Ex Libris

by Ross King

  'Prague?' My questioning gaze had returned to the skins, which my hands were shuffling nervously.

  'The Carolinum,' she said in a clipped tone, as though repeating a simple lesson to an obtuse child. 'It's in Prague. Bohemia. My father spent a number of years there.'

  'In the Carolinum?'

  'No. In Bohemia. After Rudolf moved the Imperial Court from Vienna to Prague.'

  I was still studying the parchments. 'Sir Ambrose was in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor?'

  She nodded, apparently pleased at the note of awe inflecting my voice. 'At first, yes. As one of the agents hired to procure books for the Imperial Library. Afterwards he was in the service of the Elector Palatine, furnishing the Bibliotheca Palatina in Heidelberg.'

  She stooped and once more began to sift through the papers in the coffin. For the next ten minutes I was obliged to wheeze over and fumble through a dozen-odd other documents, all of them patents for various monopolies and inventions-new methods of essaying gold or rigging ships-together with the title-deeds for freehold properties scattered across England, Ireland and Virginia. More dog-eared pages of Sir Ambrose's busy life. I was barely paying attention as Lady Marchamont thrust each one into my hands with the zeal of a street-corner Quaker. But soon I found myself squinting at a document of a different sort, another letter patent with the Great Seal of England embossed at its foot, but one whose designs were grander than the others:

  This Indenture, made the 30th day of August, in Anno Domini 1616, the Fourteenth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord James, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, between our said Sovereign Lord of one Party, and Ambrose Plessington, Knight of the Garter, of the other Party, to build, rig, provision, and otherwise fit, and thereafter to captain and sail, the Ship known as the Philip Sidney, from the Port of London, to the Cittie of Manoa, in the Empire of Guiana…

  I blinked, rubbed at my eyes with a knuckle, then continued reading. The document was a commission of £3,000 for Sir Ambrose to make a voyage in search not of books and manuscripts-as in the days of the Emperor Rudolf-but rather the headwaters of the Orinoco River and a gold mine near a city called Manoa in the Empire of Guiana. I knew something of the expedition, if it was the same one, for I was well aware of how Sir Walter Raleigh went to the scaffold one year after his disastrous expedition set off for Guiana in 1617. So had the Philip Sidney ascended the Orinoco with Raleigh's doomed fleet? And, if so, what became of the ship and her captain?

  I could read no more. The letters of the patent were swimming before my tired eyes, and now my chest felt even tighter. I removed my spectacles and rubbed at my eyes with the balls of my fingers. I coughed, trying to clear my lungs of the stale air and motes of dust. Again I could hear the gentle rush of water, which now seemed to originate behind the wall of the tiny archive. I replaced my spectacles, but the letters on the page still feinted and shrank before my smarting gaze.

  'I'm sorry but I…'

  'Yes, of course.'

  Lady Marchamont took the papers from me and returned them to the coffin. But before she slammed shut its lid I caught a glimpse of what looked like a newer document, another indenture of some sort. The top edge of the parchment was jagged, while the bottom had been folded over and fixed with a seal suspended on a parchment tag. Did she grant me on purpose, I would later wonder, this briefest of visions, this most subtle of clues? The signature beside the seal was illegible, but I was able to make out a few words inscribed at the top: 'Sciant presentes et futuri quod ego…'

  But then the lid was banged shut forcefully and a second later I started at the light touch of the gloved hand on my forearm. When I turned my head she was giving me the most curious and unsettling smile.

  'Shall we return upstairs, Mr. Inchbold? The air in these vaults is poor. Enough for two people to breathe for no more than thirty minutes at a time.'

  I nodded gratefully and fumbled for my thorn-stick. The air suddenly seemed denser than ever, and for the first time I realised that she too was breathing heavily. Removing the lamp from its sconce she turned towards the door.

  'My father ventilated the vaults with an atmospheric pump,' she continued, 'but of course the pump was stolen along with everything else.'

  The hinges squealed again as she shut the door and there was a jangle of keys and silver chatelaine as she locked it. I followed the black gown along the corridor.

  Sciant presentes et futuri…

  I sculled through the darkness on my stick, brow drawn in puzzled concentration. Let all men present and future know what? As we climbed the stairs I found myself thinking not so much about the dozens of documents that had been thrust under my nose, but instead about the mysteriously new parchment half hidden among the other papers in the coffin, the indenture with its serried edge waiting to fit like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle into its counterpart, the twin parchment from which it had been carefully severed. Did I guess then that it might fit into a larger puzzle whose other pieces were as yet unknown and undiscovered? Or is it only now, in retrospect, that I remember it so clearly?

  My chest was whistling like a tea-kettle as we climbed, my crippled foot noisily scuffing and thumping. I winced with shame, glad of the darkness. But Lady Marchamont, two steps ahead, her face half-turned towards me, appeared to notice none of these commotions. As we made our way upwards she described some of her father's services for Rudolf II, the great 'Wizard Emperor' whose palace in Prague was filled with astrologers, alchemists, bizarre inventions and, above all, tens of thousands of books. A good many of the Emperor's possessions came courtesy of Sir Ambrose, she claimed. For whenever a nobleman or scholar of means died anywhere within the borders of the Empire-from Tuscany in the south, to Cleves in the west, to Lusatia or Silesia in the east-her father had been despatched across the fraying quilt of principalities and fiefdoms to secure for the Emperor the most important and impressive items from the legacy: paintings, marbles, clocks, precious stones, new inventions of any sort, and of course the library, especially if its collection held volumes on alchemy and other occult arts, which had been Rudolf's particular favourites. In these missions, she boasted, her father had rarely disappointed.

  'In one year alone he negotiated the acquisition of the libraries of Benedikt of Richnov and the Austrian nobleman Anton Schwarz von Steiner.' She paused for breath and turned to face me. 'You must have heard of these collections?'

  I shook my head. We had reached the top of the steps. The tiled floor seemed to sway beneath my feet like the deck of a foundering ship. She pushed open the door for me, and I stumbled through after my shadow. Benedikt of Richnov? Anton Schwarz? There was much, apparently, that I didn't know.

  'Each library contained more than ten thousand volumes,' came her voice from the darkness behind me. 'Among other treasures they included Rupescissa's work on alchemy and Finé's edition of Roger Bacon. Even manuscripts on astrology by Albamazar and Sacrobosco. Most were sent to the Imperial Library in Vienna to be catalogued by Hugo Blotius, the Hofbibliothekar, but some were taken to Prague for inspection by His Excellency. No simple task. They were transported across mountains and through the Böhmerwald in special mule-carts and wagons with sprung wheels, a new invention in those days. The wooden boxes in which they were packed had been caulked at the seams with oakum and pitch, like the hull of a warship. These in turn were wrapped in two layers of tanned canvas. It must have been an amazing sight. From front to rear the convoys were almost a mile long, with all of the books still in alphabetical order.'

  Her voice echoed against the bare, unmarked walls. The words seemed rehearsed, as if she had told the story many times before. I remembered the copious shelves of occult works in her father's library and wondered if these books had some connection with either Benedikt of Richnov or Anton Schwarz, or possibly even with the 'Wizard Emperor' himself.

  We were walking abreast now, quickly, winding our way back in the direction-so far as I could tell-of the library. It
was impossible to determine if we had passed this same way earlier. The servants, even Phineas, seemed to have vanished. It occurred to me that two people, even a half-dozen, could easily go about their business in Pontifex Hall for days on end without so much as setting eyes on one another.

  Abruptly the narration ended. 'My dear Mr. Inchbold…'

  I had been hurrying to keep pace, wheezing and blowing like a grampus. Now I almost collided with her as she halted in the middle of the corridor.

  'My dear Mr. Inchbold, I have imposed too long on your good nature. You must wonder why I have told you all of these things. Why I have shown you the library, the inventory, the patents…'

  I straightened and found I couldn't meet her eyes. 'Well, Lady Marchamont, I must confess-'

  'Oh, please.' She interrupted me with a raised hand. 'Alethea. We have no need of formalities, I hope.'

  A command rather than a request. I acquiesced: she was my superior in rank, after all, whether or not her title was used. A name-a word-changes nothing.

  'Alethea.' I pronounced the strange name with caution, like a man sampling an exotic new dish.

  She resumed walking, though more slowly now, the thick soles of her buskins scuffing the tiles. We turned left into another, longer corridor.

  'The fact is that I wished you to see something of what Pontifex Hall used to be. Can you imagine it yet? The frescos, the tapestries…' Her free hand gestured like a conjuror's at the bare walls, at the expanse of vacant corridor before us. I blinked stupidly into the darkness, able to imagine none of it. 'But even more,' she resumed in a lower voice, 'I wanted you to know what manner of man my father was.'

  We had reached the library, whose darkness was now complete. I was startled once more by the touch of her hand. Turning, I saw two tiny flames, reflections from the lamp, dancing in the pupils of her close-set eyes. I looked nervously away. Sir Ambrose was, at this point, even more unimaginable than his plundered possessions.

  'I have no husband, no children, no living relations.' Her voice had dropped to a whisper. 'Very little now remains for me. But I am left with one thing, one ambition. You see, Mr. Inchbold, I wish to restore Pontifex Hall to its former condition. To render it exactly the same in every last detail.' She released my arm to gesture again at the empty darkness. 'Every last detail,' she repeated with a peculiar emphasis. 'The furniture, the paintings, the gardens, the orangery…'

  'And the library,' I finished, thinking of the books eroding to rags and dust on the floor.

  'Yes. The library as well.' She had taken my forearm again. The lamp swung in short arcs. Our shadows wavered to and fro like dancers. Here in the vacant house with its bare walls and falling plaster her ambition seemed outlandish and impossible. 'All precisely as my father left them. And I shall do it, too. Though I expect no easy time of it.'

  'No,' I replied, hoping to sound sympathetic. I was thinking of the quartered troops, of the house's devastated façade, of the great branch of ivy insinuating itself through a second-door window… of the whole dreadful picture of ruin I had seen through the archway. No easy time of it indeed.

  'I shall be frank.' She had raised the lamp as if to illuminate our faces. It was burning more brightly now, but the flame served only to deepen the shadows. 'Difficulties with the hall's restoration will arise not simply because of the desecration, and not simply because, yes, if you must know, I am, shall we say, embarrassed for funds. They will arise also because certain other stakes are involved.' Her voice was casual but her eyes, grown obsidian in the dark with their expanded pupils, maintained their intense, searching gaze. 'Certain other interests. You see, Mr. Inchbold, I, like my father, have accumulated more than my share of enemies.' The pressure on my arm grew almost painful. 'You've seen from the inventory that Sir Ambrose was a man of enormous wealth.'

  I nodded obediently. For a second I could see the bailies passing along this corridor and through the rest of the house, through chambers as rich as Aladdin's cave; the four of them touching vases, clocks, tapestries, secretaries, jewels of unimaginable price; their eyes growing wide; item after fabulous item added to the incredible inventory. All now vanished.

  'Wealth attracts its enemies,' she said, then added in the same casual tone: 'Sir Ambrose was murdered. As was Lord Marchamont.'

  'Murdered?' The word possessed its due resonance against the bare walls of the corridor. 'But by whom? Cromwell's men?'

  She shook her head. 'That I cannot say for certain. But I have my doubts. The fact is that I do not know. I had hoped the muniments would offer some clue. Lord Marchamont thought he might have discovered something, but…' She shook her head again and lowered her eyes. Raising them a second later, she must have seen what she interpreted as an alarmed look on my face, for she added quickly: 'Oh, but there's no need to worry. There's nothing to fear, Mr. Inchbold. Do let me reassure you of that. Please understand. You will be quite safe. I promise you that.'

  This reassurance opened a small crevice of doubt. Why should I not be safe? But I had no time to contemplate the question, for now she released my forearm and plucked up a bell. Its sound was harsh and plaintive, like an alarm.

  'Never fear,' she said, turning back to me as the echoes died away. 'Your task will be a simple one. One that will bring you into no danger at all.'

  Ah, I thought. At last. 'My task?'

  'Yes.' Phineas had appeared at the end of the corridor. Lady Marchamont turned to face him. 'But I have talked too much already. Do forgive me. All of this must wait for tomorrow. You should rest now, Mr. Inchbold. You have come such a long way. Phineas?' The footman's lugubrious face hove into the yellow track of the fish-oil lamp. 'Please show Mr. Inchbold to his chamber.'

  Yes, I thought, as I followed Phineas up the staircase: I had come a long way. Further, perhaps, than I knew.

  ***

  I was accommodated for the night in a bedchamber at the top of the stairs, along a broad corridor lined at regular intervals with closed doors. The quarters were large but, as I expected, inadequately furnished. There was a straw pallet, a three-legged stool, an empty fireplace festooned with skeins of dirty cobwebs, and a small table, on which sat a quill, a book, a few other items. I was too exhausted to look at any of them.

  For a moment I was also too exhausted to move. I stood in the centre of the room and gazed dully at its emptiness. I reflected that the peasant cottages through which I had passed on the road to Crampton Magna were probably better appointed. I thought for a second of the inventory locked in the tiny room two floors below; of its endless catalogue of carpets, tapestries, long-case clocks, wainscot chairs. In another lifetime this room-the 'Velvet Bedchamber', Alethea had called it-must have been spectacularly furnished; perhaps it was that of Sir Ambrose himself. Even now traces of its former life betrayed themselves, such as the chipped, peeling overmantel or the triangular patch of crimson flock paper high on the wall. Scraps of the glory that once was Pontifex Hall. For half-starved Puritan soldiers in their black homespun it must have made an obscene spectacle. And for someone else, apparently, a motive for murder.

  I undressed slowly. Phineas, or someone, had carried my trunk into the room and placed it beside the pallet. I pawed through it for my nightshirt, which I slipped over my head. Then, using my moistened forefinger and thumb, I snuffed the tallow candle that Phineas had placed on the table, and an instant later the bedchamber was flooded through its cracked casement with deep billows of night. I closed my eyes, and sleep, with its heavy die, pressed its seal across their lids.

  Chapter Five

  Prague Castle, seen from a distance, was an irregular diadem that perched on the craggy brow of a rock overlooking the wattled rooftops of the Old Town across the river. At dawn its windows glinted in the morning sun, and at dusk its shadow crept across the river like the hand of a giant, then inched into the narrow streets of the Old Town to gather up the spires and squares. Seen from within, it was even more imposing, a multitude of archways, courtyards, chapels and palaces, even
several convents and taverns. All were enclosed within fortified walls whose shape, from above, suggested a coffin. The Cathedral of St. Vitus occupied the castle's centre, and to the south of the cathedral stood the Královsky Palace, which was home in the year 1620 to Frederick and Elizabeth, the new King and Queen of Bohemia. Two hundred yards as the crow flies from the Královsky Palace, but through a succession of courtyards, then past a well-house, a fountain and a garden, stood what in 1620 would have been the newest and most remarkable of the castle's buildings, a set of galleries known as the Spanish Rooms. These rooms were found in the northwest corner, a short distance from where the Mathematics Tower rose above the moat. They had been built some fifteen years earlier to house the thousands of books and copious other treasures of the Emperor Rudolf II, a bronze statue of whom, ruffed and bearded, hook-nosed and melancholic, was erected outside the south front. By 1620 Rudolf had been dead for almost ten years, but his treasures remained. The books and manuscripts, among the most precious in Europe, were housed in the library of the Spanish Rooms, and at that time the castle's librarian was a man named Vilém Jirásek.

  Vilém was in his middle thirties, a shy and modest man, ill-shod and unkempt, with a patched coat and a pair of spectacles behind whose lenses his pale eyes flitted and swam. Despite the coaxings of Jirí, his lone servant, he remained indifferent to his humble appearance. He was equally indifferent to the affairs of the world beyond the walls of the Spanish Rooms. Much had happened in Prague during the ten years he had worked in the library, including the rebellion of 1619 in which the Protestant noblemen of Prague had deposed the Catholic Emperor Ferdinand from the throne of Bohemia. Yet no event, however turbulent, had disturbed his scholarly labours. Each morning he shuffled out of his tiny house in Golden Lane and, exactly seventeen minutes later, arrived before his cluttered desk as the hundreds of mechanical clocks in the Spanish Rooms were tolling eight o'clock. Each evening, red-eyed and weary, he began his shuffle back to Golden Lane at the moment when the clocks struck six. In ten years he had never been known to deviate from this orbit by missing a day of work or even arriving so much as a minute late.