Alchemy, p.45
Alchemy, page 45
‘I’m out of practice. Here, take this, just in case.’ I passed him the Ottoman dagger. ‘It’s the knife Jacopo used to kill Bartos.’
His eyes widened. ‘Ah. The Venetian ambassador always swore blind there were a pair, Rudolf said he’d only ever seen one. Another of Jacopo’s perks, I suppose. Don’t worry about me, Bruno. Look after the girl.’
THIRTY-THREE
The lion story was growing in the telling; listening to Sukie relay it to Greta, you could be forgiven for thinking that the girl had fought the beast off single-handed while I stood on a rock screaming.
‘I was roaring, not screaming,’ I said with an attempt at dignity. ‘Anyway, you were the one complaining there are not enough adventures for girls – it seems to me you’ve had more than your share over the past few days.’
Sukie took an enormous bite of apple cake and considered. ‘Yes, I might like a rest for a while,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll write my own book, about a girl who fights lions to save a poor helpless philosopher who just waves his arms at them.’
‘Excuse me – I’ve already climbed up a tower to rescue you, my lady, like a knight from the tales of King Arthur.’
‘Very well, in my book I won’t make you entirely helpless,’ she conceded, with her mouth full. ‘Is there any more cake, Greta? It’s hungry work, fighting wild animals.’
Greta caught my eye and smiled. It made me think of Besler. Christ – where was Besler? I felt a lurch of panic; I had not seen him since the morning, and it was now growing dusk. He had not been back to the tavern either, according to Greta. I would have liked nothing more than to sit by the fire in the quiet tap-room with cake and hot wine, but there was too much still to do.
I climbed the stairs to the first floor and knocked on a door.
Inside, I found Esther lying on a bed, a sickly sheen to her skin. Her chest rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths, just like Jacopo and Jan Boodt. Benjamin sat on a chair beside her, tenderly wiping the sweat from her face with a cloth dipped in cool water.
‘What are her chances?’ I asked. There seemed no point in dancing around the question.
He raised his head and I saw the strain in his face; in the space of a day, he had had to watch his cousin and the woman he loved at the point of death. ‘I made her sick immediately, as you said. I think she has voided most of her stomach by now. But her heart is beating arrhythmically and she’s short of breath. The trouble is, there’s no way of knowing how much she ingested because we don’t know the concentration of the poison she was given. All we can do is wait.’
‘Hajek is coming with antidotes. Let’s pray they work.’
He dredged up a tired smile. ‘What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? I didn’t have you for a praying man.’
‘In extremis,’ I said, ‘even a heretic must cling to something. I envy you your rituals.’
He gave me a long look. ‘No,’ he said, smoothing Esther’s matted hair off her brow. ‘You don’t. Listen, her family will be worrying about her. Sooner or later, the Maharal will discover that she went to the castle and he’ll come in search of her. It’s not safe for him there with the Stradas around. Can you send a messenger to let him know what’s happened and where we are? He must be here with her, in case—’ He didn’t need to finish the thought.
‘My horse is in the yard, I’ll go,’ I said with a last look at Esther.
As I passed through the tap-room, I saw that Erik Moller had arrived. Sukie was curled into him on the bench by the fire, chattering in Danish, waving her arms and roaring; I presumed this was an impression of me. He caught my eye and mouthed ‘thank you’ over her head. I nodded and slipped out into the yard. Sooner or later, it would dawn on him that I had taken her for sanctuary to the home of people who had literally thrown her to the lions, and that the danger I had saved her from was my fault in the first place.
Greta followed me out to the stables.
‘Here, you’d better take this,’ she said, pressing a small green bottle into my hand. ‘It’s caused enough trouble already.’
I shook it; there was very little liquid inside. ‘Bartos’s elixir?’
‘When the child turned up here clutching her precious silver flask and saying it would make her fortune, Magda smelled a rat. Then you told her it was dangerous and she guessed it was the poison those Spaniards were after, so as soon as the girl was asleep, she poured the contents into this and replaced them with aqua vitae.’
‘And you put this in Jan’s schnapps.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bruno. Jan Boodt died of a bad heart, Dr Hajek said so. And not one person in this town will mourn him.’ She glanced up at the lit window on the first floor and her look of defiance crumpled. ‘But that poor Jewish girl. If anything happens to her, I shall never forgive myself.’
‘You’re not to blame,’ I said, laying a hand on her arm.
‘But I am,’ she said, shaking my hand away. ‘If I hadn’t taken those keys from Dr Hajek, Bartos would never have been able to make his potion in the first place. I only did it because the Spaniards pressured Jan, and he needed the money they were offering. He said he would make my sister suffer if I didn’t do as he asked, and I knew what he was capable of.’
‘You did what you had to,’ I said. ‘They’d only have found another poison if you hadn’t. How is Magda?’
‘She woke briefly and recognised me, so it’s to be hoped her wits are not damaged. Hajek thinks her skull is not fractured either, which is a blessing. All we can do now is wait and pray.’
More praying. Benjamin was wrong; I did envy him the comfort of belief. How reassuring it must be to think someone is listening. I felt increasingly desolate as I rode down the narrow cobbled lanes toward the Stone Bridge. Sukie had almost been killed because of my failure to see what had been in front of me all along. Would David Maier be alive now if I had not stopped to speak to him in the inn yard, giving Ottavio time to reach the river first? And Besler – he had come to Prague in my care, and instead of sending him to safety with the English merchant, I had allowed him to be drawn alongside me into this labyrinth of conspiracies and murder. Now he was alone in the city, at the mercy of San Clemente’s thugs, and quite possibly the vengeful Count Rozmberk as well, if he learned what his wife had been up to in his absence. On the plus side, I thought, at least Besler would not die a virgin, and I let out an inappropriate, yelping laugh that caused passers-by to turn and stare. God, I needed to sleep.
Rabbi Loew took the news of Esther’s condition gravely. I found him at David’s shop, where a steady stream of visitors was arriving to see the family. Like Benjamin, the rabbi looked weighed down with grief. I offered to take him to Esther on the back of my horse, but he said he would ask the Jewish mayor to arrange a carriage so that one of his daughters could accompany him.
‘Is she in danger?’ he asked. ‘Be honest with me, Bruno.’
‘As far as we can tell, she drank very little,’ I said. ‘But the substance is extremely potent – no one really knows the effects yet.’ Except one man who is dead and another on the threshold of it, I thought. ‘Benjamin is with her, and Hajek is on his way – he has remedies to treat poisoning. But – I advise you not to delay,’ I added.
‘This is my fault,’ he said as he put on his coat. ‘I let this business go too far. I should have stopped Rudolf when he first told me of his feelings for Esther, explained to him that it was impossible. But how do you say no to an Emperor, Bruno? A man who holds the fate of your entire community in his hands? I feared there could be no good outcome, and yet I persisted in the belief that I could manage the situation. I curse the day he laid eyes on her.’
I was the last person to tell him to have faith; all I could do was embrace him.
‘Your boy was here earlier, looking for you,’ he said as we parted in the street.
‘Besler? When?’
‘It was around noon – during David’s burial. I saw him standing outside the wall of the cemetery with his head bowed. I think he was praying. Afterwards, he asked me if there was anything he could do to help. I was quite touched. He’s come a long way from Nuremberg.’
‘In every sense,’ I said. ‘Do you know where he went?’
‘He said he would wait for you at home.’
I thanked him and once again found myself promising to pray for Esther.
I rode back to the House at the Green Mound to find it empty. The horse had been unusually skittish since leaving the tavern, and seemed glad to be home. I left him to be brushed down and fed; Hajek’s stable boy said he had seen no sign of Besler all day.
‘A message came earlier, though,’ he said, leaning back under the weight of the saddle as he lifted it off.
‘For me? Who was it from?’
‘Dunno. A man all in smart livery brought it. I put it in the kitchen. You smell a bit funny, sir,’ he added, lowering his voice as if he were letting me know in confidence. ‘It’s bothering the horses.’
‘Like Hercules, I have been wrestling a lion,’ I said, leaving him staring.
I found a folded paper on the table, sealed with red wax and an insignia I did not recognise. The contents, when I broke it open, were short and to the point:
Count Vilem von Rozmberk requests your presence at the Rozmberk Palace at your earliest convenience.
‘Merda,’ I said aloud. That didn’t take long; he could barely have set foot inside his own porch before someone had told him that his wife had bedded a young man in his absence. I suspected the sour-faced steward. Was that where Besler was now? The count’s men could have intercepted him on his way back from the Jewish Town.
I went up to my room to check how much money remained in our travelling chest, in case there was a chance I could negotiate with the count and buy Besler’s way out of trouble. But my purse was running dangerously low, and somehow I doubted that whatever paltry sum I could offer would be of interest to the highest nobleman in Bohemia, when set against the slight to his honour. I sighed and changed my clothes again, although perhaps it would intimidate the count if I showed up smelling of wild beasts. As I dropped Ottavio’s shirt on the floor, I wondered if Hajek had managed to have him arrested. He would not need shirts of fine linen in gaol. I confess that the thought pleased me.
I washed my face, buttoned a clean doublet and regarded myself in the glass. It was not an encouraging sight. As I ran down the stairs and picked up my cloak, I heard an urgent hammering at the door. What now, I thought – Rozmberk guards come to escort me in person? Or worse – bad news about Esther, or Magda?
I opened the door to see a messenger in an official livery I didn’t recognise.
‘Dr Giordano Bruno?’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you the employer of Hieronymus Besler of Nuremberg?’
‘In a sense. Where is he?’
‘In the Daliborka Tower prison. He’s been arrested.’
THIRTY-FOUR
The horse was even more reluctant than I was to return to the castle; I had to kick him hard to persuade him back up the hill. The messenger had not been able to give me any further details about Besler’s arrest, but I had to assume it was somehow connected with Rozmberk’s summons to me. The Daliborka Tower was a dank, hostile turret at the easternmost edge of the castle complex, built into the fortifications at the end of Golden Lane and used as a prison. It was here that the ghost of the young soldier was heard to play his lonely viol at night.
‘Breach of the peace,’ the gaoler said, when I had paid him to be admitted. ‘Public brawling, use of a deadly weapon, attempted murder. Take your pick.’
‘What weapon? Was he fighting a duel?’
The man laughed. ‘A duel? I wouldn’t call it that. Scrapping in the Old Town Square, rolling in the dust, they were. Then one of them pulls out a blade and that’s when people screamed for the guard. They’re both up there now, looking the worse for wear. Had to put the pair of them in manacles or they’d be ripping each other’s limbs off.’
I looked at him, confused. Surely he couldn’t have the Count von Rozmberk in manacles?
‘Come on, then, if you want to see him.’
He led me up a spiral staircase of dank stone stained with green slime, and unlocked a heavy door. Inside I saw Besler sitting against one wall, his wrists and ankles chained, one eye bruised and swollen shut. Opposite him sat Diego, his mouth and nose bloodied. He gave me a basilisk stare as I entered and swore at me in Spanish.
I ignored him and knelt by Besler, lifting his chin to check for damage. ‘What happened?’
‘He set on me in the Old Town Square,’ he said with a furious glare over my shoulder at Diego. ‘He asked me if I wanted to see a magic trick, and I was curious so I followed, and then he clamped his hand over my mouth and tried to drag me into an alley. So I hit him. He wasn’t expecting that.’
‘I bet he wasn’t. You did a good job,’ I said, looking at the Spaniard’s face. ‘I didn’t know you knew how to fight.’
‘You can’t go to the school I attended and not learn how to fight,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘I got a couple of good punches in, I think, before he pulled a knife.’
‘I can see that.’ So the Catholics must have worked out that they had been tricked over the elixir, if they had targeted Besler. ‘But you could have been killed. What were you thinking, going along with a Spaniard? You know they’re dangerous.’
‘I’ve never seen him in my life,’ Besler protested, nodding at Diego. ‘Am I to mistrust all Spaniards, just because one or two are your enemies? That sounds like the exact opposite of the tolerance you usually preach, Maestro.’
It was a fair point, but I was too tired to debate. ‘Come on, let’s get you out.’
The gaoler made the sign for money.
‘I’ve already paid you,’ I said, impatient. ‘Did I mention that I work for the Emperor? I don’t want to have to tell His Majesty that you’ve detained my assistant for no more than defending himself against a violent assault.’ I showed him Rudolf’s silver token and the man took a step back, suddenly deferential. ‘By the way,’ I added as he unlocked Besler’s shackles, ‘you’ve got yourself a prize catch here.’
‘How do you mean?’ The gaoler turned and Besler stood, rubbing his wrists.
I gestured to Diego. ‘I know this man. He’s in the pay of the Spanish ambassador. If you put him to questioning, he might tell you some interesting things about his work. He might take a bit of persuading, but there could be a reward in it for you, if you squeeze anything useful out of him.’
The gaoler’s eyes lit up at the prospect. I turned back to Diego, whose glare could have warped steel.
‘Tell your masters,’ I said in Spanish, ‘that if they have anything to say to me, they can talk to me directly. But if I see you anywhere near this boy again, I will kill you. Same goes for the rest of my friends. Understand?’
He spat a gobbet of bloody sputum into the straw and muttered something I only half-caught.
‘Y tu mamá también,’ I said without looking back.
‘It might be better if I didn’t come with you to the Rozmberk Palace,’ Besler said, slowing his steps as we approached. ‘It could be awkward. Besides, I smell like a – well, like a prison cell.’
‘I’m well aware of the awkwardness, as you call it,’ I said. ‘But I’m not letting you out of my sight again. There’s another of those Spaniards out there, and I doubt your schoolboy prize-fighting skills would be a match for that one. You’ll have to wait in the courtyard. But perhaps this will teach you to think before you drop your breeches in future,’ I added sternly.
‘Before I what?’
‘You heard.’
‘I didn’t drop my breeches.’
‘I really don’t need every detail.’ I looked at him sidelong. ‘That impatient, were you? You didn’t even stop to take your clothes off?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Are you being obtuse on purpose? The countess, Besler. Xena.’
He bit his lip and looked down at his boots. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Maestro – I know you warned me, and I’m very ashamed of myself.’
‘I’m not angry, I think you’re an idiot. You know she was only after your seed. And now I have to answer to the count.’
‘My what?’ He stopped walking and looked at me, perplexed. ‘I fell asleep, Maestro. I drank too much wine, even though you advised me against it, and after the meal she took me to a warm room with a couch, and – that’s all I remember. I woke this morning with a blanket over me. And all my clothes on, by the way.’
‘You didn’t go to it with her?’
‘With Xena? No, I’d have remembered that. She tried to kiss me, but I was half-dozing by then. I’m not used to strong wine. We always drink beer in Wittenberg. What’s so funny?’
‘Oh, Besler,’ I said, slinging an arm around his shoulder. ‘You are ridiculous. I could kiss you.’
‘Please don’t,’ he said, alarmed.
I was still laughing when the steward opened the door.
‘You again,’ he said dispassionately, with a glance at Besler. ‘I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you.’
I sent Besler to the kitchens to get something cold on his injured eye, and the steward led me to a library that was not as grand as the Emperor’s, but equally handsome: high domed ceilings painted with classical scenes, gleaming shelves of dark wood, books on three sides and one wall all of windows, to flood the room with light on a clear day. Outside, dusk was falling. A tall man stood by the window with his arms folded across his chest; he turned as I entered and inclined his head. He didn’t look so different from his portrait, despite the three decades that had elapsed; the blond hair barely greying; the moustaches carefully curled; the blue eyes bright and severe. Though he had thickened slightly around the middle, the Count von Rozmberk carried himself like a younger man, with a relaxed, athletic bearing that made me think he must have been an accomplished sportsman in his youth, and probably was still. His assessing gaze swept over me from head to foot. I sincerely hoped he was not going to call me out.
