It was a bright, blustery day in the Downs. The anchored warships were all busy, patching, repairing, resupplying. Waiting to sail out and protect England’s budding dominions in far flung places like the Carolinas, Jamaica, or Tangiers. The echo of Dutch cannons was still loud in the ears of the Royal Navy. Nobody, at least nobody in the Royal Navy, thought it would be the last time they tried conclusions with the Dutch. A second war was coming, and soon.
Truth stood on the quarterdeck of the Assurance, fresh from being scraped, painted and repaired at Portsmouth. This was to be a shakedown voyage, just to make sure the lazy sods in the shipyard didn’t muck up something. Like any sensible sailor, he despised both passengers and having women aboard for any reason. Like any sensible officer, he knew damn well promotions and ships were made available to those with the right connections.
And the Assurance was a piddly little thirty two gun Fourth Rate, rather than a majestic Second or First Rate. And his passenger was the daughter of a knight and married to the Vicount Conway, who owned a decent percentage of both Warwickshire and County Antrim. And the person who arranged this whole rigamarole was the alarmingly energetic Clerk of the Acts for the Navy Board, Samuel Pepys. A Clerk who was infamously close to the Earl of Sandwich’s entire household, spoken fondly of by the Lord High Admiral H.R.H James II, and had personally negotiated and approved the contract for the masts on damn near every English warship. And Pepys had helped get him this ship, after receiving a generous gift of silver plate and a small crate of rare melons.
So here he was. Waiting on a woman with a headache.
The little Thames Estuary hoy was beating against the wind, and making unimpressive time. Its latest tack should take it close enough to carry passengers over on a boat. Truth watched it do just that, neatly slowing and anchoring in the Downs’ twelve fathoms of water. A boat was lowered, then sailors clambered down the side of the hull into it. Luggage was carefully lowered down, then the human cargo, sitting in a sling.
Truth swore. He hadn’t thought of that.
“Lieutenant Makeepeace!”
“Captain!”
“Rig a hoist for our guest and her luggage. Lively now.”
“Aye, Sir.”
Makeepeace had the decency not to give him a look before leaping into action. It wasn’t that big a job. If there is one thing the Navy had no shortage of, it was ropes. Thanks to Pepys, there was no shortage of timber either.
Soon the boat was over, and Makeepeace did a fine job bringing the cargo aboard.
“Captain Alítheia, by your leave, permission to come aboard?”
Her voice was surprisingly strong, Truth thought. Curly hair on a very round head and one of those unfortunate mouths that made her look like her teeth were apart even when her lips were closed.
“Granted. Welcome aboard, my Lady. I hope your journey was comfortable?” Truth asked with a polite smile.
She smiled, as her servant and maid supervised the luggage as it went to her cabin.
“Comfortable enough. A few days on the road, and two more in the hoy. Still, I had my books for company, so no great suffering.”
“I am glad to hear that. If I might make so bold as to ask, what books are you reading?”
“Ah, it’s a foolish whim of mine. I decided to set a sort of argument, and bounce between books looking for the answer. My disputants on this trip are the ancient Plato, the questionable Monsieur Decarte, and the mysterious Jew, Luria. My question to them all is this- ‘If God is perfect, why do we live in an imperfect world?’”
Truth smiled, sincerely this time. This might just be a pleasant journey after all.
___________________________________________________________________________
Dinner was a lively affair. Truth entertained his officers and guest in his cabin, the table pulled out and loaded with pickled oysters and a rather decent joint of mutton he had bought the day before. The passenger contributed a few bottles of good sack, and all were merry.
“You say you have fallen out with Decarte? I thought he was all the rage in Cambridge?” Truth asked.
“Oh he is. But many people enjoy things that are wrong. He says that matter and spirit are two different things. This is plainly nonsense. Yet so many humor the old bore.” She shook her head, curls bouncing slightly as she did.
One of the Young Gentlemen, sat at the table to learn manners and how to make connections with important guests, was taken a bit too much with the strong wine and forgot himself. “But aren’t they? I can touch the table but not the air.” His little voice piped, not having dropped yet.
Truth didn’t grimace, though most of the officers did. The little idiot just damaged his chance at a Midshipman posting, just because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Fortunately, their guest was broad minded.
“I think your sails would have much to say about whether you could touch the air, young man.” There were nods around the table at that. “But this and that are really not at all the same things. By your thinking, all would be matter.”
“Like old Hobbes.” Truth nodded. “I met him once, as a young man.”
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“He’s still alive, actually.” The lady smiled. “Hobbes, I mean.”
“Oh, I know. You should hear people denounce the little coward.” Truth rolled his eyes.
“Coward?” She asked. “I would call him many things, but coward seems perhaps strong.”
“Let him send his second if he disagrees.” Truth’s voice was tight. Then forced himself to relax. “I do him an injustice, perhaps. It goes to your question of an imperfect world. I was escorting him from Portsmouth up to London. We had just passed through a burnt out village. Who had done it was not known at the time, be they Cavaliers or Roundheads, for all that the “Protector” was on the throne and Monk’s army was keeping the peace. Presumably they were keeping it up in Scotland. Horrible things, not fit for the dinner table, were all I could see.”
“May they rest in peace.” The lady murmured.
“God willing. But his whole notion upon seeing all of that human waste was that it was all rational, in a way. The logical consequence of failing to have a king unburdened by the restraints of parliament or our old traditions of governance.”
“Thankfully, His Majesty is wise enough to rule with both strength and moderation.” Makeepeace smiled and nodded, then stood and offered a toast. “The King!”
They all stood and drank their salute.
“Hobbes and I are at odds in a different direction,” the passenger explained. “Getting back to the question of matter versus spirit, and why we live in an imperfect world. The Platonists would say that God is a perfect being of spirit, entirely removed from the world. Think of it like the sun- a perfect sphere, needing nothing but radiating much. God is infinitely alive. Indeed, it is thanks to him that the state of being known as “life” exists. He is also infinitely good, wise and just.”
The table nodded along with her. It was… odd… hearing a woman speak so freely in the company of men, but rank, as the officers knew quite well, hath its privileges. And Truth knew that amongst her class, such liberty was much less rare after the Restoration.
“But! Since that is so, why are we mortal, wicked, foolish and cruel?” She asked.
“Since God has all those perfect traits, there would be no chance of a serpent or a garden, I suppose.” Truth grinned. It was a dangerous view, but it was an era of religious turmoil, and she wasn’t promoting Popery or atheism.
“Exactly! So there must be several categories or species of things. First there is God- which is a being of pure spirit, eternal life and immutable nature. It is one, cohesive, singular thing, while also made up of all things, an infinity of other things, because it is God, and therefore everything.”
Dicier theological ground here, but Truth knew that none of his officers actually read philosophy or theology. They just looked impressed.
“Then there must be some intermediary, transmitting the life and divinity of God down, then, into the rest of the world. Something capable of change, but still possessing that eternal quality of life. I would say here that you have a species that is both Mortal and Divine.”
“Christ?” Asked Makeepeace.
“Exactly. Still singular, still eternal, but capable of change. Bridging the gap between the singular, perfect eternal, and the multiple, imperfect and mortal.” She agreed.
“And from him is transmitted more of that divine nature into the world. Which is also, still, God?” Truth asked.
“Yes, but in the same way that one’s body and the sea both contain salty water- One may be gone at any time, but the sea will always be there. Sooner or later, our water will return to it.”
This led to some sober nodding from the adults, and some drunken nodding from the Young Gentlemen. Learning how to hold your drink was another important lesson taught at table.
“But this doesn’t address the issue of imperfection in the world.” Truth pointed out.
“True. And I can only admit that I am lacking here. My supposition is that it is due to the sheer distance and degree of mutability between the singular perfection of God and the infinite infinities of things that make up the universe. Each of us is some part of God, some change in the spirit that is God and the universe.” She held her spoon up in front of the lantern, casting an exaggerated shadow over her plate.
“See? The light seems blocked. But no matter how dim, I can still see my mutton well. We are never completely divorced from the spirit, and thus, from God.”
She smiled in triumph, then went white. She grasped the table and gasped. Closed her eyes hard and grabbed her head.
“My maid. Call for Mary!” She groaned.
Mary was summoned and took her mistress to her cabin. Truth called on her the next day, but was politely rebuffed by Mary. He saw little of his passenger, until they reached Callais.
“My Lady, Time and tide wait for no man, but if you wish, we can wait at anchor a while longer.” Truth said gently.
His passenger had changed since she came aboard. Visibly thinner, her skin waxy and shockingly pale, her eyes sunken. Truth had seen men like that before. Mostly in the Sick Bay, after a battle. The wounded, living with pain too great for words.
“No need, Captain. The worst is past. It’s why I’m going to France. I’m told the doctors there are very expert in the delicate skill of trepanation. No English doctor dares try, but I believe Frenchmen will be bolder. In the meantime, I can only rely on the mercury medicines and pray the apothecaries are right about the discoveries of the alchemists.”
Truth nodded. He hesitated. His question was, at best, indelicate, but it would prey on him if he didn’t ask. He took another glance at her, and resolved to ask by letter.
“Mr. Pepys said you would be like that.”
“Your pardon?”
“‘Two things the captain will chase to the ends of the earth- a fat prize, and a question of philosophy.’ It seems he was right about the latter. Was he right about the former too?”
“No, I’d catch them long before we reached the ends of the earth. Would you mind…?”
“Not at all. I think I can guess your question anyhow. Pain. How could God torture himself with the invention of pain, and the suffering of all his infinate parts?” She was keeping very still, Truth noticed, her eyes squinting against even the dim, pre-dawn light.
“As you say, M’Lady.”
“The last leg of my construction. Well, It’s not finished yet. Call it the last leg of my hypothesis. I will need to test it more.” She closed her eyes and breathed steadily. “Perfectibility. We are far from the light of God, lost in the shadows of the world. But we can become better. We can refine ourselves in the fire of pain, discarding the parts of us that are not God. It is a slow process. An imperfect one. But our pain is not our enemy, or some demonic trickery. It is our opportunity.”
She sighed, once, long and deep. Then opened her eyes again. Beyond the exhaustion, beyond the pain, there was something hard as a coffin nail.
“Hell is not eternal, Captain. If it exists, it exists to perfect us, that we may return to God. An eternal punishment for a temporary transgression could never be just, so how could God countenance an eternal punishment? No. Hell is reformatory and temporary. One day, both God and I shall live free of pain. And we both believe that the result is worth the suffering.”