The Astrologer

{ Chapter Twelve }

A WORLD OF WONDERS


THE DOOR OPENED INTO A CORRIDOR RUNNING THE length of the upper floor. At the far end the wall had fallen away. Through the ragged hole I saw the sky and patchy clouds lit by the remains of the waning moon. Silhouetted against the opening was a cloaked figure who held a broken chair.

“Stay, spirit!” Cornelius shouted, and took a step into the hall. The figure started like a guilty thing and dropped the chair.

“Nay, hold!” Cornelius said. “I command you in the king’s name.” He took another step toward the figure, his rapier held out before him. “Show yourself, intruder!”

The figure turned and fled through an open door, into the great bed chamber where Tycho and his wife once slept. I saw a flash of steel plate before our trespassing spirit shut the door behind him.

“He wears armor,” I said to Cornelius. “He may have a weapon.”

“It is a demon,” Voltemont said.

“It is a man,” I said. “Come out and subdue him.”

Voltemont and Cornelius walked down the hall, kicking at mounds of debris and ice. The air stung our faces and lungs and we breathed clouds of ghostly white. I was unarmed and I was afraid, but I followed Cornelius and Voltemont to the chamber door. There were slick patches underfoot. I slipped once and nearly fell through the opening in the wall.

“I have a great need to piss,” Voltemont said.

“Quiet,” Cornelius whispered. “This is not the time.”

“Yet it is painful and distracting.”

“Open the door,” I said.

Cornelius kicked the door, hard. It swung open halfway and then stuck upon the floor, which was broken and uneven. My armed friends went into the chamber while I stayed in the hall, my hands in fists I knew not how to properly use.

The chamber’s ceiling had mostly fallen down and the wreckage of one of the lesser towers filled a third of the room. There was debris strewn everywhere, and even with the weak moonlight through the open window, the chamber was very dark. I could not see the intruder from my place at the door.

“Stand and show yourself,” Cornelius said. “If you make us hunt for you, it shall be with the points of our swords that we find you. Show yourself!”

There was no answer. Voltemont took a step toward the darkest corner of the room.

“I am in no mood for this game, vile spirit! I shall come back with a flaming torch and burn you out.”

The intruder had been crouched behind a great chunk of plaster and lath that had fallen away from the wall near where Cornelius stood. When the figure rose from his hiding place and stepped before the window, he seemed to loom over the room, tall and ghastly, his hands raised at his sides. The moonlight shone briefly upon the intruder’s cuirass and for a moment it seemed that Tycho had come from his grave to haunt us. Cornelius, Voltemont, and I were the intruders here; we did not belong and we knew it. This specter would drive us into the freezing night and we would run all the way to the village to beg Father Maltar’s mercy.

Voltemont and Cornelius stepped back from the threatening shadow and I thought briefly to run downstairs to the safety of the kitchen. Instead I found my voice, and even though I shook with equal parts fright and cold, I addressed the ghost.

“Be thou blessed spirit or goblin damned, you will speak! Answer me! What art thou, that walks the night in hideous form? Speak!”

“Soren?”

“Who’s there?”

“Friend to this ground, dear Soren.”

“My lord Christian?”

“Indeed, or I do forget myself.”

I went into the room, past Cornelius and Voltemont, and the figure took my hands. He turned his face into the moonlight and I saw that our ghost was the prince, dressed for battle, alive and as miserably cold as his terrified servants.

“My lord, what do you here?”

“Why, I come to assist in your work, Soren.”

“I do not work in the dead of night, my lord.”

“Indeed? I had thought the better part of astronomy was done at these hours. I have been given a mistaken idea of your profession, then. You do confuse your poor prince.”

Cornelius sheathed his sword and came to the window. He touched the prince’s breastplate as if he expected his hand to pass through Christian’s form.

“I am real, good soldier.”

“You did put Voltemont to fright, my lord.”

“Never,” Voltemont said, putting away his sword. “I pursued my lord bravely with every intent to strike him down, be he ghost or hell beast.”

“You have done excellent well, my friends.” Christian clapped Cornelius on the shoulder. “But are we not all very cold? I was gathering wood and thought to clear the fireplace in this chamber, but I think perhaps there are better accommodations below?”

“My lord, come down to the kitchen,” Cornelius said. “We have a fire and a spot to bed down that offers far more comfort than this ruined place.”

“Let us proceed downstairs,” the prince said.

Voltemont went first and continued out to the yard to tend to his bladder. Cornelius built up the fire in the oven and Christian sat beside me, warming his hands and feet by the hearth.

“How long have you hid upstairs?” I asked him.

“Hid? Nay, I did not hide.” Christian turned his face away and spoke to the shadows. “I thought you lodged in Tuna and I could find no door here that opened. I scaled the fallen tower at the west face of the villa where the building has collapsed, and climbed in through the breach in the wall. My hope was to greet you in the morning.”

“I see.” I did not see. “And why is my lord climbing into Uraniborg’s bed chambers at midnight? Wherefore are you on Hven?”

“To renew our friendship, good Soren!” Christian smiled and placed his hand on mine. “The years pass and threaten to open a gulf between us that goes unbridged. I will not have that.”

I shook my head, bemused by this nonsense.

“It is late, my lord. Let us wrap ourselves in our cloaks, and on the morrow you may be pleased to inform me how you come to Hven at midnight when you were last seen with your father’s army.”

“Ah, therein lies a tale, my friend. And tomorrow you shall hear it. You will be most amazed and impressed.”

“I doubt it nothing, my lord.”

We bedded down on the floor by the oven. For a long time I lay awake and listened to the prince breathing beside me. I was certain he was not sleeping either, but I said nothing and eventually I slipped into dreams of dark labyrinths and empty suits of armor that wandered through the maze and passed by without noticing me.

The next morning the four of us broke our fast with pottage and dried apples.

“My lord,” I said to Christian. “Where is your horse?”

He looked up at the ceiling.

“My horse is at Kronberg.”

“Then the king has returned from Copenhagen?”

“Nay, not yet.”

“But you have returned, my lord?”

“Am I not sitting before you?”

“Indeed you are.”

Christian had a bruise the size of a man’s hand on the left side of his face and his eye was swollen half shut. He had unbuckled his cuirass and laid it aside and I saw a deep dent across the back of it. His breeches were muddy and he did not have his sword with him. It was all most peculiar.

“Did you come from Kronberg by boat?”

“Is there another way to cross the Sound?”

“Nay, my lord. Did your squire come with you?”

“I am alone, Soren. Or rather I was, but now I have your excellent company. And yours too, Cornelius, and you too, good Voltemont.”

“You are most welcome,” Voltemont said. “Do we go back to Kronberg now? Soren has employed us as diggers, and we have toiled long in the snow. It is not a task I well enjoy, my lord.”

“What have you dug up?”

“Some great metal rings and triangles and astrologer’s toys. Soren has written it all down, my lord. Show him, Soren.”

“Nay.” Christian waved a hand. “It is not necessary. I remember Brahe’s fantastic machines. Do you recall, Soren, my visit here five years ago when Brahe showed me his underground observatory?”

“I do, my lord. You were delighted, if I am not mistaken.”

“I was. A world of wonders, I thought it.” Christian looked around and gestured toward the ceiling with his spoon. “Things have changed much here in so short a time.”

“Last night, my lord, you made me a promise.”

“Did I?”

“Aye. You would tell of how the battle against Baron Jaaperson fell out, how fared your father and his knights, and how you come to be with us in a broken-backed villa and not with the king, wherever he is encamped.”

Christian set down his bowl and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Soren, do you take up against me with your old ways, questioning me like a school master does his slow-witted pupil?”

“My lord, I mean no offense. But by your sudden appearance here you do baffle my reason. How comes it, so please you?”

Christian stood, put his back to the oven wall for warmth, and faced Cornelius, Voltemont, and me. He rubbed his hands together and looked beyond us.

“You know how I rode forth at my father’s side, down the road to Copenhagen.”

“Aye, my lord. Four days ago.”

“Has it been four days? Well, the army rode south and we made good time, getting to the hunting lands north of Copenhagen by evening. We made camp there under the great firs. A pack of foxes was seen making its way along the western edge of our camp. It was all very picturesque and the army was in a jolly mood. I slept quite well that night.

“The next morning our scouts espied Baron Jaaperson’s troops and we assembled our forces to meet them near the lake at Westfold. You know the place, Soren. We waited in the trees atop the hills as Jaaperson and his men crossed the field below us through deep snow. We were at a great advantage, and when the Baron’s troops made the foot of the hills they were all exhausted, man and horse alike. General Bernardo gave a shout and led his Swiss lancers down the slope just as the clouds parted above us and the brave eye of Heaven shone down upon the ensuing battle.

“My father and I rode forth with the main force of men, and like some great many-headed hawk we fell upon our prey. My father with his generals pursued Jaaperson and his knights while the rest of us hewed our way across the enemy ranks until arms and heads and bloody gore lay all about. My father was in his fullest glory, and I saw what it is to be king of Denmark.”

Christian paused and closed his eyes, his left hand raised to touch the bruise on his face.

“How were you injured, my lord?”

He opened his eyes and smiled, looking down at our feet.

“I am ashamed to admit it,” he said. “It was no part of the battle. After we cut down the last of our enemies I rode up the hillside to see if Copenhagen was visible to the east. My horse stumbled and I was thrown. I landed badly, though I dare say my injury is but skin deep. I am wholly unbroken. Even so, my father sent me back to Kronberg. My squire and I rode north and I found that my old friend and tutor Soren had been shipped off to Hven. I commanded a boat to bring me here and last night you did discover me. That’s the end.”

Cornelius and Voltemont congratulated the prince on his valiant showing in his first battle and demanded to hear more.

“Tell us of the men you slew,” Cornelius said.

“Did you battle with knights, or men-at-arms?” Voltemont asked.

Christian answered them, using much florid language that invoked blood and honor and bravery but left out anything in the way of detail. I was silent, wondering why Christian had come to the island. He had not paused long enough at the fort to change from his armor and he had brought nothing in the way of luggage. Where was his squire? Had the prince walked from the wharf to Uraniborg, across half the island’s length in the dead of night? It was most confusing, but the crown prince of Denmark could give whatever account he liked. I would not question him more closely before Cornelius and Voltemont, and so I made as if his tale was satisfying in all regards.

The question arose as to what we would do that day. Morning was getting away from us and there were only six or so hours of decent light remaining.

“We should excavate those subterranean chambers at Stjerneborg we did not open yesterday,” I said. “Christmas is but days away and we would do well to present the king with our manifest then, as a humble and unworthy present. Therefore we bundle ourselves up, go forth, and dig.”

“I do not think so,” Christian said.

“My lord?”

“I have better uses for us all this day. Cornelius, you and Voltemont will clear a chamber on the upper floor if there is one with a roof intact and a stove you can make fit for a fire. Tonight we’ll not sleep in this drafty kitchen. Soren, you and I shall advantage ourselves of the clear weather and walk to the village.”

“To the village, my lord? For what purpose?”

“I have need to visit Father Maltar.”

“I have no such need, my lord. My preference is to remain here.”

“Such was ever your preference. But you will come with me to St. Ibb’s, Soren.”

Christian clapped his hands as if dismissing an assembly of footmen and then sat to put on his boots. Cornelius and Voltemont were only too happy to labor indoors, even in the ruined upstairs of the villa. They dressed, thanked Christian for the change of duties, and climbed the stairs, leaving me alone with the prince.

“You wonder why we go to see the priest,” Christian said.

“I do.”

“I have not confessed since before riding out to Copenhagen,” he said. “It weighs upon my soul. You do not mind? I would welcome your company on the long walk to the village.”

“I am yours to command.”

“Most excellent. Perhaps we will dine in Tuna. Do you imagine Father Maltar will have any eels to offer us?”

“I do not care for eels,” I said. We were both booted, gloved, and wrapped in our furs. I led Christian out through the cook’s door, into the yard. The sky was mostly clear and the snow glittered and shone all around us, a bright glow stretching in every direction. I squinted into the distance and wondered how deep the drifts were on the road to the village. We began to walk north into the glare.

“You turn up your nose at the favorite meat of his Majesty my father,” Christian said. “You always have done. Why would a man refuse such a delicacy as eels?”

I had never eaten an eel. I cannot imagine how they taste and said as much to the prince, and then I told him something of my childhood that he had never heard.

When I was a lad, I sometimes stole away from my father’s workshop and walked along the shore of Lake Elsinore, in the woods north of town. The lake is fed by a deep spring and is the source of a stream that runs northwest from the forest all the way to the Bay of Rostock. On the shore of the lake I sat among wildflowers beneath the trees and many a day I wasted, watching a man fish for eels in the shallows. I do not know the man’s name, nor did I ever. He was one of the royal fishers in the king’s employ.

During the growing cold of autumn when the eels burrow into the mud, the fisher used a long, barbed spear to bring them up, knocking them off the tines into a wooden box where they wriggled and fought in sawdust and salt. In the spring the fisher threw barbed nets out into the water near where the steam drained out of the lake, and then hauled his nets back to check his catch. On summer days, when the fisher was too lazy to work so hard for the king, he opened a filthy oilskin sack and pulled out the head of a horse he had gotten from a stableman or butcher. He knotted a rope through the horse’s mouth and throat, weighted the head with an iron bar, and threw it out into the lake as far as he could manage, tying the other end of the rope to a tree on the bank. The fisher settled down to wait then, eating his breakfast, drinking the wine he brought, and often sleeping for an hour. At length he dragged the line back to the shallows. The head would be alive with eels, their bodies sinuous and glistening green, writhing in the horse’s flesh. The fisher pulled the eels from the head and dropped them into his wooden box. After he untied his rope and set aside the iron weight, the fisher cast the remains of the horse’s head back into the lake.

“For the other eels,” he would tell me.

The fisher and I never spoke much. He knew who my father was and didn’t seem to mind my company. Sometimes he told me of riding with his box of squirming eels down the highway to Copenhagen and presenting his catch to the royal cooks. The cooks knocked what eels were still alive against the stone floors of the kitchen to break their skulls. They rubbed the dead eels with salt to clean off the slime and cut long slits in their backs to pull out the guts and spines.

Never once did the fisher give me any eels to take home to my father. All the eels fished from Lake Elsinore belonged to the king. The fisher told me how the king was a powerful man, jealous of his property. To take an eel from the king was to know the headsman’s axe.

I was never tempted to poach. Eels have beautiful skin, as if finely crafted from a million flecks of emerald, but they have wicked faces and eyes like snakes. I did not like to touch them, and the sight of a dozen eels squirming in and out of the head of a dead horse made my gorge rise.

“Wherefrom have you taken the horse?” I asked him once.

“This fellow?” he answered, looping his rope through the throat of an immense white head. “He were the proud mount of a lancer. Broke his leg two days ago. The gentleman shot a pistol ball in its brain. See this hole, right here by the eye? Sold the stallion to a butcher and he sold me the head. A fine head, too. Marry, I’ll have two score eels eating his brains in an hour. Mourn you not for this dead horse, lad. He served his master well enough, I warrant, and now his head does service for the king. We all serve the king. This horse yet does honorable duty.”

“I’d sooner be the king than the horse,” I said.

The fisher cuffed me hard on the ear.

“Watch your tongue, that I don’t use if for bait,” he said. “Your lot is to obey your masters. Learn a trade and mind your place in the world. You are the horse, not the rider. If the king cuts off your head and feeds it to the fishes, that’s his godly right.”

“And so my lord sees,” I said to Christian as I concluded my tale. “Eels have ever reminded me that I am a man of no importance.”

“But the fisher gave you good advice,” Christian said. “Now I think I understand you better. You have envied your masters your whole life, eh? But you are a good fellow and an obedient servant. Thus have you ever been a favorite of mine. Well, perhaps Father Maltar will have eels after all and you will so lower yourself and your pride as to share them with me.”

“Father Maltar will have no eels.”

“We shall see.”