The Cabinet of Curiosities

by Paul Dowswell

  Lukas couldn’t imagine Oldrich getting a good price for anything. He was relieved when an altercation at the next table distracted them. A Flemish couple were talking loudly in their own language, assuming no one else around them would understand. The woman was drunkenly berating the man for his wandering eye. ‘She wouldn’t be interested in a flabby old goat like you,’ she said, her head cocked towards Jenka. She thumped him hard in the gut. The man doubled up, spilling his beer, and let out a string of curses.

  Lukas translated the tale into German to his new friends and felt pleased with himself when they roared with laughter. Unfortunately the man spoke German too and stood up angrily, challenging Lukas to come outside and fight him in the street.

  Strom looked him over and told him he’d have to fight all of them. The man started swearing in Flemish, half to himself, half at them, and his wife grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the door. Passing Radek, she spat at him, but he just looked at her as if to say, ‘Is that the best you can do?’

  As Lukas was leaving, Etienne sidled up to him. ‘If they knew you were apprentice to the Emperor’s physician, you’d never hear the last of it. And don’t think you’ll get a fair price for anything you bring to them. If you want to make some money, let’s go fortune-telling again.’

  Lukas walked home feeling uneasy. In his heart he knew he was keeping dangerous company. But he was lonely at the Castle, and these men were the nearest thing he had to friends. And he felt bad about the incident with the Flemish couple. The man had been humiliated for a cheap laugh. He also worried about the gang finding out what he really did. He hoped Etienne would never tell them.

  .

  ‘Uncle,’ said Lukas the next afternoon, when Anselmus had been particularly pleased with an elixir he had prepared, ‘is it true that there is a room in the Castle full of extraordinary things?’

  Anselmus was evasive. ‘Hmmmm? Most of the Castle is full of extraordinary things. What made you ask such a question?’

  ‘I just remembered Otka telling me, when she showed me round, that there was a room full of treasure. I’ve been curious about it, that’s all.’

  ‘Never could keep a secret, that girl,’ said Anselmus indulgently.

  ‘Have you seen the treasure, Uncle?’

  ‘Seen it?’ Anselmus was affronted. ‘Of course I’ve seen it. I’m curator of the collection!’

  Lukas was astonished. ‘So you go out and collect things for this treasure?’ he said. ‘What a fantastic job! Can I come with you when you do it again?’

  ‘It is not a treasure, it is a Cabinet of Curiosities,’ Anselmus said rather sniffily. ‘I serve the Emperor in many ways,’ he continued. ‘Attending to the Cabinet is one of them. Collectors and charlatans are always coming to the castle with items for the Emperor. It is my job to decide whether or not to purchase. My friend Doktor Grunewald sometimes assists me. He has a special interest in the manuscripts and printed books of the collection.’

  ‘I should very much like to see the Cabinet,’ said Lukas.

  ‘It is open only to imperial scholars and artists. It is not a fairground attraction,’ said Anselmus.

  Lukas was due to take his first Pharmacy exam in a week’s time. ‘Uncle,’ he said tentatively, ‘if I succeed in my examination, will you show me the Cabinet?’

  Anselmus said he would consider it.

  .

  The week after Lukas’s glowing report from the Board of Apothecaries, Anselmus casually mentioned over breakfast that His Imperial Highness the Emperor was on one of his rare trips away from the Castle, and that this afternoon they might, just might, pay a visit to the Cabinet. After all, he said airily, ‘I have duties to attend to therein.’

  For the rest of the morning Lukas could not sit or stand still. His friends from the tavern had talked about it again with wide-eyed wonder – how it was the most extraordinary collection of treasures on Earth. It was said that some who gazed upon it were so overcome by its magnificence and strangeness they went mad. Now he, the disgraced printer’s son from Ghent, was going to see this wonder of the world too.

  Lukas was still unsure where the Cabinet was – or even what it was. It couldn’t possibly be just a cabinet. The collection was too large.

  That afternoon they headed off on their usual route towards the imperial chambers. But instead of taking the stairs to the second floor, where the Emperor’s quarters were, they stopped at a large door on the first floor.

  Anselmus produced a bunch of keys from his cloak and unlocked the door. It opened with an unearthly groan and they entered a modest anteroom, with a high vaulted ceiling. The walls were painted with brilliant and beautiful images of earth, fire, air and water. The twelve astrological signs of the Zodiac also decorated the room, each one magnificently depicted in bold colours. Overlooking it all was a vast painting of Jupiter. ‘His Highness feels a close affinity with the King of the Gods,’ said Anselmus, as Lukas gawped in astonishment.

  In front of them was a huge double door. Anselmus reached again for his keys and unlocked it. He leaned on the handle on the right and pushed with all his might against the great weight of the door.

  As it swung open Lukas could see a space the size of a ballroom, flooded with light from great south-facing windows and crammed from floor to ceiling with everything he could ever have imagined and many more things besides.

  The room was like a vast repository of missing treasure troves. It was impossible to take in what he was seeing. Every one of the thousands of things that assaulted his senses would have made a fabulous ornament and endless talking point for anyone who possessed it.

  On the floor, where space allowed, there were statues from Ancient Greece and Rome, and a great marble sculpture of a lion mauling a horse, its eyes wide and nostrils flared. It was so real Lukas could almost hear the poor creature neighing in terror. Then there were strange stuffed animals of dragon-like appearance, and massive antlered beasts that Lukas had never seen before. They stared at him with sightless eyes. Propped up, or hanging from the walls, were huge lurid paintings of naked women.

  Great solid wooden tables ran down the centre of the room, covered in astronomical instruments. ‘Look through here,’ said Anselmus, indicating a strange arrangement of lenses, one larger than the other, held in place along a brass rod, and Lukas peered through the smaller lens.

  In the swimming, distorted image he could see a detail in a painting at the far end of the room, almost as if he was standing right next to it. The experience startled him. ‘It is as if the eye has been transported thirty paces ahead!’ explained Anselmus.

  ‘What a strange phenomenon,’ said Lukas. ‘Perhaps it could be used to examine the heavens.’ He was remembering the conversation about the difficulties of stargazing that his uncle had had with the Emperor. But Anselmus had wandered off and Lukas thought no more about it.

  Most arresting of all were the great cases. There were at least twenty in this room alone. Some were shelved with glass doors, so the objects within could be seen. Others were like an apothecary’s storage cabinet, with scores of little drawers, each with a tiny parchment label slotted into a minute iron frame. All of them were beautifully decorated with inlaid mother-of-pearl or different types of wood.

  ‘I could spend years in here and still not see everything,’ Lukas said. Anselmus beamed indulgently. His nephew was a bright young lad, he thought. It was only right to expose him to these wonders while his mind was fresh and ready to absorb it all.

  They walked along, each step revealing further treasures. There was a violin made of glass, and a bizarre timepiece which drew their attention as it rattled and whirred as they passed.

  ‘Look, here is the very dagger used to kill Julius Caesar. This has long been one of the Emperor’s favourite artefacts.’ Lukas was disappointed to see there was no blood on it, although it still looked sharp enough to cut your meat at table.

  His eyes alighted on a sinister-looking monkey, dressed as a court musician
and clutching a life-size violin. All at once it gave a strange creaking noise and turned its head towards him. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

  ‘What the devil is that?’ he said to his uncle, trying hard to quell his fear.

  ‘Ah, the Emperor is a great admirer of automata,’ said Anselmus. ‘His collection of mechanical creatures is the greatest in Europe. This one was built in Prague. I met its maker once – a strange man. There was something missing about him; I can’t remember what.’

  ‘But that thing turned to look at me,’ said Lukas, who wasn’t really listening. He pointed to the monkey with a trembling hand.

  ‘A last contraction of the mechanism. Like the final spasm of a dying man. It must have been operated recently,’ said Anselmus. ‘The spring must have had a certain amount of life force left in it.’

  ‘You mean it’s alive?’ said Lukas. He was feeling a little revolted.

  ‘All cogs and flywheels and chains and levers, my boy,’ said Anselmus. ‘If you wind the spring inside, it gives artificial life to the mechanism. It is most ingenious.’

  Lukas looked at the monkey again. It was so lifelike he supposed it had been made from the stuffed body of a real monkey. What a strange fate that would be. To be killed and then have your body reanimated by a mechanical contraption. To have your limbs and mouth and eyes move again in a way they had never been able to while you were a living, breathing creature.

  Lukas didn’t like the monkey at all. He much preferred the peacock standing on the floor close by. It was an iron creature, mechanical in every way, save for its tail, which was fashioned from real peacock feathers.

  ‘That one is my favourite,’ said Anselmus as they passed it. ‘It struts around and makes its mating call, then fans out its feathers.’

  ‘Can we see?’ said Lukas.

  ‘Perhaps I will show you one day,’ Anselmus replied.

  The monkey had unnerved Lukas. ‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘maybe we should go. I feel privileged, but perhaps for now I have seen enough.’

  Anselmus nodded. He too was feeling uneasy, with no real business to be there.

  .

  Chapter Fourteen

  Over supper Anselmus announced that he had been invited to dine with his friend Doktor Grunewald and some of the Spaniards. ‘Perhaps Grunewald has asked them to discover why they are here at the Castle.’

  Lukas listened with great interest. Whenever he saw one of the Spanish party around the palace he felt a shiver of unease. Apart from that beautiful girl, of course.

  Anselmus continued: ‘There is one, a Señor Don Jenaro Dorantes, who particularly interests me. He has lately returned from the New World and I would like to discover as much as I can about this fascinating realm. They say the Spanish conquered an entire country with less than two hundred men, two score horses and a single cannon. How extraordinary!’

  The day came, and Lukas was surprised and uneasy to discover he was expected to attend too. ‘It will be good for your education,’ said his uncle. ‘You will find it fascinating, I am sure. Do you know much of Spain and its people?’

  ‘I know about the Spanish Inquisition,’ he said warily.

  Anselmus tutted. ‘We cannot assume that all Spanish gentlemen agree with its methods and purpose. I shall make it my mission, where discourse allows, to suggest to our visitors that the Inquisition is too blunt a tool for its purpose. If you wish to win men’s minds, you must persuade them by reason and example.’

  ‘You know what happened to my father, don’t you?’ said Lukas.

  ‘Your mother wrote and told me the worst,’ said Anselmus. ‘See how the Devil takes on many forms – even claiming to do God’s work. But what I really want to know about concerns the New World, so I shall not let intercourse with our Spanish guests degenerate into sullen reproaches.’

  .

  That afternoon they bathed, then dressed in their finest apparel. Lukas felt very grown-up, accompanying his uncle to a meeting of such august men. He was a little intimidated too, until he reminded himself that he met with the Holy Roman Emperor each week.

  Grunewald’s chambers were close to the West Gate and a five-minute stroll through the hot late afternoon.

  When they arrived everyone was ready for the feast, which was announced in grand style when Grunewald waddled into the room with a beautiful gilded copper model of an ocean-going galleon. From the bottom of its flat hull to the top of its highest mast measured three-quarters of a man’s arm span. Grunewald placed the model on the long dining table and released a little switch. The machine immediately trundled along the table, tipping up and down in its voyage, as if swayed by the motion of the waves. Music filled the room as tiny drums and a pipe organ inside the galleon played a sea shanty. Little figures atop the masts started to strike the crow’s nests, and the air rang with the sound of chiming bells.

  Grunewald ran to the end of the table and turned his extraordinary contraption around before it plunged off. ‘Not quite the edge of the world,’ said Anselmus, thinking himself very witty.

  The galleon carried on until it reached the middle of the table. Then it stopped and, as the music reached a climax, miniature cannons on both its starboard and larboard sides produced loud explosions and smoke.

  The guests were entranced and clapped and cheered. Grunewald had got his party off to a fine start.

  A place of honour had been kept for Anselmus, at the centre of the table opposite Don Jenaro Dorantes. Grunewald introduced his friend to the Spanish guests as ‘His Imperial Majesty’s most esteemed physician’. Lukas was ushered to a place at the end, facing an empty chair.

  Next to him was Doktor Krohl. When Lukas sat down, Krohl gave him the merest glance before turning his back to him. Cursing his luck, Lukas resolved to just enjoy the food and try to learn as much as possible from the conversation of the others.

  From the start it was apparent that Jenaro Dorantes was the most interesting of the Spanish guests. The other two made little attempt to do other than listen to their countryman.

  The meal started on an awkward note. Speaking in fluent Latin, Dorantes said he was surprised that there were so many Jews in Prague. His own country, he remarked, had expelled their Jews a century before.

  Anselmus and Grunewald both gently suggested that the Jews of Prague had contributed much to the wealth of the city. As Christian teaching held that it was wrong to make money from money, it was Jews who lent money to merchants and enabled them to prosper. Of course they were paid interest, but why should they not be rewarded for their risk?

  Grunewald said, ‘People resent the Jews for lending money. It is unjust. It’s like hating a doctor because you need to pay him money to cure you.’

  Dorantes nodded and agreed that his host presented a persuasive argument. An awkward silence fell over the room until Anselmus invited Dorantes to tell his fellow diners about the Incas of Peru. He smiled indulgently.

  ‘They had no writing, but instead recorded their daily business by a system of knots in slender ropes. The wheel also was unknown to them. Yet they cannot be dismissed as savages, for their buildings are constructed with extraordinary precision. And they farm their land, which is mostly steep hills, so the arable fields are layered in terraces, with ingenious systems of irrigation.’

  Anselmus asked Dorantes if he knew of the Fountain of Youth – whose waters made the old young again. It had been discovered in one of the new lands, he had heard. Was it the one the Spanish call Florida?

  Dorantes shook his head. He had heard of such a marvel but did not know where it was.

  Lukas was so fascinated he did not notice someone had sat down in the empty chair opposite him. Only when she tapped him lightly on the arm and said, ‘Would you please pass me the water pitcher?’ did he actually look across the table.

  It was her. The girl he had seen around the Castle. Up close he could see that she had deep brown eyes. She was wearing a black velvet gown with silver and gold embroidery and pearls sewn around the neckline
, which was cut in such a fashion as to reveal the soft skin of her neck and the swell of her breast.

  Recovering his senses, Lukas bowed his head low. She gave him a little smile and offered him a hand, which had a faint scent of flowers, to kiss.

  ‘It is an honour to meet you,’ said Lukas, dimly remembering what he was supposed to say on such occasions to a girl he had never spoken to before.

  ‘My name is Celestina Dorantes,’ she said. ‘I am the daughter of Don Jenaro Dorantes, ambassador to the court of Philip II. That’s my father in the middle of the table, doing most of the talking.’

  She was speaking in Flemish rather than Latin, much to Lukas’s relief. He knew Latin well enough to listen, but he was not fluent enough for rapid conversation.

  ‘And I’m –’ began Lukas.

  ‘You’re Lukas Declercq. I know!’ she said with a giggle. ‘You’re the nephew of Anselmus Declercq, the greatest physician in the Castle, or so I’ve been told.’

  Lukas flushed with pleasure, knowing that she had gone to the trouble of finding out who he was.

  ‘And do you like Prague?’ he asked her.

  ‘This whole country is not to my liking,’ she said quietly, looking around to make sure no one was listening.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Lukas with a smile. ‘I don’t think anyone else here speaks Flemish, apart from my uncle, and he’s paying far too much attention to your father to be eavesdropping on us! So why is it that you speak Flemish?’

  ‘I was born in the Low Countries. We moved back to Madrid when my father was posted to the province of Peru.’

  ‘Did you and your mother not think to go with him?’ said Lukas, uncertain whether he was prying or just making conversation.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘My mother refused to go. I can still remember them arguing about it. She said it was suicide. The crossing is terribly dangerous – pirates, storms, scurvy, shipwrecks – well, you can imagine. She said if he wanted to risk his life then that was his business, but she wasn’t risking mine or my two brothers’. And even when you got there, heaven knows what might happen. You could die of some strange sickness. Or get yourself murdered by savages.