The small bits of news that did come in, while they waited for the big one, took various forms at first, but as the war went on they seemed to consist mostly of death-notices. It was not quite like living in London during the Plague; but more than once, Daniel had to choose between two funerals going on at the same hour. Wilkins had been the first. Many more followed, as if the Bishop of Chester had launched a fad.

Richard Comstock, the eldest son of John, and the model for the stalwart if dim Eugene Stopcock in Breeches, was on a ship that was part of a fleet that fell under the guns of Admiral de Ruyter at Sole Bay. Along with thousands of other Englishmen, he went to David Jones’s Locker. Many of the survivors could now be seen hobbling round London on bloody stumps, or rattling cups on street-corners. Daniel was startled to receive an invitation to the funeral. Not from John, of course, but from Charles, who had been John’s fourth son and was now the only one left (the other two had died young of smallpox). After his stint as laboratory assistant during the Plague Year at Epsom, Charles had matriculated at Cambridge, where he’d been tutored by Daniel. He had been well on his way to being a competent Natural Philosopher. But now he was the scion of a great family, and never could be aught else, unless the family ceased to be great, or he ceased being a part of it.

John Comstock got up in front of the church and said, “The Hollander exceeds us in industry, and in all things else, but envy.”

King Charles shut down the Exchequer one day, which is to say that he admitted that the country was out of money, and that not only could the Crown not repay its debts, but it couldn’t even pay interest on them. Within a week, Daniel’s uncle, Thomas Ham, Viscount Walbrook, was dead-of a broken heart or suicide, no one save Aunt Mayflower knew-but it scarcely made a difference. This led to the most theatrickal of all the scenes Daniel witnessed in London that year (with the possible exception of the re-enactment of the Siege of Maestricht): the opening of the Crypt.

Thomas Ham’s reliable basement had been sealed up by court officials immediately upon the death of its proprietor, and musketeers had been posted all round to prevent Ham’s depositors (who had, in recent weeks, formed a small muttering knot that never went away, loitering outside; as others held up libels depicting the atrocities of King Looie’s army in Holland, so these held up Goldsmiths’s Notes addressed to Thomas Ham) from breaking in and claiming their various plates, candlesticks, and guineas. Legal maneuverings began, and continued round the clock, casting a queer shadow over Uncle Thomas’s funeral, and stretching beyond it to two days, then three. The cellar’s owner was already in the grave, his chief associates mysteriously unfindable, and rumored to be in Dunkirk trying to buy passage to Brazil with crumpled golden punch-bowls and gravy-boats. But those were rumors. The facts were in the famously safe and sturdy Ham Bros. Cellar on Threadneedle.

This was finally unsealed by a squadron of Lords and Justices, escorted by musketeers, and duly witnessed by Raleigh, Sterling, and Daniel Waterhouse; Sir Richard Apthorp; and various stately and important Others. It was three days exactly since King Charles had washed his hands of the royal debts and Thomas Ham had met his personal Calvary at the hands of the Exchequer. That statistic was noted by Sterling Waterhouse-as always, noticer of details par excellence. As the crowd of Great and Good Men shuffled up the steps of Ham House, he muttered to Daniel: “I wonder if we shall roll the stone aside and find an empty tomb?”

Daniel was appalled by this dual sacrilege-then reflected that as he was now practically living in a theatre and mooning over an actress every night, he could scarcely criticize Sterling for making a jest.

It turned out not to be a jest. The cellar was empty.

Well-not empty. It was full, now, of speechless men, standing flatfooted on the Roman mosaic.

RALEIGH:“I knew it would be bad. But-my God-there’s not even a potatoe. ”

STERLING:“It is a sort of anti-miracle.”

LORDHIGHCHANCELLOR OF THEREALM:“Go up and tell the musketeers to go and get more musketeers.”

They all stood there for quite a while. Attempts to make conversation flared sporadically all round the cellar and fizzled like flashes in damp pans. Except-strangely-among Waterhouses. Disaster had made them convivial.

RALEIGH:“Our newest tenant informs me you’ve decided to turn architect, Daniel.”

STERLING:“We thought you were going to be a savant.”

DANIEL:“All the other savants are doing it. Just the other day, Hooke figured out how arches work.”

STERLING:“I should have thought that was known by now.”

RALEIGH:“Do you mean to say all existing arches have been built on guesswork?”

Sir Richard Apthorp:“Arches-and Financial Institutions.”

DANIEL:“Christopher Wren is going to re-design all the arches in St. Paul’s, now that Hooke has explained them.”

STERLING:“Good! Maybe the new one won’t become all bow-legged and down-at-heels, as the old one did.”

RALEIGH:“I say, brother Daniel-don’t you have some drawings to show us?”

DANIEL:“Drawings?”

RALEIGH:“In the w’drawing room, perhaps?”

Which was a bad pun and a cryptickal sign, from Raleigh the patriarch (fifty-five years comically aged, to Daniel’s eyes seeming like a young Raleigh dressed up in rich old man’s clothes and stage-makeup), that they were all supposed to Withdraw from the cellar. So they did, and Sir Richard Apthorp came with them. They wound up on the upper floor of Ham House, in a bedchamber-the very same one that Daniel had gazed into from his perch atop Gresham’s College. A rock had already come in through a window and was sitting anomalously in the middle of a rug, surrounded by polygons of glass. More were beginning to thud against the walls, so Daniel swung the windows open to preserve the glazing. Then they all retreated to the center of the room and perched up on the bed and watched the stones come in.

STERLING:“Speaking of Guineas, or lack thereof-shame about the Guinea Company, what?”

APTHORP:“Pfft! ‘Twas like one of your brother’s theatrickal powder-squibs. Sold my shares of it long ago.”

STERLING:“What of you, Raleigh?”

RALEIGH:“They owe me money, is all.”

APTHORP:“You’ll get eight shillings on the pound.”

RALEIGH:“An outrage-but better than what Thomas Ham’s depositors will get.”

DANIEL:“Poor Mayflower!”

RALEIGH:“She and young William are moving in with me anon-and so you’ll have to seek other lodgings, Daniel.”

STERLING:“What fool is buying the Guinea Company’s debts?”

APTHORP:“James, Duke of York.”

STERLING:“As I said-what dauntless hero is, et cetera…”

DANIEL:“But that’s nonsense! They are his own debts!”

APTHORP:“They are the Guinea Company’s debts. But he is winding up the Guinea Company and creating a new Royal Africa Company. He’s to be the governor and chief shareholder.”

RALEIGH:“What, sinking our Navy and making us slaves to Popery is not sufficient-he’s got to enslave all the Neegers, too?”

STERLING:“Brother, you sound more like Drake every day.”

RALEIGH:“Being surrounded by an armed mob must be the cause of sounding that way.”

APTHORP:“The Duke of York has resigned the Admiralty…”

RALEIGH:“As there’s nothing left to be Admiral of…”

APTHORP:“And is going to marry that nice Catholic girl*and compose his African affairs.”

STERLING:“Sir Richard, this must be one of those things that you know before anyone else does, or else there would be rioters in the streets.”

RALEIGH:“There are, you pea-wit, and unless I’m having a Drakish vision, they have set fire to this very house.”