The next few weeks were a whirlwind of appointments—with the emperor’s jeweler, the emperor’s instrument maker, and the emperor’s dancing master. Each encounter took me deeper into the heart of the huddle of buildings that composed the imperial palace, to workshops and residences that were reserved for Rudolf’s prize artists and intellectuals.
Between engagements Gallowglass took me to parts of the palace that I had not yet seen. To the menagerie, where Rudolf kept his leopards and lions much as he kept his limners and musicians on the narrow streets east of the cathedral. To the Stag Moat, which had been altered so that Rudolf could enjoy better sport. To the sgraffito-covered games hall, where courtiers could take their exercise. To the new greenhouses built to protect the emperor’s precious fig trees from the harsh Bohemian winter.
But there was one place where not even Gallowglass could gain admission: the Powder Tower, where Edward Kelley worked over his alembics and crucibles in an attempt to make the philosopher’s stone. We stood outside it and tried to talk our way past the guards stationed at the entrance. Gallowglass even resorted to bellowing a hearty greeting. It brought the neighbors running to see if there was a fire but didn’t elicit a reaction from Dr. Dee’s erstwhile assistant.
“It’s as if he’s a prisoner,” I told Matthew after the supper dishes were cleared and Jack and Annie were safely tucked into their beds. They’d enjoyed another exhausting round of skating, sledding, and pretzels. We’d given up the pretense that they were our servants. I hoped the opportunity to behave like a normal eight-year-old boy would help to end Jack’s nightmares. But the palace was no place for them. I was terrified they might wander off and get lost forever, unable to speak the language or tell people to whom they belonged.
“Kelley is a prisoner,” Matthew said, toying with the stem of his goblet. It was heavy silver and glinted in the firelight.
“They say he goes home occasionally, usually in the middle of the night when there is no one around to see. At least he gets some relief from the emperor’s constant demands.”
“You haven’t met Mistress Kelley,” Matthew said drily.
I hadn’t, which struck me as odd the more I considered it. Perhaps I was taking the wrong route to meet the alchemist. I’d allowed myself to be swept into court life with the hope of knocking on Kelley’s laboratory door and walking straight in to demand Ashmole 782. But given my new familiarity with courtly life, such a direct approach was unlikely to succeed. The next morning I made it a point to go with Tereza to do the shopping.
It was absolutely frigid outside, and the wind was fierce, but we trudged to the market nonetheless.
“Do you know my countrywoman Mistress Kelley?” I asked Frau Huber as we waited for the baker to wrap our purchases. The housewives of Malá Strana collected the bizarre and unusual as avidly as Rudolf did. “Her husband is one of the emperor’s servants.”
“One of the emperor’s caged alchemists, you mean,” Frau Huber said with a snort. “There are always odd things happening in that household. And it was worse when the Dees were here. Herr Kelley was always looking at Frau Dee with lust.”
“And Mistress Kelley?” I prompted her.
“She does not go out much. Her cook does the shopping.” Frau Huber did not approve of this delegation of housewifely responsibility. It opened the door to all sorts of disorder, including (she contended) Anabaptism and a thriving black market in purloined kitchen staples. She had made her feelings on this point clear at our first meeting, and it was one of the chief reasons I went out in all weathers to buy cabbage.
“Are we discussing the alchemist’s wife?” Signorina Rossi said, tripping across the frozen stones and narrowly avoiding a wheelbarrow full of coal.
“She is English and therefore very strange. And her wine bills are much larger than they should be.”
“How do you two know so much?” I asked when I’d finished laughing. “We share the same laundress,” Frau Huber said, surprised. “None of us have any secrets from our laundresses,” Signorina Rossi agreed. “She did the washing for the Dees, too. Until Signora Dee fired her for charging so much to clean the napkins.”
“A difficult woman, Jane Dee, but you could not fault her thrift,” Frau Huber admitted with a sigh.
“Why do you need to see Mistress Kelley?” Signorina Rossi inquired, stowing a braided loaf of bread in her basket.
“I want to meet her husband. I am interested in alchemy and have some questions.”
“Will you pay?” Frau Huber asked, rubbing her fingers together in a universal and apparently timeless gesture.
“For what?” I said, confused.
“His answers, of course.”
“Yes,” I agreed, wondering what devious plan she was concocting.
“Leave it to me,” Frau Huber said. “I am hungry for schnitzel, and the Austrian who owns the tavern near your house, Frau Roydon, knows what schnitzel should be.”
The Austrian schnitzel wizard’s teenage daughter, it turned out, shared a tutor with Kelley’s ten-year-old stepdaughter, Elisabeth. And his cook was married to the laundress’s aunt, whose sister-in-law helped out around the Kelleys’ house.
It was thanks to this occult chain of relationships forged by women, and not Gallowglass’s court connections, that Matthew and I found ourselves in the Kelleys’ second-floor parlor at midnight, waiting for the great man to arrive.
“He should be here at any moment,” Joanna Kelley assured us. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bleary, though whether this resulted from too much wine or from the cold that seemed to afflict the entire household was not clear.
“Do not trouble yourself on our account, Mistress Kelley. We keep late hours,” Matthew said smoothly, giving her a dazzling smile. “And how do you like your new house?”
After much espionage and investigation among the Austrian and Italian communities, we discovered that the Kelleys had recently purchased a house around the corner from the Three Ravens in a complex known for its inventive street sign. Someone had taken a few leftover wooden figures from a nativity scene, sawed them in half, and arranged them on a board. They had, in the process, removed the infant Jesus from his crèche and replaced it with the head of Mary’s donkey.
“The Donkey and Cradle meets our needs at present, Master Roydon.”
Mistress Kelley issued forth an awe-inspiring sneeze and took a swig of wine. “We had thought the emperor would set aside a house for us in the palace itself, given Edward’s work, but this will do.” A regular thumping sounded on the winding stairs. “Here is Edward.”
A walking staff appeared first, then a stained hand, followed by an equally stained sleeve. The rest of Edward Kelley looked just as disreputable. His long beard was unkempt and stuck out from a dark skullcap that hid his ears. If he’d had a hat, it was gone now. And he was fond of his dinners, gauging by his Falstaffian proportions. Kelley limped into the room whistling, then froze at the sight of Matthew.
“Edward.” Matthew rewarded the man with another of those dazzling smiles, but Kelley didn’t seem nearly as pleased to receive it as his wife had.
“Imagine us meeting again so far from home.”
“How did you . . . ?” Edward said hoarsely. He looked around the room, and his eyes fell on me with a nudging glance that was as insidious as any I’d felt from a daemon. But there was more: disturbances in the threads that surrounded him, irregularities in the weaving that suggested he was not just daemonic—he was unstable. His lips curled. “The witch.”
“The emperor has elevated her rank, just as he did yours. She is La Diosa—the goddess—now,” Matthew said. “Do sit down and rest your leg. It troubles you in the cold, as I remember.”
“What business do you have with me, Roydon?” Edward Kelley gripped his staff tighter.
“He is here on behalf of the queen, Edward. I was in my bed,” Joanna said plaintively. “I get so little rest. And because of this dreadful ague, I have not yet met our neighbors. You did not tell me th
ere were English people living so close. Why, I can see Mistress Roydon’s house from the tower window. You are at the castle. I am alone, longing to speak my native tongue, and yet—”
“Go back to bed, my dear,” Kelley said, dismissing Joanna. “Take your wine with you.”
Mrs. Kelley sniffled off obligingly, her expression miserable. To be an Englishwoman in Prague without friends or family was difficult, but to have your husband welcomed in places where you were forbidden to go must make it doubly so. When she was gone, Kelley clumped over to the table and sat down in his wife’s chair. With a grimace he lifted his leg into place. Then he pinned his dark, hostile eyes on Matthew.
“Tell me what I must do to get rid of you,” he said bluntly. Kelley might have Kit’s cunning, but he had none of his charm.
“The queen wants you,” Matthew said, equally blunt. “We want Dee’s book.”
“Which book?” Edward’s reply was quick—too quick.
“For a charlatan you are an abominable liar, Kelley. How do you manage to take them all in?” Matthew swung his long, booted legs onto the table. Kelley cringed when the heels struck the surface.
“If Dr. Dee is accusing me of theft,” Kelley blustered, “then I must insist on discussing this matter in the emperor’s presence. He would not want me treated thus, my honor impugned in my own house.”
“Where is it, Kelley? In your laboratory? In Rudolf’s bedchamber? I will find it with or without your help. But if you were to tell me your secret, I might be inclined to let the other matter rest.” Matthew picked at a speck on his britches. “The Congregation is not pleased with your recent behavior.”
Kelley’s staff clattered to the floor. Matthew obligingly picked it up. He touched the worn end to Kelley’s neck. “Is this where you touched the tapster at the inn, when you threatened his life? That was careless, Edward. All this pomp and privilege has gone to your head.” The staff dropped down to Kelley’s considerable belly and rested there.
“I cannot help you.” Kelley winced as Matthew increased the pressure on the stick. “It is the truth! The emperor took the book from me when . . .”
Kelley trailed off, rubbing his hand across his face as if to erase the vampire sitting across from him.
“When what?” I said, leaning forward. When I touched Ashmole 782 in the Bodleian, I’d immediately known it was different.
“You must know more about this book than I do,” Kelley spit at me, his eyes blazing. “You witches were not surprised to hear of its existence, though it took a daemon to recognize it!”
“I am losing my patience, Edward.” The wooden staff cracked in Matthew’s hands. “My wife asked you a question. Answer it.”
Kelley gave Matthew a slow, triumphant look and pushed at the end of the staff, dislodging it from his abdomen. “You hate witches—or so everyone believes. But I see now that you share Gerbert’s weakness for the creatures. You are in love with this one, just as I told Rudolf.”
“Gerbert.” Matthew’s tone was flat.
Kelley nodded. “He came when Dee was still in Prague, asking questions about the book and nosing about in my business. Rudolf let him enjoy one of the witches from the Old Town—a seventeen-year-old girl and very pretty, with rosy hair and blue eyes just like your wife. No one has seen her since. But there was a very fine fire that Walpurgis Night. Gerbert was given the honor of lighting it.” Kelley shifted his eyes to me. “I wonder if we will have a fire again this year?”
The mention of the ancient tradition of burning a witch to celebrate spring was the final straw for Matthew. He had Kelley half out the window by the time I realized what was happening.
“Look down, Edward. It is not a steep fall. You would survive it, I fear, though you might break a bone or two. I would collect you and take you up to your bedchamber. That has a window, too, no doubt. Eventually I will find a place that is high enough to snap your sorry carcass in two. By then every bone in your body will be in pieces and you will have told me what I want to know.”
Matthew turned black eyes on me when I rose.
“Sit. Down.” He took a deep breath. “Please.”
I did.
“Dee’s book shimmered with power. I could smell it the moment he pulled it off the shelf at Mortlake. He was oblivious to its significance, but I knew.” Kelley couldn’t talk fast enough now. When he paused to take a breath, Matthew shook him. “The witch Roger Bacon owned it and valued it for a great treasure. His name is on the title page, along with the inscription ‘Verum Secretum Secretorum.’”
“But it’s nothing like the Secretum,” I said, thinking of the popular medieval work. “That’s an encyclopedia. This has alchemical illustrations.”
“The illustrations are nothing but a screen against the truth,” Kelley said, wheezing. “That is why Bacon called it The True Secret of Secrets.”
“What does it say?” I asked, rising with excitement. This time Matthew didn’t warn me off. He also dragged Kelley back inside. “Were you able to read the words?”
“Perhaps,” Kelley said, straightening his robe.”
“He couldn’t read the book either.” Matthew released Kelley with disgust. “I can smell the duplicity through his fear.”
“It’s written in a foreign tongue. Not even Rabbi Loew could decipher it.”
“The Maharal has seen the book?” Matthew had that still, alert look that he got just before he pounced.
“Apparently you didn’t ask Rabbi Loew about it when you were in the Jewish Town to seek out the witch who made this clay creature they call the golem. Nor could you find the culprit and his creation.” Kelley looked contemptuous. “So much for your famous power and influence. You couldn’t even frighten the Jews.”
“I don’t think the letters are Hebrew,” I said, remembering the fastmoving symbols I’d glimpsed in the palimpsest.
“They aren’t. The emperor had Rabbi Loew come to the palace just to be sure.” Kelley had revealed more than he’d intended. His eyes shifted to his staff, and the threads around him warped and twisted. An image came to me of Kelley lifting his staff to strike someone. What was he up to? Then I realized: He was planning on striking me. An unintelligible sound broke free from my mouth, and when I held out my hand, Kelley’s staff flew straight into it. My arm transformed into a branch for a moment before returning to its normal outlines. I prayed that it had all happened too fast for Kelley to perceive the change. The look on his face told me my hopes were in vain.
“Don’t let the emperor see you do that,” Kelley smirked, “or he’ll have you locked away, yet another curiosity for him to savor. I’ve told you what you wanted to know, Roydon. Call off the Congregation’s dogs.”
“I don’t think I can,” Matthew said, taking the staff from me. “You are not harmless, no matter what Gerbert thinks. But I’ll leave you alone—for now. Don’t do anything more to warrant my attention and you just may see the summer.” He tossed the staff into the corner.
“Good night, Master Kelley.” I gathered up my cloak, wanting to be as far away from the daemon as fast as possible.
“Enjoy your moment in the sun, witch. They pass quickly in Prague.”
Kelley remained where he was while Matthew and I started to descend the stairs.
I could still feel his nudging glances in the street. And when I looked back toward the Donkey and Cradle, the crooked and broken threads that bound Kelley to the world shimmered with malevolence.
Chapter Twenty Nine
After days of careful negotiation, Matthew was able to arrange a visit to Rabbi Judah Loew. To make room for it, Gallowglass had to cancel my upcoming appointments at court, citing illness.
Unfortunately, this announcement caught the emperor’s attention, and the house was flooded with medicines: terra sigillata, the clay with marvelous healing properties; bezoar stones harvested from the gallbladders of goats to ward off poison; a cup made of unicorn horn with one of the emperor’s family recipes for an electuary. The latter involv
ed roasting an egg with saffron before beating it into a powder with mustard seed, angelica, juniper berries, camphor, and several other mysterious substances, then turning it into a paste with treacle and lemon syrup. Rudolf sent Dr. Hájek along to administer it. But I had no intention of swallowing this unappetizing concoction, as I informed the imperial physician.
“I will assure the emperor that you will recover,” he said drily. “Happily, His Majesty is too concerned with his own health to risk traveling down Sporrengasse to confirm my prognosis.”
We thanked him profusely for his discretion and sent him home with one of the roasted chickens that had been delivered from the royal kitchens to tempt my appetite. I threw the note that accompanied it into the fire— “Ich verspreche Sie werden nicht hungern. Ich halte euch zufrieden. Rudolff”—after Matthew explained that the wording left some doubt as to whether Rudolf was referring to the chicken when he promised to satisfy my hunger.
On our way across the Moldau River to Prague’s Old Town, I had my first opportunity to experience the hustle and bustle of the city center. There, affluent merchants conducted business in arcades nestled beneath the three- and four-story houses that lined the twisting streets. When we turned north, the city’s character changed: The houses were smaller, the residents more shabbily dressed, the businesses less prosperous. Then we crossed over a wide street and passed through a gate into the Jewish Town. More than five thousand Jews lived in this small enclave smashed between the industrial riverbank, the Old Town’s main square, and a convent. The Jewish quarter was crowded—inconceivably so, even by London standards—with houses that were not so much constructed as grown, each structure evolving organically from the walls of another like the chambers in a snail’s shell.
We found Rabbi Loew via a serpentine route that made me long for a bag of bread crumbs to be sure we could find our way back. The residents slid cautious glances in our direction, but few dared to greet us. Those who did called Matthew “Gabriel.” It was one of his many names, and the use of it here signaled that I’d slipped down one of Matthew’s rabbit holes and was about to meet another of his past selves.
When I stood before the kindly gentleman known as the Maharal, I understood why Matthew spoke of him in hushed tones. Rabbi Loew radiated the same quiet sense of power that I’d seen in Philippe. His dignity made Rudolf’s grandiose gestures and Elizabeth’s petulance seem laughable in comparison. And it was all the more striking in this age, when brute force was the usual method of imposing one’s will on others. The Maharal’s reputation was based on scholarship and learning, not physical prowess.
“The Maharal is one of the finest men who has ever lived,” Matthew said simply when I asked him to tell me more about Judah Loew. Considering how long Matthew had roamed the earth, this was a considerable accolade.
“I did think, Gabriel, that we had concluded our business,” Rabbi Loew said sternly in Latin. He looked and sounded very much like a headmaster. “I would not share the name of the witch who made the golem before, and I will not do so now.” Rabbi Loew turned to me. “I am sorry, Frau Roydon. My impatience with your husband made me forget my manners.
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