The Astronomer

by Lawrence Goldstone

  Information would not be easy to obtain. Citizens of Paris kept their mouths shut. They particularly did not speak to either gendarmes or snobs from the university. Still, someone might have seen something. The backs of houses sat on either side of the alley, the entry ways of which were on the larger streets that abutted it. Eight to ten windows opened out, each shuttered. But had they all been shuttered last night? Citizens of Paris were also notorious snoops.

  Amaury stood, hands on hips, surveying the walls. Then he heard a soft scrape. He pressed himself against the wall from where the sound had come, opposite the bloodstain, and waited. But there was no further noise and, after two minutes, Amaury was about to give up. Before he moved, however, he heard the scrape again. He looked up and saw a small hand and then a thin wrist very slowly, very quietly, pushing open a set of shutters directly over his head. Soon he was staring at the gullet and underside of the chin of an old woman who had stuck her head out the window. The woman glanced up and down the alley. Only after she had determined there was no one in either place did she look beneath her.

  “Sacre Dieu” she gasped. A second later, the shutters slammed shut.

  It was a simple matter for Amaury to circle back to the street and find the building, then the room, in which the woman resided. He rapped on the door. When there was no response, he pounded harder. Eventually the woman appreciated that whoever was outside had no intention of leaving, so she opened the door a crack.

  A stale odor escaped the room. The smell of the aged. The woman looked past Amaury, surprised that he had no companions. Then she seemed to comprehend that he was not of the authorities, but rather, from his dress and bearing, a man of position.

  “You will do well to speak with me and tell me what you know, woman,” Amaury said curtly. “I would not like to return with soldiers, but I will if you need persuasion.”

  The door opened full.

  The old woman lived in one decaying room. She wore a much-mended dress of threadbare green wool and a bonnet that had faded from yellow to almost white. But she had not surrendered to poverty as much as it had overwhelmed her. The room was clean and tidy, and vestiges of earlier, more prosperous days sat moldering on tables and shelves. An iron pot hung on a frame in the hearth, although, judging from the chill, a fire was surely a luxury. A thin counterpane was laid over a straw mattress on the woman’s bed. Next to the bed hung a medal on a ribbon, a presentation by the king to the families of those who had fallen in battle.

  Once she had agreed to let Amaury inside, the old woman felt obliged to ask him to sit and to offer him a glass of wine. Amaury lowered himself carefully into one of the two hard chairs at a rickety table but politely refused the wine. The woman sat in the chair opposite.

  “Your husband was a soldier, madame?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “A weaver. He was a conscript. He died at Pavia.”

  Pavia was a blight on the reign of King François and the honor of France. Nine years before, during François’ misadventure in Italy, the French army had been routed by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and François himself had been taken prisoner. The country had been forced to agree to an enormous ransom, raised, as such sums inevitably were, by taxes levied on those who bore no responsibility for the disgrace. François sent his young sons to prison in his place in order to guarantee payment and, as he set foot once more in France, exulted, “I am king again!” The boys were not released for two years. As one of the first acts upon his return, François had raised taxes once more, this time to pay for the beautification of Paris. The widow Chinot, for that was her name, now survived on the tiny pension granted by the crown.

  “I would like you to tell me about last night, madame,” Amaury said. He spoke softly. Having seen the woman’s circumstances, he could no longer consider bullying her.

  “You mean the boy who was killed downstairs? Terrible. A terrible thing.”

  “Yes,” Amaury agreed, “it was. I’d like to know what you saw.”

  “Nothing,” the woman replied, shifting her gaze from his.

  “I think you did see something, madame,” Amaury continued gently. “You won’t get in any trouble for telling me.”

  A tiny smile appeared in the corners of Veuve Chinot’s mouth. Everything she did caused her trouble.

  “I’m not from the law,” Amaury said. “And nothing you say will go any further than this room.”

  “I’m telling you, I couldn’t see. It was too dark.”

  “Pardon me, madame, but there was a bright moon last night and, if my calculations are correct, at the time the incident seemed to have occurred, the moon would have been shining into the alley. You would have seen quite clearly.”

  The widow gaped at Amaury as if he were a sorcerer. “Your calculations? Astrology is against the law.”

  “I don’t compute the position of the heavens to predict the future, madame. Only to understand the present. Now please tell me what you saw.”

  Veuve Chinot cocked her head. “He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”

  “An acquaintance.”

  She shook her head. “More than that, I think. I know the look, you see. When someone important goes away and never comes back. I’ve worn it long enough myself.”

  “Very well,” Amaury said softly. “He was more than that.” Paris, it seemed, was a city of the lonely.

  The woman sighed and then reached across the table and patted Amaury’s hand. “You have to bear it. They tell you that time makes it better, but it doesn’t. You miss them so much, no matter how much time has passed.”

  Amaury nodded. “I know.”

  “What do you want to know, monsieur?”

  “You saw him killed, didn’t you?”

  “No. I didn’t see the poor boy killed. Just what happened afterward.” Veuve Chinot then described a thin man in a Franciscan cloak.

  “A friar?” Amaury asked. “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t say he was a Franciscan. Just that he was dressed as a Franciscan.”

  “You think he wasn’t?”

  Veuve Chinot smiled. “I’m sure he wasn’t. Just the way he walked was enough.”

  Amaury was not sure if a Franciscan could be judged by the way he walked. But there was another possibility. “If he was dressed as a friar, then he had a tonsure. Could he have been a student in disguise?”

  Veuve Chinot shook her head. “Too old. But he wasn’t a professional assassin.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “He stared at the body for a long time. Not to make sure he was dead. More that he couldn’t believe he had done such a thing. Anyone used to killing would have gotten away as quickly as he could to avoid being seen, right?”

  “Yes. That’s correct. You are very clever, madame.”

  “Of course, it’s correct.” Veuve Chinot leaned forward. Her eyes had lit up. “Then, after a few moments, he finally seemed to realize he had to hurry and began ripping at the boy’s clothes. Pulled out two packets. He was looking for them, I’m sure. He was not as interested in the first one, but very careful with the second. He turned it over in his hands to make sure it was what he wanted. Then he stuffed both parcels in his cloak and hurried away by the rue Portefoin side. He left the money. The boy’s purse was still on him when he ran off.”

  “Yes,” Amaury said. “I know. You are very observant as well, madame.” Perhaps she could tell a Franciscan by his walk after all.

  “Observing is what I can do. I’m not a busybody, you know. Or at least I didn’t use to be. These days, though, there’s not much else left for me.”

  “Did you see who reported the body?”

  “A priest. He came from the rue Pastourelle side. He walked down the alley, looked down at the poor boy, shook his head, and went to fetch the soldiers. Strange that he never bent over to check, but I suppose it was obvious that he was dead. When the soldiers came, they found the purse. Must have been heavy, by the way they looked at each other. They t
ried to shoo the priest away, but the priest had seen the purse, so they couldn’t just empty it and throw it in the alley. And neither of the soldiers was going to risk being caught with it. Bet it was still on the body when they delivered it, but a lot lighter.”

  Amaury smiled. “You should be an investigator, madame.”

  But Veuve Chinot shook her head. She was not finished. “But there was someone else first. A girl.”

  “Girl? What girl?”

  “Small. She seemed young by the way she moved. I couldn’t see her features. The hood of her cloak was up. She arrived about ten minutes after the boy was killed. Ran into the alley as if she’d been looking for him. She was very upset. Leaned down and looked for something. I couldn’t be sure if she was checking to see if he was alive or if she was searching to see if he still had the packets on him. Then she stood up, put her hand to her mouth for a second, and hurried off the way she had come.”

  “How long afterward did the priest arrive?”

  “Quite awhile. Much longer than if she’d fetched him from the church, if that’s what you mean. Eglise de Temple is only two minutes away.”

  “Thank you, madame,” Amaury said. “You have been a great help.” He reached into his purse and withdrew a silver coin, then placed it on the table.

  The woman considered the offering. Pride dictated that she refuse, but deprivation ordered a different course. She swept the money across the table and let it drop into her apron.

  When Amaury stood to leave, she looked up at him and smiled briefly. “Perhaps, when you gather more information, you will come and talk again.”

  “Perhaps,” he replied.

  The old man paused at the base of the dark staircase. His hips and knees had so stiffened that he now more hauled himself up than walked, grasping the stone railing and pulling with each step. He could measure the passage of his life by this staircase. When he had first arrived here .. . what was it, thirty years ago now . . . he had fairly bounded up. And now he almost crawled. The Lord might be merciful, but He could sometimes play terrible tricks.

  Yes, the end was near. That was certain. And still he was no closer to a decision now than ever. The decision that had almost been made for him twenty years ago, when he stood before the pope. Leo, that sad creature. Forced to follow Julius. What a fate. It might easily be said that Leo had brought on the turmoil that now beset Christianity. In his zeal to rebuild Saint Peters, to have some achievement of his own that was not dwarfed by his towering predecessor, Leo had precipitated the crisis by commissioning the avalanche of indulgences that had so incensed the German monOthers decried Luther, but the old man understood him. The farther one is from Rome, the simpler and more pious ones upbringing, the more the corruption offends. The Church might easily have saved itself from this cataclysm with a few simple reforms, but who reforms after centuries of doing precisely what one wants? Now the crevice had widened into an abyss and reconciliation seemed impossible.

  But the old man had stood before Leo on a practical matter, not a theological one. How to bring the ecclesiastical calendar more in line with the seasons it was supposed to represent. Lent should not come in midsummer, nor the day of Christ’s birth in autumn. He had hinted to Leo what the problem might be, and Leo—indolent, perhaps, but no fool—had expressed interest. The Holy Father had even asked for a paper on the subject. But Leo had become occupied with weightier issues—or so it seemed at the time— and ultimately nothing had come of it. The old man, not so old then, had returned home to his castle on the bay to continue his work

  He was nearing the top now. His bony forearms ached along with his legs. One of the servants could help him, he knew, but the old man had been toiling in solitude for so long, he feared the presence of another might disturb the calculations that simply must be done correctly.

  Tonight he was particularly eager. A missive had arrived from Capua, from Cardinal Schönburg. An encouraging letter. Warm. Urging him to go forward. Schönburg was a voice in the wilderness, certainly, but the old man thought that this time perhaps he might just prevail.

  Two years before, when he began to feel death’s fingers brush his cheek in the night, he had taken some tentative steps. For the first time, he sent an abstract to friends. Without the full proof, of course. Enough to test the waters, but not enough to roil them. The response, the old man had been gratified to note, was heartening.

  But to present the entire formulation now. When so much was at stake. When the very definitions of Christianity were under assault and might tilt on his findings. At the very least, he would overturn dogma that had been accepted for almost three centuries—and promulgated by a saint. That was too much to consider. For the moment, in any case. And besides, the proof was still not quite perfect.

  The old man finally reached the battlements. A wind came in off the bay, adding crispness to a beautiful, clear, almost moonless night. No mist. No fog. The heavens were as accessible as if they had been painted on his ceiling. Deo gratias. He had not made the effort for nothing. The castle was on a hill, rendering the view to the water below as if from the stars. The ships in the bay, no longer icebound, were just visible, like ghosts, from the parapet on which he stood. He could hear the waves crack against the shore. The old man had spent so much time here that the bay had almost become his bay; each small stretch of rocky coastline, the river inlet with its moored fishing boats, almost family.

  The old man sighed. This was no time to bask in the comfort of his surroundings. This was time to work.

  VI

  Paris, Saint-Antoine, February 25, 1534

  IN A PRACTICED INSTANT, Madame La Framboise took the measure of the bedraggled man in the worn tunic and threadbare cloak standing at her door.

  Stubble where a tonsure had once been shaved—she knew that lot well enough. Disgraced, expelled from some order or another, he had likely come to Saint-Antoine, the Lutheran section of Paris, to try to find redemption. He would undoubtedly alternate bouts of drinking and tears. Madame La Framboise had been letting rooms long enough to have lost all interest in being either confessor or surrogate mother to the defrocked. To say nothing of cleaning up vomit in the early morning. A widow presiding over a rooming house in the shadow of the Bastille could not afford to be all that choosy, it was true, but certainly she could be choosy enough to avoid some fallen Catholic who would barely have two coins to his name.

  No, she told him with some gusto, she did not have rooms available to let, despite anything he might have heard at the café.

  After the rebuff, Madame La Framboise had been about to close the door in the man’s face when the most exceptional thing occurred. Never taking his eyes from hers, the man raised his right hand, turned it over, and opened his fist. Inside was a coin. A gold coin. Not large, but positively, without question, gold. Gold was by law reserved for the nobility; silver was the currency of commoners. Ordinary people caught trafficking in gold were flogged, although the authorities exempted persons of importance. The prohibition, however, as prohibitions are wont to do, only made gold more coveted.

  Madame La Framboise looked from the hand to the face. Perhaps she had been hasty. This was a pleasing face, she decided. An educated face. A face exuding bearing and breeding. So what if he had been booted out of an order? They were all fanatics anyway.

  As quickly as the English winds blew away French clouds, Madame La Framboise’s frown turned sunny. With great ceremony, or at least with what she considered great ceremony, she stood aside and, with a sweep of her arm, invited the gentleman to enter. When the door had closed behind him, landlady and prospective tenant stood face-to-face.

  “You come highly recommended, madame,” the man said, although he did not specify by whom. He was younger than he had first appeared, not yet thirty, but spoke with authority. “You are known as a woman who provides both hospitality and privacy.”

  “I am that,” she agreed, pleased with the reference despite its anonymity. “I make an excellent stew and only
open my mouth when I’m eating it.”

  “Highly desirable on both counts.”

  “I have a room that opens on the back—quite comfortable. You will be able to get air without worrying who’s watching from the street . . . if that’s the sort of privacy you had in mind, of course.”

  “It sounds delightful,” said the man. He offered the coin. Madame La Framboise opened her thick hand to receive it and then deposited it in her apron.

  “Dinner’s at six,” she said.

  “Stew?”

  “Not tonight.” Madame La Framboise cocked an eyebrow. “Unless you want to pay for the sausage and the duck.”

  Amaury smiled. “I might be willing, if you cook well enough. Anything not to eat herring. A good wine would be appreciated as well.”

  Madame La Framboise held out her hand a second time. “Leave it to me,” she said.

  Amaury was pleasantly surprised when he saw the room. Madame La Framboise’s accommodations were agreeable and commodious. The room was on the second floor, airy. The window faced the city’s west wall, two streets away, and, as promised, let in a profusion of sunshine in the afternoon but not prying eyes from the street. There was a clean smell of vinegar about the place, so Madame La Framboise was a conscientious housekeeper as well. Perhaps she would prove to be as good a cook as she boasted. Best of all, in the northeast corner, was a bed, a real bed, with a rag-stuffed mattress and pillow, covered with a quilt, puffed with feathers. Amaury gazed upon the remarkable appurtenance and, for a moment, thought himself on holiday.

  He dropped the sack containing his belongings onto the floor, lowered himself slowly to the bed, swung up his legs, and laid back gingerly. The welts from Ravenau’s parting gift were still tender. When he had settled in, Amaury clasped his hands behind his head. After some moments of simply staring at the ceiling beams and breathing deeply, he unfolded his arms and stretched them out in front of him, splaying his fingers as wide as they would go. Freedom. Glorious freedom. The feeling washed over him, settling gently, like falling leaves.