They were withdrawing to another room-which, therefore, in a more dignified sort of house would be called the w’drawing room-but here it was a workshop, the floor slick with wood-dust and shavings from a lathe, and a-crackle with failures from the glass-blowing bench, and cluttered with various hand-tools that they’d used to construct everything else. Isaac said nothing, only gazed at Daniel, all patient expectation. “From time to time-perhaps once a day-I prevail upon you to eat something,” Daniel pointed out. “Does this mean I believe God put you here to stuff food into your mouth? Of course not. But in order for you to accomplish the work that you, and I, believe God shaped you for, you must put food into your body.”

“Is it really your belief that watching Once More into the Breeches is comparable to eating?”

“To work, you require certain resources-nutrition is only one. A stipend, a workshop, tools, equipment-how do you get them?”

“Behold!” Isaac said, sweeping one arm over his empire of tools and furnaces. This caused the cuff of his robe to fly out from under his smock-catching sight of it, he grasped the smock’s sleeve with the other hand and yanked it back to reveal the scarlet raiment of the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. Coming from any other man this would have seemed dramatic and insufferably pompous, but from Isaac it was the simplest and most concise answer to Daniel’s question.

“The Fellowship-the chambers-the laboratory-and the Lucasian Chair-all the best that you could hope for. You have all you need-for now. But how did you get those things, Isaac?”

“Providence.”

“By which you mean Divine Providence. But how-”

“You wish to examine the workings of God’s will in the world? I am pleased to hear it. For that is my sole endeavour. You are keeping me from it-let us go back into the other room and pursue an answer to your question together.”

“By diverting your attention from those crucibles-for a few hours-you could gain a clearer understanding of, and a more profound gratitude for, what Providence has given you.” Devising that sentence had required intense concentration on Daniel’s part-he was gratified when it seemed to at least confuse Isaac.

“If there are some data I have overlooked, by all means edify me,” Isaac said.

“Recall the Fellowship competition of several years ago. You’d been busy doing the work God put you here to do- instead ofthe work that Trinity College expected of you-consequently, your prospects seemed bleak-wouldn’t you agree?”

“I have always placed my faith in-”

“In God, of course. But don’t tell me you weren’t worried you’d be sent packing, and live out your days as a gentleman farmer in Woolsthorpe. There were other candidates. Men who’d curried favor in the right places, and memorized all of the medieval claptrap we were expected to know. Do you remember, Isaac, what became of your competitors?”

“One went insane,” Isaac recited like a bored scholar. “One passed out in a field from too much drink, caught a fever, and died. One fell down stairs drunk and had to withdraw because of injuries suffered. The fourth-” Here Isaac faltered, which was a rare event for him. Daniel seized the moment by stepping closer and adopting a curious and innocent look.

Isaac looked away and said, “The fourth one also fell down stairs drunk and had to withdraw! Now, Daniel, if you’re trying to say that this was incredibly improbable, and fortunate for me, I have already given you my answer: Providence.”

“But in what form did Providence exert itself? Some mysterious action at a distance? Or the earthly mechanics of colliding bodies?”

“Now you have quite lost me.”

“Do you believe that God stretched out a finger from Heaven, and knocked those two down the staircase? Or did he put someone on Earth who arranged for these things to happen?”

“Daniel-surely you didn’t-”

Daniel laughed. “Push them down stairs? No. But I think I know who did. You have the wherewithal to work, Isaac, because of certain Powers that Be-which is not to say that Providence isn’t working through them. But what it all means is that you must, from time to time, pause in your labors, and spend a few hours maintaining friendly relations with those Powers.”

Isaac had been pacing around the chamber during this lecture, and looking generally skeptical. More than one time he opened his mouth to make some objection. But at about the time Daniel finished, Isaac seemed to notice something. Daniel thought it was one of many papers and note-books scattered upon a certain table. Whatever it might have been, the sight of it caused Isaac to reconsider. Isaac’s face slackened, as if the internal flame were being banked. He began stripping off his smock. “Very well,” he said, “please inform the others.”

The others had already squeezed the rag out into a glass retort and were trying to distill from it whatever generative spirit they supposed must be exuded from a woman’s womb. Roger Comstock and the other minions looked crestfallen to learn that Professor Newton would be leaving them, but Locke and Boyle and LeFebure took it in stride. Newton made himself presentable very quickly-this being why academics loved robes, and fops loathed them. A contingent of five Royal Society members-Boyle, Locke, LeFebure, Waterhouse, and Newton-set out across the Great Court of Trinity College. All were in long black robes and mortar-boards save Newton, who led the way, a cardinal pursued by a flock of crows, a vivid red mark on the Trinity green.

“IHAVEN’T SEEN THIS PLAY,” Locke said, “but I have seen one or two from which the story and characters of this one were… uh…”

Newton: “Stolen.”

Boyle: “Inspired.”

LeFebure: “Appropriated.”

Locke: “Adapted, and so I can inform you that a ship has run aground in a storm, near a castle, the seat of a foppish courtier probably named something like Percival Kidney or Reginald Mumblesleeve-”

“Francis Buggermy, according to the Playbill,” Daniel put in. Isaac turned around and glared at him.

“So much the better,” Locke said. “But of course the fop’s in London, never comes to the country-so a Vagabond named Roger Thrust or Judd Vault or-”

“Tom Runagate.”

“And his mistress, Madeline Cherry or-”

“Miss Straddle, in this case.”

“Are squatting there. Now, seeing a group of castaways from the ship coming ashore, these two Vagabonds dress up in the fop’s clothing and impersonate Francis Buggermy and his mistress-of-the-moment-much to the surprise of a withered Puritan Bible-pounder who comes upon the scene-”

“The Reverend Yahweh Pucker,” Daniel said.

“The rest we can see for ourselves-”

“Why’s that old fellow all charred black?” Boyle demanded, catching sight of a performer up on the stage.

“He’s a Neeger slave,” Daniel said.

“Which reminds me,” Locke put in, “I need to send a message to my broker-time to sell my stock in the Guinea Company, I fear-”

“No, no!” Boyle said, “I mean black as in charred, burnt, with smoke coming out of his hair!”

“No such thing was in the version I saw,” Locke said.

“Oh… in an earlier scene, there was a hilarious misadventure, having to do with a keg of gunpowder,” Daniel volunteered.

“Er… was this comedy written recently?”

“Since the… um… events?”

“One can only assume,” Daniel said.

Significant chin-stroking and hemming now among the various R.S. Fellows (save Newton), who glanced up towards the Earl of Epsom as they made their way to their seats.

LYDIA:Is this walking, or swimming?

VANUND: Fine muck-fine hurricanoe-throw up a dike there, and a windmill yonder, and I’ll be able to join it to my estates in Flanders.

LYDIA:But it isn’t yours.