The Confusion: Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle

by Neal Stephenson

  We say of some Nations, the People are lazy, but we should say only, they are poor; Poverty is the Fountain of all Manner of Idleness.

  —DANIEL DEFOE,

  A Plan of the English Commerce

  A LAKE OF YELLOW DUST lapped at the foundations of some cobra-infested hills in the far west. Eastwards it ran to the horizon; if you went that way long enough, and survived the coastal marshes, you would reach the Bay of Bengal. To the north lay a country that was similar, except that it encompassed the richest diamond mines in the world; this was the King of Aurangzeb’s favorite nephew, Lord of Righteous Carnage. To the south lay some hills and mountains that, except for the scattered citadels of the Marathas, were not really controlled by anyone just now. Beyond, at the very tip of Hindoostan, lay Malabar.

  A pair of bamboo tripods supported the ends of a timber cross-piece that spanned a tiny puncture wound in the sheet of dust. The timber had been polished by a rope that slid over it all day long. On one end of that rope was a bucket, which dangled in the well-shaft. On the other end was a yoke thrown over the cartilaginous hump of a bullock. A gaunt man, armed with a bamboo cane, stood behind the animal. The bullock trudged away from the well. Here and there it would insolently pause and prod the dust with its snout for a minute or two, pretending that there was something edible there. The man would begin talking to it. At first his tone was conversational, then whining, then pleading, then irked, then enraged. Finally he would go to work with the cane and the bullock would stomp forward another few steps.

  From time to time the bullock would reach the end of his rope, which signified that the bucket had emerged from the hole. The man with the bamboo cane would then shout at a couple of younger men who were dozing in the shade of the low dung rampart that surrounded the well’s opening, giving it the general appearance of a giant rugged nipple. These men would bestir themselves, scale the rampart, get a grip on the bucket, swing it off to one side, and dump a few gallons of water onto the ground. The water would embark on a senseless quest for the nearest ocean. The bullock would turn round and come back.

  These people were all People (as they name themselves in their language). The bucket-emptiers belonged to a separate subcaste from the bullock-spanker, but both could trace their lineage back for a hundred generations to the same ur-Person. And even if Sword of Divine Fire had not already known as much, it could have been guessed from following a given bucket-load of water downhill, and observing the scenery on either hand. For thousands of years’ hourly bucket-emptyings had cut a meandering drainage channel into the dust. It careered and zigzagged for a mile, heading generally eastwards, until it petered out in a crazed salt-pan, which sported the locally renowned Large Hole in the Ground, and other improvements. In most places, a grown man could comfortably plant one foot on either side of the channel. In some parts one had to jump over it. In one stretch it spread out so wide that one needed a running start. Consequently the local children never wanted for sports and entertainment.

  Each bank of the ditch was green from the water’s edge to the point, about an arm’s length away, where the desert took over again. Seen from the high ground at the well-mouth, it looked as if some Hindoo deity had dipped a quill in green ink and dragged it aimlessly across a blank parchment—which was not extremely far from what the People actually believed. Their king of the last two years and two hundred and forty-eight days scoffed at this creed, but since it had sustained them in adverse circumstances for a couple of thousand years, he had to admit it was no worse than any other religion.

  The People furthermore believed that the same deity had divided the ditch’s length (some two thousand paces in all) into five zones, and portioned them out to the five daughters of the ur-Person, and laid down certain rules as to what should be cultivated where. These five zones had inevitably been divided and subdivided as the five subcastes spawned from the loins of the five daughters had ramified into diverse clans, which had distinguished themselves from other clans by intermarrying with groups that were viewed as higher or lower, or, in some cases, destroyed themselves by not intermarrying enough. So each of those two thousand paces, on each side of the ditch, was now spoken for by someone.

  Most of the someones were present and accounted for, dressed in brilliant fabrics, and squatting behind their tiny farms—therefore, packed shoulder-to-shoulder along the banks all the way from the well to the Large Hole in the Ground. Sword of Divine Fire had come to make his monthly inspection.

  Sword of Divine Fire was mounted on a donkey. His aides, bodyguards, and attendants were on foot, except for two rowzinders on horseback and one zamindar in a palanquin.

  “Very well,” said Sword of Divine Fire, “which is to say, it looks the same as last time, and the time before that.”

  His words were translated into Marathi by the man in the palanquin, who then said, “Shall we have a look at the Large Hole in the Ground, then, and call it a day?”

  “The Large Hole in the Ground can wait. First, we will inspect our potato,” said Sword of Divine Fire.

  This pronouncement, once it had been translated, touched off the most urgent conspirings and shushings among the aides, hangers-on, courtiers, camp-followers, and the khud-kashtas or head-men of the Ditch’s various segments. Sword of Divine Fire gave his donkey a few smart heel-jabs and began steering for the Fourth Meander of the Third Part of the Ditch. His zamindar shortly caught up with him—the feet of his palanquin-bearers creating bursts of dust that flourished, paled, and dissolved in the still air.

  “Your majesty’s potato can hardly have changed much since the last visit. On the other hand, I am informed by the most highly placed sources that the Large Hole in the Ground is not only deeper—but wider, too!”

  “We would view our potato,” the king said doggedly. They were definitely getting close—the kids tear-assing around had the high noses and elongated skulls that set Fourth Meander folk apart from the less prestigious subcastes who cultivated the left bank of the Third Part. Only last week, one of them had been made an out-caste for Jumping the Ditch, i.e., having sex with one of the hillbilly girls on the Right Bank.

  “Is one potato really so different from the next?” asked his zamindar philosophically.

  “In general, no—but in our jagir, there is no next!”

  “And yet—assuming that some potato materializes on your plate on the day specified, does the fate of a specific potato really amount to so much?”

  “You are a tax collector, not a philosopher—mind your place.”

  “Excuse me, Your Royal Highness, but we were philosophizing when Aristotle’s grandparents were banging rocks together.”

  “Where has it gotten you though?”

  Ahead, Sword of Divine Fire could see the Flat Brown Rock, which—together with the Little Gray Rock, which stood about a hundred yards distant—accounted for most of the local topography. The Fourth Meander made a small excursion to go around it. The clan of the Flat Brown Rock Excursion were reputed to be the finest horticulturalists of the whole Ditch, and on cold nights were known to stay up sitting on their cabbages like hens warming their eggs. Normally, they would be turning round to smile proudly at their monarch. But today they squatted on the bank, hunched over with their backs turned to him, and refused to meet his gaze. Sword of Divine Fire could not fathom it until he noticed a gap forming in the line of persons. They were packed in nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, but still they were finding some way to shift sideways, creating an open space two yards across, which gradually expanded to three. In the center of that open space, a bony woman in a threadbare garment was hunched over a dead plant.

  Sword of Divine Fire’s reaction was succinct: “Fuck!” The woman cringed as if he’d hit her with a bullwhip. Then: “What has happened to our potato?”

  “Sire, I launched an investigation as soon as I was informed. The khud-kashta of the Fourth Meander has been sternly brought to account. Furthermore, I have made discreet inquiries with Lord of Righteous Carnage,
as well as with Shambhaji, to ascertain whether it might be possible to buy a replacement potato…”

  “Come off it! Where’s the money coming from? We can’t even feed the bullock.”

  “If we put off purchasing a new rope…”

  “The rope has been spliced so many times it’s naught but splices. Besides! Jesus Christ! Shambhaji!? You asked him? I was sent down here to make war on Shambhaji.”

  “But you have not actually conducted an offensive operation against him in years.”

  “What, I’m besieging his citadel.”

  “You call it a Siege—others would describe it as a very long Picnic.”

  “In any event—Shambhaji is the enemy.”

  “In Hindoostan, all things are possible.”

  “Then where is my fucking potato!?”

  Silence. Then the woman flung herself on the ground and began to beseech Sword of Divine Fire for mercy.

  “Oh, splendid! Now she’s probably going to go set fire to herself or something,” the king muttered. Then he sighed. “What has your investigation turned up?”

  “It may have been sabotage.”

  “Those Right Bankers, y’think?”

  “Retribution for many Ditch-Jumpings.”

  “Well, I don’t want to start a war,” mused Sword of Divine Fire, “or my rutabaga will be next.”

  “I would not put anything beneath the Right Bank Vhadriyas, they are scarcely above apes.”

  “Tell ’em it’s my fault.”

  “I beg your pardon, sire?”

  “Karma. I looked crossways at a cow, or something…make some shit up. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”

  “Truly you are the wisest ruler this kingdom has ever had…”

  “Yeah, too bad my term’s up in another four months.”

  Half an hour later, Sword of Divine Fire alighted from his donkey, and his zamindar emerged from his palanquin, and they stood together at the brink of the Large Hole in the Ground. All of the water that struggled out to the end of the Ditch emptied into this Hole. Members of the local Koli caste brought wagon-loads of black dirt hither from their dirt-mines in other parts of the jagir and dumped it into the hole. Then they pounded it with timbers, mixing it with the ditch-water, and drew off the liquor that floated on top and put it into a motley collection of pots and pans. These they boiled over fires made with wood brought down out of the hills by the people of the wood-splitter caste. When the pots had nearly boiled dry, they dumped their contents out into flat shallow earthenware trays and left them out under the sun. After a while, those trays filled up with a whitish powder—

  “Who the hell is that man in the robe, and why is he eating my saltpeter?” demanded Sword of Divine Fire, visoring his eyes with one hand and gazing over towards the tray-farm.

  Everyone looked over to see that, indeed, a figure in a long off-white robe—a cross between a Frankish monk’s robe and an Arab djellaba—was nibbling at a handful of saltpeter-slush that he’d scooped up from one of the trays. His face was obscured by the hood of the robe, which he’d pulled over his head to shield himself from the sun.

  A couple of rowzinders and three archers on foot—about half of Sword of Divine Fire’s body-guards—bestirred themselves, and began trotting over that way, unlimbering weapons as they went. But the robed visitor turned out to have a sort of body-guard of his own: two men on horseback who rode forth and took up positions on the flanks, and let it be known that they had muskets.

  “Sire, this would appear to be a better-organized-than-usual assassination attempt,” said the zamindar, stepping over to his palanquin and retrieving a musket of his own. “May I suggest you climb down into the Large Hole in the Ground?”

  The king for his part pulled a pistol from his garment and checked the pan. “This fitteth not the profile of an assassination,” he observed. “Perhaps they are wandering potato-merchants.” He spurred his donkey forward, and rode past his body-guards, who had been stopped in their tracks by the appearance of those muskets.

  As he drew closer to the robed man, he was surprised—but then again, not really—to observe a red beard. The visitor pulled his hood back to divulge a fountain of silver hair. He spat saltpeter on the ground and smacked his lips for a few moments, like a connoisseur of wine.

  “I’m afraid it is contaminated with much that is not actually saltpeter,” he said. “It would work for ballasting ships, but not for making gunpowder.”

  “Strange you should mention that, Enoch, as I may be needing some ballast soon.”

  “I know,” said Enoch Root. “Unfortunately, many others in Christendom know it, too, Jack.”

  “That is most annoying, for I went to vast expense to bring in a scribe who knew how to employ cyphers.”

  “The cypher was broken.”

  “How is Eliza?”

  “She is a Duchess in two countries.”

  “Does she know that I am a King in one?”

  “She knows what I knew, before I left. Namely that there are tales of a Christian sorcerer who, some years ago, was traveling in a caravan to Delhi that was attacked by a Maratha army that came down out of the hills on elephants. The Marathas had the upper hand until nightfall, when they and their elephants alike were thrown into a panic by a cold fire that limned the warriors and the horses of the caravan without consuming them. This caravan reached Delhi without further incident, and Aurangzeb, the Great Mogul, according to his long-standing practice, elevated the victor to the rank of omerah, and rewarded him with a three-year jagir.”

  “And so you decided to come out and see who was putting your alchemical knowledge to such ill uses.”

  “I came for many reasons, Jack, but that was not one of them…I knew who the sorcerer was.”

  “Did you bring the thing I asked for?”

  “We will speak of that later,” Enoch said judiciously. “But I did bring two things you should have asked for, and forgot to.”

  “Hmm, let me think…I love riddles…a replacement penis, and a keg of decent beer?”

  “I love riddles, too, Jack, but I hate guessing-games. Can we go somewhere that is not so, er…” And here Enoch Root turned his gaze one way, then the other, taking in most of the hundred-mile expanse between the hills and the coastal marshes. “…exposed?”

  Jack laughed. “If it’s privacy you want, you’re in the wrong subcontinent.”

  “So you say—and yet there is more here than meets the eye, no?” said Enoch Root, staring Jack in the eye.

  Jack rode back to his zamindar and said, “That gentleman over there is a buyer of saltpeter from Amsterdam.”

  “Is that the best you could come up with!?” answered Surendranath.

  “’Twill serve, for now…I am going to take him on an inspection-tour of the dirt-mines. Dismiss the khud-kashta s with my compliments. Tell them not to give the potato-woman any grief. Meet me at the Royal Palace this evening, unless the roof has been blown off again, in which case, meet me by the tree.”

  “Sire, the dirt-mines are situated in a rowdy and treacherous pargana, quite infested with stranglers. Are you quite certain you do not want me to send the rowzinders?”

  Jack sized up the two horsemen who had arrived with Enoch Root. “What do you make of them?”

  “Mercenaries. Judging from their coloration, most likely Pathans.”

  “That was my guess, too, until I got closer. Methinks they are Christians with tans. They are barely even twenty years of age, but weathered like veterans, and they returned my gaze insolently.”

  “They handle their weapons like drilled musketeers,” said the zamindar.

  “They’ve made it all the way here, from Christendom…”

  “But perhaps they are the last remnants of a whole Regiment.”

  “I believe I will be safe in their hands,” Jack said.

  “THAT’S FOR ME MUM!” said the one.

  “She’s me mum, too, give ’im another!”

  A large, bleeding fist fille
d most of Jack’s visual field, getting rapidly bigger. Then lights flashed and a loud popping noise went off in the base of his skull.

  “You can do be’er’n that, Jimmy!” said one, shoving the other aside. “Let me show you—now, how’s about that! An’ that! For our sainted mum!”

  Suddenly they got six feet taller—either that, or Jack’s head was resting on the ground. The one called Jimmy wound up for a kick.

  “That is for mayakin’ it neces’ry for us to travel all the way out to the butt o’ the world to beat the bejesus out o’ ye!”

  Enoch hovered nervously in the background encouraging them to stop, or at least slow down—but they were having none of it.

  “That is for bein’ a friggin’ shite-head!”

  “Can you be more specific?” Jack said (he had found that a bit of levity sometimes worked wonders in these situations). But the words came out all a-mumble, for his lips stuck together whenever they got near each other—and they’d ballooned to the point where they were always near each other. But somehow the one named Jimmy understood, and went wide-eyed.

  “Oh, you want specificity!? Danny, he’s requested we wax specific at this time!”

  Jack got up on all fours, then staggered to his feet. Being on the ground only tempted them to kick him, and that was worse, in the long run, than being punched.

  “That is specifically for tayakin’ up with another lady when the urth on Mum’s grayave hadn’t even been tamped down yet!”

  “That is specifically for tradin’ in yer French jools on a shite-load o’ malarkey!”

  Jack tumbled backwards into a stand of bamboo, and Jimmy and Danny—perhaps fearing cobras—did not come in after him. They stood where they were for a moment, getting their wind back. For the first time since Jimmy had tackled him out of the saddle a few minutes ago, it occurred to Jack that he was armed with a serviceable Janissary-sword, and knew a thing or two about how to use it; but cutting up his own flesh and blood wouldn’t be right. Instead he eased it quietly from its scabbard and swung it into the base of a bamboo cane about as thick as his wrist, easily cutting it through. Then he staggered out of the thicket dragging it behind him.