Sky's Dark Labyrinth

by Stuart Clark

  Galileo had arrived back from Rome yesterday evening, and he had a story to tell.

  Come on, Maria Celeste!

  He dropped back into the uncomfortable wooden chair and impatiently studied his side of the room. It was clean, but unrepaired holes in the walls revealed the hair and straw of the inner binding. Even the light seemed old in here.

  There was movement behind the metal grille. Maria Celeste was by the far door, carrying a small bundle. He pressed himself closer to the wall and held his palm to the metal railing. Their fingers locked. ‘You’re cold,’ he said.

  ‘Sister Arcangela wanted me to dowse her again.’

  Arcangela – Livia’s chosen name. ‘How is your sister?’

  ‘She’s still in her bed with the fever I wrote to you about.’

  ‘Is it that serious?’

  Maria Celeste spoke with deliberate care. ‘There are those who might have shrugged off the illness sooner.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Here are your collars. I have mended and bleached them.’ She passed the garments between the metal bars. Galileo stacked them with his papers.

  ‘Now let us talk of you and your adventures. It is unforgivable of me to keep you waiting when you have so much to tell. I’ve missed you this past month, Papa. Tell me, did you meet him? Did you meet the new Pope?’

  ‘I did. We walked together in the gardens of the Vatican.’

  ‘Forgive me for being curious, but what is he like?’

  ‘Everything you could wish for. He retains his great interest in my astronomy. Things will be different this time. Every day for five days we met to discuss philosophy. Just him and me.’

  For their first meeting Urban VIII had approached on horseback, the colour of his cassock matching the white hair of his stallion. Galileo had felt his heart accelerate at the majestic sight. Had he not been wearing an expensive new tunic, he might have felt intimidated.

  The Swiss Guards kept a respectful distance but were watchful as Urban drew his steed to a halt, patted its neck and slid from the saddle. The Pope looked younger than his fifty-five years. Galileo fell to his knees and kissed Urban’s outstretched hand.

  ‘Did you hear? Bellarmine passed away,’ said Urban.

  ‘I did, Your Holiness.’ Galileo stood up.

  ‘Died penniless. Managed to give everything he had to the poor,’ said the Pope. ‘I expect I’ll have to commission a statue of him.’

  Galileo said nothing.

  Urban had a square goatee that protruded some two inches from the bottom of his chin. His moustache was waxed into horizontal points. He moved steadily, each step seemingly designed to savour his new position in the world. Galileo fell in beside him.

  ‘You haven’t forgiven him for the anti-Copernican edict have you?’ asked Urban.

  Galileo watched a pair of birds wheel through the sky, choosing his words carefully. ‘I have a lot to thank the cardinal for. Without him, the edict may have been harsher. As it was, Copernicus wasn’t banned, only corrected.’

  ‘Rome is different now.’

  Galileo turned, unsure he had heard correctly.

  Urban’s round eyes were burning. ‘I will turn Rome into a hub of human education, both spiritual and philosophical. I will send missions into Europe and far beyond to take our teachings to the world. But to do it, I need help.’

  ‘I am your humble servant as you know, but, Your Holiness, you have the Roman College on your doorstep.’

  ‘Oh, quite so. I’ve studied with the Jesuits and value them above everybody else, yet I also understand the drawbacks of their system, their resistance to change.’ Urban was watching Galileo closely.

  ‘The Jesuits are the arbiters of Roman knowledge, Your Holiness.’

  ‘Oh, come, don’t fence with me. We both know that you skewered Father Scheiner over his interpretation of the sunspots.’

  Galileo’s heart accelerated again. The Pope was flattering him: he wanted something. ‘Your Holiness, the good philosopher flies alone like an eagle, not in a flock of noisy starlings. And though the lone voice may struggle to be heard, yet may he reach heights that no starling can ever imagine.’

  ‘And I am struck by one of your thoughts in particular: that you champion experimental evidence over the wisdom of the ancients.’

  Galileo stopped dead. ‘You have read my latest work about the comets of 1618?’

  ‘Il Saggiatore. Yes, I have it read to me at mealtimes. I’m not sure there is anyone else in all Europe who can present a polemic like you. I am captivated by your new way of learning.’

  ‘We should believe only what we can verify by experimentation. Nothing else is credible. Deduction and logic are second rate compared to the experience of our eyes and the wit of our mathematics. We see nature around us; let us truly investigate it. In this way, we can bring ourselves closer to God.’

  ‘It seems so obvious in hindsight.’

  ‘If I may say so, Your Holiness, the greatest ideas always do.’

  Urban walked on, forcing Galileo to match his pace. ‘There is one thing that surprises me, Galileo. The Roman College now say that they have measured all three comets and that they are celestial objects, able to move between the planets. Yet you maintain in your book that they are atmospheric phenomena.’

  ‘Your Holiness, one only has to spit on the floor to see sunlight thus reflected. But only a fool would think he has discovered a new star.’

  Urban inclined his head in a sideways nod. ‘There is one thing that Il Saggiatore does not mention: the system of Copernicus.’

  Galileo could not help but glance over his shoulder. The Swiss Guards were a dozen paces behind. Nevertheless, he lowered his voice. ‘The edict of 1616 …’

  ‘If I had been Pope then, there would never have been an edict.’

  Galileo found it hard to convince himself that he had heard correctly.

  ‘Oh, the look on your face, Galileo … I find nothing wrong with Copernicus’s ideas – so long as they are confined to hypothesis, never spoken as truth. There are still too many in Rome who believe the planets are moved by angels to talk of it as anything else. Claim that it is just a mathematical trick to achieve the correct answer rather than assert that this is the true arrangement of planets and all seems reasonable to me.’

  ‘What of the Jesuits and their favour for the Tychonic arrangement?’

  ‘I think you are fencing with me again.’

  ‘Forgive me. As we both know, Tycho’s system was never more than an ugly compromise.’

  ‘A stepping stone to Copernicus. If I am going to send my priests and monks off into the world, I need to arm them with the best weapons against ignorance that I can find.’

  Galileo felt a shiver pass through him. ‘A book,’ he whispered. ‘You need a book that anyone can read arguing for Copernican astronomy.’

  ‘Know anyone who might like to write it?’

  ‘Your Holiness, it would be my honour to begin at once.’

  Urban smiled. ‘Perhaps I will commission a statue of you one day, Galileo.’

  Galileo nearly laughed at his daughter, her eyes were as wide and white as the full moon and her mouth was parted in astonishment. He told her, ‘I’m going to write it in Italian, not Latin, and in ordinary language for the common man to read. They will be my judges. I’ll include no mathematics in the actual book but all my arguments will be based on my lifetime of observations and calculations. I’m going to frame the book as a discussion between three philosophers, taking place over a number of days. One philosopher will be a Copernican; the other will be a foolish Aristotelian; and the third will be an undecided but reasonable man. On the first day, I’ll draw the battle lines: the Aristotelian will describe the Earth as being fundamentally different from all the other celestial objects; and the Copernican will point out that the telescope shows this is not true – that the Moon is Earth-like and probably so are the other planets. On the second day, I’ll talk about the twofold motion of the Earth; its
daily rotation to give us night and day, and its annual orbit to give us our year. Day Three will see the introduction of the sunspots, while on the fourth and final day they will discuss the tides. By the end of this day, our agnostic will have no choice but to side with the Copernican. There will be no doubt left. At last, I have been given the chance to prove myself.’

  31

  Linz, Upper Austria

  1627

  Kepler was dreading the journey to come: several days in a freezing carriage skidding across muddy roads that had hardened into glass. He had tugged on two pairs of hose that morning in preparation, yet still felt cold at the thought.

  Susanna secured the last few buttons on his jerkin and smoothed the material along his torso. ‘After all these years, I thought you’d have fattened up.’

  ‘And, after all these years, my wife, I thought you’d have stopped worrying.’ He drew her close and kissed her, marvelling at the thrill in it. A thrill that fourteen years of marriage, six children – three surviving – had yet to erode.

  They had celebrated the marriage with a feast at the Sign of the Lion Inn where Emperor Matthias’s representatives had caused a stunned silence when they presented Kepler with an extravagant goblet as a wedding present.

  After all these years, he could no longer bring to mind the dress she had worn, except to say that it had been beautiful, but he vividly remembered looking into her hazel-flecked eyes and thinking to himself, I am reborn.

  ‘I’m sure everything will be just fine,’ she said, relaxing into his arms.

  ‘The tables are twenty-five years late,’ Kepler said wearily. ‘There have been two emperors since Rudolph.’

  ‘So why must they be called The Rudolphine Tables? Why not The Keplerian Tables? After all the work you’ve put into them.’

  ‘It is those in power who are remembered, not the people who do the work. I wonder how Emperor Ferdinand will receive me.’

  ‘Your exile from Graz was almost thirty years ago; he’ll have forgotten all about it. You’ve said it yourself: he was little more than a boy. And no man could have worked harder than you. With all your other books you’ve not been idle. I’m more worried about the journey. There are soldiers everywhere.’

  ‘The worst of the fighting is far from here, and I have all the necessary travel papers. I’ll be home with gingerbread before Christmas.’ He released her and, peering in the hall mirror, fixed his large floppy beret. The winter light gave the polished metal plate little illumination to work with. He appeared but a shadow, with a flowing beard of grey.

  Susanna held open a fur-lined coat and slid the weight of it around his shoulders. He pulled on gloves, covering the liver spots that now mingled with the pox scars on his hands.

  ‘The children will miss you.’ She pulled him tight again. ‘I’ll miss you.’

  For a moment, Kepler feared he was doing the wrong thing. He suddenly doubted his own promise to return by Christmas. What was he doing marching into the Palace of the most powerful Roman Catholic after the Pope? Ferdinand knew only too well Kepler’s staunch views against papal authority. He had not appointed Kepler to be his imperial mathematician but inherited him out of necessity because the astronomer was still compiling the long-promised tables. It was a task that Kepler had pursued hesitantly, allowing himself to be freely distracted by his own quests.

  If he did not set off now, he never would. Kepler kissed Susanna again as he opened the door.

  ‘Johannes, wait.’ Susanna handed him his cushion.

  ‘What would I do without you?’

  At the city gate, the carriage was flagged to a halt. A scruffy guard smelling of beer cast a suspicious eye around the compartment. Kepler proffered his papers. Although he doubted the man could read, he trusted the red wax of the ducal seal would suffice.

  The crack of fracturing wood split the air. Kepler looked up to see that another city guard had smashed open a newly arrived couple’s travelling chest and was rooting through their clothes. In grave triumph, he lifted a Lutheran Bible from the muddle. Swaggering to the brazier, he dropped it into the flames.

  Kepler’s guard dropped the papers back inside the carriage and turned to help his colleague. Together they beat the couple, making no distinction between the man and the woman, then pushed them on their way, bleeding and with their clothes bundled in their arms.

  At night, curled into one strange bed after another as the journey continued, Kepler fought back the memory of their broken faces. And he dreamed of Ferdinand, as he had known him back in Graz; just twenty-two but puffy-faced with a drooping nose. Ferdinand used to twirl his waxed moustache in a comic affectation of boredom as he watched the Lutherans being converted one by one, but it had all changed when Kepler stepped before the panel. Now Ferdinand was glowering at him, anticipating the disobedience of his mathematician – who did not disappoint. Kepler always awoke at the moment he voiced his rejection of Rome, clammy and panting.

  Susanna was right, he kept telling himself, it had all been a long time ago. But in the back of his mind, he knew that if he could still remember that day, so could Ferdinand.

  Solid banks of white clouds covered Prague, as if God had blocked the city from His view. Armoured men roamed the streets, stopping people at random to check their destination and intentions. Kepler’s carriage took its place in the queue of traffic on the bridge where imperial guards were searching all vehicles.

  Today there were some grisly additions spiked and mounted on the balustrade. Twelve weathered skulls glittered in the frosty morning – twelve of the most infamous ‘traitors’ executed by Ferdinand upon his ascendancy. On that day, twenty-seven Protestant leaders had lost their lives: most beheaded; three hanged. The heads of the most hated offenders were displayed on the bridge as a grim warning to all who held Lutheran beliefs.

  Kepler had been reluctant to believe the news when he’d heard it in Linz. Now here was the ghastly confirmation. He averted his gaze whenever the halting progress of the coach brought another desiccated skull hovering alongside the window. However, one proved impossible to ignore. A rusty nail protruded from the cracked forehead, supporting a few withered fibres that had once been a tongue.

  Kepler’s stomach fell away. The gossip in Linz had specifically described this mutilation. That tongue had negotiated his introduction to Tycho Brahe; it had appeased the Danish astronomer when a fever had rendered Kepler irrational; and finally it had brokered the reconciliation when Brahe had moved to Prague. Had it not been for that tongue, Kepler would not be here today presenting The Rudolphine Tables. The tongue and the skull belonged to Jan Jessenius.

  Jessenius had inspired an exquisite hatred in Ferdinand because he had united the Bohemian estates into a coherent Lutheran force. After capture and execution, in a disturbing parody of his profession, the anatomist’s body had been quartered and hung around the city.

  Could it have escaped Ferdinand’s spies that during Kepler’s time in Prague he had been a close associate of Jessenius?

  The carriage passed through the search without incident and rumbled on through the traffic to the market square. They passed the town clock, the mechanical Apostles silent for the time being, and approached the overwhelming spires of the Church of Our Lady Before Týn.

  Kepler had the driver pull up alongside another waiting carriage. He climbed down to the pavement and straightened his cloak, then reached back inside to retrieve a large leather-bound book.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ he said to the driver.

  Inside, the church was quiet. A woman sat in the back row gazing at the magnificent altar. Kepler followed her gaze and his jaw dropped.

  The portrait of Utraquist leader Georg von Podiebrad that used to hang above the altar had gone, replaced by a statue of the Madonna. The Virgin Mary’s tall figure was adorned with a crown and surrounded by an aureole of gold. In her arms, Jesus was blessing his mother.

  Down on one knee at the base of the altar was a broad-shouldered man, dressed he
ad to toe in black. His head was bowed in prayer. Kepler bobbed his own head at the altar and made his way into the transept, to a particular marble slab. It lay horizontally on the floor, flush with the other flagstones, and was inscribed with letters that had been painted in gold: TYCHO BRAHE.

  Kepler kneeled before his old master and lifted the book. ‘It is done,’ he whispered. ‘Your observations, my mathematics – just as you always envisaged. Your life’s work will live on now and provide the most accurate planetary tables in all history. You helped me unlock the elliptical orbits and the movements of the planets. You may not have appreciated it at the time but perhaps now, looking down from above, you can see them too. While our own world becomes more dissonant every day, thanks to you I have seen the greater harmony of the cosmos.’

  Kepler laid the book on the gravestone, clasped his hands and prayed silently.

  When he returned to the nave, the book back under his arm, the man at the altar was just getting to his feet. Something about him aroused Kepler’s curiosity and he hung back, watching from the shadows. The man was even more powerful than at first sight, martial in his bearing. Kepler guessed he was in his mid forties.

  The man crossed himself and strode down the aisle. As he reached the rear pews, the woman dropped to her knees before him and kissed his hand. He accepted the gesture and moved on. As he was about to leave, a bent old man shuffled through the doors and instantly came to attention. The man nodded his appreciation but did not break his stride.

  ‘Who was that?’ Kepler asked the driver once outside, indicating the carriage that was leaving.

  ‘That, my friend, is General Wallenstein, saviour of Prague, defender of Catholic pride.’ The driver melodramatically waved his arm.

  Conqueror of vast tracts of Protestant lands, thought Kepler. Wallenstein was a war hero here because of his military successes against the Protestant estates. By way of reward for his victories, Ferdinand had given him the Duchy of Friedland, north of Prague.