The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (248 page)

For a month it did not seem as if the goods were making progress at all, but then Jack could no longer deny that they were spending less time in high deserts and more on roads. In moving the silver they
spent
part of it but
lost
none. This seemed implausible to Jack until he considered how wretched was their opposition. They hadn’t gone most of the way around the world without acquiring a certain kind of wisdom, and if having silver made them a target, it also gave them the option to buy their way out of certain problems. Really the only persons Jack was afraid of were the Indians who controlled the
river-crossings; these had a distant look in their eyes that somehow reminded Jack of Gabriel Goto when he reminisced about Japan. Their treatment by the Spaniards had left them with nothing to lose. Attempted bribery only made them angrier.

But by the end of April all of their silver was cached in eight different holes in the ground within half a day’s journey of Vera Cruz, and Jack, Danny, Jimmy, and Tomba were ensconced in a house that Edmund de Ath had rented out there, waiting.

“W
HERE ARE MY DAMNED BOOKS?”
demanded Otto van Hoek, bending over
Minerva
’s rail to peer down into the bark.

“They tumbled into a river only a few miles short of Vera Cruz,” Jack said nonchalantly, “so I’d estimate they are bobbing in the Gulf of Mexico somewhere—didn’t you spy ’em on your way in?”

These were all the words they could exchange before they were drowned out by cheering and jeering from
Minerva
’s sailors, who had all come abovedecks to watch the bark approach and to see how many of the “dry” group had survived the year and a half in New Spain. They seemed generally happy and surprised, which Jack looked on as indicating that no one in the “wet” contingent had ever expected to see a live Shaftoe again. For his part Jack felt almost like a mother hen counting her chicks as he recognized one familiar face after another, and only a few new ones.
Minerva
herself had never looked better. Jack guessed from this that they’d made a good profit in Peru and that any damages suffered rounding Cape Horn had already been made good in some Caribbean port. If so, it showed excellent foresight on van Hoek’s part, because Vera Cruz was both wretched and expensive, and, in sum, probably the most unfavorable place imaginable to fit out a ship for the Atlantic crossing.

“Let us load her up and be done with New Spain,” Jack said when he had climbed aboard and been duly pounded on the back or embraced by every member of the complement. “Also, I would like to carry on Jeronimo’s tradition, as long as we are here…”

“Which tradition is that?” asked Vrej Esphahnian, looking every inch the successful merchant.

“That of burning down Vera Cruz at every opportunity.”

“We’ll be several months sieving the Gulf for the Captain’s books,” said Dappa when laughter had died down. He was the only man aboard who had not aged several years, and he still had more teeth in his head than any four sailors.

“I was only jesting. We’ve the books, and a letter as well,” Jack said.

“A letter from whom?” asked Vrej.

“I’ve no idea,” Jack returned. “Edmund de Ath might have read it to me, I suppose, but…”

“You don’t trust him! That is very wise,” said van Hoek.

“On the contrary—in the Prison of the Inquisition I had no choice but to trust him with my life, and he extended me the same consideration. He is odd, but harmless.”

“Then why didn’t you have him read the letter?”

“Because I know
you
will
never
trust him.”

“Is he still in Vera Cruz?” Vrej inquired.

“As you have probably learned, the Spanish treasure-fleet is massing in Havana Bay, getting ready to bring thirty million pieces of eight to Cadiz,” Jack said. “Several galleons weighed anchor in this harbor four days ago, and went thither to join that Fleet. Edmund de Ath took passage on one of those ships—I’ve already paid him his commission as
cargador.
”

“Notwithstanding your affection for the man—” Dappa began.

“I didn’t
say
anything about
affection,
” Jack said.

“Very well—I’m happy he will be going home on some other ship.”

“We have no time to waste,” van Hoek said. “If we can embark at the same time as the Treasure-Fleet, we’ll have a much easier voyage. Every pirate in the Caribbean will be hunting for Spanish galleons.”

“Yes, they will, won’t they?” Jack mused.

“We will be looked on as a Dutch privateer,” van Hoek predicted.

“Or a heavily armed sugar-barge headed back to London or Amsterdam,” Dappa put in.

“In any event, no boca-neer in his right mind will trifle with
us
when thirty million pieces of eight are afloat in the same waters.”

A
ND SO THEY WENT
and rounded up all their buried pigs and loaded them on board
Minerva,
and stowed them alongside silver from Peru and gold from Brazil. Of course van Hoek’s books were loaded aboard first of all. He complained of the miserable job Jack had done re-caulking the lid, and threatened to make him pay the devil, but when the box was set down on the deck of his cabin the Dutchman looked as close to happy as Jack had seen him in years.

There was no time even to pry the lid off, though. Getting the pigs and loading them aboard only took four days, but it seemed longer to Jack than all the time he’d spent in New Spain before. He avoided going ashore, and could not set foot on dry land without entertaining a moment’s phant’sy that
Minerva
would sail away and leave him stranded in that town, where anything that moved was pursued by a cloud of mosquitoes, and anything that didn’t was shortly buried in wind-blown sand.

T
HEY DID NOT OPEN
the crate and read the letter until they had cleared Bermuda, a month after departing Vera Cruz. Dappa passed it around the table first so that Jack, Vrej, and van Hoek could inspect the seal. Pressed into a daub of red wax was a coat of arms too detailed to be made out: Jack imagined he saw a fragment of fleur-de-lis in one corner and a seagull in another. But the other men were all smirking.

“Who the hell is it from?” he demanded.

“It
claims
to be from the Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm,” said Dappa.

This bit of news hit Jack like a yard-arm across the brow, and shut him up long enough for Dappa to break the seal and smooth the page out on the table. “It is in English,” he announced, and took a swallow of chocolate to whet his whistle. “ ‘To Jack Shaftoe, esq. The inexorable tides ebb and flow ’neath the battlements of the Castle as I pen these lines, reminding me that what is submerged and seemingly drown’d forever in fatal Seas may yet rise forth from
Neptune
’s wat’ry Dungeon if one hath only Patience to await the natural Wheeling of the Heavens. I am put in mind of a certain Man who when I last spied him seem’d to’ve been dragged down by the Moral Undertow which sweepeth away even strong souls who stand long in it, and to have fallen into a condition of Degradation worse than Death; and whose
Body
was scarcely more fit than his
Spirit,
as he was far gone with the French Pox and afflicted with divers Wounds and Amputations to boot—’ ”

“The most of notable of which was inflicted by
her,
” Jack said with a gigantic wink, “but she omits that—she’s too much the Lady now.”

“She
writes
like one,” van Hoek said, none too admiringly.

Dappa cleared his throat irritably and continued, “ ‘thus did this Man, whom many styl’d a
Vagabond,
vanish from Christendom’s ken, swamped by Mortality’s Tide; and if rumors echoed up from
Barbary,
years later, to the effect that a Man answering to his Description had been witness’d there, it signified Nothing more than when a Sparend or Mast-head breaketh the Surface of some stagnant Cove at low Tide and reminds us that, once, a Ship was wrack’d in that Place. But all that was rumor’d concerning this Man was in an Instant over-turn’d when tidings were delivered to
France
of a
bataille rangée
in the streets of
Grand Caire,
whose Reverberations seem’d to echo back and forth ’tween the rugged Pyramids and the
Barock
Monuments of Versailles, as when a Thunderbolt splits the Air ’tween two very Mountains. For the Tides of Fortune had turn’d, even as those of us, who should’ve known better, had turn’d our backs to advert on
inward
and
inland
Matters. Nor was this the only such occasion, for in later Years came news of a Battle won through
Alchemical
cozening in Hindoostan, and other Ebbings and Flowings I’ll not tediously
enumerate,
as you are their Author.’ ”

“Thank God, I was afraid she was going to relate the whole story again,” Jack said.

“ ‘In recent years, Tidings of your Adventures have, from time to time, stirr’d Admiration and Envy in the Courts of Europe. Tho’ my Situation in this Castle is exceeding
remote
from such grand Places, yet it has been my Privilege to conduct a frequent Correspondence with certain rare Persons who inhabit them, and they have not been slow to inform me of all that is
claimed,
or
rumored,
concerning your
Asiatick
wand’rings. Indeed, my icy Castle hath proved a better Vantage than
Versailles
itself, for some of the Letters that come to me here originate in Hanover, and were written by a certain Lady whom you, sir, and I once looked upon there, from a respectful Distance. And lest these words seem to
demean
that same Lady by implying too great familiarity with me, who am so mean by comparison, I say to you, sir, that as a Paragon of Wisdom and Beauty she is as distant and remote to me, as she was on that Day we spied ’pon her from a
Germanick
church.’ ”

This paragraph was enough to make Jack’s eyes cross, and van Hoek knead his temples, but after Dappa had read it a second time, Jack attempted the following translation: “All right, she’s cozy with Sophie, who provided us with our cannons and owns part of this ship, and Sophie knows where we are better than the gossips of Versailles.”

“We sent Sophie a letter from Rio de Janeiro,” van Hoek said.

Dappa continued, “ ‘That incomparable Lady hath given me to believe that you may be in New Spain. I pray that this Letter hath found you in good Health there, and that you have found a
trustworthy
person to read it to you. If it is your Intention to sail for Europe with metal goods, then I wish you Godspeed, and I beg you to consider making land-fall at Qwghlm; for all your Sins have long since been forgiven.’ ” Dappa slowed as he read this, and there was much awkward shifting about as heads turned toward the poleaxed Jack. Seeing that he was no longer really a part of the conversation, Dappa rushed through the last bit: “ ‘I pray you will take this as a fair Prospect, but I know it is of no especial Value to your Partners. To them I say that, if Britain is one day to be the realm of the Lady before mentioned, that the first speck of it to owe its love and loyalty to her will be Qwghlm; and if it is to be overwhelm’d by the
Popish
legions, the last bit of soil to surrender her colors will be that on which this Castle is pil’d. London may sway to and fro ’tween Whigs and Torys, Jacobites and Hanoverians, but Qwghlm is a rock, ever loyal, and nowhere in the World will
Minerva
find a safer harbor.’ What the hell is she on about there?”

Vrej said, “If the last news we had from London is true, Queen Anne will never produce an heir to the throne, which means that the
next
Queen of England will be our co-owner, the Electress Sophie of Hanover—who has apparently become some sort of patroness to Jack’s fair Eliza.”

Van Hoek said, “The
harbor
beneath her castle may be safe. The
approach
is anything but—we’ve no way of actually
getting
there.”

“Eliza—or I should say, the Duchess—addresses that matter in a final paragraph, here,” Dappa said. “She instructs us to make for Derry, or as she styles it, Londonderry, on the north of Ireland, and there to find a certain pilot, name of James Hh. He’ll bring us safely into the harbor beneath Qwghlm Castle.”

“As Captain of this vessel, I see no commanding reason to do this when perfectly safe and well-known harbors are available at London and Amsterdam,” van Hoek said, “but as a share-holder in our Enterprise I am obligated to entertain discussions.”

“Sophie is a greater share-holder than any of
us
, and Eliza would appear to speak for
her,
” Jack said.

“But she did not say so explicitly. Until we see a letter with the arms of Hanover on it, we can’t know Sophie’s mind,” said Vrej.

“So you vote for London?” Dappa asked.

Vrej shrugged. “That would bring us directly to the Mint at the Tower of London. We could hardly improve on
that
. What is your vote, Dappa?”

Dappa’s eyes strayed momentarily toward his cabin. “I vote for Qwghlm.”

“Are you voting as a share-holder in this venture, or a chronicler of the slave-trade?” van Hoek asked. For as
Minerva
had worked her way up the long coast of Brazil, Dappa had patiently collected and written down the personal accounts of numerous African slaves, and it was no secret that he would see them in print.

“True, it’s a foregone conclusion that Eliza—who according to Jack is an ex-slave like us, and a passionate hater of that Institution—would gladly be the patroness of my book, and support its publication,” Dappa admitted. “But I have reasons besides that for preferring Qwghlm. To reach London or Amsterdam we’d have to sail up the Channel, practically under the guns of St.-Malo and Dunkerque and diverse other French privateer-havens. This were unwise even if France and England were
not
involved in a great war.”