Alchemy, page 8
‘I should be interested to see them,’ I said. ‘And the manuscripts.’
‘You are welcome any time, of course.’ He glanced up with a shy smile. ‘It would be a pleasure to show the collection to someone who would appreciate it.’
‘I will take you up on that,’ I said. ‘But you changed your mind about Bartos?’
He shrugged. ‘You are no stranger to the courts of queens and princes, Dr Bruno, so you will understand how these things go. His Majesty the Emperor is capricious with his favours, especially where the alchemists are concerned – there are so many of them, and new hopefuls pouring through the city gates every day, full of grandiose promises. Those who wish to retain his good opinion – and their stipend – must tell him what he wants to hear or risk being displaced. That is not a climate in which to foster true scientific enquiry, where one must be willing to fail in order to reach the truth. These last months, Bartos had devoted all his energies to confected mysticism and flattery, and it was making him bitter.’
‘Was that why he had begun to slander John Dee?’
‘Possibly. Also, he had fallen in with …’ He hesitated, his expression sour.
‘With whom?’
Before he could answer, the door to the gallery was flung open and Hajek strode through with his medical bag. He came to an abrupt halt and glared at Strada.
‘Dear God, what were you thinking, boy?’ he barked, in Italian. ‘Nothing comes into His Majesty’s hands that has not first been examined inside and out. Nothing. There are poisons that work by contact with the skin, you must know that. One piece of cloth impregnated with such a solution, that’s all it would take. Or some biting creature – a snake or spider.’
‘I’m sorry, Thaddeus. It was only— that message, in Bartos’s writing – I thought—’
‘You did not think at all. You’re a damned fool,’ Hajek said, as if pronouncing definitive judgement. ‘Your father would not have made such a mistake,’ he added darkly.
Strada flinched at this. ‘Do not tell him, I pray you,’ he said. ‘It would cause him distress. I swear nothing like this will happen again.’
Hajek jabbed a finger close to his face. ‘It cannot. One incautious moment like that, and—’ He drew the flat of his hand across his throat like a blade. ‘I should not have to spell it out to you, Ottavio. If we lose His Majesty, we are all dead men.’
Strada swallowed and nodded. His complexion had subsided rapidly from flushed to deathly pale.
‘Come, Bruno,’ Hajek said, still brusque, sweeping past me towards the stairs. ‘Let us take a closer look at this grisly gift.’
SIX
‘Now then – bring that light closer. What was the first thing that struck you when we opened the casket?’ Hajek pushed up his shirtsleeves. Trying not to crowd him, I held up the lantern and peered down at the severed eyeballs he had placed on the slab. He had adopted – perhaps unwittingly – the attitude of a teacher instructing a student, but I didn’t mind; it took me back to my days as a young friar in Naples, when I had worked as assistant to the brother infirmarian, who taught me most of what I know about anatomy and how to analyse the signs of unnatural death.
‘The smell of distilled spirits,’ I said, keen to please. ‘And the absence of blood.’
‘Exactly. Which points to what?’
‘Well, alcohol is a preservative. It seems likely that these specimens did not come from the dead man.’
‘Very good. In fact, I would go further. I would say, by the shape of them, that these did not come from any man at all. Look, here.’ He poked one with the tip of his knife. I winced; I had seen enough of death and mutilation to consider myself fairly strong of stomach when it came to the human body, but the way the jelly quivered made my gut tighten.
‘An animal, you think?’
He nodded. ‘Most likely a sheep. And you see how carefully the nerves have been separated and kept intact here? That speaks of careful anatomisation, by one who knows what he is doing and wishes to study the function of vision. Whereas if you were to look at the body of Bartos, you would immediately see that what was done to him was not the work of a skilled physician but a butcher. In fact—’ He turned to me, an idea dawning plainly on his face. ‘Why don’t we take a look at the corpse now? I should be glad of your insight.’
I tried to blink away tiredness and my longing for the warm bed I had enjoyed for less than an hour; the last thing I wanted was to examine a butchered corpse, but I could hardly refuse to assist, and I knew from experience that murdered men and women can tell you a great deal more than their killers expect about what was done to them, if you know what to look for. While Dee remained under suspicion of this murder, I had a chance to clear his name and impress the Emperor with my abilities at the same time.
I agreed; Hajek took the lantern and led me out of his laboratory and along a chilly unlit passageway. We were deep in the bowels of the castle here; Hajek, as the chief court physician, had his own consulting rooms near the Emperor’s private quarters, but a separate laboratory in the cellars to conduct his experiments, reached by spiralling staircases, away from the communal space of the Powder Tower where lesser alchemists were obliged to share workshops.
As we approached a heavy door at the end of the passage, Hajek reached into his doublet and drew out a kerchief, which he tied around his mouth and nose.
‘You may wish to do likewise,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t smell too good.’
I had left the kerchiefs I wore for riding in my bag, so I pressed a sleeve to my face as he unlocked the door.
‘You are keeping the body here?’ I asked, surprised.
‘It’s cold, as you’ve no doubt noticed. The temperature will delay decay to an extent, until I have finished my examination. I thought it prudent not to keep him in the city morgue – the townspeople were muttering of dark magic and curses, and the presence of the corpse might have provoked unrest. When I am satisfied that there is no more to be learned, I will have him taken outside the city and buried quietly where he is unlikely to be dug up.’
‘What about his family? Will they not wish to bury him?’
‘He has none that I know of. Or if he does, it would take too long to track them down. I want him in the ground as quickly as possible. People are superstitious here, and credulous with it.’
I understood his motives; even so, I was surprised by the apparent lack of feeling. I hoped Bartos did not have a mother somewhere waiting for him to write.
‘I heard muttering of the Golem as well,’ I said, recalling the talk in the Spider.
He frowned as he pushed the door open. ‘Exactly. There are plenty who seek any opportunity to slander the Jews, and this murder is a gift to them. Come, now.’
The stench of old blood hit me like a punch the moment I stepped inside; the climate in this underground chamber was not doing much to limit putrefaction, whatever Hajek said. As my sight adjusted, I saw that we had entered a small room with a low, vaulted ceiling, bare except for a makeshift bier comprised of planks laid over trestles. A channel cut into the flagstones sloped down towards an iron grille set into the floor, and I guessed that Hajek used the room for dissection.
A shape lay on the planks covered by an oilcloth, and I shivered as Hajek passed me the light and drew back a corner; no matter how many times I confronted the spectacle of violent death, I had never yet learned to look on it with detachment, and in that I found some confirmation of my humanity.
The face was monstrous. I saw immediately what Hajek meant: the mutilations done to Zikmund Bartos were not made by a practised hand. Though the body had evidently been cleaned for examination, the ragged holes where his eyes had been showed signs of frenzied gouging with a blade, as if his attacker had been possessed by fury or extreme haste. The carefully preserved eyes in the box could not possibly be his. I hoped to God the poor man had been killed first. His lips were drawn back in a horrible rictus and his jaw had fallen loose, revealing the empty cavern of his mouth, black with dried blood. Cut into his forehead were the Hebrew characters ת ו מ – the word for Death.
‘He was young,’ I said through my sleeve. From Hajek’s description of Bartos as Dee’s chief rival among the alchemists, I had imagined someone of Dee’s years and experience. But the man on the table could not be out of his twenties – possibly only midway through.
‘Yes.’ Hajek sounded regretful. ‘Twenty-seven, but exceptionally gifted, in my opinion. I had predicted great things for him.’
Twenty-seven. The age I had been when I first fled my religious order, escaping over the convent wall at San Domenico Maggiore under cover of darkness. The age at which I felt my life had truly begun.
‘How long had he been at court?’
‘Less than a year. He became Rudolf’s obsession at first. I fear that was my fault – perhaps I over-praised the boy, created expectations he could not meet. But I was so struck by his quick mind, the breadth of his knowledge. All the more remarkable because, by his own admission, he had not studied at a university.’
‘How came he by his skills, then?’
‘He claimed to have been apprenticed in boyhood to an apothecary in his home town on the borders of Bohemia. I say claimed, because many of those who arrive here invent a new history for themselves – you know how appealing that can be when one travels, the idea of shedding one’s past self like a skin. Bartos said he had learned the essential properties of plants and minerals from the apothecary and progressed to his own experiments.’ He lifted a shoulder in a gesture of helplessness. ‘The Emperor, though he is a great patron of knowledge, is an impatient man, as you will find out. He does not fully grasp, I think, the long and painstaking path that any worthwhile endeavour must follow, the manifold failures and disappointments along the road. His way is to seize upon every newcomer, as if this one might give him overnight what all the others have yet failed to achieve, just as some men will take a new mistress each time the one he has turns out to possess the same faults as every other woman. Which, come to think of it, is also the Emperor’s way with his mistresses.’ He grimaced and returned his gaze to the ravaged face of Ziggi Bartos. ‘His delight is all in novelty. I suppose that is the prerogative of princes. I told Bartos only to persist with his work, that the apparently miraculous breakthrough is always built on a foundation of diligent application. But he saw his star fading with Rudolf and he began to panic.’
‘Ottavio Strada said that Bartos had lately turned towards mysticism,’ I said, lowering my arm as I began to acclimatise to the smell.
‘In the same way that a woman will employ whore’s tricks to revive her man’s flagging interest, so the alchemists know that a smattering of magic will always whet the Emperor’s appetite in the short term.’ There was disapproval in his expression, though whether for women or alchemists I could not tell. ‘But that is a fine line to tread. Rudolf desires magic and secret knowledge, but he dreads anything that smacks of demonic powers.’
I wondered if Bartos had inadvertently crossed that line. Rudolf had accused John Dee of being an agent of the Devil, now that he was out of favour.
‘Was Bartos interested in the Cabala?’ I asked.
‘Anyone in this city who seeks to interrogate the mysteries of the universe has at least a passing knowledge of the Cabala,’ Hajek said. ‘There is not much regard among scholars here for the Inquisition’s Index of Forbidden Books, you’ll be glad to hear. You ask because of the letters?’ He gestured to Bartos’s face.
‘His killer clearly wanted to draw attention to that connection,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he wished to imply that this is the consequence of involvement with the Jews, or Jewish books?’
‘That would be a reasonable conclusion – except that, as far as I’m aware, Bartos had no especial connection to the Jews. I had surmised that the killer’s aim was to be rid of Bartos and cast aspersions on the Jewish community at the same time. Which is why – as I have tried to explain to His Majesty – it is unlikely to be John Dee, even supposing him capable of such violence. He may have the first motive but not the second – quite the reverse.’
I thought of the correspondence in Hebrew I had found in Dee’s room. I had no way of knowing if the original had been sent, or if Hajek had found and removed it after Dee’s disappearance. Until I was more certain, I decided not to mention it.
‘Dee was close to the Jewish community, then?’
He gave me a narrow look over his kerchief. ‘He respected their learning and culture, as I’m sure you know. Now, look here. What do you make of this?’ He drew the cloth further down to expose the corpse’s torso and I held the light closer. One single wound on the left side of the chest, below the nipple, gaped like a lipless mouth.
‘Is that the blow that killed him?’ I asked.
‘As far as I can see. What interests me is the contrast between this and what was done to the face.’
‘The precision, you mean?’
‘Exactly.’ He beamed across the corpse at me, as if I were a precocious student. ‘A single entry wound between the ribs, straight to the heart. It would have been the work of a moment. He may not even have realised he had been stabbed at first, but death would have been extremely quick. And that level of precision, as you say, speaks to me of a killer with some degree of experience. You would expect an amateur to slash at their victim, to deal a number of blows in the hope that one would do the job. Whoever murdered Bartos knew what he was doing.’
‘A professional assassin, you mean?’
‘Certainly someone who has killed before. A soldier, perhaps. Even someone with a sound understanding of anatomy who knew where to aim. Which also suggests to me that Bartos did not suspect violence from his killer. You could not get a knife in so accurately if your victim was running away, or attempting to defend himself. I would say it was done face to face – a concealed weapon, one swift move – before Bartos had a chance to anticipate danger.’
‘Then you think the mutilation was done after death?’ I asked hopefully.
‘On balance, I would say so,’ Hajek said, ‘and not merely because the alternative is too dreadful to contemplate. These abrasions under the arms – look, here, and here – fit with being hung from the bridge, but if he had been alive while someone gouged his eyes and tongue out, you would expect to see injuries on his hands and arms where he tried to protect himself.’
‘Unless his hands were tied.’
‘True, but there are no ligature marks on the wrists – only where the body was suspended.’
‘That’s another thing – how could someone hang a corpse from the Stone Bridge without being noticed?’ I said, incredulous. ‘Surely passers-by would have seen?’
‘There was thick fog – you could barely see more than a few feet ahead. And not many people crossing at night.’
‘That should make it all the easier to get a description from the guards. They must have noticed someone carrying a body.’
Hajek made a dismissive noise. ‘I can tell you are a stranger to Prague. Those guards are easily bribed, especially in winter. They take the coin offered and stay in the warmth of their guardhouses in the towers at either end, seeing and hearing nothing. I’m afraid we can’t expect any useful testimony from them, they will be too busy covering for one another.’ He shook his head. ‘This business with the eyes. I think the Emperor is right – someone is trying to make a point about blindness, about his failure to see. But to see what?’
‘And his tongue,’ I said, pointing to the corpse’s lolling mouth. ‘Can we expect that to be delivered to the Emperor at some point, with another cryptic verse?’
‘Let’s hope that damned idiot Strada opens the box first, if so,’ Hajek muttered.
‘You are certain Bartos wrote those notes himself?’
‘It was his hand, I’m sure.’
‘So – Bartos wrote out that verse about eyes and seeing, then lost his own eyes. I can’t make sense of it. Have his lodgings been searched?’
‘I have not had time today – I have been too busy with the body and trying to calm His Majesty. I don’t know if Rudolf sent anyone else, though I doubt it – he was too distressed by the news, even before he received the casket tonight.’
‘Someone took those papers from Bartos’s rooms, either before or after his murder,’ I said, thinking aloud. ‘If there was anything else of value there, or anything that might explain why he was killed, they may have taken that too. But we should search as soon as possible, to make sure.’
Hajek smiled briefly as he drew the cloth back over the alchemist’s sightless face. ‘Dee said you were like a truffle pig when you caught the scent of a murder,’ he murmured. ‘You are quite right, of course. But would you not rather go back and sleep, and we can search in the morning when you are rested?’
I can’t pretend I was not tempted. But I thought of the letter that had wrapped the casket sent to Rudolf – the claim, in Bartos’s own writing, that he had finally achieved his goal and found what he had sought. Was it that boast that had signed his death warrant? Or was it just possible – though I found it hard to credit – that he had truly discovered something that would have made him pre-eminent among the alchemists? His death had been common knowledge in the city since he was found; his killer would have had plenty of time to pillage his lodgings and remove anything that might have linked them, or any such discovery Bartos might have made. But it was worth a try. It also struck me as a little odd that Hajek, who had been so eager to drag me from my bed, was suddenly solicitous about returning me to it. Surely he could have no reason for wanting to delay a search of the alchemist’s rooms?
‘Carpe diem, Hajek,’ I said with determination.
