by Magnus Flyte
“I have found something.” Nico lowered his voice. He looked around the restaurant, then slid an object across the table, wrapped in a napkin. Sarah unfolded it to reveal a book.
The cover featured a cartoon drawing of a white-bearded man dressed in what looked like a green jumpsuit, sporting an enormous Druidic headpiece topped with a crescent moon, and carrying a flaming torch. Behind the Druid, a few badly drawn goats wandered across a hilly background. The sky was lit by a rainbow, across which ran the title: The Every Soul’s Guide to Alchemy! 50 Fun Recipes for Living, Loving, and Levitating!
“We’re joking, right?” Sarah looked up.
“Nay.”
“You want to use this on Pollina?” Sarah flipped the book open and read at random. “‘We must shut off our rational, doubting, linear modal selves and listen to the harmonies contained in the Creator’s majestic dance!’”
“I know,” Nico sniffed. “The usual dreadful hippie twaddle. I was attracted to the cover, which I believe depicts William Price of Llantrisant, whom I knew. A darling man, and quite cheerful, for a Druid. Imagine my surprise when I’m leafing through it, merely to entertain myself with all the drivel, and I find . . .” Nico flipped the pages and pointed.
“‘The Will to Heal, by Philippine Welser,’” Sarah read. Under the title was a list of ingredients involving a lot of symbols and drawings.
“Whoever put this silly book together,” Nico explained, “decided to throw in an actual alchemical formula. In the author’s acknowledgments I found a sentence thanking the von Hohenlohe family, so I suspect he got it from them. The von Hohenlohes’ castle was conferred on them by Ferdinand of Tyrol, and they have what remains of Ferdinand’s Kunstkammer, which includes Philippine’s book of medicines. The point is, it’s real. It’s an actual recipe of Philippine Welser.”
“Okay, for those of us who lack your colossal scholarship . . . ?”
Nico sighed. “Philippine Welser. The wife of Ferdinand, uncle of Emperor Rudolf II.”
“Oh, God. Not Rudy again.” Tales of Rudolf’s eccentricities were as ubiquitous in Prague as inexpensive beer and marionettes.
Nico, unperturbed, continued on. “An archduke, Ferdinand, married Philippine, a commoner, in secret. She was a talented healer and became famous in the Tyrol as something of a good witch. Most of her formulae were lost, and what has survived is, as I said, in the hands of a very close-lipped family. This is her tonic to incite the process of healing. A sort of spark to the engine. Pollina’s immune system is sluggish. It needs to be awakened.”
“Nico . . .” Sarah growled. Every skeptical fiber of her being was on guard.
“I’m not going to sit here and do nothing,” Nico said sharply. “Alchemy is my talent, and I’m going to use it.”
“Which talents are we using?”
Sarah turned to see Max Lobkowicz Anderson standing behind her chair. Sarah and Max had . . . there wasn’t an easy explanation for it—slept together by mistake, fallen in love, almost gotten killed—during the summer she worked at the museum Max had opened in Prague, which housed his family’s art and artifacts. They had kept up the affair for almost a year after she returned to Boston, until the pressure of maintaining a long-distance relationship while trying to establish a career had overwhelmed Sarah, and she had broken it off. Max, she knew, was now seeing a British historian who was researching a book in Prague. And Sarah? Lately there had been a brief but energetic fling with a tennis player. The tennis player wasn’t Max—nobody was Max—but when it came to relationships, Sarah wondered if hers was more of a serve-and-volley game. She didn’t really have time for long rallies.
Sarah stood to give Max a hug, and then collided with his chin as he went in for the double cheek kiss. Nico snorted. Sarah noted that the scent of the guy she had once fallen for now carried the unmistakable trace of another woman’s perfume. Gardenias. A flashbulb went off, briefly blinding Sarah. Max turned to the paparazzo leaning precariously over another table.
“Please, Jerzy,” said Max. “This is a private evening. If I pose for one, will you take the night off?” The photographer nodded, and Max offered his profile to the camera.
“Our little princeling has become quite the celebrity,” said Nico dryly.
“Ticket sales at the museum are up.” Max settled himself in the chair next to Sarah. “As are donations. The press is useful.” Sarah knew that Max struggled to keep his family museum afloat so that he didn’t have to sell off any of the treasures his ancestors had amassed. It wasn’t a job he had asked for, but he had taken it on as a duty to his family and to future generations. During the summer she had spent authenticating Beethoven manuscripts at his museum, Sarah had watched him struggle with the responsibility of being thirteenth in a line of princes. Now she saw that the cuffs of his dress shirt were monogrammed. Apparently, he had adapted.
“We’re talking about Pollina,” said Sarah.
Max touched her shoulder in sympathy.
“You know she’s been playing weekly concerts at the museum,” he said. “I’ve tried to get her to cut back a little, but . . .”
“I know,” said Sarah.
“I would do anything for Pols,” said Max.
They all sat in silence for a moment. Plates of roast pork and dumplings arrived, along with another bottle of wine, which Nico again largely appropriated. He began telling them about the time when, after a week of heavy rains, the Vltava had overflowed its banks and submerged several areas of the city, including the Prague Zoo. More than a thousand animals had to be evacuated in extremely dangerous and dramatic conditions, including lions, tigers, rhinos, and hippos. Nico waxed rhapsodic over the aquatic feats of Gaston the sea lion, who escaped his enclosure as the water rose and swam all the way to Dresden. He described the anguish of the Czechs, weeping for the loss of their dear old elephant Sabi, who had been put down as the water rose to her ears. Of course, Nico being Nico, this led to the tale of a young male gorilla called Pong, who went rogue during the deluge and whose breakout had been hushed up by the authorities.
“I have seen him,” Nico said. “I, and a few others for whom the tunnels below Prague hold no terrors. For that is where he lives to this day. He feeds on fruit. And, I believe, carp.”
“You’re drunk,” said Max. Sarah realized this was true. The little man was listing sideways. He had certainly imbibed enough, but Nico’s tolerance was legendary. He had once told Sarah that he had to drink solidly for nearly a month before he could become even slightly inebriated.
“I tell you I have seen his huddled form, slipping into the shadows!” Nico shouted. “And once . . .”
And that was when Sarah heard the splash, and a cry.
She looked over the railing into the inky darkness of the river, and she heard it again.
“Oh, shit.” She pushed back her chair. “I think someone might be out there in the water.”
“Very funny.” Max joined her at the rail. “Nico has become quite the ventriloquist. It’s one of his less amusing talents.”
But through the light of the torches surrounding their table, they could both see someone struggling in the water just below them. Max called to one of the waiters, then pulled out his phone. Sarah looked down at the water, saw the white flash of a hand shoot up, then saw it disappear. The person wasn’t that far away, and Sarah couldn’t just stand there and watch someone drown right in front of her. There wouldn’t be much time. She kicked off her shoes, climbed up on the railing, and dove in. The water was freezing. She surfaced, spluttering.
“There,” called Nico, grabbing one of the torches and holding it out over the water.
Sarah paused for a fraction of a second to get her bearings, then kicked hard in the direction Nico was pointing to, trying to remember everything she could from high school lifesaving class.
It was nearly impossible to see anything in the water. Floating cans and plastic water bottles knocked into her head. The current was swift, carrying her close to the m
iddle of the river. Sarah thought she could hear the sound of oarlocks on a rowboat, but when she yelled, no one answered.
Then she heard a gasp and a choked cry, close.
“Hey!” she shouted, stroking toward the splashing figure. A man.
Sarah ducked under the water and came up next to him, reaching to get an arm around his neck. The man panicked and, flailing, fought her at first, and she was pushed momentarily underneath the water. Sarah yelled versions of “It’s okay” and “Stop kicking me” in as many languages as she could remember. When she got to “Arrête!” and then, more absurdly, “Pax!” the man finally went limp and let himself be towed along. Sarah wondered if he was dead. He was wearing something incredibly heavy that slowed her down and nearly exhausted her strength—a sleeping bag? Who jumped into the river wearing a sleeping bag?
Now she was having to swim against the current, burdened, and the distance suddenly seemed impossibly great. She could hear the voices on the shore, but she was growing tired very quickly. It occurred to her that many people who jumped into rivers to save others drowned themselves. Her legs felt heavy and it was getting hard to keep her chin above the water. She had a minute, maybe two, before she would have to drop the man and save herself. If she could. His long beard had wrapped itself around her arm like a manacle.
Again Sarah heard the creak of oars in an oarlock. Someone was definitely out here. Maybe Max had found a boat. She called out again. No answer.
And then, ping.
Something hit the water next to her head.
Sarah recognized the next sound. A gun being cocked.
Ping. Ping.
She dove under water, pulling the man with her. Fear mixed with outrage in her brain. Bullets? Are you fucking kidding me? Was this how she was going to die? Wearing out-of-season snowman underwear? There was so much she hadn’t achieved yet, professionally. Who would remember her? She needed more time!
Who would help Pols?
Stop it. It was Pols’s voice in her head. Don’t think. Swim.
Sarah opened her eyes as her face emerged from the water, took a deep breath, and kicked hard toward the lights of the restaurant. She heard the creak of oarlocks again and ducked under the water, still kicking, still towing, until her lungs were depleted.
“Sarah!”
Max. Max was in the water.
“I’m here.” She moved forward, towing her burden. “I’m here! Someone’s shooting.”
Max grabbed her hard around the ribs, almost polishing her off, but he had also brought a float ring. Together, dragging the man, they moved toward the wharf, where Nico and the entire staff and clientele of the restaurant were ready to help pull them out. One of the waiters worked to revive the man, breathing into his mouth, as Sarah lay on her side, gasping. Shock would set in soon, she knew, and she would begin to shiver. A waiter wrapped table linens around her, and Max, dripping wet, was rubbing her arms and telling her she was amazing through his own chattering teeth.
“Someone was shooting at me,” she said. She had forgotten about the way Max’s hands felt. How could she have forgotten?
“In the river?” asked Max. “Are you sure? I didn’t hear shots.”
“Yes,” she choked out. “I heard the gun. Then bullets . . . hitting water.”
Max frowned, staring out over the Vltava. Sarah listened to the crowd of Czechs and tourists buzzing around the man the way people did when something awful happened, like a flock of wild turkeys in the presence of a snake. She tried to say more but she was cold and exhausted. And Max being so close to her, touching her, was confusing. She heard sirens in the distance and looked over at the man, catching a glimpse of his long scraggly hair and beard. What she had taken for a sleeping bag was actually a heavy brown embroidered cloak over robes. Some kind of priest? Or was it a costume? The man wasn’t moving. Nico caught Sarah’s eye and shook his head.
So her efforts had been in vain. The last of the adrenaline left her body and she began to shake. Max put his arms around her.
“You were so fast,” he said. “And I could see you . . . but then I couldn’t . . . and I jumped in, and I thought . . . she can’t . . . I have to tell her . . .”
“It was stupid of me,” said Sarah. “I don’t know what I was thinking. . . .”
Wait. What were they talking about? Max didn’t smell like gardenias now. He smelled like foul river water, but underneath that, it was him. Max. His smell was still intoxicating. She was going to kiss him. He seemed instantly aware of her desire and, as always, met it with his own. His face, his lips, were close to hers. They had just jumped into one river, why not another? She had just chosen life over death. How much time did any of them have?
“Ack.” The bearded man suddenly opened his eyes and coughed up a lungful of brackish water. “Bluuuuck.” The crowd murmured, pressing forward. Max ordered them back. The man struggled to sit up, turning his head and looking straight at Sarah. His features were fine, his eyes a very pale blue. He said something Sarah couldn’t understand in a thick, strangled voice, then closed his eyes.
The waiter felt for the man’s neck, and began performing CPR, but after a few minutes Sarah could see that it was no use. The man was dead.
“Max? Max?”
A red-headed woman, wearing a long white coat and gloves, pushed her way through the crowd to where Max was crouched next to Sarah. He immediately let go of her and stood up.
“Max, what happened?” The woman grabbed his arm. “Are you all right? My God, look at you. You’re soaking.” The woman’s accent was the kind of plummy, drawly English that Sarah associated with BBC news presenters and Agatha Christie mysteries. “Harriet,” said Max.
Harriet began ordering people about, calling for a blanket for Max, and brandy.
An ambulance arrived. Sarah was given a thermal wrap and had her vitals tested. A technician complimented her on her blood pressure as Max explained the events to Harriet. “Sarah managed to pull the man from the river, but . . .”
“My God,” the woman murmured, stroking his arm. Now that circulation had returned to her body, Sarah had time to take in Max’s new girlfriend. Harriet’s red hair cascaded down her back in a cluster of perfectly disorganized pre-Raphaelite curls. Her white coat buttoned tightly around her waist, then flared out. Her gloves, Sarah saw, had actual gauntlets. Where did she shop? The Edwardian Gap? Sarah took a guess that Harriet did not wear off-season snowman underwear. Probably silk stockings and garters. Sarah called Nico over to her.
“What did he say?” she asked. “The man. Before he died. Could you understand him?”
“He said that he was John of Nepomuk,” Nico whispered in her ear, “and that he was pushed.”
• • •
The ambulance took the dead man away. Sarah told the police about the shots, and they notified the water patrol. Sarah was formally introduced to Harriet, which was awkward, since Sarah was still wet and reeking of Vltava, and Harriet was wearing white gloves. The two women nodded at each other.
“Nico, get Sarah back to my place,” Max said, tossing a set of keys at the little man. “I’ll be along in a minute.” They left him to the tender ministrations of Harriet, and Nico drove her to Max’s “place”—the Lobkowicz family palace at Prague Castle that Max had converted to a museum, where Max kept a private apartment.
Sarah noted the feminine toiletries in Max’s bathroom. Harriet seemed quite ensconced. When she finished showering, she saw that Nico had rather wickedly laid out a choice of robes for her: a man’s dressing gown in heavy silk, monogrammed with Max’s initials, and an ornate Japanese kimono reeking of gardenias. Sarah searched through Max’s clothes until she found a T-shirt, sweatpants, and a cashmere sweater that had escaped the busy monogrammer.
She found both Max and Nico in the living room, waiting for her. Max’s wolfhound, Moritz, rushed forward to lick her toes. Max handed her a glass of whiskey, not quite meeting her eye. Sarah was grateful for Nico’s presence, which would keep them
from discussing anything too intimate.
“Did anyone call the morgue?” Sarah asked. “Do we know who that guy was?”
“He said he was John of Nepomuk,” Max reminded her. “Who was a fourteenth-century saint.”
“Right.” Sarah took a sip of whiskey. “So our guy was either high or delusional.”
Nico shrugged. “Our guy was speaking Medieval Latin and Bohemian.”
“Okay, so a language history student,” suggested Sarah. “Driven mad by declensions and pursued by the Mob for unpaid backgammon debts. Someone was shooting at us.”
“John of Nepomuk was pushed into the Vltava in 1393,” said Nico. “Reportedly because he wouldn’t reveal to the king what the queen’s confession was all about. John of Nepomuk is the saint of the confessional. The saint of keeping secrets.”
Max and the little man exchanged a look.
“You think it means something?” asked Max.
“Everything means something.” Nicolas narrowed his eyes. “I have been feeling for months now . . . a sense that someone is looking over my shoulder. Following me. Or maybe I am following him.”
“Maybe we’re not the only ones looking . . .” Max glanced at Sarah.
“Looking for what?” Sarah asked, although she knew the answer to this. Max believed his family had long been members of a secret Order of the Golden Fleece. The Fleece—a book that reputedly contained the answers to the deepest mysteries of life and death—had been missing since the seventeenth century. Sarah had once tried to help Max on his quest, but she couldn’t get involved in all that now. She was exhausted and more than a bit impatient. This was always the way things were in Prague: mysterious, watery, elusive. It was like the minute you got off the plane here, all firm ground dissolved. And you did crazy things. Like falling in love.
“I think it’s a warning.” Nico took a big gulp of whiskey. “A sign.”
I don’t want signs, Sarah thought. I don’t want warnings and strange portents. I want answers.
