The Watchtower

dazedly at the blank wall opposite. He’d been around the interior of the house three times and found no one and nothing, indeed no sign that anyone had ever lived in the house. And no workman. Been through every closet, every nook and cranny, stared hard up the chimney, scoured the ancient, stone-damp cellar. Nothing. Clearly she had gone from here, probably from London, perhaps from England. She could be anywhere now. Or nowhere.
    As he got up to leave, dead with despair, he caught sight of a fragment of parchment in a corner of the foyer, its color so closely matching the paint’s that he had previously missed it. He went over, saw two torn sheets of parchment, and suddenly fevered over with fresh anticipation. A light was in his eyes. Will picked up the parchments.
    The first sheet had the letters te and ve on top of it, with smudges of black ink between the letters, as if more writing had been rubbed away. The second sheet had a detailed ink sketch of a church. It meant nothing to Will in the instant he beheld it, but in the pregnant seconds that followed, he stumbled over the sketch’s mate in his memory, in a French history book he had pored over with his tutor. It seemed more plausible with each passing second that this was a sketch of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, the oldest church in Paris.
    This realization had a mate in his thoughts, too, just like the sketch: Marguerite loved him! Why else would she be signing him with this church? She must be beckoning him to meet her at the church, circumspectly. The demonic attack suffered by these sheets of parchment, their tears and smear, showed she had plenty to be fearful of. Will had no doubt the sketch was a summons, any more than he doubted the message Love, Marguerite had been smeared to … ve  … te.
    Demon-mangling. Tears and smears. That was the second message of these parchments. He suspected John Dee, but couldn’t fathom a motive, as Will needed to see Marguerite for Dee to obtain the box and the ring. That horrid Lightning Hands was another candidate. But Will realized it didn’t matter how these sheets had gotten defaced, nor why the vandalizing was incomplete. He was sure that this was a summons, and that its meaning was that Marguerite loved him.
    Will decided to leave for the church right away, to get to Dover on horseback and board the first boat to Calais, then take a coach to Paris. He could purchase a new set of worldly goods there, humble as they would be. All that mattered now was Marguerite. Carefully folding and putting the sheets of parchment in his pocket, he left the house and started running toward his horse’s stable, to begin the journey that would bring Marguerite back into his arms.
    *   *   *
    Two days later, Will dismounted from the Calais-to-Paris carriage, about two blocks west of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. He wanted a chance, however brief, to gather his thoughts. Lodgings, clothes, provisions, could wait. He would think while walking to the church. And he walked, with a lilt in his step unlike any he’d felt since his days of strolling toward a rendezvous with Marguerite in London.
    Dawn bouqueted the cobblestone streets with rose and lavender light, and Will breathed the sweet summer air of a neighborhood distant from the knock and murk of Paris commerce. He wasn’t 100 percent certain he would find Marguerite in the church upon his arrival, but he was sure they would be meeting soon. He couldn’t fathom any other reason for her leaving the sketch behind but to direct him to a rendezvous. Just as Will thought he might jump out of his skin with excitement, he rounded a corner and there was the church, and the park adjacent to it.
    Will calmed himself down with an effort; he needed to compose himself. Marguerite could be waiting for him in a church pew! He pictured her in a rose dress with a gold veil—the colors of the Paris dawn—her loveliness illimitable, veiled in awe before the god of love. The pagan god of love that was, Will conceded to himself with a blush, for their love was not of the bodiless and self-sacrificial kind revered in churches. His wasn’t, that was for sure.
    The front doors of the church were made of heavy oak. They faced southwest and were in the shadows of stone arches, the brilliant splash of dawn outlining the church spire above them. To their left was a grove of elm and maple trees; in between the grove and a church rampart was a grassy area encircled by a wooden fence, containing a