brings a great load of her own furniture, no doubt,” Christian said. “My mother will not enjoy Kronberg any better than you do. She prefers a soft bed, with fragrant herbs to sweeten the air of her closet. I dare say my father must restore order quickly to Denmark, else my mother shall become a more dangerous enemy to him than any rebellious lords. I expect she brings with her the entire kitchen staff from Copenhagen as well.”
“Then the meals will be fine while your father roots out his enemies. That, at least, I can endure.”
“Ah, yes.” He frowned.
“My lord?”
“Have you not received your new assignment from my father?”
“Not yet.”
Christian said nothing. I waited in his silence, growing ever more tense, until it became clear that he would make no move on his own to dispel the mystery.
“I am not coming with the army, my lord?”
“You? Certainly not. But you may not be so comfortably lodged as you are now. Nay, I will say no more on it. You must await your audience with my father.”
His father was a rat, a lizard in a crown. I could not think what torture the king would thoughtlessly assign to me, what meaningless task to polish the mirror of his vanity. The prince hinted that travel was involved. That would be most inconvenient to my cause. Well, the king would have to die before he sent me packing off to God knew where on God knew what mission.
I watched Christian as he ate. Born under Saturn, the prince’s humors were of the complexion of earth, which many astrologers call a flaw of character, but I do not. Saturn made the prince distrustful of the nights and he was visited by melancholy, which is troublesome in men of lower birth than the prince. He had a good memory and always did well with mathematics. He was graceful, elegant, and neat; not much like his father. I had considered how the death of the king would grieve him, how I would inflict an awful suffering upon Christian’s young heart. Yet it must be so, and the prince’s cargo of woe would be the balance of my own, and I thought that I would at least be able to condole with him honestly enough, for the loss of my master Tycho had been the loss of my spiritual father. I had worshipped at the feet of Brahe just as the prince worshipped at the king’s feet, and as I believed then that Tycho was a man who stood closer to the angels than the king could ever dream of standing, I imagined my loss to be far greater than Prince Christian’s. Thus did I console myself and eat a pleasant meal with the man whose father I planned to murder. The syllogism formed of its own accord.
We spoke no more of battle nor the mysterious task to be set before me, and returned to the subject of Kirsten, the queen. It had been only a handful of days since Christian had seen her, but he talked as if she had not kissed his cheek in a twelvemonth.
“There will be a banquet tonight in my mother’s honor.” Christian placed a hand upon my arm. “It would please me if you were to sit with the family, Soren, at my side. You know the queen is fond enough of you. She will enjoy your conversation at supper.”
Kirsten would be irritable and sharp of tongue, I thought, unhappy to join her husband in Kronberg. The queen would resent being called from court to be held, bored and lonely, at a remote fortress far from the glittering life of Copenhagen. The king did not know which of his noble courtiers and cousins he could trust and so he was besieged. It was natural that he would place his family inside defensible walls, yet his wife would not see it that way. I almost pitied the king; the queen’s wrath was a rival to his own.
“I will be honored to sit at the crown’s end of the table,” I said. The greater trust of the king would be an advantage to me.
“Excellent. Now I must join my father in his office. Lord Ulfeldt makes a report on enemies of the throne, and I ought to be present. I will see you at supper?”
“Before then, my lord. I will be in the great hall to welcome the queen when she arrives this evening.”