‘So would I have done, by yonder sun, if thou hadst not come to my bed.’”
“Oh, Lady Vibeke,” the priest said. “Why do you speak such low verse in this sacred place? You should rest, my lady.”
“To bed?” she answered. “I have been taken there often, sir. But you are wearing blue again.”
The priest, dressed all in black, looked down at his cassock in confusion.
“It well matches your eyes, Father. Pray you do not wear it tonight. My father always favored green. I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him in the cold ground. We shall not allow it. And so thank you—and you as well, Soren—for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet ladies. Good night, good night.”
Vibeke laid her armload of dead things on the table at her father’s feet, kissed the alarmed priest on the cheek, and ran out of the chapel. Her singing faded as she hurried down the hall. The priest looked over at me, his hands clasped before him.
“Give her good watch,” he said. “I pray you.”
{ Chapter Twenty-One }
FRANCISCO THE BEAR
I WAS FOND OF VIBEKE, BUT I DID NOT FOLLOW HER FROM the chapel. There would be time to look in on her after a while and I made my way first to the northwest tower and climbed the stairs. No real business took me there, only a wish to be alone a moment to clear my head, and perhaps I had a desire to look down over Elsinore in the light of day. My father’s house, I reckoned, should be visible from the parapet. I was nearly at the top of the stairs when I heard my name called from below, down the stairwell. It was Fritz Torstensson. I waited for him to overtake me and together we stepped out onto the cold platform atop the tower.
“You have survived your visit to the island,” he said.
“Barely. I did not think my bones would ever thaw upon my return.”
“The winter is newly upon us, and still gentle. It will be very hard after the new year.”
“I doubt it nothing, Fritz. Have you seen the king today?”
“Christian holds court in the armory, and grants boons to his favorites. He is in fine fettle, dressed in new clothes and already in his cups. This celebration promises to become quite a spectacle. The queen has brought tumblers, jongleurs, and a band from Copenhagen to amuse the guests. I hear that very soon in the courtyard there will be a performance by a bear.”
“A bear?”
“Imported from Finland at great cost. He will stand on his hind legs and roar at the crowd to frighten the women, no doubt. We ought to find a place in the yard to witness it.”
“I am not come to laugh at women who tremble before a trained bear.”
“Nonsense. It will be amusing.”
I looked to the west, across the moat and over the field to the town. I knew the grid of streets well, but somehow I could not find the house where I had been a boy. Surely it was just a trick of perspective, or that all the roofs of a town look alike, but it was as if the house had sunk into the ground.
“Have you seen the prince?” I said.
“Nay. Certes he will be at the banquet.”
“I am worried over him. He becomes daily more like his father.”
Torstensson fussed with his gloves, distracted.
“Well,” he said. “When his father is no longer here to influence him, he will be a reasonable man, do you not agree?”
“Possibly”
“It does not matter.” Torstensson left off adjusting his gloves and looked at me. “As long as we are revenged.”
“At Hven I had opportunity to sift the prince’s mind regarding the future. I am not sanguine about Christian’s bent toward the philosophies.”
Torstensson leaned over the side of the parapet and carefully spat before he answered.
“Life to you concerns nothing but your sciences and philosophies, but it is not so with most men. You have friends in this deadly enterprise, but we are driven by familial loyalty and our allegiance to the old ways of reciprocal fealty. A king cannot be allowed to murder men of the noble class, men with uncles and fathers in the Privy Council. There are limits even to the power of kings, and we enforce those limits. That is our aim, not the advancement of philosophy.”
“You know I am here because of who Tycho was as a man, not out of regard for