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The crux of the matter, however, is this: one does not turn down a summons from Sir Joseph Banks. As the bells of a nearby church toll the appointed hour, Monneron announces himself at Banks's residence at 32 Soho Square. Neither the square nor the house is at all what he expected for the president of the Royal Society: the neighborhood has the noisy, resigned air of a place abandoned by fashionable people, and the house, with its narrow three-story frontage of red brick, is nothing if not modest. But inside, the home is large and grand, and so is Banks—tall and stout, a perfectly fitted wig on his sizable head, a fur-trimmed robe adding to his overall bulk. As if to diminish all the largeness and grandeur, however, he shows Monneron into a small, dense library fitted under the great staircase of his home.
He motions for Monneron to sit on one side of a crowded desk while he arranges himself into a red leather chair opposite, then says, "And how is the good Don Inigo these days?"
Monneron eyes his host warily. "I found him very well the last time I saw him."
"Excellent." Banks slides a framed specimen display across the desk. The case appears to contain, pinned to the canvas, a few thin twigs with their leaves—some green and mottled, some brown and crinkled—but no, they're not twigs at all, they're insects, insects with long, jointed legs and triangular heads, very like the mantes Monneron enjoyed finding in the garden as a boy.
"The Egyptian flower mantis," Banks says. "Blepharopsis mendica."
"Man-tis," Monneron repeats under his breath, committing a new English word to memory. He stares at the insects and wonders if there might be a Don Inigo, after all.
"They spend their lives hanging upside down from tree branches whose leaves they resemble," Sir Joseph is saying. "Their prey crawl or fly by, never suspecting a thing till they're caught."
Monneron's attention swings back to Banks. "Caught?"
Banks smiles.
"Forgive me, Sir Joseph," Monneron says, "but I did not know Don Inigo had written to you about my visit."
"Oh, he didn't," Banks says. "I saw Mr. Webber yesterday afternoon."
"Mr. Webber?" Not Adams. Monneron feels a twitch of disappointment. He hadn't asked Webber to keep his presence in London a secret. Nevertheless, it feels … not like a betrayal of trust, exactly—that would presume too much of a morning's acquaintance—but like an assumption of openness Monneron had neither known about nor agreed to. "Mr. Webber was kind enough to show me some of his paintings yesterday," he finally says.
"He's a competent landscape painter," Banks says. "I must confess I don't think much of his portraiture." Seeing his guest's surprise, he adds: "They're pretty enough, but not very lifelike. His natives look too European. And his Europeans—well, they're a bit savage. He did a most unusual oil of Captain Cook and presented it to his widow. I certainly hope it did not compound the grief of the long-suffering Mrs. Cook. It bore little resemblance to the great man."
Monneron remembers the paintings and sketches in Webber's library, how very warm and human the man from Mangea looked, for all he had a knife stuck in his ear. Is Banks simply voicing his opinion, or warning him off? What is it that he wants, anyway?
As if divining his perplexity, Banks says, "Mr. Monneron, my sole purpose in making myself known to you is to offer any assistance it may be in my power to provide." The two men watch each other for a moment, then Banks says, "I understand you are tasked with learning about antiscorbutics." He reaches for a fat volume at one end of his desk and hands it to Monneron: A Treatise on the Scurvy by James Lind. "The most important contribution to seafaring physic this century," he says. "Take it. I have several copies. Be sure the ships' surgeons read it."
Excerpted from Landfalls by Naomi J Williams. Copyright © 2015 by Naomi J Williams. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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