Alchemy, page 20
‘How did you find me?’
‘You didn’t come back. The guard returned, said he’d checked all the towers and found no one. Eventually we reasoned you must have gone below ground.’
‘Didn’t you see him come out? The man who attacked me?’
‘No. He couldn’t have come through the cathedral. There were guards on every entrance.’
‘I heard a noise …’ I let my arm fall to my side and closed my eyes; Hajek took over the pressure with the ice pack, which was beginning to melt down my collar. ‘Before I passed out. The scraping of stone …’
He nodded. ‘There’s a network of secret passages running under the castle. We’ll make a proper search when you’re recovered. For now, if you can move, we should get you somewhere more comfortable.’
‘Don’t worry about me. We need to find him …’ I tried to lever myself up with my right arm and cried out as my damaged wrist buckled under the pressure. I was embarrassed that this was the second time Hajek had been obliged to nurse me as if I were as helpless as Rudolf. The thought jerked me upright. ‘You haven’t left the Emperor alone?’
‘Of course not.’ He smiled. ‘I sent your boy Besler to fetch Ottavio Strada – he and the guards took His Majesty discreetly back to his chambers.’
‘And Besler found him? Then, Ottavio—’ I shook my head. I had wondered if Strada might have been my attacker – he knew the castle complex intimately – though surely he could not have slipped through a secret passage in time to be back for a summons to escort the Emperor? I supposed it would depend on the underground passage and how long Hajek had waited after my disappearance to send for him.
I saw the doctor’s teeth gleam in the dim light as he smiled. ‘I know what you’re thinking. But what possible reason would young Strada have for leaving the Emperor threatening messages? You can’t suppose he’s connected with the murder of Bartos?’
‘I don’t know. Something to do with his sister? He was the one who took Rudolf the first casket, after all.’ I recalled Ottavio saying that when the Emperor sank into his moods of melancholy, Katherina was the only one who could comfort him. Even if he were not responsible for the brutal murder of Bartos – which, admittedly, I found hard to imagine – might it be in his interest to push Rudolf into such a state by frightening him with the Scriptures and severed body parts, in order to further his family’s influence? I decided not to say this to Hajek; it sounded far-fetched, even to me.
‘True. But he was in the library when Besler looked for him, and said he had been engaged in a complex task of cataloguing new arrivals all evening with his assistant – he was not pleased to be interrupted. I think it unlikely that he could have been haring through secret passages moments before.’ He sighed. ‘This business grows ever darker, Bruno. I wish you had not become caught up in it. You could have been killed down here. I intend to speak to the Emperor when he is less shaken, suggest that he reconsider what he has asked of you. It is too great a burden to lay on a stranger.’
I pushed determinedly to my feet with only a slight wobble, steadying myself against the wall and hoping he hadn’t noticed. ‘The blow was not struck with much force,’ I said with more conviction than I felt. ‘He could easily have cracked me across the skull if he wanted to inflict real damage, but he did not. I think he only wanted to incapacitate me so that I didn’t catch him. Where is Besler now?’
‘Waiting for you in the cathedral.’ He nodded at the ceiling. ‘He will take you back to the House of the Green Mound so you can rest.’
‘I don’t want to rest. I need to …’ I faltered. What did I need to do? My thoughts were scrambled; I had lost all sense of time. I needed to return to Golden Lane and search Sukie’s house; I needed to talk to David Maier. I wanted to confide in Hajek everything I had learned this afternoon, but I was uncertain now about trusting him; here he was again, keen to deter me from the investigation.
‘Bruno.’ He laid a hand on my arm, firmly enough to let me know he was in earnest. ‘Your physician orders you home. It’s late, and you will be no use to anyone without rest. I will give you something to help you sleep, in case the pain disturbs. I would accompany you, but I must settle His Majesty before I can leave. Here – you dropped this.’ He handed me my dagger; I concentrated on sheathing it so that I didn’t have to meet his eye, ashamed that once again I had failed to defend myself.
In the circumstances I lacked the strength to defy him, though I was determined not to take whatever medicine he offered; I recalled what Katherina had said about Jacopo fearing Hajek was trying to dull his wits.
‘Did you know about Bartos and the curse?’ I asked, holding on to the wall as he ushered me up the stairs from the crypt.
‘No. But it doesn’t surprise me. His Majesty is obsessed with the idea that his brother means him harm, but he can’t move against him without evidence, not when Matthias is the favourite of Rome and Spain. Cursing him from a distance is just the kind of impotent gesture that would make Rudolf feel better, without actually doing anything. I’m disappointed to learn that Bartos lowered himself to such a charlatan’s performance.’
‘It sounds as if Bartos was prepared to do anything for money,’ I said. ‘Someone knew, though. That can’t be coincidence, the fact that his tongue was cut out. I have wondered why he was mutilated like that, if it was merely to intensify the fear of a vengeful Golem. But now it seems more specific. Someone knew the Emperor would see the significance in the severed tongue and interpret it as a punishment for putting a curse on his brother. Who could Bartos have told?’
‘No idea. He did not have confidants, as far as I knew. The other alchemists found him hostile – he didn’t drink with them, for fear they were out to steal his work. And something so potentially damning as a commission from the Emperor to curse his brother – I can’t see him sharing that willingly.’
‘Unless he was paid for the information,’ I said, thinking of Montalcino and San Clemente. They would have been interested to know that Rudolf was so afraid of his brother that he had resorted to the tricks of the Old Town Square hustlers.
But the doctor was wrong, I thought, as Besler rushed forward to fuss over me and I waved his attentions away. Bartos had been close to someone – Sukie Moller. I wondered if she knew about the curse, and who she might have told.
I was woken by shafts of cold light filtering through the shutters. As I blinked away the confusion of tangled dreams, I became aware of two things: a persistent dull ache at the back of my head and a low growling sound coming from somewhere beneath me. When I propped myself on one elbow to peer through the bed curtains, I saw that Besler had pulled a pallet into my room and was sprawled on the floor, long limbs flung out, snoring gently. I smiled, unexpectedly touched; evidently he had felt a protective urge to sleep at my side in case I needed him in the night. I would have to put a stop to that; it undermined my status to have him feeling he needed to take care of me. Although, I reflected, the best way to prevent that would be for me to avoid being ambushed by people who wished me harm.
I slid out of bed and crossed the room to use the chamber pot as silently as I could manage, trying not to wake him. I wanted a few moments to myself to think. My head and my wrist still hurt, though not as badly as I had feared, and I considered again my encounter with the stranger in the crypt. He had had the advantage of me; I remained convinced that, if he had wished, he could have struck me harder, even killed me, but that had apparently not been his intention. He was clearly someone who knew the layout of the castle, its most secret passages, and had also obtained a key to the crypt. Not Strada, if he had been occupied in the library all evening, though Hajek would have to verify that. The priest should be questioned too, and the messenger who had instructed him that the Emperor wanted to hear Mass: whoever had left that dog’s tongue needed to have known when Rudolf would be on his way to the cathedral. Perhaps the priest had been persuaded to let someone make a copy of his key – and who might command a priest’s obedience, if not a man with greater spiritual authority – an emissary of the Pope, for example?
I tucked the pot under the bed and dressed quickly. Despite my various bruises, I felt surprisingly well rested – so much so that I wondered if I had been slipped some kind of sleeping draught, though the only thing I had accepted last night on arriving back in Bethlehem Square was a bowl of warm milk from Greta. I eyed Besler as he slept, untroubled as a child with his flushed, open face; might Hajek have persuaded him to give me some remedy, knowing I would not touch the small vial he had pressed into my hand as we left the castle? I exhaled sharply, impatient with myself; if I started mistrusting even Besler, I would drive myself mad. At the threshold, I paused and surveyed the room. I had been too tired and dazed to notice the night before, but I had an unsettling sense that things were slightly off-kilter; nothing obvious, only the strong suspicion that someone had been through the room in my absence.
The bells across the square had only just tolled seven, but David Maier struck me as the kind of man who would rise early. I wanted to talk further with him, and thought I could lean on him with the threat of telling Rabbi Loew what I had witnessed the night before. I crept down the stairs and along the entrance hall with my boots in my hand in the hope of slipping out unnoticed, but found the front door locked. Perhaps Hajek was simply cautious on account of his valuables, but the absence of a key made me uneasy; it gave the impression of being imprisoned.
As if reading my mind, Greta appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
‘Robbers,’ she said, jerking her head at the door. ‘You can’t be too careful. Come. Eat. The doctor says you need strength.’
‘Where is he?’
She shook her head. ‘Didn’t come home. I presume he stayed at the castle, as he does when the Emperor has need of him. Come.’
The scent of toasting bread reached me; despite the urge to leave, I found myself salivating.
‘Thank you, Greta, that’s kind,’ I said, following her into the kitchen. She made a tutting noise designed to convey that she had her instructions and was not doing this simply from the goodness of her heart. Even so, I thought, I could perhaps turn it to my advantage.
It was only when she set down a plate of good wheat bread, browned over the fire and dripping with melted butter that I realised how ravenous I was. I inhaled four slices with honey before I paused to draw enough breath to speak.
‘I hope Besler is making himself useful to you,’ I said, leaning back in my chair.
She sniffed. ‘He’s a good boy. Better manners than some.’
I laughed. ‘I can only apologise. I got my manners at a Dominican convent.’ I thought a swipe at the Church might appeal to her Protestant roots, and I could have sworn she almost smiled.
‘That explains much,’ she said. ‘But I did not mean you. I was thinking of our last house guest.’ Her mouth tightened at the memory, as if she had tasted something sour.
‘Doctor Dee?’ I recalled Xena von Rozmberk wrinkling her pretty nose at the thought of John spitting food as he talked. ‘Yes, you are not the first to object to his table manners.’
‘I don’t care how a man eats,’ she said with unexpected force. ‘Besides, he is English, what do you expect? I do mind being spoken to as if I am an ignorant peasant girl, no more than a slave to fetch and carry. Six months he lived in this house, and still he mistook my name.’ She set a fresh bowl of milk in front of me so emphatically that the contents sloshed over the rim.
‘Ah.’ I nodded. This was a lesson I had been taught by Sir Francis Walsingham – not that I had ever received anything approaching a formal training in espionage, once he had satisfied himself that I had a facility for cryptography and dissembling. But he had given me this advice, with uncharacteristic earnestness, one evening by the fire in his book-lined study at the house in Barn Elms, while mist whitened the windows outside.
‘Always make people feel they matter, Bruno. That is the way into their confidence. Especially with people of the humbler sort, who are too often overlooked by those of superior status and learning, as if they are not also created in God’s image, with their own joys and sorrows. Remember servants’ names, remember which of their children is sick or starting an apprenticeship – show them, in other words, that you regard them as real, as fully real as you are. I have heard great men speak to their dogs with more affection and interest than they do their servants, and that is no way to earn loyalty. You have a formidable memory – I assure you, in our line of work, it will prove as valuable to commit these details to mind as all the reams of Scripture and philosophy you carry in there.’ He had tapped the side of his head with a forefinger, then levelled it at me. ‘But be warned,’ he had added, with a twitch of a smile, ‘you cannot dissemble in this. People will smell insincerity a mile off. If you ask your cook how her daughter’s new baby does, you must also be prepared to listen to the answer, God help you. Your reward will be that you do not know what else she might tell you in addition.’
I had laughed, mainly at the idea that I might ever be in a position to have a cook, but I had done my best to heed his words. I had watched Walsingham closely, though, and realised that with him it was never merely a means to an end. He was genuinely interested in people from all walks of life; he listened when they talked and I had seen the way they responded to his attention.
I looked at Greta now with as much sympathy as I could muster. ‘John is often distracted by his work,’ I said. Her expression told me what she thought of this as an excuse. ‘But he is kind underneath,’ I persisted. ‘He doesn’t mean to slight people – it’s only that often they are less immediate to him than all the ideas jostling for space inside his head. He forgets his own children’s names sometimes.’
She looked partially mollified. ‘I told Dr Hajek that man would bring trouble to our door, and I was right,’ she said with evident satisfaction. ‘Communing with the dead at all hours. I’ve seen some things in this house, believe me’ – she turned back to the range – ‘but the doctor’s father would have been spinning in his grave at that kind of going on.’
‘Angels,’ I said, draining the milk and wiping my mouth. ‘John Dee believed he was communicating with angels, not the dead.’
Greta gave an eloquent snort. ‘Why would the Lord of all Creation send His angels to speak to an Englishman?’
‘It’s a fair point,’ I agreed. ‘But you don’t believe John capable of murder, surely? You shared a home with him for six months – you must have seen that he is not a violent man?’
She faced me again and folded her arms. ‘He is an ambitious man, and that is as bad, in my experience.’ I caught a note of regret in her voice and wondered who she was thinking of; her dead husband? ‘This city has an alchemy of its own. It changes people,’ she continued softly. ‘It makes them greedy for gold and power. In pursuit of those, they find themselves doing things they would never have imagined before Prague worked her subtle magic.’ She was no longer looking at me but inward, at some distant memory. ‘Well.’ She shook herself out of it and picked up my empty bowl. ‘I must get on. You want hot water to wash, I suppose?’ She had returned to her old, semi-hostile tone; I saw that I would get no more out of her today. Still, I felt I had made a tentative start.
‘If it’s not too much trouble. Oh – I met your sister yesterday,’ I added, mopping up a spilled drop of honey with the tip of my finger. ‘At least, I guessed she was your sister.’
Instantly her face closed up; she dropped the bowl into the sink with a clatter. ‘What do you know of my sister?’
‘The sign of the Winged Horse? The tap-woman looked very like you, and Besler mentioned that your father had owned a tavern in the Lesser Town, so I put two and two together. Was I right?’
‘Why did you go there?’
‘I was near the castle, and someone recommended the food.’
A little of the tension eased from her shoulders. ‘Magda is a fine cook,’ she conceded. ‘Our mother taught us well. When we were children, you could not get a seat at the Horse at dinner time – every visitor to Prague wanted to eat there, my mother’s food was so famous. People would queue for hours at the door. But Magda can’t do justice to her recipes because Jan Boodt cuts corners with the ingredients.’ A shadow passed across her face. ‘I haven’t eaten there for a long time, and neither should you. It attracts the wrong sort of people now.’
‘Who is Jan Boodt?’ I asked.
‘My brother-in-law.’ She took a cloth and swiped it across the table in front of me, scattering crumbs with a ferocity that seemed aimed at this Jan Boodt. ‘Now – I have so much to do it would make your head spin, so you’ll excuse me.’
‘I’ll send Besler down to help,’ I said.
She straightened and glared at me. ‘If I needed a boy to help me manage this house, I would hire one, and one who has at least set foot in a kitchen in his life. I don’t have time for your lad tripping at my heels with his foolish questions. He’ll wheedle no more out of me, so I suggest he goes along with you.’ She rested her fists on her hips and waited for me to deny it. ‘Don’t take me for a fool, Dr Bruno.’
‘Greta,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t dare. Thank you for the breakfast.’
She gave me a long look that told me she was not taken in by me, and returned to her work. I wondered why she was so keen for me to stay away from the Winged Horse.
FIFTEEN
‘What is the name of this book you want?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Then how do you know he has it?’
‘I don’t know what he has. That’s why we’re going to look.’
‘But surely, if you don’t know whether—’
‘Besler.’ I stopped in the middle of the street, so abruptly that a man with a handcart was forced to swerve around us, muttering something in Czech that even I could tell was less than complimentary about my mother. ‘I need to talk to David Maier. The book is an excuse. When we get there, you stay in the background and don’t interrupt.’
