Book One: Quicksilver

[pagination is from the 2004 HarperPerennial paperback edition of Quicksilver, Baroque Cycle Vol. 1]

 

3    Boston Common, October 12, 1713, 10:33:52 a.m.

Root arrives in Boston during witch hanging • Meets and discusses history with Ben, son of Josiah, looking for van Hoek (sea captain), and Drake (a Barker) • Both board the ferry; Root mentions his NY contact (also in the Royal Society) • Ben Franklin! • Harvard (or MIT) wags dismiss Daniel • Ben outs Root as RS member; Wags fawn over Root as ferry arrives; Godfrey Waterhouse • Root, Ben and Godfrey talk of history, alchemy, Puritans, Natural Philosophy (aka science) • Alchemy • Huygens is a scientist while Comstock & Angelsey are alchemists • Wilkins leads Royal Society at Wadham College

24 1655

Alchemists lay low • Enoch is an expert on Longevity [No kidding: See Cryptonomicon.] • Root visits Clarke • Root brews tea (this stuff will never catch on in England...) • Clarke's day care/boarding house, featuring Isaac Newton • Apple-fetching string • Two boys pick on third; tables turn, but the revenge is excessive, third boy is caned • Enoch goes up to Boarders' boys room • Root to Clarke: "The scientific revolution is afoot..." • Isaac scrubs his name off chairs and windows.

34 Newtowne, Massachusetts Bay Colony, October 12, 1713

Enoch Root visits Daniel at Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of Technological Arts • Data card categories • Enoch gives Daniel letter from Caroline • They discuss the Newton v. Leibniz calculus debate • Caroline "wants a dove to fly between the pillars of hercules" • To the tavern it is • "You hold judicial proceedings in drinking houses?" • Barkers • Daniel: "Drake brought me into this world so I'd meet Jesus in 1666; Took me to see Wilkins who told me about the world's codes, and suggested a REAL education could be got at Gresham's College in London." • Finally opening Caroline's letter: hop a boat now! • Enoch: Wake up Daniel, the scientific revolution's afoot! • Panning for gold...in his head • Daniel's early years at Trinity; gold-nugget-itemized memories • Barkers and traders • Royal Society • More memory nuggets from Trinity

51 College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Cambridge, 1661

Courtyard revelers • Scarlet boy kills a guy • Two naked guys emerge, Comstock and Jeffries: "Yeah, we uh...were swimming." • "You say you saw a... murder, Waterhouse?" • Differentiating between Golden and Silver Comstocks • Visiting the Justice of the Peace • Better to say nothing about what I saw.... • Daniel hates Trinity but his family says "suck it up!" • Jeffreys continues to taunt Daniel about this murder that has gone unreported • Daniel meets another alienated Puritan with interests in science • Newton and Daniel room together, Isaac acting as Daniel's sizar (servant) • They go to mass after Isaac draws a picture of Daniel • Isaac composes a list: "Sins before and after Whitsunday (Pentecost) 1662;" three months later, still no new sins!

63 Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, October 12, 1713

Daniel does not own slaves • "Mrs. Goose" spins wild children' tales • Daniel and young Wait Still debate free will, souls • Daniel leaves Godfrey with Wait Still and Faith (Root—keeper of The Story—is with them as Daniel is rowed out to the Minerva) • Minerva shifts as he boards, spilling him to the deck

70 College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Cambridge, 1663

Daniel returns from the Tavern; Isaac has a needle in his eye! • Daniel is the one keeping Isaac alive despite Isaac being, technically, Daniel's sizar • They both blow off class for a full year • Examining the possibilities in astained-glass window, Daniel gets a "faint echo" of what it must be like to be Isaac Newton all the time: "a permanent ongoing epiphany."

73 Aboard Minerva, Massachusetts Bay, October 1713

Daniel, still prone on the deck, is led to his cabin by van Hoek (short, with a hook for a hand)

74  College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Cambridge, 1664

Isaac obsesses about sundials; Daniel doesn't get it, Isaac makes him understand.

76 Aboard Minerva, Massachusetts Bay, October 1713

Daniel sees curves everywhere • Daniel's Five Act (or Six) Shipwreck analogy for human progress • Puritans prefer to be wrong with a classic sundial than correct with a newfangled one • Cartesian point plotting; geometry expressed with algebra • Only memory of Trinity education: Examinations passed • Daniel puts his thoughts about Newton's calculus onto paper, for later consumption and digestion by "princes and parliamentarians"

82 Banks of the River Cam, 1665

Walking to Stourbridge Fair, Isaac discusses "fluxions" in the river's curve and in the curve of a reed growing within the river • At the fair, Isaac haggles with Jewish salesman over which coins would be acceptable to pay for prisms • Commotion: man collapses, covered with buboes: plague has come to England.

90 Aboard Minerva, off the coast of New England, November 1713

Minerva still has not head for open sea, unable to get strong enough wind • Daniel takes ocean temperature readings (to test Gulf Stream theories) • Daniel notices and envies the camaraderie of the old-timers • Eating down to the plate pattern when suddenly—

93 The Plague Year, Summer 1665

Everyone who could afford to has left London; Cambridge has closed for the duration of the plague • Drake's rabble-rousing youth • Being two of the very few riding the storm out, Drake and Daniel get on each others nerves • Isaac's gone to Woolsthorpe • Waterhouse's china • Daniel embarks on a mini-Odyssey to see Wilkins at Epsom: [Drake gives Daniel a sort of check for 1 Pound (traveling money) • Daniel walks through London bearing witness to the horrors of the plague • He examines St. Paul's Cathedral...it has seen better days • On to Wilkins' place for a few books Wilkins asked him to pick up, then to the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry's cellar where Daniel finds a half dozen robust frogs • Past the stand-pipe flushing the gutters in the big intersection, on to Gresham's College where Daniel observes some experiments in progress (it's the home of the Royal Society), grabs some stuff for Hooke, and some unopened mail for one GRUBENDOL • On his way out of London, Daniel is flagged down by Thomas Ham, and invited into Ham's cellar....lots of gold down there, as well as several workmen effecting major renovations; Thomas cashes Drake's "check" with a silver coin and a caduceus hairpin. • Continuing out of London, Daniel drops the GRUBENDOL mail on Oldenburg's doorstep.]

112 Epsom, 1665 - 1666

At Epsom, Daniel sees numerous designs and inventions strewn about; Daniel sees Wilkins atop a tall ladder; Gothic glass beehive • Wilkins encapsulates the socio-political upheaval of the mid 1600s • Universal Character • Philosophical Language • Hooke studies cells • Philosophical Language/Linnean Classification • Noah's Ark logistics • Wilkins sets Daniel to work on the Royal Society's Terms of Abuse, Virtues • Daniel incorporates data from many sources • King asks RS about ants, so the society immediately sets about with ant experiments • Hooke sees no beauty in man-made forms; only natural ones • Daniel itemizes Punishments • Sparks, bubbles: spheres, as are planets • "Fly's wings beat frequency" experiment; Other cruel experiments • Comstock's money scrivener appears occasionally, despite plague • "Daniel! Fetch a cannon"; Comstock chides Wilkins for loud cannon fire while young, female royalty is under their roof • Frolic in the gardens (Anne Hyde) • Admiralty readying for sea campaign • Daniel works out who the "young female Royals" are • Many scientific observations by Hooke: O2, Mars, etc • Daniel ponders what it means to be a child of privilege • Philosophical Language tables done in Real Character • Corpse's head used for Real Character pronunciation analysis • Experiment: deep well/gravity variance • Freezing night, thermometer calibration • Dog vivisection; Duke of York hears dog screaming; Hooke, Wilkins and Daniel show and explain vivisection to Duke, who has surely witnessed far worse during combat; In the grisly aftermath of the vivisection, Royal Society has a crisis of conscience • Daniel rides north to assist Isaac with Venus observations

147 Aboard Minerva, Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts, November 1713

Daniel recovers from violent seasickness in cabin, hears (and reads) captain's footsteps on planks above his head; van Hoek grenades strange pirate ship; Pirates captured and tortured (like Hooke's dogs...)

150 Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, Spring 1666

Daniel arrives at Woolsthorpe [about to be the first witness of one of the most productive man-years in human history] • Discussion of Isaac's visibly broken home • Isaac has gone gray, wears gold foil spectacles (retinas have been cooked from looking into the sun during experiments); Daniel hears the explosions from the Dutch v. England naval battle; Daniel sees Venusian spectrum, and spectra of surrounding stars as well • Cambridge reopened, but had to close again immediately with another case of plague; Year Of The Beast: 1666, but people are noticing that the world's not ending as predicted [until Sept. 2 when the fire breaks out in London and burns until the 5th.] • As Daniel rides into London from the north he sees "soot-faced wretches" fleeing the city; in town, a building explodes blowing Daniel off his mount; At fire's northern limit, Drake stands on his roof hoisting his bible to usher in the apocalypse; Courtiers try to talk Drake down, until the King himself determines that enough warnings have been given and lights the fuses. Daniel tries to douse the lit fuse but is shotgunned in the back by a courtier at the moment the powderkegs blow the house—and Drake—to kingdom come.

162 Aboard Minerva, Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts, November 1713

Daniel enjoys a good cry • Pirates attack, everyone is treating Daniel as if he were captain! This "multilayered bluff" continues, the Minerva takes some hard hits; In captains quarters, Dappa explains the strategy (while shooting a pirate who tried to rappel into the room): "Those small-time pirates out there attack us. If we slaughter them as we are more than able to do, they'll run to join up with Edward Teach in desperation, and THAT would be much harder for us to manage. Teach wants this ship for his own, but heaven help any man who tries to take the Minerva from Cap'n van Hoek!" [1/2]

167 Charing Cross, 1670

Daniel has followed Isaac into town; (a paragraph about many celebrities of the day, including the CABAL) Daniel spots a man on horseback also following Isaac; Daniel sets up the telescope coffee table at Mrs. Green's; Isaac enters unknown shop, both Daniel and horseman are clueless as to why; Winston Churchill recognizes Daniel (Digression on the state of the Waterhouse family since Drake's death); The awkward moment between Churchill and Daniel continues, with Daniel observing fashion minutae; Sterling and Beatrice arrive and prolong the awkwardness • Daniel senses some real estate/mercantile conspiracy • Winston notices the telescope along with another spectator, but plays dumb along with Daniel • Upnor and entourage arrive, and mystery horseman approaches. Upnor shames the rider (whom Upnor hired to follow Isaac) into leaving town. Upnor enters the shop and Daniel sees him have an involved conversation with Isaac. Daniel sulks off to Bishopsgate.

182 Royal Society Meeting, Gresham's College, August 12, 1670

Minutes of the Aug. 12 meeting, with results from experiments and suggestions for others from RS members including Boyle, several from Hooke, Wilkins, Mercator, Locke, Oldenberg's letters were read into the record by Daniel, Huygen's letter was read by the Duke of Gunfleet. Daniel submitted Newton's telescope which was examined enthusiastically • After the meeting several went to a tavern; Daniel asked why Oldenberg was in prison...no one seemed willing to answer; Another vivisected dog; Wilkins takes Daniel outside to explain about Oldenburg: "His letters are the heart of our knowledge-gathering society, so the powers that be are titrating that correspondence to their own comfort level" • Hooke uses Hg to level table then pronounces it Universal Measure; the Society peppers Hooke with so many skeptical questions he departs in a huff • Daniel, Pepys and Wilkins take a carriage to John Comstock's house (enroute, they discuss military matters—which makes Daniel feel that he's in way over his head—and Oldenburg's imprisonment); They pick up Comstock, who tells Daniel to visit Oldenburg in prison, and bring him some supplies and mail; Carriage stops at LaFebure's shop, Daniel climbs up on top of the carriage, Enoch exits the shop and gets in, and they head for an alley along Whitehall. Pepys, Comstock, Wilkins and Root get out and go into an alchemy lab in a basement under Whitehall, Daniel walks back to Raleigh's house, sees Cromwell's skull—twelve years dead—atop a pike at Westminster. • Daniel brings stuff to Oldenburg, imprisoned in Tower of London; they sing a song, (letter from Leibniz letter proposes Societas Eruditorum) Oldenburg hints at a "torch passing" in the Royal Society, from himself (old & busted) to Daniel (new hotness); Daniel recants the Wilkins-Pepys enigmatic conversation about military matters, whereupon Oldenburg decrypts it for Daniel; Oldenburg saw a huge ship deliver cargo to the mint, and the mint has been going great guns ever since (the Kings of England and France are hatching a somewhat secret Treaty, which is a ruse for a REALLY secret plan involving midnight shipments of gold to the Tower mint) • Daniel leaves Oldenburg in the Tower prison, drops in on Thomas & Mayflower Ham; (Much info about Mayflower and her remarkable womb); Sterling, Beatrice and Apthorp are there; Thomas leads Daniel to the forge room where newly minted Charles II silver coins are being melted into bullion by Thomas's younger brother Charles; It's happening at many houses; Daniel is baffled by the "dark science" of money. • Daniel goes to another tavern, where Pepys, Wilkins, Comstock, Angseley, Wren, Churchill & Upnor are discussing a new name for New Amsterdam, and Enoch's Phosphorus demo; Upnor had taken umbrage to something Root said and reached for his sword, Pepys talked Upnor down from his rage. • Daniel and Isaac take a carriage back to Cambridge, with Isaac getting deeper into alchemy.

217 Aboard Minerva, Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, November 1713

Chain of command reassumes control of the Minerva, which is in rough shape; Strategy of sailing into a dead-end in Cape Cod Bay; Dappa has Daniel smash china into fragments for blunderbuss ammunition [vaguely echoing Lt. Monkberg in Cryptonomicon]

221 Gresham's College, Bishopsgate, London, 1672

Daniel spends two months making a hole in the ceiling/roof of Gresham's College; Jesuit Riccioli attacks Copernican theory • Daniel's Panoramic Survey of London From Gresham's College [post fire, streets made straighter and wider]; Pondering the "central mystery:" French ships bringing in gold to rent out the English Navy, sort of. • Sitting in Pepys' carriage, Daniel sees a bailiff chase a boy spreading anti-French handbills; Pepys shows Daniel a tennis ball-sized urolith that was pulled from his bladder 14 years prior. They ride the carriage to Wilkins (on the way they see L'Estrange's men ransacking a Barker printer's shop); Wilkins is in rough shape because of his own bladder stone, has been drinking opium tincture; Daniel mounts the telescope at Gresham • Re-enactment of the Battle of Maastricht between France (aided by England) and the Dutch, with the Dutch actors dressed suspiciously like Barkers; Daniel bumps into Gomer Bolstrood who leads him to a tent occupied by the Dutch ambassador. The Dutchmen discuss "negateev spaace" and refuse to back off the London printers despite Daniel's request. Daniel also asks Gomer to lighten up on the Royalist propaganda [or so it seemed after a couple readings of this section...I'd thought the Bolstroods were Barkers, not Royalists; this one section confused me more than all of the helical intricacies of Cryptonomicon! – SMR – ] • Comstock's cannon explodes killing several re-enactors, triggering a mob attack on his house.

236 College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Cambridge 1672

"Once More Unto The Breeches," a parodic play viewed by Daniel, Oldenburg, as well as King Charles II and his court; Academe is offended, King & Court love it • Daniel leaves, wanders backstage, overhears two actresses discussing a used tampon (or whatever passed for a tampon in 1672) • Dinner at Trinity College, in King's honor, Charles busts on Henry VIII and Catholics (albeit diplomatically); Daniel leaves, crossing the Great Court, encounters Apthorp and Jeffries at the Gazebo's wine fountain; they discuss how the Dutch have blockaded England's African slave ports; Daniel dodges Jeffreys's baiting, to the amusement of Apthorp • Daniel returns to his/Newton's chamber, which is now Isaac's full-blown Alchemy lab; Daniel walks in on some Mercury-oriented experiment (Newton's head is shrouded in some "fresh air" helmet/bag); Daniel produces and introduces Tess's moist tampon, inducing rapturous wonder among the Royal Society's geeks (who, like all geeks before and since, seem to regard females as a different species); Daniel urges Isaac to make an appearance at the play's Second Act; Isaac refuses, until he spies something on one of his tables which immediately changes his mind • Five of them go to the play, where Oldenburg urges Daniel to find Isaac's "tangents" paper so they can get something of Newton's published • Hooke has mentally constructed what the world will come to know as Newton's Three Laws Of Motion; Daniel has to "draw Isaac out" (of his shell?) and this must happen tonight! • Daniel retrieves the tangents paper from the chamber, when he catches Roger Comstock sneaking around in Isaac's lab, messing with gunpowder. Daniel's candle ignites the gunpowder, and after the explosion Comstock gets away. Daniel takes the paper to ... some place where "everyone was waiting."

260 London Bridge, 1673

Standing on London Bridge, Daniel sees Leibniz standing in a boat approaching the bridge, bearing news of the Dutch-English war • German delegation disembarks at London Bridge, Daniel greets Leibniz (who has been described by Parisians as a monster) and they head off to see Wilkins; Leibniz tells Daniel his purpose is to meet English scientists; hints that Europe thinks King Chas. II might be Catholic • Seven years after the fire, London still under massive construction; France's King's Library; As they walk on, Daniel explains (and defines) Barkers for Leibniz; Daniel and Leibniz arrive just in time to witness Wilkins sign some document; Leibniz shows the "denary calculator" in his box; Wilkins lays some magnificent responsibility at Daniel's feet... • Leibniz and Daniel leave and discuss several subjects: Philosophical Language, logic, Germany wanting France to attack Egypt, Hooke's distrust of Germans, Newton's name is broached, "What is a number? What is thought? Can a machine that does math be said to think?"; "Free will v. Predestination" is one of the great "labyrinths into which the mind is drawn," the other is...

279 Aboard Minerva, Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, November 1713

Daniel brings shattered china fragments up to blunderbuss shooters; Minerva battles two of Blackbeard's pirate ships, a sloop and a whaler • As promised on p. 167, van Hoek is ruthless, setting the sloop aflame with gunfire, then finishing off the now helpless craft by ramming it with the Minerva.

283 Royal Society Meeting, Gunfleet House, 1673

Prickly Royal Society meeting: bickering over cause of Wilkins's death, whether Wilkins was of unsound mind: Comstock & Angelsey v. LeFebure, trading "poisoned eulogies" • Daniel talks to Roger after bolting from the shouting match; Newton fired Roger after the gunpowder/lab explosion; Explosion is presented from Roger's perspective (Roger was never aware Daniel was in the lab that night); Roger made a bundle in the stock market; One by one their conversation in the garden is joined by Leibniz, then Hooke, then Oldenburg; Leibniz is despondent that his theorem had been proved by someone else first; (in front of everyone Hooke induces his own vomiting); John Comstock upbraids Daniel (for insinuating in the meeting that Wilkins was of sound mind in resisting an Established Church) • Roger asks Daniel to design and build a big house; A passing mob burns the Pope in effigy, and is dispersed by Duke of York's Horse Guards; Roger explains to Daniel the argument in the Royal Society meeting • Daniel meets Leibniz at coffeehouse where they discuss Cogitatio & Computation (again); Daniel finds his life is not so predestined after all

301 Aboard Minerva, Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, November 1713

Minerva maneuvers with pirate schooner, which, over loaded with cannon, rides low in the water, creating a hellish wake • Minerva blasts a pirate ketch to splinters – which before it sinks fires a cannon that bursts through Daniel's wall; as Daniel is stitched up, word comes that the pirates want him. Van Hoek nails flags to Minerva's mainmast.

307 City Of London, 1673y

Daniel does pyrotechnic special effects for Roger Comstock's theatrical production, while London awaits news on the outcome of the Dutch war; A cluster of deaths are noted: Wilkins of course, Richard Comstock, Thomas Ham; Ham's basement gold depository is empty; Daniel, Raleigh and Sterling Waterhouse, along with Apthorp go upstairs and discuss: arches, the Guinea Company, the mob of angry depositors rioting outside at that moment; the four make it to the roof and proceed down the street's rooftops to escape the rioters; Waterhouses make it to Bedlam (Apthorp made it home) • Daniel finds that he's become the torchbearer of Wilkins' religious tolerance movement;  Hooke's taken refuge at Bedlam as well • Another coffeehouse meeting between Daniel and Leibniz; Leibniz feels like a failure, explains to Daniel about the other mental "labyrinth," (re p. 279) the infinite series, and uses π as an example; Leibniz resolves to emerge from Huygens's shadow and focus intently on mathematics. • Hooke traces cannonball parabolas up in Bedlam's turret; He and Daniel discuss different grades of gunpowder, and determine that to be the root of the "defective cannon" conspiracy against Comstock • Daniel, as the perceived leader of the tolerance movement, is summoned to Whitehall to witness the King's signing of the Freedom of Conscience Declaration (First, Roger gets him a mistress—Tess Charter—and some decent clothes) then, in the coach on the way, outlines Anglesey's use of gunpowder to make Comstock the scapegoat for England's loss to the Dutch. Roger unknowingly aided Anglesey/Upnor, he was a pawn in the game (Daniel realizes that both he and Roger have made grievous moral misjudgments, yet over the years each still sees the good in each other.) Enroute to the signing, they watch Roger's "golden cousin" John, move out; Daniel sees a painting that, as many paintings must, violates laws of causality, and it's placement among other paintings also shuffles time and changes perceptions of the depicted events... • Daniel finds Comstock reprehensible, but prefers him to Anglesey, Roger says "Never forget John's atrocities, but don't worry about Anglesey... leave him to me;" After the signing, and after a party, Daniel and Tess "make sausage" in a back room at Roger's theater. She ceases "acting" as his mistress. The next day Daniel wanders onto the empty stage and ponders his new role, with no clue how it will affect London over the next 25 years, or why "he would be called back for an encore" at age 67.

331 Aboard Minerva, Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, November 1713

Blackbeard wants Daniel for some reason; Daniel uses trig and calculus to determine that the pirate schooner to Minerva's starboard cannot possibly beat them to the northern tip of Cape Cod, so van Hoek focuses efforts on lining up a shot on the other pirate ship to Minerva's port, Blackbeard's big sloop. After an hour of inconclusive maneuvering, van Hoek finds himself staring at open sea to the east with Teach well behind him to the west, says bugger all this (or the Dutch equivalent thereof), opens every sail he has, leaving an enraged Blackbeard vanishing off his stern.

 

08MAR09

Book Two: King Of The Vagabonds

[pagination is from the 2004 HarperPerennial paperback edition of Quicksilver, Baroque Cycle Vol. 1]

 

339 The Mud Below London, 1665

Of necessity, Mother Shaftoe encourages criminal behavior in her young sons • Mudlarks hatch a plan to steal anchors off ships  in the Thames; Dick dies during anchor theft; John Cole sentenced to hang, asks Jack & Bob to grab and pull his legs during the hanging so he'll die faster, after which the boys start a "hanging facilitation" business; Jack & Bob's first visit to Newgate Prison, the Stone Hold; They perform their advertisement for their services

350 The Continent, 1683

Electors Palatinate; Jack the military re-enactor, goes to Palatinate. • Jack housesits for a Lord (to make sure the plague has left the house) but, like any Vagabond in a mansion, overstays his welcome and escapes when the angry lord returns; Heads east across the Rhine toward Linz where he sees Polish-Lithuanian King Jan Sobieski leads his army of Winged Hussars across the Danube and make camp; A friend (Augsburg) buys Jack a musket and he becomes a musketeer for Austria; His unit marches in square-pike formation; Jack gets up early one morning and surveys the Turkish camp and Vienna from a hilltop, weighing his looting options; King Sobieski is on the same hilltop praying • Sobieski's massive attack leads Jack into a Turkish tent city: let the looting commence! A Lord rides up and tells Jack to watch his newly-looted horse; An ostrich runs by and Jack saddles up to pursue it. The renegade ostrich leads Jack into Vienna, into a tunnel which leads under the inner city where Jack sees members of a harem being executed with sabers. This presents Jack with an opportunity for "glorious stupidity," so he tramples one of the executioners and shoots the other, saving one of the women, and beheads the ostrich • The woman speaks Qwghlmian and is a virgin named Eliza with whom Jack shares his own sexual secret (the source of his nickname: Half-Cocked Jack) and his limited remaining days; Jack & Eliza form a partnership. 

376 Erstwhile Camp of Grand Vizier Khan Mustapha, September 1683

Jack & Eliza ride east ("Danube is off to the right, Vienna rises beyond that,") then west toward Linz, all the while bickering the terms of their partnership; Eliza tries to familiarize Jack with a novel concept: kindness for its own sake; Eliza discusses her Qwghlm upbringing, tells story of her and mother harvesting gull shit at the shore, pirates row up, one gets stuck in mud, mom helps him and is brought out to a big galleon where she is ravaged (or ravished? Given the accommodations?) by one powerful pirate Personage who only ate fish so rotten it had to be towed behind the galleon • Time passes, the story goes on ("The cabin smelled bad,") "Mom failed the sniff test so I was offered up as recompense..." • Time passes and the conversation continues: (mom was ravaged) Jack tries to resist looking at the beautiful Eliza, no good can come from that; Eliza's story gets spicy as they approach settlements, esp. nunneries! Jack enumerates myriad benefits of traveling with Jack Shaftoe, and the one crucial drawback (he's wanted nearly everywhere); God's Poor (we should help them) v. Devil's Poor (screw 'em); Eliza draws up a long term plan for unloading the ostrich feathers: "Get me though the winter jack and come spring I'll get you top dollar in Leipzig."

390 Bohemia, Autumn 1683

Having ridden north for three days, Jack and Eliza weight the resale value of their looted sword; Jack tells the local history with artifacts spontaneously raised from the river bottom; They come across an abandoned bohemian fort, then a man-made pond, (which leads to a discussion of the Catholic v. Protestant clash, of Elizabeth, the Winter Queen of Bohemia, of the 30 year war, of Jack's time in Jamaica) • At the pond they meet a village of peasants and vagabonds, and Jack uses a makeshift bomb to bring some fish to the surface; (Jack tells about Sir Winston Churchill's difficulties and how, as a young boy, he and his brother contributed to them, but ultimately came to work for Churchill and his son John); Jack and Eliza depart the village and head north before the peasants' gratitude morphs into something less grateful... 

403 Bohemia, Winter of 1683 - 1684

Jack & Eliza encounter a couple German miners at a hot spring, and build a camp for winter, and fall into a winter routine of not talking to each other much. This drives Eliza nuts and she demands conversation, so Jack tells how John Churchill was romantically involved with one of Charles II's mistresses; How Jack and Bob were battlefield messengers for John at the siege of Maestricht; How Churchill & the Duke of Monmouth conquered a Dutch fort, but the next morning the Dutch unconquered it from them; How Jack delivered a message to D'Artagnan, who promptly took a musketball in the head and how Jack was considering amputating D'Artagnan's fingers to get his rings...but instead just stole a hit from D'Artagnan's flask. This impressed Eliza so much she offered to perform some Book Of India tricks on Jack, if he'd just go clean up... • While relaxing the hot spring together, Eliza gives Jack a prostate exam rather more involved and intimate than is typical, during which Jack more or less sees God and weeps. [NOTE: In relating his sensations to Eliza, Jack describes an elaborate, ancient German clock that bears a startling resemblance to the Year, Decade, Century, and Millenium monastery gate clocks in Stephenson's 2008 novel Anathem.]

413 Leipzig, April 1684

Jack and Eliza sell the silk at local market; Herr Geidel shows them his mint; Geidel hires jack as Road security; They ride north into Saxony, then Leipzig: paved streets, taverns, town hall, town square; Coin exchange rates, stock exchange...Eliza proposed buying stock in a silver mine. • Fun fair, meeting an effete doctor..binary coin flipping...off they go to inspect the doctor's mine. • Jack observes "gargoyles" gazing down from upper balconies in a mercantile courtyard.

430 Saxony, Late April, 1684

Jack helps Leibniz decide to submit his calculus manuscript; Doctor (Leibniz) enrages the Bookseller's Quarter and bolts. Leibniz reads a novel. • Wagon train, heading west; Jack, Leibniz and Eliza ride in a coach; Eliza tells how she got from Barbary to Vienna. "The horse that paid for me was an albino...When I find the person who caused me and my mother to be made slaves, I'll kill him." Jack offers to do the job. • The convoy enters the Harz mountains they see charcoal being made. The three of them enter a mine, where Jack, walking point, encounters a large fossil skeleton. The mine is full of fossils. • They ascend until they reach a mountain-top tower, Jack describes the view. • Jack decides to go down into the town of Bockboden to get medicine for Eliza, though Leibniz strongly advises him against it. In town, Jack enters an apothecary shop...Enoch Root is there and startles Jack. Before long Root has diagnosed Eliza, from afar, as having iron-poor blood; Another witch-burning [which burnings seem to correlate with Enoch's initial appearances...as in the opening scene of Book One]; Jack gets spooked by the burning and bolts town, runs into the forest.

450 The Harz Mountains, Walpurgisnacht [April 30, the night before May Day], 1684

Jack's lost in the woods, sees three women and a man, then more arrive and prepare a meal, which Jack comes out of hiding to partake of. Jack hallucinates wickedly from mushrooms in the meal; Jack panics, almost runs off a cliff; The people see his sword and scatter...they think he's a "watcher." A mob forms and pursues Jack, who, after running for an hour or so, takes refuge in an old wooden building. He descends a stairway, and the mob sets fire to the building. Jack executes a slapstick "descent" into a mineshaft, and desperately searches the mine for subterranean fresh air. Jack comes across an underground lake. • Jack sees light in the bottom of the pool and swims down toward it. He surfaces in an adjoining treasure vault in which Eliza and Enoch were meeting with potential mine stockholders, scaring the shit out of all but Enoch. ("There's a famous novel -- L'Emmerdeur -- based on your Vagabond infamy...") Jack disrupted the meeting but Eliza isn't angry. "Far from it...she's radiant...You volunteered to be taken down into eternal torment in place of her. This is the absolute minimum that any female requires from her man." 

465 The Place [Amsterdam] Summer 1684

Heading west from Leipzig to Amsterdam, passing though small cities and endless countryside, stopping at trade fairs, etc. • Jack & Enoch visit  a silver mine, mercury is used to extract the silver. "With a hundred weight of quicksilver you can make eight pieces of eight and six royals..." (Eliza will ask.) • We need to go to Amsterdam to buy mercury so we can sell it to silver miners. • Sleeping in book depository • Eliza practices crypotgraphy using fingers for binary digits; Layout of "Amstel Dam"; Jack notices a massive ship battle; Jack and Eliza are swept along by a flowing mob who seem to communicate news via hand slaps; They settle in Amsterdam; Jack spends his days roaming, watching, learning, trying not to get arrested for idleness;  Shipyard; Damrak; Weigh house; Stock exchange; Eliza enters local economic circles by flirting ruthlessly, all day. Drives Jack nuts. As does the omnipresent water in Amsterdam.

484 The Dutch Republic, 1684

Jack views the sea while talking to Turk, his "Turkish-by way-of-Vienna" horse. Hides his "Turkish-by way-of-Vienna" sword in a crutch. Jack rides south, past The Hague, visits the Bomb & Grapnel and its proprietor, Mr. Foot [see Cryptonomicon] in Dunkirk; Jack crosses farmland into a village where he encounter Arlanc, a Parisian, and they ride to Amiens together. Arlanc stops at an inn to see his sons, Jack rides on to Paris. • Jack's ride to Paris takes several days; In Paris, trailed by police? Rue Vivienne; Jack delivers a letter to Signor Cozzi (from Eliza?) who pays him well • In Marais, Jack hooks up with a rat exterminator named St. -George, who makes sure not to kill ALL the rats; Jack: "Maybe they are breeding you."; The benefits of arduous coffee haggling with Christopher; Jack's Paris lodgings; On the roof tops; Down at street-level; Jack hallucinates seeing creatures trapped in a stone wall. (Eliza? The fossils Leibniz told him about back in April? The Pox begins its assault on his senses...)

502 Paris, Winter of 1684-1685

Getting on with his Armenian landlords; The Esphanian's drama, in four or five acts (maybe THEY can sell the ostrich plumes!) • Place Dauphine recruiting station; Place Royale horse market (Jack sneaks in); Albino horse coach team; Jack introduces himself to angry fishwives; Takes Cozzi's message and horses to Lyon; Charles II is dead, long live James II.

512 The Hague, February 1685

English and French delegations freeze to the bone face to face while Eliza skates; d'Avaux flatters Eliza relentlessly • Eliza and Gomer Bolstrood discuss subpar furniture ("I could make better chairs in an afternoon, drunk given a shrub and a jackknife."), Frenchified Dutchmen, Sluy's stockpiled lead, and slavery • Eliza and d'Avaux walk along the canals to the Binnenof (Dutch palace), where Eliza skates on the Hofvijver; d'Avaux introduces Eliza to Dutch royalty (Monmouth & Mary); Monmouth skates with Eliza, who tells him her revenge plan. • Eliza works on a deal with Monmouth; Explains short-selling to him, and proposes taking Sluy's money.

531 France, Early 1685

Jack, riding between Lyon and Paris, sees columns of Huguenot galley slaves shuffling toward Marseille. Jack recognizes Arlanc in one of them. Jack sneaks Arlanc some food, Arlanc advises Jack about horse trading. Jack goes further mad, hallucinating grave diggers and singing Huguenots and fishwives (with lyrics and stage directions); Jack jousts (sort of...), knocks a rider and his horse to the ground; John Churchill rescues Jack from his pox-induced-madness -induced predicament.

544 Amsterdam, April 1865

Eliza helps Monmouth eject his excess humours, as she helped Jack in the hot spring, for which Monmouth offers to make Eliza a duchess. • Eliza with Monmouth at the opera; she's there, seeky for market movers. (http://everything2.com/title/seeky) he's there in battle dress to be seen. Nonverbal message is broadcast at the opera: Monmouth is bound for Constantinople.• d'Avaux slides in... • At the opera, d'Avaux keeps d'Arachon from leaping over the balcony rail. • Post opera, at Sluy's House of Lead... "No mademoiselle, I want you to be my friend."

558 Paris, Spring 1685

Jack, up to his neck in manure at Arcachon stables; Churchill explains why he saved Jack, and later, didn't kill him; Jack devises an escape from d'Arcachon's stable...collars a Scot with a red-hot chain...stable gypsy boy helps Jack; Jack rides Turk out in front of the house as party-goers arrive, then rides into the house! Then another vagabond rides in...dressed as Jack! Someone in a satyr costume grabs Turk's bridle; Jack threatens to cut the arm off, but the satyr starts cutting his own arm off first! Then the ceiling caves in from accumulated rainfall. Jack cuts the satyr's arm the rest of the way off, then Turk drags Jack out of the ballroom. Jack realizes he missed a golden shot at Eliza's abductor (d'Arcachon), as he escapes through the pantry and down an alley.

577 Amsterdam, 1685

Jack can't remember the Lyon to Paris ride, explains how he met Yvgeney; Jack's deal with Foot & Yvgeney; Has Eliza outgrown Jack? No insurance. Cowrie shells. Slaves. Yes, Jack's going into the slave trade. Eliza will have none of it, and artfully harpoons him to the mast of the God's Wounds.

587 Amsterdam, June 1685

D'Avaux and two valets escort Eliza to canal where she boards a kaag to leave Amsterdam. William of Orange abducts Eliza, enlists her to spy on Louis XIV for the Dutch. William knights Eliza's tonsils (if you will) making her a Duchess.

599 Coast of Europe and of Northern Africa, 1685

Aboard God's Wounds, Jack's wounds are cauterized;  Foot assumes de facto control of the ship after Vliet cowers; Jack's wounds get infected; Corsairs approach, Jack readies for a fight; Corsairs sing Havah Nagilah. Stripped, bound and pressed into galley slavery by the corsairs.

Book Three: Odalisque

[pagination is from the 2004 HarperPerennial paperback edition of Quicksilver, Baroque Cycle Vol. 1]

 

613  Whitehall Palace, February 1685

Daniel Waterhouse watched King Charles II die at Whitehall Palace; Parliament moved to Oxford (Whigs); The worm has turned: "Papists in power, Protestants in the Tower" • Daniel on Whitehall's privy stairs; Pun not intended, but court physicians essentially "treat" Charles II to death (via excessive bloodletting, etc.); Daniel to Roger Comstock: "Some men really are irreplaceable"; Other doctors arrive via river boat; Wending through Whitehall with doctors • Syphilis poem; A short bio of James II • Elizabeth, the Winter Queen has many babies • Daniel goes to St. James trepidatiously, for he must tell the Duke of York (James II) that Charles II is at death's door; Another run-in with Jeffries as Daniel makes his way back through St James private chambers; Daniel is surprisingly and refreshingly direct with James II.

636  Versailles, Summer 1685

Letter from Eliza to d'Avaux: "William of Orange found the letters you hid in my luggage...it got unpleasant. But I understand why you did it. You knew they'd make me a governess, where I'd be pursued by Persons of Quality."  • Eliza to Liebniz: Brief autobiography, "I'm going to ramble about BS as you know, because the BS hides the encrypted real news..."; At Versailles, Eliza has two charges, takes them for walks, tutors them in geometry; Louis XIV & Liselotte ride up to Eliza and her charges at cross-shaped pool, they discuss Eliza's presence at Versailles w/r/t d'Avaux. (Eliza notices Louis rides strangely, suspects an infirmity...) • Eliza to d'Avaux: "I need to be able to travel to do this financial work properly" • Eliza to Leibniz: "Duchesse d'Oyonnax and marquise d'Ozoir; Competition among the noble ladies for positions in the Dauphine's house is intense...there have been four poisonings." ; Bezier is heading south, now Eliza is working for d'Ozoir • Eliza to d'Avaux: Cats in a sack, tortured over flames; "King noticed me, so now no courtiers come near me. Today, Louis XIV actually came HERE to have a surgeon operate on a hemorrhoid. The King personally asked me to fake copulatory screaming to mask his surgical screams." • Eliza to Liebniz: Louis XIV squashing protest in Savoy.

659  London, Spring 1685

Roger persistently asks Daniel who is taking care of Isaac; Flamsteed founds the Royal Observatory to research St. Pierre's longitude claim; Roger asks about Newton's interest in astronomy, alchemy, the apocalypse; Billiard ball elucidation or parabolic orbits • Roger Comstock loathes his golden cousin John; Daniel must travel north and release religious prisoners. • Daniel travels from London to Ipswitch, chats with Exaltation Gather regarding science, the Bible. • Daniel tours the country freeing "Quakers, Barkers, Ranters, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and the odd Jew..."; Daniel speaks to Edmund Palling about James II • Daniel's hyperbolic path around England; CONIC SECTIONS SECTION • Trinity College...it's gone downhill since Daniel attended. Daniels baits the Trinity Fellows for info on Newton and hears that "...lately he's been scratching in his garden like a peckish hen." • Daniel enters Isaac's chamber; Isaac defends scriptural revelation. • Isaac shows Daniel some ellipse proofs; Isaac has discovered the System of the World.

688  Beach North of Scheveningen, October 1685

Eliza watches William of Orange sand sail; William tells Eliza who reads her letters. • Eliza rides off, and is accosted and de-mounted (pulled off her horse...is there a word for that?) by a stranger who throws back his hood and reveals the face of Jack Shaftoe. • But it's Bob Shaftoe, not Jack. Bob wants to discuss a private matter as they walk to The Hague.

697  Dorset, June 1685

[The first section of this chapter is written in 2nd person: Bob addressing Eliza, presumably as they walk. I inadvertently converted these notes to 3^rd. -smr-.]

Jack told me of your aversion to slavery (recall the harpooning incident in King of the Vagabonds); Monmouth arrives at Lyme Regis, Bob joins, meets Abigail Frome at Taunton, deserts. While deserting, attracts a framer's dog's attention, then the farmer's. Farmer pitchforks Bob in the back, Bob threatens the feisty dog, then the farmer recognizes Bob from an earlier, friendlier conversation in Lyme Regis; King puts Feversham—demolitions specialist or enthusiast—in command (not Churchill) who promptly takes a piece of flying debris in the head (and had to be trepanned to relieve pressure from brain swelling); Monmouth deserts his men; Abigail is sold to Earl of Upnor by Jeffreys; Bob asks Eliza to buy Abigail. • Eliza and Bob enter Hyugens's house; Eliza does her trick with the sausage-casing, after which Bob and Eliza "kill some time" during which Eliza lectures Bob on honor; Huygens walks in on them in flagrante. • Eliza helps Huygens call noon and set his clocks; Regarding Eliza's (& Bob's) exertions on the kitchen table, Huygens advocates recognizing and correcting a misjudgment rather than "posturing defiantly."

716  The Exchange [Between Threadneedle and Cornhill], September 1686

[Written as a play.] Daniel visits Apthorp in the Exchange; A Jew from Amsterdam enters & exits; Ravenscar (Roger Comstock) enters with Leibniz's book...Daniel produces Newton's Principia; Ravenscar & Daniel read and discuss • Ceremonial execution of anti-Louis XIV book (Daniel was expecting this burning); Apthorp asks Daniel: "Why do this here in the exchange?"; Ravenscar takes Principia to press; King is buying war goods for use at home in England...

729  Versailles, 1687

Eliza to d'Avaux: Eliza runs finances in Amsterdam by proxy from Versailles • Eliza to d'Avaux: Etienne d'Arcachon takes Eliza to the ball; Eliza phant'sies ennoblement; At the ball, Eliza plants seeds into Louis XIV's ear (the fictional "fall of Batavia") to sink the Dutch markets • Eliza to Leibniz: Fall of Batavia and re-enactment party described; Upnor indeed owns Abigail as a slave...England will NOT sit still for this • Eliza to Leibniz: "Enough people here now depend on me that my status as a commoner is awkward and inconvenient. They need a pretext to give me a title...what can Upnor do to me? What is Enoch Root?"

739  Bank of Het Kanaal,  Between Scheveningen and the Hague, December 1687

Daniel jumps into William Penn's carriage (discussion features oblique reference to Mason-Dixon); they go to Orange's Estate in Haagse Bos forest. • Daniel recognizes girl (Abigail); Daniel asks Penn to add a letter to his sheaf. • Eliza visits William of Orange and discusses Daniel and Penn • At a dinner party at Huygens's, first Eliza then Daniel size up Fatio; Fatio, Eliza, Daniel and Huygens discuss Leibniz; Fatio notes how vulnerable William is when he land-sails on the beach; Rooftop telescope session; Fatio announces that Fenil wants to capture William; Fatio knows Eliza's spying for William; Enoch appears (yet again!) down in the yard, and suggests they turn the telescope west; which they do, and see not a planet or star, but a ship arriving from France...  • Eliza wants to watch (William of) Orange land-sailing • Eliza steals a horse, she and Fatio alert Orange's guards, then commandeer a land-sailer of their own; Their sailer goes much faster than Orange's guards on horseback, and the guards toss them firearms as they whizz past... the beach rescue begins, Eliza expertly leans way out to keep the land-sailer upright, enabling more speed; William kills a few of the attackers; Eliza commandeers one of the attackers' long boats, the rescue continues, Orange's guards arrive • Orange vows to reward both Fatio and Eliza, and to "make Britain mine... what you have just witnessed is the spark that ignites the pan, that fires the musket, that ejects the ball, that fells the king;" Orange asks Eliza to "get close" to Liselotte (Louis XIV's sister-in-law) to get info about Louis's troop movements.

772  Versailles, Early 1688

Eliza to Leibniz: Eliza is now Countess de la Zeur (Sghr) of Qwghlm; Qwghlmian Church

774  The Star Chamber, Westminster Palace, April 1688

Jeffreys tortures Daniel with an iron collar but doesn't kill him • Daniel is dumped in a field • Daniel has it bad for Eliza; Porter helps Daniel; Daniel receives (and decrypts) a letter from Eliza (discussion of her cypher); Eliza tells Daniel she's coming to Whitehall • She's using Daniel to get into Whitehall to see if the Queen bears Louis XIV a legitimate heir and adjust her investments accordingly.

788  Versailles, July 1688

Eliza to d'Avaux: "Long time, no mail; the market has been too volatile of late; "I have seduced an Englishman close to the King" (Daniel.); Liselotte accepts Eliza at Versailles, and flirts with her.

793  Tower of London, Summer and Autumn 1688

Daniel does some high-watt soul searching in the Tower prison; The tower has a new set of guards...the King's Black Torrent guards; Daniel gets better food, and some visitors • England doubts the heir; Erudite guard (Bob) explains why the King's guards are in the tower (this keeps John Churchill, their CO, at arm's length); Guard has a letter for Daniel from Leibniz; Guard is instructed by Jeffreys only to allow two specific "friends" to visit Daniel. Daniel knows they are Jeffreys's assassins. ; Leibniz to Daniel: Newton is not interested in understanding the cause of phenomena, such as gravitation, just how to describe its effect(s) "If the Royal Society seems inclined to burn me in effigy, please try to explain to them that I am trying to extend the work that Newton has done, not tear it down." • Bob literally scares the piss out of Daniel, but Daniel blames his kidney stone. "You could have it cut out" Bob offers. Daniel: "I have seen men cut for the stone, Sergeant, and I'll take death, thank you very much." Bob has intercepted Jeffreys's thugs; Another crafty Shaftoe saves Daniel and hatches a plot against Jeffreys and Upnor.

 

[The following six chapters comprise a lengthy, one-sided correspondence from Bonaventure Rossignol—Louis XIV's cryptanalyst—to the King himself, including the text of Eliza's journal.]

 

811  Chateau Juvisy, November 1688

Rossignol to Louis XIV: "I suspect Eliza's letters to Leibniz are in code; Here's a letter Eliza sent to Leibniz:"

815  St. Cloud, August 1688

Eliza to d'Avaux: Phillipe has many male lovers; Liselotte, sick of endless costume work, has had all layers of her en manteau dress sewn into one garment, saving her much time and effort getting dressed; Phobos and Deimos allegory.

819  Rossignol to Louis XIV Continued, November 1688

Phobos/Deimos story referred to the Savoy supression—some of this was for Orange's eyes as much as d'Avaux's; Here's a letter I got from d'Avaux a few weeks later:

820  French Embassy, The Hague, 17 September 1688

d'Avaux to Rossignol: "Eliza is NOT in a nunnery as we have been led to believe, but at William of Orange's place in the Hague."

821  Rossignol to Louis XIV Continued, November 1688

Rossignol goes to the Hague; Eliza visits Orange in the woods, Orange invades England; Rossignol expends inordinate effort and time decrypting Eliza's encoded embroidery.

 

[Inordinate to say the least. Observe the lengths to which Rossignol goes to please his king:

1. ...enlists an eagle-eyed Embassy clerk to transcribe 1s & 0s from the embroidery (in all four orientations? Which way is up on a square?) then returns it to Eliza's chamber before she returns from her journey -- she won't know it's been missing.

2. ...used a book at the "King's Library" (Rue Vivienne?) to translate the binary into 30,000 Qwghlmian runes.

3. ...asked Father de Gex about Qwghlmian, who referred him to Father Mxnghr in Dublin, who translated the Qwghlmian into Latin.

3. ...translated the Latin into "a more elevated style...redacting it into a coherent, if episodic, narrative."]

 

ELIZA'S ENCRYPTED JOURNAL ENTRIES, August - September 1688

07Aug. - Eliza's boat ride starts at St. Cloud, on the Seine.

20Aug. - Eliza dresses like a boy; chaland boats

25Aug. - Wooden shoe buoyancy experiment

28Aug. - Disembarks at St. Dizier; In the eyes of an ambitious man, this place demands to be invaded.

30Aug. - Convent, but they're so naughty here! Observing dock loading, spotted by vagabonds; Letter arrived from French dock boss to a girl in the convent.

02Sep. - Befriended letter recipient. Writer is d'Adour.

05Sep. - (Left St. Dizier, now on a carriage in Aragonne.) "The cargo being shipped through Lorraine, on to Alsace. Chevalier of Lorraine (Louis XIV's brother's lover, and Liselotte's tormentor) exploits a vulnerability in ruling dynasty; King sent brother, Liselotte and Chevalier to St Cloud to foment a war in Palatinate; Dr von Pfung called for me at the convent. We dispensed with secrecy and began sharing information. I suggested we head for the Meuse and Pfung agreed. After a few hours we overtook a train of ox carts led by a French officer. I changed into my dress perhaps to distract the officer into sharing some info; when this officer mentioned d'Adour, Dr Pfung knew it meant the Palatinate was to be invaded."

07Sep. - I'm on the run. Carriage and Dr Pfung are lost. We're now near Verdun...

08Sep. - Pfung suffered a stroke. When we blundered into a cavalry regiment and were in some hot water so I just told the truth..."Elizabeth Charlotte sent me here to look into your operations..." Etienne d'Arcachon will receive me.

10Sep. - Etienne amputated his own arm, supposedly out of politeness, accounts vary as to exactly what happened. He hires the best wood carvers and blacksmiths to make his prosthetics; one is ivory with mother of pearl fingernails...and one....is carved of jade with an oversized, penis-shaped middle finger...which he used expertly, I might add, (And then used his real one.) (I'm not talking about his other middle finger, either.)

12Sep. - Etienne wrote me  a love poem about the perfect children I would bear him; I need to tell Orange how the French are quitting his southern flank; The carriage was on the ferry across the Meuse and they saw the German coat of arms on the carriage door. They shot the carriage to splinters killing Pfung and his faithful driver. I stole north immediately.

13Sep. - At Liege. We shall ride north to Maastricht.

15Sep. - Finally get a bath.

16Sep. - "In a canal ship heading west across the Dutch republic. I've met two supposed princesses on the run, Eleanor and Caroline. Eleanor claims to be the daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Eisenach; She married the Margrave of Brandenberg-Ansbach. At Rotterdam we'll head for the Hague where I'll report to Orange."

853  Rossignol to Louis XIV Continued, November 1688

"D'Avaux tells me his sources in the Hague confirm that the Countess is pregnant with d'Arcachon's bastard."

855  Sheerness, England, 11 December 1688 [a very busy day...]

Daniel, searching for James II, finds him in a tavern getting his ass kicked by two fishermen;  (After Orange invaded and began his march on London, James II made a run to Sheerness for a boat, but it was low tide (the "boat-strewn mudflat") so what else could James do? Why not visit the nearest tavern?) • A stable hand brings Daniel a horse...he summons a few nearby POQs to look in on the fight. • Daniel observes and considers Castle Upnor. Upnor was not there, but would be soon. Daniel wanders toward London, arrives in Greenwich at the Royal Observatory. In a small copse below Flamsteed's windows, Daniel squats in an effort to get any urine at all past his kidney stone...as he does he notices London going bananas. Daniel puts the tavern scene with this one and concludes: the Glorious Revolution: Orange is now the King of England. Daniel leaves the horse with Flamsteed ; Mr Bhnh ferries Daniel "home" to the Tower; Daniel notices larger glass windows on shops ("People went 'shopping' now. The noun 'shop' had been verbed.") [As has the noun "verb." Very nice Mr. Stephenson!] Daniel conks out on the ferry and Mr Bhnh covers him with blankets. • Daniel wakes on the ferry disoriented • Ferry enters Tower via Traitor's Gate. • Bob appears and he and Daniel leave the Tower, (perhaps to finish the plans hatched back on p 809?) They run into John Churchill who waves Bob along. Daniel: "Me and Bob over there have a bad thing to do, but it's to a bad person who dearly deserves it, so cut me some slack?" Churchill: "I scratch your back now, you scratch mine later on?" They shake.) • Jeffreys has bugged out; LeFebure's Alchemy shop is raided and looted; Daniel enters LeFebure's, sees John Locke, tells him of James II; Down the hall: Newton, Upnor & Fatio (and what each is wearing...) Daniel tells them also about James II at Sheerness; Upnor's heading to his castle tomorrow; Newton comments on Daniel's "incendiary behavior" in the presence of alchemical writings. [NOTE: Daniel responds to Isaac by saying "You continue to view my 1677 actions in the worst possible light,"  Isaac replies "...what happened in 1677 permanently disqualifies you from handling alchemical literature around open flames." This seems an unambiguous reference to the minor explosion in Isaac's lab caused when Daniel, who was there retrieving a paper and holding a candle, encountered Roger Comstock who had snuck in and was messing with Isaac's gunpowder, and the powder ignited. The problem is this occurs on p.258, in a chapter dated 1672.  So I continue to be a bit baffled by the 1677 reference. -smr- ] Daniel bumps into Enoch, and they also square off about alchemy. Daniel begs off: "I have to bid farewell to my old friend Jeffreys..." • Bob and Daniel boat under London Bridge, fording the waterfall. Searching many taverns they found Jeffreys in the Red Cow. Daniel wagers with the tavern keeper about Jeffreys's eyebrows. Jeffreys is cornered. Daniel leaves the dirty work to Bob and the angry tavern folk.

887  Venice, July 1689

Leibniz to Eliza, Countess de la Zeur and Duchess of Qwghlm: [A huge where-are-they-now letter]: Canal Rage in Venice; William & Mary crowned; New Tsar in Russia named Peter;  Holy League have taken Lipova; Many financial innovations affecting Amsterdam; James II is in Ireland planning a comeback; Asks about Eliza's baby (and the father thereof?); Eleanor & Caroline's current position; ("After all that news all I have is gossip, but my gossip is copious and of the most excellent quality!") ...about Sophie, and Sophie Charlotte, and Princess Eleanor, etc. Oh, and I've invented dynamics.

892  The Hague, August 1689

[This chapter starts off with deliberately misleading info, after which it becomes one long decrypted sequence that ties up many loose ends, essentially wrapping up Eliza's story for Volume One.]

 

Eliza to Leibniz: "I cannot bear to write about my poor baby...have mercy on his little soul..." [Encrypted: I love him (yes, love. He's not dead, that was just some smoke for whomever reads the plain text.) Caroline is shaping up as a fine young scientist; James II is trying to win back his kingdom for his son & heir; I had some time to decide what story I'd tell about the nature of my child, since a Duchess simply can NOT have a bastard; The birth itself you won't believe; I was supposed to be taken to the Binnenhof, to Eleanor's suite. But the sedan chair carriers smuggled me off to a different birthing room! A doctor and two ladies in waiting were there, one was sweet, the other was a renegade bitch on wheels; the baby was breach, and the Doctor had a lot to do; But the French Ambassador had a coronary nearby and the Doctor was summoned to save him; I demanded he give me an experimental alchemical drug, which he did, then the doctor turned the baby; Marie asked if the doctor noticed a harelip when he was turning the baby. The doctor scoffed then left. • A crone-like midwife came in to wait while the doctor tended to the Ambassador. (Why did Marie ask about a birth defect? She, or whomever she's spying for, knows the father comes from a family riddled with birth defects, but the only way they could know the father is by reading my journal! More about Etienne's motivations, then I said the hell with this noise and started a fire in the birthing room. The midwife and Marie, cowards to the bone, flee, leaving Brigitte to drag me from the bed, down the hall, to Eleanor's room, where the baby was born. The rest of the world believes what's in the plaintext: that the baby died in the fire because of the midwife's and Marie's cowardice;  I've returned to live in Huygens's house, the baby is with Eleanor in the Binnenhof across the square; When I am well I will try to take him to London, Eleanor and Caroline will head east; d'Avaux may come after me, and if you don't hear from me for awhile, he has probably succeeded."

 

"Which brings us to the unanswered questions: Why is the baby flawless if a d'Arcachon is the father? Why am I telling you all this if the code has been cracked? And perhaps most obviously, why would I boink Etienne when I had my pick of ten million horny Frenchmen? All three questions can be answered at once: [NOTE: The stock warning about spoilers always applies when I do these pages, but what follows reveals so much that I have to do my own little encryption. Highlight the blank area below to reveal the hidden text.]  Remember when I was in the carriage with Dr Pfung and we were apprehended by the French Cavalry Regiment back on p. 844? Bonaventure Rossignol (or Bon Bon, as I call him now) became aware of it—he's the cryptanalyst and he's reading all the dispatches—and actually rode out to rescue me. One thing led to another—several times, in fact—and the child is indeed his. We cooked up the Etienne story to see if anyone had cracked the code, which obviously someone had. So when he told Louis XIV he "redacted" it, he wasn't kidding!]

908  Bishopsgate, October 1689

Daniel packs for journey to Boston; Pepys collects all Daniel's books that are not making the trip with him; Pepys wants to give Daniel a send-off; Sedan chair to the nuthouse, Bedlam? But wait...Hooke's office is there; Sure enough, full Royal Society membership greets Daniel, now in a wheelchair from kidney stone pain; They give Daniel a warm reception: speeches are made and toasts are raised; Hooke has laid out surgical tools, indeed he plans on giving Daniel a send-off he'll never forget. They strap Daniel down, and Hooke turns his attention to removing Daniel's stone...."I shall not insult your intelligence by suggesting that you relax. Please do not go insane. I'll see you on the other side of the Styx..."

 

20JUL09
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