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on the stool alone.
    Foolish old man
, she thought to herself. She did not understand the allure of sex—a repugnant act, reducing men and women to the level of rutting animals.
    Well, she would not think of it. The brewer’s proposition did not involve her affection or even her regard.
    I am only a drawing on parchment
, she told herself.
    He can never hurt me.
    When Marketa finally composed herself and looked around the open doorway to the bathers’ barrels, she saw her mother place the lid over his head and tip a long draught of beer down his throat.
    His eyes were drowsy and a lazy smile of satisfaction spread over his fleshy face.
    All the heads in the barrels surrounding him swiveled in his direction, leering in admiration.
    “You have been feasting on young mollusks, Pan Brewer,” said the cooper, who made barrels for the brewery. “We could hear your joy!
Dobrou chut
!”
    The entire room erupted in laughter, and the full barrels shook with mirth, splashing the stone floor with little puddles of herbed water.
    “This is the season for mussels, tender and young,” said the greengrocer, trying to best the cooper. “We should all have
musle
and dive for her pearls!”
    She knew from that instant that the name would stick. By the next day, her given name Marketa disappeared from the mouths of the townspeople and was replaced forever by “Musle.” She was christened anew.
    Pan Brewer visited weekly and was allowed to see Marketa naked, although Lucie was always present and never allowed him to lay a finger on her daughter. His pleasure in seeing the young girl naked before him, seated on a three-legged stool, was enough to supplement the Pichlers’ income. The brewer looked forward to the day Marketa’s body would be his to touch and take at will. The price would go up.
    Marketa dreaded his visits and could not be persuaded to eat the days he bathed. Though she no longer feared him—she realized he was an old man who finished his business quickly—she found his dazed stare repugnant. She grew thinner the more often he visited the bathhouse.
    But the twins gained weight, and meat appeared several days a week on the table. Her father never questioned how it was that Lucie could afford such good cuts from the butcher or the bottomless jug of ale always present on the table.
    He never questioned, but of course he knew.

WINTER 1606
     
    VIENNA
     
    L ANDESIRRENANSTALT L UNATIC A SYLUM
     

 

CHAPTER 2
     
    T HE M AD B ASTARD OF P RAGUE
     
    “He’s here!” cried the ragged servant boy, his bare feet slapping across the paving stones in the great hall of the asylum. “King Rudolf himself! Glory to the Austrian Empire...” the boy shouted, then trailed off, realizing he had nothing else to say. Deflated, he concluded, “He’s here, Herr Fleischer!”
    “Stop screaming and empty the chamber pots,” hissed the head attendant, cuffing the boy’s ears. “You should be invisible, not galloping about like an unshod pony in front of the king!”
    The asylum director nodded nervously in what might have been agreement and then stroked his black robe, picking lint off his sleeves in the capricious light of the flickering sconces. His breath cast a foggy halo in the cold air. He swallowed hard, his heart pounding as he stationed himself near the barred door of the stone prison. The toothless woman in the far room cackled, her slick gums shining red in the torchlight. A man wailed a curse at the arriving monarch.
    “Damned Hapsburg! One more mule-chinned ninny!”
    “Silence, Herr Schiele. A lunatic can lose his head as easily as any other,” snapped the attendant, motioning to a guard.
    “Gag him,” the director said, his lip twitching wildly.
    The broad-shouldered guard raised his leather whip and stormed off to silence the offending heckler. The director stretched and twisted his short neck like a curious turtle, trying to straighten his posture before he greeted his noble visitor.
    It was not every day