An Elegant Solution(140)

Then he said, “I understand what you mean, Leonhard, and it will be seen what comes of it. But Caiaphas will still accomplish his purpose. And if he is thwarted in using the University, he will use other means to weaken the city. You may have released a calamity on Basel.”

“I hope I have not,” I said.

“Leonhard,” Mistress Dorothea said, “what part of this was Knipper?”

“He was charged by Master Jacob to take the trunk of papers to Master Huldrych for safekeeping. When Master Johann hired him to take the trunk from this house to the coach to be sent to Magistrate Caiaphas, Knipper recognized it. I went to the Inn to fetch Willi to help him, but I told Gustavus, also. And Gustavus came here to your kitchen. I don’t know what was said. I think Knipper tried to stay true to Master Jacob’s charge to return the trunk to Huldrych, and Gustavus killed him for it. I knew and believed that it was no person in your family, Mistress, who did that crime. Only Gustavus knew he was here.”

“I wanted the trunk away from Basel,” Master Johann said. “I sent it to Magistrate Caiaphas because he would not have understood the papers’ meanings.”

“What part was Huldrych?” Mistress Dorothea asked.

“He’d been keeper of the papers. But I think he was killed only because his open Chair was necessary for Caiaphas. I don’t know how. I know that plague rags have an enduring potency and Gustavus kept them. I don’t know why the plague didn’t spread from Master Huldrych, but that he was very old and couldn’t withstand the illness and the others close to him could.”

“And what part was Lithicus?”

“He had made the counterfeit stones. Gustavus weakened the arch to kill Lithicus when he seemed close to confessing. But Lithicus made the stones at Master Johann’s command, and for his payment and he was afraid for twenty years since, of what would come of it.”

“Yes.” Master Johann spoke. “I had him make the stones.” He, and Mistress Dorothea, had listened to my statements with quiet reserve, though I couldn’t guess what grief they each felt. And there may have been much more that I didn’t know, but what I did know was laid out plain between us and was hard and stark and scorched. I stood and walked close to him, and knelt, even as I had with Huldrych in his last moment.

“Master Johann,” I said. “All of this is ending now.”

“It is not ending.” His grief was deep, but had not overcome him. “What you have done is no end.”

“Master, I believe that there are laws of Mathematics that prescribe the actions of the planets and the river and every object. And I believe there are greater laws that govern the Creation in deeper ways.”

“And what do you believe these laws will prescribe?”

“That sacrifice will be stronger than Magistrate Caiaphas. Thank you for nominating me as a candidate, sir. I believe it was necessary to accomplish this solution.”

Mistress Dorothea said, “Then, that is why you were nominated, Leonhard.”

Master Johann said, “But this is not what I had expected. I am not sure your solution is valid.”

“I’ll test the proof of it now.”



Through the streets, now dim beneath huge clouds and setting sun, I returned to the Stone Gate, from where I’d watched the afternoon. I did think, as I walked, what it would have been to walk as a Chair and a man of position. But I found it was difficult to intrigue my imagination with thoughts of prestige. I was at peace. I climbed the stairs onto the Wall and looked to the west. And there, the storm was approaching.

Basel was still calm, but beyond, the valley was gone behind a gray sheet of rain. The disquiet Birsig, usually so placid, churned and the sky piled cloud on cloud, all writhing with wind and water but still held away, for a little while, by Basel’s Walls. The city was dry and the air mostly still, and all heavy. Only the Birsig pierced the boundary and I stood by the Stone Gate and watched it break into the moat, and fall into its cave beneath the Wall. The water rose, objecting to its path; I watched it rise fast. All the storm beyond the city was pouring into it. The stream reached the top of the tunnel and exceeded it. I retreated from the pool that began to grow; I turned away, came down from the Wall, and ran again, as fast as I could, as I possibly could, like the wind, to the Barefoot Square.

The windows of the Boot and Thorn were their most fiery red against the shadows of the Sqaure. The Barefoot Church was luminous white, receiving the light that reached all Basel just to itself. I stood in the Square between them, where somewhere beneath the Birsig flowed. I felt the paving stones groan beneath me.