The Bloodletter's Daughter (14 page)

At the same time the abbot sat drinking tea with Carlos Felipe, Doctor Mingonius addressed Pichler in the antechambers of the first courtyard. It was in these rooms that the Rozmberk astrologers and alchemists—at one time, more than a hundred—had practiced their craft, and some of the old glass and copper distilleries and assorted beakers remained, covered now with dust.

“I do not yet have permission to bleed Don Julius. The king is reluctant to proceed in these areas of science. Still, I expect to procure his permission,” said Doctor Mingonius, pacing the
stone floors. “If I am not able to attend to the bleeding personally in the months to come, I would like to know I have a competent barber-surgeon who could act in my stead. I shall initiate the process and complete the first moon’s cycle and then know you will be here to follow my example during the winter months.”

“Thank you, Herr Doctor. I am humbly grateful for your faith in me.”

“You have been highly recommended by Herr Weiss at the guild in Vienna. He says that you have a sharp mind and intuitive nature. I warn you that Don Julius will not be an easy patient. Especially as the moon waxes—his humors turn deadly.”

Pichler remembered the night in the street when he had to apply a tourniquet to a man to stanch the bleeding and save his life. All because he dared to throw a garment over Don Julius’s naked buttocks.

“Yes. I realize that Don Julius will not be an amenable patient.”

“Indeed, but we must balance his humors if we are to cure him and the festering wound he has inflicted on the empire. And think what credence will be achieved when the people realize that science can cure a man’s soul and temperament!”

Pichler nodded.

“Yes. Of course, Herr Doctor.”

“We shall examine the patient together first thing tomorrow, before he has had time to eat his breakfast. That will be the best time to diagnose his humors.”

Pichler arrived at the gates of the palace before sunrise the next day. He could hear the bears in the moat grunting in the dark, feasting on the bones of a calf, along with the scrabbling of rats
as they gnawed on bits that fell from the toothless jaws of the oldest bears.

“Barber Pichler,” said the guard, Miklos Chaloupka, scratching his red nose in the cold morning air. Chaloupka was a frequent visitor to the bathhouse and an even more frequent visitor to Radek’s tavern. “You come early. Enter.”

The iron and wood-plank doors creaked as two sentinels opened them to admit the visitor. The burly guard nodded to him.

“Wait here, I will tell them that you have arrived,” he said, leaving Pichler alone in the courtyard.

Wispy patches of clouds raced over the moon. A muted silver light danced on the gray stone of the castle, painted to mimic the marble of a faraway Italian palazzo. The barber lifted his eyes to the second story, where a pale light spilled out the leaded-glass windows.

Pichler’s eyes widened and blinked in the cool air as he saw a woman there, dressed in a fine white dress in a style of an earlier century. She stood by an open window, pale and fair, with an elegant air that would seem to be that of a Rozmberk. But they had all departed, he thought. Surely they would not leave behind a woman such as this, not under the same roof as a madman. But in his heart he knew she was no living Rozmberk. He had seen her once before, when he was a child.

She turned away, toward a closed door behind her. She hovered near the door, perhaps listening. She stood alone in grace, but seemed to have a strong interest in what lay beyond the door.

The White Lady looked over her shoulder to the courtyard, turned, walked to the window again, and looked directly at Pichler, raising her candle so it illuminated her pale face and black gloves.

“The Spanish priest will see you now,” announced the guard from the doorway. “Pan Pichler, what are you looking at there in the darkness?”

The bewildered barber could not utter a word, but pointed his finger in the direction of the apparition.

The moon cleared a tattered rag of cloud and illuminated the courtyard and the castle. Pichler felt foolish as he pointed at an empty corridor beyond an open window. He could see no one now.

“How did you know which room housed Don Julius?” whispered the guard. “Keep it to yourself, Barber. The priest will think I told you.”

With this conspiratorial whisper, the big guard ushered the stammering barber-surgeon into the cold, dark corridors of Rozmberk Castle.

Although Pichler had spent time in Vienna and had been born in the shadow of Rozmberk Castle, he had never dreamt of the opulence within those stone walls. The fine tapestries and thick velvet curtains astonished him, their rich colors and designs too intricate for his eyes to absorb in one glance. The walls were covered with a plush fabric that raised the five-petaled rose, Rozmberk’s seal, exquisitely in each panel. Portraits of elegant lords and ladies were weakly illuminated by the elaborate sconces. Sparkling crystal chandeliers twinkled in the relative darkness.

The floors gave off the rich odor of beeswax, and his worn leather soles squeaked on their immaculate surface, heralding his approach. He wondered if the sound was scorned by the aristocracy—perhaps their own kid-leather slippers glided silently across such a finished surface. The dark wood and heavy furniture—secretaries, tables, great spiral-armed chairs—stood guard in the shadows of the room. Each one was grander than the next. He entered one room painted with biblical scenes: Abraham sacrificing his son, Lot being tempted by his daughters. What
strange themes to decorate the walls. Sacrifice and sin. Were these concerns of the noble families who had lived here?

He stopped, staring at the painted scenes until the candles of the attendants left them in the shadows.

The coffered ceiling displayed the gilded five-petal roses carved into wooden panels. He spun around slowly, mesmerized by the grandeur and opulence.

He felt a gentle but firm grasp at his shoulder.

“Pan Barber—we must continue. The priest is waiting.”

Pichler swallowed hard and shook his head mildly, trying to compose his wits. He had almost forgotten why he had been summoned to the castle.

The door was open to the assembly room. A long, narrow table took up most of the available space. In the corner, an enormous ceramic-tiled stove, measuring the girth and height of three men, crackled and spat as it churned out heat for many rooms and corridors beyond. The barber marveled at the smooth white surface of the behemoth. A necessity for the cold Bohemian winters in such a vast rambling drafty castle, its surprising warmth in the early morning of an autumn day was a stunning luxury.

At the head of the table, his head bowed over a large tome, sat the Spanish priest, writing fiercely with a quill. He looked up and studied Pichler before finally uttering a meager greeting in his nasal Castilian accent.

“Ah, Herr Barber. The good doctor Mingonius will join us shortly. I am afraid he may not be accustomed to rising so early as we Jesuits.”

He smiled at his insult to the Protestant doctor and made a little temple of his hands.

Pichler waited for an invitation to sit. He stood, shifting his weight on his feet.

“You come highly recommended from the barber-surgeon guild in Vienna, I am told. Doctor Mingonius was surprised at
your qualifications and good reputation with that establishment in such Bohemian wilds, so far from any cultured metropolis.”

“You are very kind, Father,” said Pichler, tightening his lips at the insult to his town. “I try to learn what I can in my practice and trips to Vienna and Prague.”

Carlos Felipe ventured a sour smile, not much of a welcome, thought Pichler, watching the priest’s nose wrinkle as if he had a whiff of a foul smell. Then the priest turned and gestured over his shoulder to the window, high above the Vltava River.

“And you live just below us, do you not? The bathhouse at the side of the river.”

Pichler walked near the priest, still not having been invited to sit down. He smoothed his cloak so it would not hook on the empty straight-back chair and approached the window.

“Yes, just there. I can see the candles burning in the kitchen as my wife makes breakfast and boils the cauldrons to wash the sheets and heat the bathwater. I could hit the window with a rock if you were to give me one. Ah, how she would be surprised!”

The priest did not acknowledge the attempt at levity. Instead he pursed his lips sourly. The barber’s skin smelled of sweet rosemary and ale, more like a woman than a man. Carlos Felipe had heard how the Bohemians bathed often, steeping their bodies in barrels of hot water and herbs. He thought that such a custom of regular baths was barbaric and unnatural, an affront to God who made a man sweat honestly and copiously in the first place. Water was for baptism and holy sacrament, not for soaking a man’s body.

And they bathed communally with women! These Bohemians were incorrigible. Even the pope did not know how to expunge their sinful habits.

Meanwhile, Pichler smelled the rancid sweat of the priest’s cassock and turned his head to find a breath of fresh air. What a foul odor, he thought. To receive visitors, reeking the way he did,
was offensive. But then this was a foreigner, and he had heard of the strange customs of these Latin people, how they consumed vast quantities of garlic, spicy sausage, and acidic red wines that burned the throat and the stomach.

He thought fleetingly of offering his wife’s services to scrub the odor from the rough cloth and hang it to dry in the fresh fall air. She would add plenty of dried thyme to the wash, perhaps lavender. He could see her bending over the garment, sniffing the coarse fabric like a hound to check that it was sweet-smelling at last and all traces of bodily odor had been banished.

Pichler did not smile at the priest. The Spaniard’s manner was cold and even hostile, for he had not extended his hand nor had he even yet invited his guest to sit. Pichler did not know why he had to deal with the foreign clergy at all, especially as this was not a spiritual matter but a medical affair. The Church always got in the way of science, fettering progress, scowling at new knowledge.

And Jesuits were the worst.

The two men eyed each other in silence.

“Ah, good,” said Mingonius, sweeping into the room, “I see you two have met.” His face was bright pink from the ice-cold water he had splashed on it, and his skin flushed even more in the heat of the room.

“You are very good to come,” he went on, extending his hand. “And so early in the morning. These Jesuits keep the most ungodly hours!” He threw a quick look at the priest, hunched again over his papers in the corner. “But then, it’s a hard task keeping pace with God.”

Carlos Felipe gave the doctor a withering look, his cold gray eyes looking down his aquiline nose.

“Your remarks border on blasphemy, may I warn you, Doctor Mingonius.”

“Only border? Well, it is still early. I am out of practice. Herr Pichler, would you like some ale for breakfast? A bit of bread and cheese, some soup, perhaps? I am afraid that is about all we can offer, for our rations are meager here. We seem to be forced, one way or another, to adhere to Don Julius’s regimen, although I cannot for the love of God understand why we should.”