The Watchtower

for the much longer sleep awaiting him if Marguerite did not somehow still save him with her love, for he had little doubt that he would do away with himself otherwise. His very atoms seemed to have slowed down in sleep with despair, for he’d felt an extraordinary numbness upon awakening. It seemed hours before he’d shaken his limbs enough to sit up in bed, and when he sat up, he was not certain if it was as a living being or as a ghost. But, eventually, he did resume a facsimile of wakefulness, and then he felt the need to soothe the blistering solitude of his hovel by leaving it.
    Though B&T’s was famed throughout London for the singular lateness of its hours, this was a Monday, and as Will looked around, he saw it was nearly deserted. The pronounced shadow of a four-story stone building across the street enveloped his table in deep gray even amid the silver radiance of a full moon. Will could barely discern his own hands, resting atop the table.
    Only one other patron seemed to be on the premises, a figure in a thick black cloak and shawl heavy for the season. He sat in a chair tilted back against a brick wall, well into the interior, his chair pitched so far back it looked as if he were trying to press his body into the brick. What need for protection motivated this posture? Will wondered. He tried to peer more closely at him but his back was turned and all Will could make out was his cloak … which suddenly reminded him of another cloaked figure—the Italian priest whom he’d run into on the street yesterday. Could the knave be following him?
    The server, a graying matron who might have been the sister of his midday waitress, came to take his order, a tankard of ale with some bread and cheese. “Say, do you know who that fellow is?” Will asked as she started to walk off. He gestured toward the cloaked figure.
    “No, never saw him in here before.”
    As she retreated, Will, angry at the thought he was being followed, stood and slowly approached the cloaked figure. Halfway across the room he considered retreating. He didn’t have his sword with him. What if it was the Italian priest? What if he was a spy sent by his father to monitor his behavior and report back on his activities? Or worse—force him bodily to return to Swan Hall? Or even worse—what if he’d been hired by the poet to kill him for daring to court Marguerite? Will hesitated, nearly turned back. But his youthful aggressiveness got the best of him.
    “Reveal yourself, knave,” he proclaimed in a voice that was loud enough to disguise the slight tremor he felt in his throat. “I would know who my tormentor is!” He flicked the cloak away from the man’s face … and nearly fell over with shock. His tongue didn’t work and neither did his ears, for she—it was most definitely and gloriously a she!—had started to speak and he couldn’t hear her. Only his eyes remained steady, eyes that had received an impression that rocked him, which would be the impression come to his mind whenever he thought of this moment afterward, which would be often.
    A cloud in the night sky must have moved, for the water in her glass, perfectly clear a moment earlier, suddenly seethed with moonlight, with a silver brilliance so intense he had to look away. Alchemy again, he couldn’t help but think, though by whom or what he had no idea.
    Maybe love was alchemy, too, it occurred to him. Transmuting matter into spirit.
    “Lord, it’s you,” Marguerite was saying. “The source of my troubles.”
    Hearing this backwardly encouraging comment, Will felt almost invited to sit down at her table and did. He gazed at Marguerite, beside himself with hopefulness. Her blue-green eyes were perfect, so much so that they appeared otherworldly; so were all her oval features. Her expression was grim, befitting some reversal she’d apparently suffered, but there was hope for him, he couldn’t stop thinking. Even to be the source of her troubles, he needed to have some significance.
    She leaned toward him slightly. “Did you follow me here? Why? Didn’t you get our note this morning?”
    The harshness of her words, her tone, lashed his hopefulness with mockery. Especially painful was the word our. But he noted also her tears, her quivering lips, and decided not to fall into the trap of offended repartee; solicitude was a much better choice. There was some tangle of emotions and events here, and he needed to untangle it.
    “As the heavens are my witness, I