The Watchtower

partly to reconcile himself to this new situation in which they were joyously together but he must not wish for anything more, and partly to send a love letter to Marguerite. But even as he laid down his quill and read his sonnet over with satisfaction unbecoming a working poet, he sensed disquiet deep within him, like a ripple at the bottom of a deep well. He tried to suppress this unease, and the idea accompanying it, that he could never reconcile himself to the gulf of time between them, but was unable to.
    No, he must be with her always, he reversed himself, out on the vast promontory of time on which she lived. Even if fierce winds tried to blow him off continuously. If he wasn’t out on that promontory with her, he would die. Not just physically (eventually) but spiritually right now ! The realization tore across his mood like a cyclone. He tried to suppress it, but it was the truth. Sadly, he folded his reconciliation poem and put it back in his pocket. Maybe at some other moment he’d feel differently, give it to her. But not now.
    Then, in the shadowy light of the amber half-moon, he began to noiselessly scan Marguerite’s travel chest for where box and ring could be hidden, assuming she had them with her. This time, without success.
    *   *   *
    The next day, Will and Marguerite dined at 1:00 p.m. at the most elegant establishment in Paimpont, the unassumingly named Goat & Boar. They were sitting at a sumptuously provisioned oak table with a rainbow awning when a slender foot messenger, clad in black, approached Will. He asked him to confirm his identity and, satisfied, gave him a letter in a scarlet envelope, which Will put into his pocket unread.
    Marguerite gazed quizzically at him. “Not interested?”
    He smiled awkwardly. He wasn’t sure whom it could be from and didn’t want to share such an uncertainty with his beloved. A missive from an old flame in Somerset—Bess, perhaps?—couldn’t be ruled out. “Boring—business—I’m sure,” he muttered. “Nothing worth disrupting our time together for.” He tried to smile more engagingly. He’d never discussed any sort of business with Marguerite. Their conversations tended toward the ethereal.
    The look she returned his with was penetrating, bordering on disbelieving. But she didn’t pursue her skepticism, and the letter seemed to vanish as they lapsed into silence, then drifted on to other exchanges. Early on the evening of the same day, as Marguerite napped before supper, Will went to his chair by the window and read the letter, which turned out to be from John Dee.
    My good Sir—
    I sit in my tower room at Pointe du Raz, at the very ends of the earth. It is the middle of the night and a summer storm is howling, so that my skull might cave in. The surf crashes against the stone foundation of the tower so as to topple it, and the ocean is whipped to a boiling froth that might cleave my skin right off if I fell in. Nonetheless all I have on my mind is you, good boy: why have you not come to see me with those items I requested? Why, when immortality is at your fingertips, when you and I could stand atop this breathless pinnacle together, are you nowhere in my sight?
    I know you have been in Paris, my boy, and I know that you have now journeyed to Paimpont. For my spies are everywhere. Paimpont is not so far from Pointe du Raz. You can leave immediately on the final leg of a wonderful journey, should you will it. Come to me in my tower with those items I’ve requested, Will Hughes. Come. Note: you will only be admitted after the sun has set. But come!
    Faithfully yours, [signed] John Dee
    Will folded the letter back in its envelope and sighed with an uncertainty his rational mind found startling. For, even after the previous day’s encounter with Russwurin, who added another connection on top of the Paris alley sighting between Lightning Hands and Dee, he could still not rule out dealing with the man. Not if nothing else worked regarding immortality. Reuniting with Marguerite had been wonderful and uplifting, but it hadn’t solved the problem. Maybe Dee had nothing to do with the robbery, and maybe he had planned it—but then discovered the golden bough to be worthless to him—but in either event, Will could not continue with Marguerite this way.
    As he then turned to look at her in bed, he noticed, even in the waning light, that a few bricks in the wall near her head seemed slightly out of line with the others. The pattern was