The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (251 page)

“You see, we fooled Monsieur Esphahnian into believing that his brothers had been betrayed by you, Jack, and were perishing of typhus in debtors’ prisons all around Paris. His joy at learning that this is not true will be balanced by some embarrassment that he turned you in to us for no good reason, and lost his share of the silver and gold in
Minerva
’s hold. I do wonder which of these three causes him the greatest anguish: that he betrayed his friends, that he threw away a fortune, or that he was duped. Father Édouard should reach Versailles in a few more days—he’ll inform Monsieur Esphahnian that the missing gold was attached to the ship’s hull the entire time—this ought to perfect his agony. It is a better torture, I believe, than anything the Spanish Inquisition could devise. But better yet is in store for you, Jack!”

He walked out.

A door opened and a woman entered the bedchamber. Jack did not know her instantly, only because he did not
wish
to. She’d changed, but not
that
much. He simply could not bear to open his eyes to her.

Nasr al-Ghuráb had told them that in the sack of Constantinople the Ottomans had discovered, in a dungeon, a device that the Byzantines had once used to put out the eyes of noble prisoners. There was none of poking or gouging. Rather, it was a great hemispherical bowl, wrought of copper, with a sort of vise in its center. The bowl would be heated first until it was glowing, and then the prisoner’s head—masked, except for the eyes—would be clamped into the vise. The apparatus was so laid out that the pupils of the victims’ eyes were positioned at the center of the hemisphere. When the lids were pulled up, the eyes could see nothing but a featureless heaven of red wrath that ruined even as it dazzled. The sensitive parts of the eyes were incinerated in a few moments, and the victim rendered perfectly blind without the eyes themselves ever having been touched by anything save that awful last glimpse.

In idle moments since having heard this story, Jack had sometimes wondered what thoughts went through the mind of the one who was being clamped into it. Did he resist? Could he? Were unwilling eyelids peeled back with tongs, or was the victim compelled somehow to open them himself?

It was in much the same frame of mind that he followed Eliza’s entry into the bedchamber without looking at her directly. But in the end he couldn’t not open his eyes, of his own free will, and gaze
upon what was there, burn him and blind him though it might.

She had been at dinner with rich people, and was some time taking her gown off, washing her face, peeling off the black patches, and letting her hair down. Ladies-in-waiting came and went. A girl of perhaps nine, with eyes and face marred by smallpox, came into the room and crawled into Eliza’s lap for a few minutes’ rocking and snuggling; Eliza read to her from a book, then sent her off to bed with kisses all over her wrecked face. A nurse led in a boy of about seven, who had escaped the pox so far—but in a way he was worse for Jack to look upon, for his jaw had the same deformity as both of the two last ducs d’Arcachon. But Eliza smiled when he came in, and cuddled him and read to him just as she had done to the pock-marked girl. The nurse took the boy away and Eliza sat alone for some time, tending to correspondence; she read a scattering of notes and wrote two letters.

Étienne came in to the bedchamber now and twirled off his coat, and tossed his small-sword onto a window-bench. Eliza gave him a perfunctory over-the-shoulder greeting. Étienne strolled up along the side of the bed, walking towards Jack, loosening his cravat, idly swishing the riding-crop. He stopped before the mirror, pretending to study his own reflection, but in fact staring Jack directly in the eye. “I believe I shall ride bare-back to-night,” he announced, loudly enough to penetrate the silvered glass.

Eliza was a bit surprised. But she mastered that quickly, and then had to hide a flush of annoyance. She finished a sentence, parked her quill in an inkwell, stood up, and peeled her gown back over her head. What greeted Jack, then, viewed through forty-odd-year-old eyes and a mottled, half-silvered mirror by candlelight, was not a bit less lovely than what he had last seen of her seventeen years ago. He could tell there had been a hard-fought dispute with the Pox and that Eliza had won it. Of course she had won it!

Her husband came up and struck her across the face with his hand, twisting her around so that she fell face-down on the bed. Then he whipped her across the arse and the backs of her thighs with the crop, occasionally looking up to smirk at Jack through the mirror. He commanded her to rise to all fours, and she obeyed. Fucking, interspersed with more whipping, ensued. Étienne did it from a position bolt upright on his knees on the bed behind Eliza, so that he could stare Jack down until the last moments when his eyes closed.

Now in the dungeons of the Inquisition, Jack had himself noted a phænomenon oft discoursed of by prisoners, namely that after a bit of torture the body went numb and it simply did not hurt that much
any more. Perhaps the same thing was at work here. It had hurt just to
see
Eliza—to be so close to her. Seeing her little Lavardac boy had perhaps been the worst. This scene of “riding bare-back,” however grisly it was in a certain way, simply did not trouble him as much as Étienne clearly supposed it did. If Eliza had jumped up from her writing-desk to smother her husband with kisses and then dragged him to bed and made rapturous love to him,
that
would have hurt. But instead she had shrugged, and parked her quill. Before the ink was dry on the sentence she’d been writing when Étienne had entered the room, he had exhausted himself, she had her clothes back on, and was approaching the desk with a look on her face that said,
Now where was I when what’s-his-name interrupted me?

L
ATER
J
ACK WAS TAKEN AWAY
and returned to his cell. The next night, the whole thing was repeated—almost as if Étienne knew in his heart that it had failed the first time. The chief difference was that when Étienne came into the bedchamber and announced his intentions, Eliza was, this time, truly astonished.

On the
third
night, she was out-and-out flabbergasted, and asked Étienne a number of probing questions clearly meant to establish whether he might be developing a brain tumor.

Jack, a theatre-goer of long standing, now saw how it was going to be. For Étienne had explained to him that his doom was to be locked up in a cell here for the rest of his life, and that once a year, when the weather cleared, Étienne was going to sail up here with Eliza and repeat this procedure a few times before turning round and sailing home. As Étienne told him this, Jack was, of course, gagged, and could not answer; but what he was
thinking
was that this was indeed an excruciating torture, but for wholly different reasons than Étienne imagined. The
premise
was excellent, granted; but the road to dramaturgickal perdition was thick strewn with excellent premises. The difficulty lay in that this show was wretchedly staged and, in a word, botched. This made it almost more painful to view than if it had been carried off brilliantly. Jack’s fate, it seemed, was to languish in a chilly dungeon three hundred and sixty-odd days out of each year and, on the other few days, to be a captive audience to a bad play. He had to grant that it would be a humiliating fate
if he had been a member of the French nobility
. But as a Vagabond who’d already lived thrice as long as he ought to’ve, it wasn’t bad at all; it was pleasing, in fact, to see how
not
under Étienne’s thumb was Eliza. Jack’s chief source of discomfort, then, was a feeling well known to soldiers of low rank, to doctors’ patients, and to people getting their hair cut; namely, that he was utterly in the power of an incompetent.

After the third night, the set was struck, as it were. Jack was locked in his cell to begin the first year of his ordeal, and
Météore
sailed away south.

Jack settled in, and began to make friends with his gaolers. They were under strict orders not to talk to him, but they couldn’t help hearing him when he talked, and he could tell that they fancied his stories.

He was there for all of a month. Then a French frigate came and took him away. They gave him clothes, soap, and a razor. Jack had a most enjoyable journey to Le Havre, for he knew that there was only one man in the world who could have countermanded the orders of Étienne de Lavardac, duc d’Arcachon.

OCTOBER
1702

“W
E ARE VERY SORRY
to hear of your little ship-wreck,” said King Louis XIV of France. “But consider yourself fortunate you did not book passage on the Spanish treasure-fleet. The English Navy fell upon it in Vigo Bay and sent several millions of pieces of eight to the locker of David Jones.”

The King of France did not seem especially troubled by this news; if anything, discreetly amused. His majesty was sitting in the biggest armchair that Western Civilization had to offer, in the center of the Grand Ballroom of the Hôtel Arcachon in Paris. Jack, somewhat to his surprise, had been allowed to sit down on a stool. The Kings of France and of the Vagabonds were alone together; the former had made a great show of dismissing his glorious courtiers, who had made a great show of being astonished. Now Jack could hear the murmur of their voices in the gallery outside as they smoked pipes and batted witticisms at each other.

But he could not make out any of their words. And this, he began to suspect, was all by design. This room was large enough to race horses in, but it had been emptied of furniture, except for the big armchair and the stool, which were in its center. The King could be certain that any words he spoke would be heard by Jack, and no one else.

“You know,” said Jack, “I was a King for a while in Hindoostan, and my subjects would get worked up into a lather about a potato, which to them was worth as much as a treasure-chest. At first I’d want to know everything about the potato in question, and I would take a large stake in the matter, but towards the end of my reign—”

Here Jack rolled his eyes, as Frenchmen frequently did during encounters with Englishmen. Leroy seemed to take his meaning very clearly. “It is the same with every King.”

“Potatoes grow back,” Jack pointed out.

Louis took this as a witty and yet profound apothegm. “Indeed,
mon cousin;
and in the same way, there will always be more pieces of eight, as long as the metallic heart in Mexico City continues to beat.”

Jack was a bit unsure as to why King Louis XIV was referring to him as
my cousin,
but he reckoned it must be a matter of protocol. Jack had been a king once. King of a ditch in Hindoostan, true; but no less a king.

“There is so much that is better ignored,” Jack tried, hoping Leroy would agree, and apply the principle to his particular case.

“The King must not descend into these broils,” said Leroy. “He is Apollo, riding above all in his bright chariot, seeing the entire world as if it were a courtyard.”

“I could not have put it better myself,” Jack said.

“But even bright Apollo had his adversaries: other Gods, and loathsome monsters, spawned before Time from the Earth and the Deep. The legions of Chaos.”

“I never had to contend with those legions of Chaos myself, cuz, but then everything
you
do is on a much, much larger scale.”

“There is another Heart that beats in London.”

Jack had to ponder this ænigma for a moment. The happiest possible interpretation was that the King was speaking of Eliza, and that she was waiting for Jack on London Bridge. But given the general turn of recent events, this did not seem likely; the Jack-Eliza matter would definitely be classed as a “broil,” not worth bringing up in conversation. Thinking of London Bridge reminded him of the water-pumps there at the northern end, which banged away like giants’ hearts; this, then, reminded him of the Tower, and finally he got it.

“The Mint.”

“Mexico beats out the divine ichor that circulates through, and animates, Catholic realms. Sometimes the treasure-fleet sinks and we feel faint; then another one reaches Cadiz and we are invigorated.
London
beats out the vile humour that circulates through the countless grasping extremities of the Beast.”

“And that would be a spawn-of-Chaos type of primordial beast you’re talking about there, I am guessing, the sort of foe worthy of Apollo’s attention.”

“The beating of that Heart can be heard across the Channel sometimes. I prefer silence.”

Twenty years ago Jack might have heard this as a baffling, eccentric sort of remark. Today he understood it as a more or less direct order for Jack to go up to London straightaway and personally sack the Royal Mint and level the Tower of London. Which raised more questions than it answered; but the largest of them all was: Why should Jack run errands, especially dangerous ones, for the King of France? It seemed obvious now that Leroy had saved him from the
duc d’Arcachon, who had in turn preserved him from de Gex; but this King was far too intelligent to expect loyalty and service from one such as Jack on that score alone.

“If I have taken your meaning, there, Leroy, I can’t say how flattered I am that you think I am the bloke for the job.”

“It is a trifle, compared to your past exploits.”

“I had a lot of help in my past exploits. I had a plan.”

“A plan is good.”

“I didn’t come up with the plan. My plan man is somewhere north of the Rio Grande just now, and difficult to get in touch with…”

“Ah, but the plan of Father Édouard de Gex was the superior one in the end, was it not?”

“Are you saying I’m to work with
him
!?”

“You shall be afforded the resources you shall require to accomplish this thing,” said Leroy, “and moreover you shall be relieved of burdens, and cut free from entanglements, that might hinder you.” He took a bit of snuff from a golden box and then snapped it shut with a loud pop. This must have been a pre-arranged cue, for suddenly the doors at the far end of the room were drawn open, and three persons entered the room: Vrej Esphahnian, Étienne d’Arcachon, and Eliza.

They came on briskly, bowed or curtseyed to the King, and ignored Jack; for in the presence of the King, no other person could be acknowledged. Which was well enough for Jack. He wouldn’t have known what to say or do in the presence of any
one
of these persons, had they come to him solus. To be with all three at once made him giddy, off-balance, and, in sum, even more than normally susceptible to the Imp of the Perverse. Vrej and Étienne kept Jack in their peripheral vision, which was only prudent; Eliza turned her head so that her view of him was blocked by a cheek-bone. He phant’sied she was a little red about the ears.

“Monsieur Esphahnian,” said the King of France, “we have heard that you were misinformed, and that in consequence you swore a vendetta against Monsieur Shaftoe. As we have just been explaining, we do not, as a rule, involve ourselves in such broils; but in this case we make an exception, for Monsieur Shaftoe is about to do us a favor. It may take him many years. We should be most displeased if your vendetta should interfere with his work. We have heard that the misunderstanding on which the vendetta was founded has been cleared up, and from this, we presume all is forgiven between the two of you; but we would see Monsieurs Shaftoe and Esphahnian shake hands and swear in our presence that all is forgiven. You may
feel free to speak to each other.”

Vrej, by all appearances, had been out of pokey for a while—long enough to get some clothes made, and put on a few pounds. He had, in sum, gotten himself altogether ready for this audience. “Monsieur Shaftoe, on that evening in 1685 when you rode your horse into this ballroom and lopped this chap’s hand off—” he cocked his head at Étienne “—the Lieutenant of Police came to the apartment in the Marais where my family had given you lodgings—”

“Sold, not given,” said Jack, “but pray go on.”

“They took my family away and threw them in prisons whence some did not emerge alive. I swore vengeance against you. Years later the flames of my passions, which had at last subsided, were whipped up again by lies sent my way by devious persons, and I looked for some way to inflict upon you the same pain I phant’sied you’d done to my family. In Manila I met in secret with Édouard de Gex, whom I believed to be my family’s benefactor, and I did conspire with him against you and the other members of the Cabal. Thank God, most were either dead, or had parted from the group and found lives in places as diverse as Japan, Nuba, Queena-Kootah, and New Mexico. Of those who were still on the ship when it was driven on to the reef at Qwghlm, all have found freedom, save you.
You,
though, I have wounded grievously.”

“No worse than
I
did
you
in 1685, or so it would seem.”

“For what you did here in 1685 I forgive you; and for what I
believed
you had done, I hope you shall forgive me. In token of which I offer you my hand.”

During this discourse Vrej had held his arms crossed somewhat awkwardly before him, as if the right was injured and wanted support from the left. Now he unfolded them and held out the right as if to shake; though he kept it curiously bent at the elbow. Postural oddities aside, Jack, who had lived with Vrej, on and off, for a dozen years, had no doubt of his sincerity. He reached out and shook Vrej’s hand.

Vrej looked him in the eye. “To Moseh, Dappa, van Hoek, Gabriel, Nyazi, Yevgeny, Jeronimo, and Mr. Foot!” Vrej said.

“To the Ten,” Jack agreed, and pumped Vrej’s hand, hard enough to straighten the elbow. At that, something hard slid forth from Vrej’s sleeve and barked Jack’s knuckle. Vrej reached across with his left and slapped his forearm to keep the object from falling out altogether. As Jack could see plainly enough, it was a two-barrelled pocket-pistol.

Not knowing what Vrej had in mind, Jack let go his hand and got between him and Eliza. He’d scarcely done so when he heard a loud
noise and saw Étienne d’Arcachon collapsing to the floor.

“Pardon the interruption, your majesty,” said Vrej. The pistol was in his hand, a cloud of smoke drifting up from it.

Jack had got himself squarely between Vrej and Eliza by now, but she wanted to see what was happening, and kept moving about, which forced him to move as well. A door whammed open at the far end of the ballroom, and a cloud of feathers, lace, and blades—a dozen or so armed noblemen—came at them. It would be some moments before they arrived.

“I could run. Perhaps escape,” Vrej went on. “But this would bring suspicion down upon my family—who are wholly innocent, your majesty, and always were.”

“We understand,” said Leroy, “and always have.”

Vrej turned the pistol round and shot himself in the mouth.

“M
ONSIEUR
S
HAFTOE, THIS BALLROOM
does not seem to agree with you. I do believe you should
not
be invited back,” the King was able to remark, a bit sourly, before they were engulfed in courtiers with drawn swords.

Now Jack had always taken a dim view of Louis, but even he had to admit he was impressed by the aplomb with which this surprising turn of events was managed. There was, of course, an interruption; but only a few minutes elapsed before the conversation resumed. Jack, Eliza, and the King were in the
Petit Salon
now; the ballroom would require some cleaning-up.

First order of protocol was that the King expressed condolences to the widow d’Arcachon (for Étienne had taken the pistol-ball between the eyes). Then the King of France turned his attention once again to Jack. “Monsieur Shaftoe, it pleases us that when you saw the weapon in the hand of Monsieur Esphahnian, your only thought was to shield Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon. However, this does put us in mind of a certain entanglement that shall impede your work in London if it is not cut immediately. If the tales told of your love for this woman are true, it were useless to ask
you
to sever the tie. Madame?”

Jack, who’d been so alert to Vrej, was blindsided by Eliza. She was on him, and hugged him side-on, and kissed him once on the cheek and leaned her head against his long enough to breathe into his ear: “Sorry about the harpoon, and sorry about this; but I must do it, lest you end up in the Bastille, and I find poison in my coffee.”

Jack reached out to return the embrace but caught only air, for she’d darted back as quick as any defensing-master. “I swear before God that you, Jack Shaftoe, shall never again look on my face, nor hear my voice, until the day you die.” Hastily then, before tears came, she turned to the King, who made a little gesture meaning that she was permitted to leave. She curtseyed, spun, and got out of the room as if it were on fire.

“There was to be a third part of the interview,” said the King, “in which Monsieur le duc d’Arcachon would have sworn never more to molest you. But this has been obviated. Monsieur Shaftoe, you are free to depart. We must now turn our attentions back to the War; but it shall please us to learn, in a year, or several, that the money of England has been rendered worthless, and the ability of that heretic country to make war beyond its shores thus mitigated. Do take your time and make a proper job of it. No half measures. And know that as the pound sterling suffers, the widow d’Arcachon and her children shall thrive, and shall continue to enjoy all the good things that France has to offer.”