I also owe it to the reader to separate the historical characters from my invented ones. Among the latter are Christian Stern, Jeppe Schenckel—who appeared in a somewhat different guise in John Banville’s novel Kepler—Felix Wenzel, Magdalena Kroll and Jan Madek, Sir Kaspar and his sidekick Norbert the page boy, and, my favorite of all of them, sweet Serafina.
The Emperor Rudolf of course existed, however larger than life he may have been, as did John Dee and Edward Kelley, ditto.
Elizabeth Jane Weston was indeed Kelley’s stepdaughter, and in later years in Prague she was much admired as a poet—she deserves a novel all to herself.
There was a papal nuncio at Rudolf’s court named Germanico Malaspina, but so far as I know, he was nothing like my sly gourmand; I simply could not resist that wonderful surname.
Oswald Croll, one of the emperor’s specialists, wrote a highly respected alchemical treatise, Basilica Chymica. Again, the historical Dr. Croll bears scant resemblance to my “Ulrich Kroll.”
Philipp Lang was real, and very much so. A converted Jew, he was originally from the Tyrol but quickly got himself to Prague, where he started off as the emperor’s valet and rose quickly to the position of chamberlain. Peter Marshall writes that as Lang’s power grew, he became increasingly “impudent and indispensable,” feeding his imperial master’s already paranoid conviction that Prague was teeming with assassins bent on destroying him, most likely at the behest of his feared and hated brother, the Archduke Matthias. However, when Matthias moved against Rudolf in 1608—Matthias was to become emperor in 1612, in turn succeeded by Ferdinand II, one of the chief instigators of the Thirty Years’ War—Lang fell from grace, and he died penniless in prison in 1609 or 1610.
Don Julius of Austria—Don Giulio—was Rudolf’s illegitimate son, and the favorite among his children. However, the young man was psychotic, and so violent in his behavior that his father banished him to Český Krumlov, in southern Bohemia. There, according to Peter Marshall, he “spent his days in hunting and debauchery,” while by night, according to another source, his demented screams could be heard echoing along the castle corridors. In 1608 he kidnapped a barber’s daughter, whom he raped and held hostage, until the castle servants, alarmed by the girl’s cries, forced the door to Don Giulio’s room and, again according to Marshall, found her “hacked to pieces with a hunting knife, her eyes gouged out, her teeth broken and her ears cut off,” a-sprawl in the embrace of her captor, who was “naked and covered in excrement.” Some months later Don Giulio died, “in mysterious circumstances.”
The most grievous calumny in the book is committed against “Caterina Sardo,” who in real life was Katharina Strada, Rudolf’s lifelong mistress and the mother of his six children, including Don Giulio. Katharina, the daughter of the imperial art collector and curator Ottavio Strada, was by all accounts a perfectly respectable lady, peaceable and self-effacing, and a mainstay in the life of His Imperial and increasingly dotty Majesty. Considering the portrait I have painted of this innocent and long-suffering lady, I felt that the least I could do was to give her a pseudonym, however transparent. Mea culpa.
Benjamin Black
ALSO BY BENJAMIN BLACK
Even the Dead
The Black-Eyed Blonde
Holy Orders
Vengeance
A Death in Summer
Elegy for April
The Silver Swan
Christine Falls
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BENJAMIN BLACK is the pen name of the Man Booker Prize–winning novelist John Banville. The author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed series of Quirke novels—as well as The Black-Eyed Blonde, a Philip Marlowe novel—he lives in Dublin. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
Henry Holt and Company ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Author’s Note
Also By Benjamin Black
About the Author
Copyright
WOLF ON A STRING. Copyright © 2017 by Benjamin Black. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.henryholt.com
Cover design by Karen Horton
Photograph © Miguel Manzancro / Arcangel
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Black, Benjamin, 1945– author.
Title: Wolf on a string: a novel / Benjamin Black.
Description: First edition. | New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016029320 | ISBN 9781627795173 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781627795180 (electronic book)
Subjects: LCSH: Prague (Czech Republic)—History—16th century—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical. | FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Suspense. | GSAFD: Historical fiction. | Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6052.A57 W65 2017 | DDC 823/.914—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016029320
e-ISBN: 9781627795180
First Edition: June 2017
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Wolf on a String Page 29
