these empty words into my ear,” she hissed. “Be kind to your former pupil’s mother. I bring you here as friend to Christian, not as friend to Denmark. I do not want my boy to lie butchered in the snow on the highway to Copenhagen, no matter how princely it would be. I hear that speech enough from my husband.”
“He will not live forever,” I said, the words coming out of my mouth before I had time to consider them. My flippancy alarmed me and I made to step back from the queen, but she took hold of my arm and pulled me to her. Kirsten smelled deliciously of delicate powders, soaps, and perfumes I could not name. For a moment I was dizzy.
“Just so,” she whispered. “He will not live forever. And if he falls in battle, great soldier that he is, such a battle will surely overbear my son, and his death will be certain. Is it not so?”
“My lady, I do not presume to—”
“No matter.” She released me from her grasp. “You must forgive me. I am a worried mother and the passion of my speech holds nothing of sense. I pray you, speak to none of my concern.”
“Majesty, not a word.”
“Remember that you are my son’s friend.” She glided away from me, her slippers silent on the bare floor. She paused at the door and inclined her head. “I leave you now to your task.”
I bowed and then Kirsten was gone. For a few minutes I stood alone atop the tower, staring out at the black night, seeing nothing but stray plumes of blown snow and what may have been a few torches beyond the battlements. The air was cold and dried my eyes and I began to shiver. The page who had brought me to the queen had gone to bed and I was left to find my way alone, but Kronberg is not so large nor as labyrinthine as the royal palace and I found my room directly.
The unfinished horoscopes waited there for me. I hung my cloak on a peg, stretched my neck and shoulders, and then sat down to work. Not long before daybreak, I finished, rolled up the charts, and tied them with a string.
Yawn after yawn overtook me as I walked from my chamber to the king’s office where I left the horoscopes with a page. The page bade me good morning. I bade him good night and hurried back to my chamber. Passing the tall windows in the corridors I looked out upon a dull gray world lying beneath a dull gray sky, the sun a gray shape hulking on the horizon, giving no color to the clouds or the Earth.
I do not remember getting to bed or falling into sleep, nor do I remember what I dreamt before Torstensson let himself into my room and shook me awake.
“A man who aspires to be an assassin ought to remember to lock his door,” Torstensson said.
“I have only just come to bed,” I complained. “I aspire to nothing but more sleep. What time is it?”
“Well past noon. You need not rise on my account. I am in Elsinore but another hour or so, and then I must away.”
“You’ve brought the weapons?”
“If that is what you call them, yes. The trunk is there in the corner. Take care with these toys, my friend.”
“I will. You bring a box full of death, and I am aware how you put your own life in jeopardy to carry them into this castle.”
“I do not complain, Soren. Just as you demanded that yours be the hand to silence the king, I swore to assist you as I can. If Atlas volunteers for his employment, he ought not bemoan the weight of the world on his back.”
“You are a good man, Fritz.”
“This is not about my goodness, but the good of the nation. Last night I dreamed of the king. He marched his army across Denmark, fighting a great battle from one end of the realm to the other, the nation blood-soaked and too small to hold all the fallen. Christian rode at the head of his terrible army, the troops all clad in black armor spattered with Danish blood, the soldiers’ faces black and beaked cruelly like man-sized ravens, their shining black eyes gazing unblinking at the hillocks of corpses and gore left in their wake. The king stood in his saddle, his sword arm sweeping across the sky, blocking out the sun. I awoke