Alchemy, p.28
Alchemy, page 28
‘Esther,’ I said softly. She turned, startled out of her speculation, as if she had forgotten I was there. ‘This morning, before we were interrupted, you almost shared with me what you knew about David’s betrayal. Does it have something to do with your father’s secret visits to the Emperor?’
She stared at me, astonished. ‘How did you—?’
‘Not important. But they were not as secret as you imagined. My guess is that David chose to pass on that information to someone at court, someone he believed might be in a position to intervene – to have a quiet word with the Emperor before it became common knowledge that he was fraternising with the rabbi and a more formal denunciation was required, with all the potential ramifications for your community. Am I right?’
She continued to watch me, her face impassive.
‘But then Ziggi Bartos was murdered,’ I persisted, ‘and for some reason – perhaps because the manner of his death was so obviously intended to stir fear of the Jews – that alarmed David enough to end his arrangement. An hour or so later, someone tried to kill him. It’s reasonable to suppose they wanted to silence him about the nature of that arrangement. Don’t you want them caught?’ When she still didn’t speak, I shrugged. ‘Well, guard your secrets if you must. But it’s David’s wife and children who are paying the price for them.’
It was unnecessarily cruel, but effective; she collapsed as if I had kicked her in the back of the knees, slumping on to the settle beside me with her face in her hands. I reached out and took her right hand, turning it palm upwards between mine. Most unexpectedly, she leaned in until her forehead was touching my shoulder.
‘It’s not your fault,’ I said, stroking her palm with my thumb. ‘David made his choice – he must have known there was risk involved.’
She shook her head. ‘It is my fault. You don’t understand.’
‘You keep saying that. Then help me. Who was paying David? Was it the Catholic faction – San Clemente or Montalcino, or one of their emissaries? Did they fear your father was trying to convert the Emperor? Were you the one who told David about the secret visits to the castle, is that what you mean?’
She mumbled into the wool of the blanket, so that I had to strain to listen. ‘None of this would have happened if I had only—’
‘If you had what? Esther?’
I squeezed her hand gently; a hot tear fell from her eye and splashed on to our clasped fingers. It seemed to jolt her out of her distress; she jerked her head up, snatched her hand back and stared at me as if I had taken liberties.
‘Stop all these questions, I can’t bear it,’ she cried, rising to her feet and smearing the tears away with her knuckles. ‘I should be with Sarah now, not stuck here with you, being interrogated.’
‘You’re welcome to go,’ I said mildly. ‘I can wait here – I don’t need a nursemaid.’
‘My father said not to leave you alone.’ She shot me a resentful glare, and I felt a lurch of anxiety; I wondered if Rabbi Loew had realised someone had been through his desk. One thing was certain; in that brief moment of intimacy, I had ascertained that Esther had no blisters or calluses on her hands. She had not rowed a boat upriver at speed the night before; the idea was absurd. But could she have been present when David was abducted and stabbed? Waiting on the bank somewhere? Why had he spoken her name with such urgency? I had not yet told anyone of David’s last words to me; I had no idea who I might trust with them.
‘We could go together,’ I suggested. ‘I would be glad to hear news of David’s condition. Since I found him,’ I added, sensing that she was about to object.
‘Very well,’ she said with obvious reluctance. ‘You had better borrow a coat or you will take a chill again. My father has a spare. Wait here.’
I watched her through the open door of the parlour as she crossed the hall to her father’s study, where she took a key from a pouch at her girdle and fitted it to the lock. It appeared I was right; Loew knew his sanctuary had been breached, and he must have been able to guess at the intruder. What secrets did he want to protect?
Bundled into the rabbi’s heavy coat, my teeth still chattering, I followed Esther to the hospital beside the cemetery. A small crowd had gathered outside and I recognised some of the faces from David’s shop that morning, though now they were blank with shock and grief. People held one another’s arms or clasped hands; no one spoke, and they parted wordlessly as Esther led me through to the door. It was an impressive two-storey building, recently constructed and smelling of new stone. We waited in an entrance hall and after a moment the inner door was opened by Rabbi Loew in his shirtsleeves, all the brightness drained from his face. He ushered us into the ward. We passed a line of beds, their occupants following us warily with their eyes as we walked to the end and stopped in front of another door.
Esther touched her father’s arm. ‘Is he—?’
‘He’s breathing, barely.’ The rabbi nodded to the closed door. ‘Benjamin is doing all he can, but—’ He spread his hands wide in a gesture of helplessness.
‘Has he spoken at all?’ I asked.
He gave me a curious look. ‘No. He’s not conscious. Why do you ask – did he speak to you?’
‘He tried, I think. But I could not make out the words.’
I did not miss the glance he exchanged with Esther. ‘Well, we are grateful to you, Dr Bruno. If you had not sought him, he might have been missing for days. At least his family have had the chance to say goodbye.’
‘Where is Sarah?’ Esther asked.
‘Your sisters took her home. Her distress was so extreme – understandably – that it was impeding Benjamin’s efforts. He gave them a draught to calm her. You should go to her, my dear – they will want help with the children.’
Esther looked mutinous for a moment, then nodded, giving me a last look before she left, though I could not work out what she meant to convey.
Loew laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘You should go too, my friend. Get some rest. I’m sure Dr Hajek will take good care of you.’
‘Hajek is on his way here,’ I said. ‘I thought he should see David.’
He gave me a sharp look. ‘That was not your decision. This has nothing to do with him.’
‘You know that’s not true, Rabbi. Look at the manner of the attack – the parallels with the murder of Bartos are obvious.’
‘This was a crime against our community, meant as revenge for our supposed part in the alchemist’s death.’
I could not contain my incredulity. ‘Is that really what you’re telling yourself? That it was a random attack by some passer-by with a grudge against the Jews, that it could have happened to any Jew who found himself in the wrong place?’ I shook my head. ‘You don’t believe that and neither do I. This occurred as a direct result of your secret meetings with the Emperor and David’s attempts to stop them.’
The rabbi closed his eyes slowly and lowered his head. ‘How did you know about those meetings?’
‘Doesn’t matter. David talked to someone about your visits because he didn’t approve of them.’
‘That’s true, he didn’t. He tried to talk me out of it. I told him I knew what I was doing. And now here we are – five children about to lose a father through my stubbornness. I do not need you to remonstrate with me, Dr Bruno. I already have God to answer to.’ He dragged his hands over his beard.
‘So what were you doing at the castle all those nights? What did Rudolf want from you?’
He blinked. ‘I thought you knew?’
‘Not everything. But it would help if you filled in the gaps.’
Loew looked at me for a long moment, then let out a heavy sigh. ‘He is, as you must know by now, a man with an insatiable appetite for the forbidden. And with the power to make our lives more comfortable, or a great deal more difficult. So if he demands of me something that is within my power to give, I would be a fool to refuse.’
I frowned, trying to fathom this cryptic response. ‘Do you mean the Cabala? He asked you to teach him?’ I wondered if the book David had tried to speak of was a cabalistic work. A book belonging to Esther? I had no idea if women studied the Cabala, but if any did, it would be her.
‘That was among the subjects we discussed, yes.’
‘And David thought you should not be teaching a Gentile, even if he is a sovereign? Or was he afraid you would be accused of Judaising and those around you would suffer the consequences?’
Loew hesitated. ‘More the latter, I think. But I was trapped, you see. If I had refused to do what the Emperor asked of me, he could have chosen to punish my community out of pure pique. And if I agreed, there was always the chance that at some point I would be accused of trying to convert him, he would find himself under combined pressure from Rome and Spain to renounce us publicly, and the community would be sanctioned as a result anyway. It’s a card the Emperor always has up his sleeve – an easy way to buy the Pope’s approval if he faces criticism over his faith. Just punish the Jews to prove his loyalty. Do you know what it is to live like that, Dr Bruno? To know that you and your family, your friends, your neighbours, could be uprooted and banished at the stroke of a pen? To always keep a bag by the door, in case you need to leave in a hurry?’
I shook my head. The part about the bag I understood; I knew all too well what it was to be rootless, for my home to depend on the whims of princes, but not how it felt to carry the weight of an entire community’s security on my shoulders.
‘It was a gamble I could not expect to win, in the long run,’ he continued. ‘I thought the best course was to humour Rudolf, keep the visits secret and hope his interest would fade in time. He is a man whose passions are notoriously intense and short-lived.’
‘But David disagreed with that course,’ I said. ‘He wanted to act, so he took the secret to someone he thought could intervene. Someone sufficiently interested to pay him for information about your midnight visits. Who?’
Loew held out his hands, palms up. ‘I don’t know. I only learned of David’s betrayal last night.’
‘But if you had to hazard a guess?’
He let out a weary breath and placed both hands on my shoulders, fixing me with a serious look. ‘Dr Bruno. A dear friend lies dying in there – for now, that must be my priority.’
‘And I want to find the person who did this to him,’ I said. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Well, of course. But—’ He stopped, his brow creased with doubt, and I understood his dilemma.
‘But you don’t want your visits to the castle coming to light,’ I said.
‘Precisely. It will have to be reported to the authorities as he was found in the Lesser Town, but I can’t see that a clumsy investigation would do any good. Let them think it a crime of hate, as I said, or a robbery. We have governance over our own affairs here – no need to have the whole of Prague whispering about alchemical signs or Golems, nor for David’s family to bear any shame over his informing.’
‘Then tell me what else you know,’ I pleaded. ‘I am already looking into the alchemist’s murder – it’s clear they’re connected. We can find this killer if we pool our knowledge, I’m sure of it.’
The look he gave me was almost pitying. ‘And if he turns out to be someone powerful, do you think he will be held to account? For the murder of a Jew and an alchemist?’
‘So you do know something.’
‘I know Prague, Bruno, as you do not.’ He shook me gently by the shoulders: a paternal gesture. ‘Go home. Have a hot bath.’
Before I could protest, the door to the back room opened and Benjamin appeared, wiping his hands on a cloth. His face was leached of all colour and his eyes raw.
‘Rav, I think you had better send for Sarah,’ he said quietly.
Loew nodded, understanding. ‘I will go myself. Goodbye, Dr Bruno,’ he said with a nod to me, in a tone that was a clear reiteration of his instruction to leave.
After the door had closed behind him, Benjamin raised his head as if noticing me for the first time.
‘We owe you our thanks for finding him,’ he said, his voice flat, as if he were too weary for more emotion. ‘How did you know where to look?’
‘He was seen last night in a boat rowing upriver, with a man in a cloak. The boatmen suggested the channel.’
If Benjamin knew anything about the second man, he gave no sign of it.
‘May I assist you?’ I offered. ‘I have some medical knowledge.’
He cast an eye over me. ‘Not in the rabbi’s best coat you can’t. Besides,’ he added, as I laid the coat on a chair and pushed up my sleeves, ‘there’s nothing to assist. All I can do now is make him comfortable.’
I held the door open and followed him into the back room. It was comfortably warm here; a fire was stoked in the hearth with a pan of water simmering over it on a tripod. Benjamin crossed to the fireplace and, using the cloth to cover the handle, lifted the pot of hot water from its stand.
Two windows overlooked the trees that fringed the graveyard. Against the rear wall, David lay unmoving on a narrow bed, eyes closed, his skin covered with a sheen of feverish sweat, only his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Benjamin had removed his wet clothes and a blanket covered him from the waist down. A poultice had been laid over the site of the wound on his abdomen; I moved to examine it.
‘Wash your hands before you touch him,’ Benjamin snapped, pouring hot water into a basin. I did as I was told, then lifted the dressing. The cut beneath was no more than an inch and a half across, still weeping blood and fluids, and giving off a faecal odour. I pressed the poultice back; it smelled of astringent herbs.
‘I’ve cleaned it, but the wound is too deep to suture,’ Benjamin said, coming to stand at my side, his hands resting on the bed frame. I glanced down and noticed that his knuckles were criss-crossed with tiny cuts and his right thumb was bandaged.
‘What manner of weapon made it, would you say?’
He glanced at me. ‘A dagger, I’d guess.’
‘What kind?’
‘I couldn’t tell you, I’m no expert. Small, though. A narrow blade, four inches long, perhaps. I could close the entry wound, but the point has punctured the bowel, there’s no remedy. I’ve given him a tincture of dwale to dull the pain.’
‘Did he speak to you?’
‘I think he is far beyond speech now.’
He is if you’ve given him dwale, I thought, and wondered if Benjamin had decided it was in his interest for David not to wake.
‘What language did David usually speak?’ I asked.
‘He knew several. Yiddish, Hebrew, of course. But also German, Czech, Latin and Greek. A little French and Italian, enough to read the books that passed through his shop. Why do you ask?’ Before I could answer, I saw the light of understanding reach his eyes. ‘Did he say something to you when you found him?’
‘He tried to speak. I couldn’t understand the words. I wondered which language would come most naturally to him in a half-conscious state.’
‘He spoke Yiddish among his family and friends,’ Benjamin said. ‘That would have been his instinctive tongue, I imagine. You really didn’t understand a word?’ There was apprehension in his voice.
I shook my head. ‘Talking of books,’ I said, ‘did you find the one you were looking for last night, in David’s shop?’
There was a crash as the enamel bowl in his hands fell to the floor; he swore under his breath as he knelt to mop up the spilled water. ‘What book?’ he said, not looking at me.
‘Come on, Benjamin, I know it was you. I can see your hands. You left shreds of your scarf where you broke the window. It didn’t even look like a convincing break-in. You did it as cover for removing something you feared would incriminate David – am I right? Something that would link him to the person he’d been selling information to.’
He raised his eyes and I saw in his expression that I had hit the mark. I decided to push my advantage.
‘A book, was it? A book of Esther’s?’
He stood, brushing himself down, and frowned, guilt briefly overtaken by confusion. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
Evidently he was not ready to acknowledge all the details, so I tried a different tack. ‘How did you know that David was informing? Did you follow him?’
He let out a tense breath and set the bowl down on a bench. ‘Yes. About a fortnight ago, perhaps. He was angry about—’ He stopped, as if fearing to say too much.
‘About the Maharal making secret visits to the Emperor,’ I finished for him. Novak had mentioned a young man accompanying the rabbi at times; I supposed it had been Benjamin.
He stared at me in astonishment. ‘You know?’
‘That he was teaching Rudolf the Cabala? I guessed.’
‘The—?’ I saw that same twitch of puzzlement cross his face, before he nodded. ‘Cabala, yes. So. David wanted to confront the rabbi about it. He felt the potential consequences for our community when the visits and their purpose were discovered by Rudolf’s advisers, as they inevitably would be, were not worth the risk. We argued – I told him it was not his place to contradict the Maharal’s judgement. David was furious. He said that if the Maharal was so blind to our interests, he would take matters into his own hands.’ He paused to look at the man on the bed. ‘This worried me, so I kept a close watch on him. When I saw him going over the river at night, I followed.’
‘Then – you saw who he was meeting?’
‘No. I know they met in the yard of the Winged Horse, but I couldn’t get close enough without revealing myself. The other man kept his face covered.’ He turned back to David and fussed with the blanket, drawing it up to cover him, checking his temperature. He was not telling the whole truth.
