Nadezda stood before him as the maid opened the door. “I thank you for your assistance and your confidence in me, Rabbi Isaac. Together, our prayers and knowledge and resolution can accomplish the deliverance of Prague.”
Now that she was aware of the floods upriver, Nadezda heard talk of them all around her. It seemed that everyone had heard of the wall of water descending on the cities along the river and threatening to wash away everything it encountered. Those that lived along the river were finding friends or family that could put them up until the water arrived and then descended or were finding inns, which some could ill-afford, far from the expected deluge. No one seemed to know how long it might take for the floodwater to arrive but all seemed convinced it was on its way.
Nevertheless, Nadezda knew her next task was discovering how best to attract Svetovit’s attention so he would listen as she reformulated the curse in the way she and Rabbi Isaac had settled on.
The following Sunday afternoon, she found herself rapping at the door of Ryba the midwife for the second time in as many days. Having received no answer when she came knocking the day before, she had guessed that Ryba was assisting a woman in the neighborhood to give birth and was hoping that the midwife would be back home by midafternoon the next day. She was about to turn away from the door when it opened and Ryba was standing there in her night shift, one eye shut and her tangled hair untidily hidden under a bandana tied askew across the back of her head.
“Yes?” Ryba demanded, in the husky voice common to those who have just awakened.
“Pardon me, Ryba,” Nadezda hastened to offer her apologies for disturbing the midwife’s rest.
Ryba’s eyes both popped open as she took in the face of the woman whose voice she recognized in her stupor. “Nadezda! Not to worry! Come in!” Ryba pulled the door wide and gestured for Nadezda to enter. Nadezda passed from the cloudy and overcast afternoon into the dusky gloom of the house. With all its shutters drawn and the door shut, it could as easily been midnight as midafternoon. Ryba stirred the coals of the fire and added kindling and then set a kettle hanging in the midst of the fire to make tea. She turned and invited Nadezda to sit as they waited for the water to boil.
“I came yesterday afternoon,” Nadezda began. “You were not here. I’m guessing that someone was giving birth and you were needed.”
Ryba rubbed her forehead and squinted towards a window before looking at Ryba. She licked her gums between her missing teeth. “Yes,” she answered. “It was a long and difficult labor. Verushka the cobbler’s wife delivered a son, alive and healthy, thanks be to God. But it was a labor that went on for nearly two days. I was weary, too weary for words, by the time the boy was delivered. But that is why you find me so.” She waved her hand about her face. “I came home this morning and was sleeping. If you had not knocked, I imagine that I should have slept until noon tomorrow!”
“Well, thank you for hearing my knocking and rousing yourself.” Nadezda flattened her skirt across her knees. “I have some questions but can return another time if you are too exhausted to speak with me.”
“No, no, dear child. Not at all!” Ryba rose and patted Nadezda’s shoulder as she gathered mugs and dried herbs to make tea and set them on the table. “I need to drink something to restore my strength or all the sleep in the world could not revive me!” She laughed and fetched the steaming kettle from the fire, wrapping her hand in a towel to lift the kettle and bring it to the table. She and Nadezda spooned the herbs into the pot. The aromatic steam rose and caressed their nostrils as the herbs steeped.
“What have you been hoping to ask these last few days?” Ryba asked. “Is it something more to do with Lilith?”
“Not directly, Ryba. Lilith came again the night of Candlemas but I have discussed her visitation with the rabbi,” Nadezda answered. “I think she will be a long time coming back to trouble any family in Prague.”
Ryba poured the tea into the mugs. “That is a blessing, to be sure! Thanks be to God for that, Nadezda!” She took a sip of tea. There was a pause in the conversation, just long enough to be uncomfortable. “So. What is it that you wish to ask me, then?”
Nadezda had thought of telling Ryba the whole tale of the deciphering of the curse and her plans to rewrite it, now that she knew she had custody of the fire serving as the lynchpin of the curse. But she had deemed it unwise to let it become common knowledge. There was no telling what unwelcome attention that might bring. Even if Ryba made a vow to tell nothing of Nadezda’s plans to anyone, Nadezda still considered it dangerous to say anything. If she were successful, the strange occurrences in Prague would cease and those clever enough to notice would realize something had happened to annul the curse. If she were not successful, then the city stood in even greater danger than it did now, for Svetovit’s wrath would be roused to a fever pitch by her efforts.
“Lilith made a vow to depart from Prague,” Nadezda ventured to tell the midwife. “But the rabbi believes that we ought to inform Svetovit of this. If the old god knows that Lilith made this vow, he can hold her to her word and will be eager to keep her far from the territory he considers his own.”
Ryba mulled over Nadezda’s words as she sipped her tea again. She seemed about to speak but then reconsidered and set her mouth to the lip of the mug. She drank deeply of the steaming liquid.
“I remember my grandmother telling me that Svetovit was worshipped on Hradčany,” Nadezda told Ryba. “But I cannot recall if she ever said how to get his attention.”
Ryba searched Nadezda’s eyes, then sighed.
“Yes, Svetovit was worshipped by the cutting of the throat of a sacrificial cock on Hradčany, exactly where the new cathedral is rising on the hilltop,” Ryba told her. “It was important that the cock to be sacrificed was black. Entirely black. He would always respond to whoever slit the throat of a black rooster on that hilltop, so I imagine he would still respond if someone did so today.”
“A black rooster, heh?” Nadezda knew that it could be difficult to find a rooster that was entirely black, without so much as a smudge of white in any of its feathers. It might also be suspicious if she were to become known for trying to obtain such a bird. “He would never accept another?”
“Only a coal-black one,” Ryba repeated. “Black as night.” She sipped her tea again.
It could also be difficult to gain access to the construction area atop the hill. “Was there any other place where the rooster could be offered? That Svetovit would lurk and listen to his worshippers?” Nadezda hoped for some alternative. “Perhaps in the Old Town Square? Or on the Kampa isle, where the gypsies camp? They are no doubt fond of Svetovit and happy to offer him a black rooster on occasion.”
“No doubt they are,” agreed Ryba. “But, no, dear child. The only place in the river valley that a black rooster could be offered with the certainty that Svetovit would respond was atop Hradčany.” She peered into Nadezda’s face. “You say that you must speak to Svetovit and tell him of Lilith’s oath. Why not cry aloud to him from wherever you please? Fen’ka certainly did not find it necessary to stand on Hradčany with a black rooster to get Svetovit’s attention.”
Nadezda, about to offer another possibility—that of slitting the throat of the rooster somewhere else but sprinkling its blood atop Hradčany—halted. Ryba was clearly guessing at some connection between her efforts to speak with Svetovit and Fen’ka’s death.
“But who is to say what means Fen’ka had employed to gain Svetovit’s attention?” Nadezda quickly answered. “Or how frequently she might have done so? Yes, she needed only words to gain Svetovit’s attention, but I have never invoked him before and have no intention to ever again. I have no desire to be intimate with him as Fen’ka might have been. I must rely on the older, more certain ways to whisper in his ear.”
Ryba nodded, seemingly satisfied with Nadezda’s response. “If you do succeed in rousing him and gaining an audience,” the midwife asked, “how will you protect yourself?”
“Th
e rabbi gave me a red cord, and told me that its ends must be tied together and thrown to the earth to make a magic circle.” Nadezda felt it would be safe to reassure the midwife that she was taking no more risks than absolutely necessary.
Ryba nodded again. “A circle is magic, in and of itself, whether it is made of cord or inscribed with gold dust.” She looked over her shoulder, as if peering into the past. “A circle attracts power and spirits the way raw, bloody meat attracts wolves in the forest.” She turned to the fireplace as if to discern the future among the glowing coals and the sliver of flame that danced atop them. “Red is the color of war and power and courage. Red is an excellent choice.” She turned again to Nadezda. “It will serve you well.”
There seemed something else the midwife wanted to say. Nadezda waited.
Finally Ryba spoke again. “The rabbi is not the only one who can give you gifts.” She stood and walked to a corner of the room, where she lifted a large basket filled with cloths and rags from atop a large metal canister, such as those used to store cow milk. After placing the basket onto the floor, she removed the lid of the canister and set that aside. Rummaging about on a nearby shelf, she found another, similar canister but much, much smaller. A canister such as that milk might be carried home from the market in. She also retrieved a ladle with a long handle.
Ryba dipped the ladle into the larger canister. Nadezda heard it splash into whatever the canister held and then watched as the midwife carefully filled the small canister with water from the larger. Ryba placed the lid on the smaller of the canisters and gave it to Nadezda. “This is dead water,” she explained, replacing the lid of the larger canister and then setting the basket of rags atop it again. “You know what dead water is, Nadezda?”
Nadezda nodded. “Dead water has been used to wash the corpse to prepare it for burial.”
“This is the water I have used to wash the stillborn infants I have delivered over the years.” Ryba confirmed Nadezda’s supposition. “Do you know what might it be used for?”
Nadezda remembered her grandmother telling her once about the uses of dead water. “It can be used to inflict a curse, I think…” she answered slowly.
Ryba nodded. “Yes, Nadezda, you remember more than you think. There are ways in which dead water can be so used. But more important for you, dead water can also be used to wash away a curse.”
Nadezda was unsure of what to say and Ryba must have seen that uncertainty play across her lips. “Take the water,” the midwife told her. “It may prove useful in ways that you—or even I—cannot imagine at present, either against Lilith or some other creature of the darkness. If you are thinking of confronting Svetovit, you can never have too many tools at your disposal.”
Nadezda began her search for a coal-black rooster in the markets the next day. She visited each of the dealers in fowl and explained that she needed a cock, dark as pitch and black as night. When they looked askance and offered one of their many other fine, fine birds, she would always shake her head and say, “No. Only a black cock will do.”
When they asked why she was so insistent, she would wink and smile at them. “It is rumored that the black roosters are the strongest, the most resilient, the swiftest and their beaks the sharpest in the cockfighting ring.” The dealers would then smile and nod their approval. “It is also said that when they lose a match, they are the tastiest in the pot,” she would add with a laugh, a laugh she strove to have mimic Lilith’s. Light. Musical. A laugh to set her listeners at ease and lull them into trusting her.
“It may take some time,” one dealer confessed. “Such a bird will not come cheaply, either, for the very reasons you say.”
Nadezda pulled two coins from her purse and gave them to the dealer. “If you hear of such a bird, obtain it and hold it here. I will return each week. Or send word that you have it to the house of Vavrinec, the baker, who lives near St. Martin’s in the Újezd district of the Old Town. I will gladly pay whatever price you ask,” she promised. “But I must obtain such a bird or my investments will all be lost.”
Making her way across town, Nadezda came to her other destination. Opening the door to the apothecary’s shop in a small plaza built around a fountain down an alleyway from the Old Town Square, she set the bell atop the doorframe jingling. The walls were lined with shelves and the shelves filled with an amazing variety of glass vials, bottles, jugs, flasks, and decanters in a wild variety of shapes and sizes. Each contained seeds or roots, leaves or stalks, granulated powders or infusions in as many colors as Nadezda could ever imagine. Some were nearly empty, with only a few, almost invisible seeds remaining at the bottom. Others were full to nearly overflowing with their dried and crumbling contents. Some infusions, she could tell simply by looking at them, were thick and oily while others were some small piece of nature still steeping in water that gently bubbled over a candle flame.
The elderly Italian gentleman who kept the shop, having come to Prague from Florence, was atop a ladder that leaned against the high wall behind the sales counter. He turned to look over his shoulder as the bell rang and, seeing Nadezda, smiled at her. His gray hair was long and clean, curling down around his jowls, which bristled with thick muttonchops. He clambered down the ladder and over to her.
“So good to see you, my dear. What can I help you with?” He was a short man. His head bobbed and his eyes twinkled. He gestured towards the thousands of medications and herbs and solutions that stocked his shelves. “What might I find for you today?”
“I am looking for four herbs,” Nadezda explained. She set her baskets filled with other purchases in the markets earlier that day on the counter. The various scales and weights set out to measure the purchases were brightly polished and glistened in the dim light of the overcast day.
“Four herbs,” Nadezda began again. “One for each of the four elements. Each must be protective or effective at cleansing the air of evil miasmas. Exorcistic herbs. Only a small quantity of each,” she hastened to add. “Just enough to burn in a fire to cleanse the house.”
“Ah, yes, I see.” The apothecary rubbed his hands together and ran his eyes along the shelves of his shop. “Step this way, my dear.” He reached for a jar that held a handful of small brown and gray chunks of dried resin. He pulled out the stopper and shook a few onto his open palm. He held the chunks out for Nadezda to inspect.
“Myrrh, my dear. A resin from Arabia and Ethiopia, burned as a fragrant incense. It is obtained—like its cousin, the precious frankincense—by scratching the bark of the myrrh tree. The resin drips from the scored bark and is collected after it has dried. You can see the high quality of the myrrh I stock, my dear, though it is difficult to obtain.” He gently placed the chunks of myrrh on a small brass saucer on the counter and replaced the stopper in the neck of the jar to protect the rest of his stock of the precious pellets.
“Myrrh is easy to burn, and because it is—at its heart—the sap of a tree, it is associated with the element water,” he continued to explain. “It also absorbs moisture, another reason for it being associated with water. That is why it has been used as an embalming agent for centuries in the Holy Land and other places. You recall, perhaps, that the Gospel tells us that myrrh was used in the burial of Our Lord?” He winked at Nadezda.
She sniffed the yellow pellets. She could smell nothing.
“Oh, no, my dear. In that form, its fragrance is impossible to detect. But when it is placed on the coals, ah…” He kissed his fingertips. “It is then that the myrrh blooms.”
He bustled about the shop, picking up one jar and setting it down in favor of another, which he then rejected as well, muttering all the while. He bent down to a shelf near the floor behind the counter to retrieve something and when he stood he held a tall, rotund ceramic pot. He nearly dropped it onto the counter, where it landed with a dull thud. He took a metal scoop from the counter and filled it with the crumbled leaves that filled the pot. He deposited the scoopful of leaves into a small bowl and replaced the pot bel
ow.
Nadezda recognized the scent of mint. It was always a fragrance that delighted her.
“This mint is the finest in all of Bohemia and I import it for only special customers. It may be burned for protection, as well as used for tea or rubbed against your temples for headache.” He squinted and rubbed his own temples briefly. “Trust me, I know from most bitter experience.”
Nadezda laughed. “Which element does mint go with?”
“Air,” the apothecary replied, already looking for the next item to recommend. He peered into vials and pulled out jars hidden behind several others on the shelves. He sniffed some before shaking his head and returning them to their places. Satisfied with his third selection, he placed a handful of tiny seeds on the counter.
“The seeds of toadflax,” he proclaimed. “It partakes of the element fire and is a potent hex breaker and eradicator of miasmas. Burning it can make your home the safest in Prague.” He was clearly proud of himself for discovering this among his wares. He leaned over to whisper in Nadezda’s ear, “I had even forgotten that I had it.” He chuckled and shrugged. “What can I do?” he asked. “The best-stocked apothecary in Prague and with some of the most rare and high-quality herbs anywhere. But some so rare and little used I forget they are here.”
Nadezda nodded. “Good sir, I have here herbs of fire, air, and water. I have need yet of one of earth. Surely you must recall one of your special items that is of earth.”
The apothecary blushed. “I do, my dear, I do. It is here somewhere. Now, if only I could recall it!” He tapped his temple with one finger, he and Nadezda laughing together. He puttered around the shop again, seemingly unable to find whatever he was looking for. He became distraught. Perplexed. He tapped his foot. Then his frustration melted away and a broad grin replaced a frown. Pulling the ladder along the wall, he climbed to the tallest shelf and brought out a glass flagon filled with dried, crumbling leaves. He measured out a small quantity and placed them on another brass saucer for her inspection.
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 112