“It has to do with our absent friend.”

Eliza was almost certain this meant Leibniz. He had not arrived yet. The remarks that several courtiers had made concerning his absence were like wisps of smoke concealing an underlying fire of gossip. Who could this fellow be, then? An old Englishman who knew her, and was a friend of the Doctor-

“Dr. Waterhouse.”

He lowered his eyelids and bowed.

“It has been-?”

“To judge from appearances, a hundred years for me, and half an hour for you. If you prefer to go by calendars, the answer is twenty-five years or so.”

“Why have you not come to call on me at Leicester House?”

“Before I received your summons, I accepted one from another Lady,” Daniel said, glancing toward the Chapel entrance, “and it has kept me busy. I do hope you will forgive my rudeness.”

“Which rudeness? Not calling on me? Or pursuing me with an opportunity?”

“If you are discomposed by it, consider that I am acting as a proxy for the Doctor himself.”

“When I first met the Doctor he was at work on a scheme: a windmill to pump water from the mines of the Harz,” Eliza recalled fondly. “He hoped they would then produce enough silver to finance his world-library-cum-logic-mill.”

“Odd that you should say so. When I first met him, which was at least ten years before you did, he was working on the mill itself. Then he got distracted by the calculus.”

“What I am trying to say to you, in a gentle way, sir, is that-”

“The Doctor’s schemes are mad? Yes, I had already taken your meaning.”

“As much as I love the Doctor and his philosophy, and as much as you do-”

“Stipulated,” said the old man, and smiled warmly, pressing his lips together to hide whatever dental wreckage might be underneath.

“If he cannot make his project succeed with the resources of the Tsar at his back, what use am I?”

“It is of this that I wish to speak to you,” Daniel began. But the doors to the family chapel now swung open. Sophie’s coffin was borne out by a lot of Kings and Electors and Dukes.

They set it on a gun carriage, drawn by a single black horse. The rest of the family came out of the chapel. The coffin and carriage set out, followed by all of the mourners who were fit enough to accompany Sophie on her last walk. A procession took shape, moving southwards down the central axis of the garden towards the great fountain. Daniel strolled along at the rear of the column. Presently Eliza found him.

Daniel said, “You have probably guessed that Leibniz’s absence has to do with the work that he is doing for the Tsar. I believe that the Doctor is in St. Petersburg now.”

“Then no further explanation for his absence is wanted,” Eliza said. “For news to reach him there, and for him to make the journey back, when there’s a war on between the Russians and the Swedes-”

“Impossible,” Daniel agreed. “And you have not even addressed the question of whether he would be allowed to leave.”

A pause, a few steps down the gravel path, before Eliza answered, in a different voice altogether: “Why shouldn’t he be allowed to leave?”

“The Tsar is not renowned for his patience. He wants to see something that actually works.”

“Then our friend may be in grave difficulties indeed.”

“Not so very grave. I have been attending to it.”

“In London?”

“Yes. The Marquis of Ravenscar has supplied funding to erect a Court of Technologickal Arts in Clerkenwell.”

“Why?” Eliza asked sharply, thus proving that she knew something of the Marquis.

“Longitude. He hopes that some invention for discovering the Longitude shall be devised by the men who toil in this Court.”

“And they are-?”

“The most ingenious horologists, organ-makers, goldsmiths, mechanicks, and makers of theatrickal Machinery in all of Christendom.”

The procession had reached the plaza surrounding the great fountain, which would probably be described in any number of diaries this evening as howling with grief, and filling the heavens with its tears. They made a slow orbit around it, reversing their direction, and then began to trudge back toward the Palace. Eliza’s black fontange trapped some fountain-mist and began to wilt.

“If Leibniz is trapped between Peter the Great at one end, and Roger Comstock at the other, I fear he is beyond your help, or mine,” Eliza said.

“It is not so dire. What is wanted is not capital but financing.”

“Something in the nature of a bridge loan?”

“Possibly. Or, perhaps, an independent investment in an allied enterprise.”

“I am waiting,” said Eliza with the diction of one who is biting on a musket-ball waiting for the barber to saw her leg off.

“Your expertise with commodities is celebrated.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know of Bridewell-where whores are sent to pound hemp and pick oakum.”

“Yes?”

“To build the Logic Mill we shall need a large, inexpensive force of workers to carry out certain operations of a repetitive nature. We have made discreet inquiries among the wardens of Bridewell. We are optimistic that an arrangement can be made to put those women to work at a new task. No longer will they produce hemp.”

“And so the price of hemp will rise,” Eliza concluded. “This is not an investment opportunity but more in the nature of a Hot Tip, sir. And a reminder, as if I wanted one, of why Natural Philosophers are not often seen haunting the ’Change-except when one has been put in the pillory by his creditors.”

“If the ‘hot tip’ makes you money, why, then, you might be able to invest in-”

“Stop-don’t say it-I already know: The Proprietors of the Engine for Raising Water by Fire.”

“Indeed, madame.”

“It is beyond astonishing. After all these years, we have come full circle: the Doctor wants me to invest in an amazing new device for pumping water out of mines!”

“In truth, the Doctor knows very little of the Engine for Raising Water by Fire.”

Now there was another interruption in their discourse as the procession met and absorbed the mourners who had stayed behind at the Palace. Several of these had boarded sedan chairs or carriages, which enlarged and enlivened the procession. A diversion round one wing of the Palace got them out of Sophie’s great garden. The main road from Hanover westwards ran across the other front of the Palace. They crossed over it directly, but slowly, for a crowd of common people of Hanover had come out to stand here and pay their respects to their Sovereign. Once again, Eliza found Daniel in the crowd.

“Then this is not a silver-mining scheme? For I have had enough-”

“As have I, madame,” Daniel returned.

“Tin-mining I might consider, for Cornwall is famed for it.”

“And lead, and others as well. But this is not about silver, tin, lead, or any other metals, noble or base.”

“Coal?”

“Nay, ’tis not a question of any sort of mining! I speak to you rather of Power.”

“It is a frequent topic of conversation in many settings high and low,” Eliza observed, glancing in the direction of the King of Prussia. He was walking arm in arm with Caroline. They were interrupted by a pair of Prussian ladies, probably Countesses or something, who threw themselves at Caroline and took turns pressing their soggy cheeks against hers several times each. Caroline exchanged politenesses with them, and then made her escape, as the gun-carriage had finally plunged across the road and entered the older and smaller garden that spread away from the Palace on that side. The crowd of mourners, pursuing the coffin, thinned out suddenly. Caroline turned around and found Henrietta Braithwaite in formation behind her. The Princess thrust her face forward, adopting the pose of a ship’s figurehead, and closed her eyes. Mrs. Braithwaite stepped in close, raised up the implement with the curved ivory blade, and scraped it quickly down Caroline’s left cheek, then her right, shaving off the cloud of tear-caked face-powder, and the slick of rouge, that had been deposited by the mourners. Caroline opened her eyes, mouthed “Danke schon,” and spun away. Mrs. Braithwaite wiped the ivory clean with a rag that had already seen a lot of use today.