The Astrologer (18 page)

“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.”

I WAS NEARLY FROZEN TO MY VERY SOUL BY THE TIME Christian and I walked through the door of St. Ibb’s. We stumbled to the font, pulled off our gloves to genuflect, and knelt to the crucifix. I thought how lucky Christ had been to live in Galilee where it is ever warm. Had He been buried in Denmark, our Lord may well have remained in His tomb.

Father Maltar sat on his bench, warm by the stove at the rear of the chapel. He gave a black look after he recognized me. When he saw that I was with the prince, he rose to bow slightly to Christian and then settled down again on his bench. I moved to the blessed warm atmosphere of the stove while Christian piled greetings and flattery upon the old man.

“I heard a rumor that you were too elderly to maintain your parish, but clearly this is mere slander,” Christian said. “I do not think you have aged a minute since I first laid an eye upon you, Father.”

“I was old then,” Maltar said. “I am much older now, my lord. I am ancient.”

“Nonsense, Father. You have a clear eye and a strong voice. I had expected a withered leaf of a man, not a stout oak. You are yet a powerful warrior of Christ.”

“I am a barrel of lard, you mean.” Maltar put a wounded tone into his voice, but he smiled at the prince.

“You do not waste away and that is an excellent piece of news, Father.”

“As you insist, my lord.” Maltar raised a hand as if to ward off any further praise. “Tell me, my lord, what do you at St. Ibb’s?”

“I come to confess.”

“My lord?”

“I have joined good Soren’s party out at the old Brahe manor and must take the sacraments here, Father. I am not shriven since going into battle at Copenhagen, and I would confess myself to you, if you will do me the duty.”

Maltar did not seem to know what to think of this request. He sat on his bench with eyes half closed and shook his heavy head.

“You recall how to take confession?” Christian prompted him.

“I do, my lord.” Maltar blinked slowly, an old bear caught hibernating in his den. “Is not the bishop of Copenhagen your confessor, my lord?”

“He is. The bishop is a most excellent fellow. My mother is fond of him also.”

“I doubt it nothing.” Maltar turned his face away from the prince. “My lord, I cannot take your confession. The bishop is a nobleman, but I am not. Before I found my calling, I was the son of a journeyman stevedore who worked Elsinore’s wharves. Men such as I, even though we wear cassock and Roman collar, are not fit to be in your confidence. Go to Copenhagen to be shriven, my lord. Or at least to Elsinore. Father Olaf is a gentleman. I am proud to be a peasant and a priest, but I am still a peasant.”

The old man was talking rubbish. He wanted the crown prince of Denmark to beg him to be his confessor. He would brag about it for years to come.

“You are a priest,” I said. “Do your priestly duty as your lord commands.”

“Peace, Soren.” Christian sat next to Maltar and I wondered that the bench did not break beneath them. The prince laid his
hands atop Maltar’s. “Good Father, I recall how you petitioned the king to have St. Ibb’s restored when the roof was falling in and the altar damaged by weather. I recall with what solemn piety you did entreat my father to restore God’s house, comparing the king to that venerable saint from Assisi. You are a more noble man than I am, Father, and I humbly beseech you to hear my confession this morning.”

Maltar inclined his immense head and stared at the floor. He breathed deeply and I thought again that he slept, but he arched an eyebrow and looked slyly at the prince.

“My lord, you honor me with this. I am yours to command. Hven is ever grateful to his majesty your father for the repairs to our church, which was so long neglected in such sinful and illegal fashion by that conjurer Brahe.”

Father Maltar’s eye twitched briefly in my direction, but I did not rise to his bait. He sighed and then lifted his face to look at Christian.

“I will hear your confession now, my lord, if it pleases you.”

“Excellent, good Father.” Christian stood and helped Maltar to his feet. “And after I have said my prayers you will perhaps share your dinner with us.”

“The honor is mine, my lord. My assistant, Father Stepan, is even now in the kitchen.”

“Is he preparing eels, perchance?”

“Eels? Nay, my lord. Steamed herring with cream and bread. I believe there is enough to feed your servant here as well.”

Christian frowned, scuffed the heel of his right boot across the edge of an uneven flagstone and shrugged.

“Well, Soren, we must have eels when we return to Kronberg.”

“Aye, my lord. I have patience enough to wait.”

“Hm. Will you hear my confession, Father Maltar?”

Maltar led the prince into the chapel. Rather than going into the confessional, they sat beneath the altar to St. Ibb and whispered together. I could hear nothing of what was said, but they spoke at some length. Christian coughed a great deal as
if he had caught a chill, and then Maltar left him alone in the chapel. Coming back to the coal stove where I waited, Maltar sat on his bench and we looked each other in the face for a long moment but said nothing. In the end I looked away.

“You heard my complaint about Brahe,” Maltar said. His low, rumbling voice had none of the sharp vowels one heard in the speech of Elsinore’s laborers.

“I heard you, Father. You have spoken a lie.”

“A lie?” Maltar inhaled sharply, the breath hissing through his teeth. “A lie? You must know better than that, sir.”

What I knew was that Tycho had been born on December 14
^th
, in the sign of Sagittarius. Sagittarius is an ingenious and daring sign, ruled by Jupiter. Men did envy my old master his daring and ingenuity, and many spoke ill of him even after his death.

“I recall that Tycho mentioned some demands regarding the church roof before he was driven from his island, but it was merely the maneuvering of certain envious members of the court. Tycho was disliked, Father, for he shone more brightly than any mind in Denmark. Such brilliance will gather enemies the way a perfect sweet confection will attract flies.”

Maltar sighed.

“You are an idiot,” he said. “Do you know why Brahe died in Prague?”

“I do,” I said. “I do indeed.” Intrigues, bribes, and murder killed my master. A cousin with gaming debts and a king ashamed of his own ignorance killed Tycho. Erik Brahe, with a vial of poison and a purse full of King Christian’s gold, killed him in Prague.

“I say you do not know,” Maltar rumbled. “I say you worship a false prophet.”

“He was not false.” I made every effort to control my voice. I would not act a fool before the old priest.

“Brahe was a liar and a brute. You were nothing but a babe when he came to Hven and built those walls and towers. You did not see how it was. Brahe enslaved the men and women of
the island, stole their waking hours, their oxen, and their grain. Do you know what your master built first? A dungeon in which to imprison disobedient peasants.”

“That was his right, as lord of the island.”

“Lord of the island. Hah! We have laws in Denmark. We are not a primitive people. The farmers and fishers of Hven brought constant complaints to the king against Brahe, and the governor of Zealand himself did come to the island every two years to bring order and discipline and to hold the lord of the island back. Your eyes were turned to books or watching the sky. You saw none of what happened on the Earth just outside your door. Tycho Brahe was a monster, a demon with an absurd golden nose and no regard for man or God.”

“Tycho was a good man. You fought against him because he forbade you the barbaric custom of exorcism. You were disciplined by the bishop. Deny it, thou.”

“I do not deny it. Brahe interfered in the sacraments.” Maltar raised his heavy arm and stabbed a finger in the direction of Uraniborg. “He dared lecture me about superstition while he chased Mars and Saturn for their advice. I threw him out. He laughed and told me he had his own temple, a temple to reason. Blasphemy, it was. Heresy and sacrilege. Yet even so, as you say, he was steward of Hven. This church he so despised was his trust, and even a chapel on remote Hven is sacred and beloved of the king. Brahe was charged to maintain the building and grounds and he did nothing for St. Ibb’s during his twenty years as lord of the island. He ignored his duty to me, to the king, and to God.”

“It is an old church,” I said. “It is an ugly slab of stone. What did you want of Tycho? For him to raise a cathedral of marble, stained glass, and gold?”

“I wanted a roof that did not let in the rain! I wanted a bell tower that was not falling over! For years I petitioned Brahe and was ignored. Finally I took a boat across the Sound and spoke to the bishop. The bishop is second cousin to her Majesty the queen. The queen is a pious woman. She spoke to the king. The king ordered Brahe to repair the church. Brahe ignored him. He refused the king’s direct command. I was livid. The bishop was livid. The queen was livid. The king stripped your beloved conjurer of his lands and titles, and off Brahe fled to the Emperor in Prague.”

“Tycho was exiled because your roof leaked? I do not believe this.”

“I do not care a whit. It is true. Four years ago, Hven escaped its captivity from a man more cruel than Pharaoh. We began to tear down his castle when we learned that the king would appoint no one to replace him. Oh, those were glad tidings to the island.”

“Tycho was—Nay, I will hear no more of this.”

It would have been easy to shove Maltar off his bench, to silence his horrible, smug tongue with hard kicks to his fat belly and bald skull. I stood and pulled on my gloves. My hands were shaking.

“Where do you go, Soren?”

It was Christian, walking toward us from the chapel. His cheeks were red with cold and the knees of his breeches had dirt on them. He stood between me and the priest and put a hand to my breast, over my heart.

“I have concluded my prayers, as you see, but we will not leave without the dinner Father Maltar has promised us. I am famished, Soren. Are you not?”

“My work is not concluded at Uraniborg,” I said. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, my lord. My men must dig out the chambers at Stjerneborg and I must waste no more of Father Maltar’s time.”

Christian raised his hand from my breast and touched me lightly on the cheek.

“Christmas Eve so soon?” he said.

“Aye, my lord. I have promised Cornelius and Voltemont that they will have Christmas Mass at Elsinore. I have also promised Captain Marcellus that my business here will be concluded by Christmas.”

“I see.” Christian’s fingertips were still against my cheek. He leaned his face very close to mine. “You have made promises.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Then we shall honor those we can,” he said. He stood away from me and turned to the priest.

“We accept your offer of herring in cream,” he said. “But we must not dally as there is, as Soren says, much to do yet inside that marvelous edifice of Uraniborg. Have you been to Tycho’s fair palace, Father?”

“Never.” Maltar thrust out his lower lip. “Brahe did always come to me.”

“I find somehow that being in that fine house is like walking about inside Tycho’s very head,” the prince declared. “His Latin mottoes above every doorway and the walls, crumbling as they are, still glow with the great man’s favorite colors. Was Tycho alike in any way to his magnificent house, Soren?”