by Rudy Rucker
Bruegel’s second bolt hit one of the little red targets, but failed to cut it loose. Williblad targeted his last shot truly. The quarrel’s blade sliced through the string holding one of the Cardinals, and the little doll came sailing down. With a lithe step forward, Williblad plucked it from the air. Ortelius was proud. Nobody was so graceful as his partner.
“It’s yours to keep, brother Beggar,” said the man with the big jaw. “Tie it to a stake and burn it in your stove when you get home. Let the Papists taste of their own special dish.”
Beyond the mill was the public midden heap where carters dumped collected offal. The August sun had blazed without letup for three full weeks now, and the smell of the refuse was astonishing. Though Ortelius and his companions gave the dump wide berth, they noticed some sailors and prostitutes frolicking at the edge of the mound; they were spreading rotten garbage upon a wide flat spot in the ground and taking running slides upon it—just as if they were playing on the ice. Bruegel paused to watch for a minute.
“Hardly picturesque,” said Ortelius.
“The postures are good,” said Bruegel. “I might use one of them in my new Dance.”
“Do you see your pictures before you paint them?” asked Williblad, who could never hear enough about the craft of painting.
“I see the outlines in my mind’s eye, but not the details. I have to work to find out the details. It’s a little like there’s fog over the scene, and slowly it clears away. Or, no, it’s more like a gold medallion that was buried in mud, and I’m clearing the dirt away with my brush.”
“I wish I could paint,” said Williblad. “I feel I’ve got it in me.” It was an old obsession of his, never acted upon.
“You’ve told me that before,” said Bruegel. “So why not start? You’re ten years older than me, eh? That makes you forty-nine. We’ve still a bit of life in us. I’ll give you some paints and, if you like, you can learn your colors by making patterns like your Tequesta shamans.”
“You could be an artist’s apprentice!” said Mayken.
“But not mine,” put in Bruegel with a wry smile. “God forfend this randy savage from dwelling in my house.”
Though Williblad smiled to hear his prowess mentioned, the thought of having to learn a craft from the start put him into a black humor. “The hell with being an apprentice,” he exclaimed. “At my age, I should be the one in charge.” Nobody said anything to this.
The crowd was growing thicker, and at the center of the crowd stood little Moded of Zwolle. He was perched like a rooster upon a pyramid of boxes, crowing out his teachings in a loud, angry voice. His head was bare and his face was quite red from the sun. It was a few minutes before Ortelius realized that Moded was preaching about religious art. He was for removing every trace of art from the houses of worship. And he wasn’t speaking of a gradual process. He was talking about doing it today.
“It will be a small matter to destroy these graven images, which are only a species of idolatry,” the Swiss preacher shouted. “For think, my Brethren, the Romish Church has done us a thousand times more hurt and hindrance through their persecutions. We propose to burn paintings and to smash stone statues, but the ecclesiastics have burnt and broken those ‘statues’ which God Himself has made, namely our dearest friends, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers.”
Ortelius and Bruegel exchanged a glance. This was nothing like the hedge sermon they’d attended years ago, nothing like Hendrik Niclaes’s kindly preaching of tolerance and love.
“Do it tonight, Brethren, cleanse the paint from the Whore of Babylon’s face!” shouted Moded, and pointed straight across the level fields to the spire of the Our Lady Cathedral. “Put an end to the horrible and abominable idolatries! Sweep away the vile statues and ornaments; strip the altars and shatter the pagan stained glass! Purify the house of the Lord!”
“I don’t like this,” said Mayken. “He’s a madman. His cure is worse than the disease.”
“You’re right,” said Ortelius. He was sorry to have brought his friends here. The sun was beating down like a hammer.
“There’s Niay,” said Williblad suddenly. “Hey, Niay! Over here!” Some nearby listeners turned to shush him, their lips pursed with Calvinist strictness, but Williblad kept on hollering. A handsome Malay-featured woman pushed her way through the crowd to their side. Ortelius’s heart clenched with jealousy.
“This is Niay Serrão,” said Williblad to the others. “Niay, this is my friend Peter Bruegel the artist, this is Peter’s wife, Mayken Coecke, and this is my landlord, Abraham Ortelius, occupation antiquarian and mapmaker.” He was practically shouting so as to be heard over the baying of Moded.
“It’s too hot here,” said Niay. “Almost likeTernate. I was thinking to go sit in the shade.” She had yellowish skin, high cheekbones, and a pointed chin. Like Williblad, her shiny black hair was threaded with gray. Yet she wore the bright face paint of a strumpet. Ortelius didn’t like her looks at all.
“I’m with Niay,” said Mayken, giving the woman a pleasant smile.
“Let’s go,” said Bruegel.
They wandered back out to the edges of the crowd, stopping to buy a basket of plums. It was too hot to walk any farther, so they sat under a tree by a slow stream, eating the plums and throwing the pits into the water. Two pigs lay nearly submerged at the edge, cooling themselves off. Nearby, six youths were practicing sword fighting, and chanting a Calvinist psalm as they went through their moves. Farther down the stream, some children were taking turns swinging out over the water with a rope and dropping in. Feeling excluded by Williblad’s attentions to Niay, and unable to do anything about it, Ortelius stretched out on the grass and sealed off his senses. He thought of flying up into the air, of making a map of this field like a sea with each person an island in it. And then he was asleep.
When he woke, a cool breeze had risen to herald the onset of twilight. Niay had washed the paint off her face and was sitting cross-legged talking with the others. She had rough skin and very full lips. Williblad seemed fascinated by her. The memory of Williblad’s morning unpleasantness came back to Ortelius. What if he simply let Williblad go? A few days of emptiness would follow, but perhaps it wouldn’t be so long till he healed.
“Welcome back, Abraham,” said Mayken. “Niay was just telling us her adventures. She comes from the island of Ternate in the Spice Islands east of Java and Borneo.”
“The Celebes Sea,” said Ortelius, sitting up. “I sell a map of it.” He felt dizzy with possibilities. How strange to have this vivid woman here from a far dot on his maps. Ortelius’s mind drifted back to the first time he’d sat at a table with Williblad, in that room at Fugger’s, showing him the Florida map. What vast realities lurked beneath a cartographer’s squiggles.
“I know all about maps,” said Niay, pushing out her breasts. “My father was a Portuguese navigator named Francesco Serrão. He came to our island for the cloves. And it was one of your great Magellan’s ships that brought me to Spain, years after when my father died.”
“How did your father die?” asked Williblad, rapt with interest.
“My mother’s family poisoned him,” said Niay. “They were masters of the art. Mother’s father, Almanzor, was the Sultan of Tidore, envious of Ternate for their Portuguese captain. In all the world, there are only two islands with clove trees, Ternate and Tidore, one mile apart from each other. The men of the one island partner with the women of the other, often by force. It’s not uncommon for a man to be found stiff and blue after siring an heir upon a less than willing mate.”
“We’re two peas in a pod,” said Williblad. “My father, too, was a raping navigator. My mother’s husband killed my father with a club.” He turned his head in a way that Ortelius knew was meant to show his features to their best effect. “It’s too bad you and I are too old to have children together, Niay. What a lovely color they’d be.”
Niay gave a whoop of laughter, planted a wet kiss on Williblad’s cheek, and Williblad kis
sed her back, his lips sliding over to her mouth.
Ortelius’s skin crawled to see this importunate woman sporting with his lover. “Did you actually meet Magellan?” he asked, to break things up.
“No, some islanders to the east had already slit his throat before his ships got to us,” said Niay, after finishing her kiss. “It seems he was too strenuous in trying to convert our people to your One True Faith. He sailed to our Indies all backwards, you know, around the Americas and across the Pacific. The man was a fool. He deserved to die. Once his surviving sailors had loaded up their ships with our cloves, I got aboard one of the vessels and sailed along to Spain. I’ve always been one for adventure.” She rolled her eyes to cast a fulsome look at Williblad.
This was really too much. Niay even dared to slight the great Magellan. “I say we go back into town,” exclaimed Ortelius, getting to his feet.
“Yes, we’ll go to the Our Lady Cathedral,” said Niay, oblivious of his anger. “There’s going to be a good riot. All the whores were talking about it this morning while I washed their sheets.”
Back in the city, people were drifting towards the cathedral. Ortelius didn’t want to go at all, and Mayken and Bruegel were hesitant, but Williblad and Niay urged them along. They found a sizable crowd inside the church, with a vociferous knot gathered in front of Antwerp’s little black statue of the Madonna, the same statue that had been carried through the streets two days ago for the Feast of the Assumption.
“She’s had her last walk!” cried a man in a ragged tunic, his voice echoing off the stone arches of the church. “Vive les Gueux!”
“Smash the idols!” screeched a fiercely rouged woman with her front teeth missing. She glanced over at Ortelius and his group. “Well, hello, Niay,” the harridan added in a conversational tone. “Have you come to lend a hand?”
“Sure, Beate,” said Niay. “The Church has never done me any good. And meet my new boyfriend, Williblad. He’ll help too, won’t you Williblad? He’s as old as me, but I’ll warrant that he’s nimble.” How did this degraded person dare to claim Williblad as her boyfriend? Ortelius wanted to scream with frustration. He plucked at Williblad’s sleeve to get his attention, but Williblad twisted away, drawn off by Niay.
“Mary’s ruled for Rome long enough!” said another man, and began tugging at the grille that protected the Madonna. Niay and Williblad joined in, and all at once, with a resounding crash, the grille fell to the ground.
Ortelius looked around, hoping to see some priests or beadles to appear to put a stop to the disorder. But for some reason the protectors of the cathedral had all withdrawn. Were they afraid? Had someone paid them off?
With a wild shout, the crowd dragged the Madonna’s effigy out onto the floor, tore off her vestments and hacked her to pieces—yes, some of the men turned out to be carrying axes, sledgehammers, and crowbars beneath their loose gray Beggar robes. More image breakers came streaming in the cathedral’s side door, several of them bearing ladders.
With demonic agility, the iconoclasts clambered up to the heights, prying loose statues and letting them shatter upon the stone cathedral floor. The pictures were being torn down as well; those on panels were broken into kindling, while the linen ones were slashed to scraps. A pair of blond-haired, shock-headed ditch diggers began working their way around the perimeter, using their shovels to smash the cathedral windows one by one. More and more statues and pictures came tumbling to the ground. The mob systematically set upon the remains with sledgehammers and axes. A troop of harlots wandered about, carrying lit candles from the altar. A ruffian staggered out from the sacristy wearing a costly alb and carrying two great chalices filled with sacramental wine; the chalices passed around and were quickly refilled.
Ortelius stood off to one side, watching in sorrow, Bruegel and Mayken nearby. It was a scene like one of Peter’s Hell paintings. But unlike a painting it was ear-splittingly loud, with hundreds of voices shouting at once. And where was Williblad?
“Look up there,” said Mayken, pointing.
Williblad was dangling from a rope held by a group that included Niay. He was suspended high above the main altar, his face a mask of fierce joy, pulling at a life-sized statue of Christ upon the cross, a beloved image that Ortelius often stared at while praying at mass. “Vive les Gueux,” called the rabble watching him, and Williblad answered with a savage whoop, a guttural ululation from the New World. Christ popped free of his moorings and tumbled with his cross to crash upon the marble altar, thence to bounce down to the pavement of the nave. A lean man in a Calvinist hat darted forward to shatter Christ’s head with a sledgehammer. The blow took with it some irretrievable part of Ortelius’s feelings for Williblad.
Back on the ground, Williblad merged with Niay into the crowd.
The main part of the church was nearly stripped—the fruit of centuries had been destroyed in minutes—and now the image breakers turned to desecrating the cathedral’s seventy side chapels, emptying out their little treasure chests upon a mound in the center of the nave. Anything like jewelry was donned as adornment, while the missals and illuminated manuscripts were fed to little fires built from the shattered strips of oak-panel paintings.
A stocky, mustached man sat by one of the fires, rubbing his leather pantaloons with the same sacred oil that had anointed prelates and kings. He wore a red shirt, red socks, and had a smooth blue cap pulled low down over his round head. He looked familiar, but Ortelius couldn’t place him. Might Bruegel recognize him? But Bruegel’s attention was occupied by his wife.
“Father’s pictures!” Mayken was crying. She pointed towards the side galleries of the church. “We have to save at least one! Over there, the shoemakers’ chapel, they haven’t gotten to it yet. It holds Father’s Annunciation. Help us, Abraham!”
The three of them ran over to the chapel, and Peter hopped up onto the altar to get the panel off its hook. It was too big for one man to carry easily, but small enough so that Peter and Mayken could handle it together. In truth, she was stronger than Ortelius. “Let’s take it to your house, Abraham,” said Mayken. “Lead the way.”
Nobody paid them any mind until they reached the door of the church, but then a figure stepped forward to confront them. It was the stocky, mustached man who’d been oiling his leather pantaloons.
“Where you think you go with zat?” he asked in a French accent, peering nearsightedly out from under his low hat.
Hearing the voice, Abraham finally recognized the man. He was the same Walloon sergeant who’d attacked him, Bruegel, and Plantin in the street at Carnival some ten years ago.
“It’s none of your affair,” said Ortelius, acting braver than he felt. “Begone, you tub of guts.” He hoped the Walloon would take him for a fierce iconoclast and give way.
The blow of the Walloon’s fist in Ortelius’s stomach was unexpected and quite devastating. “Ze Capitaine, he want you to smash up everything,” said the Walloon, stepping over Ortelius and jostling Mayken loose from Master Coecke’s panel. Bruegel held fast to the picture, balancing the rectangle of wood upon the top of his head. The Walloon squinted at the tall Bruegel rather than immediately launching himself at him. “The Capitaine have pay all ze church cats to go away, no? So you Gueux mice can play. Everyzing is to smash and burn, nothing to keep for souvenir.” He rapped on the panel. “Now we put zis in the fire, monsieur, if you please.”
At this point Bruegel finally recognized the Walloon. “You again!” he exclaimed. “Swine.” By dint of main force, Bruegel twisted past the soldier and squirmed out the church door, single-handedly bearing the heavy panel.
“I break her if you no bring it back,” shouted the Walloon, catching hold of Mayken and getting her neck in a choke hold. Still on the floor, Ortelius struggled to catch his breath, wishing he were a stronger, braver man. Mayken was letting out desperate, stifled cries. Bruegel threw down the picture and rushed back towards them, red with fury. The Walloon drew a dagger from his waist, Mayken shrieked, and—
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br /> Thud. The marble arm of a statue slammed against the Walloon’s head and he fell to the ground beside Ortelius, bringing Mayken with him. It was Williblad to the rescue, using the language of violence that he so well understood. The redoubtable Niay was close behind him.
Mayken twisted free from the Walloon and got to her feet. The Walloon was struggling to rise as well; the blow to the head had only stunned him. Although his breath was back, Ortelius stayed on the floor lest someone hit him again. Niay drew a long, brown-stained pin out of her hair and lunged forward, stabbing her pin into the side of the Walloon’s neck. He roared and caught hold of Niay’s arm but then, in the twinkling of an instant, he fell silent and collapsed backwards, his head bouncing on the cathedral’s stone floor. Ortelius reached out and touched his neck; there was still a pulse, but the man seemed paralyzed. Niay gave a satisfied nod and stuck her mother-of-pearl-headed pin back into her bun. The pinhead was, Ortelius noticed, the shape of a tiny skull.
“Well stung, Niay!” said Williblad. “My spider of the Indies! Now I’d better take my friends home with their painting. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“I want to loot something for myself,” said Niay, and merged back into the hubbub in the nave of the church.
“A goodly number of these iconoclasts are in the pay of Spain, you know,” said Williblad, grandly helping Ortelius to his feet. “I recognized this particular Walloon from my days with Granvelle. Now let’s go!”
Ortelius, Williblad, Mayken, and Bruegel ran off into a side street, each holding a corner of Master Coecke’s Annunciation. Ortelius was happy to have temporary possession of it. A fine piece.
“But why oh why does King Philip want our churches ruined?” wailed Mayken when they paused to catch their breath.