Quicksilver

by Neal Stephenson

  Bohemia

  WINTER OF 1683–1684

  FOR THE TWO WEEKS that followed Jack’s Christ-like miracle of feeding a thousand Vagabonds from a small bag of gunpowder, he and Eliza talked very little, except about immediate concerns of staying alive. They passed from the rolling country of burnt castles and carp-ponds, with its broad flat valleys, into a mountainous zone farther north, which either had not suffered so badly during the war, or else had recovered faster. From hill-tops and mountain-passes they looked down upon brown fields where haystacks scattered like bubbles on placid ponds, and tidy prosperous towns whose chimneys bristled like so many pikes and muskets brandished against the cold. Jack tried to compare these vistas against the tales the Vagabonds had told him. Certain nights, they were all but certain they were going to perish, but then they’d find a hut, or cave, or even a cleft in the face of some bluff where they could build a nest of fallen leaves and a fire.

  Finally one day they came, sudden as an ambush, into a vale where the tree-branches were grizzled with mist, and steam rose from a smelly rill that trickled down a strangely colored and sculpted river-bed. “We’re here,” Jack said, and left Eliza hidden back in the woods while he rode out into the open to talk to a pair of miners who were working with picks and shovels in the stream, digging up brittle rock that smelled like London in the Plague Years. Brimstone! Jack spoke little German and they spoke no English, but they were thoroughly impressed by his sword, his horse, and his boots, and through grunts and shrugs and signs they made it known they’d make no trouble if he camped for the winter at the headwaters of the hot spring, half a league up the valley.

  So they did. The spring emerged from a small cave that was always warm. They could not stay there for very long because of the bad air, but it served as a refuge into which they could retreat, and so kept them alive long enough to reconstitute a tumbledown hut they found on the bank of the steaming creek. Jack cut wood and dragged it back to Eliza, who arranged it. The roof would never keep rain out, but it shrugged off the snow. Jack still had a bit of silver. He used it to buy venison and rabbit from the miners, who set clever snares for game in the woods.

  Their first month at the hot springs, then, consisted of small struggles won and forgotten the next day, and nothing passed between them except for the simple plans and affairs of peasants. But eventually things settled to the point where they did not have to spend every moment in toil. Jack did not care one way or the other. But Eliza let it be known that certain matters had been on her mind the entire time.

  “Do you mind?” Jack was forced to blurt, one day in what was probably December.

  “Pay no attention,” Eliza snuffled. “Weather’s a bit gloomy.”

  “If the weather’s gloomy, what’re you?”

  “Just thinking of…things.”

  “Stop thinking then! This hovel’s scarcely big enough to lie down in—have some consideration—there’s a rivulet of tears running across the floor. Didn’t we have a talk, months ago, about female moods?”

  “Your concern is ever so touching. How can I thank you?”

  “Stop weeping!”

  She drew a few deep quivering breaths that made the hut shudder, and then crucified Jack with a counterfeit smile. “The regiment, then—”

  “What’s this?” Jack asked. “Keeping you alive isn’t enough? I’m to provide entertainment as well?”

  “You seem reluctant to talk about this. Perhaps you’re a bit melancholy, too?”

  “You have this clever little mind that never stops working. You’re going to put my stories to ill-considered purposes. There are certain details, not really important, in which you’ll take an unwholesome interest.”

  “Jack, we’re living like brutes in the middle of the wilderness—what could I possibly do with a story as old as I am? And for God’s sake, what else is there to do, when I lack thread and needles?”

  “There you go again with the thread and the needles. Where do you suppose a brute in the wilderness would obtain such things?”

  “Ask those miners to pick some up when next they go to town. They fetch oats for Turk all the time—why not a needle and thread?”

  “If I do that, they’ll know I’ve a woman here.”

  “You won’t for long, if you don’t tell me a story, or get me thread and needles.”

  “All right, then. The part of the story to which you’re almost certain to over-react is that, although Sir Winston Churchill was not really an important man, his son John was briefly important. He’s not any more. Probably never will be again, except in the world of courtiers.”

  “But you made his father out to be one notch above a Vagabond.”

  “Yes—and so John never would’ve reached the high position he did had he not been clever, handsome, brave, dashing, and good in the sack.”

  “When can you introduce me to him?”

  “I know you’re just trying to provoke me with that.”

  “Into what ‘high position’ exactly did he get?”

  “The bed of the favorite mistress of King Charles the Second of England.”

  A brief pause for pressure to build, and then volcanic laughter from Eliza. Suddenly it was April. “You mean for me to believe that you—Half-Cocked ‘don’t call me a Vagabond’ Jack—are personally acquainted with the lover of a mistress of a King?”

  “Calm yourself—there are no chirurgeons here, if you should rupture something. And if you knew anything of the world outside of Asiatick Harems, you wouldn’t be surprised—the King’s other favorite mistress is Nell Gwyn—an actress.”

  “I sensed all along that you were a Person of Quality, Jack. But pray tell—now that I’ve finally set your tongue in motion—how’d John Churchill get from his papa’s regiment in Dorset to the royal sack?”

  “Oh, mind you, John was never attached to that regiment—just visiting with his Dad. The family lived in London. Jack went to some foppish School there. Sir Winston pulled what few strings were available to him—probably whined about his great loyalty during the Interregnum—and got John appointed as a page to James, the Duke of York—the King’s Papist brother—who, last I heard, was up in Edinburgh, going out of his mind and torturing Scotsmen. But back then, of course, round about 1670, the Duke of York was in London, and so John Churchill—being a member of his household—was there, too. Years passed. Bob and I fattened and grew like cattle for the Fair on soldiers’ table-scraps.”

  “And so you did!”

  “Don’t pretend to admire me—you know my secrets. We plugged away at duties Regimental. John Churchill went to Tangiers for a few years to fight Barbary Pirates.”

  “Ooh, why couldn’t he’ve rescued me?”

  “Maybe he will, some day. What I’m getting to, though, is the Siege of Maestricht—a city in Holland.”

  “That’s nowhere near Tangiers.”

  “Try to follow me here: he came back from Tangiers, all covered in glory. Meantimes Charles II had made a pact with, of all people, that King Looie of France, the arch-Papist, so rich that not only did he bribe the English opposition, but the other party, too, just to keep things interesting. So England and France, conjoined, made war, on land and at sea, with Holland. King Looie, accompanied by a mobile city of courtiers, mistresses, generals, bishops, official historians, poets, portrait-painters, chefs, musicians, and the retinues of those people, and the retinues’ retinues, came up to Maestricht and threw a siege the way common kings throw parties. His camp was not quite as handsomely furnished as the Grand Vizier’s before Vienna, but the folk were of higher quality. All the fashionable people of Europe had to be there. And John Churchill was quite fashionable. He came. Bob and I came with him.”

  “Now, that’s where I have trouble following. Why invite two naughty lads?”

  “First: we hadn’t been naughty recently. Second: even the noblest gathering requires someone to empty piss-pots and (if it’s a battle) stop musket-balls before they reach the better folk.”


  “Third?”

  “There is no third.”

  “You lie. I can tell there was a third. Your lips parted, your finger came halfway up, and then you reconsidered.”

  “Very well then. The third was that John Churchill—courtier, sometime gigolo, fashionable blade-about-town—is the best military commander I have ever seen.”

  “Oh.”

  “Though that John Sobieski was not half bad. Anyway—pains me to admit it.”

  “Obviously.”

  “But it’s true. And being an excellent commander, about to go into a real battle, he had the wit to bring along a few people who could actually get things done for him. It may seem hard for you to believe, but mark my word—whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out the window.”

  “What did he suppose you and Bob could get done in the real world?”

  “Carry messages across battlefields.”

  “Was he right?”

  “Half right.”

  “One of you succeeded, and the other—”

  “I didn’t fail. I just found more intelligent ways to use my time.”

  “John Churchill gave you an order, and you refused?”

  “No, no, no! It came about as follows. Now—did you pay any attention to the Siege of Vienna?”

  “I watched with a keen eye, remember my virginity hung in the balance.”

  “Tell me how the Grand Vizier did it.”

  “Dug one trench after another before the walls, each trench a few yards closer than the last. From the foremost, dug tunnels beneath a sort of arrowhead-shaped fortress that lay outside the city—”

  “A ravelin, it’s called. All modern forts have them, including Maestricht.”

  “Blew it up. Advanced. And so on.”

  “That’s how all sieges are conducted. Including Maestricht.”

  “So, then—?”

  “All the pick-and-shovel work had been done by the time the swells arrived. The trenches and mines had been dug. Time was ripe to storm a particular outlying work, which an engineer would properly call a demilune, but similar to the ravelins you saw in Vienna.”

  “A separate fortress just outside of the main one.”

  “Yes. King Louie wanted that the English gentleman-warriors should, at the conclusion of this battle, either be in his debt, or in their graves, and so he gave to them the honor of storming the demilune. John Churchill and the Duke of Monmouth—King Charles’s bastard—led the charge and carried the day. Churchill himself planted the French flag (disgusting to relate) on the parapet of the conquered fort.”

  “How splendid!”

  “I told you he was important once. Back they came over the trench-scarred glacis, to our ditch-camp, for a night of celebration.”

  “So you were never asked to carry messages at all?”

  “Next day, I felt the earth turn over, and looked toward that demilune to see fifty French troopers flying into the air. Maestricht’s defenders had exploded a vast countermine beneath the demilune. Dutchmen charged into the gap and engaged the survivors in sword- and bayonet-play. They looked sure to retake the demilune and undo Churchill’s and Monmouth’s glorious deeds. I was not ten feet from John Churchill when it happened. Without a moment’s hesitation he was off and running, sword in hand—it was obvious muskets would be useless. To save time, he ran across the surface—ignoring the trenches—exposing himself to musket-fire from the city’s defenders, in full view of all those historians and poets watching through jeweled opera glasses from the windows of their coaches, just outside of artillery range. I stood there in amazement at his stupidity, until I realized that brother Bob was right behind him, matching him step-for-step.”

  “Then?”

  “Then I was amazed at Bob’s stupidity, too. Placing me, as I need hardly tell you, in an awkward spot.”

  “Always thinking of yourself.”

  “Fortunately the Duke of Monmouth appeared before me, that very moment, with a message that he wanted me to take to a nearby company of French musketeers. So I ran down the trench and located Monsieur D’Artagnan, the officer in ch—”

  “Oh, stop!”

  “What?”

  “Even I’ve heard of D’Artagnan! You don’t expect me to believe you—?”

  “Is it all right with you if I get on with the story?”

  Sigh. “Yes.”

  “Monsieur D’Artagnan, whom you don’t appear to realize was a real human being and not just a figure in romantic legends, ordered his Musketeers forward. All of us advanced upon the demilune with conspicuous gallantry.”

  “I’m enthralled!” said Eliza, only a little sarcastic. At first she would not believe that Jack had actually met the celebrated D’Artagnan, but now that she did she was caught up in the tale.

  “Because we did not bother to use the trenches, as cowards would’ve done, we reached the site of the fighting from a direction where the Dutch hadn’t bothered to post proper defenses. All of us—French Musketeers, English bastards and gigolos, and Vagabond-messengers—got there at the same instant. But we could only advance through an opening just wide enough to admit one man at a time. D’Artagnan got there first and stood in the path of the Duke of Monmouth himself and begged him in the most gallant and polite French way not to go through that dangerous pass. Monmouth insisted. D’Artagnan consented—but only on the condition that he, D’Artagnan, should go through first. He did just that, and got shot in the head. The others advanced over him and went on to win ridiculous glory, while I stayed behind to look after D’Artagnan.”

  “He still lived!?”

  “Hell no, his brains were all over me.”

  “But you stayed behind to guard his body—?”

  “Actually, I had my eye on some heavy jewelled rings he was wearing.”

  For half a minute or so, Eliza adopted the pose of someone who’d just herself taken a musket-ball to the head and suffered an injury of unknown severity. Jack decided to move on to more glamorous parts of the tale, but Eliza dug in her heels. “While your brother risked all, you were looting D’Artagnan’s corpse? I’ve never heard worse.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s so…so craven.”

  “You don’t need to make it sound cowardly—I was in more danger than Bob was. The musket-balls were going through my hat.”

  “Still…”

  “The fighting was over. Those rings were the size of doorknockers. They would have buried that famed Musketeer with those rings on his fingers—if someone else hadn’t looted them first.”

  “Did you take them, Jack?”

  “He’d put them on when he was a younger and thinner man. They were impossible to move. So there I was with my foot planted in his fucking armpit—not the worst place my foot’s ever been, but close—bending my fingernails back trying to get this ring up past the rolls of fat that’d grown up around it during his days of wine and women—asking myself whether I shouldn’t just cut the damn finger off.” Eliza now looked like someone who’d eaten a bad oyster. Jack decided to move on hastily. “When who should show up but brother Bob, with a look of self-righteous horror on his face, like a vicar who’s just surprised an altar boy masturbating in the sacristy—or like you, for that matter—all dressed up in his little drummer boy outfit—carrying a message—frightfully urgent of course—from Churchill to one of King Looie’s generals. He stops to favor me with a lecture about military honor. ‘Ach, you don’t really believe that stuff, do you?’ I ask. ‘Until today I didn’t, Jack, but if you could see what I’ve seen just now—the feats that those brothers in arms, John Churchill and the Duke of Monmouth and Louis Hector de Villars, have performed—you’d believe.’”

  “And then he sped onwards to deliver the message,” Eliza said, getting a faraway look in her eye that was somewhat annoying to Jack, who wanted her to remain there in the hut with him. “And John Churchill never forgot Bob’s loyalty and braver
y.”

  “Yes—why, just a few months later Bob went to Westphalia with him and campaigned under French generals, as a mercenary, against hapless Protestants, sacking the Palatinate for the hundredth time. Can’t remember what that had to do with military honor, exactly.”

  “You, on the other hand—”

  “I took a few belts of cognac from D’Artagnan’s flask and slunk back to the ditch.”

  This, at least, brought her back to the here (hut in Bohemia) and now (end of A.D. 1683). She directed the full power of her blue-eyed gaze against him. “You’re always making yourself out to be such a ne’er-do-well, Jack—saying you’d have cut D’Artagnan’s fingers off—proposing to blow up the Holy Roman Emperor’s palace—but I don’t think you’re as bad as you say you are.”

  “My deformity gives me fewer chances to be bad than I should prefer to have.”

  “It is funny you should mention that, Jack. If you could find me a length of sound, unbroken deer or sheep intestine—”

  “Why?”

  “A Turkish practice—easier to show than explain. And if you could devote a few minutes in the hot spring to making yourself quite a bit cleaner than you are at the moment—the chance to be bad might present itself.”

  “ALL RIGHT, LET’S REHEARSE IT again. ‘Jack, show the gentleman that bolt of the yellow watered silk.’ Go on—that’s your cue.”