An Elegant Solution(137)

I listened to him rail, yet I could tell he was on the tail of it. The hours I’d been on the Wall had worn him down. He’d blasted the foolishness of Election by chance, and reviled the committee that had put up such a poor candidate as Staehelin. His listeners had thinned; bitterness was unpleasant on the ears as it was on the tongue. He’d tiraded against the University in whole as unworthy of him anyway, and that drove more of his supporters away. And he’d delved even darker in his accusations of corruption and foul play. And now, after that, he was alone. But not completely: Nicolaus, and Gottlieb, and Little Johann remained. In the end, it was their ties to him that didn’t break.

“Oh, finally, it’s you,” he said to me. “And how do you grieve? How do you plot revenge?”

“I don’t do that,” I said.

“We’ll do it together. You’re as cheated as I am! Oh, oh, oh, there’s payment due now. What’s the exaction, Leonhard?”

“We’re not cheated.”

“You’re cheated that you’ve lost to Staehelin, and I’m cheated that I lost to you. No, double cheated, that I lost to both.”

“Then Daniel,” I said, “I’ll say it. Yes. I cut you out of the Chair.”

“But who changed the stones?” Nicolaus said before Daniel could answer.

“I changed them,” I said. “It’s no great trick.”

“It was,” Gottlieb said. “I never knew how it was done. But how’d Staehelin’s stone get picked?”

“By chance. True chance.”

“Then you put the first stones back?”

“That was my object,” I said.

“That’s lunatic!” Daniel said, his canvas filled again. “You swayed Caiaphas, and once you did, then you changed the stones yourself anyway? Then why even breathe with Caiaphas? For the pleasure of betraying me?”

“There’s no pleasure in any of it. I did as I needed. Daniel, you’re free.”

“Free? What freedom do I want? The Chair.”

“You came to my house and asked how a word given could be taken back.”

“Then that’s the word I want taken back. Is that why you’ve done this?”

I shook my head. “The Election is done and the man meant for the Chair has it.”

“Then blast the Chair, and the University, and all Basel. And blast you most of them.”

And that hurt me most of them, and I knew it had to be.

“What will become of Basel?” Nicolaus asked Gottlieb.

“You’d know, Cousin,” Daniel answered, but only as an attack on him. “Didn’t you warn us all at the Inquiry? Tell us.”

“Do you know?” I asked Daniel. “Or you?” I asked Nicolaus.

“I thought he meant the plague,” Little Johann answered, the first he’d said.

“There might be plague, now,” Gottlieb said. “Now that Leonhard has thrown every other plan askew.” Then, to Daniel, “For the Chair. What you were to do for return?”

“You know. France. Lunatic France! What would France do with Basel? There’d be no difference here. One flag for another, and petty price for the Chair. Gottlieb’s already paid for his Chair.”

“I’ve paid nothing!”

“Your stone was chosen. You have your Chair. You agreed. You’d agreed to France.”

Gottlieb answered with as much anger, “I agreed to nothing! I made no bargain.”

“You did, though,” Nicolaus said. “Twenty years ago, in Strasbourg.”

“I asked. But I was refused. I never asked again, and I shouldn’t have then.”

“You weren’t refused, only delayed.”

“I made no bargain,” Gottlieb said.

“He said you did,” Daniel answered.

“He lied.”

“You’re so sure? Why did you ask him, then? You pressed him at the Inquiry. Old Knipper was no matter to you. Your Inquiry was to Caiaphas, and whether he’d given you your Chair. Because he did.”

“I made no bargain.”

“Caiaphas wants you to think there was,” I said. “But there wasn’t. There isn’t. None of it is any matter now, anyway. All of it is over.”

“Oh, no, Leonhard,” Nicolaus said. “You’ve torn your bargain, but that’s nothing to the others.”

“But it is,” I said.

Little Johann spoke again. “That was the danger? France?”

I answered. “The city was to fall to France. And the University was to lead. But that’s ended now, though not done.”

“It will fall to the plague, now,” Nicolaus said.

“That, not either,” I said.