Sky's Dark Labyrinth

by Stuart Clark

  Her soul had been so deeply wounded by the death of her precious boy that she could find no reason to continue living on this bitter Earth. Despairing of a future without Friedrich, she had achieved her final journey as easily as they could have walked across one country’s border with another. He almost admired her resolve, perhaps even envied her a little. She is with God now, all is well, he told himself. Yet inwardly he felt as though she had set him on fire. He had loved her with all his heart but it had not been enough for her. She had left him. He could find no words sufficient to express the pain.

  On the morning of her burial, Kepler pushed her rigid body on a tumbril through the muddy streets. The act felt as insensitive as the wooden cart itself, clunking through the ruts. Detached and downcast, he trailed his children and the few friends brave enough to be seen at a Lutheran funeral. Frau Bezold, clutching self-consciously at her crucifix, had bade them farewell at the kitchen door with a plaintive ‘I cannot’ at his request for her to join the procession.

  The soldiers they encountered stood aside, though Kepler noticed the captain watching carefully, scanning each face and making sure the swaddled body was not some kind of decoy. He scowled at the soldiers, willing them to challenge him but none met his gaze. Robbed of the confrontation he had been expecting, perhaps even hoping for, Kepler trudged on.

  At the graveside, it began to drizzle. Barbara was laid upon a set of straps, ready to be lowered into the dampening earth. The fine rain hid Kepler’s tears as he insisted on preaching his sermon. His voice sounded flat and unemotional even to him.

  ‘Some things can only be truly appreciated in retrospect. The movement of the great circles of Heaven can be reckoned only after they have been watched to turn an entire revolution. So it is with human lives. Only at the culmination of a lifetime can we strip away our own feelings, our own hopes and fears for what they may achieve or do. In death can we see them in their entirety and finally understand who they were and why they were so special. Barbara was special to me in every way …’

  So why did she abandon me?

  ‘She was a person who … She … She …’

  The words stopped. He glared at the body. He imagined screaming at her for causing him so much torment. Why make such a selfish choice to be with Friedrich instead of with him and Susanna and Ludwig? Shaking in his rage, he forced his eyes away from the lifeless bundle and scanned the straggle of humans watching him. There were his two dear children, upset and puzzled.

  Brought to his senses by their scared faces, he found himself talking again, though where his words were coming from he could not say. He was the mouthpiece of some unknown power. ‘Though it is hard to see it at the moment, there must be harmony in this world. God’s perfection cannot allow it to be otherwise. The terror of the recent past reminds us that the harmony must be so grand that it reduces all human woe to triviality, as the sound of a buzzing fly is surpassed by the mighty crash of the ocean. Now at peace, Friedrich and Barbara are free to not only hear this great harmony but to rejoice in it. For those of us left behind, we can only wonder and wait until it is our time to hear it, too.’

  Kepler felt a tremor of recognition pass through him, substantial in meaning yet incorporeal in form. The first time he had felt this had been in the schoolroom in Graz, when he received his vision of the planetary arrangement. Now it had happened again. For the second time in his life, Kepler knew that God had visited him.

  The city was calm at last, but everything was different. Kepler had been confirmed as Matthias’s mathematician, but he was not required at court. The new Emperor preferred to take advice from his generals rather than his stargazer. Kepler was grateful for that; no more time wasted casting horoscopes for things they could not be applied to anyway.

  To fill his days Kepler had buried himself in Tycho’s ledgers, looking for the harmony he had so clearly, if briefly, perceived at Barbara’s graveside – her parting gift to him before she took her place with Friedrich in Heaven. He told himself that he would eventually return to the composition of The Rudolphine Tables; his oath to Tycho alone meant that he could not forget them, but for now he had to follow his heart and look for the harmony. It was the only way to make sense of all the suffering, and there was no one to stop him. Rudolph had been deposed and Tengnagel was missing, presumed dead in the fighting.

  Shut into his study in Karlova Street, he could temporarily forget about Barbara and Friedrich. But every time he left the cramped workspace he had the momentary thought Where’s Barbara? followed by the painful realisation. During the evenings, he would stare at her empty chair by the fire and her prayer book on the table until he slipped into a fitful sleep in his own chair, or he would drift to the children’s bedroom and sit on Friedrich’s cold bed.

  Barbara’s grief at the loss of their son had been so intense that his own had been eclipsed. In the emptiness of the night, the agony of this untended wound tore at him. He looked at his surviving children, their small chests rising and falling in sleep, and wished he could find solace in them. He loved them more than ever but all he could really feel were his losses. Neither was he equipped for their constant demands. Frau Bezold did her best with them but she was old and no substitute for a mother.

  Letters of condolence from friends and acquaintances trickled in from across the Empire as the news spread, and it was in one of these that Kepler saw the solution. A friend that Barbara had made during her first few weeks in Prague was now living in Kunstadt having been widowed. He remembered her well; she had been tall and youthful with a ready smile. Her letter offered help with the children.

  So, why stay in Prague when everything reminded him of what he had lost? He had written to her asking whether she could look after the children while he went on to Linz to claim the job as District Mathematician, teaching in a small school in a Lutheran stronghold, and she had readily agreed.

  Kepler left the house two months after Barbara’s funeral with his son and daughter and all the possessions he cared for. As the three of them huddled together on the wagon, the clouds broke. Hunched beneath their cloaks and hats, Ludwig started crying and Susanna did her best to distract him by dancing Astrid on his knees. The rain cascaded from the high roofs to gather on the earth and run in rivulets down the streets. Frau Bezold waved them goodbye and shrank into the background as the wagon rolled off into the cold greyness. Soon, she was lost to the crowds, and Kepler stopped looking back.

  The city’s beleaguered inhabitants were doing their best to go about their business but waiting in line at the various checkpoints made everything slow and tense. After several anxious moments at the city gate, the family left Prague behind. Some way beyond the city walls, they came across a column of Matthias’s troops, heading back in. They were returning from a mopping-up operation in the surrounding countryside. In their midst was a column of prisoners, shuffling barefoot in the mud. Red welts showed at their ankles and wrists where the shackles chafed, and chains swung between each man, draped from one iron collar to the next.

  Kepler nearly exclaimed, for there among them was Tengnagel, looking as miserable and bedraggled as the others. Their eyes locked. There was a strange expression of anguish on the captive’s face as he stared at Kepler and the wagon of possessions behind the family.

  Peeping out from between the waterproof coverings were the tattered corners of Tycho Brahe’s astronomical ledgers.

  25

  Rome, Papal States

  Cardinal Robert Bellarmine tutted loudly. It was the nearest he had come to anger in a long time. For a moment, he thought he might succumb to temper, an aspect of his personality he thought he had left behind, along with his youth, at some point during the last seventy years.

  He put his usual equanimity down to having seen so much that it was impossible to be surprised any more; or simply that he could no longer muster the energy. Whichever was the true explanation, he did not care at the moment. He suppressed the angry impulse and spoke. ‘Most people become wiser
with age, but I swear you become more impudent.’

  ‘But you must resent him a little,’ said Cardinal Pippe.

  ‘I am his loyal servant, how could I resent His Holiness?’

  ‘Because he was appointed instead of you. Until the last minute, everyone thought you were going to be Pontiff.’

  ‘That was eleven years ago. How do you dream up these fantasies?’

  They were sitting in Bellarmine’s office. Pippe sprawled in an upholstered chair in front of the desk. ‘You must look at him and say to yourself, “That could have been me.”’

  Bellarmine narrowed his eyes at the younger cardinal. ‘No, I do not. This conversation is closed. We have far more serious matters to consider today.’

  Bellarmine returned his attention to a letter that had been forwarded to the Office of the Inquisition. There were seventy cardinals in Rome, all serving the Pope as advisors and preaching to the city’s inhabitants. As inquisitors, Bellarmine and Pippe had the additional role of combating the spread of Protestantism and, to do that, they needed to be constantly alert for those seeds of doubt that could grow into heresy.

  This letter, as with all the serious cases, ended up on Bellarmine’s desk. He picked up a hand lens and read through the contents once more. There was no doubt about it; this particular seed had put down roots and needed weeding out.

  The silence was broken by a knock on the door.

  Bellarmine glanced at Pippe, who took it as his signal to open the door. He greeted the new arrival. ‘My aching legs thank you for making the journey across the city today.’

  ‘The least I could do,’ said Father Grienberger.

  ‘My condolences on the passing of Father Clavius. He will be greatly missed.’

  ‘You are very kind, Cardinal Bellarmine. He was a mentor to us all.’

  ‘Indeed. He was a loyal servant to the Inquisition Office. And my congratulations on your promotion to Professor of Mathematics.’

  ‘Thank you. I hope to be a loyal servant to your office, too.’

  Bellarmine spread his bony fingers across the letter. ‘This is suspected of containing heresy, and I have been charged with its investigation.’

  ‘Who wrote it?’

  ‘Galileo.’

  Grienberger’s expression wavered, sparking Bellarmine’s curiosity.

  ‘He claims that his discoveries have proven Copernicus. And he is playing at theology to justify a Sun-centred universe,’ said Bellarmine.

  Grienberger tapped a finger to his mouth before speaking in an undertone. ‘Galileo must be stopped. We cannot risk him provoking a papal decision at this delicate time.’

  Bellarmine became impatient. ‘Why not? Wouldn’t it be better just to bring an end to this talk, once and for all? I thought we had an agreement: Galileo would stick to describing his discoveries as facts but attempt no justification or interpretation.’

  Grienberger glanced at Pippe, who was sitting with his arms folded looking stern, and back at Bellarmine. ‘May I speak in confidence?’

  Bellarmine concealed his annoyance with a nod.

  Grienberger spoke without lifting his gaze, as if addressing the leather on Bellarmine’s desk. ‘Galileo now has clear evidence that Aristotle’s arrangement of the planets cannot be correct.’

  Bellarmine pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Explain, please.’

  ‘Some time ago he sent word of a discovery to Prague. He coded it in the form of an anagram. Haec immatura a me iam frustra leguntuory …’

  ‘These immature things I am searching for now in vain,’ Pippe translated. ‘It makes no sense.’

  ‘… the solution is: Cynthiae fuguras aemulatur mater amorum.’

  ‘The mother of love emulates the shape of Cynthia. I am none the wiser,’ said Bellarmine.

  ‘Galileo alludes to the fact that Venus displays the same crescent to gibbous phases as our Moon. We, too, have charted this with our telescopes at the college.’

  ‘What does it prove?’

  ‘As well as changing phases, the planet grows bigger and smaller as it approaches and then recedes from the Earth. The way it does these two things together can only be explained if Venus moves around the Sun.’

  Pippe gasped.

  ‘We are sure of our observations; there is no mistake. Venus orbits the Sun, not the Earth.’ Grienberger sounded grave.

  ‘And Galileo knows this?’ asked Pippe.

  Grienberger nodded slowly.

  ‘Then he is dangerous,’ said Pippe, rising from his seat.

  Bellarmine steepled his fingers. ‘When were you going to tell us of these things?’

  ‘With a matter of such magnitude we preferred to collect more observations of the other planets before approaching the theologians. We think Mercury behaves in the same way, but we need more observations to confirm this. If so, both are clearly in orbit around the Sun.’

  ‘You no longer have the luxury of time.’ Bellarmine lifted the letter.

  Grienberger spoke quickly. ‘It would be better if this matter were conducted quietly. We have representatives in Florence who could talk to Galileo, reason with him.’

  ‘You’re too late. Galileo has returned.’

  ‘To Rome?’

  ‘Trying to gain another audience with His Holiness, to justify his letter.’

  ‘That cannot happen.’

  ‘Oh, we will see to that,’ said Bellarmine, ‘but from what you say, you actually favour a rethinking of astronomy.’

  Pippe threw his arms in the air. ‘On the say-so of this Galileo?’

  ‘On the say-so of the Roman College,’ Grienberger corrected. ‘We have our own telescopes. We have made our own studies. There is no doubting these observations, but if His Holiness is provoked into a hasty ruling against Galileo, it could set us back decades – perhaps centuries.’

  Pippe stared at Grienberger. ‘We cannot go rearranging the heavens. God placed the orbs just as he placed each and every one of us in our correct stations. After our lifetime of faithful service, we receive our reward in Heaven. If we start rearranging the planets, what’s to stop people rearranging their lives? No one will know what to believe. There will be mass panic. Society will break down. What will prevent the peasants demanding land or riches? They could reject our authority altogether.’

  ‘Calm yourself, Cardinal Pippe.’ As Bellarmine spoke, he felt a restless urgency. Panic – another sensation Bellarmine had thought banished to his youth. The universe was coming apart around them, and not even the Jesuits knew how to stitch it back together.

  Pippe looked at him pleadingly. ‘Even if these observations are correct, we must suppress them. There’s no sin in concealing a truth if it serves a higher purpose. The simple folk will not know how to interpret this.’

  Bellarmine hoped he appeared more confident than he felt. ‘Gentlemen, we have a lot of work to do and not much time to do it. Here is what I propose …’

  Galileo crunched across the gravel outside the Tuscan ambassador’s residence. His arthritis was back, gnawing at his joints, and the white of his beard had crept to his head since he’d last stayed in Rome. He defied both reminders of age, forcing himself to move with the speed of a younger man.

  Clouds of impatience gathered inside him as he waited. As time stretched on, they became droplets of doubt that his visitor would keep the appointment. Galileo circumnavigated the knee-high hedges of the formal gardens, wondering what he would do if the young cardinal did renege on his promise.

  A footman stood in the doorway, supposedly to attend to Galileo’s needs but really to keep an eye on him. Since his arrival this time, Galileo had been regarded with suspicion. The ambassador made his reluctance to offer hospitality perfectly clear and lectured the astronomer on the importance of keeping a low profile.

  Galileo dismissed it all as the product of a timid mind and considered having a quiet word with the Grand Duke when he returned to Florence. The ambassador was clearly the wrong man for the job.

  This
morning, in preparation for his visitor, Galileo had read through his new manuscript once more. Before leaving his apartment, he had wrapped the papers around his left forearm and slipped on his jacket. Now, arms folded, he held the precious document in place.

  He stayed close to the fountain. The splash of the water would help mask their conversation – if the cardinal ever appeared.

  A flap of robes emerging from the house drew his attention.

  At last, thought Galileo, straightening himself.

  The cardinal hurried down the villa steps and across the courtyard. What little was visible beyond the yards of red silk betrayed his youth. His cherubic features were as yet unblemished by the ability to grow a full beard. He was quite out of breath when he stopped in front of Galileo and clearly embarrassed.

  ‘I am new to Rome. I lost my way.’ His voice was so thin that Galileo strained to hear it over the gurgling of the fountain.

  The footman watched from the doorway.

  ‘It is of no matter … my name is Galileo Galilei.’

  ‘I know who you are, signor. I am Alessandro Orsini and I am humbled to be in your presence. I have read your books and letters. You are a great philosopher.’

  Galileo felt the tension ebb from his lower back. ‘I am pleased that you have understood what too many so-called philosophers have failed to recognise. If my work has taught me anything, it is that it takes a certain youthfulness of mind to appreciate my ideas. They are revolutionary.’

  ‘Some say dangerous.’

  ‘The Holy Office?’

  Orsini nodded.

  ‘You see, this is how I am treated; gagged, while my enemies are given free rein to speak against me.’

  ‘A letter of yours aroused their suspicions. You are under investigation.’