If Daniel was a heap of sand, Leibniz-far more hardened than Daniel to long-range coach travel-was an obelisk. He sat perfectly upright, as if ready to dip quill in ink-pot and begin penning a treatise. He raised his eyebrows and looked curiously at Daniel, who was now only a few degrees shy of supine, with a knee practically wedged in Leibniz’s groin.
Daniel had assumed his ears had deceived him when the Duchess of Arcachon and of Qwghlm had asked him to deliver Johann to Leipzig. But he had done it-only to discover Leibniz was there, rather than in Hanover, where Daniel had expected him. News had reached Hanover and Berlin that Eleanor, the Electress-Dowager, had fallen gravely ill in the Dower-house of Pretzsch. It seemed likely she would not survive; and if she perished, someone would be required to transport a grieving Princess Caroline to her new foster-home at the Electoral court at Berlin. And who had been chosen for this duty? Leibniz.
Leibniz considered it for a few moments, then said: “Say! How is the youngest son of the Duke of Parma faring these days? Has he recovered from that nasty rash?”
“You have quite lost me, sir. I do not even know the name of the Duke of Parma, much less the medical condition of his youngest son.”
“That was already obvious,” said Leibniz, “for he has no sons-two daughters only.”
“I am beginning to feel like the Dim Interlocutor in a Socratic dialogue. What is your point?”
“If you asked the Duke of Parma about Leibniz, he might recognize the name vaguely, but he would know nothing of Natural Philosophy, and of course it is absurd to think he would entrust a daughter to me, or you, on a journey. Almost all the nobility are like the Duke of Parma. They don’t know, or care about, us, and we know little of them.”
“You are saying that I have fallen victim to observational bias?”
“Yes. The only nobility who suffer the likes of you, or of me, to come within a mile of them, are those exceedingly peculiar few who (God help them!) have taken an interest in Natural Philosophy. They used to be more numerous, but now I can count them on the fingers of a hand: Eliza, Sophie, and Sophie Charlotte. Those are the only ones we get to talk to. They are desirous of exposing their young ones to Natural Philosophy. Given a choice between the likes of you or me, Daniel, versus some available-which is to say idle-retainer, uncle, stooge, or priest who would be inclined to ignore, molest, corrupt, or convert the child en route, such a woman will unfailingly choose the Natural Philosopher; for the worst we will do is bore them.”
“I believe I did just that with little Johann,” said Daniel. “He would respond better, I do believe, to a curriculum centered wholly on Weaponry and its uses. In the absence of weapons, he prefers unarmed combat. I do believe I learned more wrestling-holds from him than he Philosophy from me.”
“That should serve you well when you get to Massachusetts,” said Leibniz gravely, “for the Indians are said to be brave wrestlers all.”
“After he has fenced with Jean Bart on the deck of a warship, to be shut up in a carriage with the likes of me for several days was a miserable fate.”
“Pfui! A slow and excruciating death by lockjaw is the miserable fate of those who play too much with edged weapons,” said Leibniz. “Eliza knows this. You served her well, even if Johann is too young to appreciate it! Tell me, did he really show no curiosity at all?”
“The foolish boy gave me an opening, by discoursing too much of mortars and cannons,” Daniel admitted. “We got into parabolas. I halted the carriage in a field between Munster and Osnabruck and we scattered some peasants by conducting a systematic trial, first with archery, later moving on to firearms.”
“You see? He’ll never forget that! Every time Johann sees a Projectile Weapon-which in this benighted world means every five minutes-he’ll know that they are useless without mathematicks.”
“How far are we from this Pretzsch?”
“You are deceived by the understated style of the place,” said Leibniz. “Behold, we are in Pretzsch, and have been for some minutes.” He slid his window open, laid a hand atop his wig to prevent its ending up under a wheel-rim, and thrust his head out. “The Dower-house is dead ahead.”
“What will you discourse of with the orphan,” Daniel asked, “assuming she does not share Johann’s curiosity about weapons?”
“Whatever she likes,” Leibniz said. “She is after all a Princess, and almost certain to be a Queen one day.” He regarded Daniel skeptically.
“All right,” said Daniel, moving. “I’ll sit up straight.”
THE TRAIN WAS THREE CARRIAGES, a baggage-wain, and several mounted dragoons. The latter had been sent down from Berlin, which was to say they were Brandenburgish/Prussian. Leibniz had met up with these Berliners in Leipzig. This had occurred only an hour after Daniel-who’d only just dropped off Johann, and cashed his Bill of Exchange, at the House of the Golden Mercury-had tracked down Leibniz. The union of these three separate parties was under the command of a Brandenburger noble who was also a captain of dragoons. He was adamant that they must press on across the Elbe and get into Brandenburg territory before nightfall, lest some Saxons give in to the temptation to make things complicated. Daniel found this a little ridiculous, but Leibniz saw wisdom in it. For Caroline might be an impoverished orphan living out in the middle of nowhere, but she was still a Princess, and to have a Princess in one’s custody, voluntary or in-, was to have power. And though Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, was a much better man than his late brother, yet there was no end to his crafty scheming; who knew if he might snatch Caroline up on a pretext and marry her off to some Tsarevich. So the collection of Caroline and her one item of baggage from the Dower-house of Pretzsch was carried through with a brusqueness normally reserved for kidnappings and elopements. This didn’t make it easier for the orphan Princess, but nothing could have done so, and a lingering farewell might have made it harder. By her choice she shared Leibniz’s coffee-brown, flower-painted carriage with him and Daniel. Tears and smiles passed alternately across her face like squalls and sunbeams on a gusty March day. She was thirteen.
The train crossed the Elbe on a nearby ferry and pounded down the road for some hours until they reached Brandenburg, then stopped for the night at an inn on the Mei?en-Berlin road. The next day they got a late start. Some fifty miles separated them from the Palace of Charlottenburg and the hospitality of its namesake, the Electress Sophie Charlotte. “Pray consider me at your disposal, your highness,” said Leibniz. “The road is long, and I shall deem it a high honor to be of whatever assistance I may in making it seem shorter. We may pursue your mathematicks-lessons, which have been neglected during the illness of your late mother. We may discourse of theology, which is something you should tend to; for in the Court of Brandenburg-Prussia you’ll encounter not only Lutherans but Calvinists, Jesuits, Jansenists, even Orthodox, and you’ll need to keep your wits about you lest some silver-tongued zealot lead you astray. I have a blockflote, and could attempt to give you a music-lesson. Or-”
“I would hear more of the work that Dr. Waterhouse purposes to undertake in Mas-sa-chu-setts,” said the Princess carefully. She had got wind of this from remarks overheard yesterday.
“A fitting topic, but in the end a very broad one,” said Leibniz. “Dr. Waterhouse?”
“The Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of Technologickal Arts,” began Daniel, “has been founded, and will sooner or later be endowed, by the Marquis of Ravenscar, who looks after his majesty’s money, and who is a great Whig. That means he belongs to a faction whose bank and whose money are founded on Commerce. They are ever opposed to the Tories, whose bank and money are founded on Land.”
“Land seems much the better choice, being fixed and stable.”
“Stability is not always a good thing. Think of lead and quicksilver. Lead makes good ballast, rooves, and pipes, but is sluggish, while quicksilver has marvelous properties of speed, flexibility, fluidity…”