He took his leave then, to also make himself presentable for the coming lecture. I needed to, as well, but I had another task first.
So I had found Daniel, which I’d meant to do. I walked with him as he led his horse toward the Boot and Thorn. “I don’t know what took him,” Daniel said, and many variations of that, but the panic and worry were faded. “I was in from my ride and Coal was serene as could be. Then just at the bridge, off he went! I can’t say what he saw. But he seems all right now.”
“I’m right enough,” I said. “I think Staehelin was the most dusty of us.”
“A dunking in the river would have cleaned him off.”
“Daniel! He’ll be pressed to make his lecture now.”
“He’ll make it. Or not, but it’ll be the same either way.” We’d reached the Inn, and Willi saw us and took Daniel’s horse. That left us at the front door, a few steps from the Common Room, which was as good a place as any to finish my errand.
“I’ll come in with you,” I said.
“You know me all too well,” he answered, and led the way.
Charon’s milky eyes were on me, and the steins on the wall seemed to be expecting us. The rolling of dice and murmuring voices made the room just as it always was, just common. We sat, and Daniel was as serene as his horse. The calamity on the bridge was already far forgotten.
“Look, Daniel,” I said as we were settled. “I need to give you something.”
“Then I’ll take it.”
“I was given it,” I said. “Rupert, the new coach driver came to me. Have you seen him?”
“I think I have. Jolly and round, isn’t he?”
“That’s him. But he’d met me and he hasn’t gotten to know many others in Basel. That was why he brought this to me, which he’d found in the post box of the coach. So it might have been there for weeks or months.”
As I was saying this, Daniel’s serenity was replaced by alert attention, then by narrow eyes and furrowed brow. “What?” he said. “A letter? Is it a letter? Leonhard! From Paris?”
It’s not often I have a higher roll of my dice then he of his. I was tempted some to tease him with it, but that was poor behavior for anyone, and most for a gentleman. So I took the letter right from my pocket and handed it to him. “Not from Paris. From Russia.”
“Russia!”
He was amazed at it, its beauty and its importance. “In the post box of the coach?”
“Rupert didn’t know how long it had been there.”
“But do you know what this is?! It’s from the University! In Saint Petersburg! It’s my invitation!”
“Open it first,” I laughed, amused at his amazement, “and see if it is.”
“But it’s been lost? For months, even. Oh that coachman! It’s worth his being murdered, if he can’t find a letter in his own post box!”
“Just open it,” I said, without amusement.
He broke the seal and took out the folded sheets, of the same ivory linen as the envelope. “Yes, yes it is! Ha! Leonhard, I’m invited to be Chair of Mathematics!” He showed it to me: half the first page was a gilded printing of a two-headed eagle beneath three crowns, with a scepter and orb in its two claws. “The Tsar’s own arms! How’s that, Leonhard? And look, it’s dated just two months ago, even less, so it’s not so late.”
We both stared at least a minute at the perfect French script and the final signature, of the Chancellor of the new University. And finally, I asked, “What will you do with it?”
“Do with it? With the letter?”
“No! With the invitation.”
“Take it, you mean? Or leave it? Which?” He started to laugh from joy of the opportunity. Then the laugh died in his throat as he looked at me, and the letter, and at me again. “Do with it?” he said. “What should I do with it? Take it, and throw Basel aside, is that what you mean?” He continued to stare at me, harder and harder. “And step out of your way, you mean? That’s what you mean?”
“Daniel! No!”
“And just found, is it? The letter was lost in the post box? And it comes at just this moment? To your hand! How is it, Leonhard? How is it?”
“Daniel,” I said. “You’re mad. What are you saying, that the letter’s forged? It’s from Saint Petersburg. Look at it! You think I called on the Tsar and asked him to take you out of Basel, as a notion to my favor? What are you saying?”
He took a deep breath. “Yes, then, it is from Russia. It’s no forgery. And it’s Rupert that gave it to you?”