“I know that there is a-”
Daniel had been about to say superstition. “-a tradition that it is unlucky to have a woman aboard ship.”
Van Hoek considered it. Van Hoek considered everything, which made it difficult to engage him in idle chitchat. “The first woman who spent any amount of time aboard this ship was Elizabeth de Obregon, whom we salvaged from the wrack of the Manila Galleon at the same time as him who burned it, one Edouard de Gex.”
“He’s dead, by the way.”
“Again? I am glad to hear it. After that voyage, we did come in to some bad luck, to be sure; but I would have to be some sort of imbecile to blame it on the lady de Obregon, when the cause was obviously the malice and cunning of de Gex.”
“That is just,” Daniel said. “So you are not a believer that women are bad luck on a ship?”
“Such a belief would be difficult to reconcile with the well-established record of success of the Malabar pirate-queen.”
“And yet it made you uneasy to have Princess Caroline aboard. But I suppose there were other reasons for that. From the sounds of it, the Navy was after her.”
“We had been tarrying in certain coves and inlets of Essex, frequented by smugglers-”
“I know those coves well,” said Daniel with a smile, “it is where my father made his fortune.”
“On the night of the 28th we received word that it was safe for us to enter the Thames-for the information that the Whigs were gaining the upper hand had been transmitted from London, at great speed, by signal-fires. I felt confident of this, or I should never have approached the Nore in the first place. When I spied that Navy brig harrying that sloop, I guessed that her skipper simply had not received word of the changes that were afoot in London. And indeed, as we made our way upriver with the Princess, we presently saw more than one Navy ship flying an ensign bearing the arms of Lord Berkeley-a Whig.”
“And yet still you were glad to get her off your ship.”
“Certain cargo is more trouble than it can possibly be worth,” said van Hoek, and turned away from Daniel to regard Minerva. Cranes and windlasses were at work hoisting stout boxes of round river-rocks and cannonballs out of her bilge.
“You are not speaking only of Princesses, I detect,” Daniel said.
“It was only meant to act as a sort of buffer, to see us through lean times,” van Hoek said. “As a merchant keeps silver plate in his home, which may be melted down and coined when liquidity is wanted, so we have had those gold plates in our bilge. Not a single Customs inspector has ever suspected they were there. Most of our seamen do not even know. From time to time we would coin a little. I had no inkling we were in such peril.”
“The only reason it was dangerous was that the Master of our Mint has an especial interest in this type of gold. As long as you did not coin it, you were safe. But to strike even one guinea and place it into circulation was like firing a pistol into the air in a church.”
“Before he was arrested, Dappa said you had devised some scheme whereby we could extract the value of this gold without coining it,” van Hoek said, “but beyond that, his discourse became murky. I thought I should hear the story from him during the passage to Boston; but of course we were forced to flee without him.”
“Briefly, we have a buyer in Muscovy who will buy the gold from us, once we have altered its form in a particular way.”
“You are going to make something out of it?”
“Yes, and then he will buy that something, and pay for it in ordinary gold. Or such was the plan, on the day Dappa was kidnapped, and you sailed for Boston.”
“Do you mean to say there is a new plan now?” asked van Hoek, and made a deep gouge in the crate-lid.
“There might be,” Daniel said. “Your erstwhile partner-”
“Jack?”
“Jack. Jack seems to have struck a deal with the Master of the Mint. Perhaps the danger I spoke of has passed. It might not be necessary to ship this gold-” and Daniel nodded at Minerva “-to Muscovy after all.”
“It is of no account to me whether the Tsar or the Master buys it from me, provided we get the cursed stuff off our ship,” van Hoek said, “but you had best make up your mind quickly.” He had turned his gaze toward the river. Daniel turned around to espy a many-oared vessel crawling across the water, bearing directly for Orney’s wharf.
“That is a very odd thing to see on the Thames,” Daniel remarked. “What flag does she fly?” For van Hoek had unlimbered his prospective-glass.
“The double eagle. She is a war-galley of the Russian Navy,” van Hoek said. Then, after a moment’s pause, he laughed at the absurdity of such a thing.
“Come to collect the three warships that Mr. Orney has been building,” Daniel surmised. “A great day for Mr. Orney!”
“And for Dr. Waterhouse?”
“It is all good. This is as I have expected.”
“You do not say that with as much sincerity as I would like.”
“I am not insincere, but distracted. Much has happened in recent days. The matter is far more complex than I have let on.”
“Stab me! They do grow them big in Russia.”
“What do you mean?”
“That man on the poop deck! If the others around him are of normal stature, then that is the biggest man I have ever seen. How he towers over that poor man who is getting the noogies!”
“You have me at a disadvantage. May I-?”
With some reluctance van Hoek handed over the perspective glass. Daniel found a place where he could brace it against the side of a piling, and arranged it so that he could get a view of the on-coming galley. She was still a bow-shot away from Orney’s wharf; the oars continued to pulse, but more and more slowly as she lined up for the last few strokes. Daniel found the poop deck, which was exceptionally high, as was common with military galleys. Right away he saw the man van Hoek had been talking about. To judge his height rightly was made difficult by the presence of several dwarves around him. But there were some who seemed to be of normal stature: one pacing along the rail wearing an admiral’s hat, after the French style. An old man with a long gray beard and a bald head protected under a dome of black felt. And a third about whose neck the tall man had wrapped one arm. Only the top of his bald pate was visible, as the giant had him bent forward in a headlock, and was rubbing the knuckles of his other hand over the poor fellow’s skull. The broad grin on the giant’s face, and the glee on the dwarves’ faces, suggested it was all in good fun; the way that the victim hopped from toe to toe, and flailed his hands around, suggested he took a different view. Finally the big fellow released him, for the galley was now manuvering to the wharf, and passing between a pair of brand-new frigates riding at anchor before Orney’s, which he seemed to find interesting. The victim scurried over and snatched up his periwig, then straightened his posture (slowly and judiciously, for he was an old man) and placed the adornment on his head. Not until he had patted it into place was Daniel able to focus distinctly on his face.
Daniel sighed.
“What is it?” van Hoek asked.
“Everything has suddenly become very complicated.”
“I thought you said it was complicated before.”
“Yes, I rather thought it was-before His Imperial Majesty Peter the Great showed up with Baron von Leibniz.”
“That is the Tsar?”
“So I am guessing.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I know not. But he is attired as a mere gentleman, with a black sash, hence incognito.”
“Perhaps he has been routed by the Swedes, and fled here to exile.”
“It does not have that air about it. A vanquished refugee does not show up attended by Dwarves and Philosophers.”
“Why’s he here, then?”
“I hope it is a whim.”
“Why?”
“Because if it is not a whim, then it probably has something to do with me.”
“I REGRET THAT I missed the funeral of Sophie,” said Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. He had been on English soil for about an hour. Leibniz had never been precisely handsome, and never would be. But in the years since Daniel had last seen him, he had developed creases in his face, and shadows that went with his dark eyes, and (once he had put his wig on, and covered up the Tsar’s knuckle-prints) at least made him look serious and formidable.