by Rose Tremain
Emilia has been dreaming about the strawberry fields and thinks at first that she is in Jutland. Then she sees a woman’s face, frilled at its edge by the lace of a night-bonnet and lit by a lamp.
“Emilia,” says the woman, “I don’t know how you can sleep so soundly in such an icy room.”
Emilia sits up. She is warm in the bed, but knows that the night chill is still in the air. The face in the bonnet belongs to Johanna, the oldest of Kirsten’s women.
“Now,” says Johanna, “before the day begins, I must warn you of all the things you do not know.”
“What things . . . ?”
“Hansi and I are agreed: you are very young and we cannot let you go unprepared into the morning. I shall speak in a whisper, for Rosenborg is as full of spies as it is of spiders. But you must pay attention.”
Emilia holds on to the fur of her cloak. Johanna seizes a hard chair and positions it by the bed. She sits down on it, placing
the lamp on the floor, so that a tall shadow suddenly spreads itself across the wall, causing Emilia an instant of terror. Since the death of Karen she has not been comfortable with the way shadows in the lamplight move at such astounding speed.
Johanna lays a hand on hers which clutches the cloak. “Try to remember everything I say,” she whispers.
And then she begins her recitation of the humiliations she and the other women endure in the service of Kirsten Munk. She tells Emilia about the “ridiculous nomenclatures” they are forced to suffer and the delight Kirsten appears to take in wounding their pride, so that each day contains “not one but very many vexing abasements of the kind we did not think would ever be put upon us in the service of the King’s wife.
“My title,” she continues, “is Woman of the Head. But my mistress always and eternally considers only outward things. My tasks are to dress and adorn her hair and to care for the skin of her face and the jewels she will wear in her ears and round her neck. She is not asking me to concern myself with the thoughts and schemes boiling inside her skull and indeed she does not imagine that I have any knowledge of these. But she is wrong! I have knowledge that could cast her out from the King’s heart and throw her onto the street. And in time, I may use it ...
“But, Emilia, this Woman of the Head is not so foolishly named. I was schooled by my father in thinking—quite by accident in that he had no sons and so he talked to me as if I might have been a man. He told me fables about good and evil, about wisdom and foolishness, and showed me how a fable can awaken the mind to the truth of what it perceives in the daily world. And so you see, I am aptly named and must take responsibility for all the women and try to help them and save them from cruelty, and this is why I am here, to tell you what a place of misery you have come to and implore you to try not to feel the insults that will be heaped upon you, but only take them into you as words that have no meaning, as if you felt nothing but the air upon your cheeks.”
Emilia stares into Johanna’s anxious face, at her forehead creased with worry under the white frills. She is about to tell her that nothing at Rosenborg can be more terrible to endure than the presence of Magdalena in the very rooms where her mother used to walk, but Johanna moves closer to her, so close that she can feel her warm breath in the cold air of the room, and continues in a voice hushed almost to ghostliness. “And for your own good,” she hisses, “let me speak of things far worse than those we women suffer. Our mistress lives deep, deep in a deception that will soon come to light. She has a German lover, Count Otto Ludwig of Salm. When the King is away she is bold and careless. And sometimes we hear how they scream and cry out together. But we are sworn to secrecy—as she will make you swear. We have to act as if we are deaf and blind. We are threatened with death by drowning, far away in some lake in Jutland, if we make any reference to the Count or to the marks left on her skin when she has been with him. And so you must also become deaf and blind, Emilia. Blind and deaf and dumb.”
Johanna draws back and looks at Emilia, as if watching to see what effect her words have had on the young girl who has been given no specific tasks but only the title of Floating Woman in this universe of shadows and secrets. Emilia appears calm. Surprised, of course, with her eyes very dark and wide in the flickering lamplight, but not yet afraid. Johanna opens her mouth to come out with yet more fearful revelations, but Emilia says: “She is unhappy.” “What?” says Johanna.
“Lady Kirsten. She told me she is ‘despised.’ ”
“Of course she is despised! By almost everyone in Denmark. But not by the King. The King does not see her as she is. Yet I know that one day soon, he will wake up to what she is doing.”
“People who feel themselves to be despised may do things they do not intend . . .”
Johanna laughs, then covers her mouth to stifle the sound. She rises then, picks up her lamp and moves swiftly to the door. “You will learn, Emilia,” she says. “You will learn.”
Emilia sits motionless in her bed in the dark. She hears Johanna’s footsteps moving away down the corridor.
Then she begins to sift and examine the new knowledge that now seems to live and breathe with her in the small room, making some minute sound, disturbing the stillness of the air. To her lost mother she asks the question, How can this be so?
Karen looks at her gravely. After a while, she slowly shakes her head, telling her daughter that she does not know the answer.
TYCHO BRAHE'S RECIPE
Soon after the funeral of King Frederik, while the state rooms of the castle were still draped in black, Bror Brorson arrived to stay with his classmate at Frederiksborg.
Nobody at the Koldinghus school, not even Hans Mikkelson, had dared to return Bror Brorson to the cellar after Christian’s vigil in the sanatorium and so the shadows around Bror’s blue eyes had vanished, his face had recovered its healthy colour and Queen Sofie complimented her son for having as his friend such a handsome boy.
In the time of his recovery, Bror had also done battle with the writing of his name and he was now able sometimes to replicate a one-word signature, Bror, without experiencing anything more fearful than occasional confusion. And it was Christian’s opinion that a one-word signature would suffice for Bror’s lifetime. “As King,” he said, “I will have a one-word signature, with just the little IV or 4 after it to distinguish me from my ancestors. So I have an excellent idea, Bror. Why do we not form a secret society, consisting only of you and me, to be known as the ‘Society of One-Word Signatories’?”
Bror said that he liked the idea of a secret society, provided it did not have a written charter. But the utterance of the word “charter” woke in Christian an immediate longing for such a document and so he spent many hours compiling and perfecting it in his beautiful calligraphy, then reading it aloud to his friend and only asking from Bror his signature at the bottom of it. The final clause of the charter stated that
All Members of the Society of One-Word Signatories do hereby Promise and Swear upon their names to Protect each other Always and at all Times From Acts of Cruelty, wheresoever and whensoever such Actions of Cruelty shall be threatened against them, as far as human Endeavour and human Strength shall pennit.
The signatures on the charter read
Christian Rorb
Christian quickly rolled the document and tied it with one of the black ribbons with which his chamber seemed to be adorned since his father’s death. He pronounced it “perfect.”
The days that followed were filled with the sight of black-clad noblemen, members of the Rigsrad, or State Council, arriving to confer with the Queen, bearing sheafs of papers and running out again with their dark cloaks flying, as if time had been sewn into their garments and was now pursuing them up and down stairs, across courtyards and in and out of carriages.
Christian and Bror stood at a high window and watched them. “It seems,” said Bror, “you have not yet become part of their arithmetic.”
“No,” said Christian. “It is stupid.”
Danish law de
creed that the dead King’s son, though he might nominally use the title of King, could not be crowned until his twentieth year. Until that time the government of the country would lie in the hands of the flying noblemen of the Rigsrad and with the Queen. “It is short-sighted of them,” said Christian. “We must find a way to ensure that I am taken into account.”
So the two members of the Society of One-Word Signatories sought out Christian’s grandmother, Duchess Elizabeth of Mecklenburg, her golden plaits no longer golden, but who in her old age could deny nothing to the grandson she had watched over night and day till his second birthday.
They found her in the castle kitchens, making jam from bottled gooseberries. When she was introduced to Bror she put down her slatted spoon and looked at him intently. “I am glad you were saved,” she said.
They helped her measure the sugar and stir the fruit. When it was explained to her that the future King appeared to be forgotten, they saw appear, above her shining, bubbling copper cauldrons, a glitter of amusement in her eyes and a smile on her thin lips. “Forgotten?” she said. “How disgraceful. Forgetfulness we cannot endure by any means. We must draw attention to you.”
She left her jam making to the cooks, and the One-Word Signatories followed her to the room she inhabited when she came to Frederiksborg. “Now,” she said, “I have something that I have been saving against this day. It was inadvertently dropped by Tycho Brahe when he came here to make his predictions about your life. I should have returned it to him, but some feeling that it might prove useful one day prevented me from doing so. It is a recipe and I believe it might serve your purposes now, provided you are cautious and follow the instructions very carefully, so that you do yourselves no harm. You must bring to it all your skill and ingenuity.”
Searching in drawers and cupboards, and sifting through papers and old pieces of knitting, she found at last a piece of parchment, worn a little as if by frequent perusal, and this she handed to Christian. He and Bror stared at it. On the parchment was a drawing of a skyrocket.
“Here you are,” said the Duchess Elizabeth. “Now, Bror, I have heard that you are most excellent at practical things. You see here below the drawing is a list of ingredients and instructions for assembling the device?”
Bror immediately felt himself held by the image of the skyrocket’s triumphant ascent into the clouds above Denmark. The ingredients and instructions, however, appeared to him as meaningless symbols.
Christian saw his friend’s hesitation and at once began to read aloud from Tycho Brahe’s faded writing: Sal petrae, 70 parts; Sulphura, 18 parts; Carb. amorph., 16 parts.
“That’s right,” said the Duchess. “The armourers at Slotsholmen will give you what you need. But you must weigh everything very carefully. And listen to me, children. Do not make it very large.”
How large was very large? Christian suggested that it should be as tall as he was. Bror told him that such a rocket would blow the roof off the castle.
They decided in the end that it should follow roughly the measurements of Christian’s leg, from his knee to his foot, its girth being that of his calf at its widest point. They agreed that such an object would not be too difficult to conceal “so that when we send it into the sky, there will be great amazement and wonder, mixed with a satisfactory amount of fear.”
Tycho Brahe had specified for the housing “a wicker Cage, perfectly turned at the bottom, so that only a small Aperture be left in the very centre, but making sure that a wicker Tail, to act as weight and conduit, be securely attached. This Rocket casing to have a pointed roof of excellently balanced construction. This Cage to be sewn entirely with a fine skin or supple parchment, so that no air be admitted to any part save the Aperture at the base."
Christian and Bror Brorson rode out of the gates of Frederiks-borg, telling the grooms they were going to tease the wild pigs of the forest with a little archery practice. They made their way first to a basket maker recommended by the palace cooks and thence to a paper merchant, giving orders and leaving drawings and measurements as they went. They were on the road for Copenhagen, intending to be rowed from the city over to Slotsholmen, when the Queen’s carriage overtook them. It was beginning to get dark, with the sky to the west full of snow clouds, and from deep within her fur coverings the angry Queen ordered them back.
“There is tomorrow,” said Christian, as they turned their horses round. “Tomorrow has one word and it is mine.”
The acquiring of parts and ingredients for the skyrocket and working for many hours together on its assembly made Christian and Bror secretive. Christian’s young brothers, Ulrich and Hans, were prevented from entering their rooms or taking part in their pastimes. The Society of One-Word Signatories led its own enigmatic existence from early in the morning until late at night.
If the world had forgotten about Christian, so, too, had he momentarily forgotten about the world. And it was to him as if Bror Brorson had always belonged at Frederiksborg and would never leave it. In his dreams, Bror became a magical being. He conceived the notion that, as long as Bror was by his side, he could come to no harm. God and calligraphy had helped him to save Bror’s life. Now Bror would watch over him.
When the skyrocket was complete it was smuggled into the Duchess of Mecklenburg’s rooms, where she examined it for the smallest hole or rent and, finding none, set it upon a wide windowsill, pointing at the ceiling. “Fine workmanship,” she said. “Your father the late King would have been proud of it. Now we are coming to the important moment, and do not think that I have not given it a great deal of thought.”
The Duchess Elizabeth chose the date the thirteenth of April. On this day, the Herredag, the People’s Court over which the future King believed he should be allowed to preside, would be assembling at Copenhagen castle.
“We shall take a closed carriage,” said the Duchess, “and we shall order the coachman, though it be broad daylight, to light the lamps, so that we have fire for the taper.”
As the day neared, the Society of One-Word Signatories, together with the Duchess of Mecklenburg, composed a declaration, to be read out by Christian in the moments after the skyrocket had disappeared into the ether, while the nobles were still staring with awe at the vapours of its fiery passage. This declaration bade the Rigsrlid and the judges of the Herredag to "remember their King, Christian IV, and henceforth to allow him Full Participation in the Affairs of the Country, so that nothing will be concealed from him and that he may learn how to arrive at Good Government before he is crowned." It was set down by Christian in writing so exquisite that Bror, casting his eyes across it, declared it to be “like music.”
Christian prayed for a blue sky for the thirteenth of April and his prayers were answered. Early in the morning the two boys, the Duchess, the skyrocket and an earthenware milk jar set off in a black carriage for Copenhagen with the coach lamps flaring in the bright sunshine.
Entering the courtyard of the castle, they saw to their satisfaction a great congregation of nobles assembling there. So excited did the Duchess become at this moment that she felt almost faint and had to fan herself with great vigour while Bror and Christian descended with the skyrocket wrapped in a velvet doublet. She called to the coachman to position the milk jar “a little way from the horses” and then to light a taper from one of the lamps.
Temporarily mistaking the taper for her fan, the Duchess waved it back and forth in front of her face, thus engendering a very lively flame within seconds and exclaiming in fright as she began to feel the heat of it coming near her fingers. Bror immediately understood the nature of the emergency and seized the taper from her while Christian, whose own heart was beating as if in time to a steady fast-paced march, carefully unwrapped the skyrocket and set it on the edge of the jar.
King Christian remembers that at this moment of setting the skyrocket on the jar some of the nobles turned and looked at him, and at Bror holding the burning taper. Then Bror plunged the taper into the jar and lit the fuse. The Duchess,
standing near them, said in French, “Ah, bon Dieu!" and the milk jar filled with hissing flame as the fuse began to burn.
In the next moment, the rocket flew.
“Never in the history of time,” King Christian is fond of saying, “has any object made by man gone into the space above the earth with such triumphant grace.” And indeed, the rocket sped straight up, to where the birds turned on the springtime air, and then higher still, trailing its sulphurous smoke, until at last it exploded with a thunderous reverberation in the empty sky and slowly, like snow turned black to join the national mourning, pieces of charred parchment and tiny carbonated filaments of wicker came falling down upon the heads of the people and all the horses whinnied and reared up in the traces of the carts and carriages. There was gasping and screaming. Bror and the Duchess applauded.
King Christian unfurled his declaration and stepped boldly forward onto the steps of the Court House building.
CONVOY
The Tre Kroner is saluted by three guns as she sails into Christiania.
Commissioned by the King and designed by him with the help of Dutch architects, this new town deep in the fjords, at the furthest point of the Skagerrak’s reach, is a source of pride to him. It was intended to be an orderly place and orderly it has remained. The streets are straight and the citizens, herded into the town from Otter Island, appear willing—as far as King Christian can ascertain—to walk upon the freshly laid cobblestones in straight, unintoxicated lines. The harbour is deep and the ships berthed there tidily arranged. Christiania smells of fish and of resin, and of the salt wind.
A great crowd of people gather around the King as he disembarks from his marvellous ship. The Tre Kroner will wait there to sail him home, while the geniuses of the mine supervise the extraction of silver from the hills of the Numedal. Then the ship will return to Christiania and wait a second time. It will wait for the silver to arrive. As the ore is stowed into the hold, soldiers will be put on permanent watch down there in the darkness. In Copenhagen the machinery of the Royal Mint will be oiled and repaired. A new likeness of the King (older, heavier about the jaw and with a look of increased anxiety in the eyes) will be struck, awaiting its impress on hundreds of thousands of dalers.