The Confusion: Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle

by Neal Stephenson

  But oddly enough, a letter had come across M. Rossignol’s desk, apparently postmarked from Sanlúcar de Barrameda around the fifth day of August. A strange heathenish-looking thing it had been, apparently penned and sealed in some Mahometan place and transported none too gently across the sea to Sanlúcar. It was written in Armenian, and it was addressed to an Armenian family in Paris. The address given was the Bastille.

  As bizarre, as striking as this was, even I might have let it pass without further notice had it not been for the fact that on the sixth of August a remarkable act of piracy is said to have taken place off Sanlúcar: as you may have heard, a band of Barbary Corsairs, disguised as galley-slaves, boarded a ship recently returned from New Spain and made off with some silver. I am certain that M. le duc d’Arcachon is somehow implicated.

  [Written later in a more legible hand]

  We have reached the Paris dwelling of the de Lavardacs, the Hôtel d’Arcachon, and I am now at a proper writing-desk, as you can see.

  To finish that matter of the Armenian letter: I know that you, Doctor, have an interest in strange systems of writing, and that you are in charge of a great library. If you have anything on the Armenian language, I invite you to correspond with M. Rossignol. For though he is fascinated by this letter, he can do very little with it. He had one of his clerks make an accurate copy of the thing, then re-sealed it, and has been trying to track down any surviving addressees, in hopes that he may deliver it to them. If they are alive, and they choose to write back, M. Rossignol will inspect their letter and try to glean more clews as to the nature of the cypher (if any) they are using.

  § Speaking of letters, I must get this one posted today, and so let me raise one more matter. This concerns Sophie’s banker, Lothar von Hacklheber.

  I saw Lothar recently in Lyon. I did not wish to see him, but he was difficult to evade. Both of us had been invited to dinner at the home of a prominent member of the Dépôt. For various reasons I could not refuse the invitation; I suspect that Lothar orchestrated the whole affair.

  To shorten this account somewhat, I shall tell you now what I only divined later. For as my driver and footmen would be tarrying in the stables for some hours with Lothar’s, I had given instructions to mine that they should find out all that they could from his. It had become obvious that Lothar was trying to dig up information concerning me, and I reckoned that turnabout was fair play. Of course his grooms and drivers could know nothing of what Lothar had been thinking or doing, but they would at least know where he had gone and when.

  Through this channel, I learned that Lothar had set out from Leipzig in July with a large train, including a prætorian guard of mercenaries, and made his way down to Cadiz, where he had transacted certain business; but then he had withdrawn up the coast to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where he had apparently expected some momentous transaction to come off during the first week of August. But something had gone wrong. He had flown into a rage and made a tremendous commotion, despatching runners and spies in all directions. After a few days he had given orders for the whole train to ride up to Arcachon, which is a long hard journey over land; but they had done it. Lothar meanwhile accomplished the same journey in a hired barque, so that he was waiting for them when they arrived at Arcachon late in August. Immediately he announced that they would turn around and make for Marseille. Which they did, at the cost of several horses and one man; but they reached the place a few days too late—late for what, these informants knew not—and so they withdrew up the Rhône to Lyon, which is a place where Lothar is much more comfortable. Of course I was already in Lyon, having been dropped off there by M. le duc d’Arcachon a week earlier; from which it was easy enough to guess that the person Lothar had hoped, but failed, to intercept in Marseille had been M. le duc. Now perhaps it was his intention to tarry in Lyon, and wait for the return of d’Arcachon. I was going to add “like a spider in his web” or some such expression, but it struck me as absurd, given that Lothar is a mere baron, and a foreigner from a country with which we are at war, while the duc d’Arcachon is a Peer, and one of the most important men in France. I stayed my quill, as it would seem ludicrous to liken this obscure and outlandish Baron to a spider, and the duc d’Arcachon to a fly. And yet in person Lothar is much more formidable than the duc. At the House of Huygens I have seen a spider through a magnifying-glass, and Lothar, with his round abdomen and his ghastly pox-marked face, looked more like it than any other human I have beheld. Spider-like was he in the way that he dominated the dinner-table, for it seemed that every other person in the room was noosed to a silken cord whose end was gripped in his dirty ink-stained mitt, so that when he wanted some answer from someone he need only give them a jerk. He was absurd in his determination to find out from me precisely when M. le duc would be returning from his Mediterranean cruise. Every time I beat back one of his forays he would retreat, scamper around, and attack from a new quarter. Truly it was like wrestling with an eight-legged monster. It demanded all of my wits not to divulge anything, or to tumble into one of his verbal traps. I was tired, having spent the day meeting with one of Lothar’s competitors discussing certain very complicated arrangements. I had gone to this dinner naïvely expecting persiflage. Instead I was being grilled by this ruthless and relentless man, who was like some Jesuit of the Inquisition in his acute perception of any evasions or contradictions in my answers. It is a good thing I had come alone, or else whatever gentleman had escorted me should have been honor-bound to challenge Lothar to a duel. As it was, our host almost did, so shocked was he by the way that Lothar was ruining his dinner-party. But I believe that even this was a sort of message that Lothar intended to send to me, and through me to the duc: that so angry was he over what had occurred off Sanlúcar de Barrameda that he considered himself in a state akin to war, in which normal standards of behavior were cast aside.

  You are probably terrified, Doctor, that I am about to demand a formal apology of Lothar, and that I have designated you as the luckless messenger. Not so, for as I have told you, it is obvious that Lothar has no intention of apologizing for anything. Whatever M. le duc d’Arcachon took from him is more important than his reputation or even his honor. He was announcing as much by his behavior at dinner, and I doubt not that word of it has already gone out among all of the members of the Dépôt. The bankers I was dealing with there suddenly lost their nerve, and broke off negotiations with me—all except one, a Genoan with a very tough reputation, who is demanding a large rake-off “to cover the extraordinary precautions,” and who insisted that a peculiar clause be inserted into the agreement: namely, that he would accept silver, but never gold.

  I fear that in the end I failed utterly to keep Lothar at bay. How long will Mademoiselle be staying in Lyon? I have no fixed plans, mein Herr. But is it not true, mademoiselle, that a soirée is planned at the Hôtel d’Arcachon on the fourteenth of October? How did you know of this, mein Herr? How I know of it is none of your concern, mademoiselle—but that is a fixed plan, is it not? And so it is not truthful, is it, to assert, as you have just done, that you have no fixed plans? And so on. Lothar knew more than he should have known, for he must have spies at Versailles or in Paris; and whenever he divulged some morsel of information he had thus acquired, it was as if he had punched me in the stomach. I could not hold my own against him. He must have known, by the end of the dinner, that le duc would be passing through Lyon at some time during the first or second week of October. He is down there now, I am certain, waiting; and I have sent word, every way I know how, to the naval authorities in Marseille, that when le duc returns he must take great care.

  Thus forewarned, le duc ought to be perfectly safe; for how much power can one Saxon baron wield, in Lyon? Yet Lothar’s bizarre confidence jangled my nerves.

  It was not until later, during my third round of negotiations with the said Genoan banker, that I began to get some inkling of what motivated Lothar, and how he knew so much. This banker—after a lengthy discussion of silver vs. gold—
rolled his eyes and made some disparaging reference to Alchemists.

  Now, during that dreadful dinner, Lothar had, more than once, made some dismissive comment about M. le duc, along the lines of “He does not know what he has blundered into.”

  On the admittedly fragile basis of these two remarks, I have developed a hypothesis—a vague one—that the ship that was looted off Sanlúcar de Barrameda contained something of great importance to those—and I now number Lothar among them—who put stock in Alchemy. It appears that M. le duc d’Arcachon, in concert with his Turkish friends, has stolen that cargo—but perhaps they do not comprehend what it is. Now, all of the Alchemists are up in arms about it. This would explain how Lothar has come to be so well-informed as to what is happening in Versailles and in Paris, for many members of the Esoteric Brotherhood are to be found in both places, and perhaps Lothar has been getting despatches from them.

  I have seen you, Doctor, standing next to Lothar on the balcony of the House of the Golden Mercury in Leipzig. And it is well known that Lothar is banker to Sophie and Ernst August, your patrons. What can you tell me of this man and what motivates him? For most Alchemists are ninehammers and dilettantes; but if my hypothesis is correct, he takes it seriously.

  That is all for now. Members of this household are queued up six deep outside the door of this chamber, waiting for me to finish so that they can importune me to make this or that decision concerning the party planned for the fourteenth. Between now and then, I shall be absurdly busy. You shall not hear from me until it is all over, and then everything is going to be different; for on that evening, many dramatic changes may be expected. I can say no more now. When you read this, wish me luck.

  Eliza

  Leibniz to Eliza

  EARLY OCTOBER 1690

  Mademoiselle,

  Please accept my apologies on behalf of all German barons.

  I have already told you the tale of how, when I was five years old, following my father’s death, I went into his library and began to educate myself. This alarmed my teachers at the Nikolaischule, who prevailed upon my mother to lock me out. A local nobleman became aware of this, and paid a call on my mother, and in the most gentlemanly way possible, yet with utmost gravity and firmness, made her see that the teachers in this case were fools. She unlocked the library.

  That nobleman was Egon von Hacklheber. The year must have been 1651 or 1652—memory fades. I recall him as a silver-haired gentleman, a sort of long-lost, peregrine uncle of that family, who had spent most of his life in Bohemia, but who had turned up in Leipzig around 1630—driven there, one presumes, by the fortunes of what we now call the Thirty Years’ War, but what in those days just seemed like an endless and mindless succession of atrocities.

  Shortly after he caused the library to be unlocked for me, Egon departed on a journey to the west, which was expected to last for several months, and to take him as far as England; but on a road in the Harz Mountains he was waylaid by robbers, and died. By the time his remains were found, they were nothing more than a skeleton, picked clean by ravens and ants, still clad in his cloak.

  Lothar had been born in 1630, the third son of that family. None of those boys had attended school. They had been raised within the household, and educated by tutors—some hired, others simply members of the family who possessed knowledge, and a willingness to impart it. Egon von Hacklheber, a man of exceptional erudition, who had traveled widely, had devoted an hour or two each day to educating the three von Hacklheber boys. Lothar had been his brightest pupil; for, being the youngest, he had to work hardest to keep up with his brothers.

  If you have done the arithmetic, you’ll know that Lothar was in his early twenties when Egon departed on his fatal journey. By that time, dark days had fallen on that family, for smallpox had burned through Leipzig, taken the lives of the two older boys, and left Lothar—now the scion—mutilated as you have seen him. The death of his uncle Egon perfected Lothar’s misery.

  Much later—rather recently, in fact—I became aware that Lothar maintains some peculiar notions as to what “really” happened. Lothar believes that Egon knew Alchemy—that he was, in fact, an adept of such power that he could heal the gravest illnesses, and even raise the dead. Yet he would not, or could not, save the lives of Lothar’s two brothers, whom he loved almost as if they were his own sons. Egon had departed from Leipzig with a broken heart, with no intention of ever coming back. His death in the Harz might have been suicide. Or—again this is all according to the eccentric notions of Lothar—it might have been faked, to hide his own unnatural longevity.

  I believe that Lothar is simply out of his mind concerning this. The death of his brothers made him crazy in certain respects. Be that as it may, he believes in Alchemy, and phant’sies that if Egon had stayed in Leipzig a few years longer he might have imparted to Lothar the secrets of Creation. Lothar has not ceased to pursue those secrets himself, by his own methods, in the thirty-some years since.

  Now, as to the infamous Duchess of Oyonnax—

  “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.

  The chapel occupied a corner of the property. Public streets ran along the front, or altar end, and along one of the sides. That side had several stained-glass windows, tall and narrow to fetch a bit of light from the sky. These had small casements down below, which were normally closed to block the noise and smell of the street beyond; but Oyonnax opened two of them. Cold air came in, which scarcely mattered considering the tonnage of clothing that each of these women was wearing. A lot of noise came in, too. Eliza supposed that this was a further precaution against their being overheard by a
ny eavesdroppers who might be pressing ears against doors. But if Oyonnax was the sort to worry about such things, then this chapel was a comfortable place for her. It contained no furniture—no pews—just a rough stone floor, and she had already verified that there was no one crouching behind the little altar. The chapel was hundreds of years older than any other part of the compound. It was unfashionably Gothick, dim, and gloomy, and probably would have been knocked down long ago and replaced with something Barock were it not for the windows and the altar-piece (which were said to be priceless treasures) and the fourth left metatarsal bone of Saint Louis (which was embedded in a golden reliquary cemented into the wall).

  “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.”