City of Lost Dreams (20 page)

“Again, Conversano. Capriole,” he commanded the animal. She saw Conversano’s hind legs were bloody from kicking the wood. He looked finished. She met Gottfried’s eye. He shook his head. Done.

No. She was not done fighting. Pollina wasn’t done fighting. They were getting out of here.

She threw her arms around the horse’s face. “Fight,” she whispered into his ear.

With a huge effort, the horse leapt into the air and—
BAM!
—hit the door again with the full force of his entire fifteen-hundred-pound body, channeled through the springs of his hind legs into his massive hooves. The door splintered to pieces, and Sarah could feel the rush of fresh air. She stumbled out, gasping, as firemen came streaming under the arched entrance across the courtyard.

“Take him!” shouted Gottfried, tossing her Conversano’s lead rope. Before she could cough out a word, Gottfried disappeared back into the flames.

Sarah led the bloodied and trembling horse away from the fire as the firemen hauled in hoses and shouted orders. She whispered to Conversano to keep walking, trying not to hear the screams of the other horses. Traffic was stopped in the street outside and tourists were being herded back, wide-eyed. The air was filled with smoke, and sirens sounded on all sides. Through these she heard a clattering, and when she looked back toward the Spanish Riding School, out of the smoke came galloping ghostly forms, giant white horses streaked with ash. Six, seven, eight, ten, she counted them as they churned around Conversano, majestic, panicked, terrifying, like the horses from a marble fountain come to life. People in the square screamed and ran from the frenzied horses, and cart horses on the far side of the square reared in their traces, hearing the primal call of the stallions.

A final horse galloped out of the smoke, and Sarah saw there was a rider atop him, no saddle or bridle, his bearing erect like a charging knight.

Gottfried had a bullwhip in one hand, and he cracked it to bring the stallions in line, circling his own mount with pressure from his legs, keeping the stallions in a smaller and smaller space until they came to a halt in a writhing mass of horseflesh.

In his other hand Gottfried held her purse. Her white bra, which she had not redonned in all the commotion, dangled jauntily, half out of the opening.

TWENTY-THREE

“T
he newspapers say it was faulty electrical wiring.”

The morning after the fire, Sarah and Nico had made their way past Schmetterling, the vast steampunk greenhouse that housed, of all things, butterflies, and through the Hofburg complex to check out the damage to the stables.

“So much for German engineering,” said Nico.

Sarah felt a moment of relief. In the confused hours after the fire, when she had found herself once more giving statements to the police, she had dazedly wondered if somehow the source of the blaze hadn’t come from the heat off of her quite smoking encounter with Gottfried. She had left that part out of her statement, though. She had been taken to the hospital, and then gone back to Alessandro’s apartment. At some point, she had lost track of Gottfried.

“Do not worry. I will find who did this,” Gottfried had said in the square in front of Michaelerkirche. “They will be punished.”

Standing now, surveying the damage, Sarah wondered if a team of engineers were currently being horsewhipped.

The stables were taped off, and police and firemen were still positioned outside the building. There was quite a crowd, taking pictures. Some people had brought flowers, though, miraculously, all the horses had been saved. Sarah read how they had been safely removed in trucks, taken to the stud farm at Piber.

“I don’t like it,” said Nico. “The game is no longer a game. This is twice that your life has been threatened.” While Sarah was at the stables, Nico had conducted his own investigation. The little man had visited Bettina’s apartment on Paniglgasse and thoroughly ingratiated himself with the concierge, Herr Dorfmeister. “I stayed away from the dog,” Nico had said. “Dogs are uneasy around me. But we began a game of chess. I did not learn anything about your elusive doctor, but I have procured the key to her apartment. Should you care to make a visit.”

“I want to take Westonia at Bettina’s lab,” Sarah said. “That seems more like the scene of the action. But first I want to see if there’s anything at the Austrian National Library about the galleon and Philippine Welser. Now you’ve got me curious about her.”

“Worth a try,” Nico said as they turned back to the massive Hofburg complex and made their way to the library.

Sarah paused for a moment at the entrance to the
Prunksaal
, which was truly breathtaking, with its marble floor, wood paneling, frescoed ceiling, carved balconies, rolling ladders, huge gilded columns, and dizzying heights of books.

“There are three million printed manuscripts here,” said Nico. “Not to mention one hundred and eighty thousand Egyptian papyri covering three thousand years of history. Let us hope they have a better smoke detection system than the stable. And that even Moriarty couldn’t sift through that much data.”

Disappointingly, there wasn’t much at all about Philippine Welser. Sarah chalked it up to the fact that women, even remarkable women, perhaps especially remarkable women, hadn’t rated much mention in the archives of history as chronicled by men. Nico had more sinister theories regarding Philippine’s absence from the public record. Sarah did find some brief asides. Birth and death dates for the sons of her morganatic marriage to Ferdinand, one of whom became a cardinal. Descriptions of her extended family’s vast holdings.

“Did you know Philippine’s uncle went to South America?” Sarah called over to Nico, who seemed deep in his own search.

“Yes, her family were wealthy merchants. Her uncle lent a large sum to the emperor and in return was given Venezuela.”

“Venezuela? Like, all of it?”

“Yes. In fact, the Welsers were the ones who named it, for ‘little Venice.’ They had many encounters with native tribesmen.”

Sarah pondered this as she looked around the hushed roomful of people lost in ancient books, librarians hovering like priests. Philippine was wealthy, educated, interested in medicine, highly empowered for a woman of her era, and possibly in possession of medicinal plants from South America. No wonder she had hallucinogens up her sleeves. Very interesting.

“‘
De re coquinaria
,’” Sarah said, reading the catalog entry. “‘Handwriting. Over two hundred recipes and medical cures of the wife of the Archduke of Tyrol. 1545.’”

“That’s the book the von Hohenlohes have,” said Nico. “Anything about the galleon?”

“Nothing,” said Sarah. “You don’t think—no, never mind.”

“Out with it.”

“That Philippine Welser is involved in this? Personally, I mean. That you’re not the only immortal. That
she
is your . . . Moriarty?” The moment it was out of her mouth, Sarah regretted it. Her skepticism was the only thing keeping her together right now. There was no time to go off the deep end into Fleeceville.

“My suspicions have been centered around Edward Kelley. I don’t think it’s Philippine. By all accounts, her interest was in healing the sick. She wasn’t interested in manipulating alchemy for purposes of power. That’s rather a guy thing, I suppose.”

“Not always. Anyway, what
are
you looking at?”

“Rudolf’s papers,” said Nico, “which are numerous, despite the Swedish hordes scattering them on the four winds. One always likes to take a look, in case something’s been overlooked. Why, just last year in the Bodleian some first-year chappie found a forgotten diary of Serafina, underparlormaid to the 4th Duke of Devonshire. I must say, I had some very toasty evenings with that wee lassie. . . .” Sarah looked over his shoulder as he scrolled through the list. There were certainly plenty of interesting things: a book of herbals in French from 1573 with Rudolf’s margin notes; an English volume in Latin inscribed to Rudy, which she would guess was a gift from John Dee; and a Styrian alchemical manuscript from 1584 by Johannes Erici.

“Who the bloody hell is that?” Nico mumbled.

Sarah frowned. “The notation in the catalog says he was an assistant to Tycho Brahe.”

“Never heard of him. Tycho had a cousin named Eric, bit of a boozehound that one, and then there was Eric Lange, most amusing, loved answering the door in his wife’s gowns, but neither of them ever wrote a book.”

Sarah went to the call desk and filled out a form to request the volume. She had to leave her passport and sign a piece of paper in triplicate agreeing to the archive rules, which included a promise not to “kindle any fire within the Library,” which Sarah tried not to take personally. She signed, and the librarian eventually returned with a cardboard archival box.

“When you are finished you will kindly return this to the desk and at that point your documents will be returned to you. No pens.” He gave a curious glance at Nico.

“My assistant,” said Sarah.

“Your slave,” whispered Nico as the librarian retreated. “Although apparently you don’t need me anymore, now that you have Alessandro Muscle-lini and the Gottfried von Heimlich Maneuver. They’re like the new Axis powers.”

Sarah ignored this and opened the box, whose spine was marked with an old inked number and the words
Die Alchemie. Johann. EW Erici. 1584. Rudolph ii-Sammlung
.

Inside was not a book, but another box. Sarah leaned forward to read the tiny black handwriting on the older archival box.
The Curious historie and awfull magick of the ancient and wonderfull golden fleece.

 • • • 

“I
suppose it would be too much to ask,” Nico said, sighing, “that this would be the actual Golden Fleece? We could call it a day and go get some Sacher torte.”

“I’m not after the Fleece.” Sarah felt like slinging the box across the library.

“You don’t think secrets of life and death could be helpful to Pols?”

They stared at the box for a moment.

“Well, no shimmering powerful aura of the ultimate keys to the universe and whatnot. So I’m thinking it’s not the Fleece.” Sarah tugged her turtleneck sweater up until the fabric was covering her mouth and nose. “But I’m not taking any chances,” she explained. “In case some kind of mystical powder poofs out at me.”

“You’ve gotten so conservative,” Nicolas complained.

Sarah opened the lid, and together they peered inside.

A simple card. “‘Removed for curatorial purposes,’” Sarah read.

“Bugger
me
,” said Nico.

“What does it mean?”

“It means it’s time to take the drug. You said you were ready for the witchcraft.”

“Bring it
on
,” said Sarah.

Gottfried stood in Frau Müller’s apartment. It was the day of the concierge’s weekly tennis game. The old man was very vigorous. A good Austrian.

Heinrich had come to him this morning and said that the most crucial information from the doctor’s research was still missing. Everything on the laptop had been sorted through by the drug company’s scientists, men whom Gottfried pictured as having spectacles and doughy girl hands. Heinrich’s “superiors” were excited but not satisfied. There had to be more information. A flash drive, a disc, an iPad. Handwritten notes. They couldn’t say what, wouldn’t give details. Something.

Gottfried took a deep breath. It was unclear when he would have unfettered access to this apartment again. He needed to move quickly. He had not told Heinrich that Sarah had been asking questions about him, but he was uneasy.

Sarah. Sarah was . . .

Even during the fire she had not been too afraid to act. Gottfried wasn’t used to other people being that way, just himself.

Help, Defend, Heal.

Sarah had a sick friend, that was why she wanted Bettina’s research. Her motives were pure.

He had not eaten today. He had maybe not eaten yesterday. The horses were safe, but his head was hurting. He did not feel well. He did not have much time.

Gottfried faulted himself later for not having heard the apartment door open, not heard the footsteps behind him. How could he have missed that? He had been so caught up in searching without leaving a trace that the old man was standing right behind him before he realized it.

“Excuse me, do I know you?”

Gottfried stood and gave a polite bow.

“Yes. I am a friend of Frau Doktor Müller.”

“Frau Doktor Müller is away.”

“Yes, she asked me to stop by. To check on things.”

“Why are you searching through Doktor Müller’s possessions? Excuse me. I will have to call Doktor Müller now.”

The old man began backing out of the apartment. He was afraid.

Gottfried would have to act. There was not much time. He must not think. He must act.