The system of the world - By Neal Stephenson Page 0,412

of their battalions. Yet no matter how many documents he perused, or debtors he bought gin for in the sad taverns that competed against cut-rate slaughterhouses and brothels for real estate in the rules, he could only turn up references to the following officials:

A Warden, who had bought the title as a sort of Investment—possibly the most complicated financial security in the history of the world—and who was never there.

A Deputy Warden, who had entered into some manner of indenture with the Warden, so as to shield the Warden from the liability he ought to have incurred whenever a prisoner was found to have escaped—the details made Daniel’s head spin, and were not important—suffice it to say that the arrangement only made sense if the Deputy Warden were essentially no better than an imprisoned debtor himself, so that when any liability fell on him as a result of an escape, he could simply shrug off the now inconvenient title, plead insolvency, and dissolve back into the Fleet’s general population.

A few Tipstaffs, who were officials charged with escorting prisoners to and from the several Courts; these were not resident in the Prison and had no weapons [other than painted staves] and no power to help or hinder Daniel.

A Scavenger, who as far as could be made out was a parasitical species of janitor.

A Crier.

A Chaplain.

Three Turnkeys.

No matter how many times he went over the list, Daniel could not fathom how order could be maintained over a one-acre prison housing, every night, upwards of a thousand men, women, and children, by a staff whose executive arm, as it were, numbered three turnkeys. He would have to go and see it. Anyone could do so; they did not charge a fee for admission, as at Bedlam. Daniel blended in as long as he wore old clothes and did not go around announcing that he was a Lord Regent.

The Fleet presented itself along the bank of the Ditch as a sheer wall, ventilated by a few stoutly gridironed windows where the poor debtors would sit all day long rattling tin cups that they thrust out between the bars. Passers-by could chuck coins into these; but since to be a passer-by meant to stroll along the brink of the Sceptered Isle’s Cloaca Maxima, these were not superabundant. Hooke had wanted to bridge the whole Ditch over, i.e., to bury it. This would have perked up the cup-rattling business no end; but it had not been done.

Next to the poor debtors’ begging-grate was a massive archway tunneling, for an intimidating distance of some forty feet, through this wall of Prison buildings that rose above the Ditch-brink. The tunnel was lined on both sides by stone benches occupied, most of the time, by Disagreeable Persons. In entering this tunnel one crossed over the ancient boundary and so departed, albeit temporarily, from the see of the Bishop of London. Wretched ministers sat here all day long, hoping to earn a shilling or two by performing quick no-questions-asked weddings. The same rite, celebrated a few yards away, would be illegal and illegitimate, but here the Bishop had no power to ban it. There were too many such men of the cloth to fit on the finite bench space under the arch; the more enterprising were all parading up and down the bank of the Fleet hoping to draw in business.

The other people on the bench tended to be male and female prostitutes, or their customers, hoping to conduct business, which was to be negotiated here, and consummated within the Prison.

At a certain point the arched passage was severed by a stone wall no more than about eight feet high, with a row of iron spikes protruding cheerfully from its top. Set into the middle of this was a grated doorway. Anyone could pass in, but only some could pass out. Daniel slowed as he approached this. Peter Hoxton had been acting as a sort of rear-guard, and almost piled into him. “You are permitted to go on,” Saturn pointed out, looking this way and that at the Bench-people. For these had noted Daniel and begun to tender diverse proposals. Daniel ignored him, and them. He was staring at his feet. He flipped his walking-stick around and rapped its massive head against the paving-stones, moved to the side a couple of feet, and did it again. Finally he resolved to go in. But he got into a nasty collision, just before the door, with a young man. It was not