The Watchtower

have meant a wait through a long afternoon before seeing Dee, perhaps wandering around the nearby village, or seaside cliffs. But the day was extraordinarily hot and humid, and Will’s tired horse had thrown a shoe in Pontivy, and it had taken hours before a farrier had been found to reshoe it. At Audierne he had stopped to water his horse and was told that the south cliff road had been damaged in the last storm and he should take the northern, and longer, route. So Will, weary from weather and waiting, found himself with only an hour or so to prepare for his session with Dee.
    Walking around Pointe du Raz, Will easily recognized the tower Dee had referred to. Rising from a stone abbey, it was about five stories high, of black stone, and seemed medieval in origin, broad slits for archers to aim through rather than windows.
    A huge seaside cliff jutted out into the ocean near the tower, and Will climbed a footpath hewn into its granite face. He wanted to get a better view of the tower, and to take his mind off the enormity of what was coming. The path was narrow and had many twists, turns, and reversals, high grass on the land side and a plummet to jagged rocks on the sea side. Will had to discipline himself not to look down lest he experience vertigo. But the late-day salt air was brisk, refreshing him, and the view out to sea compelling. When he encountered an embankment of grass-tufted red earth to rest on, he took the opportunity.
    He gazed at the tower from this perspective and observed that the archers’ apertures were only one to a floor, each facing seaward. He wondered at the single-mindedness of builders in the long-ago past, who worried only about enemies from the sea, none from land. But the tower had survived—perhaps for several centuries—so the builders might well have known what they were doing. If only he were so confident right now … but he was certain about his decision, he reprimanded himself, when eternity with his beloved awaited this portentous encounter. People worshipped on Sundays in the less than certain hope of such an outcome, and here he had it at his fingertips! He shivered with anticipation. As if to mimic him, a gull flying above the tower shimmied in a gust of wind, then coasted down to smoother air.
    Will cast a sweeping glance to the west, taking in the offshore island of Île de Sein, its fishing boats returning for the evening. The sun was low in the sky, descending toward a dark stone tower at the center of the island. As it set, brilliant light spilled across the sea, cleaving the dark water, laying a rubied path between the island and the shore. Perhaps it was an omen of his coming immortality?
    As Will went back down the wind-washed path toward the tower, he kept a careful eye on the sun’s sinking disk, its orb first split by the island tower, then its upper arc of flame bisected by the horizon, then dipping beneath it. Another shudder of anticipation went through him. He saw a twinkling light go on in the island tower and then, as if in response, one go on in the top room of the tower just below him. Startled, Will nearly took one step too many over the crumbling edge of the path. He pulled back just in time. All he could see in the room was a candle’s twinkle. But he speeded up his pace as if he’d seen Marguerite herself.
    Approaching the tower, Will observed that the entrance to it was actually through the abbey, which had been built right up against the tower’s stone façade. High tide had come into an inlet in front of the abbey to a distance of fifty feet or so from the front door. Will amused himself in the lingering heat by walking ankle depth through the water’s foamy surge, scooping up a few palmfuls of water and splashing them over his sweat-streaked face, as if baptizing his upcoming transformation in some ritual. The last rays of the setting sun dyed the water red. As he cupped the water, it felt to him as if he were anointing himself with handfuls of blood. A fitting baptism, he thought, for birth into immortality.
    *   *   *
    A friar so deeply cowled that Will could not make out his face led Will silently to the door of the tower, then motioned for him to continue on his own.
    The way up the tower was a serpentine iron stairs lit by torches on each landing that faced the one door on each floor. Will tread with caution up the stairs, their gloomy half-light between floors interrupted by moths and shadows. He felt tension over his destiny