He squatted above the goose, wondering whether he could simply bury it in red-hot coals when he noticed Anath standing above him with a small loaf of bread in her hand. Hrot was so surprised at the sight of the bread he shot to his feet. The ceiling was much lower at the back of the vault, and he banged his head.
When she saw him stagger and rub the sore spot, Anath bit her lower lip so as not to laugh. “It will take a long time to roast the goose,” she said as she gave him the loaf. “It would be a torture for a hungry man. Eat the bread first.”
Hrot gulped and gave her a grateful smile. Forgetting about the fowl, he scurried toward the warmth of the fire, sat on the floor, and bored his teeth into the loaf. The bread was stale and the chewing exhausting, but he finally felt warm and full. He was too tired to even lift his head to see what Anath was doing. He ate with his eyes closed, cherishing every moment. The crackling of the fire was like a lullaby. Then it suddenly ceased.
When he woke up, thick, cold shadows milled behind the tear-shaped hole in the roof, and complete blackness ruled inside the vault. The fire was dead and cold. And Anath and her horse were gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
The inn stood halfway between the Ruins and the town of Turnov, the first larger settlement near the labyrinth of sandstone rocks. Having left the vault and the sleeping Hrot behind, Anath had headed to the inn and spent the night in her usual chamber.
She was downstairs now, sitting by the fireplace that blazed in the middle of the tavern, eating dark bread and cheese, and thinking of Hrot. Leaving such a clumsy and clueless man alone at the Ruins made her feel guilty. She’d always preferred to be alone, however, and he’d annoyed her by his endless questions and his foolish dream of becoming an alchemist. Besides, his association with the creature he called the Emissary filled her with a vague but powerful fear and premonition. Anath was sure he would be fine. After all, she’d left him with bread, fowl, and the rest of her firewood.
Only a ghost of the morning light stumbled into the tavern through the narrow lattice windows. The candles that flickered on every table made it look as if more guests were expected, but she was alone. Not even the old innkeeper was there: he’d left for the kitchen building as soon as he’d served her breakfast.
Instinct told her to look out the window. She sighed when she saw Hrot tottering along the front yard, his handsome but pudgy face red with cold, and the fluffy patches of his beard sparkling with frost.
“I knew you would be here,” Hrot exclaimed with a victorious smile as soon as he opened the door. “I followed your horse’s tracks in the snow. It’s lucky it hasn’t snowed since yesterday!”
“Yes, damned lucky,” she murmured as she took a sip of hot spiced wine. “And why did you follow me?” she asked more loudly.
“Well, I wanted to ask you if you’d take me to Prague.”
“I’m not sure it would be a good idea,” she said with a slight frown.
“I can pay you,” said Hrot as he reached for the magic pouch he’d been given by the Emissary. He dropped the pouch while undoing the knot that tied it to his belt, and the golden coins rolled over the table. Many of them fell on the floor. Some scurried toward the fireplace as if they were cold.
“Are you insane?” Anath whispered, her eyes flying toward the window to make sure nobody was coming. “Put the coins right back, will you? If somebody sees them, you’re dead. Even an honest man would slit your throat for such a fortune.”
Hrot dropped to his knees to scoop up the runaway coins and put them back into his pouch. He looked like a clumsy bear pawing at a rotten tree trunk to find ants. Having scrambled back to his feet, he asked, “Will you take me to Prague, please?”
The earnest, pleading look in his eyes reminded her so much of a lost puppy begging to be adopted that she finally nodded. “Very well.” She took a deep gulp of wine. “I’ll take you to Prague.”
“Thank you! But, you’ve got only one horse, haven’t you?”
“I came in a sleigh. I left it here in the stable, though, for the trails are too narrow around the Ruins. It’s big enough for the two of us.”
Hrot didn’t know what a sleigh was, but he was still happy. “So you live in Prague?”
She nodded.
“Near the castle?”
“Well, near enough, I suppose.”
“And is it a big place?”
“Too big for my liking. But listen, curious Hrot: if I take you with me, you’ll have to stop asking all these little-boy questions. We haven’t even set off and you are already annoying me. It’s a long ride to Prague. We’ll have to sleep in another inn halfway there, and I won’t have you gabbling away for two full days. You won’t have to give me anything. But you will have to try to keep your mouth shut from time to time. Is that a deal?”
Hrot nodded vehemently and turned to the fireplace to warm up. Although he was hungry again, he didn’t dare ask her where she’d got the food and if he could get some as well.
Anath finished her breakfast and said, “Let’s find the innkeeper.”
They left the warm tavern and walked through the snow to the kitchen building. Anath opened the door, poked her head in, and called, “Hey there, good man, can you get my horse and sleigh?”
An emaciated old man with a crooked nose and incredibly bushy white eyebrows shuffled outside with a servile smile. Hrot had never seen anyone with so many wrinkles. The Emissary hadn’t lied: people really lived better and longer in the Renaissance.
“Of course, madam,” the innkeeper croaked as he scurried toward the stables. Having led the chestnut horse outside, he went back in to pull out the large, open-top sleigh.
Anath patted the horse’s neck and scratched it between the ears as the old man harnessed it. Then she climbed into the double bench and beckoned Hrot to follow suit. He complied, trying his best not to slip, bump his knee, or land in Anath’s lap.
“Thank you, my good man,” she told the innkeeper as she pressed a small silver thaler into his hand. “I’ll be back next year.” Then she cracked a short whip above the horse’s head, the horse pressed against the harness, and off they went.
ONLY SNOWY FIELDS AND savage woods rolled by as they passed Turnov and headed southwest across the Czech Kingdom. The few hamlets they saw weren’t that different from Hrot’s village. The settlements grew in size on the second day, however, and the tall steeples of their churches made him gawk in wonder. Nevertheless, nothing could prepare him for what he saw when they crossed the gates of Prague and plunged into a maze of stone houses that loomed threateningly above their heads.
An enormous castle crowned a distant hill. The St. Vitus Cathedral, which oversaw the cluster of palaces, churches, and halls, could be seen right from the city gates. Other churches towered above the buildings on almost every large street, much taller here than they had been in the surrounding towns. The statues that flanked their elaborately decorated portals and facades looked so real they could have been traitors whom the Emissary had turned into stone.
The nape of Hrot’s neck ached from craning his head toward all the gables, towers, and spires which seemed to be looking down on him as on a barbaric intruder. Just as the Emissary had promised, Renaissance Prague was the most dazzling place Hrot could have ever imagined. But it also was the saddest, filthiest, and smelliest place Hrot had ever seen.
His heart sank at the sight of the destitute families shivering around open fires, and of the barefooted beggars kneeling on every corner, crying for a piece of bread. It seemed that the majority of Prague’s sixty thousand inhabitants lived in abject poverty.
“How can this be?” He turned to Anath, forgetting his promise not to pester her. “Nobody ever starves in my village. And if an especially harsh winter or an extraordinarily dry summer does bring on hunger, it strikes everyone, the chieftain included. But here, some people are so fat they can’t even sit straight, and they sprawl in their sleighs like giant bundles of hay, while many others are so skinny and emaciated the
y can hardly walk. And how come people don’t have boots and warm clothes for the winter? How can the king allow this?”
“That’s exactly my question, Hrot,” said Anath as she steered the horse toward the Old Town. Only a part of her face was visible under a fur hat that sat firmly on her head, above a thick scarf that was tied in several layers around her mouth. Frost had stuck to her long eyelashes. Her eyes peered at the masses of carts and other sleighs to avoid a crash. “You should ask the king when you two become friends—if he will listen.”
“And what about the stench and filth the whole city wallows in?” Hrot continued, ignoring the sarcasm in Anath’s voice. “Where I come from, people give the bones to the dogs and the leftovers to the pigs and chickens, but everything is thrown on the streets here. We piss behind our huts and crap behind the palisade, while here I’ve already seen three people emptying their pots right out of their chambers. And they didn’t even look down to see whether anyone was passing by their windows!”
Anath replied, “If you think the stench is bad now, just wait for the summer when everything begins to rot. It is shameful and disgusting, but what can we do? Humans are a filthy species, Hrot, and that’s a sad truth. Most people are twice as nasty as cats, but not even half as clean.”
Hrot frowned for a while, but excitement stirred him again as the castle got closer. After all, he was a rich man entering an enlightened society. He was about to leave his clannish past behind and make a new start. If he ever became influential enough, he would strive to make Prague a clean and prosperous place for all.
It began to snow when Anath steered the horse toward the river, where chunks of ice floated past like white barges. When he saw the massive bridge that spanned the wide River Vltava, Hrot wondered whether the builders had also made a pact with the Emissary: only magic powers seemed capable of keeping such a colossal structure from collapsing into the frigid waters.
“This is where the king lives, then?” He pointed to the hilltop Castle District behind the river.
Anath nodded and bit her lower lip.
“And the alchemists? Do they live there as well?”
She nodded again, this time with a frown. She burrowed deeper into the blankets as if to escape not only the glacial cold but also his questions.
“The king is obsessed with alchemy,” she said after a while. “As you can see, he cares about it far more than he cares about feeding and housing the poor. In fact, I can assure you he can be quite heartless.”
The old sadness was back in her eyes. Hrot suspected she had a personal reason to accuse the king of cruelty.
“Rudolph invited the most notorious alchemists to work for him,” Anath continued. “And yes, he keeps them very close. I’m not saying alchemy is false science, Hrot. Unfortunately, the vast majority of living alchemists, especially those who live in Prague, are either drunken dreamers or cheats and charlatans. They have the best houses in the Castle District and in the Lesser Town below. And they spend the whole day clowning around in the royal laboratory, pretending to be this close to making a groundbreaking discovery.”
Hrot gave her a quizzing look. He had long suspected she bore a personal grudge against the local alchemists, or at least against one of them. And what was her connection to the king? How lucky that the first person he’d met in these times was so extraordinary! He knew his questions irritated her, yet there was one more thing he had to ask. After all, his future and freedom depended on finding a way of transmuting metals into gold.
He sat in silence for a while, trying to collect his thoughts and muster his courage. “I know how you feel about them, Anath.” He spoke carefully as if each word could cut his tongue. “But would you happen to know any alchemist to introduce me to?”
“No,” she said with a frown.
Hrot did not believe her. Desperate, he grasped at another straw. “You seem to know the king personally. If you see him again, could you mention my name to him?”
The stony expression on Anath’s face told him he’d just put his foot in it. She pulled on the reins to make the horse halt.
The wind blew hard from the river, driving sharp snowflakes into Hrot’s mouth and nostrils. A pony passed by, treading bravely through the high layer of filthy snow. The cart it dragged creaked under the weight of chopped wood. An elderly man was walking beside it, nearly invisible under a heavy blanket that hugged him from head to toe. A fisherman was squatting by his rod on the embankment. A small fire burned beside him, and the smell of clay-baked carp punctured the frigid air.
“I’ve promised to take you to Prague, and here we are,” Anath said quietly. “But now you’re on your own. God knows you’ve got enough money to get by just fine.”
Hrot gave her a pleading look. She avoided his eyes, however, and looked straight in front of her as if she were counting the attacking snowflakes.
“Very well,” he said, standing up. “Thank you for the ride.”
As he climbed down the sleigh, Anath finally looked at him. He could read in her eyes that she was ashamed about abandoning him here, and that she’d regret it later on. Yet her pride and obstinacy prevented her from telling him to climb back in.
“Good luck to you, strange Hrot,” she said. “And don’t trust people around here too much, especially the alchemists. And be careful with . . . the thing you dropped at the inn.”
She gave him a sad, guilty look, and then she whipped the horse on, leaving him alone and crestfallen in the middle of the unknown maze of stone and filth.
CHAPTER SIX
Over the next few days, remorse, loneliness, and desolation clung to Hrot like three infected wounds. He was free, and far away from his tribesmen and their insults, as he’d always wanted. But he wished he’d had a chance to say goodbye, at least to Mother. She was still alive somewhere, but her soul was surely already dying for her clumsy and shunned yet most beloved son.
Hrot lived in fear of the future. The Emissary had been intentionally vague about what would happen if Hrot failed to produce gold. All Hrot knew was that he’d have to get souls for the fiend. But how? Would he have to convince his tribesmen to make similar deals? That was dreadful enough. And what if the Emissary made him murder people so that he could drag them into his realm? That thought made Hrot groan with despair.
Hrot found quarters in a rooming house in Lesser Town, whose bare stone walls seemed to be constantly falling in on him, and where the views from the second-floor windows gave him vertigo. He’d been to a barber to shave off his fluffy beard and to comb and trim his tangled hair. A tailor had provided him with a modern jacket, coat, and breeches. And yet, Hrot couldn’t stop feeling like a barbaric intruder. He wished Mother were with him to keep him company. At times, he’d have taken even her brother Jelen.
Unaccustomed to being alone in closed spaces, he went home only when he could no longer stand his chill and exhaustion. Although he would roam the snowy streets the whole day, he found it hard to get used to the smells, noises, and marvels of Prague. The fear of getting lost had initially kept him within his neighborhood like an invisible leash, but soon he became bolder.
Once or twice he even ventured beyond the city walls, where he laughed happily to the crunching of the spotless snow and the whistling of the untainted wind. Other times he climbed up to the Castle District, hoping to see Anath or to meet someone who could help him access the castle. Unfortunately, he failed in both endeavors. Tired of the senseless ramblings, he cut them shorter and shorter. And when he discovered the treasure hidden in the small building near his house, he cut them for good.
It all started in the tavern that stood just beside the building and where Hrot sometimes went for lunch. One day in mid-January, the door swung open and an obese man of about forty staggered in, sweeping snow off his fur coat.
“You look even prettier than you did this morning, Karla,” he called to the buxom tavern keeper, who giggled and waved her hand. “But I would find you even more irresistible if you brought me a c
up of Slivovice.”
The man must have had the plum brandy in question for breakfast as well. And he was a jovial drunk. His enormous belly jiggled happily as he sat by the window. His numerous chins flushed with merriment when Karla brought him the drink. Even his bald spot beamed joyfully in the light coming through the window as he reached under his coat and took out something that resembled a small valise.
Hrot noticed the object was filled with thin, brownish things that looked like rectangular leaves. Since he’d never seen anything like that before, Hrot wondered what it could be. What impressed him most, however, was the solemnity that replaced the man’s merriment on opening the valise.
Peering inside as if he were hypnotized, the man wouldn’t lift his eyes even when he groped for the cup and took a gulp. His chubby fingers turned the leaves regularly. His lips parted as if he were talking to himself. He never even noticed the pretty Karla who came to refill his cup.
This same thing happened on every occasion Hrot saw him: the man rolled into the tavern, brimming with grins and jokes, only to fall under that grave spell again. One day, curiosity overcame Hrot’s shyness. As the man finished his fourth cup and finally lifted his head as a sign he was ready to leave, Hrot got up to speak to him.
Lunchtime was over, and most of the diners had left. Only a group of youngsters played dice around the table beside the barrel, and an old man was slumped by the fireplace. Although he seemed half asleep, the old man lifted his head and licked his lips when Karla bent over to add another log to the fire. Mice scurried around the straw on the floor. They scattered as Hrot approached the fat man’s table.
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