The Astronomer

by Lawrence Goldstone

  In the thirteenth century, the Conciergerie had been the royal palace of Saint Louis, an elegant, sprawling walled compound dominated by the Royal Gardens, the Jardins du Roi, to the east, and the tower of the magnificent Sainte-Chapelle to the west. In the fourteenth century, it was the center of royal administration and the meeting hall for the parlement, and then in the fifteenth it was converted to a prison, grandeur replaced with decrepitude. At the turn of the sixteenth century, Louis XII commissioned a garrison to the building. Cité, in the middle of the Seine and possessed of the only five bridges by which Parisians could make their way from La Ville on the right bank to l’Université on the left, afforded quick access to wherever trouble might arise within the city’s walls.

  The Conciergerie was as every place of incarceration in France. The rich lived on the top floor in minimal inconvenience. Most had a suite of cells, a bed brought from home, a writing desk, books, and good food. Some had servants living on the premises. With a well-placed bribe, they were even allowed out of their cells during the day to stroll freely through the grounds.

  The semiwealthy occupied the floor immediately below, living in comfort if not luxury. Those of lesser resources might still afford a single cell with a window. Even those of minimal means could share accommodations aboveground. For the wretched poor, the pailleux, however, there were only the oubliettes—dank, vermin-ridden, belowground cells, where prisoners could await nothing but disease, madness, and miserable death. The corpses from the streets were also deposited in these cellars, the dead thrown in with the near dead, until they were either claimed, sold to the medical school to be used in dissections, or hauled off to be dumped in an anonymous grave outside the city.

  Despair permeates a prison. As Amaury strode through the entryway, misery seemed to cling to the walls. A sentry box stood on the right, just inside the massive oak doors. Two bored soldiers in filthy tunics emblazoned with the lily crest of the Valois kings slouched inside. Gendarmerie was a detested detail for fighting men. Policing civilian rabble afforded neither honor nor loot. At first, the soldiers would not even deign to reply to the man in the university garb who stood before them. Finally, the older of the two, a reedy, unshaven lout with moist lips and few teeth, turned and spit; a huge glob struck the wall behind him and slithered to the ground like some giant slug. He turned back, sneered, then directed Amaury to a staircase past the balustrade to the right.

  Within the walls was a feeling of perpetual twilight. Amaury reached the opening and gazed upon a stairwell that seemed to descend into the very bowels of the earth. What must it be like to be doomed to such a hell?

  With each step, the stones on the walls and the surface of the steps became clammier. Halfway down, moss appeared along the sides of the stairs. At the bottom was a door, once sturdy and thick, now rotting and split. Dim light shone through the cracks. At first, the door, swollen at the ends from centuries of absorbing moisture, would not budge. Amaury gave a shove with his shoulder. The aged wood groaned and the door swung open.

  Amaury was stunned by the scene before him. He stepped across the threshold into a long, wide corridor covered with filthy hay. The only light was from short candles that flickered in the damp. Even these were set sufficiently apart to render the scene dim and dreamlike. During Saint Louis’ time, this vault had been used for the storage of produce, the combination of cold and moisture from the river perfect for maintaining freshness. What was ideal for vegetables, Amaury thought, was far less so for human beings.

  A series of doors was set on either side, leading to the cells. Sounds more animal than human echoed through the chamber; mostly moans, but occasionally streams of jabbering from the mad.

  Amaury forced himself to move forward. In the center of the corridor stood a pallet, on which six corpses were laid out. The nearest, thrown on its back, right arm at an odd angle next to its chest, mouth agape, eyes staring sightlessly at the blackened stones of the ceiling, was Giles.

  Glorious Giles. Even in death, to be in this terrible place. Amaury felt as if his chest was constricting, forcing his heart up into his throat, as if the center of God’s creation would be vomited forth. He became so frightened that for a moment he clamped his hand on his mouth to prevent the loss of his soul.

  A piercing scream from one of the cells cut through the murk. A guard appeared, a large shambling figure carrying a pike. The guard favored Amaury with merely a glance, then shuffled to where the poor devil had screamed. There seemed to be small grates set high in each door. The guard rammed the pike through and growled, “Any more howling and it’s the dungeon for you.”

  My God, Amaury thought. There was someplace worse than this?

  The guard succeeded in silencing the wretch, for whom terror had overwhelmed even madness. He then turned his attention to Amaury. “You here for him?” the guard asked, moving forward, gesturing with his pike at the figure of Giles on the pallet.

  Amaury was too transfixed to reply.

  “Couldn’t be no one else,” the guard muttered. “Whenever we see a tonsure, we call you people.” That the university was a law unto itself was a source of resentment among the gendarmerie. “Student fetched by his master,” he added with a sneer. The guard assumed Amaury was a magister, not merely a student.

  Amaury moved tentatively to the pallet. He had seen cadavers before, of course. Given the omnipresence of disease and violence, it was impossible not to. But not since his mother had he been forced to view the dead body of one whom he held so dear. Although his skin was ashen, Giles appeared more stunned than dead. Amaury met Giles’ unwavering eyes hoping they might move, flicker, and this nightmare would be at an end.

  The guard had sidled next to him. “So?” he asked. “You going to take him, or what?” He turned the pike point down and poked Giles in the chest.

  Before either of them knew what had happened, Amaury had his hands at the man’s throat. The guard dropped the pike and grabbed Amaury by the wrists, trying to pull them apart. The guard was strong, still a soldier after all, but Amaury’s grip possessed the iron of madness.

  The guard’s eyes went wide. Amaury squeezed harder. The guard’s jaw moved open and shut as he sucked desperately for air. Amaury felt the pressure on his wrists weaken. He realized finally that, if he did not release the man, he would die. He took his hands from the guard’s throat. The guard fell to his knees, gasping.

  “You crazy?” the guard croaked once he began to recover. “I should kill you for that.” But he made no move to retrieve the pike. If a common soldier attacked a university doctor, even in self-defense, he’d have to appear before the cparlement. That could mean a flogging or worse.

  “Get up,” Amaury said curtly. The guard pushed himself to his feet.

  “You’ll treat him like the dauphin, is that clear? If I find he’s been sent to the medical school, you’ll see me again. He is not going to be cut open and disemboweled before a roomful of strangers.”

  The guard rubbed at his throat. “What’s he, your brother or something?”

  “Yes,” Amaury muttered. “My brother.”

  “Merde. Sorry. I didn’t know.”

  Amaury gestured for the guard to move away. Ory’s words came back. Bad luck or betrayal. Which of those two accounted for Giles’ death could determine whether Amaury ended up on a pallet as well. Perhaps a clue to the killer’s identity had been overlooked by these peasants of gendarmes.

  Amaury leaned down on one knee. He must forget this was Giles. Reduce the problem to logic. He noticed first that a middle button on the doublet was missing. Although the possibility that the button had come off innocently in the course of the evening could not be completely discounted, far more likely was that it had come off when he was killed.

  He spread the shirt open. Two wounds, one about six inches above the other, both now clotted with dried blood. The wounds were clean, indicating that poor Giles had been taken by surprise. Other signs of struggle were absent. No bruising anywhere. The missing
button, then, pointed most likely to the search for Giles’ purse. Nothing remarkable there.

  Still, something was not right. One thrust, then another. Both directly from the front. That meant Giles had seen his attacker before him in the alley, then stood as the robber had plunged a knife into him not once but twice. Why had Giles not tried to flee? At least turned away? One of the wounds should have been to the side or back. He obviously had been so stunned at receiving the first wound that he had merely stood still for the second. And why had he entered the alley in the first place? Had Giles known his attacker?

  Out of the corner of his eye, Amaury saw that the guard had returned and was standing over him. “What are you looking for?” the guard asked. “Was a robbery, like they told you.”

  There was a catch in the guard’s voice. Fear of offending the man who had just throttled him, to be sure, but something else as well. The man was lying. Amaury made to examine the wounds even more carefully, to draw out the encounter. Under pressure, liars oversell. Soon the guard began to shift from one foot to another. Amaury turned and stared at the man as if he had made a discovery.

  “It was a robbery,” the guard bleated. “We didn’t take nothing.”

  Amaury stood slowly. Aware that he had blundered, the guard retreated, his hands in front of him for defense.

  “How much?” Amaury asked, taking a menacing step forward.

  “Nothing,” insisted the guard, shaking his head so fiercely that his helmet dislodged. The stink of fear had overwhelmed that of rancid breath, filthy clothes, and unwashed flesh. “Its against the law to steal from the dead.”

  “Listen to me well,” Amaury said evenly. “My father is the Duke of Savoy. If you tell me what I want to know, I won’t tell anyone else. If you don’t, I will use my influence—which is considerable—to see that you get to join your friend in there.” Amaury gestured with his head toward the cell from which the scream had come.

  The guard nodded. He seemed to have deflated before Amaury’s eyes.

  “Where is the purse?” Amaury asked.

  “Tossed it in the back,” the guard moaned miserably.

  “Get it.”

  “But it’s empty. And he’s dead.” Greed then stiffened the man’s resolve. “I ain’t giving the money back. You’ll have to kill me first.”

  “Get the purse,” Amaury repeated.

  The guard slunk off toward the rear of the chamber, disappearing into the dark. Amaury realized that the row of cells stretched much farther back, and the most desolate of the prisoners lived in a world almost wholly without light. The guard reappeared moments later. He handed Amaury a purse made of soft leather. Giles’ father was a tanner, but Amaury was certain he had never had a purse like this. It was not the one he used at the school.

  “Are you sure this is his?”

  “I’m sure.

  “This is expensive. Why didn’t you keep it for yourself?”

  “It’s a dead man’s.” The guard crossed himself. “What do you take me for?”

  Amaury let that pass.

  “How much was in there?”

  “Five silver francs when I got it. There was more when he was found. Probably a lot more. Those that brought him helped themselves to most of it.”

  “How did they claim robbery when the purse had not been taken?”

  “They said they found it next to the body.”

  “With five silver francs still in it?”

  The guard shook his head. “I suppose. Guess they figured leaving some money would look like the robber had to get away fast. I don’t know.”

  Amaury nodded. “All right.” The guard exhaled in relief. “You can keep the money,” Amaury added. The guard’s relief turned to tentative delight. “But I want some things in return.”

  “Like what?”

  “I want him—my brother—removed from this pallet and laid out and covered. I’m going to send a burial party. Do you understand?”

  The guard nodded, dumbfounded. For five silver francs, he had expected to be asked to perform an act far more infamous.

  “Next,” Amaury continued, “and most important, I want no mention of anything that passed between us to leave this room.”

  The guard nodded gratefully. “Don’t worry,” he said.

  Amaury knelt down once more. He felt tears come but willed them back. Good-bye, Giles, he thought. He reached out and touched the cold flesh of Giles’ cheek. I will avenge you if I can.

  Then he stood and turned quickly to leave. As he reached the door, however, he stopped. The guard was already preparing to move Giles to a less offensive spot.

  “One more thing,” Amaury said. “When it arrived, was the body precisely as I see it now?”

  The guard looked perplexed. “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t rip his clothes when you moved him, did you?”

  The guard shook his head. “We don’t haul ’em by the clothes. We grab arms and legs. Heads sometimes.”

  “Would the gendarmes who found him have done it?”

  The guard considered this for a moment, rubbing his leathery fingers on the stubble of his beard. “Ripped the shirt? You mean to make it look more like a robbery? Anything’s possible. Don’t see why, though. Nobody would have asked.”

  “Thank you,” Amaury said.

  But the guard had not finished. “Maybe it was torn already. Your brother was a student, right? I mean, you’d know better than anyone how they dress.”

  “Yes, perhaps you are correct,” Amaury replied, seeming to give the idea due consideration. But the guard was not correct. The button had been very much attached late yesterday afternoon, when Giles had announced he intended to slip out for the evening. “Now that I think about it,” Amaury added with a nod, “I believe he was missing a button earlier. Very good, sergeant. A mystery solved.”

  “Not a sergeant,” the guard replied mournfully, but nonetheless grateful for the praise.

  “Well, you will be if you continue to be so observant.” The seas would part first, Amaury thought.

  The guard brightened, transformed from adversary to ally. When Amaury looked upon him now, a poor fool, as young as he but looking much older, whose lot was only marginally better than those in the cages, he felt only pity. He could not be sure on whom God had played the worse trick—the jailed or the jailer.

  Then, leaving the guard with visions of promotion that would never come, Amaury mercifully took his leave of the oubliettes. Before he left the building, however, he stopped once more at the sentry box. “I want to see the men who brought in the body.”

  The reedy soldier paused, as if deciding whether to turn and spit again. Instead he smiled, shrugged, and replied, “But they’re asleep.”

  “Wake them.”

  V

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Amaury stood at the edge of the Seine, watching the river undulate past, part majesty, part sewer. The rain had ended and the sun shone translucent behind a thin layer of clouds. As the sun began its march toward the western horizon, Amaury finally disengaged himself from his reverie and crossed pont au Muniers. Amaury walked north toward porte de Temple, almost as far from the university as one could go and still remain within the city walls.

  The streets had grown cold. Amaury pulled his cloak tighter. He glanced upward at the gray sky and wondered suddenly why most forms of light seemed to generate heat as a by-product. But some minerals produced light without heat. Was that light somehow different? Or was it, perhaps, that heat generated light? How could one devise an experiment to determine which was which? Giles could have done it. This was precisely the sort of problem at which he excelled.

  The gendarmes at the Conciergerie, after the obligatory grousing, had informed him that Giles had been found near rue Pastourelle, two streets south of the enclos du Temple, the huge walled quadrangle that held the towering fortress and an opulent church. Amaury had no trouble locating the correct spot. Although the buildings in the enclos were among the most well-appoin
ted in all Paris, the surrounding area, once swamp, was downtrodden, home to the poor, beggars, and the unemployed. The streets were without paving stones, and grime adhered to the flimsy wooden walls of unending lines of ramshackle buildings. Soot hung in the air and a rancid odor of fat and gristle attacked the nostrils. Whores dotted the street corners and thieves the alleys. Few with money in their purses ventured on these streets after dark.

  What was Giles doing in such a neighborhood? An errand for the Lutherans? For Ory? How could someone Amaury knew so well, whose very soul seemed aligned with his, have been leading a parallel existence of which he had neither known nor suspected?

  The alley ran north to south between rue Pastourelle and the next street, rue Portefoin. The way through was narrow, camouflaged by piles of refuse. On first blush, as the gendarmes had said, the ideal venue for an ambusher to lie in wait. But gendarmes knew nothing of the heavens. For most of last night, no one hoping for the element of surprise would have chosen that alley as a place of concealment.

  A large stain, almost certainly dried blood, lay at the base of the north wall only a few steps from where Amaury stood at the rue Pastourelle entrance. Another problem of inquiry, as at the prison. Three possibilities presented themselves: Giles had been stabbed on the street and dragged to where he was found; he had been waylaid on the street, but not stabbed until he had been pulled into the alley; or he had entered the alley willingly. The first could be dismissed: There was no blood on the street or leading from the street, and, besides, no one would stab a victim on the main road unless there was no other choice. The second could be equally dispensed with. The frontal wounds were such that they could not have been administered during a struggle. That left the third alternative—that Giles had entered the alley willingly. But had Giles done so alone, to meet with someone he knew would be waiting, or had he entered the alley with the man who subsequently murdered him? Had Giles, in fact, come here, to this seedy section of the city, with that man? Would the killer, then, have been someone whom Giles knew and trusted?