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Tycho Brahe is not a stranger to Death.
He is still in his mother's womb when he murders his twin brother.
He is eighteen when his father dies.
Tycho Brahe. Lord Tycho Otteson de Brahe. Tycho the Great Dane. He wears his sandy hair cropped close to his head, and keeps his cold blue eyes piercingly arrogant.
He is only eighteen. He decides to grow a moustache.
Johannes Kepler picks himself up, brushes the dirt off his knobbly knees, swipes a muddy hand across his cheeks. He remains the perfect picture of dignified piety - just as the bible instructs him - silent and long-suffering, a martyr for his beliefs. But when he turns around, tears blur his already cloudy vision.
It's times like these that Johannes wants to scream and cry and hurl abuse at God - why have you made me like this, why do you curse me so - and he comes close, once or twice. He questions his family, his brother, himself. But he always repents later. Kneels by his bed for hours until his knees are numb from the cold stone floor and his knuckles white from being clutched so tightly, he prays - begs - God for forgiveness.
In the kitchen, his mother is screaming. The incessant pounding at the door must be his father, slurring his speech (and all the better, for Johannes knows they are all just vulgar curses) and smashing glass bottles. A loud thud, and something hits the floor with a harsh bang and clatter, followed by the noisy splash of liquid and his mother shrieks again. His brother whimpers pathetically, a sound that hardly sounds like anything that could have left the mouth of a human.
Johannes prays. Squeezes his eyes shut, digs his nails into the backs of his scarred hands, and prays.
Like Job, he thinks.
By the time he is thirty, Tycho Brahe has built himself his own kingdom. His own island, his own castle.
Word spreads of his magical island, and when people come from all over just to spend a day on Hven, Tycho happily obliges. Kings and their consorts with princes in tow, and more aristocrats than he can remember.
He's found a sort of joy in entertaining, he realises, since he opened his doors. It becomes addictive-- that warm, glowing sense of pride as his illustrious visitors gasp in awe at the sight of his precious instruments, or their appreciative sighs when he takes them to his favourite place, the highest tower in the observatory and has them look out at the night sky and the stars reflected in the gentle roiling ocean, or when he catches them looking at Elizabeth with the same sort of reverence he'd seen in their eyes when he showed them the stella nova nestled in the heart of Cassiopeia.
After the tour is done, he treats them to the largest feast they'd ever see in their lives - he's had kings gasp at his banquet spread, he's proud to report - and regales them with tales of his journeys. He clashes goblets of rich wine with his guests while their wives giggle as Jepp reads their future from their palms, and his daughters teach the children how to sneak slivers of meat to his great hounds.
The letters from Tycho leave Johannes completely - but not altogether unpleasantly - stunned.
Nobody has ever said I love you to him before. 1
He decides to go to Prague.
Tycho is large, but imperiously so, and without the usual clumsiness or oafishness that normally accompanied a man of his size. His largeness is powerful, intimidating; his very presence impressive, and demanded obedience and respect. He doesn't walk, Johannes notes, he stalks. Confident, arrogant. Where Johannes seeks out the shadowy comfort and safety of isolation and anonymity, Tycho looks for all the world as though he was born to be at the center of attention; he does not only thrive in crowds-- he stands out among them, and when all eyes are fixed upon him, Johannes swears that he shines.
Tycho Brahe, when he commanded attention, was a sight to behold. Next to him, Johannes feels unbearably and impossibly small.
If Tycho were a dog, Johannes finds himself musing one day - when the orbit of Mars has once again eluded his grasp - he would be one of those great, large, noble dogs. The regal sort of dogs that lived at the right hand of kings, of stocky build, blue blood, and lofty eyes. The sort that would come up to a man's hip, and tower over the average man were he to rise up to stand on his hind legs and rest his giant paws on quivering shoulders. He is the sort of dog that you would expect to accompany men on hunts, the graceful gait of his walk flowing effortlessly into the determined, romping gallop as he chases down small foxes and snaps their necks. And with the same fluid ease, he could take down bears.
Johannes derives great pleasure from thinking of people in terms of dogs. He is not an expert in the study of animals - in fact, it is an area he has almost no knowledge in, having had spent his youth studying the heavens, and dedicating no attention to the earthly bodies, something he regrets now - but it is something he has subjected himself to many times. He finds that dogs describe humans well, that they are good metaphors for human nature.
Johannes himself is a mongrel, a poor, underfed mongrel. 2 Small, wiry, and trusting noone, if he were a dog, Johannes would spend his days cowering in a dark corner, growling and snarling at the presence of humans, and whimpering silently to himself in their absence. It is no surprise a grand, pure-bred dog like Tycho would come to disdain such a pathetic mongrel, for they could not be any more different in their ways. He is sure, beyond any doubt, that Tycho will grow to despise him. A man of such nobility does not usually spare much tolerance for a character of Johannes' disposition.
(It is for this reason alone Johannes was surprised - he is reluctant to say he was pleasantly surprised - when Tycho welcomed him with outstretched arms and a feast that Johannes felt was somewhat unwarranted. He has never been one to take compliments graciously, so he had blushed furiously and stuttered out an awkward thank you when Tycho took him firmly by one scrawny arm and sat him at his right-hand at the banquet table.)
Every evening, Johannes listens to Tycho's hearty laugh, watches the ease with which Tycho carries out conversations around the dining table, and as he remains quiet and retreats further into himself, he is once again reminded of the vast divide that separates them. It is a sad reminder of how different the two of them are. If they lived on the moon, there is no doubt Tycho would be a Subvolvan, destined to walk in the light of the Volva, to survey the beauty of the Earth, and Johannes would be one of the wretched Privolvans, doomed to both alternating darkness and searing heat, to know nothing beyond the barren cratered surface of the Privolva, and to be known by noone in return. 3
Mars scurries away once again, swerving gleefully out of reach just when Johannes thinks he's got it pinned under his thumb. Infuriating, devilish, Mars, just like Loki from the myths of the Ancients. He wonders how long his battle - his war - with this trickster is going to last.
Johannes banishes all thoughts of dogs, Tycho, mythical deities, and prays to the heavens for help.
Johannes is confused.
Tycho needs him, and he is sure of it. So why then did Tycho insist on being so selfish with his data? Could he not see that if he were to greedily keep it to himself, or for whatever reason refuse to let Johannes lay a single gaze on it, it would mean nothing? His entire life's work, for which he risked his name, riches, and honour, would amount to absolutely nothing if he did not reveal it to Johannes. Yet Tycho remains infuriatingly vague, and almost reluctant to discuss astronomy with Johannes. He assigns Mars to Johannes-- and Johannes is not stupid, he has heard whispers among Tycho's other assistants of how Mars is impossible, Mars is the hardest planet to work with, nobody will ever make sense of Mars.
Fitting then, that Mars is the god of war.
Tycho may be the prince of mathematicians, and a phoenix of astronomy, but Johannes is not, and never will be, one to kneel down and grovel before a fellow man.
It frustrates him, and frustration is not an emotion that Johannes is unfamiliar with or partial to.
And so, the small dog finally bites.
Tycho yanks his hand back instantly. He fights off the urge to hit the dog across its pathetically grizzled muzzle. The bite in itself does not hurt. It is more of a graze than a real wound, just barely breaking the skin, and drawing only a miniscule drop of blood. But it is the thought of the dog's betrayal that hurts, that cuts so much deeper than a small sharpened fang possibly can.
It is the betrayal that stings and leaves a terrible taste in his mouth.
Tycho lets Johannes storm out and he sighs, rubbing furiously at the bridge of his nose as he is apt to do in times of stress. He leans over to Longtomonus, tells him to bring the man back even though - if he knew Johannes, and he does - Kepler should come crawling back with his tail tucked reproachfully between his legs, like an apologetic dog returning to its master.
He needs Kepler, Tycho knows. He is not getting any younger, and even in his youth, he did not even come close to the genius Kepler possesses. It is unfortunate that such a brilliant mind is housed in such shabby body, he thinks regretfully. And for this reason, Tycho knows that Kepler needs him too. What Kepler possesses in mind, he lacks sorely in body-- a body that Tycho can provide. He is Kepler's eyes, Kepler is his brain. They are two organs in different bodies. He does not believe in this thing they call Fate (Fate is for the weak and flimsy) but if he did, he would believe that his fate would be to complete Johannes Kepler. They are, as the myth goes, each others' halves. It's a fact the two of them have danced around for months; dodging that undeniable truth with clever little sidesteps and foolish obstinacy.
Tycho does not think much of God, and thinks even less of Him now. Only a completely evil deity would create such perfect creatures, only to rip them apart and condemn them to a lifetime of searching for one another. 4 And upon finding each other, to deprive them of the beautiful, peaceful reunion that is rightfully theirs.
Because Tycho and Kepler have found each other. It would be a good thing, a wondrous thing, if only their reunion and subsequent synthesis were not such volatile events. If God feared their power, He would be right to do so.
He needs Johannes Kepler more than anything in the world; his life would amount to nothing if he didn't have him. But Johannes has left (dear God, do not let him be running back to Ursus, Tycho prays), and how can Tycho ever have confidence in him again?
Life carries on as usual without Johannes; it is as though the scrawny German had been no more than one of the shards of driftwood that washes up occasionally on the shores of Hven, and leaves no trace upon being swept back to sea. Hundreds of assistants file in and out of the gates of his observatories every year. There is no reason why Johannes Kepler should be any different from the rest of them. But still, Tycho cannot shake the persistent feeling of unease that gnaws at the edges of his mind.
A letter soon arrives from Johannes, and just as Tycho had expected, it reads like a tragic comedy: a little over-exaggerated, but overflowing with regret and remorse and sincerity nevertheless. 5 It is the most profuse and comprehensive apology Tycho has ever received. He cannot suppress the smile that tugs at his stern mouth, and that very day he sets out himself in his carriage to bring the prodigal young puppy back.
When Tycho himself steps out of the carriage, Johannes looks as though he is about to die and Tycho has bite back the sudden urge to laugh.
For all his life, Johannes was not expecting Tycho to drag him back home.
(It frightens him a little, how he thinks of Benatky as home.)
He stutters out an apology in case his letter was not sufficient. (He is so apologetic, he might as well fall to his knees and kiss Tycho's feet, he thinks bitterly.) Tycho rubbishes his apology, all charm and charisma, and pulls him into a warm embrace.
Tycho's embrace is everything Johannes had envisioned it to be-- firm, strong, and entirely sincere.
When Tycho finally lets go, Johannes stands, awkward and more than a little taken aback. At the same time, a strange prickling feeling starts up behind his eyes and his heart begins to feel slightly strange-- it leaps around and trips like it doesn't belong to him. He finally understands now why everyone who meets Tycho falls in love with him, just a little bit.
Tycho Brahe is not a stranger to Death.
In his life, he has watched the death of brothers, uncles, fathers, dwarves, pet elks, and stars.
He is not a stranger to Death at all. And Death - oh, faithful loyal Death - who seems to have followed him around his entire life like an obedient dog, comes early to him.
He dies after days of feverish fits, leaving behind him a trail of unconsciously-recited mantras, deep indentations on the back of Johannes' hands, and thirty-eight years of watching the night skies.
He is only fifty-four.
