“Speak up, Sir Winston, there may be some Vagabonds out in Dorset who didn’t hear you!” Pepys roared.
“His Majesty has asked the Royal Society to suggest a new name for it,” Churchill added, sotto voce.
“Hmmm… his brother sort of conquered the place, didn’t he?” Daniel asked. He knew the answer, but couldn’t presume to lecture men such as these.
“Yes,” Pepys said learnedly, “ ’twas all part of York’s Atlantic campaign- firsthe took several Guinea ports, rich in gold, and richer in slaves, from the Dutchmen, and then it was straight down the trade winds to his next prize-New Amsterdam.”
Daniel made a small bow toward Pepys, then continued: “If you can’t use his Christian name of James, perhaps you can use his title… after all, York is a city up to the north on our eastern coast-and yet not too far north…”
“We have already considered that,” Pepys said glumly. “There’s a Yorktown in Virginia.”
“What about ‘New York’?” Daniel asked.
“Clever… but too obviously derivative of ‘New Amsterdam,’” Churchill said.
“If we call it ‘New York,’ we’re naming it after the city of York… the point is to name it after the Duke of York,” Pepys scoffed.
Daniel said, “You are correct, of course-”
“Oh, come now!” Wilkins barked, slapping a table with the flat of his hand, splashing beer and phosphorus all directions. “Don’t be pedantic, Mr. Pepys. Everyone will understand what it means.”
“Everyone who is clever enough to matter, anyway,” Wren put in.
“Err… I see, you are proposing a more subtile approach,” Sir Winston Churchill muttered.
“Let’s put it on the list!” Wilkins suggested. “It can’t hurt to include as many ‘York’ and ‘James’ names as we can possibly think up.”
“Hear, hear!” Churchill harrumphed-or possibly he was just clearing his throat-or summoning a barmaid.
“As you wish-never mind,” Daniel said. “I take it that Mr. Root’s Demonstration was well received-?”
For some reason this caused eyes to swivel, ever so briefly, toward the Earl of Upnor. “It went well,” Pepys said, drawing closer to Daniel, “until Mr. Root threatened to spank the Earl. Don’t look at him, don’t look at him,” Pepys continued levelly, taking Daniel’s arm and turning him away from the Earl. The timing was unfortunate, because Daniel was certain he had just overhead Upnor mentioning Isaac Newton by name, and wanted to eavesdrop.
Pepys led him past Wilkins, who was good-naturedly spanking a barmaid. The publican rang a bell and everyone blew out the lights-the tavern went dark except for the freshly invigorated phosphorus. Everyone said “Woo!” and Pepys wrangled Daniel out into the street. “You know that Mr. Root makes the stuff from urine?”
“So it is rumored,” Daniel said. “Mr. Newton knows more of the Art than I do-he has told me that Enoch the Red was following an ancient recipe to extract the Philosophic Mercury from urine, but happened upon phosphorus instead.”
“Yes, and he has an entire tale that he tells, of how he found the recipe in Babylonia.” Pepys rolled his eyes. “Enthralled the courtiers. Anyway-for this evening’s Demo’, he’d collected urine from a sewer that drains Whitehall, and boiled it- endlessly-on a barge in the Thames. I’ll spare you the rest of the details-suffice it to say that when it was finished, and they were done applauding, and all of the courtiers were groping for a way to liken the King’s splendor and radiance to that of Phosphorus-”
“Oh, yes, I suppose that would’ve been obligatory-?”
Wilkins banged out the tavern door, apparently just to watch the story being related to Daniel.
“The Earl of Upnor made some comment to the effect that some kingly essence-a royal humour-must suffuse the King’s body, and be excreted in his urine, to account for all of this. And when all of the other courtiers were finished agreeing, and marveling at the Earl’s philosophick acumen, Enoch the Red said, ‘In truth, most of this urine came from the Horse Guards-and their horses.’”
“Whereat, the Earl was on his feet! His hand reaching for his sword-to defend His Majesty’s honor, of course,” Wilkins said.
“What was His Majesty’s state of mind?” Daniel asked.
Wilkins made his hands into scale-pans and bobbled them up and down. “Then Mr. Pepys tipped the scales. He related an anecdote from the Restoration, in 1660, when he had been on the boat with the King, and certain members of his household-including the Earl of Upnor, then no more than twelve years old. Also aboard was the King’s favorite old dog. The dog shit in the boat. The young Earl kicked at the dog, and made to throw it overboard-but was stayed by the King, who laughed at it, and said, ‘You see, in some ways, at least, Kings are like other men!’”
“Did he really say such a thing!?” Daniel exclaimed, and instantly felt like an idiot-
“Of course not!” Pepys said, “I merely told the story that way because I thought it would be useful-”
“And was it?”
“The King laughed,” Pepys said with finality.
“And Enoch Root inquired, whether it had then been necessary to give the Earl a spanking, to teach him respect for his elders.”
“Elders?”
“The dog was older than the Earl-come on, pay attention!” Pepys said, giving Daniel a tremendous frown.
“Strikes me as an unwise thing to have said,” Daniel muttered.
“The King said, ‘No, no, Upnor has always been a civil fellow,’ or some such, and so there was no duel.”
“Still, Upnor strikes me as a grudge-holder-”
“Enoch has sent better men than Upnor to Hell-don’t trouble yourself about his future,” Wilkins said. “You need to tend to your own faults, young fellow-excessive sobriety, e.g…”
“A tendency to fret-” Pepys put in.
“Undue chastity-let’s back to the tavern!”
HE WOKE UP SOMETIME THEnext day on a hired coach bound for Cambridge-sharing a confined space with Isaac Newton, and a load of gear that Isaac had bought in London: a six-volume set of Theatrum Chemicum,*numerous small crates stuffed with straw, the long snouts of retorts poking out-canisters of stuff that smelled odd. Isaac was saying, “If you throw up again, please aim for this bowl-I’m collecting bile.”
Daniel was able to satisfy him there.
“Where Enoch the Red failed, you’re going to succeed-?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Going after the Philosophic Mercury, Isaac?”
“What else is there to do?”
“The R.S. adores your telescope,” Daniel said. “Oldenburg wants you to write more on the subject.”
“Mmm,” Isaac said, lost in thought, comparing passages in three different books to one another. “Could you hold this for a moment, please?” Which was how Daniel came to be a human book-rest for Isaac. Not that he was in any condition to accomplish greater things. In his lap for the next hour was a tome: folio-sized, four inches thick, bound in gold and silver, obviously made centuries before Gutenberg. Daniel was going to blurt, This must have been fantastically expensive, but on closer investigation found a book-plate pasted into it, bearing the arms of Upnor, and a note from the Earclass="underline"
Mr. Newton-
May this volume become as treasured by you, as the memory of our fortuitous meeting is to me-
WHEN THEY’VE MADEit out of Plymouth and into Cape Cod Bay, van Hoek returns to his cabin and becomes Captain once more. He looks rather put out to find the place so discomposed. Perhaps this is a sign of Daniel’s being a bitter old Atheistical crank, but he nearly laughs out loud. Minerva ’s a collection of splinters loosely pulled together by nails, pegs, lashings, and oakum, not even large enough to count as a mote in the eye of the world-more like one of those microscopic eggs that Hooke discovered with his microscope. She floats only because boys mind her pumps all the time, she remains upright and intact only because highly intelligent men never stop watching the sky and seas around her. Every line and sail decays with visible speed, like snow in sunlight, and men must work ceaselessly worming, parceling, serving, tarring, and splicing her infinite net-work of hempen lines in order to prevent her from falling apart in mid-ocean with what Daniel imagines would be explosive suddenness. Like a snake changing skins, she sloughs away what is worn and broken and replaces it from inner reserves-evoluting as she goes. The only way to sustain this perpetual and necessary evolution is to replenish the stocks that dwindle from her holds as relentlessly as sea-water leaks in. The only way to do that is to trade goods from one port to another, making a bit of money on each leg of the perpetual voyage. Each day assails her with hurricanes and pirate-fleets. To go out on the sea and find a Minerva is like finding, in the desert, a Great Pyramid blanced upside-down on its tip. She’s a baby in a basket-a book in a bonfire. And yet van Hoek has the temerity to appoint his cabin as if it were a gentleman’s drawing-room, with delicate weather-glasses, clocks, optickal devices, a decent library, a painting or two, an enamel cabinet stocked with Chinese crockery, a respectable stock of brandy and port. He’s got mirrors in here, for Christ’s sake. Not only that, but when he enters to discover a bit of broken glass on the deck, and small impact-craters here and there, he becomes so outraged that Dappa doesn’t need to tell Daniel they’d best leave him alone for a while.