Portrait of Shade

by Benjamin Ford

  Using the hammer and chisel from her desk to prise open the wooden packing case rather more carefully and expertly than she herself might have, Derek was aware that Eudora had her back turned to him, resolutely not paying any attention. He set down the tools and carefully pulled the large wood framed painting out, and as he leaned it against the packing case, drinking in its splendour, he let out a low whistle of appreciation.

  Eudora had just raised the glass to her lips, but set it down again at Derek’s whistle. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she turned and came to stand beside the deliveryman, whose eyes were riveted on the painting, and she too gasped in awe at its magnificent beauty: she had certainly not expected anything quite so stunning.

  She inhaled deeply. Was that rosewood? The heady aroma was very strong, agreeable to her nostrils.

  The ornately carved frame made the painting in the region of six feet by four feet and the frame itself was several inches deep. Closer inspection revealed the intricate carvings, which both Eudora and Derek had first taken to be abstract designs, to be Roman soldiers marching along the top. Transforming into naked men dancing and copulating both with each other and with equally naked women down the right hand side, they gradually changed into coiled hissing serpents along the bottom, and changed again on the left hand side into men wearing religious clothes and carrying crosses. Then the images finally changed back into Roman soldiers as they reached the top left hand corner. Clearly, the delicate carvings told some kind of story, and though Derek could not decide what the story was, it seemed to depict the perpetually ongoing struggles humanity had concerning war, religion and sexuality.

  The painting itself clearly told another story altogether… or then again, perhaps it was the same theme of man’s struggle against war and religion.

  In the centre, but slightly behind his two companions, stood a tall handsome man of indeterminate age wearing what Eudora took to be brown Monastic robes. Beneath the shadows cast by the hood, his sandy coloured hair was barely visible, but his vibrantly bright blue eyes stared straight into Eudora’s soul, and she was shocked to feel a blush suffuse her cheeks, for it was as though he was actually looking at her. His lips stretched into a warm friendly smile, and around his neck, he wore an amethyst pendant – identical to that which Eudora herself was wearing. Instinctively her hand flew to her breast, as though terrified that somehow the pendant had been spirited away, out of her possession and into the painting: it was still secure around her neck.

  She chastised herself for being stupid again.

  To the left of this arresting central figure was an altogether more cruel looking man wearing what seemed like a white tunic of the Roman era. Shorter than the other two men, he looked pale and ill, his long blond hair and beard unkempt; his curious amethyst eyes, like sunken pits of despair above hollow cheeks, bored into Eudora’s heart to send a chill down her spine, while his mouth was a thin cruel line. In his hand, he held a rolled up parchment, and adorning one finger was a gold ring with another large purple stone in the centre. He looked thoroughly evil, and although she had never seen the painting before, and though she was certain she had never met him, the man seemed oddly familiar – though not as familiar as the central figure, to which Eudora’s eyes were once more inexplicably drawn.

  On the right hand side, slightly further forward than the other two, stood the third and final man. He was wearing imperial purple robes, edged in gold braid and studded with pearls. His thick forearm, adorned with a large gold amulet, in the centre of which resided another large amethyst, pressed against his chest in some kind of salute. His aquiline nose and heavy-set chin made him the most masculine of the trio, and his eyes were pools of ruthless inky blackness. Like the others, he was blonde-haired, which lent the portrait a kind of symmetry.

  Eudora shivered, blinking rapidly. To counteract the sense of unease the other two men instilled within her, she returned her attention to the soft gentle features of the monk in the middle.

  He was definitely staring at her!

  Under different circumstances, the irrational thought might have made her laugh. She moved to view the portrait from various different angles, but all three men seemed to follow her with their eyes. They all three seemed almost alive, and it unnerved Eudora, mainly because the portrait seemed to have the same effect on Derek.

  ‘Who do you suppose they are?’ he whispered, as though frightened one of the incredibly lifelike men in the portrait might hear.

  Eudora shrugged. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’ She pointed to the burning cross, which hung mid air between the middle and right men, splitting the dark roiling clouds almost like the bolt of lightning that split the sky on the other side of the painting. ‘However, that reminds me of something in my memory, though I’m not sure what. It could be some other painting I’ve seen, or something I’ve read somewhere, or even something I’ve heard other people talking about.’

  The burning cross was clearly a symbolic representation of some kind, but what interested Eudora more were the three pieces of gold jewellery, each adorned with large chunks of smooth, oval, polished amethyst; could this portrait be some kind of sign that a prophecy of sorts was about to come true? Was she going to come into possession of the ring and the amulet?

  Christ, I hope not, she thought as she recalled the unsigned letter.

  ‘It’s remarkably lifelike,’ mumbled Derek, mesmerised by the painting. He could almost hear the thunder that accompanied the lightning, could almost see the robes they wore blowing in the wind; hell, he almost swore the man in the middle blinked, but someone outside had opened a car door and as they closed it again, the sunlight catching on the car window recreated the startling effect once more.

  The three men stood in the foreground of an impressive temple, its dour grey stone pillars rising high above equally dull grey stone steps; it was almost akin to looking at a photograph, so well painted was the stonework.

  Everything was perfectly proportioned and symmetrical; the portrait was exquisite in every minute detail, and indeed looked so lifelike in every way that it really was like looking into a window on the past.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ murmured Derek, who had never seen anything quite like it before. ‘Who’s the artist?’

  Eudora shrugged helplessly. With her remarkable knowledge of paintings and artists and artists’ styles, she could usually take one look at almost any painting and narrow the list down to about a half dozen, and could frequently name the artist accurately.

  ‘I have no idea, Derek,’ she replied, ‘but I have to admit that it is one of the most beautiful portraits I’ve ever seen.’

  The painting Isadora had unearthed was something else altogether. It was almost definitely several hundred years old, yet the curiously pungent scent of the rosewood frame denounced this theory, and although the figures in the portrait still seemed somehow familiar, Eudora could give no names. She genuinely had no idea who the artist was, so it was probably someone unknown, though she had to admit a talent for lifelike semblance of people in a painting was highly unusual: this artist really deserved to be well known.

  ‘What do you suppose the flaming cross means?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I wish I’d paid more attention in my History lessons at school, because somewhere in my mind it does ring a bell… vaguely.’ Being unable to recall the information she knew she possessed annoyed Eudora to the point of frustration. History had never been a particular favourite at school; that honour had gone to art. Quite apart from her vast knowledge of artists and their works, Eudora was not bad with a paintbrush herself, though she preferred to work in pencil; she adored the subtlety of the shades and textures that could be obtained from several dozen different grey pencils of varying hardness.

  ‘What about the frame?’

  ‘Ah,’ Eudora replied with a shy smile, ‘that’s easier. I have seen this type of frame before. They were fairly common during the middle- to late-Sixteenth Century.’ She pointed to the warring s
oldiers. ‘This indicates the evil of war and how senseless it is.’ She then indicated the naked people. ‘And this denotes the embodiment of carnal lust.’

  ‘And I suppose the snakes are the physical manifestation of evil, leaving the human host pure and innocent, hence the Holy Men.’

  Eudora grinned at him. ‘Close enough! Was that a lucky guess?’

  Derek shrugged. ‘Common sense: the serpent was the embodiment of evil in the Garden of Eden!’

  ‘Well that’s pretty much the truth of it. In Europe of that period there was a Holy War between the Catholics and Protestants.’

  Derek laughed. ‘I thought you were rubbish at History? Actually, there were several Holy Wars before that. The War of the Holy League between France, Spain and Italy lasted from 1511 to 1513, followed by the War of the Second Holy League from 1526 to 1529, but if this painting is from the period you were talking about, the religious war is more likely to be the one between the Catholics and Protestants. I’m impressed that you know of the Holy Wars in Europe – something at school sunk in, obviously.’

  ‘I was only guessing about a Holy War in that period as that’s when I believe this frame was carved; the holy men turning back into soldiers at the top signified some kind of religious war.’

  ‘In that case, why are the soldiers in the carvings dressed as Roman Legionnaires?’ muttered Derek.

  In fact, they were not all dressed like Romans; they seemed to be from all different eras and different locations.

  Eudora shrugged her shoulders, frowning. ‘I have no idea.’ She pointed to the white garbed man. ‘He looks like he’s dressed in a Roman tunic to me.’ She then pointed to the man in purple robes. ‘And could he be a Roman Emperor, perhaps?’

  He certainly looked it to Eudora, but Derek disagreed. ‘He was more likely an Emperor of the Byzantine Empire!’

  ‘When was the Byzantine Empire?’

  ‘Fourth Century through to the Fifteenth, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman army in 1453. However, what the three men are wearing almost certainly dates back to the Fourth or Fifth Century, near the beginning of the Byzantine Empire.’ Derek was a little surprised to find Eudora laughing at him, so he asked her what was so amusing.

  ‘If you’re so good with historical facts, why aren’t you teaching it at school or something? Why aren’t you a historian instead of a courier?’

  ‘I flunked all my exams at school,’ Derek sighed with a trace of regret. ‘All the facts and figures were there in my head, but I panicked and couldn’t remember anything in the exams. I had a lot on my mind at the time though. It was a traumatic year for me; my parents were both killed on the Continent, my sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and then her death and my brother’s suicide just about finished me off.’

  Eudora nodded, touching his hand gently, appalled that she had helped dredge up these awful memories once more. He had told Isadora, Gaia and her all this before. It was the reason for his shyness when he had first met them. The trio had realised just how lucky they had been in their life.

  ‘Of course,’ Derek continued sadly, ‘nobody took any of that into consideration, and so I failed all my exams. I just couldn’t face continuing my education, so I took the first job I could, then learned to drive and became a courier… and eventually met you.’

  He, paused for a moment, scrutinizing the painting. ‘I might not know a great deal about art, Miss Eudora,’ he said, ‘but I can see this portrait did not come from any imagination. Those three men definitely posed for the artist, probably in front of that temple… but I can’t explain the flaming cross!’

  The same thoughts had been going through Eudora’s mind, but if what Derek had said was true, that meant the portrait had been painted around 400AD, yet with the freshness of the rosewood scent, she was having enough trouble believing the portrait dated from the Sixteenth Century. To believe it originated from one thousand years before that verged on the absurd.

  Nevertheless, everything else seemed to indicate this was the case.

  ‘Why don’t you get Miss Know-it-all to take a look?’ suggested Derek not unkindly.

  Eudora stifled a light chuckle. ‘Do you mean Nola?’

  Derek nodded. ‘She always seems to know as much as you when my path crosses hers, so maybe she might be able to shed some light on it?’

  Different generations from different families could look at the same thing from different angles and find a different perspective to examine. Perhaps Derek was right, but then again perhaps not – it would do no harm, though, to ask Nola. ‘I’ll do that,’ Eudora said. ‘I’ll call her tomorrow; see if she’s up to it. Before you go, can you help me get this painting upstairs.’

  Derek grinned. ‘Sure, no problem.’

  With a great deal of dexterity, the pair navigated the spiral stairs with relative ease, and after propping the painting in the bedroom, they made their way back down to the gallery.

  ‘Thanks, Derek.’

  ‘Any time.’ He smiled as he glanced at his watch, shocked to find he had been in the gallery nearly half an hour. ‘Good God, I really must get off, or I will never finish my round today!’

  With a cheery wave, Derek was gone.

  Eudora locked the door behind him, pulled down the ‘closed’ blind, and retreated to the bedroom once more, where she sat and stared at the portrait.

  Peculiarly, each of the three men had facets she admired, but it was still the central figure, slightly behind, yet oddly more prominent than the other pair, who captivated her most of all. He was the most handsome and the friendliest of the three – not to mention the most cheerful.

  He was more beautiful than any man Eudora had ever met, and she somehow felt that his beauty was more than skin deep and extended inwards to his very soul.

  Why is it, she wondered sadly as she stared longingly at the man, that the good looking ones are either already married, gay or dedicated to God – or figments of my imagination, brought vividly to life in a picture?

  This man had definitely given himself to God. Why had he devoted his life to God? Had a woman perhaps betrayed him, or had he realised he was good looking and wished not to be misused or mistreated?

  In the brutality of the past, people had been persecuted for all manner of reasons, as indeed people were still being persecuted for all manner of reasons; none of them had been condonable back then, any more than they could be condoned now.

  The Romans, Eudora recalled, persecuted the Christians; the Nazis had persecuted the Jews; Whites persecuted the Blacks, and Protestants and Catholics persecuted each other back then and were doing so still. Maybe the average looking and the downright ugly persecuted the beautiful ones. Perhaps the beautiful ones had sought the sanctuary of a Monastery or church and devoted themselves to God as thanks for His salvation, knowing He would not persecute them.

  The man in the centre of the portrait was certainly wearing Monastic robes. Was he perhaps a martyr, or a saint?

  ‘What a waste of a good looking man,’ she said aloud.

  Her voice in the still peaceful silence of the empty gallery startled Eudora. She had not meant to speak aloud as she was alone in the gallery; alone with the portrait… the portrait of three men, one of whom she was slowly, inexorably, unfathomably, idiotically falling in love with, even though he was most definitely long dead.

  What if she were wrong, and the portrait was recent, new; painted merely with the men wearing old fashioned clothes and surrounded by a beautifully handcrafted frame to add elegance and authenticity? It would certainly explain how the rosewood still held its glorious scent. The man could still be alive.

  The thought that the man of her dreams might be living in the real world excited Eudora and sent a shiver of expectation down her spine.

  Maybe she should go to Paris and try tracing the original owner of the painting? Maybe he would turn out to be the central figure himself.

  It was a nice dream, but that is all it was: a dream.

  And drea
ms never came true.

  Never!

  * * *

  Outside the Donat Gallery, Derek made his way down to the telephone box and dug in his pocket for some change. He dialled the number he had written down on a scrap of paper.

  ‘Yes?’ snapped an irritable voice on the other end of the line.

  ‘The portrait is at the gallery,’ Derek said.

  The excited voice had an agitated edge to it. ‘Are you certain it’s the right one?’

  ‘It’s exactly as you described it, Boss: Taine’s Trinity!’ Pushing more money into the coin slot, Derek described the portrait and its frame in intricate detail.

  ‘That’s it!’ cried the disembodied voice in exultation. ‘Well done!’

  ‘When do I get paid?’

  ‘You’ll get your payment when the portrait is in my possession. You know what to do?’

  ‘Yes. It will be done this weekend.’

  ‘Yes, otherwise she’ll notice its absence too soon. Deliver to me the portrait on Sunday at noon, and you’ll receive the million pounds as we arranged.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Derek and hung up without another word.

  * * *

  On the other end of the telephone line the blond haired man hung up too. He banged a fist against his forehead, and then a grin of triumph replaced his grimace of discomfort.

  ‘At last, Spiridon, at last you are mine! And when you are in my possession, I shall have my vengeance, and it will be over, finally. The voices in my head will be silenced… forever!’

  The girl seated nearby turned to face him fearfully. ‘You won’t hurt her, will you?’

  The man glowered malevolently at her. ‘Now is not the time to be worried about some insignificant wench getting hurt, child! Should she be foolish enough to get in the way of my plans then I shall have her dealt with, and it will serve the meddling bitch right! I have not waited more than thirteen hundred years for the arrival of this moment only to have a foolish woman ruin things. I do not care if anyone is hurt – I shall have my vengeance upon Spiridon! He betrayed me, and he shall pay at last. His life shall be forfeit, and I shall have my freedom from him. Do not attempt to warn her or try to stop me, daughter, for I shall not hesitate in killing you, too, should you do so! Do I make myself clear?’