“La Diosa!” Rudolf said, standing up and applauding. “Wonderful! A wonderful effect!”
Uncertainly, the court joined in. A few of them crossed themselves first. Holding the room’s complete attention, I clasped my hands to my bosom and batted my eyes at Matthew, who returned my admiring looks with a grim smile. I concentrated on lowering myself to the floor so that I could make my way to Rudolf’s throne. As Zeus, he occupied the most splendid carved piece of furniture we could find in the palace attics. It was unbelievably ugly, but it suited the occasion.
Happily, I was not glowing so much anymore as I approached the emperor, and the audience had stopped looking at my head as if it were a Roman candle. I sank into a curtsy.
“Greetings, La Diosa,” Rudolf boomed in what was meant to be a godlike tone but was only a classic example of overacting.
“I am in love with the beautiful Endymion,” I said, rising and gesturing back to the staircase, where Matthew had sunk into a downy nest of feather beds and was feigning sleep. I had written the lines myself. (Matthew suggested I say, “If you do not agree to leave me in peace, Endymion will tear your throat out.” I vetoed that, along with the Keats.) “He looks so peaceful. And though I am a goddess and will never age, fair Endymion will soon grow old and die. I beg of you, make him immortal so that he can stay with me always.”
“On one condition!” Rudolf shouted, abandoning all pretense of godlike sonorousness in favor of simple volume. “He must sleep for the rest of time, never waking. Only then will he remain young.”
“Thank you, mighty Zeus,” I said, trying not to sound too much like a member of a British comedy troupe. “Now I can gaze upon my beloved forevermore.”
Rudolf scowled. It was a good thing he hadn’t been granted script approval.
I withdrew to my chariot and walked slowly backward through the curtains while the court ladies performed their final dance. When it was over, Rudolf led the court in a round of loud stomping and clapping that almost brought the roof down. What it did not do was rouse Endymion.
“Get up!” I hissed as I went past to thank the emperor for providing us an opportunity to entertain his royal self. All I got in response was a theatrical snore.
And so I curtsied alone in front of Rudolf and made speeches in praise of Master Habermel’s astrolabe, Master Hoefnagel’s sets and special effects, and the quality of the music.
“I was greatly entertained, La Diosa—much more than I expected to be. You may ask Zeus for a reward,” Rudolf said, his eyes drifting over my shoulder and down to the swell of my breasts. “Whatever you wish. Name it and it shall be yours.”
The room’s idle chatter stopped. In the silence I heard Abraham’s words: The book will come to you, if only you ask for it. Could it really be that simple?
Endymion stirred in his downy bed. Not wanting him to interfere, I flapped my hands behind my back to encourage him to return to his dreams. The court held its breath, waiting for me to name a prestigious title, a piece of land, a fortune in gold.
“I would like to see Roger Bacon’s alchemical book, Your Majesty.” “You have balls of iron, Auntie,” Gallowglass said in a tone of hushed admiration on the way home. “Not to mention a way with words.”
“Why, thank you,” I said, pleased. “By the way, what was my head doing during the masque? People were staring at it.”
“Wee stars rose out of the moon and then faded away. I wouldn’t worry. It looked so real that everybody will assume it was an illusion. Most of Rudolf’s aristocrats are human, after all.”
Matthew’s response was more guarded. “Don’t be too pleased yet, mon coeur. Rudolf may have had no other choice than to agree, given the situation, but he hasn’t produced the manuscript. This is a very complicated dance you’re doing. And you can be sure the emperor will want something from you in return for a glimpse of his book.”
“Then we will have to be long gone before he can insist upon it,” I said.
But it turned out that Matthew was right to be cautious. I had imagined that he and I would be invited to view the treasure the next day, in private. Yet no such invitation arrived. Days passed before we received a formal summons to dine at the palace with some up-and-coming Catholic theologians. Afterward, the note promised, a select group would be invited back to Rudolf’s rooms to see items of particular mystical and religious import from the emperor’s collections. Among the visitors was one Johannes Pistorius, who had grown up Lutheran, converted to Calvinism, and was about to become a Catholic priest.