“Just goes to prove we have to get into the money-making business,” Jack said when they left.
“To me it proves that the business is crowded and hard-fought,” Eliza said. “Better to get into silver-mining. All the coiners must buy from miners.”
“But Herr Geidel would rather have burning splints under his nails than own another silver mine,” Jack reminded her.
“It would seem to me better to buy into something when it is cheap, and wait for it to become dear,” Eliza said. “Think of those trading-houses with their attics.”
“We don’t have an attic.”
“I meant it as a figure of speech.”
“So did I. We have no way to purchase a silver mine and sew it into your skirts and carry it round until the price goes up.” This sounded to Jack like a sure-fire conversation ender but only produced a thoughtful expression on Eliza’s face.
Consequently they found themselves at the Bourse, a small tidy rectangular building of white stone packed with well-dressed men screaming at each other in all the languages of Christendom but bound together by some Pentecostal faith in the Holy Spirit of the Messe that made all tongues one. There were no goods in evidence, only bits of paper, which was so odd that Jack would’ve stayed up all night wondering over it if he hadn’t forgotten immediately in light of later developments. After a brief conversation with a trader who was taking a breather on the edge of the floor, smoking a clay-pipe and quaffing some of that fine golden beer from Pilsen, Eliza returned to Jack with a triumphant and determined look about her that boded ill. “The word is Kuxen, ” she said, “we wish to buy Kuxen in a silver mine.”
“We do?”
“Isn’t that what we just decided?” She was joking, perhaps.
“First tell me what Kuxen are.”
“Shares. The mine is divided in half. Each half into quarters. Each quarter into eighths, and so on-until the number of shares is something like sixty-four or one twenty-eight-that number of shares is then sold. Each share is called a kux. ”
“And by share, I suppose you mean-?”
“Same as when thieves divvy up their swag.”
“I was going to liken it to how sailors partake of a voyage’s proceeds, but you stooped lower, faster.”
“That man nearly shot beer from his nostrils when I said I wished to invest in a silver mine,” Eliza said proudly.
“Always a positive omen.”
“He said only one man’s even trying to sell them at this fair-the Doctor. We need to talk to the Doctor.”
Through involved and tedious investigations that little improved the balance of Jack’s humours, they tracked the Doctor down in the general quarter of the Jahrmarkt, which (never mind what the German words literally meant) was a fun fair-a sideshow to the Messe. “Eeeyuh, I hate these things-loathsome people exhibiting all manner of freakish behaviors-like a morality play depicting my own life.”
“The Doctor is in there,” Eliza said grimly.
“Why not let’s wait until we actually have money to buy kuxen with? ” Jack pleaded.
“Jack, it is all the same-if we want kuxen, why pass through the intermediate step of exchanging silk or ostrich-plumes for coin, and then coin for kuxen, when we could simply exchange silk or plumes for kuxen?”
“Ow, that one was like a stave to the bridge of the nose. You’re saying-”
“I’m saying that at Leipzig all goods-silk, coins, shares in mines-lose their hard dull gross forms and liquefy, and give up their true nature, as ores in an alchemist’s furnace sweat mercury-and all mercury is mercury and can be freely swapped for mercury of like weight-indeed cannot be distinguished from it.”
“That’s lovely, but DO WE REALLY WANT TO OWN SHARES IN A MINE?”
“Oh, who knows?” Eliza said with an airy tossing movement of the hand. “I just like to shop for things.”
“And I’m doomed to follow you, carrying your purse,” Jack muttered, shifting the burden of silk-bolts from one shoulder to the other.
SO TO THEFUNFAIR-indistinguishable (to Jack) from a hospital for the possessed and deformed and profoundly lost: contortionists, rope-walkers, fire-eaters, foreigners, and mystical personalities, a few of whom Jack recognized from Vagabond-camps here and there. They knew the Doctor from his clothing and his wig, about which they’d been warned. He was trying to initiate a philosophickal dispute with a Chinese fortune-teller, the subject of the debate being a diagram on a book-page consisting of a stack of six short horizontal lines, some of which were continuous (-) and others interrupted (-) The Doctor was trying various languages out on the Chinese man, who only looked more aggrieved and dignified by the moment. Dignity was a clever weapon to use against the Doctor, who did not have very much of it at the moment. On his head was the largest wig Jack had ever seen, a thunderhead of black curls enveloping and dwarfing his head and making him look, from behind, as if a yearling bear-cub had dropped from a tree onto his shoulders and was trying to wrench his head off. His attire was no less formidable. Now, during the long winter, Jack had learned that a dress had more parts, technical zargon, and operating procedures associated with it than a flintlock. The Doctor’s outfit mocked any dress: between Leipzig and his skin there had to be two dozen layers of fabric belonging to Christ knew how many separate garments: shirts, waistcoats, vests, and things of which Jack did not know the names. Rank upon rank of heavy, close-spaced buttons, containing, in the aggregate, enough brass to cast a swivel-gun. Straps and draw-strings, lace gushing from the openings around throat and wrists. But the lace needed washing, the wig needed professional maintenance, and the Doctor himself was not, at root, a good-looking man. And despite the attire, Jack ended up suspecting he was not a vain one; he was dressed that way to a purpose. In particular, perhaps, to make himself seem older-when he turned around at the sound of Eliza’s voice, it was evident he was no more than about forty years old.
He was up on his three-inch platform heels right away, favoring Eliza with a deep, courtly bow and shortly moving on to hand-kissing. For a minute all was in French that Jack couldn’t quite follow, and so he went by appearances: Eliza looked uncharacteristically nervous (though she was trying to be plucky), and the Doctor, a lively and quick sort, was observing with polite curiosity. But there was no drooling or leering. Jack reckoned him for a eunuch or sodomite.
Suddenly the Doctor broke into English-making him the first person, other than Eliza, whom Jack had heard speaking in the tongue of that remote Isle in a couple of years. “I assumed, from your attire, that you were a fashionable Parisian lady. But I judged too hastily, for I perceive, on closer enjoyment, that you have something that such women typically lack: genuine taste.”
Eliza was speechless-flattered by the words, but flustered by the choice of language. The Doctor splayed a hand across his breast and looked apologetic. “Have I made the wrong guess? I thought I detected that the lady’s superb French was enlivened and invigorated by the firm sure tread of an Anglo-Saxon cadence.”