The Cabinet of Curiosities

by Paul Dowswell

  When he was sure the Emperor had finished speaking he said, ‘I am sorry Your Excellency has experienced an unfortunate reaction to my cure. I can assure Your Highness that the remedy has benefited many of my previous patients.’

  ‘You have many patients who have the wealth and opportunity to ingest lapis lazuli?’ said Rudolph incredulously. ‘Then you hardly have need of our patronage.’

  He stood glowering. The sun had come out again and was shining directly through the window, leaving him in silhouette so that Anselmus and Lukas could not see the expression on his face.

  After a further silence Anselmus perkily suggested the Emperor might still like to try this new concoction. ‘There are no ground stones – only herbs picked at the most advantageous moment of the lunar cycle.’

  ‘This medicine does not interest us,’ said Rudolph wearily, his rage spent. ‘Doktor Krohl’s cures may be equally ineffective, but at least they do not cause such unpleasantness . . . And if we ever experience a similar disorder of the innards again, from anything you may prescribe, we shall suspect that our most favoured court physician is trying to poison us and have him sent to Daliborka Tower.’

  He turned his back, picked up his little handbell and rang it. The examination had been forgotten and the audience was over.

  As they walked back to his apartment, Lukas noticed how Anselmus had gone a chalky colour.

  ‘The symptoms His Excellency describes are not unusual in any course of medicine. He must know that . . .’ he said. Then he lowered his voice, as if imparting a great confidence. ‘That was him on a bad day, but I’ve seen worse – babbling, tears, tearing hair. He’ll probably be pleasant the next time we see him.’

  .

  Chapter Twelve

  Rudolph was cold with them when they came again, but on their following visit he was anxious to show Anselmus his latest acquisition: a polished brass armillary sphere for studying the heavens. They fell into conversation about the difficulties of stellar observation and the strain staring at tiny dots of light placed on the eyes. Anselmus had been forgiven. As they walked back to their chambers, Lukas noticed his uncle seemed almost giddy with relief. Otka was waiting for them, and her face lit up when she saw Anselmus looking happy. Lukas sensed a strong bond between them.

  Lukas increasingly missed having friends his own age to talk to. The Spanish party was still at the Castle and one of them in particular had caught his attention. She was around his age and had jet-black hair, but unlike most of her compatriots who were olive-skinned, hers was milky-white. Whenever he saw her, he could not take his eyes off her. She even began to visit him in his dreams – little interludes that he would remember in fragments throughout the day. He longed to be able to talk to her – to show off about the extraordinary things he was seeing and doing.

  Aside from Anselmus and Otka, the only other person he saw regularly was Anselmus’s older sister – his Aunt Elfriede. Once or twice a week he was sent to her house with bread and meat. She lived close to the river in Mala Strana, twenty minutes’ walk from the Castle. Her home was as cramped as the tiny houses on Golden Lane. The only good thing was you could heat it with a small kitchen stove.

  Elfriede made her dislike obvious, greeting Lukas sourly and never asking him in. He didn’t mind. She was old and frail. Every day he visited her with provisions was another day when she wasn’t living with him and his uncle. Anselmus was devoted to her though. She had taught him his craft. Even now, at her age, people would come to see her when they fell sick. She cost a lot less than a real doctor, and her cures were just as effective.

  This was a mixed blessing for Elfriede. She made enough money to keep her independence, but she also courted trouble. A few months before Lukas had arrived, a boy had fallen ill with a fever. The parents were too poor for a doctor. Their prayers and offerings to St Nicholas, the patron saint of children, had come to nothing. So they went to Elfriede, who gave a potion to the child, but he died soon after. Wild with grief, the parents whipped their effigy of St Nicholas and threw it in the Vltava. Then they turned on Elfriede, accusing her of wishing their son dead.

  No one took them seriously enough to bring her to trial, but her customers were not so plentiful and the taint of witchcraft hung in the air. She even had a black cat – Marushka. It was the only living thing she seemed to have any affection for.

  Lukas was shrewd enough not to complain about her. Anselmus seemed increasingly pleased with him and he wanted to keep things that way. ‘You are an inquisitive young man,’ his uncle had told him. ‘That is important in a boy. Intelligence and quick-wittedness are all very well, but God has also given us brains to think and to question!’

  If Lukas continued making progress, Anselmus had said, he could soon take his first-stage apothecary’s examinations.

  .

  A month after he arrived in Prague, Lukas came home to see Otka curled up on his uncle’s lap, her head resting in the crook of his neck. They were sitting by the fire and were both fast asleep.

  As Lukas came into the room Anselmus woke with a start. He seemed flustered and embarrassed to be caught this way, but he put his index finger to his mouth to tell Lukas to keep quiet. Lukas crept to his room, feeling confused. Otka was young enough to be his uncle’s daughter. Lukas thought of the paintings he’d seen showing a lecherous old man embracing a scheming young woman – it was a popular subject.

  That evening conversation did not flow. Anselmus was more formal than usual and Lukas went to bed feeling lonely. It was time he started to make some friends around the Castle. He had barely thought of Etienne over the last month and felt a twinge of guilt. But then, Etienne had not sent word to him at the Castle either.

  But that was probably a good thing. Lukas had done nothing he felt ashamed of since coming to the Castle – but he had done something bad almost every day when he had been travelling with Etienne.

  .

  Late the next afternoon, Anselmus sent Lukas to Aunt Elfriede’s with provisions and then into Prague to replenish his medical supplies. He was to go to an apothecary’s shop close to the Old Town Square.

  His uncle was lacking opium, hemlock, gall from a castrated boar and treacle. ‘You must take a note with you, from me, or they will not give you these things.’

  Lukas walked into the centre of Prague and found the apothecary easily enough. He felt wary of the inhabitants of the city and very conscious of the two gold crowns he carried in his purse. He could feel them chink with each step and felt sure that every ne’er-do-well within fifty paces would hear them too.

  And ne’er-do-wells aplenty roamed the streets of Prague. The late-afternoon gloom seemed to bring them out. There were beggars and prostitutes on every street, but Lukas wasn’t afraid of them. It was the villains he had to watch out for.

  They said that the creatures of the field grew skittish at dusk, for that was when the hawk was most likely to strike. As he turned back to the Castle, clutching his bags of medicine, he didn’t know which was worse – carrying money or carrying hemlock and opium. He knew these substances had illicit uses.

  The Stone Bridge was a lot quieter in the evening, so he began to cross without fear of being killed by a horse and wagon.

  Lukas tripped on the uneven cobblestones as light rain drifted down from the dark sky. It was warm for late April. Overhead a flock of birds wheeled by, the underside of their wings catching in the flare of the torches atop the mighty tower on the north side of the bridge. Their plaintive cawing reminded him of the seabirds in Ghent and evening walks on the beach near Vlisseghem with his mother and father when he was younger. He glanced briefly at the rotting heads on the tower parapet and wondered if the robbers at Momalle had had their heads stuck on poles yet.

  ‘Hey, Lukas,’ came a shout from further up the bridge. As the voice called again he recognised it as Etienne’s. They strode briskly towards each other and hugged. ‘You can buy us a pitcher of beer,’ said Etienne, ‘and I know just the place where we can
drink it.’

  Lukas did not have any money of his own, just what Anselmus had given him for the medicine. There was enough left for ale, but he felt uneasy about spending it.

  The tavern was in Mala Strana, downriver from the bridge, in a side alley and staircase close to the sawmills and tanneries. It was reached by a door that gave little indication of what lay behind. But the Three Violins did not need to advertise for custom. Inside, the low ceiling ensured there would be a comfortable fug, and the log fire in the grate gave off enough heat to thaw the most frozen nightwatchman. Candles on every table and a torch or two on the walls threw out a dim but comforting glow.

  Although the place was cosy, the customers were anything but. Lukas immediately felt ill at ease. These were people his instincts told him to avoid. When he ordered a pitcher of beer even the serving girl was awkward – huffy and not eager to please, although she was very pretty.

  ‘That’s Jenka,’ said Etienne with a wink. ‘Come and join my friends.’ Lukas felt his stomach tighten. He didn’t want to meet any of the people who drank here. Etienne paused and said, ‘Don’t tell them what you do at the Castle. It’s best they don’t know. Say you’re a lowly servant. Errands, sweeping up the horse droppings, that sort of thing.’

  He led Lukas to a table close to the fire and introduced him one by one to the five most frightening-looking men in the inn – Radek, Dusan, Oldrich, Strom and Karel. They were all a little older than Etienne and as he ran through their names each one ignored Lukas or gave a curt nod. Lukas could never remember names but they looked like men who would not easily forgive someone who forgot them.

  Etienne beckoned Lukas to sit down opposite him at the end of table. As he sat he was startled to hear a low growl. There was an enormous brown dog lying at their feet. Lukas’s toes were nestling under its haunches. He felt glad they weren’t anywhere near its slobbery jaws. ‘That’s Belphegor,’ said Etienne. ‘Belongs to Strom. He’s a lurcher. He’ll love you if you buy him a plate of milzwurst.’

  Lukas didn’t want anything that size dribbling over him.

  The men fell into conversation, showing no interest in Lukas. His attention was drawn back to Jenka, who seemed almost heroically stroppy. A customer on the next table pointed to the chalked menu on the wall and asked, ‘Is the herring hot or cold?’

  ‘How quickly are you going to eat it?’ she said without a smile.

  After a while he realised he was starting to relax. It was good to be away from the palace and back in the company of Etienne and other young men. He always felt he needed to impress his uncle with his intelligence. Here it was quite the opposite. Etienne’s friends’ conversation was punctuated by the sorts of oaths that Lukas’s father had assured him would guarantee a place in hell.

  Radek and Dusan were built like berserker warriors – with fierce, angry faces and biceps the size of Lukas’s head. Five or six hundred years ago, it was said, the Vikings had travelled down the waterways of Europe to Bohemia. Maybe these men were their descendants. He could imagine them both leaping from a longboat, swinging great double-headed axes.

  Then there was Strom. He had strange tattoos either side of his face – slender geometric patterns, like those found in a book about page motifs that Lukas’s father had kept in his study. Strom said little, which made Lukas uneasy. He watched and waited, occasionally leaping into the conversation to reprimand one of them when he thought they were being foolish. Lukas guessed he was their leader, especially as several of them made a point of ordering milzwurst sausages for Belphegor. It seemed to be their way of paying homage.

  Oldrich had long black hair that fell down his back. But when he took off his hat he was bald almost down to his ears and the top of his head was as white as a boiled egg. He sat there looking inscrutable – or maybe there was nothing going on in his head at all.

  Finally there was Karel – a wiry man with gaunt cheeks. He was the butt of the others’ jokes, not least because of his name – one given to both girls and boys in Bohemia. Karel began to seethe at their mockery and eventually took out a long curved knife, the sort market traders used to gut fish, and began to clean the dirt from his fingernails.

  They turned their attention to Lukas, and he tried not to shrink in his seat.

  ‘So, what’s a twerp like you doing with a fellow like Etienne?’ said Strom.

  Lukas froze, not knowing how to reply.

  Etienne answered for him.

  ‘Lukas is all right,’ he said with a grin. ‘We met on the way to Prague. Ask him nicely and he’ll buy you all a beer.’

  Lukas kicked Etienne under the table. He had calculated that Anselmus would not miss the minor outlay of a pitcher of ale, but drinks all round would be far more difficult to explain.

  ‘Tell him you gave the change to a beggar,’ said Etienne, reading his mind.

  ‘You’d be telling the truth,’ said Strom, who had instantly understood what their conversation was about. ‘Especially with Karel.’

  They all laughed until Karel brought out his knife again and carried on cleaning his nails. Lukas wondered if he was going to draw blood from one of his tormentors, then realised they were looking at him with impatient expectation. He decided it would be safer to buy the drinks and worry about the money later. He would have to earn it back somehow, or tell a lie about losing it.

  He left the tavern late in the evening. They had been friendlier to him after he had bought them a drink – even asking him what he did. Remembering Etienne’s advice, Lukas was deliberately vague. ‘I sweep the courtyards, feed the horses,’ he shrugged. ‘Nothing fancy.’

  He swaggered alone along the dark streets close to the Castle, no longer feeling the unease that had haunted him earlier in the evening. He had been mixing with villains! Now he was someone to be frightened of!

  Yes, they had mostly ignored him, but they had been happy to let him sit with them. And it had been good to see Etienne. As he left, his friend had said, ‘You can find us in here most days. We’ll see you again?’

  Then Dusan had come out with his bags full of medicines. ‘Hey, you dolt! You forgot these!’ he had said, and slapped him cheerfully on the back.

  Lukas’s footsteps echoed around the empty courtyards of the Castle. As he entered the deserted Cathedral square he let out a belch thunderous enough to startle the starlings from their perches. This amused him so much he did not begin to fret about what his uncle was going to say until he approached the door to their quarters.

  What would he tell him about his missing change? How angry would he be about his late homecoming? Fortunately Anselmus had retired for the night.

  Lukas slumped into bed and was asleep in seconds. The next morning Anselmus casually asked him where he had been and seemed unconcerned when Lukas said he had met an old friend and they had gone for a drink. He thought it best to say nothing about the money he had failed to return and, sure enough, as the day wore on, it seemed that Anselmus had forgotten about it.

  .

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lukas decided he should not go back to the Three Violins. But as the week wore on he thought how much he’d enjoyed meeting his old friend. It was a shame the tavern was the best place to see him.

  He was beginning to find his evenings with Anselmus something of a chore. His uncle always wanted to talk about serious things, and by nine o’clock Lukas was keen to escape to his room. But Anselmus would often ask him to stay up a while longer to keep him company. He especially enjoyed a game of chess. Lukas did not have the patience to play well, and his impulsive manoeuvres would make his uncle tut with scorn. Then Anselmus would sit there stroking his beard and spending an age deciding on his next move, as the clock ticked away the evening and Lukas’s eyelids began to droop.

  A fortnight after he had been to the Three Violins he saw Dusan and Radek – the Vikings – in the Old Town Square. They slapped him on the back and greeted him like a friend.

  After that, whenever he had a bit of money to spare, Luka
s would venture into the Three Violins. He would peer cautiously around the inn to see who was there. If Etienne was with Strom and his gang, and he usually was, he would join them. If he wasn’t, he would slink out again, hoping the others hadn’t seen him.

  He didn’t go very often. Much of his meagre apprentice wages had gone on buying a new pair of boots, and he had to ask Anselmus for money for the most basic essentials. ‘The man who’s careful when he borrows has few cares and fewer sorrows,’ recited Anselmus. ‘You must learn to live within your means.’

  He pointed out that Lukas had a place to live and food on his plate, so what else did he need to spend money on? Lukas wanted to say, ‘My friend,’ but sensed this would lead to awkward questions.

  Etienne was always good company but the rest of the gang still made him feel uneasy. Now they knew he worked in the Castle, they wasted no time asking about the ‘Treasure’ reported to be kept there. Lukas wondered if this was what Otka had told him about. He played it down, saying, ‘Aren’t all castles full of treasures?’

  Strom leaned forward to speak in a low voice. ‘This one has a series of chambers they call the Cabinet of Curiosities. It’s got everything you could ever imagine. Pearls from the Orient, gold from New Spain, jewels from the four corners of the Earth . . . And then there’s the really special stuff. Nails from the cross . . .’ Here he crossed himself, which surprised Lukas as Strom was one of the most ungodly people he had ever met. ‘. . . all three of them. The eye of the Cyclops, the Golden Fleece, the robe Judas was wearing when he betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane . . . it’s all priceless. They say there are thousands of treasures up there, and any one of them could keep a man fed for the rest of his life.’

  Oldrich elbowed Lukas in the ribs and gave a dim chuckle. ‘You keep your eyes peeled, our friend Lukas.’ He paused to belch noisily. Lukas was surprised to hear himself called a friend. It was the first time Oldrich had spoken to him. ‘Anything you see there that’s lying around, you bring it to us. We’ll get you a good price for it.’