The Astrologer (23 page)

“Very well.”

Christian lowered the sword and took a few steps past the snow and onto the wet sand of the beach. He drew himself up to his full height and jutted out his chin proudly.

“My son,” he declaimed in an irritating nasal voice much like Bernardo’s. “I am no longer trusted by the bishop, for you have made me a liar. I am no longer respected by my lords, for you have shown me weak as a father. I am laughed at by my
neighbors, alone in this house with naught but the resentment and lies you leave with me. Your line here is, ‘I am my own man.’”

“I am my own man.”

“That had conviction, Soren. Well done. Now I continue as before. You return to Elsinore with your precious German degrees, to seek a living. Though you gall my patience and spurn my paternal love, I will take you back into my home until your employment is secured.”

“This is an amusing fantasy, my lord.”

“Ah, but is it not true?” Christian raised his index finger. “Did you not return to Elsinore eight years ago, after having defied and humiliated your father?”

I looked out into the Sound. Merchant ships sailed past us, bound for England, Brittany, the Mediterranean, or returning south to the shores of the Baltic.

“I stayed with my father no more than two months upon my return from Germany. These are not happy memories, my lord. Do you throw your darts at any target?”

“We move to the next scene. Here, I place this poor crown upon my head and play my father. Attend me, sir. Our son the prince requires a tutor in Latin, Greek, history, and mathematics. You have been recommended to us.”

“I recall the interview with your father,” I said. The king, with his advisors and the bishop of Copenhagen, were on one end of the royal office and I was bowed low, my eyes on the magnificent carpet, thirty feet away from them. I mumbled my credentials and strove to keep my sweating palms from touching my clothes and staining them. I had never known such humiliation and fear.

“Do recall that we appointed you to this illustrious post. Do recall that we had letters on your behalf writ by Sir Tristram, by Father Olaf, and most persuasively, one writ by your own father.”

“He wrote no such letter.”

“He did. I have seen it. And so we brought you to our court
at Copenhagen. Your successes from that day to this are all part of your father’s glory, Soren.”

“No.”

“And yet when he died here,” Christian pointed behind me with the rapier, to the ruined mill. “When Brahe’s badly wrought factory collapsed, killing your father and four other good men, you did not so much as come to claim his corpse.” “Nay! I was aiding Tycho on the road to Prague. I could not leave him.”

Christian was wrong, about so much, but I felt blood rushing to my head and did not like what thoughts came to me. The prince sought an ally in his cowardice and fear, but I was not the man for it.

“Soren, be even and direct with me.”

“My lord is mistaken. There was no shame in my heart that kept me from my father. Not a drop of my blood feared him.”

“Aha.” Christian leaped at me and I jumped aside, stumbling and falling backward into the tracks we had made earlier. Christian stood over me and put the point of his rapier to the base of my throat.

“So now you fly your true colors, eh?”

“I know not what you mean, my lord. Pray let me rise.” I made to sit, but Christian put his left foot onto my chest, keeping me down on my back in the snow. I felt the cold tip of his rapier against the skin below my chin. Bernardo’s dagger, hidden in my doublet, was half beneath me and dug into my ribs.

“You think my blood swims with cowardice. You think, ‘Why, the prince confesses his fear himself.’ Is that not so?”

“No, my lord.”

“You lie. But it is no matter. This battle showed me afeared, yes, but I shall in future make Death himself tremble before me! Who dares to call me a coward shall taste my new boldness. I will show the world that I have the heart of a lion, like my father. Aye, though he be ashamed of me today, I will make him
proud. I shall be king one day, no matter else. I shall be king, do you hear?”

He looked down at me and moved the rapier’s tip from beneath my chin to a point a few inches from my left eye. Bitter cold as it was, I broke into a sweat. Christian’s voice had grown calm and quiet, yet he stood on my chest and waved his sword in my face. He had ordered two harmless men put to death, and his mood was stranger now than it had been yesterday. I have ever feared my own death, and I felt it close at hand there on the beach. There was a smear of wet gray sand across the toe of Christian’s boot, and a glint of ice in his beard, where a single drop of water had frozen.

“My lord, I beg of you, leave off.”

“Is there not many a man who has disappointed his father, but has lost all chance to redeem himself before that goodly sire? Oh, I pity you, Soren.”

“My lord, I beg you.”

“I at least do not kneel before my father’s enemy.”

“My father had no enemies,” I said. My skin was everywhere slick with sweat. Bernardo’s dagger was slowly tearing a hole in my blouse, along my left side. “My father was no king. My father was a backward man, a villager, a laborer with some skill, that is all.”

“You are better than your father?”

“I am,” I cried. My voice was high, shrill and womanish. “And I served a better man than he.”

Christian pushed hard on my chest with the heel of his boot.

“Brahe was no hero.”

“Aye, he was. A hero to the ages, to the future.”

“Brahe loved his dwarf and his pet elk more than he loved any of his assistants.”

“That is not true. Tycho brought me here to Uraniborg.”

“At the king’s bidding.”

“Nay, my lord. I entreated Tycho by letters for a year, since I first learned that you would go away to school in Saxony. My
list of academic accomplishments and my ideas did buy my admittance to Tycho’s employ.”

Christian sighed and moved the tip of his rapier away from my face. He spoke slowly, in the singsong rhythm one uses with dogs and children.

“My father has ever been fond of you. You tutored me well, but when I left to Wittenberg, you no longer had a pupil or employment. I put a word in the king’s ear that the stars did fascinate you, and he then shipped you here to Brahe, who had protested against it. He gave in to my father’s command, being short of hands at the time. But it was my father’s favor, not your epistles to Brahe, that delivered you to Uraniborg.”

“This is not true. No, this is not true, my lord. It cannot be true.”

Christian took his foot from my chest and stepped back. I sat up and felt a flood of protestations in my chest, all demanding to be spoken. But I said nothing more. I looked away from the prince, at my hands.

“We must be as heroes,” Christian said. “No matter what say any. I shall return to my father’s fortress and rise above my shame. I shall be heroic. My father is a hero, and worthy of respect. Your father too, Soren, was worthy of respect. He died on a mission to repair Brahe’s mistake, there in the mill. Brahe failed the king and was exiled for it. Brahe failed himself and your own father died for it. And finally, Brahe did fail you. He abandoned you and all his other assistants when he left this island. Is it true that he did not pay your final wages before he ran to Prague?”

“Aye.”

“There you have him, in a nutshell. He would have you think him the noblest king of infinite space, while he buys new traveling clothes with the money he owes you.”

I had forgotten that Tycho was yet in my debt. I wondered if he had purchased butter and milk on credit.

“Your father was a good man,” Christian said. “You’d do
well to visit his grave and pray for his forgiveness. It would be heroic.”

I nodded. Christian sheathed his sword and gave me his hands, pulling me to my feet. He brushed the snow from my back and shoulders.

“It is time for us to be heroes,” he said, and like a mother walking a child he took my hand and led me up the hill, past the ruin where my father had died, to the top of the island again. We adjusted our cloaks, gloves, and hats and then marched through the snow toward the broken hulk of Uraniborg. Somewhere during this walk I remembered that it was Christmas Eve.

COMING AROUND THE WEST SIDE OF URANIBORG TO THE front entrance, we were surprised to find two Swiss mercenaries waiting. They sat astride their horses, tall and silent, wrapped in wool, bearskin, and steel. A third horse, saddled but riderless, nosed at the snow a few yards behind them. Christian and I walked directly toward the Swiss. The men did not move at all. It seemed they had always been there, waiting with hands on hilts, ready to strike down an enemy. When we were close enough that I could have touched the horses had I dared, one of the Swiss stirred. He pushed his beaver open and looked down at us, his eyes black as his beard.

“My lord Christian,” he said. His voice had within it a note of insolence, even of command, as if the prince was expected to do this hired soldier’s bidding.

“You are one of Bernardo’s men?”

“We are all your father’s men. It is the king’s command I obey, and his message I bring. My lord, you are summoned presently to return to Kronberg. We have brought a horse that you might ride to the village, where our boat is moored at the docks. Your father commands you come with us.”

The man gave no sign that any of this was a request. Had Christian refused, I think the Swiss would have seized him, bound him like a hind, and thrown him over the back of the
horse. Christian must have also sensed this, though he pretended otherwise.

“Your coming now is most convenient,” he said. “My business on Hven being finished, I had intended to hire a ship, but my father’s Switzers will do, since seemingly they have an old boat at their disposal. Have you brought me a decent horse, at least?”

“It is a brief ride to the village,” the soldier said. “But the mount we have brought could take you as far as Copenhagen in half a day.”

Christian looked at the riderless horse.

“Were you with us in Copenhagen?”

“Every Switzer in Denmark was witness to that battle.”

“What is your name?”

The Swiss smiled, a crooked split in his beard. He was missing most of his teeth.

“My name is Jochen.”

“I will remember your name,” Christian said. “Come, Soren. We ride for Tuna. You may see me off at the wharf. I will send someone back for you after you have gathered your notes and supplies.”

Christian climbed into the saddle of the third horse and pulled me up behind him. I wondered if Bernardo had given his men leave to disrespect the prince. I wondered how Christian’s declaration of a newfound leonine heart would hold up in the face of such rude behavior. For my part, I hoped the prince would send these Swiss packing back to Lucerne after I finished with the king. They were barbarians and had no place in a civilized Denmark. I put a hand against my doublet and felt the dagger I carried.

The ride to the village was silent and uneventful, though another surprise awaited us in Tuna.

“Lord Ulfeldt would speak with you now, in the church.” The Swiss smiled again.

“Ulfeldt? He is here?”

“The king sent him along. He took up little enough space
on the boat, though he abused our ears with his metaphysics the whole voyage. You are commanded to confer with him ere we embark for Kronberg.”

“I will not speak to him.”

“The king commands it.”

“The king sends Ulfeldt as his tongue?”

“Aye.”

“Then I will send to Ulfeldt my ears. Soren, go see what the tedious old fool wants and bring me back any interesting words. You may tell him to come down to the docks and join me aboard ship.”

I was happy to do this duty, for I had been outside all morning and was chilled to the marrow. Even such odious company as Ulfeldt and Father Maltar would seem pleasant if I could sit by the warmth of a fire. I dismounted Christian’s horse and went into St. Ibb’s.

The church smelled of incense, coal smoke, and herring. The priests were nowhere to be seen. Ulfeldt stood in the chapel, his back to me. He faced the altar and looked to be examining the rood. Pure white hair spilled from beneath his cap and trailed over the collar of his cape. He made no movement as I approached him, but Ulfeldt had heard me come into the church.

“Where is Prince Christian?”

“He is outside, my lord. He bids you give your words to me that I might carry them to him.”

“Such insolence.” Ulfeldt shook his head and turned to face me. “Oh, it is you. I thought you were the young priest. Did the soldiers not bid Christian to come inside and speak with me?”

“Aye, and he refuses. You are to meet them down at the wharf unless you have some news I can report to the prince immediately.”

“You enjoy delivering this message.”

“My lord, it overjoys me to be in a warm building.”

Ulfeldt shuffled to a pew and sat, waving a hand that I might join him. He looked frail, with deep shadows around his eyes.

“I shall give the prince my news in person,” he said. “But I have business with you also, as it happens. Happily came you here, for I did not wish to seek you out at the ruin.”

“What business have you with me, my lord?”

“First tell me about young Christian. I am informed that he is injured, a blow to the skull.”

“He says he is well enough. He does not act like a man with a wounded brain, though his shifting moods, perhaps, are evidence of some injury.”

Ulfeldt studied my face a moment.

“You are not so ignorant that you do not know what has transpired,” he said.

“I know of Christian’s cowardice, and of this pretense that he was mighty in battle.”

“War is a confused and untidy business, sir. Who knows? Perhaps the prince was a brave warrior that day after all. The king has chosen to see it thus. Who are we to contradict his wisdom?”

“I have made similar arguments to the prince. He will not declare himself a coward before the nation, if that is your concern.”