“He was taken in the back room of a certain Clubb, only a few minutes’ walk from here, frequented by Tories-many of whom, you may be sure, are sorely embarrassed. Certain Whigs would make political hay of it-and presently shall. I bear most of the men of this Clubb no ill-will and did not wish to expose them to obloquy. The true villain of the piece is a certain Tory Lord who was the first man in England for a time-”

“I know who you mean.”

“He may deserve exposure and shame, but this is not to be achieved without grave embarrassment to the entire Realm. The matter is delicate-” and here Isaac looked, uncharacteristically, to one who would know more about it: Daniel Waterhouse, Lord Regent.

Daniel responded by raising his voice in the direction of a side door of the library, which stood ajar. “Bring it in,” he commanded.

The door was drawn open by some unseen servant. Another servant, a butler, came in gripping a tray mostly covered by a blue velvet cushion. Bedded in that were two ingots of metal, deeply wrought with intricate circular depressions, made so that they could be clapped together like a huge locket. These were borne over to the Princess so that she could inspect them; Newton and Leibniz stole sidelong glances. “It is my honor,” said Daniel, “to present to your royal highness the Seals that are used by His Majesty’s Secretary of State on his official correspondence. Until yesterday these were, of course, in the possession of my lord Bolingbroke. But as your royal highness may have heard, Bolingbroke has decided to spend more time with his family.”

“Yes-in France,” said Caroline drily.

“He was last seen southbound at a speed normally seen only among men who have been projected from high cliffs,” Daniel allowed. “Of course, being a man of honor, he first gave the Seals of his former office to one of His Majesty’s Regents. I had the privilege of catching them when they slipped from his sweaty and trembling hands, and now present them to your royal highness. They are your family property. You may take them back to Hanover or-”

“They shall be ever so much more useful here,” said Caroline. “You and the other Regents will look after them, won’t you?”

“We shall consider it our honor and our privilege, highness.”

“Very well. Then since Bolingbroke appears to have departed the stage, I would that these be set aside, and I would hear more of Jack Shaftoe. Did he fight?”

The butler backed away and set the Seals on a library table near Daniel, then backed out of the room bowing. This gave Newton some moments to frame a response. Isaac, who until now had been at pains to respond instantly to the Princess’s every word and gesture, bated for a moment before answering. Daniel searched his face and thought he perceived a quiver of triumph-a rare self-indulgence for a Puritan. He was sitting at the right hand of the Princess of Wales telling the tale of how he’d caught the arch-villain Jack the Coiner, and, as a soupcon, the Seals of his most terrible persecutor had been brought in as a sort of trophy. Only Bolingbroke’s scalp on a stick would have given satisfaction more complete.

“Fight? No. Rather, he feigned a sort of boredom, or so I am told by the bailiffs who arrested him.”

“Boredom?”

“Yes, highness, as if he had known all along that he was walking into a trap.”

“Is he in the Tower of London, then?”

Isaac could not prevent a patronizing smile from spreading across his face. “As Mr. Shaftoe is a traitor and an important one, your royal highness anticipates, correctly, that he shall be held in the Tower. In this case, however, there are extenuating circumstances that have dictated a less conventional accommodation. Jack the Coiner and his gang seized the Tower complex in an elaborate coup de main some months ago. It was hushed up, explained away. But the fact is that he did it; from which we may conclude that he had, and has, many confederates among the people who dwell there, and that he knows its secrets all too intimately. Effective control of the Tower is still vested in Charles White, captain of the King’s Messengers, and he is an old crony of Bolingbroke.”

“I should have thought the Regents might have found another man for such a position,” said Caroline, shifting her attention to Daniel.

“In England such changes are not made lightly or swiftly,” said Daniel, “and rarely without cause. We have no firm evidence against Mr. White-though this might change-”

“If Jack talks to us, and tells us what he knows,” Newton concluded.

“I see,” said Caroline, “which is yet another reason to keep him out of the Tower, and out of the Power, of Charles White. Where then is he?”

“He is in Newgate Prison,” said Newton, “and others of his gang are in Fleet Prison. We deemed it wisest not to put all of them together in one building.”

“Indeed,” said Caroline, looking a little dismayed. “But is Newgate not a very common pit? Can he be kept close in such a place?”

“Newgate is several prisons lumped into one,” said Daniel. “The most notorious part of it is indeed an execrable dungeon. But connected with it is the Press-Yard and Castle, where Persons of Quality are held, if they can afford it.”

“We are paying the Gaolers of Newgate to keep him in an apartment there, heavily ironed,” Newton announced.

“Can Jack not pay them even more?”

“Perhaps. But if they collude in his escape, the gaolers lay themselves open to charges of High Treason. And, working as they do at Newgate, and discoursing with Jack Ketch every day, they know better than most what is the penalty for that crime.”

“I thank you, Sir Isaac, and Dr. Waterhouse, for acquainting me with these things,” said Caroline, in a tone of voice, and with a shift of posture, that made it plain that this part of the conversation was at an end. “Now I would hear of matters far more important.” She settled back in her chair, letting its padded arms support her elbows, and as she talked, her right hand strayed over to rest upon the antique globe and nudge it this way and that in its felt-lined cradle. Her pose recalled that of a Monarch with one hand on an Orb, though the other hand seemed to be missing its Sceptre. “As you may know, Sir Isaac, I have known Baron von Leibniz for many years, and learned from him much of what I know of Mathematicks, Metaphysicks, and the younger discipline of Natural Philosophy. Concerning the first of these, reports have reached me of an unpleasant dispute concerning the origin of the Calculus. The particulars are tedious. Lesser minds, confronted with such complexities, have seized on simple explanations. One such is that you stole the calculus from Freiherr von Leibniz; another is that he stole it from you. I find both of these hypotheses unconvincing.”

During Caroline’s remarks Daniel had observed a change in the weather pass across Isaac’s face. If he had expected lavish thanks and praise, he had been disappointed; Caroline had found the news of Jack and Bolingbroke interesting but, in the end, not all that remarkable. ’Twas as if the exhausted and bloodied Knight had dragged a pair of freshly slain dragons into the forecourt of the Princess’s castle, and after a look-see and a polite question or two, she had gone back to filing her nails. Isaac had been irked for a moment, then resigned himself to it. ’Twas ever thus, for Isaac. Everything he had done had been under-appreciated and over-criticized. The pink flush of victory, which earlier had been so plain on his face, had vanished, to be replaced by the visage he was used to wearing: gray and stiff as the figurehead on a worn-out ship.

“Your royal highness knows Leibniz better than I,” said Newton. “As you have confided your view in me, highness, I shall accept it, and say nothing against it, either here, or in public. Of course, I have no power to compel other philosophers to adopt that, or any other, view.”