Soren. Whose face will be on our money when there is a new king, do you think? Young Christian?”
“Faith, I know not.”
“I should not wish the throne upon him,” Torstensson said. “He believes that to rule is to sit handsomely on a horse and wear fine armor. Being king is not always valor and glory, Soren. Being king is trade and treaties, fishing disputes with England, taxes on ships and sheep and wool and wheat, or petty arguments between owners of orchards and owners of granaries. Or perhaps I should say that being king is to concern oneself with displaying the right breed of courtesy to the right breed of courtier.”
“I do not think my friend Christian would enjoy this. He could well refuse the crown.”
“Nonsense. Every man wishes to be king.”
“I do not.”
“A philosopher king is what you’d be, but surely you would rule if you could.”
“Only were it thrust upon me by necessity.”
“Aye, and every man keeps a wary eye for the call of necessity, that he may finally act according to his deepest desire.”
“I do not share your cynicism, Fritz.”
“In any case, young Christian is now being groomed to take a high place in Denmark’s affairs.”
The moon was bright behind a thin curtain of cloud hung along the eastern sky. I estimated the aspect between the moon and where I supposed my father’s house lay, with me at the crux of the angle. Sesqisquare, I thought, or within an orb of ten degrees or so.
“I am fond of the prince,” I said. “Though he and I are becoming strangers.”
“You move in different orbits.” Torstensson smiled at his cleverness. I also smiled.
“Aye.”
“Well, we shall see. But it is painfully cold and you cannot keep me freezing out here all night, Soren. Tell me: will you accomplish you task here, or will you wait until the court is returned to Copenhagen?”
“It is nearly three months since Tycho was murdered,” I whispered, my face close to Torstensson’s ear. “That is already too long for his murderers to remain alive. What is being done about Erik?”
“He dies by Christmas.”
“Then so doth the king. When he murdered Tycho he sinned against Denmark’s very future, and he will do penance in Hell for it.”
“I confess I do not share your absolute devotion to my cousin,” Torstensson said. “I never understood a word of his and he quarreled even against his own kin. My mother had Tycho escorted from her estate once, for his rudeness. But your heart is your own to follow, and my family welcomes your eager hands.”
Torstensson’s words should have given me pause, but I was deaf to any criticism of my old master and I barely listened. My mind busied itself far away in the past, recalling the spring afternoon that had brought a short reply from Tycho to the long and flattering letter I had sent him from Copenhagen. I still keep his note in my Bible, at the first page of the Revelation of Saint John.
“Have you any more need of me?” Torstensson tugged on my sleeve, shaking me out of my memory.
I listed the things I required from Copenhagen to do the deed, and Torstensson swore to bring them to me within three days.
“It is very late now,” he said. “I must return to town, where I have taken a room at the hotel. In the morning I will away to Copenhagen. Mind my cousin. Straslund is an idiot, but he is meddlesome, curious, and talkative.”
Fritz took my arm and pulled me closer.
“Be wary, Soren. You dance in the jaws of death. If you fail it will be not just your life, but also mine, and the lives of my family and those of the families of many other good men. We depend upon you. Remember this always.”
“I do. I will. Now be gone, and return with haste and the tools of my new trade.”
We went back into the castle and made our farewells. At length I discovered my chamber, which was cramped and plain but warm, and my trunk had found me. As I lay down and pulled a blanket over me I resolved to adopt Tycho’s old motto, non viduri sed esse. I would not be seen, but I would be. What I would eventually be, I could not say. To be a knife in the king’s back was good enough for now.
{ Chapter Five }
A MORE DANGEROUS ENEMY
IN THE MORNING I CAST THE KING’S HOROSCOPE, and then my own. The Pars Fortunae looked ill