had that scent. My own chamber smelled faintly of the stables.
“I was sewing in my closet,” Vibeke said. “It was late, after supper. Then Christian, with his doublet all unbraced, no cloak or crown or servant to announce him, came before me.”
She was whispering; the words came in a rush and her breath fluttered against my cheek.
“He took me by the wrist and held me hard, then went to the length of his arm and fell to such perusal of my face as if he were a portrait artist. Long stayed he so. At last he raised a sigh so piteous and profound as it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being.”
“When did this happen? Here at Kronberg?”
“Nay, sir, some seven months agone in the palace at Copenhagen.”
“And have you had much more commerce with Christian since then?”
“Oh, I have heard that sigh now many a time. He hath multiplied the tenders of his affection to me. I do not know what I should think. He hath given countenance to his speech with almost all the holy vows of Heaven.”
“Almost all?”
Vibeke straightened, backing away from me.
“As you say, good Soren, the queen would not like it.”
“I dare say she would not, lady.”
“She will have no choice but to like it soon enough. My lord Christian trusts you, does he not?”
“He trusts me passing well, lady.” I shook my head. “What do you mean, ‘soon enough’?”
“I hope all will be well. We must be patient. I am afeared he will die on the field. You must counsel him to caution, Soren.”
“So I shall, lady.”
“I must away now. You know that I never knew my own mother?”
“Aye.”
“They say she was a madwoman.”
Vibeke put a hand to each side of her face, took a step backward, and turned a complete circle. She reminded me of those painted wooden dolls that dance pirouettes atop children’s musical boxes. I have seen them in Dresden and Berlin. When Vibeke had done her turn, she clasped her hands before her.
“I am better than my mother,” she said. “My mother kept wild birds in her closet and would never wear shoes with heels of wood. I do pity my father that he did not know of it before they married.”
“I have not heard this story, lady.”
“Oh, aye, it is most sorrowfully true. Happily I differ from my mother’s ways. I find my own path, past her past, and she have I surpassed. A daughter need be no more than passing familiar to her family.”
She closed her eyes and curtsied.
“That is very clever, lady.”
“I thank you, sir. I fear I am clever. I have knowledge my father would not dream of. Nor my mother, neither. She died birthing me. I hope that will not be my fate.”
“What do you mean?”
She curtsied again and turned suddenly to look down the corridor.
“God bye you, sir. I must to my orisons. We should all of us recall our sins.”
Vibeke drifted across the hall to her own rooms, one hand on her belly as she closed the door behind her. This was most alarming. She dare not think Kirsten would allow her to bear the prince’s bastard. She dare less think to marry Christian. I did not know if I even believed Vibeke’s inferences. She could have meant anything at all; the landscape of Vibeke’s mind was very different from my own.
I climbed out of the chair and made my way downstairs to the library. It was not locked this time and there were no secrets being whispered by unseen speakers. My head ached and I hoped to forget myself for an hour or two in one of Tristram’s books. He was fond of Ovid, I remembered.
The library was long and narrow, the longest two walls covered with shelving. It gave the impression of a hallway built from old leather spines. There was a thin slice of window at the far end and a few dusty chairs sitting beside a small square table with a lamp. The books were in no rational order and most of them were the bound journals of the fortress, records of a century of ships taxed as they made their way from the Atlantic to the Baltic through the Sound. The Sound Tax was the main source of the king’s wealth, but important as this commerce was I had no interest in going through the account books. I walked slowly along, inspecting the shelves, hoping to find something worth reading. It had long been