by Rudy Rucker
In the night the sleet had turned to snow. The snow was falling so thickly that Bruegel couldn’t even see where the sun was. The sounds from outside were cozy and muffled. He lay still, staring out his little window at the falling flakes, enjoying how they swirled about with the puffs of wind. The closer flakes looked big and yellowish, the more distant flakes were smaller, with tints of blue-gray.
Anja stirred and her eyes flickered open. She smiled and kissed his bare shoulder.
“When I came to Antwerp I was hoping for this,” said Anja. “Can I stay? We needn’t tell the world about being lovers. For all they know, I’m just your maid!”
“I can’t imagine giving you orders,” said Bruegel. He hadn’t yet given any thought to the practicalities of the situation, and he didn’t particularly want to start.
“You won’t have to. I know what to do.” Anja looked around the room. “It’s a mess in here. And too small. With your new commissions, you can afford more space. A second room. The new room can be your studio, and we could curtain off one end of it to be the maid’s room. Anja’s private corner. We’ll make love as much as we like, but we’ll keep some independence. Perhaps someday we’ll marry others and move on. Say yes, Peter.”
A second room! What a thought. Clever Anja. It was very pleasant to have her in his bed. Why fight it? “I’d like to have you stay,” allowed Bruegel. “And as it happens, the room next door is vacant. A Calvinist lived there, the unfortunate Gus Groot. They burned him at the stake last week. A brave man. The Spanish soldiers came up the stairs for Gus and all he said was, ’It is finished.’ Jerome Cock went to see him burned. Jerome wanted to bribe the executioner to strangle Gus before lighting the wood, but Gus said ‘No, better to die by fire than by a murderer’s hand.’ Jerome said Gus sang hymns then, and he never screamed.”
“Dreadful,” said Anja, busy looking around. “Is his room the same size as this one?”
“Bigger. It has two fine north windows and, as it happens, a partitioned-off nook at one end.” Bruegel smiled at Anja, touching his fingers to her cheek. “Where the titmouse can build her nest. Perhaps you can even help me a bit in the studio. Mixing the paints. I learned most of what I know about watercolors from a woman—from Mayken Verhulst.”
“Then I can do it too. I’ll do whatever you say, Peter. And more. Who’s Mayken Verhulst?”
“Master Coecke’s widow. She’s an accomplished painter in her own right, a miniaturist. A wonderful woman.” Mayken had been midway in age between Bruegel and her husband. For the second time in a day, Bruegel thought of the time when Master Coecke had been off with Emperor Charles’s fleet fighting the Turks—but there was certainly no need to mention this.
“I’m jealous,” said Anja, sensing something. “Where does your wonderful Mayken live?”
“In Brussels,” said Bruegel. “Master Coecke moved there just before he died. He and Mayken and—and their daughter. She’s named Mayken too.” His voice softened. He’d helped care for little Mayken around the Coecke’s household. He was fond of her—though certainly not in a lecherous way. She was cute and fresh, with a bright spirit, and perhaps someday—well, who knew.
In the raw emotion of Master Coecke’s funeral, Bruegel had almost gone so far as to offer to marry the widow, but she’d forestalled him, patiently pointing out that she was just as happy to be without a man, to be her own mistress, to answer to no one. She was well situated, having inherited Coecke’s workshop. She preferred to paint her miniatures in peace. And then she’d proposed that perhaps Bruegel could eventually join the house of Coecke by marrying her daughter.
The important thing, old Mayken had said, was to build her workshop into a dynasty, and she herself was past the age of wanting to risk another quickening. In her eyes, should Peter’s career as an artist pan out, an eventual match between him and young Mayken could be auspicious. But for now, Peter was twenty-nine and all but unknown, little Mayken was but eleven, and only time could tell what would happen.
“You forget about those Maykens, Peter,” said Anja, wriggling up to plant a kiss on his mouth. “Your Anja’s right here. Your hot, dirty sister.” She rubbed herself against him insinuatingly.
“No talk about brother and sister,” said Bruegel, as sharply as if he’d been singed by a flame. He rolled away from her and rose up on his elbow to stare sternly down. “Don’t you realize how savage the Inquisition is becoming, Anja? Any hint of incest could be reason enough for the ecclesiastics to have me executed, should something I draw offend them. From now on, you’re just a woman from my village. Nobody but Ortelius knows more than that—and I can trust him to hold his tongue.”
“Fine,” said Anja, making a gesture as if locking her lips with a key. “I know perfectly well I’m not your sister.” She held out her arms. “Let’s do everything we did last night again, eh?”
So they did all of that, and then they sat up in bed together to look out the window, naked with the comforter pulled around their shoulders. The snow had stopped falling, but the heavens were still full of snow clouds. The clouds tinted the daylight a warm greenish yellow. What peace.
Bruegel’s diamond-paned window looked out the back of the Four Winds building onto some small backyards with bushes and trees. The yards sloped down to a frozen canal with skaters scribing lines in the new-fallen snow. Lots of birds and people were out and about, taking advantage of the break in the weather.
“What’s that door doing propped up in the neighbor’s yard?” asked Anja. There was a heavy old wooden door in the yard next door, with a stick holding up one end of it. Fresh impressions of footsteps led to the door, and bread crumbs lay scattered beneath it.
“Oh, that’s old lady Leyden’s bird trap,” said Bruegel. “If you look closely, you can see there’s a string tied to the stick that holds up the door. And the string runs up to that little black hole in the wall? Mevrouw Leyden sits behind there squinting. When there’s enough birds—zack!” Mevrouw was the Flemish word for “Mistress.”
“The hole looks so sly.” said Anja. “I hate it. What does Mevrouw Leyden do with the birds?”
“Eats them. But some of the birds never get caught. See that big crow there up on the branch watching? He comes every day. He’s a deep one, that crow.” As if to confirm Bruegel’s statement, the crow flapped down to the ground, cast a sharp look at the hole in the wall, darted his head forward to snatch a crumb out from under the door, and hopped some distance away.
“The sparrows never learn,” continued Bruegel. “Mevrouw always catches a few of them. The magpies and thrushes are as smart as the crows, but the robins and pigeons get caught too. Pigeons are what she really wants. I look out this window every morning. Isn’t the crow wonderful?”
“There’s so many people skating on the canal,” saidAnja.
“Birds and people,” said Bruegel dreamily. “Something I always notice in this window is that they’re the same size.” He’d never tried to explain this fancy before.
“How do you mean?”
“For the eye,” said Bruegel. He stuck his arm out towards the window, squinting along it with his thumb stuck out. “The crow’s half the size of my thumb. And see the mother holding her child by the hand? They too are half the size of—”
“Ow-wah!” interrupted Anja. For just now the bird trap’s string twitched, the stick popped out, and the trap fell down onto four or five birds. And at almost the same moment, the door to Bruegel’s room flew open.
It was Ortelius, instantly beet red. “Forgive me! I brought Jerome Cock one of my new maps, and when I asked about you, he said I should come up and wake—” He turned to go.
“Hellooo, Abraham,” cooed Anja, sliding the comforter a little farther down off her breasts.
“Wait for me in the shop, Abraham,” said Bruegel, standing up. “I’ll be right down. We have to talk.”
The door closed and Anja let out a rich, triumphant laugh.
Outside in the snow, the bent old Mevrouw Leyd
en crouched to draw out the struggling birds from under the door, one by one. She broke their necks and stuffed them into a sack.
Five
Luxuria
Antwerp, March 1556
Going down the narrow little staircase, Ortelius was still blushing, though now he started to smile as well. What a sight! Bruegel and the brazen Anja made a handsome pair of lovers. Yet they’d grown up almost as brother and sister—might not the Church view their union as abominable? A sobering thought, that.
Jerome Cock was sitting on a high stool behind the long narrow table that served as the counter in the Four Winds, examining the newly colored Mercator maps of Flanders which Ortelius had brought for him to sell. To one side lay a fresh print of a landscape, along with an engraving plate and a burin, a tool like an awl with a crooked handle. Cock was a young stork of a man with a beaky nose and a cawing voice. A couple of artists and patrons were in conversation near the front of the shop, enjoying cups of coffee, the exotic new Turkish decoction which Cock sold from his kitchen. One of the patrons was none other than Hans Franckert, talking to the others about the stabbing of Christopher Plantin. The news was all over town.
“I like these new maps of Mercator’s,” said Cock to Ortelius, resuming their conversation from before. “I’ll be glad to market them for you. The usual terms.” He set the maps to one side and peered up at Ortelius questioningly. “So, where’s our Bruegel?” Cock tapped the landscape print on his counter. “I want to show him the new state of our latest engraving. I sharpened up the walls of the castles and added some more leaves to the trees. It’s called The Belgian Wagon.”
“He’s coming,” said Ortelius simply. He was determined not to betray any of his friend’s secrets. Cock bent over the fresh print, studying it with a loupe, and Ortelius began walking around the room.
The shop’s walls were hung with engravings. Among them were five of Bruegel’s new Alp-inspired Large Landscape scenes. Ortelius examined them closely, marveling at the depths of the vistas Bruegel’s images contained. In addition, there were many engravings by other artists: of saints, of animals, of national costumes, of architecture and of theatrical plays, not to mention the maps of countries and cities. The maps looked a bit flat and lifeless next to the landscapes, but Ortelius studied them with a professional’s deep interest. Also on display in the Four Winds were a number of engravings after the paintings of the master Hieronymus Bosch. Dead forty years now, Bosch had come to be a great favorite throughout the Low Lands, Spain, and indeed all of Europe. Though Ortelius himself was partial to the more classical and Italianate kinds of art, he recognized that Bosch’s images were a fitting reflection of the increasingly troubled times. With the Inquisitors at large, the most far-fetched torments had become all too imaginable.
Behind Cock’s counter were clotheslines with prints hung on them to dry, and beyond the drying area was the cramped, inky workshop with its two presses. Cock’s master pressman and his journeyman assistant were back there, maneuvering a large reddish plate of engraved copper into place on the bed of the closest press. The plate’s grooves were black with ink. Now the men laid a damp piece of paper onto the plate, covered it with layers of felt, and started turning the big star-shaped wheels of the press, forcing the bed, plate, paper, and felt through a pair of rollers.
Instead of copying an image by the laborious process of tracing each line, the press reproduced a map or a drawing all at once—to Ortelius it seemed wonderful. What a curious thing is a machine, he thought. To duplicate a picture simply by arranging certain objects and manipulating them just so.
“We’re pulling some more of Bruegel’s Large Landscapes today,” said Cock, noticing Ortelius watching. “In case you’d like to buy one. So where is the man, anyway? Did you find him still asleep?”
“No—he was just getting up.”
“You look flustered, Abraham,” honked Cock. “Was our Bruegel in an indecent state?” Not for the first time, Ortelius unhappily wondered if people could sense the oddity of his amorous humors. Was that what drove them to chaff him about any and all matters relating to venery? From the other end of the room, fat Hans Franckert guffawed at Cock’s sally.
Ortelius cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Did you know that after the stabbing, Bruegel delivered a package from Plantin to the royal villa? I wonder if he had the opportunity to ask for justice?”
“Justice,” said Cock laconically. “The rarest of the seven virtues.” He bent his attention back to the fresh impression on the counter, comparing it to the copper engraving plate that lay beside it. After a moment he picked up his burin and began carefully scratching at the plate, holding the burin’s square blade nearly level. Now and then he paused to clean away the curled copper shavings.
“Would you recognize the villain again, Abraham?” asked Franckert, walking over with coffee cup in hand. Though his voice was hearty, the big man looked bleary from last night’s carousing. “Be he Spaniard or no, our city has the right to arrest him.”
Franckert was proud of his acquired Antwerp citizenship, but the man’s civic fervor sounded a false note in the ears of Ortelius, who’d been born here. He offered only a shrug in response.
But now, into the silence came Bruegel’s voice. “The villain is one Hernando Lopez, quartermaster for King Philip,” he announced, springing into the room from the staircase door. He was wearing what looked to be his best clothes: tight-fitting dark gray pants with a codpiece, a white linen shirt, and a dark blue velvet jacket with a matching dark blue cap that hung to one side of his head.
“And, no,” continued Bruegel with a sweeping gesture, “Señor Lopez will not be arrested, for his time is too valuable for that.” He smiled, savoring his bit of theater, and held up a hand to stay the angry murmurs. “At my instigation, Philip’s minister Granvelle has authorized the payment of a handsome reparation to Plantin. It was, in the end, quite a successful evening. Did I mention that I sold three paintings?” His habitually solemn face was lit up as if by an inner sun. He swept his arm and bowed.
So now everyone gathered around Bruegel to hear his tale: about the stabbing, about Philip and his courtiers, about the money for Plantin, and about the three painting commissions.
“You’re courageous to have spoken up for Plantin,” said Ortelius when Bruegel finished. “And Jonghelinck is to pay both of you directly?”
“That’s right,” said Bruegel, adjusting his hat. “In fact, I’m on my way to meet him at the Schilderspand.”
“Paintings for Fugger, for Jonghelinck, and for Philip’s court,” marveled Franckert. “More fool I, content with your drawings. Can’t I order a painting as well, Peter?”
“No!” crowed Jerome Cock, his face going a bit red. “Bruegel is under contract to me! And, Peter, it’s time to start some new drawings for me to engrave. Enjoy your three painting commissions, but no more for now. I need fresh images for my presses!” Cock dropped his voice to a more reasonable tone. “Now come here and look at the state of our Belgian Wagon. And then, fine, you can run off to the Schilderspand and play the master painter.”
Now, to complicate things, Anja appeared in the staircase door, her broad face made all the wider by her smile.
“What’s she doing here?” demanded Cock.
“Anja’s lost her job with the Vanderheydens,” said Bruegel with a forced air of calm. “And since I’m doing so well, I’m going to let her share my lodgings and work for me.”
“You dog,” said Franckert. “What kind of work do you mean?”
“Honest work,” exclaimed Anja, tossing her head. “And as for the rest of it, well, a lady bestows her favors as she sees fit, Mijnheer Nose-in-Everything Franckert. Be that as it may, I’ll have my own room. All quite proper. And if Peter and I visit back and forth it’s no great sin. The country priests all sleep with their maids.”
“Calm down,” Bruegel cautioned Anja. “I haven’t even asked about the room yet. She means the one next to mine, Jerome. Mig
ht I put Anja and my painting studio in there? It would be very convenient.”
“You’d pay proper rent for it?” said Cock.
“Agreed. I hope you’re not really angry about my painting commissions?”
“No, no, I’m happy for you. Both as a friend and as your publisher. But don’t neglect to give me a new drawing this month. We need a big seller.”
“I’ll make you one in the style of Bosch.”
“At last!” exclaimed Jerome Cock. “Oh, now I’m very pleased. All the customers want more Bosch. Why not a Bosch-style series on the Seven Sins? Avarice, Pride, Envy, Anger, Gluttony, Sloth, and—”
“Luxuria,” put in Franckert, using the Latin word for lust.
Cock dug in a chest beneath his counter and came up with a great key, which he handed to Anja. “For your new room, may poor Gus Groot rest in peace. Trot up and have a look around, my girl. I can give you a rag and broom to clean it up. And, Peter, tell me how you like the state of our Wagon today. Look at the foliage and the castles in the valley. Better, don’t you think?”
“It’s very fine,” said Bruegel after a minute, standing back from the print a bit, lest he stain his fancy shirt with ink. “The farmhouse roofs are good. Perhaps you should hide the peasant’s profile behind his hat? But you don’t want to. Never mind. In fact he looks a bit like you. Let him stay. Your handling of the tree trunks is wonderful. Look at it, Hans, our wagon is modeled on yours. See the hoops holding up its cover?”
“Excellent likeness,” said Franckert, leaning over the print. “And there’s Max Wagemaeker astride the horse.”
“These are the new maps of Flanders I got from Mercator,” said Ortelius from the end of the counter, wanting some of Bruegel’s attention for himself. He tapped upon the little pile of his maps. “See how I colored and decorated them, Peter? Jerome’s going to sell them here.”