The Confusion: Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle

by Neal Stephenson

  “They call off the Inquisitor’s dogs whenever Moseh lets out a squawk,” Jimmy said airily.

  “I wonder what their friendship will cost us,” Jack said.

  “They’d be more expensive as enemies, Dad,” Danny said, and in his voice was a confidence that Jack had not felt about anything in about twenty years.

  The teak deck was changing color from a weathered iron-gray to a warmer hue, almost as if a fire had been kindled belowdecks and was trying to burn its way through. Jack looked away toward the exit of the bay, and saw the cause: The sun, now a hand’s breath above the horizon, had bored a hole through the miasma of vapor over the bay. Wisps and banks that still lurked in pockets of shade and stagnant coves round the foundations of the arsenal were fleeing from its sudden heat like smoke driven before a gust. For all that, the air was still. But a faint rumble prompted Jack to turn around and look east. Manila stood out in the clear now, her walls and bastions glowing in the sunlight as if they had been hewn out of amber and lit from behind by fire. The mountains behind the city were visible, which was a rare event. By comparison with them, the highest works of the Spaniards were low and flat as paving-stones. But those mountains in turn were humbled by phantasmic interlocking cloud-formations that were incarnating themselves in the limitless skies above, somewhat as if the personages and beasts of the Constellations had become fed up with being depicted in scatterings of faint stars, and had decided to come down out of the cosmos and clothe themselves in the stuff of typhoons. But they seemed to be having a dispute as to which would claim the most gorgeous and brilliant vapors, and the argument showed every sign of becoming a violent one. No lightning had struck the ground yet, and the cataracts of rain shed by some clouds were swallowed by others before they descended to the plane of the mountain-tops.

  Jack altered his focus to the yards of Minerva, which compared to all of this were like broom-straws tangled together in a gutter. The men of the current watch were quietly making ready to be hit. Below, the head men of what had formerly been the Cabal had emerged from van Hoek’s cabin and were moving forward. Some of them, such as Dappa and Monsieur Arlanc, had gone to the trouble of changing into gentlemanly clothes: breeches, hose, and leather shoes had been broken out of foot-lockers. Vrej Esphahnian and van Hoek were wearing actual periwigs and tri-cornered hats.

  Van Hoek stopped just in front of the mainmast, at the edge of the quarterdeck, which loomed above the broadest part of the upperdeck like a balcony over a plaza. Most of the ship’s complement had gathered there, and those who couldn’t find room, or who were too short to see over their fellows’ heads, had ascended to the forecastledeck whence they could look aft and meet van Hoek’s eye from the same level. The sailors had grouped themselves according to color so that they could hear translations: the largest two groups were the Malabaris and the Filipinos, but there were Malays, Chinese, several Africans from Mozambique by way of Goa, and a few Gujaratis. Several of the ship’s officers were Dutchmen who had come out with Jan Vroom. To look after the cannons they had rounded up a French, a Bavarian, and a Venetian artilleryman from the rabble of mercenaries that hung around Shahjahanabad. Finally there were the surviving members of the Cabal: van Hoek, Dappa, Monsieur Arlanc, Padraig Tallow, Jack Shaftoe, Moseh de la Cruz, Vrej Esphahnian, and Surendranath. When Jimmy and Danny Shaftoe were added, the number came to a hundred and five. Of these, some twenty were active in the rigging, readying the ship for weather.

  Jack ascended the stairs to the quarterdeck and took up a position behind van Hoek, among the other share-holders. As he turned round to look out over the upperdeck—facing in the general direction of Manila—one of those constellation-gods in the sky above the city, furious because he had ended up in possession of nothing more than a few shredded rags of dim gray-indigo stuff, flung a thunderbolt horizontally into the mid-section of a rival, who was dressed in incandescent coral and green satin. The distance between them must have been twenty miles. It seemed as if a sudden crack had spanned a quarter of Heaven’s vault, allowing infinitely more brilliant light to shine through it, for an instant, from some extremely well-illuminated realm beyond the known universe. It was just as well that the crew were facing the other way—though some of them noticed startled expressions on the faces of the worthies on the quarterdeck, and swiveled their heads to see what was the matter. They saw nothing except a blade of rain sinking into the black jungle beyond Manila.

  “It must have been Yevgeny, throwing a cœlestial Harpoon, to remind van Hoek that brevity is a virtue,” Jack said, and those who had known Yevgeny chuckled nervously.

  “We have lived through another voyage,” van Hoek announced, “and if this were a Christian ship I would take my hat off and say a prayer of thanksgiving. But as it is a ship of no one particular faith, I shall keep my hat on until I can say my prayers alone later. Go you all to your temples, pagodas, shrines, and churches in Manila this night and do likewise.”

  There was a general muttering of assent as this was translated. Minerva had no fewer than three cooks, and three completely different sets of pots. The only group who did not have their own were the Christians, who, when it came to food, would balk at nothing.

  “Never again will this group of men be all together in one place,” said van Hoek. “Enoch Root has already bid us farewell. Within a fortnight Surendranath and some of you Malabaris will set sail for Queena-Kootah on the brig Kottakkal so that the rightful share of our profits may be conveyed to the Queen of the same name. In time Padraig will join them. He, Surendranath, and Mr. Foot will pursue happiness in the South Seas while the rest of us journey onwards. You sailors will disperse into Manila tonight. Some of you will return to this ship in one month’s time to prepare on our great voyage. Others will think better of it.”

  Van Hoek now yanked out his cutlass and aimed it at the titanic ship that was being finished before the arsenal of Cavite. “Behold!” he proclaimed. All heads turned toward the mountainous galleon, but only for a moment; then attention turned to the weather. A wind had finally been summoned up, and it came from the east but showed signs of swinging round to the north. But the watch had a sail ready on the maintop, and they raised it now and let the wind bite into it, and trimmed it so as to bring Minerva about and convey her toward deeper waters in the center of the bay.

  “A great ship for a great voyage,” van Hoek said, referring to the Spanish behemoth. “That is the Manila Galleon, and soon it will be laden with all the silks of China and spices of India and it will sail out of this bay and commence a voyage of seven months, crossing half of the terraqueous globe. When the Philippines fall away to aft her anchors will be brought up and stowed in the nethermost part of her hold, because for more than half a year they’ll not see a speck of dry land, and anchors will be as much use to her as bilge-pumps on an ox-cart. Northward she’ll sail, as far north as Japan, until she reaches a certain latitude—known only to the Spaniards—where trade winds blow due east, and where there are no isles or reefs to catch them unawares in mid-ocean. Then they’ll run before the wind and pray for rain, lest they die of thirst and wash up on the shores of California, a ghost-ship crowded with parched skeletons. Sometimes those trade-winds will falter, and they’ll drift aimlessly for a day, then two days, then a week, until a typhoon comes up from the south, or Arctic blasts come down out of the polar regions and freeze them with a chill compared to which what made us shiver and chafe so in Japan is as balmy as a maiden’s breath against your cheek. They will run out of food, and wealthy Epicureans, after they’ve eaten their own shoes and the leathern covers of their Bibles, will kneel in their cabins and send up delirious prayers for God to send them just one of the moldy crusts that earlier in the voyage they threw away. Gums will shrivel away from teeth, which will fall out until they must be swept off the deck like so many hailstones.”

  This similitude was apparently improvised by van Hoek, for a barrage of pea-sized hail had just sprayed out of a low swirling cloud and speckled the deck.
All hands looked at the hail and dutifully imagined teeth. A gust came across the water, decapitating a thousand whitecaps and flinging their spray sideways through the air; it caught them upside their heads, and in the same instant the sail popped like a musket-shot and the whole structure of the ship heaved and groaned from the impact. A rope burst and began thrashing about on the deck like a living thing as the tension bled out of it and its lays came undone. But then this momentary squall subsided and they found themselves working into a blustery north wind, across the darkling bay. The sun had plunged meteorically into the South China Sea, and its light was now overmatched by the lightning over Manila, which had merged into a continuous blue radiance that a person could almost read by.

  “One day, long after they’ve given up hope, one of these wretches—one of the few who can still stand—will be up on deck, throwing corpses over the rail, when he’ll see something afloat in the water below: a scrap of seaweed, no bigger than my finger. Not a thing you or I would take any note of—but to them, as miraculous as a visitation by an angel! There’ll be a lot of praying and hymn-singing on that day. But it will all end in cruel disappointment, for no more seaweed will be observed that day, or the next, or the next. Another week they’ll sail—nothing! Nothing to do but run before the wind, and try with all their might to resist the temptation to cannibalize the bodies of the dead. By that point the most saintly Dominican brothers aboard will forget their prayers, and curse their own mothers for having borne them. And then another week of the same! But finally the seaweed will appear—not just a single bit of it, but two, then three. This will signify that they are off the coast of California, which is an island belted all around with such weeds.”

  Jack noticed at about this time, that the blue-green light had grown much brighter, and had become steady and silent as if some eldritch Neptunian sun had risen out of the water, casting light but no warmth. Fighting a powerful instinctive reluctance, he forced himself to look up into the spars and rigging of the mainmast. Every bit of it—every splinter of wood and fiber of cordage—was aglow with crackling radiance, as if it had been dipped in phosphorus. It was a sight worthy of a good long look, but Jack made himself look down at the crowd on the quarterdeck instead. He saw a pool of upturned faces, teeth and eyes a-gleam, a well of souls gazing up in wonder.

  “First ’twas Yevgeny—now Enoch Root is putting in his tuppence worth,” he joked, but if anyone did so much as chuckle, the sound was swallowed up in the susurration of waves against the hull. Van Hoek turned and glanced at Jack for a moment, then squared off again to continue his terrible Narration. The weird Fire of Saint Elmo had crawled down the mast to dance round the fringes of his tri-cornered hat, and even the curls of his goat-hair wig had become infected by sparks that buzzed and rustled as if alive. The individual hairs of that long-dead goat were now re-animated as if by some voudoun chaunt, and began trying to get away from each other, which entailed straightening and spreading out-wards. The quivering tip of each hair was defended by a nasty corona.

  Van Hoek paid it no mind; if he was even aware of it, he evidently saw it as a way to add emphasis to his words. “Yet their ordeal is not finished, but only takes a different form; now they must endure the torment of Tantalus, for that land of milk and honey is the domain of savages, and no victuals are to be found on her shores—only sudden and violent death. Now they must sail for many long days down that coast, moving ever southeastward, making occasional desperate forays on to the land to scavenge fresh water or game. Finally one day they spy a Spanish watch-tower glowering down upon ’em from a stony mountain-top above the sea. Signals are exchanged, letting those on the ship know that riders have been sent out, galloping down the King’s Highway to the City of Mexico to spread the news that this year’s Manila Galleon has not been cast away or sunk in a storm but, mirabile dictu, has survived. Several days more and then a Spanish town comes into view. Boats come out bearing the first fruit and vegetables that these travelers will have eaten in half a year. But, too, they bring tidings that both French and English pirates have rounded Cape Horn and are prowling the coast—many dangerous miles still separate them from their destination of Acapulco…”

  The Saint Elmo’s Fire was dying down now, and the miraculous pocket of calm in which they had drifted for the last several minutes was giving way to something a bit more like a thunderstorm. A big roller got under the hull, and the faces on the upperdeck undulated like a field of grain as every man sought his balance.

  “As I said, we will be departing a few weeks after the Galleon, and we require sailors…” van Hoek began.

  “Er, excuse me there, Cap’n,” Jack said, “your description of the voyage’s terrors was most affecting, and I’m sure every man jack has shited his breeches now…but you have forgotten to include any countervailing material. Having aroused the fear, you must now stimulate the avarice, of these sailors or else they will jump overboard and swim to shore right now, and will never enlist again.”

  Van Hoek now got a contemptuous look which Jack was only able to see with the help of a convenient triple lightning bolt. “You sorely underestimate their intelligence, sir. It is not necessary to come out and state everything so directly. A well-formed Narration says as much by what is left out of it as by what is put in.”

  “Then perhaps you should have left more out. I have some experience in matters theatrickal, sir,” Jack said, “which is applicable here insofar as this quarterdeck resembles nothing so much as a stage, and those, to my eye—notwithstanding your very generous estimate of their intelligence—look like nothing so much as groundlings, knee-deep in hazelnut shells and gin-bottles, waiting—begging—to be hit over their heads with some direct and unambiguous message.”

  A lightning-bomb detonated over Manila.

  “There is your message,” van Hoek said pointing toward the city, “and your groundlings will go into it tonight, and dwell in that Message for the next two months. You have dwelt there, too, Jack—did the Message not reach your ears?”

  “I may have heard faint whisperings—could you amplify it?”

  “Of all the enterprises to which a man can devote his energies,” van Hoek began grudgingly, raising his voice, “long-distance trade is the most profitable. It is what every Jew, Puritan, Dutchman, Huguenot, Armenian, and Banyan aspires to—it is what built the Navies and palaces of Europe, the Court of the Great Mogul in Shahjahanabad, and many other prodigies besides. And yet in the world of trade, it is common knowledge that no circuit—not the slave trade of the Caribbean, not the spice trade of the Indies—exceeds the Manila-to-Acapulco run in sheer profit. The wealthiest Banyans in Surat and bankers in Genoa lay their perfumed heads on silken pillows at night, and dream of sending a few bales of cargo across the Pacific on the Manila Galleon. Even with all the dangers, and the swingeing duty that must be shelled out to the Viceroy, the profits never fall below four hundred percent. That city is founded upon such dreams, Jack. We are all going to go there now.”

  Van Hoek finally shut up at this point, and in the silence that followed he realized that, down below him on the upperdeck, his rant was being dutifully translated into diverse heathen tongues. The translators took more or less time to relate it, depending on the wordiness of their several languages and how much they edited out or how freely they embellished. But when the last of them finally wound up his oration, a light pattering started up. Jack flinched, thinking it was more hail. But then it grew into a heavy, stomping roar, and he recognized it as applause. Dappa thrust both index fingers into his mouth and emitted a piercing noise. Van Hoek seemed startled at first; then understanding dawned, and he turned to Jack, removed his hat, and bowed.

  Book 5

  The Juncto

  Berlin

  JANUARY 1700

  At bottom, all our experience assures us of only two things, namely, that there is a connection among our appearances, which provides us the means to predict future appearances with success, and that this connection must ha
ve a constant cause.

  —LEIBNIZ

  G. W. Leibniz, President

  Berlin Academy

  Berlin, Prussia

  To Mr. Daniel Waterhouse, Chancellor

  Massachusetts Bay Institute of Technologickal Arts

  Newtowne, Massachusetts Bay Colony

  Dear Daniel,

  The appearance of your letter on the doorstop of my Academy brought unlooked-for cheer to an otherwise frosty Berlin day, which developed into pleasure when I read that your Institute now has a roof over its head, and joy when you expressed your continued desire to collaborate with me. I confess that when two years passed without word from you, I thought you had been killed by Indians or hanged for a witch!

  Much has happened since we last exchanged letters. You have probably noticed that I have a new address (Berlin) and what is more, it is in a new kingdom (Prussia). The monarch you knew by the name Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg is now called King Frederick I of Prussia. He is the same chap, still joyfully married to the same Sophie Charlotte, living in and ruling from the same palace that he built for her in Berlin, but he has (through machinations that would only disfigure this letter) persuaded the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna (still Leopold I, in case you have not been keeping up) to suffer him to use the title of King. His family (the Hohenzollerns) have been the Dukes of Prussia as well as Electors of Brandenburg for so many generations that it made sense to merge the two countries. The result is called Prussia but still ruled out of Brandenburg.

  Sophie is as vigorous and crafty as always. She and her daughter have deemed it unwise to give the appearance of being too close, as this would give the idea, to friends and foes alike, that Sophie was now controlling an immense German state stretching from Königsberg in the east almost all the way west to the Rhine. For various reasons she prefers to seem instead like a contented elderly widow; so she lets her son George Louis think that he rules Hanover, and she travels to Berlin only occasionally, to pinch the cheeks of her grandchildren and put on a great show of harmlessness.