time for these discussions later. For now, Christian wished to amuse himself in Tycho’s empty library, and so I followed him down the spiral stairs, out to the yard, through the door to the great hall, and then into the library. A tall bookshelf had fallen against the door from within and had prevented our entrance earlier. Christian explained how he had worked the door back and forth an inch at a time, opening and closing it by degrees for hours until the shelf shifted and toppled a little away from the door, making the noise that had so alarmed me. A gap a foot wide now let us squeeze into the room.
Tycho’s library had been a fine place, with desks and chairs along two walls, a fireplace in another wall, with high windows in the wall opposite. Walnut bookshelves stood in ranks down the middle of the room, rising to the ceiling. The peasants would have used these priceless cabinets for firewood had they known of them. Part of the ceiling had collapsed; it was the falling plaster and wood that had knocked one of the bookshelves over, blocking the door.
The noise of our boots on the rubble echoed in the dark. When I lived at Uraniborg there were thousands of books on the shelves, all of them Tycho’s personal property, which he let any of us read as long as the books did not leave the library. One of my saddest days had been spent helping Tycho pack the books into crates to be taken away. Every volume put into a box had seemed a wound on Tycho’s heart, a dead child lowered into a coffin.
Christian ran his hand along the wall by the door.
“This is fine paneling,” he said. “Brahe spared no amount of my father’s gold to build this room.”
“I was ever happy in the library,” I said.
“It is no library now.”
“No. It is more a plague house emptied of the dead.”
“Very poetical. The people of Hven will say this is a dead house emptied of the plague.”
I passed down one of the aisles between the rows of shelves. Plaster crunched underfoot and I thought perhaps I heard something small scuttle away from me. I heard Christian walking down another row of shelves to my right.
“Sometimes in my dreams,” he said, “Denmark is a great maze, and I am alone in it.”
“You have many friends,” I answered. “Prince Christian need never think himself alone.”
I came to the end of the row of shelves and stepped around, peering into the dark of the next row. It was not possible to see where Christian was. Trailing my fingers along the empty shelves, I walked down the aisle, expecting to encounter the prince. When he spoke I was surprised that he was now on the other side of me. He must have circled around several rows of shelves.
“The lord of Denmark is ever solitary,” he said. “On the last day, every man is alone.”
“It is not the last day.” My own voice sounded distant in that emptied room and I could not recall how far apart the walls or bookshelves were. It was dark, nearly pitch black. I stumbled into a cabinet and even as I held onto it I felt as if I were still falling into some vertiginous, lightless pit.
“Where are you, my lord?”
“Behind you.”
I spun about and groped at the dark with both hands. There was no one there.
“My uncle reports that Gustavus’s little son is raising an army in Jutland,” Christian said. “The Swiss told me so this morning.”
“Do you believe them?” I took a few careful, slow steps along the aisle. I could hear Christian’s boots on the tiles, but the footfalls seemed to sound from two directions.
“The Swiss are not trustworthy, but they do love their battles and talk of war. I think this news is true.”
“More bloodshed, then?” At the end of the row I looked to my left and saw only an old desk, its drawers missing. I walked to my right.
“The Swiss think so. There will be bloodshed, aye.”
“As long as Denmark looks backward, my lord, there will be bloodshed.”
“Backward? As long as Denmark is awake, there will be bloodshed no matter in what direction she looks. Save Paradise for eternity. You should be a priest, not a writer of philosophical treatises. What would you have of us? We are Danes.”
“We need not be so bloodthirsty a people, my lord. Denmark could put her mind to arts other than war.