The Astrologer (7 page)

“Nay, my lord.”

“Say, my mother comes this day. You have heard this?”

“Aye, my lord.”

The queen was expected to arrive after sundown with her entourage. Sir Tristram and the chamberlain pressed the entire castle staff into heavy service to turn one wing of the fortress into something resembling a royal palace.

“She brings a great load of her own furniture, no doubt,” Christian said. “My mother will not enjoy Kronberg any better than you do. She prefers a soft bed, with fragrant herbs to sweeten the air of her closet. I dare say my father must restore order quickly to Denmark, else my mother shall become a more dangerous enemy to him than any rebellious lords. I expect she brings with her the entire kitchen staff from Copenhagen as well.”

“Then the meals will be fine while your father roots out his enemies. That, at least, I can endure.”

“Ah, yes.” He frowned.

“My lord?”

“Have you not received your new assignment from my father?”

“Not yet.”

Christian said nothing. I waited in his silence, growing ever more tense, until it became clear that he would make no move on his own to dispel the mystery.

“I am not coming with the army, my lord?”

“You? Certainly not. But you may not be so comfortably lodged as you are now. Nay, I will say no more on it. You must await your audience with my father.”

His father was a rat, a lizard in a crown. I could not think what torture the king would thoughtlessly assign to me, what meaningless task to polish the mirror of his vanity. The prince hinted that travel was involved. That would be most inconvenient to my cause. Well, the king would have to die before he sent me packing off to God knew where on God knew what mission.

I watched Christian as he ate. Born under Saturn, the prince’s humors were of the complexion of earth, which many astrologers call a flaw of character, but I do not. Saturn made the prince distrustful of the nights and he was visited by melancholy, which is troublesome in men of lower birth than the prince. He had a good memory and always did well with mathematics. He was graceful, elegant, and neat; not much like his father. I had considered how the death of the king would grieve him,
how I would inflict an awful suffering upon Christian’s young heart. Yet it must be so, and the prince’s cargo of woe would be the balance of my own, and I thought that I would at least be able to condole with him honestly enough, for the loss of my master Tycho had been the loss of my spiritual father. I had worshipped at the feet of Brahe just as the prince worshipped at the king’s feet, and as I believed then that Tycho was a man who stood closer to the angels than the king could ever dream of standing, I imagined my loss to be far greater than Prince Christian’s. Thus did I console myself and eat a pleasant meal with the man whose father I planned to murder. The syllogism formed of its own accord.

We spoke no more of battle nor the mysterious task to be set before me, and returned to the subject of Kirsten, the queen. It had been only a handful of days since Christian had seen her, but he talked as if she had not kissed his cheek in a twelvemonth.

“There will be a banquet tonight in my mother’s honor.” Christian placed a hand upon my arm. “It would please me if you were to sit with the family, Soren, at my side. You know the queen is fond enough of you. She will enjoy your conversation at supper.”

Kirsten would be irritable and sharp of tongue, I thought, unhappy to join her husband in Kronberg. The queen would resent being called from court to be held, bored and lonely, at a remote fortress far from the glittering life of Copenhagen. The king did not know which of his noble courtiers and cousins he could trust and so he was besieged. It was natural that he would place his family inside defensible walls, yet his wife would not see it that way. I almost pitied the king; the queen’s wrath was a rival to his own.

“I will be honored to sit at the crown’s end of the table,” I said. The greater trust of the king would be an advantage to me.

“Excellent. Now I must join my father in his office. Lord Ulfeldt makes a report on enemies of the throne, and I ought to be present. I will see you at supper?”

“Before then, my lord. I will be in the great hall to welcome the queen when she arrives this evening.”

“Of course. Until then, Soren.”

“My lord.”

Christian hurried out, still disheveled with his untucked blouse and unruled hair. He had left it to me to return the dishes to the kitchen. I did not leave the map room right away, however. I spent some time alone there, seeking the charts of the isle of Hven, where I had once labored happily with Tycho at the Uraniborg observatory. The maps of that island were seemingly gone, or misfiled somewhere. I abandoned my search, vexed at the missing maps and troubled by some ill feeling that I could not pin down.

THE QUEEN AND HER PARTY ARRIVED WELL BEFORE sundown, her majesty worse out of temper than ever I had seen her. Kirsten moved like a storm, bursting into the great hall and calling for the king. She was wrapped from her ears to the floor in a cloak of red fox pelts with a black wolf hat on her head. Only her eyes were visible between her furs, glittering sapphire blue and not resting on any face as she swept past the shivering courtiers hastily lined up just within the castle doors to greet her.

“Where is my husband?” she cried. “Someone bring me to the king this instant.” Her voice rang through the hall, a hammer beaten against iron.

Kirsten had forbidden her advance riders to precede her to the castle, and so we were caught off guard by her appearance, several hours earlier than expected. Servants and sycophants ran this way and that in her wake. I heard someone say that the king was in his chambers, having a bath. Prince Christian appeared and the queen threw herself at him, and then they were gone from the hall, the storm of angry queen blowing down the eastern corridor, her ladies-in-waiting running to keep up.

“Did you mark her majesty?” Straslund said to none in particular. “How she gave me an especial nod?”

The queen had brought a great many trunks, cabinets, and servants from Copenhagen and these poured into the fort, Kirsten’s possessions carried in a seemingly endless caravan down corridors, up flights of stairs, and delivered to her suite of rooms. There were boxes of clothing and jewelry, chairs and tapestries, a bedstead with a thick mattress, a rolling cabinet apparently filled with shoes, a dressmaker’s dummy and a dressmaker with her implements, and much more besides. Kirsten’s train from the palace must have stretched out for a mile as they traveled north along the highway.

A young woman drifted through the flood of furniture, clothing, and attendants. She was covered by a black bear cape worn over a simple white dress and a long necklace made up of amber beads strung together with fine gold wire. This was Vibeke, daughter of Lord Ulfeldt.

Vibeke moved slowly across the great hall, seemingly unaware of the bustle all around her, staying out of the path of rushing servants even while ignoring them, just as a cat moves through a crowded room without acknowledging the crowd. She walked directly toward me though she did not look into my eyes.

“Good Soren,” she said, and gave me her hand. I bowed. She curtsied and smiled, looking over my left shoulder.

“Lady Vibeke. I did not know you were coming to Kronberg.”

“I did know it. I have known all the day and now here I am. Is this Kronberg? It is a dark place.”

“Kronberg is not so dark during the morning, lady. You shall so observe tomorrow.”

“If it is day tomorrow.”

“Indeed, and I dare say it will be.”

“Well, you are the astronomer, so you would know this.”

“Aye, lady.”

Vibeke continued to hold my hand and to gaze beyond me into the distance. She had ever been thus, looking past those to whom she spoke and not holding directly to the purpose of any conversation. Her mother had died giving birth to her and it was said that Vibeke had been damaged in some way. The
nurses fed her hellebore for many years before Lord Ulfeldt finally accepted that his daughter was to be forever strange. Yet Vibeke was clever and fine company if one did not require the discourse to follow a well-defined path.

“Will you cast horoscopes while we are here in Kronberg, Soren?”

“If any here desire it.”

“For the queen, then?”

“If she so desires.”

“And for me?”

“If such is your desire, my lady.”

“Oh, I have not that desire, sir. Though I may ask you to gaze into the heavens and foretell of my brother.”

“Is your brother still in Paris?”

“My brother traffics with Huguenots while he should traffic in saints. I do wonder what he wonders. It is a wonder if Jens learns anything at the seminary in that city.”

“I would cast his horoscope if you like, my lady.”

“I would not like, but thank you sir. I would thank you not to cast Jens to the planets.”

“Or to the stars, lady? The stars may be luckier.”

“Nay, the stars are fire. They are unlucky. Thou shouldst traffic in law, Soren. Did you not study the law?”

“Indeed, lady. I did.”

“Well, then. The law is neither hot nor cold and surely it can harm none. Jens studies for the priesthood. There is a law unto that as well.”

“I know this, lady.”

She cocked her head to one side, a lark in the field, listening.

“Is my lord Christian about?”

“I saw him just now, greeting the queen.”

Vibeke smiled, head still tilted, her eyes looking far beyond me.

“I shall see him at supper, I think. My father will be most surprised.”

“Lord Ulfeldt did not send for you?”

“Nay. It was Christian called me forth. I must go anon to find my rooms and dress for the feast. I shall look my best for my lord.”

“Ah.”

“Ah, indeed, sir. Ah.” Vibeke squeezed my hand. “My lord Christian doth desire my company in so cold and dark a place as this. The queen will not be pleased.”

Indeed, Kirsten would find it most distasteful if what Vibeke implied was true, that the prince had begun some kind of romance with her. Ulfeldt’s family was of noble blood, but Kirsten had made it known that any woman whose father did not wear a crown was below Prince Christian’s station. Christian was beyond Vibeke’s star and I hoped the prince was not dallying with the poor, addled maid. I resolved to ask him when I could.

“The queen,” I said. “No, she will not be pleased. You must say nothing of this to her.”

“I am no foolish child, sir.” Vibeke released my hand and curtsied. “I must away, Soren. Welcome to Elsinore.”

“My thanks, lady.” I bowed and she drifted off, the bearskin slipping from one shoulder and her head still cocked to one side, very like a little bird. I could not remember if she was eighteen or nineteen, but Vibeke had grown into a pretty enough woman and had already been pursued by a few men that I knew of, Straslund among them for a month or so. Vibeke was an Aries, and so was ruled by Mars. Mars is a fiery planet that drove Vibeke to be busy in the daytime, and gave her an appetite for liking people and enjoyment. Mars also prompted her to make up her mind with little deliberation. She had a great memory for facts, but as an Aries she could put little order to those facts. Her suitors grew discouraged when they saw how curious and strange a wife Vibeke would make, a poor match for any man of high estate. This made it doubly strange that the prince would send for her if he was seeking a bride.

I would not find any answers while tarrying in the entryway, and with the great doors standing open it had grown cold in the
hall. I could see my breath as well as the breath of the harried servants. It was as if the atmosphere was all around us filled with spirits briefly glimpsed, who then faded back into their own realm. I shivered and walked down the southern hallway to Sir Tristram’s small library. I had been told of it by the priest who sat next to me during the banquet. The library was located near the stairwell to the Trumpeter’s Tower and I knew it by the portrait of Saint Jerome painted on the door.

The lock was undone and the handle turned. I opened the door an inch but could not push it any farther. The whispering of two voices, maybe more, came to me and then the door slammed shut against me.

“Hello?” I knocked and pushed against the door, but I was once more forced back. “Is this not the library?”

The lock clicked. Whoever was within had turned the key. I pressed my ear against the panel and could make out voices, indistinct and angry, fading rapidly as the speakers moved away from the door.

I was most vexed, having brought no decent books with me from Copenhagen. Supper was hours away and there were no duties to be performed, there was no one with whom I wished to speak, and there was nothing to read. It was dispiriting to think of the hours filled with boredom which lay before me like heavy chains around my heart. In poor spirits I wandered to my own room where I began to draft a new chapter for
Nunc Scio Mysterium,
arguing the need for well stocked public libraries in all of Denmark’s towns.

The day crawled forward as the slow diurnal hours rotated through the ecliptic. Snow fell off and on through the afternoon and into the evening. At last a page summoned me to the queen’s welcome feast. I was a member of the small party who followed the king and queen into the dining hall, where the great table had been set at only one end, scores of seats left empty during this intimate meal of family and close friends. Lords and generals were being fed on the opposite side of the castle, on tables set up in the armory, while I found myself in
royal company. When we took our places there was only Prince Christian standing between me and the king. To my right was the lord Bishop Harlen of Aalborg, who had come back with us on the ship from Jutland. He was the queen’s second cousin on her mother’s side. Queen Kirsten stood at the king’s left hand, and then Ulfeldt and Vibeke opposite me, and finally Sir Tristram, across the table from Bishop Harlen. By rights Tristram should have had my place, but he did not seem to notice the slight.