“I am the one you seek.” Elizabeth answered. She was standing behind George but Magdalena had not seen her approach. The Irishwoman came around the bench to sit beside the Jesuit.
“I… I didn’t see you,” stammered Magdalena.
Elizabeth ignored Magdalena’s consternation. “You will have to explain how the Queen of Swords revealed me to you,” Elizabeth said to George.
George shrugged again. “Perhaps.”
“You come from Dublin, yes?” Magdalena couldn’t stop herself from breaking into their conversation. “You teach there at Trinity?”
Elizabeth smiled at Magdalena. “Yes. The School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultural Studies. I teach Irish folklore and literature.”
“Really?” Magdalena was fascinated. “Just like Professor Hron does here, but Irish instead of Bohemian! Well, I guess that makes a certain sense. Fen’ka would need someone who knows the old mysticism.”
“Yes,” George interjected, “especially since the first people to settle in Bohemia were Celts and the other major migrants into the area here were the Slavs, making the local Bohemian magic an interesting amalgam of Celtic and Slavic practices. Very interesting.” He paused and turned his attention to the Irishwoman. “But that is not all there is to say about yourself, is it Elizabeth? Your knowledge of your field is based on more than just study and library research, is it not?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed. “That is very true.”
“Really?” Magdalena gushed. “Is it based on a practice of some sort?”
“It is based on even more than that.” George chuckled. “You are the Dearg-due, are you not, my dear?”
“I am,” Elizabeth agreed. “Not everyone would know what that is. Did the tarot cards tell you that as well?”
“Partly,” George told them. “I also did some work myself, inquiring of Flauros and Halphas. I wanted to know who—or what—they had shown to our friend here.” He nodded towards Magdalena.
“I see.” Elizabeth turned to Magdalena. “It was very good of you to call us to Prague. I appreciate the chance to see the city. I have had little chance to travel outside of Ireland.”
“I am so glad you were able to come help Fen’ka,” Magdalena responded. “But I don’t know much about Irish folklore. You are a… what was the term? You are a Dearg-due?”
George and Elizabeth both laughed.
“Not a Dearg-due, Magdalena,” George corrected her. “She is the Dearg-due. There is only one.”
Magdalena blushed. “I apologize. I meant no disrespect. You are the Dearg-due. But I still don’t understand. What is the Dearg-due? Why would Flauros and Halphas have shown me that you were among those most able to help Fen’ka?”
“I am afraid that Elizabeth’s time is limited at the moment,” George interjected. “There are things she must do, even this evening, if Fen’ka is to have justice. But she can tell you more about herself another time. Tomorrow, maybe?”
Elizabeth smiled at Magdalena. “I am grateful that you heard Fen’ka’s call and that I am to be among those asked to avenge her death and win justice for her at last.”
The Dearg-due turned to George as she half-rose to leave. “How is it that you, Father, were called by Fen’ka?”
George bristled. “I am not sure that I am here to avenge Fen’ka. I have yet to decide if I will accept the invitation. But why do I think she invited me to join your effort?” He paused and his voice dropped. “There are many skills that I possess which she thinks may be useful in her efforts to avenge herself. But anything more than that, I cannot say for sure.”
Elizabeth and Magdalena looked at each other in surprise.
“However, I will be glad to discuss this further with you, Magdalena,” George added. “But you, my dear,” he said to Elizabeth, “I think that your time would be better spent with our friend Alessandro, who is still back at the tavern. He seemed quite taken with you and may be useful in the effort to avenge poor Fen’ka. You will find it useful, I think, to nurture his attraction to you.”
Elizabeth seemed to consider this and then nodded. “You may well be right, Father,” she agreed. “I will leave you two to discuss your participation further. But I hope to see you again tomorrow.” They all stood and Elizabeth turned her cheek. The priest lightly kissed it. Elizabeth then kissed Magdalena lightly and the secretary bid the Dearg-due farewell. Elizabeth walked quickly back toward the tavern.
“Shall we, my dear?” George offered his arm to Magdalena, who gladly placed her hand in the crook of his elbow. George looked up into the night sky and sighed contentedly.
“Yes, they are beautiful, aren’t they?” Magdalena looked up at the stars glistening above them as well.
“Indeed they are. It is difficult to believe that such an atrocious thing as the burning of an old woman like Fen’ka happened in such a beautiful place,” George said, gesturing with his other hand around the square.
Magdalena’s gaze followed the movement of George’s hand and saw the beauty of the Old Town Square as if for the first time. The soaring, leaping buttresses and needle-nosed towers of Our Lady of Tyn, the Old Town Hall with its chunkier tower and the Astronomical Clock, the Baroque and Renaissance palaces and churches and other buildings surrounded them. They strolled away from the Jan Hus memorial.
“Where is it that you live, Magdalena?” George asked gently as they reached the opposite side of the square. “That might be the most private place to talk further.”
“I live across the river, near the American Embassy,” Magdalena replied, thrilled at the possibility of entertaining such a handsome man and afraid that her small, slightly unkempt apartment—and by extension, herself—might be found wanting. Walking arm in arm, Magdalena led the Jesuit down the twists and turns of Karlova Street to the Charles Bridge. She felt like a schoolgirl with a new beau. Feeling that she could trust him and hoping that he trusted her, she relaxed against his shoulder. She found herself both hoping that their walk across town would last forever and that they would quickly reach their destination so their new relationship could progress in whatever direction it was fated to go.
They passed tables set out in front of the bars and restaurants along Karlova, couples drinking and laughing as waiters bustled about. Glasses clinked. After Magdalena and George crossed the last busy street before the bridge, George turned towards the great silhouette of the church that loomed in the darkness. George pointed to the statue of Charles IV. “He certainly did put his stamp on the city, didn’t he?”.
“Yes, he did,” Magdalena agreed. “He almost created Prague as we know it today, didn’t he?”
Nodding, George stood silently a moment longer and then turned them back towards the bridge. He leaned his head back to take in the great tower that rose above them, guarding the Old Town landing of the bridge. Magdalena realized anew how beautiful it was and how similar to the towers that soared over Our Lady of Tyn in the Old Town Square. The brightly lit castle and cathedral were visible up the hill across the river. The rush of the river below met her as they stepped, still arm in arm, toward the gateway in the tower’s base that would bring them onto the bridge itself.
George stopped again below the vaulted roof of the gateway chamber. “You must have crossed this bridge hundreds—even thousands—of times,” he said to Magdalena. “What do you know about it?”
“I have crossed it more times than I can count,” she agreed. “But I really don’t know much. Charles IV built it and that the statues along it were added later. Oh, and it was the only way across the river for miles and miles for hundreds of years. But that is about all I know.”
“Yes, Charles IV did have it built as the most important crossing of the river. And you are correct: the statues were added much later. In the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, I think,” George replied. “But it was meant to be more than simply the longest or most important bridge in Europe. Though it was those things. Charles IV built it to be a masterpiece of occult artistry and workm
anship.”
“He did?” Magdalena was astounded.
“Yes, Charles IV meant his precious stone bridge to be the mightiest bulwark against any of the powers that might attack his city,” George explained. “Do you see that plaque?” He pointed to a stone sign set into the wall of the tower.
“I’ve often wondered about that sign,” Magdalena admitted. “The carving is very strange. It’s in Latin, so I cannot read it, but the words all run together and make it look almost impossible to read even if I did know Latin!”
George laughed. “Very true. That is precisely why it was carved like that. The Latin words are carved to all run together. But do you see how there is a space, breaking the words into two rather lengthy sentences?” Magdalena nodded.
“The two sentences are palindromes. Each can be read either forward or backward and the meanings remain the same.” They stepped closer to the carved placard. The letters ran together like a kind of alphabetic stew.
SIGNATESIGNATEMEREMETENGISETAUGIS
ROMATIBISUBITOMOTIBUSIBITAMOR
“What does it say?” Magdalena asked.
George pointed to the words as he read them, indicating where the letters should be separated to make the distinct words. “Reveal yourself as a sign in the sky though in vain you reach for me, your desire. Rome, the motion of the stars suddenly brings you love.”
Magdalena stared at the words. “That sounds almost like nonsense,” she confessed.
George laughed again. “It is. The meaning of the words was never the point of the writing. The men who designed this sign wanted to arrange words that made palindromes and didn’t care much about what the words themselves meant. It was the letters that ran in the same order, forward and backward, that were important to them.”
“Why was that so important?” Magdalena asked, turning to him.
He continued to study the carving as he answered. “The idea was that the evil spirits that were coming to cross the bridge would see the sign and stop to read it. But because the words were all jumbled together, they would be fascinated by the word puzzle. They would struggle to solve it and become so distracted—and eventually so exhausted—by the effort to untangle the letters and make sense of the words that they would never make it across the bridge. They would give up and go elsewhere, somewhere easier to get into because there were no confusing word games by the gates.”
“Did they really think the spirits would be so easily fooled?” Magdalena gazed at the carving.
“The idea was the fruit of their experience. It seems they discovered that many spirits and creatures that came to attack mankind were fascinated by the physical world and loved to understand its complexities.” George shrugged his shoulders. “That’s why humans sometimes scattered handfuls of tiny seeds near graveyards. Evidently, if any of the dead rose and came to attack the village, they would be unable to stop themselves from pausing to count all those seeds! By counting all the seeds and then recounting them if they lost track, the dead were trapped there until dawn came and the rising sun drove them all back into their graves!” He and Magdalena both laughed.
He pointed towards the vaulting above them. “The frescoes on the ceiling—have you ever seen them in the daylight?—are the remnants of the original painted invocations of the angels and saints to protect those who crossed the bridge and prevent the enemies of Prague from crossing. One of the saints, the martyr Vitas, was considered the particular patron of the city and his statue placed above the gateway we just stepped through.”
“Vitas?” Magdalena asked. “Like the cathedral saint?”
George seemed reluctant to answer her. “Yes,” he finally sighed. “The same as the cathedral is named for. Both the bridge and the cathedral—and thus the entire city—were dedicated to Vitas in an effort to supplant the deity originally worshipped in this valley, the god Svetovit whose name is nearly identical with that of Saint Vitas. The Christians around Charles IV considered old Svetovit more than a displaced deity. Svetovit was a pagan god and therefore a demon. A devil. Nearly as terrible as the Devil himself. A wicked, wicked entity to be trampled and disgraced and from whom the city needed protecting.”
George led her out onto the cobblestone span that straddled the river. “Did you ever hear any of the stories of the founding of the bridge?” he asked.
“No,” Magdalena blushed. “I have not.”
“Well, there was a bridge here before this one. The ‘Judith Bridge’ was a stone bridge built by Queen Judith in 1170 and destroyed by a flood in 1342. It was replaced by a temporary wooden structure that was washed away in another flood in February, 1357. This stone bridge was built to replace those. Charles laid the foundation of this bridge on July 9, 1357,” George told her. “That July day was chosen because the sun was in conjunction with Saturn and the confluence of these two, the sun—source of life and health, the root of salvation—with Saturn—the Roman god associated with mortality and boundaries and the change of eons—was an attempt to link the success of the bridge with maintaining boundaries until the end of time. In addition, the conjunction occurred in early July, when the sun was in the astrological sign of Cancer. Cancer, the crab, is identified with the feminine and the element water and the moon, as well as the planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The feminine is maternal, protective. That describes the bridge’s purpose, does it not? Water clearly goes with the function of the bridge as well. The moon was identified with the goddess Diana, virgin huntress, and was known to influence the tides even as it brought light into the darkness of the night. Because it waxes and wanes each month, it stands for adaptability and change. Strategy. On the other hand, the planets Mars, the god of war, and Jupiter, the guardian and protector of the gods who brings prosperity and good fortune, also contribute to the bridge’s capabilities to preserve the good fortunes of the city.”
George gestured at the night sky above them. “The power of every planet known to the Bohemians in 1357 is involved in some way with sustaining and strengthening the magic of the bridge. We know that July 9, 1357 was a Saturday, which intensified the power of the planet Saturn on the bridge. The bridge’s foundation was laid in the early morning, which on Saturday is associated with Mercury and Venus, the planets associated with the god of quick thinking and puzzle-solving and the goddess of beauty.”
George went on after a pause. “The foundation stone, the cornerstone of the bridge as it were, was laid at 5:31 in the morning in order to make a palindrome when it was written out in full with the year, day, and month of the astrological conjunction. The palindrome all those numbers make, 135797531, is also the opening sequence of odd numbers and was even more powerful magic than the palindrome of letters carved on the tower.”
Magdalena could not believe what she was hearing. She had never heard any hint of what George was telling her. Not even her grandmother had known these things about the magic of the bridge.
“How do you know these things about the bridge?” she asked. “I’ve lived here all my life and you’ve never been here—correct? But you know so much more than I do!”
George chuckled. “True, I have not been to Prague before, my dear, but that does not mean that I have not made the famous Charles Bridge an object of much study. I doubt many have studied this bridge for as long as I have or in as much detail. I seriously doubt that any of its secrets remain hidden from me.”
They began to stroll past the many statues that stood along the balustrades. “These saints, added much later, were meant to support the efforts of Saint Vitas and the angels in the vaulted gate to stop the enemies of Charles from crossing the bridge.” George pointed to the hulking figures and mentioned a few of their names. “Barbara’s murder was avenged by lightning from heaven. Margaret was said to have stepped unharmed from the belly of a dragon after she made the sign of the cross.”
They continued their leisurely progress toward the Little Town. “Surely you must have heard about the eggs that were added to the mortar when the bridge was built.�
�� George turned to his companion.
Magdalena laughed. “Yes, I have heard that story! Every child in Prague learns in school that Charles made an edict that the villagers and farmers of Bohemia were to send wagonloads of eggs to Prague to be used in making the mortar that would bind the stones of the bridge together. But one town, I forget which one, was afraid that their wagonload of eggs might break and so they sent eggs that had all been hard-boiled and couldn’t be used!” They both laughed again.
“Yes, that is a famous joke associated with the making of the bridge. But it was no joke of Charles’ to ask for the eggs,” George continued his tales of the bridge. “The early alchemists and scientists suspected that a particular chemical reaction between the eggs and the mortar would increase the strength of the mortar. They were right.
“But the eggs were also, more importantly, added to the mortar to fortify the magic of the bridge. Eggs were considered the perfect emblem of the universe, containing all four elements that together were thought to make the world: the shell is earth, the yolk is fire, the egg white is water, and the membrane between it and the shell is air. The magic of the elements, the power that sustained the entire world, was knit into the fabric of the magic of the bridge. It was made to be impregnable, unassailable. Nothing can harm Prague for as long as the bridge stands, and the bridge was built to stand until the end of time.”
“But why a bridge?” Magdalena asked. “If Charles wanted to protect Prague with magical defenses, why not build a wall around the city that was reinforced with eggs and the prayers of the saints?”
“Why a bridge?” George repeated her question. “Because bridges, from time immemorial, have been considered the borders between the worlds. Bridges unite the worlds of the living and the dead just as they unite the two shores of a river. One of the earliest Latin words for priest, pontiff or pontifex, comes from the word for ‘bridge-builder.’
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 31
