated off the marble floor of the gazebo and gathered on the gravel path to smoke. It was rude to break off her conversation with the Duke in such a way. But her movement had not been voluntary. It had been occasioned by a word, spoken loudly, by one of these men. The word was une esclave, which signified, a slave—a female slave. The speaker was Louis Anglesey, the Earl of Upnor. He was nominally an Englishman. But he had spent so much of his life in France that he was indistinguishable, in his speech, dress, and mannerisms, from a French noble. He had come over with James Stuart following the Revolution in England, and become an important man in the exiled King’s court at St.-Germain-en-Laye. This was not the first time Eliza had seen him socially.

It was not unusual to hear the word esclave in such company. Many at Versailles made money from the slave trade. But normally the word was used in masculine, plural form, to denote a ship-full of cargo bound for some plantation in the Caribbean. The singular, feminine form was rare enough to have turned Eliza’s head.

In the corner of her eye, she saw the pale oval of some woman’s face turn around to stare at her. Eliza had reacted so sharply that someone else had taken notice of it. She needed to control her reactions better. She wondered who it was; but to look over and find out would be obvious. She forced herself not to, and tried instead to memorize a few things about this lady who was giving her the eye: tall, and dressed in pink silk.

Having settled that, Eliza turned her attention back to Upnor and his circle of admirers.

James Stuart and his French advisors phant’sied that, once they had retaken Ireland, they might move thence to Qwghlm, which could be used as a sort of outlying demilune-work from which to mount an invasion of northern England. This had at least something to do with Eliza’s popularity at the two Courts: the French one at Versailles, and the exile-English one at St.-Germain. Consequently she had seen and heard enough of Upnor, in the last half-year, to know the first parts of this story by heart. It was the tale of the day he had made his escape from England.

He had sent his household ahead of him to Castle Upnor, where they had made ready to board ship and sail to France as soon as he arrived. For he had stayed behind in London, supposedly at great risk, to attend to certain matters of stupendous importance. These matters were, however, far too deep and mystical for Upnor to say anything about them in mixed company. This suggested that they had something to do with Alchemy, or at least that he wished as many people as possible to believe so. “I could not allow certain information to fall into the hands of the usurper and those of his lackeys who pretend to know of matters that are, in truth, beyond their ken.”

At any rate, after completing his affairs in London, Upnor had mounted a stallion (he was a horse-fancier, and so this part of the anecdote was never related without many details concerning this horse’s ancestry, which was more distinguished than that of most human beings) and set off a-gallop for Castle Upnor, accompanied by a pair of squires and a string of spare mounts. They had departed from London around dawn and ridden hard all morning along the south bank of the Thames. From place to place, the river road would cross some tributary of the great river, and there would be a bridge or ford that all traffic must use.

In the middle of one such bridge, out in the countryside, they had spied a lone man on horseback, wearing common clothes, but armed; and it had appeared from his posture that he was waiting.

“I knew this stretch of road well,” Upnor was saying, “and so I dispatched one of my squires—a young chap name of Fenleigh—to ride down a side-track that angled away from the main road and led to a ford half a mile upstream of the bridge.” He was scratching out a crude map on the gravel path with the tip of his walking-stick.

“With my other companion, I proceeded deliberately up the main road, keeping a sharp eye for any confederates who might be lurking in hedges near the approaches to the bridge. But there were none—the horseman was alone!” This puzzled or fascinated the listeners. It was another odd twist on the usual rustic-ruffian tale; normally, the shrubs would be infested with club-wielding knaves.

“The horseman must have noted the way in which we were peering about, for he called out: ‘Do not waste time, my lord, ’tis not an ambuscado. I am alone. You are not. Accordingly, I challenge you to a duel, my blade ’gainst yours, no seconds.’ And he drew out a spadroon, which is an abominable sort of implement, just the sort of thing you would expect commoners to invent if you make the mistake of suffering them to bear arms. More brush-cutter than weapon really. Sharpened on one side like a cutlass.”

Upnor, of course, was telling the story in French. He gave the ruffian the most vulgar rural accent he could manage. He devoted a minute or two to dilating on the pathetic condition of the knave’s horse, which was one step away from the knacker and exhausted to boot.

Upnor was clever enough to tell the story in a deadpan style. “I was…more…befuddled than anything else. I answered: ‘You have me at a disadvantage, sirrah—perhaps if you tell me who you are, I’ll at least know why you want to kill me.’

“ ‘I am Bob Shaftoe,’ he answered.”

This, as it always did, caused a hush to descend over Upnor’s listeners.

“ ‘Any relation to Jacques?’ I asked him.” (For the same question was on the minds of those who were gathered around Upnor listening.)

“He answered, ‘His brother.’ To which I said, ‘Come away with me to France, Bob Shaftoe, and I shall put you on a galley in the sunny Mediterranean—perhaps you may cross paths with your brother there!’ ”

Upnor’s audience loved to hear this. For they all knew of Jacques Shaftoe, or L’Emmerdeur as he was called in these parts. The name did not come up in conversation as frequently as it had a couple of years ago, for nothing had been heard from L’Emmerdeur since he had crashed a party at the Hôtel Arcachon and made a disgraceful scene there, in the presence of the King, in the spring of 1685. Precisely what had taken place there on that night was rarely spoken of, at least when members of the de Lavardac family were within earshot. From this, Eliza gathered that it was dreadfully embarrassing to them all. Because Eliza was now linked, in most people’s minds, to the family de Lavardac, they extended her the same courtesy of never talking about the events of that evening. Eliza had given up on ever finding out what had really happened there. Jack Shaftoe, who for a time had been a sort of hobgoblin of the French Court, a name to make people jump out of their skins, had dwindled to quasi-legendary status and was rapidly being forgotten altogether. From time to time he would appear as a figure in a picaresque roman.

Upnor continued with the narration. “This Robert Shaftoe said, ‘Jack and I have long been estranged, and my errand has naught to do with him.’

“I asked him, ‘Why do you bar my progress, then?’

“He said, ‘I say that you are about to take out of this country something that does not rightfully belong to you.’

“I said, ‘Are you accusing me of being a thief, sirrah?’

“He said, ‘Worse. I say you pretend to own a slave: an English girl named Abigail Frome.’

“I said, ‘There’s no pretense in that, Bob Shaftoe. I own her as absolutely as you own that wretched pair of boots on your feet, and I’ve the papers to prove it, signed and sealed by my lord Jeffreys.’

“He said, ‘Jeffreys is in Tower. Your King is in flight. And if you do not give me Abigail, you shall be in the grave.’

Now Upnor had his audience rapt; not only because it was a good story, but because he had managed to connect the half-forgotten, but still powerful name of Jack Shaftoe to the late upheavals in England. Of course the French nobility were fascinated by the recent tendency of the English to chop off their kings’ heads and chase them out of the country. They were helpless in their fascination at the thought that William of Orange and his English allies must somehow be in conspiracy with all the world’s Vagabonds.

DINNER WAS DINNER. Dead things cooked, and sauced so that one could not guess how long they had been dead. A few early vegetables; but the winter had run long and the growing season had started late, so not much was ripe yet. Some very heavy and sweet delicacies that the Duke had imported from Egypt.

Eliza was seated across from the duchesse d’Oyonnax and tried to avoid meeting her eye. She was a big woman, but not fat, though middle-aged. She wore a lot of jewels, which was risqué in these times (she really ought to pawn them for the War, or, barring that, hide them), but she carried it off well; in this her size helped. Eliza was irked by this woman: by her physical presence, her wealth, what she had done, but most of all by her confidence. Other women, she knew, disliked Eliza because they envied her confidence, and so Eliza was startled to observe a similar reaction in herself to Madame la duchesse d’Oyonnax.

“How is your little orphan?” the Duchess asked Eliza, at one point. To bring this up was either naïve, or rude, and it caused a few heads to twitch their way—like housecats alert to faint fidgeting.

“Oh, I do not think of him as mine any more, but God’s,” Eliza returned, “and anyway he is not so little now: a year old—or so we think, as there is no way to be sure precisely when he was born—and walking around already. Creating no end of trouble for the nurses.”

This elicited a few chuckles from those who had small children. It was a well-crafted reply on Eliza’s part, calculated to place defenses athwart all possible axes of attack from Oyonnax; but the Duchess responded only with an unreadable gaze, seeming almost nonplussed, and dropped the topic.

“What is it?” asked Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon.

“The report was false,” he said. “The Franciscans will have to douse their bonfire. William of Orange is not dead.”

“But we had reliable news that he was struck from the saddle by a cannonball,” said the Earl of Upnor—who, being a man of some importance in James Stuart’s army, got all the latest intelligence.

“And so he was. But he is not dead.”

“How is that possible?” And the table went into an uproar over it, which did not die down for twenty minutes. Eliza found herself thinking of Bob Shaftoe, who must be there at this battle on the Boyne, if he had not died of disease over the winter. Then she happened to glance up, and once again saw the green eyes of the Duchess of Oyonnax gazing at her interestedly.

“NOW, AS TO THE TRANSACTION,” said the Duke, once he had got his pipe lit. The fragrance of the smoke was welcome, for the dead-animal smell Eliza had noticed out at the gazebo seemed to have followed them into the drawing-room. She was of a mind to go and throw the doors open, to admit some rose-scented air from the gardens; but that would have defeated the purpose of a private meeting in this place.

“It’s going to involve moving a lot of silver. I want you to go to Lyon and make the arrangements.”

“Will the silver actually be passing through Lyon, then, or—”

“Oh yes. You shall see it. This is not just a Dépôt sort of manipulation.”

“Then why Lyon? It is not the best place.”

“I know. But you see, it will come off of my jacht at Marseille. From there, Lyon is easy to reach—right up the Rhône, of course.”

“It makes sense, then. It is safer than any alternative. Tell me, is it coined?”

“No, mademoiselle.”

“Oh. I had assumed it would be pieces of eight.”

“No. It is pigs. Good metal, mind you, but not coined.”

“It makes more sense to me as we go along. You do not wish to be moving uncoined silver around, any more than you must. You want instead a Bill of Exchange, payable in Paris.”

“Yes, that is it precisely.”

“Very well. There are several houses in Lyon that can do this.”

“Indeed. And normally I would not care which one of them handled it. But in this case, I specifically want you not to use the House of Hacklheber. I have reason to believe that the old ogre, Lothar, will be most unhappy with me after the transaction goes through.” And the Duke laughed.

“I see. May I guess, from this hint, that it has something to do with piracy?”

Plainly the Duke thought this a stupid question. But he was polished, and handled it in good form. “That is the word that Lothar will attach to it, no doubt, in order to justify any…retaliations he may contemplate. But the method is normal, in a war. I am sure you will see nothing unusual in it, mademoiselle, given that you are such a friend of Jean Bart, and that along with the Marquis d’Ozoir you are a direct supporter of his exploits?” He laughed again, with gusto; and she felt his breath on her face, and with some trepidation drew it into her nostrils, and smelled death. It reminded her of something in addition to death, however.

“You look peaked, mademoiselle. Are you all right?”

“The air is stuffy.”

“We shall go outside, then! I have nothing further to say, other than that you should plan to be in Lyon no later than the end of August.”

“Shall I see you there?”

“It is not known. There is another aspect of this transaction, which has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with the honor of my family. It is a matter of personal revenge, which need not concern you. I must tend to it myself, of course—that’s the whole point! No telling where or when exactly. Nevertheless, you may count on my being back in Paris, at the Hôtel Arcachon, for my birthday party on the fourteenth of October. It shall be splendid. I am already making the plans. The King will be there, mademoiselle. You and I shall see each other then and there, and if Étienne has done the honorable thing, why, then I shall expect a blessed announcement!”

He turned and offered his arm to Eliza, who took it, trying not to recoil from the smell of him. “I am certain it shall all come to pass just as you say, monsieur,” she said. “But as I go outside with you, I should like to change the subject, if I may, to horses.”

“Horses! It is a welcome change of subject! I am a great fancier of them.”

“Indeed!”

“Seeing this, I phant’sied that such horses must be very popular among the Quality here, and that, in consequence, I could expect to see many more of them, in the stables of the King and of the many other nobles who live in these parts. But this has not been the case.”

“I should hope not! For the entire point of having them is that they are rare. They are distinctive. They are of Turkish stock.”

“May I ask who you bought them from? Is there some breeder hereabouts who has connections in the Levant?”

“Yes, mademoiselle,” said the Duke, “and he has the honor of being on your arm at this moment. For it is I who imported the Pasha to France some years ago, from Constantinople, via Algiers, in an unfathomably complex exchange of assets—”

“The Pasha?”

“A stud, mademoiselle, an albino stallion, the father of all the others!”

“He must have been magnificent.”

“Is magnificent, for he still lives!”

“Really?”

“He is old, and does not venture out of the stables so often, but on a warm evening such as this, you may go down to the paddock and see him stretching his stiff old legs.”

“When did you import the Pasha?”

“When? Let me see, it would have been ten years ago.”

“Are you certain?”

“No, no, what am I saying!? Time passes so quickly, I quite lose track. It would have been eleven years ago this summer.”

“Thank you for satisfying my curiosity, and escorting me out to your beautiful garden, monsieur,” said Eliza, bending to one side to bury her nose in a rose—and to hide her reaction from the Duke. “I shall go for a stroll now, by myself, to clear my head. Perhaps I shall go down and pay my respects to the Pasha.”

Eliza had seen, on occasion, crying of an altogether different nature: wild, hair-pulling, clothes-rending, spine-warping tear-rage. It had never happened to her, though, and she did not really ken it, until that evening when she walked down to the paddock out behind the stables of the Duc d’Arcachon, on the Plateau of Satory, and found herself standing face to face with Pasha: an albino Arabian stallion whom she had last encountered at dockside in the harbor of Algiers, eleven years ago. She and her mother had been snatched from the beach of Outer Qwghlm by a coastal raiding-galley of the Barbary Corsairs, and taken off into slavery; but presently they had learned that these Corsairs were operating in concert with a Christian ship. For they had spent the entire journey to Algiers being molested in a dark cabin by an uncircumcised man with white skin, who liked to dine on rotten fish. Delivered to Algiers, they had been assigned to a banyolar and become assets of some enterprise there, of which it was not possible to know very much, save that it imported certain goods—including slaves—from Christendom, exporting in exchange silks, perfumes, blades, delicacies, spices, and other luxuries of the East. When Eliza had reached puberty, she had been traded to Constantinople in exchange for this stallion—though according to what the Duke had just claimed, the exchange had been much more complicated than that, which only added insult to injury, since it implied that Eliza, by herself, was not worth as much as this horse. She had vowed then and there to find the smelly man in the dark cabin and kill him one day. Christendom being a large place—France alone had twenty millions of souls—she had supposed that finding the villain might take a while.

She had been wrong-footed by the easiness of it. She had only been in Christendom for seven years! And it had only taken her two years to meet her first de Lavardac, and three or four to lay eyes, from a distance, on the duc d’Arcachon himself. Had she been a little more perceptive she might have recognized the duc for what he was, and done him in, a long time ago.

The tears that came over her, then, when she let herself into the paddock, and came face to face with Pasha, and saw and knew all, were to normal everyday tears as the burning of Mr. Sluys’s house had been to the flame of a candle. It raged up in her so fast that it seemed, for a few moments, as if it might have the power to burst free from the confines of her body and make blades of grass bend double and flood the pasture with salty dew, make Pasha crumple to his arthritic knees, blow the fences down, make the trees sag and groan as in an ice-storm. Which might have been better for Eliza; but as it was, this self-feeding vortex of sorrow, humiliation, and rage could not escape her ribcage, and so it was her ribs that took all the punishment. For once it was a good thing to be wearing a corset, for without that reinforcement she might have broken her own back with these sobs. Like the burning house of Sluys, she howled, she creaked, and the tears coming out of her felt no less hot than streams of molten lead. Fortunate it was for Eliza that all of the guests were gathered some distance away, deafened by their own happy uproar. The only witness was Pasha. A younger horse might have been spooked by the transmogrification of the Countess de la Zeur into a Fury, a Medea. Pasha merely turned sideways, the better to keep Eliza within view, and nuzzled the green grass.

“I have not the remotest idea what has come over you, mademoiselle,” said a woman’s voice. “It is quite the strangest reaction I have ever seen, to a horse.”

The Duchess of Oyonnax had timed the intrusion well. A minute before, Eliza wouldn’t have been able to stop herself even if the entire guest list had suddenly appeared around her. But the outburst had insensibly faded to a long slow run of sobs, which skidded to a halt when Eliza realized she was being watched.

She straightened up, took a deep breath, shuddered it out, and hiccuped. She must look red-faced and perfectly ridiculous; this she knew. She must look as if she hadn’t aged a day, in body or mind, since her first encounter with Pasha. This made her wince a little bit; for on that day, she had lost her mother forever; and now, all of a sudden, here she was with a bigger, older, richer and stronger woman, who had materialized just as suddenly and inexplicably as Mum had vanished eleven years ago. This was perilous.

And she paused, to give Eliza the opportunity; but Eliza said nothing.

The Duchess continued: “I understand situations of this type as perfectly as Monsieur Bonaventure Rossignol understands cyphers. I phant’sied my predicament unique in all the world, until I came to Versailles! It did not take me long to understand that no one need put up with such unfair situations. There are ways to arrange it. No one lives forever, mademoiselle, and many do not deserve to live as long as they do.”

“I know what you are talking about,” said Eliza. Her voice sounded quite strange at first, as though it belonged to a different Eliza altogether, one who had just been born screaming out of the old. She cleared her burnt throat and swallowed painfully. She could not keep her eyes from straying over to the shack where the Duchess had her soap made.

“I see that you do,” said the Duchess.

“There is nothing you could say to me that would change my intentions.”

“Of course not, proud girl!”

“My ends are fixed, and have been for many years. But as to means, it is possible that I might benefit from advice. For I do not care what happens to me; but if I pursue my ends through means that are obvious, it could lead to the little one in the orphanage being injured.”

“Then know that you are in the most tasteful and cultivated society the world has ever seen,” said the Duchess, “where there is a refined and subtle way of doing anything that a person could conceive a wish for. And it would be disgraceful for one of your quality to go about it in a rude and obvious style.”

“I would that you know one thing, which is that this is not about succession. It is not a matter of inheritance. It is a question of honor.”

“So much for lonely hearts, desperate for love,” said Eliza. “What of those who were married, and whose husbands dropped dead? Did they act out of love?”

“Do you propose to act out of love, mademoiselle? I have not heard the word love escape your pretty mouth. I heard something about honor instead; which tells me that you and I have more in common than you would like to admit. You are not the only woman in the world who is capable of taking offense at a violation of her honor, and who has the steel to respond. Tout le monde knows that Étienne de Lavardac seduced you—”

Eliza snorted. “Do you think it’s that? I don’t care about that.”

“Frankly, mademoiselle, I could not care less why it is that you want your marriage to be brief and your widowhood long.”

“Oh, no. It is not Étienne who deserves this.”

“The duc d’Arcachon, then? Very well. There is no accounting for taste. But you must understand that refinement is not compatible with haste. If you want the Duke dead now, go and stab him. If you want to enjoy his being dead for a little while, and to see your orphan grow up, you will have to be patient.”

“I can be patient,” Eliza said, “until the fourteenth of October.”

WITH ONE EYE JACK peered through his oar-lock across the gulf. He was looking edge-on through a slab of dry heat that lay dead on the water, as liquefacted glass rides above molten tin in a glass-maker’s pan. On a low flat shore, far away, white cabals of ghosts huddled and leaped, colossal and formless. None of the slaves quite knew what to make of it until they crawled in closer to shore, a cockroach on a skillet, and perceived that this Gulf was lined with vast salt-pans, and the salt had been raked up into cones and hillocks and step-pyramids by workers who were invisible from here. When they understood this, their thirst nearly slew them. They had been rowing hard for days.

He and Moseh de la Cruz, Vrej Esphahnian, and Gabriel Goto were all looking to one another for answers, and somehow they all ended up looking to Otto van Hoek. “I smell raw cotton,” he said. Then he stood up and looked out over the gunwale and up into the city. “And I see cargadores toting bales of it into the warehouses of the Genoese. Cotton, being bulky, would be the first cargo to come off the ships. So they cannot have dropped anchor very long ago.”

“Still, it is likely we are too late—surely the Viceroy’s brig would waste no time in going to Bonanza and unloading?” This from the raïs or captain, Nasr al-Ghuráb.

“It depends,” van Hoek said. “Of these anchored fleet-ships, only some are beginning to unload—most have not broken bulk yet. This suggests that the customs inspections are not finished. What do you see to larboard, Caballero?”

Jeronimo was peering towards the anchored fleet through an oar-lock on his side. “Tied up alongside one of the great ships is a barque flying the glorious colors of His Majesty the Deformed, Monstrous Imbecile.” Then he paused to mutter a little prayer and cross himself. When Jeronimo attemped to say the words “King Carlos II of Spain,” this, or even less flattering expressions, would frequently come out of his mouth. “More than likely, this is the boat used by the tapeworms.”

“You mean the customs inspectors?” Moseh inquired.

“Yes, you bloodsucking, scalp-pilfering, half-breed Christ-killer, that is what I meant to say—please forgive my imprecision,” answered Jeronimo politely.

“But the Viceroy’s brig would not have to clear customs here at Cadiz—it could do so at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and avoid the wait,” Moseh pointed out.

“But as part of his ransackings, the Viceroy would be certain to have cargo of his own loaded on some of these galleons. He would have every reason to linger until the formalities were complete,” Jeronimo said.

“Hah! Now I can see up into the Calle Nueva,” said van Hoek. “It is gaudy with silks and ostrich-plumes today.”

“What is that,” Jack asked, “the street of clothes-merchants?”

“I see her,” said Jeronimo, with a frosty calm in his voice that Jack found moderately alarming. “She is hidden behind a galleon, but I see the Viceroy’s colors flying from her mast.”

“The brig!?” said several of the Ten.

“The brig,” said Jeronimo. “Providence—which buggered us all for so many years—has brought us here in time.”

“So the thunder that rolled across the Gulf last night was not a storm, but the guns of Cadiz saluting the galleons,” Moseh said. “Let us drink fresh water, and take a siesta, and then make for Bonanza.”

“It would be useful if we could send someone into the city now, and let him loiter around the House of the Golden Mercury for a while,” van Hoek said. Which to Jack would have meant no more than the singing of birds, except that the name jogged a memory.

“There is a house in Leipzig of the same name—it is owned by the Hacklhebers.”

Van Hoek said, “As salmon converge from all the wide ocean toward the mouths of swift rivers, Hacklhebers go wherever large amounts of gold and silver are in flux.”

“Why should we care about their doings in Cadiz?”

“Because they are sure to care about ours,” van Hoek said.

“Be that as it may, there’s not a single man, free or slave, aboard this galleot who could get through the city-gate. So this discussion is idle,” said Moseh.

“You think it will be any different at Sanlúcar de Barrameda?” van Hoek scoffed.

“Oh, I can get us into that town, Cap’n,” Jack said.

The galleot was shaped like a gunpowder scoop. Beneath the bare feet of the oarsmen there was loose planking, covering a shallow bilge, but other than that there was no decking—the vessel was open on the top along its entire length, save for a quarterdeck at the stern, which in the typical style of these vessels was curved very high out of the water. So any lookout gazing down into the galleot would clearly see a few dozen naked wretches in chains, and cargo packed around and under their benches: rolled carpets, bundles of hides and of linen, barrels of dates and olive oil. A spindly swivel-gun at the bow, and another at the stern, both fouled by lines and cargo, completed the illusion that the galleot was all but helpless. It would take a closer inspection to reveal that the oarsmen were uncommonly strong and fresh: the best that the slave-markets of Algiers had to offer. The ten participants in the Plan were distributed in outboard positions, the better to peer through oarlocks.

“In this calm we’ll have at least a night and a day to await the Viceroy’s ship,” Jack noted.

“Much hangs on the tides,” van Hoek said. “We want a low tide in the night-time. And the weather must remain calm, so that we can row away from any pursuers during the hours of darkness. At sunrise the wind will come up, and then anyone who can see us will be able to catch us…” His voice trailed off to a mumble as he pondered these and other complications, which had seemed hardly worth mentioning when they had been developing the Plan, and now, like shadows at sunset, stretched out vast, vague, and terrifying.

“Speaking personally,” Jack said loudly, “I have more experience of sewers than of mountain streams, and cannot believe we have come all this distance to row in circles in the run-off of Seville and Cordoba!”

Jeronimo thrust out his chest and prepared to challenge Jack to a duel—but then the nerf du boeuf came down across the Spaniard’s shoulder blades as their overseer reminded them that they were yet slaves. Jack wondered how long it would take Jeronimo to get into a sword-fight after he was allowed to have a sword.

The next few hours provided more reminders of their lowly station in the world as they stroked upstream with the sun clawing at their faces. Van Hoek cursed almost without letup, and Jack reflected that, for an officer, nothing could be more humiliating than to face backwards, and never see where you were headed. But at some point they began to see tops of masts around them, and heard the blessed sound of the anchor-chains rumbling through their hawse-holes, and bent forward over their warm oars to stretch out the muscles of their backs.

Nasr al-Ghuráb, the raïs, was kul oglari, meaning the son of a Janissary by a woman native to the territory round Algiers—in any event, he spoke passable Spanish as well as Sabir. In the latter tongue, he now said, “Bring out the spare wretches.” Planking was pulled up and four damp oar-slaves climbed out of the bilge and quickly replaced Jack, Moseh, Jeronimo, and van Hoek. This took place under cover of a sail that had been spread out above them as if to be mended, so that any curious sailors who might be looking down from a yard or maintop of a nearby ship would not witness the ennoblement going on in the aisle of this newly arrived galleot. Meanwhile—in case anyone was counting heads—four of the Corsair crew retreated beneath the shade of the quarterdeck to take refreshment and doze. A canvas sack full of old clothes—looted from persons who were now captives in Algiers—was also brought up, and the four began to paw through it like children playing dress-up.

“Turbans are advisable for going abovedecks,” Jack pointed out, “as my hair’s sandy, and van Hoek’s is red, and that of Moseh—”

They all stood and looked dubiously at Moseh until finally he said, “Get me a dagger and I’ll cut off the forelocks—crypto-Jews can expect no better.”

“May you become free and rich and grow them until you must tuck them into your boot-tops,” Jack said.

They spent the last hour before sunset up on the towering quarterdeck turbaned, and covered in the long loose garments of Algerines. The town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda rose above them on the south bank where the river flowed into the gulf. It resembled a feeble miniature rendition of Algiers—it was encompassed by a wall, and below it spread a beach of river-sand where some fishermen had spread out their nets to inspect them. Van Hoek gave the town but a glance, then seized a glass from the raïs, climbed up the mast, and devoted much time to scanning the water: apparently reading the currents, and fixing in his mind the location of the submerged bar. Moseh’s attention was captured by a suburb that spread along the bank upstream of the town, outside the walls: Bonanza. It seemed to consist entirely of large villas, each with its own wall. After a while the avid Jeronimo spied the Viceroy’s coat of arms flying from one of these, or so they all assumed from the invective that geysered forth.

Jack, for his part, was looking for a place to land their little rowboat after it got dark. In the interstices between walled places he could easily make out a fungal huddle of Vagabond-shacks, and with some concerted looking it was not difficult to make out a scrap of mucky, useless river-bank where those persons came down to draw water. Jack got a compass bearing to it, though it remained to be seen how this would serve them when it was dark and the current was pushing them downstream.

“’Twere foolish to go ashore in daylight,” Jeronimo said, “and, when night falls, ’twere foolish not to. For smuggling and illicit trade are the only reasons for anyone to visit Sanlúcar de Barrameda nowadays. If we don’t try to do something illegal the night we arrive—why, the authorities will become suspicious!”

“If someone asks…what kind of illegal thing should we say we are undertaking?” Jack asked.

“We should say we have a meeting with a certain Spanish gentleman—but that we do not know his real name.”

“Spanish gentlemen, as a rule, are insufferably proud of their names—what sort refuses to identify himself?”

“The sort who meets with heretic scum in the middle of the night,” Jeronimo returned, “and fortunately for you, there are many of that sort in yonder town.”

“That schooner is strangely over-crowded with Englishmen and Dutchmen of high rank,” van Hoek offered, pointing with his blue eyes at a rakish vessel anchored a few hundred yards downriver.

“Spies,” Jeronimo said.

“What is to spy on here?” Jack asked.

“If Spain took all of the silver on those treasure-galleons in the harbor of Cadiz, and locked it up, the foreign trade of Christendom would wither,” Moseh explained. “Half the trading companies in London and Amsterdam would go bankrupt within the year. William of Orange would declare war on Spain before he allowed such a thing to happen. Those spies are here, and probably in Cadiz as well, to inform William of whether a war will be necessary this year.”

“Why would the Spaniards want to hoard it?”

“Because Portugal has opened vast new gold mines in Brazil, and—as Dappa can tell you—supplied them with numberless slaves. In the next ten years, the amount of gold in the world will rise extravagantly and its price, compared to that of silver, will naturally decline.”

“So the price of silver is certain to rise…” Jack said.

“Giving Spaniards every incentive to hoard it now.”

Night came over Spain as they stood there and talked, and lights were lit in the windows of Sanlúcar de Barrameda and in the great villas of Bonanza, where dinners were being cooked—Jeronimo had told them of the queer Spanish practice of dining late at night, and they had already made it part of the Plan. The rhythm of the waves, heaving themselves sluggishly against the beach at the foot of the town, underwent some sort of subtle change, or so van Hoek claimed. He spoke words in Dutch that meant “the tide is running out” and climbed down a pilot’s ladder into the galleot’s tiny skiff, which had been let down into the water. Here he took a kilderkin—a small keg, having a capacity of some eighteen gallons—removed one end, ballasted it with rocks, and planted a few candles in it. After lighting the candles he released it into the Guadalquivir, and then spent the better part of an hour watching it glide slowly out to sea. Jack meanwhile kept his eyes fixed on the landing-place that he had picked out on the river-bank, as slowly it faded and became a black void in a constellation of distant lanthorns.

“If the Plan is as leaky as that similitude, we are all as good as dead,” Jack muttered, once the gag was finally in place.

The arrival of all four of them would cause a commotion in the Vagabond-camp, or so Jack had managed to convince the other nine. So he waded into shore from a few yards out, then (reckoning no one could see him, and he was safe from mockery) fell to his knees on the strand, like a Conquistador, and kissed the dirt.

Here was the moment when he would simply disappear. He had never traveled down this way, but he had heard of this camp: it was supposed to be small but rich, an entrepôt for the better sort of Vagabond. A few days’ travel up the coast, then, a vast Vagabond city clung to the walls of Lisbon—from there, the way north was well-known. He reckoned that he could be in Amsterdam before winter, if he used himself hard. From there, the passage to London had always been easy, even when England and Holland had been at war—and now they were practically a single country.

This had been his secret Plan all along, and he’d spent more time working it out in his mind than he had following the numberless permutations and revisions of the Plan of Moseh. All he need do was walk up into the brush, and keep walking. This might be the doom of Moseh’s plan, or not—but (to the extent he’d paid attention at all) he suspected it was doomed anyway. Nothing that relied upon so many people could ever work.

But Jack’s feet did not move him thus. After a few moments he stood, and began to move carefully away from the river-bank, pausing every two steps to listen for movement or breathing around him. But he did not simply bolt. Somehow the commands that his mind sent toward his feet were blocked by his heart, or other organs. It might have been because others in the Cabal had shown him mercy and loyalty where Eliza had not. It might have been the smell of this Vagabond-camp and the wretched and loathsome appearance of the first people he spied, which reminded him of how poor and dirty Christendom was in general. Too, he was strangely curious to see how the Plan came out—somewhat like a spectator at a bear-baiting who was willing to pay money just to see whether the bear tore the dogs to bloody shreds, or the other way round.

Now, Jack really had no particular reason to care so much about said Duke—he was an evil rich man, but there were many of those. However, at one point when he’d been stupefied by Eliza, he had volunteered to kill that Duke one day. This was the closest he’d ever come to having a purpose in life (supporting his offspring was tedious and unattainable), and he had rather enjoyed it. D’Arcachon had now been so helpful as to reciprocate by attempting to hunt him down to the ends of the earth. Jack took a certain pride in that, seeing in it what his Parisian friend St.-George would call good form. To slink away now and live like a rat in East London, forever worrying about the Duke’s homicidal intentions, would be bad form indeed.

When Jack and his brother Bob, as boys, had done mock-battle in the Regimental mess-hall in Dorset, they had been rewarded for showing flourish and élan; and if soldiers threw meat at boys for showing good form, might not the world shower Jack with silver for the same virtue?

Even so, Jack’s mind was not entirely made up until he had been ashore for perhaps a quarter of an hour. He had been edging quietly round the nimbus of light cast by a Vagabond campfire, counting the people and judging their mood, straining to overhear snatches of zargon. Suddenly a silhouette rose up between him and the fire, no more than five yards away: a big man with a strangely mummified head, carrying a crossbow, drawn back and ready to shoot. It was Jeronimo—who must have been sent ashore, as part of the Plan, to hunt Jack through the woods and launch a bolt through his heart if he showed any sign of treachery.

This confirmed in Jack’s mind that he really must remain faithful to the Plan. Not out of fear—he could easily slip away from Jeronimo—but out of sentimentality of the cheapest and basest sort. For Jeronimo wanted to go back to Estremaduras as badly as any man had ever wanted anything, and yet he was about to turn his back on that place, which was almost within sight, and go off to face (in all likelihood) death. It was the most abysmally poignant thing Jack had ever witnessed outside of a theatre, it made his eyes water, and it settled his mind.

Now Jeronimo and van Hoek went off towards a smoky and riotous quarter near the waterfront while Jack and Moseh went to reconnoiter in a finer neighborhood up the hill. Moseh had no particular idea where they were going and so they walked up and down several streets, looking in the windows of the white buildings, before slowing down in front of one that was adorned with a golden figure of Mercury. Remembering Leipzig, Jack instinctively looked up. Though there were no mirrors on sticks here, he did see the red coal of a cigar flaring and then blurring into a cloud of exhaled smoke—a watcher on the rooftop. Moseh saw it, too, and took Jack’s arm and hustled him forward. But as they hurried past a window Jack turned his face toward the light and glimpsed a molten vision from his pox-scarred memories: a bald head surmounting wreaths of fat, looming above a table where several men—mostly fair-haired—sat eating and talking.

When they had gotten some distance down the street, Jack said: “I saw Lothar von Hacklheber in there. Or perhaps it was a painting of him, hung on the wall to preside over the table—but no, I’m sure I saw his jaw moving. No painter could’ve captured that cannonball brow, the furious eyes.”

“I don’t doubt you,” Moseh said. “So van Hoek must have been right. Let us go and find the others.” Moseh turned his steps downhill.

“What was the purpose of that reconaissance?”

“Before you make mortal enemies, it is wise to know who they are,” Moseh said. “Now we know.”

“Lothar von Hacklheber?”

Moseh nodded.

“I should’ve thought our enemy was the Viceroy.”

“Outside of Spain, the Viceroy has no power. The same is hardly true of Lothar.”

“Why does the House of Hacklheber have aught to do with it?”

Moseh said, “Suppose you live in a house in Paris. You have a water-carrier who is supposed to come once a day. Usually he does, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes his buckets are full, sometimes they are half-empty. But your house is a large one and requires water in small amounts all the time.”

“That is why such houses have cisterns,” Jack said.

“Spain is a large house. It requires money all the time, to purchase goods from other countries, such as quicksilver from the mines of Istria and grain from the north. But its money arrives once a year, when the treasure-fleet drops anchor at Cadiz—or, formerly, here. The treasure-fleet is like the water-carrier. The banks of Genoa and of Austria have, for hundreds of years, served—”

“As money-cisterns, I see,” Jack said.

“Yes.”

“But Lothar von Hacklheber is not a Genoese name, unless I am mistaken,” Jack said.

“About sixty years ago Spain went bankrupt for a time, which amounts to saying that the Genoese bankers did not get paid what was due them, and fell on hard times. Various mergings and marriages of convenience occurred as a result. The center of banking moved northward. That, in a nutshell, is how the Hacklhebers came to have a fine house in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. And, I would guess, a finer one in Cadiz.”

“But Lothar is here,” Jack said, “meaning—?”

“He probably intends to take delivery of the silver pigs that we are going to steal tomorrow, and pay the Viceroy with something else—gold, perhaps, which would be better for one who wanted to spend much soon.”

In a few minutes’ nosing around the lower precincts, dodging brawlers and politely declining offers from whores, they located van Hoek and Jeronimo, who were posing, respectively, as a Dutch commerçant wanting to smuggle cloth to America on the next outgoing ship (which would have been illegal, because the Dutch were heretics), and his Spanish conspirator, who’d recently had his tongue cut out for some reason. They were in a tavern, conversing with a seamy-looking Spanish gentleman who, oddly enough, spoke good Dutch—a cargador metedoro who acted as a Catholic front man for Protestant exporters. Jack and Moseh walked past the table to let it be known that they were here, and then staked out the tavern’s exits in case of trouble—which was not really much use, since they were still unarmed, but seemed like good form. There they waited for a while, as van Hoek conversed with the cargador. The conversation proceeded fitfully in that this Spaniard appeared to be participating in two card-games at once, and losing money at both. Jack could see he was one of those men who are not right in the head when it comes to gambling, and was tempted to join in and fleece him, but it did not seem meet just now.

IN MID-MORNING, van Hoek began sending up spouts of pipe-smoke that swirled up through beams of hot sun and began migrating upriver—evidence of a breeze too faint for Jack to feel on his skin. This pleased everyone (because it suggested the brig could sail up from Cadiz today) except for van Hoek (who took it as a sign that the weather might be changing). The Dutchman spent the day pacing up and down the galleot’s central catwalk, just like a slave-driver, save that instead of cracking a whip he was fussing endlessly with his pipe and gazing balefully at the sky. It was senseless, Jack thought, to exert so much grim attention on weather that was not really changing. Then—brushing past van Hoek in the aisle—he came close enough to make out some of his words, and understood that the Dutchman was not cursing the elements, but rather praying. And he was not praying for the success of the Plan, but for his own immortal soul. Van Hoek had rowed as a slave for years because he refused to turn Turk. The Cabal had managed to convince him, through long debates on the roof of the banyolar, that the Plan did not really amount to piracy, because the Viceroy’s silver pigs were contraband to begin with, and the Viceroy himself a sort of landlubber Corsair. Finally van Hoek had accepted their arguments, or claimed to. But today he seemed to be in fear of hellfire.

Meanwhile, preparations were under way beneath the quarterdeck, and on those parts of the oar-deck that could be concealed under sails. The common slaves were encouraged to eat, drink, and rest. Members of the Cabal mostly unpacked certain strange goods, and organized them. In the rigging above, Corsairs adorned the masts and yards with a whorish gaudy array of banners and streamers.

The only pause in this work occurred in mid-afternoon, when the Viceroy’s brig—flying its own gorgeous panoply of banners—came up the coast. At first, Moseh and several other Cabal-men were nearly frantic with anxiety that she would reach the Viceroy’s palace with plenty of daylight remaining, and that the treasure would be unloaded this afternoon, before their eyes. But after firing a salute, which was answered by several guns on the city’s walls, she paused outside the infamous barra, and sent out a longboat to take soundings, and then bided her time for an hour or two, allowing the tide to rise a bit. Then she raised more canvas and rode that tide up into the river. Van Hoek lay flat on the oar-deck, poked his spyglass out through an oar-lock, and gazed upon the brig with the dumbfounded intensity of a stalking cat.

Her progress up the river was no quicker. When she entered the estuary her sails went slack. After maundering about for a while she struck her canvas altogether. Then long sweeps felt their way out through ports in a lower deck. The brig’s crew began to pull on them and she crawled towards Bonanza yawing and faltering in the confusion of the river’s current and the tide.

This gave the raïs, Nasr al-Ghuráb, more than enough time to have the galleot’s anchors weighed—a tedious job that involved eight slaves circling a windlass as free crewmen worked the messenger cable. The galleot got under way not long after the brig had passed by, and soon drew abeam of the larger, slower ship, then began to draw in closer as both vessels worked upriver. As soon as they had come within hailing distance, Mr. Foot ascended to the quarterdeck, garbed in a flame-colored silk caftan; raised a polished brass speaking-trumpet to his lips; and launched into a peroration. No one would ever guess he had been rehearsing it for months. His Spanish was so miserable that it actually caused Jeronimo (naked, and pulling on an oar) to flinch and writhe in agony. To the extent that Mr. Foot’s words conveyed meaning at all, he was trying to convince the Spaniards on the Viceroy’s brig that they really ought to be interested in certain splendiferous goods that he, Mr. Foot, the owner and captain of this galleot, had of late brought out of the Orient—particularly, carpets. He ordered a carpet to be hoisted up from a lug, as if it were a sail.

On the decks of the brig, now, a kind of split developed between labor and management: the ordinary seamen (at least, the ones not pulling on sweeps) seemed to find the ludicrous appearance of the galleot, and the spectacle of the incoherent Mr. Foot, a welcome entertainment. They began shouting rude things to him from various tops and ratlines, trying to provoke him. But the officers, true to form, were not amused, and kept shouting at Mr. Foot to keep his distance. Mr. Foot only cupped one hand to his ear and pretended not to understand, and ordered more and gaudier carpets to be hoisted from all available spars. They had loaded the galleot by making the rounds of the least reputable rug merchants of Algiers and hauling away their most immobile stock.

Gazing aft from his bench, Jack saw van Hoek at work, hidden beneath the quarterdeck, making sketches of the brig’s rigging. These would be useful to Jack later, because he had heard more of these events than he’d seen. As they had drawn close to the brig, though, he had been able to look up into the spyglasses of two Spanish officers who had ascended to the maintop. If the Cabal hadn’t already known that the brig was full of treasure, they might have guessed as much from this show of alertness. For their pains, the Spanish officers saw nothing more than a few dozen chained wretches, a very modest number of freemen, and nothing in the way of weaponry. More to the point, they got a good long look at the galleot: enough to fix it in their memories, so that they’d recognize it in an instant when they saw it again.

There was a bit of flailing about—enough to convince the captain of the Viceroy’s brig that these rug-pedlars had been scared out of their wits—then the big drum began to thump a brisk tempo and the slaves applied themselves to their work. The galleot sprang upriver, leaving the brig behind. After about half an hour, the drum was silenced and the galleot dropped anchor once more, this time in a place some distance above Bonanza where the river oozed through brackish marshes. Jack was released from his irons immediately and climbed halfway up the mainmast, whence he could gaze back downriver and observe the final quarter-hour of the brig’s several-month-long journey from Vera Cruz to Bonanza. At sunset she finally dropped anchor below the Viceroy’s villa, and the sound of cheering and celebratory gunfire drifted up the river. A lighter came out from a quay to collect the Viceroy and his wife and take them home.

Later, Dappa, watching through a spyglass, announced that a guard had been posted on the quay: perhaps a dozen musketeers, as well as a swivel-gun for taking pot-shots at anything that came within range looking shootable. But other than a boat-load of what appeared to be luggage, nothing came out of the brig before sundown, which meant nothing would come out of it until sunup.

“Is there anything downriver?” van Hoek asked significantly.

“Tomorrow, she’ll be flying French ones,” van Hoek said, “for that must be Météore—the Investor’s jacht.”

After dark, the Ten were free to move about, making no pretenses. The remaining slaves were distributed fairly among oars. Al-Ghuráb presented Jack with a long bundle wrapped in black cloth, and Jack was astonished to find it was his Janissary-sword. It was in a new scabbard, and it had been shined and sharpened, but Jack recognized it by the notch that had been made in its edge when it had collided with Brown Bess under Vienna. Apparently the weapon had lodged in some Corsair’s treasure-hoard during Jack’s captivity. Jack wanted in the worst way to belt it on, but it would only drown him if he tried to swim with it. So instead he put it to use by severing the galleot’s anchor cables. This would put them in a most awkward position if ever they wanted to stop the vessel again, for any reason. But after the events of the coming hours, to stop anywhere in Christendom would be suicide. And they could not afford to devote the better part of an hour to toiling with hawsers and cables just now. Having finished this errand, Jack handed the sword to Yevgeny, who was packing a certain bag.

During the winter storm season, this lot of slaves had (weather permitting) spent two hours a day rowing the galleot around the inner harbor of Algiers, learning to pull in unison without the need for a pounding drum. Now they emerged from the marshes without a sound—or so Jack managed to convince himself as he squatted in the bows with Dappa, slathering his naked body with a mixture of ox-grease and lamp-black. The galleot was making excellent time, helped along by the first stirrings of the out-going tide. Up on the splintery foothold that served as the galleot’s maintop, Vrej Esphahnian had taken over lookout duty. He claimed that he could now see currents of light flickering through the brush between Sanlúcar de Barrameda and Bonanza: hundreds (they hoped) of torch-carrying Vagabonds feeling their away through the darkness along the trails that the Cabal had marked out the night before, converging on the estate of the Viceroy, drawn by the rumor that, on the night of his return to the Old World, the Viceroy might hand out alms to the poor.

“Can you see anything of Météore?” van Hoek demanded.

“Maybe a lanthorn or two, out to sea beyond the bar—it is difficult to say.”

“Is it time for us to go yet?” Jack asked. “I smell like one of my dear mother’s charred rib-roasts, and would fain take a bath.”

“This would be a good time, I think,” van Hoek said.

“Please do not take it the wrong way,” said Mr. Foot, “but once again I wish you Godspeed, and Dappa as well.”

“This time I will accept it, or any other blessings sent my way,” Jack said.

“We’ll see you on the deck of that brig, or not at all,” Dappa said. Then he and Jack jumped off into the river.

If Jack had been in his right mind, and if he had known he would one day become involved in a Plan such as this one, he never would have divulged, to his fellow oarsmen, the information that he had grown up a mudlark in East London, and that accordingly he had much experience swimming in estuaries, among anchored ships, in the dark, with a knife in his teeth. But that was all water under London Bridge. The last several months, as other members of the Cabal had refined the Plan or practiced other parts of it, Jack had been renewing his old skills, and imparting them to Dappa. The African had never been a swimmer for the simple reason that rivers in his part of the world were filled with crocodiles and hippopotami. But life had taught him to be adaptable—or as Dappa himself had put it, “I know that there are worse things than being wet, so let us get on with it.”

He and Jack now swam down the Guadalquivir, pushing before them a very large barrel, denominated a tun, which had been tarred black and laden with a long piece of heavy chain so that only a hand’s breadth extended above the surface. A circle of ox-hide was stretched over the top like a drum-head to prevent water from spilling in and sinking it altogether. Meanwhile the galleot backed water, fighting the river’s current, and began to spin round in mid-channel so that it was pointed upstream. But it was consumed in the darkness, from Jack’s and Dappa’s point of view, before it had half-completed that maneuver.

They almost missed the brig. At the last minute they had to swim hard across the current to prevent being swept right past her. The combined flow of the great river and of the tide moved them much more quickly than they had appreciated. Jack and Dappa collided with the brig’s larboard anchor cable hard enough to leave long rope-burns on their bodies. The tun toddled downstream for a few yards and reached the end of its tethers just short of thudding into the brig’s stempost. Its momentum nearly yanked Jack and Dappa off the anchor cable, to which they were clinging like a pair of snails.

Jack hugged the taut anchor cable for a few minutes and simply breathed with his eyes closed, until Dappa lost patience and gave him a nudge. Then Jack let go and swam as hard as he could against the current, edging sideways a few inches at a stroke, until eventually he reached the opposite anchor cable. This slanted into the water about three fathoms away from the one that Dappa had, by now, made himself fast to with a rope around his waist. Jack did the same here, leaving his hands free. He could not see a thing but he guessed that Dappa had already removed his necessaries from the tun. Indeed, when Jack pulled on his wrist-tether the great barrel moved in his direction—though Dappa was maintaining tension on his tether, so that the tun remained stretched out in the current between them, staying well clear of the brig’s stempost.

Soon the rim of the tun was in his grasp. Groping around atop a jumble of cold rough chain-links, Jack found a rope-end, and drew it out and hitched it around the anchor-cable using a sailor-knot he’d learnt to do with his eyes closed—just as Dappa had presumably done with the other end of the same rope. The brig’s twin anchor-cables were now joined by a length of sturdy manila with plenty of slack in it. In the middle of that length was a spliced-in loop, called a cringle, and fixed to that cringle was one end of a chain, somewhat longer than the river was deep here (as they knew from van Hoek’s soundings) and several hundred pounds in weight.

What he feared most, now, was a long wait. But he and Dappa had used up more time than the Plan called for, or else the galleot had moved too hastily, for almost immediately they began to hear shouting from upstream: several voices, mostly in Turkish but a few in Sabir (so that the Spaniards on the brig would overhear, and understand), shouting: “We are adrift!” “Wake up!” “We’re dragging the anchor!” “Get the oarsmen to their stations!”

The watch on the brig heard it, too, and responded smartly by clanging a bell and hollering in nautical Spanish. Jack drew a deep breath and dove. Pulling himself hand-under-hand down the anchor cable, he descended until his ears hurt intolerably, which he knew would be a couple of fathoms deep—deeper than the draft of the onrushing galleot, anyway—and then began assaulting the cable with the edge of a dagger. He was working blind now, feeling one greased hand slide over another—a trick he’d worked out to prevent accidentally severing a finger. The blade made an avid seething noise as it severed the cable’s innumerable fibers one by one and thousands by thousands.

One of the cable’s three fat strands burst under his blade and unscrewed itself—he felt it slacken under his cheek, for he was gripping the cable between his head and shoulder, and felt the other two strands stretch and bleat as they took the load. He had no idea what might be going on twelve feet above. The galleot must be approaching, but it made no appreciable noise. Then there was a stifled thump, felt more than heard. He flinched, thinking it was the sound of the collision, and bubbles erupted from his nostrils. His eyes were still closed in the black water, and he was seeing phantasms: poor Dick Shaftoe being pulled up out of the Thames ankle-first. Was this how Dick’s last moments had been? But such thoughts had to be banished. Instead he conjured up van Hoek on the roof of the banyolar weeks ago, saying: “When we are some ten fathoms away from the brig I’ll strike the big drum once—just before we collide, twice. You’ll hear this, and with any luck so will the Vagabonds ashore, so they can make more noise for a few moments—”

Something hard and smooth was pushing against the skin of Jack’s back—the hull-planks of the galleot! He could not tell up from down. But those clinkers were lapped one over the next like shingles, and by reading their edges with one hand he knew instantly which way was down towards the keel, and which was up towards the waterline. Swimming, fighting his own buoyancy that wanted to stick him against the hull, he finally broke the surface and whooped in air, baying like a hound.

Above he heard shouting and panic, but no gunfire. That was good, it meant that the brig’s officers had recognized them as the feckless rug-merchants seen earlier today, and not jumped to the conclusion that they were under attack. The Corsairs had lit lanterns up and down the length of the galleot shortly before the collision, so that Spaniards running up from belowdecks, rubbing sleep out of their eyes, would be presented with the reassuring sight of oarsmen who were still safely in chains, and free crew members who were unarmed and disorganized.

The galleot drifted away from Jack, or rather he drifted away from it. He squirmed round in the water to face the hull of the brig, which was onrushing—or rather the current was sweeping Jack toward it. And this was the single most terrifying moment of the Plan. The hull was angled up out of the water at the stem, to ride over waves, but it would ride over swimmers as easily. It was already blotting out the stars. The current would drive him underneath it if he did not gain some sort of purchase on it first. He would in effect be keel-hauled, and might or might not emerge a few minutes later, alive or dead, flayed by the carapace of barnacles that the brig had grown on her hull during her long Atlantic passage.

This was it, then: the exact keel-hauling he had worried about. He slipped again and the boarding axe tried to jerk itself out of his grasp. It must have caught on something—perhaps the edge of a single barnacle, or a caulked gap between planks. He pulled on it and it held for a moment, then started to break loose; its grip on the hull was not firm enough to pull his head up out of the water. But he had a second boarding axe that was trailing on a neck-rope and bumping uselessly against the hull. As Jack had nothing else to occupy the time while he was being flayed and drowned, he pawed water until he got a grip on that boarding axe, then brought it back, fighting that damned current, and drove it into the hull as hard, and as high, as he could. A sharp crunch of barnacle-shells was followed by the sweet thunk of iron driving into wood. Jack pulled with both hands, now, then brought the first axe away and struck with it, and finally managed to get his face up through the roiling crest of the bow-wave. He drew half a breath of air and half of water, but it was enough. Two more vicious strikes with the boarding axes brought his head and chest up out of the water. He wrapped the axes’ braided tethers round his wrists and hung there for a minute or two, just breathing.

BREATHING SEEMED INFINITELY MORE FINE and more momentous than anything that could possibly be going on around him, but after a while the novelty wore off and he began to wake up and to take stock of his situation.

The lights along the shore were gone, which meant that they were adrift in the channel as planned. Probably they were still gliding past the no man’s land between Bonanza and Sanlúcar de Barrameda. And yet the brig was still pointed upstream and her anchor cables were still stretched taut, because of that heavy chain she was dragging along the river-bottom. A person on the brig, preoccupied with having just been collided with by a rug-galleot, might not notice the drift.

Meanwhile the oarsmen on the galleot were putting on a great show of indolence, very gradually getting themselves settled into position to row away from the brig. But certain decorative encrustations on the galleot’s high stern had become entangled in supremely functional matters on the brig’s bowsprit, such as the martingale (a spar projecting vertically downwards from about the middle of the bowsprit) and the stays that held it in place. The disentanglement of the two vessels took some time, and was noisy, which was good because a few yards away the Cabal was hard at work doing things that, in other circumstances, would have waked the dead.

The brig had a sort of blind spot (or so they hoped) around her stempost. The stempost was nothing more than the foremost part of the keel, where it broke out of the water and slanted up to support the figurehead, the bowsprit, and the railing around the ship’s head. This part of the ship was made for dashing against the sea as she fought through weather, and so was devoid of complications such as hatches and ports, which tended to be weak and leaky. Furthermore it was sharply undershot, and difficult to see from the deck above. One could get a clear look at it only by going to the head, kneeling down, and thrusting one’s head down and out through the shite-hole (which had been deemed unlikely by the architects of the Plan) or by clambering out onto the bowsprit to work the rigging associated with the spritsails. Those sails would not come into use tonight, but this posed a danger nonetheless, as several seamen had gone out there to work on the disentanglement.

There followed an hour of something approaching boredom. The general circumstances were anything but boring, of course, yet there was nothing for Jack to do except hang there and await death or deliverance. Yevgeny thrust a sack into Jack’s hand. Jack found a pair of breeches inside, and a belt, and the Janissary-sword. The galleot worked itself free and rowed off, driven on a fresh gale of invective from the supremely irritated Spaniards—who almost immediately realized that they were being pushed downriver by the tidal current, and were already more than a mile from the Viceroy’s villa. They tried the anchor cables and found them taut, but not taut enough. Then they tried bringing them in, and found them fouled by the mysterious lashings of Jack and Dappa. Shouts and thuds reverberated dimly through the hull-planking as the crew were ordered belowdecks to man the sweeps.

But they had barely begun to row, there in the broad estuary below Sanlúcar de Barrameda, when the galleot—which had been stalking them through the night—shot out of the darkness, moving with a speed that the pudgy, barnacle-fouled brig could only dream of, and came on almost as if making for a head-on collision. It diverted to starboard at the last possible moment (to the relief of Jack and the others, who would have been crushed), folded her oars on that side, and skimmed down the side of the brig, shearing away half of her sweeps, and leaving her there like a bird with one wing shot off.

Now this, of course, was an overt attack, the brig’s first inarguable proof that she was under assault by pirates. So her captain moved just as van Hoek had predicted: He ordered that a cannon be run out and fired, as a signal to whomever was keeping watch over the harbor from the battlements of Sanlúcar de Barrameda.

The Viceroy’s brig, spinning helplessly in the swirling currents, was swept out over the bar and into the Gulf of Cadiz without anyone in the town’s having a clear idea of what was going on.

There was a half-moon that night, and as they drifted into the Gulf Jack watched it chasing the lost sun towards the western ocean, all aglow on its underside, like a ball of silver heated on one side by the burning radiance of a forge. It was shrouded in ripped and frayed tissues of cloud that stole some of its light: new weather coming in from the ocean, which was bad for them, because it meant that tomorrow their pursuers would have wind.

And tonight their prey were beginning to have it: a chilly breeze coming in straight from the Atlantic. Seamen had already gone to stations on the upperdeck to raise sails and get under way as best they might. Jack sensed that the Spaniards were breathing easier now: The ride down the dark river among anchored ships and over the shallow bar had been dangerous, but now they had a lot of water under their keel, and they had a bit of wind. After a few minutes’ preparations they could raise some sails and move out a bit farther from the town, to eliminate the risk of running aground, and wait for daylight.

The general plan was to strike the brig on her quarter, which meant towards the stern, where large cannons were somewhat less plentiful. The only drawback was that this made it impossible for the five boarders who were clinging to the stempost to see the galleot approaching (to the extent they could see anything by the flat chalky light of the setting half-moon). But the sudden screaming from the other end of the ship gave them a good clue that the time was now. They waited for a moment, as many footsteps receded, and then finally swung their grapples up and over the rail. Each man pulled on his rope until he felt the flukes catch in something (no way of guessing what, or how sturdy it might be) and after testing it with a few sharp tugs, abandoned his foot-loop and gave himself up to his rope. Because the hull flared out overhead they all swung far away from it, and swept to and fro above the water like pendulums.

Jack’s arms nearly gave way, for they had grown stiff in the fresh breeze coming off the ocean, and he slid down a short distance before finally whipping a leg round the rope and trapping it between shins and ankles. After that it was just rope-climbing, which was something he had done far too much of in his life. Consequently he surprised himself by being the first boarder to tumble over the rail and feel the blessing of wood against the soles of his feet.

He was standing in that part of the ship known as the head, gazing down her length. The moonlight was horizontal and so the masts, the rigging, and a few standing figures were columns of silver, but the deck was a black pool, completely invisible. A vast commotion was underway astern. Several pistols were suddenly discharged, making Jack startle. At the same moment he heard a gaseous eruption from very nearby, and turned to discover a Spaniard seated on a bench with his breeches round his ankles, gazing up, moonfaced with astonishment, at Jack. He made as if to stand, but Jack simply fell into him, driving one shoulder into the man’s abdomen to prevent him from calling out, shoving his buttocks into the hole he’d been sitting on, and wedging him into place with gleaming knees projecting into the sky. The Spaniard threw out one hand like a grapple on a rope, reaching for his coat, neatly folded on the bench, where a loaded pistol lay. But out came the Janissary-sword. Jack put its point against the Spaniard’s belly. “I’ll have that, señor,” he said, and took the pistol up in his free hand.

Nyazi had clambered aboard farther astern than anyone else, and was all of a sudden blind-sided by a Spaniard who came at him silently with a dagger. The weapon lunged forward and met only air. Nyazi had somehow sensed the attack and gone elsewhere. Then he was back, swinging his cutlass, and felled his attacker with a frantic back-handed slash.

Then Dappa, Gabriel, Yevgeny, and Jack all moved at once, without discussion. Some parts of the Plan were complicated, but not this one. A brig had but two masts, and each mast had a platform halfway up called a top, reachable by clambering up a ladderlike web of shrouds. At this moment the fore-top was unoccupied. Jack handed the pistol to Dappa, who tucked it into his belt and began climbing. Yevgeny was loading some pistols he had brought with him (it being impractical to keep them loaded, and their powder dry, when they were bumping about in a partly submerged bag). Jack and Gabriel worked their separate ways astern along the larboard and starboard rails respectively, Jack swinging his Janissary-sword and Gabriel a sort of queer two-handed scimitar of Nipponese manufacture, on loan from some Corsair-captain’s trophy case. They were severing not heads, but haul-yards: the lines, running in parallel courses through large blocks, that were used to hoist up the yards from which the ship’s sails were all suspended.

Finally, then, Jack and Gabriel began to ascend the main shrouds, converging on the maintop where three Spanish sailors had belatedly realized that they were under siege. One of these drew out a pistol and pointed it down at Jack, but was struck in the arm by a pistol-ball from Dappa, shooting from a few yards away on the fore-top. A moment later Yevgeny fired from down on the deck, and apparently missed—assuming he was even trying to hit anything. For the two unhurt sailors on the maintop were dumbfounded to find themselves under fire from the bows of their own ship, only moments after being rammed astern, and it was probably better to have them stunned and indecisive than wounded and angry. Jack and Gabriel gained the maintop at about the same time, disarmed the two unhurt sailors at sword-point, and encouraged them, in the strongest possible terms, to descend to the deck. Yevgeny tossed up a couple of muskets, which were not even loaded yet.

Jeronimo identified himself, then, as El Desamparado Returned from Hell—as if he could have been any other. He reminded the brig’s captain that he was now adrift in the Gulf with a completely disabled ship and a skeleton crew, that his tops were now commanded by boarders armed with muskets, and, in case anyone was insufficiently scared, he told the lie that ten pounds of gunpowder were encased in the hollow head of the battering-ram now buried deep in the brig’s vitals, not far away from the powder magazine, and that it could easily be detonated at the whim of who else but El Desamparado.

Jack had the benefit of watching this performance from an exclusive private loge, as it were, at the back of the theatre. He noticed a sigh run through the brig’s crew when the fell sobriquet of El Desamparado first rang from the trumpet. The battle turned at that instant. When the gunpowder was mentioned, pistols and cutlasses began clattering to the deck. Jack judged that the captain, and one or two officers, were willing to fight—but it scarcely mattered, because the crew, exhausted from the passage of the Atlantic, were not keen on giving their lives to make the Viceroy slightly richer, when the taverns and whorehouses of Sanlúcar de Barrameda glowed so warmly from the shore a couple of miles away.

Jeronimo led Nasr al-Ghuráb, Moseh, Jack, and Dappa belowdecks to the shot-locker, and hacked off a giant padlock, and flung its hatch open. Jack was expecting to see lead cannonballs, or nothing but rat-turds, because life had trained him to expect grievous disappointments and double-crossings at every turn. But the contents of that locker gleamed as only precious metals could—and gleamed yellow.

Jack thought of finding Eliza in the hole beneath Vienna.

“Gold!” Dappa said.

“No, it is a trick of the light,” Jeronimo insisted, moving his torch to and fro, experimenting with different positions. “These are silver pigs.”

“They are too regular in their shape to be pigs,” Jack pointed out. “Those are bars of refined metal.”

“Nonetheless—silver it must be, for gold is not produced by the mines of New Spain,” said El Desamparado doggedly. Now Jack had a small insight concerning Excellentissimo Domino Jeronimo Alejandro Peñasco de Halcones Quinto: He had a tale worked out in his head, like the tales written in the moldy books of his ancestors. The tale was the only way for him to make sense of his life. It ended with him finding a hoard of silver pigs, tonight, here. To find anything other than silver pigs was to suffer some sort of cruel mockery at the hands of Fate; finding gold was as bad as finding nothing.

But Jack’s reflections, and the Caballero’s denials, were interrupted by a sharp noise. The raïs had taken a coin from his belt-pouch and tossed it onto one of the bars. It spun and buzzed, a disk of silvery white on a slab of yellow. “That is a piece of eight—if you have forgotten the color of silver,” said Nasr al-Ghuráb. “What it lies on is gold.”

Then, for a long time, none of them uttered a sound. Even Jeronimo’s tongue had been silenced.

Moseh cleared his throat. “I think Jews have no word for this,” he said, “because we do not expect to get so lucky. But Christians, I believe, call it Grace.”

“I would call it blood money,” said Dappa.

“It was always blood money,” Jeronimo said.

“I have watched you shoot a Spanish sailor not half an hour ago—where were all your scruples then?” Jack asked.

Dappa glared back at him. “Overcome by a desire not to see my comrade get shot in the face.”

Jeronimo said, “The Plan does not allow for finding gold where we expected silver. It means we have thirteen times as much money as we reckoned. Most likely we will all end up killing each other—perhaps this very night!”

“Now your demon is talking,” said al-Ghuráb.

“But my demon always speaks the truth.”

“We will continue with the Plan as if this were silver,” Moseh said nervously.

Jeronimo said, “You are all filthy liars, or imbeciles. Obviously there is no reason to go to Cairo!”

“On the contrary: There is an excellent reason, which is that the Investor expects to meet us there, to claim his rake-off.”

“The investor himself!? Or did you mean to say, the Investor’s agents?” Jack said sharply.

Moseh said, “It makes no difference,” but exchanged a nervous look with Dappa.

“I heard one of the Pasha’s officials joking that the Investor was going to Cairo to hunt for Ali Zaybak!” said the raïs, trying to inject a bit of levity. The attempt failed, leaving him bewildered, and Moseh on the verge of blacking out.

“Why do we waste breath speaking of the Frog?” Jeronimo demanded. “Let the whoreson chase phant’sies to the end of the earth for all we care.”

“The answer is simple: He has a knife to our throats,” said al-Ghuráb.

“What are you talking about?” Jack asked.

“That jacht did not sail down here only to provide a diversion,” said the Corsair. “He could have dispatched any moldy old tub for that purpose.”

“The Turk makes sense,” Dappa said to Jack in English. “Jacht means ‘hunter,’ and that is the swiftest-looking vessel I’ve ever seen. She could sail rings around us—firing broadsides all the while.”

“So Météore is poised to kill us, if we play any tricks,” Jack said, “but how will she know whether or not we need to be killed?”

“And you are the only man who knows these signals, I suppose,” Dappa said, finding amusement here, as he did in many odd places.

“Hmph…what’s the world coming to when a French Duke cannot bring himself to trust a merry crew such as ours?” Jack grumbled.

“I wonder if the Investor knew, all along, that the brig would contain gold?” Dappa said.

“I wonder if he will know tomorrow,” said Jack, staring into the eyes of the raïs.

Al-Ghuráb grinned. “There is no signal for that information.”

Moseh, clapping his hands together, now said, “I believe the larger point our captain is making is that even if some of us…” glancing towards Jeronimo, “are inclined to turn this unexpected good fortune into a pretext for intrigues and skullduggery, we’ll not even have the opportunity to scheme against; betray; and/or murder one another unless we get the goods off this brig fast and commence rowing.”

“This is merely a postponement,” Jeronimo sighed. Obviously, it would take many days to cheer him up. “The inevitable result will be double-crossings and a general bloodbath.” He reached down with both hands and heaved a gold bar off the top of the hoard with a grunt of effort.

“One,” said Nasr al-Ghuráb.

Jeronimo began trudging up the stairs.

Moseh stepped forward and wrapped his fingers around a bar; bent his knees; and pulled it up off the stack. “It is not so different from pulling on a wooden oar,” he said.

“Two,” said the raïs.

Dappa hesitated, then forced himself to reach out and put his hands on a bar, as if it were red hot. “White men tell the lie that we are cannibals,” he said, “and now I am become one.”

“Three.”

“Don’t be gloomy, Dappa,” Jack said. “Recall that I could’ve run away last night. Instead I listened to the Imp of the Perverse.”

“What is your point?” Dappa muttered over his shoulder.

“Four,” said al-Ghuráb, watching Jack grab a bar.

They left the ram embedded in the brig’s buttock and rowed off about an hour before dawn as one of the Corsairs played a heathen melody on a bugle. Most of their previous cargo and ballast had been thrown overboard as the gold bars had been passed from hand to hand up out of the brig’s shot-locker and across the deck and slid down a plank into the galleot. As sunrise approached, the breeze off the ocean consolidated itself into a steady west wind. First light revealed a colossal wall of red clouds that began somewhere below the western horizon and reached halfway to the stars. It was a sight to make sailors scurry for safe harbor, even if they were not aboard an undecked, anchorless row-boat fleeing from the iniquity of Man and the wrath of God.

The distance to the Strait of Gibraltar was seventy or eighty miles. With no wind to fill their sails that would take longer than a day; in these circumstances, it could be done before nightfall.

Van Hoek payed no attention to those clouds, which were many hours in their future; he was gazing at the waves around them, which began to develop little white hats as the sun and the wind came up. “They will be able to make six knots,” he said, referring to the Spanish ships that would be chasing them, “and that beauty will be able to make eight,” nodding at Météore, which was becoming visible a few miles in the distance. Jack and everyone else knew perfectly well that in these circumstances—the hull recently scraped and waxed, and combining the use of sails and oars—the galleot could likewise sustain eight knots.

They might, in other words, have been able to flee from the jacht and make a run for freedom on this very day—but first they would have had to fight the Corsairs on board. And at the end of the day they’d have to rely on other Corsairs to protect them from Spanish vengeance. So they adhered to the Plan.

The day then dissolved into a long sickening panic, a slow and stretched-out dying. Jack rowed, and was whipped, and other times he whipped other men who were rowing. He stood above men he loved and saw only livestock, and whipped skin off their backs to make them row infinitesimally harder, and later they did the same to him. The raïs himself rowed, and was whipped by his own slaves. Whips wore out and broke. The galleot became an open tray of blood, skin, and hair, a single living body cut open by some pitiless anatomist: the benches ribs, the oars digits, the men gristle, the drum a beating heart, the whips raw dissected nerves that spun and whorled and crackled through the viscera of the hull. This was the first hour of their day, and the last; it quickly became too terrible to imagine, and remained thus without letting up, forever, even though it was only a day—just as a short nightmare can seemingly encompass a century. It passed out of time, in other words, and so there was nothing to tell of it, as it was not a story.

Raindrops were coming out of the dark, and they lay on their bellies on the benches letting the water cleanse their wounds. The galleot was bucking in huge pyramidal seas that rushed at her from various directions. Some were afraid they would run aground on the shore of Spain. But van Hoek—once he was able to speak again, and had finished praying to God for forgiveness and redemption—said he was certain he had spied Tarifa off to port, gleaming in the sunlight of late afternoon. This meant that the weather was driving them into the open Mediterranean; that the Corsair-countries were on their starboard; and that they were now a part of Spain’s glorious past.

This engendered a respectful silence from each of the Ten, save one. Jack held his cupped hands in front of him like scale-pans, bobbled them, and let one drop. “Beats having your nuts cut off by wild men,” he said.

At this Nyazi flew into a rage (which was something Nyazi did very well) and launched himself on Jack more or less like a leopard. Jack fell on his arse, then rolled onto his back—which hurt, because his back was still one large scab. He managed to get his knees up in Nyazi’s ribs, then used the strength of his legs to shove him off. Nyazi sprawled flat on his back, screamed just as Jack had done, and there was pinned to the deck by Gabriel Goto and Yevgeny. It was several minutes before he could be calmed down.

“I offer you my apologies,” he said, with extreme gravity. “I forgot that you have suffered an even worse mutilation.”

“Worse? How do you reckon?” asked Jack, still lying flat trying to think of a way to stand up without doing any more damage to his back.

Nyazi copied Jack’s gesture of the bobbling scale-pans. “My clansmen could still perform the act—but they did not wish to. You wish to, but cannot.”

“Touché,” Jack muttered.

“Because of this, I see, now, that you were not accusing me of cowardice, and so I no longer feel obligated to kill you.”

“Truly you are a prince among camel-traders, Nyazi, and no man is better suited to be the Ibrahim of his race.”

“Alas,” Nyazi sighed, “I have not yet been able to impregnate even a single one of my forty wives.”

“Forty!” cried several of the Cabal at once.

“Counting the several I already had; ones we had acquired in trade during this trip and sent home via a different route; and those of the men who had been made eunuchs by the savages, the number should come to forty, give or take a few. All waiting for me in the foothills of the mountains of Nuba.” Nyazi got a faraway look in his eye, and an impressive swelling down below. “I have been saving myself,” he announced, “refusing to practice the sin of Onan, even when ifrits and succubi come to tempt me in the night-time. For to spill my seed is to diminish my ferocity, and weaken my resolve.”

“You never made it to the Caravanserai of Abu Hashim?”

“On the contrary, I rode there directly, and there waited for my poor clansmen to catch up with me. I understood it might be a long wait, as men who have suffered in this way naturally tend to avoid long camel rides. After I had been there for two nights, a caravan came down out of the upper White Nile laden with ivory. The Arabs of the caravan saw my skill with camels, and asked if I would help them as far as Omdurman, which was three days to the north. I agreed, and left word with Abu Hashim that I would be back to meet my brothers in less than a week.

“But on the first night out, the Arabs fell on me and put a collar around my neck and made me a slave. I believe they intended to keep me forever, as a camel-driver and a butt-boy. But when we got near Omdurman, the Arabs went to a certain oasis and drew up not far from a caravan headed by a Turk. And here the usual sort of negotiation took place: The Arabs took the goods they wished to trade (mostly elephant tusks) and piled them up halfway between the two camps, then withdrew. The Turks then came out and inspected the goods, then made a pile of the stuff they wished to trade (tobacco, cloth, ingots of iron) and withdrew. It went back and forth like this for a long time. Finally I was added to the Arabs’ pile. Then the Turks came out and took me away along with the Arabs’ other goods, and the cursed Arabs did likewise with the goods of the Turks, and we went our separate ways. Eventually the Turks took me as far as Cairo, and there I tried to escape—for I knew that my clansmen would be at the Khan el-Khalili during a certain time of year, which is late August. Alas, I was caught because of the treachery of a fellow-slave. Later I tore a leg from a stool and beat him to death with it. The Turks could see that I would be trouble as long as I remained in Cairo, and so I was traded to an Algerian corsair-captain who had just rowed into port with a cargo of blonde Carmelite nuns.”

“But as I recall from your narrations—which were not devoid of a certain repetitive quality, by the way—” Dappa said, “she objected on moral grounds—not because it led to monotonous storytelling.”

“I, too, could probably dream up some highfalutin grounds if all I had to pass the time was embroidery and bathing.”

“I did not realize that pulling on an oar posed such a challenge to your intellect,” Dappa returned.

“Until la suette anglaise delivered me from the French Pox, I had no intellect at all. When I’m rich and free, I’ll come up with a hundred and one reasons why slavery is bad.”

“A single good one would suffice,” Dappa said.

Feeling the need for a change of subject, Jack turned towards Vrej Esphahnian, who had been squatting on his haunches smoking a twist of Spanish tobacco and watching the exchange.

“Oh, mine is banal compared with everyone else’s,” he said. “As you may recall, my brother Artan sent out letters to diverse places, inquiring about the market for ostrich plumes. What came back convinced him that our family’s humble estate might be bettered if we established a trading-circuit to Northern Africa. I was dispatched to Marseille to make it so. From there, by buying passage on small coastal vessels, I tried to work my way down the Balearic coast of Spain towards Gibraltar, which I supposed would be a good jumping-off place. But I did not appreciate that the Spanish coast from Valencia downwards is infested with Moorish pirates, whose forefathers once were the lords of al-Andalus. These Corsairs knew the hidden coves and shallows of that coastline as well as—”

“All right, all right, you have said enough to convince me that it is, as you said, the usual galley-slave tale,” Jack said, strolling over to the rail and stretching—very carefully. He picked up a bulging skin and squirted a stream of stale water into his mouth, then stood up on the bench to contemplate the rock of Malta, which was drifting by them a few miles to starboard. He had just realized that it was a very small island and that he’d better look at it while he had the chance. “What I meant was: How did you end up on my oar?”

“The ineffable currents of the slave-market drove me to Algiers. My owner learned that I had some skills beyond oar-pulling, and put me to work as a bookkeeper in a market where Corsairs sell and trade their swag. The winter before last, I made the acquaintance of Moseh, who was asking many questions about the market in tutsaklar ransom futures. We had several conversations and I began to perceive the general shape of his Plan.”

“He told you about Jeronimo, and the Viceroy?”

“No, I learned of that on the same night as you.”

“Then what do you mean when you say you understood his plan?”

“I understood his basic principle: that a group of slaves who, taken one by one, were assigned a very low value by the market, might yet be worth much when grouped together cleverly…” Vrej rolled up to his feet and grimaced into the sun. “The wording does not come naturally in this bastard language of Sabir, but Moseh’s plan was to synergistically leverage the value-added of diverse core competencies into a virtual entity whose whole was more than the sum of its parts…”

Jack stared at him blankly.

“It sounds brilliant in Armenian.” Vrej sighed.

“How came you to be at the bottom of the slave-market?” Jack asked. “I know your family was not the wealthiest, but I should’ve thought they’d pay anything to ransom you from Algiers.”

Vrej’s face stopped moving, as if he had spied a Gorgon atop one of Malta’s cliffs. Jack gathered that the question was an impolite one, by Armenian standards.

“Never mind,” Jack said, “you are right, it makes no difference why your family would not, or could not, pay your ransom.” Then, after there’d been no word from Vrej in quite a while: “I’ll not ask again.”

“Thank you,” said Vrej, as if forcing the words past a clenched garrotte.

“Nonetheless, it is remarkable that we ended up on the same oar,” Jack continued.

“Algiers in wintertime is lousy with wretched slaves, trying to dream their way to freedom,” Vrej admitted, in a voice still tight and uneven. But as he continued talking, the anger, or sadness, that had possessed him for a few minutes slowly drained away. “I reckoned Moseh for another one of these at first. As one conversation led to the next, I perceived he was a man of intelligence, and began to think that I should throw in my lot with him. But when I learned that he had acquired a new bench-mate named Jack Shaftoe, I looked on it as a sign from God. For I owe you, Jack.”

“You owe me!?”

“And have, ever since the night you fled Paris. On that night my family and I incurred a debt to you, and if necessary we will travel to the end of the world, and sell our souls, to make good on it.”

“You can’t be thinking of those damned ostrich plumes?”

“You left them in our trust, Jack, and made us your commission-agents in the matter.”

“They were trash—the amount of money is trivial. Please do not consider yourself under any obligation…”

“It is a matter of principle,” Vrej said. “So I hatched a Plan of my own, every bit as complex as the Plan of Moseh, but not nearly so interesting. I’ll spare you the details, and tell you only the result: I was traded to your oar, Jack, and chained to you in fact—though chains of iron are nothing compared to the chains of debt and obligation that have fettered us since that night in Paris in 1685.”

“That is extremely civil of you,” Jack said. “But the only thing in all the world that makes me feel more ill at ease than being obliged, is some other man’s feeling obliged to me—so when we reach Cairo I’ll accept a few extra pounds of coffee, or something, to cover the proceeds from the sale of those ostrich-plumes, and then you and I can go our separate ways.”

AFTER RIDING THE front of a storm through the Strait of Gibraltar, they had spent a couple of days riding out the gale in the Alboran Sea, the anteroom of the Mediterranean. When the weather had settled down they had sailed southeast, steering toward the peaks of the Atlas Mountains, until they’d picked up the Barbary Coast not far from the Corsair-port of Mostaganem. They had not put in there—partly because they had no anchors, and partly because Nasr al-Ghuráb seemed to be under strict instructions not to make contact with the world until they had reached their destination. But a few miles up the coast from Mostaganem, where a river came down off the north slopes of the Atlas and spilled into the sea, al-Ghuráb had caused a certain flag to be run up the mast. Not much later a bergantine had come rowing out of a hidden cove and had drawn alongside them, carefully remaining a bow-shot away. There had been some shouting back and forth in Turkish, and the galleot’s skiff had been sent over, carrying two corsairs and Dappa, and collected kegs of fresh water and some other victuals. This bergantine had then shadowed them on the slow progress along the coast to the harbor of Algiers. Slow because they had almost never laid hands on the oars; no one wanted to, most were not fit to, and the raïs had not asked them to.

They had also acquired a new drum. For on the day following their deliverance from Spaniard and storm, Jack Shaftoe had made a great ceremony of tossing the old one overboard. It had been a large wooden barrel-half with a cowhide stretched over the top, the hair still on it except where it had been worn away from being pounded. It was mottled white and brown like an unlabelled map, and it had bobbed stubbornly alongside them for a while, a little world loose in the sea, until Jack had stove it in with an oar. Meanwhile, Jeronimo had solemnized it in his own way: looking about at the gore that lined the hull, and the exhausted and half-flayed rowers, he had said, “We are all blood brothers now.” Which he had probably intended as some sort of sacrament-like benediction. For his part, Jack could see any number of grave drawbacks to being part of the same family as Jeronimo. But he had kept these misgivings to himself so as not to mar the occasion. Jeronimo had included, among his new brothers, all of the galley-slaves who were not members of the Cabal, and promised that he would use his share of the proceeds to ransom them. This had produced only eye-rolling from those slaves who could understand what he was saying. As days had gone by, his promises had flourished like mushrooms after an autumn rain, until he had laid out a scheme for constructing or buying an actual three-masted ship, manning it with freed slaves, and setting out to found a new country somewhere. But as they had inched across the map towards Algiers, a depression had settled over him, and he’d gone back to predictions of a bloodbath in Egypt—or possibly even Malta.

Accompanied by another, more heavily armed galleot, they had left Algiers behind—they hoped forever. They had rowed briskly eastwards, passing by one small Corsair-port after another until they had traversed the mouth of the Gulf of Tunis and reached the Ras el Tib, a rocky scimitar-tip pointed directly at Sicily, a hundred miles to the northeast. Here they had offloaded all but a dozen of their oar-slaves and then used their sails to take them out into deep water—the first time they’d lost sight of land since the night of their escape from Bonanza. The raïs had immediately ordered the galleot’s Turkish colors struck, and had raised French ones in their stead.

And—as van Hoek was first to notice—there was also Météore. Evidently she had passed through the Strait of Gibraltar behind them and then made directly for Malta, to join up with the fleet, and await the galleot. Jack borrowed a spyglass to have a look at the jacht, and was rewarded by a view of a new flag that had been run up her mizzen-mast. It was a banner emblazoned with a coat of arms that he’d last seen carved in bas-relief on the onrushing lintel of a door in the Hôtel Arcachon in Paris. “I would know that arrangement of fleurs-de-lis and Neeger-heads anywhere,” he announced. “The Investor is here in person.”

“He must have come down via Marseille,” van Hoek remarked.

“I thought I smelled a fish gone bad,” Jack said.

Likewise, their galleot was noticed and identified immediately. Within a few minutes a longboat had been sent out from Météore, rowed by half a dozen seamen and carrying a French officer. This fellow clambered aboard the galleot and made a quick inspection—just enough to verify that the crew was orderly and the vessel seaworthy. He handed the raïs a sealed letter and then departed.

“I wonder why he just doesn’t take us,” Yevgeny muttered, leaning on the rigging and gazing at all those warships.

“For the same reason that the Pasha did not do so when we were in the harbor of Algiers,” Moseh said.

“The Duke’s interests in that Corsair-city are deep,” Jack added. “He dares not queer his relations with the Pasha by violating the terms of the Plan.”

“I would have anticipated a more thorough inspection,” said Mr. Foot, arms crossed over his caftan as if he were feeling a chill, and glancing uneasily at a gold-crate.

“He knows we got something out of the Viceroy’s brig—and that it was valuable enough to make us risk our lives by tarrying in front of Sanlúcar de Barrameda for several hours, transshipping it to the galleot. If we’d found nothing we’d have fled without delay,” Jack said. “And that is as good as an inspection.”

“But does he know what it is?” Mr. Foot asked. They were within earshot of their skeleton crew of oar-slaves and so he had to speak obliquely.

“There is no way he could,” said Jack. “The only communication he’s had from this boat is a bugle call, which was a pre-arranged signal, and I doubt that they had a signal meaning thirteen.” Thirteen was a sort of code meaning twelve or thirteen times as much money as we expected.

“Still, we know that the Pasha of Algiers sent out messages on faster boats than ours, to all the ports of the Levant, telling the masters of all harbors to deny us entry.”

“All except for one,” Yevgeny corrected him.

“Might he not have sent a message here to Malta, telling about the thirteen?”

Dappa now came strolling along. “You are forgetting to ask a very interesting question, namely: Does the Pasha know?”

Mr. Foot appeared to be scandalized; Yevgeny, profoundly impressed. “I should imagine so!” said Mr. Foot.

Dappa said, “But have you noticed that, on every occasion when the raïs has parleyed with someone who does not know about the thirteen, he has been at pains to make sure I am present?”

“You, who are the only one of us who understands Turkish,” Yevgeny observed.

Jack: “You think al-Ghuráb has kept the matter of the thirteen a secret?”

Yevgeny: “Or wishes us to think that he has.”

Dappa: “I would say—to know that he has.”

Mr. Foot: “What possible reason could he have for doing such a thing?”

Dappa: “When Jeronimo gave his ‘blood brothers’ speech, and all the rest of you were rolling your eyes, I chanced to look at Nasr al-Ghuráb, and saw him blink back a tear.”

Mr. Foot: “I say! I say! Most fascinating.”

Jack: “For the Caballero, who is every inch the gentleman, it was no easy thing to admit what the rest of us have all known in our bones for so long: namely that we have found our natural and rightful place in the world here, among the broken and ruined scum of the earth. Perhaps the raïs was merely touched by the brutally pathetic quality of the scene.”

Dappa: “The raïs is a Corsair of Barbary. His sort enslave Spanish gentlefolk for sport. I believe he intends to make common cause with us.”

Mr. Foot: “Then why hasn’t he come out and said as much?”

Dappa: “Perhaps he has, and we have not been listening.”

Yevgeny: “If that is his plan, it depends entirely on what happens here in Malta. Perhaps he waits to announce himself.”

Jack: “Then it all pivots on that letter the Frenchman brought—and speaking of that, I believe we are delaying the ceremony.”

Nasr al-Ghuráb had retreated to the shade of the quarterdeck with the other members of the Cabal, who were looking toward them impatiently. When Jack and the others had arrived, the raïs passed the letter around so that all could inspect the splash of red wax that sealed it. Jack found it to be intact. He had half expected to find the arms of the Duc d’Arcachon mashed into it, but this was some sort of naval insignia. “I cannot read,” said Jack.

When the letter had made its way back to the raïs he broke the seal and unfolded it. “It is in Roman characters,” he complained, and handed it to Moseh, who said, “This is in French.” It passed into the hands of Vrej Esphahnian, who said, “This is not French, but Latin,” and gave it to Gabriel Goto, who translated it—though Jeronimo hovered over his shoulder cocking his head this way and that, grimacing or nodding according to the quality of Gabriel’s work.

“It begins with a description of very great anguish in the houses of the Viceroy and the Hacklhebers on the day following our adventure,” said the Jesuit in his curiously accented Sabir; though he was nearly drowned out by Jeronimo, who was laughing raucously at whatever Gabriel had glossed over. Gabriel waited for Jeronimo to calm down, then continued: “He says that his friendship with us is strong, and not to worry that every port in Christendom is now alive with spies and assassins seeking to collect the huge price that has been put on our heads by Lothar von Hacklheber.”

Which caused several of them to glance nervously towards the Valletta waterfront, judging whether they might be within musket-, or even cannon-range.

“He is trying to scare us,” Yevgeny snorted.

“It is just a formality,” Jack put in, “a—what’s it called—?”

“Salutation,” said Moseh.

Gabriel continued, “He says he has received a message from the Pasha, carried on a faster boat, to the effect that everything has gone exactly as planned.”

“Exactly!?” said Moseh, a bit unsettled, and he searched al-Ghuráb’s face. The raïs gave a little shrug and stared back at him coolly.

“Accordingly, he sees no reason to depart from the Plan now. As agreed, he will lend us four dozen oar-slaves, so that we can keep pace with the fleet on its passage to Alexandria. Victuals will be brought out on a small craft in a few hours. Meanwhile the jacht will send out a longboat to collect the raïs and the ranking Janissary—these will go to pick out the oar-slaves.”

Now all began talking at once. It was some time before their various conversations could be forged into one. Moseh did it by striking the new drum, which silenced them all; they’d been trained to heed it, and it reminded them once more that they were still enrolled as slaves on the books of the hoca el-pencik in the Treasury in Algiers.

Moseh: “If the Investor does not learn of the thirteen until Cairo, he’ll demand to know why we did not tell him immediately!” (shooting a reproachful look at the raïs). “It will be obvious to him that we sought to play out a deception, and later lost our nerve.”

Van Hoek: “Why should we care what the bastard thinks of us? It’s not as if we intend to do business with him in the future.”

Vrej: “This is short-sighted. The power of France in Egypt—especially Alexandria—is very great. He can make it go badly for us there.”

Jack: “Who says he’s ever going to find out about the thirteen?”

Jeronimo laughed with sick delight. “It begins!”

Moseh: “Jack, he expects his payment in silver pigs. We don’t have any!”

Jack: “Why give the son of a bitch anything?”

Van Hoek, grimly amused: “By continuing to conceal what the raïs has thus far concealed, we are already talking about screwing the investor out of twelve-thirteenths of what would otherwise come to him. So why make such scruples about the remaining one-thirteenth?”

Moseh: “I agree that we should either screw the Investor thoroughly, or not at all. But I would argue for completely open dealings. If we simply follow the Plan and give the Investor his due, we will all be free, with money in our purses.”

Jeronimo: “Unless he decides to screw us.”

Moseh: “But that is no more likely now than it was before!”

Jack: “I think it was always very likely.”

Yevgeny: “We cannot tell the Investor of the thirteen here, now. For then he will say that we tried to hide it earlier, as part of a plan to screw him, and use it as a pretext to seize the galleot.”

Van Hoek: “Yevgeny is an intelligent man.”

Jack: “Yevgeny has indeed read the Investor’s character shrewdly.”

Moseh clamped his head between the palms of his hands, massaging the bare places where forelocks had once grown. For his part, Vrej Esphahnian looked ill at ease to the point of nausea. Jeronimo had gone back to dire predictions, which none of them even heard any more. Finally Dappa said, “Nowhere in the world are we weaker than we are here and now. It is not the time to reveal great secrets.”

In this, it seemed, he spoke for the entire Cabal.

“Tell Monsieur de Jonzac that he has the smallest nostrils of any human who ever lived,” Jack said in the most vulgar Sabir he could muster, “which must serve him well in his dealings with his master.”

“The Agha of the Janissaries greets you as one warrior to another,” Dappa said vaguely.

“Tell him that I am grateful that he has personally taken responsibility for getting us and our cargo to Egypt,” the raïs said.

French was exchanged. Pierre de Jonzac stiffened. His pupils widened and his nostrils shrank at the same time, as if they shared a common drawstring. “He understandeth little, and resenteth much,” Dappa said out of the side of his mouth.

“If we do not take our time, here, and pick out a good complement of slaves, why, we will fall behind the convoy, and Dutch or Calabrian pirates will end up with our cargo—” began the raïs.

“—of whose nature we are ignorant,” added Jack.

“—but which the Duke appears to value highly,” finished Dappa, who could see for himself how this was going. When he said all of this in French, Pierre de Jonzac flinched, and looked as if he were about to order them flogged. Then he seemed to think better of it.

“Rag-head! Come down here and take my seat!”

“You have a pretty ass, nigger! Bend over so we can inspect!”

“Where do you want to row today?”

“Take me! My oar-mates snore!”

“Take him! He prays too much!”

And so forth; but they were all shouting as loud as they could, and shaking their chains, and stomping the deck-planks so that the hull boomed like a drum.

“Je vous en prie!” said Pierre de Jonzac, extending a hand.

It came clear that they were expected to take a few slaves from each galley. A rite soon took shape: They’d cross a gangplank from the pier to the sterncastle and parley with the captain, who would be expecting them, and who would have helpfully culled out a few slaves—always the most miserable tubercular specimens on his boat. Nasr al-Ghuráb would prod them, inspect their teeth, feel their knees, and scoff. This was the signal to begin haggling. Using Dappa as his intermediary, al-Ghuráb had to reject galériens one by one, beginning always with the most pitiable, and these would be sent down into the ever-boiling riot of Vagabonds, smugglers, pickpockets, deserters, stranglers, prisoners of war, and Huguenots chained to the benches below. Then it would be necessary to pick out a replacement, which involved more haggling, as well as endless resentful glares, verbal abuse, bluffing, and stalling from the petty officers—called comités—who controlled the oar-deck, and tedious un-chaining and re-chaining. The longboat could only ferry ten or so slaves out to the galleot at a time, so five loads, and as many round trips, were needed.

Al-Ghuráb’s strategy had been that he would wear the French down by taking his time and choosing carefully; but as the day went on it became obvious that time was on the side of the captains of the galleys, who relaxed in their cabins, and of Pierre de Jonzac, who sipped Champagne under a giant parasol on the pier, while Jack, Dappa, and al-Ghuráb toiled up and down the gangplanks smelling the bodies and enduring the curses of the galériens. They picked out perhaps two boat-loads of reasonably good slaves before they began to lose their concentration, and after that they were more concerned with getting to the end of the day with some vestiges of dignity. Jack led many a galérien down the aisle that day. Some of them had to be prodded down the entire length of a one-hundred-fifty-foot ship to be offloaded. Each of those who was staying behind felt bound to say something to the one who was being taken off:

“I hope the Mohametans bugger you as often as you’ve whined about your wife and kids in Toulouse!”

“Send us a letter from Algiers, we hear the weather is very nice there!”

“Farewell, Jean-Baptiste, may God go with you!”

“Please don’t let the Corsairs ram us, I have nothing against them!”

It was on the very last trip of the day that Jack—standing in the aisle of a galley while the raïs argued with a comité—was dazzled, for a moment, by a bright light shone into his eye. He blinked and it was gone. Then it was back: bright as the sun, but coming from within this galley. The third time, he held up an arm to shield his eyes, and squinted at it sidelong, and perceived that it was coming from the middle of a bench near the bow, on the starboard side. He began walking towards it—creating a sensation among the galériens, who had all noticed the light on his face and were screaming and pounding their benches with amusement.

By the time he’d reached the forward part of the oar-deck, Jack had lost track of the light’s source—but then one more flash nicked him again, then faded and shrank to a little polygon of grey glass, held in a man’s fingers. Jack had already guessed it would be a hand-mirror, because these were commonly found among the few miserable effects that galley-slaves were allowed to have with them. By thrusting it out of an oar-lock, or raising it high overhead, the owner could see much that would otherwise be out of his view. But it was cheeky for a galérien to flash sunlight into the eyes of a free man standing in the aisle, because this was most annoying, and might be punished by breakage or confiscation of the mirror.

Jack looked up into the eyes of the insolent wretch who had been playing tricks on him, and recognized him immediately as Monsieur Arlanc, the Huguenot, whom he had last seen buried in shit in a stable in France.

Jack parted his lips; Monsieur Arlanc raised a finger to his, and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Then he swiveled his eyes in their sockets, leading Jack’s gaze over the gunwale and across the choppy black water of the harbor, off in the general direction of Sicily. Jack’s attention rolled aimlessly about the harbor, like a loose cannonball on a pitching deck, until it fell into a hole, and stopped. For he could clearly see a sort of heathen half-galley riding the swells at the harbor’s entrance, but obliterated, every so often, by a flash of light just like the one that had come from the hand-mirror of Monsieur Arlanc.

The half-galley was none other than the Cabal’s galleot.

Jack’s first thought was that the new slaves must be staging a mutiny and that his comrades were signalling for help. But the flashes emanated not from the quarterdeck, where the Cabal would make their last stand in a mutiny, but from a point down low and amidships: one of the oar-locks. It must be one of the new galériens, probably chained safely to his bench by now, but reaching out with a hand-mirror to flash signals to—whom, exactly?

Jack turned around to face the pier-side, which had fallen into deep shade as the sun had swung around over the high crags and castles of Malta. By blocking the sun’s glare with his hand he was able to see a vague spot of bluish light prowling around the pier’s shadows. The mirror was held in an unsteady hand on a rocking boat far away, and so the spot of light frequently careered off into the sky or plunged into the waves. But it would always come back, and work its way carefully down the pier, and then dart upwards at the same place. After this had occurred several times, Jack raised his sights to the top of the pier and saw Pierre de Jonzac sitting there at a folding table with a quill in one hand, staring out to sea. Each mirror-flash lit him up with a ghastly light, and after each one he glanced down (his wig moved) and made a mark (his quill wiggled).

“I suppose you think this was all predestined to happen, monsieur,” said Jack, “but I like to believe you had some say in the matter, and therefore deserve my thanks.”

“There is no time to talk,” Arlanc said. “But know that the men they have sent you are very dangerous: murderers, conspiracists, phanatiques, looters of bakeries, outragers of women, and locksmiths gone bad.”

“I would rather have a Huguenot or two,” Jack mused, scanning the other four members of Monsieur Arlanc’s team. The headman, who sat on the aisle, was a Turk.

“It is a noble conception, Jack, but not destined to happen. They will never agree to it—it is not part of their plan.”

“What about God? Doesn’t He have a plan?”

“I believe only that God preserved me until now so that I could show you what I have showed you,” said Monsieur Arlanc, glancing up towards de Jonzac frozen in another pallid flash, “and thereby repay you for your generosity in the stables. What on earth are you doing, by the way?”

“It is a long story,” Jack said, taking a step away—for al-Ghuráb had finally picked out the last slave, and was calling to him. “I’ll explain it when we reach Egypt.”

“What, are you joking? Look at the size of this armada! We’ll be fine.”

Arlanc closed his eyes, still smiling. “If you see Dutch colors, or English, or—may God forbid it—both combined, make for Africa, and stop not until you have run aground.”

“And then what? Go on foot across the Sahara?”

“It would be easier than the journey we begin tomorrow. God bless you and your sons.”

“Likewise you and yours. See you at the Sphinx.” Jack stormed off down the aisle. For once, the galériens did not hound him the whole way. They seemed sober and deflated instead, as if they had all guessed at the subject of Jack’s and Monsieur Arlanc’s conversation.

THE VOYAGE FROM MALTA to Alexandria was a rhumb-line a thousand miles long. The Dutch hit them halfway, five days into the passage, somewhere to the south of Crete. Jack supposed that if he were God watching the battle from Heaven it might make some kind of sense: the onslaughts of the Dutch capital ships, the stately maneuvers of the French ones, and the slashing zigzags of the galleys would form a coherent picture, and seem less like an interminable string of dreadful accidents. But Jack was just a mote on a galleot that was evidently considered too small to be worth attacking, or defending. Now they understood why the shrewd Investor had never insisted on having the loot taken off the galleot and loaded into a man-of-war: He must have suspected that half or more of his capital ships would end up on the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Every time a French frigate was struck by a Dutch broadside, a vast cloud of spinning planks, tumbling spars, and other important materials would come flying out the opposite side and tear up the water for a hundred yards or more. After this had happened several times the ship would stop moving and a galley would be brought in to tow it from the line of battle, somewhat like a servant scurrying into the middle of a lively dance-floor to drag away a fat count who had passed out from drink.

The galley to which Monsieur Arlanc was chained survived most of the battle without serious damage. Then (according to van Hoek) she was called in to ram a certain Dutch ship. Along the way she came under fire from others, and a bomb apparently went off in her sterncastle, starting a fire that, a few minutes later, detonated her powder magazine and essentially blew open her stern. Very quickly her bow began to point up in the air, her ram sweeping relentlessly upwards like the hand of a clock. The galériens in the forward half of the ship—presumably including Monsieur Arlanc—let go their oars and hooked their arms over their benches, though some of them broke loose, so that skeins of slaves dangled and swung like strings of trout hanging before a fishmonger’s stall.

“Let us row in that direction,” Jack said, “because it is no more dangerous than what we are doing anyway, and because it is good form.”

There was profound apprehension on the faces of other members of the Cabal. Vrej Esphahnian opened his mouth as if to lodge an objection but then a large cannonball hummed past, a couple of yards over their heads, confirming Jack’s point and sparing them many tedious deliberations. So Nasr al-Ghuráb brought the tiller around and they made for the sinking galley.

Meanwhile Jack went down among the oar-slaves—but not before asking Yevgeny to fetch a certain large hammer, and an anvil.

Jack jumped back into the skiff; handed Gerard his set of lock-picks; and threw him overboard, saying, “Go and redeem thyself.”

Of course there was much more to it than that, and when Jack told the tale afterwards he would give the full report, with all due embellishments: the hysterical blubbering of some galériens, the pious praying of others, the many strong hands that shot up out of the water to grip the gunwales of their skiff and were cut away by Gabriel’s sword. The officers and French Marines still clinging to the galley’s forecastle, trying to buy passage on the galleot, or failing that, to fight their way aboard, only to be beaten back by Jeronimo and Nyazi and van Hoek and the others. The banks of powder-smoke drifting by overhead, and the bodies of the drowned galériens below: pale blurred forms in strings of five, like pearls.

But at the time Jack took little notice of this ambience and concentrated on the matter of the lock and the chain almost as intently as Gerard. At the moment that the galley pulled Gerard under water he still had not got the lock open, and Jack began to think his plan had failed. The Turk who sat in the aisle was pulled under crying “Allahu Akbar!” and then the man who sat next to Monsieur Arlanc went down intoning “Father into your hands I commend my spirit.” Then it came to the point where Monsieur Arlanc’s face was only visible in the troughs of the waves. But then the head of Gerard re-appeared, followed by that of the Turk; they were clambering uphill, using the galley as a ladder even as it slid deeper. Gerard reached a temporarily secure place, turned around, hefted the opened padlock in one hand, and flung it at Jack’s head. Jack ducked it and laughed. “There is your redemption, English!” screamed Gerard, weeping with rage.

NOW THEY MADE direct for the Mouths of the Nile, sailing by day and rowing by night. Every few hours they sighted remnant ships of the French fleet, now scattered across fifty miles. Several times they saw Météore, which had survived the battle with the amputation of her mizzenmast, and she signalled to them with mirror-flashes.

“A group of two, then a group of three,” said Nasr al-Ghuráb.

“According to the Plan, this is a signal that we are to curtail the voyage, and put in at Alexandria instead of going on to Abu Qir,” Moseh said.

Al-Ghuráb rolled his eyes. “That would be as good as going direct to Marseille. In El Iskandariya, the French are almost more powerful than the Turks.”

“There is no point in making it easy for the Investor to bugger us,” Jeronimo scoffed.

“Then we shall go to Cairo and make it slightly more difficult,” said the raïs.

“Cairo I like better than Alexandria,” Jack said, “but I do not like Cairo much. It is a cul-de-sac—the end of the line.”

“Not so—we could row up the Nile to Ethiopia!” Dappa said.

Nyazi, viewing Dappa’s jest as a challenge to his hospitality, declared that he would gladly sleep naked in the dirt to the end of his days in order to provide the Cabal with comfortable beds—providing they could get as far as the foothills of the Mountains of Nuba.

“The entire point of choosing Cairo was that it is as far East as Mediterranean vessels can go,” Moseh reminded them, “and so our cargo should have the highest value there, at the reputedly stupendous bazaar of the Khan el-Khalili, in the very heart of that ancient city, called by some the Mother of the World. And this is as true now as it was before.”

“But once we go in we cannot come out—the Investor needs only to post ships before the two Mouths of the Nile, at Rosetta and Damietta, and we are bottled up,” van Hoek pointed out.

“Nonetheless, this half of the Mediterranean is yet Turkish. Turks control every harbor,” said the raïs, “and word has gone out, on faster boats than ours, that if a galleot should appear, with a crew of mostly infidels, and such-and-such markings, it is to be impounded at once, and the crew put in irons. Going to Cairo and trading our cargo for a vast array of goods in the Khan el-Khalili is not such a miserable fate compared to the alternatives—”

“One, being buggered by the Investor in Alexandria,” said Jeronimo.

“Two, being thrown into a dungeon-pit in some flyblown port in the Levant,” said Dappa.

“Three, running the ship aground in some uninhabited place and trudging off into the Sahara bent under the weight of our cargo,” said Vrej.

“Ethiopia sounds better every minute,” said Dappa.

“I shall distribute my wives equally among the nine of us who still have penises,” proclaimed Nyazi, “and Jack can have my finest camel!”

“Jack, fear not,” said Monsieur Arlanc, taking him aside. “I know one or two negociants in Grand Caire. Through them, I can help you sell your share of the goods, and get a bill of exchange, payable in Amsterdam.”

Jack sighed. “I do not predict any of us will sleep easy in Cairo.”

So they made no response to messages from the Investor’s jacht, and used their (now) superior speed to stay well clear of her. And yet they did not attempt to pull away and vanish during the night-times, as there was no advantage in throwing the Investor into a rage.

High sere country, veiled in dust, began to appear off to starboard. The water took on a brown tinge and then became polluted with mud, sticks, and straw, which Nasr al-Ghuráb called sudd. He said it had been washed down out of Egypt by the Nile. The river, he said, would be at its fullest now, as it was the month of August.

Then one midday they spied a hill with a single Roman column rising out of its top, and a city jumbled about its base. “It looks as if a movement of the earth has shaken the whole city down into rubble,” Jack said, but the raïs said that Alexandria always looked that way, and pointed to the fortifications as proof. Indeed a square-sided stone castle rose from the middle of the harbor, at the end of a broad causeway; it seemed orderly and showed no signs of damage. One or two of the faster French ships had already dropped anchor under the shelter of its guns. Gazing for a few moments through a borrowed spyglass, Jack could see men in periwigs going to and fro in longboats, parleying with the customs officials, who here as in Algiers were all black-clad Jews.

“The French pay three percent—merchants of other nations pay twenty,” Monsieur Arlanc commented, “probably thanks to the machinations of your Investor, and of other great Frenchmen.” Since his being rescued from the galley, he had been accepted as a sort of advisor to the Cabal.

“Once the Turks see how the French fleet was mangled by the Dutch, perhaps they’ll change their policy,” van Hoek said.

“Not if the Duc d’Arcachon bribes them with a galleot-load of gold bars,” Jack put in.

Most of the French fleet, including Météore, set their courses direct for the harbor of Alexandria proper. Nasr al-Ghuráb, however, pointed them straight up the coast; raised all the sail he could; and put the galériens to work, driving them at a blazing speed of nine knots for two hours. This brought them to a cusp of land called Abu Qir. From here Alexandria was still plainly visible through dust and heat-waves, and presumably the reverse was true; no doubt some French officer had watched every oar-stroke through a spyglass.

The inspector made it clear to everyone within earshot that he was not happy with any part of the arrangement, but he did his part and departed without creating any obstructions or demanding any baksheesh above and beyond what he was getting anyway: a purse of pieces of eight, handed to him by Nasr al-Ghuráb after the “inspection” was complete.

This inspector turned out to be a hospitable soul, who importuned Moseh to come in and share an evening meal—making the reasonable assumption that the galleot would remain tied up to his pier all night. And indeed this would have been easiest. But a French sloop-of-war had been dispatched from Alexandria and was halfway to them now, her triangular sail apricot-colored in the late afternoon sun, and no one liked the looks of that. Furthermore, according to this Jew, a fine high-road called the Canopic Way joined Alexandria to Abu Qir, and riders on good horses could easily make the trip in a couple of hours. Having no particular desire to be trapped between the French sloop and a hypothetical squadron of French night-riders, Nasr al-Ghuráb ordered the galleot to put to sea about an hour before sunset. Under other conditions this would have been most unwise. But the current of the Nile would tend to push them away from the land, and according to the weather-glass that van Hoek had improvised from a glass tube and a flask of quicksilver, the skies would be clear for at least another day. So they abandoned themselves to the waves, and spent an uneasy night throwing the sounding-lead over the side and hauling it in again, over and over and over, lest they run aground in the Nile’s shifting sands.

The morning’s peace was then broken by wailing and sobbing from the head of the galleot. Jack went forward to find Vrej Esphahnian kneeling on the heavy timber that had once supported the ram. The Armenian was now doing some ramming of his own, repeatedly butting his forehead against the timber and clawing at his scalp until blood showed. He did not appear to hear anything Jack said to him. So Jack lingered until he was certain that Vrej did not intend to hurl himself into the bay, and then returned to the quarterdeck, where tactics were being discussed.

As soon as it had grown light enough to see, they had turned the galley northwards and begun rowing out of this bay. Rosetta (or Rashid, as al-Ghuráb called it) had been close enough that they’d heard the city’s muezzins wailing at the break of dawn. But the raïs explained that to reach the city they would have to go several miles north to the tip of the bar, and find their way in at the river-mouth, then work upriver for an hour or two.

It was not long before the French sloop came into view; she had sailed out into deeper waters for the night and was now patrolling off the Rosetta Mouth. Fortunately a wind came up from the southwest, and by raising some canvas the galleot was able to run before it, overshooting the river-mouth and making excellent speed towards the east—as if she intended to go in at the Damietta Mouth, a hundred miles away, or to break loose altogether and make a run for some other port. The sloop’s skipper had no choice but to bite down hard on that bait, and to chase them downwind. When she had drawn abeam of the galleot, and begun to converge toward them, al-Ghuráb struck the canvas, wheeled about, and set the oar-slaves to work rowing upwind. The sloop came about in response. But lacking oars, she could only work upwind by tacking, and so she had no hope of keeping pace with the galleot. The gap between the two vessels was about half a mile to begin with, and grew steadily as they rowed towards the snarl of interlocking and ingrown sand-bars that guarded the Nile’s Rosetta Mouth.

“Forgive my weakness,” said Vrej in a hoarse voice. “When I saw Rosetta, I could think only of the tales my father told me, of how he passed through that place with his boat-load of coffee. He had nursed that boat through countless narrow seas and straits, canals and river-courses, and when he passed through customs at Rosetta and sailed down to the river’s mouth, suddenly the vast Mediterranean opened up before him: to some, an emblem of terror and harbinger of wild storms, but to him a vista of freedom of opportunity. From there he sailed direct to Marseille and—”

“Yes, I know, introduced coffee to France,” said Jack, who knew the rest of the tale at least as well as Vrej himself. “Now excuse me for tacking upwind, as it were, against the general direction of your narration. But according to your brother’s version of this story, your father acquired that boat-load of coffee in Mocha.”

Vrej, taken aback: “Yes—Mocha is where coffee from Ethiopia, silver from Spain, and spices from India all come together.”

“I have seen maps,” said Jack impressively, “maps of the whole world, in a library in Hanover. And I seem to recollect that Mocha lies on the Red Sea.”

“Yes—as Nyazi can tell you, it lies in Arabia Felix, across the Red Sea from Ethiopia.”

“And furthermore I am under the impression that the Red Sea empties into the ocean that extends to Hindoostan.”

Vrej said nothing.

“If it is true that Cairo is the end of the line—that no vessel can go farther east than that—then how did your father manage to get his ship from Mocha, on the Red Sea, to here?”

Vrej was now sitting with his eyes tightly shut, cursing under his breath.

THAT NIGHT THE PEACE of the Street of the Wigmakers in the souk of Rosetta was wrecked by the sound of a pistol-butt being hammered against an old wooden door. The head of an angry man was thrust out between shutters above, and became much less angry when he saw that two of the three visitors were Turks (or at least dressed that way), and one of those a Janissary. Pieces of eight jangled in a purse improved his mood even more. Door-bolts were removed, the visitors admitted.

The dwelling was clean and well-tended, but it smelt as if the floor-sweepings of every barbershop in the Ottoman Empire had been stuffed into its back room and left to ripen. Tea was brewed and tobacco proffered. After some half an hour of preliminaries, the visitors made a business proposal. Once the owner got over his astonishment, he accepted it. A boy was sent off to the Street of the Barbers at a dead run. While they waited, the wigmaker lit some lamps and displayed his wares. The finished products were big wigs mounted on wooden block-heads, destined for export to Europe; but they looked almost as strange to the European visitors as they did to any Arab, for during the years that they had spent pulling oars, fashions had been changing: wigs were now tall and narrow, no longer flat and broad.

Deeper in the shop were the raw materials, and here choices had to be made. Even the finest Barbary horse-hair was too coarse for tonight’s project. At the other end, hanks of fine, lustrous human hair from China were available—but these were the wrong color and it would take too long to dye them.

A bleary-eyed Turkish barber came in and began heating water and stropping razors. The customers settled on some sandy brown goat hair, intermediate in price.

PIERRE DE JONZAC RETURNED to the bank of the Nile an hour after dawn, just as he had promised or threatened to, and he brought with him his entire squadron of dragoons. Yesterday they’d galloped headlong to the very edge of the quay and pulled up just short of charging across the gangplanks, all panting and sweaty and dust-caked from having galloped up and down the Canopic Way for a night and a day trying to follow the maneuvers of the galleot.

Using Monsieur Arlanc as interpreter, Nasr al-Ghuráb complimented de Jonzac on the splendid appearance of his self and his troops this morning—for it was obvious that the menials at the French Consulate had been up all night grooming, scrubbing, starching, and polishing. The raïs went on to apologize for the contrastingly dismal state of his ship and crew. Some of them were “enjoying the shade of the vines,” which was a poetic way of saying they were in the bazaar (which had a leafy roof of grapevines) buying provisions. Others were “sipping mocha in the Pasha’s house.” De Jonzac looked on this (as he was meant to) as a crashingly unsubtle way of claiming that members of the Cabal were inside the stone fort built by the Turks to control the river, showering baksheesh upon officialdom. The fort was nearby enough to literally overshadow them, and scores of resplendent Janissaries were peering down from its battlements, casting a cold professional eye on the French dragoons. The point being that Rosetta was very different from Alexandria; here the French might have a consulate, and some troops, but (as the saying went) that and a few reales would buy them a cup of Mocha.

This point was entirely sound, but al-Ghuráb had spoken only lies so far. The real reason that only a few Cabal members were visible on the galleot’s quarterdeck was that four of them (Dappa, Jeronimo, Nyazi, and Vrej) had been riding south, post-haste, all through the night, hoping to cover the hundred and fifty miles to Cairo in two days. And another of them was chained to an oar.

“It was uncommonly humane of you to set free a third of your oar-slaves last night,” de Jonzac commented, “but since my master owns part interest in them, we have made arrangements, among our numerous and highly placed Turkish friends in yonder Fort, to have them all rounded up and sent back to Alexandria.”

“I hope that your Navy will be able to find benches for them to sit on,” shouted van Hoek.

The night before—needing some ready cash to pay wigmakers and horse-traders—they’d broken open a crate, and pulled out a gold bar, in full view of certain oar-slaves who’d later been set free. This had been done in the hope and expectation that they’d later divulge it to de Jonzac.

The raïs shrugged. “What of it?”

De Jonzac said, “I’ve sent a message to Alexandria informing my master that certain numbers mentioned in the Plan must now be multiplied by thirteen.”

“Alas! If only the calculation were that simple, your master could relax in the splendor of his Alexandrian villa while you went to Cairo to balance the books. In fact it is much more complicated than that. Our friend in Bonanza turns out to have diversified his portfolio far beyond the usual metal goods. The hoard will require a tedious appraisal before we can reckon its value.”

“That is a routine matter—you forget my master is well acquainted with the workings of the Corsair trade,” de Jonzac sniffed. “He has trusted appraisers who can be dispatched hither—”

“Dispatch them instead to Cairo,” said the raïs, “for that is where our trusted appraisers dwell. And send for your master, too. For there is one treasure here whose value only he can weigh.”

De Jonzac smiled thinly. “My master is a man of acumen—I assure you he leaves appraisals to experts, save, sometimes, when it comes to Barbary stallions.”

“How about English geldings?” the raïs asked, and nodded to Yevgeny and Gabriel Goto.

Down on the oar-deck, Jack began to rattle his chains and to scream in English: “You bloody bastards! Sell me out to the Frog, will you? Motherless wog scum! May God’s curse be on your heads!”

Calmly ignoring this and further curses, Yevgeny came up behind Jack, pinioned his elbows together behind his back, and lifted him up off the bench so that de Jonzac could get a good look at him. Gabriel Goto then grabbed Jack’s drawers and yanked them down so they hung around the knees.

De Jonzac observed a long moment of silence as a frisson ran through his dragoons.

“Perhaps it is Ali Zaybak—perhaps some other English wretch who stood too close to a fire,” the raïs said drily. “Can you recognize Jack Shaftoe?”

“No,” de Jonzac admitted.

“Having recognized him, could you place a value on his head?”

“Only my master could do that.”

“Then we will see you, and your master, in Cairo, in three days,” said Nasr al-Ghuráb.

“That is not enough time!”

“We have been slaves for years,” said Moseh, who had been standing quietly, arms folded, the whole time, “and we say that three more days is too long.”

LATER THAT DAY they set off upriver, mostly under sail-power. The main channel was a few fathoms deep and perhaps a quarter-mile wide—which meant that they were never more than an eighth of a mile from French dragoons. For de Jonzac had sent out two pairs of riders to shadow them, one pair on each riverbank.

As soon as the galleot got clear of Rosetta—which was a sprawl of mostly humble dwellings with no wall to mark its boundary—Jack was dragged away from his bench and draped about in diverse neck-collars, manacles, and leg-irons, then taken back to the concealment of the quarterdeck where Yevgeny devoted a quarter of an hour to smiting an anvil, rattling chains, and producing other noises meant to convince anyone listening that Jack was being securely fettered. Meanwhile Jack—never one to stint on dramaturgy—screamed and cursed as if Yevgeny were bending red-hot irons directly around his wrists. In fact, the reason for his cries of agony was that he was ripping handfuls of goat-hair from his scalp and head. The skin was left covered with a scaly crust of hardened pine-gum. Various scrubbings with turpentine and lamp-oil got that off, taking several layers of skin and leaving him raw from the collarbones upwards. He wrapped his burning head in a turban, got dressed, belted on his sword, and strolled out into view looking every inch a Janissary; then paused, turned around, and shouted some abuse in Sabir at an imaginary chained wretch behind him.

All of it was scenery to the Cabal, and an obstacle course to the French riders. They fell behind the galleot when they had to swing wide around river-bends and flooded fields, then caught up when they found a way to cut across one of the river’s vast meanders. Fortunately for them they had left Rosetta trailing strings of fresh horses; and Egypt, like most of the Turks’ empire, was a settled and orderly country. Traveling along her high-roads was not as easy as in England, but it was easier than in France, and so they were able to keep pace during the day. This gave Moseh, Jack, and the others confidence that the four who’d gone ahead—Nyazi’s group—had reached Cairo without difficulty.

At night the wind fell. Rather than attempting to row through the dark, and perhaps run aground or stray into some backwater, the raïs simply tied the galleot to a palm tree along the riverbank and then organized the Cabal into watches. The dragoons actually served as an outlying guard-post, as they were not keen to see the galleot’s cargo fall into the hands of some local Ali Baba and his forty thieves.

In the middle of the second day, the wind failed and the raïs sent a dozen slaves ashore to pull the galleot by ropes—which was why they had not released all of the slaves in Rosetta. In this way they came, late in the afternoon, to the place where the Nile diverged into its two great branches: the one that they had just navigated, and another that ran to Damietta. Here, as night fell on the second day, they tied the galleot up again, and bided during the hours of darkness. Jack stood an early morning watch, then climbed into a hammock on the quarterdeck and fell asleep in the open air.

When he awoke, the sun was rising, the ship was under way, and he could see a strange terrain of angular mountains off to the west. Sitting up for a better look, he recognized them as Pyramids. When he had got his fill of gawking at those—which took a good long while—he turned around to face the rising sun and gazed across the Nile into the Mother of the World.

Almost immediately they were engulfed in camels, which is never pleasant, and rarely desirable—especially when they are being ridden and led by fierce-looking armed men. Jack thought they were under assault by wild nomads until he began noticing that all of them looked like Nyazi, and many were smiling. Then he heard Jeronimo bellowing in Spanish, “If I had a copper for every fly that swarms on you, beast, I’d buy the Spanish Empire! You smell worse than Vera Cruz in the springtime, and there is more filth clinging to your body than most animals shit in a year. Truly you must have sprung fully formed from a heap of manure, as flies and Popes do—may God have mercy on my soul for saying that! Jack Shaftoe is there smiling at me, thinking that you, camel, and I are well matched for each other—later I’ll make him your wife perhaps and you can take him out into the desert and do with him what you will.”

Dappa and Vrej were off seeing to other matters, but shortly Jack caught sight of Nyazi. He had had a joyous reunion with his clan-members. Jack was glad he had not been there to endure it.

Nasr al-Ghuráb now unchained all of the galley-slaves at once—some two score of them—and told them that they could go now into Cairo, and never come back; or they could join in with the Cabal, and never leave it; but these were their only two choices. Within moments, all but four of them had vanished. Those who remained were a Nubian eunuch, a Hindoo, the Turk who had been at the head of Monsieur Arlanc’s oar, and an Irishman named Padraig Tallow. The first three had somehow made the calculation that their chances were better with the Cabal, while Padraig (Jack suspected) just wanted to see how it would all come out. Monsieur Arlanc was offered the same choice as the others, and to Jack’s delight he elected to throw his lot in with the Cabal.

SOME OF THOSE GALLEY-SLAVES, as they had considered the choice that they’d been given, had asked searching questions about the Plan. The most frequently heard was: “Why do you not simply ride out of town with your treasure? Why bother waiting for this Investor—who has made obvious his intention to cheat you?” Jack was not unsympathetic to this line of questioning. But in the end he had to agree with Moseh and Nasr al-Ghuráb, who answered by pointing with their chins across the Nile, toward the city that the Turks had built up there, called El Giza. It had mosque-domes, leafy gardens, baths, and houses of pleasure. But, too, it had dungeons, and high walls with iron hooks on them, and a Champs de Mars where thousands of Janissaries drilled with muskets and lances. There would be judges in there, too, and some of them would probably be sympathetic to a French Duke who complained that he was being robbed by a rabble of slaves.

The Turkish authorities had already been alerted by a couple of exhausted French dragoons who had galloped up on half-dead horses as the camels were being loaded. So as the caravan left the Nile behind and began winding through the 2,400 wards and quarters of Cairo, it was carefully followed by Janissaries, not to mention hundreds of beggars, Vagabonds, pedlars, courtesans, and curious boys.

Even if Jack had not known, when he’d disembarked from the galleot, that Egypt was the world’s oldest country, he’d have figured it out after an hour’s slow progress through Cairo’s streets. He could see it in the faces of the people, who were a mixture of every race Jack had ever heard about, and some he hadn’t. Every face told as many tales as a whole galley full of oar-slaves. Likewise their houses, which were made partly of stone, partly of timbers so old and gnarled they looked petrified, and mostly of bricks, hand-made and rudely baked, some looking as if they might bear the hand-prints of Moses himself. As many buildings were being torn down, as built up; which only stood to reason, as all the space had been claimed, and there was nothing to do but shift the available materials from one site to another, much as the Nile continually built and dissolved the sand-bars of the Delta by pushing grains of sand from place to place according to its whim. Even the Pyramids had had a gnawed look about their corners, as if people had been using them for quarries.

After hours of working deeper into the city they reached the Khan el-Khalili: a shambolic market, bigger in itself than all but a few European cities. Nyazi bade Jack take his shoes off and led him into an ancient mosque and up a steep spiral staircase that was dark and cool as a natural cave. Finally they stepped out on the roof and Jack looked out upon the city. The river was too far away to be seen from here and so what he saw was a million dusty flat rooves piled with bales, barrels, bundles, mounds, and household detritus. Each roof had its own peculiar height, and the lower ones seemed in danger of becoming buried.

So he drew comfort from being in the Khan el-Khalili, which appeared to be the quickest part of the city. The caravan wound through market-streets devoted to every good imaginable, from slaves to butter to live cobras, and eventually reached a place that, Jack thought, must be the dead center of the entire metropolis. It was a yard, or perhaps an alley: a rectangle of dirt, a bow-shot in length, but not above five yards in width, hemmed in by four-and five-storey buildings. Above, a narrow aperture provided light, but something translucent had been thrown across between the parapets of the buildings: caravan-tents and tarpaulins, Jack suspected. These formed a continuous roof overhead, letting in dusty light but sealing the place off from eavesdroppers. The surrounding buildings were astonishingly quiet—the quietest place in Cairo—and they smelled of hay. Ships coming down the Nile had replenished the place with food for the horses and camels that were stabled here.

“This is where it began,” remarked Nyazi. “This was the seed.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“A hundred generations ago, some men like me camped here—” stomping the dirt with one sandal “—for the night with their camels, and in time the camp put down roots, and became a caravanserai. The market of Khan el-Khalili grew up around it, and Cairo around it. But you see the caravanserai remains, and still we come here to sell our camels.”

“It is a good place to meet the Duke,” Moseh said. “The Plan was sound all along. For, according to what Nyazi has said, not a single day has gone by in this place, since the very beginning of the world, when silver and gold have not passed from hand to hand here. Its presence was not dictated by any king, nor was it prophesied by any creed; it emerged of its own accord, and endures regardless of what the Sultan in Constantinople or the Sun King in Paris might prefer.”

“Truly the forkings and wanderings of the Nile are as unknowable as the streets of Cairo,” said Dappa, blinking his eyes in amazement, “but Vrej found an Armenian coffee-trader, no more than five minutes’ walk from this place, who knew all about the way to Mocha. You go downstream to the great fork, and take the Damietta branch, and after a few miles there is a village on the right bank where a water-course strays off eastwards. In time that stream goes all the way to the Red Sea.”

“Then much traffic must pass through it!” Moseh exclaimed.

“It is jealously guarded by the head men of the villages that bestride it, and by the Turkish officials,” Dappa agreed.

“And for that very reason,” said Vrej, picking up the narrative, “other Egyptians, in neighboring precincts, have been at work with picks and shovels, scooping out short-cuts that bypass the larger villages and toll-stations. These look like nothing more than stagnant dead-ends, or reed-choked sewer-ditches, when they are visible at all; and you may be sure that they are guarded by the farmers who dug them, every bit as jealously as the main channel. So we shall not make it through to the Red Sea without crossing the palms of innumerable peasants with baksheesh—the total expense will be dumb-founding, I fear.”

“But we will have a boat-load of gold,” said Yevgeny.

“And we will be running for our lives,” added Jack, “which always makes spending money not quite so painful.”

“And those farmers will want to keep it all a secret from their Turkish overlords just as badly as we will,” predicted Jeronimo.

“Not quite as badly,” Moseh demurred, “but badly enough.”

“Very good then,” said Surendranath, the Hindoo galley slave who had chosen to throw in his lot with them. “You have shown extreme wisdom in establishing your batna.”

“Avast! We are all People of the Book here, and have no use for your idolatrous claptrap,” said Jeronimo.

“Steady there, Caballero,” said Jack, “I know from personal experience that Books of India contain much of interest. What else can you tell us about this batna, Surendranath?”

“I learnt it from English traders in Surat,” said the befuddled Surendranath, “It stands for Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement.”

A recess, now, as the phrase was translated into diverse languages.

“Moseh, you have sat next to me for years and heard all of my stories, and so you know that I only love one thing in the world, even in spite of this,” said Jack, pulling up the loose sleeve of his garment to display the track of the harpoon in his arm. “There should be no doubt in your mind that I would rather be on a ship bound for Christendom tomorrow, than fleeing for my life towards the Red Sea, like some miserable Hebrew of yore. But like those Hebrews I’ll not be a slave any longer.”

“We are all in accord there,” said Dappa.

“Then, as I have been chosen to represent the Cabal in our final negotiation with the Investor, I must ask you all to do one thing. I am a Vagabond, and was never one for swearing pompous oaths and prating about honor. But this undertaking is no longer a Vagabondish sort of enterprise—so every man among you must now swear, by whatever he considers holiest, that you are with me tomorrow. That, whatsoever happens in my dealings with the Duke—whether I show foolishness or wisdom—whether I remain collected, or lose my temper, or piss my breeches—whether or not the Imp of the Perverse comes to pay me a visit—you are with me, and will accept my decision, and live or die with me.”

Here Jack had been expecting a long, awkward pause, or even laughter. But the sword of Gabriel Goto was out of its sheath before Jack’s words had stopped echoing round the narrow yard. The newcomers flinched. In a simple swift movement Gabriel reversed his sword and presented its hilt to Jack, and in the light of the fire the blade shimmered like a swift stream of clear water beneath the rising sun. “I am samurai,” he said simply.

Padraig, the big Irishman, stepped forward and spat into the fire. “We’ve a saying,” he said to Jack in English. “Is this a private fight, or can anyone join in? Well, I’m in, which ought to suffice. But if you want me to swear by something, then I do swear on my mother’s grave above the sea in Kilmacthomas, and damn you if you think that’s not as good as being a samurai.”

Vrej said, “I have followed you thus far, Jack, seeking to make good on the debt that my family owes you. I swear on my family that I will pay you back.”

Monsieur Arlanc said, “I do not believe in swearing oaths. But I do believe that I am destined to see the matter through to its proper end.”

Van Hoek said, “I swear by my right arm that I’ll never be taken by pirates again. And this Investor is a pirate in the eyes of God.”

“But cap’n, you are left-handed!” Jack said, trying to lighten the mood, which he was beginning to find oppressive.

“To make good on the oath, I must use my strong left hand to cut off the right,” said van Hoek, missing the humor altogether. Indeed, the jest had put him into a more emotional state than any of his fellow-slaves had ever seen. Suddenly he drew his cutlass out; lay his right fist on a bench with only the little finger extended; and brought the cutlass down on it. The last joint of the pinky flew off into the dust. Van Hoek thrust his weapon back into its scabbard, then went out and retrieved the severed digit and held it up in the fire-light. “There is your oath!” he growled, and flung it into the fire. Then he sagged to his knees, and passed out in the dirt.

Some uneasiness, now, as the others wondered whether they would be expected to cut off pieces of themselves. But Nyazi withdrew from the folds of his cloak a red Koran, and he and Nasr al-Ghuráb and the Turk from Arlanc’s galley gathered around it and said holy words in Arabic, and for good measure, announced that they would make the haj if they survived. Likewise Yevgeny, Surendranath, and the Nubian swore fearsome oaths to their respective gods. Mr. Foot, who had been lurking round the edges of the fire-light looking vaguely indignant, announced that it would be super-fluous for him to swear loyalty since “the whole enterprise” had been his idea (apparently referring to the ill-starred cowrie shell voyage of many years back) and that in any case it “would never do” to show anything other than loyalty to his comrades and that it was “bizarre” and “shocking” and “unseemly” and “inconceivable” for Jack to even suggest that he, Mr. Foot, would do otherwise.

“I swear by my country—the country of free men,” said Dappa, “which at the moment has only sixteen or so citizens, and no territory. But it is the only country I have and so by it do I swear.”

THE DUC D’ARCACHON had disembarked from his gilded river-barge, and was riding towards the Khan el-Khalili on a white horse, accompanied by several aides, a Turkish official or two, and a mixed company of rented Janissaries and crack French dragoons. Behind them rumbled several empty wagons of very heavy construction, such as were used to carry blocks of dressed stone through the streets. This much was known to the Cabal half an hour in advance—word had been brought by the messenger-boys who moved through the streets of Cairo like scirocco winds.

Every master jeweler in the city had been hired by the Duc d’Arcachon—or, failing that, had been bribed not to do any work for the Cabal—and were now converging on a certain gate of the Khan el-Khalili to await the Duke. This was common knowledge to every Jew in the city, including Moseh.

A flat-bottomed, shallow-draft river-boat waited at the terminus of a canal that wandered through the city and eventually communicated with the Nile. It was only half a mile from the caravanserai, down a certain street, and the people who dwelled along that street had carried their chairs and hookahs indoors and rounded up their chickens and were keeping their doors bolted and windows shuttered today, because of certain rumors that had begun to circulate the night before.

It was mid-afternoon before the clatter and rumble of the Investor’s entourage penetrated the still courtyard where Jack stood in the lambent glow of the stretched canvas above. He took a deep whiff of air into his nostrils. It smelt of hay, dust, and camel-dung. He ought to be scared, or at least excited. Instead he felt peace. For this alley was the womb at the center of the Mother of the World, the place where it had all started. The Messe of Linz and the House of the Golden Mercury in Leipzig and the Damplatz of Amsterdam were its young impetuous grandchildren. Like the eye of a hurricane, the alley was dead calm; but around it, he knew, revolved the global maelstrom of liquid silver. Here, there were no Dukes and no Vagabonds; every man was the same, as in the moment before he was born.

The challenges and salutations were barely audible through the stable’s haystacks; Jack could not even make out the language. Then he heard horseshoes pocking over the stone floor, coming closer.

“That is he!?” said a voice in French. Jack realized his eyes were closed, and opened them to see a man on a white, pink-eyed cheval de parade. His wig was perfect, an Admiral’s hat was perched atop it, and four little black patches were glued to his white face. He was staring in some alarm at Jack, and Jack almost reached for one of the pistols in his waist-sash, fearing he had already been recognized. But another chevalier, riding knee to knee with the Duke to his left side, leaned askew in his saddle and answered, “Yes, your grace, that is the Agha of the Janissaries.” Jack recognized this rider as Pierre de Jonzac.

“He must be a Balkan,” remarked the Duke, apparently because of Jack’s European coloration.

A third French chevalier rode on the Duke’s right. He cleared his throat significantly as Monsieur Arlanc emerged from the stables and fell in beside Jack, on his left hand. Evidently this was to warn the Duke that they were now in the presence of a man who could understand French. Moseh now emerged and stood on Jack’s right to even the count, three facing three.

The Frenchmen—wishing to command the field—rode forward all the way to the center of the alley. Likewise Jack strolled forward until he was drawing uncomfortably close to the Duke. Finally the Duke reined in his white horse and held up one hand in a signal for everyone to halt. De Jonzac and the other chevalier stopped immediately, their horses’ noses even with the Duke’s saddle. But Jack took another step forward, and then another, until de Jonzac reached down and drew a pistol halfway from a saddle-holster, and the other aide spurred his horse forward to cut Jack off.

“I comprehend your plan,” said the Duke, dispensing with formalities altogether—which was probably meant to be some kind of insult. “It is essentially suicidal.”

Jack pretended not to understand until Monsieur Arlanc had translated this into Sabir.

“We had to make it seem that way,” answered Jack, “or you would have been afraid to show up.”

The Duke smiled as if at some very dry dinner-table witticism. “Very well—it is like a dance, or a duel, beginning with formal steps: I try to frighten you, you try to impress me. We proceed now. Show me L’Emmerdeur!”

“He is very near by,” said Jack. “First we must settle larger matters—the gold.”

“I am a man of honor, not a slave, and so to me, the gold is nothing. But if you are so concerned about it, tell me what you propose.”

“First, send your jewelers away—there are no jewels, and no silver. Only gold.”

“It is done.”

“This caravanserai is vast, as you have seen, and full of hay at the moment. The gold bars have been buried in the haystacks. We know where they are. You do not. As soon as you have given us the documents declaring us free men, and set us on the road, or the river, with our share of the money in our pockets—in the form of pieces of eight—we will tell you where to find the gold.”

“That cannot be your entire plan,” said the Duke. “There is not so much hay here that we cannot simply arrest you, and then search it all at our leisure.”

“While we were going through the stables, hiding the gold, we spilled quite a bit of lamp-oil on the floor, and buried a few powder-kegs in haystacks for good measure,” Jack said.

Pierre de Jonzac shouted a command to a junior officer back in the stables.

“You threaten to burn the caravanserai, then,” said the Duke, as if everything Jack said had to be translated into childish language.

“The gold will melt and run into the drains. You will recover some of it, but you will lose more than you would by simply paying us our share and setting us free.”

An officer came out on foot and whispered something to de Jonzac, who relayed it to the Duke.

“Very well,” said the Duke.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My men have found the puddles of lamp-oil, your story seems to be correct, your proposal is accepted,” said the Duke. He turned and nodded to his other aide, who opened up his saddle-bags and began to take out a series of identical-looking documents, formally sealed and beribboned in the style of the Ottoman bureaucracy.

Jack turned and beckoned toward the doorway where Nasr al-Ghuráb had been lurking. The raïs came out, laid down his arms, and approached the Duke’s aide, who allowed him to inspect one of the documents. “It is a cancellation of a slave-deed,” he said. “It is inscribed with the name of Jeronimo, and it declares him to be a free man.”

“Read the others,” Jack said.

“Now for the important matter, mentioned earlier,” said the Duke, “which is the only reason I made the journey from Alexandria.”

“Dappa,” read al-Ghuráb from another scroll. “Nyazi.”

A cart rattled out from behind the French lines, causing Jack to flinch; but it carried only a lock-box. “Your pieces of eight,” the Duke explained, amused by Jack’s nervousness.

“Yevgeny—and here is Gabriel Goto’s,” the raïs continued.

“Assuming that the wretch you displayed in Alexandria really was L’Emmerdeur, how much do you want for him?” the Duke inquired.

“As we are all free men now, or so it appears, we will likewise do the honorable thing, and let you have him for free—or not at all,” said Jack.

“Here is that of van Hoek,” said the raïs, “and here, a discharge for me.”

Another tolerant smile from the Duke. “I cannot recommend strongly enough that you give him to me. Without L’Emmerdeur there is no transaction.”

“Vrej Esphahnian—Padraig Tallow—Mr. Foot—”

“And despite your brave words,” the Duke continued, “the fact remains that you are surrounded by my dragoons, musketeers, and Janissaries. The gold is mine, as surely as if it were locked up in my vault in Paris.”

“This one has a blank space where the name should go,” said Nasr al-Ghuráb, holding up the last document.

“That is only because we were not given this one’s name,” explained Pierre de Jonzac, pointing at Jack.

A Silence, now, almost as long as the one Jack had experienced, once, in the grand ballroom of the Hôtel Arcachon. But all things considered, the Duke recovered quickly—which meant either that he’d known all along, or that he was more adaptable than he looked. De Jonzac and the other aide were dumbfounded. The Duke moved his horse a couple of steps nearer, the better to peer down at Jack’s face. Jack stepped forward, close enough to feel the breath from the horse’s nostrils, and pulled the turban from his head.

“This need not alter the terms of the transaction, Jack,” said the Duke. “Your comrades can all be free and rich, with a single word from you.”

Jack stood there and considered it—genuinely—for a minute or two, as horses snorted and punks smoldered in the dark vaults of the caravanserai all around him. One small gesture of Christlike self-abnegation and he could give his comrades the wealth and freedom they deserved. At any earlier part of his life he would have scoffed at the idea. Now, it strangely tempted him.

For a few moments, anyway.

“Alas, you are a day too late,” he said at last, “for last night my comrades swore any number of mickle oaths to me, and I intend to hold them to account. ’Twere bad form, otherwise.”

And then in a single motion he drew out his Janissary-sword and plunged it all the way to the hilt into the neck of the Duke’s horse, aiming for the heart. When he hit it, the immense muscle clenched like a fist around the wide head of the blade, then went limp as the watered steel cleaved it in twain.

The blade came out driven on a jet of blood as thick as his wrist. The horse reared up, the Duke’s jeweled spurs flailing in the air. Jack stepped to one side, drawing a pistol from his waistband with his free hand, and fired a ball through the head of the aide who had brought the documents. The Duke just avoided falling off his horse, but managed to hold on as it bolted forward a couple of paces and then fell over sideways, pinning one of the Duke’s legs and (as Jack could hear) breaking it.

“My men think you are dead now, and won’t waste balls on you,” Jack said. “In fact I have let you live, but for one purpose only: so that you can make your way back to Paris and tell them the following: that the deed you are about to witness was done for a woman, whose name I will not say, for she knows who she is; and that it was done by ‘Half-Cocked’ Jack Shaftoe, L’Emmerdeur, the King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak: Quicksilver!”

As he said these words he was stepping over to the Duc d’Arcachon, who had dragged himself out from under his horse and was lying there, hatless and wigless, propped up on one elbow, with the jagged ends of his leg-bones poking out through the bloody tissues of his silk stockings.

“Here I am supposed to give you a full account and explanation of your sins, and why you deserve this,” Jack announced, “but there is no time. Suffice it to say that I am thinking of a mother and daughter you once abducted, and disgraced, and sold into slavery.”

The Duke pondered this for a moment, looking bewildered, and then said: “Which ones?”

Then Jack brought the bright blade of the Janissary-sword down like a thunderbolt, and the head of Louis-François de Lavardac, duc d’Arcachon, bounced and spun in the dirt of Khan el-Khalili in the center of the Mother of the World, and the dust of the Sahara began to cloud the lenses of his eyes.

Moseh, Vrej, and Surendranath, with their merchants’ aptitude for figures, knew where every last bar was hid, and were making sure that none went missing. That was a job best done by calm men. As men were more intelligent than horses, one could not keep them calm by putting sacks over their heads; some kind of real security had to be provided, from fire, smoke, Janissaries, dragoons, and—what else had the Duke mentioned?

“Have you seen any French musketeers?” Jack inquired, when he had located Nyazi. As long as they remained in the stables, Nyazi was their general.

It was easier to talk now than it had been a few minutes ago. Smoke had rendered muskets useless, and flames the possession of gunpowder extremely dangerous. The thuds of musket-fire had died away and were being supplanted by the ring of blade against blade, and the shouting of men trying to shift their burdens of fear to their foes.

“What is a musketeer?”

“The Duke claimed he had some,” Jack said, which did not answer Nyazi’s question. But there was no time to explain the distinction between dragoons and musketeers now.

A horn had begun to blow from the back of the stables, giving the signal that the gold wagons were ready to depart. Nyazi began to holler orders to his clansmen, who were distributed around the smoke in some way that was clear only to him, and they began falling back toward the wagons. This was their attempt at an orderly retreat under fire, which as Jack knew was no easy thing to manage even with regular troops under good conditions. In fact it was almost as chaotic as the advance of the Janissaries, who had overrun at least part of Nyazi’s defensive line and were now stumbling forward, gasping and gagging, tripping over rakes and slamming into pillars, charging toward the sound of the trumpet call—not so much because the enemy and the gold were there, as because one could not blow a bugle without drawing breath, and so it proved that air was to be had ahead.

Jack’s first attack was abortive, though, and his second was nicely parried by the Frenchman—who backed into a pitchfork that was lying on the floor, and tripped over its handle, sprawling back onto his arse. Jack snatched up the pitchfork and flung it like a trident at his opponent just as he was scrambling to his feet. It did no damage, but in knocking it aside, the Frenchman left himself open for a moment and Jack leapt forward swinging. His opponent tried to block the blow with the middle of his small-sword, but this weapon—designed for twitchy finger-fighting and balletic lunges—was feeble shelter against Jack’s blade of watered steel. The Janissary-blade knocked the rapier clean out of the French officer’s hand and went on to cut his body nearly in half.

There was a clamor of voices and blades and whinnying horses off to his right. Jack desperately wanted to get over there, because he suspected he was alone and surrounded.

Then one of the powder-kegs exploded. At least that was the easiest way to explain the crushing sound, the horizontal storm of barrel-staves, pebbles, nails, horseshoes, and body parts that came and went through the smoke, and the sudden moaning and popping of timbers as sections of floor collapsed. Jack’s ears stopped working. But his skull ended up pressed against the stone floor, which conducted, directly into his brain, the sound of horseshoes flailing, iron-rimmed cartwheels grinding and screeching, and—sad to say—at least one cart-load of gold bars overturning as panicked horses took it round a corner too fast. Each bar radiated a blinding noise as it struck the pavement.

Lying flat on his back gave him the useful insight that there was a layer of clear air riding just above the floor. He pulled his soaked tunic off, tied it over his mouth and nose, and began crawling on his naked belly. The place was a maze of haystacks and corpses, but light was shining in through a huge stone arch-way. He dragged himself through it, and out into the open—and into battle.

Rolling over onto his belly and peering out through a gun-slit that the Huguenot had prudently left between gold bars, Jack could see the large floppy hats characteristic of French musketeers. They had formed up in several parallel ranks, completely blocking the street that ran down to the canal where the Cabal’s means of escape was waiting. These ranks took turns kneeling, loading, standing, aiming, and firing, keeping up a steady barrage of musket-balls that made it impossible for the men of the Cabal to advance, or even to stand up. This human road-block was only about forty yards away, and was completely exposed. But it worked because the Cabal’s forces did not have enough muskets, powder, and balls left to return fire. And it would continue working for as long as those musketeers were supplied with ammunition.

Meanwhile the stable continued to burn, and occasionally explode, behind them. The situation could not possibly be as dire as it seemed or they would all be dead. Between volleys of musketeer-fire Jack heard the whinny of horses and the rattling bray of camels. He looked to the left and saw a stable-yard, surrounded by a low stone wall, where several of Nyazi’s men had gotten their camels to kneel and their horses to lie down on their sides. So they had a sort of reserve, anyway, that could be used to pull the carts down to the boat—but not as long as those carts were forty yards in front of a company of musketeers.

“We have to outflank those bastards,” Jack said. Which was obvious—so others must have thought of it already—which would explain the fact that only a few members of the Cabal were in evidence here. The left flank, once he looked beyond that embattled stable-yard, looked like a cul-de-sac; movement that way was blocked by a high stone wall that looked as if it might have been part of Cairo’s fortifications in some past æon, and was now a jumbled stone-quarry.

He rounded a tight curve and came to a wee square, the sort of thing that in Paris might have, planted in its center, a life-size statue of Leroy leading his regiments across the Rhine, or something. In place of which stood Yevgeny, feet planted wide, arms up in the air, manipulating a half-pike that he had evidently ripped from the hands of a foe. Yevgeny was holding it near its balance-point and whirling it round and round so fast that he, and the pike, taken together, seemed and sounded like a monstrous hummingbird. Three Janissaries stood round about him at a respectful distance; two, who’d ventured within the fatal radius, lay spreadeagled in the dust bleeding freely from giant lacerations of the head.

One dropped to his knees and tried to come in under Yevgeny’s pike, but the Russian, who was turning slowly round and round even as he spun the weapon, canted the plane of its movement in such a way that its sharpened end swept the fellow’s cap off, and might have scalped him had he been an inch closer. He collapsed to his belly and crept back away—which was not possible to do quickly.

All this presented itself to Jack’s eyes in the first moment that he came into this tiny plaza. His first thought was that Yevgeny would be defenseless against anyone who came upon the scene with a projectile weapon. Scarcely had this entered his mind when one of the two standing Janissaries backed into a door-nook, withdrew a discharged pistol from his waist-sash, and set about loading it. Jack picked up a fist-sized stone and flung it at this man. Yevgeny stopped his pike in mid-whirl, swung the butt high into the air, and drove the point into the body of the man who’d dropped to his stomach. The third, construing this as an opening, gathered his feet under him so as to spring at Yevgeny. Noting this, Jack let out a scream that astonished the man and made him have second thoughts and go all tangle-footed. He turned towards Jack and, distracted as he was by Yevgeny on his flank, parried an imagined attack from Jack, and mounted a weak one of his own. Yevgeny meanwhile chucked the pike at the pistol-loader, who had dropped his weapon into the dirt when Jack’s rock had caught him amidships (which was understandable) and gone down on both knees to retrieve it (a fatal mistake, as it had turned him into a stationary target).

Three ways joined together in this little space. Jack had entered along one of them. That poor unnerved Janissary, and Yevgeny, had exited along the way that led off to Jack’s left. This was the way Jack needed to probe if there was to be any hope of outflanking the musketeers. It led imperceptibly downhill, away from the caravanserai and towards the canal. To Jack’s right, then, was a needle’s eye, which is to say a very narrow arch built to admit humans while preventing camels from passing out of the stables. Peering through that, he saw that beyond it the alley broadened and ran straight for about ten yards to a side entrance of the caravanserai, which was sucking in a palpable draft of air to feed the howling and cackling flames. A squad of some eight or ten French soldiers were just emerging from the smoke. They had prudently cast off their muskets and powder-horns, but otherwise looked none the worse for wear—they must have found some way to circumvent the fire.

But Jack’s view of these was suddenly blocked by a figure in a black ankle-length robe: Gabriel Goto, who stepped out from the shelter of a doorway and took up a position blocking the eye of the needle. At the moment he appeared to be unarmed; but he stopped the Frenchmen in their tracks anyway, by raising up his right hand and uttering some solemn words in Latin. Jack was no Papist, but he’d been in enough battles and poorhouses to recognize the rite of extreme unction, the last sacrament given to men who were about to die.

Hearing musket-fire from the opposite way out—the way Yevgeny had gone—Jack turned to look, and saw a somewhat wider street that wound off in the direction of where those musketeers had established their road-block. Ten or twelve yards away, just where it curved out of view, a corpse lay sprawled on its back.

Jack turned round again to look at Gabriel Goto, who had planted himself just on this side of the needle’s eye and was standing in a prayerful attitude as the Frenchmen came towards him. The samurai waited until they were no more than two yards away. Then he reached under his cloak and drew out his two-handed saber, gliding forward in the same movement, like a snake over grass, and tracing a compound diagram in the air with his sword-tip. Then he drew back, and Jack noticed that the head, neck, and right arm of one Frenchman were missing—removed by a single diagonal cut.

Jack meanwhile ran ahead, rounded a curve, and was confronted by a Y. The left fork led to a point in the main street, directly in front of the musketeers’ position; anyone who did so much as poke his head out of there would get it blown off in an instant. The right fork led to a point behind the musketeers, and so that was the one they wanted; but the French had had the good sense to throw up a barricade consisting of a wagon rolled over onto its side. Two muskets were immediately fired at Jack, who without thinking dove headlong into the deep gutter that ran down the center of the street. This had no more than a trickle of sewage in the bottom; it was lined with stone and (because of the slight curve in the street) protected him from musket-fire.

He rolled onto his back and looked straight up to see the sniper who had shot al-Ghuráb having his throat cut by Nyazi, who had somehow gotten to the roof. But rather than advancing, Nyazi was obliged to throw himself down to avoid fire from a few other Janissaries who were on the adjoining rooftop. Though he could not understand much Turkish or Arabic, Jack could tell the two languages apart by their sounds, and he was certain that several other Arabic-speaking men—Nyazi’s clansmen—were up there, too. So it was going to be camel-traders versus Janissaries on the rooftops.

Levering himself up on his elbows and surveying the street, Jack could now see Yevgeny, Padraig, and the Nubian backed into doorways, safe for now, but unable to advance toward the musketeers’ barricade.

From one of their supply-wagons Jack secured a powder-keg and an earthenware jar of lamp-oil. Then he turned round and went back, at first crawling on his belly and pushing these items before him, later hugging the keg to his belly and running. A rightward glance at the T intersection told him that Gabriel Goto was still embroiled at the needle’s eye, French body parts continuing to thud down every few seconds. The sword whirling through the air tracing Barock figures, like the pen of a royal calligrapher.

Jack paused near the Turk’s body to pry the wax-sealed bung from the jar of lamp-oil. He poured about half the contents over the powder-keg, dribbling it on slowly so that it soaked into the dry wood rather than running off. Then he came round the curve into the Y intersection and dove once more into the gutter: a trough with vertical sides and a rounded bottom, like a U, wide enough that the keg, laid sideways, could fit into it, remaining mostly below street level. But the round ends of the keg, bound by iron hoops, rolled like cartwheels along the sloping sides of the U.

Pushing the reeking keg in front of him, he inched forward until he began to draw direct fire from the musketeers manning the barricade, no more than ten yards away. Then he gave the keg a panicky shove and backed away. His intention had been to pour the remainder of the lamp-oil into the gutter and use it as a sort of liquid fuse. But here events overtook him. For Yevgeny had come up with the idea of trying to set fire to the barricade, and had fashioned a sort of burning lance from a spear and an oily rag. As Jack watched from the gutter, Yevgeny fired a pistol alongside this contrivance, igniting it; then he stepped out into the street and immediately took a musket-ball in the ribs. He paused, stepped farther into the street, and took another in the thigh. But these wounds apparently did not even qualify as painful by Russian standards, and so with perfect aplomb he hefted the flaming harpoon, judged the distance, then hopped forward three times on his good leg and hurled it towards the powder-keg. Another musket-ball hit him in the left wrist and spun him around. He fell like a toppled oak towards the street. At the same moment Jack rolled up out of the gutter and found himself standing in the middle of the Y with his back to the barricade.

There was a sudden bright light. It cast a long shadow behind Gabriel Goto, who was walking down the street painting the ashlars with a long streak of blood that drizzled from the hem of his black robe. He appeared to be perfectly unharmed.

Jack turned around to see planks fluttering down all over the neighborhood, and stray wagon-wheels bounding along the street. The right fork of the Y, where the barricade had once stood, was just a smoky mess. Above it, on the rooftop, Nasr al-Ghuráb had dragged himself into position despite a flayed and butchered thigh. He whipped out a cutlass, threw his good leg over the parapet, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” and fell into the inferno, landing on two musketeers, crushing one and cutting the other in half.

At the same moment, Jack saw movement down the left fork of the Y, which had not figured much into the battle as it led to a place directly in front of the musketeers. But all of a sudden a lone man on horseback was galloping across that space: It was Excellentissimo Domino Jeronimo Alejandro Peñasco de Halcones Quinto, mounting a one-man cavalry charge on his Arab steed. He almost reached the enemy without suffering any injuries, for he had timed his charge carefully, and none of the musketeers were in position to fire. But as he galloped the last few yards, screaming “Estremaduras!” a shower of blood erupted from his back; some officer, perhaps, had shot him with a pistol. The horse was hit, too, and went down on its knees. This would have pitched any other man out of the saddle, but Jeronimo seemed to be ready for it. As he flew out of the saddle he shoved off with both feet, pitching his hindquarters upwards; tucked his head under; landed hard on one shoulder, and rolled completely over in a somersault. In the same continuous movement he sprang up to his feet, drew his rapier, and drove it all the way through the body of the officer who had shot him. “How do you like that, eh? El Torbellino made me practice that one until I pissed blood; and then he made me practice it some more until I got it right!” He pulled out the rapier and slashed its edge through the throat of another Frenchman who was coming up from one side. “Now you will learn that a man of Estremaduras can fight better when he is bleeding to death than a Frenchman in the pink of health! I judge that I have sixty seconds to live, which—” plunging his rapier into a a musketeer’s neck “—should give me more than enough time to—” cutting another musketeer’s throat “—kill a dozen of you—four so far—” he now revealed a dagger in the other hand, and stabbed a fleeing musketeer in the back “—make it five!”

But then several musketeers finally converged on El Desamparado, realizing that there was no escape from the man unless they killed him, and plunged their bayonets into his body.

“Yevgeny!” Jack shouted, for the Russian was only a few yards away from him, lying on his back in the street as if asleep. “We will be back with the heavy carts in a minute to get you.”

Then Jack, Padraig, the Nubian, and Gabriel Goto charged the barricade four abreast, and got through what was left of it with no difficulty. Padraig stayed behind to batter the surviving musketeers into submission with a quarter-staff, and to pick over their bodies for better weapons. Above them, several of Nyazi’s clansmen were charging across the rooftops, having overcome the Janissaries up there.

They came into the rear of the formation of musketeers that had been blocking the main street. At a glance Jack could not tell whether El Desamparado had slain his full quota of a dozen; but it was obvious that he would not slay any more. The rest were milling around, out of formation, and so Jack and his comrades simply discharged all of their remaining loaded firearms into their midst and then fell upon them with swords. The ones who survived all of this stumbled back over the bodies of El Desamparado and his victims and retreated into the side-street that had formed the left fork of the Y, where the men of Nyazi’s clan were able to rain stones and a few musket-balls on their heads.

Finally, now, the clansmen of Nyazi were able to bring the horses out of the stable-yard and hitch them to the gold-wagons, though various dragoons, musketeers, and Janissaries continued to harass them from all around; and now the thieves of Cairo were beginning to make their presence known, too. Flocks of them began to coalesce in doorways and corners, hidden by the greedy shadows of late afternoon, and made occasional sorties into the light in the hope of fetching some gold. In spite of this, within a quarter of an hour they were able to drive away from the stables—a cyclone of flame now—with four of the original six gold-carts.

Jack and Gabriel Goto were riding on the last of these, supposedly to act as a rear-guard. But both of them had another errand in mind as well. When they came abreast of the side-street where the barricade had been exploded, they reined in the cart-horse, jumped off, and ran up to recover Yevgeny.

Because of the smoldering debris that half-choked the street, they could not see the place where he had fallen until they were almost upon it. But then they found nothing except a wide smear of gore. Yevgeny’s blood had outlined the paving-stones in narrow red lines as it trickled between them, seeking the gutter. But Yevgeny himself was nowhere to be seen. The only other traces of him that remained were his left hand, which had been shot off, and a few rude characters drawn in blood on the pavement. An uneven line of bloody footsteps meandered up the street toward the stables, and disappeared into dust and smoke.

“Can you read it?” Jack asked Gabriel.

“It says, ‘Go the long way round,’ ” Gabriel answered.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Specifically? I do not know. Generally? It suggests that he will go some other way.”

“Spoken like a Jesuit.”

“He has gone that way,” said Gabriel, pointing toward the caravanserai, “and we must go this.” Pointing back towards the gold-carts.

“We are needed there anyway,” Jack said, breaking into a run. For their cart had already come under attack from a mixed mob of thieves, Vagabonds, Janissaries, and French soldiers. The appearance of Jack and Gabriel on their flank, bloody sabers held high, got rid of most of them. But looters better armed and more determined were close behind them, and so Jack and Gabriel and a few of Nyazi’s men rattled the half-mile down to the canal hotly pursued, though at a prudent distance, by a sort of wolf-pack.

At the foot of the street where it gave way to the canal, Mr. Foot, Vrej, Surendranath, and van Hoek were waiting—looking as if they had been through some adventures of their own this afternoon. They had thrown a heavy platform across the gap between the quay and the river-boat, and the other three gold-carts had already rumbled across it, spilling many of their contents on the deck.

Parked to one side of the street was a humble-looking hay-wain, harnessed to a camel. As the last cart, carrying Jack and Gabriel, jounced past it, a whip cracked and this vehicle bolted out into the middle of the street. By this point nothing could have prevented the gold-cart from reaching the platform, so Jack vaulted off of it, and turned round to face the hay-wain, anticipating some sort of attack. But by the time he had recovered his balance, the hay-wain had stopped in the middle of the street, directly in the path of the pursuing horde. The driver (Nyazi!) and another man (Moseh!) jumped off and chocked its wheels there, and at the same time the pile of hay on the cart’s back seemed to come alive; most of the load showered into the street. Revealed were a long tubular black object (a cannon!) and, clambering to his feet next to it, a black man (Dappa!).

“I have not done this before,” he announced, fishing out, and inspecting, a long, rusty pick, “but have had it all explained to me, by men who have.”

“Men who have lost sea-battles and been taken as galley-slaves,” Jack added.

Dappa brushed hay from the butt of the cannon and shoved the pick into the touch-hole.

“Help load the boat!” Jack screamed at Moseh and Nyazi. To Dappa he suggested, “For Christ’s sake, don’t worry about clearing the bloody touch-hole!”

Dappa returned, “If you’d be so good as to get the tampion out of my way?”

Jack scurried around to the muzzle-side of the wagon, turned his back to the on-rushing horde—which was not a thing that came naturally to him—reached up, and yanked out a round wooden bung that had been stuffed into the gun’s muzzle. It was shot out of his hand by a pistol-ball.

Dappa had an arrow through his sleeve, though not, apparently, through his arm. He was regarding a long-handled scoop. “As you are in such a hurry today,” he announced, “we shall dispense with the customary procedure of swabbing out the barrel.” As he spoke he shoved the scoop into some crunchy-sounding receptacle, which was hidden from Jack’s view by the side of the wagon, and raised it up heaped with coarse black powder. Balancing this in one hand he produced a copper-bladed spatula in the other, and leveled the powder-charge; then, moving with utmost deliberation so as not to spill any, he turned the scoop end-for-end and introduced it to the cannon’s muzzle, then, slowly at first, but quicker as he went along, hand-over-handed it until the entirety of its long handle had been swallowed by the barrel. He then gave it a half rotation to disgorge its load, and began gingerly to extract it.

“An avalanche, or so ’tis claimed by certain Alpine galériens I have rowed with, may be triggered by the sound of cannon-fire.” Dappa had torn off his shirt, wadded it up, and stuffed it down the barrel, and was now feeding in double handfuls of shot. He followed that with his turban, and finally took up his long rammer. “I wonder if we may halt an avalanche thus.” His long dreadlocks, freed from the imprisonment of the head-wrap, fell about his face as he bent forward to get the pad of the rammer into the muzzle.

“Don’t bother taking the rammer out—at this range ’twill serve as a javelin,” was Jack’s last advice to Dappa, as he turned his back and began to stalk up the hill towards the Mobb. For there were one or two fleet-footed scimitar-swingers, far ahead of the pack, who might arrive soon enough to interfere with the final steps of the rite.

“Where did that horn of priming-powder get to?” Dappa wondered.

Jack feinted left long enough to convince the hashishin on the right that he had a clear path to Dappa; then Jack lashed out with a foot and tripped him as he ran by. Moseh emerged from nearer to the quay. He had located another boarding axe, his tongue was coming out, he had an eye on the man who’d just planted his face in the street, and he was followed by Nyazi and Gabriel Goto, who had been watching all of these developments with interest and decided to leave off ship-loading work.

A scimitar slashed downward from the left; Jack angled it off the back of his blade. A tapping sound from behind suggested that Dappa had found his priming-powder and was getting it into the touch-hole.

“Has anyone got a light?” Dappa said.

Jack butt-stroked his opponent across the jaw with the guard of his sword and yanked a discharged pistol out of the fellow’s waist-band, then turned round and underhanded it across five or six yards of empty space to Dappa. Which might have got him killed, as it entailed turning his back on his opponent; but the latter knew what was good for him, and prudently flung himself down.

As did Jack; and (as he saw now, turning his head to look up the hill) as did nearly everyone else. A small number of utterly unhinged maniacs kept running toward them. Jack got to his feet, making sure he was well out of the way of the cannon’s muzzle, and backed up to the wagon. Nyazi, Moseh, and Gabriel Goto closed ranks around him.

There followed a bit of a standoff. Crazed hashishin aside, no one in the street could move as long as Dappa had them under his gun. But as soon as Dappa fired it, he’d be defenseless, and they’d be swarmed under. Pot-shots whistled their way from a few doorways up the street; Dappa squatted down, but held his ground at the cannon’s breech.

It bought them the time they needed, anyway. “All aboard!” called van Hoek—a bit late, as the boat had already cast off lines, and the gap between it and the quay was beginning to widen. “Now!” called Dappa. Jack, Nyazi, Gabriel Goto, and Moseh all turned and ran for it. Dappa stayed behind. The French regulars leapt to their feet and made for him double-time. Dappa cocked the pistol, held its pan above the small powder-filled depression that surrounded the orifice of the cannon’s touch-hole, and pulled the trigger. Sparks showered and, like stars going behind clouds, were swallowed in a plume of smoke. A spurt of flame two fathoms long shot from the cannon’s muzzle, driving the ram-rod, some pounds of buckshot, and half of Dappa’s clothing up the length of the street. The riot that came his way a moment later suggested that none of it had been very effective. But by the time the Mobb engulfed the cannon, Dappa was sprinting down the quay. He jumped for it, caromed off the gunwale, and fell into the Nile; but scarcely had time to get wet before oars had been thrust into the water for him to grab onto. They pulled him aboard. Everyone went flat on the decks as the French soldiers discharged their muskets, once, in their general direction. Then they passed out of sight and out of range.

“What went awry?” van Hoek asked.

“Our escape-route was blocked by a company of French musketeers,” Jack said.

“Fancy that,” van Hoek muttered.

“Jeronimo and both of our Turks are dead.”

“The raïs?”

“You heard me—he is dead, and now you are our Captain,” Jack said.

“Yevgeny?”

“He dragged himself away to die. I suspect he did not want to be a burden on the rest of us,” Jack said.

“That is hard news,” van Hoek said, gripping his bandaged hand and squeezing it.

“It is noteworthy that both of the Turks were killed,” said Vrej Esphahnian, who had overheard most of this. “More than likely one of them betrayed us; the Pasha in Algiers probably planned the whole thing, from the beginning, as a way to screw the Investor out of his share.”

“The raïs seemed very surprised when he was shot by a Janissary,” Jack allowed.

“It must have been part of the Turks’ plan,” said Vrej. “They would want to slay the traitor first of all, so that he would not tell the tale.”

Upstream, a Turkish war-galley had been dispatched from Giza to pursue them. But it had feeble hope of catching them, for the Nile was not a wide river even at this time of the year, and such width as it had was choked by a jam of slow-moving grain barges.

Night fell as they were approaching the great fork of the Nile. They took the Rosetta branch to throw off their landward pursuers, then cut east across the Delta, following small canals, and got across to the Damietta Fork by poling the boat over an expanse of flooded fields several miles wide. By the time the sun rose the following morning, they had struck their masts, and anything else that projected more than six feet above the waterline, and were surrounded by tall reeds in the marshy expanses to the east.

At the end of that day they made rendezvous with a small caravan of Nyazi’s people, and there a share of the gold was loaded onto their camels. Nyazi and the Nubian both said their farewells to the Cabal at this point and struck out for the south, Nyazi visibly excited at the thought of a reunion with his forty wives, and the Nubian trusting to fortune to get him back to the country from which he had been abducted.

Eastwards on the boat continued Jack, Mr. Foot, Dappa, Monsieur Arlanc, Padraig Tallow, Vrej Esphahnian, Surendranath, and Gabriel Goto, with van Hoek as their captain and Moseh as their designated Prophet. It was a role in which he seemed uncomfortable until one day, after many wanderings and lesser adventures, they came to a place where the reeds parted into something that could only be the Red Sea.

Van Hoek ordered the masts stepped and the sails raised, and they set a course for Mocha and the Orient, free men all.

“I LEFT INSTRUCTIONS NOT to be disturbed.”

“Please forgive me, mademoiselle,” said the big Dutchwoman, in passable French, “but it is Madame la duchesse d’Oyonnax, and she will not be put off.”

“Then I do forgive you, Brigitte, for she is a difficult case; I shall meet her presently and finish reading this letter later.”

“By your leave, you shall have to finish it tomorrow, mademoiselle; for the guests arrive in a few hours, and we have not even begun with your hair yet.”

“Very well—tomorrow then.”

“Where shall I invite Madame la duchesse to wait for you?”

“The Petit Salon. Unless—”

“Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon is entertaining her cousine, the big one, in there.”

“The library then.”

“Monsieur Rossignol is toiling over some eldritch Documents in the library, my lady.”

Eliza took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Tell me, then, Brigitte, where there might be a room in the Hôtel Arcachon that is not crowded with early-arriving party-guests.”

“Could you meet her in…the chapel?”

“Done! Give me a minute. And, Brigitte?”

“Yes, my lady?”

“Is there any word of Monsieur le duc yet?”

“Not since the last time you asked, mademoiselle.”

“THE JACHT OF THE DUC d’Arcachon was sighted approaching Marseille on the sixth of October. It was flying signal-flags ordering that fast horses and a coach must be made ready at dockside for immediate departure. That much we know from a messenger who was sent north immediately when everything I have just described to you was perceived, through a prospective-glass, from a steeple in Marseille,” Eliza said. “This news came to us early this morning. We can only assume that le duc himself is a few hours behind, and will show up at any moment; but it is not to be expected that anyone in this household could know any more than that.”

“Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain will be disappointed,” said the Duchess of Oyonnax in a bemused way. She nodded at a page, who bowed, backed out of the chapel, then pivoted on the ball of one foot and bolted. Eliza, comtesse de la Zeur, and Marie-Adelaide de Crépy, duchesse d’Oyonnax, were now alone in the private chapel of the de Lavardacs. Though Oyonnax, never one to leave anything to chance, took the precaution of opening the doors of the little confessional in the back, to verify that it was empty.

“Pontchartrain sent no fewer than three messages here this morning, requesting the latest news,” said Eliza, “but I did not know the contrôleur-général had also contacted you, my lady.”

“His curiosity on the matter presumably reflects that of the King.”

“It does not surprise me that the King should be so keen to know the whereabouts of his Grand Admiral. But would it not be more proper for such inquiries to be routed through the Secretary of State for the Navy?”

The Duchess of Oyonnax had paused by one of the open casements and levered it mostly closed, making of it a sort of horizontal gun-slit through which she could peer at the street. But she turned away from it now and peered at Eliza for a few moments, then announced: “I am sorry. I supposed you might have known. Monsieur le marquis de Seignelay has cancer. He is very ill of it, and no longer able to fulfill his obligations to his majesty’s Navy.”

“No wonder the King is so intent on this, then—for they say that the Duke of Marlborough has landed in force in the South of Ireland.”

“Your news is stale. Marlborough has already taken Cork, and Kinsale is expected to fall at any moment. All of this while de Seignelay is too ill to work, and d’Arcachon is off in the south on some confusing adventure of his own.”

“Do not talk about it this way, if you please!” Eliza snapped.

“It was merely an observation.”

“When le duc planned tonight, it was summer, and everything seemed to be going perfectly. I know what he was thinking: the King needs money for the war, and I shall bring him money!”

“You sound as though you are defending him.”

“I believe it is useful to know the mind of the enemy.”

“Does le duc know your mind, mademoiselle?”

“Obviously not. He does not rate me an enemy.”

“Who does?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Someone wishes to know your mind, for you are being watched.”

“I am well aware of it. Monsieur Rossignol—”

“Ah, yes—the King’s Argus—he knows all.”

“He has noticed that my name crops up frequently, of late, in letters written by those at Court who style themselves Alchemists.”

“Why are the chymists watching you?”

“I believe it has to do with what Monsieur le duc d’Arcachon has been up to in the south,” said Eliza. “Assuming that you have been discreet, that is.”

Oyonnax laughed. “You and I associate with two entirely different sorts of chymists! Even if I were indiscreet—which I most certainly am not—it is inconceivable that a brewer of poison, working in a cellar in Paris, should have any contact with a noble practitioner of the Art, such as Upnor or de Gex.”

“I did not know that Father Édouard was an Alchemist as well!”

“Of course. Indeed, my divine cousin perfectly illustrates the point I am making. Can you phant’sy such a man associating with Satanists?”

“I cannot even phant’sy myself doing so.”

“You aren’t.”

“What are you then, if I may inquire?”

“I am aware that it hurts.”

“There are people at Court who suffer from aches of heart and spirit that are every bit as intolerable as a toothache. Those who prey on them, are no different from tooth-pullers. The emblems of the devil are no different from the pliers brandished by tooth-pullers: visual proof that these people are equipped to ply their trade, and satisfy their customers.”

“You are so dark! Is there anything you believe in?”

Oyonnax closed the casement. The gruesome images outside were gone. “I believe in beauty,” she said. “I believe in the beauty of Versailles, and in the King who created it. I believe in your beauty, mademoiselle, and in mine. The darkness beyond has power to break through, just as those people out there could throw rocks through this window. But behold, the window has stood for centuries. No one has thrown a rock through it.”

“Why not?”

“Because there is a balance of powers in the world, which can only be perceived by continual attention, and can only be preserved by—”

“By the unceasing and subtile machinations of persons such as you,” Eliza said; and the look in the green eyes of Oyonnax told her that her guess was true. “Is that why you have involved yourself in my vendetta against the Duke?”

“So you see yourself as doing the King’s work.”

“I see myself as serving the King’s ends.” Madame la duchesse d’Oyonnax removed from her waistband a pale-green cylinder, scarcely bigger than a child’s finger, and displayed it on the palm of her gloved hand. She was standing several paces away, which forced Eliza to approach her. Eliza did so in spite of a sudden horripilation that had spread over her scalp like a slick of burning oil. Her hands were clasped together in front of her stomach, in part to keep them warm—but in part to keep them close to a slim dagger that she was in the habit of hiding at the waist of her dress. Which was a queer thing to be thinking about, here and now; but she would not put anything past the Duchess, and wanted to be ready in the event that Oyonnax tried to throw something in her face or jab her with a poisoned needle.

“You’ll never appreciate how easy this is going to be compared to a typical poisoning,” said Oyonnax in a light conversational tone, as if this would set Eliza at ease. Eliza had now drawn close enough to see the green thing: a tiny phial such as might be used for perfume, carved out of jade, bound in bands of silver, with a silver stopper on a fragile chain. “Don’t dab this behind your ears,” said the Duchess.

“Is it one of those that is absorbed through the skin?”

“No, but it smells bad.”

“Then le duc will certainly notice it in a drink.”

“Yes—but not in his food. You know of his peculiar tastes?”

“I know more than I should care to of that.”

“This is what I mean when I say it is going to be easy for you. Normally an ingested poison must be tasteless, and such are frequently ineffective. This stuff is as deadly as it is foul—yet le duc will never notice it when it is mixed with a meal of rotten fish. All that you need to do is to find some way of getting into the private kitchen where his dreadful repast is prepared. This will not be a trivial matter—yet it will be much easier than the machinations most people must go through.”

“Most poisoners, you mean…”

Oyonnax did not respond to—perhaps did not even understand—the correction. “Take it, or don’t,” she said, “I’ll not stand here like this any longer.”

“It is already too late—I must get ready.”

“Soon, then.”

“It can never be soon enough for me.”

“People will talk, after it happens,” said the Duchess. “Pay them no mind, and have patience. It is not whether this or that person believes you to be a murderer, or even can prove it, but whether they have the dignity necessary to level such an accusation.”

BRITTLE DISJOINTED HOURS FOLLOWED. Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, and later the King himself, did not leave off sending messengers around to inquire as to the whereabouts of the duc d’Arcachon. For some reason these all wanted to speak to Eliza—as if she were expected to know things that the Duchess of Arcachon did not. This in no way simplified preparations for the soirée. Eliza had to get coiffed and dressed while holding at bay these inquisitive messengers, who, as the afternoon wore on, were of progressively higher rank. Finally, near dusk, a coach and four rattled into the court, and Eliza called out “Hallelujah!” She could not run to the window because a pair of engineers were braiding extensions into her hair; but someone else did, and disappointed them all by reporting that it was merely Étienne d’Arcachon.

“He’ll do,” said, Eliza, “now they’ll pester him instead of me.”

So Eliza was pestered no further by messengers; but now Étienne d’Arcachon wished to have a private audience with her. And so did Monsieur le comte d’Avaux. And so did Father Édouard de Gex. She told her hairdressers to work faster, and to forget about the last tier in the ziggurat of counter-rotating braids that was rising into the heavens above her pate.

“MADEMOISELLE, ALLOW ME THE HONOR of being the first to compliment your beauty—”

“I would prefer it if you were as keen to get out of my way as to hurl flattery at me, Monsieur le comte,” said Eliza, brushing past d’Avaux. “I am on my way to speak with Étienne de Lavardac in the chapel.”

“I shall escort you,” d’Avaux announced.

Such had been the vehemence of Eliza’s passage that her skirts had bullwhipped around d’Avaux’s ankles and his sword, and nearly upended him, but he had more aplomb than any ten other French diplomats, and so presently appeared on her arm, looking as perfectly composed as an embalmed corpse.

They were hurrying down a gallery that had been obstructed by servants balancing food-trays and carrying party-decorations; but when these saw the onrushing Count and Countess, they took shelter in the lees of pilasters or ducked into niches.

“I would be remiss if I failed to express to you, mademoiselle, my concern over the choices you have lately been making as to social contacts.”

“What!? Who!? The de Lavardac family? Pontchartrain? Monsieur Rossignol?”

“It is precisely because you are so frequently seen in the company of these fine persons, that you must reconsider your decision to associate with the likes of Madame la duchesse d’Oyonnax.”

Now Eliza’s free hand strayed to her waistband, for she had a sudden terror that the green phial would fall out and shatter on the floor and fill the gallery with a smell as foul as her intentions. It was such an obvious gesture that d’Avaux would have seen it, had he been facing her; but he was looking in another direction.

“Like it or not, monsieur, she is a fixture of Court, and I cannot pretend she doesn’t exist.”

“Yes, but to have private meetings with such a woman, as you have done three times in the last two months—”

“Who has been counting, monsieur?”

“Everyone, mademoiselle. That is my point. Even though you may be pure as snow—”

“Your sarcasm is rude.”

“This is a rude conversation, being a hurried one. As I was saying, you might be as upright as de Maintenon herself. But if and when Monsieur le duc d’Arcachon dies—”

“How can you speak of this, on his birthday!?”

“One year closer to death, mademoiselle. And even if the manner of his death is as innocent as falling from a horse, or going down on a sinking ship, people will say you had something to do with it, if you continue to tryst in dark places with Oyonnax.”

“Anyone can bandy accusations. Few have the dignity to make them count.”

“Is that what Oyonnax told you?”

This left Eliza speechless for a turn; so d’Avaux continued: “I was born a count, you were made a countess; I am one of those few who can accuse you.”

“You really are hideous.”

“I accused you before, after you spied for the Prince of Orange; but you escaped trouble, because you were doing it for Madame, and because you paid. Now you are alone, and you have no money. I do not know who it is precisely that you mean to poison: perhaps the Duke, perhaps Étienne, perhaps one and then the other. I am strongly tempted to wait and to watch as you do these crimes, and then destroy you—for to see you chained to a stone wall in the Bastille would be most satisfying to me. But I cannot allow a Duke and Peer of the Realm to suffer murder, merely to slake my own base cravings. And so I warn you, mademoiselle, not to—”

“Kill me,” said a voice from ahead of them.

Étienne de Lavardac d’Arcachon, attired in full-dress cavalry colonel’s uniform, was sprawled on the carpet at the base of the altar, posed like an artist’s model. Resting on the carpet before him, at the head of the aisle, were two shiny objects: a serpentine dagger, and a golden ring.

D’Avaux had stiffened up so violently that Eliza half hoped he was undergoing a stroke. But his grip on her arm slackened, and he began to retreat.

Étienne was having none of that; he jumped to his feet. “Stay! If you please, Monsieur le comte. Your presence here is fortuitous and most welcome. For it were improper for me to meet with Mademoiselle la comtesse without some chaperon; which, as I have lain here awaiting her, has been troubling me more than words have power to express.”

“I am at your service, monseigneur,” said d’Avaux, watching beneath a creviced brow as the nimble young Arcachon collapsed to the floor, and resumed his former pose.

“Kill me, mademoiselle!”

“I beg your pardon, monsieur?”

“My suffering is unendurable. Please end it by taking up yon flamboyant dagger, and plunging it into my breast.”

“But I have no wish to kill you, Monsieur de Lavardac,” said Eliza, and threw d’Avaux a vicious glare; but d’Avaux was far too profoundly taken aback to notice.

“Then there is only one other way in which my suffering can be ended; but it is too much to hope for,” said Étienne. And his eyes fell on the band of gold.

“Your discourse is fascinating—but strangely clouded,” said Eliza. She was moving cautiously up the aisle toward Étienne. D’Avaux, trapped, stood at attention in the back.

“I would be more direct, but such a magnificent being are you, and such a base Vagabond am I, that even to give voice to my desire is unforgivably rude.”

“I have comments. First, you may be over-praising me, but I forgive you. Second, I know something of Vagabonds, and you are not one. Third, if you must be rude in order to say what is on your mind, then please be rude. For considering what it is that you appear to be asking—”

The chapel door whacked open and in stormed an officer, dressed in the same regimental colors as Étienne, but of less plumage. He stopped in the aisle and turned white as a freshly picked orchid, and was unable to speak.

But everyone knew what he was going to say. Eliza came out with it first. “Monsieur, you have news of Monsieur le duc?”

“Forgive me, mademoiselle—yes—if you please—his carriage has been sighted, coming on at great velocity—he shall be here in an hour.”

“Has word of this been sent to the Palais du Louvre?” asked Étienne.

“Just as you directed, monsieur.”

“Very well. You are dismissed.”

The officer was more than glad to be dismissed. He took a last beady look around, then bowed, and backed down the aisle. As he was going arse-first out the door, he rammed someone who was attempting to come in. There was an exchange of abject apologies back in the shadows; then in stalked a robed and hooded figure, looking like Death without the scythe. He pulled back the hood to reveal the pale face, the dark eyes, and the carefully managed facial hair of Father Édouard de Gex; and the look on his face proved that he was as surprised, not to say alarmed, by all of this as anyone else.

“I say, was this all planned?” demanded Eliza.

“I received an anonymous note suggesting that I should be ready to perform the sacrament of marriage on short notice,” said de Gex, “but—”

“You had better be ready to perform the sacrament of extreme unction, if the young Arcachon does not untie his tongue, or hide that dagger,” said Eliza, “and as to short notice—well—a lady requires a little more time!” And she stomped out of the chapel.

“My lady!” called de Gex several times as he pursued her down a gallery; but she had not the slightest intention of being called back in there, and so she ignored him until she was a safe distance removed from the chapel, and had reached a more frequented part of the house. By that point, de Gex had caught up with her. “My lady!”

“I’m not going back.”

“It is not my design to coax you back. You are the person I wished to see. For when Monsieur Rossignol and I made inquiries as to your whereabouts, they said you had gone to the chapel. It was never my intention to interrupt a—”

“You interrupted nothing. Why were you with Monsieur Rossignol?”

“He has got some new messages from the Esphahnians.”

“The who?”

“The Armenians. Come. Please. I pray you. It’s important.”

FATHER ÉDOUARD DE GEX ESCORTED Eliza to the library as fast as he could walk, which meant that he kept edging ahead. The most direct route took them through the grand ballroom of the Hôtel Arcachon. Here, though, he faltered, and fell behind. Eliza wheeled about. De Gex was gazing up at the ceiling. This was understandable, for the de Lavardacs had hired Le Brun himself to paint it, and he had only recently finished. It was a colossal tableau featuring Apollo (always a stand-in for Louis XIV) gathering the Virtues about him in the bright center while exiling the Vices to the gloomy corners. The Virtues were not sufficiently numerous to fill the space, and so the Muses were there, too, singing songs, composing poetry, &c. about how great the Virtues were. Along the edges of the piece, diverse earthly humans (courtiers on one side, peasants on the next, then soldiers, then churchmen) listened adoringly to, or gazed rapturously at, the Virtue-promoting works of the Muses whilst generally turning their backs to, or aiming scornful glares at, all of those Vices crowded into the corners. Just to make it sporting, though, you might see, if you looked carefully enough, a Soldier succumbing to Cowardice, a Priest to Gluttony, a Courtier to Lust, or a Peasant to Sloth.

So everyone who came in here looked at the ceiling; but the expression on the face of de Gex was most peculiar. Rather than being dazzled by the splendour of the work, he looked as if he were expecting the ceiling to fall in on them.

He finally directed his dark eyes at Eliza. “Do you know what happened here, mademoiselle?”

“A fabulously expensive remodeling campaign that took forever and is only just finished.”

“But do you know why?”

“Le Brun is always engaged at Versailles, except when le Roi leaves off building it so that he can go fight a war. And so only since war broke out has any progress been made here.”

“No. I meant, do you know why they remodelled?”

“From the looks of it I should say it was de Maintenon.”

“De Maintenon?!” De Gex’s reaction told Eliza that her answer had been emphatically wrong.

“Yes,” she said, “she came along in 1685, did she not? Which is when this remodel got under way…and the subject matter of the painting is so markedly Maintenon-esque.”

“Correlation is not causation,” de Gex said. “They had to remodel, because of a disastrous Incident that took place in that year.”

And then De Gex seemed to remember that they were in a hurry, and once again began striding toward the library. Eliza stomped along beside, and a little behind him.

“You do know what happened here—?” he continued, and glanced back at her.

“Something grievously embarrassing—so embarrassing that no one will tell me what it was.”

“Ah. To the library, then.” They departed the ballroom and entered a gallery.

“What was that you said earlier, about being asked to perform a marriage on short notice?”

“I received a note to that effect. I suspect it was from your beau. Never mind; obviously he was deluding himself.”

“It is a bit sad,” said Eliza, remembering the chairs carefully arranged in the little chapel, never to be sat on, and the precious flowers, never to be seen or smelled before they were hauled out to a midden. “Perhaps he had in mind a sort of elopement—but being so polite, wished to arrange it so that it would enjoy the sanctions of Family and Church.”

“That is between you and him,” said de Gex a bit coldly, and hauled upon the library door for Eliza. “If you please, mademoiselle.”

“I PHANT’SIED YOU MIGHT FIND this interesting in more than one way,” said Bonaventure Rossignol. He sat with his back to the arched window of the library, which, though dark, afforded a view over the torch-lit courtyard of the Hôtel Arcachon. Eliza was shocked to observe occasional snowflakes spiraling down—so intemperate and remorseless was this winter, they might as well be living in Stockholm.

Before Rossignol was a broad table on which he had spread out a panoply of letters, books, and notes. Many bore the Armenian script.

“I mentioned to you before that the Cabinet Noir had intercepted a remarkable letter, posted during the first week of August from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and addressed to the family Esphahnian, who were said to be dwelling in the Bastille.”

“You had not mentioned the family name to me,” said Eliza, “but it scarcely matters, and it is almost certainly an assumed name anyway—”

“Why do you say that?” said de Gex.

“Esphahnian simply means ‘of Esphahan,’ which is a city where a vast number of Armenians dwell,” Eliza explained. “It is as if you went to live among the Turks and they called you ‘Édouard the Frank.’ ”

“It took me some time to track them all down, for more have died in the meantime, and it was difficult to establish who is the eldest of the brothers. I found him—Artan Esphahnian—in a wretched entresol not far from here, and caused the letter from Sanlúcar to be delivered to him.

“A few days later, Artan mailed a letter addressed to one Vrej Esphahnian in Cairo. I had an exact copy of it made, then sent it on its way. At the time, I held no particular opinion as to who this Vrej fellow might be—like you, mademoiselle, I suspected that the name Esphahnian was a meaningless ruse, or perhaps even a vector of hidden information, which, if true, might mean that Vrej was not even related to Artan.

“Nothing further happened until yesterday, when a letter came in addressed to Artan, posted from Rosetta, at the mouth of the Nile—and written in the same hand as the one from Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Now this was remarkable, for I had translated the Sanlúcar letter into French, and it had said nothing about Egypt. It was full of family chitchat. The fellow who wrote it—who I now believe to be Vrej Esphahnian—had been out of contact with Artan for a long time. He had said nothing whatever about what he was doing in Sanlúcar or whither he might be going next. And yet Artan, upon receiving this document, had known, somehow, that he must post his reply to Vrej in Cairo. Not long afterwards, this Vrej had appeared at Rosetta—which is en route to Cairo—long enough to despatch yet another letter filled with banal chitchat.”

“And so it is obvious to you that encrypted messages are contained in these letters,” Eliza continued; for she had spent enough time listening to the discourse of Natural Philosophers to recognize when one of them was developing a hypothesis. “This I understand well enough, and I compliment you on your prowess. But why do you deem it so important to tell me about it?”

“Very well. Does the mistake have something to do with Alchemy?”

The briefest of pauses. Then: “Indeed, mademoiselle. Monsieur le duc participated in an act of piracy, which, as you know, is a usual thing in war, and wholly honourable. However, I am sorry to report that he was misinformed by persons who were ignorant, or perhaps malicious. Monsieur le duc supposed that the prize was silver pigs. In fact it was gold. And not just any gold, but gold imbued with miraculous—even divine—qualities.”

“I see,” said Eliza. “And needless to say, the Esoteric Brotherhood takes a proprietary interest in it?”

“I should prefer to say custodial, not proprietary. This material is not for just anyone to possess. In the wrong hands it could do the Devil’s work.”

“Hmm. Would Lothar von Hacklheber’s be the wrong hands?”

“No, mademoiselle. Lothar is a difficult man, but one knows where he lives, and one can reason with him. A boat-load of Vagabonds at large in the Mediterranean, bound for Egypt—that is the wrong hands.”

“Well, you may set your mind at ease, Father Édouard. The gold you seek was to have come ashore along with Monsieur le duc. He planned to drop it off in Lyon. It should now locked in the strong-box of a certain banker there, who values it only as gold. I shall be pleased to supply you with his name. He has no awareness of, or interest in, its supernatural characteristics. Presumably he will be pleased to exchange it for an equal or larger weight of mundane gold.”

“We should be in your debt, mademoiselle.”

“You may consider the debt discharged, if you tell me one thing.”

“Name it, mademoiselle.”

“The Bastille is a prison for enemies of the Realm. Why were the Esphahnians thrown into it?”

“Because they were thought to be connected to what happened here in 1685.”

“And—since I will be the last person in France to know—what happened here in 1685!?”

“You may have heard, on the lips of servants or other vulgar persons, tales concerning a man called L’Emmerdeur. By your leave, mademoiselle! For even his epithet is almost too vulgar to speak aloud.”

“I have heard of him,” said Eliza, though in her ears, the sound of her own voice was nearly drowned out by the stomp, stomp, stomp of her heart. “I did hear a story once that he showed up uninvited at some grand soirée in Paris and made a bloody mess of it—”

“That was here.”

“In this house!?”

“In this house. He cut Étienne’s hand off, and completely destroyed the ballroom.”

“How can one Vagabond, vastly outnumbered by armed noblemen, single-handedly destroy a Duke’s ballroom?”

“Never mind. But to make matters worse, all of these things happened in the presence of the King. Most embarrassing.”

“I can imagine!”

“The King of the Vagabonds, as he was styled, made his escape. But the Lieutenant of Police was able to determine that he had been dwelling in a certain apartment not far from here—and the Esphahnians were living directly below him. He had befriended them, and drawn them somehow into his schemes. But since he was long gone, retribution fell instead on the Esphahnians. Off they were taken to the Bastille. Their business was destroyed, their health suffered grievously. Now those who survived dwell as paupers in Paris.”

Through the windows came the clatter and rasp of many horseshoes and iron wheel-rims on cobblestones. All turned to see the white carriage of the duc d’Arcachon—wrought to look like a giant sea-shell borne on the foam of an incoming tide—being drawn, by a team of six mismatched and exhausted horses, into the courtyard. It passed below them, out of their view, and pulled up before the entrance of the ballroom.

But the noise did not let up, but doubled and redoubled, as into the open gates of the Court rode a vanguard of Swiss mercenaries, and a squadron of noble officers, and finally the gilded carriage of Louis XIV, lighting up the court as the Chariot of Apollo.

Eliza, by contrast, had so many things to fret about that she almost could not keep track of them. She left de Gex and Rossignol far behind as she threaded her way among servants and courtiers toward the ballroom.

She hated herself for having a phial of poison in her waistband. Stupid! Stupid! She could not even use it now, without drawing fire from d’Avaux! So it was worse than worthless. It had never occurred to her that she would have to carry the damned thing on her person all the time. It could not be left in a drawer for fear that someone would happen upon it, by chance or because snooping. The phial had only been in her waistband for a few hours, but she’d gladly have traded it for a back-load of firewood. It seemed to burn her stomach, and she had developed a nervous habit of patting it every few seconds. And for this useless burthen, she had put herself, in some unspecified way, into the power of the Duchess of Oyonnax.

But in its power to cause trouble for Eliza, this matter of the poison might be as nothing compared to what she had heard concerning the exploits of Jack Shaftoe in this house—nay, this very room (for she had entered the ballroom now) five years ago.

When the carriages of le duc and le Roi had entered the courtyard moments ago, Eliza had darted out of the library before de Gex or Rossignol could offer her his arm. She had done this because she required a few moments by herself to think—to recall all that had happened since she had met Jack below Vienna in 1683, and to ask herself who might know that she had once been associated with L’Emmerdeur?

Leibniz knew, but he was discreet. The same could be said of Enoch Root. Around Leipzig, Jack and Eliza had been seen together by several people, none of whom was likely to be rated as credible by the French nobility. The most high and mighty person who had seen them together—and, as she recalled this, Eliza felt the heat rising into her face like steam from a cauldron when the lid is lifted off—was Lothar von Hacklheber, who had gazed down on her from the balcony of the House of the Golden Mercury in Leipzig. Jack had been right next to her, posing as a manservant, a porter. Unlikely that even Lothar would connect such a figure with L’Emmerdeur.

The answer was of course they had, for as she’d later found out, she’d been tailed, the whole time, by two spies in the employ of d’Avaux. D’Avaux! Who even at this moment was glaring at her from across the ballroom, as if reading minds were as easy for him as reading codes was to Rossignol. D’Avaux’s two spies had later been killed by the hand of William of Orange himself. But d’Avaux was alive, and he knew.

All this time the Duke’s carriage had been sitting in the courtyard, like an egg in a stone sarcophagus. Its door was open, and one of the footmen had thrust his head and upper body into the dark interior, and lit a few candles. His arm shook from time to time, as if he were trying again and again to get a tired passenger to wake up. The delay was perfectly convenient for those inside—close to a hundred of the titled nobility of France—as it afforded them the opportunity to arrange themselves in a long receiving-line that coiled and undulated around the ballroom. Outside the double doors, servants had rolled out a carpet so that the Duke, and later King, could tread on red wool instead of gray snow. An honor guard had formed up to either side of that road of scarlet: members of Étienne’s cavalry regiment to one side, and, facing them, a detachment of marines. Étienne stood just inside the doors, waiting, with his mother on his arm.

Finally something was happening. The cavalry and the marines drew sabers and cutlasses respectively, and raised them up to form an arch of steel above the red carpet. Étienne nodded to a pair of servants, who drew open the ballroom’s immense doors, letting in a blast of snowy air; Étienne screwed up his face and stepped back half a pace; his mother the duchess bowed her head and reached up with her free hand to prevent her lace headdress from being sheared off. Outside, the mud-spattered buttocks of the footman could be seen emerging from the door of the white carriage, straining and jolting, as he seemed to be helping someone out who required much help.

It was not a Duke. The word “wretch” came to mind, for this man could barely stand up, and if he owned a periwig, he’d lost it, or forgotten it in the coach. His thinning hair was short and dark, and shellacked with sweat and grease, and his face beneath it was so pale it looked almost green. He could not stand or walk without assistance, and yet he would on no account let go of some great burdensome item of luggage: a sort of strong-box. It had a handle on either end. One of the footmen supported the wretch on his right side. The wretch, then, kept his left hand clenched around one of the strong-box’s handles. The other footman had grabbed the box’s opposite handle just in time to keep it from falling out of the carriage door. And so they formed up three abreast: footman, wretch, footman, and began an ungainly progress along the red carpet.

Eliza had now come close enough to the doors that she could hear Étienne saying to his mother, “Is that Pierre de Jonzac?” Instantly she saw that the wretch was none other. For the filthy, torn, and stained clothes that he was wearing had once been a naval officer’s uniform. And if in her mind’s eye she cleaned the wretch up, mended his clothes, and endowed him with thirty pounds more weight, a few pints of blood, and a decent periwig, the result was very like Monsieur de Jonzac.

De Jonzac, the footmen, and the chest had covered two-thirds of the distance to the door. As they drew closer to the light, they looked more and more pitiable. The footmen had been standing on the back of the carriage for a week and their faces and livery were coated with road-grime. Beneath the gray dirt, their flesh was ruddy from cold; but de Jonzac was gray through and through. His lips had disappeared, being of the same hue as the surrounding flesh, and they moved unceasingly, as if he were trying to say something. But if any sound came forth, Eliza could not hear it from this distance. Étienne greeted de Jonzac, but got no recognition or answer. He and the duchess moved out of the way so that this unwieldy parade could fit through the door. No doubt remained in Eliza’s mind now that something was terribly awry; but most of the others in the room were still working on the wrong theory. This included even poor Étienne, who sensed that something was desperately the matter, but was nailed to his post by etiquette. He turned towards the white carriage to greet his father, who should emerge next; but the door, hanging open, revealed that the vehicle was empty. A stable-hand slammed it shut and pounded on it twice, and the driver cracked his little whip, compelling the half-dead horses to make one last, brief journey to the stable-yard.

“Father Édouard!” Eliza said, raising her voice to be heard above the murmur of astonishment running through the guests. “Please tend to Monsieur de Jonzac; he is grievously wounded.” Eliza’s nose had confirmed this, for de Jonzac and the footmen had shuffled past her by now, leaving in their wake a scent of rotting flesh. De Jonzac had gangrene. The footmen, half deranged from exhaustion, only wanted some place to lay de Jonzac out on the floor; instead they had staggered into the midst of a formal Court ball. They were dumbfounded, lost.

De Gex had got a whiff of it, too. He stepped out briskly and got in front of the footmen. “Let him down. It is all right. Gently down—” (To the majordomo:) “Monsieur! Bring blankets, and a couch, or something that can be used as a litter. Have someone else summon a surgeon.” (To de Jonzac, now lying on the polished floor, his head on the palm of de Gex’s hand:) “What is that you say? I cannot hear you, Monsieur—pray save your strength, it can wait.”

Eliza spun around and said “The King!,” which was the one word that could have dispersed the crowd around de Jonzac and de Gex. The receiving line re-formed, though it made a wide detour around the stricken man on the floor, and the two who were occupied near him: de Gex, who was kneeling on the floor and bending close to hear de Jonzac, and the Earl of Upnor, who kept undoing latches on the strong-box, only to find that there was always another.

All of this became obvious to the King in an instant as the crowd melted away from his line of sight like frost in a sun-beam. He was the only person in the Hôtel Arcachon who had the freedom to behave normally. For in the presence of the King, no one other than the King could be acknowledged. Hence, for example, the unnatural posture of Étienne d’Arcachon, who stood fixedly with his back to the scene within, as if nothing at all was happening. The King, though, had eyes only for de Jonzac. He got half a pace ahead of de Maintenon, then turned to her and said a few private words, taking his leave of her with utmost courtesy. Then he strode forward, turning to Étienne and the Duchess as he went by, and exchanging a word with each: monsieur; madame. Into the ballroom he came, sweeping his cape from his shoulders, and in the same motion he whirled it down to cover the shivering body of Pierre de Jonzac. The King then took a step back and posed there, body erect, one foot slightly ahead of the other, toe pointed and slightly turned out, head inclined toward his injured subject, and inquired of de Gex: “What does he say?”

“If you please, your majesty,” said de Gex. For some time he had been holding up a hand for quiet. But the arrival of the King had silenced the room as nothing else could have. De Gex now bent very close, so that de Jonzac’s lips were practically nuzzling his ear, and repeated what he heard:

“The deed…you are about to witness…was done for the love of a woman…whose name…I will not say…for she knows who she is…and it was done by…‘Half-Cocked’ Jack Shaftoe, L’Emmerdeur, the King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak: Quicksilver!”

Upnor had continued to worry at the hasps of the strong-box the whole time—somewhat improperly, but then, he was merely an Englishman. Finally he got it open. He flipped the lid back with a thud and a clatter, practically thrusting his face into the cavity in his eagerness to get at the treasure within. But in the next moment he recoiled as if a cobra had leapt out of the box. He actually let out a long, incoherent yell. A few people nearby screamed, and looked away.

“Ladies, and persons of a sensitive disposition, will avert their eyes,” said the King, who retreated a few steps.

Étienne de Lavardac, Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon, Madame la duchesse d’Oyonnax, Monsieur le comte d’Avaux, and a few others drew closer to see what it was. De Gex, who was closest, leaned over the top of the chest and reached into it with his right hand, making the sign of the cross, and muttering a sentence in Latin. Then he rose to his feet and hauled out a severed human head.

“Louis-François de Lavardac, duc d’Arcachon, has come home,” he announced. “May he rest in peace.”

NOW, AT THIS MOMENT Eliza was far from clear-headed; yet she was the most clear-headed person in the room, with the possible exception of the late duke. Though she was still in a lot of trouble—much more trouble than three minutes ago, in fact—she knew two things absolutely. One was that the duc d’Arcachon was dead. Her mission in life had, therefore, been accomplished. The other was that Jack Shaftoe was alive, had redeemed himself, and loved her. Best of all, he loved her from a tremendous distance, which made being loved by him ever so much less inconvenient. And so even as people were still gasping and screaming and fainting all around her, Eliza was moving toward the duchesse d’Oyonnax, who, aside from Eliza, was the coolest person in the room. She looked almost amused. Eliza fished the little green phial out of her waistband. She approached Oyonnax from the side, reached out with her left hand, grasped that of Oyonnax, and drew it towards her, twisting it palm up. With her right hand Eliza pressed the phial down on Oyonnax’s palm. The Duchess’s fingers curled about it involuntarily, before she knew what it was, and Eliza got clear.

“Your majesty!” cried d’Avaux. “By your majesty’s leave, I say that while the perpetrator of this atrocious crime may be far away, the first cause and inspiration of it is close by, yea, within the reach of your majesty’s sword almost, so that your majesty may have satisfaction presently—for she, the woman in whose name L’Emmerdeur committed this murder, is none other than—” and he raised his hand before his face, index finger extended, like a pistol-duellist in the moment before he levels the weapon at his foe. His gaze was rapt on Eliza. The fatal finger began to descend toward her heart. She reached up and caught that digit, however, while it was still directed toward the magnificent Le Brun ceiling, and bent it back sharply enough to make d’Avaux inhale sharply—which meant he could not finish his sentence. “Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” she whispered, and executed a full three-hundred-sixty-degree pirouette that brought her face to face with the King while relegating d’Avaux to the background. Her hand was behind the small of her back now, still gripping d’Avaux’s finger. She had carried it off—or so she hoped—in such a manner that an observer, still in shock over the appearance of the severed head of the birthday boy, might think that d’Avaux had courteously offered her his hand, and she had gratefully accepted it.

“By your leave, your majesty, I have heard it said that the rules of etiquette dictate ladies before gentlemen; was I deceived?”

“In no way, mademoiselle,” said the King.

“I tell you, it was—” began d’Avaux; but the King silenced him with a flick of the eyes, and Eliza reinforced the message with some torque on the finger.

“Moreover, it is said that the laws of Heaven place love before hate, and peace before war; is it true?”

“Pourquoi non, mademoiselle?”

“Then as a lady who stands before your majesty on an errand of love, I beg precedence over this gentleman, my dear friend and mentor, Monsieur le comte d’Avaux, whose red and angry visage tells me he is on some errand of hateful retribution.”

“So terrible is the news to-night that it would bring me, if not pleasure, then perhaps a few moments’ diversion from what is so unpleasant, to grant you precedence over Monsieur d’Avaux; provided that his errand is not of an urgent nature.”

“Oh, not at all, your majesty, what I have to say will be every bit as useful to you in a few minutes’ time as it is now. I insist that Mademoiselle la comtesse de la Zeur go ahead.” D’Avaux finally worried his finger free and backed off a step.

“Your majesty,” said Eliza, “I grieve for le duc. I trust he has gone to his reward. I pray that L’Emmerdeur will get what he deserves for what he has done. But I cannot, I will not, allow the so-called King of the Vagabonds the additional satisfaction of disrupting the peaceful conduct of your majesty’s household, that is to say La France; and so, notwithstanding my feelings of shock and grief at this moment, I beg your leave to accept the proposal of marriage that was tendered to me earlier this evening by Étienne de Lavardac—now, duc d’Arcachon.”

“Then marry him with all the blessings a King can bestow,” the King answered.

And in this moment Eliza was startled by a most unexpected rush of sound from all about her. In any other circumstance she’d have recognized it instantly. But here, given all that had happened, she had to look about and verify it with her eyes: the guests were applauding. It was not, of course, a raucous ovation. Half of them were openly weeping. Many of the ladies had fled the room. Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon was being carried out unconscious, and Eliza’s unwitting fiancé only remained in the room because someone was obliged to greet Madame la marquise de Maintenon. But for all that, the remaining guests produced a spontaneous patter of applause. It was not that they had forgotten the Duke’s head—that was unlikely—but that they found something stirring in how this scene of shock and horror had been adroitly reversed. The applause was an expression of defiance. Eliza, understanding this belatedly, acknowledged it with a diffident curtsey. Presently Étienne drifted to her side—someone had explained matters to him—and took her hand, and then the applause welled up again, for just a moment. Then it died abruptly and was replaced by altogether more fitting sounds of sobbing, wailing, and praying. Eliza was distracted for a moment by a glimpse of a rider out in the courtyard wheeling his mount around with great panache, and galloping out into Paris. It was the Earl of Upnor.

Then she attended to the King, who was speaking: “Father Édouard. We came together here for a small celebration. But the only celebration that is fitting, on an evening such as this one, is that of the Mass.”

“Of course, sire.”

“We will observe a funeral Mass for Monsieur le duc d’Arcachon. Following that, a wedding for the new duc and Mademoiselle la comtesse de la Zeur.”

“Yes, sire,” said de Gex. “By your majesty’s leave, the family chapel has already been made ready for a wedding; shall we perform the funeral here, where there is more room, and move to the chapel thereafter?”

King Louis XIV made a tiny nod of assent, and then turned his gaze on d’Avaux, who had not yet been dismissed. “Monsieur le comte,” said the King, “you were about to voice an opinion as to the identity of the woman who inspired the heinous murder of my cousin?”

“By your majesty’s leave,” d’Avaux said, “If we interpret L’Emmerdeur’s statement literally, it will only amount to something banal. I have no doubt that he was merely trying to impress some whore he met once in Paris.” And he could not prevent his eyes from flicking at Eliza for just a moment as he said this; but then he returned his attention to the King. “I was, rather, attempting to make a more general statement about all the enemies of France, and what moves them.” He backed away one step, turned, and swept his arm up and out towards a corner of the painted ceiling, where Pandora was opening up her Box (in—come to think of it—an odd reminder of the box-opening scene that had just played out on the ballroom floor) to release a flood of demonic Vices. Pandora had been painted, as everyone knew, to resemble Mary, the usurper Queen of England. The foremost of the Vices rushing out of her box was green-eyed Envy, who had been made to resemble Sophie of Hanover. It was to Envy that d’Avaux now drew the King’s attention. “That, your majesty, is the lady love, not only of L’Emmerdeur—who is after all a nobody—but also of all the Dutch and English. Envy is what inspires their chivalrous acts.”

“You powers of observation are as keen as ever, monsieur,” said the King, “and I have never been more pleased to number you among my subjects.”

At this d’Avaux bowed very deeply. Eliza could not help but think that, for all the frustration and defeat d’Avaux had suffered here, this immense compliment from le Roi was more than compensation enough. It made her wonder: Did the King know everything?

The King continued: “Monsieur le comte d’Avaux has, as usual, spoken wisely. It follows that if we are to baffle Envy’s devotees, we should celebrate all that is magnificent in this Realm: with funerals, the magnificence that has passed, and with weddings, the magnificence that is yet to come. Let it be so.”

And it was so.

The new Duke and Duchess consummated their union under many blankets in a carriage en route to Versailles, and arrived at La Dunette in the darkest and coldest hours before dawn. Fresh hoof-prints in the snow on La Dunette’s gravel paths told them that they were not the first to come this way since the snow had ceased to fall. When they reached the château, they found the servants already awake and dressed, and red around the eyes. The doyenne of the maidservants took Eliza to one side, and let her know that she must go down to the Convent of Ste.-Genevieve immediately, for there was dreadful news. Eliza, unwilling to wait for preparations to be made, straddled the first horse she could get to—it was an albino mare—and rode it bareback down to the little convent full of weeping and praying nuns. She went directly to the room where Jean-Jacques slept. She knew already what she would see there, for she had seen it before in nightmares, as every parent does: the shattered window, curtains riven, muddy bootprints on the sill, and the empty cradle. The blankets had been taken; that was a comfort to her, as it suggested that wherever Jean-Jacques might be, he was at least not freezing to death. Left in the little bed was a note, addressed to the Countess de la Zeur; for whoever had penned it had not got the news of her new rank and title. It read:

Fatio looked significantly at his watch. “The sun rose—what—two hours ago? At this latitude, we have—say—two hours of daylight remaining?”

“A bit more, sir, by your leave,” answered Leibniz with a wink, or perhaps a cinder had flown into his eye. But that was all that needed to be said. Both men turned their backs to the fire for a last helping of warmth, then marched towards the room’s exit, groping through darkness and smoke for the door.

They were blinded by powerful bluish light. The Schloß’s galleries—which served not only as connecting passages, but also as a sort of perimeter defense against the climate—ran around its exterior wall, and had plenty of windows. The low light of the heavy winter sun ricocheted off the ice-crusted snow that covered the dead gardens, filling these corridors with chilly brilliance. An indignant servant slammed the doors behind them to keep the heat in. Leibniz and Fatio began to match each other’s pace down the length of the gallery, moving just short of a sprint. The cold seemed to have dissolved their stockings. It was imperative to keep the knees and calves working.

“Some family,” Fatio ventured. “One hears of them but does not meet them.”

“They grow into the interstices left between other families,” Leibniz admitted. “You would find the Hanover crowd more interesting.”

“They do seem impossibly fecund,” Fatio said. “The Winter Queen left children strewn all over the place, and Sophie, at one time or another, has given birth to nearly everyone.”

“Sophie married in to this lot,” Leibniz said, glancing back.

“And that is how you became her librarian?”

“Privy Councillor,” Leibniz corrected him.

“Sir! I beg you to accept my apologies and my congratulations!” announced Fatio, faltering and reaching for his hat so that he could bow; but Leibniz caught his elbow and pulled him along.

“Never mind, it happened quite recently. In brief, the family of Dukes whose ancestral home is this Schloß put on a tremendous spate of baby-making round the time of the Thirty Years’ War, probably because they were besieged here for æons by Danes, Swedes, and God knows who else, and had nothing to do but fuck. Four brothers were born in an interval of eight years! All survived!”

“Calamity!”

“But my dear Doctor, how did the youngest brother end up in the best position?”

They came to a corner of the Schloß and turned into another endless gallery.

“In 1665 the drunk one died. Ernst August and Georg Wilhelm—the syphilitic—were off sowing their wild oats. So John Frederick—”

“By process of elimination, he would be the obese Catholic?”

“Yes. He appropriated the Duchy and raised an army to defend it. By the time news of this coup de main had made its way to the Venetian brothel where Ernst August and Georg Wilhelm had set up their headquarters, ’twas a fait accompli. Later, like good brothers, they worked out a settlement. John Frederick got the great prize, and was made Duke of Hanover. Georg Wilhelm became Duke of Celle. Ernst August—despite being a Protestant—remained the Bishop of Osnabrück. The odds and ends of the clan ended up here in Wolfenbüttel—you have just met them. Now, Ernst August and Sophie had already resolved to make their little fiefdom into a Parnassus, a kingdom of Reason—”

“So they hired you, naturally.”

“No, actually, there was a lot of that going round at the time. John Frederick wanted to do the same at Hanover.”

“It must have been a good time to be a savant.”

“Indeed, one could name one’s price. John Frederick had more money and a vast library.”

“Right, now I am starting to remember it. Huygens told me that after he taught you everything he knew concerning mathematics—which would have been round about the early 1670s—you had to leave Paris and take a job in some cold bleak place.” Fatio looked significantly out the window.

“’Twas Hanover actually—a distinction without a difference, as to you it would seem very like Wolfenbüttel.”

Leibniz ushered Fatio into an entrance hall dominated by frighteningly massive staircases.

Sounding a bit perplexed, Fatio said, “Rather a lot of people must have died then, for Ernst August to become Duke of Hanover—”

“John Frederick died in ’79. Georg Wilhelm still lives. But it was Ernst August who became Duke of Hanover, by dint of this or that sub-clause in the agreement made between him and his brothers—I’ll spare you details.”

“So Sophie got to merge her Parnassus with John Frederick’s—of which you were the crowning glory—”

“Really you do flatter, sir.”

“But why did I have to come down here to meet you? I’d expected to find you at Hanover.”

“The Library!” Leibniz answered, surging past the younger man and hurling himself against an immense door. There was a bit of preliminary cracking and tinkling as ice shattered and fell from its hinges. Then it yawned open to afford Fatio a view across several hundred yards of flat snow-covered ground to a dark uneven mountainous structure that was a-building there.

“No fair making comparisons with the one Wren’s building at Trinity College,” Leibniz said cheerfully. “His will be an ornament—not that there is anything wrong with that—mine will be a tool, an engine of knowledge.”

“Engine?” Fatio, who was well-shod, pranced out into the snow in pursuit of Leibniz, who had given up any hope of preserving his boots and shifted to a sort of plodding, stomping gait.

“Our use of knowledge progresses through successively higher levels of abstraction as we perfect civilization and draw nearer to the mentality of God,” Leibniz said, as if making an off-handed comment about the weather. “Adam named the beasts; meaning, that from casual observations of particular specimens, he moved to the recognition of species, and then devised abstract names for them—a sort of code, if you will. Indeed, if he had not done so, Noah’s task would have been inconceivable. Later, a system of writing was developed: spoken words were abstracted into chains of characters. This became the basis for the Law—it is how God communicated His intentions to Man. The Book was written. Then other books. At Alexandria the many books were brought together into the first Library. More recently came the invention of Gutenberg: a cornucopia that spills books out into specialized markets in Frankfurt and Leipzig. The merchants there have been completely unreceptive to my proposals! There are too many books in the world now for any one mind to comprehend. What does Man do, Fatio, when he is faced with a task that exceeds the physical limits of his body?”

“Harnesses beasts, or makes a tool. And beasts are of no use in a Library. So—”

“On the contrary, Doctor! When I bid you adieu I shall go straight back to the Hague to resume my studies with Mr. Huygens. ’Twill be a year or more before I address the Royal Society on any matter. Wren’s library remains half-built for want of funds.”

“Very well, then,” Leibniz muttered, and led Fatio through a temporary door of rough planks and into the stable. It was unheated, but it got their faces out of the wind, and their feet out of the snow. The foundation and ground-floor walls were made of large blocks of undressed stone. Everything above those was built of timbers. So far, the temporary scaffolding was more substantial than the structure itself, which was only sketched in with a few posts and beams. Fatio was baffled, and soon turned his huge eyes downwards to the several tables arrayed in the center of the main floor.

“One day we shall haul out these rude workbenches and replace them with polished desks where scholars will go to their work, illuminated by sky-light from a high fair cupola above,” Leibniz said, craning his head back so that his wig shifted, and thrusting his index finger up through the cloud of vapor that had veiled his words.

“The cupola is a fine innovation, Doctor. Getting adequate light is ever a problem in libraries. Sometimes I am tempted to burn one page to shed light on the next.”

“It is but one instance of the principle.”

“Which principle?”

“I told you I am trying to build a tool, an engine.” Leibniz sighed out a vast cloud of steam.

The tabletops supported divers forms of industry. Each was a gelid still-life unto itself. About half were given over to the library-building project (drawings weighed down with stones and wood-scraps, ragged quills projecting from frozen ink-wells, half-completed ledgers, clamped timbers surrounded by knee-high piles of wood-shavings) and half to whatever the Doctor was interested in at the moment. Fatio drew up short in front of a table strewn with what appeared to be stones; but as he did not fail to note, each stone was impressed with the skeleton of a leaf, insect, fish, or beast—some of them utterly unfamiliar.

“What—”

Fatio closed his eyes, which was the only way to pry his attention from the outlandish skeletons, and stepped back, then maneuvered over to join Leibniz.

“And so on with no end in sight! There are not enough woodwrights to carve all of the gears. New sorts of knowledge-engines will be demanded.”

“I confess you have lost me, Doctor.”

“Observe—each book is identified by a number. The numbers are arbitrary, meaningless—a kind of code, like the names Adam gave to the beasts. Duke August was of the old school, and used Roman numerals, which makes it that much more cryptickal.”

Leibniz led Fatio away from the center of the floor toward the rugged stone walls, which were mostly barricaded by high thick ramparts covered in canvas tarpaulins. He peeled up the edge of one and flung it back to reveal that the rampart was a stack of books, thousands of them. All of them had been bound in the same style, in pigskin (for like many noble bibliophiles Duke August had bought all his books as masses of loose signatures and had them bound in his own bindery, by his own servants). The newest ones (say, less than half a century old) were still white. More ancient ones had turned cream, beige, tan, brown, and tar-colored. Many bore scars of long-forgotten encounters between pigs and swineherds’ cudgels. The titles, and those long Roman numerals, had been inscribed on them in what Fatio now recognized as Duke August’s hand.

“Now they are in a heap, later they shall be on shelves—either way, how do you find what you want?” Leibniz asked.

“I believe you are now questioning me in a Socratic mode.”

“And you may answer in any mode you like, Monsieur Fatio, provided that you do answer.”

“I suppose one would go by the numbers. Supposing that they were shelved in numerical order.”

“Suppose they were. The numbers merely denote the order in which the Duke acquired, or at least cataloged, the volumes. They say nothing of the contents.”

“Re-number them, then.”

“According to what scheme? By name of author?”

“I believe it would be better to use something like Wilkins’s philosophical language. For any conceivable subject, there would be a unique number. Write that number on the spine of the book and shelve them in order. Then you can go directly to the right part of the library and find all books on a given subject together.”

“But suppose I am making a study of Aristotle. Aristotle is my subject. May I expect to find all Aristotle-books shelved together? Or would his works on geometry be shelved in one section, and his works on physics elsewhere?”

“If you look at it that way, the problem is most difficult.”

Leibniz stepped over to an empty bookcase and drew his finger down the length of one shelf from left to right. “A shelf is akin to a Cartesian number-line. The position of a book on that shelf is associated with a number. But only one number! Like a number-line, it is one-dimensional. In analytic geometry we may cross two or three number-lines at right angles to create a multi-dimensional space. Not so with bookshelves. The problem of the librarian is that books are multi-dimensional in their subject matter but must be ordered on one-dimensional shelves.”

“I perceive that clearly now, Doctor,” Fatio said. “Indeed, I am beginning to feel like the character of Simplicio in one of Galileo’s dialogs. So let me play that rôle to the hilt, and ask you how you intend to solve the problem.”

“Well played, sir. Consider the following: Suppose we assign the number three to Aristotle, and four to turtles. Now we must decide where to shelve a book by Aristotle on the subject of turtles. We multiply three by four to obtain twelve, and then shelve the book in position twelve.”

“Excellent! By a simple multiplication you have combined several subject-numbers into one—collapsed the multi-dimensional space into a uni-dimensional number-line.”

“I am pleased that you favor my proposal thus far, Fatio, but now consider the following: suppose we assign the number two to Plato, and six to trees. And suppose we acquire a book by Plato on the subject of trees. Where does it belong?”

“The product of two and six is twelve—so it goes next to Aristotle’s book on turtles.”

“Indeed. And a scholar seeking the latter book may instead find himself with the former—clearly a failure of the cataloging system.”

“Then let me step once again into the rôle of Simplicio and ask you whether you have solved this problem.”

“Suppose we use this coding instead,” quoth the Doctor, reaching behind the bookcase and pulling out a slate on which the following table had been chalked—thereby as much as admitting that the conversation, to this point, had been a scripted demo’.

“Two, three, five, and seven—all prime numbers,” remarked Fatio after giving it a brief study. “The shelf-numbers are composites, the products of prime factors. Excellent, Doctor! By making this small improvement—assigning prime numbers, instead of counting numbers, to the various subjects—you have eliminated the problem. The shelf position of any book may be found by multiplying the subject-numbers—and you may be assured it will be unique.”

“It is a pleasure to explain it to one who grasps the principle so readily,” Leibniz said. “Huygens and the Bernoullis have both spoken highly of you, Fatio, and I can see that they were by no means insincere.”

“I am humbled to hear my name mentioned in the same sentence with theirs,” Fatio returned, “but since you have been kind enough to so favor me, perhaps you will indulge me in a question?”

“It would be my privilege.”

“Your scheme is a fine way to build a library. For the correct position of any book may be found by taking the product of the several primes that correspond to its subjects. Even when those numbers grow to several digits, that presents no great difficulty; and in any event it is well known that you have invented a machine capable of multiplying numbers with great facility, which I now perceive is just one element of the immense knowledge engine you have proposed to build.”

“Indeed, all of these are of a piece, and may be considered aspects of my Ars Combinatorica. Did you have a question?”

“I fear that your library, once built, will be difficult to understand. You are seeking the help of the Emperor in Vienna, are you not?”

“It cannot be accomplished without the resources of a great kingdom,” Leibniz said vaguely.

“Very well, perhaps you are in communication with some other great prince. At any rate, it would seem, then, that you wish to make your Knowledge Engine on a colossal scale.”

“Marshalling resources is a continuing problem,” the Doctor said, still treading gingerly.

“I do not deny it,” Leibniz answered without hesitation, “but I find in this a sort of beauty, a reflection of the structure of the universe. The situation of the solitary visitor, as you have described it, is one with which I am familiar.”

“That is odd, for I conceive of you as the creator who stands with his hand on the Bücherrad and comprehends all.”

“You should know this about me. My father was a learned man who owned one of the finest libraries in Leipzig. He died when I was very small. Consequently I knew him only as a jumble of childish perceptions—between us there were feelings but never any rational connection, perhaps somewhat like the relationship that you or I have with God.”

And he related a story about how he had, for a time, been locked out of his father’s library, but later re-admitted.

“So I ventured into that library which had been closed up since the death of my father and still smelled like him. It might seem funny for me to speak of the smell, but that was the only connection I could draw at the time. For the books were all written in Latin or Greek, languages I did not know, and they treated of subjects with which I was completely unfamiliar, and they were arranged upon the shelves according to some scheme that must have been clear to my father, but to me was unknown, and would have been beyond my ken even if someone had been there to explain it to me.

“Now in the end, Monsieur Fatio, I mastered that library, but in order to do it I first had to learn Greek and Latin, and then read the books. Only when I had done these things was I finally able to do the most difficult thing of all, namely to understand the organizing principle by which my father had arranged the books on the shelves.”

Fatio said: “So you are not troubled by the plight of my hypothetical scholar, a-mazed in the penetralia of your Knowledge Engine. But Doctor Leibniz, how many persons, dropped into a library of books written in unknown languages, could do what you did?”

“But what if it can only be understood by a mind as great as God’s? What if we can only find what we want by factoring twenty-digit numbers?”

“Let us understand what we may, and extend our reach, insofar as we can, by the making of engines, and content ourselves with that much,” Leibniz answered. “It will suffice to keep us busy for a while. We cannot perform all of the calculations needed without turning every atom in the Universe into a cog in an Arithmetickal Engine; and then it would be God—”

“I think you are coming close to words that could get you burnt at the stake, Doctor—meanwhile, I turn to ice. Is there a place where we could strike a balance between those two extremes?”

THE DOCTOR HAD CAUSED a large shed to be scabbed onto the outer wall of the stable and filled with the books and papers most important to him. In one corner stood a black stove having the general size and shape of the biblical Tower of Babel. When they arrived it was merely warm, but Leibniz wrenched open several doors, rammed home half a cord or so of wood, and clanged them to. Within seconds, ears began to pop as the mickle Appliance sucked the air from the room. The iron tower began to emit an ominous rumbling and whooshing noise, and Leibniz and Fatio spent the rest of the conversation nervously edging away from it, trying to find the radius where (to paraphrase Fatio) being burnt alive was no more likely than freezing to death. This zone proved surprisingly narrow. As Leibniz fussed with the stove, which had taken up a kind of eerie keening, Fatio stepped back a pace, and let his eye fall on a sheet of paper—the topmost of several that were sticking out of a book. A few lines of printing were visible at the top of the page, written in Leibniz’s hand:

Beyond that point all was swallowed up between the pages of the enclosing book, which was expensively bound in red leather, ornately gilded with both Roman and Chinese characters.

“Any possibility of tea?” Fatio inquired, spying a kettle that had been left on one of the steps of the flaming ziggurat. Shielding his face in the crook of one arm, Leibniz ventured closer, seized a poker, and lunged like a fencing-master at the kettle to see whether it contained any water. Meanwhile Fatio peeled back the topmost sheet to reveal a letter written on different paper, in a different hand: Eliza’s!

Leibniz had been rummaging in a drawer. He pulled up a black slab about the size of a folio book, impressed with a single huge Chinese character, and snapped off a corner. “Caravan tea,” he explained. “Unlike your English and Dutch tea, which comes loose off of ships, this stuff was brought overland, via Russia—it is a million dried leaves pressed together into a brick.”

Fatio did not seem to be as fascinated by this as Leibniz had hoped. Leibniz tried another gambit: “Huygens wrote to me recently, and mentioned you had come over from London.”

“Monsieur Newton and I devoted the month of March to reading Mr. Huygens’s Treatise on Light and were so taken with it that we agreed to divide forces for the year—I have been studying with Huygens—”

“And Newton toils at his Alchemy.”

“Alchemy, theology, philosophy—call it what you will,” Fatio said coolly, “he is close to an achievement that will dwarf the Principia.”

“I don’t suppose it has anything to do with gold?” asked Leibniz.

Fatio—generally so birdlike-quick in his answers—allowed some moments to pass. “Your question is a bit vague. Gold is important to Alchemists,” he allowed, “as comets are to astronomers. But there are some, of a vulgar turn of mind, who suppose that Alchemists are interested in gold only in the same sense as bankers are.”

“C’est juste. Though there is a troublesome banker, not far from here, who seems to value it in both the monetary and the Alchemical sense.” Leibniz, who until this point in the conversation had been the embodiment of good cheer, deflated as he was saying these words, as if he had been reminded of something very grave, and his eye strayed over to the outlandish red-leather book. This topic had had the same effect on his spirits as a handful of earth tossed into a fire. Again, Fatio allowed some moments to pass before he responded; for he was studying Leibniz carefully.

“I think I know who you mean,” Fatio said finally.

“It is most curious,” Leibniz said. “Perhaps you have heard some of the same stories concerning this as I have. The entire controversy, as I understand it, revolves around a belief that there is a particular sample of gold, whose precise whereabouts are unknown, but that possesses some properties that make it more valuable, to Alchemists, than ordinary gold. I would expect a banker to know better!”

“Do not make the error of believing that all gold is the same, Doctor.”

“I thought Natural Philosophy had proved at least that much.”

“Why, some would say it has proved the opposite!”

“Perhaps you have read something new in London or Paris that I have not seen yet?”

“Actually, Doctor, I was thinking of Isaac’s Principia.”

“I have read it,” Leibniz said drily, “and do not recollect seeing anything about gold.”

“And yet it is clear enough that two planets of equal size and composition will describe different trajectories through the heavens, depending on their distances from the sun.”

“Of course—that is necessarily true, by the inverse-square law.”

“Since the two planets themselves are equal in every way, how can this difference in their trajectories be accounted for, unless you enlarge your scope of observations to include the difference in their situations vis-à-vis the sun?”

“You sound like Huygens!” Fatio snapped, suddenly annoyed. “I might as well have stayed in the Hague.”

“I am sorry if the tendency of me and Huygens to agree causes you grief.”

“You may agree with each other all you like. But why will you not agree with Isaac? Can you not perceive the magnificence of what he has achieved?”

“Any sentient man can perceive that,” Leibniz returned. “Almost all will be so blinded by its brilliance that they will be unable to perceive its flaws. There are only a few of us who can do that.”

“It is very easy to carp.”

“Actually it is rather difficult, in that it leads to discussions such as this one.”

“Unless you can propose an alternative theory that mends these supposed flaws, I believe you should temper your criticisms of the Principia.”

“I am still developing my theory, Monsieur Fatio, and it may be a long time before it is capable of making testable predictions.”

“What conceivable theory could explain the discernibility of those two planets, without making reference to their positions in absolute space?”

THIS LED TO AN INTERLUDE in the snow outside. Doctor Leibniz packed two handfuls of snow together between his hands, watched warily by Fatio. “Don’t worry, Monsieur Fatio, I’m not going to throw it at you. If you would be so helpful as to make two more, about the size of melons, as like to each other as possible.”

Fatio was not quick to warm to such a task, but eventually he squatted down and began to roll a pair of balls, stopping every couple of paces to pound away the rough edges.

“They are as close to indiscernible as I can make them under these conditions—which is to say, in twilight with frozen hands,” shouted Fatio towards Leibniz, who was a stone’s throw off, wrestling with a snowball that weighed more than he did. When no response came back, he muttered, “I shall go in and warm my hands if that is acceptable.”

He put it back where he’d found it, and went over to the shed’s single tiny window. Leibniz now had his back pressed against an immense snowball and was trying to topple it over by thrusting with both legs. Fatio strolled once around the room, pausing to riffle through any prominent stacks of papers that presented themselves to his big pale eyes. Of which there were several: letters from Huygens, from Arnauld, from the Bernoullis, the late Spinoza, Daniel Waterhouse, and everyone else in Christendom who had a flicker of sense. But one of the larger stacks consisted of letters from Eliza. Fatio reached into the middle, grabbed half a dozen leaves between his thumb and index finger, and snapped them out. He folded them and stuffed them into his breast pocket. Then he ventured back outside.

“Are your hands warm, Monsieur Fatio?”

“Exceeding warm, Doctor Leibniz.”

The Doctor had arranged the three snowballs—one giant one and the two small indiscernibles—on the field between the stable, the Schloß, and the nearby Arsenal. The triangle defined by these balls was nothing special, being neither equilateral nor isosceles.

“Isn’t this how Sir Francis Bacon died?”

“Descartes, too—froze to death in Sweden,” the Doctor returned cheerfully, “and if Leibniz and Fatio can go down in the annals next to Bacon and Descartes our lives will have been well concluded. Now, if you would be so good as to go to that one and tell me of your perceptions.” The Doctor pointed to a small snowball a few paces in front of Fatio.

“I see the field, the Schloß, Arsenal, and Library-to-be. I see you, Doctor, standing by a great snowball, and over there to the right, not so far away, a lesser one.”

“Now pray do the same from the other snowball that you made.”

A few moments later Fatio was able to report: “The same.”

“Exactly the same?”

“Well, of course there are slight differences. Now, Doctor, you and the large snowball are to my right, and closer than before, and the small snowball is to my left.”

Leibniz now deserted his post and began stomping towards Fatio. “Newton would have it that this field possesses a reality of its own, which governs the balls, and makes them discernible. But I say the field is not necessary! Forget about it, and consider only the balls’ perceptions.”

“Perceptions?”

“You said yourself that when you stood there you perceived a large snowball on the left, far away, and a small one on the right. Here you perceive a large one on the right, near at hand, and a small one on the left. So even though the balls might be indiscernible, and hence identical, in terms of their external properties such as size, shape, and weight, when we consider their internal properties—such as their perceptions of one another—we see that they are different. So they are discernible! And what is more, they may be discerned without reference to some sort of fixed, absolute space.”

By now they had, without discussion, begun trudging back towards the Schloß, which looked deceptively warm and inviting as twilight deepened.

“You seem to be granting every object in the Universe the power to perceive, and to record its perceptions,” Fatio ventured.

“If you are going to venture down this road of subdividing objects into smaller and smaller bits, you must somewhere stop, and stick your neck out by saying, ‘This is the fundamental unit of reality, and thus are its properties, on which all other phænomena are built,’ ” said the Doctor. “Some think it makes sense that these are like billiard balls, which interact by colliding.”

“I was just about to say,” said Fatio, “what could be simpler than that? A hard wee bit of indivisible matter. That is the most reasonable hypothesis of what an atom is.”

“I disagree! Matter is complicated stuff. Collisions between pieces of matter are more complicated yet. Consider: If these atoms are infinitely small, why, then, is it not true that the likelihood of one atom colliding with another is essentially zero?”

“You have a point,” said Fatio, “but I hardly think it is somehow simpler to endow these atoms, instead, with the ability to perceive and to think.”

“Perception and thought are properties of souls. It is no worse to posit that the fundamental building-block of the Universe is souls than to say it is wee bits of hard stuff, moving about in an empty space that is pervaded by mystickal Fields.”

“Somehow a planet’s perception of the sun and all the other planets, then, causes it to behave exactly as if it were in such a ‘mystickal Field,’ to an uncanny degree of precision.”

“I know it sounds difficult, Monsieur Fatio, but ’twill work out better in the long run.”

“Physics, then, becomes a sort of vast record-keeping exercise. Every object in the Universe is distinguished from every other object by the uniqueness of its perceptions of all the other objects.”

“If you think on it long enough you will see it is the only way to distinguish them.”

“Why, it is as if every atom or particle—”

“I call them monads.”

“Monad, then, is a sort of Knowledge Engine unto itself, a Bücherrad-rad-rad-rad…”

Leibniz summoned a weak smile.

“Its gears grind away like the ones in your Arithmetickal Engine, and it decides what to do of its own accord. You knew Spinoza, did you not?”

Leibniz held up a warning hand. “Yes. But pray do not put me in with him.”

“If I may just return to the topic that got us started, Doctor, it seems to me that your theory allows for a possibility you scoffed at—namely, that two lumps of gold might be different from each other.”

“Any two such lumps are different, but it is because, being differently situated, they have different perceptions. I am afraid that you want to assign mystickal properties to some gold and not other.”

“Afraid why?”

“Because the next thing you’ll do is melt it down to extract that mystery and put it in a phial.”

Fatio sighed. “In truth, all these theories have their problems.”

“Agreed.”

“Why not admit it, then? Why this stubborn refusal to consider Newton’s system, when yours is just as fraught with difficulties?”

Leibniz drew to a halt before the front stoop of the Schloß, as if he’d rather freeze than continue the discussion where it might be overheard. “Your question is dressed up in the guise of Reason, to make it appear innocent. Perhaps it is. Perhaps not.”

“Even if you do not think me innocent, pray believe that my confusion is genuine.”

“Isaac and I had this conversation long ago, when we were young, and matters stood quite differently.”

“How odd. You are the only person, other than Daniel Waterhouse, who has ever called him by his Christian name.”

The look of uncertainty on Leibniz’s face now hardened into open disbelief. “What do you call him, when the two of you are alone together in your London house?”

“I stand corrected, Doctor. There are three of us who have known him thusly.”

“That is a very clever sentence you just uttered,” Leibniz exclaimed, sounding genuinely impressed. “Like a silken cord turned in on itself and knotted into a snare. I commend you for it, but I will not put my foot in it. And I will thank you to keep Daniel out of it as well.”

Fatio had turned red. “The only thing I wish to snare is a clearer understanding of what has passed between you and Isaac.”

“You want to know if you have a rival.”

Fatio said nothing.

“The answer is: you do not.”

“That is well.”

“You do not have a rival, Fatio. But Isaac Newton does.”

After the Revolution the Partrys had slaughtered all their livestock, deserted their Regiment, gathered up what money they could, and escaped to Dublin. Several months later, Bob had been shipped to Belfast with the rest of his regiment, and with the Dutch colonel who’d been put in command of it. Now, King William found John Churchill hard enough to trust when he was inside London Wall. He could not possibly bring himself to trust Marlborough (or any other English commander) with an elite regiment on Irish soil, especially when Churchill’s former master, James, was only a few marches south, in Dublin. So it was under a Colonel de Zwolle that the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards voyaged to Belfast, and under him that they tarried on that island over two winters. When Bob next saw Churchill, he would assure his old chief that he had not missed a thing.

From their point of disembarkation the regiment had marched south for a few days, and then wintered over in a camp at Dundalk, which lay near the border between the part of Ireland called Ulster and the one called Leinster. Out of a full strength of 806 men they suffered casualties of thirty-one dead, thirty-two so disabled that they had to be retired, and many hundreds who were laid low for a time but later got better. Most of these casualties were put down to disease or hunger, a few to accidents and brawls—zero to combat, of which there was none. This was an exceptionally good record.

In June 1690, then, William of Orange finally arrived in Ulster as only a King could, viz. with three hundred ships, fifteen thousand troops, hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling, more Princes, Dukes, and Bishops than a boat-load of playing-cards and chess-sets, and a lot of Dutch artillery. He marched south, pausing at Dundalk long enough to collect the regiments that had wintered over there, and then invaded Leinster at the head of thirty-six thousand men. He made straight for Dublin, where James Stuart had established his rebel Parliament. King William had a wooden house, designed by one Christopher Wren—that same bloke who was building the new St. Paul’s in London. It was ingeniously made so that it could be taken down in sections at a few minutes’ notice, transported on wagons, and put back up again wherever William decided to establish his headquarters. Normally he erected it in the midst of his army, which was not at all usual for a campaigning King, and made a good impression on his soldiers.

James Stuart had been spoiling for a fight for a year and a half. He marched north from Dublin at the head of twenty-five thousand men and, after some preliminary maneuvering, set up a position on the south bank of the river called Boyne.

The next day, William was reconnoitering the north bank in person, looking for crossing-places, when a Jacobite cannonball hit him on the shoulder and knocked him off his horse. Jacobites on the opposite bank saw it happen, and saw a vaguely king-shaped object being carried away in haste by agitated Protestants.

What they could not see, from that side of the Boyne, was that the cannonball was a spent ricochet that had glanced off William’s shoulder and dealt him no serious harm. They made the wholly reasonable assumption that William the Usurper was dead and reported as much up the chain of command.

The captain of Bob’s company was killed very early and so Bob had to assume effective command of threescore men for the rest of the day. This had very little effect on anything. Whether or not their captain was alive, Bob’s job was to get his men to believe that they really were safer standing together as a unit, as opposed to throwing their muskets down and diving into the river. Far be it from Bob to think about his company’s or his regiment’s reputation at Court.

If he had thought about it, he might have counseled his men to break and run instead.

That night the King came to their camp to tell them what fine fellows he thought they were. Now the Irish Army had simply vanished; the only evidence they’d been present at the Boyne was the thousands of pikes and muskets they had thrown down on the ground, the better to outrun their pursuers. King William’s host had climbed up out of the river-valley and spread out across churned and trampled pastures between the hamlet of Donore and the village of Duleek—places that, like færies, were spoken of, by Irishmen, as if they really existed, but that could not actually be seen. As they went they harvested the dropped weapons, hugging bristly faggots of them to their chests and finally letting them drop in clanking heaps when they decided to set up camp.

As their baggage had not caught up with them, they spent the night in the open, and as there were no trees hereabouts they used the captured weapons for firewood. They were not worth keeping as weapons—a fact that was obvious to Bob, but tended to be ignored by those who espoused the view that the Irish had thrown them down out of cowardice. Bob found flintlocks without flint, muskets with cracked barrels, pikes that could be snapped over the knee.

What he said was that, with regiments such as his own Black Torrent Guards, he could not only take Ireland but Flanders, too, and fight all the way to Paris.

Bob stayed up late gazing into the fire, which was slowly devolving into a red tangle of melted gun-barrels, and pondered some of the longer-term implications of the King’s statement. Overall, the notion was somewhat troubling. On the other hand, an invasion of France might afford him an opportunity to seek out Miss Abigail Frome.

The next day they left the field pimpled with smoking twists of blackened iron and marched south to Dublin. James Stuart had already run off to France. Protestants were running wild, looting Catholic homes. Bob ventured into a certain quarter where Protestants were more apt to behave themselves, if indeed they went there at all. He found Teague Partry sitting on a stoop smoking a clay pipe and gravely observing the bums of passing milk-maids, as if nothing much had happened recently. But the right side of his face was flushed red, as if sunburnt, and pocked with recent wounds that all appeared to have radiated from a common center.

Teague bought him a mug of beer (it being Teague’s turn to do this) and explained to him that James’s foreign cavalry regiments had panicked first and, finding their escape route blocked by the Irish infantry, had opened fire on them to clear the way. He put it to Bob that Irishmen had it in them to fight effectively when they were not being massacred by Continental cavaliers who were supposed to be on their side, and (pointing significantly to his face) when they were provided with guns that projected musket-balls instead of blowing up in their faces. Bob agreed that it was so.

His skull was merely dented, but his scalp was nearly taken off, and had to be sewed back on by a barber-surgeon who advised him to grow his hair back again as soon as he could; “And for god’s sake get a wife before you go bald, or women and children will run away from you screaming!” He was only trying to be cheerful, but Bob growled at him that he had already found his true love, and that scars on his pate were the least of his concerns.

The Earl of Marlborough finally got leave from the distracted King to sail across to Munster. He took the cities of Cork and Kinsale, but he did it without the help of his Black Torrent Guards. Then he went home to spent a comfortable winter in London while Bob and the regiment remained encamped outside of Limerick, fending off occasional sorties by the Irish cavalry, and keeping up a running, sporadic battle with bands of armed peasants who styled themselves “rapparees.”

The rapparees actually did have firearms that worked, and had learned to strip them down into their parts in seconds. The locks they kept in their pockets, the barrels they corked shut and hid in sloughs or streams, the stocks they thrust into wood-piles, or anywhere else a bare stick might go unnoticed. So what appeared to be a crew of half-naked peat-cutters or a congregation strolling to Mass could scatter into the waste at a word or a gesture, and reconstitute itself an hour later as a band of heavily armed marauders.

Because of the rapparees there were few places on the island, outside of Ulster, where Englishmen could feel safe in groups of less than an infantry company. But one of those places was the south bank of the river Shannon just downstream of Limerick. As the winter eased, and the hair grew back over his wound, Bob began to go there by himself and sit under a solitary tree overlooking the river and smoke his pipe and brood. The reading of books was not available to him. He’d lost his interest in whoring. He had heard his men’s stories, jokes, and songs so many times he could not suffer them any more. Drink made him feel poorly, and card-playing was pointless. He suffered, in other words, from a want of things that he could do to pass the time.

When King William had come over before the Battle of the Boyne he had brought fresh recruits to replace the ones who had sickened and died over the winter, but not enough of the sort Bob favored. Bob had however managed to recruit half a dozen English Protestants who had never actually been to England. They had grown up on various farms in Ireland that their fathers or grandfathers, who had been Cromwell-soldiers, had taken away from Gaelic Catholics. But the various revolutions of the last decades had turned their families into Vagabonds of an extraordinarily hard and dour cast, roaming around Eire in search of organized violence. Bob knew how to talk to men like that, and so they had spread the word among themselves and gravitated toward the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards, and continued to gravitate still.

After the Battle of the Boyne, a Protestant wool-merchant of Dublin (who had grown wealthy from the fact that the Irish were not allowed to sell their wool overseas except through England) had donated some portion of his lootings to buy these new recruits weapons and uniforms, and they had formed a company. So the Black Torrent Guards were now a slightly oversized regiment, with 14 companies instead of 13, and a nominal strength of 868 men.

One day Bob reached his brooding-tree and turned around to discover that he had been followed out by Tom Allgreave and Oliver Good, two of the original Phanatiques he’d recruited last year in Dundalk. They were a quarter of a mile behind him, exchanging the lead position every few steps, as if egging each other on. Each of them had a sword dangling from his belt, part of the motley collection of brought and stolen weaponry that had been showered upon the Fourteenth Company by that wool-merchant.

It did not matter either way, as Bob was idle, too. And so as Tom and Oliver got to within a horseshoe-throw of his brooding-tree, Bob knocked the ashes out of his pipe, stood up, reached around himself, and drew out his spadroon. The Puritans were thrilled. “You’ll want to stand sideways, as you make a narrower target that way, and it gets your sword-arm that much closer to the other bloke,” Bob said. He raised the sword up until its guard was touching his nose, the blade pointing vertically into the air. “This is a sort of salute, and do not on any account mistake it for some foppish affectation, as it says to any man who stands before you, ‘I mean to engage in swordplay with you, do not just stand there and be hit, but either defend yourself, or else retire.’ ”

Tom and Oliver now nearly killed themselves getting their weapons unsheathed, and then nearly killed each other getting them into the salute position. “Oliver, what you have in your hand is a rapier, and I do not know the method of its use as well as I do that of the spadroon,” Bob said, “but anyway we shall try to make shift with the tools at hand.”

Thus did Bob open up a new defencing academy on the south bank of the river Shannon. It became popular very quickly and then just as quickly collapsed to some half a dozen men who were genuinely interested in the subject. After a month they were joined by Monsieur LaMotte, a Huguenot cavalry captain who happened to spy them as he was riding by one day. He was expert with a cavalry saber, which was a somewhat similar weapon to the spadroon, but he had also studied the rapier, and so he was at last able to give Oliver some instruction in what to do with his weapon. In general, cavalry officers (who tended to be Persons of Quality) would never fraternize thusly with common foot-soldiers, but the Huguenots were an exceeding queer lot. Many were common Frenchmen whose families had grown wealthy in trade and then been kicked out of France. Now they were in Ireland, gaining some small revenge by teaching the defencing tricks of the Continental nobility to savage Anglo-Irish Puritans.

He and his children toiled on the land as only Puritans could toil on the land, and made many improvements, few of which were obvious, none of which produced results quickly. They bore arms all their days and often rode the countryside hunting down “disorderly elements.” They did not see those ragged Protestants any more, and forgot about them altogether, except for their surname, which could be read from the odd gravestone: Crackington.

After Charles II restored the monarchy, however, it was learned that the Crackingtons had somehow found their way back to England and made themselves pests and parasites on their relations, who went to the new Parliament (along with thousands of other Anglo-Irish landholders who had been displaced by other Cromwellian soldiers) and demanded that the Phanatiques be cast out of Ireland. As one of the new King’s first acts had been to put Cromwell’s head up on a stick, their chances of success seemed reasonable enough. In the end, they got only part of what they wanted. Some of the Cromwellian settlers were kicked off their land and some were not. The Goods managed to hang on to theirs, but only because of some obscure and contingent political happenstance at Westminster.

They were not, however, free to practice their religion any more, and that was what drove them off the land in the end, and sent half of them to Massachusetts. The Crackingtons came back and took over the farm, with all of its improvements, and began to prosper, and even paid for the reconstruction of the local Anglican church (which the Goods had made useful as a barn). This had occurred not long after the birth of Oliver Good, with the result that he had only ill-formed childish memories of the farmstead that he intended to re-occupy one day.

Then when James II became King, he re-Catholicized Ireland. The Crackingtons awoke one morning to find breaches in their fences, and wild Connaught kine grazing in their enclosures, guarded closely by red-haired men who spoke no English and carried French muskets. It was not possible to persuade them to leave because the new Catholic government in Dublin had confiscated the weapons of the English gentry. After not very long the Crackingtons judged it prudent to leave until a judge could rule on the title to the land—or the titles to the lands, rather, as by this point the farm comprised half a dozen contiguous patches of dirt, each of which had an equally complex story. The Ferbanes, it turned out, had been carrying on boundary-feuds with their neighbors for five hundred years—some were mere interlopers who’d been driven inland by the Vikings.

At any rate the Crackingtons packed up what household effects they could, rounded up a few horses (the Ferbanes had driven most of them off), and set out for Dublin, where they kept a town-house. Along the way they were set upon by rapparees. But just when it looked as if all were lost, they were saved by a Protestant militia band that came on in a grand, noisy rush and drove the rapparees away. The Crackington patriarch thanked these mangy-looking Protestants again and again, and promised to reward them in golden guineas if they would sent a representative to call on him at his town-house in Dublin—“my name,” he said, “is Mr. Crackington and anyone in Dublin—” (by which he meant any Anglican English gentleman) “—will be able to direct you to my house.”

“Did you say Crackington?” said one of the militia. “My name is Good. Do you know me?”

After this certain unpleasantries, which Oliver Good declined to speak much of, had been visited upon the Crackingtons, and it was unclear whether any of them had made it as far as Dublin—but if they had, they’d have found their town-house looted, and occupied by Catholics, anyway. But the point was that all of Ulster, Leinster, and Munster were like that farm between Athlone and Tullamore.

England was divided into parcels of land whose ownership was clearly established. It was like a wall made of bricks, each brick an integral thing surrounded by a clear boundary of white mortar. Ireland was like a daub-wall. Every generation came around with a fresh hod and troweled a new layer of mud atop all of the previous ones, which instantly hardened and became brittle. The land was not merely encumbered; it was the sum of its encumbrances.

DEFENCING-PRACTICE WENT ON MUCH LONGER than anyone really wanted. The war was not quick to resume in the spring of 1691. King William’s supreme commander in Ireland was now Baron Godard de Ginkel, another Dutchman. His objective was obviously Connaught, which was guarded by the Shannon and by the fortified cities of Limerick, Athlone, and Sligo. Irish diggers bossed around by French engineers had devoted the whole winter to building up those cities’ earth-works. Therefore Ginkel wanted boats and pontoons for crossing the river, and guns for knocking down the fortifications. Those cost money. Parliament had very little of it, and had become surly about handing it over to their Dutch king, whom they were already sick of. Nothing was forthcoming until the end of May, which convinced Bob and all the rest that they were truly lost and forgotten in Ireland, and destined to be stranded here, and to become the next players in stories of the Ferbane-Crackington-Good type.

For his part, King Louis XIV of France did little to disabuse the combatants of the feeling that they had dropped off the map of Christendom. The Battle of the Boyne had been the battle for Ireland, or so everyone in Christendom believed, according to a letter Bob had got from Eliza. They believed it not because it had any particular military weight but because there had been a King on each side of a river and one had crossed over it and the other had turned his backside to it and run away, and not stopped running until he’d reached France.

During the battle that had given the Black Torrent Guards their name, their commander, Feversham, had been asleep. Even when he was awake he was daft, because of his brain injury. John Churchill had been the real commander and Bob and the other foot-soldiers had done the fighting. Yet Feversham had got the credit for all. Why? Because it made a good story, Bob supposed, and people could only make sense of complicated matters through stories. Likewise the war for Ireland, which had ceased to be a good story when the Kings had left the stage.

Monsieur LaMotte took a spyglass from his saddle-bag, climbed halfway up the tree, and made observations. “I see the colors of a field-marshal; the big ship, there, third from the lead, she is carrying the new French commander…” then all the air went out of him in a long sigh, like bagpipes collapsing, and he said nothing for a minute or so, not because he had nothing to say but because he was the sort of fellow who did not like to utter as much as a word until he had made himself master of his emotions. “It is the butcher of Savoy,” he said in French to another Huguenot who was standing under the tree.

“De Catinat?”

“No, the other.”

“De Gex?”

“This is a field-marshal, not a priest.”

“Ah.” The other Huguenot ran to his horse and galloped away.

In English, La Motte explained: “I have recognized the coat of arms of the new French commander. His name is St. Ruth. A nobody. Our victory is assured.”

The muttering of the men resumed, and there were sporadic outbreaks of laughter. LaMotte climbed down out of the tree wearing an expression as if he’d just seen his mother being keel-hauled under St. Ruth’s flagship. He handed his spyglass to Bob, then went to his horse without a word and cantered away, stiff-backed.

Bob was glad to have the loan of the spyglass, for one of the smaller ships, farther back in the line, had familiar lines. His eyes unaided could not make out the colors flying from her mizzen-mast. With a bit of fiddling and focusing, and steadying the spyglass against the bole of the tree, he was able to see the coat of arms he had been looking for: for St. Ruth had brought a pair of lieutenant-generals with him, and one of them bore the title Earl of Upnor.

Years ago Bob had gone deaf in one ear, and had put it down to standing close to guns. But then one day a barber had reached into that ear with a wee hook and wrenched out a bung of brown wax, hard as pine-wood, and just like that Bob could hear again—he could hear so well it almost hurt, and could sense things going on all round him with such definition that for the next day he had difficulty keeping his balance. On the 9th of May 1691, all of Bob’s senses came alive thusly, and his lungs filled with air for the first time since he had waded across the Boyne with Jacobite musket-balls taking bites out of his hat.

They struck camp and withdrew from Limerick altogether during the next fortnight, and marched with the sun on their backs to Mullingar, in the center of the island, where all of King William’s host was assembling. A few days after they arrived the trains of wagons began to come from Dublin in their clouds of dust and noise, bringing the great cannons and mortars that had been sent from the Tower of London.

On June 8th they marched west to Ballymore and easily took a little out-post there, and made prisoners of one of the best Irish regiments, which had been left exposed in the middle of nowhere for no reason.

On June 19th they reached Athlone, which bestrode the Shannon. It consisted of an English town on the Leinster side—which the Jacobites abandoned almost immediately—and an Irish city on the Connaught side—which they retreated into, and defended with unnerving ferocity for two weeks. Scouts were sent across the Shannon; most did not come back. The ones that did brought news that cascaded down the chain of command to Bob: General St. Ruth had brought his whole army to a camp west of the Irish town, just out of range of Ginkel’s Dutch cannon.

The Irish won the battle of the bridge, but lost that of Athlone when two thousand of Ginkel’s troops forded the Shannon downstream on June 30th and forced their way into the Irish town.

St. Ruth thereby lost Athlone, and all of his troops who were trapped inside of its walls. The rules of Continental siege warfare were in effect, meaning that towns could hope for easy treatment if they surrendered but that resistance was to be punished by massacre. Bob’s chief worry, then, was that he would be given a direct order to go into Athlone and massacre someone. The only thing that would be worse would be if the victims turned out to be Mr. McCarthy’s company of foot-soldiers from Baron Youghal’s regiment. Mr. McCarthy was a Dublin candle-maker who had spent all of his money to raise and outfit a company, and made himself its captain. Along the way he had recruited Teague Partry, who had in turn recruited several other of Bob’s out-laws. Jack Shaftoe’s sons—Bob’s nephews—had gotten swept up in Regimental life, much as Jack and Bob had done at the same age. For all Bob knew, the boys might be carrying muskets now. So it was not out of all possibility that Bob might be obliged to swing a spadroon into the necks of his nephews during the mopping-up of Athlone. It was the sort of dilemma that might make a fellow anxious. Fortunately Bob had (as was his habit) imagined and anticipated the worst, and made up his mind in advance what he should do if it came to pass: He would excuse himself, declare himself Irish (easily enough done, as ’twas only a state of mind anyway), make the sign of the cross over his red-coated breast, and go running off into Connaught with the Partrys. He even had a sort of excuse worked out: He’d declare that the hag who’d brained him with the bottle in Limerick was his long-lost great-aunt. This scheme had the added advantage of getting him closer to Upnor. After the Jacobites had lost the war, he’d sign up with an Irish mercenary regiment and go campaigning on the Continent. If he picked the right time and place to desert, he could then simply walk to wherever Abigail was.

What he did not want was to find them dead, or to see them being hunted down in the streets by the Danish horsemen, who had reverted to the ways of the Vikings. So his fondest hope and worst nightmare were separated by an infinitesimally slender distance.

But he found nothing in Athlone save dead or dying Irishmen buried in settling piles of rubble. Fortunately a good part of the civilian population of Athlone had already fled into Connaught. A small Irish garrison was trapped near the bridge and enthusiastically butchered by the Danish cavalry. However, the great bulk of St. Ruth’s force never even saw fighting, and remained safe in its camp. Ginkel spent several days getting his army across the river, which meant that St. Ruth could stage a leisurely and orderly retreat of his whole army toward the interior of Connaught, or indeed all the way to the port of Galway if he chose.

So Bob found himself in the fabled land of Connaught. No, it couldn’t be; this part was connected to Leinster and the rest of the damned island by that bridge, it was an excrescence of the bad, ruined Ireland into the good. And fortunately it was surrounded by a wall to prevent the contagions of the world from spreading. Irish Athlone was just a buboe, holding the plague pent up inside.

When they got the order to march out of its western gate, then they would enter the true Connaught that Teague Partry had sung of during his long raw watches on the Develin Tower.

“IT IS SUNDAY, the twelfth of July, Anno Domini sixteen hundred and ninety-one,” said Captain Barnes helpfully, shaking Bob’s shoulder. “The train has arrived; we expect a long march.”

Very faint pink light gleamed in jackets of dew that had formed on the cold pale stones all around. Bob exerted all his will not to close his eyes and go back to sleep.

They were still in Athlone, sleeping in a half-wrecked wool warehouse that stood on the road uphill from the bridge. Wheels were grinding on the ashlars of that road, drawn by hundreds of patient hooves that beat a lulling tattoo on the stones.

Ginkel’s army had marched out a day ago and left them behind to await a train of wagons from Dublin, and to make sure it got across the bridge safely. Today they would have to catch up with the army and, if that army was on the move, accomplish a second march as well.

By the time Bob had groped his way to the coffee-pot and burnt his hands and lips on a tin cup of Mocha’s finest, the pink light that had greeted him earlier had been snuffed out by the progress of this fog. When he went about nudging men awake, they were all certain it must be midnight, and not dawn as Bob earnestly claimed.

Connaught would not let go of her mysteries easily, then. By the time they fell in with the regiment, chasing the customary, hideous screams of sergeants through the gloom, a kind of profound blue-gray light had begun to emanate from the fog: light without warmth or even the colors that made men remember warmth. There was a lot of bumping into other companies in rubble-congested streets, and standing still for no discernible reason, and then at last a gate materialized around them and they understood that the regiment was forcing its way through a bottleneck. They marched out of Athlone and left its unburied dead to the flies—for only flies could reach the ones who lay in the cellars of the fallen-in buildings.

Immediately the road began to fork and fork again, offering passages to Roscommon, Tuam, Athleag, or Killimor. Bob gazed down every one of those tracks with frank longing. But young officers on horseback were posted at every turning to ensure that the regiment, and the wagon-train, did not stray in the fog.

They marched on the high road, the road west toward Galway. Everything about the conduct of the operation said to Bob that it would be a long trudge with no objective other than to put distance behind them, and no prospect of actual fighting. But late in the morning—or so he guessed from the color of the fog, which had taken on a brassy shimmer, like a counterfeit guinea—he heard musket-fire far off.

They joined in with another column, marched for a mile, and crossed a river at a place called Ballinasloe. Immediately the rope of men and beasts raveled and frayed into a wide mess, each strand pursuing a different course. This would only occur if they had butted up against the army of St. Ruth, and were spreading out to form a battle-front.

Lone cavaliers dashed from left to right and right to left, wearing the colors of Brandenburgish, Danish, Huguenot, or Dutch cavalry regiments; these were engaged in the supremely important tasks of finding the ends of the line. The great bodies of soldiers were still proceeding towards the front, occasionally crossing over each other’s paths, but more and more often moving along parallel courses. The fog shone more brightly to their left, which suggested that they were going generally westwards. Bob’s left knee was hurting rather more than his right one—not only were they moving down-slope, but the ground on the right, toward the Ballinasloe road, was higher.

They’d seen no sign of the Jacobite army other than a few Irishmen hanged by the necks from tree-limbs along the road, presumably for desertion. But as they worked their way down from the road they did come upon a dead horse from Patrick Sarsfield’s Irish cavalry regiment, which was still warm and steaming. It was in a field, or rather, an expanse of disturbed soil. Every patch of dirt in Ireland bore the marks of desperate soldiers who had pawed through it in search of potatoes that might’ve been overlooked by other, slightly less desperate fellows. This horse had broken its leg stepping into a hole where some lucky man had struck a jackpot. Its rider had put it down with a pistol-ball to the brain and limped away on a pair of French-style boots in good repair. Bob followed the boot-prints, and his men followed him, until a mounted Dutch officer—one of de Zwolle’s aides—coalesced out of the fog, ordered them to abandon this pursuit, and signalled that they should form up into a line. And a good thing, too, as the ground had been getting soupier, and they were very nearly down in a bog by this point.

Now that all burdens had been thrown down and the commotion of the march had ceased, Bob found that he could hear for a great distance. In fact, he was convinced that they had mistakenly set up only a stone’s throw from the enemy. But the sound came and went with the sluggish convolutions of the fog, telling him that it was only a trick played on his ears by the queerness of the air, and further evidence that Connaught was a realm of mischievous færies.

Setting aside eldritch deceptions, and listening patiently whilst smoking his way through three pipe-bowls of tobacco, and (above all) thanking that barber for having drawn the wax out of his ear, Bob collected the following:

That there was a bog before them, much broader than he had supposed at first, perhaps half a mile from this side to the other. That water stood, rather than ran, at its bottom. That it was occupied by the enemy, but not heavily; it was not a position to be held, but an obstacle to slow down the onslaught of the Protestant legions. Beyond it, however, the ground rose up again, in some places to heights that would command the whole battlefield. The great bulk of the Jacobites were there, working with picks and shovels in reasonably dry ground (the implements bit rather than splashed). When a breeze finally came up, it became possible to hear canvas flapping. They had not taken their tents down yet; they had no thought of retreating. To the north and the south—that is to say, on the wings—were the cavalry. By process of elimination, infantry was in the center.

The Irish foot did not have the equipment or the training to form itself up into pike-squares and so were defenseless against horse. Therefore St. Ruth would only put them where cavalry could not go. It followed that the bog must be a formidable barrier, for St. Ruth was trusting it to preserve his infantry from a frontal charge. The Butcher of Savoy, as the Huguenots called him, had, however, felt obliged to put his cavalry at the ends, to prevent the infantry from being flanked and destroyed; so there must be easier ways of getting across the bog in those places.

In this section of the line—which seemed to be towards Ginkel’s right, or north flank—all was orderly and quiet. But at the left or southern flank, which might be as much as two miles away, they were having great difficulty forming up into line because of some skirmishes—most likely Sarsfield’s enterprising and high-spirited cavalry. Sporadic cackles of fire came from that direction and occasionally swelled into abrupt throat-clearings, but never developed into a proper engagement.

As this was Sunday, the French and Irish regiments were taking turns at Mass; Bob could track the gradual progress of two or perhaps three different priests along the Jacobite line of battle, stopping every so often to deliver a warlike homily and celebrate a truncated version of the sacrament. He only knew un peu de français and a wee bit o’ Gaelic, but after hearing several repetitions of these homilies, and the synchronized cheering of the congregants, he thought he had a clear enough notion of what was being said.

The breeze became dependable and the fog finally began to dissolve.

He strolled to the left and exchanged gossip with Greer, the sergeant of the fourteenth company. Then he strolled to the right and discovered an English cavalry regiment and chatted with one of its sergeants for a time. By now it was possible to understand where the Black Torrent Guards were situated. Ginkel’s army, like St. Ruth’s, had been arranged with infantry in the center and cavalry on the wings. Bob’s regiment was farther to the right than any of the other foot, and his company farther right than any other company; from their location northwards to the road, it was nothing but horse all the way.

The fog had lifted to the point where he could see his own regimental colors, about a musket-shot away, slightly uphill of the line established by the soldiers. He walked toward them and arrived just in time to see a conference breaking up: Colonel de Zwolle had served brandy and given orders to all of his company commanders. Bob about-faced and fell into step beside Captain Barnes, who was returning to the company.

“Ne pas faire de quartier,” ’ Bob said. “That’s what the priests are saying across the bog.”

Captain Barnes had a degree from Oxford. “After what happened in Athlone, it is to be expected.”

“Is it the same for us, then? No quarter?”

“Sergeant, your aversion to killing Irishmen is the talk of the regiment. Do not embarrass me today by turning suddenly into a paragon of mercy.”

Captain Barnes was the fifth son of a modestly important Bristol family, and had a quick mind. It had been expected of him that he would become a vicar. Instead he had discomposed his family by deciding to become an infantry officer. He was not yet twenty-five and still seemed more the student of divinity. He liked commanding troops in battle, and did a surprisingly good job of it, as long as they hewed to the tactics and maneuvers of conventional warfare, against similar opponents. Which might sound like damning with faint praise, but very few men could actually do this. He grew uncertain, and began to make bad decisions, when asked to do anything that was not explicitly covered by the rules of war. At such moments other rules must of necessity come into play, and the rules he was wont to fall back on were the sort that were taught in church. And he was bright enough to see that this was, in a war, ridiculous.

“The Earl of Marlborough, to you!”

“In truth, to me he is John. But whatever he is called, he has odd tastes in sergeants, and though he has been replaced by de Zwolle, you are stuck with me—unless you would care to promote another from the ranks.”

“You’ll do, Sergeant Shaftoe.”

Finally the fog had lifted so that they could see as far as they pleased, though things more distant were wrapped in shimmering auras, bristling with iridescent needles. All was more or less as Bob had seen it with his ears. Across a bog they faced a hill whose near slope was exceeding well trenched, the trenches filled with Irish musketeers in gray coats. They would be armed with good new French muskets, not the trash that had served as firewood after the Battle of the Boyne. Far to the south the Jacobite line curved around the flank of the hill into some trees, and thus out of Bob’s view. Directly in front lay what appeared to be the worst part of the bog, where three water-filled ruts twined together in the heart of a morass. The main Athlone-Galway road was no more than a few hundred paces off to the right. It sported first a bridge and then a long, strait causeway over the boggy ground.

A mass of English and Huguenot cavalry were deployed in a clump around the road. Bob could see several regimental standards at a glance, meaning that this was probably styled a division, thus probably commanded by a major-general. Most likely the Huguenot Henri de Massue, who, though he’d never see France again, still went by his French title, the marquis de Ruvigny. Ruvigny was one of three generals King William had sent out to Ireland in the spring to replace ones who had exasperated him with their slowness. Another was a Scotsman, Hugh MacKay, who was commanding the division of infantry—Bob’s division, for the nonce—that was now looking out over the bog.

Bob spent more time than was good for him searching out the standards of the Irish foot regiments and trying to identify Baron Youghal’s colors. That would tell him approximately where Mr. McCarthy the candlemaker was situated with the Partrys’ company. But he was unable to see matters clearly, as most of these regiments were dug in on the hill farther south and across the bog, two miles or more away, and their colors had not been particularly large or glorious to begin with.

“This is an excellent position,” Bob said admiringly. “It could not be better—for the Irish.”

Captain Barnes gave him a sharp look, but softened when he understood that Bob was merely stating facts, and according a sort of gentlemanly respect to the foe. “Today we will be dragoons, until we are told otherwise.”

“Where are our horses, then?”

“We must imagine them.”

“Imaginary horses are much slower than the other kind.”

“We need never mount up. Dragoons are supposed to ride into battle, then dismount and fight as infantrymen,” Barnes reminded him. “We walked here, that much is true. But that’s in the past. Now it’s as if we have all just climbed out of our saddles.”

“That is why they have placed us here, hard up against the cavalry—we are to support them,” Bob supposed, looking into Barnes’s eyes. Barnes showed no sign of disagreement. Bob turned away from General MacKay’s part of the field—the bog in the center—and toward General Ruvigny’s—the road, the causeway, and the village. At first glance this latter seemed the harder assignment, but he felt unaccountably relieved that they would not have to harry thousands of Irishmen out of the maze of ditches that they had cut into the peat.

Bob continued, “We are meant to advance along the road, I take it.” He then turned his attention to the castle, and tried to count the colors on its walls and in the surrounding village.

“It is a better assignment than to advance across that bog,” Barnes observed.

“Anything would be better than that, Captain,” Bob said. “When I am hit I want to fall with sun in my eyes. Not mud in my lungs.”

But every other part of the line attacked. The only part Bob could see was the foot in the center, but from distant rumblings of thousands of hooves, and movements of reinforcing horse across the Irish rear, he could tell that a large cavalry engagement was under way at the opposite end.

MacKay’s infantry spent the first few hours of the battle failing against their Irish counterparts. Though ’twere more just to say that Ginkel had failed by ordering them even to try. The Irish had cut successive lines with protected passages from one to the next. The walls of the ditches were graded to afford protection against an attack from the east while leaving their occupants naked to fire from the west. So as soon as MacKay’s men fought their way across the sucking mud into one ditch, they would find that their foes had all vanished like wills-o’-the-wisp and reappeared in the next ditch uphill, whence they could fire musket-balls into the attackers at their pleasure. A small number of English actually managed to get through all of the ditches and hedgerows, but by the time they had done so, they were more a smattering of refugees than an army; and when they finally staggered out into open country along the base of the hill, they were confronted by an Irish battle-line that looked as if it had drawn itself up on a parade ground. The Irish charged with a roar that reached Bob’s ears a few seconds after he saw them leap forward, and the surviving English fell back all the way to where they had started an hour before. By the time any semblance of order had been reëstablished among MacKay’s battalions, the Irish had re-occupied the very same positions, in the forward-most ditch, as they’d been in when the fog had first lifted. The field looked the same as it had before, save that dead Englishmen were strewn all over it. Farther south it was the same except that the dead were Danish, Dutch, Hessians, and Huguenots.

Bob watched two more attacks across the bog. Both failed in the same way as the first; the Irish not only stopped them cold, but threw them back, and not only threw them back but overran some of their positions and spiked some of their field-pieces. Captain Barnes: “’Tis worse even than a Pyrrhic victory; ’tis a Pyrrhic defeat.”

General MacKay was as wet, cold, and furious as a cat in a rain-barrel. He had led the failed attacks personally. As the afternoon turned into evening he had worked his way north up the line. It was plain that the center could not be forced, and he had no real choice but to probe that part of the bog around the piles of the causeway. For the fourth attack, therefore, he got permission from Ginkel to lead the Black Torrent Guards—who had done nothing so far—on a thrust parallel to and just a bit south of the road.

This attack failed like the others. Bob and his men had learned from the mistakes of the fellows they had been watching, and so they took fewer casualties. But it failed nonetheless, partly because of the ditches, and partly because of the plunging musket-fire that came down from the parapets of the ruined castle when they advanced within range. It was demoralizing to see a large building such as Aughrim Castle vanish behind a cloud of gray smoke as hundreds of muskets were discharged at once.

But they all suspected that they might have succeeded with more men. Bob mentioned to Captain Barnes, who reported to de Zwolle, who told General MacKay, that before the battle he’d spied a pair of regimental standards in the bog just by the causeway, where it entered Aughrim village. During one of the earlier attacks he had watched those colors move far south to the center of the line, where the fighting had been fiercest. They had not returned since. So the village’s defenses were not what they had once been.

The Black Torrent Guards were ordered to advance as far and as fast toward the castle as they could, and then throw themselves down in the bog and shoot at any Irish heads that showed above the parapet. It was hoped that this would lessen the damage inflicted on Ruvigny’s skeletal division of cavalry as they galloped across and alongside the causeway. For every other route along which Ginkel’s army might advance had been blocked; Ruvigny’s squadrons were the only fresh troops he had; and the only way to avoid total defeat was to mount a charge along that causeway.

The Black Torrent Guards were sent across the bog first, in full view of the castle, to draw off some fire, but the Irish seemed to recognize that tactic for what it was and saved their loads for the cavalry, which came thundering down the road a few moments later.

Only ragged firing sounded from Aughrim Castle as the first squadrons rode directly past it. They galloped into the village with almost no casualties and found that it had been left nearly undefended, as Bob had predicted.

Bob got up on one knee to fire his musket at a head silhouetted against the evening sky, and was hit in the chest by something that made a strange zooming noise. He dropped his weapon and fell flat on his back.

When he woke up a couple of his men had ripped his coat open to examine the wound, which was in a bad spot, near where his left collarbone joined his breastbone. And yet Bob was still alive, and not coughing up blood. Not feeling bad at all, really.

He was being looked after by one Hamilton, a big bloke, infamous for uncouth qualities. Hamilton had planted a knee on Bob’s shoulder to pin him in a more convenient attitude, and was picking curiously at a hard object embedded in Bob’s flesh. Bob found this extremely annoying and said so more than once. “Oh, fuck it!” Hamilton decreed, and dived into Bob’s chest, planting his lips over the wound. After a quick suck and a bite he popped up again with something yellow in his teeth, and spat it out for examination.

“Or we may fire it back to its owner,” said one Roberts, who always did what Hamilton did, but not as well. He had a knee on Bob’s other shoulder. “If we should run out of ammunition, I mean.”

Not more than ten minutes had passed while Bob lay on his back on the ground, but when he got up again it was a new battle. All of Ruvigny’s horse had now crossed over, and more was on the way, galloping up from the opposite wing where they’d been balked all afternoon. The gates of Aughrim Castle were open, and a lot of screaming and hasty praying could be heard within its walls as the unlucky garrison was put to the sword (vide Rules of Continental Siege Warfare). The squadrons not participating in this massacre had positioned themselves around the edge of the village and made ready to be attacked by the Irish and French battalions not far away, but such an attack never came; something had gone wrong in St. Ruth’s chain of command, orders to counter-attack had not been issued or else were not getting through, and his generals were unwilling to do it on their own initiative.

Bob wrapped his coat around himself to cover the wound, which was bleeding, but not hissing or spurting. He strolled uphill a short distance and climbed up onto one of the earthen ramparts that the Irish had thrown up to defend Aughrim village.

He could see some Irish dragoons retreating off to his right. In the overall scheme this was amazingly stupid, and probably fatal, but they had no way of knowing.

“Sergeant!”

Bob looked down into the face of Captain Barnes, which was in the middle of a transition from intense anxiety to giddy relief; for the nonce it looked more quizzical than anything. “I was given to understand you had suffered a dire injury!”

“I was shot in the chest,” Bob said guardedly. “One of those musketeers drilled me about here, from perhaps fifty yards.” Bob glanced towards the corner of the castle from which the button had been fired. A French standard was being cut down by trophy-hunting cavaliers.

“Then you should be taking your rest! We have been ordered to garrison the castle,” said Barnes.

“Has my bedchamber been made ready?”

“Alas, there are no chambers of any kind, only roofless cells,” Barnes answered deadpan. “We could make you a bed from ammunition cases.”

“I thought they had none.”

“They have thousands of musket-balls in there,” Barnes said.

“Then why did they not use them?”

“Because they are made for English muskets—ever so slightly larger than the barrels of their French muskets.”

Hamilton had ambled to within earshot of this conversation, and responded, “Haw! I always knew we Englishmen had bigger balls than the French!” Indeed, all of the private soldiers found it hilarious. But sergeants and captains—who were actually responsible for getting musket-balls to the troops—could only wince at such a story, even when it had befallen the enemy.

Bob looked off to the south and saw a series of English and Huguenot cavalry squadrons slipping like a knife-blade into a gap between the Irish infantry, and the stunned cavalry to its rear. They were swinging round behind the Irish foot, getting into position to charge them, panic them, and mow them down like hay.

“Captain Barnes,” Bob said, “you have said it yourself. I have been shot in the chest and am plainly a casualty of war, hors de combat, and for now my duties must be assumed by another sergeant…. Fortunately your company’s assignment is trivial. There will be no counter-attack made against yonder castle this afternoon.” Bob turned his back on Barnes and strode down the slope of the rampart, muttering, “Or this month, this year, this century.”

ONCE THE DANES and the Huguenots over-ran the field like flocks of starlings scouring the earth for worms, Bob’s red Guards uniform would not help him; this side of the bog, any man on foot was under a death sentence. Because the French/Irish phant’sied themselves the army of the true King (James II), many of their regiments wore the same red uniforms, and the only way to tell them apart was by looking for small badges or devices thrust into their hats: sprigs of green for King William’s forces, scraps of white paper for James Stuart’s. These were difficult to see even in good light. Bob’s hat had been lost in the bog anyway.

He galloped into the heart of the battle while it still deserved that name, before it turned into a rout and massacre. Ruvigny’s cavalry had by now broken through the Irish flank altogether and were charging south, traversing the hill. To their left and downhill lay the entrenchments crowded with Irish foot-soldiers in their gray coats. To their right and uphill were the white tents of the Jacobite encampment. In front of them was nothing but a flimsy barrier of cavalry: not above three squadrons of what looked like an English Catholic regiment.

Bob had begun by galloping in the wake of this charge, but soon caught up and found himself in the middle of it—close enough that he could see the faces of those English Papists, Persons of Quality all, and watch them think as the attack bore down on them. Some seemed ready to die for their faith and rode forward with a certain look of calm ferocity that Bob admired very much. Some stood their ground—not, Bob thought, out of courage but out of terror, as rabbits freeze when the hawk flies overhead. Some wheeled and ran. But a contingent of three riders, who had been situated toward the rear, turned away and rode south in a way that looked purposeful to Bob.

Bob knew what they were doing: first, preserving their regimental standard (one of the three riders was the standard-bearer). This would enable them to erect the colors on a high place later, so that the scattered squadrons and stragglers could converge on it and reform into an effective battalion. Without that scrap of cloth they could never amount to anything but lost Vagabonds. Second, they were going to the other wing where Sarsfield was commanding the bulk of the Jacobite cavalry, and apparently doing a very good job of it; in a few minutes they would come back at the head of several regiments.

The standard-bearer was moving slowest, and gradually falling behind. Bob almost had him when the fellow chanced to look back; then he let out a yell and spurred his horse forward. The two officers in front, perhaps eight lengths ahead of him, looked back to see their standard-bearer in trouble; he could not defend himself without dropping the colors. As this happened Bob got a direct view of their faces and realized for the first time that one of the two was Upnor.

After a brief exchange of words, Upnor drew back hard on one rein to wheel his mount around, while the other officer shot ahead to get the message out to Sarsfield. Bob—who had a lot to keep track of—heard a loud crack and assumed a pistol had gone off. The standard-bearer, four lengths ahead of Bob, faltered. Bob looked again for Upnor, but he had vanished! Then in the corner of his eye he saw the standard-bearer coming up fast—having brought his mount nearly to a stand-still while Bob was still at a gallop. Bob had no time to do anything but stick his spadroon out. The blade struck something hard and the weapon was wrenched out of his grasp, and he was nearly thrown back onto the horse’s croup. What saved him was that this had all occurred just short of a declivity in the hillside, a little water-course running straight down into the bog, therefore straight across their path. Both Bob’s horse and that of the standard-bearer had seen it coming, and in the absence of orders to the contrary, slowed down.

Bob recovered his equilibrium just shy of this gulley and shook his hand frantically in the air a few times. It felt as if it had been stung by a bee. Lacking another blade, he drew out his pistol, which he had put out of his thoughts until this moment because it was useless while galloping. But now he was standing still, as was the standard-bearer, no more than four yards away from him.

The standard was hung from one end of a full-length pike so that it would rise to thrice the height of a man and be visible above a teeming battlefield. While galloping, the bearer had held it nearly horizontal, like a jousting-lance, in his left hand, while using his right to hold the reins. Bob had overtaken him on the left and he had reflexively raised up the pike-staff to parry Bob’s blow; Bob’s spadroon had cut into it at an angle about a third of the way from the top and come to a stop, wedged into the wood.

A light misty rain had commenced and the late afternoon sun had gone out like a snuffed candle, leaving gray twilight. Bob looked down the gulley, drawn by an anguished noise, and saw Upnor’s horse thrashing around with a broken leg. Then he saw Upnor clambering up out of the gulley intact. The crack he had heard before must have been Upnor’s horse breaking its leg when it tried to stop and wheel around in the wrong place.

Bob had discharged his only pistol and there was no time to reload. The standard-bearer had squeezed his trigger involuntarily and fired his pistol into the air. Bob dismounted, staggered on cramped legs over to the standard, and threw it down. He glanced over at Upnor, who had got himself up above his horse on the brink of the watercourse and pulled out a pair of pistols, one in each hand. He aimed one at his horse and pulled the trigger; Bob saw the white sparks from the flint, but it did not fire—the pan had gotten wet.

Upnor now gave Bob a sort of appraising look. Bob planted his foot on the pike at the place where his spadroon was lodged in it, and pulled up on the end until it snapped; then he came up with the weapon in his hand. The Earl of Upnor took one look at it and then, with no hesitation, aimed his other pistol down into the ditch and put his charger out of its misery. He dropped both of his pistols, turned to face Bob, and drew out his rapier. For being something of a traditionalist in these matters, he had not yet adopted the more fashionable small-sword.

“Sergeant Shaftoe,” he said, “since we last met, your brother has achieved even greater infamy than he had then. Now the Battle of Aughrim has been lost. I am not likely to see the sun rise again. But I can at least thank Providence that she has placed you in my power, that I may salvage something of the day by sending the brother of L’Emmerdeur to Hell.”

“I phant’sied ’twas you who were in my power,” Bob muttered.

Upnor cast off his cloak to reveal a shining steel cuirass underneath, with a vest of light mail under that.

“Not at all chivalrous,” Bob observed.

“On the contrary, nothing is more characteristic of the chivalric classes than to put on armor and go round ridding the country of rebellious Vagabonds—as your own cavalry is demonstrating!”

With a wry tilt of the head, Upnor pointed toward the lower slopes of the hill where King William’s cavalry was hunting Irishmen, frantic to kill as many as they could before they lost the daylight altogether. The Earl was a sophisticated man who enjoyed this irony, and wanted Bob to share it with him.

“Enough talking,” Bob said, raising his guard to his face. “I did not come here to make friends with you.” And he snapped the blade down and away, completing the salute. Upnor took half a step forward, raising the rapier to a guard position, then made a little show of remembering his manners and acted out the faintest memory of a salute. He was so dexterous with a sword that he could convey certain qualities, such as sarcasm, simply through nuances in his movements. Bob now stepped towards Upnor, hoping to back him up against the brink of the gulley; this also situated Bob on slightly higher ground.

“It’s about the girl, isn’t it? Abigail, my pretty slave,” Upnor exclaimed. “I had forgotten.”

“No, you hadn’t.”

“Tell me, do you believe that killing me will help you repossess her?”

“Not really. She’ll pass to your heirs and assigns, and I will kill them.”

Upnor did not like this very well. “It is revenge, then,” he concluded. He spun on the ball of one foot, ran down the bank for several yards to build up speed, then leapt across to the opposite brink. “In that case you are obligated to pursue me—so I am entitled to choose the ground. Come over here, Sergeant!”

Bob backed up for a few paces to get a running start, but by the time he was ready to make his leap, Upnor had moved back up to stand directly across from him, rapier aimed out into the space above the stream, positioned to impale Bob in mid-jump. “You hesitate a second time! You could have cut me down before I jumped across,” Upnor said reproachfully.

Bob did not see fit to dignify this with a reply. He sidestepped up the bank; Upnor tracked him until he stopped. Then the Earl turned his head sideways and cupped his hand to his ear like a bad actor. “Hark! Patrick Sarsfield’s cavalry is approaching, I do believe!”

“Those sound like Danish hooves to me.”

Upnor made a sound like heh-heh, a completely unconvincing simulation of a laugh.

“Why are you playing message-boy, my lord? Why is not St. Ruth doing his job?”

“Because his head was carried off by a cannonball,” Upnor responded. He brought the back of his hand to his mouth, pretending to cover a yawn. “It is a dull sword-fight so far,” he complained.

“Let me across and it will become exciting soon enough.”

“No, it is that you lack passion! A Frenchman would have leaped over by now. Perhaps it would help if I told you that I have fucked your sweet Abigail.”

“I assumed as much,” Bob said levelly.

“And you…haven’t?”

“It is none of your business.”

“It is all of my business, as she is my property, and I broke her maidenhead with this rapier, just as I am about to break yours with this one! So do not be coy, Sergeant, I know you have not enjoyed Abigail. Perhaps you shall, one day. But be sure to bring some sheep-gut. I am afraid that I, or one of my friends, have given her a nasty social disease.”

Bob jumped over the ditch at this time. Upnor backed away and let him land safely, but then closed in on him quickly, twitching the rapier with his right hand and now drawing a dagger with his left.

“Don’t look at the poniard, silly man,” Upnor chided him. “You must fix your gaze upon your opponent’s eyes—just as Abigail Frome stares into mine when I am pleasuring her.”

Bob, reckoning that this was enough, wrapped his right arm across his body, drawing the blade back in position to let go a hay-maker. Part of the plan was to convince Upnor that his predictable taunts had actually made Bob angry. So Bob let out a bellow as he launched himself toward Upnor while letting go a mighty backhanded swing.

This was something he had practiced for a whole month with Monsieur LaMotte. Upnor’s light blade could never stand up to a scything attack by the heavier spadroon, and so he had little choice but to drop his blade and step back to let it whoosh by. But Bob’s forward rush would bring him into dagger range. So Upnor drew his right foot (which had been foremost) back, while pivoting on his left, turning sideways to let Bob charge past him. At the same time he raised his left hand so that he could plunge the dagger into Bob’s ribs as he went by.

Upnor needed that leg to take his weight as he moved backwards, and thus had no choice but to fall down, even as Bob was getting his own knees under him. Upnor knew that to fall on his stomach was death, so he spun and landed on his arse and rolled up onto his back, his legs going straight up in the air. If this were a Parisian Salle d’Armes he might have turned it into a backwards somersault and come up fighting, but this was nearly impossible in a stiff cuirass. So Upnor’s legs and arse reached apogee and then came down again. He was going to come up forwards. He planted his right elbow to push off against the ground but kept his guard up with the left, keeping that dagger pointed in the air. Bob had now got up on one knee and managed to take a swing at it. He fully intended to take Upnor’s hand off at the wrist, but either his aim was bad or Upnor reacted with exceptional speed, because instead the blow struck the dagger’s handle just behind the guard, right where Upnor’s thumb and index finger gripped it, and ripped it loose from Upnor’s hand. It whirred off and vanished in gloom and mist.

Upnor did a sideways roll away from Bob and came up angry. “You are a cold, cold, cold-blooded knave!” he exclaimed. “I think you do not care about Abigail at all!”

“I care enough to win this.”

“You have been practicing against someone who knows the rapier,” Upnor said. “Tell me, did he show you this?”

Bob liked to sit in a meadow and throw bits of bread to the birds. He had done this once with a flock of some hundred pigeons who had, once they’d gotten the general idea, surrounded him and waited patiently for him to throw out each scrap. But presently a sparrow had come along and begun to collect evey last crumb that Bob tossed, even though it had been one against a hundred. Even if Bob lured the sparrow to one side, then threw the morsel to the other, the little bird would come across like a flash of light from a signal-mirror and wend its way among the stumbling pigeons and pluck the bread right out from under their open beaks, which would snap together on thin air.

“Lung?” Upnor guessed.

“Liver,” Bob said, “or else I could never do this.” He inhaled and then spat at Upnor’s face, but it came out as a feckless spray.

“’Twill be a slow-festering wound then,” Upnor said. “I will gladly supply you with a quicker death if you will be so good as to let go my weapon.” He glanced up for a moment, distracted by the sound of hurtling cavalry. “Sarsfield,” he pronounced. “Let us finish, I must go to them.”

Bob turned his head sideways, just to get Upnor’s visage out of his sight. He saw a queer thing silhouetted against the deepening gray sky above the hill: a fellow in a gray coat perched on a pole above a ditch, not far away. No, he was not perched, but swinging across it, a matted ponytail trailing behind him like a profusion of battle-streamers from a regimental flag. It was an Irish infantryman, pole-vaulting across the ditch. Coming to the aid of Upnor, his English overlord. He would probably have a dirk or something to finish Bob off with.

“When you go to the next world,” Upnor said, “tell the angels and demons that we know everything about your infamous cabal, and that we will have the gold of Solomon!”

“What the bloody hell are you talking about!?” Bob exclaimed. But before answering, Upnor peeled Bob’s hand off the guard, pinky first. He planted his foot in Bob’s stomach and stood up, yanking the blade out.

“You know perfectly well,” he said indignantly, “Now go and do as I have instructed you!” He aimed a death-blow at Bob’s heart. Bob put his hands up to slap it aside. Then a large object hurtled across the sky and smashed into the rapier’s guard, crumpling the bars and sending it spinning away.

Bob levered himself up on his elbow and rose to a seated position to find the cool, level gaze of Teague Partry directed his way. Teague had a head like a cube of limestone, and brown hair pulled back tight against his skull, though many strands had come loose during the day’s fighting and been plastered back with mud. His blue-gray eyes were set close together, redoubling the intensity of his glare.

“What d’you think y’are, a character in a friggin’ novel, Bob? Can you not perceive that the gentleman is wearin’ armor, and knows more concernin’ swordsmanship than you ever will?”

“I perceive it well enough now, Teague.”

Upnor had, during Teague’s scolding of Bob, gone over and retrieved his rapier. He held it now in his left hand, advancing crab-wise toward Teague.

“Look out, Teague, he’s as dangerous with his left as he is with his right—”

“Bob! You make too much and too little of him at the same time. As a ’fencer he’s a caution, ’tis plain enough to see, but in the larger scheme, Bob, what is he but a friggin’ tosser wavin’ a poker around in the dark.” By this time Upnor had advanced to within about eight feet and so Teague gave his stave a toss upward, gripped it with both hands at the end, and with a grunt, swung it round in a long arc parallel to the ground, catching Upnor in the side and flattening him. Upnor made a grab at the end of the staff, which had ended up hovering over his face, but his movements were cramped by his steel cuirass, which now sported a huge dent jabbing deep into his side. Teague withdrew the stave, shifted his grip so that he was holding it in the middle, raised it up above his head, and began to execute a series of brisk stabbing motions, with the occasional mighty swing. These were accompanied by metallic bashing sounds and screams from Upnor’s end of the stick.

Between these efforts he sent the following, loosely connected string of comments and observations Bob’s way:

“You have responsibilities now, Bob. You must lose this naïve understanding of violence! You are embarrassin’ me in front of the lads! You can’t play by their rules or they’ll win unfailingly! You don’t engage in courtly play-fightin’ with one such as this. You get a great friggin’ tree-branch and keep hittin’ him with it until he dies. Like that. D’you see, boys?”

“Aye, Uncle Teague,” came back two voices in unison.

“There,” Teague said. “Now get you over the ditch and be gone with the lads.”

“I’ve been run through the liver.”

“All the more reason to stop your lollygaggin’. You’ll bleed to death shortly or heal up in a few weeks—the liver has a miraculous power of regeneration, while the body lives. Take it from an Irishman.”

Bob slumped forward on his hands, then got his knees under him. He could hear blood dripping onto the ground. But it was only dripping, not coming in a continuous stream, or (worse) a series of spurts. If he had seen a private soldier with such a wound, he’d have guessed that the fellow would live, once the wound was packed with something to stop the bleeding. Upnor had been right; if Bob died of this, it would be because it festered in the days to come.

“I’m not askin’ you to walk. You may ride one horse and the boys may share the other.”

“And you, Teague?”

“Oh, it’s into the ditch with me, Bob, into the bog. I’ll collect a musket from one of the Englishmen I killed today, and go a-rappareein’.” Teague’s eyes now turned into running pools, and he tilted his head back and sniffled. “Get you gone, none of us has a moment to waste.”

“I’ll raise a monument in London,” Bob promised, and got up slowly. He did not pass out.

“To me? They wouldn’t have it!”

“To Upnor,” Bob said, staggering past the Earl’s smashed corpse, and kicking the rapier aside into the watercourse. “A fine statue of him, looking just as he does now, and an inscription: ‘In Memoriam, Louis Anglesey, Earl of Upnor, finest swordsman in England, beaten to death with a stick by an Irishman.’ ”

Teague considered it for a moment, then nodded. “In Connaught,” he added.

“In Connaught,” Bob agreed, then eyed the ditch. It looked as wide as the Shannon. But the boys were waiting on the other side: Jack’s boys, and now Bob’s. For under the circumstances they were likely the only children Bob would ever have. Teague gave him a mighty shove in the arse as he flew back over the water. By the time Bob got up from a rough, agonizing tumble on the far side and turned to thank him, Teague Partry was gone.

“Be that as it may, how can you say you haven’t rogered anyone in years?”

“Sex with my husband I leave out of the reckoning altogether.”

“Strikes me as a large omission.”

“It would not, if you had ever had sex with Étienne de Lavardac, duc d’Arcachon.”

“Can’t say as I have, Madame.”

“Unless you did, and forgot about it. At any rate—he has been doing it to me again lately.”

“Lately…ah. You are saying that there was a cessation, round about the time of the birth of number two, and now he is trying for three.”

“In his mind they are One and Two respectively. For the first, being a bastard, is a zero; which means a nullity, something that does not exist.”

“That—the bastard I mean—is the one you had round about the time I shipped out to Dundalk, and you got marooned in Dunkerque?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Just refreshing my memory, my lady, no need to be getting all stiff in the spine—cor! It’s gone loose, I shall have to re-lace from the beginning.”

“It is not necessary. Just get to work buttoning up the bodice.”

“Got ripped a bit, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll have it mended. Come, I am apprehensive that someone will happen along and discover us.”

“Ah, but not to worry—I’m naked!”

“How is it better to be naked?”

“As long as I keep my mouth shut, I’ll be indistinguishable from one of your French nobility. They’ll run away in terror.”

“Especially when they see your scars. Very impressive.”

“You would never think so, if you had any notion of the pain that comes with these scars, the weakness, the helplessness—draining pus for months—not knowing from one moment to the next whether you shall live or die—”

“You forget that I have given birth twice.”

“Touché. Ah, but now you’ve brought me back round to my topic.”

“What is your topic?”

“You never talk about the bastard.”

“Perhaps, from that, you should collect that I do not wish to speak of him.”

“I was merely asking as a routine courtesy, as is common among parents.”

“How are Jack’s boys?”

“Jimmy and Danny are Regimental boys like their father and nuncle. If they’re doing as they ought to—which is unlikely—they are, at this moment, peeling potatoes at our camp outside of Cherbourg.”

“Do they have any inkling that you are acting as a spy for Marlborough?”

“Why, what an impolite question, Madame la duchesse! I am in no way certain that I am a spy. Haven’t made up my mind yet. Haven’t sent any information his way.”

“Well, when you decide to do so, you may send it through me.”

“If I decide to do so.”

“You will. An invasion of England is planned, is it not?”

“When French and Irish regiments march up to the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula and form great camps in the spring-time, it does make one tend to think ’long those lines, don’t it?”

“In the end you’ll not suffer England to be invaded. You’ll inform Marlborough.”

“Marlborough’s in disgrace. He and his meddlesome wife got on the wrong side of William and Mary. He had to sell his offices, his commissions. He is nothing now.”

“Yes, it is the talk of every salon in Versailles. But if England is invaded, he will be un-disgraced very rapidly, and put at the head of some regiments. And you will rally to him.”

“As you seem so certain of these things, I deem all your questions answered, madame—so I turn them round. Does the Duke of Arcachon have any inkling that you are a spy?”

“Your supposition is mistaken. I spied for England once. Now I do it for myself.”

“Ah. So, if we are to cross the Channel, you should like to know of it for your own purposes.”

“You say this—‘for your own purposes’—as if I am the only one in the world who had purposes.”

“Very well, very well…damned lot of buttons, ain’t it?”

“You did not seem to mind so much when you were undoing them ten minutes ago.”

“Twenty minutes, by your leave, madame, do allow me some pride. Ten minutes! Am I really so perfunctory?”

“Perhaps I am.”

“Hmm, now, that is an unusual turning of the tables…it is supposed to be he who is perfunctory and selfish, and she who wants to stretch it out.”

“Ah, but I did stretch it out, Sergeant, when I was inspecting it for signs of the French Pox. And a long stretch it was.”

“You try to change the subject, and to distract me with flattery—but this methodical inspection of my yard is further proof of the businesslike nature of the transaction just concluded, is it not?”

“Very well…I hope that Number Three, as you count them, or Two, as Étienne does, will be half-Shaftoe rather than half-Lavardac, and, in consequence, altogether fitter, handsomer, and cleverer than Number Two/One, bless his poor little heart.”

“I…I…I am shocked!”

“Why so shocked, you who’ve been in battles and seen, and done, the worst that men can do?”

“P’raps that is not so terrible, set against the worst that women can do.”

“You protest too much. You are not serious. Though ’tis true there are terrible women in the world, I am not one of them.”

“Why, to use a man in such a way…am I to have no knowledge of my own offspring!?”

“Why did you not ask such penetrating questions prior to fucking me in a haystack, Sergeant Shaftoe? Were you not aware, until now, that fucking leads to babies?”

“Very well, very well…that is not why I am shocked.”

“Why then, Bob?”

“Of course, I know you don’t really fancy me. So, ’tis not that I have been let down on that score.”

“Just as I know you do not really fancy me.”

“Of course not. Though you are fetching, a bit.”

“Just as are you in your own mottled way, Bob.”

“But I always assumed that you had me simply because you couldn’t have Jack.”

“Just as you have me because you can’t have Abigail?”

“Just so, madame. But it did never enter my head that it was, at root, a baby-making proposition…what is wrong with Number Two/One?”

“Lucien is, to use an English expression, a funny-looking kid. ’Tis common among Lavardacs. Moreover, he is listless and slow to thrive.”

“What of Number One/Null?”

“The most beautiful child who ever lived. Bright, happy, vigorous, altogether radiant.”

“What’s his name?”

“He was baptized Jean-Jacques.”

“I can guess where the Jacques is from.”

“Yes, and the Jean is from Jean Bart.”

“You named your firstborn after a pirate and a Vagabond?”

“Don’t be so haughty. One of them is your brother, after all.”

“But why this careful phrasing: ‘He was baptized Jean-Jacques’?”

“He answers to Johann.”

“How’s that again?”

“Johann. Johann von Hacklheber.”

“Peculiar name that, for the bastard of a French duchess.”

“He has been…visiting in Leipzig for a few days short of eighteen months. When he went there, he was not quite a year and a half old. I have got reports of him from friends who dwell in that part of the world, and they inform me that he is called by the name Johann von Hacklheber there.”

“Now, anything with a ‘von’ in it is a noble name—like ‘de’ here, am I right?”

“Oh yes. He dwells in the household of a German baron.”

“I know nothing of the ways of Continental nobility, but it strikes me as an unusual sort of arrangement.”

“You have no idea.”

“You may not know it, Madame, but you have got a sort of burning glow about the face and eyes now, a bit like during sex, but different.”

“It is another form of desire, that’s all.”

“You want the boy back. You are not happy with the arrangement…oh, Jesus!”

“Go ahead and say it.”

“He was taken from you!?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus. Why!?”

“Never mind. My purpose is to get to him who took my boy, and…”

“Get your boy back, I assume?”

“…”

“Or, to judge from the look on your face, perhaps I should not make assumptions.”

“Let me tell you what is truly evil about what was done to me eighteen months ago.”

“I am listening.”

“Hoosh. I am glad for my own sake, madame, that I was not anywhere near you at the moment when you first came to understand this…”

“…”

“Why are you staring at me thus? It makes me think I had better put my clothes back on—perhaps arm myself as well.”

“…”

“Are you only just understanding it now!?”

“If an idea is terrible enough, the mind is unwilling to swallow it in one go, but regurgitates and chews it like cud many times before it goes down for good. This is one that I have been chewing on for more than a year. It took me several weeks, after Jean-Jacques was abducted, for me to establish his whereabouts. By the time I could formulate even a hasty and ill-conceived plan to go fetch him back, I was pregnant with Lucien. It is only now that Lucien has been born, and I have recovered from it, that I can consider taking any steps in the matter of Jean-Jacques. And now it is too late. There. Done. I have swallowed it.”

“All right. I could see this coming. Put your head there on my breastbone, madame, I’ll hold you in my arms, so you don’t collapse, or come undone. Sob all you want, I have you, no one’s looking, we have time.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Now that you mention it, my lady, to have the love of my life enslaved and raped by a syphilitic lord does seem quite mild by comparison.”

“I cannot tell if you are being sarcastic.”

“Neither can I, madame, I honestly cannot. But tell me this: If you cannot get your boy back without destroying his welfare, then what do you intend?”

“In pondering this very question I have hesitated, and in hesitating I have only made matters worse. Soon I shall act.”

“And what is the end you have fixed on?”

“I mean to end up, in some sense, with my boot on the neck of Lothar von Hacklheber, and him looking up helpless into my eyes.”

“Well. Well! Let me just say that the last bloke who had me in such a fix was the Earl of Upnor, and—”

“My powers of organization exceed those of the late Upnor by a significant margin, and so I intend to arrange matters so that I will not end up being beaten to death with a stick by an Irishman.”

“Ah. That is good news.”

“Tell me everything about what is being prepared around Cherbourg, Sergeant Shaftoe, whether you intend for it to be relayed to Marlborough, or not.”

“Very well. But how will this intelligence be of any help to you in your machinations against—oh, never mind. You’re glowering at me.”

“You speak so knowingly of my machinations, as if I were some ridiculous figure in an Italian opera, who does naught but machinate; yet if you could follow me about, you would observe a tired mother who follows her husband from Versailles to St.-Malo, and suckles her infant, and occasionally throws a dinner party, and perhaps once or twice a year fucks a cryptologist in a carriage, or a sergeant in a haystack.”

“How will this lead to your boot on Lothar’s throat again? Never mind, never mind. I’m certain I’d never understand it anyway.”

“You are in good company. If I do it right, not even Lothar will understand it.”

This was St.-Malo in the spring of ’92. An invasion force was massing. It would quite obviously be departing from Cherbourg, which was only half as far from the shore of England as was St.-Malo; but facilities there, at the tip of the peninsula, were not adequate to sustain so many ships and regiments during the weeks it would take for them to gather and draw up into a coherent force. The regiments—ten thousand French and as many Irish, the latter evacuated from Limerick—were obviously not as mobile as the ships, and so they had first claim to the territory, food, fuel, whores, and other military musts in the immediate vicinity of Cherbourg. By process of elimination, then, the ships of the Channel fleet, and the galleys of the Mediterranean fleet that had lately passed the Gates of Hercules and voyaged north to take part in the invasion, were stationed in Channel ports within striking distance: most important, Le Havre and St.-Malo. Of those, Le Havre was twice as close to Paris, and a hundred times easier to reach from there, since the Seine joined them. So, much larger and more fashionable parties must, at this moment, be going on in noble châteaux around Le Havre. St.-Malo, by contrast, was hardly connected to France at all. A doughty pedestrian like Sergeant Bob Shaftoe could get to it, but such a journey was not recommended for normal people; everyone came to St.-Malo by sea. The family de Lavardac had for a long time maintained a château, which looked out over the harbor to one side, and had farms and an excellent potagerie out back. As the fortunes of that family had waxed, this had become the grandest house in St.-Malo, and the former duc d’Arcachon had loved to come here and pace to and fro on the terrace with a golden prospective-glass gazing down upon his privateer-fleet. Eliza had heard much of the place. Having spent most of her married life pregnant at La Dunette, she’d never laid eyes on it until a month ago. But she’d loved it immediately and now wished she could live here year-round.

Eliza and Étienne, the infant Lucien, and their household had reached St.-Malo a fortnight in advance of the Mediterranean Fleet. More recently, other Ships of Force had come in from Brest, Lorient, and St.-Nazaire. All of these galleys and ships had officers, who quite often were of noble rank. The social obligations placed upon le duc and la duchesse d’Arcachon were correspondingly immense. Another duchesse would have welcomed those obligations in the same way as generals welcomed wars, or architects cathedral-commissions. Eliza delegated all of the work to women who actually enjoyed such things (she had inherited a large household staff from the previous duchesse d’Arcachon). Her old trusted aides, such as Brigitte and Nicole, and a few retired privateers deeded to her by Jean Bart, she kept close. The retinue of social climbers that had arrived in the wake of her marriage to Étienne, she put to work arranging parties, which kept them busy and, though it did not make them happy, infused them with feelings that they were wont to confuse with happiness.

Eliza, then, merely had to get dressed, show up, try not to forget people’s names, and make conversation. When she became insufferably bored, she would claim she could hear Lucien bawling, and flit off to the private apartments in the other wing of the château.

Basset was simple, which was why Eliza had chosen it. Each player was dealt thirteen cards face up on the table, and placed money on any or all of them. The dealer then dealt cards from the bottom and the top of the deck alternately, gaining or losing wagers on all cards of matching ranks. As turns went on, the wagers escalated by a factor of as much as sixty. The dealer was kept very busy. Étienne had had to strap on his basset-dealing prosthesis: a cupped hand with spring-loaded fingers, made to grip a deck of cards. The players could be busy or not, depending on how many of their cards they elected to put money on. Eliza and Pontchartrain had laid only token wagers, which was a way of saying that they were more interested in conversation than in gambling. D’Erquy and de Bearsul were more heavily engaged in the game, and their squeals, moans, stifled curses, sudden outbursts of laughter, &c., provided a ragged, bursty continuo-line for this duet between the other two.

“My English friends have been complaining of this lack of coin for years—especially since the onset of war,” said Eliza, “but only you, monsieur, would have the penetration to see it as a defensive strategy.”

“That is just the difficulty—I did not penetrate it until rather late,” said Pontchartrain. “When one is planning an invasion, one naturally makes plans to pay the soldiers. It is as important as arming, feeding, and housing them—perhaps more so, as soldiers, paid, can shift for themselves when arms, food, and shelter are wanting. But they must be paid in local money—which is to say the coin of the realm in whatever place is being invaded. It’s easy in the Spanish Netherlands—”

“Because they are Spanish,” said Eliza, “and so you can pay them in Pieces of Eight—”

“Which we can get anywhere in the world,” said Pontchartrain. “But English pennies can only be gotten in England. Supposedly they are minted—”

“At the Tower of London. I know,” said Eliza, “but why do you say supposedly?”

Pontchartrain threw up his hands. “No one ever sees these coins. They come out of the Mint and they vanish.”

“But is it not the case that anyone may bring silver bullion to the Tower of London and have it minted into pennies?”

Pontchartrain was nonplussed for a moment. Then a smile spread over his face and he burst out in laughter and slapped the table hard enough to make money jump and buzz atop the playing-cards. It was a rare outburst for one of Pontchartrain’s dignity, and it stopped the game for a few moments.

“Monsieur, what an honour and a privilege it is for us to bring you a few moments’ diversion from your cares!” exclaimed Étienne. But this only brought an echo of the first laugh from Pontchartrain.

“It is precisely of my cares that your magnificent wife is speaking, monsieur,” said Pontchartrain, “and I believe she is getting ready to suggest something cheeky.”

Étienne’s face pinkened. “I pray it shall not be so cheeky as to create an embarrassment for our guests—”

“On the contrary, monsieur, ’tis meant to embarrass the English!”

“Oh, well, that is all right then.”

“Pray continue, madame!”

“I shall, monsieur,” said Eliza, “but first you must indulge me as I speculate.”

“Consider yourself indulged.”

“The jacht on which you arrived is under conspicuously heavy guard. I speculate that it is laden with specie that is meant to cross the Channel with the invasion force and be used to pay the French and Irish soldiers during their campaign in England.”

Pontchartrain smiled weakly and shook his head. “So much for my efforts at secrecy. It is said of some that he or she has a nose for money; but I truly believe, madame, that you can smell silver a mile away.”

“Do not be silly, monsieur, it is, as you said, an obvious necessity of a foreign invasion.”

“Want of silver is not your difficulty, then,” Eliza continued. “Very well. You must needs translate it across the Channel—very risky. For in the annals of military history, no tale is more tediously familiar than that of the train of pay-wagons, bringing specie to the troops at the front, that is ambushed and lost en route, with disastrous consequences to the campaign.”

“We have been reading the same books,” Pontchartrain concluded. “Even so, as we laid plans for this operation during the winter, I am afraid I paid more attention to my rôle as Secretary of State for the Navy, than that of contrôleur-général. Which is to say that I placed more emphasis on preparations of a purely military nature than on the attendant financial arrangements. Not until I reached Cherbourg the other day, and was confronted with the invasion in all of its complexity and scale, did I really grasp the difficulty of getting this specie to England. To send it across in an obvious and straightforward manner seems madness. I have considered breaking it up into small shipments and sending them over in the boats of those who smuggle wine and salt to remote ports of Cornwall.”

“That would distribute the risk, but multiply the difficulties,” said Eliza. “And even if it succeeded, it would not address the great difficulty, which is that if the silver is not accepted on the local—which is to say, English—market, then the troops will not deem themselves to have been paid.”

“Naturally we should like to pay them in English silver pennies,” said Pontchartrain, “but matters being what they are, we may have to use French coins.”

“This brings us back to the conversation we had in the sleigh at La Dunette two years and some months ago,” Eliza said; and the answering look on Pontchartrain’s face told her that she had struck home.

But here Madame Bearsul threw a quizzical look in the direction of the Politest Man in France, who intervened. “On behalf of those of our guests who were not in that sleigh,” Étienne said, “I beg permission to interrupt, so we may hear—”

“I speak of the recoinage, when all of the old coins were called in and replaced with new,” said Eliza. “By royal decree, the new had the same value, and so to those of us who live in France, it made no difference. But they contained less silver or gold.”

“Madame la duchesse, who in those days was Mademoiselle la comtesse, said to me, then, that it must have consequences difficult to foretell,” said Pontchartrain.

“Before Monsieur le comte says a word against himself,” said Eliza, “I would have the honor of being the first to rush to his defense. The favorable consequences of the recoinage were immense: for it raised a fortune for the war.”

“But Madame la duchesse was a true Cassandra that evening in the sleigh,” said Pontchartrain, “for there have been consequences that I did not foretell, and one of them is that French coins are not likely to be accepted at full value in English market-places.”

“Monsieur, have you given any thought to minting invasion coin?” asked d’Erquy.

“Yes, monsieur, and to using Pieces of Eight. But before we take such measures, I am eager to hear more from our hostess concerning the English Mint.”

“I am simply pointing out to you, monsieur,” said Eliza, “that there already exists a mechanism for importing silver bullion to England, at no risk to France; having it made into good English coin in London; and transferring the coin into the hands of trusted French agents there.”

“What is this mechanism, madame?” inquired d’Erquy, suspicious that Eliza was having them on.

Early in this discourse, the mouth of Madame de Bearsul fell open, as if she might more easily take in these difficult words and notions through her mouth than her ears; and as Eliza went on, similar transformations came over the faces of all her other auditors, including some at adjacent tables; and by the time she reached the terminal phrase pay the troops, they had all begun glancing at each other, trying to build solidarity in their confusion. And so before anyone could give voice to his amazement, Eliza, with unfeigned, uncharacteristic ardor for her role as entertainer to the bored nobility of France, had got to her feet (obliging Étienne, Pontchartrain, and d’Erquy to stand) and begun to arrange a new parlor-game. “We are going to put on a little masque,” she announced, “and all of you must sit, sit, sit!” And she called to a servant to bring quills, ink, and paper.

“But, Eliza, how can gentlemen sit in the presence of a lady who stands?” asked Étienne.

“The answer is simple: In the masque, I am no lady, but a God: Mercury, messenger of Olympus, and patron deity of Commerce. You must phant’sy wings on my ankles.”

The mere mention of ankles caused a little intake of breath from Étienne, and a few eyes flicked nervously his way. But Eliza forged on: “You, Monsieur de Pontchartrain, must sit. You are the Deliverer: the contrôleur-général of France.”

“That should be an easy rôle for me to play, Mercury,” said the contrôleur-général, and, with a little bow to Eliza, sat down.

Now—since the ranking man in the room had done it—all others were eager to join in.

“First we enact the simple Bill of Exchange,” said Eliza, “which requires only four, plus Mercury. Later we will find rôles for the rest of you.” For several had gravitated over from different tables to see what the commotion was about. “This table is Lyon.”

“But, Mercury, already I cannot suspend my disbelief, for the contrôleur-général does not go to Lyon,” said Pontchartrain.

“We will remedy that in a few minutes, but for now you are in Lyon. Sitting across from you will be Étienne, playing the rôle of Lothar the Banker.”

“Why must I have such a ridiculous name?” demanded Étienne.

“It is an excellent name among bankers—Lothar is Ditta di Borsa in Lyon, Bruges, and many other places.”

“That means he has impeccable credit among other bankers,” said Pontchartrain.

“Very well. As long as the fellow is as well-reputed as you say, I shall accept the rôle,” said Étienne, and sat down across the table from Pontchartrain.

“You have money,” said Eliza, and used one hand as a rake to sweep a pile of coins across the table so that it ended up piled before Pontchartrain. “And you wish to get it—here!” She strode through the double doors to the Grand Salon where a backgammon game had been abandoned. “Madame de Bearsul, you are a merchant banker in London—this table is London.”

Madame de Bearsul approached London with a show of cringing, blushing, and hand-wringing that made Eliza want to slap her. “But, madame, I know nothing of such occupations!”

“Of course not, for you are so well-bred; but just as Kings may play Vagabonds in masques, you are now a merchant banker named Signore Punchinello. Here, Signore Punchinello, is your strong-box.” Mercury clapped the backgammon-set closed, imprisoning the game pieces, and handed it to de Bearsul, who with much hair-patting and skirt-smoothing took a seat at London. Monsieur le chevalier d’Erquy pulled her chair out for her, for, anticipating Eliza’s next command, he had followed them into the Grand Salon.

“Monsieur, you are Pierre Dubois, a Frenchman in London.”

“Miserable fate! Must I be?” complained d’Erquy, to general amusement.

“You must. But you need not sit down yet, for you have not yet made the acquaintance of Signore Punchinello. Instead, you wander about the city like a lost soul, trying to find a decent loaf of bread. Now! Places, everyone!” and she walked back into the Petit Salon, where the Lyon table had been supplied with quills, ink, and paper.

“Monsieur le contrôleur-général, give your silver—which is to say, France’s silver—to Lothar the Banker.”

“Monsieur, s’il vous plaît,” said Pontchartrain, shoving the pile across the table.

“Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” said Étienne, a bit uncertainly.

“You must give him more than polite words! Write out the amount, and the word ‘Londres,’ and a time, say five minutes in the future.”

“The Bill?”

“The document you have given to the contrôleur-général is a Bill of Exchange.”

Pontchartrain had finished addressing the Bill, and so Mercury snatched it out of his hand and pranced out of the room and gave it to “Pierre Dubois,” who had been watching, bemused, from the doorway. Then she returned to “Lothar,” who was writing out the avisa with a good deal more formality than was called for. Mercury jerked it out from under the quill.

“Good heavens, I haven’t even finished the Apology yet.”

“You must learn better to inhabit the rôle of Lothar. He would not be so discursive,” said Mercury, and wafted the avisa out of the room to “Signore Punchinello.” “In truth, there would be two or even three copies of the Bill and the avisa both, sent by separate couriers,” said Mercury, “but to prevent the masque from becoming tedious we shall only use one. Signore Punchinello! You said earlier you did not know how to play your rôle; but I tell you now that you need only know how to read, and be capable of recognizing Lothar’s handwriting. Do you? (The correct answer is ‘Yes, Mercury.’)”

“Yes, Mercury.”

“Monsieur Dubois, I think you can guess what to do.”

Indeed, “Pierre Dubois” now helped himself to a seat at the London table across from “Signore Punchinello,” and presented the bill.

“Now, signore,” said Eliza to Madame de Bearsul, “you must compare what is written on Monsieur Dubois’s Bill to what is in the avisa.”

“They are the same,” answered “Punchinello.”

“Do they appear to have been written in the same hand?”

“Indeed, Mercury, the hands are indistinguishable.”

“What time is it?”

“By yonder clock, twenty-eight minutes past the hour of three.”

“Then take up yonder quill and write ‘accepted’ across the face of the Bill, and sign your name to it.”

Madame de Bearsul did so, and then, getting into the spirit of the thing, opened up her backgammon-set and began to count out pieces.

“Not yet!” said Mercury. “That is, it’s fine for you to count them out, and make sure you have enough. But good banker that you are, you’ll not give them to Monsieur Dubois until the Bill has come due.”

“Voilà!” announced Mercury to the audience, which by this point numbered above twenty party-guests. “The first act of our masque draws to a happy ending. Monsieur le contrôleur-général has transferred silver from Lyon to London at no risk, and even converted it to English silver pennies along the way, with practically no effort! All by invoking the supernatural powers of Mercury.” And Eliza took a little curtsey, and basked for a few moments in the applause of her guests.

ENTR’ACTE

“I am the contrôleur-général of France, madame; I know what a Bill of Exchange is.” This from Pontchartrain, who had maneuvered her into a niche and was muttering out the side of his mouth with uncharacteristic harshness.

“And I know your title and your powers, monsieur,” said Eliza.

“Then if you have more to say concerning the Mint, I would fain hear it—”

“In good time, monsieur!”

Madame de Bearsul was pitching a minor scene at “London.” Petulance was something she did well. “I have given up my coins to Monsieur Dubois—in exchange for what!?”

“Bills written in the hand of a banker who is Ditta di Borsa—as good as money.”

“But they are not money!”

“But Signore Punchinello, you may turn them into money, or other things of value, by taking them to an office of Lothar’s concern.”

“But he is in Lyon, and I am stuck in London!”

“Actually he is in Leipzig—but never mind, for he maintains an office in London. After the Usurper took the throne, any number of bankers from Amsterdam crossed the sea and established themselves there—”

“Wait! First Lothar was in Lyon—then Leipzig—then Amsterdam—now London?”

“It is all one thing, for Mercury touches all of these places on his rounds.” And Eliza thrust an arm into a boozy-smelling phalanx of young men and dragged forth a young Lavardac cousin and bade him sit down near the backgammon table. “This is Lothar’s factor in London.” She grabbed a second young man who had been snickering at the fate of the first, and stationed him in the short gallery that joined the two salons, calling this Amsterdam.

“And you are doing splendidly, my love,” said Eliza. “What is your objection?”

“Unless these chaps of mine in Amsterdam and London are titled nobility, which I’m led to believe is generally not the case—”

“Indeed not, Étienne.”

“Well, if they are not of independent means, it would seem to suggest that—” and here Étienne colored slightly again, “forgive me, but must I—” and he balked until both Eliza and Pontchartrain had made encouraging faces at him, “well, pay them—” he half-swallowed the dreadful word—“I don’t know, so that they could—buy—food and whatnot, presuming that’s how they get it? For I don’t phant’sy they would have their own farms, living as they do in cities.”

“You must pay them!” Eliza said loud and clear.

Étienne winced. “Well, it hardly seems worth all the bother for me to be taking in silver here, and sending Bills to one place, and avisas to another, all so that I can end up handing the silver over to Signore Punchinello in the end.” He scanned nearby faces uncertainly, taking a sort of poll—but everyone was nodding profoundly, as if the duc d’Arcachon had made a telling point. All of those faces now turned towards Eliza.

“You get to keep some of the money,” Eliza said.

Everyone gasped as if she had jerked the veil from a statue of solid gold.

“Oh, well, that puts it in a whole new light!” exclaimed Étienne.

“The amount collected by Pierre Dubois in London was not quite as large as what I gave to you,” said Pontchartrain. He then turned to look at Eliza. “But, madame, I live in Paris.”

Eliza went into the opposite corner of the Petit Salon and patted a gilded harpsichord. Pontchartrain excused himself from Lyon and sat before it. Then, to amuse himself and to provide incidental music for the second act of the masque, he began to pick out an air by Rameau.

Eliza beckoned to a middle-aged Count dressed in the uniform of a galley-captain. Until recently, he and a friend had been playing at billiards. “You are Monsieur Samuel Bernard, moneylender to le Roi.”

“I am to portray a Jew!?” said the dismayed Count.

The music faltered. “He is an excellent fellow, the King speaks highly of him, monsieur,” said Pontchartrain, and resumed playing.

“But now there is no one in Lyon!” said Étienne.

“On the contrary, there is Monsieur Castan, an old confrère of Monsieur Bernard,” said Eliza, and dragged the Count’s erstwhile billiards-opponent over to occupy the chair warmed by Pontchartrain.

Lately the room had become a good bit louder, for the galley-captain playing Samuel Bernard had adopted a hunchbacked posture and begun rolling his eyes, leering at the ladies, and stroking his chin. Meanwhile the “Amsterdam” and “London” crowd, which consisted mostly of younger people, had become restive, and begun to engage in all sorts of unauthorized Transactions.

“Fetch me a bowl of dough,” Eliza said to a maid.

“Dough, madame?”

“Dough from the kitchen! And an empty fruit-bowl or something. Hurry!” The servant hustled out. “Places, everyone! Act the Second begins. Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, pray continue playing your beautiful music, it is entirely fitting.” Indeed, some of the guests who had not been assigned specific rôles had begun dancing to it, so that “Paris” had already become a center of beauty, culture, and romance.

“I am your servant, madame,” said Pontchartrain.

“No, I am Mercury. And I say you have dough!”

“Dough, Mercury?” Pontchartrain looked about curiously but continued to play.

“You rarely see it, of course, and you never handle it. Pourquoi non, for you are a member of the Conseil d’en-Haut and a trusted confidant of le Roi Soleil. But you know that you have dough!”

“How do I know it, Mercury?”

“Because I have whispered it into your ear. You have a thousand kitchens in which it is being prepared, all the time. Now, call Monsieur Bernard to your side, and let him know.”

Monsieur Bernard did not need to be summoned. Using his billiard-cue as cane, he staggered over—for he had perfected his Jew act—and bent close to Pontchartrain, rubbing his hands together.

“Monsieur Bernard! I have dough.”

“I believe it, monseigneur.”

“I should like to see, oh, a hundred pieces of dough transferred safely and swiftly to the hands of Monsieur Dubois in London.”

“Hold!” commanded Mercury, “you do not yet know the identity of your payee in London.”

“Very well—make the Bill endorsable to one of my agents, to be determined later.”

“It shall be done, my lord!” announced “Bernard,” who then leered up at Eliza for his cue.

“Go and tell your friend,” Eliza said.

“Don’t I get anything?”

“Monsieur! You have got the word of the contrôleur-général of France! What more could you possibly ask for?”

“I was just asking,” said “Bernard” a little bit resentfully, and then crab-walked across the Petit Salon to “Lyon,” where his billiards-partner awaited. “Mon vieux, bonjour. Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain has dough and wants a hundred pieces of it in London.”

“Very well,” said “Castan” after some sotto voce prompting from Mercury. “Lothar, if you would get a hundred pieces of dough to our man in London, I shall give you a hundred and ten pieces of dough here.”

“Heavens! Where is this dough?” Étienne demanded—a bit confused, for in the first run-through, he had been given actual silver.

“I don’t have any just now,” said “Castan,” who had been a bit quicker than Étienne to see where this was going, “but my friend Monsieur Bernard has heard from Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain who has heard from Mercury himself that there is dough aplenty, and so, in the sight of all these good Lyonnaise—”

“We call them le Dépôt,” put in Eliza, indicating several persons who had gathered round the basset-table to watch.

“—I say that I shall pay you a hundred and ten pieces of dough any day now.”

“Very well,” said “Lothar,” after looking up at Eliza for permission.

Now some time was spent in draughting the necessary papers. Meanwhile Eliza had thrust her hands into a great warm ellipsoid of bread-dough that had been fetched out of the kitchens by a cook, and torn it apart into two pieces, a small and a large. The small she placed in an empty fruit-bowl, which she took into the Grand Salon and slammed down on a gilded sideboard near the backgammontable, astonishing Madame de Bearsul. “Tear this in half, and continue tearing the halves in half, until you have thirty-two pieces of dough,” decreed “Mercury,” then stormed away before de Bearsul could pout or fret. Eliza fetched the great bowl containing the larger amount of dough, and set it into the arms of the young banker she had posted in “Amsterdam.” Three younger guests, eight to twelve years of age, had already converged on the sideboard, overturned the fruit-bowl, and begun tearing the dough into bits. “Very good, you are the English Mint, and that is the Tower of London,” Eliza informed them. Then, because they were being a bit too enthusiastic, she cautioned them: “Remember, I desire only thirty or so.”

“We thought a hundred!” said the oldest of the children.

“Yes; but there is not enough dough in London to make so many.”

“Stop! Think. Your solvency, your credit hang in the balance. How many pieces of dough do you have?”

The eyes of “Punchinello” strayed towards the “Tower of London,” where thirty-two dough-balls were arrayed eight by four.

“Those don’t belong to you,” said Mercury. She scooped them into the fruit-bowl and handed it to the Lavardac cousin who was pretending to be Lothar’s factor in London.

Madame de Bearsul was starting to get it. “I’m going to be needing those—I’ve a note from your uncle, right here, says you owe me a hundred.”

“I don’t have a hundred!” complained the young banker.

“Mercury comes to the rescue, as usual!” announced Eliza. “Does anyone else here in London have dough?”

“I’ve got a great bowl of it,” said an adolescent voice from the next room.

“You’re not in London!” answered “Mercury.” And she turned to the “London” nephew and gave him an expectant look.

“Cousin! Come in here and bring me some of the family dough!” he called.

The young man with the dough-bowl staggered into the room. Whereupon Eliza gave the nod to a pair of six-year-old boys who had been crouching in a corner with wooden swords. They rushed out and began to batter the dough-bearer about the shins and ankles. “Augh!” he cried.

“Pirate attack in the North Sea!” Eliza announced.

The dough-carrier was hindered badly by his inability to see the little boca-neers, for the bowl blocked his view. Nevertheless, after having been chased several times around the entirety of Britain, he arrived in port some minutes later (4:20) listing badly to starboard, and upended the bowl, dumping out the dough-load at the Tower of London. “Hurry!” said Eliza, “only five minutes remaining until the Bill expires!”

“In all seriousness, Mercury,” complained d’Erquy, “how are the coins to be transported from London to the front? For if half of what is said of England is true, the place is full of runagates, Vagabonds, highwaymen, and varlets of all stripes.”

“Never fear,” said Eliza, “if you only wait a few days, the front will come to you, and French and Irish troops will march in good order to your doorstep in the Strand to receive their pay!” Which prompted a patriotic cheer and a standing ovation, and even a couple of tossed bouquets, from the crowd.

“But if I may once again play the rôle of the uncouth banker,” said Étienne—who had abandoned his post in “Lyon” to watch the denouement—“why on earth should the English Mint strike coins whose purpose is to finance a foreign invasion of England?”

This quieted the crowd so profoundly that Étienne felt rather bad about it, and began to formulate what showed every sign of being a lengthy and comprehensive apology. But Eliza was having none of it. “You don’t know England!” she said, “But I do, for I am Mercury. England has factions. The one that rules now is called the Tories, and they make no secret that they loathe the Usurper, and want him out. Indeed, our invasion plans are predicated, are they not, on the assumption that the English Navy will look the other way as our fleets cross the Channel, and that the common folk of England, and much of the Army, will joyfully throw off the yoke of the Dutchman and welcome our French and Irish soldiers with open arms. If we grant all of these assumptions, why, there is no difficulty in supposing that the Tory masters of the Mint will strike a few coins for the House of Hacklheber—”

“Or whichever bank we elect to deal with,” put in Pontchartrain.

“—without asking too many awkward questions as to where those coins are intended to end up.”

“Yes—I see the whole thing now as if you have painted a picture,” said Étienne. At which most of the party-guests attempted to get faraway looks in their eyes, as though gazing raptly at the same picture that Étienne was viewing in his mind’s eye.

“Don’t worry, ‘Lothar the Banker,’ ” said Eliza. “You will be paid back.”

Étienne’s brow furrowed. “That’s right—I quite forgot! I haven’t seen any dough! Is that what those two are so upset about?”

Pontchartrain intervened, sharing a warm private look with Eliza. “Those two, monsieur, have just discovered something called liquidity risk.”

“It sounds dreadful!”

“Never mind, Monsieur le duc. It is a phantom. We do not have such things in France.”

“That’s fortunate,” said the duc d’Arcachon. “They were starting to make me a bit anxious—and I’m not even a banker!”

“I shall have coffee!” Bernard called out to an Armenian boy with a peach-fuzz moustache, dressed like a Turk, who had been edging toward them, impelled by significant glares and subtile finger-flicks from the proprietor, Christopher Esphahnian, but intimidated by Bernard. The garçon sped into the back, relieved to have been given orders. Bernard glanced about the coffee-house. “I could almost believe I was in Amsterdam,” he remarked.

“From the lips of a financier, that is flattery,” Eliza said. “But I believe that the intent of the decorator was to make you believe you were in Turkey.”

Bernard snorted. “Does it work for you, madame?”

“No, for I have been in the coffee-houses of Amsterdam, and I share your opinion.”

“You do not say that you have been in Turkey.”

“Do I need to? Or have others been saying it for me?”

Bernard smiled. “We return to our subject! People say of me that I am a Jew, and of you that you are an odalisque, sent here by the Grand Turk as a spy—”

“They do!?”

“Yes. Why?”

The good thing about Bernard was that when he said something jarring he would quickly move on to something else. Eliza decided ’twere better to keep pace with him than to dwell on this matter of her and the Grand Turk. “The only thing I can think of that you and I have in common, monsieur, is a predilection for finance.”

Bernard let it be seen that he was not fully satisfied with this attempt. He had a long, complicated French nose, close-set eyes, and a mouth turned up tight, like a recurved bow, at the corners. The look on his face might have been one of frustration, or intense concentration; perhaps both. He was trying to get her to see something. “Why do I wear cloth of gold? Because I am some kind of a fop? No! I dress well, but I am not a fop. I wear this to remind me of something.”

“I supposed it was to remind others that—”

“That I am the richest man in France? Is that what you were going to say?”

“No, but it is what I was thinking.”

“Another rumor—like that I am a Jew. No, madame, I wear this because it used to be my trade.”

“Did you say trade!?”

“My family were Huguenots. I was baptized in the Protestant church of Charenton. You can’t see it any more, it was pulled down by a Catholic mob a few years ago. My grandfather was a painter of portraits for the Court. My father, a miniaturist and an engraver. But God did not bestow on me any artistic talent, and so I was apprenticed to a seller of cloth-of-gold.”

“Did you serve out your whole apprenticeship, monsieur?”

“Pourquoi non, madame, for then as now, I always fulfill my contracts. My formal métier is maître mercier grossiste pour draps d’or, d’argent, et de soie de Paris.”

“I think I finally begin to understand your point, Monsieur Bernard. You are saying that you and I have in common that we do not belong.”

“We make no sense!” Bernard exclaimed, throwing up both hands and raising his eyebrows in dismay, mocking a certain type of courtier. “To these people—” and he shoveled his hands across the Rue de l’Orangerie at Versailles—“we are what meteors, comets, sunspots are to astronomers: monstrous deviations, fell portents of undesired change, proof that something is wrong in a system that was supposedly framed by the hand of God.”

“I have heard some in this vein, too, from Monsieur le marquis d’Ozoir—”

Bernard would not allow such a foolish sentence to be finished; he spewed air and rolled his eyes. “Him! What would he know of us? He is the epitome of who I mean—son of a Duke! A bastard, I’ll grant you, and enterprising, in his way; yet still wholly typical of the established order.”

Bernard had settled down a bit. “Never fear, madame, for my father and I both converted to Catholicism after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Just as you have married a hereditary Duke.”

“I don’t really see what those two have to do with each other.”

“They were, if you will, sacraments that we undertook to show that we were submitting to the established order of this country—the same order that we undermine by pursuing what you so aptly described as our predilection for finance.”

“I don’t know that I agree with that, monsieur.”

Bernard ignored Eliza’s weak protest. “Sooner or later the King will probably make me a Count or some such, and people will pretend to forget that I once served an apprenticeship. But do not be fooled. To them, you and I are as noble; as French; and as Catholic; as him!” and Bernard shot out one hand as if hurling a dagger. The target was a painting on the ceiling that depicted an immense, shirtless, muscle-bound, ochre-skinned hashishin with a red turban and a handlebar moustache raising a scimitar above his head. “And that is why they say Iama Jew; for this amounts to saying, an inexplicable monster.”

“As long as it’s just us inexplicable monsters here,” said Eliza (as indeed it was; for most of the other patrons had bolted) “shall we—”

“Indeed, yes. Let us review the figures,” said Bernard, and blinked twice. “The number of invasion troops is some twenty thousand. Each receives five sols per day; so that is five thousand livres a day. The number of sergeants is, in round numbers, a tenth of the number of troops, but they receive twice the pay; add another thousand livres a day. Lieutenants receive a livre a day, captains get two and a half; at any rate, when you add it all up, reckoning dragoons, cavalry, et cetera, it comes to some eight thousand a day—”

“I have made it ten thousand, to allow for other expenses,” said Eliza.

“C’est juste. So why do you ask for half a million livres in London?”

“Monsieur, England is not so large as France, ’tis true; and yet it is much larger than some scraps of land in the Netherlands that have been fought over for months. Years.”

“Those places you speak of in the Low Countries are fortified. England is not.”

“The point is well taken, but the distance between the landing-sites in Devon and London is considerable. It took William of Orange a month and a half to cover the same interval, when he invaded.”

“Very well, I grant you that fifty days’ pay—almost two months—for this army comes to half a million livres. But why must every last penny of it be minted in advance, in London? Surely if the campaign progresses beyond a beach-head there will be opportunities to ship specie to the island later.”

“Perhaps and perhaps not, monsieur. I only know of this one opportunity, and seek to make the most of it. You make this more complicated than it is. I have been asked to tender advice on how the troops might be paid. You and I seem to agree that half a million livres is a reasonable, though perhaps generous, estimate of the amount that will be required. This is not too large an amount for the normal channels of commerce. I ask for as much as I think shall be needed. If half that amount is actually coined at the Tower of London, then I shall consider the transaction to have come off passing well.”

“The matter becomes complicated when the entire transaction is made to pass through Lyon,” said Bernard. “It is a large bolus for the Dépôt to swallow. If we could instead transfer it through a public market where there were proper banks…”

“Monsieur Bernard. You tempt me. For nothing would afford me such fascination as to sit here with you all morning and afternoon drinking coffee and discoursing of the peculiarities of Lyon and the Dépôt. Quite possibly we might have similar views on it. But as matters stand, Lyon is, by long tradition, France’s connexion to the financial system of the world, and it is through Lyon that we must send all of this money. It may be a bit quaint, a bit odd; but fortunately there are sophisticated houses there, such as the Hacklhebers, who have ready access to public markets in other cities.”

“I understand, madame,” said Bernard. “But the carrying capacity of the Dépôt is limited. France fights on more than one front. There are other demands on the credit of her treasury.”

“I have seen the silver with my own eyes, Monsieur Bernard. It was stacked in the hold of Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain’s jacht in St.-Malo. This is merely an alternate, more prudent means of getting it to London.”

“And I do not question that, madame. But during wartime, the temptation will be strong to use that silver elsewhere—to spend it twice.”

“Now I perceive why it is that you are shunned by Court fops, monsieur. For you to suggest that Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain would do anything of the sort is most rude.”

“Ah, madame, but I said nothing of that noble man. It is not he who matters in this case—for, last I heard, Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain was not the King of France.”

“Then you are being even more impertinent!”

“Not at all. For the King is the King, and it is his prerogative to spend his money twice, or even three times, if that is his pleasure, and neither I nor any other Frenchman will say a word against him! It might, however, make a difference to the Dépôt.”

“Suppose the Dépôt was asked to adapt to these trying new circumstances, and it was found wanting, and in consequence, France had to get a modern banking system? Would that not be better for France, and for you, monsieur?”

“For me, perhaps—as well as for you. For France, there might be grave disruptions.”

“That is beyond my scope. I am like a housewife shopping for turnips in the market. If I go to my old traditional turnip-sellers and they ask too high a price for turnips of poor quality, and not enough of them, why, I shall go and buy my turnips elsewhere.”

“Very well,” said Bernard, “I depart for Lyon this afternoon to meet with Monsieur Castan. I might relay your challenge to the Dépôt and we might see if they have got enough turnips for you.”

“Monsieur, what is this word might doing in the sentence? You do not strike me as a flirtatious man, in general.”

“You have a house in St.-Malo, madame.”

“Indeed, monsieur.”

“It is said you are quite fond of the place—more so than La Dunette.” Bernard glanced in that general direction, for La Dunette was only a couple of musket-shots up the hill from the Rue de l’Orangerie. But all he could see in that quarter was another gaudy painting of wild Turks in action.

“You would like it, too, for St.-Malo is a place where Commerce rules.”

“I understand. For that is where the ships of the Compagnie des Indes call, or have I been misinformed?”

“Many ships call there; but if India is a particular interest of yours, monsieur, then that is what we shall speak of.”

“How can it not be of interest to us, madame? Have you any notion of the profits made in that part of the world by the V.O.C. and the British East India Company?”

“Of course, monsieur. They are proverbial. As is the perpetual failure and reincarnation of the Compagnie des Indes. You need only ask Monsieur le marquis d’Ozoir—”

“The history is all too well known. I am more concerned with the future.”

“Then truly you are a shameless flirt, Monsieur Bernard, for I can scarcely contain my curiosity any longer—what are you thinking?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nonsense!”

“It is quite true. All I know is that I look at the Compagnie des Indes and see—nothing! Nothing is happening. Something should be happening. It is curious.”

“You have scented an opportunity.”

“As have you, madame.”

“Oh—you refer to the silver in London?”

“Now you flirt with me. Madame, it is within my power to make this happen. I may have been re-baptized as a Catholic, but this has not prevented my maintaining any number of contacts with Huguenots who elected to leave. They have gone to places like London and prospered. You know this perfectly well, for you have filled the void that was created in the Compagnie du Nord by their departure. You buy timber from them in Sweden and Rostock all the time. So yes. I can see to it that your silver is transferred, and I shall. But it shall not be profitable. It shall not be especially convenient. Monsieur Castan’s credit with the Dépôt shall be over-extended for a time. I shall have to twist his arm. And I hate dealing with Lothar.”

“Very well. What could I do, monsieur, to show my gratitude for your undertaking so many travails?”

“You could direct your intelligence upon the strange case of the Compagnie des Indes in faraway St.-Malo. You, I take it, have no interest in this?”

“None whatsover, monsieur; the Compagnie du Nord is my sole concern.”

“That is well. You will supply me with your thoughts and observations, then, concerning the other?”

“It will be a joy to converse with you on the topic, monsieur.”

“Very well.” Bernard got to his feet. “I am off to Lyon, then. Au revoir.”

“Bon voyage.”

And Samuel Bernard exited the Café Esphahan as abruptly as he had come in.

His gilded chair was still warm when Bonaventure Rossignol sat down in it.

“I have seen Kings travel with a smaller guard,” Eliza remarked; for both she and Rossignol devoted some time now to enjoying the spectacle of the departure of Bernard’s carriage, his train of lesser vehicles, his out-riders, spare horses, grooms, et cetera from the Rue de l’Orangerie.

“Many Kings have less to fear,” Rossignol remarked.

“Oh? I did not know Monsieur Bernard had so many enemies.”

“It is not that he has enemies as a King does,” Rossignol corrected her, “which is to say, identifiable souls who wish him ill, and are willing and able to act on those wishes. Rather, it is that from time to time a sort of frenzy will come over certain Frenchmen, which only abates when a financier or two has been hanged from a tree-limb or set on fire.”

“He was trying to warn me about such things,” Eliza said, “but his squadron of mercenaries conveys it much more effectively than words.”

“It is curious,” said Rossignol, turning his attention to Eliza. “I know that you are married to a Duke, and share his bed, and bear his children. Yet this causes me not the least bit of jealousy! But when I see you talking to this Samuel Bernard—”

“Put it out of your head,” Eliza said. “You have no idea.”

“What does this mean, I have no idea? I may be a mathematician, but yet I know what passes between a man and a woman.”

“Indeed; but you are not a commerçant, and you haven’t the faintest idea what passes between the likes of me and Bernard. Don’t worry. If you were a commerçant, I shouldn’t be attracted to you—just as I’m not attracted to Bernard.”

“But it looked for all the world as if you were flirting.”

“As indeed we were—but the intercourse to which this flirting will lead is not sexual.”

“I am perfectly confused now—you are playing with me.”

“Come now, Bon-bon! Let us review matters. Out of all the men in Germany, which did I choose for a friend?”

“Leibniz.”

“And what is he?”

“A mathematician.”

“Holland?”

“Huygens…a mathematician.”

“England?”

“Daniel Waterhouse. A Natural Philosopher.”

“France?”

“…”

“Come now! When I came to Versailles for the first time, and got invited to Court soirées, and was pursued by any number of randy Dukes, to whom did I give my affections?”

“You gave them to…a mathematician.”

“What was that mathematician’s name?” asked Eliza, cupping a hand to her ear.

“It was Bonaventure Rossignol,” said Bonaventure Rossignol, and flicked his black eyes to and fro to see if anyone was listening.

“Now, when I got myself into a big mess of trouble outside of St. Diziers, who was the first to learn of it?”

“That fellow who was reading everyone’s mail. Bonaventure Rossignol.”

“And who came galloping to my rescue across half of France, and journeyed north with me to Nijmegen, and put me on a boat?”

“Bon—”

“Stop. The name is beautiful and distinguished. But I prefer to call him Bon-bon.”

“Very well, then, it was Bon-bon.”

“Who made love to me along the banks of the Meuse?”

“Étienne de Lavardac.”

“Who else?”

“Bon-bon.”

“And who helped me concoct a plan to get out of my terrible mess of trouble?”

“Bon-bon.”

“Who helped me cover my traces, and forged documents, and lied to the King and to d’Avaux?”

“Bon-bon.”

“And who is the father of my first-born?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Only because you avoided looking at him, when you had the opportunity. But I tell you Jean-Jacques looks very much like Bon-bon—there is no trace in him of the tainted blood of the Lavardacs. You are the father, Bon-bon.”

“What is your point?”

“Only that it is absurd for you to be jealous of this Samuel Bernard. Whatever may pass between him and me in the way of business is nothing compared to the adventure that you and I had, and the son that we share.”

The attention of “Bon-bon” had strayed to a painting of a fabulous, many-domed mosque that adorned a wall behind Eliza. “You remind me of things I would forget. I could have done a better job.”

“Nonsense!”

“I could have exonerated you entirely from charges of spying.”

“In retrospect, perhaps. But I do believe it worked out for the best.”

“What…you married to a man you do not love, and Jean-Jacques held captive by a demented Saxon banker?”

“But that is not the end of the story, Bon-bon. We have met here today to further the story along.”

“Yes. And it is an interesting choice of venue,” Rossignol said, leaning far over the table and lowering his voice so much that Eliza nearly had to touch her forehead against his in order to hear him. “I have read every scrap of these people’s mail for two years, you know, but never seen their faces, and certainly never sipped their coffee.”

“Do you fancy it?”

“It is a cut above the usual swill, to be sure,” said Rossignol, “but on its merits as a beverage, it would never be so chic if you and Madame la duchesse d’Oyonnax were not forever singing its praises.”

“You see? There is nothing I would not do in the service of cryptology,” said Eliza with a smile, and spread out her hands, inviting Rossignol to take in the magnificence of the Café Esphahan. “Have you learned anything recently?”

“This is not the place or the time to speak of it! But no,” said Rossignol. “I have been much more preoccupied with reading your mail.”

“Does it make for interesting reading?”

“A bit too interesting. To Lothar you say, ‘The invasion of England will surely be called off,’ while to some financier in Lyon you are saying, ‘The invasion will happen soon and we must pay the troops!’ ”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“It makes me worry that you are about to get in trouble again and I shall have to go back to galloping hither and yon, forging documents, and lying to important people…all of which I would gladly do!” he added hastily, as the beginnings of a pout had appeared on Eliza’s face. “But I think it a miracle that you were forgiven, by the powers that be, for the previous go-round of spying and lying. If you do it again—”

“Your misinterpretation is total,” Eliza said. “There was no forgiving, but an œconomic transaction. And I did not get off scot-free, as you seem to phant’sy, but paid a price so terrible I do not think you’ll ever fathom it. To you, perhaps, it seems that I am plunging once more into a sea of intrigue from which I was absent for a couple of years—restful years for you, Bon-bon!—but to me it seems I have been submerged in it the whole time, and am only now getting my head above water where I can see and breathe again. I mean to keep clawing away until I have dragged myself out.”

“You’ll never be out,” said Rossignol, “but if it is in your nature to claw, then claw away. Speaking of which, my back has healed since the last time—”

“I have three more engagements to-day, but perhaps I could append a fourth,” said Eliza. She reached across the table and set a packet of letters in front of Rossignol. “My out-going mail,” she explained. “I was going to post it, but then I thought, why not give it directly to Bon-bon?”

“I shall decrypt them while I await your fourth social engagement,” said Rossignol. “Here is your incoming.” And he handed Eliza a packet.

“Thank you, Bon-bon. Anything interesting?”

“Compared to most of what I have to read? Madame, you have no idea.”

At any rate, the result was that the gallery into which Jack had now entered was thick with flies, zinging through the darkness like spent grapeshot on the fringes of a battle, and crunching into his shaved head and raising welts. They had been drawn here, from all over the Indies, by the smell of diverse sick or injured creatures and their feed and their manure; for this hospital with all its stone screens and lattice-works was like a giant censer dispensing such fragrances into the air of Ahmadabad.

Past the mongoose with the suppurating eye, the jackal with mange, the half-paralyzed king cobra, the stunningly odoriferous civet-cat-with-bone-cancer, the mouse deer with the javelin wound did Jack proceed, and then entered a room filled with bird-cages of bent bamboo, where diverse broken-winged avians were on the mend. A peacock with an arrow stuck sideways all the way through his neck shuffled around, bumping into things and getting hung up on the cages and squawking in outrage. Jack gave him a wide berth, not wanting to get lockjaw off that arrowhead if the peacock should happen to execute a sharp turn in the vicinity of his knees.

Through a rickety door was a room piled floor to ceiling with even smaller cages housing sick or injured mice and rats, some of which sounded distinctly rabid. The less time spent here the better, and so Jack forged on to another room, and down some stone steps.

The smell here transcended mere badness. It was not a smell of mammals or even reptiles, but of an entirely different order of Creation. It was thrilling. For quite some time Jack had been breathing through his nose, but now he threw one arm over his face and sucked in air through the crook of his elbow. For the air in this, the deepest and innermost part of the hospital, was (he estimated) fifty percent insects by volume, a sort of writhing meat-cloud that continually hummed, as if he had climbed into an organ pipe. And if even one of those bugs got into a nostril and injured itself trying to struggle free of Jack’s nose-hairs, the caretakers would be sure to notice, and then Jack would be out of a job. For the same reason, he had altered his gait, and now shuffled along on bare feet, plowing carefully through the drifts and flurries of bugs on the floor, hoping there weren’t any scorpions there just now.

A boy brought him the usual concoction, holding the coconut shell to Jack’s lips while others bound Jack’s hands together behind his back with a strip of cloth. Out of habit, Jack put his ankles together so that those could likewise be bound. When he had finished gulping down that draught (which was supposed to nourish and replenish the blood), he allowed himself to fall forward, and was caught by many small warm hands and gently lowered onto the floor—though not before it had been gently swept clear of any insects. His bound ankles were brought up to meet his hands, and all were tied together above his bare buttocks. Meanwhile a swathe of gauze was being tied about his head, screening his mouth, nose, and eyes.

Above, he could hear a boom of timber—what sailors would call a yard—being swung around until one end of it was above him. From a pulley on its tip, a stout rope was now brought down and tied to the web of bonds that joined his wrists and ankles, with a couple of turns around his waist to carry most of his weight.

Deeper voices spoke now—the pulley squeaked, the rope tensed, the yard began to tick and groan, and then Jack was airborne. They swung the yard around, Jack skimming along just a hand’s breadth above the floor, escorted by giggling and shuffling Hindoo boys. But these suddenly peeled away as the stone floor dropped out from under him and he swung out over a pit: a stone-lined silo perhaps four yards across and somewhat less in depth. They let him hang above the middle of it for a few seconds, prodding him artfully with bamboo poles until he stopped swinging; then the rope was let out and Jack descended. Many torches had been lit for this the most critical part of the operation. The gauze over his eyes strained their light from the air and clouded his vision, which was just as well. They took utmost care not to let his full weight down onto the sandy floor of the pit until they were absolutely certain that no living creature was underneath him. But they or their ancestors had done this many times a day since the beginning of Time and were good at their work. Jack came to rest on the pit-floor without crushing a thing.

Then from small holes and arches and burrows, tanks, puddles, sumps, rotten logs, decomposing fruit, hives, and sand-heaps all around, out they came: foot-long centipedes, clouds of fleas, worms of various descriptions, all manner of flying insects—in short, all sorts of creatures whatever that subsisted on blood. He felt a bat land on the back of his neck, and tried to relax.

“That iridescent beetle feasting on your left buttock does not appear to be injured or sick in the slightest degree!” said a curiously familiar voice, speaking English with a musical accent. “I think it should be discharged forthwith, Jack.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me—the whole country is infested with idlers and freebooters—like that rabble out front.”

“That rabble, as you call them, are the men of the Swapak mahajan,” said Surendranath—for by this point Jack had recognized him as none other.

“So they keep telling me—what of it?”

“You must understand that the Swapaks are a very ancient subcaste of the Shudra Ahir—the herdsmen of the Vinkhala tribe—which is one of the sixteen branches of the Seventh Division of the Fire Races.”

“And?”

“They are divided into two great classes, the noble and the ignoble, the former being divided into thirty-seven subtribes and the latter into ninety-three. The Shudra Ahir were formerly one of the thirty-seven, until after the Third Incarnation of Lord Kalpa, when they came up from Anhalwara by way of Lower Oond, and intermarried with a tribe of degenerated Mulgrassias.”

“So?”

“Jack, just to put that in context, you must understand that those people are regarded as Dhangs of the lower subcaste (yet considerably above the Dhoms!) by the Virda, whom they nonetheless abhor. To give you an idea of just how degenerate they were, these Dhangs, in an earlier age, had intermarried with the Kalpa Salkh of Kalapur, of whom almost nothing is known save that not even the ape-men of Hari would allow themselves to be overshadowed by them.”

“I am waiting for your point to arrive.”

“The point is that the Shudra Ahir have been herdsmen and feeders of livestock since before the breaking of the Three Jade Eggs, and the Swapak, for almost as long, have been—”

“You sound like a rich Frank complaining about Vagabonds.”

“If I were not having my blood sucked out by thousands of vermin, I might take offense—as it is, your japes and witticisms strike me as more of the same.”

Surendranath laughed. “You must forgive me. When I learned that you were earning your keep in this way, I rashly assumed that you had become a desperate wretch. Now I appreciate that you take pride in your work.”

“Compared to those layabouts who are encamped in front, Padraig and I—ouch!—are willing to do this work for a more competitive rate, and comport ourselves as professionals.”

“I very much fear that you will be comporting yourselves as dead men if you do not get out of Ahmadabad,” said Surendranath.

Above, Jack heard commands uttered in Gujarati, then the welcome creak of the pulley. The rope came tight and raised him a few inches off the ground. He writhed and shook himself, trying to shed as many of the creatures as he could. “What are you talking about? They don’t even step on bugs. What’re they going to do to a couple of men?”

“Oh, it is not difficult for such people to come to an understanding, Jack, with members of castes that specialize in mayhem.”

Jack was now raised up out of the pit and swung round over the floor again. The bug-doctors converged on him with brooms, gently sweeping away the engorged ticks and leeches. Then they let him down and began untying the bonds. As soon as he could, Jack reached up and pulled off the gauze face-mask. Now he was able to get a good look at Surendranath for the first time.

When they’d parted company, outside the customs-house of Surat, more than a year ago, Surendranath, like Jack, had been a shivering wretch, dressed in rags, and still walking slightly bowlegged on account of the thoroughgoing search that was meted out to all who entered the Mogul’s realms there, to make sure that they were not secreting Persian Gulf pearls in their rectal orifices.

“It’s not my fault I’m stuck in this fucking country with no money,” Jack said. “Blame it on those pirates.”

Surendranath snorted. “Jack, when I lose a single rupee I lie awake all night, cursing myself and the man who took it from me. You do not need to urge me to hate the pirates who took our gold!”

“Very well, then.”

“But does this mean that other Hindoostanis, belonging to a different caste, speaking a different language, residing at the other end of the subcontinent, must suffer?”

“I have to eat.”

“There are other ways for a Frank to make a living in Hind.”

“I see those rich Dutchmen in the streets every day. Bully for them. But I can’t make a living from trade when I’ve nothing to my name. Besides—for Christ’s sake, you Banyans make even Jews and Armenians seem like nuns in the bazaar.”

“Thank you,” Surendranath said modestly.

“Besides, in Surat and all the other treaty ports, there is an astronomical price on my head.”

“It is true that, as the result of your dealings with the Viceroy, the House of Hacklheber, and the Duc d’Arcachon, all of Spain, Germany, and France now wish to kill you,” Surendranath admitted, helping Jack to his feet.

“You left out the Ottoman Empire.”

“But Hind is another world! You have seen only a narrow strip along the coast. There are many opportunities in the interior—”

“Oh, one bug-pit is the same as the next, I’m sure.”

“—for a Frank who knows how to use the saber and the musket.”

“I’m listening,” Jack said. “Fucking bugs!” and then—distracted, as he was, by the peculiar nature of Surendranath’s discourse, he slapped a mosquito that had landed on the side of his neck. It was only noticed by Surendranath—who made a sound as if he were regurgitating his own gallbladder—and the boy who was standing next to Jack, holding out his neatly folded clothes. Jack met the boy’s eye for a moment; then both looked down at the palm of Jack’s hand, where the mosquito lay crumpled in a spot of Jack’s, or someone’s, blood.

“This lad thinks I’ve murdered his grandmother now,” Jack said. “Could you ask him to shut up?”

Surendranath did not even try to argue the matter, but grabbed Jack’s arm and led him out of the room in a brisk walk that soon turned into a run. For news of Jack’s crime had spread, faster than thought, through the echoing galleries of the hospital and out its innumerable holes to the front, and (to guess from the sounds that came back) a hundred or more unemployed Swapaks had taken it as a signal to force their way in and launch a furious manhunt.

The monkeys, birds, lizards, and beasts sensed that something was happening, and began to make noise, which worked in Jack and Surendranath’s favor. The Banyan got lost in the darkness of the intestinal-parasite ward almost immediately, but Jack—who’d been skulking in and out of the place for weeks—surged into the fore, and soon enough got them pointed towards an exit; they staged an orderly retreat through the monkey room, opening all of the cage-doors on their way through, which (to put it mildly) created a diversion. It was a diversion that fed on itself, for the monkeys were clever enough to do some cage-opening of their own. Once all of the primates had been set free, they spread out into surrounding wards and began to give less intelligent creatures their freedom.

Meanwhile Jack and Surendranath fell back, taking a little-used route past the tiger’s cage. Jack tarried for a moment to scoop up a couple of the big cat’s turds.

Then they were out into Ahmadabad’s main avenue. This was wider than most European streets were long. Its vastness, combined with blood loss, always gave Jack a momentary fit of disorientation; had he found his way back into the city, or gotten lost in some remote wasteland? The monsoon rains were finished, and this part of Hindoostan had turned into a sort of gutter for draining chalk-dry air out of the middle of Asia. On its way down from Tibet, today’s shipment of wind had made a tour of the scenic Thar Desert, and availed itself of a heavy load of souvenir dirt, and elevated its temperature to somewhere between that of a camel’s breath and that of a tandoori oven. Now it was coming down Ahmadabad’s main street like a yak stampede, leaving no doubt as to why Shah Jahan had named the place Guerdabad: The Habitation of Dust.

A pair of rowzinders—Mogul cavalrymen—came riding up, all turbaned and scimitared, black studded shields dangling from their brawny arms, to see what was the matter. Immediately they were engulfed in angry Swapaks telling their side of the story and demanding that the kotwal and his retinue of whip-, cudgel-, and mace-brandishing goons be summoned to favor Jack with a bastinado, or worse. The Swapaks’ protests got them nowhere, as they spoke only Gujarati and the rowzinders spoke only Persian. But these Moguls, like conquerors everywhere, had a keen sense of how to profit from local controversies, and their dark eyes were wide open, following the stabbing fingers of the Swapaks, examining the guilty parties. Surendranath was obviously a Banyan, which was to say that he and his lineage had been more or less condemned by God to engage in foreign trade and make vast amounts of money all their lives. Jack, on the other hand, was a Frank wearing a snatch of leather held on by a crusty thong wedged up his butt-crack. The numerous scars on his back testified to his having been in trouble before—a nearly inconceivable amount of trouble. The rowzinders sized the Banyan up as a likely source of baksheesh, and made gestures at him indicating that he had better stay put for now. Jack they beckoned over.

Jack approached the rowzinders from downwind. The crowd of Swapaks parted to make room for him, though a few spat on him as he went by. Others had already forgotten about Jack and were running towards the animals. Jack got into position between the heads of the two rowzinders’ horses and then began to protest his innocence in English whilst surreptitiously crumbling a tiger-turd in each hand. A distinctive fragrance made the horses extremely nervous all of a sudden. “There now, settle down, you two,” Jack said to them, and stroked each on the nose, one with each hand—smearing streaks of tiger shit from their brows all the way down to their flaring nostrils.

Then he had to step back to save his own life. Both horses reared up and began slashing at the air with their front hooves, and it was all the rowzinders could do to stay in their saddles. They galloped off screaming in opposite directions. One charged straight through the middle of a crowd of Hanuman monkeys who were carrying hairy arm-loads of coconut-meat, figs, mangoes, jamboleiras, papayas, yellow pears, green bilimbins, red cashews, and prickly jack-fruit from the dissolving market, pursued by enraged bazaaris who were in turn pursued by a toothless cheetah. A huge Indian bison, as high at the shoulder as Jack was tall, burst out through a rickety wall, shoving a heap of wrecked tables before him, and shambled into the street with a durian fruit dangling from one of his scimitar-like horns.

“What tongue is that?” Jack asked.

“Marathi.”

“Your palanquin is carried by rebels?”

“Think of it as a merchant-ship. In the parts of Hindoostan where we will be going, they will be her insurance policy.”

The bearers were maneuvering the ends of the bamboo so as to bring the palanquin up alongside Surendranath. When they were finished, they set it down on its ebon legs, so close that their master had only to swivel his arse a compass-point to starboard, and sit down. He busied himself for a few moments arranging some glorious floral cushions against a polished backrest in the stern, then scooted back against them.

“If they are the insurance policy, what am I?”

“You, and any of your Frank comrades you may be able to round up, are the Marines on the quarterdeck.”

“Marines are paid at a flat rate—when they are paid at all,” Jack observed. “The last time our merry crew were together, we each had a share.”

“How much is your share worth now?”

Jack was not, in general, a sigher of sighs, but now he sighed.

“Take inventory of your BATNA,” Surendranath suggested, eyeing Jack’s naked and lumpy form, “and meet me in an hour’s time at the Caravanserai.” And then he uttered words in the Marathi tongue, and the four Marathas (as Marathi-speakers were called) got their shoulders under the bamboo and hoisted the palanquin into the air. They spun the conveyance end-for-end in the middle of the vast street and trotted away.

Jack scratched a bug-bite, then another half an inch to the left, then forced himself to stop, before it got out of hand.

The clouded leopard emerged from the hospital, quiet as fog, and curled up in the middle of the street to blink at goings-on; her enormous protruding fangs shone like twin stars in the firmament of swirling dust.

Bearded vultures were raiding a butcher’s shop in the market. One of them pounded up into the air with all the grace of a porter lugging a side of beef up a staircase.

THE TIN DARWAZA formed one end of the central square of “The House of Hell” (as Jahangir, the father of Shah Jahan, affectionately referred to Ahmadabad). This square—the Maidan Shah—ran for perhaps a quarter of a mile to the opposite end, which was walled off by a clutter of towers, balconies, pillars, arches, and toy fortifications: the Palace of the local King, whose name was Terror of the Idolaters. The middle of the square was mostly open so that rowzinders could practice their horsemanship and archery there, and parade for the amusement of Terror of the Idolaters and his wives. There were a few low undistinguished buildings where the kotwals held their tribunals and inflicted the bastinado on anyone who did not measure up to their standards of conduct. Jack avoided these.

Several Hindoo pagodas had once stood around the Maidan Shah, and they still did; but they were mosques now. Jack’s knowledge of local history was limited to what he’d picked up by talking to Dutch, French, and English traders. But he gathered that this Shah Jahan fellow had spawned a boy named Aurangzeb and despised him so thoroughly that he had made him King of Gujarat, which meant that he had had to come and reside in “the abode of sickness” (another one of Jahangir’s pet names for Ahmadabad) and continually do battle against the Marathas. Later Aurangzeb had returned the favor by forcibly overthrowing his father and tossing him into a prison cell in Agra. But in the meantime he’d had many years to kill in The Abode of Sickness and to hone his already keen dislike of all things Hindoo. So he had slaughtered a cow in the middle of the main Hindoo pagoda, defiling it forever, and then gone round with a sledgehammer and knocked the noses off all the idols for good measure. Now it was a mosque. Jack gazed into it as he walked by and saw the usual crowd of fakirs—perhaps two hundred of them—sitting on the marble pavement with their arms crossed behind their heads. Of these, some were mere novices. Other had been doing it for long enough that their joints had frozen that way. These had begging-bowls in front of them, never without a few rupees, and from time to time junior fakirs would bring them water or food.

After a few minutes’ search Jack found his partner seated between the two rows of trees that lined the Maidan Shah. Coincidentally, Padraig had chosen a spot along the south side of the square, beneath one of the jutting balconies of the Caravanserai. Or perhaps it was no coincidence. This was one of the more beautiful buildings in the city. It attracted the wealthy men who made Ahmadabad work, just as the Damplatz did in Amsterdam. Neither its beauty nor its wealth meant much to Jack and Padraig in their current estate. But when they loitered here they could watch caravans coming in from Lahore, Kabul, Kandahar, Agra, and places even farther distant: Chinamen who had brought their silks down from Kashgar over the wastes of Leh, and Armenians who had sallied far to the east from their ghetto in Isfahan, and Turkomans from Bokhara, looking like poorer and shorter versions of the mighty Turks who held sway over Algiers. The Caravanserai reminded them, in other words, that it was possible, at least in theory, to escape “The Thorn Bed” (as Jahangir had referred to Ahmadabad in his Memoirs).

Padraig was sitting crosslegged on a snatch of rug (or, to be precise, the coarse weavings that rugs came wrapped in). He had a captured mouse, a rock, and a bowl. When he saw an approaching pedestrian who looked like a Brahmin, he would pin the mouse down on the ground and then raise the rock as if he intended to smash it. Of course he never actually did smash the mouse, and neither did Jack, when Jack took his turn. If they smashed the mouse they would not get money from the Brahmin, and they would have to spend valuable time searching for a replacement mouse. But by assiduously threatening to smash the mouse all day long, they could collect a few paisas in ransom money.

“We’ve been presented—assuming I am reading the signs correctly—with an opportunity to get ourselves killed for money,” Jack announced.

Padraig looked up alertly.

A bloody ox femur fell out of the sky and smashed into the pavement, where it shattered. Two bearded vultures plunged down after it and began to squabble over the marrow.

“Somewhere else.”

Padraig let the mouse run away.

THE CARAVANSERAI SPRAWLED along the southern side of the Maidan Shah, and had many balconies and lodges, all surrounded by delicately carved stone screens, but you got into it through an octagonal porch that was topped with an onion-dome. Four sides of the porch were open to the street and four were archways giving entry to the building itself, or to the yard in the middle, where queues of horses and camels were assembled or dispersed, and loaded or unloaded. It was in that yard that they found the palanquin of Surendranath. The Banyan himself was negotiating with a one-eyed Pathan for a couple of horses, and when he saw Jack’s and Padraig’s condition he decided to acquire some clothing for them, too. This turned out to be long tunics over loose breeches, and turbans to protect their heads.

“Now that we are out of the bug-feeding business we shall have to let our hair grow back,” Jack mused as they rode out of town along the Kathiawar Road, which is to say that they were going a little south of west.

“I could have gotten you European clothes with a little effort, but I did not want to spend any longer than was absolutely necessary in the Place of the Simoom,” hollered Surendranath, clutching the balusters of his palanquin as it was slugged by another wind-blast. Leaves of exotic trees, curled and spiked like the shells of sea-creatures, whipped past their heads and cartwheeled madly down the road. Jack and Padraig, on horses, were flanking Surendranath’s palanquin, and three of the Banyan’s aides were following behind on foot, leading a couple of asses laden with baggage.

“With our backs to the wind it is not so bad,” said Padraig; but only because he prided himself on making the best of bad situations. Indeed, the street to the Kathiawar Gate was lined with much that would have been scenic, if not for the dust in their eyes: vast gardens of wealthy Banyans and Moguls, mosques, pagodas, reservoirs, and wells.

“With our backs to Ahmadabad it will be better,” said Surendranath. “Kathiawar is reasonably settled, and we can make do with the usual Charan escort. But when we begin the journey to the northeast, you will have to dress as Europeans, to cow the Marathas.”

“Northeast…so our destination is Shahjahanabad?” Jack inquired.

“He would prefer to say Delhi,” Padraig put in, after Surendranath failed to answer.

“The English have given our cities any number of inventive names,” Padraig allowed.

“The monsoon season has brought much valuable cargo from the West this year, but all of it lies piled up in warehouses in Surat,” said Surendranath. “Shambhaji and his rebels have made the passage to Delhi a dangerous one. Now I have heard, from mariners who have sailed far to the south, that there are strange birds in those regions who live on ice floes, and that when these birds become hungry they will congregate on the edge of the floe, desiring the small fish that swim in the water below, but fearing the ravenous predators that lurk in that same water. The hunters are subtle, so there is no way for these birds to know whether one is lying in wait for them. Instead they wait for one bird, who might be exceptionally bold, or exceptionally stupid, to jump in alone. If that bird returns with a belly full of fish, they all jump in. If that bird never comes back, they wait.”

“The similitude is clear,” Jack said. “The merchants of Surat are like the birds on the ice floe, waiting to see who will be bold, or stupid, enough to attempt the passage to Delhi first.”

“That merchant will reap incomparably higher profits than the others,” Surendranath said encouragingly.

“Assuming his caravan actually makes it to Delhi, that is,” said Padraig.

SHORTLY THEY PASSED out through the gate and proceeded south-westwards into Kathiawar, which was a peninsula, a couple of hundred miles square, that projected into the Arabian Sea between the Mouths of the Indus on the west, and the Indian subcontinent on the east. The city of Ahmadabad bestrode a river called Sabarmati that flowed south from there for a few miles and spilled into the Gulf of Cambaye—a long, slender inlet that lay along the east coast of this Kathiawar.

But both of these types—the Banyans and the Moguls—eyed Jack in a way that made him uneasy, and tried to beckon him over. It was just like being in Amsterdam or Liverpool, where solitary males who did not keep their wits about them were liable to be press-ganged. When Jack understood this he disappeared, which was something he had become good at, and made his way back to Surendranath’s little camp.

“There are quite a few people hereabouts who look as if they’d like to administer the Intelligence Test to us,” he said to Padraig.

Padraig accepted this news with a tiny nod of the head. But Surendranath had overheard them. He had retreated into his palanquin and drawn red curtains around it for privacy, and it was easy to forget he was there.

“What is the Intelligence Test?” he demanded to know, and swept the curtain aside.

“A private joke,” said the annoyed Padraig.

But Jack saw good reasons to explain it, and so he said, “Cast your memory back to when Fortune had set us ashore in Surat—”

“I remember it every day,” said Surendranath.

“You stayed there to pursue your career. We fled inland to get away from the diverse European assassins who infested that town, and who were all looking for us. Soon enough, we came upon a Mogul road-block. Hindoos and Mohametans were allowed to pass through with only minor harassment and taking of baksheesh, but when it became known that we were Franks, they took us aside and made us sit in a tent together. One by one, each of us was taken out alone, and conducted to a field nearby, and handed a musket—which was unloaded—and a powder-horn, and pouch of balls.”

“What did you do?” Surendranath demanded.

“Gaped at it like a farmer.”

“I likewise,” said Padraig.

“So you failed the Intelligence Test?”

“I would rather say that we passed it. Van Hoek did the same as we. Mr. Foot tried to load the musket, but got the procedure backwards—put the ball in first, then the powder. But Vrej Esphahnian and Monsieur Arlanc loaded the weapon and discharged it in the general direction of a Hindoo idol that the Moguls had been using for target practice.”

“They were inducted,” said Surendranath.

“This happened north of Surat?”

“Yes. Not far from the Habitation of Dust.”

“So, were you in the realm of Terror of the Idolaters?”

“No,” said Padraig, “this road-block was at a border crossing. The Moguls who gave us the Intelligence Test, and who press-ganged our friends, were in the pay of—”

“Dispenser of Mayhem!” cried Surendranath.

“The very same,” said Jack.

“That is an unexpected boon for us,” said the Banyan. “For as you know, the realm of Dispenser of Mayhem lies squarely astride the road to Delhi.”

“That amounts to saying that Dispenser of Mayhem has been doing a miserable job of controlling the Marathas,” Jack said.

“Which means that if we can find Vrej Esphahnian and Monsieur Arlanc, they will have much useful intelligence for us!”

Jack reckoned that this was as good a moment as any to spring the trap. “Indeed, it seems as if the Cabal—wretched and scattered though we are—may be very useful to you, Surendranath. Or to whichever merchant ends up hiring us, and making the run to Delhi first.”

A sort of brisk whooshing noise now, as Surendranath yanked the curtain closed around his palanquin. Then silence—though Jack thought he could hear a curious throbbing, as if Surendranath were trying to stifle agonized laughter.

The next morning they got under way early and traveled for a few miles to a border, where they crossed into the realm of Shatterer of Worlds.

“Shatterer of Worlds has extirpated the local Marathas, but there are ragged bandit gangs all over the place,” Surendranath said.

“Reminds me of France,” Jack mused.

“The comparison is apt,” Surendranath said. “As a matter of fact, it is not even a comparison. Shatterer of Worlds is a Frenchman.”

“Those damned Frogs are everywhere!” Jack exclaimed. “Does the Great Mogul have any other kings from Christendom?”

“I believe that Bringer of Thunder is a Neapolitan artilleryman. He owns a piece of Rajasthan.”

“Would you like us to round up some Frankish clothes, then? To scare away the highwaymen?” Padraig inquired.

“No need—in Kathiawar, they still observe the ancient customs,” said Surendranath, and alighted from his palanquin to parley with some Hindoos who were squatting by the side of the road. In a few minutes, one of them arose and took up a position in the front of the tiny caravan.

A STICK WAS JABBED into the salty concrete that passed for soil hereabouts. A yard away was another stick. A third stick had been lashed across the tops of the first two, and a fourth across the bottom. Miles of vermilion thread had been run back and forth between the top and bottom stick. A woman in an orange sari squatted before this contrivance maneuvering a smaller stick through the vertical threads, drawing another thread behind it. A couple of yards away was the same thing again, except that the sticks, the colors, and the woman were different; and this woman was chatting with a third woman who had also managed to round up four sticks and some thread.

The same was repeated all the way to the horizon on both sides of the road. Some of the weavers were working with coarse undyed thread, but most of their work was in vivid colors that burned in the light of the sun. In some places there would be an irregular patch of green, or blue, or yellow, where some group of weavers were filling a large order. In other zones, each weaver worked with a different thread and so there might be an acre or two in which no two frames were of the same color. The only people who were standing were a few boys carrying water; a smattering of bony wretches bent under racks of thread that were strapped to their backs; and a two-wheeled ox-cart meandering about and collecting finished bits of cloth. A rutted road cut through the middle of it all, headed off in the general direction of Diu: a Portuguese enclave at the tip of Kathiawar. This was the third day of their journey from Ahmadabad. The Charan continued to plod along ahead of them, humming to himself, occasionally eating a handful of something from a bag slung over his shoulder.

Out of all the thousands of Pieces of India stretched out for viewing, one caught Jack’s eye, like a familiar face in a crowd: a square of blue Calicoe just like one of Eliza’s dresses. He decided that he had better get some conversation going.

“Your narration puts me in mind of a question I have been meaning to ask of the first Hindoo I met who had the faintest idea what the hell I was saying,” he said.

Down in the palanquin, Surendranath startled awake.

Padraig sat up straighter in his saddle and blinked. “But no one has said a word these last two hours, Jack.”

Surendranath was game. “There is much in Hindoostan that cries out, to the Western mind, for explanation,” he said agreeably.

Surendranath leaned forward in his palanquin and looked as if he were just about to answer, then settled back into his cushions with a faint smile under the twin spirals of his waxed moustachio. “It is a mystery of the Orient,” he said gravely.

“For Christ’s sake, you people need to get organized,” Jack said. “You don’t even have a common government—it’s Moguls up here, and from what you are telling me, if we went south we would soon enough run afoul of those Marathas, and farther south yet, it’s those fiends in human form, who’ve got Moseh and Dappa and the others—”

“Your memories of that day have run together like cheaply dyed textiles in the monsoon rain,” Surendranath said.

“Excuse me, I was trying not to drown at the time.”

“So was I.”

“If they weren’t fiends in human form, why did you jump overboard?” Padraig asked.

“Because I wanted to get to Surat, and those pirates, whoever or whatever they were, they would have taken us the opposite direction,” said Surendranath.

“Why do you suppose we jumped out, then?”

“You feared that they were Balochi pirates,” Surendranath said.

Padraig: “Those are the ones who cut their captives’ Achilles tendons to prevent them escaping?”

Surendranath: “Yes.”

Jack: “But wait! If they are Balochis, it follows that they are from Balochistan! If only they would stay put, that is.”

Surendranath: “Of course.”

Jack: “But Balochistan is that hellish bit that went by to port—the country that vomited hot dust on us for three weeks.”

Surendranath: “The description is cruel but fair.”

Jack: “That would be a Mahometan country if ever there was one.”

Surendranath: “Balochis are Muslims.”

Padraig: “It’s all coming back to me. We thought they were Balochi pirates at first because they came after us in a Balochi-looking ship. Which, if true, would have been good for all of us save Dappa and you, Surendranath, because we were all Christians or Jews, hence People of the Book. Our Achilles tendons were safe.”

Surendranath: “I must correct you: it wasn’t all right for van Hoek.”

Jack: “True, but only because he’d made that asinine vow, when we were in Cairo, that he’d cut his hand off if he were ever taken by pirates again. Consequently he, you, and Dappa were making ready to jump ship.”

Padraig: “My recollection is that van Hoek meant to stay and fight.”

Jack: “The Irishman speaks the truth. The cap’n took us between two islands, in the Gulf of Cambaye over yonder—whereupon we were beset by the second pirate ship, which was obviously acting in concert with the first.”

Padraig: “But this one was much closer and was manned by—how do you say—”

Surendranath: “Sangano pirates. Hindoos who steal, but do not kidnap, enslave, maim, or torture, except insofar as they have to in order to steal.”

Jack: “And who had apparently taken that first ship from some luckless Balochi pirates, which is why we mistook them for Balochis at first.”

Surendranath: “To this point, you are speaking the truth, as I recollect it.”

Padraig: “No wonder—this is the point when you jumped out!”

Surendranath: “It made sense for me to jump out, because it was obvious that we were going to lose all of the gold to the Sangano pirates. But van Hoek was preparing to fight to the death.”

Jack: “I must not have heard the splash, Surendranath, as my mind was occupied with other concerns. Van Hoek, as you say, was steering a course for open water in the middle of the Gulf, probably with the intention of fighting it out to the end. But we hadn’t gone more than a mile when we stumbled directly into the path of a raiding-flotilla, whereupon all of the boats—ours, and our pursuers’—were fair game for this new group.”

Padraig: “Darkies, but not Africans.”

Jack: “Hindoos, but not Hindoostanis, precisely.”

Jack: “There are rumored to be some in the Caribbean—but—none the less—it was a queer group indeed.”

Surendranath: “You are describing Malabar pirates, then.”

Jack: “As I said—fiends in human form!”

Surendranath: “They do things differently in Malabar.”

Padraig: “At any rate, even van Hoek could now see it was hopeless, and so he jumped, which was preferable to cutting his hand off.”

Surendranath: “Why did you jump, Padraig?”

Padraig: “I fled from Ireland, in the first place, specifically to get away from matriarchal oppression. Why did you jump, Jack?”

Jack: “Rumors had begun to circulate that the Malabar pirates were even more cruel to Christians than the Balochi pirates were to Hindoos.”

Surendranath: “Nonsense! You were misinformed. The Mohametan Malabar pirates are that way, to be sure. But if the ships you saw were commanded by women, then they must have been Hindoo Malabar pirates.”

Padraig: “They are rich female Hindoo Malabar pirates now.”

Jack: “Mr. Foot had run to the head, either to take a shite (which is what he normally does at such times) or to wave a white flag. But he tripped on a loose gold bar and pitched overboard. I went after him, knowing he couldn’t swim. The water turned out to be less than two fathoms deep—I nearly broke my leg hitting the bottom. Accordingly, our ship ran aground at nearly the same moment. The rest is a blur.”

Padraig: “It’s not such a blur. You and I, Monsieur Arlanc, Mr. Foot, van Hoek, and Vrej waded, bobbed, and dog-paddled across those endless shallows for a day or two. At some point we re-encountered Surendranath. Finally we washed up near Surat. The Armenian and the Frenchman later failed the Intelligence Test and wound up in the army of Dispenser of Mayhem.”

Surendranath: “Concerning those two, by the way, I have sent out some messages to my cousin in Udaipur—he will make inquiries.”

They came over the top of a gentle rise and saw new country ahead. A mile or two distant, the road crossed a small river that ran from right to left towards the Gulf of Cambaye, which was barely visible as a grayish fuzz on the eastern horizon. The river crossing was commanded by a mud-brick fort, and around the fort was a meager walled town. Jack already knew what they would find there: a landing for boats coming up the river from the Gulf, and a marketplace where Pieces of India were peddled to Banyans or European buyers.

Jack said, “It will be good to see Vrej and Arlanc again, assuming they are still alive, and I will enjoy listening to their war-stories. But I already know what they would tell us, if they were here.”

This announcement seemed to startle Padraig and Surendranath, and so Jack explained, “There must be some advantage to growing old, or else why would we put up with it?”

“You’re not old,” Padraig said, “you can’t be forty yet.”

“Stay. I have lived through more than most old men. Letters I have not learned, nor numbers, and so I cannot read a book, nor navigate a ship, nor calculate the proper angle for an artillery-piece. But people I know well—better than I should like to—and so the situation of Hindoostan is all too clear to me. It is clear when I watch you, Surendranath, speaking of the Moguls, and you, Padraig, speaking of the English.”

“Will you share your wisdom with us then, O Jack?” Padraig asked.

“If Vrej Esphahnian and Monsieur Arlanc were here, they would tell us that the Marathas are angry, well-organized, and not afraid to die, and that the Moguls are orgulous and corrupt—that the rulers of this Empire live better while besieging some Maratha fortress than the Hindoos do when they are at peace. They would tell us, in other words, that this rebellion is a serious matter, and that we cannot get the caravan of Surendranath from Surat to Delhi by dint of charm or bribery.”

“You seem to be telling me that it is impossible,” Surendranath said. “Perhaps we should turn around and go back to the Habitation of Dust.”

“Surendranath, which would you rather be: the first bird to jump off the ice floe, or the first bird to climb back onto it with a belly full of fish?”

“The question answers itself,” Surendranath said.

“If you listen to my advice, you will not be the former, but you will be the latter.”

“You think other caravans will leave Surat first, and fall prey to the rebels,” Surendranath translated.

“I believe that any caravan headed to Delhi will have to face the Maratha army at some point,” Jack said. “The first such caravan to drive the Marathas from the field shall be the first to reach its destination.”

“I cannot hire an army,” Surendranath said.

“I did not say you need to hire an army. I said you need to drive the Marathas from the field.”

“You speak like a fakir,” Surendranath said darkly.

They were crowded so closely together that if Jack had not been mounted he wouldn’t have been able to see the object of their attention: a gray-haired European man dressed up in clothes that had been out-moded, in England, before Jack had been born. He wore a black frock coat and a broad-brimmed black Pilgrim-hat and a frayed shirt that made him look like a wandering Puritan bible-pounder. And indeed there was an old worm-eaten Bible in view, resting on a low table—actually a plank, just barely spanning the gap between a couple of improvised sawbucks, with a stained and torn cloth thrown over it. Next to the Bible was another tome that Jack recognized as a hymn-book, and next to the hymnal, a little place setting: a china plate flanked by a rusty knife and fork.

Jack seemed to have arrived during a lull, which soon came to an end as an excited young Hindoo came running in from the market nearby, a dripping object held in his cupped hands. The crowd parted for him. He scampered up and deposited it in the center of the fakir’s plate: a metal-gray giblet leaking blood and clear juice. Then he jumped back as if his hands had been burned, and ran over to wipe his hands on a nearby patch of grass.

The fakir sat for a few moments regarding the kidney with extreme solemnity, waiting for the buzz of the crowd to die away. Only when complete silence had fallen over the maidan did he reach for the knife and fork. He gripped one in each hand and held them poised over the organ for a few agonizing moments. The crowd underwent a sort of convulsion as every onlooker shifted to a better viewing angle.

The fakir appeared to lose his nerve, and set the utensils down. A sigh of mixed relief and disappointment ran through the onlookers. Someone darted up and tossed a paisa onto the table. The fakir put his hands together in a prayerful attitude and muttered indistinctly for a while, then reached for his Bible, opened it up, and read a paragraph or two, faltering as he came to bits that had been elided by book-worms. But this was something from the Old Testament with many “begats” and so it scarcely mattered.

…and so on in that vein until the fire-eater and the Dervish were screaming at him to shut up.

Pretending to ignore their protests, the Christian fakir closed up the hymnal, took up knife and fork for the third time, and—having finally mustered the spiritual power to proceed—pierced the kidney. A jet of urine lunged out and nearly spattered an audacious boy, who jumped back screaming. The fakir took a good long time sawing off a piece of the organ. The crowd crept inwards again, not because anyone really wanted to get any closer, but because people kept blocking one another’s view. The fakir impaled the morsel on the tines of the fork and raised it on high so that even the groundlings in the back row could get a clear view. Then in one quick movement he popped it into his mouth and began to chew it up.

Several fled wailing. Coins began to zero in on the fakir from diverse points of the compass. But after his Adam’s apple moved up and down, and he opened his mouth wide to show it empty, and curled his tongue back to show he wasn’t hiding anything, a barrage of paisas and even rupees came down on him.

“A stirring performance, Mr. Foot,” said Jack, half an hour later, as they were all riding out of town together. “Lo these many months I have been worried sick about you, wondering how you were getting along—unfoundedly, as it turns out.”

“Very considerate of you, then, to show up unasked-for to share your poverty with me,” said Mr. Foot waspishly. Jack had extracted him from the maidan suddenly and none too gently, even to the point of leaving half the kidney sitting on the plate uneaten.

“I regret I missed the show,” said Padraig.

“Nothing you haven’t seen before in a thousand pubs,” Jack answered mildly.

“E’en so,” said Padraig,” it had to’ve been better than what I’ve been doing the last hour: sneaking round peering at idolaters’ piss-pots.”

“What learned you?”

“Same as in the last village—they do it in pots. Untouchables come round once a day to empty them,” Padraig answered.

“Are the piss and shit always mixed together or—”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

“First kidney-eating and now chamber-pots!” exclaimed Surendranath from his palanquin. “Why this keen curiosity concerning all matters related to urine?”

“Maybe we will have better luck in Diu,” Jack said enigmatically.

THAT RIVER-CROSSING MARKED THE BEGINNING of a long, slow climb up into some dark hills to the south. Surendranath assured them that it was possible to circumvent the Gir Hills simply by following the coastal roads, but Jack insisted that they go right through the middle. At one point he led them off into a dense stand of trees, and spent a while tromping around in the undergrowth hefting various branches and snapping them over his knee to judge their dryness. This was the only part of the trip when they were in anything like danger, for (a) Jack surprised a cobra and (b) half a dozen bandits came out brandishing crude, but adequate, weapons. The Hindoo whom Surendranath had hired finally did something useful: viz. pulled a small dagger, hardly more than a paring-knife really, from his cummerbund and held it up to his own neck and then stood there adamantly threatening to cut his own throat.

The effect on the bandits was as if this fellow had summoned forth a whole artillery-regiment and surrounded them with loaded cannons. They dropped their armaments and held forth their hands beseechingly and pleaded with him in Gujarati for a while. After lengthy negotiations, fraught with unexpected twists and alarming setbacks, the Charan finally consented not to hurt himself, the bandits fled, and the party moved on.

Within the hour they had passed over the final crest of the Hills of Gir and come to a height-of-land whence they could look straight down a south-flowing river valley to the coast: the end of the Kathiawar Peninsula. At the point where the river emptied into the sea was a white speck; beyond it, the Arabian Sea stretched away forever.

They stopped short of the city wall, and made no effort to go in through those gates, guarded as they were by Portuguese soldiers. The Charan said his farewell and hunkered down by the side of the road to await some northbound caravan that might be in need of his protection. Jack, Padraig, Mr. Foot, Surendranath, and their small retinue began to wander through the jumbled suburbs, scattering peacocks and diverting around sacred cows, stopping frequently to ask for directions. After a while Jack caught a whiff of malt and yeast on the breeze, and from that point onwards they were able to follow their noses.

Finally they arrived at a little compound piled high with faggots of spindly wood and round baskets of grain. A giant kettle was dangling over a fire, and a short red-headed man was standing over it gazing at his own reflection: not because he was a narcissist, but because this was how brewers judged the temperature of their wort. Behind him, a couple of Hindoo workers were straining to heave a barrel of beer up into a two-wheeled cart: bound, no doubt, for a Portuguese garrison inside the walls.

“It is all as tidy and prosperous as anything in Hindoostan could be,” Jack announced, riding slowly into the middle of it. “A little corner of Amsterdam here at the butt-end of Kathiawar.”

The redhead’s blue eyes swivelled up one notch, and gazed at Jack levelly through a rising cataract of steam.

“But it was never meant to last,” Jack continued, “and you know that as well as I do, Otto van Hoek.”

“It has lasted as well as anything that is of this earth.”

“But when you make your delivery-rounds, to the garrisons and the wharves, you must look at those beautiful ships.”

“Then of ships speak to me,” said van Hoek, “or else go away.”

“Tap us a keg and dump out that kettle,” Jack said, “so we can put it to alchemical uses. I have just ridden down out of the Hills of Gir, and firewood is plentiful there. And as long as you keep peddling your merchandise to the good people of Diu, the other thing we need will be plentiful here.”

“No one denies it,” said Surendranath, “but even you must admit that the inexhaustible fount and ever-bubbling wellspring of nonsense, gibberish, and fraud was Ali Zaybak!”

“I cede the point gladly,” said Padraig, and both men turned to see if Jack would respond to their baiting. But Jack had been distracted by an odor foul enough to register even on his raspy and inflamed olfactory. Van Hoek had got the bandage off his right hand. The tips of his three remaining fingers were swollen and weeping.

“I told you,” said Jack, “you should have used this stuff.” He gestured to the aloe-plant, or rather the stump of it, as Jack had just snapped off the last remaining branch. It was growing in a pot of damp dirt, which was carried on its own wee palanquin: a plank supported at each end by a boy. “The Portuguese brought it out of Africa,” Jack explained.

“Truly you are thinking like an Alchemist, then,” muttered van Hoek, staring morosely at his rotting digits. “Everyone knows that the only treatment for burns is butter. It is proof of how far gone you are in outlandish ways, that you would rather use some occult potion out of Africa!”

“When do you think you’ll amputate?” Jack inquired.

“This evening,” said van Hoek. “That way I shall have twenty-four hours to recuperate before the battle.” He looked to Surendranath for confirmation.

“If our objective were to make time, and to cross the Narmada by day, we could do it tomorrow,” said Surendranath. “But as our true purpose is to ‘fall behind schedule,’ and reach the crossing too late, and be trapped against the river by the fall of night, we may proceed at a leisurely pace. This evening’s camp would be a fine time and place to carry out a minor amputation. I shall make inquiries about getting you some syrup of poppies.”

“More chymistry!” van Hoek scoffed, and dipped his hand into a pot of ghee. But he did not object to Surendranath’s proposal. “I could have been a brewer,” he mused. “In fact, I was!”

Some simple deals struck with the caste of night-soil-collectors and chamber-pot-emptiers caused jugs, barrels, and hogsheads of piss to come trundling into van Hoek’s brewery-compound every morning. By and large these had been covered, to keep the stink down, but Jack insisted that the lids be taken off and the piss be allowed to stand open under the sun. Complaints from the neighbors—consisting largely of religious orders—had not been long in coming. And it was then that Mr. Foot had come into his own; for he’d been at work with needle and thread, converting his black Puritan get-up into a sort of Wizard’s robe. His line of patter consisted half of Alchemy—which Jack had dictated—and half of Popery, which Padraig Tallow could and did rattle off in his sleep.

What Jack knew of Alchemy-talk came partly from the mountebanks who would stand along the Pont-Neuf peddling bits of the Philosopher’s Stone; partly from Enoch Root; and partly from tales that he had been told, more recently, by Nyazi, who knew nothing of chymistry but was the last word on all matters to do with camels.

All of this was, of course, a long-winded way of letting the neighbors know that Jack and company were about to stink the place up to a degree that no one who had not been near a mountain of fermenting camel shit could even imagine; but Mr. Foot delivered the terrible news at such numbing length and so laden down with homiletical baggage as to beat his auditors into submission before the essential point of what he was saying had even penetrated their minds.

As was ever true of any work that entailed the bending and beating of metal, the conversion of the tuns took longer than anticipated. What Jack was after was a single great round-bottomed wide-mouthed boiler, and a means to suspend it over a “bloody enormous” fire. This was simple enough. But at a later, critical stage of the operation he needed to clamp a sort of hat down over the maw of the kettle, and channel the vapors along a tube to another, smaller vessel where they could be bubbled through water. For the most practical of reasons, it was preferable that this latter vessel be made of glass. But it had proved difficult to get a glass container so large, and so they made do with copper. This explained what happened to Padraig; for against Jack’s express instructions, he had, while they were making a trial batch, lifted the lid to peer inside, and been greeted by a jet of white flame.

Around the time of this mishap, managerial acumen arrived in the person of Monsieur Arlanc, and, in Vrej Esphahnian, entrepreneurial legerdemain. Arlanc pointed out that it would be difficult to hire good people, or to maintain their reputation as proficient Alchemists, if the principals were forever torching off body parts, and making the Kathiawar Peninsula ring with screams of agony. Vrej, for his part, had proffered the observation that they would soon need to procure a large number of glass vessels anyway, and so it was high time to begin investigating the local market in such wares.

But then finally a cart-train came down out of the north laden with charcoal and with firewood, and Vrej Esphahnian unveiled a wooden crate containing a gross of glass bottles (smoky brown, striated, and bubbly, but more or less transparent), and they were ready to go. Jack had mentioned to them, and Padraig had demonstrated beyond all question, that the apparatus would destroy itself in a spitting storm of white fire shortly after they were finished using it; they had, in other words, one and only one chance.

When Jack was satisfied with the progress of the caulking and sealing of the great dunce-cap, he ascended the platform—a tinker’s shop and an apothecary-store of ladles, funnels, bottles, and terra-cotta vessels of clove-oil—and was pleased to observe a slight rise in the water-level, followed by a blurp and a collapse as some residual steam forced its way through the water-trap in the U-bend. This happened several more times in the next few minutes as the very last of the moisture was exhaled from the humid cake in the kettle, but then it stopped. There was then an interlude, which grew awkward the longer it went on; but Jack bid them keep stoking the fire and have faith. He was viewing the water level with respect to a wee bubble trapped in the glass pane, and for a while it did not move at all. But then it rose up distinctly, and a moment later a little belch of vapor shimmered up through the water and broke out the top. “It begins!” he announced.

“This will all be smoking ruins by break of day,” he announced, “let us gather what we may of the kaltes Feuer and preserve it from the air, and ourselves from fiery death!”

They went about that in two ways. First, someone would from time to time dip a ladle into the top of the bubbler and scoop out portions of the water, and along with it, flecks and flakes of cold fire that swirled through it like sparks above a campfire. This they decanted through funnels into the bottles that Vrej had procured. The glowing bottles were handed down to others on the ground, who stopped them with rags to prevent air from getting in. These were then placed into a tray of simmering water that was going over a bed of coals. Gradually, over a period of hours, the level of water within these bottles declined as it escaped through the rag stoppers. But the amount of light escaping from them did not diminish, for the waxy phosphorus was trapped inside, and tended to cling to the walls, so that each bottle over time acquired a blotchy lining of weird light. When these bottles were nearly dry, they were plucked out and plunged neck-first into a tar-pot, to seal them against infiltration of air.

Second, they dumped ladles of the stuff into clay pots each of which contained a small amount of clove oil. The water fell through the oil and found the bottom of the pot, shedding some of its burden of phosphorus along the way. These pots were then subjected to a similar process of gentle heating, so that the water trapped beneath the oil was driven out as steam. When these pots stopped blurping and steaming, it meant that all the water was gone, and nothing was left but phosphorus suspended in oil. The oil coated the tiny particules of phosphorus and prevented air from touching them, which rendered the stuff safe.

“YOU WILL BE AMUSED to know that where I come from, swords are straight,” Jack said. “Some are broader, and indeed, being a plain-spoken people, we call those broadswords. Some are of intermediate size, as rapiers, others whisker-thin, as the small-swords that are lately in vogue. Oh, admittedly one sees a few blades with a bit of a curve to them, as in your cutlass or saber. But compared to these, they’re all straight as a line, as are the style and tactics of their usage. Compared to which…” Jack extended a hand towards a Mobb of warriors that they had picked up in Surat. There were Yavanas—which was to say, Muslims—who had come across the water from the lands to the west, or down out of Afghanistan, Balochistan, or this or that Khanate. And there were Hindoos of diverse martial castes who for whatever reason had elected to throw in their lot with the Moguls. But even within the smallest discernible sub-sub-subtribe each warrior had a weapon—or at least, a dangerous-looking object—completely different from the next bloke’s.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me it is all quite mundane compared to the weaponry of our adversaries,” Jack muttered.

“In truth you have waxed so peevish that I have avoided that, and all other topics of conversation, these last few hours,” said Surendranath.

The Banyan was in his palanquin. Jack rode a horse. This helped explain the peevishness, for the former reclined in the shade of a roof while the latter was protected only by a turban.

“Verily this must be the kingdom of Gordy himself,” said Jack.

“Who or what is Gordy?”

“Some bloke who had a Knot once, so tangled that the only way to get it undone was to chop it in twain. The story is proverbial among ferangs. It is what we are about to do at the crossing of the Narmada. Rather than see all of these blokes cross scimitars, kitars, khandas, jamdhars, tranchangs, et cetera with the Marathas, we are going to cut the Gordian Knot.”

“To you it may be a proverb of great significance but to me it is meaningless,” said Surendranath, “and I would fain have something like an actual plan of battle before we meet the foe, which will probably occur this very night.”

Here Surendranath was only pointing out something that had been weighing on Jack’s mind anyway, which was that they had been so preoccupied with making the phosphorus, and recovering from having made it, that they’d not thought much about what to do with it. So Padraig, Vrej, Monsieur Arlanc, and Mr. Foot were sent for, and presently rode up to join Jack and Surendranath. Van Hoek had chopped off the tips of his fingers the night before and, still woozy from shock and opium, was being carried behind on another palanquin.

“This country that we have been traveling through,” said the Banyan, “is hardly the type of scene to make any of you write awe-struck letters home, but it is the most dangerous and unsettled part of Hindoostan.”

“If you think of Hindoostan as a great diamond, then the valley of the Narmada, which we are about to cross, is like a flaw that runs through the heart of it. Hindoostan has ever been divided among several kingdoms. Their names change, and so do their borders—with one exception, and that is the Narmada, which is a natural boundary between the north and the south. North of it, invaders come and go, and control of the cities and strongholds passes from one dynasty to another. To the south, it is a different story. You cannot see them from here, but there is a line of mountains cutting across Hindoostan from east to west called the Satpura Range. The Narmada drains their northern slopes, flowing along the mountains’ northern flank through a straight deep gorge for many days’ journey. The westernmost extremity of this range is called the Rajpipla Hills, and if the air were not so hazy we would be able to see them off to our right. A day’s journey thataway, the Rajpipla Hills draw back away from the Narmada, which, thus freed from the constraints of the gorge, adopts a meandering habit, and snakes across this plain, and broadens to an estuary much like that of the Tapti which we have just put behind us.

“Can we rely on them to attack us at night?” Jack asked.

“Only if we are so foolish as to reach the south bank of the Narmada at dusk and attempt a night crossing.”

“So be it then,” Jack said. “Clever stratagems are quite beyond my powers, but if it is rank foolishness you require, I have no end of it.”

JACK RODE AHEAD to view the battle-field in daylight, and to put the mercenaries where he wanted them. With help from a hired guide, he found a suitable place to feign a crossing. A few miles inland of where the Narmada broadened to an estuary, it described a Z, swept around in an oxbow, described an S, and resumed its westward course. In the center of the SZ was a mushroom-shaped head of gravel and sand bulging northwards into the oxbow, and connected at its southern end by the neck of land pinched between the opposing river-bends. In each of these bends, the river’s flow had undercut the banks, which rose above the water to no more than the height of a man, but were steep, and covered with scrub. Anyone coming to the river from the south would be funneled through a quarter-mile-wide gap between these bends. Beyond that narrow pass, the neck broadened and flattened, sloping imperceptibly down to the inner bank of the oxbow. The river was broad and shallow there, and seemed an inviting place for a ford; but this was of course the inner or concave surface of the oxbow-bend, and anyone who knew rivers would expect the opposite bank—the oxbow’s outer or convex face—to be steeper. Looking across, Jack saw that this was likely the case, though it was obscured by reeds. His local guide assured him that camels, horses, and bullocks could ascend the far bank, and thereby cross over into the North of India, but only if they attempted it in certain places known to him, which he would divulge for a fee. Beasts of burden attempting to ford the river in the wrong places would, however, face slow going through the reeds, only to find their way barred by a bank too steep to scale.

“I’ll pay you the amount you have named,” Jack promised him, “and I’ll double it if you allow me to strike you a few times with this riding-crop.”

This required lengthy and difficult translation; but the result in the end was that a ferang on a horse could be seen chasing the poor guide all the way out of the oxbow, flailing at him wildly, and cursing the wretch for his greed. Having done which, he wheeled his mount, rode back to the ford, and began pointing out, to his mercenaries, those places that to him seemed best for a crossing.

An unexpected but desirable effect of this reconnaissance was that the mercenaries sorted themselves out. For they were scouting Jack, and what they understood to be Jack’s plan. They began clumping together, the better to conduct arguments, and presently whole bands of them turned their backs on the enterprise and bolted down-river, headed for Anklesvar or Broach. Though Jack put on a great show of outrage at this, he was in truth pleased with it. The loss of so many mercenaries would make them seem all the more vulnerable in the eyes of the Maratha scouts who, as he knew perfectly well, were observing his every move; and the ones who had remained probably could be depended on. As soon as the deserters were out of earshot, Jack called the remaining ones together.

The Cabal had gone out of their way to recruit men who were proficient in the use of that ancient and simple weapon, the sling. They had rounded up approximately two score of them. Almost none of these had deserted—for they were the lowest-paid and most desperate of all mercenaries. Jack divided them into two platoons and bade them make themselves comfortable on the mushroom-shaped peninsula: one platoon on the western or downstream lobe, the other on the eastern or upstream lobe.

Of the remaining mercenaries, some were edged-weapons men; he set these to work digging a line of fox-holes across the narrowest part of the neck. But he made certain that they could fall back somewhere; and he put those idle slingers to work scooping out some trenches for just that purpose. Others of the mercenaries were archers, and he arranged these in the center of the peninsula so that they could fire volleys over the heads of the men defending the neck.

Even from his less than ideal vantage-point, viz. standing in a tent slathering himself with strange-smelling oil, Jack could picture everything that went wrong just from the bellowing, the immense splashes, futile whip-cracks, curses in diverse tongues, and snapping of spokes and axles.

Even this tumult, however, did not suffice to drown out the sound of the Maratha onslaught. Crafty and subtle these rebels might be when filtering down out of the hills, but on the attack they were as loud as any other army, and perhaps louder than some, as they were fond of drums, cymbals, and other means of terrifying the enemy’s critters at a distance. Jack put his eye to a hole in the tent to behold their approach. He had been told over and over again about the Marathas’ generous use of elephants in combat, but had scoffed. For all of the strange places Jack had been, there was in him enough of the East London mudlark that he could not believe such a thing was actually done in this world. And yet, on they came: moving battle-towers, lit with torches and agleam with metal, shingled all over with armor, swinging tusks a-bristle with scythe-blades of watered steel. Five abreast these creatures came on to the neck of land, and about their knees swarmed a moving carpet of infantry, their wicked blades gleaming by moonlight, a geometry-lesson from Hell. The air puckered with the peculiar sound made by many arrows: some out-bound from the archers who stood around the tent, but many incoming. A few snicked in through the roof of the tent.

“Bang!” suggested Jack, and a moment later a musket was fired outside by Vrej, as a signal.

Their plan was extremely simple, and so many events were triggered by the firing of this one shot. On the northern bank of the oxbow, local guides kindled bonfires; these shone out across the river as beacons marking the places where the bank was easiest to scale. The caravan-drivers, trapped between the river and the Maratha onslaught, needed no further incentive to make for those lights. Soon the river was striped in four places by columns of sloshing beasts.

All of which, wild and memorable though it was, remained well within the normal limits of what one saw in warfare. Night battles were unusual, and (to Jack anyway) ones involving elephants were outlandish; but for all that, it was just a battle. Until a hundred glowing bottles of phosphorus were lobbed out of the scrub to either side of the neck, and dropped out of the sky like falling stars, and burst upon the ground among the attackers. They came in a few ragged volleys, and by the time the last one had fallen, most of the ground that stretched before the Maratha vanguard was glowing. And as if that were not enough, some of it was bursting into flame.

One of the elephants made known his intention to turn around and go back. Jack could not discern, from this range, whether his driver was of the same mind, or not; but it did not matter, for the elephant was leaving. And perhaps he was some sort of a leader among pachyderms, for the idea spread to the others fast and unquenchable as phosphorus-fire. When several elephants with razor-sharp blades all over their tusks decide to pirouette in the midst of a tightly packed mob, there is apt to be disorder, and such was the case now; Jack could not really see through the arch of radiance, but could infer as much from the vocalizations of the Marathas, which sounded like every Italian opera ever written being sung at once.

“Mr. Foot!” Jack called out to a fiery blob hurtling to and fro in pursuit of demoralized foe-men, “turn thee around and let’s to the river. Nothing but dust now lies between us and the Court of the Great Mogul in Shahjahanabad; and he had damn well better be grateful, lest we boil up some urine in his town.”