The Cabinet of Curiosities (13 page)

‘Where is it?’ The words were forced out between teeth clamped together in simmering rage.

‘I will show you. But, please, can we return to your chambers?’

The herald was waiting by the door. ‘We will present you with your item presently,’ said Anselmus with as much of a smile as he could muster.

As soon as they returned home Anselmus said, ‘Give it to me now.’

Lukas went to his bookshelf and held out the timepiece, knowing that would be the last time he would ever see it. Anselmus inspected it for damage, complaining, ‘Lord, I’ve not been a wicked man. Why are you punishing me so?’

He hurriedly wrapped it in thick velvet and placed it in a small wooden casket. ‘Give that to the herald, then come back here immediately.’

Lukas ran as fast as he could to the Cabinet corridor and handed over the container. When he emerged from the palace entrance he was torn as to what to do next. Flee, while he could, and seek out Etienne and his gang for board and lodging, or return to face the burning wrath of his uncle.

.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lukas paused at his uncle’s door, still paralysed with indecision. What if he had him arrested? What if he had him sent to the executioner’s block? What would Etienne do in his shoes? He would know Anselmus could not betray him, because it would bring ruin upon himself. Lukas pushed down the door handle and braced himself.

There was no shouting and raging. It was far worse. Anselmus had composed himself. His anger was stone cold and all the more terrible in its chilling certainty.

‘By your return to my quarters, I see you have rightly guessed that I am not going to report your act of larceny. It would destroy my own reputation, and I have spent too long, and worked too hard, establishing that.’

He paused and Lukas saw his chance to speak. ‘Uncle, I am so –’

‘Do not speak to me, Lukas Declercq,’ he said with menacing authority. ‘The palace executioner will not kill you, but you are dead to me. Your life here is over. In honour of your widowed mother and my poor dead brother, I will allow you a week to find yourself a job and living quarters away from the Castle. I will even pay a month’s wages to send you on your way.

‘I had my doubts from the start, but I wanted to give you a chance. I was too weak. Even when you failed to return money I gave you to buy goods from the apothecary, I indulged you.’

He pointed to the portrait of Thomas Declercq. ‘You have failed your father and you have failed me. Look at the poor man and ask yourself, “How can
I
, the son of such a noble father, have stooped so low?” I hear the tanner down the road from my sister’s house is looking for a boy. I suggest you go there at once.’

‘I shall go immediately, Uncle.’ Lukas’s brain was reeling. A part of him hoped his uncle would still forgive him. That seemed unlikely, given Anselmus’s parting words: ‘A job treating animal hides with dog excrement will suit you down to the ground.’

Lukas ran down the road away from the palace, hardly believing what had just happened to him. He looked to the sky with indignant disbelief. ‘Why have you thrown
this
at me?’ he asked the heavens. But he also felt a creeping sense of wretched contrition. There was no one else to blame. His own vanity and stupidity had cost him his life at the Castle.

As he reached the riverside road close to the western gatehouse of the great Stone Bridge, Lukas resolved he would not go to the tannery. He understood enough about what they did in those places to know that although he deserved it, he could not face a job like that.

He headed straight on into the centre of Prague. But luck had thoroughly deserted him that day. He tried the market stallholders, the merchants, even the riverside sawmill works, but no one had a job for him. Etienne and his friends were nowhere to be seen.

Lukas bought a flagon of ale and a gristly stew in a tavern off the Old Town Square and felt very sorry for himself. As he drank his ale he began to feel his uncle was doing him an injustice. He had been planning to put the timepiece back. He knew he had done wrong. In another day no one would have known anything about it.

He returned at dusk, with the Castle glowing pink in the last of the sun, its sharp edges and pointed towers stark against the fading blue and first stars of the evening sky. This he was being cast out of, to live with the carrion birds in the city below. He bit his lip to stop himself from sobbing.

Anselmus was sitting at the table, his half-eaten supper left before him. Otka stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders, and glared at Lukas. Anselmus had told her.

‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘may I speak with you alone?’

‘You may not.’

‘Uncle,’ pleaded Lukas, ‘I wish to explain myself. Please allow me to do so without –’

Anselmus interrupted. ‘And why should I spare you the humiliation of pleading for your position in front of my loyal and decent servant?’

Lukas began to explain himself. ‘I realised I had done wrong. I was going to put the timepiece back tomorrow.’ He expected Anselmus to tell him to shut up, but his uncle sat there in silence. ‘If the herald had not come, no one would have known. I would still have my apprenticeship and you would still have your apprentice. Have I not been useful to you, Uncle?’ he pleaded. ‘Have I not been a good pupil?’

Anselmus spoke in the cold, measured tones he had used earlier in the day. ‘An apprentice must be more than a diligent scholar and a quick learner. He must have the trust of his master. You are a boy with no common decency, Lukas. How can I trust you again?’

Something in Lukas snapped. ‘You are a fine one to talk about decency,’ he said, emboldened by the ale he had drunk. ‘I’ve seen you with Otka.’

Anselmus went white with rage. ‘What sort of vile beast has my brother raised?’ he spluttered. ‘There is nothing improper about our relationship. But since you have had the impertinence to raise it, I shall tell you that Otka is my daughter. She is a simple girl, and very young for her years. She works for me here so I can protect her.’

Lukas wanted the ground to open up and swallow him, as it was supposed to do if you raised the Devil and he carried you back to hell.

‘Taking you into my home has been a grave mistake,’ said Anselmus. ‘You will leave here by sundown tomorrow. Your contract with me is ended. I do not wish to set eyes upon you again, or hear you speak another word, for the rest of my life.’

.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next morning Lukas got up, determined to go to the tannery. He was a day away from begging on the streets.

‘Where are you going?’ said Anselmus coldly, as Lukas prepared to leave.

‘The tannery,’ said Lukas. ‘Yesterday they told me the master was away –’ he lied so easily these days – ‘and that I should come back today.’

‘You can go later,’ said Anselmus. ‘For now I have a final job for you. My sister has been brought to Daliborka Tower. The cells are cold and damp when the braziers are unlit. Go and fetch a shawl from her house. And be quick. I have spoken with the guards, but they will change in an hour. The new ones might not be so kind.’

Lukas hurried down to Elfriede’s place. Her house was cold – even in summer it needed a fire to keep off the damp of the river. The smell inside had changed too. In Elfriede’s absence, things were already going mouldy. Lukas looked into the gloomy galley kitchen to see if there was anything he could throw away. He gathered up some meat and a couple of lemons and opened the window to let out the cloud of flies that infested the place.

Marushka the cat leaped in at once and prowled around his ankles, begging for food. He gave her some of the meat and bent down to stroke her. ‘You need a new home, my girl,’ he said. ‘Someone else to make a fuss of you.’

It was good to have the window open. Elfriede still had opaque oiled paper in her frames rather than glass and Lukas could see much better in natural light. Yet even with the window open there was still an odd smell. He looked around. There in the corner of the kitchen a pile of barley stalks caught his eye. Some of them had already been crushed for flour. Lukas could smell something fishy about them. Something rotten and fishy. He looked closer and saw black spores in among the grains.

This reminded him of something that had happened far, far back in his childhood. His father had been involved. And the town physician. Why was he remembering it now? That smell had kindled an ungraspable memory.

He hurried back with the shawl, trying desperately to remember why it was so important.

‘Uncle,’ he said on his return, ‘there’s something I need to tell you.’

‘There’s nothing you have to say that will interest me,’ Anselmus snapped. ‘Now, take the shawl to the tower at once, assuming you can prevent yourself from stealing it. Ask for Kamil, and be sure you give it to him. He has an elderly mother too, the same age as your aunt. He has a kind heart.’

Kamil, Lukas discovered, was the same guard who had brought him food and spoken to him so gently when he had been held prisoner in the tower.

Back at his uncle’s quarters he felt even more determined to speak to him about Aunt Elfriede’s rotten flour. But when he tried again, Anselmus turned his back.

‘Uncle, please listen.’

Anselmus opened the door for him to leave.

Lukas stormed out, slamming the door violently. As he hurried down the stairs he muttered that they could burn his aunt at the stake. He didn’t care.

.

As he roamed the Castle, trying to calm down, fragments of memory came back to Lukas. That smell, the black dots in the grain – it was to do with a horrible sickness. It was a strange illness – with attacks of the flux, and a terrible burning under the skin, but also bizarre visions.

He could remember no more, but he returned to his uncle’s quarters determined to be heard.

‘Uncle, please listen to me.’

Anselmus started to shout him down, but Lukas continued talking.

‘I have something to tell you that might help Aunt Elfriede.’

Anselmus stopped and stared at him. His eyes were burning with resentment.

‘In Ghent we had something like it. I remember a bit about it. But I was very young.’

‘Like what?’ Anselmus snapped.

‘Horrible nightmares, but when you’re awake. Like what Aunt Elfriede was talking about. And burning under the skin.’

‘And what happened?’

‘I can’t remember. I just . . . when I was at Auntie’s house there was a strange smell in the kitchen – rotten fish. But there was no fish about.’

‘So what? She lives very close to the river. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Uncle, please come with me to have a look. There’s barley in the kitchen with black mould on it. I’m sure that has got something to do with it. I remember exactly the same thing in Ghent. People accused of witchcraft – it was awful. But the town physician was a very learned man. He said something, something to the magistrates . . . I can’t remember any more.’

Anselmus nodded his head. Then he reached for a couple of hefty volumes and handed one of them, a medical encyclopedia, to Lukas.

‘Look up “Devil’s Fire” in there,’ he said.

Anselmus had a botanical compendium and was searching though the entry for barley.

‘Did the ears look like this?’ he said, showing Lukas a beautifully drawn illumination of barley stalks with blackened grains.

‘Uncle, come and see for yourself.’ Lukas hurriedly turned a few pages. ‘Look here in Devil’s Fire.’ He pointed to the encyclopedia entry. There, among other symptoms of lunacy, were flights of fancy and burning under the skin. It said it might be due to poisoning, but was vague about the causes.

‘Come,’ said Anselmus, and they hurried to the house. Halfway down the hill Anselmus returned for a jar. ‘I want to take the grain away. I need to see what’s happening to it.’

As they walked back, Anselmus said, ‘You have disappointed me greatly, Lukas, but I am grateful to you for your help. I shall have something good to remember you by, after you have gone.’

Lukas didn’t know what to say to that. But he was keen to know what his uncle planned to do. ‘Might I ask what will happen now?’ he said meekly.

‘I shall examine the grain, and prepare a case to present to His Highness. The Emperor does not usually involve himself in charges of witchcraft. Such cases are invariably left to the Inquisition and the town magistrates. But I shall use my position. He values me, and when he returns we shall have to see if I can persuade him to intervene. I hope I catch him when his mind is steady. He has recently been in the darkest of humours.’

‘Do you know when he is coming back?’

‘Perhaps in a week. He is rarely away from the Castle, so I cannot imagine he will remain longer at his lodge, unless the weather stays as fine as it has been. We must pray for rain.’

‘And when will they start to question Auntie?’ asked Lukas.

‘It could be a week, it could be a day. Perhaps I should tell her to admit to everything they accuse her of to spare her from torture. Then perhaps the Emperor will intervene before sentence is carried out.’

Anselmus fell into silence. Then he said, ‘You may stay for now. You have been useful. But you will go once this has been resolved.’

Otka had been watching the goings-on with uncharacteristic interest. When Anselmus and Lukas left the room, she examined the barley ears they had brought back. There were black spores in them – just like the ones she had found in the flour she had had to throw away.

.

Anselmus was in luck. Rudolph returned two days later and summoned his favourite physician at once for a routine medical inspection. Anselmus broke every rule of palace etiquette, trusting the Emperor would forgive him on this occasion.

Anselmus came back very late from his audience. He looked drawn.

Lukas feared the worst. But what he heard came as a shock.

‘His Majesty has said he will suspend the Inquisition proceedings while further investigations are carried out. Unfortunately these investigations involve a dangerous experiment. He has decreed that three of his best natural philosophers, and the Grand Inquisitor, should serve as witnesses while someone partakes of the infected grains. If they exhibit similar symptoms, then Aunt Elfriede will go free. If they do not, then the Inquisition will proceed with their questioning.

‘Of course I volunteered to take the poison. But His Majesty would not hear of it. I begged, but he said he was not prepared to lose his best physician, and besides, the Inquisition would say that I was acting out the symptoms in order to save my sister.’

‘Then I shall do it,’ said Lukas. ‘It will be my penance for stealing the timepiece.’

Anselmus shook his head. ‘No, I cannot permit it. Besides, we do not know the amount Elfriede ingested. She may have had but a little. And you may have too much and die.’

‘Uncle Anselmus,’ pleaded Lukas, ‘who else will put themselves forward for such a dangerous trial? Please, I must do it. It is the only way I can atone for my misdeed.’