The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World

by Neal Stephenson

  “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 compl
etely 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.

  “Very well,” Moseh said, “we’ll tell him in Egypt, and we’ll hope he’ll be so pleased by unexpected fortune that he’ll overlook past deceptions.” He paused and heaved a sigh. “Now as for the other matter: Why does he want both the raïs and the ranking Janissary to come out in the longboat to collect the slaves?”

  “It is a routine formality,” said the raïs. “For him to do otherwise would be very odd.”*

  “Remember, we are speaking of a French Duke. He will hew to protocol no matter what,” Vrej agreed.

  “Only one of us can pass for a Janissary. I will go,” Jack said. “Get me a turban and all the rest.”

  “EVEN IF THAT DUKE STARED me full in the face, I doubt he would recognize me,” Jack said. “My face was covered most of the time that I was in his house—otherwise, he never would have mistaken me for Leroy. I only let the scarf fall at the very end—”

  “But if there was any truth whatsoever in your narration,” said Dappa carefully, “it was a moment of high drama, exceeding anything ever staged in a theatre.”

  “What is your point?”

  “In those short moments you may have made a vivid impression in the Duke’s memory.”

  “I should hope so!”

  “No, Jack,” Moseh said gently, “you should hope not.”

  Only Moseh, Dappa, and Vrej knew that the Investor had for some years been combing every last fen, wadi, and reef of the Mediterranean for the man identified, by Muslims, as Ali Zaybak. Moseh and Dappa had followed Jack to the dress-up sack to fret and wring their hands. Vrej was completely unconcerned, though: “In those days Jack had long hair, and a stubbled face, and was heavier. Now with his head and face shaved, and a turban, and with him so gaunt and weather-tanned, I think there is little chance of his being recognized—provided he keeps his trousers on.”

  “What possible reason could there be to take them off?” Jack demanded hotly.

  THE LONGBOAT CAME OUT. Jack and the raïs climbed in. Dappa came, too, as interpreter—for they had agreed that it would be unwise for Jack to let it be known that he spoke Vagabond-French. The longboat took them not to Météore after all, but to a part of the harbor where no fewer than half a dozen war galleys of the French Navy were tied up on either side of a long stone pier. The longboat was tied up at the pier’s end by a couple of barefoot French swabbies. The tide was quite low, so Jack, Nasr al-Ghuráb, and Dappa took turns ascending a ladder to the pier’s sun-hammered top and there met the same young officer who had earlier brought them the letter. He was a slender fellow with a high nose and an overbite, who bowed slightly, and greeted them without really showing respect. Introductions were made by an aide. The officer was identified as one Pierre de Jonzac.

  “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.

  De Jonzac spun on his heel and led them down the pier. The hulls of the French galleys were low as slippers and narrow as knives and could not even be seen from here, but each one had—as well as a pair of masts—both a fore-and a stern-castle, meant to carry her pay-load of cannons and Marines as high above the foes’ as possible. These castles—which were all decorated, gilded, and painted in the finest Barock style—seemed to hover in the air on either side of the pier, bobbing gently in the swell. It was a strangely peaceful scene—until they followed de Jonzac to the edge of the pier and looked down into one of the galleys: a stinking wood-lined gouge in the water, packed with hundreds of naked men, chained by their waists and ankles in groups of five. Many were dozing. But as soon as faces appeared above them, a few began to shout abuse, and woke up all the rest. Then they were all screaming.

  “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.