Quicksilver

Daniel glimpsed Hooke stirring up his concoction with a glass rod. “Perhaps he has concocted the Elixir Vitae and is immortal now.”

“Judge not lest ye be judged! I believe that is your third helping of usquebaugh,” Roger said sternly, glaring at the amber dram in front of Daniel. Daniel reached out to guard it in the curled fingers of his left hand.

“I am entirely serious,” Roger continued. “Who looks after him?”

“Why does it matter, as long as someone does?”

“It matters who the someone is,” Roger said. “You told me that when he was a student Newton would lend out money, and keep track of his loans like a Jew!”

“Actually I believe that Christian lenders also prefer to be paid back…”

“Never mind, you know what I mean. In the same way, Daniel, if someone is providing for Newton’s upkeep and maintenance, they may be expecting favors in return.”

Daniel sat up straighter. “You think it’s the esoteric brotherhood.”

Roger raised his eyebrows in a cruel parody of i

“For a while Upnor was trying to get his barbs into Isaac,” Daniel admitted, “but that was a long time ago.”

“Let me remind you that among people who keep track of debts-as opposed to forgiving ’em-‘a long time ago’ means ‘lots and lots of compound interest.’ Now, you told me he vanishes several weeks out of each year.”

“Not necessarily for sinister purposes. He has land in Lincolnshire that needs looking after.”

“ Youmade it sound sinister, when you told me of it.”

Daniel sighed, forsook his dram, clamped his temples between the thumb and fingertips of one hand. All he could see now was his pink palm-cratered from smallpox, now. The disease had converted perhaps a quarter of Tess’s body to pustules, and removed most of the skin from her face and torso, before she’d finally given up the ghost. “To be quite honest with you, I do not care,” he said. “I tried to hold him back. Tried to turn his attention toward astronomy, dynamics, physics-natural philosophy as opposed to u

“You left? Or were ejected?”

“I misspoke.”

“Which time?”

“I meant it in a sort of metaphorical way, when I used the word ‘ejected.’ “

“You are a damned liar, Daniel!”

“What did you say!?”

“Oh, sorry, I was speaking in a sort of metaphorical way.”

“Try to understand, Roger, that the circumstances of my break with Isaac were-are-complicated. As long as I try to express it with a single verb, videlicet, ‘to leave,’ ‘to be ejected,’ I’ll be in some sense a liar, and inasmuch as a liar, damnable.”

“Give me more verbs, then,” said Roger, catching the eye of a serving-girl and giving her a look that meant I have him going now, keep it coming and keep the sleeve-tuggers away from us. Then he leaned forward, looming in an alarming way through the smoke above the table, catching the light of a candle on the underside of his chin. “It is sixteen seventy-six!” Roger thundered. “Leibniz has come to London for the second time! Oldenburg is furious with him because he has failed to bring the digital computer, as promised! Instead Leibniz has devoted the last four years to fooling around with mathematics in Paris! Now he is asking extremely awkward questions about some maths work that Newton did years ago. Something mysterious is afoot-Newton has you, Doctor Waterhouse, copying out papers and encrypting arcane mathematical formulae-Oldenburg is beside himself-Enoch Root is mixed up in it somehow-there are rumors of letters, and even conversations, between Newton and Leibniz. Then Oldenburg dies. Not long afterwards there is a fire in your chambers at Trinity, and many of Newton’s alchemical papers go up in particolored flames. Then you move to London and refuse to say why. What is the correct verb? ‘To leave’ or ‘to be ejected?’ “

“There was simply no room for me there-my bed took up space that could have been used for another furnace.”

“To conspire? To plot?”

“The mercury fumes were making me jumpy.”

“To burn? To torch?”

Daniel now gripped the arms of his chair, threatening to get up and leave. Roger held up a hand. “I’m President of the Royal Society-it is my duty to be curious.”

“I’m Secretary, and it is my duty to hold it all together when the President is being a fool.”

“Better a fool in London than fuel in Cambridge. You will forgive me for wondering what went on.”

“Since you’re pretending to be a Catholic now, you may expect cheap grace from your French priests, but not from me.”

“You are showing the self-righteousness I associated with upright men who’ve secretly done something very wrong-which is not to assert that you have any dark secrets, Daniel, only that you act that way.”

“Does this conversation have any purpose other than to make me want to kill you, Roger?”

“I simply want to know what the hell Newton is doing.”

“Then why harry me with these questions about what happened in ’77?”

Roger shrugged. “You won’t talk about now, so I thought I would try my luck with then. ”

“Why the sudden interest in Isaac?”

“Because of De Motu Corporum in Gyrum. Halley says it is stupendous.”

“No doubt.”

“He says that it is only a sketch for a vast work that is consuming all of Newton’s energies now.”

“I am pleased that Halley has an explanation for the orbit of his comet, and even more pleased that he has taken over responsibility for the care and feeding of Isaac. What do you want of me?”

“Halley is blinded by comet-light,” Roger scoffed. “If Newton decides to work out the mysteries of gravity and of planetary motion then Halley cares not why-he is a happy astronomer! And with Flamsteed around to depress the statistics, we need more happiness in the astronomical profession.”

In a