Neal Stephenson: THE System OF THE WORLD

“I am cataleptic with anticipation, Mr. Threader.”

“My lord Oxford,” said Mr. Threader (referring to Robert Harley, Lord Treasurer of the Realm, the Queen’s chief minister, and leader of the Tory Juntilla which had thrown down the Whig Juncto four years earlier), “has granted the Duke of Marlborough a warrant of ten thousand pounds to resume construction of this Palace!”

Daniel picked up a London newspaper and rattled it. “What a very odd thing for him to do, when Harley’s own Spleen, the Examiner, is jetting bile at Marlborough.” This was Daniel’s delicate way of suggesting that Harley was only throwing money at Marlborough to create a distraction while he and his henchman Bolingbroke were up to something really reprehensible. Mr. Threader, however, took it at face value. “Mr. Jonathan Swift of the Examiner is a bull-terrier,” he proclaimed, and favored the newspaper with what, by Mr. Threader’s standards, was a warm look. “Once he got his canines sunk in my lord Marlborough’s leg it was several years’ labor for my lord Oxford to pry those foaming jaws apart; never mind; Harley’s deeds speak louder than Swift’s words; those Whigs who would claim Marlborough’s virtues for their own, must now explain the matter of those ten thousand pounds.”

Daniel was about to air the observation that ten thousand pounds was a very reasonable price for the Tories to pay to get Marlborough in their camp-especially since it was not actually their money-but he curbed his tongue, sensing that there was no point. He and Mr. Threader would never agree on a thing. There was no profit to be gained by further discussion anyway, for Mr. Threader’s fascination with those ten thousand pounds was the datum that enabled Daniel to solve the equation at last.

“I wonder if we might have met before, you and I,” Daniel mused. “Long ago.”

“It must have been very long ago indeed, sir. I never forget-”

“I have perceived that about you, Mr. Threader-that you allow certain things to slip decently into the past-which is practical-but you never forget, which is prudent. In this instance you have not forgot a thing; we were not formally introduced. In the summer of 1665, I left London and went out to find refuge at Epsom. As very little traffic was moving on the roads, for fear of the plague, I had to walk from Epsom town out to John Comstock’s estate. It was rather along walk, but in no way unpleasant. I recall being overtaken by a carriage that was on its way to the manor-house. Painted upon its door was a coat of arms not familiar to me. I saw it several more times during my stay there. For even though the rest of England was immobilized-embalmed-the man who went about in that carriage would not stop moving on any account. His comings and goings were evidence, to me, that the world had not come to an end, the Apocalypse had not occurred-the hoofbeats of his team on Comstock’s carriageway were like the faint pulse in a patient’s neck, which tells the Physician that the Patient still lives…”

“Who is that madman, coming and going in the midst of the Plague,” Daniel asked, “and why does John Comstock let him into his house? The poxy bastard’ll infect us all.”

“John Comstock could not exclude that fellow any more than he could ban air from his lungs,” Wilkins said. “That is his money-scrivener.”

Mr. Threader was getting teary-eyed now, though it was a toss-up whether this was because of Daniel’s mawkish Narration, or because at long last he understood the nature of Daniel’s feeble connection to the Silver Comstocks. Daniel brought the anecdote to a swift merciful conclusion: “Unless my memory is having me off, the same arms are painted on the door of the vehicle in which we are now sitting.”

“Dr. Waterhouse, I’ll not sit still while you disparage your faculty of recollection any more, for truly, you have the memory of an elephant, sir, and it is no wonder to me that you were gathered in by the Royal Society at a tender age! Your account is without flaw; my late father, may God have mercy on his soul, had the honor of being of service to the Earl of Epsom, just as you said, and my brothers and I, during our apprenticeships, as it were, did accompany him on several of his excursions to Epsom.”

HE HAD PROMISED that they would go into London the next day, but the matter of the ten thousand changed everything. Mr. Threader was now in the same predicament as a spider who has unexpectedly caught something huge in his web, which is to say, the news was good, but much frantic scurrying around was now demanded of him. So they were detained round Oxford on the 28th and 29th of January. Again, Daniel could have got to London easily but again he resolved to see the journey through with Mr. Threader. So he nipped into Oxford and renewed friendships or, as warranted, hostilities with scholars at the University, while Mr. Threader mended the strands of his local Web, so unused to such exertions.

On the 30th, which was a Saturday, they got a late start. Daniel first had to find a hackney-carriage to take him from Oxford back out to Woodstock. There was a lot of blundering about in the woods there trying to rendezvous with Mr. Threader’s train. When he spied it, drawn up before a cottage on the edge of the wood, he saw that he was too early after all, as the horses were all in their feed-bags. He had the hackney-driver unload his trunks on the spot, so that Mr. Threader’s men could get them packed on the right cart. But Daniel himself remained in the hackney-coach, and asked the driver to continue a mile down the road and drop him off, so that he could enjoy a stroll back through the woods. If they were going to attempt to make it all the way to London today, this would be his last opportunity to stretch his legs.

The woods were pleasant enough. Spring was trying to come early. Even though branches were bare, holly and ivy provided some greenery. But the road was a slough, with puddles that would have challenged an albatross. It seemed to be cutting round the base of a rise situate between him and the cottage, and so Daniel angled away from it first chance he got, taking what looked like a game trail up onto higher and firmer ground. Reaching the top of the rise he was faintly disappointed to discover the cottage just where he had expected to find it. Decades had passed since he had enjoyed the thrill of getting lost. So down he went, and approached the little compound from its back side, and thereby saw something through a window.

The three wooden chests from Mr. Threader’s baggage cart had been brought in and unlocked. They contained scales-exquisite scales made out of gold, so that cycles of tarnishing and polishing would not, over the years, throw off their balance. In front of each scale sat one of Mr. Threader’s assistants, weighing golden coins, one at a time. Another assistant was counting the coins out of a chest and distributing them, as needed, to the weighers, who stacked the weighed coins one at a time on embroidered green felt cloths that they had unrolled on the tabletop. Each weigher was maintaining three stacks of coins; the stack in the middle tended to be higher than the other two. When a stack grew precarious it would be carried off, counted, and deposited in one of Mr. Threader’s strong-boxes. Or that was the general impression Daniel collected peering through bubbly ancient window-panes with sixty-seven-year-old eyes.

Then he remembered the warning that Will had spoken to him at the Saracen’s Head. He knew instantly that, even though he had come this way with intentions wholly innocent, and stumbled upon this scene by chance, it would never be viewed that way. He began to feel actual guilt-pangs even though he was blameless. This was a miraculous prodigy of self-shaming that was taught to young Puritans by their elders, as Gypsies taught their children to swallow fire. He skulked back into the forest like a poacher who has stumbled upon the gamekeeper’s camp, and worked his way round to the road, and approached the carts from that side, just as the scales and strong-boxes were being loaded onto the carts for transport.