The System of the World (80 page)

A FEW MINUTES EARLIER

“I
HAVE THE HEAVY GOLD.
You know this,” Jack said.

“The Solomonic Gold?” Isaac corrected him.

“Funny, that is what Father Ed calls it, too. Whatever you call it, I have it, and I know where I can get more. Now, suppose Bolingbroke demands a Trial of the Pyx. The refiner’s furnace shall be set up in Star Chamber. A jury of London money-men shall open up the Pyx and take out a sample of coins—”

“Coins that
you
put in,” Isaac said.

“That you can’t prove—but in any case,
you
are personally responsible for every one of those coins,” Jack reminded him. “They shall be counted and weighed first. And it may astonish you, Ike, to hear that the coins I put in there shall pass this first test. I made the blanks a bit thicker, you see—not enough so as you would notice, holding one between your fingers, but enough to make them of legal weight, even though they are allayed with base metal.”

“But when they are assayed—?” Daniel said.

“When those same coins are melted in the cupel, and the quantity
of gold in them is measured, they’ll be found wanting. And this is where I may be of service to you, Ike, and to that Marquis who got you your post at the Mint.”

“You can supply me with heavy gold, as you call it.”

“Indeed. Which, slipped into the cupel by a bit of prestidigitation—easily arranged, have no fear—will give the assay greater weight, and make all the numbers come out as they should.”

Isaac Newton, who had been strangely unmoved by all that infiltrated his nostrils and stuck to the soles of his shoes here in Newgate, was nauseated by this. Jack Shaftoe was quick to note it and to know why. “I disgust you, Ike, for the same reason I disgust Father Ed, which is that to me the heavy gold is only that. And when I offer it to you as a part of our present transaction, I offer it, not as a mystical essence for use in your divine sorcery, but as a bit o’ spare weight to save your nuts during the Trial of the Pyx that is soon to come. Our conversation here would seem a good deal nobler, wouldn’t it, if it were about
that
rather than
this;
if it were about
that,
why, you could phant’sy yourself living out a sort of latter-day sequel to the Bible, and Newgate, foul as it is, would be like those leper-towns where Jesus walked: not so foul, because part of a fair story. But because it is about
this,
namely, Ike Newton not getting his balls and his hand chopped off, why, you look about yourself and say, ‘Eeeyuh, I am in the Black Dogg of Newgate Prison and it stinketh!’ I see this clearly only because I have seen it so oft on the face of Father Ed, for whom all of London might as well be Newgate Prison when it is compared to Versailles. But I shall solace you with the same words I have spoke to Father Ed when he turns thus green about the gills.”

“I am astonished that you have any words
left,
” said Isaac. “But as I have heard so many, a few more can do no harm.”

“It is simply that when all of this has played out, and you are left holding a bit of that Solomonic Gold, why, you may believe, concerning it, whatever you choose, and do with it what you will.”

“A question,” Daniel said. “Since you know that Sir Isaac desires it, and you know he is aware that you have got some, why this elaborate scheme concerning the Pyx? Why did you not simply treat directly with Sir Isaac long ago?”

“Because there were other parties to be accounted for. On my side, there was de Gex, who had a say in the matter until I began trying to kill him a couple of weeks ago. On your side, Ravenscar, who does not believe in Alchemy any more than I do. To extract anything from
him
I needed something a bit more substantial than a spate of malarkey about King Solomon.”

“Since you hold my views on the matter in such contempt, this conversation cannot be any more pleasant for you than it is for me. Let us bring it to a head directly,” Isaac suggested. “You have offered a way to get me out of difficulty in the event that Bolingbroke demands a Trial of the Pyx. But this is of no utility to me if he
doesn’t
. For as all the world knows, he has been gathering in guineas of late, preparing to assay those coins that have been circulating in her majesty’s currency. Many counterfeits shall be encompassed in any such sample. At any time of Bolingbroke’s choosing he may change his tune, and say, ‘Behold, the Pyx was tampered with by Jack the Coiner, its contents are no reliable sample of the Mint’s produce, we must instead assay the coins in circulation.’ Such an assay shall prove deficient, both in the weight of the coins, and the fineness of the metal, because it shall include so many counterfeit guineas.”

By way of an answer, Jack reached into the pocket of his breeches and drew out a little packet, which he tossed across the Black Dogg. Isaac got his hands up quickly enough, bobbled it, and trapped it against his breast. Daniel did not have to look to know what it was. “One of the Sinthias you stole from the Pyx in April.”

“I have the rest stored away nice and safe,” Jack said, “and can produce them when and where needed, to prove that you put only good coins into the Pyx, Ike. So, you see, whether Bolingbroke orders a Trial of the Pyx or no, I can save you: if he does, by supplying heavy gold, and if he doesn’t, by supplying the rest of those.” Jack nodded at the packet, which Isaac was now fondling near a candle-flame.

“In exchange for which, I suppose you require that you not be prosecuted, and that your sons get the farm in Carolina.”

“My sons, and Tomba,” Jack said. “That is an African who has been with me since we met him racing horses on the beach near Acapulco. Fine lad.”

“I remind you that there is a reason why we insisted that this conversation happen
this evening,
” Daniel said.

“Bolingbroke has Ravenscar backed up against the wall,” Jack returned, “and Ravenscar needs something.”

“Yes.”

“Show Bolingbroke that, then.” Jack nodded at the Sinthia. “It’ll hit him like a bolt between the eyes; for he has pestered me without letup these many months, wanting them from me.”

This silenced Daniel and Isaac for some moments. They had to look at each other for a while, before they looked at Jack. “Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, her majesty’s Secretary of State, has been pestering
you
?”

“Call him by as many names as you like, the answer is yes.”

“Let us go and see your
good friend
Bolingbroke, then,” Daniel suggested, with a not very subtle look at his watch.

“He is not my friend, but a damned nuisance,” Jack returned, “and I’d not go in to his house again even if he invited me. But you may have that packet, as proof of my
bona fides,
and I shall ride with you to Golden Square, and go for a constitutional round the green, as you go in to strike your bargain with him. When you have done, come out and tell me the results. I’m keen to know whether the next English King is going to be German or French.”

“The only defect in your plan is a terribly mundane one,” Daniel said. “We came in a phaethon.”

“What a rake you are, Dr. Waterhouse! Do stay away from my sons!”

“Two may fit inside, only with a lot of stuffing and bending.”

“Then do you stuff and bend yourselves into it,” said Jack, walking over to the door. He hauled it open and extended a hand to say,
after you
. “I shall ride on the running-board, like a footman, as befits my station in life, and if any footpads or Jacobite fops get after us, why, I’ll run ’em through.”

The phaethon had been waiting in the Press-Yard next to the gaol. This opened onto Newgate Street
intra muros
. Driving west, they passed immediately beneath the vault of the city gate: a Gothick castle housing wealthy prisoners. Thence they could have got directly to Holbourn and taken a northerly route toward Golden Square, but Daniel knew it was an infernal gantlet of bonfires to-night: the bright line where Whig and Tory orders of battle were being drawn up. So he requested the southerly approach. The Old Bailey connected to the street
extra muros
and took them south to Ludgate Hill which, going west, became the last bridge over the Fleet Ditch, which became Fleet Street, which became the Strand.

The scheme of placing Jack on the running-board worked well, for the phaethon was equipped with a grate, situated next to where a footman’s face was likely to be, so that master and servant could mis-communicate as freely and grievously on the road as they did at home. Daniel left it open. Jack was able to chat with the passengers almost as easily as if he were sharing the compartment with them. He was in a cheery mood—more so than Isaac, certainly—and offered up wry comments upon the Old Bailey, the odor of the Fleet, the Royal Society’s headquarters, Drury Lane, the Kit-Cat Clubb, and other exhibits as they rattled past. Daniel took most of these in good humor, but Isaac, who suspected that Jack was baiting him, fumed quietly, like a beaker just tonged from a furnace. There were bonfires, fist-fights, and dogs fucking each other in Charing Cross, and
Jack was silent for a while, because alert. But Roger’s driver—who was of the best—negotiated this adroitly and got them on the short street called Cockspur that would soon fork into Pall Mall and Hay Market just before the Opera House.

“There must be an opera tonight,” Jack remarked through the grate.

“ ’Tis not possible,” Daniel returned. “It is out of season. I do believe they are erecting sets, and rehearsing, for a revival of
The Alchemist
by Ben Jonson.”

“I saw that a hundred times as a boy,” Jack said, “why ever are they reviving it now?”

“Because Herr Handel has written new music for it.”

“What? It is a
play,
not an
opera
.”

“Styles change,” Daniel said. “Mr. Vanbrugh’s theatre, there, is nothing like the theatres of your boyhood: it is all indoors, and ornate beyond description, and the actors are imprisoned on a stage, behind a proscenium.”

“Stay, I have been to a few such,” said Jack. “I could not hear a damned word. My ears are ruined; too much early horseplay with firearms.”

“Your ears are fine.
No one
can hear what the actors are saying, in a place like that. And this one in Hay Market is worse than most.”

“When Vanbrugh designed it,” said Newton, suddenly thawing, “it was styled the Theatre Royal. When it opened, nine years ago, and the audience thought they were witnessing a mum-show, then they had to change the name of it to the Opera, which empowered the performers to make themselves heard, by bellowing at the tops of their lungs in the style that is customary in that Art.”

“It chagrins me to hear that the good old
Alchymist
is being subjected to such perversion,” said Jack. “I’ve a mind to pop Mr. Handel in the gob.”

“It might not be so bad,” Daniel said. “When yonder Opera got into financial straits—which did not take long—my lord Ravenscar stepped into the breach, and remodeled the inside—made it smaller, lowered the ceiling,
et cetera.
”

“Ah, and that fixed the problem?”

“Of course not. So he had to rip it out and redo it again—anyway, he defrayed the expense by selling subscriptions for half a guinea.”

“Only half! I’d have bought one, had I known.”

“I shall ask my lord Ravenscar to throw one in as a
soupçon,
” said Daniel.

“While you are at it, let him know his Opera is invested by the Mobb,” said Jack. “For what I at first took to be the fireworks to celebrate
an Opening Night, now takes on the appearance of a small Riot. There are several blokes on horseback, and I do believe I see a formation of infantry flanking them from behind the Opera House.”

“Infantry!?”

“Some would call it more Mobb, but to my eye their movements are altogether too orderly and platoonishly clumped. They are some militia. Ah, and there is something else, just before the entrance: I think it is an overturned carriage.”

Just then they swung round a curve onto Hay Market, and the Italian Opera House became visible out the left side of the phaethon. It was all as Jack had described it, save that Daniel did not see any of the phantom infantry spoken of by Jack. But he knew there was an open lot behind the building that was a perpetual construction camp as the theatre was gutted and remodeled by Ravenscar in his never-ending quest to make his performers audible, and where sets were erected for the operas. That was a very likely place for some Whig Association militia to have bivouacked. If it was really true that Jack had seen infantry, he’d have seen them there.

The phaethon bounded up on its suspension, as if they had driven over a sudden rise. Jack had jumped off. Looking back through the grate, Daniel saw him receding. He was standing in the middle of Hay Market, squarely in front of the Italian Opera. “I have just recognized that overturned carriage,” he called. “I have deeds to do here.”

“Our transaction is not finished!” Newton shouted back.

“It cannot be helped. I shall try to meet you in Golden Square later.”

“If you do not, you may consider that the deal is null and void,” Newton returned, his voice faltering, as he was no longer so sure that anyone was listening. Jack had dissolved into the Mobb.