Father Maltar took up most of a low bench by the stove. A young priest and a boy who I took to be a villager sat near him on wooden stools. Maltar did not look up even when I dropped my cases into a pew with no little noise. Cornelius and Voltemont set up their own racket a moment later as they dragged two large wooden trunks over the threshold and across the flagstone floor.
“We are on a mission for the king,” I said, walking over to the stove. I stood beside the young priest, stretched out my hands to the fire, and tried to catch Maltar’s eye. “We require your assistance.”
“So you’ve returned,” Maltar said. His voice was low and rumbled deep in his chest. He looked at the door of the stove, as if he spoke to it and not to me. “The great man’s toad hops across the Sound and into my church once again.”
“Brahe is not here, only the will of the king,” I said. “We serve the king. As do you, Father.”
“Brahe is dead.” Maltar groaned out the words.
“Aye, but the king lives, and we do his bidding.”
“Brahe is dead.”
“Indeed, Father. I have been tasked with removing all traces of him from Hven. You should thank me.”
“Were I a younger man, I’d thank you with a beating.”
“You are thankfully spared that effort, then. We only require cartage to Uraniborg.”
“I had a dream.”
“Did you dream of an ox cart, Father?”
“I had a dream.” His voice grew loud for a moment, the protests of a forgotten god. “I dreamed of the moon floating above on a clear night. Luminare minus ut praeesset nocti. I watched her proceed across the heavens, and my heart was full of God’s love. Et posuit eas in firmamento caeli ut lucerent super terram. I felt the contentment of every soul on the island, as if we all shared the same grace. The moon was full, a beautiful and perfect disc, the Host held out to Earth by God Himself. I stood in awe.
“And then lo, a man approached, a man made of tin with a golden nose, dividerent lucem ac tenebras. This awful man pointed his evil tin finger at the moon, and she was cloaked in a darkness most terrible. My heart was filled with despair, and all of Hven wept at it. Then away went the man, and with his leaving the moon returned. But soon the evil man of tin was back, and he labored to build a monstrous hand of metal, of steel and brass and copper standing three yards tall, and he points this horrible thing at the moon, and she retreats behind a veil of darkness. Oh, most horrible. The man left us again and the moon came out from behind her arras. But she was diminished, faded and translucent. I saw stars shining through from behind her, and I was afraid to my marrow.
“Once more there came the vile man of tin, constructing a stone platform and a set of stairs upon the backs of Hven’s people. Their wailing was deafening. The demonic hand of metal was dragged up to the top of the stairs and pointed at the moon. Oh, the horror as she shook, and shriveled, and crumbled, and fell away like a dead leaf, and was no more.
“This dream I had nightly for twenty years. I dreamt it as I slept and when I awakened I found that I was still dreaming it. What do you suppose this dream meant?”
“It hardly takes a mystic to interpret.”
“Indeed. Two decades my nightmare continued, and then came that blessed day when it ended, four years ago. But now look, you are come again, handmaiden of the devil. You return to Hven to plague us. What towers of Babel will be raised this time?”
“Tycho is dead, Father. None comes to take his place. My mission is to inventory and sell off whatever remains of his instruments. As I say, this ought to gladden your heart. You will be happy to see the vestiges of Tycho leave Hven.”
“Happy indeed. Your sorcerer’s temple sits out there at the heart of the island, a knife in our breast.”
“And so, Father, you will order your driver to harness the oxen and cart us with our supplies out to Uraniborg.”
Maltar was silent, his huge body immobile, and I wondered if he had fallen asleep. The priest was at least eighty years old; when he did not seem to be breathing I