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Authors: Susann Cokal
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Denmark’s Frederick chose a different Sophia, of the obscure Mecklenburg-Güstrow, whom he will marry this July. (And what a hurry to be sure that Magnus’s wedding took place before Frederick’s! There is no affair that does not become competition between Denmark and Sweden.) Others in the privy council loathe Protestants of any sort and insist that a Lunedie should marry only with Poland or France. Any of these men might have resolved to undo the treaty with a death, though without the greater offense of killing Duke Magnus himself.
In his grandly paneled Presence Chamber, King Christian charges the three physicians with finding an answer. “Dissection is not usual,” he bleats, sounding something like the sheep to which his subjects often compare him. He has a long, sad face and graying curls; a long body clumping in the middle. Princess Sophia was the treasure of his heart, and he hates to think of her nude body inspected, much less sliced open — but better this than his land sliced apart in another war. “It is not usual, but in this instance it is essential. Investigate . . . by the necessary means . . . and determine whether she’s my daughter or Magnus’s wife.”
His principal advisers and favorites — the aged Duke of Marsvin, sly Willem Braj, Lord Rafael af Hvas, and the handsome Lord Nicolas Bullen (this one having wandered over from Queen Isabel’s household) — give nods of support. Their King is never alone in his decisions, never alone at all, in fact, even when he steps into his more private inner chamber and the cabinet of the stool. A few other favorites are draped about the room, toying with their jewels or snuffling pomanders to combat the stench of daily life and extraordinary death. Everyone’s head aches, and no one wants to touch the remains of last night’s feast.
“And try to see if Sophia was poisoned,” says King Christian, deliberately but as if in afterthought. It is his secret hope that his darling has died from some such outside cause — that it was not her marriage that brought on death. He would have kept her at court years longer if she hadn’t been needed in this endless game of diplomacy. Of course, the poison might have resulted from the marriage act — or some unthinkable source close to home . . . He feels the usual pain in his belly, so familiar, flare into intense cramping. Also increasingly familiar. He can hardly bear to sit, and a tear hovers at his eyelid.
Under their loose black hats, the three physicians dart looks at one another, seeing if any can guess the King’s preference in this matter. Does he
want
his daughter to have been murdered? The general if unspoken conclusion is that he does; poison must be more desirable than a fatal disease of the Lunedie bloodline, as it speaks less to the other children’s future. Those six children — five of them girls — are all that stand between an orderly succession and chaos. There isn’t even a well-trained by-blow, for example, to take inheritance if King Christian dies suddenly, only some distant cousins who will squabble over the crown. It is somewhat to be lamented that this king has never made a bastard; he is so faithful to his wife that the favorites have often speculated as to his conscience, as if a small virtue must conceal a great secret sin.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” murmur Candenzius, Venslov, and Dé, and they give a practiced bow as one. Both King and Queen like to see them in unison.
Perhaps there actually is a poison plot afoot. Perhaps the physicians really will detect it.
Two tears now roll down Christian’s white-powdered face. “My poor pretty girl,” he laments, almost inaudibly.
Nicolas Bullen appears at Christian’s side without seeming to move. He offers the King a pomander in the shape of a skull, and his dark fingers brush against Christian’s damp ones. When Nicolas touches a spring at the pomander’s top, the skull breaks apart into eight sections, each with a
In his grandly paneled Presence Chamber, King Christian charges the three physicians with finding an answer. “Dissection is not usual,” he bleats, sounding something like the sheep to which his subjects often compare him. He has a long, sad face and graying curls; a long body clumping in the middle. Princess Sophia was the treasure of his heart, and he hates to think of her nude body inspected, much less sliced open — but better this than his land sliced apart in another war. “It is not usual, but in this instance it is essential. Investigate . . . by the necessary means . . . and determine whether she’s my daughter or Magnus’s wife.”
His principal advisers and favorites — the aged Duke of Marsvin, sly Willem Braj, Lord Rafael af Hvas, and the handsome Lord Nicolas Bullen (this one having wandered over from Queen Isabel’s household) — give nods of support. Their King is never alone in his decisions, never alone at all, in fact, even when he steps into his more private inner chamber and the cabinet of the stool. A few other favorites are draped about the room, toying with their jewels or snuffling pomanders to combat the stench of daily life and extraordinary death. Everyone’s head aches, and no one wants to touch the remains of last night’s feast.
“And try to see if Sophia was poisoned,” says King Christian, deliberately but as if in afterthought. It is his secret hope that his darling has died from some such outside cause — that it was not her marriage that brought on death. He would have kept her at court years longer if she hadn’t been needed in this endless game of diplomacy. Of course, the poison might have resulted from the marriage act — or some unthinkable source close to home . . . He feels the usual pain in his belly, so familiar, flare into intense cramping. Also increasingly familiar. He can hardly bear to sit, and a tear hovers at his eyelid.
Under their loose black hats, the three physicians dart looks at one another, seeing if any can guess the King’s preference in this matter. Does he
want
his daughter to have been murdered? The general if unspoken conclusion is that he does; poison must be more desirable than a fatal disease of the Lunedie bloodline, as it speaks less to the other children’s future. Those six children — five of them girls — are all that stand between an orderly succession and chaos. There isn’t even a well-trained by-blow, for example, to take inheritance if King Christian dies suddenly, only some distant cousins who will squabble over the crown. It is somewhat to be lamented that this king has never made a bastard; he is so faithful to his wife that the favorites have often speculated as to his conscience, as if a small virtue must conceal a great secret sin.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” murmur Candenzius, Venslov, and Dé, and they give a practiced bow as one. Both King and Queen like to see them in unison.
Perhaps there actually is a poison plot afoot. Perhaps the physicians really will detect it.
Two tears now roll down Christian’s white-powdered face. “My poor pretty girl,” he laments, almost inaudibly.
Nicolas Bullen appears at Christian’s side without seeming to move. He offers the King a pomander in the shape of a skull, and his dark fingers brush against Christian’s damp ones. When Nicolas touches a spring at the pomander’s top, the skull breaks apart into eight sections, each with a
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