The Astrologer

{ Chapter Fifteen }

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SOREN


“I AM COLD,” CHRISTIAN SAID. “LET US RETURN TO THE FINE chamber your friends have prepared.”

He sprang up the spiral stairs and I followed after him. It was warm by the stove and we stood side by side, thawing our hands over the grate. Christian hummed softly, a slow air newly writ by the queen’s English musician, Dowland, and popular in Copenhagen. He did not look at me and seemed lost in private thoughts.

“My lord.”

“Hm?”

“You said you have done aright.”

“Indeed, and so I have. It is not enough that a leader of men be decisive; he must also decide well. I have decided well, Soren.”

“I see.”

“I am glad.”

I waited for Christian to say more. Some minutes passed and he was humming to himself again.

“My lord, I fear I do not see.”

“Not see? Not see what?”

“My lord, what have you done aright?”

“Ah.” Christian placed a hand on my back and put his head close to mine. “I have given orders to General Bernardo that your friends be strangled and put over the side of the boat ere they reach Elsinore.”

“Cornelius and Voltemont?”

“Aye. Those two.”

I took a step away from him. He watched me through eyes half closed, his head tilted forward as if he were a falcon tracking prey through brush.

“My lord, you have put Cornelius and Voltemont to death? Why would you do this?”

“They are spies, of course.”

“My lord, they are not spies. They are lazy in mind and body, but they are harmless men. You cannot do this.”

Christian’s eyes opened wide and he bared his teeth.

“I am no longer a school boy,” he said. “I am no longer your ignorant pupil. My actions are not yours to judge. I am a ruler now, a warrior, prince of the realm.”

A prince? A warrior? Indeed I knew better than that.

“My lord, this seems madness.”

“Ah, but you do not know all.” He closed on me and snatched at my sleeve with his fingers. “You do not know all. Some things do I now know. I have had dreams.”

“Dreams?”

“Do not ask me, Soren. I forbid it. Voltemont and Cornelius go to it. There is naught you can do, nor should you. Only one of us is crown prince of Denmark, and that one of us is myself. Do you have me?”

“I do.” I took a breath to steady myself. “Have you lost all your wits, my lord?”

“Another jest, Soren? I am not amused. Your jibes grow stale; they tire me. Yes, I am sick with exhaustion. Leave me to sleep. You may stay in the kitchens below.”

He pushed me roughly into the hall. I turned to face him, my mouth open to make some kind of protest. Christian heaved himself at the door and shut it against me with a violence that shook the floor beneath my feet.

Was this shame? Had the prince ordered Cornelius and Voltemont murdered because they had witnessed him hiding on the island and could speak of the outward showings of his cowardice?

I did not much like my hypothesis. Surely Christian guessed what Bernardo had told me, no matter that I denied it. If such indifferent men as Cornelius and Voltemont could be so easily disposed of, my life was no safer than theirs. When he was a boy, the prince trusted me. I believed his heart had still called me a friend before his sudden appearance on Hven, but what was I to him now? A danger? An embarrassment to be silenced?

I went downstairs. The kitchen was growing dark as evening came rapidly on. I tried to start a fire in the oven. Voltemont could build a fire within fifteen minutes of setting to it, but I labored with my flint and steel an hour with nothing to show but cut fingers and mighty frustration. I knelt by the cold oven in the half dark, exhaling heavily and watching clouds of breath dissolve before me.

The air seemed full of ghosts. As the last dregs of sunlight drained away, a wind rose up from the north and blew through the broken castle, rattling sheaves of loose plaster and howling down cracks in the brick walls. Sometimes it sounded like a chorus of voices calling my name. I was hungry, unhappy, and cold. I wrapped myself in my cloak and took shelter under a wooden bench against a wall. I chewed on a bit of stale bread, drank some of the wine Cornelius had brought from Kronberg, and wondered if the prince would murder me in my sleep.

It had been a strange day. My argument with Father Maltar came to mind, putting me into a worse mood. I had been subject to the most outrageous falsehoods regarding my old master since I arrived on Hven. Were all the islanders blind, that they could not see the majesty of the house Tycho had built? Could they not see the perfect form and beauty of the armillaries, quadrants, and sextants Tycho had put into his clever observatory? Once there was a celestial globe, five feet across and skinned with brass, on a gilt stand in the main hall of Uraniborg. With his own hand, my master had marked the globe with the thousand stars of both hemispheres. Only one or two other men could hope to match Tycho and chart the sky in such a manner. Yet these peasants dared call Tycho a monster and a heretic. What are a few slates missing from an old church roof when there stands above us all the whole roof of Heaven, its mysteries to be deciphered and writ down? A great man walked among these farmers and fishers, and they despised and resented him, but they did not ever know him.

Men petition princes and popes to beseech two minutes in which to beg a favor, and forever after sing that lofty man’s praises. I lived for years in a great man’s very house with him, ate at his table and daily did his bidding. On dozens of occasions Tycho spoke directly to me, once even at table in the evening to ask my opinion.

While Maltar complained about his leaky chapel, Tycho built a cathedral to the cosmos, a church where hymns could be sung to the planets. Maltar fumbled in God’s shadow; Tycho sought God’s face. He was too brilliant for the times. The king of Denmark could take away Tycho’s island, but he knew not how to use it and the thief let the observatory fall into disrepair. Such are the common men of Denmark. They think themselves clever, but they build nothing of any lasting value. A man like my father could repair Maltar’s roof, but he could never dream of anything which would amaze the imagination as did Uraniborg. My father, the priest, the king: they were men of small dreams. On Hven we dreamed of nothing less than exposing the great plan God had drafted.

My father had been a stone mason, an erector of walls, warehouses, and forts. He was a prosaic man who looked up only to see if the weather favored the mixing of mortar. To my father, the stars and planets were distractions, fretting the night sky to no good purpose. Much the same was his opinion of education. Had I not been small and sickly as a youth, I would surely have learned the building trade after my father. I lacked the physique to earn a living with my hands, and so my father regretfully sent me to school that I might perhaps earn my keep with my brain. He had little hope of my success; learned men never gave my father any pleasure.

While Uraniborg was being raised, the king decided to improve the fortifications at Kronberg. My father oversaw the work to the ramparts and towers. Tycho, who traveled Europe before settling on Hven, had befriended the best builders, architects, and masons Europe had to offer. Many of these men he invited to his island to consult on the great project. Tycho also showed such grace as to bring some of them to Kronberg, that their artistry might add some glory to the king’s ancient fortress.

My father complained for decades after that none of these Italians and Germans had been worth the cost of carting them to Denmark, and he predicted more than once that Uraniborg would fall in upon itself within a year. He had nothing good to say of Tycho, calling his designs mere Italian foolishness. But without my father’s help Tycho built his castle, his subterranean observatories, his paper mill on the western shore, and his ornate walled gardens with raised herb beds to supply the laboratories. He designed and built countless scientific instruments. My father, meanwhile, used the tools he had inherited from his ancestors. Tycho was the more true builder. No man will remember a bricklayer named Willem Andersmann after his death, but the name of Tycho Brahe will be on the lips of scholars for centuries to come. This was the gospel I would preach, the gospel according to Soren. I would hear no more slander on my master’s name. Any who spoke ill of Tycho did envy him, and misunderstood the import of his work and of all science. To kill the king of Denmark—that vile king, that murderous king—was a worthy task in Tycho’s name. Afterwards I would look to my own name and find a publisher for my book. Perhaps, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, I would take Nunc Scio Mysterium to Frankfurt. Perhaps on my way there I would stop in Holland and visit the craftsmen who were building those new marvels, the telescopes.

My fancies turned to dreams, and in my sleep I marched across Europe, my manuscript under my left arm, my right hand around the hilt of the dagger Bernardo had given me. I walked with my head high and all men stepped aside for me. When I reached Germany I strode boldly to each house along my way, opened the door, and peered within.

“Was suchen Sie?” the Germans asked, bowing low before me.

“Ich suche die Teleskopen,” I said. “Wohin soil’ich gehen?”

They pointed me north, and I crossed the Rhine and the Elbe to find myself in Berlin.

“Nord,” I was told, and I passed through thick forests and fields of serried golden grain and over villages, and always the Germans pointed me north until I was following the coastline of Jutland, stepping across the Korsor Nor, stumbling in Rostock, and then I was in Elsinore. It was night, frigid and starless. I stood before the house of my youth.

When I put the palm of my hand to the door, I felt heat pouring through the panel, as though the house were afire. I withdrew my hand and my glove smoked and I smelled the scorched leather. The seams between the planks of the door glowed suddenly red and then burst into flames. I threw my arm over my face while the door burned rapidly away, like a brittle tapestry or a sheet of parchment. I lowered my arm and looked into the house, amazed at what I beheld.

All was flame and swirling sparks. Lightning streaked along the rafters while thunder cracked and boomed beneath the floorboards. A forge, a hell, or a volcano’s mouth lived within the house, and in the midst of this terrible furnace was a man, eight feet tall and encased in armor, his long cape aflame but not consumed, or perhaps his cape was made of living flame. I could not see what this giant did in the burning house, but he held a chisel in one hand and a dead raven in the other. A bolt of lightning chased across the ceiling and I saw with horror that this figure had two heads upon his shoulders, the head of Tycho Brahe and the head of my father.

Each head screamed at the other, such obscenities and filth as I had never before heard.

“Charlatan! Dung eater! Sodomite! Piss-soaked foulness! Castrated demon bitch! Arse-loving priest’s whore!” Much worse followed. I stopped my ears against the noise of it, but the voices sounded inside my head, outcrying thunder.

“Stop!” I cried. “Silence!”

The huge man turned toward me. My father and Tycho scowled down, their steel-wrapped chest swollen with anger. They lifted their right hand and shook the dead raven violently enough that oily black feathers broke free and spun away into the flames. My father and Tycho opened their mouths and spoke in a shrieking unison, a sinuous wail of broken metal, hissing wind, and the cawing of crows.

“Who are you?” they cried.

“I am your son!”

“You are unworthy of our name, boy.”

“I am your name!”

“You disgrace us. We despise you. You would claim our house and take it as your own. We disown you.”

“No! I am worthy! My book—”

“Idiocy! Pestilence! Pabulum! Fantasy!”

Their mouths hung open, lipless holes lined with rows of teeth. The broken corpse of the raven caught fire and burned. Tycho and my father opened their hand and reached out, pawing at my breast. I struck at their hand, batting it away, but they took me by the shoulder and shook me, hard. Their voices rang in my ears, my name called over and over.

“Soren! Soren, wake thou! Illo, ho ho! Come, bird, come! Soren!”

My eyes flew open. I was under the bench in the kitchen. In the innocent light of morning I made out Christian, on his knees beside me. He had a hand on my shoulder.

“Soren!”

“My lord, I am awake.”

Christian released me and sat back, peering at my face.

“You look much affrighted,” he said.

“I have had an unpleasant dream, no more.”

“Aye.” Christian looked around the room and crossed himself. “This place is full of unpleasant dreams, which pour into our heads and poison our sleep. I will be happy to leave.”

“Aye, my lord. Do we go today?”

“Indeed, forthwith. Up, you. Up. Come to the beach with me, down by the old paper mill.”

“My lord, I do not wish to go there.”

Christian sighed with mocking extravagance.

“I understand your reluctance, but you will come. There is something you must see, and I dare say you will not believe your eyes.”

“My lord—”

“This is no request, sirrah. You will come to the beach with me.”

“Then lead on, my lord. Is it cold out?”

“It is cold, and the sun climbs into a cloudless sky. All the better for us. Up, Soren. Come with me.”