Philip Kerr - Dark Matter

Newton caught sight of a haughty-looking man who stood watching us from the top of the Beauchamp Tower.

“And there is the great architect of their resentment. Lord Lucas himself. He is the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, a position that enjoys many ancient and peculiar privileges and, but for the office exercised by myself, he might call himself the most powerful man in this castle. Above all other men, do not trust him. He is a drunken Borachio and so arrogant I do believe he must wipe his arse with gilt paper.”

A little farther on, around the corner of Devereaux Tower, we came abreast of the Smithy, wherein as stern and nasty-looking a rogue as ever I saw, left off shoeing a horse for a moment to fix a most unforgiving eye on Doctor Newton and, by association, myself.

“Upon my soul,” said I, when we had walked past, “if that fellow doesn’t have the most disinheriting countenance.”

“He is a most inveterate knave and no friend to the Mint either. But put him out of your mind for now, as here is the King’s Clerk’s house, and next to it the Master’s house, and next to that the Deputy Warden, Monsieur Fauquier’s house.”

“Fauquier? He sounds like a Frenchman.”

“He is one of those Huguenots,” explained Newton, “so lately expelled from his own country by the French King, Lewis. I think that there are several such refugees here in the Tower. The French Church, which is the centre of their community, is but a short walk from the Tower, in Threadneedle Street. Fauquier is a man of considerable substance and, I believe, a diligent one. But do not think to find him in this house — him, or any of these others I have mentioned. It is one of the perquisites of preferment in the Mint that officers may sublet their official residences to whomsoever they wish and for their own personal gain.”

It was now that I perceived how in giving me his own official residence, Newton was giving up the good income he might have derived from the letting of it.

Newton stood still and pointed to a neat two-storey house that was built along the wall underneath that part of the outer rampire known as the Brass Mount — so called because of the piece of brass cannon installed there and which, I soon discovered, was often fired in celebration of royal birthdays, or visits by foreign dignitaries.

“This is the Warden’s house,” said Newton, “where you shall live.” He opened the door and ushered me inside and, looking around at the furniture and the books, which belonged to Newton, I thought that the house would suit me very well. “The house is quite cosy although there is, as you can see, some damp — which I think is inevitable from our proximity to the river — and much dust. The vibration of the cannon brings it down, so it can’t be helped much. You are welcome to use this furniture. It was brought from Trinity, most of it. None of it is any good, and I care little for it, but I would have you look after these books. There is scant room for any more books in my new house, and yet I would not part with these. Since you are bent upon self-improvement, Mister Ellis, you will doubtless want to read them. You may even find one or two of them to your liking. And I look forward to hearing an opinion of them which, sometimes, is as good as reading a book again oneself.”

Going outside again, Newton showed me a little walled garden, rather ill-tended, that curved around the base of the Jewel Tower and which, being the Warden’s garden, was mine to enjoy as well.

“You might grow some vegetables here,” suggested Newton. “If you do, make sure to offer me some. Otherwise, this is a very pretty place to sit in summer if you be not afeared of ghosts, although, in truth, working for me you will have little time for such idle fancies. I myself am very sceptical of the general appearing of spirits, but there are many within these Tower walls who make the greatest warrants of having seen one apparition or another. I count this nonsense, mostly. But it is no great secret that many have died most cruelly in almost every part of this fortification, which explains much general superstition hereabouts, for such a terrible history will always play upon ignorant men’s fancies. It is even put about that your predecessor was quite frightened away by a spirit, but it goes against my mind and I am more likely to believe that he was in league with some of these coiners and ran away for fear of being apprehended, and hanged. For his disappearance almost coincided with my arrival in the Mint, which makes me much suspicious.”

The news that I had a predecessor who had disappeared troubled me a little so that I had a mind to know more, for the possibility now presented itself that my new position might be more hazardous than previously I had believed.

“But what was his name?” I asked. “Were not enquiries of him made? It is a sad thing to see how uncertain a thing my predecessor’s reputation was and how little is to be presumed of his honesty. I trust if I disappeared, you might give me a rather better opinion.”

“Your concern does you credit,” admitted Newton. “His name was George Macey. And I do believe some enquiries of him were made.”

“But pray sir, is it not possible that Mister Macey should be lamented as a victim, as condemned for a villain? By your own reckoning these are desperate men you have been dealing with. Might he not have been murdered?”

“Might, sir? Might? This was six months ago, when I was still finding my way around this strange place. And I can frame no hypothesis after such an interval of time. For to me the best and safest method of philosophising seems to be, first, to inquire diligently into the evidence of things and to proceed later to hypothesis for the explanations as to how they are. What might or might not have happened is of little concern to me. The investigation of mysteries and difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition.

“That is my method, Mister Ellis. To know it is to hit my constitution exactly, sir. But your questions do you justice. I will continue to appreciate your honesty, sir, for I would not make you my creature. But always speak to the point. And make your earliest study my scientific method, for it will stand you in good stead, and then you and I shall get on very well.”

“I will study you and your method most diligently, sir,” said I.

“Well then, what think you of the house and garden?”

“I like them very well, Doctor Newton. I think I was never so lucky at cards as I have been in entering your employment.”

This was true. I had never lived on my own. At the Bar I had shared rooms with another man; and before that, I had been at the University of Oxford where I had lived in college. And it was a great pleasure to close the door of a whole house behind me and be by myself. For all my life I had been obliged to find a space away from brothers and sisters, students and pupil barristers in order that I might read, or dream. But the first night I spent in my new house at the Tower was very nearly my last.

I had gone to bed early with a number of essays on the amendment of English coins that had been written by the leading minds of the day, including Doctor Newton, Sir Christopher Wren, Doctor Wallis, and Mister John Locke. These had been commissioned by the Regency Council in 1695 and Newton had suggested they would give me a good grounding in the various issues surrounding the recoinage. These did not encourage me to stay awake, however; my evening’s reading was as tedious as anything I had seen since abandoning my legal studies; and after an hour or two, I put the candle in the fireplace and pulled the quilt over my head with scarcely a thought for the superstitious fancies that had beset me earlier.