preoccupied as Tycho often was, I felt valuable in his house. It seemed impossible that he had not wanted me until ordered by the king to take me in. Ought I love him less for this? Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Love looks on tempests and is not shaken. Or is love truly so blind? And what of love when the beloved is unworthy of our worship?
If Tycho was not worthy of my respect and my love, if he had no loyalty to any but himself, then what did my loyalty to him mean? That great men serve unto themselves, and we lesser men serve the great only for our own reward? Is that all there is to it? Is that the sum of a man’s life? Servitude and gain without love or meaning? Is life so empty as that? Is such a life any better than death?
Night had fallen and I heard the wind blow through the ruin around me. Huddling near the stove I realized how hungry I was, not having eaten all day. The front of my skull buzzed and I could feel every tooth throb in my jaw, the way my head always ached when I had gone too long without food. I put more wood into the stove and tried to recall if there were any bread crusts or cuts of dried meat in the trunks Voltemont and Cornelius had left in the kitchen. Perhaps there was a last jar of wine.
The wind rose higher, shrieking through the cracked walls and broken ceilings. I heard and felt a tremendous crash in the rooms beneath me. I held my breath and waited for the wind to bring the building down. My father and I would both die within Brahe’s flawed temples to his own glory, I thought, suddenly angry. Glory, worship, and death: there was no point to it. In the cold and dark of Uraniborg’s ruin, the walls and floors creaking like a ship on rough seas, I could not imagine the pattern connecting my father with my master with the king and to myself. Who is a worthy man? What man is worthy to follow and what man to be followed, who to lead and who to be led, and for whom is mere death sufficient and for whom is vengeance not enough? I did not know. Who did I serve? Who was my enemy? Who did I advantage? My friends in Copenhagen? Myself?
All was still again as the wind dropped. I rushed out of the chamber and down the spiral stairs to the kitchens, in hopes of laying my hands on whatever food and drink remained. If the castle was to collapse on me, I would at least be drunk.
My mind wheeled on as I descended the stairs. What mattered it in the least if the king died by my hand? I was no great part of the machine of history. I was a flagstone over which history rolled, ignorant almost of my own existence. I was a little man, having done nothing of import my entire life. Was killing the king important? Did he signify to me at all, or to the ghost of Tycho? Once it had seemed an imperative, the only conclusion. The syllogisms had written themselves upon my brain in letters of fire:
According to Danish law, a legal order of execution is to be made publically. Brahe’s order of execution was not so made. Ergo, the order of execution was illegal.
Further, an illegal execution is a murder, and murder is punishable by death. The king hath committed a murder. Ergo, the king’s life was forfeit.
This had been my litany since I learned of how King Christian had hired Erik Brahe, an impoverished and debt-ridden cousin of my master, to ride out to Prague and poison Tycho with a tincture of mercury. This had been my religion, my prayer, my only law. But if Tycho Brahe was no better than the king and both men were no better than I, there was nothing to gain from revenge. Perhaps. I could not sum the figures. Christian or not Christian? Was that the question? I had thought this battle with myself won, but now I was unsure. We are all little men. The Earth doth move. None of us is center of the universe.
I came down into the kitchen and heard something moving in the dark. My hand went to my doublet, seeking Bernardo’s dagger.