“’Twas either accept Pennsylvania, or let the King continue owing you sixteen thousand pounds, yes?”

Penn did not take his gaze away from the window, but squinted as if trying to hold back a mighty volume of flatulence, and shifted his focal point to a thousand miles in the distance. But this was coastal Holland and there was nothing out that window save the Curvature of the World. Even pebbles cast giant shadows in the low winter sun. Daniel could not be ignored.

“I am chagrined, appalled, mortified that you are here! You are not welcome, Brother Daniel, you are a problem, and obstacle, and if I were not a pacifist I would beat you to death with a rock.”

“Brother William, meeting as we so often do at Whitehall, in the King’s Presence, to have our lovely chats about Religious Toleration, it is most difficult for us to hold frank exchanges of views, and so I am pleased you’ve at last found this opportunity to hose me down with those splenetic humours that have been so long pent up.”

“I am a plain-spoken fellow, as you can see. Perhaps you should say what you mean more frequently, Brother Daniel-it would make everything so much simpler.”

“It is easy for you to be that way, when you have an estate the size of Italy to go hiding in, on the far side of an ocean.”

“That was unworthy of you, Brother Daniel. But there is some truth in what you say… it is… distracting… at the oddest times… my mind drifts, and I find myself wondering what is happening on the banks of the Susquehanna…”

“Right! And if England becomes completely unlivable, you have someplace to go. Whereas I…”

Finally Penn looked at him. “Don’t tell me you haven’t considered moving to Massachusetts.”

“I consider it every day. Nonetheless, most of my constituency does not have that luxury available and so I’d like to see if we can avoid letting Olde Englande get any more fouled up than ‘tis.”

Penn had disembarked from a ship out at Scheveningen less than an hour ago. That port-town was connected to the Hague by several roads and a canal. The route that Penn’s driver had chosen ran along a canal-edge, through stretches of Dutch polder-scape and fields where troops drilled, which extended to within a few hundred yards of the spires of the Binnenhof.

The carriage now made a left turn onto a gravel track that bordered an especially broad open park, called the Malieveld, where those who could afford it went riding when the weather was pleasant. No one was there today. At its eastern end the Malieveld gave way to the Haagse Bos, a carefully managed forest laced through with riding-paths. The carriage followed one of these through the woods for a mile, until it seemed that they had gone far out into the wild. But then suddenly cobblestones, instead of gravel, were beneath the wheel-rims, and they were passing through guarded gates and across counterweighted canal-bridges. The formal gardens of a small estate spread around them. They rolled to a stop before a gate-house. Daniel glimpsed a hedge and the corner of a fine house before his view out the carriage-window was blocked by the head, and more so by the hat, of a captain of the Blue Guards. “William Penn,” said William Penn. Then, reluctantly, he added: “And Dr. Daniel Waterhouse.”

THE PLACE WAS BUT Asmall lodge, close enough to the Hague to be easily reached, but far enough away that the air was clean. William of Orange’s asthma did not trouble him when he was here, and so, during those times of the year when he had no choice but to stick at the Hague, this was where he abided.

Penn and Waterhouse were ushered to a parlor. It was a raw day outside, and even though a new fire was burning violently on the hearth, making occasional lunges into the room, neither Penn nor Waterhouse made any move to remove his coat.

There was a girl there, a petite girl with large blue eyes, and Daniel assumed she was Dutch at first. But after she’d heard the two visitors conversing in English she addressed them in French, and explained something about the Prince of Orange. Penn’s French was much better than Daniel’s because he had spent a few years exiled to a Protestant college (now extirpated) in Saumur, so he exchanged a few sentences with the girl and then said to Daniel: “The sand-sailing is excellent today.”

“Could’ve guessed as much from the wind, I suppose.”

“We’ll not be seeing the Prince for another hour.”

The two Englishmen stood before the fire until well browned on both sides, then settled into chairs. The girl, who was dressed in a rather bleak Dutch frock, set a pan of milk there to heat, then busied herself with some kitchen-fuss. It was now Daniel’s turn to be distracted, for there was something in the girl’s appearance that was vaguely disturbing or annoying to him, and the only remedy was to look at her some more, trying to figure it out; which made the feeling worse. Or perhaps better. So they sat there for a while, Penn brooding about the Alleghenies and Waterhouse trying to piece together what it was that provoked him about this girl. The feeling was akin to the nagging sense that he had met a person somewhere before but could not recall the particulars. But that was not it; he was certain that this was the first time. And yet he had that same unscratchable itch.

She said something that broke Penn out of his reverie. Penn fixed his gaze upon Daniel. “The girl is offended,” he said. “She says that there may be women, of an unspeakable nature, in Amsterdam, who do not object to being looked at as you are looking at her; but how dare you, a visitor on Dutch soil, take such liberties?”

“She said a lot then, in five words of French.”

“She was pithy, for she credits me with wit. I am discursive, for I can extend you no such consideration.”

“You know, merely knuckling under to the King, simply because he waves a Declaration of Indulgence in front of your eyes, is no proof of wit-some would say it proves the opposite.”

“Do you really want another Civil War, Daniel? You and I both grew up during such a war- someof us have elected to move on- otherswant to re-live their childhoods, it seems.”

Daniel closed his eyes and saw the image that had been branded onto his retinas thirty-five years ago: Drake hurling a stone saint’s head through a stained-glass window, the gaudy image replaced with green English hillside, silvery drizzle reaching in through the aperture like the Holy Spirit, bathing his face.

“I do not think you see what we can make of England now if we only try. I was brought up to believe that an Apocalypse was coming. I have not believed that for many years. But the people who believe in that Apocalypse are my people, and their way of thinking is my way. I have only just come round to a new way of looking at this, a new view-point, as Leibniz would have it. Namely that there is something to the idea of an Apocalypse-a sudden changing of all, an overthrow of old ways-and that Drake and the others merely got the particulars wrong, they fixed on a date certain, they, in a word, idolized. If idolatry is to mistake the symbol for the thing symbolized, then that is what they did with the symbols that are set down in the Book of Revelation. Drake and the others were like a flock of birds who all sense that something is nigh, and take flight as one: a majestic sight and a miracle of Creation. But they were confused, and flew into a trap, and their revolution came to naught. Does that mean that they were mistaken to have spread their wings at all? No, their senses did not deceive them… their higher minds did. Should we spurn them forever because they erred? Is their legacy to be laughed at only? On the contrary, I would say that we might bring about the Apocalypse now with a little effort… not precisely the one they phant’sied but the same, or better, in its effects.”