“I do not wish to be at all wrong. So pray correct me, sir.”
“King Solomon the Wise, builder of the Temple, was the forefather of all Alchemists,” Isaac said. “Set upon the throne, a young man, fearing himself unequal to the task, he made a thousand burnt offerings to the LORD; who then came to him in a dream and said, ‘Ask what I shall give thee.’ And Solomon asked not for wealth or power but for an understanding heart. And it pleased the LORD ‘so well that Solomon had desired this thing, that he gave him an understanding heart ‘so that there hath been none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall arise the like unto thee.’ First Kings, Chapter Three, Verse 12. Thus Solomon’s name became a byword for wisdom: Sophia. What is the name we give to those who love wisdom? Philosophers. I am a philosopher; and though I can never equal the wisdom of Solomon—for it says quite plainly in the chapter and verse I have quoted, that no man who came after Solomon would achieve like wisdom—I can strive to discover some of what is today hidden but was once in plain view in the Temple of Wisdom that Solomon built.
“Now it says, too, that the LORD gave Solomon riches, even though Solomon had not asked for them. Solomon had gold, and moreover he had an understanding heart, so that the secrets hidden within matter—such as I have discoursed of in window-glass and acids—could scarcely have been hidden from his gaze for long. The lucubrations of latter-day Alchemists such as I must be little more than crude mockery of the Great Work that Solomon the Wise undertook in his Temple. For thousands of years, Alchemists have sought to re-discover what fell into obscurity when Solomon came to the end of his years in Jerusalem. Most of their efforts have been unavailing; yet a few of the great ones—Hermes Trismegistus, Sendigovius, the Black Monk, Didier, Artephius—came to similar, if not identical, conclusions as to the process that must be followed to achieve the Great Work. I am very close now—” And here Newton faltered for the first time in several minutes, and took his gaze away from Eliza, and with a little nod and the faintest trace of a smile gathered Fatio once more into the discourse. “We are very close now to achieving this thing. I am told, my lady, that there are those who hold my Principia Mathematica in some high regard; but I say to you that it shall be nothing but a preface to what I shall bring forth next, provided I can only move the Work a short step further.
“It would be of immense help to us in this if we had even a small sample of the original gold given to Solomon by the LORD.”
“Now I understand it at last,” Eliza said. “That gold that was taken by Jack Shaftoe and his pirates from Bonanza is believed, by you and other Alchemists, to have been a sample of King Solomon’s gold, somehow preserved down through the ages. It is somehow different from the gold that the slaves of the Portuguese dig from the earth in Brazil—”
“The theory of how it differs has been developed in more detail than you might care to listen to, particularly if you hold Alchemy to be nonsensical,” said Fatio. “It has to do with how the particles—the atoms—of gold are composed, one to the next, to form networks, and networks of networks, et cetera, et cetera, and what occupies, or may pass into, the holes in the said nets. Suffice it to say that the Solomonic Gold, though it looks the same, is slightly heavier than mundane gold. And so even those who know nothing of the Art may recognize a sample of this Gold as extraordinary merely by weighing it, and computing its density. A large trove of such gold was found in Mexico some years ago and brought back to Spain by the ex-Viceroy, who intended to sell it to Lothar von Hacklheber, but—”
“I know the rest. But what do you phant’sy was King Solomon’s Gold doing in New Spain?”
“There is a tradition that Solomon did not perish, but rather went into the East,” said Newton. “You may credit it, or not; but what is beyond dispute is that the Viceroy was in possession of gold that was heavier than the ordinary.”
“And you are so certain of this because—?”
“Lothar von Hacklheber sent three assayers across the ocean to New Spain to verify it beyond any shadow of doubt.”
“Hmm. No wonder he was so vexed when Jack snatched it from under his nose!”
“May I inquire, my lady, whether you have heard from this Jack Shaftoe recently?”