Once he got his hands on Elizabeth’s latest treasure, Max was a lot more forgiving of our little midnight adventure. He tied a length of cord around the small leather pouch and strung it around his neck, for safekeeping.
I kept the letter.
This translation took me less time than the last—Elizabeth’s language was becoming my own, her strange configurations and exotic word choices seeming more familiar with each page I copied into my worn notebook. But it wasn’t until past noon the next day that I was ready to share the results.
Our Mother told us of the golem, that soulless creature of night who rambled the quarter and did its master’s dark bidding, and that we did believe, and molded our own men from the soft clay of the Vltava banks, urging them to smash, to consume, to destroy. Stories to frighten a child into sleep, and yet, when Groot sent me behind the walls in search of the golem, I believed I would find it. Or it would find me.
I confided my destination in Thomas. No, as this is to be the full record of my transgressions, I will admit here that I confided all in Thomas, while we stood alone in the laboratory, our faces illuminated by candlelight. He had labored over our Father’s alchemical formula for two weeks, working from the first timid light of the moon to the sun’s bold return, and I remained by his side, sleeping only in those brief hours before the burdens of daylight called me back to life. Our attentions were directed only to our work, to the delicate sublimation, dissolution, putrefaction, and distillation, and the bubbling fluids that resulted, as if by magic, from his tender ministrations. Until the last night, we spoke of nothing but the elements and their mixtures, and I stayed silent as Thomas spun me tales of alchemical greatness, the magi who plundered the secrets of nature and drew themselves, elixir by elixir, nearer to God.
That last night, I could take it no longer, and confessed to him the role of this formula we labored over. I confessed to him that he had, unknowingly, joined us in pursuit of the greatest glory of all. Lumen Dei, the very words were on his lips when the chemical marriage bore fruit, and our elixir was born, as if the knowledge of our destination, and his desperate desire to reach it, had borne us there.
Once a secret is told, there is no untelling, brother. There is no unknowing, a sad truth you will soon understand. And so Thomas joined me, and I was no longer alone.
Groot, for reasons he refused to share, was not allowed within the walls of the Jewish quarter, but he arranged for my entrance, and offered his servant as accompaniment. Václav frightened me no less than he had at first sight, and I would rather have taken the golem. Instead, I took Thomas. Groot secured us an interview with the great Rabbi, but there were certain circumstances, he confided, that could not be avoided.
When the first three stars appeared in the sky, I met Thomas behind the Church of St. Nicholas. He laughed to see me. I fear that in response, I blushed.
He shook his head.
—Maybe you should let me go alone, because this will never succeed.
—Do I look so terrible?
I touched the hat perched precariously on my head, unruly curls tucked beneath. The breeches were stiff and coarse on my legs. Father’s tunic, too large for me by half, still smelled of him.
—You look beautiful.
And now he blushed in return.
—Too beautiful for this task, I mean. No one with eyes would believe you were a boy.
—No one with eyes would believe I am beautiful, but I seem to have you fooled.
She gave herself to him so easily, I thought. A few compliments, a few candlelit conversations, and she was ready to give everything away. Was she that lonely, I wondered, that desperate to find someone who would treat her as an equal, listen to her secrets, fill the hole her brother had left behind? Or was she simply, even without realizing it yet, in love?
Needy or happy? There had to be a difference.
The Rabbi would not speak to a girl, and so I did what needed to be done. We ventured past the gate, shoulder to shoulder, two young men, one sandy-haired with dancing eyes and a crooked smile, one bunched into a large tunic and foolish hat, scrawny of body and delicate of face, and possibly, for the first time since his carefree youth, beautiful.
A song wafted on the air, foreign and intoxicating, and the dark houses watched suspiciously as we passed, as if even the stones knew we did not belong. The temple was low and dark, its earthy walls cool to the touch, nothing like the churches of our childhood, with their golden edges and seas of rainbow glass.
The Rabbi awaited us inside. He stood on the altar at the fore of the chamber and bade us remain in the entranceway. He spoke a smooth German, without the accent of a Jew.
—I have granted this meeting at the behest of a trusted friend. But if I am to grant more, you will have to be persuasive.
I dropped to my knees.
—I come to you in the name of Edward Kelley, the name of Cornelius Groot, and the name of the Emperor. We request a handful of the sacred earth you have endowed with the gift of life.
—Rise, child. Here we kneel only to the Lord.
His voice brushed my face like the softest of feathers. I climbed to my feet.
—Only God can grant the gift of life. I am but a conduit for His grace. Creating brings me closer to the Creator, and from that union, a miracle emerged. A gift given to my people. Why should I share it with you?
—Not with me, sir. With the Emperor.
—You speak for the Emperor?
His eyes pierced my disguise, pierced my skin and bones, and arrowed straight into my soul. I could not lie.
—I speak for the nobility of knowledge and the pursuit of grace. A pursuit in which the Emperor will be honored to join, when the time is right.
I did not know from where the words had come.
—The Emperor has done much for my people. You, however, have done nothing. Yet.
He proposed a trade. In return for what we sought, a certain golden goblet the Emperor was known to have in his Kunstkammer, which was said to have belonged to Joseph, of the Twelve Tribes, which was priceless and would result in certain death for any person caught attempting to spirit it away.
The word Kunstkammer was written in German. Cabinet of wonder. Everyone who was anyone had them back then, Max explained, a Kunstkammer crammed with paintings and plant samples and unicorn horns. Collecting was in. But apparently this particular emperor took things to the extreme, his palace a veritable hoarder’s nest, except in his case the tilting stacks of bottle caps, magazines, and empty toilet-paper tubes were generally encrusted with rubies.
—Surely you can explain to the Emperor that this will be a small price to pay.
Again, I felt speared by his gaze, but what was I to tell him? That the Emperor had murdered my Father and stolen his land, that while my Father commanded me to offer him this, the greatest gift, I would have preferred a different gift, one that would be his last? Was I to return to Groot a failure, and turn our Father’s dream to dust? I could only nod and promise the goblet upon my return.
As Thomas and I crossed the Stone Bridge back to Malá Strana, he despaired.
—There is no way into the Kunstkammer. Even the Emperor’s closest counselors have no access without his permission.
—There is a way.
Though the thought of it made me ill.
I did not tell him what I planned to do until the next morning, when the deed was done. I am tempted not to tell you, either, as I know your feelings about Don Giulio, and you know I share them, but believe me when I say there was little choice. And you know Don Giulio has long been willing to do me any favor I like. I will admit my heart once softened for him, but no longer. When he was a child, peeping into ladies’ bedchambers, roasting squirrels in the sun, their fur matted with blood from the stick he jabbed into their sides, leaving me gifts of dead birds in gilded boxes, excuses could be made. His mother a servant, his father an Emperor, his identity a truth universally known and yet never to be spoken, it cannot have been an easy
life. But he is older now, and though two years my junior, he towers over me. He scares the women of the court with the way he watches them, and there are those who say he does more than watch. His hands are meaty and his breath heavy with onion and fish.
Yet his grandfather still has charge of the Kunstkammer. Help me once more, I asked Don Giulio, like when we were children. We did not acknowledge the distinction between now and then, the absence of a brother to protect me from his roaming hands, but some truths do not need speaking.
Hradčany is different now. Rudolf has made it a city unto itself, and everywhere are men hoisting stones and carving sculptures, erecting one monument after another to the Hapsburg reign. It is well known that the Emperor prefers to stay indoors whenever possible, and he has constructed the palace around this mania for hiding, with more secluded corridors and secret passageways than we could have dreamed of as children. Don Giulio wrapped a thick, wet hand around mine as he guided us to the secret heart of the palace, Thomas following a few steps behind, his presence only barely tolerated by the mad prince, and only because I had lowered myself to beg.
The Kunstkammer now resides in a long corridor that connects the Emperor’s living quarters to the Spanish Hall. Myriad images of Rudolf in vibrant colors of oil peered down at us from the walls and ceiling. We passed paintings of Bohemian countrysides and Spanish ports, mountains and deserts and bowls of fruit, but it is the many faces of the Emperor that I cannot stop seeing, his sloped eyebrows, his black beard, the jowls that hang over his ruff, as pink and fleshy as any pig. His collections have swollen since our adventures years ago, and Don Giulio swept us past cabinets that held clocks, leather-bound tomes of Agrippa, Boethius, Dee, Croll, Paracelsus, Porta, even our disgraced Father, the jaw of a siren, the horn of a unicorn, statues of the Greek gods performing their obscene gyrations, crocodile skulls, pitchers of silver and jasper and gold, coins from the four corners of the world, bowls of shell, cups of jade, scepters encrusted with rubies, two-headed fish, a waxen creature with the body of a horse and the head of a lion, astrolabes, orreries, armillary spheres, enough musical instruments to deafen the world with song, two nails of Noah’s Ark, and a chest of knives. At this last, Don Giulio paused, fondling the blades of his father’s collection as if visiting old and dear friends: This one had killed Caesar; that one had slain a Turkish prince; another, his favorite, Don Giulio claimed a peasant had swallowed and carried in his stomach for nine years. This was the knife he was caressing, blade whispering against his neck, when a distant door creaked open, and we heard the terrifying footfalls approach.
—Here!
Don Giulio and I squeezed between two cabinets, while Thomas wedged himself into a similar crevice on the opposite wall. The Emperor approached. Don Giulio’s breath warmed my neck. A hand clapped over my mouth. Stubby fingers stole down my back. Our bodies were too close, and with the Emperor so near, I could hardly scream. Cold metal chilled my face. It was Don Giulio, who still wielded his knife. I could do nothing but let him play spider across my tingling flesh, while I swallowed my bile and the Emperor himself strolled past. I cannot speak, even to you, of what his hands did with their dark freedom.
When the hall grew quiet, we emerged, and before I could stay my hand, it flew to Don Giulio’s cheek, raking thin red lines across his pitted flesh. Thomas flew at him, but I stopped him with a word: remember. Don Giulio could call the Emperor back, or drag us to his father’s feet and name us as thieves, for that we were.
I tell you now, my brother, there are things I would have refused, had the bastard son dared ask, just as I tell myself, in the cradle of night, that I would have refused Don Giulio his desires even if it meant relinquishing the Lumen Dei. But for reasons I cannot fathom, he did not demand, and so I will never know what I might have done.
He gave me the goblet, his fingers brushing mine, his lips twitching like one of his frightened squirrels.
—No one can see us together. These stairs lead to the Bishop’s Tower. Wait there, until one bell has passed, then leave. We will meet again, my Elizabeth.
He was gone before I could tell him I belonged to no one, least of all him.
We waited atop the tower past the first bell, and past the second. I willed my hands to stop trembling, but they did so only when Thomas wrapped them in his and told me I was brave. The stars were bright, and I showed him Cassiopeia and Andromeda and told him of the Copernicans, who believed the earth moved beneath our feet. He told me of his mother and sister, who had died together, plague racking one body and then another, less than a week passing from first boil to fresh grave.
I will not tell you where our words went then, or how we passed the seconds of still, cool night, until there was no choice but to descend, or lose ourselves.
With that one goblet, or even a single one of the emeralds that encrusted its golden base, I could have changed our family’s destiny. Would there have been any greater sin in stealing the Emperor’s riches for myself than in stealing them for a holy man? Perhaps not. But the greatest sin of all would be to deny our Father his final wish, and perhaps, if Groot spoke true, to deny mankind its greatest discovery. And so I tucked my hair into its cap, bound my chest, slipped into my borrowed breeches, and returned to that strange sacred space.
We were, on arrival, commanded to approach the altar, where the Rabbi handled the stolen goblet, a wild gleam in his eyes. Into my waiting hands he dropped a small leather pouch, the very pouch you, my brother, now behold, containing within it a pocket of earth that had been blessed by God, dirt and dust and clay that had once walked as a man.
When the Rabbi turned his gaze to me, I was no longer afraid.
He bared his teeth.
—Next time you visit our quarter, I suggest you wear your lovely hair down. A lady need not cover her head before marriage.
His eyes had seen all. But I found myself unafraid. We were united in our common fate, both thieves, both pilgrims, both servants of what I believe to be the same Lord.
I slept soundly that night, dearest brother, believing the most difficult of hurdles had been overcome. Two days hence, Groot had determined, I was to depart with Thomas on a journey into Austrian lands, where we hoped the astronomer Kepler would supply the final piece of our fiendish puzzle. We had water and earth, soon we would have fire, and Groot himself was toiling day and night on his own contribution, air, the delicate, whirring machinery that would set the device in wondrous motion. It tempts me to end here, in comfort and hope, as it would be easier than recalling for you what happened that night, in the dark before the dawn, when an apparition appeared before my bed, one that I would prefer to remember as a nightmare but that I know was only too real. As was the blade it held to my throat.
It was a man, and in the shadows he seemed to bear Don Giulio’s face, but this was an illusion borne of a dream. It was a stranger, his face hooded by a priestly robe. A man of God, yet what man of God would penetrate the chamber of a lady and hold a knife to her throat?
—To have faith in God is to have faith in the Church. To know God is to know Him through the Church. Your heresy will end. Now.
I know not how I gained the courage to speak, but I was no longer the girl I had been before this journey began, and his was not the first blade to have kissed my throat.
—How is it heresy to seek answers about God?
—Those answers you need have been supplied to you. Your Lord has commanded you to have faith in Him and faith in His Church. You show your strength by ceding your individual concerns to His institution. You show only weakness and avarice by questing for more.
—If the Lord wants to stop me, let Him.
—My child, who do you think sent me?
His voice was almost kind.
—I am giving you an opportunity many feel you should be denied. Turn back. Repent. For if I am forced to return, I will not wake you before I do what needs to be done.
“It must be the warning,” Adriane said suddenly. “Remember the let
ter we found in the library, the one about how they were going to warn Elizabeth to stop whatever she was doing?”
I did—and I remembered that whoever wrote the letter had wanted to do a lot more than warn.
At his command, I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, he was gone. And in the morning, sunshine warming my face and the promise of a journey awaiting me, can I be blamed for dismissing the warning as I would any other imagined creature of the night? Our task was noble, our questions just, and the Church merely clinging to power as changes loomed. The priests had proved themselves terrified by the Lutherans, who insisted on reading their own Bibles in their own vernacular and forging their own relationship with a God who had once been the sole province of the Church’s holy men. Was it any wonder that the Lumen Dei would fill them with fear? What need of the Church and its priesthood had we, when God Himself would soon be whispering in our ears?
It was curiosity that propelled me, brother, and dedication to our Father. But it was also hubris. Warnings are easier to ignore than follow, as you well know, for by reading this you have ignored so many of mine. And so we continued. And so shall you.
11 November 1600.
31
“The Fidei Defensor,” I said, pacing the cramped room. “It has to be.” I’d worked on the translation straight through till dawn, and past it, while Max lay in bed pretending to sleep. I needed to know what had happened. Why, if she was so in love with Thomas, she had married another man. Who was secretly watching her, and how she had escaped from all the men who came for her with knives. I even, though I would admit it only to myself, wanted to know about the Lumen Dei. The machine was a joke, a story, but Elizabeth had believed in it—was terrified and, I suspected, tempted by it—and something had happened that convinced her the machine was too dangerous to exist and perhaps too dangerous to destroy. I accused her of trusting too easily, but for whatever reason, I trusted her. I wanted to know if I should.
The Book of Blood and Shadow Page 26
