An Elegant Solution(93)

The Barefoot Church was made all of stone. It was old and plain stone, not patterned, not chiseled. I put my hand on it, close to the door. It was cool. And it seemed weightless as if the essence of it was flown away; or, as if the stone had flown from its weight.

All my little cleverness, my Mathematics and papers, my deep thoughts as deep as a scratch, in all of them there was no warmth or comfort.

I pulled out the wad from my pocket, black and coated in dust. I could do nothing for Lithicus, so I put all my care and gentleness into smoothing out that creased, smashed thing, and slowly shaped it from its shapelessness into what it had once been. I pushed out the center to a bowl and curled the wide brim on each side, and the material seemed to remember its old form and was desperate glad to return to it. As desperate, I wanted to set it on my head and be just a child again, running from class to class and learning subjects which were only visible; it was my dear old hat.

But that was past.

So I forced the hat back into my pocket and turned my eyes toward the door of the church, and to the Square and world beyond. The hat on my head was tricorne.



It might have showed, as I entered the Common Room, though my stride was more stagger. But I thought it showed that I was tall and stern and weighted. Few of the many gathered noticed me, but the tankards did. They stared at me warily, suspiciously, and challenged me. It was daunting. Then Gustavus saw them all looking at me from their shelves and turned to notice me himself. He knew I was changed.

And Daniel was there and didn’t notice. And Nicolaus was there, and did.

“What do you require?” Gustavus asked me.

“What you can’t supply,” I answered. He nodded and stepped away to another customer. But he kept a watch on me. I kept a watch on the rest of the room. The discussion was fast and free, the large part on Lithicus, but still some on the University and its Convention. Daniel was of that part.

“All peacocks, all of them,” Daniel answered. “It’s all parade. It’s gaudy.”

“They should wear your Italian silk instead,” Nicolaus said.

“I’ll have a scarlet robe made, not black.”

“And what of you?” Nicolaus asked me. I never knew what he meant.

“I’m shaken,” I said.

“Oh, the gate?” Daniel said. “And the mason? Nearly you, too, they said!”

“And Desiderius?” Nicolaus said. I nodded.

“Nearly him.”

“And why any of you?” Daniel said. “The stonecutter’s no slipshod, I’d have thought.” He hardly seemed to care that the man was dead. “But maybe he was blinded by the peacocks and lost his hold.”

“He had the keystone out of the arch,” Nicolaus said.

“He’s no slipshod,” I said. I didn’t want to listen more to them. I moved to a different table and just watched. But even there I could still hear.

“Then it’s an odd instant for the gate to fall, with Desiderius in it,” Daniel said. “That’s worth thinking on.” He turned round to find me. “You should have been watching him better, Leonhard!”

“He was watching me. He pulled me out in bare time.”

“And they said the mason was crushed by the stones,” Daniel said.

“And you sent Desiderius on his way without him knowing that?” Nicolaus asked me. I nodded.

“Wasn’t that better for him?” Daniel said. “They’ll deliberate better without the tragedy weighing on them. But it’s still worth thinking on. What would be gained if Desiderius had been out of the deliberations?”

“And out of his Chair?” Nicolaus said.

“I don’t want Greek,” Daniel answered. “What would it do to Physics, though? I’d say nothing. It’s all decided and all the bargains are made. Nothing but death can change it.”

“Then you’ve nothing to fear, have you?” Nicolaus said.

“And it’s only the committees being decided,” someone else said. “They’ll still each have to name their candidates.”

“They’ll be each told who to name,” Daniel answered.

“They won’t be told,” someone said. “They’re most all proud men.”

“Those who won’t be told,” Daniel said, “will be outwitted.”

“Would Master Desiderius?” I asked, from my own table, finally able to speak again.

“That’s why you think he had a wall dropped on him? To keep him out of the committees? If that’s why, then it wasn’t Brutus who did it. Desiderius will do as he’s told most of anyone.”

“And you will, too, when you’re Chair?” Nicolaus asked.