Everyone Wants to Be Ambassador to France

by Bryan Hurt

  Soon Briar Rose developed something serious with the Prince’s steward, a dark-haired guy about a hundred years her junior. It was love, like waking up, and it was an easy secret to keep. The Steward kept the Prince’s schedule and knew where he was supposed to be every hour of the day. When the Prince was meeting with foreign dignitaries, they would do it up in his bedroom. And when the Prince was out hunting foxes, they’d bang each other in the stables. Once they even did it on the throne while the Prince was having tea with his mother. And the other castle employees—even if they saw them kissing down in the dungeon—they didn’t dare say anything. Briar Rose was queen and could have them hung as easily as fired. So it was a terrible shock when it all ended so badly, with the Steward’s death.

  The police drained the moat, found the murder weapon—the Prince’s gun. They came to arrest him, and the Prince went easily. He walked across the drawbridge, and into the mob of reporters. “No comment,” he said again and again and ducked inside the back of a cruiser.

  I remember seeing it all on television even though I was just a kid. If you looked carefully you could see Briar Rose there in the background. She was standing in the window up in her tower. You couldn’t see her face, but I bet if you could you’d see that she was crying. The Prince didn’t look sorry, not once, not even when they called him up on the stand to testify. He stood there impassively and confessed to the murder. “I did it,” he said. He said he would have done it a thousand times more. That’s how much he loved Briar Rose.

  When I met her it was in Boise at the Annual Conference for Museum Curators. By then she was working for the Getty, and had long since dropped Briar from her name. I was sitting on a restoration panel and afterward she introduced herself. We went for drinks and talked about that kouros, the one that made all that news a few years back for being a fake. I asked her about the Prince, and what he was like in real life. Rose was forthcoming. “Small,” she said. “A tiny man.” Even when they showed him on TV that last time, he in his orange prison jumpsuit, his hands shackled behind his back. Even framed inside the little television box, he looked bigger than he actually was.

  She said he still sent her letters. He promised that when he got out of the slammer he’d find her again. “Sometimes he says he loves me,” she said. “Sometimes he wants to kill me.” She takes pills to fall asleep, that’s how nervous the Prince has made her even after all these years. “How terrible,” I said. She agreed, and I ordered us another round of drinks.

  Still, when I had her in my bed, Briar Rose’s hair spread out like sunrays atop the sheets, I could see where the Prince was coming from. I stroked her arms and watched her sleep.

  I thought: How pretty she must have looked kept inside a glass box.

  THE SADNESS OF TYCHO BRAHE’S MOOSE

  1. TRUE STORY

  So first of all not a moose exactly.

  An elk.

  But what an elk.

  Moose-like in its magnificence. Nine tines to the antler. Sixteen hands tall at the withers. Bugling voice bright as a trumpet.

  The finest elk in all of Denmark.

  Loyal as a dog, it followed the astronomer almost everywhere he went.

  2. AB OVO

  Morning in Denk.

  Pale blue sky, clouds like raw wool, bees hovering in the breeze. There amongst the acres of farmland, above a tiny village, sits a brick castle on top of a hill.

  Inside the castle, Otte Brahe wakes up next to his wife, Beate Bille.

  He smells the air around him.

  Rosemary, flowering wheat.

  Otte Brahe looks at his wife. He admires her long flaxen hair. The way she’s wrapped seductively in the sheets.

  He leans over and kisses the mole on her neck.

  Beate Bille sighs.

  Otte Brahe sighs.

  They sigh.

  Far above, Mars moves in trine with Jupiter. Five planets in the eastern hemisphere signify a boy.

  3. KIDNAPPED

  Two years pass.

  Tycho Brahe sits in the grass with a tabor drum between his legs. He beats the drum with a single drumstick and harasses an old cow.

  The cow stands in a strip of shadow beneath the castle’s walls.

  Cow looks at Tycho.

  Chews grass.

  While Tycho beats his drum, Uncle Jørgen storms out of the castle. Uncle Jørgen is Otte Brahe’s older brother. He’s visiting from southern Denmark, where he’s ruler of Vordingborg Castle and sheriff to the king.

  Uncle Jørgen slams the door.

  He mutters something about a promise.

  Otte’s promise.

  Marches past Tycho and toward the stable and his horse.

  Then he stops.

  Turns around and looks at his nephew.

  Says: “Ach!”

  Uncle Jørgen picks up Tycho and throws him on his saddle.

  They gallop away.

  4. LATER

  Later, Otte Brahe and Beate Bille find the drum and the drumstick. There’s the same old cow standing in the castle’s shadows, still chewing grass.

  It’s not hard to piece together what must have happened. Otte Brahe tells his wife that they’ll let Uncle Jørgen keep Tycho. After all, Uncle Jørgen and his wife are childless; Otte Brahe and Beate Bille, on the other hand, have plenty of children. With the recent arrival of Steen, they have four in all.

  And Otte Brahe did promise Tycho to Uncle Jørgen eventually, once another son was born. So all things considered, says Otte Brahe, it’s not like Uncle Jørgen stole the boy. Not exactly.

  “Still,” says Otte Brahe.

  He rubs his beard and looks at the sky. There are honey buzzards circling the castle, cirrus clouds.

  He tells Beate Bille that he feels foolish. He says that he really shouldn’t have gotten drunk and promised Uncle Jørgen their firstborn son.

  5. TYCHO’S MOOSE

  Ten years later.

  Tycho Brahe is home from the University of Copenhagen.

  Winter break.

  Since the kidnapping—the transfer is what Otte Brahe and Uncle Jørgen now call it—home is with Uncle Jørgen and Aunt Inger on the island of Zealand.

  Tycho sits on the back of a horse.

  Cold wind blows off the water.

  Waves ice the sea.

  Tycho lifts his face and feels the stinging pellets of snow blast through the pine trees. In the distance, he sees Goose Tower. Its golden goose weathervane glints under the dull gray sky.

  “Papa,” says Tycho.

  He points to a cow elk grazing in a nearby copse.

  Uncle Jørgen exhales a cloud of breath.

  He raises his musket.

  Cocks the flintlock.

  Shoots.

  The cow elk staggers and falls into a shrub.

  While Uncle Jørgen dresses the elk, Tycho wanders further into the grove. He hears bleating from nearby bog-rosemary bushes. He pulls back the branches and finds a small shivering calf.

  Big watery calf-eyes.

  Ribs showing through its coat.

  Tycho removes his jacket and wraps it around the small animal. He returns with it to his uncle. “Moose,” he says.

  Uncle Jørgen looks from the baby elk to his nephew and back again. Doting and permissive, he doesn’t correct.

  6. THE WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE

  Everywhere he goes, Tycho talks about his moose. At school he talks to anyone who’ll listen. He tells his teachers and classmates that the moose is kept in the stables with the horses but that during the winter it’s allowed to sleep inside next to the fire. He tells them that even Aunt Inger is fond of the animal. She decorates it with bows.

  He’s telling this to his law professor. He has the professor pinned against a column in the courtyard. Long columnar shadows are splayed across the ground.

  Tycho tells his professor that the moose prefers apples to gooseberries; it likes redcurrants best of all.

  The professor interrupts. He cranes his neck to look at the sun
dial in the center of the plaza. He tells Tycho that he must go.

  But before the professor can hurry away, the courtyard is cast into sudden darkness. Like a curtain at a playhouse, the moon slides in front of the sun.

  The professor stops.

  Tycho stops.

  Everyone stops.

  Where there was once sun, now there is no sun.

  A big, blacked-out O.

  Some fall to their knees.

  Others run for shelter.

  The professor swoons.

  A solar corona blooms behind the moon’s shadow.

  Stars appear, thick and white as pennycress.

  Tycho gazes at the sky above him.

  Most wonderful thing he’s seen.

  7. FREDERICK II OF DENMARK SAVED FROM DROWNING

  Five more years pass, not without significance.

  The solar eclipse indicates new beginnings, the sun’s steadiness overruled by lunar passions.

  Tycho buys an ephemeris based on Copernicus’s theories. He buys books by Johannes de Sacrobosco, Petrus Apianus, and Regiomontanus. He learns that his eclipse had been predicted by Ptolemy, that it was part of the same eclipse cycle that blacked out the sun when Christ was on the cross.

  But he keeps all this information a secret. He doesn’t tell anyone that he’s been studying astronomy, not even his tutor. He only whispers it to the moose.

  Because science is a fine course of study for alchemists and apothecaries, for middle-class barbers’ sons. But Otte Brahe is a member of the Rigsraad. Uncle Jørgen is Vice Admiral of the Danish fleet.

  During summer, Tycho smuggles a small celestial globe back home to Vordingborg. He stays up until dawn memorizing the shapes of the constellations.

  Orion’s belt, the bend of Sagittarius’s bow.

  When Uncle Jørgen asks him why he’s so tired-looking, Tycho lies and tells him that he was up late studying the Edict of Amboise. When Otte Brahe writes and asks how he likes studying court politics, Tycho writes back: I like them fine.

  But for Tycho, meals with Uncle Jørgen and Aunt Inger are the hardest things to endure. Uncle Jørgen only talks about the latest naval skirmishes with Sweden. Aunt Inger still wants to know more about the latest fashions in Copenhagen.

  Tycho forks squab into his mouth and tells her all of the ladies are wearing sable pelts. Rich ladies dip the paws in silver. Jewels replace the eyes.

  What Tycho really wants to talk about are the problems with the universe. Lately he’s noticed that none of his ephemerides match any of the others. Copernicus’s date for the conjunction of Jupiter is a whole month off from that in the Alfonsine Tables. Apianus and Regiomontanus have completely different ideas about the location of Mars.

  More than anything else, Tycho wants to return to the university and spend long hours in the library poring over star charts, correcting the universe and resetting the stars.

  The only thing that makes summer at Vordingborg tolerable is the moose. Much has changed since Tycho found the moose in the bog-rosemary bushes. Now the moose is a large moose, a bull. It has thick velvet on its antlers; its head is the size of a firkin; it follows Tycho everywhere like a schoolgirl in love.

  While Uncle Jørgen and King Frederick plot and strategize against the Swedes, Tycho and his moose go for long walks in the woods surrounding the castle. Sometimes they walk as far as the ocean. Even on the beach the air still smells of pine trees. There are white flowers on the dogwoods. A warm breeze blows from the east.

  As they walk along the beach, Tycho talks loudly over the waves. He tells the moose about his plans for the universe. He wants to make his own ephemeris, but he needs a larger allowance. He needs better instruments, a radius that’s large enough to measure the angles between the stars.

  Normally attentive, the moose gazes distractedly down the beach, its ears turned toward some faraway sound.

  Tycho hears it too.

  Down the beach there’s someone, many people, calling for help.

  Tycho and his moose hurry toward the noise.

  They round the bend and see a party of bathers.

  The livery is King Frederick’s: carmine on white.

  Everyone is on the shore except for the king.

  Tycho sees him in the water, caught in a riptide, drifting out to sea. He sees Uncle Jørgen sprinting into the ocean.

  Tycho follows.

  Moose gallops in as well.

  But Tycho is a poor swimmer. He’s unable to swim past the wave line. The surf pushes him back to the beach.

  Uncle Jørgen reaches King Frederick but also gets caught in the riptide. Both men cling to each other, recede toward the horizon, drift away.

  Steady as a boat, the moose paddles through the waves and reaches Uncle Jørgen and King Frederick. The men drape themselves over the moose’s body and are transported back to shore.

  8. DEARTH

  That night the king orders a feast at the castle. There are torches, buglers, attendants in white gloves. Oxen, calves, and muffed cocks are slaughtered for the guests.

  When dinner is served, the moose sits at the head of the table next to King Frederick. The moose doesn’t sit, of course; it stands. Eats a plate of spinach and summer greens.

  After the feast, King Frederick lifts his goblet and toasts Uncle Jørgen and the hero moose. He gives them both medals and makes a speech. He talks about the majestic though unpredictable and deadly nature of the sea. “Like a Dane,” he says. “Like my mother,” he says.

  Everyone but the old queen laughs.

  At the end of the ceremony, Uncle Jørgen, pale-looking, gold medal bright around his neck, excuses himself. He complains about a chill.

  He pats the moose on its head.

  Says goodnight to King Frederick.

  Goodnight to Aunt Inger.

  Goodnight to Tycho.

  A week later, Uncle Jørgen dies.

  9. THE END

  End of the longest summer.

  Tycho packs away his belongings. He fills his trunks with books, clothing, the new ephemerides that he bought with Uncle Jørgen’s inheritance. He loads it all onto a coach and says goodbye to Aunt Inger.

  Aunt Inger, who is still wearing black.

  Tycho says goodbye to King Frederick.

  Goodbye to all the servants.

  Goodbye.

  But from Vordingborg, he doesn’t return to school in Copenhagen. He doesn’t see the point. Why should he pretend to study the law if Uncle Jørgen isn’t alive to care? Why spend all of his time bent over books, reading about the universe, when all he really needs to do is look up?

  Instead, Tycho and his moose travel to northern Denmark, to Knudstrup Castle, one of his real parents’ homes.

  Knudstrup is isolated from everything. Its village has only two dozen cottages, five grain mills, and farmland that’s as flat and expansive as the sky above.

  The castle is so far north that during the summer, the sun barely sets. During the winter, white stars fill the daytime sky.

  Tycho and his moose spend that autumn wandering through endless yellow fields of wheat and rapeseed. Tycho tells the moose that he misses Uncle Jørgen. He misses things that he didn’t expect to miss about him. The sound of his uncle’s laughter, the particular roughness of his beard.

  Throughout the fall, Aunt Inger sends Tycho letters. She tells him how empty Vordingborg is without him. She misses the moose.

  But instead of moose, Aunt Inger keeps calling the animal an elk. A common elk, as if there’s anything common about it.

  Tycho tosses her letters in the fire. At night there’s no sound in the castle except for wood and paper burning, no sound at all except for Tycho and the moose’s footsteps echoing off limestone as they pace outside on the castle’s parapets, gazing at the sky.

  There’s the nebular spray of stars above them.

  Warm lamplight from the village below.

  Tycho presses the radius to his cheekbone. He lines up Jupiter in the first sight and finds Saturn
with the second. He measures the angle, checks it against Ptolemy’s measurement, and scowls.

  According to Ptolemy’s Almagest, the planets should be moving toward a conjunction, signaling expansion, social interaction, and material well-being.

  But if Tycho’s measurements are correct, the planets are actually moving away from each, approaching their square.

  Bad energy, problems, frustration.

  “All wrong,” says Tycho. “Everything is wrong,” he says.

  The moose blinks open its eyes. A cold breeze rattles through the ephemeris. The moose yawns.

  Tycho shoves his radius back into its case.

  He walks down to the village.

  The tavern.

  Beer.

  10. ASTRAL LOVE

  Winter comes to Knudstrup.

  Heavy clouds settle in and blank out the sky.

  Tycho and the moose spend much of their time alone in the castle. Sometimes Tycho reads books in front of the fire. He reads astronomy books, astrology books, chivalric romances: Robert the Devil, Amadis of Gaul, Havelok the Dane.

  But most of the time he doesn’t read.

  He drinks.

  To pass the time.

  Tycho sits in front of the fire, empty wine glass between his knees, and a journal open on his lap. On each page of the journal are sky measurements that he’d made during the previous summer and fall. There are coordinates for the traveling planets, lists of all the fixed objects in the ethereal sphere.

  One at a time, Tycho rips out the pages and throws them into the fire. He rips out a sketch of Virgo and crushes it. But before he can toss it in the fire, he’s interrupted by a knock at the door.

  Tycho looks at the moose.

  The moose looks back at Tycho. If a moose can shrug then that’s what it does.

  Shrugs.

  There’s another knock, and Tycho stumbles out of his chair. He knocks over an empty wine bottle on his way to open the door.