Ciclo CCCXCIV

The king’s new astronomer, that quiet man from Picardy, speaks of a comet that does not move as the Ptolemaic spheres demand. He shows me calculations on paper—ink still wet, trembling a little like my hand. The tail points away from the sun, he says, as if pushed by a breath not yet named. I nod, but the candle gutters and I see only the shape of a scythe hanging in the dark, not a star.