Sky's Dark Labyrinth (8 page)

It was one of Barbara's favourite games: to unpack another trunk of possessions and lament how good their life had been in Graz. Kepler hated and avoided it whenever possible. If it were daytime, Regina would be the target, although she soaked up her mother's stories about the paradise they had left behind. But tonight there was no one else, save Frau Bezold, the old housekeeper.

How long would that pairing last before one of them raised their voice at the other? Ten minutes? Five? Kepler found that, for once, he would actually prefer to play the nostalgia game himself.

Barbara was pulling out a stack of pewter plates and piling them on the table.

‘I've missed these,' she said.

‘We have new plates.'

‘Yes, but these remind me of our suppers in Graz. Do you remember when Ole knocked over his wine and stood up so fast that he turned over his dinner?'

‘I remember the mess.'

‘And the Bimeks were there, too. I wonder if his dancing has improved?'

Kepler hated this game especially, because most of the people she talked about had once been Protestants, mostly Lutheran. One by one, they had all bowed to the pressure from the Archduke and converted, just so they could remain in Graz to live out their puny mortal
existence
. Inside Kepler a single word was carved across his memory of each of them: traitor. He was glad to have left them behind.

The Keplers had moved into their own home in Prague in the spring. Hoffman had sheltered them for the duration of Kepler's illness, including the darkest days in November, when everyone had been convinced that the astronomer was dying. His decline had been
hastened by the letter from Mästlin. It had arrived soon after Kepler's return from Benátky Castle.

‘We're saved!' Kepler had cried as he pulled open the letter in Hoffman's grand hallway, bringing Barbara and the Baron running to join the celebration.

However, at the sight of the words, Kepler dropped the letter and reached for a nearby chair. Hoffman called for some beer to revive him as Barbara dived for the fluttering sheet. She read it with tears in her eyes.

I can offer you nothing but prayers. If only you had sought the advice of men wiser and more experienced in politics than I. I am, I confess, as inexperienced in such matters as a child
.

‘We are finished,' Kepler had whispered, feeling the strength slip from his body. Yet, somehow, his soul had remained intact. Hoffman had sent his staff skidding along the frosty cobbles into the markets earlier and earlier each week, to buy the dwindling winter supplies of Guinea spice and ginger that Kepler's fever required. Barbara fed her husband the specially prepared soups in the hope that they would purge his body. His nightly voiding of putrescence convinced them all of the treatment's efficacy and, as he shivered uncontrollably in the wake of these violent bouts, bedroom windows wide to remove the stench, so Barbara kneeled by his bed and prayed. Eventually,
coinciding
with the arrival of the first lily of the valley in the nearby forests, Mercury took hold of the reins and Kepler's strength slowly recovered.

Their new house was modest, admittedly. Situated on busy Karlova Street, it consisted of just two small storeys and a pair of garret rooms, but it was made of stone. No more creaking like the house in Graz every time the wind howled. Sometimes, it could be utterly silent. So silent that in the darkest reaches of the night, only the touch of the blanket convinced Kepler that he was still alive.

In the daytime, the street was livelier, with traders and passers-by. Just outside the front door, the rushing of the Vltava was within earshot. Kepler regularly marvelled at the volume of water that passed the city, especially during the spring when it carried the inland snowmelt on its way. Then, he would lift his gaze to the Imperial Palace, high on the hill beyond the river. From this distance, the people up there looked like ants, or another river flowing around a magnificent island.
What
greatness
went on at court?

Opposite their house was another building that Kepler admired. Despite it being home to the Jesuits in Prague, he appreciated the curved walls of the Church of St Clement. They were swept into a perfect ellipse, truly harmonious to the eye. Wherever you went in the city, however, it was never long before you saw one of the wide-brimmed Jesuit hats bobbing through the crowd, or heard the swish of their black robes.

Once established, the Keplers sent to Graz for their possessions, and, a fortnight later, two muddy wagons arrived, drawing a crowd of onlookers.

Now that the unpacking was almost complete, the house felt as if it had been invaded. Kepler drifted within this curious world of familiar, yet unnecessary, possessions, unable to shake the feeling that his former life had caught up with him. What he had planned to be a grand new beginning had returned to the smallness of before.

Kepler looked up from his desk to see the hunched figure of Frau Bezold entering his study.

‘Herr Ulmer and his son are here,' said the housekeeper.

Kepler's shoulders sagged. He shuffled to the front room carrying parchment, a quill and an inkwell.

Ulmer stood as he entered. The visitor wore an ostentatious collar that reached halfway down his chest, covering some of the food stains on his jerkin. His son raised his head only far enough to look at those around him through his eyelashes, and he fidgeted with embarrassment.

Barbara was fussing over them. ‘What a handsome young man he is,' she said to the father, igniting the boy's face and setting his cheeks into involuntary movement.

Ulmer ignored her when Kepler appeared. ‘What I need to know, Herr Stargazer, is the direction of my son's life; his destiny, so to speak. What manner of fortune and nobility lies in his path?'

Kepler's heart sank. He needed no star charts to tell this future. He wondered how on Earth the father could think such a timid boy was destined for any greatness at all.

‘Horoscopic prognostications are not guarantees.' Kepler pretended not to see the warning look on Barbara's face. ‘All I can tell is when there will be favourable celestial aspects; what the individual does during those times is up to him.'

‘There are others in the city who claim to be able to predict exact events, down to the very day. Cheaper, too.'

‘Fraudsters! They can do none of those things. No one can.'

‘Then why am I here?' Ulmer lifted his whiskered chin.

Kepler pulled his own goatee into a point, letting the wiry hairs spring away from his fingers. ‘Sit down, please, Herr Ulmer.'

From across the table, Kepler explained, ‘Inside us all is an imprint of the heavens at the moment of our birth. When this is matched by a similar aspect in the heavens, so our souls resonate and our true natures are brought to the fore.'

‘But is that good or bad?'

Barbara was watching her husband almost as intently as Ulmer as he set down his paper and writing tools.

‘It depends upon the aspects at the moment of your birth. If the natal arrangement was less than propitious, you are better to wait until the alignment tempers your natural inclinations.'

‘How are we to know?'

‘That is what I can help you with.'

Ulmer nodded emphatically. ‘Then let us begin.'

‘I'll fetch wine,' said Barbara, calling for Frau Bezold.

Kepler reached for his quill, flipped open the ink well and looked at the boy. ‘Date of birth, please?'

‘The eighth of August, 1582,' the father answered.

Ulmer and his hapless son departed some time later carrying Kepler's assessment. As the astronomer had thought, there was little opportunity for greatness but in three years' time there would be a small window of opportunity, when Jupiter would fall into conjunction with Mars.

Kepler hoped that the red planet would muster some energy in the boy and Jupiter's influence would steer him to a modicum of
leadership
, probably through marriage and taking control of an estate. Kepler had talked up the possibility, and the father had bounced out of the house upon the news.

As soon as the door was shut, Barbara threw her arms around Kepler. ‘Two whole gulden for a few hours' work!'

Kepler silently wished he could share her enthusiasm.

‘I have more good news for us,' she said, dragging her words as if unsure about how to phrase her revelation. ‘We are to be parents again.'

‘Truly?'

She nodded, her cheeks rosy.

‘We must praise God.' He clasped her tightly as though he would never let her go.

The rancid smell of burning tallow filled the little study. Kepler had grown accustomed to the odour, insisting that the expensive beeswax candles were kept solely in the front room, and then only lit when they had supper guests. Now, the unpleasant tang of tallow was integral to setting his mood for work.

He looked once more at Copernicus's calculations and pushed them around the page. He added them, subtracted them, multiplied and divided them in his attempt to wring out some more meaning from the chimeric figures. But it was no use, the measurements had been forced together from such disparate sources that Copernicus himself had doubted their veracity and even dropped the figures that did not serve his purposes.

Kepler reinstated those outliers, unwilling to doubt them on someone else's say-so. Yet, even putting them back in, he made no headway. Each number was the eye of a needle; the correct orbit would thread every single one. Copernicus had threaded some, missed most. Even Ptolemy and his ugly Earth-centred universe could do better. But how could that be right – how could the entire vault of Heaven turn once a day while the puny Earth remained stock still? It was absurd; it put everything backwards. So why could he not prove it? What was wrong with him? Kepler found himself watching the flecks of soot as they danced in eddies above the candle and thinking of Tycho.

The door shot open, rocking on its hinges. ‘We must talk. The housekeeper is being insolent again.'

‘I'm busy, Barbara.'

‘She claims not to have enough money to buy food.'

‘Is she right?'

‘We have the Dietrichs coming on Friday – we cannot give them bread and sausage.'

‘Quite.'

‘I want a sheep's head for the centrepiece, decorated with the entrails.'

‘Is it so important?'

‘It's what people of our standing eat these days. Husband, your head has somehow passed clean through our station and lodged itself firmly in the stars.'

‘Then we'll have to borrow against next month. The merchants know we're good for credit.'

‘We've already used up all our credit.'

Kepler ran a hand over his face. ‘Then we'll have to sell some possessions – quietly, so no one knows. What about that small table you keep your prayer book on. Do we really need it? You could keep the book on the mantelpiece.'

Barbara's nostrils flared. ‘Don't you dare touch that table.'

‘Then something from upstairs, something that won't be missed when we have visitors.'

‘Understand this, Johannes Kepler. We're not selling one single item of mine from this house. It's all I have left after you forced me to leave behind my family and friends. Why not sell something that you brought into this marriage?'

‘But I had nothing,' he stammered.

‘Precisely. This is a problem of your own making. It's up to you to solve it.'

‘But how?'

Barbara bunched her fists and planted them on her hips. ‘You must take more clients.'

‘Oh, Barbara, you know I hate it. Astrology is not some conjuror's trick. It should be put to a noble purpose, not telling fatheads what they may or may not do with their little lives.'

‘Noble purpose? What do you know of noble purpose? No one can understand your stupid book with all its shapes and signs. And it's not put any food on our table.'

‘Five planets. Five perfect solids. They have to be linked. It's obvio—Oh, what's the point? You can never understand my work. It's beyond your grasp.'

Barbara blinked at his words. He thought for one awful moment that she was going to cry. ‘Maybe not,' she said, ‘but I
can
understand poverty and hunger.'

She rushed from the room, the slam of the door reverberating through the house.

Next morning, Barbara picked at her food. Her feeble sips of wine made Kepler feel uncomfortable, and Regina looked from him to her mother, divining some tension but unable to comprehend it.

When Barbara did take a mouthful, she gagged on it and went running for the back door. She heralded her return with a complaint to Frau Bezold about the quality of the meat.

Kepler moved round the table and held out her chair. ‘Come and sit down.'

From outside, a commotion drew their attention. The clop of hooves and the trundling of a multitude of carts grew in volume. Wagon after wagon passed the window, all packed high with
cloth-covered
burdens. Outriders on horseback trotted by.

‘It's a festival,' said Regina, racing to the front door.

Her parents followed her into the street to watch the procession.

But there were no acrobats, no exotic animals, no men on stilts, no women dressed as goddesses; just donkeys and carts laden with people and possessions.

‘Someone important is moving into town,' said Barbara, craning to see into the carriages.

Kepler did not hear her words. His full attention was focused across the street to where a dwarf in a jester's outfit was pulling faces at the onlookers, occasionally jumping at them, as if he intended to attack.

‘Take Regina inside. I must find Jessenius at once.'

Barbara hesitated.