and the wreckage of one of the lesser towers filled a third of the room. There was debris strewn everywhere, and even with the weak moonlight through the open window, the chamber was very dark. I could not see the intruder from my place at the door.
“Stand and show yourself,” Cornelius said. “If you make us hunt for you, it shall be with the points of our swords that we find you. Show yourself!”
There was no answer. Voltemont took a step toward the darkest corner of the room.
“I am in no mood for this game, vile spirit! I shall come back with a flaming torch and burn you out.”
The intruder had been crouched behind a great chunk of plaster and lath that had fallen away from the wall near where Cornelius stood. When the figure rose from his hiding place and stepped before the window, he seemed to loom over the room, tall and ghastly, his hands raised at his sides. The moonlight shone briefly upon the intruder’s cuirass and for a moment it seemed that Tycho had come from his grave to haunt us. Cornelius, Voltemont, and I were the intruders here; we did not belong and we knew it. This specter would drive us into the freezing night and we would run all the way to the village to beg Father Maltar’s mercy.
Voltemont and Cornelius stepped back from the threatening shadow and I thought briefly to run downstairs to the safety of the kitchen. Instead I found my voice, and even though I shook with equal parts fright and cold, I addressed the ghost.
“Be thou blessed spirit or goblin damned, you will speak! Answer me! What art thou, that walks the night in hideous form? Speak!”
“Soren?”
“Who’s there?”
“Friend to this ground, dear Soren.”
“My lord Christian?”
“Indeed, or I do forget myself.”
I went into the room, past Cornelius and Voltemont, and the figure took my hands. He turned his face into the moonlight and I saw that our ghost was the prince, dressed for battle, alive and as miserably cold as his terrified servants.
“My lord, what do you here?”
“Why, I come to assist in your work, Soren.”
“I do not work in the dead of night, my lord.”
“Indeed? I had thought the better part of astronomy was done at these hours. I have been given a mistaken idea of your profession, then. You do confuse your poor prince.”
Cornelius sheathed his sword and came to the window. He touched the prince’s breastplate as if he expected his hand to pass through Christian’s form.
“I am real, good soldier.”
“You did put Voltemont to fright, my lord.”
“Never,” Voltemont said, putting away his sword. “I pursued my lord bravely with every intent to strike him down, be he ghost or hell beast.”
“You have done excellent well, my friends.” Christian clapped Cornelius on the shoulder. “But are we not all very cold? I was gathering wood and thought to clear the fireplace in this chamber, but I think perhaps there are better accommodations below?”
“My lord, come down to the kitchen,” Cornelius said. “We have a fire and a spot to bed down that offers far more comfort than this ruined place.”
“Let us proceed downstairs,” the prince said.
Voltemont went first and continued out to the yard to tend to his bladder. Cornelius built up the fire in the oven and Christian sat beside me, warming his hands and feet by the hearth.
“How long have you hid upstairs?” I asked him.
“Hid? Nay, I did not hide.” Christian turned his face away and spoke to the shadows. “I thought you lodged in Tuna and I could find no door here that opened. I scaled the fallen tower at the west face of the villa where the building has collapsed, and climbed in through the breach in the wall. My hope was to greet you in the morning.”
“I see.” I did not see. “And why is my lord climbing into Uraniborg’s bed chambers at midnight? Wherefore are you on Hven?”
“To renew our friendship, good Soren!” Christian smiled and placed his hand on mine. “The years pass and threaten to open a gulf between us that goes unbridged. I will not have that.”
I shook my head, bemused by this nonsense.
“It is late, my lord. Let us wrap ourselves in our cloaks, and on the morrow you may be pleased to inform me how you come to Hven at midnight when you were last seen with your father’s army.”
“Ah, therein lies a tale, my friend. And tomorrow you shall hear it. You will be