The Astrologer Read Online Free PDF Page A

require tonight, and we will sup on whatever you have in your stores. The lion of Denmark needs no featherbed nor sweetmeats. The lion of Denmark is a warrior. There are no weaklings nor women in our war party.”
    The king looked beyond the captain, up the road to the castle.
    “Where is Sir Tristram?”
    “Abed, my lord, by order of the surgeon.”
    The king turned and bellowed up at the ship.
    “Someone unload my horse! By the rood, I shall ride into my fortress in a manner fit for the returning conqueror!”
    The king’s horse was a huge black beast, clad in armor plate and silks of red and white. A groom led him down the gangplank, followed by the Swiss guards’ horses. The king mounted his stallion and cantered off to the castle, the Swiss riding in formation behind him.
    Prince Christian and I walked down the gangplank with thegenerals and advisors. We stood about freezing and stamping our feet as the rest of the horses were unloaded. There were more men than horses, thus some of the lesser officers and I would have to walk to Kronberg. I helped Christian onto his mount and he promised to see to it that a warm room would be ready by the time I got to the castle. I smiled and bowed, doubting him, and he rode away with his father’s men.
    The remaining officers formed themselves into ranks and marched off toward the castle. I pulled my fur more tightly around my shoulders and began walking after them. Soon I lagged far behind. It was shrewishly cold and the sky burned an ugly red as the sun slipped toward the horizon. The castle was not so far from the docks, but the ground was icy and my boots were not the proper sort for tramping about out of doors. Near the guardhouse on the northern bank of the moat I thought to stop and warm myself by the brazier, where some men stood talking. When I was but a few yards from them, I recognized the voice of Knud Straslund, loud, oily, and insistent.
    Straslund was a year older than Prince Christian and had been known at court since childhood. He had a habit of turning up and making mischief, and he was not well regarded. Straslund’s father had tried to have him educated at the University of Copenhagen, but Knud had recently been dismissed. His grades were so poor that even the offer of doubled tuition would not outweigh the Rector’s displeasure. Now Straslund lounged at his father’s estate northwest of Elsinore, and he spent a great deal of time gambling, drabbing, drinking, and sometimes petitioning the king for a position in the government. I had no idea what Straslund’s business was at Kronberg. He appeared to be lecturing a captain of the guard on the subject of cosmology. Even at half a dozen paces, I could smell the Rhenish on his breath.
    “Listen to me, Helmuth,” Straslund said. “It is the joint consent of the Platonics, Peripatetics, and Stoics, and all the noted sects of philosophers who acknowledge the divine providence, with whom agree the greatest part of our mostlearned doctors of the church, that the heavens are moved by angels.”
    “Indeed, sir?” The soldier looked up at the overcast sky, squinting. Helmuth was a broad-shouldered man in a thick wool cloak thrown over armor plate, and he towered by a head over Straslund. “The heavens do not seem to move at all. The stars remain fixed, to my eye.”
    “With my apologies, sir, no soldier knows his cosmology,” Straslund said. “The angels abide with the heavenly bodies, and the stars themselves sing hymns to God.”
    “That seems most unlikely, sir.”
    “We cannot hear them, as we live in the sublunary sphere. On the Great Chain of Being, we are a great many links below the angels. Well, if you will not believe me, here is Soren. He knows a little about astronomy.”
    “A little?” I said. “You know right well I studied with the most brilliant of men. Tycho was your own cousin, Knud. Do not forget.”
    “Tycho was certainly industrious when it came to stargazing, I grant you that. I