An Elegant Solution(45)

Another high chair was placed to the right of the table, against the wall, for a Magistrate, when he attended. He wouldn’t sit on the council but beside it as judge, parallel, and advisor. This occasion was unusual, though. Three magisterial chairs were evenly spaced against the right wall, and above them was another mural, of the triumvirs Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, with their right hands held in peace and their left hands hiding daggers.

Opposite these chairs, on the left of the council, was another chair. Gottlieb sat in this place, behind a desk table, and below another trio, of Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar. Aside from them was one last single chair, the most exposed and humbling of all in the council room.

Magistrate Faulkner entered. There were many hues of black in Basel: sober black, arrogant black, studious black, respectful black, intimidating black, imperious black. All of these would be seen in the streets every day. Magisterial black was particular among them all. His robe had a strange billowing weight that lifted with his movement and settled slowly. Blacker, but not as black, Caiaphas entered just behind him, and his robe seemed rigid like armor. The gendarme, Foucault, came in at his side, and took his position standing in the corner behind them.

He was in uniform and armed with a short sword, which was very unusual. The Sergeant of the Watch, in the other corner behind Gottlieb, usually held the only weapons in the council room. This was a noticeable concession by Basel to the prerogative of Strasbourg.

The empty chair between them, beneath the Roman Triumvirate, now received its occupant, and this was Master Johann. He entered in his academic gown, black with scarlet chevrons, and every other black was reduced to gray. Only Faulkner held his own. Master Johann wasn’t a magistrate, though he had served as one temporarily in the past.

But he dominated. By position, Chair of Mathematics was high but not highest. Instead, he took his place as center of the ritual by a deeper and ineffable power. Everything about his attendance was extraordinary, that he sat between two Chief Magistrates, that he exhibited an authority over the Inquiry so openly, and that no one questioned his right. He was Master Johann of Basel.

He leaned first to his right, murmuring to Magistrate Faulkner, then to his left, with an undisguised familiarity, to Magistrate Caiaphas, with whom he had a longer whispering. Neither seemed pleased, and this might have been the first resumption of their interrupted meeting in the dark morning. Then Master Johann turned back to his right, caught the eye of the Mayor, and nodded. He, a visitor to the council, was giving it instruction to start the proceedings.

But perhaps I was the only one who saw the glance. I was in the other chair, the chair behind Gottlieb, most exposed and alone, and from my angle I could see what most others in the room couldn’t. And I was in black, also, tremulous, uncertain black: black coat and breeches and boots, with my tricorne complacent beneath my chair. At that moment I would have easily given up all pretense of a black and white future for the safety and un-remarkability of brown.

I sat beneath Icarus, and Daedalus wept at my side.



There were a few quiet words at the Council’s table and I surveyed the room, especially the Holbein murals, which I’d always appreciated. On the side wall was King Rehoboam wagging his finger as he boasted to the Israelites, and beside that was Esau eating Jacob’s stew. The edge between these was also the line of the witness box, where Daniel yawned in ease and boredom, and Nicolaus saw me watching him and smiled. Between them Old Gustavus was still as a cold hearth, and Master Huldrych very pale, and his hands were shaking. I’d never before seen him so agitated. The next mural, just outside that box, above Dorothea and Little Johann, was Oedipus and Jocasta.

Gottlieb stood from his chair. A heavy blanket fell on all sound except the clap of his heels on the wood floor. With fate and doom he took the podium. He spared no glance at anyone but the council and prepared to speak. The Mayor lifted his hand, palm up, which was the signal to begin.

“Humble before Mighty God,” Gottlieb said, “I come to state truth.” Every Inquisitor began their case with these words. “Those who deceive shall be exposed and set to the left. Those who are blameless shall be known and set to the right. Then may God have mercy and be just.”

The mayor answered. His name was Burckhardt, and his family had been cloth merchants for generations. “Master Inquisitor. We measure you to the standard that you measure others, and to twice their reward, whatever we judge it will be. Begin your Inquiry.” And so, it began.

“You have charged me,” Gottlieb said, “to inquire into the murder of Knipper the coachman. I have done as I was charged, and so I warn the Council that there is a danger to Basel.” The audience and Council all took note of what he said.