“I am using the word Power in a novel sense,” Daniel explained, when the milling and jostling of the crowd had brought him and Eliza together once more. By this time they were halfway along the path that ran from the main door of Herrenhausen Palace straight up the middle of the Berggarten (as this park was called) to an extremely squat and heavy Doric temple that sat in the middle, guarded and shaded by fine old trees.

Daniel continued, “I use it in a mechanickal sense-to mean a sort of general ability to effect change, in a measurable way. Pumping water out of mines is one thing to spend Power on, but if you had a fund of such Power you might put it to other uses as well.”

“Such as pounding hemp?”

“Or moving the parts of a Logic Mill. Or other purposes we have as yet failed to imagine. Once this Idea or conception of Power has entered your mind, madame, you shall find it difficult to shake off. Everywhere you look you shall see opportunities to put Power to use; and you shall see so many enterprises that suffer from a want of Power that you shall wonder how we have gotten along without it.”

“There is much to consider in your discourse, Doctor, and little leisure, here and now, to consider it. I would be alone now with my grief for Sophie.”

“And I would too, madame, and I thank you.”

“When we are back in London I should like to see this Court in Clerkenwell, and hear more of your plans for the women of Bridewell.”

They had reached the stone temple, and pooled round it. The building was windowless. A pair of doors in the front gave entry to private crypts within; but those were storage for dead cousins and stillborns. The doors were not used today. In the front portico two immense slabs had been set into the floor, cut with the names of Johann Friedrich-the one who had brought Leibniz to Hanover-and Ernst August, Sophie’s late husband. A fresh rectangular hole, of equal size, had recently been let into the floor, and a grave dug in the earth beneath it. A slab bearing Sophie’s name lay to one side, ready.

The rest of the proceedings, then, were of an obvious nature. All grieved, some more sincerely than others, none more so than Caroline. But when the grave had been filled in, with handfuls of dirt from the family, and shovel-loads from almost as sad laborers, Caroline could be seen dusting the dirt from her hands, and uttering some witticism that caused several around her to erupt in shocked and shocking laughter. The procession made its way back to Herrenhausen in a gradually improving mood. None was gayer than Princess Caroline. But only Henrietta and a few others knew that she had something to look forward to.

THE SOLSTICIAL DAY HAD STRETCHED into its eighteenth hour. The English delegation had stayed long past its scheduled date of return so that they could represent Her Britannic Majesty at the funeral, and in doing so they had emptied their purses and worn out what little welcome they had enjoyed to begin with. With a celerity that was conspicuous, verging on rude, they got out of town, banging away along the west-road in a train of carriages and baggage-carts, hoping there’d be enough daylight to reach the inn at Stadthagen.

They had left behind one of their number, a frail codger, who was rumored to have been an indifferently clever chap in his prime, but who now was sadly far gone, and probably never should have attempted such a journey in the first place. He had become debilitated by the long journey to Hanover and was in no condition to make a forced march back to the Dutch coast. Some kind-hearted member of the Hanoverian court had stepped in and offered to arrange a slow and easy return journey for this man, one Dr. Waterhouse, and even to send him in a coach full of nurses and physicians if need be. The other English had accepted this proffer hastily, and with more than a few winks and smirks-seeing it as a calculated attempt by some nobody to get himself Noticed in London.

More than half of the other noble and royal funeral-guests had already gone, many headed eastwards toward Braunschweig, Brandenburg, and Prussia, others going back to wherever Sophie had family, friends, or admirers, which meant radiating to all points of the compass.

Most of those who had stayed behind at Herrenhausen had done so for a reason. That reason was George Louis, Elector of Hanover, out from under his mother’s thumb at last, and next in line to the British throne. And so in spite of the long hours of afternoon sun, the mood of the place had gone just a bit chilly.

Or so it seemed to Baron Johann von Hacklheber as he strolled through the garden, on another sort of mission entirely. Like a black bumblebee he was zigzagging from one flower-bed to the next. He was gathering a bouquet to award to his lady love whenever she showed up. The fundamental laws of the universe governing young men waiting for young ladies applied here as everywhere else, and consequently it was becoming a very large arrangement. Some while ago it had grown too large for one person to hold. In fact it had now become a sort of flower-dump atop the pedestal of a conveniently located statue. Every time Johann added to the pile, he would say a little prayer to Venus-for she was the pedestal’s tenant-and look up at the Palace of Herrenhausen, and lock his gaze on a window in the west wing where Caroline was being fussed over by her attendants. As long as the lace curtains remained drawn, she was a work in progress. So Johann would step back, examine the flower-pile, and ponder the balance of its colors and the variety of its shapes. He would hold an imaginary colloquy with the mute and unhelpful Venus. Then he would launch out in search of the one blossom that would make it perfect. The garden was parted into polygons-triangles and quadrilaterals mostly-and as the wait stretched out he measured with his strides many of their perimeters. A gardener of a suspicious temperament, observing his movements from a distance, might think he was some sort of spy performing horticultural espionage.

Anyone observing him more closely, though, would note that he spent more time gazing outwards toward the perimeter than in on the flower-beds. On the road that surrounded the whole garden, along the bank of the enclosing canal, a sparse but relentless traffic of riders went pointlessly to and fro on expensive horses. Mostly they traveled in groups of two and three. Spurs were jingling all round. Their sound infiltrated the garden’s humid fragrant air like midsummer f?ry-bells. When groups met, murmuring picked up where jingling left off. Someone unaccustomed to Courts in general, and Herrenhausen in particular, would have found it as annoying as it was mysterious. Johann von Hacklheber was used to it, understanding that courtiers literally had no other way to spend their lives. Once more he was put in mind of the wisdom Sophie had shown in situating the riding-path on the extreme frontier of the garden-shouldering all equestrian conspirators out away from the part she loved.

Spotting a likely rosebud, he drew his left hand up the outside of his thigh, black wool purring under his fingertips, and over the line of tiny silver buckles that fastened his rapier’s black leather scabbard to the end of a broad black leather strap-a baldric, it was called-slung diagonally over his body. Continuing up and back, his hand passed under the skirt of his black wool coat, peeling the hem up to expose its black satin lining. He bent his elbow and supinated his wrist. The back of his hand glided up his buttock and over the black leather belt that kept his breeches from falling down, and stopped above his left kidney. He closed his hand on something hard: the handle of his dagger, which lived in an angled scabbard fastened to his belt at the base of his spine. An outward movement of his elbow drew it from its sheath. He got it out in front of him smartly before his coat-skirts could settle back upon the blade and be damaged by it. This precaution would not have been necessary with many daggers of recent make, which were designed for poking, parrying, and nail-paring, and had little to nothing in the way of a cutting edge. Johann owned several such. But all of them were gloriously decorative, and so did not go well with the funeral-weeds he wore today. The same was true of his collection of swords, which was neither especially large nor small compared to those of other gentlemen. But in the back of his wardrobe he did have this old set, which he’d inherited from a great-uncle. It had been made in Italy at least a hundred years ago when styles of sword-fighting, and hence of weapon-making, had been rather different. The rapier was huge. Its blade was a good eight inches longer than his arm, and somewhat broader than was common today, bringing its weight near the practical limit of a one-handed weapon. The edge had been notched in practice or combat, and re-ground, so many times that the blade no longer looked straight, but instead, as one sighted down it, rambled from side to side.