The Confusion

by Neal Stephenson

  "I was conducting military espionage in the enemy camp for the Earl of Marlborough," Bob retorted; though the look on his face, and the lilt in his voice, suggested that this had only just come into his head.

  "The Earl of Marlborough has been dismissed from all offices, stripped of command. His colonelcy of the Black Torrent Guards will have been sold off to some Tory hack."

  "But nine months ago when my mission of espionage began, none of that was true."

  "Your idea still seems risky to me," said Eliza, eager to draw the exchange to a curt finish because the rioting had started up in her belly once more.

  "Then I shall test the waters first, with Marlborough, before presenting myself to the Regiment," Bob said. "You're going to London! I don't suppose you'd be willing to bring him a private note from me—?"

  "Since you cannot read or write, I suppose you'd like me to pen the note as well?" said Eliza, and turned her back on Bob, the better to search for a convenient scupper. She did not feel as though she would have time to trudge all the way to the head; besides which, a French sailor was already sitting up there, taking a lengthy shit into the English Channel and singing.

  "Your offer is well received," Bob returned. "And as I am unfit to frame a proper letter to an Earl, perhaps I could interest you in composing it as well—?"

  "I'll just talk to him," said Eliza, dropping to her hands and knees. The next thing that emerged from her mouth, however, was altogether unfit for presentation to an Earl; a fact Bob was discreet enough not to point out.

  4 JUNE (N.S.)/25 MAY (O.S.), 1692

  Where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruin.

  —HOBBES, Leviathan

  ELIZA FRETTED, AND BELABORED HERSELF for being too late and too little organized, until the moment that she gazed out the carriage window and saw the waters of the Thames below her, all crammed with shipping. This was too strange to believe for a moment. Then it came to her that this street must be London Bridge, and the carriage must be traversing one of the firebreaks, where it was possible to get a view. The sight of the River triggered a curious reversal in her mood. It was midafternoon of the day nominated, by the French and most of the rest of Christendom, June 4th, and by the English May 25th. Whichever calendar was used, the fact of the matter was that the Bills of Exchange would not expire until the end of the day tomorrow; she had, in other words, reached London with more than twenty-four hours to spare. This in spite of the fact that for the last week—since the day that Tourville had assaulted Russell in the Channel, and the fog had closed in—she had been certain she was too late and that the entire enterprise was doomed. From that moment until this, London had seemed infinitely far away, and impossible to reach. Now, having reached it, she wondered what all the fuss had been about. For London was after all a great city and people went there all the time—the number of masts thrust into the air above the Pool spoke to this. Perhaps Eliza had nursed an exaggerated view of its remoteness because of the difficulty she'd had in escaping to it almost three years ago, when her ship had been waylaid by Jean Bart.

  At any rate she was across the Bridge and in the City before she had reached the end of these ruminations. The horses irritably dragged the carriage up Fish Street Hill as the coachman irritably popped his whip about their ears. It occurred to Eliza that she had not given the driver a destination, other than London. She had no destination in mind. But the driver had. Presently he turned off to the left, into a slit between new (brick, flat-fronted, post-Fire) buildings. The slit broadened and developed into a rambling composition of chambers and orifices, like the stomachs of a cow. It all seemed to be wrapped around the backside of a big structure that looked somehow like church, but somehow not. Tired Eliza remembered, then, that she had found her way to a country where there was more than just one church. She reckoned that this must be a meeting house of Quakers or some other such sect. At any rate they came, after certain turns, reversals, and squeezings, to a doorway adorned with a sign shaped like the head of an indifferent-looking brown horse. A porter exploded out of the doorway and vied with a footman for the honor of ripping the carriage door open. For painted on the outside of the carriage were the arms of the Marquis of Ravenscar, who Eliza gathered must be a valued regular of this inn or tavern, the Brown Horse or the Old Gelding or whatever they called it—

  "Welcome to Nag's Head Court, my lady," said Roger Comstock, the Marquis of Ravenscar, emerging from the door, and bowing as deeply as a man of his maturity and dignity could without peeling a hamstring or lobbing his wig into the gutter. Eliza by now had thrust her head and shoulders out the door (about all she wanted to reveal, given that she had lost contact with her wardrobe some days ago). She ought to have given her undivided attention to Ravenscar; but she could not restrain the urge to look this way and that up the length of Nag's Head Court.

  "No, madame, your senses have not misled you, it is just as mean, narrow, and squalid as you feared, and no apology from me shall balance the offense I have done you, by bringing you to it; but it was a suitable place for me to wait, and behold, it is nigh to the mysteries and delights of the 'Change."

  Eliza followed his gaze down the alley. It rambled on in the same vein for a stone's throw and discharged into a proper street, which seemed to be crowded with an inordinate number of well-to-do-chaps who were all in a frightful hurry. She knew what it was just that quickly. If she had been wearing Versailles court-makeup, it would have cracked and fallen to the ground like ice from a warming roof. For her face had done something she never allowed it to do at Versailles, namely, opened up into a broad grin. She directed this at Ravenscar, who all but swooned. "On the contrary, my lord, in all London there's no place I'd rather be than the 'Change, and there is no place I am so well suited for, in my present state, than a dark doorway in Nag's Head Court—so—"

  Ravenscar was aghast, and quick-stepped to the base of the wee Barock staircase that the footmen had arranged beneath the carriage-door. This was to help her down, if she insisted; but really he was throwing his body across her path as a barrier. "I would not dream of escorting a Duchess into that place! I had hoped that the lady might suffer me to join her in the carriage while we proceeded to some destination worthy to be graced by one of her dignity."

  "It is, after all, your carriage, monsieur—"

  "Nay, madame, yours, for as long as you choose to remain on our Isle, and I, your servant."

  "Get in the damned carriage, then. And pray lower the shades, for I am not fit to stop light."

  Ravenscar did as he was told. The carriage began to move. "Obviously, my driver was able to find you in Portsmouth—?"

  "We found him. The skipper of our boat would not go to Portsmouth, or any other proper port-town, but only to certain coves he knew of. Thence we hired a waggon."

  Ravenscar was looking curiously about the interior of the carriage, as if someone were missing. "We?"

  "I was with an Englishman."

  "A Person of Quality, or—"

  "A Person of Usefulness. But somewhat bull-headed. He had set his mind to looking up his whilom Captain. When we reached Portsmouth he began to make inquiries about the fellow—name of Churchill."

  Ravenscar winced. "Eeeyuh, the Earl of Marlborough has been clapped in the Tower of London!"

  "So you tell me now, but, isolated as I'd been, I'd not heard that news. Otherwise I'd have warned my companion not to mention the name."

  "They put your man in irons, did they?"

  "They did. For I gather that the charge on which Marlborough is being held is that of being a Jacobite spy—?"

  "It is so ludicrous that I am too embarrassed even to repeat it to you. But a moiety of the English race are the more inclined to credit an accusation, the more fanciful it becomes; and whoever it was that arrested your man in Portsmouth—"

  "Was of that sort, and, seeing a man just off a boat from Cherbourg, asking the whereabouts of Marlborough, assumed the worst."

  "H
ave they hanged him yet?"

  "No, nor will they soon, for haply your carriage came along. I, to them, was just a wench in a wet dress; but when this fine vehicle made the scene, with your arms on the door, and your driver started in with ‘la duchesse' this and ‘the Duchess' that—"

  "Matters changed."

  "Matters changed, and I was able to let those in charge know that hanging my companion would not be in their best interests. But now that I'm here, I would visit Marlborough."

  "Many would, my lady. The queue of carriages at the Tower is long. You rank most of them, and should be able to go directly to its head. But if I might, first—?"

  "Yes?"

  They had been driving around a triangular circuit of Cornhill, Threadneedle, and Bishopsgate, enclosing some twenty acres of ground that contained more money than the rest of the British Isles. It was remarkable that they had been able to converse for even this long without the topic having arisen.

  "It is frightfully indecent of me to mention this, I know," said Ravenscar, "but I am, at present, the owner of rather a lot of silver. Rather a lot. They tell me 'tis worth ever so much more now than 'twas three weeks ago, when I bought it; but if news were to arrive, say from Portsmouth, that the French invasion had miscarried—"

  "It would suddenly be worth ever so much less. Yes, I know. Well, the invasion has failed."

  Ravenscar's pelvis actually rose off the bench as if someone had shoved a dagger into his kidney. His voice vaulted to a higher register: "If we could, then, pay a brief call upon a certain gentleman, now, before you go spreading the news about—"

  "I've no intention of doing that, as the news shall get here soon enough on its own," said Eliza, which little comforted Ravenscar. "But before you spread the news, by selling all of your silver, I have a small transaction that I must conduct at the House of Hacklheber—do you know it?"

  "That? It is a hole in the wall, a niche, a dovecote—if you require pocket money in London, madame, I can convey you to the banca of Sir Richard Apthorp himself, who will be pleased to extend you credit—"

  "That is most courteous of you," said Eliza, rummaging in her pathetic bag, and drawing out a slimy bundle of skins, "but I prefer to get my pocket-money from my own banker, and that is the House of Hacklheber."

  "Very well," said the Marquis of Ravenscar, and boomed on the ceiling with the head of his walking-stick. "To the Golden Mercury in 'Change Alley!"

  "I CONFESS THAT I was observing through the window—and only out of a gentlemanly concern for your safety," said the Marquis of Ravenscar, "and only after some half an hour had elapsed—for it struck me as rather a lengthy transaction."

  Eliza had only just returned to the carriage and was still smoothing her skirts down. She'd been in there for an hour and twelve minutes. Ten minutes' waiting would have made Ravenscar impatient; twenty, apoplectic. Seventy-two had put him through the full gamut of emotional states known to mortal man, as well as a few normally reserved for angels and devils. Now, he was spent, drained. Though perhaps just a bit apprehensive that she would want to go on some other errand next.

  "Yes, my lord?"

  "The fellow had—well, I don't know, a bit of a startled look about him. Perhaps 'twas just my imagination."

  "Mind your toes!" This warning came simultaneously from Eliza, and from one of Ravenscar's footmen, who had carried a box up the wee stairs behind Eliza and thrust it inside; its weight overbore his strength, and it crashed onto the floor, making the carriage rock and bounce up and down for a while on its springs. One of the horses whinnied in protest. "Where shall I place the others, madame?" he inquired.

  "There are more!?" exclaimed Ravenscar.

  "Ten more, yes."

  "What are we—pardon me, you—going to do with so much, er…did you say ten? Please tell me it is copper."

  Eliza flipped the lid open with her toe to reveal more freshly minted silver pennies than the Marquis of Ravenscar had seen in one place in years. He responded in the only way fitting: with absolute silence. Meanwhile his driver answered the question for him.

  "Not load it on this coach, guv'nor, the suspension won't hold." The driver was struggling to settle the exhausted horses, who had sensed that the carriage was rapidly getting heavier. Another crash sounded from the shelf in the back, causing the vehicle to pitch nose up, and then another on the roof, which began to bulge downward and emit ominous ticks.

  "Summon a hackney!" commanded the Marquis, and then swiveled his eyes back to Eliza, imploring her to answer his question.

  "What am I going to do with it?"

  "Yes."

  "Sell it, I suppose, at the same time as you are selling yours. It is rather more pocket-money than I shall be requiring during my stay in your city. Though I should very much like to go to the West End later, and go—what is the word they use for it now?"

  "I believe the word you are looking for is ‘shopping,' madame."

  "Yes, shopping. The money, of course, belongs to the King of France. But, gentleman that he is, he would never begrudge me the loan of a few pounds sterling so that I might change into a new dress."

  "Nor would I, madame," said Ravenscar, "if it came to that—but le Roi, it goes without saying, has precedence." Ravenscar swallowed. "It is a remarkable coincidence."

  "What coincidence, my lord?"

  More jingling crashes came to their ears from just behind, where a hackney had pulled up, and was being laden with more strong-boxes. The sound was enormously distracting to Ravenscar, who struggled to keep stringing words together. "Our route to the lovely shops of the West End shall take us past Apthorp's, where—"

  "Oh, that's right. You wish to put your silver on the market. Not yet."

  "Not yet!?"

  "Think of a ship's captain, sailing into battle, guns charged and ready to let go a broadside. If he loses his nerve, and fires too soon, the balls fall short of their target, and splash into the water, and he looks a fool. Worse, he is not afforded the opportunity to re-load. It is like that now."

  Ravenscar did not seem convinced.

  "After our epistolary flirtation, which I did enjoy so much," Eliza tried, "I should be crestfallen if I journeyed all the way to London only to find that you were a premature ejaculator."

  "Really! Madame! I do not know how the ladies discourse in France, but here in England—"

  "Oh, stop it. 'Twas a figure of speech, nothing more."

  "And not a very accurate one, by your leave; for more is at stake here than you seem to know!"

  "I know precisely what's at stake, my lord." Here Eliza was distracted by some activity without. A man had emerged from the door of the House of Hacklheber, dressed as if about to embark on a voyage, and was signalling for a hackney. There was no lack of these, as word seemed to have spread that coins were falling from the sky hereabouts. Within moments the fellow was on his way.

  "Was that one of the shouting Germans?" Ravenscar inquired.

  Eliza met his eye. "You could hear them all the way out here?" Then she tilted her head out the window to watch.

  "Madame, I could have heard them from Wales. What were they on about?"

  Eliza was crooking her finger at someone outside, then nodding as if to say, yes, I mean you, sirrah! Presently a face appeared in the window: a hackney-driver, hat in hands. "Follow yonder German until he gets on a boat. Watch the boat until you can't see it any more. Go to—what did you call your Den of Iniquity, my lord?"

  "The Nag's Head."

  "Go to the Nag's Head and leave word for the Marquis that his ship has come in. Someone there will then give you more of these." Eliza blindly scooped some coins out of her strong-box and slapped them into the driver's hat.

  "Right you are, milady!"

  "It shall probably be the Gravesend Ferry, but you might have to trail him all the way to Ipswich or something," Eliza added, partly to explain the amount; for she got the idea, from the way Ravenscar had just swallowed his own tongue, that she had overpaid.

>   The hackney driver was so gone, 'twas as if he'd been launched from a siege-mortar. Eliza looked back to Ravenscar. "You asked, what were the Germans shouting about?"

  "Yes. I was afraid I should have to venture within and run them through." Ravenscar slapped the scabbard of his small-sword.

  "They were full of impertinent questions about what I meant to do with all that silver."

  "And you told them—?"

  "I affected a noble diffidence, and pretended not to understand any language other than the high French of Versailles."

  "Right. So they believe that the invasion has begun!"

  "I cannot read their minds, my lord; and if I could, I should not wish to."

  "And they have in consequence despatched a runner to the Continent. You mentioned Ipswich—implying that his destination is Holland—and his mission is, what?"

  Eliza shrugged. "To fetch the rest, I'd suppose."

  "The rest of the Germans!?"

  "No, no, the rest of the silver—the remaining four-fifths of it."

  An observer standing without the carriage would have seen it buck and rock. Some sort of nervous catastrophe had caused all of the Marquis of Ravenscar's muscles to contract at once. He was a few moments getting his faculties back. When he spoke again, it was from a sprawling, semi-prone position. "What the hell are you going to do with so much silver?"

  "Most likely, convert it into Bills of Exchange that can be taken back to France."

  "Where the money came from in the first place. Why bother at all?"

  "Now it is you who asks impertinent questions," Eliza said. "All that need concern you for now is that the Hacklhebers believe the invasion has been launched. They are probably trying to buy silver on the London market now. Which shall lead all to believe in the invasion, until positive news arrives to the contrary. Your silver has only gone up in value."

  "In truth there is one other matter that doth concern me," said Ravenscar, "which is that we are sitting out in the street with a king's ransom in silver; pray, could we get it now behind walls, locks, and guns?"