The Astrologer (8 page)

The royal couple took their seats in elaborate chairs with high backs and rich silk cushions as the rest of us bowed. Kirsten waved a hand and smiled, managing to turn her face to each of her guests without looking any of us in the eye. It was the way she looked over crowds from her carriage during ceremonies and parades.

“I bid you all sit, please.” Kirsten had a lovely voice, her speech clear and precise with large, round vowels, her intonation always carefully rising and falling as if every word she spoke was planned well in advance.

“To my lady’s safe arrival,” the king said, raising his cup.

“To the queen,” we all answered, and drank, all but Tristram. He raised the cup to his lips but took not a drop. The bishop emptied his cup and called for more wine to begin the inevitable series of lengthy speeches in welcome of Kirsten. I recalled a visit from Bishop Harlen to Copenhagen years before, when his salute to the royal family had dragged out to half an hour, becoming a confused homily for a while before the queen had coughed, delicately but clearly, to remind the bishop that he stood in her dining hall and not the pulpit.

“My good cousin Harlan,” Kirsten said as the bishop rose from his chair, goblet in hand. “Let me take your praise as given, I pray you. On Sunday we shall delight if you condescend to preach in our chapel, but for tonight know that I am well pleased to join you all here at Elsinore. My good husband’s welcome is enough for me, but I am most flattered by the certain knowledge that whatever you would say to us
now, it is both true and beautiful and heartfelt, my lord bishop, and I do thank you.”

“Aye, Majesty.” The bishop was half out of his chair, a puzzled look on his face. He bowed his head and returned to his seat in a clumsy motion, a sulking lapdog told to remain at his master’s feet. Harlen placed the wine cup beside his trencher and kicked me in the ankle with his slippered foot to remind me that I was also the queen’s guest and should salute her. I leaned forward and lifted my own cup. Before I could rise, Kirsten held up her hand to stop me.

The queen was a tall woman, blonde, fine-boned, and she had just turned one-and-forty. She was younger than the king and hardly showed her age, beautiful in a high-collared dress of red and gold with black and white insets in the sleeves and gold lace at the cuffs. She smiled and looked around the table.

“Good gentlemen all,” she said. “Enough of these salutes for now. Let us eat. Come, bring the feast.” She signaled the servants and the first of many courses was brought forward. Tristram declared it the finest meal he had ever seen prepared at Kronberg and thanked Kirsten for troubling to bring her own cooks. There were salats of boiled, peeled onions with vinegar, oil, and pepper; rich mutton broth; small pastries with hot sauce; chicken breast in aspic with sweet mustard; roast venison with out-of-season asparagus grown in the queen’s hothouse in Copenhagen; stuffed oranges; crousets; pickled olives; white manchet loaves; and much more that I cannot recall.

I kept one eye on the king in case my brief prayer was answered and he choked on a bone or a mouthful of gristle. He did not choke, but let the cooks fill his plate over and over while he chatted with Kirsten and the others. For some time the conversation remained on the excellent food before the talk strayed to the king’s mission.

“My queen, you are at last safe in my keep here,” the king said. “I am now free to ride forth and slay all those on Zealand who sought to ally themselves with Gustavus.”

“Will it be a lengthy war?” Kirsten picked at a stuffed
capon, pushing it around her plate without eating a bite. “Will it be a dangerous employment, my lord?”

“Who can say, my lady?” The king chewed a mouthful of venison and glanced up at the ceiling. “War is ever an excellent danger for a man. Are there no eels tonight?”

“None,” the queen said.

“But I like eels.”

“Is this dinner not in my honor, my lord?”

“All this food,” the king said, gesturing at the many dishes spread before us. “All of this, and no eels for the king?”

“I will send for the cooks,” Tristram offered.

“Nay,” Vibeke said. There was a moment of quiet as we all looked over at the girl. She wore a dress of crimson and white with gold insets in the sleeves and the same amber necklace she’d had earlier. Vibeke held out a hand, palm upward, toward the king. “His Majesty sleeps fitfully when he’s eaten eels, Sir Tristram. His doctor forbids it, just as you are forbidden to drink wine.”

Kirsten turned to Ulfeldt, smiling. “Is your daughter now the surgeon’s assistant, that she knows these things?”

“Nay, lady,” Vibeke said. Her hand was still held out over her plate and she gazed into some dark corner of the hall. “I have heard you remark yourself at the king’s poor sleep when his Majesty’s diet is of eels. And earlier tonight Sir Tristram told me himself that he is ever thirsty yet nothing is given him to drink but milk and water, by order of the physick. Indeed, his cup even now is full of water, is’t not, my lord Tristram?”

“Aye, lady. It shames me like nothing else to say it and I pray you all keep my secret.”

“It is no secret if Vibeke hath heard it,” Christian said with a sharp laugh. “All her life she hath spoken whatever comes into her head. When I was a boy, I made the error of telling Vibeke that I stole a plate of tarts from the kitchen to give to my groom for his family. The cooks learned of it within the hour and I was beaten for it.”

“As you deserved.” The king laughed and slapped Christian on the shoulder.

“I have since learned to keep secrets.” Vibeke toyed with her string of amber beads.

“Indeed?” Kirsten turned again to Ulfeldt. “What sort of secrets does your daughter imagine herself to keep, my lord?”

“Lady, I know not.” Ulfeldt shifted in his chair to face Vibeke and frowned at her. “Daughter, what hidden knowledge can you have?”

“I do not like to say, my lord.” Vibeke opened her mouth wide and then closed it with a snap. “To tell my secrets would be to tell my secrets. You have told me openly my whole life that to be open with that which should stay hid is to endanger the realm, and therefore the wisest course is to keep a closed mouth.”

“Vibeke would surely be wisest to keep a closed mouth,” Kirsten said, smiling at Ulfeldt. “A nation should guard herself constantly, lest some villain enter her gates and breed discontent. We must all be wary.”

“Aye, majesty.” Ulfeldt nodded and brushed a clove from his beard. “Daughter, take heed of the queen’s good advice, for she is a woman of experience.”

“Father, I am not unexperienced. You are mistaken to think I carry about the innocent head of a maiden, for I have lived all my life at court.”

“Enough,” the king said. “Enough, I say. In my own experience I have found that every woman says too much. I am yet desirous of eels, but I shall feast upon the queen’s favored dishes this night. There is also more on a king’s plate than meat and fruit, and that would I discuss now.”

“My father refers to the rebellion,” Christian said to Kirsten. She looked down at the stuffed capon on her plate.

“I know what the king means.”

“I am to join him while he stamps out the traitors,” Christian said. He spoke quickly and looked from his mother’s face to that of his father. “There is an army led by Baron Jaaperson
marching east from Roskilde even now, is that not so, Lord Ulfeldt?”

“Aye, my lord. Though it is less an army than it is a band of peasants and petty thieves led by the baron and a few other knights.”

“What can they intend?” The bishop waved a hen’s leg vaguely to the west, toward Jutland. “Have they not yet heard of the king’s victory at Aalborg? Does Jaaperson not know that he marks himself now for death?”

“They think us weak,” the king said. “They think that with my personal army halved, split between Jutland and this garrison at Elsinore, they can march into Copenhagen, sit in my throne, and declare themselves kings of Denmark.”

“Theirs is but foolish talk,” Tristram said. “None can but dream of taking my lord’s throne.”

“And what is to stop them from dreaming?” The king held up a fist before his face and then slowly opened his hand. “We have fled from Jutland and holed up here, in this remote fortress, so they will say. But Christian son of Rorik, king of the Danes, fears no man. None, do you hear me?”

“Who calls you coward, my lord?” Ulfeldt lifted a spoonful of something to his face, sniffed it, and set it back on his plate. “No man that I know of. Even Baron Jaaperson fears your might, though his hubris spurs him on against you. We will have all the advantage, however, as he knows not that I have discovered his plans to march upon Copenhagen.”

“Your ears are long indeed,” the king said. “Again have you proved your value, Ulfeldt. We shall ride out in two days to meet Jaaperson. His army now treks heavily through the thick forests, through the snowdrifts and ice-filled rivers that separate Roskilde from Copenhagen. My army shall be waiting when Jaaperson and his exhausted men come out of the trees to make for the road. It shall be a glorious day, and my nearest enemy shall meet my blade and know death. Fear not, my lord bishop. Fear not, my queen.”

“Fear not, mother,” Christian said. “My father has ever won his battles, and I shall be at his side this time.”

“We will lay waste to those fools,” the king said, and placed his meaty hand atop his son’s. “They will see that I am not so old, nor you so young, that we may be trifled with. Christian and Christian, shoulder to shoulder, father and son, king and prince: it will be a sight to make Saint Canute smile in Heaven.”

“I do not wish our son to see Canute on that day,” Kirsten said.

“Nor the king neither,” Vibeke said. Prince Christian and the king smiled and sat back, puffing up their chests.

“Death is nothing,” the king said. “I have seen death often.”

“The deaths of other men, yes,” Kirsten said.

“Mother, do not worry.” Christian lifted his goblet. “Let us drink to the coming victory of the Dane over the traitor Jaaperson.”

I raised my cup and feigned sipping my wine while Christian and the others drank to this victory. Closing my eyes, I wished the king a personal introduction to death. The party fell silent for a few minutes. It occurred to me that Christian had paid very little attention to Vibeke. When the conversation resumed, the prince asked his mother for news from the city. The bishop took up with Ulfeldt and Sir Tristram a discussion of the spread of Luther’s religion. None had addressed me during the meal and I remained quiet, attending as best as I could to the conversations around me. I saw that the king watched Vibeke closely; like a dog before a foxhunt, he seemed to strain forward in his chair toward her, though Vibeke looked the whole time from her father to the bishop and Tristram. The king turned unexpectedly to face me and I jumped the least bit in my chair.

“Soren.”

“Majesty.”

“How are you enjoying Kronberg?”

“My lord, it is a fine fortress. I thank you for bringing me here. It is an honor.”

“I bring you here because you are of use. You have heard how pleased I am with the horoscope you cast in Jutland before my victory over Gustavus?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“You have just heard that another battle will come in a few days.”

“My lord, am I to come with you into battle against the baron?”

The king’s eyes grew wide and then narrowed and he laughed, throwing back his head. The coarse noise of his mirth filled the hall and silenced the others at the table. At length the king had done with laughing, wiped tears from his eyes, and took a deep drink of wine.

“You do amuse me,” he said. “Bring you into battle? Nay, Soren. Not this time. There will be no safe encampment where you may remain whilst Denmark’s men are at play.”

“I confess myself relieved, my lord.”

“I doubt it nothing. You will cast horoscopes for me, and for the prince my son, and also for Jaaperson. Lord Ulfeldt can provide you with those facts pertaining to the baron’s nativity that you require. You will give me these horoscopes for two, three, and four days hence.”

“My lord, you shall have them before you ride for Copenhagen.”

“I shall have them tomorrow, in the morning, I think.”

He had just informed me that I would have no sleep that night. I nodded and looked into his eyes, hating him.

“The heavens may not be friendly to your intent,” Kirsten said. “What will you do then, my lord?”

The king looked at Kirsten out of one eye and then turned to study Prince Christian’s profile a moment.

“Soren will tell me aught I need know about the inclination of the stars,” he said. “And then we ride for Copenhagen and victory, my lady. Fret not.”

“I pray my lord Christian will be proved lucky by the
heavens,” Vibeke said. She stared wide-eyed past my left shoulder.

“The sons of Rorik have ever fared lucky with the angels,” the king said, smiling broadly. The queen coughed, a sharp barking noise from behind her delicate fist, and the king’s smile disappeared.

“Father,” Christian said. “You have not told good Soren the new duties he is to enjoy while we are about crushing your enemies. I know that a great curiosity eats at him.”

“Night and day, my lord,” I said. “Merely command me to my employment and I will gladly serve.” I would gladly serve him a tray of poisoned eels were I able. I would stuff them with hebona and the king could stuff them down his toothy maw and perish upon his favorite delicacy.

“You know that Brahe left a dungeon full of rubbish out on my island,” the king said.

I nodded. He had given the island as a personal fief to Tycho twenty-five years earlier to use as a private observatory. Had the king not been a liar, a barbarian, and a thief, my master would yet be alive on Hven, studying the motion of stars and planets. Were Tycho still alive I would be dining joyfully with him, not in Kronberg. I nodded at his Majesty and smiled upon the king’s rich clothes, his jewels, his broad chest and thick beard and large, flat teeth that he picked with a thumbnail. I wondered how God could allow such a beast to extinguish the greatest light of the age. To look from Tycho Brahe to Christian son of Rorik was to compare a saint to a toad. Denmark would see the scales balanced.