Bolstrood relaxed a bit.
“So at first the market will drop,” Monmouth said distractedly.
“Until the true situation becomes generally known,” Eliza said, patted his arm firmly, and drew back. Gomer Bolstrood seemed to relax further. “During that interval,” Eliza continued, “our investor will have the opportunity to reap a colossal profit, by selling the market short. And in exchange for that opportunity he’ll gladly buy you all the lead and powder you need to mount the invasion.”
“But that investor is not Mr. Sluys-?”
“In any short-selling transaction there is a loser as well as a winner, ” Eliza said. “Mr. Sluys is to be the loser.”
“Why him specifically?” Bolstrood asked. “It could be any liefhebber.”
“Selling short has been illegal for three-quarters of a century! Numerous edicts have been issued to prevent it-one of them written in the time of the Stadholder Frederick Henry. Now, if a trader is caught short-that is, if he has signed a contract that will cause him to lose money-he can ‘appeal to Frederick.’”
“But Frederick Henry died ages ago,” Monmouth protested.
“It is an expression-a term of art. It simply means to repudiate the contract, and refuse to pay. According to Frederick Henry’s edict, that repudiation will be upheld in a court of law.”
“But if it’s true that there must always be a loser when selling short, then Frederick Henry’s decree must’ve stamped out the practice altogether!”
“Oh, no, your grace-short selling thrives in Amsterdam! Many traders make their living from it!”
“But why don’t all of the losers simply ‘appeal to Frederick’?”
“It all has to do with how the contracts are structured. If you’re clever enough you can put the loser in a position where he dare not appeal to Frederick.”
“So it is a sort of blackmail after all,” Bolstrood said, gazing out the window across a snowy field-but hot on Eliza’s trail. “We set Sluys up to be the loser-then if he appeals to Frederick, the entire story comes out in a court of law-including the warehouse full of lead-and he’s exposed as a traitor. So he’ll eat the loss without complaint.”
“But-if I’m following all of this-it relies on Sluys not knowing that there is a plan to invade England,” Monmouth said. “Otherwise he’d be a fool to enter into the short contract.”
“That is certainly true,” Eliza said. “We want him to believe that V.O.C. stock will rise.”
“But if he’s selling us the lead, he’ll know we’re planning something. ”
“Yes-but he needn’t know what is being planned, or when. We need only manipulate his mental state, so that he has reason to believe that V.O.C. shares are soon to rise.”
“And-as I’m now beginning to understand-you are something of a virtuoso when it comes to manipulating men’s mental states,” Monmouth said.
“You make it sound ever so much more difficult than it really is,” Eliza answered. “Mostly I just sit quietly and let the men manipulate themselves.”
“Well, if that’s all for now,” Monmouth said, “I feel a powerful urge to go and practice some self-manipulation in private-unless-?”
“Not today, your grace,” Eliza said, “I must pack my things. Perhaps I’ll see you in Amsterdam?”
“Nothing could give me greater pleasure.”
But know that in the Soule
Are many lesser Faculties that serve
Reason as chief; among these Fansie next
Her office holds; of all external things,
Which the five watchful Senses represent,
She forms Imaginations, Aerie shapes,
Which Reason joyning or disjoyning, frames
All what we affirm or what deny, and call
Our knowledge or opinion; then retires
Into her private Cell when Nature rests.
Oft in her absence mimic Fansie wakes
To imitate her; but misjoyning shapes,
Wilde work produces oft, and most in dreams,
Ill matching words and deeds long past or late.
-MILTON,Paradise Lost
JACK RODE BETWEENPARISand Lyons several times in the early part of 1685, ferrying news. Paris: the King of England is dead! Lyons: some Spanish governorships in America are up for sale. Paris: King Looie has secretly married Mademoiselle de Maintenon, and the Jesuits have his ear now. Lyons: yellow fever is slaying mine-slaves by the thousands in Brazil-the price of gold ought to rise.
It was disconcertingly like working for someone-just the sort of arrangement he’d given up, long ago, as being beneath his dignity. It was, to put it more simply, too much like what Bob did. So Jack had to keep reminding himself that he was not actually doing it, but pretending to do it, so that he could get his horse ready to sell-then he would tell these bankers to fuck themselves.
He was riding back toward Paris from Lyons one day-an unseasonably cold day in March-when he encountered a column of three score men shuffling toward him. Their heads were shaved and they were dressed in dirty rags-though most had elected to tear up whatever clothes they had, and wrap them around their bleeding feet. Their arms were bound behind their backs and so it was easy to see their protruding ribs, mottled with sores and whip-marks. They were accompanied by some half-dozen mounted archers who could easily pick off stragglers or runaways.
In other words, just another group of galley slaves on their way down to Marseille. But these were more miserable than most. Your typical galley slave was a deserter, smuggler, or criminal, hence young and tough. A column of such men setting out from Paris in the winter might expect to lose no more than half its number to cold, disease, starvation, and beatings along the way. But this group-like several others Jack had seen recently-seemed to consist entirely of old men who had no chance whatever of making it to Marseille-or (for that matter) to whatever inn their guards expected to sleep in tonight. They were painting the road with blood as they trudged along, and they moved so slowly that the trip would take them weeks. But this was a journey you wanted to finish in as few days as possible.
Jack rode off to the side and waited for the column to pass him by. The stragglers were tailed by a horseman who, as Jack watched, patiently uncoiled his nerf du boeuf, whirled it round his head a time or two (to make a scary noise and build up speed), and then snapped it through the air to bite a chunk out of a slave’s ear. Extremely pleased with his own prowess, he then said something not very pleasant about the R.P.R. Which made everything clear to Jack, for R.P.R. stood for Religion Pretendue Reformee, which was a contemptuous way of referring to Huguenots. Huguenots tended to be prosperous merchants and artisans, and so naturally if you gave them the galley slave treatment they would suffer much worse than a Vagabond.
Only a few hours later, watching another such column go by, he stared right into the face of Monsieur Arlanc-who stared right back at him. He had no hair, his cheeks were grizzly and sucked-in from hunger, but Monsieur Arlanc it was.
There was nothing for Jack to do at the time. Even if he’d been armed with a musket, one of the archers would’ve put an arrow through him before he could reload and fire a second ball. But that evening he circled back to an inn that lay several miles south of where he’d seen Monsieur Arlanc, and bided his time in the shadows and the indigo night for a few hours, freezing in clouds of vapor from the nostrils of his angry and uncomfortable horses, until he was certain that the guards would be in bed. Then he rode up to that inn and paid a guard to open the gate for him, and rode, with his little string of horses, into the stable-yard.