Sky's Dark Labyrinth by Stuart Clark Page A

entrails.’
    â€˜Is it so important?’
    â€˜It’s what people of our standing eat these days. Husband, your head has somehow passed clean through our station and lodged itself firmly in the stars.’
    â€˜Then we’ll have to borrow against next month. The merchants know we’re good for credit.’
    â€˜We’ve already used up all our credit.’
    Kepler ran a hand over his face. ‘Then we’ll have to sell some possessions – quietly, so no one knows. What about that small table you keep your prayer book on. Do we really need it? You could keep the book on the mantelpiece.’
    Barbara’s nostrils flared. ‘Don’t you dare touch that table.’
    â€˜Then something from upstairs, something that won’t be missed when we have visitors.’
    â€˜Understand this, Johannes Kepler. We’re not selling one single item of mine from this house. It’s all I have left after you forced me to leave behind my family and friends. Why not sell something that you brought into this marriage?’
    â€˜But I had nothing,’ he stammered.
    â€˜Precisely. This is a problem of your own making. It’s up to you to solve it.’
    â€˜But how?’
    Barbara bunched her fists and planted them on her hips. ‘You must take more clients.’
    â€˜Oh, Barbara, you know I hate it. Astrology is not some conjuror’s trick. It should be put to a noble purpose, not telling fatheads what they may or may not do with their little lives.’
    â€˜Noble purpose? What do you know of noble purpose? No one can understand your stupid book with all its shapes and signs. And it’s not put any food on our table.’
    â€˜Five planets. Five perfect solids. They have to be linked. It’s obvio—Oh, what’s the point? You can never understand my work. It’s beyond your grasp.’
    Barbara blinked at his words. He thought for one awful moment that she was going to cry. ‘Maybe not,’ she said, ‘but I can understand poverty and hunger.’
    She rushed from the room, the slam of the door reverberating through the house.
    Â Â Â Â 
    Next morning, Barbara picked at her food. Her feeble sips of wine made Kepler feel uncomfortable, and Regina looked from him to her mother, divining some tension but unable to comprehend it.
    When Barbara did take a mouthful, she gagged on it and went running for the back door. She heralded her return with a complaint to Frau Bezold about the quality of the meat.
    Kepler moved round the table and held out her chair. ‘Come and sit down.’
    From outside, a commotion drew their attention. The clop of hooves and the trundling of a multitude of carts grew in volume. Wagon after wagon passed the window, all packed high with cloth-covered burdens. Outriders on horseback trotted by.
    â€˜It’s a festival,’ said Regina, racing to the front door.
    Her parents followed her into the street to watch the procession.
    But there were no acrobats, no exotic animals, no men on stilts, no women dressed as goddesses; just donkeys and carts laden with people and possessions.
    â€˜Someone important is moving into town,’ said Barbara, craning to see into the carriages.
    Kepler did not hear her words. His full attention was focused across the street to where a dwarf in a jester’s outfit was pulling faces at the onlookers, occasionally jumping at them, as if he intended to attack.
    â€˜Take Regina inside. I must find Jessenius at once.’
    Barbara hesitated.
    â€˜Do it!’ Kepler began running, passing the curve of the Jesuit College and outpacing the lumbering wagons. He headed along the banks of the Vltava, where people were stopping to look at the procession. Pausing for breath, he looked back with them. The caravan was making its way across the Stone Bridge, heading for the Imperial Palace. Kepler pushed through the crowd and set off again.
    He slowed only as he neared the