terrified, in a bath of sweat. I am not a good man. I am a conspirator in treason.”
“I could ask for no better conspirator. Now get thee gone, that I might sleep.”
Torstensson took my hand.
“Have great care, Soren. Lock your door.”
“I will, by the Cross. You shall soon hear news of the king. Has cousin Erik met his fate?”
“Killed by highwaymen only yesterday.”
“A tragedy.”
“Aye, for him.”
“Well, Fritz. I will write another tragedy here in Elsinore. But first I must sleep.”
{ Chapter Eight }
A TRUNK FULL OF ADDERS
THE WEATHER GREW WORSE. THAT EVENING A NEW storm front rolled south to stand over Denmark’s skies and send forth a heavy snow that fell, hour after hour and foot upon foot, until every city and town was an isolated island, besieged by the cruel forces of winter. Elsinore shivered within her walls while above the town Kronberg brooded. King Christian paced the castle halls, barking out conflicting orders and chewing on his unrequited battle lust. He could not make war upon the weather that made the road to Copenhagen impassible. I heard the king complain that Baron Jaaperson would walk unopposed into the royal palace to bed the chambermaids and raid the treasury at his leisure. This was nonsense; the baron and his men were at that moment struggling through a thick forest, fighting their way through deeply drifted snow dropped by the very storm against which the king raged.
Each day that the coastal highway remained closed delayed the king’s order to march south. The horoscopes I had drawn up became outdated one by one, and every evening I found myself casting new charts for the king, the prince, and the baron. My imagination was sorely taxed and I was increasingly troubled by what I could see of the prince’s true chart. Confusion and contradiction reigned in his houses and I liked it not, though all the while I crafted pretty and optimistic horoscopes for him.
The snow fell without pause for a week, during which time Kronberg fell into a routine of expectation and disappointment, the habitants swinging between nervous argument and boredom. Christmas approached and all there wished to be home during the Yuletide season. All save the king, who disliked the pomp of court life. Despite his frustrated bloodlust he looked happier to me in that cheerless antique of a fortress than ever I had seen him in Copenhagen.
My own days were spent orbiting about the penumbra of the king’s routine that I might discover an opportunity to make a ghost of him. Sneaking about, I learned his habits and made a plan.
In the mornings, the king met with his advisors in the office he had commandeered from Sir Tristram. Food was delivered directly from the kitchens and I had no access to the dishes brought up by the cooks. Besides, there was no chance of my tainting the king’s portion without murdering a dozen other men. After meeting with his generals, the king took exercise in the armory, training with his master-at-arms for an hour. There was a score armed men with him and I would be a fool to attempt anything there. The king surrounded himself with advisors and guards at all times but twice each day: after his swordplay he took a bath in a great tub carried into the armory and filled from steaming copper kettles wheeled in from the kitchens, and after his bath he made his way to a chamber on the upper floor of the north wing where he would sleep for a time. Though the room was guarded by four Swiss in the corridor, I had learned that this chamber shared an inner door with the apartment Ulfeldt and his daughter occupied.
My strategy was to admit myself somehow into this sleeping chamber through Ulfeldt’s lodgings, and leave a trap for the king to discover. This would be difficult, as Ulfeldt used his rooms as an office and was in them a great deal. When he was not there, Vibeke was, except when we were all at the supper banquet. The problem vexed me for most of the week until one morning I went up to the private chamber and tried the door, finding it unlocked. I was alone in the hallway and so I opened the door and stepped into the room. It was a small space with a narrow bed, two plain chairs, and an old wooden table. The windows faced the open sea and I supposed that the king found the