Doctor Copernicus

by John Banville

  Along with these public duties, he was being called upon in another sphere, that of astronomy, to make himself heard in the world. His fame was spreading, despite the innate humility and even diffidence which had kept him silent for so long when others far less gifted than he were agitating the air with their empty babbling. Canon Bernhard Wapowsky of Cracow University, a learned and influential man, requested of him an expert opinion on the (defective, defective!) astronomical treatise lately put out by the Nuremberger, Johann Werner, a request with which Canon Koppernigk readily complied, glad of the opportunity to take a swipe at that proud foolish fellow who had dared to question Ptolemy. Then came a letter from Cardinal Schönberg of Capua, one of the Pope’s special advisers, urging the learned Doctor to communicate in printed form his wonderful discoveries to the world. All this, of course, is not to mention the invitation that had come to him in 1514, by way of Canon Schiller in Rome (no longer the representative of the Frauenburg Chapter, but domestic chaplain to Leo X, no less), to take part in a Lateran Council on calendar reform. Canon Koppernigk refused to attend the council, however, giving as excuse his belief that such reform could not be carried out until the motions of the Sun and Moon were more precisely known. (One may remark here, that while this account—ipse dixit, after all!—of his unwillingness to accept what was most probably an invitation from the Pope himself, must be respected, one yet cannot, having regard to the date, and the stage at which we know the Canon’s great work then was, help suspecting that the learned Doctor, to use Cardinal Schönberg’s mode of address, was using the occasion to drop a careful hint of the revolution which, thirty years later, he was to set in train in the world of computational astronomy.)

  Thus, anyway, it can be seen that, however unwillingly, he had become a public man. The Chapter was well pleased with him, and welcomed him at last as a true colleague. Some there were, it is true, who did not abandon their suspicions, remembering his extraordinary and unaccountable behaviour at the time of the distasteful affair of his outrageous brother’s banishment. Among that section of the Chapter, which included of course Canons Snellenburg and von der Trank, it was never finally decided whether the Doctor should be regarded as a villain because of his connection with the poxed Italian (as von der Trank, his pale sharp aristocratic nose a-twitch, had dubbed Andreas), or as a cold despicable brute who would not even rise to the defence of his own brother. While that kind of thing may be dismissed as the product merely of envy and spite, nevertheless there was something about Canon Koppernigk—all saw it, even the kindly and all-forgiving Canon Giese—a certain lack, a transparence, as it were, that was more than the natural aloofness and other-worldliness of a brilliant scientist. It was as if, within the vigorous and able public man, there was a void, as if, behind the ritual, all was a hollow save for one thin taut cord of steely inexpressible anguish stretching across the nothingness.

  *

  The spring of 1519 saw the sudden collapse of the political and military situation in the southern Baltic lands. Sigismund of Poland, perhaps at last recognising the truth of Bishop Waczelrodt’s contention years before that the Cross represented a very real threat to his kingdom, summoned Grand Master Albrecht to Torun for peace talks. Albrecht refused to negotiate directly, and Poland immediately mobilised and marched on Prussia. Total war seemed inevitable. The Knights now suggested that the Bishop of Ermland should mediate between themselves and Sigismund. Bishop von Lossainen’s health, however, was by this time seriously in decline. The Frauenburg Chapter, therefore, knowing well that little Ermland would be the theatre for the coming war, decided that in the Bishop’s stead the Precentor, Canon Tiedemann Giese, along with Land Provost Koppernigk, should travel at once to Königsberg and attempt to reconcile the warring parties.

  Were the wrong men chosen for the task? Precentor Giese thought so, afterwards. He had, he supposed, gone to Königsberg too innocently, with too much trust in the essential worthiness of men, and so had failed where a hard cold scheming fellow might have succeeded. Or was it that in his heart he had known all along that the mission was doomed to failure, and this knowledge had affected his ability to negotiate? Well well, who could say? From the start he had not believed that Albrecht, although a Lutheran, could be so black as he was painted. It was said that he was irredeemably wicked, a monster, worse even than Hungary’s infamous Vlad Drakulya the Impaler. But no, the good Precentor could not believe that. When he told his companion so, as they rode eastward through dawn mists along the coast at the head of their escort of Prussian mercenaries, Canon Koppernigk looked at him queerly and said:

  “I would agree with you that likely he is no worse nor better than any other prince—but they are all bad.”

  “You are right, Doctor, perhaps, and yet…”

  “Well?”

  “You are right, yes, quite right. Ahem.”

  Precentor Giese was a little afraid of Canon Koppernigk; or perhaps that is too strong—perhaps a better word would be nervous, he was a little nervous of him, yes. There was at times a certain silent intensity, or ferocity even, about the man that alarmed those who came close to him, not that many were allowed to do so, of course, come close, that is. This morning, hunched in the saddle with his hat pulled low and his cloak wrapped about him to the nose so that only the eyes were visible, staring keenly ahead into the mist, he seemed more than ever burdened with a secret intolerable knowledge. Maybe it was this stoical air the Canon had of a man marked out for special suffering that made Giese’s heart ache with sympathy and concern for his friend, if he, Giese, could call him, the Canon, a friend, as he was determined to do, justified or not.

  But friendship aside, was it wise of the Chapter, Giese could not help wondering, to have sent the Canon with him on this delicate mission? He, the Canon, had always been something of a recluse, despite his public duties (which of course he fulfilled with impeccable et cetera), had always held the world at arm’s length, as it were, and while this aspect of his character was not in any way a fault, indeed was only to be expected of one engaged in such important and demanding work as he was, it did mean that he was, so to say, unpractised in the subtleties of diplomacy, that he was, in fact, quite tactless, although it could be said that this very tactlessness, if that was what it was, was no more than evidence of a charming innocence and lack of guile. Well, not innocence perhaps … Canon Giese glanced at the dark figure in the saddle beside him: no, definitely not innocence.

  O dear! The Precentor sighed. It was all very difficult.

  *

  They arrived at Königsberg as night came on. Their escort was allowed no further than the city gates. Albrecht’s castle was a vast grim fortress on a hill. The two emissaries were led into a large white and gold hall. Crowds milled about here, soldiers, diplomats, clerics, ornate women, all going nowhere purposefully. Canon Koppernigk stood in silence waiting, wrapt in his black cloak, with his hat still on. Precentor Giese fidgeted. A band of courtiers, some armed, marched swiftly into the hall and wheeled to a halt. Grand Master Albrecht was a small quick reptile-like man with a thin dark face and pointed ears lying flat against his skull. His heavy quilted doublet and tight breeches gave him the look of a well-fed lizard. A gold medallion bearing the insignia of the Order hung by a heavy chain on his breast. (It was said that he was impotent.) He smiled briefly, displaying long yellow teeth.

  “Reverend gentlemen,” he said in German, “welcome. This way, please.”

  They all turned and marched smartly out of the hall, cutting a swathe through the obsequious crowd. Candles burned in a marble corridor. Their boots crashed on the cold stone. They wheeled into a small chamber hung with maps and a huge portrait of the Grand Master standing in an heroic pose before his massed army. Albrecht sat down at an oaken desk, while his party took up positions behind him with folded arms. Flunkeys came forward bearing chairs, and Albrecht with a quick gesture invited the Canons to sit. A silken diplomat leaned down and whispered in his ear. He nodded rapidly, pursing his mout
h, and then looked up and said:

  “We demand an oath of allegiance from the Bishop of Ermland and the Frauenburg Chapter. Mark, this is a condition of negotiation, not of settlement. We are prepared to speak to Poland through you only when we are assured of your loyalty.” There was no bluster, no threat, only a brisk statement of fact. He was almost cheerful. He grinned. “Well?”

  Precentor Giese was astounded. He had come to negotiate, not to take delivery of an ultimatum! He chose to disbelieve his ears.

  “My dear sir,” he said, “I fear you misunderstand the situation. Ermland is a sovereign princedom, and owes allegiance to its Prince-Bishop and clergy and none other. It was you yourself, you will recall, who requested us to mediate. Now—”

  Albrecht was shaking his head.

  “No no,” he said gently, “no. It is you, I think, Herr Canon, who has misunderstood how matters are. Ermland is a small weak province. You wish to believe, or you wish me to believe, that you are, so to speak, an honest broker who observes matters with utter dispassion. But this war will be fought on your fields, in the streets of your towns and villages. Even if we fail to defeat Poland, as we may well fail, and even if we do not capture Royal Prussia, which is also possible I regret to say, nevertheless we shall certainly take Ermland. Sigismund will not protect you. Therefore why not join with us now and thus avoid a deal of… unpleasantness? Men who are anxious to win the favour of a prince present themselves to him with the possessions they value most: since you wish to win my favour in these negotiations, and since obviously you value loyalty most dearly, should you not in that case swear to be loyal to us?”

  “But this is preposterous!” Giese cried, looking about him indignantly for support. He met only the cold eyes of the Grand Master’s men ranged silently behind the desk. “Preposterous,” he said again, but faintly.

  Albrecht lifted his hands in a gesture of regret.

  “Then there is nothing more to say,” he said. There was a silence. He turned his sardonic faintly humorous gaze now for the first time on Canon Koppernigk, and his eyes gleamed. “Herr Canon, we are honoured by your presence. The fame of Doctor Copernicus is not unknown even in this far-flung province. We have heard of your wonderful theory of the heavens. We are eager to hear more. Perhaps you will dine with us tonight?” He waited. “You do not speak.”

  The Canon had turned somewhat pale. Giese was watching him expectantly. Now this insolent knight would receive the kind of answer he deserved! But, in a voice so low it could be hardly heard, Canon Koppernigk said only:

  “There is nothing more to say.”

  Albrecht bowed his head, smiling thinly. “I meant, of course, Herr Canon, when I said what you have just echoed, that there is nothing more to say in these—ha—negotiations. On other, more congenial topics there is surely much we can discuss. Come, my dear Doctor, let us take a glass of wine together, like civilised men.”

  Then followed that curious exchange that Precentor Giese was to remember ever afterwards with puzzlement and grave misgiving. Canon Koppernigk grimaced. He seemed in some pain.

  “Grand Master,” he said, “you are contemplating waging war for the sake of sport. What is Ermland to you, or Royal Prussia? What is Poland even?”

  Albrecht had been expecting something of the sort, for he answered at once:

  “They are glory, Herr Doctor, they are posterity!”

  “I do not understand that.”

  “But you do, I think.”

  “No. Glory, posterity, these are abstract concepts. I do not understand such things.”

  “You, Doctor?—you do not understand abstract concepts, you who have expressed the eternal truths of the world in just such terms? Come sir!”

  “I will not engage in empty discussion. We have come to Königsberg to ask you to consider the suffering that you are visiting upon the people, the greater suffering that war with Poland will bring.”

  “The people?” Albrecht said, frowning. “What people?”

  “The common people.”

  “Ah. The common people. But they have suffered always, and always will. It is in a way what they are for. You flinch. Herr Doctor, I am disappointed in you. The common people?—pah. What are they to us? You and I, mein Freund, we are lords of the earth, the great ones, the major men, the makers of supreme fictions. Look here at these poor dull brutes—” His thin dark hand took in the silent crowd behind him, the flunkeys, Precentor Giese, the painted army. “—They do not even understand what we are talking about. But you understand, yes, yes. The people will suffer as they have always suffered, meanly, mewling for pity and mercy, but only you and I know what true suffering is, the lofty suffering of the hero. Do not speak to me of the people! They are the brutish mask of war, but war itself is that which they in the ritual of their suffering express but can never comprehend, for their eyes are ever on the ground, while you and I look up, ever upward, into the blue! The people—peasants, soldiers, generals—they are my tool, as mathematics is yours, by which I come directly at the true, the eternal, the real. Ah yes, Doctor Copernicus, you and I—you and I! The gener ations may execrate us for what we do to their world, but we and those rare ones like us shall have made them what they are . . !” He broke off then and dabbed with a silk kerchief at the corners of his thin mouth. He had a smug drained sated look about him, that the troubled Precentor found himself comparing to that of a trooper fastening up his breeches after a particularly brutal and gratifying rape. Canon Koppernigk, his face ashen, rose in silence and turned to go. Albrecht, in the tone he might have used to remark upon the weather, said: “I had your uncle the Bishop poisoned, you know.” The crowd behind him stirred, and Giese, halfway up from his chair, sat down again abruptly. Canon Koppernigk faltered, but would not turn. Albrecht said lightly, almost skittishly, to his hunched black back: “See, Doctor, how shocked they are? But you are not shocked, are you? Well then, say nothing. It is no matter. Farewell. We shall meet again, perhaps, when the times are better.”

  As they went down the hill from the castle, borne through the gleaming darkness on a river of swaying torches, Precentor Giese, confused and pained, tried to speak to his friend, but the Doctor would not hear, and answered nothing.

  *

  At dead of night to the castle of Allenstein they came, a hundred men and horse, Poland’s finest, bearing the standard of their king before them, thundered over the drawbridge, under the portcullis, past the drowsing sentry into the courtyard and there dismounted amidst a great clamour of hoofs and rattling sabres and the roars of Sergeant Tod, a battle-scarred tough old soldier with a heart of stoutest oak. “Right lads!” he boomed, “no rest for you tonight!” and dispatched them at once to the walls. “Aw for fuck’s sake, Sarge!” they groaned, but jumped to their post with alacrity, for each man knew in his simple way that they were here not only to protect a lousy castle and a pack of cringing bloody Prussians, but that the honour of Poland herself was at stake. Their Captain, a gallant young fellow, scion of one of the leading Polish families, covered with his cloak the proud glowing smile that played upon his lips as he watched them scramble by torchlight to the battlements, and then, pausing only to pinch the rosy cheek of a shy serving wench curtseying in the doorway, he hurried up the great main staircase with long-legged haste to the Crystal Hall where Land Provost Koppernigk was deep in urgent conference with his beleaguered household. He halted on the threshold, and bringing his heels together smartly delivered a salute that his commanding officer would have been proud to witness.

  The Canon looked up irritably. “Yes? What is it now? Who are you?”

  “Captain Chopin, Herr Provost, at your service!”

  “Captain what?”

  “I am an officer of His Gracious Majesty King Sigismund’s First Royal Cavalry, come this night from Mehlsack with one hundred of His Highness’s finest troops. My orders are to defend to the last man this castle of Allenstein and all within the walls.” (“O God be praised!” cried several voices at once.) �
�Our army is on the march westward and expects to engage the foe by morning. The Teutonic Knights are at Heilsberg, and are bombarding the walls of the fortress there. As you are aware, Herr Provost, they have already taken the towns of Guttstadt and Wormditt to the north. A flanking assault on Allenstein is expected hourly. These devils and their arch fiend Grand Master Albrecht must be stopped—and they shall be stopped, by God’s blood! (Forgive a soldier’s language, sire.) You will recall the siege of Frauen- j burg, how they fired the town and slaughtered the people without mercy. Only the bravery of your Prussian mercenaries prevented them from breaching the cathedral wall. Your Chapter fled to the safety of Danzig, leaving to you, Herr Provost, the defence of Allenstein and Mehlsack. However, in that regard, I must regretfully inform you now that Mehlsack has been sacked, sire, and—”

  But here he was interrupted by the hasty entrance of a large dark burly man attired in the robes of a canon.

  “Koppernigk!” cried Canon Snellenburg (for it is he), “they are bombarding Heilsberg and it’s said the Bishop is dead—” He stopped, catching sight of the proud young fellow standing to attention in his path. “Who are you?”

  “Captain Chopin, sire, at your—”

  “Captain who?”

  Zounds! the Captain thought, are they all deaf? “I am an officer of His Gracious—”

  “Yes yes,” said Snellenburg, waving his large hands. “Another damned Pole, I know. Listen, Koppernigk, the bastards are at Heils berg. They’ll be here by morning. What are you going to do?”

  The Land Provost looked mildly from the Canon to the Captain, at his household crouched about the table, the secretaries, whey-faced clergy, minor administrators, and then to the frightened gaggle of servants ranged expectantly behind him. He shrugged.