An Elegant Solution(44)

“Him? You’re mad, Leonhard. What would I want with him?”

“You didn’t want your father to talk to him before you had.”

“You’ve got business to attend!” he said in answer. “The Inquiry’s only an hour off and you’re key to it!”

“Daniel—”

“And Cousin is pure spite, so he’s requiring me to be part of it, too. To the Chamber, and bring your hot irons.”

And he was pure confusion. I gave him up and went on. He was right, that I had business to attend. I had to change to black and white.



Thirty minutes later, the usual preparations of stocking and coat and buckle were accomplished. With all the pomp I could muster, I put on my wig and my wig put on its tricorne and grandly together we entered my kitchen. Grandmother was waiting and her two-edged sword was in her hand.

She was pleased with my straight back and honorability, but her sharp eyes searched me for pride. Of course, all that I had quickly withered. That was good. I knew it would be a hard fought day and I needed all my focus and no distractions.

“That will do,” she said. “Do you know what’s to be said at the Inquiry?”

“No one does. Gottlieb’s been silent. I don’t think he knows at all who killed Knipper.”

“Is that what the Inquiry is for?” She knew it wasn’t.

“No. But I’m not sure what it is for. Everyone believes that Magistrate Caiaphas has some reason.”

“Truth will come out anyway. It won’t be hidden forever.”

“I hope it does come out.”

“There’s truth that you’ve hidden, Leonhard.”

“When I know what the truth is it will come out. But I have to hide it now.”

“Will harm come of that?”

“It may. Harm will certainly come if I don’t hide it. Scandal and accusation would be attached to Master Johann’s family.”

“And if you are asked for the truth?”

“I would never lie, Grandmother.”





6

THE HOLBEIN CHAMBER





The painter Holbein came to Basel two hundred years ago. It has been said that he saw deep and drew deep. His pictures were very real but filled with symbols and hidden powers; I’d looked at them for many hours and I believed he could see invisible things. His most profound work in Basel was ordered by the Town Council, which didn’t realize its consequence: He was charged with the painting of their meeting chamber. His murals covered its walls.

In two centuries they have darkened and strengthened from great age. Dozens of scenes from classical and ancient ages brooded over the council. Saul was berated by Samuel, Croesus was burning on the stake, and Achilles was sulking in his tent. They were scenes of folly. Their purpose was to instruct the councilors on the importance of wise governance, and to remind them of the consequences otherwise. They accomplished this with a powerful elegance beyond words. There were invisible laws not made by man which governed man, and Holbein drew them into his pictures; they were still seen and unseen now. It was in this room and under these stares that the Council and citizens of Basel gathered to hold their Inquiry.



The citizens entered first. Wealth and lineage were the criteria for their seats, and there were both men and a few women. They sat on three rising rows of benches which followed the room’s back and sides. As noon approached, these filled. Curiosity was really the only reason to attend. The great citizens were as fascinated as anyone else.

At one end of the side benches, near the front, was a row set apart by a surrounding rail. This served different purposes: to seat the accused, or petitioners, or men called to answer to the Council. It seated four witnesses for the Inquiry. Daniel wore his defiant wine red coat, just as I’d seen him at sunrise. Beside him was Old Gustavus in brown coat and breeches and heavy boots; the only brown worn in that room. Master Huldrych was in his University gown which should have been black but was only dust. Nicolaus alone wore the black suit that every other gentleman wore. Of the few women present, Mistress Dorothea sat in the audience seat closest to her sons, with only the rail separating her from Nicolaus, and Little Johann sat in her shadow.

The center of the room was empty.



Then the council entered. These were seven men cut of the same black and white cloth as the audience. They were all merchants, sons of the councilor merchants who’d ruled the city from before the Reformation. They sat behind the Council Table.

That table was as heavy as the deliberations that had taken place around it, as old and wise as the walls, and worn dark and smooth. Wars had been made; fortunes had been awarded or destroyed by the grant of a single trade tolerance; men had been condemned or released, allowed back into the streets or taken direct to the bridge and thrown to the river. The table had never been moved from its place across the front of the room. Behind it, built into the wall, were the Councilors’ seven seats. The high-backed center was for the mayor. He wore a gold chain with a medallion of office, and velvet robe, and the heaviest wig. Great above the table was Holbein’s largest mural, of captive Valerian, the Roman Emperor, stooped on the ground as Persian king Sapor used him as a footstool to mount his horse. This was to remind the Council that the consequences of their actions would be brought back onto them.