cosmic globe, to the immense armillaries buried under the snow in Stjerneborg. Perhaps Tycho was not a great man in some respects, but he had been an unquestionable genius in the art of empirical astronomy. No other man could have imagined Tycho’s great machines. No other man could have pushed astronomy from a theoretical science to a science built upon the foundation of countless measurements of the night sky. Tycho was the sort of genius I had aspired to be. Tycho was the mark at which I aimed and failed to hit, forever.
Even while I labored and studied in Tycho’s library, even while I sat in the great man’s shadow and listened with rapt attention to his lectures on the heavens, I knew that no matter how much I put my mind to learning the things he knew, I would ever fall far short of Tycho’s brilliance. I am intelligent enough that I recognize a gifted, exceptional man when I meet him, but I do not myself have that exceptional spark. I lack whatever capacity for genius is given to men like Copernicus and Tycho and even to that little weasel Kepler. No, it is not for me to ride in the vanguard of the intellectual elite. It is for me to scrabble beneath the tables of the elect and feed upon scraps of their philosophy that I can only half digest. This is who I am. Ecce Soren.
I looked over at Christian, asleep on his pallet under his fine fur cape. Maybe he was dreaming of his future coronation. Christian was also a man of lacking, a man ill-suited for the path he desired above all others, yet by an accident of birth he would be the next king of Denmark. It mattered not at all how unworthy he was for that lofty estate. It occurred to me that I could bash his brains out with the astrolabe I held.
Christian, sleeping in the corner of a ruined house, was no leader of men. It was God’s will that he be born crown prince, and even if Christian had humiliated himself before all Denmark, it would make no difference, for his destiny was already written. Christian would be king after his father. What was the worth of my own paltry mind? I was no genius. Desire to be a greater man is not enough. Perhaps I could influence Christian’s rule if he would listen to me, and we two, inadequate as we were, might push the kingdom toward an enlightened age.
The prince sat up, crying out. His right hand grasped at the air before him.
“Father!”
“My lord,” I said, going to him. “What is the matter?”
“Oh, Soren.” He pulled me down onto the pallet with him and touched my face as if he did not believe I was real. “I had a dream. Most horrible, I tell you.”
“Will you tell me your dream?”
Christian hesitated and then turned away.
“It is but a foolish spirit who visits my sleep, no more. I did not mean to alarm you.”
“I am concerned for my lord.”
“You are a good man,” he said, and pushed me away. “How long did I sleep?”
“An hour, or less.”
“Well.” Christian rubbed his hands over his arms and adjusted his fur cap. “It is not so late, then. I have no wish to sleep again immediately.”
“Do you desire to talk, my lord?”
“No. No, I do not. Let us go investigate Brahe’s library.”
“The sun has gone down and the library will be dark. I know not what there will be to see.”
“Are you afraid of a dark room, Soren?”
“No, my lord, but I am afraid of the ceiling falling in a dark room. This castle is unsafe.”
“It will be a brave adventure,” Christian said. “Come, let us go down to the great hall.”
I did not point out that the adventures Christian had led me on that day had all ended unhappily. The wisest course was to confront the prince about the murder of Ulfeldt, to sift him for aught he knew of Vibeke and the king, and to find why he thought it needful to pretend he had drowned. His earlier answer told me nothing, and surely he did not wish to punish his mother with false reports of his death. It would have been better to sort through this tangle with Christian, make him explain himself and think of how he would answer the questions he would face at Kronberg, but I was tired of thinking on difficult subjects. There would be