out to me. I am pleased to see you here in the garden, sir. Do accept some herbs for your chambers. Lavender is a good scent to help one sleep.”
She placed the herbs in my hand and curtsied.
“I thank you, lady. This is a very pretty garden.”
“The queen and I have labored over it together this whole summer, though the queen does not allow me much freedom in pruning or weeding. But see you? There is basil and red mint, and germander and chamomile, and over here the lavender and roses, and there daisies and beyond are rosemary and thyme. Here, let me pick you some daisies. The queen says they grow like weeds and have not the most beautiful scent, but they are an honest flower of friendship.”
She stepped lightly away, slipping through a row of orderly plants. Even as a child Vibeke was all grace and ease, floating about the garden with no more weight than sunlight. She gathered a goodly collection of daisies and other blossoms and pushed them all into my arms.
“I shall look like a flower monger with this bushel,” I said. “Pray take some for yourself.”
“Indeed I shall not,” she laughed. “Methinks you look very sweet so laden with color! Here, sit we down a moment.”
We sat together on the stone bench, Vibeke taking back the flowers. She lay them in her lap to pick over the blossoms and groom the stems. She seemed most confident for so young a girl, though she had already taken up her habits of not looking directly at whomever she spoke to, of moving her head at sudden strange angles, as a little bird does when watching out for danger.
I imagine that Vibeke climbed atop Ulfeldt’s body when the oil caught, like a widow in the ancient Viking ritual. They say her singing turned to shrieks and the soldiers battered at the doors to no avail. The tapestries must have gone up in flame, and the altar cloth, and then the pews, hymnals, and pulpit and the wood panels on the walls. The noises I heard before the explosion were the upper floor collapsing and then the sound of the chapel’s own floor, tiled in pretty marble squares, splitting open to let the flaming corpses of Ulfeldt and Vibeke fall into the storerooms below the chapel, where the cannoneers’ supply of gunpowder was kept.
The castle could not be saved. An attempt was underway to form a brigade of men with buckets, to bring water from the moat to the castle. The Swiss had all mounted their horses and were forming up into ranks between the fortress and the battlements. They killed a few servants for no purpose while waiting for the rebel army they assumed was coming immediately down upon Kronberg. Bernardo, astride his magnificent black horse, predicted a gloriously bloody evening and was most disappointed later when no enemy descended to do battle against him and his men.
The castle could not be saved and was not under attack, but no man knew that yet. The king looked about for his yeoman, who did not come. He bellowed for men to assemble beside him and a few paused in the courtyard, unsure what to do.
“Where is my yeoman?” The king took hold of a Danish guard and repeated the question. “My yeoman, have you seen him?”
“Nay, Majesty,” the man answered.
“And what are you doing?”
“I am—I was—”
“Coward!” The king pushed the guard away. “Go! Go join the men with the buckets. I will find the enemy myself. Go!”
Confused soldiers and servants fled from the courtyard. The king looked around him and his eye fixed on me. I took a step backward.
“You, there,” he said. “You. Soren. Is it that brat, Gustavus’s son, come to fight me?”
“Gustavus? The boy? Perhaps, Majesty.”
“Excellent! What good news on my name day!” The king came to me and took me by the arm. His grip was like iron, like a bear trap. “Let the castle burn! I shall do battle today!”
The king smiled, his teeth flat and huge and ugly. I squirmed against his grip.
“Come with me,” he said, and dragged me into the burning fortress. The air thickened with smoke and I coughed, my eyes stinging.
“Majesty,” I said. “Should we rather not go from the castle?” It was dark within Kronberg. I could smell burning wood and everyone was either fighting the blaze or fleeing from it. King Christian and I were ignored as we hurried along the corridor.