“Yes-but he needn’t know what is being planned, or when. We need only manipulate his mental state, so that he has reason to believe that V.O.C. shares are soon to rise.”

“And-as I’m now beginning to understand-you are something of a virtuoso when it comes to manipulating men’s mental states,” Monmouth said.

“You make it sound ever so much more difficult than it really is,” Eliza answered. “Mostly I just sit quietly and let the men manipulate themselves.”

“Well, if that’s all for now,” Monmouth said, “I feel a powerful urge to go and practice some self-manipulation in private-unless-?”

“Not today, your grace,” Eliza said, “I must pack my things. Perhaps I’ll see you in Amsterdam?”

“Nothing could give me greater pleasure.”

But know that in the Soule

Are many lesser Faculties that serve

Reason as chief; among these Fansie next

Her office holds; of all external things,

Which the five watchful Senses represent,

She forms Imaginations, Aerie shapes,

Which Reason joyning or disjoyning, frames

All what we affirm or what deny, and call

Our knowledge or opinion; then retires

Into her private Cell when Nature rests.

Oft in her absence mimic Fansie wakes

To imitate her; but misjoyning shapes,

Wilde work produces oft, and most in dreams,

Ill matching words and deeds long past or late.

-MILTON,Paradise Lost

JACK RODE BETWEENPARISand Lyons several times in the early part of 1685, ferrying news. Paris: the King of England is dead! Lyons: some Spanish governorships in America are up for sale. Paris: King Looie has secretly married Mademoiselle de Maintenon, and the Jesuits have his ear now. Lyons: yellow fever is slaying mine-slaves by the thousands in Brazil-the price of gold ought to rise.

It was disconcertingly like working for someone-just the sort of arrangement he’d given up, long ago, as being beneath his dignity. It was, to put it more simply, too much like what Bob did. So Jack had to keep reminding himself that he was not actually doing it, but pretending to do it, so that he could get his horse ready to sell-then he would tell these bankers to fuck themselves.

He was riding back toward Paris from Lyons one day-an unseasonably cold day in March-when he encountered a column of three score men shuffling toward him. Their heads were shaved and they were dressed in dirty rags-though most had elected to tear up whatever clothes they had, and wrap them around their bleeding feet. Their arms were bound behind their backs and so it was easy to see their protruding ribs, mottled with sores and whip-marks. They were accompanied by some half-dozen mounted archers who could easily pick off stragglers or runaways.

In other words, just another group of galley slaves on their way down to Marseille. But these were more miserable than most. Your typical galley slave was a deserter, smuggler, or criminal, hence young and tough. A column of such men setting out from Paris in the winter might expect to lose no more than half its number to cold, disease, starvation, and beatings along the way. But this group-like several others Jack had seen recently-seemed to consist entirely of old men who had no chance whatever of making it to Marseille-or (for that matter) to whatever inn their guards expected to sleep in tonight. They were painting the road with blood as they trudged along, and they moved so slowly that the trip would take them weeks. But this was a journey you wanted to finish in as few days as possible.

Jack rode off to the side and waited for the column to pass him by. The stragglers were tailed by a horseman who, as Jack watched, patiently uncoiled his nerf du boeuf, whirled it round his head a time or two (to make a scary noise and build up speed), and then snapped it through the air to bite a chunk out of a slave’s ear. Extremely pleased with his own prowess, he then said something not very pleasant about the R.P.R. Which made everything clear to Jack, for R.P.R. stood for Religion Pretendue Reformee, which was a contemptuous way of referring to Huguenots. Huguenots tended to be prosperous merchants and artisans, and so naturally if you gave them the galley slave treatment they would suffer much worse than a Vagabond.

Only a few hours later, watching another such column go by, he stared right into the face of Monsieur Arlanc-who stared right back at him. He had no hair, his cheeks were grizzly and sucked-in from hunger, but Monsieur Arlanc it was.

There was nothing for Jack to do at the time. Even if he’d been armed with a musket, one of the archers would’ve put an arrow through him before he could reload and fire a second ball. But that evening he circled back to an inn that lay several miles south of where he’d seen Monsieur Arlanc, and bided his time in the shadows and the indigo night for a few hours, freezing in clouds of vapor from the nostrils of his angry and uncomfortable horses, until he was certain that the guards would be in bed. Then he rode up to that inn and paid a guard to open the gate for him, and rode, with his little string of horses, into the stable-yard.

Several Huguenots were just standing there, stark naked, chained together in the open. Some jostled about in a feeble effort to stay warm, others looked dead. But Monsieur Arlanc was not in this group. A groom shot back a bolt on a stable door and allowed Jack to go inside, and (once Jack put more silver in his pocket) lent him a lantern. There Jack found the rest of the galley slaves. Weaker ones had burrowed into piles of straw, stronger ones had buried themselves in the great steaming piles of manure that filled the corners. Monsieur Arlanc was among these. He was actually snoring when the light from Jack’s lantern splashed on his face.

Now the next morning, Monsieur Arlanc set out with his column of fellow-slaves, not very well-rested, but with a belly full of cheese and bread, and a pair of good boots on his feet. Jack meanwhile rode north with his feet housed in some wooden shoes he’d bought from a peasant.

He’d been ready and willing to gallop out of there with Arlanc on one of the spare horses, but the Huguenot had calmly and with the most admirable French logic explained why this would not work: “The other slaves will be punished if I am found missing in the morning. Most of them are my co-religionists and might accept this, but others are common criminals. In order to prevent it, these would raise the alarm.”

“I could just kill ’em,” Jack pointed out.

Monsieur Arlanc-a disembodied, candlelit head resting on a great misty dung-pile-got a pained look. “You would have to do so one at a time. The others would raise the alarm. It is most gallant of you to make such an offer, considering that we hardly know each other. Is this the effect of the English Pox?”

“Must be,” Jack allowed.

“Most unfortunate,” Arlanc said.

Jack was irritated to be pitied by a galley slave. “Your sons-?”

“Thank you for asking. When le Roi began to oppress us-”

“Who the hell is Leroy?”

“The King, the King!”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“I smuggled them to England. And what of your boys, Jack?”

“Still waiting for their legacy,” Jack said.

“Did you manage to sell your ostrich plumes?”

“I’ve got some Armenians on it.”

“I gather you have not parted with the horse yet-”

“Getting him in shape.”

“To impress the brokers?”

“Brokers! What do I want with a broker? It’s to impress the customers. ”

Arlanc’s head moved in the lantern-light as if he were burrowing into the manure-Jack realized he was shaking his head in that annoying way that he did when Jack had blurted out something foolish. “It is not possible,” Arlanc said. “The horse trade in Paris is absolutely controlled by the brokers-a Vagabond can no more ride in and sell a horse at the Place Royale than he could go to Versailles and get command of a regiment-it is simply not done. ”