Quicksilver Read Free Page B

this Barker is telling him. The Barker’s punching at the air and becoming quite exercised, and not just because he is inarticulate. Assuming that he has been in touch with his brethren in London (and that is a very good assumption), he is probably telling the Angolan that he, and all of the other slaves, are perfectly justified in taking up arms and mounting a violent rebellion.
    “Your mount is very fine. Did you bring him from Europe?”
    “No, Ben. Borrowed him in New Amsterdam. New York, I mean.”
    “Why’d you sail to New York if the man you seek’s in Boston?”
    “The next America-bound ship from the Pool of London happened to be headed thither.”
    “You’re in a terrible hurry, then!”
    “I shall be in a terrible hurry to toss you over the side if you continue to draw such inferences.”
    This quiets Ben, but only long enough for him to circle round and probe Enoch’s defenses from another quarter: “The owner of this horse must be a very dear friend of yours, to lend you such a mount.”
    Enoch must now be a bit careful. The owner’s a gentleman of quality in New York. If Enoch claims his friendship, then proceeds to make a bloody hash of things in Boston, it could deal damage to the gentleman’s repute. “It is not so much that he is a friend. I’d never met him until I showed up at his door a few days ago.”
    Ben can’t fathom it. “Then why’d he even admit you to his house? By your leave, sir, looking as you do, and armed. Why’d he lend you such a worthy stallion?”
    “He let me in to his house because there was a riot underway, and I requested sanctuary.” Enoch gazes over at the Barker, then sidles closer to Ben. “Here is a wonder for you: When my ship reached New York, we were greeted by the spectacle of thousands of slaves—some Irish, the rest Angolan—running through the streets with pitchforks and firebrands. Lobsterbacks tromping after them in leapfrogging blocks, firing volleys. The white smoke of their muskets rose and mingled with the black smoke of burning warehouses to turn the sky into a blazing, spark-shot melting-pot, wondrous to look at but, as we supposed, unfit to support life. Our pilot had us stand a-loof until the tide forced his hand. We put in at a pier that seemed to be under the sway of the redcoats.
    “Anyway,” Enoch continues—for his discourse is beginning to draw unwanted notice—“that’s how I got in the door. He lent me the horse because he and I are Fellows in the same Society, and I am here, in a way, to do an errand for that Society.”
    “Is it a Society of Barkers, like?” asks Ben, stepping in close to whisper, and glancing at the one who’s proselytizing the slave. For by now Ben has taken note of Enoch’s various pistols and blades, and matched him with tales his folk have probably told him concerning that fell Sect during their halcyon days of Cathedral-sacking and King-killing.
    “No, it is a society of philosophers,” Enoch says, before the boy’s phant’sies wax any wilder.
    “Philosophers, sir!”
    Enoch had supposed the boy should be disappointed. Instead he’s thrilled. So Enoch was correct: the boy’s dangerous.
    “ Natural Philosophers. Not, mind you, the other sort—”
    “Unnatural?”
    “An apt coinage. Some would say it’s the unnatural philosophers that are to blame for Protestants fighting Protestants in England and Catholics everywhere else.”
    “What, then, is a Natural Philosopher?”
    “One who tries to prevent his ruminations from straying, by hewing to what can be observed, and proving things, when possible, by rules of logic.” This gets him nowhere with Ben. “Rather like a Judge in a Court, who insists on facts, and scorns rumor, hearsay, and appeals to sentiment. As when your own Judges finally went up to Salem and pointed out that the people there were going crazy.”
    Ben nods. Good. “What is the name of your Clubb?”
    “The Royal Society of London.”
    “One day I shall be a Fellow