So now there was a second awkward silence. The harpooneer was still standing in the doorway, in a deflated posture. His beard was almost as long as that of Solomon Kohan. One of his arms had been truncated near the elbow and enhanced with a prosthesis, which looked heavy.
“It is him,” cried Mr. Kikin, “Yevgeny the Raskolnik! Where is my bodyguard when finally I need him!?”
“You do not need him, sir,” said Saturn, stepping over the table, and reaching down to grip the shaft of the harpoon, “for as a long-time resident of Hockley-in-the-Hole, I take it as a personal affront that such incivility has been shown to our guest.” He jerked the harpoon-shaft free from its steel head, which was going to remain embedded in the table for a long time. “I do view it as a personal obligation to now stave in the head of this Yevgeny.” Saturn took a step towards the door, and Yevgeny took a step back, to get out in the clear and gain some melee-room; but Saturn’s attack was arrested when a hand even larger than his closed over the harpoon-staff, and took it from him. “Your willingness is duly noted by his Tsarish Majesty,” Kikin explained in a hurry, “but the conflict is strictly a Russians-versus-Russians sort of affair, most difficult to explain, and honor dictates that it be settled without em-broiling our gracious hosts. Pray be seated and talk amongst yourselves.” And he rushed out the door in pursuit of the Tsar.
Further developments were obscured by the crowd that gathered instantly around any conflict in this district, be it bulls vs. terriers or Tsars vs. Raskolniks. Out the window they could see only a lot of blokes’ backs. Owing to the exceptional height of the combatants, they were from time to time able to glimpse a whirling quarter-stave, a hurtling flail, or a spray of blood silhouetted against the sky. But for the most part the progress of the duel had to be guessed at from watching the spectators, who moved in curious sympathy with the combatants. In much the same way as a man playing at lawn-bowls will twist and lean his body this way and that, as if he could thereby influence the course of a ball that has already left his hand, so those fight-watchers, almost in unison, juked and jived their shoulders and pelvises this way and that as they saw an opportunity to strike a blow, or cringed, smarted, and groaned when one was struck.
Saturn had been quite let down when Peter had disarmed him and gone forth into the fray. He did not recover for a minute or so; then, bewitched by the eldritch sympathy that conjoined all of the spectators, he squared his shoulders and headed for the exit, saying: “It has been great fun having the Tsar here incognito, but I suppose it was inevitable that word would get out and that this sort of thing would start to happen.”
Of the group who’d been sitting round the table, the only ones now left were Daniel, Isaac, Leibniz, and (in the corner, a bit removed from the others) Solomon Kohan. The table itself, of course, was still resting on one edge.
“Had I not heard it direct from the Tsar,” said Isaac to Daniel, “I could never have credited such a conceit: that, after all that has passed between us-”
“All that has passed between me and you, Isaac, is as nothing compared against the doings and machinations and skullduggery attending the damned gold. As to myself, I no longer give a fig where it goes. I would have been happy to give it all to you, until a few hours ago, for I phant’sied you were the only man on earth who knew of it, or cared.”
“And what has changed so much in the last few hours?” Isaac asked, quite shocked.
“There is now, in the Ointment, not merely a Fly, but a Praying Mantis,” said Daniel, nodding in the direction of the Peter-melee, “and one equipped with a mind that is excellent, not only by the standards of Mantises, but of men. He has claimed the Solomonic Gold. I am sorry.”
Daniel now gave a few moments’ thought to whether he should try to introduce Solomon, and how; but Isaac had got to his feet and stalked away. As Isaac went out the tavern-door he brushed past a chap who was coming in. Though this was not the most noble person who had ever set foot in the establishment (an honor that would have to go to Peter, or-who knows?-Solomon), he was unquestionably the best-dressed, and identifiable, from a thousand yards, as a courtier. Daniel, pent up behind the table, waved one arm in the air until he got the attention of the newcomer, who approached, looking befuddled. “Was that-?”
“Sir Isaac Newton? Yes. Daniel Waterhouse at your service.”
“Frightfully sorry to intrude,” said the courtier, “but word has reached the Household that an Important Man has come to London incognito.”
“It is true.”
“From Muscovy, ’tis said.”
“Also true.”
“The Lady of said Household is deathly ill. On her behalf, I have come to greet the said Gentleman, and to observe the requisite formalities.”
Daniel nodded out the window toward the melee. “As we say in Boston: get in line.”
“Look for the chap in the sable hat,” said Leibniz in French, “that is the chamberlain, you may take it up with him.”
The courtier bowed and left.
“As may be obvious,” Leibniz said, “my coming to London was brought about by force majeure, and was not part of any coherent plan. But as long as I am here, I thought I might stay on a bit, and try to patch matters up with Newton.”
“Then I am sorry to tell you,” Daniel said, “that your timing could not have been worse, for this matter of the gold will make it all much more complicated than you appreciate.”
He was afraid he would now have to enter into discussion of Alchemy; but Leibniz nodded and said, “I knew a gentleman in Leipzig, also very interested in this gold.”
“The heavy gold is of great political importance here, in that it could mean the difference between Newton’s surviving a Trial of the Pyx, or not.” And here he was forced to explain a great deal concerning Jack the Coiner, Bolingbroke, and the Clubb.
On balance, Leibniz seemed to take it as good news: “It sounds as if this difficulty can be cleared up, then. If this deal that you negotiated with Jack goes through as planned, Newton shall get what he requires to survive the Trial of the Pyx; and if not, why, how difficult can it possibly be to track down this gang of coiners when Newton, Waterhouse, and Leibniz are numbered among the thief-takers, and when two of the master-criminals-Edouard de Gex and Yevgeny the Thief-taker-have recently been slain in brawls?” For it was plain that the melee outside was over, and if the Tsar had lost, they probably would have heard about it by now.
“I find it difficult to believe, Gottfried, that, at this point in your career, what you really want to do is hang around the worst parts of London pursuing a band of criminals.”