“I see what you mean. Does this double Duchess have a Christian name?”
“Eliza.”
“Children? Other than—unless I’m mistaken—that energetic little bastard who is always following my banker around.”
“Two surviving children thus far: Adelaide, four, and Louis, going on two; the latter is the personal unification of the Houses of Arcachon and of Qwghlm, and, if he survives his father, will become lord of a hyphenated Duchy, like Orange-Nassau or Brandenburg-Prussia.”
“Arcachon-Qwghlm doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, I’m afraid. What are her pastimes?”
“Natural Philosophy, amazingly complex financial machinations, and the abolition of slavery.”
“White, or all of it?”
“I believe she means to begin with white, and then leverage legal precedents thus obtained to extend it to all.”
“Scarcely matters to us,” muttered Sophie, “we have no blackamoors hereabouts, and no fleet with which to go and get them. But it seems a bit, I don’t know, quixotic.”
Leibniz said nothing.
“Quixotic is fine!” Sophie allowed, “we enjoy a dash of quixotic, as long as it is not boring. She is never boring about it, is she?”
“If you take her aside and really press her on it, she can go on at some length about the evils of slavery,” Leibniz conceded, “but otherwise she is the very soul of discretion, and never heard to utter more than a few words on the topic in polite company.”
“Where is she?”
“She spends most of her time in London lately, looking after an unfathomably lengthy and tedious Judicial Proceeding involving one Abigail Frome, a white slave, but maintains residences in St. Malo, Versailles, Leipzig, Paris, and of course the Castle on Outer Qwghlm.”
“We would meet her. We are grateful that she took Princess Caroline under her wing when the poor child was forgotten and alone. We share her passion for Natural Philosophy. We may require someone of her talents to assist us in the management of our ship Minerva and to ensure that the profits are not illicitly diverted to the coffers of our partner, Kottakkal, the Pirate-Queen of Malabar.”
“I am afraid you quite lost me there, your Electoral Highness!”
“Do try harder to keep up, Doctor Leibniz, I hired you because people said you were clever.”
“It shan’t happen again, your Electoral Highness…er…you were on to something about a ship?”
“Never mind the ship! The most important thing is that this Eliza shall bring us the most excellent gossip from London; gossip that it is our duty to hear, as we or our heirs are likely one day to be crowned monarchs of England. And so if Eliza comes to this part of the world to pay a call on her bastard…”
“I’ll see to it that she puts in an appearance here, your Electoral Highness.”
“Done! What is next on the list?”
“Whitehall Palace burnt down.”
“The whole thing? I was led to believe it was quite…rambling.”
“According to the few people remaining in London who will still write to me, it is all smoking ruins.”
“Ve must speak Englisch ven ve speak of Englant!” the Electress decreed. “I never get to practice othervise.”
“Right. In English, then: As soon as the war ended, the Whigs were cast out—”
“The Yuncto?”
“Very good, your majesty, you have it right, the Yuncto is cast into the outer darkness, the Tories are ascendant.”
“How fortunate for William,” Sophie said drily. “Just when he needs a new palace built, the king-loving party gets its hands on the treasury.”
“Which happens to be completely empty at the moment, but that problem is being worked on by clever fellows, fear not.”
“Now the conversation really is about to become very boring indeed,” Sophie reflected, “as we are on to revenue and taxes. The bat will go to sleep up there, snuggled up next to a naiad or a dryad, and not come awake until the middle of dinner.”
“Everything said of the Tsar would suggest he’ll not be troubled by a bat. You could have wolves and bears in here and he would not look twice.”
“I am not trying to make Peter feel at home,” Sophie said frostily, “but to show him that, somewhere between Berlin and here, he at last crossed the frontier of civilization. And one lovely thing about civilization is philosophers capable of making interesting conversation.”
“Right. So we are finished with gossip, then, and—”
“—and on to the latest developments in philosophy—Natural, or Unnatural, as you prefer. Stand and deliver, Doctor Leibniz! Whatever’s the matter? Bat got your tongue?”
“The English savants are all busy toiling at practical matters—Mints, Banks, Cathedrals, Annuities. The French are all under the shadow, if not the actual boot, of the Inquisition. Nothing of interest has been heard out of Spain since they kicked out the Jews and the Moors two hundred years ago. So when you inquire after Philosophy, Majesty, you inquire—and I do not wish to seem self-important when I say this—after me.”