The Cabinet of Curiosities by Paul Dowswell Read Free Book Online Page B

seeing him look bewildered. She stooped low and swung her arms around in front of her, making grunting sounds.
    Lukas knew all the great palaces of Europe had their own menagerie. At last he realised Otka was mimicking the animals in this one. He growled and clawed at the air. ‘Lion?’ he said. She nodded. He made a trumpeting noise. ‘Elephant?’ He swung his arms. ‘Monkey?’
    ‘Go back,’ she said, and ushered him back inside the Castle. They approached a large round tower on the great north wall and an assortment of pungent odours, predominantly sulphur, assaulted Lukas’s nostrils. He could hear strange clattering and shouting, and behind one window were intermittent flashes and sparks.
    ‘Powder Tower,’ said Otka. She mimicked the long hair and beards of the natural philosophers and pretended to pour material from one container to another. ‘They take dirt,’ she pretended to scoop up earth. ‘Then, PRRRRKKKHHH , is gold!’ She shook her head. ‘Is nonsense.’
    Lukas had heard about alchemists. Everyone with a little learning knew about them. In some parts of the continent they burned you at the stake for dabbling in alchemy, but it seemed Emperor Rudolph encouraged it.
    ‘Can we see?’ he asked Otka.
    She beckoned him to go in. Her stepfather worked there, she said.
    ‘Does your mother work in the Castle too?’ asked Lukas.
    Otka shook her head and pointed to the sky. ‘Heaven,’ she said.
    They walked up a steep spiral staircase into the stifling heat of the laboratories. Lukas was immediately reminded of Daliborka Tower and wondered how anyone could bear to work in such a place. Most of the first floor was taken up by a large circular room, with one or two smaller rooms off it. There were bubbling flasks and cauldrons and bizarre many-tentacled receptacles that resembled strange glass sea creatures. The smell of burning coal, woodsmoke and chemicals was suffocating. Lukas covered his face with the sleeve of his shirt and tried not to cough. Men, most with spectacles and beards, bustled and mithered over their experiments, like mother hens with chicks. Thin slits let in a little natural light to supplement the candles and fires, but most of the walls were taken up with shelves stuffed dangerously full of glass and earthenware jars. Each one had a label on it – strange words Lukas half recognised: Phosphor , Brimstone , Amalgama , Vitriol . . .
    Close to the implements were open books. Lukas peered cautiously at the nearest one. The instructions were handwritten and although they were in plain language, rather than code, they made no sense to him at all:
    The greater the quantity of the Eagle opposed to the Lion the shorter the combat; torment the Lion until he is weary and desires death . . .
    Accompanying the text were extraordinary illustrations – in beautiful greens, reds and blues. One showed the torso of a naked woman with the wings, neck and head of a swan, emerging from a cauldron of boiling red liquid.
    ‘Father,’ shouted Otka, and waved excitedly. The alchemists at work in the laboratory looked up disapprovingly. A dark-haired burly man, with several days’ stubble, rushed over. He was stripped to the waist, his body covered with soot and grime. ‘Otka, my love,’ he said gently, ‘you shouldn’t shout, disturbing the gentlemen like that. A wave would do.’ She looked crestfallen and he squeezed her hand to show he had forgiven her.
    ‘Now, who’s this?’ he said, smiling warmly at Lukas.
    ‘Apprentice to Doktor Declercq,’ said Otka.
    Lukas bowed. As he was about to speak there was a commotion across the laboratory. Two assistants were carrying the body of an elderly alchemist from one of the smaller rooms. ‘Get him outside,’ said one of them, ‘away from these fumes.’ As they passed, Lukas noticed the elderly man’s face had an unusual pink flush about it.
    ‘That’s Doktor Benisek,’ said Otka’s stepfather. ‘He asked me to fetch him some zincum a