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

by Neal Stephenson

  “His body, rather than dying, was translated away,” says the Ordinary. “Is it all right with you if we continue now with the service as planned?”

  “Carry on, sir,” Jack says. “Carry on.”

  New Palace Yard, Westminster

  EVEN AS DANIEL’S PROCESSION has been assembling in the Cloisters of Westminster Abbey, in other buildings, palaces, and compounds around London other groups have been coalescing in more or less ancient and awesome buildings and converged on Westminster by boat, foot, or gilded carriage, and are now stacked outside of Star Chamber like so many battalions waiting to be summoned onto the Fields of Mars. It is no mean similitude. The Trial of the Pyx is so pompous precisely because it is such a dire and vicious clash. In its rudiments, this is a four-way knife-fight among the Sovereign (here represented by the Lords of the Council and the King’s Remembrancer), the Exchequer (which is playing host to the Trial), the Mint (today, synonymous with Sir Isaac Newton), and a medieval guild called the Company of Goldsmiths. In effect, what they are all here to do is to construct an airtight legal case against Sir Isaac, and find him guilty beyond doubt of Treason, in the form of embezzling from the Royal Mint, so that he may be punished straightaway and with no thought of any appeal. The penalties might range from æternal shame and obloquy on up to loss of the right hand (the traditional fate of fraudulent coiners) or even to the same treatment that Jack Shaftoe is about to receive at Tyburn. The challengers are the Goldsmiths, here represented by a jury of chaps in suitably medieval-looking garb, flashy with cloth-of-gold. They are Prosecutors, Mercenaries, and Inquisitors all rolled in to one. The choice is cunningly made, for the Goldsmiths have a natural and long-standing suspicion of the Mint and its produce, which from time to time flares up to out-and-out hostility. Hostility has been the rule during Sir Isaac’s tenure. Isaac has found ways to reduce the profit that the Goldsmiths reap when they deliver bullion to the Mint to be coined, and they have retaliated by crafting new trial plates of such fineness that Isaac has been hard pressed to mint guineas pure enough. For the Goldsmiths, as well as others in the money trade, such as Mr. Threader, the rewards of bringing down Isaac shall be immense.

  The Serjeant at Arms Attending the Great Seal comes out in to the yard and summons Daniel’s contingent. They troop into the Palace and enter presently into Star Chamber. Last time Daniel was in this place, he was tied to a chair and being tortured for sport by Jeffreys. Today the scene’s a bit different. The furniture has been removed or pushed to the walls. In the middle of the chamber, planks have been laid down to protect the floor, and bricks piled atop them to make a platform at about the height of a man’s midsection. Resting atop this is a small furnace, similar to the one in which Daniel melted his ring last night. Someone must have been up tending it since the wee hours, for it’s already heated through, cherry red, and ready to go.

  They pass out into a side chamber. Marlborough’s here, seated at the high end of a table along with the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the new First Lord of the Treasury—Roger’s replacement—and other Lords of the Council. Seated in the middle of the table, facing the door, and flanked by clerks and aides, is a chap in a white judicial wig, a three-cornered baron’s hat, and black robes. This, Daniel reckons, would be the King’s Remembrancer: one of the most ancient positions in the Realm. He is the keeper of the Seal that is the sine qua non of the power of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in the King’s name he rides herd on the Exchequer in diverse ways—including presiding over Trials of the Pyx.

  Such a Trial cannot even get underway without the necessaries that it has been Daniel’s honor to fetch from the Abbey vault. And so what occurs next, encrusted as it might be with protocol and ceremony, is ever so straightforward: Daniel and the other five Key-holders are summoned to the table. The King’s Remembrancer asks for the Indentures, the Weights, and the Plates. These are handed over, but not before Daniel and the others have sworn on stacks of Bibles that they are the genuine articles. One of the King’s Remembrancer’s Clarkes opens up the chest containing the trial plates. There are two of these, one of silver and one of gold: slabs of metal inscribed with great hairballs of cursive asserting just how fine and just how authentic they are, and pocked here and there with goldsmiths’ seals. The Clarke reads these aloud. Another contingent of blokes is summoned and sworn: these have come from his majesty the King’s Treasury at Westminster, whence they’ve fetched out a little chest, sealed shut with a lump of wax. The seal is that of the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor himself is hauled in, at the head of a jury of twelve Citizens, Mr. Threader among them. The Lord Mayor verifies the seal on the chest. It is opened and a die is removed from a velvet bed. The die is compared, by the Mayor and the Citizens, to the stamps on the trial plates, and all agree that the match is perfect. These are indeed the true plates made by the Goldsmiths as a challenge to Sir Isaac Newton; the Trial may proceed.

  Similar rites attend the box of weights. This is lined in green velvet, with neat depressions to contain the individual weights: the largest, a full pint or so of brass, marked 500 shillings and much smaller ones for 1 shilling and 4 pence and one pence, &c., &c., and finally a set of ivory-handled tweezers for manipulating the tiniest of them.

  “Summon the Goldsmiths,” intones the King’s Remembrancer. To Daniel and his coterie, he says, “You may stand over there,” and waves at an open space in the corner. Daniel leads the group over, and turns around to find the eyes of the Duke of Marlborough on him: a reminder—as if Daniel needed any—that this is it. The new System is facing its first test, and it’s doing so under the most adverse possible circumstances: a sick and possibly demented Alchemist is in charge of the Mint and a Vagabond has tampered with the Pyx and is now going to meet his Maker without having coughed up the evidence they want. And Roger’s no longer around to make it all better.

  The Stone Anvil, the High Hall,

  Newgate Prison

  “I HAVE FOUND GOD!” Jack Shaftoe announces.

  “What, here!?” says his interlocutor, a heavy-set chap in a black leather hood.

  They are standing in a queue in the High Hall. Or rather Jack Shaftoe is, and the hooded man has come up to him, the better to inspect Jack’s Hanging-Suit.

  The High Hall might be a bit of a grand name for it. It is simply the biggest room in the gaol, outside of the Chapel, and so it is where fitness-conscious felons come to toddle around, in an endless ragged procession. The center of their orbit is a block of stone set in the middle of the floor, and equipped with a few basic smithy-tools. Normally they are a wordy bunch, the Hall a hurricanoe of profanity, a Vortex of Execration. Today they are gagged by their own amazement. All stare inwards toward the two most famous Jacks in London: Shaftoe and Ketch, exchanging civilities like Addison and Steele. There is no sound except for the scraping of their chains on the floor, and the organized chants of the Mobb outside.

  Then an ear-splitting clang sounds from the stone anvil. Another prisoner has just had his ankle-fetters struck off. The only restraint upon him now is a length of cord with which Ketch has lately bound his elbows together behind his back.

  “The communion-bread, you know, is in the shape of coins,” Shaftoe remarks.

  Then he thinks better of it, for Ketch thinks it’s funny, and forgets himself, and exposes his empty tooth-sockets, as well as a few that are soon to be empty. For the hood unfortunately stops at the level of his nose. Somewhere, Ketch must have a whole foot-locker filled with false teeth, as no man in London is in a better position to collect them; but he has not worn any today.

  “But how richer a treasure are those coins of bread, than ones of gold!” Shaftoe exclaims. “For gold and silver may buy admission to a Clubb, or other place of debauchery. But coins of bread have bought me admission to the Kingdom of Heaven. Assuming I can manage a few things in the next couple of hours.”

  Ketch has utterly lost interest. How many times has he heard this identical speech from a client? He excus
es himself very civilly, jumps to the head of the queue, and devotes a few moments to pinioning the next prisoner’s elbows with another length of cord.

  When Ketch comes back, it is evident he has been thinking about Jack’s Hanging-Suit. “After this,” he remarks, “it will not be possible for you to change clothes.”

  “Oh, you are a subtile one, Jack Ketch!” Shaftoe remarks.

  “It is just that—according to some who style themselves in the know—you are destitute.”

  “You think I borrowed this suit!? Fie on all such gossip-mongers, Mr. Ketch, you know better than to pay heed to them. This suit is every bit as much my own property, as that handsome hood is yours.”

  Another clang. Ketch excuses himself again and binds up the bloke who’s directly in front of Jack. While he is doing so, he sniffles once or twice, juicily, as if the air in the High Hall does not agree with him. But of all men in London, Ketch must be the least sensitive to miasmas, damps, and vapours.

  When Ketch turns back round, Shaftoe’s startled, and even a bit alarmed, to see, below the fringe of the hood, a teardrop trickling down his cheek. Ketch steps close to Shaftoe, close enough that Shaftoe, craning his neck (for Ketch is a head taller) can resolve individual cavities in Ketch’s last remaining incisor. “You can’t imagine what this means to me, Mr. Shaftoe.”

  “No, I cannot, Mr. Ketch. What does it mean to you?”

  “I’m in debt, Mr. Shaftoe, deep in debt.”

  “You don’t say!”

  “My Betty—the missus—can’t stop having little ones. Every year for the last eight.”

  “You have eight little Ketches? How remarkable, that a man in your line of work should be such a fount of new life.”

  “After the last hanging, one of my creditors tried to arrest me in the street! I’ve never been so ashamed.”

  “Indeed! For a man in such a respectable profession, to be accosted in a public place, and accused of indebtedness, that is a grave humiliation!”

  “What would my boys think of me if I wound up here, in Newgate?”

  “You have wound up here in Newgate, Mr. Ketch. But never mind, I take your meaning.”

  “They’d have to come and live with me. Here.”

  “It is not the best environment for raising small children,” Shaftoe allowed.

  “That’s why—excuse me—” Ketch steps behind Shaftoe, draws out another length of cord, and strings it between the latter’s elbows. Ketch makes a sliding knot, and begins to draw it tighter, bringing Shaftoe’s elbows closer together—but only a bit.

  “It would be a shame to wrinkle the Hanging-Suit,” Shaftoe remarks.

  “A great shame, Mr. Shaftoe, but more important to me is your comfort.”

  Shaftoe smiles in spite of himself at this polite evasion. And with that smile on his face, he steps forward, raises a knee, and places one immaculate polished shoe on the stone anvil. “Do have a care with that hammer, my good man,” he says to the smith—a pox-ravaged prisoner who looks like he has been in Newgate since the Fire. “These clothes mean nothing to me, but they will soon be inherited by my good friend Mr. Ketch here. For he is not only my friend, and my sole heir, but the executor of my will. By the immemorial traditions of this Realm, all that I wear upon my person, and the contents of its pockets, are his at the moment of my expiration. In those pockets reside several coins of diverse denominations. If you go about your work soberly, and leave my shoes unmarked, Mr. Ketch may choose to reach into one of my pockets and fish out a rather large coin for your Civility Money; but if you ruin them, Mr. Ketch may have to recoup his losses by giving you nothing.”

  In consequence of this, the smith spends more time getting Jack’s chains off than all the other condemnees put together. But get them off he does, and for his pains receives a handsome shilling from Shaftoe’s pocket and Ketch’s hand.

  The Trial of the Pyx

  NO TWO TRIALS of the Pyx are the same. Details vary depending on whose ox is being gored at the time, and who’s goring it. Anciently the Mayor and Citizens of London would stand by and witness the whole rite, which was the most reasonable thing in the world given that the City men had a greater stake in the soundness of the coinage than anyone else. It made for some crowded and riotous Trials, and so at some point a jury of twelve respected City men came to stand in for the whole Citizenry. They would take a hand in those parts of the Trial that did not require any special Guild expertise, and observe the Jury of Goldsmiths carrying out those that did, and when the assayers had rendered their verdict, they would go out into London and relate the good or bad news to their fellow-Citizens.

  In recent centuries the presence of the City men has slowly dwindled, to the point where Sir Isaac Newton has felt moved to complain that Trials of the Pyx have become a shadowy rite conducted by a cabal or conspiracy of Goldsmiths, unobserved and unaccountable. It is safe to say the Goldsmiths are no more pleased by these remarks than by anything else Isaac has done during his tenure at the Mint. Still and all, the entire point of the exercise is to prove Isaac a traitorous fraud, and, if at all possible, to see his hand chopped off in New Palace Yard. All of which is less likely to come to pass if Isaac can make a credible case that the Trial is rigged by a shadowy Guild. So for today’s Trial the pendulum has swung back as far as it can without inviting the whole City. It is a full-dress, dual-Jury affair. The City’s represented not only by the Lord Mayor but also by a full jury of twelve Citizens, separate from and independent of the jury of Goldsmiths. And they’ll not just watch but—mostly through their chosen delegate, Mr. Threader—participate. Only after these dozen Citizens have been recognized and sworn and shunted off to their own corner is it time for the Principals to be brought in and the Trial to begin in earnest.

  The King’s Remembrancer asks for the Pyx. Out goes the Serjeant at Arms. A minute later he’s back with the Earl of Lostwithiel in tow, and behind Lostwithiel are four more King’s Messengers carrying a palanquin on which rests the Pyx. This is set down before the table, and Lostwithiel avers that it really is the Pyx and that he fetched it in good order straight from the Tower, and no monkey business along the way.

  The King’s Remembrancer then asks the Serjeant to summon the second Jury: that of the Goldsmiths. A minute later, the Twelve troop in, all a-gleam, and line up before him. They cannot take their eyes off the Pyx, at least not until the King’s Remembrancer speaks, as follows: “Do you swear that you shall well and truly, after your knowledge and discretion, make the assays of the monies of gold and silver that have been reposited in the Pyx, and truly report if the said monies be in weight and fineness according to the King’s standards of his Treasury, and also if the same monies be sufficient in allay, et cetera, according to the Covenant comprised in the Indenture thereof made between the King’s grace and the Master of his Mint, so help you God?”

  “We do,” say the Jury of Goldsmiths.

  Satisfied of that, the King’s Remembrancer asks for the Master of the Mint: the man, and the moment, everyone has been waiting for. All bodies and heads and eyes turn to follow the Serjeant out of the room, then remain motionless as his boot-steps recede through Star Chamber and the gallery beyond.

  They wait, and wait, and wait, until every man jack in the room is quite certain that it really is taking longer than it ought to—much longer—something must be out of joint. A member of the City jury can be heard mumbling some kind of witticism. One of the goldsmiths says clearly, “Perhaps he’s at the hanging!” and another responds, “Perhaps he’s run off to France!” whereupon he is furiously shushed by no less than the Duke of Marlborough.

  When all of that noise and bother die down, it is finally possible to hear people approaching Star Chamber—rather more people than the King’s Remembrancer asked for. The entourage, if that’s what it is, bates outside. The Serjeant comes in. On his arm is a young woman. They cross the floor of Star Chamber; her head turns to gaze curiously at the assayer’s furnace, whose red light shines on her, so tha
t Daniel recognizes her as Catherine Barton.

  She comes in to the chamber and is heralded by the Serjeant. Great is her fame, of course, and so the amount of ogling that now takes place is beyond all boundaries of dignity. It almost would have been better if she had showed up stark naked. “My lords,” she says, for with so many dignitaries in the room she daren’t speculate as to who is in charge, “Sir Isaac Newton is ill. I have sat by his bed this last week and I beseeched him not to answer your summons. He would not heed me, but gave orders that he was to be brought here this morning no matter what. He is very weak, and so, if it please my lords, I have arranged to bring him here in his sedan chair. With your permission, I’ll have him brought in thusly.”

  “As his nurse, Miss Barton, is it your opinion that he is fit to understand what is going on around him, and to be tried?” asks the King’s Remembrancer.

  “Oh, yes. He knows,” Miss Barton insists, “however, because he is so very weak, he requests that Dr. Daniel Waterhouse act as his spokesman.” And, having now fixed on the King’s Remembrancer as the boss, she steps forward and hands him a letter, presumably written in Isaac’s hand, saying as much.

  Generally not one to seize the moment, Daniel acts all out of character now by striding in to the middle of the room while most eyes are still trying to pick him out in the crowd. “If Sir Isaac’s proposal is acceptable to my lords, then I shall be honoured to serve as his hand and voice.”

  There is a certain amount of looking back and forth now, but this does not alter what is inside the Pyx, or what is written on the indenture, and so in the end it does not really matter. Suddenly, important heads are nodding all around the room. “It is so ordered,” says the King’s Remembrancer, not before reading the letter through twice. “You have the gratitude of the Council, Dr. Waterhouse. Er, shall we have Sir Isaac’s chair brought in, then?”