“His Majesty’s Privy Council have demanded a Trial of the Pyx,” Daniel reminds them, “and so provided there are no objections I say that we should give them satisfaction by fetching the necessary bits and conveying them to Star Chamber with no further ado.”
There are no objections and so Daniel turns significantly toward the locked door. The First Lord of the Treasury his Clarke, Writer of the Tallies, and Auditor of the Receipt of the King’s Exchequer moves into position on one side of him, and another Key-holder on the other. They make a second echelon behind another group of three Key-holders who form up directly in front of the door: the Dean of Westminster, the Chamberlain’s Deputy of the Receipt of the King’s Exchequer, and a representative of the Company of Goldsmiths. The Dean steps up, pulling off a key that has been dangling on his breast-bone on a golden rope, and sets to work on one of the three padlocks visible on this, the outer door. When he is finished, the other two Key-holders play their parts. The padlocks are carried away in pomp and laid out on the stone bench where important men make it their business to keep an eye on them. The great hasp is dismantled by a brawny Acolyte and the door is pulled open.
Two steps lead down into a small anteroom. The way is barred by a second door, no less formidable than the first. Daniel steps forward and down in to this space, takes out his key, and after a few moments’ trial and error, works out which lock it is meant to open. That achieved, he ascends back to cloister level, for there is only room there for one Key-holder and one lanthorn-man. Presently all three inner-door locks have been removed, and brought out into the light, and the hasp is undone. Eyes turn to Daniel again. He goes down in there and puts his shoulder to the door and shoves. It swings halfway open and stops resolutely, as he knew it would. The vault beyond is twice as ancient as the Chapter House. It was rifled during some 13th-Century disturbance—for this is where the Abbey stores its plate and other treasures—and so they installed a stone kerb on the floor so that the door could not be swung fully a-gape, and any future looters would have to ferry the goods out one bauble at a time, as opposed to by the chest-load.
It is Daniel’s privilege now to go in, so he takes possession of a lanthorn and side-steps into the Pyx chamber—then quells a misanthropic urge to slam it behind him and bar it, and live here for a thousand years on the Philosopher’s Stone. The place is bigger than he’d expected: thirty feet square, with a single squat pillar in the center holding up the four low-slung vaults that converge there and give the place such a hunched, dwarvish feel. After all of this fuss, Daniel’s bemused to find that it is just a dusty old storage-cellar with black lock-boxes strewn about according to no especial plan.
Others follow him in. Some seem to know their way around the place. They converge on certain of the treasure-chests, and there is much more finagling with keys. The last group to sack the place were Cromwell’s men, who shot the locks off the chests and helped themselves to the Coronation regalia. But Cromwell had needed a sound coinage as badly as any King of old, and so he’d had to mend the chests and replace the locks. Daniel is tempted to point this out as he watches hereditary nobles fumbling with the Puritan hard-ware, but he stifles himself.
Three important objects come out from their respective lock-boxes:
(item) A leather case containing Terrible Documents: the counterpanes of the indentures signed by Isaac and other Mint officials. The First Lord of the Treasury his Clarke takes possession of these.
(item) A boxy wooden chest containing standard weights.
(item) A broader and flatter chest containing standard plates: sheets of precious metal of known fineness, produced in the furnaces of the Company of Goldsmiths. It is against these that Isaac’s coins are to be compared.
These three treasures are borne up into the Cloister as if they were royal triplets being trotted out for some fresh air. Long and loud is the clicking of keys and clanging of hasps in their wake. This rite must have been a lot more efficient, Daniel reflects, back in the days when Parliament and the Council both held their deliberations a few paces away in the Chapter House. When the monks booted them out, there must have been some discussion along the lines of “Oh yes, and one of these days we must fetch the Pyx stuff out of the Abbey and store it where it is actually used.” But that was one of those errands that, if not achieved in the first twelve hours, would remain undone centuries later. And, as all of this was shewing, the fetching-out of these three items had long since ossified into a ceremony.
A procession forms up and marches back along the Cloister, into the Transept of the Abbey, and across the Quire. The demolition-crews taking down the galleries in the North Transept seem to sense that something very grave is underway, and shush one another, and clear a path for them; some take their hats off, others stand at attention, holding their crowbars at parade rest. As soon as the last of the parade has gone out the north door, they descend back into joyous mayhem.
The procession right-faces as it clears the door, entering in to a pass between the Abbey and St. Margaret’s Church. Their path toward the River is squarely barred by the gloomy, encrusted hulk of Westminster Hall. To the left or north end of it lie those encrustations belonging to the Exchequer, including the Star Chamber. This is where Sir Isaac Newton’s travail began, back in June. It is where the final settling of accounts is going to take place now, or as soon as Daniel and the others cross the street.
Chapel of Newgate Prison
IT IS A WHOLE new look for the chapel: the black window treatments have been pulled down, and sentenced to a period of confinement, not to exceed one-eighth of a year, in a wooden box where moths will feed upon them. Light is cautiously admitted through the window-grates. The tourists in the back pews are absent. On the altar before the Condemned pew, the coffin has been replaced with a platter of bread and wine. The wine looks as if it’s to be metered out in thimbles, which is an offense to Jack. For if the Church believes, as it plainly does, that a little bit of communion wine is a good thing, then why should not a bucket of it be excellent?
But there’ll be plenty of opportunities to get drunk on the way to Tyburn, and so this is a mere passing flicker of annoyance. He is here to be Churchified. It is the next in the steadily building rite of mortifications and tortures that began with the Bell-Man last night and will culminate, in a few hours, with quartering.
Jack Shaftoe is brought in separately, after the wretches who spent the night in the Condemned Hold have already been frogmarched up the aisle and chained to the awful Pew. He feels like a bride, the last one into the church, the one all heads turn to look at. As well they might! For Jack got up two hours ago, not wanting to waste a single minute of this most special of all days, and has spent the intervening time getting dressed up in his Hanging-Suit.
He does not know whence the Hanging-Suit came. It arrived at dawn, delivered, the turnkey insisted, by a blond man who roared up in an immense black carriage, and did not speak a word.
Several boxes were needed to contain the entire Hanging-Suit. By the time Jack first saw it, they’d all been gone through by the gaolers, to make sure that no shivs, pistols, saws, or Infernal Devices were wrapped up in the finery. So all was in disarray, all blotched with grimy hand-prints. And yet the inherent majesty of the Hanging-Suit was in no way diminished.
The innermost of the Hanging-Suit’s three layers—the part that touches Jack—comprises white drawers of Egyptian cotton, white hose of Turkish silk, and a shirt made from enough fine white Irish linen to keep a company of Foot in tourniquets and bandages through a brief foreign war. And it must be understood that the adjective “white” here means a true, blinding salt-white, and not the dirty beige that passes for white in poorly illuminated textile markets.
The next layer comprises a pair of breeches, a long-skirted waistcoat, and a coat. All of these are in metallic hues. As a matter of fact, Jack’s pretty sure that they are literally made out of metal. The waistcoat seems to be cloth-of-gold. The breeches and coat are silver. All of
the buttons are golden, which Jack takes to mean that, like counterfeit guineas, they are lumps of solder, cleverly jacketed in whispers of gold. But when he bites one, it bites back. Only faint impressions are left by his [false] teeth, and he can see no trace of gray in them—no evidence of base metal underlying the gold. These buttons were made by pouring molten metal into a mold, so each one bears the same imprint: a figure too tiny and involved for Jack’s eyes to make it out in the dimness of his Castle apartment.
The third layer—what comes into contact with the dirt of the world—consists of black leather shoes with silver buckles; a cape, purple on the outside, lined with fur, and hemmed and piped and bebuttoned with additional silver and gold; and a white periwig.
The Hanging-Suit is replete with pockets, several of which came pre-loaded with coins, placing Jack in a position to dispense Civility Money to the sundry turnkeys, gaolers, blacksmiths, drivers, and executioners who’ll be handling him during the course of the day. It is extraordinary that those coins were not pilfered and the buttons not ripped off by the gaolers when they inspected the Hanging-Suit; Jack concludes that the Mysterious Personage who brought it to him must have employed not only bribery, but threats of Prosecution and of Physical Violence as well.
On his way up stairs to the chapel here, he has advanced the turnkey a shilling for the following favor:
Upon entering the Chapel, every denizen of Newgate stops in his tracks for a few moments because staggered by a blast of light, a sort of optical fanfare. To be honest, the chapel is just sufficiently illuminated for the Ordinary to read from his hundred-pound Bible. But compared to the rest of Newgate, it’s brilliant.
The Lord’s House gets the best part of the prison, viz. the southeastern corner of the top floor. This means a few windows face the morning sun, and several more take the sun during the day—assuming there is any sun. Today the sky is cloudless. The favor that Jack has requested of the turnkey is simply that he would like to have a few moments to bask in the sun that streams into one of those east-facing windows, at the back of the chapel, before he is led up to the doleful Pew.
The transaction comes off as agreed. Into the southeast corner Jack goes, and stands in a prism of sunlight for a few moments. His eyes are seared by the radiance of his own clothing. He is forced to gaze out the window for a few moments, to give his stiff creaky old pupils time to shrink down to the size of fleas. He is therefore gazing roughly eastwards, down the length of Phoenix Court. Just below him, Phoenix Court makes a sort of intersection with the Straight and Narrow Way that connects Newgate with the Court of Sessions in the Old Bailey. Moving away from the prison, then, it forms the northern boundary of the garden that spreads behind the College of Physicians.
Gazing over the wall from this privileged vantage-point, Jack is just a bit let down to see that the College of Physicians is still standing. Oh, there are columns of smoke rising from its property. But this is not because the Mobb burned it down last night. The smoke issues rather from cook-fires. The garden in the back has been turned into a bivouac for (counting the tents) a company of soldiers. No, strike that, they are (examining the colours) grenadiers. Of soldiers, these are the biggest (in that they are obliged to march around with large numbers of iron bombs strapped to their bodies), stupidest (obviously), and the most dangerous to the Mobility (considering the effect of a grenade lobbed into a crowd). Just the lot you’d want to have camped out in your garden if you were Noble, and expecting a nocturnal visit from the Mobile.
As long as he’s here, Jack takes a moment to fondle one of his golden buttons, and to twist it round for a good look. He notes, first of all, that it’s not attached very firmly: just a few threads hold it in place. But he already knew that from fumbling with it in the dark, back in his apartment. What he really wants is to examine the emblem that is molded into every one of those buttons. Now that he has light, he recognizes it instantly: this is the symbol written by Alchemists to denote quicksilver.
These preliminaries, small as they might seem, put all into a new light—and not just literally—for Jack. He allows himself to be escorted up the aisle, very much like a radiant bride, and very much to the dazzlement of his pew-mates and the dismay of the Ordinary.
The only thing lacking is the bridegroom, one Jack Ketch, who is down in his kitchen putting on his black formal attire and getting ready for the big day. But that part of the ceremony will be conducted later, al fresco, before, give or take a multitude, the entire population of Southeastern England.
The service follows the usual pattern, complete with Old and New Testament readings chosen to fit the occasion. The Ordinary has pre-positioned bookmarks. The Old Testament one is a length of black grosgrain ribbon that takes him into the type of passage whose sole purpose, in a Christian service, is to demonstrate just how much trouble we would all be in, if we were still Jews. Finishing this, the Ordinary grips three inches’ and fifty pounds’ worth of pages and heaves them over, bypassing a lot of zany Prophets and tedious Psalms, and dropping smack dab into the New Testament. A small adjustment then takes him to a page that has been marked with the gaudiest, most whorish bookmark Jack’s ever seen, a fat swath of yellow silk with a gold medallion dangling from the end. The Ordinary pulls this exhibit all the way out of the Book, gripping the golden disk in his hand, and letting the yellow silk dangle before them, and rather deliberately folds it up and slips it into his pocket, all the while keeping a curious eye on Jack.
It occurs to Jack that he is being Sent a Message.
The Ordinary reads. It is not a single continuous selection but a whole series of snippets, for worshippers with short attention spans, and short life expectancies.
“Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white. Luke 9:28–29.
“As they were going along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Luke 9:57–58.
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. Luke 10:30–34.
“There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom. Luke 16:19–23.”
“I’ll be damned, that Luke was a hell of a scribbler,” says Jack.
The Ordinary pauses and stares at Jack over his half-glasses.
Bribing the Ordinary is nothing new, of course, it is nearly as ancient and hallowed a ritual as celebrating the Eucharist. But the yellow silk, the gold—this is a kind of signature, a way of letting Jack know just who did the bribing.
“Your Reverence, could I trouble you to read the Old Testament passage one more time?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Read it again. Consider it, sir, to be part of those Duties for which you have been already Compensated.”
With great rakings and shovelings of pages, the Ordinary returns to the very beginning of the Tome. The other condemned prisoners shift and mutter; some even rattle their chains. To be hanged by
the neck until dead is one thing; but to be forced to listen to a reading from the Old Testament twice, why, that is not only Unusual but Cruel.
“Cain knew his wife,” the Ordinary intones, “and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a City, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch…” There now follows a quarter of an hour of men knowing their wives, and becoming the fathers of other men and living for hundreds and hundreds of years. This was the bit where Jack lost his concentration on the first read-through. And to be perfectly honest he loses it again now, somewhere around the time when Kenan becomes the father of Mahalalel. But he snaps to attention later when the name of Enoch comes up again. “When Enoch had lived sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. The Book of Genesis, Chapter 5.” And the Ordinary heaves an immense sigh, for he has been reading for a long time, and lo, he thirsteth mightily for the wine on the Lord’s Table, for his throat is as dry as a place in the wilderness without water, amen.
“What the hell does that mean? ‘Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him’?”
“Enoch was translated,” the Ordinary says.
“Even an unlettered mudlark like me knows that the Bible was translated from another tongue, your Reverence, but—”
“No, no, no, I don’t mean translated that way. It is a term of theology,” the Ordinary says, “it means that Enoch did not die.”
“Pardon?”
“At the point of death, he was taken away bodily into the afterlife.”
“Bodily?”
The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World Page 331