“It is universally known, among the Quality.”
“That may be. But it is known among you, and me, and a few other people, that bags were made up, containing powder that was ground fine.”
Coincidentally or not, Daniel had reached the point of complete nakedness as he was saying these words. He had a pair of drawers on; but Roger tossed him fresh ones, and averted his gaze. “Daniel! I cannot bear to see you in this state, nor can I listen to any more of your needling suspicious discourse. I will turn my back on you, and talk for a while. When I turn round again, I will behold a new man, as well informed as he is attired.”
“Very well, I suppose I’ve very little choice.”
“None whatsoever. Now, Daniel. You saw me grinding the powder fine, and putting it into the bag, and there is no point in denying it. No doubt you think the worst of me, as has been your wont since we first studied together at Trinity. Have you stopped to ask yourself, how a man in my position could possibly manage to introduce bags of powder into the magazines of a ship of the Royal Navy? Quite obviously it is impossible. Someone else must have done it. Someone with a great deal more power and reach than I can even dream of possessing.”
“The Duke of Gunfl-”
“Silence. Silence! And in silence ponder the similitudes between cannons and mouths. The simpleton beholds a cannon and phant’sies it an infallible destroyer of foes. But the veteran artilleryman knows that sometimes, when a cannon speaks, it bursts. Especially when it has been loaded in haste. When this occurs, Daniel, the foe is untouched. He may sense a distant gaseous exhalation, not puissant enough to ruffle his periwig. The eager gunner, and all his comrades, are blown to bits. Ponder it, Daniel. And for once in your life, show a trace of discretion. It does not really matter what the gentleman’s name was who was responsible for causing those cannons to burst. What matters is that I had no idea what I was doing. What do I, of all people, know about naval artillery? All I knew was this: I met certain gentlemen at the Royal Society. Presently they became aware that I worked in Newton’s laboratory as an assistant. One of them approached me and asked if I might do him a favor. Nothing difficult. He wanted me to grind up some gunpowder very fine and deliver it to him in wee bags. This I did, as you know. I made up half a dozen of those bags over the course of a year. One of them blew up on the spot, thanks to you. Of the other five, I now know that one was smuggled into the ‘Siege of Maestricht,’ where it caused a cannon to explode in full view of half of London. The other four went to the Royal Navy. One was detected by Richard Comstock, who sent it to his father. One exploded a cannon during a naval engagement against the Dutch. The other two have since found their way into David Jones’s Magazine. As to my culpability: I did not understand until recently why the gentleman in question had made such an odd request of me. I did not know, when I was filling those bags, that they would be used to do murder.”
Daniel, snaking his limbs through new clothes, believed every word of this. He had long ago lost count of Roger’s moral lapses. Roger, he suspected, had broken as many of the ten commandments and committed as many of the seven deadly sins as it was in his power to do, and was actively seeking ways to break and commit those he had not yet ticked off the list. This had nothing to do with Roger’s character. Someone was responsible for blowing up those poor gunners, as a ploy to dishonor the Earl of Epsom: as vile an act as Daniel could imagine. Thomas More Anglesey, Duke of Gunfleet, or one of his sons must have been at the head of the conspiracy, for as Roger had pointed out, Roger couldn’t have done it all himself. The only question then was whether Roger had understood what was being done with those powder-bags. The Angleseys would never have told him, and so he’d have had to figure it out on his own. And Roger’s career at Trinity gave no grounds to expect dazzling flashes of insight.
Believing in Roger’s innocence lifted from Daniel’s shoulders an immense weight that he had not been sensible of until it was gone. This felt so good that it triggered a few moments of Puritanical self-examination. Anything that felt so good might be a trick of the devil. Was he only feigning trust in Roger, because it felt good?
“How can you go on associating with those people when you know the atrocious thing they have done?”
“I was going to ask you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You have been associating with them since the Plague Year, Daniel, at every meeting of the Royal Society.”
“But I did not know they were doing murder!”
“On the contrary, Daniel, you have known it ever since that night at Trinity twelve years ago when you watched Louis Anglesey murder one of your brethren.” Had he been a rather different sort of chap, Roger might have mentioned this in a cruelly triumphant way. Had he been Drake, he’d have said it sadly, or angrily. But being Roger Comstock, he proffered it as a witticism. He did it so well that Daniel let out a wee snort of amusement before coming to his senses and stifling himself.
The terms of the transaction finally were clear. Why did Daniel refuse to hate Roger? Not out of blindness to Roger’s faults, for he saw Roger’s moral cowardice as clearly as Hooke peering through a lens at a newt. Not out of Christian forgiveness, either. He refused to hate Roger because Roger saw moral cowardice in Daniel, had done so for years, and yet did not hate Daniel. Fair’s fair. They were brothers.
As much as he had to ponder in the way of moral dilemmas vis-a-vis Roger, ’twas as nothing compared to half an hour later, when Daniel emerged, booted, bewigged, cravated, and jacketed, and equipped with a second-hand watch that Roger somehow begged off of Hooke, and climbed into the coach. For one of the women in there was Tess Charter. Thump.
When she and the other woman were finished laughing at the look on Daniel’s face, she leaned forward and got her fingers all entangled with his. She was shockingly and alarmingly alive -somewhat more alive, in fact, than he was. She looked him in the eyes and spoke in her French accent: “Twooly, Daniel, eet eez ze hrole of a lifetime-portraying ze mistress of a gentlemen who eez too pure-too spiritual-to sink zee thoughts of zee flesh.” Then a middling London accent. “But really I prefer the challenging parts. The ability to do them’s what separates me from Nell Gwyn.”
“I wonder what separates the King from Nell Gwyn?” said the other woman.
“Ten inches of sheepgut with a knot in one end-if the King knows what’s good for him!” Tess returned. Thump.
This led to more in a similar vein. Daniel turned to Roger, who was sitting next to him, and said, “Sir! What on earth makes you believe I wish to appear to have a mistress?”
“Who said anything about appearing to have one?” Roger answered, and when Daniel didn’t laugh, gathered himself up and said, “Poh! You could no more show up at Whitehall without a mistress, than at a duel without a sword! Come, Daniel! No one will take you seriously! They’ll think you’re hiding something!”
“And that he is-though none too effectively,” Tess said, eyeing a new convexity in Daniel’s breeches.
“I loved your work in The Dutch Strumpet, ” Daniel tried, weakly.
Thus, down London Wall and westwards, ho!-Daniel’s every attempt to say anything serious pre-empted by a courtly witticism-more often than not, so bawdy he didn’t even understand it, any more than Tess would understand the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Every jest followed by exaltations of female laughter and then a radical, and completely irrational, change in subject.