Quicksilver

by Neal Stephenson

  Another Genoese banker in vivid clothing received Signor Cozzi’s note. Jack had to track him down in a market-place unlike any in Paris, where things like charcoal, bales of old clothing, and rolls of undyed fabric were for sale in large quantities. The banker paid Jack out of his pocket, and read the note.

  “You are English?”

  “Aye, what of it?”

  “Your King is dead.” With that the banker went briskly to his office, whence other messengers galloped away within the hour, headed for Genoa and Marseilles. Jack stabled his horses and wandered round Lyons amazed, munching some dried figs he bought at a retail market. The only King he’d ever known was dead, and England was, somehow, a different country now—ruled by a Papist!

  The Hague

  FEBRUARY 1685

  WEE DRIFTS OF wind-skimming snow had already parenthesized the cherry-red platform soles of the French delegation’s boots, and inch-long snotcicles had grown from the moustaches of the English delegation. Eliza glided up on her skates, and swirled to a halt on the canal to admire what she took (at first) to be some sort of colossal sculpture group. Of course sculptures did not normally wear clothing, but these Ambassadors and their entourages (a total of eight Englishmen facing off against seven French) had been standing long enough that snow had permeated every pore of their hats, wigs, and coats, giving them the appearance (from a distance) of having been butcherously carved out of a large block of some very low-grade, grayish sculptural medium. Much more lively (and more warmly dressed) was the crowd of Dutchmen who had gathered round to watch, and to stake small wagers on which delegation would first succumb to the cold. A rabble of porters and wood-carriers seemed to have taken the English side, and better-dressed men had gathered round the French, and strode to and fro stamping their feet and blowing into their hands and dispatching swift-skating message-boys towards the States-General and the Binnenhof.

  But Eliza was the only girl on skates. So as she came to a stop there on the canal’s edge, only a few yards away from, and a foot or two lower than, the two groups of men on the adjoining street, the entire sculpture came to life. Rimes of ice cracked and tinkled as fifteen French and English heads rotated towards her. ’Twas now a standoff of a different nature.

  The best-dressed man in the French delegation shuddered. They were all shivering, but this gentleman shuddered. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “do you speak French?”

  Eliza regarded him. His hat was the size of a washtub, filled with exotic plumes, now crushed under drifts. His boots had the enormous tongues just coming into fashion, erupting from his instep and spreading and curling up and away from the shin—these had filled with snow, which was melting and trickling down inside the boots and darkening the leather from the inside.

  “Only when there is some reason to, monsieur,” she returned.

  “What is a reason?”

  “How French of you to ask…I suppose that when a gentleman, who has been correctly introduced to me, flatters me with a compliment, or amuses me with a witticism…”

  “I humbly beg Mademoiselle’s forgiveness,” the Frenchman said, through gray and stiff lips that ruined his pronunciation. “But as you did not arrive with an escort, there was no one to beg for the favor of a decent introduction.”

  “He is yonder,” said Eliza, gesturing half a league down the canal.

  “Mon Dieu, he flails his limbs like a lost soul tumbling backwards into the Pit,” the Frenchman exclaimed. “Tell me, mademoiselle, why does a swan venture out on the canals with an orang-utan?”

  “He claimed he knew how to skate.”

  “But a lass of your beauty, must have heard many brave claims from young men’s lips—and one of your intelligence must have perceived that all of them were rank nonsense.”

  “Whereas you, monsieur, are honest and pure of heart?”

  “Alas, mademoiselle, I am merely old.”

  “Not so old.”

  “And yet I may have perished from age or pneumonia before your beau struggles close enough to make introductions, so…Jean Antoine de Mesmes, comte d’Avaux, your most humble servant.”

  “Charmed. My name is Eliza…”

  “Duchess of Qwghlm?”

  Eliza laughed at this absurdity. “But how did you know I was Qwghlmian?”

  “Your native tongue is English—but you skate like one who was born on ice, sans the staggering drunken gait of the Anglo-Saxons who so cruelly oppress your islands,” d’Avaux answered, raising his voice so that the English delegation could hear.

  “Very clever—but you know perfectly well that I am no Duchess.”

  “And yet blue blood flows in your veins, I cannot but believe…”

  “Not half so blue as yours, Monsieur, as I cannot but see. Why don’t you go inside and sit by a warm fire?”

  “Now you tempt me cruelly in a second way,” d’Avaux said. “I must stand here, to uphold the honor and glory of La France. But you are bound by no such obligations—why do you go out here, where only harp-seals and polar-bears should be—and in such a skirt?”

  “The skirt must be short, lest it get caught in the blades of my skates—you see?” Eliza said, and did a little pirouette. Before she’d gotten entirely turned around, a groaning and cracking noise came from the center of the French delegation as a spindly middle-aged diplomat collapsed dizzily to the ground. The men to either side of him crouched down as if to render assistance, but were straightened up by a brisk idiom from d’Avaux. “Once we begin to make exceptions for those who fall—or who pretend to—the whole delegation will go down like ninepins,” d’Avaux explained, addressing the remark to Eliza, but intending it for his entourage. The fallen man contracted to a fœtal position on the pavement; a couple of sword-wearing Dutchmen scurried in with a blanket. Meanwhile a wench came down out of a side-street bearing a large tray, and walked past the French delegation, letting them smell the flip-aroma, and feel the steam, from eight tankards—which she took direct to the Englishmen.

  “Exceptions to what?” Eliza asked.

  “To the rules of diplomatic protocol,” d’Avaux answered. “Which state—for example—that when one Ambassador meets another in a narrow way, the junior Ambassador must give way for the senior.”

  “Ah, so that’s it. You’re having a dispute as to whether you, or the English Ambassador, has seniority?”

  “I represent the Most Christian King,* that lot represent King James II of England…or so we can only assume, as we have received word that King Charles II has died, but not that his brother has been properly crowned.”

  “Then it’s clear you have seniority.”

  “Clear to you and me, mademoiselle. But that fellow has asserted that, since he cannot represent an uncrowned king, he must still be representing the late Charles II, who was crowned in 1651 after the Puritans chopped off the head of his father and predecessor. My King was crowned in 1654.”

  “But with all due respect to the Most Christian King, monsieur, doesn’t that mean that Charles II, if he still lived, would have three years’ seniority over him?”

  “A rabble of Scots at Scone tossed a crown at Charles’s head,” d’Avaux said, “and then he came and lived here, begging for handouts from Dutchmen, until 1660 when the cheese-mongers paid him to leave. Practically speaking, his reign began when he sailed to Dover.”

  “If we are going to be practical, sir,” shouted an Englishman, “let us consider that your King did not practically begin his reign until the death of Cardinal Mazarin on the ninth of March, 1661.” He raised a tankard to his lips and quaffed deeply, pausing between gulps to emit little moans of satisfaction.

  “At least my King is alive,” d’Avaux muttered. “You see? And they love to accuse Jesuits of sophistry! I say, is your beau wanted by the Guild of St. George?”

  Civic order in the Hague was maintained by two Guilds of civic guards. The part of the city around the market and the town hall, where normal Dutchmen lived, was looked after by the St. Sebastian Gu
ild. The St. George Guild was responsible for the Hofgebied, which was the part of the city containing the royal palace, foreign embassies, houses of rich families, and so on. Both Guilds were represented among the crowd of spectators who had gathered round to partake of the spectacle of d’Avaux and his English counterparts freezing to death. So d’Avaux’s question was partly intended to flatter and amuse the genteel and aristocratic St. George men—perhaps at the expense of the more plebeian St. Sebastian guards, who seemed to be favoring the English delegation.

  “Don’t be absurd, monsieur! If he were, those brave and diligent men would have apprehended him long ago. Why do you ask such a question?”

  “He has covered up his face like some sort of a volunteer.” Which meant, a soldier-turned-highwayman.

  Eliza turned round to see Gomer Bolstrood lurking (there was no other word for it) around a corner of the canal a stone’s throw away with a long strip of tartan wrapped over his face.

  “Those who live in northerly climes often do this.”

  “It seems extremely disreputable and in the poorest taste. If your beau cannot tolerate a bit of a sea-breeze—”

  “He is not my beau—merely a business associate.”

  “Then, mademoiselle, you will be free to meet with me here, at this hour, tomorrow, and give me a skating-lesson.”

  “But, monsieur! From the way you shuddered when you beheld me, I thought you considered such sports beneath your dignity.”

  “Indeed—but I am an Ambassador, and must submit to any number of degradations…”

  “For the honor and glory of la France?”

  “Pourquoi non?”

  “I hope that they widen the street soon, comte d’Avaux.” “Spring is just around the corner—and when I gaze upon your face, mademoiselle, I feel it is already here.”

  “’TWAS PERFECTLY INNOCENT, Mr. Bolstrood—I thought they were sculpture until eyes turned my way.”

  They were seated before a fire in a stately hunting-lodge. The place was warm enough, but smoky, and bleak, and entirely too filled with heads of dead animals, who seemed also to be turning their eyes Eliza’s way.

  “You imagine I’m angry, but I’m not.”

  “What’s troubling you, then? I daresay you are the brooding-est fellow I have ever seen.”

  “These chairs.”

  “Did I hear you correctly, sir?”

  “Look at them,” Gomer Bolstrood said, in a voice hollow with despair. “Those who built this estate had no shortage of money, of that you can be sure—but the furniture! It is either stupid and primitive, like this ogre’s throne I’m seated on, or else—like yours—raked together out of kindling, with about as much structural integrity as a faggot. I could make better chairs in an afternoon, drunk, given a shrub and a jackknife.”

  “Then I must apologize for having misread you, as I supposed you were angry about that chance encounter, there—”

  “My faith teaches me it was inevitable—predestined—that you would enter into a flirtation with the French Ambassador just now. If I’m brooding over that, it’s not because I’m angry, but because I must understand what it means.”

  “It means he’s a horny old goat.”

  Gomer Bolstrood shook his colossal head hopelessly, and gazed toward a window. The pane shouted as it was hit by a burst of wind-driven slush. “I pray it did not develop into a riot,” he said.

  “How much of a riot can eight frozen Englishmen and seven half-dead Frenchmen accomplish?”

  “It’s the Dutchmen I’m worried about. The commoners and country folk, as always, side with the Stadholder.* The merchants are all Frenchified—and because the States-General are meeting here at the moment, the town’s crowded with the latter—all of ’em wearing swords and carrying pistols.”

  “Speaking of Frenchified merchants,” Eliza said, “I have some good news for the Client—whoever he is—from the commodities market. It seems that during the run-up to the 1672 war, an Amsterdam banker committed treason against the Republic—”

  “Actually any number of ’em did—but pray continue.”

  “Acting as a cat’s-paw for the Marquis de Louvois, this traitor—Mr. Sluys by name—bought up nearly all of the lead in the country to ensure that William’s army would be short of ammunition. No doubt Sluys thought the war would be over in a few days, and that King Louis, after planting the French flag on the Damrak, would reward him personally. But of course that is not how it happened. Ever since, Sluys has had a warehouse full of lead, which he’s been afraid to sell openly, lest word get out, and an Orangist mob burn his warehouses, and tear him apart, as they did so memorably to the de Witt brothers. But now Sluys has to sell it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s been thirteen years. His warehouse has been sinking into the Amsterdam-mud twice as fast as the ones to either side of it, because of the weight of all that lead. The neighbors are beginning to complain. He is taking the whole neighborhood down!”

  “So Mr. Sluys should offer an excellent price,” Gomer Bolstrood said. “Praise God! The Client will be most pleased. Did this same traitor buy up gunpowder? Matches?”

  “All ruined by humidity. But a fleet of Indiamen are expected at Texel any day—they’ll be heavy laden with saltpeter, most likely—powder prices are already dropping.”

  “Probably not dropping enough for our purposes,” Bolstrood muttered. “Can we buy up saltpeter, and make our own?”

  “Sulfur prices are also agreeable, owing to some fortuitous volcanic eruptions in Java,” Eliza said, “but proper charcoal is very dear—the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg controls his Faulbaum inventory like a miser counting his coins.”

  “We may have to capture an arsenal very early in the campaign,” Bolstrood said, “God willing.”

  Talk of campaigns and arsenal-captures made Eliza nervous, so she attempted a change of subject: “When may I have the pleasure of meeting the Client?”

  “As soon as we can find him clothed and sober,” Bolstrood answered immediately.

  “That should be easy, in a Barker.”

  “The Client is nothing of the sort!” Gomer Bolstrood scoffed.

  “How very strange.”

  “What is strange about it?”

  “How came he to oppose Slavery if not through religion?”

  “You oppose it, and you’re no Calvinist,” Bolstrood parried.

  “I have personal reasons for feeling as I do. But I phant’sied that the Client was one of your co-religionists. He does oppose slavery, does he not?”

  “Let us set aside phant’sies, and speak of facts.”

  “Can’t help noticing, sir, that my question is unanswered.”

  “You appeared at the door of our church in Amsterdam—some felt, like an Angelic visitation—with a most generous donation, and offered to make yourself useful in any way that would further our work ’gainst Slavery. And that is just what you are doing.”

  “But if the Client is not opposed to slavery, how does it further the cause to buy him powder and musket-balls?”

  “You may not know that my father—God rest his soul—served as the late King’s Secretary of State before he was hounded to exile and death by the Papists who do France’s work in England. He submitted to that degradation because he knew that upright men must sometimes treat with the likes of King Charles II for the greater good. In the same way, we who oppose slavery, and Established religion, and in particular all of the abominations and fopperies of the Romish faith, must give our support to any man who might prevent James, Duke of York, from long remaining on the throne.”

  “James is the rightful heir, is he not?”

  “As those diplomats just proved, cavilling over the seniority of their Kings,” Bolstrood said, “there is no question that cannot be muddled—and powder-smoke muddles things ’specially well. King Louis stamps Ultima Ratio Regum on all of his cannon—”

  “The last argument of kings.”

  “You know Latin, too—?”


  “I had a Classical education.”

  “In Qwghlm!?”

  “In Constantinople.”

  THE COMTE D’AVAUX MOVED THROUGH the Hague’s canal-network in the gait of a man walking across red-hot coals, but some innate aplomb kept him from falling down even once.

  “Would you like to go home now, monsieur?”

  “Oh no, mademoiselle—I am enjoying myself,” he returned, biting off the syllables one by one, like a crocodile working its way up an oar.

  “You dressed more warmly today—is that Russian sable?”

  “Yes, but of an inferior grade—a much finer one awaits you—if you get me back alive.”

  “That is quite unnecessary, monsieur—”

  “The entire point of gifts is to be unnecessary.” D’Avaux reached into a pocket and pulled out a square of neatly folded black velvet. “Voilà,” he said, handing it over to her.

  “What is it?” Eliza asked, taking it from his hand, and using the opportunity to grab his upper arm for a moment and steady him.

  “A little nothing. I should like you to wear it.”

  The velvet unfolded into a long ribbon about the width of Eliza’s hand, its two ends joined together with a rather nice gold brooch made in the shape of a butterfly. Eliza guessed it was meant to be a sash, and put one arm and her head through it, letting it hang diagonally across her body. “Thank you, monsieur,” she said, “how does it look?”

  The comte d’Avaux, for once, failed to offer her a compliment. He merely shrugged, as if how it looked was not the point. Which confirmed Eliza’s suspicion that a black velvet sash over skating-clothes was rather odd-looking.