The Cabinet of Curiosities

by Paul Dowswell

  ‘I would suggest that the largest piece be polished and then fashioned into a pendant to be worn close to the heart. It is said that the life force within the stone is effective in keeping the soul free from error, fear and envy. The smaller pieces should be mixed with honey and wine and ingested.’

  Rudolph gave a gentle smile. ‘Then see to it, my dear Declercq. We leave it with you.’

  Lukas was pleased to note that the Emperor did not have a haughtiness about him – such as he would have expected from the most powerful man in Europe. Instead he seemed to have a mighty, impenetrable detachment.

  Anselmus then began to examine the Emperor, as he did on every visit. He checked his pulse, eyes, posture and skin for any signs of disorder. Then he asked for ‘the samples’ and Rudolph clapped his hands. Another courtier appeared with two containers. The first, a narrow-necked flask, contained a pale yellow liquid. Anselmus held it up to the light, swilled it around, then took out the cork and sniffed it. Lukas, standing next to him, caught a whiff of urine. The second container was a covered pale porcelain bowl. Anselmus held his breath, quickly lifted and replaced the lid, and pronounced the Emperor’s stools to be healthy.

  The routine inspection over, Anselmus assured the Emperor his body was in good health. Lukas realised with disappointment that it would soon be time to leave.

  Rudolph reached for a small handbell and rang it. The courtier who had let them in appeared and within a few minutes they were back at Anselmus’s apartment.

  ‘So, Lukas, what did you make of our Emperor?’ asked Anselmus, almost eagerly. Lukas wondered whether he had been glad to have someone else with him.

  ‘It was a great honour, Uncle,’ he said diplomatically, but what he really wanted to say was that he felt perplexed. He had expected Rudolph to radiate some kind of luminous superhuman presence, but beneath his splendid clothes the Emperor seemed all too human. And after the hardship and poverty of his journey it was bizarre to be surrounded by so many things that were worth many months’ food and shelter. For a moment he thought of Etienne again. He would love to be able to tell him about what he had just seen.

  ‘Who are the “we” and “us” he talks about?’ asked Lukas.

  ‘It is a royal tradition,’ said Anselmus. ‘Monarchs of all descriptions refer to themselves as we and us. They mean “God and I”, I suppose, or “We, the living embodiment of the realm and its people”.’ He laughed at the absurdity, then looked sad. ‘His Highness suffers greatly from melancholy. It has grown worse in the time I have been observing him. And he is bedevilled by hypochondria.’

  ‘Uncle,’ said Lukas gingerly, ‘I know what melancholy is, but not hypo . . . whatever it was.’

  Anselmus’s eyes widened in irritation, but he checked himself and spoke in a firm, calm voice. ‘Hypochondria. It is a Greek word. It is a disease of the mind where the patient fears they are suffering from ailments that are in fact imaginary. Today was a good day. Sometimes we have rages and sometimes we have dark silences.’

  .

  Chapter Ten

  That afternoon Anselmus sent the largest of the lapis lazuli stones to the royal jewellers, to be polished and attached to a silver chain so it could be worn around the neck. Then he showed Lukas how to make the Emperor’s new medicine. He had him grind the remaining gemstones to a powder, ‘the finer the better’. Then he mixed it with wine, honey, cinnamon and olive oil. Lukas took it at once to the Emperor’s quarters.

  He returned to see Anselmus welcoming a visitor to his apartment. ‘Lukas, my dear boy,’ he beamed, ‘this is my esteemed colleague and companion Doktor Albrecht Grunewald!’

  Lukas bowed. Grunewald was as stout as Anselmus was lean, although he had an almost identical long white beard.

  He smiled warmly at Lukas. Then a shadow crossed his face. ‘I was sorry to hear of your father,’ he said. ‘I have some sympathy for his beliefs. You will find in Prague, with our good Emperor to rule us, that men are left to follow their own faith without fear of the Inquisition. Indeed, they are allowed to do many things in the spirit of natural enquiry that would not be permitted in most other Christian realms.’

  He paused in thought then said to Anselmus, ‘Which reminds me, did you notice a party of Spaniards arrive earlier this week?’

  ‘My nephew brought this to my attention,’ replied Anselmus.

  ‘Court ambassadors by the look of them,’ he said to them both. ‘I wonder what they’re doing here. I shall make it my business to find out.’

  Then he turned back to Anselmus. ‘Look at this,’ he said excitedly, holding up the book he was carrying. ‘It contains Guarinonius’s formula for Elixir vitae.’

  Lukas looked baffled. Grunewald turned the pages until he came to the section he wanted.

  ‘I doubt it really is the Elixir vitae,’ said Grunewald. ‘Immortality from a medicinal concoction – that would be too much to hope for. But I hear Pope Clement VIII took it when he was very ill, and he made a full recovery.’

  Anselmus’s face lit up with fascination.

  ‘I entrust it to you, the great medicine maker,’ said Grunewald. ‘You must restore our Emperor to good health. This would be an unhappy realm without him.’

  He took his leave with a pleasant smile.

  ‘This will be just the thing for the Emperor,’ said Anselmus. ‘I must wean him off the absurd treatment Doktor Krohl is subjecting him to.’

  ‘Who’s Doktor Krohl?’ asked Lukas. He had forgotten he had already met him in Golden Lane.

  Anselmus sighed. ‘His Excellency has several physicians. Grunewald is one. He principally attends to the Emperor’s children and mistresses. Krohl is another. He has a rather grand idea of his own importance . . . and he doesn’t like me because I live here in the Castle –’ he smirked – ‘and he has a little cottage in Golden Lane.’ He went on. ‘His greatest flaw is his enthusiasm for magnetic remedies. I have no time for them. A lodestone may indeed point north, and attract iron particles, but I cannot see how it would draw the black vapours that cause melancholy from His Excellency’s body . . .

  ‘Anyway, look at this.’ Anselmus pointed excitedly at the text. ‘Guarinonius learned of the remedy in a dream. And now we have it here. Let me see what we will need.’

  Anselmus paused and wiggled his finger about, pointing this way and that and talking quietly to himself. ‘Zedoary, calamus, elder root we have in the garden . . . the Emperor’s apothecary has nutmeg and ginger . . . cinnamon I have in my kitchen . . .’

  After supper Anselmus donned his fur cloak. ‘We must go to the Castle herb garden to gather our ingredients tonight,’ he said to Lukas. ‘As I’m sure you know, the effectiveness of medicines is very dependant on the time of day they are harvested.’

  Lukas was excited. He was keen to visit the gardens that lay beyond the northern wall.

  On every stage of their route through the ramparts, over the bridge and into the Royal Gardens, guards bowed and opened any barrier that lay before them. Lukas felt proud of his uncle, recognised wherever he went, having doors and gates opened on his command.

  ‘We are in luck,’ said Anselmus. ‘The elder root must be plucked just before a full moon. And we are at that exact stage of the lunar cycle.’

  It was a warm, bright night. The moonlit Castle looked beautiful and the Royal Gardens were bursting with extraordinary smells.

  The quiet of the place, as they walked there, was unnerving. Apart from the call and response of hooting owls, all Lukas could hear were their own footsteps scrunching on the gravel path. The trees were beginning to sprout summer leaves but they still had something of their skeletal winter look in the pale light of the moon. Lukas drew in great lungfuls of night air.

  Anselmus told Lukas how to recognise each herb, and what it did for a patient. ‘Elder root: excellent for quinsies, sore throats and strangulations. Calamus: a sure cure for the intestinal worm.’ He knew exactly where to look and they found their herbs quickly.

  ‘Back to ou
r warm fire,’ he said. Lukas was disappointed. He was enjoying being out in the night air.

  A low growling noise stopped them in their tracks. It came from somewhere close to the gate.

  ‘What was that?’ said Anselmus. His fear was infectious and Lukas was immediately afraid.

  ‘Walk back to the gate. Don’t run, but be quick,’ whispered Anselmus.

  ‘But it came from by the gate,’ said Lukas.

  ‘So it did. So it did.’ Anselmus grabbed his nephew by the arm and hurried him further into the garden.

  The growl came again. A guttural snarl Lukas could feel in his chest.

  Anselmus now looked terrified. ‘Nothing makes a noise like that . . . apart from the Emperor’s lion.’

  They could hear snuffling now and panting.

  ‘A tree. We’ve got to climb a tree,’ fretted Lukas.

  The garden was full of extraordinary trees. There were several close by that looked easy enough to climb. ‘Help me up,’ said Anselmus, pointing to a slender trunk covered in beautiful white blossom. The panting was getting closer.

  Lukas made a stirrup with his hands and Anselmus hauled himself up into the thin branches. Then he leaned forward, offering his arm to help Lukas to pull himself up. But as he took Lukas’s weight, the branch began to creak and Anselmus instinctively released his grip.

  Lukas heard a great roar right next to him. He looked over to see a young lion, somewhere between a cub and an adult. In a second the creature was upon him. But rather than maul him, it rubbed its mane against his legs. Instinctively Lukas began to stroke its fur. The lion gave a contented yawn, his sharp teeth glistening in the moonlight. An awful catty stench filled the air, worse than any animal Lukas had ever smelled before.

  ‘He wants you to give him something to eat,’ whispered Anselmus.

  ‘What do you suggest?’ said Lukas desperately.

  The lion was growling now, and snuffling around Lukas’s crotch. He was getting restless. ‘Uncle, pull me up, before he takes a bite out of me.’

  Anselmus relented. He reached down an arm and pulled with all his might. Lukas scrambled up, distracting the lion with a snowstorm of white blossom dislodged from the tree.

  They both clung to the trunk, resting their feet on the sturdiest branches, so close they were almost nose to nose. The lion sat below.

  Lukas shifted his weight and the branch beneath his feet cracked and broke right off, leaving him dangling by his hands. The lion was on his feet in an instant. Lukas could feel the wind from its wafting claws on his swinging foot.

  Anselmus pulled Lukas back as yet another branch gave an ominous crack.

  ‘This tree isn’t going to last much longer with the two of us up it,’ said Anselmus. ‘We need to distract this creature while you run to another tree. There’s one close by.’ He looked guilty. ‘I would go myself, but I am not so agile.’

  Lukas took off one of his boots. He called down to the lion and swung the boot by its laces. The creature stretched out its body and began to paw at it.

  Then Lukas threw the shoe as far as he could and the lion galloped after it into the darkness. Taking his life into his hands he leaped down and sprinted to the next tree. By the time he scrambled up it, the beast’s claws were reaching for his feet.

  As he reached the safety of the lower branches, a startled bird fluttered up in panic. Lukas almost lost his grip. As he clung on tight he saw the bird was tied to the tree by a tiny golden chain. When the chain pulled tight, the bird gave a shriek of alarm and fluttered down to the top branches.

  ‘What’s that?’ he hissed.

  ‘One of the Emperor’s parrots,’ said his uncle.

  Their voices carried easily in the still night air.

  ‘What do we do now?’ said Lukas when he had caught his breath.

  ‘We wait, nephew,’ said Anselmus.

  ‘But it’s cold,’ said Lukas. It was too. April nights were cold enough to produce a frost in the morning. ‘Can’t we call for help?’

  ‘No,’ said Anselmus. ‘The Emperor might be sleeping in the Summer Palace. You can see it there, at the far end of the garden. If we wake him, he will be very angry with us. Being eaten by a lion is probably preferable.’

  .

  Chapter Eleven

  Dawn came with a light frost. Anselmus and Lukas worried that they would fall from their perches like frozen sparrows. But soon after first light, the lion keeper entered the garden with a piece of meat. ‘Taman,’ he called. The creature lolloped over to him and even let him fuss with its mane as it began to eat.

  While the lion was distracted the keeper placed a heavy iron chain around its collar. Then the two of them trotted back towards the lion cage in the Emperor’s menagerie.

  Anselmus called, ‘Ahoy! Are there any more lions loose in this garden?’

  The keeper came over and stared up, bemused. ‘Your Eminence . . .’

  ‘We came here last night to pick medicinal herbs. Then we were set upon by a lion,’ said Anselmus, in a tone that suggested this sort of thing happened to him all the time.

  ‘Taman does break out of his cage some evenings,’ said the keeper. ‘He hasn’t eaten anybody yet. I keep telling the Custodian of the Royal Gardens we need to strengthen that door . . .’

  They found Lukas’s boot close to the gate. It had been chewed to pieces – a fate they both felt they had narrowly avoided.

  .

  That afternoon Lukas spent a tedious hour grinding roots and herbs with a pestle and mortar, and carefully separating each one into a small bone-china dish. The herbs were boiled and the oils siphoned off, then mixed with lemon juice and spirit of wine.

  ‘The medicine must be drunk before meals, and only when the moon is in Cancer, Leo or Virgo,’ said Anselmus.

  Lukas was not really paying attention. He was tired and in a foul mood. Anselmus had offered to lend him money to buy some more boots. Lukas thought it wasn’t his fault he’d had to throw his boot away. His uncle had brought him to the garden. Surely he should buy him another pair. Lukas didn’t feel brave enough to mention it, but he did think ill of Anselmus for not offering.

  At supper that evening Anselmus was in high spirits. He ignored his nephew’s surly mood. ‘When we have done the preparation, I will present this new medicine to the Emperor and tell him of its effectiveness. If the Pope himself recommends it, I am sure that Rudolph will be prepared to take it. Besides, he must surely be growing tired of Doktor Krohl’s magnetic remedies.’

  Lukas could not be angry with his uncle for long, so he smiled and told him how much he was enjoying his studies. He knew he was living in a privileged world. Anselmus had even cleared some space in one of the smaller rooms for him. It was barely big enough for a rickety bed and table, but Lukas thought it was marvellous to have a room of his own. He felt that all he lacked was someone his own age to talk to.

  He liked being his uncle’s protégé and he didn’t even mind Anselmus’s determination to teach him good manners. ‘You must have picked up some bad habits on your travels. If you live and work at court, you cannot behave as you would in a low tavern full of villains and women of light behaviour.’

  Every mealtime he provided a running commentary on Lukas’s more regrettable behaviour. ‘Do not fall on your food as though you were a hungry dog . . . Do not fart and belch as if you were performing to an audience . . . Do not sneeze in people’s faces . . . and when you blow your nose, do not look into your handkerchief, as if you were expecting to find diamonds or emeralds.’ Lukas paid close attention. He was clever enough to realise this was the way to advancement in the world.

  .

  The medicine was prepared and ready for the Emperor’s next weekly examination. As they walked to the imperial chambers clutching several bottles they passed two Spanish courtiers, who watched them with clear curiosity.

  ‘They’re still here,’ said Anselmus, when they were out of earshot. ‘No doubt wanting an audience with the Emperor. They’ll have to
be patient.’

  As they waited for their summons Lukas had never seen his uncle in such a state of excitement. ‘I am convinced this is the remedy for His Highness’s melancholy,’ Anselmus said.

  They were ushered into the royal presence and waited for Rudolph to turn away from the window and acknowledge them.

  ‘We hear you have met our friend Taman,’ said the Emperor. When they looked puzzled he chuckled. ‘Our lion,’ he explained. He obviously found the episode amusing.

  ‘It was a most . . . remarkable . . . evening,’ said Anselmus. He was doing his best to hide his exasperation, but the Emperor noticed and his mood changed in an instant. It was like a chilly draught stealing across the room.

  Anselmus braced himself. He was determined to mention his new remedy. ‘Your Excellency,’ he said, ‘might I recommend a cure for your condition which I have just discovered.’

  Lukas tried to hide a smirk. Clearly Grunewald was not going to get the credit for this.

  ‘It comes from the Pope’s physician. His Holiness greatly benefited from it.’

  But Rudolph was no longer in a receptive frame of mind. He turned his back on them again.

  They waited in awkward silence. The sun came out, then went in. A horse and cart scuttered across the cobbled courtyard below. The fire crackled in its grate.

  Eventually the Emperor turned to face them.

  ‘Cure? We are weary of your cures, Anselmus Declercq,’ he said, his voice a low, threatening hiss. ‘We followed your advice on the lapis lazuli stones we received. We wore this confounded necklace –’ he wrenched it from his neck and threw it at the window, which cracked but did not break – ‘and it has made not the slightest difference.

  ‘Then we took the ground-stones potion – as you suggested. If you think two days of chronic dyspepsia and a day of burning flux a fine cure for melancholy, then we have to disagree with you.’

  Lukas looked at Anselmus from the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his reaction. His uncle was standing there, head cocked to one side, wearing his usual ‘listening’ expression.