This drew a brisk turn of the head from a gentleman who had been standing a short distance behind Roger, talking to another gent, or pretending to. Daniel realized he had spoken too loudly.
The gentleman was glaring at Daniel from beneath a copper-colored wig, one of the new model, narrow, with long ringlets trailing far down the back. The wig said that he had money and rank, yet was no admirer of the French. He would be High Church, Old Money, a reflexive backer of Monarchy-a Tory, as they were called nowadays. Odd that he should be passing the time of day in here-Mrs. Bligh’s was a Whig haunt. For that reason Daniel rated it as unlikely that this fellow would challenge him to a duel.
Roger had noticed Daniel noticing all of these things, and had the good instincts not to look back. But his eyes flicked slightly upwards to a windowpane just above Daniel’s head, and he scanned the reflections interestedly for a moment. Which in no way prevented his talking at the same time. “Indeed, Daniel, any man plucked from this coffee-house-with one or two exceptions-would be preferable to the fellows running our mint now, who are tapeworms.”
Daniel was staring fixedly into Roger’s eyes, but in the background he could see the Tory turning away. The Tory planted himself with his back toward Roger, set his coffee-cup down on a sideboard, rested a hand idly on the hilt of his small-sword, and seemed to survey the crowd of merry Whigs filling the house.
“It follows that any Fellow of the Royal Society would be excellent-but merely excellent is not quite good enough, Daniel. Normally it takes me hours to explain why this is true. You, thank God, have perceived it instantly. The fate of Britain and of Christendom hinge upon the power of the new good Pound Sterling to drive out the bad-to sweep all opposition from the field and bring gold and silver to our shores from every corner of the earth. The quality of money is only partly due to the purity of its metal-which any Natural Philosopher could see to. It is also a matter of trust, of prestige.”
Daniel had now realized what was coming, and slid down in his chair, and put his hands over his face. “You don’t want me to enlist him, Roger! I no longer have his ear. You want Fatio, Fatio, Fatio!”
“Everyone knows he is in-Fatio-ated-but passions are fleeting. You have known him longer than anyone, Daniel. You are the man for it. England needs you! Your Massachusetts sinecure awaits!”
Daniel had parted his fingers now and was peering out through slits in between. Unable to look Roger in the face, he was surveying the distant background. Andrew Ellis-a compact young man with a blond ponytail, an enjoyable, harmless young Parliamentarian-was coming over with a glass of claret in each hand, intent on breaking into the conversation and sharing his enjoyableness with Roger. If Daniel had hopes of weaseling out, he had to do it now. To Roger Comstock, silence implied not merely consent, but a blood oath.
“You cannot know what you are proposing, ensconcing such a man at the Tower, giving him control of our money. He has strange ideas, dark secrets-”
“I know all about the beastliness.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“Alchemy is an even more common vice.”
“That’s not it, either. He is a heretic, Roger.”
“Look who’s talking!”
“I mean, he does not even believe in the Trinity!”
Roger got a glazed-over look, as he always did when abstract theological matters were dragged into the conversation. Unlike ordinary men, who required several minutes to become fully glazed over, Roger could do it in an instant, as if a window-sash had dropped in front of him from a great height. Daniel parted his fingers more to observe this phenomenon. But instead his attention was drawn to something even odder: an expensive copper-colored wig hanging in midair behind Roger’s chair. Its owner had ducked and darted out from under it as fast as a striking cobra and simply left it behind. It fell to the floor, of course. By that time the owner-who had red hair in a close Caesar crop-was whispering something into Andrew Ellis’s ear. It must have been something extremely shocking, to judge from the look of astonishment-nay, horror-that had come over the normally beaming face of Mr. Ellis.
Daniel pushed himself up in his chair to get a better look and perceived that the red-headed gent was now drawing away from Ellis-but Ellis was moving with him, as if they were joined together. Ellis gave out a little whimper.
Daniel could not credit what he was seeing. “Roger, I could almost swear that Mr. Ellis is having his ear bitten.”
Roger now took notice for the first time. He stood up, turned around, and quickly verified it. This prolonged ear-biting had drawn very little notice thus far because Ellis had been too astonished to speak and the biter, of course, could not really talk, either-though he did seem to be mumbling something in a low, grinding voice: “So you want to have the ear of Roger Comstock? Then I shall have yours.”
Oddly, it was Roger’s standing up that drew everyone’s attention. Then awareness splashed across the room.
“In the name of God, sir!” Ellis cried, and slumped against the paneled wall. The red-head stayed with him, of course, maintaining his bite like a bulldog, working his jaw slowly to gnaw through the cartilage. He planted a hand on the wall to either side of Ellis’s head, bracketing him in position. Several of the Whigs in the main room finally moved forward to intervene-but the gentleman who had been talking to the biter earlier whirled to face them, and drew his sword half out of his scabbard. That drove them back like a firecracker.
Roger stepped toward the biter and the bitee, and raised his arm that was nearer the wall, causing his cape to spread open and block Daniel’s view of the whole proceedings. He seemed to slap the back of the biter’s hand where it was planted on the wall. “Mr. White,” he said, in an indulgent tone, “do wipe your chin when you are quite finished.” Then Roger skirted around the pair and walked out of the coffee-house. Andrew Ellis collapsed to the floor with a scream and pressed both of his hands to the side of his head. Mr. White came up with a triumphant toss of his head, like a country boy who has just won at apple-bobbing. Something like a dried apricot was lodged in his smile. He plucked it out with one hand to admire it. Andrew Ellis was lying against Mr. White’s shins and knees, forcing them back, and so White had to keep his other hand braced against the paneling lest he topple forward. Anyway, he pocketed Ellis’s ear and flashed a bloody grin at Daniel.
“Welcome to politics, Mr. Waterhouse,” he announced. “This is the world you have made. Rejoice and be glad in it-for you shall not be allowed to leave.”
“I am freer to leave than you are, Mr. White,” Daniel said on his way out, nodding in the direction of the hand that Mr. White was bracing against the wall.
Mr. White now seemed to notice for the first time that a dagger had been shoved all the way through that hand, between the metacarpals and out through the palm, and lodged deep in the wooden wall. Worked into the dagger’s pommel, in silver letters, as a sort of calling-card, were the initials R.C.
WHEN DANIEL MADE IT out to the street he discovered that his hand had gone into his pocket and got ahold of the Pearl of Great Price and squeezed it so hard, for so long, that his fingers had got tired. The Stone had a sort of devil’s-head shape, with two stubby hornlets that had once been lodged in his ureters. He had a habit of gripping it so that those wee knobs stuck out between his knuckles-it fitted his hand almost as well as his bladder.
Riding north across Hertfordshire in a borrowed carriage the next day, he found his hand had gone to it once again, as he reviewed the ear-biting scene in the theatre of his memory. Daniel was meditating on Cowardice. He knew a lot of cowards and saw cowardice everywhere, but just as Mr. Flamsteed’s observations of the stars were frequently obnubilated by weather, so Daniel’s of Cowardice by Extenuating Circumstances. Viz. a man might explain cowardliness by saying that he had a family to support, or, failing that, with the simple argument that it just was not fair for a young man to give up life or limb. But Daniel had no wife or children of his own, and brother Sterling was doing a fine job of supporting the extended family. And not only was Daniel old (forty-seven), but he ought to’ve been dead by now, and owed his remaining years solely to Mr. Hooke’s pitiless blade-work. So in Daniel Waterhouse, an observer could see cowardliness in its pure form, and perhaps learn something of its nature.