Alchemy, p.44
Alchemy, page 44
‘So who warned David?’
‘I don’t know.’ He was growing agitated. ‘He wouldn’t say, and Kat swears she never mentioned it except in private talk with me. But I had to stop David speaking to the rabbi. I couldn’t have the Emperor discovering that we knew about him and Esther, that Kat had talked of killing her. There was too much to come out.’
‘So you stabbed him.’
‘I didn’t plan to. We argued on the jetty and I pushed him into an empty boat. Then I had the idea to row him away from the bank and threaten him. But he drew the weapon on me. I didn’t even know he carried one – it was just a little bookbinding knife. I panicked and tried to wrest it off him, I was afraid the boat would capsize. Somehow, in the struggle, the blade ended up in his gut. It all happened so fast – I was as horrified as he was.’
‘I doubt that. Did you know he was still alive when you left him?’
He looked away. ‘I should have pushed him into the water and left him to drown, but – I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t watch a man die. Perhaps my father’s right – I lack ruthlessness.’
‘You were ruthless enough to give your own father Bartos’s poison. Was your sister in on that too?’
‘I only told her after I’d done it. She was angry at first, but I made her see it’s for the best. All our lives he’s been terrorising us. We have no value for him, except in so far as he can manoeuvre us for his own gain.’ I could hear in his voice the tremor of a rage that had been building for more than three decades. I needed to tread delicately; he was wound so tight that it was impossible to predict his responses.
‘And did Katherina say anything about using the remainder of the poison on Esther Loew?’ I asked.
His eyes widened. ‘What? No. I told you, I thought all that was just wild words on her part. What makes you think that?’
‘Your sister invited Esther to take a glass of wine with her in your apartments. I just walked in on them.’
‘I had no idea.’ He appeared shaken. ‘I suppose Kat could have gone through my room looking for the dregs of the bottle. There was hardly any left. Are you sure? Is Esther—?’
‘She’s in the care of a doctor.’ I still didn’t know for certain if the wine had been poisoned, but the knowledge that she could only have taken a small dose gave me some hope.
‘If you’re going to keep talking about adult things in Italian, can I go home?’ Sukie said petulantly.
Ottavio tightened his grip on her shoulder.
‘Look, Strada, I believe you’re telling the truth about David,’ I said. ‘You’re not a cold-blooded killer, not like your father. Prove it by letting the child go.’ As I spoke, I began to edge my way cautiously along the gallery, past the wolf’s pen, until I was on the side perpendicular to them, above the enclosure of a brown bear with patches of mange, who regarded me with supreme indifference before returning to rocking disconsolately on a stump of wood.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ Ottavio warned. He pulled Sukie to him and crooked an arm around her neck in a chokehold. I saw the flash of fear in her eyes.
‘Bruno,’ she cried, but her voice was cut off as he increased the pressure; her small hands scrabbled at his forearm.
‘Tell me what deal you’re hoping to make, then,’ I said, keeping my voice steady so that I didn’t alarm him. ‘Because I presume you brought me out here to negotiate.’
‘I need you to tell the Emperor that my father killed Ziggi and David,’ he said. ‘Say the dead men were both involved in a plot to assassinate Rudolf, say my father was so incensed by the discovery of their treason that he lost control and killed them. As long as you keep my name and my sister’s clean. The old man will be dead any moment, it makes sense for him to take the blame. And it’s partly true.’
‘Rudolf is never going to believe that your father dragged a body to the Stone Bridge or rowed a boat upstream single-handed. And why would he believe a Jewish bookseller to be involved in a conspiracy against him? David would be the last person to want Matthias on the throne.’ I moved a few steps closer to the corner.
‘That’s the clever part,’ Ottavio said. ‘You tell him David was Esther’s lover, that’s why he wanted Rudolf dead. That will dampen the Emperor’s desire for her – he won’t stand the thought that she’s not pure. Two birds with one stone.’
‘Christ, Strada, I’m not telling him that. David left a pregnant widow and four children – I won’t destroy his reputation or Esther’s to save you.’
‘I thought you might say that.’ With surprising swiftness, he scooped Sukie up – she was such a slight little thing – and swung her legs over the rail, holding her under the arms so that she was dangling over the enclosure below them. She screamed and kicked; I could see he was struggling to hang on to her. ‘Will you do it to save her? Or would you rather protect a dead man over a living child?’
‘Sukie, keep still or he’ll drop you,’ I shouted. Had he said ‘lion’? I couldn’t see; it was beyond the end wall of the bear’s pen. ‘Strada, for God’s sake, all right. Whatever you want, just pull her up. You’ve made your point.’
‘Stay where you are,’ he said through clenched teeth; he had braced his knees against the rail in his efforts to hold her. ‘Did my father give you something?’
I raised my palm to placate him and took another step. ‘Lift her up and we can talk about it.’
‘I mean letters. My private letters – did he give them to you? He threatened to. He said you could give them to the Emperor so that he’d know exactly what I was, how I had shamed my family all my life. He said Rudolf would never marry Kat or acknowledge her children, knowing her brother was a degenerate, and I would have that on my conscience.’ He was shaking, I couldn’t tell if it was with rage or the effort of holding on to Sukie.
She squirmed in his arms; one of his hands slipped momentarily and he tried hoicking her up. She let out a piercing scream, scrabbling at his sleeves.
‘You make that noise again, girl, and I will let go,’ he snapped, in German.
‘All right, Strada – enough,’ I said. ‘I have the letters.’ I moved to reach into my doublet.
‘It won’t do you any good to draw a weapon – I’d drop her before you could unsheath it,’ he said.
‘No weapon. Here.’ I withdrew the packet of papers slowly and held them out to him, advancing step by step. ‘I’ll set them down on the walkway and you lift her. Fair exchange.’
‘Put them in my hand,’ he said.
‘You don’t have a free hand,’ I pointed out, but I moved closer until I was only a few feet away from them and could see into the enclosure below. The Emperor’s lion lay sprawled on a pile of rocks, watching the drama above him with regal disdain. He looked underfed and dull-eyed; his pen was no more than twenty feet square and he had worn a path in the dust, pacing back and forth.
‘Set them at my feet, then,’ Ottavio said, nodding to the wooden boards in front of him. ‘And step back immediately. I don’t trust you.’
Slowly, I moved forward and laid the packet down. As I did so, there came a noise so shockingly loud and unexpected that I jumped backwards: a guttural roar so deep that it seemed to rumble from the depths of the earth, and it took me the space of a heartbeat to realise that it was the beast below us. Sukie screamed; her body jerked in fear, twisting in the air and slipping from one of Ottavio’s hands. She screamed again; he fumbled to catch her, but I heard the sound of tearing cloth as her sleeve ripped from her dress at the seam and she fell ten feet into the lion’s pen.
There was an instant of absolute stillness, as if time had frozen. Ottavio and I looked down in horror; Sukie lay where she had fallen on the straw; even the lion seemed paralysed by surprise. The moment passed; Ottavio met my eye briefly, then snatched up the letters and ran towards the stairs. Sukie sat up. She appeared unhurt by the fall, scrambling backwards as the lion stretched out his quivering nose and began to sniff the air between them. I don’t even remember making the decision to jump; my muscles seemed to move by instinct, bypassing thought.
The lion snapped his head around as I landed; I remained crouching in the straw, hardly daring to breathe.
‘Keep still,’ I hissed at Sukie from the side of my mouth; she was cowering against the far wall of the enclosure, but I could sense her wanting to move towards me for protection, when her safety depended on my ability to divert the lion away from her. I darted a quick glance around; there was one iron-barred door on the opposite side, secured with a strong chain and padlock. The only way out, it seemed, was to climb back up to the gallery, but I could not see how we were to achieve that without help. If the girl stood on my shoulders, she might reach to grasp the rail, but it was doubtful that she would have the strength to pull herself up, and even more doubtful that the lion would leave us unmolested long enough to effect this escape.
He took a couple of stately paces towards me as I straightened, keeping all my movements as slow and smooth as possible so as not to startle him. He may not have been in peak condition, but at this proximity he was an awesome sight; muscles taut under his pelt, gold eyes missing nothing. The fur around his muzzle was pale and soft; with his jaws closed, he had a look of long-suffering dignity. At present, he seemed to regard me as a curiosity rather than a threat, but that could change in an instant. One swipe of his paw would take my head off before I had even reached for my weapon. He was close enough that I could feel the heat of him, smell the blood and meat on his breath. He lowered his magnificent head and growled deep in his throat; I felt it reverberate through the ground. Behind me, Sukie whimpered. I stepped to the side, and again; his eyes followed me as I drew his attention away from her. I reached around my back for the dagger I had taken from Jacopo’s chamber and held it out, point-first, assessing my chances. The blade looked laughably small in the face of such a creature; could I really hope to inflict sufficient damage with the one strike I would likely get before his jaws closed around my throat?
In the centre of the enclosure, a cluster of boulders had been piled in what I presumed was a half-hearted attempt to make the animal feel at home in this harsh northern climate. I stepped up on to the lowest, still levelling the dagger. Perhaps something in my movement primed him; perhaps the wind changed and he caught my scent; suddenly his lips curled back, revealing a horrifying set of teeth. I watched him coil his energy as if to spring; he let out a noise that turned my bowels to water; Sukie screamed, and in the same moment the pitch of the beast’s roar changed. He flinched visibly, whipping around towards his own flank, and I saw the feathered tail of a small dart protruding from the soft crease where his belly met the joint of his hind leg. He let out another enraged roar, his sights fixed on me.
‘Roar back,’ shouted a voice from the gallery.
I looked up, terrified to take my eyes off the lion, to glimpse Hajek leaning over the rail. He was holding what appeared to be a flute in his hand.
‘Spread your arms, make yourself as big as possible and roar at him,’ he called. ‘Do it now!’
My whole body was shaking; fear had flooded me with a wild energy and every sinew told me to turn and run, but there was nowhere to run to. I had never heard anything as absurd as Hajek’s idea, but I had no better option: I opened my arms wide and bellowed at the lion.
The creature stopped, his roar subdued to a growl. I repeated the noise, waving my arms as if trying to signal a distant ship, and he backed up a couple of paces, then began to circle my rock warily.
‘Keep up the noise,’ Hajek said in an encouraging tone; he seemed almost to be enjoying the spectacle. ‘Show him you’re a match for him. I don’t know how long it will take to have an effect.’
‘What?’ I called back, between roars, but I couldn’t hear his response over the lion’s renewed snarling.
I couldn’t say how many minutes elapsed while I held him at bay, roaring and waving my arms; each one felt like an hour, but it was probably no more than four or five, and suddenly the animal faltered, its hind legs buckling as it slumped to the ground and lay, whining softly.
‘Amazing,’ Hajek said. ‘I really didn’t know if that would work.’
Sukie was curled up against the wall, sobbing; I recovered my wits and rushed over to her, lifting her on to my shoulders so that Hajek could grab her wrists and haul her up over the rail.
As soon as I saw she was safe, it was as if all my strength ebbed suddenly and my legs folded under me as the lion’s had; I collapsed against the wall, breathing hard.
‘Hold on, Bruno – the keeper’s coming,’ Hajek called, and I heard the sound of a chain being unwound.
‘Did you kill it?’ I asked as we trooped back across the Powder Bridge like survivors of a battle – except Hajek, who looked quite jaunty at the success of his experiment.
‘Let’s hope not,’ he said. ‘You know about the prophecy? The lion’s astrological chart is supposedly bound up with the Emperor’s – he won’t be at all happy if I’ve prematurely ended it. But I don’t suppose he’d have wanted to let it kill a child.’
‘Or me,’ I reminded him. ‘What did you do to it?’
He held up the instrument. ‘Blowpipe and dart – have you seen one? The people of the New World use them for hunting – I’d read about them and tried to make my own. You put a paralysing poison on the tip of the dart, made from plant sap. I used a tiny amount, so he should recover. Of course, you can only fire them at close range, and usually at smaller targets, so this was an ideal chance to test it in real conditions.’
‘Glad to have been useful,’ I said. ‘Did you see Jacopo?’
‘Not yet. Their maid came to the Powder Tower and garbled some story about you pursuing Ottavio and a child to Lion Court and him poisoning his father. I thought your predicament sounded the more urgent, so I took the precaution of bringing this.’ He brandished the pipe. ‘I suppose I should go to Jacopo now. Take the girl to the Horse – I’ll see you there.’
‘You need to find Ottavio,’ I said, in Italian, so that Sukie would not understand. ‘He took a bundle of letters that tie him to Ziggi Bartos, but I didn’t see what else was there. Maybe evidence that the Catholics were behind the plot to poison Rudolf.’
‘I very much doubt that,’ he said. ‘San Clemente and Montalcino are far too skilled to make the mistake of committing anything to paper. Ziggi Bartos was the evidence against them, and he won’t be giving any testimony.’
‘We must find Ottavio, with or without the letters, and arrest him,’ I said. ‘He killed David Maier, the bookseller. He must face justice for that.’
‘Needless waste of a life,’ Hajek said with such vehemence that I stopped to stare at him.
‘Wait – you knew? How? Was it you who warned David that the Stradas meant to kill Esther?’
He took a long time to answer. We passed under the arches into the palace courtyard and he glanced up at the windows of the Stradas’ apartments.
‘I stopped by to check on Jacopo early that evening. The maid let me in, and I was about to enter his chamber when I heard his children inside, arguing. Katherina said something like, “Then we have to get rid of her, it’s the only way”. I couldn’t hear Ottavio’s response, but she said, “Ask your friend David when you see him tonight. He can tell us when she’s next coming.” So I intercepted David that night and told him what I’d heard.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing, trying to protect Esther. Instead, it got David killed.’
‘So it was you I saw talking to him in the yard of the Winged Horse, the night he died?’
‘Yes. I knew that was where they met to trade their stolen books.’
‘But – you gave him money?’
‘I owed him for some books I’d ordered – it was my pretext for cornering him. I ran into Ottavio in the street as I was leaving. I told him if he was looking for David, he’d just missed him. That was a mistake I bitterly regret – Ottavio must have run down the hill and arrived at the river ahead of him. It was my fault.’
‘Or mine,’ I said, looking at the ground. ‘If I hadn’t detained David in conversation, he might have reached the jetty before Ottavio and got safely into a boat.’
We stood in silence for a moment, considering how a matter of minutes, of infinitely small choices, could have meant the difference between life and death. Sukie leaned against me.
‘I want to see my Far now,’ she said quietly.
‘I’ll find him,’ Hajek said. ‘You two go on to the Winged Horse, keep away from here for now. I’m going to see Jacopo.’
‘Wait, Thaddeus,’ I said as he turned to leave. ‘You knew Ottavio and Katherina were talking about Esther Loew. So – you knew about the Emperor wanting to marry her. How?’
He smiled. ‘John Dee is not the most subtle go-between. Scuttling back and forth between the castle and the Jewish Town, constantly interrupting me to check Hebrew words. In the end I said to him in jest – John, are you courting a Jewish woman? And his face was so stricken, I knew I’d hit the mark. He told me everything and swore me to secrecy. It was one of Rudolf’s more lunatic ideas, I must say. I feared there would be a good deal of harm done before he could be talked out of it. It flatters his vanity to think he is re-enacting the story of some great biblical king of times past.’ He rolled his eyes and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘I must go.’
‘Be careful,’ I said. ‘The Strada children are afraid and growing desperate to save themselves. I think Katherina tried to poison Esther.’
He looked at me in horror. ‘My God. Is she all right?’
‘I don’t know. She’s at the Horse with her friend, a doctor. Is there any antidote to the suicide tree toxin?’
‘I had not yet had the chance to do much work on the kernels. I was intending to test their properties and effects so that we would know how to counter them – I know only that it affects the heart and the breathing. As I understand it, symptoms are directly proportional to dosage, so if Esther did not consume much, she may be all right. I have other treatments against poisons in my laboratory – I’ll bring them to you. In the meantime, you had better pray.’
