The Bloodletter's Daughter (23 page)

M
ARKETA’S
C
HARM VS. THE
C
ODED
B
OOK

Doctor Mingonius quietly shut the heavy door. Don Julius was sleeping soundly.

The doctor sighed. It echoed through the empty halls of the castle. He shivered at the cold air that whispered back his regret.

He realized he had come to think of Rudolf’s son as a “problem,” not a man of flesh, bone, and spirit. This girl, a simple Bohemian bathmaid, had reduced Don Julius to hot tears. Even though his behavior was erratic and could be dismissed as a symptom of his lunacy and the imbalance of humors, there was something in his tears that moved Mingonius’s heart.

Certainly there was a man’s soul somewhere deep within the mad bastard, whose vile behavior had humiliated the most powerful sovereign of Europe. Could it be possible that the violent cruelty of Don Julius would be pierced and vanquished by love? He thought again, for a moment, of that young boy, the clocks that had fascinated him and the book he had treasured. Where had that boy gone?

As the physician stood in the palace corridor, he smelled the ancient wood, polished with coat upon coat of beeswax. He looked up at the gallery of Rozmberk portraits, powerful men and women who had inhabited this castle for centuries.

Doctor Mingonius contemplated their fine clothes and icy stares. Their glittering jewels and privileged scowls were preserved forever in the paintings. These Bohemian lords were the equal of kings within their own lands and their courts had numbered in the hundreds. Now the castle was devoid of merriment. Gone were the boisterous courtiers that had packed the halls and ballrooms. Only his solitary footsteps echoed in the hall.

He stopped in front of a haunting portrait, a pale blonde noblewoman, her hair in ringlets, in a white dress, with a long train that swept around her ankles. Who was she, he wondered, for she had a peculiar quality about her face that made him stop and study her alone among the dozens of portraits.

His finger rubbed his lip, and he again thought of his patient. Perhaps this was the time to bring him the Coded Book to study. Perhaps that was a path that could lead back to that young boy, lost within the madman. And perhaps now was the time, now that Don Julius’s spirit was softened by imagined love for a simple bathmaid.

Mingonius smiled. Barber Pichler had passed her off as a virgin to collect leeches. A bathmaid a virgin, at age sixteen—highly unlikely. The doctor knew full well how bathhouses operated and how destitute the townspeople of Krumlov were now that the Rozmberks had left the castle. They would do anything to scrape by and survive, including bartering the virginity of a maiden. Poor peasants could not afford moral scruples.

And yet, there was an honorable tradition about the women of the Bohemian baths. It was said that King Wenceslas himself, the father of Czech Christianity, would visit the bathhouse of Prague for trysts with a beautiful bathmaid, Suzanna, his most
beloved mistress. Some said that he took her as a lawful bride. Bathmaids were illustrated in the holy Wenceslas Bible, as the Bohemian king sought to raise their social status. Bohemian bathhouses were infused with a special significance that even the Catholic Church could not touch, let alone the Protestant Reformation.

And there was something special about this girl, Marketa. There was some mysterious quality she possessed that had touched Don Julius when nothing else could. And maybe he could take advantage of the prince’s obsession with Marketa, so jumbled up with the Coded Book and bathing women.

He would present the book as a reward and gain sway over his patient. Once Don Julius had engrossed himself in deciphering the text, he would have no interest in the fantasy of Marketa. His mind would be engaged in a more rational discipline. As he compiled his endless tables of syntax and semantics to decode the manuscript, science and rational thought would triumph!

It was at this moment that Doctor Mingonius realized he was jealous of Marketa, how she alone could command respect from Don Julius. But should the Coded Book replace her, then the doctor would regain his stature as the man who could cure the Royal Bastard of Prague.

One passion could easily replace another. If he presented the manuscript now, Don Julius would latch onto the book as a leech would a vein—and forget the bathmaid. Then the doctor would be in command, before the king’s ministers came to inspect and report back to Rudolf II.

Mingonius jumped. Out of the corner of his eye, he was sure he had seen the portrait of the lady in white move her hand. He reached an open palm for his racing heart, wild-eyed and gasping. He struggled to compose himself, taking deep breaths as his eyes fixed on the white hand of the woman in the portrait.

He was a rational man, and the steady, logical part of his mind focused defiantly on the painting, daring the woman to move again.

And of course she remained motionless, a figure in paint, forever pigment and shadow on canvas.

What is happening to me?
thought Doctor Mingonius.
I have always been a man of science. And yet here I am, like a flighty woman, imagining a painting has the ability to move! Pfah!

Still, to reassure himself and prove his scientific mind, he touched the raised oil paint with his fingers, tracing the swirls and shadowing of the woman’s white dress.

Fool!
he thought, shaking his head.
The sooner I give Don Julius the book and capture his attention, the sooner I will be in control. Then I can finish the bleedings and return to my family in Prague and the sciences of the court. The wilds of Bohemia are starting to wear on my nerves.

The physician walked swiftly down the hall toward his apartments to retrieve the book from the chest. He felt a prickle of the skin on his neck but refused to turn around to see if anyone was following him.

T
HE
R
OYAL
G
ARDENS OF
P
RAGUE

Late fall was always a sad time for Jakub Horcicky. The beauty of the royal gardens, the florid tangle of exotic blooms, faded and slowly died as the sun dimmed and the ground cooled with the first hard frosts of the season.

Jakub instructed his gardeners to cover the tulip bulbs with an extra layer of soil and horse manure, to protect the precious flowers from the harsh Bohemian cold. He had personally purchased these bulbs to augment the original strain dating from 1554. He had bought them from a Turkish trader from Constantinople, just as he had negotiated with a Syrian merchant to bring hyacinths and narcissi from the Middle East.

Jakub pruned back the grape vines and fruit trees himself, not trusting any other hands to touch the gnarled branches that had sprung miraculously from the northern soil, nurtured from seedlings and grafts with the tender love of Ferdinand I, King Rudolf’s grandfather.

Jakub sighed, leaning on his garden spade. Everything around him seemed to be dying. Or slumbering, he thought, checking his morbid thinking. It is time to rest, to nourish and prepare for spring, so many months away.

Redemption, he thought. Spring came no matter how dark and cruel the winter might be.

Jakub found himself thinking of the snowy winters in the monastery and the beauty of the little town of Krumlov under a white blanket of snow. He wondered how another beauty of Krumlov, the bathmaid Marketa, was faring with her study of Paracelsus. Her determination brought a smile to his face, though he knew how impossible her dream was.

Marketa had enchanted Jakub, he realized. As a botanist—director of the fantastic gardens of the emperor—whenever he encountered a new species of plant, he made a point of drawing it in his journal. He would carefully sketch the root system, the leaves, fruit, flowers, stems, seeds, the drooping tendrils. When he had seen Marketa that first morning in the bathhouse, he had the same urge—to draw her with her wild hair and luminous blue-gray eyes.

He remembered Marketa’s remarkable hands, so strong and capable on his back, coaxing the soreness from his body. And he thought how she had frozen before him, unable to wash between his legs as bathmaids were expected to do.

What a strange little bathmaid she was. How oddly innocent. He removed the latest letter from the pocket of his gardening coat and read it again.

My Dear Doctor Horcicky:

I read your letter with great interest, especially delighting in the news of Jan Jesenius’s public dissection. Ah, but Prague must be the jewel of the world. You are so privileged to live in such a city where science and reason reign.

The patient continues to change before our eyes. He has lost so much weight you would not recognize him. His body is fit from the hunt, and his eyes sparkle with health.

He speaks of love. I seem to be the object of his affection, as he continues to confuse me with a figure in a book he knew in his childhood. It may indeed be the Coded Book of Wonder, which you spoke of in your last letter.

Doctor Horcicky, you must not concern yourself with my welfare. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. You must not consider betraying our confidence and approaching Doctor Mingonius.

While I find some of the patient’s behavior despicable, I remind myself it is a product of the humors that poison his veins. He is not capable of reason, and for that I feel a certain sadness. He is adrift in his madness, a soul lost in the horror of his mind. Sometimes I see glimpses of a forlorn, lonely boy, begging for affection.

He is a human being, is he not, and thus worthy of our sympathy?

I hope this letter finds you well and serving our king in good faith.

Marketa Pichlerova

Jakub shivered as a cold wind from the north blew and rattled stiff branches of the apple tree above him. A shriveled apple fell to the ground, rolling and coming to rest near his feet.

How could Mingonius let her near Don Julius! Love? And what is love, in a madman’s eyes?

Surely this love could not be reciprocated!

Jakub remembered taking the girl’s trembling hands, slippery in soap, into his own. She had been so shy about touching him. What rudeness would she encounter now with Don Julius? The king’s son kept company with prostitutes and thieves; there
was no tenderness about him. What was this talk of a lost, forlorn boy?

About twenty paces from the fruit orchard was the fig-tree house, a stone building with a removable roof. The team of gardeners and workmen had replaced the roof for the approaching winter and were working on patching holes with slate tiles. They, too, looked up and faced the cold north wind, blowing from Poland.

Jakub entered the fig-tree house and drank in the rich scent of orange blossom. The humid breath of the tropical trees and plants enveloped his senses, their heady scent making him dizzy.

Here, among exotic botanical gifts and acquisitions from around the world, Jakub felt at peace. He liked to think of his accomplishments, how far he had come in his life. As a boy, he slept with a coarse blanket on the refectory floor and was fed scraps from the monks’ meager meals. He was not allowed to mingle with the townspeople, so, at age six, he might as well have been a monk himself.

And then he had met young Annabella, wandering the hills above Krumlov, searching for mushrooms. The two children became lifelong friends, their solitary natures and love of botany nourishing one another. The two never acknowledged each other in town, but they met in secret places in the forests to compare knowledge gleaned from nature and books.

Jakub was startled from his reverie by the petulant roars of Mohammed, the king’s pet lion, who begged to enter the warmth of the fig-tree house, clawing deep marks on the wooden door.

Ah, Mohammed
, thought Jakub.
Indulged by the king even more than his favorite mistress. How the king would suffer were he ever to lose you.

Never content to remain idle, Jakub’s fingers plucked the dead leaves from a mulberry tree, a gift from an Asian sultan.

How could a son of Rudolf II profess love for a simple country bathmaid? Impossible!

An ache stabbed his chest as he thought of Marketa’s bluesmoke eyes close to his face as she bathed him. How she had drawn back like a startled bird when he had smiled back at her. How she had stepped closer when his lips brushed hers.

Nonsense! Don Julius’s attention would fly away from her, for his thoughts were as errant as mountain winds. The bastard son did not know love. He knew nothing of tenderness.

Jakub’s gaze fell on the blossoming of a forced tulip in the greenhouse. He felt a stab of pain in his heart as he looked at the shiny, tender petals, red as blood.

He thought of the Dutch ambassador who first gazed upon a tulip here in the court of Rudolf II, more than a decade before. His eyes had shone with tears at the beauty of the blood-red flowers.