The Relic Master

by Christopher Buckley

  Dismas shook his head. “Not in Wittenberg. Frederick’s not a burner. Doesn’t even keep a full-time executioner. They have to bring them in special.”

  “Well, I’m with Luther,” Dürer said. “These indulgences stink to Heaven. Why should Germans have to pay for domes in Rome?”

  Dismas stood and stretched. He stood behind Dürer and looked at the portrait on the easel. It was of the banker Jacob Fugger, he who’d made the loans to Albrecht.

  “Is he so handsome as that? Or are you improving your price?”

  “It’s perfectly accurate,” Dürer said. “He’s a fine-looking man. I don’t tart up my portraits. Like some in Wittenberg.”

  Dismas snorted. “I was wondering how long you’d go without making a sour remark about poor Cranach.”

  “Poor Cranach? That’s good. He’s so poor he clinks when he walks. What masterpiece is he working on? From what I hear, he doesn’t even do his own work himself anymore. Just goes around his workshop telling the apprentices, ‘More blue, there. Some yellow, here.’ ”

  “At least he doesn’t put himself in every painting, like you do. A week ago I was with Frederick in the galleries. He’s got your Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand there.”

  “A masterpiece, that.”

  “Yes, it’s lovely. And even by candlelight I can make out your face in it at ten paces. You should have titled it Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, Featuring Albrecht Dürer Smack-Dab in the Center.”

  It was Dürer’s great painting of the gruesome and varied executions of the ten thousand Christian soldiers on Mount Ararat, at the hands of the Persian King Shapur, at the behest of the Emperor Hadrian. Or was it Diocletian? No one seemed quite certain which. Dürer had put himself in the center, along with his friend Konrad Celtis. Celtis had died some months before Dürer started painting it. Dürer claimed he included himself only as homage to his dead friend. Dismas suspected otherwise.

  “Still in the relic gallery, is it?”

  “Yes, Nars,” Dismas said. “Still there.”

  It was Dismas’s nickname for Dürer—after Narcissus, archetype of Vanity, owing to his friend’s predilection for self-portraiture and inserting himself in his paintings.

  “Don’t let Cranach near it. He’ll want to improve it.”

  Dürer applied burnt umber to Fugger’s fur stole. It was a constant theme—Cranach’s desecrations of his work. The grievance had its origin in an incident years ago. The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, Dürer’s chief patron at the time, had commissioned Dürer to adorn his printed prayer book. For reasons never quite explained, Dürer had halted work on the project. Whereupon Cranach finished it. Oh, the lamentation! One might think Cranach had assaulted Dürer in the face with a bucket of paint. But that affront was nothing compared with an even more monstrous liberty. Cranach had presumed to finish a portrait of Maximilian by Dürer. This could never be forgiven. Artists.

  Dürer sniffed at Dismas’s taunts. “I paint beauty wherever I find it. If I find it in the mirror, so be it.”

  He was a handsome fellow, Nars: tall and lean, hair a cascade of ginger ringlets, a finely trimmed beard and mustache in the Italian style (naturally), the cheekbones of a knight, sensuous mouth, and drowsy lover’s eyes. His gaze, when it fell on you, either in person or in the portraits, was elusive. Dismas ascribed this to his melancholia. Dürer absolutely believed that he was under the influence of Saturn. Gloomy Saturn.

  “You can barely make out that it’s Celtis and myself,” Dürer said.

  Dismas suspected he was saying this in order to prolong a conversation about himself. He smiled and thought, All right, Nars, let’s talk some more about you. He said: “And what about your Adoration of the Magi? You made yourself one of the magi! Or The Feast of the Rose Garlands. The retablo at San Bartolomeo in Venice. There you are, in the foreground, holding a piece of paper with a Latin inscription boasting that you completed the painting in only five months. When you know very well it took you seven. You’re without shame. Every time you paint Christ, he looks more and more like you.”

  Dismas put his cloak on over his shoulders.

  “Come on. You’ve made Fugger handsome enough. Sure, he’ll double your commission. I’m thirsty. I need a drink. And then the Edengarten. I haven’t had a woman since Charlemagne was emperor.”

  “I’d be careful, I were you,” Dürer said. “Not so long ago I did a drawing of a man with the pox.” He shuddered. “Ghastly. Between the French pox and the plague, we’re doomed.”

  Nuremberg was regularly stricken by plague. Dismas lost his wife and children to it; Dürer, his mother, on whom he doted, as she did on him. Nars was fearful to the point of hysteria about plague, and whenever there was an outbreak fled over the Alps to Italy. He did have a reason to go to Italy. He studied there. Dismas told him he shouldn’t feel guilty about his mother. He couldn’t very well haul an aged woman over the mountains. Still.

  “The brothels are licensed,” Dismas observed.

  “See for yourself.” Dürer went to a drawer and pulled out a sheaf of thick paper. He handed it to Dismas.

  Dismas winced. “Christ.”

  “Still want to visit the Edengarten? I did that from life. Didn’t stand too close.”

  It was a woodcut titled Syphilitic Man. Dismas was not displeased to hear that the subject was a Landsknecht. His disease was well advanced. He wore his typical fancy dress, but his face, arms, and calves were grotesquely pustular and oozing. One of Dismas’s clients, a wealthy man in Geneva, was afflicted, and had begged him—on his knees—to procure for him a relic of St. Job, the Christianized patron saint of syphilitics. The Cloak of the Virgin was also considered effective.

  Dismas handed the drawing back to Dürer. “I’d feel sympathy for him if he weren’t a Landsknecht.”

  Dürer stared at his work. “He was an arrogant prick, even in this state.” He put the drawing back. He said in a conspiratorial tone, “You know who’s got it?”

  “The Pope?”

  “No. He’s got a nasty fistula. I don’t have to tell you how he got it.”

  Dismas made a face. “I don’t want to know. How would you know such a thing?”

  “Raphael told me.”

  “Who?”

  “Dis. Your ignorance is truly superb. Raphael the painter.”

  “One of your Italians, is he?”

  “As for the pox—the Emperor. He’s dying of it.”

  “Everyone knows that,” Dismas said. “Did you hear the latest? He went to a monastery in Füssen. Apparently it wasn’t pleasant. Sores all over his mouth. Kept dipping his cup into the communal bowl with all the monks. So they had to dip theirs. Nice for them, eh? But no surprise. Maximilian’s more debauched than Tiberius.”

  “Some respect. Please. He is my patron.”

  “Then you should get a new patron. Neither of my patrons is covered with revolting sores.” Dismas sighed. “Well, now I don’t want to go to the Edengarten. I may never again after this conversation. But I do need a drink. Come on.”

  • • •

  Dürer’s house was in the Tiergärtnertor, in the shadow of the castle. They went to their usual tavern, the Corpulent Duke, and sat at a quiet table in the corner.

  Dürer was moody. Dismas drank beer; Dürer brandy, one after another.

  Abruptly he said, “The thing is, if the Emperor is dying, as they say he is, I’m going to need a new patron.”

  “Always you’re worried about money,” Dismas said. “You’re Albrecht Dürer, for God’s sake. You’re not going to starve.”

  “Do you know how many mouths I feed? I don’t have kids, but there’s my brother, Hans, and his family. Big eaters, all. And Agnes’s family. And the servants, and the assistants. Materials to buy. Believe me, I depend on Maximilian’s stipend. And my hands.” He held them out, as if for inspection. “They feel stiff all the time. And my eyes. What happens when they go? Eh?”

  “In that case, maybe you should embellish the portrait of Fu
gger. You can use me for a model.”

  “How much does that hack Cranach earn a year as court painter?”

  “Frederick doesn’t tell me these things. Nars, why do you obsess about Cranach?”

  “I hear he gets two hundred gulden. Two hundred! That was Agnes’s entire dowry.”

  “I doubt he gets that much. But sure, he makes a decent living. I’ll tell you this—sup at Frederick’s table and you don’t starve.”

  “That’s the life. To think that Cranach is living it. There’s no justice in this life. We’ll have to wait for the next.”

  “I wish you would listen to me about Master Bernhardt.”

  “That banker of yours?”

  “The man is a genius. Give him guldens, he turns them into ducats, and the ducats into diamonds. He has quadrupled my money.”

  Dürer shrugged. “I’ll mention it to Agnes. She handles the money. What money there is.”

  “Well,” Dismas said. “This is a marvelous talk we are having. Syphilis. Papal fistulas. A debauched and moribund emperor. And now poverty and starvation. What else shall we talk about? Have you been to any good public executions lately? You could come with me to Mainz. Every day they have burnings.”

  Eventually Dismas succeeded in making Dürer smile—at the story of Albrecht’s disappointment that Dismas failed to buy him the fake St. Peter’s fishing boat.

  “What he really wants is a shroud.”

  “Shroud? I could make him a shroud.”

  Dürer’s tongue was getting furry from brandy. “A shroud so . . . beautiful Christ would want to come back down from Heaven and curl up inside it.”

  “Nars. Don’t talk so.”

  Dürer thumped his mug on the table. “Hey there, Magnus! Move your fat bottom and bring me more brandy. And more of your horse piss for my friend Dishmus.”

  “Albrecht doesn’t want a shroud made by you,” Dismas said. “He wants the one in Chambéry.”

  Magnus the tavern keeper, an immense fellow and thank Heavens tolerant of gibes about his posterior, came and poured more brandy into Dürer’s mug.

  “You know,” Dürer said, leaning across the table toward Dismas, “together we could make some good money, you and me.”

  “I don’t think I want to hear this.”

  “Well, listen anyway. I will make the shroud. And you will sell it to that excuse for an archbishop. I’ll give you twenty-five percent.”

  “So generous. How is Agnes?”

  “Screw Agnes.”

  “I would only she’s your wife. I am trying to change the subject, Nars.”

  “Why not do it? You despise Albrecht.”

  “I have never said to you the words ‘I despise Albrecht.’ ”

  “Oh, pah. You’ve said as much to me a hundred times. He’s a pig. Not a pig on the scale of the Pope, but a pig nonetheless. And Tetzel. There’s scum. Tetzel they should burn.”

  Dürer drained his cup and banged it up and down on the table. The tavern quieted. He climbed onto the table on unsteady legs.

  “Nars. Sit down.”

  Dürer raised his cup. “To Friar Martin Looter. Looth . . .”

  People stared.

  “Come on, you people. Drink! To Friar Martin Loo-ther! Yes, that’s it. Death to the sodomite Pope in Rome!”

  “Hey!” someone said. “You shouldn’t say such things!”

  Magnus lumbered over. “Master Dürer. Please. No trouble.”

  Dismas tugged at Dürer’s leg. “Come down from there, Nars.”

  “Magnus! More brandy! For everyone, brandy!” He raised his cup. “Drink, everybody! Drink to Albrecht Dürer!”

  “Who?” someone said.

  “To Albrecht Dürer! Who wipes his ass with the paintings of Lucas Cranach!”

  Dismas and Magnus got Dürer off the table and carried him to the door.

  “You are a great man, Magnus,” Dürer said, slumping against him. “The greatest I have ever known. The greatest in all the . . . Empire.”

  Dismas said to Magnus, “I’ll get him home.”

  The cool night air felt good.

  “Let’s hope no one calls the guard,” Dismas said.

  “Screw the guard. What are they going to do?”

  “Nars. You can’t stand up in a tavern and shout that the Pope is a sodomite.”

  “Well he is. Luthh . . . Why cannot I say his name? Looo . . .”

  “Because you are drunk, Nars.”

  “Shh. Listen. I will say it. Loo-terr. Looter is the new Pope now. Dismas?”

  “Yes, Nars.”

  “I love Looter.”

  “Yes. That’s good. Now come.”

  “Take me to him. I will make my confession to him.”

  “Friar Luther is in Wittenberg, Nars. We are in Nuremberg.”

  “I want to paint him. I will make him immortal.”

  “I think he’s already taken care of that. Anyway, Cranach beat you to it.”

  “Cranach? Cranach? Cranach is . . . a cunt.”

  “Shh, Nars. For God’s sake.”

  “He even looks like a cunt.”

  “If you keep up like this, I’m going to take you to the jail myself.”

  “I will fight the guard,” Dürer said, collapsing against a wall.

  Dismas picked his friend up by the arm.

  “When Agnes sees you in this state, you may wish the guard had got you first.”

  6

  Boat of the Fisherman

  The following spring Dismas returned to Mainz.

  He had spent the winter hunting in warmer regions, in search of relics for Albrecht. The latest vogue was Italian martyrs of the sixth century. He also found some other rare pieces: a rib of St. Chrysogonus and a nice fragment of St. Speciosa’s coccyx, avouched to have worked some brilliant healings. Normally he’d have given Frederick first refusal, but Frederick was so long on Speciosa he could reassemble his entire skeleton.

  He made his way into the cathedral as he usually did, by the side street that led to the cloister. Turning the corner, he was surprised to find a crowd of pilgrims, among the usual penitents and supplicants.

  It wasn’t a feast day. Why then were they here? The shirts of the penitents were ripped and stained red from self-flagellation, a devotional practice that Dismas found distasteful. Others, lacking limbs, dragged or pushed themselves forward over the cobble. Faces showed ravages of smallpox and starvation. The crowd pressed toward the cloister door, where Dismas saw the two Landsknechte he’d encountered here the previous autumn.

  “What’s going on?” Dismas asked someone in the crowd.

  “It’s the Apostle Peter’s fishing boat. Two hundred years’ indulgence!”

  Christ, Dismas thought. He pushed his way through the crowd to the entrance. One of the Landsknechte blocked his way with his halberd.

  “Where do you think you’re going, pilgrim?”

  “I’m not a pilgrim. Stand aside.”

  “It’s ten kreuzer to get in.” He took in Dismas’s cloak and boots, which marked him as a person of means. “For you, fifty.”

  “I’m here on archbishop’s business. And if you don’t stand aside, I’ll shove that halberd so far up your bunghole it’ll come out the top of your head and knock off your helmet.”

  The other Landsknecht moved toward Dismas. Dismas drew his dagger from beneath his cloak put the blade under the man’s jaw.

  “Steady, Landsknecht.”

  They made no further move against him. They weren’t stupid. A man who would accost Landsknechte with such belligerency would have authority behind him, unless he was a fool or suicidal. A cleric inside saw what was happening and rushed out, scolding like a schoolmaster.

  “What’s the meaning of this? Master Dismas!” He barked at the Landsknechte. “You, and you, stand down. Now! Come in, Master Dismas.”

  Dismas sheathed his dagger and entered the cloister, Landsknechte glaring after him with bemused hatred.

  “Why does his grace employ such scum
?” Dismas said.

  The cleric shrugged. “I don’t care for them, myself.”

  In the middle of the cloister courtyard Dismas saw a boat. Not the boat he had seen in Basel. This one was high in the bow and stern, single-masted. Its sail was raised and hung limp in the windless interior of the courtyard. It was surrounded by kneeling pilgrims, hands touching its hull as they murmured their prayers. Nearby was the indulgence coffer box. And there was Tetzel, doing brisk business.

  “Pray, what is that?” Dismas asked.

  The cleric seemed surprised. “Your boat.”

  Dismas stared. “What can you mean?”

  “The boat of the Apostle Peter. The one you bought for his grace in Basel last autumn. Very popular with the pilgrims. You saw the crowd outside. Been like this since it arrived. His grace is very pleased.”

  • • •

  Albrecht received Dismas alone, in his study.

  “Cousin. We have missed you. You wintered well?”

  “Yes,” Dismas said, straining to control his emotions. “I have pieces I think your grace will approve.”

  “You have never disappointed us, Dismas.”

  Albrecht was in a jolly mood. Doubtless the continual clinking in the courtyard jollied his temper. A sound sweeter even than wind chimes.

  Dismas cleared his throat. “Might I ask your grace—what is that nautical object in the courtyard?”

  Albrecht smiled. “A great success. You saw the crowds? Day and night, they come. We have had no peace.”

  “So I saw. But with respect, I ask again—what is it?”

  Albrecht sighed. “Now, Dismas, we’re not going to have a scene, are we? It’s too boring. Come, have some wine.”

  He poured from a silver ewer.

  “It’s modeled on the boat in the wall painting by Giotto. You know it, perhaps?”

  “No.”

  “Such a face, Dismas. It’s very well done.”

  “Forgive me, but I was surprised when Father Nebler informed me that I purchased it for your grace. In Basel.”

  “Ah, therefore the sour face. Well, you are our official relic master. Why should you not have found it for us? Be proud, Dismas. It does you honor.”

  Dismas stared.