* A grassy quadrangle surrounded by buildings of Trinity College.
* Pepys being a good example-but he wasn’t there.
* As King Louis XIV had guards dressed as Croats, so Charles might have Poles; any nation whose survival depended on crossing swords with Turks had a fearsome reputation nowadays.
* Which, remember, is one “storey” below the quarterdeck, where Daniel is pretty much giving up on getting any relaxation.
* That is, ahead of them and off to the side from which the wind is blowing-at about ten o’clock.
* At about five o’clock if he were facing toward the bow.
* Mary Beatrice d’Este of Modena; for Anne Hyde had been winched into a double-wide grave two years previously.
* There are thirty-two points on the compass rose.
* Jack could not read but could infer as much from the types of letters used.
* The reason the pikemen didn’t protectively surround the musketeers, instead of being surrounded by them, was that even if the musketeers aimed between them, or over their heads, they would get mowed down by errant balls; because if, as frequently happened, a musket ball was a bit too small for its barrel, it would take to bouncing from one side of the barrel to the other as it was propelled out, and might emerge at a sharp, startling sideways angle.
* It turned out that if you did the mathematicks on a typical war, the cost of powder was more important than just about anything else-Herr Geidel insisted that the gunpowder in the arsenal of Venice, for example, was worth more than the annual revenue of the entire city. This explained a lot of oddness Jack had witnessed in various campaigns and forced him to reconsider (briefly) his opinion that all officers were mad.
* Which Jack could tell by interpreting the coats of arms carved on the gateposts and embroidered on the flags.
* As the trading-houses were called, because important men called factors inhabited and ran them.
* E.g., “Hey, Doc, how many goats were shaved to make that wig?”
* Just guessing, here.
* Which they knew because it bore the trademark of none other than Herr Geidel.
*Faulbaum , the Germans said, meaning “lazy and rotten tree.” They were alders.
* The Doctor: “Actually, it is a helix, not a spiral.”
* Various pieces of evidence suggested to Jack that he’d been sleeping.
* It being one of the many peculiar features of Jack’s upbringing that (1) he had a perpetual sparring partner (Bob)-perpetual in the sense that they slept in the same bed at night and, as brothers do, fought all day-against whom he was evenly matched, and (2) at the age when every boy engages in mock sword-fight, he and Bob happened to suddenly find themselves living in a military barracks, where their duels served as free entertainment for large numbers of men who actually did know a few things about fighting with swords, and who found the entertainment lacking if it was not well played, both in a technical sense (blows had to be delivered and parried in some way that was realistic to their discerning eyes) and in a dramatic sense (extra points scored, and extra food thrown in their direction, for enhancements such as hanging by the knees from joists and fighting upside-down, swinging like apes from ropes, etc.). The result being that from a young age the Shaftoe boys had sword-fighting abilities considerably above their station in life (most people like them never came into contact with a sword at all, unless it was with the edge of the blade in the last instant of their life), but limited to the type of sword called the spadroon-a cut-andthrust weapon-which, they’d been warned, might not be very effective against Gentlemen armed with long slender poky rapiers and trained to insert them deftly through narrow gaps in one’s defenses. The Janissary-blade was a rough Mahometan equivalent of a spadroon, therefore, ideally matched to Jack’s style, or Bob’s for that matter. He waved it around dramatically.
* And of her husband, Duke Ernst August.
* Louis XIV of France.
* William of Orange.
* William of Orange.
* King Louis XIV of France-not really Monmouth’s uncle, but the brother of the widower of the sister of his illegitimate father, as well as the son of the brother of his grandmother, and many other connexions besides.
* A quartering of elements old (fleurs-de-lis, denoting their ancient connections to the royal family) and new (Negro-heads in iron neck-collars).
* It dropped from 572 to 250 when word of Monmouth’s rebellion spread.
* E.g., Nassau, Katsenellenbogen, Dietz, Vianden, Meurs.
* The flying jib downhaul.
* The Duke of Northumbria was the bastard son of Charles II by his mistress Barbara Palmer, nee Villiers, Duchess of Castlemaine.
* The Duke of Richmond was the bastard son of Charles II by his mistress Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth.
* The Duke of St. Alban’s was the bastard son of Charles II by his mistress Nell Gwyn, the nubile comedienne and apple-woman.
*
The name of Hexagram 3 of the I Ching, or 010001, that being the encryption key for the subliminal message embedded in the script of this letter.
*
Darkening of the Light: Hexagram 36 of the I Ching, or 000101.
*
Increase: Hexagram 42 of the I Ching, or 110001.
*
Family: Hexagram 37 of the I Ching, or 110101.
*
Break-through: Hexagram 43 of the I Ching, or 011111.
MEMBERS OF THE NOBILITYwent by more than one name: their family surnames and Christian names, but also their titles. For example, the younger brother of King Charles II had the family name Stuart and was baptized James, and so might be called James Stuart; but for most of his life he was the Duke of York, and so might also be referred to, in the third person anyway, as “York” (but in the second person as “Your Royal Highness”). Titles frequently changed during a person’s lifetime, as it was common during this period for commoners to be ennobled, and nobles of lower rank to be promoted. And so not only might a person have several names at any one moment, but certain of those names might change as he acquired new titles through ennoblement, promotion, conquest, or (what might be considered a combination of all three) marriage.
This multiplicity of names will be familiar to many readers who dwell on the east side of the Atlantic, or who read a lot of books like this. To others it may be confusing or even maddening. The following Dramatis Personae may be of help in resolving ambiguities.
If consulted too early and often, it may let cats out of bags by letting the reader know who is about to die, and who isn’t.
The compiler of such a table faces a problem similar to the one that bedeviled Leibniz when trying to organize his patron’s library. The entries (books in Leibniz’s case, personages here) must be arranged in a linear fashion according to some predictable scheme. Below, they are alphabetized by name. But since more than one name applies to many of the characters, it is not always obvious where the entry should be situated. Here I have sacrificed consistency for ease of use by placing each entry under the name that is most commonly used in the book. So, for example, Louis-Francois de Lavardac, duc d’Arcachon, is under “A” rather than “L” because he is almost always called simply the duc d’Arcachon in the story. But Knott Bolstrood, Count Penistone, is under “B” because he is usually called Bolstrood. Cross-references to the main entries are spotted under “L” and “P,” respectively.