Almost three weeks after Minerva had dropped anchor at Port Marques, Edmund de Ath came out alone one morning from Acapulco, bearing sealed letters from the Viceroy. One was addressed to van Hoek and another to the Viceroy's counterpart in Lima. Van Hoek opened his in Minerva's dining cabin, in the presence of de Ath, Dappa, Jack, and Vrej.

Moseh's vow compelled him to remain ashore. Later Jack rowed in on a skiff and found the Jew eating a taco.

"These Vagabond-boots are longing to Stray," Jack said. "I reckon that tomorrow we will round up a posse of these vaqueros and desperadoes and begin to assemble a mule-train."

Moseh finished chewing a bite of his taco and swallowed carefully. "The news is good, then."

"We are all vile hereticks and profiteers, says the Viceroy, and ought to be whipped all the way to Boston…but Edmund de Ath has put in a good word for us."

"Is that Ed's version or…"

"It's right there in black and white in the middle of the Viceroy's letter, or so literate men assure me."

"Very well," said Moseh, dubiously. "I do not like being beholden to that Jansenist, but—"

"We are beholden to him anyway," said Jack. "Do you recollect the fellow we had dealings with in Sanlúcar de Barrameda?"

"That cargador metedoro? It's been a while."

"You don't have to remember him personally, but only the class he belonged to."

"Spanish Catholics who front for Protestant merchants…"

"…because hereticks are barred from doing business in Spain. You've got it."

"The Viceroy wants our quicksilver," Moseh said, "but as long as the Inquisition is active in Mexico City, he cannot allow Protestants and a Jew to roam about transacting business in his country. And so he insists that we nominate a Papist to act as our cargador metedoro."

"Just so," Jack said.

"And—don't tell me—Edmund de Ath is our man. I am uneasy."

"You are always uneasy, and more often than not, for the best of reasons," Jack said, "but for God's sake look about you and consider our situation. We must have a Catholic and that is all there is to it. There are many to choose from, but as a Belgian Jansenist, Ed is the least Catholic Catholic we are likely to find, and at least we know something about him."

"Do we? The only person who can testify as to his character is Elizabeth de Obregon, and she's been under his spell ever since she came to."

Jack sighed. "Do I need to tell you that you've been out-voted?"

Moseh flinched. "I never should have given any of you voting privileges…that was never part of the Plan."

"We're not putting him in control of the ship," Jack said, "just allowing him to act as our front here and in Lima. He'll sail down that-a-way aboard Minerva and sell whatever quicksilver we do not off-load here. At that point, his role in the enterprise is finished. Minerva leaves him on the dock in Lima, rounds Cape Horn, and makes rendezvous with us in Vera Cruz or Havana a year or two later. Edmund de Ath can stay in Peru and try to convert the Incas to Œcumenicism, or he can come back to Mexico…it matters not to us."

"It matters not to me, for my voyaging days have ended," said Moseh. "If Edmund de Ath tries to do any mischief I'll put on my poncho and sombrero and ride north with saddlebags full of silver."

"Very well," Jack said, "but first you had better learn how to ride. It is more difficult than pulling on an oar."

JULY 1701

"YOUR HIGHNESS, WHEN I WAS a boy—rather younger than you are now, hard as that might be to imagine—I was locked out of a library for a time, and I did not care for it at all," said the bald man leading the young woman down the gallery. "I pray you understand how it has pained me to have locked you out of yours for the last week—"

"It's not really mine, is it? The library is the property of Uncle Freddy and Aunt Figgy!"

"But you have made it yours by spending so much time there."

"While it was closed, you've brought me every book I asked for without delay, Doctor. So whyever should I mind?"

"It's true, Highness, my desire to apologize to you is wholly irrational, Q.E.D."

"Is it just one of those Barock apologies that courtiers put at the beginnings of letters?"

"I should hope not. An apology may be heartfelt without being rational."

"Whereas a courtier's apology is the opposite," said the Princess, "in that it is insincere but calculated."

"It is well said—but said too loudly," answered the proud Doctor. "Your voice carries for a mile down these echoing galleries; and a courtier who has just snatched an indiscretion out of the air will prance about to all the salons like a puppy who has just stolen a drumstick."

"Then let's in here, where my voice will be muffled by books, and where courtiers never venture," answered Caroline, and paused before the doors to the library, waiting for Leibniz to open them for her.

"Now you will see your birthday present, and I hope you like it," said the Doctor, drawing a key on a blue silk ribbon from his pocket. The key was a rod of steel having a fabulously ornate handle at one end, and at the other, a sort of three-dimensional maze carved into a steel cube. He inserted this into a square hole in the door-lock, wiggled it to and fro to make it one with the mechanism concealed inside, then turned it. Before opening the doors, he removed the key from the lock and hung it on its blue ribbon around the Princess's neck. "Since you cannot carry your present with you, I hope you'll carry this key as a token. May you never be locked out again."

"Thank you, Doctor. When I am Queen of some country or other, I shall build you a library greater than that of Alexandria, and give you a golden key to it."

"I fear that I shall be too old and blind to make good use of the library—but I shall accept the key with gratitude, and carry it to my grave."

"That would be irresponsible of you—then no one else would be able to get into the Library!" Caroline answered, with a roll of the eyes, and a sharp sigh of exasperation. "Open the doors, Doctor, I want to see it!"

Leibniz unlatched the double doors, turned around, and backed through them so that he could watch her face. He saw light reflected in her blue eyes: light from high windows all around the room, and from sparking fire-works set in buckets of sand to make it look like one great birthday-cake.

The library had been built two stories high, with a catwalk all around, halfway up, to afford access to the higher shelves, and its walls and the frescoed vault overhead had been generously arched with windows so that "Aunt Figgy" (short for Figuelotte, as Queen Sophie Charlotte was known to her family) and her bookish friends could read into the evening without need of candles. The high windows had been cracked open to let the room breathe in warm summer air and to exhale the smoke from the fizzing sparklers. The frescoes depicted the same assortment of Classical scenes that covered the ceiling of every rich person in Christendom nowadays, though the gods and goddesses had been provided with blond hair and blue eyes so that Jupiter might as well have been Wotan. Trompe l'oeil made it look as if the library had no ceiling but was open to the blue skies, and the gods were all springing out of frothy clouds. The writhing columns of smoke from the fireworks spread out against the plaster-work and swirled about to make the illusion that much better.

A cheer and a little song followed, from the dozen or so people who had come to wish Caroline Glück on her Geburtstag. It was a small party, for a Princess, and it was an older crowd. Sophie was the eldest of all at seventy-one—she had come out from Hanover, crammed into a carriage with Leibniz and her grandchildren: George August (who was a few months younger than Caroline) and Sophie Dorothea (four years younger yet). Sophie Charlotte (Figuelotte), Queen of Prussia and the mistress and namesake of the palace, was here with her son Frederick William, a legendary brat of thirteen. Filling out the guest list was the motliest collection of metaphysicians, mathematicians, radical theologians, writers, musicians, and poets ever brought together for a princess's eighteenth birthday.