An Elegant Solution(49)

Blacker than the night, making it light in contrast, black robes issued from the Boot and Thorn, and black boots and coat. Abel opened the coach door and the robe stood in front of it to climb in. The boots braced to help steady the high step.

“Magistrate Caiaphas,” I said. His foot had already been lifted. He set it down and very slowly turned. Gustavus beside him had his eyes on me. Then Abel unveiled a lantern and its single beam struck me and everything else was perfect black.

“Master Leonhard. What are you doing here?” Caiaphas said. Immediately he’d known me. His voice and words would have scratched rock.

“I’m getting water.” I held up my buckets.

“What do you want of me?”

“Only to wish you well,” I said.

“That?” he said. “What, nothing more?”

“Not for myself, sir. Will Willi be allowed back?”

“I’ve no use for him. But you, in poor peasant clothes. Is there nothing you want from me?” The words were bent up at the end like a hook.

“No, sir.”

“Soon you will.”

“Only for now, sir, that you have a safe journey and Godspeed.”

“Speed from here!” he answered in his sudden screech. “I leave my curse on this city! Curse it to the desolation of plague, and speed on its journey there.” He took hold of Gustavus’s arm and entered into the coach. The door closed on him. Abel climbed to the box and held his lantern out and whipped the horses. They leapt from statues to gales, and sparks shot from the stones under their shoes. The coach pitched and almost fell. Then it flew across the Square fast and loud as cannon shot.

The words had struck hardest. I’d taken them full force. But they’d been blocked and captured and exhausted, kept from reaching the Square and the city, and that had been my intent. The Church of Bare Feet behind me had held me firm, I’d felt it.

So the day had started, I alone in the Square, and through the dark, Abel driving like a mad bull and the roads forsaken before him.

At home, my grandmother said nothing, and only watched me do my chores as she did hers.



With such little sleep, my arrival in Master Johann’s kitchen was subdued and my appearance depressed. But I thought I’d had more rest than Mistress Dorothea. She had even less of her usual manner, and an odd stare at me, too.

She was only sitting at the table. She had a knife in her hand and potatoes in a bowl, but they were waiting. There was no motion.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Oh, Leonhard. Yes, good morning.”

My first job is always to tend to the fire and the wood settle, and I saw the hearth was cold. “Should I start the fire?”

“Yes. Thank you. I see that I haven’t.”

There was no kindling brought in. I went to the yard to bring some sticks and then set to igniting. The wood was dry and there were still a few embers. I had a flame quickly, and two split logs against it to catch, and when I turned back, Mistress Dorothea was still in her chair, still holding her knife, and still. So I went up to her and set my knee on the floor to lower myself to her height, and asked her, “Are you well, Mistress?”

“I’m not ill,” she said.

“You’re not well,” I was bold to say.

“There’s little well.”

“There’s plague in the city.”

“I don’t fear that, Leonhard.”

“You don’t? Everyone does.”

“Master Johann says it’s not to be feared, not yet. If it should be then we’ll leave Basel.”

“Is there something else, then?” I asked.

“The hub and the spokes,” she said.

This was a proverb in Basel. It meant, a family was like a wheel. The children were the spokes and the mother was the center. She held them in place, and felt the ruts and stones that any of them struck. The father wasn’t mentioned but I thought he was the axle, and all the weight he carried was also pressed onto her. So, she was admitting to me that it was her family that was not well. I waited and the kitchen was the most quiet I’d ever known it with its Mistress present. “If you see regret,” she said, finally. “Or grief, Leonhard. If you see remorse or regret, I’d like to know that you have.”

I nodded.

“And if it’s penitence or repentance, even more I’d like to know. Anywhere you see it.”

“I’ll tell you. I think there’s much I regret myself.”



But later, when Mistress Dorothea was upstairs, Little Johann came into the kitchen. “What did you mean?” he asked, kneading his dough. “What do you regret?”

I made light of it. “Where were you listening from?” He hadn’t been in the kitchen when I’d said it.