Three Emperors (9780062194138) by William Dietrich Page A

Marceau.
    â€œNapoleon 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