By crouching in the bilge she could remain out of their line of fire-but she couldn’t row the longboat.

A hand gripped the gunwale. Eliza smashed it with the butt of the pistol and it went away. But a minute later it reappeared, bleeding, somewhere else-followed by another hand, then elbows, then a head. Eliza aimed the pistol between the blinking eyes and pulled the trigger; the flint whipped around and cast off a feeble spark but nothing further happened. She turned the weapon around, thinking to smash him on the head, but he raised a hand to parry the blow, and she thought better of it. Instead she stood up, gripped the handles of a gun-chest, heaved it up off the deck, and, just as he was whipping one leg over the gunwale, launched it into his face with a thrust of her hips. He fell off the boat. The dragoons on the shore opened fire and splintered a bench, but they missed Eliza. Still, the sight of those craters of fresh clean wood that had been torn into the benches crushed any sense of relief she might have felt over getting rid of the swimmer.

She had an opportunity now to pull on the oars several times while the dragoons re-loaded. As she stood up for an oar-stroke, movement caught her eye off to the south. She turned that way to see a dozen of the Prince’s Blue Guards cresting the hummock, or circumventing it along the beach, all riding at a dead gallop on foaming and exhausted chargers. As they took in the scene ahead they stood up in their stirrups, raised sabers high, and erupted in shouts of mixed indignation and triumph. Disgustedly, the French dragoons all flung their weapons down into the sand.

“YOU MUST NOT COME NEARme now for a good long while,” said William of Orange. “I shall make arrangements to spirit you out of this place, and my agents shall spread some story or other that shall account for your whereabouts this morning.”

The Prince paused, distracted by shouts from the far side of a dune. One of the Blue Guards ran up onto its crest and announced he had found fresh horse-tracks. A rider had tarried for some time recently there (the manure of his horse was still warm) and smoked some tobacco, and then galloped away only moments ago (the sand disturbed by his horse’s hooves was still dry). On hearing this news three of the Blue Guards spurred their horses into movement and took off in pursuit. But those mounts were exhausted, whereas the spy’s had been well rested-everyone knew the pursuit would be bootless.

“’Twas d’Avaux,” William said. “He would be here, so that he could come out of hiding and taunt me after I had been put in chains.”

“Then he knows about me!”

“Perhaps, and perhaps not,” said the Prince, showing a lack of concern that did nothing for Eliza’s peace of mind. He glanced curiously at Fatio, who was sitting up now, having a bloody head-wound bandaged. “Your friend is a Natural Philosopher? I shall endow a chair for him at the university here. You, I will proclaim a Duchess, when the time is right. But now you must return to Versailles, and make love to Liselotte.”

“What!?”

“Do not put on this show of outrage, it is very tedious. You know what I am, I think, and so you must know what she is.”

“But why?”

“That is a more intelligent question. What you have just witnessed here, Eliza, is the spark that ignites the pan, that fires the musket, that ejects the ball, that fells the king. If you do nothing else today, fix that clearly in your mind. Now I have no choice but to make Britain mine. But I shall require troops, and I dare not pull so many of them from my southern marches while Louis menaces me there. But if, as I expect, Louis decides to enlarge his realms at the expense of the Germans, he’ll draw off his forces on his Dutch flank, and free me to send mine across the North Sea.”

“But what has this to do with Liselotte?”

“Liselotte is the grand-daughter of the Winter Queen-who, some say, sparked the Thirty Years’ War by accepting the crown of Bohemia. At any rate the said Queen spent most of those Thirty Years just yonder, in the Hague-my people sheltered her, for Bohemia was by then a shambles, and the Palatinate, which was rightfully hers, had fallen to the Papists as a spoil of that war. But when the Peace of Westphalia was finally signed, some forty years ago now, the Palatinate was returned to that family; the Winter Queen’s eldest son, Charles Louis, became Elector Palatinate. Various of his siblings, including Sophie, moved there, and set up housekeeping in Heidelberg Castle. Liselotte is the daughter of that same Charles Louis, and grew up in that household. Charles Louis died a few years ago and passed the crown to the brother of Liselotte, who was demented-he died not long ago conducting a mock-battle at one of his Rhine-castles. Now the succession is in dispute. The King of France has very chivalrously decided to take the side of Liselotte, who, after all, is his sister-in-law now.”

“It is very adroit,” Eliza said. “By extending a brotherly hand to Madame, Le Roi can add the Palatinate to France.”

“Indeed, it would be a pleasure to watch Louis XIV go about his work, if he were not the Antichrist,” William said. “I cannot help Liselotte and I can do nothing for the poor people of the Palatinate. But I can make France pay for the Rhine with the British Isles.”

“You need to know if Le Roi intends to move his regiments away from your borders, towards the Rhine.”

“Yes. And no one is in a better position to know that than Liselotte-if not precisely a pawn, she is a sort of captured queen, on France’s side of the board.”

“If the stakes are that high, then I suppose the least I can do is contrive some way to get close to Liselotte.”

“I don’t want you to get close to her, I want you to seduce her, I want you to make her your slave. ”

“I was trying to be delicate.”

“My apologies!” William said with a courtly bow, looking her up and down. Covered in salt and sand, and wrapped up in a bloody dragoon-coat, Eliza couldn’t have looked delicate at all. William looked as if he were on the verge of saying as much. But he thought better of it, and looked away.

“You have ennobled me, my prince. It was done some years ago. You have grown used to thinking of me as a noblewoman, even if that is only a secret between you and me. To Versailles I am still a commoner, and a foreigner to boot. As long as this remains true you may be assured that Liselotte will have nothing to do with me.”

“ In public.”

“Even in private! Not everyone there is as much of a hypocrite as you seem to think.”

“I did not say it would be easy. This is why I am asking you to do it.”

“As I said, I am willing to give it a try. But if d’Avaux has seen me here today, going back to Versailles would seem unwise.”

“D’Avaux prides himself on playing a deep and subtle game, and that is his weakness,” William announced. “Besides, he depends on your financial advice. He will not crush you immediately. ”

“ Later,then?”

“He’ll try to,” William corrected her.

“And he will succeed.”

“No. For by that point you will be the mistress of Madame-Liselotte-the King’s sister-in-law. Who has her rivals and her weaknesses, true-but who is of infinitely higher rank than d’Avaux.”

To Leibniz, February 3, 1688

Doctor,

Madame has graciously offered to send this letter to Hanover along with some others that her friend is carrying personally to Sophie, and so I’ll dispense with the cypher.

You may wonder why Madame is offering such courtesies to me now, since in the past she has always viewed me as a mouse turd in the pepper.