‘It came to us,’ the king explained, ‘as a New Year gift. The picture was left at the gatehouse at Holyrood, among a parcel of confitures and sweetmeats collected by the people who dwell by us in the Canongate, to be given out among the poor folk in the town. It was found by the guard, who brought it in to us. Open it.’
Wrapped up in the paper was a pleated picture, painted on a board a foot or so in length, furrowed into folds of lines of dark and light. Hew turned the panel side from side, yet could make no sense of it.
‘And you would have perspective on it, gave it to the child,’ said James. Hew passed the picture back to the little page, who lifted it aloft, and tilting it aslant a little turned it to the left, with an ease that demonstrated he was practised at the trick. The pleated strips of paint were smoothed into a plane, and a woman’s face appeared, pallid, stiff and strange, but clear and unmistakable. A dark red coif of hair, a painted flush of colour at the cheek and lip, a fleshly jowl descending to a crisp starched ruff.
‘Now,’ said James, ‘the other side.’
The child turned the panel smoothly to the right, so slick and sly a turn Hew scarcely saw the trick of it, as though the little boy had been the only conjuror. Before his captive gaze, the face became a skull, the ruff a piece of mantle cloth, the woman’s velvet gown the board on which it sat. There were hollows in the place of those sad and knowing eyes, a jagged rope of bone in place of her prim smile. The pictures were effected with a stark economy, that made their statement blunt, though none the less ambiguous.
‘It is a turning picture. Of a woman and a death’s-head. Is it not ingenious?’ The king let slip a smile, no more than a flicker at the corner of his mouth, masking at its heart a hard core of distaste. ‘And we should like to have the man who made it here at court, that we might try his wits, and find out what he meant by it. It appears quite singular, as a New Year’s gift.’
‘Most singular,’ Hew agreed. ‘You do not ken who sent it?’
‘The sender and the painter of it we should like to ken, most dearly, I confess to you, for we are in the dark on it, and ignorant of both. And so, sir, to the question. Since you saw her last, and have her image printed freshly on your mind, is the likeness hers?’
Chapter 16
Perspectives
There was nothing in the portrait, sparse as it was, that led him to conclude it could not be the queen, though coarse and crudely drawn. The white of the skin, the height of the brow, the length of the nose, the slight fleshly sinking below the right cheek, could well be hers, as could the clear sad gaze, though stripped of any headpiece, artefact and ornament. And if she looked in truth a sober sort of Puritan, that was but the measure of the pleated picture, which would brook no brightness to inflect the skull. The palate was a simple one, the image plain and stark. Yet, for all its plainness, the meaning was obscure.
‘I do not think,’ Hew said, ‘that this can be an image of the queen, taken from the life. It is hard to say, for any likeness there is thrawn by the device. There is no mark or sign identifying her. But that is not to say, that though whoever painted it never saw her Grace, it was not meant for her.’ Its appearance at the court, he thought, made it more than likely. For even if the painter never had intended to depict the queen, her image was imprinted on it, irreversibly, by whoever brought it to the notice of the king.
The king was pleading, almost. ‘Tell us what it means.’ The picture had exerted an uneasy force on him, upsetting the resolve that settled in his mind. It made his heart unsure again.
Hew recalled the rings that he seen in Heriot’s shop. ‘Could it be, perhaps, a memento mori gift, offered to your Grace in mourning for the queen? That nothing might be meant, but a kindness there.’
Aye, but at the New Year, she was not yet dead,’ James reminded him.
Hew considered this. The queen, though not yet dead, was certain then to die. Seen in such a light, the painting might become a premonition, or a warning sign. What struck him most of all was its effect upon the king. Taken from its sphere, the picture spun eccentrically. It was not like a cipher, or a riddle to be read. Its meaning was impossible, opaque. In one sense, it was endlessly, essentially ambivalent. Should it be perceived to be a threat, a comfort or reproach? That depended solely on the colour of his mind, the spirit of the heart that was reflected in it. Then the painting was a glass, that held no other conscience but the one that looked in it. Yet in another sense, it was unequivocal. The message there was plain. It said simply, this is all you are, and all that you will be. Flesh and bone and dust.
‘You wish me to find out, who sent this to your Grace, and with what intent,’ he said. ‘I will do my best.’
‘Our fear is, there is witchcraft in it,’ James confessed. ‘For the strange effects it works upon our mind. We pray it is not so. And, we have been told, you have had some practice in unfolding strange events. For we have heard a story of a bleeding hawthorn tree, that they say was planted by this fated queen.’
The king knew in his heart the picture was bewitched. Or how could it prick and unsettle his conscience, when he knew that his mind was quite stern and fixed? And how could it awake him, clinging to his sheets, with the whistle of an axe, sheering through the white stem of a mother’s neck? When it was nothing but a board, of paint and blood and bone.
Hew had caught a glimpse of the fragile bairn in him, surfacing again, and did the best he could to put his mind at rest. ‘That was human mischief, sire. There was no witchcraft, there. And I will contend, there will be none here. Whatever is the source of this, I will find it out. Tell me, have you shown this to the painter at your court? Bronckhorst, is his name?’
‘Bronckhorst?’ James frowned. ‘Why do you mention him? That was a man that painted here once, when I was a bairn. We have another now. And, as I believe, this was shown to him, but he could give no help. Maitland will inform you, and give you a paper, that will give you leave to act upon on our will.’
It was clear enough that the king’s part in this was not to answer questions. Nor did he expect them. ‘Take the picture too. Do it, for our thanks, and whatever gift that we can grant to you, to recompense the years when you were lost to us,’ he offered in return, gracious in release.
‘Your Grace,’ Hew dared to say, ‘there is one favour, I would ask of you. I hope to have a wife.’
‘Aye, indeed you should. They tell me, wives are grand.’ The relief upon the king, of the removal of the picture, was palpable to Hew, as though he had passed on some vicious threat or curse. Its transfer lightened him.
‘She is the niece,’ Hew went on, ‘of a customer of wool.’
And what is the niece of a customer of wool, to do with us?’
‘She is an English lass, your Grace.’
James shook his head. ‘Absolutely not. We cannot have that, now. Now, at this present time, that would be disastrous. It would cause an outrage, if we made a law, and another, just for you. Put that thought from your mind.’
‘Then you maun call your guard, and have me put in chains. For I love her, sire.’
‘You are,’ sighed the king, ‘a very stubborn loun. Is that your only price? You will not have a title, or a piece of land? I can make you deputy to Sir Andrew Wood.’
‘Your Grace is kind, but no.’
‘You will understand, we cannot grant you licence at this present time,’ James said. ‘But when you have resolved the matter in your hand, then we may consider it. You can look upon it,’ he was merry now, relieved of the trouble he had passed to Hew, ‘as a kind of quest.’
Hew departed there, hopeful in his heart, that leapt upon a mystery. He felt an old excitement that had not been stirred in him since he came from London, wiping for the moment all his other cares. Before he quit Dalkeith, the chancellor Maitland gave to him a paper with a seal confirming he was acting as an agent for the king. This should smooth his path, when he knew what path to take. The painter to the court seemed to him the place most likely to b
egin. Maitland was no help, and in no way had relaxed in his suspicions towards Hew. He drew up the document without a word. Only once he had ratified it, with the king’s seal, did he condescend to interrogate him.
‘Sir Andrew Wood reported that you were set upon, on your way to trial. The rebels confessed, and were hanged, I am told. It was thought they had left you for dead.’
‘I thought so myself,’ answered Hew, with more than a hint of the truth, for there had been a moment, when he was pulled from his horse in the black of Dysart muir, when he had despaired that he would even see the sun, before he had known they were Andrew Wood’s men; nor had it reassured him, when he understood.
‘Those are lawless parts. And Andrew Wood has fought well to have kept a hold on them. You were blessed,’ Maitland said, ‘to escape with your life.’
‘Just so,’ admitted Hew.
‘But what I cannot understand – you maun help me here – is how you got away from there. Without you were helped. With neither sound nor sight of you, for all the hue and cry. How came you then to London?’
‘My mother’s kin had friends at Berwick, who helped me on my way,’ said Hew. ‘You will excuse it, I am sure, if I do not name their names.’
‘Aye, but even so. It is a long walk to Berwick for a wanted man. A man who has no horse, no water or fresh clothes. A man who is weakened from his late imprisonment, and injured in an ambush – grievously injured, so we have been told, and doubtless is frail for want of food. Are we to suppose that such a man would walk to Berwick?’
‘Many have walked there, on the old pedlars’ route, pilgrims and cadgers, old men and paupers with loads on their backs. Through wind and hail, and with snow underfoot. Some of them died there, many did not,’ answered Hew.
‘Do you mean to say you joined the dustifutes?’ Maitland looked incredulous. But it was not impossible. If Hew had lain low in the woods and fields, had lived on the land on the late autumn fruits, till the cry had died down and his fresh wounds had healed, he could have joined the packmen winding their way home from the last of the late autumn markets, once the bright branches were withered to black. What man would have questioned him then?
Hew risked a wink at him. ‘What wad ye expect, of one who is a venturer?’
The secretary sniffed. ‘What, indeed? And when ye tell us your adventures, in the council chamber, we shall be transfixed. You should ken, sir, that I hold out no hope that you shall solve this case. The council has made a thorough inquisition of it. Nothing came to light.’
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Hew, ‘it wants a fresh perspective.’
Maitland stared at him. ‘Do you find it merry, sir? Is that some sort of jest?’
‘No. Indeed no. Can you tell me,’ Hew capitulated hurriedly, ‘is the king’s painter at court?’
‘Why would he be here? You think that he is wanted, at the present time? While the country is in turmoil, and the king beset with grief? Perhaps you think he should be painted in his mourning clothes?’
‘Then can you tell me where I might find him?’
‘Find him out yourself. Is that not your charge? Are you not, indeed, a kenning kind of man? Were you not employed, to sniff the devil out?’
Hew took his cue and parted from him, leaving with a bow.
The next morning, he returned to George Heriot’s shop. George was pleased to see him. ‘I had not expected you to come back so soon. I have from my father a pure lump of gold, from the Crawford mine, which I put with yours, and which will make for you the bonniest of rings.’ He showed to Hew a piece of fair white gold, tried upon the touchstone. ‘That is quite perfect,’ Hew approved. ‘And I have the verse.’ It had come to him the night before, as he lay in bed. He had borrowed pen and paper from the West Bow innkeeper, and had set it down. Now he produced it shyly, as though it were a cipher to be torn to shreds by Phelippes. Heriot merely glanced at it, to make sure of the script. ‘Nice. The last line only, will fit on the ring, unless you want four parts,’ he said.
‘That will do well enough,’ answered Hew. ‘I have some questions for you. You said you had a market for memento mori rings. I suppose you cannot tell me who you sold them to?’
Heriot said, ‘On no account.’
Hew was not surprised. ‘And suppose I put the question to you, on the king’s authority?’ It was well, he thought, to keep this till the last. For the paper with the king’s seal was as likely to tie up a tongue, as it was to loosen it, coming between friends.
‘The answer,’ Heriot said, ‘would be just the same. If the king wants to ken, let him come here himself, and sit on my bench, and I will tell to him the same thing I will say to you. I will not gie away my clients’ names. Why, sir, would you have me tell the world about your English rose?’
Hew owned, he would not. He trusted that the goldsmith kept his word of secrecy, common to his trade. Urquhart kept his secrets too, and did not fear the king, for goldsmiths had the power to keep him in their debt, and in their close economy, their interests chimed with his. This Heriot was a novice in his craft, but Hew had little doubt that he would soon be master of it.
‘Can you tell me this? Where could I go to buy a turning picture? One that plays upon perspective, like a prism in a glass?’
Geordie could not say. He was puzzled at the question, and Hew could believe that he had never come across the picture he described. ‘I never saw a thing like that. You might ask the king’s painter perhaps. I can tell you where to find him.’
Hew had hoped he might. He paid him for the ring, not knowing, for the moment, when he would be back for it.
‘It will be ready in a week. If you have the time, to come and have a drink on it, I will tell you a grand tale, about your Largo gold. I had it fae my faither,’ Heriot smiled.
‘I will hear it, and will drink with you, when you have the ring. For now, I must be gone,’ Hew said. ‘The quicker to my business, the quicker to be done.’
The painter Adrian Vanson kept a house and shop close by the Netherbow, adjacent to the Canongate, where so many Flemish refugees had settled, and not far from the printer’s shop, that once was Christian Hall’s. Christian had left there to migrate to London. Hew had once looked out for her, wistful, at St Paul’s, but had not found her there. In a little close, not far from the place where he had gone to school, the painter’s house, without direction, would have proved impossible to find.
The door was opened by a woman in a loose linen kirtle, striped at the skirt in a pale shade of blue. She had straw coloured hair, pinned up in a cap, and a broad, plain face.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘What it is that you want?’ in the clear and open manner of the Dutch.
‘I am looking for Adrian Vanson, the painter,’ said Hew.
‘So. What do you want with him?’
‘I have come from the king, on business of the court.’ He showed her the letter, with the royal signature. The woman barely blinked at it, remaining unimpressed. ‘So. You have come from the court. It is too much to hope, that you have brought the money with you that still is owed to us. Of course, you have not.’
‘Is there money owed to you?’
‘Of course. And of course, you have not come for that. Do not say, you will look into it.’
He bit back the promise shaping on his lips.
‘Other men have promised that they will look into it. If they kept to their word, they have not done more than to look.’
‘I am sorry for that,’ answered Hew. ‘But on the king’s command, I must speak with Master Vanson.’
The woman sighed. ‘So you have said. I am Susanna, his wife. You had better come in.’
He followed her into the house, a single chamber neat and clean with plain whitewashed walls. An iron pot bubbled on the hearth; Hew recognised the scent of Flemish beef or mutton, stewing in a broth of ale, deep and rich and black. The board was set for four with bowls and pewter spoons, a large loaf of bread and a pat of yellow butter, in a little dish of Flemish tin-gl
azed pottery. The windows were dressed with squares of white lace, and the shelves of the press were lined and trimmed with it. Onto one of the walls, where the light from the window fell, soft and aslant, the painter had nailed up a single small picture, of a woman’s face. There was no doubt in Hew’s mind that it was Susanna, in the bloom of youth.
‘His workshop is across the yard. You have come at an opportune time. Tell him, his dinner is here. When he is fixed at his work, he will not remember to eat.’
The house backed on a yard, in which there stood a kiln and rows of jars and pots, leading to a shed. Inside, the painter stood, grinding yellow pigment on a slab of stone. Stacked against the walls were rows of boards and canvases, and among them, several further studies of the painter’s wife, the swell of her broad hips and breasts, tenderly captured in chalk. At the back of the room, in the best of the light, two prentices sat at their work.
Hew introduced himself, and unwrapped the painting from its paper case. The painter sighed. ‘Not that, again. As I told the council, I cannot help you here. I have no idea, where this thing is coming from.’
‘What about your boys?’ asked Hew.
Vanson chuckled. ‘Them? You think that they are capable? Let me tell you, then. Come over here and see.’
Each had drawn an apple to be coloured in with paint, one from a painting pinned up on his board, and one from a pippin set out on a plate.
‘The one is a copy and the other from the life,’ Vanson explained. ‘It is a test.’ He did not say of what.
‘It will be apparent to you, they know nothing yet. This one, it is true has a modicum of skill,’ he gestured to the pupil sitting on the right, who was filling in his apple with a vivid shade of green, ‘but he is a wastrel and an idle little sot. He would rather spend his time at the tavern with the wenches than do any work for me. The other one is diligent, and he says his prayers, but he is a dolt.’ The boy on the left sat sucking on his paintbrush; he had muddled up his colours to a muddy shade of grey, and appeared uncertain how he should progress. The master painter sighed. ‘It seems it must be beyond hope, that diligence and skill should meet in the one boy. What am I to do? You shall be a burgess and a freeman, so they told me, if you take apprentices, and teach our boys to paint. This is what they send me. What hope do I have? Am I to beat them? What good does it do? The doltish one will be a dolt, whatever I will do, because he cannot help it. The wicked one will mend his ways but for a day or two, and will grow resentful and sly. Besides, I have my work to do. I do not have time to beat unruly boys.’
Queen & Country Page 19