The Bloodletter's Daughter (9 page)

“I will see that Doctor Mingonius makes arrangements to treat Don Julius. In the meantime, I have already sent Jakub Horcicky to make inquiries about hiring a staff and readying the Krumlov castle for Don Julius. He should be there by tomorrow at the latest, inspecting the castle to determine the appropriate apartments to confine Don Julius. We will have to estimate the expenses, along with that of the purchase price, to the royal treasury. He will prepare a report.”

“Horcicky? My botanist?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, our imperial chemist. The doctor was born in Krumlov and raised within the walls of the Jesuit monastery there. He can oversee the preparations and secure a reliable staff. He speaks their dialect and has connections through the Jesuit order.”

The king pinched his lip. “See that Horcicky does not spend too much time away from the botanical gardens. There is no
other man who can coax my orchids into bloom. If he could only distill a potion to cure my son of his madness.

“And see who the barber-surgeon was who saved the life of the servant,” said the king, rising from his throne. “He shielded my son’s life by preventing a death on the streets of Vienna. Reward him!”

Wolfgang Rumpf was never able to find the barber-surgeon who had intervened to save the life of Don Julius’s servant.

That barber-surgeon was Zigmund Pichler, Marketa’s father, and he had saddled his horse and departed for his home in Cesky Krumlov that very day.

The disgusting encounter with Don Julius had left him even more eager than usual to escape the streets of Vienna, where violence thrived and debauchery rang in the laughter of the drunks and whores. Despite his continuing visits over the years, he had never been comfortable in the foreign city. He had been brought up a strict Catholic by his mother; his much older sister, Ludmilla, was the abbess of the Convent of St. Clare, known as the Poor Clares for their vows of poverty. A yearning for knowledge had attracted him to Vienna, for he longed to better his skills and cure more patients, but he had no stomach for the ribald comportment of the city and his animosity was reciprocated. The Viennese dismissed his German as unintelligible through the thick accent of his native Czech, and they laughed rudely at his prudish, parochial behavior.

He might have protested that he was the owner of the Cesky Krumlov bathhouse and he could hardly be considered prudish—he simply knew what behavior was appropriate for the bathhouse and what behavior for the streets. But he never mentioned the bathhouse to anyone, especially not strangers.

This visit had been more difficult than most. He had been forced to try new accommodations, and this rooming house, though near the guild, was far rougher, less civilized than the one he had stayed at so many times before.

Pichler crossed himself when he heard a curse at breakfast, and the other boarders had snickered at his innocence. They mocked his antiquated clothes, his sack trousers and worn jacket, clear signs of a rural Czech rube.

Still Pichler had endured their teasing, just to study with his mentor, Master Weiss, at the barber-surgeon guild. For it was Weiss’s unparalleled erudition he sought—with a burning hunger to learn.

Each day of his stay, Pichler approached the bright, creamcolored guildhouse as his elder sister might approach the altar of God. He felt the thrill in the quickening of his heartbeat and the cold shiver that worked its way up his sweating back.

Master Weiss traveled the world, collecting secrets from other barber-surgeons. He had most recently been to London where he heard the lectures of the distinguished William Clowes, chirurgeon to the Queen. Clowes’s book,
A Proved Practice
, graced the polished table of the guild.

Master Weiss invited Pichler to study the book. It was the New Testament to the barber-surgeon profession. The master also unrolled scrolls that sketched the anatomy of the human body and the veins that had been identified. That knowledge was precious indeed. The English Parliament had passed a law that the barber-surgeon guild was to receive four bodies—handpicked and delivered by the beadles of the gallows—every year, so that the science of medicine could advance. Family members were known to pursue the cart carrying off their loved one for dissection. Still, Henry VIII had decreed that science must prevail, and his daughter Elizabeth I, who reigned now, did not protest the law.

The thirst for knowledge had grown so acute that members of the guild squabbled over the corpses and were even driven to robbing graves. Paupers and whores were rarely missed when they disappeared from the overcrowded cemeteries, where no mourner would ever visit the departed.

Pichler copied the charts of the veins as best he could onto scrolls of parchment and thought how they would delight Marketa, who took an almost uncanny interest in the course and conduits of life’s blood.

But the morning after the debacle of Don Julius, Pan Pichler heard news that sent him packing immediately for home.

“It seems you are going to have a royal visitor in Cesky Krumlov,” said Master Weiss.

Pichler took a few seconds to sort through this statement, the German tongue confounding his comprehension.

“A visitor?”

“The mad bastard son of Rudolf II is to become the new master of Cesky Krumlov and reside in the palace.”

“But the Rozmberks have lived there for centuries!”

“They need the emperor’s gold,” said Herr Weiss. “And so you are to inherit the king’s bastard son. I am sorry to have to give you such sore news, for he is no prize. He is Prague’s most sordid sot, and they will sing at full lung in the Old Town Square when the news comes they are rid of him. I hope the guards keep the wretched bastard under tight control, for the women—and the men—of Cesky Krumlov are not safe from his lunatic humors.”

Herr Weiss dropped his voice and bent close to Pichler’s ear.

“I hear last night he rutted with whores in the streets, just to cause mirth and let his infamy be announced throughout Vienna.”

Pichler realized that the man Master Weiss was describing was the same young barbarian who had attacked and almost
killed his own servant—indeed, would have killed him had not Pichler intervened to save the man’s life.

“That fiend is to come to Cesky Krumlov! How can it be? I shall alert the ministers, and we shall howl a protest that even the deaf shall hear!”

Weiss smiled sadly at his protégé. “You may howl like dogs at the moon, but the moonlight will not change its color.” He leaned even closer and whispered, “Our emperor is strange in the head himself. Although everyone knows that, I could be beheaded for saying it. Still, our Rudolf is more melancholy than choleric. His son, however, harbors the most choleric bile and should be legally obliged to bleedings to rid him of his murderous humor and protect the citizens.”

“I must ride home,” muttered Pichler, carefully closing the precious Clowes book and fastening the latch. “I must warn our town at once.”

“I suppose you must. It’s a pity you cannot indulge your mind in more knowledge, for there is much I wanted to show you. A cauterizing procedure that could save many lives. The effects of housing surgery tools safely, far from malodorous airs and away from the hair of barbery that can give off evil humors of its own.”

“I only use my surgery tools for surgery,” said Pichler. “I keep them in an oak chest that my daughter organizes for me. My barber’s razors and scissors are kept out on a separate tray. The two never mix, any more than milk with meat for a Jew.”

“You have good intuition, for it is said that hair has a power all its own, both good and evil. If I were you, I would burn or bury the sweepings so that your daughter will not touch them by accident.”

“Thank you for your advice,” said Pichler, gathering up his knapsack and notebooks. “I will try to return next summer, if I can save enough for the journey.”

“No, come sooner. In late February, the royal surgeon Jan Jesenius will perform the first public dissection of a corpse. Over a thousand observers are expected to attend from all over the world. Save your crowns for that journey, my friend.”

“Here in Vienna?” asked Pichler in astonishment.

“No, by King Rudolf’s orders, it shall be performed in Prague.”

D
ROWNED
F
LEAS

The bathhouse on the banks of the Vltava River stood in the shadow of Rozmberk Castle, like a mushroom growing on the root of a host tree. Gazing up at the castle with its high windows and colorful tower, a tall man in clothes cut of Italian silk and fine wool slowed his pace as he approached Barber’s Bridge. Jakub Horcicky de Tenepec, court physician, imperial chemist, and director of the royal gardens, dropped his gaze from the castle walls to the pale yellow bathhouse just below.

It was just as he recalled it from his youth. A place that Jesuits considered a den of iniquity, where the villagers bathed communally, without modesty.

Jakub smiled, remembering the Jesuits’ admonishments. Now in his service to the king, he found himself again in his old hometown, gazing at the same blasphemous bathhouse.

He had been sent by Minister Rumpf to inspect Rozmberk Castle to ensure suitable lodging—and containment—of Don Julius. When it was ascertained that a secure confinement could
be arranged, along with all the luxuries, staff, and fine dining befitting a son of the king, Jakub had finished his task.

It had been a long, hard journey from Prague; the thick mud of the road had hidden a boulder that shattered the axle of the coach. Jakub was forced to spend two days in Cesky Budejovice, sleeping in a filthy inn, eating rancid food, and enduring the service of a surly innkeeper and his mouse-faced wife. The inn owners were stingy with their guests, offering only gristly meat and watered-down beer. But worst of all they had bed pallets with dirty straw. Jakub suspected the straw hadn’t been changed in several seasons, and he scratched at the fleabites on his ankles until they drew blood.

As he stepped on the bridge he saw a girl wading into the river on the Latran side. She was barefooted and was drawing two buckets of water. Her hair looked shiny and clean, and she was taking pains not to get her shift dirty on the rocks.

Jakub watched the girl in the glittering water and rubbed his fingertips over the welts on his ankles. The girl’s tunic was wet with perspiration and steam from the bathhouse, and her skin was mottled with red as the cold water of the Vltava stung a blush on her flesh. As she leaned over to dip her bucket, the sunlight caught her hair and he saw the flickering highlights—flame red, sunny blonde—blended among the strands of black and chestnut.

Just then a flea skipped over his silk doublet. A bath! He would drown the cursed vermin in a hot soak and end this infernal itching.

“Marketa,” called her mother from the entrance of the bathhouse. “Marketa, come here right away!”

The young bathmaid was carrying a bucket of water from the river toward the hearth, but set it down and rubbed her sore back, kneading the strained muscles with her long fingers. She turned toward her mother, who stood at the doorway, welcoming a tall man with fine clothes who pulled off his gloves as he addressed Lucie Pichlerova.

The sight of this handsome, well-dressed man stopped her short, as she wondered how he had found his way into a simple village bathhouse.

“I have traveled for five days from Prague,” he said. “I am aching and in need of a bath and a good soak. And I...I have fleas.”

“Of course, my lord,” Lucie said, curtsying and showing him her gap-toothed smile. It amused her that a rich man would complain with such shame of what all the poor of Bohemia endured as a natural course.

“We run a good bathhouse here, clean and savory. Would you like some sweet herbs in your bath, sir? I will have my daughters prepare the barrel for you, and Marketa here will tend to your scrubbing.”

Marketa swallowed. There was something about the man—more than his fine clothes and bearing—that made her heart race. She stared at him, scanning his face. He smiled and she ducked her head, her cheeks burning.

“Marketa!” said her mother, nudging her with an elbow. “Where are your manners? Take this good gentleman to the bathing quarters and give him a good scrub.”

Marketa bobbed her head and helped the visitor take off his coat, hanging it on a peg near the front door. She gave a little gasp as she took his scarf, an exquisite garment that seemed made of spun cobwebs, the color of the forest canopy when the morning sun shone through its leaves.

“Do you like it,
slecna
?” asked the stranger, watching her hands delicately handling the silk scarf.

“I have never seen anything as beautiful, not even the priest’s vestments,” she said, staring at the scarf in her hand.

Marketa turned to hang the bather’s clothes on the wooden pegs by the door.

“No,” said Lucie, grabbing the cloak in her hand. “Garments as fine as these, we will put in a special place for safekeeping. And this bewitching scarf, it is made from worm spit—silk you call it? It won’t do to leave such a rare treasure in plain view. Excuse us, sir, I will just show Marketa where to store it, among our valuables. It won’t do to have them hang next to the door where a thief might snatch the lot. Please wait, it won’t be a moment.”

Lucie folded the coat and scarf over her arm and arched an eyebrow at Marketa to follow her into the recesses of the house.

“Here is your chance, girl!” said Lucie to her daughter, laying the coat on the straw pallet bed and standing back to admire it. “You wanted to get away from the brewer! The greedy bastard is haggling over the supplement he is paying, saying it is too much just to look, not touch. This is a chance to make him realize what a prize he has in you.”

The color that had flooded Marketa’s face just minutes before drained.

“What are you saying, Mother?”

“This man is ten times as rich as the brewer—maybe a hundred times! Do you see the cut of his coat, the richness of the material? He is from the king’s court, I swear it!”

“And?”

“Give the man pleasure, Marketa. Good hands in the right place and we will let Pan Brewer know what price he ought to pay for a bathmaid who entertains visitors from Prague!”

“But Mother!” she protested. “You told me if I submitted to Pan Brewer, it would be enough to feed the family. I did what I promised to do.”

Lucie hugged her daughter, pulling her close. She whispered in her ear. “We could triple our payment with some rivalry. If he hears that you have touched a nobleman and given him pleasure, who knows what price he might one day pay for taking your virginity? Come, Daughter. Just slide your hands in the right place when you soap him. Enough to make him moan so the gossips will carry the news to Pan Brewer that you are servicing a member of the king’s court. And what a handsome man he is!”

Lucie did not wait to hear Marketa’s response but hurried back to the gentleman waiting at the entrance, beaming her splittoothed smile.

“My comely daughter, Marketa, will escort you to the bathing area. I will see to it personally that the barrel is a perfect temperature. Do you like it warm or hot so the water is nearly quivering on the surface?”

“Warm to the touch but pleasant. I do not want to stew, please,
pani
,” he said, laughing at her. “Just water to drown these damnable fleas.”

He looked at Marketa, his eyes still dancing with amusement.

“I am Jakub Horcicky,” he said. “Court physician to King Rudolf II. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Slecna Marketa.”

Marketa accepted his hand and shook it formally. Then she curtsied because she was not sure what manners were appropriate with a physician of the Prague court.

“Please, come with me, Herr Horcicky.”

“Pan Horcicky,” he corrected her. “Or Jakub would be more suitable as you are about to bathe me. But I have not addressed you in German, so ‘Herr’ is not appropriate.”

“But all those from Prague speak German.”

“I speak German, of course, but in my hometown, I prefer to speak my native language.”

Marketa realized now that he had, all along, been speaking colloquial Czech with a Krumlov accent. And he was a physician, one who distilled medicines from herbs, just as Annabella did. But she had never seen this man before.

She showed him to the stool where she would bathe him with soap and a reed brush. She helped him remove his finely cobbled shoes and his dark blue doublet.

“You are a physician!” she said, trying to contain the excitement in her voice. “Galen or Paracelsus?” She was suddenly eager to show him she was not just another bathmaid.

Jakub stopped his hand on the lacings of his britches. He cocked his head at her.

“What does a bathmaid know of Galen, much less Paracelsus?”

Marketa jerked her chin up at the insult.

“I happen to be studying his methods of distillations and recognition of medicinal herbs and plants, Herr Doctor.”

“Jakub, please—
you
can read?”

Marketa chewed the inside of her mouth in irritation. But of course he would be surprised that a bathmaid could read.

“Yes, I can read, and yes, I know about Paracelsus and his methods, and Galen’s four humors as well.”

A slow smile spread over Jakub’s face.

“Ah, so you must be the bloodletter’s daughter!”

Marketa was not certain how he could come so quickly to this conclusion, but a spark of pride ignited in her breast.

“Yes,” she said, wiping her wet hands on a bath sheet. “My father is Barber-Surgeon Pichler. I am his assistant.”

She noticed that her bemused client was picking clumsily at the knot in the laces of his breeches, and she approached him out of habit, shooing away his hands and working at the knot with her fingernail.

“I have a friend who has the Book of Paracelsus, and I devote hours each week to studying his methods. You see, I want to learn. I want to know. I want to—”

“Marketa!” interrupted her mother, peering around the wall to the soaking area. “The bathwater is hot and you have not yet begun to bathe the gentleman!”

“I am sorry, Mother, we were just talking—”

“Cease talking and let the poor man relax. He did not come here to listen to a bathmaid chatter on!”

“Mother, we—”

“Give the man his bath, Marketa. And remember what I told you.”

Marketa unraveled the knot to Jakub’s breeches, and suddenly she felt the heat rise to her face. She helped him to the bathing stool and bade him sit. The girl kept her eyes averted as she pulled off his pants and folded them on a bench. She knew the man sat before her naked now, like hundreds of men before, but she could not look him in the eye.

Then she caught sight of a little silver cross on a chain around his neck. It stopped her short, and she drew in a sharp breath.

“Would you like me to remove your chain?” she asked. “It might tarnish in the soapy water.”

“No thank you,
slecna
. I never take it off,” he said. “Some clean water and soap will do it good.”

He sensed that something was wrong. He said, “I am not a priest,
slecna
. Treat me as you would any man in the village who has come for a bath.”

Marketa nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

She approached him from behind, bending down to retrieve a warm bucket of water and a flat bar of soap. She was determined to treat him like anyone from Krumlov.

“Close your eyes, sir,” she said.

She poured water over his head. Then she slipped the bar of potash soap through the warm water and worked up a good head of lather.

Her expert hands massaged his head, working the suds through his dark wavy hair. She pulled the lather away from his eyes with her fingertips, molding the whitecap of foam where she wanted it, like a sculptor working wet clay. His shoulders relaxed as his muscles melted under her fingers.

“What hands you have,” he sighed. “Truly you have a gift.”

As he exhaled, she drew in his breath. She leaned closer to him. When he blinked open his eyes and smiled up at her, she snapped back her head, mortified.

“Do not be frightened, my little bathmaid,” he said, tilting his head back and gazing at her. “See, I shall close my eyes again, but please do not stop your hands from their miracles.”

He squeezed his eyes shut but could not hide a smile.

Marketa worked the lather longer than she normally would and listened to his sighs of pleasure. She, too, did not want to stop.

Finally came the time when she needed to work the lather around the front of his torso. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother motion to her, urging her on. A patron called from his barrel for more ale, and Lucie disappeared to fill his stein.

Marketa swallowed hard and reached her hands around Jakub’s stomach, his chest, rubbing the lather in wide circles.

“Ahh,” he moaned.

She moved around the stool and faced him. She stared down between his legs, his penis slightly aroused. The dark pubic hair stretched to his navel in a thicket of tangled hair.

She raised her eyes and stared hard at the little silver cross, sparkling through the suds.

Marketa swallowed hard and reached for his groin.

But her hands betrayed her. Instead of the assurance and deft touch she had working his muscles, her fingers froze, numb and useless.