An Elegant Solution(47)

“Me?!” Caiaphas did stand, but in his own authority and anger. “Me? I will never answer to you! What insolence!”

“I am Inquisitor,” Gottlieb said, still very evenly. “For my term, I have every authority in Basel. And this is Basel.”

“I will not answer to you.” Caiaphas slowly sat back into his chair, and leaned farther back into it. “I will not answer to you. Foucault.”

“Yes, sir?” The gendarme could hardly breathe, but he understood threat, and he knew to answer with threat. His hand was on his sword. The Sergeant-at-arms of the Day Watch answered with a hand on his pistol.

“You saw Knipper that last hour, just as Gustavus did.” All attention was drawn from the Magistrate of Strasbourg to the one of Basel as Faulkner spoke, to Daniel. It was another profound assertion of right. Faulkner didn’t ignore the conflict that had erupted in the Council chamber; he overrode it. “What did you see of the coach driver?”

“He opened the coach door,” Daniel answered, and respectfully. “But I wasn’t concerned with him after.”

“Knipper was seen nowhere besides the inn?”

“All the testimony on this is agreed,” Gottlieb said, leaving Caiaphas aside for the moment. But with his glance, he showed that the battle would soon be rejoined. Then suddenly, he turned to me. “Clerk, please refer to your notes. Tell us whether Knipper was seen anywhere else. Anywhere else besides the Inn. Was he? When? By whom?”

I was still unrecoverd from my fear of swords and pistols, and this question muddled me much more. I looked in my notes, which told me just what I’d written in them. I’d been asked a question and I could only answer truthfully. I coughed to clear my voice. “The testimony—”

But Master Huldrych had stood. Everyone could see now how tremulous he was, how anxious and fearful. His hands and arms were shaking. His face was white and drained and sagging. “Help him,” Gottlieb said. Daniel and Nicolaus were closest and they took him at either side and replaced him into his chair and then moved to give room. The chamber leaned toward him, all quiet. Dorothea was behind him, loosening the collar of his shirt. And Old Gustavus having stepped out to face him, knelt, and stared into his eyes.

Huldrych stared back. He whispered, very quietly but I heard, “Is it? I’d thought it wasn’t.”

“It is,” Gustavus answered. He’d heard also.

I heard because I was beside him. I can run quickly and I had. When I heard him sigh, I knew what he knew. I put my arm around his shoulder and laid my head on his robes, above his heart, holding him dearly. Old Gustavus said, to him and Gottlieb and the Council and magistrates and audience, and to me, “Black Death.”

“This is what I feared,” Gottlieb said, with anger, and staring at Caiaphas.

And I heard Huldrych’s heart’s last beat.





7

THE OUTER WALL





They’ve buried him already,” I told Grandmother. Lunch waited on our kitchen table but I wouldn’t eat it. “It was to get him away, out of the Walls. They don’t want it to spread. They carried him straight out from the Council Room.”

“What did each one in the room do?” she asked.

“There was fear,” I said. “Like smoke and it hid everything. The mayor called the Watch to take him out, and Gustavus went with them. Everyone was frightened, and Daniel most. And Master Johann only sat and watched. He was still there when I left. Mistress Dorothea hurried Little Johann out, but then she was back right away. Nicolaus wasn’t scared, but he left quickly. I didn’t see him go.”

“And Caiaphas?”

“He just stood and walked out as if it was nothing, but kept his gendarme close with him.”

“What did you do, Leonhard?”

“I cried.”

“And now?”

I still was.



Later I went out of the city, looking for respite. Huldrych was old and to my discredit, I’d known impatience with him. But I’d been so fond of him, too. He’d been always patient with me, even when he’d doubted my ideas. I wasn’t ready for him to die. I wished at least he’d lived until I was older.

I had my place on the hill, and my sky and warm low sun. All that was, was at peace. I waited, wanting peace for myself. But for all the calm that was around, none came to me. Instead, my own disquiet spread out from me, running down the hill and on wing to the sky, until I saw what was really surrounding me: a foaming, blowing turmoil, and nothing at rest. There was no hourglass pivoting to stay still. Nothing was still. Where could the storm reach? The far mountains were so distant that they should have been invisible.