We made our way through the bitter cold to Poland. In Warsaw Kelley managed to cure a Voivode of the dropsy in three days with a few grains of St. Deniol’s white powder dissolved in a glass of sweet wine so that we could continue on our way to Prince Lasky with our purse bulging once more. There we were received with great honour and sumptuous hospitality. We spent a year, during which my companion filled his belly and prophesied in his spectral voice all the crowns of Europe to the vain Pole, so that I had to put an end to his deception and insisted we travel on to Prague. And so, after Kelley had squandered almost the whole of our – or, rather, his – ill-gotten gains, we set off from Krakow for Prague and the Emperor Rudolf, to whom I bore a letter of introduction from Queen Elizabeth. And now I am living in Prague with my wife, child and Kelley in the spacious house of His Majesty’s learned personal physician, Doctor Tomas Hajek, in the centre of the Old Town.
Today, then, is the day, so important for me, of my first audience with the prince among adepts and the adept amongst kings, the mysterious, feared, hated and revered Emperor Rudolf. Beside me, Edward Kelley exudes self-confidence and sets his horse at a tripping canter, as if we were merely on our way to another banquet in Lasky’s wooden castle. But my heart is heavy with foreboding, and I feel the dark nature of the Emperor hanging over me like the black cloud that is just passing across the gleaming facade of the castle above us. At the end of the bridge our horses’ hooves echo as we ride through the gaping maw of a gloomy gatehouse. Behind us, closed off as if by a wall, lies the bright world of ordinary, cheerful folk. Steep joyless alleys climb up silently between houses cowering fearfully against the hillside. Black palaces bar the way, like gatekeepers of the ominous secrets that surround Hradcany Castle. But now the broad esplanade, that the Emperor’s bold architect has blasted out of the hill and wrested from the narrow wooded gorge, opens up before us. Away on a distant hilltop the defiant towers of a monastery rise up. “Strahov!” a voice within me says – Strahov, that conceals, buried alive within its mute walls, many a man who was struck by a fateful bolt from the Emperor’s eyes, and who yet can consider himself fortunate that he did not have to make the nocturnal journey down that other narrow alley to Dalibor’s tower, when he could say farewell for ever to the light of the stars. The houses of the imperial servants are piled up on top of each other, like swallows’ nests on a cliff, each one bracing itself on the one below: at all costs the Habsburgers want to have their German bodyguard close around them; they will not trust themselves to the teeming alien race down there across the Vltava. Hradcany Castle towers above the city, with bristling defences; every gateway echoes with the jingle of spurs, the clash of ever-ready weapons. We ride slowly up the hill; suspicious eyes follow us from the tiny windows above; three times already we have been unexpectedly stopped by guards who suddenly appear as from nowhere to ask us our business; the Emperor’s letter granting us audience is checked again and again. Then we are out on the splendid approach, the city of Prague spread out below us. I look at the view around like a prisoner gazing out on the free world; up here everything seems to be in the tight grip of an invisible hand; up here the summit of the hill has become a prison! The city below seems to lie in a sea of silver dust. Above us the sun smoulders through a misty veil. All of a sudden silver streaks appear in the powdery blue of the sky: flocks of doves circle round in the still air, reflecting the light, and then disappear behind the spires of the Tyn Church. Not a sound ... it is unreal. But I take the doves over Prague as a good omen. The bell of the high-vaulted cathedral of Saint Nicholas below strikes ten; from somewhere within the ramparts of the strong-hold in front of us a sharp, imperative clock repeats the hour with a swift drum-roll: it is high time! The monarch, a fanatical collector of clocks, keeps to the precise second. Woe to anyone who appears late. Another fifteen minutes, I think, and I shall be standing before Rudolf.
We have reached the top and could set our steeds at a gallop were it not for the halberdiers that block our every step: there is no end to the checks and scrutiny. Finally the bridge over the deer moat thunders beneath our horses’ hooves, and we are trotting across the quiet park of the hermit king.
Surrounded by ancient oaks, the green copper roof of the airy Belvedere rises before us like a huge upturned ship’s hull. We jump down from our horses.
The first things to attract my eye are the stone reliefs on the balustrade of the loggia formed by delicate arches around the Belvedere: there is Samson wrestling with the lion and, opposite, Hercules overcoming the Nemean lion. They are the symbols that the Emperor chooses to guard the entrance to his ultimate refuge. It is well known that the lion is his favourite animal and that he has trained a huge African lion as a pet with which he likes to frighten even his intimates. – –
