“Is that a Vroom?” asked Peter in Dutch. “She is a beauty.”
“Indeed!” broke in van Hoek, who had been loitering on the edge of the crowd, “she is the last ship that the great Vroom ever designed, and if his Tsarish Majesty would care to-”
“I would,” said Peter, and then he and van Hoek went off ranting in Dutch ship-jargon for some minutes. A lot of throat-clearing and eyebrow-wiggling on Daniel’s part finally penetrated the awareness of van Hoek, who with reluctance brought the Tsar’s attention back round to Daniel.
“Months ago,” Daniel announced, “we set in motion work that has culminated, within the last few days, in the arrival of that Vroom that his Tsarish Majesty is admiring. She brought the gold that is to be used for the completion of the Logic Mill. It is being down-loaded at this very moment…” here Daniel trailed off, for Peter was already bounding across the muck of the yard to intercept one of those burlap bundles. Kikin ran after him, translating as he went, and the rest of the group hustled along behind. Daniel found himself bringing up the rear, alongside Solomon Kohan.
“It is curious,” said Daniel, “that you take so keen an interest in this matter.”
“It is curious,” returned Solomon, “that you incorporate such gold into your device and expect that it shall go unnoticed by the Wise.”
Solomon stared at Daniel with eyes that rarely blinked and that were such a pale gray as to be nearly colorless, though they were rimmed and flecked with black. His features were generally Semitic. This gave Daniel the idea that Monsieur Kohan had been born with dark eyes, befitting his race, but that they had become washed out and faded over time, like garments that have seen too many washings and too much sun. Immersed in that gaze, Daniel felt like a lump of sugar plunged into a stream of warm water. He was at a loss to answer, and so trudged across the churned muck of the yard in silence until he and Solomon had re-joined the group. All were gathered round a bundle that Peter had wrested from a barefoot seaman, thrown down on a barrel-head, and slashed open. The package was perhaps a foot and a half wide, four long, and an inch thick. Peeled bare, it was revealed as a metal plate, scratched and speckled, but unquestionably gold. Solomon muttered something in Hebrew. Peter regarded it with mild curiosity. “He says it looks like any other gold,” Kikin explained.
“As how could it not,” Leibniz said, “as there is no difference-” but here he was cut off by a sudden commotion. Mr. Orney, who as a rule was not the sort of chap one looked to to disrupt any proceedings with spontaneous outbursts, had thrust his way into the middle of the group, gathered up the dangling shreds of burlap, and begun trying to cover up the exposed gold as if it were no less shocking to him than a naked woman. Peter watched the frantic efforts of the Nonconformist with the same hungry curiosity as he applied to everything else, and asked Kikin a question. Kikin explained, gesturing to the scores of fascinated loiterers watching from along the road, from the branches of nearby trees, and from the roofs of houses. Suddenly Peter understood, and looked back at Orney, seeing him in a new light, and comprehending the reason for his pronounced nervousness. The Tsar looked over toward a formation of some two dozen Cossacks who had been prowling around the perimeter of the yard, and shouted some command at them.
“Nyet!” Kikin exclaimed; but the Cossacks were already fanning out towards the road, drawing sabers.
“What did he say?”
“ ‘Kill them all,’ ” Kikin said, and then began trying to explain to the Tsar something complicated that the Tsar was not in any sort of mood to learn about. Anyway, half of his words were drowned out by noises off. Cossacks were at large, and the game was afoot, in Rotherhithe, and the amount of shouting and screaming was prodigious. Peter plainly enough told Kikin to shut up. Kikin looked around pleadingly. Daniel spoke, catching Peter’s eye briefly, afterwards staring at his belt-buckle. “So lax is the treatment of criminals here, and so disorderly is this country as a result, that even if his Tsarish Majesty had brought a whole regiment of Cossacks, and put everyone within a mile radius to the sword, the security of Mr. Orney’s establishment could not be vouchsafed once the sun set, if the gold were known to be here. It must be transported to safekeeping in London. We could summon wagons; or-” and he nodded at the Russian galley.
“The Doctor’s proposal is accepted,” announced Kikin in due course. “Aboard the galley is yet more gold: some to pay Mr. Orney for the ships, provided they pass a thorough inspection, and some to pay the Institute of Technologickal Arts for the next phase of the Logic Mill. All of it must be conveyed safely to various places in London. His Tsarish Majesty has therefore decreed that the special gold from Minerva be transferred into the galley immediately. We shall then set out for London, all of us.”
Van Hoek relayed all of this to his crew. Meanwhile Orney said: “As much as part of me is pleased to see the blood of the Mobile running in the gutters of Rotherhithe, I would respectfully beseech Brother Peter to summon the furry chaps with the sabers back to the confines of my property.”
“It shall be done,” said Kikin after the usual pause; though Daniel thought Peter looked just a bit wounded. But then the Tsar’s face screwed itself around as the result of some sort of neurological cock-up, and the moment passed.
Billingsgate Dock
LATER THAT DAY
PETER SPIED A queue of massive coal-wagons before the steelyard of Billingsgate, and decided that these were a better way to convey tons of gold around London than the frail coaches and sedan chairs scurrying like cockroaches up and down the river’s banks. And so all commerce in fish and coal was suspended for an hour as the galley forced its way into Billingsgate Dock. It was most inadvisable for anyone but a visiting Tsar. Anyone the least bit English-looking would have been torn limb from limb by the fishwives the moment he stepped onto the wharf. Daniel-who did happen to be English-looking-was paralyzed by anxiety throughout this maneuver. But within thirty seconds of the Tsar’s leaping from the gunwale of the galley to the scaly lid of Billingsgate Wharf, he was in the driver’s seat, and holding the reins, of an empty coal-wagon. Its owner, seeing Peter stride toward him, had simply flung the reins at the Tsar’s head and jumped out. Later he tossed the whip up in case Peter had need of it. The fishwives, too, were strangely compliant; they abandoned their stalls and lined up along wharf’s edge to enjoy the spectacle. That, Daniel realized, was what enabled Peter to get away with it: not that he was the Tsar (for no one knew this), but the pageant of his coming. It did not matter how much business these people were losing; any money they made to-day would be spent to-morrow, but this event was one they’d tell tales of for as long as they lived. Moreover, the place was after all a Market, not a Palace, Parliament, College, or Church. Markets drew a particular sort of person, just as those other places drew different sorts. And the sorts who found a market a congenial and rewarding place to be, were those who thought quickly on their feet, and adapted to unlooked-for happenings with facility; they were, in a word, mercurial. The driver of that coal-cart had perhaps ten seconds in which to make up his mind what he ought to do. Yet he had decided. And probably rightly. Daniel noted at least one purse being tossed at him by an aide of the Tsar.
They drove through the streets of London in this wagon, made to carry chalders of coal, now creaking under as great a mass of gold, Cossacks, and Natural Philosophers. The load was lightened somewhat on Threadneedle Street, where the gold that was to pay for the ships was deposited into the vaults of the Bank of England, and credited to an account controlled by Mr. Kikin. After that Daniel was made to sit in the driver’s seat next to Peter, so that he could supply directions to Clerkenwell Court.