“Well, I was told.”
“Then maybe you’re seeing the same invisible things that Daniel is. And if they’re shadows, then they’re shadows of real things.”
“Who will they nominate, then?” I asked. “That’s more important.”
“And will it be the best men?” Daniel answered. “The greatest? The most esteemed, or skilled, or brilliant? No, no, and no. It’ll be only those who’ll dance to his pipe. It’s the whole University that Brutus wants.”
“He doesn’t want the whole University, anyway,” Nicolaus said.
“All right, if that’s true,” Daniel said. “It’s one part that he cares for. To thwart me.”
“Or two parts,” Nicolaus said. “There’s both of us.”
But then, Gustavus, always nearby, it seemed, seemed to be nearer even. Like a hound catching a scent, Daniel lifted his head and his eyes opened wider. “Who will they nominate?” he asked, it seemed, but not as a question. “How’d Brutus get his own Chair?” Gustavus didn’t answer, of course, but he waited in the case that he would be asked a service he could perform. “If Brutus is sure to get his man, then the need is to be his man. That’s all.”
“When the committees were posted,” I told Grandmother, “they were all the names Little Johann had said they’d be.”
“How did he have the names before anyone else?” my grandmother asked. “He was telling you while the door to the University had hardly been opened.”
“Before it was opened,” I said. “I think he saw them on his father’s desk.” We’d talked of the committees, and Daniel, and the Convening, and all that had been said at the Inn, and most we’d talked of Lithicus. “But it’s well known that the Chairs discuss their business before they convene. They’d have already made their decisions of who would be on the committees. And . . .” I looked down at myself, still dusty, “I’ve torn my breeches.”
“I’ll have them mended. How nearly did the stones fall on you, Leonhard?”
“Not near at all,” I said. I hadn’t told her I’d been close. She must have heard that from another.
When I finally sat at my desk, with only my candle awake with me, I took the crushed and torn black lump from my pocket again. I un-wadded it again and smoothed it again. It was surely my hat. I knew it full well. What I’d worn for all my years in Basel, that had been taken from me in the Inquiry, and that had now been finally torn by falling stones.
Then I shook off the mortal dust that coated it. I turned to my dresser, to the wooden head and wig, and moved off the tricorne that had taken residence there. With respect I put my old student hat in its old student place. It was as battered and torn as I was, and it was mine. Ten times as much punishment would not have marred it enough that I would have disowned it, or failed to recognize it. It still bore the marks of having been crushed between two stones. I felt much the same as it did. It was as if we’d been assaulted together.
On that place that had always been its home, it still had some stiffness, and some of its shape, though it would never again be what it had been. I would never throw it out, or any gift from my father. Yet I would never wear it again. For five years it had adorned my two heads, the wooden on my dresser and the live on my shoulders. I wouldn’t be a minor student anymore, and a gentleman would never wear brown. It was all over; though, for a few more days, even as a gentleman, the brown would be useful.
Habits and routine were refuge in turbulent times.
I did my chores and fetched water the next morning without needing to think about anything more than the tasks at hand. But I’d been slow and I was a little late that morning, with the dawn already advanced as far as gray and pink. The water flowed in the fountain in the Barefoot Square as always, and the church’s glow was more like daylight. The Boot and Thorn was still deep in night, though not at rest. A giant stood at its door watching and towering until the giant became Gustavus, only watching. Of course, no coach was there: it was Thursday, not Wednesday or Friday. And in the opposite door, an angel also watched, with Bare Feet, though only I saw him.
Willi came out of the stable tunnel leading the black stallion, so I knew who Gustavus was watching for. And soon he came. In some cities, a gentleman may leave the early morning to the servants, yet neither Basel nor Daniel conformed to that rule. But before he mounted he stepped into the dark doorway with Gustavus.
I could have taken my buckets and left but I waited. The angel also had a horse, white and cool as the other was black and hot. I didn’t know who would come for it, but I had a mind to wait and see.