The System of the World: Volume Three of the Baroque Cycle

by Neal Stephenson

  A and B referred to two locations on the east bank of Fleet Ditch, near the prison’s northwest and southwest corners. These were marked on a survey plat, done by Hooke after the Fire. Comparing this against what he could see from his present vantage point, Daniel had now the satisfying experience of its all coming together coherently in his mind. Few human monuments were as permanent, as un-moveable, as a stone shithouse—especially one that by long-standing tradition was used by everyone in a crowded neighborhood. If Fleet Lane butcher’s boys were taking a shite at the southern end of the place in 1714, it probably meant they’d been doing so in 1614, 1514, 1414, &c. That row of privies must be among the dozen or so that had been erected over the moat. And the privy that Daniel was now looking at, next to the kitchen, must be over the moat, too—but on the opposite prong of the ox-bow. The back of that edifice was the Prison wall. Just on its other side would be a row of buildings that fronted on Fleet Lane. Some of these were slaughterhouses that, long ago, must have gathered along the north brink of that moat like flies, and employed it to carry away their offal. Likewise the prison kitchen, just there next to that privy.

  And the next building along was the one that was being guarded by the soldiers.

  Daniel had read legal filings made by prisoners who had been incarcerated in a certain strong-room on the Master’s Side of the Fleet, and who had hired lawyers to get them out of it at all costs. For such prisoners tended not to be debtors. They had been put there by Curia Regis or Star Chamber, and were dangerous and wealthy. The place was described, in these documents, as being situated on the south side of a ditch, which made no sense unless it was taken as a reference to the vanished moat. The dungeon was described as “infested with toads and vermin” and “surcharged with loathsome vapors” and “impervious to the least ray of light.” Prisoners there were chained to floor-staples and condemned to lie in sewage—their own (for there was not even a bucket) as well as what seeped in through the walls.

  These happy ruminations were interrupted by Saturn, who had come back with a serving-woman in tow. She set out the drinks. Saturn had borrowed some newspapers from the Tap-Room (which was said to be as well-stocked with current reading material as any Clubb in the metropolis) and sat down to peruse these over his chocolate.

  Daniel scrutinized the woman—though perhaps not as rudely as a turnkey—and guessed she was no whore, but perhaps the wife of a debtor, obliged to live here for a long time (perhaps forever) and trying to make some pin-money by helping out in the Tap-Room (another Engine of Revenue for the Warden). She gave as good as she got in the way of scrutiny, from which Daniel knew that Saturn had already told her the daft treasure-hunter story.

  “My good woman,” Daniel said, rooting his coin-purse from his pocket so that she would not wander off, “are you connected with the Management?”

  “Y’mean, the Court of Inspectors, like?”

  Daniel smiled. “I had in mind the Warden—”

  The woman was taken aback that the Warden should be brought into the conversation, even by a senile madman; Daniel might as well have asked her if she took tea with the Pope of Rome.

  “The Court of Inspectors, then, if they are the responsible parties.”

  “They are responsible for a lot of parties, know-

  what-I-mean!” She exchanged a twinkly look with Saturn: having a bit of harmless fun baiting the gager.

  “Those men with the muskets would not allow me to investigate yonder dungeon!” Daniel complained, pointing to the soldiers. “I had been led to believe that the Fleet was open to all, but—”

  “You’re in luck, then,” the woman announced.

  “How so, madame?”

  “Well, it’s like this: if you wanted near aught else, it’d be a cold day in Hell ’fore the Steward would give you the least bit of satisfaction, ’less you paid him, of course. But on the matter of them soldiers, the Steward is exercised, he is, and been making all manner of tedious speeches at the Wine-Clubb and the Beer-Clubb, and filing briefs against the Powers that Be! Your complaints shan’t fall on deaf ears, sir, if you go to the Steward direct—’specially if you make a contribution, like, know-what-I-mean.”

  During this Daniel had been extracting coins from his purse and sorting them on the tabletop, which had not gone unnoticed. He placed the tip of an index finger on one of modest value and slid it across the table so that the woman could take it—which she did. Her gaze was now rapt on Daniel’s index finger, which continued to hover above the array of coins.

  “Am I correct in gathering, then, that the garrisoning of armed soldiers in the Fleet is an unusual procedure?”

  It took her a moment to decode this. “Armed soldiers here unusual, why yes! I should say so!”

  “They’ve not been here long, then?”

  “Since August, I’d say. Guarding them new prisoners—or so ’tis claimed. The Steward scoffs—calls it a ruse—a press-what-do-you-call-it—”

  “A precedent.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That must not be allowed to stand, lest the Fleet insensibly begin to lose its ancient privileges,” Daniel guessed, exchanging a look with Saturn. Which might have sounded incredibly pretentious and high-flown; but Saturn had insisted that the debtors of the Fleet spent a third of their lives sleeping, a third drinking, gambling, smoking, &c., and a third pursuing abstract legal disputes with the Warden.

  “The Steward is the chief of the Court of Inspectors?” Daniel asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Elected, or—”

  “It’s complicated, like. Most often he is the eldest debtor.”

  “The senior debtors run the place through this made-up Court, then.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Course!” Then they narrowed. “But ain’t all Courts made-up?”

  Daniel liked this so much that he paid her more than it was probably worth. “Now, you say that there is a Wine-Clubb?”

  “Yes, sir, Monday nights. And Beer-Clubb Thursdays. Leastwise, men gather and drink, and call it a Clubb.”

  “Prisoners or visitors or—”

  “Both.”

  “So it is finished at ten of the clock?”

  The woman had no idea what Daniel was on about, so he had to explain: “At that hour, the turnkeys call ‘strangers all out,’ do they not?”

  “What matters it, if they do? The Clubbs roar until one or two in the morning, sir, and then they disperse to apartments, and carry on through sunrise.”

  Daniel slid her another coin, feeling stupid in retrospect. For everyone said this was the greatest brothel in London, and how could such a thing be, if everyone really was shooed away at ten?

  “Of the Wine-Clubb and the Beer-Clubb, which is the loudest?”

  “Loudest? Wine-Clubb, loud early, quiet late. Beer-Clubb, other way round, know-what-I-mean.”

  “Do the soldiers ever partake?” asked Daniel, nodding at the tents.

  “Ooh, every so often a pair of ’em’ll nip round for a pint,” she said, “but it’s been dicey, ’tween us ’n’ them, know-what-I-mean—”

  “Because of the Steward’s legal proceedings.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. That’s it.”

  “How can they sleep, in those tents, with all of the noise from the tap-room nearby?”

  “They can’t. But sleep’s always a problem in the Fleet,” she said, “for them as have ambitions of sleepin’, know-what-I-mean.”

  “I know precisely what you mean, madame,” said Daniel, sliding a final coin. “Do take this and buy some cotton to stuff in your ears.”

  “Thank you ever so kindly, sir,” she said, backing away. “Hope to see you on Monday or Thursday evening, as you prefer.”

  “IF THIS GETS ANY EASIER,” said Daniel to Saturn, “I shall feel a bit let down.”

  “It doesn’t look easy to me! Have you seen the locks on that dungeon?”

  “It shall be as easy as throwing a party,” Daniel returned. “Now, come—let’s go out—suppo
sing that the turnkeys will let us!—and look for real estate on Fleet Lane.”

  Saturn looked gloomier than usual.

  “What, the idea doesn’t please you?”

  “It is no more displeasing than any of your other recent notions,” said Peter Hoxton, Esq.

  “Is that your idea of diplomacy?”

  “It is the best I can muster just now. You should not have looked in Hockley-in-the-Hole, if you sought a diplomat.”

  “Then as long as we are being blunt,” said Daniel, “this is as good a time as any for me to inform you that I know you made the Infernal Devices for Jack.”

  “Was wondering,” said Peter Hoxton, motionless and red.

  “I had suspected, but it became more than obvious in July, when you crafted that excellent snare that caught de Gex.”

  Peter Hoxton commenced inhaling now, and, over the next quarter-minute or so, drew into his lungs a few hogsheads of air, and grew and grew until it seemed his ribcage was going to press up against the building to one side and the wall to the other, and begin cracking the masonry. But finally he reached his limit, and let all of the air out in a whistling hurricanoe.

  “Was wondering,” he repeated, as if he’d only been trying the phrase on for size, the first time he’d said it. “Have been on tenterhooks, a bit.”

  “I know you have.”

  “I am gratified” said Saturn, cherishing this word, “gratified that you did not simply prosecute me.”

  “No one was killed,” Daniel pointed out. “The explosions did not continue.”

  “One of the reasons I sought you out in the first place, you know, was that…”

  “You wanted to keep an eye on me, and my investigation.”

  “Oh, to be sure, but also because…”

  “You felt bad that you’d had a hand in Blowing me Up.”

  “Yes—exactly! It’s as if you read my mind.”

  “I read your face, your manner, which is what a Father Confessor is supposed to do. What do you know concerning the Pyx?”

  “I opened it. Jack took some things out, placed others in.”

  “What did Jack put in? Was it fine gold? Or allayed with base metal?”

  Saturn shrugged. “I sometimes purchase gold to make watches,” he said, “but that is all I know of gold.”

  After this Daniel was silent for such a long time that Saturn progressed through diverse stages of irritability, nervousness, and melancholy. He looked up and regarded the Fleet Prison. “Would you like me to go yonder and pick out a cell, then, or—”

  “Wrong place for Infernal Device makers. You would find the company of debtors tedious. You would fall to drinking.” Daniel pushed himself to his feet and drained his coffee, which had been tepid when served and was cold now. “Now, about that real estate,” said Daniel. “My life began getting really complicated round the time the King of England blew up my house, and killed my dad; now I may have to blow up another house to make things simple again; if so, I’ll need a man of your skills.”

  Saturn finally stood up. “That, at least, is more interesting than what we have been doing, and so I shall join you.”

  NOTICE

  of a PUBLICK AUCTION

  to be conducted in the LIBERTY of the CLINK

  ONE WEEK FROM TODAY

  [that is, on the 20th October A.D. 1714]

  Item for sale: MR. CHARLES WHITE, ESQ.

  ’Tis well enough known, alike to the Nobility and the Mobility, that when the Earl of O—[known in some Clubbs by the sobriquet, Last of the Tories] was presented to the King of England at Greenwich, and crept up to kiss the King his hand, his majesty only glared at the poor Supplicant, then turned the royal Backside without suffering a Word to spill from his lips. Whereupon the blushing Earl fled in almost as profound Disgrace as his fellow Tory, my lord B—, who was last seen on the packet to Calais practicing his genuflections to any French gentleman who strolled near enough.

  From these and diverse other Auspices we may see that Torydom is bank-rupt. It is an ancient Tradition that when the final Scion of a noble House breathes his last, an Executor—by tradition, a respected Gentleman of the town—disposes of the surviving Effects, viz. livestock, wine-bottles, furnishings, carriages, &c.—by the expedient of a publick Auction. And indeed ’tis a very beneficial and ennobling practice; for many a Viscount, &c., of recent Coinage, whose grandpère was a cobbler or a smuggler, would otherwise be unable to stuff his town-house with family heirlooms dating back to the Norman Conquest.

  So dismal and thorough-going has been the Tories’ fall, that there is little left to sell off to the triumphant Whigs, and to my knowledge no good man has yet stepped forward to proffer his service as Executor [many would gladly nominate themselves for the rôle of Executioner; but that position is spoken for by one Jack Ketch, and he is said to be passing jealous of it, and a dangerous man to get on the wrong side of, as he has slain many].

  Having as I do much time on my hands [for I can only spend so many hours per diem counting my readers’ generous Contributions] and enjoying to no small degree the respect of the Duke of M—and other august figures [as how else could it be explained that the Whigs now print my scribblings in their Paper], I have lately stepped forward to appoint myself Executor of the wretched leavings that answer to the name of the Tories’ Estate. I approached this responsibility with aweful Trepidation, supposing I should have to toil for years at selling off the Tories’ abandoned Assets: mountains of debas’d paper Currency, acres of country-house-lawns, a warehouse of ill will, and diverse odds and ends such as French-English phrasebooks and Papist regalia. To my considerable relief, however, I have found that even these feeble assets are gone, dissolved, liquidated, and so my task is infinitely simpler than I had supposed. For the Tories have only one thing remaining, and that is Mr. Charles White, who professes to be my owner. Mr. White’s vocal and oft-repeated support for Slavery [a primitive and savage custom whereby one soul may own another] has simplified what would otherwise have been a most awkward matter. For thanks to the generosity of my readers I am sanguine that I have coin sufficient to purchase Mr. White at auction, which will be conducted immediately following the new King’s coronation on the 20th instant. Owning Mr. White, who asserts a claim to ownership of me shall mean, infallibly, that I shall then be the owner of myself again; which is all that I really seek. I shall then eliminate the middle-man, as ’twere, by confiscating all of Mr. White’s assets, including myself. Mr. White I shall set free, naked as the day he was born, so that he can hie to France and mug some Fopp for his clothes; though I may prevail on him first to shine my boots—which, being such a notorious Black-guard, he is well capable of doing.

  Signed,

  DAPPA of the LIBERTY OF THE CLINK

  13 October A.D. 1714

  The Tap-Room, Fleet Prison

  BEER-CLUBB NIGHT (THURSDAY, 14 OCTOBER 1714)

  DAPPA HAD ONLY WRITTEN THE bloody thing yesterday and the Tap-Room was already plastered with them—as was every other coffee-house and Clubb in the metropolis. Or so Daniel assumed, as he sat in the corner, pretending to have a beer, and reading it. He had not actually set foot in the Kit-Cat or any other such place since his memorable encounter with Jack Shaftoe in the Black Dogg ten days earlier. Rather, this Tap-Room had become his new College, and the debtors—especially the elders of the Court of Inspectors—his new fellows. They were no more tedious than most of the Kit-Cat’s membership, and Daniel often found them easier to get along with, as they had no purpose in life other than to go on existing as merrily as possible. Daniel could make them a good deal merrier by purchasing the occasional round for the house.

  And also by discoursing of buried treasure. For that yarn, which Daniel had made up on the spur of the moment, had spread through the Fleet’s population as quick as pink-eye. Not one in ten believed a word of it, of course; but that still left a few dozen who were ready to assault with spades and prybars any snatch of ground, floor, or wall whereon Daniel fi
xed his gaze for more than a few moments. Daniel had never meant to draw so much attention to himself, and was now worried that, if he did break the Shaftoes out of prison somehow, he’d be identified and prosecuted. But it was too late. All he could do now was fling out red herrings that might slow the investigations of future prosecutors. He wore a large brown wig, and gave out that his family name was Partry, and encouraged the prisoners of the Fleet to call him “Old Partry.”

  This, he now understood, was how men like Bolingbroke got into big trouble—not by doing anything identifiably stupid, but through an insensible narrowing of choices that compelled them, in the end, to take some risk or other.

  Of those credulous souls who believed in the buried-gold story, not a single one belonged to the Court of Inspectors. This led to some tension between the two factions whenever Daniel took up his seat in the Tap. For the Steward and his Court desired proximity to “Old Partry” so that they might get free drinks, and the gold-diggers wanted to hear about his latest researches. Daniel played them off against each other shamelessly—not a prudent long- (or even medium-) term strategy, but just barely sustainable for ten days. He began to drop hints that he had narrowed the gold’s location down to the prison’s northeast corner—that being the one where Jimmy and Danny Shaftoe and Tomba were locked in the strong-room. It did not take more than an hour for the gold-digging faction to arrive at the furious conclusion that the soldiers lately garrisoned in that corner were really there to provide cover for a treasure extraction project being conducted, illicitly of course, by High Officialdom, probably Tories under the control of the sinister Charles White! The Court of Inspectors did not credit a word of it, but saw merit in the legend anyway, in that it gave them yet another pretext to file writs against the Warden, and so they began disingenuously to spread and to foster the story, and even to improve upon it. This was all so absurd that Daniel’s orderly mind could never have predicted it; never would he have advanced any such thing as a strategy. But once underway, it could not be stopped.