The Devil’s Machine: The Story of Rudolf II.

The story I want to tell will take us back a few centuries to the Czech capital at the time when the famous Habsburg Rudolf II ruled there. He didn’t just rule Prague, he had titles from all corners of Europe before his name, but he chose Prague Castle as his seat. Let me tell you, it was an amazing time if you’re into magical serenades, rejuvenation cocktails or even eternal life. But you have to take it with a grain of salt. Not for nothing is the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th called the Golden Age of Alchemy and Prague itself earned the name City of Alchemists or even Magic City. The Rudolph’s court was home to some truly illustrious names like John Dee and Edward Kelley, and Giordano Bruno stayed there for a while before his unfortunate situation went up in flames, literally end at the stake when the Catholic Church ran out of patience and had him burned for heresy.
You should definitely approach Rudolf II with a fair bit of scepticism. If his great-grandmother was nicknamed Crazy, there was a reason for it in this family. At that time, a famous figure in Prague was a fantastic Jew, Rabbi Löw himself, the author of the Golem. It was said then, and is still said today, that this huge clay doll ran rampant through Prague until his father took his life again.
A rampaging clay doll was far from the strangest thing to be found in Prague at that time. Feel free to project all those magicians, astrologers and astronomers into your own brain movie, your piece of fantasy. Scientists and geeks. Pranksters and solid artists with talent. Oh, and angels, put them in there too.
This is what Prague was about during the reign of Rudolf II. It was proclaimed.
What was the Emperor himself famous for in Europe in his time?
He didn’t want to get married, the bastard.
Nothing so extraordinary when you look at it from today’s perspective, but you’re wrong. For a ruler of such a large empire, it was actually a problem. He didn’t give his kingdom a single offspring, but he did produce left-handers quite mechanically. Don’t forget what time it was. The European courts could see only one thing behind it: hereditary madness had already manifested itself there too.
Rumour has it that the emperor ordered the creation of a fluid, beautiful female homunculus with all the curves that go with it. This can still be attributed to the unpleasantness with the family, you know, madness and all that. But he overdid it. He said he eventually married the transparent creature, but he had to keep it a secret.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. Let’s take it from the beginning.
To get the full glamour of the stuff, there’s one thing you should probably know. What alchemists make homunculi out of. Imagine letting a man’s sperm rot for 40 days.
That’s right.
Hold that idea of seed and rot for a moment. Which is just the beginning. One option is to put this wonderful smelly mush in a black hen’s egg, having previously dripped a bit of white to fit your white in.
Well, what you get out of this is what you cuddle, snuggle and babble about the splendour of life as you know it. There are some incantations to it, but I won’t disturb you with that.
What I want to tell you, which is the funniest part of this whole story, is why after so many years things didn’t work out between them in the end. Why they ended up breaking up. A divorce, instead of papers, just some of Edward Kelley’s incantations. And the partner and all his stupid excuses, annoying habits and wronged arguments, it all dissolves in a puff of stink.
It was a bet. Before that, as bets go, one stupid question.
It all started when Rudolf II made a wish. Not that he was clear that he wanted a female homunculus. His request was simple. An ethereal being. The only specification was that it had to be female.
As he had been accustomed to do in his previous experiments, and as it was the easiest way for any man to do it, the liquids required for the manufacture were kindly pumped in by the Englishman from his own stock.
Thus all his homunculi were as similar to each other as an egg to an egg. And this egg, in turn, looked exactly like the hen from whose egg it hatched. A tall, sinewy fellow with an elongated forehead and chin, long grey hair or beard everywhere. Bony arms, legs, ass.
It’s clear to me that putting a pointy hat on that apparition’s head is exactly what you’ve always imagined a real wizard to be like.
But hand on heart, or feel free to keep it where you have it.
In short: does this really strike you as a description of the perfect, ethereal woman?
Rudolf didn’t see it that way.
The discoverer of the Philosopher’s Stone couldn’t have been stupid, it was immediately clear to him which of the ingredients used had caused this mess. It was his own ingredient, so he set out to solve it. In his flamboyant robes, he’d wandered around the royal kitchen, went to the guardhouse, and generally anywhere young, charming boys were up for grabs.
Consider, however, that the late sixteenth century was just being played out on the scene.
Imagine an Englishman with piercing hypnotic eyes, adorned with various symbols against which even a true heretic would have crossed himself. And this sorcerer, who was quite simply known to be a sorcerer, was wooing the young men with some drop of their life essence in his fly.
You see, back then, they were erased at the border without asking for the most trivial things. Let alone this.
But having connections upstairs makes everything easier. So the royal decree that historians haven’t known what to do with for so long comes from that time. Educated elbow patches, when they can’t handle something unofficially, they declare it officially a forgery.
In the description of Rudolph’s decree it says, let Kelley of the family of so and so, with the very fine attributes of being solemn, of being learned, of being an expert in the secret sciences, and a few others. Nowadays, you can only find so many titles behind a name in those who are elected to their positions. So, in the leaflet, Kelley was publicly given royal sanction to collect sperm without restriction. To anyone. At any time.
Without the necessary context, don’t blame the historians. They didn’t just consider it a successful plagiarism, but a failed joke.
So that’s kind of how Woman with serial number one came about.
She was slim, blonde, smiling and could skin a rabbit in minutes. I don’t know why I’m mentioning this. Probably because she mentioned it to the ceasar and he cut a similar surprised face I see on yours.
The other, a little brunette with devil eyes, even got a name. Isabel. The Emperor had some rather pleasant moments with her. Daniela, Josephine and Marie were all pretty nice, too.
The educated ruler soon had the same problem with everyone. They were even rather stupid for a woman.
Sometime around that time, Rudolf took it into his head that he was going to provide his own seed. So Kelley talked him out of it. Diligently, but in vain.
If you happen to think of the stupid idea that the reasons should be moral, if you feel that such a nice emperor would desecrate his own daughter, you can safely put that out of your mind. Although technically it probably could have happened, our monarch just didn’t find anything special about it. Perhaps because Rudolf’s parents were quite closely related by blood. They had the same grandmother. And it didn’t matter.
Kelley, however, had a problem with Rudolph’s stepmother, who was insane. I mean, really. Joan of Castile, aka Madwoman. And if that’s what they called her, there was probably a reason for it.
So that’s why the nice alchemist hesitated.
These ethereal beasts themselves do not exactly abound in excessive obedience to the One who created them. And even if the English alchemist was no wimp, letting an unearthly creature run around Prague Castle, who will probably inherit his wonderful imperial daddy’s explosive temper and be quite simply a nutter after his other ancestors, is not just about adrenaline anymore.
That sounds like a downright suicidal action.
For my part, I feel it was a mistake to talk the Emperor out of his wishes. What could have worked, let it go, give it a few days, and Rudolf himself would have put the idea out of his mind. But as it began to be explained to him, the more arguments Kelley dared to let ring out loud, the more clear it became that the creation of a homunculus of Habsburg blood was inevitable.
The Imperial Majesty simply won’t admit that he wanted something and shouldn’t get it.
There was a catch. For a while, it seemed impossible to get the royal seed. The problem was, as I think it has been mentioned, that the Bohemian monarch had a bit of a problem with self-control.
At first Rudolf found it amusing.
They chose the most charming object from the Prague courtyard as its inspiration. The beauty was then left alone with the Emperor, with only a rather defiantly empty golden cup on a table nearby. One had the feeling that it was to be another holy grail, with what reverence that piece of as yet empty crockery was treated.
The mechanical process of sperm removal perhaps needs no description.
Here, moreover, the sample did not necessarily contain a pure, unadulterated dose. Kelley’s sperm bank simply didn’t insist that it all take place outside the female body. Only the final act was to take place over an empty cup. Simple as that.
But somewhere between the time when the girl’s hand first groped the aroused royal jewels and the moment when the filling for the goblet seemed ready to be given to the world, somehow it happened that all ethereal beings evaporated from Rudolph’s mind and he was interested only in the sweaty naked body beneath.
It was only as he rose, all puffing and flushed, and put back into his trousers all that he usually kept neatly arranged there, that his eyes rested with deliberation on the empty cup, which stood abandoned in the place where the Englishman had placed it.
After the first attempt, there was still no real need for a change in strategy.
It amused the Emperor, it amused the girl, and Kelley showed no impatience either. His reasons were understandably different from those that drew the two to the game.
In the end it was Rudolf himself who returned to the idea of a homunculus. To the empty golden cup and the desire to fill it with some piece of life energy in liquid form. Not just for fun.
When they began to think about it seriously, they came to a decision. The final phase has to do without the girl.
Theoretically, the Emperor was in agreement. That he was probably insane, or at least had a decent tendency to be, was one thing. But he wasn’t stupid. He understood what he was doing.
But practically every time he cut the finale again before the curtain went up.
So they changed tactics.
A boy who had no problems donating his sperm donations before lay down on the girl’s bed. Of course, since he had no idea what the strange lanky guy was doing with it, he would occasionally go over to him, cupping his fair share of work from the previous evening, and he must have had some very diligent moments. He even refused to take anything for it. And then that there are no people willing to give themselves away out of pure love for their fellow man.
The new strategy was to let the hilarious couple enjoy what their imagination and stamina would allow. The Emperor was given a low stool and the role of spectator. Then an empty cup in one hand. I suspect the dust must have settled at the bottom by now.
But that didn’t work again. Literally.
Maybe even Rudolf would have been able to get properly excited if he hadn’t kept poking them. If he hadn’t almost always thrown the cup away, pushed the boy away, and with the words, “I’ll show you how it’s done, young man,” made himself the main actor in a scene that was only meant to get him charged up.
Which brought Edward Kelley and his black egg with the beaten white back to nothing.
One of the insignificant shadows that the solemn magister had at hand had a wonderful idea. To bind the Emperor. Bind the hot-tempered and paranoid ruler to his little doll. So that he could actually watch. It was supposed to solve the problem of the “Do not touch the exhibits and keep your distance” signs in museums.
Kelley had been counting on the fact that Rudolph was no longer the youngest for some time. But when his appetite continued unabated, and several ladies and even more men had taken turns in bed, the tightrope proved to be an acceptable compromise.
You may think that I’m rambling on, but the extent of my knowledge of this history is a file of twenty-seven volumes and another thick book with appendices.
I’m getting close to how that homunculus finally saw our wonderful world.
In fact, the rebellious and unpredictable Habsburg was finally tied up. What annoys me, however, is that since someone has gone to the trouble of describing so many stacks of papers, I would be pleased to find an argument there that Rudolf eventually heard. After all, there had to be more to it than “Here, kindly sit down, Your Majesty,” and then someone else’s “Hand me that rope.”
Whatever they told him, he finally agreed.
Just for completeness, to make this even with the nice punchline at the end, it wasn’t until the third attempt that someone thought it would help matters if the Emperor had his right hand free.
I wouldn’t even exaggerate to say that the cup was overflowing. Rather, little Rudolph spat out something barely bigger than a child’s spit into the bottom. A bit of animal dust. And it was all over.
For the Emperor, that is.
The alchemist’s work was in its infancy.
At this point you can imagine all the wonderful aroma of forty days and nights of rotting male excrement. If you really want something like that.
I myself haven’t quite given up the idea of trying to keep something in my stomach today, so let’s move on. To Sirael.
She looked practically like Rudolph, except that at least she shaved her face. Supposedly. Well, the Emperor was crazy about her.
That’s how capricious, that’s how self-absorbed, that’s how self-absorbed he was. And the funny thing is, he never realised he was staring with that weakly amorous smile at his own little face, a few years younger than his own.
For a day or two, she looked pretty much flesh and blood. Like it was real skin, like the hair on her head was real hair, and like there was an original outfit down there straight from the Creator.
Then it started to disappear.
For those who are now sighing blissfully, I have bad news. Even afterwards, the semi-transparent lady’s frame was still quite visible. She just didn’t quite disappear, if that’s what you imagined her face to be, and she was blissfully grimacing in that fantasy.
When Rudolph saw the wallpaper shining through behind Sirael, it was time to jump to Kelley’s garance. To recharge. Change the fluids, or hard to tell what the Englishman was doing with all this ethereal metre. The important thing is that a smiling, lovable, and, most importantly, 100% opaque creature was on its way back to the Emperor.
Sirael had not only a face from her ruler. Unfortunately for everyone in the court, she also had his character.
But unhappiness may not be the term I was looking for.
Anger.
Desperation.
The helplessness of schizophrenic madness as in a mirror.
But the two were happy. Occasionally there’d be an argument, after which they’d rebuild part of the castle. Nothing special.
Then Rudolph thought of marrying her, and Sirael thought of saying yes.
The wedding itself was something unforgettable. Imagine, the Rudolphine era. All the artists, scientists, and petty crooks who parasitized on the emperor’s fondness for such things, each one of them felt the need to invent something wonderful as a gift to his patron.
As my “thank you.”
As his “awaiting further favour”.
One painter gave Rudolf a portrait of himself in front of a mirror. So they explained that the Emperor is twice in the painting. No one was too concerned that he was wearing a woman’s dress once. This was at a time when his mental illness was becoming quite openly discussed, and they were perhaps more or less pleased that at least one figure was clothed in male clothing.
Some magician was going to make eyes at his future ruler. He tied a bunch of mandrakes as a bridal bouquet and added a few radishes and some leeks. For colour. You see, a magical creature would find mandrake more interesting than a rose.
Perhaps the greatest oddity was given to the Emperor by a woman who continuously gave birth to Rudolf from time to time to an illegitimate child. Her name was Katherine. Such a charming, hot-blooded folk creature, an Italian beauty. She appeared at the wedding in her most expensive gown, passed the newly crowned queen as if she wasn’t there, and yet Sirael was quite visible at that very moment.
She stopped in front of Rudolph, took a breath until everything that had been laboriously stuffed into her corset neckline almost fell out, and said: “This, my lord, is for you.”
What she held in her hand and carefully handed over to the Emperor, what he then carefully held in his hands again, was something mechanical. A miniature machine. A time machine, that’s what Katherine said.
And Rudolph nodded his noble head gravely, thanked in a still more serious voice, and then the idiocy went to the bottle of honey, which was supposed to cause eagle’s eyesight, and which the emperor had never tried, but which nevertheless gave him great pleasure. He also had in his collection a parchment four thousand years old, said to be from the devil himself. All you had to do was write in blood what you were missing, and ding, ding, go and check behind the door. Even that piece of fine leather was still intact.
Like the eternal chastity belt for ladies and gentlemen, I’d rather not bother you with the mechanism. Also a potion of invisibility, which perhaps the queen won’t need much, it seems. A few potions of eternal youth and life everlasting, of course. One peach-flavoured, one vanilla-flavoured, and apparently the green, thick one that smells so bad that death and old age suddenly don’t seem so bad.
None of this has been tried.
Still, praised and well paid, as it were.
So the time machine traveled here. It probably shouldn’t have happened if not for chance. Or fate?
The wedding revelry went on all day, and by morning the curtains were drawn around the bed and the couple inside, with the witnesses remaining on the outside. They were to confirm that the marriage had been consummated, and yes, I mean exactly that.
Just whether the two of them had a good time together. If the seed that Rudolph was so wonderful at delivering when it came to him, if it ended up where it was supposed to.
Today, the witnesses only sign for the rings.
But dear Sirael’s batteries were a little low by then, and the Emperor was soon to discover that she was having sex with a noisy pillow, with only a little pink shadow on it.
You shouldn’t look surprised that he didn’t get disturbed over such a small thing. It’s already been mentioned that once Rudolph got into his stride, he didn’t notice many things.
The annals reveal that the marriage was not consummated that night.
Rudolph had his wife screwed up in several ways, and take the hints as you please. However, when the curtains around the rumpled bed were opened again, the panting emperor lay there quite alone on the verge of fainting.
After years of refinement and maybe even re-education, who knows, in short, after a while Sirael was able to eat some food here and there and even her ethereal stomach could tolerate a glass or two of wine. In a sort of winey mood they talked once. They were sitting in the famous Royal Gardens, watching all the exotic birds flitting about in their heated aviary.
They were sugaring and talking. If it weren’t for two strangely ugly faces, it would have been a touching spectacle.
Then the two of them had a falling out. They couldn’t agree. They started arguing, and it looked like an ugly fight. You see, they were both hard-asses and neither one of them wanted to back down. The emperor was seething. The Empress was seething. Some Habsburg spittle flew through the air in excitement.
The point was that Rudolf wanted to have a helicopter made for him. In his famous art collection, he had most of the famous writings of Leonardo Da Vinci, who promised to bring a giant artificial turd with a magnificent propeller on top to life. The problem was the size.
While the Imperial Majesty longed for a machine so big that he could sit in it and let himself be lifted up, his translucent sweetheart suggested something smaller, a little bird like a cage. Well, they told each other, tensely, that the other’s suggestion was worth an old shoe.
“This dispute will be decided by one person,” cried the monarch.
His wife rolled her artificial eyes, she assumed that Rudolf would, as always, look to his sorcerer for support. This time, however, Kelley was not involved.
Habsburg had that little oddity brought in, which has already been mentioned.
A time machine.
The mighty ruler banged the table and roared.
“I’ll go ask Da Vinci myself!”
His wife figured it out right away. They’re not stupid, these homos. She declared that if anyone was going to visit the famous Italian painter and mathematician, it would be her. So the two of them argued on.
The more translucent Sirael was, the more flexible and agile she was.
So when Rudolph was arguing that the time machine was made for the human body and not for a fictional one, the excited homunculi grabbed the machine, moved some kind of lever, then managed to fix Rudolph’s surprised face with a mischievous smile, and disappeared.
The only thing left on the table was the machine.
The Emperor watched for a while, sat back and thought. He called his English friend. He asks.
“How could this happen?”
Kelley grinned, scratched his beard, and with the monstrosity in his hand, told Her Highness not to ask the Italian artist any questions. And even if she did get the chance to ask, she certainly wouldn’t come back to brag to the Emperor.
“You forgot the time machine,” says the Englishman, “it has no way to go back to the present time. Also, she set the wrong date. Instead of going to the past, she went to the future.”
This was how Rudolf was to learn that his dear half was in the future. The Rudolphine era plus four hundred years.
In other words, you each have a decent chance of meeting a woman who will claim to be the wife of Rudolf II. The problem is, you’re gonna end up in the loony bin because you won’t see her. Only her voice will haunt you in a padded cell.

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