“The Dramatis Personae: John Wilkins, Lord Bishop of Chester, and Mr. Samuel Pepys Esquire, Admiral’s Secretary, Treasurer of the Fleet, Clerk of Acts of the Navy Board, deputy Clerk of the Privy Seal, Member of the Fishery Corporation, Treasurer of the Tangier Committee, right-hand-man of the Earl of Sandwich, courtier… am I leaving anything out?”
“Fellow of the Royal Society.”
“Oh, yes… thank you.”
“What said they?”
“First a brief speculation about who was reading your mail…”
“I assume it’s John Comstock. He spied for the King during the Interregnum, why can’t he spy for the King now?”
“Rings true… this led to some double entendres about tender negotiations. Mr. Pepys volunteered-speaking of the King of England, here-‘his feelings for sa soeur are most affectionate, he’s writing many letters to her.’ “
“Well, you know that Minette is in France-”
“Minette?”
“That is what King Charles calls Henrietta Anne, his sister,” Oldenburg explained. “I don’t recommend using that name in polite society-unless you want to move in with me.”
“She’s the one who’s married to the Duc d’Orleans*-?”
“Yes, and Mr. Pepys’s lapsing into French was of course a way of emphasizing this. Pray continue.”
“My Lord Wilkins wondered whether she wrote back, and Pepys said Minette was spewing out letters like a diplomat.”
Oldenburg cringed, and shook his head in dismay. “Very crude work on Mr. Pepys’s part. He was letting it be known that this exchange of letters was some sort of diplomatic negotiation. But he did not need to be so coarse with Wilkins… he must have been tired, distracted…”
“He’d been working late-lots of gold going into the Navy Treasury under cover of darkness.”
“I know it-behold!” Oldenburg said, and, tightening his arm, swung Daniel round so that both of them were looking west, across the Inmost Ward. They were near Salt Tower, which was the southeastern corner of the squarish Tower complex. The southern wall, therefore, stretched away from them, paralleling the river, connecting a row of squat round towers. Off to their right, planted in the center of the ward, was the ancient donjon: a freestanding building called the White Tower. A few low walls partitioned the ward into smaller quadrangles, but from this viewpoint the most conspicuous structure was the great western wall, built strong to resist attack from the always difficult City of London. On the far side of that wall, hidden from their view, a street ran up a narrow defile between it and a somewhat lower outer wall. Stout piles of smoke and steam were building from that street-which was lined with works for melting and working precious metals. It was called Mint Street. “Their infernal hammers keep me awake-the smoke of their furnaces comes in through the embrasures.” Walls hereabouts tended to have narrow cross-shaped arrow-slits called embrasures, which was one of the reasons the Tower made a good prison, especially for fat men.
“So that’s why kings live at Whitehall nowadays-to be upwind of the Mint?” Daniel said jestingly.
On Oldenburg’s face, perfunctory amusement stamped out by pedantic annoyance. “You don’t understand. The Mint’s operations are extremely sporadic-it has been cold and silent for months-the workers idle and drunk.”
“And now?”
“Now they are busy and drunk. A few days ago, as I stood in this very place, I saw a three-master, a man of war, heavily laden, drop anchor just around the river-bend, there. Small boats carrying heavy loads began to put in at the water-gate just there, in the middle of the south wall. On the same night, the Mint came suddenly to life, and has not slept since.”
“And gold began to arrive at the Navy Treasury,” Daniel said, “making much work for Mr. Pepys.”
“Now, let us get back to this conversation you were allowed to hear. How did the Bishop of Chester respond to Mr. Pepys’s rather ham-handed revelations?”
“He said something like, ‘So Minette keeps his Majesty well acquainted with the doings of her beau?’”
“Now whom do you suppose he meant by that?”
“Her husband-? I know, I know-my naivete is pathetic.”
“Philippe, duc d’Orleans, owns the largest and finest collection of women’s underwear in France-his sexual adventures are strictly limited to being fucked up the ass by strapping officers.”
“Poor Minette!”
“She knew perfectly well when she married him,” Oldenburg said, rolling his eyes. “She spent her honeymoon in bed with her new husband’s elder brother: King Louis XIV. That is what Bishop Wilkins meant when he referred to Minette’s beau.”
“I stand corrected.”
“Pray go on.”
“Pepys assured Wilkins that, considering the volume of correspondence, King Charles couldn’t help but be very close to the man in question-an analogy was made to hoops of gold…”
“Which you took to mean, matrimonial bliss?”
“Even I knew what Pepys meant by that, ” Daniel said hotly.
“So did Wilkins, I’m sure-how did he seem, then?”
“Ill at ease-he wanted reassurance that ‘the two arch-Dissenters’ were handling formal contacts.”
“It is a secret-but generally known among the sort who rattle around London in private coaches in the night-time-that a treaty with France is being negotiated by the Earl of Shaftesbury, and His Majesty’s old drinking and whoring comrade, the Duke of Buckingham. Chosen for the job not because they are skilled diplomats but because not even your late father would ever accuse them of Popish sympathies.”
A Yeoman Warder was approaching, making his rounds. “Good evening, Mr. Oldenburg. Mr. Waterhouse.”
“Evening, George. How’s the gout?”
“Better today, thank you, sir-the cataplasm seemed to work-where did you get the receipt from?” George then went into a rote exchange of code-words with another Beefeater on the roof of Salt Tower, then reversed direction, bade them good evening, and strolled away.
Daniel enjoyed the view until he was certain that the only creature that could overhear them was a spaniel-sized raven perched on a nearby battlement.
Half a mile upstream, the river was combed, and nearly dammed up, by a line of sloppy, boat-shaped, man-made islands, supporting a series of short and none too ambitious stone arches. The arches were joined, one to the next, by a roadway, made of wood in some places and of stone in others, and the roadway was mostly covered with buildings that sprayed in every direction, cantilevered far out over the water and kept from falling into it by makeshift diagonal braces. Far upstream, and far downstream, the river was placid and sluggish, but where it was forced between those starlings (as the man-made islands were called), it was all furious. The starlings themselves, and the banks of the Thames for miles downstream, were littered with wreckage of light boats that had failed in the attempt to shoot the rapids beneath London Bridge, and (once a week or so) with the corpses and personal effects of their passengers.
A few parts of the bridge had been kept free of buildings so that fires could not jump the river. In one of those gaps a burly woman stopped to fling a jar into the angry water below. Daniel could not see it from here, but he knew it would be painted with a childish rendering of a face: this a charm to ward off witch-spells. The water-wheels constructed in some of those arch-ways made gnashing and clanking noises that forced Waterhouse and Oldenburg, half a mile away, to raise their voices slightly, and put their heads closer together. Daniel supposed this was no accident-he suspected they were coming to a part of the conversation that Oldenburg would rather keep private from those sharp-eared Beefeaters.