“One of the English was using a funny word yester evening-‘currency.’ Do you know it?”

“It is the quality that a current has. They speak of the currency of the River Thames, which is sluggish in most places, but violent when it passes under London Bridge. It is just the same as our word Umlauf-running around.”

“That is what I supposed. This Englishman kept discoursing of currency in a way that was most fraught with meaning, and I thought he was speaking of some river or drainage-ditch. Finally I collected that he was using it as a synonym for money.”

“Money?”

“I’ve never felt so dense! Fortunately, Baron von Hacklheber is visiting from Leipzig. He was familiar with the term-or quicker to decypher it. Later I spoke with him in private and he explained all.”

“What an odd coinage.”

“You are too witty for your own good, girl.”

“The Englishmen cannot get away from this topic. Their relationship to money is most peculiar.”

“It is because they have nothing but sheep,” Sophie explained. “You must understand this if you are to be their Queen. They had to fight Spain, which has all of the gold and silver in the world. Then they had to fight France, which has every other source of material wealth that can be imagined. How does a poor country defeat rich ones?”

“I think I am supposed to say ‘the grace of God’ or some such-”

“If you please. But in what form is the grace of God manifested? Did piles of gold materialize on the banks of the Thames, as in a miracle?”

“Of course not.”

“Does Sir Isaac turn Cornish tin into gold in an alchemical laboratory in the Tower of London?”

“Opinions differ. Leibniz thinks not.”

“I agree with Baron von Leibniz. And yet all the gold is in England! It is dug up from Portuguese and Spanish mines, but it flows, by some occult power of attraction, to the Tower of London.”

“Flows,” Caroline repeated, “flows like a current.”

Sophie nodded. “And the English have grown so used to this that they use ‘currency’ as a synonym for ‘money’ as if no distinction need be observed between them.”

Caroline said, “Is this the answer to your question-how does a poor country defeat rich ones?”

“Indeed. The answer is, not by acquiring wealth, in the sense that France has it-”

“Meaning vineyards, farms, peasants, cows-”

“But rather to play a sort of trick, and redefine wealth to mean something novel.”

“Currency!”

“Indeed. Baron von Hacklheber says that the idea is not wholly new, having been well understood by the Genoese, the Florentines, the Augsburgers, the Lyonnaise for many generations. The Dutch built a modest empire on it. But the English-having no other choices-perfected it.”

“You have given me new food for thought.”

“Oh? And what think you? What think you now of our prospects, Caroline?”

To Sophie’s generation of royals, this question was shocking, absurd. One who was heir to a throne did not have to think about his prospects. Royal succession just happened, like the tide coming in. But it was different now; and Sophie deserved credit for having adjusted to this new state of affairs, where many of her contemporaries had passed from ignorance to indignation to senility.

Caroline answered: “I am pleased by the cleverness of this trick that the English have played, to win wars against their betters by tinkering with what wealth is. Because of it, I do not have to marry some inbred Bourbon, as poor Eliza did, and live out my days at Versailles, or in the Escorial. But I am troubled by the uncertainty that all of this brings. To paraphrase a wise man I know, it is as though a new System of the World has been drawn up. And not by us but by some strange Natural Philosophers in a smoky room in London. Now we must live by the rules of that System. But it is not perfectly understood; and I fear that where the English have played a trick with money, to gain a temporary advantage, some other trick might be played upon them to reverse the field.”

“Just so! And now you have come round to the meaning of Anne’s letter!” Sophie proclaimed, and flogged the parchment several times with her ivory fan. At the same time, the tree-wall behind them let out a gasp as it was struck by a fist of cold air. The wind had changed from south to west; new weather was coming; Herr Schwartz’s joints had not misled him. The tree-wall flexed toward them as if trying to spread shelter above their heads, and a dry sleet of brown leaves and twigs made the air and the ground restless with tiny itchings and fidgetings. Sophie-who of all persons was least disposed to take a fart for a thunderclap-paid this no heed whatever. Perhaps she was too absorbed in conversation to care. Or perhaps she was so comfortable in this place that she could not muster any sense of concern.

If Sophie did not wish to speak of the weather, ’twere hopeless, as well as rude, to force the topic, and so Caroline contented herself with gestures: she arched her back against the cool breeze, clasped her hands together on her knee, and glanced skyward. Then she responded, “The Queen’s letter has to do with money?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, she doesn’t know what money is. And would never write of anything so vulgar even if she did. The letter concerns family matters. Several paragraphs are devoted to your husband.”

“That is even more chilling to me than this recent change in the wind.”

“She refers to him by his English titles: Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Milford Haven, Viscount Northallerton, Baron Tewkesbury,” said Sophie, reading the outlandish names from the letter with parched amusement.

“Now you are teasing me, by not reading what the letter says.”

“I am not teasing you but doing you a favor, dear heart.”

“Is it that bad?”

“It is the worst yet.”

“Has my father-in-law seen it yet?”

“George Louis has not read it.”

“My husband and I would be in England now,” Caroline complained, “and he would be sitting in the House of Lords, if George Louis merely had the backbone to let us go. Another such letter from Queen Anne only cows him all the more, and delays our departure another month.”

Sophie smiled, showing sympathy. “George Louis cannot read this letter if you and I get caught in a rain-shower, and the ink is dissolved.”

A cold drop came through the sleeve of Caroline’s dress and sent a thrill up her arm. She laughed. Sophie did not move. A raindrop pocked into the letter. “However,” Sophie continued, “you must not deceive yourself. My son won’t let you go to England, it is true. But this is not simply because Queen Anne hates the idea. George Louis has his shortcomings. No one knows this better than his mama. But spinelessness is not among them! He keeps you and George Augustus pent up in Hanover, because he is envious of his son-his poise, his battle-glory-and distrustful of his son’s women.”

“You mean Mrs. Braithwaite?”

Sophie flinched. “She is a dust-mote. Everyone knows that except you. You, Eliza, the late Sophie Charlotte, and I-the women who walk in the garden-are to George Louis like some witch-coven. He is appalled that his son and heir is comfortable among us, and shares intelligence with us. For this reason he will never give George Augustus, and you, leave to move to England. He may use this as an excuse-” and she held up the letter so that many collected raindrops, black with dissolved abuse, tumbled down over the Queen of England’s signature “-but you must never be deceived.”

A strong wind-burst came through now, and cracked a branch somewhere. All the rainwater that had gathered on the leaves above was knocked loose and rushed down around them. Sophie looked around herself for the first time, becoming aware that this might develop into something more than a June shower. Her starched fontange was beginning to wilt.

But now it was Caroline’s turn to be oblivious to weather. “When we sat down here you said that the letter had some import, having to do with currency-?”