The Astrologer

{ Chapter Ten }

A FIRE IN TYCHO’S KITCHEN


A LOCAL LEGEND, VERY ANCIENT, TENS OF THE GIANTESS Hvenhild who gathered up an armload of hills in Denmark and put the acres of earth into her apron. She waded into the Sound and walked carefully against the current toward Sweden, ten miles away. When Hvenhild was halfway across the water, one of her apron strings snapped and all her thousands of tons of soil fell into the Sound. I have often imagined the giantess looking sidelong at the great pile of earth she had dropped, pushing at the hills with her bare toe for a moment before lumbering off through the waves to sit on the Swedish shore and repair her apron, abandoning her lost acres without another thought. When Hvenhild was long dead and we Danes came to settle her accidental island, we named it after her.

Hven rises up from the waters abruptly, a flat bluff with steep white cliffs all around and dangerous, rocky beaches on the north and west. There is one small harbor on the north side of the island, where a steep road angles up through a gap in the cliffs. Visitors to Hven are obliged to climb hundreds of feet up this road to the peasant village of Tuna. Standing, finally, on the rolling plain above the cliffs one can turn and look northward to see Kronberg, seven miles distant. On the faraway shore the castle is a brick red and coppery green smudge. Hven is likewise visible from Kronberg. The cliffs form a hazy white line which seems to float on the Sound, and the bell tower of the church of St. Ibb is a dark obelisk, a black speck.

It was not snowing on the morning that I crossed the Sound from Elsinore Harbor to the landing at Hven’s north shore, but nor was it a pleasant day. A low mass of gray cloud filled the heavens and the Sound was a seething, undulating serpent of gray wave upon gray wave. The coastlines of Denmark and Sweden were buried under three feet of snow. The world looked hewn from ice, frost, and granite.

The crossing took two hours in our small boat. I was accompanied by a pair of Danish soldiers who Marcellus had assigned to me as assistants. During the voyage Cornelius and Voltemont played dice, drank mulled wine, and complained of the cold and wet. They complained when we landed at Hven because there was no one at hand to unload our supplies at the wharf. Their complaints as we dragged our trunks, sacks, and boxes up the road from the wharf to the town were doubtless audible as far away as the moon.

“There is no inn on this island,” Cornelius said.

“Nor a tavern, neither,” Voltemont said.

“We must carry our trunks two miles, over hills buried in snow, and then build our own fire at Brahe’s ruin,” Cornelius said.

“There will be no dry wood.”

“There will be no dry bed.”

“There will be nothing but a hole in the ground, and we three freezing in it.”

“You men,” I said. “Have either of you been to Uraniborg since Tycho left it?”

“Nay,” they answered. Neither man had stepped foot on the island in his life.

“Go to the church and borrow a cart and oxen,” I said. “We will light a fire in Tycho’s kitchen by noon, I tell you.”

Voltemont hurried to the church while Cornelius and I stood at the edge of town, stamping our feet and rubbing our arms beneath our cloaks. Tuna was a village of a few score houses built from stone and wood with roofs of thatch. There were no people about, but smoke rose from the roof vent of every house and we smelled pottage and bread cooking.

“Voltemont takes his time,” Cornelius said. “Belike he joins the priest for a meal at the fireside. He will forget his friends, who turn to ice outside.”

“Nay, here he comes.”

St. Ibb’s is a small stone chapel that is centuries old with a bell tower the height of eight men. Voltemont hurried from the church, coming forth in a cloud of steam from a narrow side door. Before the door closed I saw the great bulk of Father Maltar. He was not smiling. I had almost forgotten Father Maltar.

“That ancient priest refuses us,” Voltemont said. “His cart, oxen, and driver are not at the beck of every slave from Elsinore, he says.”

“Says he?” Cornelius put a hand upon the hilt of his sword. “Well, we ought at least claim right of sanctuary in the chapel and go inside.”

“Aye,” Voltemont said. “It is warm in the church. We have missed Matins, but we may be in time for dinner.”

“Enough.” I picked up my cases and walked toward the church. With each step I sank past my ankles into the snow and I tried to remember Hven during the summer, when the hillsides flowed under carpets of long grass where sheep and cattle grazed, when crops rippled in a gentle breeze and fish schooled in the sixty linked ponds Tycho had dug west of the observatory. I tried to recall the good smell of the earth beneath the maples where I had read Copernicus in the hours after dining. These memories refused me and I had nothing but the air filled with ice and wind, a low gray sky, the noise of waves all around, and deep snow lying over the whole of the island. My ears and nose felt brittle in the cold.

“Bring over your packs and trunks,” I called to my assistants. “We will speak to Father Maltar.”

It was dark inside St. Ibb’s, and humid, but it was warm. Father Maltar took up most of a low bench by the stove. A young priest and a boy who I took to be a villager sat near him on wooden stools. Maltar did not look up even when I dropped my cases into a pew with no little noise. Cornelius and Voltemont set up their own racket a moment later as they dragged two large wooden trunks over the threshold and across the flagstone floor.

“We are on a mission for the king,” I said, walking over to the stove. I stood beside the young priest, stretched out my hands to the fire, and tried to catch Maltar’s eye. “We require your assistance.”

“So you’ve returned,” Maltar said. His voice was low and rumbled deep in his chest. He looked at the door of the stove, as if he spoke to it and not to me. “The great man’s toad hops across the Sound and into my church once again.”

“Brahe is not here, only the will of the king,” I said. “We serve the king. As do you, Father.”

“Brahe is dead.” Maltar groaned out the words.

“Aye, but the king lives, and we do his bidding.”

“Brahe is dead.”

“Indeed, Father. I have been tasked with removing all traces of him from Hven. You should thank me.”

“Were I a younger man, I’d thank you with a beating.”

“You are thankfully spared that effort, then. We only require cartage to Uraniborg.”

“I had a dream.”

“Did you dream of an ox cart, Father?”

“I had a dream.” His voice grew loud for a moment, the protests of a forgotten god. “I dreamed of the moon floating above on a clear night. Luminare minus ut praeesset nocti. I watched her proceed across the heavens, and my heart was full of God’s love. Et posuit eas in firmamento caeli ut lucerent super terram. I felt the contentment of every soul on the island, as if we all shared the same grace. The moon was full, a beautiful and perfect disc, the Host held out to Earth by God Himself. I stood in awe.

“And then lo, a man approached, a man made of tin with a golden nose, dividerent lucem ac tenebras. This awful man pointed his evil tin finger at the moon, and she was cloaked in a darkness most terrible. My heart was filled with despair, and all of Hven wept at it. Then away went the man, and with his leaving the moon returned. But soon the evil man of tin was back, and he labored to build a monstrous hand of metal, of steel and brass and copper standing three yards tall, and he points this horrible thing at the moon, and she retreats behind a veil of darkness. Oh, most horrible. The man left us again and the moon came out from behind her arras. But she was diminished, faded and translucent. I saw stars shining through from behind her, and I was afraid to my marrow.

“Once more there came the vile man of tin, constructing a stone platform and a set of stairs upon the backs of Hven’s people. Their wailing was deafening. The demonic hand of metal was dragged up to the top of the stairs and pointed at the moon. Oh, the horror as she shook, and shriveled, and crumbled, and fell away like a dead leaf, and was no more.

“This dream I had nightly for twenty years. I dreamt it as I slept and when I awakened I found that I was still dreaming it. What do you suppose this dream meant?”

“It hardly takes a mystic to interpret.”

“Indeed. Two decades my nightmare continued, and then came that blessed day when it ended, four years ago. But now look, you are come again, handmaiden of the devil. You return to Hven to plague us. What towers of Babel will be raised this time?”

“Tycho is dead, Father. None comes to take his place. My mission is to inventory and sell off whatever remains of his instruments. As I say, this ought to gladden your heart. You will be happy to see the vestiges of Tycho leave Hven.”

“Happy indeed. Your sorcerer’s temple sits out there at the heart of the island, a knife in our breast.”

“And so, Father, you will order your driver to harness the oxen and cart us with our supplies out to Uraniborg.”

Maltar was silent, his huge body immobile, and I wondered if he had fallen asleep. The priest was at least eighty years old; when he did not seem to be breathing I considered that perhaps he had died. It would have simplified my morning immensely. At last he turned his face to me.

“You will not use my cart, nor my oxen, nor my driver, Soren. You may light a taper at the altar to St. Ibb before you go.”

“I come at the king’s bidding. You cannot refuse me.”

“I do refuse. There is no man on Hven who will raise a finger to help you. We were afflicted with Brahe for twenty years, boy. You stink of his poisonous breath and we despise you. Go to your observatory and see if there are toys you desire among the fallen walls, but ask none of us to aid you. We spit upon whatever you do. Speak to us no more.”

Maltar turned away and closed his eyes.

“You cannot refuse me.”

The old priest refused to answer and perhaps he did sleep then. The other priest, a man younger than me, stood and took my arm.

“Leave us, sir. Father Maltar has answered you.”

“I do the king’s bidding,” I said, shaking my arm loose from the priest’s grip. “The king’s bidding, do you hear?”

“We do the Lord’s bidding.” The priest smiled. “You may share our noon meal if you like, in an hour or so. And you are welcome to worship here. But more than that we will not do.”

I looked from the young priest to Maltar, from Maltar to the boy who sat attentive to the conversation, and then I looked up at Cornelius and Voltemont, who were lounging on a pew, their hats over their faces. I am not one who has often commanded men. I never gained the manner of ordering others about and had hoped that invoking the king’s imprimatur on our task would suffice to make Hven’s peasants do my bidding. But Father Maltar was implacable and I saw that no help would come from him or his church.

The wind had picked up and I heard it whistling outside, buffeting against the doors and shuttered windows of St. Ibb’s. If the road from Tuna was clear, we might manage the walk, but it would be very cold and I doubted that my assistants could drag our trunks a mile over hills and snow banks.

“I have money,” I said to the young priest. “I will hire a villager to cart us.”

“None will take your money. Everything that emerges from the shadow of Brahe is tainted.”

“This island has emerged from the shadow of Brahe,” I said. “He did truly eclipse all other men.” My voice rose in pitch and volume. When I am vexed I sound much like an old woman. I cried out to Cornelius and Voltemont, took my trunks up, and stormed out of the church. The wind blew waves of ice crystals over the island, which stung the skin of my face. In vexation I stamped a foot and turned about twice, hoping to think up a solution. My assistants dragged the large trunks out into the snow and sat on them. They pulled their cloaks tight and favored me with a pair of scowls.

“We will walk to Uraniborg,” I said. “There will be a cart for us and we will push it back here and retrieve our supplies. To your feet, both of you.”

Neither man moved.

“Why will there be a cart?” Voltemont asked.

“Come,” I said. “It is not far. A little over a mile. Two thousand paces. It is nothing.”

Cornelius stood, shook his head, and walked back into the church. Voltemont followed a moment later. I stood shivering there in the path between the church and the village, my bags in my hands, waiting for my assistants to come out of St. Ibb’s and join me. The wind slackened, dropping to a whisper, and then it began to snow.

The devil take them, then. I turned and walked south, past Tuna’s huts and down a slight hill. The road had not been recently cleared and soon I was kicking my way through snow a foot deep. The devil take Cornelius and Voltemont. I would send them back to Marcellus for a whipping. I would move the supply trunks on my own somehow. I cared nothing for the king’s project in any case. My intention was to see what of Tycho’s work I could salvage and use for myself when Christian son of Rorik was dead. Cornelius and Voltemont would be of no use in that wise. The devil take them.

I had gone only half a mile or so when they overtook me. I heard my name called and I looked up to see a pair of ugly gray oxen tramping through the snow at my left. The oxen were yoked to a small two-wheeled cart. The sudden appearance of the animals, their immense black eyes looking accusingly at me, was so startling that I dropped my bags and stumbled backward, falling into a snow bank.

“Master Soren,” Cornelius called. “This is no time for making snow angels.” He and Voltemont jumped from the cart, retrieved my bags from the road, and pulled me out of the snow.

“What is this?”

“The church ox cart,” Voltemont said. “You did not expect us to walk all the way? The weather turns bad and the trunks and packs are heavy. But we must not tarry, sir. The boy must needs return the oxen to their stable before the priests see they are missing.”

The boy who had been in the chapel with Father Maltar sat at the front of the cart, the reins in one hand and a long whip in the other. He was bundled in old woolens much too large for him.

“You must hurry,” the boy said. His voice was high and pure.

We climbed into the carriage, wedging our bodies into what little space there was between the trunks. Cornelius handed me a small jar of wine and I took a drink, grateful to him. The boy cracked his whip over the oxen’s backs and the cart lurched forward. The snow fell heavier now and I could not see far in any direction. The world had disappeared behind a shifting, sparkling veil.

“Can you find the observatory?” I said.

“Do not worry. I can find Brahe’s house in any weather. But pray do not distract me.”

I fell silent, hunched under my cloak, and I looked past the oxen at the snow falling onto the barely visible road. Somewhere within the worsening weather sat Uraniborg, or what was left of it. Tycho had designed the observatory himself and it had been built to last a dozen lifetimes, yet after only four years of disuse people called it a ruin. It was inconceivable that the palace no longer stood. The walls of the keep were four feet thick, the towers rose fifty feet, and the roof was of heavy copper tiles. The huge timbers beneath the floorboards had been sawn from great fir trees felled in Sweden and ferried over the Sound at some expense. Uraniborg was no barn, no shepherd’s hut to collapse upon itself after a few neglected years. Uraniborg was a noble house of many floors, with seven towers and terraces to hold the great brass instruments. Uraniborg was a glittering villa on the highest point of the island. Every angle and measurement that had gone into the construction, from the subcellar laboratories to the Pegasus weathervane on the tall center tower, had been painstakingly computed to produce a structure perfect to eye and soul, a place where all was in harmony within and without, a microcosm of the macrocosm. Uraniborg was beautiful and solid, a shining fortress on the frontier of the future.

“Here is Brahe’s ruin,” the boy said.