Quicksilver

Enter now trumpeters and drummers, followed by a HERALD bellowing legal gibberish.

As drummers beat a slow and dolorous cadence, enter JACK KETCH in a black hood. The assembled traders are silent as the dead.

Jack Ketch walks slowly into the center of the empty space and stands with arms folded.

Enter now a wagon drawn by a black horse and loaded with faggots and jars, flanked by the ASSISTANTS of Jack Ketch. Assistants pile the wood on the ground and then soak it with oil poured from the jars.

Enter now BAILIFF carrying a BOOK bound up in chains and padlocks.

JACKKETCH:In the name of the King, stop and identify yourself!

BAILIFF:John Bull, a bailiff.

JACKKETCH:State your business.

BAILIFF:It is the King’s business. I have here a prisoner to be bound over for execution.

JACKKETCH:What is the prisoner’s name?

BAILIFF: A History of the Late Massacres and Persecutions of the French Huguenots; to which is appended a brief relation of the bloody and atrocious crimes recently visited upon blameless Protestants dwelling in the realms of the Duke of Savoy, at the behest of King Louis XIV of France.

JACKKETCH:Has this prisoner been accused of a crime?

BAILIFF:Not only accused, but justly convicted, of spreading contumacious falsehoods, attempting to arouse civil discord, and leveling many base slanders against the good name of The Most Christian King Louis XIV, a true friend of our own King and a loyal ally of England.

JACKKETCH:Vile crimes, indeed! Has a sentence been pronounced?

BAILIFF:Indeed, as I mentioned before, it has been ordered by Lord Jeffreys that the prisoner is to be bound over to you for immediate execution.

JACKKETCH:Then I’ll welcome him as I did the late Duke of Monmouth.

Jack Ketch advances toward the Bailiff and grips the end of the chain. The bailiff drops the Book and dusts off his hands. To a slow cadence of muffled drums, Jack Ketch marches to the wood-pile, dragging the book across the pavement behind him. He heaves the book onto the top of the pile, steps back, and accepts a torch from an assistant.

JACKKETCH:Any last words, villainous Book? No? Very well, then to hell with thee!

Lights the fire.

Traders, Soldiers, Musicians, Executioner’s Staff, amp;c. watch silently as the Book is consumed by the flames.

Exeunt Bailiff, Herald, Executioners, Musicians, and Soldiers, leaving behind a smouldering heap of coals.

Traders resume commerce as if nothing had happened, save for EDMUND PALLING, an old man.

PALLING:Mr. Waterhouse! From the fact that you are the only one who brought something to sit on, may I assume you knew that this shameful poppet-show would disgrace the ‘Change today?

WATERHOUSE:That would appear to be the unspoken message.

PALLING: Unspokenis an interesting word… what of the truths that were spoken in the late Book, concerning the persecutions of our brethren in France and Savoy? Have they now been unspoken because the pages were burnt?

WATERHOUSE:I have heard many a sermon in my life, Mr. Palling, and I know where this one is bound… you’re going to say that just as the immortal spirit departs the body to be one with God, so the contents of the late Book are now going to wherever its smoke is distributed by the four winds… say, weren’t you Massachusetts-bound?

PALLING:I am only bating until I have raised money for the passage, and would probably be finished by now if Jack Ketch had not muddied and stirred the subtle currents of the market.

Exits.

Enter Sir Richard Apthorp.

APTHORP:Burning books… is that not a favorite practice of the Spanish Inquisition?

WATERHOUSE:I have never been to Spain, Sir Richard, and so the only way I know that they burn books is because of the vast number of books that have been published on the subject.

APTHORP:Hmmm, yes… I take your meaning.

WATERHOUSE:I beg of you, do not say ‘I take your meaning’ with such ponderous significance… I do not wish to be Jack Ketch’s next guest. You have asked, sir, over and over, why I am sitting here in a chair. Now you know the answer: I came to see justice done.

APTHORP:But you knew ‘twould happen-you had aught to do with it. Why did you set it in the ‘Change? At Tyburn tree, during one of the regularly scheduled Friday hangings, ‘twould’ve drawn a much more appreciative crowd-why, you could burn a whole library there and the Mobb would be stomping their feet for an encore.

WATERHOUSE:They don’t read books. The point would’ve been lost on ’em.

APTHORP:If the point is to put the fear of God into literate men, why not burn it at Cambridge and Oxford?

WATERHOUSE:Jack Ketch hates to travel. The new carriages have so little leg-room, and his great Axe does not fit into the luggage bins…

APTHORP:Could it be because College men do not have the money and power to organize a rebellion?

WATERHOUSE:Why, yes, that’s it. No point intimidating the weak. Threaten the dangerous.

APTHORP:To what end? To keep them in line? Or to put thoughts of rebellion into their minds?

WATERHOUSE:Your question, sir, amounts to asking whether I am a turncoat against the cause of my forebears-corrupted by the f?tid atmosphere of Whitehall-or a traitorous organizer of a secret rebellion.

APTHORP:Why, yes, I suppose it does.

WATERHOUSE:Then would you please ask easier questions or else go away and leave me alone? For whether I’m a back-stabber or a Phanatique, I am in either case no longer a scholar to be trifled with. If you must ply someone with such questions, ask them of yourself; if you insist on an answer, unburden your secrets to me before you ask me to trust you with mine. Assuming I have any.

APTHORP:I think that you do, sir.

Bows.

WATERHOUSE:Why do you doff your hat to me thus?

APTHORP:To honor you, sir, and to pay my respects to him who made you.

WATERHOUSE:What, Drake?

APTHORP:Why, no, I refer to your Mentor, the late John Wilkins, Lord Bishop of Chester-or as some would say, the living incarnation of Janus. For that good fellow penned the Cryptonomicon with one hand and the Universal Character with the other; he was a good friend of high and mighty Cavaliers at the same time he was wooing and marrying Cromwell’s own sister; and, in sum, was Janus-like in diverse ways I’ll not bother enumerating to you. For you are truly his pupil, his creation: one moment dispensing intelligence like a Mercury, the next keeping counsel like Pluto.

WATERHOUSE:Mentor was a guise adopted by Minerva, and her pupil was great Ulysses, and so by hewing to a strict Classical interpretation of your words, sir, I’ll endeavour not to take offense.

APTHORP:Endeavour and succeed, my good man, for no offense was meant. Good day.

Exits.

Enter Ravenscar, carryingPrincipia Mathematica.

RAVENSCAR:I’m taking this to the printer’s straightaway, but before I do, I was pondering this Newton/Leibniz thing…

WATERHOUSE:What!? Jack Ketch’s performance made no impression on you at all?

RAVENSCAR:Oh, that? I assume you arranged it that way in order to buttress your position as the King’s token Puritan bootlick-whilst in fact stirring rebellious spirits in the hearts and minds of the rich and powerful. Forgive me for not tossing out a compliment. Twenty years ago I’d have admired it, but by my current standards it is only a modestly sophisticated ploy. The matter of Newton and Leibniz is much more interesting.

WATERHOUSE:Go ahead, then.

RAVENSCAR:Descartes explained, years and years ago, that the planets move round the sun like slips of paper caught up in a wind-vortex. So Leibniz’s objection is groundless-there is no mystery, and therefore Newton did not gloss over any problems.