of,” he said. “Tristram is dead. I am master of Kronberg while the king and Bernardo are away. You are a murderer. My rights are to pull your fingers from their joints, cut off your ears, skewer you on red hot irons, knock out each tooth in your jaws, suck the eyeballs from your skull, and choke you with your own bollocks. Do you think I cannot do these things?”
Marcellus smiled and I believed that not only could he do these things, but that he had done them before, to other men, many times.
“I am no murderer.”
Marcellus made a fist and put it against my ribs, below my heart. His men seized my arms and held me down in the chair.
“Oh, astrologer,” Marcellus said. He pushed against my ribs with his fist. “You are not being honest with me. Tristram was seen bringing the bottle of wine to you. He was later seen taking it to his own rooms.”
“What of it?”
Marcellus pushed harder against my ribs and I felt the bones shifting, pressing on my lungs. His face was very close to mine, his breath sour and hot. I thought I might vomit.
“Why do you care about Tristram?”
“Aha.” Marcellus removed his fist from my ribs and stood away from me. My chest ached as I inhaled and I imagined the bruise I would have below my heart.
“I do not think you meant to kill Tristram,” Marcellus said.
“I did not kill him at all. The wine—”
Marcellus drew back his fist and I turned my face away. He did not hit me.
“The wine was poisoned. Tristram’s physician is a doddering fool, but we Swiss have a surgeon who knows the smell and actions of uncountable poisons. He was not deceived. Tristram’s wine was tainted. By you. Deny it not.”
I saw how things were. Either Marcellus or the king would have my head over this act. I had failed my mission and so I must take the whole blame to protect Torstensson and his allies.
“Tristram was an accident.”
“Now you are being honest, astrologer. And what of Straslund? An accident?”
“Straslund?”
“You were seen with him as he fell into the moat. We Swiss have sharper eyes than you Danes credit. There was a snake in a snowstorm. A most curious thing it was, too.”
“An accident.”
“Your associates are plagued by accidents. Tell me, why were you in the king’s sleeping chamber the morning Straslund had his accident with the snake?”
I shook my head. Was there nothing they had not seen? Was Torstensson also being questioned, watching as his family was tortured by agents of the king? Were all the others who were involved being beaten by interrogators this morning?
“How long have you spied upon me?”
“We see everything,” Marcellus said. “We have seen you with poisonous snake and poisoned wine. We have seen how your poisons struck well outside the mark. Accidents, as you say. But who is the mark? We have seen you spy upon the king’s coming and going. We have seen that your target is no other than King Christian of Denmark.”
I said nothing. Marcellus shook his head and sighed.
“You are a most clumsy assassin. Must every man in the nation fall prey to your accidents while the king dies slowly of old age? You are not the man to do this deed, astrologer. That much is clear. You will need our help.”
{ Chapter Ten }
A FIRE IN TYCHO’S KITCHEN
A LOCAL LEGEND, VERY ANCIENT, TENS OF THE GIANTESS Hvenhild who gathered up an armload of hills in Denmark and put the acres of earth into her apron. She waded into the Sound and walked carefully against the current toward Sweden, ten miles away. When Hvenhild was halfway across the water, one of her apron strings snapped and all her thousands of tons of soil fell into the Sound. I have often imagined the giantess looking sidelong at the great pile of earth she had dropped, pushing at the hills with her bare toe for a moment before lumbering off through the waves to sit on the Swedish shore and repair her apron, abandoning her lost acres without another thought. When Hvenhild was long dead and we Danes came to settle her accidental island, we named it after her.
Hven rises up from the waters abruptly, a flat bluff with steep white cliffs all around and dangerous, rocky beaches on the north and west. There is one small harbor on the north side of the island, where a steep road angles up through a gap in