The Confusion

“Difficult to say-your highness shall have many distractions. But I hope I am not being too forward in saying that I should be honored to receive a letter from your highness at any time, if you should wish to inquire about the state of the Logic Mill. Or, for that matter, if I may be of service to your highness in any other way whatsoever!”

“I promise you, Dr. Waterhouse, that if any such occasion arises, I shall send you a letter.”

As best he could in a moving carriage, Daniel-who had sat up admirably straight all through the interview-bowed. “And I promise your highness that I shall respond-cheerfully and without a moment’s hesitation.”

A House Overlooking the Meuse Valley APRIL 1696

BEFORE THE MANOR-HOUSE’S GATES, two equestrians parleyed: a stout, peg-legged Englishman in a coat that had been drab, before it had got so dirty, and a French cavalier. They were ignored by two hundred gaunt, shaggy men with shovels and picks, who were turning the house’s formal garden into a system of earthen fortifications with interlocking fields of fire.

The Englishman spoke French in theory, but perhaps not so well in practice. “Where are we?” he wanted to know, “I can’t make out if this is France, the Spanish Netherlands, or the Duchy of bloody Luxembourg.”

“Your men appear to believe it is part d’Angleterre!” said the cavalier reproachfully.

“Perhaps they are confused because an Englishman is said to reside here,” said the other. He gave the Frenchman an anxious look. “This is-is it not-the winter quarters of Count Sheerness?”

“Monsieur le comte de Sheerness has chosen to establish a household here. During intervals between campaigns, he withdraws to this place to recover his health, to read, hunt, play the harpsichord-”

“And dally with his mistress?”

“Men of France have been known to enjoy the company of women; we do not consider it a remarkable thing. Otherwise I should have appended it to the list.”

“But what I’m getting at is: There is a feminine presence here? Maids and whatnot?”

“There was, when I went out this morning to ride. Whether there is any more, I can only speculate, Monsieur Barnes, as the place has been invested, and I cannot get into it!”

“Pity, that. Say, monsieur, do tell me, is this French soil or not?”

“Like a banner in the wind, the border is ever-shifting. The soil we stand upon is not presently claimed by La France, unless le Roi has issued some new proclamation of which I have not been made aware yet.”

“Ah, that’s good-these chaps have not invaded France, then-now, that would be embarrassing.”

“Monsieur. There are some commanders in some armies who would find it embarrassing that two entire companies of their Regiment had deserted and wandered thirty miles from their assigned quarters and laid siege to the country house of a nobleman!”

“I believe it is now you and I who are laying siege to them,” observed Barnes, “as they are on the inside, and we on the out!”

The cavalier did not take the jest very well. “In wartime there are always deserters and foraging-parties. For this reason Monsieur le comte de Sheerness left orders, when he went to Londres, that musketeers were to be billeted in the stables, and the perimeters of the estate were to be patrolled night and day. In recent days these sentries have reported seeing more strange men than usual about the place, which I attributed to the spring thaw; I assumed, as anyone would, that they were French soldiers who had deserted from some regiment on the Namur front that had disintegrated from pestilence or want of food. Indeed, when I went out riding this morning, I had it in mind that when I returned to the house I ought to send word to a company of cavalry that is billeted some miles to the north, and ask that they ride down to round up a few of these deserters and hang them. Never did it enter my mind that they might be Englishmen until I was out for a gallop in a pasture down the road, and came upon a whole nest of them, and heard them talking in their jabber. I rode back to the house to find that, in my absence, upwards of a hundred men had emerged suddenly from the wooded ravines that lead down to the Meuse, and taken the estate in a coup de main! As I looked on in astonishment, the number doubled! I was going to ride north to summon help, but-”

“The roads had been blocked,” said Barnes. “And then haply I came along. Thank God! For there is still time to prevent this from developing into some sort of an incident.”

The cavalier’s eyebrows leapt up so high as to almost disappear beneath the verge of his periwig. “Monsieur! It is already an incident! Under no circumstances do the rules of war allow such a thing as this!”