“Both believe the same things, and believe them sincerely,” Eliza said, referring to the two Englishmen. “Both have been tested by suffering. At first I thought the fat one had been corrupted. But the slender one did not think so.”
“Maybe the slender one is naive.”
“He is not naive in that way. No, those two belong to a common sect, or something-they knew and recognized each other. They dislike each other and work at cross-purposes but betrayal, corruption, any straying from whatever common path they have chosen, these are inconceivable. Is it the same sect as Gomer Bolstrood?”
“No and yes. The Puritans are like Hindoos-impossibly various, and yet all of a type.”
Eliza nodded.
“Why are you so fascinated by the Puritans?” William asked.
It was not asked in a friendly way. He suspected her of some weakness, some occult motive. She looked at him like a little girl who had just been run over by a cart-wheel. It was a look that would cause most men to fall apart like stewed chickens. It didn’t work. Eliza had noticed that William of Orange had a lot of gorgeous boys around him. But he also had a mistress, an Englishwoman named Elizabeth Villiers, who was only moderately beautiful, but famously intelligent and witty. The Prince of Orange would never make himself vulnerable by relying on one sex or the other; any lust he might feel for Eliza he could easily channel towards that houseboy, as Dutch farmers manipulated their sluice-gates to water one field instead of another. Or at least that was the message he wanted to convey, by keeping the company he did.
Eliza sensed that she had quite inadvertently gotten into danger. William had found an inconsistency in her, and if it weren’t explained to his satisfaction, he’d brand her as Enemy. And while Louis XIV kept his enemies in the gilded cage of Versailles, William probably had more forthright ways of dealing with his.
The truth wasn’t so bad after all. “I think they are interesting,” she said, finally. “They are so different from anyone else. So peculiar. But they are not ninehammers, they are formidable in the extreme; Cromwell was only a prelude, a practice. This Penn controls an estate that is stupefyingly vast. New Jersey is a place of Quakers, too, and different sorts of Puritans are all over Massachusetts. Gomer Bolstrood used to say the most startling things… overthrowing monarchy was the least of it. He said that Negroes and white men are equal before God and that all slavery everywhere must be done away with, and that his people would never let up until everyone saw it their way. ‘First we’ll get the Quakers on our side, for they are rich,’ he said, ‘then the other Nonconformists, then the Anglicans, then the Catholics, then all of Christendom.’”
William had turned his gaze back to the fire as she spoke, signalling that he believed her. “Your fascination with Negroes is very odd. But I have observed that the best people are frequently odd in one way or another. I have got in the habit of seeking them out, and declining to trust anyone who has no oddities. Your queer ideas concerning slavery are of no interest to me whatever. But the fact that you harbor queer ideas makes me inclined to place some small amount of trust in you.”
“If you trust my judgment, the slender Puritan is the one to watch,” Eliza said.
“But he has no vast territories in America, no money, no followers!”
“That is why. I would wager he had a father who was very strong, probably older brothers, too. That he has been checked and baffled many times, never married, never enjoyed even the small homely success of having a child, and has come to that time in his life when he must make his mark, or fail. This has become all confused, in his thinking, with the coming rebellion against the English King. He has decided to gamble his life on it-not in the sense of living or dying, but in the sense of making something of his life, or not.”
William winced. “I pray you never see that deep into me. ”
“Why? Perhaps ‘twould do you good.”
“Nay, nay, you are like some Fellow of the Royal Society, dissecting a living dog-there is a placid cruelty about you.”
“About me? What of you? To fight wars is kindness?”
“Most men would rather be shot through with a broad-headed arrow than be described by you.”
Eliza could not help laughing. “I do not think my description of the slender one is at all cruel. On the contrary, I believe he will succeed. To judge from that pile of letters, he has many powerful Englishmen behind him. To rally that many supporters while remaining close to the King is very difficult.” Eliza was hoping, now, that the Prince would let slip some bit of information about who those letter-writers were. But William perceived the gambit almost before she uttered the words, and looked away from her.
“It is very dangerous,” he said. “Rash. Insane. I wonder if I should trust a man who conceives such a desperate plan.”
A bit of a silence now. Then one of the logs in the fireplace gave way in a cascading series of pops and hisses.
“Are you asking me to do something about it?”
More silence, but this time the burden of response was on William. Eliza could relax, and watch his face. His face showed that he did not like being put in this position.
“I have something important for you to do at Versailles,” he admitted, “and cannot afford to send you to London to tend to Daniel Waterhouse. But, where he is concerned, you might be more useful in Versailles anyway.”
“I don’t understand.”
William opened his eyes wide, took a deep breath, and sighed it out, listening clinically to his own lungs. He sat up straighter, though his small hunched body was still overwhelmed by the chair, and looked alertly into the fire. “I can tell Waterhouse to be careful and he will say, ‘yes, sire,’ but it is all meaningless. He will not really be careful until he has something to live for.” William looked Eliza straight in the eye.
“You want me to give him that?”
“I cannot afford to lose him, and the men who put their signatures on these letters, because he suddenly decides he cares not whether he lives or dies. I want him to have some reason to care.”
“It is easily done.”
“Is it? I cannot think of a pretext for getting the two of you in the same room together.”
“I have another oddity, sire: I am interested in Natural Philosophy.”
“Ah yes, you stay with Huygens.”
“And Huygens has another friend in town just now, a Swiss mathematician named Fatio. He is young and ambitious and desperate to make contacts with the Royal Society. Daniel Waterhouse is the Secretary. I’ll set up a dinner.”
“That name Fatio is familiar,” William said distantly. “He has been pestering me, trying to set up an audience.”
“I’ll find out what he wants.”
“Good.”
“What of the other thing?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You said you had something important for me to do at Versailles.”
“Yes. Come to me again before you leave and I’ll explain it. Now I am tired, tired of talking. The thing you must do there for me is pivotal, everything revolves around it, and I want to have my wits about me when I explain it to you.”