“But do you think that there is ultimately some physical substance at work-something you could touch and observe?”

“Yes, I do, and have been searching for it. And I think I know where to find some,” Isaac said, and turned to glower at Daniel. But the Princess missed this, as she was turning to Leibniz. “Baron von Leibniz,” said she, “can your view be reconciled with Sir Isaac’s?”

Leibniz sighed. “It is…awkward,” he said. “To my ears, all of this sounds like a rear-guard action fought by a good Christian retreating before the onslaught of Mechanical Philosophy.”

“That could not be more wrong!” snapped Newton. “There is Mechanical, and there is Vegetable. I study both.”

“But you have already ceded half the battlefield to Mechanical!”

“There is no ceding, sir. Have you not read my Principia? The Mechanical world exists, the Mechanical philosophy describes it.”

“Dr. Waterhouse would say that Mechanism describes not just half, but all of it,” Leibniz said. “I take the opposite view, which is that Vegetable is all, and what we think of as mechanical is only the superficies of underlying processes that are not mechanical at all.”

“We await a coherent explanation,” said Isaac.

“Philosophers of a Mechanick frame of mind break all things down into atoms, to which they ascribe properties that, to them, seem reasonable-which means Mechanical properties. Mass, extension, and the ability to collide with and stick to one another. Then from this they try to explain Gravity and Souls and Miracles. It leads them into difficulties. Instead, I break all things down into monads, to which I ascribe what some would call soul-like properties: they can perceive, thnk about their perceptions, decide, and act. From this it is no great difficulty to explain those things that are so troublesome, in a mechanical-minded Atomic philosophy-everything that you put under the rubric of Vegetation, including our own ability to think, decide, and act. However, it is difficult to explain the things that are, in an Atomic philosophy, idiotically simple and obvious. Such as space and time.”

“Space and Time! Two minor omissions that no one is likely to notice,” grumbled Newton.

“If I may say so, your own conception of Space is by no means as straightforward as it seems at first,” Leibniz said, very much in the style of one who was firing the opening salvo of another long argument. But before this could get going, the door of the room opened, and Johann von Hacklheber could be seen standing there, holding, in a very significant way, a Letter. Behind him Eliza was pacing back and forth with a fist balled up in front of her lips.

Princess Caroline stared into Johann’s eyes, and cocked her head. She did not say aloud I told you not to bother me, but it came through so distinctly that all heads turned back toward Johann, expecting from him an immediate apology. Instead he raised his eyebrows and stood his ground.

Caroline closed her eyes and sighed. Newton, Leibniz, and Waterhouse stepped back to clear her path out of the room. For they had all understood at the same moment that there was only one person who had this authority: Caroline’s father-in-law, the as-yet-uncrowned King of England.

“Dr. Waterhouse, pray accept the role of my knight-errant, and put this thing to rest,” she said, and swept out.

“Well! That’s a bit of a tall order,” Daniel reflected, after the door had been closed behind her.

“Not so,” said Newton, “if you’ll only release the Solomonic Gold.”

“That Jew who works for the Tsar,” said Daniel-not wishing to utter the name Solomon, for fear it would send Isaac into chiliastic transports-“has detected that the trial batch of plates were made of heavier-than-normal gold, and the decree has gone forth from the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg that all succeeding plates be made of the same stuff. If we disobey, punishment will ensue, in the Russian style. Were it not for this, I’d swop the gold without hesitation. For I believe it has no special properties whatsoever.”

“Then how do you explain your personal resurrection, at the hands of Enoch Root, in 1689?”

“Say what!?” asked Leibniz.

“Or,” said Isaac, “is that the one thing Hooke wrote, in all his life, that you’ll not believe?”

“Hooke’s account states that Enoch gave me some medicine, which helped.”

“Helped!? You have a marvelous gift for understatement, Daniel.”

“It could have been anything…or nothing. It has been known to occur that seemingly dead men will revive after a few minutes.”

“I hated Hooke,” Isaac admitted, “but even I will admit that he was the most acute observer who ever lived. Do you really expect me to believe that he, of all people, could not distinguish between a living patient and a dead?”

“I see that your mind is quite made up. What point is there in debating it?”

Both Newton and Leibniz laughed out loud.

“What is funny?” Daniel demanded.

“You have made us debate for hours!” Leibniz exclaimed. “Now that you are challenged on a troublesome question, you claim to see no point in it.”

“I need only a small sample, Daniel,” said Newton. “Do not forget that for many years I have sought evanescent traces of this in samples of gold that had been infinitely diluted and debased. My techniques are now highly developed. I do not need a brick of the stuff. Just an ounce, or less-a scrap.”

“I tell you that Peter’s assayer weighed every ounce of it. There are no ounces to spare. I could ask him for permission to take a small sample, but…”

“No,” said Isaac, “I do not think it would be wise for you to tip your hand.”

At this remark Daniel was suddenly conscious of the ring on his finger: the one that Solomon had given him, made of con-fused bits punched from the plates at Bridewell. A tingle ran up his arm to his scalp; but he froze there, and said nothing, and hoped that Isaac would not take note of his horripilation.

“Isaac,” said a voice. Daniel had to look up to verify that it was that of Leibniz: a bit shocking, only in that the German had addressed Newton by his Christian name, without the “Sir.”

“Gottfried,” said Newton, not to be gainsaid.

“Thirty-seven years ago I came incognito to these shores to propose an alliance between myself and you. It was about two years after I’d developed the calculus, only to realize I was only following in your footsteps. It had occurred to me that we might share other interests as well, and that by joining forces we might achieve more, sooner. Daniel had encouraged me in this.”

“I well remember the match, and the matchmaker,” said Isaac, “and his weakness for playing with matches.”

This witticism, because it was such a rare thing from Isaac, cut all the more deeply. Daniel’s right arm had begun to feel terribly heavy, as if the ring were weighing it down-or as if the strain of the day had caused him to suffer a stroke. He put the heavy hand in the pocket of his breeches, and hung his head.

“Then you remember as well as I that the match flared, only to fail,” said Gottfried. “Now I am back, certainly for the last time. Will you not reconsider, Isaac? Will you not obey your Princess-my Princess-and work with me, and lay a strong foundation beneath the System of the World?”

“I am and have been working on just that,” said Isaac. “Should I not ask you, Gottfried, if you would work with me? It might entail giving up on monads, by the way. Ah, I see by your look that you have no thought of doing so.”

“The answer then is no.”

“The answer is yes. But it is a question of timing, sir. It is not for you, or me, or our Princess, to dictate how long it shall take, and when it shall be accomplished! She would have it settled now-today! You are likewise in a great hurry. For you are an old man-we are all old men-and fearful of running out of time. But this is neither here nor there. Nature will reveal her secrets at times of her own choosing, and has no thought of our convenience. Principia Mathematica might never have come about had Nature not sent a spate of comets our way in the 1680s, and so arranged their trajectories that we could make telling observations. It might be ten years, a hundred, or a thousand before she sends us the clew that will enable us to solve the riddles we have been speaking of today. Though the Gold of Solomon might be might be just that clew-I don’t know until I can inspect some of it.”