by Lee Carroll
“Okay then,” I said, “to the light!”
Roger grinned at me. “Absolutely. There’ll be plenty of light on top. But we’d better use this on the way up.” He retrieved a flashlight from his bag and flicked it on. “We’ve got one hundred and forty-seven steps to go in the dark.”
* * *
The view from the top of the Medici Column turned out to be well worth the climb. The Gothic façade of Saint-Eustache towered to the north, and the Seine and Notre Dame were plainly visible to the south. The lights of Paris glittered all around us. Roger took a blanket out of his bag and spread out a picnic of champagne, cheese, bread, and strawberries. It was windy on top of the tower—the only shelter being a wrought-iron cupola—but the night was warm enough that I didn’t mind. In fact, after a second glass of champagne I found I didn’t mind much of anything.
“This reminds me of climbing up to my roof when I was a teenager,” I told Roger. “It’s funny how being physically high up can make you feel above all your problemseved a f201D;
Roger nodded. “I like to think that’s why Cosimo Ruggieri had this tower built. Of course, ostensibly, it was because he needed it to conduct his astrological studies, but I imagine that he needed somewhere to get away from the politics of Catherine de Médicis’s court.”
“Cosimo Ruggieri? That’s the name of the guy who used this tower?”
“You’ve heard of him?” Roger asked with a look of pure delight on his face. “You are a fellow nerd, aren’t you?”
I laughed. “I haven’t just heard of him. Remember the watch I showed you? Look.” I held up the watch pendant I’d made only a few days ago. “It’s inspired by one I saw at the Musée des Arts et Métiers that was supposedly owned by Cosimo Ruggieri.”
“Really?” Roger bent over the watch, examining the front and back carefully, tracing the etched stars and planets with his fingertips. He looked positively reverent. “What an amazing coincidence … and an amazing watch.”
“I’ll make you one. It’s the least I can do for you showing me this tower. Tell me more about Ruggieri. You say Catherine de Médicis was his patron?”
“Off and on. In 1570 she built the palace that once stood attached to this tower because of a prediction Ruggieri had made, but then in 1572 she accused Ruggieri of plotting against her and practicing necromancy. He fled Paris. But then Catherine just as suddenly and mysteriously pardoned him and assigned him the revenue from an abbey in Brittany.”
“And what did he use this tower for?” I asked, looking up at the metal structure above us.
“No one really knows, but for years after Ruggieri died there were local legends that during thunderstorms a figure dressed all in black could be glimpsed standing on the tower. But that could have been because of the circumstances surrounding his death.”
“And what were those?”
“He lived into advanced old age—some thought he was using his sorcery to prolong his life—but eventually it was rumored around town that he was finally dying. Priests were sent to his rooms to hear his last confession, but Ruggieri roused himself and threw them out, screaming that they were mad and that there were no other demons than the enemies who torment us in this world. The priests were so offended at this treatment that they denied Ruggieri a Christian burial. When he died, the people dragged him through the streets of Paris and left his remains in the gutter. Some, though, claimed that he didn’t die at all, that he crawled into the catacombs beneath the streets of Paris and there, maimed and dying, found a way to restore his life, and that the figure in black that appears on top of the tower during thunderstorms is Ruggieri, seeking the energy from the lightning to rejuvenate himself. There is one legend that claims that Ruggieri finally found immortality, but with one catch. He must grow old repeatedly and experience the same wrenching pains of death that he experienced being dragged through the streets of Paris, and onlythen can he be reborn each time as a young man. But with each lifetime, he ages faster. Imagine knowing that you had that pain to look forward to at the end of each lifetime, and that you would experience it again and again.”
“That would be a curse,” I said, looking down at my watch. How strange that he had made a watch that showed the progress of time across the years. Maybe he’d had a presentiment of the way he would die—and the rumors that would be spread about him after his death. “Better to die once and for all.”
“I suppose.… Are you cold?” Roger asked, moving closer to me. “Here…” He took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. It felt warm from the heat of his body. He left his arm around my shoulders and I didn’t move it away. With his other hand Roger pointed at the sky. Perhaps to take my mind off the gory story he had told me.
“Look, there’s an unusual alignment tonight. The moon’s with Jupiter and just past full. You can’t see the rest of the alignment, between Jupiter, Neptune, and the wise centaur, Chiron, with the naked eye, but they’re all there tonight, present and accounted for, at twenty-six degrees of the Water Pourer, shining with the moon.”
Roger pointed out stars and we talked about inconsequential matters until the sun came up. As we watched the sun come up over Paris, turning gray, shadowy buildings rose and gold, I reflected that unless Will was successful in his quest, this was something I’d never get to do with him.
18
A Voice like Leaves
Will arose just after dawn, thick with sleep, and walked to Marguerite’s lodgings. He knocked on the door for a while, until a bonneted woman in the house adjacent raised her second-floor window and shouted down, “Still that clamor, boy, or I’m comin’ at ye with a hammer.” Will desisted, though with a final knock that might have split the door in two had the side of his hand been sharper. His exasperation was understandable. If anyone was inside, they had stayed stock-still since his pounding started; he had not detected a sliver of movement. His intuition and darkening hopes told him no one was there. Marguerite had fled, and to where and for how long he could not guess. Maybe forever, a time span she could encompass!
But he had to know for certain she was gone.
Will circled the house three times, like a wolf scouting out hunting territory. But he still saw no flicker of movement and, at first, no means of access. On the fourth and most forlorn survey, he saw something he hadn’t seen before. A second-floor window overlooking the fenced backyard was now half open, and a propped wooden ladder invited ascent. Will trembled with emotion and irrational hope at the sight. He didn’t ponder much who had opened the window or set up the ladder. Perhaps a workman, resting in the yard with his ladder during Will’s earlier circuits, was beginning his workday now.
Will, pumped with adrenaline, then performed a maneuver he couldn’t have dreamed himself capable of. After a running start he leaped, grasped the top of the fence with two hands, and twirled himself over into the yard with a pinwheel motion. As if he already belonged to the fey, he reflected. He mounted the ladder and entered the house, announcing himself to no reply.
A half hour later Will sat exhausted on the first floor, back against the front door, legs stretched out wearily. He stared dazedly at the blank wall opposite. He’d been around the interior of the house three times and found no one and nothing, indeed no sign that anyone had ever lived in the house. And no workman. Been through every closet, every nook and cranny, stared hard up the chimney, scoured the ancient, stone-damp cellar. Nothing. Clearly she had gone from here, probably from London, perhaps from England. She could be anywhere now. Or nowhere.
As he got up to leave, dead with despair, he caught sight of a fragment of parchment in a corner of the foyer, its color so closely matching the paint’s that he had previously missed it. He went over, saw two torn sheets of parchment, and suddenly fevered over with fresh anticipation. A light was in his eyes. Will picked up the parchments.
The first sheet had the letters te and ve on top of it, with smudges of black ink between the letters, as if more writing had been rubbed away. The second s
heet had a detailed ink sketch of a church. It meant nothing to Will in the instant he beheld it, but in the pregnant seconds that followed, he stumbled over the sketch’s mate in his memory, in a French history book he had pored over with his tutor. It seemed more plausible with each passing second that this was a sketch of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, the oldest church in Paris.
This realization had a mate in his thoughts, too, just like the sketch: Marguerite loved him! Why else would she be signing him with this church? She must be beckoning him to meet her at the church, circumspectly. The demonic attack suffered by these sheets of parchment, their tears and smear, showed she had plenty to be fearful of. Will had no doubt the sketch was a summons, any more than he doubted the message Love, Marguerite had been smeared to … ve … te.
Demon-mangling. Tears and smears. That was the second message of these parchments. He suspected John Dee, but couldn’t fathom a motive, as Will needed to see Marguerite for Dee to obtain the box and the ring. That horrid Lightning Hands was another candidate. But Will realized it didn’t matter how these sheets had gotten defaced, nor why the vandalizing was incomplete. He was sure that this was a summons, and that its meaning was that Marguerite loved him.
Will decided to leave for the church right away, to get to Dover on horseback and board the first boat to Calais, then take a coach to Paris. He could purchase a new set of worldly goods there, humble as they would be. All that mattered now was Marguerite. Carefully folding and putting the sheets of parchment in his pocket, he left the house and started running toward his horse’s stable, to begin the journey that would bring Marguerite back into his arms.
* * *
Two days later, Will dismounted from the Calais-to-Paris carriage, about two blocks west of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. He wanted a chance, however brief, to gather his thoughts. Lodgings, clothes, provisions, could wait. He would think while walking to the church. And he walked, with ailt in his step unlike any he’d felt since his days of strolling toward a rendezvous with Marguerite in London.
Dawn bouqueted the cobblestone streets with rose and lavender light, and Will breathed the sweet summer air of a neighborhood distant from the knock and murk of Paris commerce. He wasn’t 100 percent certain he would find Marguerite in the church upon his arrival, but he was sure they would be meeting soon. He couldn’t fathom any other reason for her leaving the sketch behind but to direct him to a rendezvous. Just as Will thought he might jump out of his skin with excitement, he rounded a corner and there was the church, and the park adjacent to it.
Will calmed himself down with an effort; he needed to compose himself. Marguerite could be waiting for him in a church pew! He pictured her in a rose dress with a gold veil—the colors of the Paris dawn—her loveliness illimitable, veiled in awe before the god of love. The pagan god of love that was, Will conceded to himself with a blush, for their love was not of the bodiless and self-sacrificial kind revered in churches. His wasn’t, that was for sure.
The front doors of the church were made of heavy oak. They faced southwest and were in the shadows of stone arches, the brilliant splash of dawn outlining the church spire above them. To their left was a grove of elm and maple trees; in between the grove and a church rampart was a grassy area encircled by a wooden fence, containing a sapling about five feet high. A stone bench sat right outside the fence.
On a maple branch extending over the enclosure, a distinctive-looking pigeon perched. Will had not seen the likes of it in England, with its exceptionally long neck and brown feathers. The bird seemed to have a peculiar intelligence in its eyes, and its gaze held Will’s for a lingering moment. As Will stared, the bird gestured with its beak at the church doors twice, then winked. Accidental motions, perhaps, but when Will pointed at the doors in a questioning manner, the pigeon nodded vigorously. Will was so fascinated by the bird’s apparent intelligence that he set off toward it now instead of the doors, wishing to get a closer look, wondering if it had any more messages for him, but it responded by flying off. Then Will, his eyes bright enough to burn a hole through the church’s stone walls, walked calmly to the front door and slipped inside the dim, shadowy interior.
The church was smaller than he’d anticipated, maybe ten or so pews in all, and right now no one was in it. This zero registered without even having to cross his consciousness. He took a sharp breath, the damp and chill air feeling like a dagger in his chest. Just then a priest strolled out from behind the altar, beginning to light candles. Will could think of nothing but finding an obscure place among the pews, anonymous enough that he could recover his equilibrium after this disappointment. After all, nothing was lost. It might have been unreasonable to expect Marguerite at dawn. He did not know how long it had been since she’d left the sketch for him. She could not spend all her waking hours here! Patience! Let him give it a day, at least, before feeling any disappointment.
Will sat at the end of a pew a few rows from the rear. There he could swivel his head and see the entrance behind him, yet he was not an obtrusive presence to the priest. And he need not turn his head constantly. The rustle of a garment, exhalation of a breath, creak of the door, would announce a newcomer. He tried to relax, gaze affixed near an altar buried in shadows. The first glimmer of sunlight was coming through mottled-glass windows but hadn’t reached the main body of the church yet. Will sat in a half world of drowse and love, trying to recover from his disappointment, soon in a reverie of prospective reunion with Marguerite, of her removing her veil to proclaim him her “god of love.”
A rustle came from the doorway. A slight head motion told him four women were arriving together, the first of the morning’s congregants. None of them Marguerite. Such disappointing rustles repeated themselves right up to the 8:00 a.m. mass. When Will was sure that Margeurite wasn’t coming to attend the morning service, he exited the church, preferring to soothe his disappointment in the fresh air and sunlight. He sat on the stone bench facing the sapling, which also had a view of the entrance. But Marguerite did not come to Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, not that sun-washed August day or during its pink-veined evening, nor on the subsequent day, on which a wan sky mirrored his declining mood. Nor during the thunderstorms that evening, when he refused to shelter even briefly lest he lose sight of the entrance. Logic said Marguerite would search the grounds for him if she came and did not find him in the church, but logic held no sway. Will sat rain-soaked and grim in the storm for an hour, the very atoms in the lightning bolts visible to him like incandescent pinpricks. Marguerite never came.
Had she left the sketch to taunt him? Was she urging him to seek Christian immortality, as she was never going to give him any other sort? Or was something more awful lurking behind her absence—some mortal fate that had waylaid her on the way from London to Paris? Or had the insidious Mr. Dee, whom Will now thought he should never have confided in, decided to cut Will out of the situation and pursue box and ring on his own? Being immortal might not prevent Marguerite from being locked in a tower somewhere, until she gave up box and ring, or prevent her from being tortured for them. As far as Will knew, there was nothing unusual about her physical strength.
Or maybe she’d gone back to the poet?
Or maybe she just didn’t care?
* * *
The church locked its doors every evening at eleven. Just once, on the night before this gloomy storm, Will had stayed on afterward anyway, sitting on the bench for a prolonged dark while until at last slumping over into sleep. The rising sun had awoken him, a caress so fine on his eyelids that at first he thought the rays were Marguerite’s fingertips, until he opened his eyes onto an empty bench.
Tonight, even as rain relented and a warm breeze picked up from the south, he knew he couldn’t maintain another vigil. Hot as he might want his hopes to be, the storm had washed away fire to reveal ice. As high as his spirits had soared on recognizing the sketch, so low did they plummet now. Chilled, even trembling, with rain as he was, Will closed his eyes with fatigue and felt as if he had dived int
o a black pool, an anti-pool to the one he and Marguerite had lingered by. The swans from that pool were circling him now, but he could only see the black one, and him vaguely, a faint outline in murk. His white mate was invisible. Marguerite was gone.
As soon as the 11:00 p.m. priest padlocked the doors, Will trudged back to his lodgings.
"0em" width="1em" align="justify">In the next two weeks Will visited the church twice daily, at 10:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., but his vigils were over. He might stay a few minutes at 10:00 a.m. or an hour or two, mostly the latter, depending on his mood, but he never stayed past the early afternoon. At night he would be there only until the closing. In the early visit the pain of Marguerite’s nonappearance would soon become unbearable, searing like a physical wound, an excruciating sadness. In the second, he often arrived numbed by daylight activities, especially drinking, but the pain would reach him nonetheless. He’d gone beyond casting about for explanations, as if his wound were congealing, but that didn’t help with the pain. Hope of her coming had receded, yet he was determined to wait until the end of his life! He might be only nineteen, but there was no life for him beyond Marguerite.
Eventually, at the end of one of the meandering walks that often filled his afternoons, he stumbled on a street that brought life into this dreadful time, something to anticipate each day besides disappointment. The rue Quincampoix was little more than an alley threading its way through the commercial center, but the alley contained bustle and clamor, hands raised with shouts, animated conversations while printed flyers were flung about. Will’s French was mediocre, yet he recognized that the din in the alley was not French, nor any language he was familiar with, but was a number-laced jargon sequenced to fingers held aloft in various configurations. This number world reached him in the same creative place that had arranged his thoughts into metrical poetry. Soon he realized that this was the phenomenon Guy Liverpool had spoken of, Paris’s primitive stock market, more confined and more boisterous than London’s Exchange Alley. “The future of Europe,” Liverpool had called it.
