The Confusion

Jack sighed. “Do I need to tell you that you’ve been out-voted?”

Moseh flinched. “I never should have given any of you voting privileges…that was never part of the Plan.”

“We’re not putting him in control of the ship,” Jack said, “just allowing him to act as our front here and in Lima. He’ll sail down that-a-way aboard Minerva and sell whatever quicksilver we do not off-load here. At that point, his role in the enterprise is finished. Minerva leaves him on the dock in Lima, rounds Cape Horn, and makes rendezvous with us in Vera Cruz or Havana a year or two later. Edmund de Ath can stay in Peru and try to convert the Incas to ?cumenicism, or he can come back to Mexico…it matters not to us.”

“It matters not to me, for my voyaging days have ended,” said Moseh. “If Edmund de Ath tries to do any mischief I’ll put on my poncho and sombrero and ride north with saddlebags full of silver.”

“Very well,” Jack said, “but first you had better learn how to ride. It is more difficult than pulling on an oar.”

Book 5 The Juncto Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin JULY 1701

“YOUR HIGHNESS, WHEN I WAS a boy-rather younger than you are now, hard as that might be to imagine-I was locked out of a library for a time, and I did not care for it at all,” said the bald man leading the young woman down the gallery. “I pray you understand how it has pained me to have locked you out of yours for the last week-”

“It’s not really mine, is it? The library is the property of Uncle Freddy and Aunt Figgy!”

“But you have made it yours by spending so much time there.”

“While it was closed, you’ve brought me every book I asked for without delay, Doctor. So whyever should I mind?”

“It’s true, Highness, my desire to apologize to you is wholly irrational, Q.E.D.”

“Is it just one of those Barock apologies that courtiers put at the beginnings of letters?”

“I should hope not. An apology may be heartfelt without being rational.”

“Whereas a courtier’s apology is the opposite,” said the Princess, “in that it is insincere but calculated.”

“It is well said-but said too loudly,” answered the proud Doctor. “Your voice carries for a mile down these echoing galleries; and a courtier who has just snatched an indiscretion out of the air will prance about to all the salons like a puppy who has just stolen a drumstick.”

“Then let’s in here, where my voice will be muffled by books, and where courtiers never venture,” answered Caroline, and paused before the doors to the library, waiting for Leibniz to open them for her.

“Now you will see your birthday present, and I hope you like it,” said the Doctor, drawing a key on a blue silk ribbon from his pocket. The key was a rod of steel having a fabulously ornate handle at one end, and at the other, a sort of three-dimensional maze carved into a steel cube. He inserted this into a square hole in the door-lock, wiggled it to and fro to make it one with the mechanism concealed inside, then turned it. Before opening the doors, he removed the key from the lock and hung it on its blue ribbon around the Princess’s neck. “Since you cannot carry your present with you, I hope you’ll carry this key as a token. May you never be locked out again.”

“Thank you, Doctor. When I am Queen of some country or other, I shall build you a library greater than that of Alexandria, and give you a golden key to it.”

“I fear that I shall be too old and blind to make good use of the library-but I shall accept the key with gratitude, and carry it to my grave.”

“That would be irresponsible of you-then no one else would be able to get into the Library!” Caroline answered, with a roll of the eyes, and a sharp sigh of exasperation. “Open the doors, Doctor, I want to see it!”

Leibniz unlatched the double doors, turned around, and backed through them so that he could watch her face. He saw light reflected in her blue eyes: light from high windows all around the room, and from sparking fire-works set in buckets of sand to make it look like one great birthday-cake.