The Watchtower (23 page)

"... so if you wanted to come, tonight is perfect."

"I'm sorry," I apologized, realizing I'd missed half of what Roger Elden had been saying while I worried about my vampire ex (the one who'd abandoned me) noticing gray hairs and wrinkles. Talk about shallow! "Come to what?"

"The conference is sponsoring a series of midnight tours of famous astronomical landmarks. I know it sounds eccentric, but what can you expect from a bunch of science geeks?"

I smiled. "Hey, some of my best friends are science geeks. My friend Jay once dragged me to Nicolas Tesla's abandoned laboratory on Long Island."

"Cool. Nick was a genius, but a bit of a nut," Roger said, as if speaking of an old colleague instead of a scientist who had been dead for over fifty years.

"Where's the tour tonight?"

"The Medici Column. It's over by the Bourse on the rue du Louvre. There's a spiral staircase inside it that leads up to the top of the tower. It's normally closed to tourists, but it will be opened tonight for members of the conference."

"And what's on top of the tower?"

He grinned sheepishly. "A weird metal contraption built by a sixteenth-century astrologer."

"Gosh, who could say no to that?"

"Really? You'd go?" He beamed at me so hopefully that I felt myself dangerously close to tears. I had a sudden urge to unburden all my troubles to this complete stranger, but when I recalled how bizarre those troubles were, I told him I'd meet him at eleven thirty in the lobby and let myself into my room before I could make a complete fool of myself.

I dropped my overnight bag on the floor and collapsed onto the freshly made bed. The maids had left the window open, letting in a cool breeze that ruffled the lace curtains. Beyond them the green leaves made a soothing murmur. I felt as if I'd come home. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep and a strange dream.

I was on a road--or perhaps
above
a road. I could see a carriage speeding along it as if I floated in the air. It was my job, I somehow knew, to keep whoever rode in it safe, but safe from what I didn't know. The countryside on either side of the road appeared peaceful--rolling hills, cultivated fields marked off by hedgerows--
England,
I found myself thinking with a pang that felt ke homesickness. I followed the coach through twilight and into night until I felt so tired my limbs--
wings?
--began to feel as heavy as lead. I looked longingly at ponds surrounded by tall grass on either side of the road.
Good nesting ground,
my dream self thought. But just as I began to drift from the sky, I woke in the dark room with a start, feeling as if I'd not only slept the day away, but somehow slept years ... even
centuries
away. And that I'd forgotten something.

Melusine
.

I went to the closet and dragged my suitcase off the top shelf. The Poland Spring bottle was still inside. I jiggled it and held it up to the light, trying to see anything remarkable about it, but it just looked like water. Then I opened my laptop and looked up train schedules to Lusignan. After a half hour on the SNCF site, which kept crashing on me, I realized I had to catch a 6:10 a.m. train for Poitiers, then I'd have nine minutes to transfer to a train to Lusignan. If I missed it, I'd have to stay overnight in Poitiers because there was only one train a day to Lusignan. How remote was this place anyway?

When I googled Lusignan, I found out. Other than a Wikipedia entry on the Lusignan dynasty, I could find nothing about the town. When I tried to find a hotel, I got results for Poitiers. Apparently the town had no hotel. If I missed the one train back to Poitiers, I'd have to ... well, I'd better not miss it.

By the time I finished plotting my itinerary it was 11:25. Roger Elden would be waiting in the garden. I put on a sweatshirt over my T-shirt and jeans and tossed the Poland Spring bottle into my backpack--just in case I didn't have time to get back here before the train. As I went out into the garden, I reflected that by the time I caught up with Will Hughes I would be nearly as nocturnal as he was.

* * *

Roger Elden was sitting at one of the little metal tables in the garden, a bottle of champagne and two glasses set up before him.

"I knew you'd make it!" he said, popping the champagne cork and filling the two glasses. "You look like a woman who couldn't resist an otherworldly experience."

"You have no idea," I said, taking a glass. "What are we drinking to?"

"To exploring dark matter and bringing the universe's mysteries into the light." He held up his glass.

I held up my glass and clinked it against Roger's. The clear chime (where had he found two crystal champagne flutes?) reminded me uneasily for a moment of the bells tolling in the Garden of Diana last night, but I shook off the connection. "To the light," I said, echoing the last words of Roger's toast.

His glass paused halfway to his lips and he tilted his head at me. "Exactly!" he said, breaking into a grin. "To the light!"

The champagne was ice-cold and tasted mysteriously of orange blossoms and cloves. We finished our glasses, then Roger stoppered the bottle and put it into a padded carryall, which he put over his shoulder.

"I thought we'd walk. It's such a beautiful night. I love Paris after dark, don't you?"

I agreed and we started out, walking briskly down the rue Monge toward the Seine, then crossing the river over the Ile de la Cite past Notre Dame, lit up like a great ship sailing along. I asked Roger how he became interested in astronomy, and he chattered happily about a boyhood fascination with the stars, an influential academic mentor, and an enduring quest to plumb the secrets of the universe. His favorite quote was Hamlet's: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." His favorite Crayola crayon was Midnight Blue (the same as mine), and his favorite song was Van Morrison's "Moondance."

Talking about musical tastes led me to tell him about Jay and Becky's band. He loved that they called it London Dispersion Force and made me sing two of their songs after promising not to laugh at my voice. He failed dismally and we walked through Les Halles laughing like two drunks coming home late from the bars and cafes that filled the neighborhood. We were still laughing when we reached the Medici Column at the end of a long park. The conversation had made the walk go so fast I was surprised to reach it so soon--and a bit dismayed to find that no one was there at the column waiting for us.

"You said your geeky colleagues loved this sort of thing."

Roger shrugged. "They probably all went out clubbing. Astronomers are like a bunch of frat boys on spring break. But look, the door's unlocked. Shall we?"

Roger's cheerful demeanor was perfectly open and nonthreatening, but it suddenly occurred to me that entering a deserted tower with a man I didn't know wasn't the brightest idea. On the other hand, could it be much worse than going into the Luxembourg at night to meet a tree spirit? Or into the Forest of Fontainebleau to meet Hellequin?

"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 facade 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 Medicis'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 Musee des Arts et Metiers 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 Medicis 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 only
then
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.