What was he doing in this carriage having this conversation, besides going out on a limb, and making a fool of himself? The real answer was known only to John Wilkins, Lord Bishop of Chester, Author of both the Cryptonomicon and the Philosophical Language, who encrypted with his left hand and made things known to all possible worlds with his right. Who’d gotten Daniel into Trinity College-invited him out to Epsom during the Plague-nominated him for the Royal Society-and now, it seemed, had something else in mind for him. Was Daniel here as an apprentice, sitting at the master’s knee? It was shockingly prideful, and radically non-Puritan, for him to think so-but he could come up with no other hypothesis.

“Right, then, it all has to do with Mr. Oldenburg’s letters abroad…” Pepys said, when some change in the baroscopic pressure (or something) signified it was time to drop pretenses and talk seriously.

Wilkins: “I assumed that. Which one?”

“Does it matter? All of the GRUBENDOL letters are intercepted and read before he even sees them.”

“I’ve always wondered who does the reading,” Wilkins reflected. “He must be very bright, or else perpetually confused.”

“Likewise, all of Oldenburg’s outgoing mail is examined-you knew this.”

“And in some letter, he said something indiscreet-?”

“It is simply that the sheer volume of his foreign correspondence-taken together with the fact that he’s from Germany- andthat he’s worked as a diplomat on the Continent-and that he’s a friend of Cromwell’s Puritanickal poet-”

“John Milton.”

“Yes… finally, consider that no one at court understands even a tenth of what he’s saying in his letters-it makes a certain type of person nervous.”

“Are you saying he was thrown into the Tower of London on general principles?”

“As a precaution, yes.”

“What-does that mean he has to stay in there for the rest of his life?”

“Of course not… only until certain very tender negotiations are finished.”

“Tender negotiations…” Wilkins repeated a few times, as if further information could thus be pounded out of the dry and pithy words.

And here the discourse, which, to Daniel, had been merely confusing up to this point, plunged into obscurity perfect and absolute.

“I didn’t know he had a tender bone in his body… oh, wipe that smirk off your face, Mr. Pepys, I meant nothing of the sort!”

“Oh, it is known that his feelings for sa soeur are most affectionate. He’s writing letters to her all the time lately.”

“Does she write back?”

“Minette spews out letters like a diplomat. ”

“Keeping his hisness well acquainted-I am guessing-with all that is new with her beloved?”

“The volume of correspondence is such,” Pepys exclaimed, “that His Majesty can never have been so close to the man you refer to as he is today. Hoops of gold are stronger than bands of steel.”

Wilkins, starting to look a bit queasy: “Hmmm… a good thing, then, isn’t it, that formal contacts are being made through those two arch-Protestants-”

“I would refer you to Chapter Ten of your 1641 work,” said Pepys.

“Er… stupid me… I’ve lost you… we’re speaking now of Oldenburg?”

“I intended no change in subject-we’re still on Treaties.”

The coach stopped. Pepys climbed out of it. Daniel listened to the whack, whack, whack of his slap-soled boots receding across cobblestones. Wilkins was staring at nothing, trying to decrypt whatever Pepys had said.

Riding in a carriage through London was only a little better than being systematically beaten by men with cudgels-Daniel felt the need for a stretch, and so he climbed out, too, turned round-and found himself looking straight down a lane toward the front of St. James’s Palace, a few hundred yards distant. Spinning round a hundred and eighty degrees, he discovered Comstock House, a stupefying Gothick pile heaving itself up out of some gardens and pavements. Pepys’s carriage had turned in off of Piccadilly and stopped in the great house’s forecourt. Daniel admired its situation: John Comstock could, if he so chose, plant himself in the center of his front doorway and fire a musket across his garden, out his front gate, across Piccadilly, straight down the center of a tree-lined faux -country lane, across Pall Mall, and straight into the grand entrance of St. James’s, where it would be likely to kill someone very well-dressed. Stone walls, hedges, and wrought-iron fences had been cunningly arranged so as to crop away the view of Piccadilly and neighboring houses, and enhance the impression that Comstock House and St. James’s Palace were all part of the same family compound.

Daniel edged out through Comstock’s front gates and stood at the margin of Piccadilly, facing south towards St. James’s. He could see a gentleman with a bag entering the Palace-probably a doctor coming to bleed a few pints from Anne Hyde’s jugular. Off to his left, in the general direction of the river, was an open space-a vast construction site, now-about a quarter of a mile on a side, with Charing Cross on the opposite corner. Since it was night, and no workers were around, it seemed as if stone foundations and walls were growing up out of the ground through some process of spontaneous generation, like toadstools bursting from soil in the middle of the night.

From here, it was possible to see Comstock House in perspective: it was really just one of several noble houses lined up along Piccadilly, facing towards St. James’s Palace, like soldiers drawn up for review. Berkeley House, Burlington House, and Gunfleet House were some of the others. But only Comstock House had that direct Palace view down the lane.

He felt a giant door grinding open, and heard dignified murmurings, and saw that John Comstock had emerged from his house, arm in arm with Pepys. He was sixty-three years old, and Daniel thought that he was leaning on Pepys, just a bit, for support. But he had been wounded in battles more than once, so it didn’t necessarily mean he was getting feeble. Daniel sprang to the carriage and got Isaac’s telescope out of there and had the driver stow it securely on the roof. Then he joined the other three inside, and the carriage wheeled round and clattered out across Piccadilly and down the lane toward St. James’s.

John Comstock, Earl of Epsom, President of the Royal Society, and advisor to the King on all matters Natural-Philosophic, was dressed in a Persian vest-a heavy coatlike garment that, along with the Cravate, was the very latest at Court. Pepys was attired the same way, Wilkins was in completely out-moded clothing, Daniel as usual was dressed as a penniless itinerant Puritan from twenty years ago. Not that anyone was looking at him.

“Working late hours?” Comstock asked Pepys, apparently reading some clue in his attire.

“The Pay Office has been extraordinarily busy,” Pepys said.

“The King has been preoccupied with concerns of money- until recently,” Comstock said. “ Nowhe is eager to turn his attentions back to his first love-natural philosophy.”

“Then we have something that will delight him-a new Telescope,” Wilkins began.

But telescopes were not on Comstock’s agenda, and so he ignored the digression, and continued: “His Majesty has asked me to arrange a convocation at Whitehall Palace tomorrow evening. The Duke of Gunfleet, the Bishop of Chester, Sir Winston Churchill, you, Mr. Pepys, and I are invited to join the King for a demonstration at Whitehall: Enoch the Red will show us Phosphorus.”