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

by Neal Stephenson

  These containers were nothing like true barrels for strength, water-tightness, or cost. But they would fit down the well-shaft, and they would float, at least for a little while. Which was all that Daniel wanted. As soon as William Ham locked him in to the Vault, Daniel went over and pulled up the plank disk that covered the well-shaft. He was dizzy with a kind of terror that something would have gone wrong, and no one would be there. For a minute his fears were borne out. But then he began to hear voices, and a minute later he observed shreds of light skating and veering around, and finally a candle-flame, directly below. “Ready,” came a voice.

  Daniel dropped a hat-box down the shaft. No crashing or splintering noises were returned: only a firm splunk as it was caught by two out-stretched hands, followed by some conversation, and a brief surge of laughter. Then: “Ready!” and Daniel dropped another. It was uneven the first dozen times, with too much conversation and apologizing. Then it seemed as though the men down below had got a bucket-brigade organized, and Daniel ended up being the bottleneck, as he could not seem to ferry the boxes to the hole rapidly enough. In the end Peter Hoxton had to climb up into the vault and assist him. After that, the place emptied out in a very short time.

  But by the time the last of the Solomonic Gold went down the hole, voices—angry ones—could already be heard on the other side of the door, and hasty men were rattling the locks and picking curiously at the hasps and the hinges. William had promised to delay as long as he could by being indolent, then argumentative, and finally by pretending he couldn’t find the key; but clearly enough these pretenses were all wearing thin. Worse, Daniel was growingly certain that Isaac was on the other side of that door, and Isaac could pick any lock ever made. After a last look round to make sure no box had been forgotten, Daniel inserted himself into the shaft, and began to seek the ladder’s rungs with his toes. Saturn was not far behind, but he paused at the top of the ladder to fiddle with a bit of rope, and then to set the plank-disk lid into place above his head—closing the door behind him, as it were. That rope still dangled through a small hole bit from the rim of the lid. It led, as Daniel knew, to the underside of a large, ancient-looking crate that rested on the floor of the Vault next to the well-shaft. When Saturn was sure that Daniel had reached the base of the ladder and gotten well out of harm’s way by retreating into the side-shaft, he wrapped that rope around his hands and trusted his whole weight to it. He plunged straight down for about an arm’s length, then was caught short, and had to kick for a rung. The crate had shifted over and, or so they hoped, covered the lid. This might or might not buy them a few minutes of extra time, depending on how closely the Vault was searched.

  Saturn pulled the ladder down and carried it with him as he followed Daniel to the bank of Walbrook. The stream’s course was now marked out, spottily, by a series of candles. One or two men could be heard sloshing downriver. Saturn here discarded the ladder and then followed Daniel down the current, snuffing out candles as he went, and both of them keeping an eye peeled for hat-boxes that had gone astray.

  A few minutes’ wading brought them to the orifice that served as cellar-drain for St. Stephen Walbrook. Daniel went through first, crawling up it on his belly until rough hands grasped his, and drew him out in one long heave. He could not see very well for a minute, because there was suddenly too much light coming into his eyes. But he could smell the mineral tang of fresh mortar, and he knew from the calluses on those hands that they must have belonged to masons. There was a minute of bother trying to get Saturn up through the drain, which turned to hilarity when he popped loose; then he jumped to his feet and shushed them all furiously, saying that he had heard voices echoing down Walbrook from the Bank, and he thought one of them might be an angry Sir Isaac.

  Daniel could see now. There was quite a crowd there in the crypt under the church: a mason and two younger assistants, two coopers from Mr. Anderton’s company, Daniel, Saturn, and a pair of mudlarks who had been part of the bucket brigade. As well as a very old and bent-over chap, in good clothes and good humor, seemingly fascinated by the hole in the floor whence so many novelties had just emerged.

  “I had quite forgotten about it!” exclaimed Sir Christopher Wren. “I am indebted to you, Daniel. It is in the nature of building-projects, you know, that one gets a thing ninety-nine percent finished, then drifts away. Quite right of you to call this to my attention.”

  By the time he had reached the end of this sentence, the drain had ceased to exist. The masons had brought with them a length of wrist-thick lead pipe, which they thrust down the tunnel, then buried in a wheelbarrow-avalanche of mixed mortar and rubble. The head of the pipe was stomped down until it was flush with the floor, and then the eldest of the masons set about finish-work, arranging a few small flat paving-stones around the orifice to cover up the rubble fill beneath.

  At the other end of the room, Anderton’s men were stacking the hat-boxes into barrels. These were unfinished; the staves at the top were splayed apart, restrained by temporary hoops. A groove had been carved around their inner surfaces, near the ends, to accept the end-pieces. Each barrel was tall enough to accommodate a stack of half a dozen hat-boxes; more wood-shavings were dumped in around these, so they would not rattle around, and then the end-pieces were set in loose. In this state the barrels were dragged up stairs and out into the court behind the church, which communicated with a bigger court out back of Salters’ Hall: a place where no sight was more unremarkable than a huddle of barrels ready to be finished.

  By day’s end, all of the barrels had been conveyed to the workshop of Mr. Anderton, and his coopers had bent the staves inward to imprison the end-pieces, and put on the permanent hoops.

  Daniel was tired, and wanted to call it a day, but he could not bring himself to leave the cooperage until the last of the hat-boxes had been sealed up within the last of the barrels. He made himself at home in a corner of Anderton’s shop, stimulating himself as needed with coffee or tobacco, until the job was done. The barrels were then rolled down to Three Cranes and entrusted to a shipping-company; the destination marked on each one of them was LEIBNIZ-HAUS HANOVER. After all the care and bother that the Solomonic Gold had occasioned during its eventful passage from the Solomon Islands to the Palace of the Viceroy in Mexico, to its theft before Bonanza, to Cairo and Malabar and its many travels on or in the hull of Minerva, it felt very strange to turn one’s back on it and walk away, leaving it stacked out in the open on a wharf. But now, disguised as salt cod and placed in the care of a reputable shipping-agent, it was probably safer than it had ever been.

  Poop Deck of Minerva, the Pool of London

  MIDDAY, TUESDAY, 26 OCTOBER 1714

  DANIEL HAD FEARED going back to Crane Court yesterday evening for the reason that Isaac would probably find him there and belabor him, and lambaste him, and browbeat him, and altogether make him feel bad. So he had fetched on the notion of requesting permission to come aboard Minerva, which was more convenient to the Three Cranes, and more hospitable. For weeks the management of that fair ship had been urging him to pay them a call, and for weeks he had been finding excuses not to. They were delighted when Daniel’s water-taxi hove up alongside shortly before midnight, and gave him too much to drink and then bedded him down in his old cabin.

  When he woke up, he knew in his bones that he had slept for a very, very long time—probably owing to his inexpressible relief at having rid himself of the Solomonic Gold.

  But he also knew that he could have slept much longer if not for all of the crashing and cursing.

  He pulled on—with some reluctance—the crusty duds he had worn the day before. It felt like they were wearing him now. A strange man flung his cabin-door open without thinking to knock. Daniel was just in the act of buckling his shoe. He and the intruder studied each other, mutually shocked. The other was young, well-dressed, and properly brought up—mortified, therefore, that he had disturbed an old man at his levée. Why, then, was he here? The answer was suggested by the silver-
greyhound badge.

  “Sir! I do beg your pardon. But, er…”

  “By the King’s command, you must search this cabin?” Daniel guessed.

  “Yes, sir. That’s right.”

  “For…what, if I may ask? Sleepy old men? Here’s one.”

  “No, sir, beg pardon…”

  “If you will only tell me what you have been ordered to search for, then perhaps I can assist you.”

  “It’s gold, sir. Contraband gold.”

  “Ah,” Daniel said, “I’m afraid the only gold in this chamber is this ring on my finger.” Daniel slipped it off and held it up. “Will you be confiscating it, then?”

  Now the King’s Messenger was downright embarrassed. “Oh, no, sir, of course not, that is not the sort of thing we are looking for at all. And I really am terribly sorry to be disturbing you. But if you could only…well…”

  “Get out of the way, so that you could give this cabin a thorough search? My good man, I was just on my way out!” Daniel said, and after slipping the ring back on to his finger he raised his eyebrows at the Messenger, pushed himself to his feet, and got out.

  He found Dappa above, on the poop deck, sighting through a prospective-glass toward the Tower of London. Last night Daniel had reached Minerva without getting a clear notion of where she was situated in the Pool. Now that the sun was up, he was struck by how near she was to the Tower: practically within shouting-distance.

  He knew better than to startle Dappa by speaking: this was bad etiquette, when the other chap’s attention was fixed on something far away. And he did not bother inquiring after van Hoek. The Captain’s whereabouts were obvious, for he never let off cursing in Dutch, Sabir, and all other tongues at his command, as he followed the King’s Messengers about his ship.

  “It could have been worse,” Dappa said, after an especially bracing out-burst of van Hoekian execration burgeoned from an open hatch. “We are light-laden just now, and there is little difficulty in making a thorough search. A fortnight from now we’d have been laden to the scuppers and it would have been awkward.” He withdrew the glass from his eye and squinted at Daniel. “They are scratching our guns.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Someone important has fallen under the spell of a phant’sy that this magic gold might have been cast into the form of a gun, and painted black, as a way of smuggling it out, and so they have scratched each and every one of our guns with an awl, to be sure they are made of brass.”

  “Incredible.”

  “There are those among our crew who look on you, now, as bad luck.”

  “Ah. I see. Because the first time I came aboard, it led to being assaulted by Blackbeard. And now this.”

  “Yes, Doc.”

  “Since they are so superstitious,” Daniel said, “perhaps they have heard the saying, ‘Third time’s a charm.’ ”

  “What do you have in mind?” Dappa asked, and then could not help smiling.

  “I gather from what you said that a voyage is in the offing?”

  “We’ll take on some cargo here. Then to Plymouth.”

  “Really!”

  “When we set you ashore there, ten months ago, we chanced to embark on a little venture that is still playing out. At any rate, we must needs put in there. Then south to Oporto. Then a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean is contemplated, in balmier latitudes than these.”

  “And then back to London in the spring-time?”

  “We have had quite enough of London, thank you! No,” Dappa said, and laughed. “We go the other way round. Enoch Root has been pestering us to take him to the Islands of Solomon…”

  “But those are halfway around the world from Boston!”

  “We know where they are,” said Dappa. “They are on our way, though.”

  “On your way to where?!”

  “Queena-Kootah, where we’d visit old friends, or their grave-sites as the case might be, and then Malabar, where we have an Investrix who, it is safe to say, is now waxing a bit obstreperous. She’ll not accept her Dividend in the form of a Bill of Exchange. We must sail there and stack bullion on the shore.”

  “Awkward.”

  “When we make profits in London, yes, I should say it is awkward. We’ll go there and stack gold on her beach and I shall make love to her and in time she’ll forgive us.”

  “Then?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Your Solomon Islands passenger has been working as my proxy in Boston,” Daniel said, “winding up the Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of Technologickal Arts, liquidating the assets, assuaging the creditors, and paying the bar tabs. Before he absconds to the Antipodes I really ought to sit down with him and settle accounts.”

  “Then you’ll need to go there, and do it soon, for I can assure you he is not coming this way.”

  “You said you were going first to Plymouth—?”

  “That I did.”

  “I, too, have business in the west country,” said Daniel. “Perhaps I could make rendezvous with you there, and obtain passage back home?”

  “Perhaps,” Dappa said. Then, startled by his own rudeness, he made haste to add, “Oh, ’tis all good where I am concerned. But after this van Hoek’ll have questions. He’ll want to know just where is this troublous gold. I shall give you a Hint: a satisfactory answer would be far, far away.”

  “I’ve an even better answer,” said Daniel, “which is: I don’t know.” He held up his hands as if to indicate all thousand ships in the Pool, and it turned into a shrug.

  “It is in transit,” Dappa understood. “You have shipped it.”

  “It has been solved,” Daniel said, “con-fused in the currency of the Thames, and it will make its way to Hanover, mysteriously but reliably, even as Pieces of Eight converge, as if they had minds of their own, on Shahjahanabad.”

  The more poetic Daniel waxed, the more Dappa’s interest waned, and by the end of this sentence he had plugged the glass back into his eye-socket and trained it again on the Tower.

  “What is it you are looking at up there?” Daniel asked. The wind was strong, and cold, and out of the north, and Daniel had no wig or hat. As he had ascended to the poop deck a minute ago, he had looked once toward the Tower, to get his bearings, but since then he had stood with his back to it and the collar of his coat turned up to shield his neck and the base of his skull. Dappa faced resolutely into the breeze, fighting it off with a fixed grimace. He said, “It is easier for you to turn around and see for yourself than for me to explain all.”

  “But you have a prospective-glass, and I don’t.”

  “It is hardly needed at this range!”

  “Why are you you using it, then?”

  “Trying to resolve certain details. I am watching a group of men on the top of Lanthorn Tower,” Dappa said, “who are obviously enough responsible for this outrage.”

  “Meaning, the ransack of your ship?”

  “Yes. These Messengers, you may’ve noticed, keep looking to them for instructions. They have been communicating with semaphores. I think that one of them is Sir Isaac Newton.”

  This was altogether predictable, and yet it was enough to make Daniel turn around and brave the wind. In a few moments he had picked out the group that Dappa had described. “Where is he?” Daniel asked.

  “In the middle, peering right back at us with a spyglass.”

  “Oh, bloody hell, he’ll probably recognize me!” Daniel burst out. He ought to have whirled right back around. But like a field-mouse caught in a raptor’s gaze, he found himself curiously unable to move.

  “It’s all right, he is lowering the glass—no, I’m wrong, he dropped the bloody thing!”

  “Isaac dropped it!?” Daniel could not conceive of Isaac Newton dropping a telescope.

  “He’s a-gawp. Looking our way. Can’t make out his face really…his posture calls to mind such undignified words as gobsmacked, stamagast. Stricken. Oh! Oh! Oh, my god!”

  “What! What is it?” Daniel demanded,
and mastered the urge to snatch the glass. For all he could see with his naked eye was that the crowd on the top of the tower was puckering inwards toward the center, where Isaac stood—or had stood a moment earlier.

  “He’s gone down! Straight down. Lucky that bloke on his right caught him.”

  “Caught him!?”

  “He just toppled over,” said Dappa, “dropped the glass and like to have landed right on top of it. Look, someone is running for help…they are calling to the soldiers down below them, waving their hats…Jesus Christ, they’re all in a bloody panic!” Dappa finally took the glass from his eye, and looked at Daniel. His brow furrowed above the bridge of his nose, as finally he made sense of what he had just seen. Then it hit Daniel, too, and he had to reach out one hand and steady himself on a railing.

  “He’s not dead, or they would not be in such a hurry,” Dappa reasoned. “Sir Isaac Newton has had a stroke. That’s what I’d say.”