Three Emperors (9780062194138) (8 page)

I worked my way to the Austrian side of the river, dropped to the muddy bank, and clambered to the road above. To my relief, Murat and Lannes had the situation under control. French troops had reached the northern shore, the Austrians had lost their advantageous position, and French cavalry were clearing a wedge on the banks. The Austrians were too confused, and unready to resist. My stratagem had succeeded. We had the bridge, and the enemy was falling back.

General Auersperg, boxed in by French troops, was furious. He pointed at me. “There's the one! That's the one who lied and tricked!”

“The English poet John Lyly said all is fair in love and war,” Murat replied. “I give you leave to rejoin your men, general, on the condition that you withdraw north to join your emperor. You can thank us that we haven't kept you captive.”

“What benefit is that? Francis will imprison me for losing this bridge.” The horror of what had happened was beginning to dawn on him.

“Then be careful of Americans. They are a sly and wily people, violent and greedy, a nation of rebels, opportunists, and sharp traders.”

This assessment seemed unfair, but before I could protest, the Austrian spoke up. “If I see that one again, I'll shoot him.” Then Auersperg, flushed from humiliation, wheeled his horse and made for his own lines, calling his troops to fall in behind him. The French continued to pour across in a tide of blue and green.

Murat turned to me. “
Mon Dieu
, have you been in a sty?” He was still a peacock, his uniform spotless. I was half-soaked and muddy as a pig.

“An Austrian sergeant did his best to blow you up, and I had to stop him,” I replied. “I'm cold, sore, and frightened. Could I have some champagne?”

“It's gone. But admirable pluck, American. And all's well that ends well, Shakespeare said.”

“I didn't realize you were a student of English literature.”

“I don't care for books, but I like epigrams. They're short.”

“This ends well if the capture of the Tabor Bridge gives me permission to go find my wife and son,” I pressed.

“Absolutely,” the marshal promised. “Once we've achieved final victory and there's no danger of you doing the same kind of trick for the enemy, I'll send you on your way.”

“Final victory!”

“You're too valuable to wander about, Gage. Besides, the Austrians would simply kill you. You're safest with us.”

“I would be first in line to shoot him,” the humiliated and captive Colonel Geringer said.

“I believe first in line would be General Auersperg,” I corrected, just to keep my enemies straight.

“I don't blame you,” Murat said to Geringer. “Gage is as empty of conviction as a lawyer, as pitiless as a doctor, and as greedy as a moneylender. In other words, a man of great use.”

“My loyalty is to common sense,” I protested. “I'm just trying to get to Prague. I seek reunion with my family.” And I wanted to stay several leagues in front of seductive and treacherous Catherine Marceau.

“Napoleon seeks reunion with you. You've been conscripted, Ethan Gage. You have proven entirely too useful.”

Chapter 9

Astiza

P
rague is no longer the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, as it was under eccentric emperor Rudolf II two hundred years ago, but it remains the capital of mystery and magic. The city lies in a bowl that legend says was hammered by a rock from the sky. Its gates are dark as charcoal, and bulbous black towers, tipped with gold, sprout spires like pitchforks. Church steeples look like wizard hats. Lanes are a labyrinth. Alchemists, magicians, dwarfs, soothsayers, necromancers, numerologists, and astronomers live here, communing with God and the Devil. It's the city of Paracelsus, Sendivogius, Setonius, Mamugna, Geronimo Scotta, Tadeáš Hájek, and the seductive witch Gelchossa, daughter of wizard John Dee. Prague alchemist Edward Kelly had no ears, having had them cut off as punishment for forgery. Prague astronomer Tycho Brahe had no nose, or rather had a brass one to replace the flesh lost in a duel. Johannes Kepler taught that God's path for the planets is not the circle but the ellipse, confounding belief in divine perfection. Here Faust made his fatal pact with the Devil, and Rabbi Loew made a mud monster called a golem to protect the black-clad Jews. Ghosts haunt the monasteries, and succubi the palaces. Ask anyone who lives there: Prague is a city of talking cats, bells that refuse to ring, prophetic ravens, poisoned moonbeams, and comets that foretell war.

In the imperial palace that looms on the other side of the Vltava River, mad king Rudolf built a great hall to house his collection of curiosities. In the gloom of the Czech winters, gray light filtering through high palace windows, he walked alone to finger a six-foot-long unicorn horn, the agate bowl he believed might be the Holy Grail, prehistoric spearheads, nails from Noah's Ark, a desiccated dragon, and a chalice made of rhinoceros horn. He had a bell to call the dead. There were ticking clocks, crystal balls, telescopes, astrolabes, and an iron chair that clasped its occupant.

Ambassadors gave Rudolf tiny demons imprisoned in gems of amber.

I came to Prague with Horus because this city is a magnet for mysticism and science. It's the crossroads of East and West, where the rationalism of the North marries the passions of the South. It's a place to suspect time is an illusion, and reality a veil. When valley fogs roll and lamps glow like orange moons, when monsters sleep in attics and ravens hop across headstones, when red light burns in alchemist cellars and sulfur issues from clay chimneys, then all mysteries thrive, and any answer seems possible.

I timed my arrival to the Mansions of the Moon, the twenty-eight stations that Luna progresses as it waxes and wanes each month. My entry was the gate beneath the Powder Tower, the city armory. I found quick and temporary employment as a healer and fortune-teller in a herbarium near Old Town Square, earning enough for a garret while searching for the Brazen Head. The question I will ask it: When will my husband return?

The Klementinum of the Jesuits has become Prague University since the Catholic sect's suppression by Empress Maria Theresa. Its library's merger with Rudolf's alchemical collection means there might be clues about Rosenkreutz, who rowed his boat and its coffin-shaped cargo to the water gate at the Klementinum's base. How could the Rosicrucian dissolve castle walls? I must learn this.

My first problem was gaining admittance. Temples of learning typically refuse admission to my gender, so I dressed in my sorceress robes and presented my travel-stained endorsements from Talleyrand. Nonetheless, an officious librarian barred my entry. “The scriptorium is for scholars only,” he told me. He peered at my son with distaste. “Women, children, dogs, and Jews are prohibited.”

I was ready for this. I gave a nudge, and Harry darted past the man's folded arms and into the barrel-vaulted repository beyond. I'd told Horus that a “wandering bishop” in a wine-colored cassock kept a mechanical parrot on his shoulder that could sing in French and English. This scholar was Primus Fulcanelli, the student of the occult that Duke Josef Schwarzenberg had suggested I seek.

“My child!” I cried on cue, looking accusingly at the librarian as if it were his fault Harry had dashed past. A man will defer to women when it comes to a four-year-old. The confused clerk hesitated just long enough for me to push past, his hand scraping my cloak in a futile attempt to stop me.

I trotted until arrested by the library's beauty. It's a baroque hymn to the human mind, as stately as a shrine. There are two dozen black pillars, their tops wrapped with gold, twisted in the Solomon design that originated in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem. Ceiling murals celebrate the history of learning. Oriental rugs muffle sound, and heavy oak tables are heaped with opened books. On stands between are globes, clocks, and models of the seven astrological planets: the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. There are also seven hells and seven heavens, seven sacraments in the Catholic Church, seven gifts as defined by Saint Thomas Aquinas, seven deadly sins, and seven days in the week.

Truth is revealed by numbers.

Harry cornered a scarlet-robed scholar. “Do you have a parrot?”

Far from being offended, the surprised bishop seemed charmed by my son's French. “If I did, wouldn't I be a pirate?” he said in the same tongue.

“I wanted to hear it sing!”

“And what crevice did you escape from, little mouse?” I hurried to catch up, my spangled skirt kicking up loose papers as it swirled.

“I'm not a mouse.”

The man bent. “Really? You are very small.”

“I'm a boy!”

“Harry, leave that man alone.”

“No! I want to hear his parrot sing.”

The bishop straightened. “This is your son?”

“Apologies, Monsieur . . .”

“Fulcanelli. Primus Fulcanelli, a Latin scholar from Rome.” He turned to Harry. “I'm afraid I don't have a parrot, but I wish I did.”

“Harry, Mama was mistaken.”

My boy was disappointed. “I saw a parrot in a circus.”

“Look, there's a model of the planets. See how the balls go round and round? Take a look while I apologize to this man.” I turned to Fulcanelli, balancing between being demure and being bold. “He's very fond of novelties, a trait of his mother's. You are a Jesuit, Monsignor?”

He was intrigued by my intrusion. “That aggressive order was banned from Prague a generation ago. I'm a Catholic bishop without a diocese, and so am called ‘wandering.' My kind finds other usefulness, often in scholarship, while keeping our connections to Rome.”

“ 'I'm embarrassed to have interrupted you, and yet you may be the answer to my prayers. I need this library for my alchemical studies.”

“Do you? My own intellectual quest has brought me to Prague. And you are?”

“Astiza of Alexandria. I'm a scholar of mechanical contraptions. I told Harry there might be a parrot automaton here.”

“You said it was a bird!”

“Harry, hush.” Fulcanelli and I studied each other. He was a remarkably handsome churchman, his manner recalling the poise of the swordsman more than the piety of the clergy. And he looked appreciatively at me. I turn heads when I wish, using it as a tool when needed. Bishops have the rank to appreciate beauty without accusation of moral failing. So: he is a prelate, he is a scholar, he is a man. “I'm afraid my boy embodies the last of the Five Processes,” I said. This is energy, my host would know. The others are essence, sense, vitality, and spirit.

The librarian I'd pushed past hurried up to us, flushed with consternation. “I am sorry, holiness!”

Fulcanelli gave a dismissive wave. “On the contrary, Havek, I suspect this lady is precisely the kind of scholar I was hoping to meet.”

“But she is a woman!”

“I see that.”

“And not even Czech or German!”

“Eastern, I'm guessing. Greek?”

I gave a slight curtsy. “Greek and Egyptian, Monsignor.”

“The nations of philosophy and magic. And you have no husband?”

“I do, but we're traveling separately.”

He puzzled over this but didn't press. “And I'm guessing you came here to seek me out. Few meetings are accidental.”

“Your scholarship was commended by Duke Josef Schwarzenberg, of Český Krumlov Castle.”

His eyebrow elevated. “You have impressive friends.” He turned to Havek. “You may leave us.”

“But she has a child!”

“Whom I've decided to educate. You've done your duty, now go, go.” The poor man retreated and Fulcanelli turned back to me. “You're a student of esoteric thought? That discipline is a maze of speculation.”

“Dangerous as well,” I said. “
The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage
is reputed to bring fatal accidents to anyone who reads it.”

He cocked his head. “And have you read it?”

“I am alive,” I replied evasively but with a flirtatious glance. I can be shameless when I have a reason to be. It's another way my husband and I are alike. “I'm a student of transformation, Bishop, believing the age-old creed of ‘As within, so without.' I search for my divine spark in the wisdom of others.” I gestured to the books. “I've studied texts in Egypt, Tripoli, Martinique, Paris, and Heidelberg.”

“And you bring your child into shrines of learning?”

“We have no regular home, or nanny. He can already read.”

“Remarkable.”

“I keep him quiet with practice of his letters.”

“And promises of mechanical parrots.”

I smiled apologetically and looked at the banks of books, the arched windows giving shafts of light between. The library was two stories high, with a gilded balcony giving access to the uppermost shelves. Many of the leather bindings had cracked with age. My heart raced at what I might learn.

“Where is your husband traveling, madame?”

“I'm afraid I don't know. We were separated.” I shrugged, hoping to suggest it was a tiresome story yet making clear that I was legitimately partnered.

“And you seek the divine spark?”

“As you know, alchemical seekers believe the God Without is also Within. We search to purify lead into gold and the soul into salvation. We believe we can pierce the veil and achieve reunification with God by our efforts.”

His look was amused, not censorious. “Such alchemy is heresy to the Church.”

“Such alchemy is religious inquiry. You and I share the same interests, Bishop.”

“Yours is not a quest for busy mothers.”

“It's partly a quest to find my son's father. He may be in danger.”

“Papa disappeared,” Harry piped up, “but before that we hunted for candy!”

I'd made Fulcanelli curious. I practice intrigue, which makes it hard for men to ignore me. I'm intelligent, which makes them wary. I'm purposeful, which makes them threatened. I pay attention, which flatters. I dress in costume. In a world in which men have strength, power, and desire, women must have wits.

“Why in danger?” he asked.

“Powerful people seek what we seek. The alchemist Robert Grosseteste, chancellor of Oxford and bishop of London, is one of many who wrote of a bronze automaton made by Albertus Magnus five or more centuries ago.”

“The Great Albert. Also called Doctor Universalis.”

“Yes, Bishop. I'm hoping to find more of Grosseteste's writings.”

“Why? It's an old tale. Saint Thomas Aquinas destroyed the machine.”

“Some think not. My own search suggests that the machine passed through Prague, or still resides here somewhere.”

“Do you really think so?” To the bishop it was a fairy tale. “Like the legendary golem of three hundred years ago, created by Rabbi Loew to project the Jews and now supposedly tucked away in a synagogue attic?” This was a history well known to Europe's religious scholars.

“I'm following the petals of the rose as clues, seeking signs in the stars. You're a Catholic welcomed into a city with a history of hostility toward your creed, Primus.” I used his first name deliberately, as an offer of friendship. “I similarly ask for help from this institution, despite its hostility to my sex.”

“Not hostility. Just . . . exclusivity.”

“I ask only to read. None need talk to me or look at me.”

He laughed. “Too many will be tempted! And surely you've found the texts you need in other libraries.”

“Far from it. I hope you have the
Monas Hieroglyphica
of John Dee,
The Arbatel of Magic
,
The Book of Secrets
by Albertus Magnus, the
Corpus Hermeticum
of Marsilio Ficino,
The Ordinal of Alchemy
, and works by Michael Maier, the Comte de Saint-Germain, Maria the Jewess, and Grand Professor Martines de Pasqually.”

“An impressive list.”

“We live in an age of books. I believe that with enough study, we learn the truth.”

“If only facts, speculation, and truth were the same thing.” He considered me, his eye straying to Harry.

“What is
your
quest, Bishop?”

“Magic, I'm afraid, or rather the disproof of it. The Church doesn't want saintly miracle confused with parlor tricks and hopes to get at the truth of what medieval magicians and alchemists claimed. If you're inclined to believe, I'm required to be skeptical.”

“Perhaps we would make a good team.”

“Perhaps.” He considered. “I think your odyssey is for an object that no longer exists, madame, if it ever did. But you show every sign of being a serious scholar, and this city has welcomed thinkers from all over Europe for five hundred years.”

“It's true my quest may be futile,” I admitted. “But how interesting if I succeed! In medieval times, the Brazen Head might have been feared as evil, but savants and clergy have the chance to study it in our scientific age. How did it work? What could it foretell?”

Fulcanelli came to his decision. “I'm moved by intellect, persistence, and”—he looked down at Harry—“boldness. So as a senior scholar of this exquisite library, I grant guest privileges and offer partnership.” He smiled and my heart jumped unexpectedly. “Will you start in Philosophy?”