But she took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on what he was saying. She knew the story well, of course-he must have told it a half-dozen times. When the Sultan Mehmet captured Constantinople in 1453 his men had plundered hundreds of precious manuscripts from the churches and monasteries, even from the Imperial Palace itself. Only a few of these works had ever been recovered, by intrepid agents such as Jacopo da Scarperia, Ghiselin de Busbecq and Sir Ambrose himself. Vilém was both tantalised and appalled by the story of their discoveries-of ancient manuscripts rescued scant days before the merchants who owned them planned to rub out the lettering and sell the parchment for reinscription. What other treasures of ancient learning might be so poised on the knife-edge between destruction and discovery, like the lone parchment of the works of Catullus that had been found-so Vilém had claimed-bunging up a wine barrel in a tavern in Verona?
'… the books of Chaeremon. His treatise on the Egyptian hieroglyphs was mentioned by both Michael Psellos and John Tzetzes, but it has not been seen since-not since the sack of Constantinople. And many other books and scrolls might be found too. We know that Aeschylus wrote more than ninety plays, yet only seven survive, while less than half of the Historiae and Annales of Tacitus still exist, only fifteen books out of an original thirty-and half of those are fragments! Or Callimachus-he wrote eight hundred volumes, of which barely a few scraps are known. Possibly there are even other works of Aristotle himself awaiting discovery in Istamboul. His fame among the ancients rested on certain dialogues-the so-called exoteric and hypomnematic writings-but not one of these texts has been seen or read for centuries.' He paused for a second as his gaze slowly returned to her face. 'And so it was books such as these, you understand, that Sir Ambrose hoped to find in Istamboul.'
She nodded slowly. Sir Ambrose's journeys to Istamboul were the stuff of legend, for Vilém at least. Many of the works that the Englishman brought back from the lands of the Sultan-works such as Aristotle's treatise on astronomical research, the astrologikh d istoriad, a work mentioned by Diogenes Laertius but never before seen in Europe-were, he claimed, among the greatest treasures of the library.
'He acted as one of Rudolf's agents,' Vilém was saying, 'as early as 1606. That was the year when the long war against the Turks finally ended and travel into the Ottoman lands became safer. But Sir Ambrose had travelled to Istamboul even before that, most likely as a dragoman in one of the English embassies. He was said to be on terms with the Grand Vizier himself, and he first gained access to the Emperor through Mehmet Aga, the Sultan's ambassador in Prague. He presented Rudolf with a manuscript of Heliodorus's Carmina de mystica philosophia, a priceless piece of occult learning-it's here somewhere-that was once owned by Constantine VII. Rudolf then sent him forth on his other missions. He negotiated the purchase of certain parchments from the Sultan. Others he found hidden away in the city's bazaars and mosques. And it was in such places,' he said, raising his voice to be heard over the din from above, 'that he discovered the palimpsests.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Palimpsests,' he repeated: 'ancient parchments whose original texts were rubbed out and replaced by newer ones. Parchment was often reused, you see. It was always in great demand. But sometimes the original texts were not completely erased, or else they would begin seeping back through the reinscription. Sir Ambrose managed to recover them through alchemical means, by reviving the carbon in the original ink. One of them was Aristotle's work on astronomy, the other a commentary on Homer by Aristophanes of Byzantium.' He gestured at the crates ranged before them. 'They, too, are here somewhere. But as for the volume that you saw…' His narrow shoulders twitched. 'As far as I know, Sir Ambrose has not set foot in the Ottoman lands for some ten years, so I have no idea where the text might have come from. Nor which one it might have been.'
At that he fell silent and, pushing himself from the cask, resumed his work, inspecting each volume to ensure that it was packed neither too tightly nor too loosely. The festivities in the hall had grown louder, insinuating themselves through the stone ceiling in a series of rumbles and thumps. Emilia felt dizzier and more exhausted than ever. She no longer cared about Sir Ambrose or the parchment in the library-or about any of the books over which Vilém was fussing like a mother with her infants. She no longer cared about the Queen either. She merely wanted the journey to end, for the court to cease these arduous wanderings. Brandenburg-that was all she cared about now. Her mind had seized upon it. She had even begun to imagine the pair of them making a life for themselves. She might work as a seamstress, he as a bookseller or perhaps as the tutor to the son of a wealthy Brandenburger. Together they could live in a tiny cottage beneath the walls of its castle.
'Will the court go to Brandenburg, do you think?' she asked at last.
'The Queen may go wherever she wishes,' he grunted, 'to Cüstrin or Spandau or Berlin, wherever they will have her.' He had bent over the crate again. 'But Brandenburg will not provide refuge for long. Nor will anywhere else in the Empire, come to that.'
'Oh?' The seamstress and the tutor fled; their tiny cottage slipped over a precipitous and bloody horizon. 'And why should that be?'
'Because the Brandenburgers are Calvinists, that is why.' He shrugged. 'They will be prey to attacks from the Lutherans next door in Saxony who have already captured Lusatia. To say nothing of the fact that George William has already received an Imperial mandate from Ferdinand.' He had begun unswaddling one of the volumes. 'Have you not heard this latest rumour? The Emperor advises Brandenburg not to suffer the presence of either the King or Queen of Bohemia within his dominions. No, no, no,' he was shaking his head, 'the Queen would not be safe anywhere in Brandenburg for more than a few weeks. And the books would not be safe in Brandenburg either. Or anywhere else in the Empire for that matter,' he added. 'And so I shall not follow her to Brandenburg.'
'Not go to Brandenburg?' She felt her stomach heave with fright. 'But where, then…?'
He had explained a few minutes earlier, when she tried to tell him of the terrible battle, of the dead in the river, that he cared nothing for the fate of Bohemia, and even less for its King and Queen, a pair of fools and wastrels who had been so willing to squander their treasures in return for soldiers and cannons. It had been reported that Frederick was offering the Palatinate to the Hansa merchants-the books in the Bibliotheca Palatina included-in return for sanctuary in Lübeck. So what evil bargain might he strike with the priceless volumes of the Spanish Rooms as his security? So Vilém would keep the books safe from King Frederick-and from the marauding Habsburg armies as well.
Boot heels were rasping and echoing on the stairway now, but Emilia ignored the sound. She pushed herself from the cask. The groined ceiling seemed to revolve overhead. 'What are you saying? Where, then, will you go if not to Brandenburg?'
'Ah, yes…' He seemed not to have heard her. He was holding aloft the unswaddled volume like a priest raising an infant at the font. Steam rose in curls from his sweating brow. 'The great Copernicus, I see, has made the journey in excellent condition.'
'Herr Jirásek…'
The bootfalls had stopped. A grubby-looking pageboy, the worse for drink, was performing a clumsy bow. Vilém was bent over another of his crates, once more in a devotional posture. Emilia staggered backwards and fumbled for the cask. She had bitten her lip so hard she could taste blood. Yes: these books were all he cared for. Nothing else.