For all the dissimilarities between us, I had always believed that essentially we were not unalike, the Chamberlain and I. Just as he did, I saw the world as a place of possibilities, of opportunities; like him, I considered fate not a fixed but a malleable force. Wenzel was a fanatic, one of God’s self-appointed merciless avengers. He was that most dangerous of the types of men, both a lover and a hater of himself.
Yes, between these two it should have been an easy choice, but it was not. All the same, I made it; I could do no other.
“Sir,” I said, “there is a thing you should know.”
Lang swiveled about on his heel and fixed me with his full attention, his head lifted and held to one side.
“Oh, yes? And what thing is that?”
“There was a strongbox,” I said. “It belonged to Dr. Kroll, but Jan Madek took it. Originally in this box were kept alchemical papers, secret formulae, magic ciphers, things the Doctor had collected over many years.”
Lang was watching me more closely than ever now, his eyes narrowed.
“This is the box His Majesty wished to have for himself, yes?” he said. “He talked of it often. I confess I paid scant attention—it seemed but another of his mad obsessions, and a minor one.”
“Yes,” I said, “the same box. Madek got hold of it, somehow, and brought it out to Most, and gave it to Dr. Kelley.”
“Did he? Hmm. And what did Kelley do with it?”
“He burned the papers that were in it—”
“Ha!” the Chamberlain exclaimed. “His Majesty will not be best pleased to hear that.”
“He burned the papers,” I went on, “and replaced them with others.”
“What others? Come, man, you’re making my head ache, with these enigmas.”
Yet still I hesitated. Sometimes, asleep at night, one seems to miss a step and start awake in terror; I have always believed that the step we seem to stumble on is the buried recollection of a moment in our lives when we have taken some perilous but unavoidable decision. Standing there in the Great Hall now, I experienced just such a sense of stumbling, or not stumbling but a kind of helpless falling, a kind of slow pitching forward, from one darkness into another. The step I had taken was onto the level of the Chamberlain, and from that level there would be no descending.
We paced together the length of the long, dully gleaming floor and back again. The Chamberlain’s arm was once more round my shoulders. He listened to me with the closest attention, saying not a word until I had finished telling him what I had to tell, of Wenzel and the English Queen, of their conspiracies, of their correspondence, and Kelley’s encoding of it. Then he released me and turned away, nodding, and took a long deep slow breath, as if he were drawing some fine and precious fragrance from the air.
“Ah, yes,” he breathed. “Yes.”
He was smiling now—oh, that carnival-mask smile of his, the eyes shining, the mouth a crimson crescent, the nose seeming as if it might curve all the way down and touch the tip of his chin. He gazed about the enormous, barrel-vaulted room.
“You know,” he said, “I have always disliked this place, this so-called Great Hall. It is supposed to express the grandeur of empire, the overarching magnificence of sovereignty, the all-embracing enclosure of the body politic. All I see is show and bombast.” He paused, humming to himself, then held up the pages of parchment. “And these,” he said, “these pages, they are Kelley’s code-book?”
“So I believe.”
He frowned, touching the tips of his fingers to his lower lip yet again, thinking it out.
“Yes, of course,” he murmured, “of course. Kelley, safely out there at Most, was the perfect go-between. Of course.” He looked at me sharply. “And the originals, the original letters, between Wenzel and the Queen—what of them?”
“Kelley was meant to destroy them, once he had translated them into code and dispatched the coded versions, to Elizabeth in London, and to Wenzel here.”
“And did he?”
I said nothing.
The Chamberlain put his head far back and looked at me long, and then smiled. “Ah,” he said, “he did not destroy them—that’s what you’ve come to tell me. He kept them, and kept them safe.”
“He put them in the strongbox that Madek had brought, and gave them to him.”
“He gave the letters, those precious documents, to Madek?” he exclaimed. “To that young hothead?”
“He did,” I said. “But he did not give him”—I pointed to the papers in his hand—“the code-book.”
The Chamberlain softly laughed. “Ah, yes, that would be Kelley—treacherous to the end. And where”—he fairly pounced—“where is this famous box, with the letters in it—where is it to be found?”
“I do not know.”
We were silent, gazing at each other. Then he nodded rapidly, and this time linked his arm in mine, and led me to the window. How vast the city seemed, down below us in the darkness there, how vast and far and strange.
“You don’t know, you say,” he said. “Am I to believe this? What did Madek do with the box? What did he do with the letters?”
“I believe he brought them back here to Prague, to use against the High Steward.”
“Against him? To what end?”
I shook my head, and said nothing. He let go of my arm. I felt only an odd sort of emptiness, as if I had been hollowed out, so that all that was left inside me was a cold dark echoing space. I thought again of Elizabeth Weston, I thought of her saying, What have I done? What have I done? Now I asked myself the same question.
“You know,” Lang said, “you know I can do nothing, unless I have those letters.”
“Yes,” I said, “I know.”
He put out a hand and drew me with him to the window again, where again we stood side by side, facing the night. The snow had stopped.
“And this,” he said, looking down at the wad of parchment in his hand, “this is the vital tool, yes?” He turned and gazed at me, his eyes alight. “You must find them,” he said.
I began to speak, but he put up a hand to stop me. “No,” he said. “No excuses. Find them. Find them, Christian Stern, and when you have found them, and given them to me, I shall do what Madek could not—I shall destroy Felix Wenzel. “He sighed happily.” Oh yes, I shall destroy him.”
24
Just then, while the Chamberlain and I stood there facing each other by the window, the great doors off at the far end of the hall swung open and a body of soldiers came marching in. My first, fearfully thrilling notion was that Prague had been overrun by an invading army, and that this was the advance party sent to secure the castle. My second impression was of a heroic painting suddenly come to life, there were so many plumed, silken warriors bristling with lances, swords, and halberds, moving resolutely towards us in close formation, shoulder to shoulder. The Chamberlain hastily thrust the codebook into a pocket of his black habit.
At the head of this troop was a tall man with a long face, a Spanish beard, a wide, waxed mustache, and a sharp, distrusting eye. He wore a feathered hat, a somewhat tired-seeming ruff, and an armored black leather jerkin crossed by a broad silk sash. His Spanish breeches were the color of terra-cotta, and his high boots were polished to a glossy shine.
I recognized him at once as the Archduke Matthias, Rudolf’s younger brother, whom Rudolf feared and detested.
The Archduke stopped before us with a rattle and a clank.
“Ah, Lang,” he said to the Chamberlain. “You still here? They haven’t found you out yet and sent you to the block?”
“No indeed, Your Royal Highness”—the Chamberlain touched a finger to his throat—“the head is still attached, as you see.” He bowed, with deliberate, stiff insolence. “We did not expect you until the morrow.”
The nobleman grinned, showing a fearsome set of long, yellowed teeth with gaps between them.
“Surprised you, did we?” he said. “You don’t like surprises.” He turned a cold glance in my direction
. “And this long streak of piss, in his furs and furbelows—what’s he?”
Lang did not miss a beat.
“This is Herr Doktor Stern,” he said smoothly, “His Majesty your brother’s Chamberlain.”
I glanced at Lang, struggling to hide my surprise. Matthias glared at him, though all he got back was the blandest of bland smiles.
“Chamberlain?” Matthias said. “I thought you were that.”
“Strictly speaking, Sire, I am High Chamberlain.”
Matthias grinned again, again showing off his awful teeth.
“So he’s your fetcher and carrier,” he said, eyeing me a second time. “He looks the part.”
At this Lang bowed once more and made an elaborately obsequious gesture with his arms, sweeping them low and wide before himself as if he spreading out a cloth of silk before the Archduke’s feet.
“Your Highness’s wit is as sharp as ever,” he said. “Doktor Stern is a star very close to His Majesty’s heart.”
Matthias yet again looked me up and down, curling his lip.
“Bum boy, are you?” he snapped.
Abruptly he turned away from me, with the air of one letting something unpleasant drop from between a finger and a thumb. Behind him his escort stood gaping vacantly and faintly creaking; they appeared bored and weary and out of temper, as all soldiers do when they are not fighting or pillaging.
“Where is my brother?” Matthias demanded.
“His Majesty is—meditating,” the Chamberlain said.
“Meditating? Ha! Hugger-muggering with his wizards as usual, I daresay, casting spells and calling up demons? He was always a gullible donkey.” He looked about. “Food,” he said shortly. “My men are hungry, and so am I. We have had a long and trying march from Vienna. Damned foul Bohemian weather.”
The Chamberlain rubbed his hands about each other in a washing motion. I saw that, despite his ill-concealed contempt, he feared the Archduke; it showed in the fixed, brittle quality of his smile.
“You know it is the Emperor’s official birthday tomorrow—” he began.
Matthias snorted.
“Of course I know, damn it! Why else do you think I’m here?”
“There is to be a great banquet—”
This time the Archduke stamped a boot heel hard on the floor. He had the look of a man who had been born swaddled already in a uniform; I imagined that when he took off his armor there would persist a tiny military tinkling, a faint warlike rattle.
“It’s not a banquet I’m asking for, man!” he bellowed. “Good plain food—meat, bread, a barrel of ale.”
This caused a flurry among the armed gathering at his back, a sort of wistful sway from side to side. It must indeed have been a long journey they had come on, and a hungry one.
The Chamberlain began to reply, but again the doors at the end of the hall were thrown open, and Felix Wenzel came hurrying in. Seeing the figures assembled by the window, he skidded to a halt—he had been running full-tilt—and put one hand agitatedly to his ruff and with the other smoothed forward his close-cropped hair.
“Ho, Wenzel!” Matthias called out jovially. “Here’s my man!”
The squad of soldiers rapidly parted to make a path for their commander, who strode down the length of the room and took the High Steward’s right hand in both of his and pumped it vigorously.
“Your Highness,” Wenzel said, panting, “I was not told of your arrival, I—”
“Yes, I caught everyone off guard,” Matthias said cheerfully, glancing over his shoulder and smirking at the Chamberlain. He turned back to Wenzel. “We’re in need of feeding and watering, my men and I, but there would appear to be nothing on offer.”
“But of course, sir!” Wenzel burbled, summoning up one of his wintry smiles, which he seemed to assemble out of a number of small, disparate parts. “I shall send word to the kitchens straightaway.”
“Right!” Matthias called, with a wave of his arm to his men. “Nosebags await.”
And with another great clatter, as of numerous heavy pots and pans being kicked across the floor, they were gone, with the Archduke and Wenzel in the lead.
The doors banged shut behind them.
I turned to Lang.
“‘Chamberlain’?” I said.
He chuckled.
“Yes—congratulations. Oh, don’t look so anxious. I had to say you were someone; I had to account for you. And besides, by raising you up, I raise myself. If Wenzel can be High Steward, why should I not be High Chamberlain?”
“But what will His Majesty—?”
“I shall remind him that he has so far forgotten to grant you a title. If he bothers to ask, that is.”
“I feel like Caligula’s horse,” I said, “that he made a senator.”
The Chamberlain laughed again.
“And a fine steed you are!” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Now, let’s off and have our supper—the Archduke and his squad of blunderbusses are not the only hungry ones, eh?”
I thanked him, but begged that he would allow me a half hour to change out of my traveling clothes. He was silent for a moment, regarding me with narrowed eyes and the trace of a quizzical smile.
“There will be a mighty to-do,” he said, “now that Matthias is here. And have you heard that His Majesty’s cousin Ferdinand arrives tomorrow? There will be many calls upon your loyalty, Herr Doktor. You will remember where it lies, won’t you, yes? And you will remember what you have to do? Those letters are somewhere here in Prague—it is for you to discover their whereabouts, and seize them, and bring them here—to me.”
I stood and looked at him stolidly. We both knew he did not have to remind me of these things; he had my soul in his fist. He laughed again, and tapped a knuckle lightly on my breastbone, winked once, and turned away.
I set off for my quarters in a deep confusion of thought. I felt the urgent need to speak to the Emperor, if only to have the comfort of hearing from him that I was still in his favor, but I doubted he would see me in his present state of desolation. Would he appear tomorrow, for the birthday banquet? Surely he would not miss one of the most important days in the imperial calendar—it would not be allowed.
I was walking down a stone corridor, debating with myself if I should go to His Majesty’s private rooms and cajole or, if all else failed, make my way in by force. Turning a corner, I entered a stretch of darkness where two successive wall lamps had been extinguished, by a breeze, as I must suppose. Suddenly, with a violent rushing, something, some black-winged thing—I thought at first it was winged—came flying at me. Ducking aside, I cried out in fear and put up my arms to protect myself. It lasted but an instant, this frightful onslaught, and then the thing was gone, past me, off into the darkness.
I crouched there, with my arms in front of my face, unable to stir for terror. The thing, whatever it had been, had not touched me but had sped past, like a night bird sweeping out of the darkness and disappearing into it again. Only it had not been a bird; I had caught its human smell.
Recovering myself, I ran back to the corner, where the creature must have gone, but when I got there and looked along the lit corridor, there was nothing to be seen. I felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder, and for a moment I thought I might have been stabbed, until I remembered that in flinching aside I had staggered and crashed against the wall, where I must have struck against some sharp protrusion.
I stood and listened. At first there was nothing, but then I heard, faintly, beyond the harsh rise and fall of my own breathing, a familiar scrabbling, snuffly sound, receding into the distance, into the far depths of the castle. It was the same sound I had heard at my door in Golden Lane, the same one I had heard outside my chamber that day when Caterina Sardo and I lay on my bed spent and exhausted, and she would not let me get up to go and find out what was there.
Now it came to me, for the first time, that what I had heard was not a scrabbling or a snuffling, as of some animal rooting and clawing, which it had seemed.
It was laughter.
Yes, laughter: a rasping, throaty sort of sniggering.
Moaning in distress, I dashed again back through that patch of darkness to the sanctuary of my chamber.
Opening the door, I had another fright. The room was brightly lit, with many candles and lamps burning. I was given only a moment to register this before I suffered a second assault, although this time I recognized my assailant straight off.
“Te la sei scopata!” Caterina Sardo shrieked.
“I what? I—?”
“You fucked her!”
Her right hand was lifted, and in it she was grasping a dagger—I saw distinctly a tiny jewel of light flash upon its tip. My back was pressed to the door. She was almost upon me when I put a hand against her breast and gave her a sharp shove that sent her flailing backwards as far as the foot of the bed. She stopped for a moment, breathing hard, and then with a peculiar, catlike cry she flew at me once more, the knife raised. This time I stepped forward and grasped her by both wrists; she was strong, with all the force of her fury, and there we stood, swaying and grunting, like a pair of well-matched wrestlers.
“What are you talking about?” I panted.
“Quella troia di merda!” she hissed. “That English cow—who else? You slept with her!”
I had never seen her like this, flushed and sweating, her face contorted and her eyes on fire and her teeth bared and flecked with foam. Her voice too was hardly recognizable; it seemed to come, swollen and thick, from deep inside her, and each word as she forced it out was immediately swallowed again, making her almost choke.
“Caterina, listen—”
“Vaffanculo, maiale! You did, you slept with her, I know you did!”
She jerked her right hand, the one that held the knife, trying to surprise me into freeing it. Instead I bore down with all my strength on her wrist until I felt the bones inside it grate against each other. She gasped in pain, squeezing up her eyes, and let fall the blade at last. I kicked it away, and it spun across the floor and disappeared under the bed.
Still we strained together there, teetering and swaying, her wrists in my hands, her fingers bent into claws.
Wolf on a String Page 24
