The Bloodletter's Daughter (18 page)

Marketa took rapid, shallow breaths as she was led through the grandeur of the halls. Never had she imagined such beauty on earth as she saw that day. The paintings in golden frames, the burnished woods of inlaid furniture. Velvets, plush and richly colored. The parquet floors and the carpets—carpets that she dared not walk on, until the guard smiled at the girl and insisted.

“That’s what they are there for, girl,” he said. “Plant your foot on them and walk. They will not disintegrate!”

Before Marketa reached Don Julius’s room, she could smell the sickness. There was an odor of evil humor—like hot vinegar.

Her father watched her as she sniffed the air.

“You can smell it, can you not?”

“Yes, Father.”

“It’s the yellow bile. He reeks of imbalance.”

Doctor Mingonius stood outside the room. He greeted her with the air of a fond uncle.

“So this is the fair Marketa, the only one to whom Don Julius will offer his blood. You have charmed a Hapsburg, my dear. Congratulations.”

Marketa winced and dropped her gaze.

Doctor Mingonius held out his hand to her as if she were a man. She looked at her father, who nodded his consent.

She shook the famous physician’s hand and felt the firmness.

“Forgive me for being so indelicate,” he said, his voice softening. “Your father tells me that you are an assiduous student of Galen’s medicine.”

“I am devoted to it,” Marketa said, raising her eyes to meet his. “And also to the studies and medicines of Paracelsus.”

Doctor Mingonius drew a breath as if startled by her affirmation. Then he offered a quick smile.

“Unusual for a girl. A fascination with science, that is.”

Then his face grew serious.

“Today you will have the opportunity to observe a very sick patient. I have agreed that you are to assist us only because the king’s son has been so reluctant to seek medical intervention. I have had to bribe him, if you will. I am negotiating with a lunatic.”

At this remark, the doctor stuck out his lower lip. It was a stubborn but troubled face, as if he were wrestling with something in his mind.

“You must remember, Marketa, do not speak to him, no matter how he pleads. If he is unseemly or rude, you must avert your eyes and block your ears. He is sick—very sick—and has no manners with young women, despite his upbringing. He can seem to be the prince that he is, our king’s eldest son. And he can be a sad, lost child. But his behavior is mercurial, and when he is possessed by the choleric humors as he is now, he is as vulgar as a grave digger and as dangerous as a mad dog.”

Pichler coughed.

“Yes, well. We must begin. I will ask you to wait. Perhaps we can begin treatment without you—perhaps he will forget that you were to accompany us.”

The doctor motioned to the guard, who in turn knocked on the door.

“The doctors are here,” he said as another guard opened the heavy door a crack.

“Let us get him seated to receive them.”

A harsh shout pierced the air. “The sons of whores can cut out their own vitals! Leave me in peace.”

Doctor Mingonius squared his shoulders and walked into the room.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice booming and bright. Marketa’s father glanced at her, put a finger to his lips, and gave her the satchel with his knives and the bucket of leeches nestled in wet grass and muddy water. Then he disappeared into the room.

Marketa waited in the hall, feeling like a trussed-up goose ready for the oven. Her breasts were squeezed under the tight fabric of the bodice, and her mother’s shoes pinched her toes. She felt foolish dressed up in a
kroj
when she was used to a simple dress in her father’s practice or a plain white shift in the bathhouse.

The guard, an occasional customer at the bathhouse, licked his teeth and winked at her. Marketa looked him straight in the eye, smoldering with anger. She was here to assist in the medical procedure. How dare he treat her like a bathmaid? After an uncomfortable moment, he lowered his gaze and studied the parquet floor.

The howls of protest persisted in the room. There were shouts and curses from Don Julius, his guards, and perhaps even the two men of medicine.

The door opened and Zigmund Pichler came out. His neat hair had been mussed, and there was a deep scratch down his cheek.

“Father, you are hurt!”

“Marketa,” he said, ignoring her remark. “Doctor Mingonius has asked you to please enter.”

He took the satchel from her and motioned ahead, the blood making little rivulets down his jaw.

“Stay as far away from him as you can, even when holding the trays. Extend your arms to catch the blood, but keep the rest of your body out of reach of his teeth. He is fettered now, but should he come loose, he is very fast. Be ready to jump aside and run for the door.”

He was breathing raggedly, still catching his breath. “He is consumed by yellow bile, the choleric humor, and is deadly dangerous.”

Marketa entered the room, and in the corner by the great window that looked out over the river and their bathhouse sat Don Julius, bound to a heavy carved chair. He heard Marketa’s steps and turned his head to see her.

Don Julius was still stout, though leaner than weeks before. He was a Hapsburg, she could see that at once. His lower lip hung loose, full and red. But mercifully he had inherited his mother’s reported good looks as well, the Italian chiseled nose and fine cheekbones. He had an oval face, thoroughly royal, and sharp green-blue eyes that darted restlessly.

“Now, here is something worth looking at!” he snapped.

His eyes flashed at Marketa, and she watched as his right hand strained against the rope toward his groin.

Marketa dropped her gaze, her face flushing red-hot. Her father moved nearer to her, clenching his fists at his side.

“She will attend us now, Don Julius, in your bleeding, and you shall behave as a gentleman,” said Doctor Mingonius. “Or she shall depart.”

“No!” shouted Don Julius, his hands struggling against the ropes. He squinted at Marketa as if she were perhaps someone he knew. A wave of emotion registered on his face.

A sudden innocence softened his countenance, as if he were a little boy once again.

“I know you!” he said in a whisper, the ropes tightening as he leaned toward Marketa. “You are queen of the book, the Angel of the Baths!”

“What’s he talking about, Father?” Marketa said under her breath. She trembled as she heard this Hapsburg call her a queen and angel.

“It is the humors speaking, Marketa. Look lively and stay out of his reach.”

Don Julius had lost all color and his mouth hung open. He began to mutter under his breath and rock his body back and forth in the chair where he was bound.

Doctor Mingonius approached, but was careful not to touch him. Instead he spoke in a kind voice as if he were addressing a small child.

“This is the barber-surgeon’s daughter, Don Julius. Remember, you insisted she visit with Herr Pichler. Perhaps it is too much company for one day,” he said, signaling for her to leave the room with a nod of his head.

“No!” wailed Don Julius. A shrill voice, the haunting scream of a dying rabbit. “Noooooo! I shall
die
if you take this heavenly creature from me, I swear it! She is one of the angels from the book, come to speak the secrets of the universe at last!”

Marketa looked at her father, suddenly terrified. The man was truly mad!

She heard the door groan as someone entered.

“Come now, Don Julius. You have only just met her. Women have never stolen your heart,” said a black-robed priest, coming in the open door. “You abuse them and take devilish pleasure in their tears.”

“Shut up, Jesuit! You will scare her away!” whispered Don Julius. “She is from a different world and possesses unspeakable powers.”

“You should have announced your presence,” said the doctor in a cold voice. “I thought we agreed that I would care for his body and you his soul. Please leave at once.”

“The king has asked that I witness the first bleeding,” the priest said simply, sitting on the edge of a taffeta-covered chair. “His Majesty wants to see that you in no way mistreat his son and that he does not endure any treatment to which he does not give his express consent.”

The priest studied Marketa with cold eyes. His pinched look was foreign to her, and she could barely understand his German through his thick Castilian accent.

“She is hardly a beauty,” he said finally, examining the girl as if she were a stick of wood. “Far too thin. She has the mottled hair of a fox! Still, she seems to have captured Don Julius’s attention. Am I correct?”

“You fool! I worship her as you do your God!” Don Julius said. “I have watched her for weeks now from the window, those honeyed tresses. Come to me, my angel,” he cried, turning to Marketa.

His arms wrenched against the ropes; the hemp bit into his skin. “Tell me how you walked off the parchment to be at my side.”

Marketa stared at him in astonishment and remained immobile.

“See what the humors have done to his mind?” muttered Doctor Mingonius. “Don Julius,” he said in a loud voice, “there are no women in the palace because your sickness leaves you with beastlike tendencies and you forget your royal manners. But if you behave, we will be able to employ maids from the village to make fine things for you—breads, sweets, music. We will then unlock the door and let you walk the courtyards and gardens. And you may gaze once more upon your Coded Book.”

Don Julius snarled at the doctor and snapped like a mad dog. Then he turned his eyes up to Marketa. The sudden bad humor that clenched his face melted like ice in strong sunlight.

“You must be of vellum and paint, but you appear so mortal. Let me touch her, I beg of you, Doctor!”

“No. There will be no touching,” said Mingonius.

“She is my heart and has been since the day I was born when my father bought the book for me,” he said. “Six hundred and fifty ducats, he paid, a royal sum. ‘Someday you will make me proud, my son.’ Proud, he said! ‘You will learn the Hermetic principles, the Kabbalah, and the secret Elixir of Life—’”

Don Julius broke off muttering, his eyes staring at nothing. He seemed to have forgotten them completely.

“A very impressive book, indeed,” said Doctor Mingonius, examining his patient as he spoke, noting his color, his rigidity. He even stooped to smell him.

Don Julius’s eyes had grown large, the whites exposed like a horse frightened by a fire. He twitched periodically, and a tremor ran down the right side of his face. He rubbed his fingertips mechanically, as if he had grains of sand between them.

“She possesses the very secrets of the universe. I must touch her!” he said, suddenly lunging and making the ropes cut against his flesh. The guards secured the chair, holding it in place.

“Well, she is about to go away,” said Mingonius. He motioned for Marketa to leave.

“No!” Don Julius shrieked, struggling against the guards and making the heavy wooden chair hop across the floor. Marketa jumped back in horror and willed herself not to run for the door.

“She will go away immediately unless you are cooperative. If you allow us to bleed you, she will come near.”

“How near?” the mad prince said, suddenly stopping his struggles.

“Close enough.”

Don Julius looked heavenward as if hearing a voice.

“Yes, by God. I will spill my blood for her in sacrifice.”

“That will not be necessary. The fleam and leeches shall do that for us.”

“Leeches?”

“Yes,” said Pichler. “We have brought fresh leeches to dispel your injurious humors. They will purify the regions of concentrated poison the fleam cannot touch.”

“Remember, Don Julius,” said Doctor Mingonius. “We discussed this last night.”

“I will not let you fasten those loathsome creatures to my veins!” He struggled against the ropes again. “A common worm to sup on Hapsburg blood! Jesuit, you are my witness. I refuse treatment from these frauds! Cut the ropes that bind me at once or I shall tell my father of this torture!”

Doctor Mingonius flicked a glance at Pichler. The doctor knew he was about to lose.

Marketa lingered in the doorway. The words that emerged from her lips surprised her.

“Do not worry, Don Julius.”

“Marketa!” whispered her father. “Do not address him.”

“They drank of my blood only yesterday,” she said. She walked to the prince’s chair where he could see her better and her scent could reach his nostrils. He reminded her of a horse in his stall, thrashing about to free himself. She approached him cautiously, whispering to him gently, and he quieted.

“All you will feel is the slightest prick, and then it is as if you are drunk with strong spirits. There is no further pain, my lord, I swear it is so.”

Don Julius stared at her, his green eyes scanning her features. He cocked his head, turning his ear toward the sound of Marketa’s voice.

“She speaks like an angel of God! Listen!”

“Blasphemy!” snarled the priest. “Guards, untie him. He has refused bloodletting, and I am his witness.”

“Silence,” ordered the doctor. “This is not your domain, Priest!” He looked at Marketa as if realizing something for the first time. “Yes, Don Julius,” he said, nodding toward Marketa. “Yes, these same mouths have kissed the skin of this fair Bohemian maiden, just as she says.”

It took a second for the doctor’s words to dawn on the king’s son. Then a lopsided smile emerged on his face, growing slowly.

“If these worms have touched your skin and carry the precious elixir of your body,” he said, staring at her, “may they mix our bloods together, may we be conjoined forever! I shall have the secret of the Coded Book and an angel as my wife.”

A shiver rocked the girl. Her breast grew cold at the thought.

“Pichler,” whispered the doctor. “Bring your implements and the leeches at once.”

“Oh God! What a blessing you have sent with this angel!” cried Don Julius, clenching his fists in prayer. “Open my veins and let them receive.”

“Hold him tight,” her father warned the guards.

Pichler’s hand dipped down into the torn grasses and extracted a moist brown leech. Its round mouth sucked the air, and Marketa could see the tiny, file-like teeth inside.