Romanum Imperatores Rudolphus II
Caesarum Maximus Imp: Rex
SALVTI PUBLICAE
I held the paper closer to the light. Above the seal, inscribed in heavy gothic script, were several paragraphs in German, what my limited knowledge of that language told me amounted to a commission to search for books and manuscripts in the regions of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Glatz. It was dated 1610. For a few seconds I rubbed the cockled edge of the document between my finger and thumb, enjoying the furry texture of the membrane, as soft and smooth as a lady's cheek. Then I turned it over, carefully, with a quiet, satisfying crackle, and jabbed with a thumb at the nose-piece of my spectacles.
The next document, dated a year later and impressed with the same seal, was of similar import but extended the commission beyond the Czech lands to include Austria, Styria, Mainz and both the Upper and the Lower Palatinate, as well as-most remarkable of all-the lands of the Ottoman Sultan. The final three pages granted, respectively, a patent of Imperial nobility, a pension of 500 thalers per annum, and a doctorate in philosophy from the Carolinum. This last document was inscribed in Latin and embossed with a coat of arms. I looked up to see Lady Marchamont's eyebrows knit together as if in close attentiveness to my reaction. The light from the lamp spluttered and, to my alarm, nearly extinguished itself.
'It's in Prague.'
'Prague?' My questioning gaze had returned to the skins, which my hands were shuffling nervously.
'The Carolinum,' she said in a clipped tone, as though repeating a simple lesson to an obtuse child. 'It's in Prague. Bohemia. My father spent a number of years there.'
'In the Carolinum?'
'No. In Bohemia. After Rudolf moved the Imperial Court from Vienna to Prague.'
I was still studying the parchments. 'Sir Ambrose was in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor?'
She nodded, apparently pleased at the note of awe inflecting my voice. 'At first, yes. As one of the agents hired to procure books for the Imperial Library. Afterwards he was in the service of the Elector Palatine, furnishing the Bibliotheca Palatina in Heidelberg.'
She stooped and once more began to sift through the papers in the coffin. For the next ten minutes I was obliged to wheeze over and fumble through a dozen-odd other documents, all of them patents for various monopolies and inventions-new methods of essaying gold or rigging ships-together with the title-deeds for freehold properties scattered across England, Ireland and Virginia. More dog-eared pages of Sir Ambrose's busy life. I was barely paying attention as Lady Marchamont thrust each one into my hands with the zeal of a street-corner Quaker. But soon I found myself squinting at a document of a different sort, another letter patent with the Great Seal of England embossed at its foot, but one whose designs were grander than the others:
This Indenture, made the 30th day of August, in Anno Domini 1616, the Fourteenth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord James, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, between our said Sovereign Lord of one Party, and Ambrose Plessington, Knight of the Garter, of the other Party, to build, rig, provision, and otherwise fit, and thereafter to captain and sail, the Ship known as the Philip Sidney, from the Port of London, to the Cittie of Manoa, in the Empire of Guiana…
I blinked, rubbed at my eyes with a knuckle, then continued reading. The document was a commission of £3,000 for Sir Ambrose to make a voyage in search not of books and manuscripts-as in the days of the Emperor Rudolf-but rather the headwaters of the Orinoco River and a gold mine near a city called Manoa in the Empire of Guiana. I knew something of the expedition, if it was the same one, for I was well aware of how Sir Walter Raleigh went to the scaffold one year after his disastrous expedition set off for Guiana in 1617. So had the Philip Sidney ascended the Orinoco with Raleigh's doomed fleet? And, if so, what became of the ship and her captain?
I could read no more. The letters of the patent were swimming before my tired eyes, and now my chest felt even tighter. I removed my spectacles and rubbed at my eyes with the balls of my fingers. I coughed, trying to clear my lungs of the stale air and motes of dust. Again I could hear the gentle rush of water, which now seemed to originate behind the wall of the tiny archive. I replaced my spectacles, but the letters on the page still feinted and shrank before my smarting gaze.
'I'm sorry but I…'
'Yes, of course.'
Lady Marchamont took the papers from me and returned them to the coffin. But before she slammed shut its lid I caught a glimpse of what looked like a newer document, another indenture of some sort. The top edge of the parchment was jagged, while the bottom had been folded over and fixed with a seal suspended on a parchment tag. Did she grant me on purpose, I would later wonder, this briefest of visions, this most subtle of clues? The signature beside the seal was illegible, but I was able to make out a few words inscribed at the top: 'Sciant presentes et futuri quod ego…'
But then the lid was banged shut forcefully and a second later I started at the light touch of the gloved hand on my forearm. When I turned my head she was giving me the most curious and unsettling smile.
'Shall we return upstairs, Mr. Inchbold? The air in these vaults is poor. Enough for two people to breathe for no more than thirty minutes at a time.'
I nodded gratefully and fumbled for my thorn-stick. The air suddenly seemed denser than ever, and for the first time I realised that she too was breathing heavily. Removing the lamp from its sconce she turned towards the door.
'My father ventilated the vaults with an atmospheric pump,' she continued, 'but of course the pump was stolen along with everything else.'
The hinges squealed again as she shut the door and there was a jangle of keys and silver chatelaine as she locked it. I followed the black gown along the corridor.
Sciant presentes et futuri…
I sculled through the darkness on my stick, brow drawn in puzzled concentration. Let all men present and future know what? As we climbed the stairs I found myself thinking not so much about the dozens of documents that had been thrust under my nose, but instead about the mysteriously new parchment half hidden among the other papers in the coffin, the indenture with its serried edge waiting to fit like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle into its counterpart, the twin parchment from which it had been carefully severed. Did I guess then that it might fit into a larger puzzle whose other pieces were as yet unknown and undiscovered? Or is it only now, in retrospect, that I remember it so clearly?
My chest was whistling like a tea-kettle as we climbed, my crippled foot noisily scuffing and thumping. I winced with shame, glad of the darkness. But Lady Marchamont, two steps ahead, her face half-turned towards me, appeared to notice none of these commotions. As we made our way upwards she described some of her father's services for Rudolf II, the great 'Wizard Emperor' whose palace in Prague was filled with astrologers, alchemists, bizarre inventions and, above all, tens of thousands of books. A good many of the Emperor's possessions came courtesy of Sir Ambrose, she claimed. For whenever a nobleman or scholar of means died anywhere within the borders of the Empire-from Tuscany in the south, to Cleves in the west, to Lusatia or Silesia in the east-her father had been despatched across the fraying quilt of principalities and fiefdoms to secure for the Emperor the most important and impressive items from the legacy: paintings, marbles, clocks, precious stones, new inventions of any sort, and of course the library, especially if its collection held volumes on alchemy and other occult arts, which had been Rudolf's particular favourites. In these missions, she boasted, her father had rarely disappointed.