The system of the world - By Neal Stephenson Page 0,105

to mean?”

“What’s the matter, you’re the one who wanted to speak in cyphers.”

“I do read the newspapers,” said Saturn, wounded.

“Have you attended to what goes on in Parliament?”

“A lot of screeching and howling as to whether our next King’s son* ought to be given a hero’s welcome in the House of Lords, or barred from the Realm.”

Daniel chuckled. “You must be a Whig, to refer so confidently to George Louis as our next King.”

“What do I look like to you?” said Saturn, suddenly lowering his voice, and looking about uneasily.

“A Jacobite Tory, dyed in the wool!”

Daniel’s chuckling at his own jest was, for a few moments, the only sound in the room. Then:

“There’ll be no such talk in this house!”

The speaker was a short, stout Welshman with a large jaw. He was wrapped in a bulky and bulging black cloak, as if he’d just come in from outside, and was making a sweep through the parlour on his way back to the kitchen. A brace of empty gin-bottles dangled by their necks between the fingers of his right hand, and a full one was gripped in his left. Daniel assumed the fellow was being wry, and chuckled some more; but the Welshman very deliberately swiveled his head around and gave Daniel a glare that shut him up. Most of the people in the room were now looking their way.

“Your usual, Saturn?” the Welshman said, though he continued to stare fixedly at Daniel.

“Have her bring us coffee, Angus. Gin disagrees with me these days, and as you have perceived, my friend has already drunk one bottle too many.”

Angus turned around and stalked out of the room.

“I am sorry!” Daniel exclaimed. Until moments ago he had felt strangely at home here. Now, he felt more agitated than he had out in the alley.

The wretch on the floor went into a little fit of shuddering, and tried to jerk his unresponsive limbs into a more comfortable lie.

“I assumed—” Daniel began.

“That the words you were using were as alien to this place as the Calculus.”

“Why should the proprietor—I assume that’s what he was—care if I make such a jest—?”

“Because if word gets round that Angus’s ken is a haunt of such persons—”

“Meaning—?”

“Meaning, persons who have secretly vowed that the Hanover shall not be our next King,” Saturn croaked, so quietly that Daniel was forced to read his lips, “and that the Changeling* shall be, why, it shall become self-fulfilling, shall it not? Then such persons—who are always in want of a place to convene, and conspire—will begin to come here.”

“What does it matter!?” Daniel whispered furiously. “The place is filled with criminals to begin with!”

“And that is how Angus likes it, for he is a past master among thief-takers,” Saturn said, his patience visibly dwindling. “He knows how it all works with the Watch, the Constables, and the Magistrates. But if the supporters of the Changeling begin to convene here, why, everything’s topsy-turvy, isn’t it, now the house is a heaven for Treason as well as Larceny, and he’s got the Queen’s Messengers to contend with.”

“I hardly phant’sy the Queen’s Messengers would ever venture into a place like this!” Even Daniel had the wit to mouth the name, rather than speaking it aloud.

“Be assured they would, if treason were afoot here! And Angus would be half-hanged, drawn, and quartered at the Treble Tree, ’long with some gaggle of poxy Jacobite viscounts. No decent end for a simple thief-taker, that.”

“You called him that before.”

“Called him what?”

“A thief-taker.”

“Naturally.”

“But I thought a thief-taker was one who brought thieves to justice, to collect a reward from the Queen. Not a—” But Daniel stopped there, as Peter Hoxton had got a look on his phizz that verged on nausea, and was shaking his head convulsively.

“I see you’ve been sending my coal right up the fucking Chimney!” Angus proclaimed, stalking toward them. He had divested himself of the cloak and the gin-bottles and was now being followed, at a prudent distance, by a Bridewellish-looking girl with a mug of coffee in each hand.

“Rather, providing you with the service of keeping the fire going,” Saturn answered calmly, “at no charge, by the way.”

“I didn’t want it going to begin with!” Angus returned. “ ’Twas that lappy-cull who mewled and pleaded for a bit of warmth! Now you’ve gone and got it going again! There’ll be a charge for that!”

“Of course there will be,” Saturn said.

The coffee was served, and money changed hands, in the form of copper tokens, minutely examined by