The Astronomer

by Lawrence Goldstone

  They arose silently and made their way downstairs. The maid, a halting, stuttering half-wit, offered them breakfast. The innkeeper was nowhere to be seen. She returned from the kitchen and placed a plate of bread and pork sausage in front of them. She glanced to the door, then turned to leave immediately, as if she were frightened to be in their presence.

  “Merci, mademoiselle,” Amaury said effusively, to keep her there. “Monsieur St. Jean says you are an excellent cook.”

  “Merci, monsieur,” the maid replied, but was unable to meet his gaze. She looked toward the door once more.

  “And where is Monsieur St. Jean on this lovely morning?”

  “Je ne sais pas, monsieur,” the maid replied, shifting from one foot to the other.

  When Amaury did not immediately reply, the maid spun and hurried through the door to the kitchen.

  “We should leave now,” Vivienne whispered. “We are betrayed.”

  “No,” Amaury whispered back. “It would be an announcement of guilt. And we would never reach the gate before the alarm was up.”

  “What then?” she asked.

  “Wait here,” he replied.

  Amaury went out into the courtyard to look for the innkeeper.

  He walked around to the back, quickly but not obviously so. Amaury’s wagon and horse were there, but the old beast was hardly the medium with which to beat a frantic retreat. Amaury was just about to give up and return to fetch Vivienne when he noticed the innkeeper down the street, deep in conversation with an older man. St. Jean was turned slightly away from him, gesturing as he spoke, exhibiting none of the adolescent good cheer of the previous evening. The man he was addressing was a priest.

  Amaury slowed his pace and walked to where the two were speaking. At the sight of him, the priest raised his hand. St. Jean stopped talking and whirled to face him.

  “Excusez-moi, Monsieur St. Jean,” Amaury said after coughing softly to apologize for interrupting. He addressed the priest. “My wife and I have a long journey ahead, Father, but we do not wish to miss Mass. Would you recommend Saint Salomon-Saint Grégoire or perhaps a smaller church?” After nine years of false piety at Montaigu, Amaury had no trouble donning a suitable mask here.

  St. Jean seemed nonplussed at the question. The priest stared at Amaury for a moment.

  “You wish a Catholic service, monsieur?” he asked, with a glance at St. Jean.

  Amaury cocked his head sideways. “I don’t understand, Father. What other variety of Mass is there?”

  The priest nodded slowly. “Indeed. And what is your name, my son?”

  “Amaury La Framboise,” Amaury replied. ‘An ironmonger from Picardy. I am traveling with my wife.”

  “To what destination, my son?” The priest was smiling, but St. Jean remained sour.

  “I was to repair some grillwork at the manor house, but the commission was postponed. My wife and I will go on to Amboise in the interim. I am told that His Majesty, King François, often rides among the people and one may see him pass.”

  “Yes,” the priest agreed. “I am told that as well.” He placed his hand on Amaury’s shoulder. “As it happens, my son, I also must go to Amboise. Perhaps we might travel together.”

  Amaury broke into a wide grin. “Gloire à Dieu? he exulted. “Now our pilgrimage will be truly blessed!”

  “Excellent!” the priest said. “Now as to Mass, Saint Salomon-Saint Grégoire is breathtaking, but I have always preferred a more intimate setting. Might I recommend Saint Lucien de Beauvais? Armand will be pleased to direct you.” The priest shot St. Jean a glance. “Won’t you, Armand? Two pious believers such as these.”

  “Of course, Père Marcel.” St. Jean appeared quite morose. The innkeeper had obviously been already counting his reward money.

  “I shall meet you afterward,” the priest said to Amaury. He turned to go, but then stopped. “Ah,” he said, raising his hand to his forehead. “I am such a goose. I have an appointment with the bishop this afternoon, and cannot leave until tomorrow. You will be forced to go on your own after all.”

  “Désolé, Père Marcel,” Amaury said. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid so.” With that, the priest turned and left.

  Saint Lucien de Beauvais was, in fact, a lovely church, and Amaury quite enjoyed Mass. Vivienne played her part perfectly, not demonstrating the slightest hesitation. After Mass, they returned to the inn, retrieved the wagon, thanked a still gloomy St. Jean, and set off for Orléans.

  As the walls and spires of Pithiviers disappeared behind the rise of a hill, Vivienne put her hand on Amaury’s, much as she had done yesterday in the wood. This time, however, she gave his hand a squeeze. And then, seemingly in recognition, she quickly removed it.

  XIV

  THEY REACHED THE LOIRE late in the afternoon. The Pithiviers-Orléans roads were obviously not favored by the aristocracy. Four times he and Vivienne had been forced to help push the wagon to ford streams, and another to remount a wheel that had come almost completely disengaged in a deep rut. Amaury was exhausted. His arms ached, his hands burned, and his rump felt as sore as after a beating at Montaigu.

  He came away from these labors even more admiring of his companions. Vivienne had helped with every crisis, brushing away his protests that such work was for men alone. And the horse. He never complained, never broke stride. Even when it was necessary for Amaury and Vivienne to push from behind, he could feel the beast strain to make the humans’ job as easy as possible.

  Orléans was on the north side of the Loire. For all that it was but a day’s ride on horseback from Amboise, the city had been growing as a center of Lutheranism. Perhaps it was because of the legacy of the heroism and stoicism of Jeanne d’Arc, perhaps it was simply due to chance, but Orléans was the one stop on their journey where Amaury and Vivienne could feel safe in their roles.

  They passed through the gate without challenge and easily found their destination, another bookseller’s. They were welcomed, given a fine dinner of chicken and vegetables in white wine. Amaury was escorted to a tiny room in the attic while Vivienne slept with the children. An unbroken blanket of clouds lay over the city, so Amaury was once again forced to postpone stargazing with Vivienne. He was, in truth, relieved for the respite. He had another task in mind.

  As soon as he closed his door, he reached into the sack that held his belongings and removed the packet of letters he was to deliver in Nérac. He turned the packet over in his hands. If he attempted to read the correspondence and was found out, his mission would be at an end; his life might be as well. Still, he could remove the thong from the oilcloth without difficulty.

  Amaury studied the simple ties on the strip of leather. He laid the packet on a table and undid the knot, memorizing the order in which the thong had been opened, to be repeated later in reverse. Lifting the folds of the oilcloth off in the same manner, he was faced with the packet of letters and the cipher of the Bartholomew’s knot. The knot appeared simple: a ball of red ribbon fastened with a floret tie on the top. But any attempt to open it without perceiving precisely how the ribbon had been looped and folded internally would render retying the knot without later detection impossible.

  If science taught him anything, it was that any enigma could be deciphered with method and care. Giles’ murder, Routbourg’s, the corruption of Genesis, Giles’ chimerical diagram of astronomical movement: The solution to any or all of those riddles might well lie within the sheaf of papers that lay inches from his fingertips, protected by only a thin wrapper and a length of ribbon.

  Amaury wiped his hands on his clothes. The ribbon could show no stain of perspiration or soil. He studied the floret: six loops and two ends. Three folds altogether. Amaury grasped the loose ends of the ribbon and tugged ever so slightly. They gave easily, shrinking the loops that had been fashioned last. No traps. Carefully, Amaury pulled on the ribbon ends until the floret was almost undone. He tried to study the ribbon balled underneath to determine whether he needed t
o place a finger on the top when he undid the floret entirely. No way to tell.

  He pulled the ribbon the last bit. As the floret disappeared, the ribbon immediately underneath sprung open. It had been folded. But how many times? Two? No, three. Amaury studied the ribbon carefully to see where the fold marks were. There were none. But three folds for certain.

  Another, smaller, floret lay underneath: two loops, two ends. He leaned down to look more closely. Shadows fell on the tied ribbon in candlelight. A twist. Under the floret. He could just make it out. He undid the ribbon once more, this time keeping a finger on the ties to discern which way the ribbon had been twisted before it sprung open and left him helpless. To the left.

  It took thirty minutes for Amaury to work his way through the knot. Perhaps longer. He committed every fold, every twist, every order to memory. But eventually he was done. Could he retie the knot precisely as it had been done the first time? He would only know later. If he was still alive in a week, the answer was likely yes.

  The contents were before him. The secret correspondence. The contents of these pages had already cost two lives. He wiped his hands one more time, then looked.

  The pages were blank.

  There were twelve in all. Not a single word on any of them. Nor had they been written on with invisible ink. Amaury held each page to the candle, shifting the angle. No depressions. No indication that any pointed object had ever touched even one of the pages.

  What a fool he had been. No wonder Hoess had been so willing to trust him with their secrets. There were no secrets. At least in these pages. These pages had simply been a test to see if their bearer could be trusted. But Routbourg had been scheduled to go to Nérac before his murder. That much was uncontestable. Perhaps the real secrets were in the city itself. Or perhaps for the return trip. Nothing to do but complete the journey and watch and wait.

  Amaury took at least twice as long to redo what he had undone. When he finally finished, he stared at the six-loop floret with which he had begun. He had painstakingly retraced each step. But whether his measurements were slightly off, like his sack in Madame La Framboise’s room, would only be known after the packet was delivered.

  He refolded the oilcloth and tied the thong, returned the packet to the sack. He then lay down on the pallet tucked under the roofline, overtaken by a wave of profound loneliness.

  Loneliness. A regular companion but no friend.

  The next day they set out early, now traveling the road that ran along the north bank of the Loire. Two days later, they arrived in Tours. After spending the night at the home of a glassblower named Stéphane, they planned to set out early, just after Mass at Saint Gratian, the famed cathedral that had been called the most beautiful in Christendom.

  When Amaury led Vivienne from the church, soldiers were waiting at the bottom of the steps, accosting and questioning parishioners as they headed into the square. Most were being herded off toward a road on the left. Amaury took Vivienne by the elbow and started off to the side, but three of the soldiers broke off from the group and stepped into their path.

  “You two come with us,” barked the one in the middle. He was small and squat, with a livid scar that ran from the side of his forehead to the bottom of his jaw.

  “Why?” Amaury asked. “We’ve done nothing.”

  “Don’t ask questions,” the soldier snarled menacingly.

  “But, sir,” Vivienne replied, as sweet as the soldier was gruff, “we must be on our way. We are on a pilgrimage to view the relics at Toulouse.”

  “Relics can wait,” the soldier said, but in a decidedly more courteous tone. “The king has decided to visit his subjects in Tours. The royal procession is due. You get to see our liege, François I.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Amaury exclaimed, a broad, excited smile bursting onto his face. “The king! God bless him and God bless you for allowing us the opportunity.” He turned to Vivienne, who was beaming as well. “The king, my dear.” Amaury returned his gaze to the soldiers. “Tell me, good man. Where is the route? I want to be there quickly to be sure of a good view.”

  But the middle soldier was not as easily gulled as the priest in Pithiviers. “We shall escort you,” he said, with a smile for Vivienne. “We will even secure a place at the front.”

  “How exciting,” she said. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Just a soldier, madame.”

  As the soldiers led them to la grande rue, Amaury and Vivienne chattered on about the rare opportunity they had been afforded. But, to himself, Amaury cursed their bad luck. They would lose half a day at least.

  The crowd was already four deep on the boulevard when they arrived. The entire city had been turned out, required to line the parade route and express devotion as François and his endless retinue passed. The wait would be hours.

  The short soldier with the scar pushed people aside and secured places for Amaury and Vivienne at the front. Then he leaned in close. “Remember, you are to wave and cheer for the king. Failure to do so is grounds for arrest.” He straightened up, touched his hand to his forehead, bid farewell to Vivienne, then pushed back through the crowd to snare more unfortunates.

  After they were gone, Amaury briefly considered trying to slip away, but soldiers and constabulary were everywhere, ensuring that not a single citizen would choose not to avail himself of the opportunity to view the royal person. He shared a glance with Vivienne and ventured a small shrug. Here they would stay.

  XV

  THE LOVE OF THE PEOPLE.

  François I surveyed the adoring crowds on either side of the road: men, women, and even small children, waving, smiling, cheering. Each of his subjects willing to put aside the work of the day to stand in the sun, sometimes in the rain, to wait for hours, just to catch a glimpse of him. All the rigors, all the hardships of rule, became a willing price to pay.

  Royal processions were tedious affairs, and the council members were constantly urging him to limit the practice. His ministers whined that processions were taxing on his subjects, unwilling to admit that it was they who disliked the people. How ludicrous. The populace lived for these events. If not, why were they here? Each of them would remember for the remainder of their lives the day they saw the king.

  And the king would remember them—their love, their devotion. That was why, unlike that malformed troll Emperor Charles, François always rode on an open horse, not in a closed carriage. This was the figure of the man a people would want as their monarch—tall, powerful, virile, with fine, well-shaped calves.

  They would turn out just to see his clothes. François took pride in the knowledge that he had totally altered the way a gentleman would appear. No longer could Italians mock the French for slovenly form or brutish garb. He had confounded the devious Italians by first borrowing from their manner of dress, and then improving on it. Doublets, until recently mere vests, were cut to fit tightly across the chest and were emblazoned with embroidery of brilliant color, then finished with slashed silk sleeves. Tights were now of silk—to accentuate those calves—and fitted with balloon shorts in contrasting color. The king, even in warm weather, wore a velvet plumed hat and a silk, fur-trimmed cloak draped insouciantly across his broad shoulders. So much had this manner of dress been copied in court and by gentlemen across France that François had instituted laws restricting by rank the amount of silk with which a lady or gentleman could be adorned. Thus François was assured that only when the king was in view could the people see elegance in its full flower.

  Of course, although he rarely mentioned it, he knew it was the women who stared at that flower the most intently, each of them allowing herself the fantasy of sharing the royal bed. And François did occasionally pick a particularly comely maid out of the crowd, then sent a trusted servant to fetch her after the royal procession had passed. He would have to go behind the back of his mistress, of course—mistresses, actually—but an assignation with a commoner held sufficient satisfaction to be worth an occasional snit.

>   François also enjoyed these rides because, through all the waving and smiling, they afforded him a rare opportunity to think; a time when he could not be hounded by ministers, council members, or an army of supplicants. Today, as always, he was thinking about Charles. The Belgian turd. About Charles and about religion.

  Catholic or Lutheran, he wondered. Which would the people prefer? Or, more accurately, against which would they rebel? As for himself, he saw little to choose between them. The Lutherans were appealing because they had no established order to overcome. But that very established order made the Catholics attractive for keeping a restive populace in line. If he went with the Lutherans, he could count on the support of the German princes, but he then ceded the pope to Charles. Something of a waste after taking the trouble to marry off his son Henri to that Medici runt, Catherine. But if he went with the Catholics, he might be betting against the future.

  There was always England and Henry to consider, of course. With that bastardized religion he seemed to be promulgating, Henry would, as always, try to dance in between, although the image of the boarlike king of England dancing was difficult to conjure up without mirth. But England grew increasingly weak under Henry’s incompetent rule and, as Charles would never forgive him for divorcing his cousin, Catherine of Aragon, Henry seemed to have little choice but to curry favor with France.

  So for the moment, François concluded, let the Catholics and Lutherans hurl brickbats at each other. The competition served him well—the mere act of hurling weakened them both, made each eager, even frantic, for a royal ally. Beda, that old fool, had come to him before he left Paris with the silly notion that the Lutherans were hatching a plot to bring down Christianity itself. Something about Genesis. What nonsense. Such desperation. Bring me proof, syndic, he had said, and Beda had claimed to be gathering that proof.

  Bring down Christianity. Why would the Lutherans want to do that? They were Christianity too, or at least they were the last time he looked. Still, he had let Ory ride behind him in the royal procession, demonstrating a commitment to the Inquisition the king did not feel. But he would stop short of a commitment to Ory, just as he would stop short of a commitment to Marguerite.