attended to benighted generals, officers, and advisors who were all demanding keys to their chambers. Kronberg had always been more a barracks and tax office than anything else, and the quartermaster was hard pressed to answer the needs and pride of the king’s retinue. Somewhere on his list, I hoped, the quartermaster had written my name, but I would seek him later, when the generals and other impatient lords had been satisfied. Wandering along the cold stone corridor past the bickering nobility, I came to a stairwell that led up into one of the great towers. I climbed the stairs, winding around widdershins. With each step, the air in the tower grew colder. The watch on the parapet must have left the door open, I thought, letting the frigid night pour itself down into the tower.
Nearing the top of the stairs, I saw the glow of lamplight and I heard whispering. I rounded the final corner of the ascent to find myself face to face with one of the elite Swiss guards, who stood on the landing with sword in hand.
“Who’s there?”
“Friend to this ground,” I said. “Soren Andersmann, royal astronomer and member of the king’s war party.”
“Long live the king!”
“Long live the king.”
We looked at each other a moment. This man was not the night watch, else he would have been outside, looking for enemies on the land or sea. No, he was acting as sentry for someone. The whispering, which came from beyond the open door at the Swiss’s back, continued. I could not make out how many, or whose, voices I heard. I took a step toward the door and the soldier raised his sword.
“Nay, sir. Thou shalt not pass.”
“I wish only to take in the air and look upon the moon. As part of my duties as royal astrologer.”
“There are three other towers for stargazing.”
Impudent foreigner. Setting aside my curiosity about who was out there, I had every right to make a study of the heavens from atop a castle tower. Still, whatever umbrage I could muster would neither convince nor disarm the guard. I listened hard to the whispering for a few more seconds and then descended the stairs after favoring the Swiss with what was intended to be a withering expression. Any baboon can swing a sword. I am a man who has studied the very blueprint of God’s mind. Likely the Swiss thought me only pouting at him; there is no ferocity in my looks.
Eventually I came to possess a room key and the vague advice that my chamber was on the east side of the castle, near the stable. God only knew where my traveling trunk had been stored. I put off solving either of these mysteries when I saw the general movement of men and servants toward the dining hall. King Christian’s welcome feast was about to begin. Thank the saints, I thought, for I was ravenous.
{ Chapter Four }
THE HOUR OF THEIR DISCOVERY
THE BANQUET HALL WAS LONG, NARROW, AND DARK, the floor laid with white and red tiles, the walls hung with dull, ugly tapestries a hundred years old. A fireplace blazed at each end of the room. Sixty men followed the king into the hall and found places down the length of the immense table, seating themselves by rank. I watched Straslund move from chair to chair away from the king as men of higher estate took his place and forced him ever down the table until at last he sat at the very end with the priest, the surgeon, and me. Straslund gave me a disdainful look and immediately began a conversation with the man who sat to my left, Fritz Torstensson. This was one of Straslund’s cousins, who had ridden up from Copenhagen that afternoon. Torstensson and I had studied law together at Wittenberg. I had hoped to have a word with him, but it was clear that Straslund claimed Torstensson as his own for this banquet.
I turned my attention to the table. It was laid with much simpler fare than one finds at Copenhagen, but to the chamberlain’s credit the food was plentiful. Beef roasted rare, hens baked golden brown, and lamb shanks smothered in mushrooms were lined before the guests alongside platters of boiled onions and spinach with lemons, loaves of bread, and plates of herring; a trencher of fried eels was brought out for the king. There was a jar of Rhenish for every four men, and servants stood by with even more.