Alchemy, p.29
Alchemy, page 29
‘But you must have some idea of David’s contacts – you went through his shop.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said curtly. ‘And now, as you see, there’s nothing more you can do here—’
‘Did you follow David to the tavern last night?’
‘No.’ He began arranging the cleaned instruments on a shelf. ‘But I guessed where he was – I went to the shop late to see him, about eleven, and Sarah said he had gone out to deliver some books. So I decided to wait for him to come back – I meant to tell him I knew what he was doing, that he had to stop. Three hours I must have waited, in the street by the jetty so that I could intercept him on his return, but he didn’t come. So I went to his house again.’
‘You weren’t worried, after three hours?’
‘Not at first. I was too angry with him for breaking a confidence – I felt his actions could only make things worse.’
‘Your confidence?’
He hesitated. ‘Yes. I was the one who told him about the rabbi’s visits, you see. That’s why I didn’t want him confronting Rabbi Loew – because the rabbi would know it came from me, and he had sworn me to secrecy. I meant to wait for David at the shop – I know where he keeps the spare key. Sarah and the children were in bed, so there was less fear of a scene in front of them. And I thought I could take advantage of his absence to search for anything that might show who he had been talking to, and therefore what danger that might pose to the Maharal. David was a meticulous keeper of records – if he had received money, he would have noted it somewhere, and that might give me an idea.’
I highly doubted that, however scrupulous an accountant, David would have written ‘received for selling secrets’ and the name of his contact in one of his ledgers. I suspected Benjamin was trying to give me a false scent.
‘I was searching through his papers,’ he continued, ‘when Sarah called out from upstairs – “David, is that you?” I didn’t want her to come down and catch me, it would have required too much explanation. I panicked and punched a hole through the window. She screamed, but I knew she would stay up there with the children if she thought it was an attack. So I broke some more panes, scattered a few books on the floor and ran.’ He moved back to the bed and looked down at his cousin. ‘It wasn’t until early this morning that I learned David hadn’t come home at all. That was when I feared some harm had come to him, and went to tell the rabbi what I knew.’
‘And did you find what you were looking for in David’s accounts?’ I asked. ‘Anything that might suggest the identity of his attacker?’
‘No,’ he said, but I caught the breath of a hesitation. ‘If I knew that I would not keep it to myself, I swear.’
But he did know more than he was willing to tell me, I was certain of it. I was on the verge of asking him again about David’s mention of a book, and why he might have said Esther’s name, but at that moment David’s breathing stuttered and quickened. Benjamin rushed to prop up his head with one hand, feeling for his pulse with the other, as a woman’s cry split the air from the next room and the door crashed open to admit David’s wife, leaning heavily on Rabbi Loew. I moved away from the dying man’s bedside, certain now that the words I had heard from his lips were the last he would ever speak, and that it was up to me to decipher his meaning.
TWENTY-ONE
‘What now?’ Besler asked.
‘Now,’ I said, stretching out a hand, ‘I need you to pass me that cloth. And for the love of God, go and look out of the window or something, Besler – I feel like an exhibit in a travelling show.’
He handed me a clean linen and obediently loped across to survey the yard with his back to me; from the hunch of his shoulders and the way he hung his head, I could tell he was as affected as I was by David’s death. I stood up in the tub as water streamed off me and pooled on the flagstones. After a vigorous rub of my hair, I wrapped the cloth around my waist and reached for a fresh shirt.
Hajek had ordered us back to the House of the Green Mound as soon as he arrived in the Jewish Town; there had been a stand-off between him and Rabbi Loew about his right to examine David, and I had been only too ready to retreat, unwilling to impose on their grief any longer. There was no sign of Greta at Hajek’s house, so I had put water on to heat and filled a tub in the laundry room behind the kitchen, where I washed the filth of the Devil’s Channel off my skin while Besler sat disconcertingly close on a stool and peppered me with questions until he was up to date with everything I had learned that morning.
‘But I am still no clearer,’ he said now, gazing out at the rain with his arms folded as I pulled on clean hose and breeches. ‘Has Greta been dismissed?’
‘I don’t know.’ I cast around for my boots, grateful that Besler had retrieved them and my doublet from the riverbank while Novak and I had settled David in the boat. ‘Let’s concentrate on what we do know.’
‘Can we eat something while we do?’
I conceded that for once he was right; we had not eaten since breaking our fast that morning, so we moved through to the kitchen, where I stoked the fire and Besler rummaged in the cold store for bread and cheese. The place felt oddly desolate without Greta’s grudging but homely presence.
‘Well, then,’ I said, when we were seated at the table. ‘Here is what we know so far.’
‘Should I take notes?’ He jumped up, poised to run for a quill and ink.
‘No. Better not to have any record of our hypotheses. Keep the notes in your head – that’s why you’ve been studying the art of memory.’
He nodded fervently and took his seat again. I began counting the points on my fingers.
‘Ziggi Bartos had been working on some kind of elixir, for which he expected to be well paid. We know he had taken Spanish money – that could have been for publicly slandering John Dee, but it’s not far-fetched to suppose that there was Spanish gold behind the promise of reward for the elixir too. At the same time, Greta was somehow persuaded to make a copy of Hajek’s keys to the poisons cupboard in the Powder Tower. What’s the one bond that would trump her loyalty to her master?’
‘Family,’ Besler said through a mouthful of bread.
‘Exactly. That was Hajek’s guess. Jan Boodt is a man with heavy debts who beats his wife. Suppose he is offered money to get hold of those keys. Magda asks her sister – Greta agrees, knowing that Magda will be the one to suffer if she refuses.’
‘But then, who paid Boodt for the keys?’
‘That’s a missing link in our chain. But Erik Moller said there are two Spaniards who hang around the gaming nights at the Winged Horse, one with a scar. I’m guessing they’re the same men who attacked me on our first night looking for letters, in which case we can assume they work for the Catholic faction at court. San Clemente and Montalcino.’
‘Who claim to know nothing of Bartos’s murder.’
‘Yes. Though that could be a bluff, so that they can monitor how close I’m getting to the truth. Let’s suppose the Catholics offered Bartos money to make an elixir for the Emperor. Aurum potabile, the promise of making the flesh incorruptible. Rudolf would not be able to resist. But the elixir would contain a deadly poison, obtained by Bartos with the copied keys. Heart failure within a day – goodbye Rudolf, long live the Emperor Matthias. The dawn of a new era for conservative religion – that would be worth a great deal to King Philip and the Pope. I wonder how much they offered Bartos? It must have been a princely sum, to run that kind of risk. Unless they had some other hold over him.’
‘But he would have to take the potion first, in front of the Emperor, if there was to be any hope of Rudolf drinking it,’ Besler pointed out. ‘And then he’d be dead, so why would he agree to that? It’s not like he had dependants who could use the money after he’d gone.’
‘True. That is a major flaw in the theory. Could he have worked out some kind of substitution trick?’ I shook my head; we were straying into the realm of fantasy. ‘Whatever the eventual plan, someone guessed at it, or else he confided in them.’
‘The mysterious midnight visitor,’ Besler suggested.
‘Possibly. Either way, Bartos believed he had reason to fear betrayal, so he gave the elixir to Sukie Moller for safekeeping.’
‘And now she has disappeared.’ Besler helped himself to another hunk of cheese. ‘He was right to fear, because he was murdered. Do you think it was the Catholics, then? Those Spaniards?’
‘It’s the most obvious answer. Bartos may have had a fit of conscience or cowardice and decided he wasn’t willing to risk his own life. In that instance, his paymasters would have been worried about him talking. Imagine if he’d taken his knowledge of a Catholic poison plot, with all the details, to someone with influence at court?’
‘Someone like Hajek,’ Besler said, absently pulling his bread apart.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because he oversees the alchemists, and he is close to the Emperor. If I were Bartos and I wanted to speak to someone in authority, I’d go to him first.’
I considered this. ‘True, though surely Hajek would have mentioned that? But if the Catholics thought there was even the possibility that Bartos might confess, that’s reason enough to get rid of him.’
‘Then why make his death so public, and risk people looking into what he’d been up to?’
‘Because of the Jews,’ I said, the answers falling into place as I spoke. ‘If David had taken his knowledge about the rabbi’s secret lessons with Rudolf to the Catholics, they might have reasoned they could kill two birds with one stone. Silence Bartos and rouse public feeling against the Jews, as a warning to Rudolf. David understood that – so he tried to bring the arrangement to an end, and they silenced him too.’
We both fell quiet for a moment, remembering that final, desperate scramble to carry the dying man from the river.
Besler leaned against the window ledge, his brow still furrowed.
‘But those caskets sent to the Emperor, with the eyes and tongue and the words from Scripture in Bartos’s hand – what was the purpose of that?’
‘To frighten Rudolf. Anyone who knew of his volatile disposition could calculate that such tricks would pitch him into a state of fear and distress. If the Catholics had lost their opportunity to poison him, they could still do their best to upset the balance of his mind, and argue he was unfit to rule.’
‘Then it seems you have solved it, Maestro. The only difficulty is that we don’t have any proof.’
‘I know.’ I pushed my damp hair back from my face. ‘That’s the frustration. I wish I knew what Benjamin had taken from David’s house – that must be evidence of some sort. If we only had a name.’ I wondered how feasible it would be to search Benjamin’s place without being caught. ‘If Hajek concludes that David was also killed with a curved blade, that would suggest the same assassin. San Clemente fought against the Turks as a young man – he’d have the skill to use an Ottoman knife, and probably owns one.’
Besler looked doubtful. ‘Would the ambassador carry out a murder with his own hands, when he has hired thugs at his command?’
‘It sounds unlikely, but Hajek thinks Bartos did not expect violence from his killer. He was undefended. I don’t suppose San Clemente would have any moral qualms.’
‘You said Rabbi Loew also has an Ottoman knife,’ Besler pointed out after a pregnant pause. ‘Suppose he knew about the poison plot. Bartos was changing all that money in the Jewish Town, people must have wondered. The rabbi would have a vested interest in stopping someone who wanted to assassinate Rudolf, a friend to the Jews, and replace him with Matthias, who is not.’
‘And what of David?’
‘David was informing on him, putting him in danger. That must have angered him.’
I shook my head. ‘No. Rabbi Loew is not a killer, I would stake my life on it. But he is hiding something.’ I counted off another finger. ‘Then there’s John Dee. If he had suspected what Bartos was planning, that would make sense of his urgent dispatch to England, and Walsingham’s reply telling him to do whatever was necessary to prevent it. It would also explain why the Catholics wanted to discredit John, so that he would not be believed.’
‘But you said John could not have killed Bartos – he was not even in Prague at the time.’
‘True. Unless his disappearance is an elaborate bluff, and someone in the city is sheltering him. I can’t help thinking there is more to his letter than I’ve understood – the one he wrote to Loew before he disappeared. He said their enemies suspected – I’m sure that referred to the rabbi’s secret meetings with the Emperor – and that there was danger to B. Loew thought that was Benjamin, but what has he to do with any of this? Could it be connected to this book he was searching for in David’s shop?’
Besler stood and disappeared again into the cold store. ‘You’re grasping at straws in the wind now. Your first theory is the more plausible – that the Catholics are behind both murders. All you need to do is find a way of proving it.’
‘That’s all, eh?’ I grimaced. ‘The Spanish ambassador and the Papal nuncio? Hajek is right – we don’t have a hope of incriminating them. Look at the way Bartos’s lodgings were cleaned out before his body was even cold. They’ll have taken care to cover any trace of their involvement.’
‘Then how do we proceed?’
I leaned my elbows on the table and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. ‘Damned if I know, Besler. The priority is to find Sukie and the elixir, but I don’t think there’s much we can do about that until tonight.’
‘I have been thinking, Maestro,’ Besler said. He was leaning in the doorway to the cold store with a seed cake, which he was methodically pulling apart and eating.
‘Careful.’
‘Yes – about that person who knocked you out in the cathedral crypt.’
‘What about them?’
‘Well – how did they know the Emperor was on his way to hear Mass in the cathedral?’
‘The priest said a messenger was sent from the palace, and the guard came to clear the building. Why?’
‘So …’ He took a bite while he worked out his theory. ‘This person just happened to be hanging around the cathedral with a freshly severed dog’s tongue at the moment the Emperor decides to hear Mass. That’s quite a coincidence.’
‘You mean, they must have had advance warning?’ I nodded. ‘You’re right. The priest could have told someone as soon as he got the message.’
‘Or someone at the palace knew the Emperor’s plans,’ he said through cake. ‘The messenger should be questioned.’
‘I’m sure Hajek has thought of that, but I’ll check. How long would it take to secure the cathedral? Half an hour or so, I would guess. Not that long, but long enough, I suppose.’
‘To find a dog, chop its tongue out, put it in a box with the verse, hide in the cathedral, push over a statue and slip into the chapel without being seen by the soldiers?’ Besler looked unconvinced. ‘Still cutting it fine.’
‘If they used the underground passage that leads to the crypt, perhaps it could be done.’ I pushed my chair back and stood. So much had happened since the attack that the figure in the crypt had been pushed to the back of my mind. ‘We should have looked into that – worked out where that passageway leads and who might have a key.’ I would have done so if Hajek hadn’t insisted on sending me home, I thought. ‘Well, there’s your answer to what we do next,’ I said. ‘Find the stable boy, tell him to make the horses ready.’
Besler slipped out to the yard, taking the seed cake with him, presumably in case he got hungry on the ride to the castle. A few moments later his face appeared again around the kitchen door.
‘The boy asks if you got the message?’
‘What message?’
‘He says a man came while we were out with a note for you, Greta took it. Then Hajek came back and started shouting at her, she was crying, and the boy took fright and hid in the stables. When he came out, Greta was gone.’
‘Right. Get your riding cloak while I see if I can find this note.’ I wondered who would be writing to me at Hajek’s house; it was a mark of how mistrustful I had become in Prague that I assumed it could not bring good news. There had been no sign of a note in my room when I fetched my clean clothes. Could Greta be trusted to pass on a message, or might she merely have forgotten about it in the turmoil of Hajek’s accusations about the keys? I wandered into the front parlour and noticed a folded paper on the mantel, above the empty fireplace. The room was chilly; already the house was feeling Greta’s absence. The note bore my name on the outside in an elegant hand; I turned it over to find it unsealed. Impatiently, I unfolded it and my heart sank.
Dear Dr Bruno
It was my great pleasure to make your acquaintance yesterday, and I would be honoured if you and your young assistant would do us the honour of dining at the Rozmberk Palace this evening. I keep a Venetian cook, so I hope you will feel at home. If that does not tempt, then perhaps the information I have to share might. Come for supper at seven and we will have music after.
Yours
Xena, Countess von Rozmberk
‘Merda,’ I muttered, folding the paper. I had no great desire to spend the evening indulging a pouting, flirty girl who was frantic for male attention, nor to keep Besler from doing anything that might result in his being called out by her husband, but she certainly knew how to intrigue. What information was she promising? It could be no more than a ruse, but she did appear to have the run of the palace; who knew what a sharp young woman with little to occupy her might observe or overhear? On a second reading, that ‘us’ was more reassuring – perhaps the count had returned. He was a man whose acquaintance I was interested in making, and he knew John Dee. I had to smile at the idea that a Venetian cook would make me feel at home; she must think the Italian states one great, homogenous mass where we all spoke and ate the same. I couldn’t help wondering how much use a Venetian – whose skills were presumably fish-based – might be in a landlocked country. But the prospect of a good meal was tempting, and it would be unwise to give offence to the highest noble family in Bohemia. Besides, it would pass the time until Jan Boodt’s gaming session.
