The Bloodletter's Daughter

by Linda Lafferty

  But his tranquil moment of discovery by the spring and his youthful daring in the Netherlands were long behind him. Now his eyes were rimmed bright red, burning and raw from the constant smoke of the battles against the Ottomans along the Hungarian border and the scorched scent of fires perfumed his woolen clothes. He woke at night, gasping for breath, from a recurring dream of long tongues of flames licking his beloved Schönbrunn.

  On these nights, it seemed to him his entire life was defined by war and nothing else. He was weary of death and dying, of bloated bodies, and most of all, endless battles under religious flags, flapping pointlessly in the wind. So when the messenger rode up to the lodge at a full gallop, Matthias had the rider sent to him immediately.

  Matthias was eager to see the proposal for peace.

  It was on a sleepless night that the seed of compromise was planted. Matthias’s stewardship of Hungary would forever be defined by the Peace of Vienna.

  Matthias held the tallow candle low and closer to the parchment map, being careful to catch the dripping wax with a small pewter plate in his other hand. Outside a peahen screeched in the night, her ugly cry stabbing the silence.

  The flickering candlelight illuminated a new map of Hungary, drawn by Istvan Bocskai of Transylvania, with the blessing of the Ottomans. This was their proposal to settle the Hungarian-Ottoman War. To the north and west was Royal Hungary, a possession of the Holy Roman Empire. The mapmaker had slyly chosen a cardinal red to denote its imprint. To the extreme east was Transylvania, bulging to the Black Sea, in a moss green.

  And the middle section, dun-colored, was the Ottoman Empire, including the great city of Buda.

  Matthias frowned at the map. The bright color of Royal Hungary could not camouflage the fact that Ottoman Hungary was an oppressive bootprint, larger by half than the Hapsburg share. And—this could not be!—Transylvania’s proposed principality dwarfed Hapsburg Hungary.

  The traitor Istvan Bocskai had been granted the vast principality as a reward from the Ottomans for fighting in their legions. Matthias had heard just that day of Bocskai’s gold, jewelencrusted crown, a gift from Sultan Ahmed himself. Because Ottoman sultans did not wear crowns, it was modeled on the miter of an Orthodox patriarch, heavy and clumsy, but cast in pure gold, adorned in rubies, turquoise, emeralds, and pearls.

  Istvan Bocskai. The filthy swine. A renegade Calvinist who had once fought for the Hapsburg crown, Bocskai had sided now with heathens. King of Transylvania, be damned!

  A knock on the door was followed immediately by a draft of air from the cold hall, making the candlelight flicker.

  “You are up late tonight, Matthias,” said Bishop Klesl. “Was it that damned peahen or do you require any spiritual counsel?”

  Matthias tapped his finger on the parchment.

  “I am reviewing the map. Bocskai’s kingdom will be larger than ours,” he muttered. “Rudolf’s suppression of the Protestants has provoked a war we can never win.”

  Klesl sighed. “There once was a time when I thought as Rudolf did. Rid the Hungarians of the scourge of Protestantism and return the country to the traditions of its founder Saint Stephen.”

  “I remember. You called the Protestants wriggling maggots on rotted meat.”

  The bishop stared at the map. His eyes were sunken into his head from lack of sleep and his jowly skin was ashen. He too was weary of war.

  “Even bishops can be fools. I underestimated the Protestants and their zeal for their religion. Men who thirst for freedom will find it, even if they drink at a poisoned well. I have searched my soul, looking for answers.”

  “And what have you found, Bishop Klesl?”

  “Only a recurring question: How can the Protestant Christians be allied with barbaric Saracens? These are our brothers in Christ we fight.”

  The bishop crossed himself, his pale hands white ghosts in the candlelight.

  Matthias nodded and then gazed down at the map and the proposed division of the Hungarian kingdom.

  “Pride,” he muttered. “My brother’s pride. Rudolf now curries favor with the pope and the House of Hapsburg, boasting he will transform every Protestant church to a Catholic house of worship. He who worships the occult and drains the treasury in search of the Elixir of Life.”

  Melchior Klesl sighed.

  “His Majesty has a better chance of filling those Catholic pews with Muslim warriors than staunch Protestants. They will never give up their religion now.”

  The peahen screeched again. Matthias’s back stiffened. He thought he smelled smoke, but decided it was the scent he carried from the front lines.

  “I shall wring that peahen’s neck in the morning and make soup of her, with your permission, sire,” said Klesl, shuddering.

  “My brother has turned every Hungarian against the crown! Ninety-five in every hundred are Protestant. We cannot wage war both on the Ottoman borders and within the country itself! What madness plagues him?”

  Klesl did not reply.

  “What counsel can you offer me? Not of spiritual nature, but of an astute politician.”

  “Politician, my lord?” Bishop Klesl raised an eyebrow.

  “Every clergyman who holds a title, be it bishop, cardinal, or pope, is a politician.”

  Klesl nodded in the dim light. He grimaced, then squared his shoulders and answered.

  “I think you have no choice, sire. You should secure your bargaining terms from our king as soon as possible and negotiate peace. Force him to accept terms if need be, or he will be at war with his own Hungarian subjects.”

  “He will roar and bellow at relinquishing land and tribute. And he has promised Catholics they will acquire the estates of the Protestants. Their greedy mouths water at the prospect.”

  “Our king is blind to what transpires beyond the walls of Prague. The Ottomans will burn the land and take it as their spoil, moving closer to Vienna. A compromise, a treaty must be made before the Ottomans swallow us whole.”

  Matthias rubbed his hand through his sleep-rumpled hair. The Soldier Hapsburg was faced with concession and the wrath of his powerful brother.

  “I hear wisdom in your words, but I am loathe to approach my brother with words of compromise and defeat.”

  Klesl touched Matthias’s sleeve.

  “Pray listen to my counsel, my lord. Send your emissaries to meet with Bocskai in Bratislava. Give Hungary its religious freedom, or they will be at war against the empire and fill the Ottoman ranks alongside the Janissaries. Nothing will stop them from marching to Vienna.”

  Matthias listened carefully, his brow wrinkled in consternation.

  “Place Protestant on equal footing with Catholic?” he asked. “My brother will never consent. It will make him look weak in the eyes of the pope.”

  “The pope could think no less of him than he already does. And even the pope recognizes the danger of the Ottomans and their stranglehold on Europe. And our blessed pope does not live cheek by jowl with the Saracens and their scimitars.”

  “And Bocskai emerges from our disgrace with the principality of Transylvania?”

  “It is a wild and perilous land. I doubt Bocskai will make it through a year without being murdered. Give him Transylvania—it is overrun with Roma and other heathens. There are cutthroats at every bend of the road and witches who brew poisons to kill kings. The wretched Bathorys will seize the crown yet again, mark my words.”

  Matthias looked hard at Klesl and retrieved a key from his belt. He unlocked his desk and withdrew a parchment. The broken wax seal made a click as he threw it on the mahogany wood.

  “Read, my good priest. See how God has seen fit to bless me.”

  Klesl bowed at the honor of seeing Matthias’s private correspondence, sealed with a Hapsburg ring.

  “What is this?”

  “A secret letter drafted by my younger brothers. They have asked to meet with me in Linz. Ferdinand and Maximillian see the inevitable ruin of the Hapsburg Empire if our brother is not stopped.”

/>   Klesl jumped to his feet.

  “My lord, is it—Are they supporting your succession to the throne?”

  Matthias closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, good Klesl. They pledge their support. They are convinced that the other royal families will do the same. My brother’s incompetence stains the Hapsburg name across Europe.”

  “Oh, blessings upon you and our kingdoms! You, King Matthias, shall save the empire from the torn vein of bloodshed.”

  “It is your counsel I shall count on, now and in the future as emperor. Damn it, I will speak to Bocskai and begin preliminary negotiations in secret, though we must push our military advantage now to strengthen our hand. The borderlands near Esztergom are still in peril.

  “I will restore the equilibrium of freedom—neither Catholic nor Protestant shall prevail. Hungarians will return to their Christian home without threat of persecution. We shall stand united against the Ottomans, I swear it before God!”

  The candle in his hand guttered and died under his fierce breath, leaving the smell of smoke in the sudden darkness.

  CHAPTER 20

  MARKETA’S CHARM VS. THE CODED BOOK

  Doctor Mingonius quietly shut the heavy door. Don Julius was sleeping soundly.

  The doctor sighed. It echoed through the empty halls of the castle. He shivered at the cold air that whispered back his regret.

  He realized he had come to think of Rudolf’s son as a “problem,” not a man of flesh, bone, and spirit. This girl, a simple Bohemian bathmaid, had reduced Don Julius to hot tears. Even though his behavior was erratic and could be dismissed as a symptom of his lunacy and the imbalance of humors, there was something in his tears that moved Mingonius’s heart.

  Certainly there was a man’s soul somewhere deep within the mad bastard, whose vile behavior had humiliated the most powerful sovereign of Europe. Could it be possible that the violent cruelty of Don Julius would be pierced and vanquished by love? He thought again, for a moment, of that young boy, the clocks that had fascinated him and the book he had treasured. Where had that boy gone?

  As the physician stood in the palace corridor, he smelled the ancient wood, polished with coat upon coat of beeswax. He looked up at the gallery of Rozmberk portraits, powerful men and women who had inhabited this castle for centuries.

  Doctor Mingonius contemplated their fine clothes and icy stares. Their glittering jewels and privileged scowls were preserved forever in the paintings. These Bohemian lords were the equal of kings within their own lands and their courts had numbered in the hundreds. Now the castle was devoid of merriment. Gone were the boisterous courtiers that had packed the halls and ballrooms. Only his solitary footsteps echoed in the hall.

  He stopped in front of a haunting portrait, a pale blonde noblewoman, her hair in ringlets, in a white dress, with a long train that swept around her ankles. Who was she, he wondered, for she had a peculiar quality about her face that made him stop and study her alone among the dozens of portraits.

  His finger rubbed his lip, and he again thought of his patient. Perhaps this was the time to bring him the Coded Book to study. Perhaps that was a path that could lead back to that young boy, lost within the madman. And perhaps now was the time, now that Don Julius’s spirit was softened by imagined love for a simple bathmaid.

  Mingonius smiled. Barber Pichler had passed her off as a virgin to collect leeches. A bathmaid a virgin, at age sixteen—highly unlikely. The doctor knew full well how bathhouses operated and how destitute the townspeople of Krumlov were now that the Rozmberks had left the castle. They would do anything to scrape by and survive, including bartering the virginity of a maiden. Poor peasants could not afford moral scruples.

  And yet, there was an honorable tradition about the women of the Bohemian baths. It was said that King Wenceslas himself, the father of Czech Christianity, would visit the bathhouse of Prague for trysts with a beautiful bathmaid, Suzanna, his most beloved mistress. Some said that he took her as a lawful bride. Bathmaids were illustrated in the holy Wenceslas Bible, as the Bohemian king sought to raise their social status. Bohemian bathhouses were infused with a special significance that even the Catholic Church could not touch, let alone the Protestant Reformation.

  And there was something special about this girl, Marketa. There was some mysterious quality she possessed that had touched Don Julius when nothing else could. And maybe he could take advantage of the prince’s obsession with Marketa, so jumbled up with the Coded Book and bathing women.

  He would present the book as a reward and gain sway over his patient. Once Don Julius had engrossed himself in deciphering the text, he would have no interest in the fantasy of Marketa. His mind would be engaged in a more rational discipline. As he compiled his endless tables of syntax and semantics to decode the manuscript, science and rational thought would triumph!

  It was at this moment that Doctor Mingonius realized he was jealous of Marketa, how she alone could command respect from Don Julius. But should the Coded Book replace her, then the doctor would regain his stature as the man who could cure the Royal Bastard of Prague.

  One passion could easily replace another. If he presented the manuscript now, Don Julius would latch onto the book as a leech would a vein—and forget the bathmaid. Then the doctor would be in command, before the king’s ministers came to inspect and report back to Rudolf II.

  Mingonius jumped. Out of the corner of his eye, he was sure he had seen the portrait of the lady in white move her hand. He reached an open palm for his racing heart, wild-eyed and gasping. He struggled to compose himself, taking deep breaths as his eyes fixed on the white hand of the woman in the portrait.

  He was a rational man, and the steady, logical part of his mind focused defiantly on the painting, daring the woman to move again.

  And of course she remained motionless, a figure in paint, forever pigment and shadow on canvas.

  What is happening to me? thought Doctor Mingonius. I have always been a man of science. And yet here I am, like a flighty woman, imagining a painting has the ability to move! Pfah!

  Still, to reassure himself and prove his scientific mind, he touched the raised oil paint with his fingers, tracing the swirls and shadowing of the woman’s white dress.

  Fool! he thought, shaking his head. The sooner I give Don Julius the book and capture his attention, the sooner I will be in control. Then I can finish the bleedings and return to my family in Prague and the sciences of the court. The wilds of Bohemia are starting to wear on my nerves.

  The physician walked swiftly down the hall toward his apartments to retrieve the book from the chest. He felt a prickle of the skin on his neck but refused to turn around to see if anyone was following him.

  CHAPTER 21

  THE ROYAL GARDENS OF PRAGUE

  Late fall was always a sad time for Jakub Horcicky. The beauty of the royal gardens, the florid tangle of exotic blooms, faded and slowly died as the sun dimmed and the ground cooled with the first hard frosts of the season.

  Jakub instructed his gardeners to cover the tulip bulbs with an extra layer of soil and horse manure, to protect the precious flowers from the harsh Bohemian cold. He had personally purchased these bulbs to augment the original strain dating from 1554. He had bought them from a Turkish trader from Constantinople, just as he had negotiated with a Syrian merchant to bring hyacinths and narcissi from the Middle East.

  Jakub pruned back the grape vines and fruit trees himself, not trusting any other hands to touch the gnarled branches that had sprung miraculously from the northern soil, nurtured from seedlings and grafts with the tender love of Ferdinand I, King Rudolf’s grandfather.

  Jakub sighed, leaning on his garden spade. Everything around him seemed to be dying. Or slumbering, he thought, checking his morbid thinking. It is time to rest, to nourish and prepare for spring, so many months away.

  Redemption, he thought. Spring came no matter how dark and cruel the winter might be.

  Jakub found himself thinking of the snowy winte
rs in the monastery and the beauty of the little town of Krumlov under a white blanket of snow. He wondered how another beauty of Krumlov, the bathmaid Marketa, was faring with her study of Paracelsus. Her determination brought a smile to his face, though he knew how impossible her dream was.

  Marketa had enchanted Jakub, he realized. As a botanist—director of the fantastic gardens of the emperor—whenever he encountered a new species of plant, he made a point of drawing it in his journal. He would carefully sketch the root system, the leaves, fruit, flowers, stems, seeds, the drooping tendrils. When he had seen Marketa that first morning in the bathhouse, he had the same urge—to draw her with her wild hair and luminous blue-gray eyes.

  He remembered Marketa’s remarkable hands, so strong and capable on his back, coaxing the soreness from his body. And he thought how she had frozen before him, unable to wash between his legs as bathmaids were expected to do.

  What a strange little bathmaid she was. How oddly innocent. He removed the latest letter from the pocket of his gardening coat and read it again.

  My Dear Doctor Horcicky:

  I read your letter with great interest, especially delighting in the news of Jan Jesenius’s public dissection. Ah, but Prague must be the jewel of the world. You are so privileged to live in such a city where science and reason reign.

  The patient continues to change before our eyes. He has lost so much weight you would not recognize him. His body is fit from the hunt, and his eyes sparkle with health.

  He speaks of love. I seem to be the object of his affection, as he continues to confuse me with a figure in a book he knew in his childhood. It may indeed be the Coded Book of Wonder, which you spoke of in your last letter.

  Doctor Horcicky, you must not concern yourself with my welfare. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. You must not consider betraying our confidence and approaching Doctor Mingonius.