John Banville - Doctor Copernicus

The Canon had turned somewhat pale. Giese was watching him expectantly. Now this insolent knight would receive the kind of answer he deserved! But, in a voice so low it could be hardly heard, Canon Koppernigk said only:

“There is nothing more to say.”

Albrecht bowed his head, smiling thinly. “I meant, of course, Herr Canon, when I said what you have just echoed, that there is nothing more to say in these — ha — negotiations. On other, more congenial topics there is surely much we can discuss. Come, my dear Doctor, let us take a glass of wine together, like civilised men.”

Then followed that curious exchange that Precentor Giese was to remember ever afterwards with puzzlement and grave misgiving. Canon Koppernigk grimaced. He seemed in some pain.

“Grand Master,” he said, “you are contemplating waging war for the sake of sport. What is Ermland to you, or Royal Prussia? What is Poland even?”

Albrecht had been expecting something of the sort, for he answered at once:

“They are glory, Herr Doctor, they are posterity!”

“I do not understand that.”

“But you do, I think.”

“No. Glory, posterity, these are abstract concepts. I do not understand such things.”

“You, Doctor? — you do not understand abstract concepts, you who have expressed the eternal truths of the world in just such terms? Come sir!”

“I will not engage in empty discussion. We have come to Königsberg to ask you to consider the suffering that you are visiting upon the people, the greater suffering that war with Poland will bring.”

“The people?” Albrecht said, frowning. “What people?”

“The common people.”

“Ah. The common people. But they have suffered always, and always will. It is in a way what they are for. You flinch. Herr Doctor, I am disappointed in you. The common people? — pah. What are they to us? You and I, mein Freund , we are lords of the earth, the great ones, the major men, the makers of supreme fictions. Look here at these poor dull brutes—” His thin dark hand took in the silent crowd behind him, the flunkeys, Precentor Giese, the painted army. “—They do not even understand what we are talking about. But you understand, yes, yes. The people will suffer as they have always suffered, meanly, mewling for pity and mercy, but only you and I know what true suffering is, the lofty suffering of the hero. Do not speak to me of the people! They are the brutish mask of war, but war itself is that which they in the ritual of their suffering express but can never comprehend, for their eyes are ever on the ground, while you and I look up, ever upward, into the blue! The people — peasants, soldiers, generals — they are my tool, as mathematics is yours, by which I come directly at the true, the eternal, the real. Ah yes, Doctor Copernicus, you and I — you and I! The generations may execrate us for what we do to their world, but we and those rare ones like us shall have made them what they are. !” He broke off then and dabbed with a silk kerchief at the corners of his thin mouth. He had a smug drained sated look about him, that the troubled Precentor found himself comparing to that of a trooper fastening up his breeches after a particularly brutal and gratifying rape. Canon Koppernigk, his face ashen, rose in silence and turned to go. Albrecht, in the tone he might have used to remark upon the weather, said: “I had your uncle the Bishop poisoned, you know.” The crowd behind him stirred, and Giese, halfway up from his chair, sat down again abruptly. Canon Koppernigk faltered, but would not turn. Albrecht said lightly, almost skittishly, to his hunched black back: “See, Doctor, how shocked they are? But you are not shocked, are you? Well then, say nothing. It is no matter. Farewell. We shall meet again, perhaps, when the times are better.”

As they went down the hill from the castle, borne through the gleaming darkness on a river of swaying torches, Precentor Giese, confused and pained, tried to speak to his friend, but the Doctor would not hear, and answered nothing.

*

At dead of night to the castle of Allenstein they came, a hundred men and horse, Poland’s finest, bearing the standard of their king before them, thundered over the drawbridge, under the portcullis, past the drowsing sentry into the courtyard and there dismounted amidst a great clamour of hoofs and rattling sabres and the roars of Sergeant Tod, a battle-scarred tough old soldier with a heart of stoutest oak. “Right lads!” he boomed, “no rest for you tonight!” and dispatched them at once to the walls. “Aw for fuck’s sake, Sarge!” they groaned, but jumped to their post with alacrity, for each man knew in his simple way that they were here not only to protect a lousy castle and a pack of cringing bloody Prussians, but that the honour of Poland herself was at stake. Their Captain, a gallant young fellow, scion of one of the leading Polish families, covered with his cloak the proud glowing smile that played upon his lips as he watched them scramble by torchlight to the battlements, and then, pausing only to pinch the rosy cheek of a shy serving wench curtseying in the doorway, he hurried up the great main staircase with long-legged haste to the Crystal Hall where Land Provost Koppernigk was deep in urgent conference with his beleaguered household. He halted on the threshold, and bringing his heels together smartly delivered a salute that his commanding officer would have been proud to witness.

The Canon looked up irritably. “Yes? What is it now? Who are you?”

“Captain Chopin, Herr Provost, at your service!”

“Captain what? ”

“I am an officer of His Gracious Majesty King Sigismund’s First Royal Cavalry, come this night from Mehlsack with one hundred of His Highness’s finest troops. My orders are to defend to the last man this castle of Allenstein and all within the walls.” (“O God be praised!” cried several voices at once.) “Our army is on the march westward and expects to engage the foe by morning. The Teutonic Knights are at Heilsberg, and are bombarding the walls of the fortress there. As you are aware, Herr Provost, they have already taken the towns of Guttstadt and Wormditt to the north. A flanking assault on Allenstein is expected hourly. These devils and their arch fiend Grand Master Albrecht must be stopped — and they shall be stopped, by God’s blood! (Forgive a soldier’s language, sire.) You will recall the siege of Frauenburg, how they fired the town and slaughtered the people without mercy. Only the bravery of your Prussian mercenaries prevented them from breaching the cathedral wall. Your Chapter fled to the safety of Danzig, leaving to you, Herr Provost, the defence of Allenstein and Mehlsack. However, in that regard, I must regretfully inform you now that Mehlsack has been sacked, sire, and—”

But here he was interrupted by the hasty entrance of a large dark burly man attired in the robes of a canon.

“Koppernigk!” cried Canon Snellenburg (for it is he), “they are bombarding Heilsberg and it’s said the Bishop is dead—” He stopped, catching sight of the proud young fellow standing to attention in his path. “Who are you?”

“Captain Chopin, sire, at your—”

“Captain who? ”

Zounds! the Captain thought, are they all deaf? “I am an officer of His Gracious—”

“Yes yes,” said Snellenburg, waving his large hands. “Another damned Pole, I know. Listen, Koppernigk, the bastards are at Heilsberg. They’ll be here by morning. What are you going to do?”

The Land Provost looked mildly from the Canon to the Captain, at his household crouched about the table, the secretaries, whey-faced clergy, minor administrators, and then to the frightened gaggle of servants ranged expectantly behind him. He shrugged.