But if Daniel had held a mirror up to his own face he’d have seen just the same evolution.

He was one of them. Not as powerful, not as highly ranked-in fact, completely unranked-but he was here, now, and for these people that was the only sort of rank that amounted to anything. To be here, to smell the place, to bow to the mistresses, was a sort of initiation. Drake would have said that merely to set foot in such people’s houses and show them common courtesy was to be complicit in their whole system of power. Daniel and most others had scoffed at such rantings. But now he knew it was true, for when the Countess had acknowledged his presence and known his name, Daniel had felt important. Drake-if he’d had a grave-would have rolled over in it. But Drake’s grave was the air above London.

An ancient ceiling beam popped as the Palace was hit by another gust.

The Countess was favoring Daniel with a knowing smile. Daniel had had a mistress, and Miss Sedley knew it: the incomparable Tess Charter, who had died of smallpox five years ago. Now he didn’t have a mistress, and Catherine Sedley probably knew that, too.

He had slowed almost to a stop. Steps rushed toward him from behind and he cringed, expecting a hand on his shoulder, but two courtiers, then two more-including Pepys-divided around him as if he were a stone in a stream, then converged on a large Gothic door whose wood had turned as gray as the sky. Some protocol of knocking, throat-clearing, and doorknob-rattling got underway. The door was opened from inside, its hinges groaning like a sick man.

St. James’s was in better upkeep than Whitehall, but still just a big old house. It was quite a bit shabbier than Comstock/Anglesey House. But that House had been brought down. And what had brought it down had not been revolution, but the movings of markets. The Comstocks and Angleseys had been ruined, not by lead balls, but by golden coins. The neighborhood that had been built upon the ruins of their great House was now crowded with men whose vaults were well-stocked with that kind of ammunition.

To mobilize those forces, all that was needed was some of that kingly ability to decide, and to act.

He was being beckoned forward. Pepys stepped toward him, holding out one hand as if to take Daniel’s elbow. If Daniel were a Duke, Pepys would be offering sage advice to him right now.

“What should I say?” Daniel asked.

Pepys answered immediately, as if he’d been practicing the answer for three weeks in front of a mirror. “Don’t fret so much over the fact that the Duke loathes and fears Puritans, Daniel. Think instead of those men that the Duke loves: Generals and Popes.”

“All right, Mr. Pepys, I am thinking of them… and it is doing me no good.”

“True, Roger may have sent you here as a sacrificial lamb, and the Duke may see you as an assassin. If he does, then any attempt you make to sweeten and dissemble will be taken the wrong way. Besides, you’re no good at it.”

“So… if my head’s to be removed, I should go lay my head on the chopping-block like a man…”

“Belt out a hymn or two! Kiss Jack Ketch and forgive him in advance. Show these fops what you’re made of.”

“Do you really think Roger sent me here to…”

“Of course not, Daniel! I was being jocular. ”

“But there is a certain tradition of killing the messenger.”

“Hard as it might be for you to believe, the Duke admires certain things about Puritans: their sobriety, their reserve, their flinty toughness. He saw Cromwell fight, Daniel! He saw Cromwell mow down a generation of Court fops. He has not forgotten it.”

“What, you’re suggesting I’m to emulate Cromwell now!?”

“Emulate anything but a courtier,” said Samuel Pepys, now gripping Daniel’s arm and practically shoving him through the doorway.

Daniel Waterhouse was now in the Presence of James, the Duke of York.

The Duke was wearing a blond wig. He had always been pale-skinned and doe-eyed, which had made him a bonny youth, but a somewhat misshapen and ghastly adult. A dim circle of courtiers ringed them, hemming into their expensive sleeves and shuffling their feet. The occasional spur jingled.

Daniel bowed. James seemed not to notice. They looked at each other for a few moments. Charles would already have made some witty remark by this point, broken the ice, let Daniel know where he stood, but James only looked at Daniel expectantly.

“How is my brother, Dr. Waterhouse?” James asked.

Daniel realized, from the way he asked it, that James had no idea just how sick his brother really was. James had a temper; everyone knew it; no one had the courage to tell him the truth.

“Your brother will be dead in an hour,” Daniel announced.

Like a barrel’s staves being drawn together in a cooper’s shop, the ring of courtiers tensed and drew inwards.

“He has taken a turn for the worse, then!?” James exclaimed.

“He has been at death’s door the whole time.”

“Why was this never said plainly to me until this instant?”

The correct answer, most likely, was that it had been, and he simply hadn’t gotten it; but no one could say this.

“I have no idea,” Daniel answered.

ROGERCOMSTOCK, SAMUELPEPYS, ANDDaniel Waterhouse were in the antechamber at Whitehall.

“He said, ‘I am surrounded by men who are afraid to speak truth to my face.’ He said, ‘I am not as complicated as my brother-not complicated enough to be a king.’ He said, ‘I need your help and I know it.’”

“He said all of that!?” Roger blurted.

“Of course not,” Pepys scoffed, “but he meant it.”

The antechamber had two doors. One led to London, and half of London seemed to be gathered on the other side of it. The other door led to the King’s bedchamber, where, surrounding the bed of the dying monarch, were James, Duke of York; the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was Charles’s primary mistress; Father Huddlestone, a Catholic priest; and Louis de Duras, the Earl of Feversham.

“What else did he say?” Roger demanded. “Or more to the point, what else did he mean?”

“He is dim and stiff, and so he needs someone clever and flexible. Apparently I have a reputation for being both.”

“Splendid!” Roger exclaimed, showing a bit more merriment than was really appropriate in these circumstances. “You have Mr. Pepys to thank for it-the Duke trusts Mr. Pepys, and Mr. Pepys has been saying good things about you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Pepys…”

“You’re welcome, Dr. Waterhouse!”

“… for telling the Duke that I have a cowardly willingness to bend my principles.”

“As much as it offends me to tell such beastly lies about you, Daniel, I’m willing to do it, as a personal favor to a good friend,” Pepys answered instantly.

Roger ignored this exchange, and said: “Did his royal highness ask you for any advice?”

“I told him, as we trudged across the park, that this is a Protestant country, and that he belongs to a religious minority. He was astounded.”

“It must have come as a grievous shock to him.”

“I suggested that he turn his syphilitic dementia into an asset-it shows off his humane side while providing an excuse for some of his behavior.”

“You didn’t really say that!”

“Dr. Waterhouse was just seeing if you were paying attention, m’Lord,” Pepys explained.

“He told me he had syphilis twenty years ago at Epsom,” Daniel said, “and the secret-it was a secret in those days-did not get out immediately. Perhaps this is why he trusts me.”

Roger had no interest whatever in such old news. His eyes were trained to the opposite corner of the room, where Father Petre was shoulder-to-shoulder with Barrillon, the French Ambassador.

One of the doors opened. Beyond it, a dead man was lying in a stained bed. Father Huddlestone was making the sign of the cross, working his way through the closing stanzas of the rite of extreme unction. The Duchess of Portsmouth was weeping into a hanky and the Duke of York-no, the King of England-was praying into clasped hands.