Sky's Dark Labyrinth (21 page)

Then Kepler saw it.

Scoto's booth, toppled but intact. He clambered over the cadavers and crawled inside the wooden shelter. Inside, he curled into a foetal position, closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his ears.

He had no idea how much time had elapsed. All he knew as he emerged from the shelter was that the worst sounds of the battle had gone and his quaking had subsided. There were still noises coming from the north, in what could be the Jewish quarter, but that was far enough away not to be an immediate threat.

The dead lay everywhere. The hot smell of blood and guts and emptied bowels fouled the summer air. Already, a few old women and children were picking over the corpses for rings and other valuables. One old woman looked up defiantly as Kepler drew near. Heaving erupted inside him. He bent over to vomit. He retched time and time again until his stomach was completely empty.

Tearfully he straightened up and took a few faltering steps. The old woman regarded him with disdain; she reminded him so much of his mother that he almost addressed her as such. He opened his mouth before realising the absurdity of it. Katharina would be safe, at home in Leonberg. Ignoring the hag's sneer, he stumbled away.

That's when his crying truly started: huge sobs of grief for those slain today, and those slain yesterday, and for those whose time would be forced upon them tomorrow. All of it sparked by Rudolph's
ineptitude
in government. The blubbery fool spent his days hiding in the Kunstkammer, weeping over the beauty of some painting one moment and then issuing murderous orders to look good to the Pope the next.

Kepler had seen the Jesuits at court, gliding through the corridors with their stern expressions masking whatever dark mischief they were there to orchestrate. They would march in on Rudolph, who seemed powerless before them, swaying like a sapling in the breeze in his desperate attempt to cling on to power.

All of the Emperor's previous treaties became as easy to break as one of Susanna's daisy chains, and, as a result, a Bavarian army was rampaging through his city, slaughtering his people. Despite Rudolph's education, wealth and upbringing, Kepler had never known a more
ignorant man. He doubted Rudolph even knew what was happening outside. Even if he did, it would mean nothing to him. He would claim it was the work of God, cleansing the land of heretics. God! This was nothing to do with God. This was all too human power play for Earthly authority. God must surely find this bloody spectacle repellent.  

When would people be free to live their lives, worship God in their chosen way, and no longer fear the onslaught of some foreign army? Kepler angrily rubbed his eyes to clear his vision.
Maybe never
, he thought,
maybe never
.

There were a dozen or so bodies in Karlova Street, ordinary citizens trampled by the horses. At first glance, none of them looked familiar. Then Kepler saw, face down in the gutter, the broken body of the man who used to sharpen knives.

Kepler reached home. Thankfully there were no broken windows or signs of fighting. He found the front door locked firmly. The back door was also apparently secure, but an experimental push produced
movement
and the scrape of a heavy piece of furniture. He shoved harder and forced the door open far enough to squeeze through. Frau Bezold must have shoved the kitchen table against it.

There was a pail of water on the floor. Kepler plunged his hands into it and splashed his face, needing the sting of the cold water to prove that he was still alive. The more he repeated the action, the dirtier the water became, stained by the dirt and gore that had clung to his hands.

A whisper of movement made Kepler turn. Frau Bezold was inching her way into the kitchen, shoulders hunched, holding the family carving knife. She was squinting so tightly, her eyes were practically closed.

‘It's me,' said Kepler.

She relaxed, dropping the knife. ‘It's the Master,' she shouted.

‘Come and sit down,' said Kepler.

She was shaking as he guided her gently towards a chair.

Susanna came scurrying down the stairs to meet him near the kitchen door. ‘Papa, hurry. It's Friedrich.' She grabbed his hand and pulled him urgently up the stairs.

Barbara was sitting on Friedrich's bed, holding him in her arms. She was clutching him so fiercely the boy looked in danger of suffocating.

‘What's wrong with him, Barbara? Barbara?'

She rocked back and forth, oblivious to Kepler's presence. A terrible thought occurred to Kepler. One of dark forces manipulating Barbara to spread their malignancy.

‘Let go of him, Barbara.'

She favoured him with an evil stare, increasing his resolve.

‘Let go of him. We must let him breathe.'

Kepler prised Friedrich from her arms.

‘It's like the last time … when we lost Heinrich,' said Barbara.

‘No, Barbara. Heinrich was a baby. Friedrich is strong and healthy.'

Barbara returned to her rocking motion at the bedside as Kepler stripped the boy of his outer clothing. He checked Friedrich's hands and feet for the marks of the Hungarian plague. Thank God, there were no such blemishes but there was an angry rash across the boy's torso. He was anxious to move Barbara away.

‘We can leave Friedrich to sleep now. Frau Bezold will look after him.'

Barbara shook her head. ‘I'm not leaving him.'

Kepler began to protest when Susanna distracted him. She was standing next to the doorframe, her face flushed. ‘Papa, I don't feel very well, either.' He rushed to her and conducted a similar
examination
. She too, had a rash.

By midnight, Friedrich's rash had transformed into a multitude of spots.

‘Don't scratch, you'll make it worse.' Kepler eased the boy's arm away from his face.

Frau Bezold found a tincture of camomile and some clean cloths. Together, she and Kepler dabbed at the children. In the third bed, Ludwig too was showing signs of the illness.

Barbara had not been taken by a seizure all afternoon or evening. That single fact alone was all that comforted Kepler. She slept now in the chair by the side of the children, her head lolling.

During the night, Kepler prowled the house, watching from the windows. Every shout from outside seemed amplified, every distant fusillade a threat. He traced the glow of outlying fires, orange as the sunset, above the surrounding rooflines. Incandescent cinders wafted into the air and Kepler fancied that each was a human soul beginning its flight to Heaven.

Frau Bezold catnapped in a chair outside the children's room.

‘How are they?' he asked during one pass.

‘Settled now. What's wrong with them?'

Kepler looked down at his own scarred hands.

‘Smallpox.'

By dawn, the city felt calm. Head pounding and limbs heavy, Kepler stepped into the street. Black birds circled in the sky. Dogs loped by, noses down. Most of the bodies still lay where they had fallen.

Unwilling to see the market square again, he cut down an alleyway and emerged in a neighbouring street where the crows were busying themselves on the human carrion. He chased the birds into the sky, hollering at the top of his voice.

Somewhere across the city a bell began an empty toll.

Kepler arrived at the Jewish quarter. Many of the houses lay in confusions of blackened beams and blistered timber; some still
smouldered
. Everywhere were twisted bodies, as charred as the homes they had once occupied.

A small girl wandered into view, obviously searching for someone. Kepler knew better than to approach her. Already men were gathering in the few remaining doorways to cross their arms and glare at him. He risked a tentative step towards one of the householders. ‘Who did this to you?'

‘Your kind.'

‘You mean the mercenaries?'

‘No, the irregulars. The mercenaries ran. The Protestants couldn't keep up so they did this.'

Kepler stared again at the devastation and tried to match it with the words he was hearing. The Protestants were defending the city; they were not here to sack the Jews. Yet as he was shaking his head in
disbelief
, he remembered the confusion in the market square, the inhuman things he had seen there. He could hear it again, smell it again – the horror of the bloodlust. Tremors of betrayal rippled through him.
How could they have done this to innocent people?

‘You must be mistaken,' he pleaded.

The man took a purposeful step towards him. ‘No mistake. And many here want revenge.'

Kepler turned and fled, screaming his rage into the streets.
What was one more cry of anguish in a city that had echoed to so many just a day before?
He passed the university, his original destination, and headed straight for the bridge, his sights now set on Rudolph's palace.

Nervous soldiers guarded the entrance. A captain recognised Kepler and waved him onwards. As the gates opened, Kepler saw Tengnagel astride a skittish horse, waiting to leave. Tycho's son-in-law noticed Kepler too but did not acknowledge him. He spurred his steed and galloped out into the sunlight, head high, followed by a small mounted entourage who struggled to keep up.

Inside the Palace was a cacophony of arguing officials. Nothing could be decided in this commotion, and Kepler wanted to scream at all of them. When he finally found von Wackenfels, he saw that the Privy Councillor was on the verge of tears. His blond hair stood on end in greasy stubs. The skin under his eyes was shadowed and there were ink stains on his fingers.

‘Johannes, thank the Lord you are here. The Emperor is asking for you. I was about to send a carriage. Come this way, we can reach him faster if we use the lower corridors.'

Von Wackenfels led him away from the hubbub and down a narrow staircase, almost concealed behind a stone pillar. There was no daylight in the lower passage. It relied on illumination spilling out from the various chambers that hung like ribs from its backbone.

There was a chemical tang in the air. As they hurried by an open chamber, Kepler could not help but stare.

Inside, smoking trays were suspended over candles. Towards the back of the room an alchemical furnace roared. In the hellish heat a man was on his bended knees, praying in front of a tabernacle. His long white beard was waxed to a point and he wore clothes that resembled a priest's. However, instead of hands clasped in Christian prayer, he held his arms in a wide beseeching gesture as he dipped his forehead to the floor.

‘Magic?' asked Kepler despairingly.

‘The application of philosophy. What good is knowledge if we cannot tap into it and use it?'

‘You cannot believe that we can summon spirits?'

‘Why not? The priests summon spirits.'

‘No, they don't …'

‘I believe what His Majesty believes.' There was a flash of temper in von Wackenfels's voice. His face quickly softened but remained drawn. ‘That's my job.'

They found Rudolph in one of the nearby chambers, huddled on the floor. Drawn in chalk around him was a circular band, divided into twelve. Within each section was a scrawled symbol of the zodiac. Beside Rudolph was a tapered spike, some three feet long and
fashioned
out of some flaking mineral. In his hands, Rudolph caressed a golden cup.

Von Wackenfels put his arm across Kepler's chest. ‘Do not approach too closely. You must not enter the magic circle.'

‘What's he got in there?' Kepler whispered.

‘His two most precious possessions: a unicorn's horn and the cup of Christ.'

Kepler's anger threatened to burst from him. He wanted to storm into the circle and grab the Emperor, drag him down into the streets and throw him onto the pile of bodies. That way, perhaps he would understand.

‘Your Majesty, Johannes Kepler is here,' said von Wackenfels.

Rudolph began his usual mumblings. As the litany continued, all Kepler could make out was the word ‘horoscope'.

‘I will not give you a reading,' he said.

More incoherence, out of which curled, ‘… do as I ask. I must know how this silly skirmish will end.'

‘
Silly skirmish?
Your citizens are being slaughtered. The blood lust runs through both sides.'

‘What can I do? What can I do? I must know. You must tell me.'

Von Wackenfels stepped forward. ‘The estates have called for Matthias's help. His troops are marching towards the city as we speak. They are well disciplined and a force to be reckoned with. Tengnagel has gone as an envoy for His Majesty. Please, Johannes, how will this end?'

‘I don't need to draw star charts to tell you this. Pay the mercenaries to leave the city. Once they have gone …'

‘Pay them! Pay them!' Rudolph tottered on the edge of the chalk marks. ‘For looting my city? Pay them, you say?'

Kepler's heart beat faster. ‘Your Majesty, they're here to claim their money. The only way to be rid of them is to honour your agreement to pay them. Once they have gone, you will have removed the need for your brother's intervention, and he will stop his advance.'

Rudolph started giggling. Soon, his mirth consumed him so utterly that he lost his footing and dropped to the floor. Even this did not halt his amusement. Von Wackenfels squirmed at the display, and Kepler realised that whatever rationality had once resided in Emperor Rudolph was now gone for ever.

Sunlight bathed Galileo's rooftop terrace. He basked in the warmth and the faint smell of citrus from the lemon trees as he pumped his foot up and down on the lathe's pedal. The spinning wheel kept a steady rhythm and the clicking cogs added their own syncopation. He dipped the stumpy polishing tool into the finest of his grinding powders and held it to the glinting lens fixed to the spinning wooden armature.

From up here, Galileo could keep one eye on his task and the other on the narrow road that ran alongside his property. Although he was cloistered in a quiet part of the city, the occasional activity near his villa helped to combat the laborious nature of the lens polishing.

If he lifted his eyes further he could see the tall cypress trees that punctuated the terracotta wash of the city's buildings.

‘Signor?'

Galileo took his foot off the pedal and dropped his gaze to the street. A rotund monk with an equally rotund face was looking up, his hands raised to shadow his eyes. Galileo smiled. ‘Well, well. Brother Benedetto Castelli. Don't tell me they've thrown you out of my old job already?'

‘This is no time for jokes, Master,' panted Castelli. ‘I have an urgent matter to discuss with you.'

‘Not run out of food in Padua, have they?'

‘It's about Copernicus.'

The smile faded from Galileo's face. ‘I'll come and let you in.' He pulled off his leather apron and went down the twisting staircase to the garden gate.

Castelli was much younger than he appeared from a distance. He had dark eyes that shone as brightly as one of Galileo's lenses. His eyebrows and moustache were as brown as a forest bear although his hair was receding, rendering a tonsure superfluous. His large fleshy ears glowed red and beads of sweat clung to his forehead.

‘Come in, before you fry in all your fat. Lemonade?'

‘Anything to quench my thirst. How are the girls?'

‘Settled in at San Matteo now, just down the road. Still too young to take the veil, of course, but that gives me some time to find them suitors.'

Castelli wiped his brow. ‘How goes the search?'

‘I'm run off my feet making telescopes. I haven't even given it a thought. It's cruel that Virginia was born a woman, she's so quick and curious about my work she would have made a formidable
philosopher
.' Galileo ushered Castelli inside. The sitting room was adorned with half-made telescopes and lenses. They navigated the open pots of glue and other obstacles, and headed for the kitchen.

‘You didn't tell me that the faculty at Padua were so fanatical in their dislike of Copernicus.'

‘No more than anywhere else,' said Galileo.

‘I was warned by the overseer never to teach or to mention the movement of the Earth. The subject is forbidden.'

‘Did you run all the way up the hill just to tell me this?' Galileo began clearing a space on a chair.

‘No,' said Castelli.

There was a clatter. Galileo turned to see that the tubby monk had bumbled into a low table, tipping candles and quills across the floor. Stepping back, Castelli then sent flying a pile of papers covered in calculations.

‘If I'd known you were coming, I'd have cleared out the furniture.' At least having Castelli around made Galileo feel graceful again.

‘You should make your housekeeper tidy up,' said Castelli.

‘I don't have one. She kept tidying up. Couldn't find a thing.'

‘So who makes the lemonade?'

‘Not that it is any of your concern, but Virginia. She is proving a godsend for my laundry too. She takes it from me when I visit and has it all washed and pressed a week later. Now, what have you come to talk to me about?'

Castelli picked up a messy sheaf of embossed leather and carefully lowered himself onto the chair beneath. ‘Opposition is growing to the Copernican way of thinking.'

‘Is that it? Just give it time. The more telescopes I build, the more people will see the truth.'

‘No, you don't understand. It's not about disbelieving what you see through the telescope any more; it's about disbelieving that the Earth moves. Some are saying that it is reckless talk and goes against the Bible.'

‘What fools are they? Tell me names and I shall make a mockery of them.'

Castelli screwed his face up at Galileo's words. ‘No, sir. It's not a man; it's a woman.'

‘Ha! Even easier.'

‘Galileo! It's Madama Cristina.'

‘The Grand Duchess? I don't believe it. Who have you been talking to?'

‘The Grand Duchess herself.'

Galileo froze. ‘Tell me exactly what happened.'

‘I was dining with the Medicis in Pisa two days ago. I was regaling them with talk of the telescope and the movement of the Medici stars. The Grand Duke showed himself to be much pleased with everything I had to say, but Madama Cristina asked how I could be certain that the stars were real and not illusions of the telescope. I described to her the orderly movement, and the Grand Duke agreed with me that there could be no doubting their reality. But when I was leaving, a porter came running after me and called me back. Before I go on, I should tell you that Cosimo Boscaglia was there.' Castelli looked almost apologetic.

Galileo groaned at the mention of the aged philosopher.

‘He was sitting next to the Grand Duchess and had her ear for long periods during the meal. He agreed there was no doubting the validity of your discoveries but he was clear in his opinion that the motion of the Earth was another matter. He said that it had in it something of the incredible, especially because the Scripture presents a contrary view. Madama Cristina quoted Psalm 103.'

‘O Lord my God, et cetera, et cetera, thou fixed the Earth upon its foundation, not to be moved for ever,' said Galileo.

‘And the book of Joshua in which the Sun is commanded to stand still for a whole day in the middle of the sky. I had to turn myself into a theologian and argue against such obvious interpretations. The younger members of the family came to my assistance, but nothing would sway the Duchess.'

‘And Boscaglia?'

‘He said nothing more, just looked pleased with himself.' Castelli took a deep gulp of his drink. ‘Can we really be spreading heresy?'

‘Don't be absurd. Both Holy Scripture and nature are emanations from the divine. In the case of the former, it was dictated by the Holy Spirit. In the latter, it was emplaced for us to see. The two cannot be at variance.'

‘But, as much as I believe that, I can still see the contradictions.'

‘Remember this: while the Scripture cannot be in error, those who expound its meaning are only human. They can err, especially when they base themselves on simplistic literal meanings. Let's find the exact passage and put our minds at rest.'

Galileo picked his way to the bookcases lining the walls. He pulled a well-thumbed copy of the Bible from the shelf and flicked through it, arriving quickly at the book of Joshua. He scanned the pages.

‘Remember, the Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how Heaven goes. Here it is: “the Sun halted in the middle of the sky”.' He looked at Castelli. ‘Seems to me that this is exactly where Copernicus tells us the Sun is to be found: in the middle of everything. I would say that the Copernican system makes more sense of this passage than Aristotle's system.'

Castelli looked troubled. ‘I wish I had the confidence of your delivery. How I would love to explain this to the Grand Duchess.'

‘Then I will detail these arguments in a letter that you will take back to Pisa. Show it to the Grand Duchess – and anyone else who asks. The time for doubts is over. I will demonstrate once and for all that Copernicus is not in conflict with the Bible.'

Castelli's face lifted. ‘If it will help spread the true word of God, I will copy it a hundred times and send it to all corners of Christendom.'